Posted on 02/03/2014 11:37:02 AM PST by ebb tide
I did.
Do you contend that Peter didn't have the grace of repentance from the mercy of God at that point in his life? He surely had the faith to repent, since he immediately understood the gravity of his sin.
I wanted to be Roman Catholic until I learned, among other things, that Rome’s exegesis of the Scriptural passages (Matt. 16; John 20) which allegedly establish the papacy was not shared by the early church. And this is no surprise, considering that the historical record does not vindicate Romanist claims of supremacy/infallibility either. It’s a giant tautology. Unfortunately, most people who are prone to swim the Tiber are prevented by fear of damnation or a swooning smitten-ness that they have no interest in doing their homework.
I offer the following essay (really, it’s a short book) for your consideration:
And another, for good measure:
http://www.tdaviddemarest.com/2013/04/30/sic-volo-sic-iubeo-on-papal-infallibility/
Under the +Mercy
TDD
You certainly did. And...
The current price of tea in China is: ¥ 1.40
with a max bid of ... 70.67
Ecclesia Dei was a result of Archbishop Lefebvre’s actions. Those of us who presently attend diocesan or Institute of Christ the King or FSSP Masses can only do so because he acted to preserve the Latin Mass. Popes Paul VI and JPII were not inclined to preserve it. The reason Archbishop Lefebvre performed the consecrations was because he knew that at the Vatican they were just waiting for him to die, at which point the Latin Mass would have disappeared due to attrition. They did not act in good faith in their treatment of him.
It’s interesting that for decades the faithful were led to believe by Rome that the Latin Mass had been abrogated, when this was never the case. It’s also interesting that Lefebvre predicted and dreaded the modernist crisis in the Church that we are now living through. Lex orandi, lex credendi.
The hierarchy and priests in many cases are refusing to uphold the Faith. It’s not unreasonable to wonder whether many of them even HAVE the Faith. Just today, for example, I read that Enda Kenny, the pro-abort president of Ireland (who has supposedly incurred latae sententiae excommunication, as did Lefebvre) not only was given Holy Communion by the bishop, but actually had Communion brought to him in his pew, as though he was royalty. In the Archdiocese of Boston, the Cardinal promotes homo priests and allows priests to preach blasphemy (e.g. Monsignor Garrity referring to homosexual “families” as on par with the Holy Family at the Masses this past Christmas). The list of horrors goes on and on, and the faithful are left to wander in heterodoxy and confusion.
We are living in strange times and circumstances aren’t necessarily as black and white as they may seem. If you had to choose between a hideously heterodox diocesan Mass where your children would be indoctrinated with gay propaganda from the pulpit or an SSPX mass, which would be the better choice?
Meanwhile, in other news, this year John Paul II aka John Paul the Great will be raised to the honors of the altar and be recognized by canonization as a saint, an outcome not very likely to be conferred on Marcel the Defiant unless SSPX, at some point, purports to have its own canonization process and thereby fully admits to being its own "church."
If the actual Pope St. Pius X were around today, he would make mincemeat out of SSPX for its remarkable pretension of being more Catholic than the pope and entitled to make "demands" upon the pope, "negotiate" with the pope, and publicly despise the pope for disagreeiong with the teaching magisterium of Marcel the Revolutionary.
People who claim to be Catholic but act towards a pope as Marcel and de Mallerais, and Williamson and Gallerata (sp.?) and Fellay have share a problematical view of Catholicism in apparently either:
1) Disbelieving Jesus Christ in his specific promises to Peter;
2) Somehow imagine that the power of the keys was Peter's and Peter's alone (together with only those popes of whom SSPX approves?);
3) Somehow believes that the See of Peter has been vacant since Pius XII died or maybe even longer and even I don't think that is their belief but, who knows, maybe I am too kind to Marcel's creatures.
I am going to take your paragraphs out of order. This promises to be an overly long response which is what happens when I am being respectful.
As to your second paragraph, it certainly appeared that the Tridentine Mass had been abolished via the work of the execrable Archbishop Bugnini in Rome and, in the United States, by the misbehavior of Bishops Imesch (Joliet, IL) and Trautman (Erie, PA) and the International Committee on English Liturgy (I may have the group's name wrong but that describes what they functioned as). Pope Paul VI made many prudential errors and the issuance of his missal with the Novus Ordo Mass in the vernacular was near the top of the list.
