LifeSiteNews has just run an article by the noted Dr. Peter Kwasniewski entitled “Why priests and laypeople must work around bishops forbidding sacraments for COVID.” The following is a selection of excerpts from that article.
The author begins by stating: “I was and continue to be sympathetic with every effort by clergy and laity to circumvent and ignore episcopal diktats that severely limit the sacramental life of the Church.”
“The topic continues to be relevant because the mightily exaggerated threat of COVID-19 is being used in European countries to impose a new wave of restrictions of all kinds, including on religious activities and gatherings.”
Kwasniewski asserts: “I was and continue to be sympathetic with every effort by clergy and laity to circumvent and ignore episcopal diktats that severely limit the sacramental life of the Church when readily available evidence demonstrates that we are living through a situation not unlike other severe flus that have come and gone many times in the past. …”
“… The sacraments are not a privilege for the deserving, or a symbolic “window dressing” for the “real” Catholic life that goes on purely interiorly or domestically, … but rather a necessity, a reality integral to the Christian spiritual life, as well as a genuine right of the faithful, understood in reference to our membership in the Body of Christ. The Eucharist is our elementary food for soul and body. … A total lack of access at any point is indefensible.”
“It is one thing when a totalitarian regime hostile to the Church hauls priests away to a concentration camp in an effort to take the sacraments away from the people; then there is little choice on anyone’s part. It is quite another thing for the Church’s own shepherds to order priests to stop giving the sacraments to the faithful. In doing so, they literally short-circuit their own authority, function, and mission; they cancel themselves out….”
“There are currently millions of Catholics who are persuaded that their obligation to worship God on Sunday has been dispensed. But this is not true.… The obligation to join personally in the perfect sacrifice of Christ on Sunday remains in place for all of the baptized, and no bishop can alter that one bit, nor can virtual attendance substitute for it.”
“We are dealing with a situation, built up over several decades, in which the bishops have lost credibility and trustworthiness. With a few exceptions, they do not teach sound doctrine; they do not celebrate reverent liturgy; they do not rid their dioceses of homosexuality and abuse; they are mammon-hungry. In all these ways, they have lost the ‘moral high ground’ required for us to ‘just trust them’ in their judgment calls…. a Christian’s obligations to His Lord and Master take precedence over his obligations to members of the hierarchy, no matter how exalted.”
Kwasniewski sums up: “… In a time of pandemic, we must make more, not less, use of prayer, processions, penances, liturgy, and sacraments. In a time of spurious pandemic, we must make war against exaggerated restrictions and unjust cancellations, supporting those who creatively and courageously work around them and behind them.”
Read entire LifeSiteNews article here:
Related articles on CF:
https://www.cleansingfire.org/2020/10/the-repentance-of-fr-david-palmer/
https://www.cleansingfire.org/2020/09/when-the-flock-isnt-fed-it-starves/
https://www.cleansingfire.org/2020/10/dear-bishops-hurry-up-please-its-time/