Father Zigrang suspended by Bishop Joseph Fiorenza

Catholics exhibit fidelity to the Tradition of Holy Mother Church in many ways. Each of us has a distinctive, unrepeatable immortal soul that has personal characteristics of its own not shared by anyone else. Not even identical twins are the same in every respect. This plurality of souls in the Mystical Bride of Christ is reflected in the many different communities of men and women religious that have developed over the Church’s history. Each community has its own charism and mission. Ideally, each community of men and women religious should be totally faithful to everything contained in the Deposit of Faith and expressed and protected in the authentic Tradition of the Church. The means of expressing this fidelity, however, will vary from community to community.

What is true of communities of men and women religious is true also of us all, including our priests. Some priests have the patience of Saint Francis de Sales or Saint John Bosco, meek and mild, able to handle the rough seas that beset Holy Mother Church and/or themselves personally with perfect equanimity. Other priests have had the bluntness of St. John Mary Vianney and St. Padre Pio, mincing no words in their sermons about the necessity of rooting out sin and the possibility of going to Hell for all eternity. Both St. John Mary Vianney and St. Padre Pio were devoted to their role as an alter Christus in the confessional, using that hospital of Divine Mercy to administer the infinite merits of Our Lord’s Most Precious Blood to bring sacramental absolution to those to whom they had preached in blunt terms.

In addition to fidelity, though, there are different ways of expressing courage in the midst of persecutions and sufferings. Some Catholics stood up quite directly to the unjust and illicit dictates of the English Parliament, which had been passed at the urging of King Henry VIII, at the time of the Protestant Revolt in England. Others kept their silence for as long as was possible, as was the case with Saint Thomas More, who discharged his mind publicly only after he had been found guilty on the basis of perjured testimony of denying the supremacy of the king as the head of the Church in England. Some priests in the Elizabethan period, such as St. Edmund Campion, almost dared officials to arrest them as they went to different locales to offer Holy Mass or as they took groups to the Tower of London. Other priests went quietly from house to house to offer the Traditional Mass underground as both the civil and ecclesiastical authorities in England used every sort of pressure imaginable to convince holdout “Romans” to go over to Protestantism and worship in the precusor liturgy of our own Novus Ordo Missae. Still other newly ordained priests came over from France, knowing that they might be able to offer only one Mass in England before they were arrested and executed.

The same thing occurred in France 255 years after the arrest and execution of Saints John Fisher and Thomas More. Some priests simply stood up to the agents of the French Revolution. Others, such as Blessed Father William Chaminade, donned disguises as they went from place to place, much as Blessed Padre Miguel Augustin Pro did in Mexico prior to his execution at the hands of the Masonic revolutionaries in Mexico on November 23, 1927. Ignatius Cardinal Kung, then the Bishop of Shanghai, China, was hauled before a dog-track stadium in his see city in 1956 before thousands of spectators. The Red Chinese authorities expected him to denounce the pope and thus to save himself from arrest. The brave bishop exclaimed the same thing as Blessed Padre Miguel Augustin Pro, “Long live Christ the King,” and was hauled off to spend over thirty years in prison before being released. Oh, yes, there are so many ways for priests to demonstrate their fidelity and courage in the midst of persecutions and sufferings.

Well, many bishops and priests who are faithful to the fullness of the Church’s authentic Tradition have been subjected to a unspeakable form of persecution in the past thirty-five to forty years: treachery from within the highest quarters of the Church herself. Men who have held fast to that which was believed always, everywhere and by everyone prior for over 1,900 years found themselves termed as “disobedient,” “schismatic,” “heretical,” and “disloyal” for their resisting novelties that bore no resemblance to Catholicism and a great deal of resemblance to the very things that were fomented by Martin Luther and John Calvin and Thomas Cranmer, things for which Catholics half a millennium ago shed their blood rather than accept. Many priests who have tried to remain faithful to Tradition within the framework of a diocesan or archdiocesan structure have been sent to psychiatric hospitals or penalized by being removed from their pastorates or by being denied pastorates altogether. Others, though, have faced more severe penalties.

