Update...SSPX

Since I'm in the fields and don't have a lot of time to post these days, I will only give a quick update, but I will address this as soon as everything is final...

 Rorate Caeli: Update on SSPX


Please refer back to my earlier post from December...I think that it bears some re-reading.  Not everything is 100% spot on, but it isn't so far off the mark.  Logic does have a place in the Church and it does work with faith.

I will post again soon on this topic.  Thank you for being patient with my spring schedule.  Working in agriculture does have advantages and a few drawbacks.

Guest Post: Tim Ferguson, JCL

From my friend, Tim Ferguson, a canon lawyer from the Archdiocese of Detroit.  What a wonderful perspective!!!!

Without further adieu, Tim:

I will not win friends with this post (not that that’s ever stopped me before).

I was reading an article earlier today which highlighted a call by Bishop Geoffrey Robinson, titular of Rusuca, for an “open dialogue on everything having to do with human sexuality” in the Church. +Rusucensis makes a plea that the Church needs to revisit the traditional teaching on every aspect of human sexuality in order to “move forward.” He questions the natural law argument and the supposition that genital expressions of sexuality are only licit within the bonds of heterosexual marriage. He – and his supporters – claim the moral high ground as they call for “openness” and “dialogue,” and castigate the mean old men of the Vatican who resist “dialogue” as reactionary and close-minded

I call “merde de taureau” (pardon my French)!

Dialogue is only truly possible when both parties are willing to admit that the other might be right. I will not enter into dialogue about objective, demonstrable reality. My couch is black. If someone wants to dialogue with me about what color my couch is, it will be fruitless for me to enter into such dialogue. At the end of the day, my couch will remain black.

Similarly, I will not enter into dialogue about subjective opinions – e.g. : whether I should like shoes. I do not like them, I am perfectly comfortable not liking them, and I sincerely doubt that anyone could say anything to me that would make me like them. I would consider entering into a dialogue about the relative value of shoes. You may have something to say. We may end up disagreeing, but we may be enriched by our mutual exchange of ideas. I am open to the possibility that shoes (despite my dislike of them) have some value. Your opinions may influence mine and mine, yours.

Thirdly, if someone were to suggest “dialogue” about something of which I am convinced but he is not, it might make for an interesting conversation, but it would hardly be considered dialogue. If someone wanted to argue that my car’s tires are square, he would be wrong. I could not admit his position to be equal to mine. Therefore, no dialogue is possible.

Robinson and his ilk, despite their claims, do not want to enter into “dialogue.” Their writings and their speeches make it clear that they in no way are open to the possibility that they might be wrong. They do not want to dialogue, they want to push their beliefs and want an open forum in which to do so. They are not being intellectually honest.

The “mean old men of the Vatican” are the ones who are being intellectually honest here: they do not want to enter into dialogue on a topic they consider to be self-evident, objective, demonstrable reality. They cannot and are not willing to admit that the antithesis of the Church’s teaching on human sexuality, which excludes the liceity of all genital sexual activity outside the bonds of marriage (and which defines marriage as a covenant by which a man and a woman, by an act of consent, establish a partnership of the whole of life) could possibly be true. It is not a subject open for dialogue.

But, but, but – the naysayers say – at least Robinson et al. are calling for dialogue! See how open and tolerant they are! The Senes Vaticani are close-minded, they won’t tolerate dialogue.

No, my friend, that’s not the reality. Neither party is willing to tolerate dialogue. Robinson is already convinced that the “Vatican party line” is wrong. He does not want dialogue, because he is not willing to admit that there is any equality between the positions. Dialogue, for Robinson, on this issue means talking and talking (preferably louder than the opponent) until the other side is willing to admit that it is wrong. That’s not dialogue. That demagogy.

That’s why those upholding the traditional Christian teaching are more intellectually honest. It’s not merely that they do not wish to dialogue on the topic of human sexuality, it’s that they recognize entering into a dialogue with Robinson, et al. is not dialogue. The Church is not going to change Her teaching. The matter is settled. You’re free to disagree, and to go elsewhere. You’re not free to pretend that an opposing viewpoint is legitimately Catholic and worthy of an equal status in a Catholic context. To admit that would be intellectual dishonesty.

An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine

An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine

I have been in a discussion with a friend of mine, recently.  He's an atheist and he relies on the scientific method and the empirical world for almost all of his proofs.  Recently in our discussion, he put forth this idea:

You could literally call energy whatever you want, it will have the same quantitative measurable value. Just like we label ourselves Homo sapien, when it's just arbitrarily what we've named it. The only way to tell the difference is in some quantifiable way, like DNA. We found that many of our labels were wrong after we began sorting through the cache of life's genetic history, and we found that many times our perceptions even in science were quantifiably wrong. But that's the beauty of science, because it is progressive and self correcting the more that is learned, not dogmatic even in the face of evidence.

What my friend doesn't understand is that this is a way to show the development of Christian doctrine.  He is just using terms which are different.  If you were to exchange the science for theology, it still works.  The problem with his view is that he refuses to see that God can enter into the equation, because there is no empirical proof for God, even though there is recorded history of God speaking directly to man on more than one occasion.

I would also challenge him on this.  There is no way to empirically prove George Washington, but will he accept him as the first President of the United States?  If so, why?  If not, why not?  There is no scientific way to prove Washington lived...just like there is no way to prove that God lives.  Except that God does live and so did Washington.

Agriculture...

Hello All,

Things are going to be a little spotty for the next month or so.  I work in the Ag industry and spring is a very busy time for us, with spraying, planting and early season maintenance.  I would like to ask a couple of things from you and then I have a message  to pass along.

1.  Please pray for the safety of the farmers, their employees and those who work in support of them, especially those who, like me, are in the fields every day making sure that the ground is fit for planting.

2.  Please pray the Rogation prayers from the Old Calendar.  I know that many of you don't follow the old liturgical calendar, but please seek out those prayers and please pray the Rogation prayers.  Rogation days were meant for asking God's mercy with regard to the crops of the land.

The first Rogation, the Greater Litanies, has been compared to the ancient Roman religious festival of the Robigalia a ritual involving prayer and sacrifice for crops held on April 25.  The second set of Rogation days, the Lesser Litanies or Rogations, introduced about AD 470 by Bishop Mamertus of Vienne and eventually adopted elsewhere, are the three days (Rogation Monday, Rogation Tuesday and Rogation Wednesday) immediately before Ascension Thursday in the Christian liturgical calendar. The term, most frequently encountered in Roman Catholic and Anglican circles, is rarely used today.  The word "Rogation" comes from the Latin verb rogare, meaning "to ask," and was applied to this time of the liturgical year because the Gospel reading for the previous Sunday included the passage "Ask and ye shall receive" (Gospel of John 16:24).

 The faithful typically observed the Rogation days by fasting in preparation to celebrate the Ascension, and farmers often had their crops blessed by a priest at this time, which always occurs during the spring in the Northern Hemisphere. Violet vestments are worn at the rogation litany and its associated Mass, regardless of what colour was worn at the ordinary liturgies of the day. A common feature of Rogation days in former times was the ceremony of "beating the bounds", in which a procession of parishioners, led by the minister, churchwarden, and choirboys, would proceed around the boundary of their parish and pray for its protection in the forthcoming year. This was also known as 'Gang-day'.

I do know that it's a little early, but everything is early this year.  Thanks.

A Conversation with a Priest Friend of Mine...

I was parusing the blogs and came across this quote from an anonymous seminarian, "Once priests learn the older form, they never say the Ordinary Form the same way again."

I posted the following response to that quote with this in the combox.  It is part of a conversation I had with a priest friend of mine recently it goes:

I know several priests who now that they have learned to celebrate the Mass in the older form loathe the "looseness" of the newer form.

As one of those priests said to me recently, "I tolerate the Ordinary Form, the same way a brother tolerates his little brother hanging out in his room on a Saturday night, while he's trying to play records with his girlfriend.  It's necessary to be nice, but my patience is waning."

He went on to say, "If wouldn't be crucified by my Ordinary and my peers, I would just abandon the Ordinary Form altogether.  The faithful will adapt.  I am weak of constitution on this matter, and I like wearing a collar."

He's a very good friend of mine, and I serve his TLM whenever I can.  I don't think that the good Father's words are lost on this crowd.

God's honest truth.  I think that the time is short for the OF as the normative rite, especially if a Midwestern priest is having this kind of conversation....Bring us the TLM, we love it.

Don Bux and the SSPX

 Over at NLM, there was a letter translated from Fr. Nicola Bux.  It regards the relations between the SSPX and Rome.  I will post the letter then I will comment.

To His Excellency, Bishop Bernard Fellay, and to the Priests of the Society of Saint Pius X

Your Excellency,
Most dear Brothers,

Christian brotherhood is stronger than flesh and blood because it offers us, thanks to the divine Eucharist, a foretaste of heaven.

