Posted on 07/15/2004 6:17:56 PM PDT by AskStPhilomena
I checked out the Mater Ecclesiae web site. Why does that parish have a Saturday afternoon "anticipated Mass"?
Max, it should be kept in perspective that the entire Traditionalist "crisis" is something perceived to exist only in the mind of 4 legitimate Bishops out of about 3000 circa 1970 (Blaise Kurz, Marcel Lefbvre, Ngo Dinh Thuc, Castro de Mayer), ~1000 priests (out of 400,000 in 1970), and ~1,000,000 of the faithful (out of 1 billion). Really even today, add up the number of legitimate traditionalist priests (SSPX, FSSP, SSPV, IMRI, ICK, independents, etc. - the total is probably about 1000 and certainly less than 2000) and give them each 1000 parishoners/followers on average, and the situation is hardly any different from 30 years ago.
The rest of the Catholic world (say about 99.9% of it) is not even aware there is a controversy about these topics that Traditionalists feel are so important.
And of that 0.1% that thinks there is a big problem and controversy, perhaps 25-50% are still formal members of a regular Catholic parish.
In perspective, we are talking about an inifinitessimally small number of people even being aware of some of the issues being raised. It hardly compares to the Arian crisis in that regard.
"Being nasty."
I've seen a lot of far nastier stuff without anybody getting suspended for it.
Not true. I told you I was not here when that incident occurred, and that I had not been able to determine exactly what happened, or why. So it's not true that no one "condescended to discuss with [you]...", although it is true that I wasn't able to answer your question.
And considering that we now have another poster suspended for...I'm not sure for what, except that he displeased Sinkspur...
Again, not true. The suspension was for ignoring both a private and a public warning to desist, and continuing to flame. Further, there was a general warning in Post #175.
The person "displeased" is me.
I don't know what that is about.
I don't think Lysol-in-oculos is a useful treatment, particularly when self-administered.
Brilliant posts.
Did Somerville join SSPX?
Haley certainly did not.
Are you attempting to compare their actions with flat-out schism?
So were the parts about the mass apostasy and the many being deceived while the few will walk the straight and narrow.
All legitimate priests are either parochial or religious - either they are affiliated with a parish through a diocese, or they are part of a religious order with a prelate superior.
Priests such as Fr. Wickens are not in some different situation. He, for example, is simply under punishment by his Bishop and has chosen to ignore the canonical sanctions imposed on him by his Bishop and continue saying Mass off in his own venue and church.
There are people married on boats
For this to happen, it must be done by your Pastor or with his blessing for another to do so and in such a location. I got married outside my parish and had my children baptized elsewhere. Each time I had to go and visit the rectory and get letters from my Pastor stating that I was a member in good standing of my parish (Holy Trinity in Boston for my wedding, Corpus Christi in New York and St. Cecilia in Philadelphia for the Baptisms) and take those letters to the priest and Church where I wanted to have the sacrament performed, which happened to be in Pittsburgh.
Incidentally the "mass anywhere" concept (which is inherent throughout canon) is how the society is able to perform valid masses.
The problem with Masses is not the issue of validity but of passing off the Mass as something approved by the Catholic Church to occur publicly to which the faithful can legitimately make donations. Mass anywhere refers to private Masses. The Society is correct in calling their churches chapels and shying away from anything smacking of parochialism, since they are not parishes by private chapels set up without permission of the ordinary for mass to occur in them.
If any of the society sacraments were not valid you'd hear people in authority screaming bloody murder
The society goes to great lengths to stretch Canon Law in these situations. See their writings on "common error" and "the state of necessity".
Also, if I may be permitted a very uneducated guess I would venture that many of these kinds of laws - such as the one Herman posted - were addressing issues during times when intra-parish politics were quite intense.
They mostly had to do with regulating a chaotic and uncanonical medieval situation where people and priests shopped their services to avoid canonical discipline or contract clandestine marriages. The laws restated the traiditonal practices dating back to Apsotlic times of doing nothing without the blessing of the Bishop of the place.
