Documentary Chronology
of the First Sedevacantist Reactions
Research on the First Reactions
to the Crisis of Pontifical Authority (1958–1973)
Table of contents
- Purpose and delimitation
- Background: from the death of Pius XII to Vatican II
- 1962 – Il Complotto contro la Chiesa and the Mexican milieu
- 1965 – The anonymous document of October 1965
- Fonds Moeller 2546
- Authorship of the 1965 document
- The Mexican TECOS controversy of 1965
- Gommar DePauw: organisation of early traditionalist resistance
- DePauw’s letter of 15 August 1967
- Important passage in DePauw’s letter
- Hugo Maria Kellner, 1967
- Kellner’s letter to Cardinal Michael Browne
- Noël Barbara and Louis Coache in 1968
- Carlos Alberto Disandro: 2 May 1969
- What Disandro says and does not say in May 1969
- Disandro on the heretical pope
- Disandro applies the question to Paul VI
- Historical significance of Disandro’s text of May 1969
- Pontificado y Pontífice: the next stage in Disandro
- Dating of Pontificado y Pontífice
- French meeting of 21 July 1969
- Guérard des Lauriers on 21 July 1969
- Noël Barbara on 21 July 1969
- Forts dans la Foi in 1969
- Letter of Guérard des Lauriers of 8 August 1969
- Guérard in 1969 and the later Cassiciacum thesis
- Francis Schuckardt in the United States
- Reinhard Lauth in Germany
- Einsicht and the German line
- Elisabeth Gerstner
- The international marches on Rome
- 1969–1970: the new Mass as catalyst
- The Ottaviani-Bacci intervention
- Situation at the end of 1969
- 1970: Disandro becomes explicit
- Importance of the 1970 dating
- 1971 – Sáenz y Arriaga: La nueva Iglesia montiniana
- 1971 – Schuckardt is ordained priest and consecrated bishop
- 1972 – Sáenz y Arriaga: the review Trento
- Moisés Carmona and Adolfo Zamora
- 1972–1973 – Francis Fenton and the ORCM
- 1973 – Sáenz y Arriaga: Sede Vacante
- 1973 is not the beginning
- Georges de Nantes as a contrasting figure
- 10 April 1973: Liber accusationis in Paulum Sextum
- Two opposed responses in 1973
- Polycentric origin
- Absence of a central founder
- Sedevacantism did not issue from the SSPX
- The new Mass did not create sedevacantism
- Objective chronology, private recognition and public declaration must be distinguished
- Chronological table revised in prose
- General historical conclusion
- Last historiographical observation
- List of sources
- Purpose and delimitation
This research has a strictly historical purpose.
It does not attempt to determine at what precise moment the Apostolic See actually became vacant. That question belongs to a distinct theological and canonical investigation.
Here one examines exclusively from when Catholics demonstrably:
– doubted the legitimacy or authority of Paul VI;
– began to apply the classical doctrine on a heretical pope to the concrete postconciliar crisis;
– seriously contemplated the possibility of a vacant Apostolic See;
– explicitly regarded Paul VI as no longer pope;
– spread these conceptions in writing, publicly or in printed form.
One must carefully distinguish between a conditional reasoning, a doubt, a theory about a pope to be deposed, a declaration that the pope has already lost his office, and an explicit sedevacantist conclusion.
These different stages must not be identified with one another after the fact.
Three chronologies must moreover be distinguished which may not coincide.
– The first is the objective chronology: it concerns the moment when the fact occurs which, according to the applicable theological and canonical principles, would eventually have as its consequence the loss of the pontificate.
– The second is the epistemic chronology: it concerns the moment when certain persons recognise this fact and begin to understand its possible consequences for pontifical authority.
– The third is the public chronology: it concerns the moment when these persons are willing to express publicly, to publish or to defend the conclusion at which they have eventually already arrived in private.
The present documentary study allows one above all to reconstruct the second and third chronologies. It does not by itself allow one to determine the objective moment at which the Apostolic See would have become vacant. It will be the subject of another chapter.
It also has an inherent limitation of every investigation of this kind: public declarations, books, articles, preserved letters and archival documents leave historical traces; private convictions, unrecorded conversations, hesitations and deliberate silences are much more difficult to document.
- Background: from the death of Pius XII to Vatican II
Pius XII died on 9 October 1958.
On 28 October 1958 Cardinal Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli was elected and took the name John XXIII.
On 25 January 1959 John XXIII announced his intention to convoke a general council.
The Second Vatican Council was opened on 11 October 1962.
The crisis which would later lead to sedevacantism was not born exclusively from the liturgical reform. Already before the introduction of the new Mass there existed grave conflicts over the direction in which the council was evolving.
These concerned in particular:
– the relation between the Church and the modern world;
– religious liberty;
– ecumenism;
– the relation with non-Christian religions;
– collegiality;
– the nature of the ecclesiastical magisterium;
– the relation between Tradition and conciliar renewal;
– and afterwards also the reform of the liturgy.
That is why the history of the origin of sedevacantism must already be examined during Vatican II and not only from 1969 or 1970.
- 1962 – Il Complotto contro la Chiesa and the Mexican milieu
During the first session of Vatican II a voluminous work was circulated in Rome, printed on 31 August 1962:
Maurice Pinay, Complotto contro la Chiesa, Tipografia Dario Detti, Rome, 1962, Italian, VII + 617 pages.
The book was published under the pseudonym “Maurice Pinay”.
The work was linked to Mexican anticommunist and antimodernist Catholic milieus. Joaquín Sáenz y Arriaga is associated with this enterprise, as well as other persons from the TECOS milieu.
It is not, however, justified to attribute the entire work simply to Sáenz y Arriaga personally. The data rather indicate a collective enterprise.
The book was circulated among the council fathers.
It emerges from this that already during the first phase of Vatican II there existed an organised radical Catholic opposition against developments which one feared would come into conflict with the earlier Catholic magisterium.
This was not yet a fully elaborated sedevacantist movement, but it constitutes an important preparatory phase.
- 1965 – The anonymous document of October 1965
One of the most important early documents dates from October 1965.
Shortly before the definitive vote on the conciliar declaration concerning the Jews, an anonymous four-page pamphlet was circulated among the council fathers.
The French title was:
“Aucun Concile ni aucun Pape ne peuvent condamner Jésus, l’Église catholique, apostolique et romaine, ses pontifes et les conciles les plus illustres. Or, la déclaration sur les juifs comporte implicitement une telle condamnation, et pour cette éminente raison, doit être rejetée.”
Translation: “No Council and no Pope can condemn Jesus, the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church, her pontiffs and the most illustrious councils. Now the declaration on the Jews implicitly contains such a condemnation, and for this eminent reason must be rejected.”
The French journalist Henri Fesquet, correspondent of Le Monde during Vatican II, reported on this document in “La déclaration sur les juifs provoque une satisfaction qui n’est pas toujours sans réserves”, Le Monde, 18 October 1965, dispatch dated from Rome on 16 October.
Francesco Ricossa also refers, for this account, to:
Henri Fesquet, Le Journal du Concile, Robert Morel, Le Jas par Forcalquier, 1966, French, p. 988.
