Both of these gentlemen are worthy Catholics in full Communion with their local Bishop and Pope but that can not be said of the SSPX and its priests.
Of course Mr Voris is not obsessed with the SSPX if the definition of that word is understood.
In any event, the SSPX is heretical in that its entire history has been a rejection of this infallible teaching of Vatican 1:
..Wherefore we teach and declare that, by divine ordinance, the Roman church possesses a pre-eminence of ordinary power over every other church, and that his jurisdictional power of the Roman pontiff is both episcopal and immediate.
Both clergy and faithful, of whatever rite and dignity, both singly and collectively, are bound to submit to this power by the duty of hierarchical subordination and true obedience, and this not only in matters concerning faith and morals, but also in those which regard the discipline and government of the church throughout the world.
In this way, by unity with the Roman pontiff in communion and in profession of the same faith , the church of Christ becomes one flock under one supreme shepherd [50] .
This is the teaching of the catholic truth, and no one can depart from it without endangering his faith and salvation.
The sine qua non of Catholicism has always included communion with one's bishop and Pope and the sspx, while it has many otherwise excellent priests with an exemplary grasp of Tradition, as a whole their priests are not priests one can admire because a priest is an alter christus; that is, one who is ordained and is, like Jesus, both priest and victim and they refuse to be victims during this most execrable of ecclesiastical epochs.
Far from being victims, they are deserters from the Church militant during a time of internal war and, sadly, they are now raising their third generation of youth who have been taught that the One Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church teaches error and that one will be corrupted if one returns to full communion with it.
The SSPX is on the path leading to an annealed and permanent schism; they are Traditonal in the same sense that the Orthodox Church is traditional.
O, and the ironic fact is when the schism if, again, is formally identified as such, then their sacraments, like those of the Orthodox will be licit and valid for as it now stands, the SSPX sacraments of marriage and confession are both illicit and invalid because while their priests have orders, the SSPX has no Jurisdictionn and any claim that the Church supplies them Jurisdiction in the already existing Jurisdiction of a Bishop in union with Rome is a claim that could only be treated seriously by those who have zero idea of what constitutes valid and legitimate jurisdiction.
But, of course, what was just wryly written can not become a fact for the SSPX's Bishop Fellay STILL will not have Jurisdiction and the sacraments of marriage and confession will remain invalid for, as the creator of the SSPX routinely taught; No Jurisdiction, no Ministry
No good can ever arise out of a schism unless God acts directly upon it and who will claim that God sanctions and graces a schism that is, by definition, opposed to His one true Church? Is God at war with Himself or is He confused as to which is His Church?
The SSPX is a real and present danger to Tradition because it is almost universally praised for thus and such and those who praise it rarely seem to stop and think just how wildly wrong it is for any soi distant traditionalist to praise a schism; now that is a noxious novelty for schism has always and everywhere been universally condemned by all the Doctors of the Church and one can not cite a Church Father ever defending a schism.
I think you miss PP's point, which is evidently asking what the "proper attitude" toward the SSPX should be, rather than what its ecclesiastical standing is. If your own attitude were to prevail, as I think it could, your infallible Catholic pope may, if his ecumenical ventures continue to ramp up on steroids, soon find you in communion with evangelical Pentecostals, Presbyterians, Methodists, and Lutherans, long before Catholic bishops and "conservatives" will welcome into communion with the priests and faithful of the SSPX.
Wouldn't you be happy, being in communion with Protestant "priestesses" and receiving communion from alongside disciples of Pentecostal televangelists! Wouldn't it be far better for the Church and SSPX to reach an agreement that would normalize the latter's standing, so that you could be receiving communion alongside people who understand and practice the Catholic faith?
Certainly this would be Michael Matt's point, when he quotes Mr. Shaw as saying that the Holy Father has "smiled" upon the SSPX by helping them acquire Catholic standing in Argentina, allowing them to celebrate masses in basilicas throughout Europe, and allowing the CDF to appoint Bishop Fellay "judge of first instance" in canonical proceedings related to an SSPX priest. Matt sees these gestures as representing a positive and constructive attitude. Apparently you don't. Apparently you would prefer the Pope and CDF came down on them with a public and official declaration of excommunication of these "heretics."
I would take spiritual advice from Bernard Fellay before I would take it from most of the Cardinals in the Church.
As for the validity of sacraments, all bets seem slightly off-kilter -- if not entirely off -- when we have Popes praying in mosques, kissing Korans, and telling us all is OK in Charismania. Given the state of play, I have no problem following instincts largely honed on Tradition but also trying to faithfully read the signs of the times.
Read the last 100 news items from Rome, and then go read the most recent catalog from Angelus Press. The verdict is self-evident, and the handwringing about being officially under Vatican discipline... well, I leave you to it. I respect Vioris, but have o agree that on this point he has missed the forest for the trees.
Dear William C. ABS prefers that they never left but he does pray for their reconciliation daily. and he thinks the proper approach to them is the fulness of Catholic Tradition which has always included horror of any schism.
One can't admire a man who has left his wife even if he does treat his concubine with graciousness and civility.
Dear JM Neither me, thee, of those who did flee - the SSPX - can control what others do.
The entirety of Catholic Tradition rejects with horror the very idea of schism to say nothing about an actual schism. Of course ABS not only agrees with your criticisms of modern papal praxis but even worse behavior by them could never justify a schism. Saint Augustine, a Dr of the Church, taught that there is never any justification for a schism as did other Church Doctors.
