Sedevacantism

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages) This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Sedevacantism" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (July 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message) The examples and perspective in this article may not include all significant viewpoints. Please improve the article or discuss the issue. (February 2025) (Learn how and when to remove this message) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Sedevacantism is a traditionalist Catholic movement which holds that since the 1958 death of Pius XII the occupiers of the Holy See are not valid popes due to their espousal of one or more heresies and that, for lack of a valid pope, the See of Rome is vacant.^[1][2] Sedevacantism owes its origins to the rejection of the theological and disciplinary changes implemented following the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965).

The term sedevacantism is derived from the Latin phrase sede vacante, which means "the chair [of the Bishop of Rome] being vacant".^[2][3] The phrase is commonly used to refer specifically to a vacancy of the Holy See which takes place from the pope's death or renunciation to the election of his successor.

The number of sedevacantists is unknown and difficult to measure; estimates range from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands.^[4] Various factions of conclavists among sedevacantists have proceeded to end the perceived vacancy in the Holy See by electing their own pope.^[5]

The term sedevacantism derives from the Latin term sede vacante, which means "with the chair being vacant".^[2] In the Catholic Church, when an episcopal see becomes vacant due to the death or removal of a Bishop from office for whatever reason, in the interim the diocese is automatically in a state of sede vacante, until a new designate is appointed and duly elevated to his see. With Sedevacantism, this is specifically in reference to the See of Saint Peter, i.e., the Catholic Papacy.^[2] The term Sedevacantism, as a thesis that the post-Second Vatican Council claimants to the Papacy operating out of the Vatican City are non-Catholic Antipopes, originated from a 1973 work, Sede Vacante: Paul VI is Not a Legitimate Pope, by the Mexican Jesuit priest Joaquín Sáenz Arriaga. However, there were some instances of proto-sedevacatism, avant la lettre, reaching back into the 1960s.^[6][7]

This section is missing information about who, when and in what circumstances started the movement. Please expand the section to include this information. Further details may exist on the talk page. (December 2023)

Sedevacantism owes its origins to the rejections of theological and disciplinary changes implemented following the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965).^[8] Sedevacantists reject this council, on the basis of their interpretations of its documents on ecumenism and religious liberty, among others, which they see as contradicting the traditional teachings of the Catholic Church and as denying the unique mission of Catholicism as the one true religion, outside of which there is no salvation.^[9] They also say that new disciplinary norms, such as the Mass of Paul VI promulgated on 3 April 1969, undermine or conflict with the historical Catholic faith and are deemed blasphemous, while post-Vatican II teachings, particularly those related to ecumenism, are labelled heresies.^[10] They conclude, on the basis of their rejection of the revised Mass rite and of postconciliar church teaching as false, that the popes involved are also false.^[1] Even amongst traditionalist Catholics,^[2][11] this is a quite divisive question.^[1][2]

Sedevacantism, avant la lettre, is evidenced from the mid-1960s, as part of a response to the Second Vatican Council in the Roman Catholic Church. The earliest example is from a group of traditionalist Catholics in Mexico associated with the radical right secret society Los TECOS based in Guadalajara, in particular their spiritual director, Fr. Joaquín Sáenz y Arriaga, a Jesuit priest.^[12] In 1965, at a private meeting in the house of Anacleto González Guerrero (son of the Cristero martyr Anacleto González Flores), Los TECOS leaders proposed the motion that Paul VI (Giovanni Montini) was a crypto-Jew and an illegitimate Pope, and that this line should be officially adopted as the position of Mexican traditionalists.^[13] A connected secret society, based in Puebla under Ramón Plata Moreno, known as El Yunque, although ultra-conservative as well and unhappy about the liberalising changes in the Catholic world, rejected the proposal, stating that Pope Paul VI was indeed the legitimate Pope of the Catholic Church. This led to a deadly split in the Mexican traditionalist scene.^[13] Earlier, during the Second Vatican Council, Los TECOS had distributed the document entitled Il Complotto contro la Chiesa ("The Plot Against the Church") under the pseudonym of Maurice Pinay, warning Council fathers of a supposed “Judeo-Masonic-Communist” plot to infiltrate and destroy Christianity and the Catholic Church.^[14]

