I know, I know, we haven't had a pope since Pius V. Let's all stay at home and pray for a miracle, enjoy the lay-Sacraments of Catholicism-Lite (tm) "Only 1/2 the sacraments!" while we become bitter and lose the faith...

You can have it.

Like I told CM -- You're missing the first part of the quote, "WHEN THE LORD RETURNS, will He find, think ye, faith on earth?"

I don't see any Second Coming. Do you?

How could the Church end a MINIMUM of 50 years before the end of the world (assuming the world ends tomorrow).

But you might claim it's been more than 50 years -- so please tell us: When did the Church cease to exist as a visible institution? Please enlighten us.

Matthew

I don't see any Second Coming. Do you?

I'm not Joseph Saraceno.  He's the only one who knows the day and the hour of the Second Coming, ha ha.

How could the Church end a MINIMUM of 50 years before the end of the world (assuming the world ends tomorrow).

There's a difference between the Church ending, and the Church effectively, temporarily, disappearing.  Think of it this way, Matthew -- all we know from Christ is that the gates of hell will not prevail against the Church.  If the Church SEEMS to die, and then rises up again due to some miracle, have the gates of hell prevailed?  

But you might claim it's been more than 50 years -- so please tell us: When did the Church cease to exist as a visible institution? Please enlighten us.

Around 1952 is my guess for the fall of the papacy.  That is around the time Pius XII put NFP in the Acta, and also gave his approval to Suprema Haec Sacra.  However, there is some validity to CM's thesis.  I wouldn't say Benedict XV is a MANIFEST heretic, nor would I say anyone would be damned simply for following him -- that is over-the-top -- but the future Pope, Council or what-have-you may very well say Pius X  was the last true Pope.  

I have read that when Pius X died, many in the Church thought that was the "end" of the Church as we know it ( temporarily, as the real Church does not change ).  Even Abp. Lefebvre was playing off this feeling.  If he had called SSPX the SBXV, the Society of Benedict XV, would it have had the ring of tradition?

I'd say the vast majority of priests and bishops had spiritually defected prior to 1952, as we can see from the theological swill pouring out of Catholic presses at that time -- no different than the flood of post-VII garbage except more subtle, less goopily pseudo-mystical and more rational-scientific, which characterizes the reign of Pius XII -- but 1952 is when it became clear, at least to me, that the Holy Ghost was no longer protecting the Pope or "Pope" from error.  There are troubling moments before that, like Benedict XV praising the League of Nations, and Pius XI vaguely referencing "eugenics" in a positive way in Casti Connubi, but is this enough to make them retroactively heretics?  Maybe, maybe not.  

I am no expert on what this portends for the "man in the pew" or when he was beholden to reject the usurpers.  Even cuм Ex Apostolatus Officio doesn't say that a heretic who is elected Pope MUST be rejected by all.  He just says those who do reject him can in turn reject all those who accept him, and that no one should say they are "tearers of the tunic" of Our Lord.  He also says that such a false Pope would be responsible for the ruin of "countless souls," but he doesn't say how this ruin would come about.  Is it from people who swallow his false doctrine and heresies, or is it from simply being in communion with a heresiarch?  

Quote from: Clovis

I dont reject plots against the Church. What I do believe is that they could only have suceeded if things were "ripe" for them to suceed and if God gave His permission because so much of the formal members of the Church had already fallen away from Him. If that is an unacceptable opinion here than of course its not my forum so I will shut up.

Guess what? That's what Bishop Williamson always says. He states that the Jєωs only get control when a Catholic nation apostatizes. Apostate citizens become slaves to their passions, undisciplined, dull of mind, and easy to control.

The Jєωιѕн machinations are just a scourge from God on an apostate gentile nation. Ergo, we deserved it.

The solution is: wholesale return to the Catholic Faith -- which is what the SSPX works for every day in a positive, practical manner.

Matthew

Kind of a side point, but whether one agrees with Bishop Williamson or not on the "controversial topics" (9/11, h0Ɩ0cαųst, etc), he should not be silenced simply because it might drive people away. Too many fall into the mindset that bishops and priests should only preach on matters concerning piety and faith, and not about the problems in world. Such a view however, is nothing more than Manichaeism for it acts as though the temporal and the physical do not matter, and that only the spiritual does. The truth is however, is that the temporal and the physical play into the spiritual, just as the spiritual plays into the temporal and physical.

