Benedict XVI on the Limits of Papal Infallibility

From Father Hunwicke's Liturgical Notes:

Since this topic is again a bit of a talking-point, I will (again) quote
some words of Cardinal Ratzinger, which seem to me the most remarkable
observation made on Papal powers - by someone who subsequently became Pope - for
well over a thousand years.

"After the Second Vatican Council, the impression arose that the pope
really could do anything ... especially if he were acting on the mandate of an
ecumenical council ... In fact, the First Vatican Council had in no way defined
the pope as an absolute monarch. On the contrary, it presented him as the
guarantor of obedience to the revealed Word. The pope's authority is bound to
the Tradition of Faith ... Even the pope can only be a humble servant of its
lawful development and abiding integrity and identity ... The authority of the
pope is not unlimited; it is at the service of Sacred Tradition."

Since this is how Benedict XVI sees papal power, how can any
catholic-minded person have any objection to it?

---

Also noteworthy in this connection is the Papal Coronation oath in use for centuries, which contains the same idea that the Supreme Pontiff cannot, to suit his fancy, alter the Tradition of the Church or add anything not congruent with it. But we already knew that, didn't we?

All Souls at Grace and St Peter's

Grace and Saint Peter's Church

707 Park Avenue

Baltimore, MD 21201

http://www.graceandstpeter.org/

ALL SOULS DAY

Monday, November 2

Low Masses:

11:30, 12:00, 12:30

Solemn Requiem Mass and Absolution at the Catafalque

6:00 pm

Missa pro defunctis - Cristobal de Morales

Followed by a dinner, to which all are welcome.

Thanks to Fr John Alexander for the image.

First, let me again apologize for the lack of posting here. There are other things to be done, and we must press on.

Two announcements: Our old friend (?) Bishop Pookie, Titular Archbishop of Bangor, Maine, has been invited to pontificate at the Annual Mass and Meeting of the St Thomas Cranmer Society for the Promotion of Heresy and Schism this February at a parish church yet to be determined. In addition to Bishop Pookie, the key-note speaker will be Bishop J.S. Spong, to whom no fruit shall ever be given (sorry - inside joke).

In addition, the fine blog Anglican Wanderings is back. Please see the link in the sidebar.

ANGLICANISM

Please read this explanation of the term Anglicanism by Fr John Hunwicke, SSC.

Anglicanism is a nonsense religion, a dim, pathetic, ridiculous superstition, developed within the last 150 or so years. It relates to what is doctrinally distinctive about those in communion with the See of Canterbury. Sometimes it is expressed in terms of a via media: some sort of Middle Way between the excesses, on the one side, of Protestantism, on the other side, of Popery.

Sometimes it appears in the form of an idea called the Branch Theory, in which Christ's Church is composed of three Branches: the Roman; the Greek; and the Anglican. No explanation is ever thought necessary as to why the 'Monophysite' Syrian Orthodox Christians who meet in S Thomas's are not a 'branch', or why the Methodists, or the Swedish Lutherans, or the Moravians, are excluded. Little consideration is ever given to the possibility that the Great Latin Church of the West might be deemed a Via media between those Western ecclesial bodies, including the Anglicans, who were exposed to the 'Reformation' with its radical denials of Tradition and of Sacramentality, and the Orthodox.Sometimes this 'Anglicanism' is constructed by looking at the Prayer Book and the Articles. Sometimes, by examining carefully the writings of those divines, Caroline or Tractarian, who attempted to modify the damage done to the Provinces of Canterbury and York by the 'Reformation'. In each case, the unspoken assumption is that Anglicanism started with the breach from Rome. You have the bizarre situation in which Anglicans cheerfully claim to be the ancient Catholic Church of this land, yet if you asked any of them "Who founded the Church of England?", 95% would reply "Henry VIII". (I regarded it as a triumph of my 6-year ministry in Devon that, after I put that question onto a pub-quiz, my parishioners were a little uncertain whether the answer on Father's answer-sheet would be S Gregory or S Augustine.) The legal position in English law of the Church of England is that she was founded in 596; yet pretty well anybody would tell you that she started with the breach from Rome.

