CONCERNING A SEDEVACANTIST THESIS 1

“Sedevacantists” have always constituted a particularly distant group in the Catholic

resistance to the error of modernism. Their main characteristic is to be found in their manifest
disregard of the Apostles’ Creed in favor of their public support and adherence to a rather odd,
to say the least, theological thesis. There have been certain occasions where “sedevacantist
priests” have gone so far as to refuse the sacraments to faithful Catholics who sincerely
profess the unchanging Creed of the Church, but who show no enthusiasm for their
sedevacantist redemptive thesis, i.e., the Thesis of Cassissiacum of which we will now give an
analysis.

BRIEF HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

In 1977, a former professor of theology at the seminary at Ecône, Fr. Guérard de Lauriers,
published a fanciful thesis with the intention of proving without a shadow of a doubt that
Paul VI, Bishop of Rome, recognized and acknowledged by the entire visible Church, was not,
in fact, Pope at all. This thesis is known under the title of Thesis of Cassissiacum. This Father
had previously attained widespread notoriety thanks to his incomprehensible courses. This
thesis ran true to form. Literally no one could understand his “distinctions,” for instance,
between the “sessio” and the “missio.” A handful of young priests, just a little while before
ordained by Archbishop Lefebvre and, to say the least, greatly lacking in experience,
imprudently gave themselves heart and soul to the defense and explanation of the Thesis of
Cassissiacum. They referred to themselves as “the syndicate.” According to them, they were
the true Thomists who simply could no longer put up with Archbishop Lefebvre’s doctrinal
infantilism. They soon left the Society of Saint Pius X and the “syndicate” then began to break
up into rival tendencies, remaining united only in their deep-seated detestation of the very
Bishop to whom they owed their ordination.
Around 1980, there appeared a new “popular version” of the “sedevacantist thesis,” the
so-called Blignières-Lucien version. While side-stepping the core and essence of the earlier
thesis, i.e., the distinction between “material pope” and “formal pope,” it now concentrated on
trying to make it plain for all to see that there had occurred a certain breakdown of papal
infallibility, thus proving that the person who then seemed to be the pope could not in actual
fact be the pope indeed. And so off they went, mouthing their inanities before an amazed
audience made up of unqualified lay people full of admiration in the presence of such a great
display of “theological science.” Soon, in certain traditional chapels, there were to be found
self-proclaimed theologians repeating and re-echoing over and over their new password:
“material—formal; formal— material.” Thanks to their grotesque errors, these efforts
discredited them in the eyes of any learned, well-advised priest. Such erroneous teachings,
forgivable to some extent for laymen, are completely inexcusable for priests, especially coming
as they do from those pretending to be radar beacons of theology.

SEDEVACANTISM AMERICAN-STYLE
American sedevacantists have since come up with an interesting novelty which is a new
rehash of the original Thesis of Cassissiacum (see Sacerdotium, no.16). It is clear that
sedevacantist propaganda often seems to carry some weight by its gravity as well as its
extensive research. The keenest among the sedevacantists do not base their thesis on the
above-mentioned theological fantasies. First of all, they seriously try to elucidate or to clear up
that reality which should exist behind the distinction between “material pope” and “formal
pope.” For those unfamiliar with philosophy, it seems worthwhile to explain the meaning of
such a distinction:
A natural being is, in fact, composed of two essential coprinciples: matter and form. In the
same way, an accidental being (e.g., a football team, a community, a radio station) is
understood by analogy as a whole made up of two co-principles which are like matter and
form. But then we have a superimposition of quasi-substantial or of almost-substantial forms,
1 Taken from « SI SI NO NO », The Angelus English-Language article reprint ; November 1998.
 CONCERNING A SEDEVACANTIST THESIS

and only the latter constitutes the compound being in its essence. For example, the rungs of a
chair in kit form finally constitute or make up the chair only after having been placed each in
its own stable position, which is an accident of relation. This accident acts as the “form” of the
chair.
In the present case, a pope is a man, that is, a bodily, created being, a man who has been
baptized, a Catholic invested with an episcopal character, and finally, a bishop designated and
recognized as the legitimate Pastor of the Church of Rome. The human being constitutes the
quasi-matter for the superimposed supernatural accidental form: Baptism and supernatural
life. A baptized male who has thus been elevated to a life of the supernatural order becomes
the quasi-matter who receives the “quasi-form” of the sacrament of Orders, etc. To every
ordinary bishop, however, there is still lacking a “form” to become pope, that is, the legitimate
appointment, the recognition or acknowledgment of the Catholic faithful of his authority over
the Church of Rome.

