Tradcast Express
Big Picture. Matt comments on Cardinal Burke's accusation that the Society of St. Pius X is in
schism. And here's what he says at the six minute and eight second mark. But in any case, it is
Cardinal Burke's job to be concerned about schism. That's what he does. And again, I disagree with
him with respect to the Society of St. Pius X schism, but I don't disagree with the sentiment.
Of course, none of us want to have a break or a breach with Rome, with the Pope, with the Vatican
and so forth. But this is what happens when modernists take over the fort, which is what
has happened. What do we do? Do we obey these men? Or do we go into what looks like schism
for the good of the salvation of our souls? We've got to stop here for a minute. This is such
unbelievable junk theology. It's hard to know where to begin commenting on this. First, it's not
simply Mr. Burke's job to be concerned about schism. It's every Catholic's job to be concerned
about schism.
Schism is a mortal sin, which in and of itself puts you outside of the Catholic Church. And it
is also an ecclesiastical crime to which is attached the penalty of excommunication. Then
Matt says that, well, Catholics don't want to break with the Pope. But what are you going to
do when you have modernists in power? Yeah, well, what are you going to do? How about conclude that
modernists, since they are not Catholics,
definition, cannot legitimately hold office in the Catholic Church because the church is one in faith
and modernists don't have the faith. How about that? By the way, how is it that Matt says there
are modernists in power? Isn't he one of those who always insists that we cannot find any clear
heresy in Francis? And even if we could, it would have to be declared by the church before we could
know that he's not a Catholic. So how can he now say that there are modernists in power?
There is no church judgment for any of these Novus Ordo hierarchs that has declared them
to be modernists. Don't you hate it when logic interferes with your emotionally satisfying
theological position? Anyway, it gets worse. Here's some more audio from Michael Matt.
I mean, the mortal sin of schism was all about preventing people from leaving the church.
Right? That's why it's so bad. If what's now called schism in this completely
backwards church of ours, if schism means you're going to adhere to the traditional faith exactly
as it was handed down over the centuries, well, obviously the spirit of the law has to be
considered. Oh man, this is really bad. Schism has only one definition and it's pretty clear.
A schismatic is someone who refuses submission to the Roman pontiff or refuses to be,
in communion with those who are subject to the Roman pontiff. That's it. There is no other
definition of schism or schismatic. So the only question is whether or not Michael Matt is
affirming that it is permissible or perhaps even necessary to refuse submission to the Roman pontiff
or to refuse to be in communion with those who are subject to him. And I think we know the answer
to that. Oh, but what about the
spirit of the law? Well, someone needs to tell the editor of the remnant that you can only invoke
the distinction between letter and spirit of the law for human law, ecclesiastical law, church law,
not the moral law, which is of divine origin. The reason for that is that ecclesiastical law
obviously has a human legislator, a human lawgiver, the Pope. And since the Pope is unable
to make laws that take into consideration all possible circumstances,
circumstances that may arise for every single Catholic, sometimes it may happen that in a
particular situation, following the strict letter of a church law may actually accomplish the
opposite than what was intended by the legislator and actually harm a soul. Okay. So in such an
event, it is permissible to transgress the letter of the law if by transgressing it,
the original purpose for which the law was made, the spirit.
Of the law is served. Now, the reason why that principle called Epikiah cannot be invoked for the
moral law is simple because God is the legislator of the moral law and God being omniscient had
already foreseen every possible circumstance that could arise when he made the law. So there is no
possible way you could invoke Epikiah for the moral law. And you know what? Michael Matt's
columnist, Christopher Ferreira, just made that.
Point in a blog post at the Remnant website on October 6th. It's a post entitled still more
fake news. La Stampa tries again about the whole Amoris Laetitia and filial correction kerfuffle.
Ferreira quoted a Ratzinger document from 1990 as follows, quote, Epikiah and Equitas Canonica
exist in the sphere of human and purely ecclesiastical norms of great significance,
but cannot be applied to the moral law. And so, in this case, Epikiah and Equitas Canonica
apply to those norms over which the church has no discretionary authority, unquote. So there you
have it. And what makes this really amusing is that what Michael Matt is doing here is he's
basically taking the same reasoning that's behind Amoris Laetitia and applying it to the question of
schism. Because the defenders of Amoris Laetitia, they're also saying, hey, you know that divorce,
remarriage, adultery thing?
Yeah, we really need to move away from the strict letter of the law and look at the spirit,
which is for the procreation and rearing of children. And so if you're doing that in your
second marriage, then you obviously have to consider the spirit of the law and not the letter.
And how could Michael Matt possibly answer that argument since he just admitted the very principle
it relies on? If one man can have schism, why can't another man have adultery?
Anyway, you can see that at the remnant, the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.
It boggles the mind to think how many people consider that newspaper a traditional Catholic
publication. It's really tragic, but Michael Matt just doesn't get it. You can never become
a schismatic in order not to become a heretic. If you're schismatic, you might as well be a
Catholic.
Now, to suggest that God would require you to enter into schism in order to escape heresy
is absurd and blasphemous. It's also impious. Come on, Michael Matt, what more evidence do you need?
Your position leads you to embrace an impossible scenario, the scenario being that you must break
communion with the Roman pontiff in order not to have to embrace his religion. Well, if that isn't
an infallible situation, then you're not a schism. You're not a schism. You're not a schism. You're not a
schism. You're not a schism. You're not a schism. You're not a schism. You're not a schism.
And don't give me that silly argument that, ooh, if we're doing it for a good intention,
then it's not really schism. Schism has a clear definition and it is always wrong. Schism is an
intrinsic evil. What Matt is saying is that it's okay to be a schismatic when you're doing it for
the sake of upholding the Catholic faith, and then it's not really schism. Yeah, well, too bad that
faith includes as a dogma the necessity of submission to the Roman pontiff. In any case,
I'd be interested to see what theological manual or magisterial document Matt can quote
to back up his junk theology. In 1873, Pope Pius IX published a long encyclical letter called
Quartus Supra, in which he completely dismantles all the bogus arguments of the schismatics of his
time. And if you read that today, it reads like it was written specifically for Bishop Fallet and
the Society of St. Pius X. Every schism fabricates a heresy for itself to justify its withdrawal from
the church. Pius IX says that in his encyclical, quoting St. Jerome. Well, it sure looks like not
much has changed since 1873. Okay, here's one more quick soundbite before we go.
From Michael Matt. So we look now, all the traditional Catholics, we look out over the
landscape, we look out over the hierarchy, and we say, gee, is there anybody that will just give us
just that much that we can fall in behind them and at least try to bring things back to sanity
and orthodoxy in the church? Yeah, Mr. Matt, in the Catholic Church, there is one man whom a
Catholic always can and always must follow, and that is the Pope. Trapcast Express is a production
of Novoselic.com.
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