(Rome) The historian Roberto de Mattei is concerned with the sources of law and the legal hierarchy of Church law and the obligation that every Church Law must have its basis in the divine law. On the other hand, says de Mattei, is legal positivism which ignores this central principle, penetrating into the Church. The most recent example is the decree by the Congregation of Religious, which places the order of the Franciscans of the Immaculate under provisional administration and abolishes the celebration of the Old Mass on the 11th of August. Resistance against the positivist thinking undermining the Church's understanding of the law is permissible, says de Mattei. The principle that an unjust law obligates no obedience, could even go so far as to draw excommunication upon himself, rather than to engage in a false obedience. This had already been taught by Saint Thomas Aquinas and all great canonists.Lex Dubia non Obligat
By Roberto de Mattei
The case of the Franciscans of the Immaculate Conception church brings a canonical, moral and spiritual issues back on the agenda, which often arrested in the post-Conciliar years and occasionally "exploded": the problem of obedience to an unjust law. A law can be unjust not only when it violates the law of God and nature, but even if it hurts a canon law of a higher rank in the legal hierarchy. This is the case with the decree of 11 July 2013, by the Congregation for Consecrated Life , putting the Franciscans of the Immaculate Conception under provisional administration.
The violation of the law is not in the provisional administration, but in the part of the decree, that claims to force the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate to waive the celebration of the Holy Mass according to the traditional Roman Rite. In addition to the Bull Quo Primum of St. Pius V (1570) there is the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum of Pope Benedict XVI. (2007), and thus a universal Church law that gives every priest the right to:
Accordingly, it is allowed, according the sacrifice of the Mass of Blessed John XXIII. promulgated in 1962 and never abolished typical edition of the Roman Missal, to celebrate the Extraordinary Form of the Liturgy of the Church.
Article 2 of the Motu Proprio clarifies that it neither requires permission from the the Holy See nor from his superior when the Mass is celebrated sine populo.
Article 3 adds that it is not just the individual priest, but Communities of Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life - whether pontifical or diocesan right, is allowed in the Convention or, in its own oratory community's Mass to keep the celebration of the Holy Mass according to the edition of the Roman Missal that was promulgated in 1962.
If an individual community or an entire Institute or a whole society wants to commit such celebrations often, usually or always, it is the responsibility of superiors, to decide according to the norm of law, and according to the laws and particular statutes. In this case there is no need to invoke the divine and natural law, it is sufficient that the Church as the legal source. An eminent jurist like Pedro Lombardia (1930-1986) recalled that Canon 135, paragraph 2 of the new Code of Canon Law which establishes the principle of legitimate legislation in the sense that the legislative power is to be exercised in the manner prescribed in the right way, especially the canons 7-22, the title of the codex form, which is devoted to the ecclesiastical laws.
The Codex recalls that the universal or general laws of the Church are those which were promulgated by publication in the official gazette Acta Apostolicae Sedis (Can. 8), in Can. 12, § 1 states: General Laws require all those for whom they are adopted; Can. 18 states that laws which impose a penalty or restrict the free exercise of rights, or contain an exception to the Act, are subject to strict interpretation, Can. 20 adds: A subsequent law raises a former wholly or partly on when it says this explicitly or opposed to it directly or is the whole matter of the earlier law assigns comprehensive , and finally sets Can. 21 states: In doubt, the revocation of a previous law is not presumed, but later laws are to be set in relation to earlier and to bring with them as far as possible in line.
Canon 135 finally determined the basic principle of the hierarchy: A lower legislator cannot validly issue a law contrary to higher law. Not even a Pope can abolish the act of another pope, except in the prescribed form. The unassailable rule in moral and legal states is that a law of a higher source that affects an area larger and of more universal significance, has title to a superior rule of law, has priority (Regis Jolive, 1959).
