Pro Multis: From the Invalidity Thesis of Patrick Omlor To an Authentic Understanding of the Eucharistic Word. Dedication: To my mother, Eugenie Kuss April 11, 1920-March 20 , 2015 And to Father Lawrence Brey, her brother July 12, 1927-November 27, 2006 Mira profunditas eloquiorum tuorum, quorum ecce ante nos superficies blandiens parvulis: sed mira profunditas, deus meus, mira profunditas! horror est intendere in eam, horror honoris et tremor amoris. Odi hostes eius vehementer: o si occidas eos de gladio bis acuto, et non sint hostes eius! sic enim amo eos occidi sibi, ut vivant tibi. (Wonderful is the depth of Thy words, whose surface lies before us, inviting the little ones. But their depth is wonderful, O my God, wonderful is their depth. Entering into this depth is awe- inspiring; an awesome honour, and an awesome love. I hate its enemies vehemently! Oh, if Thou wouldest slay them with Thy two-edged sword, that they be not its enemies ! For thus do I love, that they should be slain unto themselves that they may live unto Thee.) St Augustine, Confessions XII,14 TABLE OF CONTENTS Part I: Introduction: On a Personal Note Part II: Omlor and his Authorities. 1. St. Thomas, and especially the Summa Theologiae a) Omlor, St. Thomas and the doctrine of grace: the distinction of sufficiency and efficacy b) S.T. III q. 78 a3 ad 8 c) Other texts from St. Thomas 2. The interpreters of St. Thomas 3. The Roman Catechism 4. Pope Benedict XIV 5. St. Alphonsus Part III: Is Omlor’s reading of pro multis founded on Biblical Evidence? 1. The clue given by philology: a Semitism by which many has an inclusive sense a) The explanation given by Max Zerwick, S.J. in Notitiae b) Omlor responds to the Biblical argument: his critique of Joachim Jeremias. c) Franz Prosinger and the more recent critique of Joachim Jeremias d) Many as a Biblical expression, whose hermeneutic has a philological foundation e) Examples of the usage of rabiim in the Old Testament cited by Joachim Jeremias f) Examples from the OT of the substantive use of rabiim with the article g) Texts using rabiim from the fourth Song of the Servant of God h) A selection of texts cited by Jeremias as examples of the inclusive many in the New Testament i) Adjectival use of many in the New Testament j) Various authors speak of a Semitism k) From the entry polloi in Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament written by Joachim Jeremias l) Pope Benedict XVI in Jesus of Nazareth, vol. 2 2. The Theology of many as a Biblical Semitism a) Creation b) Abraham c) Moses d) Isaiah, the Figure of the Suffering Servant, and its repercussion in the New Testament, and in the Redemptive/Eucharistic consciousness of Jesus e) St. Paul f) John and the theology of the elect Part IV: The Theology behind the Invalidity Thesis is examined 1. The form of the sacrament a) Is the sacramental form long or short? b) An erroneous translation of the Council of Trent c) Literalist fundamentalism d) Two contradictory explanations e) The ecclesiological foundation of the distinction between sacraments instituted in genere and those instituted in specie. Its relation withe Council’s phrase Subsistit in. f) The history of the liturgy and of the sacramental formulae g) The Maronites h) Was St. Thomas a proponent of the necessity of the long form as Omlor maintains? i) Polisemy j) Following the Pope blindly? k) The Res sacramenti should not be present in the form merely as one element among others. l) How the res sacramenti is expressed 2. For whom did Christ die and for whom is the Eucharist offered: the relation Church-world. a) The simple violation of the words of Christ b) For whom did Christ die? c) Omlor maintains that the Res Sacramenti, which must be expressed in the form the Sacrament, is not expressed in the controverted forumula. d) Is the res sacramenti in some relation to all men? e) The Church and mankind f) For whom is the Eucharist? g) For whom the sacrifice of the mass offered? h) The mass is offered for the members of the Church i) The mass is offered for the members of the Church, but since all men are in some way associated with the Church, therefore the mass is offered for all men. j) The argument for the validity of masses using the formulae in question 3. The later Omlor: the final shape and consequences of his thought. His misunderstanding of the efficacy of the sacrament His inattention to the abundance expressed expressed by many. a) Long-formism, its mitigation, and its resurgence in the multiple long-formism attributed to Capisuccus b) A Thought Experiment c) Omlor’s disagreement with the Roman Catechism d) Res Sacramenti: the unity of the Church e) Omlor’s hidden Pelagianism, and