In fact, the matter was not changed, and the form, in the case of the ordination of a deacon or priest, was left untouched. The form for ordination of a bishop was based on the Apostolic Tradition. The Constitution refers to this as "of Hippolytus the Roman" and dates it to the beginning of the third century. Both of these assertions have recently been challenged. In case anyone has scruples, the newer form is certainly valid: there have been and still are different rites of consecration or ordination of a Bishop and there is no reason to doubt the validity of the newer form of the Roman rite.
I think we can also regard it as certain that Pope Paul VI did not intend to declare ordinations subsequently carried out according to the older form to be henceforth invalid. Küng's charge that they are, is simply one of the more absurd consequences of the hermeneutic of rupture.
But the fun is only just beginning with this claim. He veers away from the allegation of invalidity of orders to make the further claim that if Pope Benedict accepts the SSPX bishops into the Church, he will be committing an act of schism. Let us not be distracted by Küng's implied assertion that the SSPX bishops are not already part of the Church. (We can all safely accept that they simply lack regular jurisdiction and canonical status.) Küng's target is not the SSPX but the Holy Father.
Not only does he warn the Holy Father that he will become a schismatic, he spells out the consequence of this: "A schismatic pope loses his position according to that same teaching of the constitution of the Church."
Thus the great liberal Hans Küng joins the ranks of the sedevacantists. You may well doubt whether he would agree to the theory of some, that Cardinal Siri was really elected Pope and not Cardinal Roncalli, but you could be tempted to speculate whether a homely Bierkeller in Tübingen might be the place to add to the list of the Popes at large. (Perhaps Martin VI in honour of another German who could tell everybody what was wrong with the Pope.)
Fun as such speculation might be, I think it would be mistaken. I happen to know, from an unimpeachable source inside the Vatican, leaked to an Italian journalist and thence to my late Auntie Eileen, that Hans Küng was indeed invited to become Pope when the conclave of 1978 became deadlocked. When telephoned with an offer of the post, he declined, saying "No. I would prefer to remain infallible."
7 comments:
I'm just not all that hot re: the SSPX types. They still will think they are more Catholic than the pope. Wouldn't their bishops have to stand down? Why should they continue to effectively function as bishops? Valid or not. If they are 'being brought back in the fold,' that fold is the 'Roman Rite.' Last I looked unless a particular bishop's chair is vacant through death, all the diocese in the Roman Rite HAVE sitting bishops, which should mean that for all practical matters Fellay and friends can forget about warming their own posteriors on cathedra if they come around and finally admit that they are not more Catholic than the pope. Somehow I am inclined to believe they are not in a rush to retire their own personal mitres.
This is indeed a good post to start my day with. Hans Kung as Pope ~ truly amusing. Thank you.
Gem,
I wouldn't get too worked up about warm posteriors.
It's a common misimpression that the bishops of the SSPX, because they are bishops, enjoy any power of jurisdiction. They do not. They are only members of the Society, and function much like an aged bishop emeritus, going about ordaining and celebrating confirmations.
Bishop Fellay only enjoys jurisdiction because he was elected to the post, and has himself been subservient to mere priests, e.g., Father Schmidberger, when they have held the position of Superior.
Hey, I've got a great idea for a new TV series starring one elegantly coiffed, elderly gent, and a close-cropped, one-time harrrd man. They sit either side of an empty chair, gnashing their teeth in exterior darkness. Very edgy. No script, lots of anguished groans and grimaces punctuated by the occasional outburst, ad-libbed by the performers. This is cutting edge, post-modern, post-industrial, post-going-up drama.
Working title: Grumpy Old Sedevacantists, going to air as Talking Deadheads. It'll run to a second series. People do like dramatic irony.
Küng deploys an "argument" decidedly reminiscent of the Lefebvrist one about the unchangeable universality of the frequently changed and never-universal Tridentine Missal.
(I myself await the judgement of the Holy Father as to whether it is possible to have a Catholic intention to confer the Episcopate contrary to the express will of the Roman Pontiff, as such. So there is a question of validity. Just not the one posed by Küng.)
Ha, Ha, Ha, and all that. But Küng is a nasty piece of work. His disparagement of Blessed John Paul the Great’s Polishness made and make them the authentic voice of the age-old Teutonic racism against the Slavs. He only gets away with it because he is Swiss. As a foreign preacher of hate, he ought not to be permitted to enter the United Kingdom.
Blessed John Paul is a kind of litmus test, which Lefebvrists and all points right fail along with liberals and those, such as Küng, who have, in the words of the dissident American nuns, "moved beyond Jesus".
Yet the Swiss, by and large, are a Good Thing in the Church. It gladdens my Dominican heart that orthodoxy is robustly maintained at Fribourg, just as it does that English seminarians in Rome now receive their philosophical formation at the Angelicum.
It was to Fribourg that Lefebvre originally directed disgruntled Francophone seminarians in Rome, although that institution, located right on the Helvetic Confederation’s internal linguistic border, is uniquely bilingual.
And there are several solidly orthodox serving Swiss bishops. Like the professors, never mind the students, at Fribourg, they are really very considerably younger than Hans Küng.
All this fighting over power that some men are partial too in the Church, is a waste of time that could be spent spreading the Good News.
It will be the forgotten souls they have pushed past on earth due to ever pressing 'important' matters, who they will meet first in heaven or purgatory, not a saintly lawyer, to be engaged, in order to carry on their arguments in eternity.
All self will must be surrendered by then, even Jesus had to surrender His own perfect Will to the Father.
Humility and insisting one is right do not go well together.
The Archbishop of Canterbury's job is coming up soon. How do we propose Kung's name to the Crown Appointment's Commission? He could then propagate whatever doctrines tickle his fancy, and no annoying Pope to worry about......
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