This post is for general discussion of sedevacantism, or the belief that Catholics have no pope currently.

I stumbled upon this link of writing by "Archbishop" Vigano that I wanted to respond to, where he says:

https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/ap-vigano-here-is-what-popes-ambiguous-statements-are-doing-to-the-church/?utm_source=top_news&utm_campaign=standard

And since the deposition of a heretical Pope is a canonically unresolved question on which there is no unanimous consent of canonists, anyone who would accuse Bergoglio of heresy would be going down a dead end and would obtain a result only with great difficulty.

My first question is, does he or others think that what Francis says is heresy? Is it heresy for someone else to say it? If so, then the question of a "heretical pope" is another one altogether - the first question is if anything being said could be independently thought to be heresy. Because, are bishops who say such things, or priests, or laymen, heretics, and how should their heresy be addressed if so?

Why does this matter? It is true that canonists have not determined what would be done with a pope who fell in to heresy. But, sedevacantists therefore have argued that such like Francis may have been heretics who could not have become pope in the first place, because heretics cannot become pope and the election of an heretic would be invalid. This avoids the problem of judging a "heretical pope", or the First See which is judged by no one, as Vigano notes Catholics are not to do. It simply judges that a person did not become pope in the first place.

So if, for example, certain ambiguous statements in the Vatican 2 documents are heretical, and you don't know about how to judge a heretical pope like Paul VI for teaching them, that might be a legimately unresolveable situation. But, if the documents are heretical, then no Catholic can hold to them, and the next person who tries to be elected as "pope" but yet holds to them, being an heretic, he cannot be elected and actually become pope. So then John Paul I at least would have been unable to have become pope by this logic.

Since I have frequently heard people bring up this issue of a heretical pope without dealing with the further reasoning I have noted, this makes me question if they are simply lying by misdirecting people from a resolution of this issue - has Vigano not been reached out to by a single sedevacantist who has made this argument? But, in any case, I would argue at least he seems to be ignorant of the argument or has neglected to speak publicly considering it as far as I am aware.

The declaration of Vatican II on religious liberty, Dignitatis Humanae (§2), affirms:

This Vatican Synod declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom.

We argue this is heretical ambiguity. Does a person have a right to practice a religion where children are aborted or human sacrifices performed? Plainly this principle of unrestricted religious liberty without qualification seems to be at odds with basic Christian teaching, even though certainly some liberties have been tolerated at times, opening the door for the acceptance of any sin under the banner of "religious freedom". Why even be Christian if people are "at liberty" to embrace sin without consequence?

Vigano says:

It is painful to note that this apostasy of formerly Christian nations is accompanied by Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who ought to be the Vicar of Christ, not his enemy.

How can a kingdom divided stand? (re: Mark 3:24) Are we to believe a Catholic pope is leading people to not be Catholic, in to apostasy? And if such a person is an apostate, he is not a pope, and the church he leads cannot be the Catholic Church.

After all, experience teaches us that when Bergoglio says something, he does it with a very precise purpose: to make others interpret his words in the broadest possible sense. The front pages of newspapers all over the world are announcing today: “The Pope Approves Gay Marriage” – even if technically this is not what he said. But this was exactly the result that he and the Vatican gay lobby wanted.

"But let your speech be yea, yea: no, no: and that which is over and above these, is of evil." (Matthew 5:37) If Francis speaks in ambiguities and refuses to speak plainly about Christian belief, is he not to be considered an heretic? We know that heretical meanings are being promoted through ambiguous language. Is such speaking not to be condemned in itself as heretical?

Some of us plainly reject Francis as not Catholic and not a pope, because he will not plainly profess adherence to Catholicism. We extend this to the whole Vatican 2 movement which we believe was intended to be ambiguous to push heretical interepretations while hiding behind "neutral" ambiguous phrases, and instead we embrace the pre-Vatican 2 traditional Catholic beliefs and practice insofar as is possible given the circumstances.