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bluewhiteandred on scored.co
2 days ago4 points(+0/-0/+4Score on mirror)
Been following this conversation with Bellarmine from a sedevacantist viewpoint for a while and I think it's kind of a distraction, here's the deal:
Originally when the first ambiguous (and therefore erroneous / heretical?) Vatican 2 document came out, it was thought "Paul VI" was a "pope who became heretical". Hence there was discussion about if he was a pope or not. SSPX took the 1) "sedeplenist" view, he was still a pope but these documents are to be rejected, 2) a "sedeprivationist" view was proposed that he was still a "material pope" (kind of a novel proposition) but he "formally" lost the papacy, and the 3) "sedevacantism" was proposed that Paul VI immediately ceased to be pope upon issuing such errors publicly (since a pope cannot teach error or heresy).
My reading of Bellarmine suggests that he offers opinions on what to do with a "heretical pope"... so the issue isn't settled. Ergo I believe God would not allow this to happen with the Church.
A couple other points here that indicate we should have moved past this thought of "what to do with a heretical pope": 1) sedevacantists shifted the argument over time to arguing Montini was a heretic before being elected to become pope, so he never became pope in the first place. This avoids the question of a "heretical pope" as it is simply declaring his papal election invalid. 2) Presuming "Paul VI" (Montini) was a true pope who fell in to heresy, then the next papal claimant's election (John Paul I) would be considered invalid because he would be a heretic seeking office as pope and heretics cannot become pope.
So the arguments focusing on Bellarmine to me seem like a distraction from the argument that such claimants never became pope in the first place, either of 1) Paul VI or 2) John Paul I.
(Among traditionalists, there also seems to be imprecision as to exactly the status of the Vatican 2 documents' alleged errors. This is because the documents are ambiguous, and so there seems to be a lack of people identifying exactly how ambiguity is treated with respect to error. There are degrees of theological error, see "theological censures" Catholic encyclopedia entry [1]. What I did therefore is to try to find some statement that seems ambiguous which was condemned as heretical and logically equivalent to Vatican 2 statements - that seems to exist and hence it seems you could then logically argue such ambiguities in the Vatican 2 documents are "clearly heretical". If that is the case, sedevacantism necessarily logically follows.)
Originally when the first ambiguous (and therefore erroneous / heretical?) Vatican 2 document came out, it was thought "Paul VI" was a "pope who became heretical". Hence there was discussion about if he was a pope or not. SSPX took the 1) "sedeplenist" view, he was still a pope but these documents are to be rejected, 2) a "sedeprivationist" view was proposed that he was still a "material pope" (kind of a novel proposition) but he "formally" lost the papacy, and the 3) "sedevacantism" was proposed that Paul VI immediately ceased to be pope upon issuing such errors publicly (since a pope cannot teach error or heresy).
My reading of Bellarmine suggests that he offers opinions on what to do with a "heretical pope"... so the issue isn't settled. Ergo I believe God would not allow this to happen with the Church.
A couple other points here that indicate we should have moved past this thought of "what to do with a heretical pope": 1) sedevacantists shifted the argument over time to arguing Montini was a heretic before being elected to become pope, so he never became pope in the first place. This avoids the question of a "heretical pope" as it is simply declaring his papal election invalid. 2) Presuming "Paul VI" (Montini) was a true pope who fell in to heresy, then the next papal claimant's election (John Paul I) would be considered invalid because he would be a heretic seeking office as pope and heretics cannot become pope.
So the arguments focusing on Bellarmine to me seem like a distraction from the argument that such claimants never became pope in the first place, either of 1) Paul VI or 2) John Paul I.
(Among traditionalists, there also seems to be imprecision as to exactly the status of the Vatican 2 documents' alleged errors. This is because the documents are ambiguous, and so there seems to be a lack of people identifying exactly how ambiguity is treated with respect to error. There are degrees of theological error, see "theological censures" Catholic encyclopedia entry [1]. What I did therefore is to try to find some statement that seems ambiguous which was condemned as heretical and logically equivalent to Vatican 2 statements - that seems to exist and hence it seems you could then logically argue such ambiguities in the Vatican 2 documents are "clearly heretical". If that is the case, sedevacantism necessarily logically follows.)
1. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03532a.htm