Another early expositor from Latin America was Carlos Alberto Disandro in Argentina, a personal associate of Juan Perón, belonging to the Catholic wing of orthodox Peronism, who raised the question in 1969 with his book Pontificado y Pontífice: una breve quaestio teológica.^[15][16]

As changes in the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council filtered down to the local diocesean and parish level by the early 1970s, especially with the introduction of a New Order of Mass as the primary form of public worship, the sedevacantist issue began to be voiced more stridently and publicly by its advocates. One landmark was the 1971 work by Fr. Sáenz y Arriaga, called The New Montinian Church, which explicitly forwarded in a public format what have previously been private opinion circulated among these nascent groups.^[12] It claimed “My suspicions appear confirmed, Giovanni Battista Montini was invalidly elected to the Papacy and, thus, is not a true Pope. Because of this ritualistic symbol of Judaism and Masonry, I suspect that Paul VI was not only the most efficient instrument of the "Jewish Mafia," but an integral part of this Mafia.” A public controversy ensued and the Vatican, acting through the local ordinary, Cardinal Miguel Darío Miranda y Gómez declared the suspension a divinis of the Jesuit priest.^[12] He founded the publication Trento (in reference to the Council of Trent) in 1972 to promote sedevacantism, along with Mexican priests, Fr. Moisés Carmona and Fr. Adolfo Zamora.^[12] This was followed up by the 1973 work Sede Vacante: Paul VI is Not a Legitimate Pope, from which the theory was framed more comprehensively and which the movement would derive its name.^[12]

In the United States, the sedevacantist issue had been raised privately as early as 1967 by Dr. Hugo Maria Kellner, a Bavarian-born American,^[17] in a letter to Cardinal Michael Browne. The earliest American traditionalist organisation to take up the line of Fr. Sáenz y Arriaga was the Orthodox Roman Catholic Movement, which was founded in 1973 under Fr. Francis Fenton, a member of the National Council of the John Birch Society.^[18] The group also included Fr. Robert McKenna who would go on to become a significant figure in sedevacantism and later a Thục-line Bishop. However, the most numerically significant American group would be founded by a Catholic layman, Francis Schuckardt, eventually called the Traditional Latin Rite Catholic Church (TLRCC).^[19] He had been a circuit speaker for the Blue Army of Our Lady of Fatima, warning about the “threat of communism” and promoting the message of Our Lady of Fatima in a Cold War climate. Dismissed from the group for rejecting Vatican II, he founded his own group called the Fatima Crusaders in 1968 at Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.^[20] He claimed that Paul VI was an antipope and that the Holy See was vacant.^[20] Seeking a clerical vocation, he was ordained and consecrated by Daniel Q. Brown in 1971. However, these orders were not without controversy in Catholic circles, due to fact that Brown’s lineage was Old Catholic and came from the North American Old Roman Catholic Church (defined as schismatic according to Roman Catholicism), coupled with criticisms of Schuckardt for nurturing a “cult of personality” among his followers.^[20]

