Posted on 05/13/2005 9:57:43 PM PDT by Canticle_of_Deborah
"Sounds like my Irish born former IRA member (when the IRA was ok) grandfather. Caught me reading a biography on the Tutor dynasty and he took it away from me and threw it against the wall! He told me (loudly) that I shouldn't bother reading about heretics and murderers. He then proceeded to sit me down in 'the parlour' and give me a two hour lecture on the Tutors and on Irish history."
I always find it fascinating and amusing seeing American versions of British history. A friend from Idaho thinks England is full of castles and estates and is awaiting a call to reclaim her heritage. Rather wickedly, I break her dream by saying she is in America because a distant relative was deported for sheep stealing!
"Ah, yes, the hatred for John Paul II that is always simmering below the surface among some of the posters here. I think the late pontiff is enjoying the beatific vision right now, after first having been embraced by the Mother whom he loved so well and to whom he dedicated the entirety of his priestly service to Christ's Church."
.... or breaking up rocks in God's celecstial quarry!
"I want to see P B-16 succeed beyond his wildest hopes and desires, and I think he's the type of man who can blot out the millions of popes in millions of bellies. I wish him only the best, and I'm not about to start second-guessing he who the Holy Spirit appointed. I've made up my mind, I'm not following any ragsheets on him. I can find out what I need to know via other sources. I'm not going to countenance propaganda."
Unlike his predecessor, the Pope has had a long history in Rome. His career did not start in 2005. All his pronouncements and writings are meant to be absorbed and it is legitimate for observers to extrapolate from them.
I think it takes me longer to understand things, but I don't think I'm being misled. No Pope would sanction a priest undermining his Bishop to the Congregation. No Pope.
I have no respect for this priest, he conducted himself shabbily, and because of that I'm not confident that he's telling the whole truth.
As I said, my Priest has had problems in our Diocese because he doesn't sit idly by and watch as Liturgical abuse takes place.
He was transferred from a large suburban parish, and placed in an innner-city one. It is my understanding that he was almost let go completely. He is intense, and maybe even he himself acted in a less than circumspect manner. Yet, many, many of his parishoners travel from that suburb to the inner-city to continue to be part of his parish. Because with all his faults, he absolutely loves and protects the Blessed Sacrament, and teaches us a combination of Faith, morals and history in his homilies.
He would never approach the matter as this priest did. He would never incite the parishoners against his Bishop. Fr. Heidt is self-puffed, and the kind of priest I would not want as my pastor.
Finally, though up front I admit that I'm not an expert on St. Pope Pius X, I can't imagine he would be pleased that a group who has broken away from the Church has taken his name to apply his imprimatur. I don't believe for one minute that he would sanction such a thing.
You're free to extrapolate to your heart's content. That's of absolutely no consequence to me. The piece of my post that you quote applies to me, to the way I plan to approach learning and discerning, there was nothing there advising that I'd like to impose that on someone else. What I lack in education I make up for in good instincts, and the knowledge that I don't have a lot of knowledge.
There are a few assumptions that you make that must be challenged.
The SSPX did not "break away" from the Church. Because the Pope says something like that does not make it true. And the Pope was wrong on this. He is not impeccable on these issues. If he said, I went to Hawaii for vacation in 2003 and I didn't. He is wrong.
By all means read as much as you can about Pope St. Pius X. And see if you think he would be happy with allowing bishops to do what they have done. I really don't think he would've waited for Archbishop Weakland to turn 75 and retire peacefully after he paid $400,000 of hush money to his gay lover.
There is no guarantee that the decisions of a Pope are going to be of benefit to the faithful and if they are positively damaging to the Faith (if say, a Pope decided to do away with Lent for no reason other than it interferes with the way Catholics interact in society on Fridays) then the Pope can and must be resisted.
I'm sure St. Pius X would have been pleased watching JPII kiss the Koran and the ring of the archbishop of Canterbury. Don't you?
"The Church has no right whatsoever to touch the institution and form
of the Sacraments." --St. Pius X
"Let not the priesthood be misled by the miracles of a false democracy
into the maze of modern ideas; let it not borrow from the rhetoric of the
worst enemies of the Church, the high-flown phrases, full of promises, which
are as high-sounding as unrealizable." --Pope Pius X (1903-1914 Our Apostolic Mandate 1910
For Catholics, nothing will remove the authority of the Second
Council of Nicaea, where it condemns those who dare, after the impious
fashion of heretics to deride ecclesiastical traditions, to invent novelties
of some kind or to endeavor by malice or craft to overthrow any one of the
legitimate traditions of the Catholic Church." --PopePius X Pascendi
This is like saying the Eastern Orthodox didn't break away from the Church. They just continued believing what they wanted to believe, with their own ecclessiastical structure completely independent from Rome, under the leadership of bishops all of whom had been excommunicated.
If the SSPX did not break away from the Church, name one SSPX chapel that recognizes the jurisdiction of the ordinary in whose diocese it is located.
in a Roman café
The NCR's John Allen has a chat in a Roman café with San Francisco Archbishop William Levada, who is distressed by "aggressive Pentecostal and evangelical movements making strong inroads into traditionally Catholic populations" in the U.S. Why do these people bother to go after Catholics?
