Quote from: drew

Quote from: The Penny Catechism

It was NOT to the content nor did I even mention the Syllabus in any other context other than for it’s clarity in communicating it’s bullet point message. However, both you and Drew certainly have the right to disagree wholeheartedly. I understand. However I think it’s foolish not to recognize that following Pius X’s reign; that in less than 50 years we had Vatican II – that was formed by the very pre-vatican II clerics (bishops) around the world (with their Scholastic training) that was supposed to have understood and implemented Pascendi. If Pascendi was so well understood and so easily taken in; why do we have a Catholic Church today where millions and millions of Catholics have a belief system that is irreconcilable with holding the Faith (ie contraception). The various factions and disagreements in the Traditionalist movement to the point where many now don’t know how we’re going to get out of it unless Christ Himself comes back. I again apologize for any misunderstandings. It was NOT my intent to be critical at the content of Pascendi, but merely it’s effect at preventing that which it was purported to prevent. In the spirit of not "slugging it out" over what I perceive to be an unfortunate misunderstanding;  I will not take this any further. In this, to each his own; and sorry for the obvious angst this caused.

This argument proves nothing.  The condemnation of a heresy is not the same as its general extermination.  It’s quite the opposite.  Like a burglar in your home, the fight begins when you shine the light on him.  

History of heresy demonstrates that the worst damage occurs after its condemnation.  The Arian crisis in the Church occurred after its condemnation at Nicaea.  The same thing applies to Monothelitism which is just a variation of Monophysitism, and in this sense, it is analogous to Modernism and Neo-modernism.  In both examples the heresies have the same ends but employ different means.  Monothelitism and Monophysitism both attack the nature of the Incarnation.  Modernism and Neo-modernism both attack dogma in its essence.  What occurs in both cases is God forewarning His faithful before the heresy is generally spread throughout His Church.

The heresy we are dealing with today is Neo-modernism which like Modernism attacks dogma.  They differ in their method.  Modernism denies dogma directly as unknowable in the objective order.  Neo-Modernism denies dogma indirectly by two methods: One is by changing the meaning of the terms in a dogmatic proposition OR the universality of its copula.  A specific example was made in another post citing Benedict/Ratzingers redefining the term, substance.  

The second method is moving a dogma from its proper category of Truth/Falsehood to the category of Authority/Obedience.  The former binds always and everywhere.  The latter is subject to all the moral restrictions that govern human acts.  The dogma regarding the necessity of the sacraments for salvation is a good example of this where Neo-modernists claim that the sacraments are not necessary for salvation in cases of ignorance, impossibility, excessive burden either moral or physical, fear, compulsion, etc.  A whole list can be seen in any moral theology manual under what excuses or mitigates disobedience to laws, commands, injunctions, etc.  

But even Neo-modernism is directly condemned in Pascendi when the immutability of dogma is affirmed and immemorial ecclesiastical traditions are directly affirmed to belong to the category of dogma, and are not therefore, simple disciplinary matters subject to the free and independent will of Church authority.  The encyclical thoroughly arms the faithful Catholic against the deluge of errors under which we currently suffer and informs faithful Catholics what they must do because all ecclesiastical traditions are acts.  

I cannot remember from whom but our Lord told a saint that He permits heresy to sift His true faithful.  It is a time of winnowing the wheat from the chaff.  No Catholic can claim that they were not sufficiently warned.  Every Catholic of good-will can discern the fruit of Neo-modernism from the top down.

Quote from: Pope Francis

One notes in particular in traditionally Catholic regions a very strong decline in participation at Sunday Mass, not to mention the sacramental life.  Where in the 1960s everywhere just about all the faithful still participated at Holy Mass every Sunday, today there are often less than 10 percent.  Ever fewer people seek the sacraments.  The Sacrament of Penance has almost disappeared.  Ever fewer Catholics receive Confirmation or contract Catholic Matrimony.  The number of vocations to priestly ministry and the consecrated life has sharply diminished.  In consideration of these facts, one can speak truly of an erosion of the Catholic Faith in Germany.
Pope Francis, addressing the German bishops, Nov. 2015

No one will have any excuse for this heresy especially Francis. We will always be indebted to St. Pius X and his encyclical Pascendi for arming us in this fight.
 
Drew
 

Quote from: The Penny Catechism

In the spirit of not "slugging it out" over what I perceive to be an unfortunate misunderstanding;  I will not take this any further. In this, to each his own

Do you have a reading comprehension problem? Look, I don’t know what to tell you. If you can’t understand the above; then that’s your problem, not mine.

You cannot excuse yourself from an argument while making one.  What you said above was a foolish argument that was offered as evidence in support of your thesis.  It insults St. Pius X and Pascendi.  

