A Little About Myself, Why I Designed
the Website as I
Did, and How Sedevacantism
Explains the
Quandary We’re in Today
12 September 2009
Dear X,
Sorry to take ever so long to get back to you! Please pardon me.
Some of it is my extreme busyness --- family to govern & support, religious
duties to perform, articles or letters to write, etc. --- and some of it is a
snowball effect. That is, we have moved in the past year (after seven moves
before this during the previous year-and-a-half!) and the website is beginning
to draw attention, much of which requires responses. So then things begin to
backlog as I find too little time & strength to do everything.
However, I am trying to monitor my email more closely, as well as
communicate back more quickly. Plus, my family may be able to help me
more-and-more as my sons grow older. So let us pray I shall find the
wherewithal to cope in the meantime…
First off, thank you for your kind words. In my braver moments I
like to think I can be as strong as the great saints. Unfortunately, I am a
terrible sinner and a most undeserving wretch. Hence, I find encouraging words
a great solace. Your blessings are a balm.
Oh,and yes, I keep The Epistemologic Works
website current. I can’t update it nearly as much as I’d like, but
I do my best to add something every month, and sometimes I can get new postings
up two or three times in a month. This seems paltry to me, given that I have
literally dozens of things on the sidelines, waiting for completion… yet
I thank the Triune God of the Catholic Faith that I can do something.
My dear X, I am amazed that you teach in the public school system.
I thought of doing so briefly in the 1990s when I lived in
Thank you for telling me about Our Lady of America. I will look at it
as soon as I can.
Concerning Fr. Heidt, I am afraid he has
passed away. A couple of years ago, if my information is correct. I also am
afraid that he died as he was, entrenched in denial of ‘no Salvation
outside the Church’. He was affiliated with the Society of Saint Pius X,
which appears to be very ‘conservative’, but which --- like most
people going by the name of ‘catholic’ prior to Vatican II during
the 20th century in America --- says that there is ‘no
Salvation outside the Church’ while simultaneously believing that all
sorts of people who aren’t Catholic end up finding salvation, regardless.
Usually they do this by supposing such persons to be ‘invisibly’
connected to the Church. But, of course, the Catholic Church is Jesus’
Body and thus visible. Invisible ‘members’ that don’t
even know that they’re members (and wouldn’t want to be were they
told that they are!) are a crock. Never has the Church infallibly defined such
a thing; repeatedly She has ruled out such possibilities. Please refer to The Catholic Church Is The Only Way to Save Your Soul, No
Exceptions Admitted --- and Here’s the Infallible Proof! in the Letters & Admonishments (L&A) section of the
website if you’re hazy on this.
All this to say, it would seem to be a moral
certainty that Fr. Heidt is suffering the eternal
consequences for his denial of the Salvation Dogma. I hate saying
this. It is so sad. Nonetheless, I myself would be denying the Salvation Dogma
by proxy were I to refuse to draw the logical conclusion.
Thank you for your advice about using pictures on The Epistemologic
Works. I had thought about that carefully before setting the website up.
Several factors influenced my original decision:
One, I had only so much time to design & post the first pages.
Two, a large portion of Internet surfers are still connected by
dial-up, which is notoriously slow when it comes to images.
And, three, I am consciously aiming at a very tiny percentage of
good-willed souls who will not care too much, ultimately, whether images are
employed or not.
That said, your counsel is well taken.
High speed Internet is increasingly common. And, yes, most people do like to
see things rather than just read them. I could therefore appeal to at least a
few more persons were I to enliven the site with lots of pictures. I may do so
in the not-too-distant future. After all… is not the Catholic Church a
perfect example of how sacred art --- which is visual --- was employed to teach
the masses and stir their souls? Indubitably (I love this word, so it’s
wonderful when I can find an appropriate place to use it).
So keep an eye out. The Epistemologic Works just might get
pictorial.
Finally, my dear X --- and what a beautiful name you bear! --- it is only fair that I tell you one more thing about myself
in case you haven’t discovered it from the website yet. I am what most
self-styled Catholics call a ‘sedevacantist’.
To wit, a man who believes the Chair of St. Peter is empty at the present
moment.
It is too awkward to go into a full explanation in this short
email. And I haven’t had the time to post something significant on the
website about it. Suffice it to say that it boils down to this:
The particular identity of any pope, apart from St. Peter, is not
an infallible dogma of the Catholic Church. For instance, it is not an
infallible teaching that a fellow named Fabian was the man who ruled the
Catholic Church at the start of the AD 250s. It is, rather, a logical
conclusion based on the evidence and hence a reasonable (moral) certainty.
Moreover, a man, to be pope to start with, must meet several
criteria. E.g., he must be male, he must be a bishop (if not one prior to his
election, then soon after), he must be of sound mind, and etc., etc. Failure to
meet any of these simple standards causes such a person to not be a pope no matter how ‘valid’ his election
otherwise. And, of course, he must be Catholic. For think about
it… how can you be the visible head
of that which you are not a visible member? How could another person’s
head govern my own body, to which he is not in any way tangibly connected?
It is this straightforward reality that invalidates the elections
of the men from 1960 onward.
