A Truly Eucharistic and Apostolic Church?

[orgel_maestro]

I was reading some traditionalist literature I got in the mail, that seemed a little um extremish. It was the St. Gertrude the Great Newletter (October 2006). In this pamphlet, they were talking about the legitamcy of the ordination of priests to the episcopacy and debating whether after Vatican II whether the ordinations were any longer valid. They question the validity of whether Holy Orders conferred with the post-Vatican II rites are valid, and concludes that it is an invalid sacrament. And if all bishops ordained by this new sacramental form promulgated by Paul VI in 1968 is invalid, that means that it cannot create a real bishop and that therefore any other priests and bishops who derive their orders from these bishops are in themselves invalidly ordained and consecrated. Which means that most Sacred Body and most Precious Blood is nothing but bread n wine!

I am highly critical of this n doubt that God would ever let anything like that happen. But can u imagine how scary that would be? How many bishops who were consecrated to the episcopacy before 1968 are there left? Even the the pope was made a bishop in 1977 using this form! This was written by Rev. Anthony Cekada by the way, n I just found out they sedevacanists, I think. According to the newletter, even SSPX recognized the legitamacy of the episcopal consecrations after 1968, pshhh, if SSPX agrees, then whoever sent me the newsletter must be even more right-winged and traditional than the SSPX.

I’m just wondering, what constitutes a sacrament no longer being valid? For example in this case, Holy Orders. This makes me wonder, if it was because there was substantial change to the form in which the sacrament is conferred, why is it that Anglican priests are invalid, and that Novus Ordo priests/bishops are? I firmly believe that all Novus Ordo priests are legit, but i’m just asking how much change was made when the Church of England started in which they conferred their “Holy Orders”?

Also, I know that currently women cannot be ordained and only men receive the sacrament of Holy Orders. It is what the church teaches, but! although the church does not permit it, can this sacrament still be conferred upon women? I mean say some looney bishop goes and ordains women using the say form as he would for men, would these women still have the mark of Holy Orders? Would the bread that they consecrate be legitimate although the Church forbids their ordination? I’m asking would this apostolic succession or w/e still be passed on to them? I always read why women should not be ordained, but is it physically possible?

 

[Ace86]

This is heresy.

It is impossible for there to be “no more priests”. Because God would never allow that to happen. IF there was some world wide nuclear war, or some other disaster, and lots of bishops and priests (and even the pope were killed) - God would protect His Church in such a way as to continue with a few priests and bishops left - in other words it would be impossible to no longer have valid priests and bishops because God would not allow that.

 

[Malcolm_McLean]

I’m just wondering, what constitutes a sacrament no longer being valid? For example in this case, Holy Orders.
I always read why women should not be ordained, but is it physically possible?

The rules on the validity of sacraments are almost commonsense, but not quite.

First you need valid intention. This is pretty obvious, the intention to confer the sacrament is a must. However it leads to a subtlety, if the person’s understnading of the sacrament is no the same as the Church’s.
Secondly you need valid form and valid matter. Beer can’t substitute for wine in the Eucharist, the formala “the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit” is essential for baptism. This is sometimes disputed by liberals as superstitious.
Thirdly you need valid mind. To a first approximation, this means that you can’t receive any sacraments unless you are in communion with the Church. However for baptism the rules for communion are quite lax, for Confession they are quite strict.

Women priests would fall foul of valid matter and valid mind laws, probably also valid intention though not in an obvious way. Valid form they would no doubt meticulously observe, at least to start with.
However there doesn’t seem to me to be any way in which post-conciliar ordiantion would fall foul of any of these rules, unless you take a very very strict interpretation of “valid form”. However that has not been the understanding of the Church - paraphrases and translations have always been recognised, which was a departure form the Jewish tradition, where the exact hebrew words had to be uttered.

