tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post3370578283846475591..comments2024-03-24T15:19:06.377-04:00Comments on The Continuum: Non-Anglican Difficulties, Part ThreeFr. Robert Harthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05892141425033196616noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-52769786139486207302008-01-01T20:42:00.000-05:002008-01-01T20:42:00.000-05:00Excellent piece. I, for one, think that limiting t...Excellent piece. I, for one, think that limiting the Catholic faith proper to that of the Scriptures, the Creeds, and the Councils is the best thing for Anglicans to do if they wish to have any credibility in saying that they profess "the Catholic faith." When Anglicans start saying that they can adopt or adapt teachings like Purgatory and Indulgences we break with the Faith of the Fathers, shared with the East, and betray those Anglicans who died to preserve the Faith of the Church free from Roman additions and Protestant deletions. I think I agree with Fr. Hart on this issue.Rev. Dr. Hasserthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14350737386756722887noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-54072853095493391732008-01-01T18:04:00.000-05:002008-01-01T18:04:00.000-05:00Of course, we welcome Roman Catholics who wish to ...Of course, we welcome Roman Catholics who wish to comment, and (unlike another blog or two) we don't ban people who disagree with us. But, we do answer and defend our position- which may be harder for disenters to take. Fr. Hollister has done such a good job already that I have only a little more to add.<BR/><BR/>The Roman Catholic Church, as it has been since the 16th century, is every bit as new as the Church of England was under Henry VIII, and then later under Elisabeth (when it broke the second time with Rome, the <I>relevant</I> break that lasted and that did so with better and more Traditional theology than in the days of Henry). <BR/><BR/>The Council of Trent established a new, and by Orthodox standards Protestant, Reformation denomination called the Roman Catholic Church. This new Protestant denomination had a genuine history and continued its Apostolic Succession (imitating the Anglicans, as they were later to be called), even retaining use of its properties, such as the Vatican Hill church buildings. They wrote a new Mass (the Tridentine, drawing from older sources, again just as the "Anglicans" had done a few years earlier), and taught doctrines with some difference in emphasis, in some ways in allegedly infallible contradiction of previous infallible teaching. This led to the "infallible" way that Vatican I corrected the previously infallible teaching of the Council of Constance. This shows that the true mark of infallibility is the infallible power to correct infallible teaching.<BR/><BR/>This is not the standard way of telling the story, but it is just as accurate. It is certainly no more partisan and slanted than AWPFC's tale of Merry Old England.Fr. Robert Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05892141425033196616noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-437634554493152412008-01-01T13:06:00.000-05:002008-01-01T13:06:00.000-05:00The Anonymous who posted the fifth comment on this...The Anonymous who posted the fifth comment on this thread (hereinafter identified as "AWPFC") wrote:<BR/><BR/>"I feel I must point out that the Church of England did not exist before the Reformation. It is a body created by Henry VIII, Edward VI and Elizabeth I."<BR/><BR/>The only information conveyed in these two sentences, or indeed in that entire comment, is that (a) AWPFC is a Roman Catholic or, at a minimum, is so crypto-Roman in his or her sympathies as virtually to be one, and (b) AWPFC is unacquainted with the histories of either the Seventh or the Sixteenth Centuries.<BR/><BR/>While AWPFC accurately conveys the current official Roman view of the matter, that view itself is a retrojection of the late Roman doctrine that "Catholic" means not "descended from, and partaking of all the esssential features of, the one undivided Church of the Apostles" but instead signifies "under Roman administration".<BR/><BR/>To show the fallacy and essential frivolousness of this concept, we need only look at a 20th-Century example, one that may be less contentious in the present context than would one drawn from Anglicanism or even the Old Catholics.<BR/><BR/>When the Roman authorities, quite improperly and in complete breach of trust, told all of the Eastern Rite [Roman] Catholics that they could no longer ordain married men in North America and could no longer import married clergy to North America from their home countries, one group took this denial of the integrity of its heritage at face value, i.e., as a repudiation of the terms under which it had first transferred its administrative oversight to Rome from the Eastern Orthodox.<BR/><BR/>That group then transferred itself back to Eastern Orthodoxy, where it was placed directly under the OEcumenical Patriarch as the "Carpatho-Russian Church".<BR/><BR/>Now AWPFC's analysis, if it were to be applied to this situation, would conclude that these Carpatho-Russians (who have a flourishing parish 4 miles from my house) are NOT who they were prior to the 1930s or thereabouts and are NOT part of "The Holy Catholic Orthodox Church". Instead, his logic concludes, they are a new church created 70-some years ago out of the whole cloth while the REAL Carpatho-Russian Church "was effectively forced underground and deprived of its churches and clergy".<BR/><BR/>To state the proposition is to demonstrate its vacuousness.<BR/><BR/>The fact is that "the Christian church of this land [i.e., England] for over 1000 years up to the time of Henry VIII" continued to subsist in the Church of England right up until ca. 1992. The tragedy is that it then committed suicide, after nearly two thousand years of unbroken existence, and did so without the slightest involvement in that murder from the Romans or from anyone else other than the heretics of PECUSA/ECUSA/T?C, the Anglican Church of Canada, the Church of New Zealand, and their ilk. <BR/><BR/>O tempore, O mores.