Servus Mariae nunquam peribit. I block Feeneyites & those who argue like them. "Talk not much with a fool, and go not with him that hath no sense" Eccl. 22, 14
Joined February 2022
- Tweets3.8K
- Following153
- Followers2.8K
- Likes5.7K
Pinned Tweet
I deplore the malicious insinuations that were spread against the Jews in the trial of Kiev.
Consequences of the insane fanaticism of those populations.
Fr. Gabriel Lavery retweeted
The more logical approach, lest we waste time debating questions on which you and I are not even speaking the same language, is to define:
1) What is "visibility" as explained by the theologians.
2) What things must exist at all times and in what way, also according to theologians, as essential to this visibility? For example, clearly a living Pope is not, or else, as Protestants have attempted to argue, the Church would have lost her visibility every time a Pope has died.
Only then can we usefully spend time trying to identify *which* body of men claiming to be Catholic actually has the visibility as defined and as identified in these essentials.
We could argue whether a grain of wheat and an apple are both fruits, but if I was using a scientific definition and you were using common parlance, our discussion would be doomed to failure from the start. On the other hand, if we had simply started by accepting a scientific definition, we could easily prove whether or not a wheat grain is a fruit.
Since you are the one arguing that I do not belong to a visible Church, I'll let you answer the two questions above from theologians to begin.
Interesting passage from Fr. Faber mentioning an Anglican publication that exposed the negligent, sloppy manner in which many Anglican pastors performed baptism, and concluded that some Anglican bishops may not even be validly baptized.
Quite a similar situation is present in the Novus Ordo today, which has become extremely careless in baptizing and often makes a joke of it. I have some VHS tapes from the 1990s of baptism done in one Novus Ordo parish in Ohio. Of the three different ministers who did baptism in these videos, only one did it certainly validly. Of the remaining two ministers, one changed the words, saying: "We baptize you..." The other immersed only the bottom half of a baby up to the navel and never put any water on the head or even anywhere near the head. These are invalid, or very doubtfully valid at best. The Novus Ordo is a Protestant "church," not the Catholic Church.
The passage is from Fr. Faber' famous booklet on Examination of the Grounds for Remaining in the Anglican Communion, which I have been saying (since 2010) might as well be a textbook on the reasons to leave the Novus Ordo false religion.
Fr. Newman (later Cardinal) expressed the same sentiment that some Anglican bishops were not even validly baptized, let alone valid bishops, in a letter he wrote to Fr. Coleridge in 1868:
"Previous baptism is the condition of the valid administration of the other sacraments. When I was in the Anglican Church I saw enough of the lax administration of baptism, even among High Churchmen, though they did not of course intend it, to fill me with great uneasiness. Of course there are definite persons whom one might point out, whose baptisms are sure to be valid. But my argument has nothing to do with present baptisms. Bishops were baptized, not lately, but as children. The present bishops were consecrated by other bishops, they again by others. What I have seen in the Anglican Church makes it very difficult for me to deny that every now and then a bishop was a consecrator who had never been baptized. Some bishops have been brought up in the north as Presbyterians, others as Dissenters, others as Low Churchmen, others have been baptized in the careless perfunctory way once so common; there is then much reason to believe that some consecrators were not bishops, for the simple reason that, formally speaking, they were not Christians."
newmanreader.org/works/essay…
As a side note, for about 6 or 8 years I've been collecting videos of baptisms done in the N.O. and by now have a good number of concerning videos. Some are certainly invalid or at best highly doubtful. Others are simply done extremely sloppily or with an attitude of making a joke of the whole thing. One of the questions theologians say should be determined when investigating baptisms done by Protestants is whether or not the minister said the words and applied the water "seriously" and "conscientiously." One could, of course, still validly baptize even if irreverently, but it gives grounds for concern over the intention and the correct application of matter and form.
I will say that most baptisms I have seen in videos from the N.O. are validly done, at least in the case of newborns. For adults, it is another story because it is extremely common for them to poor the water on the hair, sometimes with it barely glancing off the hair, and the "Vatican" has defended this as certainly valid even if it never touched the skin. Totally contrary to what theologians have taught in the past. This is a grave concern. They also sometimes merely sprinkle some water from the finger tips over the hair, which is just as concerning as it would be very easy for none of it to reach the skin and thus signify washing as is required.
Fr. Faber writes against SSPX.
Actually, he's writing against the Anglicans for living under an excommunication and worshipping surplices, liturgies, and systems of rubrics while disobeying the actual authority established by Christ. Does sound like SSPX, doesn't it?
Of course, the difference is the authority SSPX is disobeying isn't the one established by Christ, but a false religion.
The following words were directed toward a Protestant, but they can apply, mutatis mutandis, to certain political movements among Catholics today:
“There are no weapons in Anglicanism, a poor, barren, narrow ungenerous, selfish system of unhelpful nationalism, by which you can achieve any such glorious work as that you look forward to… You can do no good for any one, till you have cared for your soul; and young persons may even go through much self-denial in carrying out plans of high poetical beneficence, and yet be most unpleasing to God, most useless, nay, most mischievous to their country. The romance of youthful beneficence may be quite as far from holy charity as the sour philanthropy of an encyclopedist;…
“Indeed, I hear and see enough to tell me how little humble and saintlike conformity to God's sweet adorable Will there is in all this political epos;… to them, practically to realize a dream of chivalry is more than to be a fruit of Christ's dear awful Passion. This is that distressing unreality of High-church politics, which is the hand-maid of Protestant ecclesiology. Both are caricatures of Catholic things;…
“Be conformed to the Will of God; be sure that what He wills of you is care for your soul; seek first the kingdom of God and His justice, and then, and not till then, shall you be told what use He will make of you in any of His larger plans for your neighbour, your country, or the Church. Do your best, but do it in His way; and then, whatever comes of poor England, be conformed to His blessed Will:… all else is smoke and vapour, and sinful vanity. The world's chivalry is the puerility of self-will;…
“Do not think that I am selfishly dead to high or noble plans for political amendment; far from it: only I would have to do with them, certainly in a less ostentatious, but in a more truthful, and so more helpful, way.”
-- Fr. Frederick W. Faber, Examination of the Grounds for Remaining in the Anglican Communion, pp. 34-36. Published 1846.
Fr. Gabriel Lavery retweeted
Yes, I do deny it, contrary to what you assumed. It wouldn't be the first time you were wrong about something basic :)
As for the Baltimore Catechism, let's start with the part about the 1st Commandment, heresy, worshipping with false religions... It's going to be an amazing class!
Fr. Gabriel Lavery retweeted
Two totally and fundamentally different things. One is the case of a layman (Esquire, et al.) trying to pick apart papal teaching that has not the slightest evidence of heresy, let alone blatant heresy, in it, simply because he thinks he knows more than the Pope and can judge better than the Church.
The other is a case of a manifest and complete absence of the Four Marks of the Church in a new religion that even an untrained theologian can see is not the Catholic one.
If it was forbidden to all except the most highly trained theologians to decided upon or recognize the absence or presence of the Marks of the Church in any particular religious body, then it would be impossible for anyone to ever recognize the Catholic Church as the true one unless he had first received a doctorate in theology from the very Church whose authority he had not yet recognized as true. This is an untenable position, completely erroneous, leading to the conclusion that we are all hopelessly lost and can never arrive at the truth.
There is a reason Popes and theologians teach that manifest heresy bars one from membership in the Church, because such is totally and forever incompatible with being a member of that visible society.
Fr. Gabriel Lavery retweeted
I withdrew from integrity and my profile as a contributor was removed as well as my article. Michael Matt also withdrew my name and all of my articles as a contributor to the Remnant when I left.
If Kokx now wants to claim Esquire is not a part of Integrity it seems he would have taken his name off as a contributor and removed his articles as well. Yet they are still up.
Fr. Gabriel Lavery retweeted
Some criticized St. Robert Bellarmine for "wasting time" writing pamphlets in the vernacular in response to the attacks on papal authority made by the schismatic priest, Sarpi and the "Seven Theologians." They said it was beneath his dignity to write little pamphlets like that, not in Latin and toward such scurrilous recipients.
He responded by saying that it was precisely because the pamphlets were in the vernacular and so public, that they were calculated to do much harm to unsuspecting faithful, and therefore, there was a duty to provide the antidote in the same forum and to the same audience.
The anti-Catholic printing press run by incompetent, disobedient men, has been replaced by incompetent, disobedient men running their mouths on social media and podcasts.
A simple: "You're right. He is a contributor," would have accomplished more than whatever the flat out denials and name calling were supposed to accomplish, @MichaelPer2144.
One of the sad fruits of our day is a horde of laymen completely shooting from the hip when it comes to theology. Very often this is accompanied by confident expressions of "facts" or "principles" that are nothing of the sort. While I am not saying that laity have no business discussing theology, I am saying they are not the teaching authority of the Church and need to be aware of the limitations of their own knowledge.
Making grant statements of principles without really knowing what you are talking about does not serve the Church and can often do harm where one intended to do good. Moreover, disobedience to the magisterium by know-it-all laity (or clergy!) is always the work of the devil and is a symptom of pride.
On the contrary. You are the one making up theology here and going utterly contrary to what the Popes and approved theologians have taught on this duty of obedience. Please allow Fr. Fenton to enlighten you:
"There is, according to the words of the Humani generis, an authoritative doctrinal decision whenever the Roman Pontiffs, in their Acta, "de re hactenus controversa data opera sententiam ferunt." When this condition is fulfilled, even in an allocution originally delivered to a private group, but subsequently published as apart of the Holy Father's Acta, an authoritative doctrinal judgment has been proposed to the universal Church. All of those within the Church are obliged, under penalty of serious sin, to accept this decision....
"Private theologians have no right whatsoever to establish what they believe to be the conditions under which the teaching presented in the Acta of the Roman Pontiff may be accepted as authoritative...
"What obligation is incumbent upon a Catholic by reason of an authoritative doctrinal decision made by the Sovereign Pontiff and communicated to the universal Church in this manner? The text of the Humani generis itself supplies us with a minimum answer. This is found in the sentence we have already quoted: 'And if, in their Acta, the Supreme Pontiffs take care to render a decision on a point that has hitherto been controverted, it is obvious to all that this point, according to the mind and will of these same Pontiffs, can no longer be regarded as a question theologians may freely debate among themselves.'
"Thus, according to the clear teaching of the Humani generis, it is morally wrong for any individual subject to the Roman Pontiff to defend a thesis contradicting a teaching which the Pope, in his Acta, has set forth as a part of Catholic doctrine. It is, in other words, wrong to attack a teaching which, in a genuine doctrinal decision, the Sovereign Pontiff has taught officially as the visible head of the universal Church. This holds true always and everywhere, even in those cases in which the Pope, in making his decision, did not exercise the plenitude of his apostolic teaching power by making an infallible doctrinal definition."
(Fr. Fenton, "The Doctrinal Authority of Papal Allocutions," American Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. 134, 1956, pp. 109-117)
google.com/books/edition/Ecc…
A couple video clips for those trying to do damage control for Integrity Magazine by claiming that I was wrong in saying Catholic Esquire is one of their collaborators and contributors. If Kokx wants to gain the respect of Catholics, he needs to stop making his main collaborators those who distort Catholic teaching to their own ends and destruction as St. Peter warned about those who falsely interpret the epistles of St. Paul.
If you want my support, there's a very easy way to get it. Obey in all things the teachings of the Popes. Submit your judgment and intellect to every single one of their official teachings, decrees, decisions, etc. Regard with the greatest reverence, respect, and deference even their non-official or non-doctrinal acts on the presumption that they were in a far better position—with the grace of office and access to facts—to judge matters than your puny mind is no matter how great your ego flatters you to think your intellect is.
If you want to make an implacable enemy of me, criticize their official acts, decrees, and decisions. Call them non-binding or wrong. Set your judgment up above that of those who held the position of Vicar of Christ. Continue blabbing on about how you know better than the Popes. You will reach rock bottom in my mind in no time, guaranteed, and you will never have my support. Never.
The Church doesn't need you in that case—now or ever.
Exactly the kind of behavior I have come to expect from the writers at "Integrity" Magazine.
Fr. Gabriel Lavery retweeted
Idk. That wasn't the point. The point is writers at Integrity have a common theme: Putting their own Jansenistic or otherwise twisted spin on Catholic doctrine, then presenting it to the world as the true Catholic teaching with a false purist mentality, accusing anyone who disagrees with them of being a liberal or subpar Catholic, numerous true Popes included. While they claim and pretend to be submissive to the Magisterium, they simply disregard it and say it is non-binding whenever it doesn't fit with their own pet ideas. A very convenient arrangement! Say you are a most loyal Catholic, faithful to the Popes, then simply say something was "non-binding," "practical judgment," "error in prudence" whenever you no longer wish to submit. So it is not at all surprising to see what Esquire wrote.
This may not apply to all the writers at Integrity, but it is a blatantly obvious theme among many of them, especially the primary ones, and a magazine that claims to be "integrally" Catholic has no business allowing such writers and such attitudes to be part of it. Now, if it instead marketed itself as a Feeneyite publication, I would expect nothing other.
Why am I not surprised to see another one of the friends of @StephenKokx and American Reform—highly promoted by them and a fellow contributor to Integrity Magazine—flatly contradicting the magisterium of Pius XII on the moral legitimacy of rhythm?
Hopefully, it is becoming more and more clear why I was right to compare them to Feeneyites (who, incidentally, are also notorious for rejecting the Catholic teaching on rhythm).
The same mindset infects all of them. They read something in a Catholic theology book, fail to understand it properly, then make it their personal mission to inform the world that they alone understand Catholic theology correctly, while everyone else, including Popes, got it wrong. They become fixated on a caricature of Catholic doctrine, not true Catholic doctrine.
Anyone who argues that rhythm itself, regardless of whether proper conditions and grave reasons are present, is fundamentally contrary to the primary purpose of marriage, and therefore morally wrong, has no idea of Catholic teaching on marriage and no understanding of fundamental principles of moral theology, which have to be understood BEFORE attempting to comment on specific questions of moral theology. These people just make it up as they go. It's a real shame. Shame on them and shame on those who promote or support them.
Certainly, there are good reasons to believe that some or many Catholics do abuse rhythm by using it without grave reason, and thus they sin. That doesn't change the moral lawfulness of using it when a grave reason is present, just like the fact that some Catholics commit mortal sin by missing Mass for insufficient reason does not change the moral lawfulness of missing Mass when a grave reason really is present. This is easy, basic moral theology.
If you are listening to these people who make such basic mistakes and then pontificate about it as if they are the bastion of truth, you are being gravely misled.
