Updated with point 5 below:
There are five statements that show our Church is heading towards a schism similar to the Great Schism or perhaps more like the Protestant Reformation.
1. The CDF has made clear what constitutes a valid baptism and by way of it, implied though, that words matter as well as form which constitutes a valid sacrament.
2. Responding to radical bishops and the radical “church” in Germany, the CDF made clear that the German Church’s proposal for intercommunion with Protestants offends the Orthodox not to mention orthodox Catholics. This is what the CDF said:
In a letter to Bishop Georg Bätzing, president of the German bishops’ conference, the CDF said that the proposal did not do justice to the Catholic understanding of the Church, the Eucharist, and Holy Orders.
3. Then the CDF made clear what would be necessary for a schismatic Irish theologian priest must do to have his suspension from the priesthood lifted:
There are five statements that show our Church is heading towards a schism similar to the Great Schism or perhaps more like the Protestant Reformation.
1. The CDF has made clear what constitutes a valid baptism and by way of it, implied though, that words matter as well as form which constitutes a valid sacrament.
2. Responding to radical bishops and the radical “church” in Germany, the CDF made clear that the German Church’s proposal for intercommunion with Protestants offends the Orthodox not to mention orthodox Catholics. This is what the CDF said:
In a letter to Bishop Georg Bätzing, president of the German bishops’ conference, the CDF said that the proposal did not do justice to the Catholic understanding of the Church, the Eucharist, and Holy Orders.
3. Then the CDF made clear what would be necessary for a schismatic Irish theologian priest must do to have his suspension from the priesthood lifted:
(Schismatic Fr.) Flannery revealed the Vatican's move against him to NCR on Sept. 15, releasing both a letter from the doctrinal congregation and four "doctrinal dispositions" he was asked to affirm. They regard the church's official positions on a male-only priesthood, gay relationships, civil unions and gender identity.
4. A comment on my blog sums up what where we may be heading:
Jake said...
Some English Catholic clergy are pushing for something similar (along with the ordination of women). They’ll probably declare their hand at the next synod. It’s not just happening in Germany. I expect a flurry of demands from liberal dioceses around the world to pressurise the pope for change on the hot button issues.
5. Press title:
When push comes to shove, Pope Francis while allowing already talked to death possibilities of female ordination, same sex union and gender ideology, Even more talk has ultimately said no to these. His Holiness has also said that it is definitively declared as a part of the Ordinary Magisterium of the Church that women cannot be ordained priests. This was under Pope St. John Paul II.
Swiss bishop calls for a council on female priesthood, ‘otherwise we will experience a schism’
When push comes to shove, Pope Francis while allowing already talked to death possibilities of female ordination, same sex union and gender ideology, Even more talk has ultimately said no to these. His Holiness has also said that it is definitively declared as a part of the Ordinary Magisterium of the Church that women cannot be ordained priests. This was under Pope St. John Paul II.
And now through his own appointed Cardinal ladaria of the CDF, Pope Francis definitively puts the breaks of the disruption of the Sacraments of the Church and amorality proposed by a significant number of clergy and laity, to include bishops throughout the world.
Why I say that the coming schism won’t be like the Orthodox Schism but rather like the Protestant Reformation is that the neo-schism upcoming will lead to invalid sacraments especially as it regards Holy Orders and Holy Matrimony. The Great Schism left Apostolic Succession and valid Sacraments in place, the bishops simply broke with the pope, a true schism. The Protestants lost Apostolic Succession when it declared there were only two Sacraments, Baptism and Communion. However, you need a valid priesthood for a valid “Eucharistic dogma”. You can’t have the Sacraments of Penance, Confirmation, Anointing of the Sick without a valid priesthood. You can’t have a valid marriage without being validly baptized, one man and one woman both biologically so and with no impediments.
Let’s speculate Pope Francis or a future pope allows for female ordination, same sex unions and the rest of the rubbish of the left heterodox, what would I do and I hope you would do? I would remain in union with the Church of Rome and leave it to the Holy Spirit to sort things out more than likely after my death.
I will always be in union with Rome. I am a Roman Catholic.
38 comments:
I will always be in union with Rome. I am a Catholic. And I see nothing in the nature of a woman that prevents her from being a true icon of Jesus Christ.
We probably have a de facto schism already. However, like you, I will remain a Roman Catholic until death. Fortunately, my pastor is a young man, age 32, and is very orthodox and celebrates the EF once a week and the OF with great dignity in continuity with the EF. He is the future, so we will be fine eventually.
