Dr. Taylor Marshall has broken his silence to share his reasons for leaving Fisher More College and to weigh-in on Bishop Olson’s recent decision to forbid celebration of the traditional Mass in the college’s chapel.
In a FaceBook post today, Dr. Marshall offers the following allegations as indicative of the “serious pastoral problems” at FMC:
1. Mr. King, president of FMC, refused to disassociate himself from a faculty member who made public statements suggesting that Vatican II is invalid.
2. Financial mismanagement on the part of Mr. King.
3. FMC hosted a “public repudiation of Vatican II and the Ordinary Form.”
4. Mr. King would not allow the so-called “Ordinary Form” to be celebrated at the college.
5. Mr. King “contracted an irregular / suspended” priest.
Let’s review each one with some common sense observations and questions, of which there are many.
1. Does Dr. Marshall mean to say “disassociate the college and its curriculum?” If not, this sounds like a private matter. If so, it would make sense that the bishop would feel compelled to act. Even the SSPX recognizes Vatican II as valid in that it met the canonical requirements of an ecumenical council, even as its text suffers from any number of serious flaws.
Assuming that he did mean “the college” and not just Mr. King personally, one cannot help but consider the various “Catholic” colleges throughout the nation that routinely teach flat out heresy and yet suffer no censure whatsoever. I digress.
2. Internal financial considerations are institutional matters for trustees and board members to address.
3. What is meant by “repudiation” of the Council and the Novus Ordo? If it means questioning validity, that invites the bishop’s attention. If it means pointing out very real and serious flaws in each, that’s another story.
4. Apart from someone demanding a celebration of the Novus Ordo in the college chapel, this lack of permission would not be known. Given the nature of the college, this causes one to wonder who has been requesting it and why. Was someone doing so to intentionally agitate matters? Too many questions remain.
5. How does Dr. Marshall know that the “contracted priest” in question is suspended? Was he contracted to teach and lecture, or to celebrate the sacraments? Again, more questions remain than answers.
Getting to the crux of the matter, Dr. Marshall makes a mistake when he concludes:
Regarding Summorum Pontificum in this situation. It doesn’t apply here since the college chapel does not have a priest requesting to say the Latin Mass and the chapel therefore falls under the direct pastoral control of the bishop.
There is no need whatsoever for a priest to “request the Latin Mass.” It is enough simply for a priest to wish to offer it. Period. That’s the entire point of Summorum Pontificum.
As for the chapel falling under the bishop’s pastoral control, fine, but based upon Summorum Pontificum, or more properly speaking, the Instruction Universae Ecclesia, that control only allows for him to restrict the traditional Mass under the following condition:
The faithful who ask for the celebration of the forma extraordinaria must not in any way support or belong to groups which show themselves to be against the validity or legitimacy of the Holy Mass or the Sacraments celebrated in the forma ordinaria or against the Roman Pontiff as Supreme Pastor of the Universal Church. (Article 19)
It would seem to me that the worst case scenario at Fisher More, based on all that has been shared, is that Bishop Olson has reason to suspect that Mr. King and at least one of his faculty members is “against the validity of the forma ordinaria and/or the Roman Pontiff.”
A reasonable reading of Summorum Pontificum and Universae Ecclesia would seem to indicate that this alone is not enough to deprive the entire college community of the traditional Mass; rather, it would seem fairly obvious that the intent of UE 19 concerns groups that are organized in opposition to papal authority and the validity of the forma ordinaria. Otherwise, we must believe that one rotten apple is enough to put an end to the traditional Mass in any given community. Clearly, that’s not what the instruction is encouraging.
That being the case, a more prudent action on Bishop Olson’s part would have been to request in writing a statement from the college as to its official position as an institution, while addressing any remaining problems with specific individuals directly. Taking the traditional Mass away is a severe action, not an initial step.
As it stands, Bishop Olson is depriving the entire college community of a celebration of the Roman Rite that is rightfully theirs as faithful Catholics. It is difficult to reconcile this action with the appropriate esteem for the traditional liturgy that we rightly expect of our bishops, as opposed to merely tolerating it on a limited basis.
From what I am reading, there are serious issues with Mr. King: not the least of which is financial mismanagement. As for a ‘whole community’ it appears that there are now less than 2 dozen students and also they have not had a priest to offer the Holy Sacrifice as of late anyway because the priests cannot associate themselves with the stances Mr. King is taking. They did invite Fr. Gruner to campus and that generally is not looked upon favorably by the hierarchy. Where this was once a promising Catholic college, it no longer is. The Bishop may have been harsh and then the public posting of the private letter was meant to demean him. Traditional Catholics all over are a bit nervous as they know they are not in a favorable position and have seen what happened to the FFI (where still there are NO formal charges!). Having been ridiculed and persecuted for decades and now just seeing some glimmers of hope and light, they tend to panic to see a perceived persecution go public.
The bishop will learn how to sidestep these knee-jerk reactions perhaps. But in the meantime, lets not give him any more ammunition to dislike traditional Catholics.
OK. So I’m thinking, what would the LCWR do if confronted by a situation where they are not allowed to ‘celebrate’ their cosmological moon rotations by the local ordinary?
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They would organize a protest.
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Now since the ordinary (notice the use of that word) Catholic is “working out their salvation in fear and trembling”, or to be more specific, working…. they probably will not be up for a sit in (or bed in… but for other reasons.)
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So here is my suggestion.
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Since as we have seen that this scandal has united the likes of Fr. Z and the SV’s (….sort of) as per my last thread, it might be a good idea to think of making a petition. Besides, all good hippies like petitions… something that they can understand. Yes? But I digress
…..
So to make a long story short, what I suggest is the following: A PROTEST MASS.
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I’m thinking, Fr. Z offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass according to the 1948 rubric at a SV chapel.
…….
Yea?
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Whose with me?
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Thanks, I thought a priest did not have to get permission to say the Latin Mass.
Of course modern Bishops, those in charge—ignore this, and call their own shots these days. Just check the many variations of the Sunday Mass everywhere. No uniformity.
You’d think father Gruner was an arch heretic. What calumny on this priest, who only speaks about fatima, which enrages modernists. I know Chris Ferrara debunked the phony suspension, I wish more would support him from these attacks.
I apologized about usin post in that way, but I have a serious question.
Some time ago in commentary somebody write, that Nouvelle Théologie is one offshot of Modernism. I don’t remember who that person was, but this statement bugging me a lot, and can someone give me some direction too study that topic.
Isn’t Taylor Marshall that fellow who likes to make long and mostly incoherent and emotional diatribes against Faithful Catholics’ mental well-being as if that invalidates their very legitimate concerns?
First the rage at the diabolic actions of this Bishop. Then the calls for calm and reflection. Then the gossip and the fallacious logic of ad hominem attacks on the principal of the college in question as somehow excusing the demonstrably wrong actions of this Bishop ( see Rorate for details). And this after the FFI. And who next?
Seriously folks. We have a demonstrable heretic of a Pope and not a single Cardinal or Bishop on the planet with the balls to call him out on his daily offences against the faith. We have the vast majority of so-called Catholics who go to no form of Mass at all – Ordinary, Extraordinary or otherwise. And the ones that do go the vast majority on a daily basis I live lives in total disregard of Church teachings. And yet, the Traditionalists tie themselves in knots agonising over questions of whether this group offers licit and valid sacraments, or illicit but valid sacraments or proper jurisdiction to do this but not that- arguments which would fly over the heads of the notionally Catholic but functionally heretical ‘Catholic’ population at large.
Hit the heretics where it hurts. Withdraw financial support. Step back a bit. Take a deep breath. Recognise the direction things are going. Clamber aboard the lifeboats of the SSPX and pray that the storm eventually passes.
Why is it that the Bishop cannot first put the specific charge(s) in writing before imposing this deprivation? I say again, it is impossible to defend against an action whose factual underpinning is not reduced to writing.
SNPAH: Exactly. The way to defeat the modernists is by reading Francis through Marx. I.e. not giving them one stink’n red penny.
With respect to jumping onto the SSPX lifeboat: That is why the Holy Ghost put the lifeboat there in the first place 😉
Archbishop Lefebvre, ora pro nobis.
Sounds like Mr. King is a true Catholic. I salute him!!
dear SaintNicholasPunchedAHeretic,
from where I stand your comment cannot be argued against. If I may reiterate also, albeit poorly paraphrasing, words of Archbishop Lefebvre,—yes-it is about the Mass, but it is not only about the Mass. The Catholic religion is nowhere to be found in its entirety, in all its soundness of Dogma and Doctrine, except within the SSPX. This is because Lefebvre simply handed on what was given to him.
Peace be to you.
I’m beginning to think that this shutting down of the TLM is the bishop’s way of giving FMC a firm push towards the exit door. The TLM is part of the reason why students attend in the first place. Take that away and the school is no different than any other lib arts school and the finances are so bad it is dying anyway. Using the TLM as the sword for the coup de grace is shocking though.
dear S. Armaticus,
magnificent and succinct comment.
God love you.
As Louie has rightly pointed out, Dr. Marshall has listed reasons for the abrogation of the saying of the TLM at FMC that, at least in part, speak to the administrative side of the college; these reasons therefore should play no role in Bishop Olsen’s determination as to whether the TLM is an occasion for pastoral solicitude.
Among those reasons are included: “Mr. King, after selling the original FMC campus to Texas Christian University for millions of dollars, had imprudently entered into a real estate deal that financially crippled Fisher More College”, leaving one with the impression that Mr. King entered into a inprudent speculative real estate deal (read scam) that cost FMC its legacy. In actual fact, Mr. King used the proceeds from the sale of the old campus property to buy/lease the present campus of Fisher More College as a foundation stone upon which to build a genuinely Catholic college. Without further elucidating Mr. King’s action after the sale of the original campus, Dr. Marshall has cast Mr. King’s action regarding the financial arrangements of the new campus (about which Dr. Marshall does not tell us) as a sort of unspoken financial malfeasance. This flies in the face of common decency.
Of note is that the old campus was actually comprised of several small houses that were more or less contiguous in a residential neighborhood and that the former College of St. Thomas More had purchased through the years. No further room for expansion was available. Mr. King saw an opportunity to acquire a much larger facility, one that would accommodate the anticipated growth of the now Fisher More College, and acted while that opportunity was available. To speak of this as entering “into a real estate deal” without explicating what that deal in actual fact was, is tantamount to portraying Mr. King as duplicitous and conniving. Disagreement with another’s direction does not necessarily qualify that other’s direction as rash, wrong, devious, or even imprudent.
If there are other financial dealings to which Dr. Marshall is privy, he should spell these out if he wishes to be credible, although, truly, they do not and should not influence the bishop’s decision concerning the TLM. Insinuations are hardly the hallmark of a forthright critic.
dear Mr. V.,
the only prudent action, evidently, to break down fashionistas is to take away their sustenance in an attempt to free them of their addiction.
Thank you for pointing out, in your words, “there is no need whatsoever for a priest to request the Latin Mass.” To even state that this may be the case is a sign of unacceptable ignorance on Dr. Marshall’s part. But one does hear it often.
If I may say, “extraordinary form-ordinary form,”–blah, blah, blah,–what ridiculous terms.
@stnickpunchedaheretic
There’s at least one bishop with a pair…and oars to the life boat too.
http://sspx.org/en/node/2599
Does anyone know if FMC is privately owned or owned by the Diocese. Anything in control of a bishop is in jeopardy if the institution does not acknowledge Vatican II as the true founder of the Catholic Church.
Fisher More College is privately owned.
Ziemek:
http://www.cfnews.org/gg-newtheo.htm
Mr. Marshall’s gripes may have some merit too them…I don’t really know because I am not in the know about what has happened at FMC. But I do remember how Mr. Marshall just about a year ago went off on “Trads” in general, because of their concerns regarding the new Bishop of Rome. I actually sort of agreed with him in principal at that time, in that it would only be fair to at least give the new Bishop of Rome time to show his true colors. I did disagree with his form though, in that he basically painted “Trads” as nothing more than pissed off at life and the world neanderthals who cling to their Latin Mass and Mantillas, alienating others in the process. But a year has passed since then, and the Bishop of Rome has showed his flock a lot, and I don’t think anyone who has current misgivings about where the Church is headed vis-a-vis tradition can be accused of hysteria or unfounded pessimism. The FFI and the FMC episodes should make anyone who desires to worship God by assisting at the TLM begin to take stock of their own parrish and diocese, and if they are blessed at the present to have access to the TLM, what will they do and where will they go if their diocese pulls the plug on it? As long as Francis reigns, the FFI and FMC won’t be the last of this…you can bank on that. As for me, I am fortunate to have a good TLM in my diocese every Sunday, and access to a SSPX chapel. So if our next Bishop pulls a “Bishop Olsen”, I know what I am going to do. I also know what I am going to do with a part of my bonus check month….it will go one third to my local parish TLM…one third to the FSSP parish a couple of hours away…and one third to the SSPX chapel in town.
Dear Chronic Sinner:
I remember those posts of Taylor Marshall from last year too. I thought he was way too free in his categorical attacks on Trads. I got hysterical while Bergoglio was still on the loggia because I had googled his name and gotten all the reports from Argentina in Spanish. Then I was willing to hope that Dr. Marshal and the others were right. Now a year later, it seems painfully obvious that they are wrong and naive.
Still I think we should avoid attacking our fellow Catholics like Taylor Marshall or that woman on the New Advent page today. Just keep at it and remember that “Whoever is not against us is for us” (Luke 9:50; Mark 9:40). I mean, as I recall, a guy like Taylor Marshall is so great. He is a convert, father of a brood, attractive and positive. Just because he does not share our understanding now, doesn’t meant we should attack him. Also, there do seem to be problems at Fisher Moore. I don’t think I’d send my kids there. But then again, where are there not problems? And really really crazy problems in almost every parish and Catholic school in the country.
Keep the faith!
Publius
Thanks, Publius. I don’t mean to come off as attacking Dr. Marshall. I was simply pointing out that, despite how he likes to polish his bona fides by always waving his love for the TLM, based upon some things he’s posted on his blog, he really isn’t that fond of traditional Catholics, which may cloud his assesment of things concerning FMC. Afterall, we all bring biases to the table.
brethren,
almost as heartbreaking to a Catholic mother as having to protect her children from the ravings of the current Supreme Pontiff is the fact that the term “Traditional Catholic,” is even necessary to be utilized in the nomenclature of this day and age.
when I was growing up prior to 1950, were were Catholic, period. Deep in the recesses of my heart how I wish all of you, every single one of you, could have known what that was even like.
oh, I know, I know. I’m just leprous sourpuss sayer of prayers.