Christ invited us to experience communion, this is what our "I" is made of. Communion means loving one's neighbor a priori, because we have the one Savior in common with him. Based on this fact, communion is ready for every sacrifice in the name of unity; and this unity must be visible, as the last petition addressed by Our Lord to his Father teaches us - "ut unum sint, ut credat mundus" -, because this is the decisive testimony of Christ's friends.

It is undeniable that numerous facts of Vatican II and of the period that followed it, related to the human dimension of this event, have represented true calamities and have caused intense pain to many great Churchmen. But God does not allow His Holy Church to reach self-destruction.

We cannot consider the severity of the human factor without having confidence in the divine factor, that is to say, in Providence, who guides history and, in particular, the history of the Church, while respecting human freedom.

The Church is at once a divine institution, divinely protected, and a product of men. Her divine aspect does not deny her human one - personality and freedom - and does not necessarily hinder it; her human aspect, while remaining whole and even compromising, never denies her divine one.

For reasons of Faith, but also due to the confirmations, albeit slow ones, that we are able observe at the historical level, we believe that God has prepared and continues to prepare, throughout these years, men who are worthy of rectifying the errors and the ommissions we all deplore. Holy works already exist, and will appear in still greater numbers, that are isolated ones from the others but that a divine strategy links at a distance and whose actions add up to a well-ordered design, as it miraculously happened at the time of the painful Lutheran rebellion.

These divine interventions seem to grow in proportion to the complexity of the facts. The future will make it clear, as we are convinced, and it seems dawn is almost at hand.

During some moments, the uncertain dawn struggles with darkness, which fades slowly, but when it appears we know that the sun is there, and that it will invariably pursue its course in the heavens.

With Saint Catherine of Siena, we wish to say: "Come to Rome in complete safety," next to the house of the common Father who was given to us as the visible and perpetual principle and foundation of Catholic unity.

Come take part in this blessed future in which we can already foresee dawn, despite the persistant darkness. Your refusal would increase darkness, not light. And yet the sparks of light we can already admire are numerous, beginning with those of the great liturgical restoration effected by the motu proprio "Summorum Pontificum". It stirs up, throughout the whole world, a large movement of adherence from all those who wish to increase the worship of God, particularly the young.

How to ignore the other concrete gestures, full of meaning, of the Holy Father, such as the lifting of the excommunications of the bishops ordained by Abp. Lefebvre, the opening of a public debate on the interpretation of Vatican II in light of Tradition, and, for this purpose, the renewal of the Ecclesia Dei Commission?

Perplexities certainly remain, points to be deepened or detailed, as those regarding ecumenism and interreligious dialogue (which has been, for that matter, already the object of an important clarification given by the declaration Dominus Iesus, of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, of August 6, 2000), or regarding the way in which religious liberty is to be understood.

Also on these matters, your canonically assured presence within the Church will help bring more light.

How not to think of the contribution you could give to the welfare of the whole Church, thanks to your pastoral and doctrinal resources, your capabilities and your sensibility?

This is the appropriate moment, the favorable time to come. Timete Dominum transeuntem: let not the occasion of grace the Lord offers you pass by, let it not pass by your side without recognizing it.

Will the Lord grant another one? Will not we all one day appear before His Court and answer not only for the evil we have done, but above all for the good we might have accomplished but did not?

The Holy Father's heart trembles: he awaits you anxiously because he loves you, because the Church needs you for a common profession of faith before a world that is each day more secularized and that seems to turn its back to its Creator and Savior hopelessly.

In the full ecclesial communion with the great family that is the Catholic Church, your voice will no longer be stifled, your contribution will be neither ignorable nor ignored, but will be able to bring forth, with that of so many others, abundant fruits which would otherwise go to waste.

The Immaculate teaches us that too many graces are lost because they are not asked for; we are convinced that, by answering the offer of the Holy Father favorably, the Society of Saint Pius X will become an instrument to enkindle new rays from the fingers of our Heavenly Mother.

On this day dedicated to him, may Saint Joseph, spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Patron of the Universal Church, inspire and sustain your resolutions: "Come to Rome in all safety".

Rome, March 19, 2012.
Feast of Saint Joseph

d. Nicola Bux

 My commentary:

"In the full ecclesial communion with the great family that is the Catholic Church, your voice will no longer be stifled, your contribution will be neither ignorable nor ignored, but will be able to bring forth, with that of so many others, abundant fruits which would otherwise go to waste."

