OnePeterFive

All sorts of rumors are now swirling about current events in the Church:

• Cardinal Burke has been cancelling engagements. Why?
• Cardinal Muller has resigned from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Was he forced or was it voluntary?
• A formal correction of the Pope has already been made in private and is about to become public.
• The Pope and his allies are intending to radically revamp the Novus Ordo Mass to make it even more amenable to Protestants and others.

And these come against the background of significant public events and incidents:

• The official and public endorsement of a heretical understanding of communion by various groups of bishops in Argentina, Malta and now Germany, based (they claim) on the Pope’s recent apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia. The Pope has either confirmed their endorsements or maintained a favorable-seeming silence.
• The “annexation” of the Sovereign Order of Malta by the Vatican.
• The overnight appearance in Rome of posters critical of a sitting pope – something not seen since the era of the Papal States.
• A parody “attack” on the pope sent via email to Vatican officials.
• A seemingly coordinated attack on Cardinal Burke – now the Pope’s most identifiable “opponent” – accusing him of being a right-wing extremist in league with the Trump administration and neo-Fascist Italian politicians. The attack has involved Pope Francis himself and various Vatican allies but has also bled over into the American secular press.

A friend reminded me of this motto:
Motus in fine velocior

“Motion accelerates when the end is near”

But what is the “end” in this case?

The unprecedented (in modern times) suppression of four (or more) cardinals and thus a tightening of the grip of the Church of Mercy?

Open schism?

Or is it that the “end” will include the removal of a pope?

As unthinkable as the last possibility may seem, more and more people, many inside the Church hierarchy and bureaucracy, are now privately talking about it. Even if it is mere wishful thinking, this has enormous significance.

Yesterday, Rorate Caeli, one of the leading traditionalist Catholic websites, published a long essay by Canadian-born philosopher John R.T. Lamont, addressing certain questions surrounding the meaning of “formal correction.” While the positions taken in he article were not explicitly endorsed by the site, the post was not preceded by any disclaimers either, unlike other “controversial” articles they have published.

Among other things, Lamont claims:

In the light of the fact that Pope Francis has openly endorsed heretical understandings of Amoris laetitia in his letter to the bishops of the Buenos Aires region of Sept. 5th 2016, it is more likely than not that he is in fact a formal heretic.

Why then have so few cardinals and bishops publicly lined up with the four “dubia cardinals” on this? Lamont argues that much of the reason stems from an absolutist understanding of “obedience,” with roots in the philosophy of St. Ignatius Loyola and other 16th and 17th century Jesuits. But this understanding is erroneous and dangerous:

The question of how anyone, even a cardinal, can correct the Pope is an important one. It is a basic principle of the divinely established constitution of the Church that the Pope judges all other Catholics on earth and is judged by none of them. But this constitution does not establish the Pope as an autocrat with tyrannical authority, who is answerable to no-one. The Pope’s authority is a legal one, and as with all legal authority it involves duties to his subjects as well as rights over them. The duty to confess the Catholic faith is a fundamental duty of the papal office. His subjects may thus formally request and even require him to carry out this duty. The right to make such a formal request belongs to any Catholic, but the cardinals, whose office is to advise the Pope, have a strict duty as well as a right to make this request. The cardinals who have failed to do this are guilty of a grave dereliction of duty. This failure is a catastrophe that threatens to lead to the disintegration of most of the Church.

Read the full article here.

It should be noted that the anonymous Rorate author who introduces the piece strongly rejects the truth of the rumor that the Pope has already been formally corrected. However, he does not explain why he believes this.

We’ll find out soon enough.

Originally published at Mahound’s Paradise. Reprinted with permission. This post has been modified for republication.

On 15 February, the Italian journal Il Timone published an article written by Cardinal Camillo Ruini – former Vicar General of the Diocese of Rome – in which he defends the traditional Catholic teaching on marriage according to which the “remarried” divorcees may not receive the Sacraments if they do not live as brother and sister. This article had been first published in 2014 (as Dr. Sandro Magister kindly pointed out to me), but the fact that it has been now re-published again demonstrates its significance in the current context.

