Prayerful Posse
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
strange how the current crew only discovers Certainty with the SSPX…. unless-
“The contradiction has become impossible to miss…….”
this first sentence is to Be the Driving force of the Holy Ghost in this.. our moment in time…
“… Men who speak softly about moral error, false religion, doctrinal dissent, and liturgical destruction become forceful when confronting priests who offer the traditional Mass and teach the old catechism. “
Chris Jackson – Substack
I wasn’t aware of this until recently, but it seems the alleged “state of necessity” argument was already dealt with in 1996 by the Pontifical Council for the Interpretation of Legal Texts, in a Note concerning the 1988 excommunications.
It seems like the same state of affairs would obtain for the recent unpleasantness.
“unity” implies Unity with That which the Church has always Taught, not “unity” to a heretical pope.
(wake me up when James Martin IS EXCOMMUNICATED.)
All SSPX arguments for ordaining bishops, not only without a papal madate, but actually contrary to the pope’s will, are implicitly sede vacantist. They claim to recognize the pope’s authority, but they deny it in practice. They deny they are a parallel Church, but in practice, they are.
Reading their long list of accusations against the pope, and against many other bishops and priests, is strangely like reading the list of 27 “repeated injuries and usurpations” of King George III in the Declaration of Independence.
They use their list of grievances to declare, in practice, their independence from the Bishop of Rome, whose authority they deny.
Their unity with what they call “eternal” Rome does not include the actual Vicar of Christ.
Those who fail to see a state of emergency or necessity in the Church, particularly those who have lived experience pre Vatican II & lived through the changes, are willfully blind. Even over the past 20 or 30 years, I have witnessed how the Church has declined, and even how the Novus Ordo Church has declined in it’s following of the V II documents.
“ those who fail to see a state of emergency or necessity in the Church”
are blind,
willfully? i do not know.. many are willful in their denunciation of any who speak out against papal heresies and are blind..
A great difficulty to the state of necessity argument, I think, is that it seems impossibly vague, and seems expressed more in terms of feeling, sentiment and perception, when an objective determination and situation is needed. Otherwise, what precisely is constituting the state of necessity?
That being said, the notion of a state of necessity would only apply to otherwise non-evil acts that are done illicitly but without malice for the sake of a necessity. In this case, however, the supreme lawgiver in the Church made it explicitly known that this specific act of consecration without a papal mandate would constitute an act of schism, the latter being an intrinsically evil act, which cannot be done for any reason, even one of necessity. Thus, the argument from necessity wouldn’t even apply.
“the supreme lawgiver in the Church made it explicitly known..”
vicar.. not King
… A letter said that Tucho said that the Pope said …
A meeting might have prevented all of this … apparently that was too much to ask.
Certainly the pope is not a king in the temporal sense, but the nature of him as “vicar” gives him complete primacy and immediate jurisdiction everywhere in the Church in both teaching and in discipline and government.
The title “Vicar of Christ” reminds us that even the Pope is subject to Christ and does not have a free hand to do with the papacy and the Church as he pleases. Christ said that He would build His Church on Peter. The Church belongs to Christ. He is the Bridegroom and the Church is His Bride. In the passage in the Bible, John 21, Christ rehabilitated Peter after his denial. In this passage Christ was giving commands to Peter. During this rehabilitation Christ told Peter multiple times “Follow Me.” While being head of the Church, Peter was still subordinate to Christ and His commands. Christ gave the Church her mission in the Great Commission. James said that teachers would be held to a stricter account. The power to bind and loose is not a blank check. Those wielding power in the Church are accountable to Christ for their use of this power. Some in the Church hierarchy act like free agents with no accountability to anyone. The servant is not greater than the master.
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Too many in the Church hierarchy act like the tenants in the Parable of the Wicked Tenants. The wicked tenants acted like they owned the householder’s vineyard and could do with it as they pleased. At the end of the parable Christ had some choice words directed at the Jewish hierarchy of the day.
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“43 Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing the fruits of it.” (Matthew 21:33-46 RSVCE)
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Christ did rebuke most of the churches in His messages to the seven churches in the book of Revelation which demonstrates Christ’s continuing authority over the Church. He warned the church at Ephesus that they were risking the removal of their lampstand. He was also blunt in His message to the church at Laodicea.
