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[Seraphim Reeves]

Joe,

I am not disobeying my spiritual father as he did not share my quasi sedevacantist views (sh. don't tell anyone its a secret ) sort a cut me loose. I am still searching for a sedevacantist priest that is close enough to serve as my confessor (my old one I went to once a month and he was 200 miles away). I may go to the CMRI Bishop that has a chapel up in Plainville.

Well, as far as I know, the CMRI folks are not "quasi" sedevecantists - they are undoubtedly sedevecantists.

What is necessary for a Mass (would the term "Missa" be better for you? I know I like it better but maybe that's just my opinions that Latin always outranks English) to have grace (to use your terminology) is for it to one, contain the actual canon as approved by the Church and two, if nothing else to have the words "This is My Body...." "This is My Blood, shed for you and for MANY" (Pro Multis not Pro Omnis as the Novus ordites pray).

The problem I have with this position, is the one OOD brought up - it's a mechanistic reduction of the sacraments into magical rites, by which the proper invocation gets the right result. While I obviously believe following Holy Tradition is important in the celebration of liturgical acts, this exoteric "validity" is only half the story.

And there is also a theological position that heretics and those incommunion with heretics loose the ability to form the intention necessary for the confecting of any Sacrament.

While I find that interesting, it sounds rather modern, at least for the RCC. Well before Vatican II, your church was accepting the sacraments of certain other groups as is (in particular baptisms and ordinations, if the latter were from the "Old Catholics" or those who had apostacized from the Orthodox Church.)

It is indeed sad when the Anglican Book of Common Prayer is closer to the real Catholic Mass (The Mass of St. Gregory, the Mass of the Ages, the Mass for which teh Martyrs (of the reformation) died) than is the Novus Ordo service.

"Mass of the Ages"? Maybe "Mass of the Carolingian-Latins, and then some", but I think you're a little misguided if you don't believe the "Tridentine" Missal has experienced significant developments at several points in history.

PS: my former spiritual father also considers feeneyites to be heretics, and therefore I now consider him to be a heretic.

According to the pre-Vat II Popes, Feeney was "wrong". This dispute doesn't really matter to me, in so far as it's one taking place outside of the Church, but I do find it interesting that Feeney was censored by his own archbishop, with the oversight of the much lauded (by RC traditionalists) Pius XII. Even the Syllabus says that a "good hope" cannot be entertained for the salvation of those "outside of the Church" - not that there is "no hope" (indeed, had this been the meaning of Pius IX, the text would have been so worded - that it wasn't, was intentional.)

What I find interesting about the whole "traditional RC" dillemma, is it's paradox - you take exception to the Pope (and if you're a sedevecantist, you've determined the modern Popes are "heretics" by your lights), yet one of the bullwarks of the RC schism, is the idea that the Popes are subject to no one, save God, and cannot be judged by anyone, save God. As such, I find it hard to fathom how one buying such an idea, can turn around and judge the "Vicar of Christ" to be a heretic, or withold obedience from him - such "judgements" are impossible to make, within the RC paradigm. While RC liberals disgust me (as do their "right wing liberal" counterparts in the Novus Ordo, who inadvertantly helped me understand RCism to be an incredible fraud which asserts human sovereignty over that of Christ's), they do have a point about mindless obedience - which groups like the SSPX, or the various sedevecantist groups, are witholding.

I feel bad for you guys (and this is close to home, as I have family who are deeply involved with the SSPX, including a brother and a close friend who are going to their seminary in the U.S.), if only because I think your hearts are in the right place, but you're fighting for a lost cause. The problems of Catholicism, the spirit of innovation, did not begin at Vatican II, but 1000 plus years before this.

Seraphim

[Alexis in Alaska]

Glory to Jesus Christ!

It is unfortunate that the Post-Conciliar Latin Church was not more pastoral in regards to its traditional Faithful. It could have avoided all this mess if the Roman Missal of John XXIII and Paul VI would of been allowed to be used by every priest and every Latin Church after 1970. It would of stopped many "schisms." Many Latin Catholics are still suffering and seek consolation in Eastern Orthodoxy. The problem being that what they seek in Orthodoxy Liturgy is what they lost in the new Rite of Mass. Some conversions are not even genuine. These people are just holding out, if you will, until Rome "returns" to "Tradition".

Having a Council in the 1960's was the biggest mistake any Church could of made at that time. If world Orthodoxy would of had a world Pan-Orthodox Synod or Council in the 1960's they might of done many similar things as the Latins, such as a creation of a new "Revised" Liturgy et al, creation of a new revised Canon Law etc, major streamlining of Service Books....

