Playing Catholic Jeopardy

The Answer: The Bishop of Rome

What's the question?

Well, therein lies a tale.
And, yes, it does have something to do with the Second Vatican Council.

The Pope and the Council: Take I
In 857 AD, a layman living in Constantinople, named Photius, was well-known for his learning about the Catholic Faith. He was also related by marriage to the emperor. The emperor, sadly, was living in incest with his daughter-in-law. The patriarch of Constantinople, one Ignatius, judged that this constituted public scandal and mortal sin, and so refused the emperor reception of the Eucharist at the high feast of Epiphany in that same year.

The emperor did not much like being refused. He banished Ignatius, sent Photius through an intensive six-day course in the priesthood, and then had him ordained patriarch of Constantinople. To add insult to insult, the bishop who ordained Photius had been excommunicated by Ignatius long before Ignatius was banished. Photius' willing acceptance of this ordination by an excommunicate bishop to an already occupied see made Photius automatically excommunicate.

Obviously, Ignatius was unhappy with all this. He protested strenuously to the Pope. Just as obviously, both the emperor and Photius defended themselves. Each wrote separate letters to the Pope begging him to investigate the matter and justify the new consecration. 

The Pope called Fourth Constantinople, the eighth ecumenical council of the Church to resolve precisely this problem. The Council not only deposed Photius and declared his ordination invalid, it also declared that the man could never again be validly ordained nor ever hold the patriarchate of Constantinople. Remember, Fourth Constantinople was called precisely to deal with the problem of Photius, and this was their solution, ratified by the Pope. 

Of course, neither the emperor or Photius were willing to stand by the resulting decision of an ecumenical council, ratified by the Pope. Photius excommunicated the Pope. Sadly for him, his emperor was soon murdered, another seized the throne. Photius was sent to a monastery to live out penance and Ignatius was restored as Patriarch of Constantinople.

But Photius was smart and Photius was young while Ignatius was old. Photius not only did penance, he ingratiated himself with everyone, including the now-restored Ignatius. And he waited. When Ignatius died, Photius had become so popular that the whole city begged the Pope to place Photius on the patriarchate's throne. The Pope ignored his own personally ratified decrees, the decrees of the eighth ecumenical council, and did so. Photius was now Patriarch of Constantinople.

The Pope and the Council: Take II
Why do I tell this story?
Because every traditionalist who loves the Latin Mass is always on about the horror of Vatican II, how it was mis-interpreted, slapped around, how the liturgy was dressed as a prostitute and forced to do the walk of shame according to the rules of the liberal modernist Freemasons in the Church. 

"Oh, how terrible that the liberals distorted the true teachings of the Council!" they cry. "You see, if we follow the council's documents, the Mass should really look like X or Y or Z! The Council was suborned!"

Perhaps it was.
So?

After all, just as with the Eighth Ecumenical Council, we must not only ask whether Vatican II was suborned, but who, exactly, suborned it.

The answer is, of course, the answer which heads this essay: if the Council was suborned, the Pope did it.

Now, you can claim the Pope was fooled, the Pope didn't know, the Pope was in Mongolia while nefarious Freemasons twisted the Council all out of recognition. You can claim whatever you want. 

But we all seem to forget that the Pope who instituted the Novus Ordo was at the council. 
He participated in the discussions, he voted on the decrees in the first session.

He knew full blessed well what was in the Vatican II decrees. If he didn't know what was in the decrees, he was either stupid or a fool. You can say he was stupid, you can say he was a fool, but you can't claim that he was ignorant of what the Council wanted. You cannot claim that he was ignorant regarding how what he voted on matched up against what he eventually implemented.

If you are a traditionalist, you fully recognize that the Pope has the power to sweep away conciliar decrees.
That's exactly what the Pope did after Fourth Constantinople.
That's exactly what the Pope did after Vatican II.
So quit blaming the Council for the Novus Ordo.

If you don't like the Novus Ordo, lay the blame wherever you will, but you cannot ignore the facts: the Pope bears the sole praise/blame for the Novus Ordo liturgy. If you leave that out, you demonstrate willful blindness to the facts.

Prudentially Speaking
Now, there's nothing wrong with saying the Pope screwed up in his prudential decision to implement the new liturgy. The Pope's prudential judgement has been wrong in the past. Consider the sin of abortion:

Sixtus V excommunicated all who practised abortion (1588), irrespective of opinions about animation. Absolution from this excommunication was reserved to the Pope himself. 

