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Posted on 07/09/2007 11:01:19 AM PDT by AnthonyCekada
A “mark of identity… a form of encounter…particularly suited to them.….” A “sacrality which attracts many people.” (Benedict XVI, on his reasons for instituting the Motu Mass)
“Legitimate diversity and different sensibilities, worthy of respect… Stimulated by the Spirit who makes all charismata come together in unity.”( John Paul II, on the traditional Mass, to the Fraternity of St. Peter)
“Everything in their system is explained by inner impulses or needs.” (Pope St. Pius X, on modernists and the sacraments, Pascendi)
* * *
ON JULY 7, 2007 Benedict XVI issued Summorum Pontificum, his long-anticipated Motu Proprio allowing a more widespread use of the 1962 version of the traditional Latin Mass. His action came as no surprise. As a Cardinal, Joseph Ratzinger had already spoken favorably about the old Mass many times.
Here are some salient provisions of the Motu Proprio and his accompanying letter:
• The New Mass of Paul VI is the “ordinary” expression of the “law of prayer” (lex orandi), while the John XXIII version of the old Mass is the “extraordinary” expression. They are “two uses of the one Roman Rite.” (Motu Proprio, ¶1)
• Any priest can celebrate the Mass of “Blessed John XXIII” privately. (¶2)
• In parishes where there is a stable group of faithful “attached to the previous liturgical tradition,” the pastor should accede to their requests for a celebration of the ’62 Mass. (¶5.1)
• Such celebrations can take place on weekdays, “while on Sundays and feastdays there may be one such celebration.” (¶5.2)
• Scripture readings can be proclaimed in the vernacular. (¶6)
• The older rite may also be used, when requested, for weddings and funerals (¶5.3), and the pastor may allow using the older rites for administering other sacraments as well. (¶9.1)
• The diocesan bishop may set up a “personal parish” for such celebrations. (¶10)
• The New Mass and the old are not “two Rites,” but a two-fold use of “one and the same rite.” (Letter to Bishops)
• The old Missal was “never juridically abrogated, and consequently, in principle, was always permitted.”
• The two rites are “mutually enriching.”
• New saints and new Prefaces from the New Missal “can and should be inserted into the old.”
• There is “no contradiction” between the two rites.
• Priests from communities that adhere to the former usage “cannot, as a matter of principle, exclude celebrating according to the new books.” So, now that the “Motu Mass” has finally arrived, what should we make of it? Here are some preliminary considerations.
I. POSITIVE ASPECTS
1. An Admission of Failure
As a seminarian in the 1960s, I lived through the liturgical revolution on the inside, and since then I have read commentaries on the reform by those who directed it — Bugnini, Jungmann, Braga, Wagner, Patino, Botte, Vaggagini, Brandolini, and many others.
In those days and for these men, there was never any question of allowing the pre-Vatican II Mass to survive, even on a restricted basis. The new rite of Mass in the 1970 Missal of Paul VI was to become the Mass of the Roman Rite, period, and it was to be a great step forward for the Church.
This was the intention of Paul VI himself. In November 1969, shortly before his New Mass was to be introduced in churches throughout the world, he developed this theme in two General Audiences:
“[The liturgical reform] is a step forward for [the Church’s] genuine tradition. It is a clear sign of faithfulness and vitality.… It is not a fad, a fleeting or optional experiment, the invention of some dilettante… This reform puts an end to uncertainties, arguments and arbitrary abuses. It summons us back to that uniformity of rites and attitudes that is proper to the Catholic Church…
“[T]he fundamental outline of the Mass is still the traditional one, not only theologically but also spiritually. Indeed, if the rite is carried out as it ought to be, the spiritual aspect will be found to have greater richness.”…
“Let us then not speak of a ‘new Mass,’ but of a ‘new age’ in the life of the Church.”
The new age is now over. During four decades of “greater richness,” ordinations in the U.S. declined by 72%, seminary enrollment by 90%, seminaries by 66%, teaching sisters by 94%, Catholic school enrollment by 55%, and Mass attendance by about 60%.
In the 1990s, a new generation of clergy started to turn away from the rite of Paul VI and look longingly towards the Tridentine Missal. Graduates of garden-variety diocesan seminaries sought out old-style vestments, took courses on the pre-Vatican II rubrics, celebrated the traditional Mass on the sly, and generally, hoped for something more Catholic than was to be found in the new rite.
If the New Mass had been a success, there would be none of this. The Motu Mass is an ad-mission that the Novus Ordo was a failure.
2. Removing the Stigma.
From 1964 to 1984, the modernist hierarchy treated those who wanted the old Mass as outcasts, crackpots and troglodytes. The 1984 Indult and then the establishment of the Ecclesia Dei commission in 1988, however, removed some of the stigma from promoting the “Latin Mass.”
Ratzinger’s Motu Mass will further “legitimize” pre-Vatican II liturgical practices in the eyes of many.
3. A Cause of Division in the Enemy Camp
Despite the elaborate safeguards Ratzinger tried to lay down, Motu Mass will inevitably cause conflict among adherents to Vatican II.
I don’t know about other parts of the world, but I can probably predict how this will play out in suburban America, where the majority of Novus Ordo Catholics now reside. There, in churches architecturally indistinguishable from chain restaurants and bank branches, committees of “empowered” and aggressive laywomen, both salaried and volunteer, together with the occasional liberated “woman religious,” now dictate parish policies and practices. They and their fellow suburbanites like the easy-going Mass and religion of Vatican II just as it is.
Should a neo-con pastor (typically: “Father Bob,” — late 30s, overweight, and in his second career) announce that, thanks to the Motu Proprio, he will be bringing out all the old liturgical gear that he’s bought on eBay and start celebrating the old Mass in Latin at 10AM on Sundays, a parish-wide insurrection, complete with protests to the bishop and a full media campaign, would be organized by the women’s soviet.
Multiply this by a few parishes per diocese, and you can see the strife the Motu Mass could cause among the enemy. A divided house cannot stand, and divisions that advance the decomposition of the new religion can only speed the restoration of the old — quod Deus det!
4. Warning Flares for Committed Trads
Most long-time traditionalists detest any tinkering with the Mass. Ratzinger, however, hints at some changes that might be in store for them at their local Motu Mass: new saints’ feasts, new Prefaces, and vernacular readings — whether even the Bugnini lectionary can be used is left unclear.
Great! Fooling around like this with the old Mass will make old-timers very uneasy, alert them to Ratzinger’s game (one hopes), and perhaps even start them on the road to thinking that modernists like Ratzinger are the problem, not the solution, for real Catholics.
5. Rubbing Priests’ Noses in the New Mass
Since 1988 John Paul II and Ratzinger have approved a great number of quasi-traditionalist religious communities (Fraternity of St. Peter, Institute of Christ the King, the Good Shepherd Institute, etc.) that are allowed to use the ’62 Missal and other pre-Vatican II rites. These have insulated many clergy who detested the New Mass from being forced to celebrate it.
No longer. Ratzinger sends them a rocket: “Needless to say, in order to experience full communion, the priests of the communities adhering to the former usage cannot, as a matter of principle, exclude celebrating according to the new books. The total exclusion of the new rite would not in fact be consistent with the recognition of its value and holiness.”
Again, great! The more that priests in these institutes are personally confronted with the evil of the New Mass, the sooner they will realize the irreconcilable contradictions of their own position.
6. An Introduction to the Real Issues
Although the John XXIII Mass that Ratzinger authorizes is a stripped version of the inte-gral traditional liturgy, it still retains enough of the old to demonstrate that, in comparison, the New Mass of Paul VI represented an entirely new religion — “man-centered,” as one of its creators, Fr. Martin Patino, proudly proclaimed.
For many Catholics, the road to becoming traditionalists began when they encountered a traditional Latin Mass for the first time and compared it with the neo-protestant rite celebrated in their parishes. With the Motu Mass, the possibility of such encounters multiplies exponentially.
This will no doubt lead many sincere and thoughtful souls to look beyond the liturgical question to the larger doctrinal issue — the heresies of Vatican II and the post-Conciliar popes — and eventually embrace the only logical position for a faithful Catholic: sedevacantism.
II. NEGATIVE ASPECTS
1. Co-opted by Modernist Subjectivism
Because they still think in the old Catholic religious categories, traditionalists who pro-moted the Motu Mass will consider its approval a resounding defeat for modernism.
But in fact, something different has occurred: with the Motu Mass, the modernists will now co-opt unsuspecting trads into their own subjectivist program.
