Tradovacantism? A Correct Understanding of Obedience
Editor’s Note: Fr. Gleize wrote an article directly preceding this one in the April, 2024, Courrier de Rome. It was entitled “Both Schismatics and Heretics” and had as its purpose the explanation of an article that appeared on the Fraternity of St. Peter’s website and was written by Fr. Vernier, FSSP. In the article, Fr. Vernier claims that the position of the SSPX is an occult sedevacantism that inevitably leads to an “ecclesiovacantism” where the Church is no longer what she has always been. He also distinguishes four different positions on obedience to the Vatican II hierarchy: 1) the FSSP, which acknowledges the existence of the hierarchy and its right to be obeyed, except when there is abuse of power; 2) the SSPX, which “considers that obedience to the ecclesiastical hierarchy…does not pertain to faith in the Church but rather to her discipline, which is not an end in itself but can undergo some strains in a case of necessity”; 3) sedevacantists: those who hold that there has not been a Pope for some period of time; 4) sedeprivationists: those who say that the Pope holds his office materially but not formally.
Obedience—even that due to the Vicar of Christ—is a moral virtue belonging to the virtue of justice and as such, it resides in a happy medium.1 Indeed, moral virtue is the source of a properly human action accomplished with all the required perfection, the perfection of a being endowed with reason—and we know that “perfect reason flees all extremes.” Obedience is therefore in the middle ground “between excess and defect,” says Thomas Aquinas. Its object is none other than the legitimate precept (or commandment) of a human superior.2 This precept demands obedience as its due—and this obedience accomplishes a work of justice—precisely to the extent that it is legitimate, that is to say, precisely to the extent that it is the expression of the government of God, who governs inferior creatures not directly by Himself, but through the intermediary of superior creatures.3 The moment the precept is no longer the exact expression of this divine government, obedience ceases for lack of an object. Demanding or granting submission of the will to such a precept is in this case a sinful attitude, opposed by excess to the good of true obedience.
As such, obedience correctly understood, virtuous obedience, in and of itself excludes, as Fr. Hilaire Vernier writes, “submission to any abuse of power,”4 even when this abuse comes from the hierarchy of the Church. An abuse of power, explains St. Thomas, can occur in two ways.5 First of all, when the precept of the human superior contradicts a precept of a higher superior, e.g. when the commandment of a man contradicts a commandment of God: there is no obedience possible to a government that legitimizes acts contrary to the natural divine law or the Decalogue, for example, euthanasia or abortion. Secondly, when the precept of the human superior pertains to a realm that does not belong to him, for it would encroach upon the private sphere and the physical or moral autonomy of the individual: there is no obedience possible towards a government that seeks to force families to limit themselves to a certain number of children or that controls their private life by placing cameras in their homes (and even in their bathrooms). St. Thomas resorts in this case, along with Seneca, to the authority of common sense: “Errat si quis existimat servitutem in totum hominem descendere—It would be an error to seek to impose the weight of one’s authority on the whole man,” on every area and every domain of an individual’s life.
Different Positions Poorly Underthisstood
What then is the difference between position #1 that Fr. Vernier presents as that of the Ecclesia Dei communities, and position #2 that he attributes to the Society of St. Pius X? What difference is there between the obedience of the Fraternity of St. Peter that he considers virtuous because it excludes “submission to any abuse of power” and the position of the disciples of Abp. Lefebvre, for whom the principle of obedience remains but does not apply concretely “in the case of a crisis provoked by the hierarchy”? Let’s be serious: Father is playing with words here. Or more precisely, the Society of St. Pius X takes virtue all the way by not applying the principle of obedience in the face of the generalized abuse of power habitually raging in the Holy Church of God since the Second Vatican Council, whereas the Fraternity of St. Peter, admits the just limits of obedience in theory and oversteps them in practice. More profoundly still, it all depends on the precise nature of this “crisis provoked by the hierarchy.” Is it or is it not a sufficiently grave and habitual abuse of power for obedience to come up against serious limits?
