In The Timeless Now The Illusions Of The Clerical System Are Running Out Of Gas

The Great and Powerful have brought back indulgences for WYD. 

There are trends popping up in Catholicism regarding lay relationship with the priesthood which should be raising alarms in the Vatican.  I have selected two comments which speak to two of these trends, while the final piece by Eugene Kennedy speaks to a major reason for the cracks in this relationship.

First up is a response to a comment on Phyllis Zagano's most recent NCR column.  It is a response not to the article itself, but to a comment from a recent convert who gave the Church's standard traditional response as to why sacramental spirituality still works in the very sinful ordained.  For this commenter, the answer Rome gave to the Donatists is not the final word.

Kathy,

Your answer is technically and legally correct, pursuant to the doctrine of "ex opere operato.' This doctrine was the Roman response to Donatus.
However this is not the end of the matter . . . There are the more important issues of legitimacy and pneumatic integrity to deal with.(Absolutely true.)


What all of us need to understand very clearly is that the Holy Spirit is not some celestial bellhop - capable of being "commanded" by the Mass-celebrant to descend on the Holy Gifts and transform them into the Body &;  Blood of Christ - simply at the words of institution - the Canon of the Mass! At all times, the Holy Spirit retains the sovereign choice as to whether to descend or not, transform or not. Or even *when* and at what point to transform.

The Holy Spirit will not be "coerced" by the doctrine of 'ex opere operato' into sanctifying the moral turpitude of the celebrant through granting a blanket-consecration of the contents of that altar.

What we may well discover is that for the true faithful, the consecration-moment for the Holy Gifts at a Mass where the celebrant is manifestly unworthy, is, in fact at the point when They enter the mouth of that true-faithful communicant. (Or when that faithful individual gives consent--hence the priesthood of the people through baptism is the ultimate operative in the spiritual efficacy of priesthood.)


Thus, in this "mixed multitude" Mass, there will be two groups of people who take the accidents (of bread and wine) into their mouths:
A) The true-faithful who will be legitimately Communing - independent of 'ex opere operato' - for these both accidents and substance will walk together, independent of the celebrant, and
B) The compromised "mixed multitude" (which will include the celebrant) who will NOT be legitimately Communing - despite 'ex opere operato' - for these, there will be no "substance" to the accidents. (This is too strong in my opinion.  People, including compromised celebrants, can still experience a real Communion with Christ by virtue of desire---just like they can with Baptism.)

I am prepared to prophesy that for the duration of this abuse scandal (&  possibly other scandals of similar magnitude), and wherever it has happened, this "two-group" scenario has existed.
I further prophesy that if clerical doublethink over this and related scandals goes on for much longer, the Holy Spirit may well decide, out of a sense of sustained frustration with respect to the legalities and niceties of Canon Law and the declarations of the Magesterium, to operate extra-murally with respect to these two, and grant "real-presence" in a Mass independent of any sanction from "unworthy" clergy.  (This is of course precisely what the Vatican has to fear will be the final outcome of their convoluted attempts to maintain the status of the current priesthood by minimizing it's responsibility for all of it's abuses.)

For the sake of the poor clergy, I sincerely hope and pray that it does not get this far, but I remain pessimistic over whether this can be avoided. (For the sake of the poor priestless laity, I hope it does get this far.)

Our Lord and Master, as recorded in Matt 25:31-46 said "Inasmuch as ye did (or did it not) to the least of these my brethren, ye did it to Me." (paraphrased). For these poor little abused ones, I was given a vision beyond the veil where He had His arms around them in comfort, saying to them "Come unto Me and find rest, I love you, for you (abused as you have been at the hands of My unaithful shepherds) are the quintessence of My Kingdom.
"And those unfaithful, abuser-shepherds who have so hurt you will be cast into outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
I trust that this assists. (I had a somewhat different vision regarding a known class IV pedophile.  I saw him taken through the experiences of every single one of his victims (which happened in real time)-- and live these episodes as the victim, until he got to his own initial sexual abuse at four years old. At that point he was held by a very incredible loving energy. It was a profound experience for me and a profoundly healing experience for him.)