Well, maybe this should be a lesson to you, not to judge the actions of a Bishop when you do not have all the facts.(per your prior blog) I think that is called the sin of rash judgment. The Bishop owes no one an explanation when something is ongoing and he may not have all the facts. Please learn to respect our Bishops. I wonder how many would go into schism if the Pope decided to eliminate the TLM, it seems most of you are already there. Just another form of Protestantism, I am sure Luther and Calvin would be proud.
Just a quick refreshment course for those that say trads are quick to attack. I can’t imagine having to live through the late 60’s and 70’s. When the faith was being dismantled right before the eyes of the faithful. Catholics who want to worship like actual Catholics, have been in the wilderness for the past 50 years. Yes, we all should be charitable, after all saving souls is the number one priority, but excuse me, when you keep seeing time after time, from the clergy to the laity attacking the faith, people tend to get pissed off.
The real issue is that FMC marketed itself publicly as an indult college. So yes, many parents, students and other supporters will become upset when the college and faculty begin taking stands or inviting guests that are closer to the Recognize & Resist position of the SSPX. One cannot blame these (former?) supporters.
If Dr. King wishes to run FMC like an R&R college, he should do so openly. Yes, it will likely mean competing with St Mary’s College operated by the SSPX. However, FMC has several advantages over SMC such as regional accreditation.
The other option would be to take a page from the sede playbook, hire some reputable traditional Catholic scientists and medical scholars, and establish a traditional Catholic science and technological institute.
The liberal laymen in the FSSP want it both ways. They want the old mass and the liberalism. If some Catholics spent half the time attacking modernism,liberalism,communism,zionism and freemasonry they spend demonically attacking the SSPX Our Lord and Our Lady would be better served. It seems to me many of these attacks on the SSPX come because of the fact that the SSPX is right on dogma and doctrine and comfortable Catholics would be forced to suffer for the social kingship of Jesus Christ if this reality on the doctrinal matters becomes known by more Catholics the modernists would be finished and in many ways are already on the way out. I suspect this is plan old human nature. We want the best of both worlds. We want the comfortability of the religiously pluralistic modern world and heaven. The SSPX reminds Catholics that we must choose Christ the King now and heaven follows or religious liberty & lies now and hell follows. That is why pseudo trads attack the SSPX they are over the heretical doctrinal target and the liberals know it. The reality of the matter is pseudo trads are unwilling to suffer the attacks the SSPX do for the doctrinal matters so the pseudo trads join the attacks. If anyone wants to understand what the doctrinal matters are please read this book: http://www.amazon.com/Catechism-Crisis…/dp/1892331799 (I am not suggesting anyone must or should attend an SSPX chapel) The SSPX are not the only Catholics I am suggesting that all Catholics learn what is at issue before attacking fellow Catholics.
Margie- If the Pope decided to abrogate the TLM it would be him going into schism not us. Please note two magisterial documents that declare the TLM to be valid and the mass of the Church for ALL TIME… the Papal Bull Quo Primum issued by Pope St. Pius V as well as the recent Summorum Pontificum by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. There is a reason we are so passionate about this mass…b/c it is the TRUE mass of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church…the most beautiful thing this side of heaven…the Ancient Mass celebrated by every validly canonized saint. Experience it’s sanity, beauty, reverence, and truth…and you’ll join us:+) God bless you~
PioKolby…….. “It seems to me many of these attacks on the SSPX come because of the fact that the SSPX is right on dogma and doctrine and comfortable Catholics would be forced to suffer for the social kingship of Jesus Christ”…….
There will be always, even WITHIN the Church, men who are close to the world and to the world’s thinking, which as a result makes them partisans of the lies. The Church of Jesus Christ has been abandoned, oppressed and persecuted by those same ‘men’. Those who relentlessly persecute the SSPX, cannot curb their fury (but God will curb their fury and evil intentions), especially the ‘shepherds’, simply because they have rejected the fidelity due to Christ the King and His Church. Even the so called Catholics who claim that they are defenders of the faith blindly fall victims to the powers of darkness.
In these dark times, we must be on guard ‘not to give up a truth’, by fear of the evils to which we are exposed, while defending that truth…….which is in truth, defending the cause of God. For us to give up, means, we are taking the side of the Father of Lies. As we can see the consequences are very grave……legions have fallen.
Let us pray and do penance doing the Lent, that God Almighty will cleanse the Holy Church from the scandals of impurity, heresy, apostasy, confusion, that the Holy Church of Jesus Christ may rise again to HER HOLINESS……which is preserved in the most Holy Worship……….the Mass of All Times, the Tridentine Mass!
Lord give us holy priests, that will help us to reach Heaven!
With regard to UE 19 this needs to be shared, as criticism of the legitimacy of the Novus Ordo is not enough in itself to warrant a prohibition. This is from an article in The Wanderer, dated 8/23/2012:
From The Wanderer 8/23/2012
A bishop who wishes to remain anonymous recently submitted two dubia to the Pontifical Ecclesia Dei Commission, regarding the inter- pretation of “legitimacy” in the 2011 instruction Universae Ecclesiae, n. 19.
The response from the commis- sion is conciliatory to hard-line traditionalist groups such as the SSPX, because Rome is only requiring devotees of the Extraordinary Form Mass to acknowledge that the Ordinary Form is “legitimate” from the standpoint of human (ecclesiastical) law, not necessarily from the standpoint of divine law. It also means Rome is not requiring Catholics who want access to the Extraordinary Form Mass to admit that such innovations as altar girls and Communion in the hand are acceptable in God’s sight.
We reprint below the letter submitted by the bishop and the response of the pontifical commission.
The author of the bishop’s letter is a retired theology professor. He passed that letter and the Roman response to The Wanderer after the response was forwarded to him by the bishop concerned.
Two Dubia Submitted To The Pontifical Commission
In article 19 of the commission’s instruction of April 30, 2011, Uni- versae Ecclesiae (UE), it is laid down that those Catholics who de- sire celebrations of the Eucharist in the extraordinary form of the Ro- man Rite (using the 1962 Missal) may not support, or be members of, any groups which “challenge the validity or legitimacy” (validitatem vel legitimitatem impugnent) of the ordinary form.
While very few still question the validity of Mass celebrated with the reformed Roman Missal, certain prominent “traditionalist” groups, individuals, and publica- tions have been openly and defi- antly challenging its legitimacy. However, there often appears to be confusion and conflicting as- sumptions in these circles as to how, precisely, the latter word is to be understood. As a result, it is not always clear to those priests wishing to serve Catholics at- tached to the traditional liturgy whether or not some of these folks are in fact in compliance with this requirement of the Ap- ostolic See enunciated in UE, n. 19.
In order, therefore, to clarify this matter and facilitate a consis- tent pastoral application of article 19, could the Commission gra- ciously consider and respond to the following two dubia?
1. Whether legitimitas in UE, ar- ticle 19, is to be understood as meaning:
(a) duly promulgated by appro- priate procedures of ecclesiastical law (ius ecclesiasticum); or
(b) in accord with both ecclesi- astical law and divine law (ius di- vinum), that is, neither doctrinally unorthodox nor otherwise displeas- ing to God.
2. If (b) above represents the mind of the Commission in regard to the meaning of legitimitas, whether UE, n. 19 is then to be un- derstood as allowing access to Mass in the extraordinary form:
(a) only to those Catholics who do not challenge the legitimacy of any specific text or practice what- soever that has been duly approved by either universal or local eccle- siastical law for use in celebrating the ordinary form; or
(b) to those faithful mentioned in (a) and also to those who acknowl- edge in principle the legitimacy of Masses celebrated according to the reformed Roman Missal and its General Instruction, but not the legitimacy of certain specific practices which, while not man- dated therein, are permitted as options by universal or local litur- gical law.
The second dubium has in mind those many traditionally in- clined Catholics who accept the legitimacy (in sense l [b] above) of ordinary-form Masses in which more traditional options are used, but who regard as wrong and displeasing to God certain practices which were for many centuries universally disapproved and forbidden by the Church but which are now permitted by the local liturgical law of many or
most dioceses or episcopal confer- ences (e.g., Communion given in the hand, female altar service, and the use of extraordinary lay minis- ters of Communion).
Rome’s Response
Pontificia Commissio Ecclesia Dei
Prot. 156/2009
Vatican City, 23 May 2012
Your Excellency,
This Pontifical Commission has received, via your Excellency’s good offices, a copy of a correspon- dence from [name blacked out] plac- ing before the Commission two du- bia as to the interpretation of article 19 of this Commission’s Instruction Universae Ecclesiae.
The first [dubium] asked wheth- er legitimas in UE, article 19, is to be understood as meaning:
(a) Duly promulgated by appro- priate procedures of ecclesiastical law (ius ecclesiasticum); or
(b) In accord with both ecclesi- astical law and divine law (ius di- vinum), that is, neither doctrinally unorthodox nor otherwise displeas- ing to God.
This Pontifica1 Commission would limit itself to saying that le- gitimas is to be understood in the sense of 1(a). The second [dubium] is responded to by this answer.
With the hope that Your Excel- lency will communicate the con- tents of this letter to the individual concerned, this Pontifical Commis- sion takes this opportunity to renew its sentiments of esteem.
Sincerely yours in Christ
Mons. Guido Pozzo Secretary
Bosco said: Why is it that the Bishop cannot first put the specific charge(s) in writing before imposing this deprivation? I say again, it is impossible to defend against an action whose factual underpinning is not reduced to writing.
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one thing always arises when there is no clear charge; there’s plenty of room for insinuations, misconceptions, and outright dissembling.
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this action of outlawing lawful worship because of one or two trouble makers (if there are? whatever side of the VII idol they fall on) seems to be nothing but, problem-reaction-solution. Politics 101 – the solution is destroy traditional Catholicism because modernists don’t believe that God doesn’t change or just don’t believe in God; so a ‘problem’ needs to be created to be reacted to – e.g. ‘a danger to souls’??? or insinuations of disloyalty to the Pope, or not having enough fidelity to Paul VIs watershed mass (which seems to be the modernist lever for changing and destroying anything they like). reaction – those evil Traditionalists and there unaggiornamentoed doctrine, dogma, liturgy, are troublemakers, rocking a perfectly groovy VII boat = the solution.
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maybe there’s no such politics in this bishops move but without charges, who can say?
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p.s. Ziemek, also ‘One Hundred Years of Modernism’, first published around 2000 covers well the who modernist shebang:
http://www.amazon.com/One-Hundred-Years-Modernism-Principles/dp/1892331438
p.s. that was supposed to be the ‘whole’ modernist thing.
p.s.s. PioKolby said: If some Catholics spent half the time attacking modernism,liberalism,communism,zionism and freemasonry they spend demonically attacking the SSPX Our Lord and Our Lady would be better served. It seems to me many of these attacks on the SSPX come because of the fact that the SSPX is right on dogma and doctrine and comfortable Catholics would be forced to suffer for the social kingship of Jesus Christ if this reality on the doctrinal matters becomes known by more Catholics.
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you’ve hit an important nail on the head there. how many Catholics care a fig about suffering for Christ? in union with His Cross or His social Kingship? Not so many because we have become protestantized – suffer? but Christ did all that, we’re here to enjoy the benefits of it. PK continues: We want the best of both worlds. We want the comfortability of the religiously pluralistic modern world and heaven. The SSPX reminds Catholics that we must choose Christ the King now and heaven follows or religious liberty & lies now and hell follows.
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Yup. Read the daily instruction in the ’62 (all perfectly legal) missal and compare it with the new? They often seem so out of communion with each other. Happily the Ash Wednesday instruction is fairly close, except once again the priest is presented as presider rather than specially ordained sacrificial priest.
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I would love to listen to a radio debate or the like between Mr Verrecchio and Dr. Marshal on this since Dr. Marshall has decided to jump into the ecclesiastical mud pen with us scandalous seekers after Truth. Vigorous word wars, now called debate, were common in the Catholic seminaries, and among Catholic thinkers – (BTW http://liturgicalnotes.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/blessed-gk-santo-subito-chesterton.html)
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p.s. (I’ve only visited Marshal’s site a couple of times and felt like some people feel after, as an adult, you eat baby food, like, ehem, um, it’s time for something that used to have a heartbeat).
@boromeo: well said.
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p.s. I often forget to thank Louie for his posts, which have the staple of being clear, truthful, circumspect when necessary, and brave when non-negotiable – and funny. I’m waiting for part-two of the Bedrock Buffaloes.
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and clearly anyone gets to air their confusions, delusions or grievances or straight good Catholic conscience here without fear of being given the heave-ho into the ecclesiastical porn orlop deck of the SS Peter.
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I really do appreciate CMTV, for one thing I would possible not have learned of Louie Verrecchio without ‘conversations with’. Still waiting for Mike to wear the ecclesiastical porn cop t-shirt. Or to announce a new manifesto – ‘we reserve the right never to report anything on the bishop of rome for the sake of the saving of souls’.
@saluto: Why would Dr. Marshall (or Mr Voris) debate Louie over this issue? Has Louie ever debated these issues publicly?
– Louie only recently came to tradition. Like most newbies does not appear to have developed his own positions. Most of what he writes on the issue is simply parroting the standard R&R political correctnesses of long-established R&R partisans like Michael Matt, Chris Ferrara or John Vennari. For those who have been around traditionalism a while, this is why Louie comes across like Michael and Cindy Cain during that period after they had renounced being Medj-heads, but before they jumped to sedevacantism. That period during which their Daily Catholic re-published articles and essays mostly written by Ferrara, Vennari, Drolesky (before he also embraced sedevacantism), Jake Michaels (before he renounced his SSPX ties and returned to the indult after his closest collaborator Mario Derksen embraced sedevacantism), etc.
– So given that Dr Marshall and Mr Voris are big names among those promoting the Ecclesia Dei position, would it not make more sense in a debate to match them with experienced apologists for the R&R position like Ferrara or Vennari?
– Additionally, how do we know Louie will stick with the R&R position as a trad? History has shown that most former sideshow neo-caths who adopt R&R traditionalism only do so temporarily. Eventually they return to the Novus Ordo and vanish, or embrace some form of sedevacantism and end up publishing mostly desperate online fundraising appeals.