Gaius K. Cato,
LOL, well we have that pesky problem of Ordinatio Sacerdotalis standing in your way.
Then Cato you must disagree with the Ordinary Magisterium, with Pope Francis and believe in gender ideology which has colonized you and not the Magisterium. So you are saying, and I think this is a part of transgenderism, that a woman can act as a man and be a husband to her wife, correct? Rome we have a problem.
Where does the Ordinary Magisterium state that there is something in the nature of a woman that prevents her from being a true icon of Jesus Christ?
You can offer other concepts or cite passages referring to other points, but unless and until you can provide the answer to my question, I shall disregard your reply.
And Fr. McDonald, are saying that a woman should stay home, in the kitchen, barefoot, and pregnant?
What would I do? I would go to the Orthodox.
A woman can be an image of Christ in his love, but not in his masculinity, unless you agree with gender ideology and if you are a priest and promote that, you could very well get suspended if you persisted, like Fr. Flannery in Ireland. A woman cannot be an icon of the masculinity of Christ, His role as the exclusive High Priest (not priestess) and his role as the Spouse/husband of the Church. Only gender ideologists apparently like you obfuscate icon of the love of Christ or being Christ-like and being male.
And yes a woman who takes her vocation and a mother and wife, both coming from the Sacrament of Marriage should stay home while rearing small children and not farm them out to others to raise their children at great expense. It's like telling a priest he shouldn't stay in his parish but get a job doing something. How ridiculous. But if you denigrate the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony as you do you think that the other things are more important for women. Religious life and the single life give woman many opportunities in the Church to serve and in my parish as with your, but mine more so, women are in high places married or single, and none of them are allowed to work barefoot, but one priest here wears sandals as did our previous bishop, not to my tastes but we all have our own tastes, no?
Fr. McDonald, your capacity for flights of fancy would seem dangerous if I did not know you were just joshing.
So, no Ordinary (or Extraordinary) Magisterial citations regarding that which, in the nature of a woman, prevents her from being a true icon of Christ?
Your "masculinity" references aren't magisterial... waiting...
The interesting part will come when the new president will choose the true church and suppress the other for violation of doctrine.
You used the term icon, not I, so you do your homework and report back to me and this blog if a woman can be ordained a priestess and represent Christ the High Priestess Bride of the Church. I am waiting.
In the meantime:
May 29, 2018
The prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) has reaffirmed the permanent authority of the Church’s teaching that women cannot be ordained to the priesthood, in an article published in the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano.
(2018) Archbishop Luis Ladaria—who will soon receive a cardinal’s red hat from Pope Francis—argues that the Church is bound by the decision of Jesus Himself, who chose only men priestly ministry. He cites the writings of Pope John Paul II, who taught in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis that the Church cannot ordain women, as well as the current Pontiff, who in Evangelii Gaudium confirmed the male-only priesthood. This teaching, the CDF prefect said, is “a truth belonging to the deposit of faith.”
Arguments for the ordination of women, Archbishop Ladaria writes, are harmful to the faithful because they cause confusion—not only about the nature of Holy Orders but about the teaching authority of the Church.
Gaius K. Cato,
And yet, you are the one that is denying the reality of the utter failure of Vatican II and Ordinatio Sacerdotolis. Do you also participate in the riots and looting sponsored by your Party?
Fr. McDonald, having found nothing in the magisterial teaching of the Church stating that a women cannot be a true icon of Christ, you employ your typical dodge: "Do your homework."
Yes, I used "true icon." Did it take some divine revelation or the whispers of you guardian angel in your ear for you to come to that conclusion, Captain Obvious?
Alas for you, that's not an response to my question.
So, moving forward, I hope that you and others will come to recognize that there is nothing in the nature of a woman that prevents her from being a true icon of Christ
On your own blog, you write a post on being an "icon" of Christ. This post is on women's ordination to the priesthood. Nice try at diversion and dishonesty.
BTW, your usage of the word "icon" says a lot about your ignorance concerning these.
An icon or ikon (from the Greek εἰκών eikṓn 'image, resemblance') is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodoxy, the Roman Catholic, and certain Eastern Catholic churches. They are not simply artworks; "an icon is a sacred image used in religious devotion".[1] The most common subjects include Christ, Mary, saints and angels. Although especially associated with portrait-style images concentrating on one or two main figures, the term also covers most religious images in a variety of artistic media produced by Eastern Christianity, including narrative scenes, usually from the Bible or lives of saints.
