Monday, October 30, 2023

The Pope's Response to the Cardinals' Second Dubium


On July 10, 2023, five cardinals transmitted a series of five dubia to Pope Francis. The second concerns the blessing of same-sex couples: “Can the Church… [accept] as a ‘possible good’ objectively sinful situations, such as unions of persons of the same sex, without breaching the revealed doctrine?”

On July 11, 2023, Pope Francis responds to these dubia. As for the second dubium, he recognizes that “the Church has a very clear conception of marriage: an exclusive, stable, and indissoluble union between a man and a woman, naturally open to the begetting of children. It calls this union ‘marriage.’” But he adds that “other forms of union only realize it ‘in a partial and analogical way’ (Amoris laetitia, 292). And so they cannot be strictly called ‘marriage.’”

He recognizes that this name must be reserved exclusively for “the reality that we call marriage.” He adds that “the Church avoids any rite or sacramental [blessing] that could contradict this conviction and give the impression that something that is not marriage is recognized as marriage.”

However, “in dealing with people, we must not lose the pastoral charity. … The defense of objective truth is not the only expression of this charity, which is also made up of kindness, patience, understanding, tenderness, and encouragement. Therefore, we cannot become judges who only deny, reject, exclude.”

Francis then invokes “pastoral prudence [which] must adequately discern whether there are forms of blessing, requested by one or more persons, that do not transmit a mistaken conception of marriage. For when a blessing is requested, one is expressing a request for help from God, a plea for a better life, a trust in a Father who can help us to live better.”

Then comes the exception: “On the other hand, although there are situations that from an objective point of view, are not morally acceptable, pastoral charity itself demands that we do not simply treat as ‘sinners’ other people whose guilt or responsibility can be due to their own fault or responsibility attenuated by various factors that influence subjective imputability.”

There is a very big difference between giving absolution to a person whose responsibility is attenuated and “blessing,” before the Church and the faithful, the objectively bad situation in which he has found himself, thus closing off any possibility of opening himself to the truth while misleading the other faithful.

To mitigate the previous point, the Pope explains that “decisions which, in certain circumstances, can form part of pastoral prudence, should not necessarily become a norm.”

In other words: “It is not appropriate for a diocese, an episcopal conference or any other ecclesial structure to constantly and officially authorize procedures or rites for all kinds of matters, since everything ‘that is part of a practical discernment in particular circumstances cannot be elevated to the level or a rule’” (Amoris laetitia, 304).

Behind this formulation which seems to rule out a systematization of a rite, the fact remains that the Pope clearly accepts that, according to pastoral prudence, in certain circumstances, a priest could be led – and therefore authorized – to bless a homosexual couple. It is this acceptance that led the five cardinals to reformulate their dubium:

“Is it possible, under ‘certain circumstances,’ for a priest to bless homosexual unions thereby suggesting that homosexual behavior itself would not be contrary to God's law and a person's path to God?”

Conclusion

Even if the Pope's response seems to rule out “official authorization” of the blessing of same-sex couples by an ecclesial structure, the fact remains that he authorizes it at least in “certain circumstances.” Moreover, as was the case with the Belgian bishops, he let it happen.


Sources: CNA/FSSPX.News – FSSPX.News


Sunday, October 29, 2023

STRANGE BLINDNESS


"You fear dishonor, slander, humiliation, and very often, in order to preserve an imaginary honor before men, you offend God! Wretched, don't you know that true honor is based on virtue? What does it matter to you what men think of you, as long as God esteems you and rewards you? Strange blindness! Human laws are feared and the Gospel is despised as if the orders of Jesus Christ were not worth what the decrees of princes are worth."

Saint Jerome


Tuesday, October 24, 2023

IN GOD’S GOOD TIME


“…Therefore let the priest capable of preaching go to the limits of his power to preach, to absolve sins and to celebrate the true Mass. Let the teaching Sister go to the limits of her grace and her power to form girls in the Faith, good morals, purity and literature. Let every priest and layman, every little group of laity and priests having authority and power over a little fort of the Church and Christendom, go to the limits of their possibilities and powers. Let leaders and inmates of such forts know and be in contact with one another. Let each of the forts protected, defended, trained and directed in its praying and singing by a real authority, become as far as possible a fortress of holiness. That is what will guarantee the continuation of the true Church and will prepare efficaciously for its renewal in God’s good time.

