'Comprehensive Rejection': Is the Conciliar/Synodal Church visibly holy? ('Zero Marks', Ch. II)
How is the Church 'holy', and how does the visibility of the Church depend on the visibility of this holiness?
The Conciliar/Synodal Church cannot be the ‘perpetually visible Church’, because it visibly lacks the four properties mentioned in the Creed.
Author’s Notes
The following is Chapter II of my “book”, ‘Zero Marks’ – Why the Conciliar/Synodal Church is not the Catholic Church, Part II of my response to Fr Thomas Crean OP’s article “A City Set on a Hill Cannot Be Hidden: The Perpetual Visibility of the Catholic Church Under the Pope.”
Peter Kwasniewski described Fr Crean’s article as “a definitive rebuttal of sedevacantism, at the level of first principles.”
Zero Marks is very long and detailed (over 30,000 words). The WM Review has published it in full first for WM+ members, and is releasing each of the five chapters separately for all readers.
This second chapter deals with the property and note of holiness.
It covers the following topics:
What is holiness?
I. The note of holiness
1. The holiness of past members
Canonisations in the Conciliar/Synodal Church
2. Institutes of Perfection
Institutes of Perfection in the Conciliar/Synodal Church
II. The absence of the property of holiness
Fr Crean as a witness to the unholiness of the Conciliar/Synodal doctrine
Treating that which is holy with contempt
Conclusions on the property of holiness
I discussed this chapter with Stephen Kokx over at Kokx News:
For Part I of this response, see below:
For the Introduction to Zero Marks, and the other chapters, see the full piece here:
Before proceeding, I again shall restate my definition of the Conciliar/Synodal Church, my thesis, and a necessary clarification:
Definition: By “Conciliar/Synodal Church,” I mean the body of men who recognise Leo XIV as their Pope and spiritual leader, claim to be subject to him, and whom he (and his officers) recognise as being in good standing with him.
Thesis: The Conciliar/Synodal Church, considered as such, is not the Roman Catholic Church.
Clarification: By “not the Roman Catholic Church”, I mean that this body of men, considered as such, is not identical with the Roman Catholic Church. Taken as defined, it is a body composed of both Catholics and non-Catholics and lacks certain essential properties of the Roman Catholic Church; for this reason, it cannot be identified with that Church. The thesis therefore concerns the identity and nature of the body itself, considered as a social reality or accidental aggregation, rather than the status of the individuals within it. It does not deny the continued visibility of the Catholic Church; rather, it denies that this visibility, and membership of the Church, are determined by the boundaries of the Conciliar/Synodal Church as defined. Accordingly, it does not imply a) that this body constitutes a false sect (since it is an accidental aggregation of Catholics and non-Catholics, rather than a true society); b) that no Catholics exist within it; or c) that a man ceases to be a Catholic simply by being included in this body. Some of these points are clarified in Zero Marks, or will be clarified further elsewhere.
Chapter III – on the property/note of catholicity – will be released next week. If you want to make sure you receive these instalments, hit subscribe now:
‘ZERO MARKS’ – WHY THE CONCILIAR/SYNODAL CHURCH IS NOT THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
By S.D. Wright
Part I: ‘Radically insufficient’ – Reply to Fr Crean on the Church’s visibility
Part II: ‘Zero Marks’ – Why the Conciliar/Synodal Church is not the Catholic Church
Chapter II: Holiness
What is holiness?
Holiness is a note insofar as it is evident in the members of the Church and her good works. But to understand what this means, we must first examine the property of holiness itself, and the sorts of works that manifest it.
