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Author Topic: Does Mediator Dei undercut Quo primum?  (Read 876 times)

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Offline SimpleMan

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Does Mediator Dei undercut Quo primum?
« on: October 15, 2023, 02:22:55 AM »
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  • I was skimming over MD and found this:

    49. From time immemorial the ecclesiastical hierarchy has exercised this right in matters liturgical. It has organized and regulated divine worship, enriching it constantly with new splendor and beauty, to the glory of God and the spiritual profit of Christians. What is more, it has not been slow - keeping the substance of the Mass and sacraments carefully intact - to modify what it deemed not altogether fitting, and to add what appeared more likely to increase the honor paid to Jesus Christ and the august Trinity, and to instruct and stimulate the Christian people to greater advantage.[47]

    50. The sacred liturgy does, in fact, include divine as well as human elements. The former, instituted as they have been by God, cannot be changed in any way by men. But the human components admit of various modifications, as the needs of the age, circuмstance and the good of souls may require, and as the ecclesiastical hierarchy, under guidance of the Holy Spirit, may have authorized. This will explain the marvelous variety of Eastern and Western rites. Here is the reason for the gradual addition, through successive development, of particular religious customs and practices of piety only faintly discernible in earlier times. Hence likewise it happens from time to time that certain devotions long since forgotten are revived and practiced anew. All these developments attest the abiding life of the immaculate Spouse of Jesus Christ through these many centuries. They are the sacred language she uses, as the ages run their course, to profess to her divine Spouse her own faith along with that of the nations committed to her charge, and her own unfailing love. They furnish proof, besides, of the wisdom of the teaching method she employs to arouse and nourish constantly the "Christian instinct."

    Was this a "chink in the armor" intended to open the door for changing the Missal somewhere down the road?

    And what, then, of Quo primum?

    Offline Stubborn

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    Re: Does Mediator Dei undercut Quo primum?
    « Reply #1 on: October 15, 2023, 06:29:18 AM »
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  • No, MD does not undercut Quo Primum. What PPXII is essentially saying is that the Church can modify the Mass to increase our faith, he is not saying the Church can trash the true Mass and replace it with what we have today - even if the crooks were to argue that that is what he is saying, which is of course absurd.

    In your quote paragraph 49, he references Divini Cultus [47], if you read this, then it's easy to see that your bolded in paragraph 49 actually means exactly what it says, which does not compromise or undercut Quo Primum in any way.
    "But Peter and the apostles answering, said: We ought to obey God, rather than men." - Acts 5:29

    The Highest Principle in the Church: "We are first of all under obedience to God, and only then under obedience to man" - Fr. Hesse


    Offline Yeti

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    Re: Does Mediator Dei undercut Quo primum?
    « Reply #2 on: October 15, 2023, 08:22:23 AM »
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  • And what, then, of Quo primum?
    .

    The idea that it binds future popes is basically a myth. Here's what Fr. Cekada wrote about it:


    Quote
    Quo Primum: Could a Pope Change It?
    QUESTION: During a recent argument with a Novus Ordo friend, she told me that (according to her priest) popes can change whatever they want, as long as it is not dogmatic. We were discussing Quo Primum. I told her that it was forever, but she said that even if the pope said forever another pope can change it. What would you say to that?
    REPLY: On this point, shes right.
    A (true) pope is the supreme legislator for ecclesiastical law and has the power to change ecclesiastical laws enacted by his predecessors. Quo Primum was an ecclesiastical law, and a true pope did indeed have the power to abrogate it or modify any of its provisions.
    The forever clause was merely a type of legal boilerplate common in all sorts of papal legislation.
    In the 1960s faithful Catholics seized upon this language as a justification for disobeying the new liturgical legislation while simultaneously recognizing Paul VI as a true pope. This was unfortunate, because anyone who knows a bit about canon law can refute the argument very easily.
    The argument also obscures the real reason for adhering to the traditional Mass and rejecting the New Mass: The old rite is Catholic. The new rite is evil, inimical to Catholic doctrine (on the Real Presence, the priesthood, the nature of the Mass, etc.) and a sacrilege.
    If you send me your postal address, though, Ill send you a consolation prize: some copies of a booklet I wrote, Welcome to the Traditional Latin Mass, that compares the old Mass and the New Mass.
    Give a copy to your friend and tell her to give it to her priest. That should keep him busy for quite awhile!
    QUESTION: So you are saying that a real pope can change a Papal Bull decree that another pope has made in perpetuity? Why would a pope decree something for all time, if another pope could change it?
    REPLY: If it was a disciplinary Bull (establishing a church law), yes, another pope could change it.
    The language was simply a standard formula in church legislation that referred to one of the qualities a law is supposed to have: stability.
    Frequent changes in laws harm the common good because people do not know how to act — hence, laws are supposed to be relatively stable. But a human legislator (unlike God) cannot foresee all future circuмstances, so his successor has the power to change existing laws if he decides the circuмstances warrant it.
    This reflects a general principle in law: An equal does not have power over another equal. No pope who used perpetuity in his disciplinary decrees understood the term to mean that no future pope could ever amend or replace his legislation.
    And popes did in fact change some of the provisions of Quo Primum, even before Vatican II. In 1604, for instance, Pope Clement VIII issued new regulations for the Blessing at Mass, and in 1634 Pope Urban VIII changed the wording of the Missals rubrics and hymn texts.
    Traditionalists should stop using the Quo Primum argument. It’s a canon law urban legend — as in “alligators in the sewers,” rather than Urban VIII!


