[1] These are the names of the children of Israel, that went into Egypt with Jacob: they went in, every man with his household: [2] Ruben, Simeon, Levi, Juda, [3] Issachar, Zabulon, and Benjamin, [4] Dan, and Nephtali, Gad and Aser. [5] And all the souls that came out of Jacob' s thigh, were seventy: but Joseph was in Egypt.
[6] After he was dead, and all his brethren, and all that generation, [7] The children of Israel increased, and sprung up into multitudes, and growing exceedingly strong they filled the land. [8] In the mean time there arose a new king over Egypt, that knew not Joseph: [9] And he said to his people: Behold the people of the children of Israel are numerous and stronger than we. [10] Come, let us wisely oppress them, lest they multiply: and if any war
shall rise against us, join with our enemies, and having overcome us,
depart out of the land.
Unlike the Pharaoh who did not know Joseph, the recently installed pharaoh of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis, does know "Joseph," who is in this case Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI. However, well-meaning Bergoglio/Francis believes his predecessor as the pharaoh of the counterfeit church of conciliarism may have been when he issued Summorum Pontificum on July 7, 2007, he, Bergoglio/Francis, is alarmed that what he sees as a new group of stubborn, hard-headed, static "Pelagians" have multiplied like the Hebrews following the death of Joseph. It is now time, as he sees it, to oppress them to drive them out of the land of conciliarism once and for all.
Although Pharaoh Bergoglio has been using a relentless barrage of words to show his disdain for traditionally-minded Catholics who are as of yet attached to the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism in the very mistaken belief that they represent the Catholic Church, he declared war upon them "officially" on Sunday when he spoke the following words to the leadership of the Latin American "episcopal" conference (CELAM):
d) The Pelagian solution. This basically appears as a form of restorationism. In dealing with the Church’s problems, a purely
disciplinary solution is sought, through the restoration of outdated
manners and forms which, even on the cultural level, are no longer
meaningful. In Latin America it is usually to be found in small
groups, in some new religious congregations, in tendencies to doctrinal
or disciplinary “safety”. Basically it is static, although it is
capable of inversion, in a process of regression. It seeks to “recover”
the lost past. (Address of Francis the Pied-Piper of Antichrist to CELAM leadership.)
Let me reiterate what I wrote yesterday about this passage:
Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis meant to plunge a sword right through heart of Summorum Pontificum,
issued by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI on July 7, 2007, and to mock
those religious congregations such as the Priestly Fraternity of Saint
Peter, the Institute of Christ the King, Sovereign Priest, the Institute
of the Good Shepherd, the
Apostolic Administration of Saint John Mary Vianney, the Canons Regular
of the New Jerusalem, the Clear Creek (Oklahoma) Benedictines, Monks of
the Most Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel (Wyoming), Society of
Saint John Cantius (which also stages the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service at Saint John Cantius Church in Chicago, Illinois),
Canons Regular of the Mother of God (France), Fraternity of Saint
Vincent Ferrer (France), various Benedictine communities in France
(Fontgambault, Le Barroux, Randol), Mariwald (Germany) and, among
others, the Servants of Jesus and Mary (Germany).
Hey, fellas, wake up!
To use a colloquial expression that come into vogue
in recent years, your "pope" just "dissed" y'all! Wake up! He's saying
that you want doctrinal and disciplinary "safety," that your groups are
static and capable of "regression" as you seek furtively, he believes,
to "recover" the long past.
Una cum famulo tuo Papa nostro Francisco, fellas? (Francis The Pied Piper of Antichrist.)
Pharaoh Francis wasted no time upon his return from Rome to demonstrate that he meant what he said yesterday. It is no accident in the slightest that a decree from the conciliar Congregation for Religious, headed by that "ultra-progressive," Focolare-supporting Brazilian revolutionary named Joao Braz de Aviz (see Christ The King Says A Decisive "NO!" To Apostasy Part Two), dated July 11, 2013, commanding the priests/presbyters Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate (known also as the "Kolbe Franciscans") to stage the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service and, in contravention to the provision of Pharaoh Joseph's Summorum Pontificum, to receive permission from conciliar officials in order to offer/stage the 1962/2013 modernized version of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition.
Here is a report of the decree by Vaticanologist Sandro Magister, who is, poor man, incredulous at this very, very predictable turn of events:
To read the decree issued by the Vatican congregation for religious shortly before the voyage of Francis in Brazil, with the explicit approval of the pope himself, one must agree more with the latter than with the former.
The decree bears the date of July 11, 2013, the protocol number 52741/2012, and the signatures of the prefect of the congregation, Cardinal Joao Braz de Aviz, a focolarino, and of the secretary of the same congregation, Archbishop José Rodríguez Carballo, a Franciscan.
Braz de Aviz is the only high-ranking official in the curia of Brazilian nationality, and because of this he has accompanied Francis on his voyage to Rio de Janeiro. He has a reputation as a progressive, although that of a scatterbrain fits him better. And he will probably be one of the first to go when the reform of the curia announced by Francis takes shape.
Rodríguez Carballo instead enjoys the pope's complete trust. His promotion as second-in-command of the congregation was backed by Francis himself at the beginning of his pontificate.
It is difficult, therefore, to think that pope Bergoglio was unaware of what he was approving when he was presented with the decree before its publication.
The decree installs an apostolic commissioner - in the person of the Capuchin Fidenzio Volpi - at the head of all the communities of the congregation of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate.
And this in itself is cause for astonishment. Because the Franciscans of the Immaculate are one of the most flourishing religious communities born in the Catholic Church in recent decades, with male and female branches, with many young vocations, spread over several continents and with a mission in Argentina as well.
They want to be faithful to tradition, in full respect for the magisterium of the Church. So much so that in their communities they celebrate Masses both in the ancient rite and in the modern rite, as moreover do hundreds of religious communities around the world - the Benedictines of Norcia, to give just one example - applying the spirit and the letter of the motu proprio “Summorum Pontificum" of Benedict XVI.
But precisely this was contested by a core group of internal dissidents, who appealed to the Vatican authorities complaining of the excessive propensity of their congregation to celebrate the Mass in the ancient rite, with the effect of creating exclusion and opposition within the communities, of undermining internal unity and, worse, of weakening the more general "sentire cum Ecclesia."
The Vatican authorities responded by sending an apostolic visitor one year ago. And now comes the appointment of the commissioner.
But what is most astonishing are the last five lines of the decree of July 11:
"In addition to the above, the Holy Father Francis has directed that every religious of the congregation of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate is required to celebrate the liturgy according to the ordinary rite and that, if the occasion should arise, the use of the extraordinary form (Vetus Ordo) must be explicitly authorized by the competent authorities, for every religious and/or community that makes the request.”
The astonishment stems from the fact that what is decreed contradicts the dispositions given by Benedict XVI, which for the celebration of the Mass in the ancient rite “sine populo" demand no previous request for authorization whatsoever:
"Ad talem celebrationem secundum unum alterumve Missale, sacerdos nulla eget licentia, nec Sedis Apostolicae nec Ordinarii sui" (1).
While for Masses "cum populo" they set out a few conditions, but always guaranteeing the freedom to celebrate.
In general, against a decree of a Vatican congregation it is possible to have recourse to the supreme tribunal of the apostolic signatura, today headed by a cardinal, the American Raymond Leo Burke, considered a friend by the traditionalists.
But if the decree is the object of approval in a specific form on the part of the pope, as it seems to be in this case, recourse is not admitted
The Franciscans of the Immaculate will have to comply with the prohibition on celebrating the Mass in the ancient rite beginning Sunday, August 11.
And now what will happen, not only among them but in the whole Church?
It was the conviction of Benedict XVI that "the two forms of the usage of the Roman Rite can be mutually enriching." He had explained this in the heartfelt letter to the bishops of the whole world with which he had accompanied the motu proprio "Summorum Pontificum":
But from now on this is no longer the case, at least not for all. For
the Franciscans of the Immaculate, forced to celebrate the Mass only in
the modern form, there remains just one way to take to heart what
Benedict XVI also hoped: to "demonstrate" in this form as well, "more
powerfully than has been the case hitherto, the sacrality which attracts
many people to the former usage."
The fact is that one pillar of
the pontificate of Joseph Ratzinger has been cracked. By an exception
that many fear - or hope - will soon become the rule. (Sandro Magister, For the First Time, Francis Contradicts Benedict.)
Poor Signore Magister does not realize that there is nothing stable, nothing secure for Modernists, not even in the structures and decrees of their own false church. He also does not realize that Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI issued Summorum Pontificum merely to "pacify spirits" and to break-down obstinacy and narrow-mindedness as a means to lead traditionally-minded Catholics into an acceptance of a "unified" "reform of the reform" at some point in the future.
In actuality, therefore, Pharaoh Joseph and Pharaoh Francis have identical views about traditionally-minded Catholics, differing, of course, on how to deal with them. Pharaoh Joseph wanted to "pacify" them in order to "convert" them. Pharaoh Francis wants to the lower the boom on them.
Consider Ratzinger/Benedict's own words in the letter that he wrote on March 10, 2009, to the world's conciliar "bishops" to explain why he had "remitted" the excommunications that his predecessor, Pharaoh Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II, had imposed upon the four
priests of the Society of Saint Pius X after they had been consecrated as bishops by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and co-consecrated by Bishop Antonio de Mayer Castro of the Society of Saint John Mary Vianney in Campos, Brazil:
Leading men and women to God, to the God Who speaks in the Bible:
this is the supreme and fundamental priority of the Church and of the
Successor of Peter at the present time. A logical consequence of this is
that we must have at heart the unity of all believers. Their disunity,
their disagreement among themselves, calls into question the credibility
of their talk of God. Hence the effort to promote a common witness by Christians to their faith - ecumenism - is part of the supreme priority.
Added to this is the need for all those who believe in God to join in
seeking peace, to attempt to draw closer to one another, and to journey
together, even with their differing images of God, towards the source of
Light - this is inter-religious dialogue. Whoever proclaims that God is
Love 'to the end' has to bear witness to love: in loving devotion to
the suffering, in the rejection of hatred and enmity - this is the
social dimension of the Christian faith, of which I spoke in the
Encyclical 'Deus caritas est'.
"So if the arduous task of working for faith,
hope and love in the world is presently (and, in various ways, always)
the Church's real priority, then part of this is also made up of acts of
reconciliation, small and not so small. That the quiet gesture of
extending a hand gave rise to a huge uproar, and thus became exactly the
opposite of a gesture of reconciliation, is a fact which we must
accept. But I ask now: Was it, and is it, truly wrong in this case to
meet half-way the brother who 'has something against you' and to seek
reconciliation? Should not civil society also try to forestall
forms of extremism and to incorporate their eventual adherents - to the
extent possible - in the great currents shaping social life, and thus
avoid their being segregated, with all its consequences? Can
it be completely mistaken to work to break down obstinacy and
narrowness, and to make space for what is positive and retrievable for
the whole? I myself saw, in the years after 1988, how the
return of communities which had been separated from Rome changed their
interior attitudes; I saw how returning to the bigger and broader Church
enabled them to move beyond one-sided positions and broke down rigidity so that positive energies could emerge for the whole.
Can we be totally indifferent about a community which has 491 priests,
215 seminarians, 6 seminaries, 88 schools, 2 university-level
institutes, 117 religious brothers, 164 religious sisters and thousands
of lay faithful? Should we casually let them drift farther from the
Church? I think for example of the 491 priests. We cannot know how mixed
their motives may be. All the same, I do not think that they would have
chosen the priesthood if, alongside various distorted and unhealthy elements,
they did not have a love for Christ and a desire to proclaim Him and,
with Him, the living God. Can we simply exclude them, as representatives
of a radical fringe, from our pursuit of reconciliation and unity? What
would then become of them?
"Certainly, for some time now, and once again on
this specific occasion, we have heard from some representatives of that
community many unpleasant things - arrogance and presumptuousness, an obsession with one-sided positions,
etc. Yet to tell the truth, I must add that I have also received a
number of touching testimonials of gratitude which clearly showed an
openness of heart. But should not the great Church also allow herself to
be generous in the knowledge of her great breadth, in the knowledge of
the promise made to her? Should not we, as good educators, also be capable of overlooking various faults and making every effort to open up broader vistas?
And should we not admit that some unpleasant things have also emerged
in Church circles? At times one gets the impression that our society
needs to have at least one group to which no tolerance may be shown;
which one can easily attack and hate. And should someone dare to
approach them - in this case the Pope - he too loses any right to
tolerance; he too can be treated hatefully, without misgiving or
restraint. (Letter
to the Bishops of the Catholic Church concerning the remission of the
excommunication of the four Bishops consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre, March 10, 2009.)
Pharaoh Joseph/Benedict and his successor, Pharaoh Jorge/Francis, share absolutely identical views of the "arrogance" and "presumptuousness" of traditionally-minded Catholics who have "an obsession with one-sided positions." This is beyond all question whatsoever.
Pharaoh Joseph, though, believed that he could kill the 1962 version of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition with kindness as he sought to modernize it incrementally (see Next Stop On The Motu Madness Merry-Go-Round: 1969 And Beyond) and to purchase silence from traditionally-minded Catholics about such "little" things as the new ecclesiology, episcopal collegiality, false ecumenism, inter-religious prayer services and dialogue, religious liberty, separation of Church and State and heretical interpretations of Sacred Scripture while distorting and misrepresenting the lives of various saints and the teaching of Holy Mother Church's Fathers and Doctors in exchange for having a supposedly "traditional" Mass that keeps being modernized. Pharaoh Joseph believed that he could boil these arrogant folks a little bit at a time as though they were frogs being boiled alive as their amphibious bodies kept adjusting to each elevation of heat. Pharaoh Joseph was a Girondist or a Menshevik in this regard, a "moderate" revolutionary in dealing with such poor goofs.
Pharaoh Jorge/Francis, however, is a Jacobin, a Bolshevik. He has no use for any version of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition. He has shown us his own "liberated" style of liturgical stage production, and it was on full display two days on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro. Brazil. He does not want to "kill" traditionally-minded Catholics with "kindness." He simply wants to kill them by making life intolerable for them within the structures of his false church, which he believes exists not to sanctify and to save souls but to "go out into the streets" to "serve" the "poor" with gestures of empty humanitarianism that had been condemned as such by Pope Saint Pius X in Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910.
For Pharaoh Jorge/Francis, you see, its ˇViva la Revolución!
It is very telling, ladies and gentlemen, that the conciliar revolutionaries targeted the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, who are, despite their own internal divisions that precipitated the decree issued by Congregation for the Religious on July 11, 2013, superb defenders of Total Marian Consecration as taught by Father Maximilian Kolbe and whose work in defense of Special Creation against the disproved ideology of evolutionism, with all of the real problems that face Catholics in the conciliar structures today. These friars are mistaken about the true state of the Church Militant in this time of apostasy and betrayal. They are mistaken about the sacramental validity of the conciliar liturgical rites, including those of episcopal consecration, priestly ordination and what is called the "ordinary form of the 'one' Roman Rite, the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service that is abominable in the sight of the true God of Divine Revelation, the Most Blessed Trinity. However, the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate are not any kind of problem facing Catholics in the conciliar structures today.
Pharaoh Jorge/Francis, though, is a revolutionary. Anyone who does not accept the precepts of revolution or who even expresses reservations about them privately without writing about them publicly is in se "divisive" and must be dealt with sternly.
The action taken against the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate was a shot across the bow to the traditionally-minded religious groups that operate under the sufferance of "Pontifical" Commission Ecclesia Dei, which is under the jurisdiction of a heretic who is not considered to be revolutionary enough for the likes of Pharaoh Jorge/Francis, Gerhard Ludwig Muller, the prefect of the conciliar Congregation for the Deformation and Deconstruction of the Catholic Faith. Bergoglio/Francis and his appointees are warning them to keep their mouths shut, that the day will come soon enough when they will be faced, either individually over time or collectively at once, with a "papal" decree to start staging the Novus Ordo liturgical service in local parishes to assist the "bishops" in whose dioceses their communities operate.
This is all so thoroughly predictable. Just take a look at Mister Potter's Big Cigar. Motu Plus Two, Strictly by the Script, "Reconciliations" at the Price of Truth, Liturgy: The Final Frontier, Hook, Line and Sinker, A Shopworn Line:"
He Just 'Had' to Say That ", A Trap Goes Snap, Motu Madness Merry-Go-Round, Taking The Obvious For Granted, Enough Spin To Make Our Heads Spin, With Perfection Staring Directly At Them, The Cost of "Recognition" Keeps Getting Higher and Higher, Answering to the Enemies of Christ the King, An Act That Speaks For Itself, Singing the Old Songs, No Lessons Learned After Forty Years of Appeasement and Apostasy, Defending the Truth is Never Any Kind of Game, High Church, Low Church, Those Who Deny The Holocaust, Disciples of Caiphas, Under The Bus, Nothing New Under the Conciliar Sun, Story Time in Econe, Yes, Sir, Master Scribe, No Crime Is Worse Than Deicide, As the Conciliar Fowler Lays More Snares, part one, As the Conciliar Fowler Lays More Snares, part two, As the Conciliar Fowler Lays More Snares, part three, As the Conciliar Fowler Lays More Snares, part four, The Better Mousetrap, Obeying The Commands of a False Church, Consistently Inconsistent, "Cardinals" Burke and Canizares, Meet The Council of Trent, Veritable Clouseaus and among so many others, the afore cited Next Stop On The Motu Madness Merry-Go-Round: 1969 And Beyond.
No, there is to be no "reform of the reform" under Pharaoh Jorge/Francis. It's ¡Viva la Revolución! and his fellow Jacobins who have know issued a stern warning to all traditionally-minded Catholics attached to the conciliar structures by singling out the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate.
This is all so very sad as those who remained silent in the face of abominable outrages against the honor and glory and majesty of the Most Blessed Trinity that have been committed by Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI as an expression of "gratitude" for Summorum Pontificum will come to consider it virtuous to frequent the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Protestant service that so many of them once abhorred and publicly criticized without recognizing that such an liturgical atrocity could never be promulgated under the authority of a true Successor of Saint Peter. And this is how the devil wins in these circumstances, first by apparent acts of "kindness" and then with brutal blows against slow in order to eradicate a "past" that is said to be "static" but which the adversary knows the most dynamic force on the face of this earth to back him in chains, the fullness of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition.
Second only to the Holy Mass itself in the effort to put the devil and his minions back in chains is our reliance upon Our Lady, especially by means of her Most Holy Rosary and total consecration to her Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, through her own Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. May we pray, therefore, for those in the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate who see that there are problems with the documents, the liturgy and the pastoral practices of the conciliar church will come to realize and then to accept the simple fact that it is impossible for the Catholic Church, the spotless, virginal Mystical Bride of her Divine Founder, Mystical Spouse and Invisible Head, Christ the King, to be responsible for any of this. (The appendices below explain the invalidity of the conciliar rites of episcopal consecration and priestly ordination. For another examination of the invalidity of the latter, please see Father Kevin Vaillancourt's "Father" or Not?)