A created thing is holy by participation, either from dedication to God or from union with him.1 The Church is ontologically holy by reason of Christ, her head; the Holy Ghost, her soul; the sanctification of men, her end; her doctrine, laws and sacraments, her means; and grace and virtue as her fruits.2
This ontological holiness is actively applied to the members of the Church through means which are visibly fitted for this purpose (e.g. the sacraments, doctrine, a high moral standard of ethics, and disciplinary laws).3
But this is not all. Although she contains both good and bad men, she is morally holy by virtue of the good – manifested by a purity from sin and a firm union with God.4 This personal holiness must be “formed” by the principles of the society itself – by the principles and active means just mentioned. Cardinal Billot writes:
“[N]o church can be holy with the holiness of its members if it is not holy with the holiness of its principles. Not that it is absolutely impossible for some just persons to be found in such a congregation – far from it – but because if any such persons exist, they can only be in it per accidens, that is, apart from the force and influence of the means of that society. Now, as is well known, one does not derive the defining character of something from what pertains to it only per accidens. […]
“[A religious society] is plainly shown to be adorned with that very holiness if even a few can be pointed out who have been made holy and are being made holy by virtue of its formation and principles. […]
“It is required in addition that there be established not only the fact of the holiness of persons, but also the fact that this holiness is owed to the sanctifying influence of the principles of the society. Otherwise the intended conclusion would not follow, since nothing prevents good and just persons from being found per accidens in a false religion.”5
I. The note of holiness
Billot notes that wicked men themselves will indicate where the true Church is to be found, by their constant and habitual opposition to her, as we explained here:
However, this is only one of several indications, rather than the note of holiness as the theologians describe it. This property of holiness is rendered visible as a note principally through the holiness of the Church’s members. Billot writes:
“[T]his holiness [of members] immediately concerns individuals taken one by one; it is through such individuals that a society, whose sanctifying influence is acknowledged as the cause of holiness, is itself called holy.”6
Salaverri explains how this may be manifested:
“Some” of her members will enjoy “heroic holiness”, excelling in even the smallest and most difficult things.
“Many” of her members will enjoy “perfect holiness”, being free from both mortal and venial sin and fleeing both, and observing the evangelical counsels.
“Most” of her members will enjoy “ordinary holiness”, being free from at least mortal sin and fleeing it, through grace and the commandments.7
Salaverri teaches that the normality of “ordinary holiness” is a fruit and necessary effect of the Church’s “ontological holiness” applied to the faithful, as mentioned above.8 As such, “ordinary holiness” – though not without the presence of the other two – pertains to the visible note of holiness.9 It is through the lives of these members – of all three species of holiness, and to the degree that they flow from the principles of the society – that the holiness of the society and its principles are made visible.
It is true that the mark of holiness admits considerably more obscurity than that of unity. Let us return to Billot’s comparison between the two properties:
“The holiness of the members we are talking about here concerns individuals directly – and it is indirectly, through these individuals, that holiness can be attributed to the society whose visible principles and mediations contribute to produce this life of grace.
“Unity, however, deals immediately with the collectivity itself, from which it removes division in the profession of faith. Furthermore, the wicked in the Church do not prevent it from containing saints as well, who show it to be true. But if heretics were in the Church, they would formally remove the indivisibility of the society which is of the very definition of unity.”10
As such, this note of holiness could be more or less visible – and thus more or less obscured – by a significant number of sinners present within the Church, and by a reduction in the number of members who enjoy the “ordinary holiness” described.
This note is also “visible” through two other means, which are essentially specifications of the general principle already explained.
1. The holiness of past members
The holiness of a society can in part be demonstrated by its history – that it contained persons of the holiness discussed.11 As an example, the work of the Bollandist fathers – the group of Jesuits whose historical critical studies of the lives of the saints make it impossible to deny that the Roman Catholic Church has always contained a multitude of men of extraordinary holiness.12
This aspect is made all the more visible if a society has an investigative process into the holiness of various candidates after their death – especially if it is evidently rigorous, even including attempts to disprove all claims in candidates’ favour. Such a process would be reliable, credible in the eyes of non-members, and would achieve moral certainty in its judgments. This is, of course, what was achieved by the Church’s rigorous process of canonisation.
As this aspect of the note of holiness pertains to past members, it would not necessarily be jeopardised by the abandonment of such a process: if the true Church did this, her defenders could still point to the sanctity of her saints as evidence of her claim.
All parties to this discussion agree that the Roman Catholic Church is that society. However, we must avoid assuming what would need to be proved here.
If there were independent grounds for stating that the Church of past saints was a different society from the Conciliar/Synodal Church – as indeed there are, as proven in Chapter I – then it cannot marshal such saints in its favour: this would be begging the question. It would be like the Eastern Orthodox schismatics marshalling the Apostles or St Augustine as evidence of their own legitimacy. Even without such grounds, the nature of the current discussion means that this would also be simply begging the question (as would be the case if even Catholics appealed to such saints against the Orthodox).
Further, the continuing existence of a stringent process of canonisation is a powerful means of proving the ongoing sanctity of a society’s members; the absence of such a process makes it harder to be morally certain about the holiness of subsequent members and saints.
Canonisations in the Conciliar/Synodal Church
Even if we leave aside the rupture between the Conciliar/Synodal Church and that governed by the Popes up until the modern epoch – thus rendering it impossible to point to the saints of history as evidence of legitimacy – it is notorious that the Conciliar/Synodal Church abandoned a stringent process of canonisation, and replaced it with a procedure of much lower standards.
Such a process is hardly suited to demonstrating, visibly and with moral certainty, the holiness of those canonised; and as such, those canonised in “the saint-making factory”13 (as John Allen Jr. put it) established by John Paul II are not continuing evidence of the Conciliar/Synodal Church’s holiness.
Further, those who have been canonised under this new procedure can be divided into three categories:
Those who do indeed appear to have enjoyed great holiness (e.g., Padre Pio, Fr Maximilian Kolbe, Cardinal John Henry Newman)
Those whose lives were marked by truly horrific crimes (e.g., Paul VI and his religious revolution, John Paul II in perpetuating this revolution, and in his inaction over the sexual abuse crisis)
Those about whom it is difficult to say one way or another (e.g., without denying that Carlo Acutis may have been a holy person, the “hagiography” does not clearly convey this in a compelling way).
Further, the new process offers no credible defence against the allegation that certain persons have been canonised for ulterior motives (e.g., financial reasons have been alleged for Fr Josemaria Escriva and Acutis, and politico-doctrinal reasons for the post-conciliar popes, Kolbe and Newman).
The visible picture that emerges is that the Conciliar/Synodal notion of holiness is not identical with that of the Catholic Church, out of keeping with the principles to which we have referred. It is therefore not a true notion of holiness at all.
One result of this is that many, in an attempt to maintain the infallibility of papal canonisations, now deny that they entail a statement of the heroic virtue of the canonised. Fr Crean himself adopted what he calls the “minimalist” understanding of canonisation in Are Canonizations Infallible?, namely that canonization is “the official, papal declaration that the soul of the canonized person is now in heavenly glory” – a definition which consciously withdraws from consideration of the holiness and heroic virtue of the canonised.14
But while such a definition might allow one to accept the canonisation of those who led manifestly evil lives, it can hardly be used with reference to the visible holiness of the Church.
2. Institutes of Perfection
The holiness of a society can also be demonstrated by “permanent institutes [or institutions] of perfection”, in which many men are actually led to the perfect holiness described above.
Such, according to Salaverri, are the institutions of religious life and that of the secular clergy. These states lead, by their own nature, to the holiness of those within them; they are evidence both of the active holiness of the Church, and the personal holiness of its members.
We have already explained why the sinful members do not destroy the visibility of the note of holiness, even if they might make it harder to discern. Such obscuration could also occur to a great degree by the abandonment of the stringent processes of canonisation and the standards of the institutes of perfection.
But in all three cases, it might become very difficult – or even impossible – to assert that a particular body of men manifests the note of holiness.
This is undoubtedly the case for the Conciliar/Synodal Church.
