If Priest Gets One Word Wrong: Mass Is Invalid

[Mr.Cat]

[quote][b]John 20:21-22[/b]
"He said therefore to them again: Peace be to you. [b]As the Father hath sent me, [u]I also send you[/u][/b]. When he had said this, [u][b]he breathed on them[/b][/u]; and he said to them: [b]Receive ye the Holy Ghost[/b]."
[url="http://www.drbo.org/chapter/50020.htm"]http://www.drbo.org/chapter/50020.htm[/url][/quote]

[Aloysius]

they only act in persona Christi capitis if they do what Christ commanded. they don't have the capacity to take a shoe and say "this is my body" and make it ontollogically true; nor do they have the capacity to take the bread and say "this is an antelope" and make it ontollogically true. now, by the mouth of Christ Himself such things could be done, for as God He is the master of Creation and if He says to anything "you are this" then it shall obey Him. but priests are only given the power to do what Christ wants them to do. they are the mouthpeice of Christ because they say and do what Christ wants them to say and do.

[Anomaly]

[quote name='Aloysius' post='1224339' date='Mar 31 2007, 06:32 PM']they only act in persona Christi capitis if they do what Christ commanded. they don't have the capacity to take a shoe and say "this is my body" and make it ontollogically true; nor do they have the capacity to take the bread and say "this is an antelope" and make it ontollogically true. now, by the mouth of Christ Himself such things could be done, for as God He is the master of Creation and if He says to anything "you are this" then it shall obey Him. but priests are only given the power to do what Christ wants them to do. they are the mouthpeice of Christ because they say and do what Christ wants them to say and do.[/quote]Thanks.
But what about the power given to bishops and popes? How are the limited, in practial application, from working in a manner that is not the will of Christ? Specifically, I'm thinking in terms of 'Faith and Morals' (just in case you didn't anticipate where I was going).

[Aloysius]

okay... well then that's a totally different question than the question of whether we have "magic words". That moves towards what we were discussing in that Pope thread about the negative charism of infallibility and such.

Popes used to make this oath about not introducing innovations and such, just passing on what was passed to them. While they don't use that exact oath anymore, the ideal is still the same: popes are not supposed to consider themselves innovators as regards teaching (and really, I would argue, they never have bound the church in any teaching which was innovative.) the Immaculate Conception was a widespread tradition and beleif long before it was extraordinarily defined as dogma; really, you'd have to give me some example of where the Pope bound the church in something innovative that was not inspired straight out of the tradition of the Church, the Body of Christ. as far as they stand as a mouthpeice of the Church and as a mouthpeice of Tradition, they stand as a mouthpeice of Christ merely passing down what was passed to them through the Mystical Body of Christ.

the pope does not have the ability to come out and say something which is erroneous, or which is not passed down to him. he can help in the development as one cog in the machine of the Body of Christ, but those developments are always just being helped by him. there is nothing inherently magical about what he does in teaching. but again, this is off of the subject of the words of consecration.

the important thing about our understanding of it as a negative charism is that it is not magical in that way. the bishop or the pope does not have any power over ontollogical realities; what he says does not become true. he could not make something true that was not true before. he participates as a mouthpeice, not an innovator.

but we believe they are limited in a supernatural manner; practically, of course, we know that if they started spouting off things that were obvious innovations there would be massive uproar, chaos, and schisms from the faithful. but that's about it; other than that, the fact that popes have not innovated even with all the power given to them is nothing short of marvelously miraculous. name one instance of a pope coming into power and directly imposing his will upon the doctrine in a way that was not already brewing throughout the body of Christ and the traditions being passed on? There are, indeed, things like Capital punishment when the organic movement of the whole Church, the whole body of Christ (especially within the magisterium) began to convert from one attitude to another; but even then notice how the Pope becomes the mouthpeice of this issue: by affirming the traditional teaching and trying to provide a context by which to oppose current capital punishment with the rest of the faithful which does not deny its applicability in principal.

individual bishops do not have doctrinal infallibility, of course. only all the bishops as a whole, representing the whole body of Christ; being a mouthpeice to every diocese in the world; and the Pope being a mouthpeice to the mystical Head of Christ reconciling all the tradiiton of the past, the doctrines of the present, and the clearly manifested will of Christ for His Church's beleif.