Richard M,
If B16 is Pope as he claims and also denys, then the seat is not vacant.
Trinacrian - 6 years ago
A manifest, flaming, persistent, and obnoxious heretic cannot be Pope, by definition. For this reason Bergoglio isn't the Vicar of Christ, and never was. Other unresolved issues about the validity of Benedict's abdication don't impinge on this primary fact.
Bergoglio is a symptom, not the source of our problems. The real poison is Vatican II, and the sickness that it introduced into the Church. Unless the errors, ambiguities, and slipshod thinking of the Vatican II documents are addressed and corrected, we will just have more Bergoglios in the Vatican, and in the episcopacy.
Inchinor - 6 years ago
Another way to look at it: instead of asking is Francis the pope, rather ask if Benedict is an antipope. After all, Benedict calls himself pope, dresses like the pope, lives where the pope lives, weats the shepher's ring of papal authority, and claind he exercises a petrine munus.
If anyone else said and acted so, he would be immediately identified as an antipope.
But Benedict isn't, and the reason is because we know, in our innermost heart that he is still the pope.
Richard M - 6 years ago
I do believe, regretfully, that Francis is indeed the Pope - just (in many respects) the worst pope we have ever had.
Unfortunately, he really does reflect a fairly wide swath of the global episcopate today. The surprise is that we did not end up with a Pope like him sooner.
I do think Archbishop Lefebvre was right that sedevacantism is a hole from which there is no return, regardless of which year you date the sede vacante from.
Richard M,
If B16 is Pope as he claims and also denys, then the seat is not vacant.
A manifest, flaming, persistent, and obnoxious heretic cannot be Pope, by definition. For this reason Bergoglio isn't the Vicar of Christ, and never was. Other unresolved issues about the validity of Benedict's abdication don't impinge on this primary fact.
Bergoglio is a symptom, not the source of our problems. The real poison is Vatican II, and the sickness that it introduced into the Church. Unless the errors, ambiguities, and slipshod thinking of the Vatican II documents are addressed and corrected, we will just have more Bergoglios in the Vatican, and in the episcopacy.
Another way to look at it: instead of asking is Francis the pope, rather ask if Benedict is an antipope. After all, Benedict calls himself pope, dresses like the pope, lives where the pope lives, weats the shepher's ring of papal authority, and claind he exercises a petrine munus.
If anyone else said and acted so, he would be immediately identified as an antipope.
But Benedict isn't, and the reason is because we know, in our innermost heart that he is still the pope.
I do believe, regretfully, that Francis is indeed the Pope - just (in many respects) the worst pope we have ever had.
Unfortunately, he really does reflect a fairly wide swath of the global episcopate today. The surprise is that we did not end up with a Pope like him sooner.
I do think Archbishop Lefebvre was right that sedevacantism is a hole from which there is no return, regardless of which year you date the sede vacante from.