Why should we accept a non-existing (according to you) Papacy? That would be the height of folly.
what folly? are you catholic?
if so you must accept that the seat is vacant because the catholic church teaches a heretic can not be pope
The Catholic Encyclopedia, “Heresy,” 1914, Vol. 7, p. 261: “The pope
himself, if notoriously guilty of heresy, would cease to be pope
because he would cease to be a member of the Church.”
so are you saying Benedict is not a heretic?
He is: he believes in Pastor Aeternus, the IC and the dogmatic definitions of the council of Trent (not all of which are heretical, but some are).
So, Pastor Aeternus says that a heretic can not be your supreme pontiff. And yet those empowered by your supreme pontiff to make his successor chose a heretic, according to your definition, and then died off.
Since your seat is vacant, with no means to fill it, according to Pastor Aeternus you have ceased to be the church.
nonsense
Yes, your position is.
I'd like to stick to the topic which is catholicism vs orthodoxy
That's a non-topic, as Orthodoxy=Catholicism.
but since you insist on talking about sedevacantism
you brought it up.
Hi, I'm new to this thread, I'm a sedevacantist Catholic, just started attending a ukranian catholic mass as I feel it's my only option to get a good confession and communion. The mass is said in a language which I don't understand which doesn't matter as I simply pray by myself. Wondering if any others like me here. My belief is not popular as I believe the eastern orthodox are outside the church and will sadly go to hell for this, also novus order catholics will sadly perish. I'm not here to offend anyone but would like to discuss issues.
Answer
Your source
http://www.mostholyfamilymonastery.com/21_Objections.pdf
btw, starts off in error (and continues in that vein):
Pope Vigilius, Second Council of Constantinople, 553
Pope Vigilius refused to attend the Second Council of Constantinople, which was held over his express objection, the Council also striking his name from the diptychs for his opposition.
The Church has existed for years without a pope
Yes, almost 2,000 years as a matter of fact.
But as for the Vatican:
and does so every time a pope dies.
The Church has experienced a papal interregnum (i.e. period without a pope) over 200 different
times in Church history. The longest papal interregnum (before the Vatican II apostasy) was
between Pope St. Marcellinus (296-304) and Pope St. Marcellus (308-309). It lasted for more than
three and a half years. 36 Further, theologians teach that the Church can exist for even decades
without a pope.
FR. EDMUND JAMES O’REILLY CRUSHES THE NON-SEDEVACANTISTS’ MAIN
ARGUMENT ON THE LENGTH OF A PAPAL INTERREGNUM (PERIOD WITHOUT A
POPE) BY TEACHING THAT THE CHURCH CAN EXIST FOR DECADES WITHOUT A
POPE
Length of the "interregnum" isn't your problem. Your problem comes from your lack of means to end it. You'd have the same problem if the ceiling fell in on the funeral of your supreme pontiff Pius XII and killed all the cardinals just few days into your "interregnum." If that happened and Card.s József Mindszenty and Aloysius Stepinac were left, you'd be OK (at least until Card. Mindszenty died in 1975).
Fr. Edmund James O’Reilly was an eminent theologian who lived at the time of Vatican I.
Writing after Vatican I and its definitions on the perpetuity of the Papal Office, he taught that
God could leave the Church without a pope for over 39 years – e.g., during the entire span of the
Great Western Schism (1378-1417).
you might call him an "eminent theologian" but he's obviously a lousy historian: the problem of the Great Schism was too many "fonts of unity," not the lack of one.
Here is a quote from Father O’Reilly’s discussion of the Great
Western Schism:
“We may here stop to inquire what is to be said of the position, at that time, of the three
claimants, and their rights with regard to the Papacy. In the first place, there was all
through, from the death of Gregory XI in 1378, a pope – with the exception, of course, of
the intervals between deaths and elections to fill up the vacancies thereby created. There
was, I say, at every given time a pope, really invested with the dignity of the Vicar of
Christ and Head of the Church, whatever opinions might exist among many as to his
genuineness; not that an interregnum covering the whole period would have been
Answers to Objections
309
impossible or inconsistent with the promises of Christ, for this is by no means
manifest, but that, as a matter of fact, there was not such an interregnum.” 37
Fr. O’Reilly says that an interregnum (a period without a pope) covering the entire period of
the Great Western Schism is by no means incompatible with the promises of Christ about His
Church. The period Fr. O’Reilly is speaking about began in 1378 with the death of Pope Gregory
XI and ended essentially in 1417 when Pope Martin V was elected. That would be a 39-year
interregnum (period without a pope). And Fr. O’Reilly was one of the most eminent theologians
of the 19th Century.
It’s obvious that Fr. O’Reilly is on the side of those who, in rejecting the Vatican II antipopes
LOL. Only Card. Pedro Martínez de Luna y Pérez de Gotor remained from before 1378 past 1417, and he was elected your "anti-pope" #36 in 1394. By the time of the council of Constance, he was the only one left from the college of cardinals of 1378.
Seems that "eminent theologian" wasn't on the side of those who reject the Vatican I anti-popes.
hold
the possibility of a long-term vacancy of the Holy See. In fact, on page 287 of his book, Fr.
