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Author Topic: Autobiography of Archbishop Thuc  (Read 21506 times)

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Offline TomGubbinsKimmage

Re: Autobiography of Archbishop Thuc
« Reply #275 on: May 22, 2026, 06:37:49 PM »
Wow you really don't let up do you.
Can you post his rejection of traditionalism please? Like I have already?
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Offline Pax Vobis

  • Supporter
Re: Autobiography of Archbishop Thuc
« Reply #276 on: May 22, 2026, 07:47:42 PM »
Quote from: TomGubbinsKimmage on May 22, 2026, 06:37:49 PM
Wow you really don't let up do you.
Can you post his rejection of traditionalism please? Like I have already?
None of this invalidates his sacraments.  You are a moron. 
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Online WorldsAway

Re: Autobiography of Archbishop Thuc
« Reply #277 on: May 22, 2026, 07:49:21 PM »


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Offline Persto

Re: Autobiography of Archbishop Thuc
« Reply #278 on: May 23, 2026, 01:23:24 PM »
Quote from: Simeon on April 24, 2026, 08:03:01 PM
http://www.thucbishops.com/Open_Letter_to_%20Bp_Kelly_FULL.pdf
Mario Derksen's Open Letter to Bp. Kelly @ his book on Abp. Thuc (2011)
Your Excellency, in your work The Sacred and the Profane (TSTP from now on), you state that you wrote your book because “[a] response has to be made” and “[t]he truth must be told” in order to “warn the faithful” and to “minimize the harm done to souls. . . .”4 Ironically, these are the exact same reasons for which I now publish this study, examining your claims, arguments, and references regarding these issues, mainly as set forth in your book TSTP. 5

It is a curious fact that in the traditional Catholic landscape today, the SSPV is virtually the only group of clerics to consider the 1981 Thuc consecrations doubtful. In your July 16, 1994, “Open Letter on Mount St. Michael’s & the Thuc Consecrations” to Fr. Thomas Zapp, you confidently predicted: “[A]s time goes by and the truth gets out about the persons involved in the Thuc consecrations, the circuмstances of the consecrations, the lack of proof and the problems with the mental state of Abp. Thuc, there will be fewer and fewer priests who accept the validity of the Thuc consecrations.”7 It is now over 16 years later, and the exact opposite has occurred: As time has gone by and more and more facts have become known, almost no cleric still entertains doubt regarding the Thuc consecrations. 8 Your Excellency’s position is practically unique, and this is so because it is based upon a distortion of the principles and teachings of Catholic theology and canon law on this subject matter, as this study will demonstrate.

In 2006, Fr. Kevin Vaillancourt of Spokane, Washington, published a book entitled The Answers, 9 in which he gives both sides of the debate surrounding the 1981 consecrations and the person of Bp. Thuc, and in which are reprinted many articles by different authors who have written about this topic over the years. Copious reference to your book, TSTP, both pro and con, is also made in The Answers. Reading this book gave me an additional incentive to research this subject matter in depth and ultimately helped me to come to a better understanding of the issues involved in this debate.
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Offline Persto

Re: Autobiography of Archbishop Thuc
« Reply #279 on: May 23, 2026, 02:07:46 PM »
http://www.thucbishops.com/Open_Letter_to_%20Bp_Kelly_FULL.pdf

Mario Derksen (Continued)
Despite all, Your Excellency does not admit the validity of the Thuc consecrations for yet another reason: You claim that Bp. Thuc’s mental state was (probably) not sufficient to allow him to confer sacraments validly. You question the bishop’s mental lucidity based on his prior consecrations of unfit candidates, his waffling over whether the Apostolic See was vacant, and “strange behavior,” for which you give anecdotal evidence that is entirely one-sided; 132 and then you conclude that there is sufficient doubt regarding his ability to confer sacraments. However, this line of reasoning is unjust and omits several crucial factors, namely: (1) the principles of Catholic sacramental theology regarding the required mental state of the minister of the sacrament; (2) people’s eyewitness testimony of Bp. Thuc at the time of the consecrations regarding his mental state; (3) the significance of the previous consecrations of unfit candidates with regard to mental lucidity.