If you want no more of this then stop posting.

Drew

Then how deal with this “uniquely slippery animal”? Certainly not by going down to Rome to mix with its main victims and perpetrators, the present officials at the top of the Church. Satan himself might not have a long enough spoon to sup safely with these (objective) foxes and sharks and wolves, all the more dangerous for their possible (subjective) unawareness of their own condition. Pray the Rosary for Our Lady to build around your heads and hearts her own protective armour.

I would offer one last comment regarding Bishop Williamson’s remarks of +Fellay “going down to Rome” and how to “build around your heads and hearts her protective armour” in dealing with this "uniquely slippery animal."

Br. Francis, MICM emphasized in his philosophy lectures an important approach to help understand philosophical systems.  He recommended that they be examined always under the aspects of the three essential verbs: to be, to know, and to do, which relate to ontology, epistemology, and ethics respectively.  Any first principles in a philosophical system must be applicable to all three areas to demonstrate validity. It can be difficult to see the problems with, for example, the first principles in Emmanuel Kant’s epistemology but when those same principles are examined in their moral implications it is much easier to see how false they are and what a disaster their practical application would cause.

Pascendi addresses each of these verbs in respect to Modernism: to be, to know, and to do. More importantly, it gives the answer for faithful Catholics in each of these areas to keep them from heretical corruption. To be and to stay in the state of grace requires be faithful To know and keep the dogmas of our faith and To do the ecclesiastical traditions.

The great tragedy of the SSPX, and why +Fellay has no problem “going down to Rome,” is that they have a superficial understanding of the encyclical.  They take from it a proper understanding regarding the philosophical and theological grounds of Modenism and the importance of scholasticism but, because they never looked to Pascendi as a guide as to what to know and what to do, they have never understood how it also condemns Neo-modernism as well.  The SSPX are Neo-modernist in both their understanding of dogma and their understanding of the nature of our ecclesiastical traditions that they hold to be purely disciplinary, objects of merely "ecclesiastical faith," which is why they have had nothing in substance to say to Rome in the doctrinal discussions.  

St. Pius X in Pascendi, directly before addressing “remedies,” closes the speculative portion of the encyclical saying, “(The Modernists) recognise that the three chief difficulties for them are scholastic philosophy, the authority of the fathers and tradition, and the magisterium of the Church, and on these they wage unrelenting war.” The “protective armour” must cover all three areas to be effective but for +Fellay it covers only one. The “protective armour” also requires believing in immutability of Catholic dogma, the formal objects of divine and Catholic faith, once declared by the “magisterium of the Church,” which corresponds to the attribute of infallibility which Jesus Christ endowed His Church, understood in its literal sense.  St. Pius then adds the most important statement every made regarding the nature of our ecclesiastical traditions which is the third necessary element of the “protective armour”:

They exercise all their ingenuity in diminishing the force and falsifying the character of tradition, so as to rob it of all its weight. But for Catholics the second Council of Nicea will always have the force of law, where it condemns those who dare, after the impious fashion of heretics, to deride the ecclesiastical traditions, to invent novelties of some kind . . . or endeavour by malice or craft to overthrow any one of the legitimate traditions of the Catholic Church; and Catholics will hold for law, also, the profession of the fourth Council of Constantinople: We therefore profess to conserve and guard the rules bequeathed to the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church by the Holy and most illustrious Apostles, by the orthodox Councils, both general and local, and by every one of those divine interpreters the Fathers and Doctors of the Church. Wherefore the Roman Pontiffs, Pius IV, and Pius IX, ordered the insertion in the profession of faith of the following declaration: I most firmly admit and embrace the apostolic and ecclesiastical traditions and other observances and constitutions of the Church. (Emphasis his)

The only possible way that Pius IV, Blessed Pius IX and St. Pius X “ordered the insertion in the profession of faith” that we must “firmly admit and embrace the apostolic and ecclesiastical traditions” is because these are necessary attributes of the faith without which the faith cannot be known or communicated to others.  A necessary attribute is one that cannot be lost without a change in substance.  The same thing applies for Nicea II in the condemnation of iconoclasts as “heretics” who denied the faith by destroying the images by which it is known.

St. Pius closes Pascendi saying, “May Jesus Christ, the author and finisher of our faith, be with you by His power; and may the Immaculate Virgin, the destroyer of all heresies, be with you by her prayers and aid.”  The Rosary and the immemorial Roman rite of Mass are the two most important ecclesiastical traditions we have.  We must defend them in the same sense that St. Pius does by recognizing their divine authorship and condemning any novelty established in opposition to them.

The Blessed Virgin Mary should be invoked by her title, “Destroyer of all Heresies.”

