Dear Readers,
After finishing Pt. II on The Mystical Body, I discovered further information I felt was relevant to this subject. It has been added on pages 9-13, and these pages can be read alone without re-reading the whole article.
I hope that those reading Pt. I-II will be able now to understand that Traditionalists (and Conclavists), in insisting that only those who attend their mass and sacraments and recognize their “popes” in order to belong to the true Church, have not been truthful with us about the Church’s own definition of who She truly is. Christ’s Church on earth is still very much visible in the activities and practices of ALL Her members who observe Her laws and do nothing to dishonor Our Lord in the commemoration of the Sacrifice He made for us or the Sacraments, which the Catechism teaches are “outward signs, instituted by Christ, to give grace.”
Only those continuing in the apostolic succession He established, as He established it, are authorized by Him to offer these Sacrifices and convey these graces in His name. Those not issuing from this succession are not lawful pastors and their vain sacrifices and doubtfully valid, illicit sacraments are unable to impart these graces. This is being most generous, since it is the official stance of this author that so-called Traditionalist priests and bishops are not valid and can only simulate Mass and Sacraments. I state this only for those who do not accept their invalidity, because even if they concede that they are merely illicit, they receive no graces from their ministrations whatsoever according to St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine, St. Bellarmine and the teachings of the Roman Pontiffs.
Because the object of attending these services has always been to access the graces Traditionalists mistakenly believe they provide, or so they state at least, they cannot justify such attendance in the face of all these Church teachings, which demonstrate these graces do not exist. Christ is the sole dispenser of these graces, which only pass through His truly authorized ministers acting as conduits. Their excuse for attendance, therefore, evaporates; and having once heard and at least attempted to understand the truth and to investigate it, they can no longer justify themselves.
May God grant them the graces they need to see it, and may the Holy Ghost gift them with the understanding and fortitude to act upon it.
Blessings,
T. Benns