Institutes of Perfection in the Conciliar/Synodal Church
It is also notorious that the previously high standards of the “institutes of perfection” (viz. the state of the secular clergy and of religious life) have also been relaxed by the Conciliar Church; in many cases, these standards have been replaced with laxity, and even disgusting moral degradation.
As one example: aside from the notorious reputation of many seminaries, it is commonly assumed that a significant number of the Conciliar/Synodal Church’s ministers are homosexuals, and that at least a notable minority act upon such predilections.15
There is no expectation that the ministers of the true Church are free from such problems, as works such as St Peter Damien’s Book of Gomorrah demonstrate. Neither corrupt clergy nor moral laxity amongst the faithful contradict the Church’s holiness – but when such problems are unchecked and become rampant, it necessarily obscures the visibility of the Church’s holiness. (This is distinct from issues raised by documents such as Amoris Laetitia and Fiducia Supplicans, which we will address shortly).
Similarly, one cannot point to “institutions of perfection” as a means of making the Church distinctly visible, if they are actually hotbeds of imperfection.
Thus, two key means (canonisations and institutions of perfection) by which holiness of the Church is to be made visible to the world have been set aside.
To summarise, the property of holiness is made visible as a note principally by a) the ordinary holiness of a society’s members, formed by the principles of the society; b) the holiness of past members of a society, established through historical studies and a stringent process of canonisation; c) the institutes of perfection.
So much for the note of holiness and the distinct visibility of the Church.
II. The absence of the property of holiness
The property of holiness would be shown to be absent in a society in different ways. For instance:
The official promotion or promulgation of false, dangerous and immoral teachings and practices
The toleration of such teaching and practices over a sufficiently long period of time (perhaps long enough for it to have attained the force of custom, if it were not positively evil)
The treatment of what is evidently holy with neglect or contempt – or even attempts to suppress it
The neglect of the active means of holiness over a similarly long period of time.
Billot explains this further:
“[T]he holiness of principles must necessarily proceed ex integra causa, because the principles and institutions of any church coalesce into a single system, and it is impossible that a religion should be truly called holy which possesses even a single dogma, whether speculative or practical, that is repugnant to holiness.”16
This is a visible problem for the Conciliar/Synodal Church, which both minimises the principles of holiness discussed above, and has more than one example of that which is “repugnant to holiness.”
Although some of its official monuments maintain a concept of sin, including mortal and venial sin, it is once again notorious that the Conciliar/Synodal Church habitually neglects a classical understanding of sin – including the distinction between mortal and venial sin – and is increasingly substituting it with a naturalistic and humanistic understanding based on contemporary political issues (e.g., environmentalism, globalism, ecumenism and concerns about migration).
Possibly as a result of this neglect of mortal sin, the sacrament of Penance is similarly neglected on a very wide scale by both members of the Conciliar/Synodal Church, and its ministers.
However, let us consider how the Conciliar/Synodal Church has demonstrated its unholiness in its teaching and laws – returning to the Open Letter signed by Fr Crean himself as evidence of this.
Fr Crean as a witness to the unholiness of the Conciliar/Synodal doctrine
In addition to the neglect of the active means of imparting holiness, the high standard of morality – based on Christ’s injunction to “Be perfect, as [his] Father in Heaven is perfect” – has been progressively eroded since Vatican II. Again, the presence of immoral Catholics does not diminish the Church’s holiness, even if it might obscure it: but we are talking here, not about how moral standards are lived out but how they – and the very concepts of morality and holiness themselves – are presented by the alleged magisterium.
In the Open Letter, Fr Crean and the other signatories accused Francis of the following heresies about the moral holiness of the Church’s members:
A justified person cannot necessarily observe God’s law – implying either that this law is impossible, or that God’s grace is insufficient to leave aside grave sin
That a Christian may knowingly and freely break God’s law without being in a state of mortal sin
Sexual acts between persons who are not married can be morally right, or even requested or commanded by God
Divine revelation and the natural law do not contain absolute prohibitions of certain types of actions.
