As I wrote yesterday, it is sometimes necessary, especially for those with a public voice in Catholic media, to say “I got it wrong.” With this in mind, I wish to offer a correction to one of the points I raised with respect to the following statement made in the Declaration, which itself is a quote taken from the Credo of the People of God issued by that giant of liturgical orthodoxy Paul VI:
“The Mass, celebrated by the priest representing the person of Christ by virtue of the power received through the Sacrament of Orders and offered by him in the name of Christ and the members of His Mystical Body, is the sacrifice of Calvary rendered sacramentally present on our altars.” (Art. 33)
Concerning this, I noted what appeared to me to be Novus Ordo theology; namely, the suggestion that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is offered in the name of the faithful (the “members of His Mystical Body”). By contrast, I noted that the Traditional Latin Mass missal more plainly indicates that the priest offers the Sacrifice on behalf of, or for, the people in the name of, and in the person of, Christ.
In my study this morning, I discovered that Pope Pius XII, in his Encyclical Mediator Dei, employs essentially the same phrase in question.
Before we get to that, however, it is of the utmost importance to note that the Holy Father was deeply concerned that it not be misunderstood. What’s more, he made it plain that apart from detailed explanation, it could lead one to embrace a “dangerous error.”
He states:
In this most important subject it is necessary, in order to avoid giving rise to a dangerous error, that we define the exact meaning of the word “offer.” The unbloody immolation at the words of consecration, when Christ is made present upon the altar in the state of a victim, is performed by the priest and by him alone, as the representative of Christ and not as the representative of the faithful. (ibid. no. 92) [Emphasis added]
One can plainly see the danger of invoking the phrase “in the name of” without qualification as we find in the Declaration. In common parlance, when a proxy acts in the name of another, as in the case of an attorney entering a plea, for example, the latter does so as the representative of the former. The Holy Father Pius XII understood this and was at pains to clarify that this is not what takes place at Holy Mass.
It was only after insisting upon this very important caveat that he went on to say:
Now it is clear that the faithful offer the sacrifice by the hands of the priest from the fact that the minister at the altar, in offering a sacrifice in the name of all His members, represents Christ… (Mediator Dei 93)
The Holy Father, Pope Pius XII, further clarified in what sense the Mass is “offered” in the name of the faithful as in the very next sentence he writes:
But the conclusion that the people offer the sacrifice with the priest himself is not based on the fact that, being members of the Church no less than the priest himself, they perform a visible liturgical rite; for this is the privilege only of the minister who has been divinely appointed to this office: rather it is based on the fact that the people unite their hearts in praise, impetration, expiation and thanksgiving with prayers or intention of the priest, even of the High Priest himself, so that in the one and same offering of the victim and according to a visible sacerdotal rite, they may be presented to God the Father. (ibid.) [Emphasis added]
This is what it means to say that Mass is offered in the name of the people; the priest, acting in the person of Christ the High Priest, presents their prayers, their praise, their intentions joined to the Holy Sacrifice, offering these to God the Father on their behalf.
So, long story short, the phrase found in the Declaration is not condemnable as such; the lack of explanation, however, most certainly is.
Perhaps this correction is overkill, but getting it right matters and I hope this clears up any confusion I may have caused.
All of that said, where the Declaration’s treatment of the Mass is most generally dangerous is that it leads one to believe that its exalted description of the rite applies just as much to the Novus Ordo as to the Mass of Ages. Obviously, the vast majority of those who read the Declaration frequent the bastard rite. As readers of this space most certainly know, the Novus Ordo deserves no such praise; in fact, heaping such upon it is tantamount to inviting the innocent to lose their faith – the demonstrable result to which it leads.
UPDATE: I had an interesting exchange on social media last night with a fairly well-known traditional religious brother who publicly expressed his gratitude for the Declaration without any qualification whatsoever. When pressed, he acknowledged that the Declaration’s treatment of the law of Moses could lead one to draw erroneous conclusions; specifically, given the auhtors’ decision to use the word “alone.”
