Roma Locuta Est

August 5, 2025 (Steven O’Reilly) – Last night I received DMs from folks on X wanting to give me a heads up that Dr. Mazza, noted Benepapist and Semi-vacantist, was being interviewed by Stephen Kokx on his YouTube channel. The title of the video was Is Leo XIV a True Pope?

Mr. Kokx, in articles (see Kokx News) and videos, seems to consider himself, and others with views similar to his own, as being the bold and courageous “truth tellers” of our time with regard to the current crisis in the Church. He and some of his substacking compadres appear to be big on putting down the infamous “Trad Inc.” for failing to be as bold and courageous, and as ‘truth telling’ as they are.

Roma Locuta Est, being the lilliputian blog that it is, can hardly be considered a member of “Trad Inc.” Therefore, I leave it to the trad members of the “Inc.” to defend their own honor. That said, it is interesting to note that Mr. Kokx wrote an article about what he calls “alternative trad media,” and its rising up against the “old guard” of Trad Inc.  Mr. Kokx writes in part (bold added):

“There is an emerging media landscape taking shape, one that is loosely composed of a wide-range of persons from various segments of the Traditional movement. Collectively, these “pockets of resistance” (as we have called them before) are forging ahead by obliterating taboos and breaking new ground with conversations that need to be had.

The blog posts, interviews, and essays now being published by these persons are shifting the ground from underneath the old guard’s feet. This represents an existential threat.”

(Source: ‘Alternative’ Trad media cannot be stopped)

Now, who comprises this “wide-range of persons from various segments of the Traditional movement”?  Of the twenty or so “alternative trade sites” listed in his article, I’d reckon that a dozen or more of the sites — but not all — are either sedevacantist, or neo-sedevacantist of the Benepapist variety. Given the viewpoints of the sites or their authors skew toward rejecting the validity of Pope Leo XIV’s papacy, or at least harboring significant doubts about it; one can’t help but conclude that for Mr. Kokx, “alternative trad media” really means “sedevacantist media.”

As to the “taboo” that Mr. Kokx speaks of ‘forging ahead to obliterate‘, it seems he means to no longer treat sedevacantism as an implausible hypothesis. I haven’t read enough, or listened to enough of Mr. Kokx to say he is definitely a sedevacantist. I’ve asked him whether he is or is not a sedevacantist a few times on X, but he has yet to respond. For a bold “truth teller,” he seemed rather reticent to do so.

In the aforementioned interview with Dr. Mazza, Mr. Kokx references the election of Pope Leo XIV as a “so-called election,” which certainly sounds rather ‘sedevacantist-ish.’ It seems to me the alleged boldness and courage of Mr. Kokx’s daily criticisms of the Catholic Church can be chalked up to this fact. That is to say, if Mr. Kokx is indeed a sedevacantist, or is ‘straddling somewhere between the SSPX and sedevacantism‘ as someone recently suggested to me, I don’t see how his commentary is bold or courageous as he has no ‘skin in the game’, so to speak — as he would be outside the Catholic Church as a schismatic.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not saying there is not a grave crisis in the Roman Catholic Church at this point in history. Roma Locuta Est has covered many of these areas of this crisis, such as Amoris Laetitia, Fiducia Supplicans, the Abu Dhabi document, the death penalty, etc.

Dr. Mazza on Pope Benedict XVI

As for Dr. Mazza and his appearance on the show, he gave a quick recap of his position on Benedict XVI and his resignation, giving a brief rundown of the main points typically made by the Benepapists, e.g., Benedict XVI’s adoption of the title of “pope emeritus,” the wearing of white, the apostolic blessing, being addressed as “your holiness,” and Ganswein’s speech.

All these topics and arguments (as well as those made by Andrea Cionci) have been addressed either on this blog (see The Case against those who claim “Benedict is (still) pope”), or in my debate responses to Dr. Mazza on LifeSitenews (see LifeSiteNews Articles Debunking Benepapism), or in my video series on Benepapism (see HERE), and or in my book on the question, Valid? The Resignation of Pope Benedict XVI.  Separately, I also address the claims or suggestion, made by some (e.g., John Henry Westin), that the shutdown of the Vatican ATMs in 2013 was intended to force Benedict to resign (see Pope Benedict XVI Resigned Freely).