The text contains a particularly remarkable passage.
The author affirms that only:
“un antipape ou un conciliabule”
Translation: “an antipope or a conciliabulum”
could approve such a declaration.
This document is of great historical importance.
One must not draw from it more than it contains.
It does not prove that in October 1965 there already existed an international and organised sedevacantist movement.
It does prove that already during Vatican II the idea was publicly formulated that someone who would sanction a conciliar declaration judged incompatible with Catholic doctrine could, for that reason, only be an antipope.
This is a very early application of the question of pontifical legitimacy to the conciliar event itself.
- Fonds Moeller 2546
The document of October 1965 is not known solely from Fesquet’s journalistic report.
The scientific history of Vatican II directed by Giuseppe Alberigo refers to a copy preserved in the Fonds Moeller, according to the reference given by Francesco Ricossa.
The archival reference indicated is:
Fonds Moeller, 2546.
Ricossa cites on this subject:
Giuseppe Alberigo (ed.), Storia del Concilio Vaticano II, vol. 5, Il Mulino / Peeters, Bologna / Louvain, 2001, Italian, p. 226; Francesco Ricossa, Sodalitium, no. 55, November 2003, p. 66, note 15.
The Fonds Moeller forms part of the historical archival collections used for the reconstruction of Vatican II.
There thus exists for the 1965 pamphlet not only a contemporary journalistic testimony, but also a concrete archival reference.
- Authorship of the 1965 document
The question of authorship must be treated separately.
The document is often linked to the Mexican traditionalist milieu around Joaquín Sáenz y Arriaga and the TECOS.
This link is historically plausible, given:
the already existing Mexican activities around the Complotto contro la Chiesa;
the presence of Sáenz and his milieu during Vatican II;
the later very early development of sedevacantist positions in the same Mexican milieus.
But individual authorship is not definitively established.
It is therefore not justified to write:
“Sáenz y Arriaga wrote the pamphlet of October 1965.”
It is also not demonstrated that the TECOS as an organisation were formally the authors.
An additional problem is that under the text there circulated names of organisations of which at least some later contested having given their authorisation to be mentioned as co-signatories.
For the chronology, authorship is however secondary.
The crucial fact remains that the text circulated in October 1965 among the council fathers and used the term “antipope” in direct relation to the possible sanction of a conciliar declaration.
- The Mexican TECOS controversy of 1965
Fernando M. González reports, according to Manuel Díaz Cid, a meeting held in Mexico in 1965, towards the end of the Council.
This is said to have taken place in the Distrito Federal, in the house of Anacleto González Guerrero, son of the Cristero martyr Anacleto González Flores.
Within the milieu concerned, Antonio Leaño Álvarez del Castillo is said to have maintained that Paul VI should be regarded as illegitimate.
Ramón Plata Moreno, linked to El Yunque, is said to have rejected this conclusion.
The episode is reported in the following study:
Fernando M. González, “Algunos grupos radicales de izquierda y de derecha con influencia católica en México (1965–1975)”, Historia y Grafía, Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico, no. 29, 2007, Spanish, pp. 57–93, here pp. 63–64; for the filiation of González Guerrero, p. 60, note 3.
The account of the positions defended at this meeting is transmitted to us by the testimony of Manuel Díaz Cid, himself presented as a participant.
That is why the event must be presented in a critical chronology as follows:
According to this testimony, in 1965, within the Mexican traditionalist milieu, the legitimacy of Paul VI was already being explicitly debated.
One cannot make of it without additional documents:
“The TECOS officially declared the Apostolic See vacant in 1965.”
This is a much stronger affirmation than what the sources allow.
This episode remains nevertheless particularly important for the interpretation of the chronology. It shows that a private discussion of the legitimacy of Paul VI already existed in 1965, whereas the public and systematic formulation of a sedevacantist position appears clearly only later.
It therefore constitutes a first documented example of the necessity of distinguishing private discussion from public declaration. The date of public appearance of a thesis does not by itself allow one to determine the date at which this thesis began to be contemplated or held in private.
- Gommar DePauw: organisation of early traditionalist resistance
Another very important figure is the Belgian-American priest Gommar Albert DePauw.
DePauw already organised before the notoriety of Marcel Lefebvre a public traditionalist resistance in the United States.
On 31 December 1964 his Catholic Traditionalist Manifesto was communicated privately to ecclesiastical officials; it was made public on 15 March 1965.
On 15 March 1965 the Catholic Traditionalist Movement was launched publicly.
DePauw is essential for the history because he proves that an organised traditionalist resistance already existed in 1964–1965.
But DePauw was not then a sedevacantist.
- DePauw’s letter of 15 August 1967
The proper archives of the Catholic Traditionalist Movement preserve the letter Be Thou Peter!, addressed by DePauw to Paul VI on 15 August 1967.
He there explicitly recognises Paul VI as pope.
He writes that his movement remained faithful to:
“its present incumbent, Your Holiness, Paul VI.”
French translation:
“son titulaire actuel, Votre Sainteté, Paul VI.”
He also writes:
“We even still believe in Pope Paul VI if he starts doing immediately what he failed to do so far: ACT LIKE A POPE!”
French translation:
“Nous croyons même encore au pape Paul VI, s’il se met immédiatement à faire ce qu’il n’a pas fait jusqu’ici : AGIR COMME UN PAPE !”
His personal position at that moment is thus established.
He recognised Paul VI.
- Important passage in DePauw’s letter
The same letter contains however another passage very important for our history.
DePauw declares that his Catholic Traditionalist Movement still refused to join:
“the increasing number of Catholics all over the world”
who held Paul VI personally responsible for what they regarded as the destruction of the Church.
French translation:
“le nombre croissant de catholiques dans le monde entier.”
This is a very precious contemporary testimony.
DePauw himself was not a sedevacantist.
It is precisely for that reason that his declaration is important.
In 1967, someone who still explicitly recognised Paul VI as pope testifies that there already existed a growing number of Catholics throughout the world who went much further than simple criticism of the liturgical reforms and who regarded Paul VI himself as part of the problem.
DePauw does not however say that all these Catholics were already sedevacantists.
One can therefore conclude with certainty from this passage that radical opposition against Paul VI personally already existed internationally in 1967.
But DePauw’s testimony allows a second important historical observation. Since he himself still explicitly recognises Paul VI while speaking of an “increasing number of Catholics all over the world” who went further than he, the few authors of whom we today possess public declarations do not necessarily represent the whole of the Catholics who then already had grave doubts concerning Paul VI.
The document thus establishes the existence of an international milieu of contestation broader than the sole authors of whom we can today document an explicit sedevacantist conclusion. It does not however allow one to determine how many of these Catholics had already concluded that Paul VI had lost the pontificate.
- Hugo Maria Kellner, 1967
For the more explicit character of the question of pontifical legitimacy, Hugo Maria Kellner is particularly important.
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign preserves in the Revilo P. Oliver Papers documents of Kellner from 1967.
Archives:
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, University Archives, Revilo P. Oliver Papers, Record Series 15/6/27, Box 4; inventory, pp. 8–9.
There are registered in particular two pieces by Kellner.
