Sedevacantism (pronounced sed-ah- vey-kuhnt-niz-uhm)
In
Christianity, the belief (maintained by a faction of conservative Roman
Catholics) that the present occupant of the Holy See is not the true pope and
the see has been vacant since the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II
(1962-1965)).
Circa
1965: the construct was the Latin phrase sede
vacante + -ism. The
Latin phrase sede vacante (vacant
chair) is from canon law term sedes
vacans which describes the period during which there is no appointee to an episcopal
see. It thus applies to any vacant
bishopric but is most associated with that of the Bishop of Rome (the Roman
Catholic Pope) where it’s part of formal processes associated with any
interregnum. The construct of sedes (seat, chair (and used sometimes
also to mean “place, residence, settlement, habitation, abode”)) was sedeō (I sit) + -ēs (the
suffix used to form a third-declension feminine abstract noun designating the
result of an action from a verb root or conceived root form). Etymologists note that like caedēs (slaughter) from caedō (I kill or cut), sedes is an outlier and like the
proto-Italian, Latin tended not productively
to form nouns from verbs by changing the vowel grade. They consider the word's lengthened grade as
similar to the Proto-Germanic sētiją
(seat) and likely ultimately from a common source although the origin remains
murky. Vacante was the ablative (masculine, feminine & neuter)
singular of vacāns (emptying, vacating;
idling) (genitive vacantis), the present
active participle of vacō. The –ism suffix was from the Ancient Greek
ισμός (ismós) & -isma noun suffixes, often directly,
sometimes through the Latin –ismus
& isma (from where English picked
up ize) and sometimes through the French –isme
or the German –ismus, all
ultimately from the Ancient Greek (where it tended more specifically to express
a finished act or thing done). It
appeared in loanwords from Greek, where it was used to form abstract nouns of
action, state, condition or doctrine from verbs and on this model, was used as
a productive suffix in the formation of nouns denoting action or practice,
state or condition, principles, doctrines, a usage or characteristic, devotion
or adherence (criticism; barbarism; Darwinism; despotism; plagiarism; realism;
witticism etc). Sedevacantism and sedevacantist are
nouns; the common noun plural is Sedevacantists.
Pope
Francis (b 1936; pope since 2013) is a very busy man and it not know if he has
much time to open the Bible but it may be that recently he felt constrained to
turn to Galatians 6:7 and ponder the passage in which Paul the Apostle in his Epistle
to the Galatians wrote: “Be not deceived;
God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” King James Version (KJV, 1611). Francis certainly has been sowing. Recently, the Vatican’s Dicastery for the
Doctrine of the Faith (the DDF, the latest name for the Inquisition) issued a
statement confirming an adult who identifies as transgender can receive the
sacrament of Baptism under the same conditions as any adult, as long as “there
is no risk of causing scandal or confusion to other Catholics”. To clarify the matter, the DDF added that
children or adolescents experiencing transgender identity issues may also
receive Baptism “if well prepared and
willing”. Within days of that
announcement, Francis played host to a group of transgender women (many of them
sex workers or migrants from Latin America) who were among the 1200 impoverished
or homeless who attended a luncheon held in the papal audience hall (the
Vatican Press Office noting the catering extended to “a full meal and dessert”) to mark the Church’s “World Day of the
Poor”. Apparently, the pontiff has been
in contact with the transgender women since he organized assistance for the
during the COVID-19 lockdowns when they were unable to practice their
trade. Meetings are said now to be
monthly with His Holiness providing funds, medicine and shampoo.
A
pope giving shampoo (and hopefully conditioner) to the needy need not be controversial
but news of that largess came at a time when dissent was swirling about the
DDF’s announcement (signed by Francis) which confirmed trans-men & women can
also witness marriages and be named as godparents under certain circumstances. In the tradition of the Inquisition, the
DDF’s document was legalistic although many noticed a vague “clarification”
which seemed rather to verge on the ambiguous: That for individuals with
gender-identity afflictions to be baptized, it must not cause “scandal” or “disorientation”. However,
the very idea seemed to scandalize some bishops and theologians who noted there
had apparently been no change to the Church’s traditional teaching that gender
ideology and transgender lifestyles are a "grave disorder" in need of correction through spiritual and
secular therapy.