 

[bankerdavid]

I was reading some traditionalist literature I got in the mail, that seemed a little um extremish. It was the St. Gertrude the Great Newletter (October 2006). In this pamphlet, they were talking about the legitamcy of the ordination of priests to the episcopacy and debating whether after Vatican II whether the ordinations were any longer valid. They question the validity of whether Holy Orders conferred with the post-Vatican II rites are valid, and concludes that it is an invalid sacrament. And if all bishops ordained by this new sacramental form promulgated by Paul VI in 1968 is invalid, that means that it cannot create a real bishop and that therefore any other priests and bishops who derive their orders from these bishops are in themselves invalidly ordained and consecrated. Which means that most Sacred Body and most Precious Blood is nothing but bread n wine!

I am highly critical of this n doubt that God would ever let anything like that happen. But can u imagine how scary that would be? How many bishops who were consecrated to the episcopacy before 1968 are there left? Even the the pope was made a bishop in 1977 using this form! This was written by Rev. Anthony Cekada by the way, n I just found out they sedevacanists, I think. According to the newletter, even SSPX recognized the legitamacy of the episcopal consecrations after 1968, pshhh, if SSPX agrees, then whoever sent me the newsletter must be even more right-winged and traditional than the SSPX.

I’m just wondering, what constitutes a sacrament no longer being valid? For example in this case, Holy Orders. This makes me wonder, if it was because there was substantial change to the form in which the sacrament is conferred, why is it that Anglican priests are invalid, and that Novus Ordo priests/bishops are? I firmly believe that all Novus Ordo priests are legit, but i’m just asking how much change was made when the Church of England started in which they conferred their “Holy Orders”?

Also, I know that currently women cannot be ordained and only men receive the sacrament of Holy Orders. It is what the church teaches, but! although the church does not permit it, can this sacrament still be conferred upon women? I mean say some looney bishop goes and ordains women using the say form as he would for men, would these women still have the mark of Holy Orders? Would the bread that they consecrate be legitimate although the Church forbids their ordination? I’m asking would this apostolic succession or w/e still be passed on to them? I always read why women should not be ordained, but is it physically possible?

Not making a blanket statement, because some people just like the reverence of the old way (I too enjoy it when I can get to a TLM), but aren’t those who say the Church is messed up because of the changes made by Vatican II headed down the road Martin Luther started when he started the Protestant Reformation??? Wasn’t his basic statement that the Church veered of the true path and he was going to put it on the right path one way or the other? This seems to be what’s being said by some traditionalists.

I know we are to revere the old (the Fathers, the history of the Church, etc.) but aren’t we also to try to understand the new and embrace it?

 

[Genesis315]

This essay completely answers Fr. Cekeda’s argument:

lumengentleman.com/content.asp?id=153

 

[jmcrae]

A change of language cannot invalidate the Sacrament of Holy Orders.

After all, the change was made from Aramaic to Greek in the first generation of the Church - even the Apostles themselves ordained some men in Greek, even though Jesus had ordained the Apostles in Aramaic.

Later, the language of the Church changed from Greek to Latin, and ordinations began to be done in Latin, even though neither Christ nor the Apostles had ever ordained anyone in Latin.

It is the meaning of the words that confers the Sacrament: there is no “magic” in the actual syllables themselves.

 

[Windmill]

One of the arguments made by sedevacantists is that since the explicit mentioning of the duty to offer sacrifice and absolve from sins is optional in the new rite of ordination, the new rite is invalid (or atleast suspect). The problem is this: whether or not it is explicitly mentioned, the Church firmly intends that the priest will offer the sacrifice and absolve from sins. The Anglicans left out this clause precisely because they no longer intended the priests to be a sacrificing priesthood that also absolved penintents from personal sins.

I think this “option” to exclude mentioning of the priests duties should not be taken. However, since the motives of the church are clear, and since the Pope himself promulgated the rite, the rite is guaranteed to be valid because of the Indeffectibility of the Church given to us by Christ Himself. The Church cannot lead us into error.