Posted on 05/04/2004 4:49:25 PM PDT by Land of the Irish
The hypocrisy of Roman curial cardinals and of the American hierarchy knows no limits. With Pope John Paul II, a son of the Second Vatican Council, having delegated practically all governing power to the cardinals around him as he continues to wax enthusiastically about the "springtime of the Church ushered in by the events of a council that meant to open the Church up to the "world," his appointees and theological clones in Vatican dicasteries continue to stand the authentic patrimony of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church on its head. Examples abound of the statements emanating from Rome that contradict the living Tradition of the Church, to say nothing of contradicting themselves and bewildering the faithful who even bother to pay attention to them.
To wit, a April 25, 2004, report on ZENIT, which is run by the Vatican lapdogs known as the Legionaries of Christ (an outfit that would say that a pope who permitted women priests must be obeyed without question), sought to engage in historical revisionism concerning the conversion of Rabbi Israel Zolli to the Catholic Faith as a result of the influence of Pope Pius XII. A recently republished book on Zolli's conversion explains that the former Grand Rabbi of Rome took the baptismal name Eugene to honor Pope Pius XII, whose baptismal name was Eugenio Pacelli. Alas, a Vatican that is composed of cardinals who have said that Jews are saved by the Mosaic Covenant, which was superceded by the New and Eternal Covenant instituted by Our Lord at the Last Supper and ratified as He shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross (and symbolized by the tearing of the veil in the Temple in Jerusalem in two upon the death of Our Lord on the Cross), cannot stand to see such publicity given to a book about a Jewish rabbi's honest-to-goodness conversion to the true Church, outside of which there is no salvation. Thus, the April 25, 2004, report on ZENIT sought to make complex that which was not complex at all: Eugenio Zolli's complete conversion to Catholicism.
Consider the following passage from the ZENIT report, which featured an interview with Alberto Latorre, identified as a scholar who oversaw the Italian edition of the Zolli autobiography:
Q: What do you think of Zolli's conversion? You seem to imply that much took place before the meeting with [Pius XII].
Latorre: I answer, quoting Zolli, that it was not a question of a conversion, but of an adherence. The baptism of fire, namely, Zolli's profound adherence to the Gospel message, probably took place during his adolescent years.
Zolli, as he himself says, nourished from the years of his formation a profound love of Jesus -- an attraction attested subsequently by a historical-religious study published in 1938: "The Nazarene: Studies of New Testament Exegesis in the Light of Aramaic and Rabbinical Thought."
The baptism of water, received on February 13, 1945, was an act of formal adherence carried out when he was already clear about manifesting openly, "in primis" to himself, his religious faith.
I must emphasize that Zolli never abandoned Judaism; rather, following in the steps of St. Paul, he entered Christianity as a Jew. A Jew as was Jesus of Nazareth.
Q: Could the rabbi's meeting with the Pontiff have influenced the decisions that were brewing in Zolli's heart? In what way?
Latorre: I think it is impossible to establish objectively if the meeting with Pacelli influenced Zolli's decisions and in what way. How is it possible, in fact, to enter a man's heart and understand profoundly its movements and uncertainties? It is already very difficult to enter one's own -- can you imagine understanding another's?
Yet, on the basis of my studies of Zolli, I think that the meeting with the Pontiff did not influence him at all.
I would like to add that, in my opinion, the repeated rapprochement between Zolli and Pius XII, and vice versa, was not for the benefit of either one. The personal and historical situations of both ended, inevitably, by coming together, but I think that the analysis and historical judgment of the two personalities must be carried out autonomously. …
Let's get this straight. A novel thing called "baptism of fire" is what actually converted Israel Zolli. The "baptism of water" was merely "an act of formal adherence." Huh? There is no such thing as baptism of fire. There is no such thing as an act of formal adherence. The Sacrament of Baptism is a sacramental act by which the very inner life of the Blessed Trinity is flooded into a soul by means of sanctifying grace as Original Sin is flooded out of that soul. To speak in such terms is to deny, almost heretically, the significance of the Sacrament of Baptism. The alleged scholar interviewed by ZENIT is pretty much saying that in Zolli's case the "baptism of water" is a symbolic act that merely ratifies an earlier baptism of fire. Further, Zolli never abandoned Judaism, according to scholar Latorre, and it is a matter of sheer debate as to whether Pope Pius XII had any influence over Zolli's conversion at all.
