Sedevacantism: What It Is and Why It's Wrong

[00:00:16] As we all know, Archbishop Vigeno was recently excommunicated, and it was in part because he refused to recognize the supreme pontiff. That's a view that's broadly known as sadivicantism. [00:00:27] What leads people to accept this view and what are the problems with it? That's what I'm going to talk about today on crisis point. Hello, I'm Eric. Sam's your host, editor chief of Crisis magazine. Before we get started, as always, smash that like button. Smash it like it's the deep church. [00:00:42] Subscribe to the Channel and let other people know about it. Also, you can subscribe to our email newsletter. Just go to crisismagazine.com, put in your email address and we will send you our articles to your inbox every morning. Also, I just want to remind people that we have opened up comments on the website for donors. We've had a slow trickle of people coming in. We've got a lot of donors, but just a slow trickle of commenters. So far, we have had a few technical problems with that, but they seem to be getting ironed out as we speak. So hopefully that will continue to go well. Okay, so let's get into it. The first thing is that so everybody knows Archbishop Vigano was excommunicated last week. I have talked about Archbishop Vigano before. I've talked about schism trial. I'm not going to go into details about that. I'm not going to go into details about all his different positions about various things or why this happened. I read an article yesterday at Crisis magazine, the excommunication of Archbishop Vigano, where I talk about this as well. So go to any of those places if you want to know my thoughts on the vegan excommunication. But what it does it, the excommunication, fundamentally, the reason given was first it was he refused to recognize and submit to the supreme pontiff, that is the pope, and he doesn't recognize Vatican II. I want to focus on that part about that. He does not. That vigano does not recognize the supreme pontiff. Meaning it's not like he doesn't recognize. He was walking down the street and saw Jorge Bergoglio, wouldn't be like, oh, who's that guy? That's not what that means. It means he does not recognize him as the pope. And that's, that's, like I said, a term that's broadly called set evacantism. Now before I start, and I really get into, by the way, this might be a long podcast, I have more notes. I think for this one that I have for most of my solo podcasts. So we'll see how long this takes. But before I get going, really into what it is and what I think are the problems with it, the first thing I want, or I want to know a few things first. The first is I'm going to, I guarantee there's going to be a lot of comments on the YouTube page. There's going to be a lot of articles written by SEti Vacantis saying how I'm just doing this because I'm afraid to embrace SETI veccantism. [00:03:00] I am. I refuse to really look into it. And that's why if I really understood it, I would accept it. Or my favorite, I'm just refuse to recognize state of occantism and accept it because I'm making so much money as editor of crisis magazine that it would, I would lose up my money stream. [00:03:20] All those arguments are essentially not arguments. They're the lowest form of argument. You're just questioning the motives of the other person. And I just want to say this in general, not just for study, vocantism or that debate. Once you start questioning the motives of the other person, you've lost the argument. You've just lost the argument on your end. In that specific case. St. Thomas Aquinas, what he did, when he saw, when he saw an argument he thought was wrong, he would try to understand it as completely as possible. He would explain it as best as possible, then he would refute it. Just saying I'm too scared to accept savicantism. That just means you don't have an argument against me. Now. At the same time, I hope I'm fair to Seti Vikantis. I don't want to be unfair to them. And if I am, you know, I apologize in advance. I'm not gonna give a full treatise on everything they believe here, but I have tried to read, I have read what they've written. I've read what Archbishop vit wrote in this. I've read other state of a contest text to kind of understand it as best possible. And I do think it's ultimately intellectually and spiritually unsatisfying. It's not a good answer to the crisis in the church today. So that's the first thing. So if you see a bunch of comments, I guarantee there'll be a bunch of comments in YouTube, particularly just saying, oh, you know, see, Ronald Bellman says, pope can't be a heretic. Sammons is scared. Whatever. You can just ignore those. [00:04:47] Another thing I want to say, before I really get into it, is scientific. Autism is not that big of a movement. In the catholic church, it seems very big because it's very loud on the Internet, on social media particularly. I'm not saying that makes it wrong. Something could be right, and very few people accept it. So I'm not saying this is an argument against it. I'm just simply saying those of us who are online a lot, I think we have an outsized view of how big this movement is. I think the same thing can be true of traditionalism in general, that sometimes we think it's bigger than it is. I mean, most traditionalists I know who are like, honest themselves, know we're still pretty small now. We're very much growing and vibrant. And all those words you want to use, but we're still a small percentage of all Catholics. State of occultism is even much, much smaller, but it's very loud online. You cannot say anything on x, for example, about state of occantism, without immediately having 15 different, usually anonymous accounts jump in and say, why? You know you're wrong. [00:05:49] So. [00:05:51] And then the last thing I want to say is, I want to note that this podcast is mostly towards just what I call normal Catholics, people who haven't really embraced anym, but have heard about it, heard the arguments for it, and they don't really know what to