In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen
My dearly beloved in Our Lord,
Today, on this beautiful and most consoling feast of Christ the King we finish this short series of sermons: What must be the sane principles for a true restoration of all things in Christ, the head, the King?
As Catholics started waking up after the incredible end of Vatican2, they were faced with a very profound dilemma: Where is the Church?
Most Catholics conceived, and still conceive this as a practical problem. Certainly there is a very practical side to it: How do I behave with regards to my parish priest… my bishop… the Pope who obviously have lost their Catholic mind? Every practical problem goes back to a theoretical, ideological or, in the case of the Church, a philosophical or theological problem.
Either way, the question remained and remains: Where is the Church?
° She is in Rome, proposed Msgr Lefebvre. As one train can hide another, the liberal face of Paul VI is hiding his Catholic face. The solution is simple: We just have to check according to our Catholic sense whether his Catholic or his liberal self is speaking at a given moment. We accept whatever we find to be Catholic, in keeping with tradition, and we reject whatever we do not. - He did not notice that he had turned the Church into a monster with two heads by claiming Montini could be something of a schizophrenic regarding the Faith. Also he had placed himself above the Pope. He failed to understand exactly what the Church means by Tradition, and what he meant. The Romans did notice this, according to an article in the Osservatore Romano from 1974! The notion of the Catholic magisterium was dead – but Msgr Lefebvre did not notice he had killed it because its dead body did not yet stink to the heavens… For the lefebvrists, if there is no Pope, where is the Church? It is not possible. There must be a Pope, so why not a “bad”, heretical and apostate occupant of the See of Peter to be the Pope. Otherwise they would be in troubled waters with their teaching about the Church which they had long since shaped to fit their purpose. Particularly by saying that the Church’s Universal Ordinary Magisterium is not infallible, they left the grounds of Catholic teaching – again, for most among them (like myself) without noticing the gravity and the implications of this denial.
There is no Pope, others claimed. They would be called “sedevacantists”.
° “Let us make a Pope”, some concluded – and failed miserably, time and again. We have treated this problem of conclavism last Sunday.
° “Just as well”, others concluded, “at least we are free to do as we think fittest.” Indeed one can draw numerous false conclusions from the true observation that there is no Pope. Such a diagnosis is only the starting point from which one needs to tread very carefully lest he get lost on his way. --- Be it noted here, once and for all, that most “sedevacantists”, priests and laity alike, have no theological stance on the question of the Authority, the Pope, but only a prudential or even just a sentimental one. In this they are now being met by many novus ordo Catholics who have had enough of Bergoglio and cannot take any more… but there still is no shred of theological insight in their views. They risk falling back in line with the novus ordo or with one of its numerous tentacles, as the past has proven with many painful examples.
* “Distinguo – I make a distinction”, said the scholastic theologian Guérard des Lauriers. He applied to the situation of the Church’s Authority, the Pope, the fundamental distinction formal and material. He applied it in a certain analogical manner because the papacy is not a material thing. This is the starting point for most people to get it wrong because they do not look at what he is saying precisely. But theology needs to be precise.
He proves that Montini is not invested with Christ’s Authority. This – the communication of Christ’s authority – is what makes the Pope-elect to be the Pope. This is the next point which people regularly get wrong. They believe that the election and its being accepted by the elected person, automatically makes that person to be the Pope. Think of the Siri-line delirium which has spread among traditionalists! This is normally so, but not if there is an obstacle in the elect’s person. Montini, then, just like Roncalli, may have been truly Popes. But certainly, by the standards of Catholic theology, Montini proves that Our Lord is not with him when he promulgates the final documents of Vatican2 which contain teachings that cannot be reconciled with what the Church had already taught: religious liberty, episcopal collegiality to name just the most obvious ones.
Montini’s successors cannot be true Popes, Popes formally speaking, because they adhere to the same errors. By doing so they refuse to procure the Church’s objective, unchangeable common good, the glory of God and the salvation of souls. Therefore it makes no sense whatsoever to call them the Authority since the authority has to care for the common good; this is its proper ontological meaning.
Thus the arguments of the Thesisinclude the arguments others draw from the fact that the occupants of the See of Peter are heretics and apostates. But it goes much further since it is universal by looking at the situation from the point of view of immutable and unchangeable principles. Unlike the argument of the public heresy of the occupant, the standpoint of the Thesis cannot be challenged or discussed. This is crucial because exactly in this regard the situation of an heretic occupying the See of Peter is new, and proper to our times.
St Robert Bellarmine and many other theologians have discussed probable or possible ways of dealing with this problem, should it occur. But since it has never happened we have no decision by the Church, nor a precedent from which to draw an analogy. “Total sedevacantists” seem incapable of distinguishing between the consequences of heresy or apostasy on the person of a Pope; and the juridical aspect of the office. While it is clear that according to the former – the defection from the true Faith – cuts a person from its relationship with God and the Church, the latter still has its importance, particularly in as much such a person occupies the chair, the ecclesiastical position.
Therefore the Thesis keeps inquiring and establishes that Montini and his successors are popes materially speaking (materialiter). Here is where people usually strike the “panic button”! They do not understand the scholastic notion of being in a material manner. Any being receives its essential form whenever the last disposition to receive this form happens. When an important change occurs, a new substantial form is received.
When you buy a shelf at IKEA, you well know and realize that you buy a shelf, but you do not take home a shelf. It is in a state of “in fieri – to become”. Materially the shelve is there since the parts have been prepared so that a shelf may come about. But the last disposition for the shelf to formally exist is lacking: the correct assembling of the parts. Only once this has been done, can you speak about possessing a shelf fit for the purpose of storing things. If an essential part happens to be missing; or if you assemble the parts incorrectly, you do not have a shelf but a heap of wood, screws etc.
Every comparison limps. The papacy is not a shelve… Once you grasp the concept material-formal you can move on to apply it to any created reality. It is applied to immaterial concepts in an analogical manner, as in the Thesis. The eight of the 24 thomistic theses published on July 27, 1914 by the Roman Congregation of Studies makes this very obvious.
To cut a long story short: The “conciliar popes” should be Popes since they have received the legal designation, an election by competent electors. They ought to be Popes, and they pretend to be. BUT they cannot be true Popes, Popes formally speaking since they pursue a goal which is different from the common good of the Catholic Church. By their habitual and renewed acts they show that they do not possess the Authority given by Jesus Christ to his Vicar on earth.
The Catholic theologian must state the Truth. He does so because Our Lord is showing the example, as we hear in today’s Gospel: “For this was I born, and for this came I into the world; that I should give testimony to the truth. Every one that is of the truth, heareth my voice.” (Jn 18:37) A few verses later Our Lord speaks to Pontius Pilate one last time, teaching him (and us) an all-important lesson, namely that all authority is received from above, ultimately from God. “Pilate therefore saith to him: Speakest thou not to me? knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and I have power to release thee? Jesus answered: Thou shouldst not have any power against me, unless it were given thee from above. Therefore, he that hath delivered me to thee, hath the greater sin.” (Jn 19:10-11)
Fr Edward Leen, C.S.Sp. rightly states in his book “Why the Cross?”: “’What must I do to be saved,’ is a question that shows an incomprehension of the meaning and conditions of salvation. Religion, with men of religious inclinations who do not labor to keep their minds and wills subject to God’s views, tends habitually to degenerate into ‘formalism’.” (Book 1, ch.3) “It is scarcely necessary to remark that the Saviour does not discredit ‘works’. What He stresses is that only ‘right being’ issues in ‘right doing’.”
Please bear with me for having spent many sermons these past months on the very fundamental issues of the present situation! I could not do otherwise since circumstances have pushed me to reflect much upon the fundamentals. I hope I have made it abundantly clear that in my view only the Cassiciacum Thesis gives the priest a valid and solid grounding for his actions in the present situation. It establishes that which is in the Church right now and analyzes it in keeping with the scholastic principles cherished by the Church’s magisterium. From thence flows that which needs to be done. As St Paul says in a concluding remark to the Corinthians: “For we can do nothing against the truth; but for the truth.” (2Cor 13:8)
If any of you require further teaching on the content of the Thesis, I am of course ready to give it to you loyally and frankly. Loyalty and frankness in that case must be a given on both sides.
For the rest I will now return to day-to-day sermons which have come up short lately.
May Christ, the King, live and reign in our mind, will and heart. May he choose us as valiant instruments of a true restoration according to his sovereign will!
Adveniat regnum tuum;
Fiat voluntas tua.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
P. Arnold Trauner (paterarnold@hotmail.com), njemački i engleski
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