Theresa Stanfill-Benns wrote:The acronym VAS is for
Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis. Fortunately, the document has been translated into English and is available on the website of Theresa Benns linked
HERETheresa Benns asks, "How does one dismiss that history as documented in VAS itself and still try to pretend to be a Catholic?" She is clearly implying that some do this, but doesn't say who. For myself, and I know a lot of Catholics, I have yet to meet anyone that is ignoring this document. What is said in this document is fairly well known, and regardless of whether one has read it or not, I don't know of anyone contesting any of its teachings. So, if she has persons in mind who are denying it, she should name names and provide proof supporting her accusations, not just cast general aspersions by publishing a question such as this.
All know that without a Pope, the government of the Church from Rome essentially stops. This is an indisputable fact. The Cardinals in Rome cannot step in and govern the Church. Each diocesan bishop does continue to govern his diocese in the absence of the Pope, but there is no Shepherd of the universal Church until a new Pope is elected. I don't know anyone denying this.
Theresa Stanfill-Benns wrote:It appears that she is saying that during papal interregnums that diocesan bishops have no jurisdiction to rule their respective dioceses. If that is what she is saying, then it is heretical, and directly at odds with the Divine Constitution of the Church. VAS certainly did not legislate this, and
Mystici Corporis did not teach this. This is her idea, that she seems to think the documents support.
Theresa Stanfill-Benns wrote:This is true, the cardinals may not do anything that only a Pope may do during an interregnum.
Theresa Stanfill-Benns wrote:Agreed
Theresa Stanfill-Benns wrote: False. The office of Cardinal is not the same as that of a bishop. I'm amazed that she thinks this actually. This is ABC stuff that she's obviously confused on. Cardinals elect popes, that it. They don't have to even be bishops, they can be priests. They do not rule the Church.
Mystici Corporis does not say, "without the Pope the bishops have no power." This is a novelty, and she is reading her own novel thinking into the text. The Pope, by appointing a bishop, grants him his authority to rule over a diocese, which is jurisdiction, but that does not mean that when a Pope dies, that the jurisdiction given to him by the Pope in the act of appointing him to that office, then ends. Such an idea is a novelty, and this is the first time I have ever saw anyone assert such nonsense. By her logic, when a diocesan bishop dies, every priest must stop witnessing marriages or hearing confessions, until a new bishop is appointed who then renews the faculties of the priests of the diocese!
Does anyone notice that she provides no source for her radical idea? This is made up junk, and she abuses these papal documents by citing them in support of this. The Popes did not say what she is saying, and even what she asserted above that she claims that
Mystici Corporis said,
is not found in the document!
Theresa Stanfill-Benns wrote:True, no one disputes the limited role of cardinals during a time of sedevacante.
Theresa Stanfill-Benns wrote:If she means that bishops cannot rule the universal Church during a time of sedevacante, then agreed, but the bishops do continue to rule their respective territories. The bishops could also, by the principle of devolution, if the cardinals were gone, elect a Pope. The laws of the Church legislating that only Cardinals may elect, are premised on their being Cardinals to elect.
Theresa Stanfill-Benns wrote:This is pretty close to the mark. The Cardinals didn't defend the Church or the Faith, at least not as forcefully as needed to be done. With that said, it needs to be said here that Vatican II was not called by Cardinals, it was called by John XXIII. Whether he was a pope or not is an open question, but fact is that he called the Council under the assumption that he was pope, not under the assumption that he was merely a Cardinal, so her statement has no basis in reality.
A second historical note, she seems to think that Vatican II "destroyed the Sacraments." This is false, the sacraments were mutilated and possibly invalidated by acts
after Vatican II.