"Wales has decided to close the Churches again. I will be arrested before I deny the sacraments to the people of God again."

  • Thread starter Thread starter IanM
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Bluebright said:
Unless he believes that he is doing Gods will which is ofcourse above the Bishop. In history people who have disobeyed bishops have been one of two things, saints or sinners. Depending of course on the Bishop. It’s not for us to judge from where we are, nor can any one person say across the board. Each priest must make his choice for his parish as he has to live by it and more importantly, die by it… Some Bishops might even stand up and disobey themselves. The gov is not their boss.
Click to expand...
There needs to be an extremely compelling reason for a priest not to follow his bishop, like if a bishop were to command something objectively sinful or if the bishop went into schism.

Not everybody has exactly the same thoughts on how to respond to a pandemic but suspending the obligation or suspending the public Mass is completely within the purview of the bishops and the Roman diocese has taken similar action, and that by itself is a sort of cue for other dioceses. Everybody can have their private thoughts about it and discuss it freely, but no, it’s not for each person to judge individually in terms of what the final decision is.
 
Last edited:
Leaving the issue of this specific scenario aside, the idea that a priest must follow a bishop’s directions without any concern for the morality of the direction is wrong. If a bishop apostazizes, for example, a priest is under no obligation to follow him into apostasy, or to stop saying masses simply because the hypothetical apostate bishop has ordered him to stop.

Coming back to this specific situation, the hypothetical priest (since apparently the priest referenced in the OP is not a pastor on the diocese in question and therefore is irrelevant) will have to make his own determination as to whether the bishop’s orders are morally just, valid, or do not constitute an immediate threat on the spiritual well being of his flock. I have no desire whatsoever to comment on what his determination should be. That is his decision to make.
 
Useless said:
If a bishop apostazizes, for example, a priest is under no obligation to follow him into apostasy, or to stop saying masses simply because the hypothetical apostate bishop has ordered him to stop.
Click to expand...
Apostasy is the public repudiation of the faith - for example, by joining another denomination. Were a bishop to do this (and, in fairness, it has happened), he would automatically be suspended and thus not able to exercise his office - so that solves that problem.
Useless said:
Coming back to this specific situation, the hypothetical priest (since apparently the priest referenced in the OP is not a pastor on the diocese in question and therefore is irrelevant) will have to make his own determination as to whether the bishop’s orders are morally just, valid, or do not constitute an immediate threat on the spiritual well being of his flock.
Click to expand...
Granted, priests aren’t nodding automatons not allowed to think for themselves -priests can (and some do) say to their bishop: “you’re wrong; I’m not going to do what you tell me.” However, there is the small matter of the promise made at ordination (the part about “respect” is too often sadly observed in the breach) as well as respect for the office of bishop generally (most priests are just glad it’s not them). For the most part though, the Church is basically the same any other hierarchical organisation like say your average workplace. Decisions are made (hopefully with some consultation) and those on the shop floor so to speak are expected to carry them out. It really is just that simple (not that anyone ever said it was supposed to be easy).

Of course, there are some things my bishop can’t tell me to do - like celebrate mass with animal cookies and ribena, or (to use a less extreme example) celebrate Rite III reconciliation in ordinary circumstances. Extremes aside though, a priest can’t simply decide he doesn’t like a decision and so isn’t going to follow it - disagreement is one thing, disobedience is another altogether and public disagreement is worse still. there are proper processes in Canon Law for challenging a decision but tbh as I said earlier, he’d be better to just get out and do what he can for as many as he can.
Useless said:
since apparently the priest referenced in the OP is not a pastor on the diocese in question and therefore is irrelevant
Click to expand...
The priest in question is a priest of the Anglican Ordinariate which has personal jurisdiction over its members, complementary to the territorial jurisdiction of the local bishop. In other words, he has (some) skin in the game. However, it’s a matter for his Ordinary and not him
 
InThePew said:
Apostasy is the public repudiation of the faith - for example, by joining another denomination. Were a bishop to do this (and, in fairness, it has happened), he would automatically be suspended and thus not able to exercise his office - so that solves that problem
Click to expand...
It has happened very often indeed. At the time of HenryVIII`s dispute with the Church re marriage to Anne Boleyn after divorcing Catherine of Aragon, all but one Bishop in the English Church (as far as I can think, though I stand to be corrected) apostacised, that being St John Fisher (Bishop of Rochester) Reginald Pole, who managed to slip away to safety before the net closed for good-despite attempts at his assassination by agents of HenryVIII, was subsequently raised to the episcopacy from the safety of Catholic countries on mainland Europe sometime later.
 
