Posted on 05/13/2005 9:57:43 PM PDT by Canticle_of_Deborah
Fr. Eugene Heidt and Archbishop Levada
Excerpted from “Priest Where Is Thy Mass, Mass Where Is Thy Priest.”
Q: So obedience is not really an objection against saying the traditional Mass, when you consider that it’s not forbidden by the Church?
Fr. H: Correct. There is no question of disobedience involved here, no way.
Q: How did your convictions about the old Mass sit with the Chancery?
Fr. H: Things just got worse. A couple of years before, I had written a letter about what they called the “Stewardship Council.” That was a program that they used to raise money for the operation of the Archdiocese. I told the people in the parish that we couldn’t contribute to that. I black-balled the “Stewardship Council”!
Q: Why did you black-ball it?
Fr. H: Because of the immoral causes that they were promoting. I named some of them in the letter I wrote. But I have to go back a little bit to explain some of this. It all came to a head with this question of the money for the “Stewardship Council” – that’s what really got Archbishop Levada going. I remember coming home from meeting with him on one of those occasions. I said, “You know, that man isn’t Catholic. The Archbishop is not Catholic!” I was telling the whole parish this. No wonder he got so angry with me, in the end of it all!
When Archbishop Levada had first come to the Archdiocese, I was the first one to have an appointment with him after he was installed. I went in there for an hour and a half, and I poured out my heart to him, because I was told he was a good, traditional, orthodox bishop, and that he was going to straighten this Archdiocese out. So I really churned my heart out to him, and he just sat there. He was like an episcopal vacuum cleaner, sucking all this stuff up and listening to it. I told him about the homosexuality in the Church, and I said “I can name six or seven homosexual priests in the diocese. They call themselves the ‘altar society.’” He said, “You’ve come in here with a bunch of rumors, and I’m not going to listen to that.” I said, “Well, one day, somebody is going to have to pay!” But he wouldn’t listen.
Every time I went to see him, I’d go in and argue with him. I think there is only one pastoral letter he wrote, supposedly on the Mass and the Eucharist. I read the thing and I took it to his office, and I said, “Did you write this? Is this supposed to be a complete treatise on the Eucharist and the Mass? How did you manage to get through this whole thing without once mentioning Transubstantiation?” “Well, that’s such a long and difficult term anyway,” he said, “and we don’t use that term anymore.”
I said, “I don’t think that’s the correct estimate of that word. When I was in the first grade and our good little Benedictine Sister was preparing us for First Holy Communion, I can remember her putting that up on the board. She put ‘trans,’ and then she put a line. Then she put ‘substantiation,’ and then she went through and explained what each of those things meant. She was able to put it in terms we could understand, so that we knew that the Bread and the Wine are substantially different from what they were before the Consecration.” He just repeated “That’s such a confusing term!” So, I said, “Let’s go on to the next item.”
The “next item” was his having gone to Our Lady of Atonement Parish – that’s what they called a “Catholic-Lutheran joint parish,” where they have a priest on one end of the altar and a Lutheran minister on the other, and they go back and forth. I asked, “What did you do over there?” and he answered, “We concelebrated liturgy.” “What does that mean?” I asked, “Did you and the Lutheran minister say Mass together? What did you do?” He just wouldn’t discuss it any more.
And then, one night during all this “Stewardship” business, the Archbishop really got angry. He called me up, it was after hours, 5:05 pm! He was supposed to be on his way home, but he stopped and called me. He was SO livid, he could hardly talk on the phone. He said, “You be in my office at ten o’clock tomorrow morning before the diocesan consulters and the other bishops of the diocese. Plead your case there!” I said, “Well, all right, I will be glad to come in and do that, but I haven’t got any time to document all this.” He said, “That’s okay, just come on in and tell us what’s on your mind.”
So, I was in there probably an hour altogether, and those priests were lined up in a big horseshoe, you know, and I was at the table on the end by myself. I had my tape recorder, which I set up beside me, and, as I was trying to plug it in, I heard a voice up at the other end: “Hey, you can’t use a recorder in here!” I turned around, and it was the archbishop. I asked, “Why not?” He said, “We don’t record this kind of meeting.” And I said, “Oh, all right, but I’ll plug it in while I’m talking and unplug it while you’re talking, how’s that?” Then I set up a chair beside me, and one of the bishops, who used to be a very good friend of mine, asked what the chair was for. They were waiting for an attorney to come in, I suppose. I said “Well, that’s for my Guardian Angel.” And these priests looked at me like I was kind of crazy, you know.
