The man would deny Jesus if the bishops told him to.  The only thing "tragic" here is the nauseating nominalism married to a kind of positivism that totally vitiates the mind.  

I threw this out there:


It is irrelevant that these are disciplinary laws or that they were changed. This is obvious.

The point is that CITH and girl altar boys began in disobedience. CITH was forbidden, but practiced in disobedience before Paul VI caved and allowed it. He had even previously preached against it! So did JPII although he allowed it as an "exception" (which is now the rule in practice.)

Girl altar boys were forbidden in 1980 and yet disobedient priests were allowing it, which is why JPII forbade it explicitly in the Encyclical I quoted.

Bishops did not suddenly find a "new right" to girl altar boys in Canon Law. They were obviously forbidden and their appeal to Canon Law was a charade.After years upon years of disobedience Rome finally caved, just like CITH, rather than try to discipline numerous disobedient clergy.

You are entitled to your own opinion but not your own facts.

Caminus, you have no idea of how right you are.  I am firmly convinced that the posters at CAF, if tomorrow the pope said that the Assumption isn't really a dogma anymore, or that there are four instead of three persons in the Blessed Trinity and we have to rename it, they would believe it, defend it and demonize anyone and everyone who disagreed with them.

They have done more harm to the conciliar church and its "cause" than good.  

Stevusmagnus said:

The Bishops honestly thought the new Code allowed girl altar boys? PLEASE! Are these people really this naive?

By the new code do you mean the 1917 or the 1983 Code?  

Stevusmagnus' correspondent said:

About a decade later, some Bishops did permit girl altar servers based on their reading of Canon 230 Section 2 [ from the 1917 Code of Canon Law ], which was adopted in the new code in 1983 : "§2. Lay persons can fulfill the function of lector in liturgical actions by temporary designation. All lay persons can also perform the functions of commentator or cantor, or other functions, according to the norm of law."

Those who are honest with themselves will admit that this theoretically can open the door to altar girls.  It just depends on your interpretation of "norm of law."  The real norm of law is that altar servers must be male, but a non-Catholic such as populates the VII Church would not have that norm of law.  They could also argue against the traditional norm of law being the real norm of law.  They could say "Well, we believe the norm of law is that altar servers be of the human species and not apes.  And we will not change that for anything -- call us conservative!"

Already under Pius XII the norm of law was being changed.  Do people realize that he allowed women in the choir?  This is certainly a total perversion of what was always known as the "norm of law."

Musicae Sacrae, 1955  --

"74. Where it is impossible to have schools of singers or where there are not enough choir boys, it is allowed that "a group of men and women or girls, located in a place outside the sanctuary set apart for the exclusive use of this group, can sing the liturgical texts at Solemn Mass, as long as the men are completely separated from the women and girls and everything unbecoming is avoided. The Ordinary is bound in conscience in this matter."

"The Ordinary is bound in conscience on this matter."  Give me a break.  The tone is conservative; the teaching is liberal.  This dichotomy is the essence of Pius XII and of the anti-Popes who followed.  

What he is prescribing goes contrary to everything ever known -- the "norm of law" -- about sacred music.  Women are not to sing in Church with men ( I just realized that they do at CMRI, where I go ).  Pius XII, by saying that men and women can sing together, but should be separated physically, makes it seem like the Church forbade male/female singing because of the danger of illicit contact.  But that has nothing to do with it.  It is the very sound of male and female voices harmonizing that is the problem.  The blend of male and female voices imparts an overtly sɛҳuąƖ quality -- just listen to certain recordings of Monteverdi's Vespers to see what I'm talking about -- and this is why boys were used in polyphony instead ( though obviously women could sing in nunneries and on other occasions ).  

But still, this falls under a matter of discipline, and if the Pope allows it, what are you going to do?  There was a time when certain people found polyphony in itself to be against custom and controversial, and wanted there to be only Gregorian chant in Church. They may have been partly right because, prior to Palestrina -- who completely purified and Catholicized the form, hence his singular greatness -- much polyphony was based on popular chansons, and this reached its pinnacle of subversion with Orlando Lassus, who based one entire Mass on a song about the joys of 15-year old girls.  

"Some of his masses are based on extremely secular French chansons, some of which are frankly obscene (Entre vous filles de quinze ans, 'Oh you fifteen-year old girls', by Clemens non Papa, gave him source material for his 1581 Missa entre vous filles, probably the most scandalous of the lot)."

Imagine being in Church and hearing a Mass called the "Missa 'Like a Virgin'" using the Madonna song as its cantus firmus.  That is exactly what this was like but even worse.  Talk about Novus Ordo services being incentives to impiety.

I think it was Cardinal Borromeo and Trent that finally put an end to this usage of the secular chanson in the Mass, but as you can see, the "norm of law" when it comes to discipline is VERY flexible, if not frankly uncertain at times.  For a century or longer no one cared that most musical settings of the Mass were based on pop songs.

It would be extremely easy for an anti-Pope or even a liberalizing true Pope to push the boundaries in terms of discipline, because the very norms of law in that case are flexible, and who can say when they are broken?  You would have to prove that altar girls are intrinsically contrary to the custom of the Church, not based on tradition, but again, intrinsically.  The usual argument of the "trads" will be "There have never been altar girls before!"  But the Modernizers/Judaizers can just respond, "Well, during Lent we can now eat meat on certain days other than the weekends, and that has never been done before."  Or they can say, "There have never been women in the choir before either."  

