Inculturation at Papal Masses; next, Poland and St. Faustina

You do what a lot of frustrated neo-Catholics do when they can't win an argument--start calling names. How is it paranoid to point out the obvious? Is it or isn't it novel to pray with voodoo priests, to kiss the Koran which curses the Trinity, to pour libations out in the Togo Forest?
Sure it's good p.r.--but it also gives scandal and appears to violate the First Commandment. It certainly was shocking.

As for Vatican I--it was important for the constraints it placed on the Pope as well as for its declaration on his infallibility when he makes ex cathedra pronouncements. The Pope, after all, isn't God. He can't make something immoral that isn't, such as a resistance to his own command if it is clearly unlawful. The Pope is committed by the papal oath to GUARD tradition, not destroy it, to PROTECT the deposit of faith, not help dismantle it--under pain of his own excommunication. And Vatican I clearly states the Holy Spirit is only promised to him to do just this: to Guard the faith as it was handed down from the apostles. He has NO protection from the Holy Spirit for novel doctrines.

The Pope, through inattentiveness or carelessness or disinterest, has allowed quite a few men with dossiers of sexual abuse to be consecrated. He has allowed quite a few apostates to be consecrated as well. He recently knowingly gave the red hat to a man who questions the reality of the Resurrection and the divinity of Christ. So why was he so determined in the Econe situation to deny Archbishop Lefebvre the right to consecrate? He knew the prelate was old and had no successors and needed someone to ordain traditional priests. Didn't the Church need new priests? Wasn't the Econe producing them in abundance? Weren't they devout men and totally orthodox men loyal to the Church and its teachings? Of course they were-- even the Vatican had admitted as much. But they were also TRADITIONAL men. They were trained to say the TRADITIONAL Mass-- which no pope had the audacity to actually proscribe officially and which was still perfectly legal. So it was their traditionalism he obviously wanted to dismantle. But this was wrong and a violation of his own oath of office in which he unambiguously promised to protect tradition and not to alter it, nor to join forces with those who oppose it.

What part of this is so hard to understand? The fix was in. The Archbishop's stubborn refusal to go along with modernist changes which were radically altering the faith was a rear guard defense of traditionalism which modernists could not tolerate. It was an attack against the Church as it had existed for two millenia before Vatican II. It was in the way of the revolution and the new religion.

The following Roman canonists have publicly declared their finding that the excommunication of Archbishop Lefebvre and the SSPX bishops were null and void:

1. Castillo Cardinal Lara, J.C.D., President of the Pontifical Commission for Authentic Interpretation of Canon Law.

2. Edward Idris Cardinal Cassidy, President of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity.

3. Alfons Cardinal Stickler, former Prefect of Vatican Archives and Library.

4. Count Neri Cappaloni, D. Cn L., eminent canon lawyer who has argued many cases before the Apostolic Signatura, canon law professor at the University of Florence.

5. Fr. Patrick Valdini, J.C.D., Dean, Faculty of Canon Law at the University of Paris.

6. Dr. Karl-Theodor Geringer, J.C.D., University of Munich

There are a host of others. I am just scratching the surface--these are the most public.

You write, "The purpose of Lefebvre's consecrations was to fuel a schism indefinitely."

This is absurd on the surface. In fact, hard as it is for you to believe, no schism took place. I know you, and other Novus Ordonians, want to believe one took place. But the Archbishop only consecrated to continue his canonically approved priestly order--which he knew was targeted for extinction by the modernists. His bishops did not take the place of other bishops. He did not create a parallel church, in other words.

Your citation of Cardinal Lara proves my point. The consecration of bishops were not schismatic acts. The Cardinal attempts to claim that the supposed schism was only formalized by Rome, that the schism was already a fact. What a load of baloney!. The very definition of schism--which Michael Davies points out in his brilliant study "In Defense of Archbishop Lefebvre"--is found in the INTENTION of the accused person, not in the Curia at Rome or even in Canon Law. The Cardinal here is purporting to know as certain that the Archbishop intended to break with the Church. This is patently false. As Davies points out, every schism involves an act of disobedience, but not every act of disobedience involves schism. The willingness of Rome to think the worst is a clear indication that it carried an animus against the traditionalism of Lefebvre. No other prelate has been so treated before or since by this pontiff.

