The Vocation of Eastern Churches in America

Outside the United States, no one would need to ask if the Eastern Churches have a vocation. Their call, like that of the Latin Church, is to administer the Sacraments and pass on the teachings of the Church to their faithful wherever they are found. The United States, however, has that ignominious distinction of being a "cultural melting pot", wherein everything is thrown into the furnace together and the resulting metal will have a few streaks of its component parts. Eastern Churches in the diaspora face confusion as to where they belong in American Catholicism. Should they "belong"? I posit that they should not "belong" or consider themselves as possessing a "vocation" in any unique sense, that their real vocation and contribution might be to uphold as natural a state of ecclesiastical affairs as possible.

My father was born in 1941, months before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and was married in 1962, months before John XXIII called Pius XII's Council. He had no idea that there even were Eastern Catholics until a few years ago. Previously, he had assumed that Episcopalians, if they ever stopped ordaining women, "would be the closest thing to us" and that Eastern Orthodoxy was nothing more than Slavs belching guttural noises as discordantly as possible. His rearing in 1950s Catholicism was as common as can be imagined, which is quite telling. Eastern Catholics, usually Slavs or Italo-Greeks, kept quiet as the exception in a Protestant and Roman Catholic country. They sent their children to Roman Catholic parochial schools. Many, where Eastern parishes were not available, attended Roman parishes and raised their children on Roman Sacraments. As adults some of these children continued to live as Roman Catholics, imagining their parents' lineage to be an old world curio or an embarrassing piece of cultural baggage. Then there were a few now and then who would leave for the Orthodox milieu, either because they met a modern day John Ireland or because they wanted to live out the great historical drama of Byzantium more fully. Then immigration slowed, attendance dropped, people died, and the Eastern parishes were left to think about their place.

Since the Second Vatican Council, the original intent of the Eastern Churches—to reconvert the Orthodox and retain the proper traditions of those peoples—became obscured. The Pope agreed to stop converting the Orthodox in the old world and years of "Uniate" guilt set in until they could aspire to be nothing more than "Orthodox in Communion with Rome." Occasionally this has been true. The Melkite Church was the Church of Antioch, which re-entered communion with Rome until Patriarch Cyril VI Tanas until the Greeks erected their own Antiochian Orthodox Church, effectively splitting the original Petrine See into two equally sized parts. Then came Orientale Lumen, and the Eastern Churches were now to "[encourage] an atmosphere of brotherhood" with the Latin Church (OL 26).

The author of Orientale
Lumen

Orientale Lumen is not a bad document. Indeed, very little of Robert Taft's writing is bad as long as he steers clear of Latin liturgical commentary. It does, however, take for granted that Eastern Churches are a side piece in the greater Church Catholic without mandating any clear steps towards fixing that. A prior Latin bishop visited my former Melkite pastor and mandated that he force the Roman Catholics at that parish to cease attending and instead go to Roman parishes. The pastor replied that he would with great haste, only if the bishop directed all Byzantine Catholics towards his church. It is an amusing anecdote of something that would have had great effect if done two generations ago. That cannot be done now. What can be done?

The future of Eastern Christianity in America, Catholic or Orthodox, is not in immigration from Eastern Europe or even the Middle East. It is from homegrown Americans looking for a deeper Christian experience. The two strongest factors in favor of the Eastern churches are their liturgies and their parishes. Their liturgy appeals to people looking for reverence, for depth, for a robust tradition unfettered by effete committees, and for those seeking a place where traditionally sung prayers are normal; these people are not necessarily vagrant traditionalists (although there were many in the 1990s) or boutique liturgical fetishists. They are simply people who want strong prayer without attachments. Parishes similarly sell themselves on visitors looking for a community without strings. While every Eastern parish is bound to have a considerable number of people from the old countries or who attend for cultural purposes, the churches are generally friendly to those want to belong to a welcoming parish where one can become intimately acquainted with the other congregants, to have fellowship, and to pray for one another's problems. Smaller churches, regardless of rite, tend to have this appeal, bu not always as strongly as Eastern bodies. One Slavic priest said to myself and a few other 20 and 30-somethings, "You're the future of this church, not the people from Crimea."

