“Traditionis Custodes” as latent schism; Bishop Michael Martin Luther and Cupich; the SSPX option; “litniks” bite the dust; hints of racism in Vatican II; how to fight back against AI; dancing
I am very pro-SSPX, but I am slightly confused on one aspect. I once heard someone say that SSPX weddings are not valid unless they are in union with the bishop. Since the Society comes into dioceses without the bishop's permission, I suppose it is safe to assume that they do not generally ask permission to officiate weddings. Would that mean their weddings are invalid? I know of a lot of good Catholics who attend Mass with, and support, the SSPX. I don't believe they would promote anything that is wrong, which is why I've been troubled by this for a long time.
The standard line is that you cannot have a valid marriage without an approved minister of the Church witnessing it. Usually this is the pastor, or, if someone else, delegated by the pastor or bishop. Hence, since the SSPX clergy are not, as such, recognized ministers, the conventional line is that the weddings over which they preside are invalid.
Pope Francis, in one of his many surprises, said that the SSPX clergy could validly witness marriages if they asked and received permission so to do from the local ordinary. Interestingly, this has indeed happened in more than a few dioceses. It's not splashed on the front page of the diocesan newspaper but the permission is sought and granted. However, in other dioceses, bishops have stalwartly refused. (How's that for a "synodal church"?)
The SSPX counterargument, of course, is that the Church is in a state of grave crisis, in which faculties are supplied by the Church to do what the Church has always done, that is, impart sacramental life and doctrine in accord with tradition. I can't go into this further here except to say that I am deeply sympathetic to this argument, because it is past obvious to me that the Church on earth is going through something frightfully reminiscent of an autoimmune disorder that leaves nothing and nobody untouched, and that if we're not seeing a calamitous breakdown in normal structures, we're not using our eyeballs.
Nevertheless, I remain conflicted because I recognize - as does the SSPX itself - that the pope is the pope and the bishops are the bishops, and therefore, normally, there should be this delegation of the minister for matrimony. Hence, if I were getting married again (as opposed to 26 years ago!), I would seek out an Ecclesia Dei institute or a diocesan priest who could do a TLM wedding, OR I would make sure that the SSPX chapel I'm attending has asked and received the delegation from the local ordinary.
I fear to add anything of note after Dr K's comments, only insofar to say that if you want to just elevate yourself above the fearmongering and schism loving modernists who hate the Roman Rite as much as they hate tradition in all of it's manifestations, you will immediately see that Archbishop Lefebvre was more or less the man that God chose to save the Church. Without his SSPX I'm confident that no Ecclesia Dei orders would have been established. Are the SSPX using rites and sacraments invalidly? No. Do they use the Rite that for centuries our saints nourished themselves upon? Yes. Is the Church in a state of crisis? Yes, and yes, and yes. A hundredfold more now than when Archbishop Lefebvre saved the Latin mass. So given all of this, are you really concerned before the eyes of God that an SSPX marriage is invalid? These whisperings from the devil are the same whisperings that will get you to go to a bogus Novus Ordo gathering because one is scared that because you can't access a TLM you have to go or you're going to hell. Believe me, Satan will happily see you go to the NO hoping that you will find the convenience and comfort of chatty happy clappers and sports tops, quite the easier option, and drip by drop you become lukewarm and then lax. But hey! You're attending the Valid Mass of the Faithful, not that of the schismatics! What does your conscience tell you?
A positive development I've observed is better relations between FSSP and SSPX. Not everything is a bed of roses, but locally I see that parishioners from the local FSSP and SSPX apostalates interact with each other and tease each other about things that used to lead to heated arguments. Members of the scholas from each chapel will sing with the schola of the other chapel.
I do not know if this is outright formal schism, it seems to me that it is something like material schism or schismatic in tendency. Therefore, I do not assert that Francis lost the papacy on July 16, 2021, but I do assert that anyone who takes seriously the initial premise of that document will end up having to espouse schism. This is why, interestingly, the same document walks back the claim and the entire implementation has been half-hearted, because at the end of the day, I'm not sure anyone really believes in the idea that the Novus Ordo is the "only expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite." Certainly, almost no one is behaving that way.
I’m not trying to go back and forth. So, I’ll minimize the responses.
If a person, using previous Doctors and holy opinion, holds that heretical teaching leads to an ipso facto loss of the Papacy how can they be in schism - if by schism it means they are holding to the faith, and not setting up a new Church, per se.
I hold that Pope Francis was at least materially heretical; it is somewhat difficult to know if he was a formal heretic, given that full definition of that term. For one thing, he contradicted himself regularly; for another, he spoke ambiguously; for a third, no one ever challenged him in a way that prompted him to respond with evidence of pertinacity. It's a huge mess.
