www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Pope offers up Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass according to the Missal of Pius V

Dear Johanam,

"True Orthodoxy cannot be in union with the Current RC. Thank God for this."

Your comments have me confused.

You are in communion with a Roman Catholic Bishop if I understand correctly. He is in communion with the Bishop of Rome, his Patriarch and is a member of the Bishop's Conference. Are you not then in communion with true orthodoxy in the Roman Church?

Have you broken communion with her? I don't understand.

Steve

Dear Remie,

"I'm sure that many things would change if the RC returns to orthodoxy and discipline in her faith and her liturgy, eliminating all the non-catholic (therefore, non-orthodox) elements of the modernized Church)."

This comment has raised a couple of questions. Here's why.

From what I've read here in discussions on the Forum, there are few doctrinal issues which separate the Catholic Communion from the Orthodox Communion. One which does separate the Communions is the doctrine of Papal Infallibility. Is this what you refer to when you suggest that the Roman Church has left orthodoxy? Certainly many Orthodox believers hold that position.

If that is not what you mean, what do you mean when you say that the Roman Church needs to return to orthodoxy?

As part of the Catholic Communion in union with the Pope, the Roman Church is catholic and orthodox. What are the non-catholic elements of the Roman Church that make it non-orthodox?

Who determined that the Roman Church has left orthodoxy and needs to return to orthodoxy? On the basis of what evidence and authority do you assert that it has non - catholic elements that make it non-orthodox?

Thanks for hearing me out. I look forward to hearing what you mean by saying the above.

Steve

There is much liberalism in the Roman Church. Many Bishops are promoting modernistic (for the Roman church) ideas like married priests and standing for Communion.

There are a lot of problems with the Current Roman Church and therefore reunion cannot exist between a body that possesses no heresy and is predominatley (if not entirely) free from modernism like the Eastern Orthodox Churches, and a Church that is riddled with modernism like the Roman Church.

Don't get me wrong, I wish very much for a reunion between east and west, but before this can happen we Latins got to get the broom and dustpan out and do some cleaning up.

Joe Zollars

HMMMMM These practices seem familiar.... HEY, we do that in my OCA parish as part of our Eastern Christian tradition!!!

Dear Johanam,

Thank you for your quick response. It has raised more questions and I am not sure that it answers the question that I asked. I have quoted your remarks and then raised the questions.


"There is much liberalism in the Roman Church. Many Bishops are promoting modernistic (for the Roman church) ideas like married priests and standing for Communion."

Do you really believe that there is no place in the Roman Church for liberals as well as those who hold a more conservative view? You say that many bishops hold the position that there should be married priests? Who are these bishops?

By modernistic do you mean new? The Roman Church has a rich history of married priests and counts a number of married men as members of the priesthood today.

In the United States, receiving the Lord in the Eucharist standing is the norm as far as I know. This is hardly new? Even in the Tridentine Liturgy, there is a prayer that is for those "circumstantes," those standing around the altar. Standing during the Liturgy is not new to the Roman Church.

"There are a lot of problems with the Current Roman Church and therefore reunion cannot exist between a body that possesses no heresy and is predominatley (if not entirely) free from modernism like the Eastern Orthodox Churches, and a Church that is riddled with modernism like the Roman Church."

Liberalism is not a doctrinal heresy. What teachings or practices of the Roman Church constitute heresy? Who decided that they were heretical? When was heresy declared?

I take it that you remain in union with the Roman Church. Are you then in union with a heretical body?


As you can see, your response raised many questions?

Thanks for hearing me out. I look forward to reading your response to these and my original questions.

Steve

Joe,

if anything these are practices of the early Church, so I would hardly call them "modernistic ideas". BTW, when did body posture become the qualifying sign of orthodoxy? Receiving the Eucharist while one is standing is hardly the sign by which one establishes orthodoxy. (The apostles reclined at table for that first celebration of the Eucharist.) IMHO,I think the bishops see the insistence to kneel for the reception of the Eucharist as an act of defiance, not one of communion. Those who kneel while the bishop has mandated that standing is the norm seem to contradict the meaning of the Eucharist, communion as the Body of Christ in partaking the Body of Christ.

