No, it didn't seem like a very heartening post, but you're welcome and I'm glad if you got something out of it
The homework resources used by the average Catholic are the local priest, the Bishop and the Pope. We have been raised to respect lawful authority, both inside the Church and in society. We have been raised to believe that the Vicar of Christ and the Bishops in union with him will not lead us astray and that we should obey them in all things but sin. We have been raised to believe that heresy in the hierarchy is a thing of the past - that what happened in the time of Arius wouldn't happen now because there are procedures in place to prevent it. We have been raised to believe that the Church has the world's best theologians to advise the Pope. Using the Lutheran and Anglican heresies as an example, we have been raised on the belief that questioning the Bishops or Pope leads to disaster - that we can never go wrong by trusting Rome. My sister is among the most devout Catholics I know. Unlike me, her faith has never wavered. Her approach is to ignore Pope Francis. She simply doesn't talk about him and tunes her mind out of any reports about him. Her attitude is that he's old and there'll be another, hopefully better, Pope elected when he dies. She can do that because doctrinal changes have no direct impact on her life and she will likely be dead and gone before the full ramifications of what's happening will be visible in parishes throughout the world. She won't live to see Pastor Susie and her wife con-celebrate Sunday Mass. I suspect that my sister is not untypical of the average Catholic. I agree with you about the death penalty having been taught infallibly throughout the Church's history, and I like your proposal for how it should be addressed. Unfortunately, we appear to be in a minority of two and there are no signs of any Bishops stepping up to the plate to do their duty. You can't blame the sheep for the failure of their shepherds.
If it ever gets that bad, I think a point will come where it will be hopefully extremely clear that the Mass said in such a way is invalid, and we're better off praying the Rosary at home, and studying Scripture and the Saints' writings at home, too. At some point, it has got to become incredibly clear that what we're dealing with is no longer Christian.
I think we are all very blessed in that God is allowing those who will see to see the error very clearly. My whole life these heresies have been "in the closet". I was born after the 1960's so I never knew the Church as it had always existed before. All of this has been building and was being perpetrated in secret just like the child abuse scandals. Behind closed doors in a respect. Since they couldn't get the papacy, the enemy worked on getting control of all of the underlying structures they could. Moving their chess pieces into position as it were. That is why there has been such an astounding turnaround in the Church so quickly. Everything was in place for the "revolution" to begin. During the past two papacies the Modernists were stymied in their attempts to push forward the changes they wishes. They did make advancements, but it was like slogging through mud. Now it is like driving on a paved road. This has been in the works for a long, long time.
I don't doubt it. The Reformation began this. It keeps shoving away at the castle of the Catholic Church, nudging stones out of place here and there. Marian veneration? Purgatory? Indulgences? Papal supremacy? Images of Christ crucified? Medals? Salvation by grace through faith and works? A desperate need to be holy and avoid sin? Why not just scrap all that to open doors and make everyone "one"? C'mon. Protestants join the Church because She is Catholic, not Protestant. I don't say this as a word against Protestants as individual Christians. Holiness is found among them and so is genuine faith, and prayer, and love. I'm not judging them, or upbraiding them or their faith lives. But the theology of the Reformation is pushing back from the inside out in weird ways.
If one watches the video about the Art Bell interview with Father Malachi Martin, that Aviso posted recently on his thread, there is a part where he says that he celebrates the latin rite mass everyday; it's the only mass.
It won't be clear to the majority because they will have been conditioned over the years to accept incremental changes. That's why every development in Doctrine matters, and should be scrutinised for where it can lead and any broader implications it may have as much as for its immediate effect. The Catholic Church will be here until the end of time, not just for this year, this decade or century. The zeitgeist is not the Holy Spirit, no matter how much spin or confusing language is used to make it appear so.