Angelus Press, which is run by the Society of Saint Pius X, put out a book earlier this year, Priest, Where is Thy Mass? Mass, Where is Thy Priest?, which discussed the stories of seventeen priests who had decided to offer only the Traditional Latin Mass and to never again offer the Novus Ordo Missae. One of those priests is my good friend, Father Stephen Zigrang, who offered the Traditional Latin Mass in his [now] former parish of Saint Andrew Church in Channelview, Texas, on June 28-29, 2003, telling his parishioners that he would never again offer the new Mass.

As I reported extensively at this time last year, Father Zigrang was placed on a sixty day leave-of-absence by the Bishop of Galveston-Houston, the Most Reverend Joseph Fiorenza, and told to seek psychological counseling, preferably from Father Benedict Groeschel, C.F.R. Father Zigrang took his two month leave of absence, making a retreat at Saint Thomas Aquinas Seminary in Winona, Minnesota, in early August of last year, returning to the Houston area to take up residence in the Society’s Queen of Angels Chapel in Dickinson, Texas. Bishop Fiorenza met with Father Zigrang in early September, seeming at the time to let him stay for a year with the Society while the diocese continued to pay his health insurance premiums. Within days of that early September meeting, however, Fiorenza was threatening to suspend Father Zigrang by the beginning of October if he did not vacate Queen of Angels and return to a diocesan assignment.

October of 2003 came and went. Father Zigrang heard no word from Bishop Fiorenza or the chancery office until he received the following letter, dated Jun 10, 2004:

Once more I appeal to you to cease your association with the Society of St. Pius X and return to your responsibilities as a priest of the Diocese of Galveston-Houston

Your continued association with a schismatic group which has severed communion with the Holy Father is confusing and a scandal to many of Christ’s faithful. You are well aware that without appropriate jurisdiction the marriages witnessed and confessions heard by the priests of the St. Society of St. Paul X are invalid and people are being lead to believe otherwise. You are also aware that the Holy See has asked the faithful not to attend Masses celebrated in the Chapels of the Society of St. Pius X.

I plead with you to return by July 1, 2004, to the presbyterate of the Diocese of Galveston-Houston and receive a priestly assignment from me. This letter serves as a penal precept (c. 1319) and is a final canonical warning (c. 1347.1). If I do not hear from you by June 30, 2004, I will impose a just penalty for disobeying a legitimate precept (c. 1371.2). The just penalty may include suspension (c. 133.1), nn 1-2: prohibition of all acts of the power of orders and governance.

I offer this final warning after consultation with the Holy See and will proceed to impose a penalty if you persist in disobedience to a legitimate precept. It is my fervent hope and constant prayer that you not remain out of union with the Holy Father.

Overlooking Bishop Fiorenza’s John Kerry-like gaffe in terming the Society of Saint Pius X the “St. Society of St. Paul X,” the letter reproduced above makes the erroneous assertion that the Society of Saint Pius X is in schism and that they are not in communion with the Holy Father. A series of articles in The Remnant has dealt with this very issue at great length. Fiorenza’s contentions that the marriages witnessed and the confessions heard by the Society of Saint Pius X are invalid also flies in the face of the fact that the Holy See “regularized” the Society of Saint John Mary Vianney in Campos, Brazil, without demanding the convalidation of the marriages their priests had witnesses nor asking that confessions be re-heard. The glaring inconsistency of the canonical rhetoric of Vatican functionaries and their actual practices continues to be lost on Bishop Fiorenza.

Father Zigrang did not respond to Bishop Fiorenza’s June 10 letter. He received another letter, dated July 2, 2004, the contents of which are so explosive as to contain implications for the state of the Church far beyond the case of Father Zigrang and far beyond the boundaries of the Diocese of Galveston-Houston:

With great sadness I inform you that, effective immediately, you are suspended from the celebration of all sacraments, the exercise of governance and all rights attached to the office of pastor (Canon 1333.1, nn 1-2-3).

