Category: Catholicism

Empty chairs at empty altars: Part 2

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Yesterday I began talking about an exchange I had with Mike, a sedevacantist gentleman who asserts that the Second Vatican Council was a heretical council…

A Future Restoration?

If one ascribed to Mike’s assessment of Catholicism, things really do look pretty bleak: virtually every Catholic has been excommunicated from the Church and, as a result, there are no priests or Sacraments. I was intrigued as to how Mike imagined this dire situation ever being resolved. I mean, if one held to his position, the New Covenant is in tatters! Wouldn’t Jesus need to come back to re-instute the papacy, the priesthood and the Sacraments? But this is a problem since we know that Jesus isn’t returning until His Second Coming. Here is what Mike had to say:

“I can’t tell you the nature of the Divine intercession by which the hierarchy of the Catholic Church will be restored, if this were God’s will”

Doesn’t it seem odd that Jesus would establish the Papacy, only to see it disappear from the earth with no possible way of being restored? In response to this question, Mike asked me why I trusted the Pope. I said that it’s simply because I trust Jesus Christ. He established Peter as the rock. He gave Peter the keys. If the papacy could survive Pope Alexander VI, I’m pretty sure it can survive Pope Benedict XVI!

Vatican II

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Empty Chairs At Empty Altars: Part 1

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“Sedevacantists” are people who believe that there is currently no Pope, that the “Chair of Peter” is currently empty. In fact, the name “sedevacantist” itself comes from the Latin phrase, “sede vacante”, which literally means “empty seat”.

Sedevacantists typically assert that there hasn’t been a valid Pope since the death of Pius XII (1958), or sometimes even since the death of Pius X (1914). They reject all the Popes which followed (John XXIII, Paul VI, John-Paul I, John-Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis) and usually accuse them of some kind of heresy, typically the heresy of Modernism.

At the end of last year I was contacted by a chap named Mike. I had been commenting on a YouTube video by Fr. Robert Barron concerning the Second Vatican Council and Mike started sending me private messages which quickly revealed his identity as a sedavacantist.

Mike

I decided to devote a few of posts here to my discussion with Mike. His emails were filled with large portions of text which he had copied and pasted from his website and there was also unfortunately some name-calling (mostly against the Church, although later against myself specifically), but fortunately within the midst of all that we actually did manage to have some real conversation. It is my hope that, in reviewing our exchange, if you ever meet someone like Mike you’ll know what sort of thing to expect…

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A little Latin anagram

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I remember some time ago I was reading a book (possibly Bill Bryson’s “The Mother Tongue”) and found out that Latin anagrams were, at one point in history, all the rage. Well, what can you expect? These were the days before YouTube… Anyway, the author then gave an example of a Latin phrase which sounded rather familiar:

“Quid est veritas?”

This is the (rather cynical) question asked of Jesus by Pontius Pilate; what is truth? Well, it turns out that there is a rather appropriate anagram for Pilate’s words:

“Est vir qui adest”

The translation for this is “It is the man who is here”. Cool, huh?

Pilate

The article A little Latin anagram first appeared on RestlessPilgrim.net

Nativity of the Theotokos

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I know I’m off in the desert and not meant to be posting, but I couldn’t really pass up a quick post for the birthday of Mary, the mother of God:

Your birth, O Theotokos, brought joy to the whole world, for from you dawned the sun of righteousness, Christ our God. Freeing us from the curse, He gave us His blessings. Abolishing death, He granted us eternal life.
– Apolytikion, Nativity of the Theotokos

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