Gregory XIV later decided that the action of Sixtus was not reducing the scale of the abuse and, while still condemning all abortion, allowed that others beside himself might absolve from the sin of abortion before the time of animation. Gradually Catholic thenlogical opinion came to discard the Aristotelian distinction between the animate and the inanimate foetus.
...[I]n 1869 ...Pius IX in revising the list of excommunications reserved to the Pope quietly suppressed all mention of different categories of abortion. Thus a distinction which had been used by canonists to reduce the penalty—though not the sin—of abortion was discarded for good.

Was Sixtus V right to do what he did? 
Probably not.
Gregory XIV certainly didn't think so.
Pius IX certainly agreed with Gregory XIV.

And Sixtus V's judgement was always a concern. His edition of the Vulgate, for instance, was rife with errors.

But, for at least several years, the Church had to labor under Sixtus V's prohibition on absolution for abortion.  

So, today we have had a Pope who, by at least two later Popes' judgements, made a bad call on the liturgy. Too bad, so sad. Life is like that sometimes. 

The point is this: if you really are a traditionalist, and you really believe the Pope has greater authority than an ecumenical council, then you cannot blame Vatican II or the modernists or the Freemasons or the small green leprechauns of the Emerald Isle for the Catholic liturgy available in most parishes today.

The Pope, for good or ill, is responsible for what we celebrate.
Stop blaming people who don't deserve it. 

UPDATE:
Told ya' so...

UPDATE II:
For those who think Fourth Constantinople was a one-off deal, it wasn't.

Pope did the same thing with Fifth Lateran - council decreed a lot of reforms, Pope signed off, nobody did squat about reform, Martin Luther hammers 95 Theses on the door seven months later.

Pope did the same thing with Council of Constance. Council decreed there must be an ecumenical council every five years, Pope signed off on it. Yeah. Whatever. That was the end of that.

Ecumenical councils are advisory. Popes do what they want.

How To Start A Civil War

Homiletics and Pastoral Review has another naive article promoting adult formation.
The author is trying to promote it because his business depends on it, but he surely realizes that nobody really wants adult formation.

Look at it from the perspective of the priest and the bishop - who are the only people that really count in a parish. Nothing happens in a parish or diocese unless the priest and bishop permit it. If they don't want it to happen, it won't. If they do want it to happen, it will.

If the ordained men think something might be unpopular, they will structure it in such a way that other people take the blame for it, but those other people would never have been able to implement it if the bishop and priest didn't originally want it. The parish secretary/business manager/whatever is a witch because the pastor likes it that way. Lay employees in a parish are employed because the ordained men actively like, or at least are willing to tolerate, the way those lay people operate.

They system is designed to do EXACTLY what the system is doing.
That's why the system does what it does - it is designed to do what it does.

So, from a priest's perspective, all adult formation does is stir up trouble.

Something Wicked This Way Comes

If you do serious orthodox adult formation in the parish, there are only three possible outcomes, and all three happen simultaneously:

[Outcome 1]
A lot of adults will be upset and insulted to find out that anyone actually expects them to follow Church teaching. They will complain to the priest, to the bishop and stop throwing money in the basket.

How dare you expect them to give up their contraception, abortion and homosexuality?
How dare you expect them to make the Mass more important than their sports?
How dare you expect them to teach their own children about the sacraments?

Every parish program has one of two purposes: babysit children or comfort retirees as they approach death.

CCD is not about educational support for families, rather it is primarily meant to provide babysitting for parents who need to go shopping. 

Everyone agrees that passing on the Faith is the parish's job. How they will get it done given the family's busy recreational schedule is a mystery, but that's their problem, not ours. We're just parents. The parish staff just needs to get it done in time for the post-sacrament party we've scheduled. 

And to be fair, the lay employees don't WANT the parents involved. If the parents actually got involved, all the parish employees would lose their phoney-baloney jobs. It isn't very difficult to prepare your own children for the sacraments. If anyone realized that, the women who work at the parish would have to go find real jobs as secretaries or something.

From Father Pastor's  point of view, this would be a disaster. If the adults got educated, the lay parish staff would become superfluous, Father Pastor would lose his harem. Notice that nearly every parish in America is staffed entirely by women. The only men who survive in such an environment are ordained, metrosexual, homosexual or janitors. Sometimes even newly ordained men don't survive.

