02-25-2024, 12:08 PM
From the above linked Issue #61, pages 6-7:
The [1983] Code recognises emergency as a circumstance exempting Catholics from any penalty in case they have to violate the law (canon 1323, paragraph 4), provided that the action is not intrinsically evil or prejudicial to souls; in this latter case the emergency would merely attenuate the punishment. But no latae sententiae punishment can affect someone who has acted in an emergency situation (canon 1324, paragraph 5).
In the Church as in civil society there can be conceived a state of necessity, of emergency, or of urgency which cannot be overcome by observing the positive law. Such a situation exists in the Church when the continuation, order, or activity of the Church are threatened or harmed in an important way. This menace can bear mainly on teaching, liturgy, and ecclesiastical discipline.
A state of emergency justifies emergency law. The emergency law in the Church is the sum of juridical rules which apply where there is a threat against the perpetuity or activity of the Church.
This emergency law can be resorted to only when one has exhausted all possibilities of re-establishing the normal situation by relying on positive law. Emergency law includes also the positive authorisation to take the measures, to launch the initiatives, to create the organisms, necessary for the Church to be able to continue its mission of preaching the divine truth and of dispensing the grace of God.
Are We “Excommunicated” or in “Schism” from Modern Rome?
Part Two - The Dispositions of Canon Law in a State of Emergency
Part Two - The Dispositions of Canon Law in a State of Emergency
The following extracts are from the 1984 study by Professor Georg May, President of the
Canon Law Seminary at the University of Mainz, entitled: “Notwehr, Widerstand,
Notsand” (“Self-defence, Resistance and Emergency”).
Canon Law Seminary at the University of Mainz, entitled: “Notwehr, Widerstand,
Notsand” (“Self-defence, Resistance and Emergency”).
The [1983] Code recognises emergency as a circumstance exempting Catholics from any penalty in case they have to violate the law (canon 1323, paragraph 4), provided that the action is not intrinsically evil or prejudicial to souls; in this latter case the emergency would merely attenuate the punishment. But no latae sententiae punishment can affect someone who has acted in an emergency situation (canon 1324, paragraph 5).
In the Church as in civil society there can be conceived a state of necessity, of emergency, or of urgency which cannot be overcome by observing the positive law. Such a situation exists in the Church when the continuation, order, or activity of the Church are threatened or harmed in an important way. This menace can bear mainly on teaching, liturgy, and ecclesiastical discipline.
A state of emergency justifies emergency law. The emergency law in the Church is the sum of juridical rules which apply where there is a threat against the perpetuity or activity of the Church.
This emergency law can be resorted to only when one has exhausted all possibilities of re-establishing the normal situation by relying on positive law. Emergency law includes also the positive authorisation to take the measures, to launch the initiatives, to create the organisms, necessary for the Church to be able to continue its mission of preaching the divine truth and of dispensing the grace of God.
Quote:“To safeguard the Catholic priesthood which perpetuates the Catholic Church and not an adulterous Church, we need Catholic bishops. So we find ourselves constrained, because of the spirit of modernism invading today's clergy, an invasion reaching even to the highest summits within the Church, to undertake the consecrating of bishops, the principle of this consecration having been accepted by the Pope, according to Cardinal Ratzinger's letter of May the 30th.
These episcopal consecrations will not only be valid, but given the historical circumstances, most probably also licit. However, be they licit or not, it is sometimes necessary to abandon the letter of the law in order to observe the spirit of the law.”
- Archbishop Lefebvre, October 1983 (published in June 1988).
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre