This article at Vox Cantoris today elicited a lot of head scratching from me this morning. I began to think more about the plight of the Catholic Church in today’s modern world and the uncertainty that we have as Catholics to the validity of our Masses, Confessions and other sacraments outside of Baptism (which does not require a priest). The point of this article was, in fact, based on an established fact that Bella Dodd and others succeeded in getting over 1000 infiltrators from the Communist Party, homosexuals and outright apostates ordained to the priesthood. This fact alone brings into question the validity of their priesthood ordination. So I looked to see if Canon Law might help sort this out.
I found this on Canon Law Made Easy which answers a portion of my confusion but not all. It quotes the words from Sacramentum Ordinis by Pope Pius XII which deals only with matter and form. It states that the only matter required is the ‘laying on of hands’ and the only form required is ‘the words of ordination’ as given by the Church. The article goes on to point out that 2 points were ommitted because at the time they were not even imagined to be something that would cause any controversy; ‘intention of the ordaining Bishop’ and the fact that the recipient of ordination is a Baptized man of the Catholic Church . . . no women need apply.
But that left me without much help in determining if the recipient was acting in good faith, was not a complete apostate and had no intention of becoming a priest as the Catholic Church regards a priest. If their sole purpose was to ruin the Church and sabotage Her would their consecration be valid? It did, however, postulate that if the Bishop did not intend to ordain the priests at ordination then these priests would be invalidly ordained and none of their sacraments, save Baptism, would be valid.
So that shows us a large, perhaps larger than imagined, problem within the Church that could be growing like a fast growing cancerous tumor. For example, if invalidly ordained priests themselves become bishops and ordain other priests without having a shred of belief (truly apostates of the Faith) then the priests that they ordain would likewise have invalid ordinations. And so it goes and so it grows year after year from there. And we all know that an apostate bishop can decide on who is to teach the priests in formation at their seminaries and the qualifications for these potential priests. He may be looking for the effete or the outright homosexual or signs of it. He may hire apostate theologians to teach these young men and when they are formed in his own image he would then ordain them. Would they really be priests or would they simply be faux priests which would only be a mockery of the Faith?
When I couple that with the recent happenings in the Church regarding a number of issues and the recent polls that indicate that nearly half of our diocesan (Novus Ordo) priests do not believe that Christ is truly present in the Sacrifice of the Altar but merely symbolic, it leaves one a bit unnerved as to how many communions and perhaps confessions were actually valid. It is a depressing thought that brings with it no consolation as the recent conversations within the Church and the recent polls which I have noted might indicate.
And what becomes of our Church should we no longer have a validly ordained bishop to, in turn, ordain other priests and bishops? One can imagine a Church that has ceased to exist. But we have Christ’s promise to fall back on for that situation. For the Church will still exist when He returns though He does not guarantee much in how many will still abide in the Faith.
Seems to me that we, our priests and our bishops should get busy ferreting out the apostates amongst us and cleaning house if we wish to carry out Christ’s mandate to teach all nations and to save souls for the greater Glory of God. In such confusion as we have today it is incumbent that we at least attempt to clean house or face His judgement on our slothfulness and indifference to the health and life of His Church in our times. We may already be in hospice, so if nothing else, we must pray that the Church might make a miraculous recovery as we are incapable to withstand such an onslaught of diabolical and satanic attacks on our own.
All Along the Watchtower 
As a Protestant, I’m very much in the priesthood of all believers camp, but I can understand your argument, and you have my sympathy given your argument flows from premises you have already accepted and observations that ought not to be controversial. Either way, it seems to me that the Catholic Church is in the uncertain trumpet situation – you have higher prelates who seem to be either overtly liberal or vague in their statements and an increasing part of the laity that smells something fishy going on. I don’t know how you handle something like this without a conservative Pope to issue decrees in council for reformation. For Protestants, when a denomination becomes this sick and there is clearly no possibility of reform, we just pull ourselves out. “Come out from her, My People.”
