Vatican Reminder: Sspx Ordinations Are Illegitimate

[Luigi]

[quote name='mortify' timestamp='1310360120' post='2265647']
I don't know if there ever was a time where 70% of Catholics believed the Eucharist was merely a symbol (This alone warrants the calling of an ecumenical council.) Nor has there every been a time where thousands of priests, nuns, and religious have been abandoning their vocations. One only needs to compare the thriving Church prior to the changes to the shrinking Church after. We are really in the worst of times, but God is certainly with those who seek His will.
[/quote]

Right. Martin Luther never abandoned his vocation, did he? Or married a nun. Rabelais wasn't a monk who married a nun without either of them abandoning their vows. Popes never publicly kept mistresses, boy toys, or had illegitimate children, did they? Henry the Eighth didn't separated an entire country from the Church, publicly hang the monks & take their monasteries, and then kill his right hand man for not going along with the king's wishes. France never suppressed every religious order plus the secular priesthood, and most religious orders plus the secular priesthood weren't already rotten to the core. Barbarians didn't invade Rome or Carthage, and Muslims didn't invade Spain or the Balkans. The plague didn't wipe out 40% of the Catholics in Europe in the course of a few years. There never was a Great Schism. The Know NOthings never burned the Baltimore Carmelites out of their monastery or attacked Catholic cathedrals across this country in 1847.

And as far as 70% of Catholics seeing the Eucharist as a symbol, that's probably another one of those skewed figures, based on how interviewees self-identify rather than who actually goes to church. Besides, back when 95% of the population was both illiterate and uneducated, when the churches were enormous but there were no microphones, and when the Mass was in Latin rather than the vernacular, I bet 70% of the Catholic population also considered the Eutcharist a symbol.

IN every generation, people have thought they were living in the worst of times.

[mortify]

[quote name='Luigi' timestamp='1310360105' post='2265646']
If tradition is the final arbiter or right and wrong, then we don't need an authority figure at the head of the Church do we?
We also need only one sentence in our theology/liturgy books - we've always done it this way.
[/quote]

No, an Authority is still needed to preserve and develop the teaching that is held within tradition. At the same time however, this Authority is bound to tradition and scripture. It can not arbitrarily make commands that contradict past teaching, nor can it bind us to what is harmful to our faith. This is where the lay person's conscience and sensus catholicus comes in. I think many of us know deep down that things are wrong, but we don't want to accept it.

[4588686]

[quote name='Luigi' timestamp='1310361043' post='2265654']
Right. Martin Luther never abandoned his vocation, did he? Or married a nun. Rabelais wasn't a monk who married a nun without either of them abandoning their vows. Popes never publicly kept mistresses, boy toys, or had illegitimate children, did they? Henry the Eighth didn't separated an entire country from the Church, publicly hang the monks & take their monasteries, and then kill his right hand man for not going along with the king's wishes. France never suppressed every religious order plus the secular priesthood, and most religious orders plus the secular priesthood weren't already rotten to the core. Barbarians didn't invade Rome or Carthage, and Muslims didn't invade Spain or the Balkans. The plague didn't wipe out 40% of the Catholics in Europe in the course of a few years. There never was a Great Schism. The Know NOthings never burned the Baltimore Carmelites out of their monastery or attacked Catholic cathedrals across this country in 1847.

And as far as 70% of Catholics seeing the Eucharist as a symbol, that's probably another one of those skewed figures, based on how interviewees self-identify rather than who actually goes to church. Besides, back when 95% of the population was both illiterate and uneducated, when the churches were enormous but there were no microphones, and when the Mass was in Latin rather than the vernacular, I bet 70% of the Catholic population also considered the Eutcharist a symbol.

IN every generation, people have thought they were living in the worst of times.
[/quote]




Truth

[mortify]

[quote name='Luigi' timestamp='1310361043' post='2265654']
Right. Martin Luther never abandoned his vocation, did he? Or married a nun. Rabelais wasn't a monk who married a nun without either of them abandoning their vows. Popes never publicly kept mistresses, boy toys, or had illegitimate children, did they? Henry the Eighth didn't separated an entire country from the Church, publicly hang the monks & take their monasteries, and then kill his right hand man for not going along with the king's wishes. France never suppressed every religious order plus the secular priesthood, and most religious orders plus the secular priesthood weren't already rotten to the core. Barbarians didn't invade Rome or Carthage, and Muslims didn't invade Spain or the Balkans. The plague didn't wipe out 40% of the Catholics in Europe in the course of a few years. There never was a Great Schism. The Know NOthings never burned the Baltimore Carmelites out of their monastery or attacked Catholic cathedrals across this country in 1847.

And as far as 70% of Catholics seeing the Eucharist as a symbol, that's probably another one of those skewed figures, based on how interviewees self-identify rather than who actually goes to church. Besides, back when 95% of the population was both illiterate and uneducated, when the churches were enormous but there were no microphones, and when the Mass was in Latin rather than the vernacular, I bet 70% of the Catholic population also considered the Eutcharist a symbol.

IN every generation, people have thought they were living in the worst of times.
[/quote]

[img]http://images.sodahead.com/polls/000808677/polls_head_in_the_sand_2034_36186_answer_2_xlarge.jpeg[/img]

[Luigi]

[quote name='mortify' timestamp='1310361145' post='2265655']
No, an Authority is still needed to preserve and develop the teaching that is held within tradition. At the same time however, this Authority is bound to tradition and scripture. It can not arbitrarily make commands that contradict past teaching, nor can it bind us to what is harmful to our faith. This is where the lay person's conscience and sensus catholicus comes in. I think many of us know deep down that things are wrong, but we don't want to accept it.
[/quote]

You're right, and I agree that we need an authority figure at the head of the Church. But all the Vatican Council did was update the practices - it change any theology.

Are traditional nuns' habits actually essential to living a religious lfe? Is speaking in a dead language actually essential to religious practice? Is one particular musical instrument the only one that's pleasing to God?

And if every Catholic (lay individual, priest, bishop, cardinal) is going to question the soundness & authoritativeness of the decisions made by the people above her/him in the hierarchy, then in what does obedience consist?

[dominicansoul]

[quote name='Luigi' timestamp='1310361043' post='2265654']
Right. Martin Luther never abandoned his vocation, did he? Or married a nun. Rabelais wasn't a monk who married a nun without either of them abandoning their vows. Popes never publicly kept mistresses, boy toys, or had illegitimate children, did they? Henry the Eighth didn't separated an entire country from the Church, publicly hang the monks & take their monasteries, and then kill his right hand man for not going along with the king's wishes. France never suppressed every religious order plus the secular priesthood, and most religious orders plus the secular priesthood weren't already rotten to the core. Barbarians didn't invade Rome or Carthage, and Muslims didn't invade Spain or the Balkans. The plague didn't wipe out 40% of the Catholics in Europe in the course of a few years. There never was a Great Schism. The Know NOthings never burned the Baltimore Carmelites out of their monastery or attacked Catholic cathedrals across this country in 1847.

And as far as 70% of Catholics seeing the Eucharist as a symbol, that's probably another one of those skewed figures, based on how interviewees self-identify rather than who actually goes to church. Besides, back when 95% of the population was both illiterate and uneducated, when the churches were enormous but there were no microphones, and when the Mass was in Latin rather than the vernacular, I bet 70% of the Catholic population also considered the Eutcharist a symbol.

IN every generation, people have thought they were living in the worst of times.
[/quote]

And not to mention the times when we had two Popes. I can't even imagine the confusion and chaos surrounding that!!!

[Vincent Vega]

[quote name='dominicansoul' timestamp='1310359224' post='2265637']
thank you ...we don't pay enuff attention to the [b]obedient[/b] Traddies ...
[/quote]


[quote name='dominicansoul' timestamp='1310363560' post='2265668']
And not to mention the times when we had two Popes. I can't even imagine the confusion and chaos surrounding that!!!
[/quote]
Mind boggling that the world was once so isolated, isn't it?

[Aloysius]

"back when 95% of the population was both illiterate and uneducated, when the churches were enormous but there were no microphones, and when the Mass was in Latin rather than the vernacular, I bet 70% of the Catholic population also considered the Eutcharist a symbol. "

this is the only thing in this particular post that I would take exception to, Luigi. the illiterate uneducated masses generally had a pretty firm belief in basic pious truths of the faith; they had priests who preached it, and they had a liturgy that emphasized it with such seriousness that few could have thought it was a symbol. it would only be literate educated masses who began to think of it as only a symbol in those days. sure they might not have been able to perfectly formulate the doctrine perfectly with words, but they knew.

in any event, I believe that poll was skewed by complicated options, it wasn't so much that 70% don't think it's the true Body of Christ, but that 70% don't understand how to adequately explain the correct belief, just as the illiterate masses might once have been unable to. they don't know things like the difference between consubstantiation and transubstantiation, intellectually. I don't think faith in the Eucharist is as low as that poll might lead one to believe.

the SSPX's lack of obedience to certain things said and done by the current magisterium is a problem, but it's done because they ran away from the house and built up a house that follows the rules that had been laid out for them by magisteriums past. it doesn't invalidate their obedience to tradition, they don't pick and choose which tradition they like and which they do not, there's a huge body of the Church's Tradition that they submit themselves to entirely, and their objections to some current directions the Church has gone do not invalidate their submissiveness in that area.

I believe it was Archbishop Lefebvre himself who once used the example of being lost in a forest. It is not that they do not think things should go forward, but that they believe we have found ourselves so lost and disoriented in deep dark woods that it is better to retrace our steps to the place where we entered those woods in the first place than to keep going forward blindly. the SSPX didn't just willy nilly take whatever path they wanted through those woods (which is what liberal dissenters do), they went back to the same spot we were in before we entered those woods and called the rest of the Church to do the same. the Church opposed their call, and suggested that going forward with faith and hope in Christ we will make it out ofthe woods and out into the light of a better place, some promised field of the new springtime. I think that the Church will make it there, and when she does the SSPX will be able to see her triumphantly break free of the dark forest and run over to join her.

but for now the SSPX is waiting back where the woods were entered. they try not to walk forward anywhere since the leader is not with them, but to stay where leaders past once told them to be. sometimes it seems that they try to walk forward without the leader, try to get around the woods themselves, this is certainly wrong... but the reason we can't just lambast them for outright disobedience of the same vein as liberal dissenters is that they strive to stay in that spot, they strive not to move forward without the Church's leadership, they strive to stay only where the leadership had once told them to be. and though they are wrong in many ways, they deserve more respect that some wish to show them. they're not protestants with Catholic trappings, they're not just as bad as those who ordain women, they're not on equal footing with the Protestant reformers; they are Catholic bishops and priests who are striving to preserve and hand on what was handed on to them, nothing more and nothing less. the disobedient methods with which tehy have done this are certainly to be disagreed with, but they're not trying to invent something new like the reformers and dissenters they are compared to, they're trying to pass on what they received. despite being wrong, they have done so with courage at great personal cost to themselves in uncertain times.

[Laudate_Dominum]

I second whatever Aloysius just said.

[Nihil Obstat]

If I were playing baseball, I might be called out by the umpire as I slide into home, or whatever. Maybe I disagree with the umpire's call. Maybe I go over and yell at him and tell him it was a stupid call. It doesn't mean I reject the umpire's authority over the call, or the rules about taking bases. It just means I don't think he's applied the rules correctly in that case.

[4588686]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' timestamp='1310397518' post='2265730']
If I were playing baseball, I might be called out by the umpire as I slide into home, or whatever. Maybe I disagree with the umpire's call. Maybe I go over and yell at him and tell him it was a stupid call. It doesn't mean I reject the umpire's authority over the call, or the rules about taking bases. It just means I don't think he's applied the rules correctly in that case.
[/quote]


If the Umpire said that you had three strikes and were out and yet you remained at the plate, despite his orders that you leave the plate as you are out, then you would be either signaling that you do not recognize his authority or do not care to comply with a legitimate order that you do not like.

If the Priests in SSPX were merely speaking with an unpleasant disposition liturgical abuse, the need to not suppress the Traditional Latin Mass, and the rise of heresy in the hierarchy and layity from within the Church then, as far as I know, there would not be a problem. But they're not. They've gone well beyond merely arguing with the Umpire.

Edited July 11, 2011 by Hasan

[Vincent Vega]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' timestamp='1310397518' post='2265730']
If I were playing baseball, I might be called out by the umpire as I slide into home, or whatever. Maybe I disagree with the umpire's call. Maybe I go over and yell at him and tell him it was a stupid call. It doesn't mean I reject the umpire's authority over the call, or the rules about taking bases. It just means I don't think he's applied the rules correctly in that case.
[/quote]
Except to complete the analogy, you would also have to walk over to the score board and throw another point there with your own two hands because, beaver dam it, you scored that point whether he agrees with you or not.

[4588686]

[quote name='Aloysius' timestamp='1310394772' post='2265716']
the disobedient methods with which tehy have done this are certainly to be disagreed with, but they're not trying to invent something new like the reformers and dissenters they are compared to, they're trying to pass on what they received. despite being wrong, they have done so with courage at great personal cost to themselves in uncertain times.
[/quote]

Martin Luher was not trying to create anything new with Sola Fide.

[Papist]

[left]You can defend all you want the legitimacy of the SSPX. But the bottom-line is that the SSPX deliberately, with full knowledge of what they were doing, disobeyed and defied the clear directive from the legitimate authority in Rome. By doing this, they put themselves above the Church.[/left]

[left]If the SSPX sincerely believes the Church needs rescuing, then I would think they would encourage these young men to become priests inside the Catholic Church to help Her from within. And not the way of Martin Luther.[/left]

[Papist]

[quote name='USAirwaysIHS' timestamp='1310398828' post='2265744']
Except to complete the analogy, you would also have to walk over to the score board and throw another point there with your own two hands because, beaver dam it, you scored that point whether he agrees with you or not.
[/quote]
SSPX probably believes in the DH too.