Sedevacantist
Watch…
MARIO DERSKEN’S
PERVERTED ANALOGY
ON THE PASSION OF THE CHURCH
His Desperate Arguments are Getting More Desperate…
ON THE PASSION OF THE CHURCH
His Desperate Arguments are Getting More Desperate…
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| Mario Derksen |
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| Bishop Sanborn |
Derksen: He refers to the “false Passion
of the Church” analogy. He [Salza] claims that we sedevacantists have abandoned
the Church because she is disfigured, just like Our Lord Jesus Christ was
disfigured on the Cross and abandoned by most of His disciples.
Salza/Siscoe: The reason we “claim” that
Derksen and his colleagues have abandoned the Church is because they have abandoned the Church: they have
openly left the Church. They have done so by alleging that the entire Catholic
Church (the visible institution) has defected and morphed into a false church,
and then claiming, as does Gerry Matatics, that the “true Church” today is no
longer a visible, hierarchical institution, but is instead found in the “hearts
and minds” of “true believers” – which is the heretical Protestant definition
of the Church! But embracing heretical definitions of the Church is what one is
forced to do when they reject what everyone else in the world – except the Sedevacantists – recognizes
as the Catholic Church.
Dersken: But of course there is a fatal
flaw in the analogy: Our Lord’s Body was disfigured by His enemies, from the
outside, whereas He Himself remained spotless and pure on the inside at all
times.
Salza/Siscoe: The only thing flawed is
Derksen’s desperate attempts to defend Sedevacantism and dismiss an analogy
that saints and Popes have used to describe the sufferings of the Church (we
didn’t invent it). While there is not a perfect,
one-to-one correspondence between Christ’s physical Body and His Mystical Body
(the Church), there is indeed a very accurate and meaningful correspondence,
which any Catholic can see. Just as Christ’s Body was disfigured by the lawful leaders of the Old Testament
(those who were in the Church), so
Christ’s Mystical Body is being disfigured by the lawful leaders of the New Testament. It was the Jews – the leaders
and shepherds of God’s covenant – who had Christ put to death, just as the
current leadership of the Church is doing to the Mystical Body today.
We, of
course, are not denying that Christ Himself – the Second Person of the Blessed
Trinity - “remained spotless and pure on the inside at all times.” But the
Catholic Church also remains pure and spotless in all her dogmas that require the assent of Catholic faith,
just as she did, for example, during the Arian crisis. Unlike the humanity of
Christ, the Church’s human nature is composed of sinful members, and thus her
leaders are not guaranteed to be spotless unless they have divine protection.
Christ promised this divine protection, as we read in Matthew 16:18-19, when
the Pope “binds” the Church to a doctrine on faith or morals that must be believed
by the entire Church with the assent of faith. Derksen is alleging a compromise
of the Church’s holiness when no such compromise exists. Christ was impeccable;
the members of the Church are not.
Derksen: He did not cease to be the Fount
and Source of all Goodness, Truth, Grace, and Holiness. But Salza does not
believe that the Church is spotless in her innermost being and merely beaten
and disfigured from the outside.
Salza/Siscoe: The first statement, of course,
is true, but the second is false. First, the Church is and always will be
spotless in her infallible definitions (in her divine nature), which are
binding in faith on all Catholics. But there is no divine guarantee that she
will be spotless in the non-infallible
teachings and practices of her members (in her human nature) which are not binding in faith on Catholics. This
is because Christ promised that the “gates of hell” (which are heresies) will
never prevail against the Church when the Pope “binds” the Church to infallible
doctrine (cf. Mt. 16:18-19). Even Fr.
Cekada concedes this point when he criticizes Pope Pius XII’s liturgical
legislation and accuses the Pope of poor judgment (although, in this case,
unlike the New Mass, Pius XII’s legislation is
binding in the traditional rites, yet Cekada still rejects it). And what about the failures of both Pius XI and
Pius XII to consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in union with all
the bishops of the world? As any Catholic should know, the Church, in her human
nature, is not always “spotless,” and for the Sedevacantists to suggest otherwise
is a denial of reality. It’s quite simple to see, at least for those with eyes
to see.