The
DDF issued its statement in response to a dubia (a respectful request for
clarification regarding about certain established teachings), one of quite a
few which have ended up in the Vatican’s post-box (dubias are always on paper)
in this pontificate. The most celebrated
of these letters of dissent (the more searchingly serious of which are in
exquisitely polite Latin) were signed by four cardinals and received in
September 2016, asking (1) Whether those
living in sin were now to be granted Holy Communion, (2) Whether the Church had overturned Saint John
Paul II’s (1920–2005; pope 1978-2005)
1993 encyclical Veritatis splendor (The Splendor of the Truth) which laid down
certain fundamentals of the Church's role in moral teaching, (3) Whether there were changes in what
constituted certain sins, (4) Whether
circumstances or intentions can now transform an act intrinsically evil by
virtue of its object into an act subjectively good or defensible as a choice
and (5), Whether the church no longer
excludes any creative interpretation of the role of conscience and now accepts
that conscience can be authorized to permit legitimate exceptions to absolute
moral norms that prohibit intrinsically evil acts by virtue of their object?
Francis
neither acknowledged nor replied to the cardinals' respectful dubia, perhaps
wondering if the long tradition in the Church of England of hoping problems
might go away if one pretends they don’t exist might be the best course to
follow. However, some months later a less
deferential letter arrived in which several dozen Catholic theologians, priests
and academics went further than the cardinals and formally accused Pope Francis
of spreading heresy, a document the like of which hadn't been sent to a pope
since the 1300s. Stunningly, it was one
step short of actually accusing the pontiff of being a heretic.
Apparently unfazed, His Holiness has continued along a path of greater inclusiveness of which “shampoo diplomacy” is a part, dealing with dissenters as he goes. In In November 2023, it was announced he had sacked (“removed from the pastoral care of the diocese” as the Holy See puts such things) US Bishop Joseph Strickland (b 1958; Bishop of the Diocese of Tyler, Texas 2012-2023) and appointed an interim apostolic administrator. Bishop Strickland (appointed to his position in 2012 by Benedict XVI (1927–2022; pope 2005-2013, pope emeritus 2013-2022)) is said to be one of the WWJD (what would Jesus do?) school and on 12 May 2023 had tweeted (ie to the whole world) “I believe Pope Francis is the pope, but it is time for me to say that I reject his program of undermining the Deposit of Faith. Follow Jesus." The tweet was enough for the Vatican to launch an investigation, in response to which on more than one occasion Bishop Strickland asserted he would not voluntarily resign. The investigation was remarkably quick by the standards of the Holy See and early in November a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston revealed the tribunal had advised His Holiness “the continuation in office of Bishop Strickland was not feasible.” The pope requested the bishop resign but he declined, thus the rare sacking. Strickland stating “I believe Pope Francis is the pope” was of some significance, a clear statement he was not a sedevacantist. Sedevacantism is a belief maintained by a faction of conservative Roman Catholics that the present occupant of the Holy See is not the true pope and the see has been vacant since the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II (1962-1965)). The sedevacantists disapprove of the changes in Church rituals, procedures brought about by Vatican II but the essence of their movement is that popes since the death of Pope Pius XII (1876-1958; pope 1939-1958) have espoused one or more heresies.
Pope Francis at the traditional Wednesday General Audience, St. Peter's Square, Vatican City, 8 March 2023.
Dissenters
and sedevacantists are two problems facing the pope but he needs also to deal
with rumblings from those who may well believe they are “working towards Francis” (or at least where they would like Francis
to go). What shampoo diplomacy seems to
have done is unleash forces which would like to impose on the Church a “modernizing”
beyond anything which would have been recognizable as an implication of Vatican
II. In late October 2023, the Vatican
acted with rare decisiveness to block attempts by German prelates to change
doctrine regarding homosexual relationships and female clergy. Sedevacantism wasn’t mentioned by Rome by the
other “S word” appeared, the German hierarchy warned they were “approaching schism” in their moves to
diverge from the Catholic Church's teachings and that “radical propositions” such as the approval of homosexual
relationships and the ordination of women priests must be abandoned.
What
presumably also miffed Rome was that the objectionable German document was
entitled “German Synodal Way”,
something chosen deliberately as a reference to Pope Francis's global “Synod on Synodality”. That was either cheeky or provocative but
having sown the wind, Francis is reaping the whirlwind; having given the
Germans ideas, he now has to draw the line and draw it he did, telling the
bishops in Bonn that regarding the matters they are contesting: “there is no possibility of arriving at a
different assessment”, adding it “…must
be made clear from the outset that these issues are of varying relevance and
cannot all be placed on the same level.”
Whether or not it much mollified the Germans, it was further noted that
while some matters cannot even be discussed, other “…aspects can be subjected to joint in-depth discussion.”
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