DisclaimerThe following is addressed to those faithful who subscribe to the sedevacantist explanation of the present-day crises that assail Holy Mother Church, and it pertains to the clerics who have done the same. Regarding such other organization as the Priestly Fraternity of Pope St. Pius X, or the various “approved” Latin Mass centers, etc., I find myself bereft of the requisite competence to comment upon their policies, since I have not set foot upon their Chapels to this day. Whether the following applies to such organizations or not, it is not for me to judge.
Furthermore, it is not my intention to neither impugn culpability upon any cleric or organization discussed herewith or to make any normative statements that oblige individual consciences, as it has not been given to me to pass moral judgment upon these matters publicly nor play “internet casuist.” I am merely offering my perspectives and personal opinions on these matters.
In another thread, a fellow forum-member published some remarks regarding “the very polemics that brought many of us 'sedes' to this calamity in the first place” with the following disclaimer: “I must in justice, point out, that the main substance of this composition is greatly owed to a letter (written by a CMRI supporter no less) that I was fortunate enough to study a few weeks ago.” The man who posts as “Hobbledehoy” here on CathInfo is the author of the letter in question, something that is quite obvious to those who have read what “Hobbledehoy” has in written regarding the relationship that ought to exist, according to his perspective, between the clergy and the laity in the sedevacantist circles. Therefore, I now find myself compelled to answer that [very well made] summation of my perspectives, and to answer them in a new thread, since the one to which I allude has become an embarrassment.
Moreover, certain recent events have constrained me to formulate and publish a response to the controversies which have arisen regarding Bishop Mark A. Pivarunas, Superior-General of the Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen and Rector of Mater Dei Seminary, and Rev. Fr. Markus Ramolla, Pastor of St. Albert the Great Chapel and founder of St. Athanasius Seminary. I have known these matters quite well months before they were unfortunately made public, and I have corresponded with the clerics of “both sides” in order to attain to a greater clarity of mind regarding these matters. Ultimately, the vexation and disedification concomitant with the knowledge and analysis of these things has had negative consequences upon my health. Although I have been literally sickened by these developments, the exigencies of charity and conscience compel me to write once more upon these matters.
“Who is this man,” the reader may inquire, “to write upon these things? What credentials does he posses that may constrain us to pay heed to whatsoever he writes?” The answers to these questions are: I am merely a hyper-literate Catholic man of humble origins, and am no one to constrain anyone to pay heed to whatever written matter I submit.
I confess that I am an abominable sinner, unworthy of any of the blessings the Lord God in the excess of His benignity and charity has vouchsafed me, and am thereby shorn of any credibility. However, if it was the harlot Rahab whom God chose as the instrumentality by which the children of Israel took possession of the Promised Land (Josue ch. ii-vi; Heb. ch. xi., 31; S. James ch. ii., 25) and so was found worthy to be mentioned in the sacred Genealogy of our Lord (St. Matt. ch. i., 5), so can this vilest amongst sinners may, with the help of holy grace and the loving patronage of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Sedes sapientiæ,[1] help the servants and handmaidens of Jesus and Mary to attain to some clarity and equilibrium regarding these controversies insofar as my finite and deficient intellect may allow.
Some Theoretical Principles
Whether it is well-willed earnestness or ill-willed hyper-criticism that moves certain individuals to posit the ecclesiological and Canonical questions pertinent to the above-mentioned controversies is of little consequence: for the fact remains that these questions which elucidate upon the problematic predicament of the present day clergy in light of the norms of the Sacred Canons are quite legitimate, precisely because the Apostolic See is vacant and therefore no living cleric can claim both formal and material apostolicity: only the latter can be ascribed to them[2] without infringing the ecclesiological doctrines taught by the theologians and manualists of past ages and enshrined in the Code of Canon Law, promulgated by Pope Benedict XV in the Apostolic Constitution Providentissima Mater (27 May 1917; A.A.S., vol. IX, pars II).
The central question here is: How are the faithful of the sedevacantist persuasion to reconcile the supreme reverence and unquestionable obedience due to the Apostolic See and the office of the Roman Pontiff alone, with the fact that they are paying obedience and entrusting the pastoral care of their souls, together with those of their families, to the clerici acephali, the episcopi vagantes, who have attained to Holy Orders without Apostolic mandate and are bereaved of a Canonical mission, and therefore do not hold ecclesiastical offices nor are they incardinated in lawfully established dioceses?
The non-sedevacantist or anti-sedevacantist polemicists readily see such an apparent contradiction, and avail themselves of their resources to point out how the sedevacantist explanation of the present-day crises within the Church is profoundly problematic and puzzling. This is especially the case when the sedevacantist clerics themselves behave in such a way so as to substantiate these polemicists’ arguments against the sedevacantist thesis.
The sincere and earnest Catholic of the sedevacantist persuasion cannot answer the above-mentioned polemicists’ arguments until he himself undertakes a ruthlessly realistic examination of the state of affairs in which the sedevacantist clergymen find themselves. The ratings and knee-jerk reactions of party-liners do no good but rather great harm to whatever position is being defended or attacked. An honest and informed conscience, especially after one has had recourse to prayer and spiritual counsel, can never fail but to lead individuals closer to the truth, and to Truth Himself: the Word Incarnate.
In the eyes of many, Bps. Pivarunas, Slupski, Petko, Neville, McKenna, Dolan, Sanborn, etc., are in the very same predicament. All these persons may have ostensibly imperiled their salvation in risking the possibility of incurring serious censures and scandal, as well as committing sacrilege and mortal sin in having attained to the sacred Episcopacy contrary to the norms of Canon Law ( cf. Can. 953,[3] Can. 2370[4]), for they have been consecrated as Bishops, and have themselves consecrated other Bishops, without Apostolic mandate. However, because of a salutary and necessary application of the principles of epikeia, there is no moral culpability to be imputed to them in this regard.
The difference between these Bishops lies in nothing more but the assent whereby the faithful, whose souls they have entrusted to their pastoral care, have justified the existence of their ministries in making them fit subjects of the principles of epikeia, despite the fact that they have, strictly speaking, no proper ecclesiastical office nor inherent ordinary jurisdiction in the external forum since they lack the requisite Canonical mission (cf. Can. 147[5]). It must be emphasized that the sacred Episcopate is subordinated unto the Supreme Pontiff in the order of jurisdiction (cf. 108, § 3;[6] Can. 109[7]). Although the magisterial authority of the Bishops is dependent upon the jurisdictional and magisterial primacy of the Sovereign Pontiff, the Bishops are truly doctors and teachers for those souls whose pastoral care they have undertaken or have been given by the authority of the Pope (cf. Can. 1326[8]). Moreover, Holy Mother Church, since the Sacred Council of Trent (session XXIII, de reformatione, caps. 11, 13, 16), has ordained that all clergy are to incardinated into a diocese or ingress unto Holy Religion (cf. Can. 111, § 1[9]). Therefore, all the present day traditionalist clerics are clerici vagi.
It is the salvation of souls that is the supreme law of the Church, so therefore it is now given to the faithful to evaluate each Priest and Bishop on an individual basis in order to ascertain if they are sincere in the work for the salvation of souls, since there is no Supreme Pontiff, and consequentially no Canonically legitimate hierarchy with ordinary jurisdiction in the external forum, by whose authority the above-cited Canons can be implemented. Supplied ordinary jurisdiction and jurisdiction in the internal forum are all that the present clerics can claim due to the principles of epikeia, lest they transgress the limitations of their competence and exacerbate their problematic Canonical predicament any further. It is precisely because the present day clerics do not have a Canonical mission that they cannot publicly bind individual consciences to their private opinion or practical judgments, save insofar as they conform with the doctrines and customs sanctioned by Holy Mother Church; nor can they ascribe to themselves the dignities and prerogatives of the Bishops and Priests that ruled over the faithful in ages past by authority of the Supreme Pontiff.
Some Practical Principles
The question arises, how are the faithful to choose which independent Priest or Bishop is to have the care of their souls?
Although the faithful owe reverence to the clergy (cf. Can. 119[10]), these clerics must prove themselves worthy of the pastoral care of souls before the faithful for whom the intend to care with whatever supplied jurisdiction the Church can give, and this onus is all the more grave precisely because of the sanctity of Holy Orders. These clerics are to draw to themselves the layfolk and demonstrate their competence to work as Pastors of souls with the perfection of their interior lives as manifested in good works and a comportment that undoubtedly proves the possession of the sanctity and supernatural charity that rightly become the clerical state, together with their prudence and learning in the sacred sciences, as the Sacred Canons dictate (cf. Can. 124[11]). A traditionalist cleric must demonstrate that he is possessed of the competence, learning, and sanctity that are demanded by his sacred state, so that his whole self may be a living sermon, the eloquence thereof being that of the Holy Ghost rather than that of his own finite efforts, in order to efficaciously draw the faithful to his ministry. He truly ought to be a servant to the souls that have been committed to his pastoral care by the inscrutable designs of Divine Providence in these tumultuous times, and exercise meekness and humility before the terrifyingly unnerving reality that he is in a very strange Canonical predicament.
If the vagrant clergy prove themselves unworthy or incompetent by manifest abuse, injustice, immorality, imbecility, &c., then they lose the right to be reverenced merely because of the sacredness of their Orders until they do penance and restitution for their misdeeds, just as a violated Church cannot be licitly used for Holy Mass and other sacred rites (cf. Can. 1173, § 1 [12]) until it is reconciled according to the rites of the Roman Pontifical or Ritual (Can. 1174, § 1 [13]): for even the Oriental schismatics have valid Orders, and yet the faithful are not to compelled to reverence them for that reason alone, much less to have recourse to their ministries.
If they pretend to go beyond their competence, exceedingly limited by their problematic Canonical predicament, such clerics commit an aberration and stand in danger of losing their credibility before the faithful and thereby find themselves bereft of the opportunity of exercising the supplied jurisdiction that they do have. For without the laity to whom to administer the Sacraments, what reason is there for the "independent" clerics to exist at all?
This is most especially true regarding the sedevacantist Bishops, who attained to the sacred Episcopacy with the claim that it has been the exigencies of present circuмstance that have compelled them to do so, for the greater glory of God and the salvation of souls, during the vacancy of the Apostolic See. If they are earnest and of good will in their intentions, then it follows that they ought to recognize the perilous position wherein they find themselves as episcopi vagantes in the eyes of Canon Law and are to comport themselves with all decorous humility and self-abnegation, applying to themselves with a very salutary and strict scrupulosity the words of Our Lord, "You know that the princes of the Gentiles overrule them; and they that are the greater, exercise power against them. It shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be the greater among you, let him be your minister: and he that will be first among you, shall be your servant. Even as the Son of man is not come to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a redemption for many" (St. Matt., ch. xx., 25-28). They, above all, must be servants of both clerics and layfolk: no one forced them to take on the Episcopacy, yet they did so, despite the problematic Canonical issues, in order to serve the faithful. Normally, the Bishops and Priests would be given unquestionable credibility and authority, but, because the Roman Pontiff is out of the equation, such can no longer be the case. In doing otherwise one would perhaps substantiate the anti-sedevacantists' claims that the sedevacantist faithful discard the reverence and veneration due to the Papacy alone, whilst adhering to the vagrant clerics in an irony that is bereft of the "sensus Catholicus." If these Bishops fail to comport as they ought in light of the principles enunciated above, they run the risk of being criticized as cultists, and rightly so.
The sedevacantist Bishops are the only Catholics to whom one may say, "There is no such thing as excessive scruples." Would to God that all sedevacantist clerics work out their salvation seized with devout terror and trembling (Phil., ch. ii., 2), that they may be endued with greater light and grace and thereby lead the layfolk over whom they presume to exercise pastoral care to Christ all the more efficiently, instead of lording over them as if they had the competence and jurisdiction of the clergy who ruled and shepherded the faithful by authority of the Apostolic See and the local Ordinaries in times past.
The faithful need to be aware of whatever problems and possible culpability may be imputed to the present day clerics in order to arrive at a prudent and well-informed choice when it comes to the practical aspect of certain key praxes immediately pertaining to the faith: for example, what Chapel to attend, to which Seminary to send their sons, to which collection basket to give what amount of money, &c. Without the ability to make such practical judgments, one cannot have the stability necessary in order to cultivate the interior life, especially when there is danger of scandal that will either tempt one to despair and abandon the faith, or lull one into a Quietist and apathetic torpor that will merely perpetuate the sort of mediocrity that had allowed laxity amongst the earlier generations that led to the heresies and errors of "Vatican II."
Oftentimes, certain interior souls have admonished me to not enter into polemical and controversial exchanges pertaining to the scandals of the present day traditionalist clergy, and attempt to substantiate their counsel with the examples of the exceeding great reverence wherewith St. Francis of Assisi honored the Priests. Yes, the example of St. Francis is to be imitated, because Holy Orders confers upon a man a dignity that is wholly hallowed and ontologically superior to even the dignity of the Angelic choirs. However, St. Francis never faced the possibility of reverencing episcopi vagantes, clerics who attained to Sacred Orders without a Papal mandate, much less those who seem to take advantage of the vacancy of the Apostolic See so that they may conveniently lord their mitres and birettas over the faithful whom they have terrorized or trained into some sickening form of the Stockholm Syndrome whereby a number of traditionalists have somehow perverted the virtue of obedience into a Pavlovian catatonia that profanes reason enlightened by faith in degrading the virtue of religion into a cult of personality.
