{"id":633,"date":"2012-02-17T10:51:40","date_gmt":"2012-02-17T17:51:40","guid":{"rendered":"\/?page_id=633"},"modified":"2017-01-27T15:06:14","modified_gmt":"2017-01-27T22:06:14","slug":"cum-ex-and-ecclesiastical-discipline","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.betrayedcatholics.com\/articles\/a-catholics-course-of-study\/canon-law\/trad-pseudo-clerics-only-simulating-mass-and-sacraments-pdf\/heresy-in-canon-law\/cum-ex-and-ecclesiastical-discipline\/","title":{"rendered":"“Cum Ex…” and Ecclesiastical Discipline"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘Cum<\/em><\/span> ex…’<\/em><\/span> and<\/em><\/span> Ecclesiastical<\/em><\/span> Discipline<\/em><\/span><\/strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a9 Copyright 2007, revised 2009; T. Stanfill Benns (This text may be<\/em> downloaded or printed out for private reading, but it may not be uploaded to another Internet site or published,<\/em> electronically or otherwise, without express written permission from the author<\/em>. <\/em>All emphasis within quotes is the author’s unless noted otherwise<\/em>.)<\/em><\/p>\n

As Dr. Disandro noted, those in the N.O. believed \u201cCum ex Apostolatus Officio\u201d and other documents were disciplinary in nature and as such did not require assent. Now Traditionalists are trying to say the same. They forget that when Angelo Roncalli began his destruction of the Church, a revision of the Code of Canon Law, not realized until Wojtyla’s reign was promised from the time he called the Council. C. Leroux tells us, in her work Son of Perdition, \u201c[Roncalli’]s only preoccupation, apart from the opening of the Council, had been \u2018the adaptation of Canon Law to the needs of our times.\u2019 [He] announced (it), right at the beginning\u2026the reform of Canon Law, that ‘iron collar.\u2019 That loose-tongued Cardinal Tardini artlessly admitted, \u2018From now on, one can say that the principal goal of the Council will be more particularly ecclesiastical jurisdiction, the renovation of the Code of Canon Law which might be altered, and then the whole gamut of the customs of Catholic life.\u2019\u2026If one does not wish to subject oneself to divine institutions, the simplest answer is to transform the laws\u2026.In promising to modify [Canon Law] ‘very shortly,\u2019 he reassured Canon Lawyers who might have raised objections in front of the upheavals which were going to affect not only the interior government of the Church and her doctrines, but Her relations with Her implacable enemies such as the Jews and Freemasons.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leroux also reports that in a 1961 communique concerning the coming Council, Cardinal Koenig listed as one of the topics to be addressed: \u201ca reform of Canon Law, of the Index, and of penitential practices.\u201d Roncalli let it be assumed that all these things would be “set right” by the alteration of Canon Law. And this is essentially what Traditionalists have attempted to do on their own authority. But all are laboring under a grave misconception concerning the Church’s true teaching on the subject of discipline. This topic has been shamefully confused even further by a misprint (?) in the 1955 edition of Henry\u00a0Denzinger’s \u201cThe Sources of Catholic Dogma.\u201d In the Introduction to this edition, the thirtieth translator, Roy Deffarari, credits none other than Charles (Karl) Rahner, S.J. as responsible or \u201cthe 28th, 29th and 30th editions.\u201d This may well account for any discrepancies in these editions of Denzinger’s work. The problem concerns an omission in DZ 326, a condemnation of various heresies under Pope Nicholas I by the Roman Council in (860 and) 863 A.D. There Denzinger’s printed: \u201cIf anyone condemns dogmas, mandates, interdicts, sanctions or decrees, promulgated by the one presiding in the Apostolic See, for the Catholic Faith, for the correction of the faithful, for the emendation of criminals, either by an interdict of threatening or future ills, let him be an anathema.\u201d<\/p>\n

Writing in 1875, Henry Cardinal Manning, in his \u201cThe Vatican Decrees in Their Bearing on Civil Allegiance\u201d gives this rendition of the council’s condemnation of that same error: \u201cSi quis dogmata,\u201d mandata, interdicta, sanctiones vel decreta, pro Catholica fide, pro ecclesiastica disciplina, pro correctione fidelium, pro emendatione scleratorum, vel\u00a0<\/em>interdictione imminentium vel futurorum malorum, a Sedis Apostolica Praeside\u00a0<\/em>salubriter promulgata contempserit,: Anathema sit.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Notice that the words in bold, clearly translated as \u201cfor ecclesiastical discipline,\u201d are omitted from Denzinger’s translation. Nor can it be argued that an ecumenical council erred, or such teaching was later amended without denying the infallible teaching of the Church.<\/p>\n

We find the following proposition condemned by Pope Pius VI in \u201cActorum Fidei,” (DZ 1578): \u201cIn every article, that which pertains to faith and to the essence of religion must be distinguished from that which is proper to discipline,\u201d the Arsonists maintained.<\/p>\n

Pope Pius VI taught: \u201cAs if the Church, which is ruled by the Spirit of God, could have established discipline which is not only useless and burdensome for Christian liberty but which is dangerous and harmful,\u201d condemned as at least erroneous, dangerous and injurious to the Church, among other things.<\/p>\n