The Second Vatican Council, as I understand it, called for the addition of an Old Testament reading and for it and the Gospel and the Epistle to be read to the congregation in the vernacular (in our case, English) and the rest of the Mass was to be left alone in Latin, as always. Bugnini was charged with modifying the rubrics and went infinitely beyond the desire of the Council. Nonetheless, Novus Ordo was promulgated by Paul VI. He too was pope but, other than Humanae Vitae, he is not fondly remembered by Traditionalists. Nor is John XXIII who is about to be canonized nonetheless. Nor, at the rate things are going, will Francis be fondly remembered by Traditionalists. Each, however was pope and a successor to Peter, whatever we might have preferred.
Holy Mother the Church is emphatically NOT a democracy or even a republic. It is, in fact a monarchy, with its popes chosen by the cardinals elevated by the preceding popes. In the too brief tenure of John Paul I, the lengthy tenure of soon to be canonized John Paul II and the too brief tenure of Benedict XVI, we had 45 very grateful years to begin to recover from the gushy liberal enthusiasms that briefly (but all too long) overwhelmed the Roman Catholic Church "in the Spirit of Vatican II" which seemed to mean whatever the Bernardins and the Suenens and so many other Jadot-era prelates imagined as their wish lists.
Personally, I made it (barely) through John XXIII and Paul VI as a Catholic by telling myself that the Holy Spirit guides the Conclave in the choice of popes and sometimes we need to be punished. I barely avoided becoming Russian Orthodox in an American church meant to be far more anti-communist than the one in Russia. A good friend persuaded me to subscribe to the Wanderer for a year before making such a decision. By the end of the subscription, Paul VI had died and been replaced by John Paul II. That was the end of my personal crisis in Catholicism.
The circumstances prevailing at the time of the two conclaves of 1978 were very well explained in Fr. Malachi Martin's novel The Final Conclave, published one year before Paul VI's death in 1977. I don't know your age or whether you read that novel or its sequel Windswept House (JP II in the late winter of his life, disabled by age and illness with the vultures circling) but both should be read by every Catholic who wishes to understand "the Spirit of Vatican II" insanity that forced corrective action by the cardinals in electing John Paul I (long a protege of Cardinal Ottaviano but a bit estranged over differences in submission to papal authority) and Blessed John Paul II and where things were heading as the great pontiff slowly died over several years.
Lex orandi, lex credendi: I never pray what I don't already believe and I bet you don't either and I bet that our beliefs on matters of faith and morals are remarkably similar. We apparently differ only as to personalities and certain assertions of what we respectively believe to be facts.
As early as 1970, I requested of the then newly installed Archbishop of Hartford permission for the saying of a Tridentine Mass for a conservative political conference in the vicinity of Hartford. The organization's national chairman, a convert, had requested that I try to arrange it. Not only was it allowed but the Tridentine era chapel at the seminary was made available as was a priest willing and able to say the Tridentine Mass. The archbishop signed the letter of permission.
A year later, I requested another Tridentine Mass at New Haven under similar circumstances. That request was enthusiastically and emphatically denied by an archdiocesan Msgr. "poobah" who informed me (but not in writing) that anyone favoring the Tridentine Mass was "sick." I was convinced that it was Msgr. "poobah's" decision and not that of the archbishop but it was too late to communicate to the archbishop.
Meanwhile, in the very early 1980s, a group of New Haven and Yale Catholics successfully petitioned Archbishop Whealon to grant the wish of the St. Gregory Society to sponsor Tridentine Masses at New Haven, at first monthly and then weekly on Sundays and on Holy Days of Obligation. The St. Gregory Society, unlike some less successful Trad groups, made a point of being polite to a fault, acknowledging the validity of the Novus Ordo but also expressing a sincere desire to attend the Mass of their ancestors regularly. Music has always been provided by a first rate choir known as the Schola Cantorum of St. Mary's Church (the one where the Knights of Columbus was founded by Fr. McGivney). The Archbishop did require that the Tridentine Masses be said in the second oldest New Haven Catholic Church (Sacred Heart Church built in about 1858) in an attempt to save what had become a ghetto parish. Masses were said by various priests including the pastor at 2 PM on Sunday afternoons.
