Author Topic: Response to an SSPX Priest - by Sean Johnson (Read 15809 times)

Ekim · « **Reply #40 on:** November 24, 2015, 06:29:37 PM »

Pray. Pray that those with the grace of state reject and condemn the poison at every turn, without compromise.

Neil Obstat · « **Reply #41 on:** November 24, 2015, 07:22:33 PM »

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Something rather prominent is being ignored in this exchange. It was ABL's great concern, and what literature scholars call "conflict", that his resistance to the errors of Vat.II and the wayward path of Newchurch could become a real basis for him and his Society to be in schism. He wanted no part of schism. Nor did he want his Society to appear as a Parallel Church. This latter motive is why he didn't want the Superior General to be a bishop -- because it could make the Society appear to have a pope-replacement figure at the helm. (So what of +Fellay: he effectively avoided this problem by steering the Society toward Newrome thus avoiding the appearance of opposition and "Parallel Church!")

In order to avoid accusation of Parallel Church! and Schism!! ABL said certain things at certain times that may have seemed a bit out of place, and in retrospect might be taken to mean that he was some way in favor of the new Rome (post Vat.II).

ABL had a lot of forces pulling at him, and the path he took was his best shot at holding fast to the Traditions that he had received, while facing an unprecedented crisis in the Church. He recognized the problem that Vat.II was and there can be little doubt that he wanted to do something about that, but since he was not Pope and he did not have the support of other bishops, what could he do against the monster Vatican II?

It seems he did what he thought was the most prudent thing, which was to raise up new priests who would be trained to carry on the tradition ABL had received, so as to weather the great storm, for if he had attempted to do battle directly with the monster Vat.II, there was a risk of failure, a risk he was not willing to take. It would seem that his years of continual prayer gave him the fortitude to do what he did, but not the power and zeal it would have required to overturn the monster Vat.II.

There were priests who attempted to encourage him to do battle directly with Vat.II and for whatever reason he declined. But there remains solid proof of how weak the foundation under this false council always has been, and it seems to me it's just a matter of time before the winds and rains come to wash away that foundation of sand under the false council, and great shall be the fall thereof.

Quote

One of the comments in this thread suggests the repeal of Vatican II by the Pope. Neil Obstat claims “The Pope could do this…”. Playing devils-advocate I’ll say that Vatican II was a valid Ecuмenical Council, legally convened, with deliberations, votes, and declarations. I claim the Pope does not have the power to repeal a Council (I’m sure everyone here would make a similar claim if Pope Francis attempted to repeal Trent). If there’s a claim that it was only a pastoral Council, I reply with it still reaffirmed existing dogmas.

We have had exactly 20 unequivocally valid Ecuмenical Councils of the Church before 1962, ALL of which had key components in common. Trent is one of those and it is just as solid as any of the other 19.

The same cannot be said of Vatican II.

Now, a Council is not a Sacrament. However, in regards to sacraments, there are three things that must be true for the sacrament to be valid: 1) Form 2) Matter and 3) Intention. If any one of those is not present, the sacrament is invalid and does not confer sanctifying grace. That is to say, it does not enjoy the protection of the Holy Ghost.

Set aside 1) and 2) for a moment and consider 3) Intention. If you have a Mass where everything appears fine, the candles are lit and the linens are white and the altar boys kneel in reverence while the Priest raises the host, and so on -- if the Priest does NOT intend to do what the Church does in the Consecration and has no intention whatsoever to confect transubstantiation of the Eucharist, the effect will be that no Sacrament takes place, and all the faithful who line up for Holy Communion will in fact receive a wafer of bread but not the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus. Whatever graces they receive via their good will and desire is another topic, but they receive objectively nothing from the host that is placed on their tongues, other than the physical nutrients of the wafer's ingredients, wheat flour and water.

While an Ecuмenical Council is not a sacrament, still, it comes to the Church as a most prominent reality the purpose of which, like a sacrament, is to confer grace to Holy Mother Church and the faithful therein. The highest law of the Church is the salvation of souls, and both the Sacraments and the true Councils must be directed toward that end. Anything called "a sacrament" that is implemented and designed so as to take away salvation from souls is not a true Sacrament and any Council that does so is not a true Council.

There is more but this post is already too long.

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Matthew · « **Reply #42 on:** November 24, 2015, 09:32:33 PM »

Playing messenger boy some more.

Greetings Fr. Xxxxxxx-

Hope all is well with you.

I recognized your arguments instantly from our private correspondences of 2013.

As I am not able to view Cathinfo directly, I am hoping you can send me your rebuttals personally.

I'm sure you still have the address?

If not, I still have yours.

In any case, if you send them, I will be sure to address them in my book (notice of which will be released in the next 5-10 days on this website).

Semper Idem,

Sean Johnson

covet truth · « **Reply #43 on:** November 24, 2015, 10:26:59 PM »

Quote from: Matthew

Playing messenger boy some more.