Father Pastor doesn't like men because men argue with him. Men call it discussion, but it is argument. Father Pastor knows. Father Pastor does not brook that kind of dissension. Father Pastor much prefers women, metrosexuals and homosexuals because these groups primarily complain about each other. This allows him to be the arbitrator, the impartial judge who is above their petty fights, the Father pastoring his children.

Men "discussing" things with him makes him feel small, ignorant, common.
Women and homosexuals bringing their cat-fights to him makes him feel adult, superior, special.

Father Pastor likes his harem.
The harem likes Father Pastor.

But if you teach adults, really teach them, all of this goes to hell. If the parish adults all really knew the Faith, they would teach their own children and each other. The parish staff would disappear, it would consist of Father Pastor and one secretary, maybe. Father Pastor won't feel important, won't look important to the bishop and to other priests. It would be demoralizing for everyone.

On the other hand, if you don't teach the adults, they throw money in the basket, the harem takes care of the kids, the parents can go shopping once a week, Father Pastor feels special - everybody wins. 

Why disturb this beautiful arrangement?

[Outcome 2]
Those who aren't insulted by the idea of living the Faith will actually attempt to learn something. Some will learn it badly. These people will complain to the priest and the bishop about things happening at the parish level which do not violate any tenet of Church teaching. Unfortunately, the complainers won't understand that because they don't understand the teaching. A lot of unnecessary noise follows.

Who needs that?

If you do NOT attempt to teach them, they won't get any crazy ideas. They will just pray, pay and pretend to obey, which is all that matters. A peaceful parish is a happy parish. Everybody knows that. 

[Outcome 3]
Some parishioners will learn well and will correctly understand what they are taught. These adults will notice that there are things going on in the parish which violate their rights, canon law, liturgical rubrics and Catholic doctrine.

Like the other two groups, this group will also complain to the priest and the bishop.

But this group is different.

This group is dangerous.

The earlier two groups can be accommodated because they are in the wrong. If any higher-up questions what is going on with either of the first two groups, Father Pastor can say, "Well, *I* don't like doing this, of course, but the people insist on it. They are ignorant and stupid and don't realize their error. I am wise and merciful. I indulge this little nonsense in order to keep them happy. I will eventually correct it, but it will take me time to pastor them into the truth. This little accommodation will keep them happy until the proper time for education arrives."

Of course, the proper time for education never arrives.
But the point is that Father Pastor can use the first two groups of parishioners the same way he uses his parish staff - they are CYA which allows him to do whatever it is he wanted to do to begin with. He does what he wants, they are the 'scape goats. Father Pastor likes the first two groups a lot.

But this third group - this group is pure evil.
They are evil because they are right.

They can demonstrate from Church documents and Scripture that what Father Pastor is doing is a complete violation of what it means to be Catholic. They have the goods on him. They may take it to a higher level. They must be killed before they damage the status quo.

If they are not killed, generally by assassinating their reputations, the priest and the bishop will actually have to change the way they do things in order to avoid the heat this third group will generate.

The bishop doesn't want to change how he does things.
Neither does the priest.
Lay people don't have a right to tell ordained men what to do!

Who needs this kind of dissension?

So, we can see that it is better if this third group never learn what they need to know in order to complain about Father Pastor. And if you think I exaggerate, I have personally heard a bishop publicly tell an entire auditorium full of hundreds of parishioners that he would not want St. Paul in his diocese because St. Paul started too many fights. Think about that. Take as long as you want. 

Adult formation does not take place at the parish level because ordained men fear that this third group will suborn the priest's authority. It is better that orthodox lay people be kicked out or destroyed than a priest be shown to be in the wrong. It would be terrible precedent. It cannot become established, lest Father Pastors everywhere be forced to change their lives. 

Conclusion

And this is the real problem with adult formation. 
Forcing parishioners to change their lives is acceptable. 
Forcing Father Pastor to change HIS life is NOT acceptable. 

Better that no one knows the Faith then that Father Pastor be forced - by commoners, no less! - to change HIS life. It would almost be as if some lay people knew and lived the Faith better than the priest! Absurd!

So any reasonable person can see adult formation will NOT happen at the parish level.
It cannot.
There is absolutely no up-side to adult formation, only various degrees of BAD.

