The Magisterium always transmits revelation in its integrity (Reply to Matt Gaspers IV)
In this part of my reply to Matt Gaspers, I defend two principles of Catholic theology which my interlocutor rejects.
Editor’s Note:
This is the fourth part of a debate with Matt Gaspers over the papal claims of Francis. This debate was initially hosted by LifeSiteNews.
The principles discussed are of relevance not only to the claims of Francis, but also to “Leo XIV”, and the other post-conciliar claimants. For this reason we will continue to publish this series on The WM Review.
The Magisterium and the integrity of revelation
The art of knowing things as they really are is exceedingly difficult; moreover, the mind of man is by nature feeble and drawn this way and that by a variety of opinions, and not seldom led astray by impressions coming from without; and, furthermore, the influence of the passions oftentimes takes away, or certainly at least diminishes, the capacity for grasping the truth. […]
It happens far otherwise with Christians; they receive their rule of faith from the Church, by whose authority and under whose guidance they are conscious that they have beyond question attained to truth.
Pope Leo XIII, Sapientiae Christianae
Recapitulation of the debate so far
The first part of the series dealt with the questions of material heresy, of the visible unity of faith, and of the doubtful pope.
The second part addressed the manner in which the Roman Pontiff receives the Catholic rule of faith.
The third part explored the doctrine of the proximate rule of faith in more depth, particularly with regard to the infallibility of the universal ordinary magisterium of the Church.
I ended the third part as follows:
In the next instalment we will examine the statements that I actually made and confirm that they are correct. Those statements are:
1. We know, because of our faith in Christ’s promises, that the teaching of the “proximate rule” will never deviate from the “remote rule.”
2. To bypass the proximate rule of faith, in favour of the remote rule of faith, is inadmissible for Catholics.
This is the task to which I will now turn. Matt Gaspers took issue with both of these truths and, presenting them in formulations of his own, argued that they were false. In this article I will demonstrate that both these statements are true.
The proximate rule and the remote rule do not deviate from each other
The first statement which I am defending is as follows:
We know, because of our faith in Christ’s promises, that the teaching of the “proximate rule” will never deviate from the “remote rule.”
This statement can be dealt with relatively briefly because I already have discussed this subject in depth in two previous articles (Part II and Part III).
As we saw in Part III, the Catholic rule of faith was defined by the First Vatican Council as follows:
All those things are to be believed with divine and Catholic faith that are contained in the word of God, written or handed down, and which by the Church, either in solemn judgment or through her ordinary and universal teaching office, are proposed for belief as having been divinely revealed.1
The proposition by the Church of all those things to be believed, “either in solemn judgment or through her ordinary and universal teaching office”, is the proximate rule of faith. The sources of revelation, “written or handed down”, constitute the remote rule of faith.
Our Lord Jesus Christ established the Magisterium to transmit infallibly the fullness of divine revelation to every generation. If the proximate rule differed from the remote rule, the Church would neither be infallible nor indefectible. Thus, the proposition of what is to be believed – the proximate rule of faith – never deviates from the remote rule of faith, that is, from the deposit of faith.
Thus, in the second part of the series, I concluded:
When we speak of the proximate and remote rules of faith, we are speaking of different modes by which the Catholic rule of faith is received. But there is, ultimately, only one rule of faith, which is the preaching of the Apostles handed down by their Successors. The content of the remote rule – Scripture and Tradition – and the content of the proximate rule of faith – what the magisterium proposes now – never differ from each other. This is because the magisterium is infallible.
To repeat: There can never be a disparity between the doctrine infallibly proposed by the living teaching office of the Church, and that contained in the Tradition from whence that doctrine is derived. This is the true meaning of those oft-maligned words attributed to Pope Pius IX: “I am Tradition”. The Tradition and the living Magisterium are inseparable, and the pope is the supreme living teacher of the Tradition.
If, as we have seen Gaspers does, we extend the meaning of the “proximate rule” to anything taught in any context, by a pope or a bishop, rather than the proposition of that which is to be believed by divine and Catholic faith, then of course the former could deviate from the remote rule of faith. But this would be to give the term “proximate rule” a meaning other than that given to it by Catholic theologians.