Indeed it is a huge mess. For clarity, but maybe not mathematical certainty to satisfy the meticulously scrupulous, I'd just lean on Tradition. Would St Dominic, St Thomas Aquinas, St Catherine of Sienna, St Ignatius of Loyola, St Alphonsus de Ligouri etc. on balance consider Pope Francis to be a heretic. My money would be on the affirmative.
"Today, AI can erase truth itself" is nonsense. First, it can't. Second, what AI can do books already did (AI is just a new medium for textuality), and books are in fact just another THING, REALITY, just as much as any other (including AI); so the point becomes, for those who have eyes to see: REALITY can erase truth itself: which again, is not true; but insofar as it is true has always been true, and has nothing to do with "today" or with AI per se. If you sympathize with Dreher's position, you should recognize at least that you are fundamentally just acknowledging the seriousness (after all!) of the problem of Cartesian doubt, exacerbated in certain ways perhaps? -- sure, why not! -- in a hyper-techno-Orwellian historical moment.
As for Kant (since he got a viciously unfair mention here too), I will note for the record, Peter, that you badly misrepresent his view in his essay "What is Enlightenment?" in your book True Obedience. Kant's essay certainly has its weak points -- bear in mind he is in fact dealing with a fundamentally problematic issue -- but his main thrust is entirely consonant with your own in that book. And for the record I will just register my general disapproval for easy dismissals of seminal thinkers without so much as a quotation or a reference justifying the attribution to them of whatever stupid viewpoint is being (falsely) attributed to them. Even AI can do better than that. Tolle, lege! Sapere aude!
" “It would not be an exaggeration to view the liturgical renewal of the Second Vatican Council as a vindication of Worship.” And this sums up the tenor of the journal as a whole, which insists on treating the calamitous failure of the post-Conciliar liturgical reform as an amazingly successful renewal. "
Once again, "success" is defined in the devil's aim - total effective eradication. As in "the doors are open but Nobody is home".
I've begun adding the following tag to the end of my articles: "Human work product, not AI generated."
Is this tag meant to be a caution, or an assurance (or something else... a vaguely political signifier perhaps)?
I am very pro-SSPX, but I am slightly confused on one aspect. I once heard someone say that SSPX weddings are not valid unless they are in union with the bishop. Since the Society comes into dioceses without the bishop's permission, I suppose it is safe to assume that they do not generally ask permission to officiate weddings. Would that mean their weddings are invalid? I know of a lot of good Catholics who attend Mass with, and support, the SSPX. I don't believe they would promote anything that is wrong, which is why I've been troubled by this for a long time.
The standard line is that you cannot have a valid marriage without an approved minister of the Church witnessing it. Usually this is the pastor, or, if someone else, delegated by the pastor or bishop. Hence, since the SSPX clergy are not, as such, recognized ministers, the conventional line is that the weddings over which they preside are invalid.
Pope Francis, in one of his many surprises, said that the SSPX clergy could validly witness marriages if they asked and received permission so to do from the local ordinary. Interestingly, this has indeed happened in more than a few dioceses. It's not splashed on the front page of the diocesan newspaper but the permission is sought and granted. However, in other dioceses, bishops have stalwartly refused. (How's that for a "synodal church"?)
The SSPX counterargument, of course, is that the Church is in a state of grave crisis, in which faculties are supplied by the Church to do what the Church has always done, that is, impart sacramental life and doctrine in accord with tradition. I can't go into this further here except to say that I am deeply sympathetic to this argument, because it is past obvious to me that the Church on earth is going through something frightfully reminiscent of an autoimmune disorder that leaves nothing and nobody untouched, and that if we're not seeing a calamitous breakdown in normal structures, we're not using our eyeballs.
Nevertheless, I remain conflicted because I recognize - as does the SSPX itself - that the pope is the pope and the bishops are the bishops, and therefore, normally, there should be this delegation of the minister for matrimony. Hence, if I were getting married again (as opposed to 26 years ago!), I would seek out an Ecclesia Dei institute or a diocesan priest who could do a TLM wedding, OR I would make sure that the SSPX chapel I'm attending has asked and received the delegation from the local ordinary.
The SSPX priests *always* submit the paperwork to the diocese and request delegation. I haven't heard of it being refused yet.
I fear to add anything of note after Dr K's comments, only insofar to say that if you want to just elevate yourself above the fearmongering and schism loving modernists who hate the Roman Rite as much as they hate tradition in all of it's manifestations, you will immediately see that Archbishop Lefebvre was more or less the man that God chose to save the Church. Without his SSPX I'm confident that no Ecclesia Dei orders would have been established. Are the SSPX using rites and sacraments invalidly? No. Do they use the Rite that for centuries our saints nourished themselves upon? Yes. Is the Church in a state of crisis? Yes, and yes, and yes. A hundredfold more now than when Archbishop Lefebvre saved the Latin mass. So given all of this, are you really concerned before the eyes of God that an SSPX marriage is invalid? These whisperings from the devil are the same whisperings that will get you to go to a bogus Novus Ordo gathering because one is scared that because you can't access a TLM you have to go or you're going to hell. Believe me, Satan will happily see you go to the NO hoping that you will find the convenience and comfort of chatty happy clappers and sports tops, quite the easier option, and drip by drop you become lukewarm and then lax. But hey! You're attending the Valid Mass of the Faithful, not that of the schismatics! What does your conscience tell you?
