www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Argentinian government expells Bishop Williamson

If you're asking if I'm going to spend hours on the Internet tracking down scores of scandalous comments by Latin American and European bishops, no I am not. I do have somewhat of a life.

If you are asking me whether, in the course of my years reading about the Church and her bishops, I have come across scores of scandalous comments that hit at the very center of the Faith in ways that Bishop Williamson's comments never did, then the answer is absolutely yes. I'm sure many others have experienced the same and there is no need for me to track down the comments. Just read the newspapers for a few weeks; you'll find however many you need.

Alexis

We appear to be headed for a period of real polarization between Traditional Catholics and those who reject Tradition. Austria, London, Brisbane, and otherplaces may just be the beginning. More than ever our Pope is in need of our prayers just as are bishops like Burke, Martino, Chaput and Bathersby.

This is a fearful but very real possibility -- the division of the Roman Catholic Church into a "High Church", "Broad Church" and "Low Church." In a sense, this division is already a reality.

The "High Church" would consist of the SSPX (once regularized -- if ever they are reconciled), the Traditionalist congregations, parishes and communities in communion with Rome, and the "Reform of the Reform" parishes that dot the US, Canada and Western Europe. Opus Dei, Legionnaries of Christ / Regnum Christi, the various reform Franciscan movements and small but vibrant colleges such as Christendom, Magdalen, Wyoming Catholic and others would also be part of this.

(To pursue the analogy further, it could be pointed out that just as the High Church party of Anglicanism was divided into "Romanizing" and "Prayer-Book" factions, so the Catholic "High Church" would be divided into "Tridentine" and "Reform of the Reform Novus Ordo" factions)

The "Low Church" would consist of the vast but often under-reported and under-estimated Charismatic and Quasi-Pentecostal movements that now dominate Church life in much of the Catholic Church in the "Third World", as well as such New Movements as the Neo-Catechumenal Way. The African Church is also becoming more and more "Inculturated" and open to Pentecostalist influence.

The "Broad Church" would be the great majority of Roman Catholic parishes and dioceses, with the "usual" liturgy and a spiritual life composed of varying doses of traditional piety and Charismatic fervor and praxis.

If the much-touted Traditionalist project of having a "Personal Apostolic Administration" covering all TLM congregations were to succeed, that will definitely signal the establishment of a distinct "High Church" in the Catholic Church. I myself am of two minds regarding the project. On one hand, it may very well be the only way to protect the Classical Roman Rite from continued attack and marginalization. On the other hand, it does run the very real risk of confining Traditional Catholicism into a ghetto.

Thank God we haven't had problems like that with any of our Catholic bishops here in Scandinavia.

Latin Catholic the words [ OK I have mixed them up a wee bittie ]

are chickens don't till count hatched your they

come to mind .

Our Lady's slave,

I have only heard good things about Archbishop Mario Conti (and I have spoken with people who know him well), so at least Glaswegians should be well provided for.

With deference Latin Catholic , I think you have missed the point I was making.

You said
Until the comments actually come to light - none of us can be certain that there are no problems.

The only Traditionalist Apostolic Prelature I've heard mentioned had to do with the "Traditional Anglican" group which is seeking union with Rome. Never heard that the TLM folks wanted anything of the sort - seems unnecessary to me, considering any Latin priest can offer the Gregorian/Tridentine form any time, any place.

Michael,

Well if the SSPX is reconciled, they don't want to be under the Ordinary, for obvious reasons. So something must be devised for them.

Alexis

That is the theory. The practice is entirely different, as bishops still flex their muscles. Here in the Philippines, the Archbishop of Manila has explicitly forbidden the TLM except for one ferial weekday a month, and only in the cathedral.

I would be shocked if Ecclesia Dei doesn't squash that nasty, disrespectful little "guideline." Of course, it will probably be at a snail's pace.

In the meantime, priests are free to simply ignore it; unfortunately its true strength is that it is a scare tactic, and if a priest openly defied (as is his right), then he would probably be subjected to some bogus punishment.

Alexis

Christ is in our midst!! He is and always will be!!

What no one seems to understand in all this is that a priest is the deputy of his bishop, not of the Pope. A priest receives his faculties--his authority and permission to celebrate/serve the Liturgy and other sacraments/mysteries--from his bishop, not from the Pope. The bishop is the final liturgical authority in his geographic space--his dioces/eparchy. So a priest who dares to defy his superior is cut off--something like being court-marshalled in the army. A priest takes a vow of obedience to his bishop and to the bishop's successors at ordination. So to be defiant in any matter that hsi bishop forbids is to break his vow.

In the Orthodox Chruch, the bishop simply defrocks or suspends that priest. In the Catholic Church, the priest can also be suspended and ultimately defrocked--though removal fromt he clerical state is reserved to the Pope. We've had a couple men "disappear" around my neck of the woods for one reason or another, so it isn't a wise thing to defy the man who is your superior, even if he may be outside the boundaries of what one may have papal permission to do. Vatican I gave the impression that bishops were simply the Pope's man in a specific place. Vatican II restored the idea of the episcopate being a college of bishops. Catholics are still sorting out what that may mean in practice, but it's obvious that the days of everything coming from Rome and being immediately obeyed or implemented is over.

And if you take note, I don't know of a bishop yet who publicly spoke out against a Roman mandate who has been removed. In fact, there's a bishop near us who openly decries Roman "interference" in liturgical and biblical translations, openly espouses feminism, and lots of other defiant positions. He's still in place.

In Christ,

BOB

Bob,

The thing is, the laws of the Bishop must be in line with laws of the Church at large. Since the Manila guidelines do not even approach this, they have no effect. They are contrary to the laws of the Church at large.

You are certainly right about the consequences of defying a bishop's commands, regardless of whether or not he has the authority to command such a thing. But bishops are in place to guard, protect, and guide the faithful of the Church, not to be dictators. They, too, have to answer to the wider authority of the Church and the authority of the Pope. To quote John Donne (a Catholic, wasn't he?), "No man is an island." Bishops are not free to impose whatever they wish on their priests, and in cases in which these "guidelines" are openly contemptuous of and contrary to the universal laws of the Church, they surely have no weight.

Alexis

John Donne was a Catholic who abandoned his Faith and became an Anglican minister. (That doesn't mean that I don't like his poetry.)

Our Lady's slave

yes well true, but we have to trust a little in God too, don't we?

don't be so pessimistic!

after all, NYC just got a wonderful new archbishop! [stlbeacon.org]

I am so happy to be a Catholic, and I don't want always to criticize the Bishops that our Holy Father have given us (not including Richard Williamson, who had the awful temerity to receive the episcopate against the express wishes of Pope John Paul II)