Did He Die in Vain?
King Henry VIII “requested” the English bishops to secede from under the authority of the pope and to adopt the “branch theory” theory of the Church, which is essentially the theory of the Church adopted by the ICCEC, and which holds that the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church is made up of separate, autonomous patriarchates.
St. John Fisher was a bishop who refused to grant the king’s request; and he spoke these words at a convocation of English bishops:
“We cannot grant this unto the king [unless] we renounce our unity with the See of Rome. And if there were no further matter in it than of renouncing of Clement VII Pope thereof, then the matter were not so great; but in this we do forsake the first four General Councils, which none ever forsook; we renounce all canonical and ecclesiastical laws of the Church of Christ, we renounce all other Christian princes, we renounce the unity of the Christian world, and so leap out of Peter’s ship to be drowned in the wave of all heresies, sects, schisms, and divisions... All general councils of the world ever acknowledged the Pope of Rome only to be the supreme Head of the Church; and now, shall we acknowledge another Head, or one Head to be in England and another in Rome?... If this thing be, farewell to all unity with Christendom; for as that holy and blessed martyr, St. Cyprian, saith, ‘All unity depends upon the authority of that Holy See, as upon the authority of Peter’s successors.’ For, saith the same holy father, all heresies, sects, and schisms have no other use but this, that men will not be obedient to the chief bishop.”
- Msgr. Capel, D.D., “Catholic”: An Essential and Exclusive Attribute of the True Church
It might be apropos here to point out that this same St. Cyprian is quoted on the “who we are” page of the ICCEC’s website: "Among those beliefs we would underscore and commend the following... A high view of the Church in affirming Cyprian's claim that, 'he who has not the Church for his mother, has not God for his Father'"
But, so confident was St. John Fisher that St. Cyprian and the other Church Fathers--as well as the first four Ecumenical Councils--taught that by repudiating the authority of the pope that one somehow repudiates the the Church as his mother, that he sacrificed his life rather than grant the king's wish.
“[He] met death with a calm dignified courage which profoundly impressed all present. His headless body was stripped and left on the scaffold till evening, when it was thrown naked into a grave in the churchyard of Allhallows, Barking... His head was stuck upon a pole on London Bridge, but its ruddy and lifelike appearance excited so much attention that, after a fortnight, it was thrown into the Thames, its place being taken by that of Sir Thomas More, whose martyrdom occurred on 6 July next following.”
posted by Keith @ 12:15 PM
10 comments
10 Comments:
Is it quite fair to weasel yourself on a link from Wickipedia and make endless complaints about the CEC? Should I link a blog onto "Catholic Church" on Wickipedia and complain endlessly about priestly rapes of children and bishops in cahoots with them?
Thanks for the comments, Anonymous. To answer your first question, Wikipedia, in its own words, is a public encyclopedia that anyone can edit. I spent a considerable amount of time perusing Wikipedia’s policies and could not find anything incriminating what I had done. I did, though, find articles with links (and text) expressing different points of view.
To answer your second question, I’m sure it’s has been done before. I, however, am not complaining endlessly about the ICCEC. I’m merely raising some questions as to the ICCEC’s continuity with its own standards. It claims to follow tradition as an authoritative rule, yet there is much—very much—to be found in tradition that is irreconcilable with the ICCEC. I’m merely holding the ICCEC to its own standard.
As for the Catholic Church, she never claimed to be free from sin. The problems in the Catholic Church are the problems of the Church. The Church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints. The Catholic Church does not have the convenience which our Protestant brothers and sister possess of separating out from sinners and forming a “pure” church. She does not abandon sinners.