Who ways so?
Well, let's take a little look:
These firings, therefore, with all diligence and care having been formulated by us, we
define that it be permitted to no one to bring forward, or to write, or
to compose, or to think, or to teach a different faith. Whosoever shall
presume to compose a different faith, or to propose, or teach, or hand
to those wishing to be converted to the knowledge of the truth, from the
Gentiles or Jews, or from any heresy, any different Creed; or to
introduce a new voice or invention of speech to subvert these things
which now have been determined by us, all these, if they be Bishops or
clerics let them be deposed, the Bishops from the Episcopate, the
clerics from the clergy; but if they be monks or laymen: let them be
anathematized. (Constantinople III).
These and many other serious things, which at
present would take too long to list, but which you know well, cause Our
intense grief. It is not enough for Us to deplore these innumerable
evils unless We strive to uproot them. We take refuge
in your faith and call upon your concern for the salvation of the
Catholic flock. Your singular prudence and diligent spirit give Us
courage and console Us, afflicted as We are with so many trials. We must
raise Our voice and attempt all things lest a wild boar from the woods
should destroy the vineyard or wolves kill the flock. It is Our duty to lead the flock only to the food which is healthful. In
these evil and dangerous times, the shepherds must never neglect their
duty; they must never be so overcome by fear that they abandon the sheep.
Let them never neglect the flock and become sluggish from idleness and
apathy. Therefore, united in spirit, let us promote our common cause, or
more truly the cause of God; let our vigilance be one and our effort
united against the common enemies.
Indeed you will accomplish this perfectly
if, as the duty of your office demands, you attend to yourselves and to
doctrine and meditate on these words: "the universal Church is
affected by any and every novelty" and the admonition of Pope Agatho:
"nothing of the things appointed ought to be diminished; nothing
changed; nothing added; but they must be preserved both as regards
expression and meaning." Therefore may the unity which is built upon the
See of Peter as on a sure foundation stand firm. May it be for all a
wall and a security, a safe port, and a treasury of countless blessings. To check the audacity of those who attempt to infringe upon the rights
of this Holy See or to sever the union of the churches with the See of
Peter, instill in your people a zealous confidence in the papacy and
sincere veneration for it. As St. Cyprian wrote: "He who abandons the
See of Peter on which the Church was founded, falsely believes himself
to be a part of the Church . . . .
But for the other painful causes We
are concerned about, you should recall that certain societies and
assemblages seem to draw up a battle line together with the followers of
every false religion and cult. They feign piety for religion; but they
are driven by a passion for promoting novelties and sedition
everywhere. They preach liberty of every sort; they stir up disturbances
in sacred and civil affairs, and pluck authority to pieces.(Pope Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832.)
As for the rest, We greatly deplore the fact that,
where the ravings of human reason extend, there is somebody who studies
new things and strives to know more than is necessary, against the
advice of the apostle. There you will find someone who is
overconfident in seeking the truth outside the Catholic Church, in which
it can be found without even a light tarnish of error.
Therefore, the Church is called, and is indeed, a pillar and foundation
of truth. You correctly understand, venerable brothers, that We speak
here also of that erroneous philosophical system which was recently
brought in and is clearly to be condemned. This system, which
comes from the contemptible and unrestrained desire for innovation, does
not seek truth where it stands in the received and holy apostolic
inheritance. Rather, other empty doctrines, futile and uncertain
doctrines not approved by the Church, are adopted. Only the most
conceited men wrongly think that these teachings can sustain and support
that truth. (Pope Gregory XVI, Singulari Nos, May 25, 1834.)
In the Catholic Church Christianity is Incarnate.
It identifies Itself with that perfect, spiritual, and, in its own
order, sovereign society, which is the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ and
which has for Its visible head the Roman Pontiff, successor of the
Prince of the Apostles. It is the continuation of the mission of the
Savior, the daughter and the heiress of His Redemption. It has preached
the Gospel, and has defended it at the price of Its blood, and strong in
the Divine assistance and of that immortality which has been promised
it, It makes no terms with error but remains faithful to the
commands which it has received, to carry the doctrine of Jesus Christ
to the uttermost limits of the world and to the end of time, and to
protect it in its inviolable integrity. (Pope Leo XIII, A Review of His Pontificate, March 19, 1902.)
For the teaching authority of the Church, which in the divine wisdom was constituted on earth in
order that revealed doctrines might remain intact for ever, and that
they might be brought with ease and security to the knowledge of men,
and which is daily exercised through the Roman Pontiff and the Bishops
who are in communion with him, has also the office of defining, when it
sees fit, any truth with solemn rites and decrees, whenever this is
necessary either to oppose the errors or the attacks of heretics, or
more clearly and in greater detail to stamp the minds of the faithful
with the articles of sacred doctrine which have been explained. (Pope
Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928.)
Let, therefore, the
separated children draw nigh to the Apostolic See, set up in the City
which Peter and Paul, the Princes of the Apostles, consecrated by their
blood; to that See, We repeat, which is 'the root and womb whence the
Church of God springs,' not with the intention and the hope that
'the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth' will
cast aside the integrity of the faith and tolerate their errors, but,
on the contrary, that they themselves submit to its teaching and
government. (Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928.)
We pray that those who are now suffering in the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate will come to recognize and to accept that The Chair is Still Empty.
Although none of us is one whit better than those Catholics who have not
as of yet come to accept the true state of Holy Mother Church in this
time of apostasy and betrayal, we must nevertheless pray to Our Lady for
perseverance in these troubling times as it is easy to be intimidated and to fall prey to the sin of human respect, fearing earthly consequences for an adherence to truth. It is easy to "go back," especially for the sake of "appearances" or for earthly success or for that of "fellowship."
We need to rely constantly upon the graces won for us by the shedding of every single drop of the Most Precious Blood of Our Divine Redeemer, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, that He sends to us through the loving hands of Our Lady, she who is the Mediatrix of All Graces, to remain strong in our refusal to associate with the conciliar revolutionaries or to accord them any other status than apostates whose beliefs, words and practices have expelled them from the very bosom of Holy Mother Church.
This account of the martyrdom of Saints Abdon and Sennen, whose feast we celebrate today, Tuesday, July 30, 2013, should inspire us to persist in our refusal to adore the idols of conciliarism or that of the world around us:
Abdon and Sennen were Persians. In the reign of the
Emperor Decius they were accused of interring, on their own farm, the
bodies of Christians, which had been thrown out unburied. The Emperor
commanded them to be arrested and ordered to sacrifice to the gods. This
they refused to do, and persistently preached that Jesus Christ is God,
whereupon they were put into strict confinement. When Decius afterwards
returned to Rome, he had them led in chains in his triumph. Being thus
dragged into the city and up to the idols, they abhorred and spat upon
them, for which they were cast to bears and lions; the beasts were
afraid to touch them. They were butchered with the sword, and the
corpses, with their feet bound together, were dragged before the image
of the sun. Thence they were stolen away, and the Deacon Quirinus buried
them in his own house. (The Divine Office, July 30.)
Hardly "ecumenical" on the part of Saints Abdon and Sennen. Then again, they were Catholic. Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis and friends are not.
Once again, the words of Saint Athanasius written during the Arian heresy apply just as much today as they did when he wrote them:
May God console you!...What saddens you...is the
fact that others have occupied the churches by violence, while during
this time you are on the outside. It is a fact that they have the
premises -- but you have the Apostolic Faith. They can occupy
our churches, but they are outside the true Faith. You remain outside
the places of worship, but the Faith dwells within you. Let us consider:
What is more important, the place or the Faith? The true Faith,
obviously. Who has lost and who has won in this struggle? The one who
keeps the premises or the one who keeps the Faith?
True, the premises are good when the Apostolic
Faith is preached there -- they are holy if everything takes place there
in a holy way...
You are the ones who are happy. You who remain
within the Church by your faith, who hold firmly to the foundations of
the Faith which has come down to us from Apostolic Tradition. And if an
execrable jealousy has tried to shake it on a number of occasions, it
has not succeeded. They are the ones who have broken away from it in the
present crisis.
No one, ever, will prevail against your faith,
beloved brothers. And we believe that God will give us our churches back
some day.
Thus, the more violently they try to occupy the
places of worship, the more they separate themselves from the Church.
They claim that they represent the Church, but in reality, they are the
ones who are expelling themselves from It and going astray.
Even if Catholics faithful to Tradition are reduced to a handful, they are the ones who are the true Church of Jesus Christ.
(Letter of St. Athanasius to his flock.)
"What is more important, the
place or the Faith? The true Faith, obviously. Who has lost and who has
won in this struggle? The one who keeps the premises or the one who
keeps the Faith?"
These are words to remember. No place, not even
places where the Holy Mass was once offered by true bishops and true
priests, is more important than the Faith. We must seek out that true
Faith today as we make no concessions to conciliarism or to
the nonexistent legitimacy of its false shepherds, recognizing, of
course, that we are not one whit better than anyone else and that we
have much for which to make reparation as the consecrated slaves of Our
Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through the Sorrowful and
Immaculate Heart of Mary, praying as many Rosaries each day as our
states-in-life permit.