Can one appeal from the proximate rule of faith to the remote rule of faith?
The second statement which I am defending is follows:
To bypass the proximate rule of faith, in favour of the remote rule of faith, is inadmissible for Catholics.
Gaspers has reformulated this position as:
[I]t is illicit for the faithful to have recourse to the remote rule if and when the proximate rule fails to teach clearly or correctly.
I have already explained that this reformulation does not reflect my original meaning, and is false in and of itself, because it is based on a misunderstanding of the meaning of the term “proximate rule.”
My actual position can be summarised as follows:
1. The faithful receive the rule of what they are to believe from the teaching authority of the Church
2. Those who exercise this teaching authority take what they propose from the sources of revelation, as transmitted by their predecessors
3. The faithful cannot appeal against the proposition of the rule of faith by the Magisterium to the sources of revelation.
This means, for example, that Protestants err when they appeal from the interpretation of scripture which has been authoritatively proposed by the Magisterium in favour of their own interpretation of scripture on the basis that “scripture alone” is the rule of faith. The Orthodox and Anglo-Catholics similarly err in appealing from the Magisterium to the writings of the Fathers, the first Seven Ecumenical Councils alone, and so on.
Dr John Joy expresses the Catholic position well in his summary of the doctrine of the nineteenth century theologian Joseph Kleutgen:
First and foremost, what must be believed is determined by divine revelation itself. For a Catholic, however, it is not divine revelation as privately interpreted that constitutes the rule of faith but rather divine revelation as authoritatively proposed by the Church.2
In his encyclical letter Humani Generis, Pius XII taught that:
[T]his sacred Office of Teacher in matters of faith and morals must be the proximate and universal criterion of truth for all theologians, since to it has been entrusted by Christ Our Lord the whole deposit of faith - Sacred Scripture and divine Tradition - to be preserved, guarded and interpreted.3
He continued by giving an example of how some contemporary authors were erring by interpretating the proximate rule in the light of the remote rule. He wrote:
What is expounded in the Encyclical Letters of the Roman Pontiffs concerning the nature and constitution of the Church, is deliberately and habitually neglected by some with the idea of giving force to a certain vague notion which they profess to have found in the ancient Fathers, especially the Greeks. The Popes, they assert, do not wish to pass judgment on what is a matter of dispute among theologians, so recourse must be had to the early sources, and the recent constitutions and decrees of the Teaching Church must be explained from the writings of the ancients.
Although these things seem well said, still they are not free from error. It is true that Popes generally leave theologians free in those matters which are disputed in various ways by men of very high authority in this field; but history teaches that many matters that formerly were open to discussion, no longer now admit of discussion.4
The pope writes about authors who are “deliberately and habitually” neglecting the teaching of the Roman Pontiff in favour of their own interpretation of some of the Greek Fathers. They are attempting to explain “the recent constitutions and decrees of the Teaching Church” in the light of “the writings of the ancients.”
He condemns this approach because it inverts the proper relationship between the Magisterium and the sources of revelation. The pope makes clear that for theologians the “sacred Office of Teacher in matters of faith and morals must be the proximate and universal criterion of truth”. That is, the remote rule – in this case the writings of certain Greek Fathers – must be understood in light of the teaching proposed by the Sacred Magisterium, and not the other way around.
