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Fr. Samuel Keyes's avatar

Thanks, JD, I think this is very well done. Certainly it conveys the comments we have received from Bishop Lopes since TC came out. (One little detail you didn't include: the specific mention of the ordinaries in the decree reorganizing the CDF last year; that does seem to indicate that there's no immediate plan for suppression.) I especially appreciated your comments about the theoretical difficulty of a sudden influx of married priests in ordinary dioceses -- that may be a truly terrifying prospect in some quarters, more terrifying even than the existence of an alternate liturgical tradition.

Unlike at least one of the previous commentators here, I do not think this question is merely fear mongering (though there is admittedly plenty of that). The "ecumenical" question -- the idea of Rome going back on its promises and just doing whatever it wants -- remains a live one regardless of whether the ordinariates remain, because it is just this model of Roman authoritarianism and centralization that TC and its aftermath keep highlighting. As you guys have said over and over, there's no lack of legislation in this pontificate, but there's a real series of gaps in execution and enforcement. That, to be honest, is the thing that worries me more: the official recognition of the ordinariates' legitimacy paired with the relentless devaluation of everything they stand for. It's quite true that DW:TM is a "Novus ordo" liturgy and that the ordinariates only make sense following Lumen gentium and Unitatis redintegratio, but it's also true that Anglo-Catholicism was formed pretty strongly in a more "Tridentine" and pre-Vatican II context, and that the whole Anglican "charism," if we can put it that way, involves a deep affection for the Tradition -- especially that of the patristic and medieval eras — so it is not easy to finally be "in full communion" only to see the highest authorities in the Church acting like that Tradition is something that can be tossed about and redefined willy-nilly.

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Kevin Tierney's avatar

I don't think Francis would. But I think Francis views himself (big surprise) as a law unto himself, that normal rules of precedent don't apply to the current situation.

But a future Church insisting on rigid conformity to one worship would find a blueprint in TC.

Don't even need a reason, just a paranoia, something all powerful men have in spades.

This is why wise leadership normally doesn't do wide sweeping changes based on their personal feeling when they woke up one morning.

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