Update & Correction - Steven O'Reilly doesn't "believe Vatican II is a 'Superdogma'": Why did Trad Bp. Schneider write a foreword for a man who "served in the Central Intelligence Agency"?
Steven O’Reilly is the author of the Pia Fidelis Trilogy...
.. He served in the Central Intelligence Agency. [https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B08GQDQ1HR/about]
Valid? The Resignation of Pope Benedict XVI (The Case against the Benepapists [by Steven O’Reilly]) includes a Foreword by His Excellency, Bishop Athanasius Schneider. [https://www.amazon.com/Valid-Resignation-Pope-Benedict-XVI/dp/1734126043]
Why did Traditionalist Bishop Athanasius Schneider write a foreword for a man who "served in the Central Intelligence Agency" who apparently "regard[s]..'the' [Vatican II] Council, [as] the “superdogma”? - The Catholic Monitor
Roma Locuta Est published an article on November 4, 2022 which argues that Lumen Gentium demolishes Benepapism. That article may be found here: Lumen Gentium Destroys Benepapism in Toto. - Steven O’Reilly [https://romalocutaest.com/2022/11/07/br-alexis-bugnolos-faulty-logic-and-faulty-comprehension-with-respect-to-canon-17/]
O'Reilly says a "highly-respected Canon Law commentary confirms the prior logical analysis, that even in the case of a 'clear meaning,' the 'process delineated in the second sentence' of canon 17 'is always necessary for good doctrinal interpretation.'” [https://romalocutaest.com/2022/11/07/br-alexis-bugnolos-faulty-logic-and-faulty-comprehension-with-respect-to-canon-17/]
I totally agree. We must look at the Church's infallible teachings on the issue of is "munus... ministry". But, O'Reilly then uses Vatican II's "Lumen Gentium [that] teaches a munus is a ministry."
The problem is he is not quoting Vatican I or any infallible teachings to back up his claim that "munus is... ministry," but only Vatican II which "did not intend to define any doctrinal truths, merely reiterating indirectly – and moreover in an often-equivocal form – doctrines previously clearly and unequivocally defined by the infallible authority of the Magisterium. It was unduly and forcibly regarded as... the 'superdogma'” as Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò explained.
Even if for the sake of argument we take O'Reilly's apparent starting point that Vatican II is "the 'superdogma'", canon law professor Anna Słowikowska shows he is wrong:
The Latin noun munus is an ambiguous word. In the teaching of the Second Vatican Council this word is present up 255 times, whereof 55 times in the Constitution Lumen gentium. The Council Fathers used this term in the meaning of: “office”, “function”, “mission”, “service”, “task”, “obligation”, “ministry”. In many places the translations of constitution from Latin language into Polish language in 1968 and 2002 are different. This can cause not only problems of interpretation, but also doctrinal problems. - Professor Anna Slowikowska, John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin in Poland [Anna Slowikowska, “Interpretation of the term munus in the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium” Annals of the Humanities, 2015 (125-145) - Anna Slowikowska, John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin in Poland [ROCZNIKI HUMANISTYCZNE Tom LXIII, zeszyt 8 – 2015] –]
Moreover, even Francis is definitely pope pundits such a "Popesplainers" Erick Ybarra and Michael Lofton admit that this could be problematic:
The Ambiguities of Lumen Gentium 16 – With Erick Ybarra and Michael Lofton (Video)...
This divergence between the two competing forms of Originalism proves especially relevant in the curious case of the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), whose sacred constitutions threaten, in many progressive-sounding clauses, to contradict previous Catholic Tradition—which would rupture the Faith. Catholics who believe the Church was not vituperated by the revolutionary intent of Vatican Two’s leading periti became practical textualists in 1965 when the Council’s last constitution was ratified.
After all, the strong majority intent at the Council was, undeniably, radically progressive. The story is well-known even to most non-Catholics. Many revolutionary Council fathers authored the VC2 constitutions with what Monsignor Charles Pope calls “weaponized ambiguity,” constitutional text designed to be radicalized retroactively, as theory turned to practice in the immediate post-conciliar period.
We’ve all watched this catastrophe play out over fifty years. As Edward Schillebeeckx said of his contingent’s tactic: “we knew at the time how we would later interpret the [vaguely written] documents.”
In other words, the sacred constitutions of VC2 prescribed a poison pill of technically sound doctrine to be subsequently fashioned into unsound, unCatholic praxis. The question for Catholics like Vermeule, Arkes, and myself is: does the “real” meaning of Vatican Two reduce to its documents’ intent, or to their ambiguously revolutionary yet (mostly) innocuous original public meaning? Only textualism can capably explain how regardless of the abiding intent of the Council, the result of the actual constitutional documents need not be harmful.
Sacred VC2 constitutions make us think about what a constitution is: a multi-author document expressing the sovereign will of multiple ratifiers at a convention—in this case covenantal agents of the people of God. But a constitution’s meaning is not the vector sum of its authors and ratifiers: its meaning is the binding public signification of its words, as originally ratified. If a constitutional term’s meaning popularly changes a decade after ratification, the ten-year-old meaning of the term remains what was ratified (until formally amended). Ratified meaning is time-stamped and time-sealed.
It is conceivable—as happened at the Second Vatican Council—that a faction of revolutionary authors and ratifiers could embed their revolution within the vaguest clauses of the constitutions as a killswitch to be flipped at a later date. Since the goal of these revolutionaries was heteropraxy. [https://americanmind.org/salvo/catholicism-textualism-and-republicanism/]
Pray an Our Father now for reparation for the sins committed because of Francis’s Amoris Laetitia.
Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church as well as the Triumph of the Kingdom of the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Stop for a moment of silence, ask Jesus Christ what He wants you to do now and next. In this silence remember God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost – Three Divine Persons yet One God, has an ordered universe where you can know truth and falsehood as well as never forget that He wants you to have eternal happiness with Him as his son or daughter by grace. Make this a practice. By doing this you are doing more good than reading anything here or anywhere else on the Internet.
Francis Notes:
– Doctor of the Church St. Francis de Sales totally confirmed beyond any doubt the possibility of a heretical pope and what must be done by the Church in such a situation:
“[T]he Pope… WHEN he is EXPLICITLY a heretic, he falls ipso facto from his dignity and out of the Church, and the Church MUST either deprive him, or, as some say, declare him deprived, of his Apostolic See.”
(The Catholic Controversy, by St. Francis de Sales, Pages 305-306)
Saint Robert Bellarmine, also, said “the Pope heretic is not deposed ipso facto, but must be declared deposed by the Church.”
[https://archive.org/stream/SilveiraImplicationsOfNewMissaeAndHereticPopes/Silveira%20Implications%20of%20New%20Missae%20and%20Heretic%20Popes_djvu.txt]
– “If Francis is a Heretic, What should Canonically happen to him?”: http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2020/12/if-francis-is-heretic-what-should.html
– “Could Francis be a Antipope even though the Majority of Cardinals claim he is Pope?”: http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2019/03/could-francis-be-antipope-even-though.html
– If Francis betrays Benedict XVI & the”Roman Rite Communities” like he betrayed the Chinese Catholics we must respond like St. Athanasius, the Saintly English Bishop Robert Grosseteste & “Eminent Canonists and Theologians” by “Resist[ing]” him: https://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2021/12/if-francis-betrays-benedict-xvi.html
– LifeSiteNews, “Confusion explodes as Pope Francis throws magisterial weight behind communion for adulterers,” December 4, 2017:
The AAS guidelines explicitly allows “sexually active adulterous couples facing ‘complex circumstances’ to ‘access the sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist.'”
– On February 2018, in Rorate Caeli, Catholic theologian Dr. John Lamont:
“The AAS statement… establishes that Pope Francis in Amoris Laetitia has affirmed propositions that are heretical in the strict sense.”
– On December 2, 2017, Bishop Rene Gracida:
“Francis’ heterodoxy is now official. He has published his letter to the Argentina bishops in Acta Apostlica Series making those letters magisterial documents.”
Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church by the bishops by the grace of God.
Election Notes:
– Intel Cryptanalyst-Mathematician on Biden Steal: “212Million Registered Voters & 66.2% Voting,140.344 M Voted…Trump got 74 M, that leaves only 66.344 M for Biden” [http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2020/12/intel-cryptanalyst-mathematician-on.html?m=1]
– Will US be Venezuela?: Ex-CIA Official told Epoch Times “Chávez started to Focus on [Smartmatic] Voting Machines to Ensure Victory as early as 2003”: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2020/12/will-us-be-venezuela-ex-cia-official.html
– Tucker Carlson’s Conservatism Inc. Biden Steal Betrayal is explained by “One of the Greatest Columns ever Written” according to Rush: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/tucker-carlsons-conservatism-inc-biden.html?m=1
– A Hour which will Live in Infamy: 10:01pm November 3, 2020:
http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2021/01/a-hour-which-will-live-in-infamy-1001pm.html?m=1
What is needed right now to save America from those who would destroy our God given rights is to pray at home or in church and if called to even go to outdoor prayer rallies in every town and city across the United States for God to pour out His grace on our country to save us from those who would use a Reichstag Fire-like incident to destroy our civil liberties. [Is the DC Capitol Incident Comparable to the Nazi Reichstag Fire Incident where the German People Lost their Civil Liberties?: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/is-dc-capital-incident-comparable-to.html?m=1 and Epoch Times Show Crossroads on Capitol Incident: “Anitfa ‘Agent Provocateurs‘”:
http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/epoch-times-show-crossroads-on-capital.html?m=1]
Pray an Our Father now for the grace to know God’s Will and to do it.
Pray an Our Father now for America.
Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church as well as the Triumph of the Kingdom of the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Comments