“So we need not to be afraid, but to pray with all confidence and to exercise without fear, according to Tradition and in the sphere that is ours, the power we have, preparing thus for the happy time when Rome will come back to being Rome (Eternal Rome) and bishops to being bishops (or rather, to act as true bishops).”

Fr. Roger-Thomas Calmel – Brief Apology for the Church of All Time


Monday, October 9, 2023

MODERNISM PROPOSES A NEW, CONTRARY AND DIFFERENT GOSPEL


No one living in adultery can receive Communion. It has been the doctrine of the Church for two thousand years.

Our Lord, He who is, Who was, and Who is to come, has clearly said that: 

“Whosoever shall put away his wife and marry another committeth adultery against her. And if the wife shall put away her husband and be married to another, she committeth adultery.” (Mk 10, 11:12)

“You have heard that it was said to them of old: Thou shalt not commit adultery. But I say to you, that whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart”. (Mt 5, 27:28)

A Catholic should only desire and love their legitimate spouse (with whom they contracted a religious marriage before God). Whoever divorces their (legitimate spouse) and contracts a civil marriage (that so-called "marriage" is null before God) commits adultery, and while living in adultery they should not receive Communion because they would be sacrilegiously receiving Communion in mortal sin and they would eat and drink his own damnation, as Saint Paul warns those who do not recognize themselves (do not recognize if there is sin in their conscience that prevents them from receiving Communion) or discern the Body of the Lord (1 Cor 11, 27:32).

There cannot be (as today Modernism sacrilegiously proposes) any "discernment" about the possibility of receiving Communion while living in adultery, because that person desires their new "partner" and fornicates with him/her, and does not stop doing so neither before nor after receiving Communion. Whoever lives in a state of mortal sin, only after having gone to Confession (to the priest in the sacrament of Penance) and confessed their sins with true repentance and with a firm intention of not sinning again, can receive the Eucharist. The adulterer (a person who has divorced from their legitimate spouse, and has supposedly remarried) who does not have the firm intention of stopping living in cohabitation (because that is what it really is) should not, in any case, either go to Confession or receive Communion, since they have no repentance or firm resolution to sin no more. Receiving both sacraments without these dispositions is a sacrilegious act. No one is allowed to receive Communion if they are in mortal sin, whatever it may be.

Let us not forget the biblical teaching of Saint Paul: “whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord.” (1 Cor 11, 27:32)

Saint John was beheaded and became a martyr for defending the indissolubility of marriage in the face of Herod's adultery, the same thing happened to Saint Thomas More who rejected the adultery of King Henry VIII. Neither of them proposed to the adulterers to make a "discernment" (as Modernism proposes today).

“But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema.” (Gal 1, 8)

“Heaven and earth shall pass: but my words shall not pass.” (Mt 24, 35)


Saturday, October 7, 2023

ROME: FIVE CARDINALS ADDRESS "DUBIA" TO THE POPE


Cardinals Brandmüller, Burke, Zen, Sandoval, and Sarah submitted five questions, called dubia, on August 21, asking for clarification on questions linked to doctrinal development, the blessing of same-sex unions, the authority of the Synod on Synodality, the ordination of women, and sacramental absolution.


These dubia were signed by Cardinals Walter Brandmüller (94), President of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences; Raymond Burke (75), Prefect Emeritus of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura; Joseph Zen Ze-Kiun (90), Bishop Emeritus of Hong Kong; Juan Sandoval Íñiguez (90), Archbishop Emeritus of Guadalajara; and Robert Sarah (78), Prefect Emeritus of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.


The Facts

In a “Notification to Christ’s Faithful (can.212 §3) Regarding Dubia Submitted to Pope Francis,” the cardinals explain that they had written a first set of “questions” that they sent to the Supreme Pontiff on July 10, 2023. The response was not late in coming, as it was dated July 11, the very next day.


