Sedevacantists are a small minority within Catholicism who hold that Vatican II was illegitimate and so current Popes and the current Catholic church are shams.
They base this, as I understand it, on three ideas. Firstly, the changes passed at Vatican II, particularly the removal of the doctrine of Extra ecclesiam nulla salus (nothing saved outside the Church, or two fingers to ecumenism) as this means the Church no longer has a unique mission. Secondly, new procedures and practices, such as the Paul VI Mass, are held to be in conflict with established Catholic practice. Thirdly, they regard Paul VI as a heretic and therefore unable to be Pope, even if he appears to be in the role, and consider his successors – John Paul I, John Paul II and the current Benedict XVI – to be antipopes. They therefore consider the Chair of St Peter to be empty; sede vacante – empty chair – is the term used by the Catholic Church for the period between the death of one Pope and the coronation of the next.
All this stems from Vatican II (1962-65). Despite their irrelevance to contemporary debates within Catholicism, the presence of traditionalist Catholics within the Church and poor understanding of history, they carry on promulgating their beliefs that the Catholic Church is not Catholic and that the Pope is a fraud.
Compare and contrast with the birther movement in the USA. Wikipedia has a rather nice definition of birther from Rachel Maddow:
a specific new breed of American conspiracy theorists who believe that the real problem with Barack Obama being president is that he can’t possibly have been born in the United States. He’s not eligible to be president. The birth certificate is a fake. He’s a foreigner. Once this has been exposed, I guess, he will be run out of the White House and exposed for the alien, communist, Muslim, gay, drug dealer, al-Qaeda member that he is
I do wonder if in years to come, we will see something like sedevacantism over Obama. It is easy enough to make the transposition; Vatican II is replaced with the 2008 election (doubtless vitiated by the liberal media), Paul VI is replaced with Obama and all subsequent decisions are illegitimate, as Obama does not have the capacity (in birthers’ eyes) to be President and any officials, including Supreme Court Justice, appointed by him do not ‘really’ hold their posts. While they retain their love for America, they see its administration as illegitimate and the line of constitutional authority, rather than the line of papal succession, as broken and America loses its unique mission.
xD.
Sedevacantists are a small minority within Catholicism who hold that Vatican II was illegitimate and so current Popes and the current Catholic church are shams.
There’s a large body of documentation supporting this and it’s caused enormous headaches for the church in its implications. [I’m not Catholic.]
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Please don’t tell me you’re a birther, James…
The Sedevacantists have a series of problems with their philosophy – confusing papal statements with statements ex cathedra, the catholic (worldwide) nature of the Catholic Church and church infallibility based on Biblical teaching – and with their practice, in that there are those who don’t like Vatican II but remain in communion.
Aw man, thanks for bringing these guys to my attention! I like how they are the extreme breakaway sect of Society of Pope Pius V, who are the extreme breakaway sect of SSPX, who are themselves a breakaway sect. That’s pretty much the lulz.
I think that, much like this lot, the birthers are going to be around for some time and will use Obama’s presidency to explain any future failings and to invalidate any and all future actions by the US government.