Ecclesial Disorders

Now that Francis claims the power to suppress ancient Rites, an Orthodox Metropolitan is calling on him to suppress the Eastern Catholic Churches. 

From Fr Hunwicke's Mutual Enrichment

H.E. Stylianos (Harkianakis)

CLERICALISM versus SACERDOTALISM

"If the word had not come to have as offensive a sound for many as 'clericalism' itself, the old term 'sacerdotalism' might well be used to describe the reconciling principle of the primitive church, so dear to S Paul, 'that there are diversities of ministries, many members, yet but one Body', in which they find their hierarchic unity; and that all are necessary to the perfection of the Church, the Body of Christ. Clericalism, I take it, means in itself simply undue exaltation of the person and importance of the minister, whether he claims priestly character and special sacramental power, or not. 'Sacerdotalism', on the other hand, means simply the belief that certain men are given by God certain priestly powers on behalf of their fellows, which their fellows have not got. These are not the same thing ... the pre-Nicene Church was certainly not 'clericalist', but it was profoundly 'sacerdotalist'."

So wrote Dom Gregory Dix; he went on to quote I Clement XLI, with its emphasis on the Bishop, presbyters, deacons, and laics having each their own tagma. He loved to point out that the Puritan liturgical drafts which were promoted as replacements for the Prayer Book were profoundly clericalist, with page after page of ministerial monologue.

(En passant, I must protest against the dishonest, thoroughly mendacious, implication in the disgraceful documentation accompanying Traditionis custodes, that affection for the Authentic Use of the Roman Rite is fomented by self-seeking clerics. Quite the opposite is the truth. Traddidom is lay-based, lay-driven, and lay-dominated. Most of its academic writers seem to be lay men and lay women, and very fine scholars they are, too. Perhaps clergy are too scared ... now ... tell me ... why should that be?)

PAPACY versus ULTRAPAPALISM

Just as Clericalism and Sacerdotalism need to be distinguished because they are so often and easily confused, so the Petrine Ministry, and Bergoglian Ueberhyperpapalism, need to be kept carefully separate because they are so radically different. The just and proper exercise of the Petrine Office as a remora against novelty and a guarantee of the unchanging Apostolic Tradition, the Deposit of Faith, is a million miles from the wicked corruption memorably described by Joseph Ratzinger as "the impression that the pope really can do anything".

The other day, I read on the internet about an Orthodox Metropolitan, Stylianos of Australia, who, I gathered, demanded that if the Catholic Church wished to have an honest and respectful dialogue with Orthodoxy it must first "dissolve the Uniate bodies". (Does he also advocate the extermination of "Western Orthodoxy"? And the great Mone of Grottaferrata ... could it be that the stylianoi want to get their covetous hands on that? In my more sinful moments, I even wonder if the time has now come to suppress the See of Constantinople and ban for ever any clerical assumption of any title including the term "Ecumenical".)

What a hideous ecclesiological corruption is being advanced here, and by a Separated Byzantine! Such a person should know better. The Pope, apparently, perhaps with his collaborating cronies, should have the power, according to Stylianism, to "dissolve" entire groupings of autonomous and sui iuris particular Churches!! 

Pope Ming the Merciless is thus being held up as the aim of Ecumenism!!!

A single waggle of the Bad Fairy's wand, and millions of laics and clerics could, apparently, be required to choose between latinising, or joining a Separated Jurisdiction.

Beam them up, Scottie!

No wonder the Patriarchate of Moskow is so carefully on the look-out for signs of the heresy of "Papism" in the behaviour of the See of Constantinople. I am 100% with Moskow on this particular issue.

I regard the Stylianist misunderstanding of the Papacy as nothing short of monstrous.

This sort of superultrapapalism needs to be rooted out wherever it raises its ugly head.