...When Wisconsin finally reaches Phase 1, the state will allow gatherings of up to 10 people, K-12 schools and child care facilities to resume normal in-person operations, and restaurants will be open with some limitations. Non-essential businesses may remove some limitations, but those remain unspecified until the Phase 1 order is issued by the DHS....
"Up to 10." Then--assuming we ever get to "Phase Two":
...Phase 2 will allow gatherings of up to 50 people, restaurants to fully operate, bars and non-essential businesses to open with restrictions, and post-secondary schools to consider reopening....
Wow. Up to 50 people. Just wow.
Not a peep from the "Officer of the Army," Archbishop J. Listecki. Not a peep from ANY OTHER Bishop in Wisconsin. They're not alone in their utter cowardice--no other major religious leaders have voiced an objection to Evers' flat-out suppression of Free Exercise.
What is the matter with these "men"? Are they so afraid of Tony Evers that they can't get on their hind legs and slap him across the face? Or are they so flaccid in their priestly duties that they just can't be bothered?
Some are saying that the Chinese Communist Party Virus is a punishment from God.
No. The punishment is being deprived of the Mass and the sacraments by Bishops who don't have the corragio of a 4th grade girl.
ADDED: the Archbishop's newspaper published an essay noting that Abp. Messmer closed Catholic Churches for some months during the Spanish Flu epidemic. What is NOT mentioned is the fact that the Case Fatality Rate for Spanish Flu was TWENTY FIVE TIMES the CFR of the Chinese Communist Party Virus. There is no comparison.
15 comments:
No cowardice on the part of the bishops, just separation of church and state. Again, you have free exercise of religion. No one is interfering with your ability to worship. Your church can show the service live on the Internet. Have a Bible? You have a Church.
Remember, we do not come into the presence of God when we enter a church building and we do not leave His presence when the service is over. All believers have the Holy Spirit living in us from the moment of salvation, so we carry His presence with us. This means that every act of our lives, whether alone or in the company of others, can and should be an act of worship. The real experience with God is being with Him...everywhere and anywhere.
Now, unfortunately, some people just cannot abide by social distancing when exercising their liberty to peacefully assemble, and as a result, are putting their fellow Christians lives at risk.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=124&v=ZJAUhflcTWo&feature=emb_title
Have a Bible? You have a Church.
Sorry, Prottie, that's wrong. So is this:
we do not come into the presence of God when we enter a church building
You don't really understand the term "free exercise" do you?
If you remember the thief on the cross next to Jesus (Luke 23:39-43), Jesus promises this man he will be with him in paradise. This man never attended church, and yet he is a Christian because he trusts in Jesus. If you are a Christian, then you are a member of God’s church. And alongside the Christian is his or her Bible.
Again, no one is taking away your liberty to believe in a particular faith or to worship. The right of free exercise, however, does not relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a valid and neutral law of general applicability on the ground the law proscribes (or prescribes) conduct that one's religion prescribes (or proscribes).
That is, so long as a community's stay at home order does not single out places of worship for inferior treatment that it does not impose on similar organizations, the order does not violate the First Amendment. Mass gatherings are mass gatherings, regardless if it is a church or a business.
Remember, churches can still exercise religion remotely. Stay-at-home orders do not undercut the religious services that they are provided church goers. Prohibitions on large congregations of people are well within states' jurisdiction.
But do not fret. You have a Bible, you have a Church!
CHRIST IS RISEN!
Blessed Easter season, Anonymous!
God is physically present in the tabernacle of every Catholic church. When you enter that building, you are in His physical Presence - His Real Presence. Read John 6, then the accounts of the Last Supper in the first three Gospels and in 1 Corinthians for starters.
That's why we Catholics suffer deep deprivation when not able to even enter a church to pray let alone receive Him at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass each day, which I normally did before the episcopacy restricted access. (I do not live in Wisconsin, though it is a very beautiful state!)
The Bible itself says that it is not sufficient to just have a Bible to be "church:" see 1 and 2 Timothy chapter 3 in each.
I normally post once, and don't check for replies. I will pray that this leads you to the Truth; if not, God help you!!
In the risen Christ,
Ademar
Dad 29, don't you wish that one bishop had had the courage to open his cathedral for Sunday Mass, have 100 - 200 people in, "socially distanced," and then dare the police to haul him to jail? Would have been an inspiring story. How many priests said secret Masses in England in the 1600s, behind the Iron Curtain, in Mexico in the 1920s, in China now? I know of at least one priest in Denver here who has been saying home Masses. Every priest ought to be saying dozens of Masses every week, in living room, in basements, in garages...in the jail he ends up in.
@Anonymous
Sadly, you're completely wrong.
The Catholic Faith is informed by the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus, Who has a physical, tangible human nature like us. Physical presence in a church is necessary for the right worship of Almighty God.
Moreover, the Church is the Body of Christ, which is the community of believers. The communal dimension is also necessary for the right worship of Almighty God.
Therefore, we must come together in God's presence (in church in the the presence of Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament) to worship Him properly.
You should join us
because he trusts in Jesus
Nope. He was saved because he confessed and repented. That's why Christ is referred to as "Priest" and why the Catholic church has priests with the power to forgive sins, just like Christ.
As someone above mentioned, you ought to join us.
No cowardice on the part of the bishops, just separation of church and state
We'll simply disagree. Cowardice is present in large quantities.
