Subsistit in - Sedevacantist Reaction

Sedevacantist Reaction

Sedevacantist groups consider Lumen Gentium one of several demarcations of when the post-conciliar Church fell into heresy, pointing to the use of "subsistit in" rather than "est" as an abdication of the Church's historic (and to them compulsory) identification of itself alone as God's church.

In an interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, then-Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) responded to this criticism as follows:

"The concept expressed by 'is' (to be) is far broader than that expressed by 'to subsist'. 'To subsist' is a very precise way of being, that is, to be as a subject, which exists in itself. Thus the Council Fathers meant to say that the being of the Church as such is a broader entity than the Roman Catholic Church, but within the latter it acquires, in an incomparable way, the character of a true and proper subject."