Posted on 01/25/2005 2:58:28 PM PST by csbyrnes84
Father Paul Sretenovic, a priest of the Archdiocese of Newark, New Jersey, who was ordained to the priesthood in 2002, has abandoned the Novus Ordo in order to embrace Catholic Tradition without compromise. Father Sretenovic (pronounced Stre-ten-o-vich) informed his ordinary, the Most Reverend John Myers, the Archbishop of Newark, of his decision in a letter mailed to his Excellency’s home address on the Feast of the Holy Innocents, Wednesday, December 28, 2004:
“Your Excellency: I am writing to inform you of my decision to leave the Archdiocese of Newark. It is a decision that is eighteen months in the making, and it has finally come to a head. This archdiocese, while retaining some very good priests, is, like every other diocese in the Catholic Church today, plagued by the heresy of modernism in many different forms. I recently attended a Monday afternoon of Reflection at Southmont with the Opus Dei priests and listened as one of them said that we are not looking to return to Christendom. To me, that said it all. It is not just about the Latin Mass. It is something much, much deeper, and it is the basis of my decision. Pope Pius XI in his encyclical, Quas Primas, said that Jesus Christ is not only the Lord of every individual, but also of every human society. The Syllabus of Errors of Blessed Pius IX, #77, in particular, exposes the error of separation of Church and State, a doctrine now upheld by the Vatican as the ideal, using both the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on Religious Liberty, which could very easily have been called the Declaration of Religious Liberty (reference to our Declaration of Independence intended), as well as individual decisions from the Vatican to accelerate such a separation in what were otherwise thoroughly Catholic countries, such as, among others, Colombia, 98% Catholic. The orientation of the Church is now very much in line with the principles of the French Revolution, namely liberty, fraternity, and equality. Hence, the mainstay catchwords from the Council—religious liberty, ecumenism, and collegiality. That is not a coincidence, and it is evil. The Liturgy is just one of the many lambs to be slaughtered along the way towards a Christian Democracy, which, to the dismay and shock of many in the Church, will lead directly to the worldwide takeover of Atheistic Communism, warned of indirectly by Our Lady of Fatima in 1917, and communicated by Sr. Lucia to the Catholic historian William Thomas Walsh in 1946. Russia has still not been consecrated, and she continues to spread her errors until one day, it will be too late. In the meantime, I choose to exercise my priesthood in the way intended by Almighty God, teaching sound doctrine and leading the flock by holiness of life, as St. Paul exhorted St. Timothy in his pastoral epistle.
“In the situation in which I am now, and basically in any Novus Ordo parish anywhere in the world, let alone this particular Archdiocese, I always have to watch my back and I always, at each and every Mass that I offer, have to compromise. Whether it is in the bad wording or bland prayers of the Sacramentary, or in the distribution of Communion in the hand, or in the virtually mandatory use of Extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion, there is always something there to remind me, as the song goes, and it stops now. I pray to God and to Our Blessed Mother that you obtain the grace necessary to perceive the gravity of the present situation and to act accordingly. I include my email address below for further correspondence. I know this is a shock, but for me, even the FSSP would be a compromise. Haven’t we all done enough of that?! As people were looking East this Advent season, Our Lady was leading me to, go West. In Christ the King, Fr. Paul Branko Sretenovic.”
In an e-mail to this writer sent on January 9, 2005, Father Sretenovic explained the sequence of events after this point:
“To give you the backdrop of my correspondence with the Archbishop, he said that parts of what I wrote, without specifying, were ‘inaccurate’ and ‘unfair.’ I responded through the Vicar General for the time-being that what I wrote was not ‘inaccurate’ and ‘unfair.’ I then asked the question as to whether the Archbishop would say that Cardinal Ratzinger was either of the two, specifying the terms, when he wrote that through the Council, the Church had ‘come to terms with the principles of 1789.’ I left it at that and will write the Archbishop directly within the week.”
Father Sretenovic had determined quite clearly that he could no longer make any further compromises with a Mass that did not give God the full honor and glory that are His due and a pastoral approach to the problems of the world that was premised upon a rejection of a defined teaching of the Catholic Church, the Social Kingship of Jesus Christ, and an actual embrace of the errors of Modernity and Modernism.
