FAQ- Must
the Catholic Remnant Have Governing or Jurisdictional Bishops?
The answer to
this question is no. During the Arian heresy in the 4th
Century, only 1-3% of the Episcopal Chairs (i.e., the Bishops’ Sees) were
occupied by Catholics, the rest were overtaken by the Arians, as the eminent
patristic scholar Fr. Jurgens notes.
“At one point in the
Church’s history, only a few years before Gregory’s [Nazianz]
present preaching (+380 A.D.), perhaps
the number of Catholic bishops in possession of sees, as opposed to Arian
bishops in possession of sees, was no greater than something between 1% and 3%
of the total. Had doctrine been
determined by popularity, today we should all be deniers of Christ and opponents
of the Spirit.” (W.A. Jurgens, The
Faith of the Early Fathers, Vol. 2, p. 39.)
In the 4th
century the Arian heresy became so widespread that the Arians (who denied the
Divinity of Christ) came to occupy almost all the Catholic churches and
appeared to be the legitimate hierarchy basically everywhere.
St. Ambrose (+382): “There are not enough hours in the day for
me to recite even the names of all the various sects of heretics.” (The Faith of the Early Fathers, Vol. 2,
p. 158)
Things were
so bad that St. Gregory Nazianz felt compelled to say what the Catholic remnant
today could very well say.
St. Gregory Nazianz (+380):
“Where are they who revile us for our poverty and pride themselves in
their riches? They who define the Church by numbers and scorn the little flock?”
(“Against the Arians,” The
Faith of the Early Fathers, Vol. 2, p. 33)
This period
of Church history, therefore, proves an important point for our time: If the
Church's indefectible mission of teaching, governing and sanctifying required
a governing (i.e., jurisdictional) bishop for the Church of Christ to be
present and operative in a particular See or diocese, then one would have to
say that the Church of Christ defected in all those territories where
there was no governing Catholic bishop during the Arian heresy. However,
it is a fact that in the 4th century, where the faithful retained
the true Catholic faith, even in those Sees where the Bishop defected to
Arianism, the faithful Catholic remnant constituted the true Church of
Christ; and therefore, in that remnant, the Catholic Church existed and endured
in her mission to teach, govern and
sanctify without a governing bishop.
This demonstrates that the Church
of Christ's indefectibility and mission to teach, govern and sanctify does not
require the presence of a jurisdictional bishop.
St.
Athanasius: “Even if Catholics faithful to Tradition were reduced to a
handful, they would be the true Church.”
One could
make the argument that there must always be at least one jurisdictional bishop somewhere in the world; but even
if that could be proven, all that would mean is that somewhere in the world
today there is at least one fully
Catholic jurisdictional bishop who rejects the heresies of Vatican II and
upholds the rest of the Church’s teaching. But we doubt that this is even
necessary, as the Church continues to
govern, teach and sanctify by the deposit of faith, her law and Tradition,
even in places where there is no jurisdictional Bishop to be the official
teacher and governor, as proven by the Arian period.
It is also
important to point out that the hierarchy of the Church can be defined in two
ways: jurisdictionally and
ecclesiastically. The
jurisdictional hierarchy (all those possessing offices with ordinary
jurisdiction) could conceivably defect from the Church by falling into
heresy, as have Benedict XVI’s bishops, while as long as there is a valid
Catholic priest or bishop who possesses the full deposit of faith (even if that
person doesn’t possess ordinary jurisdiction) the ecclesiastical
hierarchy is represented and remains intact. And those few remaining Catholic priests
or bishops of the remnant, even though they don’t govern any territory or
possess ordinary jurisdiction, would have jurisdiction supplied to them
automatically by the Church to operate for the salvation of souls. Episcopal Consecrations without the
consent of a pope (since there is no pope) by such bishops would of course be
lawful in such a state of necessity.
Therefore,
there is nothing contrary to the Church’s indefectibility when we point
out that Benedict XVI and his pack of apostate bishops (who claim to be the
governors in the Church of Christ) do not occupy the Episcopal Chairs of the
Church of Christ due to the fact that they: repudiate the dogma Outside the Church There is No Salvation;
repudiate the necessity for Jews and Eastern Schismatics to convert to the
Catholic Church; embrace and respect non-Christian religions of the devil;
teach the heresies of freedom of religion and conscience; maintain communion
with heretical Protestant sects; accept the heretical documents of Vatican II
and the New Mass; and many other things.
Just as it
was during the Arian heresy in the 4th century, the Church of Jesus
Christ exists today with the remnant of faithful Catholics who maintain the
traditional Catholic faith, not with the apostate bishops who appear to occupy
the positions of authority.
Fr. William Jurgens: “In the time of the Emperor Valens (4th
century), Basil was virtually the only orthodox Bishop in all the East who
succeeded in retaining charge of his see… If it has no other
importance for modern man, a
knowledge of the history of Arianism should demonstrate at least that the
Catholic Church takes no account of popularity and numbers in shaping and
maintaining doctrine: else, we should long since have had to abandon
Basil and Hilary and Athanasius and Liberius and Ossius and call ourselves
after Arius.” (The Faith of the
Early Fathers, Vol. 2, p. 3.)
If
the Arian heresy was so bad that approximately 1% of the jurisdictional bishops
remained Catholic and 99% became Arian, and the Great Apostasy preceding the
Second Coming of Christ is predicted to be even worse – the worst
apostasy of all time – then one should not be surprised by the fact that
there are barely any authentically Catholic priests in the world today and no
fully Catholic jurisdictional (i.e., governing) bishops to speak of.
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