The statements by Taylor Marshall are appalling. How dare him? He is causing scandal by making statements like: “Dr King made “imprudent” financial decisions.” That statement suggests that Dr. King did something questionable or unethical. How dare him? It appears Dr. King sold his old piece of land to purchase the current property where the college sits today. Who is Taylor Marshall to judge Dr. King’s administration? Is Taylor Marshall a financial planner or financial advisor? How would any future employer want to hire Taylor Marshall after he publicly disparages his former employer? Wow! Just wow. I just went to Taylor Marshall’s Website, and the picture in the right
hand corner of his site speaks volumes. If you are truly wanting to spread the Gospel and share the truths of the faith, I suggest you do not put a picture of yourself in the corner. How about a picture of the Lord, or beautiful artwork. Jesus is the focus, the Church is the focus…
Getting more to the point of the TLM, how is it ever right to take the Mass away from students who want it. You can say all you want about what is going at that college, but the students are the ones being hurt. Jesus wept.
@Saluto
–
Lest I be accused of being insulting or a nay-sayer, here’s a few recent samples of desperate online fundraising appeals written by former neo-cath celebrities who made a pit-stop at R&R traditionalism before continuing on to sedevacantism:
–
Dr. Drolesky
http://christorchaos.com/donation.html
@Saluto (continued, 2 of 3)
–
Gerry Matatics, who like Cher has been advertising his final mega-tour for the past seven years:
http://gerrymatatics.org/20140301.html
@Saluto (continued, 3 of 3)
–
I won’t link to Michael Cain’s online Lenten fundraising letter out of respect for his wife Cindy and their marriage. This obviously is a difficult time for the couple as Cindy’s medical condition appears to be both serious and possibly terminal. I am certain they would appreciate our prayers during this time.
Nevertheless, I think this earlier fundraising letter conveys the same sense of carnival barker desperation:
http://www.dailycatholic.org/apostoli.htm
–
Needless to say, my suggestion for former “conservative” Catholic B-List celebrities who publicly adopt R&R traditionalism? Find a day job. You will need it when you publicly embrace sedevacantism.
TT – I don’t understand what you are getting at. Lent as far as I know is about growing closing to Christ through His suffering, the means being prayer, fasting, penance and giving to the poor.
–
You also, take everything very very literally. I like the idea of Louie and Marshall having a debate.
–
p.s. I don’t care about the idea let alone the fact of a ‘catholic’ celebrity. Unless it’s Mel Gibson, the man produced and directed The Passion of the Christ, so there’s an exception.
–
p.s. I imagine you might be out the door anytime soon to receive the ashes, if so, God bless.
The wording of article 19 of the Instruction above is interesting.
First of all, it implies that one can be “against the Roman Pontiff as Supreme Pastor of the Universal Church” and still be “faithful”.
Secondly, it implies that one can be “against the Roman Pontiff as Supreme Pastor of the Universal Church” and still have access to the forma ordinaria.
Surely the issue of union with the See of Peter should be dealt with separately and not confused with the forms of the Roman rite. It is clearly possible that a person who seeks access to the Novus Ordo may also be against the Pope, for example on the morality of abortion or the unnatural vice. By itself, however, article 19 exclusively taints adherents of tradition.
@Dumb-Ox – back when the new translation for Novus Ordo were being implemented, I attended a very large congregation NO church. At the end of one Mass the priest, before the dismissal ranted at the Pope and his stupidity for messing with the missal – in front of everyone at Mass – people laughed.
–
and what Benedict did was good.
Folks, this decree of the Bishop is invalid for several reasons:
1) It is a penal decree, which is only valid if the reasons for imposing the punishment and the punishment are just.
2) The Bishop has no power to forbid the Ancient Rite, so the punishmetn is unjust. It would be valid if he forbade the Mass in any form, but for that he would have to meet the requirements for a decree of excommunication; territorial interdicts are expressly abandoned in the New Code of 1983.
3) No penal penalty is justly imposed unless the proper proceedures are followed: 3 reprimands in writing or before 2 witnesses.
4) Finally, you cannot punish the colleg for the faults of Mr. King.
But I demure at the reaction of compliance, which the College seems to have followed. Generally Canonist say one should comply with an unjust penalty, during the appeal, so as to show proper respect. However, that is only advisable where the dispute which makes the basis for appealing to higher authority, focues on doubts regarding fact or law. There is no doubt that the Bishop does not have authority to ban the Old Mass; furthermore, there is suspicion of heresy and schism from the Roman Pontiff in the actions of the Bishop, since he has signed a decree which is contumacious of the authority of Pope Benedict XVI expressed in Summorum Pontificum. For that reason, no compliance is necessary during the appeal.
then why do Faithful catholics play these ‘Simon says’, games when there is proper precedent for resistence and openly contradicting, even openly admonishing? it’s a shame cmtv didn’t know this
–
http://www.cfnews.org/page88/files/6dc01f470b25d725254801526d8d93b0-195.html
–
before a public defense of the modrnist errors of a fundamentalist modernist was launched, and in that defense an offensive against those with a God given right to call foul foul.
@saluto:
–
If you look at the blog entry up top under which all these comments fall, the topic is not Lenten practice or fasting but Dr. Taylor Marshall’ s comments on the recent controversy surrounding Fisher-More College.
–
In that light, Dr Taylor is pointing out as simple truth. In recent years Fisher-More has been marketed and branded as an (in fact only) indult trad college in America. This is what attracted parents to open up their wallets and entrust the college with the formation and education of their young adult children. Dr Taylor is in a good position to know this as FMC’s former president.
–
Those looking for a more R&R stance when it came to Vatican II and the Novus Ordo had St. Mary’s College in St Mary’s, Kansas. This is the liberal arts college operated by the SSPX.
–
Most sedes do not have a dog in this fight. Most sedes in my experience tend to send their children to the local science and technological institute, so that they can find well-paying jobs after graduation that will allow them to marry and support a large Catholic family. The spiritual, theological and liberal arts formation is done on the side, privately, at the fraction of the cost of a residential college programme.
–
As far as the possibility of a public debate between Louie and Dr. Taylor, what purpose would it serve? Would it even be a debate? Louie has not been around the traditionalist movement long enough to champion his R&R position. Most of what Louie writes on traditionalism and the SSPX is simply a re-hashing of former trad blogger Jacob Michael from a decade ago. Or Michael Cain during the same era, before Cain embraced sedevacantism. In short, Louie is a cheerleader rather than original thinker when it comes to tradiitonalism.
–
Against a thoughtful and experienced traditionalist opponent like Dr. Marshall, Louie would run out of talking points within five minutes. This is why someone whose traditionalist credentials are established, someone who has been around a while, like Michael Matt or John Vennari, would be more suitable an opponent for Dr. Taylor.
–
Not that Louie might not make a good intellectual gladiator for his R&R position in the future, after he has spent some time practicing and advocating it, and after all his Novus Ordo and indult gigs have dried up. By then we will know whether he is truly committed to the R&R position. My guess? It will likely be a step toward sedevacantism. Just a strong hunch based upon watching this happen for the last quarter decade. Other friends of mine, who have been traditionalists as long as I have, feel the same hunch when reading Louie.
–
A man has an obligation to support his family. This is part of the Natural Law. To do so exclusively as a lay traditionalist writer, speaker and commentator is next to impossible. Especially once one departs from the indult and crosses the line to R&R or sedevacantist. In 25 years I have seen some very sad stories involving laymen who tried and lost their homes. Many are now estranged from their children, who want nothing to do with any form of religion. Some have even lost their marriages. I suggest Louie find a day job if he has not already done so, not out of malice but out of charity.
MORE
ASH
WEDNESDAYS
In the graveyard
Litter tosses
Winds blow o’er
Frozen mosses
Hard cold ground
Ashen gray
Kneels a soul
This March Wednesday
Knelt before
A tombstone, prays
On the grave
A rose she lays
Her greatest gift
A rose from God
Marking prayers
Upon this sod
Graveyard keeper’s
Shadowy cloud
Picks up rose
“It’s not allowed.”
In the graveyard
Winds blow dust
From the keeper’s pocket
Drops a piece of crust.
@Carolyn: I’m totally with you.
@Torquemada: That was an interesting comment in defense of Marshall and quite the slam of Louie.
I guess we’re all viewing this through our own lenses. I don’t see how banning the Traditional Mass is legit on the part of the Bishop. And what exactly does the Mass have to do with the problems spewed out by Marshall Taylor?
Here’s my own particular slam: My lens is skewed against most anything that Marshall Taylor has to say, partly because of his previous rantings about traditionalists and the FFI situation. But also because I find him to be a self-serving, self-promoting blowhard. His website speaks volumes, as well as his frequent plugs for his latest books. He takes every opportunity to assure everyone reading him that he’s a “regular attendee of the traditional Mass but”…..Whew, Lord forgive me for that, but there you have it. Contrary to what he thinks of himself and his opinion, it carries absolutely no weight with me.
I have a couple books of Taylor Marshall’s, and when I was quite new in the faith I appreciated his blog. However, his attacks on Catholics who love the Vetus Ordo began to grate on me, and actually turned me to explore why he was being so critical. I’m sure it was an unintended effect. 😉
There is a two-tier system for traditionalist Catholics, and he is apparently on the top tier. I find myself on the bottom tier (and happy for it). I would hate to be on the top tier where I must constantly watch what I say and write for fear I may offend a modernist in authority.
dear Carolyn & Elizabeth,
totally with you both. I know, the “but,” — hilarious , at best, for those who use that qualifier.
dear Long-Skirts,
thank you for all your offerings.
saluto March 5, 2014 6:53 am
then why do Faithful catholics play these ‘Simon says’, games when there is proper precedent for resistence and openly contradicting, even openly admonishing?
————–
Saluto, that’s because most Canonist don’t study at Rome under Conservative canonists…but rather under legal positivists
South Bend bishop a nutter. Attacks SP.
http://eponymousflower.blogspot.com/2014/03/this-time-its-bishop-of-south-bend-who.html.
Remember sports fans, “Desperate times demand desperate measures.” And we are dealing here with desperate modernists.
Tequilla, you are a mystery to me……….but, not to God.
St. John Chrysostom…….’go to a sepulchre; contemplate dust, ashes, worms—-and sigh!’
God bless,
Halina
And now for something completely different. Liturgical practices that do not “endanger” a modernists soul: http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2013/06/liturgical-dance-from-all-over-world.html
They are “taking the mickey”, as the English would say.
An open letter to the modernist bishop of Fort Worth from Fr. Z.
http://wdtprs.com/blog/2014/03/an-open-letter-to-most-rev-michael-olson-bishop-of-fort-worth/
We shall overcome…..
Oldies but goodies. Deacon Sandy and soul soothing stuff:
http://wdtprs.com/blog/2014/02/break-out-the-bongs-liturgy-with-deacon-sandy-video/
No “Ideologue of the Logos!”, he. 😉
And now for a peak into the part of the newchurch where souls are not n danger:
http://wdtprs.com/blog/2013/10/a-study-of-the-sinsinawa-dominicans-hint-lcwr-read-and-weep/
No “Old maid!”, she. 😉
The hierarchical Church is a mess, let’s just face it. It’s filled with factions, enmities, petty agendas, and, most of all, contempt for Catholics who know the Church existed before 1960. It’s a sad, sorry spectacle.
It seems the clamp-down comes once Vatican II is questioned at all. I read Dr. John Dudley’s 4-4-13 lecture, “The Faith In Europe”, on Fisher-More’s website, and found it to be well-reasoned regarding the history and effects of the calamity known as the Second Vatican Council.
Picture that scene in “The Wizard of Oz” – the one where Professor Marvel demands, “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!”. That’s the powers-that-be who DO NOT want us to question their precious failure of a Council and will bring down the hammer on anyone that does. They don’t want a bunch of us wising up and saying “why not question it’s failures?”. So they take away the TLM to protect the Council.
I came across an article today by Atila Sinke Guimaraes entitled “Revolution and Counter Revolution – Overview”. There’s a subtitle in the article named “The weak point of the Revolution”, in which he writes, “…the weak point of the Revolution today is the public controversy regarding Vatican II and the New Mass inside the Catholic Church”. Their fear of public controversy explains why they swiftly chop off the TLM at the first inkling of the questioning of any thing regarding Vatican II and its resultant rotten fruit (about which we’re supposed to ignore reality and say its odor smells heavenly).
Folks, I am in shock over what is going on Germany! I knew it was bad but I had no idea THIS bad. Call me naive. How will this affect the universal Church? Germany has completely lost the Faith, it seems.
Marie,
Would you post the link for Dr. Dudley’s lecture, “The Faith In Europe” that you said you got from the FMC site. I cannot find it and a search on that site does not bring it up.
Thanks.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/03/05/pope-francis-reportedly-hints-that-catholic-church-could-tolerate-some-gay-civil-unions/
Pope Francis Reportedly Hints That Catholic Church Could Tolerate Some Gay Civil Unions.
James,
A great sight to follow the Germanosphere (Austria and Switzerland also) is the Eponymous Flower blog. Louie has the link on the right hand margin. Go through the archives, but make sure you have a vomit bag when you do.
BTW, it was the Germans that brought us VII. It’s as if all the Nazi’s moved into the church hierarchy after the fall of the Third Reich.
Look at what we got here? A successful diocese. Link here:http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2014/03/liturgical-peace-and-vocational-success.html.
—–
Those damned “Old maid!”,”Fomenters of coprophagia!”,”Specialists of the Logos!”, “Rosary counters!”,”Functionaries!”, “Self-absorbed, Promethean neo-Pelagians!”, “Restorationist!” “Pelagians!”, “Mr and Mrs Whiner!”, “Triumphalists!”, “Liquid Christians!”, “Museum mummies!”, “Renaissance princes!”, “Airport Bishoped!”, “Ideologues of the Logos!”, “Leprous courtiers!”. “Idealogues!”, “Long-faced, mournful funeral Christians!”, “Gnostic!” “Careerist Bishops!”, “Sourpusses!”, “Pretenders!”, “Liturgical obsessive!” “Sayers of prayers!”, “Authoritarian!” “Elitists!”, “Querulous and disillusioned pessimistic !” “Sad Christians!”, “Pickled pepper-faced Christians!”, “Children! Afraid to dance! To cry! Afraid of everything!”, “Askers for certainty in all things!”, “Closed, sad, trapped Christian who is not a free Christians!”, “Pagan Christians!”, “Little monsters!”, “Defeated Christians!”,
“Creed-reciting, parrot Christians!”, “Watered-down faith, weak-hoped Christians!”, “Inquisitorial beaters!”, “Seminarians who grit their teeth and wait to finish, follow rules and smile [who] reveal the hypocrisy of clericalism – one of the worst evils!”, “Abstract ideologues!”, “Fundamentalists!”, “Smarmy, idolator priest!”, “Worshipers of the god Narcissus!”, “Vain, butterfly-priest!”,
“Priest-wheeler dealers!”, “Priest-tycoons!”, “Religious who have a heart as sour as vinegar!”, “Promoters of the poison of immanence!”, “Those closed in the formality of a prayer that is cold, stingy [who] might end up as Michal, in the sterility of her formality.”,
[ Please take note: This is satire. I have not (as yet) been commissioned to compile a book of Pope Francis insults. Anyway, let’s continue the book…]
“Older people nostalgic for structures and customs which are no longer life-giving in today’s world!”, “Young people addicted to fashion!”, “Pastry-Shop Christians!”… strike again.