The Society of St. Pius X, founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1970 as a "pious union" with the permission of François Charrière, the sitting Bishop of Lausanne, Geneva and Fribourg in Switzerland, was by far the largest traditionalist Catholic organisation internationally, founded to pushback against the introduction of a New Order of Mass and aspects of the Second Vatican Council.^[21][22] The public line taken by Lefebvre during his lifetime and the SSPX since, is to affirm the legitimacy of the claimants to the Papacy in the Vatican City, but to "resist" anything they claim is contrary to Catholic tradition; thus, as part of the traditionalist Catholic movement, they are adjacent to sedevacantism and have some overlap, but do not hold to the sedevacantist line and write articles in their journals critiquing it.^[23][19] According to former members of the SSPX such as Fr. Noël Barbara (a leading French sedevacantist) and Fr. Francesco Ricossa (who would go on to found the sedevacantist IMBC in Italy); the toleration of sedevacantism as "personal opinion" within the SSPX depended on their relationship with the Vatican at the time.^[24] In the aftermath of the canonical visitation to the International Seminary of Saint Pius X in 1974, which led to the Vatican's withdrawl of the SSPX's "pious union" status, individual sedevacantists were tolerated and Archbishop Lefebvre stated to Cardinal Giovanni Benelli in 1976 after his suspension a divinis, "The post-Concillar Church is a schismatic Church, since it has broke with the Catholic Church that has always been", without explicitly saying that Paul VI was not the Pope.^[23] This rhetoric was toned down with the rise of John Paul II, whom Lefebvre approached for dialogue, asking for "the right to make the experiment of tradition" within the structures of the post-Vatican II Church and there was a crackdown on internal divergence, as Lefebvre explicitly stated "The Fraternity of St. Pius X cannot tolerate in its midst members who refuse to pray for the pope and who affirm that all masses in the novus ordo missæ are invalid."^[24]

Part of a series on the
Catholic Church
St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City
Overview
Pope: Leo XIV Hierarchy History (timeline) Theology Liturgy Sacraments Mary
Background Jesus Christ Crucifixion Resurrection Ascension Early Christianity Peter Paul Fathers History of the Catholic Church History of the papacy Ecumenical councils Magisterium Four Marks of the Church One true church Apostolic succession
Organisation Holy See Roman Curia College of Cardinals Ecumenical councils Episcopal polity Latin Church Eastern Churches Canon law
Theologies Doctrine God Trinity Father Son Holy Ghost Consubstantialitas Filioque Divinum illud munus Divine law Decalogus Ex Cathedra Deificatio Realms beyond the States of the Church Heaven Purgatory Limbo Hell Paschal mystery Passion of Jesus Crucifixion of Jesus Harrowing of Hell Resurrection of Jesus Ascension of Jesus Blessed Virgin Mary Mariology Veneration Immaculate Conception Mater Dei Perpetual virginity Assumption Dormition Titles Queen Apparition Mediatrix Salvation Baptism of desire Baptism of blood Divine grace Outside the Church there is no salvation Infused righteousness Invincible ignorance Justification Means of grace Merit Mortal sin Satisfaction Moral influence Sanctification Synergism Venial sin Ecclesiology College of Bishops Deposit of faith Infallibility of the Church Mystical Body of Christ Papal primacy People of God Perfect community Subsistit in Other teachings Josephology Morality Body Sexuality Apologetics Amillennialism Original sin Hypostatic union Predestination Seven deadly sins Beatific vision Saints Dogma
Texts Bible Old Testament New Testament Official Bible Vulgate Sixtine Vulgate Sixto-Clementine Vulgate Nova Vulgata Peshitta Apostles' Creed Nicene Creed Athanasian Creed Catechism of the Catholic Church Papal bull Apostolic exhortation Epistula Encyclica
Philosophy Cardinal virtues Just war Natural law Catholic ethics Personalism Probabilism Social teaching Philosophy of canon law Philosophers Virtue ethics Schools Augustinianism Scholasticism Thomism Scotism Occamism Christian humanism Molinism Neo-scholasticism Traditionalist Catholicism Sedevacantism
Worship Liturgy Eastern Catholic liturgy Mass Divine Liturgy Holy Qurbana Holy Qurobo Liturgy of the Hours Liturgical year Sacraments Baptism Penance Eucharist Confirmation Anointing of the Sick Matrimony Holy orders Prayer Devotions Bible Biblical canon
Rites Latin liturgy: Roman Post-Vatican II Tridentine Use of Sarum Anglican Use Zaire Use Gallican Ambrosian Braga Mozarabic Eastern Catholic liturgy: Alexandrian Antiochene West Syriac Malankara East Syriac Armenian Byzantine
Miscellaneous Antipopes Anti-Catholicism Criticism Deism/Pandeism Ecumenism Monasticism Relations with: Islam Judaism (Zionism) Orthodoxy Protestantism
Societal issues Art Evolution Health care HIV/AIDS Homosexuality Sexual abuse Music Nazi Germany Politics (in the United States) Role in civilization Science Sex and gender roles Slavery the Age of Discovery
Links and resources Index Outline Glossary Category Media Templates WikiProject Vatican City portal
Catholic Church portal
v t e