According to Canon 14 for the canonical standard to be mandatory, may not be the object of legal doubt ( dubium juris ). If there is a lack of legal certainty, the axiom applies: lex dubia non obligat. If there is a doubt, the honor of God and the salvation of souls will have precedence over any actual consequences that may follow from an act at the personal level. The new Code of Canon Law Canon recalls the past that the Church always has in mind the salus suprema lex animarum (Can. 1752). Saint Thomas Aquinas already taught this when he was in his Quaestiones quodlibetales , explaining that the purpose of canon law aims for the peace of the Church and the salvation of souls (12, q. 16, a 2) and all the great canonists have followed him in this.
The Cardinal Julian Herranz, president of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts in a speech delivered on the 6th of April 2000 spoke on the salus animarum as a principle of canon law, he recalled that this is the highest principle of ecclesiastical legislation. But that requires basic considerations ahead that are missing in the debate, because often the moral and metaphysical foundation of law is forgotten.
Today there is a purely legalistic and formalistic conception which tends to see the law as a mere instrument in the hands of those who have power (Don Arturo Cattaneo, 2011). According to the legal positivism, which has infiltrated into the Church, what is considered correct, is issued by the authority. In reality, this is jus divinum is the basis for legal expressions and demands the primacy of jus in front of Lex. The principles of legal positivism distort the foundations and replaced legal validity of the jus through the application of the Lex. The law can is only seen the will of the rulers and not the reflection of the divine law, according to which God is creator and foundation of every law. He is the living and eternal law, absolute principle any law (jus divinum, ed. Juan Ignacio Arrieta, 2010).
For this reason, in a conflict between human and divine law, God and not the people is to be obeyed (Acts 5:29). The obedience is owed to superiors because they represent the authority of God, and they represent, because they keep the divine law and apply it. St. Thomas Aquinas affirms that it is better to fall into the current excommunication and exile to foreign lands where the earthly arm of the Church does not reach, than to obey an unjust command: ille debits potius excommunicatione, sustinere (...) vel in alias regiones remotas fugere (Summa Theologiae, Suppl, q. 45, a 4, 3 Upper).
Obedience is not only a formal procedure that causes us to submit to human authority. It is primarily a virtue that leads us on the path of perfection. Not who vested interests, obeying from fear or submissive human attachment is not really obedient, but who chooses the true obedience which is a compound of the human will with the divine will. For the love of God, we must be prepared to obey this highest act of His law and His will, to detach ourselves from the bonds of false obedience, poses the risk to let us lose faith. Unfortunately, today a false sense of obedience is common that sometimes borders on sycophancy and in which the fear of human authority is provided through the divine truth.
The resistance to unlawful commands is sometimes a duty to God and to our neighbor, the need for exemplary acts of metaphysical and moral stolidity. The Franciscans of the Immaculate had obtained from Benedict XVI. the extraordinary goods of traditional, falsely "Tridentine" so-called Mass, accepted and celebrated again today by thousands of priests lawfully throughout the world. There is no better way to express their gratitude to Benedict XVI. and at the same time to express their protest against the injustice done to them, than to continue to celebrate in the serenity of a clear conscience, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in the traditional Roman Rite. No law can force their conscience. Maybe only few will do this, but compliance to prevent greater evil, will not help to avert the storm that goes beyond their Order and the Church.
Text: Corrispondenza Romana
translation: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: Corrispondenza Romana
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com AMGD Link to katholisches...
42 comments:
Dear Tancred. Many thanks for this post. The man is a Catholic Treasure and what he says is spot on.
The Franciscans of the Immaculate must obey the unjust prohibition of the celebration of the Vetus Ordo that is allowed to every priest on earth except for them. ST. Maximilian and St. Pio would also obey.
The ones who have caused this did so because they 'did not sign on for this', meaning the offering of the TLM and also they felt the holy founder was out of order and going in the wrong direction. Knowing better than the one with the charism of founding they have brought about his deposing. It has happened to a number of saints though and the heroic obedience of the founder and others will bring great graces.
