Vatican confirms excommunication for US dissident group

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I wonder if this final word will have an impact on CTA members. That is really the purpose, that plus sending a message to others not to join such groups.
 
Tom317 said:
I wonder if this final word will have an impact on CTA members. That is really the purpose, that plus sending a message to others not to join such groups.
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Probably not outside Bruskewitz’s diocese.
 
Richardols said:
He already excommunicated them en masse.
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Yes, I know. I am wondering what their reaction is now that the Vatican has approved the Bishop’s actions…frankly, I would not want to be in their shoes.
 
Tom317 said:
Yes, I know. I am wondering what their reaction is now that the Vatican has approved the Bishop’s actions…frankly, I would not want to be in their shoes.
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They have to get the excommunication lifted, but I have no idea what that entails. Sack cloth and ashes?
 
Richardols said:
They have to get the excommunication lifted, but I have no idea what that entails. Sack cloth and ashes?
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I am wondering if they take the excommunication seriously, or are they still going to Mass, receiving the sacraments,etc…
 
Richardols said:
They have to get the excommunication lifted, but I have no idea what that entails. Sack cloth and ashes?
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BTW, I would think that having the excommunication would be fairly simple. They would renounce their membership in the CTA, repent and go to confession and I am sure the Bishop would lift it.
 
Tom317 said:
I am wondering if they take the excommunication seriously, or are they still going to Mass, receiving the sacraments,etc…
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I’d think that they can attend Mass, but certainly can’t receive Communion.
 
Richardols said:
I’d think that they can attend Mass, but certainly can’t receive Communion.
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I agree, yet I wonder if they receive communion anyway. A person who chooses to dissent might not think they are bound by any rules of the Church. I am just curious.
 
It seems the SSPX tangent has burned out, but I wanted to point out that the Vatican response is specifically to the CTA protest. It does not appear to apply to the entire list of groups covered by the excommunication decree.

I’m no SSPX supporter, but I DO think we should make sure folks realize that the SPECIFIC Vatican document mentioned here is silent on the SSPX. It is ONLY a rejection of the CTA protest of the excommunication.

But if CTA doesn’t let petty things like church teaching get in the way of their opinions on abortion, contraception, liturgical norms, and so on, why would they care what the hierarchy says about their status?
 
manualman said:
It seems the SSPX tangent has burned out, but I wanted to point out that the Vatican response is specifically to the CTA protest. It does not appear to apply to the entire list of groups covered by the excommunication decree.

I’m no SSPX supporter, but I DO think we should make sure folks realize that the SPECIFIC Vatican document mentioned here is silent on the SSPX. It is ONLY a rejection of the CTA protest of the excommunication.

But if CTA doesn’t let petty things like church teaching get in the way of their opinions on abortion, contraception, liturgical norms, and so on, why would they care what the hierarchy says about their status?
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Of course that doesn’t make them (SSPX, CFFC etc) any less excommunicated. The only difference is that if the SSPX were to appeal as the CTA group did, they might not get the same answer.
 
Just last week the Boston Globe ran an article pushing some “progressive” cause or another (I forget which one) and used “Call to Action” as the focus of the piece. The group was identified as a Catholic social justice organization.

Many outside the church see media reporting on false flag operations such as the George Soros funded “Catholics for a Free Choice” (also under this excommunication) and get a very misleading impression of what the church is.

I hope there are more such actions. I’m frankly irked that for years much of what I knew of the church was disinformation created by dissidents and their allies in the media .
 
I realize that this is slightly off topic, but remember the “list” of organizations that the Bishop had. One of my huge problems is that it did not go far enough, in my opinion. Why not include members of neo-Nazi groups and groups like that? I think that there are many more organizations out there that are at least as incompatible to Catholicism as these other groups.
 
This issue is very personal to me, because my parents (and most of their friends, including my confirmation sponsor etc…) are members of CTA. They do not live in the above-mentioned diocese. For the record, I completely agree with the excommunication and am glad the Vatican upheld the bishop’s ruling. If there were to be a universal excommunication of CTA members, I would support it, although I’m sure my life will get more complicated because of it. 😦

That said, knowing a bunch of CTA members personally, I suspect that this ruling will not have as big an effect on the excommunicated members as we might wish. This is because their whole attitude is one of “the pope does not deserve more authority than the rest of us. WE are the church…” so just because someone at the vatican says they’re not Catholics, doesn’t mean they believe it. Obedience is not their favorite virtue, to put it lightly. I would be shocked to see any significant numbers of CTA members repudiating their memberships because of this. More likely, many will continue as usual in their churches (since they won’t all be singled out by their priests), and some will end up officially leaving the Church for another denomination, or worse, splintering off on their own.
 
Remember, the Diocese of Lincon has a community and seminary of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (which formed by members who broke off from SSPX in 1988) and I assume the Tridentine Mass is therefore very generously offered in that diocese.

Perhaps other bishops don’t excommunicate Catholics who belong to schismatic Traditionalist organizations in their dioceses because the Tridentine Mass is much less offered?
 
mommyof4 said:
I realize that this is slightly off topic, but remember the “list” of organizations that the Bishop had. One of my huge problems is that it did not go far enough, in my opinion. Why not include members of neo-Nazi groups and groups like that?
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I see the reasoning in what you say, and certainly wouldn’t fault a bishop for including a wide assortment of groups contrary to the message of Christ. But I think the aim of Bp Bruskewitz was to separate the goats from the sheep. The organizations he p(name removed by moderator)ointed claimed to be Catholic and recruited Catholics to be members. His excommunication clearly indicated that these organizations were not Catholic, but were contrary to the Church.
 
A bishop can only excommunicate someone in his diocese and cannot excommunicate someone outside their diocese. However the excommunication holds true for the person’s entire association with Christianity, inside and outside the diocese.
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The bishop of Rome can excommunicate any Catholic.
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So if he wanted to the Pope could extent this ecommunication and include all Catholics that are associated with these groups through out the world?
 
starrs0 said:
So if he wanted to the Pope could extent this ecommunication and include all Catholics that are associated with these groups through out the world?
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Yes, and I believe that is what previously happened with the Masons.
 
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