Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

The Pope, the Mass and the Society of St. Pius X
Una Voce ^

Posted on 09/19/2002 7:43:40 PM PDT by narses

The Pope, the Mass and the Society of St. Pius X

Father Pierre Blet, SJ, Professor of Church History at the Gregorian University, celebrated for his defence of Pope Pius XII against the charge of anti-semitism, has given an interview in which he made some interesting comments apropos relations between Rome and the Society of Saint Pius X and the attitude of Rome to the Traditional Mass. This interview was published in the July-August 2002 issue of the journal of Una Voce France. Father Blet considers that there are at present indications that an entente may be reached. Father Blet noted that members of the Society had been very warmly received during the Holy Year, but that things have slowed down a little since then due principally to the question of accepting Vatican II. He added that "this was not an impediment given that the Council had not promulgated any binding dogmatic definition. Everyone therefore has the right to examine what he feels able to accept..."

Where the problem of the Mass is concerned, certain cardinals of the Curia, and not the least among them, would be willing to accept the Mass of St. Pius V. Some of them have celebrated it publicly. Father Blet then made public some information that has remain confidential until now: "The Pope himself celebrated this Mass during his recent vacation." He also reported the suggestion of a cardinal who remarked that in a town in the Middle-East where he had been a missionary the Mass is celebrated in a dozen different rites. "Under these circumstances, he asked, why could there not be two rites in the West?" Father Blet added: "The Curia is ready to make concessions in this matter."


TOPICS: Catholic; Current Events
KEYWORDS: catholiclist; ling
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 201-220 next last
To: HDMZ
Well CG, you can blame your heretical buddies, J23 and P6 for that one, because they are the ones, in order to get the clear heresies in V2 approved, made respective statements at the start and close of V2 emphatically declaring THAT IT WAS NOT A DOGMATIC COUNCIL, but instead "merely pastoral", which is a load of garbage I agree.

Your Faith has failed if you think any Ecumenical Council can teach error. <> Don't you like how much we are agreeing upon these days? ;-)

<> HD, i am glad you have retained a sense of humor but I'd be much happier if your sense of repentance was as active. Who knows how much time you have left to repent before you die Extra Ecclesia.<>

The excuse then goes that the only items that were dogmatic and binding were the reiterations of previously defined dogma,and the rest merely pastoral and non-binding.

<> Pastoral/smashtoral...ALL Ecumenical councils are binding. <>

In reality V2 was a heretical, false and invalid council whose heresy was held and promulgated by two formal heretics, J23 and P6.

<> It was an Ecumenical Council thathad more Bishops and a higher percentage of living Bishops attending than any prior Ecumenical Council. It was an Infallible Ecumenical Council and it was protected by the Hly Spirit from Teaching error. Yours is a protestant not a traditionalist position. There is nothing traditional about rejecting an Ecumenical Council - outside of protestantism. <>

And just try telling your local heretical "ordinary" that the provisions of it are not binding!

41 posted on 09/21/2002 4:41:02 AM PDT by Catholicguy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 39 | View Replies]

To: Catholicguy
"Yes, including "it" and "the." "

Now you are just being extreme - Councils are not inspired as is scripture. Like the Pope they are only preserved from falling into error when teachings on faith and morals are declared binding on the faithful or are declared to be teachings of the supreme magisterium of the Church. Similarly when they restate the doctrine taught by the ordinary and universal magisterium they are preserved from error.

There is no guarantee that a Council will teach the full truth, or teach without ambiguity or with clarity. There is also no guarantee that a Council will state doctrine in a pastorally prudent way or that its canons and decrees will be enacted with wisdom at the prudent time.

Rather than your extreme position, I think the following quote is one of the most orthodox statements on the status of the teaching of Vatican II that I have seen and would challenge you to show where it is wrong!!

"Taking conciliar custom into consideration and also the pastoral purpose of Vatican II, the Council defined as binding on the Church only those things in matters of faith and morals which it openly declared to be binding."

This makes sense because the fundamental basis of all our belief is the revelation of Jesus Christ - the Word of God. The Magisterium is not above the Word of God, but serves it, teaching only what has been handed on. Sacred tradition, Sacred Scripture and the teaching authority of the Church, are so linked and joined together that one cannot stand without the others.

