Happy?
Fr. Cekada
Your Participation and Consent. A sedevacantist who
assists at an una cuм Mass cannot credibly maintain
that he “withholds consent” from the odious phrase.
We enumerated at least nine ways in which a
Catholic actively participates at a traditional Mass
when it is celebrated. Each of these constitutes a true
form of active participation, which in turn (according
to the theologians we cited) constitutes “cooperation or
common action with another in the prayers and functions
of worship.”
Various popes and pre-Vatican II theologians,
moreover, taught that the laity who assist actively at
Mass, in so doing, manifest their consent and moral
cooperation with the priest as he offers the sacrifice.
Finally, in this section we demonstrated that Fathers
of the Church, and indeed Pope Pius XII himself
in the Encyclical Mediator Dei, teach specifically that
the faithful who actively assist at Mass ratify, assent to
and participate in the prayers of the Canon that the
priest recites, even though they do not vocally recite
these prayers themselves.
From this it is clear beyond any doubt that the
sedevacantist who actively assists at an una cuм Mass
consents to and morally cooperates with the action of
the priest who proclaims that he offers the sacrifice
together with Thy servant Benedict, our Pope — the archheretic
and false pope Ratzinger.
(III) Why You Should Not Participate. Having established
what the una cuм means and how those present participate
in its use, we then explained why a sedevacantist
who actively participates at an una cuм Mass:
(1) Tells a pernicious lie.
(2) Professes communion with heretics.
(3) Recognizes as legitimate the Ecuмenical, One-
World Church.
(4) Implicitly professes a false religion.
(5) Condones a violation of Church law.
(6) Participates in a sin.
(7) Offers Mass in union with the heretic/false
pope Ratzinger.
(8) Recognizes the usurper of an ecclesiastical office.
(9) Offers an occasion for the sin of scandal
(10) In the case of Masses offered by “resistance”
clergy (SSPX, its affiliates and many independent
clergy) participates in gravely illicit Masses and condones
the sin of schism.
THE ANSWER to our simple question, then, is an equally
simple no — a sedevacantist should not actively participate
in an una cuм Mass.
In light of the teachings of popes, theologians, canonists,
moralists, and liturgists on the issues we have
examined, the foregoing conclusion, in my opinion, is
the only one possible.
The issue of how, in the absence of regular access
to the Mass, sedevacantists can best maintain their
faith, religious practice and spiritual lives will be the
topic of another article. The task is not impossible.
Naturally, faithful Catholics dearly love the Mass
and cherish it as the principal means by which God
will lead them to holiness. But the Holy Sacrifice will
never bear fruit for us if we purchase it at the price of
truth, faith, and holiness itself — at the price of a grain
of incense offered to a heretic, a false pope and his false
religion. For as Father Faber warned:
“The crowning disloyalty to God is heresy. It is the
sin of sins, the very loathsomest of things which
God looks down upon in this malignant world. Yet
how little do we understand of its excessive hatefulness!…
“We look at it, and are calm. We touch it and do not
shudder. We mix with it, and have no fear. We see
it touch holy things, and we have no sense of sacrilege…
“Our charity is untruthful because it is not severe;
and it is unpersuasive, because it is not truthful…
Where there is no hatred of heresy, there is no holiness.”
91
November 2007