Last Friday Bishop Finn was on Catholic Answers which you can download as an mp3 here. I especially enjoyed his views on what the mission of a diocesan paper should be and which he put into practice when he dropped the column by Fr. MacBrien.
Fr. Rob has an interesting post called "Does the Vatican II Generation Have to Die For the Council to Be Implemented?" He makes some good points and it isn’t all pessimistic. Not surprising since historically the implementation of councils have always been turbulent.
The pseudo-ordinations that a number of women around the world, and lately in the United States, have attempted are, to borrow Leo XIII’s phrase, "absolutely null and utterly void". (See specifically John Paul II, Ordinatio sacerdotalis, n. 4). Last summer (scroll to 6 July 2005) I explained how such affronts to divine and canon law can and will result in excommunication, although, as I argued, not by the automatic process (1983 CIC 1314) that many simply assumed would apply to such cases. Here I need to make a different point.
To no one’s great surprise, some of these women have gone on to attempt to celebrate the Eucharist. Canonically speaking, what they have done is to simulate the Mass, which action is a distinct crime under canon law (1983 CIC 1378 § 2, n. 1). Moreover, the penalty for Eucharistic simulation is automatic, specifically, interdict, which differs from excommunication in a few respects (1983 CIC 1332). The differences need not detain us, though, for 1983 CIC 1378 § 3 allows the penalty of interdict to be increased to excommunication in cases of simulation "according to the gravity of the delict." It should be obvious that the circumstances surrounding these simulated liturgies are quite sufficient to support the augmentation of the penalty.
The practical consequence is this: those women who, after undergoing pseudo-ordination, compound their canonical crimes by simulating Holy Mass, cannot be restored to full communion (basically per 1983 CIC 1347 and 1358) upon repentance from their attempted ordinations; they must also repent of their mockeries against the Mass.
Which means the rest of rest of us have more praying and fasting to do.
Amen to that.
When Dale Price fisks it is a thing of beauty. A verbal slugfest with no rope-a-dope subtlety. His target is Fr. Larson’s critique of the Mass on EWTN which I noted previously.
SF author S.M. Stirling also commented on his post. Dale had previously reviewed his book Dies the Fire and the author had commented on his review. I finally got around to reading that book myself last week based on Dale’s recommendation. I just wish I hadn’t waited over a year to get to it. Though at least it means I can now read the second in the series (The Protector’s War)and won’t have to wait long for third one (A Meeting in Corvallis) to be released in September.
Bethune Catholic is doing another cover poll, this time of Requiem Press’s new book coming out "Standing with Peter-Reflections of a Lay Moral Theologian on God’s Loving Providence." So go over there and weigh in with your opinion on the three sample covers and get a chance to win the book.
The book does sound interesting since it is from lay moral theologian William May who describes his early years in seminary (left due to illness) and later at the Catholic University of America and the John Paul II institute. The book also talks about this difficulties keeping his job because he was supportive of Humanae Vitae during the same time Rev. Charles Curran (then at CUA) was dissenting.