Pope Lifts Excommunications of SSPX Bishops

[numealinesimpet]

In the Traditional Catholic section some one posted the response of the society here in the United States. They start off saying that they are happy, but than go on to say that they were never excommunicated in the first place. There is no sadness or remorse on there part, they still deny the defiance of there action that got them excommunicated in the first place.

Bp Fellay asked for the Decree of Excommunication to be lifted, “Without prejudice” to whether it was valid or legal in the first place. They are not remoseful, because they believe that they were in the right.

We are grateful to Pope Benedict XVI for affirming in his Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum that (contrary to a widespread misconception) the Traditional Latin Mass was never abrogated.

This would be an opportune moment to scotch, once and for all, some common false accusations against Archbp. Lefebvre: that he was excommunicated by Pope Paul II and is in schism, and that he declared the New Order of Mass to be invalid.

On 1st July 1988 Cardinal Gantin - not Pope John Paul - declared Mgr Lefebvre excommunicated under Canons 1382 & 1364 New Code of Canon Law, that forbid consecration of a bishop without papal mandate. This Canon was promulgated in the 1950s in response to the schismatic Chinese Patriotic Church (CPA), a stooge organisation established according to classic Marxist principles: these bishops declare publicly & loudly that The Party over-rides the pope. Strangely, however, since the 1950s none of the 150+ CPA bishops has ever been excommunicated. Before consecrating his bishops, Mgr Lefebvre gave a public sermon in June 1988 clearly explaining that he was invoking Canons 1321-4 of the New Code of Canon Law, which provide for emergency situations by indemnifying from any sanction if one genuinely believes an emergency has arisen. The emergency was the spreading of false doctrine, and the illegal attempt to suppress the traditional liturgical life when it had not been abrogated. Significantly the Vatican has never refuted this correct usage of Canon Law by Mgr Lefebvre.

The SSPX insist that this alleged excommunication by Cdl Gantin - which Pope John Paul referred to in Ecclesia Dei but never issued on his own authority - is not legally binding: you cannot invoke one law while ignoring another. That would be like prosecuting a motorist for parking on a yellow line, while ignoring that it was a Sunday afternoon.

Likewise, Mgr Lefebvre categorically refused to declare the 1969 (Novus Ordo) Missal invalid (which would mean that the priest was holding a piece of bread after the Consecration instead of the Body of Christ) and he disciplined those of his followers who made such judgments which, he insisted, can be made only by a Pope or an Ecumenical Council. What he did assert is that the New Mass glosses over many important truths of the Faith that are clearly stated in the Old Mass, and that it breeds a certain casual irreverence, dangerous to keeping the Faith. Unlike the CPA bishops, Mgr Lefebvre at no time rejected the authority of the Pope. He insisted that the widespread promotion of error and the de facto suppression of the Traditional Liturgy was illegal, and refused to comply. That is saying, “Father, in this case I cannot give in to your demand!” He did not add, “And therefore you are not my Father”. This was brilliantly demonstrated in the Holy Year of 2000, when thousands of “Traditional” religious and lay Catholics, organised by the SSPX, processed into S. Peter’s Square, to the feet of the Holy Father, who was visibly impressed, “and all Rome with him”. It was after this that Pope John Paul II began in earnest to find a way to normalise the position of the SSPX established by Mgr Lefebvre. They are among the Papacy’s most loyal supporters.

 

[LilyM]

The SSPX insist that this alleged excommunication by Cdl Gantin - which Pope John Paul referred to in Ecclesia Dei but never issued on his own authority - is not legally binding: you cannot invoke one law while ignoring another. That would be like prosecuting a motorist for parking on a yellow line, while ignoring that it was a Sunday afternoon.

Of course you can - happens all the time in secular law. It’s up to the prosecuting authorities (in this case the Vatican) to decide which charges to pursue if there’s more than one breach of the law involved. They are not obliged to prosecute every breach of every law. fact they simply don’t have the resources to do so, so they often have to pick their battles.

If someone commits a drive by killing, for example, from a car which has a faulty tail light, of course the criminal will be prosecuted for the murder which is the most heinous crime and carries the harshest sentence. And the prosecutors would be highly likely to ignore, presuming they were sure of success on the murder charge and were satisfied with the sentence that the criminal was likely to get, the minor offense regarding the taillight which carries a slap-on-the-wrist penalty.

