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Author Topic: Eleison Comments - Anti-Lefebvrism II (no 561)  (Read 629 times)

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Offline Matthew

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Eleison Comments - Anti-Lefebvrism II (no 561)
« on: April 15, 2018, 07:58:13 AM »
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    • Number DLXI (561)
    April 14, 2018
    Anti-Lefebvrism – II
    Thanks be to God for one almighty gift –
    Archbishop Lefebvre, who gave Tradition its lift.
    Is there a reason why NM (see last week’s “Comments”), in order to deal with the problem of the Conciliar Popes, resorts to the dramatic solution of declaring that they have not been Popes at all? There would seem to be. The Catholic Church is both human (a society of human beings) and divine (specially animated by the Holy Ghost), and it is important not to confuse the two. Human beings as such are all fallible. God alone is infallible. The mistake of Catholics resorting to the dramatic solution of NM is that they are attributing to the human Popes too much of the infallibility that can come from God alone. Let us take an illustration from any modern home.
    When I put an electric plug into a socket in the wall, the electric current does not come from the plug, it comes from the power station through the wall and socket into the plug and whatever appliance needs the electric current. The power station is God. The wall and socket are the Church. The current is the Church’s infallibility, coming from God. The plug is the four conditions which the Pope alone can insert into the socket. Those conditions are of course that he 1) speaks as Pope 2) in order to fix once and for all 3) a point of faith or morals 4) with the intention of binding all Catholics to accept it. Through the Pope’s engaging the four conditions, he and he alone has guaranteed access as a human being to the Church’s divine infallibility. The four conditions are the Pope’s to engage. The infallibility is God’s to engage.
    Also of course, this particular socket, known as the Church’s Extraordinary Magisterium (EM), is not the only access of human beings to the Church’s infallibility. They accede to it much more by the Church’s Ordinary Magisterium (OM), which is Catholic Tradition, or, what all the Church’s teachers, Popes and Bishops in particular, have taught all over the world ever since Jesus Christ as God depo sited that Deposit of the Faith with His Church, confirmed infallibly in the Apostles at Pentecost and handed down infallibly by them until the last of them died. From then on that doctrine was in the hands of fallible human beings, to whom God left their free-will to teach error if they chose to do so. But if ever human error made doubtful what belonged to the infallible doctrine and what did not, God gave to His Church also the Extraordinary Magisterium, precisely to fix once and for all what does and what does not belong to the Ordinary Magisterium. Thus OM is to EM as dog to tail, and not as tail to dog!
    The problem of Catholics without number ever since the solemn definition in 1870 of the Church’s infallibility is that since the access of the EM to the Church’s infallibility is automatically guaranteed in a way in which the access of the OM is not, then the EM seems superior, and Catholics tend to exaggerate the EM and to transfer to the Pope personally that infallibility which in reality belongs automatically only to the Church. This means that if the Pope makes serious errors like those of the Conciliar Popes, then the only possible explanation is that they are not Popes. Or, if they are Popes, then one must follow their errors. The logic is good, but the premise is false. Popes are not as infallible as all that. They can make serious errors, as Vatican II and its Conciliar Popes have shown, as never before in all Church history! But the Church remains infallible, and therefore I know that Catholic Tradition will last to the end of the world despite the very worst that any poor Popes may try to do between now and then.
    But how do I know that to the Pope as Pope belongs only the privileged access (four conditions) to the electric current (infallibility), and not the current itself which belongs to the wall (the Church)? Because the very definition of infallibility in 1870 says so! I need only read:—when the Pop e engages the four conditions (mentioned above), then he “is possessed of that infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer willed that his Church should be endowed in defining doctrine regarding faith or morals.”
    So Catholic Popes are free to make terrible mistakes without the Church being any less infallible.
    Kyrie eleison.
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    Offline Ladislaus

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    Re: Eleison Comments - Anti-Lefebvrism II (no 561)
    « Reply #1 on: April 15, 2018, 08:23:23 AM »
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    • This actually constitutes the entire fulcrum of the debate currently taking place on the now-infamous "Father Ringrose" thread.

    Bishop Williamson:
    Quote
    Those conditions are of course that he 1) speaks as Pope 2) in order to fix once and for all 3) a point of faith or morals 4) with the intention of binding all Catholics to accept it. Through the Pope’s engaging the four conditions, he and he alone has guaranteed access as a human being to the Church’s divine infallibility. The four conditions are the Pope’s to engage. The infallibility is God’s to engage.

