Cardinal Gerhard Müller is quickly becoming the Poster Prelate of Diabolical Disorientation.
Sandro Magister has just published excerpts of an interview that will appear today in the Italian magazine, Il Timone, wherein Müller offered statements so entirely at odds with reality that one wonders if he isn’t suffering dementia.
For instance, asked to comment upon a supposed conflict between conscience and mortal sin, Müller said:
For Catholic doctrine, it is impossible for mortal sin to coexist with sanctifying grace.
Indeed! He then went on to characterize the notion that mortal sin and sanctifying grace (also known as the grace of justification) can coexist as an “absurd contradiction.”
Of course it is! This is elementary Catholicism. No authentic member of the Body of Christ would insist upon such a thing, but Jorge Bergoglio does:
Hence it is can no longer simply be said that all those in any “irregular” situation are living in a state of mortal sin and are deprived of sanctifying grace. More is involved here than mere ignorance of the rule. (AL 301)
Not only is this an “absurd contradiction;” it is, as the Council of Trent infallibly taught, heresy:
“In opposition also to the subtle wits of certain men, who, by pleasing speeches and good words, seduce the hearts of the innocent, it is to be maintained, that the received grace of Justification [sanctifying grace] is lost, not only by infidelity whereby even faith itself is lost, but also by any other mortal sin whatever, though faith be not lost; thus defending the doctrine of the divine law, which excludes from the kingdom of God not only the unbelieving, but the faithful also (who are) fornicators, adulterers, effeminate, liers with mankind, thieves, covetous, drunkards, railers, extortioners, and all others who commit deadly sins…” (Council of Trent, Session VI, Chapter XV)
Asked if Familiaris Consortio (article 84) and the requirement for divorced and “remarried” couples to live in continence in order to receive the sacraments is still valid, Müller responded:
Of course, it is not dispensable, because it is not only a positive law of John Paul II, but he expressed an essential element of Christian moral theology and the theology of the sacraments. The confusion on this point also concerns the failure to accept the encyclical “Veritatis Splendor,” with the clear doctrine of the “intrinsece malum.” (intrinsic evil)
In this, Müller appears to be deliberately citing the dubia which references precisely these two documents of John Paul II; the same that His Humbleness refuses to reaffirm.
Hold your applause, however, as the punchline is about to be delivered…
According to Cardinal Müller, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith:
It is not “Amoris Laetitia” that has provoked a confused interpretation, but some confused interpretations of it.
Either he is the smartest guy in the room with a master plan for defending the true faith so clever that only the positively brilliant can appreciate it, or he is exactly what I said at the outset; a victim of the Master Deceiver and the face of diabolical disorientation.
Surely, it is the latter, but for those who may as yet still doubt as much, Müller added:
The magisterium of the pope is interpreted only by him or through the congregation for the doctrine of the faith. The pope interprets the bishops, it is not the bishops who interpret the pope…
I am certain that readers of this space need no reminder that the “pope,” via his letter to the bishops of Buenos Aires, stated that there “are no other interpretations” than theirs; namely, guidelines that plainly treat the aforementioned teaching of Familiaris Consortio, and likewise Sacred Scripture and the Tradition of the Church, as entirely invalid.
As if he hadn’t made an ass of himself quite thoroughly enough, Müller chastised those who would dare to interpret Amoris Laetitia in this way, saying:
The bishop, as teacher of the Word, must himself be the first to be well-formed so as not to fall into the risk of the blind leading the blind…
If Gerhard Müller is representative of the “proper authorities” upon whom we are awaiting a formal declaration of Jorge Bergoglio’s formal heresy, my advice is don’t hold your breath; rather, use it to warn everyone in your circle of influence to avoid this man as a “heathen and publican” (Mt. 18:17) while begging Our Lord to save us from this terrible crisis.
Dont hold your breath. Excellent advice. It should be obvious to all by now that modernist Rome is never returning to the True Faith. How long will the charade go on where Catholics who profess the True Faith keep calling those who profess a fasle faith, our shepards?
Fighting straw men again I see. What part of the Catechism in paragraph 1735 don’t you understand? ” Imputability and responsibility for an action can be diminished or even nullified by ignorance, inadvertence, duress, fear, habit, inordinate attachments, and other psychological or social factors.”
Is that not clear enough for you?
Fighting with your pants down again I see. What part of Dubia Question #3 don’t you undertstand Gaggybaggy?
“Doubt number 3:
After Amoris Laetitia (n. 301) is it still possible to affirm that a person who habitually lives in contradiction to a commandment of God’s law, as for instance the one that prohibits adultery (cf. Mt 19:3-9), finds him or herself in an objective situation of grave habitual sin (cf. Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, Declaration, June 24, 2000)?