Michaele Nicolau S.J. expressed the same doctrine in these terms:
[F]or the theologian, who must begin from the doctrine of the faith, his first task will be to know or to establish the doctrine itself of faith as proposed by the proximate norm of faith, the magisterium of the Church, or to investigate what the magisterium of the Church says about each thing. […]
Where a theological datum given by the contemporary or quasi-contemporary magisterium of the Church is given, which we mentioned above, the work of the science of theology is to justify this datum through its causes; or, if the Magisterium has not yet made a pronouncement about some matter, the theological work will be to find which revealed truths are contained in the sources.5
And Mgr Joseph Clifford Fenton succinctly summarised this doctrine when he wrote:
Because the revealed teaching is proposed to men in the authentic magisterium of the Catholic Church, and is not to be acquired independently of that magisterium, sacred theology must also be the Catholic theology.6
When Pope Pius XII speaks of the teaching office, he is not referring only to extraordinary solemn definitions, but also to the ordinary teaching office of the pope. Hence the distinction he draws in the paragraph which immediately follows the passage above:
Nor must it be thought that what is expounded in Encyclical Letters does not of itself demand consent, since in writing such Letters the Popes do not exercise the supreme power of their Teaching Authority. For these matters are taught with the ordinary teaching authority, of which it is true to say: "He who heareth you, heareth me"; and generally what is expounded and inculcated in Encyclical Letters already for other reasons appertains to Catholic doctrine. But if the Supreme Pontiffs in their official documents purposely pass judgment on a matter up to that time under dispute, it is obvious that that matter, according to the mind and will of the Pontiffs, cannot be any longer considered a question open to discussion among theologians.7
The faithful are bound to give the assent of divine and Catholic faith to everything which the Church proposes as divinely revealed, whether she proposes it by her universal ordinary magisterium or by extraordinary solemn judgment. We also obliged to give a form of internal assent, often called “religious assent”, to authoritative teaching which falls short of the conditions required for infallibility. To refuse this assent is not heretical, but is sinful. (More can be found on this topic in this earlier article.)
In Sapientiae Christianae, Pope Leo XIII taught:
To determine… which are the doctrines divinely revealed belongs to the teaching Church, to whom God has entrusted the safekeeping and interpretation of His utterances. But the supreme teacher in the Church is the Roman Pontiff.8
He continued:
Union of minds, therefore, requires, together with a perfect accord in the one faith, complete submission and obedience of will to the Church and to the Roman Pontiff, as to God Himself.
This obedience should, however, be perfect, because it is enjoined by faith itself, and has this in common with faith, that it cannot be given in shreds; nay, were it not absolute and perfect in every particular, it might wear the name of obedience, but its essence would disappear.9
The obedience due to the Roman Pontiff is not limited to the assent demanded by the proposition of dogmas to be believed by divine and Catholic faith, whether by the Roman Pontiff or by the bishops dispersed throughout the world. Leo XIII teaches:
In defining the limits of the obedience owed to the pastors of souls, but most of all to the authority of the Roman Pontiff, it must not be supposed that it is only to be yielded in relation to dogmas of which the obstinate denial cannot be disjoined from the crime of heresy.
Nay, further, it is not enough sincerely and firmly to assent to doctrines which, though not defined by any solemn pronouncement of the Church, are by her proposed to belief, as divinely revealed, in her common and universal teaching, and which the Vatican Council declared are to be believed "with Catholic and divine faith.”10
But rather:
[T]his likewise must be reckoned amongst the duties of Christians, that they allow themselves to be ruled and directed by the authority and leadership of bishops, and, above all, of the apostolic see.11
The pope continues by stating that “how fitting it is that this should be so any one can easily perceive.”12
He goes on:
For the things contained in the divine oracles have reference to God in part, and in part to man, and to whatever is necessary for the attainment of his eternal salvation. Now, both these, that is to say, what we are bound to believe and what we are obliged to do, are laid down, as we have stated, by the Church using her divine right, and in the Church by the supreme Pontiff.
Wherefore it belongs to the Pope to judge authoritatively what things the sacred oracles contain, as well as what doctrines are in harmony, and what in disagreement, with them; and also, for the same reason, to show forth what things are to be accepted as right, and what to be rejected as worthless; what it is necessary to do and what to avoid doing, in order to attain eternal salvation. 13
And he concludes this section by explaining why this must be so:
For, otherwise, there would be no sure interpreter of the commands of God, nor would there be any safe guide showing man the way he should live.14
The papacy was established by Our Lord Jesus as a “sure interpreter” and a “safe guide”. This the papacy must always be, or man would not be able to attain his final end.
