Sorrowful Heart of Mary Newsletter - October/November 2019

[Stone]

Sorrowful Heart of Mary Newsletter - October/November 2019

To view the Newsletter in your browser and/or to download, click HERE

✠ ✠ ✠

A few more quotes on the doubtfulness of Conciliar Sacraments - a reflection of how the SSPX used to approach the issue of Conciliar priestly and episcopal ordinations [taken from here and here]:

OTHER SOURCES QUOTING ARCHBISHOP LEFEBVRE ON DOUBTFUL ORDINATIONS

Dominicans of Avrille – footnote to “The Art of Confessing”:

Today, we must be precise: “a traditional priest validly ordained”. We know that there is a doubt on the validity of the new rite of priestly ordination (look at the letter of Archbishop Lefebvre on our website). There is also a doubt about the validity of the ordinations performed by conciliar bishops, even when they use the traditional rite. In his sermon of the consecration of four bishops (June 30, 1988), Archbishop Lefebvre said: “If God calls me, from whom will these seminarians receive the priestly ordination: from conciliar bishops whose sacraments are ALL doubtful?


Dominicans of Avrille - Le Sel de la Terre 54

“Due to the generalized disorder, both at the liturgical and dogmatic levels, we can have serious reasons to doubt the validity of certain episcopal ordinations.”



Fr. Peter Scott wrote the following conclusion in a 2007 Angelus article, entitled, "Must priests who come to Tradition be re-ordained?":

It would, indeed, be tragic if all traditional priests did not have moral certitude as to their ordination, and if there existed two different grades of priests, a higher grade ordained in Tradition, and a lower grade. It is for this reason that the superiors have the right to insist on conditional re-ordination for any priest turning towards Tradition, and will only accept ordinations in the conciliar Church after having investigated both priestly and episcopal ordinations and established moral certitude.

Archbishop Lefebvre clearly recognized his obligation of providing priests concerning whose ordination there was no doubt. It was one of the reasons for the episcopal consecrations of 1988, as he declared in the sermon for the occasion:

You well know, my dear brethren, that there can be no priests without bishops. When God calls me—this will certainly not be long—from whom would these seminarians receive the sacrament of Orders? From conciliar bishops, who, due to their doubtful intentions, confer doubtful sacraments? This is not possible."

He continued, explaining that he could not leave the faithful orphans, nor abandon the seminarians who entrusted themselves to him, for “they came to our seminaries, despite all the difficulties that they have encountered, in order to receive a true ordination to the priesthood...” (Fr. Francois Laisney, Archbishop Lefebvre and the Vatican, p.120). He considered it his duty to guarantee the certitude of the sacrament of holy orders by the consecration of bishops in the traditional rite, who would then ordain only in the traditional rite.

We must observe the same balance as Archbishop Lefebvre. On the one hand, it is our duty to avoid the excess of sedevacantism, which unreasonably denies the very validity and existence of the post-conciliar Church and its priesthood. On the other hand, however, we must likewise reject the laxist and liberal approach that does not take seriously the real doubts that can arise concerning the validity of priestly ordinations in the post-conciliar Church, failing to consider the enormous importance and necessity of a certainly valid priesthood for the good of the Church, for the eternal salvation of souls, and for the tranquility of the consciences of the faithful. Given the gravity of these issues, it is not even a slight doubt that is acceptable. Hence the duty of examining in each particular case the vernacular form of priestly ordination, the intention of the ordaining bishop, the rite of consecration of the ordaining bishop, and the intention of the consecrators.

Just as the superiors take seriously their duty of guaranteeing the moral certitude of the holy orders of their priests, whether by means of conditional ordination or careful investigation (when possible), so also must priests who join the Society accept conditional ordination in case of even slight positive doubt, and so also must the faithful recognize that each case is different and accept the decision of those who alone are in a position to perform the necessary investigations.

For regardless of the technical question of the validity of a priest’s holy orders, we all recognize the Catholic sense that tells us that there can be no mixing of the illegitimate new rites with the traditional Catholic rites, a principle so simply elucidated by Archbishop Lefebvre on June 29, 1976:

We are not of this religion. We do not accept this new religion. We are of the religion of all time, of the Catholic religion. We are not of that universal religion, as they call it today. It is no longer the Catholic religion. We are not of that liberal, modernist religion that has its worship, its priests, its faith, its catechisms, its Bible."

Bp. Tissier de Mallerais, quoted by Dominicans of Avrille:

Bp Tissier de Mallerais, in his sermon from June 29, 2016 at Econe, spoke as follows concerning the rite of ordination for priests:

“Clearly, we cannot accept this faked new rite of ordination that leaves doubts concerning the validity of numerous ordinations done according to the new rite. Thus this new rite of ordination is not Catholic. And so we will of course faithfully continue to transmit the real and valid priesthood by the traditional pr traditional priestly rite of ordination.”

Abbot F.M. Chautard - Catechism of timely truths: The rallies (seen by Archbishop Lefebvre) - July 8, 2018 [Translated from the French]:

17) Are the sacraments of the rallied priests valid?

The sacraments of the rallied priests are valid to the extent that their ordinations are valid (for the sacraments which require the priesthood in the minister). However, one can have a doubt about the priesthood of clerics rallied who were ordained by bishops themselves doubtfully sacred [consecrated] because of ambiguous intentions and the new rite of episcopal consecrations (after 1968).

Fr. Gregory Hesse

"Based on what has been stated by Archbishop Lefebvre, namely that the Newmass is a "schismatic rite", we would like to quote Pope Leo XIII and Saint Thomas Aquinas to prove that even though a schismatic sacrament may be valid, it does not have the guarantee of the graces and fruits that normally would flow from them, and also that they are like an amputated member of body (Church):

• "From this it follows also that they cannot promise themselves any of the graces and fruits of the perpetual sacrifice and of the sacraments which although they are sacrilegiously administered are none the less valid and serve in some measure to form an appearance of piety, which St Paul mentions I Corinthians chapter 13 and which St. Augustine speaks of at greater length." (Serm. LXXI, in Matth., 32) Pope Leo XIII Eximia Leatitia, July 19, 1893, to the bishops of Poitiers)
  

• "The form of the branch may still be visible, even apart from the wine, but the invisible life of the root can be preserved only in union with the stock. That is why the corporal sacraments, which some keep and use outside the unity of Christ, can preserve the appearance of piety. But the invisible and spiritual virtue of true piety cannot abide there anymore than feeling can remain in an amputated member." (Sermon of St. Augustine on the Gospel of St. Matthew). So there's no grace that flows from their sacraments.
  

• "And since the conservation of the Eucharist is a power which follows the power of Order, such persons as are separated from the Church by heresy, schism, or excommunication, can indeed consecrate the Eucharist, which on being consecrated by them contains Christ's true body and blood; but they act wrongly and sin by doing so; and in consequence they do not receive the fruit of the sacrifice, which is a spiritual sacrifice." St. Thomas Aquinas [IIIa q. 82 art. 7, c]
  

• "The priest, in reciting the prayers of the Mass, speaks in the person of the church, in whose unity he remains; but in consecrating the sacrament he speaks in the person of Christ, whose place he holds by the power of his Orders. Consequently, a priest severed from the unity of the Church celebrates Mass, not having lost the power of Order, he consecrates Christ's true body and blood; but because he is severed from the unity of the Church, his prayers have no efficacy. St. Thomas Aquinas [IIIa q. 82 art. 7, ad 3um]
  

✠ ✠ ✠

Dear friends,

With permission from both Father Hewko and the good soul who sent this to me, I am grateful to be able to share the following response of Fr. Hewko's in answer to a question asked of him about Novus Ordo/New Rite Sacraments.

While only Father's answer was shared with me (not the particular question), I think Father Hewko's response makes it clear what that question was.

May this help clear the ever-encroaching mist of confusion from Vatican II, in which it is easy for even the veterans of tradition to become disoriented!:

In answer to your question if the sacraments are a doctrinal or prudential question, they are, in fact, the perfection of both.

It is of doctrine that Christ instituted them as well as the clear matter, form and intention to be followed. That they give supernatural grace and other graces is also doctrinal.

Prudence comes in on circumstances surrounding them, such as, is such & such a candidate worthy for ordination or prepared enough for matrimony or first Communion?

So, with the new sacraments, it is doctrinal and not merely practical, because to change the matter, form or intention, as they do, affects whether they are valid or nor; whether they give grace or not. On these effects of the Sacraments depend eternal salvation.

So yes, they are firstly DOCTRINAL!