Answering Objections: "The Errors of Sedevacantism"
Refutation of the Video’s Objections
Summary
The speaker addresses a person undergoing RCIA who has encountered sedevacantist arguments claiming that the Catholic Church is in a state of great apostasy and has abandoned its traditions. He warns against engaging with these ideas too early in one's faith journey, as they are allegedly misleading. He argues that sedevacantists misunderstand the nature of apostasy, which he defines strictly as a total renunciation of Christianity. He asserts that the Church cannot be in a "Great Apostasy" because it continues to grow numerically. Additionally, he defends Vatican II, arguing that the bishops, being guided by the Holy Spirit, would have protested if the council had introduced serious theological errors. He concludes that sedevacantist claims contradict Christ’s promise that the gates of hell would not prevail against the Church and dismisses their arguments as "paranoid and delusional."
Key Quotes and Refutation from a Sedevacantist Pre-Vatican II Perspective:
1. "Anytime someone is attacking somebody else, you have a big risk that they're distorting things."
Refutation:
This is a deflection that dismisses sedevacantist claims without engaging their substance. Criticism is valid when based on doctrine and truth.
Scripture exhorts discernment: "Dearly beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits if they be of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world." (1 John 4:1, DRA).
The Church Fathers themselves refuted heresies, including Arianism and Nestorianism, by challenging errors rather than avoiding them.
2. "Apostasy is defined as the total repudiation of the Christian faith... In order to be an apostate, you have to say 'I am not a Christian anymore.'"
Refutation:
This definition is misleadingly narrow. Apostasy can be both explicit and practical. Pope Pius XI condemned religious indifferentism as a form of apostasy (Mortalium Animos, 1928).
St. Robert Bellarmine states: "A manifest heretic ceases in himself to be a member of the Church, and a Pope who is a manifest heretic ceases in himself to be Pope and head." (De Romano Pontifice, II, 30).
By promulgating doctrines contrary to defined Catholic teaching (e.g., religious liberty, ecumenism, collegiality), post-Vatican II popes have practically abandoned the Catholic faith, regardless of their claims to remain Catholic.
3. "The Church is bigger today than it has ever been in the past, so it's hard to say we're in a Great Apostasy."
Refutation:
Numerical growth does not equate to doctrinal purity. The Arian crisis saw a heretical majority, yet the truth remained with a faithful remnant, as seen with St. Athanasius.
Christ warned: "Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat." (Matthew 7:13, DRA). Popularity and growth do not validate doctrinal legitimacy.
Pope Leo XIII in Satis Cognitum (1896) affirms that the Church remains where the true faith is preserved, not where numbers increase.
4. "Tradition develops, and sedevacantists wrongly fossilize a certain stage in Church history."
Refutation:
Authentic Catholic tradition develops organically but never contradicts past infallible teaching. Vatican I defined papal infallibility, yet Vatican II’s embrace of ecumenism and religious liberty contradicts this dogma.
Pope St. Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907) condemned Modernism, calling it "the synthesis of all heresies." Vatican II’s rejection of the exclusivity of Catholicism contradicts this warning.
The notion of "living tradition" that Vatican II proponents use to justify change is a Modernist fallacy condemned by the pre-Vatican II Magisterium.
5. "The bishops, guided by the Holy Spirit, would have protested if Vatican II had introduced serious errors."
Refutation:
Silence or passive acceptance does not validate a council. Many bishops accepted the Arian heresy under pressure. St. Athanasius held to the true faith despite persecution.
Pope Paul IV’s Cum Ex Apostolatus Officio (1559) states that any prelate who deviates from the faith before or after election is invalid. This applies to post-Vatican II leadership.
St. Vincent of Lérins wrote: "What then will the Catholic do if some portion of the Church detaches itself from the communion of the universal faith? He will prefer the soundness of the whole body to the gangrenous and corrupt member."
6. "Christ promised the gates of hell would not prevail against the Church, so sedevacantist claims are paranoid and delusional."
Refutation:
The indefectibility of the Church does not mean false claimants to the papacy cannot arise. The true Church exists where the Catholic faith is preserved, not where apostates hold office.
Pope Innocent III taught: "The Pope should not flatter himself about his power, nor should he rashly glory in his honor and high estate, because the less he is judged by man, the more he is judged by God." (Sermo IV: In Consecratione Pontificis).
St. Paul warns of a future rebellion: "That day shall not come, unless there come a revolt first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition." (2 Thessalonians 2:3, DRA). The post-Vatican II hierarchy has embraced doctrines leading souls away from the true faith, fulfilling this prophecy.
Takeaways
Vatican II introduced doctrinal errors (e.g., religious liberty, ecumenism, collegiality) that contradict infallible prior teachings, proving it was not guided by the Holy Spirit.
Apostasy includes rejecting the faith through actions; Vatican II popes have endorsed practices condemned by prior magisterial teachings.
The Church's size is not an indicator of faithfulness; rather, doctrinal purity determines authenticity.
Bishops and popes can fall into heresy, and when they do, they cease to hold office according to Church law.
The gates of hell prevailing against the Church means the true Church remains, not that heretical claimants to the papacy remain legitimate.