Pope St. Pius X condemned modernism because (among other things) it spurned dogma and exalted the “religious sense” of the individual believer. And the Vatican pronouncements that authorize the use of the traditional Mass — from the 1984 Indult onwards — all do so on the basis of slippery and subjective modernist categories like “different sensibilities,” “feelings,” “legitimate diversity,” “enjoyment,” various “charismata,” “cultural expressions,” “attachment,” etc.
Ratzinger now repeatedly sounds this theme: “attachment,” “affection,” “culture,” “personal familiarity,” “mark of identity,” “dear to them,” “attraction,” “form of encounter,” and “sacrality which attracts.”
Everything is reduced to the subjective.
Let the traditionalists who promoted it say what they will. For Ratzinger, the Motu Mass makes them merely one more color in his Vatican II rainbow.
2. A Side Chapel in an Ecumenical Church
As we have repeatedly pointed out elsewhere, Joseph Ratzinger’s personal contribution to the long list of Vatican II errors is his “Frankenchurch” heresy. For him, the Church is a “communion” — a type of ecumenical, One-World Church to which Catholics, schismatics and heretics all belong, each possessing “elements” of the Church of Christ either “fully” or “partially.” According to his Catechism, all are part of one big happy “People of God.”
Under this roof, some enjoy Lutheran chorales, guitar Masses, Gregorian chant, communion in the hand, altar girls, lay Eucharistic ministers, Hindu and African “inculturated” liturgies and Mariachi music. Others (in “partial communion” with Ratzinger) enjoy somber Orthodox chanting, rock music, priestesses, Anglican smells and bells, Canons with the Words of Consecration missing, accept-Jesus-as-your-perrrzonal-savior altar calls, and Filioque-free Creeds.
It is therefore hardly surprising that Ratzinger would offer traditionalists the Motu Mass, and with it a large and comfy side chapel in his ecumenical church. Just one more option…
And in fact, Fr. Nicola Bux, a Vatican official who was involved in drafting the Motu Proprio, called it just that: an “’extension’ of options.”
And of course, there is a price to be paid.
According to Ratzinger’s Motu Proprio and accompanying letter, the Novus Ordo — the ecumenical, protestant, modernist sacrilege that destroyed the Catholic faith throughout the world — is the “ordinary expression of the law of prayer of the Catholic Church.” Your Motu Mass — the true Mass, you may like to call it — is merely “extraordinary.” The new and the old are merely two uses of the same Roman Rite.
If you accept the Motu Mass, you buy into all this, and become a paid-up member of Ratzinger’s One-World Ecumenical Church.
3. Catholic Rituals, Modernist Doctrines
For decades, traditionalists rallied to the cry “It’s the Mass that matters!”
But ultimately this is just a slogan. You can get to heaven without the Catholic Mass, but you can’t get to heaven without the Catholic Faith.
Ratzinger will now give you the Mass — but the faith? Will those who accept his generous offer be free to condemn the Novus Ordo, the Vatican II errors, and the false teachings of the post-Conciliar popes?
To find out, one need only look at the Fraternity of St. Peter, the Institute of Christ the King and the other organizations already celebrating the old Mass under the auspices of the Vatican’s Ecclesia Dei Commission. The most their clergy dared to do was offer the occasional polite criticism about “deficiencies” or “ambiguities” in the new religion. They are now all sold men.
Their principal concern now, like that of the Anglican High Church wing, will be to maintain the externals of Catholicism, especially its worship. But the heart of Catholicism — the faith — is gone.
So while a neo-con priest who offers a Motu Mass may now find it very thrilling to chant the ancient collects with their “negative” language about hell, divine retribution, Jews, pagans, heretics and the like, he should remember that Vatican II abolished the doctrinal presuppositions on which this language was based.
For the good Father and his congregation, the lex orandi which they observe (the tradi-tional Mass) has no connection whatsoever with their official lex credendi (the Vatican II religion).
From its 19th-century beginnings, modernism sought to create a religion that is divorced from dogma, but that nevertheless satisfies man’s “religious sense.” It is ironic that this self-contradicting and dogma-free religion is now fully realized in Ratzinger’s Motu Mass.
4. Non-Priests Offering Invalid Masses
“Once there are no more valid priests, they’ll permit the Latin Mass.”
