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.^[1][2] Sedevacantism owes its origins to the rejection of the theological and disciplinary changes implemented following the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965).

The symbol of Sedevacantism

The term sedevacantism is derived from the Latin phrase sede vacante, which means "the chair [of the Bishop of Rome] being vacant".^[2][3] 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.^[4] Various factions of conclavists among sedevacantists have proceeded to end the perceived vacancy in the Holy See by electing their own pope.^[5]

Etymology

The term sedevacantism derives from the Latin term sede vacante, which means "with the chair being vacant".^[2] 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.^[2] The term Sedevacantism, as a 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.^[6][7]

History

Early sedevacantism: origins in the 1960s

The Mexican Jesuit priest, Fr. Joaquín Sáenz y Arriaga, longtime associate of Los TECOS, was one of the pioneers of sedevacantism after the Second Vatican Council.

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, the main figure associated with presenting this.^[8] In 1965, at a private meeting in the house of Anacleto González Guerrero (son of the Cristero martyr Anacleto González Flores), Los TECOS leaders proposed the motion that Paul VI (Giovanni Montini) was a crypto-Jew and an illegitimate Pope, that this line should be officially adopted as the position of Mexican traditionalists.^[9] 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, 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.^[9] Earlier, during the Second Vatican Council, Los TECOS had distributed the document entitled Il Complotto contro la Chiesa ("The Plot Against the Church") 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.^[10]

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.^[11][12]

Positions

Origin

Sedevacantism owes its origins to the rejections of theological and disciplinary changes implemented following the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965).^[13] 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.^[14] 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.^[15] 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.^[1] Among even traditionalist Catholics,^[2][16] this is a quite divisive question.^[1][2]

Traditionalist Catholics who are not sedevacantists recognize the legitimate line of popes leading to and including Pope Francis.^[17] 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.^[18] 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.^[19]

Justification

While sedevacantist arguments often hinge on interpretations of modernism as being a heresy, this is also debated.^{[clarification needed][20]}

Positions within sedevacantism

Clergy, Mass, and sacraments

Some sedevacantists accept the consecrations and ordinations of sedevacantist bishops and priests, and the offering of Masses and the administration of sacraments by the said bishops and priests, to be licit because of epikea,^[21][22][23] i.e. "the interpretation of the mind and will of him who made the law".^[24] In this case, the ecclesiastical laws (e.g. prohibition of consecrations of bishops without papal mandate; prohibition of administration of sacraments without ecclesiastical authorization) are interpreted to cease when to follow them would be impossible, harmful, or unreasonable, or would mean transgressing divine laws (e.g. the church must have bishops and priests; Catholics must attend Mass and receive the sacraments), and because of a historical precedent for consecrating Catholic bishops during a long vacancy of the Holy See.^[21][22]

Liturgy

Anthony Cekada considers that a question among sedevacantists is whether it is permissible to go to "una cum" Masses. These are Traditional Latin Masses naming the man considered by the majority of Catholics as the Pope in the Roman Canon in the "Te igitur" prayer, specifically where the priest says "una cum famulo tuo Papa nostro N" (“together with Your Servant N., our Pope.”) Cekada argues that it is not, under any circumstances, permissible.^[25]

Relationship to sedeprivationism

In contrast to sedevacantists, sedeprivationists affirm the Thesis of Cassiciacum by the Dominican theologian Bishop Michel-Louis Guérard des Lauriers as being a valid position, which states that John XXIII and his successors are popes materialiter sed non formaliter (“materially but not formally”), and that post-Vatican II popes will become legitimate once they recant their heresies.

This position is endorsed by the Istituto Mater Boni Consilii.^[26]

Demography

There are estimated to be between several tens of thousands and more than two hundred thousand sedevacantists worldwide,^{[citation needed]} mostly concentrated in the United States, Mexico, Canada, France, the United Kingdom, Italy and Australia, but the actual size of the movement has never been accurately assessed. It remains extremely difficult to do so for a wide range of reasons, such as the fact that not all sedevacantists identify as such, nor do they necessarily belong to avowedly sedevacantist groups or societies.^[27]

Early proponents

Early proponents of sedevacantism include:

• Bishop Francis Schuckardt, an American who was illicitly consecrated a bishop by Daniel Q. Brown and founded the Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen (CMRI), from which he was expelled in 1984. He later established a new sect, the Traditional Latin Rite Catholic Church (TLRCC).
• Bishop Daniel Q. Brown, an American former Old Catholic bishop who converted to sedevacantism and an associate of Schuckardt. Later reverted to Old Catholicism.
• Joaquín Sáenz y Arriaga, a Mexican Jesuit priest and theologian who put forward sedevacantist ideas in his books The New Montinian Church (August 1971) and Sede Vacante (1973).
• Francis E. Fenton, an American priest inspired by Sáenz's writings and founded the Orthodox Roman Catholic Movement as an American parallel to the Mexican Unión Católica Trento.
• Michel-Louis Guérard des Lauriers, a French Dominican priest and theologian who developed the Thesis of Cassiciacum in the 1970s. He was illicitly consecrated bishop in 1981 by Ngô Đình Thục.
• Several American priests of the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX): Daniel Dolan, Anthony Cekada, and Donald Sanborn, reportedly sedevacantists in the 1970s, who were expelled with several other priests by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre for holding this view. Nine of these priests later founded the Society of Saint Pius V (SSPV) in 1983. Dolan and Sanborn were later illicitly consecrated bishops.
• Oswald Baker, an English priest who was a known sedevacantist by at least 1982, and reportedly some time prior to that.
• Lucian Pulvermacher, an American missionary priest who left the Catholic Church in 1976 and in 1998 was elected pope of the conclavist "True Catholic Church" with the papal name “Pius XIII”.

Sedevacantist bishops

Consecrated before Vatican II

The only known Catholic bishop consecrated before the Second Vatican Council who publicly became sedevacantist was Vietnamese Archbishop Ngô Đình Thục (consecrated in 1938), former Vicar Apostolic of Vĩnh Long, Vietnam and former Archbishop of Huế, Vietnam.

Bishop Alfredo Méndez-Gonzalez (consecrated in 1960), former Bishop of Arecibo, Puerto Rico, though not having publicly identified as a sedevacantist, associated himself with sedevacantist priests and consecrated a bishop for them.

Thục-line bishops

Some bishops derive their episcopacy from Archbishop Thục or bishops of his lineage. Many of these bishops belong to the non-sedevacantist Palmarian Catholic Church; this is due to Thục having consecrated Bishop Clemente Domínguez y Gómez, later the Pope of the Palmarian Church, and the episcopal consecrations within this organization.

On 7 May 1981, Thục consecrated the sedeprivationist French priest Michel-Louis Guérard des Lauriers as a bishop.^[28] Des Lauriers was a French Dominican theologian and a papal advisor.^[29]

On 17 October 1981, Thục consecrated the sedevacantist Mexican priests Moisés Carmona and Adolfo Zamora as bishops.^[28] Carmona and Zamora had been sedevacantist leaders and propagators in Mexico.^[30]

The Vatican declared Thục latae sententiae excommunicated for these consecrations and for his declaration of Sedevacantism.^[28]

Méndez-line bishops

On 19 October 1993, in Carlsbad, California, United States, Bishop Méndez-Gonzalez consecrated the sedevacantist Clarence Kelly of the Society of Saint Pius V (SSPV) to the episcopacy. By Méndez's wish, the consecration was kept secret until his death in 1995.^[31]

Whose lineages derive from earlier movements

A considerable number of sedevacantist bishops are thought to derive their holy orders from Bishop Carlos Duarte Costa, who in 1945 set up his own independent Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church.^{[32][page needed]} While Duarte Costa was not a sedevacantist, he instead questioned the papacy as an institution, denying papal infallibility and rejecting the pope's universal jurisdiction.^[33] In further contrast to most Catholic traditionalists, Duarte Costa was left-wing.^[34]

Groups

Sedevacantist groups include:

• Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen (CMRI), formed in 1967. It operates in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia and is based in Omaha, Nebraska, United States. Its bishop is Mark Pivarunas.
• Most Holy Family Monastery (MHFM), a traditional Catholic monastery in Fillmore, New York, founded in 1967 and led by Michael and Peter Dimond.
• Society of Saint Pius V (SSPV), formed in 1983 when nine American priests split from the Society of Saint Pius X over a number of issues including using the liturgical books implemented under Pope John XXIII. It operates in North America from Oyster Bay Cove, New York, United States, and was headed by Bishop Clarence Kelly until his death in December 2023.^[35]
• Sociedad Sacerdotal Trento (Priestly Society of Trent; SST), formed in 1993 by priests of the deceased Bishop Moisés Carmona. Its bishop is Martín Dávila Gandara.

Benevacantism

Main article: Benevacantism

A separate minority position called Benevacantism (a portmanteau of "Benedict" and "sedevacantism") holds that Pope Benedict XVI continued as pope following his resignation, with Pope Francis ruling as a heretical antipope.^[36][37] Since Benedict's death, some Benevacantists now hold to sedevacantism, while others considered Francis to be the Pope until Francis' death in 2025.^[38]

See also

• Cum ex apostolatus officio
• Independent Catholicism
• Integralism
• List of movements that dispute the legitimacy of a reigning monarch