To attain a supernatural end requires submission to a supernatural authority
Man cannot receive and assent to a supernatural revelation, or attain his supernatural end, only by the use of his natural reason or by human acts that have not been elevated to the supernatural order by divine grace. Man requires a supernatural authority to teach him, sanctify him, and govern him.
This is why we must submit ourselves to be led by the Roman Pontiff. We must receive divine revelation by faith, we must accept to be sanctified by sacramental rites, and to be directed to our supernatural end by an authority which has supernatural sanction.
And, because we cannot discover by natural reason all that has been revealed – indeed, we cannot even fully apprehend mysteries such as that of the Holy Trinity – the supernatural teaching authority to which we submit must be absolutely trustworthy, otherwise we could have no certainty that what we were assenting to was actually true.
In a similar manner, the supernatural life of grace is not attained by natural means, but through the sacraments which God has ordained.15 We can only know that these are the sacraments that give grace, because we have the assurance of the divinely guided hierarchy of the Catholic Church. Natural human reason cannot tell us whether this or that rite is capable of conferring the sacramental effect and an increase of sanctifying grace. Therefore, we must simply trust the Catholic Church that her sacramental and liturgical rites are indeed those ordained by God and are capable of giving grace.
The human race cannot by its own natural powers direct itself towards a supernatural end which it is beyond those powers to attain. We need a supernatural authority to so direct us. The Sacred Hierarchy of the Catholic Church is this divinely established and assisted authority. The supreme exercise of this threefold authority – the teaching, sanctifying, and governing power – is exercised by the Roman Pontiff.
The pope will fall short of the ideal exercise of his office in a myriad of ways due to his own limitations and sins. But it is not possible for the pope to err in such a way that he would universally and authoritatively teach error in faith or morals, that he should give the Church harmful rites, or that he should establish universal laws and disciplines that are intrinsically harmful to souls.
This is what Our Lord meant when he promised that “the gates of hell shall not prevail” against the Church that He was going to found upon the rock of St Peter.
Commenting on this passage Cornelius a Lapide, wrote:
The gates of hell, i.e., the infernal city, meaning all hell, with its entire army of demons, and with the whole power of Lucifer its king. For hell and the city of God, i.e., the Church, are here put in opposition.
When S. Augustine wrote his work de Civitate Dei, in the beginning of which he speaks of the two opposite cities; the one of God which is the Church; the other of the devil, i.e., of demons and wicked men: he takes the gates of hell to mean heresies, and heresiarchs; for they fight against the faith of Peter and the Church, and they proceed from hell and are stirred up by the devil. So S. Epiphanius (in Ancoratu), not far from the beginning.16
A Lapide, following St Augustine, interprets the “gates of hell” as specifically meaning heresies and heresiarchs.
And thus, he notes one of the ways in which Our Lord fulfils this promise:
He promises to her, as well as to her head, Peter, i.e., the Pontiff—victory and triumph over them all. Again, Christ and the Holy Ghost assist with special guidance her head, the Roman Pontiff, that he should not err in matters of faith, but that he may be firm as an adamant, says S. Chrysostom, and that he may rightly administer and rule the Church, and guide it in the path of safety, as Noah also directed the ark that it should not be overwhelmed in the deluge.17
The “path of safety” is the path along which the Roman Pontiff necessarily directs the Church, according to the unfailing promises of Jesus Christ. Hence Pope Pius XI could teach that it is, “a characteristic of all true followers of Christ, lettered or unlettered, is to suffer themselves to be guided and led in all things that touch upon faith or morals by the Holy Church of God through its Supreme Pastor the Roman Pontiff, who is himself guided by Jesus Christ Our Lord.”18
This is the system established by Our Lord Jesus Christ for the salvation of our souls and submission to it can never lead us astray.
Yet this trust in the Church is precisely what is withheld by those who, however good their intentions, follow the “recognise and resist” approach. They act correctly in refusing assent to the false doctrine proposed by the “Conciliar Church”, by refusing to participate in its worship, and by refusing to follow its harmful disciplines. Where they err is in identifying this body of men, taken as a whole, as the legitimate hierarchy of the Catholic Church.
