3DOP

I stopped reading with "All Catholics are required to obey LaSallette."

The Nehor. You are as uncomprising a fellow as any fundamentalist for their position. I thank you for your criticisms with your single approbation. Your friend (albeit internet), 3DOP A friend as one who reveals himself to the other, and who genuinely wishes his friend only good...and in your case expects a shitload of criticism. God bless you, you *****.

Webbles. Hey. I cannot worship another like myself if it is only because He, or he, is the most intelligent. You may not have framed it the way your relative would have. Still, I can't picture myself in adoration at the smartest kid in the class. Maybe there is another way to adore Him? It certainly speaks well of him to turn to the rest of us dummies with a plan. I could love a loving friend before I could worship a fellow creature with the highest I.Q. God help us who have "gone back and forth". I am your fellow pilgrim. Rory, who goes back and forth too.

Even In the Old Testament, God used marital imagery to accuse His people of infidelity, of adultery. In the New Testament, the same continues, not so obviously when Jesus speaks to those of us who feel weary and heavy-laden: "Take up my yoke upon you, and learn of me, because I am meek, and humble of heart: and you shall find rest to your souls. For my yoke is sweet and my burden light". [Matthew 11:30] A yoke of oxen are two animals pulling in the same way, like a marriage, which uses the same Greek word translated as yoke, for oxen in a team, as for marriage. I know my prayers and worship are imperfect. Maybe I go in and out of the yoke? I am thinking that is the problem. It is a problem of trust and immolation of the will before God. St. Paul calls on us to "offer up our bodies a living sacrifice"! Then he calls it "a reasonable service". (Rom. 12:1 and 2) Only if we are perfectly yoked. This is the hard part. It doesn't seem like it will make me happy. I don't completely believe this yoke is sweet. If I believed it, I would be meek and obedient to the Father (like Jesus). And I would be in the yoke I have the same sense as many of you that I should be habitually able to have a fervent and satisfying intimacy with God. I have to immolate my soul and body in offering them to God for His service, trusting that it will be sweet to do so. It is a gift from God when we have a sense of dissatisfaction over our not so profound efforts at being intimate with God. It is Jesus knocking on our doors seeking entry. We need to believe that the same one who we truly believe in as our Lord and God, still loves us while we are in "sleep mode"! We might think God is not happy with us, maybe He will be punishing us for our little or large infidelities. Not if He can help it! He wants to always forgive us. Maybe it helps to realize our misery through a deep sense of unworthiness, before we can appreciate that God would after all this, still knock, seeking entry. Anyway, fervent prayer and more perfect worship are rewards that Christ must withhold in varying degrees from us who are imperfectly yoked. He withholds while making us aware of them as part of the package of the joy that is set before us. By bashing a little on methods in my last post, I meant that preeminently, before we find what "works" according to our differing states of life, we must be properly disposed for an appropriate intimacy with a neighbour, a friend, a spouse, or God. If we have the disposition, the method, maybe perfectly suited to our unique relationships and situations, should take care of itself. Love will find a way. We need to believe in...LOVE, especially the love that comes from God...and potentially from us too! Those rivers of living water flowing out of our bellies.