And yet, he stood by his public praise for the Declaration by invoking the same excuse as the SSPX with regard to its now totally discredited evaluation of Amoris Laetitia – namely, he claimed that the authors likely did not intend an erroneous reading, and so they should get the benefit of the doubt!
Having been reminded that their intent has no bearing whatsoever on the objective sense of the text (which he also acknowledged) and therefore the danger it poses, he continued to hold firm in offering his applause.
Evidently, even many so-called traditionalists are so desperate for a “full communion” hero in clerics that they will compromise with error; in spite of the danger to souls that doing so represents. Hopefully other persons with a similar public presence will take a more responsible approach.
NOTE: At present, Catholic Family News has yet to comment on the Declaration. I’m looking forward to their take. Let’s hope they don’t also overlook the poison it contains.
My mom always told me even if it’s 99% truth it’s that 1% that seeps in you have to look out for. Thank you Louie for showing me that 1%.
Pope Leo XIII was very clear on the importance of maintaining purity and clarity in doctrine whenever proclaiming it. From Satis Cognitum, paragraph 9, quote:
9. The Church, founded on these principles and mindful of her office, has done nothing with greater zeal and endeavour than she has displayed in guarding the integrity of the faith. Hence she regarded as rebels and expelled from the ranks of her children all who held beliefs on any point of doctrine different from her own. The Arians, the Montanists, the Novatians, the Quartodecimans, the Eutychians, did not certainly reject all Catholic doctrine: they abandoned only a certain portion of it. Still who does not know that they were declared heretics and banished from the bosom of the Church? In like manner were condemned all authors of heretical tenets who followed them in subsequent ages. “There can be nothing more dangerous than those heretics who admit nearly the whole cycle of doctrine, and yet by one word, as with a drop of poison, infect the real and simple faith taught by our Lord and handed down by Apostolic tradition” (Auctor Tract. de Fide Orthodoxa contra Arianos).
Unquote.
I believe that the door opened to confusing language and the forked tongue approach and that it started to rear its ugly head during Pius XII ‘s reign. After all, Pius XII’s private letter to the Italian midwives which was in favor of NFP, when NFP plans in thought word and deed to have exclusive recourse to the infertile period in order to avoid having children while benifiting from all the other effects of the conjugal act, is what all NFPers quote when the say, “See, the Church teaches that one can subordinate the primary purpose of procreation and education of children for God’s glory for the secondary purpose of unity of the couple. And that the primary purpose of marriage is ‘love’ or the unity of the couple and not procreation.” I am definitely not a fan of Pius XII ‘s reign for this reason and for the changes he made to Holy Week and for reinstating Bugninni.
The ‘Benefit of the Doubt’ habit tends nowadays to reach extremely unhealthy stretching and contortion exercises.
It’s at the point where now I no longer give the benefit of the doubt to the Benefit of the doubters any more than I do the actual suspect.
‘Benefit of the doubt’ produces some of the finest exercises in legalism the sane world has ever seen.
It basically hides what’s really behind the intentions of the benefit of the doubters – that they really don’t want to be forced to do anything, so so long as there is doubt, they can keep carrying on.
Satan knew all about the benefits of doubting in the garden.
There is no room to doubt what is obvious, especially when it comes to plain words spoken by God – Thou Shalt not Commit Adultery.
If Francis opened a Forbidden Fruit Stand with leavened bread appetizers, you’d still find enough benefit of the doubters trying to tell us that we shouldn’t take the words printed on the menu too seriously, and so long as you place your order cautiously, and scrape off the bad parts with your plastic disposable spoon, you’ll be fine. After all, the Fruit stand has the infallible guarantee of the Food safety regulator, who is also Francis.
My husband and I were just talking about this. I`m a mother of 6 and I gotta say I`ve only participated in the marital embrace 6 time, ya fell me? And even then we used a hole in a bed sheet.
I mean, my husband`s a real looker, but just something about conjugal act just rubs me the wrong way (pun unintended). Our MO these days is to use the tried-and-true plank of wood in the middle of the bed, and that darn husband of mine STILL finds his way over to my side. “Get off me, we have church at 6 tomorrow morning” I say to him, but he still pesters me like the dickens.