    But IMO this is too narrow a perspective on the crisis.  This basically holds, as a logical consequence, that the 99.5%+ of the Magisterium that doesn't meet these conditions can go totally corrupt at any given time.  And if it can't, what's the principle that would prevent it from happening?

    This contradicts papal teaching that the Magisterium can never be tainted with error.  This contradicts the quintessentially Catholic principle that the Catholic Church is the infallible rule of faith ... the principle that distinguishes the Church from all the heretical sects that have ever split off from the Church.
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    Offline Barry

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    Re: Eleison Comments - Anti-Lefebvrism II (no 561)
    « Reply #2 on: April 15, 2018, 08:47:44 AM »
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    • If one accepts that once the four conditions are met, and then infallibility occurs, then one MUST accept all Conciliar canonizations - because it is God operating.  One MUST accept "St. JP II the Great, St-to-be Paul VI, St-in-waiting Bergolio, etc.  It doesn't matter about the "intention" of the Conciliarists, the lack of Devil's Advocate, or the lack of miracles.  If God is the one "engaging infallibility", as Bp W mentions, it is blasphemy and heresy to deny the canonizations.

    ... unless ...

    the man doing the canonizations does not hold the office of pope.

    Anti-Lefebvrism?  It should have been entitled anti clear and Catholic thinking.

    Besides, back in +ABL's day, we had just started to see canonizations about which we harboured some questions (virtually all were real Catholics, born and died before VII, and none were heretics).  Now, we see open enemies of the Faith being "canonized".

    Sometimes the crisis of the papacy reminds me about St. Augustine's advice about the Trinity.  He said that we need to accept the doctrine, and if we seek too hard to understand it, we run the risk of falling into heresy.  Today, I think we need to recognize that the Conciliar Church is not the Catholic Church, and if we seek too hard to understand the exact nature of it, we run the risk of falling into error - but, at minimum, we must recognize it as a false church and refuse to be part of it.  God will, in His own good time, restore it and give us as deep an understanding of the crisis as He sees that we need.
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    Offline PG

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    Re: Eleison Comments - Anti-Lefebvrism II (no 561)
    « Reply #3 on: April 15, 2018, 10:47:35 AM »
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    • Quote from: Ladislaus on April 15, 2018, 08:23:23 AM
    This actually constitutes the entire fulcrum of the debate currently taking place on the now-infamous "Father Ringrose" thread.

    Bishop Williamson:
    But IMO this is too narrow a perspective on the crisis.  This basically holds, as a logical consequence, that the 99.5%+ of the Magisterium that doesn't meet these conditions can go totally corrupt at any given time.  And if it can't, what's the principle that would prevent it from happening?

    This contradicts papal teaching that the Magisterium can never be tainted with error.  This contradicts the quintessentially Catholic principle that the Catholic Church is the infallible rule of faith ... the principle that distinguishes the Church from all the heretical sects that have ever split off from the Church.
    Well, we hold collegiality as an error.  And, if the EM is the tail to the dog, and collegiality neither represents the dog nor the principle.  Then, yes, the dog is still the preventing principle.  But, what is the dog?  I will throw you a bone.  We have more than just the bones of st. peter to chew on.
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    Offline JPaul

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    Re: Eleison Comments - Anti-Lefebvrism II (no 561)
    « Reply #4 on: April 15, 2018, 11:01:40 AM »
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    • Quote from: Ladislaus on April 15, 2018, 08:23:23 AM
    This actually constitutes the entire fulcrum of the debate currently taking place on the now-infamous "Father Ringrose" thread.

    Bishop Williamson:
    But IMO this is too narrow a perspective on the crisis.  This basically holds, as a logical consequence, that the 99.5%+ of the Magisterium that doesn't meet these conditions can go totally corrupt at any given time.  And if it can't, what's the principle that would prevent it from happening?

    This contradicts papal teaching that the Magisterium can never be tainted with error.  This contradicts the quintessentially Catholic principle that the Catholic Church is the infallible rule of faith ... the principle that distinguishes the Church from all the heretical sects that have ever split off from the Church.
    Quite right. It is definitely to narrow a view and one which ignores other aspects of the Faith and Christ's promises.  "I will not leave you orphans" says the Lord.  This novel R&R position posits that this is where we find ourselves because of the "human element" of the Church,and this again, gives the human element a superior power within the Church which leaves the supernatural part of the Church unable to overcome or live up to its role in controling the human component.  This may be true in the Conciliar church of man,  But if the teaching of the Church is to be held as true,  This cannot be true.
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