Greetings Fr. Xxxxxxx-

Hope all is well with you.

I recognized your arguments instantly from our private correspondences of 2013.

As I am not able to view Cathinfo directly, I am hoping you can send me your rebuttals personally.

I'm sure you still have the address?

If not, I still have yours.

In any case, if you send them, I will be sure to address them in my book (notice of which will be released in the next 5-10 days on this website).

Semper Idem,

Sean Johnson

Is it Fr. Laisney? That was my first instinct when I read the rebuttal.

claudel · « **Reply #44 on:** November 25, 2015, 02:17:25 AM »

Quote from: Henry4

… So the Archbishop had previously considered the possibility of an agreement if there was sufficient protection for the Society (viz. local Bishops etc.) and therefore understood the question being asked. The Archbishop answered the question “let them first make us such an offer!” – he would consider it, a comment he could not have made if the pre-condition was absolute. Now the mere fact that he gives reasons why Rome wouldn’t do it has no bearing on the matter, rather, the fact that he was willing to consider it amply demonstrates that the alleged pre-condition is not absolute. Case closed Mr. Johnson.

Perhaps Mr. Johnson would prefer to examine the original French text that has no exclamation mark: “On me disait hier : « Si Rome acceptait vos évêques et que vous soyez complètement exempt de la jurisdiction des évêques… » D’abord ils sont bien loin d’accepter une chose comme celle-là, ensuite il faudrait qu’ils nous en fassent l’offre, et je ne pense pas qu’ils y soient prêts, car le fond de la difficulté, c’est précisément de nous donner un évêque traditionaliste.”. The text will simply not stand the translation Mr. Johnson wants to give it.

Suffice to say that the Archbishop clearly entertained the idea and Mr. Johnson’s ‘interpretation’ cannot be sustained. The correct understanding is that given by Bp. Williamson “let them first make us such an offer, then we’ll think about it.”

Whatever may or may not be said for the character of Sean Johnson's defense, the use by Henry4 of the material (quoted above) that he offers in rebuttal is certainly a straw man. Henry's position amounts to little more than a declaration that the answer "yes" to the question "Would you, a resident of New Orleans, wear an overcoat if a snowstorm rolled in on the Fourth of July?" constitutes a repudiation of a resolve to wear short-sleeve shirts throughout the summer!

Put otherwise, what Archbishop Lefebvre might well have said—had he not been disinclined, both by nature and by long experience, to treat his interlocutors as simpletons—was that any such blank-check offer from Rome as the hypothetical one (a hypothesis that is being flogged with a vigor better applied to an object that can yield something more than howls of pain) would constitute prima facie evidence of a "sufficient conversion" of conciliar Rome to the True Faith. Hence, it would be just the sort of situation where a no-compromise resolve, even were it to be as strong as case-hardened steel, would have to yield, because the conditions under which the resolve had been formed no longer applied.

Henry's assertion that His Grace never closed his mind to the possibility, let alone the desirability, of a more or less practical deal with Rome may well be true. Not being a mind reader, I am in no position to hazard a guess, and I am full ready to grant that Henry4 may well know far more about the archbishop than I do. But his claim that the quoted response is probative of his assertion can be accepted only if one is prepared to further assert that the archbishop was given to entertaining groundless counterfactuals in the interstices of blowing soap bubbles pour s'amuser.

Frankly, I have no dog in this fight, but I am troubled when men and women who ought to know better claim probative value for data that are probative of nothing so much as their desire to win an argument—and justice be damned.

Quote from: Neil Obstat

… If you have a Mass where everything appears fine, the candles are lit and the linens are white and the altar boys kneel in reverence while the Priest raises the host, and so on -- if the Priest does NOT intend to do what the Church does in the Consecration and has no intention whatsoever to confect transubstantiation of the Eucharist, the effect will be that no Sacrament takes place, and all the faithful who line up for Holy Communion will in fact receive a wafer of bread but not the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus. Whatever graces they receive via their good will and desire is another topic, but they receive objectively nothing from the host that is placed on their tongues, other than the physical nutrients of the wafer's ingredients, wheat flour and water.

Because it's plain what Neil is getting at, I take no pleasure in saying what follows, but the simple fact is that the sort of ordinary-language use of the word intention that the quoted passage employs is just not the one that orthodox theology from Aquinas down to the present day—even including such a towering modernist (i.e., unorthodox) figure as Schillebeeckx—has in mind. In the context described, "proper intention," "an intention to do as the Church does," must be assumed ipso facto by the priest's use of the words and by his performance of the prescribed liturgical actions in the manner called for by the rubrics. Any insistence that validity required one to know an intrinsically unknowable interior state was rejected by Aquinas as a condition that God in His beneficence could not impose on His Church. That is, His beloved children are entitled to have confidence in the salvific effect of the actions of those of His priests whose outward conduct comports with rubrical norms.