Far more radically still, in the intention of the Society of St. Pius X, it is not a principle that remains in theory but must not be applied in practice. It is the principle itself that does not cease but rather continues to apply, in practice, all the way, by reason of all its requirements. For it is the very principle of the virtue that reproves all the defects and all the excesses that are opposed to it, and thus it is obedience itself that commands us to reject the novelties introduced into the Church with the last Council. This is what Abp. Lefebvre said in a spiritual conference at Ecône on April 10, 1981: “There is no one as attached to obedience to the Magisterium of the Pope, of the councils and of the bishops as we are. We, we are most attached to the Church I think, I hope, and we wish to be the most attached to the Magisterium of the Pope, of the councils and of the bishops. And it is precisely because we are attached to this Magisterium that we cannot accept a magisterium that is not faithful to the Magisterium of all time.”6
This ability to discern within a principle all the potentialities it bears and to draw the appropriate practical conclusions for exceptional circumstances is a particular form of prudence, analyzed as such by St. Thomas. “Now it sometimes happens,” he says, “that something has to be done which is not covered by the common rules of actions. Hence it is necessary to judge of such matters according to higher principles than the common laws…and corresponding to such higher principles it is necessary to have a higher virtue of judgment, which is called gnome, and which denotes a certain discrimination in judgment.”7 And he proceeds to add, “It belongs to Divine Providence alone to consider all things that may happen beside the common course. On the other hand, among men, he who is most discerning can judge a greater number of such things by his reason: this belongs to gnome, which denotes a certain discrimination in judgment.”8 Every evaluation of the “crisis provoked by the hierarchy” depends on this, and this is extremely important.
For the different positions enumerated by Fr. Vernier were all born in the post-Vatican II context, that is to say, in circumstances that everyone agrees—increasingly so with Pope Francis—as being exceptional. This is precisely why these positions cannot possibly find their profound explanation purely in doctrine. One thing is clear: none of the positions enumerated intends to question the fundamental dogmas on the nature and properties of the Church that our good Father reiterates with all the ingenuousness of a reinventor of the wheel. All those who adhere to these different positions profess their faith in the Catholic dogma of the indefectibility of the Church, and it is precisely in the name of this dogma that they seek to justify in one way or another their course of action in the aforementioned extraordinary context.
It would therefore be vain, if not ridiculous, to brandish the eternal pet theme of “ecclesiovacantism” and evoke the specter of heresy or schism. For the facts are what they are, and they are simple and clear. After introducing indifferentism and liberalism into the preaching and pastoral approach of the hierarchy of the Church on the pretext of ecumenism and religious liberty, the present Pope and the majority of the bishops are now expanding this liberalism to morals. The gravity of the situation is clear to more than a few among the Catholics of official obedience and the days when only the late Abp. Lefebvre and his young disciples denounced the “Rome of neo-modernist and neo-Protestant tendencies” are a thing of the past. Twice now conservative cardinals have presented Pope Francis with Dubia, first in 2016 regarding propositions they deemed dubious in Amoris Laetitia and again in 2023 regarding various propositions that create problems in the relationship between Divine Revelation and the ecclesiastical Magisterium. To these we can add the Correctio Filialis signed by sixty-two Catholic clergy and laymen in 2017, denouncing as heretical seven propositions in the Exhortation Amoris Laetitia and asking the Holy Father to condemn them promptly and clearly—not to mention the recent reactions to the Declaration Fiducia Supplicans.9 Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Pope Francis’ own Secretary of State, considers that this document “aroused very strong reactions” and consequently will “require further investigation.” Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, former prefect of the ex-Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, maintains that “blessing a reality contrary to creation is not only impossible, but a blasphemy” and that consequently, a priest who blesses a homosexual couple would commit a “sacrilege.” Cardinal Robert Sarah said that this Declaration constitutes a “heresy that gravely undermines the Church.” Cardinal Joseph Zen, bishop emeritus of Hong Kong, recommends that the author of this text, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, resign. The Dominicans of the province of Toulouse voiced their criticism in the Revue thomiste. Fr. Emmanuel Perrier judges the text of Fiducia supplicans to be “incoherent, a contradiction of the Magisterium, and a source of confusion,”10 and this verdict did not go unnoticed in the official Catholic press, since journalist Matthieu Lasserre felt obliged to mention it in the newspaper La Croix.11 As for Fr. Thomas Michelet, professor of theology at the Pontifical University Angelicum, he echoed Fr. Perrier’s reservations in his assessment of the Declaration12 and did not hesitate to express very insistent concerns.