In his interview, Dr. Mazza speaks of Archbishop Vigano’s claim that Cardinal Brandmuller told him that Ratzinger had once entertained some strange notions of the papacy along the lines advanced by Karl Rahner back in the 1960s. However, to my knowledge, Cardinal Brandmuller has neither confirmed this account, nor confirmed that Vigano understood him properly, even assuming Brandmuller said something on the subject. Regardless, we have no record of Ratzinger ever writing on the topic or in the manner described. If there is such a written record, Dr. Mazza has certainly not produced it. Regardless, there is no indication in any of Ratzinger writings that he held the views hinted at by Dr. Mazza. Those are the facts.

But what Dr. Mazza neglects to mention is that Vigano himself admits that Msgr. Nicola Bux corresponded with Benedict XVI in 2014 – after the resignation; and that Benedict XVI confirmed to Bux that he did resign the munus, and in effect that even in resigning the ministerium, one necessarily resigns the munus. Bux himself confirmed the correspondence, and even Vigano claims to have seen it, and this is an admission against interest.

I wrote about this on this blog (see Vigano and the Spontaneous Combustion of Benepapism and Intellectual Honesty and the End of Benepapism).  So here he have a contemporaneous witness (Bux) to what Benedict said, the existence of a document Bux admits to writing and that Vigano has apparently seen, and all of which affirm the validity of Benedict XVI’s resignation. Dr. Mazza is aware of these undisputed facts, yet instead of addressing the Benedict-Bux correspondence which explodes his entire thesis, he chose instead to entertain the listener with a doubtful account, something of a theological “game of telephone” where we must wonder who really said what to whom, what did they hear, and whether they understood it properly.

As for Pope Leo XIV

Dr. Mazza advances his hypothesis — if not in fact his view — that Leo XIV is not a true pope. Dr. Mazza takes up again the claims he made on another podcast. Dr. Mazza appeals to the document Cum Ex Apostolatus Officio, a Bull of Pope Paul IV (1555-1559), which Dr. Mazza declares to be infallible and valid in “perpetuity.”  I will not go into detail again on refuting his argument here, but one can read my rebuttal of Dr. Mazza’s position in the article Dr. Mazza: A Semivacantist?

Furthermore, in the interview with Mr. Kokx, it should be noted that Dr. Mazza misstates the doctrine of Universal Acceptance. He has done this before on a number of occasions, and has failed to correct himself, as he should know better. I describe how he misstated the doctrine of Universal Acceptance in an article appropriately titled Dr. Mazza, PH.D., and Universal Acceptance: Another Failed Argument.

Briefly, in discussing the case of Pope Urban VI vs. anti-pope Clement VII, Dr. Mazza claims “all the Cardinals universally and peacefully accepted (anti-pope) Clement.” Well, yes – months after electing Pope Urban VI, and while he still lived; the cardinals ‘elected’ anti-pope Clement VII.  Dr. Mazza emphasizes that “all the cardinals” voted for the anti-pope, as if suggesting to the reader this is universal acceptance.  However, this is NOT the doctrine of universal acceptance as Dr. Mazza erroneously leads the reader/listener to believe!

Rather, universal acceptance involves the adhesion of the whole Church — “the practically unanimous consent of bishops and faithful.”  So, in considering universal acceptance, we must not only look at the “all the cardinals” in a particular instance, but at the “overwhelming majority of the bishops” around the world, as well as the faithful. It is incomprehensible how Dr. Mazza continues to even make the argument he does in the face of the facts.

And, on this point of Universal Acceptance, it is clear, Francis was a true pope.  No matter how confusing and problematic his papacy indeed was, he was a true pope. Likewise, Leo XIV is a true pope.

Final Thoughts

Toward the end of the interview, Mr. Kokx again puts down “Trad Inc.” and promotes himself, and those like-minded to himself as “truth tellers.” Mr. Kokx proposes to Dr. Mazza (bold added):

And so, I think what’s happening then um is that there’s sort of a an expanding of the Overton window, if you will, because Trad Inc. has sort of vacated this space of of the duty of calling out the errors of what’s going on and it’s leading to smaller voices maybe not smaller voices but but fewer voices right and it seems that there’s sort of a coalescence of you know trads, people who are “interregnists,” people who prefer the name of sedevacantists, and others who are just trying to continue to to speak the truth about this and that that they are the ones stepping forward and are voicing the concerns here. What sort of opportunities are there then for these voices to come together which I sort of view this conversation as part of that uh in the future do you think?

