Is Sedevacantism a Problem in the Traditional Latin Mass…
…or is It Just an Excuse to Shut It Down?
As one scours the web for the reasoning behind something like “Traditiones Custodes” you will find a TON of reasons trying to justify the restrictions imposed by Pope Francis on celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass. Everyone has an opinion on this subject, but one of the biggest reasons I have seen is that “it promotes sedevacantism”, which seems like a weird accusation.
To start this article off, let’s define what “sedevacantism” is, because the literal latin is “sede vacante” which can be used for any vacancy of a diocese with an empty Bishop seat. Translating “sede vacante” from Latin to English yields “vacant seat”, and so those who are self-described “sedevacantists” believe that the seat of the Bishop of Rome (The Pope) is empty, as in there is no valid Pope. That is the basic belief of “sedevacantism”.
There are ranges of categories of the various beliefs of sedevacantists, as there is no “one size fits all” belief system, other than at some point, they believe we haven’t had a valid Pope. The original sedevacantists popped up around the time of the Second Vatican Council, and their original issue was the changes to the Liturgy that eventually became known as the “Novus Ordo” or the New Order of the Mass.
Unlike Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, they chose to believe the Pope was no longer valid and continued to celebrate the older Mass without any permission from the Pope or any attempt to keep themselves in communion with the Vatican.
This is probably why sedevacantism was originally affiliated with Traditional Latin Mass, as there were very few officially recognized groups around the world with the permission to celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass and maintain communion with Rome.
Between the years 1960 and 2000, at least six different prominent sedevacantist groups have cropped up, although there are certainly other groups and individuals with their own beliefs aside from the main ones. The sedevacantist groups include The Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen (CMRI), The Society of Saint Pius V (SSPV), Instituto Mater Boni Consilii (IMBC), Sociedad Sacerdotal Trento (SST), The Roman Catholic Institute (RCI), and Most Holy Family Monastery (MHFM) which notoriously hosts the “vaticancatholic.com” website.
Among these groups are an estimated 25,000 - 50,000 individuals in the United States who follow the sedevacantist belief system to different degrees. On Facebook, the largest sedevacantist group has just under 8,000 members. The only outlier is the YouTube Channel “vaticancatholic.com” which has around 130,000 subscribers, and is an extremely confusing name for a sedevacantist channel.
The Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen (CMRI) is by far the largest sedevacantist group of the six mentioned above, with over 90 churches and chapels and over 13 schools in the United States. If we take the average Mass in the Novus Ordo at 163 Attendees per Mass and give it a range of up 196 (the average attendance of a non-sedevacantist Traditional Latin Mass) and give them at least two masses per church or chapel per weekend on average, the CMRI serves anywhere between 29,340 to 35,280 sedevacantists.
Ref. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congregation_of_Mary_Immaculate_Queen
The Society of Saint Pius V (no that’s not a typo) is a breakaway group that separated from the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) because they did not agree with the direction of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who was navigating the waters of being in communion with Rome and continuing to celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass. This group has 5 permanent priories, 14 temporary Mass locations, and one seminary. Using similar math as we used with the CMRI we find that this group serves anywhere between 6,520 to 7,840 sedevacantists.
Ref. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_Saint_Pius_V
The Instituto Mater Boni Consilii (IMBC) celebrate Mass in 23 locations. They are another group that broke away from the SSPX over the decisions in their leadership. Using the same math that we used for the above two groups (except that we do not multiply their Masses by 2, we will use the 23 individual Masses they host) we find that this group serves anywhere between 3,749 to 4,508 sedeprivationists (slightly different from sedevacantists).
Ref. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istituto_Mater_Boni_Consilii
Ref. https://www.sodalitiumpianum.com/who-we-are/
Ref. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedeprivationism
The Sociedad Sacerdotal Trento (SST) celebrate Mass in 52 “places of worship”. They are yet another breakaway group from the SSPX. Using the same math we used for the SSPV and the CMRI we find that this group serves anywhere between 16,952 to 20,384 sedevacantists.
Ref. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sedevacantism&diffonly=true
The Roman Catholic Institute (RCI) and the Most Holy Family Monastery (MHFM) have no public Masses whatsoever, and although the RCI works with some of the other groups above, the MHFM actually encourages their followers / subscribers to NOT attend any Mass period, claiming that there are no valid Masses at all. The influence of the MHFM extends to their 130,000 Subscribers on YouTube to their channel “vaticancatholic.com” which could lead up to 130,000 people (and counting) to never attend Mass again.
Ref. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Sanborn
Ref. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_Holy_Family_Monastery
All of the above is to say that the groups associated with sedevacantism serve anywhere between 56,561 to 68,012 sedevacantists globally that attend their Masses and many additional sedevacantists who look to these groups for answers, like the 130,000 subscribers to the “vaticancatholic.com” YouTube channel.
The number of people who attend the Traditional Latin Mass at a parish that is in communion with Rome is around three times the size of the groups who attend a sedevacantist parish not in communion with Rome. In fact it could be argued that the first step to bring a sedevacantist back into communion with Rome is to allow them the ability to attend a Traditional Latin Mass with those that recognize the Pope as legitimate and start to peel back the layers from years of sedevacantist rhetoric.
There is no reason why a sedevacantist would specifically choose a parish in communion with Rome instead of a sedevacantist parish, especially with so many available to them through out the world, unless they had no other option to attend Mass.
There is no reason to believe that the parishes celebrating the Traditional Latin Mass, that are in communion with Rome, are leading parishioners to sedevacantism. In fact, as mentioned above, the ability for a sedevacantist to attend a Traditional Latin Mass at a Parish in Communion with Rome is more likely to lead them back home to the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Faith.
Further limitations to the ability to celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass will only hinder the ability to bring those Catholics that have strayed from the faith back into the fold, which seems like a bad strategy to grow the church…
Sincerely,
Your Brother in Spirit, Frater Spiritus
Follow me on Twitter / X: @FraterSpiritus
Not to mention banning the Latin Mass or making it more difficult to attend might drive people to join a sedevacantist community...
"Further limitations to the ability to celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass will only hinder the ability to bring those Catholics that have strayed from the faith back into the fold, which seems like a bad strategy to grow the church…"
Very charitable of you, assuming the goal of the Vatican powers that be is to actually GROW the church...