Remember, real adult formation causes all three of these groups to form simultaneously. They all complain at the same time to the same people.

So, obviously, if you attempt to really form and disciple adults in what the Catholic Faith actually teaches and in how Catholics really are supposed to live, it will cause absolute CHAOS in the parish - civil war!

From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

Dissension is most certainly NOT what Christ intended!
Bishops and priests HATE dissension.

So no one is ever going to implement adult formation.

Instead, you will just get variations on Christ Renews His Protestants, because Protestants are easier to deal with than Catholics are.


UPDATE:
A reader asks a very relevant question: are FSSP parishes better than Novus Ordo parishes in this regard?

The answer?
No, there is no substantial difference between the two.
Now, there are cosmetic differences, and these are two-fold: (1) the "doctrines" the priests push and (2) who does the pushing.

Doctrinal error
For instance, the leftist heterodox priests overemphasize things like women's ordination and We Are Church nonsense.

The FSSP-types, on the other hand, overemphasize private revelation, or turn Limbo or creationism into dogma (both are really only theological hypothesis), or become semi-Feeneyite and imply that baptism of blood/faith is not really salvific.

Teaching Limbo as if it is doctrine is an excellent case in point in how FSSP priests often engage in teachings that are just as problematic as Novus Ordo priests. CCC article 1283 explicitly says, "With respect to children who have died without Baptism, the liturgy of the Church invites us to trust in God's mercy and pray for their salvation."

Now, it is a violation of the Faith to pray for those who are definitively in hell. So, if Limbo is the first circle of hell, if unbaptized infants definitively go to Limbo and if both the liturgy and the CCC "invites us to pray for the salvation of unbaptized infants," then both the liturgy and the CCC are inviting us to pray for the salvation of those in hell. That is, if Limbo is truly a dogma of the Church, then both the liturgy and the CCC are advocating apokatastasis. Apokatastasis is a formally condemned heresy of the Church. Given that both the liturgy and the CCC are promulgated by an apostolic constitution, the highest expression of the infallible ordinary Magisterium, that would not only make the Pope a heretic, it would also violate the teaching on papal infallibility.

Despite this fact, I have heard at least one FSSP priest teach from the ambo during Mass precisely the idea that Limbo is a dogma of the Church. When I privately questioned him on exactly these points, he insisted that he was correct and refused to retract his error.

How Best To Promote Error
Similarly, while the leftists have their parish surrogates push the falsehoods (thus "empowering the laity"), the FSSP has the priests push the falsehoods from the ambo (thereby promoting the heresy of clericalism - "the priest is always right"). It doesn't really matter - in both cases you have priests who are attached to doctrinal error, and in both cases any attempt to question or correct their errors is met with ostracism of the person who dares question such their teaching.

And both sets of priests, FSSP and Novus Ordo, traditionally maintain admiring harems.

But none of this should be a surprise.

FSSP priests aren't any more saints than anyone else, including me and you. We all like to have sycophants, and we all have our pet theories that we like to dogmatize.

Priests certainly aren't any more infallible, no matter how good their theological training.
Martin Luther had a Ph.D. in theology.
John Hus was the rector of a Catholic university.

The greatest, most effective heretics have always been ordained men - priests and bishops. They are better heretics than lay people precisely because they have greater knowledge, and can promulgate their errors in a more bulletproof way than those with lesser training.

So, entering an FSSP parish is no guarantee against heresy.
Indeed, one is arguably at more danger of heresy there, if only because one is less likely to be on guard against it with the FSSP than with the Novus Ordo.

End-Run

With the new note on Anglican admission into the Catholic Church, a couple of thoughts come to mind.

The "personal ordinariate," a new version of the personal prelature, admits two laudable goals, one stated, one left unstated.

The stated goal is that it permits the Anglicans entering the Church to retain the customs of prayer and spirituality that they have maintained since their break with Rome under Henry VIII. By itself, this is to be expected. Similar kinds of situations have been worked out over the course of the last two millennia with every group that has ever broken off. Even the Syro-Malabar and Syro-Malankar rites, having distinct histories of fission and fusion, have also their distinct rites.

The second point is touched on rather tangentially by the canonist Ed Peters when he says the Church is moving away from geographic territories and towards social groupings.

This "social grouping" will create problems down the road, of course, but it isn't noticeably different from what's happened in the United States for the last 50 years.