Father Sretenovic did indeed head west, leaving Our Lady, Queen of Peace Church in Maywood, New Jersey, on Thursday, December 29, 2004, the Feast of Saint Thomas a Becket, to drive out to Our Lady Help of Christians Church in Garden Grove, California, joining Father Patrick J. Perez and Father Lawrence C. Smith in the offering of the Traditional Latin Mass and the totality of the Catholic Faith in all of its integrity to Catholics in one of the most liturgically revolutionary places in the whole Church, the Metropolitan Province of Los Angeles, California. Father Sretenovic distributed Holy Communion to the faithful at Our Lady Help of Christians on the Feast of the Holy Family on Sunday, January 9, 2005, saying, “I have never before felt like I did in my first Traditional giving of the Eucharist, or however you want to put it. It was awesome and I felt like a priest in a way that I haven't before. The formula is much better, not to mention the signing of the Cross, and the use of the paten for the Sacred Particles, AND the posture of the people with open mouths, heads tilted upwards like chicks eagerly welcoming their mother with the food that she is providing for them.” [He offered his first Traditional Latin Mass there on Sunday, January 16, 2005.]
Father Sretenovic, who was born on January 8, 1974, found his way to Our Lady Help of Christians within three months of meeting Father Perez at Father Nicholas Gruner’s Fatima conference in Glendale, California, at the end of September, 2004. Father Perez’s mother, Mrs. Margaret Perez, saw Father Sretenovic and told him that he had to meet her son, making sure that the two of them sat down for dinner after Father Perez’s talk at the conference. Father Sretenovic was impressed with Father Perez’s knowledge of the Faith and of the development of the Mass. Mr. John Vennari, the editor of Catholic Family News, also spoke to Father Sretenovic about the crisis in the Church and of the necessity of fleeing from the Novus Ordo structures. Seeds were being planted.
Father Sretenovic contacted this writer in early December of 2004, and a luncheon meeting was arranged in Wayne, New Jersey, following a First Friday Mass at Our Lady of Fatima Chapel in Pequannock, New Jersey, on December 3, 2004. This writer and his wife, to put it charitably, pummeled Father Sretenovic, asking him bluntly as to how long he could continue to give out Communion in the hand and continue to offer a Mass that less fully communicates the truths of the Catholic Faith and does not render God the full honor and glory that are His due. Father Sretenovic listened, particularly to Mrs. Droleskey’s heartfelt plea to give Our Lord and His flock unfettered access to the fullness of the Catholic Faith. Father Sretenovic promised to contact Fathers Perez and Smith. He also wrote fairly immediately to Father Stephen P. Zigrang, whose association with the Society of Saint Pius X prompted the soon-to-be promoted Archbishop of Galveston-Houston, the Most Reverend Joseph Fiorenza, a protégé of the late Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, to suspend him for an association with a “schismatic” group that, among other things, denied the “enduring validity of the Old Covenant God made with the people of Israel.”
Father Sretenovic carefully weighed his options, keeping in close contact with Father Lawrence C. Smith, who left the Diocese of Davenport, Iowa, on September 8, 2003. Father Sretenovic also had contact with priests in the Society of Saint Pius X, determining ultimately that it would be best for him to be with Fathers Perez and Smith in California. Father was most intent on placing himself in a situation where the gaps in his preparation for priestly ordination could be closed and he could concentrate on his own personal sanctification while offering Catholics the Immemorial Mass of Tradition. He arrived at his decision after a great deal of reflection and a bit of indecision, coming to the conclusion in the final analysis that he needed to make a clean break from the diocesan structure sooner rather than later, understanding that the faithful have a right in perpetuity to the Traditional Latin Mass, which can never be subject justly to any limitations or conditions by any bishop, including the Pope himself. Father Smith was most instrumental in helping Father Sretenovic to come to this decision, saying that “it was his call that put me over the edge. Within 20 minutes after my conversation with him, I was writing my letter” to Archbishop Myers.
Father Sretenovic was not heedless of the fact that his own ordinary, Archbishop Myers, though not a traditionalist himself, has been sympathetic to priests desirous of offering the Traditional Latin Mass. Father Sretenovic also understood, however, that the embrace of Tradition, while it starts with the Mass, involves quite fundamentally an embrace of the totality of the Catholic Faith without any taint of corruption by the novelties and errors of the past forty to forty-seven years. Father Sretenovic also knows that ordinaries come and go, a point demonstrated quite graphically when Bishop John Myers of Peoria, Illinois, was elevated to the archbishopric of Newark. Although Bishop Myers had granted permission to Father Michael Driscoll, the pastor of Saint Mary’s Church in Rock Island, Illinois, to offer the Traditional Latin Mass on a daily basis, that permission was revoked by Myers’s successor, Bishop Michael Jenky, who demoted Father Driscoll to the post of an assistant hospital chaplain at Saint Francis Hospital in Peoria. Father Sretenovic, understanding, as eight cardinals noted in a finding sent to Pope John Paul II in 1986, the binding nature of the Traditional Latin Mass can never be abrogated, did not want to subject himself to the vagaries of episcopal arbitrariness. He realized that he needed the stability offered by the Traditional Latin Mass for his own sanctification–and that the people have the absolute right to safe harbor found therein.
The story of Father Paul Sretenovic continues, therefore, a remarkable display of courage on the part of diocesan priests who have been willing to forsake all of their canonical safety and human respect in order to embrace Tradition without compromise. Men such as Fathers Sretenovic and Zigrang and Smith were ordained after the implementation of the liturgical revolution had begun. Father Zigrang was ordained in 1977. Father Smith was ordained in 1997. Father Sretenovic was ordained in 2002. Although there have been priests (such as Father Stephen Somerville) who were ordained in the Traditional rite and have returned thereto, the embrace of Tradition by priests who are relatively young (in the case of Father Zigrang) or very young (in the case of Fathers Smith and Sretenovic) is particularly galling to the liturgical revolutionaries, men and women who brook no opposition and who protest with great vehemence the glories of the “liturgical renewal.” How can it be, they ask themselves, that men who have been immersed in their handiwork all of their lives can become counter-revolutionaries and reject all of their “enlightened” schemes and programs?
The revolutionaries can protest all they want. The plain fact of the matter is that there are a number of priests across the nation who may be following the examples of Fathers Zigrang, Smith and Sretenovic. More than a handful of priests are on the fence as this is being written. Some are waiting for Rome to come to their “rescue” by means of an Apostolic Administration. Some are afraid of what will happen to their sheep should they simply leave their diocesan assignments. Others are simply afraid to pray for the graces to muster up the courage to stop participating in sacrileges such as the distribution of Communion in the hand. From the vantage point of one who travels great distances across the nation to get his family to the daily offering of the Traditional Latin Mass, it is time for our shepherds to give us our due, the Immemorial Mass of Tradition, understanding that Our Lady will take care of their temporal needs and that the rectitude of their actions will be understood fully only on the Last Day at the General Judgment of the Living and the Dead.
Indeed, the witness given by Fathers Zigrang, Smith and Sretenovic, as well as the witness given by the bishops and the priests of the Society of Saint Pius X, to the necessity of proclaiming the fullness of the Catholic Faith without compromise and without any dilution serves as an inspiration to the sheep who are seeking safety and security in the midst of doctrinal and liturgical instability and turmoil within the diocesan structures. They are willing to be calumniated, even by fellow traditionalists who have anointed themselves to be in the august and pristine "mainstream," in order to bear a witness to the authentic Tradition of the Church without any compromise at all. No loss of human respect and no amount of name-calling or sloganeering will ever deter them from giving their sheep the fullness of the Catholic Faith.
At least some of the sheep will respond when their shepherds put themselves on the line to give them what is their due, namely, the Traditional Latin Mass. Hundreds upon hundreds of people, for example, have found their way to Our Lady Help of Christians Church in Garden Grove, California. Most of these people have never heard of The Remnant, Catholic Family News, or Christ or Chaos. They've never heard of Christ the King College and most of them probably think that GIRM Warfare has something to do with bacteriology. They're just Catholics who understand that the first law of the Church is the salvation of souls and that they do not have to sit idly by and be subjected to the rot of conciliar novelties in the context of what pretends to pass for the Church's liturgy and catechesis. These good souls are fed up with what is going on in their local dioceses and parishes and they simply want the fullness of the Catholic Faith to be made manifest to them during Holy Mass and in the life of their parish. The same is true of the fifteen families who have found their way from Saint Andrew's Church in Channelview, Texas, to Queen of Angels Church in Dickinson, Texas (and Saint Michael the Archangel Chapel in Spring, Texas), following after their inimitable pastor, Father Zigrang. The sheep want Christ and His truth to be made manifest to them without novelty or dilution. This is nothing other than one of their baptismal birthrights as Catholics.
