Sedevacantists are those Catholics who are convinced that we are in a situation of sede vacante, in which the reigning pope is occupying the chair of Peter in an illegitimate manner. Therefore, they proclaim that we should dismiss all he says and does and prepare for the election of a legitimate pope in an unspecified future moment. There are different versions of this schismatic Catholicism today, on a spectrum between the formal, public sedevacantists on one side and, on the other side, those who harbor a quieter conviction that Francis and his predecessors since John XXIII are not really Catholic.

Modern sedevacantism begins with the rejection of Vatican II and of the pope who called it, John XXIII. In the Catholic Church, sedevacantism has always been fringe and, by definition, sectarian in its extremism. A certain kind of right-wing U.S. Catholicism, with its mix of militantism, para-fundamentalist theologies, and anti-Roman sentiment, has been a fertile ground for these small groups. But the internet first and social media later have been breeding grounds for the spreading of these conspiracy-theory-based views of modern church history.

A new kind of sedevacantism in U.S. politics

Now, a new kind of sedevacantist temptation has emerged: one that views not the see of Peter but the White House in Washington, D.C., as illegitimately occupied and therefore vacant. On March 4 in his blog on “Talking Points Memo”, American journalist Josh Marshall posted an article titled Toward a Theory of Civic Sede Vacantism:

“For almost a year I’ve been thinking through an idea that now seems especially timely and relevant in the last six weeks. I think of it as a form of civic sedevacantism. The reference is, ironically, to a strain of hyper-traditionalist Catholic thought which held (still holds) that none of Vatican II canons or the successive popes counted because they were heretical and heretics. A bit more complicated than that. But details of that really aren’t relevant for us. I just found the defining metaphor or concept helpful. The key is their idea that the papal throne was empty. That’s the meaning of the Latin phrase, sede vacante. My interest and concern with this grew out of my belief that civic democrats in the US have far too great an essentialism about the law and constitutional jurisprudence, especially under the corrupted federal judiciary as it now exists. It breeds a kind of fatalism and passivity which casts a pall over thought and political action.”

For Marshall, it’s time to declare the White House “sede vacante” – the occupant as illegitimate — and act consequentially because “we’re operating way outside the express text and logic of the Constitution.” Marshall’s conviction is that “we’re in a constitutional interregnum, and we are trying to restore constitutional government.”           

It is tempting to see the center of power in the United States today as sede vacante, with the occupant of the White House as a usurper. The regime change brought about by the Trump administration means something very specific for the DNA of American democracy in terms of the rule of law, separation of powers, conflict of interests, freedom of research and teaching, etc. Now, there is something different compared to other previous moments that have made the modern American two-party system a divided country: two different ideas of national community have become unable to understand and talk to each other. The Trump administration won not only most of the Catholic vote but also expresses unashamedly a proud “Christianist” public theology thanks to the second Catholic Vice President of the United States. JD Vance was received into full communion in the Catholic Church in 2019, and contrary to previous Catholic presidents and vice presidents (John F. Kennedy and Joe Biden), he chose not to make some distinctions between his theology and his administration's policies. Trumpism represents and expands a moral void, aided and abetted by Vance but also by a long list of Catholics in Trump’s cabinet.

The risks of declaring the White House ‘sede vacante’

But looking at the American political situation from a sedevacantist perspective is full of risks and is disingenuous. This presidency is the result of an electoral system that, in some states, has increasingly sought to suppress minority voters. However, Trump’s 2024 re-election was not the result of a coup — despite his attempt to stage one between November 2020 and January 2021. Trumpism has gained votes across the spectrum of the American electorate, minorities included. The victory of November 2024 is not a freak accident or the fruit of a conspiracy but mirrors the polarization in the country — political, cultural, religious, and ecclesial. Declaring the Trump White House sede vacante would entail issuing a virtual excommunication to more than half of U.S. Catholics.

I do not advocate getting along with Trump’s program or acquiescing. On the contrary, this is a time of resistance. The Trump administration has designed a path to authoritarian rule. But excommunicating half of the country only offers short-term satisfaction with no real vision about what to do. Something like this happened already at the beginning of the “culture wars” around abortion — the ground zero of the great schism in the American political, cultural, and religious scene — when some conservatives started to think that a liberal order that had legalized abortion lost its original moral foundations. We also saw this in the reactions to President Barack Obama's election—an event that, in many ways, ignited Trumpism, fueling the Tea Party movement and the moral and intellectual catastrophe that now runs the country. This temptation to see political others as monsters also carries the risk of self-absolution. Trumpism certainly has authoritarian traits, but the last thing his opposition needs is a ritualistic anti-fascism that merely fills or masks the void in our democratic ethos.

In the Catholic Church, sedevacantism has produced among its advocates sectarianism and moral and cultural inwardness. In the United States, the results would not be very different. It would be a death sentence to our civil as well as our ecclesial life. All that is left would be conflict. This is the tragedy of U.S. politics and U.S. Christianity today, with little or no language in common. G.K. Chesterton famously described the United States as “a nation with the soul of a church.” All these three elements of the equation — nation, soul, church — are very much unknown right now.

Massimo Faggioli @MassimoFaggioli