Anathemasiturday


Having just worked out what #followfriday is on Twitter (and indeed having posted my first #FF tweet) I thought it would be good to have an hashtag for an "Anathema Saturday" post. Mulier Fortis pointed out to me that it would be better to have #anathemasiturday and so this is what I propose. (It could be shortened in Twitter to #AS)

#anathemasiturday would be useful for flagging particular doctrines that have been condemned solemnly in General Council just to make sure that everyone knows that if you do in fact hold the doctrine, the Catholic Church has solemnly repudiated it. Before anyone submits silly comments, nobody is suggesting thumbscrews or boiling in oil, just the recognition that certain doctrinal positions are simply not Catholic.

So here is my first #anathemasiturday choice:
If any one says, that by those words, Do this for the commemoration of me (Luke xxii. 19), Christ did not institute the apostles priests; or, did not ordain that they, and other priests should offer His own body and blood; anathema sit.

(Council of Trent. Session XXII. On the Sacrifice of the Mass. Canon 2)
So if you say that Christ did not ordain men to the priesthood, you are proposing a doctrine that has been formally and definitively anathematised by a General Council of the Catholic Church.

An older expression would be to say that it is heresy. That is not a popular word nowadays so let us content ourselves by saying instead that an organisation which promotes that view cannot honestly claim the title "Catholic" as though its view were something that could be held by a person in communion with the Holy See.

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