Kind of a side point, but whether one agrees with Bishop Williamson or not on the "controversial topics" (9/11, h0Ɩ0cαųst, etc), he should not be silenced simply because it might drive people away. Too many fall into the mindset that bishops and priests should only preach on matters concerning piety and faith, and not about the problems in world. Such a view however, is nothing more than Manichaeism for it acts as though the temporal and the physical do not matter, and that only the spiritual does. The truth is however, is that the temporal and the physical play into the spiritual, just as the spiritual plays into the temporal and physical.

For once we are in complete accord.  

 :applause: :applause: :applause:

I remember being appalled when I first began listening to sedevacantist sermons and how they never mention politics.  You can hear them online -- listen to the sermons of Bp. Dolan, CMRI, and so on, it's all the same.  They are always about "The Virtue of Patience" or "The Sin of Pride" and so on.  Vague homilies, like in VII.

The American sedevacantists for some reason have a united policy to never speak about politics, and they have convinced people that this is Catholic, to exist in a vacuum and give people little moral lessons.  It could not be farther from Catholic.  I read a lot of French history and priests routinely spoke about politics.  Cardinals and Popes through history have been involved in politics.  Too involved, in many cases, but that's another story.

We are in a world, and certain concrete events happen in this world.  We are in a historical moment in time that portends specific things.  America means something.  The Jєωs mean something.  Israel means something.  What I noticed with the sedes is they gave people no clear picture of the world of being in an emergency state -- rather they tried to create a patriotic American dreamworld.  This is straight-up sinister.  It is, in fact, the essence of Mystery Babylon, this silence about our nation's true nature, its тαℓмυdic underbelly.  That is what makes it "mysterious" that not even the Catholics dare to talk about it, or want to talk about it, preferring to celebrate it.

It is no surprise that, loving lies as they do, God allowed them to be blinded and to fall into heresy.

If only the SSPX truly promoted the idea that the Pope Question must be left up to God.  For the most part and in practice, they assert and proclaim that it's not Catholic to even have questions and doubts--despite the fact that Archbishop Lefebvre himself expressed such doubts in public and tolerated sedevacantist-like questioning.  Part of it may be politics, part a reaction against the excesses of the sedevacantists.  Bishop Williamson has recently told someone I know that the only hope to save the Church would be through diplomacy.  When I was at seminary about 20 years ago, he consistently said that the only resolution would be an act of divine intervention.

Unfortunately, the implicit SSPX position entails believing in a Pope and a Church which can promulgate a bastard Protestantized Mass which Catholics cannot attend in good conscience and without harm to their faith.  Every theologian before Vatican II would have denounced as a heretic anyone who held this proposition.

Now, of course there's no monolithic SSPX, and there are shades of thinking privately among the SSPX priests.  But this at least implicit position is the reason why there's a constant movement of people, priests and faithful, to the right and to the left, as it were--in order to resolve this conflict and contradiction.  If these men are popes, we have to accept the New Mass as at least legitimate and sanctifying in and of itself.  If we have to reject the New Mass, then we have to reject the Popes who promote and promulgate it.

One could argue that the NO Mass is not inherently inimical to the Faith.  If you look at the Latin version, follow various rubrics and customs, etc.--such as when they do it in Latin on EWTN--it suddenly doesn't seem so bad.  Is there something inherently un-Catholic about reducing the number of Kyrie/Christe eleisons from 9 to 3?

There are a number of arguments one can make such as that the NO Church never formally mandated the New Mass, the V2 was a pastoral Council, etc.--but this would be to reduce the Church's infallibility to a matter of subtle legal technicalities.

So I think that the official position should be one of DOUBT, of publicly expressed DOUBT.  SSPX should come out and state that these popes are doubtful.  As canon lawyers declare, one cannot be guilty of schism if he entertains doubts about the person of the pope based on widespread and widely known factors.  And this public stance by the SSPX would set into motion a set of events that could eventually lead to a resolution of the crisis.

So the SSPX has created a serious theological problem--essentially upholding a papacy of honor only, where you stick a picture of the pope in your chapels' vestibule and otherwise complete ignore him, blow him off, and pretend he doesn't exist--for all intents and purposes.

As I've argued, however, sedevacantism has its own issues, undermining the magisterium itself by allowing the vacancy of the Holy See or its occupancy to be ultimately subjected to private judgment.  So we have to prescind from making this judgment--in order to defer to the Church's authority.

If I were a priest, I would offer Mass una cuм famulo tuo papa nostro [without the name], thus expressing my doubt about the person without making a definitive judgment of sedevacante.

