Potestas

Fr dear Fr: Can you enlighten us all on the western side of the city at Crownhill as to the powers behind Eucharistic Ministers? How do they arise in the General Church?

Your terminology is problematic. Allow me to clarify the actual situation.

A student at the southern seminary once asked a canonical theology lecturer why he made the sacrifice of celibacy and so sacrificed his right to marry, to which the lecturer explained, that the priest does not sacrifice a right to marry, he retains the right to marry, but what he sacrifices is the EXERCISE of that right. An important distinction made by the Code, there is such a thing as a power in itself and a separate exercise of that power. Laity do not have an innate right to the power of holy Ordination, but they can be cop-opted onto an urgent schema pro tem when necessity demands it. Co-option is not native exercise.

When asked about this point, an official of the now generalised conference structures pointed out that all such ministries “arise from Baptism.” But that is not the way the chief historian of dogmas sees it, Aquinas. Nor is it the way that the chief theologians of Grande Interpretation in Rome see it either - they are Catholic Christians of the Classique kind. Classique Christians, not German East Saxony Lutherans.

Now, understandably, given the poor catechesis of the last 60 years, what catechesis at all, smooth Lutheran style semi-official theologians always like to point out that the powers that create “Eucharistic” Ministers, as if these were real ministries in themselves authorised by the official Church, arise from the Sacrament of Baptism which they then elevate into the only real Sacrament of the Church outside of their precious one of Marriage, though often they refuse to get married to women. Women for them are THE Sacrament of the Church in the Lutheran sense of their Traditions - selectively chosen from among the existing schedula of 7 Sacraments. They then speak of the deputation that gives us “Eucharistic” Ministers and like to create the impression that “Eucharistic” Ministers are THE norm for the Church, rather than a blithe exception and called for that very reason, arising from Holy Ordination, Extraordinary Ministers. So for them, there is only one Sacrament in the Church of empowerment of the laity and that is a democratist rewritten one of Baptism, all other Sacraments are null, especially the classical impostazione of Holy Ordination which does not empower, does not deputise, does not originate those powers that Extraordinary Ministers use when they are exercising their privilege. For them it is not a privilege but a right like other democratist rights.

But if we open our little green gun and go through the ammunition inside the catch, we will find that at canon 129, the Grande Codal writers make it clear that the powers of governance and jurisdiction are exercised by those clearly signed and insignated by the Sacrament of Holy Ordination, and not by the laity arising from Baptism - no such Lutheran ersatz theology exists in the minds of the Code since the underpinning philosophy under the Code is Thomism as we pointed out in a controversial but technically correct article called “The Philosophical Presuppositions of the Code” in the 2010s - if there is a deputation and it is only “a sub-delegation in extremis”, and these are called for that very reason “Extraordinary Ministers” and not the Lutheran notion of “Eucharistic” ministers, when push comes to shove and there is an urgent need like danger of death, then the laity “can cooperate only” or technically “be co-opted onto” the schema in the power of governance by dint of sub-delegation, and not by right of insignia, that belongs to the sacred ministers of holy Ordination. The Spirit wills it so. A great privilege.

One has to be insigned or configured to Christ the head of the Community to exercise headship ministries, Christus sicuti caput communitatis, and this sacramentally - that is how Aquinas and the other theologians of official dogma see it.

So in sum, there is only an Extraordinary Ministry of the laity in these matters, and not a normative democratist ministry arising from Baptism. Most priests in the locales are Lutherans in this present age of depleted uranium catechesis. They only affirm one Sacrament and that is a political one of Baptism, heavily politicised. For them, they are even more extreme than the Lutheran one of reduction of the 7 Sacraments to just 2 Sacraments, Baptism and Eucharist. So a wholly unholy situation now obtaining. But not baptised officially by the official theology and doctrine of the official real Church of Christ the Normative Founder.

So some considerable adjustment needed to understand the last document of Vatican II, the Code. Moreover, what is actually needed is a reverse thrust engine of a retirement from those Lutheran concepts and Lutheran notions of the Church, the Church that the Master founded that is, the real Church and not the reductionist reformist ragbag community of ersatz political believers stuck in the depressions and the distortions of a Black Forest. 129. It is there in the little green gun.