2. Notoriety of fact: Can we say the same thing about the notoriety in fact of the pope’s heresy? For it to be so, it would have to be widely recognised as both heretical and morally imputable – as Pertinacious (persistent and determined to the point of stubbornness).  That is to say that it must be not only materially notorious, the heretical act being widely known, but also formally notorious, the act being widely recognised as a morally imputable crime of formal heresy.  We may see this from the comments of the canonists:

“An offense is Notorious by notoriety of fact, if it is publicly known and committed under such circumstances that it cannot be concealed by any subterfuge, nor excused by any excuse admitted in law, i.e., both the fact of the offense and the imputability or criminal liability must be publicly known.”¹¹

So a papal act of heresy would be notorious in fact only if both the act were “publicly known” – and the “imputability or criminal liability” were “publicly known”.  There is no competent judge who could rule of a pope that guilt was involved, and so the guilt could be Notorious only by being widely publicly known – it would have to be widely known that the act was morally imputable.  And it would be necessary that it could not be excused by an appeal to an “accident”, some sort of “self-defence”, or some other legally admissible excuse; it would also be necessary that “no subterfuge” could possibly conceal it.

3.6.  Can John-Paul II be declared Notorious and Pertinacious heretic? As much as the concepts of Notorious and Pertinacious are clear in theory, nevertheless, their concrete application is extremely difficult, especially in the case of the pope.  The main reason is that such pertinacity is finally determined by the public acknowledgement of the heresy coming from the legitimate authority. 

It would have to be necessary not only that a knowledge that John Paul II had committed heresy had spread through the universal Church– which obviously is not so, as only a tiny, tiny minority, far less than 0.1% of the Church, even claim that he has – but it would also be necessary that a knowledge of a guilt on his part of formal, pertinacious heresy, had likewise spread through the Church.  It would be necessary that no resort could conceal the act or the guilt: no appeal to dodgy translations of the original text or to camera tricks; no appeal to faulty speech writers; no appeal to old age; no appeal to ignorance of, or confusion as to, the doctrine in question; no appeal to an accident of writing or speech; no appeal that his saying was “in some way compatible with the doctrine of the Faith if we understood his modern ‘philosophical’ speech”; no appeal to some kind of ecclesial self-defence in the present hostile liberal social or ecclesial climate. 

Even if the crime could not be covered up and there were no legally admissible defence or excuse for the act, nevertheless the greater part of the Church would still have to know of his moral guilt and that the act was legally inexcusable.  It would be necessary that the priests and the Catholic press could not cover up the crime to the people in any way, by any device.  The fact is that the Church is most resourceful and the Faithful are most docile and deferential and next to no one has recognised the heresy of the pope, let alone any moral culpability and legal inexcusability. 

And anyway, the priests and the people themselves have embraced the very same heresies as John Paul II and think that he is just fine, or even “the greatest pope ever”, as many have been heard to say.  Even the vast majority of the comparatively very few who have not embraced all the same heresies as he do not see or accept that the pope is in heresy – and the tiny, tiny number who can see it tend to excuse it as not pertinacious but rather due to the overall situation in the Church, especially since “Vatican II”, which has blinded almost everyone to many of the true doctrines of the Faith. 

The heresy of John Paul II obviously is formally secret in canonical terms, regardless of how clear it might seem to the occasional “traditionalist”: his acts have been recognised neither as heretical nor as morally imputable and legally inexcusable.  Hence, his heresy is not legally recognised as notorious in fact; accordingly it is not notorious; and the legal conditions have not been fulfilled which canonists have specified for a pope to lose his office by heresy. 

3.7.  Could the pertinacity of John-Paul II be presumed? Could we make such a statement looking at the insistence of the Pope on the new ways, and this in the face of all tradition and its present-day witnesses? Perhaps; but not socially, which means, as regards loss of office, etc., which must not be presumed but proven, otherwise societies would collapse. One can understand that a quick and imprudent answer to such difficult question could easily lead someone to sink in the quicksand of Sedevacantism.

If John Paul II often enough makes heretical affirmations or statements that lead to heresy, it cannot easily be shown that he is aware of rejecting any dogma of the Church. It appears that, in his conduct, John-Paul II is deeply convinced that he is doing his best for the service of the Church¹².  How is it possible for subjects to prove with moral certainty that the Pope, in his heart of hearts (i.e., within himself), actually hopes and wishes to cause and bring evil upon his subjects and that it is on account of this evil will that he promulgates evil laws? It is not possible.

