Click on the following links to see more articles against Tim Staples
OPEN LETTER TO TIM STAPLES OF “CATHOLIC ANSWERS” AND HIS TWO REPLIES
TIM STAPLES OF CATHOLIC ANSWERS CONTRADICTS HIMSELF AND PROVES SEDEVACANTISM
THE CASE THAT PROVES CHURCH LAWS CAN’T ALWAYS APPLY – Revised
TIM STAPLES OF “CATHOLIC ANSWERS” WAS SENT THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE.
HE RESPONDS AND I REPLY BACK.
The Vatican II sect held an official funeral for the leader of a non-Catholic sect, Bro. Roger of Taize. Benedict XVI said that the founder of the Protestant sect was “God’s faithful servant” and went to heaven.
Benedict XVI, Aug. 17, 2005, on Bro. Roger: “Bro. Roger Schutz [founder of a non-Catholic sect] is in the hands of eternal goodness, of eternal love; he has arrived at eternal joy…” (L’Osservatore Romano, August 24, 2005, p. 19; Zenit News Report, Aug. 17, 2005)
Much ado was made by members of the Vatican II sect about whether Benedict XVI had deliberately given Communion to Bro. Roger.
The famous Novus Ordo apostate George Weigel wrote an article about how it was just a mistake.
This is clearly ridiculous, since Benedict XVI knew Bro. Roger for a long time. When he gave him Communion, he knew exactly what he was doing.
Further, the Vatican II sect has repeatedly taught that it’s lawful for non-Catholics to receive Communion (Vatican II, New Catechism, New Code of Canon Law), so it should come as no surprise that Benedict XVI carries out this teaching in practice.
But we must note the hypocrisy and blindness of all those people who attempted to explain away Benedict XVI’s action of giving “Communion” to Bro. Roger. They act as if they have a problem with the idea of Benedict XVI giving “Communion” to Bro. Roger, when they have no problem with the fact that Benedict XVI clearly stated that the heretic Bro. Roger went to heaven.
What is worse? Is it worse to say that a heretic is able to participate in Eucharistic Communion, or is it worse to say that a heretic has attained eternal communion with God in the Beatific Vision? Both statements are horrible and heretical, but it is obviously worse to say that a heretic has attained eternal communion with God in the Beatific Vision. But the Novus Ordo apostates like Weigel have no problem with that statement.
This is because they have no Faith, and only care about externals and appearances.
Well, here is more from Benedict XVI on Bro. Roger. In this quote, we see that Benedict XVI also said that Bro. Roger is guiding us from on high. He also said that we must listen to the “witness” of this founder of his own religion from within ourselves!
Benedict XVI, Address to Protestants at World Youth Day, August 19, 2005: “Bro. Roger Schutz… He is now visiting us and speaking to us from on high. I think that we must listen to him, from within we must listen to his spiritually-lived ecumenism and allow ourselves to be led by his witness towards an interiorized and spiritualized ecumenism.” (L’Osservatore Romano, August 24, 2005, p. 9.)
TIM STAPLES REPLIES:
Bro. Roger Schutz was Catholic. He converted to the Catholic Faith:
Brother Roger of Taizé: Catholic & Calvinist? Or Just Misrepresented?
In the last couple of days several blogs have written about the late Brother Roger of Taizé… The interest began with a post over at the widely-read blog (I am a reader myself!) Rorate Coeli in an article by Carlos Palad (Both Catholic and Calvinist?) in the aftermath of an article appearing in L’Osservatore Romano: Was the Founder of Taizé Protestant, or Catholic? A Cardinal Solves the Riddle.
Shortly after the Palad post responses and thoughts were offered by Drs. Blosser & Liccione at The Pertinacious Papist (Catholic & Calvinist?) and Sacramentum Vitae (The case of Br. Roger) respectively. (Both blogs also found on my aggregator!)
While I read, respect, and look forward to all three bloggers work and don’t toil under any illusion that my posts at The Black Cordelias are in the same league… (It is a cheeky little blog that is best described as a “Potpourri of Popery”)… Well it occurs to me that the question to be asked is “How accurate is the little article that started this whole series of posts?” For my part, I think the answer is “Not very!”
In another forum a reader astutely pointed out an article from a newspaper called The Remnant, which is hardly favorable to the Taizé community or Br. Roger Schutz. Either way, the author of the article had taken the time to research and to confirm that Br. Roger had indeed become a Catholic, criticizing only the way he went about it (emphasis mine):
… This “passage”, this conversion, took place in 1972, in the chapel of the Bishop of Autun, the diocese where Taizé is located. There was a profession of the Catholic Faith then Communion was given by Mgr. Le Bourgeois.
No written certificate remains, it seems, of that event, but Brother Roger has given oral testimony of it and of his adherence to the Catholic Faith to the successor of Mgr. Le Bourgeois, Mgr Séguy.
Later on, Catholic practices like Eucharistic adoration and the Sacrament of Confession were established in the Taizé Community. Roger Schutz, having become Catholic, evidently no longer celebrated the Protestant service at Taizé or anywhere else and, since he did not become a priest, he received holy Communion only from a Catholic priest. “For that which concerns the ministry of the Pope, he declared and wrote that the unity of Christians centers on the pastor of the Church of Christ, who is the Bishop of Rome.” 3
Roger Schutz liked to say: “I have found my proper Christian identity in reconciling in myself the faith of my past with the mystery of the Catholic Faith, without rupturing communion with anyone.” (from an allocution of Pope John Paul in 1980 at the time of his Meeting with European Youth in Rome). The expression, repeated again in his last book (God Can Only Love), could be judged to be very unsatisfactory because it says nothing of the retractions necessary for a conversion. But Roger Schutz was not a theologian.
It is true that this secrecy of his conversion has not the limpidity and the solemnity of an abjuration. But who dares to doubt his sincerity? Cardinal Ratzinger, in giving him Communion in April 2005, certainly acted with full knowledge of the facts. And it is bad form to accuse him still today of “having given communion to a Protestant.”
The real question I believe that needs to be asked isn’t “Was Br. Roger both a Catholic and Calvinist?” but “Is this L’Osservatore Romano article accurate?” Also worth asking “What does this representation tell us about +Kasper’s thinking if he is quoted accurately? I will put my cards all out on the table and say plainly that this Greek Catholic is looking well forward to Cardinal Kasper’s retirement… Out of respect for his office and his boss… Well, that is all I have to say about that.
That being said, I think that the facts rather speak for themselves – Brother Roger was received privately into the Catholic Church, he made a Catholic profession of faith, after such time he ceased to preside or attend non-Catholic Eucharistic services, he attended Mass daily, received communion daily, and went to confession.
Brother Roger was Catholic.
SPERAY REPLIES:
Tim,
You and Cardinal Kasper say he converted, but according to Kasper himself and the link provided, Bro Roger refuses to acknowledge that. He says that he grew into Catholicism without breaking fellowship with his Protestantism.
Let me quote again the link title and the answer:
Was the Founder of Taizé Protestant, or Catholic? A Cardinal Solves the Riddle
Fr. Roger Schutz was both. He adhered to the Church of Rome while remaining a Calvinist pastor.
So apparently you can now become a member of the Vatican 2 Church without leaving communion with a Protestant sect.
Why else all the talk about ecumenism during his last days and at his death if he had converted like a normal convert does?
According to the article, “The community of Taizé dispelled the notion that he had secretly converted to Catholicism.”
Kasper is basically calling them liars, including Roger himself, because he says that he did in fact do so, however, he has no real evidence. He comes to that conclusion based on the sole fact that Roger received the sacraments from JPII and Ratzinger, and that is all he goes on.
Roger refuses to say that he converted and says he never broke fellowship with his sect.
The sect says he never converted.
So what is the conclusion of this riddle that Kasper is supposed to have solved?
Either Kaspar is lying and JPII and Benedict gave Communion and Confession to a Protestant frequently.
Or
Bro Roger and his sect are lying and being very deceitful, and are praised by Benedict in their deceitfulness.
Which is it?
Am I being unfair here? Forgive me if Roger was truly a Catholic (or think he was) and all of these writings have misrepresented him. But I have not seen any real stories to show otherwise.
Steven
TIM STAPLES RESPONDED:
I agree with JPII and Cardinal Ratzinger.
Tim
Tim,
Agree with what? That JPII and Ratzinger thought it was okay to give the sacraments to someone who admitted to being united to his Calvinistic sect as it’s pastor OR that JPII and Ratzinger thought it was okay to frequently give the sacraments to someone who lied about being united as pastor to his sect while creating a public scandal with his ecumenism?
Steven
STAPLES STATES: No, that he gave the sacraments to a Catholic. Priests are allowed to do that.
Tim,
Did you actually read the article you sent me along with the links? What part do you not understand?
The part that Roger denies that he converted to the Catholic Church but remained a pastor to his sect and his sect says the same thing?
The part that JPII and Benedict knowingly gave the sacraments to a man who lived a lie and caused public scandal by it?
Oh, I forgot, you belong to a modernist sect that thinks it is okay to be both a pastor of a Protestant sect and a catholic at the same time as the article you sent says.
That must be what you meant when you said priests can give the sacraments to “catholics.”
Steven
STAPLES REPLIES: Did you read the article that I sent to you that tells the truth that Brother Roger converted to the Catholic Faith?
Tim
Yes Tim, I read how Roger denies that he converted to the Catholic Church but remained a pastor to his sect and his sect says the same thing. The article said he was both a Catholic and a Calvinist.
And I know what you mean about giving sacraments to “catholics.” Your Vatican2 sect believes in cafeteria-style catholicism where you can be both “catholic” and protestant at the same time.
Steven
STAPLES NEVER REPLIED BACK. HIS POSITION WAS EXPOSED.
TIM STAPLES REJECTS CATHOLIC TEACHING
AFTER TIM STAPLES WAS SENT ALL THE PAPAL TEACHINGS THAT THE CHURCH’S LAWS AND DISCIPLINES ARE WITHOUT SPOT, BLEMISH, OR CONTAINING ANYTHING HARMFUL, HE RESPONDS WITH:
Steve and Matthew,
If we define terms and proper application here, I have no problem with saying the Church cannot issue disciplines to the Universal Church that are contrary to Natural or Divine Law. And, of course, the Church has never done so. The claims of sedevacantists are simply wrong when they try and say the Church has done so after 1958. However, I would say that my concern is with the use of “infallibility” with regard to disciplines. Because, as the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia says,
“Teaching pertains to the order of truth; legislation to that of justice and prudence. Doubtless, in last analysis all ecclesiastical laws are based on certain fundamental truths, but as laws their purpose is neither to confirm nor to condemn these truths. It does not seem, therefore, that the Church needs any special privilege of infallibility to prevent her from enacting laws contradictory of her doctrine. To claim that disciplinary infallibility consists in regulating, without possibility of error, the adaptation of a general law to its end, is equivalent to the assertion of a (quite unnecessary) positive infallibility, which the incessant abrogation of laws would belie and which would be to the Church a burden and a hindrance rather than an advantage, since it would suppose each law to be the best. Moreover, it would make the application of laws to their end the object of a positive judgment of the Church; this would not only be useless but would become a perpetual obstacle to disciplinary reform.”
