Annus valde mirablilis, miraculis potentioribus abundans ... annus in quo Romanus Pontifex, vir inter garrulos loquacissimus, vir qui dum vigilat loqui desinere nunquam potest, a quattuor tantum cardinalibus quinque tantum dubia proponentibus in silentium profundum actus est.
Haec addenda mihi videntur: Raimundus Burke, vir pius mitis generosus doctus, Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Diaconus Cardinalis, inter tot Ecclesiae Catholicae negotia calamitates incommoda aerumnas pastorem se et gregis custodem et LEONEM monstravit et HUIUS ANNI SALUTIS MMXVI VIRUM EGREGIUM.
31 December 2016
Ecumenical voices
Here is another quotation from a friendly non-RC theologian:
"Benedict exudes holiness, whereas Bergoglio has felt like an empty fake from the beginning ... where will this all end? Most likely there is no going back for either side at this point. The great drama impacts the whole of Christendom, and I have a deep-down sense that the ultimate outcome will aid the course of Christian Unity."
I am sure that there are non-Catholics who are gleeful about Bergoglio because they see him, rightly or wrongly, as leading the Catholic Church into the same grim antinomian apostasies which began to afflict Protestantism in the 1930s. But there clearly are other non-Catholics who do not have this sick agenda, and who perceive that the "Absolute Monarchy" Papacy preached to us by Bergoglian Hypersuperueberpapalists is as dangerous as it is unattractive. Perhaps when we emerge from this horribly dark tunnel our relationship with those Protestants who sympathised and prayed for us in our bad days will be transformed. Why should it not be?
"Benedict exudes holiness, whereas Bergoglio has felt like an empty fake from the beginning ... where will this all end? Most likely there is no going back for either side at this point. The great drama impacts the whole of Christendom, and I have a deep-down sense that the ultimate outcome will aid the course of Christian Unity."
I am sure that there are non-Catholics who are gleeful about Bergoglio because they see him, rightly or wrongly, as leading the Catholic Church into the same grim antinomian apostasies which began to afflict Protestantism in the 1930s. But there clearly are other non-Catholics who do not have this sick agenda, and who perceive that the "Absolute Monarchy" Papacy preached to us by Bergoglian Hypersuperueberpapalists is as dangerous as it is unattractive. Perhaps when we emerge from this horribly dark tunnel our relationship with those Protestants who sympathised and prayed for us in our bad days will be transformed. Why should it not be?
29 December 2016
"Brother-and-Sister"?? UPDATED
"An adulterous couple may repent of their adultery and live together, in a state of probably great temptation and occasion of sin, as long as they undertake to do their best to resist that temptation; and for as long as they are able to claim that the good of children requires it."
UPDATE How far back does this concession go? I have traced it back to the closing homily of the VIth Synod, published in AAS 72 (1980) paragraph 7 page 1082 (whence it entered Familiaris consortio). Is anybody aware of an earlier Magisterial articulation?
This idea, as is clear from the thread to yesterday's post, is fraught with problems and can be a source of real, lifelong agony to faithful but deserted spouses. I will add another problem which has occurred to me: is it understood and made clear to such adulterous couples by the 'pastor' who is 'accompanying' them that, once the good of children no longer requires their cohabitation, they will (as any deeply and truly repentant couple of former adulterers would surely wish to do) finally and definitively separate, securing a civil divorce and dividing their assets?
But my main problem is as follows. Clearly the "Brother-and-Sister" solution to the 'problem' was elaborated as just about the very furthest that the Church could possibly go in assenting to an arrangement which is manifestly full of problems. One step further, and the Church would be completely abandoning the Verba Domini concerning Indissolubility. It is a solution which clings by no more than its fingertips ... or do I mean the skin of its teeth ... to the Word of the Incarnate Torah, Divine Mercy Incarnate, our Lord Jesus Christ.
"OK ... the couple will probably fall victims to temptation from time to time ... who wouldn't ... but it's easy enough to absolve them. OK ... Marriage is not only about sex but about a totius vitae consortium, and this pair are being allowed everything else that appertains to Marriage (mensa if not torum) even if they do abstain from sex ... but that can't be helped. OK ... they are likely to constitute a public scandalum, but they can be urged to avoid this by furtively receiving the Sacraments in places where they are not known."
The contorted and extraordinary nature of this procedure makes abundantly clear that it is conceded as an extreme and just-about-defensible possibility, a piece of Pastoral Mercy which teeters on the very edge of the precipice of disobedience to the Revealed Word.
