Post by Deleted on Jan 29, 2018 21:36:47 GMT -5
THE SEDEVACANTIST PARADOX
STATE OF THE PROBLEM
Before I left Suscipe Domine, there was an objection gaining a great deal of traction (spearheaded by one poster in particular) who rejected all ability to act in accordance with the belief in the possibility of a present-day sede vacante. This rejection was based upon a critique of the very logic used to reason to the possibility. The objection, in a nutshell, goes like this:
“We only know with absolute certainty what the supernatural content of the Faith is based on the popes’ teachings of it; to then use our knowledge of these teachings from the popes to determine when a different pope's teachings are false is to undermine the entire means by which we know the teachings we believe in the first place.”
Put another way:
“I know what the Faith is based upon what the popes say it is; and I know this isn't the Faith based upon what I say it is.”
And again:
"If he is pope then his teaching cannot be doubted; I doubt this pope's teaching; therefore, he cannot be pope."
The minor premise violates the very rule of the major premise: "If he is pope, then his teaching cannot be doubted." In this way, instead of using his office as the means by which we do not doubt his teaching, we use ourselves to make this determination, which is exactly the opposite of what the major premise says. It doesn't say, "If he is pope, and if I agree with his teaching, then his teaching cannot be doubted." That is not how the Church was established. We can't use our own personal inability to reconcile magisterial teachings as the reason to reject the very principle upon which the guarantees of the magisterium are founded: the office of the papacy.
The objection seems rock solid, and it identifies an error in the logic of many sedevacantists. This approach to the present-day possibility of sedevacantism destroys the epistemology of the Faith by replacing the authority of the Church with our own private judgment. The popes tell us what the Faith is, except when we don’t like what this or that pope tells us the Faith is, in which case we tell him what the Faith is. But then who really decides what the Faith is? He only let him decide when he agrees with us? But that’s the same as saying we decide what it is, but we let him do it when he agrees with us.
Many sedevacantists can’t respond to this, much to the delight of those who advance this objection. They press further. They say that if universal acceptance guarantees the validity of a papal claimant, and if the valid papal claimant solemnly and universally promulgates a teaching of the Church, then it cannot contain errors harmful to faith and morals—end of question. It is completely destructive to Catholic epistemology to attempt to identify errors in one of these universally promulgated teachings that are protected from at least causing spiritual harm and argue back to the original invalidity of the one promulgating it. After all, we only accept something as Catholic teaching if the true pope declares it so; we can’t find something we don’t like to then argue he wasn’t a true pope to begin with, lest there never be any way to know for sure who really is or is not a true pope and what is or is not really Catholic teaching. There doesn’t exist a more perfect example of the “no true Scotsman” fallacy. From this point of view, at the end of the day, whether he truly is or is not the pope is based upon the personal opinion of the Catholic who either agrees or disagrees with what he has written. But of course this turns the entire edifice of Catholic epistemology on its head, for then we can never have any indisputable standard by which we can really know what is of faith and what isn’t. Maybe we take St. Thomas' opinion on the Immaculate Conception and argue that Pope Pius IX couldn't really have been a true pope. But whether he is a true pope is the standard by which we know what must be de fide. To be able to selectively impugn the validity of that standard whenever we disagree with what it says is to destroy the entire epistemology of the Faith and place ourselves in the Chair of Peter. Again, after much back and forth with sedevacantists, the one advancing this objection usually wins.
But does that mean they are right? After all, we would all agree that more importantly than whether sedevacantists can respond to this objection is whether they are right nonetheless in acknowledging the present day possibility of sede vacante. Many sedevacantists seem to believe as they do more from their sensus Catholicus than from a painstaking graduate level logical analysis. But if those who acknowledge the present day possibility of sede vacante are right, then how are they right? After all, if they are in fact right there must be a logical way of arriving at that conclusion, even if many know it intuitively without understanding it intellectually. Truth is logical, so if the present day sede vacante is even possibly true then it must at least be possible to arrive at that conclusion logically.
WHAT’S THE ANSWER?
The first thing I’d like to say about understanding the logical way to approach the present day possibility of sede vacante is to point out that sedevacantists need to stop approaching the matter from back to front and start approaching it from front to back. Too often these sedevacantists make their case by proceeding from what teachings the Church says should be at least protected from causing spiritual harm, identifying harm or errors in those teachings to impugn the authenticity of the one who promulgated them, and then use the lack of authenticity of the promulgating authority to come back to the teachings and conclude a lack of authoritative protection, which justifies the initial identification of error. While I don’t fault sedevacantists for coming to the conclusion of sede vacante in this manner, trying to convince others in this manner of the logic of their conclusion is backwards, and it really has no solid epistemological foundation. It is because of this backwards approach that I believe they find themselves getting logically checkmated more than their sensus Catholicus should allow. They firmly believe they are right, but they don’t know how to refute objections made against what they see as so clear.
I propose that, instead of arguing that the teaching is false, so therefore he can’t be a true pope, and therefore the religion he heads can’t be the true Catholic religion, they need to start the other way around: by examining the authenticity of the new church, which affects the authenticity of its head, which affects the authenticity of its teachings. And it’s not as hard to understand as one might think. In fact, we all learned about it when we studied the catechism for our First Holy Communion and Confirmation. Every convert does it as a condition of becoming Catholic in the first place, and we all do it implicitly every moment of our Catholic lives without even realizing it. It can best be summed up in three simple steps: Identification, Authentication, Submission.
IDENTIFICATION
Instead of looking at the question from the little picture to the big picture, we need to approach it the same way we approach the initial identification of the Catholic Faith: from the big picture to the little picture. Instead of trying to prove the presence of a big picture created by the small tiles in a photo mosaic one tile at a time, we should step back from the individual details of each time and look at the big picture. What do we see? Once we see the larger image, we can then analyze each individual tile as a contribution to this larger picture.
In the same way, we don’t start with putatively infallible teachings and then accept the institution that promulgated them as the only divinely-established institution simply because it says so; we start by identifying the putatively infallible institution that gives us those teachings, and only on that condition do we accept those teachings as infallible. Think about it: before you are Catholic, or before you can even know what the true religion is, you look to the very nature of the corpus, institution, or system that teaches the religion. You don’t start with an individual teaching of that religion and decide for yourself whether you think it’s true or not, and then evaluate the authenticity of the religious body based upon it; rather, you begin with whether the nature of the religious body is as it ought to be (say, divine), and only accept the specific teachings of that corpus based upon whether the institution’s nature is as it ought to be.
This is common sense. It’s how we come to consent to any ruler, authority, or institution at all. Before one submits to the authority of his governor, he first ascertains that the man is, in fact, the rightfully-appointed or -elected governor. Viewed under the aspect of his rightful authority, one only submits to his specific commands on this condition. Before one does as his parents say, one first submits on the condition that they are, in fact, his parents. Viewed under the aspect of their authority, he does as they say. Before one submits to the procedures of a corporation, one first ascertains whether it is, in fact, the legitimate corporation it claims to be. Viewed under the aspect of its authenticity, one follows its procedures. We likewise do this in establishing the very foundational claims to the Church’s infallibility, as the authors of Volume I of the Radio Replies explain:
“111. I, for one, do not believe in the Bible. Your own proof is a vicious circle, the Church proving her own infallibility from Scripture, and the inspiration of Scripture from her infallibility.
It is not a vicious circle, but a lawful spiral argument of which the ends do not meet. Taking the Scriptures as historical documents only, the Church proves the historical fact that Christ endowed her with infallibility. Then using that infallibility she throws new light on the historical books by assuring me that they are inspired. I begin with merely historical books. I finish with inspired historical books. But I did not use inspiration as the basis of my first premise. So, too, I could prove that the present King is the rightful ruler from history only, and after that view him under the aspect of his authority, obeying his legitimate commands. Thus St. Augustine rightly said, even in the fourth century, "I would not accept the Gospels unless the authority of the Catholic Church impelled me."
But how are we to identify which is the true Church from all the false religions and institutions which claim to possess the truth? The Old Testament, taken merely as a historical document, prophesied the coming of a kingdom—a religious corpus, if you will—that would possess certain distinctive attributes that only a supernatural corpus could have. Fulfilling that prophesy, God, in His divine wisdom, gave us four marks by which the Church might be made conspicuously divine and uniquely true: Unity, Sanctity, Catholicity, and Apostolicity. While these do not provide us with absolute certainty regarding the identity of the true Church, they do provide efficient motives of credibility that any truly divine corpus must have and, not surprisingly to Catholics, only the Catholic Church does in fact have.