Obviously, this is bad revisionist history writ large. Apologists for the Novus Ordo Vaticano cannot stand to see a conversion story, especially one dealing with a conversion from Judaism, stand on its own merits. Christopher Ferrara and Thomas E. Woods, Jr., document in The Great Facade that an Eastern Orthodox bishop was dissuaded by Vatican officials from converting to Catholicism. The bishop had to go outside of the Vatican to become a Catholic, angering Vatican officials in the process because he persisted in his quest to be received into the true Church. The efforts to reaffirm Jews in a now dead religion that has the power to save no one is heretical and a grave dereliction of duty that imperils the souls of those who insist that seeking to proselytize the people from whom Our Lord took His Sacred Humanity is wrong and therefore unnecessary. There is no other word than "shameful" to describe such a denial of received teaching. An article archived on this site, "No Other Name by Which Men Can be Saved," provides numerous Scriptural citations to prove that a refusal to work to convert Jews is contradicted by the words of Our Lord and the Apostles themselves.
Also demonstrative of the shameful hypocrisy and cowardice on the part of Vatican officials and the American hierarchy that have been part and parcel of the "tradition" of the past thirty to forty years is Francis Cardinal Arinze's statement, made upon the release of Instruction Redemptionis Sacramentum (a document I have critiqued for the May 15 issue of The Remnant), that priests could refuse Holy Communion to pro-abortion politicians who presented themselves for It during Holy Mass. Cautious politician that he is, however, Arinze undermined his own statement by leaving the ultimate decision up to the hierarchy. In the case of the American hierarchy, obviously, the decision will be in most instances to treat pro-abortion politicians of both major political parties in this country as Catholics in good standing who will be administered Holy Communion without any question or reservation whatsoever. Only two bishops, the Most Reverend Raymond Burke of St. Louis and the Most Reverend Fabian Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Nebraska, have said that they would refuse Holy Communion to a certain Catholic, Senator John F. Kerry, who is running for the highest office in the United States of America. Theodore Cardinal McCarrick, the Archbishop of Washington, and the Most Reverend Wilton Gregory, the Bishop of Belleville, Illinois, and the President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, have both said that the bishops should use "persuasion" rather than discipline in such cases as Kerry's. McCarrick has gone so far as to say that Catholics are not "single issue" voters.
There are at least three things at work here.
First, Cardinal Arinze makes a bold statement that pro-abortion politicians should be refused communion while undermining his statement by declaring that it is the bishops who must make the ultimate decision. More rotten fruit of Vatican cowardice masquerading under the novelty known as collegiality.
Second, Cardinal McCarrick and Bishop Gregory treat pro-abortion officials with the utmost of respect and leniency while treating traditional Catholics as steerage compartment passengers unworthy of even a small cubby hole on the Barque of Peter. It was in McCarrick's Archdiocese of Washington that a planned offering of the Traditional Latin Mass by the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter at the National Shrine of the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception was canceled rather unceremoniously. Both McCarrick and Gregory would bend over backward and do all manner of actual physical contortions if they found out that the Society of Pope Saint Pius X operated within their midst without "ecclesiastical sanction." Catholics would be warned sternly that they run the risk of excommunication if they even breathed the air near such chapels. Ah, but one who supports the slaughter of little babies has not excommunicated himself by supporting in law and with taxpayer dollars one of the four sins that cry out to Heaven for vengeance. Traditional Catholics, especially those who exercise their rights under Quo Primum to assist at the Immemorial Mass of Tradition wherever it is offered by a validly ordained priest, are bad and disobedient as they attempt to worship God in the Mass that best expresses and protects the fullness of the Catholic Faith. Dissenting Catholics are to be treated with respect and dignity, if not a forbearance of spirit that conveys to the faithful that abortion is merely one issue among many that should not separate a baptized Catholic from others at the time of the distribution of Holy Communion.