I know that, as I said above, sedevacantists use this very article from the 1913 CE to “prove” the chair of Peter to be vacant because (in their very fallible opinions!) disciplines have been enacted that are harmful… and so it goes. They love to quote the parts of this article that mention the “infallibility” of some disciplines (which is qualified as a “negative and indirect” infallibility, but they tend to overlook that part) and end up doing exactly what the CE warns would happen… this manner of thinking has become “a perpetual obstacle to disciplinary reform.”
My suggestion is that the “infallibility” that some theologians and the CE talk about with regard to disciplines should not be referred to as “infallible” at all because we would then equivocate on the term “infallible.” “Infallibility” has a very definite usage in the Church, especially since 1870, that applies to teaching. The Magisterium cannot teach error when she teaches “infallibly.” The impossibility of the Church issuing disciplines that would be contrary to the natural or divine law would seem to me to apply to her essential holiness rather than to her infallibility. “Negative and indirect infallibility” seems to me to serve to confuse the issue. I am not saying it is incorrect, I am simply saying that it is confusing to folks and leads some to confuse disciplines with dogmas. Moreover, many confuse thinking a discipline of the Church has been “harmful” to them and to a small minority of people to be equal to a discipline being contrary to Natural or Divine law. The statements from Popes below were promulgated against the heretics and schismatics (like the modern sedevacantist sect) who were claiming disciplines of the Church were harmful. The sedevacantists are using these statements to prove the point of the heretics and schismatics, which is absurd. There have always been schismatics and heretics in the Church, from the Montanists of the 2nd and 3rd centuries to the Hussites of the 14th century to the modern sedevacantists who claim the law of the Church is evil. The Church is still hear and they are gone (or deteriorating as is the case of the sedevacantists who are only ca. 30 years old!). The real issue involved in these documents can be summed up in these words from Pope XVI cited below, “Why is it that private individuals appropriate for themselves the right which is proper only for the pope?” The modern sedevacantist sect goes awry when they try to correct the Church with their private opinions of what they think is contrary to Natural and Divine Law.
God Bless,
Tim Staples
SPERAY ASKES:
Tim,
Are you saying that Church disciplines can be harmful just as long as they don’t go against Natural or Divine Law? If so, where do you find that in the context of Quo Graviora or Auctorem fidei?
TIM: I am saying that Church disciplines are not infallible.
You never really answered the question. If you mean by “are not infallible,” they can possibly be with error, evil, or crippled, then you are against the teaching of the Magisterium.
TIM: Moreover, as the Church has decreed, no universal legislation of the Church can contradict Natural or Divine Law. That is what the Church teaches in the documents you cited.
Agreed, but they mean more than that. The Church teaches that there is nothing in them that is false, or with error.
TIM: Whether or not a particular law of the Church is the absolute best for a given time is something that good Catholics can disagree about.
This is not the issue, since the Church has already said that the laws may not be perfect in that sense. However, good Catholics cannot disagree that whatever the particular law is at that particular time is wrong. It may not be best but never wrong.
TIM: “Harmful” is a subjective term. I will choose not to use it because it obviously is a source of confusion.
Harmful is the term the Magisterium uses. The Church does not use it in a subjective point of view. It is totally objective, therefore it is not confusing at all. Objectively speaking, harmful in any sense of the word applies.
TIM: We have to define what we mean. If by “harmful” you mean that it is contrary to Natural or Divine Law, then the Church cannot, by her very nature, issue universal legislation that is “harmful.”
Absolutely correct. This is the objective.
TIM: If you mean that individuals in the Church may think something to be “harmful,” then yes, the Church can issue disciplines that would be “harmful.”
This is subjective, therefore this is not what the Church is referring. What someone thinks has nothing to do with what actually is. The Church cannot actually give a harmful discipline even if everybody thought it was harmful.
TIM: Was it “harmful” for the epiclesis to be so negligible in the Tridentine Rite that some in the East do not consider it to be a valid Eucharist? That is debatable.
WRONG! The East cannot so much as think such a thing without sinning against the Faith. What the East can do is debate whether one side is better, but only in the sense that neither side is incorrect or crippled in anyway.
TIM: Certainly, those among the Orthodox who hold this are incorrect. But at the same time, we can legitimately, as Catholics, believe that it would have been more prudent and better on the level of accidentals to include the more ancient epiclesis as we now have it in the ordinary expression of the Roman Missal. And even more, a Catholic is also free to believe that the bringing back of the ancient epiclesis in the ordinary form of the Roman Missal was an improvement over the Tridentine Mass.
The Church can make improvements and does.
TIM: I would not use the term “harmful” here in this case of the epiclesis, but some would. As long as they are not saying there was anything contrary to the Natural or Divine Law that is okay. We know, most importantly, there was nothing in the Tridentine Mass that was contrary to the Natural or Divine Law. That much we know as a matter of Faith. Was the use of Latin “harmful,” the Council of Trent made very clear that one could not say that the Mass “should only be celebrated in the vernacular” (Session 22 canon 9). Vatican II, of course, never said, nor has any legislation of the Church ever said, that Mass “should only be celebrated in the vernacular.”
Not an issue for me at this point.
TIM: Trent also stated that it “did not think (by the way, this is a matter of prudence and discipline, not dogma) it advantageous that [the Mass] should everywhere be celebrated the vernacular” (Session 22, chapter 8). But was this “harmful?” Certainly not, if you were to claim it to be contrary to the Natural or Divine Law. However, if by “harmful,” you mean that many believed it to keep many among the common people from being able to better enter into the mysteries of Christ, then that is a matter that is debatable and a Catholic is free to hold. I know I have heard the anecdotal testimonies of many who experienced that firsthand. Thus, “harmful” has to be understood properly. I won’t use it any longer because the word is charged and will be abused by people with agendas to attack the Church.
Harmful must be understood properly, which is the objective case. It should not be used to attack the Church, however, it must be used to determine whether it is from the Church of from someone else, or else the condemnations, and warnings the Church has issued about harmful disciplines is meaningless.
If not, then you must believe ALL disciplines are not harmful or even crippled, in which case, we are right and you are wrong when you told Matt, that the Church can issue harmful disciplines.
You told me that you couldn’t go against a discipline. So how would you reconcile this with telling Matt that the Church could issue a harmful discipline? In other words, if the Church did issue a harmful discipline (as you told Matt it could), would we have to follow it (as you told me that we must do with all disciplines)?
TIM: If the Church issues universal legislation, I can rest assured that in no way is it contrary to Natural or Divine Law; thus, though I may not think it to be the best law that could have been enacted, I can and must follow it as much as the Church says I must. Most likely, the problem is with me, not the law of the Church. One thing I cannot do is presume to say the Church has issued a universal law that is contrary to the faith. That is where I would be sinning. And if I take this to the point of starting a schism like the case with the radical traditionalists, my soul would then be in jeopardy because of my own pride.
I agree with you 100%. Now if some particular church issued a discipline that the Catholic Church said is evil, or wicked and harmful in the objective case, then you would know that the particular church ceased to be Catholic, since the Catholic Church cannot do what it said it can’t do. If the Vatican 2 Church actually issued a discipline that the historic Catholic Church already condemned as evil, then the traditionalists would know that the Vatican 2 Church is not the Catholic Church. Btw, Sedevacantism is not deteriorating as you say, and it is a position and not a sect at all, but your new religion of Rome is a sect since it teaches contrary to the historic Catholic Faith and didn’t exist before Vatican 2. The historic Catholic Faith has already taught that disciplines found in the Vat2 sect are evil.
TIM: Pope Gregory, Pope Michael, Pope Pius, etc. along with your letters confirm what I already knew. Your sects are deteriorating and are lacking in any truly Catholic foundation.
These sects with the antipopes you mentioned are not sedevacantists. Sede vacant means the chair is empty and it would not be empty in the minds of those who claim to hold the chair. These are the conclavists and they may be deteriorating. Sedevacantism is not deteriorating. I actually see it growing. However, even if it were fading away, it wouldn’t mean that it is wrong. The Catholic Church deteriorated at one point in history, therefore setting the precedent that it could happen again.Even Benedict has admitted that the Novus Ordo Mass is harmful which you said he meant only the abuses of it. You were not being honest, because it is clear he meant the mass itself.
TIM: I think if you would be honest you would admit that Benedict does not mean “harmful” as you do. Benedict would agree with me, not you.
I think you would be honest if you would look at what he said again and admit that he meant harmful in the sense that the change caused the problem, therefore, it was objectively harmful. That change was a “break” and it had “tragic” “consequences” and it is because the liturgy “collapsed.” This is actually what the Church said it could not do. He doesn’t agree with you at all and you even admit that you don’t agree with him.
TIM: I don’t know if you know it or not, but he does believe he is a valid Pope.
Well lets all pack up and go home. He believes he’s pope therefore he must be. Why didn’t I think of that?
However, this is what Ratzinger stated: “The liturgical reform has produced extremely grave damage for the Faith . . . The drastic manner in which Pope Paul VI reformed the Mass in 1969 provoked extremely serious damage to the Church…. The suppression of the old Mass marked a break in the history of the liturgy, the consequences of which could only be tragic…. I am convinced that the ecclesial crisis in which we find ourselves today depends in great part upon the collapse of the liturgy (Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, La Mia Vita, San Paolo Editor, 1997).
TIM: I don’t agree with Cardinal Ratzinger entirely here.
It doesn’t matter whether you agree with him here. He believes it, which is contrary to what the Church can do.
TIM: I would attribute much more to the abuses than to the actual reforms. But good Catholics can disagree on these matters.
Abuses, sure, but agree that the liturgy itself caused serious damage to the Church? This is precisely what the Church said it could not do. The Church cannot give us liturgy that was so harmful that it cause serious damage to the Church.
TIM: But I also think you are taking Ratzinger out of context as well. He makes the distinction between the abuses of the reform and the reform itself as well.
He says that reform itself caused the damage.