Before even examining what the Church teaches specifically and deciding on that alone whether we will choose to believe it, we know from even a cursory examination of the nature of the Church that it is united in faith and government—that is, it requires all its members to submit to all that has been authoritatively declared as a condition of membership (ostensibly enforced by divine law) as well as obliges fraternal submission to the head of the Church. We also know that she is evidently holy, as we can see from her defense of the natural law (which law even the pagan knows); recommendation of penance, mortification, and self-denial (which even the pagan knows curbs the appetite for self-indulgence in this life); codification of rules tending to these ends; penalties for those who violate them; setting up as examples for its followers those who spent their lives in accordance with these dictates; fostering charity, self-giving, generosity, and all manner of even natural virtue (which, again, even the pagan knows and sometimes observes); etc. We can see the Church is obviously Catholic, for it extends its membership to all peoples of all generations and has never closed itself in any age to any people, ethnicity, race, or culture. Finally, we know she is Apostolic, for as even the historian can attest it has built itself upon the teachings of its founding members, always maintaining, defending, and preserving the organic growth of its doctrine, discipline, and worship.
AUTHENTICATION
Having now identified that corpus which alone possesses marks by which a divine institution ought to be distinguished (assuming for the sake of brevity we do not here need to analyze all other religious institutions), we have now to examine how we authenticate its authority. After all, if an institution is to remain united in faith and government, there must be a mechanism by which this is maintained.
For this particular body, the Catholic Church, the head is its founder, a Jewish Carpenter named Jesus Christ, Who is visibly represented here on earth throughout the ages in a line of successors the first of which He, Himself, appointed. But how do we know when this or that claimant is truly the legitimate and valid successor to its invisible Head? History is replete with examples of false and even rival claimants; an epistemological mechanism must exist by which the validity of a particular visible head can be ascertained with absolute certainty, as a necessary epistemological condition of submitting to the teachings and authority to which we intend to submit.
The answer is simple, really. If this corpus is in fact divine, and if part of that divinity is evidenced by its unique unity of faith and government, then only that claimant can be the true head who in fact receives the unanimous consent of the body. Did it not—did the unanimous consent of the body recognize someone not its true head—then there would not be any corpus at all, since the entire body would be in union with someone not its true head. There would be a head without a body, a body separated from the head. And if the divine attributes of the true corpus are in fact preserved and maintained by God, then it is impossible that this should happen, lest it cease to be distinguished by the very divine attributes His divinity must preserve in order to remain true to its self. We can be absolutely certain, then, that the true head is that claimant who is universally recognized as head of that institution—namely, the Catholic Church—by its members.
But let us not hyper-extend the principle. The universal recognition of the corpus infallibly guarantees the authenticity of the man who heads the Catholic Church; it does not infallibly guarantee the head of any other body. For example, even if all the Catholics of the world were to universally and unanimously recognize Peter Singer as the head of the World Utilitarian Church, it would not infallibly guarantee that Mr. Singer is, in fact, its head. Instead, the infallible guarantee of the faithful’s universal recognition of its head applies only to its own body—that is, the true Catholic Church. This point will be important to remember later.
SUBMISSION
Now that we have identified the true Church and authenticated its true head, we are bound to submit to his rule and authority. Whereas before we viewed his dogmatic pronouncements under the auspices of doubt and uncertainty, we now have absolute epistemological certainty that this man’s formal dogmatic content is authentic and therefore truly protected from causing spiritual harm. No more are we allowed to question his authority or dogmatic declarations. We cannot at this point identify perceived doctrinal errors and use them to question the validity of the man who promulgated them, for the absolute certainty that this man is the true head of the Church guarantees at least the spiritual safety of his doctrinal content. It follows from the very divine nature and constitution of the body we have identified as the only true corpus given to us by God.
To remain true to its divine nature, it must remain holy; but if the head were to promulgate that which is spiritually harmful, then the corpus could not remain holy. Therefore, it is absolutely certain that the doctrinal content of the head is at least protected from causing spiritual harm to the faithful. We have no cause, then, the question the doctrinal content that flows from the certain head of the Church; for if the external holiness of the Church has compelled us to accept its divinity and validate its true head, then its internal holiness can only secure the externally-evident divine mark that brought us to the corpus in the first place.