This action is taken after appropriate canonical warnings (canon 1347) and failure to obey my specific directive that you cease the affiliation with the schismatic Society of St. Pius X and accept an assignment to serve as a priest of the Diocese of Galveston-Houston (Canon 1371.2).

I want to repeat what I have said to you in person and in the written canonical warnings, that I prayerfully urge you to not break communion with the Holy Father and cease to be associated with the schism which rejects the liciety of the Novus Ordo Mass, often affirmed by Pope John Paul II. This schism also calls into question the teachings of the Second Vatican Council regarding ecumenism and the enduring validity of the Old Testament covenant God established with the people of Israel.

Your return to full union with the Church and to the acceptance of an assignment to priestly ministry in the Diocese of Galveston-Houston will be joyfully received as an answer to prayer. May the Holy Spirit lead and guide you to renew the promise of obedience you made on the day of your ordination.

First, The Society of Saint Pius X does not reject the liciety of the Novus Ordo Missae. Its founder, the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, criticized the nature of the Novus Ordo and pointed out its inherent harm. That is far different from saying that the Novus Ordo is always and in all instances invalid. Is Bishop Fiorenza claiming that any criticism of the Novus Ordo and efforts to demonstrate how it is a radical departure from Tradition are schismatic acts? Is Father Romano Thommasi, for example, to be taken to task for writing scholarly articles, based on the very minutes of the Consilium, about how Archbishop Annibale Bugnini lied about the true origin of the some constituent elements of the Novus Ordo?

Second, the Society is not, as noted above, in schism, at least not as that phrase was defined by the First Vatican Council. The Society recognizes that the See of Peter is occupied at present by Pope John Paul II. Its priests pray for the Holy Father and for the local bishop in the Canon of the Mass. The Society can be said to be disobedient to the Holy Father’s unjust edicts and commands. The Society of Saint Pius X is not in schism.

Third, Bishop Fiorenza seems to be stating that ecumenism is a de fide dogma of the Catholic Church from which no Catholic may legitimately dissent. If this is his contention, it is he who is grave error. Ecumenism is a pastoral novelty that was specifically condemned by every Pope prior to 1958. Pope Pius XI did so with particular eloquence in Mortalium Animos in 1928. Novelties that are not consonant with the authentic Tradition of the Church bind no one under penalty of sin, no less binds a priest under penalty of canonical suspension. A rejection of ecumenism constitutes in no way a schismatic act.

Fourth, Bishop Fiorenza’s assertion that the “Old Testament covenant God established with the people of Israel” is enduringly valid is itself heretical. No human being can be saved by a belief in the Mosaic Covenant, which was superceded in its entirety when the curtain was torn in two in the Temple on Good Friday at the moment Our Lord had breathed His last on the Holy Cross. It is a fundamental act of fidelity to the truths of the Holy Faith to resist and to denounce the heretical contention, made in person by Bishop Fiorenza to Father Zigrang last year, that Jews are saved by the Mosaic Covenant. Were the Apostles, including the first pope, Saint Peter, wrong to try to convert the Jews? Was Our Lord joking when He said that a person had no life in him if he did not eat of His Body and drink of His Blood?

Fifth, Bishop Fiorenza has failed repeatedly to take into account Father Zigrang’s aboslute rights under Quo Primum to offer the Immemorial Mass of Tradition without any episcopal approval:

Furthermore, by these presents [this law], in virtue of Our Apostolic authority, We grant and concede in perpetuity that, for the chanting or reading of the Mass in any church whatsoever, this Missal is hereafter to be followed absolutely, without any scruple of conscience or fear of incurring any penalty, judgment, or censure, and may freely and lawfully be used. Nor are superiors, administrators, canons, chaplains, and other secular priests, or religious, of whatever order or by whatever title designated, obliged to celebrate the Mass otherwise than as enjoined by Us.