Third, the willingness of the American bishops of today to do the bidding of careerist politicians of both major political parties while scandal is given to the faithful continues a long tradition dating back to the Nineteenth Century. Richard Cardinal Cushing, who was the subject of a recent article of mine on the Seattle Catholic website, went so far as to enable the widow of an assassinated president who had announced plans to marry a divorced Greek Orthodox multi-billionaire. As Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy noted in her own memoirs about her daughter-in-law's plans to marry Aristotle Onassis in 1968, Cushing made a public statement of complete support. "This woman [Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy] is entitled to whatever happiness she can get." Never mind the indelible seal of the Sacrament of Matrimony. Never mind the Sixth Commandment. Never mind the salvation of souls and the proper formation of her children as Catholics who must accept the entirety of the Deposit of Faith without one whit of dissent. No, what mattered to Richard Cardinal Cushing, the longtime Archbishop of Boston, was a sentimental concept of "happiness" divorced from any sense of conforming one's life to the Commandments revealed by God and taught definitively by Holy Mother Church. Thus, the readiness of McCarrick and Gregory to dismiss the importance of the slaughter of the unborn and to refuse to sanction a pro-abortion politician just continues a pattern of obsequiousness to career politicians that is an absolute and complete betrayal of the authentic patrimony of the Catholic Church.
Dr. John C. Rao noted in a brilliant article that is now posted on the Seattle Catholic website that it is frequently more effective to speak of the beauty of the Faith than to point out specific problems, noting how many bishops of the Sixteenth Century responded to exhortations about the horror of sin and the need for personal conversion rather than to polemical litanies of the problems that existed in the Church. There is certainly much merit to that observation if one is dealing with bishops who actually believe in the Catholic Faith. Our problem, I believe, is that we are dealing with men who have clearly rejected the patrimony of the true Church, men in the hierarchy from the Holy Father on down who believe that the traditional, unambiguous language of the Church is counterproductive and harmful in our "civilization of love," men who do not believe that it is of the Church's very mission to convert everyone alive to become her members, men who promote sin under the aegis of "sex instruction" and "diversity" and other slogans, men who look the other way and who refuse to discipline brother bishops and priests who engage in and who persist in unrepentant sinful activity, whether natural or unnatural, men who do not accept and who do not want to listen to those who insist that all of the problems of the world are caused by Original Sin and our own actual sins and that is it is only the teaching and the sacraments the God-Man entrusted to the Catholic Church that can save souls and thus restore and maintain as much order as is possible in a fallen world. Much of the Church's hierarchy is engaged in material heresy. Some, such as the Bishop of San Jose, California, the Most Reverend Patrick McGrath, who noted at the time of the release of The Passion of the Christ that the Gospels are not historical accounts of the events they narrate, dabble in formal heresy on occasion. Such men are not prone to listen to arguments about the beauty of a Faith that they have quite actively disfigured and continue to disparage.
The answer, as always, is to pray and to make sacrifice for the conversion of our bishops and priests. Nothing much will change until Russia is actually consecrated to Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, which will result in the cessation of the spread of the errors of Russia that plague both the Church and the world. Our Lady will, however, use the fruit of the merits of the prayers and actions we give to her as her consecrated slaves in ways that will be made manifest only in eternity. And we must be content to wait until then, please God we die in a state of sanctifying grace, to see how she has used what we have thus given her so freely and with such complete confidence in her intercessory power as the Co-Redemptrix, Mediatrix of all graces, and Advocate. We must be concerned about the state of things within the Church and the world. We must never lose the supernatural virtue of Hope, understanding that our Immaculate Queen wants us to trust in her so that we will cooperate more fully with the graces won for us by the shedding of her Divine Son's Most Precious Blood so that all things will be restored in Him through the Triumph of her Immaculate Heart. It will be the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart that will end the "traditional hypocrisy" of the regime of novelty within the Church of the past four decades.
With the month of Mary, May, fast approach, may we rely more tenderly on Our Blessed Mother to assist us to grow in sanctity so that we be at least a small part of the solution to what plagues Holy Mother Church by our attentiveness to Eucharistic piety, prayerful recitation of Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary, frequent confession, and our offering of everything we have and do to the Blessed Trinity through the Immaculate Heart.
O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.
Google turns up no hits for "drolesky coulombe". What is this "smear" to which you refer?
I think you're making a category error here. No pope is expected to be perfect or even prudent or even a "good pope." There can be popes who make wrong-headed decisions on a prudential basis. In fact all of them do so to one extent or another. For example, it would be wrong for you to condemn Pope Pius XI just because of his "condemnation of the French monarchist group Action Française," even if that was a bad, stupid, or counter-productive decision. The real question is, "Are they sincerely striving for the defense and propagation of the Catholic faith, or are they promoting a revolutionary new system of beliefs and practices?" It's the classic distinction between being faithful and being successful. It is essential that the Pope be faithful, even if his pontificate isn't successful.