“It is easy to explain why so many disedifying members are always found clinging to the robes of the Church, their spiritual Mother, and why she never shakes them off nor disowns them as her children. The Church is animated by the spirit of her Founder, Jesus Christ. He ‘came into this world to save sinners.’ He ‘came not to call the just but sinners to repentance.’ He was the Friend of Publicans and Sinners that He might make them the friends of God. And they clung to Him, knowing His compassion for them. The Church, walking in the footsteps of her Divine Spouse, never repudiates sinners nor cuts them off from her fold, no matter how grievous or notorious may be their moral delinquencies; not because she connives at their sin, but because she wishes to reclaim them. She begs them never to despair, and tries, at least, to weaken their passions, if she cannot altogether reform their lives... We know, on the other hand, that sinners who are guilty of gross crimes which shock public decency are virtually excommunicated from Protestant Communions... These excluded sinners...either abandon Christianity altogether, or find refuge in the bosom of their true Mother, the Catholic Church, who, like her Divine Spouse, claims the afflicted as her most cherished inheritance. The parables descriptive of this Church which our Lord employed also clearly teach us that the good and bad shall be joined together in the Church as long as her earthly mission lasts. The kingdom of God is like a field in which the cockle is allowed to grow up with the good seed until the harvest time (Mt 13:24-37); it is like a net which encloses good fish and bad until the hour of separation comes (Mt 13:47). So, too, the Church is that great house (2 Tm 2:20) in which there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay.” –James Cardinal Gibbons, The Faith of Our Fathers
To speak specifically of the sex scandals, it has been impressed upon us in the past few years that this is a problem that is confined to the Catholic Church and that it is mostly a Catholic problem. But this impression is false. Philips Jenkins, a non-Catholic, and professor of history and religious studies at Pennsylvania State University who specializes in sex scandal statistics, says that “there is no evidence that the rate of pedophilia among Catholic priests is higher than it is among clergy of religions that do not have a rule of celibacy”—that is, all Protestant denominations.
It only appears that the rate of pedophilia is higher in the Catholic Church because the Catholic Church is a much larger group than all the others and as such there are more cases to report from within her...and also because the matter is reported with enthusiasm by those who see it as an opportunity to discredit the Catholic Church’s moral teaching. Other groups do not invite such attack because their moral teachings are not as rigorous.
Fish Campmore,
Why are you, like an ex-spouse hanging around the doorstep of your old house, stalking your former beloved? ICCEC treated you well and gave you love. ICCEC is a joy-filled, Spirit-filled group of God's people. Now that you have chosen to leave her, leave her in peace, please. It is the decent thing to do. May Christ give you the strength and peace to move on with the Roman Catholic Church and stop bothering ICCEC.
Re: Why are you, like an ex-spouse hanging around the doorstep of your old house, stalking your former beloved? ICCEC treated you well and gave you love. ICCEC is a joy-filled, Spirit-filled group of God's people. Now that you have chosen to leave her, leave her in peace, please. It is the decent thing to do. May Christ give you the strength and peace to move on with the Roman Catholic Church and stop bothering ICCEC.
Thanks for the feedback Anonymous. I’m taking special care with my blog not to take a vitriolic tone, but merely a forthright, inquiring one. My aim is to merely examine the ICCEC’s claims according to its own standards of orthodoxy.
I find your reaction to be common among ICCEC members. On one hand, the ICCEC claims to be in continuity with tradition; in its own words, to stand “squarely on the historic, undisputed teachings of orthodox Christianity as taught by Jesus, spread by the Apostles, defended by the Patriarchs of the Early Church, expressed in the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds, and exemplified by the undivided Catholic Church during the first millennium of its existence.” On the other hand, nobody can raise questions as to the factual truth of that claim. When they do, they are, instead of being shown facts (i.e. real answers), promptly deemed bad, mean persons, incapable of understanding the "prophetic sign" that is the ICCEC.
Why is it bad to examine the facts that prove or disprove the claims of any given church? Christ Himself did not ask for blind faith; He demonstrated His deity through signs and wonders that we might have faith. Does the ICCEC want to live in a world where it can merely go about claiming what it wants and not be expected to demonstrate its claims according to the facts? If so, how can we be expected to take the ICCEC seriously? In 1992, when the ICCEC began claiming what it does about being in continuity with tradition, it joined the company of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches both of which have made the same claim for thousands of years and both of which claim to be the true Church of Christ. So, can the ICCEC really expect to show up making competing claims which contradict these ancient, venerable churches, and not be challenged? So, the ICCEC shows up and essentially claims to be an equal to the Catholic and Orthodox Churches and, even though that goes against the entire corpus of Catholic and Orthodox Tradition and interpretation of Scripture, we’re bad people for challenging the ICCEC? If that’s the stance the ICCEC wants to take, it has no business claiming to be in continuity with the same Tradition as the Catholic and Orthodox.
