"There is a reason why they excommunicated Archbishop Vigano.
He called out the Great Reset, the Cabal, the vaccines, supported Trump, and exposed the Satanic Pope.
And now he just said after the French Olympic ceremony and I quote:
"Emmanuel Macron, who passes off a transvestite as his...."
(media.greatawakening.win)
GOD WINS
The difference is today the various papal claimants are contradicting past Catholic teachings, leading to torturous attempts by people to somehow consider them as Catholic
For example, Francis has said:
https://onepeterfive.com/recant-lutheran-heresy-francis/
Luther believed people were justified by faith alone, excluding justification by faith and good works. Thus Francis appears to contradict the Council of Trent:
Naturally though if it's fine to be "protestant" according to Francis, as we are accused of being, then it wouldn't really matter, as we are in good standing with God according to the view shared by Francis.
These are the kinds of problems we are trying to resolve by adopting the position of sedevacantism we have taken.
There is no difference. Do you think every Pope was good and only said things that were true? The Pope making randoms statements doesn't constitute official church teaching. He can say things that are wrong and still be Pope. He isn't God.
It simply doesn't matter what problem you are trying to solve, since decrying the Pope as invalid is a vehemently anti-Catholic thing to do. It IS just cause for excommunication. There is a hierarchy for a reason, and we are on the bottom of it.
I think there definitely is a difference, and what's going on is unprecedented.
I think it's important to understand the "problem(s)" and then possible solutions can be discussed.
The problems are perhaps three-fold (or more):
"Catholicism" has declined since Vatican 2, see these statistics: https://www.olrl.org/misc/jones_stats.shtml
Traditional practice has basically been banned. There are no masses available (know of any?) that offer Tridentine "latin masses" (only the 1962 missal is used in some places).
Many who take the name of Catholic, at least in the U.S., do not believe or practice Catholicism, which has caused practical problems. For example it has been estimated 90% of U.S. "Catholics" believe the use of artificial contraception is moral: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2016/09/28/4-very-few-americans-see-contraception-as-morally-wrong/
So, I suppose it would be possible to interpret my view as being a reaction to decline, not being able to practice as a Catholic prior to the 1950s, and due to practical problems experienced from those around me not really believing or practicing Catholicism, who say they are Catholic.
Yet it has not been much of a leap of logic to rather instead consider that what is going on is not Catholic instead.
So if you're clear on some of the problems, then you can look at the theological positions which have been suggested as solutions.
If you simply try to follow the Vatican in its current form, it actively suppresses traditional Catholic belief and practice, for example the "Franciscans of the Friars Immaculate": https://novusordowatch.org/2013/12/why-francis-punished-ffi/
It also has the Vatican 2 documents which have been alleged to have errors and/or heresies: https://www.holyromancatholicchurch.org/heresies.html
It also has papal claimants making series of anti-Catholic statements, like Francis saying:
So a Catholic layman in the U.S., going to their local parish church, is unlikely to experience Catholicism as one might in the 1950s. So, such people then look for these "indult" or "latin mass" (1962 missal) communities. But, as mentioned above, groups like the Franciscans of the Friars Immaculate are often suppressed; they also only have the 1962 missal, and don't often require the traditional Lenten fast (which is all 40 days of Lent except Sundays; reduced by the Vatican 2 church only to Ash Wednesday and Good Friday).
They might then find the SSPX, who also follows the 1962 missal and doesn't have the Lenten fast as examples. The SSPX is in a "halfway" position (sometimes called "recognize and resist") which recognizes the Vatican as Catholic, but doesn't submit to it (like where Vigano is, kind of, although he has made statements going beyond this). If the SSPX became more obedient to the Vatican like the Franciscans of the Friars Immaculate, many of their traditional practices would be suppressed, and this happened I think to multiple other "traditional" organizations that did this: https://web.archive.org/web/20140401130141/http://www.truetrad.com/index.php/the-dead/the-whole-picture
So, given that you can't openly be "traditional" under the Vatican without suppression, one naturally concludes the Vatican is not Catholic (in combination with the other things stated by papal claimants and the Vatican 2 documents, which contradict Catholic teaching) and embraces the sedevacantist position (Catholics have no pope).
