Posted on 05/25/2005 7:48:20 PM PDT by jec1ny
24th May, Feria - Operation Rampolla or the Reunion of Catholicity?
Operation Rampolla? What on earth could that be? The French sedevacantists have come out with yet another diatribe, but oddly enough, there is a brilliant intelligence behind all the reams of pdf and other files on Les Amis du Christ-Roi - one Monsieur Hubert Rémy who lives in Nantes. Does he take himself for a new Louis Veuillot, Ward or Monsigor Umberto Benigni? This fellow seems able to sniff out a conspiracy in just about everything!
The title of the latest addition to this fascinating website is, translated into English: Operation Rampolla, the true agenda of Father Ratzinger. Why Father Ratzinger? These sedevacantists obviously claim to have the authority to judge that he is not a bishop because he was consecrated with the Novus Ordo Pontifical, and, as sedevacantists, they believe that he is not the Pope. They concede his valid priestly ordination because he was ordained long before the changes. Anyway, these opinions are not my concern in bringing this matter to my readers.
According to this neo-Sodalitium Pianum of fanatical zealots, as they would certainly like to be considered, the Oxford Movement was a product of a Rosicrucian and Masonic conspiracy to infiltrate the Catholic Church with its anti-Christian ideal, and thereby to destroy the Apostolic Succession and Sacramental life of the Church. Having been myself an Anglican, I can only say: What abject and utter nonsense! In all the Anglican parishes I have served as a choirboy, organist or simple layman, I have only ever known one clergyman who was a Freemason: the Reverend Harry Fall who was Rector of Holy Trinity, Micklegate in York in the 1970's. He was a kind and affable man, broad church, but dignified when he presided at Evensong or the Eucharist, which he celebrated according to Series II. I had no inkling that his ideal would have been to destroy Christianity. However, most of the High-Church clergy I have known were opposed to Freemasonry, and were often deeply pious and sincere men, dedicated to their ministry and pastoral callings.
Was the Oxford Movement gnostic? I can hardly stop laughing when I read such accusations thrown against Newman, Keble and Pusey! Hubert Rémy would have us believe that they were part of a Gnostic-Masonic plot to infiltrate the Roman Catholic Church in the 1830's and 40's, but I have never seen any evidence to support such a fantastic notion. Had there been, I have spent long enough in Anglicanism to know that if that was the case, parish vicars would have been getting the choirboys intiated into a Masonic lodge! The suggestion was never made to me, and I never had any interest in belonging to a secret society. I didn't even know what Freemasonry was until about the age of 17 when I went to help repair the organ of a Masonic Lodge in a small northern English town. I saw the odd looking table and candlesticks in the middle of the room and various strange symbols like the square and compass, but thought no more of it. It was not in the Church of England that I would have been encouraged into Masonry or Rosicrucianism!
Through the ranting and raving, hacking through the undergrowth of accusations of Freemasonry and Gnosticism, a brilliant analysis begins to emerge. However, unlike the sedevacantists, this analysis can bring us to a new understanding of Pope Benedict's Pontificate. My reaction is diametrically the opposite of what I was expected to understand by reading this paper - it brought me to an ever-increasing optimism in confirming my deepest intuitions and convictions. What is this far-reaching Papal agenda?
Pope Benedict XVI actually intends to reunite Eastern Orthodoxy and High-Church Anglicanism (the parts without female clergy and theological modernism) with the Roman Catholic Church, nothing less! The changes in the coat of arms, the Reform of the Reform, his many writings in favour of the traditional Roman liturgy - it all becomes clear. We are moving from the "ecumenism" we have known for the last forty years back to the heady days of the Malines Conference of 1923 (much of the preparation happened under Pope Benedict XV who died in 1922 - it fits). Why the new ecumenical alignment? Simply because since Vatican II, it is been all talk, and nothing positive has been done except to secularise the whole of western Christianity. The multi-religion meetings of Assisi and other places are over, and so are the Buddhas on the altars, the Koran-kissing. It is now all about the Undivided Church of the future!
The attitude of the Eastern Orthodox Churches has radically changed since the death of Pope John Paul II. Since Benedict XVI was elected last month, there have been no end of pronouncements and brotherly greetings from official authorities in Constantinople and Moscow in favour of resuming the dialogue in view to full communion - that the Church may breathe with both lungs! It is even suggested that the miracle may happen very soon.
Monsieur Rémy attributes all this to the Anglicans of the Oxford Movement and Cardinal Rampolla. Cardinal Rampolla was Secretary of State under Leo XIII, and came within a hair's breadth of being elected Pope in 1903. Rampolla was highly favoured by Pope Benedict XV after the death of St. Pius X in 1914. I am sure that had Cardinal Rampolla really been a Mason, he would have been found out and excommunicated by St. Pius X - but he survived the terror of the Sodalitium Pianum years. How could he have been a Mason?
During the second Conference of Malines in 1923, the Anglicans formulated a reunion project. This project had been in the air since the days of Pusey, Newman and Keble, and was greatly encouraged under the Pontificate of Leo XIII. How else would Newman, a convert, have got the Cardinal's Hat? It was in the 1890's that a commission was formed to study the question of Anglican Orders. The term was corporate reunion as opposed to individual conversions. By the end of the nineteenth century, the Oxford Movement had developed into a fully re-catholicised version of Anglicanism - Anglo-Catholicism. With Apostolicae Curae of 1896 came the problem of the validity of Anglican Orders, and thus of the Sacraments. However, there are new grounds for a re-evaluation: the influx of the Old Catholic succession and the re-Catholicising of the ordination rites. See Accipe Potestatem - by a Roman Catholic layman). The plan was intended to retain certain customs and particularities in a reunited Anglican Church, notably the use of English in the liturgy, Communion in both kinds and a optionally married clergy (many Anglo-Catholic clerics are celibate).
On 24th April of this year came an article in the British press about meetings between Archbishop John Hepworth, Primate of the Traditional Anglican Communion and Cardinal Ratzinger. He was one of the very first issues of Pope Benedict's Pontificate. When Cardinal Ratzinger entered Conclave, he revealed his ten-year relationship with the TAC. The Traditional Anglican Communion is a Continuing Anglican Church, a part of the movement founded in 1977 on the basis of the Affirmation of Saint Louis. In this Affirmation, the doctrine of this Church was no longer to be the Thirty-Nine Articles, but the first seven Ecumenical Councils and the Tradition of classical Catholicism. The ordination of women was refused, and the TAC has taken a strong moral position in line with the teachings of Popes Paul VI and John Paul II. The relationship between Archbishop Hepworth and Cardinal Ratzinger has existed for some ten years, and the TAC has a concordat of intercommunion with Forward in Faith, the Anglican opposite number of the Ecclesia Dei and Indult movement. Forward in Faith is still in canonical standing with the Archbishop of Canterbury, and its parishes (refusing female clergy) are ministered to by Flying Bishops. The Chairman of Forward in Faith is the Bishop of Fulham (Suffragan of London), the Rt. Rev. John Broadhurst. Thus, the Traditional Anglican Communion is no splinter group - it contains nearly half a million faithful.
Already, in 1980, the Congregation for Divine Worship approved an Anglican Use liturgy for former Episcopalian parishes under the Pastoral Provision approved by Pope John Paul II and entrusted to Cardinal Law of Boston (yes, the same!). This "uniate" movement is thus nothing new. This liturgical rite is largely the Prayer Book Office and Eucharist with theological corrections to bring it into line with Catholic doctrine. It is not in ICEL English but in an archaic and classical idiom, and the Mass in Pastoral Provision parishes is Eastward facing on a traditional altar, not facing the people.
The Traditional Anglican Communion is thus in a very earnest relationship with Pope Benedict, especially since the decision of the Worldwide Anglican Communion (Canterbury) to proceed with the ordination of women and the serious dispute over the raising of known practicing homosexuals to the Episcopate that occurred in 2004 leading to the Eames Commission Report of October last year. This move to full communion with Rome has been approved all along by Cardinals Ratzinger and Kasper - one of them is now Pope. The scenario would be the creation of an Anglican Rite Church in communion with Rome as a prelude to recovering other orthodox-minded Anglicans opposed to "revisionism". Such a step would bring millions of English, North American, South American, Australian and African faithful into communion with the Roman Catholic Church and the Successor of Saint Peter!
Finally, everything is converging: the coat of arms (minus the Tiara), the liturgy, the desire to combat relativism, corruption and secularism. Pope Benedict is clearly motivated by the spirit of Malines, Vladimir Soloviev, the very words of Christ - Ut omnes unum sint.
Would the Devil or Freemasonry seek to promote the very agenda that can give the Church and the Gospel unity and credibility in the face of Secularism and Islam? Is the idea to stamp out the Apostolic Succession through filling the Church with [invalid according to the sedevacantists] Novus Ordo and Anglican bishops? No, I think not, otherwise the Orthodox would have nothing to do with it. I therefore adhere to this vision, and not to the definitively outdated intransigence of mid nineteenth-century doomwatchers and their modern-day acolytes.
Doubt is not the same as lying. I thought the question was about someone who was lying?
The statements in the oath are "I believe ...", "I admit ...", "I profess ..." Thus, if one does not believe, admit, profess those specific things, but claims to do so, one is lying. Which, as you say, begs the question of what exactly is meant by "believe", "admit", "profess"? They are apparently terms of art in Catholic ecclesiasticalese, and we need to know their correct definitions.
I hadn't heard Catholics say Matthew Parker's lineage was false. He was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury by Bishop William Barlow of Chichester in 1559. William Barlow had been consecrated Bishop of St David's by Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer in 1536.
The usual line of reasoning I've heard is that the Anglican Succession was broken when Oliver Cromwell overthrew Charles I and ousted the bishops. Fortunately for the Anglicans, the Restoration occurred in time for them to be restored and continue the succession. The ECUSA lineage goes through Scotland and ties into the Church of England before Cromwell, thus avoiding that problem altogether.
It's my understanding that PNCC and Old Catholic bishops are the ones who refused to recognize the Pope as infallible after Vat-1. They were summarrily ex-communicated. Wouldn't a hard-core Catholic hold that their succession is therefore null and void?
Let me be clear about what I was saying:
I know dozens and dozens of Catholics. My wife is Catholic. My children go to CCD.
But I don't know ANY Catholics who are faithful, if that profession of faith which you posted is the definition.
Of course, you are free to say that all Catholics who do not believe as the Church teaches "aren't Catholic"-you can even say, as some have here, that the Pope "isn't catholic"-but this is absurd.
The visible Catholic Church is made up of the bishops, the priests, the deacons, and the laity-and the fraction of that group which could validly and licitly make that profession of faith is miniscule-bishops included.
Re: "But I don't know ANY Catholics who are faithful, if that profession of faith which you posted is the definition."
Wow. You may bee right but I have more hope than that in my fellow Catholic.
This is the essence of the Bull "Apostolicae Curae". Parker was "consecrated" using the Edwardine Ordinal, which the Holy See had adjudged in 1555 as being an improper form. By using an improper form after the Holy See had already corrected the English on previous use of it, the "consecrators" manifested a defect of intention as well, since had they intended to create a Catholic Bishop, they could have used the approved form in common use in England prior to 1549, and again during the reign of Queen Mary. That they chose not to was primae facie evidence that their sacramental intention was being guided not by intending to do what the Church does, but by their heretical beliefs about Holy Orders, the Mass, and the Priesthood.
It's my understanding that PNCC and Old Catholic bishops are the ones who refused to recognize the Pope as infallible after Vat-1. They were summarrily ex-communicated.
That accurately describes the Old Catholic Church of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, which after Vatican I made common cause with the Jansenist/Gallican schismatic diocese of Utrecht in the Netherlands. The Polish National Catholic Church is an American schism resulting from persecution of Polish Catholics around 1900 by the dominant Irish Catholics. Similar ill will towards the "strange" traditions of the Ukranian and Ruthenian Catholics caused the creation of the Ruthenian Orthodox Church in union with Constantinople and Moscow, and the reunion of many Ukranians with the Russian Orthodox.
The Old Catholics and PNCC hold to the Catholic teaching on the priesthood, and have retained the Catholic form of the sacrament of Holy Orders. Therefore, their ordinations are presumed valid.