In paragraph 301 Amoris Laetitia recalls that: “The Church possesses a solid body of reflection concerning mitigating factors and situations.” And it concludes that “hence it can no longer simply be said that all those in any ‘irregular’ situation are living in a state of mortal sin and are deprived of sanctifying grace.”
In its Declaration of June 24, 2000, the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts seeks to clarify Canon 915 of the Code of Canon Law, which states that those who “obstinately persist in manifest grave sin, are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.” The Pontifical Council’s Declaration argues that this canon is applicable also to faithful who are divorced and civilly remarried. It spells out that “grave sin” has to be understood objectively, given that the minister of the Eucharist has no means of judging another person’s subjective imputability.
Thus, for the Declaration, the question of the admission to the sacraments is about judging a person’s objective life situation and not about judging that this person is in a state of mortal sin. Indeed subjectively he or she may not be fully imputable or not be imputable at all.
Along the same lines, in his encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia, n. 37, Saint John Paul II recalls that “the judgment of one’s state of grace obviously belongs only to the person involved, since it is a question of examining one’s conscience.” Hence, the distinction referred to by Amoris Laetitia between the subjective situation of mortal sin and the objective situation of grave sin is indeed well established in the Church’s teaching.
John Paul II however continues by insisting that “in cases of outward conduct which is seriously, clearly and steadfastly contrary to the moral norm, the Church, in her pastoral concern for the good order of the community and out of respect for the sacrament, cannot fail to feel directly involved.” He then reiterates the teaching of Canon 915 mentioned above.
Question 3 of the Dubia hence would like to clarify whether, even after Amoris Laetitia, it is still possible to say that persons who habitually live in contradiction to a commandment of God’s law, such as the commandment against adultery, theft, murder, or perjury, live in objective situations of grave habitual sin, even if, for whatever reasons, it is not certain that they are subjectively imputable for their habitual transgressions.”
Go on Gaggybag, answer the question! Then tell us why Francis said there “are no other interpretations” to the sacriligious actions of the bishops of Argentina and Malta.
And let me turn you around to point you to the fact that Cathechism paragraph 1735 does not excuse the clergy from not properly informing people about their sinful situation and their duty to rectify it, nor to give them Holy Communion while they still occupy that state of scandal to cause greater scandal.
But I think only a stupid man would fall for the idea that a couple who has no trouble getting and being held lawfully to complex bank loans and other daily activities somehow lacks the faculties to know that he is in a state of adultery. Maybe that’s you Gags, but you’d be a remarkable specimen, but given you can operate a keyboard I don’t think you qualify.
Because the only infallible teaching is that one may not receive communion while in a state of mortal sin. The practice of denying communion to people who are not in a subjective state of mortal sin is a pastoral application and CAN change. Much like it did with those suicide victims who were previously denied a Catholic funeral and burial but who no can.
should read “but who now can”
And here’s a question for you Johnno boy. Are annulments infallible? Because if they are, you are in quite the pickle. If they are infallible, then the fact that 98 percent plus are granted means that an awful lot of people are in a “marriage” that is de facto invalid. If they are not infallible, that means a lot of people who received an annulment could very well be actually married to their original spouse and in what you would term an “adulterous” second marriage. Hope you don’t fit in either of those two categories Johnno boy.
I think what Ganganelli is not getting is that we are dealing not only with an objective mortal sin but we are also dealing with two Sacraments, the Sacrament of Holy Communion and the Sacrament of Marriage. They are both Sacraments that have been received under the PUBLIC eye with witnesses. The sacrament of Holy Communion, for all practising Catholics, is received under the public eye on a regular basis. It is the SCANDAL to others that is the issue here. So whether one is committing a mortal sin out of , or not out of, fear or duress of loosing their adulterous partner and out of, or not out of , the fear of making it difficult and confusing for the children or fears of financial abandonment and or emotional abandonment or whatever when they are being required to come clean and stop fornicating, it doesn’t matter because what the adulterers have to consider IS the Scandal they are causing to those in the pews who are forced to be witness to their adulterous relationship receiving communion regardless of their known or unknown imputability.They may think, well if I go to a parish where no one knows about me this would help, but how long can these adulterers go on running? At one point the children are going to grow up and find out they are bastards and that their parents are adulterers and that their parents have deceived them and are cowards and lack faith in the sacraments andGod’s grace that will allow them to do the right thing. Annulments on the other hand, as much as I loath the abuse that has been going on in the fast tract annulment world, they are nonetheless a public statement and announcement that is to be published, by the way, in the concerned parish, to let the people know and be rest assured that Mr. And Mrs. So and So are now officially married even though you saw them as married to someone else previously which was now determined to have been an invalid Union. Scandal is what is at stake here. PUBLIC SCANDAL!!! Why does Ganganelli not see this?
Scandal? Really? I submit to you that any thinking person would find it more scandalous to see New Gingrich receiving communion with the woman he slept with while married to previous woman he slept with while married to his first wife.