TIM: But again, I don’t agree with everything Cardinal Ratzinger says. But most importantly, all Catholics, including Cardinal Ratzinger, agree that there is no universal legislation in the Church that is contrary to the Natural or Divine Law.
We already know that the Church cannot issue a law contrary to the Natural or Divine Laws. The question I asked you is: Can the Church issue a discipline that is contrary to the truth in anyway? Can a discipline objectively be problematic? Crippled? With error? The Church is perfectly clear. It cannot do so.
How is this possible if the Church can’t do such a thing? Is not Benedict rejecting the Church’s teaching on disciplines? Of course he is, because he is a modernist.
Also, are you aware that Pope St Pius X first condemned the Catholic Encyclopedia as modernist? Why should we have to have to give any credence to it anyway? Can’t you quote a papal document or official teaching before relying on a modernist encyclopedia to give us your answers?
TIM: The Catholic Encyclopedia was, in its final form, given the full approval of the Church. Your point is moot.
Really? Pope St Pius X approved it? I think not. Many heretical books have been approved by bishops and because so it attributed to the Church. If St Pius did it, then I concede the point. Again, I asked you, “Can’t you quote a papal document or official teaching?”
TIM: Don’t you realize that every time you give an answer, you keep digging yourself a deeper grave?
Perhaps you’re right. I’m digging my grave of stress trying to get through to you.
TIM: But I also think you are taking Ratzinger out of context as well. He makes the distinction between the abuses of the reform and the reform itself as well.
Matt Haltom: . . . back up! It’s perfectly clear what Ratzinger is saying and he says the very thing you deny. Either prove to us he’s saying what you claim or don’t bother emailing me again. Matt
TIM replied to Matt: I agree that there is no need to email you again. You guys just say the same stuff over and over. Disciplines are not infallible. Catholics can disagree as to whether certain disciplinary measures are prudent or not as long as one does not allow these disagreements to lead to schism, which would be sinful. I have answered this multiple times. There is nothing more to say. You guys cannot make the proper distinctions between dogma, doctrine and discipline. Tim
Matt: this isn’t the issue and you know it! we’re talking about harmful disciplines (which the Church can’t give) and Ratzinger says just this very thing, that it was Paul VI’s reforms themnselves that caused the harm, which of course they did. You try to say it’s the abuses of the reforms when this is utterly inane. You cannot provide anything which disputes Ratzinger’s clear statements, and indeed, you did not in your reply.
Matt
Tim,
I was quite clear about this but you still don’t acknowledge it. You never answered the simple question. Do believe that Church disciplines can be objectively harmful, or evil, or even crippled? I say no, but you simply say they are “not infallible.”
Does this mean that they can be harmful, evil, or crippled when not speaking about Natural and Divine laws?
Since you say that disciplines and laws are not infallible, can you show me the Church teaching that says the disciplines and laws of the Church are “not infallible” meaning that they can be harmful, evil, or crippled?
I showed you a church approved document that states: “The Church is infallible in her general discipline. By the term general discipline is understood the laws and practices which belong to the external ordering of the whole Church. Such things would be those which concern either external worship, such as liturgy and rubrics, or the administration of the sacraments. . . . “If she [the Church] were able to prescribe or command or tolerate in her discipline something against faith and morals, or something which tended to the detriment of the Church or to the harm of the faithful, she would turn away from her divine mission, which would be impossible.” P. Hermann, Institutiones Theologiae Dogmaticae (4th ed., Rome: Della Pace, 1908), vol. 1, p. 258
You can’t seem to make the proper distinctions, but who can tell? You are all over the place with your ambiguous statements. So I guess there is no reason for you to keep emailing us when you can’t answer very simple questions with clear and unambiguous statements. This is what the Vatican 2 Church does to you. If you deal with the documents honestly, you subvert your own religion. However, you would rather live in contradiction.
Steven
I have already answered this. The Church tells us (not P. Hermann) that the disciplines of the Church cannot be contrary to Natural or Divine Law and they are not. “Harmful” is a matter that is subjective; thus, I stick with the teaching of the Church. One could argue that using Latin exclusively was “harmful” in that the common folk were not able to understand what was going on in the Liturgy. As long as one were not to say the use of Latin is contrary to the Natural Law or Divine Law, one can make the argument. I don’t agree with it, I would say these people needed to grow up and use the tools available to them so that they would have been able to understand the Faith better. But I would also say the use of the vernacular is an improvement over the use of Latin exclusively. But again, one has to be careful when one uses the term “harmful.” You use it in a way that attempts to say the changes instituted by the Church are contrary to the Faith. That would be a sin for any Catholic to claim. If you use “harmful” in the way Cardinal Ratzinger or Fr. Harrison would, you would not be acting contrary to the Faith. You use terms like a Fundamentalist uses Scripture. You pull quotes in order to prove your point rather than to get at the truth of the situation.
God Bless,
Tim
As I thought Tim, you could not show a Church document that says that Disciplines and laws are not infallible. So, I guess you do reject the Church and say that Disciplines can be harmful, crippled and even evil, and would need to be corrected when it happens as…
Why you keep using the Latin/vernacular argument is beyond me. I never brought it up. However, altar girls has been condemned by 3 popes as EVIL. Your Vatican 2 sect has and praises them. The True Church cannot approve and praise an evil practice as altar girls because IT IS CONTRARY TO THE FAITH AS ARE ALL EVIL PRACTICES.
Thank you for demonstrating that you cannot show me the Church document that says what you say about disciplines and laws.
Steven
Tim,
You said,”They are not “harmful” in the way that you claim any more than the Latin was “harmful” to people who sat there mindlessly or prayed Rosaries or looked at their watches waiting “‘til this whatever it is is over” before Vatican II and the much-needed reforms of the Liturgy. You misuse what Ratzinger said. Yes, there have been problems with the much-needed reform of the Liturgy. Thanks to Pope Benedict XVI, we are on the road to fixing the problems.
Sorry, but the church cannot give much-needed problems that actually cause harm to the people as Ratzinger said.
TIM: The new English translation has just been approved and we will see the true reform of the reform in the next 1-2 years. There is no such thing as a perfect Liturgy this side of heaven.
Nobody said that the liturgy must be perfect in the sense that it can’t be better, but the Church has stated quite clearly that it cannot give problematic liturgies that harm the people. This is what you and Ratzinger advocate which is contrary to the faith.
TIM: We participate imperfectly in that which is perfect in heaven. However, the Church has made many positive reforms over the centuries. Vatican II, which I believe to be a prophetic, powerful and much-needed Council, along with the post-conciliar reforms that are still on-going, are another in the long list of positive reforms over the centuries. It is a shame that you can’t see what the Holy Spirit is saying to the Church through this awesome Council.
It’s a shame that you blaspheme the Holy Spirit for saying such nonsense.
TIM: But Catholics who listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit speaking through the Bishops in union with the Holy Father rejoice in what God is doing. Every Bishop’s Conference in the world along with all of the faithful have received the Council. Your sedevacantist sectarians of various stripes are blinded by pride and the worship of their own feeble and fallible intellects and repeat with Satan, “non serviam.”
No, you are filled by pride and worship in a non-Catholic service and repeat with Satan, “non serviam” to the Historic Catholic Faith which said not to do what you do.
TIM: If you will humble yourself and recognize that you and your sectarian friends are not the Magisterium and “bend the knees of your hearts” to quote our Fourth Pope (St. Clement), you will be able to see the elephant in the middle of the room. I can’t help you. I answer everything you guys send to me (and I have spent way too much time doing so) and you ask the same questions and make the same points over and over.
No, you answer some questions and only then, indirectly filled with ambiguity.
TIM: On Judgment Day (and I pray before that time) you will know the truth that Vatican I is correct: There are “perpetual successors” on the throne of Peter “until the end of time” as Chapter 2 of Session 4 of the Council stated definitively and I quote it again for you:
Apparently, you don’t care what we believe about Vatican 1.
That which our Lord Jesus Christ, the prince of shepherds and great shepherd of the sheep, established in the blessed apostle Peter, for the continual salvation and permanent benefit of the Church, must of necessity remain forever, by Christ’s authority, in the Church which, founded as it is upon a rock, will stand firm UNTIL THE END OF TIME. For no one can be in doubt, indeed it was known in every age, that the holy and most blessed Peter, prince and head of the apostles, the pillar of faith and the foundation of the Catholic Church, received in the keys of the kingdom form our Lord Jesus Christ, the savior and redeemer of the human race; and that to this day and forever he lives and presides and exercises judgment in his successors the bishops of the Holy Roman See, which he founded and consecrated with his blood… For this reason it has always been necessary for every church—that is to say the faithful throughout the world—to be in agreement with the Roman Church because of its more effective leadership… Therefore, if anyone says that it is not by the institution of Christ the Lord himself (that is to say, by divine law) that blessed Peter should have PERPETUAL SUCCESSORS in the primacy over the whole Church; or that the Roman Pontiff is not the successor of Blessed Peter in this primacy: let him be anathema.
I agree with it 100%.
TIM: You are “anathema” because you deny that Peter has perpetual successors in the primacy.
No I don’t. You are anathema for not holding to dogmas as they have always been understood.
TIM: Your first error leads to also denying “the Roman Pontiff is the successor of Blessed Peter” as well.
You’re a liar. I believe it as I have repeated it over and over.
TIM: Of course, in your modernist mindset, you use the words of “Papacy” and “successors of Peter,” but being the true modernist that you are, you deny the very meaning of these words.
Being the modernist that you are, you deny the very meaning of Vatican 1 altogether.
TIM: You use the words “until the end of time,” but then say, “but there is no successor of Peter on the throne and there has not been for fifty years, nor it is possible for a lawful election of a Pope in the future.” This is equivalent to “until the end of time” in your modernist mind.
What devil have you given yourself to with your lies?
TIM: You sedevacantist sectarians deny these plain and infallible words of Vatican I in favor of your worship of yourselves and your interpretations of what previous Popes have said.
Worship ourselves? When I quote the true Popes, you reject them.
TIM: The “spotless” law of the Church provides for the periods where the throne of Peter is vacant and this is presupposed and included in the declaration of the Church. You, however, reject Vatican I and the law of the Church (i.e., of Pope Pius XII, Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis) as I have told you before.
Yes, your interpretation of that law is that a true pope can be a heretic, apostate, or Mason. You think you are the Magisterium, you liar you.
TIM: I would suggest you take the advice of Aristotle and begin with that which is most easily known before proceeding to the more difficult things.
That’s right, a pope can’t be a heretic, apostate, or Mason.