Yet it is now being attacked by the heretics, with apparent countenance from Bergoglio, as some sort of difficult, draconian, and really rather unfair and unreasonable (not to say cruel) piece of legalistic rigidity! It is treated as a nasty piece of rigid 'Pharisaeism' which is being imposed on suffering people by unfeeling and rigid clerics whom the same Bergoglio insults and foul-mouths as often as he can think of a pretext for doing so.
If I have got this wrong and am being unfair to Bergoglio, perhaps it would be pastorally helpful for him to clarify my dubia.
Are we not in a bit of a mess?
UPDATE How far back does this concession go? I have traced it back to the closing homily of the VIth Synod, published in AAS 72 (1980) paragraph 7 page 1082 (whence it entered Familiaris consortio). Is anybody aware of an earlier Magisterial articulation?
This idea, as is clear from the thread to yesterday's post, is fraught with problems and can be a source of real, lifelong agony to faithful but deserted spouses. I will add another problem which has occurred to me: is it understood and made clear to such adulterous couples by the 'pastor' who is 'accompanying' them that, once the good of children no longer requires their cohabitation, they will (as any deeply and truly repentant couple of former adulterers would surely wish to do) finally and definitively separate, securing a civil divorce and dividing their assets?
But my main problem is as follows. Clearly the "Brother-and-Sister" solution to the 'problem' was elaborated as just about the very furthest that the Church could possibly go in assenting to an arrangement which is manifestly full of problems. One step further, and the Church would be completely abandoning the Verba Domini concerning Indissolubility. It is a solution which clings by no more than its fingertips ... or do I mean the skin of its teeth ... to the Word of the Incarnate Torah, Divine Mercy Incarnate, our Lord Jesus Christ.
"OK ... the couple will probably fall victims to temptation from time to time ... who wouldn't ... but it's easy enough to absolve them. OK ... Marriage is not only about sex but about a totius vitae consortium, and this pair are being allowed everything else that appertains to Marriage (mensa if not torum) even if they do abstain from sex ... but that can't be helped. OK ... they are likely to constitute a public scandalum, but they can be urged to avoid this by furtively receiving the Sacraments in places where they are not known."
The contorted and extraordinary nature of this procedure makes abundantly clear that it is conceded as an extreme and just-about-defensible possibility, a piece of Pastoral Mercy which teeters on the very edge of the precipice of disobedience to the Revealed Word.
Yet it is now being attacked by the heretics, with apparent countenance from Bergoglio, as some sort of difficult, draconian, and really rather unfair and unreasonable (not to say cruel) piece of legalistic rigidity! It is treated as a nasty piece of rigid 'Pharisaeism' which is being imposed on suffering people by unfeeling and rigid clerics whom the same Bergoglio insults and foul-mouths as often as he can think of a pretext for doing so.
If I have got this wrong and am being unfair to Bergoglio, perhaps it would be pastorally helpful for him to clarify my dubia.
Are we not in a bit of a mess?
Cardinal Burke's latest (3)
My third question to his Eminence, followed by his reply, was as follows.
Is there any pastoral or legislative authority within the Church Militant by which dispensations can be granted in these matters, or do they involve a ius Divinum which sets them beyond dispensation and legislative modification?
There is no pastoral authority of any kind within the Church who can grant a dispensation to a party, so that he may live in a marital way with someone who is not his spouse. This is a question of Ius Divinum and is articulated in can. 1141 of the Code of Canon Law: "A marriage which is ratified and consummated cannot be dissolved by any human power or by any cause other than death".
His Eminence concluded his letter thus:
I hope that these answers are of some help to you and to the clergy who have raised them to you. The clear answer to these questions is imperative for the correction of the widespread confusion in the Church which is redounding to the grave harm of souls.
Asking God to bless you and all your priestly labors, and confiding your intentions to the intercession of Our Lady of Walsingham, Saint Michael the Archangel, Saint Joseph, Saint John the Baptist, Saint John Apostle and Evangelist, and Saint John Fisher, I remain
Yours in the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary
Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke.
Concluded.
Is there any pastoral or legislative authority within the Church Militant by which dispensations can be granted in these matters, or do they involve a ius Divinum which sets them beyond dispensation and legislative modification?
There is no pastoral authority of any kind within the Church who can grant a dispensation to a party, so that he may live in a marital way with someone who is not his spouse. This is a question of Ius Divinum and is articulated in can. 1141 of the Code of Canon Law: "A marriage which is ratified and consummated cannot be dissolved by any human power or by any cause other than death".
His Eminence concluded his letter thus:
I hope that these answers are of some help to you and to the clergy who have raised them to you. The clear answer to these questions is imperative for the correction of the widespread confusion in the Church which is redounding to the grave harm of souls.
Asking God to bless you and all your priestly labors, and confiding your intentions to the intercession of Our Lady of Walsingham, Saint Michael the Archangel, Saint Joseph, Saint John the Baptist, Saint John Apostle and Evangelist, and Saint John Fisher, I remain
Yours in the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary
Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke.
Concluded.
28 December 2016
Cardinal Burke's latest (2)
My second query, followed by Cardinal Burke's reply:
Is it acceptable for a couple not validly married and with offspring for whom they are responsible to argue that, for the good of that offspring, they may lawfully continue to live as husband and wife because it may prudently be foreseen that their relationship, if not sustained by adulterous intimacies, would fail to survive?
A couple who are living in an irregular matrimonial union may argue that they must continue to live under the same roof for the sake of their offspring, but they must live without recourse to adulterous acts, that is, they must live as brother and sister. In other words, the need to live under the same roof for the sake of children or elderly grandparents is not an argument which justifies acts of adultery. Both reason and faith tell us that adulterous acts can never be justified, can never serve the good of either the parties or of their children.
To continue.
Is it acceptable for a couple not validly married and with offspring for whom they are responsible to argue that, for the good of that offspring, they may lawfully continue to live as husband and wife because it may prudently be foreseen that their relationship, if not sustained by adulterous intimacies, would fail to survive?
A couple who are living in an irregular matrimonial union may argue that they must continue to live under the same roof for the sake of their offspring, but they must live without recourse to adulterous acts, that is, they must live as brother and sister. In other words, the need to live under the same roof for the sake of children or elderly grandparents is not an argument which justifies acts of adultery. Both reason and faith tell us that adulterous acts can never be justified, can never serve the good of either the parties or of their children.
To continue.
27 December 2016
Cardinal Burke's latest (1)
As we await the text of the Fraternal Correction of the Roman Pontiff which Cardinal Burke has promised, I can share with you a briefer text from his Eminence's pen. A few weeks ago, some younger clergy asked me to put some queries to the Cardinal. I think the reason for this was that I, being old, am perhaps not quite as vulnerable to intimidatory threats and petty episcopal malice as they are. These queries were sent before it was made public that the Four Cardinals had submitted their five Dubia. I received his Eminence's most gracious answers dated 3 December. He responded, he said, "to certain serious questions of the clergy in the present situation of widespread confusion and error in the Church".
My first query, which was followed by the reply, follows below.
Is it licit for a priest to give Absolution or the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist to a person who is living as husband or wife with another to whom they are not, in the eyes of the Church, validly married; when that person makes clear that he or she has no intention of metanoia and of doing their best, with the help of Divine Grace, to avoid committing such adultery in the future?
A priest may not give Absolution to a party who is living in an irregular matrimonial union and has no firm purpose of amendment. If the party has the firm purpose of amendment, pledging, with the help of Divine Grace, to avoid any sin of adultery in the future, then the priest may give Absolution, counseling the party that he should only approach to receive Holy Communion in a place in which there is no reasonable chance of scandal.
To continue.
My first query, which was followed by the reply, follows below.
Is it licit for a priest to give Absolution or the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist to a person who is living as husband or wife with another to whom they are not, in the eyes of the Church, validly married; when that person makes clear that he or she has no intention of metanoia and of doing their best, with the help of Divine Grace, to avoid committing such adultery in the future?
A priest may not give Absolution to a party who is living in an irregular matrimonial union and has no firm purpose of amendment. If the party has the firm purpose of amendment, pledging, with the help of Divine Grace, to avoid any sin of adultery in the future, then the priest may give Absolution, counseling the party that he should only approach to receive Holy Communion in a place in which there is no reasonable chance of scandal.
To continue.
22 December 2016
Private
Josee ... if you had included your email in the Comment you sent me, I would have been able to reply to you!!
Baroque
I feel that the Baroque gets a raw deal. English culture is deeply antipathetic to it; why? Because it is (for the most part) foreign and we are a nasty insular xenophobic people given to defining ourselves only in terms of not being foreign? Perhaps you can tell me. But there are writers of intelligence - Pickstock and Hemming spring to mind - who don't give the Baroque a fair run. And in liturgical circles, you only have to characterise something as 'Baroque' to have spoken its condemnation.
On a trip to Prague, Pope Benedict XVI said something which strikes me as perhaps the start of a Spirituality of the Baroque; if Prague, he asked, is the heart of Europe, in what does that 'heart' consist?