We likewise declare and ordain that no one whosoever is to be forced to alter this Missal, and that this present document cannot be revoked or modified, but remain always valid and retain its full force–notwithstanding the previous constitutions and decrees of the Holy See, as well as any general or special constitutions or edicts of provincial or synodal councils, and notwithstanding the practice and custom of the aforesaid churches, established by long and immemoial prescription–except, however, if of more than two hundred years’ standing. Therefore, no one whosoever is permitted to alter this letter or heedlessly to venture to go contrary to this notice of Our permission., statute, ordinance, command, precept, grant, indult, declaration, will, decree, and prohibition. Should anyone, however, presume to commit such an act, he should know that he will incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul.

It is apparently the case that Bishop Fiorenza received a “green light,” if you will, to act against Father Zigrang from Dario Cardinal Castrillion Hoyos, who is both the Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy and the President of Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, to whom a copy of the July 2, 2004, suspension letter was sent. Father Zigrang surmises that Bishop Fiorenza brought up the issue of his case during the bishops’ ad limina apostolorum visit in Rome recently. Father believes that Cardinal Hoyos wants to send a signal to priests who might be tempted to follow his lead that Rome will let bishops crack down on them without mercy and without so much as an acknowledgment that Quo Primum actually means what it says. Whether or not the specific “schismatic” acts Father Zigrang is alleged to have committed by being associated with the Society of Saint Pius X at Queen of Angels Church in Dickinson, Texas, were outlined to Cardinal Hoyos by Bishop Fiorenza remains to be seen.

Naturally, the grounds on which Bishop Fiorenza suspended Father Zigrang are beyond the sublime. As my dear wife Sharon noted, “Doesn’t Bishop Fiorenza have a better canon lawyer on his staff than the one who advised him on the grounds of suspending Father Zigrang.” Indeed.

The very fact that Fiorenza could make these incredible claims and believes that he has a good chance of prevailing in Rome speaks volumes about the state of the Church in her human elements at present. Will Rome let the bishops govern unjustly and make erroneous assertions about “schism” as well as heretical claims (that a priest must accept that Jews are saved by the Mosaic Covenant and that ecumenism is a matter of de fide doctrine) with its full assent and approval? Will Rome countenance the same sort of misuse of power by local bishops upon traditional priests in the Twenty-first Century that was visited upon “Romans” by the civil state and the Anglican “church” in England from 1534 to 1729? The answers to these questions are probably self-evident. Putting them down in black and white, though, might help priests who are looking to Rome for some canonical protection for the Traditional Latin Mass to come to realize that they wait in vain for help from the Holy See, where the Vicar of Christ occupies himself at present with the writing of a book about existentialism!

There will be further updates on this matter as events warrant. Father Zigrang is weighing his options as to how to respond to the allegations contained in Bishop Fiorenza’s letter of suspension, understanding that the answers provided by the Holy See will have implications of obviously tremendous gravity. Given the intellectual dishonesty that exists in Rome at present, Father Zigrang’s case may only be decided on the technical grounds of “obedience” to his bishop, ignoring all of the other issues, including the rights of all priests under Quo Primum offer the Traditional Latin Mass without approval and their rights to never be forced to offer Holy Mass according to any other form.

To force Rome to act on what it might otherwise avoid, perhaps it might be wise for someone to bring a canonical denunciation of Bishop Fiorenza for his contentions about ecumenism and the “enduring validity” of the Mosaic Covenant, spelling out in chapter and verse how these things have been condemned in the history of the Church. Then again, Fiorenza could “defend” himself by simply pointing to the Pope himself, which is precisely why this matter has such grave implications. This matter is certain to be explored in great detail in the weeks and months ahead by competent canonists and by theologians who understand the authentic Tradition of the Catholic Church.

