In 1870 the Church drew a line in stone. At the First Vatican Council, under Pope Pius IX, the bishops didn’t hedge. They defined that the Pope holds supreme, full, immediate, and universal jurisdiction over the whole Church. Supreme means supreme. Universal means universal. Catholic English isn’t that complicated.
And yet, here we are.
A certain stripe of modern “traditionalist” thumps Vatican I with one hand and swats away the living Pope with the other. They revere papal primacy in sepia tone. They champion infallibility—preferably retroactive. They pledge loyalty to Peter, provided Peter is safely dead.
You can’t swear allegiance to the Chair of Peter and then treat its current occupant like a temporary intern.
Let’s be clear. Not every papal utterance is infallible. Catholics aren’t required to pretend prudential judgments are carved on Sinai. But Vatican I wasn’t only about rare ex cathedra fireworks. It was about authority—real authority—attached to a living office for the sake of unity. If your operating principle is “I’ll obey when it aligns with my reading of tradition,” then tradition has quietly replaced the Pope as your final arbiter.
That is a DIY magisterium.
The move is always the same: “We’re defending tradition against innovation.” But who guards tradition according to Catholic doctrine? Not bloggers. Not pressure groups. Not self-appointed doctrinal quality-control boards. The Pope, precisely because his office exists to safeguard and interpret the deposit of faith in communion with the bishops.
To habitually resist his legitimate governance or teaching authority while professing submission to it is not heroic fidelity. It is contradiction. And contradiction of defined dogma—even without malice—is what theology calls material heresy.
That word sounds dramatic. It is. Because the stakes are dramatic.
Vatican I was meant to prevent the Church from splintering into camps that salute Rome in theory while running their own show in practice. When Catholics treat the Pope as binding only when he confirms their preferences, the papacy becomes a suggestion box. “Supreme” shrinks to “advisory.” “Universal” becomes “situational.”
The irony is brutal: in trying to be “more Catholic,” some end up less so—because Catholic means communion with the living successor of Peter, not curated loyalty to selected papal eras.
If Vatican I means what it says, then papal authority isn’t a buffet. You don’t get to fill your plate with Trent and skip the present. You don’t get to canonize the concept of Peter while cross-examining Peter himself.
Either the Chair of Peter is what the Council defined it to be—or it isn’t. If it is, then selective obedience isn’t tradition. It’s rebellion with a Latin accent.
If the man sitting as Peter instructs one to place a sacrifice to a demon on the high Altar during Mass, what does one do?
"Let’s be clear. Not every papal utterance is infallible. Catholics aren’t required to pretend prudential judgments are carved on Sinai. But Vatican I wasn’t only about rare ex cathedra fireworks. It was about authority—real authority—attached to a living office for the sake of unity"
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True. And what does Vatican I extraordinary Magisterium teach us about the papal authority? For example it teaches:
"For the holy Spirit was promised to the successors of Peter
not so that they might, by his revelation, make known some new doctrine,
but that, by his assistance, they might saintly guard and faithfully expound the revelation or deposit of faith transmitted by the apostles."
Neque enim Petri successoribus Spiritus Sanctus promissus est, ut eo revelante novam doctrinam patefacerent, sed ut eo assistente traditam per Apostolos revelationem seu fidei depositum sancte custodirent et fideliter exponerent.
And when we compare it with the practice of post-conciliar popes we see plainly that objectively (I do not intend to judge their subjective intentions) their behavior is a plain, notorious denial of principles of the Catholic authority of the Vicar of Christ.
They refuse to fulfill their elementary obligations delving into scandalous novelties like Assisi, Pachamamas, false ecumenism, religious liberty.
They look for things true and holy in false and impious religions. They look at heretical sects as means of salvation. They claim that all things on earth should be related to man as their center and crown. They throw out the whole sacramental tradition of the Holy Roman Church out in the name of ecumenical utopia. They see talmudic Jews as elder brothers in their faith, Mohammedans as people with whom they together adore God, heretics as brothers an in imperfect communion, schismatics as "sister Churches" and Catholics trying to keep the holy Faith of the Fathers as schismatics.
It is total lunacy.
And total, absolute obedience, the Tsar-like concept of Papacy you propose is not Tradition, is not Catholic - Aquinas and Bellarmine will tell you, St. Peter will tell you: we ought to obey God rather than men. St. Thomas More will tell you: I die His Majesty's good servant and God's first.
True. It is one of many reasons why "Vatican II" and novelties of post-conciliar popes must be rejected as they oppose the Catholic dogma.