——-
What’s a poor modernist to do?
OT, sorry.
The latest interview from Pope Francis to the Corriere della Sera is utterly too much..his “magisterium” is praxis alright …praxis in destroying what’s left of Catholic identity in the world. and now it is quite clear- he loves doing this – he’s enjoying himself – it’s great fun for him, laughing and joking away with the world – while the Holy Catholic Church is being mocked and scorned by it like never before…
.BASTA! I’m sick of his interviews – God forgive me – it’s so utterly depressing .
Marie,
You are correct. The litmus test is V2. It is key to the modernists’ success of tranforming the faith into their image and likeness.
Armaticus……..A great sight to follow the Germanosphere (Austria and Switzerland also) is the Eponymous Flower blog……. but make sure you have a vomit bag when you do………….my bag is ready, but I cannot find the information. Can you help?
Here’s the link to Dr. Dudley’s lecture: http://www.fishermore.edu/wp-content/uploads/Dudley-Faith-in-Europe.pdf
@Margie Prox Sindelar
If the Pope eliminated the TLM, HE would become a heretic such as Luther or Calvin or Paul VI or Bugnini or whoever. In fact, Bergoglio is a heretic and an apostate. We Roman Catholics are to obey and respect our sheperds on the base of orthodoxy. On the other hand, it is our dutty to denounce heresy.
“Torquemada Tequila” said: “Most of what he writes on the issue is simply parroting the standard R&R political correctnesses of long-established R&R partisans like Michael Matt, Chris Ferrara or John Vennari.”
– By your implicit logic any consistent position could be called “politically correct”. It’s just an underhanded insult.
– While Mr. Verrecchio in his humility would surely agree with you that he is following in the footsteps of the giants of the traditionalist movement, he’s quite obviously adding his own spin and personal style. There’s a reason those of us who read him do so.
“Additionally, how do we know Louie will stick with the R&R position as a trad? History has shown that most former sideshow neo-caths who adopt R&R traditionalism only do so temporarily. Eventually they return to the Novus Ordo and vanish, or embrace some form of sedevacantism and end up publishing mostly desperate online fundraising appeals.”
What a very silly statement. You think a smattering of “celebrities” is representative of the whole, for starters?
Marie said: So they take away the TLM to protect the Council.
–
from my little pew, this seems pretty clear. all these attacks done to protect a council and movement that has created a largely apostate flock, at all levels. Irrational modernists and their irrational idols, bishops of rome as an idol included – I guess like the council protectors willing to destroy the Church’s authenticity, CMTV have become ‘protectors’ of scandalisers willing to attack those who prudently do not sweep the world wide know facts under the BS carpet. I think the few good men are getting fewer. I keep praying Bergoglio will have his road to damacus moment, his balaam on his ass on the road moment. I wonder if CMTV prays for his conversion? or if they just pray those who notice that he needs to convert from modernism to Truth, to shut up? Who can say?
–
God bless for the poem, Long-Skirts.
Halina, here you go.
http://eponymousflower.blogspot.com/
But remember, you have been warned 😉
Where the modernist are taking the Bride of Christ?
http://www.pblosser.blogspot.com/2014/03/women-religious-and-new-cosmology.html.
Soul friendly? 😉
Sean.
Thank you.
NewChurch means new traditions?: Story here.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_REL_VATICAN_POPES_CROSS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-03-06-07-18-38
Stealing crosses from caskets is soothing for the soul. :0
s.armaticus
–
it seems Francis thinks nowadays the world is his confessor. I think he’s a sinphomaniac. probably be really dissapointed and bored if all the cardinals suddenly confessed (to priest in private) and became holy. what would he do? with whom could share his conisseure cussing?
that said maybe there’s a new novel there for Anne Rice: vampyres of the post-Benedictine era – your faaaaathhhaaaaa has aaaaaarizzaaan!
@saluto
—
Just because Mrs Rice is on record as frequenting the TLM, I am not sure that makes her a traditionalist.
P.S. saluto: That joke was funny two decades ago when Mrs Rice’s vampire novels were all the rage, and one was referring to John Paul II and the post-Vatican II Church. I cannot recall if it was Charles Coulombe or Chris Hoag who had originally cracked the joke. But it was funny back then.
Today? Meh… You newer trads really should try coming up with some original material like we did in our generation.
I didn’t know that TT. you could post the inside to the outside on catholic staaaaahz.
I mustn’t be as old and creaky as you TT – remember, ‘doing things I uuused to doo, they think are newooo….I sit and watch as tears go baaaaaaayi’. bit before my time too.
p.s. I must actually have a talent because it I’d never heard it before I told to myself.
p.s. but isn’t it good to know TT that the tradition is being past and that I’m not being original or inavitive, but in the hermeneutic comedinuity?
@saluto – In response to your questions, see my earlier advice about trad commentators having a day job. Especially if they have families to support.
p.s. the only Anne rice novel I read was her reversion novel, but then I hear she unreverted and started on the vampyres again. so I lost interest.
–
here’s another joke, the last bit of which I ripped off from a Benedictine Father from a link Linda left: you go to the pearly gates and you meet God, but who He? is He Francis’ God? JPIIs God, or a Catholic God:
–
God has a question for you on judgment day anfpd you better get it right – so He say, ‘if you are a Roman Catholic priest and two ostriches with bright red beaks demand you preside over a mating dance before the altar; do you A: put down a polythene sheet to prevent dung getting on the blue carpet and wait for them to decide on their vows? B: suggest an outdoor ceremony would be more appropriate? or C: pluck and roast them, since it’s better to roast now than later?’
sorry tt my p.s. were rhetorical since I live in a different time zone all together – happy travels.
Taylor Marshall believes in intolerance toward those who do not take his own particular “traditional” view. He seems to think that it’s justifiable that the EF is taken away from Fisher Moore, due to problems there. But what he doesn’t address is how those problems will be solved by taking away the EF. And why is it that the EF was used as a club by the bishop to bash the college into submission? Strange that a “trad” like Marshall would be okay with that, but them Marshall is a relative newcomer to the world of tradition. He doesn’t really understand it. Sometimes it’s the case where well-educated men can’t see reality, and that they place too much confidence in their own views.
And now for the OTHER “Francis Effect”. Yea, that one that was supposed to bring all those catholics back into the pews, RC has the scoop: http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-francis-effect-continued.html#more.
Money line: “The data compiled from April to October 2013 showed no measurable effect in Catholic identity and Mass attendance (in fact, Mass attendance dropped slightly).”
—–
It was Einstein who observed that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly but expecting a different result each time.
—-
But hey, maybe admitting that you steal crosses from coffins will turn this thing around. I’m sure everyone can relate to that. 😉
brethren,
has anyone read Shea’s latest craven rant —-on this topic?
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markshea/2014/03/mystery-solved.html
dear Mr. V.,
I’d like to see you address this, I really would.
friends,
for the polar opposite, the measured and intelligent treatise by Brian McCall—–CFN.
http://www.cfnews.org/page88/files/27b495b2ee119587fe5b840605672c4b-196.html
TT & saluto: I am not certain if the Anne Rice vampyre joke originated with Br. Charles or me. Those were very spirited (spirit-soaked?) days and my memory has grown murky as the decades roll on. What I can attest is that Charles & I did indeed sing and dance Richard O’Brien’s “Time Warp” from Rocky Horror in the middle of Bourbon Street following a wonderful dinner at Antoine’s. That is a certain fact related to gothic New Oleans.
GREAT article by CFNEWS, Linda…thank you. So it was a lie that Dr. Marshall said Dr. Dudley called V2 invalid. Thank goodness for transcripts from the talk. And yes, what the bishop did was insane. Would love it if the Church finally admitted that V2 was a pastoral “failure” and reinstated everything from pre-V2. But that would take authentic humility, eh? God bless~
PS. Anybody have a good article that explains Pope Francis through his marxism/liberation theology glasses? Thanks and God bless~
This link provides the list of guest speakers for 2012-13. Fr. Gruner is one and once the college was told he was supposedly suspended and not a priest in good standing, they checked into it and Fr. Gruner was cleared by the college.
http://fishermore.edu/guest-speakers-fisher-college/
@Liam
Oh man, great to see you again!
I agree those were great days, when as traditionalists inspired by the Mass of the Ages and fuelled by fine drink and finer company, we allowed our Catholic imaginations to run wild.
–
My favourite was still when you, Br Charles and a few others shared the adventures of Sister Betsy-Mae O’Blivion and the Pogo Stick Altar Leaping Ministry (PSALM).
Apparrently Dr Marshall was not forthcoming with the truth or maybe it was just his version of events. His response to the situation at Fisher More College left it up to the reader to fill in the “Rest of the Story” many times. Hopefully this link will help some of your readers who are concerned with the financial situation at Fisher More College. http://fishermore.edu/welcome . As for myself, I have been attending daily mass at Fisher More College Chapel for the past year, mid Feb 2013 until 2 weeks ago when Fr Henderson of the Fathers of Mercy was reassigned by his superior.At no time from Fr. Simon, Fr. Orlowski, Fr. Wolfe or Fr. Henderson was there anything but reverant celebration of the TLM as well as their homolies. When my wife and I began attending daily mass Dr. Marshall and President King alternated leading us in the rosary. After Dr. Marshall left President King would lead us unless he was away on business. It was the efforts of President King that we have had carring priest to lead us in our daily and Sunday celebration. My wife and I drive through Fort Worth, Arlington and 50 minutes arrived at Mater Dei for Ash Wednesday mass at 12:10. We saw a few Fisher More College students but the rest of them would have to make the drive over to Mater Dei for the 7 pm distribution of ashes and mass. Last year it was a 15 minutes drive for us and a maybe a 30 yard walk for the students. I’ve read a lot of comments on the internet about the situation at Fisher More College and a lot of them are just plain mean from people who probably have no clue where Fisher More College is or even took the time to read their website but they have a change to rap the TLM. Anyway I will continue praying for Fisher More College, the student body, staff, faculty and especially President King and look forward once more to attend the TLM in the Fisher More College Chapel.
@Liam:
–
P.S. Since you always had a keen eye for these types of trend in the traditionalist movement, here’s some questions I would be interested in hearing your opinion on:
–
1 – Bishop Williamson and the Resistance faction vs. Bishop Fellay and the mainline SSPX faction – what is your take?
–
2 – Michael Voris as Vin Lewis 2.0 – thoughts or comments?
–
3 – Is Fisher-More College a good idea, or are we traddies better off doing what many sedes do in sending their kids off to secular colleges for STEMM-related (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, Medicine) degrees?
–
4 – How long before Louie embraces sedevacantism or one of its variations like sedeprivationism or sedebenedictplenism?
@hawaiianwarrior44
–
thanks for the news on the ground.
Mr. Tequila, I need to correct you again (sorry). You said
“1 – Bishop Williamson and the Resistance faction vs. Bishop Fellay and the mainline SSPX faction – what is your take?”
An accurate phrasing would be
“1 – Bishop Williamson and the “Resistance” vs. Bishop Fellay and the SSPX – what is your take?”
Bishop Williamson was expelled from the SSPX, by the will of not only Fellay but all the SSPX bishops.
Insinuating that he is simply now in another “faction” of the Society is like suggesting a child expelled from school has simply founded a new faction of the school.
I pray some day good Bishop Williamson, who has an impressive intellect among other qualities, will stow his bitterness and repent.
@a catholic thinker: Thanks for the much needed corrections for pretty much every ‘contribution’ or rather pointless interruption of TT and the TTs.
–
dead horse, pointless flogging the stinky beast.
–
meanwhile:
http://fishermore.edu/statement-college-president-michael-king-re-taylor-marshall/
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so there you have it. Marshall was simply stirring half-lies and personal opinion in a public pot. I think Marshall and TT and the TTs should hop on over to Casa Olsen where they can do an impromptu rocky horror pic-nit, read old Anne Rice novels, and perhaps later ones, congratulate themselves on how compliant and manipulable sheeple are in their mitts and then get high on screamo.
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maybe Francis of the F-Bomb join them.
@Linda – McCall’s article clears away all the misconceptions.
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” Dr. Dudley although acknowledging that some passages of the documents of Vatican II repeat traditional teaching, argues that others clearly contradict it. Again, such a claim is not news worthy. He notes that Pope Benedict XVI was keenly aware of this tension and in fact according to Benedict, “Gaudium et Spes, the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, was an anti-syllabus, meaning a direct contradiction of the syllabus of errors published by Pope Pius IX in 1864.” Dr. Dudley then argues that in his opinion the way the Church should deal with this problematic Council is to just put aside the whole thing the way in which the Church simply put aside and ignored the teaching of the Second Council of Constantinople while still acknowledging it to have been an Ecumenical council.”
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faith and reason, just like truth and charity – always go together.
there is a new inquisition and it’s not because it’s protecting Faith and immortal souls.
my dear Saluto, indeed yes. Please offer another Ave for my eldest son if you have time.during this Lent. Peace be to you.
@Linda – will do. God bless.
LOL! A Catholic Tinker, you neo-trads are nothing in your unreflectiveness if not enthusiastic. Msgr Knox wrote a good book on that topic. I suggest you read it. Might do you some good this Lent. Then again, it might not.
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Regardless, I was looking for intelligent responses to my questions. This is why I addressed them to Liam.