I believe the TLM will be restored in some fashion. Those who were disobedient to the founder? Maybe they will split to have their own modern order? It was the Vetus Ordo that was attracting more vocations than any other branch of the Franciscan order. So of course the enemy of souls enters in to cause a fight over the holy Sacrifice!
May St. Maximilian pray for this order and may the truth rule out and the Vetus Ordo be restored as is their right.
Lex dubia...
Magdalene:
You make an interesting comment, one which has been heard many times before. But we are sailing through treacherous waters here. We must never forget the principle of the unjust command. Now, unless a high dignity in the Church can come up with a better argument than the one by Aquinas, which de Mattei quotes above, then we can feel safe in the knowledge that we can continue to say the ancient rite Mass, never abrogated.
We also need to be on guard against simplistic attitudes and when I say that I am not accusing you of being simplistic. There are many good people who think as you do. God gifted us with common sense, though, and we must use that common sense in matters such as these. Common sense is telling many that de Mattei and others are quite correct.
By the way: for the record, Padre Pio never said the New Mass. He was given "permission" to use the ancient rite always and everywhere, which he did to the end of his life.
Very well said, IANS. He is a Catholic treasure.
Dear Magdalene. If your Father told you to play in traffic as a new way of engaging with the world would you have obeyed him?
One must be loyal to Tradition, not Popes who do not pass on Tradition.
What the Catholic Church did under 260 Popes prior to V2 (The revolutionary rocket that destroyed Tradition), what it Taught, how it prayed at Mass, can not be vacated by a Pope who declares a new church and new doctrine for if such a Pope can repudiate all that came before him we can repudiate his new way of praying and his new doctrines.
The 260 Popes prior to V2 Passed onTradition whereas the V2 Popes have Passed onTradition.
Obedience to novelties is not a virtue; it is a vice.
The modernist revolutionaries conspired to seize control of the council even before it began and the conservative fathers in the Council were very late in responding to and organising an opposition to the modernists in defense of Tradition but when they, finally, came to their senses and saw that their interventions were blocked in violation of the council rules, they were too loyal to the Pope rather than being loyal to Tradition.
Had but ten of the Fathers - just 10 - quit the council because of the way the council was conducted but, even more, because of the way the doctrinal trajectory away from Tradition was proceeding, then God would not have let His church be destroyed.
His Church is destroyed but it exists still - invisibilium - as it recapitulates the passion of Christ and Jesus IS the Head of His Church and Popes are but His, temporary and temporal, vicar and all claims about The Holy Ghost selecting this or that Pope is interesting but not definitive as the Cardinals can refuse Hs Grace when it comes to an election and any Pope can refuse to pass on Tradition; the Holy Ghost will not force a Pope to teach that which has always been taught.
The Catholic Church is destroyed but she is not without existence; it is invisibilium - awaiting a time known solely to God when she will be miraculously resurrected by Him in all of her splendor so the entire world will know who it is who is the head of His One, True, Catholic, Church.
Jesus is the head of His Church.
There is a line in the play 'A man for All Seasons' applied to St Thomas Moore (and he probably said it)where he says the stars follow God by obeying the laws of nature, animals serve God by following their instincts, but man, endowed with intelligence and free will, must serve God 'in the tangle of his mind'. For St Thomas Moore you could not blind yourself to reason and pretend to be obedient. This is simply a practical application of St Thomas Aquinas' thesis that error has no rights and consequently no authority. If a superior abuses their authority and commands what reason and a well informed Catholic intellect knows to be dangerous to their Faith or the faith of those entrusted to their care, they have a moral obligation to obey, not the superior who is abusing their authority, but the God from whom all authority comes. To blindly obey simply because the superior has authority when the facts scream out against the justice of such a command, is not a virtue, it is a cowardly vice because it denies that which is most noble in us, our intelligence, which more than anything else should be used in God's service.
