Sedevacantism
Sedevacantism is a traditionalist Catholic movement which holds that since the 1958 death of Pius XII the occupiers of the Holy See are not valid popes due to their espousal of one or more heresies and that, for lack of a valid pope, the See of Rome is vacant. Sedevacantism owes its origins to the rejection of the theological and disciplinary changes implemented following the Second Vatican Council.
The term sedevacantism is derived from the Latin phrase sede vacante, which means "the chair being vacant". The phrase is commonly used to refer specifically to a vacancy of the Holy See which takes place from the pope's death or renunciation to the election of his successor.
The number of sedevacantists is unknown and difficult to measure; estimates range from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands. Various factions of conclavists among sedevacantists have proceeded to end the perceived vacancy in the Holy See by electing their own pope.
Etymology
The term sedevacantism derives from the Latin term sede vacante, which means "with the chair being vacant". In the Catholic Church, when an episcopal see becomes vacant due to the death or removal of a Bishop from office for whatever reason, in the interim the diocese is automatically in a state of sede vacante, until a new designate is appointed and duly elevated to his see. With Sedevacantism, this is specifically in reference to the See of Saint Peter, i.e., the Catholic Papacy.The Sedevacantist thesis that the post-Second Vatican Council claimants to the Papacy operating out of the Vatican City are non-Catholic Antipopes, originated from a 1973 work, Sede Vacante: Paul VI is Not a Legitimate Pope, by the Mexican Jesuit priest Joaquín Sáenz Arriaga. However, there were some instances of proto-sedevacatism, avant la lettre, reaching back into the 1960s.
History
Early sedevacantism: origins in the 1960s
Sedevacantism, avant la lettre, is evidenced from the mid-1960s, as part of a response to the Second Vatican Council in the Roman Catholic Church. The earliest example is from a group of traditionalist Catholics in Mexico associated with the radical right secret society Los TECOS based in Guadalajara, in particular their spiritual director, Fr. Joaquín Sáenz y Arriaga, a Jesuit priest. In 1965, at a private meeting in the house of Anacleto González Guerrero, Los TECOS leaders proposed the motion that Paul VI was a crypto-Jew and an illegitimate Pope, and that this line should be officially adopted as the position of Mexican traditionalists.A connected secret society, based in Puebla under Ramón Plata Moreno, known as El Yunque, although ultra-conservative as well and unhappy about the liberalising changes in the Catholic world, rejected the proposal of Los TECOS, stating that Pope Paul VI was indeed the legitimate Pope of the Catholic Church. This led to a deadly split in the Mexican traditionalist scene.
Earlier, during the Second Vatican Council, Los TECOS had distributed a document entitled Complotto contro la Chiesa under the pseudonym of Maurice Pinay, warning Council fathers of a supposed "Judeo-Masonic-Communist" plot to infiltrate and destroy Christianity and the Catholic Church.
Another early expositor from Latin America was Carlos Alberto Disandro in Argentina, a personal associate of Juan Perón, belonging to the Catholic wing of orthodox Peronism, who raised the question in 1969 with his book Pontificado y Pontífice: una breve quaestio teológica.
''The New Montinian Church'' (1970s)
As changes in the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council filtered down to the local diocesan and parish level by the early 1970s, especially with the introduction of a New Order of Mass as the primary form of public worship, the sedevacantist issue began to be voiced more stridently and publicly by its advocates. One landmark was the 1971 work by Fr. Sáenz y Arriaga, called The New Montinian Church, which explicitly brought into the public sphere views that had previously circulated in private among these nascent groups. The New Montinian Church claimed: "My suspicions appear confirmed, Giovanni Battista Montini was invalidly elected to the Papacy and, thus, is not a true Pope. Because of this ritualistic symbol of Judaism and Masonry, I suspect that Paul VI was not only the most efficient instrument of the 'Jewish Mafia,' but an integral part of this Mafia." A public controversy ensued and the Vatican, acting through the local ordinary, Cardinal Miguel Darío Miranda y Gómez declared the suspension a divinis of the Sáenz y Arriaga.Sáenz y Arriaga founded the publication Trento in 1972 to promote sedevacantism, along with Mexican priests, Fr. Moisés Carmona and Fr. Adolfo Zamora. This was followed up by the 1973 work Sede Vacante: Paul VI is Not a Legitimate Pope, from which the theory was framed more comprehensively and from which the sedevacantist movement would derive its name.