Amen to Long-Skirts! In all charity and gentleness I say to those who call the SSPX priests and faithful who assist at their chapels for the salvation of their families that they seem to us bewitched when they call these folk "schismatic." Disobedient to imprudent and deadly command, indeed. Schismatic, never. The schismatic is they who would compel them to deny the faith once delivered to the saints, the tradition to which St. Paul bid them hold fast, the Gospel from which St. Paul forbade them ever to stray should even an angel of light propose to them another gospel. They have but one purpose, and that is fidelity, fidelity, and fidelity only to Christ and his Church.
I was just listening to Catholic radio yesterday coming home from work, and a priest was taking questions from a woman who was dismayed that a friend criticized EWTN for not being truly Catholic. "You tell your friend that there's nobody more Catholic than we here at EWTN," said the priest, laughing. "We have even bishops and Cardinals backing us, on our shows. We even have New York's Archbishop Cardinal Dolan behind us, and there's nobody more Catholic than him."
This is what he said. "There's nobody more Catholic than him (Cardinal Dolan)." Yep. And they call Bishop Fellay "schismatic." Lord, have mercy.
From my point of view Voris and Matt are in the same boat. They both are using the Marchetti irrationality to interpret Vatican Council II as a break with the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus. So is the IHM schools and the SSPX District Italy.
IHM schools teaching error http://eucharistandmission.blogspot.it/2015/07/ihm-schools-teaching-error.html
Fr.Pierpaolo Petrucci in heresy? http://eucharistandmission.blogspot.it/2015/07/frpierpaolo-petrucci-in-heresy.html
You have not only a legitimate point but an important point. If your claim is true, and I suspect it is, then the alternatives posed in this post are like an argument about how to arrange the furniture on the sinking Titanic.
On the other hand, in the context of the alternatives posed by the post, your claim is a bit like insisting that the positions being debates by two Catholics about usury are irrelevant because neither of them claims to believe in limbo.
And when We later addressed to you the letter Ad Sinarum gentem, We again referred to this teaching in these words: "The power of jurisdiction which is conferred directly by divine right on the Supreme Pontiff comes to bishops by that same right, but only through the successor of Peter, to whom not only the faithful but also all bishops are bound to be constantly subject and to adhere both by the reverence of obedience and by the bond of unity."
Acts requiring the power of Holy Orders which are performed by ecclesiastics of this kind, though they are valid as long as the consecration conferred on them was valid, are yet gravely illicit, that is, criminal and sacrilegious.
Longskirts could be farther from the truth, but only in the sense of an extreme probability. It is clear she, and the schism she succors, have, as Pope Saint John Paul II said, an incomplete notion of tradition.
Catholic Tradition teaches that their sacraments are illicit, criminal, and sacrilegious but the schism has its eucharist and gets to eat it to - but it is a communion that is not only apart from the local Bishop and the Pope, this concretising that separation and it is a Eucharist ultimately expressing spiritual communion with Satan who must be given his due for he has used the Mass to seduce men out of the One Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church.
I don't for a moment deny any of the documents you cite. They're part of Catholic tradition. Nor do I deny, for a moment, the problem created by Abp Lefebvre's illicit consecration of bishops that launched the SSPX from a licit into and illicit movement.
What I do emphatically deny is the appropriateness of such vituperative language as "criminal," "diabolical," "moratal sin," etc., to describe the bishops and priests of this movement (much less the lay members involved in it).
I would encourage you to watch Michael Voris's interview with Louie Verrecchio (linked in my previous comment above) as well, in which the entire tone of the discussion is civil, fraternal, and solicitous of understanding. This isn't an invitation to accept schism, where schism exists. It's an invitation to put on the mind of Pope Benedict XVI when he lifted the excommunications and sought the Society's reconciliation, a movement apparently still being pursued by the current pope and CDF.
If you understand the motives of Abp Lefebvre and of Bp Fellay, no matter how wrong-headed you think their judgment is, you cannot justly view them as diabolical enemies of the Church. Their intent and aim is wholly focused upon preserving the Catholic faith and Catholic tradition intact, and assisting the faithful to lead truly Catholic lives. Again, however wrong-headed you may think their thinking and judgment on these matters, their motives to not warrant the kind of vituperative language we hear from Fr. Paul Nicholson, Michael Voris, or from you. The emeritus pope's attitude should be our model here.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if, through a series of unexpected decisions, the SSPX's status could be regularized in the Church? I know there are many cardinals and bishops who would find the prospect abhorrent, since it would threaten to undermine their entire vision of a new Church emerging since Vatican II, but I shouldn't think you would share such a view. Who knows? If such a reconciliation happened, it could just be God's means for restoring the renegade post-Vatican II generation of Catholics (including many clergy) to Catholic tradition.
I, presently, do not hear Mass at SSPX, but hold Msgr. Lefebvre in the highest esteem. The vitrio,l which some heap upon SSPX, is sourced from a somewhat unbalanced perception, if not mind. It is detached from the current realities.
What is concerning is the occasional propensity for the Traditional Orders to snipe at each other - united we stand ........ !
A previous UK SSPX Superior fostered good relations with diocesan clergy and even distressed Anglo-Catholics. I am not aware of such a disposition with the present UK Superior - for me he is tainted with the 'Post Falls fiasco and the the diabolical treatment of Fr. John Rizzo [and others], an exemplary priest.
Msgr. Lefebvre's one mistake: to be takien-in by the near megalomaniac +Williamson.
Chapter 4. Some wickedly act independently of the bishop
It is fitting, then, not only to be called Christians, but to be so in reality: as some indeed give one the title of bishop, but do all things without him. Now such persons seem to me to be not possessed of a good conscience, seeing they are not stedfastly gathered together according to the commandment. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dear Charles. ABS can not understand your desire to eliminate the rebarbative rhetoric that makes arguments amongst men all the more pleasurable.
