Denver Newsroom, Aug 22, 2020 / 02:10 pm (CNA).-
If you think you’re a priest, and you really aren’t, you have a problem. So do a lot of other people. The baptisms you performed are valid baptisms. But the confirmations? No. The Masses you celebrated were not valid. Nor the absolutions or anointings. And the marriages? Well…it’s complicated. Some yes, some no. It depends on the paperwork, believe it or not.
Father Matthew Hood of the Archdiocese of Detroit learned all this the hard way.
He thought he’d been ordained a priest back in 2017. He’d been doing priestly ministry since then.
And then this summer, he learned he wasn’t a priest at all. In fact, he learned he wasn’t even baptized.
If you want to become a priest, you must first become a deacon. If you want to become a deacon, you must first be baptized. If you’re not baptized, you can’t become a deacon, and you can’t become a priest.
Of course, Fr. Hood thought he had been baptized as a baby. But this month, he read a note issued by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The note said that changing the words of baptism in certain ways make it invalid. That if the person doing the baptizing says “We baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” instead of “I baptize you…” the baptism is not valid.
He remembered a video he’d watched of his own baptism ceremony. And he remembered that the deacon said “We baptize you….”
His baptism wasn’t valid.
Father Hood called his archdiocese. He needed to be ordained. But first, after three years of acting like a priest, living like a priest, and feeling like a priest, he needed to become a Catholic. He needed to be baptized.
In short order, he was baptized, confirmed, and received the Eucharist. He made a retreat. He was ordained a deacon. And on Aug. 17, Matthew Hood finally became a priest. For real.
The Archdiocese of Detroit announced this unusual circumstance in a letter released Aug. 22.
The letter explained that after he realized what had happened, Fr. Hood “was recently validly baptized. Furthermore, since other sacraments cannot be validly received in the soul without valid baptism, Father Hood also was recently validly confirmed and validly ordained a transitional deacon and then a priest.”
“Let us give thanks and praise to God for blessing us with Father Hood’s ministry.”
The archdiocese released a guide, explaining that people whose marriages were celebrated by Fr. Hood should contact their parish, and that the archdiocese was making its own efforts to contact those people.
The archdiocese also said it was making efforts to contact other people who had been baptized by Deacon Mark Springer, the deacon who invalidly baptized Hood, and is believed to have invalidly baptized others, during 14 years at St. Anastasia Parish in Troy, Michigan, using the same invalid formula, a deviation from the rite clerics are required to use when performing baptisms.
The guide clarified that while absolutions performed by Fr. Hood before his valid ordination were not themselves valid, “we can be assured that all those who approached Father Hood, in good faith, to make a confession did not walk away without some measure of grace and forgiveness from God.”
“That said, if you recall any grave (mortal) sins that you would have confessed to Father Hood before he was validly ordained and you have not yet been to a subsequent confession, you must bring them to your next confession explaining to any priest what has happened. If you cannot remember if you confessed any grave sins, you should bring that fact to your next confession as well. A subsequent absolution will include those sins and will give you peace of mind,” the guide said.
The archdiocese also answered a question it expects many Catholics will be asking: “Isn’t it legalistic to say that, even though there was an intention to confer a sacrament, there was no sacrament because different words were used? Won’t God just take care of it?”
“Theology is a science that studies what God has told us and, when it comes to sacraments, there must not only be the right intention by the minister but also the right ‘matter’ (material) and the right ‘form’ (words/gestures – such as a triple pouring or immersion of water by the one saying the words). If one of those elements is missing, the sacrament is not valid,” the archdiocese explained.
“As far as God ‘taking care of it,’ we can trust that God will assist those whose hearts are open to Him. However, we can have a much greater degree of confidence by strengthening ourselves with the sacraments He has entrusted to us.”
“According to the ordinary plan God has established, the Sacraments are necessary for salvation: baptism brings about adoption into the family of God and places sanctifying grace in the soul, since we are not born with it, and the soul needs to have sanctifying grace when it departs from the body in order to spend eternity in heaven,” the archdiocese added.
The archdiocese said it first became aware that Deacon Springer was using an unauthorized formula for baptism in 1999. The deacon was instructed to stop deviating from liturgical texts at that time. The archdiocese said that, though illicit, it had believed the baptisms Spring had performed to be valid until the Vatican’s clarification this summer.
The deacon is now retired “and no longer in active ministry,” the archdiocese added.