The thing is, I still don`t know how to talk to my children about amorous congress. Our oldest is 20, and I`m starting to suspect he may be having lustful thoughts. I`ve been telling Marcus (my husband) to talk to him, set him on the path of righteousness, or at LEAST have him wash his own sheets. I mean, even at that age, I never felt the sinful lusting of the flesh. Is it a strictly male thing? I don`t know.
Anyways, tell me what you think.
“Glory2Him,”
Just think about it: in Hell your constant maddening thought will be that you will never, never, NEVER leave the place. I mean, if in Hell you knew that you would be released in, say, 1000 years, or even 1,000,000 years, you would still go on suffering horribly but you would nevertheless have the comforting promise of eventually being released. No such luck, though “Glory2Him,” because you won’t EVER leave that awful place. But you’re ok with that so let’s move on (and how ’bout you movin’ on, too?).
What are you saying? I`ve been a devout follower of the Most High since I was a girl, why would I be going to H*ll?
I mean, it isn`t a sin to speak your mind, or to avoid taxes, or to throw rocks at Pro-Choice protesters, or to cut the breaks to my gay neighbors car, so what gives?
You obviously aren`t the most forgiving, mothermostforgiving 🙁
Judging by the two posts we’ve got here, “Glory2Him” appears to be a very unoriginal troll.
I mean, “cut the breaks to my gay neighbor’s car”? That’s just too obvious. Step up your troll game if you’re going to bother doing it at all, because otherwise you just look silly.
In the meantime, I’d suggest praying for an increase in charity, prudence, and temperance. I’d also appeal to Jesus’s Most Sacred Heart as well.
You are one pathetic nitwit. Satan has tricked your dumb ass into believing that God and His followers are the cause of your difficulties in this life. So, the devil fed you the same line that he fed Adam and Eve, i.e. that God is a party pooper and that “you shall be as gods.” At least Adam and Eve did not have any historical evidence to allow them to see that Satan’s ploy was a crock. I mean, they were the first to get tricked. But you, dummie, have, like all of the rest us, plenty of examples of poor schmucks who bought the lie and paid the consequences for doing so. You’re just one more moron who has fallen into that sinking boat. You’ve fallen for the lie hook line and sinker. I’m taunting you, stupid. Your supposed “intelligence” is your god. You’re not intelligent. You’re a fool. When you’re in Hell Satan will laugh at you for being so easily deceived.
Glory2Him (SaltySodomy),
You are one pathetic nitwit. Satan has tricked your dumb ass into believing that God and His followers are the cause of your difficulties in this life. So, the devil fed you the same line that he fed Adam and Eve, i.e. that God is a party pooper and that “you shall be as gods.” At least Adam and Eve did not have any historical evidence to allow them to see that Satan’s ploy was a crock. I mean, they were the first to get tricked. But you, dummie, have, like all of the rest us, plenty of examples of poor schmucks who bought the lie and paid the consequences for doing so. You’re just one more moron who has fallen into that sinking boat. You’ve fallen for the lie hook line and sinker. I’m taunting you, stupid. Your supposed “intelligence” is your god. You’re not intelligent. You’re a fool. When you’re in Hell Satan will laugh at you for being so easily deceived.
Guys, guys, guys
Listen, I`m just like you. I put my scapular on two legs at a time. I go to a dead language mass. I pop percocet and drink red wine when the little ones go off to bed. I keep it clean, keep it holy, and keep it unshaved.
I suggest you quit gatekeeping your forum. I just wanna share my beliefs with my bros and hos in Christ. I wanna talk about why we`re a post-mortum religion, living off hate and fear mongering, that will die off when we do.
Anyway my son sent this to me in an email and I thought it was just hilarious-
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| INRI |
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‘========.`\ /`========’
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\\jgs _ _\\| \// |//_ _ \// _
^ `^`^ ^“ `^ ^` “^^` `^^` `^ `^
Hey this a Catholic forum no swearing
Honestly Glory2Him, I just feel sorry for you. Your level of sarcasm is really quite shallow, and you’re not as clever as you think.