Each of the four propositions above is found in Amoris Laetitia, which is an official act of the Conciliar/Synodal Church’s purported magisterium. Their proposal has been authoritative, and they have in fact been passed on to the faithful, some of whom have acted upon them. Questions of infallibility or degrees are irrelevant here, because the active holiness of the Church is subject to the axiom “bonum ex integra causa, malum ex quocumque defectu”.17
The Open Letter summarises some of these heresies as follows:
“Taken together, all these positions amount to a comprehensive rejection of Catholic teaching on marriage and sexual activity, Catholic teaching on the nature of the moral law, and Catholic teaching on grace and justification.”18
Needless to say, the truth of this judgement is incompatible with holiness of the Conciliar/Synodal Church in her teaching. We note that Frank Sheed also addressed this issue in Is it the Same Church?, saying:
“What has suddenly become an issue overnight is not simply the Church’s right to refuse the sacraments to people who divorce and remarry, for instance, or practice artificial birth control, but her right to give us laws at all in the field of morals. In an extreme form this means that it is for everyone to apply the general principles of divine Revelation to each situation as it confronts him. Less extreme is the view of those who accept Christian morality as it now stands, but feel that in a given instance it must be modified, that there are no moral laws—Christ’s or any other—binding in every circumstance.
“If the Church came to accept this view even in its less extreme form, it would really be no longer the same Church—neither the Church we have grown up in, nor the Church we find in the New Testament.”19
Since the Open Letter, we have also seen the promulgation of the CDF’s declaration Fiducia Supplicans in 2023, which all but the blind understand to be at least a sly or tacit permission for the blessing of homosexual unions. In 2022, Fr Crean correctly noted that someone who “promulgates a rite of blessing of ‘same-sex unions’” is “a public apostate who should be avoided.”20 In 2023, he also stated that he could not baptise “someone [who] thought that the Church had the power to bless homosexual unions.”21 What conclusions are we to draw from this, now that this document has been promulgated?
To be sure, Fiducia Supplicans does not promulgate a rite, and carefully presents itself as blessing “same-sex couples” rather than “same-sex unions.” But any attempt to get this document – or the Conciliar/Synodal Church – off the hook through such distinctions simply plays into the hands of the enemies of the Church, who are counting on such a response on the part of their conservative defenders.
This is the trap into which many – Fr Crean included – have fallen since Vatican II, with regard to teachings which call good what the Church previously called evil, and vice versa. For example:
Religious liberty (Fr Crean’s treatment – and a response by John Daly22)
Communicatio in sacris with members of false religions (Fr Crean’s treatment)
Treating that which is holy with contempt
Cardinal Billot explains that the proper and actual use of the means of sanctification is necessary to establish the holiness of a society. He writes:
“[T]he demonstration of the holiness of principles does not depend on the material retention of any external means whatsoever — even one disposed or instituted by God for the sanctification of men — but rather on the manner in which those external means are employed through preaching, laws, institutions, and an ever-living ministry; in short, and to embrace everything in a single word, it depends on all those signs which are of a nature to reveal in a religious society the character of the font whence the sanctifying influence springs […]”23
The nature of the Conciliar/Synodal Church, as we have defined it, entails that some of the Catholic Church’s “external means” of sanctification are indeed retained and even employed within it. No doubt there are some who make up this body do indeed make use of them, in so far as they are available – even while they are subject to widespread neglect
But far from these means being systematically employed as Billot discusses, or even simply neglected, the authorities of the Conciliar/Synodal Church routinely treat that which is holy with contempt. For example:
Giving the sacraments to non-Catholics without prior conversion (cf. Can. 844, CIC 1983)
Giving the sacraments to persons publicly living in a state of sin (cf. Amoris Laetitia, 2016)
Widening the grounds for declarations of nullity, beyond what is credible and thus, in all likelihood, permitting bigamy
Suppressing and restricting the traditional Roman Liturgy (cf. the conduct of Paul VI et al., as well as Traditionis Custodes)
As mentioned above, the Conciliar/Synodal Church cannot even be relied upon to baptise validly – visibly demonstrated in the many videos online – due to a spirit of innovation, improvisation and experimentation, and the shockingly bad formation imparted to its ministers.
