The time has now come. The Pope has appointed a woman as prefect of a dicastery of the Apostolic See, the one for religious orders.
The case is puzzling. Either the new “prefect” can exercise ecclesiastical authority in the name of the Pope (cf. Codex Iuris Canonici, can. 360), as is the case with the other prefects of the curia. As she is a layperson, we would be back in the days of the German imperial Church. At that time, as is well known, there were “bishops” who held the office in question and exercised ecclesiastical authority without having been ordained bishops. The damage was immense. The outbreak of the Reformation had a lot to do with this serious grievance.
Or the new “prefect” cannot exercise proper executive Church authority in this function after all. Then the appointment is a fake, a pure show. The “prefect” would then only be a kind of titular prefect. Her title would be a title without means. Has she been given a cardinal, who is a bishop, as a “pro-prefect” on the same day, who has to sign everything that has to do with ecclesiastical jurisdiction because the “prefect” herself has no authority to do so? The appointment was made public without comment.
It therefore appears that the Pope is willing to restore the medieval abuse mentioned above. If this is the case, the following must be stated:
A layman as prefect with jurisdictional power – whether man or woman – would first of all be a betrayal of the Second Vatican Council. For this Council cleared up the medieval abuses by stating (Lumen Gentium, 21): “Episcopal ordination confers with the office of sanctification also the offices of teaching and leadership, which, however, by their very nature can be exercised only in hierarchical communion with the head and members of the college.” This expresses the unity and inseparability of the power of consecration and the power of leadership. Consecration is the ability to receive the power of governance. It has therefore no longer been possible to separate these powers.
It has always been disgraceful that the incumbent pope has insulted believers by saying that they are “indietrists,” backward-looking people. Now, however, this would also become hypocrisy. For the Pope would make himself an “indietrist,” going back before Vatican II and restoring medieval abuses.
Continue reading at LifeSite News