As a typical liberal, John-Paul II is multiplying the ambiguous statements, and concessions, in order to please the world.  It may happen that he is making heretical statements without even realizing it: thus he cannot be found as a formal heretic.¹³  Therefore, as long as there is no sure proof, it is more prudent to refrain from judging. This was Archbishop Lefebvre's prudent line of conduct.

4. Problems with the Sedevacantist thesis:  After the study of the theological and canonical possibility for a pope to fall into heresy, let me go to the subject that concerns us, namely what can we think about the Sedevacantist theories which are being promoted around us.

4.1.  Dealing with the qualities of the Church: Visibility and Indefectibility of the Church: The main difficulty of Sedevacantism is to explain how the Church can continue to exist in a visible manner, while being deprived from her head.  St. Robert Bellarmine exposes the universal and constant belief in the visibility of the Church.  He says that it is proven by the necessity to obey the visible head of the Church, under pain of eternal damnation¹⁴. 

The Visibility of the Church is directly linked to the Roman Pontiff.  The Council Vatican I taught the that the permanence and the source of unity of the Church and its visible foundation depend on the perpetual existence of the Roman Pontiff:

“ In order, then, that the episcopal office should be one and undivided and that, by the union of the clergy, the whole multitude of believers should be held together in the unity of faith and communion, He set blessed Peter over the rest of the apostles and instituted in him the permanent principle of both unities and their visible foundation… And since the gates of hell trying, if they can, to overthrow the Church, make their assault with a hatred that increases day by day against its divinely laid foundation, we judge it necessary, with the approbation of the Sacred Council, and for the protection, defence and growth of the Catholic flock, to propound the doctrine concerning the 1. Institution, 2. Permanence and 3. Nature of the sacred and apostolic primacy, upon which the strength and coherence of the whole Church depends. This doctrine is to be believed and held by all the faithful in accordance with the ancient and unchanging faith of the whole Church. Furthermore, we shall proscribe and condemn the contrary errors which are so harmful to the Lord's flock.”¹⁵

Father Gréa is using some very strong terms to explain the perpetuity of the See of Peter:

“Such is the institution of St. Peter that through him, and him alone, Jesus-Christ, chief of the Church, is made visible.  Thus, it is manifest that such institution has to remain as long as the Church; for the Church cannot be deprived even for one instant of the communication of life flowing forth from her chief.  If so, the Church cannot be deprived even for a day of the presence of the exterior and visible government of her divine spouse, it had been necessary to provide for the succession of St. Peter.”¹⁶

This quote from Fr. Gréa has to be understood properly.  Between the death of a pope and the election of the next one, there is a time of interregnum where the day to day exterior and visible government of the Church is kept by the offices of the Holy See.  This is how the permanence of the institution of St. Peter is kept from one to the next successor. Popes St. Pius X, Pius XI, Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI and John-Paul II set up precise rules for the time of vacancy of the Apostolic See, between the death of a pope and the election of his successor.  Such rules precise the powers of the Cardinals and of the Roman Curia during the interregnum.  The longest interregnum that happens in the history of the Church was of 3 years.  Now, for those who follow the Sedevacantist theory, the Church would be without a pope for 40 years or more. 

The Sedevacantists¹⁷ claim that they do not reject the papacy, the primacy and the indefectibility of the Church, but it is a matter of fact that they cannot come up with an objective way to tell us when and by whom the next pope will be elected.  This is the main problem with their thesis.

4.2.  Election of the recent popes: John XXIII, Paul VI, John-Paul I & II:   The Apostolic Constitution Cum ex Apostolatus of Pope Paul IV (1555-1559) declares invalid the election of a heretic to any ecclesiastical office, including the supreme pontificate.  However, it cannot be used to prove the invalidity of the election of Paul VI and John-Paul II. 