File:Schuckardt-msm.jpg|thumb|right|230px|Francis Schuckardt was a major figure in American sedevacantism, founding what would eventually become the CMRI. His reception of religious orders from Old Catholic sources would remain a subject of contention.
The earliest American traditionalist organisation to take up the line of Fr. Sáenz y Arriaga was the Orthodox Roman Catholic Movement, which was founded in 1973 under Fr. Francis Fenton. The group also included Fr. Robert McKenna who would go on to become a significant figure in sedevacantism and later a Thục-line Bishop. However, the most numerically significant American group would be founded by a Catholic layman, Francis Schuckardt, eventually called the Traditional Latin Rite Catholic Church.
Positions
Principal claims
Sedevacantism is based on rejection of theological and disciplinary changes implemented following the Second Vatican Council. Sedevacantists reject this council, on the basis of their interpretations of its documents on ecumenism and religious liberty, among others, which they see as contradicting the traditional teachings of the Catholic Church and as denying the unique mission of Catholicism as the one true religion, outside of which there is no salvation. They also say that new disciplinary norms, such as the Mass of Paul VI promulgated on 3 April 1969, undermine or conflict with the historical Catholic faith and are deemed blasphemous, while post-Vatican II teachings, particularly those related to ecumenism, are labelled heresies. They conclude, on the basis of their rejection of the revised Mass rite and of postconciliar church teaching as false, that the popes involved are also false. Even amongst traditionalist Catholics, this is a quite divisive question.Traditionalist Catholics who are not sedevacantists recognize the line of popes leading to and including Pope Leo XIV as legitimate. Sedevacantists, however, claim that the infallible Magisterium of the Catholic Church could not have decreed the changes made in the name of the Second Vatican Council, and conclude those who issued these changes could not have been acting with the authority of the Catholic Church. Accordingly, they hold that Pope John XXIII and his successors have left the true Catholic Church and thus lost legitimate authority. A notorious heretic, they say, cannot be the Catholic pope.
Most sedevacantists believe that this Great Apostasy started with the Second Vatican Council, although there are disagreements about whether the last legitimate Pope was John XXIII or Pius XII, with the latter position being held by those who believe the 1958 conclave results were illegitimate; this particular belief is usually associated with the Giuseppe Siri conspiracy theory. However, there are other sedevacantist positions that describe the Great Apostasy as having started with Benedict XV in 1914, meaning that Pope Pius XII and Pope Pius XI were also heretics and making the last legitimate Pope Saint Pius X.
While sedevacantist arguments often hinge on interpretations of modernism as being a heresy, this is also debated.
Authority to declare an Antipope
An issue facing sedevacantists in attempting to justify their position, was how to deal with the question of who from a Catholic perspective has the legitimate authority to judge or declare a man, who the world at large considered the legitimate Pope, to instead be a non-Catholic Antipope and manifest, public and notorious heretic.The “Jesuit” faction, represented by Fr. Joaquín Sáenz y Arriaga and his base within the Mexican sedevacantists and later American factions influenced by them such as the CMRI, looked especially to Doctor of the Church, Robert Bellarmine and Francisco Suárez. The CMRI cites Bellarmine, writing in his De Romano Pontifice: “The pope manifestly a heretic ceases by himself to be pope and head, in the same way as he ceases to be a Christian and a member of the body of the Church; and for this reason, he can be judged and punished by the Church. This is the opinion of all the ancient Fathers, who teach that manifest heretics lose immediately all jurisdiction.” That is to say, by becoming a public and notorious heretic, a reigning Pontiff tacitly resigns office automatically by the very act of consenting to heresy itself, without any formal procedure being required.
Image:Charles-René Billuart.jpg|thumb|200px|left|Following the likes of Charles René Billuart, the Dominican faction argued that a heretical Pope must be juridically deposed by procedure of a General Council. This led them to develop the sedeprivationist thesis.
Given that the sedevacantist movement during the time of Paul VI consisted of a very small number of lower clergymen who had been ordained by the Roman Catholic Church and laymen who had followed them, the likelihood that such juridical proceedings by a General Council would be initiated against Paul VI was incredibly marginal. After the death of Paul VI in 1978, the opportunity to do this had passed and Guérard des Lauriers was forced, by the logic of his own arguments, to adopt the position of sedeprivationism in 1979 – breaking with sedevacantism proper or “totalism” as it is sometimes called – claiming instead that the Vatican-based, post-Conciliar claimants to the Papacy were indeed Popes “materially but not formally.”