Posted on 12/26/2004 3:42:44 PM PST by ultima ratio
I don't want to get into the communion in the hand debate, because I think it's rather trivial (although I know it's very important to Modernists). Hermits being allowed to keep the Blessed Sacrament in their hermitages is a far cry from people passing around baskets of consecrated bread, leaving it in their cars, or walking around nibbling on it. People who have permission for private chapels are still permitted to keep the Blessed Sacrament (although there are probably far fewer private chapels than there used to be).
And in any case, doctrine and practice develop, and the view of the Eucharist, Eucharistic devotion and practice that we inherited at the time of VatII was the product of almost two thousand years of thought and prayer. I don't think the "Communion in the hand" issue is that important; but at the same time, to casually overthrow a practice that had had such a lengthy development was a terrible decision. In fact, IIRC, it wasn't even part of the initial Novus Ordo package, but was pushed by Modernists in the United States.
St. John Bosco was referring to the common pious belief that superiors manifest the will of God on earth--not that the pope is God per se. You need to show the entire context of what he was saying.
As for the declaration that after the pronouncements of Vatican I, Catholics exaggerated the pope's power, just the opposite is true. It was after Vatican I that Catholics understood more clearly that popes are limited and that their infallibility is conditional.
Infallibility is a completely different matter. In fact, papal processions, etc. are a different matter, because all of these things focus on the office, and not on the man. My point is that in the case of JPII, we are focusing on the man, and not the office.
It was not Pope JPII that said "I am the tradition! I am the Church." That was Pius IX. It was Pius XII who expected everyone to kneel in his presence, even while speaking to him on the telephone. In that respect JPII has broken with tradition.
You have got to be kidding! Infallibility's vapors waft out to imbue every pronouncement of the Pope with a kind of infallibility. Look at the definition of "ordinary magisterium." The Pope's use of "ordinary magisterium" is not infallible, but it just as well be, as every Catholic is bound to observe whatever is said because of it.
The only use of infallibility, other than the actual definition of infallibility itself, was the dogma of the Assumption.
IOW, the rare invocation of infallibility itself proves that infallibility was not the issue, but rather redefining the papacy in relation to the bishops.
Take Humanae Vitae, for instance. Paul VI explicitly refused to issue its teachings as infallible, yet the Vatican insisted that it be observed as if it were.
Why did Paul VI not do so? Because infalliblity says that the Pope must act in union with the other bishops, and there was certainly a lack of consensus among the world's bishops on contraception.
Indeed, the Dogma of Infallibility itself would never have been defined had its own provisions been observed. A large number of the world's bishops were opposed to its issuance.
It was Pius IX, himself, that insisted on the definition of this doctrine. The reasons are many, but the principal one had to do with the waning power of the Papacy and a desire on the part of Pius IX to reinforce it.
"It is needless to point out that for anyone IN TIMES OF PERSECUTION to be compelled to take the communion in his own hand without the presence of a priest or minister is not a serious offence."
"All the solitaries IN THE DESERT, WHERE THERE IS NO PRIEST, take the communion themselves, keeping communion at home"
"And at ALEXANDRIA AND IN EGYPT, each one of the laity, for the most part, keeps the communion, at his own house, and participates in it when he likes."
St. Basil is discussing exceptional cases - not norms. While it may have been the norm at one time for Copts and Melkites to do this it certainly is not now, and there is no evidence that it was ever common or permitted in the Roman Rite.
The practice of receiving Communion in the hand was universally condemned towards the end of the first millenium due to problems of abuses and irreverence. This is how the Holy Spirit has worked in and guided the Church throughout history - her practices have been tightened up as awareness has grown of the divine mysteries which we celebrate. By leading her into greater awareness of the Truth the Holy Spirit has led the Church to greater consistency in her worship and belief.
The great deficiency of the position of those who advocate the liturgical archaeologism condemned by Pius XII, is that it is a constructive denial of the activity of the Holy Spirit in the Church over the last 2,000 years. To reject what was sacrosanct in 1960, is to cut the ground from anything that replaced it after 1970. If the Holy Spirit did not lead the Church to reject Communion in the hand as everyone once thought, then how can we know that it is in accordance with the will of God that receiving Communion in the hand is OK now?
What lasting value has anything that we have or do now, if it can be cast aside on a whim like so much was cast aside in the '60's? Now everything has become temporary, provisional, and ephemeral because ultra-montanism (antithesis) and liberalism (thesis) have combined in an Hegelian synthesis to vest absolute power in men who have now become masters of tradition - not its servants.
Nothing has any lasting meaning any more because the next Pope or Council has total power to change everything - such has the movement of progressivism taken charge of the helm.
"Look at the definition of "ordinary magisterium." The Pope's use of "ordinary magisterium" is not infallible, but it just as well be, as every Catholic is bound to observe whatever is said because of it."
There is a very common misconception of what "ordinary" means. It comes from the Latin word "ordo" which means "What follows through time" and does not mean "run of the mill" which is what we modern English-speakers mean when we use the word "ordinary" nowadays.
Consequently the correct theological hermeneutic of the word "ordinary" when applied to the term "Ordinary Magisterium" is: "What the church has always taught through all time."
Thus when Paul VI issued Humanae Vitae which condemned artificial contraception, he was doing no more than teaching what the Church has always taught. It was thus an act of the Ordinary Magisterium as opposed to the Extra-ordinary Magisterium, and its infallibility derives from the fact that it is a doctrine which Christians have always and everywhere believed.
All doctrine which is Ordinary and Universal (i.e. always and everywhere believed) is by definition infallible.
"It was not Pope JPII that said "I am the tradition! I am the Church." That was Pius IX."
Which goes some way to supporting Likoudis' point - the rot had started long before Vatican II. It just wasn't manifest before the Council.
You don't know what you're talking about. One of the main reasons for holding the First Vatican Council was to resolve the dispute between those who exaggerated the pope's infallibility, and those who believed it was far narrower than many supposed. In fact, after due study, the Council fathers discovered 40 instances of popes having been heretical--and gave the victory to the narrower definition. Cardinal Newman wrote extensively on this--how you can miss its import is beyond me. It was right after the declaration on infallibility that the Old Catholics balked--and rejected the Council's declaration--sticking with the dictum that the pope's infallibility was far broader.
Thank you for that excellent explanation of "ordinary magisterium."
Kneeling before the monarch was practiced in European courts well into modern times. These gestures that JPII eschewed were also being dumpted by modern royals everywhere after World War II. In fact, it was JPII's rejection of small "t" tradition that makes his pontificate so disappointing--and even alarming. He went on to dump big "T" Tradition--ignoring Catholic doctrine, for instance, which forbid considering all religions in some way "more or less good," even when doing so was motivated by charity, and even if it was the Holy See itself that did so (Mortalium Animos). Pius XI called such behavior by any Catholic, "altogether abandoning the divinely revealed religion." How JPII's trashing of Tradition can be reconciled to the perennial teachings of the Catholic Church is beyond me.
Actually, I'm not sure that was really expressive of rot - I think that Pius IX was referring to the Papacy, that is, the office, and not to his own individual personality. (Granted, his way of expressing this would certainly strike most of us as a little excessive nowadays.)
Yet it is not formally defined as infallible. If anything, the formal definition of infallibility denigrated the ordinary teaching of the Church, and focused on papal pronouncements to the detriment of the body of bishops, teaching in union.
Reread the article I just posted. Of COURSE the rot was there! Do you think the preconciliar popes didn't know this and weren't doing all they could to prevent its corrupting the entire Church? All the preconciliar popes since Pius IX knew the dangers to the faith that the modernists were posing. They wrote about it constantly. They set up the Syllabus. They exercised standards and disciplines and sharply reprimanded anyone who stepped out of line. While the rest of the Churche groused, the faith itself flourished! It was their steadfast vigilance that held back the enemies to the faith and kept back the deluge. It was the liberal postconciliar popes--Jn XXIII and Paul VI and JPII--in their great naivete and colossal foolishness and incomprehensible carelessness--that let down the Church's guard and opened the gates to the present disaster.
Re: "But I find this cult of personality profoundly disturbing, and I wonder what will happen when he dies."
There will be two claimants to the seat of Rome. The conclave of Cardinals will be deeply split. There will be interference from secular governments who do not have love for the Church in their hearts. One will be forced to leave Rome. One will be very bad but it will not show for 3-4 years.
"Some priests undermine the faith but still expect the paycheck"
Increasingly they don't even wait for the paycheck but just help themselves.
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