Hey all, I didn't expect to comment again at such an early "tomorrow". We had an electrical storm go through which woke me up. I am not wired (up for the night), but remembering to salute our beloved Lord, (albeit not first as it should be), here I am already, having also had a cheese sandwich and a shot of vodka. (Vodka is hard on the liver I am told, on an empty stomach). Like love and marriage, one can't have the one without the other? So yeah, The N., I took note yesterday of your reasonable questioning about analogical problems with including our relations with God similarly with other persons. I thought I was being original with my "theory" from p. 43 of the future pope's book. But after I woke this morning, I immediately went to MMDB for any developments. Then came the sandwich, the shot, going outside to the front porch to experience the storm...and remembering I hadn't properly saluted our good and loving God. I took care of that, thanked him for my physical sustenance, and found that after kicking a speedy spider that had been on top of my flip-flopped foot, I was only one among God's dear creatures to seek refuge under my porch roof from the storm. I decided to give to those creatures my refuge from the downpour. They had no malice, crawling on me instinctually, not with any freedom of will. Bugs aren't meant for persons to enjoy I suppose. But it is irrational to despise them. Besides the speedy spider, which I also unfortunately crushed, there was also some other tiny, dark, unidentifiable thing, which when similarly smashed, left a white, creamy substance on my forearm. Anyway, I have finished my repast in relative peace indoors. I fear my nocturnal activities might have disturbed my own wife's sleep. I will endeavor to discover in a daylight hour if this has been the case, and make amends. So anyway, enough dramatic biographical data, and stream of consciousness (?), if I understand what that means. I shall try to be more scientific and less focused upon me. I have turned back to reread, accidentally p. 42. I thought it was p. 44 in the next chapter!!! Hah. I see that a previous page, so nearby as p. 42 was the inspiration for my so "original" theory after reading p. 43. Here is the hard part of this post. In my still sober judgment, I fear I may fail to be convincing of a possible analogical parallel between "more meaningful worship", and proper ethics in conjugal relations. I don't think anyone could rationally argue against the young future pope's conclusive concern for married couples. But that it applied to everybody, every person we encounter? Even to God, not only as God, but because God is a Person? I want to quote from the book now: "So, while the commandment to love is not, strictly speaking, identical with the personalistic norm but only presupposes it, as it implies also a personalistic system of values..." (the lights just flashed...saving post)...we can, taking a broader view, say that the commandment to love is the personalistic norm." ---ibid. p. 41 I know that this alone does not advance my case, and also that I may lose some that just want to stop being so distracted in prayer or have been experiencing boring, unfulfilling worship. I have probably erred on one side by being too personal (!), and on the other by failing to translate the author's philosophy in an accessible way. I hope to try to correct both issues. And I also want to suggest strenuously that the problem in worship isn't method. Thanks to the rain, I will probably be unable to work in the yard tomorrow very well, and will try to expand on the future pope's thoughts in a broad, bright daylight hour. God help me. Good night. God bless all, 3.

Thanks for your thoughtful consideration. You raise some good points. I won't be so hasty in defending my theory as I was in posting it after it was about an hour old. Heh. Maybe tomorrow. Rory

In the 50's, around two decades before he would be Pope John Paul II, a young Polish priest, soon to be a bishop, was writing a book which has been translated into English as Love and Responsibility. In that book the future pope is opposing utilitarianism as a primary problem in marital relationships, especially with regard to the sexual urge. By utilitarianism, Karol Wojtyla (pronounced Voy-tee-wah) is speaking about a system of ethics he attributes to John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham. According to the Polish priest, these philosophers asserted that whatever gives the maximum pleasure and the least pain to the greatest number of people should determine human action. I can not debate Mill or Bentham fans about any misconceptions Wojtyla might have had about nuances in their versions of utilitarianism. My purpose for this thread is to state that the future pope was developing an ethic of behavior which can, but does not always rule in conjugal relations between married people. This is the book which eventually developed in to John Paul II's famous (in Catholic circles anyway) Theology of the Body. As I was reading Love and Responsibility this afternoon, I was struck with the similarity of the union of man and wife, and with union between God and man. Selfishness and pursuit of pleasure as an end, are, says the author, incompatible with the love that married couples should have. I would propose that in a similar way, pursuit of pleasure can get in the way of a deeper and more worshipful prayer life with God. I want to quote a short passage and see what you think of my theory. The quote below is being applied to married people who are to be united in one flesh (and spirit). I am applying the ethic to our intimacy with God with whom we are also to be united intimately. "It is easy to go on from the experience of pleasure not merely to the quest for pleasure, but to the quest for pleasure for its own sake, to accepting it as a superlative value and the proper basis for a norm of behaviour. This is the very essence of the distortions which occur in the love between man and woman." ---Love and Responsibility, by Karol Wojtyla, Krakow, Poland, (1960), first English translation (1981), reprinted in 1993, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, p. 43 Just as married people can sometimes behave as though their spouse is a person to be used for one's selfish pleasure, such distortions of love can enter in to any personal relationship. Utilitarianism in any relationship can potentially thwart the unity that should exist with those we love intimately, and this would include God, whom we must seek because of our love and good will toward Him. Before anything else in a more meaningful worship of Him who we are to love with all of our soul and strength, it is absolutely necessary that we seek Him alone, and not for any other incidental pleasurable result that we hope might follow. It seems appropriate to add that this ethic which Wojtyla lifts straight from the Gospel is incidentally, that which can give us joy and peace and unity in all of our personal relationships, which we can never find by thinking about our own good pleasure. Utilitarianism cannot lead to satisfying, unifying joy. We Persons are not, praise God, created to be satisfied while being utilitarian toward other Persons.

