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For a General Council
What unites the Catholic Church is not opinion, personality or personal convictions. She is a visible society founded by Christ, and must therefore be governed visibly. The Pope is not merely a matter of ceremony. He is the principle of unity established by God, the supreme judge who can settle disputes, safeguard doctrine and preserve the Church as one body.
Many Catholics today harbour at least some doubt regarding the legitimacy of the most recent claimants to the papacy. Yet, if this office is in practice absent, unity becomes obscured. Jurisdiction becomes contested, discipline collapses into improvisation, and Catholics slowly grow accustomed to living as though it were normal for the Church to exist without a visible head whom they can obey with straightforward simplicity. But this is not normal. A vacancy of the Apostolic See, as recognised by numbers of Catholics who have remained faithful, especially if it becomes permanent, is not a stable solution, but a wound that continues to worsen.
When there is no true successor of Saint Peter, the election of a Supreme Pontiff remains an important duty incumbent upon the Church. When the Church finds Herself without a Pope, as happens upon the death of the Pontiff, She is bound to provide Herself with another; that is to say, Her members must act to ensure that the Holy See is once again occupied. This shows how important it is for the Church to have a visible head, the true principle of unity.
It is the aim of the Unam Sanctam organisation to work for the convocation of an Imperfect General Council to discuss this matter and to consider how the present crisis that affects the head of the Church might be resolved.
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The Doctrinal Argument
This work presents a single theological case developed step by step across a series of chapters. It is based on the teaching of multiple theologians stating that the Church may provide Herself with a head in extreme circumstances by means of an Imperfect General Council. It is intended to be read in order, beginning with the present condition of the Church and proceeding toward a proposed remedy. Readers are invited to examine the argument carefully and in its entirety.
About Unam Sanctam
Unam Sanctam is an association of clergy and laity to work effectively, with all necessary caution and determination, towards the convening of a General Council of the Church to seriously study the problems posed by the pretenders to the papacy who have imposed destructive reforms upon us that will soon have ruined the Church of Christ, if that were possible. We firmly believe that divine Providence necessarily requires that the Church be led by a true Successor of Peter. We reject the passivity that has taken hold among the clergy on this issue and we hope to see our brothers join us in this project, which can only take place with their cooperation.
We will gladly welcome into our midst all those who recognise the serious problem afflicting the head of the Church at this time and who wish to unite their prayers, sacrifices, efforts, talents and almsgiving to prepare the circumstances necessary for the action of Providence.
Our union, despite all our differences, is inspired by the union of Christians during the Battle of Lepanto. The various rival factions, understanding the danger that threatened Christianity, came together to face their common enemy, despite their many political disagreements. The result was the great victory over the Mohammedans that we know so well. Thus, we hope that the union of the different factions of true Christianity will be inspired, in these dark days, by the wisdom of our fathers in the Faith. Today’s enemy is not an external enemy, but an enemy that has penetrated the institutions of the Catholic Church.
The title of this website, which will be our main working tool and our rallying point, was chosen to express both our refusal to embrace the new religion and our determination to refuse the dispersion of Christ’s flock into a variety of small autocephalous Churches.
Unam Sanctam (One Holy). The Church is one in unity of Faith, Sacraments, but also of government. She is holy, that is to say, she is not the gathering of all those who profess various heresies, but only of those who profess the true Catholic Faith.
Imperfect General Council
What it is
An Imperfect General Council is an assembly of bishops convened without papal authority when the Apostolic See is manifestly or doubtfully vacant, in order to remedy a grave crisis at the head of the Church. It responds to an emergency: either a prolonged vacancy of the Roman See, or reasonable doubt about the legitimacy of a papal claimant. Because only the Pope legitimately convokes a General Council, gives it true universality, and ratifies its decrees, such a council is legally defective by definition. Hence Cajetan calls it “imperfect but useful,” since it begins outside full legality but receives full legal force once a Supreme Pontiff is elected and confirms it.
What it is not
An Imperfect General Council is not a self-appointed “garage synod” of discontented clerics claiming universal authority by decree. It is, by definition, a remedy that requires moral representation of the episcopate of the whole Church.
Nor is it a conclave: a conclave is a juridical process governed by papal law and carried out by the College of Cardinals. An Imperfect General Council is an extraordinary remedy for an extraordinary emergency, when ordinary papal governance is impeded or uncertain, and it arises from the necessity of the Church acting through her universal shepherds.
Therefore it cannot be the work of only a portion of the bishops. Without worldwide episcopal participation sufficient to constitute moral unanimity, it simply does not exist as what it claims to be: not a shortcut around the Church, but a public, grave, universal act of the Church Herself.
St Robert Bellarmine
“[Is it] lawful for a council to be convoked by someone other than the Pope, when the Pope ought not to convoke it, because he is a heretic or a schismatic[?] ... An imperfect council can be assembled, which suffices to make provision for the Church with respect to the head. For the Church without doubt has authority to provide for herself with respect to the head, although without a head she cannot determine many matters which she can determine with a head....Moreover, that imperfect council can be held, either if it is convoked by the college of Cardinals, or if the bishops themselves, coming together into one place, convene of their own accord.”
Thomas De Vio Cajetan
“A council without the Pope cannot do anything except what it can do through the individual powers contained within it...There is, however, a case of permission, that is, where the Pope has made no contrary determination, and a case of ambiguity, that is, where it is not known whether someone is truly a Cardinal, and similar cases. In such situations, when the Pope has died or is otherwise uncertain, as seems to have happened at the beginning of the great schism under Urban VI, it must be maintained that in the Church of God there exists a power to apply the papacy to a person, provided the necessary requirements are observed, so that consciences are not left in perplexity. In that event, by way of devolution, this power seems to pass to the universal Church, as though there were no electors determined by the Pope to represent her in this act for the good of the Church.”
St Alphonsus Liguori
“Firstly, it should be emphasised that the Pope's superiority over the council does not extend to a dubious Pope during a period of schism, when there is serious doubt as to the legitimacy of his election; for then, all must submit to the council, as defined by the Council of Constance. Then, indeed, the general council derives its supreme power directly from Jesus Christ, as in a period of vacancy of the Apostolic See.”