You can read about the controversy (from Drolesky's point of view) at his website:
Coulombe Questions
Empty Works
Charles sent me a tongue-in-cheek defense of his position entitled "Confessions of a Catholic Occultist" which I can e-mail you if you like.
Charles's excellent writings on Catholicism, monarchy and fantasy can be found on my website:
Charles Coulombe archives
Maximilian: This is a big accusation. What evidence do you have for it?
As written by Mary Ball Martinez:
The Soviet Factor
Papal preference for the Allied side became more difficult to defend after June 1941, when this became the Soviet side. By that time Hitler's "Fortress Europe" was overwhelmingly Catholic. Germany itself then included the predominantly Catholic regions of Austria, the Saarland, and the Sudetenland, as well as Alsace-Lorraine and Luxembourg. Moreover, the German-allied countries of Italy, Slovenia, Slovakia and Croatia were entirely Catholic, and Hungary was mainly so. France -- including both the German-occupied northern zone and the Vichy-run south -- cooperated with Germany. Similarly, Catholic Spain and Portugal were sympathetic.
A Catholic priest, Josef Tiso, had been elected president of the German-backed Republic of Slovakia. In France, which adopted the Axis ban on Freemasonry, crucifixes went up on all public buildings, and on French coins the old official motto of the French Revolution, "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity," was replaced with "Family, Fatherland, Work."
Thus, Pope Pius XII found himself in the awkward position of siding with atheistic Soviet Russia, overwhelmingly Protestant Britain (with its vast, mainly non-Christian Empire), and the predominantly Protestant United States of America, against the largely Catholic "Fortress Europe." His predicament reached a climax following the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, and America's full entry into the world war. Most Catholic Americans -- including those of Italian, Irish, German, Hungarian, Slovenian, Croatian and Slovakian descent -- had regarded themselves as "isolationists." Furthermore, Communist atrocities against priests, nuns and churches during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) were fresh in their minds.
Skilled diplomat that he was, Pius XII met the challenge. He appointed the dynamic young Auxiliary Bishop of Cleveland, Michael Ready, to head a campaign to "reinterpret" Divini Redemptoris, the anti-Marxist encyclical of the previous Pope, Pius XI, and to put out the word that Soviet dictator Stalin was opening the way to religious freedom in the USSR.
The Pope's Wartime Silence
That it cost something for the head of the Catholic Church to face so many millions of European Catholics as an enthusiastic supporter of their enemies is evident from a poignant letter Pacelli wrote to Myron C. Taylor, who had been his host in New York and was now Roosevelt's envoy to the Holy See. In part, "at the request of President Roosevelt, the Vatican has ceased all mention of the Communist regime. But this silence that weighs heavily on our conscience, is misunderstood by the Soviet leaders who continue the persecution against churches and faithful. God grant that the free world will not one day regret my silence." There was indeed a "silence of Pius XII," but it was not the silence invented by Hochhuth and Friedlander.
GGII: Bottom line: had he done what the Blessed Mother requested, the couse of events leading up to WWII might have been dramatically different. I'll get back to you later on the other questions you raise.
I.e. one must truly wonder whether the promises of Christ have some validity? If you don't think they do regarding St. Peter's perpetual sucession (see Vatican I), I hear the Orthodox Church is looking for converts.
All very valid points with which I agree, especially the point about Bugnini, whom Pius XII installed to reinvent the Liturgy (not John XXIII).
It was not foolish. Maurras was an atheist who wished to use the Church for his own ends. Compare his and his movement's fate to that of the faithful Leon DeGrelle and the Christus Rex Party in Belgium, which was defended by the Vatican.
Uncharitable? For poking holes in the traditionalist preening and pretensions constantly on display around here? For not ignoring heresy?
Your accusation of heresy against him is based solely on your claim that "baptism of fire" is another term for "baptism of desire." First, it is clear that you have no basis for any accusation of heresy, since Drolesky makes no mention whatever of baptism of desire. [snip]
The worst that you could accuse Drolesky of is ignorance that the term "baptism of fire" could be used to refer to "baptism of desire." But is that in fact the case? Or is it just a case of your incorrect translation of the Latin? Here is the Catholic Encyclopedia translation of the same section of the Summa that you posted. Please note that they translate "flaminis" as "spirit," not "flame."
Max, time to break out a Latin Dictionary. Surely you own one?
