The Bishop's Weekly Column from the Parish Bulletin

OUR LADY OF FATIMA

CATHOLIC CHURCH

A Trick up his Sleeve ?

December 16th 2009

What's he up to now ?

There is something profoundly disturbing about one of the modifications made public by the Vatican yesterday of several of the canons from the 1983 Code of Canon Law (CIC). The changes concerning the definition of mission with regards to episcopal and priestly ordination are what concern me most. In a few columns I have dealt with these themes before here, here and here.

Fortunately the modifications are not retroactive (as I believe from the Latin text) and apply to future ordinations, however, I believe my beef is about the lack of distinction which this change fails to make:

canon 1009 "will be given an additional third paragraph in which it is specified that the minister constituted into the Order of the episcopate or the priesthood receives the mission and power to act in the person of Christ the Head, while deacons receive the faculty to serve the People of God in the diaconates of the liturgy, of the Word and of charity".

You see I do not discount what the law says, the problem is that the law does not say whether this applies to all ordinations without exception, or only to those received within the Catholic Church. If it applies to all ordinations then anyone ordained outside the Catholic Church could claim (justifiably if my suspicion is correct) that his ordination supplies both mission and because it supplies a “missio” or “sending” a fortiori it might be argued it supplies jurisdiction (now called the power of governance) as well.

Now the obvious could be stated that the CIC applies to members of the Latin Rite alone, which is true (CIC canon 1), but did anyone notice the sleight of hand introduced in the recent Apostolic Constitution for Anglicans wishing to return which suggested that Anglicanism was a schism within the Latin Rite ? Thus it pertains to the Latin Rite bishops to have a quasi-competence in the return of their partially in-communicated brethren. Now I had never (before this) understood Anglicanism as a Latin Rite schism since the official liturgy created after the schism bears little resemblance to the Latin Rites in use throughout Europe prior to the split. True, Baptism makes anyone a member of the Catholic Church per se but if the argument is founded (as Rome clearly thinks it is) that Anglicanism is really a Latin schism, then surely all other Western schismatics could also claim partial communion with the Latin Rite, and, if, unlike Anglican orders which considered in themselves are generally held to be invalid, these other “Ministers” had valid orders and could demonstrate that, then could not Rome require ministers to return as ministers rather than as laymen ?

Doesn’t this text / law open up a can of worms where every Old Catholic, Polish National Catholic etc. could claim a valid mission just in virtue of his ordination. Yes ordination conforms a minister to Christ, but can it really confer a mission outside the Catholic Church? Traditional theology says not (I would reference Pius XII’s Mystici corporis at this point but I’m too lazy to look for the quotation - well I found it but now I can't be bothered scanning it: D 2286 & 2287.) An aside - I found quite by chance the whole Denzinger online - now that's a blessing ! And I didn't have to scan a thing !

Members of the Church *

[From the Encyclical, "Mystici Corporis," June 29, 1943]

2286 Actually only those are to be numbered among the members of the Church who have received the laver of regeneration and profess the true faith, and have not, to their misfortune, separated themselves from the structure of the Body, or for very serious sins have not been excluded by lawful authority. "For in one spirit," says the Apostle, "were we all baptized into one Body, whether Jews or Gentiles, whether bond or free" [ 1 Cor. 12:13]. So, just as in the true community of the faithful of Christ there is only one Body, one Spirit, one Lord, and one Baptism, so there can be only one faith [cf. Eph. 4:5]; and so he who refuses to hear the Church, as the Lord bids "let him be as the heathen and publican" [cf. Matt. 18:17 ]. Therefore, those who are divided from one another in faith or in government cannot live in the unity of such a body, and in its one divine spirit.

The Jurisdiction of Bishops *

[From the same Encyclical, "Mystici Corporis,'' June 29, 1943]

2287 Therefore, the bishops of the sacred rites are to be considered as the more illustrious members of the Universal Church not only because they are bound with the divine Head of the whole Body by a very special bond, and so are rightly called "principal parts of the members of the Lord,"* but, as far as each one's own diocese is concerned, because as true shepherds they individually feed and rule in the name of Christ the flocks entrusted to them [Cone. Vat., Const. de Eccl.,cap. 3; see n. 1828]; yet while they do this, they are not entirely independent, but are placed under the due authority of the Roman Pontiff, although they enjoy the ordinary power of jurisdiction obtained directly from the same Highest Pontiff. So they should be revered by the people as divinely appointed successors of the apostles [cf. Cod. Iur. Can., can. 329, 1]; and more than to the rulers of the world, even the highest, are those words befitting to our bishops, inasmuch as they have been anointed with the chrism of the Holy Spirit: "Touch ye not my anointed" [1 Chronicles. 16,22 ;Ps. 104:15].

One other thorny issue (as I see it) is this: since when has a doctrinal statement been part of Church Law? In effect the addition of the third paragraph to canon 1009 makes part of Church Law a doctrinal definition. It seems to me the Catechism of the Catholic Church is the statement of what the Church “believes” the CIC would seem to be a rule book as to how the Church operates and administers the duties of teaching, sanctifying and remedying problems, it is generally not the place for placing a doctrinal definition on the ontological conformity of the one ordained with Christ the High Priest Himself or in the previous canon which was also slightly modified the duty of sanctifying the People of God (that is) the Church.

These new “laws” seem suspiciously to suggest that the Pope has a trick up his sleeve. Some say it’s for the returning “Anglicans” (I would call them fallen-away-Catholics-masquerading-as-Anglicans). It might be but I think he has something else on his mind as well. We shall see…

+TF