Paul M
I must disagree. It is not okay to be 'obedient' to our idea of tradition. Yes, Christ is the Head of His Mystical Body and the Pope is His Vicar and "ubi petrus ibi ecclesia".
Padre Pio was spared the new Mass as he entered into eternity in 1968 just as it was being imposed in the world. But he was obedient to the unjust decisions to keep him from public Mass and confessions for a time.
I am not simplistic although to be as simple as a child is not a bad thing....for such as those enter the Kingdom...
The graces come from the suffering and heroic obedience to lawful authority when they do not ask for something sinful. To forego the Vetus Ordo for a time, while unjust, is not sinful.
In the office for St. Maximilian today, the saint wrote: "It is therefore obedience, and only obedience, which clearly shows God's will. It can happen, to be sure, that a a superior makes a mistake, but it cannot happen that in following obedience, we make a mistake. Only then is there an exception to obedience: when a superior commands something that would clearly be a violation of God's law."
It is not a violation of God's law to set aside the Vetus Ordo for a time as the Novus Ordo is a valid Mass.
Slavish obedience isn't real obedience. They're going to fight this because a lot of people are dependent on the Mass of All Ages for their salvation, including the laity who participate at their Mass centers.
Well if those who dissented against the founders had been "slavish" in obedience, this would not have happened in the first place!
Unjust is not the same as unlawful. I hope these wonderful Franciscans will continue to obey and the Immaculate will work this out if they can be a little patient and all for the glory of God!
And when this is settled and the Vetus Ordo is returned as it must by all rights be....the publicity for the order has gone far and wide and (traditional) vocations will explode with them.
You, thankfully, aren't running the Order.
See St. Thomas Aquinas and the canon law, thanks
f they want the blessing of God and the rapid diffusion of the EF, they would do very well to obey.
Let me give an analogy. If nothing else, take it as a parable . . .
Back in 1969 I belonged to a small charismatic prayer group associated with the Carmelite center in Darien, Illinois. This movement was very new at the time, and as soon as Bishop Blanchette got wind of it he sent his vicar general to us in person to command us us a) not to speak in tongues or b) to lay hands on one another. This, of course, was within his right, and for that matter it was his duty to "test all things." However, for us at the time it seemed like the end of the road. We could have become indignant and protested, citing scripture, thereby becoming Protestant. However, although we could not see the way forward we decided to obey. That was in February. By mid-summer our little group had grown to about two hundred persons, and the gift of prophecy had fallen on about fifteen of us.
About this time the bishop withdrew his prohibition and thanked us for our obedience. Moreover, when a group of fifteen Jesuits came from their theologate in Aurora to find out what it was all about, we were able to tell them that we were meeting with the bishop's permission and that we had his blessing. The Jesuits met with us weekly for more than a month and told us, "You don't know the good that you are doing." They in turn carried the movement to the Philippines and Heaven knows where else, perhaps even Brazil. However, if we had disobeyed in self-righteousness, not only would we have shrivelled, but we would have discredited the entire movement in the eyes of our bishop.
In short, in this case, there is nothing to be lost by obeying, and everything to be lost by disobeying, not only for the Franciscans but for the entire Church.
No law that is unjust is valid or of any effect. This is a most fundamental principle of all legal systems that recognise their dependence and authority as coming from a higher law than man - the Divine Law or the Natural Law. This is what gives any legal system its authority and integrity. Without the foundation of Divine Law, the natural moral law, the laws of man (canonical law) can have no force or validity, and do not require obedience. In fact, an unjust law ought not to be obeyed, as it would put one's soul in jeopardy, and do grave injury to others. As the writer says, the immoral and irrational legal positivism of the secular world would seem to have contaminated the Church. I have noted in recent times, some Church lawyers completely unmooring the canonical law from its foundations in the moral law in order to uphold as valid an objectively unjust interpretation of the canon or to deny the only just interpretation. That road leads to abuse of power, tyranny and damage to the true authority of the Church.