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On to another interesting point which is being made more and more frequently:

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The Holy Spirit may likely be driving people to prophetically draw attention to our shortcomings. We can't spiritualize to avoid accountability. People are not leaving the Church, they are taking leave of the current state of leadership.  (People are finally beginning to get beyond the indoctrination that defined the hierarchy as the sole voice of the Church, akin to Jesus Himself.  This too is not a trend that bodes well for the future of the existing ordained hierarchical structure.)

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This final quote is from Eugene Kennedy's latest article at the NCR.  It's topic, plenary indulgences,  is another perfect example of a Vatican living in denial.  It's no wonder the two trends exemplified above are not just taking root, but spreading through out the Catholic land.  But Kennedy also makes other very important points.


...."Now, while Catholics burn with the shame inflicted on them by this crisis, Rome seems so pre-occupied with re-entering the shadowed yesterday of clerical domination that it has no interest or enough spiritual energy to lead the church to a fresh dawn of self-examination and self-cleansing. (This is a very important point.  The clerical system has run out of spiritual energy. This is a very serious state of affairs and one the Vatican either doesn't compute, or won't seriously look at.  Benedict's Year of the Priest, featuring St John Vianney was not the solution to this very real problem.)

The latest example is found in promising plenary indulgences to those who fulfill certain conditions when they attend World Youth Day in Madrid, Spain, Aug. 18-21. BUT WAIT -- as they say on infomercials -- partial indulgences are also available to those who pray appropriately during this gathering even if they cannot attend in person.


As part of the Reform of the Reform, this unfortunately rings like a church bell with associations of selling such indulgences during medieval times when bartering for grace and time off from Purgatory with cash scandalized Catholics and helped bring on the Reformation. (Those who will not change are doomed to repeat their past.)

It is worse now because it confounds the mystery of Time and Eternity in which Roman officials should have an interest even if they lack any understanding of them. These are also critical variables in the human experience of the sexual abuse crisis and confusing them can only increase the suffering of the victims of sex abuse.

Indulgences are airily explained as lessening the temporal, or in time, punishment for sin that actually takes place beyond the reach of time, or the application of its parameters, in eternity. Where there is time, as Joseph Campbell has expressed it, there is sorrow. That is a function of time not of eternity and indulgences make no sense, sold 500 years ago or promised now, as any kind of spiritual currency to bail us out of the timeless sphere of eternity. (This is just another example of the bankrupt level of spiritual energy in Rome.  If you can't do the real thing, sell an illusion and base that illusion in confusion.)

Time, with its sorrows, has a meaning for sex abuse victims because there is no time in the human unconscious; it is always NOW. That means that a wound that was seemingly inflicted on a certain date breaks free of the calendar's grip and is always as fresh in the victim as the moment it was inflicted. There is not statute of limitations for victims and their suffering, no plenary or partial indulgences to relieve them of their wounds.  

By turning back to the concept of giving "Get Out of Purgatory" cards to those who attend an event in time demonstrates how estranging to human experience this return to another age really is. The world's victims are burning with suffering that is not cured by the passage of time and Rome fiddles, neglecting to plumb the depths of the still continuing sex abuse crisis, while talking irrelevantly in the language of plenary and partial indulgences.

To promise to relieve the so called temporal punishment due to sin through indulgences while failing to understand the timeless nature of the suffering of the sexually abused makes one think that Nero may have had it right when he did the fiddling while letting Rome do the burning.

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The point Kennedy makes about the timeless nature of the sexually abused is precisely why I was able to experience in real time what had happened in the past with the pedophile I wrote about above. He relived all of it in real time, just not as the predator but as a repeated victim precisely because he was repeating his own victimhood on others. It was an utterly profound experience for me in understanding how love and forgiveness work in the eternal now.  All things are possible in that eternal now.  It is where healing happens.  Change whether good or bad, always happens in the present, not the future, and not the past.  As Kennedy points out, indulgences violate this truth about time and eternity.  This whole indulgence idea is pretty much a naive (or cynical) bankrupt spiritual concept.

 

It is however,  another perfect example of how little spiritual energy is left in this concept of an ordained priestly hierarchy---and this story on the continuing saga of Fr Roy Bourgeoius and the over the top punishment meted out to those who speak to women's ordination is another glaring example of how desperate the Vatican is to hide the truth about how spiritually bankrupt the system really is.