The first bears the title:
“Fr. Gommar A. De Pauw’s Proposal of a Latin-Rite Church Should be Modified into a Project for the General Reestablishment of the True Catholic Church.”
French translation:
“La proposition du père Gommar A. DePauw d’une Église de rite latin devrait être transformée en un projet pour le rétablissement général de la véritable Église catholique.”
The second is still more important:
“Illegitimacy of Episcopal and Papal Authority and of Vatican II at the Root of the Great Apostasy in the Catholic Church.”
French translation:
“L’illégitimité de l’autorité épiscopale et pontificale et de Vatican II à l’origine de la grande apostasie dans l’Église catholique.”
Both are dated 1967 by the official inventory of the archives.
This is a very important independent documentary trace.
It proves that in 1967, in the United States, one already spoke in writing of the “illegitimacy” of pontifical authority in direct relation with Vatican II.
- Kellner’s letter to Cardinal Michael Browne
Francesco Ricossa mentions a letter of Kellner to Cardinal Michael Browne O.P., dated 28 April 1967.
According to this account, Kellner there also treated of the legitimacy of Paul VI and of Vatican II. Ricossa refers to the account of Brother François de Marie des Anges as well as to the confirmation transmitted by Patrick Henry Omlor (Sodalitium, no. 55, November 2003, p. 42 and note 22, p. 67).
Independently of this letter, the American university archives confirm that Kellner did in fact produce in 1967 a writing bearing the words:
“Illegitimacy of Episcopal and Papal Authority and of Vatican II”
in the title.
Kellner therefore belongs to the earliest documentable American figures who formulated the crisis explicitly at the level of the legitimacy of pontifical authority.
- Noël Barbara and Louis Coache in 1968
In France there also developed already before 1969 an ample traditionalist resistance.
Abbé Louis Coache, with the help of Father Noël Barbara, published in 1968 the Vade-mecum du catholique fidèle.
The work had a very great diffusion and was supported by numerous priests.
The Vade-mecum is important because it shows that the radical resistance against the postconciliar reforms already had before the new Mass a considerable clerical and lay base.
One must however distinguish between this radical traditionalist resistance and an already fully developed sedevacantist conclusion.
This publication and its diffusion are reported by Thibaud Chalmin in Une affaire d’Église. Les débuts de l’occupation de Saint-Nicolas-du-Chardonnet (27 February–4 July 1977), master’s thesis in history, 1994.
- Carlos Alberto Disandro: 2 May 1969
A particularly important document comes from Argentina.
Carlos Alberto Disandro wrote:
Iglesia y Pontificado. Una breve quaestio teológica, published by Editorial Montonera, in Mar del Plata, in 1969.
The introductory warning ends with:
“La Plata (Argentina), 2 de mayo de 1969. Fiesta de San Atanasio.”
French translation:
“La Plata, Argentine, 2 mai 1969, fête de saint Athanase.”
We thus have the exact date of the warning.
- What Disandro says and does not say in May 1969
This text is particularly important because it shows how the discussion was developing.
Disandro declares explicitly that he is not treating of the original validity of the election of Paul VI.
He writes:
“NI LA LEGITIMIDAD DE LA ASUNCIÓN DEL PONTIFICADO POR PAULO VI…”
French translation:
“ni la légitimité de l’assomption du pontificat par Paul VI…”
This means that one cannot simply summarise the text of 2 May 1969 by:
“Disandro declares that Paul VI was never pope.”
He does not say that.
- Disandro on the heretical pope
Disandro then treats at length of the classical Catholic question of a pope who falls into heresy.
He discusses the theological position according to which a pope who, by heresy, ceases to be a member of the Church, can no longer, ipso facto, remain pope.
In this hypothesis, he writes that:
“el Pontificado […] estaría VACANTE.”
French translation:
“le pontificat […] serait vacant.”
He also uses in this discussion the formula:
“NO HAY PAPA.”
French translation:
“IL N’Y A PAS DE PAPE.”
These words must however be read in their context.
They belong to the exposition of the theological consequence of the hypothesis that the pope has lost his office by heresy.
They are not yet in Iglesia y Pontificado a definitive personal declaration of Disandro that this state was already effectively and definitively realised under Paul VI.
- Disandro applies the question to Paul VI
Disandro does not remain at the level of an abstract treatise.
He discusses current traditionalist opinions.
He mentions in particular a French group, “Trompetas de Jericó”, which regarded John XXIII as papa haereticus.
Concerning Paul VI, he then discusses the idea that the latter, by reopening the Council, by closing it and by sanctioning the conciliar doctrine, confirmed the alleged heresies of the latter.
It follows in this argumentation that Paul VI should be regarded as:
“Papa herético”.
French translation:
“pape hérétique.”
There then appears the classical dichotomy:
“depositus seu deponendus.”
French translation:
“déposé ou à déposer.”
This is fundamental.
In May 1969, the question is therefore already directly applied to Paul VI.
But Disandro still leaves in this first text a place between:
a pope who has already lost his office ipso facto;
and a pope who, by reason of heresy, must still be deposed.
- Historical significance of Disandro’s text of May 1969
Disandro proves that the question of pontifical legitimacy in 1969 was not played out exclusively in Mexico or in France.
Also in Argentina, the classical Catholic doctrine on the heretical pope was directly applied to the current postconciliar crisis.
This is particularly important because it shows once again that the development was not geographically limited to a single group.
- Pontificado y Pontífice: the next stage in Disandro
Disandro then wrote:
Pontificado y Pontífice. Una breve quaestio teológica (II), La Hostería Volante, 1970, Argentina, Spanish.
In this sequel, his position is much more explicit.
He uses concerning Montini the expression:
“para quien esto escribe ‘Falso Papa’”.
French translation:
“pour celui qui écrit ceci : ‘faux pape’.”
The personal conclusion is thus no longer hypothetical.
- Dating of Pontificado y Pontífice
The text itself refers to an information letter of Gommar DePauw from spring 1970, to declarations of DePauw in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat of June 1970, as well as to La Contre-Réforme catholique, no. 35, August 1970.
The redaction of which we dispose of Pontificado y Pontífice is therefore posterior to the appearance of this August 1970 issue. Cyrille Dounot situates the publication of the article in La Hostería Volante in 1970.
This is important because certain secondary bibliographies also place this second work simply in 1969.
That cannot be exact for the text currently available.
The correct chronological order is therefore:
2 May 1969:
Iglesia y Pontificado: date of the warning.
1970:
Pontificado y Pontífice in La Hostería Volante.
We see there a development from an open treatment of the question in 1969 towards the personally unambiguous designation “falso papa” in 1970.
- French meeting of 21 July 1969
On Monday 21 July 1969 there took place at the Maison Saint-Joseph of Saint-Parres-lès-Vaudes an important meeting, reported in particular by Francesco Ricossa in Sodalitium, no. 55, November 2003, p. 42.
There resided Abbé Georges de Nantes.
Among the participants were in any case:
Father Michel-Louis Guérard des Lauriers O.P.;
Abbé Louis Coache;
Father Noël Barbara.
Other historical reconstructions also mention:
Father Joaquín Sáenz y Arriaga;
Abbé Philippe Rousseau;
Father Charles Marquette;
Alain Tilloy.
The meeting is also related in the circle of Georges de Nantes by Brother François de Marie des Anges, Pour l’Église. Quarante ans de Contre-Réforme catholique, tome 3, Contre la dérive schismatique, 1969–1978, Saint-Parres-lès-Vaudes, 1996.
This is important because De Nantes was precisely opposed to the sedevacantist solution.
- Guérard des Lauriers on 21 July 1969
According to the account of Brother François de Marie des Anges, in “La tentation schismatique”, Guérard regarded the situation of the hierarchy as fundamentally broken.
There is attributed to him the declaration:
“Je considère […] que la hiérarchie, en la personne du Pape et des évêques, a sombré.”
Translation: “I consider […] that the hierarchy, in the person of the Pope and of the bishops, has foundered.”
The discussion was summarised by the adversaries of this opinion as:
“Plus de Pape !”
Translation: “No more Pope!”
The importance of this is great.
On 21 July 1969, the question of the existence of pontifical authority is no longer treated exclusively in a theoretical way in a book, but in a concrete meeting among leading traditionalist priests and theologians.
- Noël Barbara on 21 July 1969
Barbara must here be distinguished from Guérard.
According to this same account, Barbara did not at that moment draw the same definitive conclusion.
There is attributed to him the formula:
“nous sommes dans le doute.”
Translation: “we are in doubt.”
Barbara apparently proposed that one retain for the moment one’s own position.
He is thus better characterised in July 1969 as someone who seriously contemplated the question of pontifical legitimacy, but who had not yet fixed a definitive sedevacantist position.
- Forts dans la Foi in 1969
Barbara published precisely in this decisive period two important articles on the ecclesiastical magisterium:
- Noël Barbara, “Quelle certitude possède l’enseignement du Magistère ?”, Forts dans la Foi, no. 10, May–June 1969, French, pp. 185–206.
Then:
- Noël Barbara, “Quelle est la valeur de l’enseignement ordinaire du Magistère ecclésiastique ?”, Forts dans la Foi, no. 11, July–August 1969, French, pp. 259–290.
These two articles are cited by Cyrille Dounot, “Paul VI hérétique ? La déposition du pape dans le discours traditionaliste”, in Cyrille Dounot, Nicolas Warembourg and Boris Bernabé (eds.), La déposition du pape hérétique. Lieux théologiques, modèles canoniques, enjeux constitutionnels, Mare & Martin / Presses universitaires de Sceaux, 2019, pp. 131–165, here p. 153, n. 122.
Dounot places these two articles in the development of Barbara’s reflection on the magisterium in 1969 (ibid., pp. 153–154).
- Letter of Guérard des Lauriers of 8 August 1969
After the meeting of 21 July, Guérard wrote on 8 August 1969 to Georges de Nantes, according to the report of Francesco Ricossa.
Ricossa reports the content of this letter in “Réponse au numéro spécial de La Tradizione Cattolica sur le sédévacantisme”, Sodalitium, no. 55, November 2003, p. 42, with the references gathered in note 20, p. 67.
He refers in particular to:
Brother François de Marie des Anges, Pour l’Église. Quarante ans de Contre-Réforme catholique, tome 3, Contre la dérive schismatique, 1969–1978, Éditions de la Contre-Réforme Catholique, Saint-Parres-lès-Vaudes, 1996, French, pp. 10–15 and 110 and following.
For another version of the meeting of 21 July, the same note refers to:
Louis Coache, Les batailles du Combat de la Foi, Éditions de Chiré, Chiré-en-Montreuil, 1993, French, pp. 77–81.
According to Ricossa’s report, Guérard concluded from the approval of the new missal that the “cardinal Montini” was not pope.
The manner in which he designates Montini is already significant: not as “Pope Paul VI”, but as “cardinal Montini”.
Ricossa’s report thus attaches this explicit affirmation to Guérard’s correspondence of the summer of 1969.
- Guérard in 1969 and the later Cassiciacum thesis
One must not simply project the later Cassiciacum thesis onto Guérard’s position in 1969.
In 1969 one finds a direct conclusion according to which Montini could not be regarded as pope.
The systematically elaborated distinction later between a pope materialiter and a pope formaliter belongs to a later phase of development.
The known systematic publication appeared in:
Michel-Louis Guérard des Lauriers, “Le Siège apostolique est-il vacant ? (Lex orandi, lex credendi)”, Cahiers de Cassiciacum, no. 1, Nice, Association Saint-Herménégilde, May 1979, French, pp. 5–99.
One must therefore write historically:
Guérard already maintained in 1969 that Montini was not pope.
His later materialiter/formaliter theory was systematically developed only later.
- Francis Schuckardt in the United States
Francis Konrad Schuckardt constitutes another independent line of development.
He was first active in the Fatima apostolate and the milieu of the Blue Army.
In 1967 a religious community already formed around him at Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.
According to Magnus Lundberg, towards the end of the sixties, certainly in 1969, he maintained the position that Paul VI was not a true pope and that the Apostolic See was vacant.
A recent and detailed historical study is:
Magnus Lundberg, Francis Schuckardt, the Papacy, and the Apocalypse, The Alternative Pope Project, Working Paper, Uppsala University, 2024, English, notably pp. 11–19.
Schuckardt is important because his development was independent of Marcel Lefebvre and of the later SSPX.
His later personal and institutional history contains grave controversies, but that changes nothing in the historical fact that he already maintained before the seventies a sedevacantist conclusion.
- Reinhard Lauth in Germany
The German philosopher Reinhard Lauth is also counted among the first defenders of the sedevacantist position.
Francesco Ricossa reports that he personally questioned Lauth by telephone on 9 April 2003 and that Lauth confirmed having maintained from 1969 the vacancy of the Apostolic See (Sodalitium, no. 55, November 2003, p. 42 and note 23, p. 67).
This dating rests on Lauth’s retrospective testimony.
From the beginning of the seventies, Lauth is however demonstrably linked to the German radical traditionalist milieu.
- Einsicht and the German line
From April 1971 the review Einsicht became an important centre of German sedevacantist and traditionalist discussion.
Lauth figured among the first collaborators.
Elisabeth Gerstner also played an important role in the German and international traditionalist network.
- Elisabeth Gerstner
Elisabeth Gerstner, 1924–2005, was a German Catholic militant who had previously worked as an interpreter at the Vatican.
She became a leading figure within the Liga katholischer Traditionalisten and edited the review Kyrie Eleison.
In the early seventies she collaborated with other international traditionalist figures, among whom:
Joaquín Sáenz y Arriaga;
Louis Coache;
Noël Barbara.
She thus belonged to the network which internationally linked the radical traditionalist resistance.
- The international marches on Rome
An often forgotten aspect of the early movement are the great traditionalist demonstrations in Rome.
At Pentecost 1970 there took place a great international traditionalist meeting.
Later reconstructions speak of about 1,500 participants.
In 1971 this number is said to have risen to about 5,000.
In 1973 participants from more than twenty countries were present.
Among the organisers and supporters of this international protest movement are notably cited:
Sáenz y Arriaga;
Coache;
Barbara;
Gerstner.