"Not true. I told you I was not here when that incident occurred"
It is true that you replied, thank you very much, but you could not discuss it since you weren't here. Of the people who are able to discuss it, no one has condescended to discuss this rank injustice with me.
"Again, not true. The suspension was for ignoring both a private and a public warning to desist, and continuing to flame."
Flame? I've seen far worse things directed at other posters without anybody thinking it flaming.
1. This is irrelevant to the point of whether there actually is a crisis or not. The objective reality of a crisis does not depend on some percentage of recognition. The Titanic had a big hole and was doomed to sink at a time when 99% of the passengers were not aware that they were facing a major "crisis."
2. Even so, I dispute your analysis of the percentage who see a crisis. First of all, virtually all Catholics who are paying the least bit of attention recognize that there is a serious crisis, even if they take various positions of reaction to the crisis. Does anyone still read "Everything is fine" magazines like Catholic Digest? But every single Catholic publication that has a pulse and a brainwave writes about nothing else, even if they disagree about the correct solution to the problem.
Take the neo-Catholic publications like First Things, Crisis (ironic title, eh?), Catholic Answers, New Oxford Review, and so forth. Although they all support the "loyal to the magisterium position," they all take the current situation of crisis very seriously. And of course you can get your weekly dose of crisis from The Wanderer.
Then you have a range of traditionalist publications like Latin Mass, The Remnant, Catholic Family News, The Angelus, and so forth. You might dismiss them as an unimportant fringe, but the reality is that they have a vastly disproportionate impact. All of the ideas, all of the research, all of the life and fire of today's Catholic Church are coming from the traditional wing that you dismiss rather cavalierly. But when the latest edition of Latin Mass magazine arrives in Rome, it is not dismissed so lightly.
For a diocesean priest to go off to work with the SSPX without the blessing of his Bishop is for him to become a "wandering priest", since he is acting without canonical power and outside the diocesean structure.
The punishment for saying Latin masses was for direct disobedience to an order from his ecclesiastic superior, when said superior had already been very lenient to the extent that he felt he could at that time in indulging his desire to say the Latin Mass.
Perhaps, had Fr. Zigrang obeyed his Bishop, he would have gained enough trust in time to receive a situation like Mater Ecclesiae or St. Boniface. He didn't have such patience, and we'll never know what the Bishop might have done, only how he did respond to Fr.'s disobedience.
Shame on you dsc, didn't you read Animal Farm?
Your calculations are wrong. You need to factor in the previous two thousand years of traditional councils and popes and bishops and faithful. Why do you only include the living in your numbers--don't you believe in the Communion of Saints? And since when do numbers matter anyway, since a few righteous individuals would outweigh in legitimacy a host of the unrighteous--as was the case during the Arian heresy.
Unfortunately, the bulk of my time has been taken up in other areas of this forum, at least up until now. I now have the time to look around and see what is being said away from the Protestant side of the board.
I don't moderate by degrees; i.e., this violation is truly egregious, so some action will be taken, but this violation is only bad, so no action will be taken. And especially, when I ask someone to stop doing something, I expect to be heard.
If you were treated unfairly in the past, I apologize. But that has nothing to do with today and what's been done on this thread. I wasn't here before; I am here now.
Please drop it.
Because a Priest can't say three Masses on Sunday without special permission of the Bishop. The other two Masses on Sunday are at seating capacity, so a third Mass of obligation was needed.
The number of readers of all Catholic periodicals aside from diocesean publications is probably no more than a few hundred thousand in this country with 65 million registered Catholics (and probably 15 million more fallen away/non-practicing). The circulation of the periodicals you site is usually in the 5000-30000 range.
This is why conservatives lose. We think in either-or terms when we should do both. Work within the Church to bring her back to her true roots and work without to maintain that pure objective. The left does it all the time, that is why they are so successful.
Why can't he get the permission? He appears to have a good relationship with the bishop.
I suspect it's to appease the golfers with morning tee times and others who simply like to get it over with.
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