This was the prediction made in the mid-1970s by the Capuchin Fr. Carl Pulvermacher, an older traditionalist priest who worked with SSPX and was an editor of their U.S. publication The Angelus.
It was also prophetic. In 1968, the modernists formulated a new Rite of Episcopal Conse-cration that is invalid — it cannot create a real bishop. Someone who is not a real bishop, of course, cannot ordain a real priest, and all the Masses — traditional Latin or Novus Ordo — offered by an invalidly ordained priest are likewise invalid.
So nearly forty years later, when, thanks to the post-Vatican II Rite of Episcopal Consecration, there are few validly ordained priests left, the modernist Ratzinger (himself invalidly consecrated in the new rite) permits the traditional Mass.
As a result of the Motu Proprio, therefore, traditional Latin Masses will start to be cele-brated widely throughout the world: chant and Palestrina will echo in magnificently appointed churches, cloth-of-gold vestments will glisten, clouds of incense will fill Baroque apses, preachers in lace will proclaim the return of the sacred, solemn-faced clerics will officiate with as much rubrical perfection as the truncated rites of John XXIII will allow.
But the Motu Mass will all be an empty show. Without real bishops, no real priests; without real priests, no Real Presence; without the Real Presence, no God to receive and adore — only bread…
III. SAY NO TO THE MOTU
IN THE LONG run, the Motu Mass will contribute to the steady decline of post-Conciliar religion and the eventual death of Vatican II — Ratzinger’s devil-baby, for which Limbo was never an option. At all this, we can only rejoice.
In the short term, however, many gullible traditionalists will be lured to the Motu Mass because of convenience or the prospect of “belonging to something bigger.”
But the negative aspects of actually assisting at the Motu are pure poison. Here are two key points to remember:
(1) In most cases, your local Motu Mass will be invalid, because the priest who offers it will have been ordained by an invalidly consecrated bishop. Even some Indult parishioners already avoid the Masses of FSSP priests for this reason.
(2) The Motu Mass is part of a false religion. Sure, you have your “approved” Latin Mass and perhaps even your Baltimore Catechism. But your co-religionists in the Church of Vatican II also have their Mass and their Catechism, all “approved” as well.
By assisting at the Motu Mass, you become part of it all and affirm that the differences between you and the folks down the road at St. Teilhard’s Church are merely cosmetic — “legitimate diversity and different sensibilities, worthy of respect… stimulated by the Spirit,” as John Paul II said to the Fraternity of St. Peter about their apostolate of offering the old Mass.
But if as a faithful Catholic, you’re disgusted at the thought of compromising with heresy and becoming one more color in the modernists’ liturgical and doctrinal rainbow, you have only one choice: Say no to the Motu!
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Just as with the homosexual lobby: there is no appeasing this group.
If the Sedevacantist position is that there is no Pope, which essentially and realistically places them outside of the Catholic Faith, why don’t they act honest with everyone and stop calling themselves Catholics and call themselves Protestants?
It’s very sad to continue to see the Catholic Church attacked not only from without but from those who still have the audacity to call themselves Catholic.
The real evidence that this is a protestant position is its anti-papal tone. All protestant writing has an anti-magisterial bent and is defined by what it is not, i.e “we’re not like the Catholics because...”
Even Mohammed wrote like that ergo Mohammedism is a heresy.
“changes that might be in store for them at their local Motu Mass:... and vernacular readings”
Not a Catholic, no dog in this fight.
But why in the world would anyone oppose reading the Bible in the language of the hearer???
I mean, wouldn’t you want your hearer to understand what they are hearing???
*** rolls eyes ***
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So much in this poisonous screed is inaccurate that one hardly knows where to start.
But it clearly demonstrates that the Sedevacantists are as utterly Protestant as John Knox -- they just like the Catholic trappings.
You’re rabid, and I can’t read most of your rant even out of some interest.
God have Mercy on you.
Could you elaborate on what you mean by what you have said here? I’m not well versed in my own faith on so many things.
But I will say that what this man has written is so arrogant, he thinks he knows God while the rest of us slobs must all be going straight to hell. The God he speaks of sounds untouchable, unknowable, unapproachable. I have no idea what he’s saying, he might as well have written THAT in Latin too.