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I really don’t know the answers Nicholas but I am still stoically accepting that Christ foresaw and warned us as did the Apostles. I also know that until recently much happened without any transparency at all within the Church. For instance, I do not know if the Church tried to find out who these imposter priests were and excommunicated them forthwith without making it public. It is possible but highly unlikely when you look at what is going on today. In the past many ‘bad’ priests or bishops were merely placed in positions where they couldn’t do much harm. But again it looks like much harm has been done in the last 50+ years. So I and many others just keep fighting and asking the good guys to come out from under their desks and fix as much as they can. There is a price that these men in high positions will have to pay at their private judgement if they do nothing.
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There is wisdom to acknowledging even on the Catholic/ Orthodox of the universal call to holiness or the common priesthood of the baptized. Today is the feast of The Nativity is John the Baptist, we must let our voices ring out in the wilderness.
In regards to the Roman Church, I’ve been preparing for a schism with the Pope’s most recent news on intercommunion being left to the bishops of each diocese and reports of LGBT language within New York dioceses. If there is allowed a degree of ordination of women into the diaconate. I’ve been discerning my actions, if the conservative wing integrates with SSPX, with their opinions of JPII, that will be a bridge to far for me to join, as well as I simply do not agree with their opinions on the Liturgy. If the schism seeks to name a new Pope in schism within Apostolic succession, I can see moving to that parish. At that point, I would even consider the Orthodox churches. A natural move would be join my wife’s Lutheran Church that is orthodox, but I simply do not agree with Lutheran theology of justification.
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For what its worth, my belief is that there is already a schism though it has not become manifest as yet. My expectation for the manifest eruption of this schism is the death of Pope Benedict XVI for that leaves many people who do not buy into the possibility of a Pope Emeritus who shares the contemplative side of the Chair of Peter with another who occupies the active side of the Chair of Peter. This type of diarchy has never occurred or even been considered to be orthodox. I am shocked that more wasn’t made of this at the time of Benedict’s “halfway resignation” and the obvious collusion of the liberals with the St. Gallen Mafia to elect Bergoglio.
So my thinking at this time is that if Benedict dies while Francis is Pope that there will be a movement to elect another Pope that is Benedict’s successor to the throne. I may be wrong but that is my best guess. The other stuff will rile folks up and we will start doubling down on Francis but it is this one pivotal moment that will drive people to make a decision that they presently do not want to have to make.
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Honestly, I don’t know what’s going on. I shift back and forth from: “Yeah, Francis is Pope, I’ll support him.” to “Nah, Benedict is Pope–he is the living Pope.” What happened to Celestine V? I suppose I’d have to look more into his resignation. But the point of the matter is that the Pontiff shouldn’t be creating so much confusion that one day I’m thinking “Francis he’s got it going on.” The next day, “What the… …. ”
So, what am I left with? A fractured Catholic Church? A growth in the SSPX by the more traditional Catholics? What will happen to faithful JPII Catholics like myself who believe in orthodox teaching but are aligned more with the Vatican II’s thought on the liturgy? I can’t side with ilk of Fr. James Martin and co.
I believe in the justification of Grace instead of faith alone.
The eastern churches are too ethnic.
I am up a creek without a paddle in a sinking boat.
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I know that they are sad and times filled with a lot of anxiety for those who really care about the Church (and there aren’t that many really). I don’t know what’s going on either, but I know that when Celestine resigned he left Rome (as he should) and simply became a bishop emeritus which is the only thing that makes any sense. When we had as many as 3 people claiming the throne, the Church declared them all anti-popes and elected a new one. But this is unprecedented and I, for one, though I did go back and forth on Francis in the beginning have become convinced that this man is not Pope. I just bought a T shift that says Pope Benedict XVI . . . Still Reigning. I no longer am pulled one way and then the other as I was. I’ve made up my mind.
As to the SSPX, I am not sure about your position though I held it for most of my Catholic life. But in recent years and after the Vatican assured the SSPX that the Council was only pastoral and that they did not have to accept the “new practices” as though they were doctrine it made me feel better about them and myself; for I must admit that I have many misgivings about the documents and the Novus Ordo as you know. Not only that, if this council were being run by those who fit into the object of my post, even if there was doctrine there (which there isn’t) I’m not sure that the Council itself would be valid if a large or good portion of the fathers of the Council were invalidly ordinated. And that is something that we will never know.
