Is the Sede Vacans? Fr. Mankowski on the Question

“The chair of Peter has a validly installed papal rump weighing upon it even though, alas, the rump is the only part of the pontiff that seems to be doing its job.”

From Happy Despite Them

By Leila Marie Lawler

I am sure that many of my readers are followers of Fr. James Altman and have seen his latest video, in which he states that "Bergoglio is not the Pope" and indeed that is its title. You can read about it here in 1Peter5, and I agree with T. S. Flanders' analysis. 

Fr. Altman's mode is repugnant to me and his affect ought to set off warning bells; his words declaring his embrace of the rogue sedevacantist position repels me; his undermining of the careful work of faithful critics of this papacy over the years demoralizes me.

I have never liked Fr. Altman's abuse of the pulpit, where in my opinion, political rants from any side ought to be completely forbidden. There is plenty of scope for the homilist to impart as energetically as he likes the principles upon which one must act and judge in the public sphere. But Holy Mass ought to be a refuge from the sorts of fevered partisan polemics one meets everywhere else (and indeed legitimately engages in, without the fevered polemics part, in secular life).

I have been suspicious of his role in the "canceled priest" movement. It is undoubtedly a dire situation we have, where a priest can be sanctioned without due process, often for doing what the Church, in her perennial teachings and practices, urges him to do, such as admonish (austerely and without indulging his passions), teach, and carry out rituals according to prescription. However, there is scope for manipulation there and the faithful have to be alert. It grieves me to have to say so. Let's pray for all our priests.

In any case, one of my goals here is to share the treasury of correspondence and memory my husband and I had with our dear, departed friend Fr. Paul Mankowski. I don't see any particular mention of Fr. Altman in the archive, but there is an exchange that is pertinent to this situation. 

You see, the argument used to rationalize Fr. Altman's intemperance is that Pope Francis is just that bad. Believe me, we get the bad part. In fact, Phil and I have been accused of being schismatics for this reason: calmly arguing that he is a bad Pope. Our defense is that it's better than thinking he is no Pope at all. Why? Because it is for the bishops to decide such a thing. Yes, we understand their pusillanimity, their inaction, their strange, yet historically consistent, alas, state of denial. 

Our role as laity, as we see it, is to convince them that they must have courage. To do that, we need strong reasoning and a grip on sanity. 

Here is the exchange (from 2017! but remains relevant, until such time as the bishops do their duty by our confusion):

Fr. Mankowski to me: 

You're too young [not really, but kind of him to say so] to remember the comics in which Dagwood was hanging out his office window clinging to the ledge, while Mr Dithers stamped up and down on his fingers -- but in the same way I've felt myself suspended over the pit of Sede Vacantism while Francis comes out every other day to dance on my white knuckles.

Yet I tell myself that, strictly speaking, the sedes is not vacans yet.  The chair of Peter has a validly installed papal rump weighing upon it even though, alas, the rump is the only part of the pontiff that seems to be doing its job.

Ed Peters wrote earlier that, with regard to Canon Law, the current Code is in all matters of doubt presumed to be binding; i.e., unless a particular canon is explicitly deleted or altered in forma specifica that canon remains the authentically directive norm.

To continue to call myself a Catholic I'm applying the same reasoning to the Francis papacy.  Until and unless he formally and explicitly declares false the teaching of Familiaris consortio, Veritatis splendor, and the Gospel according to Matthew, I feel free to continue to regard them as current and directive Catholic doctrine.  In a word, everything above the papal shoulders may be vacant, but the See itself isn't.

I haven't said this in a homily.  Yet.

And my husband's reply:

That’s what I’ve been saying for a while now, to try to calm people down. There’s no reason to think of Francis as an Antipope, let alone as the Antichrist. Let’s stick to what we know and can readily demonstrate: he’s a bad pope. We’ve had bad popes before (although not quite of this variety), and survived. 

Even a year ago I would have thought it outlandish to say that you could comfort good Catholics by saying: We have a bad pope. But you can.