Father Paul Sretenovic finds himself some 3,000 miles away from his parents, who are residents of New Jersey. He has gone this distance to serve sheep without compromise. He is in need of our prayers. More of his brother priests need to follow his example of humility and fidelity, to say nothing of his courage. As a son of Our Lady, Father Sretenovic has entrusted himself entirely to her Immaculate Heart. He knows that she will take good care of him as he acts in the person of her Divine Son as a sacerdos. Father Sretenovic delivered his first sermon at Our Lady Help of Christians on Sunday, January 16, 2004, stating that he had come to realize that the devil has essentially used the hierarchy of the Church to communicate the belief that one can eat from all of the trees in the "garden" today (Judaism, Islam, the New Age Movement, Wicca, Modernism) except the tree of Tradition, from which it is forbidden to eat. He said that the Novus Ordo Missae breeds lukewarmness, crediting Father Paul Kramer’s The Devil’s Final Battle and this writer’s G.I.R.M. Warfare with helping him to see how he was stuck in this lukewarmness himself. His sermon resonated with the 700 parishioners in attendance at the three Masses offered at Our Lady Help of Christians.
Our Lady Help of Christians, pray for Father Sretenovic. Pray for all traditionally-minded priests to follow his example of pure love for Tradition without fear of the canonical and/or temporal consequences. Pray for us sheep, that we might make the sacrifices necessary to help our shepherds feed us with the pure milk of Tradition.
Only one counts: the deliberate disobedience exercised by MarcelMouse in his "ordination" of 4 Bishops against the express written orders of the Pope.
As you know, obedience is not the highest law of the Church it is subordinate to Justice. And actually, if you read the documents, the Pope never made an explicit order. He was given an erroneous warning that LeFebvre would excommunicate himself if he ordained and didn't let the Vatican continue to lie to him and outwait him to death.
All the rest of your arguments w/BE are the usual strawmen, dross, and typical Luther/Zwingli/Marcellian "I AM the Interpreter of Scripture/I AM the interpreter of Tradition/I AM the repository of Authority."
Nonsense. And I do mean Non-SENSE. The Protestant comparison doesn't hold water. It's just a fallacious attempt to make an incorrect association. You know that and you also must know that JPII's own Code of Canon Law in black and white exculpates LeFebvre. JPII ignored his own laws. That is the fact. Just because it's inconvenient doesn't allow JPII to suspend it, or natural law or common sense or the virtue of justice.
JPII has done the equivalent of going to a bald man and telling him he must get a haircut. And then he excomminicates him for not getting a haircut.
At some point in time, it will occur to you and other MarcelMouse adherents that the above arguments are joined at the hip with "Non Serviam," the "argument" made by Lucifer on his way out.
The problem with neos is that, you cannot prove statements like the above. It's just a bunch of dramatic phrases picked up from EWTN or Envoy that mean nothing logically.
You can't disprove that JPII and the whole Vatican II apparatus are objectively working at the destruction of the Church. If anybody is not serving it's been the lousy post conciliar Popes. The evidence is overwhelming the fruit is rotten for all to see yet the conciliarists continue confusing obedience with servility and they aid in the dismantling of the Church. 2+2=5 or 4 or a million if the Pope says it according to the conciliar mindset.
And 'out' is the operative word here...
Seems like you've been led "out" of the Church with these new doctrines of papal impeccability and papal irresistibility. You've just gone the opposite road of the Othodox who deny papal power. You've extended it beyond all it's boundaries.
Yup. No question that in excommunicating schizzies, the Pope is incorrect, especially in view of his Authorship of Canon Law.
Glad to have you here to straighten us out.