Notwithstanding, should there be any doubts, then Pope Paul IV in
1559 clears it up for all of those who dare to call themselves Catholic during
modern times. He issued an Apostolic Letter entitled Cum ex apostolatus officio that infallibly
defined the need for public orthodoxy in order for a man to hold office within
the Roman Catholic Church. The Protestant Rebellion rising like a poisonous tide
in the 16th century --- the heart of
Some people complain that we cannot ‘judge’ a pope.
However, this is faulty reasoning. Before a man can be beyond judgment
as a pope, he must be shown first that he is indeed a pope and beyond
our judgment. Otherwise, a person could be treating as beyond judgment someone
who is a phony and not at all a pope!
But here is where people confuse ‘jurisdictional judgment’
with ‘factual judgment’. That is to say, no real &
well-instructed Catholic pretends to sit in judgment on someone who is a pope. Because no one in the Church has jurisdiction --- and thus
authority --- over the man who is the reigning Bishop of Rome. To the
contrary, it is hard &
incontrovertible facts that a real & well-instructed Catholic
recognizes.
Or, to put it another way, any man of adequate mind has to
recognize the dogmas that he must profess in order to be Catholic. Yet if able
to do this, knowing the dogmatic facts, then he is also just as capable of
recognizing where others who go by the name of Catholic are not publicly
upholding the dogmas of the Catholic Church.
And if a man who is pope publicly espouses heresy in a notorious
& obstinate fashion, then it is merely a recognition
of the facts that this Catholic does, making a factual judgment. No one individual member of the Church can depose
this pope who falls into notorious & pertinacious heresy, because no one
stands in authority over him within the Church. Rather, it is the Church Herself which deposes such
a man, vacating him from the Throne of St. Peter. Good Catholics merely
recognize the indisputable fact of what has happened automatically according to
Canon Law.
And what are the indisputable facts of notorious & pertinacious
heresy from the men called John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II &
Benedict XVI?
Easy --- Vatican II. The documents
of this false council are rife with manifest heresies. For instance, denial of the
Salvation Dogma (Vatican II taught that a man could save his immortal soul in
the practice of a false religion), approval of religious indifference (Vatican
II taught that governments must not suppress false religion or favor the True
Religion), refusal to condemn Talmudic Judaism (Vatican II taught that Jews are
not on the way to Hell in the false religion of Talmudic Judaism, which denies
Jesus Christ, and that they are the ‘elder brothers’, spiritually
speaking, of Roman Catholics merely because they are Jewish), and so forth and
so on.
Ergo, if a man publicly upholds Vatican II and the heresies such as
these that it taught, then this man cannot be a Catholic. He is a heretic
instead. This is especially true when it comes to ‘no Salvation outside
the Church’. This is not an obscure or deeper dogma, but a rock bottom
rudiment of the Catholic Faith. Purposeful, obstinate & public denial of it
puts a man automatically outside the
Catholic Church since a man cannot even begin to be inside the Catholic Church without first espousing this
Salvation Dogma along with the other basic dogmas of the Faith that are
necessary to know & profess.
The upshot?
Whether not Catholic prior to being ‘elected’, or only not Catholic after a valid
election, a man cannot be the Pope if he is a notorious & obstinate
heretic. This is simply a factual observation, not a jurisdictional judgment. Hence, if a man is rightly the Pope
before he falls into public heresy, then Catholics are not pretending to be in
‘authority’ over him by judging him to be the heretic that he has
become; they are merely recognizing him to be what he has become by
acknowledgement of the public & indisputable facts. It is the Church Herself that jurisdictionally
judges such a man, automatically deposing him according to the necessary
provisions of Canon Law.
‘No Salvation outside the Church’ is a basic &
infallible teaching of the Catholic Religion. Vatican II denies this teaching
by saying that men can die in the practice of a false religion while still
entering Heaven after their deaths. The last five ‘popes’ approve
of Vatican II and, if that were not enough, have publicly upheld the notion
that people can go to Heaven despite dying in the practice of false religion.
Consequently, such men are not Catholic and cannot be popes. They
are antipopes.
Well, that’s enough for now. Perhaps this will disenchant you
with me. It is no matter. The truth is the truth and must be faced.
In the meantime, I pray for your precious & immortal soul. If
truly Catholic already, X, then I beg the Queen of Highest Heaven that you
might persevere in the state of grace until, and especially at, your earthly
death. Whereas if not yet truly Catholic, then I beg the Mother of God that
you might eagerly seek the Catholic Faith whole & undefiled, entering into
the Sanctuary of Jesus’ Catholic Body by a good profession of all of the
dogmas necessary to permit a man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
Please feel free to write me further. Perhaps we can get to know one another better.
Yours very sincerely in the Charity of Christ’s Cross & the Tender Mercy of His Blessed Mother,
-Paul
Doughton
[WEBMASTER’S NOTE: The
defense of the sedevacantist thesis continues in a
second letter I sent to this person. It is called A Little Bit
More About Myself, the Salvation Dogma Defended
Very Explicitly, and Why Sedevacantism Must Explain Our Crisis.
You may link directly from the title just given, or go to the Letters &
Admonishments section where all titles are listed in order, including this
title. If you have serious doubts or tend to mock sedevacantism mindlessly,
without really thinking about it deeply, then you are morally obligated to investigate further by reading
the second letter, which goes into even greater detail.]
+
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Pilate’s
query met:
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