<BR/><BR/>John A. Hollister+John A. Hollisterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01325615323834517909noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-48201975955658042102008-01-01T10:05:00.000-05:002008-01-01T10:05:00.000-05:00I feel I must point out that the Church of England...I feel I must point out that the Church of England did not exist before the Reformation. It is a body created by Henry VIII, Edward VI and Elizabeth I. St. Augustine, and the missionaries who came before him, established the Catholic church in England, also known as Ecclesia Anglicana ie. the English branch of the Catholic church, a term which describes the Catholic church in England today. The Catholic church ( which came to be known as Roman at the Reformation ) was the Christian church of this land for over 1000 years up to the time of Henry VIII, at which time it was effectively forced underground and deprived of it's churches and clergy. Faithful English Catholics were heavily penalised for not attending the newly created church with it's Protestant services. 'Massing' priests were put to death if caught. A great many men and women were executed for refusing to accept the new religion and the new church. Centuries later, the Catholic church was fully restored to England. This is the true history of the Catholic faith in England and the origin of the Church of England.<BR/>England has been known as the dowry of Mary since ancient times and so at the end of Benediction we say the following beautiful prayer for our country's conversion:<BR/>O Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, and our most gentle Queen and Mother, look down in mercy upon England thy dowry and upon us all who greatly hope and trust in thee. By thee it was that Jesus our Saviour and our Hope was given unto the world; and he has given thee to us that we may hope still more. Plead for us thy children whom thou didst receive and accept at the foot of the Cross, O sorrowful Mother. Intercede for our separated brethren that with us in the one true fold they may be united to the Chief Shepherd, the Vicar of the Son. Pray for us all dear Mother, that by faith fruitful in good works we may all deserve to see and praise God together with thee in our heavenly home. Amen.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-21226814095570489902007-12-31T22:21:00.000-05:002007-12-31T22:21:00.000-05:00I, for one, would like to see it. My understanding...I, for one, would like to see it. <BR/><BR/>My understanding of indulgences as crediting the merits of the saints from the Church's Treasury, seems utterly wrong. God owes mankind no credits due to supererogation (an impossibility in itself), since "all have sinned" and only "by the obedience of one Man are the many made righteous." If there is some other way to understand Indulgences Please share that idea.<BR/><BR/>As for Purgatory, purification as a positive good makes sense; Temporal Punishment seems like a wrong idea, altogether wrong.Fr. Robert Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05892141425033196616noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-57413805672806742622007-12-31T02:42:00.000-05:002007-12-31T02:42:00.000-05:00I do not believe either Vatican I or Indulgences a...I do not believe either Vatican I or Indulgences are heretical or an insuperable barrier.<BR/><BR/>My theological musings on the papal doctrines I have linked to recently already.<BR/><BR/>As for indulgences, I have written on this in an unpublished paper yet to see the light of the internet. I cannot do anything about this at the moment as my computer has died and I am presently accessing one not my own. Therefore I may not be able to contribute much for a while. If people are interested in what I have written on indulgences and purgatory, let me know for the future, when I have a computer again and access to my files.Fr Matthew Kirbyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14386951752314314095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-43617684662945602072007-12-29T22:21:00.000-05:002007-12-29T22:21:00.000-05:00Fr Hart:Thanks for that link to the Hunwicke artic...Fr Hart:<BR/><BR/>Thanks for that link to the Hunwicke article. It supports the argument I have made <A HREF="http://www.st-joseph-foundation.org/newsletter/lead.php?document=2006/24-2" REL="nofollow">here</A>.<BR/><BR/>As for your claim that the CCC contradicts itself on the question of purgatory, it goes without saying that I disagree—as would Ratzinger, who along with Cardinal Schõnborn oversaw the process of composing the CCC. To suggest that they could adopt the position they do only because they're "stuck with precedent" insinuates—without, of course, being imprudent enough to assert—that they're being intellectually dishonest. It is both more likely and more evident that they use each of the terms 'punishment' and 'purification', which certainly have different connotations, to refer to one and the same reality. And there is no logical reason why they should not. For purification necessitated by sin is painful, which is a natural and inevitable punishment.<BR/><BR/>I shall have much more to say about this nest of issues this upcoming week when I post the eighth article in my "Development and Negation" series.<BR/><BR/>Best,<BR/>MikeMike Lhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18100363229707213441noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-13087833996579845312007-12-29T17:08:00.000-05:002007-12-29T17:08:00.000-05:00Fr. Hart wrote:"[After Henry VIII,] the Church of ...Fr. Hart wrote:<BR/><BR/>"[After Henry VIII,] the Church of England was reunited with the Pope. A second break with the See of Rome was caused by the Pope himself.... This second split was not like the the earlier one that had been caused by Henry VIII's desire to have a divorce. It was caused by a pope who aligned himself with the empire of Spain, and who made impossible demands for bloodshed, and surrender of a whole country to a foreign power."<BR/><BR/>This is a very important point that is seldom emphasized: whatever one's view may be regarding the administrative separation between the Church of England and the Church of Rome during Henry's reign, even the most fanatical Roman ultramontane cannot deny that the two Churches were fully reconciled under Bloody Mary.<BR/><BR/>Nor can any fair-minded person deny that (1) they remained reconciled until 1570, which means Rome had no overt quibble with Anglican Sacraments during twelve years when the third edition of the BCP was the sole liturgy permitted in England, and (2) the breach, when it came, was solely at the instigation of Rome and was wholly for frivolous, political reasons, not for theological ones.<BR/><BR/>Thus all later Roman critcisms of Anglicanism are ex post facto arguments, something like the shifts Rome was put to when the Donation of Constantine was exploded (by a Roman scholar) as a fraud.<BR/><BR/>John A. Hollister+John A. Hollisterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01325615323834517909noreply@blogger.com