O, and you know ABS could roll out these types of quotes all day long but they have no effect on men of today and that alone is additional evidence of the clear and present danger of according respect and honor to a schism for in doing that one is calling a grave evil good.
Look if what the Saints said about schism was valid and true then it is valid and true today if Tradition is to have any meaning. But, the vast majority of soi disant trads do not think that is the case and so it is the sspx, and those who succor it, who have, also, fallen for the evil of accepting novelty.
Yeah, the Culture Wars, articles on the SSPX are all good and worthwhile reading and ABS has read them all but ABS remains perplexed that so few men have woken-up and smelled the myrrh; the sspx ain't ever coming home.
Dear Sixupman. ABS has never stood with the SPX and never would for schism is a grave evil many men have now decided to call good.
Assisi 1 or schism; which would the Early Church Fathers and the Doctors of the Church thought the worse sin?
Communion in the hand standing or schism?
Altar girls or schism?
Virtually a complete new mass written by committee or schism?
Ecumenism of no return or schism?
It would be hard to think of any novel papal praxis - not teaching that can never change - the Early Church Fathers and Saints would think worse than schism.
Your defense of the Mons. seems to indicate he had lost the Faith in the promises of Jesus Christ and thought that he was the onliest one to save the One Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church that Jesus has always been the head of even when the Mons was being treated unjustly.
He could not, he would not wait on the Lord. He as given a test. He failed.
Others before him, much holier, with far greater intelligence and influence, also failed; Origen and Tertullian.
Of course, the Mons was a sun compared to whom ABS is but a flint strike but what he did was never defensible then and it is not defensible now.
Please continue to lambaste schismatics. I heartily agree. Nancy Pelosi is a schismatic in "good standing" with the Pope. John Kerry, likewise. And Cardinals Kasper and Dolan. Even Hans Kueng. But all are schismatic heretics.
But please also show some consideration of the facts on the ground here. Former head of the Ecclesia Dei Commission, Cardinal Hoyos and others have repeatedly and clearly insisted that while Cardinal Lefebvre's illicit consecration was a "schismatic act," that neither SSPX priests nor the lay faithful can be considered schismatics. They lack the "spirit of schism," Hoyos insisted. "They are Catholics," he said.
The circumstances are what you show no appreciation for. What will you do when a pope comes along who is himself a heretic? We have no promise from our Lord that the pope will always be doctrinally true? Our Lady of La Salette has said that a time will come when Rome will herself lose the faith. What will you do then? Who will be in schism from HMC then?
Dear Charles. That putattive part of the LaSalette message is a fraud and ws ondemned long ago even though Mons Lefevbre cited it at the illicit schismatic consecrations.
The Prefect of the CDF, Cardinal Mueller says publicly that the sspx is a schism and there has been no one hgigher who has contradicted that
THE SUPREME SACRED CONGREGATION OF THE HOLY OFFICE GIVES A DECREE CONCERNING THE COMMONLY CALLED "SECRET OF LA SALETTE."
It has come to the attention of this Supreme Congregation that certain ones are not lacking, even from among the ecclesiastic assemblage who, responses and decisions of this Holy Congregation itself having been disregarded, do proceed to discuss and examine through books, small works and articles edited in periodicals, whether signed or without a name, concerning the so-called Secret of La Salette, its diverse forms and its relevance to present and future times; and, this not only without permission of the Ordinaries, but, also against their ban.
So that these abuses which oppose true piety and greatly wound ecclesiastical authority might be curbed, the same Sacred Congregation orders all the faithful of any region not to discuss or investigate under any pretext, neither through books, or little works or articles, whether signed or unsigned, or in any other way of any kind, about the mentioned subject. Whoever, indeed, violates this precept of the Holy Office, if they are priests, are deprived of all dignity and suspended by the local ordinary from hearing sacramental confessions and from offering Mass: and, if they are lay people, they are not permitted to the sacraments until they repent.
Moreover, let people be subject to the sanctions given both by Pope Leo XIII through the Constitution of the offices and responsibilities against those who publish books dealing with religious things without legitimate permission of superiors and by Urban VIII through the decree "Sanctissimus Dominus Noster" given on 13th March 1625 against those who publish asserted revelations without the permission of ordinaries. However, this decree does not forbid devotion towards the Blessed Virgin under the title of Reconciliatrix commonly of La Salette.
Given at Rome on 21st December, 1915. - Aloisius Castellano, S. R. and U. I. Notary.
THE LITTLE WORK IS CONDEMNED: "THE APPARITION OF THE VERY HOLY VIRGIN OF LA SALETTE" DECREE
Wednesday, 9th May 1923
In a General Session of the Supreme Holy Congregation of the Holy Office, eminent and reverend Lord Cardinals appointed for protecting the faith and morals, proscribed and condemned the little work The Apparition of the Most Holy Virgin on the holy mountain of La Salette, Saturday 19 September 1845. - Simple Reprinting of the entire public text by Mélanie, etc. Society Saint-Augustine, Paris-Rome-Bruges, 1922; ordering those to whom it looks to take care to withdraw examples of the condemned book from the hands of the faithful.
And the same holiday and day of the Most Holy Lord. N. D. by the foresight of divine providence Pope Pius XI, in the customary audience of R. P. D. Assessor of the Holy Office has commissioned the report himself and approved the resolution.
Given at Rome from the Holy Office on 10th May, 1923. - Aloisius Castellanus, S. R. and U. Notary.
Now, the Mons cited this faux prophecy as one pretext to carry-out his illegal consecrations but if one thinks about this for just a moment one realises how insane such a belief in this lie is.
We have the infallible words of Jesus that the gates of Hell will not prevail against His Church He established and we have the infallible teaching of Vatican 1 that the Holy See of Peter will never teach error but a soi disant traditionlaist is expected to believe that His Mother told some kid that Rome (putatively Peter and his See) will lose the Faith?
Come on, it is flat out insane to both believe the promise of Jess and the false prophecy of Mary.
But, because a schism produces insanity, not stability, countless are the so-called trads who believe that Mary is/was in open opposition to her Son.
Lord have mercy.
When will men ever wake-up and see what is right before their eyes?
Dear Charles. . ABS not only understands the virtually uncountable problems recent papal praxis has produced, he has publicly opposed them but there are two infallible facts making him committed to staying in union with his Bishop and Pope; Jesus IS the head of His One Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church and He alone knows why He has permitted it to fall to the depths of confusion/indifference that it has and the infallible truth is He will not permit the Holy See/Peter to teach error.
ABS has no control over what present Peter does, he can only control his own self, and owing to the truth that remaining in union with one's Bishop and Pope is constitutive of what it means to be Catholic, to do otherwise is to lose the Faith.
In the original prayer to Saint Michael the Archangel we are told the Satan's plan is to strike the Pastor so the sheep will flee.
Well, look at how many sheep have fled; they not only could have chosen differently, they shuldl have chosen differently and remained in full Communion with their Bishop and present Peter if when/if he is struck.
Who wants to be like the first Peter and all the apostles, except for John, who led out of fear?
No, ABS wil stand at the foot of the Cross with the Mother of Mercy, for that is the narrow way to salvation and sanctfication, neither of which ends can be achieved in the sspx schism.
I'm well-familiar with the controversy surrounding Sa Lalette, as I am with that surrounding Fatima's third secret and consecration of Russia; and the more one learns, the more disturbing it is.
You site our Lord's promise about the gates of hell not prevailing against the church. Indeed. It says nothing about Rome. The See of Peter moved from Jerusalem to Antioch to Rome, to Avignon and back. There is no guarantee that Rome will not lose the faith, even if the See of Peter does not.
It gets even crazier. Have you counted the number of ANTI-POPES we have had in our Church history? It is scandalous. Of course you know about the brief episode of some years when there were three rival claimants to the See of Peter. What would you have thought then? Who is the infallible Pope to whom I owe my loyalty? Good Catholics were divided on the issue. The smartest ones likely just went about their business being faithful Catholics and let the scoundrels in the hierarchy sort out their shenanigans for themselves.
There is NO guarantee in Christ's promise that such a thing could not happen again. The See of Peter could find itself in Soul, South Korea, or Kinshasa, in the Republic of the Congo with an Asian or African pope.
But there's also this: Christ's promise that the gates of hell will not prevail against his church imply nothing about the faith of the successors of the current See of Peter in Rome. It's quite possible that THAT line of popes could lose their faith and become anti-popes, and by the time the canon lawyers sort out the mess, for the licit pope to be tapped in some other part of the world.
Not even our Lord's promise to "be with you always, unto the end of the age" guarantees the fidelity of any pope. If they mess up, the Church will do what it has always done: declare the scoundrel an anti-pope and declare another the legitimate successor of Peter. The most that Vatican I 'guarantees' is the fidelity of the true pope, not that every putative occupant of the seat of Peter (who could turn out to be an anti-pope).
Then there are the words of no other than Christ himself asking: "However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?"
Presumably so. Yet it's a question I think our Lord intends us to take seriously. Personally, I think we are all about to have our faith tested sorely by events just over the horizon.
Dear Charles. The Mons identified Pope John Paul II as an antiChrist and, thus, the Pope had no authority over him but that ideological position of the Mons was just the modern resurrection of an ancient heresy of Wycliffe that was condemned in the Council of Constance:
Denzinger 588 If the pope is foreknown and evil, and consequently a member of the devil, he does not have power over the faithful given to him by anyone, unless perchance by Caesar.
When trads cite the fall prophecy of Rome losing the faith they apply it to the Pope/Holy See and not to the city and that is why the Mons. cited that as a justifying pretext for doing what he did.
Certainly there can be/have been Popes who have been material heretics but Jesus will not suffer His Church to have a heresy taught as Doctrine of that would mean His promise was a lie. There is simply no getting around that fundamental ltruth.
It is clear the SSPX rejects that simple fact and although many who succor the sspx desire a restoration of the Oath of Modernism, the sspx could not take the oath honestly for they believe the One Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church has taught error.
ABS agrees with you on our being tested and there is only one correct answer on that final exam where the final grade will be Heaven or Hell and any man who leaves His Church for any reason will receive the grade of Hell on that final exam
Dear Sixupman. Now, that is funny as hell; great word, and, it sort of absolves ABS of being responsible for his actions and, thus, not in any way conscious of his duty to actualise any personal resipiscence.
23 comments:
Both of these gentlemen are worthy Catholics in full Communion with their local Bishop and Pope but that can not be said of the SSPX and its priests.
Of course Mr Voris is not obsessed with the SSPX if the definition of that word is understood.
In any event, the SSPX is heretical in that its entire history has been a rejection of this infallible teaching of Vatican 1:
..Wherefore we teach and declare that, by divine ordinance, the Roman church possesses a pre-eminence of ordinary power over every other church, and that his jurisdictional power of the Roman pontiff is both episcopal and immediate.
Both clergy and faithful, of whatever rite and dignity, both singly and collectively, are bound to submit to this power by the duty of hierarchical subordination and true obedience, and this not only in matters concerning faith and morals,
but also in those which regard the discipline and government of the church throughout the world.
In this way, by unity with the Roman pontiff in communion and in profession of the same faith , the church of Christ becomes one flock under one supreme shepherd [50] .
This is the teaching of the catholic truth, and no one can depart from it without endangering his faith and salvation.
The sine qua non of Catholicism has always included communion with one's bishop and Pope and the sspx, while it has many otherwise excellent priests with an exemplary grasp of Tradition, as a whole their priests are not priests one can admire because a priest is an alter christus; that is, one who is ordained and is, like Jesus, both priest and victim and they refuse to be victims during this most execrable of ecclesiastical epochs.
Far from being victims, they are deserters from the Church militant during a time of internal war and, sadly, they are now raising their third generation of youth who have been taught that the One Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church teaches error and that one will be corrupted if one returns to full communion with it.
The SSPX is on the path leading to an annealed and permanent schism; they are Traditonal in the same sense that the Orthodox Church is traditional.
O, and the ironic fact is when the schism if, again, is formally identified as such, then their sacraments, like those of the Orthodox will be licit and valid for as it now stands, the SSPX sacraments of marriage and confession are both illicit and invalid because while their priests have orders, the SSPX has no Jurisdictionn and any claim that the Church supplies them Jurisdiction in the already existing Jurisdiction of a Bishop in union with Rome is a claim that could only be treated seriously by those who have zero idea of what constitutes valid and legitimate jurisdiction.
But, of course, what was just wryly written can not become a fact for the SSPX's Bishop Fellay STILL will not have Jurisdiction and the sacraments of marriage and confession will remain invalid for, as the creator of the SSPX routinely taught; No Jurisdiction, no Ministry
No good can ever arise out of a schism unless God acts directly upon it and who will claim that God sanctions and graces a schism that is, by definition, opposed to His one true Church? Is God at war with Himself or is He confused as to which is His Church?
The SSPX is a real and present danger to Tradition because it is almost universally praised for thus and such and those who praise it rarely seem to stop and think just how wildly wrong it is for any soi distant traditionalist to praise a schism; now that is a noxious novelty for schism has always and everywhere been universally condemned by all the Doctors of the Church and one can not cite a Church Father ever defending a schism.
I think you miss PP's point, which is evidently asking what the "proper attitude" toward the SSPX should be, rather than what its ecclesiastical standing is. If your own attitude were to prevail, as I think it could, your infallible Catholic pope may, if his ecumenical ventures continue to ramp up on steroids, soon find you in communion with evangelical Pentecostals, Presbyterians, Methodists, and Lutherans, long before Catholic bishops and "conservatives" will welcome into communion with the priests and faithful of the SSPX.
Wouldn't you be happy, being in communion with Protestant "priestesses" and receiving communion from alongside disciples of Pentecostal televangelists! Wouldn't it be far better for the Church and SSPX to reach an agreement that would normalize the latter's standing, so that you could be receiving communion alongside people who understand and practice the Catholic faith?
Certainly this would be Michael Matt's point, when he quotes Mr. Shaw as saying that the Holy Father has "smiled" upon the SSPX by helping them acquire Catholic standing in Argentina, allowing them to celebrate masses in basilicas throughout Europe, and allowing the CDF to appoint Bishop Fellay "judge of first instance" in canonical proceedings related to an SSPX priest. Matt sees these gestures as representing a positive and constructive attitude. Apparently you don't. Apparently you would prefer the Pope and CDF came down on them with a public and official declaration of excommunication of these "heretics."
I would take spiritual advice from Bernard Fellay before I would take it from most of the Cardinals in the Church.
As for the validity of sacraments, all bets seem slightly off-kilter -- if not entirely off -- when we have Popes praying in mosques, kissing Korans, and telling us all is OK in Charismania. Given the state of play, I have no problem following instincts largely honed on Tradition but also trying to faithfully read the signs of the times.
Read the last 100 news items from Rome, and then go read the most recent catalog from Angelus Press. The verdict is self-evident, and the handwringing about being officially under Vatican discipline... well, I leave you to it. I respect Vioris, but have o agree that on this point he has missed the forest for the trees.
NEW
KIDS
ON
THE
BARQUE
Such names they call us
That's not what we are
We are Roman Catholics
At the front of the war.
First into battle
First to protect
Copying our stance
Then say we’re a sect.
A lot like in England
Saint John Fisher's day
When his brothers said, "Yes"
This Saint replied, "Nay".
All alone in the Fort
St. John Fisher stood
Preserving, defending
For the whole all that's good.
Not just for himself
But for young and for old
And those on rich cruises
Pretending they're bold.
We're simply preserving,
Once again the True Fort
As new kids on the barque
Relax at each port.
You know the truth –
But must please men in power
Who allow you your silver
For an Internet hour
Where they know we’ll be bashed
And our reputations tainted –
Just destroy the Priesthood
SSPX – all sainted!!
Dear William C. ABS prefers that they never left but he does pray for their reconciliation daily. and he thinks the proper approach to them is the fulness of Catholic Tradition which has always included horror of any schism.
One can't admire a man who has left his wife even if he does treat his concubine with graciousness and civility.
Dear JM Neither me, thee, of those who did flee - the SSPX - can control what others do.
The entirety of Catholic Tradition rejects with horror the very idea of schism to say nothing about an actual schism. Of course ABS not only agrees with your criticisms of modern papal praxis but even worse behavior by them could never justify a schism. Saint Augustine, a Dr of the Church, taught that there is never any justification for a schism as did other Church Doctors.