At the end of my little speech, the Archbishop said, “Okay, I agree with you on everything except for the question of homosexuality in the Seminary. We took care of that a couple of weeks ago. Of course, you wouldn’t know about that meeting, but it’s already been taken care of.” But he sided with me on the rest of the other complaints that I had.
Afterwards, he got on my case, and he finally told me to take a sabbatical. He said, “You can take you sabbatical if you want, and you are free to write up a proposal of what you want to do.” I agreed, and I took a month to get my plan together and brought it back to him.
I told him that I wanted to spend five months or so studying the Council of Trent, Vatican I, Vatican II, and all of the papal encyclicals from the last two hundred years. But he said, “No, No, That’s non-productive. You will go to the University and take their ‘Credo’ course” (which was an updating in theology). But I said “No, No.” I said, like the boys said when it was time to go to Vietnam: “Hell no, I won’t go! No thanks.” So he said, “Then I’ll send you to a monastery for your sabbatical, and I will draw up a course of studies for you. You will have a private mentor.” I said, “No, I do not need a guru.” Finally, he told me to go ahead and do what I wanted.
I said then that I wanted to spend the last couple of weeks of my sabbatical in Fatima, to talk all this stuff over with our Blessed Lady, and then I would come back. And he agreed. Well, I never got to Fatima, but in the meantime this place came up for sale, and I knew I had been had by that time. When I went back to see him, after the sabbatical was over, he told me that, because I had said the Latin Mass in “excommunicated” chapels, mainly Portland and Veneta [Oregon], he could no longer use my services. So I said, “Okay. You do what you have to do. But you’re going to have to tie me up in chains to stop me from offering the Latin Mass.” He threatened to suspend me if I didn’t stop.
A month or so went by, and I got a letter from him telling me to get an attorney so that we could have a hearing in Portland. I thought it was over, and I decided that, no matter who I got, the result would be the same. In conscience, no Novus Ordo priest could defend me, and, if I got one of the Society of St. Pius X priests, they wouldn’t listen to him. So I wrote back to him and asked him to appoint an attorney for me. I sent this priest the whole case, and he read it and sent it back to me. He said to go back to the Archbishop and tell him that I was sorry and then submit and obey the Archbishop. And then, at the end of the letter, he said, “Besides, the traditional Latin Mass is a thing of the past, and within ten years it will be nothing more than a footnote in the history of the Church.” And so I get nowhere with that. The next thing I knew, the Archbishop sent me a letter of suspension. I never did have a hearing.
I moved up here in 1988, the very weekend that Archbishop Lefebvre ordained the four Bishops. Then, I asked Fr. Laisney if I could help him out in the chapels in Portland and Venata, and he said, “Welcome aboard!” And I have been doing it ever since.
Q: So you’re a renegade because you won’t give up the traditional idea of the priesthood and the Mass. How would you describe the new idea of the priest? What do they think the priest is, in those theological updating courses, for instance?
Fr. H: I don’t know because I never went.
Q: You never went to a seminar?
Fr. H: No, I stopped that right in the beginning. They used to have three-day seminars, once a year. I went to the first one, and I stayed the first morning. At mid-morning, we met with the Archbishop, and we could ask him any kind of questions that we wanted. Well, the Archbishop started out with one of the directives that came from Rome, and he said that the Masses of priests who use anything other than unleavened bread and sacramental wine are to be questioned. But the Archbishop himself was pooh-poohing the idea. So these priest go the idea that they could go ahead and use pita bread, cookie dough, whatever. You could go down to Safeway and get a jug of wine or even grape juice! It didn’t seem to make too much difference to him.
I poked the priest sitting to one side of me and said, “Hey did you hear what he just said?” He said yes. I poked the one on the other side (he was a classmate of mine), and I said, “Did you hear what he just said?” He said yes. I said, “Well, in my book that’s unacceptable!” and I got up and walked out the door and went home. And that’s the last one I attended. I don’t know what they say anymore about the priesthood, the sacraments, or whatever. I just don’t pay any attention to them.
Even taking St. Thomas (what was posted here anyway) I see nothing in the text in which he admonishes Priests to do what this priest did. I can't see that.
Wonderful text you posted. This is the most salient part for me:
On the other hand, to pass judgment upon or to rebuke the acts of Bishops does not at all belong to private individuals - that comes within the province only of those higher than they in authority and especially of the Sovereign Pontiff, for to him Christ entrusted the charge of feeding not only His lambs, but His sheep throughout the world. At most, it is allowed in matters of grave complaint to refer the whole case to the Roman Pontiff, and this with prudence and moderation as zeal for the common good requires, not clamorously or abusively, for in this way dissensions and hostilities are bred, or certainly increased."