May the Peace of Christ be with you. I’ll be praying for you!
mothermostforgiving,
Don’t feed the trolls. They feed on your anger, righteous or otherwise.
SaltySodomy,
Your username, your tongue-in-cheek reading of the Sixth Commandment, and your advertising about “most painful squirrel eliminations” on your YouTube channel don’t give off the impression of someone legitimately seeking truth about the Catholic Faith.
Just being honest.
But, to answer your other question in all seriousness, there are no words that can adequately describe the sheer joys of Heaven.
I suspect that Louie will ban them.
This Glory2Him/SaltySodomy troll displays no wit whatsoever. He’s clearly a fully programmed NPC and most likely a stinking sodomite. Sad.
Welp… Probably time to just shut down the comments again. It was fun while it lasted.
Maybe in the future if Louie gets help from someone he knows who’s willing to voluntarily moderate comments and implement the method where all comments go into moderation before being publicly posted, then this will work out.
That the saboteurs are showing up here this early indicates that Louie is stepping on all the right toes. At least the latest one is putting in effort.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this filthy troll is a sodomite priest.
trolling, done well, can be a thing of beauty. Sort of a modern version of good sarcasm.
You don’t even come close, not even a little.
Anastasia, I agree 100 % with your statement but it seems to me the groundwork for the acceptance of NFP was first laid back in 1853 when the Bishop of Amiens, France submitted this question to the Sacred Penitentiary: “Certain married couples, relying on the opinion of learned physicians are convinced that there are several days each month in which conception can not occur. Are those who do not use the marriage right except on such days to be disturbed, especially if they have legitimate reasons for abstaining from the conjugal act?” The Sacred Penitentiary’s response under the watch and reign of Pope Pius IX was: “The spoken of in the request are not to be disturbed, providing that they do nothing to impede conception.” This should not be a surprise since Pope Pius IX was also the first Pope to ever declare (no less than on 3 separate occasions) that someone could die outside of the Catholic Church and still attain eternal salvation through something we now know as invincible ignorance. So when Pope Pius XII warned us around a 100 years after PPIX’s I.I. declaration about EENS becoming a “meaningless formula” I think it was a little too late.
The Holy Sacrifice of The Mass (traditionally called The Holocaust) is the most important and holiest action occurring on earth at any moment in time.
The Holocaust is the Sacramental re-presentation of The Pluperfect Salvific Holy Holocaust on Calvary so the graces gained at that one-for-all Sacrifice can be applied to those living today and the faithful departed (and also for our dead loved ones if we remember to include them as part of our intentions for Mass).
At Calvary, and in the Holy Sacrifice of The Mass, Jesus is both Priest and Victim, offering Himself to God for our Salvation and Sanctification – the two reasons Jesus established His Church on earth.
In the Old Testament, Mosaic Law, Holocausts were offered for four main reasons and those “types” of holocausts were offered to help prepare The Jews to accept Jesus as Messiah when He came in the fullness of time.
In Tradition, we were once learnt that memorising the word, PART, as an acronym, could help us understand the four purposes of the Mass; Petition, Adoration, Reparation, Thanksgiving.
The adult version of those purposes are classically understood as the four sacrificial aspects of The Holy Holocaust of The Mass
1. Sacrifice/Homage honoring our God in His Sovereign Greatness
2. Sacrifice of Propitiation, offered to appease His Justice/Anger irritated by our innumerable sins
3. Sacrifice of Impetration, offered to implore His bounty
4. Sacrifice of Thanksgiving (Eucharist) offered to thank Him for His bounty.
Of course, all the Old Testament Sacrifices were subsumed by and perfected by Jesus Christ in His Holocaust on Calvary and because all Old Testament Holocausts were consumed by fire and then eaten, the Holocaust of The Mass sacramentally reproduces the actions of the Old Testament, the New Covenant Sacrifice and New Covenant Meal (Holy Communion).
On Calvary, the fire was Jesus’ burning love for His creatures who had become slaves of Satan and His Holocaust on Calvary was the first step in the way He liberated us from Satan and set us on the course of Salvation if we obey all of His commandments.