Understand my motivation for this blog: It is not to bother the ICCEC or merely to point out its shortcomings. It is because when I took the ICCEC’s standards of orthodoxy seriously—Tradition and Scripture—I found, by the grace of God, that Christ founded the Catholic Church as the home of all Christians, that the Catholic Church is, according to Christ’s plan, the fullness of the means of salvation, and that this is a historically verifiable fact. I am motivated out of a desire to see my family and friends in the ICCEC come into the fullness that Christ has for them—the Church that He established and by which they may receive the fullness of His grace unto their own salvation. Until that is understood, then nothing written by me on this blog can rightly be understood. You operate from the premise that there is no one, true Church; hence, you don’t understand why I won’t just quit bothering the ICCEC. I operate from the premise that there is one, true Church and that it is the Catholic Church established by Christ; hence, I labor (albeit imperfectly) to bring others to that wonderful truth which will bring them closer to Christ.
You want ICCEC to meet your challenge, safely cloaked under the name "Fish CampMore".
Ex-husbands who lurk at the front door of their ex-spouse usually think they have noble intentions. They like to imagine that their ex-wife has faults, and want to "help" her "examine" those faults. Please don't fool yourself. This is an intrusion and you know it.
Christ has given you another home and another calling, "Fish". Please exercise your apostolate somewhere else.
Somewhere else?
I can’t really say anything to you that I haven’t said already; so I’ll just go ahead and repeat myself:
I find your reaction to be common among ICCEC members. On one hand, the ICCEC claims to be in continuity with tradition; in its own words, to stand “squarely on the historic, undisputed teachings of orthodox Christianity as taught by Jesus, spread by the Apostles, defended by the Patriarchs of the Early Church, expressed in the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds, and exemplified by the undivided Catholic Church during the first millennium of its existence.” On the other hand, nobody can raise questions as to the factual truth of that claim. When they do, they are, instead of being shown facts (i.e. real answers), promptly deemed bad, mean persons, incapable of understanding the "prophetic sign" that is the ICCEC.
Understand my motivation for this blog: It is not to bother the ICCEC or merely to point out its shortcomings. It is because when I took the ICCEC’s standards of orthodoxy seriously—Tradition and Scripture—I found, by the grace of God, that Christ founded the Catholic Church as the home of all Christians, that the Catholic Church is, according to Christ’s plan, the fullness of the means of salvation, and that this is a historically verifiable fact. I am motivated out of a desire to see my family and friends in the ICCEC come into the fullness that Christ has for them—the Church that He established and by which they may receive the fullness of His grace unto their own salvation. Until that is understood, then nothing written by me on this blog can rightly be understood.
It sounds to me as if "Anonymous" is having some "defensive" issues. Dear Fish, I see your blog as...exactly what you've called it, "Examining the ICCEC". I see nothing wrong with your blog contents, very informative, at that. As a matther of fact, I've enjoyed them immensely! :-)
God bless you both, and to "Anonymous", perhaps it is you, that needs to go on and further examine your motives as to why you are picking on "Fish".
In Christ,
The Catholic Church does not necessarily consist of the Roman Catholic Church alone. What about the Byzantine Catholics, the Assyrian Catholics, or the Chaldean Catholics? Why didn't you join them instead? Besides, they were not schismatic, still under the jurisdiction of Rome and allow married priests.
Re: Collin Nunis: The Catholic Church does not necessarily consist of the Roman Catholic Church alone. What about the Byzantine Catholics, the Assyrian Catholics, or the Chaldean Catholics? Why didn't you join them instead? Besides, they were not schismatic, still under the jurisdiction of Rome and allow married priests.
First of all, the proper name for the Church whose head is in Rome is the "Catholic Church". It became a popular pejorative in "Reformation" England to call the Catholic Church, the "Roman" Catholic Church in an attempt to assert the "Branch Theory" of the Church and the Anglican Church as the "English" Catholic Church. The idea, (totally incongruent with the entire corpus of Tradition and rejected by the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches), is that the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church is not really one after all; and what you have is the "English" Catholic Church, separate from the "Roman" Catholic Church, separate from the "Brazilian" Catholic Church, etc., etc., etc.