Now, the SSPX completely disregards Pius XII, and goes back to Pius X, saying there should be no women in the choir.  This just proves they are making up their own religion and have no consistency.  I hope people understand that my rambling post is trying to show that one must be consistent.  It's like SSPV throwing out the Pius XII/Bugnini Holy Week changes.  If you believe Pius XII is a Pope, keep the changes, hypocrites.  I'll give the CMRI credit for this much -- they accept Pius XII as Pope and they follow his discipline.  And you know what?  Though I do not accept Pius XII as Pope, I admire their consistency.

Anyway, this is why I don't concentrate on the Mass when it comes to proving that the VII Popes are anti-Popes.  How can you prove that the Novus Ordo in itself, not as it is practiced by individual clergymen, is an intrinsic evil that could not have been promulgated by a true Pope?

In the same way, you cannot prove someone is not a Pope or a bishop on the basis that they permit altar girls.  We all know it's wrong, but if you are in SSPX, and believe these men are legitimate Popes, you have hoisted yourself with your own petard.  They can allow all sorts of transgressions like this and you'll just have to endure it with a wan smile.  Fortunately, I am far from sharing your pain.  Not only do I reject the Vatican II Popes but I reject Pius XII, but because of their teachings on faith and morals, not because of their lax disciplinary laws.  Yet it's all connected, isn't it?

You get what you deserve by saying these men are Popes.  You tie yourselves up and subject yourselves to endless frustrations, and guess what?  It will never, ever stop until either you wake up and smell the coffee, or God ends this Himself through means unknown to us.  

******

Getting back to the 1917 Code, some extremists like CM and Ibranyi have questioned even that, and though I have to do more research on this issue, I will probably end up agreeing with them.  I am convinced that there are troubling ambiguities and perversions in the 1917 Code of Canon Law.  For instance, though I believe in baptism of desire, I think burying deceased catechumens in hallowed ground is a more than questionable disciplinary change, and there are other trouble spots in this Code.  I think this Code may have been the first great foray in the Modernist usurpation.

My guess is that the restored Church will throw it out and build on whatever Corpus Juris Canonici preceded it.  I think a lot of the confusion of our time can be traced to the 1917 Code.  

Steve,

Ask him if he would be so willing to throw out other traditions based upon the mere fact that they may fall into the category of "discipline."  Celibacy?  Gone.  The entire liturgy?  Discipline.  Goodbye.  Say HELLO to women priests.  The list could go on and on.  Then maybe you could mention to him that if he wants to be a part of the true People of God, then he better submit himself to the fact that women were NEVER ALLOWED IN THE SANCTUARY DURING DIVINE WORSHIP.  The fact that they are allowed to serve the altar is actually a sign of God's judgment upon their heads.  The whole of the history of the true religion, spanning thousands of years, stands against him in reproach.    

He is freakin' crazy.  "Divorce" was never a "discipline."  It was a moral evil tolerated because of the general moral depravity of men.  To claim that God "approved" of this moral evil because He tolerated it is beyond absurd.  It is the inversion of reality.  

His relativist attitude undercuts all discipline.  There's no way around it.  

Quote:
Originally Posted by TheDoctor  
The way I see it, you seem to be making the opposite point of what you are trying to argue. Moses allowed the discipline of divorce, which was approved by God (as Moses was his messenger). Was divorce "good" in the OT? It must have been, for God allowed it to continue for thousands of years (as I know of no prophet that spoke the word of God against it). Or, are you arguing that God "tolerated the evil" of divorce by allowing it?

Divorce was a "good"? Seriously?

I believe I explicitly stated that the evil of divorce was tolerated in the OT. Not sure where the confusion is.

Quote:
We then see Christ changing the discipline of divorce as he elevates matrimonty to a sacrament. When Christ forbids divorce, are you saying he automatically makes all former divorce allowed under the law evil? I think not. Christ fulfills this law and gives us a new take on marriage.

Divorce was a "discipline"? So marriage given by God to Adam and Eve under the natural law was a Church "discipline"? So marriage was not a good? It was neutral? Or was it bad then but good now?

I'm saying that your line of thinking regarding CITH & girl altar boys is equivalent to those who say something goes from evil to good because it is "approved". I pointed out the flaw in that positivist logic.

Quote:
In a similar way, having altar girls now does not change the good that was done by not having them in the past, and by having altar girls now we are not "tolerating an evil" we are expanding a discipline. If in the future they are no longer allowed, it will not make having them now evil.

So banning women from the altar was "good" in the past. But banning them now would be "evil"? But in the future, if they are banned again, it would again be "good"?

Quote:
When it comes right down to it, you and I can respectfully stand by our opinions as to the "good" of having altar girls or debating if they should be banned. The OP however was looking for Canon Law and the facts of why we have them now and the fact is that we have them now because 16 years ago the Pope said it was OK to have them.

So now it's 16 years ago? So you are admitting the '83 code did not allow them and that it was prohibited until 16 years ago?

Because that's not what you said in your previous post.