Amen to Long-Skirts! In all charity and gentleness I say to those who call the SSPX priests and faithful who assist at their chapels for the salvation of their families that they seem to us bewitched when they call these folk "schismatic." Disobedient to imprudent and deadly command, indeed. Schismatic, never. The schismatic is they who would compel them to deny the faith once delivered to the saints, the tradition to which St. Paul bid them hold fast, the Gospel from which St. Paul forbade them ever to stray should even an angel of light propose to them another gospel. They have but one purpose, and that is fidelity, fidelity, and fidelity only to Christ and his Church.
I was just listening to Catholic radio yesterday coming home from work, and a priest was taking questions from a woman who was dismayed that a friend criticized EWTN for not being truly Catholic. "You tell your friend that there's nobody more Catholic than we here at EWTN," said the priest, laughing. "We have even bishops and Cardinals backing us, on our shows. We even have New York's Archbishop Cardinal Dolan behind us, and there's nobody more Catholic than him."
This is what he said. "There's nobody more Catholic than him (Cardinal Dolan)." Yep. And they call Bishop Fellay "schismatic." Lord, have mercy.
From my point of view Voris and Matt are in the same boat.
They both are using the Marchetti irrationality to interpret Vatican Council II as a break with the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus. So is the IHM schools and the SSPX District Italy.
IHM schools teaching error
http://eucharistandmission.blogspot.it/2015/07/ihm-schools-teaching-error.html
Fr.Pierpaolo Petrucci in heresy?
http://eucharistandmission.blogspot.it/2015/07/frpierpaolo-petrucci-in-heresy.html
Dear Lionel,
You have not only a legitimate point but an important point. If your claim is true, and I suspect it is, then the alternatives posed in this post are like an argument about how to arrange the furniture on the sinking Titanic.
On the other hand, in the context of the alternatives posed by the post, your claim is a bit like insisting that the positions being debates by two Catholics about usury are irrelevant because neither of them claims to believe in limbo.
AD APOSTOLORUM PRINCIPIS
And when We later addressed to you the letter Ad Sinarum gentem, We again referred to this teaching in these words: "The power of jurisdiction which is conferred directly by divine right on the Supreme Pontiff comes to bishops by that same right, but only through the successor of Peter, to whom not only the faithful but also all bishops are bound to be constantly subject and to adhere both by the reverence of obedience and by the bond of unity."
Acts requiring the power of Holy Orders which are performed by ecclesiastics of this kind, though they are valid as long as the consecration conferred on them was valid, are yet gravely illicit, that is, criminal and sacrilegious.
Longskirts could be farther from the truth, but only in the sense of an extreme probability. It is clear she, and the schism she succors, have, as Pope Saint John Paul II said, an incomplete notion of tradition.
Catholic Tradition teaches that their sacraments are illicit, criminal, and sacrilegious but the schism has its eucharist and gets to eat it to - but it is a communion that is not only apart from the local Bishop and the Pope, this concretising that separation and it is a Eucharist ultimately expressing spiritual communion with Satan who must be given his due for he has used the Mass to seduce men out of the One Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church.
ABS
I don't for a moment deny any of the documents you cite. They're part of Catholic tradition. Nor do I deny, for a moment, the problem created by Abp Lefebvre's illicit consecration of bishops that launched the SSPX from a licit into and illicit movement.
What I do emphatically deny is the appropriateness of such vituperative language as "criminal," "diabolical," "moratal sin," etc., to describe the bishops and priests of this movement (much less the lay members involved in it).
A much more appropriate TONE is struck by Beaumont and Walsh in Fidelity magazine here: http://www.culturewars.com/CultureWars/Archives/Fidelity_archives/SSPX7.htm. The issues are dealt with in a measured, compassionate and sympathetic tone, without compromise on the substantive issues.
I would encourage you to watch Michael Voris's interview with Louie Verrecchio (linked in my previous comment above) as well, in which the entire tone of the discussion is civil, fraternal, and solicitous of understanding. This isn't an invitation to accept schism, where schism exists. It's an invitation to put on the mind of Pope Benedict XVI when he lifted the excommunications and sought the Society's reconciliation, a movement apparently still being pursued by the current pope and CDF.
If you understand the motives of Abp Lefebvre and of Bp Fellay, no matter how wrong-headed you think their judgment is, you cannot justly view them as diabolical enemies of the Church. Their intent and aim is wholly focused upon preserving the Catholic faith and Catholic tradition intact, and assisting the faithful to lead truly Catholic lives. Again, however wrong-headed you may think their thinking and judgment on these matters, their motives to not warrant the kind of vituperative language we hear from Fr. Paul Nicholson, Michael Voris, or from you. The emeritus pope's attitude should be our model here.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if, through a series of unexpected decisions, the SSPX's status could be regularized in the Church? I know there are many cardinals and bishops who would find the prospect abhorrent, since it would threaten to undermine their entire vision of a new Church emerging since Vatican II, but I shouldn't think you would share such a view. Who knows? If such a reconciliation happened, it could just be God's means for restoring the renegade post-Vatican II generation of Catholics (including many clergy) to Catholic tradition.
I, presently, do not hear Mass at SSPX, but hold Msgr. Lefebvre in the highest esteem. The vitrio,l which some heap upon SSPX, is sourced from a somewhat unbalanced perception, if not mind. It is detached from the current realities.
What is concerning is the occasional propensity for the Traditional Orders to snipe at each other - united we stand ........ !
A previous UK SSPX Superior fostered good relations with diocesan clergy and even distressed Anglo-Catholics. I am not aware of such a disposition with the present UK Superior - for me he is tainted with the 'Post Falls fiasco and the the diabolical treatment of Fr. John Rizzo [and others], an exemplary priest.