Our church liturgy would probably make his head explode. We at various times throughout the year mix Latin in with our NO mass. We sing Sanctus and Agnus Dei and so many other songs of prayer in Latin. I love it. I don’t understand this sort of thinking, and right now this is really bringing me down. To say I’m not really Catholic hurts me to my bone marrow.
Please believe me, not all Protestants are like this - only the “Whore of Babylon” screed types. The rest are Christians.
I knew when I talked to my SSPX friend that they were being primed to reject the Motu Proprio even though they think the pope did it just for them. What I find disgusting and also cultish in the worst sense of the word is that almost everything she says can be googled word for word and I find anti-Catholic and pro-SSPX screeds. If she was really thinking for herself I wouldn't worry so much. I really have just about had it with her. I'm afraid though that God may have a different opinion and that it won't be that easy.
Two years ago he also tried to say that the Church should NOT oppose Terri Schiavo’s murder:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1397181/posts
LOL, we know. We understand that most Protestants are more interested in serving Christ than bashing fellow Christians. I feel the same way.
I suggest that you learn what the true Roman Catholic Church not only teaches but also commands must be done in the instance of the Vatican2 heretics usurping the throne of Peter and instituting a false apostate church of their own making.
1..."Remembering also that, where danger is greater, it must more fully and more diligently be counteracted, We have been concerned lest false prophets or others, even if they have only secular jurisdiction, should wretchedly ensnare the souls of the simple, and drag with them into perdition, destruction and damnation countless peoples committed to their care and rule, either in spiritual or in temporal matters; and We have been concerned also lest it may befall Us to see the abomination of desolation, which was spoken of by the prophet Daniel, in the holy place."
6. In addition, [by this Our Constitution, which is to remain valid in perpetuity We enact, determine, decree and define:-]
that if ever at any time it shall appear that any Bishop, even if he be acting as an Archbishop, Patriarch or Primate; or any Cardinal of the aforesaid Roman Church, or, as has already been mentioned, any legate, or even the Roman Pontiff, prior to his promotion or his elevation as Cardinal or Roman Pontiff, has deviated from the Catholic Faith or fallen into some heresy:
(i) the promotion or elevation, even if it shall have been uncontested and by the unanimous assent of all the Cardinals, shall be null, void and worthless;
(ii) it shall not be possible for it to acquire validity (nor for it to be said that it has thus acquired validity) through the acceptance of the office, of consecration, of subsequent authority, nor through possession of administration, nor through the putative enthronement of a Roman Pontiff, or Veneration, or obedience accorded to such by all, nor through the lapse of any period of time in the foregoing situation;
(iii) it shall not be held as partially legitimate in any way;
(iv) to any so promoted to be Bishops, or Archbishops, or Patriarchs, or Primates or elevated as Cardinals, or as Roman Pontiff, no authority shall have been granted, nor shall it be considered to have been so granted either in the spiritual or the temporal domain;
(v) each and all of their words, deeds, actions and enactments, howsoever made, and anything whatsoever to which these may give rise, shall be without force and shall grant no stability whatsoever nor any right to anyone;
(vi) those thus promoted or elevated shall be deprived automatically, and without need for any further declaration, of all dignity, position, honour, title, authority, office and power.
7. Finally, [by this Our Constitution, which is to remain valid in perpetuity, We] also [enact, determine, define and decree]:-
that any and all persons who would have been subject to those thus promoted or elevated if they had not previously deviated from the Faith, become heretics, incurred schism or provoked or committed any or all of these, be they members of anysoever of the following categories:
(i) the clergy, secular and religious;
(ii) the laity;
(iii) the Cardinals, even those who shall have taken part in the election of this very Pontiff previously deviating from the Faith or heretical or schismatical, or shall otherwise have consented and vouchsafed obedience to him and shall have venerated him;
(iv) Castellans, Prefects, Captains and Officials, even of Our Beloved City and of the entire Ecclesiastical State, even if they shall be obliged and beholden to those thus promoted or elevated by homage, oath or security;
shall be permitted at any time to withdraw with impunity from obedience and devotion to those thus promoted or elevated and to avoid them as warlocks, heathens, publicans, and heresiarchs (the same subject persons, nevertheless, remaining bound by the duty of fidelity and obedience to any future Bishops, Archbishops, Patriarchs, Primates, Cardinals and Roman Pontiff canonically entering).