In medieval Europe, the king may have his private chapel, but Sunday Mass was in the cathedral, and everyone attended, from prince to pauper. That kind of Mass hasn't been seen in the United States in a long time. Today, the rich have their parish church, the poor have theirs, and never do the twain meet. Indeed, when the poor dare to enter a rich man's church, their faux pas is made clear. In much the same way, the poor look askance at anyone daft enough to drive their Beemer to the run-down urban church in the heart of the 'hood.

But, given the who the TAC are and what they represent, the second message is much more interesting.

The TAC love the traditional liturgy. They love chant, the priest leading the people towards the heaven of the altar, the communion rail. They hate guitars, clown noses and insipid liturgy.

The bishops of England have long tried to keep the TAC out of the Church, for fear that a half-million serious Catholics might upset the balance of power. The Holy Father just did an end-run around them.

But it isn't just around them. Think of all the bishops in the developed countries, bishops in the United States for instance, who don't like Summorum Pontificum, who put various illegitimate impediments in place, bishops who just don't understand that the current Novus Ordo liturgy is a thing made for children, not adults.

With the new structure, a structure that could easily be used by not only the SSPX, but many, many other groups, the Holy Father has the ability to do an end-run around recalcitrant bishops throughout the world.

From the descriptions so far, the new Anglican format seems to be essentially a quasi "religious order" that's organized not by vows or living together in stable community (e.g., cloister), but rather by traditional spiritual practice.

Could the Ecclesia Dei groups around the world ultimately be set up in a similar fashion?
If bishops continue to be recalcitrant towards the Holy Father's wishes, there's no reason they couldn't be.

This bodes exceedingly well for Extraordinary Catholics, that is, the Catholics who follow the Extraordinary Form. Indeed, it bodes well for ALL faithful Catholics.

For myopic bishops?
Not so much...

UPDATE: I've had some questions concerning John Allen's report that the Vatican note compares the "personal ordinariate" to military dioceses in structure and lack of geographic containment.

While this comparison is certainly true of the governing structure, it should be remembered that this structure is quite different from the military diocese in terms of its purpose.

The military diocese exists to minister to a highly mobile population. The spirituality of that population can be very much in conformance with that of the rest of the population it exists within, but the governing structure is set up to handle the mobility problem that military service presents.

The population of a personal ordinariate, on the other hand, might be geographically quite stable, its population very unlikely to move at all. It exists in order to protect a specific approach to spirituality common to a widely dispersed group of people, it protects that spirituality from "outside" interference or suppression.

Thus, the personal ordinariate is, indeed, expressly designed to keep its members out from under the thumb of the ordained men who would otherwise oversee those members. In this regard, the personal ordinariate is actually quite a lot closer to the status of a religious order, if only because (a) religious orders exist to protect and promote specific spiritualities and (b) the local bishop has extremely limited ability (read "none") to interfere with the spiritual life of the order.

There is, of course, one exception to the similarity between religious orders and personal ordinariates. A bishop can invite in or kick out any religious order in his diocese. A diocese does not have a religious order within its boundaries unless the bishop invites it in. It can only operate within the boundaries of the diocese until the bishop kicks it out.

That same bishop has absolutely no such control over the members of a personal ordinariate.

John Allen may (or may not) realize this, but for political reasons he may be choosing to remain publicly silent about this aspect of the personal ordinariate. Certainly the bishops recognize what Pope Benedict has done, but they also have good reasons for not drawing public attention to this aspect of the new structure. And, of course, the Vatican is diplomatically silent about this aspect as well, choosing to emphasize the form of the governing structure, while delicately describing the purpose without reference to the local bishop.

I am certain more than one of them will be very interested in seeing what other kinds of personal ordinariates get set up. This just doesn't bode well for local bishops who continue to defy the Pope.

Cardinal O'Malley vs. John the Baptist

Just a few short days after the commemoration of the beheading of St. John the Baptist, Cardinal O'Malley shared these thoughts on the way John badgered Herod for taking his brother's wife as his own:

At times, even in the Church, zeal can lead people to issue harsh judgments and impute the worst motives to one another. These attitudes and practices do irreparable damage to the communion of the Church. If any cause is motivated by judgment, anger or vindictiveness, it will be doomed to marginalization and failure. Jesus’ words to us were that we must love one another as He loves us. Jesus loves us while we are still in sin. He loves each of us first, and He loves us to the end. Our ability to change people’s hearts and help them to grasp the dignity of each and every life, from the first moment of conception to the last moment of natural death, is directly related to our ability to increase love and unity in the Church, for our proclamation of the Truth is hindered when we are divided and fighting with each other.