The Last Supper was The First Holocaust Mass and He gave His Apostles Holy Communion at that first Mass (including Judas).
What do you think about when the Priest (alter Christus) asks us to…” pray, brethren, that my sacrifice (Jesus’ sacrifice) and yours..” what does that prayer signify?
Like on Calvary, Jesus is both priest and victim in the Mass/Holocaust and He is asking us to remember His sacrifice – The sacrifice of His life – and calling for our lives to also be sacrificed at The Holy Holocaust/Mass.
Thus, our life, our prayers, works, joys and sufferings, is what Jesus calls us to add to His sacrifice of His life at The Holy Holocaust/Mass and so we must strive to be Holy. We must Sanctify our lives – to make them Holy, for only that which is Holy is acceptable unto God.
But, we are told that the entire Holocaust/Mass offering is born by the angels to the altar in Heaven and so we know it is acceptable to God – but it is only acceptable because our lives are swept up into the pluperfect Sacrifice of Jesus on Calvary and that is why our lives are acceptable to God as a sacrifice.
And so we must become ever more sanctified/holy and the way to do that is to get out of His way and let Jesus make us Holy through the Sacraments (especially Holy Communion and Holy Confession) because, as Pope Saint Gregory the Great teaches, “The risen Christ has passed over into The sacraments.”
The Sacraments were established by Jesus Christ as the way He gives His Grace to us by giving as a share of His Divine Life
In addition to saying the prayers of the Mass (and the Hieratic Latin prayers of Trad Mass are FAR superior to the new order) ABS says a post communion prayer (old school and beautiful) and acknowledges that Jesus is present in The Eucharist, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity and ABS thanks Him that He has humbled Himself, as God from God, Light from Light, to come into his heart and soul and ABS asks Him that His pure light may burn away all darkness and shadows of sin in the heart and soul of ABS and he pray that He will complete His work in him so that ABS will stop being the Amateur Brain Surgeon always chosen to be and become the Amateur Brain Surgeon He desires I be.
The best way to do that is to get out of His way and let Him act in us.
O, and so all of this explains why what The Jews call the holocaust is no such thing but it is, rather, the rhetorical way they try to convince the world that their suffering (and theirs alone) was worst than anyone else’s suffering ever (including Jesus) and that the crime of the holocaust is the worst crime ever committed – even worse than the crime of Decide- although Deicide is a crime that, literally, it is impossible to imagine a crime worse than.
Besides, for it to have been a holocaust, the war crimes the Nazis committed against the Jews would have had to have been the way the Nazis worshipped God and unless ABS is mistaken the Nazis were not eating the Jews after they killed and burned them.
ABS said:
“…the Nazis were not eating the Jews after they killed and burned them.”
I take that tongue in cheek. The only evidence of “burning” was that done to eradicate typhus which was epidemic in some of the camps, and even then it was only done to Jews who had died from the disease. The charge that Jews were burned to death is total mythology. It’s a CROCK! Since the Jews in the camps (which were WORK camps) were instrumental in manufacturing a considerable amount of ammunition, clothing for the German troops, and other items used in the war effort, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense that the Germans would want to exterminate them, does it? The Third Reich (which was far from perfect, BTW) deemed it just that the Jews should pay back the money which they stole from the German people during the Weimar Republic. A history of that theft can be found on the internet at such places as archive.org. Fascinating to read and it debunks the lies fed to us in school and by the media.
Good point on the statement of the Sacred Penitentiary. I think it supports the position that the use of periodic continence is not intrinsically evil; otherwise, the confessor would be obligated to inform the penitent that such is the case. However, neither does the statement by the Sacred Penitentiary indicate that periodic continence is virtuous per se.
Thus, periodic continence frustrates the purpose of marriage, but not individual acts of sexual intercourse. To frustrate the latter and its natural purpose (per P. Pius XI in Casti Connubii); that is, to impede the act of sexual intercourse (by barriers, chemicals, or surgery), is intrinsically evil. Intrinsically evil acts are never morally permissible.