In the previously mentioned thesis, what is meant by the expression material pope?
Answer: It is a pope to whom would be lacking the ultimate “formality,” meaning that
ultimate accidental perfection which really and finally “activates” the papacy in a subject, that
is, the man. It is through this “formality” that the “pope-not-yet-pope” becomes “pope-in-fact-
and-in-deed.” All this being understood, the whole question resides in knowing for sure
whether this superimposed accidental perfection actually exists outside the imagination of the
sedevacantists.
The aforementioned sedevacantists attempt to prove that there is still something lacking
to the bishop who has legitimately been designated to occupy the Chair of Peter in Rome and
who has so been acknowledged by the entire visible Church. It is obviously quite clear that
Pope Paul VI as well as Pope John Paul II have indeed met these conditions. What is therefore
lacking to them? To make a long story short, we simply and briefly give the American
sedevacantists’ conclusion, which is that the distinction between a material pope and a formal
pope is the distinction between a legitimate pope without authority and a legitimate pope with full
authority.
But is it really possible in fact to separate legitimacy from authority? Can a ruler be
simultaneously legitimate yet without authority? Would it not be better to say that a ruler
loses his authority in the eyes of his subjects only after having lost his legitimacy and that one
does not lose one without also losing the other? One needs only to consult the treatise De
legibus [Regarding Laws] to be convinced that that which requires obedience on the part of a
subject is that which has been ordered by those enjoying legitimate authority. In social
philosophy, legitimacy and authority are inseparable. The distinction dreamed-up by the
sedevacantists does not, in reality, exist at all.

THE FUNDAMENTAL ERROR

The American sedevacantists support their arguments by quoting some very good
authors. But these good authors speak of something else. They speak of the authority of the
law, and not of the authority of the one who rules. There is a difference. It is common knowledge
that the ruler is not infallible and that his subjects are also endowed with free will. It can
happen that an order contrary to reason or injurious to the common good might be given by
the legitimate authority. If an individual comes to realize that the law is harmful, he must not
obey; for it is not, in truth, a law, but a tyranny.
In order to bolster their private judgment through the use of good authors, the
sedevacantist propaganda jumps from the “intentio promulgandi errorem [intention of
promulgating an error]” to the “intentio evertendae Ecclesiae per promulgationem erroris [intention
of overthrowing the Church by promulgating an error]” (Sacerdotium,. p.47).
The latter entails or leads to the first, but not vice versa (i.e., not reciprocally). The
intention of a ruler (i.e., any superior, the father of a family, an employer, a teacher) to
promulgate or proclaim something objectively harmful to the common good is compatible
with the intention of promoting the common good 2 because it is possible that the subject can
2 This is readily admitted by American sedevacantists without their fully realizing it: “The condition
of accepting authority sine qua non is that he who receives it have the intention of promoting the
common good of the community over which he rules” (Sacerdotium, no.16, p.54). Here it is a question of
the subjective intention of promoting the common good, which means that the candidate can be

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sincerely, but erroneously, believe that it is useful. How is it possible for subjects to prove
with moral certainty that their ruler, 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 such evil laws? It is not possible. To prove this proposal is as impossible a
task as proving a Pope’s well-known public material heresy is actually formal heresy. Of
course, errores et disciplinae nocivae non sunt leges [harmful errors and disciplinary regulations
are not laws]! This only proves that a person invested with authority is mistaken. It does
not at all prove that his authority no longer exists. How many acts contrary to the common
good would it take on the part of the ruler in order for his subjects to infer that he does not
wish, in a casehardened and habitual manner, the common good anc has, therefore, become a
tyrant Five bad or evil laws? Ten bad laws? It is true, however, that such a frequent and
recurring will on the part of the ruler to act against the common good gives rise to a legitimate
suspicion which obliges us to closely examine those laws. Exactly in the same way, repeated
teachings suspiciously smacking of heresy inevitably lead to suspicions of heresy. But, that’s
all—neither more nor less. All of which gives rise to doubts which tend to discredit the law
but not the very existence of authority itself.
One gets the feeling that the sedevacantists have indeed caught a glimpse of the problem.
They usually make at least two attempts to get around this difficulty:

“Therefore, inasmuch as [authority] is a habit, it takes its species from its proper act
and formal object. The primary and formal object, however, of the habit of authority is the
making, promulgation and execution of laws. The formal object of law, however, is the
promotion of the common good. It follows that he who enjoys authority must have the
habitual intention of promoting the common good, as otherwise he cannot have
authority.” (ibid., p.14).

We reply in the negative to this objection. We cannot justifiably make a mental leap from
the absence of obligation of a bad law to the absence of authority of the ruler promoting such
a so-called “law.” All of which simply means, in plain language, that he who rules and gives
orders favoring evil at the expense of the public good, acts against nature and sins, nothing
more.

“[I]t is not sufficient that he who holds authority intends in his will the common good
of the community, but rather the good which he intends must be the true and objective
common good. The reason is that law is defined as an order of reason for the common good.
Therefore in order that the will of a superior oblige in conscience, it is necessary that he
objectively intend the common good.” [emphasis in original] (ibid., pp.14,15).

If the sedevacantists were right in this case, they would prove too much! They would
imply both constitutive infallibility as well as impeccability of all true authority!
The first sophism can be found in the word authority. The author has illogically leapt from
legitimacy before God (i.e., the ruler acts virtuously by ensuring the common good of his
subjects through good laws) to the legitimacy before subjects (i.e., the order promulgated by
the legitimate ruler must be obeyed). The ruler sins before God if he intends to harm society
which he commands by his evil laws. But this does not mean that he has thereby lost his
authority. An objectively bad law binds no one, yet subjects must, in conscience, obey as long
as they truly believe them to be good, or even when they have doubts about it! 3
The second sophism consists in leaping from the authority of such a bad law to the
authority of the ruler in general.
The third sophism lies in the attempt to attribute such an absence of authority to the ruler,
objectively provable the moment that it has been noted that a law is objectively bad.
There is, of course, to be seen a moral correlation running throughout all of these
elements, that is to say, the praiseworthy intention of the leader before God, a good law, the
duty of conscientious obedience on the part of the subjects, together with the objective welfare
mistaken. Otherwise we would be forced to acknowledge the personal infallibility (?!) of every
candidate seeking public office or power.
3 This holds as a general rule. We have seen above that many laws contrary to the common good
give rise to legitimate suspicions. At such a moment, doubt can militate against the law.

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or well-being of human society. But there is in no way a metaphysical link here at all.
Here we see sedevacantists theorizing metaphysically in spite of the fact that they are
dealing, in truth, with the physical political order.

THE VERY SAME DEAD-END AS WITH THE DEMONSTRATION OF THE POPE’S

HERESY
A ruler’s authority can be understood either in its relation to 1) God, or 2) the society over
which it is exercised.
1) The ruler (i.e., the person invested with authority) as an individual subject, extends
God’s authority while constituting a channel through which courses the common good when
he objectively desires that good through beneficial laws. The Latin word auctoritas takes its
origin from the Latin root, auctor, meaning he who begets or generates, increases, or adds to.
The right of commanding stems from the good generated. If the ruler enacts laws lacking the
proportionate good or well-being of his subjects (despotism) or which cause damage or injury
to the community (tyranny), he simply has no such right before God, and if he realizes his
fault and is quite conscious of it, he is in the state of sin and has no authority to continue in
such a manner.
2) Does this automatically give his subjects the right of disobeying such a leader? No, not
until they have positive proof or evidence of the evil(s) befalling their community.
The subject’s obedience is not due to the inner dispositions of the leader, but rather to the
law, to the order coming publicly from legitimate authority, together with the necessary
conditions required to make it a law in deed. The social relationship of subject and authority
therefore remains, even in the case of the inner sinful dispositions of the ruler.

