Posted on 08/19/2004 12:12:31 AM PDT by Canticle_of_Deborah
That's fine, and the bishop has the right to determine if diocesan priests will offer licit Masses in any building. That right does not include stealing property which he does not own, here or in India. Should the owners sever their connection to the diocese, other priests could celebrate Mass at the owners' discretion. Those Masses would be valid but illicit.
Maeve, does that summarize the India situation correctly?
The bishop is engaged in a huge land grab any way he can get it through whatever means he has to employ.
Did you mean facilities?
I have personal knowledge about the deed to the land for the Polish Mission. It is in the name of the order of priests serving that mission. Further, the same status is true for every Polish Mission throughout North and South America - unless a diocese church was provided to them. This is true in some parts of the United States.
Both the ground-breaking construction blessing and the actually opening of ceremony was officiated by a Polish Bishop from the Vatican. On both occasions the local bishop was not present.
The presence of the Polish order to serve Polish immigrants was approved by Bishop, just as a separate order of priests serve the Croatian community here - who also own their own facilities.
Further, Santa Clara University, buildings and property are owned and administered by the Jesuits long before the establishment of a diocese in Northern California.
It doesn't matter who "owns" the actual physical property. Priests who are denied faculties cannot administer the sacraments of matrimony or reconciliation validly.
But a bishop can't steal privately owned land!
I'll leave that to someone with more knowledge than I have about these various jurisdictions.
But, I'd certainly want to hear more from the Bishop of the Diocese. This article is written from an SSPX perspective, and there may be facts that are left out.
Fac´ul`ty
n. 1. Ability to act or perform, whether inborn or cultivated; capacity for any natural function; especially, an original mental power or capacity for any of the well-known classes of mental activity; psychical or soul capacity; capacity for any of the leading kinds of soul activity, as knowledge, feeling, volition; intellectual endowment or gift; power; as, faculties of the mind or the soul.
Session 23, DECREE ON REFORMATION
CHAPTER XVI.
Those who are ordained shall be assigned to a particular church.
Whereas no one ought to be ordained, who, in the judgment of his own bishop, is not useful or necessary for his churches, the holy Synod, adhering to the traces of the sixth canon of the council of Chalcedon, ordains, that no one shall for the future be ordained without being attached to that church, or pious place, for the need, or utility of which he is promoted; there to discharge his duties, and not wander about without any certain abode. And if he shall quit that place without consulting the bishop, he shall be interdicted from the exercise of his sacred (orders). Furthermore, no cleric, who is a stranger, shall, without letters commendatory from his own Ordinary, be admitted by any bishop to celebrate the divine mysteries, and to administer the sacraments.
The same Decree also reminds us of another long-standing SSPX problem - the nullity of its confessions and absolutions.
CHAPTER XV.
No one shall hear confessions, unless he be approved of by the Ordinary.
Although priests receive in their ordination the power of absolving from sins; nevertheless, the holy Synod ordains, that no one, even though he be a Regular, is able to hear the confessions of Seculars, not even of priests, and that he is not to be reputed fit thereunto, unless he either holds a parochial benefice, or is, by the bishops, after an examination if they shall think it necessary, or in some other manner, judged capable; and has obtained their approval, which shall be granted gratuitously; any privileges, and custom whatsoever, though immemorial, to the contrary notwithstanding.
And of course the invalidity of the "marriages" its Priests attempt to witness:
Session 24, DECREE ON THE REFORMATION OF MARRIAGE
CHAPTER I.
Those who shall attempt to contract marriage otherwise than in the presence of the parish priest, or of some other priest by permission of the said parish priest, or of the Ordinary, and in the presence of two or three witnesses; the holy Synod renders such wholly incapable of thus contracting and declares such contracts invalid and null, as by the present decree It invalidates and annuls them. Moreover It enjoins, that the parish priest, or any other priest, who shall have been present at any such contract with a less number of witnesses (than as aforesaid); as also the witnesses who have been present thereat without the parish priest, or some other priest; and also the contracting parties themselves; shall be severely punished, at the discretion of the Ordinary. Furthermore, the same holy Synod exhorts the bridegroom and bride not to live together in the same house until they have received the sacerdotal benediction, which is to be given in the church; and It ordains that the benediction shall be given by their own parish priest, and that permission to give the aforesaid benediction cannot be granted by any other than the parish priest himself, or the Ordinary; any custom, even though immemorial, which ought rather to be called a corruption, or any privilege to the contrary, notwithstanding. And if any parish priest, or any other priest, whether Regular or Secular, shall presume to unite in marriage the betrothed of another parish, or to bless them when married, without the permission of their parish priest, he shall-even though he may plead that he is allowed to do this by a privilege, or an immemorial custom,-remain ipso jure suspended, until absolved by the Ordinary of that parish priest who ought to have been present at the marriage, or from whom the benediction ought to have been received.
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