To comment please open your gmail account or use my email address, FB Messenger or X (Twitter).
It's awfully late in the day to be asking whether Jorge Bergoglio is "universally, peacefully accepted as pope", but better late than never. Human nature being what it is - fallen - cardinals, bishops and priests, who all have skin in the game, who fear Francis and the loss of their sinecures, have stayed shtum.
And lay people have followed their example, largely out of the Catholic habit of obedience. "Father says." And that's flat. The Novus Ordo has played its part, designed as it was to do by Freemasons, by dumbing the Mass and the masses down, depriving them of Catholic teaching. But Antipope Francis' claim that "All religions lead to God" has surely reached the limit to lay capacity for cognitive dissonance.
Those who persist in recognizing Francis as pope, while rejecting his errors, run the risk of becoming the “Traditional Wing” of the Conciliar-Synodal Church, which will parallel the “Catholic” wing of the Church of England.
As Ann Barnhardt puts it:
Somewhere there’s a 78 year old woman whose IQ matches her age who has sent $300,000 to her 35 year old online fiancé who is stuck on a Turkish oil rig and needs Apple Gift Cards to pay for his daughter’s cancer treatment, shaking her head and saying to herself, “Damn, how stupid and gullible would you have to be to believe that Jorge Bergoglio is the Pope?”
That’s pretty much where we are now.
The Bergoglian Antipapacy makes Nigerian scams look sophisticated and nuanced by comparison.
Matthew McCusker writes on this for Lifesite at extraordinary length and clarity to show that as this page has declared time after time, the infallible and indefectible, One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church cannot be and is not, led by a manifest heretic like Jorge Bergoglio.
For readers lacking the time or stamina to read it all, just zoom through with the bold and large text.
 |
| Pope Francis: “Hinduism leads you to God”
Meanwhile, Hinduism: x.com/mljhaynes/stat…
|
https://x.com/i/sta
tus/1834702618528284722
In a recent article I summarized a number of arguments that lead to the conclusion that Francis does not hold the office of pope.
In a second article, I outlined the argument from public heresy and membership of the Church in more detail.
In a third article, I responded to the claim that we can attain certainty that Francis is the pope because he possesses the “universal and peaceful adherence” of the Church.
In this fourth article I wish to expand further on subject touched on in third article, namely the Catholic rule of faith.
Jesus Christ, hanging on the Cross, opened up to His Church the fountain of those divine gifts, which prevent her from ever teaching false doctrine and enable her to rule them for the salvation of their souls through divinely enlightened pastors and to bestow on them an abundance of heavenly graces.
Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis Christi, No. 31
(LifeSiteNews) — Our Lord Jesus Christ established the Catholic Church to teach the fullness of Divine Revelation until the His Second Coming. He endowed His Church with the attributes of indefectibility and infallibility to ensure that she will not fail in her mission. Every generation of Catholics, from the time of the Apostles until Our Lord’s return, will receive exactly the same doctrine from the teaching authority which He has established.
Truths beyond the grasp of unaided human reason have been gradually revealed to humanity since the beginning of the human race, but public revelation was brought to completion with Christ’s Apostles, to whom the fullness of the Divine Revelation was entrusted. Our Lord commissioned these Apostles to proclaim it to the entire world:
Jesus came near and spoke to them; All authority in heaven and on earth, he said, has been given to me; you, therefore, must go out, making disciples of all nations, and baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all the commandments which I have given you. And behold I am with you all through the days that are coming, until the consummation of the world. (Mt 28:19-20)
The apostles faithfully fulfilled this great commission and were martyred in turn. Around the year 100AD, St John died a natural death, the only apostle to do so, and with his death public revelation ended. But the “consummation of the world” was yet to come, and therefore the mission of the Church continued. The Successors of the Apostles, led by the Successor of St. Peter, continued the apostolic mission of teaching the fullness of Divine Revelation to each new generation, and to them to the promise also has been made “I am with you all through the days that are coming, until the consummation of the world’”.
The Sacred Magisterium of the Catholic Church is divinely protected. It will never fail to transmit the entirety of Divine Revelation. And with its authority to teach, comes the obligation of the faithful to receive its teaching. As Our Lord said when he sent out his disciples:
He that heareth you, heareth me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth me; and he that despiseth me, despiseth him that sent me. (Lk 10:16)
Sources of Divine Revelation
The ultimate source of Divine Revelation is God. The source from which we receive it is the Sacred Magisterium, that is, the teaching of the Successors of the Apostles, and, pre-eminently, the pope, the Successor of St Peter.
However, the pope and bishops in each generation must have sources in which they find the doctrine that they are to teach for, as Monsignor Van Noort remarks, “it is obvious on the one hand that they never personally heard Christ Himself or the apostles teaching through the Holy Spirit, and equally obvious on the other hand that they do not get the doctrine of Christ by way of fresh, direct revelation.”