BTW, it is entirely irrelevant that Prots "like" or "dislike" the NO. What is, SOLELY, relevant is its canonization by a Pope, the ONLY individual authorized to do so.
Your interest in Prot 'interests' is smoke, like your claim to a right to judge the Pope (above.)
Buh-bye, Schizzie.
From an FELC wesite:
"The revised order of service of the Finnish Evangelical-Lutheran Church was officially taken into use in December, 2000, with a special service taking place in churches to celebrate the occasion. The eighth service book in the history of the Lutheran Church contains the form of service, prayers and Mass settings.
As a result of the reform, new influences can be seen in the service, both from folk tradition and church service reforms in other Western churches. The Eucharist service is now called the Mass also in the Lutheran Church. Community spirit and freedom of choice at local level are two main principles of the Mass of the 21st century. The mass tunes and the language can be characterized as lighter and brighter than before: mass is a true celebration for God's people.
The process of liturgical reform was started in 1988. From 1993, new forms of service have been tried in some of the Church's 600 or so parishes. The reform was approved in the General Synod of 2000.
Parishioners have an active role in the Mass
In the new Mass, congregational involvement has been emphasized, giving parishioners opportunities of taking an active part in the carrying out of worship. They can participate in the preparation of the Mass, in the collection, the reading of the texts, and assisting the priest in administering Communion."
Any of this sound familiar?
Well, that's an improvement, I guess.
Any of this sound familiar?
The "active part" sounds like the "active participation" distortion invented by liturgists after the Council.
Anyway, if you want to show that the Finnish Evangelical-Lutheran Church has returned to the idea of the Sacrifice of the Mass and the invocation of saints, I'll be open to the idea that they could use the new rite.
Msgr. Lefebvre, in his letter to the Pope before the consecrations, explained that he was not satisfied with the one bishop that he was "assured" he would receive. PS: Where in JPII's letter to Msgr Lefebvre does he say that Msgr. Lefebvre needed to "let the Vatican continue to lie to him and outwait him to death"?
Regarding the second point, the Holy Father confirms what I had already indicated to you on his behalf, namely that he is disposed to appoint a member of the [SSPX] as a bishop (in the sense of point II/5.2 of the Protocol), and to accelerate the usual process of nomination, so that the consecration could take place on the closing of the Marian Year, this coming August 15. (Cardinal Ratzinger, Letter to Msgr. Lefebvre on May 30, 1988)That is why we are asking for several bishops chosen from within the Catholic Tradition, and for a majority of the members on the projected Roman Commission for Tradition, in order to protect ourselves against all compromise ... we shall give ourselves the means to carry on the work which Providence has entrusted to us, being assured by His Eminence Cardinal Ratzinger's letter of May 30th, that the episcopal consecration is not contrary to the will of the Holy See, since it was granted for August 15th. (Msgr. Lefebvre, Letter to John Paul II on June 2, 1988)
JPII's own Code of Canon Law in black and white exculpates LeFebvre. JPII ignored his own laws.
Those laws were considered and deemed non-applicable before the Decree of Excommunication was issued. The CIC never grants permission for episcopal ordinations against the will of the Roman Pontiff - and indeed it never could, since they are schismatic and contrary to Divine Law.
"The CIC never grants permission for episcopal ordinations against the will of the Roman Pontiff - and indeed it never could, since they are schismatic and contrary to Divine Law."
Isn't this what is happening in the Patriotic Catholic Church in Red China?
Why are they then allowed to use American seminaries?
Have these Chinese bishops been excommunicated?
Again, you vehemently embrace a contradiction in your scorn and mockery of the supposed 'schismatic' while JP II embraces the genuine schismatic as if schism were irrelevant to Catholicism. It must tie you in knots.
I stated that he was head of Ignatius Press. And that he was. And then he wasn't. He ran afoul of his own, and was sent away. I suppose it is good for him that he is affiliated with the Adoreman's newsletter. But his own were the 'reformists' to whom he swears loyalty. They abused him. None of what you wrote contradicts what I wrote.
Don't believe I mentioned a Fr. Harrison. Did you want me to?
