Wars and rumors of wars on the TLM and Summorum Pontificum”?

I agree completely. This strident tone and condemnation comes out of fierce anger i am sure--but he needs to cool his jets. I love the TLM but have no access to it. So I attend weekly and daily the NO. Many are in my shoes. Calling the NO a clown show helps nobody! It lends credence to the Pope's concerns.

 

Brian, this is the second time in a week you have resorted to name calling and gaslighting by calling me juvenile.

 

You said they aren’t connected to the barque of Peter. I chimed in that they are. All you have to do is scroll up. I directly quoted your post. There’s no spin in my postings.

 

They are not canonically connected. Sorry if you misunderstood. They have their own governing body and it is not the hierarchy of the Church.

 

I have never called you a name and I am insulted.

 

The rules for the use of Extraordinary Minister are open to all sorts of interpretation. It reminds me of the question how long is a piece of string.

I think that HH's argument is that the SSPX Mass is illicit by default. Use of Extraordinary Ministers is a prudential decision which may or may not be illicit.

 

First--excellent post Mario.
Second--i never saw PF's original post but if she is reading this I can tell you I have had these experiences myself up to and including feeling a deep sadness that brought a flood of tears over the way Our Lord is ignored or dismissed in the NO tabernacles. I was shown very clear at that time that this is all the more reason to go there and love Him for those who don't.

My youngest son is like your younger brother. It is a serpent's tooth through the heart. All I know to do is offer it up for his salvation.

Back to your post Mario--I agree with everything you say. We must be exceedingly careful not to enter in to bitterness. The demonic spirit of divisiveness is everywhere. Even in our families. Charity and humility are what I pray for every day--and yet last night I went full fury at my husband who came at me(again) for my voting for Donald Trump because all of this horror breakdown and pandemic can be laid at his door!
I stormed out, said a DM chaplet and came back and apologized. And so did he. ("A gentle answer turned away wrath"???)
Have a blessed day.

 

What you say is true for the mass. But it is a rather messy situation. The priests do have faculties for some sacraments directly from the pope. If they aren’t canonically connected in some respect how can this be so?

That’s the point I was trying to make.

 

I think we would all be best served by praying as the Superior of the FSSP suggested.

 

Well, when the SSPX was in trouble a couple of years ago for sexual abuse in their churches, they went to their governing body, which is not the Catholic Church. Just saying.

 

They are open to interpretation. How weak is too weak? How old is is old enough for the priest to decide that he is weakened by old age? Questions like these can't be answered by the average layperson attending Mass. Our obligation is to give the priest the benefit of the doubt.

 

Brian, you took that personally. God bless you. And goodbye. I don’t want this kind of conflict in my life anymore.

 

That raises the other piece of string question: How long a delay is long enough to justify using extraordinary ministers, and how many ministers are too many? I was at a Mass once where the priest delayed the Mass waiting for a third or fourth lay minister to step up from the pews. It was one of those Masses where children preparing for First Communion or Confirmation were expected to be there with their parents. The church had more people than are usually present at that Mass but it wasn't full.

Along with abuses like ad-libbing priests or rainbow Masses, my concerns include situations where a person is in a parish/diocese like the one in Northern Italy. The priest there conducted inter communion services with a few other denominations. They rotated the services between their various churches. This apparently had the approval of the Bishop. That priest and Bishop showed clearly that they see no difference between Catholic and Protestant Communion. Anyone who puts the Blessed Eucharist on a par with Protestant bread and wine cannot believe in transubstantiation. By default he cannot intend what the Church intends at the Consecration. So what Consecration takes place at any of his Masses? Wouldn't a person in that parish derive more spiritual benefit from an illicit though valid SSPX Mass?

The way things are headed, these isolated situations could spread rapidly presenting more of us with the dilemma faced by people living in dodgy parishes and dioceses.

This is an interesting discussion. I have to go out now but I do wonder what advice members here would give to a person asking the question I raised earlier in the thread.

 

I think the argument over which Mass is more illicit is leaving out a very important element: obedience. And not obedience to the letter of the law, per se, but obedience from the heart.

Nitpicking which parts of a NO Mass may be illicit doesn't compare to the situation of SSPX Masses being illicit in their entirety. They are in an official status of not being obedient to the pope. Everyone knows this, and it is a scandal to the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. Do many NO Masses have lots of liturgical abuse? Yes. And that is also scandalous. But they are still officially in communion with Rome. This means that when a good and holy new priest comes to that parish, they will begin to change things back to how they should be...and all the while, those who suffered through the mess are still safely secured to their Head. One cannot say the same for the SSPX, who think they have kept what's important but left obedience at the door entirely, severing their parishioners from their Head.

There is such a precious distinction here, and I think much more helpful to the whole conversation would be a sincere examination of our hearts, our readiness to suffer in the spirit of obedience, and our need for humility and charity toward all trying to wade through this mess. I think we all genuinely care about each other's souls and want to keep each other safely secured to the Church and Christ. To be purer in those intentions, we should shed our anger, hurt, pride, etc....but that is understandably hard to do, for all of us.

 

There is excess of obedience and a defect of obedience. In Summa Theologica we are told obedience is not owed when the one commanding it has no legitimate authority or when one commands something outside his authority’s domain. To give obedience when one of the two are not met is not virtue but vice. Saints in the past usually took a vow of obedience since they were religious.

Obedience is not as absolute virtue. We’re not Nazis but Christians. Just putting this out there, because obedience is not an absolute imperative. For example, those monks who bowed to Pachamama because the pope seemed to approve did not act virtuously, though they were obedient.

 

The Pope has legitimate authority over the Church in this matter, as have many popes before him exercised their authority to revise or suppress or call the Church to unity under a certain form of the Mass.

Like it or not, we must be honest with ourselves and admit we'd be pretty gung ho about the importance of obedience to the pope if he were telling an unhappy horde of NO Mass lovers that we are now fully switching back over to the TLM.

Edit to add: We don't know what was in the hearts of the monks who followed Pope Francis' lead in bowing toward Pachamama. There are many far more humble than us, with far purer and more innocent intentions, whom God will not judge harshly for following their pope because he is their father and they love him.