(1) The Required Mental State of the Minister of a Sacrament (a) Catholic Teaching on the Human Act, Intention, and Attention All that is required for a sacrament to be administered validly is a qualified133 minister’s right use of the correct matter and form with the intention of doing what the Church does: 134

“Every sacrament essentially consists of three elements for validity: matter, form and the intention of the minister,” Fr. Joseph Waldron reminds us. 135 The Council of Florence, approved by Pope Eugene IV, teaches: All these sacraments are dispensed in three ways, namely, by things as the matter, by words as the form, and by the person of the minister conferring the sacraments with the intention of doing as the Church does; if any of these is lacking the sacrament is not fulfilled. 136 The reason why a sacramental intention is necessary is that the minister must act as a rational agent: “That he must have some intention is clear from the fact that he is to act as a rational agent, and to act rationally some intention is necessary,” says Fr. Davis. 137

This, of course, also implies certain minimal requirements in the mental state of the minister of the sacrament, because otherwise he would not be able (1) The Required Mental State of the Minister of a Sacrament (a) Catholic Teaching on the Human Act, Intention, and Attention All that is required for a sacrament to be administered validly is a qualified133 minister’s right use of the correct matter and form with the intention of doing what the Church does: 134

Your Excellency quotes Msgr. Joseph Pohle on this subject: The combination of matter and form into a sacramental sign (confectio), and its application to the individual recipient (administratio),—two factors which, with the sole exception of the Holy Eucharist, invariably coincide,—require a minister who has the full command of reason. Hence lunatics, children, and others who have not the full use of reason are incapable of administering a Sacrament. 138 Your Excellency then claims: “The preponderance of the evidence clearly indicates that Archbishop Thuc did not have ‘the full use of reason’; and hence, the consecrations he performed are at least doubtful as to validity.”139 You then go on to make the reader aware of anecdotal “evidence” which you claim raises sufficient doubt about Bp. Thuc’s mental state. 140

However, what you have not done, Your Excellency, is explain first what is meant by the fairly vague expression “full command of reason” which Msgr. Pohle contrasts with a lack thereof in “lunatics, children, and others who have not the full use of reason.” Though Msgr. Pohle does not elaborate on this point, Dr. Ludwig Ott explains the “mental state” requirement in a bit more detail: The human minister is a creature endowed with reason and freedom. The act involved in the execution of the administration of the Sacrament must therefore be an actus humanus [human act], that is, an activity which proceeds from understanding and free will. 141 Fr. DeSalvo, likewise, ties the full command of reason to performing a human act: All theologians agree that the confection of the sacraments is a human act insofar as man has a role in their confection, and this human act is necessarily one which must be performed by a minister who has the full use of reason and applies it to the work at hand. 142 In order to confer a sacrament validly, then, the minister must form an intention that proceeds from knowledge and free will, and this he can only do if he has the full command of reason. In other words, he must know and will to do it. The bare minimum such intention is called “virtual intention.” Fr. Davis, whom you quote frequently in TSTP, confirms this explicitly: “[A] virtual intention suffices, for this suffices for a human act, and therefore for the sacramental act.”143

The foregoing analysis gives us a firm foundation from which to judge the validity of the Thuc consecrations in terms of the mental state requirement. While anecdotes about Bp. Thuc’s objectively sacrilegious behavior (e.g., the consecrations of unworthy candidates) may suffice to persuade the casual reader to think the bishop must not have been in full possession of his faculties (“He must have been nuts to do that!”), this would not nearly suffice in an ecclesiastical court to cast doubt upon the validity of his sacraments, because, to sum it all up, as long as the bishop had sufficient command of his reason to engage in a human act, i.e., an act proceeding from knowledge and free will, and as long as he was not at the same time engaging in actions that distracted him to the point where he could no longer intend to be consecrating bishops, the validity of his sacraments is not affected—period. Fr. James O’Kane reassures the scrupulous: “n practice the internal intention is hardly ever wanting.”152 So, the burden of proof is on those who claim the Thuc consecrations are doubtful.
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