These churches which you list (Byzantine, Syrian, Chaldean) are part of the Catholic Church proper, i.e., they are in full communion and submission to that Church whose head is in Rome. They recognize the Successor of St. Peter as the Vicar of Christ according to the will and prescription of Christ. This is precisely the reason why they are not schismatic. I could join any of those churches and still be in accord with what Christ established.
As far as married priests go, if these churches allow married priests it is because their Christ-appointed head in Rome allows it. Celibacy is a "discipline" and not a doctrine; as such, it can be changed as the Church sees fit.
From the Catholic Encyclopedia:
The definition of an Eastern-Rite Catholic is: A Christian of any Eastern rite in union with the pope : i.e. a Catholic who belongs not to the Roman, but to an Eastern rite. They differ from other Eastern Christians in that they are in communion with Rome, and from Latins in that they have other rites.
A short enumeration and description of the Catholic Eastern Rites will complete this picture of the Eastern Churches. It is, in the first place, a mistake (encouraged by Eastern schismatics and Anglicans) to look upon these Catholic Eastern Rites as asort of compromise between Latin and other rites, or between Catholics and schismatics. Nor is it true that they are Catholics to whom grudging leave has been given to keep something of their national customs. Their position is quite simple and quite logical. They represent exactly the state of the Eastern Churches before the schisms. They are entirely and uncompromisingly Catholics in our strictest sense of the word, quite as much as Latins. They accept the whole Catholic Faith and the authority of the pope as visible head of the Catholic Church, as did St. Athanasius, St. Basil, St. John Chrysostom. They do not belong to the pope's patriarchate, nor do they use his rite, any more than did the great saints of Eastern Christendom. They have their own rites and their own patriarchs, as had their fathers before the schism. Nor is there any idea of compromise or concession about this. The Catholic Church has never been identified with the Western patriarchate. The pope's position as patriarch of the West is as distinct from his papal rights as is his authority as local Bishop of Rome. It is no more necessary to belong to his patriarchate in order to acknowledge his supreme jurisdiction that it is necessary to have him for diocesan bishop. The Eastern Catholic Churches in union with the West have always been as much the ideal of the Church Universal as the Latin Church. If some of those Eastern Churches fall into schism, that is a misfortune which does not affect the others who remain faithful. If all fall away, the Eastern half of the Church disappears for a time as an actual fact; it remains as a theory and an ideal to be realized again as soon as they, or some of them, come back to union with Rome.
This is what has happened. There is at any rate no certain evidence of continuity from time before the schism in any of these Eastern Catholic Churches. Through the bad time, from the various schisms to the sixteenth and seventh centuries, there are traces, isolated cases, of bishops who have at least wished for reunion with the West; but it cannot be claimed that any considerable body of Eastern Christians have kept the union throughout. The Maronites think they have, but they are mistaken; the only real case is that of the Italo-Greeks (who have never been schismatic). Really the Eastern Catholic Churches were formed by Catholic missionaries since the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. And as soon as any number of Eastern Christians were persuaded to reunite with the West, the situation that had existed before the schisms became an actual one again. They became Catholics; no one thought of asking them to become Latins. They were given bishops and patriarchs of their own as successors of the old Catholic Eastern bishops before the schism, and they became what all Eastern Christians had once been -- Catholics. That the Eastern Catholics are comparatively small bodies is the unfortunate result of the fact that the majority of their countrymen prefer schism. Our missionaries would willingly make them larger ones. But, juridically, they stand exactly where all the East once stood, before the Greek schism, or during the short-lived union of Florence (1439-53). And they have as much right to exist and be respected as have Latins, or the great Catholic bishops in the East had during the first centuries. The idea of latinizing all Eastern Catholics, sometimes defended by people on our side whose zeal for uniformity is greater than their knowledge of the historical and juridical situation, is diametrically opposed to antiquity, to the Catholic system of ecclesiastical organization, and to the policy of all popes.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, "Eastern Churches" http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05230a.htm
NSU - 4efer, 5210 - rulez
Post a Comment
<< Home