by Br. Alexis Bugnolo
The Big Lie becomes the premise which the small minded will never question, and what his mind consequently thinks or judges on that basis will be utterly corrupted.
A case in point is Canon Peter’s opinions on Sacraments during the Corona Panic, as expressed in his post entitled, Canonical deep breath time. Canon Peter’s accepts all 3 Big Lies which I recently listed: that the Church in conforming Her pastoral practice to modern times does not risk damaging the traditio fidei, that Pope Benedict in renouncing the ministerium renounced the office of the papacy, and that the Coronavirus is 340 times more deadly than the common cold.
So consequently, do not expect Canon Peters to be any more accurate about canonical or sacramental questions than a man with 1/340th of the IQ of a normal person, or 1/340th of the eyesight of a normal person, or 1/340th of the memory of a normal person. We should not compare persons to cellphones, but no one would want to use a cellphone with 1/340th capacity.
I bluster in words, of course. Because the problem is much worse than a 340x reduction.
Because when you accept any false premise, all your conclusions are 100% false.
So now I will address Canon Peter’s false conclusions and show what the truth is:
First Canon Peters says:
1. Do not assume that some wrong, even stupid, policies being announced by various levels of Church government are necessarily canonically illegal policies. Christ, who foresaw COVID19, nevertheless gave considerable authority to his Church, specifically to his bishops and popes, to formulate how the Church would carry on his mission in these days. People should be very wary of concluding that a given a local Church policy is canonically illegal and can therefore simply be disregarded.
Here is your classical positivist. Throw the book of the Gospels in the trash, shut up, and presume like a good Catholic under the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler than your local Fuhrer is probably acting lawfully. Don’t even dare think that other considerations make that presumption invalid! — But that is not Catholicism. That is clericalism.
Catholicism is this: the Faith trumps obedience to a visible superior, so when a Bishop dumps the Gospel in the trashcan and acts contrary to the Gospel, the presumption that he is acting legally can be dumped likewise in the trashcan!
Next Canon Peters writes:
Consider, e.g., that for most of Church history the institution of “territorial interdict”, whereby Church authority could shut down access to sacraments for the innocent as well as the guilty in whole countries, was practiced. See most recently 1917 CIC 2268-2277. There were, of course, efforts over the centuries to mitigate the impact of territorial interdicts on the innocent but, in its heyday, though criticized on prudential grounds, interdicts were not attacked as illegal in themselves nor as somehow outside of the Church’s authority to implement. Today, what amounts to territorial interdicts are being imposed (rightly or wrongly, in terms of medical advice) as a way to protect the innocent. Even if such policies are wrong-headed (as some seem to me) that does not necessarily mean they are canonically illegal.
What Canon Peters fails to mention, is that like every canonical penalty, interdicts have to be motivated by some injustice. That a prince rebels against the Church did merit an interdict against his principality! But that the faithful in what they perceive to be a life-and-death situation want to receive the Sacraments is not an injustice! Nay, it is their divine right! When any penalty is not motivated by injustice, then it is invalidly imposed per se and ipso iure. So there is no question at all that it is legal.
Canon Peter also fails to explain to you, quite conveniently, that an interdict loosed you form all bonds of obedience to your Prince so that you could and should disobey him! But what the Bishops are doing is punishing an entire territory for the fault of no one, and demanding you continue to obey your unjust leaders! This is the complete opposite moral and legal case!
Thus it is a complete and diabolical shell game, Canon Peter’s is playing here. And that is also clericalism of the most depraved kind: to justify the denial of sacraments to 100s of millions of Catholics!
Then Canon Peter’s goes off the deep end, saying:
2. The use of communication devices (e.g., cell-phones, video devices) in sacramental Confession has been an interest of mine for some time and I published a peer-reviewed series of three articles exploring the validity and liceity of such practices.* While I far prefer such matters to be debated in the calm of academe some points apparently need to be made now. …
I won’t quote the theological dribble which follows under n. 2. But suffice it to say that Canon Peters does not know the first thing about Sacramental theology, which requires that for a Sacrament to be valid that it be a sign which is communicated. And here ”’communicated” is the Latin word for shared among persons in the presence of one another. The notion of communication via wires and radio waves etc., that is remotely, is an analogy, it is not the reality of communion. The voice you hear on the TV or cellphone is NOT the voice of a human being, it is the semblance of the voice created by merely inanimate instruments which cannot in the sacramental sense produce an act of personal communion. Remote communication is only the sharing of information, it cannot be or produce the real communion of persons. We are men, after all, not Angels, communion for human beings requires physical proximity of human bodies.
For that reason, no Sacrament can be valid which is done through phones or radios or tv. It is ontologically impossible, just as it is ontologically impossible that two persons by means of such things be physically proximate to commune in the sharing of anything.
In conclusion…
But since the truth is that Pope Benedict XVI has not ordered any Bishop to suspend the Sacraments or close the Churches, and since Coronavirus is not even as deadly as the winter flu to healthy persons, there is absolutely no reason for Canon Peters to try to start figuring out how to solve the problems which result from accept the Big Lies opposed to those 2 truths.