Jbrady said:
40.png
lwest:
Why can’t Mass be celebrated in peoples’ homes or outside, abiding by social distancing guidelines?
Click to expand...
The whole point of the lock down is that you do not leave your home at all or let anyone else into your home unless it is absolutely necessary for survival. It’s social distancing turned up to eleven.

Hopefully, a brief period of this extreme isolation will decrease the pool of infected people to the point where the risk will be substantially lower sooner rather than later. It’s a sound policy.
Click to expand...
Is it sound policy?

It didn’t work the first time, why does one think it would work now?

Sound policy would be to implement the policies of democracies that had more success combating this pandemic, counties like South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore. Counties that instead of locking down, implemented aggressive and sustained contact tracing to effectively track down those individuals who were infected and spreading the disease and then isolate those individuals (and quarantine those came in close contact with them), instead of indiscriminately locking down EVERYONE.
 
And there are hoards of people objecting to contact tracing, too. Not saying I’m one of them. It’s just out there. I don’t think there’ll ever be a consensus on how to handle this pandemic.
 
lwest said:
And there are hoards of people objecting to contact tracing, too. Not saying I’m one of them. It’s just out there. I don’t think there’ll ever be a consensus on how to handle this pandemic.
Click to expand...
The difference is that contact tracing works, it’s been proven effective. Indiscriminate lock downs in non-Totalitarianism countries have been proven to be ineffective.

So despite the opposition from some quarters, the government and public health officials should implement something that has proven to work (contact tracing) and not something that has been shown not to work (indiscriminate lock downs).
 
PeterT said:
40.png
lwest:
And there are hoards of people objecting to contact tracing, too. Not saying I’m one of them. It’s just out there. I don’t think there’ll ever be a consensus on how to handle this pandemic.
Click to expand...
The difference is that contact tracing works, it’s been proven effective. Indiscriminate lock downs in non-Totalitarianism countries have been proven to be ineffective.

So despite the opposition from some quarters, the government and public health officials should implement something that has proven to work (contact tracing) and not something that has been shown not to work (indiscriminate lock downs).
Click to expand...
I’ll agree that lock downs are very restrictive. And should only be used when absolutely necessary. But contact tracing doesn’t impact anyone’s freedom.

In Australia, if you go into a pub or restaurant or a club then you sign in electronically (or manually) and give your phone number. If someone who tests positive has been to that establishment then you get a text saying when that happened.

I literally just got one a few minutes ago from club I was in a couple of weeks back. I wasn’t there on the same day so no problem. Doesn’t everyone do this type of thing?
 
Useless said:
If a bishop apostazizes, for example,
Click to expand...
Nobody is “apostatizing” in the COVID shutdown situations. It’s simply extreme and ridiculous for you to even go there. Please stop bringing up completely unrelated points.

With respect to your related points, the priest posting in this thread has pretty much answered/ knocked down every argument you’ve made.
 
Last edited:
Freddy said:
I literally just got one a few minutes ago from club I was in a couple of weeks back. I wasn’t there on the same day so no problem. Doesn’t everyone do this type of thing?
Click to expand...
I don’t think the US is doing it on a widespread basis. Some individual businesses and organizations might choose to do it, but a lot of places don’t want the hassle/ expense and also it is likely going to put some people off from visiting, unless the business is a place that normally requires registration or reservation such as a hotel, a gym, an employer tracking its employees’ presence on the job site, a restaurant that requires reservations, a church that is requiring parishioners to register to attend a particular service (and many churches aren’t requiring this, you can just show up), etc.

There are a lot of places like grocery stores and informal bars and restaurants where many people would be really put off by having to sign in and provide personal information, even though the business likely gets a lot of that information all the time when you scan your debit/ credit card or loyalty card to pay for something.
 