In just four lines of copy, Tom A says all that needs to be said.
Thank you, Tom A, one more time.
What I understand, Ganganelli, is that paragraph 1735 and all the other paragraphs of the JP2 Cathecism were written by modernists pretending to be Catholic.
What I see is no scandal greater than that of a supposed pope, who not only participates in praying and worshipping false gods, one who went so far as to kiss the unholy Koran, but demands all Catholics to do so. Or the great scandal of teaching that the Catholic religion merely subsists within some unheard of in history “Christian” religion.
I would say any unrepentant sinner, particularly those in mortal sin who have no desire to stop sinning, who dares eat Christ’s body and drink His blood is calling down God’s wrath upon them.
Scandal can occur regardless whether one ‘feels’ scandalized by something or not. Children, who are raised by sodomites who wish these children to see them as though they were a married couple, are being scandalized regardless of whether these children are aware that they are being scandalized or not. A scandal is not incumbent only on whether a person judges or feels scandalized by something but scandal can most certainly occur when the act or thing in question brings you away from God and His truths.
Cardinal Muller does indeed seem to be under the influence of diabolical disorientation. He doesn’t seem to have a problem at all with Amoris Laetitia, but rather he has a problem with some interpretations of it. But then, that’s what Modernism does to people, if they allow it.
Considering the fact you quote the catechism of the Modernist religion, it is clear they will claim any excuse for sin since to them, it is practically non-existent. The best one they came up with is “ignorance” because that is their strongest point since they clearly have worked diligently to keep the priests and laity ignorant of the true faith.
I imagine 99% of the marriages since Vatican II are considered by the parties themselves to be nothing other than a contract, easily broken, and they expect a “divorce” if they so choose since it is highly unlikely they have ever been taught its true teaching. In fact, they have been erroneously taught that procreation is not the primary end of marriage when that has been the perennial teaching of the Church up until Vatican II.
If you interpret AL with the eyes of a Modernist, how can there be any confusion? It is clear that they have absolutely no desire to defend the true faith in any way because they don’t believe it.
If you don’t accept the Catechism of the Catholic Church you are a heretic and should be executed.
You see how that ridiculous that sounds? Yet, those who call everything post-V2 illegitimate modernism would put you back in a period when you could actually be executed for heresy or schism. Who would want that back?
@Ganganelli:
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You lost the bet.
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Ganganelli is simply trolling, as all liberals are wont to do.
Leave him to walk in the fire that he has kindled for himself. The Lord knows His own.
This is a good point that you and Katherine bring up….and one that as far as I know has not yet truly been addressed, fully at least, on this good site (If Im mistaken I apologize). The CCC needs to be debunked.
I second that.
“If you love me, keep my commandments” (John 14;15). And to the woman caught in adultery Jesus said: “Go and do not sin anymore” (John 8;11).
This is the Truth.
BWHAHAHAHAHA! Look fellas! Gags here, like other modernists imagines the distinction between the moral and the pastoral is sufficient grounds to change the pastoral application any which way. It’s as if Gags here never even realized that the pastoral application is intended in service to the moral law! Nor does he realize how damaging the pastoral application can lead to further scandal and ruin. Much like he uses the burial of suicides as an excuse, and today we now have institutionalized euthanasia, and bishops even encouraging and arguing that people logicallically planning on suicide with their doctors and lawyers and estate in all its complexities can receive Holy Communion without reversing course on their planned assisted suicide!
What next Gags? Shall the pastoral law also excuse murderers? Oh wait… pro-abortion people continue to line up and receive Holy Communion, and they draw a distinction between their moral sphere and their public office holding. Expain that one for us Gags. We’re all ears!
Oh, and please answer the dubia above. I’ve noticed you dodged it.
Oh but I will answer your question, which is quite aside and a different topic altogether from the one discussed above pertaining to ACTUAL PUBLIC ADULTERERS versus those who received Official Annulments, dubious though they may be (You will also answer that dubia, won’t you?). The other mistake you make is presuming all annulments to be at fault. So Gags imagines that no distinction can be made between those few with a legitimate annulment and those who abuse the system.
Gags might as well ask “Johnno Boy, is the teaching on the Eucharist as the Body and Blood of Christ infallible? Because if it is, the you’re in quite a pickle, because 98% of the time it’s handed out to unrepentant sinners and those who reject Church teachings, so a lot of people are bringing condemnation down upon themselves. But if the teachings on the Eucharist are not infallible, that means that a lot of people could be obeying and observing teachings that are not true and are worshipping an idol! Got you Johnny Boy! I hope you don’t fit either of those two categories!” Thankfully I don’t. But it’s clear Gagnello here believes one of these in order to believe undermining the Pastoral practice intended to uphold the Truth of the Eucharist is okey-dokey.