What you say above makes so much more sense to me. I don't know what you are talking about. I haven't studied these things. But I have studied a little about my own early church, and I cannot believe that the bishops at the Council of Nicea were a bunch of philosophy driven apostates who didn't care about what Scripture says. If we are apostate, by that theory, there is no room for anything but contempt. I do not know the scholarship, and naturally I do not accept the theory that you propose, but it has the advantage of actually having respect for the members of the apostate church. It is much more consistent and believable for those of us who have gained a deep admiration for the fierce and even heroic faith of many souls in the first three centuries after Christ, who lived and sometimes died for His name. Regards, Rory McKenzie

Kevin Christensen, hi. Thank you for... "I find specificity in details makes stronger arguments than abstract labels and blanket dismissal. FWIW." FWIW.

When LDS apologists accuse the early Church of "hellenizing", it makes me wonder if you have been taught that every school of Greek thought is wrong about everything. Is non-LDS Christianity apostate because non-LDS agree with some Greek schools of thought, or all of them in some pernicious fashion? Do LDS disagree with only some Greek thinkers, or all of them? It seems to me that it is possible that Greek philosophy covered so much subject matter that whether we know it or not, all of us are touched by, or agree with, one or another school of thought. It seems possible to me that LDS are no less "hellenized" than a Catholic like me. I would just ask my LDS friends to consider how this charge of being hellenized seems so vague. I wouldn't even know why I should be concerned about it if I hadn't seen that it proves to LDS that everybody else is apostate.

To be discouraged about our distractions in prayer and worship tells God that we are desiring to have a more satisfying interior life. But still we have to be patient. According to my faith tradition, we cannot summon up a spirit of prayer by our own powers. A reason why God sometimes withholds this gift, especially from those who have had a taste of it, is that when we worship in a meaningful and reverent way, it sometimes leads to a different kind of distraction. We are consoled and enjoy a true spirit of prayer to a fault. When would that happen? It can happen if we begin to measure the value of our prayers according to how it makes us feel. Sometimes God is less honored when we desire the consolations of God more than the God of consolations. Many Catholic saints talk about this and become aware that we can be found honoring Him and pleasing to God when we persevere in dryness and distractions to do our best that moment, that day. When we find ourselves thinking about dinner while we are supposed to be praying, we tell our God how it pains us that we are so seemingly unable to speak and listen to Him. And we keep trying. It might be that this kind of prayer expresses our love and adoration even more than when we are feeling it. I don't know if this way of looking at one's prayer life would fit all Christian traditions. I have to say that if Catholicism is true, as I believe, that God loves whoever is moved to call His name. But the dynamics might be different with those who don't believe in Christ's love for us in the Holy Eucharist and in other advantages that are unique to Catholic faithful that aids our ability to worship. Devobah, thanks for your inquiry. I felt obliged to share an insight from Catholic teaching on the spiritual life, but with some doubt about its utility in a non-Catholic setting. Whatever your faith tradition might be, I ask for your prayers and I offer up mine that you and everyone here might find the good God of consolations. None of us can be completely satisfied in life by anything else. 3DOP

Sure. That would include children below the age of reason as well as older children and adults who have been indoctrinated against the church. Who knows how many will incur the penalties? I don't see how all of that number could exhibit formal adherence to the schism. The SSPX are not stupid. They have clever arguments along with abuses in the Church that have scandalized many people in to looking at the SSPX. I wonder if Stine misunderstands how one should understand "formal adherence". The Church uses that kind of language to illustrate that few, some, or many might not incur any penalties.