And even though I suffer from great ignorance, this type of knowledge the Lord just gives you, he implants it in the "is this right or wrong?" part of one's conscience. If it wasn't for those gifts everyone has, uneducated souls like me would be easy pickings.
This kind of drive-by sabotage is pernicious in the extreme.
Darn right I will.
Should we pretend it doesn't exist? Should we pretend Archbishop Levada, close friend and ally of Cardinal Mahony is some great orthodox guy?
Whose side are you on Colleen? Do you care if Satan is making advances in the highest levels of the Church or would you rather make catty remarks towards people who do care?
So you have a problem with St. Catherine of Siena?
Careful gbc, your modernist applications will paint you right into a corner.
This statement is amazing, inasmuch as it continuously changes both in author and in content (never seen the "guilty of the sin of omission" version before), yet is repeatedly cited by persons who must have seen the innumerable variations elsewhere.
If Levada doesn't believe in TRANSUBSTANTIATION, downplays it, shunts it aside, has a problem with, has deemphasized it even in the slightest, or any other euphemism one chooses to employ, then according to Catholic theology, Levada has knowingly rejected a most essential Dogma of the Roman Catholic Faith, and has apostasized from both the Faith and from the Church, and is hence by his own act no longer Catholic.
I don't approve of getting rid of the term, 'transubstantiation', any more than I favor the loss of 'consubstantial' from the Creed. But your conclusions are absolutely false. Pius VI says:
The doctrine of the synod, in that part in which, undertaking to explain the doctrine of faith in the rite of consecration, and disregarding the scholastic questions about the manner in which Christ is in the Eucharist, from which questions it exhorts priests performing the duty of teaching to refrain, it states the doctrines in these two propositions only: 1) after the consecration Christ is truly, really, substantially under the species; 2) then the whole substance of the bread and wine ceases, appearances only remaining; it (the doctrine) absolutely omits any mention of transubstantiation, or conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the blood, which the Council of Trent defined as an article of faith, and which is contained in the solemn profession of faith; since by an indiscreet and suspicious omission of this sort knowledge is taken away both of an article pertaining to faith, and also of the word consecrated by the Church to protect the profession of it, as if it were a discussion of a merely scholastic question,-dangerous, derogatory to the exposition of Catholic truth about the dogma of transubstantiation, favorable to heretics. (Auctorem Fidei, prop. 29)
Pius VI: dangerous, derogatory to the exposition of Catholic truth about the dogma of transubstantiation, favorable to heretics
You: Levada has knowingly rejected a most essential Dogma of the Roman Catholic Faith, and has apostasized from both the Faith and from the Church, and is hence by his own act no longer Catholic
You see the difference?
As a matter of fact, Levada fully believes in transubstantiation, the Sacrifice of the Mass, etc.
From his 2005 Pastoral Letter on the Year of the Eucharist:
This is the first and in many ways the most important meaning of the Eucharist: as Pope John Paul expresses it in his Encyclical (no. 11), "The Eucharist is indelibly marked by the event of the Lord's passion and death, of which it is not only a reminder but the sacramental re-presentation. It is the sacrifice of the cross perpetuated down the ages." He goes on to remind us, "When the Church celebrates the Eucharist, the memorial of her Lord's death and resurrection, this central event of salvation becomes really present and the work of our redemption is carried out. This sacrifice is so decisive for the salvation of the human race that Jesus Christ offered it and returned to the Father only after he had left us a means of sharing in it as if we had been present there at the cross with Mary and the disciple whom he loved.” ... There is so much to reflect upon, and to act upon, as we contemplate the face of Christ really present with us in the Eucharist. ... The Eucharist offers a remarkable twofold dimension of this encounter with the risen Christ, as we are invited to receive the very Lord of life himself at Mass in Holy Communion, and to contemplate his real presence as an abiding gift to his Church in our Eucharistic adoration outside of Mass. The real presence of Christ in the tabernacles of our Churches is an extension of his love, yet another instance of his response to the desire of every Christian heart, echoing the plea of the disciples on the road to Emmaus: "Stay with us, Lord!" So our Holy Father has indicated that "the presence of Jesus in the tabernacle must be a kind of magnetic pole attracting an ever greater number of souls enamored of him, ready to wait patiently to hear his voice and, as it were, to sense the beating of his heart. O taste and see that the Lord is good!" (Ps 34:8) ... I encourage every parish to provide this devotion, at least once a month, perhaps on the first Friday. I have recommended the above-mentioned "mystagogical catechesis" on the Eucharist for the Easter season in the context of an hour of Eucharistic Adoration in order to provide a model for such devotions; listening to catechetical instruction on the Eucharist in the context of adoration of the Blessed Sacrament seems to me a uniquely appropriate means of fostering a richer understanding of and devotion to the Eucharist in our local church.