the corresponding perverse image of God f) Dare we hope for the salvation of all? g) The relation between many and all: many is more, not less than all h) Many (greater than all) signifies the Church as a living reality, vivified by the Spirit of God. i) Omlor is on to something and yet does not escape from the literalist/fundamentalist/magical understanding of the sacramental form. j) The Sacrament of the Eucharist is only efficacious in those united to it by faith and charity: St. Thomas compared with Omlor. k) Omlor atomizes the Sacrament. Omlor’s discussion with McCarthy regarding St. Thomas. l) Analyzing Omlor’s Criticism of McCarthy Part V: The Value of the Church’s confirmation of a liturgical text. 1. The confirmation of the translations is a decisive fact. 2. Conversely, the approval of an invalid form would indeed argue for sedevacantism. Part VI: The Church has asked that these translations be changed. Part VII Reprise and Summary 1. A Semitism expressing the Essential Self-consciousness of the People of God 2. Omlor and St. Thomas: Sufficency and Efficacy 3. The Eucharist is Work of the Holy Spirit. 4. The words of Jesus are the form of the Eucharist. Part VIII: Traditionalism, Absolute Truth and the Prophetic Spirit (In 1997 Omlor's collected works were published in book-form: The Robber Church, which I will abbreviate as TRC. (Currently available for download in .pdf format at http://www.huttongibson.com/PDFs/huttongibson_robberchurch_book.pdf) Introduction: On a Personal Note In 1968 my uncle, Fr. Lawrence Brey, Catholic priest in the Diocese of Milwaukee Wisconsin wrote the foreword to the book of Patrick Omlor Questioning the Validity of the Mass using the New All-English Canon. Its grave theme is announced and reflected in Father Brey’s foreword: Was October 22, 1967 the most ominous and frightening day in the two-thousand year history of the Catholic Church, and certainly in the history of the Church in the United States of America? Did that day see a legalized contradiction of hitherto inviolate decrees and norms guarding the Canon of the Mass? Did it possibly even bring a new era of darkness into the world, the extinguishing of the true sacrificial and sacramental Eucharistic Christ from the majority of our churches? TRC, p.7 Omlor's thesis in a nutshell is this: that the rendering of the latin pro vobis et pro multis in remissionem peccatorum as “for you and for all men so that sins may be forgiven” renders the mass invalid inasmuch as this translation substantially violates the sacramental form instituted by Our Lord. My own family was (and is) influenced by this thesis. I was personally aware from a young age of the arguments of Omlor and that they were the reasons why we did not attend mass in our parish church but rather in a Ukrainian Catholic Church in San Diego. I remember when Fr. Brey came to visit us and explained his thought to us and how my parents after considering the matter decided to withdraw from our Parish and to attend in the Eastern Rite for the sake of a valid mass. These decisions led to a particular way of living the Catholic Faith, a particularly intense consciousness of the value of the mass, and a particular vision of the state of the Catholic Church. In studying Omlor's arguments, however, I began to feel that I was not in agreement with them. I understood that this would be an important matter for me, and would impinge on the direction my life was going to take. In 1979 when I was 19, during a semester of study in Rome in my sophomore year at the University of Dallas, assisted by Father James Lehrberger, O. Cist., the light by which I came to understand the falsehood of Omlor’s invalidity argument became the form of an experience of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, a joyful experience, experience which I identify with my priestly vocation. Experience of the Gospel of the love of God the Father, the Gospel that: Jesus Christ died for the salvation of the world, for the salvation of all men, and among them me, a sinner. "Ah, what is man that you should spare a thouight for him, the son of man that you should care for him?" (Psalm 8) The key moment came in Fatima Portugal in the Bascilica of Our Lady of Fatima, whern I, attending Holy Mass, received Holy Communion . That step, I attribute to God’s grace, which also includes my rational reflection and my free will. I was accompanied at that moment by Margaret Donoghue, who would become a Carmelite nun in Spain , and from whom I would first hear about the Legionaries of Christ, the order in which I have followed the priestly vocation, and by Julie Erkens, two fellow students at the University of Dallas.