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Say what one wishes about Bishop Williamson and his leadership of the SSPX Resistance faction. But CathInfo reports an interesting talk given by Fr. Pinaud over at La Sapiniere in which the SSPX Resistance priest discusses his recent heart-to-heart conversation with SSPX major superior, canon law guru and financier Fr. Ramon Angles.
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Interesting that Fr Angles reportedly told this Resistance priest an agreement with Rome is needed as soon as possible to avoid schism because Bishop Fellay has accumulated too much power within the SSPX, more so than even the Pope.
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I googled La Sapiniere and unfortunately the talk only seems to be available in French. Too bad. It would be interesting to read an English translation of the transcript.
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Here’s the link to the CathInfo thread where parts have been translated into English:
http://www.cathinfo.com/catholic.php?a=topic&t=30268&f=19&min=0&num=3
@saluto
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You need to tone down your enthusiasm as a newbie trad. Otherwise you will continue to miss the larger picture with the FMC situation:
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This is not about the Mass. This is about the Council.
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The damage is done. For the last few years FMC has branded and marketed itself publicly as an indult-friendly college. By vigorously defending its invitation to Fr. Gruner and the position some of its faculty have reportedly taken with regards to Vatican II and the Novus Ordo, the college’s indult-friendly brand has now been called into question.
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Finding a new brand among other traddy groups will be difficult. FMC has very little appeal to sedes. Among SSPX factions, the Williamson-led Resistance continues to discourage college education among young people. The Fellay-led Recognize faction is already fundraising and financially supporting two post-secondary institutions in the form of St. Mary’s College in Kansas and the new SSPX seminary in Virginia.
@saluto:
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In terms of realpolitik of the FMC situation, the college really only has five choices that I can see if it wishes to avoid the fate of other traditionalist start-up colleges in America over the past three decades:
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1 – Find a pool of rich donors.
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2 – Try and work out a deal with the new bishop.
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3 – Look for another bishop who may be supportive.
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4 – Purge R&R sympathies and adopt a Christendom type compromise between the indult and conservative NOM.
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5 – Embrace fully the R&R position and approach the SSPX Fellay faction about a possible merger or articulation agreement with St. Mary’s College, leveraging FMC’s regional accreditation.
tt – you need to stop pretending you are some sort of authority. you have an opinion – whatev’ – I’ll pray for your conversion because there ain’t no point in ‘talking’ with a brick wall. I first of all can find not one single sensus catholicus in anything you have added on any of these threads – therefore I assume you are not catholic. and I predict that following this comment will be another string of misdirected attacks at whoever or whatever has caused you to become so bitter. people get angry, but, dude, you never stop. if you were a catholic, confession, reconciliation is just a parish priest away. I won’t say God bless to you because St John warns us not to bless those who don’t keep the faith – honestly I can’t see any evidence in any of your stuff – if we bless those not of the faith we make ourselves a party to the wickedness. I really do hope you that family you talked about. I’ll pray for them too.
p.s. if somehow you are sedeV, you’re not doing the cause much of a favour, and if you do happen to be a practicing catholic who has been diss-inFrancischised – every clear thinking catholic on the planet is in the same boat. Francis might be an unwiiting puppet, but God is the one who decides how much rope to give the devil.
p.s.s did you hear Benedict is going back to work part-time?
Bishop Michael Olson wants faculty and students to accept a lie ?
Would Bishop Michael Olson want Michael Webb, the faculty and students to accept the TLM and the Novus Ordo Mass with a lie ?
They will have to attend Holy Mass where the priest believes he can see the dead- saved ( LG 16 etc) who are exceptions to Tradition. This is a lie. He cannot.They will have to attend Holy Mass where the priest believes that Vatican Council II interpreted with a false premise contradicts Tradition. The false premise is a lie. They will have to attend Holy Mass where the priest denies the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus since there is a New Revelation in the Catholic Church come from Vatican Council II.( with the use of the false premise) This is false.They will have to attend Holy Mass where the priest believes that there is a New Revelation in Vatican Council II inspired by God. The Holy Spirit cannot teach error. This is a lie.They will have to attend Holy Mass where the priest believes that Fr.Leonard Feeney was excommunicated for heresy since there are known exceptions to his literal interpretation of the dogma. This is false. There are no known exceptions.
-Lionel Andrades
@Lionel – is that you tt? if not ‘scuse me lionel
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daily conversion – the path of sincere Catholics – will there really be a morning when Catholics can just call themselves Catholics again because they believe and try to live as Catholics did one hundred, two hundred five hundred a thousand years ago.
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dear Saluto–not in our lifetime.
I know, we were Catholic. Pre-1955–weekday Masses were jammed STANDING ROOM ONLY–weekday !! seriously.
folks would cry, pound there chests in a mea culpa. Our clothing would have the scent of incense . It was normal . Stop me, dear Saluto, stop me. The word s i n was part of everyday Catholic family convo. Unlike that of the current His Humbleness.
weep.
This from the Remanat:
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“After all, the Old Mass IS superior to the New Mass, in form and especially in content, and the second Vatican Council is problematic! It’s not a bad or ‘unCatholic’ thing to think this, and it’s certainly not a bad thing to say this.
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Why? Because it’s manifestly true, and it can never be a bad or unCatholic thing to say the truth. Quite to the contrary. The ‘traditionalist’ position loses its raison d’être the instant that these points of resistance—nay, defiance?—become forgotten or (even worse) taboo. We should protest against the New Mass, and our attending of the Old Mass should be seen as a way of ‘voting with our feet’. God knows, top-down solutions to our present nightmare are not coming. Any traditionalist who rightly thinks that the New Mass is deficient and thereby attends the Old Mass ‘for the good of their soul’, is ipso facto ‘protesting’ the New Mass and making a ‘political’ point in the process. And all the better.
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It behooves us peasants to make it known to our diocesan uppers, in our words and actions, that the New Mass is a failed experiment, that the Old Mass is the future, and that Vatican II has serious problems. Insofar as we can reasonably hope that the students and faculty of Fisher More were doing and saying things of this sort, they are to be held up as a model for all Catholics across the country”
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Hey bishop dude… I can relate to that…
And pass the bong :;)
Link to the above here:
ttp://remnantnewspaper.com/web/index.php/articles/item/344-mass-resistance-at-fisher-more-attending-the-tlm-is-a-political-act
Francis Effect part deux.
Here’s St. Thomas Aquinas’ take:
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“…because the things that should make him ashamed are not deemed by him to be disgraceful; and in this way those who are steeped in sin are without shame, for instead of disapproving of their sins, they boast of them.”
http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2014/03/francis-effect-analysis-confessions-in.html
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Those dead white guys were sooooooo smart. 😉
Let’s put this in the “dead white guys are sooooooo smart” part deux category:
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Atheists need to create confession. Yes you heard that right. Atheists need to create confession. Story here:
http://www.creativeminorityreport.com/2014/03/wanted-secular-alternative-to-confession.html
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Just goes to show you that reality is stranger than fiction. You just can’t make this stuff up.
So now that we have learned that the atheist religion need to create their alternative to the sacrament of confession, we find out that in the NewChurch, confession attendance has nose dived.
Link here: http://culbreath.wordpress.com/2014/03/07/the-other-francis-effect-false-expectations-confessions-drop-sharply/.
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The take away here is as follows: we know who the atheists will NOT.. I REPEAT NOT be consulting with when they come around to creating their own version?
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The bishop of Rome.:)
Taylor Marshal has provided some good insight on this issue.
“Now that the Bishop of Fort Worth has weighed in (and is now being maligned), after much prayer, I feel that I should break the silence.
First off, I love the students at Fisher More College (FMC). I love them so much. It was heartbreaking for me to leave FMC. Last summer (2013) was very difficult for me. I also love the Latin Mass and write about it often on my blog and talk about it publicly (my family belongs to a FSSP parish – Mater Dei parish in Irving, Texas).
For the record, I resigned as Chancellor of the College at the beginning of June of 2013—only days after our seventh baby was born. I had no job prospects and no income. I did it for the sake of conscience. I felt it would be a danger to my soul to remain at Fisher More College.
I resigned when moral, theological, and financial discrepancies came to light regarding the presidency of Michael King. I was an ex officio member of the Board so I knew what others did not. From May to early June of 2013, five of the eight College Board Members also resigned for two reasons:
1) Mr. King refused to disassociate himself from the public statements of faculty member Dr. Dudley that claimed in his Year of Faith lecture that Catholic professors have the duty to teach young people that Vatican 2 is not a valid Council (he also endorsed other “resistance” positions regarding the Novus Ordo, John Paul II, etc.)
2) Mr. King, after selling the original FMC campus to Texas Christian University for millions of dollars, had imprudently entered into a real estate deal that financially crippled Fisher More College.
Much of the politicization around the “Latin Mass and FMC” is Mr. King’s careful attempt to distract attention away from his financial misdealing at FMC. The college is currently teetering on bankruptcy and this latest entanglement with the bishop will lead to a public statement: “Fisher More closed down because the new bishop of Fort Worth persecuted the Latin Mass!” when in reality the College is failing because Mr. King entered into a dubious real estate deal that washed out college’s endowment AND all the proceeds from the sale of the original campus.
How did a College sell its extremely valuable campus to TCU for several millions dollars in 2012 only to announce at Christmas 2013 that it might be closing without an immediate fund raising campaign through Rorate Caeli?
Rorate Caeli has just released their sensational “exclusive” report on how the new Bishop of Fort Worth is persecuting the traditional Latin Mass in the person of Michael King. They included the (private) letter of Bishop Olson to Michael King and offered their speculation.
This controversy created by Rorate Caeli with the help of Michael King’s letter is not about the Latin Mass or Summorum Pontificum.*
FMC hosted a public repudiation of Vatican 2 and the Ordinary Form of the Mass in April of 2013 that was so offensive that my wife and I walked out of it before it’s conclusion. That did not do much to heal the breach with the local diocese or presbyterate and it contributed to the priests of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter (FSSP) discontinuing their support and presence at FMC. The current FMC website advertises that the FSSP provides a chaplain, but this is not true.
At the same time, Michael King estranged himself from the diocese of Fort Worth by not allowing the Ordinary Form (as stipulated by the previous ordinary Bishop Vann of Fort Worth). He also contracted an irregular/suspended priest without faculties, and hired “trad resistance” faculty while there was no bishop in Fort Worth to check these developments. Mr. King was able to create a community in his image (he affectionately referred to himself the “father” of this community) during the episcopal inter-regnum of the diocese of Fort Worth.
Clearly, a bishop’s intervention was inevitable. The current controversy really has nothing to do with the Latin Mass per se. The Latin Mass is at the center because Michael King is politicizing the Latin Mass in his favor, knowing that “bishops vs the Latin Mass” is red meat for some traditionalist blogs.
Bishop Olson says in the letter that he is doing this for Michael King’s “soul.” The bishop understands that this is a personal intervention – and not an attack on Fisher More College or its students or the Latin Mass.
It’s a serious pastoral problem. Mr. King no doubt leaked Bp Olson’s letter via one of his few supporters to build sympathy before the inevitable financial collapse that will expose his mishandling of Fisher More College. Mr. King, more than anything, would like to blame the inevitable collapse of FMC (within only weeks or months) on the bishop’s “persecution of the Latin Mass.”
Hold your peace. Watch for how it unfolds, and most of all pray for the students that are still dutifully studying and praying. There are some GREAT students at Fisher More College.
As one who loves and prays the Latin Mass, please don’t curse or blame Bishop Olson for this one. He is a new bishop who inherited a TOUGH pastoral problem. Pray for him. And if you love the Latin Mass, don’t be so quick to judge the bishops or cite canon law. Sometimes there are things behind the scenes that you don’t know.
1 Cor 13:1-2 If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
*Regarding Summorum Pontificum in this situation. It doesn’t apply here since the college chapel does not have a priest requesting to say the Latin Mass and the chapel therefore falls under the direct pastoral control of the bishop. It’s the case of a layman (Michael King) asking for it. Those accusing Bishop Olson of breaking canon law or despising Summorum Pontificum should be more careful. Moreover, be assured that Bishop Olson supports the FSSP in his diocese and has nothing against the Extraordinary Form.”
According to the new code the Bishop only has jurisdiction over the chapels and oratories and churches which he erects or owns. If the chapel at the College is the propterty of the College, it only falls under the jurisdiction of the Bishop if he has erected it (recognized it) as such.
Since he refuses the TLM at the Chapel, he has in fact (de facto) with drawn it from his jurisdiction, since if we were to conclude that he has jurisdiction to impose such a penalty, we would have to be rebells against the Roman Pontiff, just like him….since no Bishop has such authority after 2010…nay after Quo Primum…
Further more, Dr. Taylor errs greatly in confusing arguments over finances with arguments over matters of faith or law or right.
If the financial mismanagement were as Dr. Taylor claims, it seems he is also guilty for concealing it from the supporters of the School, or even for concealing it from the Secretary of State of Texas, to whom all financial mismanagement of corporations in the State should be reported.
Yet, no matter how gulty Mr. King may be, the students and Mr. King do not deserve excommunication, which is infact what the Bishop has imposed, in forbiding the only mass they would attend.
Finally, to say that Vatican II is an invalid council is not a thing for which anyone could rightly be censured. Invalid has several senses: certainly if we look at the effects of the aggiornamento implementing the Council we can say the effects have had no force for the good: that is one sense of the word “invalid”; if we look at the questions of whether the Pope or the episcopacy united with him has the right to alter the state of the Church or overthrow ecclesiastical tradition, they certainly do not, as many approved theologians have taught for centuries; that’s another sense of the word invalid. If we consider the likelyhood that a future Pope will nix V2, then that is another acceptable sense of invalide.
In sum, Dr. Taylor gives no reason in law or fact or right reason to deprive Mr. King and the students of the college of the services of a priest, of the Sacraments or of the TLM….unless he thinks that the Bishop can excommunicate or impose an interdict without any recourse or compliance with the Code of Canon Law of 1983.
Clearly Dr. Taylor, therefore, is a man of rash and intemperate judgement, and thus has impugned the validity of his own detrating testimony.
dear Catholic at Rome–
you are indeed, a Catholic. You speak like a Catholic, pointedly and with clarity. May the Peace of Our Lord Jesus Christ, a Peace not of this world, be to you.
And if I may say, you do not use the horrendous and demeaning term extraordinary form. In my opinion, another sign the you love the Traditional Latin Mass which is in itself a sign that you stand ready to defend. The Church needs Catholics like you. I pray for you as you continue to bear witness.
