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No.  Where in canon law does it give ANY LAITY the power/authority to DO ANYTHING?  Hint: it doesn't.


If non-church officials (i.e. laity, simple priests, and non-jurisdictional bishops) can do x, y, or z, outside of the church hierarchy, then the hierarchy is meaningless.  Either the Church is a monarchy, with authority, or it's some kind of protestant/grass-roots/"personal faith" type of spirituality.  It can't be both.

The only "personal decision" that the laity, simple priests, non-jurisdictional bishops can make is to "stay away" from error.  Any legal, authoritative, canonical decision is the Church's alone to make, or not make.

Where in Canon Law does it state that a layman cannot affirm that an act has occurred?  Let me be clear that I am not speaking about a canonical judgment.  I am speaking about affirming that an act has occurred.  That's it.  In the case at hand, it is about affirming that one has committed the public sin of heresy.

You did not answer my question.  What is the cause for you rejecting Vatican II and the New Rite of Mass?  Where did you get the right to pre-empt the Church's judgment on these matters?

The Catholic Church and Salvation by Joseph Clifford Fenton


https://archive.org/details/catholicchurchsa0000fent/page/n5/mode/2up



Page 3:

A dogma is a truth which the Church finds in Scripture or in divine apostolic tradition and which, either in solemn judgment or in its ordinary and universal teaching activity, it presents to its people as a doctrine revealed by God and as something which all are obligated to accept with the assent of divine and Catholic faith. Since the teaching that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church is a dogma, men are obligated in conscience to believe it as certainly true on the authority of God Himself, who has revealed it. Objectively the refusal to believe this teaching with an act of divine faith constitutes heresy. The public denial by a Catholic of this or any other dogma of the Church is something that carries with it a loss of membership in the true Church.

Page 8:

The term fidelis had and still has a definite technical meaning in the language of Christianity. The fideles, or the faithful, are not merely the individuals who have made an act of divine faith in accepting the teachings of God’s public and Christian revelation. ‘They are actually those who have made the baptismal profession of faith, and who have not cut themselves off from the unity of the Church by public apostasy or heresy or schism and have not been cast out of the Church

Page 9:

Actually, in the traditional language of the Church, the term christianus itself had a wider application than the word fidelis. A catechumen might be designated as a christianus, but never as a fidelis.* A man gained the dignity and the position of a fidelis through the reception of the sacrament of baptism. ‘This sacrament is precisely the sacrament of the faith. By the force of the character it imparts, it incorporates the person who receives it into that community which is the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ. The effect of that incorporation is broken only by public heresy or apostasy, by schism, or by the full measure of excommunication. The man in whom the incorporating work of the baptismal character remains un- broken is the fidelis, the member of the Catholic Church. The social unit composed of these fideles is, according to the teaching of the Fourth Lateran Council, the true Church, outside which no one at all is saved.

Page 107:

Baptism is, of course, the sacrament of entrance into the Church. Such is the force of the baptismal character that, unless it be impeded by public heresy or apostasy, schism, or the full measure of excommunication, it renders the person who possesses it a member of the true Church of Jesus Christ on earth.

Where in Canon Law does it state that a layman cannot affirm that an act has occurred? 

1.  Laymen aren't part of the Church, in the sense of Canon Law, which was made by and for ecclesiastics to rule.

2.  The Church isn't a democracy; it's a monarchy.  The laity don't have "rights" in the same sense as a democracy.
3.  A layman's affirmation or non-affirmation is meaningless.  Just like in a regular court room...judge, lawyers, jury...everyone else's opinion is moot.

Let me be clear that I am not speaking about a canonical judgment.  I am speaking about affirming that an act has occurred.  That's it.

Your affirmation carries no legal weight, nor any authority, nor is binding on anyone else.  So it's meaningless.  No one has to pay attention to what you affirm or don't affirm.  You aren't the Church. 

In the case at hand, it is about affirming that one has committed the public sin of heresy.

1.  All of this is a legal act, done by legal authorities.  It can't be done by any layman.
2.  First it must be proved that person A said heresy x.
3.  Then it must be proved that heresy x was said 'publicly' (as canon law defines it, not according to Webster's dictionary).
4.  Then it must be proved that person A knew, or should have known, that heresy x was in fact a heresy.
5.  Then it must be determined if the 'public sin of heresy' was committed and the penalty, according to law.

None of this is in the authority, education, or training of any layman (excepting someone who has a canon law degree...but then they still have no authority).

You did not answer my question.  What is the cause for you rejecting Vatican II and the New Rite of Mass?  Where did you get the right to pre-empt the Church's judgment on these matters?

I reject such because i'm legally allowed to, since they aren't binding under pain of sin for me to attend/accept.  Even +Benedict said in 2007's motu that Quo Primum was still legally in effect and this law a) binds me to the Old rite, b) prevents me from attending any other rite, and c) disallows any new rites.  No post-V2 law has ever made the new mass obligatory, in any degree.