The Catechism and the death penalty: are Catholics right to be worried? by Dan Hitchens Saturday, 4 Aug 2018 The Catechism: being updated (CNS) This wouldn't be the first time a pope has been in tension with Catholic teaching Thursday’s update to the Catechism, in which the death penalty was redescribed as “inadmissible”, has troubled more than a few Catholics. Friends who don’t normally bother with Church politics have brought it up in conversation. The news has dominated social media, helped by headlines like “Pope changes Church teaching”. Those headlines are misleading: the edit does not change any teaching. But it has created confusion and anxiety. To recap, the Catechism previously said that “the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty”, while recommending that it be “very rare, if not practically non-existent”. But this was practical guidance, rather than a firm doctrinal statement. Cardinal Ratzinger, the Vatican’s doctrinal chief when the Catechism was issued, said there was a “legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics” about whether, and how much, modern states should employ capital punishment. Pope Francis’s tweak to the Catechism changes that guidance into something apparently much stronger: the death penalty is now said to be “inadmissible”. This is confusing because “inadmissible” is a vague, non-technical term. It could mean “inadmissible in today’s societies, in the Pope’s view”. On this reading, the Pope wasn’t talking about the theoretical legitimacy of the death penalty; he was just making a statement that today’s political regimes are so universally awful that they can’t be trusted to administer it. But the wording will be widely interpreted is as meaning that the death penalty is always and automatically immoral, like euthanasia or adultery. Most news sources implied that, using some version of “Pope changes Church teaching”. The problem is that Church teaching on this point is remarkably well-established. As Edward Feser reminded us yesterday, the saints and the popes (up to St John Paul II and Benedict XVI) have consistently taught that the death penalty is in principle legitimate. Some popes have seen it as a litmus test for orthodoxy. Over time, once things have been taught with a certain consistency, they become binding on Catholics. We aren’t free to say, “I have zero responsibility to help the poor – they deserve everything they get,” or “Devotion to Our Lady is a waste of time.” Our duties to the poor, and the honour paid to Mary, are part of what Catholics have signed up to. And a close look at the evidence suggests that the theoretical legitimacy of the death penalty probably belongs in that category. Fiddling with doctrine on the death penalty would imply that many other teachings can be changed, the way a party changes its manifesto from one election to the next. Again, it’s not clear that the Pope is fiddling with doctrine. You can defend a narrow reading of the new words: that Francis is just offering a political statement about criminal justice today. But some will find that unconvincing. What if the broader reading – that the death penalty is always and everywhere wrong – seems unavoidable? Two kinds of overreaction are possible here. The gloomy will ask, “Why should I believe the Church about anything, if popes can just contradict each other?” The blasé will say, “I’m sure Pope Francis has called this one correctly – he’s the Pope, after all, so we should just trust him.” Both reactions ignore doctrine and history. It is part of Church teaching that popes can sometimes wander into error. It happens. If in the 1330s you had gloomily asked, “Why should I believe the Church about anything, if Pope John XXII can contradict such well-established doctrine on the beatific vision?” you would have had the surprise, a little while later, of hearing Pope John shamefacedly withdraw his statements. If in the 630s you had cheerfully said, “I’m sure Pope Honorius has called this one correctly on Monothelitism – he’s the Pope, after all, so we should just trust him,” you might have lived to hear, a half-century later, the Third Council of Constantinpole solemnly declare: “To the heretic Honorius, anathema!” So it’s more than possible for a pope to be in tension with Church teaching. Nevertheless, given that the Pope is the successor of St Peter, you can see why Catholics find the situation distressing. Matthew Walther, a columnist for The Week whose writing will also be very familiar to Catholic Herald readers, once praised Pope Francis as “a good and pious shepherd of souls”. On Thursday Walther retracted those words, saying that while he still admired much of Francis’s pontificate, “he has undermined my faith today”. One priest tweeted that “some of us who have the responsibility for the care of souls have been dealing with messages asking us how the Church can be who She claims to be if she isn’t indefectible in moral teaching”. At the risk of sounding glib, people shouldn’t be too alarmed by this. The Catechism is not infallible, even if some of its contents are. As Cardinal Ratzinger noted in his Introduction to the Catechism, “The individual doctrines which the Catechism presents receive no other weight than that which they already possess.” By the same token, a wrong opinion is still a wrong opinion if you can write “(CCC 2267)” after it. There is, nevertheless, a pretty serious problem if our most-circulated doctrinal compendium contains a big mistake, and if Catholics are having to differ from papal announcements. Unfortunately, the Pope’s ambiguities have placed Catholics in such a position on several occasions, particularly on questions of morality and the sacraments. This instance may be worse in degree – because it was so public, and because changing the Catechism is so symbolic – but not in kind. Some people will be able to say, serenely, that God protects His Church from error, and that a highly ambiguous form of words, in a not-very-authoritative context, is no big deal. To those finding it harder to stay calm, maybe it’s worth reflecting on the testimony of Catholics who have contemplated history most deeply. They tend to say that, when things look really bad, a glorious recovery is imminent. As the historian Christopher Dawson put it, “When the Church possesses all the marks of external power and success, then is its hour of danger; and when it seems that no human power can save it, the time of its deliverance is at hand.”