@Anonymous
I do join you and have joined you. Have a Bible? You have a church.
The right worship of Almighty God is the inner essence of worship and the more public expressions of daily acts of love, which Paul calls our “spiritual worship” (Romans 12:1). Jesus made this distinction, as stated by Matthew 15:8–9: “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me.” One can do many deed and attend as many church services, but all true worship is in essence a matter of the heart. We are all part of a community of believers regardless if we are physically in a church or at home watching live services on-line or engaging in confession through Skype with men of the cloth, and the right worship of Almighty is by way of of heart-grasp of God’s supreme value. So true worship is based on a right understanding of God’s nature, and it is a right valuing of God’s worth.
"Have a Bible? You have a Church."
Seriously - do you not realize you're talking to Catholics?
He knows who he's addressing. He's a Prot, or maybe a Jesuit.
Sacraments are the ONLY source of grace and they are not available on the 54" screen. And without grace = without salvation.
To Prots, "grace" is not dispensed through sacraments, thus the somewhat condescending elision of sacraments from his/her 'exercise of religion.' That's why Prots eliminated priests, by the way.
Actually, the sources of grade include the entirety of revealed truth, the hierarchical ministry...AND the sacraments. That revealed truth, of course, comes from the Bible. We as Catholics receive grace through Grace alone means that God loves, forgives, and saves us not because of who we are or what we do, but because of the work of Christ. Our best efforts can never be good enough to earn salvation, but God declares us righteous for Christ's sake. We receive that grace through faith alone.
The RCC allows for precautions to be taken in the celebration of the sacraments in times of pandemics.
Implicit in the church’s Code of Canon Law (Canon 959 ff.) is the notion that the penitent is in the personal presence of the confessor. The physical presence of the absolving priest is not necessarily by divine mandate, so long as the sacrament of penitence requires personal dialogue between the penitent and the confessor and the absolution by the confessor.
We live our Faith in this era of social distancing by learning the liturgy of the hours, by reading Scripture, by keeping tabs on the state of our soul, by praying the rosary, and by wearing your sacramentals. God ALWAYS knows who is being True to their faith, and by engaging in these actions, He reminds us that we are in His good grace and receive His grace.
Hello Dad29,
"Sacraments are the ONLY source of grace and they are not available on the 54" screen. And without grace = without salvation."
Just a small niggle: God is not limited by His sacraments in imparting grace; but they ARE the one and only means he has visibly instituted for men to receive it. Or as the old 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia entry on Sacraments put it"
"....Almighty God can and does give grace to men in answer to their internal aspirations and prayers without the use of any external sign or ceremony. This will always be possible, because God, grace, and the soul are spiritual beings. God is not restricted to the use of material, visible symbols in dealing with men; the sacraments are not necessary in the sense that they could not have been dispensed with. But, if it is known that God has appointed external, visible ceremonies as the means by which certain graces are to be conferred on men, then in order to obtain those graces it will be necessary for men to make use of those Divinely appointed means. This truth theologians express by saying that the sacraments are necessary, not absolutely but only hypothetically, i.e., in the supposition that if we wish to obtain a certain supernatural end we must use the supernatural means appointed for obtaining that end."
And unfortunately now, bishops are denying their flocks most and in some cases ALL of those Divinely appointed means - yes, even Last Rites, in some dioceses. Which is unconscionable - and not terribly efficacious in any event.
Anonymous,
"That revealed truth, of course, comes from the Bible."
I continue to be perplexed by this repeated emphasis on Scripture. Certainly it *is* a source of revealed truth; but so is Sacred Tradition, too. We are not a Sola Scriptura People.
There's a reasonable argument for some restrictions on gatherings and other precautions, and that was even more true when we knew so little about this virus's morbidity and transmission in the early days of this outbreak. But it has become clear that most of our bishops eagerly jumped beyond such limits. You do not need a public gathering to offer reasonably safe confessions, baptisms, or last rites (extreme unction). Speaking of confession...
"The physical presence of the absolving priest is not necessarily by divine mandate"
While the form of the Sacrament of Penance has varied and developed considerably over the centuries, it has always been consistently held that the physical presence of the minister of the Sacrament (always a priest, and in some instances in the early Church, a deacon) IS required. That has *always* been a constant. Sacraments always have a necessary *physical* dimension. You can't baptize a person over the phone, nor can you hear their confession over it, either.
Thank you, Richard.
Actually, the sources of grade include the entirety of revealed truth, the hierarchical ministry...AND the sacraments.
We distinguish actual grace from sanctifying grace. Bearing in mind Richard's intervention, actual grace is not necessarily 'from the Sacraments,' but sanctifying grace IS--at least, that's the way I read Hardon.
The physical presence of the absolving priest is not necessarily by divine mandate, so long as the sacrament of penitence requires personal dialogue between the penitent and the confessor and the absolution by the confessor.
That's a controversial position, as you know. Some Canonists judge the passage as requiring physical presence sufficient for auricular confession; others argue that electronic means (e.g., cellphone) may be sufficient.
We live our Faith in this era of social distancing by learning the liturgy of the hours, by reading Scripture, by keeping tabs on the state of our soul, by praying the rosary, and by wearing your sacramentals.
One can and should do that at ALL times.
But that wasn't the thrust of the post, was it? Richard pointed out the problem.
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