Thus if a non-binding teaching of a Council can be shown to be in opposition to either Sacred Scripture or Sacred Tradition, then it must be open to correction.

42 posted on 09/21/2002 12:50:33 PM PDT by Tantumergo
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 40 | View Replies]

Comment #43 Removed by Moderator

To: Snuffington
You correctly point out that Gamber didn't reject the Novus Ordo--but you fail to mention that this was only because it would be unworkable to do so now that it was so firmly established. He abhorred it as a liturgy and cited it as a major reason for the Church's post-conciliar decline. He called it a "frightening" development.
44 posted on 09/22/2002 1:45:16 AM PDT by ultima ratio
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]

To: Catholicguy
I have challenged you before on this. There is not one BINDING teaching that is new that came out of Vatican II. Not one. Not even the one on religious freedom which contradicts all magisterial teachings on the subject prior to Vatican II. Nothing was binding for all Catholics. Nor has SSPX ever been accused of heresy, which would be the case if Vatican II were a dogmatic council that issued clear dogmatic statements. But both conciliar popes declared it was a pastoral council only. And most of the council's statements are awash in liberalspeak--that is to say, in ambiguity and obfuscation. This is why, when the traditionalists at Campos "reunited" with Rome recently, there was nothing to renounce, no doctrine they had to forswear, nothing. It was a simple matter--because they had never left in the first place, doctrinally speaking. This is because we live in crazy times: it is Rome which pushes the envelope these days, not traditionalists.
45 posted on 09/22/2002 2:01:57 AM PDT by ultima ratio
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 35 | View Replies]

To: Catholicguy
I read the Hoyos letter with fascination when it first came out. He is a fine polemicist. But he mischaracterized papal infallibility. Bishop Fellay correctly cited the restraints placed on papal infallibility. Cardinal Hoyos glosses these over and implies that "This See of Peter has always remained unblemished from any error" as if this quote meant that a Pope is never wrong. Clearly that was not the meaning of Vatican I, as Cardinal Newman pointed out afterwards, recognizing that popes do, indeed, make many mistakes. But they do not err when speaking ex cathedra--and Hoyos omits this important fact. They can err in everything else--in excommunicating good archbishops, for instance.
46 posted on 09/22/2002 2:22:27 AM PDT by ultima ratio
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 35 | View Replies]

To: Tantumergo
"Taking conciliar custom into consideration and also the pastoral purpose of Vatican II, the Council defined as binding on the Church only those things in matters of faith and morals which it openly declared to be binding

<> Challenge accepted.

I am extreme - in insisting it is The Magisterium, and not me and thee, that has the authority and when that authority takes decisions, we are bound to accept them and adhere to them. For a Catholic, this is so fundamental that it used to be a tautology.

I will provide just a few quick citations but your response surprises me because you are an obviously intelligent and very well read man.

"Satis Cognitum" by Pope Leo XIII, 1896, teaches, "They who take from Christian Doctrine what they please, lean on their own judgements, not on faith, and not "bringing into captivity every understanding unto obedience of Christ (2 Cor. 10-15), they more truely obey themselves than God."

Catechism #892 "Divine assistance is also given to the succesors of the apostles, teaching in communion with the succesor of Peter, and , in a particular way, to the Bishop of Rome, pastor of the whole Church, when, without arriving at an infallible definition and without pronouncing in a "definitive manner, they propose in the exercise of the ordinary Magisterium a teaching that leads to bettter understanding of Revelation in matters of faith and morals. To this ordinary teaching the faithful "are to adhere to it with religious assent" which, though distinct from the assent of faith, is nonetheless an extension of it."

"Taking conciliar custom into consideration.." there can be no other reponse than for individual Christians to accept the decisions of an Infallible Ecumenical Council and all Ecumenical Councils are infallible. What you cite is a protestant principle and it inverts right reason and reality and there is nothing traditional or customary about it.<>

47 posted on 09/22/2002 4:33:15 AM PDT by Catholicguy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 42 | View Replies]

To: ultima ratio
<> I just cited "Satis Cognitum," in a response to Tantumergo. There is something in there just for you and your ilk.<>

"There is nothing more grevious than the sacriledge of schism...there can be no necessity for destroying the unity of the Church" (St Augustine, Contra Epistolam Parmeniani", lib,ii,capii, n.25.