Inspiring words indeed!

What?!?.... What did you say?... Wait... he wasn't talking about John?

But... but righteous anger is a sin, as Aquinas clearly... well, alright, maybe not Aquinas, but as the Church.... what??.... alright, not the Church...

But certainly someone doesn't find righteous anger appealing....
Well, yes, Herod, of course... but it seems to me there was someone else opposed to it as well...

Hmmm....

Well, never mind!
Let's start another rousing chorus of Kumbaya!

Next Week's Feature:

Why Jesus was Wrong to Scourge the Money-Changers in the Temple!

Look for the informative sidebar on St. Paul and name-calling!

Also, Ten Reasons Why You Should Never Wish Your Opponent Would Accidentally Cut Off His Own Penis!

Ted Kennedy Was Catholic

US News & World Report asks if Ted Kennedy was Catholic.

As a practicing Catholic I can definitely affirm that Ted Kennedy was, indeed, Catholic. And Iosef Stalin was Russian Orthodox.

Both Kennedy and Stalin cared deeply about the poor. Both championed the idea that some had to die so that others might live.

Stalin was a great man, the lion of the Soviet Union. Kennedy was a great man, the lion of the Senate. Both left incredible legacies that any mother could be proud of.

Kennedy ranks up there with the Stalin, the "man of steel", and with Che Guevera, Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot, Fidel Castro, and all the other deeply principled men of history, non-partisan men of the world who knew how to make a deal, men who never got into petty politics, men who loved their faith and loved the people, men who were willing to take from the rich and give to the poor. Like all these other great men of history, like our very Founding Fathers, Kennedy gave everything he had to others, dying penniless but proud.

Ted Kennedy shouldn't be buried - his body should be embalmed and put on display in the Lincoln Memorial or the well of the Senate, so generations can file past it in silent admiration for the magnificent work he accomplished during his tenure. The tattered remains of his clothes should be venerated, touched to the sick and dying so that they may be healed.

He even fulfilled Scriptural prophecy. After all, Ted Kennedy received Eucharist at a papal Mass in America, and was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer just a few short weeks later. Paul prophesied that this would happen in 1 Corinthians 11:17-30.

Irish Madness: Violating Easter Week

I don't normally publish anything from the SSPX, as their bishops are excommunicate and they are deeply unreliable in their theology. However, like a stopped clock, they got this one right:

Augustinian monks in Ireland have concelebrated Mass with Anglicans, thereby violating canon law and setting themselves up for canonical penalties.

Can. 900 §1. The minister who is able to confect the sacrament of the Eucharist in the person of Christ is a validly ordained priest alone.

Can. 908 Catholic priests are forbidden to concelebrate the Eucharist with priests or ministers of Churches or ecclesial communities which do not have full communion with the Catholic Church.

From Redemptionis Sacramentorum:

[172.] Graviora delicta against the sanctity of the Most August Sacrifice and Sacrament of the Eucharist are to be handled in accordance with the ‘Norms concerning graviora delicta reserved to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’,[280] namely:

a) taking away or retaining the consecrated species for sacrilegious ends, or the throwing them away;[281]

b) the attempted celebration of the liturgical action of the Eucharistic Sacrifice or the simulation of the same;[282]

c) the forbidden concelebration of the Eucharistic Sacrifice with ministers of Ecclesial Communities that do not have the apostolic succession nor acknowledge the sacramental dignity of priestly Ordination;[283]

d) the consecration for sacrilegious ends of one matter without the other in the celebration of the Eucharist or even of both outside the celebration of the Eucharist.[284]

"[179.] Delicts against the faith as well as graviora delicta committed in the celebration of the Eucharist and the other Sacraments are to be referred without delay to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which “examines [them] and, if necessary, proceeds to the declaration or imposition of canonical sanctions according to the norm of common or proper law”.[288]

Here is +Cardinal Arinze's address:

His Eminence Cardinal Francis Arinze
Congregation for Divine Worship
and the Discipline of the Sacraments
00120 Vatican City State
Europe