Michael Fighting
"Michael…who standeth for…thy people," — Dan. 12:1-12
Flee from heretics or share in their sins and censures
Traditionalists will whine: If schismatic ex-Trads could elect a lay Pope in 1990, why is it not possible for us to do the same? To begin with, those electing Pope Michael first took certain crucial steps long before supporting a papal election, then abjured their schism and any material heresy the day before the election took place. So technically they had done all they could to remedy their situations save for one thing: electing a Pope who could absolve them. Peter must have perpetual successors and the Church cannot exist without a visible head; it is Christ's promise that the Church will last unto the consummation, or final judgment. And Rev. Tanquerey with the majority of scholastics teaches that the necessary end automatically includes the means. As is proven elsewhere, Canon Law provided for the election of a Pope by the laity. The 1990 electors believed they had a right and an obligation to hold this election in order to secure the means necessary to their eternal salvation and invoke their right to appeal to the Supreme Pontiff in disputed cases. They also offered proofs on the necessity of the papacy for the Church's existence four months prior to the election in the book Will the Catholic Church Survive? , distributed to Sedevacantists worldwide.
In 1984 the jurisdiction article circulated by David Bawden (the future Pope Michael) proved that Traditionalist clerics, with very few exceptions, did not possess jurisdiction and could not celebrate Mass or administer Sacraments, i.e., operate Traditional Mass centers. For this reason and based on this evidence, future electors ceased attending Traditional masses, except for one very brief trial period involving a cleric who seemed to have a sound basis for claiming jurisdiction. Some years before Bawden's article circulated, all the electors had departed Traditionalist factions who accepted Karol Wojtyla as pope and never returned. How were these electors different from the majority of Traditionalists?
The Traditionalist majority began attending Latin Mass centers as early as 1970 and over the years floated from one priest and one group to the other. Many gravitated to the Society of St. Pius X, whose leaders recognized Popes (John 23), Paul 6 and JP2 as wicked men but not heretical. Material/formal Sedevacantists taught basically the same thing. Early attempts by the electors and certain home-aloners to explain the sins committed by those recognizing these false popes fell on deaf ears. The warnings by several Traditionalists to their fellows that both those administering illicit sacraments and those receiving them were committing sacrilege and violating Canon Law were brushed aside as inconsequential. Despite a lengthy treatment of these topics in a Traditional newsletter and later in Will the Catholic Church Survive?, Traditionalists went their merry way. Attempts to derail the papal election effort began as soon as the documents suggesting it first circulated in 1987. Those supporting it were plagiarized, calumniated and ridiculed from the beginning by the very promoters of the "democratic" election effort now making the rounds. How odd that 25 years ago, Sedevacantists saw no need for a visible head for Christ's Church. The general opinion amongst Traditionalists was that Christ ruled His Church without need of a head in these times, a heresy several promoters of the new election stated publicly on more than one occasion. Apparently they have changed their minds.
Paragraph seven of Cum ex declares that those departing the false pope and any of his minions cannot incur censures or penalties for their departure. Pope Paul IV grants the laity the greatest leniency, yet he does not excuse them for favoring the antipope or those who support him. Neither does Cum ex presume that a long interregnum would follow, for why does Paul IV then speak of the obedience owed to a legitimate Pope and his hierarchy? And why does he encourage Catholics to invoke the secular authority, if necessary, to rout the usurper from Rome? Those who elected Pope Michael followed Christ's signified will, stated in the teachings and Canon Laws of His Church. They avoided heretics and refused to dishonor the Sacraments with sacrilege. Once Church teaching on the matter became clear they avoided schismatic Traditionalist sects. When the case for a papal election was made, they responded within the time period prescribed by Canon Law. In short, they obeyed the command of the Gospel, "A heretic avoid," and the orders of Pope Paul IV to shun heretics, apostates and schismatics as "heathens, heresiarchs, warlocks and publicans." Should they be commended for this and recognized as superior to Traditionalists who ignored this call? No. No Catholic can ever pat himself on the back for doing what God commands. To do so is to negate the willing sacrifices of the same nature made cheerfully by those persecuted in earlier times; to forget that the following groups of Catholics also were deprived of Mass and Sacraments:
• Catholics during the time of the Arian persecution
• The English and Irish during the Protestant Reformation.
• Catholics in the American wilderness
• Those living in the Southwestern U.S., for decades
• Catholics in Japan, for 200 years
• French Catholics, including the young John Marie Vianney
• Those behind the Iron Curtain who despite this lack regularly turned away state-directed Russian Orthodox priests.
All these electors did was refuse to participate in what Rev. Paul Furfey calls "Catholic conformism" (The Mystery of Iniquity), and fall prey to human respect. They fulfilled the conditions corresponding to the "fifth mark" of the Church by suffering loss and persecution for Jesus' sake rather than shirk their duty to provide the Church with a visible head. They willingly gave up all secular status to do the right thing. No rewards for this are desirable here, but only in the hereafter.
