“The Current State of Rome”

Hop On the Sacramental Treadmill

Over at Old Life, Sean Moore (“Old Life Sean”) who is a former Roman Catholic seminarian, has provided some comments in a thread on Conciliarism and Protestantism that thoroughly convey the rough state that Rome [“Official Rome”, not the imaginary, epistemologically perfect “Called-to-Communion” Rome] finds itself in.

Eric Charter has pulled them together for his Literate Comments blog. Here is a taste of it:

You’ve engaged a group who are themselves in the middle of a fight for the soul of their communion. They’ve just seen the heyday of their conservative ‘renaissance’, which best I can tell lasted about 15 years, from early 90′s till about 2007. And actually Ratzinger, in lobbying for the office, was a last ditch effort to keep the movement on life support. I was just going back through Pachence’s notes after I left and it looks to be about ’92 when he starts to notice a swing in the seminarians coming through the formation center. And it looks to be what you’re seeing now is the Vat II vanguard pushing back and gaining steam right around the time Ratzinger took office, which is a great deal of why he quit shortly thereafter. So, now you’ve got both sides marshalling different bishops, theologians, and putting them forward as the ‘official position’. You even had Ratzinger making movements toward SSPXers trying to shore up the conservative flank.

Remember ‘interpretation’ in Rome is a multi-headed beast. There isn’t ONE conclusion, there are multiple and since 2005 now officially,-not ex cathedra(huge loophole) the only bounding that has been set is “no rupture”. Well if no definitive bounding(single conclusion) was set at Vat II, and the hermeneutical purpose was to allow for multiple interpretations so that Rome could effectively morph pastorally with modernity you will forever have swings one way or another, you will effectively have sects, factions, movements all LEGITIMATELY being able to claim grounding in ALLOWABLE interpretation. Which is why you have Anglo-catholic communions, SSPXers(dissent), Vat II ‘liberals’, Latin-rite communions, the Network, social conscience academics, etc.

Now they want to say this isn’t confusion, like what you see in protestantism because sacramentally we are all on board. Well, I’ll grant that everybody, who practices, goes to mass. Let me be generous here; I’d say 1 in 200 catholics can explain to you their sacramental theology. …

What you have is a religious communion grounded in the priestly charism of the ordinary magisterium. They have sacerdotalism. They have grace and benefit mediated to them per priestly mediation and justification/salvation conveyed by way of ontological renovation and purgation. Now, 1 in 1000(uber-generous) could explain that to you. But since you have ex opere operato at work, and your official posture is to want to receive the benefit conveyed, you’re still good…. Most people’s religious expression in RC amounts to; “I go to mass, went to mass, tried to do right, went to confession a few times and I hope the priest gets there in time for last rites.”

Read it all here: http://literatecomments.com/2013/08/23/the-current-state-of-rome/

Please note: an earlier version of this post had erroneously attributed the Literate Comments blog to Darryl Hart.