The Anglican Communion is closer than ever to formal schism

Backgruond... GAFCON & Sarah Mullally

Mexican (Catholic) bishop faces backlash for con-celebrating Eucharist with Anglican female cleric

A retired Mexican bishop has provoked widespread controversy after he celebrated the Eucharist with an Anglican female minister at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City.

On the 26 August, Bishop Emeritus Raúl Vera López of Saltillo presided at Mass in the basilica with Rev Emilie Teresa Smith, a Canadian Anglican minister, standing beside him as a concelebrant. During the liturgy, Ms Smith, wearing a stole (a liturgical vestment), joined in parts of the Eucharistic Prayer, whispered words of consecration, raised her hand in blessing and elevated the chalice containing the Precious Blood of Christ.

The Mass was recorded and published on the bishop’s own Facebook page, where it quickly gained attention. In a post accompanying the video, the bishop invited viewers to “reflect together” on the Gospel of the day, quoting the words of Christ in St Matthew’s Gospel condemning hypocrisy and spiritual blindness.

He described Ms Smith as one “who walks among us picking up the word of many people around finding solutions to the climate crisis we live in".

The event caused shock among Catholics both in Mexico and internationally, with many describing the event as sacrilegious. Critics of the bishop's actions said that the presence of a female Anglican minister at the altar during the Eucharist is a clear violation of Catholic teaching on both the ordained priesthood and intercommunion with non-Catholics.

The bishop emeritus attempted to defend his actions with a second Facebook post: he recounted how, after Mass on the following day, he had been questioned by journalists about whether canonical sanctions might follow. Bishop Vera explained that Ms Smith was a fellow co-chair of the international solidarity network SICSAL, who was passing through Coahuila on route to the COP 30 environmental summit and had accepted his invitation to take part in the Mass at the basilica.

He dismissed accusations of sacrilege, heresy and indiscipline as “common sense” misunderstandings, noting that Ms Smith had long been active in human rights and pastoral work, with experience as a parish minister and theologian.

“Not only does she work with the poor, she has a parish, has a theological background, she is a writer, she is ready to participate in a meeting of the United Nations and with God’s people around the defence of our Mother Earth,” he wrote. He also praised her homily as “excellent”.

“We are no longer in witch hunts and bonfire times,” the bishop also said in his Facebook post. “The word of our sister Emilie gives us light, life and guidance as Laudato Si’ asks for all the people of this planet.”

Read the rest here.

HT: Dr. Tighe

Dr. Tighe on the Decline & Fall of the Old Catholics

Definitely worth a read.

Angels for Sale

America needs to nail 95 theses to the megachurch door.

Last month, Paula White, one of President Trump’s most faithful and powerful evangelical supporters and a senior adviser to his new White House Faith Office, began offering “seven supernatural blessings” for the Easter season.

If you “honor God” during the period of Passover and Easter, “God will assign an angel to you, he’ll be an enemy to your enemies, he’ll give you prosperity, he’ll take sickness away from you, he will give you long life, he’ll bring increase in inheritance, and he’ll bring a special year of blessing.”

The suggested price for these extraordinary gifts is an offering to Paula White Ministries of $1,000 or more, and if health, wealth and an angel weren’t enough, White’s ministry will also give you a gorgeous Waterford crystal cross.

If you think White is alone in her cynical, heretical grift, then let me introduce you to Lorenzo Sewell, another of Trump’s Christian favorites. He’s a Detroit-area pastor who delivered a benediction at Trump’s second inauguration in January.

On the afternoon of Jan. 20, hours after he prayed in the Capitol Rotunda, Sewell posted on X, “The crypto community was kind enough to send me $Lorenzo, so I have permanently locked my tokens into a Liquidity Pool, so that I will never sell on the community but rather just earn fees as our token continues to flourish!”

“Amazing day, all the glory to God,” he added.

Read the rest here.

Wishful thinking

Some Catholics keep thinking that if they just fix the Filioque, then everything will be good. That might have been true 1,000 years ago, but Rome has drifted so far from Orthodoxy in its doctrinal additions that we simply do not believe the same things anymore. Our differences with Rome run much deeper than the Filioque and calendars. Papal infallibility and universal jurisdiction, the immaculate conspection, purgatory, indulgences, and so on. At the core, their ecclesiology is so completely alien to us that it's almost impossible to overstate the differences. How could we enter communion with a pope who promotes the blessing of homosexual couples and thinks he has the right to suppress the entire liturgical patrimony of his own church? And then we have the liberal modernism that has been pervasive since at least the Second Vatican Council. Francis' accession to the papacy has dramatically accelerated this alarming trend to the point where the pope himself has openly participated in pagan religious rites. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that half or more Catholic bishops and priests are heretics, even by the teachings of their own communion. Worth noting is that Francis has been going to great lengths to pack the College of Cardinals with these individuals.  Today, I'd say Rome is much closer to full communion with Anglicans and Lutherans than us.

HT: Blog reader John L.

Alice Linsley: Changing the Church by Stealth

The shrinking Episcopal Church welcomes all. It prides itself on diversity and inclusion. In 1976 the General Convention of ECUSA affirmed homosexual behavior when it passed the “we are children of God” resolution.

In 1977, Bishop Paul Moore (NY) ordained the lesbian Ellen Marie Barrett to the priesthood. She served as Integrity's first co-president along with the late Louie Crew.

Most Episcopalians slept through these changes, many of which were launched with great stealth, as Crew admits in this statement from his paper "Changing the Church": "More 'irregular' ordinations of women took place… after our convention. In Washington at the time, on a missionary journey to our new chapters in the east, Jim Wickliff and I yielded to the counsel of friends who advised that our visibility at the ordination might put in jeopardy lesbians among all early ordinands."

However, the consecration of Gene Robinson in November 2003 stirred many to wakefulness, but by then it was too late to reverse the disastrous course of the Episcopal Church.

There is a popular saying Lex orandi, lex credendi. It means that that there is a direct relationship between the law of praying (lex orandi) and the law of believing (lex credendi). Change the prayers of a community and you can change their beliefs. Innovation can direct people's thoughts away from the received tradition. That happened when the Episcopal Church introduced its 1979 prayer book. It should have been called "A Book of Alternative Services" as was done in other Anglican Provinces that introduced experimental liturgies in the 1970s.

By comparing the ECUSA/TEC prayer book to the Book of Common Prayer 1928 one sees the degradation of orthodox theology and the exultation of TEC's social justice agenda. Even advocates of the 1979 prayer book recognized that it presents heterodox theology, what Urban T. Holmes termed a "differentiated" theology. An Episcopal priest and theologian, Holmes understood that the liturgical revisions of the 1970s drew more on Process Theology and modern philosophy than on Scripture, Tradition, and the Church Fathers. In reference to the Episcopal Church 1979 Prayer Book, he wrote, "It is evident that Episcopalians as a whole are not clear about what has happened. The renewal movement in the 1970s, apart from the liturgical renewal, often reflects a nostalgia for a classical theology which many theologians know has not been viable for almost 200 years. The 1979 Book of Common Prayer is a product of a corporate, differentiated theological mind, which is not totally congruent with many of the inherited formularies of the last few centuries. This reality must soon ‘come home to roost’ in one way or another."

Holmes added, "The church has awakened to the demise of classical theology."

Holmes admitted that the 1979 prayer book is not orthodox, and it does not align with what Anglicans have always believed and how they have always prayed.

Read the rest here.

Archbishop Elpidophoros: Opposition to gay marriage is fascist

From here.

See also this.

This is simply scandalous. It is the sort of drivel I would expect from mainline Protestants, not the head of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese in North America. The man is an open heretic and should be immediately deposed.  

Between the legitimately fascist ethno-nationalism being preached in Moscow and the byzantine rite Episcopalianism being embraced by the Greeks here in the US, the Church is clearly in a state of crisis. 

HT: Blog reader John L.

The Methodists Go Hard Left After Schism

Vatican official says St. Peter’s Basilica will bless homosexual ‘couples’

Source. (HT Dr. Tighe) 

Let us pause to consider the sheer enormity of this news. 

In light of the Francis pontificate in general, and this most recent repudiation of basic Christian faith and doctrine, I believe the time has come for us to have a serious discussion about how the Orthodox Church should view the Roman Church and the nature of whatever relationship we are going to have with Rome going forward. One thing I think can be said pretty safely. Any talk of restoration of communion is now dead.

On the Catholic blessing of same sex couples

First, read this excellent reflection.

My comment in response...

This pope is not interested in reform. He is promoting revolution. He sees the Catholic Church the way a progressive looks at a beautiful old city, thinking "what this place needs is a little urban renewal." Unfortunately, his idea of urban renewal is on the same line as the 8th Air Force's plans for German cities during World War II.