Excessive Zeal
There is doubtless something chivalrous about Fr. Vernier’s zeal and the ardor with which he sets out to slay anything that could seem to cast doubt or danger on the dogma of the indefectibility of the Church and her visibility. In other circumstances, it would merit unreserved approval. Unfortunately, this zeal and this ardor seem clearly out of proportion in the light of the circumstances of the crisis that continues to go from bad to worse in Holy Mother Church. In this context, both the theologian and the simple faithful have to be wary of a double danger.13 This is the very same danger that the good and faithful servant of the Gospel successfully avoids. As we wrote elsewhere, he “is praised by the Lord for having been not only faithful but prudent. Faith and prudence, far from excluding one another, must lend each other mutual support. One cannot be perfect or even true without the other. Faith without prudence degenerates into fanaticism. Prudence without faith degenerates into liberalism.”14 The fanaticism of a faith devoid of prudence finds its expression in all of those who fail to understand the full implications of the circumstances in which the necessary principles—and in this case dogmas, like that of the indefectibility of the Church—must find their realization. It is a fanaticism of those who fail to understand the full gravity of the errors introduced into the preaching and pastoral care of the clergy by the Second Vatican Council, because they fail to understand the exceptional situation where those who hold authority are the ones responsible for the heresies: it is rash to conclude that the Pope is no longer Pope, like the sedevacantists, or that all contact with the Rome of today must be refused, as the disciples of the so-called “Resistance” claim. It is a fanaticism, too, of those who fail to understand that it is indeed those who hold authority who are backing all the novelties introduced during and since the Council, because they fail to fully understand the harm these novelties cause to the faith of Catholics and the unspeakable gravity of the errors for which they prepare the way: it is just as rash to conclude that no opposition should be manifested in the face of the abusive acts of the so-called legitimate authority, and this is the sort of rashness that underlies the comments of Fr. Vernier.
Say what he will, it remains true that the present circumstances in which Catholics are called to profess their Faith present a double and apparently insoluble difficulty that cannot be escaped by simply recalling the dogma of the indefectibility of the Church. “If the Pope,” we wrote elsewhere, “falls into heresy or at least habitually opens the door to heresy, one of two things must be true. Either he ceases to be Pope and Catholics recognize as the Church of Christ a Church deprived of a visible head. Or he remains Pope and Catholics recognize as the Church of Christ a Church whose visible head gravely and habitually compromises the Catholic Faith. On the doctrinal level, that is to say, as far as conformity with the contents of Revelation goes, neither of these two conclusions is acceptable. In pure theory and to remain in conformity with the elementary contents of his catechism, a Catholic can recognize as the true Church of Christ: neither a Church habitually bereft of a visible head, nor a Church habitually endowed with a visible head who paves the way for heresy.”15 In other words, the dogma of the indefectibility of the Church must go hand in hand with the dogma of her sanctity, and principally the sanctity of her doctrine. And the present circumstances seem to oblige Catholics to conclude that one excludes the other, which is evidently absurd.