Every Rosary we pray, offered up to the Most Sacred
Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, will
help to make reparation for our sins, which are so responsible for the
state of the Church Militant on earth and for that of the
world-at-large, and those of the whole world, including the
conciliarists who blaspheme God regularly by means of lies such as the
"hermeneutic of continuity and discontinuity." The final triumph belongs
to the Immaculate Heart of the very Mother of God who brought forth her
Divine Son on Christmas Day and presented Him in the Temple on the same
day as her own ritual purification that is commemorated this Saturday,
the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
The conciliarists lose in the end. Christ the King
will emerge triumphant once again as the fruit of the triumph of the
Immaculate Heart of His Mother and our Queen, Mary Immaculate. The
Church Militant will rise again from her mystical death and burial.
Keep praying. Keep sacrificing. Keep fulfilling Our Lady's Fatima Message in your own lives.
Isn't it time to pray a Rosary right now?
Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon!
Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!
Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.
Saint Joseph, pray for us.
Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.
Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.
Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.
Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.
Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.
Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.
Saints Abdon and Sennen, pray for us.
See also: A Litany of Saints
Appendix A
Father Louis Campbell on the Invalidity of the Conciliar Rite of Episcopal Consecration
“Let
no one lead you astray with empty words,” warns St. Paul in today’s
Epistle (Eph.5:6). We must keep the faith, the faith of our fathers,
handed on to us from the Apostles by saints and martyrs, the fathers and
doctors of the Church, and holy popes and bishops. Now it is our turn
to teach the faith, handing it on to the younger generation unchanged
and untainted by heresy, lest the Church become the desolate kingdom
spoken of by Our Lord in the Gospel.
Many,
“with empty words,” have tried to destroy the Catholic faith – Arius,
Luther, Calvin and Cranmer, to name a few. Then came the Modernists,
condemned by Pope St. Pius X, whose heresies lived on to be re-hatched
at Vatican II by the liberal theologians, and canonized by the conciliar
popes.
If
one were to set out to destroy the Catholic faith, a good place to
begin would be to tamper with the Sacraments, the Sacrament of Baptism,
for instance. But every well instructed Catholic knows that the
essential rite of Baptism requires the pouring of water upon the head of
the person (or immersing the person in the water) while saying the
words: “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of
the Holy Ghost” (or Holy Spirit).
If
the priest baptizing were to say, “I pour upon you the life-giving
waters of salvation, that you may share the life of the Holy Trinity,”
we would know beyond the shadow of a doubt that the Sacrament was
invalid, and that the person would have to be re-baptized using the form
that is required for validity. We would not have to wait for the
theologians to debate the matter, or for the Holy See to issue a decree
of nullity. Any Catholic in his right mind would know that the attempted
Baptism was invalid. Any attempt by the “liturgical experts” to change
the essentials of the Sacrament would not have been tolerated by the
Catholic faithful.
But
consider some of the other sacraments. Most of us knew little of what
was required, for instance, for the valid consecration of a bishop. In a
ceremony rarely witnessed by most of the faithful, the Sacrament was
administered in Latin amid mysterious and lengthy rites. Change the form
of this Sacrament, and who would notice? Then what better way to
destroy the Catholic Church than to render invalid the Sacrament of Holy
Orders, since true bishops are absolutely necessary if the Church is to
survive?
The
essential matter and form for the valid consecration of a bishop was
determined by Pope Pius XII on November 30, 1947, in the Apostolic
Constitution Sacramentum Ordinis (Acta Apostolicae Sedis 40, 1948, 5-7), a document which appears to have all
the essential characteristics of infallibility. Even if it does not, it
is certainly an authoritative document, which Pope Pius expected to be
taken most seriously. With the laying on of hands, the consecrating bishop was to say the words of the Preface, “of which,” says the pope,
“the following are essential and therefore necessary for validity: ‘Fill
up in Thy priest the perfection of Thy ministry and sanctify him with
the dew of Thy heavenly ointment, this thy servant decked out with the
ornaments of all beauty’” (Comple in sacerdote tuo ministerii tui
summum, et ornamentis totius glorificationis instructum coelestis
unguenti rore sanctifica).
At the end of the document Pope Pius XII states: “We
teach, declare, and determine this, all persons not withstanding, no
matter what special dignity they may have, and consequently we wish and
order such in the Roman Pontifical... No one therefore is allowed to
infringe upon this Constitution given by us, nor should anyone dare to
have the audacity to contradict it...”
Pope
Pius XII’s body had hardly begun “a-mouldering in the grave” when the
agents of change began working in earnest to destroy the Catholic faith.
Paul VI, once the confidant and trusted friend of Pope Pius XII, had
that “audacity to contradict” when he published his own decree in 1968.
In vain did Pope Pius XII “teach, declare, and determine” what was
required for the validity of the Sacrament of Orders. Paul VI would
introduce entirely new words, requiring them for validity, words which were never used for the consecration of a bishop in the Roman Rite: “So
now pour out upon this chosen one that power which is from you, the
governing Spirit whom you gave to your beloved Son, Jesus Christ, the
Spirit given by him to the holy apostles, who founded the Church in
every place to be your temple for the unceasing glory and praise of your
name” (Pontificalis Romani, June 18, 1968).
As
to why Paul VI found it necessary to discard the essential words of the
traditional form of consecration and replace them with entirely
different words, he says “…it was judged appropriate to take from
ancient sources the consecratory prayer that is found in the document
called the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus of Rome, written at the
beginning of the third century.”
Judged
appropriate? By whom? None other than Archbishop Annibale Bugnini and
his associates of the “Consilium,” who invented the Novus Ordo Mass. And
who on earth was Hippolytus of Rome? He was an anti-pope of the third
century who separated from Rome because of doctrinal differences and
established a schismatic church, although he later returned to the
Catholic Church and died a martyr. Who knows but that his “Apostolic
Tradition” was drawn up for his schismatic sect?
And whatever became of Pope Pius XII’s Apostolic Constitution, Sacramentum Ordinis? The name Sacramentum Ordinis was even given to another document by John Paul II, probably as a red herring to throw us off the track.
What
conclusion does one draw? The Catechism of the Council of Trent states:
“In our Sacraments… the form is so definite that any, even a casual
deviation from it renders the Sacrament null.” We would never tolerate a
change in the form of the Sacrament of Baptism. Never! Can we blithely
accept a total deviation in the form of the Sacrament of Holy Orders, a
change which omits the part of the traditional form declared essential
for validity by Pope Pius XII? I think not! Pope Pius XII changed
nothing of the traditional form, but merely designated which part of the
form was essential for validity. Paul VI omitted that essential part of
the form and replaced it with something entirely new. Not even popes
(certainly not would-be popes) can change the form of a Sacrament. Whom
do we trust, Pope Pius XII who carefully guarded the traditional
sacramental form handed down from ages past, or Paul VI? Paul VI, who on
the flimsiest of pretexts changed the essential form of a Sacrament,
thus rendering it invalid. The result is that we are left with a whole
generation of pseudo-bishops attempting to govern the Church without the
grace of office. A miter and a bishop’s ring do not a bishop make. And
the Kingdom is brought to desolation (Lk.11:17).
But
even among traditionalists many refuse to consider the possibility of
invalid sacramental rites. It’s more convenient to think that if the
pope says so it’s got to be OK. But Paul VI told us the Novus Ordo Mass
was OK, and look where that has brought us. The day must come when all
awaken to the fact that the Church has been brought low by an apostasy
more monstrous than we have been willing to admit. Only then will the
true bishops emerge, a true pope will restore the hierarchy, and the
Church will rise more glorious than ever. “And all mankind shall see the
salvation of God” (Lk.3:6). (Father Louis J. Campbell, "A Kingdom Brought to Desolation (Lk.11:17)," Third Sunday of Lent, March 27, 2011, Saint Jude Shrine, Stafford, Texas.)
Appendix B
Maureen Day on the Doubtful Validity of the Conciliar Rite of Priestly Ordination
A Letter to Bishop Bernard Fellay
(Entire Text below found at Rore Sanctifica. Scroll down for the link.)
Maureen Day, formerly a nun,
questions the validity of the New Ordination Rite (NOR) which has been
adopted as part of the 'modernisation' of the Catholic Church under
Vatican II. Priests entering the modernist (conciliar) church after
1968/9 are ordained under the NOR. Day argues in this letter to Bishop
Fellay of the Econe Seminary (Society of Pius X), Switzerland that their
validity as Roman Catholic Priests is doubtful.
My Lord Bishop,
On 13 September 1996 will fall the centenary of
Pope Leo [X]III's Bull: Apostolicae Curae (13 September 1896). The Bull
contains the following pronouncement, intended by Pope Leo to be final
and irrevocable, that the Anglican Ordinal is invalid, on account of a
Defect of Form. Cardinal Johannes Willebrands, in a letter sent by him
on behalf of the Holy See, on 13 July 1985, to ARCIC-II, the letter made
public in March 1986, however, stated that the Holy See hoped to
declare at some future date, that the Defect of Form of the Anglican
Ordinal had by then ceased to exist, and that the Ordinal would be
capable of being validly used, from the date of the declaration of the
Holy See, onwards. During the period leading up to the aforementioned
centenary, debates will doubtless be conducted, as to whether or not it
is possible for the Holy See's hopes ever to be realised. In his letter,
Cardinal Willebrands stated that one of the factors which had
encouraged the Holy See to adopt this hope, was the promulgation, by
Pope Paul VI, of new Rites of Ordination. With regard to the New
1968/1989 Priestly Ordination Rite, you stated in an interview granted
to the Editor of Catholic, the interview published in the April 1994
issue of the newspaper, that you accept the validity of the Latin
version, at any rate, of this Rite. But as you know, some traditional
Catholics, clergy and laity, argue for the – at best – doubtful validity
of all versions, including the Latin version of this Rite, on account
of a Defect of Form. May I give an outline of this argument.