PRECEDENT: ….any act, decision, or case that serves as a guide or justification for subsequent situations. Only one brick out of the wall but don't worry, it's still standing and hasn't been weakened in any way (right?)
Excellent article, thank you Jarg. Ambiguity is not from God. God is clear and concise so that the people will know what He wants. All of this clever wordplay which obscures true meaning is reminiscent of when President Bill Clinton was called before a grand jury to be questioned about his lascivious behavior. He was asked: "Whether or not Mr. Bennett knew of your relationship with Ms. Lewinsky, the statement that there was 'no sex of any kind in any manner, shape or form, with President Clinton,' was an utterly false statement. Is that correct?" Clinton's answer was: "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is," Wordplay is the tool of the Modernist. Obscure, leave gaps, do not be definitive so the true intent of what you want to come across does so without you being able to be nailed down regarding the error. Pope St. Pius X warned us about this kind of Modernist word use. In lawyerly technical terms we can all sit here and theologically say that no the Church teaching has not changed, but the world and the Catholic in the pew thinks that it has. That is the problem. In charity we can put forth the argument that the Pope doesn't actually write all of the wording to these things himself, but in reality he is in charge of all of this and this should be clarified for the good of the world which now thinks it is Catholic teaching that the death penalty is always immoral.
I second that! I heard it directly from a FSSP priest. If the proper words are used at theConsecration , proper matter, proper intention—it is valid.
He also said it could be valid if it was said properly. At the time he was speaking there was some wild innovating going on. Thanks to BXVI that was rectified and many fine young priests of the JPII era got ordained and are saying reverent Masses. I am speaking of here where I live.
I believe that he was much maligned. Not hard to believe, especially after reading that blog post by a priest on why the good priests keep silent. A Reputation Recouped! The 'Fly on the Wall' is Freed at Last! http://www.dailycatholic.org/issue/04Apr/apr14hot.htm "Years after his death, and despite the vicious campaign to malign his reputation, Father Malachi Martin continues to prove prescient in his diagnosis of the problems afflicting the Church." https://www.returntofatima.org/2015/11/malachi-martin-on-the-apostasy-of-the-faith/
Fr. Malachi Martin was much maligned, after all he was not towing the party line in the Church. Whistle-blowers are often attacked by the establishment. It is actually amazing that the attempt was not made to discredit him more. All the Vatican would have had to say was that he never read the Third Secret and that he was making the whole thing up, but as much as they were annoyed by him and the things he was saying they never did. He used to go to Rome fairly regularly and had private audiences with Pope John Paul II. You don't get to do that if you're a crank. I am not saying everything he said was Gospel. He was a flawed person just like anyone else. I think overall though time has proved that he was correct about a great many things going on inside the Church. If anyone has not heard his audio interviews I would highly recommend them. They are eye opening to say the least. In fact much of what he says sounds like he is alive today talking about current circumstances.
Thank you. I agree that he wasn't a crank. But I have very little to do with priests who left the Church.