think. And I'm not condemning, I'm not here judging Catholics who are legitimately confused with our. The current state of where we are. I understand if somebody, as is already is. What's the word I'm trying to use. [00:06:25] Somebody is questioning Pope Francis's legitimacy. If a faithful Catholic is honestly questioning that, I understand that. I'm not saying that I'm condemning you. Like, how dare you even think those are forbidden thoughts. Instead, what I'm just simply saying is that I don't think it. I don't think Sadie vocantism is really the answer here, and I understand why it's tempting, but that doesn't necessarily. That doesn't make it true. [00:06:55] Okay, so now let me actually get into it. And that is what is citificantism? [00:07:04] Sativicantism is. Is essentially, it just means seti vacante, meaning the sea is vacant. And in most cases, when you use the term, it basically is just saying that the pope, the person who the papal chair, which is what the sea is, is empty. Now here's the thing. Every Catholic, if they live long enough, at some point in their life, will be a sad avicantis, because of the fact that when a pope dies before the next pope is elected, guess what? The sea is vacant. And so we're all in a state of sede vacante. We're all believe that the chair is vacant, the sea is vacant. [00:07:50] But seti vacantism means that somebody that people who believe that the sea is vacant, even though there's somebody who is at least pretending to be the pope, and people accept as the pope, but they're saying, no, he's actually not the legitimate pope. And I know this term gets thrown out there a lot. Like, I saw somebody literally yesterday call Taylor Marshall, Sadie Vacantas. I think it was an America magazine. They later on that he's not a set of a contest. He does not think the sea is vacant. He thinks Francis is the pope. Therefore, by definition, he's not a sadist. It's kind of like the term schismatic is thrown out there. Anybody who doesn't agree with me is a schismatic. Well, I think it's becoming also anybody who doesn't like Pope Francis or disagrees with Pope Francis sometimes he's a setevicantis. No, we need to be precise here. Seti veccantism means that you believe the sea is vacant, that there is not a pope currently. [00:08:42] Now, just so we know that this view of the sea being vacant when somebody is claiming to be pope isn't actually very common in church history. There. I did find there are some cases of it in the middle ages where somebody thought that. Some people thought that whoever the sanguine pope, the pope was not really the pope, and there was no pope. It's not like it's never happened. But it really is a very, very rare thing. What's more common is you have somebody saying this person is the pope, when other people are saying, this other person's the pope. So it's an anti pope. An anti pope would be a man who claims to be pope, but he's not really the pope. So in that case, if you follow him, you're not a city vaucantist because you think there is a pope, you don't think the sea is vacant. You're just wrong about who the current occupant is. That's been more common in church history than study of accountism, is now state of occantism, modern study of accountism, which is really when it became more, more of a thing. [00:09:38] There's different flavors of it. And this is important to remember until 20, you know, 1415 or so around there, the only real brand of set evacantism was what I would call now, 1958 set evacantism. That are those who believe that the last valid pope of the Catholic Church was Pius XII. And when he died, John the 23rd was not a valid pope, but neither was Paul VI or any other pope after that. So the sea has been vacant since 1958 back. I remember 20 years ago when you hear about city of a contem, that's what it meant. Anybody who's a city of a contest, they believed in general, I know there's a few exceptions out there of people who believed, like, John XXIII was valid, but Apollo VI wasn't. But the point is, in general, if you ran into a state of a contest online or in real life, in, like, 2005, for example. Well, not during the part after Pope John Paul II died. I picked a bad year. 2004, we'll say that state of a contest almost definitely believed that Pius XII was the last pope. However, with the advent of Francis, the resignation of Benedict in the election of Francis, we now have more forms of Seti vocantism. And I do want to note that some of the people who subscribe to these other forms, they reject the label setive accountism because they think they. They applied only to those who believe the sea has been vacant since 1958. I would just say, though, the term. I don't have a better term. I don't think there's a better term. This is just what it is. You believe the sea is vacant. So you could kind of call the Benedict set of a contest. These are people who believe that Benedict did not validly resign, either purposely or not purposefully. But the point is that he basically said, they basically believe Benedict was the pope until he died. And so obviously then the election of Francis was invalid because there was a reigning pope and then once. And so they were not saved of a contest until the death of Benedict about a year and a half ago. [00:11:44] So it would be wrong. For example, somebody thought Benedict did not validly resign. It would be wrong in 2018, for example, that person, Seti vacantis, there was a joke, jokingly call him Benny Vacantis. Of course, that makes no sense. But the point is they were not set of a contest, but now they are because they believe the sea is vacant. [00:12:03] So that's another flavor. So you have the 1958, you have those who think Benedict did nothing, was always pope until he died. And then the third category, which has variations on it, are those who essentially think Benedict did validly resign. [00:12:18] But Francis is not the legitimate pope right now. That could be because his. It was an invalid elect, invalid election, an invalid conclave in 2013, which