In the first main section
of the outline I shall discuss the manner in which Sacramental Forms
acquire their signification. In the second main section, I shall list
eight of the chief objections to the argument for the doubtful validity
of the Rite and shall give a brief reply to each of the objections, in
turn. In the third and final main section of the outline, I shall
briefly discuss the theological reasons given in the Apostolicae Curae,
with regard to the invalidity of Anglican Orders, which reasoning has
such an important place, in the argument for the doubtful validity of
the New 1968/89 Priestly Ordination Rite. I must ask you to please
pardon me if at times I write as if I thought the person I was
addressing was in ignorance of the subject matter of my letter, but I
have been prompted to write in that manner, only by the difficulty I
myself have, in expressing myself clearly on this complicated subject.
Argument for the Doubtful Validity, on account of a Defect of
Form, of All Versions of the New 1968/1989 Priestly Ordination Rite
A valid Sacramental Rite
is a stable sign of the conferring of the relevant Sacrament. The valid
Sacramental Sign inwardly effects that which it outwardly signifies,
therefore it is essential for validity that the Sign should definitely
signify that which it is meant to inwardly effect. The Matter and Form
of the Rite are only two parts of the Rite, which inwardly effect the
conferring of the Sacrament, that is to say, they are the only two
sacramentally operative, or valid parts of the Rite. Strictly speaking,
it is the use of the Matter (for example, the pouring of the water, in
Baptism), only, which effects the Sacrament, but being as the Matter of a
Rite is usually quite indeterminate in itself, the uttering of the Form
is essential, for the supplying of Signification to the Matter. A
defective Sacramental Form is one which fails to definitely signify the
conferring of the relevant Sacrament. If, then, one is able to assess
whether or not the new 1968/1989 Priestly Ordination Rite in all its
versions (hereafter to be referred to as the NOR) is possessed of a
defect of Form, and is therefore of at best doubtful validity, one must
bear in mind the manner in which the Sacramental Form acquires its
signification.
The Manner in which a Sacramental Form Acquires its Signification
A Sacramental Form is a group of words: and it is a
principle of natural logic, that all groups of words, and all
individual words, derive their signification from the contexts in which
they are used. The proper context of a Sacramental Form, from which
context the Form derives most of its signification, is twofold, and
consists of: primarily, the immediate Liturgical Context of the Form,
i.e. the additional ceremonial of the Rite, and secondarily the
Historical Context of the whole Rite; i.e. the historical circumstances
in which the Rite with its form was drafted and developed. The
individual words of a Form are able to derive some signification from
each other, and therefore, the wording of the Form is governed by the
aforementioned principle. For the sake of neatness of expression, it can
be said that the wording of a Form constitutes a part of the Liturgical
Context of the Form. The principle has become known to theologians
(i.e. to those theologians who have studied its application to
Ordination Forms) as the principle of determinatio ex adjunctis, or
signifcatio ex adjunctis.
It is, then, an inescapable fact of logic, that all
Forms, for all the Seven Sacraments, are governed by the principle of
determinatio ex adjunctis: any and every Form logically derives its
signification – whether this be of sacramental validity, doubtful
sacramental validity, or sacramental invalidity – from its Liturgical
Historical Context, its wording being held to be part of its Liturgical
Context. With regard to five of the Seven Sacraments- namely, Baptism,
Penance, Confirmation, Holy Matrimony and Extreme Unction – the
traditional Church has ruled, for a just reason, that in each case the
sacrament will be valid, even if the Matter and Form, only, are used,
and not the additional ceremonial of the Rite. It is therefore clear
that, in these five cases, the additional ceremonial (or in other words,
the Liturgical Context of the Form, exclusive, in these cases, of the
Form's wording) is definitely not required for the supplying of valid
signification to the Form. But, in these five cases, the traditional
Church's ruling constitutes an authoritative Historical Context, which
supplies a permanent, valid signification to the Form. The principle of
determinatio ex adjunctis therefore does apply to the forms of the five
aforementioned Sacraments, no less than to the Forms of the other two
Sacraments.
A Stable Sign
In order to be valid, a Sacramental Form must be a
stable sign of the conferring of the Sacrament: it must signify exactly
the same thing today, as it signified yesterday, or a thousand years
ago. In order that the Form will be valid, the Liturgical/Historical
Context which supplies it with its signification must also, therefore,
be in a stable condition. In practice, a valid traditional Ordination
Rite retains its character of being a stable sign, by the following
process: although ceremonies are, from time to time, over the centuries,
added to the Rite, ceremonies which have been added to it, are never at
any time suffered to be omitted from it. This fact is mentioned in the
Letter of Vindication of the Bull Apostolicae Curae, addressed to the
Catholic Bishops of England and Wales, to the Anglican Bishops, and
dated 29 December 1897:
"The modern (pre-1968) Roman Pontifical contains
all that was in the earlier Pontificals... and the later books omit
nothing that was in the older. Thus the modern form of ordination
differs neither in word nor in ceremony from that which was used by the
ancient Fathers."
(The deliberate omission
from a valid traditional Ordination Rite, of ceremonial which
traditionally forms a part of that Rite, must needs be of grave
significance, with regard to the supplying of determination to the Form.
One might also note here, with regard to ceremonial which is added to a
valid Rite for any of the Seven Sacraments, that it is possible for
such added ceremonial to be, in reality, an extension of the Matter and
Form, which extension could change the meaning signified by the Matter
and Form.)
Valid Ordination Rites, in the Early Days of the Church
The valid Ordination Rites which were actually in
use, in the early days of the Church, provide an illustration of how the
principle of determinatio ex adjunctis applies to Sacramental Forms.
With regard to these early Rites: the wording of the Form usually
contained virtually no expression of the conferring of the valid
Christian Priesthood (to our modern understanding); and the Rite as a
whole usually contained virtually no additional ceremonial. But the
conformity of the Rite with the traditional liturgical practices of that
time, and, if the Rite was a Catholic one, the acceptance of its
validity by the Catholic Church, will have constituted an Historical
Context which will have imparted the required valid signification to the
Form.
The Abyssinian Ordination Case
I shall conclude this discussion on the manner in
which a Sacramental Form acquires its signification, with a comment on a
particular, relevant case – the nineteenth century Abyssinian
Ordination Case. Some time before 1704, a schismatical Abyssinian Abuna,
or Archbishop, ordained some thousands of candidates to the Priesthood –
during one afternoon's ceremony. The Abuna passed rapidly along the
lines of ordinands, pausing in front of each man, only long enough to
impose his hands upon him and to utter over him the impromptu Form,
"Accipe Spirite Sanctum." (The Abuna had apparently learnt this phrase
from some Catholic missionaries who had been visiting his country.) In
1704, some of these Abyssinian Priests, who had by then converted to
Catholicism, asked the Holy See to rule on whether or not their
ordinations by the Abuna had been valid. In 1873, in England, some
Anglicans heard about this case, and gained the impression that the Holy
See's ruling in 1704 had been, that the Abyssinian's ordinations were
valid. As it happens, all the Forms (for the Episcopate, Priesthood, and
Diaconate) of the Anglican Ordinal commence with the phrase: "Accipe
Spiritum Sanctum." The Anglicans then began claiming that the Holy See
ought to declare the Anglican Ordinal to be valid, on the same, sole
grounds on which it had, these Anglicans believed, declared the
Abyssinian ordinations to be valid, namely, the use of the Form "Accipe
Spiritum Sanctum." Cardinal H. E. Manning, Archbishop of Westminster,
then asked the Holy Office, in a letter dated 24 August 1874, to give a
ruling on the claim made by the Anglicans.
The Holy Office thereupon consulted its archives
and ascertained that the ruling of 1704 had actually been recorded as
"Dilata ad mentem" – i.e. case held over, and not approved by the Pope.
The precise point of doubt, in 1704, had apparently been in the careless
manner in which the Abuna had pronounced the new Form over the
individual ordinand. The Holy Office then asked a Father Jean-Baptiste
Franzelin, S.J. a Holy Office Consultor, to prepare a Votum (a Reply),
in connection with Cardinal Manning's request. Father Franzelin
delivered his prepared Votum to the Holy Office on 25 February 1875, and
the document was favourably received. It included, in effect, this
proposition: The phrase "Accipe Spiritum Sanctum" fails, in itself, to
signify the conferring of any Holy Order; and set within the Anglican
ordinal, the phrase acquires a determination, indeed, but a positively
invalid one. The Holy See was to make full, favourable use of this
proposition, twenty years later, when Apostolicae Curae was being
drafted. But in 1875, the Holy Office contented itself with replying to
Cardinal Manning, as follows. Cardinal C. Patrizi wrote, on behalf of
the Holy Office, to Cardinal Manning, on 30 April 1875, and the letter
contained the following points. Firstly, contrary to what some Anglicans
were then asserting, the Holy Office had never declared, either
explicitly or implicitly, that the Imposition of Hands joined to these
words only, "Accipe Spiritum Sanctum" suffices for the validity of the
Priestly Order. Secondly, with regard to the Abyssinian ordinations, if
the Holy Office had, in 1704, declared these same to be valid (which it
actually had not), this would have been, in principle, because the
Abuna, during the afternoon's ceremony, had performed (at least once)
the entire, valid Coptic (Abyssinian) Priestly Ordination Rite, and this
performance imparted a valid determination to the new form, "Accipe
Spiritum Sancte."
Eight Objections to the Argument for the Doubtful Validity of the NOR, with Replies to the Objections
I now come to the second main section of this
outline, of the argument for the doubtful validity, on account of a
Defect of Form, of the NOR. This section will consist of eight of the
objections which are made to the argument, with a reply to each of the
eight in turn. But to begin with a summary of the argument, itself. The
form of the NOR ("NOR" referring to each and every version including the
Latin version, of the New 1968/1989 Priestly Ordination Rite) is
possessed of at best doubtful valid signification, or determination,
which same it acquires from these sources:
1. The wording of the Form (i.e. the omissions from and alterations to the pre-1968 Form;
2. The additional ceremonial of the NOR, or the
immediate Liturgical Context of the Form of this Rite (i.e. all the
omissions from, and alterations to, the pre-1968 additional ceremonial);
and
3. The historical circumstances in which the NOR
has been drafted, revised, and ratified, with particular reference to
the motives – ecumenical and otherwise highly un-Catholic – of those
responsible for the Rite, or the Historical Context of the NOR. (One
might note, here, with regard to the celebration of this or that Rite of
Mass, within which celebration, ordinations are carried out, that this
celebration would constitute what might be termed a remote Liturgical
Context for the relevant Ordination Form. The celebration of the
particular Rite of Mass, would play its own part, in the imparting of
the determination to the Ordination Form.)
Objection 1. The omission of the
conjunction "ut" from the Form of the Latin version of the NOR, is too
indeterminate to bring about a change in the doctrinal meaning of the
Form.
Reply. Even if it is conceded that
the relevant omission brings about no doctrinal change (and not all
would concede this), the fact remains that any wilful change in the
wording of a Catholic (as opposed to a non-Catholic Christian)
Sacramental Form, introduces an at least practical doubt, as to the
signification attached to the Form. To quote from the Catechism of the
Council of Trent, the Chapter on the Sacraments:
"In... the Sacraments of the New Law... the Form
is so definite, that any, even a casual deviation from it renders the
sacrament null; and it is therefore expressed in the clearest terms, and
such as exclude the possibility of doubt..."
Objection 2. The conjuction "ut"
is not found in the relevant Form, in the original Latin text of the 7th
century Leonine Sacramentary. Michael Davies, in his book The Order of
Melchisedech: A Defence of the Catholic Priesthood published in 1993,
points out (on page 238) that the omission of the "ut" from the Form of
the NOR, constitutes a "restoration" of the Priestly Ordination Form to
the condition it is in the Leonine Sacramentary.
Reply. Concerning Objection 2, the
exact status of the Leonine Sacramentary must be examined. Mgr. L.
Duchesne, in his book Christian Worship, published 1949, states (on
pages 135-144) that the Leonine Sacramentary is a huge private
compilation, put together in a disorderly manner, with a vast amount of
superfluous matter, with mutilations in the compilation. Andrew
Fortescue, in his book The Mass published 1955, describes the Leonine
Sacramentary in the same way as the aforementioned author, and also
comments (on page 118 of his book) that the Leonine Sacramentary "is not
a book drawn from liturgical use." In the Catholic Encyclopaedia, 1910
edition, Volume IX, in the article on Liturgical Books, page 297, it is
stated that only one manuscript copy of the Leonine Sacramentary is
known, and also that this Sacramentary "is not a book compiled for use
at the altar – the hopeless confusion of its parts showing this." But
even if it were to be established that the Leonine Sacramentary was in
official use, in the 7th Century, that which sufficed for valid
signification in the 7th century, would not necessarily thus suffice, at
this our own time, because today, the intervening thirteen centuries of
liturgical development have to be taken into account, with regard to
valid signification. The clear purpose of the modern omission of the
"ut", is that the omission is a wilful introduction of one element of
de-stabilisation, into one of the two most sacred, and most strictly
established (in the canonical sphere) parts of the Priestly Ordination
Rite.
Objection 3. The Catechism of the Council of Trent, in the Chapter on the Sacraments, states:
"To (the Matter and Form)... are added certain
ceremonies... If at any time... (these) be omitted, the Sacrament is not
thereby invalidated, since the ceremonies do not pertain to its
essence."
Reply. In order to establish the
significance of the above text, in relation to the question of whether
or not the NOR is valid, one must first ascertain what exactly the
original drafters and authorisers of the Catechism of the Council of
Trent intended the text to mean. One will therefore have to first view
the text within the context, of that stage of doctrinal understanding
and of liturgical development, which the Church had reached, in the
sixteenth century, when the Catechism was first produced. In this
connection one will need to note, that in practice, in the sixteenth
century, the Church had never omitted additional ceremonial from
Ordination Rites. One will secondly need to bear in mind, that one
should seek for the true answer to any Catholic question, not by
stabbing at this or that text and perhaps taking the same out of
context, but by taking into account the whole of relevant, understood
Catholic truth, and Catholic practice, and by making sure that the
answer one arrives at is not in any degree opposed to these same.
Objection 4. Pope Pius XII's
Apostolic Constitution Sacramentum Ordinis (30 November 1947) teaches,
at least implicitly, concerning the modern pre-1968 Priestly Ordination
Rite, that the additional ceremonial found in this Rite is not required
to supply valid signification to the Form, and that consequently, with
the exception of the first Imposition of Hands and the essential words
of the Form, the omission of everything found in the Rite, although
forbidden, would not result in the invalid administration of the
Sacrament.
Reply. With regard to the modern
pre-1968 Priestly Ordination Rite, Pope Pius XII, in Sacramentum
Ordinis, did not teach, but decreed (i.e. decided), that from November
1947 onwards, at any rate, the Preface Prayer would be the sole Form,
and a particular part, only, of that sole Form would be sacramentally
operative (i.e. valid, essential). Concerning this Pope's intention in
enacting this decree, Fr. John Bligh, S.J., in his book Ordination to
the Priesthood published in 1955 states (on page 55):
"Its [the decree's] purpose was practical: to put
an end to scruples about the validity of Orders received by priests who
felt that some possibly essential (i.e. sacramentally operative) part of
the long and complicated Rite had not been properly performed in their
cases."
Pope Pius XII taught nothing and decreed nothing in
Sacramentum Ordinis, concerning whether or not the additional
ceremonial of the relevant Rite supplies valid signification to the
Form, unless such a lesson is to be seen, in the absolute command,
stated in Sacramentum Ordinis, that nothing in the Rite is to be omitted
or neglected, even in the slightest detail. One might also note here,
with regard to the modern pre-1968 Priestly Ordination Rite, that in
accordance with Pope Pius XII's own decree, a particular section of the
Preface Prayer is, although "non-essential", a part of the sole
Sacramental Form, and that it is therefore logical to assume that this
section of the prayer plays its own part in the supplying of valid
signification to the essential part of the Form.
Objection 5. The Church has not pronounced that the determinatio ex adjunctis principle apples to the Sacramental Forms.
Reply. The truth about a
proposition, which truth the Church has not pronounced on, is to be
sought for in all that is implied, concerning the proposition, in all
traditional doctrine and religious practice.
Objection 6. Concerning the
condition of the NOR, the following facts have to be conceded. The
additional ceremonial of the Rite fails to supply valid signification to
the verbally mutilated Form, and the highly un-Catholic motives of some
of the original drafters of the Rite form a historical setting, which
likewise does nothing to supply valid determination. The NOR as a whole
therefore fails, in itself, to signify the valid conferring of the
Christian Priesthood. Furthermore, the condition of the NOR, thus far,
bears a striking resemblance to the state of the Anglican Ordinal, which
state forms the grounds of Pope Leo XIII's theological argument,
expounded in Apostolicae Curae, for the invalidity of the Ordinal. But
the saving feature of the NOR, with regard to valid signification, is as
follows. The unquestionably orthodox teachings of Vatican II, and of
Pope Paul VI, the promulgator of the NOR, on the Sacred Ministry and the
Eucharist, constitute an over-arching, authoritative Historical Context
for the NOR, which context does supply the Rite with the required valid
signification. The aforementioned defence of the validity of the NOR,
together with the admissions concerning the deficiencies of the Rite,
had been publicly promoted by a Dr. Francis Clark, an English Catholic
theologian, who had been described by Michael Davies (in The Order of
Melchisedech, page xx) as being "certainly one of the greatest of all
living authorities on the Sacrament of Order." Michael Davies, himself,
has also publicly promoted the aforementioned defence of the validity of
the NOR.
Reply. To begin with, it must be
remembered that the immediate Liturgical Context of a Sacramental (i.e.
the additional ceremonial of the Rite) is the primary outside context of
the Form, and had a prior Right, so to speak, over all other outside
contexts, to determine the meaning of the Form. If the wording and the
Liturgical Context of a Form impart to it a particular determination, a
context which is outside the Rite (i.e. an Historical Context) logically
cannot superimpose a conflicting determination on the Rite and Form.
All this is a matter of natural logic. The failure of the NOR, in
itself, to signify the conferring of the valid Christian Priesthood is
not necessarily of a negative, as opposed to a positive, nature, only,
grave enough though a negative such failure, only, would be in
connection with validity. The relevant teachings of Vatican II and Pope
Paul VI, assuming that they are unquestionably orthodox, constitute a
relatively remote Historical Context for the NOR and its Form. The
suggestion would seem to be absurd, concerning the person who holds the
ultimate moral responsibility for the inventing and imposing of the NOR,
that the alleged authority of this very same person, is the sole
guarantee of the validity claimed for the NOR. The Catholic Church does
have the last word, as to whether or not any Sacramental Rite is valid,
but when the Church truly exercises her authority, in having the last
word, she does not, in so doing, go against right reason, traditional
religious practice, and true doctrine. With regard to Dr Francis Clark,
he has, indeed, published some excellent theses on the conditions for
the validity of Ordination Rites, but these works were published by him
in pre-Vatican II days, at which time, he was Father Francis Clark, S.J.