"Surely a clue is found in the architectural jewels that adorn this city ... Their beauty expresses faith; they are epiphanies of God that rightly leave us pondering the glorious marvels to which we creatures can apire when we give expression to the aesthetic and cognitive aspects of our inmost being ... The creative encounter of the classical tradition and the Gospel gave birth to a vision of man and society attentive to God's presence among us."
It looks to me as though Benedict's theology of the aesthetic may prove one of many significant intellectual gifts of that wonderful and unforgettable pontificate.
We of the Ordinariate Patrimony may have someting to contribute here. Sir Ninian Comper ... of whom Sir Nikolaus 'Bauhaus' Pevsner used the adjective 'limp' ... believed in 'Unity by Inclusion' . He discovered this in between the work he did at my 'title' church of S Mary's, Beaconsfield, and his contribution of such splendour in Pusey House Chapel, here in Oxford. What on earth is wrong with putting a baroque altar into a gothic church? Henry VII did it to splendid effect in the magnificent perpendicular Lady Chapel in Westminster Abbey! Just imagine that vault with its polychromatic paint, enshrining the baldachino and Altar.
On a trip to Prague, Pope Benedict XVI said something which strikes me as perhaps the start of a Spirituality of the Baroque; if Prague, he asked, is the heart of Europe, in what does that 'heart' consist?
"Surely a clue is found in the architectural jewels that adorn this city ... Their beauty expresses faith; they are epiphanies of God that rightly leave us pondering the glorious marvels to which we creatures can apire when we give expression to the aesthetic and cognitive aspects of our inmost being ... The creative encounter of the classical tradition and the Gospel gave birth to a vision of man and society attentive to God's presence among us."
It looks to me as though Benedict's theology of the aesthetic may prove one of many significant intellectual gifts of that wonderful and unforgettable pontificate.
We of the Ordinariate Patrimony may have someting to contribute here. Sir Ninian Comper ... of whom Sir Nikolaus 'Bauhaus' Pevsner used the adjective 'limp' ... believed in 'Unity by Inclusion' . He discovered this in between the work he did at my 'title' church of S Mary's, Beaconsfield, and his contribution of such splendour in Pusey House Chapel, here in Oxford. What on earth is wrong with putting a baroque altar into a gothic church? Henry VII did it to splendid effect in the magnificent perpendicular Lady Chapel in Westminster Abbey! Just imagine that vault with its polychromatic paint, enshrining the baldachino and Altar.
21 December 2016
I hope you are Unhelpful UPDATE
SOME JOLLY GOOD MATERIALS ON THE THREAD
From time to time, I address you on the sophisms and manipulations of Management-talk ... the way our Masters talk. Today, I invite you join me in analysis of a particular word: "unhelpful". I have recently read a few words by an English-speaking prelate referring to the Letter of the 45, which I, all unworthy, was privileged to sign. He found it "unhelpful".
Where I've got to so far is something like this.
'Unhelpful' corrupts judgement because it avoids questions of right and wrong. If it does elicit a dialogue, the dialogue has been required to be about whether the words concerned are helpful ... whatever that may mean ... rather than about their possible truth.
'Unhelpful' in fact implies, generally mendaciously, that there is an aim shared by all reasonable people, which some 'unhelpful' people have blundered into obstructing.
Use of adjectives like 'Unhelpful' enables the speaker (this is a common feature of much modern Management-talk) to maintain a lofty, Olympian posture of imperturbable and superior composure. Another example: Management-talkers will say "Concern has been expressed about your XYZ" because that is calm and distanced ... so very unlike speaking the the truth (which would be "Your XYZ has made me hopping mad"). Management-talkers [this is the verbal game which is being set up] are calm and dispassionate people, simply because they are such enormously great men. 'Unhelpful' means "I am very angry with you, nasty little nuisance that you are, for saying ABC because it cuts across the policies advocated by me and my almost-equally-important cronies ... indeed, it (unhelpfully!) gives away the radical fact that this is a matter about which there is disagreement ... whereas there isn't ... because there shouldn't be".
There is an amusing additional nuance about 'Unhelpful'. Often I detect a hint in this word suggesting that if you had expressed yourself more quietly and more deferentially, Authority would have been more sympathetic because it could have grandly treated you as a poor sad thing needing TLC and help. We had all this in the C of E when they were bringing in their Women Bishops. They wouldn't have minded if we had played the role they had assigned to us: of being dim and pathetic losers. If we had snivelled quietly in a corner, they would have been all over us, arms round our shoulders and "Believe me, we do feel your pain". But we were bold and confident and we won all the arguments and we expressed ourselves in public and private fora where we were heard, and we got a great many wonderful laughs out of exposing the absurdities, hypocrisies, and dishonesties of our opponents. Archdeacon Armitage Shanks and all the rest of them, how they hated it! How truly 'unhelpful' they found it! They then imported their blessed term 'tone' into the argument. We were (of course) entitled to express our 'views', but our 'tone' was disgraceful. Believe me, when Grand People, when the Great and the Good, start telling you that it is your tone that they do not like, Rejoice and Be Glad and go home and have a nice big Drink, celebrating quia merces vestra magna est in caelo.