Second,
Derksen claims that Christ was “beaten and disfigured from the outside” – as
opposed to what, Mario? Being “beaten and disfigured from the inside”? Inside His
Body? How would that work? While Derksen insists on an absolute, one-to-one
correspondence (which is not possible; that is why it is an analogy), both
Christ and His Mystical Body were “beaten and disfigured” by insiders – that is, by those who were the official leaders of the respective Covenants, Old and New. And
neither Christ nor the Apostles ever claimed that the Jews who put Christ to
death really didn’t hold their offices at the time, just because they had
heretical interpretations of the Scriptures and rejected Him as the Messiah. The
comparison holds, as it did for many saints, in spite of Derksen’s desperate
and far-reaching arguments to the contrary.
Derksen: No, the Catholic Church —
according to Salza — is not the Spotless One persecuted, but is doing
the persecuting, is teaching heresy and error, is giving foul
discipline and sacrilegious liturgical rites, is offering false
saints to the faithful for veneration and imitation. And yet Salza is
claiming we have lost Faith in the Church!
Salza/Siscoe: Mr. Derksen, was the Catholic
Church doing the persecuting when Pope Stephen VI condemned Pope Formosus,
annulled all his pontifical acts, and declared his ordinations to be invalid?
Or was the Catholic Church doing the persecuting when Pope Theodore II reversed
the decisions of Pope Stephen? What about when Pope Sergius reversed the decisions
of Pope Theodore and went back to the original decisions of Pope Stephen,
creating utter chaos and havoc for the faithful? What
about Pope Honorius? Was he defending the Church or persecuting the Church when
he promoted the Monothelite heresy, and when he confirmed the heretic Sergius, who
at the time was the Patriarch of Constantinople, in the heresy? And what about
Pope John XXII? Was he defending the Church or persecuting the Church when he
taught that the souls of the just did not obtain the Beatific Vision until the
General Judgment, which was soon after condemned as heretical?
Church
history is filled with examples of Popes engaged in less than “spotless”
teaching and practice, just as Fr. Cekada pointed out in his video on Bitter
Fruits. But this is what you get in the world of Sedevacantism: when they think
an argument helps them (“The Church is spotless! No bad teachings or practices
before Vatican II!”), they make it their main thesis (and even make a video
about it). But when the argument hurts them (“Okay, some Popes did give bad
teachings and practices before Vatican II, I admit it!”), then they shamelessly
ignore their contradiction and move on to another argument (“Hey, didn’t you
know the Vatican II Popes were heretics before
their elections?!”). It is both predictable and pathetic. Was Pope Liberius a
member of the Church? Pope Honorius? Pope John XXII? How could they be, if the
Church is “spotless at all times” in her teaching and practice, when, in fact, these
and other Popes committed grievous errors?
Are grievous errors “spotless”? And is Derksen, who claims to be a
member of this Body (that he publicly rejects), also “spotless”?
Derksen’s
argument is not only theologically erroneous, but it simply cannot be
reconciled with Church history. Another Sedevacantist apologist, who has
embraced a similar error, admitted to us multiple times that when he studied
the history of the papacy, his faith was completely shaken. Why? Because he
found multiple examples of Popes doing what he thought was “impossible.” The
only way he was able to reconcile these historical facts with his distorted
view of infallibility was to declare that these men were not true Popes – which
is what he now claims – even though they have always been considered true Popes
by the Church. What Sedevacantists need to realize is that infallibility is not
a habitually active charism, nor is impeccability in matters of doctrine and
morals.
Derksen: Staying with this “Passion”
analogy, Salza is arguing, then, not that our Lord was disfigured and mocked
and beaten from the outside, but that our Lord was actually Himself the
perpetrator: feeding poison to His flock, offering them damnable
doctrines, leading them to false worship that is odious to God.
Salza is arguing, in effect, that our Lord, instead of healing the crippled and
giving sight to the blind, actually crippled the whole and blinded the seeing!
In short, Salza asserts that our Blessed Lord led His people to damnation.
WHAT BLASPHEMY!
Salza/Siscoe: This type of argumentation shows
what kind of sophist Mario Derksen really is. Because the analogy is so
damaging to the Sedevacantist position (true leaders persecuting the Body of
Christ), Derksen is forced to pervert the analogy, and come up with the most
grotesque of perversions, as if we ever accused Our Lord of doing such evils
(does Derksen really believe that individual members of the Church are
literally Christ himself?). For Derksen to accuse us of such things reveals the
morbid state of his own mind, and also that he cannot truly engage at the
theological level.
It also reveals
the bitter spirit of Mario Dersken. He is blinded by his errors, and thus cannot
see the parallel between the leaders of the Old Covenant disfiguring Christ’s
physical Body, and the leaders of the New Covenant doing the same to His
Mystical Body. What is truly blasphemous is Derksen’s own accusations of
blasphemy, as if any Catholic would ever say that Christ was responsible for the sufferings of the
modern Church, although He no doubt willed to permit them, just as He willed to permit His Passion and other crises that have shaken the human
element of the Church. For Derksen to make such an outrageous argument shows
that he doesn’t know what other arguments
to make. His desperation grows with each ridiculous piece he publishes. But
this is helping those of good will see that Sedevacantism is a rotten true that
produces nothing but rotten fruit.
Derksen: Obviously, such an idea is evil,
heretical, blasphemous, and to be rejected with all our being, and yet that is
what, by analogy, Salza says of our Lord, whose Mystical Body the Church is.
So, who has lost Faith in the Church, Mr. Salza? Sedevacantists have not
abandoned the disfigured Lord on the Cross, but rather, have abandoned a man
who curses instead of blesses, harms instead of heals, and misleads
instead of shepherds (cf. Mt 11:2-6). We have abandoned such a man because we
know He cannot be the Messiah! And yet Salza is arguing that this abominable
impostor is the Messiah, we just need to set him straight!
Salza/Siscoe: If Derksen had any credibility
left with those who are “on the fence” with this issue (hard to believe, since
he has failed to respond to our feature articles about him and his errors), he
surely lost it with such an outrageous and inflammatory comment. But such, dear
reader, is the tactic of the Sedevacantists. They avoid arguments that appeal
to the intellect, and rather throw out arguments that appeal to the will. In this case, since Derksen cannot rebut
our original analogy that the leaders of both Covenants disfigured the Body of
Christ, he creates a straw man to knock down (i.e., since Christ was entirely
pure, the Church is entirely pure and thus her members cannot give bad
teachings or practices), and then dresses it up with the much-expected
incendiary descriptors (“evil,” “heretical,” “blasphemous,” “curses,” “harms,”
“misleads,” and so forth). It’s par for the course in the wacky world of
Sedevacantism.
Derksen even makes the utterly false and blasphemous assertion that Salza called the Pope the Messiah! Derksen was surely attempting to create his own analogy here, by equating the Pope with Christ, but here again Derksen has gone completely wrong, which an error that is at the root of his other errors. The Pope is not Jesus Christ. He is only His Vicar. When the Pope binds according to the promises of Christ, he is “spotless” in his teaching. When he departs from Christ, he is not spotless in his teaching or practice. But that does not mean that it is Christ who is “harming” and “misleading” the Church! Such arguments may appeal to the more simple-minded folks at NovusOrdoWatch.com, but they are being laughed at and ridiculed by those Catholics who can make basic distinctions between Christ and the Pope, just as they can distinguish between Christ’s physical Body and His Mystical Body. But as we have demonstrated in this debate over and over again, Sedevacantists fail to make proper distinctions, and thus compound their errors.
Derksen: As you can see, Salza is teaching
a most pernicious doctrine to his unsuspecting adherents, and it is for this
reason, as well as a few others, that we have raised the question whether
perhaps this man, who advertises himself as a former 32nd degree Freemason and
expert in Masonic ritual, is perhaps still a Mason, who was simply put
on a new assignment by the Lodge. No, we are not claiming he is, we are
merely raising the question, which to us seems more than justified given
the doctrine that he preaches, and given a few other considerations.
Should we
raise the question whether perhaps Mario Derksen, who advertises himself as a
former Fundamentalist Protestant who rejected the Catholic Church, is perhaps still a Fundamentalist Protestant, who
was simply put on a new assignment by his former anti-Catholic sect? Does the
raising of such a question seem more than justified given the doctrine he
preaches, which elevates his private judgment (in this case concerning who is a
Pope) over the public judgment of the Church, just like the Fundie Prots? Or
should we refrain from raising such questions about our opponents, and stick to
the theological and legal issues of the debate? You tell us, Mario.
Derksen: Ask yourself this, ladies and
gentlemen: As a result of the recognize-and-resist position put forth by
Messrs. Salza and Siscoe, are you led to a greater love and veneration for the
Church and her Supreme Pontiff? Are you led to greater obedience and faithfulness
to everything she teaches?
Salza/Siscoe: Ladies and gentlemen, ask Mr. Derksen if “everything she teaches” includes her teaching at the Fourth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople (affirmed by Pope Benedict XV’s Ex Quo), which condemned formally separating from one’s heretical bishop before a judgment by the Church. Or does Mr. Dersken mean “everything she teaches” except this direct condemnation of what Sedevacantists have done?
Derksen: Are you not, rather, looking upon
her with great suspicion and disgust, having been led to believe that what
comes from her is often tainted with damnable errors, especially Modernism, and
that you must often guard yourself against the Church lest she lead you
astray? Is this the Church Christ left us, the “church of the living God,
the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim 3:15)?
Salza/Siscoe: Here Mario proves our contention
that he and his colleagues seek to appeal to the will and not the intellect
of their followers. He now makes it a question of whether you have a “greater
love” the Church and the Pope for following Mr. Derksen vis-à-vis Messrs. Salza
and Siscoe, or rather a “greater suspicion.” What do you feel, dear reader, when you read the arguments? Do you feel better with Derksen, or with
Salza/Siscoe? As we have pointed out many times, Sedevacantism is a religion of
“feel good” and “simplicity,” or in Fr. Cekada’s words, “a one-shot deal” that
doesn’t have all that complexity of the R&R position. Just declare, on your
own authority, that these guys aren’t Popes, then do what the Fourth Council of
Constantinople condemned, and you won’t have to deal with the suffering caused
by the crisis of the Church anymore! Voila! You don’t have to feel that
“disgust” and “suspicion” anymore. You simply reject the Pope and the Church over which he rules.
The
problem is that no true Catholic feels
good about the Church suffering her Passion at the hands of its own
leaders. And neither did Our Lady feel
good when the leaders of the Old Testament Church put Her Son to death. Did
Catholics during the Arian heresy have greater or lesser love and veneration
for the Church and the Pope when, according to Fr. Jurgens, 97 percent of the bishops taught that
Christ was not equal to the Father in his Divine Nature? Would they have felt better if they simply declared, on
their own authority, that all the bishops lost their authority? Would they have
had greater or lesser love for the Church by claiming for themselves authority
that the Church alone has, in
resolving questions of fact and law in regard to the Church’s doctrine and
practice?
What
about Pope John XXII? Did Catholics have a “greater obedience and faithfulness”
to everything the Church teaches when Pope John XXII was teaching his false
doctrine? Would they have had greater “obedience and faithfulness” to the
papacy if they declared, on their own authority, that John XXII was an
antipope? Or did the true Catholics
recognize that the true Pope was
teaching false doctrine, and needed
to renounce his errors, rather than declare on their own authority that John
XXII lost his office? Didn’t leaving this judgment to the Church while
steadfastly holding to Tradition give true Catholics true peace in the face of these and many other crises in the
Church? The historical record and the teachings of the Church itself show how
true Catholics are to react when the Church is suffering due to the actions of its own leaders – and it’s not by falling
into the condemned error of Sedevacantism.
Derksen: It is one thing to say that the Church is not infallible in every single utterance of her Magisterium, and hence some things taught by the authentic ordinary Magisterium could technically still undergo revision in the future.
Salza/Siscoe: Wait just a minute, Mario. If the Church is
“spotless” in all her teachings, then why would she ever need to “revise” her Magisterial
teachings in the future? Do you mean like revising the Semi-Arian formula
signed by Pope Liberius during the Arian crisis, when the Pope should have been
defending the Faith, not compromising it? Was the Church “spotless” then? Or
when multiple Popes doctrinally erred by teaching that ordinations must be licit to be valid, and then erring by declaring certain ordinations invalid? Was
she “spotless” then, Mario? What about
when a Pope publicly denied 1300 years of teaching that the purified souls of
the just enjoy the Beatific Vision, which was defined as a dogma by his
immediate successor? Was she “spotless” then? Or what about when certain Popes
promoted religious liberty and ecumenism, but didn’t make them binding
doctrines that must be believed in faith? Is this the only time the Church fails to meet Derksen’s criterion for being spotless?
Hardly. For Derksen to acknowledge that the Church can revise her non-binding teachings without those in charge losing
their authority is one step closer to his renunciation of Sedevacantism.
Derksen: — yet it is quite another thing
to claim, as Salza does, that the Church can teach heresy and contradict
her very own doctrine. Such an institution would not be credible, and most
certainly not divine!
Salza/Siscoe: Tell that to the Catholics who
lived through the Arian heresy, Mario. What Derksen does not understand is that
the teaching of certain members of
the Church – even Popes - does not equate to the Church herself teaching. Even
a Pope can depart from the teaching of the Church, as history proves. His
arguments may appeal to the emotions of his sect, but certainly not to those
who know Church history and the distinction between infallible teachings and
those that are not immune from error. And before he uses the word heresy so loosely, Derksen ought to read
Chapter 7 of our book in order to learn the distinction between heresy and
lesser theological errors. He and the rest of his colleagues throw around the
word “heresy” constantly, without ever making the necessary qualifications and
distinctions. Not only do they fail to make the distinction between the
material and formal elements of heresy (when it suits their case), but they
also fail to distinguish between direct denials of an article of faith, and
those errors of a lesser degree. These failures are all part of the
intellectual disease of Sedevacantism.
Derksen: Ask yourself: Can you, as a
traditional Catholic (right?), agree with the late great Fr.
Frederick Faber, who taught:
‘But we
may forget, and sometimes do forget, that it is not only not enough to love the
Church, but that it is not possible to love the Church rightly, unless we also
fear and reverence it. Our forgetfulness of this arises from our not having
laid sufficiently deeply in our minds the conviction of the divine character of
the Church… The very amount of human grandeur which there is round the Church
causes us to forget occasionally that it is not a human institution.’
Salza/Siscoe: We couldn’t agree more. It is not
us, but the Sedevacantists who fail to “fear and reverence” the Church, and
instead constantly seek to discredit her in the eyes of men, by focusing exclusively on her wounds, with the goal
of convincing Catholics that the visible Church has defected. Those who think
correctly realize that, while the Church is a divine institution, she is made
up of sinful, human members. And thus her divine nature can be obscured by her
human nature, just like the disfigured human nature of Christ obscured His divine
nature. As with essentially all of the arguments advanced by Sedevacantists,
Derksen emphasizes one truth (divine nature) while ignoring another (sinfulness
of her members).
Derksen (quoting Fr. Faber): ‘Hence comes that wrong kind of
criticism which is forgetful or regardless of the divine character of the
Church. Hence comes our setting up our own minds and our own views as criteria
of truth, as standards for the Church’s conduct.’
Salza/Siscoe: Amen! Fr. Faber’s quote only
eviscerates the Sedevacantist position, since Sedevacantists reject the teaching of the Fourth
Ecumenical Council of Constantinople (which condemned separating from one’s
bishop before a judgment of the Church), and they instead “set up their own
minds and views as criteria” for who is a true Pope and bishop, and who isn’t.
How twisted is it to quote a priest who opposes one’s very own position!? This
speaks to the intellectual darkness and spiritual blindness of Mr. Derksen and
those who would be persuaded by his arguments.
Dersken (quoting Fr. Faber): ‘Hence comes sitting in judgment
on the government and policy of Popes. Hence comes that unfilial and unsage
carefulness to separate in all matters of the Church and Papacy what we consider
to be divine from what we claim to be human. Hence comes the
disrespectful fretfulness to distinguish between what we must concede
to the Church and what we need not concede to the Church. Hence
comes that irritable anxiety to see that the supernatural is kept well
subordinated to the natural, as if we really believed we ought just now to
strain every nerve lest a too credulous world should be falling a victim to
excessive priestcraft and ultramontanism [“papolatry”?].]
Salza/Siscoe: Fr. Faber’s sound instruction
applies not only to those who refuse to adhere to the Popes’ binding doctrines, but also those who
“sit in judgment” over who is a true
Pope in the first place! Especially when the Church has condemned the act of separating from one’s bishop before the Church
itself renders the necessary judgment. Who, dear reader, has more “love and
reverence” for the Church – those who will allow the Church, in her own time,
to exercise her God -given authority and restore the Church to her former
beauty? Or those who declare the institutional Church has defected, and who
focus exclusively on her wounds in an attempt to discredit her in the eyes of
men; who usurp an authority that the Church alone possesses, by declaring who
is, and who is not, a true or false Pope; and who reduce the institutional the
Church to the heretical definition of an invisible reality found in the heart
and minds of true believers?
Derksen (quoting Fr. Faber): ‘Only let us once really master
the truth that the Church is a divine institution, and then we shall see that
such criticism is not simply a baseness and a disloyalty, but an impertinence
and a sin.’ (Rev. Frederick W. Faber, Devotion to the Church [London: Richardson & Son,
1861], pp. 23-24; italics in original; pragraph breaks added.)
Salza/Siscoe: Evidently, Derksen is not too
concerned about “sin” when it comes to his rejection of the Pope and the
Church, since an ecumenical council of the Catholic Church has condemned his Sedevacantism
with an accompanying excommunication. Nor does he seem concerned about the
mortal sin against Faith committed by those who reject dogmatic facts, such as the legitimacy of a Pope who has been
accepted, as such, by the entire Church.
Derksen: BAM! So here we see just who is
the traditional Catholic! Is Fr. Faber not precisely describing our
semi-traditionalists? (As you can see, there is a reason why we call them semi-traditionalists!)
Salza/Siscoe: BAM? What is this, Batman? What
would Fr. Faber have said about those phony traditionalists who come under the
excommunication of Constantinople IV for separating from their patriarch by
private judgment? Would he not have said that such individuals “sit in
judgment” on the government of the Church – the Church that elected and
presented to us the very men that these pseudo-Catholics reject? Fr. Faber was
addressing those cafeteria Catholics who assumed a freedom to pick and choose
what doctrines they wished to believe; but he certainly never contemplated that
the error of cafeteria Catholicism would arise to the level of so-called
Catholics declaring that the chef was not a true chef, and the Pope not a true
Pope.
Derksen: Michael Matt in particular
always likes to play the supposed “human element” of the Church card when
he needs to justify his resistance to a public apostate, yet here Fr. Faber
sets him straight.
Salza/Siscoe: The “supposed” human element of
the Church? So, according to Mr. Derksen, the Church doesn’t have a “human element”? She is divine only? Does he deny that the Church is “a
human community inasmuch as it is composed of men,” as Pope Leo XIII taught? Looks
like Mr. Derksen is not only a schismatic, but also subscribes to a version of
the Docetist heresy, which holds that Christ only seemed to have a human nature. The more Derksen attempts to defend
the indefensible, the more errors he spews.