means he's never been pope. It could be because he was a heretic before he became pope, so therefore, he couldn't become pope because a heretic can't be a pope under this viewpoint. [00:12:40] It could be because he became. He espoused heresy after becoming pope, after being elected pope, and then he lost his office. So he's no longer pope. Even if he was for some time, he no longer is. Maybe it's because of, you know, his rejecting the death penalty, the, the. Maybe it's because of thinking communion for divorce, remarried, whatever the case may be, the point is he's not pope today. And so. But Benedict did validly resign. So that's kind of the third flavor. Now, like I said, there's variations. I'm not saying I've covered every single person who is a seti vacantas, but ultimately, that, that kind of covers almost all of them. [00:13:23] So, that being said, what is the problem with SETI veccantism, ultimately? And I'll go through a little more detail, of course, but ultimately, it comes down to, it's a form of hyper papalism. We know about the pope splainers. Their hyperpapialism is they believe that all, like, basically anything a pope says is true, is right, even if he contradicts something that a previous pope said. Now they'll say, oh, no, he can't make a mistake. But in practice, they basically think a pope can never err in anything. It's a. It's a papal. It's a pope splener. Hyper papalist. [00:13:58] A study of a contest often has the same basic views, especially those, maybe not as much, those who think that Bendig's resignation was invalid. But definitely those who think that there's been no pope since 1958, or they think that Pope Benedict. I'm sorry, Pope Francis is a heretic, therefore he can't be the pope. It's a form of hyper papalism. Because what they do is they set some demand on the papacy, and then when the pope does not abide by it, he's. No, he can't be the pope. Then note that the postplainer does the same first step. They set some bar for the papacy. But they just say a pope always fulfills it, no matter what. No matter what he says. The city of contest often says, okay, they set this bar for the papacy. A pope can't do xdev, and then when he does do x, therefore he's not the pope. That's essentially the core problem. With the vast majority of SeTi vocantists like the idea pope can't be a heretic. There you're setting a bar, and we'll talk about that one in a minute here. Why that bar is not a valid one. But they set a bar. And then when a pope doesn't abide by it, by their standards, therefore he can't be the pope. [00:15:15] So let me just briefly, I want to talk about these different ways in which people can be set to vacantis. I'm not going to talk about the 1958 sedificant, honestly, because just no time. And honestly, it's a very, that's a very, very, very minority opinion and not really worth it. People have addressed it before, but. So I'm not going to go into it deeply. I'm not going to go into that one at all. First, I want to talk about the idea of the, either the resignation of Benedict is invalid or the election of Francis invalid. Ultimately, the problem with either of those arguments or any variation of them is that we have a situation in which the church itself has recognized the resignation of Benedict and the election of Francis. And by church, what I really mean is the hierarchy, the authority in the church that does that recognizing. [00:16:10] The fact is nobody from the conclave of 2013 thinks it's invalid, or at least has said anything to the effect that it's invalid. Not one member of that conclave has come out and said, you know, actually we shouldn't have had a conclave because Benedict didn't validate, resign. Or they say, I was there and I can tell you it's invalid because this happened to, you know, St. Gallen Mafia or whatever the case may be, they just, nobody's done that. And because of the fact that as Catholics, we don't go by just simply, okay, I have my opinion of this. I think it probably this happened or that happened. We go by on situations like this, like canonical things. We go by the authority of the church. We don't just go by, okay, this is what I think happened or should have happened or whatever. And so that ultimately is why I, I just don't really think any of the arguments for the invalid election or resignation really hold any weight because nobody in authority has even suggested that to be the case. [00:17:14] Like, nobody there has. [00:17:17] Let me give you an example from history of a conclave, of a very controversial conclave in 1378. [00:17:24] Pope Gregory. Oh, I'm forgetting. I didn't write it down. One of the Pope Gregory's died 1378, and they had a conclave and there was a lot. And basically, forces in Rome use intimidation, even violence, to basically get their man elected. Urban VI was elected as the pope. This is in March of 1378, I think it was March. [00:17:48] Very soon afterwards, a number of those cardinals who were there had misgivings because they didn't like what Urban Vi was doing. So they started suggest, oh, that conclave was invalid. Note this is different from today because actual members of the original conclave said, we don't think it was valid because we were pressured to do this. We had, you know, intimidation, violence was threatened against us if we didn't elect urban the six. And so they did elect urban the six. And so they started to question whether or not that was a valid, whether or not was a valid conclave or nothing. [00:18:23] So six months later, some cardinals held another conclave in another city, and they elected Clement VII, a man who took the name Clement VII. This is what started the great western schism, because now we had two men claiming to be pope, two men who were both elected pope, two men who were both elected by a conclave of cardinals as pope. [00:18:50] So which one was the pope? Now, using the logic of today, many sad contests who deny the valid election of Francis, it seems clear that Clement VII should be the valid pope. Why? Because the first one had