Another group at Hartford successfully petitioned for a monthly Mass at Our Lady of Sorrows there.
By 1986, the archdiocesan Msgr. poobah had been stricken by lung cancer and was replaced by a nun (!) whom my wife and I reference as "Sister Mary Sandanista." We petitioned the Archbishop for permission to have a Tridentine wedding Mass at St. Mary's to be said by an old school Jesuit friend at what had become a Dominican Church a century before. We observed the usual formalities and assured the Archbishop that a denial would be understood and accepted but that we very much hoped that he would grant our request.
His answer granting our request came back typed on a rickety manual typewriter (a sure sign that he typed it personally). We also got a gushy letter from "Sr. Mary Sandanista" congratulating us and wishing us many children. THEN, someone explained to Sr. Mary Sandanista what a Tridentine Mass was. On the Friday afternoon, at 4:55 PM, on the day before the Tridentine wedding, she called the pastor to tell him that a terrible mistake had been made and that it MUST be a Novus Ordo wedding Mass. I was informed by the pastor almost immediately and I called the chancery just as immediately.
Under the circumstances, my bride and I were steamed. Sister Mary Sandanista had left for the weekend (apparently immediately after trying to screw up our wedding and make fools of us in front of our guests. The chancery had already closed but a priest from another diocese was there to pick up another priest for an army reserve meeting. He answered the phone, said that, although the archbishop was still there, he would communicate my emergency to the archbishop but thought any further communications would be to the pastor from the archbishop personally. I had asked to speak directly to the Archbishop but what the priest said made sense.
I went straight to the rectory agout a block and a half away and I was greeted by the pastor who said: "Great news! The archbishop called, said it will be a Tridentine wedding Mass and anyone who says otherwise had better have a higher position in the archdiocese than the Archbishop. John Paul II declined to overrule but I doubt he had heard of the situation and also doubt that he would have interfered.
As to your third paragraph, you may recall the Clint Eastwood movie Hang 'em High about the Oklahoma Territory when it seemed to be ruled by a notorious federal ":hangin' judge" whose chambers were in Fort Smith, Arkansas, That judge kept his US Marshalls sooooo busy that he had to build a gallows for ten activated by pulling the metal ring beneath each respective trap door and, by passing a long metal pipe through two or all ten of them, could hang ten at a time.
We should dust off the blueprints for that ten nooser, construct a new one, revive the Holy Inquisition as it used to be under the distinguished Dominican Fra Tomas de Torquemada and train a new hangman to man the pipe as often as necessary to really clean house. Among my very first nominees for the noose and trap door would be Sean Cardinal O'Malley, Oscar Cardinal Madriaga of Honduras, the Brazilian Joao Cardinal Braz de Aziz, Fr. Jenkins of Notre Shame University and his predecessors Monk Malloy and Theodore Hesburgh, Roger Cardinal Mahoney former ordinary of Los Angeles, and too many others to cite here but you get the idea. Throw in the bishop (Was it Diurmid O'Martin?) who desecrated the Host by giving it to Enda Kenny (in his pew no less????) Also throw in Msgr. Gerrity who is apparently ignorant of what goes where and wants to pass that impious ignorance to your family. Enda Kenny tops the list of "Catholic" politicians who deserve to drop with a noose but we cannot forget such phonies posing as Catholics as John Forbes (did you know he served in Vietnam, but served whom?) Kerry, Joseph Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Rosa DeLauro, Tom Harkin, Little Dickie Durbin, Kathleen Gilligan Sebelius, Maria Cantwell, Senator Robert (he gets no credit for his fine late father) Casey, Sandra Day O'Kennedy of SCOTUS.... On a Clear Day, You can See Forever.... You get the idea. If we cannot burn them alive nowadays, maybe we can have a private collective post-mortem cremation after each pull of the gallows pipe.