(In the end, by the way, we did clamber up onto the podium to collect the Gold Medal, because there was a Somebody in Rome with whom we had been in touch since the 1990s and who had listened to us and taken us seriously and understood us and who gave us that Corporate Unity with the See of S Peter for which generations of our forbears had longed.)
Over to you!! Two generations ago, English philologists demonstrated and analysed (seminally, Professor Alan Ross in 1954) the distinction between U talk and Non-U talk ['U' means 'Upper-class']. How about M and Non-M? You must all have experienced Management-talk? You might even (now, here's a thought) be Management-talkers!
Examples ... analysis ...
From time to time, I address you on the sophisms and manipulations of Management-talk ... the way our Masters talk. Today, I invite you join me in analysis of a particular word: "unhelpful". I have recently read a few words by an English-speaking prelate referring to the Letter of the 45, which I, all unworthy, was privileged to sign. He found it "unhelpful".
Where I've got to so far is something like this.
'Unhelpful' corrupts judgement because it avoids questions of right and wrong. If it does elicit a dialogue, the dialogue has been required to be about whether the words concerned are helpful ... whatever that may mean ... rather than about their possible truth.
'Unhelpful' in fact implies, generally mendaciously, that there is an aim shared by all reasonable people, which some 'unhelpful' people have blundered into obstructing.
Use of adjectives like 'Unhelpful' enables the speaker (this is a common feature of much modern Management-talk) to maintain a lofty, Olympian posture of imperturbable and superior composure. Another example: Management-talkers will say "Concern has been expressed about your XYZ" because that is calm and distanced ... so very unlike speaking the the truth (which would be "Your XYZ has made me hopping mad"). Management-talkers [this is the verbal game which is being set up] are calm and dispassionate people, simply because they are such enormously great men. 'Unhelpful' means "I am very angry with you, nasty little nuisance that you are, for saying ABC because it cuts across the policies advocated by me and my almost-equally-important cronies ... indeed, it (unhelpfully!) gives away the radical fact that this is a matter about which there is disagreement ... whereas there isn't ... because there shouldn't be".
There is an amusing additional nuance about 'Unhelpful'. Often I detect a hint in this word suggesting that if you had expressed yourself more quietly and more deferentially, Authority would have been more sympathetic because it could have grandly treated you as a poor sad thing needing TLC and help. We had all this in the C of E when they were bringing in their Women Bishops. They wouldn't have minded if we had played the role they had assigned to us: of being dim and pathetic losers. If we had snivelled quietly in a corner, they would have been all over us, arms round our shoulders and "Believe me, we do feel your pain". But we were bold and confident and we won all the arguments and we expressed ourselves in public and private fora where we were heard, and we got a great many wonderful laughs out of exposing the absurdities, hypocrisies, and dishonesties of our opponents. Archdeacon Armitage Shanks and all the rest of them, how they hated it! How truly 'unhelpful' they found it! They then imported their blessed term 'tone' into the argument. We were (of course) entitled to express our 'views', but our 'tone' was disgraceful. Believe me, when Grand People, when the Great and the Good, start telling you that it is your tone that they do not like, Rejoice and Be Glad and go home and have a nice big Drink, celebrating quia merces vestra magna est in caelo.
(In the end, by the way, we did clamber up onto the podium to collect the Gold Medal, because there was a Somebody in Rome with whom we had been in touch since the 1990s and who had listened to us and taken us seriously and understood us and who gave us that Corporate Unity with the See of S Peter for which generations of our forbears had longed.)
Over to you!! Two generations ago, English philologists demonstrated and analysed (seminally, Professor Alan Ross in 1954) the distinction between U talk and Non-U talk ['U' means 'Upper-class']. How about M and Non-M? You must all have experienced Management-talk? You might even (now, here's a thought) be Management-talkers!
Examples ... analysis ...
20 December 2016
Private messages
Dear Josee ... Dear Protasius ... if you will make your email addresses available to me, I will explain to you why your (very different!) comments have not been enabled, and what changes in them would make me feel able to do so. I beg you to forgive me in the circumstances in which "Enable" and "Delete" are the only options I have.