John

Dear Inawe:

When I said that the RC should return to orthodoxy and discipline, I didn't exactly mean that the RC would return to Orthodoxy (the Orthodox Church), but at least to a right believing according to the Catholic dogmas, and orthodoxy in its common practice and liturgy.

It is easier to dialogue with people who share the traditional catholic doctrine, although different from the Orthodox in many things such as Papal infalibility and filioque, than with people who have modernist and liberal doctrines from Protestantism.

About the way of the communion in the RC, what you said about standing for communion (and communion without both species) made me a little bit confused (that doesn't surprise me, if the RC's mas changes from parish to parish, it must be quite different from country to country).

From what I've seen here, when there are not so many people in the Church, the man or the woman who gives the communion puts part of the host inside the chalice, and then gives it to people who take communion (standing, but generaly in the mouth).

And when there are too many people, those who are to receive communion pass the vessell with the hosts hand-to-hand and people just pick the host (communion was given this way during Pope's Mass in the Stadium), in this case there's no time to give both species.

Dear Inawe:

I shall endeavor to answer your questions below:

there is no place in my opinion for those who regect some form of doctrinal truth. This is what I call a liberal, someone who tries to either superimpose foreign traditions (standing for communion, married priests, etc.) on the Roman Church or denies some form of doctrinal truth (such as cardinal malohney who supports married and women priests).

"By modernistic do you mean new? The Roman Church has a rich history of married priests and counts a number of married men as members of the priesthood today. "

By modernistic I mean the heresy of modernism as defined by Pope St. Pius X. The encyclical in which he defined the heresy of modernism is available in the library of papal encyclicals at www.ewtn.com. [ewtn.com.]

I am well aware of the fact that protestant clergy are now being recieved into the Roman Church and ordained to the Priesthood. I applaud this as it opens the way for many new converts to the Catholic faith. However, what I meant was having married priests as the norm in the Roman Church.

"In the United States, receiving the Lord in the Eucharist standing is the norm as far as I know. This is hardly new? Even in the Tridentine Liturgy, there is a prayer that is for those "circumstantes," those standing around the altar. Standing during the Liturgy is not new to the Roman Church."

Standing for the reception of the Most Hly Eucharist is not the norm in the Roman Rite. Last time I checked it was the our Patriarch, the Pope of Rome, who was to decide liturgical matters, not a group of Bishops in one part of a particular Church. Standing in the Tridentine Rite during Mass was not common in the old days but it certainly is now. I recently attended a Latin Mass in Nebraska where more than one hour before Mass the people were already standing outside unable to get into the Church for the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. However, even in these most crowded circumstances, the people would take turns kneeling at the Altar Rail to recieve Our Lord. The Priest would simply go back and forth along the Altar Rail until everyone had communicated that was going to. Those who could not kneel due to health problems and Eastern Catholics typically stand at the gate of the Altar Rail.

"Liberalism is not a doctrinal heresy. What teachings or practices of the Roman Church constitute heresy? Who decided that they were heretical? When was heresy declared?"

Liberalism is another name for the heresy of Modernism which was defined by Pope St. Pius X. Read his encyclicals on modernism to answer the rest of this set of questions.

"I take it that you remain in union with the Roman Church. Are you then in union with a heretical body?"

Yes I remain in communion with the Church of Rome. I am united to the Magisterium of the Church and not to the local bishop unless he is part of the magisterium. The Magisterium is both temporal (here and now) and Eternal (has existed throughout time). The magisterium can basically be defined as the Pope of Rome and all the Bishops in union with him. This would include past popes and past Bishops.

