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Apologetics

Faith/Spirituality Forum: Another Alleged Pope?

by Catherine Frakas 13 May 2001

Another Alleged Pope? QUESTION from Aaron Lim August 22, 2001 + Peace be with you.
I recently found a resourceful website that has many Catholic documents and prayers. I thought it was another good catholic website until when I found another page which said that the present Pope is Pope Pius XIII!
I found out more that this webste actually says that there was no true Pope and legitimate Church council since the last Pope who died in 1958. All present popes since that time were deemed bogus.
The URL for this website is at [URL omitted]
Are the documents in this website safe to be read? (thos concerning practices & prayers) How did this situation happen when someone from somewhere proclaims himself as the new Pope without the Vatican's involvement?
Who are these people anyway? Can this Pope by the name of: Father Lucian Pulvermacher, OFM Cap; be excommunicated from the Church because of his schismatic nature from the Holy See?
Source of this alleged Pope= [URL omitted]
Thanks and God bless! Aaron.
ANSWER by John-Paul Ignatius, OLSM on August 29, 2001 Dear Mr. Lim:
These people are sedevacantist.
They believe that Popes John Paul II, John Paul I, Paul VI, and John XXIII, were all heretics and not legitimate Popes. Thus they have upon their own insane opinion and authority elected their own pope. This is silly to the nth degree.
This TrueCatholic.org site is run by excommunicated schismatics. They are a danger to the faithful. I would not recommend going to their site. Although they might have some good articles once in a while, the poison they spew can get you when you least expect it. It is like eating a good juicy apple, but the apple has some poison in the middle. BEWARE!
Anything on their site that may be of value can be found elsewhere. There is no reason to ever visit them.
How does this situation happen? Well it happens whenever a person or group thinks they know more than the Church. When pride, arrogance, presumption and rebellion rule a person's actions and thought. It is the result of sin.
On the issue of excommunication, the church does not have to proclaim it. According to canon law a person who becomes schismatic is AUTOMATICALLY excommunicated.
The related issue here is what constitutes a valid pope?
Answer: If the election is legal, the electee is a valid pope.
For these insane sedevacantists to show that the chair if empty (sede vacante) they would have to show that the elections of these Popes were somehow flawed and invalid. No one, and I mean no one, with an IQ of 25 or above, or at least with half a brain of sanity questions the legality of the elections.
The sedevacantists will then say, the these four popes are anti-popes not because of flawed elections but because they are heretics and a heretic cannot hold the office of Pope.
The problem with this theory is showing that any of these Popes are heretics even if heresy would automatically remove them from office (which I am not sure it does).
Usually, these schismatics (Ultra-Traditionalists and sedevacantists) claim heresy on the basis of things that cannot be heresy. For example, they might claim that Vatican II was invalid and the current mass invalid and heretical because Protestants took part in the Council. Well this is a lie. Protestants were at the Council AS OBSERVERS, they had no part in the decision making. Yet these sorely confused people seem to think the their mere presence at the council corrupted the council.
The celebration of the Mass (the Roman Missal), in and of itself, is not an item that one can commit heresy against to begin with. Heresy is the obstinate doubt or refusal to believe in defined DOGMA. The Roman Missal is not defined dogma and is not even eligible for dogma (infallible) status. The Tridentine Mass is also NOT eligible for infallibility status.
The Words of Consecration, however, are another matter, but not as these sorely confused people interpret. I had one of these people tell me that the current Mass is invalid because the it uses the term cup instead of chalice. Give me a break. The word chalice MEANS cup.
We can go down line by line through their rhetoric and we will find the same thing -- fanciful PERSONAL interpretations made upon PERSONAL AUTHORITY. And in that context completely ignoring the historical authority of the Church. They are LIBERALS, yes LIBERALS.
A liberal is a person who thinks their personal opinions outrank the official teachings and opinions of the Church, and that the church should conform to THEIR opinion. The so-called liberals of the church do this and the so-called Ultra-Trads do this. They are BOTH liberals -- just different sides of the same coin -- a coin minted with the image of themselves on it.
Because they are liberals they use standard tactics of liberal obfuscation. For example, they will quote Cardinal Ottovani stating that the current mass was invalid. Well, that is fine, the Cardinal can have is OPINION, but the Cardinal does NOT have the authority to make the DECISION. He was an advisor and as advisors do they brainstorm and present to the decision-makers all sides of an issue. Then the decision-maker makes his decision and the case is closed. The decision-maker in this case is the Pope.
The Ultra-Trads and Sedes will raise the Cardinal to a kind of papal-like authority in order to falsely support their point. And they also conveniently leave out a bit of history. Cardinal Ottovani RECANTED his former beliefs about the Mass. Just a little tidbit you won't hear from the Ultra-Traditionals and Sedevacantist.
Bottom line, even a amateur, if he knows the definition of heresy, can easily see that none of the popes in question have committed a heresy -- no matter how hard the ultra-trads try to make that case.
These Popes are the Pope because they were legally elected. And even if a Pope is removed from office for heresy (which I am not sure is possible) none of these Popes in question have committed a heresy. The Ultra-trads INVENT definitions of heresy that have never existed in the 2000 years of the church.
The Vatican itself says (paraphrased from memory, since I haven't the letter in front of me): When a person or group asserts their own definitions of orthodoxy apart from the Pope and Magisterium, they have effectively left the church.
We need to pray for the souls of these Ultra-Traditionalist and sedevacantists. They are in danger of missing the bus.
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