Since then he has, if I am not mistaken, relinquished the practise of
the Priesthood and his membership of the Jesuit Order. It is perhaps
hardly suprising, therefore, that with his personal status, Dr Clark
should find it fitting to demand that this or that one of the New
Sacramental Rites should be accepted as valid.
Objection 7. (a) Michael Davies,
in his book The Order of Melchisedech, states (on pages 232-235) that:
the doctrine of the Indefectibility of the Church requires the Catholic
to believe that the Latin Typical Edition, at least, of the New 1968
Priestly Ordination Rite, as promulgated by Pope Paul VI is, despite its
otherwise admittedly "deplorable" condition, unquestionably valid. (b)
Furthermore, it is pointless to question the validity of the NOR, on the
grounds that this Rite is not in conformity with the pre-1968 Rite,
because the NOR is not intended to be in conformity with the pre-1968
Rite. The NOR is intended to be a brand new Rite, promulgated by the
Church in the exercise of her supreme authority, and therefore beyond
all doubt valid.
Reply. (a) The true Church (the
Church being the union of all the true Faithful, under the Headship of
Jesus Christ) is, indeed, indefectible, in that it is essentially
immutable, in its teaching, its constitution, and its Sacred Liturgy.
But the individual Pope is not indefectible. The individual Pope has a
duty to preserve the Priestly Ordination Rite from any invalidating or
possibly invalidating defect, and he will fulfil that duty, only by
acting in the same way that the Church itself, traditionally acts, in
order to thus preserve the Rite. Pope Paul VI chose not to fulfil that
duty. (b) The Catholic Church does not have novel Sacramental Rites. She
has never had any cause to have such. An absolutely novel Sacramental
Rite would be, in any case, devoid of the stability of signification
which is an essential characteristic of the valid Sacramental Rite. It
is relevant to remember, here, that, as Saint Augustine of Hippo pointed
out, the Catholic Church is the custodian of the Sacraments, but she
does not own them – Almighty God owns them.
Objection 8. The following is an
extract from the section of Apostolicae Curae, which contains the
theological argument for the Defect of Form of the Anglican Ordinal.
"In the Rite for the administration of any
Sacrament a distinction is justly made, between its 'ceremonial' and its
'essential' part, the latter being usually called its 'Matter and
'Form'. Moreover it is well known that the Sacraments... must... signify
the grace which they cause... Now this signification, though it must be
found in the essential Rite as a whole, that is, in both Matter and
Form together, belongs chiefly to the Form."
(Apostolicae Curae, section 24, C.T.S. edition.)
This extract implies that the signification of a Form is necessarily
confined strictly within the wording of the Form.
Reply.
At the time when Apostolicae Curae was being drafted, in Rome, a
minority of theologians who were associated with the drafting, held the
opinion, that the signification of a Form is, indeed, strictly confined
within the wording of the Form. But the majority of those theologians,
including Cardinal Pietro Gasparri and A. Lehmkuhl, held the opposing
opinion, that an Ordination Form is able, in principle, to derive
signification from its Liturgical/Historical Context. (As I have
mentioned, earlier on in this letter, Father J. B. Franzelin, S.J. had
addressed the Holy Office, on the subject of applying the determinatio
ex adjunctis principle to Ordination Forms, in 1875, in connection with
the Abyssinian Ordination Case.) Pope Leo XIII decided that the text of
Apostolicae Curae would contain no explicit pronouncement on which of
the two opposing opinions is true, but that each of the two opposing
opinions would be given a fair chance, so to speak, to demonstrate its
own worth, in practice within the context of Apostolicae Curae. The
extract from the Bull given in the above Objection 8, might therefore be
described as being a polite nod of the head, so to speak, in the
direction of the aforementioned minority opinion. It should be noted,
however, that the relevant extract does not specifically deny the
possibility of implicit signification by a Form (implicit signification,
as possessed by a Form, being signification supplied ex adjunctis).
With regard to the demonstration of its own worth, given, in the text of
Apostolicae Curae, by the aforementioned majority opinion, I shall
comment on this same, in the concluding section of this letter. It might
be noted, here, that during the time that Apostolicae Curae was being
drafted, some Anglicans and even some Catholics, were actually using the
determinatio ex adjunctis principle, to argue for the validity of the
Anglican Ordinal; so there was no sense in which Pope Leo XIII could
have afforded to ignore this principle, in his assessment of whether or
not the Ordinal was valid.
The Theological Argument in Apostolicae Curae for the Invalidity of Anglican Orders
I now come to the third and final main section of
this outline, of the case for the doubtful validity of the NOR. This
section will consist of a discussion of the theological argument
presented by Pope Leo XIII in Apostolicae Curae, for the invalidity of
Anglican Orders, being as the argument is of such great importance to
the aforementioned case. According, then, to the aforementioned
argument, there are two invalidating defects of Anglican Orders: a
defect of Form; and a Defect of Intention. I shall first discuss the
Defect of Form.
The Defect of Form of the Anglican Ordinal
Of the two invalidating defects of Anglican Orders,
a Defect of Form is the most important one. This defect of Form is the
sole invalidating defect of the Anglican Ordinal. All the enquiries made
in Apostolicae Curae, about the condition of the entire Ordinal, and
even about the designs of the compilers of the Ordinal, have reference
to the question of whether or not the Forms are valid. All the
deficiencies discovered in the entire Ordinal, together with the
discovered unacceptableness of the designs of the compilers, according
as these same are referred to, in Apostolicae Curae, argue to the Defect
of Form. The suggestion has been made, that the reason why the entire
Ordinal is, according to Apostolicae Curae, involved in the Defect of
Form, is that Pope Leo searched the entire text of the Ordinal, for a
possible, infinite number of valid Ordination Forms. But this suggestion
has been dismissed by one orthodox theologian, as being absurd. The
reality of the Defect of Form of the Anglican Ordinal may be summarised
under four successive points, as I shall do, below.
1. With regard to the Forms of the Ordinal, both
the "official" Forms, and one or two other prayers, about which it has
been suggested that they could theoretically serve as valid Forms: the
wording of all these Forms fails, in itself, to signify the conferring
of valid Holy Orders. 2. The Ordinal as a whole, it having been
deliberately stripped of everything which, in the traditional Roman
Pontificial, sets forth the conferring of valid Holy Orders, fails, in
its turn, to supply the Forms with the required valid determination.
Furthermore, the clearly manifested intentions of the compilers of the
Ordinal – Thomas Cranmer and his associates – not to produce a valid
Ordinal, have imparted a positively invalid determination to the Ordinal
and its Forms. 3. The invalidity of the Ordinal is permanent, because
of the invalid "native character and spirit" (Apostolicae Curae, section
31, C.T.S. edition) possessed by the Ordinal. This point means that the
Ordinal was, so to speak, born invalid, of its very nature, and
therefore could not have validity superimposed upon it, at any later
date. This point is important in view of the hope expressed by the Holy
See, that the Ordinal might one day be declared by the Holy See to have
become valid. 4. Apostolicae Curae contains several references to the
fact that certain prayers or phrases in the Ordinal, could possibly be
held to suffice as Valid Ordination Forms, if they were set in a fitting
Liturgical Historical Context. For example, it is stated that the
prayer in the Ordinal, commencing 'Almighty God giver of all good
things' could conceivably suffice as a valid Ordination Form, if it were
set in a Catholic Rite which the Church had approved. (Apostolicae
Curae, section 32 C.T.S. edition.) Again, it is stated that the phrase
in the Ordinal, 'for the office and works of the Bishop', "must be
judged otherwise than in a Catholic Rite" (Apostolicae Curae, section
28, C.T.S. edition). Yet again, it is stated that some words in the
Ordinal "cannot bear the same sense as they have in a Catholic Rite,"
and that
"once a new Rite had been introduced, denying or
corrupting the Sacrament of Order and repudiating any notion whatsoever
of consecration and sacrifice, then the formula 'Receive the Holy
Ghost'... is deprived of its force; nor have the words, 'for the office
and work of a priest', or 'bishop', etc., any longer their validity,
being now mere names voided of the reality which Christ instituted."
(Apostolicae Curae, section 31, C.T.S. edition.)
This point is of the utmost importance to the case for the doubtful
validity of the NOR. (It is of interest to note, from the aforementioned
quotations taken from Apostolicae Curae, that the inclusion of the word
'priest' in a Priestly Ordination Form by no means necessarily renders
the Form valid, because there are many different types of priest in the
world.)
With regard to the argument in Apostolicae Curae
for the invalidity of the Anglican ordinal, an English theologian has
commented, that although Anglicans have attempted for the last hundred
years, to refute the argument, this same has remained theologically
unassailable. This argument has remained theologically unassailable
because it is founded upon and makes full use of the logical fact, that
the principle of determinatio ex adjunctis applies to Sacramental Form.
If the Catholic Church were to deny this logical fact, it would thereby
render itself unable to demonstrate the invalidity of the Anglican
Ordination Forms. Being as a non-Catholic Ordination Form need not, for
validity, have the same wording as the corresponding Catholic Ordination
Form, the denial of the aforementioned logical fact, would render the
task of demonstrating either the validity or the invalidity of the
non-Catholic Ordination Form, utterly impossible.