Last edited:
Tis_Bearself said:
40.png
Freddy:
I literally just got one a few minutes ago from club I was in a couple of weeks back. I wasn’t there on the same day so no problem. Doesn’t everyone do this type of thing?
Click to expand...
I don’t think the US is doing it on a widespread basis. Some individual businesses and organizations might choose to do it, but a lot of places don’t want the hassle/ expense and also it is likely going to put some people off from visiting, unless the business is a place that normally requires registration or reservation such as a hotel, a gym, an employer tracking its employees’ presence on the job site, a restaurant that requires reservations, a church that is requiring parishioners to register to attend a particular service (and many churches aren’t requiring this, you can just show up), etc.

There are a lot of places like grocery stores and informal bars and restaurants where many people would be really put off by having to sign in and provide personal information, even though the business likely gets a lot of that information all the time when you scan your debit/ credit card or loyalty card to pay for something.
Click to expand...
I don’t get why someone wouldn’t do it. You are effectively telling the barman or waiter, ‘Hey, if you know that someone has been here and tested positive, can you give me a ring and let me know?’
 
Tis_Bearself said:
There are a lot of places like grocery stores and informal bars and restaurants where many people would be really put off by having to sign in and provide personal information,
Click to expand...
In the UK there’s an NHS app which scans the NHS QR code outside the premises one is entering, and the rest happens (hopefully) automatically.

I understand the argument that lockdowns aren’t the best way to handle the problem, and I have absolutely no respect for the dismal way the UK government has handled this continuing pandemic. But I’m not an epidemiologist and in a serious situation such as this it seems to me the responsible thing to do is cooperate with the measures the government puts in place.
 
Last edited:
PickyPicky said:
In the UK there’s an NHS app which scans the NHS QR code outside the premises one is entering, and the rest happens (hopefully) automatically.
Click to expand...
Yeah, this would be problematic in the US for the same reasons that we don’t tend to have state-owned cameras filming people walking down the street. We might have a privately owned camera on every business filming who goes in and comes out, and a business could choose to do private tracking or people could “opt in” to some tracking app (a lot of the social media and convenience food apps already track your locaion), but an app owned by or sponsored by any government entity would cause a large segment of the population to fly into a tizzy over their purported “rights”.
 
Last edited:
Useless said:
am not, thankfully, but others are. And for a time I was also. It was very spiritually damaging for me and for others who I know. That the damage done to us was ignored was very sad, but easy to forgive.

I don’t believe the threat is as severe as you think it is, nor do I think the risk to my or anyone else’s physical health is worth losing my soul. And thankfully, my bishop has allowed mass to continue so there is no disobedience here!
Click to expand...
I find it odd that people are so 'spiritually damaged ’ over a few weeks of no mass. Surely you can fullfill your spirituality in other ways for the time being? I’m not sure how you are going to ‘lose your soul’ over something that has been church sanctioned for a small period of your life.

I would like to remind you the church has had to shut her doors many times over various pandemics throughout history. Smallpox and the plague often caused complete lockdowns in various English locations (for sometimes months at a time).

Life and spirituality got back on track eventually.

Pandemics have been around since the creation of humans. Humans each time have put in measures to slow the spread. We are thankfully alive in a time we are more aware of viral behaviour, so in effect are improving in our management of this. We are also fortunate to have access to online mass, reading materials and communication with the outside worlds.

Let’s not make this more dramatic that it needs to be.
 
We are supposed to be about eternal life, not this one. I support the priest - it’s time for civil disobedience from Christians.
 
As the Spanish say “When you see them shaving your neighbour’s beard, start soaping your own.”
 
Odilon said:
We are supposed to be about eternal life, not this one. I support the priest - it’s time for civil disobedience from Christians.
Click to expand...
There may have been times, like the 1950s, when civil disobedience was difficult, but today it’s civil obedience that is the tough one. Western culture glorifies individual rights to an extreme.

But the issue here seems to be defiance of lawful Church authority. If a pastor can disregard his bishop, then why should laity regard the pastor? Why not Laity confect Eucharist in their own homes? Any parent can “do” confession! If the bishop won’t ordain Sally, why not a respected village elder?

People think the Glorified Rights bandwagon can be pushed just so far, then peacefully stop, that the same evil church bureaucracy that rightly gets defied for suspending public Masses for a month will of course be respected on other things.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top