In this case the Vatican, on behalf of the Pope who is the final arbiter of Canon Law, gave a decision as to how Canon Law applied in Abp Lefebvre’s situation well before he acted. They and His Holiness are the authority, not Lefebvre. If the Supreme Court tells you or me how a particular statutory provision applies, then that’s how it applies regardless of what either of us thinks. We’re not the superior authority.

 

[numealinesimpet]

Of course you can - happens all the time in secular law. It’s up to the prosecuting authorities (in this case the Vatican) to decide which charges to pursue if there’s more than one breach of the law involved. They are not obliged to prosecute every breach of every law. fact they simply don’t have the resources to do so, so they often have to pick their battles.

If someone commits a drive by killing, for example, from a car which has a faulty tail light, of course the criminal will be prosecuted for the murder which is the most heinous crime and carries the harshest sentence. And the prosecutors would be highly likely to ignore, presuming they were sure of success on the murder charge and were satisfied with the sentence that the criminal was likely to get, the minor offense regarding the taillight which carries a slap-on-the-wrist penalty.

Would the prosecutors, or would they not, get away with prosecuting a motorist for parking on a NO PARKING MON-SAT zone when it was a Sunday? (Perhaps my original point was not clear to readers outside Ireland: Parking on a Yellow Line is prohibited Monday-Saturday, but allowed on Sunday. Apologies if this was the case.) Canon Law stipulates not only what the law enacts, but how far it reaches. it delineates the boundaries. Mgr Lefebvre et al were beyond the boundary. The sanctions did not apply to them. It does not take a law Degree to see this.

In this case the Vatican, on behalf of the Pope who is the final arbiter of Canon Law, gave a decision as to how Canon Law applied in Abp Lefebvre’s situation well before he acted. They and His Holiness are the authority, not Lefebvre. If the Supreme Court tells you or me how a particular statutory provision applies, then that’s how it applies regardless of what either of us thinks. We’re not the superior authority.

But that is not what happened, is it? Cdl Gantin simply ignored the clear provisions of Canon Law. At no time, to repeat, was Mgr Lefebvre et al informed that Canons 1321-4 did not apply, much less why not. Pope JPII referred to the excommunication as a fait accompli, neither issuing it on his own authority nor so much as referring to Mgr Lefebvre’s invoking of the canons which, to repeat, were inserted in the New Code by JPII himself. The attempt to single out Mgr Lefebvre & his followers in this way, while taking literally decades to deal with other catastrophic situations, was so blatantly unjust that it was making a laughing stock of the whole Ecumenical Endeavour. Now that the Holy Father has removed this injustice, it will perhaps be possible to discuss the problems of the Church honestly and intelligently. Bullying did not work. Mgr Lefebvre and the SSPX, merely by holding their ground, have been vindicated.

 

[jpy15026]

…

 

[LilyM]

But that is not what happened, is it? Cdl Gantin simply ignored the clear provisions of Canon Law. At no time, to repeat, was Mgr Lefebvre et al informed that Canons 1321-4 did not apply, much less why not. Pope JPII referred to the excommunication as a fait accompli, neither issuing it on his own authority nor so much as referring to Mgr Lefebvre’s invoking of the canons which, to repeat, were inserted in the New Code by JPII himself. The attempt to single out Mgr Lefebvre & his followers in this way, while taking literally decades to deal with other catastrophic situations, was so blatantly unjust that it was making a laughing stock of the whole Ecumenical Endeavour. Now that the Holy Father has removed this injustice, it will perhaps be possible to discuss the problems of the Church honestly and intelligently. Bullying did not work. Mgr Lefebvre and the SSPX, merely by holding their ground, have been vindicated.

Hold on - there was a LOT of to-ing and fro-ing and negotiations between the Vatican and Lefebvre BEFORE the ordinations in question, that much I do know.

Lefebvre can have been in no doubt whatsoever as to the Pope’s views of the ordinations Lefebvre was planning on doing. He can have been in no doubt whatsoever about the Pope’s opinion on the application of the relevant Canons (again, remembering the Pope in all circumstances whatsoever is the final arbiter of how Canon Law applies, not Lefebvre).

Again, to draw from secular law, you might think the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v Wade, or in any one of a million other cases, absolutely stinks, for a million different reasons. Regardless of your opinion about their decision, they ARE the supreme and final arbiter of law in this country, and their decisions are final. What they say is the law IS the law, simple as that.