No other Detroit priests are believed to be invalidly baptized, the archdiocese said.
And Fr. Hood, newly baptized and newly ordained? After an ordeal that began with a deacon’s liturgical “innovation,” Fr. Hood is now serving at a parish named for a deacon saint. He’s the new pastor at St. Lawrence Parish in Utica, Michigan.
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Summorum Pontificum was abrogated in 2021. This is just clinging to a past that is beyond its expiration date.
I see the Monopoly Man in the last picture took off his hat in church.
The TLM has lost. Trads just don’t realize it yet.
“Has lost”? I didn’t know it was a contest. Thanks a lot for letting me know that it is, from one perspective anyway.
It’s not a contest or competition. We’re a universal Church with room for many Rites and liturgies.
Unity, not uniformity.
Yeah but that was the Rupnik-Pontificate, so it’s to be ignored.
Scott Walker: you come across as an angry & bitter man. Try Christ.
Classic. Argumentum ad hominem followed with the obligatory ipse dixit.
Scott Walker. You have the perspicacity to have spotted the Monopoly Man in this very rare photo. Perhaps a premonition that the gods of good fortune are betting on the restoration of the TLM [why else would the Monopoly Man, an obvious traditionalist, have attended this Mass?].
Yours exhibits perfectly the problem at hand.
Scott;
Re: your 10/25 @9:51 p.m. – Do yourself a favor and go to a TLM. Get there about 30-45 minutes early, sit quietly (notice that the others are doing so) perhaps say a Rosary. Read from your Missal or just sit there and enjoy the silence until the Mass begins.
If you have to get up before dawn and then drive 50 or more miles to get there – tant mieux.
When in God’s universe and God’s eternity and human worship of God and His revelations of immutability has truth ever changed or been timebound?
Our patrimony.
Let the Extraordinary Form of the Mass BREATHE freely alongside so many other Rites in the Church each of which have their own form. Lets stop the warring among Catholics. If we don’t, we’re no better than Hamas v. Jews and Ukrainians v. Russians. But if we do, we’re more like Christ.
Right on, Deacon!
Deacon and Br Jaques: agreed. Liturgical peace is the only way forward. But who is making war? It’s been a one-sided liturgical-genocide since 16.07.2021.
“The pilgrimage began on the evening of Oct. 24 with vespers in Rome’s Basilica of San Lorenzo in Lucina, presided over by Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, archbishop of Bologna. A solemn closing Mass of Christ the King will be celebrated at the Church of Santissima Trinità dei Pellegrini on the final day of the pilgrimage, Oct. 26.”
Summorum Pontificum pilgrimage began with vespers in Rome’s Basilica of San Lorenzo in Lucina, presided over by Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, who has defected from The Catholic Faith through his public manifest heresy that denies Sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture. And The Teaching Of The True Magisterium of The Catholic Church, Grounded In Sacred Tradition And Sacred Tradition, The Deposit Of Faith Christ Has Entrusted To His Church For The Salvation Of Souls, by his desire to Bless and have Christ’s One, Holy, Catholic, And Apostolic Church begin to Bless, disordered sexual relationships that deny Christ’s teaching regarding lust and the sin of adultery? Who would approve such a denial of The Deposit Of Faith , Christ Has Entrusted To His One, Holy, Catholic, And Apostolic Church, for The Salvation Of Souls and claim such an act is an act of compassion?
The question is, how can both Cardinal Zuppi and Cardinal Burke both be Baptized Catholics who desire to keep their Baptismal Promise to remain in communion with Christ and His One, Holy, Catholic, And Apostolic Church, and thus be United in Prayer With The One Word Of God, Jesus The Christ?
“They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would no doubt have remained with us; but that they may be manifest, that they are not all of us.”
https://www.ncregister.com/blog/cardinal-zuppi-same-sex-blessing
Grace a Dieu
Blessed are the Peacemakers.
Amen, Knowall.
And those who save souls.
Apparently the purpose of depriving Catholic faithful of the TLM is for the Church Establishment to show that they own and control everything in their “Bugnini-ized-NGO-of-the-decapitated-Body.”
As JP2 and B16 observed, they are incapable of “generosity.”
And Insane.
See, when you write things like that, it confirms that trads are recalcitrant and will never agree to be integrated into the post-Vatican II Church. Peter Kwasniewski published a screed on Friday saying that trads will never compromise nor assimilate nor yield. Pope Francis was correct that TLM adherents and communities inculcate insular separation from the rest of the Church.