Number Three: I think it is a matter of opinion. I tend to think it is true sometimes. But not in this instance. The Society has now consecrated bishops against the will of the pope twice. The Church can do nothing to make the excommunications not happen automatically. Granted the popes can dispense church law after the excommunication has occurred. Pope Benedict lifted the first excommunications of the living bishops in hopes of furthering dialogue toward reunion. Pope Francis even granted the Society faculties to hear confessions and witness marriages. It seems reasonable to me to doubt that being tolerant has had a desirable effect. Tolerance has given the Society an appearance of communion with Rome and with the bishops that was unintended. This appearance of unity was regularly exploited by the Society to assure inquirers that they were in the good graces of the Church, and it HAD to be okay to attend their Masses. I admit that there is a certain logic to that argument. That is why I am of the opinion that the current sanctions are appropriate. In any family, discipline sometimes needs to be exercised when parental authority is challenged, and more so if it is repeatedly challenged.

Regarding Cardinal Fernandez, I am not familiar with these charges against him. I know that the Society is mistaken saying that Pope John Paul II taught universal salvation. I would have to look into the question to judge. But let us assume that Fernandez is formally teaching a false doctrine about the salvation of all men. What is the context of this "previous statement"? It doesn't sound like it would have much in the way of magesterial authority. Is he obstinate about this? There is a long process before one gets sanctioned, for false teaching. The Church is very patient in this process in trying to correct errors. This is something that irritates the SSPX. When the German bishops move on from merely saying they would like to have lady priests and bishops to making a declaration of their intention to consecrate bishops and ordain lady priests, in opposition to the pope, Church law will kick in for them too. Even Martin Luther was allowed to present the case for his teachings before church authorities who tried to persuade him otherwise. The Church makes a distinction between a false "previous statement" and a dangerous teaching that is gaining traction. I think I would know if Fernandez was propagating any false ideas in a manner that requires immediate action. In the meantime, he occupies an important position in the Church, and he apparently signed a document which affirmed that the Society was ex'ed? Any errors that Fernandez might hold do not disqualify him from signing a proclamation about what happened, latae sententiae excommunication. Nobody's signature of approval made these excommunications happen. It would have happened if the action was done in secret and nobody knew about it except the participants.

Okay, so the Church excluded Orthodox laypeople for excommunication? I didn't know. Maybe tolerance was called for? I tried to say something above in answering webbles why I see this more extensive blanket, for the Society faithful, as a gesture of intense concern. lt could be a bad decision for Rome to make to clarify that the excommunication can reach beyond the bishops and priests? Who knows? But I am confident that the decision wasn't made out of any spirit of hostility or malice towards the SSPX.