Drew  

Quote from: Bishop Williamson

Then how deal with this “uniquely slippery animal”? Certainly not by going down to Rome to mix with its main victims and perpetrators, the present officials at the top of the Church. Satan himself might not have a long enough spoon to sup safely with these (objective) foxes and sharks and wolves, all the more dangerous for their possible (subjective) unawareness of their own condition. Pray the Rosary for Our Lady to build around your heads and hearts her own protective armour.

I would offer one last comment regarding Bishop Williamson’s remarks of +Fellay “going down to Rome” and how to “build around your heads and hearts her protective armour” in dealing with this "uniquely slippery animal."

Br. Francis, MICM emphasized in his philosophy lectures an important approach to help understand philosophical systems.  He recommended that they be examined always under the aspects of the three essential verbs: to be, to know, and to do, which relate to ontology, epistemology, and ethics respectively.  Any first principles in a philosophical system must be applicable to all three areas to demonstrate validity. It can be difficult to see the problems with, for example, the first principles in Emmanuel Kant’s epistemology but when those same principles are examined in their moral implications it is much easier to see how false they are and what a disaster their practical application would cause.

Pascendi addresses each of these verbs in respect to Modernism: to be, to know, and to do. More importantly, it gives the answer for faithful Catholics in each of these areas to keep them from heretical corruption. To be and to stay in the state of grace requires be faithful To know and keep the dogmas of our faith and To do the ecclesiastical traditions.

The great tragedy of the SSPX, and why +Fellay has no problem “going down to Rome,” is that they have a superficial understanding of the encyclical.  They take from it a proper understanding regarding the philosophical and theological grounds of Modenism and the importance of scholasticism but, because they never looked to Pascendi as a guide as to what to know and what to do, they have never understood how it also condemns Neo-modernism as well.  The SSPX are Neo-modernist in both their understanding of dogma and their understanding of the nature of our ecclesiastical traditions that they hold to be purely disciplinary, objects of merely "ecclesiastical faith," which is why they have had nothing in substance to say to Rome in the doctrinal discussions.  

St. Pius X in Pascendi, directly before addressing “remedies,” closes the speculative portion of the encyclical saying, “(The Modernists) recognise that the three chief difficulties for them are scholastic philosophy, the authority of the fathers and tradition, and the magisterium of the Church, and on these they wage unrelenting war.” The “protective armour” must cover all three areas to be effective but for +Fellay it covers only one. The “protective armour” also requires believing in immutability of Catholic dogma, the formal objects of divine and Catholic faith, once declared by the “magisterium of the Church,” which corresponds to the attribute of infallibility which Jesus Christ endowed His Church, understood in its literal sense.  St. Pius then adds the most important statement every made regarding the nature of our ecclesiastical traditions which is the third necessary element of the “protective armour”:

Quote from: St. Pius

They exercise all their ingenuity in diminishing the force and falsifying the character of tradition, so as to rob it of all its weight. But for Catholics the second Council of Nicea will always have the force of law, where it condemns those who dare, after the impious fashion of heretics, to deride the ecclesiastical traditions, to invent novelties of some kind . . . or endeavour by malice or craft to overthrow any one of the legitimate traditions of the Catholic Church; and Catholics will hold for law, also, the profession of the fourth Council of Constantinople: We therefore profess to conserve and guard the rules bequeathed to the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church by the Holy and most illustrious Apostles, by the orthodox Councils, both general and local, and by every one of those divine interpreters the Fathers and Doctors of the Church. Wherefore the Roman Pontiffs, Pius IV, and Pius IX, ordered the insertion in the profession of faith of the following declaration: I most firmly admit and embrace the apostolic and ecclesiastical traditions and other observances and constitutions of the Church. (Emphasis his)

The only possible way that Pius IV, Blessed Pius IX and St. Pius X “ordered the insertion in the profession of faith” that we must “firmly admit and embrace the apostolic and ecclesiastical traditions” is because these are necessary attributes of the faith without which the faith cannot be known or communicated to others.  A necessary attribute is one that cannot be lost without a change in substance.  The same thing applies for Nicea II in the condemnation of iconoclasts as “heretics” who denied the faith by destroying the images by which it is known.

St. Pius closes Pascendi saying, “May Jesus Christ, the author and finisher of our faith, be with you by His power; and may the Immaculate Virgin, the destroyer of all heresies, be with you by her prayers and aid.”  The Rosary and the immemorial Roman rite of Mass are the two most important ecclesiastical traditions we have.  We must defend them in the same sense that St. Pius does by recognizing their divine authorship and condemning any novelty established in opposition to them.

The Blessed Virgin Mary should be invoked by her title, “Destroyer of all Heresies.”

Drew  

Very well said, Drew.