Naturally Peter is subject to Christ and doesn’t have a blank check, but that isn’t germane to this issue. The SSPX agrees that the Pope has the authority to legislate that consecrating a bishop without a papal mandate is an excommunicable offense, barring specific mitigating circumstances. It is these circumstances that they build the justification for their act upon, not whether or not the act itself is legally illicit.
The difficulty, however, is that if the pope has the authority to legislate what is or is not an excommunicable offense, which they de facto agree with, then he also has the authority to interpret that same legislation in respect to the conditions which might mitigate the penalty. Leo XIV explicitly told them that to do the consecrations would be an act of schism, which has as an implicit basis that he deems the proposed mitigating circumstance of a “state of necessity” to not obtain.
No, Leo told Tucho “Heal Me With Your Mouth” Fernandez to write a letter to them.
It seems the Pope’s refusal to even meet with the SSPX (coupled with the insistence that a modernist pervert be the sole go-between) exacerbated the ‘state of necessity’.
The choice to seek forgiveness rather than permission becomes simplified when one is denied the opportunity to ask permission.
CAG:
It’s a moot point whether a delegated authority sent a letter or Pope Leo himself warned that it would be a schismatic act (which he did in his final appeal), as the act is already an excommunicable offense by means of the act itself. One doesn’t have to be warned against it in a certain manner, as the consecrating of a bishop without a papal mandate incurs the penalty by means of the act of itself. The SSPX certainly understands this, which is why they appeal to a purported state of necessity, which, as was articulated in 1996, can never obtain when the act goes against the will of the supreme pontiff.
Pope Leo’s refusal to meet with them might be regrettable, or might not be. Perhaps he would have had more willingness if they had given the discussions more time and effort, perhaps not, I don’t know. From his perspective, I could see how an already problematic group declaring they are going to do something which directly challenges his authority (that they profess to acknowledge) would make him reticent to meet with them, and using a delegate would be an obvious way to gauge how serious they are about working things out.
“and a bishop is calling for female “co-presiders” at Mass.
The unctionless bishop needs to be corrected and/or replaced.
Caving into the feminists’ demands and the corrupted culture the feminists have created is not leading the faithful in Truth. As my pastor once told me “They can stand at the altar all day…” that would not make females “co-presiders”.
I’ll bet that that bishop puts his left shoe on his right foot.
As God said to Jonah: “There are ten thousand people who do not know their left hand from their right hand.” about Nineveh.
In what universe could this not be?
“If your brother sins [against you], go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won over your brother.
If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, so that ‘every fact may be established on the testimony of two or three witnesses.’
If he refuses to listen to them, tell the church. If he refuses to listen even to the church, then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector.”
~ Matthew 18:15-17
It looks like ¡Lio! maybe skipped a few steps. Notice it doesn’t say “If your brother sins, have a sacreligious pervert write them a strongly worded letter”
Leo says unity is a central theme of his papacy, but if he’s too busy rubbing elbows with the bishopette of Canterbury to meet with the SSPX and try to personally stop a few thousand faithful Catholics from falling into schism, one would have to wonder just who Leo wants to be unified with.
I don’t think that’s a entirely fair assessment. Following their announcement of what they were going to do, Pope Leo communicated with them, asking them to suspend the consecrations, to which they said no. Given that they already made known that they were going to defy his will, meeting with them might be perceived, from his perspective, as making the situation worse. At that point they would be coming in with an ultimatum, as evidenced by the statement of faith and the refusal to halt the consecrations, when the real question is their obedience to the pope and fidelity to the Church.
The pope as vicar of Christ is the visible sign of unity and as vicar can also set forth the terms of that unity. The SSPX claims to believe this, so if they indicate from the outset that they are going to defy his will, one would be certainly justified in wondering what good a high-profile meeting would obtain and if it would even be done in good faith.
That’s not true, Jason … Fr. Pagliarani had been requestion an audience with the Pope since his inauguration. It was only after many months of crickets did the SSPX announce that they intended to consecrate bishops.
Look, I’m not saying the SSPX was in the right, or that this “state of necessity” even exists. I don’t believe either of those two things. But Leo claims to be all about unity, yet his ignoring of the SSPX was remeniscent of Francis’ ignoring of Cardinal Zen, so much so that I have to wonder if the excommunication wasn’t the desired result (for both parties).