A further examination of religious assent
I have already discussed religious assent in an earlier piece. Here I wish to add to that earlier discussion by reflecting on extracts from Mgr Joseph Clifford Fenton, a prominent theologian of the mid-twentieth century. These extracts are taken from his article on the religious assent due to the doctrinal teaching contained in papal encyclicals.
While Fenton is writing about papal encyclicals specifically, the principles involved can also be applied to other authoritative doctrinal pronouncements, which fall short of the conditions required for an infallible definition. He explains:
It is perfectly certain theological teaching that the faithful are bound in conscience to give a sincere and truly inward assent to those doctrines which the Holy Father presents to the Church through the medium of his encyclical letters, even when these doctrines are not set forth as infallibly certain statements.
In other words, when some truth which has not been authoritatively presented to the kingdom of God on earth except in a papal encyclical, even when that truth is contained in a non-infallible manner in the Holy Father’s letter, Catholic’s are distinctly obliged, under penalty of offending God Himself, not only to refrain from opposition to this doctrine, but also to accept it as their own basic judgement. There is no question about this basic fact.[19] 19
He continued:
Those who, on their own initiative, presume to question or contradict a doctrinal statement proposed authoritatively in a papal encyclical, even in cases where the Holy Father does not make a definitive decision, may well be said to striving for something manifestly beyond their competence.
No individual, and for that matter, no group of individuals within the ecclesia discens can be said to have the competence to dispute with the visible head of the Church militant on a matter connected with the Church’s deposit of divine revelation.
Yet this is exactly what those who hold the “recognise and resist” position do with regard to the encyclicals of post-conciliar claimants, and as regard other doctrinal statements, such as the recently amended universal catechism, and Apostolic Exhortations such as Amoris Laetitia and Evangelii Gaudium.
They simultaneously regarded Francis as “the visible head of the Church militant” yet they thought it right and proper to reject the exercise of his ordinary teaching authority. And we are not speaking about the occasional questioning of individual formulations, but rather a systematic refusal to give religious assent to his teaching. This extended to vocal public opposition (indeed, passionate denunciation) of his errors, to the point of urging others to withhold their assent as well.
Now, I consider that all who refused to assent to the heresies and errors of Francis acted correctly, and that they acted equally correctly in warning others against them. What I regard as a seriously mistaken is their conviction that this man was the pope.
At this point it may be helpful to share another extract from Fenton, because I believe this passage touches on one of the points of doctrine that is most misunderstood by the proponents of the “recognise and resist” position.
Immediately after the section of article last quoted above, Fenton continues:
At least in an indirect manner, however, every rejection of an authoritative doctrinal pronouncement contained in a papal encyclical is opposed to the theological virtue of faith itself. That virtue empowers a man to accept with complete certitude and on God’s own authority the body of truth which the Church proposes as having been revealed by God as his public communication to mankind.
It must be remembered that the Church definitely does not teach this divine message in the capacity of an entity in any way separated from or independent of God Himself. The ecclesia docens acts as God’s instrument. What the Church teaches is not the Church’s message, but God’s message.
After noting the obligation of the pope and the bishops to nourish and defend the faith of the flock entrusted to them, he continues:
Thus we lay ourselves open to very serious misunderstandings when we fail to appreciate the fact that the teaching of the Church must be taken as a unit. While it remains perfectly true that not every individual authoritative statement issued by the ecclesia docens is to be accepted with the assent of divine faith, we must remember that all of the doctrinal activity of the Catholic Church is essentially nothing more or less than the highly complex process of teaching the content of divine revelation.
All of the subsidiary or preparatory authoritative pronouncements of the Holy Father or of the entire ecclesia docens; all of the decisions given by the Church’s magisterium on matters connected with the deposit of revelation rather than with the formal content of that revealed message, must be considered as a contribution to and as a part of the process of teaching and guarding the divine teaching delivered to the Church by the apostles.
I discussed this “highly complex process of teaching the content of divine revelation” at some length in the previous article, precisely in order to help readers – particularly those who espouse the “R&R” position – to understand that our assent is not called forth only by the doctrinal determinations of the extraordinary magisterium, but also by the ordinary daily activity of the teaching Church.