"These are people acting out of their own sense of the missionary apostolate. They are not people touched by the vision of ecumenism. They are convinced that Catholics are going to Hell and need to be saved, so they reach out to them." Can you beat that? These folks really believe that there really is a Hell. They don't want their neighbors to go there -- they're not touched by the vision of ecumenism -- so they put themselves to considerable trouble to reach out to them to save them from damnation.
Now take look at any letter, homily, speech, interview or book produced by Levada or by the USCCB in the past 30 years, and try to come up with a single example of pastoral concern that someone, anyone, may end up in Hell as a consequence of any action whatever. You won't find it.
That leaves us with one group of Christians who believe in the literal possibility of damnation (a teaching they have unambiguously from Jesus) and are thereby spurred to missionary frenzy -- and another group of Christians whose most serious moral concern appears to be Gender-Exclusive Language. Guess which group succeeds in speaking to the minds and hearts of ordinary working people?
Levada also made the news in his local paper today:
The founding chairman of a panel formed by San Francisco's Roman Catholic Archdiocese to look into allegations of priestly child abuse has resigned from the board, accusing church leaders of "deception, manipulation and control' for refusing to release the investigation's results. James Jenkins, one of six members of the Independent Review Board and its chairman until last December, said Archbishop William Levada has blocked the release of the panel's findings on sexual-abuse allegations involving 40 priests. Perhaps the two stories are not unrelated. The truly shocking aspect of the clerical abuse scandal for most laymen was not the revelation of the sexual predation itself, but the drowsy indifference displayed by the bishops in response to it: no rending of garments, no indignation, no flame-thrower reforms. Remember Levada's reaction when Bishop Patrick Ziemann crashed and burned after his catamite went public?
The archbishop described himself as a lifelong friend of Ziemann's and said he joined "friends throughout California and beyond in thanking him for the energy and gifts he has shared far and wide. Our prayers and good wishes go with him." Detect any awareness of a soul at risk of damnation there? Neither do I. It sounds like one Rotarian congratulating another at a farewell luncheon. On the other hand, the odds are increasing that Ziemann, in his retirement, may run into a Pentecostal or evangelical who cares more for his eternal destiny than his comfort. There's hope.
All of the SSPX Mass centers recognize the local ordinary. The Problem is the local ordinary doesn't want to recognize the SSPX.
Except in Venona Italy where the SSPX provides the "Indult" Mass with the permission of the local ordinary. And in ST. Peter's Basilica where Bishop Fellay was allowed to offer the Mass in a side chapel during the Jubilee year.
meant to ping you.
What? The Bishop of Verona allows "schimatics" to say the diocesan indult mass?
And in ST. Peter's Basilica where Bishop Fellay was allowed to offer the Mass in a side chapel during the Jubilee year.
What? Bishop Fellay was allowed to say mass in Rome after he was "excommunicated?". How is this possible? And why would Bishop Fellay even have requested to say mass in Rome since he supposedly rejects the pope and Roman authority and all that?
"Do not allow yourselves to be deceived by the cunning statements of those who persistently claim to wish to be with the Church, to love the Church, to fight so that people do not leave Her... But judge them by their works. If they despise the shepherds of the Church and even the Pope, if they attempt all means of evading their authority in order to elude their directives and judgments..., then about which Church do these men mean to speak? Certainly not about that established on the foundations of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the cornerstone (Eph. 2:20)." - St. Pius X, Allocution of May 10, 1909
"If one loves the Pope, one does not stop to ask the precise limits to which this duty of obedience extends… one does not seek to restrict the domain within which he can or should make his wishes felt; one does not oppose to the Pope’s authority that of others, however learned they may be, who differ from him. For however great their learning, they must be lacking in holiness, for there can be no holiness in dissension from the Pope. Yet there are priests – a considerable number of them – who submit the word of the Pope to their private judgement and who, with unheard-of audacity, make their obedience to the Roman Pontiff conditional upon such personal judgement." - St. Pius X, Allocution of 18 September, 1912
So are you claiming that Popes are irresistible?
If so, can you point to a doctrine that teaches this?
By the way, Where does it say a Pope develops doctrine?
Also, the Holy Spirit does not suspend a Pope's free will.
I suggest you read up on Paschal II.
And John XXII.
Both of those quotes can be applied to the current heirarchy. B16 is interested in wanting to be only known as the Bishop of Rome. This could be an indication of the mentality that Pius X warned of. Also his writings about the reduction of the Church was also condemned by Pius X when he referred to those that would want the Church to return to Poverty.
Don't think those law settlements weren't hoped for in order to bankrupt the Church.
I believe Levada's old diocese went bankrupt.
The post conciliar Popes have done a marvelous job evading the authority of their offices.
From Leo's prayer to St. Michael in the long form:
"These most crafty enemies have filled and inebriated with gall and bitterness the Church, the spouse of the immaculate Lamb, and have laid impious hands on her most sacred possessions. In the Holy Place itself, where has been set up the See of the most holy Peter and the Chair of Truth for the light of the world, they have raised the throne of their abominable impiety, with the iniquitous design that when the Pastor has been struck, the sheep may be scattered."
The Pope can govern over someone and command them to assist in leveling the Church? C'mon.
The Pope has Supreme Authority but not irresistible carte blanche. He's subject to the Magisterium of the Church himself.
Is the Pope capable of resisting the Holy Spirit?
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