a lot of funny business going on. It had intimidation. Like I said, violence threatened against the cardinals. Clearly, that's an invalid conclave. Right? I mean, that's far worse than St. Gallon's mafia. So clearly that's an invalid conclave. However, what church? What, what does church history tell us? Which one went down as the real pope? Urban VI, the one who was elected in the first conclave, that's considered the legitimate one. Clement VII is actually an anti pope. He's never been recognized as a true pontiff of the Catholic Church. Now, I can understand a Catholic of that time not knowing what to do and not knowing which one is a legitimate pope. Don't get me wrong. I think it was a confusing time, scandalous. And I don't think somebody at that time who thought that Clement VII was the real pope was going to hell because he thought that. Because here we have a case of actual cardinals in both con clays, and so. And they're saying, you know, so they elect one guy, then they elect another guy. It wasn't all the cardinals. But the point is, is that there's a case where we have a, a real situation of a potentially invalid election. So those who would say that Francis's election was invalid because of like the St. Gallen's mafia or something like that. They really have a high bar to overcome. And I don't think they do it because if you compare it to past conclaves where a lot worse things have happened that were considered legitimate conclaves, I don't think that the 2013 conclave comes anywhere near it. And most importantly, I'll repeat it again, not one member of that conclave has come out and said anything to suggest that was invalid. [00:20:45] Okay, now, one of the things I want to note is that Archicad Viganneau, he has suggested the conclave was illegal, was invalid, not because of, like, a St. Gallimilphia or something like that. He has suggested it was invalid because of a defect of consent, that Jorge Borgoglio had a defect of consent. So in other words, when he consented to be the pope, basically he had a defect in his consent that made it not a valid consent. So therefore, he wasn't truly elected. And his argument is that Bergoglio was intended to basically destroy the church. And that's literally the words that Vigano uses, destroy the church. [00:21:24] If that's the case, honestly, I think of all the arguments I've heard for sedativeism, that's the weakest of. I mean, I'm sorry, I just think that's the weakest. Because what you're doing is it's based on mind reading. It's based on mind reading. I don't think. I mean, there's no way to know. Even if you want to accept every single bad thing about Jorge Bergoglio and every single bad thing about Pope Francis that has ever been said about him, you still cannot know what he was thinking at the moment that he consented the idea that he had a plan ahead of time to destroy the church. Unless he wrote it down or he told a bunch of people and they. They all confirm. Have witnesses. Yes, he said this. You simply cannot say he intended to destroy the church and so therefore, he had defective consent. It's just not really something I take too seriously regarding, like, the validity of Benedict's resignation and the election. I would recommend. I'm going to move on to another topic about the pope. Can't be a heretic. But before I do, I just want to recommend Stephen O'Reilly at roma lacuta est is. It's his blog. Senior O'Reilly, he has written a number of things about this topic. Like, he's written about kind of showing that Benedict, particularly about Benedict's resignation, being valid. And so I just recommend him he's done a lot of the deep dive, the hard work, to basically show, yes, Benedict did validly resign. And I believe he's also talked a bit about Francis's election also being valid. So I just want to recommend him his work first. [00:22:52] Now I want to move on to what I think is the, the better argument for Sadi vacantism, the one that's more common, definitely. And kind of is related to Vigano's argument, to be honest. And that's the idea that the pope can't be a heretic, that if the pope is a heretic, then he's not the pope that you see all the time online where you basically just see somebody said pope can't be a heretic and France is a heretic, therefore he's not the pope. I mean, that's essentially what the arguments you see. And so is that true? I mean, you see it stated definitively all the time online. Like Saint Robert Bellman said this and said that you can't. And so therefore heretic can't be a pope. Therefore Bergoglio is not the pope. And this is related to Vigano, like I said, because he's basically saying, and he suggested also because he's a heretic, he's not the pope. So I don't want to straw man Vigano's argument about the defect of consent. I think he also is basically saying, because he's so obviously a heretic, he can't, he's not the pope. And this is probably why. Okay, so the problem is with this idea that the pope can't be a heretic. This is not a definitive teaching of the Catholic Church, that the pope can't be heretic or a heretic can't be the pope. It's simply not. I'm not saying it isn't. It hasn't been commonly held by theologians and saints and doctors at church. I am saying, though, it's not a definitive teaching the church. The fact is we haven't had a situation just like this one in the church before. We have had popes who have helped heresy to flourish. We have popes who have had definitely personal opinions that were heretical. John XXII, this his case. And so, but the problem is, like, not the problem, but in those cases, they were resolved without really that much problem. Like John the 22nd eventually just, he came around and wasn't a heretic anymore. Nobody's ever said he wasn't the pope, though, when he was espousing heretical ideas privately. [00:24:54] And Honorius, for example, he was eventually condemned by an ecumenical council. But it's not like at the time he was pope, there was some big movement to say, okay, what do we do with this guy? And so we simply are in