Once we externally accept a particular religious body as the only divine institution of God, then we are bound to submit to its certain authority as actually internally securing that mark of divinity by which we accepted it. There cannot be a contradiction. It would be impossible for the body to possess an external mark of holiness while internally betraying this sanctity. Similarly, it could not happen that the external mark of holiness were absent while maintaining that it were internally secure from causing harm to us. Once we recognize the divine marks distinguishing the true corpus from all the false claimants, then we can be sure that the internal maintenance of that mark is infallibly secure.
Before, we had considered the specific teachings of the institution under the aspect of mere claims, as doubtful, irrelevant, and inapplicable to us. Now, we consider the specific teachings of the institution under the aspect of divine utterances inspired by God or at least protected by Him from causing us spiritual ruin. Under this aspect, we have no excuse or cause to dissent, doubt, or question the doctrinal content flowing from the certain head of that institution. To presume to do so would be to put ourselves in the place of the head, to destroy the epistemological foundation of the only divinely-recognizable corpus, and to place our wills above God’s divine institution. Reason itself dictates that there be epistemological certainty of the head and its teachings by which the external divine marks that identified the divine institution are internally secured.
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
We started as a non-Catholic seeking to know the contents of the true religion. We then identified the Catholic Church as the true Church by means of the divine marks which distinguish her. Next, we authenticated the true head of the Catholic Church by identifying its universally-recognized pope. Finally, we submitted to his rule, authority, and magisterium and ended as a Catholic knowing and believing the contents of the true religion. Every moment that we continue to embrace the Faith we implicitly acknowledge this process, since we only submit to this or teaching of the Faith as a logical consequence of accepting the conditions by which we are certain of the integrity of the teachings to which we submit.
WHAT IS THE NOVUS ORDO?
So what does all this mean for the Novus Ordo? First, we have to ask ourselves: What is the Novus Ordo? If you ask most Catholics, they will say it is simply a movement, program, or a policy within the Catholic Church that seeks to make the Faith more accessible to modern man. But is that all that it is? We begin with the vantage point of one living in the early 1960s when this program was announced by John XXIII and its essence described. The words used by John XXIII to describe this program are important for understanding its nature, for they logically entail certain realities that he never explicitly acknowledged and even implicitly denied.
The first significant statement of John XXIII by which he told us of the true nature of this program was in his introduction of the purpose of the program: to update the Church to make it more appealing to modern man by expressing the Church’s teaching in light of modern thought. This is perhaps the single-most important statement about the program, because it logically entails the creation of a new mission of the Church, even if John XXIII never explicitly stated this. After all, the Church’s mission is to save souls in spite of the world, not by becoming part of it. The purpose of the Church is to conform the minds of men to the truth, not to conform the truth to the minds of men. In fact, this latter is an exact inversion of the Church’s mission. But since it is impossible for the Church’s mission to change, any alteration of it constitutes not a true change in the mission but instead a new mission separate from that of the true Church; and the creation of a new mission entails the creation of a new church, without which there would be no purpose for a new mission.
The next important statement of John XXIII regarding the nature of the Novus Ordo program was its policy to abandon the condemnation of error and to embrace of policy of exclusively affirming the truth. But the Catholic Church’s constitution requires that she always condemn error for the sake of the being true to her nature and true to the revelation of Christ. To abandon this condemnation of error is to abandon the divine constitution of the Church and to, effectively, create a new, distinct one. And, like before, this entails the creation of a new church to operate according to this new constitution.
Finally, the very title of this so-called title of the so-called reform of the Church is Novus Ordo: the New Order. But as Catholic we know that the order of the Church is of divine origin and cannot be changed. It is by Christ's will that this Order of the Church remain the same for the sake of accomplishing its mission and purpose: to save souls. Christ's Church cannot substantially change into something else by adopting a new order by which it goes about accomplishing this mission. The order given to it by God was perfect the moment He instituted it, remains perfect to this day, and will always remain perfect according to God's perfect, unchanging will. He cannot will that man adopt a new order without implying an imperfection in His will that is perceivable today according to its irrelevance to modern man. Impossible! A new order is the very founding of a new Church, with a new constitution, and with a new mission.
Many more examples could be listed, but already, we have a program that, according to its authors, logically entails a blueprint for a new church that will teach a new religion. It isn’t necessary that its authors admit this by explicating the conclusions of the very premises they introduced; it suffices that these premises necessarily entail these conclusions. This program that is said to be simply a mere renewal of the Faith is instead, according to the implications of its authors, the creation of a new church, with a new constitution, with a new mission, and with a new religion. But if it is a new church, then it is distinguished from the Catholic Church and is therefore not the true Church. And if it not the true Church, it is subject to the same method of scrutiny by which the Catholic Church was identified as the true Church in the beginning of this essay.