In the second case, all those dubious annulments would in fact be in adulterous situations, but the blame would be imputed to those licentious granters of the faulty annulment to answer to God for. Much in the same way as priests are also responsible for giving Holy Communion to known adulterers without any annulment, or pro-aborts, or those planning suicide publicly, and especially Bishops and Popes who relax pastoral procedures into breeding grounds for capitulating and accommodating SIN. And those who’ve received faulty annulments could happily rely on Gag’s favorite ‘Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free-Card ‘Catechism in paragraph 1735.’
However, it would be truly unpastoral of me not to point out that if the Church makes excuses for people based on faulty grounds and delivering a poor or deliberately poor judgment, even if the direct fault is taken away from the couple, the effects and consequences of the error are not. Rather they would only make the falsely-annulled couple more susceptible to using the same grounds, believed to be backed by the ‘Church’ as logical ends to commit more sin, just as the Gag/Francis logic of undermining the pastoral on reception of Holy Communion to adulterers opens the doorway for the homosexuals and a host of others who now believe conscience alone absolves them of sin and grants them grace. Funny how that doesn’t somehow apply to excuse them from skipping Sunday mass and Communion altogether, but the majority of Catholics already do that!
But… but Gaggybaby… what… what about the… “Catechism in paragraph 1735 don’t you understand? ” Imputability and responsibility for an action can be diminished or even nullified by ignorance, inadvertence, duress, fear, habit, inordinate attachments, and other psychological or social factors.” Is that not clear enough for you?”
So who are you to judge Mr. Gingrich? Why so un-pastoral?
Actually execution was reserved for those under State Law who were also simultaneously of insurrection and treason against the State via recourse to heresy. Aka, they were the terrorists of their day. So while treasonous persons usually were heretics, not all heretics were treasonous. Others by virtue of be declared heretics would have faced loss of public office, lose tenure and be social outcasts to everybody else.
The more you know… Gags certainly doesn’t… But even then, given the current situation of the world, perhaps the Old Testament had it right. Adulterers should’ve been executed. At least then justice would be served to the harmed party who would be free to remarry again. So in that case Moses and the Israelites were more pastoral and merciful to the harmed partner than Francis or Gaggy would ever be. No worries about putting up with publicly scandalously fools either demanding their non-existent ‘rights’ not to be discriminated against in the Temple.
A heretics crime is much worse than a terrorists. The terrorist kills only the body. The heretic kills the soul. The medieval confessional state recognized this fact and dealt with heretics justly. Jesus warned us to fear not those who kill the body, but fear him who destroys the soul.
Yes, the scandal concerned is objective scandal. As well as of course sacrilege, and intentional non-repentence for grave matter.
You’ve got to hand it to the diabolical machinations of Modernist’s who realized they could get around the clear meaning of Sacred Scripture and the Church’s teachings on sin and morality simply by establishing “pastoral” processes to them. This was especially clever since the reality of the practices in many dioceses already reflected the rejection of Church teaching on morality.
Then stand in line because if you accept JPII’s Catechism as that of the Catholic Church you are a heretic.
Quite true.
Over at the One Peter Five blog, there’s an article on this situation with Cardinal Muller, but the author of the article, Maike Hickson,, says that Cardinal Muller…”implicitly and substantially rejects those parts of Amoris Laetitia which are causing much of the confusion.” Cardinal Muller does nothing of the sort. Obviously. At least Louie is reporting he situation correctly. One Peter Five is not.
Anastasia: Please do not interpret my remarks as a defense of Ganganelli, because their are not. Nevertheless, although you have acknowledged your loathsomeness for the “post-Vatican II annulment” process, many modern Catholics tip their hats to this “modern” approach for resolving often very painful marital situations. Still, one should be cautious before drifting into that swamp to defend it in any way, as Catholic annulments may not be that distinguishable from the evils of Amoris Laetitia. Whether an “annulment” ameliorates the sin of scandal is at least debatable.
To begin with, as annulments were redefined following the Second Vatican Council, the underlying facts of those marriages involving “divorced” Catholics receiving so-called “approved” annulments are often impossible to distinguish from the underlying facts of those “divorced” Catholics who either did not qualify for an annulment (on technical grounds), or simply decided not to go through the “legal” process of obtaining one.
But even more importantly as far as this thread is concerned, the emotional and even “legal” arguments advanced in defense of annulments would actually mimic those same emotional and legal arguments that are now being used to defend the bottom line of Amoris Laetitia––which is, of course, that married/divorced Catholics may live as married with someone else and continue their Catholic lives “in the eyes of God” as if they were never married a first time.
The defenders of both the “annulment” process and the A/L “Communion after discernment” process, offer the same emotional and compelling failed marriage cases to defend their positions. Certainly the two processes can be “legally” distinguished in any number of ways, but the differences between these two approaches is far more semantical than theological.