I cannot in good conscience ask for the SSPX to abandon their concerns.  I cannot in good conscience ask the SSPX to deviate from their positioning.  I cannot in good conscience ask the SSPX to be anything other than what they are, but what they are is Catholic.  They are not a Protestant sect.  They are not an Orthodox Church.  They are not a pagan cult.  The SSPX is Catholic. 

Insofar as the SSPX is Catholic, I do think that a couple of things can be made manifest fairly quickly and I think that it speaks directly to Fr. Bux.  The SSPX should not have to abandon their concern for Holy Mother Church.  The SSPX should not have to compromise their positioning at all.  The SSPX should not have to undergo the persecution they are currently enduring.  The SSPX teaches nothing which is doctrinally contrary to the Catholic faith.  The SSPX teaches nothing dogmatically which is contrary to the Catholic faith.  The SSPX is concerned with certain disciplinary issues which have presented themselves over the last 40 years or so.  There is nothing wrong in that.  As Fr. Bux says, their voice need not be stifled.  Their contribution not ignored or ignorable.  And as Fr. Bux says, they will be able to bring forth abundant fruits.

The SSPX, whether we like it or not, has been the flashpoint for the legitimate traditional movement in the Church since the 1970s.  Their actions, deemed to be disruptive by bishops and popes has done nothing but bear fruit for the Church at large.  It is directly because of the SSPX that the restrictions at EVERY SINGLE level were relaxed; in 1984, in 1988, in 2007 and in 2011.  The SSPX is behind it all.  Yet, the Holy See won't recognize the SSPX as being "in full communion."

Granted, the Holy See has done much in concession, they lifted the excommunications, they have said that in times of need one may assist at an SSPX Mass, that there is no schism, but a schismatic act, only.  But the Holy See pulls up short, in full reconciliation, why?  I think that it is for two reasons;

1.  I think that the liberal faction of bishops will revolt.  While my gut tells me to go ahead and let them, my reasonable mind says otherwise.  That is not a good thing and it has to be taken slowly.  Because the liberal faction has wielded so much power since the waning days of Pius XII, it is hard to unseat it, but Benedict is trying.  As they age out, the air of legitimacy is growing stronger and stronger.

2.  I think that the Holy See doesn't want to have egg on their face.  If the Holy See simply reconciles with the SSPX, then it will shine a "not so good light" on Blessed John Paul II.  And right now, that just can't happen.  There are too many people who want to see him canonized.  This would be a stumbling block and that just can't happen.  So, even though the SSPX is the flashpoint for change, in a traditional way, they can't be reconciled, unless it is through their complete submission, leveling credence to the actions of Bl. John Paul II.  We know that these issues really don't weigh in at all, because the issue isn't doctrinal, but disciplinary, but in the eyes of the faithful at large, it will create a dubium and that is too much to bear.

The four bishops can't be undone.  They are bishops.  They are valid bishops.  Do I agree with every position they espouse?  No.  But then again, I didn't agree with Weakland or with Mahoney much either.  By and large though, the SSPX could be reconciled today and there would be no major changes to the Church.  The Novus Ordo would continue.  The TLM would continue.  The SSPX would not have to change anything, save a little prudence when it comes to certain forms of critique on Vatican Council II, but there are many mainstream priests today who are preaching the same things the SSPX preach.  Like I said, there is nothing dogmatically and doctrinally stopping them from full reconciliation.  It is merely disciplinary.  If it is merely disciplinary, then reconcile.  No stipulations, no conditions.  The SSPX desperately wants to be considered as part of the mainstream Church again and in my humble opinion, they should be.

I daresay that if the Holy See were to just reconcile with the SSPX and vice versa, then the real discussion can take place.  As it stands now, there is a sense of apprehension which does nothing but stall the talking, because of a mutual trepidation.

The Church needs the SSPX, it always has, since the inception of the Fraternity.  The SSPX has always needed the Church.  It is time to lay down the pridefulness and it is time to just start recognizing the truth of the matter; without the SSPX, the Church would be in a much worse place.  And without the Church, the SSPX would be just another Protestant sect.  Thank God they are not.

Archbishop Schnurr Makes Waves...

Arcbishop Dennis Schnurr of Cincinnati, formerly a priest of the Diocese of Sioux City in Iowa has recently made waves by allowing exorcism prayers to be said in front of a local abortion mill.

You can read about it at Battle of the Core of the World.

It takes a lot of courage for the Archbishop to stand up and do something of this magnitude.  Please pray for him.  Please pray for his archdiocese.  He is cleaning up a monumental mess left by his two most recent predecessors.  This is something that would have been unheard of as little as 5 years ago.

A native son of Iowa is doing good work.