    Offline 2Vermont

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    Re: Does Mediator Dei undercut Quo primum?
    « Reply #3 on: October 15, 2023, 10:56:16 AM »
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  • Key part:

    50. The sacred liturgy does, in fact, include divine as well as human elements. The former, instituted as they have been by God, cannot be changed in any way by men. But the human components admit of various modifications, as the needs of the age, circuмstance and the good of souls may require, and as the ecclesiastical hierarchy, under guidance of the Holy Spirit, may have authorized. 


    Offline Stubborn

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    Re: Does Mediator Dei undercut Quo primum?
    « Reply #4 on: October 15, 2023, 11:28:25 AM »
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  • .

    The idea that it binds future popes is basically a myth. Here's what Fr. Cekada wrote about it:

    Makes no sense even from a sede point of view. That idea was debunked in the interview one of the Dimond bruthas did with Fr. Wathen. It's well worth reading carefully for those not sure as regards this issue.

    "....It was never considered that the pope could go contrary to this ruling because Quo Primum was issued to protect the Mass.

     It was as strong of legislation as the pope could possibly impose. If we say that his successor is not bound by this legislation, we have to say that the Church has no way of protecting it’s own liturgy...."

    What Fr. Cekada is saying is that the Law of the Church is: "The Church has no way of protecting it's own Liturgy," that's what he is saying because he has given popes limitless authority and as such, he should've been NO if he actually believed what he wrote.


    "But Peter and the apostles answering, said: We ought to obey God, rather than men." - Acts 5:29

    The Highest Principle in the Church: "We are first of all under obedience to God, and only then under obedience to man" - Fr. Hesse


    Offline Stubborn

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    Re: Does Mediator Dei undercut Quo primum?
    « Reply #5 on: October 15, 2023, 11:29:15 AM »
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  • Key part:

    50. The sacred liturgy does, in fact, include divine as well as human elements. The former, instituted as they have been by God, cannot be changed in any way by men. But the human components admit of various modifications, as the needs of the age, circuмstance and the good of souls may require, and as the ecclesiastical hierarchy, under guidance of the Holy Spirit, may have authorized.
    Yes, this is key.
    "But Peter and the apostles answering, said: We ought to obey God, rather than men." - Acts 5:29

    The Highest Principle in the Church: "We are first of all under obedience to God, and only then under obedience to man" - Fr. Hesse

    Offline SimpleMan

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    Re: Does Mediator Dei undercut Quo primum?
    « Reply #6 on: October 15, 2023, 01:29:16 PM »
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  • Key part:

    50. The sacred liturgy does, in fact, include divine as well as human elements. The former, instituted as they have been by God, cannot be changed in any way by men. But the human components admit of various modifications, as the needs of the age, circuмstance and the good of souls may require, and as the ecclesiastical hierarchy, under guidance of the Holy Spirit, may have authorized.
    I'd be interested to see "divine elements" and "human elements" defined and clearly delineated.  Changes in rubrics are not nearly as troubling as changes in the prayers themselves.

    This paragraph is a hole big enough to drive a truck through.  Gives liturgical revolutionaries all the ammo they need.

    I've heard Fr Cekada's "boilerplate" argument before.

    Offline Stubborn

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    Re: Does Mediator Dei undercut Quo primum?
    « Reply #7 on: October 16, 2023, 04:55:49 AM »
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  • Fr. Cekada is preaching the old legal principle; "he who makes the law can change the law," then he wrongfully applies that principle to the Church's Liturgy, effectively nullifying Quo Primum as being a mere urban legend, which is absolutely horrifying because that thinking is shared with Pope Paul VI and all the conciliar popes.

    Quote
    Question:
    ....Fr., there's an old legal principle which says; "he who makes the law can change the law", would this also apply in the Church? In other words, we had pope Paul VI making a change, did he not have a right to make this change and must not we, as Catholics, follow whatever change he authorizes? 

    Fr.
    I do not agree that he who makes the law may always abrogate it, especially if he who makes the law is doing nothing else but enunciating and particularizing a tradition.
    Pope St. Pius V did not invent or create a new rite then turn around and make it mandatory forever.

    What PPV did was, as it says in Quo Primum: "restored the Missal itself to the original form and rite of the holy Fathers." He then, using his full papal authority, made the law of Quo Primum decreeing that this restored Liturgy was to be the only Liturgy of the Roman Rite forever.

    This is what the law of Quo Primum states, and the law also states that no one can ever make any changes to this law. 

    What this all means is that no pope can change the Church's Liturgy, anymore than any pope can change  tradition.



    Quote
    …… The Mass of the Roman Rite, there is only one, Pius V said that there could never be but one, and he had the authority to impose this for all time.

    If he did not have the authority to do so, even to the extent of binding all his successors, this is to say that he, the pope, did not even know the limits of his own authority. This is to say that this pope attempted to do something which he had no authority to do.

    And we say well then if he did not have that authority, then his authority was limited. We say that if his authority is limited, then all his successors authority is limited also.

    We say yes, the authority of the pope is limited, but it is not limited to establishing the liturgy of the Mass for all time, [rather] it is limited to where a successor cannot discard this Mass because of a whimsy or a deviation in Catholic belief, and there has to be a deviation in Catholic belief on the part of pope Paul VI who would introduce such a mass  as what we have, the Novus Ordo Missae….

    "But Peter and the apostles answering, said: We ought to obey God, rather than men." - Acts 5:29

    The Highest Principle in the Church: "We are first of all under obedience to God, and only then under obedience to man" - Fr. Hesse