False Sedevacantist Salvation Claims Refuted
+St. Joseph the Worker and Patron of the Universal Church+
Those playing the part of valid and licit Catholic clergy, in order to retain their exalted positions, have now gone to new and detestable heights to defend the indefensible and further confuse their followers. They are claiming that their supposed mission to deliver mass and sacraments in order to save souls is a divine command, while the decrees of the popes are only human law, and thus they are obeying the “higher law.” But like the Pharisees whom Christ so scathingly condemned, they “shut the kingdom of heaven against men: for you yourselves do not enter in and those that are going in, you suffer not to enter” (Matt. 23:13).
THE FOLLOWING ARE MATTERS OF DIVINE FAITH AS WELL:
– “As the Father has sent me, I also send you,” (John 20:21)
– “How can they preach unless they be sent?… BUT ALL DO NOT OBEY THE GOSPEL. For Isaias saith: Lord, who hath believed our report? (Romans 10:15-16)
– “Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are you?” (Acts, 19:13).
And what of Peter the Rock, and the power of binding and loosing? “Thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven,” (Matt. 16:18-19).
Rev. Leo Haydock comments on this last verse: “All the apostles and their successors partake also of this power of binding and loosing, but with a due subordination to [the] one head invested with supreme power… Although Peter and his successors are mortal, they are nevertheless endowed with heavenly power, says St. Chrysostom; nor is the sentence of life or death passed by Peter to be attempted to be reversed; but what he declares is to be considered a divine answer from heaven, and what he decrees a decree of God Himself. He that heareth you, heareth me… The power of binding is exercised, Haydock continues,
1. by refusing to absolve;
2. by enjoining penance for sins forgiven;
3. by excommunication, suspension or interdict;
4. by making rules and laws for the government of the Church and
5. by determining what is of faith by the judgments and definitions of the Church.”
Only PROTESTANTS bypass the Roman Pontiff to point to Holy Scripture as the sole source of doctrinal authority!
The Council of Trent, condemning the heresies of the Reformers and basing its anathema on Holy Scripture, teaches:
“Sess. 23, Can. 8: “If anyone says that the bishops who are chosen by the authority of the Roman Pontiff are not true and legitimate bishops, but a human invention, let him be anathema” (DZ 968; cf. 960).
Isn’t that indeed what you are saying, that “HUMAN LAW” ONLY forbids Traditionalists to act as bishops? That the Roman Pontiff does not have to appoint them? Then anathema to you!
Also from Sess. 23, Council of Trent, cited in Can. 7: “This Holy Synod teaches that, in the ordination of bishops, priests and other orders…those who are called and instituted only by the people, or by the civil power…and proceed to exercise these offices, and…those who take these offices upon themselves, are not ministers of the Church, but are to be regarded as ‘thieves, robbers and those who have not entered by the door,'” (DZ 960; Canons 108-109; authentic interpretation of Can. 147). “If anyone says that … those who have neither been rightly ordained nor sent by ecclesiastical authority, but come from a different source, are the lawful ministers of the Word and of the Sacraments, let him be anathema.” (The Council of Trent, Sess. 23, July 15, 1563; DZ 967, 424; all emphasis in these texts are mine).
In his Manual of Christian Doctrine, written for religious congregations and Catholic institutions of higher learning, seminary professor Rev. John Joseph McVey wrote in 1926:
Q. 60: Who after the pope are lawful pastors of the Church?
A.The bishops who have been canonically instituted, i.e., who have received from the Sovereign Pontiff a diocese to govern.
Q. 73: Why is it not sufficient to be a bishop or priest in order to be a lawful pastor?
A.Because a bishop must also be sent into a diocese by the Pope, and a priest must be sent into a parish by the bishop. In other words, a pastor must have not only the power of order, but also THE POWER OF JURISDICTION, (emph. McVey’s).
Q. 77: How is the power of jurisdiction communicated?
A. Priests receive their jurisdiction from the bishop of the diocese; bishops receive theirs from the pope; and the Pope holds jurisdiction from Jesus Christ. A bishop who did not have his spiritual powers from the Pope, a pastor who did not have his from the lawful bishop, would be AN INTRUDER OR SCHISMATIC,” (emph. McVey’s).