Whatever it is, then, at the very least, if it is truly part of the Church, it will reflect the same divine light by which the Church herself is distinguished. We will be able not only to see for ourselves but also to point to this divine light in demonstrating to non-Catholics that the Church, in her official capacity, is always distinguished by these marks in all of her universally promulgated teachings, exhortations, recommendations, condemnations, and formal activity (including the Novus Ordo program of “reform”) in such a way as to secure her unity, sanctity, catholicity, and apostolicity.
APPLYING THE SAME STANDARD
This brings us back to where we started: How to identify the true Church. Having now the program’s own admission that it is the blueprint for a church distinct from the Catholic Church, we will use this methodology in analyzing the authenticity of the Novus Ordo institution from the point of view of a non-Catholic viewing both the Church and the Novus Ordo institution in light of the same divine marks they should both reflect if they are part of the same corpus. Let’s start by putting the entire question of the Catholicity of the Novus Ordo institution through our 3-step method as approached by a non-Catholic looking to find the true Church.
(At this point, I think I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that I don’t here seek to prove that the Novus Ordo is nor Catholic, using citations, quotations, charts, diagrams, papers, statistics, etc. I will assume for the sake of brevity that most forum members believe it is not. Either way, I will highlight some of the important points for how we recognize this and what this means for both approaches, as well as how it is useful in approaching the question of the present day possibility of sede vacante. We won’t begin by treating the Novus Ordo as a separate body from the Catholic Church, since the non-Catholic in our example is simply looking to identify the true Church; from the point of view of the non-Catholic, then, we will instead assume the Novus Ordo is part of the same body of the Catholic Church, as it claims, and shine the light of the Church’s divine marks upon this “program” to see whether in fact that light is reflected back. If the light is reflected back, then the Novus Ordo program is just that: an authentic program of the same Catholic Church. If it is not, then we can be sure either the Catholic Church never had divine marks to begin with, or the Novus Ordo program is not part of the Catholic Church and is, instead, a separate church.)
UNITY
We have just begun our analysis and, immediately, we are confronted with a problem: the program’s faithful are not united in faith. Not concerning ourselves with an analysis of the veracity of any particular teaching of the program, one thing is evident: no one agrees on what any of it means. The entire body of those who adhere to the program is divided amongst itself as to whether Vatican II has changed doctrine, added doctrine, modified doctrine, re-expressed doctrine, or even how to interpret the conciliar content considered on its face. Even the pastoral “clarifications” given do not settle the myriad of questions occasioned by the content of the Novus Ordo program; nor does it solve the divisions that appear as numerous as there are individual followers of the program. From the perspective of the outside observer, there is even no unity among the followers of the Novus Ordo with regard to the body of doctrine taught by the Church before the Novus Ordo program was implemented.
But how about unity of government? Surely, we must at least have that. We must first distinguish between material unity and formal unity. Material unity of government consists of external membership, physical belonging, or material affiliation with an institution (basically, a card-holding member only); formal unity of government, by contrast, consists of internal acceptation, fraternal recognition, or official approval (basically, a member actively accepted and involved). We know that unity of government needs to be not just a membership card that says we belong on paper to that organization or institution; instead, true unity of government requires that we recognize the institution’s legitimate authority, that we internally and externally submit to its legitimate authority, and that we are of one mind with one another in the following of that authority. While the adherents of the Novus Ordo program certainly possess material unity of government (they do in fact claim to belong to the corpus that gave them the program), it is hard to see how there is any formal unity of government under the banner of the Novus Ordo program. Dissidents are not disciplined, rebels are not corrected, and theological rogues are not laicized. All manner of canonical crimes, liturgical aberrations, and scandalous rejections of the Church’s authority take place without a word of censure, penalty, or discipline. Pedophile clergy prey upon the flock for decades and are allowed to maintain their positions in the Novus Ordo. Clerics make up their own rules, church-goers refuse to submit to the Church’s rules, and even the head of this program—the Novus Ordo pope himself—has decentralized the authority of his corpus to effectively marginalize the very possibility of having a set of rules and any formal unity of government at all.