Ruini’s statement is important inasmuch as he has weight within the Roman Curia. He is the former President of the Italian Bishops’ Conference and was a close collaborator of Pope John Paul II. In the past, Cardinal Ruini had publicly spoken against so-called “same-sex marriages.” In 2007, he said: “It must be said that (homosexual unions) are at odds with basic anthropological facts, in particular with the nonexistence of the blessing of generating children, which is the specific reason for the social recognition of marriage.” Ruini also contributed in 2015 to the Eleven Cardinals’ Book in defense of marriage.

This statement still will be of help for those prelates in the Church who work to preserve the Catholic doctrine on marriage. It is to be hoped that Ruini’s statement now will encourage more cardinals to come forth into the public and then politely to reject the moral relativism and heterodox episcopal guidelines which are now spreading within the Catholic Church.

In the following, we present some important excerpts of Cardinal Ruini’s article. Mr. Andrew Guernsey, once again, was so kind to provide the translation from the Italian original text.

Il Timone, 15 February 2017

Ruini: Communion for the Remarried Divorcees is Impossible. The Magisterium is Clear and Not Modifiable

Cardinal Camillo Ruini

[…]

Other questions, even those already repeatedly addressed by the Magisterium, continue to be brought before us and seem to be becoming more and more acute – among which is that of the divorced and remarried.

“Familiaris Consortio“, n. 84, has already indicated the attitude to assume: not abandoning those who are in this situation, but on the contrary having special care for them, by undertaking to make the Church’s means of salvation available to them—helping them, then, who are not to be considered at all separated from the Church, and participating instead in their lives, discerning situations well, moreover, especially those of spouses unjustly abandoned compared to those who did rather culpably destroyed their marriages.

The same “Familiaris Consortio,” however, reaffirms the practice of the Church, “founded on Sacred Scripture, of not admitting the divorced and remarried to Eucharistic Communion.” The fundamental reason is that “their state and their condition of life objectively contradict that union of love between Christ and the Church signified and effected by the Eucharist.”

Their personal fault is, therefore, not in question, but rather the state in which they objectively find themselves. For this reason, the man and woman who, for serious reasons, such as the upbringing of children, cannot satisfy the obligation to separate, in order to receive sacramental absolution and approach the Eucharist must take up “the commitment to live in complete continence, that is, by abstinence from those acts proper to spouses”.

It is undoubtedly a very difficult task, which, in fact, is taken on by very few couples while there is unfortunately a growing number of divorced and remarried persons.

Other solutions are being attempted for some time. One of them, while firmly maintaining the indissolubility of a ratified and consummated marriage, believes one can allow the divorced and remarried to receive sacramental absolution and to approach the Eucharist, under specific conditions but without having to abstain from the acts proper to married spouses. This would be a second plank of salvation, offered according to the criterion of “epikeia,” to unite mercy to the truth.

This path, however, does not seem viable, mainly because it involves the exercise of sexuality outside of marriage, despite the endurance of a ratified and consummated first marriage. In other words, the original marriage bond would continue to exist but one could act as if it did not exist in the behavior of the faithful and in liturgical life. We are therefore faced with a question of consistency between the practice and the doctrine, and not only a disciplinary problem.

As for the “epikeia” and canonical “aequitas“, they are very important criteria in human and purely ecclesiastical norms but they cannot be applied to the norms of divine law, over which the Church has no power of discretion.

To support the above-mentioned hypothesis, pastoral solutions can certainly be cited which are analogous to those proposed by some Fathers of the Church and go to some extent in practice, but these never attained the consensus of the Fathers, and were in no way common doctrine or discipline of Church (cfr. the letter of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith to the bishops of the Catholic Church concerning the reception of Holy communion by divorced and remarried faithful, 14 November 1994, n. 4). In our time, when, by the introduction of civil marriage and divorce, the problem has arisen in its present form, there is, instead, beginning with the encyclical “Casti connubii” of Pius XI, a clear and consistent position on the part of the Magisterium, which goes in the opposite sense and that does not appear to be changeable.

One might object that the Second Vatican Council, without violating the dogmatic tradition, proceeded to new developments on matters, such as religious freedom, on which there were encyclicals and decisions of the Holy Office that seemed to preclude them.

But the comparison is not convincing because the right to religious freedom has resulted in an authentic conceptual deepening, by tracing back this right to the person as such and to his intrinsic dignity, and not to the abstractly conceived truth, as was done previously.