A Concrete Example
Here is a concrete example of how complex the situation really is. There was an article written by Rev. Fr. Anthony Cekada entitled "Untrained and Un-Tridentine: Holy Orders and the Canonically Unfit.” The article does contain good arguments and information, and does merit the consideration of all serious traditionalists. However, in light of recent controversies, particularly those regarding Most Holy Trinity Seminary, the following question may be considered legitimate: Who amongst the sedevacantist clerics is invested with the authority and competence to determine what exactly constitutes "Canonical training" in the present day?
If the reports of the Pristina Liturgica blog site [14] are accurate (and they are according to the interviews I myself have conducted), it does seem that the rectors and faculty of Most Holy Trinity Seminary are certainly not the ones who can claim such competence and authority. In light of recent controversies, one may legitimately posit the possibility that the arguments as set forth in the above-mentioned article may have been used, and may still be used, in order to aggrandize and exalt certain particular organizations; to place them authoritatively above others as having a sort of "Canonical credibility" (for lack of a better term) in order to assure that these organizations alone will receive the assent of the faithful, to the detriment of other clerics whose determination of "unfit and untrained" may have been determined arbitrarily and motivated by partisan divisiveness.
The sedevacantists should be the last individuals to insist upon such matters in such an absolutist way, because the truth is that there is necessarily, although unfortunately, a certain relativity when it comes to the application of certain prescripts of Canon Law by reason of the fact that the present-day crisis is utterly obfuscating to us all and no central authority is universally recognized in sedevacantist circles.
Again, the article's arguments are excellent, but their application requires a delicate and prudent balance between: on the one hand, an extreme partisanship that betrays a perilous and unwholesome naïveté and an erroneous concept of the Church that may lead to outright schismatic attitudes or actions; and on the other hand, an uneducated or negligent credulity that invests authority in anyone who happens to wear a biretta or mitre solely by virtue of the fact that they are wearing a biretta or mitre, their lack of some sort of training notwithstanding, which that can lead to the faithful being misled or outright perverted by these unworthy clerics. What disturbs me just as much as the unfitness and perversions of a “Ryan St. Anne” or a "Bishop" Fullham is the blind partisanship that seems to have deluded a number of the faithful to believe that the C.M.R.I. or St. Gertrude the Great Catholic Chapel, or whatever other organization, is to be categorically equated with the Church. There has to be a delicate balance here.
This is why it takes grace to become a traditional Catholic, and an even greater grace to persevere in the practice and profession of the faith, and a still greater grace to find a worthy cleric to administer the Sacraments and give spiritual direction, which are indispensable for the cultivation of the interior life.
Conclusion
The above perspectives notwithstanding, it would be imprudent and perilous for me to become a hyper-critical vigilante of sorts and giving myself over to acerbic discourses and speculation that only serve to dissipate and disedify my interior life, and may cause me act or write amiss. Those who are directly affected by this, one way or another, can avail themselves of their free volition and act according to the dictates of their conscience, but I urge them to do so only after prayer, meditation, the counsel of their Spiritual Directors and careful consideration.
It is my hope that I have not, by my many defects and remiss acts, made myself unworthy of the actual graces necessary for me to be able to cooperate with sufficient grace and become the example that I wish to see realized in others with all the yearning of my heart. What we ought to do is pray, to cultivate an interior life worthy of divine grace, to persevere and progress therein and show by our works, words and comportment what Jesus and Mary expect us to be.
At Fatima, Our Lady of the Rosary appeared before three little shepherds and gave them the solution to the present-day crises of the Church: a programme of prayer, penance, self-abnegation, devotion and reparation that will bring about the conversion of sinners and the freedom and exaltation of Holy Mother Church.
It is my earnest hope that the great Mother of God, Blessed Mary the Virgin, shall exercise upon everyone of us her divinely ordained patronage and tutelage, “that your charity may more and more abound in knowledge and in all understanding” (Phil. ch. i., 9), so “that you may be able to comprehend with all the Saints what is the breadth, and length, and height, and depth, to know also the charity of Christ surpassing knowledge, that you may be filled unto all the fullness of God” (Eph. ch. iii., 18). For it was she to whom it was said of old, “Inhabit in Jacob, and inherit in Israel, and take root in mine elect” (Ecclus. ch. xxiv., 13)—and this sacred mystery our Lord Jesus revealed and fulfilled, declaring unto this same Blessed Virgin as He was dying upon the Cross, “Woman, behold thy son” (St. John ch. xix., 26).