As to your fourth and final paragraph, bearing in mind that St. Francis of Assisi reportedly was asked whether he would receive the Eucharist from an ignoble priest said that he would enthusiastically receive the Eucharist from any priest, if, as is suggested by your post, you reside in the Boston Archdiocese, surely it has, even after Bernard Cardinal Law and his immediate predecessor, more than one Catholic Church in communion with its bishop (sigh!) and the pope (sigh!) still exist in the formerly uber-Catholic Archdiocese of Boston. Have the churches of my South Boston ancestry been taken over by heathens? Where does the sainted Billy Bulger attend Mass? I believe that O'Malley will be 70 on June 29 (but who is counting? I am, I am) and that he must submit his resignation by June 29, 2019, only a few years after Obozo is scheduled to step down. If all else fails, call Massachusetts Citizens for Life and ask to be put in touch with Bill Cotter who will know where you may take your children to actual Catholic Masses by non-schismatic priests.
The answer to your question is that you must find an appropriate church to which to lead your family for Mass, not one preaching perversion as normalcy and not one associated with the likes of LeFebvre, de Mallerais, Williamson, de Galareta and Fellay. There is an Opus Dei House at Plymouth with Latin Novus Ordo Masses with the tabernacle where it belongs and the priest facing it with his back to the congregation, as God probably intended. Not perfect but they don';t preach perversion either.
If Boston is too far gone, move to Rockford. Bishop Thomas Doran is retired now but Bishop Malloy shows promise so far and Doran left an outstanding cadre of young and very orthodox priests. It costs money to move from New England but we did and (except for the weather this winter) it has been worth it. St. Mary's Oratory of the Institute of Christ the King was elevated by Bishop Doran to Oratory status to guarantee its permanence. Bishop Doran knows his stuff on Canon Law in that respect having long served as one of seven members of the Signatura which is the Church's supreme court.
I am probably not going to change your mind on the content of your first paragraph, but it seems to come straight out of the SSPX play book. I will agree on one (perhaps unintentional) point. The excommunications contained in Ecclesia Dei WERE the direct result and the only possible result of LeFebvre's gross disobedience and violation of his priestly vow of same along with his illicitly consecrated bishops and their vows.
My personal favorite living SSPX bishop for excommunication purposes is de Mallerais and his infernal mouth as to soon to be St. John Paul II. If de Mallerais were burned at the stake, it would partially atone for the treatment of St. Joan of Arc. You can see why God did not make me pope.
Luther had his asserted reasons. Henry VIII had his, Elizabeth I had hers. Calvin had his. Zwingli had his. So did a host of others down through history. I say this as a Catholic and not to offend our separated brethren or to instigate arguments with them since they do not claim Catholicism while SSPX does. Most of those named have gone to the ash heap of history. Jesus Christ promised to be with HIS Church (not its offshoots) to the very end. His judgment and His marker are infinitely more reliable than Marcel's.
If anything in this post, including its length (which is just me being me), offends you in any way, I assure you that it was not intentional. God bless you and yours and may He extend every assistance to you in your marriage and in the raising of your children now and always!
Black Elk,
I appreciate your thoughtful response, experience and insights. Must respond with relative brevity (on a mobile).
We’re clearly in agreement on a preponderance of Church-related issues. You are undoubtably aware of the dismal statistics and steadily increasing difficulty for many of accessing an orthodox Mass. For some, valid but illicit may well be the best they can find within striking distance of their homes, so although I have not personally attended Mass at an SSPX chapel, I can’t make the assumption that those who do so haven’t good reason.
Regarding Archbishop Lefebvre and the consecrations, the situation is far from black and white. The Pope is of course #1 in the earthly chain of command, but if he told you to jump out a window, you would be obliged to refuse. Lefebvre and de Castro Mayer, steeped in Pascendi and having sworn the Oath Against Modernism, apparently believed (after observing nearly 20 yrs. of post-Vat II meltdown, so they were hardly reactionary) that they were being asked to commit the spiritual equivalent of same.
Unfortunately, consistency has been lacking on the papal front. Pope JP II said Lefebvre had excommunicated himself. Benedict XVI referred to the archbishop as “this grest man of the universal Church”. Pope Francis says “Who am I to judge” in regard to homosexualism and decries “small-minded rules” while promoting ecumenism (except toward the SSPX) at every turn (even recommending to Muslims that they read the Koran, which he ridiculously claims does not promote violence). Meanwhile, de facto schismatics within the bosom of the Church are permitted to go their merry way, yet the orthodox FFI is slandered and destroyed by the Pope’s man, and those within the Church who attempt to follow Catholic Tradition are referred to by our Holy Father as “self-absorbed promethean neo-pelagians”.