As far Pope St. John Paul II, I loved his writing and his energy and efforts to once again unite the Church and yet am critical of many things done during his time of office: Assisi, lack of excommunications of modernists, softening our stance against much which has erupted in full-blown opposition in today’s Church etc. From Paul VI forward it seems that we have been on a downward slide.
Now it may be that the same ‘wolves’ that Benedict feared were the same one’s that perhaps maneuvered JPII to do some things that he might not have done had he not had such rabid opposition to. And sadly, much of his Papacy was spent trying to save the Church from the homosexual crisis that hit the Church like an atom bomb. I doubt any of us will know how much of what JPII and Benedict faced from the homosexual mafia in the Vatican . . . but I would guess that it was quite strong and vigorous behind the scenes.
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In regards to SSPX, I have practical concerns with affiliating with them being married to a practicing Lutheran. Even the Canons refer openly to my wife as “The Lutheran wife,” which I believe is the antithesis of the good of JPII and his personalist philosophy in person and act. In fact, I believe it to be mostly absent in many of these circles, which is another problem, as I grew up a Catholic formed by the papacy of John Paul II. I do understand that criticism of where are my other fellow Catholics, I suppose all I can do is pray for them, but nonetheless, John Paul II is a pivotal player in my faith and if the SSPX wants to convince Catholics like myself to see them in a different light–they will have to soften their approach to him. Furthermore, Catholic Herald just released an article on SSPX, its founding, and current state and make some discoveries of anti-semitism and holocaust denying being integrated amongst its clergy–again something I can never support.
I had an openly gay Catholic professor as a teacher in college. I remember he loved John XXIII and hated John Paul II. And now also, we have those who love all the Pius’ and hate JP II Today, I feel those two wings are the most predominated in the church and I’m left alone as a JP II Catholic.
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I don’t think those are predominant, at least not among those people I know in my area of the country or even among those I read on the blogs. As far as SSPX and the holocaust deniers are you referencing the article by Damien Thompson? Because he makes it clear that it was Bp. Williamson and a few of his followers that were run out of the SSPX for his extremist views. So I’m not sure where you come up with the take that this is the general position of the SSPX on matters. And as far as the SSPX vs. JPII there does seem to be a softening in a number of areas; most apparent in their use of JPII documents to counter the apostasies of much of Bergoglio and his cronies in their teachings and comments.
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from the ADL website:
“The Society of St. Pius X is mired in anti-Semitism, which it disseminates through its Web sites and publications. Jews are described in SSPX documents as being cursed by God for the sin of deicide. Jews are accused of being in control of world financial and cultural institutions and of plotting to create a “world empire” or obtain “world dominion.” SSPX has justified the burning of Jewish holy books and the segregation of Jews into ghettos.
One article on SSPX’s U.S. Web site goes so far as to accuse Jews of ritual murder of Christians and charges that “International Judaism” engineered usury and capitalism in order to bilk Christians of their money.
SSPX writers also encourage their adherents to avoid “enter[ing] into commercial, social, [or] political relations” with Jews and argue that Jews should not be granted the same civic rights as Christians.
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I’m also sure that ADL does not mention things like what my old Jewish girlfriend laughed about as she spent many months on a kibbutz in Israel. They showed the motion picture the Robe and as Christ was crucified and died on the cross that all applauded and laughed at the scene. We all try to cover up our undesirables and get rid of them when we find them so we must be certain is the bias is a sub-culture or the actual culture as a whole.
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If you google search Anti-Semitism and SSPX you get an array of articles. Of course, it looks like the SSPX has an article on anti-semitism but that appears to be a PR release as the article says, “Today, accusations of anti-Semitism are also falsely and unjustly levied against those who disagree with Jewish beliefs or anti-Christian positions.”
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You have my sympathy, Philip. Obviously, you must go or stay where Christ wills you to be, and I cannot speak for Him. If you were to go – and I’m not saying you should – it is also worth remembering that there are independent churches and house churches.
