EIGHTH HERESY
Error of the common priesthood 
the antithesis of the hierarchic priesthood. 
Theodemocracy opposes Christ, 
sovereign Priest and King.

ARGUMENT

IF, by a miracle of the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ, this catechism could rid itself of its grotesque inventions – which are heretical, schismatic, blasphemous and scandalous – what a joy that would be ! As it is here, when it deals with the human, visible, and hierarchical Constitution of the Church. How straightforward it might all be ! Witness the gentle taste of this nectar:

The hierarchical constitution of the Church

874. Christ is Himself the source of ministry in the Church. He instituted it and gave it authority, mission, orientation and purpose…

875. “ How are they to believe in Him of whom they have never heard ? And how are they hear without a preacher ? And how can men preach unless they are sent ? ” (Rom 10.14-15). No one, no individual or community, can proclaim the Gospel to himself. “ Faith comes from what is heard. ” (Rom 10.17). No one can give himself the mandate and the mission to proclaim the Gospel. He who is sent by the Lord speaks and acts not in his own name and authority, but by virtue of Christ’s authority; not as a member of the community, but speaking to it in the name of Christ. No one can bestow grace on himself; it must be given and offered. This fact presupposes ministers of grace, authorised and empowered on Christ’s behalf. It is from Him that they receive the mission and the faculty (the “ sacred power ”) to act in persona Christi Capitis. This ministry, in which those sent by Christ act and give by God’s gift what they cannot do and give by their own powers, is called a “ sacrament ” in the Church’s tradition. The ministry of the Church is conferred by a special sacrament, the sacrament of Order.

There we have something that is essential, enlightening, accessible to all and truly admirable. I shall pass over the concessions to current fashions: the obsession with protesting that every ministry in the Church has a “ character of service ”, obliging bishops and priests to become “ slaves of Christ ” – I am quite happy with that ! – and therefore “ freely slaves of all ” – and I am even happy with that... but not their domestic servants, if you please ! (876), And then there is the obsession with “ collegiality ” (877).

In this wonderfully harmonious and reassuring chapter, we are told about the Pope and the bishops, about their threefold divine power of teaching, sanctifying and governing the flock of the faithful (880, sq.). It is refreshing...

Alas, after this vision of a sacred hierarchy acting “ in the Person of Christ the Head ”, we are plunged back into the catechism’s nightmarish obsession with the splendours and privileges of the rank and file faithful. And this takes up several pages of increasing and obsessive extremism, eventually making the laity equal to the Hierarchy in their powers and dignity, and exalting them above the holiest part of the flock, the religious, who are treated with disdain !

The lay faithful

897. “ The term laity is here understood to mean all Christians, except for those members who are in Holy Orders or in a religious state approved by the Church. It includes all Christians who – having been incorporated into Christ by Baptism, integrated into the People of God, and made to share in their own way in Christ’s priestly, prophetic and royal office – individually exercise in the Church and in the world the mission which is that of the whole Christian people. ”

People of kings, people of priests, people of prophets !

898. “ The vocation proper to the laity consists in seeking God’s kingdom precisely through the management of temporal affairs, which they order according to God… It falls to them, in a special way, to illuminate and direct all the temporal realities with which they are closely involved, so that these may always be effected and prosper in accordance with Christ and to the praise of the Creator and Redeemer. ”

Apart from the turgid nature of its language, what is so rare about that ? Is it really all that royal, prophetic and priestly ! It is the simple duty of state, informed by humble and hidden virtues. But here, alas, is the crowning piece, taken from a speech by Pius XII, pronounced in the euphoria of 1946.

899. … The lay faithful find themselves in the front line of the Church’s life; through them, the Church is the vital principle of society. That is why they in particular must have an ever clearer awareness of not just belonging to the Church but of being the Church, that is to say the community of the faithful on earth under the direction of the common Head, the Pope, and the bishops in communion with him. They are the Church.