This is to say nothing of the way in which the allegedly holy rites of the Novus Ordo (and what we are told is the Blessed Sacrament) are treated by those who employ them – as well as events such as World Youth Day. The Vatican’s power to exercise liturgical oversight, when it has a will to do so, is clearly demonstrated by Traditionis Custodes; it has chosen not to employ such oversight against the “liturgical abuses” whereby priests deviate from the prescriptions of the Novus Ordo rites.
Finally, some have also argued that, aside from the general liberalisation of religious orders following Vatican II (and the enormous loss of vocations), the 2018 document Cor Orans represents an attack on the very concept of contemplative orders.24
In short, when we consider “the manner in which those external means are employed”, the Conciliar/Synodal Church is not only found wanting, but positively unholy.
Conclusions on the property of holiness
Where does this leave Fr Crean’s claim that the Conciliar/Synodal Church is the “perpetually visible Church”?
The mark of holiness is difficult to verify, due to the widespread lack of interest in what constitutes ordinary holiness, the abandonment of the stringent canonisation process and the shocking loss of standards generally amongst religious and the secular clergy (with noteworthy exceptions). But this mark is a chief means by which the Church is made distinctly visible – thus making the “perpetual visibility” of the Conciliar/Synodal Church similarly difficult to verify.
But this is not all: as Billot said:
“[I]t is impossible that a religion should be truly called holy which possesses even a single dogma, whether speculative or practical, that is repugnant to holiness.”25
Elsewhere, Billot wrote again:
“[T]he Church is assisted by God so that she can never institute a discipline which would be in any way opposed to the rule of faith or to evangelical holiness.”26
With the Conciliar/Synodal Church, we are faced with a greater problem than one such example. Between the promotion and toleration of unholy doctrines, laws, practices and rites, and the negative treatment of holy doctrines, laws and rites, the property of holiness is verified to be absent – thus demonstrating that the Conciliar/Synodal Church is not the Catholic Church.
NB: In 2021, Robert Morrison wrote a useful article on this matter in The Remnant.
End of Chapter II
Zero Marks addresses the four notes and properties in five chapters.
We have first published it in full for WM+ members, and will be releasing each chapter separately for all readers.
Here is what is covered in the next chapters:
Chapter III: Catholicity
What is catholicity?
How the property of catholicity could be lacking
The Eastern Schismatics
Rejection of evangelisation with the euphemism of ‘proselytism’
Treatment of false sects as legitimate
What this means for the catholicity of the Church
‘No mission to the Jews’
The prevalence of these ideas in the Conciliar/Synodal Church
Conclusions on the property of catholicityChapter IV: Apostolicity as a Note
What is apostolicity?
Apostolic Succession
Formal and material succession
Fr Crean’s reduction of visibility to a claim to material succession
The exercise of apostolic authority
Renunciation of apostolic authority
The renunciation of authority continues
What are the consequences for this renunciation of authority?
Conclusions on the note of apostolicityChapter V: Apostolicity as a Property
Rupture with apostolic doctrine
Some specific ruptures with apostolic doctrine
The Conciliar/Synodal Church is not apostolic in origin
Questions asked about the Conciliar/Synodal Church
Conclusions on apostolicityConclusion to ‘Zero Marks’
Appendix
Bishop Tissier de Mallerais and the ‘four causes’ of the Conciliar Church
References and Notes
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‘Zero Marks’ – Why the Conciliar/Synodal Church is not the Catholic Church
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Salaverri, n. 1182
Salaverri, n. 1183.