TIM: Begin with the simplicity of the Faith that tells us that there will be a Pope on the throne “until the end of time” as Vatican I said.
What you state is not what the Church states. There hasn’t been a pope on the throne over 250 times, therefore, by your own interpretation Vatican 1 failed over 250 times.
TIM: As St. Anselm said, we can then proceed in the Faith governed by the principle of “fides quaerens intellectum.” You and your sedevacantist sectarians begin with pride in yourselves and end in pride in yourselves.
You and your Vatican 2 sect begin with stupidity and end with nonsense.
TIM: Your theology is so obviously confused that a child can see it (I thought sure you would at least see something as simple as the resurrection of the body “alone” being a fallacy, but your pride blinds you to the most simple of concepts), but you cannot.
Body only is the teaching of the Church, the person being resurrected has been condemned.
TIM: If you begin from the vantage point of faith “all things will be clean for you.” But from your vantage point of pride, everything good becomes evil.
Right back at you.
TIM: You persecute the Pope and the People of God and you believe you are doing God’s bidding. You are of all men most wretched and duped by the blindness that stems from pride. I will continue to pray for you.
You persecute me and my family of believers, which is contrary to Vatican 2. You don’t even bother following your beloved pope JPII and Benedict.
TIM: God Bless, Tim
? Are you serious? God bless to us most wretched and duped by blindness that stems from pride? Don’t you believe St John who says not to say “God speed” to folks like us?
Steven
TIM: As I thought, you cannot show a Church document that says that Disciplines and laws are infallible.
I showed you the Church documents and you reject them.
TIM: You’ve proven my point once again. And I would add, this whole discussion has become proof to me that there is hope for you (at least, possibly). If you cannot grasp that which a high school kid knows preparing for Confirmation, perhaps you will be one of those who will be invincibly ignorant on Judgment Day. Your cognitive abilities are so diminished one wonders what kind of culpability would even be possible for you. I have never heard of any radical traditionalist, be they of the SSPX bent or an adherent to one of the sedevacantist sects, argue for the “infallibility” of Church disciplines and laws.
Infallibility means without error. The Church is without error in all laws and disciplines. You even believe the Church can give evil disciplines.
TIM: I would suggest you read Jim Blackburn’s article in the July/August 2008 edition of This Rock entitled “Is it a Doctrine or Is It a Discipline.” That would be a good introduction for you so that you can understand this basic teaching of the Church. Disciplines by their nature do not present a truth as a true or false proposition. Disciplines are not doctrines. That is like trying to posit a square circle. Disciplines could be presented as good, evil, prudent, imprudent, just, unjust, etc. but they cannot be said to be “true or false.” “Go pick up those shoes!” is not a true or false statement.
By George, I think you got it. This is what I’ve been trying to tell you. The Church cannot present “evil, imprudent, unjust” disciplines and laws.
TIM: Pope Pius VI made very clear, in the Apostolic Constitution Auctorem Fidei, of August 28, 1794 that it would be “at least erroneous” to say the Church could promote disciplines that would be “dangerous and harmful and leading to superstition and materialism,–false, rash, scandalous, dangerous, offensive to pious ears, injurious to the Church and to the Spirit of God by whom it is guided.” Notice, he says it would be an error to say these things. He is not affirming that disciplines are either “true” or “false” by nature.
No one suggested it. However, since you claim that the Church can give us disciplines that are harmful, you fall under “at least erroneous.”
TIM: He is condemning those who were saying they were “false,” etc. This statement is misunderstood by some radical traditionalists as indicating the Pope taught disciplines to be statements of faith.
I know no one who does that.
TIM: Moreover, though this is not an infallible statement from Pope Pius VI, it is a teaching to which Catholics must give religious assent.
I would disagree and say that it is an infallible statement. Vatican I said all universal and ordinary magisterial teachings must be accept as divinely revealed. This means infallible.
TIM: Thus, when you say the Church has done all of this and more at Vatican II and in post-conciliar reforms, you sin gravely.
The Vatican 2 church did give the evil practice of altar girls which is impossible for the true Catholic church to do.
TIM: You place your feeble and fallible intellect above the mind of the Church.
Not at all, I follow it precisely.
TIM: According to Pope Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos, 9 (1832): “the discipline sanctioned by the Church must never be rejected or branded as contrary to certain principles of the natural law. It must never be called crippled, or imperfect.” This is exactly what you say when you attack the Council and official reforms of the Church as being “contrary to the Faith” or “evil.”
I didn’t say it. Three popes called altar girls evil, which would be contrary to the Faith.
TIM: When Pope Gregory XVI says disciplines of the Church must never be “called… imperfect,” this is a response to those (like yourself) who were attacking and rejecting these disciplines. He is not saying that every discipline of the Church is the absolute best possible discipline that could have been given. That is not his point.
What are you talking about? The imperfect he is speaking of is the objectively faulty or problematic.
TIM: Radical Traditionalists like to use this statement in order to justify their own disobedience to the disciplines of the Pope, which is the exact opposite of what our Holy Father was penning these words to say.
Sorry, but you got it wrong.
TIM: In fact, the same Pope Gregory XVI, in Quo Graviora, 4-5 (1833), seems to have people like you in mind when he condemns those who would say:
… there are many things in the discipline of the Church… [which] are harmful for the growth and prosperity of the Catholic religion…. these men were shamefully straying in their thoughts, they proposed to fall upon the errors condemned by the Church in proposition 78 of the constitution Auctorem fidei (published by Our predecessor, Pius VI on August 28, 1794)….. do they not try to make the Church human by taking away from the infallible and divine authority, by which divine will it is governed? And does it not produce the same effect to think that the present discipline of the Church rests on failures, obscurities, and other inconveniences of this kind? And to feign that this discipline contains many things which are not useless but which are against the safety of the Catholic religion? Why is it that private individuals appropriate for themselves the right which is proper only for the pope?”
Funny. Pope Gregory seems to have people like you and your antipopes in mind who actually called the practices of NO ALTAR GIRLS, or THE MASS OF PIUS V problematic for modern times who actually believe these things are harmful FOR THE GROWTH of the Church and thereby needed to be changed because of it.
TIM: His point is that individuals in the Church have no right to “appropriate for themselves the right which is proper only for the Pope,” namely, they are “appropriating” the absurd position of correcting Popes and an Ecumenical Council of the Church and even more, as a result of their private interpretation of the sayings of Popes and Councils, they declare who is a Pope and who is not! This is beyond absurd.
The pope cannot be a heretic, apostate, or Mason as you believe. This is beyond absurd.
TIM: And again, in the case of the sedevacantist sects, they end up denying the plain and infallible teaching of Vatican I and rejecting the law of the Church outright! Notice also that his Holiness did not claim “disciplines are infallible.” He is teaching that it is the “infallible and divine authority” of the Church that issues disciplines. Therefore, we can rest assured that these disciplines “rest upon” a certain Faith and not “failures, obscurities, etc.”
Sorry, but you got it wrong again, as usual. Since the disciplines and laws are not harmful, crippled, problematic, evil, etc, then the pope is saying by implication that they are infallible or without error.
TIM: But now, this leads to one more point I need to clear up. According to Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, 66 (1943):
“Certainly the loving Mother is spotless in the Sacraments, by which she gives birth to and nourishes her children; in the faith which she has always preserved inviolate; in her sacred laws imposed on all; in the evangelical counsels which she recommends.”
Some theologians will use or have used “disciplinary infallibility” when discussing the topic of the authority of disciplines in the Church. I would refer you to the very well-written article in the 1909 Catholic Encyclopedia, written during the papacy of Pope St. Pius X (which he did not condemn in its final form; indeed, it has the imprimatur from Archbishop John Farley of the Archdiocese of New York, which is what canon law required. Pope Pius X never condemned it. If it was “modernist,” he would have), from an article entitled “Ecclesiastical Discipline”, under the heading “Disciplinary Infallibility:” http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05030a.htm
In that article, it distinguishes a “a negative and indirect rather than a positive and direct infallibility, inasmuch as in her general discipline, i.e. the common laws imposed on all the faithful, the Church can prescribe nothing that would be contrary to the natural or the Divine law, nor prohibit anything that the natural or the Divine law would exact. If well understood this thesis is undeniable; it amounts to saying that the Church does not and cannot impose practical directions contradictory of her own teaching.” As I said to you before, this usage of “infallibility,” I think, is not a prudent usage. It is not contrary to the faith, but it has confused some, as it has confused you. It does not mean that disciplines are unchangeable. And it does not mean that they are always the best possible disciplines. It means that if they are universal in nature, they cannot contradict the Natural or Divine law. In other words, they cannot lead inherently to acting contrary to the Faith. This does not mean that Catholics can then disagree with the Church about some pet discipline they like and start their own little sect that lets them keep their pet discipline.
You are a complete idiot. He does not go against what I said, and I never said disciplines are unchangeable. I said disciplines change and always have. Why do you keep misrepresenting my position with your lies? The rest of your stuff is moot. I agree with the changing of laws and disciplines. They didn’t change because they were harmful or evil, but to help or better the faithful.
Once again, I urge you to learn Catholicism before you start defending your modernist sect which has been around for 50 years or less, like your Protestant sects!
Steven
TIM: I could cite scores of examples that may or may not have been wise, or that may or may not have been best and that have changed over the years. But for brevity, I will cite just three examples: 1. Canon 20 from the Council of Nicea declared as a universal law to the whole Church:
Since there are some who kneel on Sunday and during the season of Pentecost, this holy synod decrees that, so that the same observance may be maintained in every diocese, one should offer one’s prayers to the Lord standing.
Obviously, this discipline would change in the West over the next couple hundred years and more and more kneeling would be introduced in Western liturgies with the approval of the Church.
The Fourth Lateran Council declared in AD 1215:
Canon 13: “Lest too great a variety of religious orders leads to a grave confusion in God’s church, we strictly forbid anyone henceforth to found a new religious order. Whoever wants to become a religious should enter one of the already approved orders.”
The very NEXT YEAR, in 1216, St. Dominic founded the Dominican Order. Obviously, disciplines are malleable by nature.
Or, how about the one I mentioned to you before concerning excommunication. Pope Vigilius flip-flopped several times on excommunicating “the three chapters” during and after the II Council of Constantinople.
Once again, I urge you to learn Catholicism before you start joining sects who’ve been around for 30 years or less, like your sedevacantist sect!
God Bless,
Tim
PS: Your answers are so pathetic they are not worth responding to. I especially liked your butchery of St. John at the end. You are so steeped in your novel sect, there is no more need for me to continue this. I’ve answered everything you have sent to me more than once and you can’t answer my simple presentation of Vatican I and the spotless law of “Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis,” both of which you reject. I give you the teaching of the Church and you give me your nonsense.
