How To Respond To Sedevacantists?

[ToJesusMyHeart]

I put this in the Q&A phorum first, but was advised to see if others can help out.

I had a sedevacantist say this to me and I wanted to know how to respond (with charity):

"If you feel that a "Mass" created by Protestant ministers and Freemasons (absolute fact--go check it out for yourself) is "Catholic", nothing anyone here can say will help you. There is NO 'holiness' in Vatican 2. The pope himself (Paul 6) said, very clearly, that "the smoke of Satan has entered the sanctuary", and he ought to know, because he let it in! He also said that he was DELIBERATELY creating a Mass that was in line with the Protestant service--a move directly FORBIDDEN by all previous popes and councils! Beware of where you place your loyalty. Just because YOU behave correctly during Mass does not make the church you attend a valid one. We are NOT saying these things to anger you, but to instruct, and try to correct erroneous beliefs, because we care."

[Basilisa Marie]

I'd probably say something like...

It's my faith in Christ and his Church that I believe that the "gates of hell will never prevail" against the Church. This includes the "keys to the Kingdom" with which the pope is instruction. And it's through the "keys," founded on the "never prevail", that I trust in the Petrine Authority of the pope, the current pope. One of the things about being Catholic is accepting with faithful obedience the teachings of our bishops, particularly the Bishop of Rome. Our obedience brings even more joy to Christ when we obey even though teachings are hard to understand or don't make sense at all. There are, however, proper channels to go through in the Church to deal with disagreements over these teachings, and many saints have used them to enact true changes. St. Francis had to wait for permission to form his order. Those who struggle with accepting the legitimacy of our liturgy and respond by denying the legitimacy of the pope are not using the proper channels to deal with their struggle. Instead of embracing the Church, they reject Her.

I don't like to engage with people who boast wildly inflammatory, arrogant and untrue claims, especially when they don't back anything up with actual documents or tell you to go verify their claims yourself. There's nothing to be gained by answering their arguments on their own terms (if, however, they decide to have a civil conversation using historically documented facts and solid sources, that can be worth engaging...sometimes). In your case, I'd do your best to explain why you believe that the current ordinary form is right, and just leave it be. Oh, and pray. Arguments like the one the sedevacantist posted aren't worth the effort. Prayer's pretty much the only thing that will get them to see reason.

[Aloysius]

Six Protestant theologians were indeed present at the Consillium (the comittee that drafted the Novus Ordo Mass), their names were: Raymond George, Ronald Jaspar, Massey Shepherd, Friedrich Kunneth, Eugene Brand, and Max Thurian.
[b]They did not have voting power[/b] in the consillium, so therefore they [b]did not in any way decide the draft of the Novus Ordo[/b], except as observers and consultants to Roman Catholic Bishops who were members of the Consillium and were fully capable of evaluating things by themselves, including any advice that the Protestant consultants might have given them.

spoiler: Bugnini may actually have been a freemason:
[spoiler]It is, indeed, generally accepted as fact that Paul VI became convinced that Archbishop Bugnini (a principal architect of the New Mass) was a freemason, and when he found out this fact he "exiled" him, as it were, to the titular post of the See of Iran so that he would no longer have any influence. If one has criticism for the New Mass from an orthodox Catholic perspective, one can safely attribute it to the influence of Bugnini, but Bugnini was not the only one involved in these decisions and there were Roman Catholic Bishops and a Roman Catholic Pope who approved of the Novus Ordo Liturgy, again they were fully capable of judging things for themselves, so if Bugnini was indeed trying to destroy the liturgy from a freemason perspective, there was no way he could have fully succeeded and therefore any problematic influence would be minimal, with the substance of the liturgy remaining a fully valid Catholic rite. When one studies the liturgy (in a way that is 1000x more in-depth than your sedevacantist friend has obviously delved into, ie digging deeper than the youtube videos of Clown Masses and actually looking at the missal as it is actually written,, learning about the Latin and the Galesian, Gregorian, and Leonine Sacramentaries), one can see places even in the Latin where the wording may have been slightly despiritualized in edits from their cut-and-pasting from various ancient sacramentaries; but the point is that there is valid tradition backing all the texts and you won't find anything heretical in them, and certainly that the core of the liturgy is absolutely maintained. again, in the way that it is written, which would be what we'd be questioning when evaluating what influence Bugnini may have wielded as a Freemason[/spoiler]

One of the motivations in some of the reforms was indeed stated as intending to remove from the liturgy anything that would pose a "stumbling block" to protestants converting. However, the intention as understood by the actual voting members of the Consillium (all Catholics) was to remove unneccessary aspects of the ritual that had accumulated over time while maintaining the substance. Whether everything that was removed ought to have been removed is a matter open for debate, the Episcopal Synod that was presented with the new mass by the Consillium actually rejected it but Pope Paul VI put it through anyway, so there's certainly permissible opinions about the form the liturgy took. but the Novus Ordo Liturgy as it is written, especially in the Latin original and now more perfectly in the new English translation, absolutely holds all the essentials of a Catholic liturgy.