There's a lot of bad theology in the SSPX:  the Catholic Church vs. the official Church, eternal Rome vs. modernist Rome, "faith is greater than obedience" (does not apply here), validity of Confessions due to "common error", etc.  And once seminarians start studying traditional dogmatic theology, the contrast between what's in those books and some of the SSPX theological lines becomes apparent.

So they end up running to the other excess of dogmatic sedevacantism.  I spent hours and hours discussing sedevacantism with Bishop Williamson, and none of his reponses to the theological problems I had were at all convincing.  They were poetic and quasi-mystical rather than theological.  Now, had he brought up the reduction ad absurdum arguments which God later brought to my mind, I probably would have stayed.  I really really, desperately, did NOT want to leave.  I was looking for something, anything, that would have enabled me to stay in good conscience.  I got nothing.

One could argue that the NO Mass is not inherently inimical to the Faith.  If you look at the Latin version, follow various rubrics and customs, etc.--such as when they do it in Latin on EWTN--it suddenly doesn't seem so bad.  Is there something inherently un-Catholic about reducing the number of Kyrie/Christe eleisons from 9 to 3?

I am sure the Novus Ordo in the original latin is okay...But in alll Neo-Catholic churches they have changed the words of consecration, they allow women into the sanctuary (and tempermentaly Im a liberal but surely that is crossing boundaries that goes back to Apostolic times and therefore should be respected on pain of grave sin?), everyone communions (and being ex-EO I find that very strange...surely you should the Lord with fear knowing that you could be part-taking unto judgement?) and they take "communion" in the hand as if it was a biscuit...Most Neo-Catholics that I know or who Ive talked dont believe in Transubstanition and honestly I dont believe that the "Archbishop" of Dublin gives a damn about that fact...He is quite happy for school kids to vist the mosque to learn about Islam as if following a false religion which at the end of the day for all the the truths it contains was inspired by the devil was a-ok..Now Im sure that Matthew and Belloc believe in the Physical Presence of our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament and that Islam is not equally legitimate as Christianity...But I dont understand how the SSPX can be "Una cuм" with such basically evil from a "liberal" Catholic point of view...

Layman during the Revolution or the Arian Crisis overstepped exceeded their station when they fled from the apostate priests!  Right Matthew?

"I exhort you, therefore, not to faint in your afflictions, but to be revived by God's love, and to add daily to your zeal knowing that in you ought to be preserved that remnant of true religion which the Lord will find when He cometh on the earth. Even if bishops are driven from their Churches, be not dismayed. If traitors have arisen from among the very clergy themselves, let not this undermine your confidence in God. We are saved not by names, but by mind and purpose, and genuine love toward our Creator. Bethink you how in the attack against our Lord, high priests and scribes and elders devised the plot, and how few of the people were found really receiving the word. Remember that it is not the multitude who are being saved, but the elect of God. Be not then affrighted at the great multitude of the people who are carried hither and thither by winds like the waters of the sea. If but one would be saved, like Lot at Sodom, he ought to abide in right judgment, keeping his hope in Christ unshaken, for the Lord will not forsake His holy ones. Salute all the brethren in Christ from me. Pray earnestly for my miserable soul."
-St. Basil the Great
[ Epistle CCLVII,
To the Monks Harassed by Arians ]

"As for all those who pretend to confess sound Orthodox Faith, but are in communion with people who hold a different opinion, if they are forewarned and still remain stubborn, you must not only not be in communion with them, but you must not even call them brothers."
- St. Basil the Great, Archbishop of Caesaria in Cappodocia

Layman during the Revolution or the Arian Crisis overstepped exceeded their station when they fled from the apostate priests!  Right Matthew?

Laymen fled from the heresy of Arius, who sought to destroy the Catholic Faith by making the Creator into a creature.

Such a parallel could be brought forward by SSPX-Mass-attending Catholics as a reason for their flight from the Novus Ordo errors.

However, what heresy do you find in all the traditional Latin Masses offered throughout the world today?

Sorry, but most traditional Catholic priests (I refer to both SSPX and sedevacantist/independent varieties) are not mired in any heresy. They hold to all the dogmas of the Catholic Faith, as well as Tradition, in most if not all cases.

This is wherein you are deluded by your pride. See my thread,
http://www.cathinfo.com/catholic.php/Profound-question

You would sooner believe that the Church has been reduced to YOU, than you would believe that you are wrong about something. Behold the depths of folly to which pride can lead a person. Move over, sins of the flesh!

Matthew