The Bishop in the pulpit during the conference

Conference on Sedevacantism St Michael the Archangel Chapel Jacksonville Trinity Sunday (May 22nd 2005) After Sunday Mass Bishop Fulham gave a presentation on the  errors of sedevacantism and answered the questions of parishioners.  Some startling revelations (from one of the parishioners  who has "inside" information) about another Traditional group's  most welcome slide away from this error are made during the conference. Play audio by clicking here THE TEXTS BELOW ARE THE CONFERENCE TEXTS  REFERENCED IN THE AUDIO FILE AND ARE REPRODUCED  SO THAT YOU CAN FOLLOW ALONG

Primacy of St. Peter and His Successors:

[Canon]. If anyone then says that it is not from the institution of Christ the Lord Himself, or by divine right that the blessed Peter has perpetual successors in the primacy over the universal Church, or that the Roman Pontiff is not the successor of blessed Peter in the same primacy, let him be anathema. [Denz 1825] (My emphasis).

1. Argument of exclusion: by a process of elimination. Since Christ decreed that Peter should have a never-ending line of successors in the primacy, there must always have been and there must still be someone in the Church who wields his primacy. But aside from the Roman pontiff, no one has ever seriously, or with any semblance of truth, put himself forward as Peter’s successor; and no one else has ever been acknowledged as such. Therefore one must admit either that the Roman pontiff wields Peter’s primacy, or else that this primacy, contrary to Christ’s will, has passed out of existence.

Dogmatic Theology - Volume II Christ's Church, Msgr G. Van Noort, S.T.D., Mercier Press, Cork , 1958 p 75

There must, therefore, always be somewhere in the true Church a successor of St. Peter who is supreme and infallible. Who is that supreme and infallible successor? Can he be determined or not? If not, then Christ the God of infinite wisdom has appointed for His Church a supreme ruler and infallible mouthpiece that can nowhere be found. If not, then contrary to the express promise of Christ, the visible Head of the Church has vanished utterly from the Church!

Where is the Church ? Rev Charles Coupe S.J., Catholic Truth Society, 1900

II. CAN THE POPE BE A HERETIC?

Thus far we have been discussing Catholic teaching. It may be useful to add a few points about purely theological opinions— opinions with regard to the pope when he is not speaking ex cathedra. All theologians admit that the pope can make a mistake in matters of faith and morals when so speaking: either by pro­posing a false opinion in a matter not yet defined, or by innocently differing from some doctrine already defined. Theologians disagree, however, over the question of whether the pope can become a formal heretic by stubbornly clinging to an error in a matter already defined. The more probable and respectful opinion, fol­lowed by Suárez, Bellarmine and many others, holds that just as God has not till this day ever permitted such a thing to happen, so too he never will permit a pope to become a formal and public heretic.

Dogmatic Theology - Volume II Christ's Church, Monsignor G. Van Noort, S.T.D., Mercier Press, Cork , 1958 p 294

III. CAN WE JUDGE THE POPE ?

Commenting upon canon 1556 of the old code of Canon Law (can. 1404 - 1983 Code), the eminent canonist Fr. Augustine writes as follows:

“The first or primatial see is subject to no one’s judgment. This proposition must be taken in the fullest extent, not only with regard to the object of infallibility. For in matters of faith and morals it was always customary to receive the final sentence from the Apostolic See, whose judgment no one dared to dispute as the tradition of the Fathers demonstrates. Neither was it ever allowed to reconsider questions or controversies once settled by the Holy See. But even the person of the Supreme Pontiff was ever considered as unamenable to human judgment, he being responsible and answerable to God alone, even though accused of personal misdeeds and crimes. (…) “God wished the causes of other men to be decided by men; but He has reserved to His own tribunal, without question, the ruler of this see.” No further argument for the traditional view is required. A general council could not judge the Pope, because, unless convoked or ratified by him, it could not render a valid sentence. Hence nothing is left but an appeal to God, who will take care of His Church and its head.”

A Commentary on the New Code of Canon Law Vol VII Rev. P.C. Augustine O.S.B., Herder, 1923 Pp 11 & 12 

The Will of Christ – The Will of the Man

This vocation is shown in a three-fold splendour: (...) finally, his obedience to the will of Jesus Christ, who alone rules through the Pope and governs the Church according to his own pleasure, for the sake of that glory which is supreme on earth as in the eternal heavens. The humble Pope’s most sacred duty is to purify all his own intentions in this light of glory, and to live according to the teaching and grace of Christ so as to deserve the greatest honour of all, the imitation, as his Vicar, of the perfection of Christ; of Christ crucified and, at the price of his blood, Redeemer of the world, of Christ the Rabbi, the Master, the only true Teacher of all ages and peoples.

Journal of A Soul -  John XXIII, New York, 1964 pp 310 & 311

“The skandalon and the rock”

"We have seen that the New Testament as a whole strikingly demonstrates the primacy of Peter; we have seen that the formative development of tradition and of the Church supposed the continuation of Peter's authority in Rome as an intrinsic condition. The Roman primacy is not an invention of the popes, but is an essential element of ecclesial unity that goes back to the Lord and was developed faithfully in the nascent Church. But the New Testament shows us more than the formal aspect of a structure; it also reveals to us the inward nature of this structure. It does not merely furnish proof texts, it is a permanent criterion and task. It depicts the tension between skandalon and rock; in the very disproportion between man's capacity and God's sovereign disposition, it reveals God to be the one who truly acts and is present. If in the course of history the attribution of such authority to men could repeatedly engender the not entirely unfounded suspicion of human arrogation of power, not only the promise of the New Testament but also the trajectory of that history itself prove the opposite. The men in question are so glaringly, so blatantly unequal to this function that the very empowerment of a man to be the rock make evident how little it is they who sustain the Church but God alone who does so, who does so more in spite of men than through them. The mystery of the Cross is perhaps nowhere so palpably present as in the primacy as a reality of Church history. That its center is forgiveness is both intrinsic condition and the sign of the distinctive character of God's power. Every single biblical logion about the primacy thus remains from generation to generation a signpost and a norm, to which we must ceaselessly resubmit ourselves. When the Church adheres to these words in faith, she is not being triumphalistic but humbly recognizing in wonder and thanksgiving the victory of God over and through human weakness. Whoever deprives these words of their force for fear of triumphalism or human usurpation of authority does not proclaim that God is greater but diminishes him, since God demonstrates the power of his love, and thus remains faithful to the law of the history of salvation, precisely in the paradox of human impotence. For with the same realism with which we declare today the sins of the popes and their disproportion to the magnitude of their commission, we must also acknowledge that Peter has repeatedly stood as the rock against ideologies, against the dissolution of the word into the plausibilities of a given time, against subjection to the powers of this world.

When we see this in the facts of history, we are not celebrating men but praising the Lord, who does not abandon the Church and who desired to manifest that he is the rock through Peter, the little stumbling stone: "flesh and blood" do not save, but the Lord saves those who are of flesh and blood. To deny this truth is not a plus of faith, not a plus of humility, but is to shrink from the humility that recognizes God as he is. Therefore the Petrine promise and its historical embodiment in Rome remain at the deepest level an ever-renewed motive for joy: the powers of hell will not prevail against it..."

Called to Communion - Understanding the Church Today, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Ignatius, 1996 pp 72- 74  

Copyright© Our Lady of Fatima Spring Hill, 10401 Spring Hill Drive, Spring Hill, Florida, 34608, USA