Don’t you find it strange that according to the official statement released by the school they have been unable to keep a residential chaplain for longer than 9 months? Fr. Weber was there July-January; Fr. Orlowski was there February-October; Fr. Henderson was there October-February. The residential chaplains stayed an average of 7 months. Of course they were reassigned by their superiors…that’s what happens anytime a priest moves for whatever reason…but it is HIGHLY unusual for reassignation to happen so quickly. I’ll just mention it was unusual. There’s no need for me to speculate what might have caused it…although Bishop Olson would know since the Orders would have been in contact with him as they moved there priests in and out of his diocese.
As an aside (and now not related to FMC statements), you might also look into the student retention rate at FMC during King’s tenure. Since we can assume that most of those students come from good Catholic families and often chose the college specifically because it offered the TLM daily, and since the tuition was so low with many students receiving full scholarships, it is again HIGHLY unusual that so many would leave. (This is not to mention the staff and faculty retention rate…as with the chaplains most leave after less than a year.)
In response to Dr. Marshall’s claim that the college would not disassociate the the himself/the college with the claim that Vatican II was not a valid council FMC posted the text of the faculty member’s lecture. In it he claims “I would argue that it is an dangerous standpoint for Catholics to say that they accept the II Vatican Council with the exception of those passages that contradict traditional Catholic teaching. There are so many passages that contradict traditional teaching that I would argue that it is of the greatest importance to entirely reject the II Vatican Council”. Not a very good rebuttal. You can find the text on the FMC website. (As an aside, if you agree with Dudley then it shouldn’t matter to you whether FMC has the approval of the local Bishop.)
In response to Dr. Marshall’s claim that the campus real estate deal financially crippled the college the college’s official statement argues “but it was a REALLY GOOD DEAL!” Right. And a really good deal can still be financially crippling…and is in fact a terrible deal if you can’t afford it. Any housewife can tell you that. They proceed to explain how they spent all of the capital they inherited from the previous administration with the approval of the board…OK. So the financial mismanagement isn’t just Mr. King’s responsibility. The whole board sat by and watched approvingly as the college ran deficits that expended their entire capital; failed to properly fund-raise; increased expenses in a manner consistent with their projected student body…which they weren’t even close to reaching yet… etc. This point is likely not at all related to the Bishop’s actions…but FMC’s response illustrates the clear lack of competence of the board and administration.
I’m sorry to see this college fall apart because it has an admirable mission.
@Catholic at Rome:
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Wake up! If you think the Bishop’s actions are mainly about canon law then you have already lost the battle for FMC. I would be very surprised if the bishop’s statement held up to canon law challenge in light of Benedict’s summorum pontificum. Apparently the talking head canon law experts in the Catholic media agree. So canon law is just a McGuffin here.
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But unless FMC comes up with some sort of “Plan B” it will likely run out of cash before a canon law appeal comes before the court. The bishop’s action has been a major hit against FMC’s brand as the indult-friendly college. So where FMC will probably feel the effects most is in terms of the college’s student population and fundraising.
@saluto:
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Not angry. Not bitter. Just a realist.
Seen many self-proclaimed champions of Tradition come and go over my decades with the movement. But mostly go.
As of right now, FMC seems headed to the same graveyard as every other traddy-exclusive college attempted in America, with the exception of the SSPX (Fellay faction) ‘s St Mary College in Kansas.
@Mary:
Your arguments would carry a lot more credibility if you told us exactly what the retention or turnover rates were, and where you obtained this information from. Simply stating the former are low and the latter are high gives us absolutely no concrete information.
P.S. Mary
I might agree with you that to one who agrees with Prof Dudley it shouldn’t matter whether or not FMC had the bishop’s approval….IF THIS WAS ABOUT DOCTRINAL INTEGRITY. But it is not. It’s about money and branding that gives one wider access to money. So yes, the lack of bishop’s approval is a big deal.
@Torquemada Tequila
I’ve been watching the college for a while having had the intention that my children should attend. Every year the faculty listed on their website has changed drastically. I don’t have official numbers…though you could call them up to ask.
As for students, that info comes from knowing current and former students of the college. Again, the college should have the stats on that if you want official numbers.
It’s a shame really. If only they’d had their act together it would have been a fantastic option for my own children. We’ll probably end up going the secular route in STEMM-related degrees. Maybe that was the better choice all along…
How did St. John Bosco fund most of the many projects and institutions he founded? That’s right, with the help of Providence. It seems that that help was written into the “business plan” of all his enterprises. We of little faith who fault others who try to follow that same avenue.
In case you don’t know, many times Don Bosco was down to the last day or hour when payment on something was due when, behold, an anonymous donor made a contribution in the exact amount needed or a special gift in that amount was received by Don Bosco. Does our God not still do these things or are we so into the ways of business that we think something cannot be God’s work if there are difficulties?
@Mary
Okay, fair enough. You don’t have statistics but you’re an interested parent. You sound like other indult parents we know who were watching FMC, eager to send their children there, but are now looking at other options. We’re in a similar boat. The option we’re looking at is first year at a small unaccredited Canadian trad-friendly college called Our Lady Seat of Wisdom followed by four years of STEMM at a local college. The OLSW prep year actually trains kids to survive a secular college environment with their Catholic faith intact.
@borromeo
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St John Bosco received divine providence by being exactly who and what he presented himself as in the apostolate to which God called him. This is a big problem for FMC right now. For the last few years, under Dr Marshall, they have presented and branded themselves publicly as indult trad. This is not a bad business plan since many indult trad projects draw heavy financial support from conservative NOM types and even non-Catholics. Often they give more money than trads. Trads being smaller in number and of more meagre finances because of our large one-income families.
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Here’s the reality. Conservative NOM’s and non-Catholics like Dr. Marshall indult-type friendly trads. Dr Marshall brings out their inner Santa. But they don’t like R&R trads. R&R trads bring out their inner Mark Shea.
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The question for these non-Catholics, conservative NOM’s and indult-type trads like Mary is now whether FMC is the indult-friendly institute it branded itself as, or whether under Dr. King it is moving toward a R&R position. If the latter, they will want no part in supporting it – either with money or with the enrolment of their children.
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Again, this is not about the Mass but about the Council.
Nor is it about canon law but about branding.
Torquemada,
My comment was intended as a reply to Mary’s earlier comment which she ends with ”… but FMC’s response illustrates the clear lack of competence of the board and administration”, which comment by me was intended to serve as a reminder that Providence enters the picture, or should.
Your reply was that you say that Don Bosco’s reception of help from Providence was because of “ being exactly who and what he presented himself as in the apostolate to which God called him.” The implication, which you appear to draw out of this, is that FMC is hardly in the same position as Don Bosco, i.e., that it may transpire that it acquiesces to the bishop’s order and the TLM is no longer offered daily or Sunday at FMC. From what I can infer from your text, Providence then would play no role in helping FMC.
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I think you have confused what I intended to convey. When the board decided on its financial course of action the role of Providence was clearly factored into its deliberations at that time. Whether FMC continues as the “indult-branded” college, as you are wont to say, has nothing to do with its decision made in the now-distant past; Providence obviously was counted on then as determinations were made.
In light of the bishop’s recent action, many are saying now how incompetent such a dependence on Divine Providence in a matter concerning a school dedicated to the full Catholic truth was. I think you are implying that FMC’s “indult-branding” was the sole factor in the board’s financial decisions and that now that that has been “taken away” FMC is doomed. I disagree with you. I think that dependence on Divine Providence molded the board’s decision. If not, then all the college’s writings (and they have been many) about its dependence on Providence that appear on its website and in its mailings have all been lies. I am hard-pressed to believe that.
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If the recent action by the bishop had not occurred, the furor and finger pointing would not have occurred, and FMC may well have gone on to – and may yet – achieve its Catholic and financial mission. This “success” would have been as a result of a bold dependence on God that helped bring about these ends. All, or at least many, would be pointing to that initiative as a brave act.
As it happens, the bishop has intervened about a matter that is unrelated to the finances of the college and that may in fact impact it just as you have described, with a falling off of the support and donations that were counted on to bring the mission to completion. It may not. Dependence on Divine Providence is in no way shown to have been a faulty calculation no matter what happens.
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As you tell it, Don Bosco had to conform exactly to who he was and what he presented himself as and in the exact apostolate he was in to obtain the help he did from Providence. If this is true, it is vain for most of us mortals to evince any dependence on Providence, given our proclivities to pride and misrepresentation and our confusion most of the time as to what God’s will is for us at each given moment. St. Vencent Ferrer, probably the greatest miracle worker in the Church’s history, was a staunch supporter of an anti-pope, yet God did wonders at his behest.
Your position also assumes the personnel at FMC are not exactly who they are and what they represent themselves as does not correspond to “reality” and that thus they are not entitled to the help of Providence. That’s quite an assumption to make.
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From some of your other postings, a liberal arts education has little to no value to you as one can, according to you, get the same thing online at a fraction of the cost. There is, however, quite a difference between the two modes. One, of course, can “get” a quantity of knowledge in certain things from online courses. It is hard to replicate, however, the atmospheres present in classroom courses that contribute no small amount to the learning, understanding, and assimilation of many things. Your criterion for whether one should take classes in a “residential” setting seems to be solely that it must be immediately useful for employment – utilitarianism to the core. You decry the unavailability of potential husbands with good incomes and see only a utilitarian education as the means to reverse this unavailability. I am certainly in agreement with you that the lack of good practicing Catholic men who are willing to enter into marriage is abysmally low. I don’t know that I would attribute this lack to the pursuit of education (try abortion as a reason).
Law and medicine seem to especial culprits for you. I think this attitude would astound St. Thomas More who, as a lawyer, rose to be chancellor of England and then fell to the ax of martyrdom.
I would have to say that St. Giuseppe Moscati conformed to exactly who he was, was what he presented himself as, and certainly was entertained by God, notwithstanding that he never married.
Marriage and the large family are the usual lot that God wills for the ordinary person. This, however, is not always true.
To subscribe that education even through professional school somehow hinders one’s ability to marry and have a large family lacks verity. It can be done, although always on the cross. I know.
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Moving to the wake of the FMC incident, I make no claims to know the mind of God. I am certain that He is not dependent on whether a person is influenced by Taylor Marshall or Mark Shea to accomplish His ends.
I will summarize St. Francis de Sales in the following.
Whether FMC “succeeds” in its mission or does not succeed does not indicate that the board, at the time of its decision to depend on Providence to accomplish the board’s ends, erred in its dependence and was somehow guilty of mismanagement. An unexpected obstacle has now presented itself posterior to that decision. Whether it is an obstacle willed by God or simply allowed by Him and whether He chooses to negate that obstacle or allows it to run its natural course (as you so ably depicted) has no bearing on the management competence of FMC. St. Francis de Sales, along with many others, would use this occasion to teach holy indifference – what God wills at this time is to be met with an indifference to the success or failure of the mission that started with so much favor and with God’s approbation. What God intended has been now accomplished. We wring our hands and cry foul and say that someone must be to blame; we are myopic and don’t see with God’s vision.
FMC’s enunciated mission may succeed or it may fail – time will tell. Before that time, and even after that time, to point fingers, to accuse, to engage in character assassination of the people who tried to bring about an authentically Catholic college, belies our purported Catholic identity. St. Francis Xavier died before he could evangelize even a part of China, a goal he had set for himself and that he believed God called him to. Was he a failure?
Cynical prognostications, although based on disappointments we have encountered during our lives, hardly serve to engender courage to do God’s will in those about whom we prognosticate; discouragement almost invariably follows such things. We have a duty to refrain from these things. We ourselves have, rarely if ever, set out to accomplish something akin to what FMC has set out to do. To malign that effort or to gloomily say that FMC will take the coward’s way out serves only to forward our opponent’s end.
TT the realist. Do you know much about rubrics of the Mass? Why would a priest switch the side of the ‘sanctuary’ that he mingles the water and wine? It used to be stage left, (to the right of the face the people altar) beside the tabernacle, now it is over stage right.
p.s. actually I think the reverse is true as in used to be pew left and now is pew right. BTW R&R really means rest and relaxation, doesn’t it?
@borromeo
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I attempted to read your response but fell asleep after the second paragraph. You write like an aspiring lawyer with no life experience. If you are a FMC student do yourself a favour after graduation and join the U.S. Army or Marine Corps as a commissioned officer. A good sergeant will drill some life skills and common sense into you.
@saluto:
If you are that ignorant about the Traditional Mass then I suggest for a Lenten penance you spend less time on Louie’s blog (and given the quality of his postings and those of his average reader, being here really is a penance) and more time with Dom Prosper Gueranger’s Liturgical Year. Since you don’t seem like the type of trad familiar with this classic, it was the standard work on Roman liturgy used to train seminarians prior to Vatican II. It is even available online for free in English translation, so you don’t have to wander too far from your computer, or your wallet:
http://www.theliturgicalyear.org/theliturgicalyearpdfs.html
@saluto
R&R = Recognize & Resist
This term was coined and defined by Fr. Cekada in his following article responding to the Remnant:
http://www.traditionalmass.org/articles/article.php?catname=10&id=70
It was an NO mass, TT, which is what I’m stuck with (you’d think I would be the angry one – I guess attrition and NO go together). I thought if you know a lot about liturgy you might know about the TLMs ‘other form’ and it’s abuses or ‘fluid’ rubrics. If anyone has a good explanation why a priest would switch sides, I would be interested.
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TT – dude you still sound POed
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Thanks for the link.
@saluto
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If you re-write your question and explanation in standard English, I will attempt to answer for you. I say “attempt” because I am no expert in the Novus Ordo. It is not a liturgical form that appeals to me, or that I spend too much time thinking about.
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I cannot understand what you are asking when you write like a drunken Michael Davies commenting on a liturgical debate between Karl Rahner and Catherine Pickstock.
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If there are no TLM’s around you, look for a traditional Eastern Catholic liturgy.
@TT – you flatter me, TT. Nevermind – new priest, new mass – I guess it’s all the same.
p.s. But since I posed the question, at an NO Mass, with an altar table as one views it from the pews, the Tabernacle is behind the altar and to the left as one in the pews sees it. Beside the Tabernacle is the wee table that has the ‘offerings’ on it. We have a new priest, and now he has moved the wee table with the offerings to the other side – there are other new sights and sounds, (unfortuanately no new smells); changes in the Mass always make me wonder, why that? It used to be a mortal sin for a priest to change the rubrics. Clearly not any more.