Dear Mike: everyone is welcome in an Ordinariate congregation. If you are a Catholic ... of Latin or Byzantine or Maronite or whatever rite ... you are welcome to take the very fullest part in the sacramental life of an Ordinariate community. We would simply love to have you. If you can serve or sing, your ministry would be invaluable!! If you are a cradle Catholic, we can't actually put you on the books as a canonical member of the Ordinariate ... unless a member of your family has Anglican Previous, in which case you can squeeze in with them!
But not being on the canonical books would make no difference to your daily life as member of an Ordinariate community. It would only impinge if things like Marriage or Ordination were in mind.
When I say everyone, of course I mean also those who are still Anglicans. In normal circumstances, you would not be allowed to receive the Sacraments (although the rules of the Catholic Church in this respect are not actually as strict as some people think, as long as you share fully the whole Catholic belief about the Eucharist). But if you are attracted by Catholic worship in the Anglican tradition, you could be very happy with us.
Dear Mike: everyone is welcome in an Ordinariate congregation. If you are a Catholic ... of Latin or Byzantine or Maronite or whatever rite ... you are welcome to take the very fullest part in the sacramental life of an Ordinariate community. We would simply love to have you. If you can serve or sing, your ministry would be invaluable!! If you are a cradle Catholic, we can't actually put you on the books as a canonical member of the Ordinariate ... unless a member of your family has Anglican Previous, in which case you can squeeze in with them!
But not being on the canonical books would make no difference to your daily life as member of an Ordinariate community. It would only impinge if things like Marriage or Ordination were in mind.
When I say everyone, of course I mean also those who are still Anglicans. In normal circumstances, you would not be allowed to receive the Sacraments (although the rules of the Catholic Church in this respect are not actually as strict as some people think, as long as you share fully the whole Catholic belief about the Eucharist). But if you are attracted by Catholic worship in the Anglican tradition, you could be very happy with us.
19 December 2016
Summorum Pontificum
Bishop Schneider has called for the SSPX to be given the justice they were denied in the 1970s. I do wonder, with great respect to his Lordship, whether things are now any longer quite as simple as that.
For a decade or two, we have been told that regularisation must wait upon the acceptance by the Society of the teaching of Vatican II and of the post-Conciliar Magisterium. But given the way things are now, might it not be fair and equitable for the Society now to insist that Papa Bergoglio manifest a proper and unambiguous submission to the post-Conciliar Magisterium of S John Paul II and of Benedict XVI? And, in particular, that he enact (perhaps as part of a deal with the Society) a solemn reconfirmation in his own name of Veritatis splendor, Familiaris consortio, and Summorum Pontificum?
The Roman Pontiff, suspiciously, has already declined to to give the very simple answers requested of him to the effect that Veritatis splendor and Familiaris consortio still, as it were, apply. And on November 20, I expressed a fear that a regularisation of the SSPX might be accompanied by a cancellation, or evisceration, of Summorum Pontificum. Indeed, on 21 September 2016 Sandro Magister had reported somebody called Andrew Grillo (Alcuin Reid's sparring partner??) as opining that the next Synod would discuss "the collegial exercise of the episcopate and the restitution to the bishop of full authority over diocesan liturgy". It was pretty obvious to me what the nasty little phrase I italicise was code for, as I wrote a few days later on my blog. In the event, we were reprieved; a different topic was to be selected for the next Synod (Youff, I think), possibly because Bergoglio is decent enough still to have some reticence about too overt a public humiliation of Joseph Ratzinger while he is still alive. But Grillo's expectations are unlikely to have been entertained by him alone.
There has always been a practical certainty that a certain sort of bishop, for whom 'subsidiarity' means I Must Be Free To Ban Everything That Isn't To My Personal Taste, would not easily abandon his hopes of (at least) limiting and controlling worship according to the Old Rite. In one of the Ordinariates (not the British one!) a local bishop put pressure some years ago on the Ordinary to prevent the use of the Extraordinary Form within that Ordinariate. Readers will not need to be reminded of the savage humiliations inflicted, and by a Roman Dicastery, upon the Franciscan Friars and Sisters of the Immaculate; humiliations which are still, as far as I know, in place. There was an American bishop who required clergy to pass a test in Latin to prove that they were idonei to celebrate the Old Mass ... typical piece of Liberal nastiness, isn't it ... you arrange for your clergy, contra canonem, to be ordained without having been taught Latin, then you jeer and sneer at them for not knowing it. At a jollier level, English clergy may remember how Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor acquired, for a year or two, the nickname of "The Envisager" because he attempted to circumscribe Summorum Pontificum by issuing a whole lot of comically panic-ridden rubbish making use of the phrase "It is envisaged that ..." [NB good example of Management-talk using the impersonal passive construction].
