Today I go back to 8 October 2019 and a piece by Fr. Thomas G. Weinandy, OFM, Cap., at The Catholic Thing: Pope Francis and Schism. This is important.
Last night I heard at the official presentation of the book length interview Christus Vincit by Bp. Athanasius Schneider a talk by Roberto de Mattei about the role of lay people in The Present Crisis. These fit together hand in glove.
So, I will read for you Fr. Weinandy’s piece and give a brief summary of de Mattei’s main points. I could bring in a lot more, but this is enough for now.
I am sure you are starting to see signs everywhere.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Loading ...
Good stuff! Thank you.
I suppose that one’s bishop will signal if he is apart of the ‘internal papal schmatic church’. He will get promoted and move on and the rest of us pray for a ‘fill-in-the-blank’ bishop.(not sure what to call him). This will be the new normal I’ m thinking. Maybe someone will develop a flag that is the regular papal yellow flag but say has red fringe on it to indicate the ‘martyed’ church. I’m just think’n out loud.
Thank you for this, Father. I found it very interesting.
I hope that Fr. Weinandy is correct and catholic women are part of the solution. I for one, am ready and willing to fight!
Predicted at Garabandal – “something like a schism” and a synod serves as a pre-warning.
Pope Francis is trying to do for the church what Peron did for Argentina. I have read, that it was said, that before Peron, Argentina was on the verge of becoming the Switzerland of South America. After Peron it was an economic basket case, and a murderous hell hole.
No one is questioning whether he is an antipope? Plenty of Catholics question his legitimacy. I appreciate Winandy’s candor and diplomatic caution, but have a look at a handful of approved Marian apparitions and try to deny that Francis is initiating the full blown Antichurch.
[Nobody in this conversation. I know the case is made that Francis is an anti-pope. Very smart people hold that Benedict’s abdication was insufficient, faulty or partial. Very smart people hold that there were problems with the legitimacy of the conclave, for example electors compromising themselves by incurring censures that would exclude them as electors because of campaigning, etc. There sure are a lot of questions. However, there are no solid answers. That’s the problem. What we have is guess work. Frankly, it seems to me that Weinandy’s proposition is far more likely to be the Enemy’s game than an easily identifiable mere anti-pope. Far greater confusion can be created through other scenarios.]
I guess this idea of internal papal schism underlies the concept, attributed to St. Robert Bellarmine, that a Pope can by heresy forfeit his office…? If this concept is true, though, I don’t see how it serves to resolve the crisis here and now. Whether it is true, and if true, whether the forfeiture has taken place, has to be determined by a competent authority. I don’t know who the competent authority would be, nor the mechanism by which the issue would be adjudicated, nor even who would bring the controversy to the appropriate forum.
The article is great, but I would like to offer counterpoints for the sake of moving the important conversation forward.
There is nothing to say that the tactics of “we will keep our church over here and you keep yours over there while we both reside under the same supreme authority of the Pope” is going to work. Pope Francis has already clearly signaled that he won’t leave traditional groups alone to do their own thing.
Questions to Consider as this is Noodled:
Coming out of the Amazon Synod we are going to end up with some form of deaconesses that either will be ordained or will lead to ordination down the road and from there women priestesses. (Read/watch what is being said at the Synod).
1. As a bishop, what do you do when you are instructed to start training women? If you do, which Church are you apart of? If you don’t accept, how will you not be kicked out? Then what?
2. As a priest, what do you do when you have a woman deaconesses assigned to your parish? If you do, which Church are you a part of? If you don’t accept, how will you not be kicked out? Then what?
3. As a layperson, what do you do when a woman deaconess is assigned and starts preaching the homily? If you do, which Church are you a part of? If you don’t accept, how will you not be kicked out? Then what?
St. Ignatius of Antioch teaches us that the Church is where the Bishop is. If the Bishop is ordaining women for your diocese, are both churches actually present? On this point, the Anglicans said no, which is part of why TAC etc. had flying bishops where communion was not with the geographical local bishop but with a bishop in, more often than not, Africa.
This two Church one head model was tried in the Anglican Communion — it doesn’t/didn’t work. They largely became Catholic over time because the situation was untenable.
If the same thing is tried in the Western Church, how can things be held together? The Roman Pontiff, Francis or Francis II, won’t let people alone because the Office is not the Office of a guru but has real legislative and juridical authority and obligations?
Having one Catholic Church comprised of multiple Churches (Western and the various Eastern) works for two practically purposes: 1. Everyone shares the same Faith. 2. The cultural differences, including liturgical differences, are largely limited as points of contention because the Churches are bound juridically to their patriarch, who shares their culture and liturgy, before being bound to the Pontiff. This won’t be the case in a two church one authority hypothesis because there will be two different faiths AND two different cultures. Traditional Catholic culture is not the form that is taken by those that think that ordaining women is a good thing. Theirs looks like a bare breasted woman nursing a piglet.
Additionally, why would the other side go along with this model? There is no precedent for saying that they would, but all the precedent for saying that this model won’t be tolerated.
Lurker 59, I suspect they will avoid this kind of issue by making the “deaconesses” with some kind of special pseudo ordination so they can one one hand claim it is not a real ordination thereby triggering a charge of heresy but satisfying the demands of the feminists who probably don’t really care about the actual ordination as long as they get the power and prestige of something that looks like a clerical state. In some liberal parishes they will end up preaching but then some of those parishes already have nuns and Protestants giving homilies so it won’t really be anything new.
Great podcast, Father. Much to contemplate.
I enjoyed the sounds of Rome in the background !