Donald:
As I believe you are replying to me, I do not have the opportunity (any longer) to attend The Mass I served and sang at as a boy, so I am like millions more aptly labeled a “Bugnini-Mass-hostage.”
I simply observe that the Church Establishment is utterly incapable of being “generous” (as JP2/ B16 specifically directed) to faithful who desire the TLM, and as their just reward they deserve to wear the badge of their malice, as a sign of how miserly they are.
I suppose their miserliness flows from the apostasy that their “thought leaders” profess, and that do many of them silently assent to.
Poor darlings that they are..,
That’s just silly, Donald. I love the TLM but it’s not a deal breaker for me. I know many other Catholics who feel likewise.
Choices are good and so is diversity in a catholic and universal Church. It’s not all one or the other.
Donald: you sound angry. Why call fellow Catholics “trads”? It’s offensive. Does anyone have a gun pressed to your temple forcing you to attend Mass in the Extraordinary Form?
Why should Catholics be forced to make compromises with beliefs that are not catholic or damage the faith?
The church is dying because of all a the compromises that have been.
If the faith that is being taught and practiced today is the same as before the council, then why such hatred and anger towards the pre vatican II liturgy and practices?
The evidence is that there is a small cadre of prelates led by the late Pope for whom the suppression of this liturgy is an imperious exercise of ecclesial power. Now that we know the putative reasons for TC were contrived, it should be annulled.
Francis famous enjoined others to make a mess. Nobody can accuse him of not leading by example.
How many of vernaculars can the Mass be said? No restrictions that I am aware, but the Latin Mass is supposedly divisive. Nearly Verboten. It’s not about God or faith. It’s ungodly power politics baby.
I am not “a trad” but I would refuse to participate in that grand TLM in the Vatican because I do not wish to land myself to manipulation. It would be unthinkable for me to participate in such Mass while the same TLM is being suppressed/restricted to the point of suffocation elsewhere.
Most “trads” seem not to realize that they are being used by the Vatican as a tool for proving credibility to its current course. I have seen “trads” lashing those Catholics who criticize the Pope for his inconsistencies and watering down the faith or turning it into something else. Those “trads” appear not to realize that an occasional TLM given to them is only to buy their allegiance or at least to be quiet.
This is a brilliant technique, actually, “see, even the most traditional Catholics approve me so I am not deviating from the faith”.
However, there is an obvious flavour of insincerity and absurdity in a situation when TLM is pompously celebrated in the Vatican yet it is being suffocated elsewhere – in the common parishes, among common people who need it. If TLM is to be suppressed, it must be suppressed everywhere – but PL needs TLM, not as a people’s Mass but as a part of his entourage, as an artefact in a museum.
I don’t see any manipulation going on. I don’t know that we should even be looking for that. Why not be grateful for this opportunity & move forward?
Anna:
That is a very shrewd observation.
It’s all part of the cult and practice of deceitfulnees.
This Sunday November 2 will be the beginning of Eastern Daylight time, meaning that if I want to go to the Latin Mass in Lewiston, 55 miles away I can, since I won’t have to drive in the dark.
So I’ll be on my feet at 5:30 and around 6 Rachel and I will be on the road and we’ll proceed westerly to Lewiston to the magnificent Sts. Peter & Paul Basilica, built around 1900 or so by the Franco-American Catholics there (the Stations of the Cross are in French). Does all this make me a “trad”? I haven’t the slightest idea.
It’s been a long time since I’ve been there – I can’t wait!!
As a simple matter of ecclesiological liturgical coherence, the TLM should be completely eliminated. Yes, even the Ecclesia Dei religious communities should be told that they may no longer accept new candidates for ordination unless they agree to switch from celebrating the old Mass to the new Mass.
The TLM is no longer an adequate liturgical expression of Catholic faith after Vatican 2. That’s the crux of the matter. It would be liturgically incoherent to maintain both liturgical expressions simultaneously, and to continue with the unrevised Mass.
“The TLM is no longer an adequate liturgical expression of Catholic faith after Vatican 2.”
And The Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom? Should it go as well? After all, the priest has his back to the people much of the time, some parts aren’t in English, the icon screen keeps the people from seeing all that is happening up front, and the reverence is overwhelming. Surely that’s not adequate for 2025, right?