It is not a surprise to read one who has embraced the protestant heresy of charismaticism to tell others to obey an unjust command to only offer the protestantised calvinistic rite that substituted a Jewish meal prayer for the Offertory - among many other abominations.
Sorry, Mr. Gilbert, but you are not a prophet.
Good Lord, is there any limit to the weirdness accepted by the Church at the same time it is killing Tradition?
I hope, good sir, that you have left charismaticism by now and have seen it for the fraud that it is. Your Bishop did you no favors by allowing the charade to continue. His first instincts were the correct ones, but perhaps some "higher-ups" in Rome overrode his decision ultimately.
The antidote to the charismatic heresy is sitting in quiet silence in a Catholic church, praying for guidance.
Why do these articles never refer to the form of Mass they speak of by the proper names of Tridentine and Extraordinary. Is it because the former sheds light that it is not as ancient as claimed and the latter reminds us that it is no longer the regular form?
Does the author deny the validity of the Novus Ordo? If valid, you have the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ: what more do you need? If valid, you have union of worship with Heaven: what more do you need?
I understand preferring the extraordinary form, but remember it is extra ordinary, not ordinary.
I refer to it as the Immemorial Rite, because that's what it has always been and what it will always be.
Dear FOTL. Some recalcitrant recusants refer to Real Mass as The Gregorian Rite; some, like my own self, prefer to refer to them asThe Real Mass vs The Lil' Licit Liturgy.
I imagine that if, say, on your Wedding Day you arrived at the altar wearing scuba gear, playing bag pipes, wearing football spikes on your feet and had lighted sparklers crammed in your ears and then you answered, Sure to the question.. Do you take.... then your wife might be miffed and your family disgusted with you for treating so casually something so important.
As it is the case that God is rather more important than your wife or mine, ought we not worship him with the very best that we can put forth; you know, like in The Gregorian Rite rather than the calvinistic liturgy of Paul VI ?
What exactly is it that you have against Tradition and the Good, the True, and the Beautiful?
Ah, Schmenz, but I was not aware that it is a heresy. Perhaps you could point me to a council, an encyclical, an apostolic letter, anything authoritative? . . . from any bishop . . . ever.
Nevertheless, as a parable my tale works perfectly. There is no blessing in disobedience, and in fact the surest, the quickest, the most infallibly certain way to make sure that the EF is forbidden is to make it an instrument of disunity, a rallying point for schismatics. Yes, that would do it.
Both from the standpoint of unity ( ONE , Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church) and of spirituality, there is no difference, no essential difference between the theology of disobedience expressed here and that of the the LCWR. It is a spirituality of rebellion and of resentment, albeit tricked out with a patina of scholarship and legalese.
Despite not being remotely Catholic, LCWR is in "good standing", while many clergy who are not, are really Catholic. Perhaps FatherZ fits into the "not in good standing" category himself?
Would you obey your Bishop if he ordered you to participate in an "Interfaith” celebration with Satanists and/or Freemasons?
Your last leap in logic is not logical. It cannot happen that in following obedience, we make a mistake. Does that apply to parents that abuse children? Should the children obey? Does that apply to politicians that lie in support of Obama Care. Should Catholic Hospitals start aborting children? Does it not apply when the world followed the Arian Heresy, and only a few with Anthansius disobeyed. God does love obedience, but He loves more those who love Him beyond the mere obedience of men and who demonstrate through the gift of wisdom their faithfulness to His will, not the mistaken erroneous errors that man many times makes.
"You, thankfully, aren't running the Order."
I agree wholeheartedly! As to what would I do if my bishop or superior ordered me to play in traffic or attend a Masonic service---well, that would be SIN and I would therefore have to refuse. It is not sin for the FI to be obedient to this (I hope) temporary command and as Lee Gilbert wrote--before being attacked himself--there are graces that come from the obedience. The Immaculate will work this out if trust can be given her.