If you break the law according to their interpretation of it, you can expect to be prosecuted, and it’s no defence to merely plead that you don’t like their interpretation. It’s not injustice for a court to uphold the law as it interprets it. What would be injustice would be if they let you go unpunished if you broke it as they see it.

 

[chevalier]

Since when?

Sorry, looks like the information I had read was wrong. Following your question, I did some research and here’s what I’ve found:

catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0801347.htm
communio-icr.com/articles/PDF/ratzinger11-3.pdf

Looks like there was a discussion in the CAF even:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=221491

 

[numealinesimpet]

Hold on - there was a LOT of to-ing and fro-ing and negotiations between the Vatican and Lefebvre BEFORE the ordinations in question, that much I do know.

Yes, I’d agree there.

Lefebvre can have been in no doubt whatsoever as to the Pope’s views of the ordinations Lefebvre was planning on doing.

I’m not so sure. On the final day, the Pope sent a car to Econe, inviting Mgr Lefebvre to a personal meeting. Lefebvre refused, possibly because he was prudent enough to realise the consequences, at that particular point, of a motor accident on the way. For many years prior to that, the Pope, instead of using his ample authority to settle the problem, had continually referred the question to one of his underlings who was known to be antagonistic to the SSPX. But the real problems were so serious that the SSPX did not just go away. JPII was not the first leader to learn the meaning of ‘too little, too late’.

He can have been in no doubt whatsoever about the Pope’s opinion on the application of the relevant Canons (again, remembering the Pope in all circumstances whatsoever is the final arbiter of how Canon Law applies, not Lefebvre).

My turn to say ‘Not so fast’. The Pope does have the authority to modify Canon Law, but he does not have the right or authority to impose it and then flout it himself.

Again, to draw from secular law, you might think the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v Wade, or in any one of a million other cases, absolutely stinks, for a million different reasons. Regardless of your opinion about their decision, they ARE the supreme and final arbiter of law in this country, and their decisions are final. What they say is the law IS the law, simple as that.

If you break the law according to their interpretation of it, you can expect to be prosecuted, and it’s no defence to merely plead that you don’t like their interpretation. It’s not injustice for a court to uphold the law as it interprets it. What would be injustice would be if they let you go unpunished if you broke it as they see it.

Where your analogy breaks down is, (1) on a deeper level, over the difference between Secular law and the Law of the Church (which we can maybe tease out on a separate set of postings); but (2) on a very clear and obvious point: US law does not have a paragraph that says,* 'If you genuinely think that you are in an Emergency Situation - even if you are wrong - and even if you ought to have known better - you are thereby indemnified from any penalty".* This is what the New Code of Canon Law actually states. We are not here talking about abstruse interpretations, but the plain letter of the Law. US secular law no doubt refers only to external, objective facts. It can be argued that the above paragraphs of the 1983 New Code of Canon law are very unfortuate as examples of legislation. I would agree with that. In fact, they practically make it impossible to excommunicate anybody at all. They were not in the Old Code. Mgr Lefebvre himself opposed the New Code. But once it was formally enacted, he and the SSPX accepted it as the valid law of the Church. The Vatican, as it is now finding out, cannot have it both ways.

 

[chevalier]

Bishop Williamson’s denial of the holocaust is just part of his own ignorance of history. It has nothing to do with faith and morals or any Church discipline.

No disagreement.

They cannot be reinstated, because they were never licitly ordained.

If you remove suspension, you reinstate. Those bishops were never validly “instated”, i.e. invested with an office, so there nowhere to reinstate them in that sense.

They have to be incardinated now. This can take one of two forms. They can be given their own prelature or they can be asked to recant their position on the liturgy, Vatican II, ecumenism and some of the other issues that they have so they can be assigned to a diocese. It is most likely that they will get a prelature. That’s my guess.

You recant a heresy, you don’t have recant something which would be okay in your own prelature in order to be able to be incardinated into a diocese.

If you’re speaking of the decree lifting the excommunication, those things don’t have to be mentioned.

True. It seems after reading the relevant parts of canon law again that suspension from illicit ordination is a separate penalty in lesser cases and excommunication in one like described. But excommunication doesn’t deal away with irregularities (here, so the excommunication being lifted doesn’t mean the bishops are now regularised in the full sense and they can legitimately exercise their orders. It basically means they are no longer excommunicated.

