Who are the real sedevacantists?

by Chris Lauer

I recently ran across a radio broadcast that was run on an ABC Radio affiliate (transcript below).

This is typical of the media—poorly researched sloppy reporting where journalists just makes up facts--out of laziness--that fit within their Marxist deconstructionist world-view. But what is interesting about this story is that it represents a recent trend where the secular media appears to be increasingly threatened by traditional liturgical reforms inside the Catholic Church.

TRANSCRIPT EXCERPT


"Among the many changes stemming from Vatican II, Pope John XXIII did away with the Latin mass, but there is a small minority within the Catholic Church who like things the way they were.

"... they call themselves Sedevacantists. It's just from the Latin sede vacante, "the seat is empty", that is the Papal seat, so basically they deny the legitimacy of the Pope.

"They tend to insist on the necessity for Latin in the mass. They see that as a kind of sacred language. They are also highly critical and non-accepting of any reforms to the liturgy and the worship of the Church. So they want to say mass in the old style. They tend to hang onto old style vestments - all that kind of thing."

END OF TRANSCRIPT

Of course the problem with this is that Pope John XXIII did not "do away with the Latin Mass" as this journalist claims. Pope John XXIII died shortly after the start of the Second Vatican Council, so it would have been quite difficult for him to "do away" with anything after Vatican II. And just prior to Pope John XXIII's death in 1963, he issued the Apostolic Constitution Veterum Sapientia on the specific subject of promoting the Latin language.

Well surely Pope Paul VI must have done away with Latin after the Second Vatican Council. Here again this journalist would have been rebuffed. Pope Paul VI statement on the matter came in his Apostolic Letter Sacrificium Laudis, where he wrote, "The Latin language is assuredly worthy of being defended with great care instead of being scorned..."

Even the Second Vatican Council did not change Latin as the ordinary language of the Mass or the official language of the Catholic Church. The Council document that addresses this subject, The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, states "Particular law remaining in force, the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites" (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 36.1). As such, Latin is today, as it has always been, the norm. The fact that it is hardly used these days, is a matter of liturgical abuse and not one of policy.

For this journalist to try to portray faithful Catholics as schismatics or sedevacantists is a bit silly. Pope Benedict XVI himself is one of those faithful Catholics who wants to see Latin restored in the Church. And for him to effect this restoration, no changes are necessary. It is just a matter of disciplining the forces who have taken advantage of the Church during turbulent times.

While there are plenty of dissenting groups out there who deny the authority of the Supreme Pontiff, all but a very small fraction of them are liberal Catholics who reject Church teachings on social issues such as abortion, artificial contraception, in vitro fertilization, and homosexual behavior, (basically the entire platform of the Democratic Party USA).

For certain there is a renewal brewing in the Church that will hopefully correct many of the liturgical abuses of the past forty years. What is fascinating to see, however, is how the secular media is growing increasingly hostile to the Church faithful for matters that really should be nothing more than liturgical minutia inside the Catholic Church. What stake do they have in such matters? It is a curious question... If the devil is protesting this much, then maybe these faithful Catholics are on to something. Maybe the devil has a vested interest in seeing that these abuses are not corrected.