A dreadful text ! It sounds like those autocrats Leo XIII and Pius XI, getting the populace on their side through the greatest contempt for the Church’s infantry, the parish priests, the curates, and the Church’s heroes, the men and women religious engaged in a thousand tasks, preaching, working as missionaries, suffering and dying ! What a revolution of pride emerged from that theory of Catholic action of the “ milieu by the milieu ”. It involved the pride of Popes, the pride of activists and their chaplains; it was a disaster for parishes, colleges, societies, third orders, missions...

But let us leave these grotesque incitements to the laity, made in the name of their royal and prophetic functions. Let us concentrate on denouncing the satanic pride with which the laity have been puffed up with and this deranged theory of a “ priesthood ” given to each and everyone, gratis pro Deo. Listen to this:

The participation of lay people Christ’s priestly office

901. “ The laity, by virtue of their consecration to Christ and the anointing of the Holy Spirit, receive an admirable vocation and the means to allow the Spirit to produce in them ever more abundant fruits. In fact, all their activities, their prayers and their apostolic undertakings, their married and family life, their daily tasks, their recreations of mind and body, if lived in the Spirit of God, and even the trials of life [ !], provided they are patiently borne, all become “ a spiritual offering, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ ” (1 Pt 2.5); and in the Eucharistic celebration these offerings join with the oblation of the Lord’s Body to be offered in piety to the Father. Thus do the laity consecrate the world itself to God, by the holiness of their lives offering everywhere to God a cult of adoration. ”

That is how the edifice established by Jesus Christ is overturned to be replaced by a new sphere of activities outside, or rather above, the supernatural works of the clergy and the religious. This sphere of purely worldly and natural activities is supposedly supernatural by virtue of the invented “ common priesthood ”, which is none other than a gust of vanity and an antichrist overturning of Catholic order.

What is this supposed “ common priesthood ” ?

This absurd theory, based on a few badly understood passages of Sacred Scripture, begins with a disdain – as I have already indicated – for Jesus Christ the Sovereign Priest, giving preference to an alleged Holy Spirit, which is none other than a Spirit of Darkness.

It starts with this modernist idea that Jesus, a man like any other, was consecrated by the anointing of the Spirit for His mission of salvation. Read this nonsense.

436. … The Messiah had to be anointed by the Spirit of the Lord as both king and priest as well as prophet. Jesus fulfilled the messianic hope of Israel in His threefold office of priest, prophet and king.

As Son of God, God Himself, Jesus had no need of consecration by anyone, not even by the Holy Spirit, to be the Messiah, Priest, King and Prophet over all and everything. Consequently, following the will of His Father and in the unity of the Holy Spirit, He will choose His disciples, designate them to be His Apostles, and will confer on them a part of His power in order to found the Church, govern her, instruct and sanctify her. This Hierarchy, this Priesthood come from Jesus, the God Man, and from Him alone, to form the sacramental Order... which is so admirably dealt with in the chapter on the sacrament of order (1536, sq.).

In opposition to this sacerdotal theocratism, democratism has worked on lay opinion, through Luther, Calvin and other anticlerical, anti-Roman, and antichrist revolutionaries, to persuade us all that, as Jesus of Nazareth had received the Spirit on the day of His baptism and His mission as Saviour of the world through His priestly, royal and prophetic anointing, every Christian is therefore made Christ’s brother through his faith and his baptism, and finds himself, with no particular effort or religious commitment, invested with the same priesthood, kingship, and prophecy as Jesus Christ and in exactly like Him ! For the Spirit blows on all today like a hurricane, without one knowing whence He comes or whither He will lead us...

1268. The baptised have become “ living stones to be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood ” (1 Pt 2.5). By Baptism they share in the priesthood of Christ, in His prophetic and royal mission. They are “ a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, that they may declare the wonderful deeds of Him who called them out of darkness into His wonderful light ” (1 Pt 2.9). Baptism gives a share in the common priesthood of the faithful.

Emphasised in the text as a dogma, this last proposition is based on nothing, no conciliar authority and no tradition, unless it be that of Luther or Calvin... or Vatican II !