Those are the reasons that they were excommunicated. All that the decree has to affirm is that the excommunication is lifted. Here is a point of law. The excommunications are lifted. The Church is not recanting. There is a difference between lifting an excommunication and saying that it was not valid, as was the case with Joan of Arc.

Preaching to the choir but thanks. I misused the word after wikipedia the same way history books say X divorced Y in 11th century or something, even though the proper name for that procedure, as we now see it, is declaration of nullity.

As to the suspensions, that would not be part of the decree. Suspension is a different penalty. Any priest can be re-communicated and remain suspended until further notice. There has been no public statement about the suspension.

While suspension is a separate penalty, so what I first said wasn’t accurate, the irregularities aren’t dealt away with by the excommunication being lifted. BTW, those bishops were SSPX priests before, who you say are suspended. I don’t think the lifting of an excommunication for such a priest for being ordained to the episcopacy removes that priest’s suspension from the exercise of the priestly order, even though he is now in a higher order.

We don’t know if the bishops remain suspended or not. The SSPX priests remain suspended.

The bishops were SSPX priests before and the irregularities and impediments or whatever else applies as a result of the ordination being without papal approval still apply unless taken back or unless a declaration was necessary for them to start taking effect (which doesn’t seem to be the case to me).

Luther’s excommunication has never been lifted. Luther was excommunicated for heresy. To have the excommunication lifted, it would have to be proven that he was not a heretic. Look at St. Joan of Arc. She was excommunicated by the local bishop as a heretic. But when Rome heard the case, years later, there was no proof that she was a heretic. The Pope declared the excommunication invalid. He never lifted it.

I said I gave wrong information about Luther’s excommunication. I had wrong info I read in connection with with the Joint Declaration. St Joan’s excommunication was made invalid, but the same way we say marriages of the kings of the old were declared invalid, while all the history books say divorce. I haven’t seen the text of the decree to know how it was called, although as we now see the proper course of action was declaring it invalid, not invalidating or lifting it (and you can’t lift the excommunication of a dead person anyway). At any rate, St Joan’s excommunication was never valid, Luther’s ended with his death and it is to be seen as valid, the SSPX bishops’ has been lifted, not declared null, meaning it was valid.

 

[numealinesimpet]

…

Thanks for the good posting, chevalier. Just one quibble:

At any rate, St Joan’s excommunication was never valid, Luther’s ended with his death and it is to be seen as valid, the SSPX bishops’ has been lifted, not declared null, meaning it was valid.

No, it means that the pope has not conceded that the excommunications were valid or licit. As of the date of the Decree, they no longer exist, ‘without prejudice’ to whether they ever were valid. Also, they are not made valid just because a pope might say they are. The Pope is the custodian of the Church and of the Law. He cannot make exceptions for one particular case and still claim the support of the Law. This is not to claim that any individual pope has done this; I am stating the general case. What I think JPII really did was let the situation continue unresolved until Mgr Lefebvre, sensing the ending of his life approaching, believed he was justified in invoking the Emergency Clauses.

 

[JReducation]

When you write about less priests in parishes, have you also factored in that many religious orders who used to staff parishes no longer do so. Some are pulling out of parish work completely, because it is not what they were founded to do. Others are not taking on new parishes, for the same reason and are assigning their priests to ministries that are in keeping with their original charism. An others are not allowing men to become priests, because they were not founded to be orders of priest, but orders of brothers. They only allowed men to become priests to meet the needs of their community, not the diocese. Later the bishops asked them for assistance, so they generously ordained more men to help the bishops, especially in missions such as the USA.

Now it is time for the bishops to draw more vocations to the secular priesthood, so that religious priests can get back to the business of religious life. Every day a new cloistered monastery opens up, with many priests. But they will not serve the laity, because they want to return to the original spirit of St. Benedict or of Carmel.

The Franciscans have begun to branch out into new communities where there are priest but they are not serving in parishes. Francis did not want his brothers in parishes. He wanted them to be brothers to each other and to spend their lives with each other serving each other and serving the Church as itinerant preachers. He did not want distinctions between those who were ordained and not ordained. To avoid these distinctions friars like the Franciscan Missionaries of the Eternal Word on EWTN do communication minisstry. Fr. Benedict’s Franciscans of the Reform do street minsitry, Franciscans of the Ancient Observance do no external ministry. Their ministry is to live in brotherhood as St. Francis wanted.