Tim,
You are a lying idiot, plain and simple. I especially like how you keep saying God bless to us whom you think is so … you can fill in the blank space. You are the one so steeped in you novel sect. I’ve answered Vat 1 but you apparently don’t care. And your ridiculous interpretation of “Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis” is a complete novelty…you Harrisonite you. I gave the teaching of the Church and you give me complete nonsense.
Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis does not mean that heretic’s excommunications are lifted. The anathemas Pope Pius is speaking are for other things.
Not even a pope can lift or suspend an excommunication for one who obstinately remains a heretic.
Steven
TIM: More rubbish. And you’ve never “answered Vatican I.” There is not answer to Vatican I. You simply need to believe it and obey it.
There is no “answer” to the law of the Church as it was promulgated by Pope Pius XII. You need to simply believe it and obey it. Sorry, but your interpretation of what you think some Fathers or some theologians said hundreds of years ago does not trump the law of the Church.
Tim
Tim,
Again, you lie as you follow your father of lies. I answered Vatican 1 twice. I believe it 100% but you don’t, and I’ve answered the “law” of Pope Pius XII, go back and read it. As for my interpretation of the fathers and some theologians, it is clear as they are clear. You’re right, they don’t trump the law of the Church but neither does the law trump the unanimous teaching of those fathers. Your interpretation is against ALL THE FATHERS who had anything to say about it. My interpretation is in complete union with all of them. YOU LOSE AS YOU WILL LOSE YOUR IMMORTAL SOUL IF YOU CONTINUE DOWN YOUR PATH OF CONTRADICTION AND LIES.
I must not be a total waste of time with my irrational nutso self since you keep responding to me. After all, if I impossible to speak rationally with or we have reached an impasse why keep responding to me? Another contradiction? or just one of your Lies?
Steven
TIM WROTE TO MATT: Matt, Let me cut and paste the statement by Steve: “As I thought, you could not show a Church document that says that Disciplines and laws are not infallible.”
That is what he said!
I do not believe Cardinal Ratzinger’s quote was saying the reforms of Vatican II were causing the kind of “harm” that Pope Gregory XVI was saying. Cardinal Ratzinger would not claim any of these reforms were contrary to Natural or Divine Law. That is what Pope Gregory was saying. That would be contrary to the Church’s nature as the spotless bride of Christ. You guys, rather than beginning with Faith (for example, in Vatican I and the law of the Church concerning the election of Popes), you try and pit one Pope against another just like Fundamentalist pit one verse of Scripture against another. I have said this over and over. As a Catholic, I do not usurp the role of the Pope (that is exactly what Pope Gregory XVI was saying), I defend the official teaching and legislation of the Church. If I disagree with disciplines (legislation) of the Church that are malleable, I respectfully ask questions and say so, I do not start my own Church like the SSPX and sedevacantists. Nor do I claim those disciplines that I disagree with are contrary to the Natural or Divine Law which would be arrogant presumption and sin on my part.
Tim
Tim,
Do I have to show you how open-ended the liturgical directives of Vatican II are, and how the “liberal” norms clearly undercut the “conservative” norms? And Paul VI claimed to be obeying the Council for his novel reforms, did he not? And you think that in good conscience I should defend any of this?
In his work, The Spirit of the Liturgy, Ratzinger (in my opinion) clearly seems to say that Paul VI did not even have the authority to do what he did liturgically, and I agree (I believe this is on page 166, if I’m not mistaken). The whole thing has been a disaster and I don’t know why Paul VI had to ask by what crack the smoke of Satan had entered the Church.
And, for your information, I’ve never started an SSPX or sedevacantist sect. I’ve sought to find someone who can provide an answer to Ratzinger’s assertions so that I can make a determination what is going on, esp. since he seems condemned by Gregory XVI, as does Paul VI for his actions.
Matt
TIM: There is nothing wrong with asking questions respectfully. What is wrong is when you claim Pope Paul VI was condemned by Gregory XVI. That is when you cross over to arrogant presumption and sin. I defend the Church against all assaults from those who claim the spotless Bride of Christ is a whore and a deceiver. No one has ever claimed that every discipline in the Church must be the best decision that will always be understood to have been the best decision. That is just crazy. Cardinal Ratzinger never says in The Spirit of the Liturgy that Pope Paul VI “did not even have the authority to do what he did.” You said that, not Cardinal Ratzinger. If you want to talk about disagreeing with some of the particulars of the form, that is fine. One can be Catholic a voice genuine concerns respectfully about the reform. But what I am getting from you and Steve are much more than that. Steve is completely out to lunch nutso and makes himself Pope. And you… I don’t know where you are coming from. You don’t seem to know what the heck is going on. All of us need to simply and humbly submit our intellects and wills to the authority of the Church which now has as her visible head, Pope Benedict XVI.
Tim
Tim,
You cannot understand very simple things. You confuse the issues or don’t deal with them. We have stated over and over again what we believe and you misrepresent it. You lie and lie and lie. Like below, you accuse us of saying that every decision must be the best decision. LET ME REPEAT IT ONE MORE TIME SINCE YOU APPARENTLY ARE TOO IGNORANT TO UNDERSTAND VERY SIMPLE THINGS. The Disciplines and Laws of the Church are never harmful in anyway. That doesn’t mean they are always best. Do you understand that disciplines must be infallible or else the Church could command us to error which would be going against the Divine Law of God. You confuse infallibility with immutability as you demonstrated with the changing of laws, etc.
You only think you are defending the Catholic Church against all assaults but in reality, you are only defending Ape Church. Yes, to you that makes me a nutso. It makes you part of the Great Apostasy.
Steven
Dear Tim,
I did not mean to say that Fr. Cekada claims that disciplines are unchangeable. He claims that they are infallible. Matt
TIM: He’s wrong.
SPERAY: No Tim, he is right. The Church is without error even in disciplines and laws. They do change but not because there is anything wrong with them.
Altar girls are evil and contrary to the Faith. Women lector esses are contrary to the Faith. Worshiping in Mosques, and synagogues is contrary to the Faith. Rejecting the Apostles’ Creed is contrary to the Faith. Modernism is contrary to the Faith.
Your Church has them or does them, therefore, you follow the sect not us.
The fact that you believe a pope can be a heretic, apostate or Mason is enough for me.
Steven
It is impossible to speak rationally with you rationally about disciplines when you don’t even know what they are.
Tim
Tim,
Its impossible to speak rationally with you since you reject Vatican 1, and Christ’s promise while saying we do. You don’t even know what you are talking about.
Steven
I believe we have reached an impasse due to the fact that you do not know the basics of the Faith. But just for something to chew on. It was not the offering of sacrifices that was “evil” when King Saul offered sacrifice. It was DISOBEDIENCE that was evil. Altar girls without the permission of the Church was EVIL. Altar girls with the permission of the Church is not. There is no way that Steve can comprehend something this simple, but that was for you, Matthew. It would be a waste of my time to answer all of this rubbish below.
Tim
Tim,
I see that you don’t believe those popes. They were not speaking about disobedience. They were speaking about the girl altar servers as an objective evil. They were never permitted for 2000 yrs precisely because they are contrary to the Faith. Your Ape Church gives permission because they don’t think that girl altar servers are evil, just like women lector(esses). Never mind what St Paul said about women should not speak in the churches of the holy ones. He wasn’t referring to the priesthood but about SPEAKING. Your Ape Church takes St Paul out of context or just thinks St Paul was speaking culturally and therefore its okay now in our modern age. Girls altar servers and women lector(esses) were only permitted in Ape Church after Vatican 2. Some coincidence? No, even lay people realize that this is wrong. They don’t need to know about theology to realize that something has gone seriously wrong with their church.
But you just defend them in a response back, but we see that your church did not exist before the 1960’s.
Steven
TIM: You’re right. I’ll stop.
Tim,
“The Church is infallible in her general discipline. By the term general discipline is understood the laws and practices which belong to the external ordering of the whole Church. Such things would be those which concern either external worship, such as liturgy and rubrics, or the administration of the sacraments. . . . “If she [the Church] were able to prescribe or command or tolerate in her discipline something against faith and morals, or something which tended to the detriment of the Church or to the harm of the faithful, she would turn away from her divine mission, which would be impossible.” P. Hermann, Institutiones Theologiae Dogmaticae (4th ed., Rome: Della Pace, 1908), vol. 1, p. 258
Tim answered: I have already answered this. The Church tells us (not P. Hermann)
Notice that he doesn’t acknowledge that this has been approved by the Church in 1908 in Rome no less, yet he wants me to accept this:
I would refer you to the very well-written article in the 1909 Catholic Encyclopedia, written during the papacy of Pope St. Pius X (which he did not condemn in its final form; indeed, it has the imprimatur from Archbishop John Farley of the Archdiocese of New York, which is what canon law required. Pope Pius X never condemned it. If it was “modernist,” he would have), from an article entitled “Ecclesiastical Discipline”, under the heading “Disciplinary Infallibility:” http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05030a.htm
I do accept this article and it doesn’t contradict my position at all as I told him, but how is it that he can expect me to accept this based on the fact that it was approved in 1909 but won’t accept P Herman which was approved in Rome in 1908?
Notice below how Tim contradicts himself.
According to Pope Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos, 9 (1832): “the discipline sanctioned by the Church must never be rejected or branded as contrary to certain principles of the natural law. It must never be called crippled, or imperfect.”
THIS MEANS INFALLIBLE.
YET TIM ACTUALLY CONTRADICTS HIMSELF BY REFERRING TO A NON CHURCH DOCUMENT. IT WOULD BE CONTRARY TO THE FAITH IF DISCIPLINES ARE NOT INFALLIBLE.
TIM SAID OVER AND OVER THAT DISCIPLINES ARE NOT INFALLIBLE DESPITE ALL THE PAPAL DOCUMENTS SAYING THE CONTRARY.
Tim Staples VS Steven Speray
TOPIC: Vatican 2 and Religious Liberty
2008
STEVEN SPERAY: Vatican 2 teaches that man has a right to be wrong.
TIM STAPLES: You misrepresent the teaching of the Church. The Church does not teach there is a “right to be wrong,” she teaches that men have a right to worship in accordance with their conscience free from coercion, within reason (one is not free from coercion, for example, where human sacrifice is involved). The responsibility all men have toward God and the true faith is a separate question.