The same marital problem facts work for both cases, it’s just that the “procedure” is different. In the annulment process a bishop “determines” that the married Catholic may live as though they were never originally married; whereas in A/L case, the married Catholic (after a period of discernment) “determines” they can live as though they were never originally married. In both cases the Devine Law of God is ignored.
Caimbuel, I hope you are not shocked about 1P5.
I am a little. I see now that is mainly just a slick well-financed tabloid for trads. Well, trads with a modernist streak. Just my opinion.
That makes you a sedevacantist. Now will you guys let the “new” sedevacantists say the novus ordo in your little chapels?
Nice reply. You just destroyed Johnno Boy’s argument for me. Well done, sir!
Tom A. already destroyed this argument so I have nothing to add.
Talmudic Jews have had too much influence in the Conciliar Church. Here is an excerpt of an article with their opinion which is exactly that of Bergoglio and most of the hierarchy:
A full page statement published as a High Holy Day Message of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America appeared in its Sept. 23, 1982 issue:
“…Judaism recognizes life’s dilemmas and the difficulty of knowing how to handle them. The truth is, for most significant issues there is NO simple solution. Euthansia? Abortion? Freedom of expression/Pornography/Skokie? In most cases, it just isn’t clear what God wants us to do.”
I am a Catholic. You are a Modernist. There is a difference.
You have to consider that they are in the R&R camp so they clutch at straws trying to find anything remotely orthodox said by the hierarchy or what they believe is orthodox.
Well, I’m in the R&R camp, but it’s not the same one as them. I don’t really see that they resist anything, except maybe a firm traditional approach and sound logic. They do indeed try to find anything remotely orthodox said by the hierarchy, or they try to spin it to be orthodox. Kind of like fake news. Oh well.
I am the first one to say that the modern and extremely soft and lax annulment process has become an emotional sham. However, an AUTHENTIC non fraudulant annulment ( and yes they do exist, albeit not in the ridiculously highly suspect numbers we are witnessing today during this close to 100 year NFP snowflake era of the so called ‘deeper’ narcisistic meaning of marriage) is not and never has been a mortal sin. Adultery is a mortal sin and receiving communion in mortal sin is mortal sin. Just because the recent modern abuse of a valid Church process called an examination for annulments is upsetting and yes certainly scandalous indeed, doesn’t put this scandal anywhere near on the same footing as a Pope declaring PUBLICLY in act, word and deed that one can approach the communion rail in objective mortal sin.
So basically, vatican 2 annulments MIGHT be legit….but they also might NOT be legit. Yeah, that makes total Catholic sense. Instead of seeing the TRUTH and realizing that the entire vatican 2 church is false and then coming to the logical conclusion that there can be no valid annulments anymore, because there are no valid tribunals, we are expected to tiptoe through the tulips and figure out what annulment is valid and what one isnt. And people actually wonder why the sede position exists? This annulment garbage is insanity. Catholicism is a STRAIGHTFORWARD exercise in unchanging truth. Hoop-jumping is not Catholic. We here on this site denounce vatican 2 on a daily basis….and yet we honor their annulments? How is that?
AL is not the problem…..people thinking that they can get an annulment for whatever reason they want, and then think that they are OK by God after said “annulment” is granted by a bunch of clown “priests” is the problem. This useless argument over AL is totally missing the point as to what is actually wrong here. Trads need to stop worrying about AL and start attacking the real issue.
Neither I nor anyone else would argue that an “authentic” annulment is sinful. Those are not what we’re talking about. Before Vatican II the annulment process that was in place annulled 100 or so marriages a year. The grounds were identical to the permissible grounds that are currently in place for annulments in civil courts. Those grounds have not changed for hundreds of years in most states.
Today the Catholic Church grants well over 50,000 annulments per year, and that number is only slowing down because “Catholics” are simply living together without the benefit of marriage. Consequently, they never really need an annulment.
Respectfully, there is no “theological” difference in the post-Vatican II annulments and Amoris Laetitia. In time, the modern annulment process will be ignored, as it will be replaced with the Amoris Laetitia approach. At that point in time, supporters of A/L will be able to reasonably argue that, if the married/divorced are not committing sin by living with someone else as if they were married, why can they not be re-married in the Church? Annulments will then be a nullity.
Can someone answer a question for me? It seems that Pope St. John Paul II mandated that the divorced and remarried need to live as brother and sister i.e., refrain from the marital act. That if they did refrain from the marital act, they could participate in the sacraments, e.g., receive communion. Is this how the Church always handled this situation, or is this another novelty foisted on the unsuspecting faithful?
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What I don’t understand about this is the marital act is just one aspect of marriage. There is the state conferred on the spouses by the marriage, and also the duties of the spouses to one another resulting from the marriage. Even if they refrain from the marital act, how do those who are divorced and remarried escape other sins? For example, those who are divorced and remarried are NOT fulfilling their marital duties to their true spouses. Isn’t this sinful? Further, by living as brother and sister they do NOT return to their true spouses and they continue to act in such a way that makes it appear as if they believe their true marriages were, in fact, dissolved. Their behavior reifies the divorce as if it is something real, when from a Catholic perspective it is an illusion. It seems to me the only Catholic way to remedy the situation is by withdrawing from the adulterous second (civil) marriage.