These meetings are important because they show that the radical traditionalist resistance was already organised internationally before the institutional development of sedevacantism.
Not all participants were sedevacantists.
But within this network there met and influenced one another persons who would later defend explicit sedevacantist positions.
- 1969–1970: the new Mass as catalyst
On 3 April 1969 Paul VI promulgated the apostolic constitution Missale Romanum.
In 1970 appeared the editio typica of the new Roman missal, whose decree of publication bears the date of 26 March 1970.
The liturgical crisis must not be presented historically as if it were the sole cause of sedevacantism.
The question of pontifical legitimacy already existed before the complete practical introduction of the Novus Ordo.
But the liturgical reform had a decisive catalysing action.
The doctrinal changes of Vatican II could remain abstract for many ordinary faithful.
The new liturgy, on the contrary, was directly perceptible by the senses:
the language changed;
prayers changed or disappeared;
the position of the priest and of the people changed;
the altars were modified;
the ritual structure changed;
the whole experience of the Sunday office became other.
Thus a crisis which had previously been discussed especially by theologians, clerics and well-informed laity became immediately visible for millions of faithful.
- The Ottaviani-Bacci intervention
In 1969 appeared the Breve esame critico del Novus Ordo Missae.
The study was presented to Paul VI with an accompanying letter of Cardinals Alfredo Ottaviani and Antonio Bacci.
This intervention was not a sedevacantist document.
This distinction must be maintained.
But it showed that a very grave criticism of the new missal also came from high ecclesiastical milieus.
Guérard des Lauriers is associated with the preparation of the Breve esame critico (Ricossa, “Réponse au numéro spécial de La Tradizione Cattolica sur le sédévacantisme”, Sodalitium, no. 55, November 2003, n. 40).
Ricossa refers on this subject to a declaration of Guérard published in Itinéraires, no. 142, April 1970, pp. 48–50, and taken up in no. 146, September–October 1970.
- Situation at the end of 1969
At the end of 1969 there already existed several distinct levels of opposition.
DePauw represented a hard traditionalist resistance which, in his letter of 15 August 1967, still recognised Paul VI as pope.
Barbara was still in serious doubt at the meeting of 21 July 1969.
Disandro treated directly of the possibility of a heretical pope and of a vacant See and applied the question to Paul VI, but had not yet in May 1969 made a univocal choice between depositus and deponendus.
Guérard des Lauriers arrived in the summer of 1969 at the conclusion that Montini was not pope.
Schuckardt maintained in the same general period in the United States also the vacancy of the See.
Lauth later declared that he adhered to this position in Germany from 1969.
The picture is therefore not that of a single movement born on a single day.
It is a simultaneous development in different countries.
Another observation must now be added. The publicly documented positions in 1969 do not necessarily indicate to us the moment at which each of their authors had begun to doubt or had interiorly arrived at his conclusion.
The documents show on the contrary several contemporary degrees: persistent recognition of Paul VI, radical contestation of his action, doubt concerning his authority, application to his case of the doctrine of the heretical pope, and finally explicit negation of his pontificate.
1969 must therefore not be presented as the year in which the possibility of the vacancy was suddenly discovered. It is rather the year in which the explicit conclusion that Montini is not pope becomes clearly documentable in several geographically independent milieus.
- 1970: Disandro becomes explicit
In 1970, in Pontificado y Pontífice, Disandro designates without ambiguity Montini as:
“falso papa”.
French translation:
“faux pape.”
Here the stage of theoretical possibility is surpassed.
The author takes a personal position.
- Importance of the 1970 dating
This fact is important because it precedes the great public notoriety of Sáenz y Arriaga’s book La nueva Iglesia montiniana of 1971.
It thus appears that the explicit sedevacantist conclusion was not invented by a single book of Sáenz.
It already existed previously in different milieus.
- 1971 – Sáenz y Arriaga: La nueva Iglesia montiniana
In 1971 Joaquín Sáenz y Arriaga published:
La nueva Iglesia postconciliar o La nueva Iglesia montiniana, The Christian Book Club of America, Hawthorne, California, 1971, Spanish.
French translation:
“La nouvelle Église postconciliaire ou la nouvelle Église montinienne.”
The work formed an important turning point because the crisis of the Church and of pontifical authority was now presented systematically in book form to a much wider public.
Sáenz affirmed that one no longer had to do with a few isolated abuses, but with a fundamental transformation of ecclesial life under Montini.
- 1971 – Schuckardt is ordained priest and consecrated bishop
According to the account of Joseph Marie Belzac, on 31 October 1971 Francis Schuckardt was ordained priest by Daniel Q. Brown.
On 1 November 1971 he was consecrated bishop by Brown.
Brown came from an independent episcopal milieu.
The sacramental and canonical appreciation of these ordinations is a distinct question.
Historically, it matters that Schuckardt’s sedevacantist community received from 1971 a proper episcopal structure.
- 1972 – Sáenz y Arriaga: the review Trento
Sáenz y Arriaga and his circle began in 1972 to publish the review Trento, according to Luis Herrán Ávila (The Americas, vol. 79, no. 2, 2022, p. 335).
Thus the Mexican sedevacantist movement received a permanent organ of publication.
Among the clerical circle around Sáenz figured in particular:
Moisés Carmona;
Adolfo Zamora.
This shows that Sáenz was not an isolated writer.
- Moisés Carmona and Adolfo Zamora
Carmona and Zamora would later become of great importance for the subsequent history.
Both belonged in the early seventies to the Mexican traditionalist and sedevacantist milieu.
In 1981 they were consecrated bishops by Archbishop Pierre-Martin Ngô Đình Thục, as the notification of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of 12 March 1983 recalls.
Their presence at Sáenz’s side in the early seventies shows that a clerical continuity was already forming before his death.
- 1972–1973 – Francis Fenton and the ORCM
Also in the United States a distinct priestly movement was born.
Father Francis E. Fenton began to celebrate the old Mass for traditionalist groups.
On 19 March 1972 a chapel was opened at Brewster, New York, on the property of Robert W. Cleary.
In 1973 there arose the Orthodox Roman Catholic Movement, ORCM. In his editorial of August 1975, Francis E. Fenton attributed to it about two and a half years of existence (ORCM News, no. 15, 7 September 1975, p. 3).
Father Robert McKenna O.P. also became an important figure in this milieu.
This movement developed independently of Schuckardt and independently of the later American conflicts within the SSPX.
- 1973 – Sáenz y Arriaga: Sede Vacante
In 1973 appeared:
Joaquín Sáenz y Arriaga, Sede Vacante: Paulo VI no es legítimo Papa, Editores Asociados, Mexico, 1973, Spanish.
French translation:
“Siège vacant : Paul VI n’est pas un pape légitime.”
The significance of this publication is exceptionally great.
The conclusion already figures in the title.
Sáenz no longer maintains only that certain conciliar texts are problematic or that Paul VI behaves in a heretical way.
He affirms directly that Paul VI is not a legitimate pope.
- 1973 is not the beginning
Although Sáenz’s book forms a decisive publicity moment, 1973 cannot be regarded as the birth year of sedevacantist thought.