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I do believe that the sacraments are linked to Apostolic succession, so my choices are limited to those who claim it.
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Yes, and herein lies the difficulty. It is part of what I have been wrestling with in my own thoughts about conversion to Catholicism. When it comes down to it, I just don’t share the substructure that Catholics use for their ecclesiology, and it raises too many problems for me. Either way, though, I think all Catholics need to have a contingency plan in case things get worse. As a futurist who believes the coming could be within my lifetime, I am thinking a lot about deception in religion these days.
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I think that the Anti Defamation League is most likely referring to some very old material that was published by Williamson and his associates. They are now separated as they should be. I read nothing new that espouses such views from the SSPX.
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This is another interesting piece to the puzzle that we are now witnesses to:
https://www.catholicfamilynews.org/blog/2018/6/23/video-analyzing-francis-propaganda-the-sillonist-pope
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The whole aura of St. Francis of Assisi is odd when he was in a sense a participate in the Crusades attempting to convert a Caliphate. He also was an advocate of the traditional means to worship and religious life. I suppose who attempted to raise the lowly but in the manner of authentic devotion.
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Very true and a point that is brought out strongly during the interview. Please watch it if you have the time Phillip. I think all Catholics need to know everything they can about what is going on in these dire times. There is something rather apocalyptic about the who era.
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Did you tell me a while back that St Francis had apocalyptic visions? I was wondering how they have been treated by the CC, because I imagine they may have been unfavourably treated by later generations that are quick to treat prophecies as spurious.
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Well, the Church has never believed that the Pope will be the anti-Christ and therefore the words of Francis to his followers before his death were probably kept rather quiet. That does not mean that we will not have a forerunner to the anti-Christ that is a Pope, however. We already have had a number of them. But this time the look and feel and the presence of 2 Popes in Rome looks rather suspicious.
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Yes, two Popes is very suspicious. I would not be surprised if there are people on the internet linking the two Popes to the two horns of the beast from the earth.
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People will come up with a plethora of ‘could be’s’ which I am usually skeptical about. But the simple facts are straight forward enough for me to reject Bergoglio as a genuine Pope.
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I think your position is reasonable given the information I have seen – especially the fact that Benedict XVI is still alive. Today I have been mulling about Christ’s words in the Olivet Discourse, “…so as to deceive, if it were possible, the very elect”. That hypothetical implies to me that the elect cannot or will not be deceived; but the rest of the clause points to widespread deception.
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Indeed. And those of us who have taken a stance don’t feel much like the elect, I’ll tell you. We question ourselves and our motives and our rationale internally all the time. It is a horrible thing which we are doing should we be wrong. It is a burden that nobody truly wants unless, of course, God is leading us to repair the Church and prepare His way for the Second Coming. Is there any wonder why so many of us are anxious and almost neurotic in these times?
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It is also a reason that people like myself cannot even entertain your idea of coming out of Her (the Church Christ founded). Phillip must make up his own mind, of course. But to me, no matter how many of the Children of the Church have turned against Christ and His Mother, I must defend Her and remain close by Her side and be willing (God give me courage and fortitude) to even die to protect Her from those who might assail Her.
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Alas, being an inveterate neurotic, I am not in a position to say what it is like outside the box. I do feel though that Christ’s coming is near, and, although the existence of Israel is a major intellectual cause of my belief, it is really more to do with a kind of “perception” rather than anything else. I am not a prophet and do not hold myself out as one: it’s just something I believe – rather like an a priori belief that conditions one’s experience of reality.
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Indeed, it is a still and silent voice that convinces not simply rhetoric. Something is wrong and we feel it in our very bones.
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Yes – and I’m sure we’re not the only ones. I have the feeling that a lot of people can intuit it on some subconscious level, but refuse to admit it for whatever reason. I realise that makes me sound rather irrational, but really it is no different from what Christ says in John’s Gospel about men preferring the dark because their deeds are bad. The coming as a day of judgment is what sinners fear.