To the greater confusion, moreover, of those thus promoted or elevated, if these shall have wished to prolong their government and authority, they shall be permitted to request the assistance of the secular arm against these same individuals thus promoted or elevated; nor shall those who withdraw on this account, in the aforementioned circumstances, from fidelity and obedience to those thus promoted and elevated, be subject, as are those who tear the tunic of the Lord, to the retribution of any censures or penalties.
I agree with you that Cekada has Teri Schindler's blood on his hands by completely misapplying Catholic teaching on withdrawing extraordinary life support in a case where the facts did not in any way coincide with their application. By doing this, in his arrogance, he justified her murder, hence as the Church teaches, partaking in the sin of another, that of Michael Schiavo's and the corrupt legal system.
All that being said, I wanted to seperate his own actions in the Terri Schindler case from being used to justify an equally arrogant and ignorant "Know-Nothing" dismissal of the Church's teaching that the See of Peter becomes vacant due to formal heresy by the miscreant's own actions, either before his election to the Chair of Peter which would prevent the election from ever being valid as I quoted above, or would result in an immediateloss of the Papacy after his election, again solely by his own actions, and without any formal declaration being necessary.
Four Doctors of the Church regarding defection from the Faith by a Pope.
St. Robert Bellarmine: "For, in the first place, it is proven with arguments from authority and from reason that the manifest heretic is "ipso facto" deposed."
St Robert Bellarmine, "De Romano Pontifice", ("On the Roman Pontiff"), liber II, caput 30:
"For, in the first place, it is proven with arguments from authority and from reason that the manifest heretic is "ipso facto" deposed. The argument from authority is based on St. Paul (Titus, c. 3), who orders that the heretic be avoided after two warnings, that is, after showing himself to be manifestly obstinate - which means before any excommunication or judicial sentence. And this is what St. Jerome writes, adding that the other sinners are excluded from the Church by sentence of excommunication, but the heretics exile themselves and separate themselves by their own act from the body of Christ. Now, a Pope who remains Pope cannot be avoided, for how could we be required to avoid our own head? How can we separate ourselves from a member united to us?
"This principle is most certain. The non-Christian cannot in any way be Pope, as Cajetan himself admits (ib. c. 26). The reason for this is that he cannot be head of what he is not a member; now he who is not a Christian is not a member of the Church, and a manifest heretic is not a Christian, as is clearly taught by St. Cyprian (lib. 4, epist. 2), St. Athanasius (Scr. 2 cont. Arian.), St. Augustine (lib. de great. Christ. cap. 20), St. Jerome (contra Lucifer.) and others; therefore the manifest heretic cannot be Pope.
Est ergo quinta opinio vera, papam haereticum manifestum per se desinere esse papam et caput, sicut per se desinit esse christianus et membrum corporis Ecclesiae; quare ab, Ecclesia posse eum judicari et puniri. Haec est sententia omnium veterum Patrum, qui docent, haereticos manifestos mox amittere omnem jurisdictionem.
"Therefore, the true opinion is the fifth, according to which the Pope who is manifestly a heretic ceases by himself to be Pope and head, in the same way as he ceases to be a Christian and a member of the body of the Church; and for this reason he can be judged and punished by the Church. This is the opinion of all the ancient Fathers, who teach that manifest heretics immediately lose all jurisdiction,
Fundamentum hujus sententiae est. quoniam haereticus manifestos nullo modo est membrum Ecclesiae, idest, neque animo neque corpore, sive neque unione interna, neque externa.
"The foundation of this argument is that the manifest heretic is not in any way a member of the Church, that is, neither spiritually nor corporally, which signifies that he is not such by internal union nor by external union.
St. Alphonsus de Liguori on the fate of a heretical pope:
"Del resto, si Dio permettesse che un papa fosse notoriamente eretico e contumace, egli cesserebbe d'essere papa, e vacherebbe il pontificato."
--"Verita della Fede", part 3, ch. 8, no. 10.
In: Opere dommatiche di S. Alfonso de Liguori (Torino, G. Marietti, 1848), p. 720. (Opere di S. Alfonso Maria de Liguori, v. 8)
"For the rest, if God should permit that a Pope should become a notorious and contumacious heretic, he would cease to be Pope, and the pontificate would be vacant."