Msgr. Lefebvre's one mistake: to be takien-in by the near megalomaniac +Williamson.
Saint Ignatius:
Chapter 4. Some wickedly act independently of the bishop
It is fitting, then, not only to be called Christians, but to be so in reality: as some indeed give one the title of bishop, but do all things without him. Now such persons seem to me to be not possessed of a good conscience, seeing they are not stedfastly gathered together according to the commandment.
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Dear Charles. ABS can not understand your desire to eliminate the rebarbative rhetoric that makes arguments amongst men all the more pleasurable.
O, and you know ABS could roll out these types of quotes all day long but they have no effect on men of today and that alone is additional evidence of the clear and present danger of according respect and honor to a schism for in doing that one is calling a grave evil good.
Look if what the Saints said about schism was valid and true then it is valid and true today if Tradition is to have any meaning. But, the vast majority of soi disant trads do not think that is the case and so it is the sspx, and those who succor it, who have, also, fallen for the evil of accepting novelty.
Yeah, the Culture Wars, articles on the SSPX are all good and worthwhile reading and ABS has read them all but ABS remains perplexed that so few men have woken-up and smelled the myrrh; the sspx ain't ever coming home.
Dear Sixupman. ABS has never stood with the SPX and never would for schism is a grave evil many men have now decided to call good.
Assisi 1 or schism; which would the Early Church Fathers and the Doctors of the Church thought the worse sin?
Communion in the hand standing or schism?
Altar girls or schism?
Virtually a complete new mass written by committee or schism?
Ecumenism of no return or schism?
It would be hard to think of any novel papal praxis - not teaching that can never change - the Early Church Fathers and Saints would think worse than schism.
Your defense of the Mons. seems to indicate he had lost the Faith in the promises of Jesus Christ and thought that he was the onliest one to save the One Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church that Jesus has always been the head of even when the Mons was being treated unjustly.
He could not, he would not wait on the Lord. He as given a test. He failed.
Others before him, much holier, with far greater intelligence and influence, also failed; Origen and Tertullian.
Of course, the Mons was a sun compared to whom ABS is but a flint strike but what he did was never defensible then and it is not defensible now.
ABS,
Please continue to lambaste schismatics. I heartily agree. Nancy Pelosi is a schismatic in "good standing" with the Pope. John Kerry, likewise. And Cardinals Kasper and Dolan. Even Hans Kueng. But all are schismatic heretics.
But please also show some consideration of the facts on the ground here. Former head of the Ecclesia Dei Commission, Cardinal Hoyos and others have repeatedly and clearly insisted that while Cardinal Lefebvre's illicit consecration was a "schismatic act," that neither SSPX priests nor the lay faithful can be considered schismatics. They lack the "spirit of schism," Hoyos insisted. "They are Catholics," he said.
The circumstances are what you show no appreciation for. What will you do when a pope comes along who is himself a heretic? We have no promise from our Lord that the pope will always be doctrinally true? Our Lady of La Salette has said that a time will come when Rome will herself lose the faith. What will you do then? Who will be in schism from HMC then?
Dear Charles. That putattive part of the LaSalette message is a fraud and ws ondemned long ago even though Mons Lefevbre cited it at the illicit schismatic consecrations.
The Prefect of the CDF, Cardinal Mueller says publicly that the sspx is a schism and there has been no one hgigher who has contradicted that
THE SUPREME SACRED CONGREGATION OF THE HOLY OFFICE GIVES A DECREE CONCERNING THE COMMONLY CALLED "SECRET OF LA SALETTE."
It has come to the attention of this Supreme Congregation that certain ones are not lacking, even from among the ecclesiastic assemblage who, responses and decisions of this Holy Congregation itself having been disregarded, do proceed to discuss and examine through books, small works and articles edited in periodicals, whether signed or without a name, concerning the so-called Secret of La Salette, its diverse forms and its relevance to present and future times; and, this not only without permission of the Ordinaries, but, also against their ban.
So that these abuses which oppose true piety and greatly wound ecclesiastical authority might be curbed, the same Sacred Congregation orders all the faithful of any region not to discuss or investigate under any pretext, neither through books, or little works or articles, whether signed or unsigned, or in any other way of any kind, about the mentioned subject. Whoever, indeed, violates this precept of the Holy Office, if they are priests, are deprived of all dignity and suspended by the local ordinary from hearing sacramental confessions and from offering Mass: and, if they are lay people, they are not permitted to the sacraments until they repent.
Moreover, let people be subject to the sanctions given both by Pope Leo XIII through the Constitution of the offices and responsibilities against those who publish books dealing with religious things without legitimate permission of superiors and by Urban VIII through the decree "Sanctissimus Dominus Noster" given on 13th March 1625 against those who publish asserted revelations without the permission of ordinaries. However, this decree does not forbid devotion towards the Blessed Virgin under the title of Reconciliatrix commonly of La Salette.
Given at Rome on 21st December, 1915. - Aloisius Castellano, S. R. and U. I. Notary.
THE LITTLE WORK IS CONDEMNED:
"THE APPARITION OF THE VERY HOLY VIRGIN OF LA SALETTE" DECREE
Wednesday, 9th May 1923
In a General Session of the Supreme Holy Congregation of the Holy Office, eminent and reverend Lord Cardinals appointed for protecting the faith and morals, proscribed and condemned the little work The Apparition of the Most Holy Virgin on the holy mountain of La Salette, Saturday 19 September 1845. - Simple Reprinting of the entire public text by Mélanie, etc. Society Saint-Augustine, Paris-Rome-Bruges, 1922; ordering those to whom it looks to take care to withdraw examples of the condemned book from the hands of the faithful.
And the same holiday and day of the Most Holy Lord. N. D. by the foresight of divine providence Pope Pius XI, in the customary audience of R. P. D. Assessor of the Holy Office has commissioned the report himself and approved the resolution.
Given at Rome from the Holy Office on 10th May, 1923. - Aloisius Castellanus, S. R. and U. Notary.
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Now, the Mons cited this faux prophecy as one pretext to carry-out his illegal consecrations but if one thinks about this for just a moment one realises how insane such a belief in this lie is.
We have the infallible words of Jesus that the gates of Hell will not prevail against His Church He established and we have the infallible teaching of Vatican 1 that the Holy See of Peter will never teach error but a soi disant traditionlaist is expected to believe that His Mother told some kid that Rome (putatively Peter and his See) will lose the Faith?
Come on, it is flat out insane to both believe the promise of Jess and the false prophecy of Mary.
But, because a schism produces insanity, not stability, countless are the so-called trads who believe that Mary is/was in open opposition to her Son.
Lord have mercy.
When will men ever wake-up and see what is right before their eyes?
Dear Charles. . ABS not only understands the virtually uncountable problems recent papal praxis has produced, he has publicly opposed them but there are two infallible facts making him committed to staying in union with his Bishop and Pope; Jesus IS the head of His One Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church and He alone knows why He has permitted it to fall to the depths of confusion/indifference that it has and the infallible truth is He will not permit the Holy See/Peter to teach error.
ABS has no control over what present Peter does, he can only control his own self, and owing to the truth that remaining in union with one's Bishop and Pope is constitutive of what it means to be Catholic, to do otherwise is to lose the Faith.
In the original prayer to Saint Michael the Archangel we are told the Satan's plan is to strike the Pastor so the sheep will flee.
Well, look at how many sheep have fled; they not only could have chosen differently, they shuldl have chosen differently and remained in full Communion with their Bishop and present Peter if when/if he is struck.
Who wants to be like the first Peter and all the apostles, except for John, who led out of fear?
No, ABS wil stand at the foot of the Cross with the Mother of Mercy, for that is the narrow way to salvation and sanctfication, neither of which ends can be achieved in the sspx schism.
ABS,
I'm well-familiar with the controversy surrounding Sa Lalette, as I am with that surrounding Fatima's third secret and consecration of Russia; and the more one learns, the more disturbing it is.
You site our Lord's promise about the gates of hell not prevailing against the church. Indeed. It says nothing about Rome. The See of Peter moved from Jerusalem to Antioch to Rome, to Avignon and back. There is no guarantee that Rome will not lose the faith, even if the See of Peter does not.
It gets even crazier. Have you counted the number of ANTI-POPES we have had in our Church history? It is scandalous. Of course you know about the brief episode of some years when there were three rival claimants to the See of Peter. What would you have thought then? Who is the infallible Pope to whom I owe my loyalty? Good Catholics were divided on the issue. The smartest ones likely just went about their business being faithful Catholics and let the scoundrels in the hierarchy sort out their shenanigans for themselves.
There is NO guarantee in Christ's promise that such a thing could not happen again. The See of Peter could find itself in Soul, South Korea, or Kinshasa, in the Republic of the Congo with an Asian or African pope.
But there's also this: Christ's promise that the gates of hell will not prevail against his church imply nothing about the faith of the successors of the current See of Peter in Rome. It's quite possible that THAT line of popes could lose their faith and become anti-popes, and by the time the canon lawyers sort out the mess, for the licit pope to be tapped in some other part of the world.
Not even our Lord's promise to "be with you always, unto the end of the age" guarantees the fidelity of any pope. If they mess up, the Church will do what it has always done: declare the scoundrel an anti-pope and declare another the legitimate successor of Peter. The most that Vatican I 'guarantees' is the fidelity of the true pope, not that every putative occupant of the seat of Peter (who could turn out to be an anti-pope).
Then there are the words of no other than Christ himself asking: "However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?"
Presumably so. Yet it's a question I think our Lord intends us to take seriously. Personally, I think we are all about to have our faith tested sorely by events just over the horizon.
I rather think that ABS has been the subject of a trepanning misadventure!
Dear Charles. The Mons identified Pope John Paul II as an antiChrist and, thus, the Pope had no authority over him but that ideological position of the Mons was just the modern resurrection of an ancient heresy of Wycliffe that was condemned in the Council of Constance:
Denzinger 588 If the pope is foreknown and evil, and consequently a member of the devil, he does not have power over the faithful given to him by anyone, unless perchance by Caesar.
When trads cite the fall prophecy of Rome losing the faith they apply it to the Pope/Holy See and not to the city and that is why the Mons. cited that as a justifying pretext for doing what he did.
Certainly there can be/have been Popes who have been material heretics but Jesus will not suffer His Church to have a heresy taught as Doctrine of that would mean His promise was a lie. There is simply no getting around that fundamental ltruth.
It is clear the SSPX rejects that simple fact and although many who succor the sspx desire a restoration of the Oath of Modernism, the sspx could not take the oath honestly for they believe the One Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church has taught error.
ABS agrees with you on our being tested and there is only one correct answer on that final exam where the final grade will be Heaven or Hell and any man who leaves His Church for any reason will receive the grade of Hell on that final exam
Dear Sixupman. Now, that is funny as hell; great word, and, it sort of absolves ABS of being responsible for his actions and, thus, not in any way conscious of his duty to actualise any personal resipiscence.
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