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Yes, I suppose most of us fear our private judgement concerning both the things we have done and what we have failed to do. A lot of pressure on people to take a side and go with it. Its much easier to dismiss it all and pretend that all we hear, see and feel is just us . . . we are the one’s that must be nuts.
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And that I think is also a tool in the enemy’s hands – doubt. Doubt is a major spiritual tool in the war at the moment – philosophical scepticism has been hijacked by the postmodernists and used as a means of getting everyone to become nihilists. Truly the poison is everywhere. As I seem to keep saying these days, it makes conservatives feel like islands in a sea of darkness.
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I keep thinking back to the prophetic dreams of St. Bosco (the real one) who saw the Barque of Peter floundering in a roiling sea and the only safe harbor were two pillars: one of Mary and the other the Eucharist. Moored to these two safety hooks the Barque survives. I only hope that if I stay close to Mary she will make sure that I find legitimate and valid Eucharists which will help to keep me safe in these treacherous times.
One wonders why such prophetic dreams came about in the last 100 or so years. Even Fulton Sheen as spoken about on the video that is offered inside the link I left above, spoke of those who are coming who will ‘ape’ Christ.
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Strange as it may be for me to say, I genuinely believe Mary is watching over the Catholic Church. I don’t fall into the mistake of giving her godlike powers, but I believe she holds an intercessory office, praying for the Church.
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Indeed She does. Her intercessions have almost been constant throughout our history.
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Yes, it annoys me also that people who intend to change what the Catholic Church is at a fundamental level are doing so from the inside. Scrupulous Protestants outside and undoers of the order inside – not a happy state of affairs. Was it you who mentioned that phrase from Judges recently? “Each man did what was right in his own eyes.”
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No, but it fits the times.
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http://www.catholictradition.org/francis-prophecies.htm Is this a reliable version of his prophetic statement?
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Yes this is a real book and the only citation I have seen for these words. It has an imprimatur and was published in Engaland:
Click to access St.%20Francis%20of%20Assisi%20-%20Works%20of%20the%20Seraphic%20Father.pdf
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Luther’s point when we came out of the Catholic Church (inadvertently) was that we weren’t coming out of the Church, we were reforming it. Others went much farther than we did, we tend to think they let anti-Catholicism get in the way of the Faith. As I read Philip’s comments, that is where he is, as well. It will be, has to be, an individual judgment made between one and his conscience and his God.
I don’t quite follow his point on Faith though. I was taught we are saved by Faith alone, yes, but our Faith comes through God’s Grace. I simply don’t really see the difference.
I do however have sympathy for us all, these are very troubling times, for Catholics in fine, but really for all Christians.
A Catholic friend of mine once commented that every 500 hundred years, the laity have to reform the Church hierarchy, well, it’s never been a comfortable experience to live through, I warrant, and it has come again. Sadly, it always weakens the Church, speaking broadly.
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I very much agree with what you have written. I don’t really see orthodox Christians as outside the Church. I feel that we create more problems than we solve if we take too literal a line. I think I see what Philip is getting at, but I wonder if much of the debate has been skewed by the level of understanding current in Luther’s time. No offense to the man, who was a better scholar than I will ever be, but our knowledge of the Near East is much better now and it helps with the nuances of both Paul and the OT. Since Paul is commenting on the OT in much of his writing, if you get the OT wrong, you will get Paul wrong. I prefer to look at the matter via the loyalty lens. If you worship no god or a god other than YHWH, you’re not a Christian. If you claim to worship YHWH but deny Jesus, you don’t worship YHWH, because Jesus is YHWH – “He who denies the Son, denies the Father”.
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That is a very good point, I suspect.
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What makes the present crisis in the Catholic Church so much more pernicious is that in the past those who opposed the Church left Her (came out of Her as Nicholas suggests). That was, in a sense a Godsend. This time, the Modernists who oppose the Church hid like cockroaches until they got a bit of covering from the light. So they stayed within and do their dirty work within and not from without.
We face the same problem in our nations now at the very same time. A coincidence? I think not. It is the old Trojan Horse ploy and it works well if the enemy is stealthy enough and has patience.
And I think in both instances they have shown great patience and held back until they thought that they might be able to undo the Constitution (secular side) and the Teachings of the Faith (Catholic faith side).