As for the document itself; it is a masterpiece of jesuitical word gaming, carefully avoiding an open affirmation of what is its obvious objective. The problem of course is that with Catholic ecclesiology everybody's hands are tied. And so, while conservative Catholics wring their hands and redouble their prayers, their communion continues to circle the drain of heresy. But we are now reaching a point where decisions are going to have to be made. To paraphrase the Fathers, "you are who you are in communion with." What will (small 'o') orthodox Catholics do as they confront the naked heresy, and even apostasy at the highest levels of their church? I have been waiting for a public declaration from Catholic bishops denouncing the heresy in their church and breaking communion with those espousing it for years. And all I am getting is thunderous silence or at most milquetoast statements from these sorry excuses for shepherds.

Where is the modern-day St. John Fisher who even as he is lead to the scaffold will scream "the fort is betrayed even by those who should have defended it!"

A couple of months ago I opined that the difference between Roman Catholicism and liberal Protestantism (broadly speaking), was about ten years. I am now wondering if I may have been overly sanguine in my timetable.

Roman Catholic Church OKs Gay Blessings

Roman Catholic priests can administer blessings to same-sex couples as long as they are not part of regular church rituals or liturgies, the Vatican has said in a landmark ruling approved by Pope Francis.

A document from the Vatican’s doctrinal office said such blessings would not legitimise irregular situations but would be a sign that God welcomes all.

It said priests should decide on a case-by-case basis and “should not prevent or prohibit the church’s closeness to people in every situation in which they might seek God’s help through a simple blessing“.

The pope hinted in October about an official change in response to questions by five conservative cardinals at the start of a synod of bishops at the Vatican.

While the response in October was more nuanced, Monday’s eight-page document, subtitlef “On the Pastoral Meaning of Blessings“, outlined specific situations. An 11-page section was titled “Blessings of Couples in Irregular Situations and of Couples of the Same Sex“.

The Catholic church teaches that same-sex attraction is not sinful but homosexual acts are. Since his election in 2013, Francis has tried to make the 1.3 billion-member church more welcoming to LGBTQ+ people without changing moral doctrine on same-sex activity. [Bollocks!]

Source.

The writing has been on the wall for a while, but it's still a shock. I refer the reader to this post from last October. 

One hundred years ago today

From the front page of the New York Times December 17, 1923.

Pope Francis calls for ‘paradigm shift’ in theology for world of today

Pope Francis has called for a “paradigm shift” in Catholic theology that takes widespread engagement with contemporary science, culture, and people’s lived experience as an essential starting point. 

Citing the need to deal with “profound cultural transformations,” the pope presented his dramatic vision for the future of Catholic theology in a new motu proprio issued earlier today.

Titled Ad Theologiam Promovendam, or “to promote theology,” the document revises the statutes of the Pontifical Academy of Theology (PATH) “to make them more suitable for the mission that our time imposes on theology.”

“Theology can only develop in a culture of dialogue and encounter between different traditions and different knowledge, between different Christian confessions and different religions, openly engaging with everyone, believers and nonbelievers,” the pope wrote in the apostolic letter. 

Read the rest here.

Past popes saw themselves as missionaries from God to a fallen world. This pope sees himself as a missionary from the world to a fallen God. 

What is the difference between Roman Catholicism and liberal Protestantism?

At the rate things are going, I'd say about ten years. This needs to be said plainly; what Francis has unleashed in the Catholic Church, is not reform. It's revolution. 

Two on the Catholic's Big Synod

‘The assumption must be faced that Pope Francis is consciously breaking with the Church’s tradition’

Never a Dull Moment

HT: Dr. Tighe

FTR I am not a fan of Monomakhos' fairly reliable cheerleading for the Putin regime. My views on that organized crime syndicate masquerading as a government are well known to regular readers. But I think they have pretty much hit the nail on the head with respect to the heretical tyrant now sitting on the throne of Old Rome. Some see him moving the Roman Church closer to Orthodoxy. He is not. He is moving it towards (il)liberal Protestantism. 

Pope Francis Hints at Homosexual "Blessings" and Openness to Female Ordination

The crisis in the Catholic Church is obviously accelerating at an alarming rate. The mainstream press/media are almost giddy at the revolution that appears to be in progress. In the meantime, the question must be asked; how long will "orthodox" Catholics remain in communion with open heretics? 

Details from what Fr. Z aptly refers to as "the fishwrap."

Catholic ecclesiology and a heretical Pope

There is no authority to declare or consider an elected and generally accepted Pope as an invalid Pope. The constant practice of the Church makes it evident that even in the case of an invalid election this invalid election will be de facto healed through the general acceptance of the new elected by the overwhelming majority of the cardinals and bishops.