new territory, typically. So the idea that the church has not definitively ruled on whether or not a pope can be a heretic, or if a pope is a heretic, what do you do with them? Is simply because that's the way the church works. It does not definitively rule things until they run into the problem. [00:25:22] Because it's not like the church can know the future. Like, church officials like, okay, I know it's gonna happen in hundred years. Like 100 years ago, they thought, oh, we got Pope Francis coming. Here's how you got to deal with it, guys. No, the way it works, it's very messy at times, is when it happens, then you have to figure out, okay, what do we do in this case? Now? I want to know. There have been. There has been speculation in the past by theologians, doctors, the church and whatnot, about what do you do in the case of heretical pope. This is something that has been addressed. Has been addressed in the sense of specula, speculative theology, like, just trying to decide, okay, what do I think about this? You know, what do we think? What would we do? But they weren't in a situation where it was the case. They just said, what do we do if it's the case? And there's a number of different arguments, but I think the one, the most commonly used is St. Robert Bellarmine, that people say all the time. He clearly, like I was just told the other day, he clearly said a heretic can't be a pope. Okay, let's look at, what did he really say? It's not that simple. It's simply not that simple. [00:26:20] In. I apologize. My latin pronunciation is terrible, but I will try anyway. In de Romano Pontiffici, book two, chapter 30, he lays out five possible opinions on the matter of a heretical pope. Now note just the basis of his assumptions. He's giving various opinions because there's no definitive teaching. There's no definitive teaching in the church on what to do in the case of a heretical pope. [00:26:48] So Bellarmine gives five different opinions. Number one, the pope cannot be a heretic. Now note, he's not saying if he is. And he. I'm like, he's no longer pope. Because you'll see his later ones. Assume what he's saying is a legitimate pope. Just can't be a heretic. Like, God would not allow it to happen. That's that's position. One, that just so, in other words, hasn't happened before, it won't happen in the future. [00:27:12] Two, the pope who falls into heresy, even secret heresy, is ipso facto no longer the pope, which gives the church authority over him to declare his deposition official, since he's no longer pope. So note what he's saying there. If a pope is a secret heretic, he's no longer the pope. So now you know. The first sea is judged by no one, is this canon of the church that has ruled a lot of things. The first c, being Rome, is judged by no one. In other words, an ecumenical council is not over a pope. An individual cardinal or bishop or group of bishops is now over the pope. So what Bellarmine's saying with number two is, in the case of a heretical pope, he's not the pope anymore. Ipso facto, therefore, council or college of cardinals wherever could depose him. Because he's not, doesn't have that authority anymore. That's two, three, even if a pope were a heretic, he cannot be deposed of his papacy by any means. That's, that's a legitimate option or opinion Bellarmine gives. Even if a pope were heretic, he cannot be deposed of his papacy by any means. This is something that everybody seems to ignore, that Bellarmine gives this as an, as a possible view. [00:28:22] Four, if a pope becomes a formal heretic, he is not automatically deposed, but the church can indirectly depose him. This is done by legally separating the faithful from the pope, which makes him no longer the valid pope. This is similar to number two, let's be honest, but it's slightly different in the details. But the point is, again, that if a pope were a formal heretic, the church could depose him indirectly by various reasons. And then, number five, if the pope becomes a formal heretic, the church can recognize that fact and declare him separated from his office. So again, we have a case where he's separated from his office by the church. So we have these five opinions. Now, I will say that Bellarmine held that opinion. Number one was probable, that is, the pope cannot be a heretic. I don't think that, you know, in the sense that somebody who is the pope just declared a pope cannot ever be a heretic. It's just impossible. God would protect them from doing that. But he does say that if there were heretical pope, in other words, he admits there is a possibility of a heretical pope, then option five is the correct one. According to Bellarmine. That's his opinion. And that was if the pope becomes a formal heretic, the church can recognize that fact and declare him separate from his office. [00:29:41] The point of all this is that Bellarmine does not clearly state that a heretic can't be the pope or pope can't be a heretic. What he's stating is there are various opinions on what would happen if we had a heretical pope. They did not experience one. God, praise God for that in his time. So he's just saying, here's are some possibilities. [00:30:02] But one thing that's very important is the role of the church. Here he notes in number two, in number four and number five, he says the church has authority over him or the church can indirectly depose him or the church. What does he mean by that? Here's the thing. It's not 100% clear. It's not clearly defined what the church is. Some mechanism would have to be in place to make this happen. Would it be an ecumenical council? Would it be the college of Cardinals? Would it be an imperfect council of just some bishops and cardinals? [00:30:37] Like I said, it hasn't been defined. [00:30:40] We don't know exactly what we should do at this point. So some people would argue, they praise Archbishop Vignette because at least he's pushing the envelopes. We have this discussion, and I will concede that point. At the very least, it's important to have that discussion because we