Page "Sedevacantism" Paragraph 18

There are estimated to be between several tens of thousands and more than two hundred thousands of sedevacantists worldwide, mostly concentrated in the United States, Canada, France, the UK, Italy, and Australia, but the actual size of the sedevacantist movement has never been accurately assessed.

( See further the section on statistics in the article Traditionalist Catholic.

) Catholic doctrine teaches the four marks of the true Church are that it is One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic.

Sedevacantists base their claim to be the remnant Roman Catholic Church on what they see as the presence in them of these four " marks ", absent, they say, in the Church since the Second Vatican Council.

Their critics counter that sedevacantists are not one, forming numerous splinter groups, each of them in disagreement with the rest.

Most sedevacantists hold the Holy Orders conferred with the present revised rites of the Catholic Church to be invalid due to defect both of intention and form.

They conclude that the great majority of the bishops listed in the Holy See's Annuario Pontificio, including Benedict XVI himself, are in reality merely priests or even laymen.