First, it should be reminded that such bull was merely disciplinary, and not doctrinal. Since that time, the Church has judged that it would be better for her to be validly governed by a heretic than to be invalidly governed by the same, with all of his acts void and giving no power. The law governing papal elections which was in force for the elections of Popes John XXIII and Paul VI was that of Pope Pius XII († 1958) who legislated, on 8 December 1945, as follows:

“None of the Cardinals may, by pretext or reason of any excommunication, suspension, or interdict whatsoever, or of any other ecclesiastical impediment, be excluded from the active and passive election of the Supreme Pontiff. We hereby suspend such censures solely for the purposes of the said election; at other times they are to remain in vigour.”¹⁸

Now, to participate in an election ‘actively’ means to vote in the election and to participate ‘passively’ means to be elected to the office, to be the ‘passive’ (acted upon) object of the election.  Thus, no cardinal subjected to “any excommunication” was “excluded from the active and passive election of the Supreme Pontiff" and any of them could have become pope.

Hence, even if John XXIII and Paul VI had been subject to excommunications for any reasons whatsoever, due to heresy or Masonic membership or whatever, they would still have been validly elected to the papacy.  The same conclusion would apply to John Paul I and John Paul II, who were elected to the papacy under the substantially identical legislation which Pope Paul VI issued on October 1, 1975.  They too were validly elected popes. 

Fr. Brian W. Harrison comments:

“Thus, if the Church's law required that a Cardinal be free from all ecclesiastical censure in order to be eligible for the papacy, the voters in general would have no guarantee that any given candidate was not in fact ineligible because of some secret crime by which he had incurred excommunication. They might unwittingly carry out an invalid election, in which case the "Pope" they elected would not be true Pope. The invalidity of his acts would then be a kind of spiritual cancer, quietly destroying the Church's vital structures from within: the Bishops appointed by him would have no true right to govern their respective dioceses; no laws he passed would be binding on the Church; and in particular, the Cardinals named by him would not be valid electors of a future Pope. How, then, could a true Pope be restored, if at all? Who would be competent to decide? When the fact of this hidden excommunication finally came to light, the resulting chaos would be unimaginable. Nobody would know with certainty who, if anyone, still had any real authority in the Church, and schism - perhaps a series of schisms - would seem almost inevitable. The Church's law therefore foresees and avoids the possibility of this catastrophic situation by allowing that even a secret heretic or apostate, if elected as Pope, would ascend the Chair of Peter with full juridical rights over the universal Church on earth“¹⁹

Archbishop Lefebvre spoke also about another problem that may affect the value of the election of the recent popes:

“Does not the exclusion of the cardinals of over eighty years of age, and the secret meetings which preceded and prepared the last two Conclaves render them invalid? Invalid: no, that is saying too much. Doubtful at the time: perhaps. But in any case the subsequent unanimous acceptance of the election by the Cardinals and the Roman clergy suffices to validate it. That is the teaching of the theologians.”²⁰

4.3.  The Case of Cardinal Siri: It is being argued by some Sedevacantists that some very serious defects affected the Conclaves that elected Popes John XXIII, Paul VI, then, consequently John-Paul I and John-Paul II. 

It is being claimed that Cardinal Giuseppe Siri, the former Archbishop of Genoa, Italy was elected pope in the 1958, 1963 conclaves, and possibly also in 1978.  Cardinal Siri was extremely popular in Italy, mostly for his strong social accomplishments in Genoa.  He was also considered as a strong conservative, even though he did not publicly stand in defence of Tradition during the Vatican II council.  So, apparently, Cardinal Siri had been ‘elected’ pope at the conclave that followed the death of Pope Pius XII.  Some are going as far as telling us that he had accepted the election of his fellow cardinals, and had taken the name of Gregory XVII.  Shortly before such ‘election’ was to be made public to the world, a group of cardinals would have revolted against him, and forced him to renounce to the supreme pontificate.  Then, Cardinal Roncalli was chosen and appeared to the world as Pope John XXIII.  Some Sedevacantist pulled out a recent report from the FBI to prove such thesis.  They added on that ‘Pope Siri’ secretly appointed cardinals to succeed to him in the future.  Frankly, such theory doesn’t make sense, for a number of reasons. 

First of all there is a Church law that binds under secrecy all the proceedings of a conclave, under the penalty of excommunication for whoever would break such seal.  Even if Cardinal Siri was properly elected as a pope, it is a matter of fact that he never showed it in public.  He was among the cardinals that paid allegiance to both Popes John XXIII and Paul VI.  After the 1958 and 1963 conclaves, he went back to his diocese of Genoa.  In 1969, though reluctantly, he adopted the Novus Ordo Missae.

