Caminus,

Quote

So long as you keep reducing the significance of this point you will continue to be forced into a false dilemma.  This is in fact part of the deception that has come about.  The entire reform has the appearance of legitimacy and authority.  This stands to reason since they practically renounced their authority prior to the Council.  When legally challenged, e.g. by Abbe Nantes, ABL, etc. they do not prosecute their case.  They just ignore it, let it flounder and sweep it under a rug.  This is because they know none of this is binding.  It is merely a grand experiment devoid of any catholic foundation.  

We have a fact that cannot be disputed: the last four popes celebrate the Mass in the NO, and almost all of the bishops of the Latin Rite who have been in union with them have done the same.

We have a syllogism that I proposed:

1) The Church can not produce a "sinful" or "sacrilegious" Mass
2) The New Mass was produced by the Church
3) The New Mass is not "sinful" or "sacrilegious"

Of course, you concede the major. You have attacked the minor. I'll summarize the arguments.

The first one was that the New Mass was not "promulgated" by the Church. Rather than argue with you about whether it was "promulgated," I responded by noting the indisputable fact, and that this mass celebration of the New Mass by the popes and the bishops in union with them is clearly a rite of the Church in use to provide the sacraments to Catholics. This is the critical point that implicates the Church's Indefectibility regardless of any technicality regarding whether it was properly promulgated in 1969. The Mass is indisuputably a rite in what you say is the true Church.

Perhaps recognizing this problem with your argument, you shift to "it's not the Church 'properly speaking.' " You have to go there because of the indisputable fact I mentioned of the actual use of the NO by pontiffs, etc. So you're faced with a real dilemma, not the false dilemma you foist on me: how is it that the pontiffs and his bishops which you say are the hierarchy of the true Church, who utilize the New Mass, are not the Church? Your way out of it is they're not "properly speaking."

What does "properly speaking" mean? It sounds like you're drifting off into the Prot miasma of the "invisible Church."

So your "not promulgated" is an evasion of the indisputable fact of the pontiffs and the bishops and the faithful of the Catholic Church (as you admit) engaging in sacrilege daily on Catholic altars - without the Church's Indefectibility being violated!!!

Your not the Church "properly speaking" is an evasion of the VISIBLE and indisputable fact of the earthly heads of Christ's Church and the hierarchy of that Church having "produced" the New Mass and, again, "producing" it on Catholic altars daily.

So the indisputable fact of the New Mass's utilization by the body that you say is the Church destroys your pretextual and legalistic argument about not "promulgated" and "not the Church properly speaking."

Your argument is off in the clouds, divorced from reality, and an intellectual band aid used to cover your wound.  But that's all it is, a cheap cover, because the wound's still festering and stinks.

The SSPX's position is a blot on their legitimate stance. If one is going to fight for truth, one can't have a huge hole in the center of their shield, or a big bend in the middle of their sword. The "the New Mass is in itself sinful" makes a mockery of the truth with the very words it uses to point out an alleged mockery of the truth.

So, the contested proposition again: "The New Mass was produced by the Church." Forget the ridiculous argument regarding "promulgated": the New Mass is a factual reality on Catholic altars. The SVs concede the factual reality, don't quibble as to "promulgate" (and generally recognize a real promulgation by Paul VI anyway), and directly say therefore that the popes and the bishops who use the New Mass are not the Church. As to this proposition, you have the big dilemma my friend.

So tell us how these last four pontiffs and the bishops in union with them and all these Catholic Churches where the NO is the reigning rite are "not the Church 'properly speaking' " - while you say they are the Church. Remember that we're talking about a Mass approved of as a rite by the Holy Father for the Catholic Church, which is protected from pollution and error just like the solemn magisterium, and we're not talking about a personal "error" regarding the faith by a prelate . You're going to have to spell your argument out in a way in which the arrangement of the letters doesn't spell "inconsistent nonsense."

I don't think you can. I think we'll get more fog from a fog machine - that postures like it's producing the rays of the sun.

DR

The counter-fit Church was what produced the New Mass. The true Church was infiltrated by freemasons and modernists. The true Church still exists but has been reduced to a remnant. As I have said, if Our Lady of Fatima spoke of a "diabolical dis-orientation" (she was talking about Vatican II and the Novus Ordo) then why would it NOT be sinful? The changes to the New Mass were to please Protestants and people of other religions.

The Council of Trent defined dogmatically: "If any one saith, that the ceremonies, vestments, and outward signs, which the Catholic Church makes use of in the celebration of masses, are incentives to impiety, rather than offices of piety; let him be anathema" (Session 22, Chapter IX, Canon VII).

It's no accident that novus ordo apologists use this canon to defend the rectitude of the reform.  Needless to say, both the SV and the N.O. apologist misunderstand this canon and especially as applied in the concrete case before us.  I say it's no accident because of the false dilemma both the SV and the N.O. apologist put forth as our only alternatives.  

Caminus,

DR, before I respond at length, I'd just like to say THANK YOU for trying to articulate your opinions by using logic and attempting to stick to principles without emotional pleas and other fallacies. What a refreshing change. You act as if you do not argue from fear and attachment, but from an interest in truth. That is a virtuous thing indeed.

Thank you. Same here.

I will try to avoid rhetorical flourishes and keep the argument purely truth seeking. I promise you, if truth leads me to being SV (I'll tell you, I can't imagine that, but . . . ), if it leads me to siding with the SSPX (can't imagine that right now because of this inconsistency on the NO - IMHO), or remaining where I am, a disgruntled Catholic who attends the NO and weathers the storm, that's where I will go or stay.

I will listen to you, and trust you will do the same to me.

DR

Caminus,

Quote

DR, before I respond at length, I'd just like to say THANK YOU for trying to articulate your opinions by using logic and attempting to stick to principles without emotional pleas and other fallacies. What a refreshing change. You act as if you do not argue from fear and attachment, but from an interest in truth. That is a virtuous thing indeed.

Thank you. Same here.

I will try to avoid rhetorical flourishes and keep the argument purely truth seeking. I promise you, if truth leads me to being SV (I'll tell you, I can't imagine that, but . . . ), if it leads me to siding with the SSPX (can't imagine that right now because of this inconsistency on the NO - IMHO), or remaining where I am, a disgruntled Catholic who attends the NO and weathers the storm, that's where I will go or stay.

I will listen to you, and trust you will do the same to me.

DR

Just out of curiosity, why do you attend the NO?

Caminus,

I say that according to your logic, the court must decide in favor of the government since you are not arguing from the principle of law that would order the actions of the police officer, but rather assuming it was legal or moot because evidence of a crime was found after the fact.  You opinion amounts to stating that legislation can occur de facto.  Such a proposition amounts to anarchy.

That is not according to my logic. Let me apply my logic to your situation. First, here's my logic in action as to the NO:

1) The Church can not produce a "sinful" or "sacrilegious" Mass
2) The New Mass was produced by the Church
3) The New Mass is not "sinful" or "sacrilegious"

I'll apply my logic to your hypothetical:

1) A stop of a vehicle without probable cause is an illegal seizure under the Constitution
2) Vehicle A was stopped without probably cause
3) Vehicle A was stopped illegally under the Constitution

I start from a principle in both cases and apply it to the facts. Using an analogy to your hypothetical, my facts merely establish that Vehicle A was stopped without probable cause. The principle must be applied to determine constitutionality. In other words, the "facts" of Pope VI's promulgation and authorization of the NO, and the subsequent use of it by his successors, the use of the NO to celebrate the Mass by almost all the bishops in union with those popes, these all show the "fact" that the NO is a Mass of the Church, and produced by it -that's all.

The a priori principle, the Church cannot produce a sacrilegious liturgy,  the major of the syllogism, applied to these facts, validates the conclusion.

Additionally, the reason why your hypothetical does not apply here is because the very principle at issue invests the agent (the Church) with indefectibility at all times and under all circuмstances with regard to the action at issue, the production of a rite of the Mass. It's a universal, infallible principle: the Church cannot produce a sacrilegious or "in itself sinful Mass." The constitutional principle at issue in your hypothetical does not involve the agent in its definition: the definition of a constitutional search does not include the police as an element of the definition. The principle at issue is simply a search without probable cause is unconstitutional, no matter what agency of the government does it.

So the hypothetical doesn't really apply because the agents (the Church on one hand and the police on the other) and the actions are also very different in that the principle indicates that the Church cannot produce a sacrilegious liturgy while the principle in your hypothetical is not, "the police cannot stop a vehicle unconstitutionally."

The only way your hypothetical would apply to this case is if the principle was that the police cannot stop a vehicle unconstitutionally. We could then look at the facts and would only have to see if the police stopped the vehicle.  

This is exactly what I am doing. As I said above, my facts simply establish that the Church produced the NO. The principle of the Church's Indefectibility indicates that the Church cannot produce a sacrilegious liturgy. I then look at the facts with the principle in hand to see if the Church "produced" the NO, and it has. Therefore . . .  you know, and cannot escape I believe, the conclusion.

Now, again, you are attacking my reasoning by saying the Church did not produce the NO. You cannot dispute the major, the a priori principle: the Church cannot produce a sacrilegious liturgy or one "sinful in itself" (Father Scott). Your saying the Church didn't produce it fails utterly if you focus on the "produced," as the "facts" I've brought forward illustrate.

You are thus left (it seems to me) to define Church in a way that excludes Pius VI, JPII, Benedict XVI and all the bishops in union with them who "produced" the NO, and continue to produce it, on Catholic altars all over the world. This is your dilemma: you either deny the Church's visibility or its Indefectibility.

I have no fondness for the NO, Caminus, or for the post-conciliar regime, but whatever God has in mind for us it is in accord with truth, and the SSPX's "the NO is sinful in itself" doesn't accord with it. I therefore begrudgingly can't accord with the SSPX.

In no small way, however, I hope you do in fact come up with an argument to prove me wrong.

DR

 

You argue from fact to law.

Totally false, as I demonstrated.

The irony is that  you argue from fact to law, thus: the NO is harmful or sinful, therefore the Church didn't produce it, since the Church can't produce a liturgy that's harmful or sinful. Think about that. Who is beginning in fact and drawing a legal conclusion from fact - you are. I, to the contrary, am starting from an immutable and infallible principle that transcends fact - the Church cannot produce a sinful or sacrilegious liturgy - and apply it to the facts before me.

I challenge you to demonstrate that it does, that the old law was abrogated and replaced with a new law.

 

As we've discussed, I have no need to do that. The NO is a liturgy of the Church and Peter's successors whether the old law was abrogated or not: the "Church" indisputably provides the highest sacrament of salvation to Christ's people via the NO. This is a fact that must be accounted for in light of the also indisputable principle of Indefectibility. You fail to account for it with your legalistic arguments. And Pope Benedict XVI has settled the issue anyway: the old law wasn't abrogated, and the NO is also law; they are both part of the one Latin rite.

You did not touch the question: would it be licit to infer from the moral universality of sodomy that the Church approves of such a vice?

We don't need to go to another inapplicable hypothetical of yours when we have a real question before us: can the Church approve of an evil liturgy and her Indefectibility remain intact? You've not really touched that question, but presented a lot of technical arguments that are evasive and deflective of the issue. The Church has approved of the NO by decree and action. In this latest hypothetical you're talking about an "approval" based upon the Church's silence in the face of the world's practice. And your hypothetical also avoids the issue that the practice we're dealing with is in the Holy Mass itself, not some "universal" behavior of people, but a sacrament of salvation. As with your other hypothetical, it's not applicable.  

Finally, it is not accurate to say that the N.O.M. is intrinsically evil.  If Fr. Scott used those words, they were excessive.  One has to consider the original N.O.M. and its relation to the traditional liturgy.  Thus it is evil through privation and insofar as it is related and founded upon certain false principles (ecuмenism, inculturation, theology of the Mass, etc).  It is evil secundum quid, under a certain relative aspect.  But even good laws can become evil under certain circuмstances, not intrinsically, but in relation to a circuмstance.

Finally, after about a dozen or so exchanges you address a critical point head on. But you're still saying the NO is "evil," if by way of privation, etc. etc. So you still have the problem of a rite of the Church for Holy Mass being evil. There's a glimmer of an argument here, but you have to develop it. For example, could the NO as approved by Paul VI - which, as Michael Davies noted, was protected from being "evil" by the Church's Indefectibility - become "evil" under circuмstances where it has morphed into something different from what Paul VI approved? But then you have the issue of whether any practice or subsequent development approved by Rome with regard to the Holy Mass could be "evil."

DR

How do you get yourself out of this pickle:

The Church would have defected if it produced an evil liturgy.

But the N.O.M. is an evil liturgy.

Ergo, the Church has defected.

So much for immutable principles.