The lack of consistency (and of logic) emanating from Church leadership is astounding. Catholics are NOT obliged to assent to absurdities, inconsistencies and falsehoods in the name of religion. Faith and reason are inseparable. Therefore, i don’t see how we can, in justice, unilaterally condemn those who, particularly in the atmosphere of chaos and confusion which has been emanating from the top down for decades and having taken to heart the Church’s previous warnings against the heresy of Modernism, invoke the conscience clause out of a desire to avoid same. Who are we to judge?
God Bless.
Last things first! When Pope Francis said "Who am I to judge?," he made what amounts to an asinine statement. In fact, of 7+ billion on earth, he, and only he, holds the keys and he is therefore to judge. Liberal popes prefer the huzzahs and enthusiasm of the uneducated and often uneducable masses and the approval of the ever-present media motormouths when he needs to be LEADING the application of the Teaching Magisterium of the Church TO the Church in particular and to the world at large. When the pope does his job well (not the present situation) and the world recoils and goes on auto-attack, we know he is doing something right. The world will hate us for following Jesus Christ. Francis has squandered his first year doing little or doing worse: all profile, no courage.
On to other matters than Francis' incredibly damaging abdication of responsibility which will haunt the Church for years to come as though it were somehow a dogmatic statement and not merely the worst prudential blunder of his papacy to date. Francis is no John Paul II. How I miss JP II! He had a very long papacy but every moment was to cherish.
I have no idea what you are referencing as "dismal statistics." Please be more specific. We may well have dismal statistics but there are so many categories: Attendance at Mass on days of obligation? Sacrament of Penance? Confirmations? Ordinations to the priesthood? People leaving the Church vs. those coming in? Closing of parochial schools? Responses to polling on public issues by those who CLAIM to be Catholic? It makes a difference which statistics we are discussing.
"Steadily increasing difficulty for many of accessing orthodox Mass": What does that mean? In the Rockford Diocese, the opportunities to attend such Masses are increasing as I understand it. In addition to St. Mary's Oratory (all Tridentine all the time), we again have one of the Novus Ordo parishes seeking to establish a Tridentine Mass at least weekly. It takes a while to set up for the Tridentine Mass. An altar Missal and prayer cards must be obtained along with appropriate vestments, training of priest and altar boys, etc. This diocese is quite friendly to those Catholics preferring the Tridentine Mass.
This diocese also has a burgeoning cadre of quite orthodox young priests recruited under now retired Bishop Doran, some of whom have said Tridentine Masses and all of whom are orthodox in their preaching. They don't mince words. These priests are mostly assigned to Novus Ordo parishes which either are not architecturally appropriate for Tridentine Masses (i.e., there is only the "hot dog stand" modern altar, the tabernacle is nowhere in the sight of the parishioners, there is no altar rail at which to kneel for the Eucharist, etc.). The recruitment of additional Churches and their architectural restructuring will not be an overnight affair, nor in many dioceses will the recruitment of priests and altar boys. There will be absolutely stubborn resistance by Novus Ordo parishioners who favor Kumbaya and will tolerate nothing less.
That leaves us with the possibility that some traditional Catholics simply refuse to accept the validity of the Novus Ordo Mass. That is not their call. It was appropriately promulgated by Paul VI. Personally, I do not like the Novus Ordo rubrics at all. My wife, who was in a position to know what dioceses and bishops were Tridentine friendly chose Rockford when we were determined to shake the dust of deterioration New England off our shoes and for the good of our then young children. While we moved here to get Thomas Doran as our Bishop and to join a Tridentine community, I continued to attend some reverently said Novus Ordo Masses for reasons of convenience while my wife attended what was then the Shrine and its Tridentine Masses.
The SSPX seems to presume the invalidity or worse of the Novus Ordo Mass. They are wrong and that is not their call. Their authoritarian (but without any authority whatsoever) approach is disrespectful of legitimate authority from popes on down. They presume to dictate TO the pope and they have no authority to do so. If the Catholic Church means anything, it is a Church founded by Jesus Christ upon Peter as pope. The authority so conferred continues through all those many popes to this day. We have had spectacularly immoral popes such as Alexander VI (Borgia)and others who murdered their predecessors to obtain the title and we survived as a Church as Jesus Christ guaranteed we would. I suspect we can survive the Kumbaya era of John XXIII and Paul VI and "Spirit of Vatican II" flapdoodle and then the neo-Kumbaya Francis so long as Jesus Christ is with us to the very end of this world as He is.