STEVEN SPERAY: The emphasis is NOT just that people cannot be coerced into a religion, but that erroneous actions cannot be prevented in public. Vat2 and Benedict completely contradict the historic Catholic teaching on this point (and admit as much), as Dignatatis humanae # 2 also states: “in religious matters, nor prevented from acting according to his conscience, whether in private or in public, within due limits….Therefore this right to non-interference persists even in those who do not carry out their obligations of seeking the truth and standing by it; and the exercise of this right should not be curtailed, as long as due public order is preserved.”
TIM STAPLES: Here is an example of your blindness. I am surprised you even highlighted the phrase “within due limits.” You should have also highlighted “as long as due public order is preserved.” This document does not mean that we cannot have Christendom and Christian countries restored where “within due limits” and “as long as due public order is preserved” we would have an entirely different context. Vatican II is approaching the question of religious freedom from a different perspective than, say, Pope Pius IX who was trying to resuscitate a dying Christendom and defend the rights of Catholic countries. Vatican II was coming from the perspective of defending Catholics who were and are being persecuted all over the world and prevented from worshipping the Lord publicly in the wake of the fall of Christendom and the rise of the modern atheistic and agnostic states that persecute the Church.
STEVEN SPERAY: YOU’RE DEAD WRONG AGAIN! It is saying that one has the “right” to worship however they want as long (due limits…public order is preserved which means as long it doesn’t involve things like sacrificing people or some weird thing like that). But it doesn’t even stop there. False religions are “wrongs” and Vat2 is saying that these “wrongs” have rights in the public square.
TIM STAPLES: That is not what the document says. That is what you said. The Church is emphasizing the right of every person to worship God free from coercion and violence which is contrary to nature as well as nature’s God. “Within due limits” has to be understood in the context of our tradition just as the rest of the document does.
STEVEN SPERAY: This is not what the document says. That is what you say. It doesn’t say “worship God” but instead says, “In religious matters” which can be in any way with any god. This is wrong but the document says this is a right. It also says that they can do it in public and in writing, without hindrance.
Pope Pius IX, Syllabus of Errors, Dec. 8, 1864,
# 78: “Hence in certain regions of Catholic name, it has been laudably sanctioned by law that men immigrating there be allowed to have public exercises of any form of worship of their own.” – Condemned.
TIM STAPLES: Vatican II does not contradict this, but of course, there is no such thing as “regions of Catholic name” any longer.
STEVEN SPERAY: Vatican 2 is contradicting it, for it says, “nor prevented from acting according to his conscience, whether in private or in public, within due limits…. and the exercise of this right should not be curtailed, as long as due public order is preserved.”
There are no regions of Catholic name THANKS TO VATICAN 2.
Dignitatis Humanae # 4:
“In addition, religious communities are entitled to teach and give witness to their faith publicly in speech and writing without hindrance.”
This contradicts: Pope Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos (# 15), Aug. 15, 1832:
“Here We must include that harmful and never sufficiently denounced freedom to publish any writings whatever and disseminate them to the people, which some dare to demand and promote with so great a clamor. We are horrified to see what monstrous doctrines and prodigious errors are disseminated far and wide in countless books, pamphlets, and other writings which, though small in weight, are very great in malice.”
TIM STAPLES: Vatican II must be understood not only in the context of our Catholic tradition, but also in the context of the same document to which one is referring! Battling with members of your sedevacantist sect (or sects) is just like battling Fundamentalists with Scripture. I will say again, “within due limits” and “as long a due public order is preserved.” Even St. Thomas Aquinas taught that heretical sects should sometimes be tolerated and allowed to worship when public order demands it.
STEVEN SPERAY: You are so blind. TOLERATED IS NOT A “RIGHT.” This is my point.
TIM STAPLES: Tolerated is not a right, in a strict sense. You are correct. But the right to worship God apart from coercion is a right. God made us free and does not coerce us. Freedom is at the very core of humanity created in the image and likeness of God. Moreover, instead of cutting and pasting these documents—READ THEM!
STEVEN SPERAY: You read them. You are reading something other than what it says just as you do with every single thing that proves your new age religion false. I guess you believe all pagan religions are really worshiping God. Why not, does not the Assisi events assume this?
TIM STAPLES: For example, if the Catholic majority is lost in a country, one cannot send in armies to stop worship that is not Catholic. This will lead to upheaval and perhaps even overthrow of Catholic government. One must use the preferential treatment of the Church in Catholic countries (if they were to exist in truth) to convert the heathen and various sectarians so that due order can be preserved without coercing people to worship God as Catholics against their wills. This can never be permitted, as Vatican II made clear and the Church has always understood.
STEVEN SPERAY: I’m not talking about coercing. Just because you shouldn’t coerce doesn’t automatically give heretics, infidels, etc. rights to exercise their false religions in public. ONLY THE CATHOLIC FAITH HAS THE RIGHT TO WORSHIP IN PUBLIC, and we should tolerate false religions when prudence dictates it. But they don’t have rights.
TIM STAPLES: But Vatican 2 is! And you’re not getting it. But in your ignorance and arrogance you go on accusing the Church of heresy when you don’t have a clue as to what you are talking about.
STEVEN SPERAY: No, you are wrong. Vatican 2 is saying that false religions have a right to: teach and give witness to their faith publicly in speech and writing without hindrance. False religions don’t have rights because error doesn’t have rights.
Pope Leo XIII, Libertas (# 42), June 20, 1888:
“From what has been said it follows that it is quite unlawful to demand, to defend, or to grant unconditional freedom of thought, of speech, or writing, or of worship, as if these were so many rights given by nature to man.”
TIM STAPLES: Vatican II could not be clearer that freedom of thought or worship is not “unconditional.”
STEVEN SPERAY: It is too, provided public order is maintained. You must believe in the American way right? It’s heretical!
Pope Leo XIII, Immortale Dei (# 34), Nov. 1, 1885:
“Thus, Gregory XVI in his encyclical letter Mirari Vos, dated August 15, 1832, inveighed with weighty words against the sophisms which even at his time were being publicly inculcated – namely, that no preference should be shown for any particular form of worship; that it is right for individuals to form their own personal judgments about religion; that each man’s conscience is his sole and all-sufficing guide; and that it is lawful for every man to publish his own views, whatever they may be, and even to conspire against the state.”
It is true that people should not be coerced but this is not the problem. Since the Catholic Church has solemnly declared that ONLY the Catholic Church is keeping to true worship, then worshiping God in some other way, or worshiping false gods, and freely speaking and writing about it is not only error but serious error that will lead people to hell. Vatican2 and Antipope Benedict are advocating that man has a right to these errors.
TIM STAPLES: You misrepresent Pope Benedict and Vatican II. Never does the Church say that if we were to re-establish Christendom that it would be wrong to give legal preferential treatment to the true Church. Again, Pope Gregory was speaking in a context where Christendom was still in existence.
STEVEN SPERAY: Again, you are the one misrepresenting Benedict and Vatican II and also me. The Catholic faith is supposed to have the only legal rights, while the others may be tolerated but not given legal rights. They should be curtailed and stopped all together in most instances, but not coerced in becoming Catholic. Most all heretical/schismatic/pagan/satanic sects are scandalous in promoting their heresies. Chic publications for instance should not have a right to do what they do, nor should any non-Catholic TV and radio that bash Christ, Catholicism, etc. Vatican 2 says, as long as public order is maintained, they have the right. This is heretical! Sorry, Tim, but you lose this one altogether.
John Paul I most clearly saw it when he stated, “the Church had always taught that only the truth had rights, but now the Council make it clear that error also has rights.”
TIM STAPLES: What document is this? I would have to see the context. Because again, I have no problem with saying Popes can make ambiguous or even erroneous non-infallible statements.
STEVEN SPERAY: Don’t like this statement by your great “pope” do you?
TIM STAPLES: You and your sedevacantist sect simply cannot produce one (a real one, not the Flintstone comic book stuff).
STEVEN SPERAY: I produced many but you actually think they are orthodox.
TIM STAPLES: But I would be happy to examine the context of this alleged statement of John Paul I (I personally doubt he even said it, but if he did, I would imagine the context would be illuminating. You and I proceed with very different attitudes. I proceed giving the Popes—all Popes—the benefit of the doubt of their orthodoxy unless someone can give me good evidence to the contrary. You proceed looking for any “error” you can find with complete disregard for context or what the Pope actually means; that is, as long as this is a Pope who is after Pius XII)
STEVEN SPERAY: You don’t know what you are talking about. I don’t completely disregard the context, but you do to keep your heretical “popes” looking orthodox, like Benedict’s denial of the Resurrection of the body, or JP2 rejection of Christ actual descent into hell.
Why can’t you admit what JP the First said instead of making excuses? Vatican 2 says men have a right to be wrong!
TIM STAPLES: As a Catholic, I say the same to you that I say to every other sect that just “knows” the Church is wrong. Present the documentation! You lie when you say “Vatican 2 says men have a right to be wrong.” I’ve read every word. It is not there.
STEVEN SPERAY: I CAN’T BELIEVE WHAT I’M HEARING. I SHOWED YOU WHAT VATICAN 2 states. You are the liar, unless of course, you don’t think being a practicing non-Catholic is wrong. Am I wrong in my position as I email, write articles, and convert people out of your novus ordo religion? If so, do I have a “right” to do this? You’re so blind.
I said: Why can’t you admit what JP the First said instead of making excuses? Vatican 2 says men have a right to be wrong!
You said:As a Catholic, I say the same to you that I say to every other sect that just “knows” the Church is wrong. Present the documentation! You lie when you say “Vatican 2 says men have a right to be wrong.” I’ve read every word. It is not there.
TIM STAPLES: As I thought. You can’t produce the actual statement and document by John Paul I. I can’t believe that you can just throw around alleged “quotes” from Popes that you’ve cut and pasted without ever doing your homework. You are a fanatic that will believe anything that helps your position.
STEVEN SPERAY: I’ve done my homework. JPI said it and it was printed in Time Magazine. You are the Novus Ordo fanatic that will believe anything that helps your position, even your own ridiculous explanations.
I’ll resend the following since you didn’t address it.
BENEDICT XVI UTTERS MORE HERESY ON RELIGIOUS LIBERTY, DIRECTLY CONTRADICTING THE DOGMATIC TEACHING OF POPE PIUS IX
Benedict XVI, Address to ambassador of Spain, May 20, 2006: “The Church also insists on the inalienable right of individuals to profess their own religious faith without hindrance, both publicly and privately, as well as the right of parents to have their children receive an education that complies with their values and beliefs without explicit or implicit discrimination.”
