[patent]

No--you are the one with a limited understanding

Well, unless you are God Himself, we both have limited understandings. What is your point?

My stating that the Novus Ordo is valid is consistent with what I--and most traditionalists--believe. A Mass is valid if Transubstantiation takes place. But the same Mass may still be harmful to the faith. That is the case with the Novus Ordo which dangerously subverts Catholic dogmas.

To say that a valid Mass, which by definition brings tremendous Grace into this world and brings the Body and Blood to our presence, is harmful to the faith, is truly un-Catholic. That is in no way a Catholic understanding of the Mass.

Indeed, even prominent theologians have weighed-in on the many deficiencies of the Novus Ordo--including Cardinal Ratzinger who ascribes to its introduction the calamities that befell the Church shortly thereafter.

Cardinal Ratzinger may prefer another form of the Mass, and may see some deficiencies in the Novus Ordo, but that is in no way the same as saying that the Novus Ordo is harmful to the faith, subverts Catholic dogmas, is reprehensible to the Holy Spirit, much less to say that the validity of the Mass means very little. You can try to name drop, but you are pretty much out there on the fringe with those statements.

As for your whacky ideas about schism--you get the definition right, but you ascribe it wrongly out of prejudice. You seem to think that a schism takes place merely because a pope says so in a letter, whether or not such an act has ever objectively taken place. It would be a strange kind of Church if that could happen unilaterally, at the mere surmise of the Pope.

Strange indeed. Catholic even.

Perhaps you don’t understand this, but Vatican I made it quite clear that the Pope is the supreme judge in the Church on earth, his rulings are final. You can try to dismiss it as a “mere surmise” but he made a very clear statement in a very clear letter that was very formal. He ruled. You can call it “wacky” of me to be one of those strange Catholics who follows that wacky Pope. I’ll wear that as a badge of honor, whether it comes from schismatic modernists or schismatic trads.

But whether or not one is schismatic depends upon whether one had committed a schismatic offense, not on whether the Pope has said so. To believe otherwise is not Catholicism, it is pope-worship.

Then Vatican I apparently engaged in Pope Worship. I believe another schism that left shortly after Vatican I essentially accused it of just that.

patent

[ultima ratio]

Here's your problem. You state: "To say that a valid Mass, which by definition brings tremendous Grace into this world and brings the Body and Blood to our presence, is harmful to the faith, is truly un-Catholic." But it is a wrongful assumption to think that by definition a valid Mass brings Grace into the world. Validity is a separate matter altogether from efficaciousness. A Mass may be valid, but lack efficaciousness in terms of bringing grace. Are Black Masses the vehicles for grace do you think? Yet these too may indeed under certain circumstances be valid.

As for the Pontiff's being the Supreme Judge in the Church--you are right. But this only means he has the last word on disciplinary and canonical matters. But for all his power, he can't make an innocent person guilty of an offense that was never committed. He can't make his judgment correct if it is incorrect. Nor can he overrule his own papal Canon Law, for instance, if that law provides canons which exempt an individual from culpability. Neither can he retroactively deny these same laws, rewriting them to suit his new perspective--Canon Law itself prohibits this. In other words, he cannot make someone guilty merely because he wishes it.

[rogator]

"Pope is the supreme judge in the Church on earth, his rulings are final. You can try to dismiss it as a “mere surmise” but he made a very clear statement in a very clear letter that was very formal."


Pope St. Pius V's Quo Primum also contains "a very clear statement in a very clear letter that was very formal".

Any reasonable person reading that statement (below) would conclude that that pope authorized any priest to say Mass according to the 1570 Missal forever.

"...in virtue of Our Apostolic authority, We grant and concede in perpetuity that, for the chanting or reading of the Mass in any church whatsoever, this Missal is hereafter to be followed absolutely, without any scruple of conscience or fear of incurring any penalty, judgment, or censure, and may freely and lawfully be used."