Like this there are other communities. Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity do not do parish work. They have several thousand priests. But Mother did not want them in parishes. She wanted them taking care of the poor.

The older monastic orders such as Trappists are getting many vocations today, some are priests.

The low number in parishes is not caused just by a lack of vocations, but also by the withdrawal of religious communities from parishes. Many religious communities have found that in the parish, the laity place so many expectations and demand on their religious, that they are no longer religious. They are parish priests. To a religious, religious life must be first. The priesthood is a vocation within a the religious vocation, not the other way around. Religious life is not a vocation within the priesthood.

The laity seems to have a difficult time understanding this concept. We have chased away many religious from parishes.

There is a decline in vocations compared to the “golden years” between 1900 and 1960. But today’s numbers are similar to those prior to the 1900s. There was always a shortage of secular parish priests. That’s how religious got distracted from religious life in the first place, trying to help bishops.

Today they are saying that they need to recover their religious life. The laity has to accept some responsibility for chasing away the religious from parishes and for not promoting vocations to the secular priesthood in their families.

JR

 

[numealinesimpet]

LilyM writes

…the Pope in all circumstances whatsoever is the final arbiter of how Canon Law applies, not Lefebvre).

num:

… The Pope does have the authority to modify Canon Law, but he does not have the right or authority to impose it and then flout it himself.

LilyM :

Again, to draw from secular law, you might think the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v Wade, or in any one of a million other cases, absolutely stinks, for a million different reasons. Regardless of your opinion about their decision, they ARE the supreme and final arbiter of law in this country, and their decisions are final. What they say is the law IS the law, simple as that.

If you break the law according to their interpretation of it, you can expect to be prosecuted, and it’s no defence to merely plead that you don’t like their interpretation. It’s not injustice for a court to uphold the law as it interprets it. What would be injustice would be if they let you go unpunished if you broke it as they see it. 

num:

Where your analogy breaks down is, (1) on a deeper level, over the difference between Secular law and the Law of the Church (which we can maybe tease out on a separate set of postings)…

May I now add these comments on the Nature of Law: Divine, Natural, Ecclesiastical, Civil, Positive.

According to St Thomas Aquinas, a Law is
•A precept of Right Reason
•For the Common Good
•Promulgated by the legitimate Authority.
Thus an attempt at enforcing a law that is either impossible, or unreasonable, or not directed to the Common Good, or not validly promulgated, is not a law at all but an abuse of authority which we are under a moral obligation to resist, otherwise we are participating in the sin by compliance with the offence against justice.
“The Law” subsists in several categories, the later ones “inside” the earlier.
•First is Divine Law which flows from the Nature of God Himself and the Nature of Reality…
Examples are: “Do good and avoid evil”. “Love the Lord thy God with thy whole Heart, mind and soul”.
•Within this is Natural Law which flows from the nature and structure of Creation, and within this the nature and structure of Man, body and soul.
Examples are: “Thou shalt not commit murder” (the correct translation of the 5th Commandment); the absolute prohibition of abortion, homosexual acts, artificial contraception.
•Within this again is Ecclesiastical Law, which derives from Christ’s establishment of His Church.
Examples are: the Commandments of the Church (see the Catechism).
•Ecclesiastical Law contains general principles and
•Particular or •Positive Laws which derive from the lawful authority, derived from Christ, of appointed lawmakers within the Church. In general, these are collected and set out in the Code of Canon Law.
Examples are: the Sunday obligation, the Friday abstinence, the rule of celibacy for priests.

•Civil Law is that part of Positive Law that “Renders unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s”. A Civil Law that contradicts or nullifies Ecclesiastical or Natural or Divine Law is ipso facto invalid.
In the very nature of things, a Law cannot contradict one on a higher level of this hierarchy. An attempt to promulgate a Positive Law that contradicted the Natural or the Divine Law would be ipso facto invalid. Thus no conceivable Positive Law could legalise direct abortion.
Hence, to answer LilyM’s comment about Roe vs Wade: this is invalid as a law, even though it was promulgated in correct form by the US legislature, because it contradicts the higher Divine and Natural Laws. Hence one is forbidden to comply with it.
Holy Mother Church helps us not least by providing Positive Laws to guide our daily conduct, and then enforcing them.
But the Church’s Canon Law, sensu lato, is more than the collection of positive laws. In every age, new situations arise for which there may not be a particular positive law. In this case we must go behind the positive laws to the higher categories. That is what S. Athanasius did when he ignored the de facto imposition of the Arian Heresy, and ignored the excommunications inflicted on him, and continued to ordain priests. He wrote to his flock: “They have the churches, but you have the Faith. Which is the more important?” Mgr Lefebvre has been compared by many to S. Athanasius.