5. Another rather delicate point is the question of the liturgical celebrations. In fact all 'communicatio in sacris' is to be avoided. The ‘patriotic’ bishops and priests are not to be invited or even allowed to celebrate religious functions in public, either in the churches or in the oratories of the various religious institutes. (Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, Protocol 3314/88)
1. ... Since the Roman Pontiff in the Catholic Church is “a permanent and visible principle and foundation of unity of Faith and fellowship” (L. G. n.18) those who don’t profess or don’t preserve the communion with the Pope, cannot consider themselves to be Catholic. Communion with the Pope is not only a question of discipline but of Catholic faith ... In accordance with the doctrinal principles exposed above, the Catholics cannot accept in conscience the principles of an Association which demands the rejection of a fundamental element of their faith, namely the indispensable communion with the Roman Pontiff, visible head of the Church and of the College of Catholic Bishops which cannot exist without him as head.3. Since 1958, by the initiative of the Patriotic Association, numerous Episcopal ordinations have taken place without the necessary consent of the Roman Pontiff (mandato apostolico).
In accordance with the Doctrine of the Church and the canonical discipline, such ordinations are to be considered graviously illicit; those who receive the ordination and those who confer it, incur in the excommunication “latae sententiae”, reserved to the Holy See. (cfr. Decree of the Holy Office of April 9, 1951 and Canon 1382 in the codex of Canon Law) ... With regard to the question whether or not is licit to assist at their Masses and receive their sacraments, the Catholics must look for faithful priests, i.e. in communion with the Pope. (Josef Cardinal Tomko, Directives on the Church in China, "prepared at the request of the Holy Father and approved by him")
Guidelines on China - July 3, 2004Obviously, the Patriotic Association has the characteristic of being in schism ... All legitimate priests and deacons should obey the "8-point" directive, and will therefore not have "communicatio in sacris" either with illegitimate bishops and religious or with those religious under the Patriotic Association. (Please refer to the 5th point in the "8-point" directive).
Don't tell me that you seriously think JPII wrote each law. LOL! First. LeFebvre in no way shape or form is schismatic. That's why a new definition has been invented accordign to Flummerfelt at EWTN. Second, you seem to be making up doctrine that the Pope can't be wrong in these matters. Guess what babes? He can, and is, quite often! I remember Madrid from Envoy prattling on about the Pope being the "top Theologian" in the Church. I asked him if he could back that claim up and he was stumped. I swear, if it weren't so deadly to souls, you guys making up doctrine on the spot would be funny.
Glad to have you here to straighten us out.
Somebody has to try at least, though it's probably futile with the lack of intellectual depth displayed by the neos that whine and cry if someone points out that the Church organization is in a shambles due to the malfeasance and neglect of 3 Popes.
BTW, it is entirely irrelevant that Prots "like" or "dislike" the NO. What is, SOLELY, relevant is its canonization by a Pope, the ONLY individual authorized to do so.
What makes you think that the Novus Ordo that is translated into the vernacular is a canonized Liturgy? Forget the fact that the Novus Ordo is the Mass of 1969 with no Apostolic roots to it. The ICEl did quite a job pushing the Novus Ordo translations right over the cliff of orthodoxy and the penchant for change encourages the liturgical abuse.
And it is relevant that the Prots like or dislike the N.O. because it gives creedence to the fact that the awful Liturgy of PaulVI is insufficiently demonstrating the Catholic Faith, especially when seen in comparison to the Old Rite.
Your interest in Prot 'interests' is smoke, like your claim to a right to judge the Pope (above.)
More crap. Judging the Pope means I'm capable of punishing him. That's all. I'm fully capable of pointing out that he's in error and able to resist his destructive policies in order to preserve my faith. Sheesh! You'll believe anything that gets tossed at you as some kind of orthodox catch phrase. Am I going to hear "Rome has Spoken" or " Christ' hand-picked sucessor to Peter, the Patriarch of the West, the Supreme Pontiff???" Neos like to spout off phrases like that with not a clue as to what they mean and ultimately they help to undermine the papacy.
Buh-bye, Schizzie.
Oh! I'm struck! I can't argue against such penetrating logic. The day is yours Mr. Chesterton.