SANCTITY
One of the many ways in which we recognize the holiness of the Church is by her age-old policy of protecting her faithful from teachings, ideas, or beliefs which would imperil their salvation. But we don’t have to get very far at before we realize that the very policy of the Novus Ordo is—as professed by Paul VI himself—to abandon condemnation of error and instead simply insist on what we affirm rather than what we deny. Rather than reject Satan, for example, we profess our acceptance of Christ; rather than condemn the unnatural evil of Communism, we simply affirm the brotherhood of God; rather than warn the faithful against the evils of adultery, we celebrate the good of fidelity; rather than warn the faithful against the violation of the First Commandment that is communicatio in sacris, we exhort them to participate in non-Catholic worship in a spirit of ecumenism; etc. This alone categorially rules out the possibility that the Novus Ordo program reflects the divine mark of sanctity by which the Church’s official, universal policies are protected from causing spiritual harm to the faithful or scandal to the world, for this program doesn’t even provide basic protection of its followers against the plurality of evils they face every day.
In light of this, it would be superfluous to dwell on the Novus Ordo’s permission of that which contrary to natural law (e.g., communion for the divorced and remarried, communion for non-Catholics, participation in non-Catholic worship, etc.), its holding up as examples of holiness those who spearheaded these violations of natural law (e.g., canonizing conciliar popes and individuals who publicly violated the First Commandment or rejected the authority of the Church), its encouragement of violations of natural law (e.g., recommending the faithful participate in communicatio in sacris), its institutional facilitation of violations of natural law (e.g., specious pretexts for annulment), its impious liturgy (e.g., the man-centered Novus Ordo Missae, removal of the denunciation of Satan from the baptismal rite, removal of the power of sacrifice from the ordination ritual, etc.)—the examples are seemingly endless.
CATHOLICITY
Finally, we come to a divine mark of the Church that, at first glance, seems to be present in the Novus Ordo. After all, it denies its supposed spiritual benefits to no one. For almost two millennia, the Church has proved her Catholicity by extending her essence—her unchanging spiritual benefits and invitation to salvation—across the entire world in all generations. In this way, the marks of universality and sanctity are inextricably intertwined. The only importance of the Church’s universality is on account of the nature of her very essence: it is necessary that the Church not simply exist in all corners of the earth in name only but that she exist there in her very essence by providing the faithful with the exclusive means of salvation, with all that is entailed.
But the Novus Ordo program has ceased to extend the Church’s essence to the Western Rite by adopting a policy that fails to provide them with the exclusive means of salvation, from failing to protect them from the evils of the world all the way to even encouraging violations of the natural law, by recommending examples of impiety for their spiritual edification, by giving their followers stones when they ask for bread. In this way, it strips from the largest rite of the Church the very purpose of the Church, which in her universality she can never refuse to provide to anyone. Only where the purpose of the Church is present does the Church exist; only where this purpose is denied does the Church not exist. The problem facing the Catholicity of the Novus Ordo program, then, is that it fails to extend the very essence of the Church across the whole world, a direct contradiction of the very definition of the divine mark of Catholicity.
APOSTOLICITY
The last of the four marks of the Church is her apostolicity. By nature, this mark organically extends the same doctrine, discipline and liturgy (teaching, law, and worship)—the three pillars of religious unity—from the Apostles through time across every generation of the world. Like a tree shaped by the environmental factors in which it grows, the form taken by the Church as it passes through each generation is molded by the heresies, schisms, abuses, attacks, denials, persecutions, and trials she has faced throughout her existence. The substance of the tree remains the same as it grows organically, but where this branch grows, where that leaf falls, how the trunk is shaped, or where this twig is broken off are all determined by the various environmental factors that face the tree throughout its life, growth, and development.
One thing is for sure, though: the organic tree can never accept as part of her substance that which is attached to her apart from her own organic growth. The man who owns the tree may not like that the tree has grown disproportionately on one side more than the other, say, or that an entire branch has fallen off due to a bolt of lightning, but if he were to cut choice pieces off another tree to nail together onto the organic tree for the sake of making it appear more acceptable from his and his neighbors’ perspective, no matter how much he would wish to show his neighbors his perfect tree, it wouldn't make his addition a true part of the original tree.