Good question webbles. The reason that it is difficult to know who is a "formal adherent to the schism" is a question that is not determined merely by attendance at a Society chapel. It is possible that my "hopes" that I speak about above are biased toward leniency because I have so many loved ones and friends who attend the SSPX. I know that my own complicity was based on misinformation. I was a visible lay person in a position of responsibility in a mission chapel of the Society. Even so, I am not sure that I would have qualified as a "formal adherent to the schism". I tend to think I was a formal adherent. But it is possible that my ignorance was not culpable.The less souls associated to the Society care about the authority of the Church to excommunicate, the more likely they are in formal adherence, and thus excommunicated. I never faced that question. I know my grandchildren are incapable of being responsible for going to SSPX Masses and I have varying degrees of hope for any adult, as I said above. I would especially have hope for an adult who ignored the SSPX teachings against the dangers of going to non-SSPX churches. I left three years ago when I became convinced that SSPX rhetoric is only effective because they misunderstand and therefore misrepresent the teachings of Vatican II, and the supposed problems with the New Mass. It would be very doubtful if anyone who formally adhered to the schism would go to a non-excommunicated parish. Even less likely would be that they would want to receive communion. Part of doctrinaire SSPX rhetoric is that the New Mass is deadly poison to the soul. And in any case, it is not prudent for anyone to make that judgment about somebody else. It isn't like the parish priest would be accountable for giving communion to someone who is excommunicated. If the person is a public figure who supports euthanasia and abortion, it might be the priest's duty to pass the person by in the communion line. But no one needs to guess at who is excommunicated and who isn't. As you can see, how can we know? It is because of the mercy of God that we are not always accountable for our actions if we are in ignorance for which we are not responsible. This is called "inculpable ignorance". That is the concept by which we have hope for the salvation of all souls who might die while being visibly separated from the one true church. We cannot know their interior disposition. But it is possible that they might have wanted to join if they had known the truth. Maybe not. "Baptism of desire" is the concept by which we believe that those who are inculpably ignorant of the necessary truths of the faith, may nevertheless experience the grace of water baptism through desire. This desire certainly takes effect upon catechumens who are preparing for water baptism if they should die before having the opportunity to be baptized in water. Oh, and how does a lay person associated with the Society know for themselves they are not in formal adherence? If one fears the authority of the Church to excommunicate one for being affiliated with the Society, it is a good sign. Most SSPX adherents will not care about this news, hopefully because of inculpable ignorance. The only certain way to know you are not excommunicated is to go to a priest with jurisdictional authority from your bishop to administer the sacraments, confess your sins, and all your worries will be over. That godly fear is part of the reason why the Church exercised this sanction. She wants her children to understand the gravity of their situation and cause them to reflect on it accordingly. Those are only my opinions, and how I perceive this new situation for now. I don't presume to be speaking for the Church. As always, I am open to correction. Thanks for your consideration, and your interest(!). Have a great day webbles.

So by the end of the month I will have sixteen grandchildren that are excommunicated? (One of those is unborn but will be presumably baptized in the next week or two.) I thought only those who formally adhered to the schism with full knowledge of the facts incurred the penalty. I thought very few adults would qualify to incur the penalty. I was hoping that even some priests and bishops might be off the hook on that basis!

You are really interested. I will get to the other two questions as well. Maybe I am wrong. What is Stine's argument for why excommunication for the SSPX is different than for the Orthodox? I am genuinely curious. So I am not saying Return to Tradition/Anthony Stine is wrong about which party was punished the most harshly. Maybe he knows something I don't. I just don't see how the Church should fail to make this pronouncement under the circumstances when this one group, the SSPX, says they have the right, without proper jurisdiction, to be independent of the bishop of Rome and operate without jurisdiction in the diocese of every other bishop in the world. It is one thing to minister sacraments at a particular situation where someone is dying on the roadside. It is another to argue that this emergency has lasted for fifty years under six popes requiring disobedience to ordinary law. There is no precedent for believing that could happen. That is why I joked above about how the SSPX are in competition with the LDS to prove the Church is apostate. Put another way, if Stine is right, maybe he should see that the LDS would be a better alternative than the SSPX.

Hi Zealously Striving. On July 16, 1054, papal legates laid down the excommunication of the Patriarch Michael Cerularius and his supporters on the altar of the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. After a Synod in the East, Constantinople announced the excommunication of the Roman Pontiff. On July 1, 2026, episcopal consecrations lacking the papal mandate were performed by two SSPX bishops, who consecrated four SSPX priests as bishops. According to modern canon law, the pope reserves the right to review and approve episcopal consecrations performed under his authority. But the pope does nothing to punish. He might make an announcement of the results of a certain public event according to the current law of the church. The only difference I see in the two excommunications is that in the former case with the Orthodox, a positive act was made by representatives of the pope, in a somewhat aggressive fashion. If the SSPX had made new bishops privately, without the knowledge of the Church, they would just as excommunicated with out any papal action. It would be no different than when a Catholic privately procures or aids in someone else getting an abortion. There isn't any declaration required. They are excommunicated latae sententiae, which means it is automatic, with or without the knowledge of the pope. There seemed to me to be more hostility to me on both the Catholic and Orthodox sides of those excommunications. There is none from Pope Leo XIV. He has expressed his sorrow and his willingness to receive them back into the fold whenever they might wish to adhere to the teaching and governing authority of the Roman Pontiff.