This is why we intentionally used the term “rash” to qualify the attitude of those who, like this priest of the Fraternity of St. Peter, wish, in the name of dogma, to decree solutions that are too simplistic—or at least to anathematize certain positions inspired by reflections even remotely attentive to the situation. Precipitation is indeed a sinful attitude, opposed to the virtue of prudence,16 and it is rooted in another sinful attitude, that of thoughtlessness,17 that is to say, in a flawed understanding of the concrete circumstances of one’s action. These circumstances are what must command to a large degree a theologian’s reflections as well as those of the simple faithful, in these doldrums of the post-Vatican II era.
Sedevacantism
This is why, if we wish to offer as adequate as possible an evaluation of the theory of “Sedevacantism,” in the broadest sense of the word—including not only the most absolute form, but also its mitigated form—it is important to make certain distinctions.18
Doubtless, yes, ultimately, the position that refuses to recognize, even momentarily, due to extraordinary circumstances, the reality of a visible head at the head of the whole Church, leads to schism and heresy. But it only leads to it and is not directly so in and of itself. Indeed, as we wrote elsewhere, “the sedevacantist position is a refusal not in principle but de facto, for it is explained by the circumstances resulting from the Second Vatican Council.”19 Sedevacantism is defined precisely as “the refusal to be in communion with the present occupant of the Holy See of Rome, that is to say, not with just any occupant of this Holy See, but with those occupants considered to have at present a habitual and objective intention contrary to the common good of the Church.” This attitude is therefore not properly and formally a schism. It represents first of all and formally, directly, a sin against prudence. It does not represent a direct and immediate sin against the unity of the Church, which is a fruit of charity, even if, in those who adhere to it, it can lead to a schismatic mindset and in the long run to a schism properly speaking.
Doubtless, too, it is a heresy to refuse to profess that the bishop of Rome is the head of the entire Church, and that is a grave sin against the Faith. However, it is important to note that heresy, to be directly, formally and immediately such, must consist here in denying a universal and necessary proposition. To be a heresy, it has to profess that no bishop of Rome is the head of the entire Church. “The sedevacantist position, for its part, denies a particular and contingent proposition, for it expresses a judgment conditioned by circumstances. Heresy affirms in principle that the bishop of Rome cannot be the head of the Church. Sedevacantism affirms that de facto a given person elected as bishop of Rome has not received the sovereign pontificate. It does not deny that he could eventually receive it or that others may have and have indeed received it.”20 A position of this sort is therefore not directly heretical in an immediate and formal manner. It represents at most a sin against prudence, not a sin against the Faith.
Regardless, the sin is indeed grave and even extremely grave. Archbishop Lefebvre did not fail to point this out. “The question of the visibility of the Church is too necessary for her existence for God to be able to omit it for decades,” he told his seminarians in the years following the Council. “The argument of those who claim the non-existence of the Pope places the Church in an inextricable situation.”21 He even wrote one day to Fr. Guérard des Lauriers to explain why he reproved the latter’s attitude: “In my practical attitude, it is not the non-existence of the Pope that serves as a foundation for my conduct but the defense of the Catholic Faith. But you believe yourself obliged in conscience to base your position on this principle that unfortunately is a source of trouble and violent divisions, which I am determined to avoid.”22 What he reproached him for was first and foremost a lack of prudence. “If you have evidence of the legal fall from office of Pope Paul VI, I understand your subsequent logic. But personally, I have a serious doubt and not any absolute evidence.”23 We can clearly see that Abp. Lefebvre’s entire attitude, perpetuated today by the Society of St. Pius X, was always inspired first and foremost by prudence. “So long as I do not have evidence,” said Abp. Lefebvre another time, “that the Pope is not the Pope, I have a presumption in his favor, for the Pope. I do not say that there cannot be arguments that can raise certain doubts in certain cases. But there has to be evidence that it is more than a doubt, a valid doubt. If the argument is doubtful, we have no right to draw enormous conclusions!”24
Abp. Lefebvre always rejected the sedevacantist theory. He saw it as a grave error, but in his eyes, it was above all an error of imprudence. The most explicit explanation from Abp. Lefebvre on the matter was given in his conference on October 5, 1978. He declared that his position was dictated by prudence, not by any absolute dogmatic position. “This does not mean,” he added, after expressing his position, “that I am absolutely certain that I am right in my position. I only adhere to it in a prudential manner, with a prudence that I hope is the wisdom of God, that I hope is the gift of counsel, in a word, supernatural prudence. It is on these grounds that I take up my position, I would say, more than on purely theological and purely theoretical grounds.” With this, doubt remains possible, since on the practical level, it is not always possible to act with absolute certainty. There remains in spite of everything a certain margin of uncertainty, a certain amount of hesitation, but it is insufficient to call into question the position which is considered to be “sure,” the safest position in light of the circumstances.