This section relies excessively on references to primary sources. Please improve this section by adding secondary or tertiary sources. Find sources: "Sedevacantism" ideology – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (December 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Traditionalist Catholics who are not sedevacantists recognize the line of popes leading to and including Pope Leo XIV as legitimate.^[25] Sedevacantists, however, claim that the infallible Magisterium of the Catholic Church could not have decreed the changes made in the name of the Second Vatican Council, and conclude those who issued these changes could not have been acting with the authority of the Catholic Church.^[26] Accordingly, they hold that Pope John XXIII and his successors have left the true Catholic Church and thus lost legitimate authority. A notorious heretic, they say, cannot be the Catholic pope.^[27]

Most sedevacantists believe that this Great Apostasy started with the Second Vatican Council, although there are disagreements about whether the last legitimate Pope was John XXIII or Pius XII, with the latter position being held by those who believe the 1958 conclave results were illegitimate; this particular belief is usually associated with the Giuseppe Siri conspiracy theory. However, there are other sedevacantist positions^[28] that describe the Great Apostasy as having started with Benedict XV in 1914, meaning that Pope Pius XII and Pope Pius XI were also heretics and making the last legitimate Pope Saint Pius X.^[29]

Some sedevacantists accept the consecrations and ordinations of sedevacantist bishops and priests, and the offering of Masses and the administration of sacraments by the said bishops and priests, to be licit because of epikea,^[30][31][32] i.e. "the interpretation of the mind and will of him who made the law".^[33] In this case, the ecclesiastical laws (e.g. prohibition of consecrations of bishops without papal mandate; prohibition of administration of sacraments without ecclesiastical authorization) are interpreted to cease when to follow them would be impossible, harmful, or unreasonable, or would mean transgressing divine laws (e.g. the church must have bishops and priests; Catholics must attend Mass and receive the sacraments), and because of a historical precedent for consecrating Catholic bishops during a long vacancy of the Holy See.^[30][31]

Anthony Cekada considers that a question among sedevacantists is whether it is permissible to go to "una cum" Masses. These are Traditional Latin Masses naming the man considered by the majority of Catholics as the Pope in the Roman Canon in the "Te igitur" prayer, specifically where the priest says "una cum famulo tuo Papa nostro N" (“together with Your Servant N., our Pope.”) Cekada argues that it is not, under any circumstances, permissible.^[34]

In contrast to sedevacantists, sedeprivationists affirm the Thesis of Cassiciacum by the Dominican theologian Bishop Michel-Louis Guérard des Lauriers as being a valid position, which states that John XXIII and his successors are popes materialiter sed non formaliter (“materially but not formally”), and that post-Vatican II popes will become legitimate once they recant their heresies.

This position is endorsed by the Istituto Mater Boni Consilii.^[35]

Because sedevacantists, particularly the laity, are not concentrated into one single organisation, it is difficult to ascertain exact numbers of sedevacantists in the world, however the number has been estimated at around 30,000 people worldwide.^[19] These are mostly concentrated in the United States, Mexico, Canada, France, Italy, Spain, Australia and the United Kingdom, but the actual size of the movement has never been accurately assessed. It remains extremely difficult to do so for a wide range of reasons, such as the fact that not all sedevacantists identify as such, nor do they necessarily belong to avowedly sedevacantist groups or societies.^[36]

Sedevacantist groups include:

• Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen (CMRI), formed in 1967. It operates in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia and is based in Omaha, Nebraska, United States. Its bishop is Mark Pivarunas.
• Most Holy Family Monastery (MHFM), a traditional Catholic monastery in Fillmore, New York, founded in 1967 and led by Michael and Peter Dimond.
• Society of Saint Pius V (SSPV), formed in 1983 when nine American priests split from the Society of Saint Pius X over a number of issues including using the liturgical books implemented under Pope John XXIII. It operates in North America from Oyster Bay Cove, New York, United States, and was headed by Bishop Clarence Kelly until his death in December 2023.^[37]
• Sociedad Sacerdotal Trento (Priestly Society of Trent; SST), formed in 1993 by priests of the deceased Bishop Moisés Carmona. Its bishop is Martín Dávila Gandara.
• Mary’s Little Remnant’s congregation, presided by Richard Ibranyi^[38] and William George Norris,^[39] who believes that the Catholic Church has been ruled by Antipopes for nearly 1,000 years, thus the Holy See being vacant since Pope Innocent II acceptance of Thomism.^[40]

This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (July 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Early proponents of sedevacantism include:

• Bishop Francis Schuckardt, an American who was illicitly consecrated a bishop by Daniel Q. Brown and founded the Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen (CMRI), from which he was expelled in 1984. He later established a new sect, the Traditional Latin Rite Catholic Church (TLRCC).
• Joaquín Sáenz y Arriaga, a Mexican Jesuit priest and theologian who put forward sedevacantist ideas in his books The New Montinian Church (August 1971) and Sede Vacante (1973).
• Francis E. Fenton, an American priest inspired by Sáenz's writings and founded the Orthodox Roman Catholic Movement as an American parallel to the Mexican Unión Católica Trento.
• Michel-Louis Guérard des Lauriers, a French Dominican priest and theologian who developed the Thesis of Cassiciacum in the 1970s. He was illicitly consecrated bishop in 1981 by Ngô Đình Thục.
• Several American priests of the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX): Daniel Dolan, Anthony Cekada, and Donald Sanborn, reportedly sedevacantists in the 1970s, who were expelled with several other priests by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre for holding this view. Nine of these priests later founded the Society of Saint Pius V (SSPV) in 1983. Dolan and Sanborn were later illicitly consecrated bishops.
• Oswald Baker, an English priest who was a known sedevacantist by at least 1982, and reportedly some time prior to that.
• Lucian Pulvermacher, an American missionary priest who left the Catholic Church in 1976 and in 1998 was elected pope of the conclavist "True Catholic Church" with the papal name “Pius XIII”.

Papal primacy, supremacy and infallibility
Overview Primacy of Peter & Papal primacy Papal supremacy Papal infallibility First Vatican Council § Papal infallibility
Patriarchs compared to popes Papal primacy Episcopal see § Catholic Church Apiarius of Sicca § Appeal to the bishop of Rome Pentarchy § After the East–West Schism Pope John XIX § Life Gregory II Youssef § First Vatican Council Ravenna Document Eastern Orthodox opposition to papal supremacy
Ecumenical councils compared to popes Conciliarity Conciliarism § Modern conciliarism Ecumenical council § Acceptance of the councils To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation § The Third Wall: Authority to Call a Council Ultrajectines
Catholic episcopal councils compared to popes Febronianism Christus Dominus § Controversy The Ratzinger Report
Political rulers compared to popes Gallicanism Patronato real Josephinism Febronianism Cisalpinism Appointment of Catholic bishops § Centralization of papal power Concordat § List Papal deposing power
Existing dogma compared to popes Development of doctrine Cum ex apostolatus officio Pascendi Dominici gregis
Objections and controversy Ecclesiastical differences between the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church § Papal authority Ignaz von Döllinger § Papal authority Ultramontanism § Position of other apostolic churches Papal infallibility § Objections Old Catholic Church § First Vatican Council, Old Catholic Union of Utrecht Sedevacantism Josip Juraj Strossmayer § Catholic diplomacy
v t e

The only known Catholic bishop consecrated before the Second Vatican Council who publicly became sedevacantist was Vietnamese Archbishop Ngô Đình Thục (consecrated in 1938), former Vicar Apostolic of Vĩnh Long, Vietnam and former Archbishop of Huế, Vietnam.