The documentary development is older:
1965:
conditional application of the notion of “antipope” during Vatican II;
1967:
Kellner writes on the illegitimacy of pontifical authority and of Vatican II;
1969:
Disandro concretely applies the problematic of the heretical pope to Paul VI;
1969:
Guérard concludes that Montini is not pope;
end of the sixties:
Schuckardt maintains the vacancy in the United States;
1970:
Disandro speaks of “falso papa”;
1971:
Sáenz publishes La nueva Iglesia montiniana;
1973:
Sáenz publishes Sede Vacante.
- Georges de Nantes as a contrasting figure
A very important figure for the correct historical interpretation is Abbé Georges de Nantes.
He was a fierce opponent of several conciliar and postconciliar developments.
He later formally accused Paul VI of heresy.
But he did not draw from it the same conclusion as Sáenz or Guérard.
- 10 April 1973: Liber accusationis in Paulum Sextum
On 10 April 1973 Georges de Nantes went to Rome to deposit his:
Liber accusationis in Paulum Sextum, published by the Éditions de la Contre-Réforme catholique in April 1973.
In the opening address of the Liber accusationis, he still addressed himself to Paul VI as:
“notre Saint Père le pape Paul VI”.
Translation: “our Holy Father Pope Paul VI”.
He also called him:
“juge souverain de tous les fidèles du Christ”.
Translation: “sovereign judge of all the faithful of Christ”.
At the same time he accused him of:
“hérésie, schisme, scandale”.
Translation: “heresy, schism, scandal”.
- Two opposed responses in 1973
The year 1973 thus shows two totally different responses to the same crisis.
Sáenz y Arriaga:
Paul VI is not a legitimate pope.
Georges de Nantes:
Paul VI is pope, but must be accused of heresy, schism and scandal and be judged ecclesiastically.
This distinction is historically fundamental.
The traditionalist resistance against Vatican II did not necessarily lead to sedevacantism.
The true dividing line finally lay in the question:
what are the ecclesiological and canonical consequences when he who is recognised as pope teaches, favours or sanctions heresy?
- Polycentric origin
The early history shows that sedevacantism was not born from a single geographical centre.
Mexico:
Joaquín Sáenz y Arriaga;
the TECOS milieu;
later Carmona and Zamora.
United States:
Hugo Maria Kellner;
Francis Schuckardt;
later Francis Fenton and Robert McKenna.
Argentina:
Carlos Alberto Disandro.
France:
Michel-Louis Guérard des Lauriers;
Louis Coache;
Noël Barbara in a more gradual development.
Germany:
Reinhard Lauth;
Elisabeth Gerstner and the milieu of Einsicht and of Kyrie Eleison.
- Absence of a central founder
There was in this period:
no international sedevacantist superior;
no common seminary;
no international direction;
no uniform theological system;
no central review for all countries;
no generally recognised founder.
The different persons moreover did not always arrive simultaneously at the same conclusion.
Some hesitated.
Some spoke of a pope who must be deposed.
Some thought that he had already lost his office ipso facto.
Some already rejected Montini as pope.
Some still recognised him, but accused him of heresy.
This lack of uniformity is historically important.
It renders implausible that early sedevacantism was simply the programme of a single organisation afterwards diffused internationally.
- Sedevacantism did not issue from the SSPX
The chronology also excludes another frequently encountered presentation.
The SSPX was founded only in 1970, with the decree of erection of 1 November.
The organised traditionalist resistance of DePauw already existed in 1964–1965.
The formulation “antipope” already circulated in 1965.
Kellner’s criticism of legitimacy dates from 1967.
Guérard’s explicit position dates from 1969.
Schuckardt’s development also already took place at the end of the sixties.
In his 1970 article, Disandro spoke of a “false pope”.
That is why sedevacantism cannot be explained historically as a later radical split of the SSPX as such.
Later, important sedevacantist priests did indeed come from the SSPX.
This is a subsequent historical phase and not an explanation of the primitive origin.
- The new Mass did not create sedevacantism
One also cannot say that sedevacantist thought was born only because the new Mass was introduced.
The chronology contradicts it.
The question of legitimacy already appears before the general introduction of the Novus Ordo.
1969–1970 however forms a decisive moment of acceleration.
Until then, many differences were especially doctrinal and intellectual.
From the liturgical revolution, the crisis became visible every week for the ordinary Catholic.
This explains why many faithful began to measure the extent of the changes only from 1969–1970.
This is however an explanation of the historical taking of awareness, not of the objective moment at which a possible sede vacante would have begun.
- Objective chronology, private recognition and public declaration must be distinguished
One of the most important methodological results of this research is that three chronologies must be distinguished.
The first is the objective chronology.
It answers the question:
At what moment did the fact occur which, according to the applicable theological and canonical principles, would have entailed the loss of the pontificate?
This question is not resolved by the present historical chronology. It requires a distinct theological and canonical study.
The second is the epistemic chronology.
It answers the question:
At what moment did certain Catholics begin to recognise the facts and to understand that these could have consequences concerning the pontificate itself?
The third is the public chronology.
It answers the question:
At what moment were those who had conceived a doubt or acquired a conviction willing to express it publicly, to publish it or to act openly in consequence?
These three moments must not be confused.
That certain Catholics publicly affirmed the vacancy of the See only in 1969, 1970 or 1973 does not prove that the objective cause of a possible vacancy appeared at that moment.
It does not prove either that no one had previously, in private, arrived at the same conclusion.
Conversely, the existence of early doubts or even private convictions does not by itself prove that the corresponding theological conclusion was just.
An additional documentary difficulty must be taken into consideration. Books, reviews, preserved letters and public declarations leave historical traces. Private conversations, interior convictions, hesitations and decisions not to make a conclusion public leave many fewer.
It is also possible, in principle, that a person judges a conclusion exact but estimates it imprudent to declare it publicly for pastoral, prudential or institutional reasons. This mechanism must not however be attributed to any determined person of the period 1964–1969 without sufficiently probative testimony or document.
The number of publicly identifiable sedevacantists at a given date cannot therefore be automatically assimilated to the number of persons who, at that same date, already doubted the legitimacy of Paul VI or had interiorly drawn a more radical conclusion.
The present chronology establishes when certain positions become historically documentable. It does not allow, without additional documents, the fixing of the precise moment at which each person interiorly arrived at his conclusion.
Finally, the moment of the first public recognition of a vacancy does not determine the objective moment at which this vacancy would have begun.
- Chronological table revised in prose
1958
Pius XII dies. Roncalli is elected as John XXIII.
1959
John XXIII announces a general council.
1962
Vatican II begins. The Complotto contro la Chiesa is circulated in Rome and already shows an organised radical opposition against the direction of the Council.
1964–1965
Gommar DePauw organises in the United States the Catholic Traditionalist Movement. He continues to recognise Paul VI.
October 1965
An anonymous pamphlet circulates among the council fathers and affirms that only an “antipope” or a “conciliabulum” could sanction the conciliar declaration concerned.
The possibility of a conflict between the pontifical sanction of a conciliar doctrine and the very legitimacy of him who would sanction it is thus publicly formulated from the Council.