Meanwhile, a French priest, Father Guérin, had established a ‘conservative’ community of priests in Genoa.  Back in the seventies, Father Guérin was living in Paris, France, where he used to say a weekly Novus Ordo Mass all in Latin, with biretta and incense, which I attended a couple of times.  I know personally two members of Fr. Guérin’s community that have been ordained priests by Cardinal Siri.  They have now an apostolate in France, and say the Novus Ordo Mass.  Their ordination was held with the New Mass, though in a more conservative way. 

Finally, Cardinal Siri died in 1989. But, the most important reason why we must discard the “Pope Siri” theory is the fundamental principle that a peaceful acceptance of a pope by the Universal Church is the infallible sign and effect of a valid election.  All theologians agree on that point.  Cardinal Billot says:

“God may allow that a vacancy of the Apostolic See last for a while.  He may also permit that some doubt be risen about the legitimacy of such or such election.  However, God will never allow the whole Church to recognize as Pontiff someone who is not really and lawfully.  Thus, as long as a pope is accepted by the Church, and united with her like the head is united to the body, one can no longer raise any doubt about a possible defective election…  For the universal acceptance of the Church heals in the root any vitiated election.”²¹

Now, the kick: let us imagine that I am totally wrong, and that, indeed, Cardinal Siri was the real pope that came out of the 1958 and/or 1963 conclaves.  Let’s go even further: imagine for a moment that ‘Pope Siri’ secretly appointed cardinals, to be able to provide for a successor after his death.  Such secretly appointed cardinals would be called cardinals in pectore (close to the heart).  It happened a number of times in the history of the Church that popes appointed cardinals in pectore.  For different reasons, the popes didn’t want to make public their names at least for a while.  Usually, the reason was to protect the life of such cardinals, who were living in countries where the Church was persecuted.

This was the case for Cardinal Slipyj, head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church from 1944 till 1984. There is a rule which says that the name of any cardinal appointed in pectore had to be made public by the pope who appointed him.  Thus, all cardinals appointed secretly whose name had not revealed before the death of the pope who nominated them would automatically lose their title²².  This was the case of Cardinal Slipyj, who was made Cardinal in pectore by Pope John XXIII in 1960.  As John XXIII never released his name, Cardinal Slipyj was unable to participate in the 1963 conclave.  However, in 1965, Pope Paul VI officially restored Cardinal Slipyj’s title, thus giving him all the rights and privileges of a Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church.

Consequently, any and every ‘cardinal’ that was  appointed secretly by ‘Pope Siri’ lost their title in 1989, upon the death of Cardinal Siri, and automatically lost their right to participate in the election of ‘Pope Siri’s successor.  Such an argument may not be final to some people.  They may try to tell us that ‘Pope Siri’ changed the law of a papal election, in order to allow cardinals in pectore to participate, thus allowing the election his successor.  When it goes that far, the only thing we can say is that such conspiracy nuts have lost complete contact with reality.

4.4. The Case of Bishop Thuc: No matter how divided is the Sedevacantist world, it is a matter of fact that it survives sacramentally thanks to the episcopal consecrations of Bishop Martin Ngo-Dinh-Thuc (1897-1984).  Bishop Thuc was the former Roman Catholic Archbishop of Hué, Vietnam. At the time of the fall of Vietnam to Communism in 1975, he had to flee out of the country, and was more-or-less abandoned by Roman authorities.  In 1976, he consecrated Bishop Clemente Dominguez y Gomez, the founder of the sect of Palmar de Troya, Spain.  Bishop Thuc was then excommunicated by the Vatican for such consecration, but was ‘reconciled’ by Paul VI in the course of the same year.  In 1977, the following year, he consecrated Bishop Laborie, the founder of the sect called Eglise Latine de Toulouse. 