Joe Zollars

Dear Friends,

From watching several masses, canonizations mostly, broadcast from St. Peter's in Rome, I am struck by the facts that they seem to use the Novus Ordo Liturgy and that the people mostly receive the Eucharist standing in the crowd. Thus the norm for Liturgy in the Church of Rome would seem to be the Novus Ordo and include Communion while standing. The Pope does not seem to have problem with this.

This would seem to define standing for the Eucharist as an acceptable method, as far as the Magisterium is concerned.



It seems to me, that since most of our USA Bishops have been appointed by Pope John Paul II, and he has not seen fit to limit their authority to make rules for the American Church, or to overrule their decisions, that they are effectively functioning as part of the Magisterium.

Thus the magisterium supports the post Vatican II reforms. Though I will concede that there are excesses in some places, this is a far cry from any legitimate claim that our Bishops are mostly "modernist" heretics.

Where the Bishop is, there is the Church. When multiple Bishops agree on a common set of rules for the conduct of Liturgy, they are the authority for the Faithful.

I suggest that rather than say that Joe is right and most of our Bishops are heretics, It is closer to reality to say that the the Bishops of the USA represent the authority of the Magisterium and that the unfortunate problem is a state of REBELLION within the flock. Some of these rebels are indeed "liberals" and some are "traditionalists", but they share a common veiw -- that the Bishops don't know what they are doing.

Servants of God who have gone on to eternal rewards, our past Popes and past Bishops, pray for us, that we may be strengthened against the forces of rebellion and division in the Body of Christ.

John
Pilgrim and Odd Duck

Joe,

Would you consider Pius X a "liberal" for superimposing the innovation of receiving the Eucharist prior to the reception of Confirmation? Until Pius X, the traditional order of the sacraments of initiation- Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist- had been maintained. The traditional order of reception is still maintained for converts coming into the Roman Catholic Church during the Easter Vigil.

John


John

"Would you consider Pius X a "liberal" for superimposing the innovation of receiving the Eucharist prior to the reception of Confirmation?"

John,

And wasn't that "innovation" actually a temporary practice allowed?

That innovation was brought about through organic development.

In Rome their are too many people to use the altar rail. Even in the Tridentine people were allowed to stand under such circumstances. Such circumstances were rare and they did not occur until the canonization of Maria Goretti in the 1950's.

Of course the Novus Ordo is the Norm in Rome and througout the Roman Church. Therefore the whole point of this thread and the point of the existance of such things as "indult parishes."

Two lungs:

I guess all those people who resisted the Latinizations with all their might were simply "in a state of rebellion."

Joe Zollars

Dear Joe,

"Married priests and standing for Communion."

Why are you so "Anti-Orthodox" Joe?

And yet you like to hang out with Orthodox - isn't that a contradiction?

But promoting a "married priesthood?" Who, what and where?

I thought the U.S. bishops would like it very much if some of there priests had a healthy attitude toward women . . .

Alex

Most good orthodox (small O) Priests do have a good, extremly healthy view of women.

I am not anti-Orthodox. I am anti-Byzantinization of the Roman Rite.

You don't like it when I say you have to have celibate Priests, Iconless Churches, stations of the Cross, etc. etc. etc. And well you shouldn't.

These are latinizations of the Byzantine Rite. Therefore it is just as inappropriate for Easterners to tell me I have to have married Priests, vernacular liturgies, and standing Communions.

As for who is promoting married Priests, just open your eyes. Cardinal Mahoney and numerous Bishops from accross the country and several cardinals have called for a "Vatican III" in order to consider women's ordination and a married Priesthood for the Roman Rite. If these things come into being, I will run not walk to the nearest FSSPX Chapel.

Joe Zollars

Joe,
Here again you are wrong.

I have shown you the documents from the Vatican and the Pope which gives the USCCB the right to determine posture during the Mass.

I think it is time you go and reread the posts and documents, the GIRM and the Code of Canon Law. When you do you will see that the Patriarch, the Pope of Rome, has give some power to the local bishops/churches to determine some liturgical matters, one of them being posture.


David