Catholic Candle note: Sedevacantism is wrong and is (material or formal) schism.  Catholic Candle is not sedevacantist. 

Below is the eleventh article in a series which covers specific aspects of the error of sedevacantism.  As context for this eleventh article, let us recall what we saw in the earlier ten articles:

In the first article, we saw that we cannot know whether the pope (or anyone else) is a formal heretic (rather than a material heretic only) – and thus whether he is outside the true Catholic Church based simply on his persistent, public teaching of a heretical opinion.[1]

Then, in the second article, we saw that we must not judge a man to be a formal heretic if he professes to be Catholic and says he believes what a Catholic must believe now, in order to be Catholic now.  When a person professes a heretical opinion, we must judge him in the most favorable light (if we judge him at all).  So, we must avoid the sin of rash judgment and we must not judge negatively the interior culpability of the pope and the 1.4 billion[2] people who profess to be Catholic.  We must not judge they are not “real” Catholics if they tell us that they are Catholics.  Instead, we should count them as Catholics who are very confused or are uninformed.[3]

Thus, we must judge the conciliar popes to have been material heretics, not formal heretics, and that each was pope in his turn until his death (or abdication).  Regarding any of the world’s 1.4 billion self-described Catholics who hold heresy, we must judge them to be material heretics only (if we judge them at all), unless they themselves tell us that they know they don’t qualify to be Catholics.[4]

In the third article, we examined briefly the important difference between persons in authority who fulfill their duty to judge those under their charge in the external forum, as contrasted to a sedevacantist or anyone else except God who judges the interior culpability of other persons and (rashly) judges them to be formal heretics.[5] 

In the fourth article, we saw that it does not help us to protect ourselves better from a conciliar pope’s heresy, to declare that we know he is not the pope and is not a Catholic.[6]

In the fifth article, we saw that it is possible for a pope to teach (or believe) heresy and in fact, popes have taught and believed heresy at various times during Church history.[7]  We look especially at the cases of Pope John XXII and Pope Nicholas I, who both taught explicit heresy while pope and nonetheless continued to be the pope.  Pope John XXII also taught the same explicit heresy before he became the pope.

In the sixth article, we saw that the Church infallibly assures us that we will have a pope at all times until the end of the world, except during very short interregnums between papal reigns, during which the Church is in the process of electing a new pope and during which the Church’s unified government continues to function.[8]  In this sixth article, we saw that we are not in an interregnum (even though the sedevacantists absurdly claim we are in a many-decades-long interregnum).

In the seventh article of this series, we saw that the Catholic Church is a visible Body and will be visible to all.  The Catholic Church has a visible monarchical government and the pope is visible to all.  Thus, we know we have a pope and that he is visible to all.[9]

In the eighth article, we saw that the necessary visibility of the Catholic Church and the pope, requires as a corollary that whoever virtually all Catholics see (believe) is the pope must be the pope, since the pope must be visible to all.

In the ninth article, we addressed the superficial “argument” of sedevacantists, addressed to Catholics, saying that “if you think we have a pope, then you have to obey him in whatever he tells you to do”.  We examined the true Catholic virtue of obedience and saw that we must not obey the commands of even a real superior, like our pope, if/when he commands us to do something evil.[10]

In the tenth article, we saw more deeply what schism is and how sedevacantism is inherently schism.[11]

Below, in the eleventh article of this series, we will examine more deeply how we should respond to a pope (or other superior) who does harm.

 

Our Catholic Duty: Resist the Harm Done by a Bad Pope But (Of Course) Recognize His Authority

 

Two different mortal sins prevent a faithful and informed Catholic from being a sedevacantist:

 

1.    If we rashly judge the pope to be a formal heretic because he is a material heretic, this is a mortal sin (because it is the sin of rash judgment on a grave matter).[12] 

 

2.    If we revolt against the pope’s authority as such, this is a mortal sin of revolution.  We will examine the sinfulness of revolution in a future article.

 

Therefore, because Catholics must neither be rash-judgers nor revolutionaries, we must recognize the authority of the pope who is in the Vatican.

 

 

Although Recognizing the Pope’s Authority, We must also Recognize When His Commands Are Evil.

 

When judging a person’s interior culpability, it must be done (if at all) in the most favorable light.  By contrast, we judge a person’s statements and actions objectively and we must resist objective evil and error, however blameless its proponent might be.  Summa, IIa IIae, Q.60, a.4, ad 2. 

 

Thus, we assume the best (if we assume anything) about the pope’s interior, subjective culpability, but we also must recognize that the current pope’s words and deeds are often objectively evil. 

 

 

But While the Pope Harms the Church (in Her Human Element, What Should We Do?