Thus, with the true meaning of the religious usage of the word icon/ikon, no a woman cannot be depicted as Christ within Orthodoxy or Catholicism, pure and simple. I rest my case.
So I guess you are not a fan of "mitered mamas"!!?!?
Fr., he has a blog? I bet it’s a doozy...
If he is a priest as you suspect, it may be time to delete his snarky heterodox teaching? Just asking...
Rest all you want, but women can and are depicted as Christ. So the notion that, "a woman cannot be depicted as Christ within Orthodoxy or Catholicism" is malarkey.
You will recall that when Pope John Paul II visited Denver in 1993 a woman DID depict Christ in the "Living Stations of the Cross." So, your assertion that a woman "can't" is, simply put, wrong.
An icon is also "a person or thing regarded as a representative symbol." Priests represent Christ, they symbolize His presence. So, the definition you offer is more than a little attenuated.
Show us actual iconography/ikonography of a woman depicted as Christ in Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, please show us. And that event of a woman playing Christ was roundedly condemned and has not happened again. Gender ideology you know of the kind that has colonized you, as Pope Francis would say.
I have to say that I no longer wish to be in communion with the Pope. My doubts about the claims of Roman Catholicism only increased when I learned that baptism had been formally corrupted. Before that when I learned that being fully gendered male was not a requirement for the priesthood I began to doubt. I learned at the highest levels same sex attraction was no impediment to ordination. Celibacy, though gay, fulfills the criterion for ordination. This seemed to me one step toward female priesthood at the time and I stopped attending mass and attended the Russian church instead. I was comforted by the fact that the parish priests are married and that homosexuality is rejected. A person I know visited Mount Athos and had a general confession, where he confessed sodomy, although he is not a practicing homosexual and has married No permission for communion was given him. I saw then that confessors in Roman Catholicism give absolution to anyone who comes to confession, except in rare exceptions. We know now that abortion is not a major sin and see abortionists and their advocates publicly receive communion.Although I am slow to submit to baptism, having received baptism as a Roman Catholic, I cannot hold out forever. I am now a catechumen in the Russian Church Outside Russia. I do not see how in my life time the errors of Pope Francis' church will be corrected, his reasoning is legalistic: equity for breakers of marriage vows, since priestly vows may be broken. Equity for the Amazon worshippers of Panchamama, because of the de facto Catholic acceptance of Santeria and Voodoo in the Americas. Since a goodly portion of the population America in the southern hemisphere is of mixed ancestry created from non-Catholic unions, the future bodes ill for sexual morality and marriage in general. Of course, this situation existed before Vatican II but the present Pope pledged himself to continue Vatican II instead of suppressing it carrying it on in his search for equity and justice as he sees it. He has filled the College of Cardinals with those who agree with him. I'm afraid folks the jig is up. Vatican II is a "neo-catholic" sect. The question is whether this sect began only 50 years ago or was it earlier? I am beginning to think it went hand in hand with the spread of Xtianity amongst the German tribes of Europe. Many had become Christian do to the Arian party, which lost out after Nicaea/ Constantinople. That is why the creedal alteration was in the cards in the Carolingian church no matter what. There was no respect for the Nicene creed, never was in most of Europe and this began a crusade against the sacraments first with protestant movement, which now has effectively eliminated the sacrament of baptism. The sacrament of the Eucharist succumbed after the novus ordo. So why remain with the Pope? Rome is a branch of the Apostolic church but it is a dead branch.
As God's holy priest, Father McDonald has provided a powerful witness today in regard to our vital need to remain in communion with the Vicar of Christ.
Those who oppose Pope Francis will embrace such false, destructive teachings as the ordination of women to the Sacred Priesthood.
We know, as confirmed in powerful fashion by more than 2,000 bishops at Vatican II, that Jesus Christ speaks through our Pope, as well as bishops in communion with him.
We know that God presides over, and guided, Vatican II.
We know that Jesus Christ has enriched His pastors, teachers, and, above all, His Pope with the supernatural gifts of knowledge, understanding, and wisdom.
In turn, our Pope, pastors, and teachers, are able to preserve, explain, and promote the Faith.
Those who wish to stand with God must stand with His Holiness, Pope Francis.
Today, Father McDonald, in holy, powerful fashion, has declared that he stands with Pope Francis.
I, stand with, as well as bow to Father McDonald, who serves as a holy and powerful witness to the fact that to remain faithful to God and His Holy Church, we must remain in communion with Pope Francis.
Otherwise, we will stand with, and bow to Satan, as we embrace such false and destructive teachings as the ordination of women to the priesthood.