Funnily enough, there is a distinctive doctrine of the poast-Reformation Church of England, yes, just one; or rather, there was until comparatively recent times: the doctrine of Royal Supremacy. In a raw and murderous form under Henry VII, this meant that the Monarch could change the doctrine of the Church upon a moment's whimsy or confiscate the chalice in each parish church if he found himself strapped for cash. In the more gracious period of the Stuarts, when the C of E, instead of resenting the tyranny of the Tudors, rather welcomed the patronage and protection of a kindlier dynasty, this transformed itself into the dogma of Passive Resistance: that even a bad monarch ought to be resisted by nothing more violent than passive non-collaboration. This is what distinguished Anglicans from both Protestant and Popish dissent. Neither Catholics, nor Evangelicals, nor Liberals, make this the basis of their understanding of 'Anglicanism' nowadays.The sooner that 'Anglicanism' is shovelled into the trash-can of History, the better.

Things

Sorry for the lack of posts. Since nobody reads this anymore, I doubt it has caused much concern or despair.

It seems that the General Convention is going on right now. So far, it's proving to be even more ridiculous than usual, but we expected that. I still think Bishop Ackerman had the right idea about all of this. He suggested at the Lambeth Conference last summer that if The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion are really serious about funding the Millennium Development Goals they'd cancel the Lambeth Conference and General Convention, and give the millions of dollars it takes to put them on to the United Nations. But no. The General Convention goes on as usual, for far longer than it need go on, costing far more than it need cost, while the deputies and bishops all revel in their cocktail parties and vacation time at Disney Land. There have been resolutions presented year after year calling for a curtailment of General Convention, but few seem interested. I suppose it's just a chance to get together and congratulate each other on how progressive and inclusive they are. I'm not really paying any attention to it. There's so much on the internet to read and watch but it's all extremely boring and silly, when not scandalous and horrifying. It hasn't been at all hard to ignore it.

Meanwhile, in the real world, real people are praying the Rosary, going to Mass, saying their prayers, and getting on with the business of living a Christian life.

For more edifying, intelligent, and interesting reading, please visit Fr Hunwicke's Liturgical Notes. There you will find a wealth of excellent posts on a variety of subjects ranging from Anglican Catholicism to the Liturgical year.

Our Lady of Walsingham, pray for us!

Mary, Mother of the Church, pray for us!

St John Fisher, pray for us!

St Thomas More, pray for us!

St Pius V, pray for us!

GRACE AND ST PETER'S CHURCH, BALTIMORE

SUNDAY IN THE OCTAVE OF CORPUS CHRISTI

Sunday, 14 June 2009

10:00 am

High Mass, Procession, and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament

Mass for 3 Voices - William Byrd

http://graceandstpeter.org/

CHURCH OF THE RESURRECTION, NEW YORK
CORPUS CHRISTI

High Mass, Procession, & Benediction

Thursday, 11 June 2009

7:00 pm

Sermon: Father Paul Baggott,

Vicar of Our Most Holy Redeemer, Clerkenwell, London

Music: P. Narcis Casanoves (1747 - 1799)

Missa a 6 Veus, Lauda Sion, Tantum ergo (North American Premieres)

A reception follows.

Whitsunday E & B

WHITSUNDAY
May 31, 2009

10:00 a.m. Procession and High Mass
Mass of the Quiet Hour - George Oldroyd
Come Holy Ghost - Thomas Attwood

4:30 p.m. Solemn Evensong and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament
Followed by the Parish Picnic to which all are welcome
Magnificat and Nunc dimittis in D Major - Herbert Brewer
Come Holy Ghost, The Maker - Cedric Thorpe-Davie
Preces & Responses - Heathcote Statham

Grace and Saint Peter's Church
707 Park Avenue
Baltimore, Maryland 21201

Fr John Hunwicke, SSC, of St Thomas the Martyr, Oxford, offers a series of posts about the separation of the Church of England from the Apostolic See of Rome, the 450th anniversary of which is on June 24 of this year. In the second post, he offers a very reasonable suggestion for commemoration of that sad day. See his excellent blog here: Fr Hunwicke's Liturgical Notes