MODERN CATHOLIC MYTHOLOGY ABOUT CARDINAL SIRI AS POPE
SEDEVACANTISM
Sedevacantism, the view that there is no real pope in Rome, is Protestantism because it leaves you open to rejecting any pope whose teaching you don’t like. The pope is the rock the Church is built on and to adopt sedevacantist views is to question that.
SEMIPRIVIATIONIST VIEW
We on the contrary hold that there is a true pope in Rome. We just believe the
pope isn’t doing his job and when he dies and the Vatican holds a new conclave
to elect a successor that we must take its power to do so away from it and elect
the true pope ourselves.
The Lord instituted the papacy to mark out which Church was his Church and which
Church had his guidance to lead its followers into all truth. If sedevacantism
is true then the Lord has failed the Church. Worse, he has removed the
simplicity of discerning which Church is the one right Church. Sedevacantism
like Protestantism has degenerated into warring sects, with some sects trying to
appoint new popes and now there must be thirty claimants to the papacy. Also
they are too unjust towards the Vatican. We agree with them that the Vatican is
overrun by liberals and Modernists but the Church has been infested with
liberalism before like when it let the Arian heresy convert nearly the whole
Church and naïve popes signed documents that endangered Catholic truth. But this
does not justify declaring the papal throne vacant.
Modern sedevacantism says that there has been no real pope in Rome since the
death of Pius XII in 1958. Some of them have attempted to elect new popes.
SEDEVACANTISM SAYS, Pope John XXIII was excommunicated automatically by his
adherence to freemasonry and heresy so he could not become Pope under the decree
of Pope Paul IV in 1556 which laid it out that heretics or excommunicated
persons could not validly be elected pope. He brought about Vatican II with all
its heresy.
REPLY:
Some say that this is wrong for Pius XII in Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis in 1945
revoked this rule. However, Pius XII didn’t revoke the rule. He modified it. If
a man under an excommunication for something that isn’t too serious he can be
elected a true pope. This rule is reasonable for it is more important to
guarantee the validity of an election than to worry about excommunications like
that. A serious excommunication say for Satanism or hatred of the faith would
certainly invalidate an election. The man would be too far outside the Church to
become pope in reality. Also his heresy would prevent him becoming pope for he
couldn’t seriously believe in the papal office. A man who doesn’t believe in it
cannot intend to validly accept the office. What he accepts is the appearance of
the office.
John XXIII cannot be proved to have committed an extremely grave offence.
What the Church is protected from is error. It seems that even if a pope is a
fake, God will still not let him lead the Church astray and let him define error
as dogma. The visibility of the Church is too important.
When the pope alters unchangeable doctrine people will doubt that he really is
pope. God can choose a private heretic as pope but only if the pope will not
alter doctrine. The Church has always had priests and bishops and even popes who
pretended to be Catholics while in their hearts they rejected the faith.
It is wrong to think that the whole Church accepted the changes to Catholic
doctrine at Vatican II. Many resisted them from the start. The promise of
Christ that the gates of hell would never prevail over the Church didn’t say
that the Church wouldn’t be fooled by false popes. Remember during the Western
Schism there were two and three claimants to the papal throne and nobody could
prove who the real pope was.
Some say it is certain that even if the true Catholic Church is wrong about John
XXIII not being the pope, that his successors, notably Paul VI and John Paul II,
were certainly not popes for they went deeper into apostasy. Some true popes
have accepted antipopes as their predecessors and there is no problem with that.
The current rock the Church is built on is the important one. God uses the pope
despite his errors and we must obey the pope in all that is not sin.
SEDEVACANTISM SAYS, But John XXIII and his successors in Rome certainly hated
the faith. They even went as far as to imply that it was acceptable to believe
that belief didn’t matter. They hated the faith so much that they sought to
destroy it the only way they could dare to, by replacing it with a hypocritical
indifferentism. The cardinals electing these popes were heretics for supporting
their endeavours and so they lost the power to elect valid popes.
REPLY:
It is true that the popes since Vatican II advocated indifferentism but they
also opposed it. They were self-contradicting liberals. They were always
changing the goalposts but never at any time did they firmly teach that belief
doesn’t matter. Perhaps they were confused!
SEDEVACANTISM SAYS, Cardinal Giuseppe Siri was elected pope and forced into
silence in 1958 and was the real pope not John XXIII and John XXIII’s successors
were also fakes. Cardinal Siri who was really Pope Gregory XVII died in 1989. No
claimant to the papacy from the death of Pius XII in 1958 could have been the
real pope for it was Siri.
REPLY:
It is possible that Siri was elected pope. But he could have become pope
briefly. He never acted as pope so if he was indeed pope he must have resigned.
Had he been pope when he died he would have left proof behind him. The Siri
theory in no way clashes with John Paul II, or even Pope Pius XIII or any other
sedevacantist pope, being the true pope for they became popes after. However
sedevacantist Pope Michael who was declared pope a few years after Siri’s death
could be considered a fraud for being consecrated so soon after Siri’s death
when proof of the papacy of Siri might have come out.
SEDEVACANTISM SAYS, There was no pope reigning validly in Rome or anywhere since
1958, the year of the death of Pius XII. Long interregnums are not a problem for
if the pope was in a coma the Church would have to be run without him and would
have to depend on the teachings of previous popes. Some popes were prisoners,
some were forced to teach or allow heresy like Pope Liberius. A long interregnum
is not worse than a pope who is in a coma for years or who is imprisoned and
can’t function as pope.
REPLY:
The Lord said the Church would be built on the rock of the papacy and the gates
of hell would not prevail over it and so how can we believe that from 1958 to
1998 that there was no pope? Jesus said that his true Church would always be
built in the rock of Peter. The pope is the rock the Church is built on. This
promise assures us that the Church which is a teaching body will always have a
supreme teacher.
SEDEVACANTISM SAYS, The last cardinal appointed validly by Pope Pius XII should
be the real pope.
REPLY:
There is no pope without an election. A cardinal is only a man who has the vote.
The last remaining cardinal cannot elect himself but can elect any cleric he
wishes as pope. There are no such cardinals left. God would not let this happen
and cause all the confusion so the existing cardinals are true cardinals too.
The whole Church accepted John XXIII the successor of Pius XII as pope and
Christ promised that the gates of Hell would never prevail over the Church. So
John XXIII was a true pope and there is no evidence of wilful heresy in his
writings. Even the sedevacantists have problems finding his alleged heresies!
SEDEVACANTISM SAYS, To those who say that there is no proof like you would have
in a court of canon law to prove the allegations of heresy and apostasy in John
XXIII and the other popes we answer, it’s not needed. Their approval of Vatican
II and many other heresies proves they are heretics and not popes.
REPLY:
John XXII was a true pope and he taught heresy. So did Honorius and Liberius.
Popes have declared that there were many heretics on the papal throne.
MY COMMENT: That people would stake so much on gossip as sedevacantists and semiprivationists would do is worrying. Or maybe they are not for real! And some of them are incredibly devout showing that devotion is no test of sanity or sincerity.