I examined canon 1371.2 (the canon that the Bishop says warrants my suspension), checking a good commentary, the disobedience of an Ordinary's legitimate precept may warrant a just penalty but not weighty enough to warrant a censure (e.g. suspension). I think this point may have been missed by the Bishop's hired canon lawyer, when the Bishop was weighing his options about what to do with one of his wayward priests. As I said to you before, the Bishop has a history of not suspending priests, even those who commit crimes beyond mere disobedience. Although lately I've been told he recently suspended a priest who attempted marriage with one of his parishioners. This was done about the time my suspension was in the works.

Our Lady, Help of Christians, pray for all priests in Father Zigrang’s situation so that they will be aided by their seeking refuge in you in their time of persecution and trial.

Your stance of being a traditionalist at heart but just loyal to Rome is betrayed when you make statements like this. Rather than being "universally acknowledged to be the same as the 1570 missal," the reality is that not a single traditionalist on the face of the Earth is using the 1964 version of the Mass. Nor would they. It is universally execrated, by traditionalists as a betrayal of the traditional Latin Mass, and by liturgical revolutionaries as not revolutionary enough.

The 1964 Missal is the same as the 1962 Missal, except that the vernacular is allowed (not required or imposed, but allowed). No prayers were changed or excised until later. Same ordinary, same proper. No different really in principal than going to Dalmatia and hearing the Roman Mass in Glagolitic Slavonic.

Of course, if we want to play games about what is the "real" Tridentine Missal, I'll maintain that the last "real" version of it is that of 1910/1925, prior to the first changes of Bugnini and Antonelli under Pius XII. Of course, the SSPX does not use that Missal.

You know, this is the same argument used by Martin Luther in his attempt to return to what he believed was a more primitive rite. The first thing he did was dump the Offertory. He hated the concept of liturgical sacrifice.

What is "this"? Are you implying I agree with Luther or hate the concept of sacrifice? Where do you get this from?

Your claim that there wasn't an Offertory the first thousand years, moreover, is pointless.

No its not. You get all worked up about the prayers of the Offertory being changed, and yet the very prayers you are getting worked up about were not in the Roman Mass for over 1000 years.

First of all, we don't know this. The only proof for what you claim is the fragment by Justin Martyr--and there is no evidence that liturgy was typical.

Huh? Just go look at the Gregorian Missal. No offertory other than what I outlined - the procession, chant, and secret. All those prayers that you are getting worked up about are much later additions, probably from around the time of Innocent III or IV. gbcdoj has already pointed out how other medieval Missals failed to have any significant offertory as in the Tridentine Missal - like the Dominican. Of course we know it.

On the other hand, there's loads and loads of proof the liturgy was intended from the outset as a sacrifice.

No one is debating this. Why are you bringing it up? Can't you stick to topical replies?

What is most important about a proper Offertory is that it sets the stage for what follows and makes clear what's happening--a propitiatory sacrifice of a Victim, Jesus, offered to the Father in expiation for our sins.

Exactly. The prayers used within it are not important if the concept is present, which it obviously is in any Catholic Mass.

The Novus Ordo, on the other hand, only offers bread and wine to the Father in a before-meal blessing, and says nothing whatsoever about propitiation. In fact, it does just the opposite. It offers the bread which will become "the Bread of life" for us and then the wine which will become "our spiritual drink." In other words--the focus is primarily on ourselves, not on the Victim offered to the Father.

Let me know when you find the propitiary prayers in the Gregorian Missal. Perhaps it was an invalid/illicit sacrilege too, just like you claim the Novus Ordo is?

The few short prayers mentioned by you only make clearer by contrast the difference between the two Masses. In the traditional Mass the tone of contrition pervades the whole; there is mention of sin and punishment, of the souls in purgatory, of the need we have for Christ's intercession and the intercession of the saints whose names are mentioned specifically. The entire Mass underscores our neediness. The Novus Ordo, on the other hand, after a few short penitential prayers--made worse by bad translations--drops the subject entirely and focuses on the celebration of our salvation instead--we are "a people your Son has gained for you". The propitiatory element is minimal--and easily missed except by those like yourself who use these perfunctory phrases to argue that the New Mass does what the old Mass did--which is patently false. The overwhelming sense of unworthiness and contrition is missing in the New Mass. It is, as traditionalists argue, a Mass of the already saved. Since everything pertaining to sin and punishment has been so diminished, the notion of Propitiation itself has become virtually invisible.