The proposed solution for the divorced and remarried, however, is not based on a similar deepening. The problems of the family and marriage, moreover, affect people’s daily lives in an incomparably larger and concrete way than those of the foundation of religious freedom, the exercise of which was largely assured in countries of a Christian tradition already before Vatican II.

We must therefore be very cautious in modifying the positions that the Magisterium proposes for a long time and in such an authoritative manner, concerning marriage and the family: otherwise, there would be very grave effects on the credibility of the Church.

This does not mean that every possibility of development is precluded. A road that seems feasible is the review of the processes for matrimonial nullity- which are norms of ecclesial, not divine, law.

[…]

The article has been slightly updated after a kind e-mail from Dr. Sandro Magister.

Canterbury cathedral was the Mother-Church of All England from 597 till the death of the last Catholic Archbishop, Cardinal Pole, in 1558. It was the heart of the Catholic Church in England and one of the major shrines of Christendom because it housed the shrine of St Thomas a Becket.

The Masonic service in Canterbury cathedral marks the 300th anniversary of the foundation of Freemasonry with the establishment of the first Grand Lodge in London. It is reported that the Masonic service will last three hours, but the published order of service appears much shorter. It remains unclear whether Justin Welby has given his permission for the Masons to participate in full regalia in Canterbury cathedral.  The Dean of Canterbury Cathedral, the Very Reverend Robert Willis, will preside at the Masonic Service. The Duke of Kent, who is the Grand Master of the Freemasons, will also be in attendance along with other High Rulers in the Craft.

Virtue online: The Voice for Global Orthodox Anglicanism reports that Justin Welby made his controversial decision to allow the Masonic service in Canterbury cathedral because of a large donation, “Canterbury Cathedral agreed to hold the service of thanksgiving to celebrate 300 years of Freemasonry after receiving a donation of £300,000 ($374,520) from the Masons for the restoration of the North-West Transept in the Cathedral.”  {Money rules, both in the Vatican and in Canterbury!!! Abyssum}

Justin Welby’s and Canterbury Cathedrals decision to allow a Masonic service is controversial among certain groups of Anglicans in light of the 1987 summary of the  deliberations by the General Synod of the Church of England, Freemasonry and Christianity: Are they compatible?:

It was “clear that some Christians have found the impact of Masonic rituals disturbing and a few perceive them as positively evil.” Some believed that Masonic rituals were “blasphemous” because God’s name “must not be taken in vain, nor can it be replaced by an amalgam of the names of pagan deities.” It noted that Christians had withdrawn from Masonic lodges “precisely because they perceive their membership of it as being in conflict with their Christian witness and belief. The Synod’s primary theological objection centred upon Freemasonry’s use of the word “Jahbulon,” which is the name used for the Supreme Being in Masonic rituals, and is an amalgamation of Semitic, Hebrew and Egyptian titles for God.”

Comment

Cardinal Nichols’ reconsecration of England and Wales to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Westminster cathedral on the 18th of February 2017 inaugurates the celebrations of the centenary of the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima. The Mass at Westminster cathedral includes the crowning of a specially commissioned statue of Our Lady of Fatima.

There is a violent history of Masonic hostility to Our Lady of Fatima since the original apparitions in 1917 in Portugal. Father John de Marchi’s account of the miraculous events at Fatima, personally verified by Sr. Lucia, recounts the hostility of local freemasons towards Our Lady and the three visionaries at Fatima. Arthur Santos, the mayor of Vila Nova de Ourem who persecuted and psychologically tortured the three children, was a member of the Masonic Lodge of Leiria, and founded a new lodge in his native Vila Nova de Ourem. The Masonic Lodge at Santarem, a neighbouring town to Fatima, became the rallying point to atheistic opposition to Our Lady of Fatima. In September 1917, men from Santarem joined up with men from Vila Nova de Ourem to attack the makeshift shrine at the site of the apparitions.

In view of this history of masonic anti-Catholicism, is it more than an unhappy coincidence that a  major Masonic service is being conducted in the ancient mother Church of the Catholic faith in these lands on the very same day that England is reconsecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in honour of Our Lady of Fatima? Even if it is coincidence, it is a conjunction of events that is profoundly significant and meaningful.

Originally published at EWTN Great Britain. Reprinted with permission.