Bigotry still abounds.
Archbishop Lefebvre's Society always insisted that they were not begging to be allowed to exist as a tolerated ghetto. They insisted that they would only do a deal if every Latin Rite priest were allowed, without needing special faculties or permissions, to offer the authentic Roman Rite. Accordingly, the entire point of Summorum Pontificum was to call their bluff by giving precisely what they had demanded, and returning the Usus Antiquior to the whole Latin Church. This represented an authoritative removal of the old 'Indult' culture, in which it was only allowed within personal parishes served by organisations such as FSSP and ICKSP, or where it was permitted by an indulgent Diocesan.
Were some deal to be put before the SSPX, accompanied by suspicions that there might be a diminution in the right of every Latin Rite priest to offer the Old Mass, I very much hope that His Excellency Bishop Fellay would refuse it. Or would indicate that, in such a possible future eventuality, he would unilaterally suspend certain of the articles in his agreement with the Vatican. A firm hand on the tiller would be a very great service to the entire Latin Church.
I write this as someone who have, for years, said the prayer Domine Iesu Christe, qui dixisti in all my Masses with an intention for the canonical regularisation of the SSPX. Regularisation would afford great benefits both to the entire Latin Church, and to the Society; not least by providing a refuge of incardination for clergy being intimidated elsewhere (any provision excluding the Society from exercising the right to incardinate would be ... very dodgy .... very fishy ..... ). I hope the terms agreed would include a provision for the Agenda of each Episcopal Conference to be sent in good time to the Superior of the Society, so that he or one of the other bishops could attend a meeting and explain why some particular proposal would have a divisive effect. After all, the whole point of enhancing the authority of Episcopal Conferences is to encourage divisiveness. Isn't it?
Capitulation is not the way ahead.
For a decade or two, we have been told that regularisation must wait upon the acceptance by the Society of the teaching of Vatican II and of the post-Conciliar Magisterium. But given the way things are now, might it not be fair and equitable for the Society now to insist that Papa Bergoglio manifest a proper and unambiguous submission to the post-Conciliar Magisterium of S John Paul II and of Benedict XVI? And, in particular, that he enact (perhaps as part of a deal with the Society) a solemn reconfirmation in his own name of Veritatis splendor, Familiaris consortio, and Summorum Pontificum?
The Roman Pontiff, suspiciously, has already declined to to give the very simple answers requested of him to the effect that Veritatis splendor and Familiaris consortio still, as it were, apply. And on November 20, I expressed a fear that a regularisation of the SSPX might be accompanied by a cancellation, or evisceration, of Summorum Pontificum. Indeed, on 21 September 2016 Sandro Magister had reported somebody called Andrew Grillo (Alcuin Reid's sparring partner??) as opining that the next Synod would discuss "the collegial exercise of the episcopate and the restitution to the bishop of full authority over diocesan liturgy". It was pretty obvious to me what the nasty little phrase I italicise was code for, as I wrote a few days later on my blog. In the event, we were reprieved; a different topic was to be selected for the next Synod (Youff, I think), possibly because Bergoglio is decent enough still to have some reticence about too overt a public humiliation of Joseph Ratzinger while he is still alive. But Grillo's expectations are unlikely to have been entertained by him alone.
There has always been a practical certainty that a certain sort of bishop, for whom 'subsidiarity' means I Must Be Free To Ban Everything That Isn't To My Personal Taste, would not easily abandon his hopes of (at least) limiting and controlling worship according to the Old Rite. In one of the Ordinariates (not the British one!) a local bishop put pressure some years ago on the Ordinary to prevent the use of the Extraordinary Form within that Ordinariate. Readers will not need to be reminded of the savage humiliations inflicted, and by a Roman Dicastery, upon the Franciscan Friars and Sisters of the Immaculate; humiliations which are still, as far as I know, in place. There was an American bishop who required clergy to pass a test in Latin to prove that they were idonei to celebrate the Old Mass ... typical piece of Liberal nastiness, isn't it ... you arrange for your clergy, contra canonem, to be ordained without having been taught Latin, then you jeer and sneer at them for not knowing it. At a jollier level, English clergy may remember how Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor acquired, for a year or two, the nickname of "The Envisager" because he attempted to circumscribe Summorum Pontificum by issuing a whole lot of comically panic-ridden rubbish making use of the phrase "It is envisaged that ..." [NB good example of Management-talk using the impersonal passive construction].
Bigotry still abounds.