However, this letter did not follow the typical dubium format. This type of question is posed in order to receive a “yes” or “no” response. But the Pope gave a detailed response that did not satisfy the five writers, as they found it too vague on all points. So they wrote a second version, more precise, expressly asking for a “yes” or a “no” answer to each point: “Having studied his letter which did not follow the practice of responsa ad dubia [responses to questions], we reformulated the dubia to elicit a clear response based on the perennial doctrine and discipline of the Church. By our letter of August 21, 2023, we submitted the reformulated dubia […] to the Roman Pontiff. Up to the present, we have not received a response to the reformulated dubia.”


The Initial Dubia and Their Reformulation


First dubium


The first dubium treated of the development of doctrine and the affirmation of it by bishops, asking if Divine Revelation “should be reinterpreted according to the cultural changes of our time and according to the new anthropological vision that these changes promote.” The cardinals emphasized that these changes could push the Church to teach things contrary to what she has always taught.


The Pope’s response indicated that the Church “matures in the understanding of what she herself has affirmed in her Magisterium.” But this did not satisfy the cardinals, since, as they stated, this “concerns essential, not secondary, questions for our salvation, like the confession of faith, subjective conditions for access to the sacraments, and observance of the moral law.”


So they reformulated their dubium: “is it possible for the Church today to teach doctrines contrary to those she has previously taught in matters of faith and morals, whether by the Pope ex cathedra, or in the definitions of an Ecumenical Council, or in the ordinary universal magisterium of the Bishops dispersed throughout the world (cf. Lumen Gentium 25)?”


Second dubium


The second dubium dealt with the blessing of same-sex unions. The cardinals emphasized the teaching of the Church on the creation of human nature as man and woman and of the order to multiply, (Gen. 1:27-28). The dubium initially asked if the Church could depart from this teaching and accept “as a ‘possible good’ objectively sinful situations, such as same-sex union.”


The response of the Pope said that to liken marriage to the blessing of same-sex couples would lead to confusion and therefore must be avoided. But the cardinals were concerned about the fact “that the blessing of same-sex couples might create confusion in any case […] in that homosexual acts would be presented practically as a good.”


So the dubium was reformulated: “Is it possible that in some circumstances a pastor could bless unions between homosexual persons, thus suggesting that homosexual behavior as such would not be contrary to God’s law and the person’s journey toward God?”


In line with this doubt, the cardinals asked if the teaching of the Church remains valid—namely, that “every sexual act outside of marriage, and in particular homosexual acts, constitutes an objectively grave sin against God’s law, regardless of the circumstances in which it takes place and the intention with which it is carried out.”


Third dubium


Treating of synodality, the third dubium initially asked “whether synodality can be the supreme regulative criterion of the permanent government of the Church without distorting her constitutive order willed by her Founder,” given that “the Synod of Bishops does not represent the College of Bishops but is merely a consultative organ of the Pope.”


The response of Pope Francis insisted that “synodality, as a style and dynamism, is an essential dimension of the life of the Church,” which includes all the lay faithful, but the cardinals then expressed their concern about the fact that “synodality” is presented “as if, in communion with the Pope, it represents the Supreme Authority of the Church.”


The cardinals’ reformulated dubium asks the question in this way: “Will the Synod of Bishops to be held in Rome, and which includes only a chosen representation of pastors and faithful, exercise, in the doctrinal or pastoral matters on which it will be called to express itself, the Supreme Authority of the Church, which belongs exclusively to the Roman Pontiff and, una cum capite suo, to the College of Bishops (cf. can. 336 C.I.C.)?”


Fourth dubium


The fourth dubium concerned the possible ordination of women. It asked “whether the teaching of St. John Paul II’s Apostolic Letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, which teaches as a truth to be definitively held the impossibility of conferring priestly ordination on women, is still valid” and if this teaching “is no longer subject to change nor to the free discussion of pastors or theologians.”


