Mithrandylan,
Just because a Pope (or priest for that matter) says the words to confect a sacrament, does not always mean that the sacrament takes place. Not only must the words be correct, but so must be the matter.
I know that canonizations are not sacraments, but they most certainly follow a formula. Francis may have said the words at the canonizations, but the "Matter" in which they were pronounced over was highly deficient.
Heck, even the New York Times posted an article with the heading "A Saint He Aint".
The "matter" for canonizations is a dead person. The infallibility of the Church protects a non-saint dead person from being canonized. What you are arguing is just another procedural argument, which has already been debunked. Undue process led to deficient matter slipping through the procedural cracks and onto the canonization assembly line.
It is not so. Besides the fact that the Church's infallibility in secondary objects covers canonizations, at least in this particular instance you actually have an ex cathedra definition. If Francis is a true pope, he is exercising his authority as the head of the Church to define/declare a matter and binding the whole Church to it. Per Vatican I, these pre-requisites guarantee infallibility, which is an impossibility of error-- that is, it is not possible that he could be wrong. This is dogma, by the way.
This idea has been circulating on another forum. See here: http://abple febvref orums./t hread/2238/canoniza tions-infalible-judgement -church?page=9
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Would sacramental theology even apply in this case?
No, it wouldn't. The whole "dead person" matter was rather tongue in cheek. I just simply meant that the only thing
theoretically preventing a person from being considered for canonization is that they're still living. Naturally there are other pre-requisites for a canonized saint, but the case cannot even be presented if the person is still living.
There are seven sacraments-- canonization is not one of them. Matter, form and intent are used to determine the validity of the sacraments. Vatican I determined the conditions for papal infallibility, and they are met; end of story. One cannot argue against this without applying abhorrent and incessant novelty to the very clear dogma of papal infallibility, a dogma which is extraordinarily clear.
It's very ironic, considering how a long-standing charge against sedevacantists is an exaggeration of papal infallibility-- this is manifestly false, since to date, none of the main arguments for sedevacantism have dealt with papal infallibility (rather the focus was on the Church's infallibility, which is the same as the pope's though exercised in a different way). For years sedevacantists have heard that none of the post-conciliar popes have taught anything that met the criteria for ex cathedra papal infallibility (to this I agree) but now we actually have an instance where those conditions are met, and I suppose we should expect that, as usual, the rebuttals (if you can call them that) rely on either outright denying papal infallibility, or adding conditions to it that simply don't exist.
Topic: Outstanding Sermon on Sedevacantism by Fr. Pfeiffer (Read 48177 times)