I am almost certain that you would, as a good and thoughtful father, not allow your children to attend the masses of a priest who did not wear clerical attire, but rather worldly street clothes, acting in a worldly manner, "for whoever communicates with another who is in sin, becomes a sharer in his sin."
Why is it that you persistently fail to assist your readers with citations to the passages you quote? Is it because, if you did, the readers could too readily see that your quotes don't support your claims? Let's see:
As was said above (AA. 5, 7), heretical, schismatical, excommunicate, or even sinful priests, although they have the power to consecrate the Eucharist, yet they do not make a proper use of it; on the contrary, they sin by using it. But whoever communicates with another who is in sin, becomes a sharer in his sin. Hence we read in John's Second Canonical Epistle (11) that "He that saith unto him, God speed you, communicateth with his wicked works." Consequently, it is not lawful to receive Communion from them, or to assist at their mass.
Still there is a difference among the above, because heretics, schismatics, and excommunicates, have been forbidden, by the Church's sentence, to perform the Eucharistic rite. And therefore whoever hears their mass or receives the sacraments from them, commits sin. But not all who are sinners are debarred by the Church's sentence from using this power: and so, although suspended by the Divine sentence, yet they are not suspended in regard to others by any ecclesiastical sentence: consequently, until the Church's sentence is pronounced, it is lawful to receive Communion at their hands, and to hear their mass. Hence on 1 Cor. 5:11, "with such a one not so much as to eat," Augustine's gloss runs thus: "In saying this he was unwilling for a man to be judged by his fellow man on arbitrary suspicion, or even by usurped extraordinary judgment, but rather by God's law, according to the Church's ordering, whether he confess of his own accord, or whether he be accused and convicted" [St. Thomas Aquinas, S.T. III, Q. 82, Art. 9].
Until the Church's sentence is pronounced, it is lawful to receive Communion at their hands, and to hear their Mass--in which case it necessarily follows that one does not become a sharer in their sin by doing so. In your haste to grab some language to try to support your claims, did you simply fail to read that part of the passage--or what?
also from every sort of mind-poisoning that now keeps people away from daily Communion under the pretext of showing due honor and reverence to the Eucharist, as the "poison of Jansenism" did in its day.
Oh dear, I hope this is not an example of that "sound theology" that you are supposedly teaching your children in order to reverse the effects of attending evil liturgies. Quite the contrary really for, "
by refusing to hear the masses of such priests, or to receive Communion from them, we are not shunning God's sacraments; on the contrary, by so doing we are giving them honor."
The citation you omitted is "S.T. III, Q. 82, Art. 9, reply obj. 1"--why, that's from the same article, and "such priests" are those who "have been forbidden, by the Church's sentence, to perform the Eucharistic rite"! Wow, you must have been in a
really rash rush to rip some snippets out of context and ignore all else! At least, that's the most
favorable interpretation of your action--which, of course, we should accept in the absence of proof positive that you were deliberately trying to deceive your readers.
One can honestly wonder why you would then allow your children to attend a liturgy that was based upon a protestant liturgy [...]
Name one or more Protestant doctrines that you think are unavoidably affirmed by those who attend "NO" Masses and receive Communion at them, and we'll discuss it.
[...]where Jesus is abused in an obviously sacrilegious manner.
I don't--but I do allow and
encourage (though not force) them to attend daily Catholic Masses even if some other people there, most likely through no personal fault of their own, receive Him in a manner that is objectively somewhat lacking in due reverence.
A fortiori, do we honor Christ more if we abstain from evil liturgies which far transcend the reasons for avoiding an evil priest.
By the same reasoning, this would be true of liturgies that are prohibited by the sentence of the Church, but not of those that aren't. As to whether particular defects turn a liturgy as a whole into an "evil liturgy" that must be avoided, I can see I'm still not going to get to it yet this morning. The basis of what I do say when I say it, I expect, will be in S.T. I, Q. 48, Art. 4, "Whether Evil Corrupts the Whole Good." More soon!
If you think that doing so is actually Jansenism in disguise, then I really do feel sorry for your poor children; it's obvious that you are either ignorant as to what Jansenism actually was [...]
... or else that you failed to notice how I distinguished the "poison of Jansenism" from the
different sort of mental poison by which some people today would try to keep others away from frequent Communion under the pretext of showing due honor and reverence to the Eucharist, as the Jansenists did of old:
The "poison of Jansenism," which, "under the pretext of showing due honor and reverence to the Eucharist, had infected the minds even of good men" in times gone by [
Sacra Tridentina, 8th prefatory paragraph], is not the only poison that keeps people away from daily Communion under the pretext of showing due honor and reverence to the Eucharist. [...]
[...]as the "poison of Jansenism" did in its day.
[...] or are so malicious towards other parents who take the safer path, which is another principle of moral theology, and do not allow their children to attend such liturgies that you will take no respite from attacking us from any conceivable angle.
You also failed to notice another thing I said above: that, if some Catholics "think it's wrong to attend an 'NO' Mass without strict necessity, and (2) have no strict duty to attend one (which they don't--except, as a rule, on Sundays and holy days of obligation when no other Mass is available), then they shouldn't attend." On the contrary, I object only when they start publicly advocating the poisonous view that it
is wrong to attend an "NO" Mass without strict necessity, even if that is the only feasible way to receive daily Communion. [EDIT: In accordance with the teaching of] the Council of Trent and St. Pius X, I also strongly maintain that the safer path is the one in which the great "antidote whereby we may be freed from daily faults and be preserved from mortal sin," Holy Communion, is received every day by all who are rightly disposed.
You may want to start their sound catechetical lessons with the divine principle of epikia [a/k/a "epikeia" or "epieikeia," S.T. II-II, Q. 120] in the wide-sense which teaches that God will condescend to help us with more grace when through some defect in His Church's ministers and rites, the faithful do not have the opportunity to receive daily communion -- where there is a breakdown in the lower, the higher supervenes.
In this connection, there would be no need, as my family and I do have the opportunity to receive daily Communion (albeit at "NO" Masses) without participating in any sacrilege. But we would be wrong if we thought we could deliberately
reject that opportunity and yet get more grace than if we accepted it.
Blessings,
Don McMaster