clearly have a pope who is problematic from a doctrinal standpoint. Let's just put it that way. That's my weasel way of just saying, yes, he has done things that are definitely should be judged as being potentially heretical. But Bellarmine himself is saying, we need the church to do this. And that's my number one issue with set evacantism as it exists today. Not the idea that Francis could never. [00:31:24] There's no possibility that Francis might be an invalid pope. No, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying, though, is when you then declare it authoritatively as a layman or as a bishop or whatever, that's where you have basically. That's not an option that Bellarmine gives. And that's not an option, really, anybody gives. The fact is you need the church. And what do we mean by that? Again, it's not clear. It hasn't been defined. [00:31:49] You need an authority in the church to say, yes, this man is not the pope anymore either. Anymore he wasn't. Or however you want to say it, that's what you need the church for. And that's what Bellarmine would say as well. [00:32:02] It's not the role of a layperson, like I said, or a single bishop to say that. So if you believe Francis is a heretic, you still have to accept him as the pope until some time in which the church declares him not to be. That's just. That's just a reality where we're living. Otherwise what you're doing is you're undermining the papacy completely, because now you're setting yourself up as some authority over the papacy. If the first see cannot be judged by anyone, it sure can't be judged by you. Mister Anonymous Twitter guy in his. In his mom's basement, it's just not. It's just not. You have no authority. [00:32:36] If anything, it's possible that an imperfect council, ecumenical council, something like that, could. A future pope could potentially say, yes, this. This man was not a valid pope. [00:32:48] Now, I want to kind of just talk a little bit now about some of the. What I see as the problem, one of the key problems with study of accountism, not the reason it's. It's not true, but really kind of what I see as the problem is that it's a spiritual dead end. I've written about this before. It's a spiritual dead end, because what happens is when you embrace sedative accountism of whatever flavor, I know what the end result is going to be. You're going to end up in an independent chapel in someone's mom's basement, anathematizing everybody who's not part of that chapel. [00:33:24] And I know that sounds harsh, but that's exactly what happened with all this 1958 city of contest. [00:33:30] They end up in these independent chapels that have no connection. They might have a friendly relationship with another independent chapel here and there, but they're essentially, they're just entities to themselves. [00:33:41] They have no communion with anybody other than themselves. And it's a sad state. And what happens is often they get weirder and weirder in what they believe because they have nothing to keep them in check. [00:33:53] They have nothing that keeps them in check. And so that is kind of the dead end of SeTi veccantism. You just don't have any way to resolve it. Now, I know what they will say. They will say God can resolve it, and of course God can do anything. But the point is that there's no real mechanism to fix the problem that they've created. It just ends up being a dead end. And I think this is something that when you start to doubt whether or not Francis is pope. I'm not saying that you just can't have those thoughts. I'm not saying that I'm not a thought police here, but I am saying, know where that will end up leading in the end? That will end up leading to you basically being your own pope, being your own church. And that's just the harsh truth of it, because there's no reconciliation for it outside of the catholic church itself. [00:34:43] Now, we need. Like I said, we need a larger church in order to be kept in check, basically. [00:34:50] Now, what does this mean for the future, though? So, like I said, the church has not defined these issues, and I think it needs to. I think the church needs to define what to do in the case for heretical pope. It's not going to happen right now. I know that it probably won't happen in my children's lifetime. It probably won't, like, happen to my grandchildren's lifetime, but I'm hoping it does. I'm hoping it happens in the next 50 to 100 years in which the church really says, okay, what do we do? What do we do in the case of a heretical pope? I think I was talking to somebody the other day, and we were talking about how Vatican won. [00:35:27] At Vatican one, it defined the powers of the pope, the authority of the pope. What can the pope do and what can't he do? But really, what can he do? [00:35:35] The assumption was by everybody there was. They knew what the duties of the pope were. They knew what the responsibilities of the pope were. They just assumed it. You see, it slightly mentioned in Vatican one itself. It says, like, it can't not create. Office of Peter wasn't created to create new revelation. But the hand on. But essentially everybody then knew, okay, here's the duties of the pope, the responsibility. So he didn't write them out. This is very common in church history. Assumptions are made on certain things. You don't write them out until they get challenged. I mean, you know, just the first ecumenical council itself, the assumption was always that God, that Jesus was God from the first days of Christianity. But then all of a sudden, people started to challenge it. Arius and others started to challenge it. So they needed ecumenical council say, okay, we're going to lay this out, make it very clear Jesus is God. [00:36:21] Well, likewise, at the time of Vatican one, the assumption on the duties and responsibilities of the pope were clear to all Catholics. Yeah. This person is responsible for handing on the tradition, handing on the revelation, handing on what we've been given, not to create new stuff, not to try to innovate. And