Where did I say that it was in a letter? What's with the sudden appeal to a form of sola scriptura? LeFebvre spoke openly about the conversations surrounding the protocol agreement and each time he appealed to Ratzinger to give him a date, Ratzinger delayed. LeFebvre moved his consecration date at least four times to appease Rome. After the date was finally set, He supplied multiple lists of names and each time Rome rejected each name. It was obvious that it was just politicking and games.
You can see it in the same letter you cited. Without cherry-picking a paragraph out of context...
"Being radically opposed to this destruction of our Faith and determined to remain within the traditional doctrine and discipline of the Church, especially as far as the formation of priests and the religious life is concerned, we find ourselves in the absolute necessity of having ecclesiastical authorities who embrace our concerns and will help us to protect ourselves against the spirit of Vatican II and the spirit of Assisi.
That is why we are asking for several bishops chosen from within Catholic Tradition, and for a majority of the members on the projected Roman Commission for Tradition, in order to protect ourselves against all compromise.
***GIVEN THE REFUSAL TO CONSIDER OUR REQUESTS, AND IT BEING EVIDENT THAT THE PURPOSE OF THIS RECONCILIATION IS NOT AT ALL THE SAME IN THE EYES OF THE HOLY SEE AS IT IS IN OUR EYES,*** we believe it preferable to wait for times more propitious for the return of Rome to Tradition. That is why we shall give ourselves the means to carry on the work which Providence has entrusted to us, being assured by His Eminence Cardinal Ratzinger's letter of May 30th that the episcopal consecration is not contrary to the will of the Holy See, since it was granted for August 15th.
We shall continue to pray for modern Rome, infested with Modernism, to become once more Catholic Rome and to rediscover its two-thousand-year-old tradition. Then the problem of our reconciliation will have no further reason to exist and the Church will experience a new youth.
Be so good, Most Holy Father, as to accept the expression of my most respectful and filially devoted sentiments in Jesus and Mary.
+ Marcel Lefebvre (Msgr. Lefebvre, Letter to John Paul II on June 2, 1988)
JPII's own Code of Canon Law in black and white exculpates LeFebvre. JPII ignored his own laws.
Those laws were considered and deemed non-applicable before the Decree of Excommunication was issued.
That was simply more conniving and muddled argumentation on the part of the Curia. That's like an alcoholic telling someone he can control his drinking. No one can believe that LeFebvre did not think that the Church was in a state of emergency and if JPII does not think so, he is either insane or he is a liar. Pick one, because he certainly isn't clear thinking.
First, it wasn't a decree of excommunication. It was a motu proprio declaring (erroneously) a 'latae sententiae' excommunication. Since JPII was wrong about the schism, since LeFebvre made it clear by words and actions that he believed the Church was in a state of emergency and he was not refusing Papal Primacy.
The CIC never grants permission for episcopal ordinations against the will of the Roman Pontiff - and indeed it never could, since they are schismatic and contrary to Divine Law.
Nobody said that it did grant permission for consecrations. I said it exculpates him. It does mandate a reduction or release from the full punishment due to the nature of the disobedience. So even if LeFebvre disobeyed and consecrated because he was convinced that the Church was in danger, even if he had been in error (and he was not) he still would've not recieved the full punishment. So, no latae sententiae excommunication would occur. It fits perfectly with Divine Law in the same sense that sins are not mortal unless they are subjectively aware of it being a mortal sin and committed purposely. LeFebvre's position is closer to the principle of double-effect. His primary action was to preserve the priesthood and that required consecrations.
"Obviously, the Patriotic Association has the characteristic of being in schism ... All legitimate priests and deacons should obey the "8-point" directive, and will therefore not have "communicatio in sacris" either with illegitimate bishops and religious or with those religious under the Patriotic Association. (Please refer to the 5th point in the "8-point" directive)."
Taken from the link which you cited (cardinalkungfoundation.org):
"Did You Know That . . .
* There are about 50 Patriotic Association seminarians and priests studying in various seminaries across the United States?
* Those seminarians are given full tuition, room and board scholarships from various seminaries?
* This program is sponsored by Maryknoll on behalf of the Patriotic Association?
* A number of Patriotic Association priests have been given full faculties in some Roman Catholic dioceses in the United States and are authorized to administer any Holy Sacrament to the public?"