Here we have the classic example of the Pharisee. Straining gnats but swallowing camels. That is, straining canonical problems but ignoring the Big Truths that Benedict is still the pope and that all medical statistics show the Wuhan virus is not a plague.
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I don’t know of any canon lawyer (inc. Cardinal Burke) who has shown the spiritual strength to call PF what he is, although God knows he has flagrantly displayed his pertinacity as an antipope on countless occasions that would fill a book. None have publicly announced that PBXVI’s resignation was false as it didn’t meet the requirements of the canons pertaining to papal resignations. None have publicly questioned the hastily convened conclave which ignored PJPII’s rules governing papal elections, the coercion, electioneering & very probably threats to life imposed on PBXVI by Sankt Gallen Group, nor have they required a public pronouncement on any of these grave matters. After promising a formal correction the Dubia Cardinals couldn’t bring themselves to carry it out but the Catholic media were silent.
You, Br. Bugnolo, are the only exception to the above & Ann Barnhardt (although not a canon lawyer) has always shown deep scepticism & well researched arguments in favour of PBXVI’s non-resignation of the Munus. How long must be wait before God’s signals PBXVI to come back on stage & inform us as to the reason for his leaving the PO & reasserting he still holds the Keys. It is only when he finally does so that prelates will listen & lift the onerous burden they have placed on their priests & religious, many of whom thoroughly disagree with them but feel tied by false obedience to carry out their orders.
Those who do not love the truth, cannot discern a lie from the truth. They thus are doomed to love lies and be imprisoned by lies. The love of truth is an infallible sign of predestination, and perseverance in it at all costs leads to eternal life. Alas, as Saint Augustine says, the multitude does not want to be saved, that is why Christ offered His Blood for the many, not all. These godless men presume that He offered it for all and even dare say such words of blasphemy at the Mass. Now God has abandoned them to darkness and the fall into which they are cascading is a result of that.
Question: If I should happen to see my pastor or associate pastor and from a distance I greet him and begin my confession, does he need his stole to grant absolution should he go along with my request that out in public “he bless me because I have sinned”?
He does not need his stole for validity. But he cannot validly grant absolution without an auricular confession, one which he hears from you withing voice shot.
Like St. Damien De Veuster of Molokai who yelled to the priest confessor who was on another ship because of the quarantine due to leprosy. If a penitent is willing to lie, would a priest refuse to hear the confession, do you think?
Lie about what?
Sorry, wrong word. It was supposed to be ‘yell’ not ‘lie’.
Yelling is not a problem as regards the validity of the Sacrament. But it is a problem regarding the seal of confession for the priest, because the priest cannot ask you to reveal yourself, and thus if he sets a rule or invites you to yell, he could be diciplined. I think that is what they fear. Also, priests know that there are evil people in the world who would blackmail others if they heard confessions. Nevertheless, a priest and the penitent can wear medical quality masks and thus there is no problem of contagion if they stand near one another to hear one another, but not so far apart that others can hear.
I will send this common-sense description to my diocese. Thank you, Br. Bugnolo.
The Pharisees were the Canonists of Christ’s day. They knew the Torah better than any living man on the planet. And yet, they were the most ignorant of the Torah, of any man on the planet – which is why Christ was more angry with them than anyone else (“whitewashed sepulchers filled with dead men’s bones”). They had the letter. They had not the heart. They had the Law. They had not God. God could “raise up Children of Abraham from stones” (Matt 3:9). “Brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? (V 7). “Produce fruits worthy of repentance” (V 11). Thus, “The axe is laid at the root of the tree” (V 10).
St. John the Baptist is speaking to the Pharisees and the Saducees who thought they knew the Law (technically, they did) but who didn’t know Him who WAS the Law – the lost its heart and soul, thereby turning it into a cause for sin and enslavement.
Anyone who looks at the current moment and uses Canon Law to justify the apostasy from God is by definition and Pharisee / Sadducee.
There is no greater crime against God than taking Him away from His Sheep and separating them from His sacraments of Grace and Communion – *in the name of* Canon Law.
Catholics are dying and many go to their eternal judgement absent the necessary means of salvation. Many will leave the Faith altogether and are lost. There is no higher emergency than that.
Mr. Canon Peters, you should be ashamed of calling yourself an expert in canon law. You are a complete fake!
I’ve often wondered about (I forget the exact term) the ‘mass absolutions’ a priest has given in the event of a shipwreck, or on a battlefield, or in some other sudden calamity. I suppose they weren’t valid except to those whose sins were first heard by the priest.
The mass absolutions given in time of imminent death, are made on the supposition that everyone realizes that their death is imminent and thus by that are made pentitent and aware. Its an exception, where the Church has the power for the salvation of souls. But stopping confessions can never be for the salvation of souls, therefore the Church authorities have no power to stop it.