And in the "Glossary" for the Catechism of the Catholic Church, prepared and written by Archbishop Levada, we find:
TRANSUBSTANTIATION: The scholastic term used to designate the unique change of the Eucharistic bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. "Transubstantiation" indicates that through the consecration of the bread and the wine there occurs the change of the entire substance of the bread into the substance of the Body of Christ, and of the entire substance of the wine into the Blood of Christ--even though the appearances or "species" of bread and wine remain (1376).
Two questions: 1) Is Pope Benedict XVI a heretic? 2) Did the Holy Spirit cease guiding the Roman Catholic Church and the Pope at the time of Vatican II and thereafter?
I know how the story ends so I don't get too worked up about the preceeding details. I keep my head down, try to bring Jesus our Saviour to the people I interact with every day and I refrain from thinking the worst of others (something I had to and still work to overcome). As an aside, I do not believe that B16 is allowing 'satan to make advances in the highest levels of the Church' as you seem to infer.
My remark wasn't catty, just truthful -- you yourself admitted that you would find those [unflattering] articles and post them when you said "darn right I will."
If Levada believes in transubtantiation in theory, why does he allow his priests to use invalid matter? Why does he concelebrate with Lutheran ministers? Why does he avoid use of the word?
That's the scary part. He believes. He knows what happens in a valid consecration. Watch what he does. It's more important that what he says.
You call them unflattering.
I call them the truth. They may be unflattering to Levada but they are the truth. It is my job as a Roman Catholic to defend the Faith, even from apostate bishops.
If you have a problem with it that's very sad.
It is sad to see another traditionalist fall for the liberal myth that the recent Council changed the teaching on the Church.
with the implication that it [the Mystical Body] subsists in other religions as well, FALSE religions - which goes against every grain of Catholic teaching.
I ask you, how is this compatible with the clear statement of the Constitution on the Church, §8?
But, the society structured with hierarchical organs and the Mystical Body of Christ, are not to be considered as two realities, nor are the visible assembly and the spiritual community, nor the earthly Church and the Church enriched with heavenly things; rather they form one complex reality which coalesces from a divine and a human element. For this reason, by no weak analogy, it is compared to the mystery of the incarnate Word. As the assumed nature inseparably united to Him, serves the divine Word as a living organ of salvation, so, in a similar way, does the visible social structure of the Church serve the Spirit of Christ, who vivifies it, in the building up of the body.This is the one Church of Christ which in the Creed is professed as one, holy, catholic and apostolic, which our Saviour, after His Resurrection, commissioned Peter to shepherd, and him and the other apostles to extend and direct with authority, which He erected for all ages as "the pillar and mainstay of the truth". This Church constituted and organized in the world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him, although many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure.
Your interpretation of "subsists" is derived from the notorious liberation theologian, Leonardo Boff. For his grave error, he was condemned by the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and has now apostatized. Ratzinger, writing against him, declares positively and with no ambiguity:
From the council's famous statement, "Haec ecclesia (sc. unica Christi ecclesia)...subsistit in ecclesia Catholica" ("this church (that is, the sole church of Christ)...subsists in the Catholic Church"), he derives a thesis which is exactly the contrary to the authentic meaning of the council text, for he affirms: "In fact it (se. the sole church of Christ) may also be present in other Christian churches" (p. 75). But the council had chosen the word subsistit -subsists-exactly in order to make clear that one sole "subsistence" of the true church exists, whereas outside her visible structure only elementa ecclesiae-elements of the church-exist; these-being elements of the same church -- tend and conduct toward the Catholic Church (Lumen Gentium, 8). The decree on ecumenism expresses the same doctrine (Unitatis Redintegratio, 3-4), and it was restated precisely in the declaration Mysterium Ecclesiae (No. 1, AAS LXV (1973), pp. 396- 398).Turning upside down the meaning of the council text on the church's subsistence lies at the base of L. Boff's ecclesiological relativism, which is outlined above; a profound misunderstanding of the Catholic faith on the church of God in the world is developed and made explicit. (Notification to Father Leonardo Boff, March 11, 1985)
In light of this, is it any surprise that we should find that, historically, "subsists in" has exactly the opposite interpretation from what you put on it? In fact, it is an even stronger reaffirmation of the identity of the Church of Christ and the Catholic Church:
In another sense substance means a subject or "suppositum," which subsists in the genus of substance. ... It is also called by three names signifying a reality--that is, "a thing of nature," "subsistence," and "hypostasis," according to a threefold consideration of the substance thus named. For, as it exists in itself and not in another, it is called "subsistence"; as we say that those things subsist which exist in themselves, and not in another. (St. Thomas, Summa Theologiae, I Q. 29 A. 2)
Bravo!