To this somewhat unsophisticated back-pew Catholic this appears to be a bit of an inconsistancy. It seems to me that the dioceses deal with the SSPX as if they were the spawn of the devil. At the same time they assist the Patriotic Association, which has set up a a competing, parallel hierarchical structure, to continue its subversion and persecution of the true church in concert with its avowedly atheistic government.
It doesn't add up.
Something seems to be very rotten here.
The Pope's promulgation of Canon Law supercedes your inane argument that he did not "personally" write every jot and tittle thereof.
But inanity seems to be your specialty, as you continue to object without grounds that the Pope does not have the authority to approve, through the Congregation of Worship or otherwise, the NO.
Were you to acknowledge the validity of the Pope's action while holding that the ICEL translation sucks, we would be in complete agreement.
But you choose to walk and talk like a Schizzie instead. May God help you to a reconciliation with the Roman Catholic Church.
Whatever.
The late Bernardin, Mahoney, Pilarczyk, Pella, Gregory, Fiorenza, Imesch, Adamec, Rectalbert Weakland, Leonardo Boff, Edward Schillebeeckx, Hans Kung, Keeler, McCarrick and so many, many more are the grave failings of the institutional Church. Bishops among them are successors of Judas. None of that is any of the business of those outside the Roman Catholic Church whether Protestants, pagans, snake worshipers or Marcellians. The Marcellian schismatics are the business of Catholics only insofar as they fraudulently claim inclusion in Catholicism from which they have been expelled.
Roma locuta. Causa finita.
Those words are as vital to Roman Catholics as are the words "Non serviam" to Lucifer and Marcel's cult."
If the traditional pieties of the actual Roman Church offend you, you can take your refuge in "Non serviam." It's a tradition odf sorts just not of a Catholic sort.
How nice it must seem to you for you to have found a new and quite eccentric cult conceived by the excommunicated Marcel in his own image and likeness and yours. Perhaps, God, in His infinite mercy has somehow admitted Marcel to the shack by the river in eternity in spite of it all. That might give hope to those who have apostasized for Marcel and hilariously believe that there is no salvation outside the Church which they imagine to be their tiny circle of malcontents.
Roma locuta. Causa finita!
So much to say and so little time!
As a schizzie, you have no standing to argue against His Holiness and be heard as a Catholic critic. Perforce, you cannot be a Catholic critic unless you are a Catholic. You have to return to the Catholic faith, discipline and practice to do so. Even then we are a Church and not a democracy or a moral anarchy in the pews subject to the opinions of the chronically offended and unbalanced and unCatholic.
Many SSPXers here make arguments that are analogous to those that might be made by convicted criminals in our American courts. See the bankrobber who whines that the last sentenced bank robber got a sentence ten years lighter than his for a crime allegedly worse. The judge will not, however, smack his forehead and say, why did'nt I think of that and reduce the sentence. He more likely will say: "So what? Why is that any of YOUR business?" The pope clothed, ex officio, with far more legitimate authority than may attach to any secular magistrate, has sentenced the SSPX ecclesiastical criminals. It is time long since for them to sit down, shut up and take that justice like men and women. If not, they are digging their own hole.
To summarize thus far: JP II judges and has judged SSPX. SSPX has no standing to judge JP II and never will.
As to the Chinese "Patriotic" Association bishops, if they were consecrated without Rome's approval which seems rather obvious, then I would understand them to be excommunicated latae sententiae as well (even though they too say the Tridentine Mass ONLY as though that somehow makes a difference as to the validity of their orders and movement).
Since you brought the subject up, however, and since I do have standing as a Catholic on matters touching Catholicism, ought SSPX not be enthusiastic for the undoubtedly schismatic communist stooges of the Chinese "Patriotic" Association? They despise the pope as does SSPX. They deny papal authority as does SSPX. They confine themselves to the Tridentine only and refuse recognition to Novus Ordo anything, just like SSPX. They choose their own bishops without so much as a by your leave to His Holiness, just like SSPX. They think they are in charge rather than His Holiness, just like SSPX. They have their own counterMagisterium, just like SSPX. What is there for the SSPX vipers not to like???? Just asking.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Roma locuta. Causa finita. Ubi Petrus, Ibi Ecclesia.
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