If Vatican II was convened in the 1920's or 30's you would still find the old Mass celebrated on every altar and the old Ecclesiology and spirit. It was just by the time the 60's rolled around the liberals were ready to take over and had developed a keen strategy to do so. The traditionalists were, by then, in the minority and had such naivity, excepting maybe a few, that many of clergy who opposed the reforms in the beginning caved in for the status quo or realized the change in the power structure and adapted. Even back to Pope Pius X there was a sense that the Church was moving in the direction it moved from 1962-1965+...

In Orthodoxy we do not have Pope or Papacy, for we recognize a living Christ as the living Head of the Church who guides the Church by the Holy Spirit. We do not have a centralized government and power structure, but with our construct of Orthodox Unity we see true Catholicity. We have the same Faith, the same Liturgy, the same Canons and the same spirit as the Ancient Early Church of the New Testament. The mirage of centralization in the modern Papacy is clearly seen; with Bishop's Conferences doing what they will - with the manifest disobedience and clear dis-dain, many times, for what Rome mandates. If the Orthodox Patriarchs would of submitted themselves to Rome: we can be assured that the same fate that befell the Latins would of befallen us; but Glory to God we decided to preserve unwaveringly the Faith of Christ and the Tradition of the Apostles and the Fathers.

Orthodox are accused by Latins of lacking the guidance of the Paraclete because we do not develop as they do under the authority of a Sovereign Pontiff - who "acts" as Christ's "Vicar" who can micromanage the Church through a Curia. We are called "stagnate" "frozen" and "dead" because we have not "progressed" as the Latins and developed. The reality is the Eastern Orthodox Catholic Church of Christ is alive in it's ancient Ecclesiology and Tradition and not dead. Death or autodemolition comes when you seperate yourself as a Church body from the Ancient Canons and Liturgy as the Latins have done. Progress in Orthodoxy is not done by aggiornamento or "updating" the Faith to suit modern man who quickly becomes pre-modern and "outdated", but rather by following the Sacredotal Tradition and achieving Theosis.

The salvation of the Latin Church and her satellite Eastern Churches will be in a return to and reconciliation with Orthodoxy. Until then the Church of Rome will continue its downward spiral of self-crticism and destruction.

"Extra Ecclesium Nulla Salus" - clearly the Church in this sentence is the Holy Eastern Orthodox Catholic Church! Amen. Amen. Amen.

In the Theotokos,

AlaskanOrthodox

[Jakub]

Very good post AlaskanOrthodox, if you don't mind being complimented by a middle aged RC , although I read here a "Roaming Catholic" which could be correct, but I am still studying and praying, good things come in time.

Pokoj,
james

[rebecca]

major streamlining of Service Books....

already happening...I attended the Christmas eve service at my family's large suburban church, and they cut 3 of the 6 psalms and shortened the other 3. :shock: The service lasted 70 minutes. 13 days later, the same service at my church was about 2 1/2 or 3 hours. I'm not judging them, but I'd have to say that the service really felt incomplete.

[Joe Zollars]

liberalism really knows no bounds. While I do not consider the Orthodox to be "stagnant" etc. (a charge leveled by vagante protestant heretics masquerading as Catholics aka Novus Ordites). Yes you are seeing the great whore emerge, and I'd bet my bottom dollar that if JPII is not himself the false prophet, his successor will be.

I stated that I was quasi sedevacantist, because ostensibly I do believe in the papal office, however I feel it is impossible to determine who is the Pope. There are currently 13 claimants to the Throne of Peter (that I know of) and several can be defined as traditionalists. There is Pope Michael I here in Kansas (just north of Topeka), there is Pope Pius XIII in Montana (he has many good writings), there is some nutjob in australia known as "the little pebble" and there is one in france, one in spain, one in brazil, one in canada, etc etc etc. And then there is His Wickedness John Paul II.

Boy I can agree wholeheartedly with your comment about Assisi SR, putting Budha on top of the Tabernacle... Some claim that this was immediatly taken down, however it was up there longenough to be welll documented in photo form.

Joe Zollars

[Anastasios]

Joe,

Feeney was excommunicated by Pope Pius XII who was hardly a modernist.

Feeneyism is a sick, disgusting heresy which presumes to tell God who he can save. It is totally unpatristic. Please do not fall into this heresy.

anastasios

[Mor Ephrem]

And there is also a theological position that heretics and those incommunion with heretics loose the ability to form the intention necessary for the confecting of any Sacrament.

But Joe, even according to pre-Vatican II Latin theology, an atheist could validly baptise in an emergency if he had access to water, the right formula, and "had the intention to do what the Church does". An atheist! So how is it that "heretics and those in communion with heretics" cannot do that with "any Sacrament" but an atheist can with at least one?

Furthermore, your position sounds peculiarly Orthodox. Catholics pre-Vatican II recognised, for example, that the "Monophysite" Eastern Churches had valid Sacraments, even if there was doubt as to whether or not those Sacraments could convey grace to the recipient. How is your position the pre-Vatican II Catholic view? Or is it simply your own?