I am really, really stubborn. How about you?
Pascendi Domenici Gregis was the great anti-modernist encyclical by Pope St. Pius X. When my wife and I were dating and traveling long distances by car to visit others, we used to read Pascendi Domenici Gregis and Lamentabile Sane which immediately preceded it, to eah other as we drove. It rests on the authority of Pope St. Pius X as pope and not our respective sense of celebration in reading it. Pius XII had the same authority. So did John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II and Benedict XVI and now Francis. These are matters of faith and morals. Question one pope and one questions them all and the Church itself.
Remember the priest (the late Fr. Norman Weslin) who was arrested on orders of the Notre Shame University poobahs for carrying a cross onto their campus as Obozo was being honored? He was a client of mine in pro-life "Rescues." He said very reverent Novus Ordo Masses on my dining room table as my house guest. I don't think Father Weslin ever said a Tridentine Mass but if every Catholic priest (and bishop and cardinal and pope) were a Fr. Norman Weslin, we would have little to fear from this world.
Before anyone attends the valid but illicit Masses of SSPX in lieu of Novus Ordo Masses by priests in communion with bishop and pope, I think it reasonable to suggest that moving to known legitimate Tridentine Mass venues ought to be considered. I understand that such a move is not very practical for many. especially if such a move takes a family far from relatives, friends, business connections, good-paying jobs in this awful economy. For the person legitimately tormented by Kumbaya parishes where much of Catholicism is absent or trashed vs. SSPX venues where legitimate Church leadership is trashed, that person should carefully consider whether the spiritual goods of Catholicism ought not outweigh the practical lethargy of worldly life especially in those families with children of tender years.
We also have our own schools (plural) including a K-12 where my wife teaches. They learn Latin (and sing Latin hymns in public) and orthodox theology and Church history and diagram sentences from an early age and write regular essays from 2nd grade forward. They learn free market economics from texts by Milton Friedman and I hope to influence them to teach Friedrich von Hayek's Road to Serfdom and maybe von Mises after that. As I type, my wife is baking a cheese cake to reward two high school juniors for acing pre-calculus. They know about Patrick Henry's immortal speech but they also know the intricacies of the infighting at the Continental Congress as it considered the Declaration of Independence and the identities of Founding Fathers whose support for the ratification of the Constitution cost them dearly in financial terms. The school (organized and controlled by founding parents) at which my wife teaches has received the Henry Salvatori Prize for Excellence in Teaching from non-Catholic but friendly Hillsdale College. Tuitions are quite reasonable and on a sliding scale to reward large families. Full tuition for child #1 currently enrolled, 20% off for the next child currently enrolled, and another discount for each child in order until (for large families) there will be no tuition at all for the youngest enrolled child(ren) and God bless such families. There is also another excellent school for middle school to high school students run by a classical scholar who belongs to my Knights of Columbus Council and is, again modest in tuition.
Our schools feature small numbers per class and the students get plenty of individual attention. Typically, my wife e-mails the parents of her students each night to keep them up to date on the child's progress or lack thereof, missing homework, conduct, grades on homework and tests and quizzes, etc. Monthly attendance at First Friday Mass is mandatory for all students and the students provide the music. There are daily rosaries at the end of the school day with appropriate intentions and outdoor Stations of the Cross on premises.
If Francis accuses SSPXdom of being a haven for "self-absorbed promethian neo-Pelagians," then the pope who is rapidly assuming the persona pf Pope Chatty Cathy I in his enthusiasm to hear himself babble meaninglessly and without self-discipline to the secular media, is reaching new depths. Promethian would suggest that SSPX is bringing man the gift of fire. Any Jesuit of any time should feel a deep sense of shame over such nonsense and we suspect that Francis is no fan of SSPX. Neo-Pelagian???? Is there evidence that SSPX denies original sin and its effects? Even I don't attack them on such grounds. Self-absorbed seems appropriate but a pope should have a better batting average than .333 on a matter of faith and morals.