No, I'm calling you a modernist for twisting their words. They never intended heretics and apostates to be free from rebuke or be given blind obedience.
The way good Catholics are mocking and judging each other over Levada is more a cause of concern at this moment than the appointment of Levada and his reletive merits or demerits. There are some reasons to be concerned about Levada, and many good reasons to NOT lose that newfound hope we have over the elevation of B16. Lets all stop the recriminations, OK?
And you know this, how? St. Robert Bellarmine, on blind obedience to heretics:
For although the people take no vow of obedience to their pastors or bishops, they are still bound to obey them according to the teaching of St. Paul. So that, willing or not, they have to render them blind obedience and credence in those things which are not obvious to them already. Of course it can happen that a bishop or priest may be a secret heretic, trying to seduce the people and propagate his heresy. But God Himself and the vigilance of other pastors of souls will not permit this to go on for very long before it is properly referred to the judgment of the Holy See. Moreover, even though somewhere, by God's permission, a credulous people should be easily seduced by their pastor, no Catholic would dare say that therefore the people should be discouraged from obeying their prelates, or should themselves become judges of their pastors, and decide on the doctrine that is being preached to them. We know from present experience among the Lutherans that the danger of heresy is far greater by making this kind of concession to human liberty, than it will ever be from the simple obedience of the people. ("Tractatus de obedientia," in Auctarium Bellarminianum, ed. Le Bachelet (Paris, 1913), p. 385)
Just look at your use of the word "apostate". You don't even know what it means (hint: check St. Thomas, the Catholic Encyclopedia, or any catechism) and yet you and some other traditionalists throw it around on these threads. Look at how many traditionalists elevate themselves to judges of the teaching of the Church's ordinary Teaching Authority and clearly don't know what they're talking about: the infamous "subsists", the supposed contradiction of Quanta Cura and the Decree on Religious Liberty, etc.
I call them the truth. They may be unflattering to Levada but they are the truth.
I guess I would wait and see what the 'accused' has to say for himself before I would believe the 'accuser' 100%. Two sides and all that. While I wait around for the involved parties to contact me so that I might mediate and decide the outcome, I'll just go about my regular daily work (which is more than enough to keep me from being preoccupied with deciding which bishops are apostate and which ones are not). ;-)
None of us today are the person we were 40 years ago.
Let it go, and evaluate B16 on his orthodoxy and orthopraxy of 2005, not 1965.
AVOIDING RASH JUDGMENT
TURN your attention upon yourself and beware of judging the deeds of other men, for in judging others a man labors vainly, often makes mistakes, and easily sins; whereas, in judging and taking stock of himself he does something that is always profitable.
We frequently judge that things are as we wish them to be, for through personal feeling true perspective is easily lost.
If God were the sole object of our desire, we should not be disturbed so easily by opposition to our opinions. But often something lurks within or happens from without to draw us along with it.
Many, unawares, seek themselves in the things they do. They seem even to enjoy peace of mind when things happen according to their wish and liking, but if otherwise than they desire, they are soon disturbed and saddened. Differences of feeling and opinion often divide friends and acquaintances, even those who are religious and devout.
An old habit is hard to break, and no one is willing to be led farther than he can see.
If you rely more upon your intelligence or industry than upon the virtue of submission to Jesus Christ, you will hardly, and in any case slowly, become an enlightened man. God wants us to be completely subject to Him and, through ardent love, to rise above all human wisdom.
I know what an apostate is thanks. And if I didn't, I wouldn't ask you. If you didn't have your cut and paste cheat sheet you would be lost.
Mahony, Levada and friends are not secret heretics. They are flaming, out in the open apostates who don't practice what they put in writing. Many modernists are sophisticated heretics. Their writing is vague and deceptive enough to be passable to the untrained mind, yet their behavior reveals who they are. As I said before, watch what they do. It is more important than what they say.
These are not men of God and we have no obligation to obey them when they OPENLY and willingly depart from the Faith.
And guess what? If Mahony suddenly converted to Catholicism and preached the Faith of 2000 years I would obey him. Surprise!
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