The Catholic Church infallibly transmits the fullness of Divine Revelation to us not primarily by extraordinary solemn definitions – which occur relatively infrequently and by means of which only a limited portion of Divine Revelation has been proposed – but by the ordinary teaching of the pope, and by the bishops dispersed throughout the world who are united with him in the profession of the same doctrine.
Therefore, the faithful are obliged to receive revelation primarily from that ordinary teaching office. The Church teaching has the divinely given authority, and the pressing obligation, to teach in this manner, and the Church taught has the duty to give internal assent to their teaching. Thus, Fenton continues:
When an individual or a group of individuals presume on their own initiative to deny or to ignore the authoritative doctrinal statements of papal encyclicals, they are at least placed in the position of rejecting divine authorized guidance in the direction of the purity and the well-being of the faith.
Authoritative doctrinal statements differ in the kind of assent they demand from the faithful, but this should not, Fenton writes, “blind men to the paramount truth that all such pronouncements enter into the effective carrying out of the Petrine Commission to confirm the faith of the brethren.”
And, therefore, he concludes:
[I]t would seem that a rejection of a doctrinal statement proposed authoritatively in a pontifical encyclical could be censurable as ad minus temeraria.
Such an unauthorized rejection on the part of individuals within the Church would violate that Cano termed “the rule of ecclesiastical modestia” and would be opposed, indirectly though nonetheless truly, to the virtue of divine faith, not in such a way as to destroy that virtue, but objectively to constitute an offence against and harm to it.
That is, to reject a teaching which falls short of the proposition of what is to be believed by divine and Catholic faith, is not heresy, and does not cause the loss of the virtue of faith. Nonetheless, it is contrary to that virtue in an indirect way, just as all sin is contrary to the virtue of charity, even though venial sins do not lead to the loss of charity.
The “recognise and resist” position is one of systematic refusal to assent to the teaching of the man they recognise as the Roman Pontiff. For many advocates of this position, their “resistance” extends back beyond Francis to all papal claimants since Paul VI. That is, they have refused to give religious assent to the ordinary teaching of what they believe is the Church teaching for sixty years.
These men and women are well motivated. They want to fulfil the injunction of St Paul: “though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema.” (Gal 1:8-9)
However, the approach they have adopted amounts to a rejection of the system that Our Lord Jesus Christ established for our salvation.
In the “recognise and resist” system the papacy is not a safe teacher, nor is it to be relied upon in its promulgation of laws and sacred rites.
Indeed, the papacy as presented in the “R&R” argument is very similar to the “synodal papacy” proposed by Francis, which I analysed here. In both systems the pope is to be regarded as merely the head of a loose association of men holding disparate beliefs about the content of divine revelation, and even as regards fundamental principles of the natural law. This is not the papacy established by Jesus Christ. For, as Pius XII taught:
Mother Church, Catholic, Roman, which has remained faithful to the constitution received from her Divine Founder, which still stands firm today on the solidity of the rock on which his will erected her, possesses in the primacy of Peter and of his legitimate successors the assurance, guaranteed by the divine promises, of keeping and transmitting inviolate and in all its integrity through centuries and millennia to the very end of time, the entire sum of truth and grace contained in the redemptive mission of Christ.20
Our Lord’s promises can be trusted. The Roman Pontiff is a safe teacher. Francis was not a safe teacher. Francis was not the Roman Pontiff.
Conclusion
In this article, I have explained that the “proximate rule of faith” – the proposition by the Sacred Magisterium of what must be believed by Divine and Catholic faith – can never deviate from the sources of Revelation, that is, “the remote rule of faith”, because the Catholic Church unfailingly, infallibly, transmits the fullness of Divine Revelation in every generation.
I have also explained that that Catholics receive the rule of faith through the teaching of Magisterium and cannot appeal against this proposition to their own interpretation of the sources of revelation. I have further explained that the obligation to assent to the Church’s teaching authority extends beyond submission to what which is proposed to be believed by divine and Catholic faith – the proximate rule of faith - to encompass the whole of her authoritative teaching, though the form of assent differs.