Dear Mr. Gilbert. Here is Trent on your fanciful and protestant claims:
CHAPTER IV
On the Ecclesiastical hierarchy, and on Ordination.
But, forasmuch as in the sacrament of Order, as also in Baptism and Confirmation, a character is imprinted, which can neither be effaced nor taken away; the holy Synod with reason condemns the opinion of those, who assert that the priests of the New Testament have only a temporary power; and that those who have once been rightly ordained, can again become laymen, if they do not exercise the ministry of the word of God. And if any one affirm, that all Christians indiscrimately are priests of the New Testament, or that they are all mutually endowed with an equal spiritual power, he clearly does nothing but confound the ecclesiastical hierarchy, which is as an army set in array; as if, contrary to the doctrine of blessed Paul, all were apostles, all prophets, all evangelists, all pastors, all doctors.
One would have thought a self-professed prophet was aware of this.
I will finish by turning your question back at you - Prior to V2, cite a Magisterial Text granting permission to laymen to claim that they are prophets.
As King of a tiny country, as one who has built his own rocket ship and flown it to Mars and back in just under 72 hours, as one who was the first to solve the Rubix Cube blinded-folded while asleep in a deprivation tank, as one who could out-eat Oprah, I must write that I find your questionable claims nettlesome.
Lee GilbertAugust 15, 2013 at 2:56 PM
Ian Spartacus,
The thought of your feverishly rummaging through the documents of the Church trying to find something, anything that would show the charismatic renewal condemned, and then coming up with passage that condemns conflating the ministerial priesthood with the priesthood of the laity is something that strikes me as totally hilarious. Of the millions and millions of Catholics who have become charismatics over the past forty-five years, I have never heard of one who thought that he had thereby been given the powers of the priesthood!!! What are you talking about?
Then there is the less amusing fact that you present yourself as an exponent of the Tradition while at the same time urging rebellion against the Vicar of Christ. Talk about a wolf in sheep's clothing. The Apostolic Succession IS the Tradition, the very Tradition against which you urge rebellion.
You accuse me(and millions of others) of heresy without being able to produce a scintilla of evidence that it is condemned by a council, a pope, a bishop anywhere ever, while you yourself brazenly try to lead other Catholics into schism. You present yourself as trying to preserve and foster the celebration of the Extraordinary Form while at the same time urging a policy that would quite justifiably lead to its total suppression. With friends like you, the EF does not need enemies. Popes, as visible sources and symbol of the unity of the Church, are not in favor of movements, and policies and persons who favor schism. We have had enough schisms. Very ironically you, protest-ant, locate me and fellow charismatics among the Protestants. Who, here, is protesting against the Pope in time honored Protestant fashion, hmmmm?
Again, it doesn't take a prophet to see that in this decision by the Pope the Franciscans and the whole Church have been given a wonderful opportunity to bring down many, many blessings on the Church by simply accepting this decision and obeying it cheerfully and with exactitude. It is truly an opportunity to foster the rapid diffusion of the Extraordinary form throughout the Church.
We know what Jesus would do, since he obeyed unto death a truly unjust sentence, and we know the reward he received. We also know what many saints have done in similar situations. Within living memory Padre Pio obeyed an unjust decree of the Pope. If he had followed the policy you foolishly recommend, there would have been no St. Pio, nor the many, many graces that came through him and are coming through him.
These are the kind of blessings you wish to deprive us of by your absurd incitings to rebellion, but have a care Ian, for "Rebellion is as sinful as witchcraft, and stubbornness as bad as worshiping idols"(1 Sam 23). That passage is from the mouth of Samuel the prophet when he rebuked Saul for his disobedience. He further said, "So because you have rejected the command of the LORD, he has rejected you as king." If you wish one day to find yourself on the outside of the Church looking in, then continue urging rebellion. It is not a line of conduct that has any future, not for you, not for the Church, and certainly not for the widespread and generous implementation of Summorum Pontificum.