But, without even examining any particular theological nuance of doctrine, discipline, or liturgy of the Novus Ordo, this is exactly what has happened with the Novus Ordo program. What we see from the outside looking in is an Antiquarian-esque hodge-podge of customs, practices, ideas, doctrines, and even formerly-condemned theologies being individually cherry-picked from antiquity and assembled together apart from the tree and then forcefully nailed onto it. What results is an inorganic, Frankenstein’s monster of a program that is attached to the Church to make the whole tree look more appealing to modern man. Men who are desirous for what they call “truth” to form to their wills, rather than let their wills form to what they call “truth,” are quick to accept this program that the “owner” tells them is really part of the Catholic Church.
But if by historical analysis alone we can plainly see that, aside from an internal analysis of the truth of the organic corpus versus the inorganic corpus, the program attached to the Catholic Church with the intention of adding to it did not organically grow from the Catholic Church and is hence not a legitimate extension of her back through time all the way to the time of the Apostles. This addition—this Novus Ordo program—is thus not apostolic in origin.
THE CONSEQUENCES
At this point, it is quite evident to our non-Catholic observer who truly and earnestly seeks to find the truth that the Novus Ordo institution is not the Catholic Church. But if the Novus Ordo institution isn’t the Catholic Church, then the religion it teaches can’t be the Catholic religion. The religion it teaches must therefore be a false religion taught by a false church.
But what does that mean for the man who heads that church and religion? After all, if he is universally recognized by the faithful as the head of the Catholic Church, then his validity is infallibly guaranteed. And this is where we must recall what was said at the beginning regarding the universal recognition of the faithful. The universal recognition of the faithful infallibly guarantees the validity of the head of the Catholic Church; the universal recognition of the faithful does not infallibly guarantee the validity of the head of any other church. Now, the faithful universally recognize the modern popes as the heads of the Novus Ordo institution, which is not the Catholic Church. Therefore, the universal recognition by the faithful of the modern popes as heads of the Novus Ordo institution does not infallibly guarantee their validity.
This lack of guarantee of the validity of the modern popes necessarily occasions the existence of objective doubt with regard to the modern popes as true heads of the Catholic Church. This objective doubt is not a mere uncertain, subjective, speculative doubt; it is certain, objective doubt that finds its origin in the absence of a condition necessary for the epistemological certainty of the validity of the head of the Catholic Church.
This absence of a necessary condition allows a Catholic to withhold communion from such a claimant until this doubt can be rectified. As the theologians teach, one may never act in the absence of the certain knowledge of the rectitude of the act. If the morality of the act is uncertain, one may not perform that act until that doubt has been removed.
Hence, those who, having reached this doubt in this manner, withdraw or withhold communion from these modern claimants, they only do so on the basis that the objective doubt of their papacies gives rise to a practical doubt with regard to acts of communion with them. Obviously, if they do not have the information necessary to come to the conclusion that there is an objective doubt, then there exists no practical doubt with regard to communion with these claimants. But since we are here presuming the presence of that knowledge as laid out in this post, then those who, on this basis, question the validity of these claimants or even consider themselves to be sedevacantists, have every logical, moral, and theological reason to do so.
TL;DR
Sede vacantists, and all those who act in accordance with the present-day possibility of sede vacante, should not reason to their position by starting with a certain pope, disagreeing with his magisterium, and then impugning the validity of the very pope who was previously considered certain, placing themselves over the divine safeguards of the Church. Instead, they should (1) start with a certain pope, (2) submit to and believe his purely factual statements to effectively start a new church while calling it “Catholic”, (3) evaluate that new church in light of the same divine marks by which the true Church is distinguished, (4) realize that church to lack the divine marks of the true Church, (5) understand that the successors of the true pope are not universally recognize as heads of the true Church but are instead universally recognized by the faithful as being the heads of that new church, (6) acknowledge the absence of the condition by which a papal claimant’s validity is infallibly guaranteed, (7) recognize the presence of an objective doubt regarding the validity of those claimants, and (8) act in accordance with the practical doubt that this objective doubt produces. In three steps, we first IDENTIFY the false church as not the Catholic Church, which forces us not to AUTHENTICATE the head of that church as the true Catholic pope, thereby obliging us not to SUBMIT to his authority and magisterium until such a time as that doubt can be rectified.
(Please do not post objections by responding only to the TL;DR version. Your objection may have already been answered in great detail above. If you do not agree with something in the TL;DR version and wish to reply with an objection, please read the long version first to see if perhaps your objection is resolved there. Thank you.)