Torquemada,
i really expected more than flippant nonsense. Guess I shouldn’t have.
@saluto
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On the other hand, if you want to know why the Missal changes sides during the TLM, the answer is easily found. At least back in my day when being a traditionalist meant having the initiative to educate oneself on the TLM and not merely sit around Rorate Caeli and the Remnant websites all day speculating about the latest Fatima conspiracy or feeling sorry for myself.
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No, I will not give you the answer, since obviously you are in need of some ol’ fashioned traddy initiative and self-motivation. However, I can make this information so simple to find that even Louie’s cheerleaders have no excuse for not finding it.
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Go to the the online pdf scan of Adrian Fortescue’s 1914 liturgical classic “The Mass: A study of the Roman Liturgy”. Here is the URL for those of you who lack the initiative or the wherewithal to use Google:
https://archive.org/details/massstudyofroman00fort
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I will NOT explain who Adrian Fortescue is or why his work is critical to understanding, defending and promoting the TLM. If you do not already know, please do NOT embarrass the rest of us by presenting yourself in public as a traditionalist.
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Once this URL has loaded onto your webpage, turn to the Table of Contents on pages 21 to 22. This will give you a list of chapter headings and sub-headings, and tell you which pages they are on. Obviously you are looking for “Gospel”. According to page 22, this is found in Chapter 7 which is titled “The Lessons”. The table of contents lists “The Gospel” as found on page 280.
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Now turn to page 280 and read why the Gospel changes sides during the TLM.
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On the odd chance that initiative or curiosity about the TLM should strike, you might want to consider reading other parts of Dr. Fortescues classic. Since it is online you don’t even have to pay to have a reprint sent to you like we did in our day.
maybe francis has abolished sin:
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http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2014/03/who-am-i-to-judge-pope-francis-t-shirt.html
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‘it’s sin, Jim, but not as we know it?’
@saluto
Thank-you for repeating the question in English, so that I could understand it. Since this concerns a Novus Ordo, I cannot answer. I suggest you ask the priest in question or ask someone who knows and understands the Novus Ordo.
TT – are you comparing the rubrics and their changes with regards to the New Order Mass to the Traditional Mass? Because this change I have never seen in a New Mass. It is the New Mass I am referring to.
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I know why the Missal changes sides during the TLM – at least my understanding it Epilstle read (if the POV is the Tabernacle and Our Lord) on His left, Gospel on His right.
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It’s not the Missal that is the change to which I am referring. At the New Mass the Missal sits in the middle of the table. It is the water and wine and bread, the species before consecration.
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at any rate – another curiosity of the Paul VIs bequest.
@TT – fair enough.
@borromeo
If you are typical of students or faculty at FMC, then I thank you with all my heart for being the answer to a prayer. I will definitely encourage my children to explore all the STEMM options at local colleges rather than go the Liberal Arts route.
@saluto
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Let’s employ some logic to your last set of questions. If I know very little about the Novus Ordo (as I have stated in this thread on multiple occasions) and do not in any way find myself intellectually curious about it, how can I compare it to the TLM?
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To compare the two liturgies, one must first be familiar with both liturgies.
@TT – while I agree that LibArts in the institutions of the world are an appalling financial waste and a four years of unquestioned satanism, why is FMC in anyway comparable?
@TT – I was not to know off the cuff that Paul VIs response to the ‘smoke of satan’ (the new rite?!) was, probably providentially for yourself, a foreign topic. I think many might wish it was foreign.
Once again, flippant nonsense. No attempt at any rational refutation of points, just a cursory dismissal of all with the usual superior attitude that actually can say nothing and can do nothing except condescend – exactly as you’ve just done with saluto and what I’ve seen you do with a lot of people on this site.
I’m done.
p.s. all your guesses are wrong.
It would not surprise me in the least that any Catholic College with the ancient Roman Rite would have problems retaining faculty in the state the Church is in today. Even here at Rome, some seminarians who would attend an Exposition of the Most Blessed Sacrament in the NO are terrified at the prospect, because they know that in their own communities they would be bitterly persecuted, perhaps kicked out of priestly formation, if they were seen doing such. While other communities allows their seminarians on occasion to attend Mass at Santissima Trinita dei Pelligrini (FSSP) and even participate as acolytes, they must keep to themselves what they think about the rites.
For layment the balancing act which men such as this attempt, become impossible, because they are poorly trained in Philosophy and Theology, they have little understanding of the great malice and evil that lurks in the hearts of modernists, nor are they aware at the depths of hypocrisy which can be found, and are found regularly, in the hearts of clergy, especially bishops. I can honestly say that I have never met 1 honest Bishop, in communion wiht the Roman Pontiff, in my entire life; they are all actors, they do not believe what they profess, and they are lovers of the world and the spirit of the world, friends of free masons and enemies of the Saints.
I have known priests and bishops who blaspheme the founders of orders, denegrate converts and hide pedofiles. But all these scandass should not shake our faith.
However, many laymen are very much shaken by such scandals, and confused by the confusion of Vatican II and the Aggiornamento, try to steer a path based on approximations, and thus fall into the Simon Says Mentality. Take a recent, rather public, internet TV channel: a classic case of over reacting and imprudent rash statements inline with ecclesiastical politics, but out of line regarding Catholic morality.
For a Catholic College today, it is prudent not to put itself in a position of being persecuted by the Modernists, which they will do the first chance they get, because they hate the Catholic faith and target first of all any institution involved in fhe formation of youth. To avoid their malice, a College should not have a Chapel which is its own property, but allow whatever groups which serve the students to do so on the condition that they build and purchase their own facilities accross the street. Then in matters of theology and finance, make no action or statement without professional advice. The mere fact that Dr. Taylor, who seems not to be an accountant or lawyer, had care of such things, is not a good business practice.
@Cathoic at Rome: thanks for this on the ground report. It helps to put into perspective how hateful (do they realize) so many clergy have become towards their own salvation, the Real Presence. It boggles the mind.
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@borromeo who said, ‘To malign that effort or to gloomily say that FMC will take the coward’s way out serves only to forward our opponent’s end.’ I agree – it ain’t over to till the lady who sizeally challenged sings.
@saluto
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Good question. It would be much easier to answer if you attended a trad chapel instead of the NOM. Though large indult chapel does not really count in this context.
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Basically, the biggest problem we have in trad chapels today are young men raised in Tradition who: 1) are unable to cut the apron strings and man up; and 2) find steady and stable employment suitable for supporting a family.
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The only real suitable profession that FMC appears to prepare one for is law school. Currently America’s per capita lawyer ratio is something like 20 times the rest of the developed world. We have too many lawyers. For some reason this is reflected among R&R trads in my experience. Those with professional degrees and/or credentials tend overwhelmingly to be lawyers.
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On the other hand, given forty years of abortion and seventy years of contraceptive immorality in America, there are not enough adult children and grandchildren to look after the elderly boomers who pioneered the Sexual Revolt. Therefore, there will soon be a huge demand for gerontologists, personal support workers and other medical professionals who cater to the elderly.
For those, however, who live by politics and not faith, it will be impossible to remain long at a Catholic College which takes a Catholic position on Vatican II and the Mass, because the Bishops have abandoned such a position long ago, and bitterly persecute anyone who holds such.
This is part of the liberal game of persecuting those who speak the truth, so as to change little by little, the very nature and foundations of society, to accomodate a demonic Masonic world view. We have arrived at such a state that Catholics wont even speak about it, and flip out if they even read it stated in bold terms. They fall into intellctual shock even to read the word “heretic” or when anyone criticizes members of the Sacred Hierarchy. From their actions you would conclude that their God is their human superior and their religion the obedience of Nazis, that is, blind obedience.
borromeo wrote: “p.s. all your guesses are wrong.”
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Thank goodness. Maybe there is hope for FMC’s survival afterall.
there are so many unknown people commenting on many sites about the
‘sad’ and ‘regrettable’ state of affairs at FMC. (though why Bisholsen should see this as an opportunity to suck up to the New Rite Nazis (oh, there you have it), was before the brackets, beyond me.
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See this is what happens when – as recently advocated by CMTV – the grab-the-persian-and-start-sweeping-it-under – is ridiculous in a digital age. At least one can see Bishop Bergoglio is a modernist and the equivalent of a Catholic H-bomb ((or F-bomb) though he is at adept at insinuations, dissimulations, and half-truths as any good card carrying marxist should be) but why the cloak and dagger at, at least what was, a good Catholic, traditionally minded, non-satanic Arts College?
@saluto:
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You wrote: “@TT – I was not to know off the cuff that Paul VIs response to the ‘smoke of satan’ (the new rite?!) was, probably providentially for yourself, a foreign topic. I think many might wish it was foreign.”
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Then immigrate.
And stop thinking about the Novus Ordo.
That’s what I did. Well over a quarter-century ago.
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Like most of you I spent my first five years as a traditionalist reading the Remnant and Catholic Family News and whining on online trad chat groups about how bad the NOM was. Then I cancelled my subscriptions to the Remant and CFN and spent the next decade actually immersing myself in studying the history, theology and rubrics of the TLM. The more time I spent studying and praying traditional liturgy, the more I thought of it. Meaning the less I thought about the NOM.
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The problem with todays trads is that they seem to spend all their time on rumor and controversy and gossiping about the NOM, and no longer seem to spend any time immersing themselves in TLM classics. Which I why I totally what Michael Voris was saying when he referred to it as the culture of ecclesiastical porn.
@TT – is it not possible the God may have provided sites like Louie’s and a few (very few) others, whereby those seeking, asking and knocking might find Truth in the middle of the wasteland? Yes I was shocked when I was plopped here thinking I’d done my parish research – proof is in the parish pudding on site. Remember how political parishes are. One small bid for doctrine and you are ‘unclean’. And then to have a voice like CMTV consolidate that cry of ‘unclean’! is…well, just unchivalrous, if nothing else, given the current Bishop of Rome and the current crises in the Church. There must be scores of Catholics with a thought process who have thanked God for CMTV in the onslaught of the Fomenter of Fharity Francis. But they covered coprophagia with the strangest (please tell me no Fathers ever came to this conclusion) biblical exegesis I’ve come across from a professed ‘traditional’ (as in not modernist) Catholic apostolate. There are many many wastelands in the ‘official’ Catholic ‘world’ – and sometimes you can’t see them coming. At which time, thank God for the (99% scurrilous) internet.
p.s. as in my thanks for the 1%.
p.s.s. as Louie states, ‘you screwed up’, (to CMTV) – as everyone makes mistakes. Sometimes this strengthens us in Truth or not so much. For now, I’m with Louie, they screwed up publishing that bizarre exegesis and taking sides (as if there are sides in the Faith). Popes come and go, sometimes it seems as if God requires us to keep faith in spite and not because of them. Who in the Bible OT or NT ever said, yes sir, no sir, three or maybe four or maybe five bags full sir, against God and His Divine Revelation? no prophet, no NT Saint, and thank God or what record would we have of Truth? If Paul had gone…hmmm, nah, Peter is, after all, Peter, better to save souls than to point out error?! St John the Baptist had his head lopped off for telling it like it is to the King of the, then Israel.
@saluto
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I was never a Voris fan before. For most of the same reasons I am not one of Louie’s fan. But for some reason CMTV’s line in the sand struck many positive notes with me. There was something in that declaration that I had not seen in any American traditionalist public personality since Vin Lewis – integrity spoken with a set of cajones.
@TT: I have long since withdrawn from the escapades of traddydom in order to save my soul build up the Body of Christ which I do not think possible in a trad ghetto. Things have changed over decades–while Truth remains immutable. These days I spend far more time engaging and collaborating with non-trad Catholics than muttering in the corner with sour-faced trads. I have learned that it is easier to bring the former round to a balanced Catholic perspective than to get trads to see beyond their provincialism.
@TT – integrity? there’s a blog from the UK called ‘Munador’ – yep folks, ripped from the TLM. His critique of Francis dillutes to meek meekness anything put forth from a US site – telling it as it is in public – prudentially criticising that which is out for all to see (shamelessly from Rome it would seem). Where is the ‘tent’ of CMTV’s exegesis? it’s below breathing level in the sand. CMTV’s ‘porn’ homily is irrational and ultramontist – not in a good way – aside from being a now, unfortunate public conflagration of Noah with contemporary understandings of porn? a ‘manifesto’, is a dodgy thing. Pray God this thing doesn’t become Mr Voris’ barometer of faith. The New Rite is attritious on one’s faith, but I still think I have enough wits about me to know that public scandal in matters of doctrine should not be neverminded into neverneverland. The Ashes of Ash Wednesday used to be exclusively for public sinners, those who were bad examples. I do not understand the prudence in denying Francis’ public words and actions that clearly deny the Faith. if turning a blind eye to public ‘inconsistancies’ with Truth by a shepherd is prudent, then CMTV have been unwise in mentioning any public or private ‘neglect’, ‘humanism’, secular apologetics etc. from our prelates.
@Liam – it has been my experience that non-trads are even more committed than trads, only their commitment is to a hyperindivdualistic almost spiritual self-pleasuring that has pretty much nothing to do with Divine Revelation. But WAITJ?
oh dear – I guess I can see the bequest of Fr. FI. sort of a pontifical version of ‘brutalism’, which Fr. Z looked at – the brutalism, not the pope. There’s an appallingly ugly sports/pleasure centre in a Sth Am city, can’t remember which, designed by a Marxist in the 70s. sharp ragged concrete and phony water tower, making an ‘ode’ to its industrial ‘enlightenment’ roots while uncomprimisingly caving, in platonic sort of way, its inhabitants for generations to come.
@Liam – It’s too bad. For you were one of the great Traditional Catholic imaginations, promoters and apologists of our generation. Sadly there are none left from our generation. The movement has been cursed with – what was Tolkien’s expression? – was it “men of lesser light”?
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At least if we had been cursed with Mordor we would still have something to rally against. Instead we’ve been cursed by a movement of Ignatius J Reilly’s and his confederacy of dunces.
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After reading Rorate Coeli’s recent slag against Tolkien literature, I realized that things are as Br Charles predicted: We have lost the battle for the soul of Catholic Tradition. The Puritans have won. At least we fought the good fight.
never read that slant on RoCae. to be sure, without Tolkien we would never have had the blight of Narnia (via inklings comrades). I think Tolkien, through his Faith, understood, WWI – that is he had few misconceptions about evil; with regard to his writings, he had no presumptions upon Truth; whilst Lewis, by his faith, preferred ‘christian allegory’ and ‘science’ fiction. why Faithful Catholics nod to a stawart anti-Catholic and a bit of a rip off artist is one of those things.