<> But, I guess, for you, Lefebvre was above even Augustine. BTW, was St Augustine a modernist?<>

48 posted on 09/22/2002 4:39:38 AM PDT by Catholicguy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 45 | View Replies]

To: Catholicguy
No, Augustine was not a modernist--but you surely are. I agree schism is bad--but since the SSPX is NOT schismatic, and since Archbishop Lefebvre and the bishops he consecrated were NOT excommunicated, and since those who attend SSPX Masses are NOT in schism nor excommunicated, you are blowing a lot of hot air once again. Next you will haul out the Pope's Ecclesia Dei Afflicta. I will counter with Canon Law and the State of Necessity--which is the Pope's as well. You will claim it does not apply. I will claim it most certainly does and that even the doctors of the Church affirm that one has the duty to disobey a command which would harm the Church, even if given by a pope. And so it will go. But beyond all this there is the evidence of the mess produced by the conciliar Church which has departed radically from tradition. Lefebvre saw all this and correctly estimated how he must in good conscience respond. He was innocent--and so is the SSPX.
49 posted on 09/22/2002 2:24:37 PM PDT by ultima ratio
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 48 | View Replies]

To: Catholicguy
Last I heard catechisms were not infallible--certainly not the most recent one. Nor does the Holy Spirit assist popes to espouse new doctrines.
50 posted on 09/22/2002 2:32:36 PM PDT by ultima ratio
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 47 | View Replies]

To: Goldhammer; Tantumergo
***To compare the Magisterium against the Scripture and say one is not "above" another, would be like comparing a poetry teacher to poetry, saying, "Mr McDougall is not above sonnets." Which of course makes little sense. Nevertheless it seems to mean something to protestants ***

God is over His creation. This is not nonsensical. That Mr McDougal; is over his sonnets is not nonsense, since he is the originator.
--your Protestant buddy

***The Magisterium is not above the Word of God***

Makes sense to me.
51 posted on 09/22/2002 2:53:43 PM PDT by drstevej
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 43 | View Replies]

To: ultima ratio
I agree with you completely.
52 posted on 09/22/2002 3:39:16 PM PDT by Land of the Irish
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 49 | View Replies]

To: Catholicguy; Goldhammer; ultima ratio; HDMZ; Polycarp; drstevej
"What you cite is a protestant principle and it inverts right reason and reality and there is nothing traditional or customary about it."

Sorry CG, but I just wanted to illustrate the fact that sometimes you can be too quick to shoot off and start slinging charges of schism and heresy around, when in fact there are many areas about which it is quite legitimate to debate until matters are settled definitively.

The "protestant principle" that you are having problems with is actually based on a citation from the documents of Vatican II themselves:

"Taking conciliar custom into consideration and also the pastoral purpose of the present Council, the sacred Council defines as binding on the Church only those things in matters of faith and morals which it has expressly put forward as such." Appendix to Lumen Gentium.

As the Council did not in fact "expressly put forward" anything as binding on the Church, it is reasonable to assume that only its teachings which are declared binding in previous acts of the Magisterium (i.e. pre-conciliar dogma and definitions) are to be taken as such. Perhaps this is the point that Fr. Blet was trying to make?

Indeed the Council had other things to say about the limits of the Pope's and Church's infallibility and how far this extends:

"And this infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer willed His Church to be endowed in defining doctrine of faith and morals, extends as far as the deposit of Revelation extends, which must be religiously guarded and faithfully expounded....

Furthermore when either the Roman Pontiff or the Body of Bishops together with him defines a judgment, they pronounce it in accordance with Revelation itself, which all are obliged to abide by and be in conformity with, that is, the Revelation which as written or orally handed down is transmitted in its ENTIRETY through the legitimate succession of bishops and especially in care of the Roman Pontiff himself,...

