Posted on 01/28/2005 11:07:21 AM PST by ultima ratio
Maybe you can help me with this concept with which I have struggled. I know this could incite some major flames but I have to get some clarity.
Here's the concept:
The Novus Ordo is theologically Protestant.
Protestantism is a heresy.
Therefore, the Novus Ordo is heretical.
Can you deconstruct this thought and point out to me why it would not be true? I'm trying and I can't.
You are doing it again, so I will correct you again. There are no "SSPX people" like there are no SSPXers. There are priests of the priestly Society of St. Pius X and there are laity who assist at their masses.
My opinion is, as promulgated in Latin the NO is valid, but vastly inferior. As actually said in the poor English translation, with various and widespread abuses, ad libs by priests, and questionable intent of some priests who teach heterodoxy, validity is questionable from parish to parish, from day to day.
...and every mass is different from parish to parish, diocese to diocese. You read comments, "In my parish we do it this way..."
I often thought about the child's story of the man who fell asleep for 50? years and woke up not to recognize his surrounding. If a Catholic from 1964, were to wake up after a being in a coma they would not recognize the NO as a mass.
The key is this: the Novus Ordo is deliberately ambiguous, designed to create a Protestant sensibility while pretending to affirm Catholic dogmas. Novus Ordo apologists insist the new Liturgy does not heretically reject either Transubstantiation nor Propitiatory Sacrifice. Technically this is true. But at the same time everything possible has been done to suppress both dogmas. They're there if you search hard enough--but attention has been deliberately deflected from these Catholic dogmas, while at the same time the mind is directed towards the assembly itself as the focus of the worship service. This is very Protestant.
So, for example, right after the Consecration, when Christ is really present on the altar, the assembly is asked instead to celebrate his virtual presence in the assembly's midst. Kneeling for Communion, genuflections, Communion on the tongue, have been deliberately eliminated to reduce the Catholic awareness of the Real Presence. Often hymns are sung which emphasize the Protestant view as well--"One Bread, One Body", for instance. Likewise the concept of sacrifice has been altered from that of propitiation to that of praise and thanksgiving for our own salvation--again making the assembly itself the locus of what is really going on. This further reduces the priest to the role of a presiding minister--in the Protestant fashion.
When I returned from Viet-Nam in late 1969 and went to Mass in California, I left at the Agnus Dei, before receiving Communion, because I was convinced that I was attending a non-Catholic service.
P.S. I'm glad that you came back from Vietnam. :-)
Lol. Many, many years ago I was in London with a Canadian Irish great uncle. We got up on Sunday morning and my uncle, convinced that I was quite Greek enough and needed a little more Irish training, announced we were off to Mass. We followed the crowds and walked into a beautiful church. The mass started but seemed a bit, well, different. The NO had just come in and who knew what was happening in England. My uncle grew increasingly suspicious and then noticed there were no Stations of the Cross on the walls. It was an Anglican Church. He laughed about that until he died at near 90!
Thanks. I think I've got it.
The core essentials, while hidden, remain Catholic and therefore are not heretical. The external trappings are harmful but not heretical because they do not outright deny Cathlic dogma.
Would you say something like turning the priest to face the congregation is an offense to God but stops short of heresy?
I often wonder what Sts. John Vianney, John of the Cross, Ignatius of Loyola and others would say if they were transported in time to the present day Church.
Everyone should question every Novus Ordo mass they assist at because, like a snowflake, no two are alike.
Yes--it's profoundly offensive. It's not heretical, but it IS blasphemous since it ignores, rather than denies, the truths of the Real Presence and Propitiatory Sacrifice. This is what modernism is all about and why it is insidious and dangerous. The Novus Ordo subverts the faith by praxis, gradually changing the way Catholics think and believe and behave.
"I often wonder what Sts. John Vianney, John of the Cross, Ignatius of Loyola and others would say if they were transported in time to the present day Church."
They--as well as Catherine of Sienna and Teresa of Avila--would have said and done what Archbishop Lefebvre said and did. St. Therese of Lisieux might have been more discreet, but her heart would have been broken.
Systematic desensitization, or how like carbon monoxide kills. You can't tell that you are breathing it, you just start to get headachey and sick, until one night you don't wake up.
I'm thinking of two great old movies, Notorious and Gaslight.
True. True. As our hearts are broken now for what has been lost and the tragedy that exists in our increasingly secular, modern world and the NO church.
Bump
Aye. But having clergy who do not believe in trasubstantiation is a far bigger problem. Once they have lost (or forsworn) their faith in the central element of the mass, they have lost (or forsworn) their priesthood.
Because without the mass as the unbloody representation of Calvary - a very real sacrifice - culminating in the miracle of transubstantiation - there is no purpose for having priests. Because then the mass is not a mass.......it is not a sacrament, and all other sacrments are then of dubious nature. There endeth the mass, the sacraments, the priesthood itself, and the Church. Without the mass, all else falls.