(Going one step further, without a pope to authorize the creation of bishops, a handful of sedevacantists also believe there are no known clergy available)
I may differ from other sedevacantists in how I think things will be resolved however: I think eventually most people will become aware Vatican 2 can't be Catholic, nor can the papal claimants since Vatican 2 be popes, and once that awareness spreads, then an election of a pope can happen somewhat rapidly. I think of the situation like a modern Western Schism, where there were 2 antipopes and a pope and confusion for 40 years about if there was a pope or who it was; the people following the antipopes were not considered to be non-Catholic because they were simply genuinely confused about what was going on. Today I think those who follow Vatican 2 might be considered to be Catholic, to the extent they are unaware of contradictions in the Vatican 2 documents to Catholic teachings, since the documents appeared to come "from the Church", leading to genuine misunderstanding.
It must be distinguished that a Pope is able to sin, but not able to be a heretic:
Therefore if the Vatican 2 documents are heretical, at least John Paul I onward could not have become popes, as they would have been heretics upon being elected, and so their election would be null and void.
I would appreciate any thoughts you have on moving this discussion forward; it seems to be stalled with a lot of people who aren't aware of the issues, and the of the few that are, of there only being so much discussion. I think more attention needs to be focused on proving the sedevacantist case, which when proven with greater strength or with arguments being strengthened, would naturally lead to Vatican 2 and the recent papal claimants being rejected and a new pope being elected.
Is it? Here's an excerpt from https://onepeterfive.com/the-third-pornocracy-the-current-crisis-in-the-church/
"Otto the Emperor convened a Synod in St. Peter’s, in which the bishops and archbishops of his retinue, the clerics and Roman Curia, the leaders of the city and representatives of the people, all took part. John XII, however, had quit the Eternal City. When the Emperor asked the reasons for his absence, the Romans replied that they were to be found in the Pope’s immorality, which was described in a long list of crimes: simony, sacrilege, blasphemy, adultery, incest, abstention from the sacraments, use of weapons and trafficking with the devil.
All of them, clerics and laity alike, declared that ‘he had turned the Holy Palace into an actual bordello’ [brothel]; ‘he had blinded Benedict, his spiritual father, who died shortly afterwards; he had killed John, Cardinal Subdeacon, by cutting off his genitals; he had set fires; he girded himself with a sword and armed himself with helmet and shield: they testified to all of this. All of them, both clerics and laity, cried out that he would toast to the health of the devil; they said that in games of dice he would invoke the help of Jupiter and Venus and other demons; that he would not celebrate Matins and the Canonical Hours, and wouldn’t make the sign of the cross.’"
The article goes into much more detail on the whole topic. Seems like the same thing to me. Certainly nothing new. And as the article mentions, virtually none of his teachings survived, likely because they were all heretical nonsense. Doesn't mean he wasn't Pope. But the Church was not stained because a single man could never do such a thing, nor could an army of demons, nor could Satan himself.
So without first squaring the fact that there have been some pretty atrocious Popes, I don't see any way to further a discussion on a topic which is itself steeped in modernism and renaissance thinking; namely, the idea that random laity (or a priest who's ripe for excommunication) can decide for themselves whether or not the Pope is really the Supreme Pontiff. It flies in the face of authority, hierarchy, and tradition. It IS modernism.
I think Bellarmine in De Romano Pontifice had looked at allegations of papal heresy and found none
John XXII has been discussed at length and was not found to be a heretic: https://novusordowatch.org/2017/10/brief-facts-on-pope-john22/
I would encourage you to pray and think on this topic further because it sounds like you basically agree Francis is a heretic / non-Catholic but you think he is still pope; which is an understandable confusing situation but I think this clearly resolves to the sedevacantist position
Vatican Council considered the possibility of a "heretical pope": https://novusordowatch.org/2015/04/heretical-popes-first-vatican-council/
So again if Vatican 2 is heretical, Paul VI might have immediately lost his pontificate upon issuing heretical teachings, and the John Paul I could not have become pope.
Other arguments have been offered to establish John XXIII was probably a pre-election heretic incapable of becoming pope (admittedly I think these arguments require more attention, but John XXIII definitely indicated his anti-Catholic orientation with his actions)
The analogy to our possible shared politics is, just like the 2020 U.S. presidential election, the papal elections since 1958 have been stolen by non-Catholics. Just like the Birther argument that Obama may not have been born in the U.S. and hence could not have been a U.S. president, so the papal claimanta since 1958 haven't been Catholic and hence never became pope.
I appreciate your reminder that our side probably needs to more actively speak on what (in our view) are non-arguments like the case of John XXII (or Honorius, Liberius? There were some others). There are however other arguments I think need attention.
edit: your linked article rather mentions John XII rather than John XXII, who has also been discussed - https://novusordowatch.org/tag/pope-john-xii/