Gotta turn the computer over to my wife. Proof-reading has become optional. More later.
Popes were NOT telling LeFebvre to jump out of windows and, if a pope did, that would hardly be a matter of teaching faith and morals. If a pope were to tell a person or group not to attend the World Series or the Super Bowl because the sky was going to fall, likewise.
"Having good reason" is wrong on two counts. First, as Catholics, we do not subscribe to the "end justifies the means" school of moral reasoning. We leave that to the Marxists and their fascist second cousins. We believe that means and ends must be licit. Secondly, when the Church taught that natural family planning might be engaged in "for grave reason." many, smelling a loophole, started to get verrrry creative as to what constituted "grave" reasons and were really, really lenient on themselves. How many told themselves that grave reason included saving up for that vacation home, for that trust fund to send junior to Harvard without loans, or until the would be mom became the head of private banking at her employer bank when dad's income was quite sufficient for living comfortably, much less for simply living?
Ecumenism? Let us suppose that there are some Catholic recruiting sergeant types who imagine that we might merge the Congregationalist denomination into Catholicism. IIRC, the Congregationalists have some pastors who are practicing homosexuals, are "married to one another" and brag regularly about it. They also have the Rev. Mr. Jeremiah Wright of Obozo fame. (Of course, we still have Father Pfleger in Chicago and a few other scandals theological and/or otherwise). On what possible grounds might there be "ecumenism" with Congregationalists who also have the "right" to "call" or hire and fire their own pastors according to the idiosyncracies of each respective congregation. Now we might well accept with the joy of the Lord such Congregationalists as may have seen fit to swim the Tiber while leaving Congregationalist beliefs and practices that made them separated brethren behind in submission to the teaching authority and moral authority of the pontiff. We can hardly "negotiate" terms with the denomination as to what compromises of Catholic doctrine or practice Rome is willing to indulge to buy the loyalty of Congregationalists to Rome. Ecumenism would then take on the clothing of a corporate merger, not very likely in my lifetime, your lifetime or God's lifetime.
The SSPX bishops from the departed LeFebvre to those whom he consecrated are in any event, quite obviously not interested in "negotiating" anything. They consistently demand unconditional surrender of the pontiff and the Church to them and their ideas. Attila the Hun did not get that from Leo the Great. Why should Fellay get that from any pope? What would it mean if he did? Would a Fellay "victory" mean that the Roman Catholic Church had ceased to be the Roman Catholic Church after the death of Pius XII and until bludgeoned back into line by the mice that roared? Now, how likely is that? Would it mean that any subsplinter of the future could likewise bludgeon the papacy into line by claiming orthodoxy and (improperly formed) conscience aided by rank defiance of papal authority?
So far, we are accepting to the priesthood, after re-training and Catholic ordination, ministers, even married ministers, of the Episcopalian or Anglican churches and the various Lutheran churches. We accept baptisms by other Christian churches as valid generally. We accept marriages in other Christian churches of members of those churches as valid. We accept all of the sacraments of the Eastern Orthodox Churches as valid. We accept all that as to SSPX priests and adherents as well.
Benedict XVI bent over backwards throughout his papacy to bring these miscreants back into the Church. He lifted the excommunications of the living SSPX bishops, cooed in their ears, ignored their perfidious conduct against JP II and against himself and against the Church. Still he tried to bring them back in. Fat lot of good that did him, the Church or those addicted to SSPX's remarkable imaginings. The schismatics were stomped upon by JP II for their defiant and direct disobedience of his legitimate orders to LeFebvre not to consecrate bishops without papal permission. Bear in mind that, for all of the SSPX falderol about Vatican II, Marcel LeFebvre himself was a Council Father and signed off on the documents of that council personally. Later on, LeFebvre changed his mind.
IF Benedict XVI ever called LeFebvre a "great man of the Universal Church," that will rank right up there with Francis' "Who am I to judge?" Personally, I am a great believer in "small-minded rules."
If SSPX is neo-anything it would be neo-Donatist since the SSPX seems to first question the morality of Vatican officials including popes and then suggest that today's Vatican is therefore not the "real" Church but has gone astray and that somehow SSPX is the surviving remnant of the real thing. Does anyone who thinks seriously about this tempest in a teapot give SSPX credence? I hope not.
Wife needs computer. More later.
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