You guys are really Pharisees if you believe this means if the rector ordered a Jebbie scholastic to poison the housekeeper, he must do so. Give me a break. A little common sense is always assumed.

The Pope commanding Archbishop Lefebvre to desist from sinnning by consecrating episcopi vagantes against his will is rather different than the situation you give, isn't it?

In the one case, the superior is commanding you to sin. In the other, he is commanding you to not sin.

St. Ignatius would have been quite dissapointed with the notion that one is obedient by putting ones own will above that of the Pope when he commands you not to do something he says is sinful.

Remember, the Pope asked Archbishop Lefebvre NOT to do something. No positive command was issued, only that he desist from doing something the Pope said is objectively wrong.

Will you admit the difference? Or do you claim that a command not to ordain Bishops is a command to sin?

But when a bishop deliberately consecrates a bishop who will lack apostolic succession (as Msgr. Lefebvre did), that act is schismatic, because it is the creation of a non-Catholic bishop.

Concerning this: there are two parts of Apostolic Succession. The matter, and the form. Protestant and Anglican "bishops" have neither. Schismatic bishops have what might be termed "material apostolic succession". Cardinal Journet explains:

The hierarchy is indivisible. But it can, in certain regions, be broken by force so that fragments of it subsist in a mutilated state beyond the field of the Church. Thus, in lands overrun by schism or by heresy we may find not only the sacramental powers deriving from Baptism and Confirmation, but the hierarchical power of order.
The violent disjunction of the power of order from the power of jurisdiction—which latter disappears of itself whenever there is a rupture with the Sovereign Pontiff—its persistence in the uprooted state to which it is then reduced, its transmission, valid but not licit, beyond its proper and natural sphere, is always the sign of a terrible spiritual catastrophe, a partial victory of the spirit of evil over the Church of Christ, which henceforth will move through history as though divided in herself, and become a scandal to the Gentiles.

and also that:

In the first case the argument from apostolicity will indicate, with an exactitude that might be called material, the presence or absence of the power of order and of the Christian cultus in a Church. Wherever its transmission has been unbroken, there the power of order continues to exist and the cultus is validly celebrated. Apostolicity, to that extent, is safeguarded. But it is a partial and mutilated apostolicity,[1140] since apostolicity of jurisdiction is missing.[1141]
1140 It would be gravely erroneous, remarks Billot, to restrict the question of apostolic succession to the validity of ordinations (De Ecclesia Christi, Rome 1921, p. 345) A purely material continuity, such as that observed in the Anglican or Swedish Churches, where invalidly consecrated bishops have supplanted the authentic ones, might be called an apparent apostolicity; one which results in the valid transmission of order alone, as in the Graeco-Russian Churches, might be called a partial or mutilated apostolicity; and where there are both powers of order and jurisdiction we might say plenary apostolicity. Apparent apostolicity is purely exterior; partial apostolicity might be called material apostolicity, and the plenary might be called formal. But if theologians agree here in substance, they do not always use the words "material" and "formal" in the same way.
1141 If it is true that spiritual jurisdiction, the pastoral power, resides, not indeed exclusively but totally and primarily in the Supreme Pastor of the Christian flock, then in principle it ceases to exist in an episcopate that breaks with him: "The bishops would lose the right and the power to govern," says Leo X III, in the Encyclical Satis Cognitum, "if they wilfully separated themselves from Peter and his successors." However, in point of fact, the dissident Churches that have kept the power of order, such as the Graeco-Russian, can, by express or tacit concession of the Sovereign Pontiff, possess a partial but genuine jurisdiction. I have pointed this out already and it should be borne in mind.