“The Blessed Virgin was left behind by Christ,” Rev. Fr. Cornelius a Lapide wrote in his Great Commentary, “in order to be the mother of the Apostles and the faithful, to gather the fallen, to comfort the afflicted, to support the stumbling, to advise the doubtful and the anxious, and to guide, instruct and inspire them in everything” (supra S. Joann. cap. xix., 26)[16]. It was as if our Blessed Savior said to Our Lady, “Woman, as if to say: O Mother, be henceforth that valiant and courageous woman [Prov. ch. xxxi., 10], so that thou mayest be, in My place, the foundation, rock, and pillar of My Church, that thou mayest support it with thy strength and mayest drive away and scatter all the storms of temptations that rage against her by thine assistance, counsel and prayers, not only now, but in all centuries to come, until the end of the world” (ibid.)[17]. And to St. John and to all the faithful which he represented, He said, “Love her, attend to her, help her, as thy mother; have recourse to her, as thy mother in every difficulty, temptation, persecution, and affliction. She will cherish thee with motherly affection, will foster, console and protect thee, and ask help for thee from her Son” (supra S. Joann. cap. xix., 27)[18].
These words of our Lord, as the learned Rev. Fr. Cornelius a Lapide wrote, “are not mere ineffectual spoken words, like those of men: but as the words of God they are real and efficacious, and bring about what they declare.” (ibid)[19]. Indeed, as Rev. Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange wrote, “the words of the dying Saviour, like sacramental words, produce what they signify: in Mary’s soul they produced a great increase of charity and of maternal love for us; in John a profound filial affection, full of reverence for the Mother of God.” (The Mother of the Saviour and Our interior Life, Part II, chap. i., art. 2). Thus, under the Tree of the Cross, by decree of our Divine Savior, a new filial covenant was established between the redeemed faithful and the Blessed Virgin, the “Authoress of life, rebuilding salvation,” who “confounded death and crushed the serpent toward whom Eve stretched forth, her neck outstretched in pride" under the Tree of the forbidden fruit [20].
This is the path we are to undertake if we wish to actively work for the restoration of Holy Mother Church and civilization, to become those zealous apostles of whom St. Louis Marie wrote in his celebrated treatise True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, (ch. i., art. iii., nos. 55-59). Our Lord will not restore His Church without His Mother, so that the entire round orb of the earth confesses her sovereignty and maternity, so that through the Immaculate Heart of His Mother, the Sacred Heart of Jesus may become truly Rex et centrum omnium cordium.
I shall pray for the CMRI, Mater Dei Seminary, and Bishop Pivarunas, as well as for Rev. Frs. Ramolla and Hall and St. Athanasius Seminary, nor shall I omit Bishop Dolan et al. as well as Bishops Slupski and Petko together all the other validly ordained and right-believing clerics of Holy Mother Church in my prayers. As the late Abbot Leonard said, no one should ever be excluded from our prayers.
I shall especially pray for the four young men who are ultimately the most disenfranchised by these unfortunate events (who has culpability in this matter, I do not know nor have I the competence to judge that): all I know is that there are four broken hearts out there, hearts yearning to follow their vocations to ascend the Sacred Altar for the greater glory of God and the salvation of souls; nor are they the only ones...
So those are my two cents... leave a penny, take a penny, hurl them away from you abominating them, take them both, exchange it for a nickle, whatever: it's up to you. I'm just a stupid layman whose heart and mind have been broken by what I perceive to have been a huge misunderstanding gone horribly, horribly wrong...
Remember, I'm just a hobbledehoy [who done hours upon hours of research to prepare this post]. You may not agree with what I have written, but shall certainly agree with the following: LAUS ET GLORIA CORDIBUS JESU ET MARIÆ!
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Annotations[1]
Litaniæ Lauretanæ Beatæ Mariæ Virginis,
Rituale Romanum, Tit. XI, cap. iii. (Romæ: Typis Polyglottis Vatocanis, 1954).
[2]
The Dictionary of Dogmatic Theology,
vide “apostolicity (mark of the Church),” (Rev. Frs. Pietro Parente, Antonio Piolanti, Salvatore Garofalo; trans. Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Doronzo; Milwaukee, WI: The Bruce Publishing Company, 1952)
[3] “Consecratio episcopalis reservatur Romano Pontifice ita ut nulli Episcopo liceat quemquam consecrare in Episcopum, nisi prius constet de pontificio mandato.”
[4] “Episcopus aliquem consecrans in Episcopum, Episcopi vel, loco Episcoporum, presbyteri assistentes, et qui consecrationem recipit sine apostolico mandato contra praescriptum Can. 953, ipso iure suspensi sunt, donec Sedes Apostolica eos dispensaverit.”
[5] “§ 1. Officium ecclesiasticuм nequit sine provisione canonica valide obtineri. § 2. Nomine canonicae provisionis venit concessio officii ecclesiastici a competente auctoritate ecclesiastica ad normam sacrorum canonum facta.”
[6] “Ex divina institutione sacra hierarchia ratione ordinis constat Episcopis, presbyteris et ministris;
ratione iurisdictionis, pontificatu supremo et episcopatu subordinato; ex Ecclesiae autem institutione alii quoque gradus accesere” [emphasis mine].
[7] “Qui in ecclesiasticam hierarchiam cooptantur, non ex populi vel potestatis saecularis consensu aut vocatione adleguntur; sed in gradibus potestatis ordinis constituuntur sacra ordinatione; in supremo pontificatu, ipsomet iure divino, adimpleta conditione legitimae electionis eiusdemque acceptationis;
in reliquis gradibus iurisdictionis, canonica missione” [emphasis mine].
[8] Episcopi quoque, licet singuli vel etiam in Conciliis particularibus congregati infabillitate docendi non polleant, fidelium tamen suis curis commissorum,
sub auctoritate Romani Pontificis, veri doctores seu magistri sunt” [emphasis mine].
[9] “Quemlibet clericuм oportet esse vel alicui dioecesi vel alicui religioni adscriptum,
ita ut clerici vagi nullatenus admittantur” [emphasis mine].
[10] “Omnes fideles debent clericis, pro diversis eorum gradibus et muneribus, reverentiam, seque delicto commaculant, si quando clericis realem iniuriam intulerint.”
[11] “Clerici debent sanctiorem prae laicis vitam interiorem et exteriorem ducere eisque virtute et recte factis in exemplum excellere.”
[12] “In violata ecclesia , antequam reconcilietur, nefas est divina celebrare officia, Sacramenta ministrare, mortuos sepelire.”
[13] “Ecclesia violate reconcilietur, quam citissime poterit, secundum ritus in probatis liturgicis libris descriptos.” Cf.
Pontificale Romanum, Tit.
De ecclesiae et coemeterii reconciliation;
Rituale Romanum, Tit. VIII., cap. xxviii.,
Ritus reconciliandi ecclesiam violatam, n. 1, 6.
[14] I do not approve of the author’s rhetorical methodologies, but all the pious sentimentality in the world, especially that encouraged by the clergy that have been criticized by this particular blog site, can never erase away the factual realities reported therein.
[15] “Beata Virgo reclicta fuit a Christo post se, ut illa apostolorum et fidelium foret mater, eos lapsos colligeret, afflictos solaretur, titubantes solidaret, dubiis et anxiis consuleret eosque per omnia dirigeret, instruerent, animaret.”
[16] “Mulier, q. d.: O mater, esto deinceps mulier fortis et generosa, quæ mei loco sis basis, petra et columna meæ Ecclesiæ, ut eam robore tuo fulcias et omnes contra eam tentationum procellas tua constantia, consilio, oratione elidas et dissipes, non tantum nunc, sed et omnibus deinceps sæculis, usque ad finem mundi.”
[17] “Hanc ama, observa, juva ut matrem, ac viciccim ad eam, quasi ad matrem, in omni difficultate, tentatione, persecutione, afflictione, recurre. Illa te materno affectu suscipiet, fovebit, solabitur, proteget, opem a Filio poscet.”
[18] “Porro verba Christi non sunt ut hominum, oralia duntaxat et inefficacia, sed ut Dei, realia et efficacia, ac perficiunt id quod dicunt.”
[19] St. Hildegard of Bingen, Responsory
Ave Maria,
Symphonia harmoniæ cælestium revelationum; Gen. ch. iii., 6, 15.
[20]
Litaniæ de Sacratissimo Corde Jesu,
Rituale Romanum, Tit. XI, cap. ii.
Topic: Regarding the Controversy between Bp. Pivarunas Fr. Ramolla (Read 6427 times)