[UPDATED]

If Joseph Strickland — the former bishop of Tyler, Texas, who was removed from his post last November by Pope Francis — isn’t a sedevacantist, he certainly has an odd way of expressing it. On his website today, the bishop published “A statement on Sedevacantism,” in which he writes, “I want to make it clear that I am not and have never been a sedevacantist, as most people who have read my pastoral letters should know.” Unfortunately this attempt at clarification does little to answer the pressing question:

Bishop Strickland, do you believe that Pope Francis is the current, valid pope?

In fact, by re-defining the term “sedevacantism” and failing to mention Pope Francis by name, Strickland seems to suggest that he is indeed a sedevacantist according to its conventional definition: someone who holds the Chair of Peter to be vacant. Strickland, taking his cue from other Neo-Sedevacantists who hold that Benedict XVI was the last valid pope, writes:

 Let me be clear that sedevacantism is a claim within the Catholic Church that there has been no valid pope since the death of Pope Pius XII in 1958. The term sedevacantist is derived from the Latin word sede which means “seat” or “chair,” and vacante which means “vacant” or “empty.” Sedevacantists, therefore, hold to the position that the Chair of St. Peter has been empty for over 60 years.

And rather than offer a clarification on what he believes about Pope Francis, Strickland conspicuously omits his name from his explanation:

I love the Church and I have the utmost respect for the office of the Papacy—the Vicar of Christ—and I regularly quote the teachings of Pope St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI, as well as other popes who have occupied the Chair of St. Peter since Vatican II.

I mean, come on. Does he really expect that people won’t notice that he’s dodged the real question?

This comes just days after my recent article on Bishop Strickland’s increasing flirtation with sedevacantism. Yesterday, he shared yet another link featuring an explicit endorsement of sedevacantism.

NOTHING TO HIDE: Interview Bp Gracida, 101, America’s pilot prophet https://t.co/nEW1fZ5Pii via @YouTube

— Bishop J. Strickland (@BishStrickland) May 8, 2024

The video is an interview of Bishop Rene Henry Gracida, the 101-year-old bishop emeritus of Corpus Christi, who has long denied the validity of Pope Benedict XVI’s 2013 resignation. In the video (which you can watch in its entirety here), Gracida compares Bishop Strickland to the English martyrs and denies the legitimacy of Pope Francis’s pontificate:

GRACIDA: Bishop Strickland suffers a modern death by speaking out as he does, you know, and bearing witness as he does so heroically. That’s [like] the English Martyrs. He’s being pilloried, he’s being crucified by speaking out the truth

INTERVIEWER: So every day when you pray what’s on your mind?

GRACIDA: Well you’ve got to be honest and courageous in proclaiming the truth even though it hurts. But you get attacked. You get criticized, and especially from, uh, … the present pope. What’s his name? 

INTERVIEWER: Francis.

GRACIDA: Francis. He is so terrible. He’s not pope. He’s not really pope, but he’s just a pretend … or imposter occupying the pope. Terrible.”

Once again, it seems odd for a Catholic bishop like Strickland to share and publish material repeatedly that openly supports sedevacantism — unless he personally embraces this view or is at least considering it.

For decades, radical traditionalists affiliated with groups such as the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) have held to the idea that sedevacantism is off limits. Given their often extreme resistance and disobedience towards the pope, “not sedevacantist” seems to be the only limit on their opposition to magisterial authority. According to this line of thinking, you can call the pope a heretic, a false prophet, or even the anti-Christ, but if you say he isn’t actually the pope, you’ve gone too far. For example, the SSPX famously expelled nine priests in 1983 for holding the sedevacantist position.

Since Summorum Pontificum in 2007 and the 2013 election of Pope Francis, the Lefebvrist ideology has expanded beyond the SSPX and into the mainstream Church through various channels, including Catholic media and traditionalist groups in ecclesiastical communion with Rome. Unlike those in the SSPX, who have had over 50 years to become accustomed to the idea of having a heretical pope, this new breed of extreme traditionalist lacks the guardrails of longstanding schismatics. As a result, the causes and crusades of former “JP2 Catholics” who have rebelled against Pope Francis run the gamut, from QAnon-related conspiracy theories to, yes, sedevacantism.

Like Strickland, some of these New Sedevacantists who consider Benedict XVI to be the last valid pope — such as Fr. Dave Nix and Patrick Coffin — insist that the label of “sedevacantism” is incorrect and should only be associated with Catholics who believe the office of the papacy has been vacant since 1958. This is a dishonest distinction because there are sedevacantists who think the papacy was vacated at other points. For example, some believe Pope St. John XXIII was (or may have been) the last valid pope, and he died in 1963. This was discussed in a 2013 episode of Catholic Answers Live, hosted by Coffin. Others hold that Pius XI forfeited the Chair in 1929 when he signed the Lateran treaty. Like any conspiracy theory — yes, sedevacantism is ultimately a conspiracy theory — it is repackaged and reformulated in different shapes and sizes, but it all comes down to the same basic conclusion: the man currently serving as the pope in the Vatican is an antipope.

If Bishop Strickland really wants to clear the air, he will publicly affirm the legitimacy of Pope Francis’s pontificate and stop beating around the bush. As Catholic apologist Michael Lofton challenged the bishop recently, “Let your yes mean yes and your no mean no.”

[UPDATE]

Bishop Strickland answers the question in the affirmative in a video posted to YouTube this evening:

Well, that’s a relief. Although one wonders why he is sharing sedevacantist material and why he didn’t say it in his official statement.

Image: By SajoR – Own work, Public Domain, Link

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Mike Lewis

Mike Lewis is the founding managing editor of Where Peter Is. He and Jeannie Gaffigan co-host Field Hospital, a U.S. Catholic podcast.