Peace and good health to Father McDonald. He has demonstrated, as always, that he is God's holy priest.
Pax.
Mark Thomas
Fr. McDonald - You are, as is typical, confusing "icon" and "icon."
One is, as you state, "a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodoxy, the Roman Catholic, and certain Eastern Catholic churches."
But there is another meaning, just as important: "a person or thing regarded as a representative symbol."
Your sainted mother was, I am sure, a "true icon" of Christ, as are many of the women you have known and worked with in your extended career as a priest in service in the diocese of Savannah.
Look no further than those holy women for the icon you seek.
I wish to be in communion with the pope. I can't reproduce a long sanctimonious litany like MT, so I'll cut to the chase. Of course I am in communion with the pope. I simply do not accept his teachings when he speaks in error. And, contrary to the bootlicking slavering of some people posting here, NOT EVERY WORD THAT ISSUES FROM THE LIPS OF A POPE, whether it be Jorge Bergoglio, Angelo Roncalli, Guisseppe Sarto, Eugenio Pacelli or Rodrigo Borgia IS INFALLIBLE.
The requirements for infallible statements are quite specific.
I stand with Pope Francis. I pray for Pope Francis. And, like many Catholics who understand that Church teaching cannot contradict what came before, I am very, very patient with him.
Just don't ask me to blindly suck up to everything he says--and he says a lot on a regular basis--God bless him.
In other words, gas, you can't produce any true religious icon in the religious sense of the word, especially as the Eastern Orthodox use it, and for them icons are almost like Sacraments. I knew it. But when it comes to the secular use of the term, maybe I could put a woman who is transgendered on a computer app and call it an icon.
"In the religious sense of the word" is a phrase you have introduced, not I.
But now that you have, read on and realize the error you have made...
A priest standing at the altar is, IN THE RELIGIIOUS SENSE OF THE WORD, a true icon of Christ, is he not?
A priest administering the Sacraments of the Church is a true icon of Christ is, in the religious sese of the word, a true icopn of Christ, is he not?
These are human beings, not paintings, who are, in the religious sense of the wods, true icons.
You see, you thought - wrongly - that saying "in the religious sense of the word" was your way out of the hole you have dug for youself.
But, as you now realize, the both the religious and the secular sense, you are deeper than when you started.
Gas,your usage of icon is ideology, wrong and an abuse of an important aspect of devotion of the Eastern Church, in union and Orthodox. No a priest is not an icon of Christ at Mass or during the Consecration, he is a living person, not an art work and is a sacramental image as in the term Sacrament and Real Presence. He isn't an icon, that is absurd!
Please get your act together, linguistically and religiously.
Fr. McDonald - I use the word "icon" as the world uses it.
Try typing "She/He is an icon of..." in your GoogleSearch box.
Guess what comes up? People. Not paintings, not art works.
Rep. John Lewis is an icon of the Civil Rights movement.
Mahatma Ghandi is an icon of non-violent protest.
You're digging deeper and deeper......
If a future pontiff announces that God tells us it is time the Church accepts married priests, female priests or same-sex unions, then the Church will accept married priests, female priests or same-sex unions. It isn't as if they've never changed their minds before. We had married priests for centuries until the Middle Ages. The Church supported slavery for centuries. Several dogmas were discovered in the past two centuries, after 18 hundred years of Catholicism. We can roll with this.
Anonymous at 3:41 pm,
You’d have to roll over Ordinatio Sacerdotolis, not happening
My view is that at this point the Church of Rome has women priests—men who buy choice choose to be women and celibate. In Cambridge UK the mayor was a man who chose to be a lesbian and married another man who made the same choice. Once one starts down this road there's no stopping it. The symbolism of Bible and liturgy become confused. When that happens and the process has begun already there is really no point about talking about the papacy. The papal magisterium is a mute issue as it is today, with the silence of the pope about Catholic politicians who preach a platform of final term abortions. Can there be doubt that silence on this issue is in fact an endorsement of infanticide?
Paul Hardy, what the hell are you talking about?
"The Protestants lost apostolic succession when they declared there were just two sacraments."
Oh?
"The number of sacraments is often referred to as seven, but this has never been formally decided by an Ecumenical Council. In the patristic tradition sometimes more and sometimes less than seven are counted as sacraments...The seven most frequently mentioned, however, are Baptism, Chrismation, Eucharist, Repentance (in which all Christians are to participate) as well as Marriage, Ordination and Unction."