Flaminis - flame, wind, fire. Spiritus - Spirit. Pretty different words, wouldn't you say?
"Baptismus flaminis sive Spiritus Sancti" is the full phrase used in the theological manuals - "Baptism in the flame of the Holy Spirit", commonly called "Baptism of Desire". It is also analogical to Trent's use of "votum Baptismi" - "the solemn vow to receive Baptism". There is no distinction to be made between the terms. The SSPX cogently explains this here:
http://www.sspx.org/miscellaneous/three_baptisms.htm
You do listen to what they say, don't you?
If not, how about St. Alphonsus?
"Baptismus autem flaminis est perfecta conversio ad Deum per contritionem, vel amorem Dei super omnia, cum voto explicito, vel implicito veri baptismi fluminis, cujus vicem supplet (juxta Trid. sess. 14. c. 4) quoad culpae remissionem, non autem quoad characterem imprimendum, nec quoad tollendum omnem reatum poenae: dicitur flaminis, quia fit per impulsum Spiritûs sancti, qui flamen nuncupatur. De fide autem est per baptismum flaminis homines etiam salvari, ex c. Apostolicam, de presb. non bapt. et Trid. sess. 6. c. 4. Ubi dicitur neminem salvari posse sine lavacro regenerationis, aut ejus voto." - "However, Baptism of desire is a perfect conversion to God through contrition, or the love of God above all things, with an explicit or implicit wish of true Baptism of water, the change of which it supplies (according to Trent, sess. 14, c. 4) as far as the remission of guilt, but not as far as the impression of the character, neither as far as removing all pain of punishment: it is called of desire [lit. blowing], because it is by the impulse of the Holy Ghost, which is called a blowing. It is de fide that men are saved even by baptism of desire, taught in the canon 'Apostolicam' and Trent, where it is said that no one can be saved without the washing of regeneration, or the desire thereof."
http://www.ihm-church.org/baptism.htm
The literal translation of the root word "flamma" is "flame, fire". See here:
http://www.freedict.com/onldict/onldict.php
http://www.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/Latin/
One my bicker over translating it "flame" or "wind" or "blowing" or "fire", but it certainly does not mean "Spirit" except in terms of a previously known relation between the word "flamma" and the Holy Spirit and Baptism of Desire as we term it commonly in English. If Mr. Drolesky had the least bit of education in this matter, he would know what was being referred to concerning Rabbi Zolli, and wouldn't have made the error of formally denying the existence of Baptism of Desire, or the possibility of Rabbi Zolli receiving it.
Let's get this straight. A novel thing called "baptism of fire" is what actually converted Israel Zolli. The "baptism of water" was merely "an act of formal adherence." Huh? There is no such thing as baptism of fire. There is no such thing as an act of formal adherence. The Sacrament of Baptism is a sacramental act by which the very inner life of the Blessed Trinity is flooded into a soul by means of sanctifying grace as Original Sin is flooded out of that soul. To speak in such terms is to deny, almost heretically, the significance of the Sacrament of Baptism. The alleged scholar interviewed by ZENIT is pretty much saying that in Zolli's case the "baptism of water" is a symbolic act that merely ratifies an earlier baptism of fire.
This is an explicit denial of Baptism of Desire and its relation to Baptism in Water. When someone has Baptism of Desire, and later receives Baptism of Water, the Sacrament does not accomplish what the Desire has already done. Rather than remitting original sin and other sins (already done by Baptism of Desire), it formally incorporates a person into the Church (an act of formal adherence, in other words).
Nothing you can say here will save Drolesky from his blatant heresy. The question is, why are you defending it, when you should know better?
So unlike Hermann, the fathers of the English Dominican Province believe in a "baptism of spirit," not a "baptism of fire," by means of "literally translating" the words of St. Thomas Aquinas.
The Dominican Fathers used commonly used terms so as not to be misunderstood. The use Mr. Drolesky quotes is from an Italian, who obviously might feel differently about how to translate the Latin. What is not in dispute at all, except perhaps by you, is that what Mr. Drolesky denies the existence of and says is heresy is a precise description of what we call "Baptism of Desire" in English, applied to the case of Rabbi Zolli.