Here then we have this “ Priestly people ” (63) – as the chosen race still claims to be today – suddenly raised in authority and holiness above everything:

1273. … The baptismal seal enables and commits Christians to serve God by a vital participation in the Church’s sacred liturgy and to exercise their baptismal priesthood through the witness of a holy life and an effective charity [LG, of course].

1322. … Those who have been raised to the dignity of the royal priesthood by Baptism, and configured more deeply to Christ by Confirmation, participate with the whole community in the Lord’s own sacrifice by means of the Eucharist.

The third estate overtakes the second order and will soon subjugate the first:

Christ’s faithful: Hierarchy, laity, and the consecrated life

871. “ Christ’s faithful are those who, inasmuch as they have been incorporated into Christ through Baptism, have been constituted as the People of God. For this reason they share, in their own manner, in the priestly, prophetic and kingly office of Christ and are called to exercise, each according to his own condition, the mission that God has entrusted the Church to fulfil in the world. ”

Clergy, religious and laity, all on a level pegging !

872. “ Because of their regeneration in Christ, there exists among all Christ’s faithful a true equality of dignity and activity, by virtue of which all co-operate in building the Body of Christ, each according to his own function and condition. ”

But here the laity are promoted and the religious relegated:

873. The very differences that the Lord has pleased to put between the members of His Body serve its unity and mission. For “ there is in the Church a diversity of ministries, but a unity of mission. Christ entrusted the apostles and their successors with the office of teaching, sanctifying and governing in His name and by His power. But the laity are made to share in Christ’s priestly, kingly and prophetic office and so assume in the Church and in the world their share in what is the mission of the whole People of God. ” Finally, there exist “ members of the faithful who belong to one or other category (hierarchy or laity) and who, through professing the evangelical counsels (...) are consecrated to God and co-operate, in their own special manner, in the salvific mission of the Church ”.

Finally, the laity carry all before them, as sovereign People

Incredible but true ! The Hierarchy domesticated:

1546. Christ, the high priest and unique mediator, made the Church “ a kingdom, priests for His God and Father ” (Rev 1.6). As such, the whole community of believers is priestly. The faithful exercise their baptismal priesthood through their participation, each according to his own vocation, in Christ’s mission as Priest, Prophet and King. It is through the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation that the faithful are “ consecrated to be (...) a holy priesthood ”.

1547. The ministerial or hierarchical priesthood of bishops and priests, and the common priesthood of all the faithful, although “ each shares in its own way in the one priesthood of Christ ”, are nevertheless essentially different, whilst being “ ordered one to the other ”. In what sense ? While the common priesthood of the faithful is exercised by the unfolding of baptismal grace – a life of faith, hope and charity, a life according to the Spirit – the ministerial priesthood is at the service of the common priesthood. It is directed at the unfolding of the baptismal grace of all Christians. It is one of the means whereby Christ ceaselessly builds up and leads His Church. That is why it is transmitted by a proper sacrament, the sacrament of Holy Orders.

1591. The whole Church is a priestly people. Through baptism, all the faithful participate in Christ’s priesthood. This participation is called the “ common priesthood of the faithful ”. Based on this common priesthood and in its service there exists another participation in Christ’s mission: that of the ministry conferred by the sacrament of Holy Orders, which has the task of serving the community in the name and person of Christ the Head.

1592. The ministerial priesthood differs in essence from the common priesthood of the faithful because it confers a sacred power for the service of the faithful. The ordained ministers exercise their service for the People of God by teaching (munus docendi), divine worship (munus liturgicum), and pastoral direction (munus regendi).

ANATHEMA

I. If anyone says that the sacrament of order is a creation of the Church and not divinely instituted by Christ, let him be anathema.

II. If anyone says that the priesthood only gives authority and power to those who have been ordained if they have been chosen to be ministers by the people, let him be anathema.

III. If anyone claims that the common priesthood of the faithful is a democratic institution of the early Church, long suppressed by the episcopal Hierarchy, which is now obliged to restore it in this century, let him be anathema.