Sedevacantism

John Kuhn Bleimaier

Regardless of the outcome of any conclave of cardinals at Rome. There is no mortal potentate who has the authority to pontificate and make infallible pronouncements on God’s behalf. We worship a living Deity who speaks for Himself, through the Scriptures and to us individually through the Holy Spirit.

There is but one church which is the bride of Christ and is the amalgam of all believers, where there is neither Greek nor Jew, neither bond nor free, neither male nor female. We are all one in Christ Jesus. However, from Biblical times there have been diverse congregations, disparate church entities in different communities. The Apostle Paul wrote his epistles to the different churches in Ephesus, Corinth, Galicia and Rome. John delivered messages from God in the Book of Revelation directed to several churches. In the year 1054 the Roman church broke away from the mother Orthodox church. Circa 1517 the Reformation resulted in the proliferation of Protestant churches.

In our present 21^st Century there is a profusion of denominations. However, THE Church remains an undivided whole. “There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling;one Lord, one faith, one baptism,one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.” Ephesians 4:4-6. However, this is emphatically not the ecumenicism of the lowest common dominator, where doctrine is whittled down to negligible triviality. We have been admonished to be strident in our fidelity to Scripture. “So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.” Revelation 3:15-16. We are called upon to be unequivocal when it comes to expounding the God given Truth. ”Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.” Matthew 5:13. We believers must never compromise with secular, innocuous notions. We must never backpedal from the absolute dictates of Law and Gospel.

We have been forewarned that there will be grievous wolves, ravenous false prophets, who will attempt to decimate God’s flock with false teaching. Acts 20:29-31. We are instructed to have nothing to do with those who wrongfully stir up division and propagate heresy. Titus 3:10. We are to rely upon the guidance of the Holy Spirit to discern who are our brothers and sisters in the one, true Church and who are the witting or unwitting agents of the great deceiver. Romans 8:14.

The Roman catholic church has long attempted to arrogate unto itself the role of exclusive heir of Saint Peter, the rock on which our Lord determined to build his Church. This is demonstrably false. From Biblical times there have been diverse church entities, multiple organizational structures. There is one Bride of Christ but there are many groupings of individual believers. In fact, the Roman church has, from time to time, been obviously completely off the tracks when it comes to fidelity to Scripture. The shocking abuses committed by the Roman see in the historic past have caused some outsiders to look askance at Christianity, thinking that the Roman pope speaks for our Savior and is His exclusive agent on earth.

Historically there have been competing claimants to the Roman papacy. Popes have engaged in shameful behavior and have supported inexcusable conduct. Rather than being “infallible,” it is plain that the Roman pontiffs have on numerous occasions been manifestly fallible and grossly sinful in their private and public lives. Alas, some of the ravenous wolves about which the Scriptures have warned us, have decimated God’s flock under the guise of the Roman bishopric. Martin Luther minced no words when he identified the pope of his era as the very antichrist. Luther’s principle of the ‘priesthood of all believers’ empowers us individually to ascertain the Truth having exclusive reference to the Scriptures. Sola Scriptura is our unfailing source of guidance. No ecclesiastical hierarch speaks for God and makes pronouncements which are either Law or Gospel, unless he quotes the unambiguous Word of God. Of course we are all at liberty to prayerfully interpret Scripture. But no designee of a college of cardinals or other bureaucratic functionary has the authority to extrapolate or contradict God’s Word.

There is no question that many people who identify themselves as Roman catholics are, nonetheless part of THE Church, the Bride of Christ. Just as there is no denomination which is entirely and exclusively true to Scripture at all times and in all respects, there is no Christian entity which is universally excluded from membership in THE church. The principal problem with the Roman catholics is that they hew to a rigid hierarchy which compounds the mischief when their leadership makes an error. Individual Lutheran, Presbyterian or Baptist pastors can occasionally propagate a mistaken notion. But they do not pontificate ex cathedra with claimed infallibility.

Since the bishop of Rome broke with the Orthodox mother church in 1054 the Roman enterprise has consistently splintered, as believers break with the pope in order to be true to Scripture. Divisiveness is not a good think, nevertheless, we are admonished to eschew false prophets. The cardinal flaw of the papal system is its insistence on the existence of an unassailable hierarch, an incontrovertible temporal spokesman for the Deity.

Since the middle of the 20^th Century there has arisen an unusual schism in the Roman church. After Pope John XXIII convened the Second Vatican Council and introduced ecclesiastical changes which were clearly at odds with prior Roman convention, some conservative catholics rebelled. Ironically conservatives who upheld the principle of papal infallibility recognized that newly papally adopted radical changes were inconsistent with prior infallible pronouncements. As a result, a movement began to take shape known as sedevacantism. The sedevacantists proposed that the papacy must be vacant since the pretender who adopted Vatican 2 was obviously not making the requisite infallible pronouncements. The sedevacantists went on to follow pre Vatican 2 ecclesiastical protocol and state that the seat of the Roman pontiff was not validly occupied by an incumbent possessed of the requisite authority. The sedevacantists have opened their own seminaries, established congregations and gone their own way rejecting all the popes since 1965.

It seems to me that the emergence of sedevacantism among Roman catholics has provided a unique opportunity for us to forge a new bridge among believing Christians. Ironically, when conservative Roman catholics reject the current incumbent in Rome, they are approaching the doctrinal position of other Christians who do not recognize a universal, infallible pontiff. The rest of Christendom recognizes a universal Church without a human sovereign who can operate independently of the Scriptures. Now we can join hands with the sedevacantists. Let them have their services in the Latin language. Let them have their pastors face the alter and not the congregation. These are not the kind of procedural matters which should divide the adherents of THE Church.

Indeed, the papacy is vacant. No one human being sits in the mythic seat of Saint Peter. We are all children of God on the basis of His Grace in having given His Son to die for our transgressions. I believe that we are free to worship God in accordance with traditional or innovative liturgy in the language of our choice. As long as we agree to reject any ravenous wolf in human form who would subvert the Word of God, the flock is safe.

I am something of a classicist. I support the concept of sedevacantism, Latin for “the seat is vacant.” No fellow mortal sits on a thrown empowered to pontificate on God’s behalf. Inter alia, I am a Lutheran because of Martin Luther’s thundering recognition of the priesthood of all believers. Sola Scriptura is our exclusive authority. Vivat sedevacantism!