What is astonishing, however, was Lara's grudging admission that the canons themselves do not prove anything--he must resort to supposed intentions about which he can have no inside knowledge--only Lefebvre knew what was in his heart. Rome therefore over-reacted by FORMALIZING something it did not know legally or with certitude--how could it, especially against every statement of the Archbishop proving he remained submissive to the Pope--despite his consecrations, achieved for the good, he believed, of the Church itself.

I lied? He himself said the canons did not apply! Reread the passage. To say after the fact that even though they do not apply, they are still legitimate is ludicrous, even for a modern-day Cardinal. It's enough for me that he admitted the canons do not apply. Because the rest is absolutely certain--the Archbishop's intentions were honorable and never in his wildest dreams envisioned schism. It is Rome that is duplicitous, first pretending the canons applied--even citing them!--and then back-tracking when it is clear they did not! Not to mention the smear campaign against a saintly man that continues to this day.

So now suspension a divinis is schism? Come again? This is your argument? Do you know the history of this "suspension"? He was given no chance to even plead his case. In the light of the hundreds of bishops around the world who refuse obedience to the pope--you will forgive my cynicism if I think Rome was railroading the good Archbishop. I'm still waiting for the same treatment for Kasper who denies the Resurrection and was rewarded with a red hat! Or Weakland who routinely told the Pope where to get off in between conning his diocese to pay off a lover. Lefebvre, on the other hand, supported the old Mass. Can't have that--

Thanks for sharing Cardinal Lara's letter, explaining the excommunication. I also agree with you that the "belief of necessity" argument is bogus, but for the sake of argument I conceded that point to create the "loophole trump", for IMHO the SSPX, and the dissension and disunity that they inspire is most definitely harmful to souls.

You say, "If Lefebvre wanted to do good he would have obeyed authority." But this is true only if authority had asks him to do what was good. It did not. No one should obey authority if it asks him to do evil--even if that authority is the pope. (Cf. Summa Theologica, 11a, 11ae, Q.39.) In this instance the Pope's command was tantamount to destroying the traditional priesthood, a very great evil. This is basic moral theology.

You write, "No amount of rational analysis means anything to an SSPXer." What rational analysis? You cite over and over canon laws which Cardinal Lara himself declared do not actually apply--then you call ME irrational? If the act of disobedience is not the same thing as schism--where is the demonstration of schism? Schism by definition resides in the INTENTION of the one accused. Where is there proof of this? What he did was retain traditional Catholicism with all its teachings and practices. If that seems like a parallel church to some in Rome, it is because Rome has strayed so far from authentic Catholicism.

Cardinal Lara said the act of consecrating bishops was not in itself schism. But this was precisely what the so-called "excommunication" was based on! To backtrack and say that Rome really meant this to apply to a former case of non-submission is absurd, especially when you examine the history of that bogus suspension--totally based on hear-say, without affording the archbishop the right to defend himself or any attempt whatever to hear the Archbishop's side of the story. It was a railroad-job! Then it was used as an excuse for declaring a schism had been formally incurred, when the consecrations themselves, after the fact, didn't appear to stand up under the scrutiny of canon law scholarship. This would be like piling up traffic violations and declaring they add up to murder! What is obvious to anyone who is fair-minded is that Rome wanted Lefebvre crushed because of his traditionalism, period. The rest is as fake as a three-dollar bill--by Cardinal Lara's own admission.

Why not read Michael Davies' defense of Archbishop Lefebvre--or are you afraid the truth might be too disillusioning? Of course asking some of you to be open-minded and fair about this is useless. You don't question anything Rome does, but strain at the gnat and swallow the camel whole. I ask again, how is it so many apostate and/or actively gay prelates are free to withhold submission, to openly disobey, to carry-on their well-known abuses without interference from the Vatican whereas Archbishop Lefebvre alone was singled out for reproof and even declared schismatic? And why do you suppose it is Rome who now seeks to heal the breach? The SSPX feels no qualms of conscience whatever over this. It is Rome who has the bad conscience for using its immense authority so unjustly.

Optional Memorial of St. Faustina, 10-05-02

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