The priest who spoke about Tolkien’s work was not knocking him as a Catholic. I took it as a correction of the LOTR worship that Catholics do. If you can talk for days about a child’s book and consider rereading the Simarillion to be a Lent practice then you’ve gone too far down the hobbit hole. Tolkein was writing fiction. Too many Catholics take it as a allegory of the gospels.
good point.
p.s. in case my englush was unclear, I meant Lewis was a stalwart anti-catholic. willing to admire and engage with, but not be of.
p.s.s. I was given ‘Tolkien: letters from Father Christmas’, as a Christmas gift. Tolkien, it seems to me, was a realist who did not fear imagination, because he knew there is an absolute indissoluble Truth, revealed, nowadays and accessible to anyone who really cares. Whereas, by comparison, Lewis seems to prefer a reletavism – not utterly divorced from the idea (different from concept) of Sovereign Truth, but neither ‘really’ subject to the same – modernism.
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p.s. thanks for the extra take on the Rorate Caeli article, Dymphna; one of Tolkiens gripes against Lewis was that fiction/fantasy writers should make not attempt to encriach upon, re-write or make allegory the ‘story of stories’ (Christ/Truth).
Thank you, @Catholic at Rome for your comments. Much to reflect on. Truth shining in the darkness.
@saluto:
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Who cares about Lewis? He lacked Tolkien’s incarnational and sacramental imagination.
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As for respect for Tokien’s Catholic imagination, this was one of the major dividing points between young traditionalists and young conservative NOM’ers thirty years ago. We preferred Tolkien. They preferred Lewis. They accused us of quasi-new-age-gnosticism; we accused them of fundamentalism, Bible literalism and lacking in Catholic imagination.
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It may seem like a small deal to you. Just a minor annoyance, a sliver in the eye. But Rorate Caeli’s anti-Tolkien screed was a horrible reminder, to those of us who were fighting for Catholic Tradition two-to-three decades ago, that we have lost the battle for the Catholic imagination because today’s trads are the conservative NOM’ers we fought against yesterday. Theirs is the imagination of Lewis, not Tolkien.
Tolkien would have thouht fantasy as a means of penance – simply UnCatholic.
the tradition, liturgy, then primacy of peter – Tolkien the daily – old Rite – communicant,
<>
@TT: Yes, the Puritans have won. But more so we see the triumph of bourgeois taste and respectability. Yes, that is what took me out of the old fight–I have become bourgeois and respectable in middle age.
The old fire still burns but for other cares. It was bound to happen once I began to question all received narratives and see the flaws and contradictions on all sides–ones still there in substance even if time has mutated the accidents.
Now is the time for the new generation with their blogs and videos.
I still fight the good fight but on other battlefields, my canteen now replenished more frequently by Misters Bigelow an Twinning than by Misters Guinness and Daniels. And I still live in Traddydom. I simply come-and-go from the backdoor as if from a speakeasy. Besides, my thoughts are too jarring, too threatening for me pass by the Catholic Amish and other folks sulking in the front parlour.
@Liam
I take it back! The puritans have NOT won! Guess who is back after a long absence from the traditionalist scene? Not Brother Charles in all his genius, but someone just as spectacular and imaginative: Vincent P. Lewis of All Roads Ministry!
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Yep, the very same traditional Catholic apologist who once forced Mormon missionaries to admit in a debate that the only way to hell according to Mormon theology was to read the Book of Mormon. The only Catholic apologist who Mr James White of Alpha & Omega fame refuses to debate.
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His website is up and running again after how many years hiatus?
http://www.allroadsministry.com/
@Liam
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Oh, and congratulations on the move from Lasombra to Bourgeosie. I am sure your liver is appreciative. Although I will miss you causing an uproar among homeschooling moms at traddy conferences after exiting the pub and prognosticating on the social awareness of homeschooled children.
This was interesting:
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http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markshea/2014/03/mystery-solved.html
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If this, by Jimmy Akin, is a fair account of events:
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– then it is hard to see what else the bishop could have done, in view of what Summorum Ponticum says in Article 19.
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public repudiation of Vatican 2 and the Ordinary Form of the Mass – Emphasis in original.
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Some version of the events must be true – but what is that version ? I’m very confused.
To call C.S. Lewis “anti-Catholic” is misleading – he explains why the did not become a “Roman Catholic” in an essay. I regret to say that I cannot at present remember the title.
As this site: http://anglicancontinuum.blogspot.co.uk/2008/09/following-is-from-write-up-about-book.html
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points out:
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## From an Anglican POV, he was a Anglican member (with some Catholic leanings & some Evangelical leanings) of the Church Catholic – but not a Roman Catholic. From a Catholic (AKA Roman Catholic) POV, he was an Anglican Protestant (with some Catholic leanings & some Evangelical leanings) . Lewis was not much interested in ecclesiology – his emphasis was on Christ. And he avoided controversial exchanges. The article needs to be read in full.
@Jimmy:
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Your first comment, if true, explains exactly what I have been saying all along: 1) The FMC controversy is about the Council, not the Mass; and 2) The bishop’s letter is about branding, not canon law.
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Regardless of where Lewis stood on Catholicism or ecclesiology, his books lacked Catholic imagination. In contrast, Tolkien’s books are overflowing with Catholic imagination. Twenty-to-thirty years ago, young trads like Liam and I were drawn heavily to Tolkien while most Novus Ordo conservatives at the time failed to appreciate Tolkien’s Catholic imagination and much preferred Lewis. Today, unfortunately and as demonstrated by the Rorate anti-Tolkien hit piece, young trads have jettisoned Tolkien’s Catholic imagination for the very allegorical puritan mindset of Lewis we veterans of the traditionalist movement rejected several decades ago. Thus traditional Catholicism in America has lost the battle for the Catholic imagination.
The piece in Rorate was much mistaken about Tolkien. That aside, the imagination is exceedingly important. I don’t agree about Lewis – I think we may mean different things by “Catholic imagination”. What had you in mind ? They tell stories that are different in kind, but overlap a good deal. It’s veryinteresting that you mention the piece in Rorate, b/c one of the objections made to it is that over-emphasises allegory; & it was Lewis who responded to that sort of literature, and Tolkien who objected to it.
As to FMC And All That – what version of the facts is the right one ? If Article 19 was contravened, it looks very much as though the bishop was acting within his rights. One of the following appears to be what happened :
1. the alleged “public repudiation of Vatican 2 and the Ordinary Form of the Mass” both took place, contrary to Summorum Pontificum;
2. the alleged “public repudiation of Vatican 2 and the Ordinary Form of the Mass” both took place, but not contrary to Summorum Pontificum;
3. or, there was a “public repudiation of Vatican 2” alone, & this repudiation was contrary to Summorum Pontificum;
4. or, there was a “public repudiation of..the Ordinary Form of the Mass” alone, contrary to Summorum Pontificum;
5. or, there was a “public repudiation of Vatican 2” alone, & this repudiation was not contrary to Summorum Pontificum;
6. or, there was a “public repudiation of..the Ordinary Form of the Mass” alone, not contrary to Summorum Pontificum;
7. Neither took place, so Summorum Pontificum was not contravened
8. Some other thing took place, so Summorum Pontificum was contravened by that instead
9. Some other thing took place, and Summorum Pontificum was not contravened
10. Nothing took place, and Summorum Pontificum was not contravened but is being made an excuse for something unknown.
11. Nothing took place, and the whole thing is a dream or a fantasy
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I think these are the only alternatives. Which is the true account of matters ? Logically, some account has to be true. If something was repudiated, and in violation of Article 19 at that, was the bishop not to take action ?
The Marshall essay is here:
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https://www.facebook.com/DrTaylorMarshall/posts/400180263452671
@Jimmy:
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We will have to agree to disagree over Lewis. In the context of Christian fantasy literature I stand by my position that Tolkien represents the Catholic sacramental and incarnational imagination, while Lewis represents the Protestant allegorical imagination.
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With regards to FMC, I am a realist. Having been a traditionalist for decades I am not going to obsess over canonical implications. Canon law is moot in this case. It may provide the basis for some sort of future pyrrhic victory but by that time FMC will be:
– shut down due to lack of money and students
– fully R&R and working with the SSPX, or
– under new management
Jimmy,
Since the letter of the Bishop does not cite any such or any one of your 11 possibilities, it is canonically invalid by the mere fact that it has not observed the due process for penalties, which must be imposed by citing specific canons and specific violations.
On the contrary, the text of the letter makes clear that the Bishop claims that no permission for the TLM exists for the Chapel. Seeing that many priests with faculties have said mass there for some time, the letter of the Bishop is founded on a lie. That invalidates the entire thing.
A priest with faculties knows that if he is to celebrate Mass in any rite, he must first observe the due process: personally know whether the local ordinary has permitted the place to be used for mass, personally know the canonical status of the place if recognized (chapel, oratory, church, parish) and personally have verbal approval of the Bishop to celebrate, either directly or from his Vicar General or Moderator, though in some dioceses this might be delegated to others, such as a Vicar Forane…
You just cannot declare that a place has no permission, when priests have been celebrating there for some time. Its absurd.
Imagine if a Bishop wrote you to say that there is no permission for the celebration of the TLM at your house, or in his bathroom! The mere statement of fact, or the appearance of such, constituttes no penal penalty, strictly speaking, but as such neither does it impose a precept not to act otherwise.
For example, there is no permission for the Bishop to celebrate Mass in the middle of the Atlantic. If he finds himself on a ship there, he can seek guidance from the Code and find reasons why he can say Mass there.
Having permission is a meaningless statement, since it is not a canonically precise term. But it is one that liberal tyrants in the cloth love to throw around. And is tantamount to saying, “I do not like you; and do not expect me every to recognize, let alone permit, you to exercise your rights as a Catholic. It is open war between me and you, and I will persecute you to the end of your days, until you grovel at my feet and accept whatever error or injustice I care to dictate upon you to accept.”
Finally, I would remind one and all, that the Bishop does not have permission to harass or intimidate his flock. Christ expressly forbade that.
@Catholic at Rome:
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I think we can agree that the Bishop’s letter is poorly worded, likely not to hold up to any canonical appeal, and probably invalid in light of Pope Benedict’s Sum Pont. The next question is: So what?
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The student and fundraising draw for FMC was its reputation as America’s only indult-friendly college. That brand is now shattered. Any canonical victory at this point is pyrrhic.
I do not think the College has to act on the basis of an assumed defeat. I think that is just what the Bishop wants, and why he has used a form of expression which is non-canonical but very threatening and damaging.
The response the College could be such. In their letter to the Bishop, in reply to the said letter, they could point out that the Bishop’s letter in being addressed to Mr. King, without any specification title, imposes no obligation upon the College or its students, since Mr. King is a private person, not a priest. Therefore, it is true that the private person, Mr. King does not have permission to celebrate mass or allow mass, because he is not a cleric with jurisdiction or faculties. Therefore, to that extent he can promise personally as a private person to comply.
If the Bishop replies with reissuing the letter, this time naming Mr. Fisher in his capacity of President of the College, identifying the College with its proper legal name, the President can take the letter to the Attorney General of the State and to the D.A. and file a criminal complaint against the Diocese for Racketeering and Conspiracy to harm their business activities and stifle their free expression of religion.
Finally, if you look at n. 3 in the Bishop’s letter, it is clear he affirms that he has granted permission for the celebration of the Mass. Therefore, what is says in n. 1 is false and self contradicting. A penal decree which contradicts itself on matters of fact or law is invalid.
Therefore, the President could instead merely write the Bishop and state that fact……but, the context of the letter presupposes a personal meeting. If Mr. King had that meeting with 2 unfriendly witnesses present, he might be in a position to be constrained to any interpretation of the letter, though he could
inform the Bishop that on the basis of the legal and verbal inaccuracies of the letter, what he heard at the meeting did not correspond to what the Bishop states in the letter in such a confused manner…and on that basis ask for the Bishop to clarify himself with citations to the specific canons and church documents which give him authority or permission to lay down “norms” as he says…another canonically faulty use of a term….
@Catholic at Rome:
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1 – This is the United States of America. There is something called the First Amendment. It prohibits secular courts from involving themselves in matters the court would consider exclusively internal to a church.
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2 – Canon law is meaningless if the college lacks the money, students and faculty to continue.
Dear Torquemada Tequila,
Since the College is presumably a non profit TX corporation, any letter or communication the President receives from the non profit corporation known as the Roman Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth, is a secular affair. It would be quite another thing if the College were an ecclesiastical institution or Dr. King a priest of the diocese….it is not….therefore the courts can intervene…
Canon law is never meaning less. The justice of their cause should be more than sufficient to raise funds.
@Catholic at Rome:
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Just because it is probably a moot point from everything I am hearing from friends of mine whose children are/were at the college…. sure, for the sake of the argument, I will concede whatever you say.
The Bishop’s letter is an occasion to test the metal of the faculty and students of the College. If they are catholic they will stand their ground, as they have a divine right to the Ancient Roman Rite and to the Sacraments. If their god, instead, is their human superior, they will soon worship at the altar of Modernism.
Choose life that you may live, and the only one and true Faith, that you may persevere in an age of mass apostasy. You have to face up to the fact that the majority of the sacred hieararchy are apostastes and are leading their flock to apostasy.
Yikes, this just in from Cardinal Kasper:
“I do not like to speak of revolution….there were doctrines of the Holy Office before the Council against ecumenism, yet the Council found a way not to destroy or negate the doctrine, but to find ways to interpret it in an adequate way….and I ask myself why it could not be possible also with other doctrines…”
http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2014/03/10/cardinal_walter_kaspers_gospel_of_the_family/en1-780188
I’m not sure if this is the right comments section to post this on, but a former board member at FMC, Robert Drumm, started a new blog two days ago, with the stated purpose of the blog being…”to counter the calumny that has been circulated about Fisher More College and its president Michael King.”
The blog articles defend FMC and its president, and he tells his personal view and experience of Dr. Marshall, which is very telling, and says that in effect that Dr. Marshall had blackmailed the College when leaving FMC:
Quote:
…”Yes, blackmail. Dr. Marshall told Michael that if we paid him that big severance he would say conciliatory things about the College when asked, but if we didn’t, he’s make sure the world knew how wicked we were.”
Wow!
Link:
http://amongtheruins2.blogspot.com/