This is precisely the opposite of the infallible teaching of the Catholic Church. The Church condemns the very thing he said the Church insists! See for yourself how clearly opposed Benedict XVI’s teaching is to the dogmatic teaching of Pope Pius IX.
Pope Pius IX, Quanta Cura (#’s 3-6), Dec. 8, 1864, “From which totally false idea of social government they do not fear to foster that erroneous opinion, most fatal in its effects on the Catholic Church and the salvation of souls, called by Our predecessor, Gregory XVI, an insanity, namely, that ‘liberty of conscience and worship is each man’s personal right, which ought to be legally proclaimed and asserted in every rightly constituted society; and that a right resides in the citizens to an absolute liberty, which should be restrained by no authority whether ecclesiastical or civil, whereby they may be able openly and publicly to manifest and declare any of their ideas whatever, either by word of mouth, by the press, or in any other way. but while they rashly affirm this, they do not understand and note that they are preaching liberty of perdition… therefore, by Our Apostolic Authority, we reprobate, proscribe, and condemn all the singular and evil opinions and doctrines specially mentioned in this letter, and will and command that they be thoroughly held by all the children of the Catholic Church as reprobated, proscribed and condemned.”
TIM STAPLES: Your quotes from Vatican 2 are easily shown to be orthodox. Your attempts at pitting one Pope against another are as weak as my Protestant friends who attempt to pit Scripture against Scripture (though, like you, they say, “That’s not what I am doing…”).
STEVEN SPERAY: Sorry again, but I’ve shown that the Vatican 2 quotes are heretical and even blasphemous, but you think they are orthodox. That’s why you’re a modernist.
I CAN’T BELIEVE WHAT I’M HEARING. I SHOWED YOU WHAT VATICAN 2 states. You are the liar, unless of course, you don’t think being a practicing non-Catholic is wrong. Am I wrong is my position as I email, write articles, and convert people out of your novus ordo religion? If so, do I have a “right” to do this? You’re so blind.
TIM STAPLES: You have the right to practice what you believe free from coercion. The government has the right to say it is Catholic and to pass laws that give preferential treatment to the Church. However, the government does not have the right to use coercion to force you to be Catholic. You have the freedom ‘within due limits” to practice your faith in your non-Catholic sect.
STEVEN SPERAY: You can’t answer the question (Am I wrong is my position?) without subverting your own argument. You said nowhere in Vatican 2 does it give man the right to be wrong. You said I was lying by saying it did. I asked you if I was wrong in what I believe and do with it, and do I have a right according to Vatican 2? You didn’t answer the question. You are the liar!
Tim Staples never replied back.
UPDATE: I had a friend who misunderstood the debate. He confused the difference between legal, moral, and natural rights. It was partly my fault because I used the term legal without qualifying it well. The state may grant certain religious legal rights to false religions, but not on the basis that they have natural rights. The state may grant the legal right to prostitution, but prostitution doesn’t have moral or natural rights to the profession. The state is not bound to give prostitution a legal right. Vatican 2 is speaking about natural rights given to man by God. Man has the natural right to reject the true Church and not to be coerced into the faith. I’m arguing that man doesn’t have the natural right to practice false religion in public in speech and writing.
Heretics are really illogical!
Tim Staples is correct. This blog is lame.
SPERAY REPLIES: What is lame is your comment. Tim Staples is not correct as proven.
Staples said Schultz was Catholic, but he never was.
Staples said disciplines were not infallible, but the Catholic Church teaches they are.
Staples said Vatican 2 doesn’t give a man the right to be wrong, yet Vatican 2 says men have a right to practice a false religion in public.
Staples rejects the Divine law of God when he said that it was a good thing when Benedict XVI bowed towards Mecca in a Mosque while praying and worshiping with Muslims.
Staples lies about many things such as what other people believe.
If you agree with Staples, then you are not a Catholic!!!!
I’m Catholic and it’s sad to see two brothers in Christ going at it. Let it go and continue evangelizing the people that are not in the Catholic ship. God bless you both.
Speray Replies: Tim Staples is not my brother in Christ because Tim Staples is not IN Christ. He rejects the Natural and Divine law on the condemnation of Communicatio in Sacris. In fact, Tim Staples said that it’s a good thing for Catholics to worship with non-Catholics. Of course, he’s only following Vatican 2 and his conciliar popes who also reject the Divine law. They call evil good and good evil.
It is sad to see that you go at it and deny your brotherhood in Christ.
SPERAY REPLIES: Tim Staples is a heretic and anathema. He is not in Christ. If you say Tim is your brother in Christ after reading his apostasy on communicatio in sacris, then you are not a Christian either.
We are all brothers, whatever you do to the least of my brothers… When did we see you naked, hungry… Call it ecumenism or whatever but it is our duty to evangelize.
SPERAY REPLIES: It is out duty to evangelize into the true Church, but Tim Staples evangelizes into a counterfeit church with false popes, false sacraments, false teachings, and sacrileges against God!
I’m not an apologist but here’s what I found in the CCC regarding infallibility. ”
SPERAY REPLIES: I don’t go by the CCC since it supports the diabolical Second Vatican Council which teaches the heresy of communicatio in sacris with non-Catholics, religious liberty, and the rejects on the Church being one in faith!
Peace and God bless you. CCC 2035 The supreme degree of participation in the authority of Christ is ensured by the charism of infallibility. This infallibility extends as far as does the deposit of divine Revelation; it also extends to all those elements of doctrine, including morals, without which the saving truths of the faith cannot be preserved, explained, or observed.77
SPERAY REPLIES: Infallibility only applies to true popes, not antipopes who reject the Catholic faith.
I guess. The Samaritan was not in Christ either as the apostles used to treat them until Christ showed them real love and the golden rule.
SPERAY REPLIES: Notice how Christ treats those who reject His teaching. He tells them that their father is the Devil (John 8) Notice what St. Paul says to those who give another gospel. They are anathema. Gal. 1. Tim Staples’ gives another gospel and therefore his father is the devil!
The CCC does not teach that infallibility extends to discipline but only to doctrines and morals.
SPERAY REPLIES: It’s true that the CCC doesn’t teach that infallibility extends to discipline, but 5 popes (Popes Pius VI, Gregory XVI, St. Pius X, and Pius XII) and all the theologians teach it.
I guess hell has prevailed against His Church and Jesus lied that He will be with her forever.
SPERAY REPLIES: No. Christ is still with his Catholic Church, but that Church is not your counterfeit so-called Catholic church.
And you seem more catholic than the pope.
SPERAY REPLIES: There’s no such thing as being more Catholic than any other Catholic, much less a pope. However, there is no pope. Francis I is an antipope since he rejects the dogma on the Church’s oneness, the divine law on communicatio in sacris, etc.
Fast and pray that’s the only way for God to show you.
SPERAY REPLIES: I actually pray the rosary everyday with my family. I fast regularly and have been doing so for over 20 yrs. You’re right, by doing so, God has shown me that I was in a counterfeit catholic church and to get out and become a real Catholic. You ought to try it.
God bless you
This CCC was written by Pope John Paul II by the way not pre-Vatican 2.
SPERAY REPLIES: No it wasn’t. Antipope John Paul II promulgated it in 1992. I reject the CCC because it’s not Catholic. I follow the Roman Catechism also known as the Catechism of the Council of Trent.
Whoa at first I thought this site was good but by being a bystander and reading what people say I can’t believe you would say such things? Pray my friend that God can change the hearts of sinners so that you don’t have to take action into your own hands and write blogs about people who are just trying to help even if their means are not what it seems, eventually everything will lead you to God with enough prayer and testing of the spirits, for everything is done according to God’s will but not many people know it- Faustina Dairy, but what he would want you to do is pray for them for only God can change the hearts of all mankind. Remember I’m not saying that everything leads to God but instead if you are a devout person to God God will lead you to him that’s why you should test the spirits as St. John says in his letters- 1 John 4:1
Finding this website, I know now why I’m not a Sede. So much vitriol.
Really?
Here is what I don’t understand about sedevacantist (and I appreciate the fact you’re at least honest about being one), but please explain to me the process of how the Church actually gets a “real” pope back? If the chair has been vacant since 1958, which is going on 50 years, who would be left from that time who could appoint a “real pope?” So I just want to know what the process would be to get a real pope, if every pope since that time has been false. Can you please explain to me how we get a real pope back in the chair and who would appoint him? I recently came back to the church after being away 20 years and never heard of sedevacantism until recently.
SPERAY REPLIES: Great question. There are several ways which I’ve addressed elsewhere on this blog. One way is for the current antipope to recant and convert and be accepted universally which has happened in history. Pope Vigilius began as an antipope and just assumed the papal office. Below are two quotes that answer your question:
“Even if St. Peter would have not determined anything, once he was dead, the Church had the power to substitute him and appoint a successor to him … If by any calamity, war or plague, all Cardinals would be lacking, we cannot doubt that the Church could provide for herself a Holy Father…Hence such an election should be carried out by all the Church and not by any particular Church. And this is because that power is common and it concerns the whole Church. So it must be the duty of the whole Church.” (De Potestate Ecclesiae, Vitoria)
“When it would be necessary to proceed with the election, if it is impossible to follow the regulations of papal law, as was the case during the Great Western Schism, one can accept, without difficulty, that the power of election could be transferred to a General Council…Because natural law prescribes that, in such cases, the power of a superior is passed to the immediate inferior because this is absolutely necessary for the survival of the society and to avoid the tribulations of extreme need.” (De Ecclesia Christi, Billot)
Here is my thinking of why I ask this. Aaron was the first high priest. The high priesthood was established by God. Caiphus, was in the same chair, and ended up being the evil priest who plotted to kill Jesus. The bible neither says Caiphus was an “anti-high priest” nor “he wasn’t a real high priest.” It says he is the high priest. He is the same title Aaron was.
SPERAY REPLIES: You’ve used a common argument which I answered years ago here: https://stevensperay.wordpress.com/2010/07/24/open-letter-to-tradition-in-action/ Simply put, a pope must be Catholic to member of the Church as taught by law and decree. To argue that a pope doesn’t have to publicly profess the Catholic Faith is a denial of the Catholic Faith itself.
To be honest with you why I also ask this, and going back to leaving the church, is that I left the church over the many “heretical” things I was taught by fundamentalist. I was a young 20 year old. However, for a long time, protestant/evangelical/Pentecostalism was exciting because it was “new” and “fresh” and there was this feeling it was all on us to avoid that large hertical apostate body, which was mainline protestants and of course Catholics. Initially I began studying eastern orthodoxy, which is in some regards fresh and exciting because it is apostolic Christianity without that nasty guy from Rome who messed up the Nicene creed and committed other heresies or as they like to call the Pope, “The first Protestant.” Then after a few years of study and my return to Rome, there is this rather mysterious “true” Catholic who is a sedevacantist because while they recognize the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic church they are the ones holding down the fort of the “real church inside the real church.”