1965
Within the Mexican traditionalist milieu, one already debates, according to the testimony of Manuel Díaz Cid reported by Fernando M. González, the legitimacy of Paul VI. This discussion takes place in private and thus constitutes an important indication of a possible lag between private recognition of the problem and public manifestation of the conclusion.
1967
Kellner writes in the United States on the “Illegitimacy of Episcopal and Papal Authority and of Vatican II”.
DePauw testifies at the same time that a growing number of Catholics hold Paul VI personally responsible for the crisis.
The documentation therefore already shows several contemporary degrees: DePauw recognises Paul VI; other Catholics hold him personally responsible for the crisis; Kellner carries the discussion as far as the “illegitimacy” of pontifical authority.
1968
Coache, with the help of Barbara, publishes the Vade-mecum du catholique fidèle, which has a great diffusion.
2 May 1969
Carlos Disandro dates the warning of Iglesia y Pontificado, a work in which he directly applies the classical problematic of the heretical pope to the current situation, without yet concluding in an unambiguous way that Paul VI is already no longer pope.
May–August 1969
Barbara examines in Forts dans la Foi the certainty and the value of the ecclesiastical magisterium.
21 July 1969
Guérard des Lauriers, Coache, Barbara and other radical traditionalists meet Georges de Nantes. The question whether there still exists a pontifical hierarchy is explicitly discussed.
8 August 1969
Guérard writes, according to Francesco Ricossa’s account, to de Nantes and concludes that Montini is not pope.
End of the sixties
Schuckardt also maintains in the United States the vacancy of the Apostolic See.
1969
Lauth declares according to his own later testimony that he adhered from that year to the vacancy of the See.
The year 1969 thus represents not necessarily the birth of doubts concerning the pontificate, but the moment at which an explicitly sedevacantist conclusion becomes documentable in several countries independently of one another.
1969–1970
The introduction of the new Mass renders the crisis visible for the whole Catholic population.
1970
Disandro explicitly calls Montini “falso papa” in Pontificado y Pontífice.
1970
The SSPX is founded. Sedevacantist thought therefore already exists before the SSPX becomes an international factor.
1971
Sáenz y Arriaga publishes La nueva Iglesia montiniana.
Schuckardt is ordained priest then consecrated bishop.
The German review Einsicht develops into an important centre of radical traditionalist discussion.
1972
Sáenz and his circle publish Trento.
Carmona and Zamora figure among Sáenz’s close clerical collaborators.
1972–1973
Francis Fenton and Robert McKenna develop in the United States the movement which will become the ORCM.
1973
Sáenz publishes Sede Vacante: Paulo VI no es legítimo Papa.
The same year, Georges de Nantes deposits his Liber accusationis in Paulum Sextum, in which he accuses Paul VI of heresy, schism and scandal, but still calls him pope.
- General historical conclusion
The contemporary documentation and the historical accounts of the actors and of the researchers leave appear a clear development.
Sedevacantist thought does not appear suddenly in 1973.
It is not born either only in the eighties.
Still less can it be explained historically as a reaction to Marcel Lefebvre’s episcopal consecrations in 1988.
The documents show a much older development.
Already in October 1965, during Vatican II, the possibility of an “antipope” is concretely linked to the sanction of a conciliar declaration.
In 1967, Hugo Maria Kellner treats in writing in the United States of the illegitimacy of pontifical authority and of Vatican II.
In 1969, the classical doctrine on a heretical pope is directly applied to the current crisis.
In the summer of 1969, in France, one explicitly discusses the absence of pontifical hierarchy.
Guérard des Lauriers concludes in his correspondence that Montini is not pope.
At the end of the sixties, Schuckardt independently develops in the United States a comparable conclusion.
In 1970, Disandro unambiguously calls Montini a “false pope”.
Sáenz y Arriaga then gives the thesis in 1971 and especially in 1973 a much wider public diffusion.
This succession must however be understood as a chronology of what becomes historically documentable and publicly identifiable. It does not necessarily constitute the exact chronology of the interior formation of convictions.
The documents themselves already show this lag. In 1965, a consequence concerning a possible “antipope” is publicly formulated, while the legitimacy of Paul VI is also the object of a private discussion in Mexico. In 1967, DePauw testifies to the existence of a growing number of Catholics who personally put Paul VI in question, while he himself continues to recognise him as pope. In 1969 there still coexist Barbara’s doubt, Disandro’s open analysis and Guérard’s explicit conclusion.
The historical progression must therefore not be represented as the sudden passage from a universally peaceful and intellectually uncontested recognition of Paul VI to a sedevacantism that appeared abruptly around 1970. The documents show on the contrary a progressive differentiation: doctrinal resistance, personal putting in question of Paul VI, doubt concerning authority, private discussion of legitimacy, application of the doctrine of the heretical pope and, finally, public declaration of the vacancy.
- Last historiographical observation
The earliest history must therefore not be written as if there had first existed a uniform sedevacantist movement.
The reality was more complex.
First there arose a radical resistance against the conciliar direction.
From there followed the question how a true pope could sanction such developments.
Then the classical doctrine on a heretical pope was again examined.
There then appeared different responses:
Paul VI is pope but acts in a disastrous way;
Paul VI is pope but heretical and must be deposed;
Paul VI has lost his office by heresy;
Paul VI was never legitimate;
the Apostolic See is vacant;
or, in certain authors, provisionally: the matter is doubtful.
To this doctrinal diversity must be added a diversity in the degree of publicity. Some publish their conclusion; others only examine the question; still others appear in the sources only by later testimonies concerning private discussions.
One must therefore avoid measuring the real state of the crisis exclusively by the number of printed sedevacantist declarations that we can currently recover. The absence of a preserved public declaration does not constitute a proof that no doubt or contrary conviction existed in private. Conversely, one cannot attribute such a private conviction to a determined person without sufficient documentary or testimonial proof.
From 1969–1970, the explicit sedevacantist conclusion however becomes undeniably visible historically.
From 1971–1973, it receives a lasting international publicity and organisational form.
This is the historical development that emerges from the currently known documents.
- List of sources
- Maurice Pinay, Complotto contro la Chiesa, Tipografia Dario Detti, Rome, 1962, Italian, VII + 617 pages.
- Henri Fesquet, “La déclaration sur les juifs provoque une satisfaction qui n’est pas toujours sans réserves”, Le Monde, 18 October 1965, dispatch from Rome of 16 October; Le Journal du Concile, Robert Morel, Le Jas par Forcalquier, 1966, p. 988, cited by Francesco Ricossa, Sodalitium, no. 55, November 2003, p. 66, note 15.
- Giuseppe Alberigo (ed.), Storia del Concilio Vaticano II, vol. 5, Il Mulino / Peeters, Bologna / Louvain, 2001, p. 226, reference to Fonds Moeller, 2546, cited by Francesco Ricossa, Sodalitium, no. 55, November 2003, p. 66, note 15.
- Fernando M. González, “Algunos grupos radicales de izquierda y de derecha con influencia católica en México (1965–1975)”, Historia y Grafía, Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico, no. 29, 2007, pp. 57–93; especially pp. 63–64 and p. 60, note 3.
