Theology of Holy Orders of the Traditionalists
From the quote above from Daniel Dolan, the main proposition of Traditionalist Sacramental theology can be seen. (The complete quote is presented below) Bishops and priests are merely sacrament machines, who dispense the Sacraments when and where they please to whom they please. There is no concern for possessing the jurisdiction required by the Church to validily and licitly administer the Sacraments. They have adopted a form of pragmatism, which is condemned by the Catholic Church. (See also Pragamtism and Traditionalism to be posted soon.) Basically there is no difference between the Old-Catholics and the Traditionalists, since they adopt similar views on Sacrmental Theology, as can be seen by the fact that the CMRI, which consecrated Dolan was founded under an Old-Catholic Bishop. Further Marcel Lefebvre announced an Old-Catholic bishop as his first successor bishop in 1978. Others among the Traditionalist have sought Orders from Old-Catholics and similar sects. One of the first Thuc Bishops, George Musey arranged for the Old-Catholic ordination of a Jim Dekazel, now a self-proclaimed archibshop. It has now been demonostrated that these sacramental bishops are invalidly consecrated as are their sacramental priests. Some claim I left the Society of St. Pius V simply because I wanted to become a bishop at any price, but this is preposterous. The main reason I left was because of personal conflicts with Fr. Kelly. He exercised a strong cult-like leadership. He was a bit of a Francis Schuckardt type-very charismatic and manipulative. And not having a bishop in the Society made the situation especially taxing. But I certainly wasn't looking to better myself by becoming a bishop. Bishop Pivarunas approached me first with teh idea, and at first I had serious reservations about the Archbishop Thuc and Old Catholic background of the Mount St. Michael's community. I don't deny that ther hae been problems here, but we're not living today under normal circumstances. We're faced with a vacuum of authority; the papacy has been vacant for more than twenty years now, and desperate times call for desperate measures. Our people need to receive the sacraments, and for this they need priests, and it takes bishops to make priests. And this is precisely the role that Bishop Pivarunas and myself play. We don't claim to possess any ordination jurisdiction or the power of excommuniation. We have moral authority, but we don't boss people around. We're sacramental bishops, and traditionalist communities simply can't survive for very long without sacrmental bishops. (From The Smoke of Satan, pages 101-2)This page was last updated: June 11, 2006
Michael Fighting