SOURCE---Pages 285 and 296 of THE ORTHODOX CHURCH, 455 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
And:
"Even today the number seven (in terms of sacraments) has no absolute dogmatic significance for Orthodox theology, but is used primarily as a convenience in teaching."
SORUCE: THE ORTHODOX CHURCH (Timothy Ware)
I would say the Protestants lost apostolic succession when they rejected the three-fold order of bishops, priests and deacons. The Roman Catholic Church has rejected Anglican orders, I think because of the removal of language about the Eucharist being a sacrifice, while there have been varying opinions in Eastern Orthodoxy about the validity of Anglican orders, part of that perhaps due to the ordination of women bishops, which clearly was never a feature of the undivided Church.
The Episcopal Church (39 Articles, Book of Common Prayer) mentions 2 sacraments (you can probably guess which ones) but confirmation is regarded as a "sacramental rite."
If the teachings you describe, Fr McDonald, come to pass it will be because evil people Have taken over the Church.
On the question of the ordination of women it is of no importance what you, I, or anyone else would like or prefer; only what Jesus Christ does. He decided, following the example of the previous divine mandate in the Old Testament, to ordain only men. While we could speculate about his reasons for this, we cannot deny his actions. To state that denying ordination to women is unjust is to imply that our Lord himself was unjust. One should shudder at such a thought! The all-male priesthood has also been a part of the teaching of the universal and ordinary Magisterium of the Church. If theology has rightly been called faith seeking understanding, we need to accept in faith the fact of the divinely established all-male priesthood and then seek, by the guidance of God's grace, to understand why. To subject the acceptance of questions of faith to human understanding is to start on the road toward heresy, placing human reason above divine revelation.
Fr. Forte your comment is very cogent and well written. We need language like this coming from the pope and bishops. It seems to me that the question has long been settled, yet bishops want to appease those who want women’s ordination and they often frame it within the context of “inclusivity’ a horrible word when applied to God’s calling as well as social justice as though God’s calling voiced through the Church is a social injustice. It is all so very worldly.
I can’t imagine a pope or a council of the Church with the pope allowing women’s ordination to the priesthood. It certainly was settled by Pope St. John Paul II who said it is part of the Ordinary Magisterium of the Church. But more importantly, His Holiness said, he has absolutely no authority to change this revealed truth. In other words no pope is God and a pope’s powered are quite limited as is his authority.
Father Forte,
I concur with Father McDonald that your argument is cogent. Your explanation never occurred to me but it is a strong argument in favor of retaining an all male priesthood. Quite frankly, as conservative as the English tend to be, it surprised me when they allowed the "ordination" of women to the priesthood.
Rome, Georgia?
The ordination of women priests in the Episcopal Church, which was authorized at their 1976 triennial convention, certainly has not revived what were then the already declining numbers in their Church. Membership peaked around 3.5 million around 1970, down to 2.4 million by the end of the 1980s and now 1.7 million---barely half a percent of America's total population. And the exodus continued when Barbara Harris was made a bishop in the Diocese of Massachusetts back in 1989. After the Harris ordination, one Episcopal bishop asked, "Can we really believe that it was in the mind of God to exclude 50 percent of his creation from participation in the church as bishops?"
However...
A more traditionalist position---I suspect in line with most of the readers of this blog---was offered back then by the Rt. Rev. Donald Davies, the retired bishop of Fort Worth. "To say Christ was badly mistaken when he chose only men to be his apostles is saying that he erred and that we, who claim to follow him as the Lord, can improve on what he handed down to us...It is making the church over into our own image." (From an article in Insight Magazine, April 24, 1989).
Veteran (elder) Episcopalians in the Savannah area may recall that their bishop at that time (of the 1976 authorization of women priests), Bishop Paul Reeves, was a vehement opponent of women's ordination (he was an Anglo-Catholic cleric, somewhat novel to a diocese where Low Church Anglicanism had been the norm). Not surprisingly, in the more liberal Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta (which runs from Columbus and Macon north and east to near Augusta), their bishop, Bennett J. Sims, was a strong supporter of ordination of women (and I think later of same-sex "marriage").
Interestingly, although the Eastern Orthodox Church does not ordain women priests, there does not exist any Pan-Orthodox statement on the matter which possesses ecumenical authority. An ecumenical council is the highest authority among the Orthodox, as they have no supreme leader, no pope-like figure, their government, like the Anglican Communion, being more councilar. The question of female deacons or deaconesses is another question, seen as separately from ordination of women priests.
What Father Forte said!
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