Ngo Dinh Thuc - Sedevacantism

Sedevacantism

Thục then moved to Toulon, France, where he was assigned a confessional in the cathedral until about 1981. He at least once con-celebrated the Mass of Paul VI (the new rite of Mass promulgated by Pope Paul VI in 1969) in the vernacular. One author claims Thục served at the Mass of Paul VI as an acolyte several times.

Convinced of a crisis devastating the Roman Catholic Church and coming under the increasing influence of sedevacantist activists, Archbishop Thục proceeded to consecrate several bishops without a mandate from the Holy See because he believed he was morally obliged to secure apostolic succession in the Latin Church, considering the reformed rites for the sacrament of Holy Orders of Pope Paul VI to be of doubtful validity. Thục consecrated a Dominican priest, an expert on the dogma of the Assumption, advisor to Pope Pius XII, and former professor at the Pontifical Lateran University, Michel Louis Guerard des Lauriers.

On 17 October 1981, he consecrated two Mexican priests and former seminary professors, Moisés Carmona (of Acapulco) and Adolfo Zamora (of Mexico City). Both of these priests were convinced that the Papal See of Rome was vacant and the successors of Pope Pius XII were heretical usurpers of papal office and power. In February 1982, in Munich's Sankt Michael church, Archbishop Thục issued a declaration that the Holy See in Rome was vacant, intimating that he desired a restoration of the hierarchy to end the vacancy. However, his newly consecrated bishops became a fragmented group. Many limited themselves essentially to sacramental ministry and only consecrated a few other bishops.

Apart from the bishops consecrated by Thục with papal mandates in Vietnam, Thục consecrated five bishops at Palmar de Troya, three sedevacantists in 1981, and provided an episcopal ordination sub conditione to three clerics, who presented themselves to Thục as former Old Catholics intent on joining the traditionalist faction of the Roman Catholic Church. The eleven bishops consecrated by Thục proceeded to consecrate other bishops for various Catholic splinter groups, many of them sedevacantists. Thục departed for the United States at the invitation of Bishop Louis Vezelis, a Franciscan former missionary priest who had agreed to receive Episcopal Consecration by the Thục line Bishop George J. Musey, assisted by co-consecrators, Bishops Carmona, Zamora and Martínez, in order to provide bishops for an "imperfect Council" which was to take place later in Mexico in order to elect a legitimate Pope from among themselves.