Where, then, does this margin of hesitation, and with it, this doubt, come from? The doubt is authorized by all this new preaching, this whole new pastoral approach that, ever since Vatican II, is increasingly denying in its acts the Tradition of the Church and increasingly opening the doors to heresy and apostasy. In the face of these facts, a peaceful recognition of the election of the Pope remains what it is: not the cause but a sign of the Pope’s legitimacy. It cannot offer anything more than a probability and it expresses only the sureness of prudence in the light of all the other circumstances. And this is where the hesitation (for doubt is nothing other than a hesitation and certainly not a probability of the opposite hypothesis) remains legitimate, precisely in the light of these circumstances that are exterior to the election and to its apparently peaceful recognition. Here again, Fr. Vernier’s peremptory arguments fall short due to their failure to assess the importance of these circumstances accurately.
The Society of Saint Pius X
The position—#2 according to Fr. Vernier—that has always been that of the Society of St. Pius X is no such thing, precisely because it is not a “position,” in the sense of a dogmatic principle. And it is on this point, at the very outset of his analysis, that the thurifer of the Ecclesia Dei movement goes wrong—originally, we might say—on the exact nature of the difficulty to be resolved. Consequently, the solution will not be to uphold one dogmatic principle, that of the indefectibility of the Church, against another, that of a “position” accused of denying, be it only practically or implicitly, the aforesaid principle. This solution is false because the elements of the problem were previously distorted, because poorly understood. It is a problem that, according to the Society of St. Pius X, is essentially situated on a practical and prudential level, but is turned into a dogmatic problem by this priest of the Fraternity of St. Peter. From this point on, his analysis can only miss the true attitude of Abp. Lefebvre and his followers. In common language, this is called being “off topic.” The good Aristotle saw this as the sophism of “ignoratio elenchi,” in which the author of the argument fails to understand the true nature of the problem at hand.
“We do not reject the authority of the Pope but what he does.”25 There is an immense difference between saying that the Pope is not Pope and saying that the Pope is not acting as Pope. The first claim is that made by Sedevacantism and it is radical, for it does not allow for the possibility of an action by the Pope, since it does not admit the very being of the Pope, from which his action must flow. The second affirmation is that of the Society of St. Pius X and it is the expression of a prudence that remains attentive to the facts, for, admitting the being of the Pope, it admits the possibility of an action by the Pope, even if it takes into account the fact that the Pope, infected by the errors of neo-modernism, is not acting as Pope. Even if this modernist action of the Pope that paralyzes his action as Pope, remains so prevalent that the Pope almost never acts as Pope, the reason that brings the Society not to obey the Pope is fundamentally different from the reason behind sedevacantism.
The eternal pet theme of “ecclesiovacantism” could easily—all too easily, in fact—turn against its author. Too desirous of avoiding a vacancy in the Church, one ends up condoning, unconsciously of course, the vacancy of her doctrine, the vacancy of her Tradition—and even, today, with Pope Francis, the vacancy of her moral theology. That is the risk the theologians of the Ecclesia Dei movement are taking, but it is a risk inherent in the genesis of these communities said to be of “traditional tendency,” with the motu proprio Ecclesia Dei adflicta on July 2, 1988,26 to which they owe their name.