Berry, p. 86.
Salaverri, n. 1184.
Billot, pp. 173, 177.
https://archive.org/details/tractatusdeeccle01bill/page/173/mode/1up
Salaverri, nn. 1184-5
Salaverri, n. 1187.
Salaverri, n. 1222.
Billot, De Ecclesia, 1909, p. 146.
Cf. Salaverri, nn. 1221, 1228-1235.
The rigour of the Bollandists’ Acta Sanctorum can be seen in the criticism levelled against them. They – and more so those who have followed them – have been accused of being overly sceptical of those saints about whom positive historical evidence was not found outside of tradition (e.g., certain traditions attached to the Roman martyrs, and so on). However, whatever one thinks of scepticism towards such saints, there can be no doubt that the Bollandists succeeded in establishing the truth of what could be proved with positive historical evidence.
Cf. John L. Allen Jr, ‘With beatification of John Paul II, what makes a ‘fast-track’ saint?’, National Catholic Reporter, 1 February 2011. Available at https://www.ncronline.org/news/vatican/beatification-john-paul-ii-what-makes-fast-track-saint
Crean, ‘Infallibility and Canonizations: A Disputation’, n. I., fn. 8. In Are Canonizations Infallible? ed. Peter Kwasniewski, Arouca Press, Waterloo, Canada, 2021.
For example, cf. the classic work Goodbye, Good Men by Michael Rose, The Church Impotent by Leon Podles, and many other such works.
Billot, pp. 173-4.
https://archive.org/details/tractatusdeeccle01bill/page/173/mode/1up
“Something is good when it is good in every respect, and it is bad when it is wrong in any respect.”
Crean et al. Open Letter, p. 4.
Sheed, p 27.
Daly writes:
“The great philosopher Fr. Julio Meinvielle (1905-73) argued that Vatican II sought to give no absolute teaching, but only to establish prudential guidelines to follow in the present unhappy state of society. Alas this view is quite incompatible with the words ‘it further declares that the right to religious liberty is truly founded on the very dignity of the human person as known by the revealed word of God and reason itself.’ We feel sure that Fr. Meinvielle’s declining health must have blunted his acumen at the time he formed this judgment.
“At least Fr. Meinvielle’s interpretation, though unfaithful to the text of Vatican II, entailed no departure from sound doctrine. The same may be said of an article by Dominican Fr. Thomas Crean which appeared in Christian Order (October 2004). Crean recognises that Dignitatis Humanae is doctrinal, not merely practical, but for him its right to religious liberty belongs exclusively to those who profess the true religion: he adds that the reference to religions in the plural is explained by the fact that its doctrine would have applied even in the hypothetical case in which God had not made any revelation and had left man in the state of nature.
“This is a beautiful theory provided one never actually takes down from the bookshelf a copy of the text under discussion. Once one does, it disappears in a puff of smoke. Dignitatis Humanae applies its supposed right to the freedom to join or to leave any ‘religious community’ whatsoever (paragraph 6), in other words it orders the state to authorise apostasy from the Catholic religion and assures us that the state must not punish this apostasy because man possesses a right to pass from any religion into any other – a right that the state must respect. Indeed Dignitatis Humanae formally forbids any discrimination between religions on the part of the state, whether to outlaw Moslem blasphemy, to forbid Protestant propaganda, to excuse priests from military service or to exclude from public office Jews whose ‘kol nidre’ liturgical prayer explicitly authorises them to lie even on oath.”
John S. Daly, Religious Liberty: The failed attempts to defend Vatican II, Romeward. Available at The WM Review
Cf. Hilary White, ‘A Sister Speaks: “Cor Orans is the Death-Knell of Carmel’”, The Remnant, 27 May 2018. Available at https://remnantnewspaper.com/web/index.php/fetzen-fliegen/item/3911-a-sister-speaks-cor-orans-is-the-death-knell-of-carmel