O’Reilly gives this prophetic warning:
“The great schism of the West suggests to me a reflection which I take the liberty of
expressing here. If this schism had not occurred, the hypothesis of such a thing
happening would appear to many chimerical [absurd]. They would say it could not
be; God would not permit the Church to come into so unhappy a situation. Heresies
might spring up and spread and last painfully long, through the fault and to the
perdition of their authors and abettors, to the great distress too of the faithful, increased
by actual persecution in many places where the heretics were dominant. But that the
true Church should remain between thirty and forty years without a thoroughly
ascertained Head, and representative of Christ on earth, this would not be. Yet it has
been; and we have no guarantee that it will not be again, though we may fervently
hope otherwise. What I would infer is, that we must not be too ready to pronounce on
what God may permit. We know with absolute certainty that He will fulfill His
promises... We may also trust that He will do a great deal more than what He has bound
Himself by His promises. We may look forward with cheering probability to exemption
for the future from some of the trouble and misfortunes that have befallen in the past.
But we, or our successors in the future generations of Christians, shall perhaps see
stranger evils than have yet been experienced, even before the immediate approach of
that great winding up of all things on earth that will precede the day of judgment. I am
not setting up for a prophet, nor pretending to see unhappy wonders, of which I have no
knowledge whatever. All I mean to convey is that contingencies regarding the Church,
not excluded by the Divine promises, cannot be regarded as practically impossible,
just because they would be terrible and distressing in a very high degree.” 38
too bad (for you that is; in truth good, because it exposes the folly of Pastor Aeternus) he never presented the hyposthesis of what happens when not only does Ultramontanism wander about "without a thoroughly ascertained Head," but utterly without the means to ascertain one.
This is an excellent point. Fr. O’Reilly explains that if the Great Western Schism had never
occurred, Catholics would say that such a situation (three competing claimants to the Papacy
with no thoroughly ascertained head for decades) is impossible –
Au contraire, we say that such a situation is most likely, pride being what it is.
just like those today who say
the sedevacantist “thesis” is impossible, even though the facts prove that it is true.
The Great Western Schism did happen, Fr. O’Reilly says, and we have no guarantee that worse
things, that are not excluded by divine promises, won’t happen.
The extinction of your papacy and its cardinalate has already happened.
There is nothing contrary to
indefectibility in saying that we haven’t had a pope since the death of Pope Pius XII in 1958.
You have the problem that you can't have any others now since then.
There is everything contrary to the indefectibility of the Catholic Church in asserting that true
popes could promulgate Vatican II, officially endorse false and pagan religions, promulgate
the Protestant New Mass, and hold that non-Catholics don’t need to convert for salvation.
well a tree is known by its fruit. And who planted those seedlings Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli and Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini in your college of cardinals?
Leaving the Church without a pope for an extended period of the Great Apostasy is the
punishment inflicted by God on our generation for the wickedness of the world.
Prophecy of St. Nicholas of Fluh (1417-1487): “The Church will be punished because the
majority of her members, high and low, will become so perverted. The Church will sink
deeper and deeper until she will at last seem to be extinguished, and the succession of
Peter and the other Apostles to have expired. But, after this, she will be victoriously
exalted in the sight of all doubters.” 39
If you could put the cardinals of 1958 on life support or freeze them through kryogenics, you'd have a way out. But they those dry bones won't live and give you a pope.
Ya I did bring up sedevacantism and then I thought we were to have a discussion on the papacy , you said "Your problem comes from your lack of means to end it." which is true but this is to happen in the end days and was in fact predicted by Pope Leo XIII
Pope Leo XIII’s Prayer to St. Michael – a
Prophecy about the Future Apostasy in Rome
Pope Leo XIII’s Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel is prophetic. Composed over 100 years ago,
and then suppressed, Pope Leo XIII’s original Prayer to St. Michael is a very interesting and
controversial prayer relating to the present situation in which the true Catholic Church finds
itself. On September 25, 1888, following his morning Mass, Pope Leo XIII became traumatized to
the point that he collapsed. Those in attendance thought that he was dead. After coming to
consciousness, the pope described a frightful conversation that he had heard coming from near
the tabernacle. The conversation consisted of two voices – voices which Pope Leo XIII clearly
understood to be the voices of Jesus Christ and the Devil. The Devil boasted that he could
destroy the Church, if he were granted 75 years to carry out his plan (or 100 years, according to
some accounts). The Devil also asked permission for “a greater influence over those who will
give themselves to my service.” To the Devil’s requests, Our Lord reportedly replied: “you will
be given the time and the power.”
Shaken deeply by what he had heard, Pope Leo XIII composed the following Prayer to St. Michael
(which is also a prophecy) and ordered it to be recited after all Low Masses as a protection for the
Church against the attacks from Hell. What follows is the prayer (note especially the bolded
portions), followed by some of our comments. The prayer was taken from The Raccolta, 1930,
Benziger Bros., pp. 314-315. The Raccolta is an imprimatured collection of the official and
indulgenced prayers of the Catholic Church.
highlights of the prayer
These most crafty enemies have filled and inebriated with
gall and bitterness the Church, the spouse of the immaculate
Lamb, and have laid impious hands on her most sacred
possessions. In the Holy Place itself, where has been set up
the See of the most holy Peter and the Chair of Truth for the
light of the world, they have raised the throne of their
abominable impiety, with the iniquitous design that when
the Pastor has been struck, the sheep may be scattered.
but seeing that you don't believe in the popes then it's a mute point.
also there's this
In 1903, Pope St. Pius X thought that he might be seeing the beginning of the evils which will
fully come to pass in the last days.
Pope St. Pius X, E Supremi (# 5), Oct. 4, 1903: “... there is good reason to fear lest this
great perversity may be as it were a foretaste, and perhaps the beginning of those evils
which are reserved for the last days; and that there may already be in the world the
‘Son of Perdition’ of whom the Apostle speaks (2 Thess. 2:3)
and this
Our Lady of La Salette, Sept. 19, 1846: “Rome will lose the
Faith and become the seat of the Anti-Christ... the Church
will be in eclipse.”