Then, in 1981-1982, he consecrated Bishop Guérard des Lauriers and 3 other bishops in different ceremonies held in secret in his private apartment, in Toulon, France.  In 1982, he made a statement, called the Munich Declaration, by which he declared Vacancy of the See of Peter, in other words that John-Paul II lost his office.  Last but not least, Bishop Thuc was finally ‘reconciled’ by the Vatican shortly before his death, in 1984.  So, from 1976 till his death, Bishop Thuc had been oscillating between Sedevacantism and reconciliation with the Vatican.  This fact is enough to question the seriousness of the Munich Declaration.  I think that he was a good man much abused by many on account of his own readiness to consecrate  bishops, but could not have been the one whom God chose as the instrument of His Providence, although his work has shown itself altogether ‘providential’ for the Sedevacantists!²³

We should not forget that the present day Sedevacantist bishops, and then the priests they ordained are all coming from the lineage of Bishop Thuc.

5. Sedevacantist attitude:

5.1.  Mass Una Cum: Bishop Guérard des Lauriers²⁴ used to say that “to cite John Paul II at the Te Igitur of the Holy Mass is to commit, objectively and ineluctably, the double crime of sacrilege and capital schism.” 

On the contrary, the expression Una Cum in the Canon of the Mass does not mean that one affirms that he is ‘in communion’ with the erroneous opinions of the pope, but rather that one wants to pray for the Church ‘and for’ the pope, her visible head.  In order to be sure of this interpretation, let us report the rubric of the missal for the occasion of a bishop celebrating Mass.  In this case, the bishop must pray for the Church “Una cum… me indigno famulo tuo”, which does not mean that he prays ‘in communion with… myself, your unworthy servant’ (which doesn’t make sense!), but that he prays ‘and for… myself, your unworthy servant.’  We should then consider that those who refuse to name the pope during the canon of the Mass think that the Church lost her visible head.  This attitude is schismatic!

5.2.  Validity of the New Sacraments:  Many Sedevacantists hold that the New Mass and the New Sacraments are always invalid.  They consider that all priests ordained in the new rite, after 1969, are not priests.  On that topic, let me quote Archbishop Lefebvre:

“Now it is easy to show that the New Mass manifests an inexplicable rapprochement with the theology and liturgy of the Protestants. The following fundamental dogmas of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass are not clearly represented and are even contradicted… Must one conclude further that all these Masses are invalid? As long as the essential conditions for validity are present (matter, form, intention, and a validly ordained priest), I do not see how one can affirm this. The prayers at the Offertory, the Canon and the Priest's Communion which surround the words of Consecration are necessary, not to the validity of the Sacrifice and the Sacrament, but rather to their integrity. It is clear, however, that fewer and fewer Masses are valid these days as the faith of priests is destroyed and they possess no longer the intention to do what the Church does, an intention which the Church cannot change. The current formation of those who are called seminarians today does not prepare them to celebrate Mass validly.”²⁵

5.3. Misunderstanding of the true nature of the Church: At this point, I would like to give a diagnosis of the Sedevacantist attitude. 

“Sedevacantists are truly obsessed by the question of the papacy. One may well wonder if in many of them this is not due to some psychological trauma. Their understandable ancestral veneration for the pope seems to unleash a veritable panic at the idea of contrasting their cherished, idealized image of the papacy with such popes as Paul VI and John Paul II.  Sedevacantism appears to be more of a psychological than a theological problem… We now see only too well what effects those theological outpourings produce in passionate Catholics. They now have become their own pope. They judge their own priests. No longer do many of them have recourse to the sacrament of Confession. No longer do they hearken to the Church's infallible teachings. They generally bring moral ruin on their own families.”²⁶

Such cherished, idealised image of papacy is leading them to act in practice as if the Church was only a divine institution. On the contrary, the Church, as founded by Jesus-Christ, is both divine and human.  It is divine in its origin, its founder and its invisible head… but it is human in its members, in particular in the visible head, the pope.  As being divine, the Church is the unspotted and unblemished spouse of Christ… but, as human, the Church is composed of men who, like you and I are sinners.  Then, we should not be surprised if the present pope can betray his master, as did St. Peter.  Along with Sedevacantism, we see a revival of some of the old errors of John Wycliffe and John Hus, who pretended that sinners are no more members of the Church. 

Let me quote some of the propositions condemned by the Council of Constance (1414-1418):

“if the pope is foreknown and evil, and consequently a member of the devil, he does not have the power over the faithful given to him by anyone, unless perchance by Caesar.”²⁷

and:
“If the pope is wicked and especially if he is foreknown, then as Judas, the Apostle, he is from the devil… and he is not the head of the holy militant Church, since he is not a member of it.”²⁸

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