The Defect of Intention of Anglican Orders
I now come to the second of the two invalidating
defects of Anglican Orders, as pronounced upon by Pope Leo XIII in
Apostolicae Curae: a Defect of Intention. This defect concerns the
originators of the invalid Anglican Episcopal line, and in particular,
the consecrators, in 1559, of Matthew Parker, the first-ever Anglican
pseudo-Archbishop of Canterbury, and founder of the Anglican Succession.
Pope Leo judged that these originators had had incorrect Ministerial
Intentions, in starting off the Anglican episcopal line, because they
had used the invalid Anglican Ordinal with which to start it off. Of the
two invalidating defects of Anglican Orders – Defect of Form and Defect
of Intention – the latter defect is therefore less important than the
former one, because the latter depends for its existence upon the
former.
Some people hold the view, that the Defect of
Intention of Anglican Orders consists of the intention of Thomas Cranmer
and his associates to produce an invalid ordinal, objectively expressed
in the Anglican Ordinal, and which intention, thus expressed, may be
termed the invalid 'objective intention of the Rite' ('Rite' here
referring to the Ordinal). According to this view, the outward
expression of the Ordinal, of the invalid 'objective intention of the
Rite' is found in the additional ceremonial. According to this view,
there are therefore two separate invalidating defects within the
Anglican Ordinal – a Defect of Form; and a defective or invalid
'objective intention to the Rite', which is expressed in the additional
ceremonial. This view assists those who hold it, to avoid having to
admit – since they would not wish to make this admission – that there is
a connection, with regard to the validity, between the Forms and the
additional ceremonial of the Ordinal. To reply to this view. According
to the Catholic Church, only two parts of the Sacramental Rite are
capable of being sacramentally operative, or valid: the Matter and the
Form. No other part of the Rite is therefore able to have any
invalidating defect. With regard to all Sacramental Rites, the
'objective intention of the Rite' essentially is the Matter and Form;
and the outward expression of this intention constitutes signification,
which signification, regardless of where in the Rite it is located,
argues to the validity or invalidity of the (Matter and) Form. With
regard to that section of Apostolicae Curae which deals with the Defect
of Intention of Anglican Orders (section 33, C.T.S. edition), the
terminology used, is that which is traditionally used by the Catholic
Church with reference to Ministerial Intention, and there is no actual
doubt that it is Ministerial Intention which is being referred to, in
this section of the Bull.
Some people might think, that the originators of
the invalid Anglican episcopal line, were the same persons as the
producers of the invalid Anglican Ordinal. These people might go on to
think, that Apostolicae Curae is stating, that the additional ceremonial
of the Ordinal, with all its indications of invalidity, is accounted
for as being the result of, and an outward expression of, the incorrect
Ministerial Intentions of the aforementioned originators, and that there
is therefore no need to accept that there is any connection between the
additional ceremonial and the Forms, in respect of validity. This view
would be entirely false. Even if the originators of the Anglican
episcopal line had produced the Anglican Ordinal, and even if they had
invented it, while they were in the very act of originating the Anglican
episcopal line, it would still be necessary, in principle, to
distinguish between the intention to produce an invalid ordinal, which
is outwardly expressed in the Anglican Ordinal, itself (and particularly
in the additional ceremonial) and which argues to the Defect of Form,
and the Ministerial Intentions to invalidly consecrate Bishops and thus
originate the invalid Anglican episcopal line, which Intentions are
indicated in the use, made by the originators, of the invalid Anglican
Ordinal.
The terminology used in Apostolicae Curae to
describe the two invalidating defects of Anglican Orders, is not
extremely easy to follow, and this and one or two other factors cause
some Catholics to mix up the two defects and so misunderstand both.
Among the published works which provide corroboration, of the
explanation of the two defects which I have given above, are the
following: The Anglican Ministry, by A. W. Hutton, Preface by Cardinal
Newman, published 1879; The Reformation, the Mass and the Priesthood,
Volume 2, by Fr. E. C. Messenger, Ph.D. (Louvain), published 1936;
Anglican Orders, by Fr. A. A. Stephenson, S.J., published by Fr. F.
Clark, S.J., Rome, 1958; and The New Ordination Rite: Purging the
Priesthood in the Conciliar Church, by Fr. W. Jenkins, published 1981.
Conclusion
I have now reached the end of my outline of the
argument for the, at best, doubtful validity on account of a Defect of
Form, of the NOR. I therefore now come to the conclusion of this letter.
May I begin my conclusion to referring, again, to the interview you
gave, which was published in the April 1994 issue of Catholic. You
stated in the interview that there are numerous cases in which all the
Seven Sacraments are certainly invalid, when conferred with the new
Rites; and your words implied, if I have understood them correctly, that
in every one of these cases the invalidity is caused solely by an
incorrect Ministerial Intention, this same being indicated, in every
case, by the use of by the minister of what you termed "fantasy", during
the ceremony. When asked by the interviewer specifically what one
should look for, in modern ordination cases, in respect of validity or
invalidity, you stated: "The intention (i.e. the Ministerial Intention)
is objectively expressed in the way the ceremony is performed; so where
there is fantasy, you may seriously question the validity (i.e. of the
Sacrament as opposed to the Rite)." To comment on these statements. With
regard to the conferring of any of the Seven Sacraments, one must
establish what is the correct relationship between the Ministerial
Intention, and the Rite, itself. The use, by the minister, of a certain
prayer or ceremony, on a particular occasion, gives some indication of
what the Ministerial Intention probably is, but the prayer or ceremony,
in itself, logically forms a part of the Rite, and therefore helps to
determine the meaning of the Form, and argues to the sacramental
effectiveness or defectiveness of the Form. In accordance with the
logical principle of determinatio ex adjunctis, a Fantasy Ordination
Rite would be, in itself, a doubtfully valid Rite, even if the wording
of the Form were faultless. The factor of Ministerial Intention in
particular cases is of relatively minor importance, and should not be
allowed to obscure the major question of whether or not the NOR and
other New Sacramental Rites are definitely valid. The latter question is
no less grave and no less public an issue, as are the issues of
Religious Liberty, multi-faithism, and the inversion of the true primary
and secondary ends of marriage.
May I now refer, again, to the Letter of Cardinal
Willebrands, expressing the hope now held by the Holy See, that is – the
Holy see – might one day be able to declare that the Anglican Ordinal
had become valid. According to the Willebrands Letter, the factor which
would possibly bring about this validation, would be a formal statement
by the Anglican Communion, to the effect that it held the same beliefs,
concerning the Eucharist and the ordained ministry, as are held by the
Catholic Church. What is here implied, is that a formal statement of the
aforementioned nature by the Anglican Communion, might be said to
constitute an over-arching, over-riding Historical Context for the
Anglican Ordinal, which context would supply the required valid
signification to its Forms. As an echo of a statement in the Willebrands
letter (which statement I have referred to in the opening paragraph of
this my letter), in a letter published in the 17 June 1995 issue of The
Tablet, a professor R. W. Franklin, Chairman of the Anglican Orders
Conference, at the General Theological Seminary, New York, U.S.A.,
asserted: "The Roman reform of the Ritual of Ordination... has narrowed
the gap between the Anglican Ordinal and the Roman Pontificial." Indeed,
the New Catholic Ordination Rites have, in a certain false sense,
narrowed the unbridgeable gulf between the absolutely and permanently
invalid, and the valid, only because so many thousands of Catholics
blindly go along with the idea, that with regard to Sacramental Rites
(as also with doctrinal definitions), words can be said to bear any
meaning that one wishes to place on them. If the Holy See were to
declare that the Anglican Ordinal had become capable of being validly
used, you would protest against the declaration, but you would, to date,
have no logical argument to offer, in support of your own protest. If
the Latin Version of the New 1968/1989 Priestly Ordination Rite is
definitely valid, as you now say that it is, stability of signification
is not a requirement for the validity of a Sacramental Rite, and the
Catholic Church is able, in principle, to declare that not only the
Anglican Ordinal, but any Rite, is valid. If the NOR is definitely
valid, anything is, in principle, definitely valid, provided that a
sufficient number of people can be bullied or lured into accepting that
it is definitely valid, and therefore, in reality, nothing is definitely
valid.
A traditional short formula of the conditions for a
valid Sacramental Rite, is: Matter, Form and Intention. I suggest that
the present situation calls for the extending of this formula to:
Matter, Form and Liturgical/Historical Context, and Ministerial
Intention (as distinct from the 'objective intention of the Rite'). I am
asking you to study and think about the argument for the doubtful
validity of the NOR. I am asking you to study this argument, not only to
the extent that it concerns the working of the various versions of the
Form, but also to the extent that it concerns the applying of the
determinatio ex adjunctis principle to the Sacramental Forms. May I
suggest that you could make a public announcement, to the effect that
all educated Catholics ought to seriously consider whether or not the
NOR and the other New Sacramental Rites are definitely valid.
I hope you will pardon the lengthiness of this
letter. However, I could have made it much longer, by examining the
ceremonies of the NOR, in detail, and giving more illustrations and
references, in support of my argument, all of which would have
strengthened my case. I apologise for the dogmatic tone in which I have
addressed you, but the subject matter of this letter and its seriousness
have made it difficult for me to do otherwise. I am trusting that your
goodness will cause you not to take offence at this letter.
I have the honour to be,
Your lordship's devoted and obedient servant,
Maureen Day
December 1995