decide, okay, what we said before wasn't true anymore. They knew that that wasn't the case, so they didn't bother defining it. I think a future council needs to lay that out clearly. Needs to lay out clearly, okay, these are the duties and responsibilities of pope. And when they are, when a pope is acting outside of those duties and responsibilities, he doesn't have the gift of infallibility and he doesn't have the supreme authority because he's acting outside of those duties and responsibilities. I think that needs to happen sooner rather than later. I think part of that process of that happening will be a complete evaluation of the Pope Francis papacy. The Francis papacy will be evaluated then by that future council, maybe a future pope. I think more likely future council. And as part of this whole thing of, okay, what are the responsibilities? Because this is when it came up. This is when that question really rose to the surface, what are the responsibilities and duties of the pope? And so then if that's defined well, and they can say, okay, and Francis did not do that. Now, I think there's two options for a future council or pope, wherever, with Francis. One is, they could declare that he wasn't a valid pope. I'm not saying that's impossible. [00:37:54] I am saying that right now. We can't just assume that. We can't act like that's true until church story tells us. But it is possible. I don't think that's likely, because I think that opens up a can of worms. I think if one day, like a pope said pope, Francis was never the pope, I think he knows and all future popes know, that would be a disaster. And going forward, because then every single pope would be put under, would be under question, are they valid pope or not? I mean, those guys back in the Francis times didn't thought he was valid. He wasn't. So what do we think now? I don't. I don't think that's. I don't think that's what can do. I think it's more likely what they're going to do is just simply say that he was a bad pope, condemn him like they condemned Honorius, like they, you know, condemned popes in the past, condemn him and nullify his decrees, basically saying, not, not saying that people he made cardinals weren't cardinals, anything like that, but just simply saying, okay, Amoris Laetitia, his teaching on death penalty, they're all nullified and they need to be thrown into the dustbin of history. I think that's the more likely scenario that they do and they're not going to say he wasn't pope. They're just going to say he was a terrible pope and we're not going to listen to the things he said while he was pope. I think that's the more likely scenario. So I think that's really kind of where we are with the Francis papacy and with SeTi vocantism. I think it's a spiritual dead end. I don't think that it's intellectually and spiritually satisfying as an answer to the current crisis. I do understand why people are tempted by it, and I understand why people might have doubts, but ultimately, don't make yourself your own magisterium and just follow the magisterium and say, okay, if it says it's a legitimate pope, if all the cardinals and bishops of the world say it's a valid pope, if you say he's not, you are rejecting the visible Catholic Church. I mean, if you're saying he's definitely not the pope, not if you're having doubts, but if you said definitely. So I just think that's not the path that we need to go on. Okay. I have some actually questions that were marked from this. Take out my glass. I can see them. [00:39:57] This is interesting. This is just interesting comments. It should be noted, some theologians say during the western schism there was no pope because there's no universal acceptance. Okay, I did not know that. That's an interesting point. And I think we should. That is, I mean, I don't think that's true. Only in the sense that the church has been pretty clear that the enlisting who the popes were and saying these guys were popes. But I understand the argument there. [00:40:21] Okay. This one is as Taylor Marshall is referred to the pope by his last name. Taylor has implied he believes the seat of Peter is vacant. I do. I know that is not true. [00:40:30] I'm sorry, Taylor has. The first part is true. He has referred to Francis as Bergoglio. And I don't think that's like some sin. When you refer to him that. I'm not saying, if you refer to him Bergoglio, you're automatically set evacantus. It's not, for example, in Italy, it's just common that you refer to the pope by their given last name. So I'm not saying that. And I do know that he does not. I know for a fact that Taylor Marshall thinks that Francis is the valid pope. So I just know that. I know Taylor, so I know that's true. [00:41:03] Another one is didn't set evacontism come from SSPX? Well, no and yes. I mean, I'm not going to get into the whole history here, but in the early eighties, there were seminarians in the SSPX seminary. I don't know if there was any priests, but I know there are seminarians who did end up rejecting John Paul II as the pope, and they ended up leaving. And many of them formed the SSPV, the, the society of St. Pius V, which is SeTi vacantis, essentially, and some, I think, formed some independent chapels and things of that nature. So it didn't really come. There were some prominent members of the SSPX who broke away from the SSPX to become Sadie vacantis. But note that the SSPX is absolutely not Sadie Vakantis. They've made it very clear they don't, they don't think that. [00:41:51] Okay, next question. I like this format, having questions at the end. So if people didn't really want to hear the questions, it could have stopped the podcast before. But I like doing it like this. What's radical traditionalism? Attending the TLM, attending only the TLM, attending TLM and Novus Ordo calling it Noah Sorto, accepting Pope Francis, the pope, a woman who veils at mass. I think this is a great question, just because, I mean, radical traditionalism is tip or rad tries, typically used as just an insult. It doesn't actually mean anything