Wouldn't a hard-core Catholic hold that their succession is therefore null and void?
Yes and no.
Yes, they do have a valid sacramental succession coming down from the Apostles. No, they do not have Apostolic Succession proper, because being cleaved from the Church by heresy, they no longer share the faith of the Apostles. It is an extremely mechanistic view which limits Apostolic Succession to the mere chain of valid Bishops laying on hands.
Real Anglicans do not believe in the supremacy of the Pope, transubstantiation, the veneration of Mary and the intercession of Saints. Real Anglicans have a thorough Protestant theology with a form of worship that resembles that of Roman Catholicism. We are catholics with a small "C".
Our local churches call our own Pastors and they are paid by the local churches. Our budgets are set by our Vestries with the approval of the Congregation. Our Bishops are elected by a conference with half the voters being Lay Delegates and the other half Clergy.
On the other hand, Roman Catholic Laymen have no say in the running of their church.
And also, real Anglicans deplore the pathetic and pitiful situation in the soon to be defunct ECUSA.
The purpose of the 1559 consecration was to have an overseer of the Archdiocese of Canterbury who was in the Church catholic. It is true that there was no intention to consecrate a bishop for and in the Roman Catholic Church. That intention also does not exist in the Russian, Greek and Oriental Churches. If the lack of that intention invalidates the Anglican episcopacy, then should it not also invalidate the Greek episcopacy?
I had an orthodox priest tell me once that Apostolic Succession isn't just ordination genealogy; it's adherence to the Apostolic Faith. When considering a bishop, the primary question should be whether or not he adheres to the Apostolic Faith. For Archbishops Hepworth and Akinola, the answer would be yes. For Spong and Vicki Gene, the answer would be (expletive deleted) no. Obviously something was done right with Hepworth and Akinola, and something went wrong with Spong.
The consecrators of Parker, by using the Cranmerian Ordinal, signified outwardly their intention to do something other than what the Church does in consecrating a Bishop. In their case, they were not intending to hand on powers to offer sacrifice and forgive sins and ordain sacrificing priests. Had they wished to do that, they could have used the restored Ordinal that Cardinal Pole had used under Queen Mary.
St. Thomas notes: "Some heretics in conferring sacraments do not observe the form prescribed by the Church: and these confer neither the sacrament nor the reality of the sacrament." (Summa, Pt. III, Q 64, Art. 9, ad. 2)
Your very description of what the heretic Barlow and Company were doing, which is certainly faithful to what they intended, makes clear that they were not ordaining a man to the summum sacerdotium as understood by the Catholic Church spread throughout the world. Give Barlow and Co. credit for what they were doing, which was certinly anything but ordaining a man to the Bishopric in the Catholic sense.
That intention also does not exist in the Russian, Greek and Oriental Churches. If the lack of that intention invalidates the Anglican episcopacy, then should it not also invalidate the Greek episcopacy?
You are very confused. The Orthodox certainly intend to make men Bishops with the power to forgive sins, offer the sacrifice of the Mass, and ordain Priests with the same powers. Not only is this explicitly their faith, but it is very cogently expressed in their rites, the same which are used by the Eastern churches in union with the Pope of Rome. Additionally, the Catholic Church considers the Orthodox Churches as a part of her in rebellion, but not yet completely cut off. The Anglican Church, on the other hand, is a conventicle of heretics, its Anglo-Catholic wing which shares our faith only making this more manifest among the depraved majority.
I had an orthodox priest tell me once that Apostolic Succession isn't just ordination genealogy; it's adherence to the Apostolic Faith.
And to the Apostolic Comunion.
Now we have sliced through the "who ordained whom" discussion and come to the real issues that must be addressed in order for an Anglo-Catholic reunion to work. Those issues tend to evolve mostly around priests. Do priests forgive sins or do they pronounce the Lord's forgiveness of sins? During the Eucharist, does the priest consecrate the elements or does the Holy Spirit consecrate them? During ordination, does the bishop make the postulant a deacon/priest/bishop or does the Holy Spirit do that?
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Fr. Anthony Chadwick
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