There are indeed problems with the way it is applied, both in terms of liturgical abuses that happen against the rules and, it can be legitimately argued as an opinion, in terms of some options that are currently juridically in force (such as Communion standing and in the hand, the versus populum position, the near universal replacement of the propers with other types of songs). And there is a liturgical movement to recover many things that were lost, with Pope Benedict's universal permission of the old rite as an Extraordinary Form that he hopes can have a relationship with the Ordinary Form that is mutually enriching. I think one can find a widespread loss of the liturgical sense of worship that was once present, and that's the atmosphere that feels protestant. It's not inherent to the New Mass--it is a combination both of widespread liturgical abuses AND some options that are currently legitimately permitted that has made the atmosphere in many Catholic Churches into a wide range of things--a spectrum that ranges from just a community meeting to just a prayer meeting to a dulled down liturgy to a good liturgy. but again, that spectrum's not inherent to the New Mass, and I think (and I hope) that it's getting better, the tide is turning, things are being re-built brick by brick.

TL;DR: while there are liturgical issues and problems around that may be legitimately argued from a traditional point of view, your sedevacantist friend is misinformed and has a shallow understanding of those issues.

[ToJesusMyHeart]

I'm just going to post what my friend says and see if y'all have anything to comment on, or point out.

[i]You said, "One of the things about being Catholic is accepting with faithful obedience the teachings of our bishops..." Does this mean that we have to believe in even their heretical teachings? If you were around during the Arian Heresy when 80% of bishops were heretics and denied the Divinity of Christ, if your bishop was an Arian, would you obey his teaching out of obedience even though you knew it was heresy?"[/i]

[Basilisa Marie]

Well, yes, you would, because you wouldn't know it was a heresy if your bishop was Arian. And to be fair to Arians, they were very worried that elevating Christ to the same level as the Father would be polytheistic. They were concerned with preserving the notion of monotheism. They weren't big bad scary people trying to bring down Christianity. They were trying to understand the relationship between the Father and the Son.

And it's bad to examine history outside of its own context like your friend is doing here. But without the Arian heresy, we wouldn't have the Creed. Without Marcionism, we wouldn't have the canon of scripture. So...even heresy has its place in the story of Christianity, and good things can come out of it. You don't just throw out the whole thing because one part looks bad. So even from your friend's perspective, there's still reason to not be sedevacantist. Even if he's struggling with the legitimacy of the liturgy, and EVEN if it turns out that we eventually all but chuck out the Novus Ordo and everyone does the Extraordinary Form, the Novus Ordo still has a lot of good fruits that will be observed in years to come. Obedience means sticking with your Church, especially when you're having a hard time believing that your bishop is right. And if you want to tell your bishop he's wrong, you write him a letter. You don't join up with other people and say that the Pope is icky.

[Lil Red]

I think fidesJack would be a good person to talk to abt this

[Aloysius]

if your bishop is a heretic, which is indeed a possibility because bishops are not perfect, then you should not follow the heretical teaching. but you should not presume to judge the bishop as a heretic and sever communion with him on that basis--unless you are the Pope, you do not have the authority to make that call. stay in communion with the heretical bishop unless the bishop is excommunicated, but keep the faith as it has been passed on to you.

Athanasius was a bishop, a successor to the Apostles, he had a call from God to stand up to ensure that the True Faith would remain in the Church. if you are a layman, your call is to ensure that the faith remains in your family, and to spread that faith to other laymen and non-Catholics as much as you can. IF one were to believe that the current crisis is as bad as the Arian crisis (which I don't agree with), then your response as a layman is to keep the true faith and pray for the restoration of the Church. If you were a bishop and you believed that, you would have a whole different responsibility to the Church of God, you would have to make some hard choices, which is why I sympathize with the dillema +Lefebvre found himself in when he came to believe the crisis had gotten that bad even if I disagree with his actions. As it is, hold fast to the faith, and if any particular bishop is teaching something clearly contrary to the faith, your best response would be to pray. It is not your place to stand in judgment over a bishop, it is your place to implore that bishop's ultimate Judge in Heaven to correct the bishop.

[Papist]

A heretical priest/bishop does not invalidate the Christ's Church.