Archbishop Tawil

Entering the Byzantine tradition years ago helped me shed political concerns about the Church and to look at her prayers as actual prayers, not talking points about Vatican II. I think a great many other people find similar comfort in Eastern parishes, albeit it for different reasons. The concerns of Eastern Churches in America, at least in the past, will carry less weight going forward. Years ago Archbishop Joseph Tawil, the Eparch of Newton, said "We must have the courage to be ourselves." This remark, aimed inevitably at a de-Latinizing mentality, can be applied more broadly. Eastern Churches must not be self-referential churches ("We are Orthodox in Communion with Rome", "We are Uniates", "We don't do St. Augustine", "Everything Eastern is original and everything Latin is new and dubious"). There is a tendency to gloat and self-aggrandize about one's church among Eastern Christians, but this tendency is certainly on the decline. Summorum gave the disaffected traditionalists a path out of the East and the Western romance with Byzantium ended in the 1990s. Eastern Churches offer a tremendous opportunity for American Catholicism at the local level, especially as church attendance in this country continues to decline and stronger communities outshine those in decay. 

Byzantine Christianity will never be dominant in America, but it can be strong and nourish the spiritual needs of those searching for Christ. This is their vocation, both in America and in the old world, both now and ever, and unto the ages of ages....

Wormwood Proposes a Toast; or, Abyssus Absinthium Invocat

It was another sunny Texas Sunday morning when I last made my way into Café Preténse. The parking lot was far from being full, but a swarm of bicyclists had overrun the sidewalk, and a line of them stretched from the counter almost to the front door. They were talking excitedly from the adrenaline, and overwhelming the café’s usual espresso scent with their own.

By the time I made it to the counter I had almost decided to leave for a Starbucks. Where would I even sit?

“What can I getcha?” asked a college girl with too many colors in her hair.

“Cappuccino, please.”

“For here?”

“Better make it to go,” I said, looking around the building. “Just in case.”

“Name?”

“J.”

“Jay? Jay What?”

“‘J’ as in Joseph.”

“One cappuccino for Joseph.”

“Sure.”

She ran my card, and I wondered if the couches in the back area might have an empty cushion or two.

“Hey, your card says John Grump, not Joseph.”

I took my receipt and pushed my way through spandexed bikers to the back area. It was low-lit and close to the unisex bathrooms, but one teenage girl sat on each of the three couches, all of them talking animatedly. I considered sitting down beside one of the infantile women to make a point, but then I recalled that I actually wanted to read.

This place is getting on my last nerve, I texted to His Traddiness.

Ditch the burnt coffee scene and join me for another glass of Chartreuse, he retorted.

Yellow or green?

Green. I am convinced that this yellow monstrosity was invented by the Franciscans.

After I’m properly caffeinated. We’ll see if I get a seat. Still cranky from the sermon this morning.

Leaving the couches behind, I made my way up front. Every table had an occupant, every padded chair comfortably employed. If nothing cleared before my name was called I would leave and shake the coffee grounds from my sandals. My eyes wandered to and fro, and finally met with those of another customer looking up from his laptop while taking a sip from his mug. He was a devil of one of the lesser orders, and he nodded to indicate I should walk over. I did.

“You looking for a seat?” he said.

“Yes, thanks. You heading out?”

“Not for a while, but I have some space if you want to take the other chair.” There was indeed enough space for my books, my drink, and my self. “I don’t mind sharing a table with a fellow coffee aficionado.” He looked and dressed like Matthew Goode (circa 2008), except for the horns. I decided he was less likely than most of the people in this café to steal my books if I stepped away for a phone call.

“Sure thing. My name’s J.”

“Wormwood.”

“Cappuccino for Jay Grump!” the baristi with the technicolor dreamhair bellowed.

“Be right back.”

When I returned to the table, Wormwood was reading the back matter of my book.

“Occult symbolism in modern poetry? Tsk, tsk. That’s dangerous stuff.”

“Research.”

“Thinking of joining our lower ranks?”

“No, just interested in being able to spot this sort of thing when it appears. I’ve suspected many of these authors of occultism before, but this just confirms it.”

“Hmm, it’s all true enough. We didn’t catch all of them in the end, but plenty have long been drained dry by Our Father Below. Victor’s fateful séance was a real show to remember.”

I took a sip and decided to change the subject. He was beginning to look nostalgic.