St. Francis de Sales on papal infallibility and heresy:
"En l'ancienne loy le grand pretre ne portait pas le rational si non quand il estoit revestu des habits pontificaux et qu'il entroit devant le Seigneur. Ainsi ne disons nous pas que le pape en ses opinions particulieres ne puisse errer comme fit Jean XXII, ou etre du tout heretique comme peut etre fut Honorius. Or quand il est heretique expres *ipso facto* il tombe de son grade hors de l'Eglise et l'Eglise le doit ou priver comme disent quelques uns, ou le declarer prive de son siege apostolique et dire comme fit St. Pierre: Episcopatum eius accipiat alter. Quand il erre en sa particuliere opinion il le faut enseigner, adviser, convaincre comme on fit a Jean XXII le quel tant s'en faut qu'il mourut opiniatre ou que pendant sa vie il determina aucune chose touchant son opinion, que pendant qu'il faysoit l'inquisition requise pour determiner en matiere de foy, il mourut, au recit de son successeur en l'Extravagante qui se commence *Benedictus Deus.*"
St. Francis de Sales, The Catholic Controversy (Tan Books), p. 388 (part II, art. VI, ch. 14)
"Under the ancient law the High Priest did not wear the Rational except when he was vested in the pontifical robes and was entering before the Lord. Thus we do not say that the Pope cannot err in his private opinions, as did John XXII; or be altogether a heretic, as perhaps Honorius was. Now when he is explicitly a heretic, he falls ipso facto from his dignity out of the Church, and the Church must either deprive him, as some say, or declare him deprived, of his Apostolic See, and must say as St. Peter did: Let another take his bishopric (Acts I). When he errs in his private opinion he must be instructed, advised, convinced; as happened with John XXII, who was so far from dying obstinate or from determining anything during his life concerning his opinion, that he died whilest he was making the examination which is necessary for determining in a matter of faith, as his successor declared in the *Extravagantes* which begins Benedictus Deus." (Ib. p. 305-306)
St. Thomas Aquinas on loss of jurisdiction by heretics:
Summa, 2a 2ae, q. 39, art. 3. (Utrum schismatici habeant aliquam potestatem)
"...Potestas autem iurisdictionis est quae ex simplici iniunctione hominis confertur; et talis potestas non immobiliter adhaeret; unde in schismaticis et haereticis non manet; unde non possunt nec absolvere, nec excommunicare, nec indulgentias facere, aut aliquid huiusmodi; quod si fecerint, nihil est actum."
(Whether schismatics have any power.)
"...The power of jurisdiction, however [as opposed to the power of Orders, which he has just discussed], is that [power] which is conferred simply by the injunction of man; and this power does not adhere immovably; therefore it does not remain in schismatics and heretics. Hence they can neither absolve, nor excommunicate, nor grant indulgences, or anything of this sort. If they do this, the act is null."
"The Roman Pontiff has no superior but God. Who, therefore, could cast him out or trample him under foot – since of the pope it is said ‘gather thy flock into thy fold’? Truly, he should not flatter himself about his power, nor should he rashly glory in his honor and high estate, because the less he is judged by man, the more he is judged by God.
"Still the less can the Roman Pontiff glory [Minus dico] because he can be judged by men, or rather, can be shown to be already judged, if for example he should wither away into heresy; because he who does not believe is already judged.
"In such a case it should be said of him: ‘If salt should lose its savor, it is good for nothing but to be cast out and trampled under foot by men'."
Code of Canon Law (1917), Canon 188.4:
Canon 188: "Ob tacitam renuntiationem ab ipso iure admissam quaelibet officia vacant ipso facto et sine ulla declaratione, si clerus ...
(4) a fide catholica publice defecerit."
Canon 188: "There are certain causes which effect the tacit resignation of an office, which resignation is accepted in advance by operation of law, and hence is effective without any declaration. These causes are:
(4) if he has publicly fallen away from the Catholic faith."
What I meant is, that while this guy SAYS he is a Catholic, he is actually being the ultimate protestant -- denying the Faith while pretending to support it (which is of course much more protestant, not to mention hypocritical, than any protestant denomination.)
May God have mercy on his soul, indeed!
That was my problem with the piscopos. After a while it got to seem like they was just playing dress-up. As Kathleen Parker said sarcastically in a column, if we’re going to do church, by all means let’s make it high church!
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