Le Forum Catholique

Le Père Hunwicke explique le silence du Pape François (concernant les Dubia) en faisant un parallèle avec la crise arienne. Il ne valide aucunement le sédévacantisme. Il n'affirme pas que le Siège de Pierre est vacant, mais constate que celui qui l'occupe est, dans sa tâche de confirmer ses frères dans la foi, en vacances. Bref, sa réflexion est intéressante.

Voici 2 texte anglais de Fr Hunwicke's Mutual Enrichment :

Newman and the current crisis

18 November 2016

"The decision of our Holy Father not to respond to a formal request from four Cardinals to resolve formally some formal dubia, and thus to fulfil the Petrine mandate to confirm (sterizein) his brethren, is a striking event not easily paralleled. A refusal to respond to such a formal request, even if not published in the official records of the Holy See, can hardly not itself be a formal act. So I turned, as surely we in the Ordinariate instinctively do, to our beloved Patron Blessed John Henry Newman, quo quis doctior, quis sapientior?

" ... at one time the pope*, at other times a patriarchal, metropolitan, or other great see, at other times general councils*, said what they should not have said, or did what obscured and compromised revealed truth ... I say, that there was a temporary suspense of the functions of the Ecclesia docens. The body of bishops failed in their confession of the faith. They spoke variously, one against another; there was nothing, after Nicaea, of firm, unvarying, consistent testimony, for nearly sixty years ..."

I am therefore testing in my thoughts (doing what we colloquially call "sleeping on it" and at this moment "thinking aloud") the possibility that the current Roman Pontiff's recent decision may be seen as formally constituting the beginning of a period in which the functions of the Papal Magisterium are in "temporary suspense"; in a vacatio which will be ended at the moment when the same Petrine Magisterial organ as formally returns from dogmatic silence to the audible exercise of the functions rightly attributed to it in Catholic Tradition and Magisterial Conciliar definition; that is, devoutly to guard and faithfully to set forth the Tradition received through the Apostles; i.e. the Deposit of Faith.

I am very fallible and I may have got all this completely wrong. But in any case, we are, of course, all now very much in uncharted waters. As well as using our sextants to the best of our abilities, we are under a moral obligation to go very slowly and extremely carefully, tentatively casting the lead to check where the Ship is heading, and how safely. This is no time for wild impetuosity and no place for loose cannons.

And it is no time for running like frightened and panicking children to ridiculous non-solutions such as the various dippy theories which purport to show that Bergoglio is not pope. He most certainly is. Fully and every bit as much as any other pope ever has been or ever could be. But not in the sense disavowed by Blessed Pius IX and by Benedict XVI, of being an "absolute monarch" with the authority to "reveal new teaching".

Note: Newman is referring to Pope* Liberius; and, in referring to general councils*, he does not mean Ecumenical Councils. He explained later that he follows S Robert Bellarmine in distinguishing between Ecumenical Councils and councils which, even if large, do not count as Ecumenical. So ... not applicable to Vatican II!"

Source


"Suspense of the Magisterium"?

25 November 2016

"Readers will have read the Letter of Bishop Schneider (Rorate), and observed the powerful use he makes of the parallels between our present problems; and the period of the Arian conflict, during which apostasy even reached as high as the man who at that time also occupied the Throne of S Peter. And readers will recall my own advice to study that self-same period, and to do so through the prism of Blessed John Henry Newman, for whose respectability as a testis fidei his recent canonisation vouches. I believe that it is important, especially for clerics and seminarians, to take this period and this subject very seriously, because we need some sound anchoring in reality and Tradition and in approved writers. It is not good enough to be angry or upset and to flail helplessly around without any bearings. That way lies the risk that the Enemy will trap us into unbelief or a heresy such as Sedevacantism. Mgr Schneider has led the way with his extensive quotations from the Fathers, especially S Hilary 'the Athanasius of the West', and from S Thomas Aquinas and B John Henry. I will now take up again the point which I explored last time I entered upon this topic: the thought of Blessed John Henry Newman which he encapsulated in a bold phrase: the "temporary Suspense of the functions of the Ecclesia docens", or, as we might say nowadays, "of the Magisterium".

Newman used this phrase as a historical describer ("as a matter of fact"). With the falling away of so many bishops from orthodoxy, it was, he meant, a matter of historical fact that their function of teaching the Truth was not being discharged. His words were misunderstood by critics ... he was rarely short of those ... as implying that the bishops had lost their capacity to function Magisterially: in other words, his statement was taken theologically. He carefully disavowed this dangerous notion, which, if you think about it, does possess some of the features of the modern Sedevacantist heresy. In fact, Newman carefully distinguished between Suspense of the Magisterium, meaning that the Magisterial officers of the Church were not performing their function, and Suspension of the Magisterium, which in his view would mean that they had lost their function. The latter he would never assert, and neither should we even think of suggesting it.

This is an extremely important distinction for us to make today. In my last piece on this subject, I suggested that Jorge Bergoglio's formal refusal to respond to the Five Dubia constituted a formal entry into a period of Temporary Suspense of the function of his Petrine Magisterium. It is a suspense freely chosen by him which he can end at any moment he chooses by giving the clarifications called for, thus "strengthening his brethren" and "devoutly guarding and faithfully setting forth the Tradition received through the Apostles, the Deposit of the Faith". What joy, unalloyed joy, this happy event would cause; what cries of ad multos annos! Petrus per Franciscum locutus est!


Meanwhile, intelligent thought about the practical and theological implications of the present difficult situation seem to me very much in order. But not only thought.

Let us hope, and pray earnestly to our Lady of Fatima, our Lady of Victories, that we shall never have to adopt and adapt the agonised cry of S Hilary, cited by Bishop Schneider, "Anathema tibi a me dictum praevaricator Liberi!"

God bless and keep our Pope."

Source