Sedeprivation, a cop-out

Nishant Xavier takes down the Sedevacation hypothesis. That's the (post)Catholic theory that the Seat has been Vacated. For such theorists, Catholics exist in an eternal AD 1315 with no Pope. (What'd that be in Greek: "Cathedracenism"?) Nishant allows that Sedevacancy is possible, but rare and never indefinite. Even in 1315 the Church had a functioning if rather dysfunctional Curia with legal Cardinals.

One Giuseppe Filotto has been touting to Youtube, as "The Kurgan", an alternative - Sedeprivation. Best I can tell this develops an old Jewish legend about the seat of Solomon. As sura 38 had it, the 'arsh is occupied - but by a jasad. Last Christmas Eve a debate ensued between Filotto and Jay Dyer. Dyer's followers claim victory.

If all the consecrated bishops and consecrated priests, currently, are here by grace of a sort of mummified Inca rather than no Pope, either as opposed to the True Pope, Nishant's argument applies either way. For Filotto the Apostolic Succession has been log-jammed so long that Catholicism is, like the Pius X cult, back down to some Orthodox level.

Another proposal is that the True Pope is occulted like the Twelfth Imam or the Last Roman Emperor. I always thought this violated Occam's Razor. Christ's death and resurrection should suffice for our human pining after Camelot. The alternative makes Christ un-unique; he's like Rhesus of Thrace, or Zalmoxis. So why be Christian at all?

Filotti and the other no-real-Pope theorists argue that heresy suffices against the present Church. To be fair to them, many good Catholics do worry about Vatican II. To each, I retort and/or reassure that clerical error need not rise to full heresy. For instance: I disagree with some aspects of Trent. I contest the Ephesian synods also; as do all Chalcedonians. Certainly I do not think Nestorius deserved the excommunication he'd got. Such errors - whether they be on the Church's side or on mine - were/are terminological or practical or, in Nestorius' case, political. We accept what we must, we reject what few mistakes we recognise and on what we doubt, we hold our tongues and do our research. And we pray, either way.

I remain in Catholicism (although, through mine own grievous fault, not in full grace presently) because it promises an eternal Church to handle spirituality as the governing authorities deal with the moist fleshy work of governance. If you don't like it, nothing's keeping you from - say - Orthodoxy.