In Defence of Innovation:
Theological Justifications

©Prakash J. Mascarenhas. Revised 23rd May 2003. Please also read Mission Statement.
The Cassiciacum Thesis, also called Sedeprivationism, of the theologian Guerard des Lauriers, later a bishop in the Thuc succession, posits that while the Presidents of the sect which seceded from the Catholic Church consequent to its adoption of the Modernist heresy under the auspices of Angelus Josephus Roncalli, and who claim to be the "Popes" John 23, Paul 6, John-Paul 1 and the contemporaneous John-Paul 2, are manifest and public heretics, they have nevertheless received the papacy (materially only and not formally also because of their heresy) and in themselves continue the papacy, so that there is no real papal vacancy.

I disagree with this Proposition (the Cassiciacum Thesis) for the fundamental reason that I believe that it is impossible that a public and manifest heretic can be pope or receive the papacy in any manner whatsoever, as being an alien.

In the New Church, the sect that seceded, we see in its Presidents their Heresiarchs who represent Satan and his works, but who represents Christ? Certainly not these heresiarchs!

Besides, the Thesis makes a mockery of God and His work, pretending a commingling or co-operation between God and Satan when we know that there can be absolutely no such thing. For as the Apostle Paul tells us: "What co-operation can there be between Christ and Satan? Or between light and darkness?"

Therefore, both Faith and Reason rebel against this Proposition as unholy and absolutely unacceptable.

But in the history of the Church, there have been very many times when the Pope was threatened with rebellion even so far as to an affirmation that he had implicitly abdicated. Even the Pisan pretender pope Baldassare Cossa, who was deposed by the Council of Constance as a heretic and schismatic, was less of a criminal than these heresiarchs that we confront in our days.

Cossa was no heretic, and yet for refusing to submit to the Ecumenical Council of Constance, he was deposed! How much more then do these our heresiarchs merit rejection! And again the case of the rival papal claimants, Anacletus II and Innocent II, the latter being advocated by Saint Bernard of Clairvaux. And yet, instead of fearlessly walking in the well-trodden paths of our fathers, some pretend that we must seek out a new way, one of slavery to these criminals.

It is my firm belief, not in opinion, but, I believe, instructed by the Church, that there is not only a papal vacancy but also that there is both the means prescribed for supplying the want, and the urgent need to undertake the process.

[Bishops are incapable of convening in an Acephalous Council and of supplying/electing the pope. This is because all bishops fell away with the great Apostacy. And those that we have obtained though they possess valid orders and the tacit permission and supply by the Church to function, they do not possess or are supplied Authority... ]

However, given that the Cardinals and bishops are incapable of fulfilling this their urgent and pressing responsibility of providing the Church with its shepherd � the Vicar of Christ, then what are the alternatives available?

The need is pressing and admits of no delay! Therefore, waiting in inaction is not the correct path.

Let me begin by reminding that our Lord did not prescribe a particular means of electing a pope. Therefore, we have been following ecclesial legislations and precedents.

For this case, legislations have apparently not provided. But we do have precedents.

To solve the Great Western Schism, the Church at large, (and I will remind you that laymen played the leading and initiatory roles) INNOVATED, that is, CREATED A NEW PRECEDENT, that of an Acephalous Council.

Now since I am on a touchy topic, I will not speak for myself, but quote from the Church itself, taking the Catholic Encyclopedia's article on the Council of Constance...

"Hence, also, the Gallican contention is excluded, that an ecumenical council is superior, either in jurisdiction or in doctrinal authority, to a certainly legitimate pope, and that one may appeal from the latter to the former. Nor is this conclusion contradicted by the fact that, for the purpose of putting an end to the Great Western Schism and securing a certainly legitimate pope, the Council of Constance deposed John XXIII, whose election was considered doubtful, the other probably legitimate claimant, Gregory XII, having resigned. This was what might be described as an extra-constitutional crisis; and, as the Church has a right in such circumstances to remove reasonable doubt and provide a pope whose claims would be indisputable, even an acephalous council, supported by the body of bishops throughout the world, was competent to meet this altogether exceptional emergency without thereby setting up a precedent that could be erected into a regular constitutional rule, as the Gallicans wrongly imagined.

"A similar exceptional situation might arise were a pope to become a public heretic, i.e., were he publicly and officially to teach some doctrine clearly opposed to what has been defined as de fide catholic�. But in this case many theologians hold that no formal sentence of deposition would be required, as, by becoming a public heretic, the pope would ipso facto cease to be pope. This, however, is a hypothetical case which has never actually occurred; even the case of Honorius, were it proved that he taught the Monothelite heresy, would not be a case in point.

"The right to summon an ecumenical council belongs properly to the pope alone, though by his express or presumed consent given ante or post factum, the summons may be issued, as in the case of most of the early councils, in the name of the civil authority. For ecumenicity in the adequate sense all the bishops of the world in communion with the Holy See should be summoned, but it is not required that all or even a majority should be present.

"As regards the conduct of the deliberations, the right of presidency, of course, belongs to the pope or his representative; while as regards the decisions arrived at unanimity is not required.