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Much of the discussion on receipt of communion seems to be monomaniacally focussed on the marital act. It is supposed that those who are hardened by habit to engage in the adulterous union are less culpable, at least according to VII moral theology. But so what? They still are not fulfilling their duties to their true spouses, and their continued living together makes it appear that they believe their true marriages were dissolved. I don’t see how these apparent continuing sins of omission and commission (if they are in fact sins) cannot be imputed to the divorced and remarried.
Amen! Well said.
St Cyprian:
It’s interesting that you raise that question, as my wife and I had the same discussion last night. But as I understand it, you are correct. Where there are instances when it is appropriate (and maybe even wise) for one spouse to leave the other, but there are times when that, in itself would be sinful. Taking up residence with someone else in a “marital way”, of course would always be sinful.
But it is also my understanding that if the marital separation was “justified” (and there are those cases for sure), a couple who lives together as brother and sister would not be sinful. What constitutes a justified separation is, of course, a matter that should be discussed with a priest––at least that would be the advice that my sainted mother would have given me before Vatican II.
One note of caution, however is that prior to Vatican II, simply saying talk to “a priest” was advice enough. I’m afraid that today one should be quite certain that the priest they are conferring with is one who actually follows the true teachings of the Church. Personally, I’d seek out a priest in the FSSP or the SSPX.
Caimbuel, I sense that you, unlike others on this blog, are not what I would call a dogmatic R&R type. Therefore you too are searching for Truth in these confusing times. My opinion on sedevacatism is just that. An opinion and not a dogmatic proclamation. Who knows, tomorrow it could change given an honest argument that doesnt cherry pick certain theologians and distort the historical record to make its point.
True, but it’s better without the name-calling. 🙂
Inverting the primary purpose of marriage, the procreation and education of children for God’s glory, for the secondary purpose of the unity of the couple, which has as its roots in the NFP (contraception)mentality is the cancer in all of this mess. This is what ultimately led to redefining marriage and the onslaught of fraudulent annulments (divorce). The onslaught of fraudulent annulments (divorce) led to the acceptance of public adulterers receiving communion in mortal sin. I am sure there are many, like you said, that are very glad for the modernized lax annulment procedure through the redefining of marriage’s hierarchical purposes but this still doesn’t make it right or somehow gives them a pass just because it was after all such a difficult situation for them and in the end was for the best for them. Alas, maybe for their private selfish needs but certainly not for the Church at large and we are all paying the price for those fraudulent misguided annulments that were granted. We are all paying the price as you can so clearly see because of these desperate people wanting out of a failed marriage and wishing to remarry at the cost of mrtal sin, collusion, lying and changing the meaning of marriage, We are all paying a high price indeed for these people who have participated in these fraudulent annulments and promotion of the contraceptive mentality through the Practise and promotion of NFP? Tribunals need to stay, it is the swamp of the NFP mentality and false meaning of marriage that needs to be destroyed and restored back to God’s truth on marriage.
Christ said whoever leaves his or her spouse and married another commits adultery. He didn’t mention anything about whether or not they were shagging each other. That litttle wiggle room was JP2 and the Modernists being “pastoral.”
So, Tom, your position is that no one should have one?
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Being “open-minded” indefinitely is not Catholic: As Chesterton said, the properly-formed intellect search for truth, and *closes on it* once found.
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The sedevacantist leaders whose teachings you echo here do not call it an “opinion,” but a fact that anyone who disagrees with is not even Catholic. They’re completely and totally wrong, leading others into the pit, but at least they’re not lukewarm.
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Error has no rights.
I like to chime in when Tom is right about something. Heresy is the greatest category of sin. Sin is measured, according to the Angelic Doctor, by how far it puts man from God; denial or obstinate doubt of a revealed truth is the greatest possible [category of] sin.
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If heresy is the greatest category of sin, atheism is the greatest possible sin, period. Yet Pope Francis welcomes avowed atheists as friends and does not even try to convert them (that would be “nonsense”). What a truly horrible POPE he is.
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As St. Vincent said, to paraphrase, some POPES God gives, some POPES He tolerates, and some POPES he inflicts.
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There’s no doubt which category POPE Francis is in to any well-formed Catholic with his eyes open.
I agree he is a troll. He was here long, long ago and then disappeared. However, he’s got some really good material with which to sow even more confusion now that this environment is dominated by sedevacantists.
Cardinal Mueller gives us deep new insights on the Resurrection. Keep in mind thatt his man is the Vatican’s “watchdog of orthodoxy”. No wonder why he is all over the shop. He doesn’t even believe in the Resurrection as the Church understands it.