Under Can. 2317, those clerics who teach condemned propositions are \u201cbarred from the ministry of preaching the Word of God and of hearing sacramental confessions, and from every other office of teaching, without prejudice to other penalties which the sentence of condemnation of the doctrine may perhaps have decreed.\u201d One of the sources listed by Cardinal Gaspar for this Canon in his Fonts is none other than Pope Paul IV\u2019s \u201cCum ex Apostolatus Officio.\u201d<\/p>\n

Likewise from Pope Gregory XVI in \u201cMirari Vos\u201d: \u201cIt would be beyond any doubt blameworthy and entirely contrary to the respect with which the laws of the Church should be received by a senseless aberration to find fault with the regulation of morals, and the laws of the Church and her ministers; or to speak of this discipline as opposed to certain principles of the natural law, or to present it as defective, imperfect, and subject to civil authority.\u201d<\/p>\n

And from the same Pope in \u201cQuo Graviora\u201d: \u201cAre they not trying, moreover, to make of the Church something human; are they not openly diminishing her infallible authority and the divine power which guides her, in holding that her present discipline is subject to decay, to weakness, and to other failures of the same nature, and in imagining that it contains many elements which are not only useless but even prejudicial to the well being of the Catholic religion?\u201d<\/p>\n

We also hear the following from Pope Pius IX: \u201cIn fact, Venerable Brothers and beloved Sons, it is a question of recognizing the power (of this See), even over your churches, not merely in what pertains to faith, but also in what concerns discipline. He who would deny this is a heretic; he who recognizes this and obstinately refuses to obey is worthy of anathema.” (From the encyclical \u201cQuae in patriarchatu,\u201d September 1, 1876, to the clergy and faithful of the Chaldean Rite.)<\/p>\n

And finally we read from the Vatican Council: \u201cThe pastors and faithful\u2026are bound by the duty of hierarchical subordination and true obedience, not only in things which pertain to faith and morals but also in those which pertain to the discipline and government of the Church\u2026If anyone says that the Roman Pontiff has only the office of inspection or direction, but not the full and supreme power of jurisdiction over the universal Church, not only in things which pertain to faith and morals but also in those which pertain to the discipline and government of the Church\u2026let him be anathema,\u201d (DZ 1827, 1831).<\/p>\n

Dr. Disandro had a very strong and gallant Catholic sense or intuition. Without producing\u00a0actual canonical evidence he was able to pinpoint the problem with Traditionalist opposition to the Bull. He repeatedly rebuked the Progressives for denying the validity of \u201cCum ex\u2026,\u201d a tactic they borrowed from \u201cTHE MONTNIAN SYSTEM OF USING THE CANONICAL DISCIPLINE IN ORDER TO TEAR DOWN DOCTRINES AND\u00a0TRADITION.\u201d And this is exactly what Roncalli and Montini did, without ever producing a reformed Code. What is frightening today is that this system is still very much at work, only not just in the anti-Church. Mainstream Traditionalists tend to be soft on Canon Law because they have convinced themselves that most of it no longer applies. They seem to be totally ignorant of the fact that St. Alphonsus teaches that whenever there is a doubt concerning whether or not a law exists, the existence of the law is to be upheld. Having used epikeia illegally for decades to supersede the Divine law concerning the jurisdiction necessary to sacramental Confession, they have desensitized themselves, effectively, to all laws.<\/p>\n

On the other hand there are a small number of those who hold strictly to Canon Law, namely some \u201chome-alone\u201d adherents and certain Conclavists. While strict adherence is not undesirable, it can be dangerous in the wrong hands. One self-appointed \u201cpope\u201d has reinvented the Progressive principle of discipline over doctrine so opposed by Disandro. Such fantasies concerning de facto clericalism, lay administration of the Sacraments and sacramentals and even suggested changes to sacramental rites all must be accepted under obedience to decisions of this man as \u201cpope.\u201d Still another binds and castigates his supporters for questioning his \u201cepiscopal consecration\u201d by a lay \u201ccardinal.\u201d This is exactly the unjust and insupportable use of discipline to tear down doctrine and Tradition that Disandro so strongly repudiated. That it has come full circle in the guise of \u201clegitimate\u201d claims to the papacy by Conclavists, however, would probably not surprise Disandro, who did not hesitate to call the Traditionalists of his day, some of whom eventually evolved into the Conclavist sect, as \u201ccrassly ignorant.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

‘Cum ex…’ and Ecclesiastical Discipline \u00a9 Copyright 2007, revised 2009; T. Stanfill Benns (This text may be downloaded or printed out for private reading, but it may not be uploaded to another Internet site or published, electronically or otherwise, without express written permission from the author. All emphasis within quotes is the author’s unless noted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":609,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betrayedcatholics.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/633"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betrayedcatholics.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betrayedcatholics.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betrayedcatholics.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betrayedcatholics.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=633"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.betrayedcatholics.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/633\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":634,"href":"https:\/\/www.betrayedcatholics.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/633\/revisions\/634"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betrayedcatholics.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betrayedcatholics.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}