(Transcript from Video, see at 33:35)

Mr. Kokx seems to be suggesting a coalition of sorts which includes anti-Leo trads, “interregnists” (i.e., those who believe there has not been a valid pope since the death of Benedict XVI), and sedevacantists.  Toward the end of the interview, Kokx and Mazza agree to carry this “conversation” forward. What shall this mean in practice? More podcasts? Benepapist/Sedevacantist/”Trad” conferences?  Who knows what might come of it.

Mr. Kokx suggested the following (bold added):

“Well, I think like I said before, I think we have a unique moment in Catholic history 60 years out from the close of Vatican 2. We’ve seen everything. We’ve seen Paul VI. We’ve seen Benedict XVI and the hermeneutic of continuity. And we we’ve seen modernism, you know, without a human face in in Jorge Mario Bergoglio. And so, I think it’s time that we, I think 60 years is enough time to finally assess the truth and come to some kind of consensus, right? Especially among those who are not afraid to tell the truth because you and I have already paid the price for being truth tellers like yourself.” 

A couple observations on the above.  Mr. Kokx speaks of ‘assessing the truth and coming to some kind of consensus.’ However, I wonder if he is open to any sort of consensus, for example, to one that absolutely rejects sedevacantism.  Maybe. But I doubt it.  So what this is really about is the normalizing of sedevacantism. The Benepapists like Dr. Mazza are the low hanging fruit.

Another observation, it is interesting that Mr. Kokx thinks 60 years is enough time to come to a consensus on Vatican II, but says nothing of whether 67 years is enough time to assess sedevacantism, or whether it is the proper lens to either view or address any problems with Vatican II.

The final observation, we see again Mr. Kokx’s implication that he is among the ‘unafraid truth tellers.’ But here, Mr. Kokx now lays hands upon Dr. Mazza, and anoints him a “truth teller” as well. But, if this is in regard to his benepapism or semi-vacantism, Dr. Mazza can hardly be a ‘truth-teller’ when he is not even in command of the facts of his own arguments (see The Good, the Badde, and the Tendentious, Dr. Mazza, PH.D., and Universal Acceptance: Another Failed Argument, A closer look at Mr. Coffin’s evidence: Dr. Mazza’s Thesis 3.0  Dr. Mazza: A Semivacantist?).

Earlier in the interview, Mr. Kokx described Dr. Mazza as a “sedevacantist,” i.e., literally one who believes the See of Peter is empty. This is certainly accurate enough as a working description of Dr. Mazza’s position, given he himself said in the interview the See of Peter is currently vacant.  Yet, Dr. Mazza waved off that label, opting instead to describe himself as an “interregnist”, i.e., someone who believes we are between popes, or between pontificates.

Unfortunately, Dr. Mazza fails to see this is a distinction without a real difference, especially given the interregnum of Dr. Mazza’s theory is now into its second papacy – or anti-papacy as Dr. Mazza might prefer to call it.  Sedevacantists of the 1958 variety could as easily call themselves “interregnists” by Dr. Mazza’s logic.  Regardless, Dr. Mazza is not alone.  There are other social media personalities with blogs/podcasts with whom I have interacted who either have doubts that Leo XIV is a true pope, or who reject that he is one.

One thing they all have in common is, is that they all began their journey into sedevacantism with Benepapism.  Benepapism has been their gateway “drug” into sedevacantism. They are getting sucked into it like quicksand, and they don’t even see it happening. The only way to break out of this “trip” is to go “cold turkey.” But, unfortunately, many of the arch-Benepapists are bound to their pet theories which they have declared loudly on their blogs and podcasts.

Consequently, there is a lot of pride involved — which makes it hard to impossible to easily back down, and admit error.  It is hard to go “cold turkey.” It requires grace from the Lord. Pray for them. Folks need some “truth telling,” but that truth, as hard as it is to accept for some, is that Francis was a true pope, and that Leo is a true pope.  Any productive conversation or discussion about addressing or resolving controversies in the Church must accept these as being amongst the most simple, and basic facts.