“A running camera would not have been able to make an audio-visual recording of either the Easter manifestations of Jesus in front of his disciples, nor of the Resurrection event, which, at its core, is the consummation of the personal relation of the Father to the incarnate Son in the Holy Ghost.
In contrast to human reason, animals and technical devices are not capable of a transcendental experience and thus also lack the ability to be addressed by the Word of God through perceptible phenomena and signs. Only human reason in its inner unity of categoricality [sic] and transcendentality [sic] is determinable by the Spirit of God to enable it to perceive in the sensory cognitive image (triggered by the manifestation event) the person-reality of Jesus as the cause of this sensory-mental cognitive image.”
(Gerhard L. Müller, Katholische Dogmatik, 8th ed. [Freiburg: Herder, 2010], p. 300
Mueller is not content to leave it at the Resurrection. Let’s see how the modernist understands the Blessed Sacrament:
“In reality, body and blood of Christ does not signify the physical parts of the man Jesus during his life or in his glorified body. Body and blood here signifies specifically the presence of Christ in the symbolism of bread and wine.”
… … …
“We now have communion with Jesus Christ, through the eating and drinking of the bread and wine.”
… … …
“The nature of these gifts can be clarified only in their relation to man. The essence of the bread and the wine, therefore, must be defined in an anthropological way. The natural character of these offerings [bread and wine] as a fruit of the earth and the work of human hands, as units of natural and cultural products, is to strengthen and nourish man and the human community in the character of a common meal. … This natural essence of the bread and wine is transformed by God in the sense that this nature of bread and wine now shows and achieves salvific communion with God.”
– G. L. Müller, Die Messe, Quelle Christlichen Lebens. Augsburg: Sankt Ulrich Verlag, 2002, pp. 139-140
Louie, did you forget that the Conciliar Church adopted Luther’s heresies on justification in the signing of the Joint Declaration on Justification on October 31, 1999?
Modernist gobbley-gook at its finest.
Thanks for pointing out another diabolical machination of the Modernist heretics. Killing yourself isn’t a mortal sin? Nothing like denying the very essence of the love of God who created you. So much for a “pastoral” concern for people and an entirely hypocritical expose of how they deny the very love of God they claim to be defending.
Who would want to be executed for what the authorities considered to be heresy?
Jesus Christ.
A Catholic Thinker: No one is forcing you here.
SCANDAL –
On August 17, 2005, according to Zenit.org, Benedict XVI said the founder of the Taize Commuity, Brother Roger Schutz, is “in the hands of eternal goodness.” Schutz of course, was not Catholic. So a non-Catholic is saved!
SCANDAL –
During JPII’s funeral, Cardinal Ratzinger, then dean of the College of Cardinals, surprised observers when he went up to Brother Roger, who was in a wheelchair, to give him Communion.
Non-Catholics can receive Communion so why not “Catholic” adulterers?
With all due respect, the fssp is a novus ordo group. I can personally attest to that.
Tom,
Glad to see that you are not dogmatic about SVism. I’m not a supporter of SV, but I can understand how one might come to that possible conclusion. I basically maintain Archbishop Lefebvre’s view on the matter.
My understanding is that before JPll made his “pastoral” pronouncement regarding adulterous couples living as “brother and sister,” that a couple in an irregular (adulterous) situation weren’t supposed to live in the same house at all.
This is true, of course. It’s very frustrating when marriage (even just natural marriage) is reduced to the marital act of sexual intercourse. There are many other aspects of marriage – duties, rights, etc. This reduction reminds me somewhat of the not uncommon position among self-identified Catholics that two men who identify themselves as homosexuals may live together as a couple if they just refrain from the physical sodomitical acts! What diabolical disorientation. Lord, have mercy.
Yes, I agree, good comment Katherine. This “Christianity” business really gets my goat. I refuse to label myself a Christian. I am a Catholic. There were ages when this distinction was not necessary, but now it is.
Modernists who want to blur the distinction between the One True Church, and the thousands of sects and pagan cults call me a Christian against my will – we will see the results of this lack of truth in language soon.
Katherine, you’ve quoted a perfect example of diabolical disorientation. There are no simple solutions? Well, actually there are. We tell each other, in our progressive fashion, that life is just so much more complicated now. We tell ourselves (as Satan whispers into our ears) that Jesus Christ could not have known that our world would grow more and more complicated.
This tells us several things. It’s harder to obey a simple command than to develop a complicated theory as to why we cannot be expected to obey; and those who believe Jesus could not have known our world and its complications are in effect denying His Divinity. Talk about simple.
