"While Miss White clearly does not mean to be a Francis apologist, she is one de facto, simply by defending his claim to being the Pope of the Catholic Church. It is this idea that gives him all the legitimacy he needs to destroy souls on a massive scale. It does not matter how much she may “resist” this or that from Francis — the fact alone that she proclaims from the housetops and tells others that this man is the head of the Catholic Church inflicts incalculable damage to souls wherever her voice reaches, because unlike the people at The Remnant, most people in the world, no matter their religion, still understand that if Francis is the Pope of the Catholic Church, then his religion is necessarily the Catholic religion — fancy blog posts from journalists and slyly-argued articles from retired lawyers notwithstanding. All those who vociferously defend Francis’ claim to the Papacy in public ought to be aware that, regardless of their intentions, they will one day have to answer for the damage they have caused in all the souls their writings have reached."
"There is only one way to defeat Francis: You must proclaim from the housetops that he is not the Pope of the Catholic Church. If enough people do it, he is effectively deprived of that which alone gives him all his putative authority: the public’s belief that this man holds the highest office in the Catholic Church. Take that away from him, and he is finished. In the real Catholic Church, Jorge Bergoglio would not even be in a charge of a broom closet. It is time people realized that."
White mentions that there are sedevacantists who “demand” that she agree with them, else she is not a Catholic. Can a sedevacantist do that? Does this not require the very “authority” we have just said we don’t have? who-are-you-accusatory-look.jpg
Binding someone else’s conscience does indeed require ecclesiastical authority, something no sedevacantist has. If any sedevacantist were to pretend that he has the right of himself to bind someone else’s conscience, he would be mistaken and act unjustly. In other words, no sedevacantist could say, “You must be a sedevacantist because I say so.” This would clearly be impermissible. But then again, is anyone doing this? If so, he is wrong.
But this is probably not what is actually happening. Rather, most probably, people are simply pointing out to Hilary White and her coreligionists that given the empirical facts about Francis, Sedevacantism is the only conclusion that does not run into conflict with Catholic teaching. It is thus the only conclusion that is possible, and hence it is also necessary. It is for this reason that others must embrace it — not because we sedevacantists say so, as though we had any authority to bind consciences, but because according to Catholic teaching no other conclusion is possible; and since we have an obligation to adhere to Catholic teaching, we thus also have an obligation to embrace Sedevacantism. In short, the necessity for Hilary White and everyone else to be sedevacantist does not arise from sedevacantists’ say-so, it arises from the fact that all are obliged by Catholic teaching and the manifest empirical facts to arrive at this conclusion.
This, then, has nothing to do with hubris. It is simply akin to explaining to someone that if he understands what “1” means, what “2” means, what “equal” means, and what “plus” means, then he must conclude, necessarily, that 1+1=2. Or, to use our earlier example, if Jack is a bachelor and all bachelors are unmarried, then we must conclude necessarily that Jack is unmarried. No other conclusion is permitted or possible, and we cannot hide behind the copout that we “don’t have the authority” to say that Jack is unmarried. Welcome to the authority of reason.