So, as Bp. Tissier said: "there can be no legitimate bishop without the pope, without at least the implicit consent of the pope". Without at least an implicit consent, there is a lack of formal apostolicity - it is mutiliated or material. So when Msgr. Lefebvre made his four bishops to carry on his work, they were not in the full sense Successors of the Apostles. This is why, I think, one can speak of the consecrations as a schismatic act - because they were the creation of non-Catholic, schismatic, illegitimate bishops.

Here we go again. You say, "But, ultima, it doesn't. Msgr. Lefebvre couldn't be ignorant of the lack of a state of necessity, since he was informed by the Congregation for Clergy and the Pope that the impending consecrations would incur excommunication."

But the canon didn't say the Archbishop had to get permission for a state of necessity, it said he had to fear such a state existed--and he most certainly did. In fact, it existed PRECISELY BECAUSE OF THE PEOPLE YOU TALK ABOUT--THE POPE AND HIS CONGREGATION. The emergency was caused by them, they were the ones swinging the wrecking-ball. Why in your wildest dreams would you suppose he should have taken their advice?

The circular way you argue only proves how right he was. He was worried about the destructive agendas of these men--and they were the ones in power. The Pope was and is no friend to Tradition, and he knew it. He was not willing to hang the entire fate of Traditional Catholicism on a vague promise by a man who was so unwise and careless about the faith. And he was right not to do so. Traditional Catholicism had to be protected at all costs--even at the expense of his own reputation. Since the Pope was so imprudent in this regard, it was left to the Archbishop to fill the breach.

As for Perl's crass comment--"To the extent that they adhere to the schism of the late Archbishop Lefebvre, they are also excommunicated"--since there was no schism and no excommunication--this is as wrong as the Pope's original statement. In this he is simply parroting his master--and doing the usual Vatican back-flip to boot. But zero plus zero equals zero. That is to say, nothing can make a good act evil, nothing can make a defense of Catholic Tradition wrong, nothing can make an desire to protect the faith a denial of the papacy. All such charges are bogus and, in my opinion, quite harmful to the Church. They are part of the reason Rome has so little credibility these days.

As for myself, I certainly believe the Archbishop was innocent. The facts are the facts and the truth is the truth. Nothing can change this--not even a pope. Nor can the truth excommunicate me or anybody else.

There is no mention of PROPITIATORY sacrifice. The Novus Ordo concept of sacrifice is not the traditional Catholic concept. It is the modernist re-defined sacrifice--of thanksgiving and praise for our salvation. Yippee. Protestant through and through.

Again, that's incompatible with the Novus Ordo texts. No matter how many times you say it, it won't make it so.

Vere Sanctus es, Domine, et merito te laudat omnis a te condita creatura, quia per Filium tuum, Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum, Spiritus Sancti operante virtute, vivificas et sanctificas universa, et populum tibi congregare non desinis, ut a solis ortu usque ad occasum oblatio munda offeratur nomini tuo. (EP III)

Respice, quaesumus, in oblationem Ecclesiae tuae et, agnoscens Hostiam, cuius voluisti immolatione placari ... (EP III)

Even in ICEL:

we offer you in thanksgiving this holy and living sacrifice.
Look with favor on your Church's offering, and see the Victim whose death has reconciled us to yourself.

There is no mention of PROPITIATORY sacrifice.

Same arguments over and over again, and the same documents are trotted out showing that the Mass in indeed the same character as the Tridentine.

You use a straw man over and over again, or a single word or two to somehow shade your point, but it is to no avail. Saying the Mass isn't a sacrifice is ignoring the text itself, and the documents written about it. Equating objectively evil acts with saying the Novus Ordo Mass makes is clearly the problem with a number of SSPX folk, and that is a terrible radicalism.

Blaming problems in society on the Mass, and misusing comments Ratzinger made about chaos in liturgy as extrapolating to problems with society as a whole is pretty disingenuous. This is just another in a long line of poor arguements. Perhaps you can learn from Clinton how to parse "IS".

The SSPX, in particular, is more protestant than any authentic Traditionalist still in union with Rome.

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