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MARIO DERSKEN’S PERVERTED ANALOGY ON THE PASSION OF THE CHURCH

Sedevacantist Watch…

MARIO DERSKEN’S PERVERTED ANALOGY
ON THE PASSION OF THE CHURCH

His Desperate Arguments are Getting More Desperate…

Mario Derksen
       In his latest screed, Mario Derksen of NovusOrdoWatch.com claims that we have erred, and even accuses us of the grave sin of blasphemy, for comparing the sufferings of the post-Vatican II Church (that is, the Catholic Church from which Derksen has publicly defected) with the Passion of Our Lord. Evidently, because the analogy can be found in many prophecies concerning our times, and is a fitting explanation for why the Church is suffering at the hands of her very leaders (which we explain in our book True or False Pope?), Derksen figured he better address it.

 
Bishop Sanborn
       Now, since the Jewish leaders who disfigured Christ’s physical Body during the Passion were the lawful leaders of the Old Covenant, that doesn’t help Derksen’s claim that the Catholic leaders who are disfiguring the Mystical Body today are unlawful and illegitimate leaders of the New Covenant (a claim that even the Sedevacantist Bishop, Donald Sanborn, disagrees with). So what does Derksen do? He perverts the analogy by creating the most ridiculous straw man argument, namely, that since Christ was completely pure on the inside, the Church must also be completely pure on the inside, and could never be disfigured by her own human members. In fact, it is Derksen who is guilty of blasphemy, since he accuses Christ of lying when He said that God allows the wheat and the cockle to grow together in the field of the Church (cf. Mt. 13:29-30). To such an absurd argument, any Catholic would immediately respond, “Huh?” Let’s have Mr. Derksen explain his latest to us.

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.

Salza/Siscoe: Mr. Salza chuckles every time a Sedevacantist “raises such a question,” since it is a glowing advertisement for just how insecure and desperate they are to undermine his credibility. It is the response of a person who has been “beat down” and has nothing left in his rotten and empty bag of false arguments. Of course, when Sedevacantists prove they cannot refute their opponents’ arguments, they go all out to malign their credibility, and at all costs, even if it means violating the Eighth Commandment. This is the modus operandi of Derksen, Lane, Daly, the Dimond “brothers” and, unfortunately, of Fr. Cekada, who is a priest (and, because he is a Sedevacantist, suffers from the same maladies). Of course, the “doctrine” Mr. Salza preaches is the doctrine of the Catholic Church, as formulated by the Fourth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople, which condemns Sedevacantism.

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
Of course, in this analogy, “Daddy” and “babysitter” refer to the Roman Catholic Church, above whose judgment Derksen and Lane have elevated their own erroneous opinions. Unfortunately for Derksen, he is the real baby, and the baby is getting a good old-fashioned spanking in this debate, for the more he pouts and whines about our criticisms of Sedevacantism (after he picked this fight with us), the more he will be disciplined (which we have already seen in spades with his failure to address our arguments on fact vs. law, Constantinople IV, canon 188.4, canon 2197, and many, many other issues). And Derksen’s elder mentor, Fr. Anthony Cekada, is in the same, uncomfortable spot. He’s also been spanked in this debate, by failing to respond to our articles on his errors on canon 151, his “sin of heresy” theory, his support for the murder of Terri Schiavo, his rejection of Pius XII’s liturgical legislation, his rejection of papal elections, and his idiotic video on “bitter fruits” in the Church. Like mentor, like pupil. Like Father, like son.

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.