- Luis Herrán Ávila, “Las Falsas Derechas: Conflict and Convergence in Mexico’s Post-Cristero Right after the Second Vatican Council”, The Americas, vol. 79, no. 2, Cambridge University Press for the Academy of American Franciscan History, April 2022, pp. 321–350; especially pp. 330–331, 333 and 335.
- Gommar A. DePauw, Catholic Traditionalist Manifesto, communication of 31 December 1964, made public on 15 March 1965, archives of the Catholic Traditionalist Movement; Be Thou Peter!, letter to Paul VI of 15 August 1967, same archives.
- University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, University Archives, Revilo P. Oliver Papers, Record Series 15/6/27, Box 4, pieces of Hugo Maria Kellner of 1967; inventory of the fonds, pp. 8–9.
- Hugo Maria Kellner, letter to Cardinal Michael Browne, 28 April 1967, mentioned by Francesco Ricossa, Sodalitium, no. 55, November 2003, p. 42 and note 22, p. 67.
- Louis Coache, with Noël Barbara, Vade-mecum du catholique fidèle, 1968; see Thibaud Chalmin, Une affaire d’Église, 1994, p. 60 and note 132.
- Thibaud Chalmin, Une affaire d’Église. Les débuts de l’occupation de Saint-Nicolas-du-Chardonnet (27 February–4 July 1977), master’s thesis in history under the direction of Jean-Marie Mayeur, Sorbonne, 1994.
- Noël Barbara, “Quelle certitude possède l’enseignement du Magistère ?”, Forts dans la Foi, no. 10, May–June 1969, pp. 185–206; “Quelle est la valeur de l’enseignement ordinaire du Magistère ecclésiastique ?”, ibid., no. 11, July–August 1969, pp. 259–290. References cited by Cyrille Dounot, 2019, p. 153, note 122.
- Carlos Alberto Disandro, Iglesia y Pontificado. Una breve quaestio teológica, Editorial Montonera, Mar del Plata, 1969; warning dated La Plata, 2 May 1969; part 2, paragraph 1; part 3, paragraphs 1 and 3; reprint Hostería Volante, La Plata, 1988.
- Carlos Alberto Disandro, “Pontificado y Pontífice. Una breve quaestio teológica (II)”, La Hostería Volante, 1970; reproduced in Joaquín Sáenz y Arriaga, La nueva Iglesia postconciliar o La nueva Iglesia montiniana, 2nd edition, Editores Asociados, S. de R. L., Mexico, 1972, pp. 351–358. For the dating of the publication, Cyrille Dounot, 2019, p. 149.
- Cyrille Dounot, “Paul VI hérétique ? La déposition du pape dans le discours traditionaliste”, in Cyrille Dounot, Nicolas Warembourg and Boris Bernabé (eds.), La déposition du pape hérétique. Lieux théologiques, modèles canoniques, enjeux constitutionnels. Actes du colloque de Sceaux des 30–31 mars 2017, Mare & Martin / Presses universitaires de Sceaux, 2019, pp. 131–165.
- Brother François de Marie des Anges, Pour l’Église. Quarante ans de Contre-Réforme catholique, tome 3, Contre la dérive schismatique, 1969–1978, Éditions de la Contre-Réforme catholique, Saint-Parres-lès-Vaudes, 1996, pp. 10–15 and 110 and following; extract “La tentation schismatique”, pp. 10–34.
- Louis Coache, Les batailles du Combat de la Foi, Éditions de Chiré, Chiré-en-Montreuil, 1993, pp. 77–81 and chapter 14.
- Francesco Ricossa, “Réponse au numéro spécial de La Tradizione cattolica sur le sédévacantisme”, Sodalitium, French edition, no. 55, November 2003; especially p. 42 and pp. 66–67, notes 15 and 20–23; notes 38–42 for the Brief Examination and the Roman marches.
- Michel-Louis Guérard des Lauriers, letter to Georges de Nantes, 8 August 1969, reported by Francesco Ricossa, Sodalitium, no. 55, November 2003, p. 42 and note 20, p. 67.
- Michel-Louis Guérard des Lauriers, “Le Siège apostolique est-il vacant ? (Lex orandi, lex credendi)”, Cahiers de Cassiciacum, no. 1, Association Saint-Herménégilde, Nice, May 1979, pp. 5–99.
- Michel-Louis Guérard des Lauriers, declaration relative to the Brief Critical Examination, Itinéraires, no. 142, April 1970, pp. 48–50, taken up in no. 146, September–October 1970; reference given by Francesco Ricossa, Sodalitium, no. 55, November 2003, note 40.
- Magnus Lundberg, Francis Schuckardt, the Papacy, and the Apocalypse, The Alternative Pope Project, Working Paper, Uppsala University, 2024, English, 49 pages; especially pp. 11–19.
- Joseph Marie Belzac, God As My Witness: The Truth About Bishop Francis Schuckardt, undated, section “Ordination and Consecration”.
- Magnus Lundberg, Är påven katolik? Traditionalistiska variationer på ett tema, Uppsala Studies in Church History, vol. 16, Uppsala, 2024, Swedish, pp. 36–37 and p. 46, note 57.
- Materialdienst, 34th year, no. 18, 15 September 1971, pp. 212–214, on Einsicht, Reinhard Lauth and the Roman marches.
- “Defunti”, notice of Elisabeth Gerstner née Kleinpass, Sodalitium, Italian edition, no. 59, February 2006, p. 70.
- Joaquín Sáenz y Arriaga, La nueva Iglesia postconciliar o La nueva Iglesia montiniana, The Christian Book Club of America, Hawthorne, California, 1971; 2nd edition, Editores Asociados, S. de R. L., Mexico, 1972.
- Joaquín Sáenz y Arriaga, Sede Vacante: Paulo VI no es legítimo Papa, Editores Asociados, Mexico, 1973; notice cited by Luis Herrán Ávila, 2022, p. 333, note 38.
- Francis E. Fenton, “The Orthodox Roman Catholic Movement”, ORCM News, no. 15, 7 September 1975, p. 3, editorial dated August 1975.
- “Robert W. Cleary”, unsigned notice, ORCM Newsletter, no. 27, 29 April 1977, p. 6.
- Georges de Nantes, Liber accusationis in Paulum Sextum, Éditions de la Contre-Réforme catholique, April 1973, opening address.
- John XXIII, allocution announcing the council, 25 January 1959; opening allocution of Vatican II, 11 October 1962.
- Paul VI, apostolic constitution Missale Romanum, 3 April 1969; Congregation for Divine Worship, decree of publication of the typical edition of the Missale Romanum, 26 March 1970, protocol 166/70.
- Breve esame critico del Novus Ordo Missae, 1969, with the letter of presentation to Paul VI of Cardinals Alfredo Ottaviani and Antonio Bacci.
- François Charrière, bishop of Lausanne, Geneva and Fribourg, decree of erection of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X, 1 November 1970.
- Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, notification of 12 March 1983 relative to the episcopal consecrations conferred by Ngô Đình Thục; English translation in L’Osservatore Romano, 18 April 1983, p. 12.
- John Paul II, apostolic letter Ecclesia Dei, 2 July 1988, paragraph 1.
- Reviews cited in the chronology: Trento, from 1972; Einsicht, from April 1971; Kyrie Eleison; Forts dans la Foi.