..but a new public revelation THEY DO NOT ACCEPT as pertaining to the divine deposit of faith." Lumen Gentium 25

Thus the Vatican II Council Fathers were equally concerned with setting the limits of infallibility (both for Pope and Council) as were the Vatican I Fathers in Pastor Aeternus.

This also shows in Dei Verbum which apparently gives goldhammer some difficulties (very unCatholic, tut tut!):

"The Christian economy, therefore, as the new and definitive covenant, will never pass away and we now await NO FURTHER new public revelation before the glorious manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ (see 1 Tim. 6:14 and Tit. 2:13)." DV 4

DV7. "In His gracious goodness, God has seen to it that what He had revealed for the salvation of all nations would abide perpetually in its full INTEGRITY and be handed on to all generations." N.B. the Council sees God as an Integrist!! :O)

DV 10 "This Magisterium is not above the word of God, but serves it, teaching only what has been handed on."

DV 10 "It is clear, therefore, that sacred tradition, Sacred Scripture and the Magisterium of the Church, in accord with God's most wise design, are so linked and joined together that one cannot stand without the others."

Consequently when the Vatican II Fathers enunciate a new teaching in Gaudium et Spes such as:

"Believers and unbelievers agree almost unanimously that all things on earth should be ordained to man as to their centre and summit." GS 12

which seems to contradict the will of God revealed in scripture that all things on earth should be ordained to Christ:

Eph 1:9 "That he might make known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he hath purposed in him,
10 In the dispensation of the fulness of times, to re-establish all things in Christ, that are in heaven and on earth, in him."

then we can hardly be obliged to consider the new teaching as binding - particularly as the Council itself makes no claim that this teaching is to be considered binding!
53 posted on 09/23/2002 1:48:10 PM PDT by Tantumergo
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 47 | View Replies]

To: Tantumergo
Great analysis.
54 posted on 09/23/2002 1:55:19 PM PDT by ultima ratio
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 53 | View Replies]

To: Catholicguy; Tantumergo
CatholicGuy,

LOL! You been snookered and good! TantumErgo really illustrated how dangerous knee jerk reactions can be. This is hilarious...he took a quote from the documents of Vat II and asked you which Traditionalist said it, you called it "protestant," but it was right outta VII!

The "protestant principle" that you are having problems with is actually based on a citation from the documents of Vatican II themselves:

"Taking conciliar custom into consideration and also the pastoral purpose of the present Council, the sacred Council defines as binding on the Church only those things in matters of faith and morals which it has expressly put forward as such." Appendix to Lumen Gentium.

Time to re-think the knee-jerk path, CG.

55 posted on 09/23/2002 2:54:53 PM PDT by Polycarp
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 53 | View Replies]

Comment #56 Removed by Moderator

Comment #57 Removed by Moderator

Comment #58 Removed by Moderator

To: Polycarp
CatholicGuy, LOL! You been snookered and good! TantumErgo really illustrated how dangerous knee jerk reactions can be. This is hilarious...he took a quote from the documents of Vat II and asked you which Traditionalist said it, you called it "protestant," but it was right outta VII!

<> No, he didn't. Go back and read the post wherein he said he didn't know which trad said ...<>

The "protestant principle" that you are having problems with is actually based on a citation from the documents of Vatican II themselves:

<> Sorry, still wrong. The Council IS binding.<>

"Taking conciliar custom into consideration and also the pastoral purpose of the present Council, the sacred Council defines as binding on the Church only those things in matters of faith and morals which it has expressly put forward as such." Appendix to Lumen Gentium.

<> I'll have to wait until I get home to check the citation.<>

Time to re-think the knee-jerk path, CG

<> Never. Knee Jerk Papal Loyalty is the sine qua non of Catholicism, at least in my household.<>

59 posted on 09/24/2002 4:19:13 AM PDT by Catholicguy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 55 | View Replies]

To: Polycarp
LOL! You been snookered and good

<> Be careful, Polycarp. You are defending the indefensible and throwing in with one who is launching an attack on an Ecuemnical Council and that ain't funny...<>

60 posted on 09/24/2002 4:31:48 AM PDT by Catholicguy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 55 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 201-220 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson