Posted on 03/06/2005 9:45:17 AM PST by Land of the Irish
It is clear that the Church is facing a grave crisis. Under the name of 'the new Church,' 'the post-conciliar Church,' a different Church from that of Jesus Christ is now trying to establish itself; an anthropocentric society threatened with immanentist apostasy which is allowing itself to be swept along in a movement of general abdication under the pretext of renewal, ecumenism, or adaptation. (Henri de Lubac, S.J., at the Institute of Renewal in the Church at the University of Toronto, August 1967)
He sounds all right to me.
Thank-you for helping me make my point.
That's Jesus kissing the scourge there. There couldn't have been a more prophetic moment in recent history of Christianity facing Islam. Wake up and smell the coffee...
Open your eyes man and see prophecy.
All these traditions dictate that whoever the Roman Pontiff judges to be a schismatic for not expressly admitting and reverencing his power must stop calling himself Catholic. Since this does not please the neo-schismatics, they follow the example of heretics of more recent times. They argue that the sentence of schism and excommunication pronounced against them by the Archbishop of Tyana, the Apostolic Delegate in Constantinople, was unjust, and consequently void of strength and influence. They have claimed also that they are unable to accept the sentence because the faithful might desert to the heretics if deprived of their ministration. These novel arguments were wholly unknown and unheard of by the ancient Fathers of the Church. For "the whole Church throughout the world knows that the See of the blessed Apostle Peter has the right of loosing again what any pontiffs have bound, since this See possesses the right of judging the whole Church, and no one may judge its judgment." (Bl. Pius IX, Quartus Supra, 9-10)
Is this not a complete refutation of the SSPX position? Bl. Pius IX dismisses their argument for the injustice of the excommunication and for the state of necessity. Why? "no one may judge its judgment". Do you consider yourself included in that "no one", LOTI?
Do these fit together?
Holy Scripture offers us three striking illustrations. Isaac, when in the Land of Gerar, gave out that Rebecca was his sister, but when Abimelech saw their familiarity, he at once concluded that she was his wife. A malicious mind would rather have supposed that there was some unlawful connection between them, but Abimelech took the most charitable view of the case that was possible. And so ought we always to judge our neighbour as charitably as may be; and if his actions are many-sided, we should accept the best. [. . .] And so when we cannot find any excuse for sin, let us at least claim what compassion we may for it, and impute it to the least damaging motives we can find, as ignorance or infirmity. (St. Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life, cap. 28)
PS: Do you seriously believe that JP II accepts as true "doctrine that rejects the Holy Trinity and the divinity of Jesus"?
You just have: "I will grant you that the Tribunal attempted to excommunicate her; it would seem, however, that it was invalid (and hence there was no excommunication) since it was manifestly contrary to the law."
Get off the fence.
Pope Pius XII, in Humani generis, warned that the new theologians taught modernism in a secretive way, "although they express themselves with prudence in their printed works, they nevertheless speak much more openly in their notes which they hand out in private..." (Humani Generis) This is why they are dangerous. They insinuate themselves carefully among the orthodox, but privately are extremely destructive. Pius XII thought this of DeLubac and he was therefore censured.
And Pius X said this about modernists in general: "They go their way, reprimands and condemnations notwithstanding, masking an incredible audacity under a mock semblance of humility. While they make a pretense of bowing their heads, their minds and hearts are more boldly intent than ever on carrying out their purposes - and this policy they follow willingly and wittingly, both because it is part of their system that authority is to be stimulated but not dethroned, and because it is necessary for them to remain within the ranks of the Church in order that they may gradually transform the collective conscience" (Pascendi)
The Pope unjustly excommunicated Archbishop Lefebvre who was protecting the ancient Mass from the destruction intended by John Paul II. The Archbishop, moreover, correctly and appropriately evoked canon law--canon 1323--which decreed that no one could be excommunicated who believed he must disobey because of a state of necessity--an emergency situation. The Pope ignored his own law--unjustly. He was a modernist--and clearly despised Lefebvre's traditionalism. He believed there was no emergency--even as the Church was collapsing around his ears. The Archbishop was perfectly right to consecrate for the good of souls and the Church in general--and the Pope was completely wrong.
The first trial had been conducted without reference to the pope, indeed it was carried out in defiance of St. Joan's appeal to the head of the Church. Now an appellate court constituted by the pope, after long inquiry and examination of witnesses, reversed and annulled the sentence pronounced by a local tribunal under Cauchon's presidency. The illegality of the former proceedings was made clear... (from the Catholic Encyclopedia)
I am not familiar with the medieval canon law, but it seems likely that ignoring her appeal to the Pope would have made the sentence invalid (for it was indeed illegal). That is why I made the statement that I did.
What nonsense. What need was there to appeal? The fix was in. Do you think the Archbishop was stupid? The Holy See was abandoning the traditional faith--as this article clearly shows. It was time to act--and he did.
Behold, the "state of necessity":
http://www.traditionalmass.org/articles/article.php?id=50&catname=SSPX: Society of St. Pius XIn return, Ratzinger conceded a place for the Society in what Archbishop Lefebvre had always termed “the conciliar church.” Furthermore, Ratzinger agreed to suggest to the “Holy Father” to name a bishop, to be chosen from among the Society’s members.
The next day, May 6th, Archbishop Lefebvre violated the very agreement he entered into, by telling Ratzinger that unless the “Pope” named a bishop and prepared the Apostolic Mandate (the permission to consecrate) by mid-June, he would go ahead with the ceremony anyway. His reasons were that a postponement of this event would cause in the traditionalists a sense of disillusionment. Furthermore, he added, “hotels, means of transport, the immense tents which will be set up for the ceremony, have all been rented.”
Ratzinger and the Archbishop met on May 24th. Ratzinger convinces him that the “Holy Father” will select a bishop from the Society, and will approve of a consecration to be done on August 15th, a mere forty-five days after the much desired June 30th. Lefebvre responds in two letters, one to Ratzinger, the other to Wojtyla, insisting on three bishops and the June 30th consecration date, and that the “Tradition Commission” have a majority of Society members.
There is no presumption of validity when canon law is in contradiction with a papal letter. Papal law trumps a papal opinion expressed in a letter.
What did she appeal? You said she was never excommunicated.
When the fix is in, no amount of appeal works--as in any autocracy based on dishonesty and political interests that transcend any calls to justice by the individual. Do you think the Pope was opposing Lefebvre? Nonsense. He was opposing what Lefebvre represented. He had been disobeyed by dozens and dozens of prelates before the Archbishop. But none defended the old faith with such vigor. That was what was opposed, nothing else.
"And as Bl. Pius IX says: 'For any man to be able to prove his Catholic faith and affirm that he is truly a Catholic, he must be able to convince the Apostolic See of this'"
Of course he also said, "If a future pope teaches anything contrary to the doctrines of the Church, do not follow him." Besides, it would be pretty pointless to try to convince an Apostolic See of your Catholicism when that See itself was abandoning the faith.
You are full of useless quotations. But in this case the citation is ironic, since it is the Pope who has need to prove his faith. It is he who opposed Catholic tradition and elevated modernists and heretics and did all he could to destroy the ancient Mass, not the Archbishop who had never doubted a smidgen of the Catholic faith or the tradition which conveyed it. So it is an irony of ironies to think anybody could appeal to John Paul. There could be no appeal--the fix was in. The Pope himself, in fact, ignored his own canon law to make sure the Archbishop was condemned--and then, by a leap of false logic, incorrectly equated a supposed disobedience with schism itself.
The canon law was not in contradiction.
[The consecrations] were performed expressly against the will of the Pope with a formally schismatic act according to the norm of Canon 751 , he [Archbishop Lefebvre] having openly refused submission to the Supreme Pontiff and communion with the members of the Church subject to him. [. . .] he cannot even apply Canon 1323, any relevant matter foreseen by him not being verified in this case, since even the alleged "necessity" was deliberately created by Archbishop Lefebvre in order to preserve a posture of separation from the Catholic Church, notwithstanding the offers of communion and the concessions made by the Holy Father John Paul II. (L 'Osservatore Romano, "Notice", 3 July 1988)
As the Canon Law says:
Can. 1325 Ignorance which is crass or supine or affected can never be taken into account when applying the provisions of cann. 1323 and 1324. Likewise, drunkenness or other mental disturbances cannot be taken into account if these have been deliberately sought so as to commit the offence or to excuse it; nor can passion which has been deliberately stimulated or nourished.
"Furthermore, Ratzinger agreed to suggest to the 'Holy Father' to name a bishop, to be chosen from among the Society’s members"
And how far do you suppose a suggestion goes? Is it a promise? The Archbishop knew all about Vatican doublespeak. A suggestion is not even a vague promise. A vague promise is not anywhere near a commitment. Rome could be exceedingly slippery--and the entire future of the Catholic Church hung in the balance since the Archbishop was the last holdout against Novus Ordo modernism. Too much to hang upon a mere "suggestion."
But at least you don't repeat the myth that the Pope promised Lefebvre a bishop of his own choosing. It never was true--but was a convenient lie to bolster the Pope's weak position vis a vis Tradition. Especially when he has never been averse to elevating the worst scoundrels, men of low character generally, many of them apostates.
http://home.comcast.net/~icuweb/c01601.htmFr. Henri de Lubac, S.J. made it his life mission to resolve this problem. In 1950, he published a famous book called Surnaturel in which he criticized the traditional solution of Cardinal Cajetan. He believed that this separated nature from grace too much. For his criticism, he himself was much criticized and even silenced by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith from writing on this question. Pius XII wrote an encyclical called Humani Generis in which he maintained that, "Others destroy the true 'gratuity' of the supernatural order, since they think that God cannot produce beings endowed with intellect without ordering and calling them to the beatific vision." Some thought that this was ordered against the opinion of Fr. DeLubac, but this was not the case. Pius XII removed the prohibition on Fr. DeLubac and he reprinted a revised edition of his book in two volumes. These were published in English as: Augustinianism and Modern Theology and The Mystery of the Supernatural.
The author (Fr. Brian Mullady, O.P.) goes on to criticize de Lubac, so I think his report that "Pius XII removed the prohibition on Fr. DeLubac" can be taken as reliable. It would seem, then, that he was censured by the Holy Office and then exonerated by Pius XII.
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