Somehow I knew you wouldn't admit that you were wrong. And I certainly didn't expect that you would admit that you were being dishonest by posting only the Latin version without the English translation in order to create a false impression. The origin of the Latin word "flamina" is irrelevant to the fact that in this usage it means "spirit" according to people who know what they are talking about and who were assigned to perform a literal translation of St. Thomas Aquinas, namely the English Dominican Fathers in 1920. Are you going to claim next that based on their translation, the Dominicans were also denying "baptism of fire"?
And if you intend to stand by your absurd mis-translation and calumnious accusations of heresy, the least you can do is to provide one published source which uses the term "baptism of fire" instead of "baptism of spirit." Failing to do that, your whole argument collapses utterly. If you were to find such a published source for the term "baptism of fire" in the Summa, you will have succeeded in demonstrating that the person denigrating the conversion of the Chief Rabbi of Rome had some basis for using that term.
Nothing you can say here will save Drolesky from his blatant heresy.
Ha, ha. So the Living Magisterium now exists in the person of Hermann, and he has pronounced his infallible decree. Hermann locuta est, causa finita. Sorry, but even the bare minimum of Christian charity indicates that you need a lot more evidence before you accuse someone of heresy. Evidence such as the person even mentioning or referring to the doctrine in question, since in this case Drolesky made no reference to Baptism of Desire and was not even mentioning, nonetheless denying, the doctrine in the least.
Christ never promised the Seat would not be vacated. If he did, then a Pope would never die.
Chapter 2.
On the permanence of the primacy of blessed Peter in the Roman pontiffs
1. That which our lord Jesus Christ, the prince of shepherds and great shepherd of the sheep, established in the blessed apostle Peter, for the continual salvation and permanent benefit of the Church, must of necessity remain for ever, by Christ's authority, in the Church which, founded as it is upon a rock, will stand firm until the end of time [45].
2. For no one can be in doubt, indeed it was known in every age that the holy and most blessed Peter, prince and head of the apostles, the pillar of faith and the foundation of the Catholic Church, received the keys of the kingdom from our lord Jesus Christ, the savior and redeemer of the human race, and that to this day and for ever he lives and presides and exercises judgment in his successors the bishops of the Holy Roman See, which he founded and consecrated with his blood [46].
3. Therefore whoever succeeds to the chair of Peter obtains by the institution of Christ himself, the primacy of Peter over the whole Church. So what the truth has ordained stands firm, and blessed Peter perseveres in the rock-like strength he was granted, and does not abandon that guidance of the Church which he once received [47].
4. For this reason it has always been necessary for every Church--that is to say the faithful throughout the world--to be in agreement with the Roman Church because of its more effective leadership. In consequence of being joined, as members to head, with that see, from which the rights of sacred communion flow to all, they will grow together into the structure of a single body [48].
5. Therefore, if anyone says that it is not by the institution of Christ the lord himself (that is to say, by divine law) that blessed Peter should have perpetual successors in the primacy over the whole Church; or that the Roman Pontiff is not the successor of blessed Peter in this primacy: let him be anathema.
45 See Mt 7, 25; Lk 6, 48.
46 From the speech of Philip, the Roman legate, at the 3rd session of the Council of Ephesus (D no. 112).
47 Leo I, Serm. (Sermons), 3 (elsewhere 2), ch. 3 (PL 54, 146).
48 Irenaeus, Adv. haeres. (Against Heresies) 1113 (PG 7, 849), Council of Aquilea (381), to be found among: Ambrose, Epistolae (Letters), 11 (PL 16, 946).
An interregnum between Popes is vastly different than a claim that the See of Rome has been vacant since 1978, or 1963, or 1958, or whenever.
"If anyone the says that it is not from the institution of Christ the Lord Himself, or by divine right that the blessed Peter has perpetual successors in the primacy over the universal Church, or that the Roman Pontiff is not the successor of blessed Peter in the same primacy, let him be anathema." (Vatican I, Dogmatica Constitution on the Church, Chapter II, Canon)
Its tough to see a 48 year gap as "perpetual successors", especially when there have been four claimants universally acknowledged by the Church, and especially when Catholic theologians have long taught that the acceptance of a claimant by the Church is a fact closely related to revelation - it is termed theologically certain, denial of which is a mortal sin against the faith.
See for example, this Sedevacantist page on John Lane's website, which uses as an example of this theological note "Legitimacy of Pope Pius XI" to illustrate "a truth logically following from one proposition which is Divinely revealed and another which is historically certain."
http://www.stthomasaquinas.net/theolnotes.htm
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