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Author Topic: Comedy Gold - Letter from Fr. Poisson "baby had a bowel movement"  (Read 6209 times)

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Re: Comedy Gold - Letter from Fr. Poisson "baby had a bowel movement"
« Reply #20 on: February 18, 2019, 08:55:31 AM »
he felt he did not need a conditional ordination.  But he submitted himself for conditional ordination to a man whom he thought was a bishop.  So, he committed sacrilege?
Ordaining conditionally without "a good reason" is a mis-use of the sacrament. "A good reason", traditionally-speaking, meant a positive doubt about the validity of the sacrament. A mis-use of a sacrament is a sacrilege. However, be careful about attributing sin.
I am aware of at least one trad priest, ordained in the N.O., who (in his words) didn't doubt his ordination, but was conditionally ordained "for the sake of the faithful". Perhaps that is "a good reason" in these difficult times? Traditional sacramental theology doesn't really discuss that situation.

Offline Matthew

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Re: Comedy Gold - Letter from Fr. Poisson "baby had a bowel movement"
« Reply #21 on: February 18, 2019, 09:53:49 AM »
Interestingly, the catacombs.com absolutely refuses to publish this letter by fr. Poisson.  I have tried four times, without any commentary, and they deleted the post/thread each time.

I wonder why?

They are probably rightly embarrassed by it.

Though to be honest, I don't know all the fine details about OLMC, its splinter groups, chapels, ex-chapels, clerical personalities, lay personalities, several micro-fora (each with < 130 members) and handful of priests, each with complex background and loyalties. And yes, a lot of those positions/loyalties/associations change with time, and that's the worst part. I can't keep up, and I am usually well-informed about the Trad world.

Take everything you've ever heard negative about the Resistance -- it actually applies to these people. They really do give the Resistance a bad name. Too bad there's no way to gatekeep or restrict usage of the term "SSPX Resistance" -- unfortunately, anyone can join or claim membership. Including the mentally ill and all sorts of malicious people.

As I said in another thread, the only answer is to distinguish "Is this a symptom of a fundamental problem, from the top-down, it HAD to happen" or is it just a case of a bad individual coincidentally being part of a group? One shouldn't dismiss the whole group if the latter is true.

If you leave every group you find a bad person in, you will end up living in the desert, alone. Because Original Sin.


Offline Ladislaus

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Re: Comedy Gold - Letter from Fr. Poisson "baby had a bowel movement"
« Reply #22 on: February 18, 2019, 10:39:22 AM »
Ordaining conditionally without "a good reason" is a mis-use of the sacrament. "A good reason", traditionally-speaking, meant a positive doubt about the validity of the sacrament. A mis-use of a sacrament is a sacrilege. However, be careful about attributing sin.
I am aware of at least one trad priest, ordained in the N.O., who (in his words) didn't doubt his ordination, but was conditionally ordained "for the sake of the faithful". Perhaps that is "a good reason" in these difficult times? Traditional sacramental theology doesn't really discuss that situation.

SSPX have long (well before the Resistance movement) used the excuse of assuaging the concerns of the faithful as the pretext for doing conditional ordinations.  It's a political move.  They know that many of the faithful have doubts about the NO Holy Orders, so they would lose a lot of people.  But, due to playing politics with Rome, they didn't want to openly call their Rites into doubt.  So they came up with this middle line.  But, as you point out, it's borderline sacrilegeous to administer the Sacrament even conditionally for political reasons.  Either you hold them to be in positive doubt or you do not.

And this old line about, "well, the intentions of the NO bishops and priests are questionable" ... that constitutes NEGATIVE doubt.  If the rite is inherently valid, then the intention is presumed unless some specific concrete circuмstances comes to light that would create POSITIVE doubt (e.g., "I heard Bishop [such-and-such] say that he didn't intent to confer Holy Orders on [a certain candidate]").  Even if the NO Bishop had heretical views about the Sacrament, he would still validly confect it so long as he thought that he was doing what the Church does.

So the SSPX have been playing games with the Sacraments for a very long time now.

Offline Ladislaus

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Re: Comedy Gold - Letter from Fr. Poisson "baby had a bowel movement"
« Reply #23 on: February 18, 2019, 10:42:35 AM »
Take everything you've ever heard negative about the Resistance -- it actually applies to these people. They really do give the Resistance a bad name. Too bad there's no way to gatekeep or restrict usage of the term "SSPX Resistance" -- unfortunately, anyone can join or claim membership. Including the mentally ill and all sorts of malicious people.

Well, that's because there's no actual formal group called "The Resistance" ... as per Bishop Williamson.  Bishop Williamson has long resisted calls to formalize a group but wants to think of the situation in the Church as just pockets of Catholics around the world attempting to keep the faith.  To prevent this kind of thing from happening, someone would have to formally create some kind of organization.

Re: Comedy Gold - Letter from Fr. Poisson "baby had a bowel movement"
« Reply #24 on: February 18, 2019, 11:46:20 AM »

Quote
Well, that's because there's no actual formal group called "The Resistance" ... as per Bishop Williamson.  Bishop Williamson has long resisted calls to formalize a group but wants to think of the situation in the Church as just pockets of Catholics around the world attempting to keep the faith.  To prevent this kind of thing from happening, someone would have to formally create some kind of organization.

Though I do not have a high regard for the author of this post, nevertheless, reminded that a broken clock is right at least twice a day, he is absolutely right.  There is no formal "Resistance;" and according to my understanding anyway, Bp. Williamson has never committed to heading formally something called the "Resistance," nor has he endorsed the formation of a central organization, modeled after Menzingen. He has, on the other hand, recommended quite clearly, that independent, loosely aligned traditional chapels should emerge, having no central organization or centralized authority.