The Charismatic Movement was founded by one of the most progressive, disobedient and destructive Bishops of the 20th century, and it is disingenuous to believe that such a resurgence of Montaniism, has any validity as a Catholic movement. Once again, the laity is only heard from when they are oo rationally obedient to the progressive spirit destroying the Church. When the laity points out obvious evil and injustice, as in this case, they suddenly don't want to hear the laity.
No other organization in the world could function with those kinds of double standards.
If you're not going to demand obedience or else from dissident and sodomite clergy, it's a bit of a stretch then to oppress Catholics and their clergy who've done nothing wrong, of what is their righ by the Church's law.
Vatican II called on the laity to be more vocal, now that a truly Catholic and loyal laity speaks, it is the progressives and their lap dogs who cry out for obedience.
Medjugorje anyone?
I've pretty much despaired of expecting any integrity from progressives who seem to think the law of no contradiction can be trumped by pure emotionalism.
Tancred,
You write, "The Charismatic Movement was founded by one of the most progressive, disobedient and destructive Bishops of the 20th century . . . "
Look, one wants to be courteous, but you haven't the slightest idea what you are talking about. The Charismatic Renewal began with laymen at Duquesne University in 1967 and quickly moved its center to Notre Dame. I became involved in 1968. I think it may have been in 1971 that Archbishop Bernardin spoke at an International Charismatic Conference at Notre Dame in his capacity as president of the USCCB. So far as I know that was the extent of his influence or involvement. In 1973, five years later, Cardinal Suenens visited True House, a charismatic community at Notre Dame of which I was a member at the time. From that point he became heavily involved, but he was hardly a founder. So who are you talking about exactly?
You are similarly well-informed about Montanism. The logic goes like this: Montanism had prophets and was condemned as a heresy. The Charismatic Renewal has prophets, therefore it must be a heresy also. That there might be a distinction between true and false prophets seems not to have occurred to those who make this comparison.
The charismatic renewal has enjoyed the support of all the popes from Paul VI on.
You write, "If you're not going to demand obedience or else from dissident and sodomite clergy, it's a bit of a stretch then to oppress Catholics and their clergy who've done nothing wrong, of what is their right by the Church's law."
This paragraph begins in calumny and ends in ignorance. The pope is the supreme lawgiver in the Church. If he says that the EF is not to be celebrated in certain circumstances, that is the law, and it is his right to be obeyed, and our duty to comply. "“I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.19“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven”" (Matt 16:18-19). I am amazed that you (pl) feel strong enough to contend with Heaven over this issue, for you are specifically urging rebellion against Peter. Yet somehow you imagine yourselves to be "a truly Catholic and loyal laity" while those who urge obedience to the Supreme Pontiff are somehow "progressive." Completely amazing. This is one very mixed up corner of the Church, where obedience is disloyalty, and disobedience is loyalty.
I don’t think this Neomontanist movement would have gotten far without the endorsement of Cardinal Suenens and other progressive Bishops at the time.
I’m also not interested in this Montanist revival or your continuing evasion of the principles of non-contradiction and false obedience.
The thought of your feverishly rummaging through the documents of the Church trying to find something, anything that would show the charismatic renewal condemned, and then coming up with passage that condemns conflating the ministerial priesthood with the priesthood of the laity is something that strikes me as totally hilarious
Dear Mr. Gilbert. You could learn a thing or two from lawyers who know not to ask a question to which a damning answer might result and which answer might jeopardise their case.
You asked and I responded. C'est la vie.
How's that whole laying-on-of-hands-thingy working out for ya? And that sacrament of anointing and being slain in the spirit
And, finally, Mr. Gilbert all we are doing is following Saint Thomas Aquinas whereas you are following protestants of the type that I was learnt were Holy-Rollers.
