Quote from: s2srea

Does anyone else ever get the feeling that this may just be above them? I do. I  mean, how many lay people really have the capacity to decipher cannon law and understand the issue completely and wholeheartedly? I don't mean to say we should be indifferent to the issue- not at all. But there are good people on both sides of the issue with points which often sound equally convincing sometimes.

I personally, after my limited research, believe the New Rite of Consecration to be Valid, per se. However, the doubt that arises when researching the intent that consecrators may have, as proved by their heretical statement (Just look at Mueller- he's nothing special if you think about it) is enough for me to stay away from all of those ordained and consecrated in the New Rite.

Just be glad you weren't in the United States during the 1870s when the war was ongoing between the Liberals and the Traditionalists and most American Diocese were dominated by Americanist Bishops who openly persecuted the Traditionalists with even more vigor than they do now.

Some may remember that Archbishop Ireland's behavior toward Eastern Catholics was enough to create the Orthodox Church of America, but that's just the tip of the iceberg, really.

went for many yrs to a Byzantine chapel, parents and i as a teen helped found. The story fo the treatment of Easterners by the Romans here was tragic, sad and upsetting. Even now, those scars are not healed. Some today think that they can go to B-Chapel, but still have to attend the Western rite to fulfill their Sunday obligation.....some have no idea who the East is....

and dont get me started more on Americanism..I had a whole thread here some yrs back, plus more to add to it since then......Matatics links the AMericanist to Modernism, that the one inspired the other.....

Now, if for some reason the prior portion were insufficient, this part would be sufficient to confer the episcopate and effect the consecration, since it mentions the office of Bishop, shepherding the flock, the high priesthood etc etc. And it is clear that a moral contact continues .

His Holiness Pope Pius XII in Sacramentum Ordinis said,

Quote

In order that there may be no occasion for doubt, We command that in conferring each Order the imposition of hands be done by physically touching the head of the person to be ordained, although a moral contact also is sufficient for the valid conferring of the Sacrament.

You apparently missed the entire point of Father's article regarding this.  In sacramental theology, we have the concept of the essential form, that sequence of words which is actually responsible for conferring the sacrament.  For example, the essential form of the baptism is "I baptize thee in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."  All sacraments, when promulgated, have those essential forms specified.

For the new rite of episcopal "consecration", the essential form is given by Giovanni Montini in his "constitution" Pontificalis Romani recognitio:

Finally, in the ordination of a bishop, the matter is the laying of hands on the head of the bishop-elect by the consecrating bishops, or at least by the principal consecrator, that is done in silence before the consecratory prayer; the form consists in the words of the consecratory prayer, of which the following belong to the essence and are consequently required for validity:

So now pour out upon this chosen one
that power which is from you,
the governing Spirit
whom you gave to your beloved Son, Jesus Christ,
the Spirit given by him to the holy apostles,
who founded the Church in every place to be your temple
for the unceasing glory and praise of your name.

The postscript, by Montini's own hand, means nothing sacramentally.  If it did, he should have included it in the essential form.  So, either it is essential, and Montini promulgated an essentially incomplete sacrament, or it isn't, in which case the form of the sacrament is insufficient to confer the episcopal dignity.  One can't have their cake and eat it too.

John, regarding the form itself, the article and the responses to it mostly focused on whether "governing Spirit" sufficiently signifies the episcopate.

I noted that, independent of this, there are at least two separate places where the form could signify this, the high priesthood of Christ and the episcopate of the Apostles, since it speaks of the Spirit given to them.

I won't belabor on these points, as I feel that Father Cekada has done well enough with them.  For myself, I agree that they are far from having the necessary unequivocality.

Coming to your argument above, it does not follow. Here's why - even granting sedevacantist presuppositions for the sake of the argument, then certainly Pope Paul VI may in that case have erred in his evaluation of what belongs to the essence or the substance of the form, but it would still not necessarily follow that the rite of St.Hippolytus recorded in Apostolic Tradition is invalid. It could be the entire part of the consecratory part is the form of the sacrament (and the matter in the form of at least a moral contact is present throughout) and that Pope Paul VI not being the Pope (as they say) would have merely made an error of fact on this point which would not affect the validity of the consecration.

But as has been noted several times, there is no evidence the so-called Apostolic Tradition of St. Hippolytus, itself "reconstructed" for the purposes of the new order of "consecration", has any history of use as a sacramental form, which is an additional requirement laid out by Sacramentum Ordinis.

And if you're suggesting that, simply through the addition of what follows the essential form, the consecration manages to collapse just over the finish line of validity, that is a dangerous assertion indeed.  For, as the sacramental emphasis is given chiefly to what those celebrating the rite considers the essential form, there would be sufficient doubt, in my mind, that the qualifying phrases, demanding less precision of praxis than the part considered essential, may have been altered sufficiently to produce a defect.  Moreover, in those cases where the celebration of the full form of the consecration is impractical, the strictly essential form have been used alone.

John, to return to sacramental theology, I'm sure you'd agree that if the form, the matter and the intention are present, all else to the contrary notwithstanding, the sacrament is valid.

For even a pagan can baptize, as you've noted, and as St.Thomas says, a heretical priest validly confect the Eucharist, their erroneous or heretical conceptions of what constitutes the form or even whether they believe in a form notwithstanding so long as they intend what the Church does.

Now it is clear that the intention to consecrate, at least habitual, is present, so the argument does not prove and consequently the opinion that error as to what constitutes the essential form in the minister invalidates the sacrament is therefore without foundation.

I understand the argument drawn from the episcopacy of the Apostles or the high priesthood of Christ does not convince you, it is unlikely a dispute that has gone on for a long time will be settled and universally agreed upon just like that. For myself, though, I think they are valid for the reasons I've mentioned.

The presence of those requirements is precisely my point.  You seemed to make that argument that, even though the secondary prayer following was not included as being part of the essential form, that its presence nonetheless ratifies the conferral of the episcopacy.  You are correct that a pagan can baptize, that his defect of faith can be covered by the Church, but such an instance requires the perfection of the matter and the essential form.  If that form were altered in the slightest degree, the sacrament would be defective.

Now, regardless of what my feelings or yours regarding the validity based on equivocation or lack thereof, the hierarchy of the conciliar anti-church does not consider the secondary prayer part of the essential form and as a result, from their point of view, is practically unnecessary in the conferral of the episcopal dignity.  When viewed with the seemingly universal lack of concern for precision of liturgical praxis found among the conciliar hierarchy, the best case scenario would be that each and every "bishop" installed under that "consecration" would have to be examined to ensure that the secondary prayer was included, and with the necessary perfection to avoid defect, without which his faculties as a "bishop" would be sufficiently in doubt.

Quote from: Sigismund

Believe me, we Byzantines remember Ireland, as much as we would like to forget him.  

May God bless and keep such bishops...far away from us.

God grant YOU many yrs, in health and happiness  :cheers:

Thank you.  And you