Why do some still say that Vatican II is not infallible?

[Ghosty]

I still don’t get your point. While the Sacraments are indeed in place now in the SSPX, there is no guarentee that will always be the case. The only assurance is the Catholic Church. Furthermore, even when the Sacraments are in place, there can be severe doctrinal errors that can lead one to a dangerously incomplete understanding of God and the Faith. These things imperil the soul and make it that much harder to maintain the Salvation one is graced with by virtue of Baptism.

Any group that practices the Sacrament of Baptism provides access to the community of Salvation. Baptism IS the Sacrament of Salvation. The Church has never stated that the SSPX doesn’t provide this. The Church does not, however, say that the SSPX (or any non-Catholic group) is a full participant in the Community of Salvation, only that it provides access to it. The water that the SSPX provides is the spill-over from the well of the Church, same as any Protestant or Schismatic group. It is absolutely not the source provider of the Water of Life. A person can drink, and perhaps even survive if the water is not too polluted, but they can not drink so deeply, or so purely, as they can with the Church.

Those who have turned away from the Church to drink from the SSPX have chosen mud over water, and must be regarded as such. Those who choose mud over dying of thirst can not be faulted for wanting to drink, nor in drinking what they can find, but we can still say that they are not as well nourished as those who drink from the well. Insofar as the SSPX carries muddy water to the dying, they are to be commended for their efforts in bringing Salvation to those people; insofar as the SSPX attempts to pollute the healthy with its offerings, it is to be regarded as a problem for the faithful to avoid.

 

[Exporter]

I think if an intellegent nonCatholic were to read this thread he would say, “Those Catholics are not in agreement. They are all mixed up.”

 

[TNT]

Exporter:

I think if an intellegent nonCatholic were to read this thread he would say, “Those Catholics are not in agreement. They are all mixed up.”

That is sooo close to an oxymoron…like “senate intelligence committee”.
( I couldn’t resist.)

 

[bear06]

Ghosty:

I’m not aware that the Church has challenged the validity of SSPX Sacraments, so I don’t understand your point, TNT. The licitness of the Sacraments is obviously not present, but that’s not what the document you cited is talking about.

The Church doesn’t have to challenge. The Church teaches that priests must have faculties from the local bishop to hear confessions and do weddings. ANY priest has to have faculties. Local bishops have not given SSPX the faculties to perform these sacraments. Let’s take SSPX off the table for this part. If a Jesuit came into a diocese, he must receive faculties from the local bishop to perform weddings and hear confessions.

 

[Ghosty]

bear06: Right, that deals with licitness, though, which is not the question that’s being raised. A priest is always capable of consecrating bread and wine, for example, even without the local Bishop’s permission.

 

[Asimis]

To get back on topic.

It seems that everytime that The Church holds a council, a group separates itself from it. That was the case with Vatican I, it gave rise to the “Old Catholics” who deny Papal Infallibility. Now this also happened with the Second Vatican Council which gave rise to the “Traditional Catholics” who say that the council was not infallible and that it contradicted previous doctrine.

I am in the same page with the Traditioal Catholics but unlike them, I do not reject Vatican II. I accept the council as infallible and pay obedience to it. BUT this however does not means that I aprove the abuses that are being done IN SPITE of what the council taught. I am against the abuses and the misinterpretation of eccumenism, the destruction of the mass, the indifferentism shown towards non-Catholics with regards of salvation, the supression of Church Dogma for the sake of political correctness, etc, etc. I also stopped going to the NO of my parish and decided to go to the TM once I dicovered the abuses that were being doen in it.

I would say that there is a middle ground between the Traditional Position and the Liberal(modernist) one, and I also think that in this middle ground is that The Church and Vatican II stand.

 

[Ghosty]

Asimis: Amen! I bristle at the “spirit of Vatican II”. Thank God most of the Vatican does as well

I for one love the NO when it’s not abused. It’s beautiful. I will admit, however, that the Tridentine seems a lot less prone to abuse, if only because the people who celebrate it within the Church are those less prone to abuse.

 

[rwoehmke]

There is a radical difference between a schismatic church and a protestant sect. The former has bishops to continue the validity of the sacraments and to consecrate new bishops. Why else was our Pope upset when LeFever(sic) consecrated four new bishops before he died. They may be illicit, but I am betting they validly continue the apostolic succession. Their Eucharist would be valid, but we would not receive there because they are not in union with the Church of Rome. Somewhere between Henry VIII the Anglican Church somehow lost the continuity of their Episcopate and the succession was broken. Hence today invalid orders.

 

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

TNT:

Thanks for the answers. I did not err because I was posing a question, not a declaration.

TNT,
Even though you only asked a question I still think you did commit an error, or at the very least allowed a bias to show.

Here is what I am talking about (bold emphasis added)

TNT:

1. One who was in the VATII church, and by demand of their conscience, entered into the SSPX.

There is no such thing as the Vatican II Church. There is just the Church.

It is this mentality that causes the rise of schismatic groups. The idea that with Vatican II the pope and all the bishops somehow left the Church and the schismatic group is the true Church. This is an old idea that even the Moroms have with the Great Apostasy as a way to legitimize their existance.