In their reformulated version of the dubium, the cardinals noted that the Pope had affirmed that Ordinatio Sacerdotalis must be definitively maintained and “that it is necessary to understand the priesthood, not in terms of power, but in terms of service.” But they voiced objections to his response, according to which “the question can still be further explored.”


“We are concerned that some may interpret this statement to mean that the matter has not yet been decided in a definitive manner,” they stated. Their reformulated dubium said: “Could the Church in the future have the faculty to confer priestly ordination on women, thus contradicting that the exclusive reservation of this sacrament to baptized males belongs to the very substance of the Sacrament of Orders, which the Church cannot change?”


Fifth dubium


The fifth dubium focused on sacramental absolution. The initial dubium referred to the insistence of Pope Francis on the “duty to absolve everyone and always, so that repentance would not be a necessary condition for sacramental absolution.” It asked if contrition is always necessary for the validity of confession, “so that the priest must postpone absolution when it is clear that this condition is not fulfilled.”


In the reformulated dubium, the cardinals explained that the Pope “confirmed the teaching of the Council of Trent according to which the validity of sacramental absolution requires the sinner’s repentance, which includes the resolve not to sin again.” They added, however: “Some might interpret Your answer as meaning that merely approaching confession is a sufficient condition for receiving absolution, inasmuch as it could implicitly include confession of sins and repentance.”


So they reformulated their dubium as follows: “Can a penitent who, while admitting a sin, refuses to make, in any way, the intention not to commit it again, validly receive sacramental absolution?”


The Vatican Publishes the Pope’s Response 

Likely annoyed by the publication of the “Notification to Christ’s Faithful” by the five cardinals, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith—certainly with the consent or at the request of the Pope—published the Pope’s July 11 letter of response to the five cardinals, which had not been intended to be made public. They had considered it a personal response of Pope Francis and that it was not for them to publish it. These recent incidents, occurring just before the opening of the Synod, are not likely seen with a kind eye at the Vatican. It risks stifling conversation in the hallways and in the Synod chamber. 


Sources: InfoCatolica/vatican.va/cath.ch–Fsspx.Actualités


Thursday, October 5, 2023

Notification to Christ’s Faithful (can. 212 § 3) Regarding Dubia Submitted to Pope Francis


Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

We, members of the Sacred College of Cardinals, in accord with the duty of all the faithful “to manifest to the sacred pastors their opinion on matters which pertain to the good of the Church” (can. 212 § 3) and, above all, in accord with the responsibility of Cardinals “to assist the Roman Pontiff … individually … especially in the daily care of the universal Church” (can. 349), in view of various declarations of highly-placed Prelates, pertaining to the celebration of the next Synod of Bishops, that are openly contrary to the constant doctrine and discipline of the Church, and that have generated and continue to generate great confusion and the falling into error among the faithful and other persons of good will, have manifested our deepest concern to the Roman Pontiff. By our letter of July 10, 2023, employing the proven practice of the submission of dubia [questions] to a superior to provide the superior the occasion to make clear, by his responsa [responses], the doctrine and discipline of the Church, we have submitted five dubia to Pope Francis, a copy of which is attached. By his letter of July 11, 2023, Pope Francis responded to our letter.

Having studied his letter which did not follow the practice of responsa ad dubia [responses to questions], we reformulated the dubia to elicit a clear response based on the perennial doctrine and discipline of the Church. By our letter of August 21, 2023, we submitted the reformulated dubia, a copy of which is attached, to the Roman Pontiff. Up to the present, we have not received a response to the reformulated dubia.

Given the gravity of the matter of the dubia, especially in view of the imminent session of the Synod of Bishops, we judge it our duty to inform you, the faithful (can. 212 § 3), so that you may not be subject to confusion, error, and discouragement but rather may pray for the universal Church and, in particular, the Roman Pontiff, that the Gospel may be taught ever more clearly and followed ever more faithfully.

Yours in Christ,

Walter Cardinal Brandmüller

Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke

Juan Cardinal Sandoval Íñiguez

Robert Cardinal Sarah

Joseph Cardinal Zen Ze-kiun