A Pope can not justly forbid that which is Holy and The Gregorian Rite is certainly that and the Gregorian Rite was an organic development from the Mass of Saint Peter.
Popes, as visible sources and symbol of the unity of the Church, are not in favor of movements, and policies and persons who favor schism.
Not so; see Kiko and The Neocat movement, to say nothing about the approval of a "mass' that has no words of consecration, to say nothing about refusing to convert Jews, to say nothing about praying with heretics, to say nothing about kissing Korans, to say nothing about asking a Saint to preserve Mahometanism...etc etc etc
http://charismatic-heresy.blogspot.com/
The First Vatican Council had in no way defined the pope as an absolute monarch. On the contrary, it presented him as the guarantor of obedience to the revealed Word. The pope's authority is bound to the Tradition of faith... Even the pope can only be a humble servant... The authority of the pope is not unlimited; it is at the service of Sacred Tradition. . .
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
Ah, Schmenz, but I was not aware that it is a heresy. Perhaps you could point me to a council, an encyclical, an apostolic letter, anything authoritative? . . . from any bishop . . . ever.
Dear Mr. Gilbert. I knew I ought not to have sourced Tradition to respond to your boastful challenge, and, so, I will just cite Pope Paul VI:
On May 17, 1972, Pope Paul VI condemned the charismatic movement, saying that it directly attacked the "the very existence of the Church," leading to "extinguishing the real flame of Pentecost, disregarding the thought of Christ and of the whole of Tradition."
This prolly came as a response to the Toronto blessing where charismatics were rolling on the floor laughing hysterically, barking like dogs and oinking like pigs...
http://www.traditioninaction.org/bkreviews/A_011br_CloseUps_Horvat.htm
In 1972, Archbishop Dwyer of the United States had this to say abut the oinking, barking, laughing, holy-rollers fof the charismatic movement We regard it bluntly as one of the most dangerous trends in the Church in our time, closely allied in spirit with other disruptive and divisive movements; threatening grave harm to unity and damage to countless souls.
Ok, Mr. Gilbert. It was you who boastfully asked the question and all I have done is respond. I could post more but as to why anyone with a sensus catholicus would need an authority to condemn such an inanity as the charismatic movement is beyond me.
I would just write that you ought not follow those oinking little piggies as they are headed for the protestant market.
Mr Gilbert:
The dangerous fraud that the Charismatic Movement is can best be shown by the so-called "speaking in tongues" phenomena engaged in by the adherents of this Movement. I have myself witnessed grown men and women standing like zombies, spewing unintellogble gibberish (some doing so while actually rolling on the floor as if in a state of demonic possession) and later calling that performace "speaking in tongues".
The uninstructed watch these goings-on and believe they are witnessing the work of the Holy Ghost, but they are witnessing nothing of the kind. The Church teaches that what was actually happening when the Apostles and other missionaries were speaking in tongues was simply this: these men spoke in their own language but those who heard them heard the words in their language. That was the miracle that God provided. When the Apostles were teaching other nations they were not rolling on the ground and speaking gobbledygook; they were speaking in their own native tongue. It was their hearers that heard and undertood the words as if said in THEIR native language.
Any sensible person who has taken the trouble to understand these things is fully convinced that Charismatism is a total fraud, and those Churchmen who promote it or merely tolerate it will have that on their conscience.
You are right, Fire: the new Mass certainly is ordinary, in thes sense of dull, uninteresting and forgettable, and the Ancient Rite Mass certainly is "extraordinary" in the very truest sense of that word.
You implied that the Ancient Rite is not as ancient as claimed? My friend you have some reading to catch up on. That Rite can be directly traced to the time of Christ; it was not suddenly cooked up out of nowhere in the Tridentine era (unlike the New Rite which was cooked up out of nowhere in the swinging 60s). I recommend reading Klaus Gamber on that subject. That should well answer your objection.
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