Priests who do not believe in transubstantiation will most probably not have the correct validating intention with which to say mass - and without the correct sacrmental intention, we have no sacrament, and hence no mass.
So, clergy who do not believe in transubstantiation (either because they lost their faith, or never had any to begin with) are a cause of great scandal to the church - and a scourge to souls.
The problem is that most folks in the pews are so weak in their knowledge of the faith that they would not know what is happening around them anyway. This is even more sad.
Please stop spreading this error.
But if his faith be defective in regard to the very sacrament that he confers, although he believe that no inward effect is caused by the thing done outwardly, yet he does know that the Catholic Church intends to confer a sacrament by that which is outwardly done. Wherefore, his unbelief notwithstanding, he can intend to do what the Church does, albeit he esteem it to be nothing. And such an intention suffices for a sacrament: because as stated above (8, ad 2) the minister of a sacrament acts in the person of the Church by whose faith any defect in the minister's faith is made good. (St. Thomas, Summa theologiae, III q. 64 a. 9)
A person who has correctly and seriously used the requisite matter and form to effect and confer a sacrament is presumed for that very reason to have intended to do (intendisse) what the Church does. On this principle rests the doctrine that a Sacrament is truly conferred by the ministry of one who is a heretic or unbaptized, provided the Catholic rite be employed. (Leo XIII, Apostolicae Curae §33)
PLease stop supporting modernism and the propagation of invalid masses by your out of context posts! Your posts imply that there is no such thing as an invalid mass - which was never true historically, and is certainly not the case today.
When a priest says mass he is indeed "presumed" to have the correct validating intention for properly confecting hte sacrament. Indeed, it is quite possible for a heretic to say a valid mass - but he must then consciously project the intention which the church has for that sacrament - regardless of his internal belief to the contrary. In such as case as this, his internal heresy is "presumed" to be unknown - or he would not be allowed to function as a priest!
But that requires internal volition - an excercise of the will. In practical reality, this WILL NOT happen. The heretical/apostate priest will most likely not care how he says mass. if he does not believe in it as sacrifice....and in transubstantiation. he will not project the intention.
It is for exactly this reason that known heretical priests were suspended, forbidden to say public mass, or thrown out all together......as they would be a cause of scandal to the faithful, and would be providing them with the performance of blasphemous and invalid masses......which no prelate or religious superior may consciously and knowingly allow, lest he himself fall into material heresy by tolerating such an offense.
Personally, I have observed numerous masses where I was aware that the priest was not celebrating a valid mass, based upon knowledge of his heresy. I did not receive Communion at such occasions, as to knowingly do so would make me guilty of material idolatry of bread and wine....since it was not a real mass! Of course laity who are ignorant of the priest's heresy and sacramental intention incur no sin, as they know nothing of it. Hence, they can PRESUME the mass is valid, unless they know otherwise.
How did I know of the sin of the priests in question? Word of it had been passed to me by good priests & layfolk.
It is now imcumbent upon the laity to find out WHAT their priest believes, before attending his masses, and approaching Communion. if they know for a fact that he does not believe in the mass as sacrifice & in transubstantiation - they should stay away.
Clues as to theological dissent/heresy which should precipitate the asking of questions would include any phrases regarding his "vision of church", references to anathema theologians (Kung, Rahner, De Chardin, etc.), a preference for liturgical experimentation.
The two surest signs that something may well be wrong are a) wearing a stole OVER the chasuable, and b) failure to genuflect after the elevations & at the Agnus Dei (or at all!). These are signs of outward dissent, and one should question the priest as to what he believes.
But of course, you will discard and demean what I have said here with endless quotes. Please - so your worst!
Beacuse no matter what you quote, and Catholic who is solid in their faith and traditional training will know that I am correct.
Thor, I was taught that you should never act on a doubtful conscience. That is in this case, if statements and actions of a particular priest make you suspect that he may not have the valid intention, and you are unable to verify that he does, I think that is enough reason to stay away. Do you agree?
I do not. Look, if the priest changes the rite "with the manifest intention of introducing another rite not approved by the Church and of rejecting what the Church does, and what, by the institution of Christ, belongs to the nature of the Sacrament" then "it is clear that not only is the necessary intention wanting to the Sacrament, but that the intention is adverse to and destructive of the Sacrament." (Leo XIII, Apostolicae Curae). But if he uses the Catholic rite, and states no contrary intention to not do "what the Church does", then his Mass is to be presumed valid even if he is a public heretic: "the minister of a sacrament acts in the person of the whole Church, whose minister he is; while in the words uttered by him, the intention of the Church is expressed; and that this suffices for the validity of the sacrament, except the contrary be expressed on the part either of the minister or of the recipient of the sacrament" (ST III q. 64 a. 8).
Beacuse no matter what you quote, and Catholic who is solid in their faith and traditional training will know that I am correct.
So we're supposed to take your word that you are right and Leo XIII and St. Thomas are wrong?
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