"Finally, papal approbation is required to give ecumenical value and authority to conciliar decrees, and this must be subsequent to conciliar action, unless the pope, by his personal presence and conscience, has already given his official ratification."

See text source

Let us consider the context of Constance. There was Conciliarism which held, contrary to the Petrinist Doctrine, that an ecumenical Council is higher than the Pope. Many of the initiators and participants of Constance were Conciliarists. Nevertheless, despite this, the Council did achieve a great good in that it solved the Great Western Schism. However, the Church has nevertheless, and quite necessarily, condemned Conciliarism as an heresy, that would make shipwreck of the faith and of the Church.

In this quotation, the author denounces and rejects the pretensions of the Gallicans and the Conciliarists that Constance constituted a precedent for Conciliarism, but goes on to re-affirm the legitimacy of Constance itself, both as an INNOVATION and as a Precedent for Acephalous Councils in similar contexts as in which Constance was held.

Now, since Catholics of the time of Constance had the right to INNOVATE and did use that right, do we not also, in this far more serious crisis, have this right?

Therefore, I say that though a purely lay election might be seen as an INNOVATION, it is nevertheless legitimate, given the necessity and right of the Church to provide itself with a head, or to quote the author, �to remove reasonable doubt and provide a pope whose claims would be indisputable.�

INNOVATION is a constant of life and of growth: Every dynamic society, as every living organism, is obliged to innovate. Every INNOVATION results in a new Precedent, and every precedent was born an innovation!

To deny the principle of INNOVATION (and therefore of Development and Progress, insofar as Holy Mother Church understands and teaches it) is to affirm its negation, Nihilism: the belief that all developments and possibilities have been exhausted, and that no further developments shall take place.

But this Nihilism is necessarily a heresy, a denial of the Faith. It is obvious that Fidelity demands INNOVATION and condemns its negation, Nihilism.

INNOVATION demands and needs a Courageous and Informed Faith. I take the liberty of introducing here excerpts from Fulton Sheen�s article "The Art of Controversy" as it appears in the Radio Replies:

"The Church loves controversy, and loves it for two reasons; because intellectual conflict is informing, and because she is madly in love with rationalism. The great structure of the Catholic Church has been built up through controversy. And if today there are not nearly so many dogmas defined as in the early ages of the Church it is because there is less controversy - and less thinking. One must think to be a heretic, even though it be wrong thinking. Not only does the Church love controversy because it helps her sharpen her wits; she loves it also for its own sake.

"The Church asks her children to think hard and think clean. Then she asks them to do two things with their thoughts. First, she asks them to externalise them in the concrete world of economics, government, commerce, and education, and by this externalisation of beautiful, clean thoughts to produce a beautiful and clean civilization. The quality of any civilization depends upon the nature of the thoughts its great minds bequeath to it. If the thoughts that are externalised in the press, in the senate chamber, on the public platform, are base, civilization itself will take on their base character with the same readiness with which a chameleon takes on the colour of the object upon which it is placed. But if the thoughts that are vocalized and articulated are high and lofty, civilization will be filled, like a crucible, with the gold of the things worthwhile.

"The Church asks her children not only to externalise their thought and thus produce culture, but also to internalise their thoughts and thus produce spirituality. The constant giving would be dissipation unless new energy was supplied from within. In fact, before a thought can be bequeathed to the outside, it must have been born on the inside, But no thought is born without silence and contemplation. It is in the stillness and quiet of one's own intellectual pastures, wherein man meditates on the purpose of life and its goal, that real and true character is developed. A character is made by the kind of thought a man thinks when alone, and a civilization is made by the kind of thoughts a man speaks to his neighbour.

"On the other hand, the Church discourages bad thinking, for a bad thought set loose is more dangerous than a wild man. Thinkers live; toilers die in a day. When society finds it is too late to electrocute a thought, it electrocutes the man. There was once upon a time when Christian society burned the thought in order to save society, and after all, something can be said in favour of this practice. To kill one bad thought may mean the salvation of ten thousand thinkers. The Roman emperors were alive to this fact; they killed the Christians not because they wanted their hearts, but because they wanted their heads, or better, their brains - brains that were thinking out the death of Paganism."

Today, we have had an effort at electing a pope, resulting in the election of David Allen Bawden, who took the name Pope Michael I. Subsequently, twice, groups attempted the same, without furnishing good and urgent reasons to reject the previously elected, and yet living electee. Therefore, these subsequent elections must be rejected as being mala fide and null and void.

Today, however, Pope Michael has shown his willingness to stand down in favour of an election with larger support among the various ideological and personalistic factions of the Resistance, and the Sedevacantist Unity group, of the Mildenhalls, Australia, are attempting to set such a process under way.

In this, even the Guerardists, Sede-Vacantists and Lefebvrists can participate, if they will, beginning by formally convening an acephalous Council and deposing or declaring as deposed, the schismatic �pope�, conditionally, if they had been ever legitimately constituted pope.

©Prakash J. Mascarenhas

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws

1