The idea of living together as brother and sister is something that has always existed in the Church even before apostolic times. In apostolic times we see the requirement for married men, who believed they were called to the priesthood, with their wife’s acceptance and approval, to renounce their marital life and to live as brother and sister. To renounce the marital act for the noble reason of the DOCTRINES that support continence for the priesthood such as, on the priest configuring Christ himself, purity, virginty, in heaven there will be no need for conjugal unions because there will be no more new souls created in Heaven and the purpose for sex in marriage for the mission of procreation, was understood for the priesthood. Sometimes it was accepted that the married couple would live together under the same roof because I believe they were assumed to be able to have the holy fortitude to renounce the marital act because of the spouse’s holy calling from God and his acceptance to celibacy-continence. However we must understand also that the adulterous couple who renounces fornication is not at all the same case, in the fact that they are commanded to renounce the mortal sin, of adultery. They are not renouncing something they are entitled to as a validly married couple would. Even during the times when married clergy and their wives accepted to live as brother and sister the Church saw the better prudence in them not living under the same roof. As for the adulterous couple who repents and truly wishes to renounce their fornication they would have to announce publicly to those who assume they are living as man and wife that they have promised to renounce their fornication and live as brother and sister. This would be complicated, tedious and frustrating indeed and in the end,at one point, they will have to explain to the children that they are living as brother and sister when they come of age. My point is, I believe they should just bite the bullet and live under separate roofs in order to come clean in the public eye and not make their life so confusing in appearance. Can a repentant adulterous couple have the grace to live as brother and sister. Yes, with God’s grace and their cooperation with his grace, however scandal and confusion and distrust to the public is at stake.
When it comes to marriage being defined by the sexual act one cannot be too quick to dismiss that sex doesn’t have everything to do with it because this is where marriage gets its meaning. Without it there is no marriage. Marriage has to be consummated in order for it to be considered valid even if they agreed to live as brother and sister from then on.I have always found it interesting that all of these sodomites who wish to have their perverted sexual activity to be protected by marriage laws says a lot about them still having the ability to see that the sex act has serious worth. Just where this sex act gets its worth they do not wish to ask or go that deep. After all their perverted sex has certainly clouded their intellect and made it impossible for them to think straight.
The Supreme court asked a sodomite, when deciding on sodomite unions being granted the status of a marriage with all the same protection laws afforded to marriage,something along these lines, “Can two biological sisters who are not in a sexual relationship request to be considered married and benefit from all marriage rights when both of them wish to live together, wish to adopt and wish to support each other as a married couple would without sexual activity?” The sodomite could not answer this question and it was just dropped. The reason these confused perverts are requesting all the rights to marriage laws is precisely BECAUSE they are having sex. And in their confused sick minds any kind of sex equals marriage because sex’s purpose is not about children for them, but for them it is about primarily for their own narcissistic needs. Their intellect is so clouded that they do not realize that it is precisely sex that gives meaning to marriage laws because of sex’s POTENTIALITY between a man and a woman (regardless of whether they happen to be infertile from no fault of their own), to bring a soul, which is of the outmost value to God, into the world. Unfortunately these sodomites, like all in the NFP camp view sex as primarily for them and not for bringing souls into the world for god’s glory. This is why we are in these absolutely insane diabolical times.
The Papal Subject,
Please explain how one can simultaneously be a sedevacantist and also attend Mass at an SSPX chapel.
I don’t talk myself out of Sacraments by going to extremes on the una cum issue. The SSPX don’t teach heresy in the confessional or the pulpit. The normal Catholic life does not consist of staying home alone, but receiving grace from the Mass and Sacraments. You might have decided you do not need these graces, but if a priest is mistaken about the identity of the pope, then that’s not sufficient reason for me.
…And holding the sede opinion is not a prerequisite for being considered a member of the Church. Push this too hard, beyond what you need to do to keep the Faith, and you risk becoming a schismatic.
A lawfully married couple (lawfully in God’s eyes, and the Church’s) who decide for the sake of God to live in abstinence as brother and sister has nothing to do with an adulterous couple, who are not married according to the Church (and therefore God). It’s a completely different situation.
I think one can go digging too far into this crisis, trying to unravel every mystery, and ending up as a shipwreck.
I took up the sede position as the means to avoid going mad by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously. That was all.
I didn’t set out to try to understand everything; it’s not my job to solve the crisis. It is my duty to keep the faith and receive the Sacraments.
God hasn’t changed. He is still good, and offers Himself in the Mass. That is where I drew the line. Yes, there are still mysteries that I can’t fathom, but I will leave them as they are over my head.
“Seek not the things that are too high for thee, and search not into things above thy ability: but the things that God hath commanded thee, think on them always, and in many of his works be not curious” Ecclesiasticus 3:22
Well explained, as always, Anastasia. The truth is beautiful and resonates with right reason.
This is truth and wisdom.
Mueller denies the dogmas of Transubstantiation, the Resurrection of Our Lord, and the perpetual virginity of Mary.
http://www.traditioninaction.org
…and he’s considered as one of the good guys.
Only the pursuit of truth.