Rev. W. Wilmers, S.J., an advisor at the 1869 Vatican Council, adds to this as follows: “To become a successor of the apostles, it is necessary to be received into the body of the apostles — into that body which Christ gave power to rule His Church, [the “united body” spoken of in our last blog]. Thus even at the times of the apostles, their successors were appointed… Jurisdiction is possessed only by those in communion with, and under the obedience of the supreme head of the Church… The Roman Catholic Church is apostolic because the body of its teachers and rulers lawfully succeeds the Apostles… The apostolicity of the teaching body of the Church is to us a guarantee for the apostolicity of the Church’s doctrine and Sacraments, and of all its permanent institutions… The bishops, being the successors of the apostles, cannot discharge their office independently of the pope, their supreme head, for the apostles acknowledged St. Peter as their supreme head…
“The dependence of the bishops upon the pope is still greater than was that of the apostles on Peter; for the apostles, having received the extraordinary mission to preach the gospel… received also extraordinary power from our Lord which they did not transmit to their successors… Bishops individually do not inherit this extraordinary power… The bishop… invested with the episcopal dignity by the clergy or even by a chapter, contrary to the laws of the Church… is an intruder. All who support a priest, bishop, or diocesan administrator who has not lawfully received his mission from the pope, and all who hold intercourse with him in spiritual matters, are, like him whom they support, treated by the Church as schismatics, because by such action they separate themselves from the Church’s unity” (Handbook of the Christian Religion, pgs. 100-101, 112-113, 371).
SUPPLIED JURISDICTION IS A USURPATION OF PAPAL POWERS
Pius XII’s constitution on laws governing interregnums, Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis, infallibly forbids anyone to usurp papal jurisdiction when the See is vacant. This happens when those bishops who never received an office from the pope, or pastors who were never delegated jurisdiction by those who received an office from the pope, presume they possess supplied jurisdiction. Supplied jurisdiction can be granted only by the Roman Pontiff, who alone possesses the fullness of jurisdiction (Vatican Council, 1870). Such pretensions to possess such jurisdiction are clearly a usurpation of papal powers. As such, even the attempt to usurp this jurisdiction is null and void — invalid — per Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis. Therefore, nothing that Traditionalists claiming such jurisdiction have ever done actually happened.
IMPUGNING THE DEPOSIT OF FAITH
The divine Deposit was given to the Church by Christ and His Apostles to safeguard inviolate. Rev. Peter Finlay S.J.,professor at the National University of Ireland, teaches: “God from the beginning, has made revelations to mankind… And this whole body of revelation is spoken of as the Deposit of Faith… All the truths contained in it are to be accepted and believed by members of the Church… (p. 1-2). Every truth set forth distinctly, in Holy Scripture, every article of the Catholic Creeds, every solemn, dogmatic definition of a pope or a General Council, is included in the Deposit of Faith… Every doctrine of faith, which after a period of seeming doubt and hesitation the Church defines… are all contained in the original Deposit [of Faith], delivered to the Church by Christ through the Apostles; and they are separated out and put forward by the Church, with infallible assistance from the Holy Ghost, as times and other circumstances may require. For the Church, like all societies, is a living organization: and the Deposit of Faith is a living Deposit.” (p. 51, 238; Divine Faith, 1917).”
So how is it Traditionalists separate all these truths out as though they are opposed to each other?
This is also infallibly decreed as follows by the Vatican Council: “For the doctrine of faith which God revealed has not been hand down as a philosophic invention to the human mind to be perfected but has been entrusted as a Divine deposit to the Spouse of Christ to be faithfully guarded and infallibly interpreted. Hence also that understanding of the sacred dogmas must always be retained which Holy Mother Church has once declared; and there must never be recession from that meaning under the specious name of a deeper understanding. ‘Therefore…let the understanding, the knowledge, and wisdom of individuals as of all, of one man as of the whole Church, grow and progress strongly with the passage of the ages and centuries; but let it be solely in its own genus, namely in the same dogma, with the same sense and understanding’ (St. Vincent of Lerins),” (DZ 1800).
“Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel… You serpents, generation of vipers, how will you flee from the judgment of hell?” (Matt. 23: 24, 29).