[fides' Jack]

[quote name='Lil Red' timestamp='1344222352' post='2463284']
I think fidesJack would be a good person to talk to abt this
[/quote]

Thanks for the vote of confidence! I'm not sure I'm the right person to answer this, though.

I really liked Basilisa Marie's first paragraph, and Aloysius gave some good background info.

[Jaime]

I would mention to the sedevacanist that a majority of the bishops and cardinals that were around during the formation of Vatican II were appointed by Pope Pius XII.

That has a tendency to shut them up

[filius_angelorum]

Ah yes, sedevacantists. I run into them rarely, and when I do run into them, I tend to run away from them. But if I do have a reason to discuss the matter, I generally ask, "Well, then, is there any way, approved by the Church, and not a matter of private opinion (as, for example, the opinion of St. Robert Bellarmine), that our current dilemma could be fixed? How do we get our pope back?

If they answer that there is no clear way of fixing it, approved by the Church, then I would say that they believe that the "gates of hell" have in fact prevailed. If they say that this or that way would be the appropriate way to fix the problem, I would challenge them to show where, either in Scripture, tradition, or magisterial documents, such a way would be universally recognized by the Church. After all, even the Orthodox recognize in the current Holy Father the successor of St. Peter, even if they do not ascribe supremacy to that office, but would they recognize an election held by a bunch of yahoo's in Kansas?

That's what I would say.

[fides' Jack]

[quote name='filius_angelorum' timestamp='1344269911' post='2463473']
After all, even the Orthodox recognize in the current Holy Father the successor of St. Peter, even if they do not ascribe supremacy to that office, but would they recognize an election held by a bunch of yahoo's in Kansas?
[/quote]

Hey - leave FP out of this!

[tinytherese]

[quote name='Papist' timestamp='1344258698' post='2463405']
A heretical priest/bishop does not invalidate the Christ's Church.
[/quote]

That's right. To believe otherwise is to fall into the heresy known as Donatism.

[Amory]

[quote name='Basilisa Marie' timestamp='1344221584' post='2463278']
Well, yes, you would, because you wouldn't know it was a heresy if your bishop was Arian.[/quote]

I'm not so sure about that. Arianism continued to exist even after anathematized at the 325 council at Nicaea. The [i]homoosuion[/i] clause of that council's creed removed doubt as to what the official dogma of the Catholic Church was.

In the Greco-Roman world, the bishop in your local area wasn't always the only bishop around. Communication was pretty decent, and as Arianism became something of a political wedge issue, most educated people would have been familiar with the different positions, and which were espoused by whom.

[quote name='Basilisa Marie' timestamp='1344221584' post='2463278']
And to be fair to Arians, they were very worried that elevating Christ to the same level as the Father would be polytheistic. They were concerned with preserving the notion of monotheism. They weren't big bad scary people trying to bring down Christianity. They were trying to understand the relationship between the Father and the Son.[/quote]

As McGrath explains in [i]Heresy[/i], all heresies are attempts to explain Christianity better, but in reality heretical ideas end up undermining--and indeed distorting--the faith which they were originally intended to advance.

We shouldn't sympathize with heretics, or try to rationalize their behavior. It doesn't matter whether they intended to bring down Christianity, because their doctrines ended up doing so (inasmuch as Christianity can be brought down). You know all that about the road to hell and good intentions.

[Aloysius]

of course, the best sedevacantists all recognize that their beginning of the end was the Pian reforms of Holy Week and the Psalter, so an argument from Pius XII is not necessarily as strong as you might think. Of course, Bugnini had his hands in that too. Sedevacantists like those who follow the SSPV (who were expelled by +Lefebvre from the SSPX for not recognizing the Pope) or the CMRI, if they're well informed, would certainly recognize Pius XII as a valid pope but would not consider him to have been a very good pope, necessarily.

I think very few sedevacantists would follow the nutty folk who try to elect their own popes detached from the current church structure, certainly not the "mainstream" sedevacantists (if that's not an oxymoron lol) like the SSPV or CMRI, and in their imaginations of a solution to the crisis would see the solution as some miracle that would come through Rome itself and therefore be recognizable. there are many strains of sedevacantists and sedeprivationists, so you'd get all sorts of answers to your question depending upon whether they recognized current Holy Orders as valid, but I think the major sedevacantist theory goes something along the lines that each pope elected is not a valid pope on the basis that they are a heretic and a heretic cannot be a valid pope (according to [i]Cum Ex Apostolatus Officio [/i]of Pope Paul IV, though that is disputable), and therefore one day if the cardinals elected someone who was not a heretic then that would be a valid pope. unless they're siri-ists, in which case they perhaps think that Cardinal Siri as "pope-in-red" appointed secret cardinals who elected a new secret pope and one day it will all come out into the light of day.