other than I don't like you, you know, it's kind of like calling somebody schismatic. So I don't think that that's a legitimate term. What is a traditionalist? I think that, honestly is open for interpretation. I personally define it as somebody who really embraces the way the church was before Vatican II, not hook line, sinker, like everything. I'm not saying they think that there's no problems before Vatican two or everything was perfect or anything like that, but simply they live the spirituality and the theology and the life of a Catholic as it would have been lived in the 1950s, 1940s, 1850s, 1840s, and that's what it is. So they typically would attend the traditional latin mass. [00:43:08] They would prefer that, definitely. If they could, they would attend that. Maybe they attend the novus ordo sometimes, or because that's the only one they can. I think women veiling at mass is not really relevant to discussion because I. The women veil at mass at Novus Ordo, and some women don't veil at mass, at traditional latin mass. I don't think that's really a key part of what makes a traditionalist. So. [00:43:29] Okay, can next question from will. Can a pope preach pernicious error? I mean, I think it depends what you might preach. John the 22nd preached air heresy, that at death you didn't go, you went to a sleep before you went into potentially heaven. Orlando, whatever. And he did preach it, but in private audiences. And so I think it demeans. Can a pope teach authoritatively error? No. I mean, he can't. But can he say things that are erroneous and even teach or preach at times? Erroneous things? Yes. It all comes down to kind of how his office is being exercised at the time. So, okay. He's not going to talk about the 58 studies because he's never been able to argue against what we say. That is true. Cube Inspector, I have never been able to argue against what the 58 setis say. And I apologize for my inability to respond to your great arguments. So. Okay. [00:44:28] Our entire faith is based on the teaching of Jesus Christ. When men reject that teaching, they lose their authority to teach in the name of Jesus and his church. It is that easy. I mean, okay, I'm telling you though, that the church has to declare that. That's all I'm, that's what I'm saying. I mean, when you say you lose your authority, somebody. So if you say, for example, a bishop loses his authority when he teaches error, you have completely undercut the entirety of the Catholic Church. Because bishops and even popes have taught error for 2000 years at times. I mean, there have been bishops who have been terrible heretics, sorry. And they eventually might have got deposed, but they still, they don't have authority. We're not donatists. They don't have authority just because they're not heretical. [00:45:17] So the fact is, it's just not true that a bishop or a priest or a pope loses their authority. Kind of like automatically, magically, if they teach some error. That's just not the way it's worked. [00:45:30] Okay. Any other one. Okay. Mister Sammons, if you accept Francis as the pope, you must absolutely obey and submit to him. I mean, I think this is something that I've seen commonly. I have heard people say this, but what you're doing is, again, this is just hyper papalism. It's hyper papalism, plain and simple. It's just like the Pope slainers. The Pope slainers say the exact same thing as. I mean, maybe this person is a Pope slainer. I don't know, a city of a contest and a Pope slainer both say this line, though, literally. The fact that. I don't know if Connor is a SETi vocantist or a Pope slainer, like a Francis Pope Slaynere tells you how they have the same basic bedrock beliefs. [00:46:08] That's not true. It's simply not true. I don't have to absolutely obey and submit to him. The fact is, St. Thomas Aquinas himself says nobody on earth demands absolute obedience other than God. And he's on earth. Nobody demands absolute obedience other than God. St. Thomas Aquinas, take it up with him. Authority is very clearly defined. And you can read Peter Kwazneski's books on this. Authority is defined, I mean, I'm sorry, obedience. Obedience is defined very precisely that somebody has authority over you, but they have to be exercising in their sphere of authority and various other things. So it's just not true what you're saying there. So if a pope has a questionable past, do we need to follow him? I mean, yeah, sure, if he's the pope. I mean, a questionable pass is kind of irrelevant. I mean, the whole, plenty of saints and doctors have questionable past. And I like to follow Saint Augustine. He had a questionable past. So, okay. [00:47:05] It says millions of Catholics in history were in full communion and never even knew who the pope was. This conversation is so 21st century. Yes, yes. Your handle a loyal Catholic. That is true. It is true that this is a very 21st century thing. And this is kind of what I was saying earlier, the idea that, the idea that the church only addresses issues when they come up, and the issue of a truly heretical pope hasn't really come up in practice because most of the time, people didn't know what the pope thought. People didn't know what the pope was telling people because it's not like he could get on twitter or go online or be on camera in a plane or anything like that. This is a new issue. This is a new thing that, what do we do? And like I said before, that's what the church has to deal with. Okay. That's all the questions. And I think I'm going to wrap it up there. We've gone a little bit long, but that's okay. [00:47:59] Everybody just keep praying. Keep praying for the church, praying for Pope Francis. Pray for your salvation. Pray that the church works all this out sooner rather than later, and most importantly, cling to Jesus. I mean, that's what we really need to do during this time. A lot of confusion. There's a great crisis. We know that. Cling to Jesus, stay close to the sacraments. I mean, really, that's what it's all about. Okay, everybody, until next time. God love.