There is however a question that has not yet been explored in depth. Namely, how the question of how the obligation of Catholics to reject the false teaching of pastors who fall into error is to be reconciled with the doctrine defended in this article.
That is the question to which I will turn in the next instalment of this series.
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Dei Filius, Vatican I
John Joy, On the Ordinary and Extraordinary Magisterium from Joseph Kleutgen to theSecond Vatican Council. (2017), p42.
Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis, No. 18.
Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis, No. 18.
Rev. Michaele Nicolau, Sacrae Theologiae Summa: Volume IA, (1955; translated by Kenneth Baker S.J., 2015), p14.
Mgr Joseph Clifford Fenton, The Concept of Sacred Theology,
Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis, No. 20.
Pope Leo XIII, Sapientiae Christianae, No. 22.
Pope Leo XIII, Sapientiae Christianae, No. 22.
Pope Leo XIII, Sapientiae Christianae, No. 24.
Pope Leo XIII, Sapientiae Christianae, No. 24.
Pope Leo XIII, Sapientiae Christianae, No. 24.
Pope Leo XIII, Sapientiae Christianae, No. 24.
Pope Leo XIII, Sapientiae Christianae, No. 24.
Or, in certain cases, by the desire for those sacraments i.e baptism by blood or desire, or attaining forgiveness of sins through perfect contrition united to the desire to the receive the sacrament of penance.
Cornelius à Lapide, The Great Commentary, St Matthew’s Gospel, Vol II (Chaps. X to XXI), pp 222. John Hodges, Covent Garden London, Third Edition, 1889.
Cornelius à Lapide, The Great Commentary, St Matthew’s Gospel, Vol II (Chaps. X to XXI), p222-3.
Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii, No. 11.
Mgr Joseph Clifford Fenton, “The Religious Assent Due to the Papal Encylicals”, The American Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. CXXIII, No. 1, (1950). The entire article can be read here: https://wmreview.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/The-Religious-Assent-Due-to-the-Teachings-of-Papal-Encyclicals.pdf.
Pope Pius XII, Allocution to the Consistory, June 2, 1944. Translated by Novus Ordo Watch.
I believe Mr. McCusker has successfully defended his argument in this installment.
I would, however, make one nuance to the following argument:
“The “recognise and resist” position is one of systematic refusal to assent to the teaching of the man they recognise as the Roman Pontiff. For many advocates of this position, their “resistance” extends back beyond Francis to all papal claimants since Paul VI. That is, they have refused to give religious assent to the ordinary teaching of what they believe is the Church teaching for sixty years.”
It is important to recall that, at least as regards Resistance ecclesiology (but no longer the SSPX since 2012), they would say they have “one pope for two churches:” One conciliar, and one Catholic. When the pope teaches truth, he’s representing the Catholic Church, and these teachings (howsoever few and far between) are accepted. But when he teaches error, he’s representing the conciliar church, not the Catholic Church, and this is what is being systematically rejected.
It is in this way that such resistance is justified (ie., they’re not rejecting the proximate rule of faith, but a counterfeit entity when by error Peter represents the false conciliar church).
Rather slippery, but It may still be a moot observation, since at the end of the day, “Peter” remains a public heretic regardless of which church one assigns his teachings to.
Interestingly, back in 2012-2014, +Fellay was busy denigrating the conciliar church/Catholic Church distinction as part of his quid pro quo compromises with Rome, arguing instead that the modernist “official” church was the Catholic Church. So R&R can pick their poison: Either one maintains the Frankenchurch theory which leaves a public heretic as pope, or one rejects the conciliar/Catholic distinction, which once again leaves a public heretic as pope.
Reminded me of my toddler asking me whether I’d rather be crushed by an python, or eaten by a lion.
I accept that SJ's R&R ecclesiology observations are accurate but, per the impeccable reasoning of the article, who then is to decide which pronouncements are true (Catholic church) and which false (conciliar church) if not the poor confused individual?
Thank you for an inspirational article.
'Argumentum praeclare ratiocinatum'