 

When a superior (including the pope) commands that we do something wrong (including commanding us to believe something false), the Catholic response is: We resist!  This is why Pope St. Gregory the Great, Doctor of the Church, taught:

Know that evil ought never to be done through obedience, though sometimes something good, which is being done, ought to be discontinued out of obedience.[13]

 

When we resist a superior’s sinful conduct (or command), we do not thereby reject the superior’s authority as such, but only his evil conduct (or command).  St. Thomas made this crucial distinction when he discussed St. Paul resisting St. Peter, the first pope, to his face, as St. Paul recounted in Galatians, 2:11.  St. Thomas explained that “the Apostle opposed Peter in the exercise of authority, not in his authority of ruling” as such[14]

 

 

The Duty to Resist a Pope’s Abuse of Authority, Pertains to Matters of Faith and Morals as well.

 

The principle of resisting any superior’s evil command, applies to any evil command – whether to do something, to say something, or to believe something.

 

Thus, a pope might command us to believe his errors on matters of Faith.  (The pope can make such errors whenever he is neither speaking ex cathedra nor speaking clearly in line with what the Church has always taught and believed.)

 

Regarding ex cathedra declarations of the pope (which are somewhat rare), the First Vatican Council carefully listed the conditions for extraordinary papal infallibility, because only when the pope fulfills all of these conditions, is he thus infallibly prevented from erring on matters of Faith or morals.  In the absence of the conditions for infallibility, at any other time the pope might err in his teaching, potentially triggering a Catholic’s duty to resist the error.[15] 

 

Here is how a very large, old Catholic dictionary explains this truth:

 

Even when he [viz., the pope] speaks with Apostolic Authority [which is only one of the conditions for papal infallibility], he may err.  The [First] Vatican Council only requires us to believe that God protects him from error in definitions on faith or morals when he imposes a belief on the Universal Church.[16]

 

St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that St. Paul was correct in resisting and rebuking St. Peter publicly[17] because St. Peter’s conduct caused a scandal concerning the Faith.  Here are St. Thomas’ words:

 

It must be observed, however, that if the faith were endangered, a subject ought to rebuke his prelate even publicly.  Hence Paul, who was Peter’s subject, rebuked him in public, on account of the imminent danger of scandal concerning faith, and, as the gloss of Augustine says on Gal. 2:11, “Peter gave an example to superiors, that if at any time they should happen to stray from the straight path, they should not disdain to be reproved by their subjects.”[18]

 

Pope Paul IV tells us we are right to resist the pope whenever he deviates from the Faith:

 

[T]he Roman Pontiff, who is the representative upon earth of our God and Lord Jesus Christ, who holds the fullness of power over peoples and kingdoms, who may judge all and be judged by none in this world, may nonetheless be contradicted if he be found to have deviated from the Faith.[19]

 

Likewise, St. Robert Bellarmine assures us that we are right to resist a pope who uses his office to attack souls (whether through false doctrine or bad morals):

 

Just as it is licit to resist a Pontiff who attacks the body, so also is it licit to resist him who attacks souls or destroys the civil order or above all, tries to destroy the Church.  I say that it is licit to resist him by not doing what he orders and by impeding the execution of his will.  It is not licit, however, to judge, to punish, or to depose him, for these are acts proper to a superior.[20]

 

St. Thomas explains the reason for this distinction St. Robert Bellarmine makes, viz., that we are right to resist (i.e., correct) the pope or other superior, but we cannot punish or depose him:

 

A subordinate is not competent to administer to his prelate the correction which is an act of justice through the coercive nature of punishment.  But the fraternal correction which is an act of charity is within the competency of everyone in respect of any person towards whom he is bound by charity [which is everybody], provided there be something in that person which requires correction.[21]

 

Juan Cardinal de Torquemada (revered medieval theologian responsible for the formulation of the doctrines that were defined at the Council of Florence) teaches:

 

It is necessary to obey God rather than men.  Therefore, where the Pope would command something contrary to Sacred Scripture, or to an article of Faith, or to the truth of the Sacraments, or to a command of the Natural Law or of the Divine Law, he ought not to be obeyed, but such command ought to be despised.[22]

 

 

Although We Must Resist a Pope’s Sinful Commands, We Must Still Obey Him When We Can.

 

True obedience to God requires us to resist any bad commands of a human superior, including the pope.[23]  But that does not mean that we can simply declare the pope to have vacated his papal throne so that we can free ourselves from our duty of obeying him when his command is not sinful, i.e., when it is not offensive to God.

 

Although we will examine this issue more thoroughly in a future article, for now suffice it to point out that a bad command by a pope or other lawful superior does not change the fact that he is our superior and that we must obey him when we are able to do so.  So, for example, if a post-conciliar pope were to declare that Catholics must do more penance and were to command that Catholics must begin abstaining from meat on an additional day of the week (e.g., Wednesday), we would have to obey him because of his authority over us.  To fail to obey his command would be a sin.

 

 

Conclusion – We Must Recognize the Pope’s Authority But Resist His Evil.

 

Because Catholics must not be rash-judgers or revolutionaries, we must recognize the authority of the pope over us.  We must avoid the sin of sedevacantism. 

 

But because we must obey God rather than men, we must resist the pope (or any other superior), whenever he abuses his authority and whenever he does harm.

 

However, because the pope remains our superior and continues to have authority over us, we must obey him whenever we are able to do so.