Derksen: The true Catholic Church does
not need a theological babysitter. Her teachings, laws, decisions, liturgical
rites or canonizations are not subject to review by a bishop from Switzerland
or lawyers and journalists from the United States, as Pope Leo XIII also made clear.
Salza/Siscoe: Is that so, Mario? Then why are
they subject to review by a former Protestant Fundamentalist who runs a website
under a phony name? In fact, Mr. Derksen not only rejects the explicit teaching
of the Fourth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople, but he is so arrogant that
he mocks those who faithfully abide by it (that is, those who have remained in
the true Church). And in doing so, he mocks the Church itself, a Church in
which he has lost the faith and now attacks, even more viciously, than the
Modernists. Like his colleague John Lane, who shamelessly declared that any Catholic in the
pew can judge ”facts [whether the Pope is a heretic] as facts without requiring
Daddy to confirm them,”[1]
Derksen has told us that he too doesn’t need a “babysitter” to tell him who is
Pope and who isn’t.
 |
| Fr. Cekada, Mario Derksen's mentor |
Derksen: This goes to show that the
resistance traditionalists really do not have Faith in the Church at all, but
consider her a merely human institution, which can fail as much as any other
human society and which is therefore in need of criticism and human assistance
lest she go under. That, at least, is exactly how they behave.
Salza/Siscoe: Here we have more desperate, and
obviously dishonest argumentation
from Mario “Gregorius” Derksen. When has any traditional Catholic writer ever declared
that the Church is a “merely human institution”? Tell us, Mario. Provide book,
chapter and verse. As we said above, the more Derksen engages in this debate,
the more he will be exposed. Once again, Derksen recklessly fails to make the
proper distinctions between the human and divine natures of the Church, her
binding and non-binding teachings, and all the rest – and then decides to make
a false statement to cap it off. We must ask whether Derksen is simply that
ignorant of these distinctions, or whether he is simply making it up as he goes,
because he is a man of bad will. We know which way our audience leans, based
upon the feedback we have received thus far. And sooner or later, those of
goodwill who have been deceived by the likes of Mario Derksen will also see the
light of their errors and return to the Catholic Church. May that day also come
for Mario Derksen, before it is too late for him.
Derksen: We have said it before: The
reason why so many people who mean to be traditional Catholics can easily
accept Francis as Pope, or can take a position that “it doesn’t matter” whether he is Pope, is that they do not submit
to him anyway. Refusal of submission to the Pope, however, constitutes schism,
and, if it is denied that a Catholic must submit to the Pope, then it
is heresy as well (see Denz. 1831). If you are not sure what you believe on this
matter, you can do a quick self-test. Watch the brief video below and see if
you can, in good conscience, assent to the pre-Vatican II Catholic teachings
quoted there and reconcile them with the idea that Jorge Bergoglio or his five
predecessors are valid Popes. Good luck!
Salza/Siscoe: Mario Derksen has
just publicly accused himself of the sin and crime of schism, since he himself
“refuses submission to the Pope.” But he is currently too arrogant to see it.
Even though the Church’s theologians unanimously
teach that the universal and peaceful acceptance of a Pope gives us infallible certitude that he is a true
Pope (which we have from John XXIII to at least Benedict XVI), and that such is
considered a “dogmatic fact” that cannot be denied without committing mortal sin
against Faith, Derksen has the hubris to say the conciliar Popes are not Popes, and then declares that those
who do submit to them are schismatics! This is one of the diabolical marks of
Sedevacantism, which leads its adherents to falsely accuse their opponents of
the errors that they themselves commit and promote. It’s a dead, or shall we
say “mortal,” giveaway.
How
Mr. Derksen can still imagine himself to be a competent spokesman for his
Sedevacantist sect is quite remarkable. But we welcome his further contribution
to the debate, which is demonstrating to many people that Sedevacantism is a
false and anti-Catholic thesis that cannot be defended, even by the sect’s self-appointed
apologists.
[1]
http://sedevacantist.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1757.