I find them somehow working in concert.
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Well, it’s sort of an of course, isn’t it? They’re secular humanists and atheists. We believe in a philosophy founded on Judeo-Christian morality, to oppose one is to oppose both. It really shows in their quest for ‘the new Soviet man’ compared to our devising of the political world to take account of Original Sin.
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That is exactly right, I think, if I am understanding you correctly. It seems as though (and it has been hashed out for 50 years or more ad infinitum) that there is truth in the idea of Vatican II to open the windows to the world did accomplish what Pope Paul VI finally admitted: that the smoke of satan had entered the Church.
Now I don’t think that the Modernists weren’t already there; only that they were hiding from the authorities. This was their opportunity to write very ambiguous texts and to then implement them; and the same was done with the New Mass. So I’ve said it again. 🙂
But truly, when Modernists are set free and even their thoughts given credibility, we have gone far astray. For Modernism is the heresy of all heresies because it regards the law as changeable to circumstance and therefore immutable truth is often denied or implied by them. And that is where we see things today.
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You know I;m not going to disagree with you, except perhaps in details. Why? because you are correct. I might note though that Martin Luther made the same exact argument. 🙂
But then I am an originalist, in politics and Christianity. 🙂
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Too bad that after Trent the rest of the Lutherans and Calvinists didn’t come back into the fold as it would have greatly strengthened the Church. I think of the great St. Francis de Sales who brought back nearly 600,000 all by himself by his preaching and his little sermons that would be written and stuffed under peoples doors. Some people have huge effects and Luther was one of those people as well.
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Would have been nice, but you know it’s hard to do when we were trying our best to kill each other in a war, and after, well feeling were running a bit high.
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Yes, those were crazy times as well. I think emotional scars of such times cause us to even widen gaps that could have been closed: like now the ordaining of women etc. As you know we have activists amongst us who have been pushing for the same these last 50 years, along with contraception and abortion, divorce etc. that are no longer considered sinful . . . though we held the same doctrines at one time.
And yet, despite that, in the fight with the secular side of things and to some extent the Modernists who are in all Churches to some extent, there is commonality among many of us to run them out on a rail. But then the percentages in each Church that are in agreement on such things are probably the minority as it is becoming the minority in the Catholic faith as well.
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Anyone tells you their secular humanists, you tell them there’s no such thing. Any humanist claiming to be ‘moral’ is running on borrowed capital.
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I think it’s more or less semantics but I hold, as Fr. Thomas Joseph White, articulates that we’re by Grace Alone. It’s when we start discussing what that actually means we get into disagreement.
The Gospel says we still have to do works. And here is where free will and cosmology come into play. There’s an idea that Catholics believe in a radical free will but that isn’t necessarily true. The Dominicans have been putting forth an idea that cosmologically since God is existence there is not one part of His existence that he does not exist. So, we may have an initial will to accept God’s grace but it’s through the sacraments and works of mercy where we build virtues and habits where we can receive perseverant grace. Again, we are given enough to be saved but God does choose to give more to others because we are a faith of Grace not karma.
Now, if you agree with that, we agree, but this idea of faith being the golden ticket. I say, how much faith do I need?
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Through the Sacraments, certainly, but I tend to believe works come from Faith. True God gives us enough Faith through Grace to make an informed decision, then it is up to us to carry it out.
So, I guess I almost agree, with a caveat. In any case, it’s a small enough difference that I’m quite willing to depend on His mercy to bridge it. 🙂
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As much as I’ve heard this discussed amongst different Christians, when it comes to the theology of Justification, I think it’s semantics; I think we use different words to explain a lot of the same ideas.
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My thoughts exactly. I’ve often thought that Old Luther (and especially Melancthon) wrote some of what he did simply to differentiate from Rome. It says the same thing in different words.
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But that does cause enough of ridge that it’s too great to make a leap.
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It can, certainly. But for the average Catholic/Lutheran we are way out in the weeds.
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Having trouble with your religion eh? You deserve it. Do what good brother Nicholas recommends …come out of her.
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