Bishop Alfredo Méndez-Gonzalez (consecrated in 1960), former Bishop of Arecibo, Puerto Rico, though not having publicly identified as a sedevacantist, associated himself with sedevacantist priests and consecrated a bishop for them.

Many sedevacantist bishops derive their claims to holy orders and episcopacy from Archbishop Thục or bishops of his lineage.

Some bishops in the sedevacantist world dervive their lineage from the Palmarian Catholic Church (also known as the Carmelites of the Holy Face); this is due to Thục having consecrated as Bishop Clemente Domínguez y Gómez, later the Pope of the Palmarian Church and consequently the Palmarians making many more consecrations. An example of this from Spain is the case of sedevacantist bishop Pablo de Rojas Sánchez-Franco of the Pía Unión de San Pablo Apóstol, who was consecrated a bishop by Ricardo Subirón Ferrandis, a former Palmarian bishop turned sedevacantist.^[41] De Rojas was at the centre of a significant controversy in 2024, as an entire monastery of nuns belonging to the Poor Clares from Belorado near Burgos, broke with the Vatican and came over to the sedevacantists under his protection.^[41][42][43]

On 7 May 1981, Thục consecrated the sedeprivationist French priest Michel-Louis Guérard des Lauriers as a bishop.^[44] Des Lauriers was a French Dominican theologian and a papal advisor.^[45]

On 17 October 1981, Thục consecrated the sedevacantist Mexican priests Moisés Carmona and Adolfo Zamora as bishops.^[44] Carmona and Zamora had been sedevacantist leaders and propagators in Mexico.^[46]

The Vatican declared Thục latae sententiae excommunicated for these consecrations and for his declaration of Sedevacantism.^[44]

On 19 October 1993, in Carlsbad, California, United States, Bishop Méndez-Gonzalez consecrated the sedevacantist Clarence Kelly of the Society of Saint Pius V (SSPV) to the episcopacy. By Méndez's wish, the consecration was kept secret until his death in 1995.^[47]

A considerable number of sedevacantist bishops are thought to derive their holy orders from Bishop Carlos Duarte Costa, who in 1945 set up his own independent Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church.^{[48][page needed]} While Duarte Costa was not a sedevacantist, he instead questioned the papacy as an institution, denying papal infallibility and rejecting the pope's universal jurisdiction.^[49] In further contrast to most Catholic traditionalists, Duarte Costa was left-wing.^[50]

A separate minority position called Benevacantism (a portmanteau of "Benedict" and "sedevacantism") holds that Pope Benedict XVI continued as pope following his resignation, with Pope Francis ruling as a heretical antipope.^[51][52] Since Benedict's death, some Benevacantists now hold to sedevacantism, while others considered Francis to be the Pope until Francis' death in 2025.^[53] The Vatican for its part, rarely acknowledges or addresses the claims of sedevacantists at all, however after increased visibility during the time of Francis, in 2024 he compared sedevacantists to "mushrooms" and said "they carry sadness in their hearts, I have compassion for them".^[54][55]

• Cum ex apostolatus officio
• Independent Catholicism
• Integralism
• List of movements that dispute the legitimacy of a reigning monarch

• Altmann, Matthias (25 April 2024). "Die "Lehre" vom leeren Papststuhl: Die Welt des Sedisvakantismus". www.katholisch.de (in German). Retrieved 26 April 2024.
• Boulet, Dominique (December 2004). "Is That Chair Vacant?: A SSPX Dossier on Sedevacantism". Communicantes, no. 21. CA: The Society of St. Pius X. Archived from the original on 2 June 2007.
• Cuneo, Michael W. (1997). The Smoke of Satan: Conservative and Traditionalist Dissent in Contemporary American Catholicism. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195113501.