SPERAY REPLIES: We Catholics holding down the fort with sedevacantism are not some church inside the church. The Catholic Church is one faith, which is the first article of the Catholic Faith. Therefore, to be Catholic, we have to be one in faith. We can’t have a Church where some hold the Faith and some reject it, yet are one. This is the Protestant way of thinking and you’re on to something because you have detected the very serious heresy taught by Vatican 2.
This is my perception I am sharing. In all of them (Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, Sedevacantist), there is this exciting, mystical, anti-papal stance that has the correct knowledge.
SPERAY REPLIES: Actually, sedevacantism is not antipapal. We are the strongest supporters of the papacy because we hold that popes must be Catholic and must be followed and obeyed. To follow a papal claimant who rejects the Catholic Faith publicly like Francis is a total rejection of the papacy. It’s the followers of Francis that rejects the papacy and the Catholic Faith!
However, I think the EO argument is a little different, but I know EO attracts many protestant converts because of their staunch anti-papal bigotry. All of this made me realize I had to take a hard look at the pope and his chair.
SPERAY REPLIES: I hope you read much more on my blog and see what I’m saying and hear what the real popes teach. Also, you can contact me personally by email found in the contact info. I’d be glad to answer any questions you may have.
Jesus responded to the high priest. It is not to say Jesus thought he was right, etc. Jesus did recognize the office. I’m assuming Sedevacantist recognize the office and the chair, just that no one sits in it (legitimately)? If so, and again, I need to hear the process of getting a correct one. Thanks.
SPERAY REPLIES: I personally don’t think we’ll have another true pope even though the papal principle of perpetuity taught by the First Vatican Council will always exist. The reason for my holding this opinion (I may be wrong) is that the Great Apostasy foretold also has the antichrist and the Second Coming happening within the same period of time. I think Our Lord is coming sooner than later. By the way, we Catholics holding to sedevacantism are the most hated and maligned of all who call themselves Christian. I think this is an exiting moment in time.
Steven,
Thanks for the reply. I am glad you brought this up, “The reason for my holding this opinion (I may be wrong) is that the Great Apostasy foretold also has the antichrist and the Second Coming happening within the same period of time.”
As I was returning to the church, and my last email didn’t get into to much depth on it, however during my return was my encounter with the Eastern Orthodox. As I studied, I suddenly began to think deeply about Paul’s warning about the man of lawlessness not being revealed until the great falling away happened first. So I asked the EO father with whom I had been conversing if the Protestant Reformation was the great falling away Paul had talked about and warned about? He said he was puzzled, he did not know and had never been asked that or really thought about it. We never talked about it again. Others with whom I’ve talked have never really been sure. So in one regard I have taken it as a generalized warning but also I’ve thought that can’t be right and it seems more specific than this.
I admit, I am a new comer to your website, so I have not had time to read much just yet. However, regarding this falling away, here is why I think it was the Protestant Reformation. (Have you been Catholic your whole life?)
SPERAY REPLIES: I was born and raised in the Novus Ordo church. I don’t think the Protestant Reformation was the great apostasy foretold because it was not that great in size comparatively speaking. At the same time as the Reformation, 8 times more converted into the Catholic Faith in Mexico than left to become Protestant in Europe.
Some days I wish I had never left the church, however in God’s providence, I am grateful he kept me and saved me and opened my eyes and brought me back. I can honestly say when I had left, I wholesale left the Catholic Church. Other than a wedding here or there or a funeral, you would not have otherwise found me in, on or around a Catholic Church. Therefore, I (in my mind) became thoroughly Protestant and spent most of my journey within fundamentalist and southern Baptist, with a short 3-4 year stint with the Assemblies of God, a non-denominational church also tossed in there. Anyway, what I witness in almost 20 years I wasn’t really sure at that time how to describe it and I won’t bore you with all of it here. However, it was at the end of the rope on the chaos of Protestantism, and what really broke the camel’s back, was over “authority” that I had asked, “Is this how it really is? Is this how it was from the beginning?” It was here that I had to find out how the early church passed on authority.
That question led me to Eastern Orthodoxy, and intense study of the early fathers and ultimately back to Rome a few years after. Back to my point on the great falling away. My concern with it being the Reformation is the fact that what seems to be telling in Paul’s warning is that the man or lawlessness can be revealed but what makes him successful this time is a completely divided Christendom. Paul says he can’t be revealed until the falling away happens first. The way I see the argument, had the church stayed united, there is no way he could come forth because a united people would see who he was and be in unison. But because of so much division, self-determination, lack of authority and tradition, he will come right within the midst of the church and not see it. I guess this is the poison of Protestantism and how it has bled into and effected the Church. In some regards, the EOs think they are immune to this, they are not. There is a clear distinction between talking to an EO who is cradle orthodox and a convert (Lutheran converts to EO are my favorite next to fundamentalist Baptist). They are so staunchly anti-papal cloaked in the authority and apostolic authority of the church. The cradle orthodox or normally not this way. I don’t know if you have more thought on this, but it appears you see if from being the falling away inside of the Catholic church, which is interesting.
SPERAY REPLIES: In case you haven’t seen, here is the great Henry Edward Cardinal Manning in his “The Present Crisis of the Holy See”, 1861: “The apostasy of the city of Rome from the vicar of Christ and its destruction by Antichrist may be thoughts so new to many Catholics, that I think it well to recite the text of theologians of greatest repute. First Malvenda, who writes expressly on the subject, states as the opinion of Ribera, Gaspar Melus, Biegas, Suarrez, Bellarmine and Bosius that Rome shall apostatize from the faith, drive away the Vicar of Christ and return to its ancient paganism. …Then the Church shall be scattered, driven into the wilderness, and shall be for a time, as it was in the beginning, invisible hidden in catacombs, in dens, in mountains, in lurking places; for a time it shall be swept, as it were from the face of the earth. Such is the universal testimony of the Fathers of the early Church.”
Also, we have this interesting quote: “The Papacy will be attacked by all the powers of hell. In consequence the Church will suffer great trials and afflictions in securing a successor upon the throne of Peter…. It is a matter of history that the most disastrous periods for the Church were times when the Papal throne was vacant, or when anti-popes contended with the legitimate head of the Church. Thus also shall it be in those evil days to come.” (Fr. E. Sylvester Berry, The Apocalypse of St. John (1921), pp. 121, 124.)
But this brings me to my final concern on this point for now. If the current pope is anti-pope and the popes since in 1958 have been and this will probably continue, but let’s say one day the church decides it needs a real pope, then it seems as though it would be on the people, the church universal, to make this selection. I would have concerns with this just as much with not being able to trust the current structure to pick one. I think the Church of 500 or 600 years ago may have been structurally sound where it could make such a decision, one that was not ravaged by liberal, protestant thinking. However, it would be complete chaos in today’s day. Additionally, this is another problem inside of almost every Protestant church I was in, discontent among the laity who wanted to gather a body to go to and ultimately guide or correct the pastor.
SPERAY REPLIES: You see now why the current Catholic sedevacantist bishops haven’t elected a pope. There are some obstacles to overcome. That being said, I believe my theory of great apostasy, antichrist, and Second Coming happening soon is the most logical position. Again, I could be wrong.
Interesting points on the Sedevacantist not being anti-papal. I have to give this topic more study before I can come to a conclusion.
SPERAY REPLIES: Actually, we are the only one that aren’t anti-papal. Why do I say this? Because we hold that you must give religious submission to all papal laws and teachings. No one in the novus ordo church does so, at least, no one I’m aware of.
Steven, leaving the apologetics out of this comment, it is clear reading the post that your heart is laden with anger and hatred. You continually attack Tim personally with vitriol. He continually responds in an opposite way. I don’t even know Tim by the way – I just happened upon this thread on my way to work. Regardless of the content and substance of the thread, doesn’t truth and prayer and humility lead to inner rest. Is there something absent or erroneous in your position that is derailing this inner rest?
My heart is laden with just anger against a lying devil like Tim Staples. Apparently, you’re not interested in the truth. If you were, you’d be angry too with people like Staples who is a professional heretic who blasphemes the Lord!
Stephen you’re a hypocrite who hates his brother! Repent or burn!
WRONG! Tim Staples is not my brother. You obviously come from the demonic counterfeit catholic church where every heretic is your brother. Btw, I don’t hate Staples, but I do hate everything he’s about!
You will be the one who burns in the end for hating Jesus which you do for hating and rejecting the true Bride of Christ!
By the way, where’s my hypocrisy? Since you accuse me of being a hypocrite, you should be able to show how I’m hypocritical.
How can one not hold just anger against false teachers and false prophets who have steered so many towards error? I contend that no Catholic can listen to Mr.Stables for more than 5 min. before he will state or quote some anti-Catholic belief.
He attended this year in Melbourne. First I notice something weird about Tim. When he entered and leave the main alter where he has his talks he never genuflected. Also he was promoting his protestant friends books and nothing about catholic faith. What’s going on? I wasted time attending – because he spent too much time talking about his stroke and not on the topic that attracts me to go. Which was “how to deal with attacks in the church” due to his mentioning of his stroke one person asked him whether he thinks it was his choices that c contributes to his illness because all good things comes from God. O how he got very offended and angry? Then he just stormed out of the church and left no genuflect and never to be seen…
Very weird
He attended last year in Melbourne. First I notice something weird about Tim. When he entered and leave the main altar where he had his talks and he never genuflected. Also he was promoting his protestant friends books and nothing about catholic faith. What’s going on? I wasted time attending – because he spent too much time talking about his stroke and not on the topic that attracts me to go. Which was “how to deal with attacks in the church” due to his mentioning of his stroke one person asked him whether he thinks it was his choices that c contributes to his illness because all good things comes from God. O how he got very offended and angry? Then he just stormed out of the church and left no genuflect and never to be seen…
Very weird
Hey, thanks for this post. It reminds me of a protestant named, “Christian Prince” he argues against the Muhammadans on the youtube.
Tim Staples, sounds very much like them! Vatican 2 is correct they worship the same god! (hehe) Because when directed to specific points Tim: A) repeats long quotes without drawing relevance to the point at hand, B) Plays context card, C) Makes remarks to fuel passions against arguing and D) says he’s already replied to specific point without having done so.
This is an absolutely excellent post…though a little difficult and painful to read.