Even in the case of a heretical pope he will not lose his office automatically and there is no body within the Church to declare him deposed because of heresy. Such actions would come close to a kind of a heresy of conciliarism or episcopalism. The heresy of conciliarism or episcopalism says basically that there is a body within the Church (Ecumenical Council, Synod, College of Cardinals, College of Bishops), which can issue a legally binding judgment over the Pope.

The theory of the automatic loss of the papacy due to heresy remains only an opinion, and even St. Robert Bellarmine noticed this and did not present it as a teaching of the Magisterium itself. The perennial papal Magisterium never taught such an opinion. In 1917, when the Code of Canon Law (Codex Iuris Canonici) came into force, the Magisterium of the Church eliminated from the new legislation the remark of the Decretum Gratiani in the old Corpus Iuris Canonici, which stated that a Pope, who deviates from right doctrine, can be deposed. Never in history did the Magisterium of the Church admit any canonical procedures of deposition of a heretical pope. The Church has no power over the pope formally or judicially. The surer Catholic tradition says, that in the case of a heretical pope, the members of the Church can avoid him, resist him, refuse to obey him, all of which can be done without requiring a theory or opinion that says that a heretical pope automatically loses his office or can be deposed consequently.

Therefore, we must follow the surer way (via tutior) and abstain from defending the mere opinion of theologians (even they be Saints like St. Robert Bellarmine), which says that a heretical pope automatically loses his office or can be deposed by the Church therefore.

Read the rest here.

HT: Dr. Tighe

See also this and this.

One in five United Methodist congregations in the US have left the denomination

More than 6,000 United Methodist congregations — a fifth of the U.S. total — have now received permission to leave the denomination amid a schism over theology and the role of LGBTQ people in the nation’s second-largest Protestant denomination.

Those figures emerge following the close of regular meetings in June for the denomination’s regional bodies, known as annual conferences. The departures began with a trickle in 2019 — when the church created a four-year window of opportunity for U.S. congregations to depart over LGBTQ-related issues — and cascaded to its highest level this year.

Church law forbids the marriage or ordination of “self-avowed, practicing homosexuals,” but many conservatives have chosen to leave amid a growing defiance of those bans in many U.S. churches and conferences.

Many of the departing congregations are joining the Global Methodist Church, a denomination created last year by conservatives breaking from the UMC, while others are going independent or joining different denominations.

Read the rest here.

Patriarch of Moscow: Those who do not serve the country are “internal enemies”

The head of the powerful Russian Orthodox Church today described Russians who stopped serving their homeland as “internal enemies” and patriotism as one of the “greatest virtues,” state news agency Ria reported.

Patriarch Kirill is a close ally of President Vladimir Putin and has strongly supported the war in Ukraine, in which tens of thousands of people have been killed and millions have fled their homes.

“Today our prayers are directed to our homeland, which the Lord can protect from all external and internal enemies, from all those who do not associate their lives with Russia, who are ready to make money in Russia, but were never ready to serve the homeland,” Kirill said in his sermon.

“We must instill in the world, and through the ecclesiastical sermon, love for the homeland, which is the greatest virtue,” he said in his sermon from the Archangel’s Cathedral inside the Kremlin compound in central Moscow.

Read the rest here.

Kyrill's support for Russia's war of aggression against its neighbor, and willingly turning a blind eye to the dreadful atrocities being perpetrated by the Russian government is simply scandalous. But here he is flirting with heresy through his persistent attempts to link ethno-nationalism to the Orthodox Faith. 

The Roman Catholic Church is going mad

What the hell is going on?

‘Several’ French Bishops Ask Pope to Reformulate Catholic Doctrine on Homosexuality| National Catholic Register (ncregister.com)

Women’s Ordination, Transgender Ideology Move Forward at German Synodal Way| National Catholic Register (ncregister.com)

Germany’s synodal way: How delegates voted and what’s next (pillarcatholic.com)

Catholic Church of Germany Goes Reform-Mad ━ The European Conservative

(HT Dr. Tighe)

Are there really no small 'o' orthodox Catholic bishops left? Is there not a single Catholic bishop who grasps the danger and is prepared to call this out for what it is, heresy and schism? It's obvious to a convention of the blind, that Francis is not going to do his job. Why aren't the bishops organizing an emergency synod to deal with this? Gather a large number of pointy hats and issue a joint declaration stating point blank that the German church is a micro inch from full schism and if they actually follow up on any of their heretical proclamations, that the signers of the declaration will break communion with them and anyone who supports them.