Qui distinguit bene docet. Fr. Hunwicke opines.

It is a day of contrasts.

I had posted about “A Tale of Two Archbishops”.  Now I see Fr. Hunwicke making distinctions about contrasting pairings.  Qui distinguit bene docet.  My emphases.

Ecclesial disorders

CLERICALISM versus SACERDOTALISM

“If the word had not come to have as offensive a sound for many as ‘clericalism’ itself, the old term ‘sacerdotalism’ might well be used to describe the reconciling principle of the primitive church, so dear to S Paul, ‘that there are diversities of ministries, many members, yet but one Body’, in which they find their hierarchic unity; and that all are necessary to the perfection of the Church, the Body of Christ. Clericalism, I take it, means in itself simply undue exaltation of the person and importance of the minister, whether he claims priestly character and special sacramental power, or not. ‘Sacerdotalism’, on the other hand, means simply the belief that certain men are given by God certain priestly powers on behalf of their fellows, which their fellows have not got. These are not the same thing … the pre-Nicene Church was certainly not ‘clericalist’, but it was profoundly ‘sacerdotalist’.”

So wrote Dom Gregory Dix; he went on to quote I Clement XLI, with its emphasis on the Bishop, presbyters, deacons, and laics having each their own tagma. [In classical Greek the ordering of military units, such as a battalion.  Similarly in NT Greek, “things that have been arranged in order”.] He loved to point out that the Puritan liturgical drafts which were promoted as replacements for the Prayer Book were profoundly clericalist, with page after page of ministerial monologue.

(En passant, [Also an action in chess, which I employed yesterday.] I must protest against the dishonest, thoroughly mendacious, implication in the disgraceful documentation accompanying Traditionis custodes, that affection for the Authentic Use of the Roman Rite is fomented by self-seeking clerics. Quite the opposite is the truth. Traddidom is lay-based, lay-driven, and lay-dominated. Most of its academic writers seem to be lay men and lay women, and very fine scholars they are, too. Perhaps clergy are too scared … now … tell me … why should that be?)

PAPACY versus ULTRAPAPALISM

Just as Clericalism and Sacerdotalism need to be distinguished because they are so often and easily confused, so the Petrine Ministry, and Bergoglian Ueberhyperpapalism, need to be kept carefully separate because they are so radically different. The just and proper exercise of the Petrine Office as a remora [“a drag, brake”, by analogy with the nasty, pertinacious sea critter with suckers that latch on to other sea critters and create, inter alia, a drag.] against novelty and a guarantee of the unchanging Apostolic Tradition, the Deposit of Faith, is a million miles from the wicked corruption memorably described by Joseph Ratzinger as “the impression that the pope really can do anything”.

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I promise that if you go to read the rest, you will find at least one gem.   HERE