A positive development I've observed is better relations between FSSP and SSPX. Not everything is a bed of roses, but locally I see that parishioners from the local FSSP and SSPX apostalates interact with each other and tease each other about things that used to lead to heated arguments. Members of the scholas from each chapel will sing with the schola of the other chapel.
Is August 5 a typo ?
(face-palm)
Yes. I just fixed it online.
Considering the idea that a Pope has entered schism with the Church, do you still consider sedevacantists to be in schism?
I do not know if this is outright formal schism, it seems to me that it is something like material schism or schismatic in tendency. Therefore, I do not assert that Francis lost the papacy on July 16, 2021, but I do assert that anyone who takes seriously the initial premise of that document will end up having to espouse schism. This is why, interestingly, the same document walks back the claim and the entire implementation has been half-hearted, because at the end of the day, I'm not sure anyone really believes in the idea that the Novus Ordo is the "only expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite." Certainly, almost no one is behaving that way.
I’m not trying to go back and forth. So, I’ll minimize the responses.
If a person, using previous Doctors and holy opinion, holds that heretical teaching leads to an ipso facto loss of the Papacy how can they be in schism - if by schism it means they are holding to the faith, and not setting up a new Church, per se.
I am thinking primarily in the terms laid out by Fr. Thomas Weinandy:
https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2019/10/08/pope-francis-and-schism/
https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2023/10/02/pope-francis-and-schism-re-visited/
This commentary by Pater Edmund Waldstein is apropos:
https://sancrucensis.wordpress.com/2019/10/28/the-popes-two-bodies-the-the-weinandy-farrow-thesis-as-lancastrian-ecclesiology/
I hold that Pope Francis was at least materially heretical; it is somewhat difficult to know if he was a formal heretic, given that full definition of that term. For one thing, he contradicted himself regularly; for another, he spoke ambiguously; for a third, no one ever challenged him in a way that prompted him to respond with evidence of pertinacity. It's a huge mess.
Indeed it is a huge mess. For clarity, but maybe not mathematical certainty to satisfy the meticulously scrupulous, I'd just lean on Tradition. Would St Dominic, St Thomas Aquinas, St Catherine of Sienna, St Ignatius of Loyola, St Alphonsus de Ligouri etc. on balance consider Pope Francis to be a heretic. My money would be on the affirmative.
https://z-library.sk/book/21180176/ed1aa4/the-reform-of-the-liturgy-19481975.html
Always the fascination with "diversity"? Only in The West do we idolize such a thing.
This is in regards to the Protestant King Charles on the attendance of the Oratory TLM, ". . .and their diversity of backgrounds".
"Today, AI can erase truth itself" is nonsense. First, it can't. Second, what AI can do books already did (AI is just a new medium for textuality), and books are in fact just another THING, REALITY, just as much as any other (including AI); so the point becomes, for those who have eyes to see: REALITY can erase truth itself: which again, is not true; but insofar as it is true has always been true, and has nothing to do with "today" or with AI per se. If you sympathize with Dreher's position, you should recognize at least that you are fundamentally just acknowledging the seriousness (after all!) of the problem of Cartesian doubt, exacerbated in certain ways perhaps? -- sure, why not! -- in a hyper-techno-Orwellian historical moment.
As for Kant (since he got a viciously unfair mention here too), I will note for the record, Peter, that you badly misrepresent his view in his essay "What is Enlightenment?" in your book True Obedience. Kant's essay certainly has its weak points -- bear in mind he is in fact dealing with a fundamentally problematic issue -- but his main thrust is entirely consonant with your own in that book. And for the record I will just register my general disapproval for easy dismissals of seminal thinkers without so much as a quotation or a reference justifying the attribution to them of whatever stupid viewpoint is being (falsely) attributed to them. Even AI can do better than that. Tolle, lege! Sapere aude!
Yes, Restored the 54!
" “It would not be an exaggeration to view the liturgical renewal of the Second Vatican Council as a vindication of Worship.” And this sums up the tenor of the journal as a whole, which insists on treating the calamitous failure of the post-Conciliar liturgical reform as an amazingly successful renewal. "
Once again, "success" is defined in the devil's aim - total effective eradication. As in "the doors are open but Nobody is home".