Archbishop Lefebvre's Society always insisted that they were not begging to be allowed to exist as a tolerated ghetto. They insisted that they would only do a deal if every Latin Rite priest were allowed, without needing special faculties or permissions, to offer the authentic Roman Rite. Accordingly, the entire point of Summorum Pontificum was to call their bluff by giving precisely what they had demanded, and returning the Usus Antiquior to the whole Latin Church. This represented an authoritative removal of the old 'Indult' culture, in which it was only allowed within personal parishes served by organisations such as FSSP and ICKSP, or where it was permitted by an indulgent Diocesan.
Were some deal to be put before the SSPX, accompanied by suspicions that there might be a diminution in the right of every Latin Rite priest to offer the Old Mass, I very much hope that His Excellency Bishop Fellay would refuse it. Or would indicate that, in such a possible future eventuality, he would unilaterally suspend certain of the articles in his agreement with the Vatican. A firm hand on the tiller would be a very great service to the entire Latin Church.
I write this as someone who have, for years, said the prayer Domine Iesu Christe, qui dixisti in all my Masses with an intention for the canonical regularisation of the SSPX. Regularisation would afford great benefits both to the entire Latin Church, and to the Society; not least by providing a refuge of incardination for clergy being intimidated elsewhere (any provision excluding the Society from exercising the right to incardinate would be ... very dodgy .... very fishy ..... ). I hope the terms agreed would include a provision for the Agenda of each Episcopal Conference to be sent in good time to the Superior of the Society, so that he or one of the other bishops could attend a meeting and explain why some particular proposal would have a divisive effect. After all, the whole point of enhancing the authority of Episcopal Conferences is to encourage divisiveness. Isn't it?
Capitulation is not the way ahead.
17 December 2016
An appeal to Ecclesia Dei on behalf of our Lady of Fatima
Pope Francis has said that he does not agree with "The Reform of the Reform". Some of my correspondents find this odd ... after all, those who engineered the imposition of the Novus Ordo back in the 1960s did not seem terribly devoted to a principle of Liturgical Immutability. But the Holy Father's words do raise the question: are we supposed to say Good Bye to the whole Ratzinger policy whereby the OF and EF would converge so that, in a generation or three, they would together constitute just one Form?
My own view is we should not abandon the idea of Enriching each Form from the other one. And I think Ecclesia Dei should take the lead, in this coming Fatima Year.
The EF ought to be brought up to date, not least as far as concerns its Calendar; and Benedict XVI explicitly envisaged this. (In the old days, Rome did this frequently by adding things to aliquibus locis, from which they sometimes subsequently slipped across into the Calendare Universale.) Sadly, the treatment which Traditionalists experienced for decades, during the period before Benedict XVI made it clear that the Old Mass never had lawfully been abrogated, has made them ... us ... fearful of any tinkerings. But in fact a Calendar which has not been added to in fifty years is itself something unknown in Tradition. So ... a consensual way of putting this process into effect, delicately, sensitively, gently, would be to start with May 13. Would anybody, especially any devoted client of our blessed Lady, violently object to May 13 being made the EF festival of our Lady of Fatima, with an appropriate Mass and Office being authorised? This would necessitate the removal of S Robert Bellarmine (possibly to his OF date of September 17).
Surely, it is within the competence of Ecclesia Dei to do this? Having perhaps sought the opinion and good will first of SSPX, FSSP, the Ordinariates, ICKSP, and other major interests?
My own view is we should not abandon the idea of Enriching each Form from the other one. And I think Ecclesia Dei should take the lead, in this coming Fatima Year.
The EF ought to be brought up to date, not least as far as concerns its Calendar; and Benedict XVI explicitly envisaged this. (In the old days, Rome did this frequently by adding things to aliquibus locis, from which they sometimes subsequently slipped across into the Calendare Universale.) Sadly, the treatment which Traditionalists experienced for decades, during the period before Benedict XVI made it clear that the Old Mass never had lawfully been abrogated, has made them ... us ... fearful of any tinkerings. But in fact a Calendar which has not been added to in fifty years is itself something unknown in Tradition. So ... a consensual way of putting this process into effect, delicately, sensitively, gently, would be to start with May 13. Would anybody, especially any devoted client of our blessed Lady, violently object to May 13 being made the EF festival of our Lady of Fatima, with an appropriate Mass and Office being authorised? This would necessitate the removal of S Robert Bellarmine (possibly to his OF date of September 17).
Surely, it is within the competence of Ecclesia Dei to do this? Having perhaps sought the opinion and good will first of SSPX, FSSP, the Ordinariates, ICKSP, and other major interests?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