In his treatise on the virtue of obedience, St. Thomas Aquinas observes that man can consider pursuing two very different benefits.27 These include the benefit that man is necessarily bound to obtain, for example, loving God “or something of the sort”—and this brings to mind the necessity of professing the Catholic Faith, as well as the benefit of recognizing a visible head of the Church. And the Angelic Doctor rightly declares that a benefit of this sort can in no way be omitted out of obedience…We leave it to the readers of Courrier de Rome to judge what would be the best attitude to adopt so as not to omit, not even out of obedience, either of these two benefits, that of the complete Faith and that of the visibility of the Pope. In any event, it seems incontrovertible that the theology of Fr. Vernier fails in this respect.
Endnotes
1 Summa theologiae, 2a-2ae, question 104, article 2, ad 2.
2 Ibid., article 2, corpus.
3 Ibid., article 1, corpus.
4 See article “Et schismatiques et hérétiques” in this same issue of Courrier de Rome.
5 Summa theologiae, 2a-2ae, question 104, article 5, corpus.
6 Vatican II: l’autorité d’un concile en question, chapter XVIII, Revue “Vu de haut” §13, p. 50.
7 Summa theologiae, 2a-2ae, question 51, article 4, corpus.
8 Ibid., ad 3.
9 See the page “Fiducia supplicans” in the digital encyclopedia Wikipedia, https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiducia_supplicans, and the article published on the website FSSPX Actualités on Jan. 25, 2024: https://fsspx.ch/fr/nezs/la-revue-thomiste-critique-severement-fiducia-supplicans-42090.
10 Emmanuel Perrier, O.P., “Fiducia supplicans face au sens de la foi” article published on Jan. 23, 2024, on the website of the Revue thomiste https://revuethomiste.fr/contenu-editorial/chroniques/lumieres-et-grains-de-sel/fiducia-supplicans-face-au-sens-de-la-foi.
11 Matthieu Lasserre, “Bénédiction des couples homosexuels: les dominicains de Toulouse entrent dans le débat” in La Croix, Jan. 24, 2024.
12 Thomas Michelet, O.P., “Peut-on bénir Fiducia supplicans ?” article published on Jan. 23, 2024, on the website of the Revue thomiste https://revuethomiste.fr/contenu-editorial/chroniques/lumieres-et-grains-de-sel/peut-on-benir-fiducia-supplicans.
13 Cf. the articles published in the Aug-Sept issue of Courrier de Rome: “Les cornes d’un dilemme,” “Réfutations,” “L’Eglise est-elle visible?,” as well as the article “Fidelis servus et prudens” in the May 2019 issue of the same paper.
14 Article “Fidelis servus et prudens” in the May 2019 issue of Courrier de Rome, §1.
15 Article “Les cornes d’un dilemma” in the Aug-Sept 2020 issue of Courrier de Rome, §17.
16 Summa theologiae, question 53, article 3.
17 Ibid., article 4.
18 See article “L’occupant du Saint-Siège de Rome est-il aujourd’hui réellement Pape?” in the Feb. 2016 issue of Courrier de Rome.
19 Ibid., §18.
20 Ibid., §19.
21 Abp. Lefebvre, Conference in Econe, Oct. 5, 1978.
22 Abp. Lefebvre, Réponse écrite au Père Guérard des Lauriers.
23 Ibid.
24 Abp. Lefebvre, Conference in Econe, Jan. 16, 1979.
25 Abp. Lefebvre “La visibilité de l’Eglise et la situation actuelle” in Fideliter n. 66, Nov-Dec 1988.
26 See article” Et schismatiques et hérétiques” in the present issue of Courrier de Rome.
27 Summa theologiae, 2a2ae, question 104, article 3, ad 3.