“So are you the Wormwood? Of C. S. L— fame?”

He tossed the book in front of me with a flourish. “Guilty as charged! I tell you, the doors that book has opened for me! Slubgob leaked my uncle’s letters to the human world after the two of them had a falling out, and got poor Uncle Screwtape tossed into the Styx for about a century without parole. For my part, I was released from my uncle’s dungeon and allowed back into the Tempter Rolls. If all goes well, I’ll be teaching in the Tempters Training College in no time.”

“You must be busy these days. The world does seem to be falling apart.”

“And isn’t that just delightful? Don’t you just experience a wonderful, sick thrill at the thought of it? Don’t it just make you smile on the inside?”

I glared at him and sipped my drink. It would have been better in a mug than in this waxed paper cup.

“I am busy,” he continued. “I’m part of a team working on your parish. A lot of the usual temptations: sexual deviancies are easy to encourage”—he made an obscene gesture—“as are anger and certain forms of despair. But let me tell you, the best thing to do is to widen divisions and encourage fathers to provoke their children to indignation. Bitterness is rich soil for despondency, rebellion, and apostasy. Tie heavy burdens on the shoulders of the faithful, force them to march through a slough, and then chastise them harshly for complaining. I swear, if I can turn even a third of your waters into wormwood, I will destroy your parish beyond recognition.”

He sat back with a contented look and breathed out a series of perfectly shaped smoke rings, even though he had been puffing on no tobacco. My phone buzzed, and I welcomed the distraction.

Just realized that wormwood is a major ingredient in absinthe, texted His Traddiness. We should try mixing it with more sulfur to see if it brings out that hellish flavour.

“Well, Mr. Wormwood, this has been enlightening.” I replaced the lid on my cup and tried not to look in his eyes. “I should probably head out. I don’t think I’m going to be able to read much with all this commotion.”

“It is downright pandemonious, isn’t it?” He sat up straight. “My goodness, I need to learn to not monologue when I’m talking to prey. I just enjoy the look in their eyes when they see me coming for them, you know? Oh, and do you mind watching my things while I use the facilities?”

I nodded my assent without making eye contact, and he clomped off, his tail trailing just above the ground. Once he was behind locked doors I shifted over to his chair and began skimming through his emails. It was a simple enough matter to set a forwarding email address to all his messages. By the time he returned I was back on my side of the table, stuffing my receipt into the book and skittishly sipping my drink.

“Certain things just take longer when the waters are bitter.” He laughed, and I pretended to laugh with him. He raised his mug. “Well, my amphibious friend, let us toast before you move on to your day’s business.”

“Toast to what?”

“To the elimination of lukewarmness. May the undersexed morons who blunder into online pornography shops be turned into insatiable, defiant adulterers! May the self-hating drunkards who slur the name of The Enemy be turned into inflamed, rebellious, and sober blasphemers! May the flabby video gamers drive their cars over real pedestrians!”

“He that is filthy, let him be filthy still.”

We each took a sip of our now-tepid drinks.

“Catch you next time, Mr. Grump.”

“Until then.”

Back in the car I put the remainder of my mediocre cappuccino in the cup holder and sent His Traddiness one last text before driving:

Much to discuss. Keep an eye on your email. Chartreuse at my place, I’ll buy the cigars.

The Nativity of Mary in the Proto-Gospel of James

(Vittore Carpaccio)

This is a feast day shared by all the churches on 8 September, nine months after the feast of the Immaculate Conception. What follows is the oldest written account of her Conception and Nativity, from the Proto-Gospel of James:

And gazing towards the heaven, [Anna] saw a sparrow's nest in the laurel, and made a lamentation in herself, saying: “Alas! Who begot me? And what womb produced me? Because I have become a curse in the presence of the sons of Israel, and I have been reproached, and they have driven me in derision out of the temple of the Lord. Alas! To what have I been likened? I am not like the fowls of the heaven, because even the fowls of the heaven are productive before You, O Lord. Alas! To what have I been likened? I am not like the beasts of the earth, because even the beasts of the earth are productive before You, O Lord. Alas! To what have I been likened? I am not like these waters, because even these waters are productive before You, O Lord. Alas! To what have I been likened? I am not like this earth, because even the earth brings forth its fruits in season, and blesses You, O Lord.”

And, behold, an angel of the Lord stood by, saying: “Anna, Anna, the Lord has heard your prayer, and you shall conceive, and shall bring forth; and your seed shall be spoken of in all the world.” And Anna said: “As the Lord my God lives, if I beget either male or female, I will bring it as a gift to the Lord my God; and it shall minister to Him in holy things all the days of its life.”

And, behold, two angels came, saying to her: “Behold, Joachim your husband is coming with his flocks.” For an angel of the Lord went down to him, saying: “Joachim, Joachim, the Lord God has heard your prayer. Go down hence; for, behold, your wife Anna shall conceive.” And Joachim went down and called his shepherds, saying: “Bring me hither ten she-lambs without spot or blemish, and they shall be for the Lord my God; and bring me twelve tender calves, and they shall be for the priests and the elders; and a hundred goats for all the people.”

And, behold, Joachim came with his flocks; and Anna stood by the gate, and saw Joachim coming, and she ran and hung upon his neck, saying: “Now I know that the Lord God has blessed me exceedingly; for, behold the widow no longer a widow, and I the childless shall conceive.” And Joachim rested the first day in his house.

And on the following day he brought his offerings, saying in himself: “If the Lord God has been rendered gracious to me, the plate on the priest's forehead will make it manifest to me.” And Joachim brought his offerings, and observed attentively the priest's plate when he went up to the altar of the Lord, and he saw no sin in himself. And Joachim said: “Now I know that the Lord has been gracious unto me, and has remitted all my sins.” 

And he went down from the temple of the Lord justified, and departed to his own house. And her months were fulfilled, and in the ninth month Anna brought forth. And she said to the midwife: “What have I brought forth?” And she said: “A girl.” And said Anna: “My soul has been magnified this day.” And she laid her down. And the days having been fulfilled, Anna was purified, and gave the breast to the child, and called her name Mary.

Did Pews Bring About the Pauline Mass?

source: traditionalcatholicism83.blogspot.com

Could the change in liturgical life brought about by the innovation of pews have contributed in no small part to the eventual introduction of the Mass of Paul VI? The basis was that the faithful in the pews were spectators, disengaged and thumbing through their rosaries, except during the sermon, and only communicating during Paschaltide. Participatio actuosa was necessary on the part of the congregants.

Why, we may ask five decades later, were they reduced to spectators at the act of baroque theater that had become of Mass—the "opera of the poor," as Voltaire put it? Yes, medieval English, French, and Italian were closer to Latin, but not so much closer that the faithful were so drastically less capable of comprehending the liturgy just a few centuries later. Consider what the faithful did during Mass in the first millennium: on great feasts there would be a night-long vigil, beginning outside the church. The pope or local ordinary would arrive for the Office and a procession would follow into the church proper. Then Mass would be celebrated. In the middle ages, there would be prayers and hymns around the church to the local saints, a procession would follow around the church and arrive at the rood screen, where prayers for the church were made in the vernacular, and then Mass would follow. In both cases the faithful stood unimpeded and were free to move about as the Spirit or their bodies compelled them. Those tired could take a break. Those wishing to pray quietly could disappear to a side chapel. Those especially moved could stand closer to the front. The call to Communion would been the movement of a crowd towards Christ, not unlike those who sought to hear Him preach on the coast on atop the Mount. Communion was not a linear parade.

How different was Mass with pews? First, the ritual itself was highly reduced: no processions, no night watches, no rites for the local saints. Just one or three clerics performing the Mass itself in a simple fashion. Then there was the pew. The faithful could not move, could not process, could not go somewhere to pray, could not do anything but sit still and watch for an hour. The only "break" in action was the possibility of a sermon. Gone were the rood screens and the air of mystery. Instead, an elevated altar behind a rail was viewed by a layman sitting on a bench. There was the mystery, to be watched by a remover spectator in plain sight.

As low Mass replaced high Mass as the norm, people were naturally further disengaged. Even in languages closer to Latin than our English—French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese—the faithful could not really do anything other than find means of diversion, means of entertainment.

If anyone doubts this thesis, and you are open to doing so, consider the 1955 Holy Week. Eight years before Sacrosanctum Concilium put "active participation" into our liturgical vocabulary and fourteen years before the new Mass ritual, Pius XII introduced a series of rites which have, as one of their stated goals the "living participation of he sacred ceremonies." Churchmen in 1955 understood "living participation" differently than churchmen in 1455 did. They wanted the priest to talk to the congregants and for the congregants to talk back to them, and what better way of doing that than facing them? Pius's Holy Week includes Palm Sunday (now "Second Sunday in Passiontide") and Holy Saturday (now "Easter Vigil") rites conducted at length atop a table versus populum in front of the actual altar. Ritually, it was likely an experiment to test how the faithful would receive it and to tweak the ceremonies for when the complete reform was ready for release.

Mass facing the people, what Geoffrey Hull called the "great narcissism," became a matter of fact in almost every parish by 1965.

Pews were not the immediate cause of the new liturgy, but they were a necessary cause.

Josephology Part 13: The Propaganda Machine

(Bartolomé Esteban Murillo)

Late Medieval Sources

Before I detail the uses made of St. Joseph in the Counter Reformation period, I want to look back briefly at the pre-Tridentine attempts to kick-start Josephite devotion. The following quotations are from Charlene Villaseñor Black’s Creating the Cult of St. Joseph: Art and Gender in the Spanish Empire (Princeton University Press, 2006), which I will also be referencing somewhat obliquely throughout this post.

After centuries of such obscurity, the cult of St. Joseph rose to prominence in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. In Italy, St. Bernardino of Siena (1380-1444) preached sermons praising Joseph’s special privileges (derived from having lived with Jesus and Mary) and asserted that Joseph was next to the Virgin in importance in the pantheon of saints. Perhaps the most significant figure to promote devotion to Joseph was Jean Gerson [died 1429], chancellor of Notre Dame and the University of Paris. At the Council of Constance in 1416, Gerson urged the institution of a feast day honoring the Betrothal of Mary and Joseph, for which he wrote an office. In a sermon delivered on the birthday of the Virgin Mary, he extolled Joseph as Christ’s earthly father. His three thousand-line Latin poem, the Josephina, laid the foundations of modern Josephine theology.... 

Whereas Joseph had previously been regarded as a subsidiary figure, old and unimportant, they asserted that, as the head of the Holy Family, the saint had to have been young and robust in order to support, protect, and exercise authority over Mary and Jesus. Gerson further proposed that, like the Virgin, Joseph was assumed into heaven after his death. (23-24)

As far as I know, Bernardino and Gerson are the first theologians to posit Joseph’s bodily assumption. In 1522, shortly before the Council of Trent, the Milanese Dominican Isidoro de Isolani wrote his Summa de donis sancti Joseph (Summa of the Gifts of St. Joseph), which had a strong Gersonian influence, also positing an assumption among other things. After the quasi-iconoclastic movements of the Counter Reformation wiped the slate clean on Josephite hagiography, Bernardino and Gerson were dusted off and further exploited by the Molanusian reformers.

The other great promoter of Josephite devotion was St. Teresa of Ávila (1515-1582), who was healed of paralysis by St. Joseph’s intercession. Her influence on the Carmelite order ensured that the new Josephite devotion would be spread wherever Carmelites held sway; most especially in the Hispanic world, but also through evangelist-saints like Francis de Sales (1567-1622) who found inspiration in Teresa’s writings.

Propaganda for the Family

(Bartolomé Esteban Murillo)

How did the new version of St. Joseph find such purchase in the Catholic world? Largely because of the rising devotion to the Holy Family, and its ties to preaching about the importance of family life. Treated often as second-class citizens in a kingdom ruled by eunuchs, the married laity of Catholic Europe were happy to see an emphasis placed on the Holy Family. The Tridentine Fathers understood that marriage was in a particular crisis, so in addition to requiring an ecclesiastical witness to all ceremonies, the Council’s reformers preached heavily on the exaltation of the sacramental married state.

(Philippe de Champagne)

Rather than pulling from the examples of married saints from Scripture and Tradition (many of whom found their cults demoted if not demolished by the Counter Reformation), the Holy Family devotion was developed as a teaching tool for the married, with St. Joseph as its newly-reimagined moral and spiritual leader. Artists were encouraged to paint the Betrothal of the Virgin to St. Joseph; depictions of the everyday life of the Holy Family, especially in Joseph’s workshop, became popular; and the traditional images of Christ Enthroned on Mary were quietly being replaced with paintings of Joseph holding and playing with the Christ Child.

(Jeroni Jacint Espinosa)

Joseph was portrayed as the perfect model for husbands and fathers: young, hard-working, chaste, paternal, affectionate to his wife and child, and faithful. Surely young men in the married state need such examples, and Joseph was reinvented to suit that need. Mary’s wifely role was emphasized, as well: maternal, chaste, obedient, supportive, and prayerful. Even Jesus’ role as a good child was elaborated: obedient, hard-working, submissive to his elders, and playful.

Most of these things may have been true about the household in Nazareth, but there is no doubt that the newer elaborations are imaginative and based on no traditions. Indeed, what few ancient traditions there are about the Holy Family suggest an imperfect harmony at best. The Holy Family of popular devotion was carefully crafted by the Counter Reformers to suit a particular need, and artistic depictions were often stringently censored to that end.

(Mafra National Palace, Portugal)

It was important to show Joseph at his workbench, usually teaching the young Jesus how to work wood at the same time. The Spanish Empire reportedly had a difficult time dealing with a lazy populace, and promoting St. Joseph the Worker helped encourage men stuck in low-class labor to see work as a form a prayer. This aspect of Josephite devotion finds modern perpetuation in the teachings of Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer through Opus Dei, and it was also exploited by Pius XII by instituting the May 1 feast.

(Gaspar Miguel de Berrío)

The royal lineage of Joseph, as a descendant of King David, was frequently brought to mind as a way of exalting his worth. He was a patriarch, a prince, heir to the throne of David. Some new devotionals suggested that the Holy Family lived in intentional poverty, since Joseph had given all of his royal inheritance to the poor. The Coronation of St. Joseph was a popular artistic theme in Spain and Mexico, mirroring very closely the Coronation of Mary.

(José Cortés de Alcocer)

More questionable than Joseph’s royalty was the emerging iconographic subgenre of the Earthly Trinity, which mirrored the three members of the Holy Family with representations of the Trinity in Heaven. Even the Spanish Inquisition found this subgenre semi-blasphemous, but surely it was the fullest expression of this unjustified exaltation of the spouse of Mary, and what artist could resist painting a mirror image of threes? It lent itself to a kind of symmetry rarely seen since the old iconography died away.

Effects of Fabricated Devotion

(artist unknown)

The rise of devotional propaganda was serving a real need in the Church. Family life was in chaos, and pastors wanted a focused example for preaching and commissioning art, something that could appeal to the poor as well as the rich. It must have seemed like a useful shortcut to have one condensed example of familial piety with the Holy Family, and clerics everywhere attempted to spread this devotion among the families they were trying to save.

Meanwhile, the old cults were shrinking and dying, often with the assistance of newly-scrupulous clergy who wanted nothing that smelled of fiction or imagination in Catholic devotion. John the Baptist, previously invoked in defense of marriage, was forgotten as Joseph took his place as the highest saint below Mary. The parents of the Virgin, Sts. Joachim and Anne, were diminishing as theologians questioned their historicity. Many of the saints once invoked against unhappy marriages—Monica, Helena, Henry and Cunegundes, Gengulphus, Rita—were falling by the wayside.

It’s an unfortunate fact that shortcuts lead to problems down the road. A hastily-built house may fall apart one day because of the shortcuts taken by the builders. A concocted devotion founded on speculative fabrications will not inspire a lasting change in the Church. The more St. Joseph is forced into a superhuman mold, the more it feels like fantasy, and one even more fantastic than the golden legends of old. We shouldn’t reshape saints simply based on a perceived need in the life of the Church.

And really, doesn’t the more ancient belief in Joseph’s pre-Marian marriage with children make him more relatable to married men today? A neat and tidy household with only one child seems more like the marriages of the workaholic, compulsive, fecundophobic neo-pagans of today, and less like the messy, crowded families traditionally promoted by the Church.

Next time, we will move further into modern times, and look at recent papal writings and proclamations about St. Joseph.

St. Joseph, lover of large families, pray for us!

FSSPX Confessions

The official line some harsh critics of Msgr. Lefebvre's fraternity have held in recent years asserts that, by lack of jurisdiction, priests of the Fraternity of St. Pius X cannot absolve sins under normal circumstances. They also assert that the 1983 Codex's provisions for crises, cases of emergency, and common error do not apply—some in fidelity to John Paul II and some out of legal positivism.

The Fraternity has always held, to the contrary, that their absolutions hold valid because of common error, because the Law supplies the faculties where jurisdiction is lacking, and because the faithful supply jurisdiction (canon 1335 allows the faithful to request Sacraments of any priest not under latae sententiae excommunication for any reason whatsoever). 

In short, it's all a mess, and Francis's latest letter does not clarify the matter. He grants that "those who during the Holy Year of Mercy approach these priests of the Fraternity of St Pius X to celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation shall validly and licitly receive the absolution of their sins." What he does not do is grant explicit faculties to the Fraternity, which would be necessary to fit this narrative, which posits that the FSSPX is being "given the faculty to hear confessions." The Pope is actually investing, in some rather ambiguous way, the power for the laity to give the Fraternity jurisdiction, which has been their claim all along. If the Pope does want to reconcile the followers of the man they call "the Archbishop," then it would only make sense that he ingratiate their claims a bit, ironically more diplomatic than Benedict XVI's approach—which many commentators at the time insisted was the Fraternity's last chance.

I have no vested interest in the outcome of this. I have attended one Fraternity Mass in my life and never confessed to one of their priests, but this does matter for the greater Church, for Vatican II's legacy, for the legitimacy of resistance to the new ways, and for the future of the papacy. 

Validity of FSSPX absolutions. Discuss....

Limbo in Limbo?

Dante in the Limbo of the Poets
source: wikipedia.org

It is one of those "was it really a teaching" items that has fallen by the wayside, that cannot be proven from ancient writings, but which gained a substantial following because of its intellectual consistency and approached the status of doctrine in the minds of some. I am, of course, speaking of Limbo.

What is it? There are usually two answers. One is that it is an alternative to heaven and hell for the invincibly and inculpably ignorant children who died before reaching the age of reason. Another is a variation, that it is a painless part of hell for those same dead, who will live in a "state of perfect natural happiness" in the eternal abyss. It is distinct from the "Limbo of the Fathers," or the Greek "Hades," where the righteous of the Old Covenant dwelt after death until Christ freed them on Holy Saturday.

Some will gerrymander patristic quotations from the likes of St. Gregory the Theologian, who believed that those who innocently died without Baptism did not merit punishment, to support Limbo (cf. Orat. XL). The general patristic consensus in the Greek Church reflects Gregory's misgivings and agnosticism on the subject.

St. Augustine informed the older Western view, that the un-baptized, regardless of who they are, go to hell and suffer. Rereading Augustine's Confessions barrels the reader in amazement at his own guilt for crying and waling as a child, and in turn believing that other babies sinned by selfishly crying and waling (cf. ch. 2). 

Proto-Scholastics, St. Anslem and his descendants, applied logic to the disparity between the guilt of infants and their fallen state, concluding that they must earn some sort of separation from God that does not involve suffering, although one would think any separation from God is a pain. Aquinas would write about Limbo, but Limbo itself would not grasp the Catholic imagination outside of the academies for quite some time. In his Inferno, Dante imagines the first ring to encapsulate Virgil and other virtuous pagans who, without illumination from faith, must suffer separation from God, but who themselves did not deserve punishment.

Eventually, Limbo caught on until Benedict XVI "closed" it in 2007 with this document, which suggests all un-baptized infants might be saved. While the conclusion is not out of the realm of possibility, given the patristic Greek agnosticism on the subject, it boldly disregards the Latin tradition on the subject. Moreover, there a curious application of lex orandi lex credendi: the old rite did not have a funeral rite for un-baptized infants, but the new rite does, so we can assume....

There is nothing wrong necessarily with holding a funeral for an un-baptized infant who would have been washed in the cleansing waters. The Church makes that very accommodation for prematurely deceased catechumens. I just which we would stop trying to find as answer to everything. Who gets to go to heaven or hell is inevitably up to God, the Only One qualified for His position, not theologians. This is not a criminal mystery to be solved by detectives, it is a mystery of faith to be left alone by the faithful. We do not know and may not until eternity. Why is this so difficult?