 

[Layman]

Are ye perhaps over-thinking this? I thought excomunication was refusing communion to a sinner; the priest says “Don’t come back until you are truly repentent”.

If the Pope now says: “Ok boys, you’re back in. Now get on with the job”, that’s the end of it, surely? The rest is just bureaucracy.

i.e. it’s up to the presiding cleric whether he wants to re-admit the sheep to the fold, or not. Simple as that.

 

[pnewton]

YesOn the final day, the Pope sent a car to Econe, inviting Mgr Lefebvre to a personal meeting. Lefebvre refused, possibly because he was prudent enough to realise the consequences, at that particular point, of a motor accident on the way.

Tell me you are not accusing the Holy Father of attempting a murder plot. That would be truly messed up.

 

[numealinesimpet]

Tell me you are not accusing the Holy Father of attempting a murder plot. That would be truly messed up.

No!
But, as you mention it, the HF himself had been the victim of a murder attempt only a few years before, as had many prominent people - some successful. It was commoner then than it is now.

Apart from all that, Mgr Lefebvre knew was getting old. I didn’t want to get drawn into guessing at motives etc (tho it was my own fault, pnewton) and I can imagine why he would have thought a dash across the Alps was imprudent.

Now, from our armchairs and the hindsight of 20 years next June, we can re-consider the wisdom of Mgr Lefebvre’s action. Actually, at the time I was not an attender at SSPX Masses & I thought he was wrong. But in the light of subsequent developments, I changed my mind.

 

[numealinesimpet]

Are ye perhaps over-thinking this? I thought excomunication was refusing communion to a sinner; the priest says “Don’t come back until you are truly repentent”.

If the Pope now says: “Ok boys, you’re back in. Now get on with the job”, that’s the end of it, surely? The rest is just bureaucracy.

Well, no. It is a reasonable point to ask whether they have faculties for Sacraments, for example. Am I still in Mortal Sin? Are we really married, or just co-habiting? The great power & enduring strength of the Catholic Faith has always been that She offers certainty. But for this there must be clear boundaries and rules.
The Church is not just a rule-book; She is our Mother. But you could not run so much as a tiddlywinks club (with apologies to tiddlywinks enthusiasts) without a rulebook. These things do count.

i.e. it’s up to the presiding cleric whether he wants to re-admit the sheep to the fold, or not. Simple as that.

True. Bp Fellay has very often said that only the Holy Father can sort this out. But even the HF has to do things by the book, or nobody would ever know where they stood.

 

[pnewton]

No!
But, as you mention it, the HF himself had been the victim of a murder attempt only a few years before, as had many prominent people - some successful. It was commoner then than it is now.

That’s a relief! I see it shocked you blue. Hey, I would rather ask and be corrected than to read it incorrectly.

 

[onetruechurch]

Liza, your concerns became reality last night on KGO radio in San Francisco. You can listen to the John Rothman archive if you go to KGO archives and click on Sunday from 1 until 6 this morning. John, a Jewish author and professor, played the 5 minute Williamson interview and then opened up the lines for comments. Almost all of the “Catholics” who called in were ashamed of the pope. The non-Catholics all agreed that the pope was an anti-semite and had no respect for him. I beg any of you who can defend our pope to write to johnrothman2@yahoo.com (that is the e-mail address KGO radio has listed) He has opened up such a hornet’s nest of negativity against the pope and Catholicism.

Has anyone e-mailed John Rothman? johnrothman2@yahoo.com I just read in the CA thread “Chief Rabbinate of Israel breaks ties to Vatican” post #56 that John Rothman is now spreading his alarm to the San Francisco “conservative” radio station KSFO. I didn’t hear him but it is very troublesome that he has been able to unite both stations to protest against our Pope. He wants to convicnce us that our German Pope is anti-Semitic. I am hoping that a CA poster who can intelligently represent the Catholic viewpoint such as JReducation can e-mail Mr Rothman with some of the information that was posted on this thread. Please let us know if you have contacted Mr Rothman. He will be on the radio again this weekend to spread more stories about our Pope’s anti-semitic behavior.