THE FATAL FLAW

We have now come to the flaw which warps the Thesis of Cassissiacum: subjects do not owe
obedience to the inner dispositions of their leader, but to the recognized social authority,
legitimate in the social body. Social function is inseparable from legitimacy, while the
conformity of the ruler’s will to the will of God can be separated from the question of his
legitimacy.
American sedevacantists are able to explain this with remarkable precision without
noticing, I suppose, that the entire “proof’ of their theory has thus been struck and dashed to
pieces:

“Every society is a moral person, and by analogy to a physical person, a society has
its intellect and will. Therefore it is possible and it often happens that a fact is able to be
true in the real order, and even most evident, but is not recoguized as such by society. For
example, someone is able to commit a murder, in front of many witnesses. Although the
witnesses know that such a man is a murderer, nevertheless, before the law, he is held as
innocent until he should be condemned by a court of law. In other words, in the eyes of
society, he is not a murderer until he is convicted, even if it is absolutely certain to the
witnesses that he is a murderer.
“Another example: in matrimony a spouse simulates [i.e., pretends— Ed.] consent.
Before God and in reality, there is not a bond of matrimony in this case; but before the
Church, the marriage is valid until it can be proven that the consent was simulated. If the
priest should discover, by the confession of a spouse, that the consent was simulated, he
must forbid the spouses the use of matrimony, because before God the bond does not
exist, although before the Church the bond does exist until it shall be declared null by a
legal declaration... Because of this distinction between a real fact and a legal fact, the
Church—and every society—is distinguished from a mere mob.” (ibid., pp.49,50).

These very precise and apt remarks are aimed at those intending to prove the deposition
of the pope through Canon 188, §4 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law.
American sedevacantists have done an excellent job on the canonical meaning of heretical
notoriety (ibid., pp.62-65; 72-74). In the canonical sense, “notorious heresy” means heresy
acknowledged by society, that is to say, a pertinacious heresy (i.e., persistent and determined
to the point of stubbornness). One’s own personal subjective convictions concerning the
pope’s writings have no social effects.

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This point must be made unmistakably clear: it means, for example, that a priest must
celebrate Mass in union with the pope, no matter what intimate conviction that such a priest
may entertain regarding the pope’s “heresy” or “schism,” since the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass
is not a private prayer, but an act of the Church’s official public worship as such, and the pope
remains pope as long as he be so acknowledged legitimacy. He remains pope before the
public as long as he has not been proven pertinacious. This is why the priests of the Society of
Saint Pius X include the name of the current pope when celebrating Holy Mass.
A heretical pope remains pope as long as he is not pertinacious. Pertinacity is determined
by the public acknowledgment of the heresy by the legitimate authority. Is this possible in the
case of the pope who has no superior here on earth?—Maybe, as in the case of his rejection
from the communion by the moral unanimity of the episcopacy. This is what occurred at the
Council of Constance (1414-1418):
In human society, legitimacy is inseparable from authority. The loss of the one in the
social order entails the loss of the other. The sudden changes and reversals of fortune
encountered, for instance, at the Council of Constance constitute a classic case. Things had
reached a point where, in the eyes of all of the bishops, even in the view of his own
personally-appointed cardinals, a pope’s obstinacy in prolonging the Great Schism was
incompatible with the will to promote the common good, and caused the loss of all legitimacy
and thus all authority. 4
To lose social legitimacy means exactly the same things as to lose authority.
We take our conclusion from the American sedevacantists themselves. As long as the
Catholic episcopacy does nothing, there is no one capable of providing the certainty of
conscience that the presently-reigning pope has been stripped of his authority:

“Our problem today—which is indeed horrendous—is that all the sees of authority,
at least apparently, teach the errors of Vatican II as the magisterium [doubtlessly meaning
here as belonging to the revealed Deposit of Faith—Ed.], and all electors of the pope 5
participate in the errors of Vatican II, in such a way that there is no one who, in a legal
way, is able to recognize or ascertain the fact of error in the magisterium, and therefore
the absence of authority in those who promulgate it.” (ibid., p.51).

THE REAL QUESTION

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. It would
be both easy and cruel to evoke here some of the variations, as well as the successive divisions
fostered by their numerous cliques and the astounding reversals and turnabouts coming from
their inconsistent motives.
But why be so harsh with them? Are not those reproaches which they make regarding the
Pope’s teaching, his pastoral approach, including some erroneous Vatican II teachings, indeed
well-founded? Admittedly, some indulgence could be shown for some theological error
which, for the moment, has but little practical consequences, if we were not to note and
observe the dire consequences brought upon the faithful. We now see only too well what
effects those theological outpourings produce in passionate Catholics. They now have become

4 See Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, article “Constance”; and Le Concile de Constance au jour le jour
[The Council of Constance Day by Day] by P. Glorieux, Desclée, 1964.
5 Here we take up and note one of the many errors of American sedevacantists: They maintain that
legitimacy depends upon the regularity of the election as well as upon the orthodoxy of the voting
cardinals. This is a false and legalistic idea of legitimacy. The enthronement ceremonies serve to clearly
establish the leader’s legitimacy, but do not constitute legitimacy itself. Some popes were installed by
force, for example, by the empress of Constantinople or by factions of Roman nobility (9th and 10th
centuries). They were true popes, however, because their Roman episcopacy was acknowledged and
accepted by the faithful and the Catholic episcopate. The election of Pope Alexander VI Borgia,
although tainted with simony, gives rise to no doubt as to his legitimacy even today. This legitimacy
follows from the de facto acknowledgment of his authority by the Church. Indeed, this is a classic
theological thesis.

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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. [These are the self-titled and self-styled
“home-aloners.”—Ed.]
We used to know truly pious Catholics. After a few years we met them again only to find
them marked by a psychological behavior found in types such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses or
in protestants in general: haughty, understanding everything, seeing everything through their
jaundiced and obsessed eyes, unceasingly shaking their rattles of definitive, final, and
unanswerable arguments which they do not understand themselves. Beware the time when
they lose their God-given Faith and give up on everything.
How can one explain such a breakdown in the Christian spirit? We may well wonder if
sedevacantism may not prove to be even more grave, more serious than it first seemed.
Experience has proved that that which is understood by most of those Catholics won over to
the sedevacantist camp turns out to be quite a simple idea: an unworthy pope is no longer
pope. This strangely resembles the unhinged teachings of Wycliffe and of John Hus: A pope in
the state of mortal sin is no longer pope, a bishop in the state of mortal sin is no longer bishop
having authority in his own diocese, nor does a pastor in such a state have any authority over
his parish. And the same for a king over his country, etc. We may think that John Hus was
sincere in his errors. His death does not seem to be one of a formal heretic. But this fact
changes nothing with regard to the eventual ugly consequences. The followers of Jan Hus
later became bloodthirsty wolves feeding on their exploited fellow citizens as they hunted to
death those bishops, pastors, kings and princes whom they thought were not worthy of life.
Rank speculation? A strange mixture of ideas? Do not be too sure. Let those who know of
the appalling affair of the Institut Cardinal Pie think deeply about this: a half-crazed, self-
appointed leader had applied the Cassissiacum thesis to the French political system. He
preached that those in power had no intention of working for the common wellbeing of their
people, and therefore their power was only a sham, their places in government were vacant
and required being taken over by right-thinking men. “I,” said their leader, “know what is
necessary for the welfare of France. This is my desire and intent and I therefore constitute the
legitimate power of the country.” And thus was founded a secret society levying taxes on its
members, passing judgments by internal tribunals, and spying on its associates. Of course,
such nonsense could not last and soon fell apart. But the sudden appearance and taking form
of such a project and the seduction it was able to exert over intelligent men and women
proves that the spirit of sedevacantism is indeed harmful to souls.

Dionisius

(Abridged and editied by Rev. Fr. Kenneth Novak)

(Translated from Courrier de Rome, April, 1997)