Thanks for starting the thread Damien. Unless they have further questions, I am satisfied. I would have felt a little bit disapointed if this event went completely unnoticed. I was looking at "In the News" all last week to see if anybody LDS had been watching mainstream news. Our LDS hosts are very good to us, as has been expressed by my fellow Catholics. Rory

If the FSSP was a mile away, that is where I would be. I don't recall Pope Benedict doing the Novus Ordo in Latin. When one of my sons was married, it was an all Latin Novus Ordo, with a presiding Norbertine priest. His wife was Novus Ordo with three sisters in a Norbertine convent. That seems like good fruit rather than "fatal poison". But my son's wife, along with my son, has subsequently converted to the Society with my seven grandchildren. Most of my children grew up with a frequent Latin Novus Ordo. I am more than okay with the Fraternity and their official positions. But I know the father of a Fraternity priest, who if I recall correctly, indicated he would go to the Society before he would go to a diocesan New Mass. Maybe some in the Fraternity believe in this deadly poison rhetoric?

Hey Jesse. It ain't 1980 anymore. These new priests are okay. I want to be a part of it. I am at my parish church a mile away. The Fraternity is 10 miles. The Immaculata is a half mile. I like the old Mass better. But the New Mass is not intrinsically irreverent. And I want to support the new priests. Ad orientam. Kyrie. Sanctus. Agnus Dei. Sometimes. Not always. They appreciate the old people who were young in 1980 who aren't used to it and a little uncomfortable. Slow, patient change. I think we are a happy parish. A surprising number of former Society folk. They are trickling this way. Kneelers for communion. Sunday Vespers. 24/7 Eucharistic adoration. No unnecessary extraordinary ministers trying to make eye contact. Phasing out the altar girls. Music is still mediocre, but moving the right way.

Hey webbles. I just had a thought. The SSPX are good competition for you guys as to the best theory for the Great Apostasy. They are your fellow restorationists!

I need to remember that. Thank you.

Hi webbles. SSPX priests have no jurisdiction from their bishop to witness marriages. For a Catholic Marriage to be sacramentally valid requires at least tacit permission from the bishop of the place. When a priest enters a diocese other than his own, it is routine to obtain permission from the local bishop to witness the marriage of a family member, to say Mass, or to hear confessions. The SSPX bypass this ancient law of the Church which recognizes the jurisdictional authority of local bishops. Priests are not to minister the sacraments independently of a bishop. The state would recognize the couple as married, but the Church would not. Technically, the Church could not recognize the first marriage and so the couple would need to "remarry" according to church law. An invalid confession would mean that the priest could not grant absolution because of the absence of any connection with the bishop. When I left the SSPX, I did my best to remember the most serious sins that I had confessed invalidly in the SSPX. Absolution refers to the words and gestures of the priest in his office of forgiving sins. Anyone can baptize with the right form (words), matter (water) and the very broad intention (to do what the Church does). The Eucharist is valid but to receive communion from someone who does not recognize episcopal authority is inappropriate. Communion is literally a sign of union with all who receive. We are not in union with those who are not in the right relationship to our bishops and should not ordinarily receive communion with them, nor I suppose, they with us. Most of these possible occasions would be when visiting for weddings and funerals. I still go to the SSPX to show my interest in a big event for my grandchildren like their First Communion, but don't receive communion. When one of my daughters was married while I was in the SSPX I went to the wedding, of course, but didn't receive communion. The only way for a priest to lawfully exercise faculties without jurisdiction from a local bishop would be in the case of an emergency. Hearing the confessions of people who are in danger of death, with no time to see a priest associated with the bishop. The SSPX admit that they have no jurisdiction. Neither their priests, nor their bishops. They argue that there is an emergency in the Church which gives them authority to bypass the local bishops where they are ministering. I appreciate your interest. Good questions. 3DOP