 

[Charles_Parah]

I think its another political blunder by Pope Benedict XVI.

You see, he’s more liberal in his thinking than Pope John Paul II, who excommunicated them in the first place.

Does anyone believe that the leaders of the SSPX will return to the Church peacefully and without stirring up more conflicts ?

Jim

I hope they do return peacefully–the problem I believe is to many “popes”.

God bless,
Charles

 

[JReducation]

I agree, in essence. That’s why it’s important, I think, to make a distinction: the bishops are no longer excommunicated, but they are not fully rehabilitated as bishops. Right? They can receive the Sacraments and everything – a fittingly graceful gesture on the part of the Holy Father, albeit one that any Catholic deserves.

But administering the Sacraments, and being a shepherd of and representative of the Church, is something completely different. In that case I don’t believe that paternal mercy suffices as an excuse…which is why I hope that there will be a lot more that happens (repudiations of Williamson’s comments, the bishops’ acceptance of Vatican II) before they are completely rehabilitated as bishops.

Just IMHO.

Peace,
+AMDG+

An ordained bishop does not need rehabilitation. A bishop enjoys the fullness of the priesthood, even if he’s excommunicated. These bishops are just as much bishops as the Pope is a bishop. That can never be taken away from them, even though they were ordained illegally.

Yes, they can take over a diocese or a prelature once the excommunication is lifted. They do not have to recant anything. That is not required by Church law, morals or dogma. That is up to the Pope.

What we are unsure of is if they remain suspended or not. None of the reports seem to be clear on that. But judging from what has been said by the Observatore Romano, which knows the language of the Church well, it looks like they are no longer suspended. I’m saying “looks like” because nothing has been said one way or the other. I would imagine that if they were still suspended, that the Observatore Romano would have said so.

We will just have to wait and see. Another way of looking at it is an Orthodox bishop who converts to Catholicism only has to make a profession of faith. He is a validly ordained bishop and he can be put to work immediately. The assignment of bishops is always up to the Pope and the Congregation of Bishops.

In actuality, the Congregation of Bishops is the one that deals with them directly. The Pope usually makes the pronouncements and declarations that the Congregation puts on his desk. Of course, he reserves the right to reject them too. But this is rarely done, because the Pope cannot keep his finger on every pulse that beats in the Church. He has to trust his congregations, commissions and their leaders.

Fraternally,

JR

 

[JReducation]

Well, no. It is a reasonable point to ask whether they have faculties for Sacraments, for example. Am I still in Mortal Sin? Are we really married, or just co-habiting? The great power & enduring strength of the Catholic Faith has always been that She offers certainty. But for this there must be clear boundaries and rules.
The Church is not just a rule-book; She is our Mother. But you could not run so much as a tiddlywinks club (with apologies to tiddlywinks enthusiasts) without a rulebook. These things do count.

True. Bp Fellay has very often said that only the Holy Father can sort this out. But even the HF has to do things by the book, or nobody would ever know where they stood.

The bold is mine.

Actually no. The pope must teach faith and morals as it has been revealed to the Church through Tradition, Scripture and the Magisterium.

As far as Church law is concerned, it does not apply to a reigning pope. Under the title of Supreme Pontiff he is the official and formal law-giver and law-maker of the Church. Therefore he can bypass any law that he wants to by-pass. He cannot change doctrine or moral theology that has been assigned the character of infallibility. Even in morality, if it has not been assigned the character of infallibility, any pope can change, edit, add, delete or restate. What is even more interesting is that the person who has the final voice whether a previous pope spoke infallibly on a subject is the reigning pope or all the bishops in union with each other. It is the pope’s and bishop’s role to identify what is infallible. teaching.

As to the SSPX bishops, since none of the issues regarding their return has to do with dogma or infallible moral teaching, Pope Benedict can handle it any way that he wants to do so or he may just put it into the hands of the Congregation for the Bishops and oversee from a distance as he goes about his other duties.

These laws are not so difficult to deal with if you’re the pope. The people involved are more difficult to deal with.

Fraternally,

JR