Therefore:
[T]he only possible answer is that this doctrine comes to them from preceding generations by way of tradition.
Tradition means handing down. The Successors of the Apostles have received the content of the Divine Revelation from their predecessors, and they hand on it to those who follow them. This transmission from one generation to the next is protected by the charism of infallibility to ensure that nothing is lost, and that nothing is added.
St. Paul, in his Second Letter to the Thessalonians, spoke of these traditions, exhorting:
Stand firm, then, brethren, and hold by the traditions you have learned, in word or in writing, from us. (2 Thess 2:15)
Divine Revelation is contained both in written documents and in oral preaching. The written revelation consists of the inspired writings of the Old and New Testaments. This is called Sacred Scripture.
The oral preaching is called Sacred Tradition. Sacred Tradition is the handing down of the gospel by the teaching of the Successors of the Apostles. However, it is not only found in their oral preaching but in the written monuments of this preaching.
The primary monuments of Sacred Tradition are the acts of the magisterium: the official acts of the Apostles, of the Successors of St. Peter, and of the other Successors of the Apostles, whether as individual heads of local churches, or gathered together in councils. The Sacred Liturgy is also a primary monument of Sacred Tradition, because it is established and regulated by the authority of the Successors of the Apostles.
The secondary monuments of Sacred Tradition are writings such as those of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, of theologians, and of other ecclesiastical writers, all of which are witnesses to the doctrine preached by the Successors of the Apostles. Christian art and architecture are also secondary monuments of Sacred Tradition, because they too witness to the faith preached by the Sacred Magisterium.
Therefore, we can speak of two sources of divine revelation from which the Sacred Magisterium finds its doctrine: Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition.
Twentieth century Spanish theologian Joachim Salaverri S.J. summarized them as follows:
Holy Scripture, or the written word of God, is the deposit of revealed truths inspired by God, which are contained in the holy books of the Old and New Testament.
Divine Tradition, or the handed on word of God, is the deposit of revealed truths attested by God, which in the continuing preaching and faith of the Church are perennially preserved by God.
These sources taken together are called the deposit of faith, for as Salaverri explains:
A source or fount of revelation, like a fountain of water, in general is said to be a deposit or place in which divine revelation is contained or from which it can be drawn.
The role of the teaching authority of the Church
The deposit of faith is contained in Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. It is from these sources that the Successors of the Apostles derive their doctrine. But the Successors of the Apostles are not free to interpret the sources of any revelation in any way they desire. On the contrary, they must transmit the fullness of revelation as an integral whole, exactly as it was received from Jesus Christ. The Church’s expression of doctrine may become more precise over time, and errors may be condemned, but the faith never changes. Its transmission is protected in perpetuity by the Holy Ghost.
 |
| The Purple Scapular was given to us as a protection against the wrath of God in response to the heresies of Jorge Mario Bergoglio
|
The Sacred Magisterium is not a source of new doctrine, but the infallible teacher of “the faith once delivered to the saints.” (Jude 1:3)
Salaverri writes:
The authentic Magisterium is the doctrinal authority of the Church which with the assistance of God guards, declares and explains the wordof God or revelation in the deposit of faith or contained in both sources.
Therefore, the Magisterium, in the strict sense, since formally it is the word of the ministers of the Church protected by the assistance of God alone, cannot properly be said to be the word of God nor an original source of divine revelation; but rather it is the guardian, interpreter and explainer of the word of God, which must necessarily draw from the deposit of faith as from its proper source. Such is the Magisterium committed to the Apostles as an ordinary office and transmitted to their successors by formal succession.
The Catholic rule of faith versus false rules of faith
The Catholic Church is:
The society of men who, by their profession of the same faith, and by their partaking of the same sacraments, make up, under the rule of apostolic pastors and their head, the kingdom of Christ on earth.
The unity of all members in the profession of the same faith is an essential mark of the Church. If a person departs from the public profession of the one faith, they depart, by that very act, from membership of the body of the Church. (See here for an in-depth presentation of this truth.)
It is only possible for millions of people worldwide to profess exactly the same faith, if all the members of the Church submit to the same external rule of faith.
Salaverri explains that:
The rule of faith theoretically is the principle according to which in general it is determined which truths are divinely revealed and which all the faithful are bound to believe and to profess.
A Catholic knows which truths are divinely revealed, and what they are bound to believe and profess, by submitting to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church. The teaching of the Magisterium is therefore the rule of faith for Catholics. In my previous article, I explained in more detail how the submission of all Catholics to this rule of faith brings about the Church’s miraculous unity of faith, which would otherwise be without sufficient explanation.
The Magisterium itself derives its doctrine from Scripture and Tradition. Therefore, these sources of revelation are known as the remote rule of faith, to distinguish them from the proximate rule of faith proposed by the Magisterium. The word proximate indicates that the teaching of the Magisterium is the immediate source from which a Catholic receives the doctrine of faith, which has been derived from Scripture and Tradition.
It is from Scripture and Tradition, as Salaverri writes, that “as from fountains, the Magisterium draws what is proposed for belief to the faithful.” He continues:
The Magisterium, however, is the proximate and active proximate ruleof faith, because immediately from it the faithful are bound to learn what they must believe about those things that are contained in the sources of revelation, and what they must hold about those things that have a necessary connection with the revealed truths.
As Salaverri notes, the decrees of Vatican I present us with a summary of the Catholic rule of faith:
Catholics have always embraced as a principle what the Vatican Council defined with these words: ‘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.’ This is the Catholic Rule of faith. In it both Scripture and Tradition are included as sources, and as such they are distinguished from the Magisterium.
This contrasts with the rule of faith of heretics, who always take something other than the Sacred Magisterium of the Catholic Church as their rule of faith.
For example, Protestants adhere to the remote rule of Sacred Scripture in place of the proximate rule proposed by the Church, as is clear from their formularies.
An early Protestant confession proclaimed:
We believe that the Holy Scriptures alone are the unique and certain rule of faith, on which all dogmas must be based.
And another stated:
We believe the unique rule of faith that there is absolutely nothing other than the prophetic and apostolic writings both of the Old and of the New Testaments.
And John Calvin wrote:
We embrace the Old and New Testament as the only rule of faith.
Anglicanism, especially its High Church, Tractarian, and Anglo-Catholic traditions, also takes, to some extent, the monuments of Sacred Tradition as its rule of faith, as well as Sacred Scripture. But this is another variation of the same error, as it seeks the faith in the remote rule, while bypassing the proximate rule proposed by the Magisterium.
Whoever chooses the remote rule over the living proximate rule, is ultimately forced to choose for himself how to interpret the remote rule of faith, and thus, inescapably, their own judgment becomes their rule of faith.
This is contrary to the nature of supernatural faith, which is that virtue which assents to the truths revealed by God, because of the authority of God who reveals them. These truths are known as revealed because proposed for our belief by the Magisterium of the Catholic Church.
This truth is brought out well by Cardinal John Henry Newman in his insightful novel Loss and Gain, in which he presents a conversation between a young Anglican, Charles, and a Catholic priest.
The young man speaks of the difficulty that some people have in understanding why it is “rational to maintain that so much depended on holding this or that doctrine, or a little more or a little less”. In reply the priest observed that:
[T]here was no ‘more or less’ in faith; that either we believed the whole revealed message, or really we believed no part of it; that we ought to believe what the Church proposed to us on the word of the Church.
The dialogue continues:
‘Yet surely the so-called Evangelical believes more than the Unitarian, and the High-Churchman than the Evangelical,’ objected Charles.
‘The question,’ said his fellow-traveller, ‘is whether they submit their reason implicitly to that which they have received as God’s word.’
Charles assented.
‘Would you say, then,’ he continued, ‘that the Unitarian really believes as God’s word that which he professes to receive, when he passes over and gets rid of so much that is in that word?’
‘Certainly not,’ said Charles.
‘And why?’
‘Because it is plain,’ said Charles, ‘that his ultimate standard of truth is not the Scripture, but, unconsciously to himself, some view of things in his mind which is to him the measure of Scripture.’
‘Then he believes himself, if we may so speak,’ said the priest, ‘and not the external word of God.’
‘Certainly.’
But if that is true of the Unitarian, or the Evangelical, it is also true of the Anglican, and anyone else, who takes the remote rule as determining what they will believe, rather than the proximate rule.
The dialogue continues:
‘You know, sir,’ [the young man] added hesitatingly, ‘that the Anglican doctrine is to interpret Scripture by the Church; therefore we have faith, like Catholics, not in Scripture simply, but in the whole word committed to the Church, of which Scripture is a part.’
His companion smiled: ‘How many,’ he asked, ‘so profess? But, waiving this question, I understand what a Catholic means by saying that he goes by the voice of the Church; it means, practically, by the voice of the first priest he meets. Every priest is the voice of the Church. This is quite intelligible. In matters of doctrine, he has faith in the word of any priest.
But what, where, is that ‘word’ of the Church which the persons you speak of believe in? And when do they exercise their belief? Is it not an undeniable fact, that, so far from all Anglican clergymen agreeing together in faith, what the first says, the second will unsay? so that an Anglican cannot, if he would, have faith in them, and necessarily, though he would not, chooses between them. How, then, has faith a place in the religion of an Anglican?’
Ultimately, the attempt to assent to divine revelation as found in the remote rule alone, is contrary to the nature of supernatural faith, however sincere the attempt may be.
Without a proximate rule, one ends up believing not on account of the authority of God, whose Church here and now proposes what is to be believed, but on account of the authority of one’s own private interpretation of received texts.
How we ought to receive the faith
Catholics therefore ought to receive the faith “immediately” from the Magisterium for “from it the faithful are bound to learn what they must believe about those things that are contained in the sources of revelation, and what they must hold about those things that have a necessary connection with the revealed truths.”
The direct study of Sacred Scripture and the monuments of Sacred Tradition, however valuable it may be, is not the immediate source of the doctrine to which Catholics are to assent.
Indeed, to bypass the proximate rule of faith, in favor of the remote rule of faith, is inadmissible for Catholics.
The theologian Michaele Nicolau S.J. writes:
The proximate, immediate and supreme norm or rule of faith for a Catholic is the teaching of the living Magisterium of the Church, which is authentic and traditional. For, this magisterium gives the whole revealed teaching, its genuine meaning and true interpretation, and it takes care that at all times and everywhere it proposes the infallible, authentic and revealed doctrine.
Sacred Theology does not – contrary to what many may assume – begin with the study of Scripture and Tradition, but by first receiving the doctrine of the faith from the living magisterium of the Church. Nicolau writes:
Therefore, for 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.
Only having established what doctrine is proposed by the proximate rule, does the theologian turn to the remote rule. As Nicolau explains:
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.
 |
|
Pope Pius XII condemned the error that Catholics may appeal to Scripture and Tradition against the teaching of living magisterium of the Church in his 1953 encyclical letter Humani Generis, which was written “concerning some false opinions threatening to undermine the foundations of Catholic Doctrine.”
In this encyclical he teaches 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.
And he rejects the erroneous notion that theologians may determine the meaning of the teaching of the Holy See by interpretating it in the light of the writings of the ancients, that is, may re-interpret the proximate rule of faith in the light of the remote rule of faith. He writes:
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.
The approach that the pope is condemning, that of interpreting the proximate rule in the light of the remote rule, is the reverse of the approach outlined by Nicolau in the extracts above. Theologians ought first to establish what the Magisterium actually intends to teach.
Pius XII then proceeds to make clear that everyone must give consent to the ordinary teaching of the Supreme Pontiff, and not just his extraordinary teaching:
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.
Pius XII’s teaching should not be interpreted as discouraging the study of the sources of revelation. Indeed he expounds on the importance of studying the remote rule of faith:
It is also true that theologians must always return to the sources of divine revelation: for it belongs to them to point out how the doctrine of the living Teaching Authority is to be found either explicitly or implicitly in the Scriptures and in Tradition. Besides, each source of divinely revealed doctrine contains so many rich treasures of truth, that they can really never be exhausted. Hence it is that theology through the study of its sacred sources remains ever fresh; on the other hand, speculation which neglects a deeper search into the deposit of faith, proves sterile, as we know from experience.
But he explicitly condemns the appeal from the proximate to the remote rule of faith:
For, together with the sources of positive theology God has given to His Church a living Teaching Authority to elucidate and explain what is contained in the deposit of faith only obscurely and implicitly. This deposit of faith our Divine Redeemer has given for authentic interpretation not to each of the faithful, not even to theologians, but only to the Teaching Authority of the Church.
But if the Church does exercise this function of teaching, as she often has through the centuries, either in the ordinary or in the extraordinary way, it is clear how false is a procedure which would attempt to explain what is clear by means of what is obscure. Indeed, the very opposite procedure must be used. Hence Our Predecessor of immortal memory, Pius IX, teaching that the most noble office of theology is to show how a doctrine defined by the Church is contained in the sources of revelation, added these words, and with very good reason: ‘in that sense in which it has been defined by the Church.'
Thus, he condemns theologians who:
[J]udge the doctrine of the Fathers and of the Teaching Church by the norm of Holy Scripture, interpreted by the purely human reason of exegetes, instead of explaining Holy Scripture according to the mind of the Church which Christ Our Lord has appointed guardian and interpreter of the whole deposit of divinely revealed truth.
And thus, he concludes the encyclical with this injunction:
Let the teachers in ecclesiastical institutions be aware that they cannot with tranquil conscience exercise the office of teaching entrusted to them, unless in the instruction of their students they religiously accept and exactly observe the norms which We have ordained. That due reverence and submission which in their unceasing labor they must profess toward the Teaching Authority of the Church, let them instill also into the minds and hearts of their students.
It will be seen from these texts of Pius XII that the proximate rule of faith does not only consist of the extraordinary exercise of the Magisterium, that is a solemn definition of a pope or council, but also the ordinary exercise of the teaching authority bestowed by Christ. Indeed, it is to this “ordinary teaching authority” that the Supreme Pontiff applies the words of Christ, “He who hears you, hears Me.”
Pope Pius XI, in his 1930 encyclical letter Casti Connubii, also specifically rejects the error of reducing the assent due to papal teaching down to extraordinary definitions.
[I]t is quite foreign to everyone bearing the name of a Christian to trust his own mental powers with such pride as to agree only with those things which he can examine from their inner nature, and to imagine that the Church, sent by God to teach and guide all nations, is not conversant with present affairs and circumstances; or even that they must obey only in those matters which she has decreed by solemn definition as though her other decisions might be presumed to be false or putting forward insufficient motive for truth and honesty.
Quite to the contrary, 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.
The Magisterium of the Catholic Church is our proximate rule of faith in all her teaching, whether extraordinary or ordinary. A doctrine may always be proposed to us by the supreme exercise of the Church’s infallible teaching authority, but this does not mean that we are simply free to dismiss it, though the manner of our assent may differ according to the mode of the teaching.
It is important to note that – contrary to popular, and erroneous, opinion – papal exercise of the infallible teaching authority is not limited to solemn definitions. Theologian Anton Straub S.J. explains:
It must be noted that the Church’s magisterium is not promised a twofold infallibility, one for its solemn decisions, another for its ordinary, everyday activity.
Such a distinction is not to be found in Revelation; rather, infallibility is simply promised for ‘all days until the end of the world’ (Matthew 28:20). And indeed, infallible teaching is essential to the Church, but a certain solemnity of teaching is not essential to her; the councils from which the solemn doctrinal decrees of the entire episcopate derive are not at all necessary to the Church, let alone essential, and other teaching is also in no way bound to a solemn form.
All that is required for infallible teaching [on the part of the pope] is the self-evident fact that something is proposed as to be believed, i.e. that it is not presented as a provisional and conditional, but as an irrevocable and unconditional truth.
He continues:
The pope is precisely the infallible rock of the Church, the one who infallibly confirms all the brethren, the infallible shepherd of the whole flock of Christ not only on extraordinary occasions, but in the ordinary course of Church life.
As Straub argues, what matters for determining whether the pope infallibly proposes a doctrine for the belief of the universal Church, is whether it is proposed in a manner which is unconditional and definitive. All such teaching is infallible.
A good example would be the following statement in the papal encyclical Casti Connubii in which Pope Pius XI condemns the deliberate frustration of the procreative act. The Vicar of Christ taught:
Since, therefore, openly departing from the uninterrupted Christian tradition some recently have judged it possible solemnly to declare another doctrine regarding this question, the Catholic Church, to whom God has entrusted the defense of the integrity and purity of morals, standing erect in the midst of the moral ruin which surrounds her, in order that she may preserve the chastity of the nuptial union from being defiled by this foul stain, raises her voice in token of her divine ambassadorship and through Our mouth proclaims anew: any use whatsoever of matrimony exercised in such a way that the act is deliberately frustrated in its natural power to generate life is an offense against the law of God and of nature, and those who indulge in such are branded with the guilt of a grave sin.
The pope’s ordinary teaching, in encyclical letters and other documents, does not always propose a doctrine to us in this unconditional and definitive manner. But this does not mean that the pope is not exercising his ordinary teaching authority and that his teaching does not command an appropriate degree of assent from the Church. The ordinary teaching of the pope, according to Straub, can be exercised in the following ways:
Papal teaching is sometimes incidental, that is, the pope touches on a doctrine, while primarily treating of another, or uses one doctrine to illustrate or confirm the primary doctrine under discussion. Such incidental remarks are not infallible, but ‘they should not be despised in accordance with the more or less weight that is given to them by the sense of the Church.’
Papal teaching very often teaches doctrines that have already been definitively proposed elsewhere, without in that context proposing the doctrine in terms that are unconditional and definitive. The assent of faith must be given to this teaching, because of it has already been definitively proposed.
Papal teaching may teach a doctrine in a way which compels a measure of assent, without constituting an infallible definition. ‘There are,’ writes Straub, ‘expressions by which the sacred teachers, while obliging the mind… do not yet present a final, firm, or absolute assent.’ The assent which is given to these doctrines ‘may be said to be implicitly or interpretatively conditioned, insofar as a son of the Church, knowing that the teaching is not definitive, disposed in such a way that (while here and now rejecting doubt) he would not want to retain the firm assent to the matter held as true if the Church were ever to judge otherwise by a final and infallible sentence, or if he were to discover that the matter contradicted the truth.’
This is often called “religious assent.” It is the kind of assent of which Pius XII speaks when he states in Humani Generis:
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.’
Christ has endowed his Church with the right to teach, and we ought to give consent to her teaching, even when she does not exercise the fullness of her teaching authority. Indeed, most of Christian doctrine is proposed to the faithful in this way, and it is not the role of faithful to refuse assent to the ordinary teaching of the authorities constituted by Christ until they have been definitively ascertained by the individual believer to be infallible.
Of this Catholic disposition, Cardinal Newman wrote the following in a private letter to Edward Pusey:
It has always been trusted that the received belief of the faithful and the obligations of piety would cover a larger circuit of doctrinal matter than was formally claimed… Hence there has never been a wish on the part of the Church to cut clean between doctrine revealed and doctrine not revealed… because for that very reason she would be misrepresenting the real character of the dispensation, as God has given it, and would be abdicating her function, and misleading her children into the notion that she was something obsolete and passé, considered as a divine oracle, and would be transferring their faith from resting on herself as the organ of revelation (and in some sense improprié) as its formal object, simply to a code of certain definite articles or a written creed (or material object) if she authoritatively said that so much, and no more, is “de fide Catholica” and binding on our inward assent.
He continued:
Accordingly, the act of faith, as we consider, must now be partly explicit, partly implicit; viz. ‘I believe whatever ever has been and whatever shall be defined as revelation by the Church who is the origin of revelation’; or again, ‘I believe in the Church’s teaching, whether explicit or implicit,’ i.e. ‘Ecclesiae docenti et explicite et implicite.’
This rule applies both to learned and to ignorant; for, as the ignorant, who does not understand theological terms, must say, ‘I believe the Athanasian Creed in that sense in which the Church puts it forward,’ or, ‘I believe that the Church is veracious,’ so the learned, though they do understand the theological wording of that Creed, and can say intelligently what the ignorant cannot say, viz. ‘I believe that there are Three Aeterni, and one Aeternus,’ still have need to add, ‘I believe it because the Church has declared it,’ and, ‘I believe all that the Church has defined or shall define as revealed,’ and ‘I absolutely submit my mind with an inward assent to the Church, as the teacher of the whole faith.'
Catholics believe that Jesus Christ established His Church, and that she is a reliable teacher. We give assent to the teaching of her Sacred Magisterium, whether exercised in the extraordinary or ordinary mode.
We do not “sift” her teaching to decide for ourselves where it is be accepted, and where it is to be rejected, rather we, as Pope Pius XI wrote, suffer ourselves “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.”
False pastors must be rejected, not resisted
We have established that Catholics must take as their rule of faith the doctrine proposed by the Magisterium of the Catholic Church. This necessarily means identifying the true Church – by the four marks discussed in an earlier article – and then giving assent of intellect and will to her divinely guided Magisterium.
To give this assent of intellect and will to false teachers would be fatal to faith. Therefore, it is crucial to identify where the true Church and her authentic Magisterium is, and where she is not.
St. Robert Bellarmine explains:
I respond that the people indeed ought to discern the true prophet from the false, but by no other rule than by carefully attending to whether the one who preaches says things contrary to those taught by his predecessors, or to those taught by other lawful pastors, and especially by the Apostolic See and the principal Church; for the people are commanded to listen to their own pastors. Luke 10: ‘He that heareth you, heareth me.’ And Matthew 23: ‘What they say, do’ (Luke 10:16, Matthew 23:3).
Therefore, the people should not judge their pastor unless they hear something new and contrary to the doctrine of other pastors.
In other words, the faithful have the duty to assent to the teaching of their pastors, but they also have the ability to notice that there has been a deviation from the faith that has been previously taught. In such a case they have the duty to separate themselves from the false pastor who is teaching them a gospel other than that revealed by Christ. This is what St. Paul enjoins:
But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema. As we said before, so now I say again: If anyone preach to you a gospel, besides that which you have received, let him be anathema. (Gal 1:8-9)
Indeed, it is with reference to this passage of St. Paul, that Bellarmine continues: Furthermore, this is what Paul advises in Galatians 1: that we should anathematize those who teach new doctrines that are contrary to what has been preached before.
At this point it may be objected that ordinary Catholics do not have the ability, or the right, to judge whether or not someone is a heretic, and therefore they should wait for a judgment from the Church.
On the contrary, the ordinary faithful Catholic, when confronted with a pastor who teaches a false gospel, must refuse to recognize him precisely because the faithful are not in a position to judge their pastor’s doctrine and sift their teachings for what is true and what is false. True pastors, who exercise the authority of Christ, deserve obedience but false pastors must be rejected outright.
Therefore, Bellarmine writes:
Moreover, since the people are unlearned, they cannot otherwise judge the doctrine of their pastor.
For if they could judge by themselves, they would have no need of preachers: from which it follows that the doctrines of Luther, Calvin, and others like them who came of their own accord and preached new things that conflicted with the doctrine of all the pastors of the Church, ought to have been regarded with suspicion by the people of that time.
In fact, Bellarmine holds that while the unlearned cannot judge the doctrine of a pastor, even for “simple people” it “is easy to see whether he teaches things contrary to the other pastors.”
It is quite a different thing to recognize the identity of a false teacher than to recognize someone as a true teacher and then consistently refuse to be taught by him. In the first case, there is a simple recognition that the man is not in fact the one who possesses the authority to teach and consequent refusal to enter to a teacher-taught relation with that individual. In the second case, there is recognition that the teacher has authority to teach, but a determination only to receive the teaching when it agrees with the prior judgement of one being taught. In this case one professes verbally that a teacher-taught relation exists, but in practice no such relationship exists.
This analogy that may help to explain the problem.
A young man has been having Latin lessons and has made some progress in the subject under the authority of his Latin teacher. One day he arrives at the classroom and a stranger is taking the lesson. The stranger informs him that he is his new Latin teacher. However, once he begins the lesson, it is clear to the young man that the stranger is in fact teaching Spanish.
The young man now has a choice:
- He can recognize that he is confronted with a false teacher of Latin and refuse to receive instruction in Spanish. He is able to do this, even though he lacks specialist knowledge of Latin because his previous instruction, however simple, suffices.
2.He can recognize the stranger as a legitimate teacher of Latin, but refuse in practice to be taught by him, except when the teaching of Spanish grammar happens to align with that of Latin.
It would seem to be imprudent, indeed absurd, for a man to continue to recognize his teacher as a legitimate teacher of Latin, while refusing to receive any of his lessons, on the grounds that it is not Latin.
In neither case will the man actually have a Latin teacher. But the man who takes option one will have clarity about that fact, can begin to take action to resolve it, and will reduce the risk of having his Latin corrupted. The man in the second case, who recognizes and resists his own teacher, is left with the perpetual tension of sifting the teaching of a fraudster and is placing his Latin at serious risk.
The same thing is happening in the Church today. No one has a Supreme Teacher of the Catholic faith in Rome. But some continue to speak as if they do. The loss of peace that this causes, and the danger to the faith, is evident.
Proponents of “recognize and resist” openly, boldly – and accurately – proclaim that Francis is a heretic, and a purveyor of heresy, and yet at the same time they insist – often with harsh words for those who disagree – that Francis is at the same time also the Supreme Teacher of the Catholic faith, the Vicar of Jesus Christ, and the Visible Head of the Church Militant.
But if Francis is these things, then he is the proximate rule of the Catholic faith and the “living rule of faith” in his ordinary teaching, as well as in his extraordinary teaching.
The rejection of a universal catechism
In my previous article I drew attention to the significance of the amendment of the “Catechism of the Catholic Church” by Francis to include a new heretical doctrine on capital punishment. The false teaching proposed by Francis, in a doctrinal text intended to be used by all bishops to teach the Catholic faith, is as follows:
Consequently, the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that ‘the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person,’ and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide.
 |
| "Credo": every Catholic should have it |
On the other hand, Bishop Schneider, in his own catechetical text, presents the traditional doctrine of the Church on this question:
May a man ever kill legitimately, without being guilty of the sin of murder? Yes. Through his own voluntary actions, an individual may waive his right to life when: 1. The common good of social order is justly enforced by lawful authorities, as in the execution of criminals; 2. Legitimate defense is undertaken, as in just warfare or self-defense.
When does society have the right to inflict the death penalty?
The lawfully constituted public authority may put proven criminals to death for the most serious crimes when this is necessary to maintain social order in repairing injustice, protecting the innocent, deterring further crime, and summoning the criminal to true repentance and atonement.
- From whom do public authorities hold the right to execute criminals?
From God Himself, the sole master of life and death, whose justice the public authorities represent in society: ‘The authority does not bear the sword in vain’ (Rom 13:4).
The text of Bishop Schneider is in direct contradiction to the text of Francis. As is the text that Cardinal Burke, Cardinal Pujats, Archbishop Peta, Archbishop Lenga, and Bishop Schneider signed on 31 May 2019, which states:
In accordance with Holy Scripture and the constant tradition of the ordinary and universal Magisterium, the Church did not err in teaching that the civil power may lawfully exercise capital punishment on malefactors where this is truly necessary to preserve the existence or just order of societies.
We are in the presence of two contradictory doctrines. One, that proposed in the texts by Bishop Schneider, is in conformity with the doctrine Magisterium of the Church on this question. The other, proposed by Francis in his “ordinary magisterium,” directed to the universal Church, is directly contrary to the teaching of the Magisterium.
How then can we say that Catholics who faithfully adhere to the traditional doctrine are taking Francis as their proximate rule of faith on this question?
And if we extend our consideration to Catholic responses to Amoris Laetitia, Fiducia Supplicans, Laudato Si, and a myriad of other texts, it will become ever clearer that Catholics are habitually refusing assent to the ordinary magisterium of Francis.
The Catholic Church is a reliable teacher, not a false teacher
In 1943, when the world was engulfed in the horrors of the Second World War, Pope Pius XII promulgated his encyclical letter Mystici Corporis Christi “On the Mystical Body of Christ.” In it he teaches:
[O]ur Savior, by His death, became, in the full and complete sense of the word, the Head of the Church, it was likewise through His blood that the Church was enriched with the fullest communication of the Holy Spirit, through which, from the time when the Son of Man was lifted up and glorified on the Cross by His sufferings, she is divinely illumined.[…]
Just as at the first moment of the Incarnation the Son of the Eternal Father adorned with the fullness of the Holy Spirit the human nature which was substantially united to Him, that it might be a fitting instrument of the Divinity in the sanguinary work of the Redemption, so at the hour of His precious death He willed that His Church should be enriched with the abundant gifts of the Paraclete in order that in dispensing the divine fruits of the Redemption she might be, for the Incarnate Word, a powerful instrument that would never fail.
For both the juridical mission of the Church, and the power to teach, govern and administer the Sacraments, derive their supernatural efficacy and force for the building up of the Body of Christ from the fact that Jesus Christ, hanging on the Cross, opened up to His Church the fountain of those divine gifts, which prevent her from ever teaching false doctrine and enable her to rule them for the salvation of their souls through divinely enlightened pastors and to bestow on them an abundance of heavenly graces.
The Church of which Pius XII teaches is the true Church of Jesus Christ, the wholly reliable teacher, the indefectible vessel of divine grace, the Ark of Salvation which will never founder on the rocks of error. This is the Church which has Jesus Christ as her Divine Head, and it does not have Jorge Mario Bergoglio, as her Visible Head on Earth. Francis’ membership of the Church, and his exercise of any teaching authority within her, would be incompatible with her divinely established constitution and the indefectibility bestowed on her.
This is a challenging truth, but the opposing position – that Francis is the pope – – is impossible to reconcile with the principles of Catholic theology, as I have now argued in a number of articles.
Faithful Catholics today – that is, those who take the magisterium of the Catholic Church as their rule of faith – are living as though there is no pope even if they verbally recognize Francis as pope. They are habitually withholding assent to his ordinary teaching, as we have seen in the example of new doctrine on capital punishment proposed in the “Catechism of the Catholic Church”.
Some may object that they would be willing to accept any clearly infallible definition that Francis might make by virtue of the exercise of his extraordinary teaching authority.
However, a willingness to assent to the extraordinary magisterium of a claimant – even if sincere – is insufficient to be regarded as assent to him as the proximate rule of faith. This is because the pope is the rule of faith in his ordinary, as well as his extraordinary, magisterium.
It was of this “ordinary teaching authority” that Pope Pius XII taught that it was “it is true to say “He who heareth you, heareth me” a reference to the words of Christ which we quoted towards the beginning of this article.
He that heareth you, heareth me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth me; and he that despiseth me, despiseth him that sent me. (Lk 10:16)
And how many traditional Catholics would in fact accept an apparent extraordinary exercise of the papal magisterium by Francis without first having verified from the remote rule of faith, that his teaching could be accepted?
The Catholic who regards Francis and his collaborators as truly exercising authority in the Church finds himself in a state of constant conflict with those whom he regards as appointed by Christ to teach him. But Christ established His Church to lead us into all truth, not to teach us errors that we must then bravely resist.
As St. Robert Bellarmine taught: [I]t would be a miserable situation for the Church, if she were forced to acknowledge as her shepherd a manifestly raging wolf.
But this is the miserable situation in which many Catholics find themselves, due to their unnecessary and contradictory recognition of Francis as pope.
Sometimes truths may be seen more clearly in literature than in theological texts, and so I would like to close this article with an extract from Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson’s book The Religion of the Plain Man.
In this book he presents a dialogue between a priest and a potential convert from Anglicanism.
The priest, speaking about the differences between life as a Catholic and life as an Anglican, remarks: Then, for controversy we offer you peace. You will not find me opposing my bishop on a matter of doctrine or ceremonial; nor will you find our religious newspapers approving this or that prelate for his sound Catholic views.
All this is taken for granted with us; indeed it seems to me rather strange that it should be necessary even to say so.
You will not be required to make speeches about the advantages of confession, nor to listen to them, except perhaps occasionally from the pulpit. You will not be greeted as a champion of the Church when you profess yourself in favour of ‘non-communicating attendance.’ In fact, as one of our bishops once said to a complacent convert, you will have no position at all in the Catholic Church, except that of sitting below the pulpit and kneeling at the altar-rail.
Please do not think I am sneering. I fully realise the good faith of your old friends. I know perfectly well that they believe that it is their duty to maintain and propagate Catholic doctrines; and I thank God that they do so, so sincerely and courageously. Of course I should like to see them all Catholics; but, meantime, I am extremely glad that they are disseminating the Christian faith so far as they have received it. I admire their devotion, their single-heartedness, their courage, more than I can say. They are fighting a losing battle against fearful odds, and one cannot but respect them for it.
But it is necessary for you to understand that we are in quite a different position. It may be that you will think we are lacking in zeal; but you must remember that the occasional appearance of that rises not from our want of faith but from our supreme possession of it. We are so absolutely secure and confident that at times perhaps we do become a little unwary. But we have our prophets, as well as our geese, to give the alarm when the outworks are in danger. You will be a learner now, sir, instead of possibly a teacher; and in reward for that slight humiliation you will have peace instead of strife. You are a child at school again, not a scholar.
Catholic principles and Anglican principles differ. Those who persist in recognizing Francis as pope, while rejecting his errors, run the risk of becoming the “Traditional Wing” of the Conciliar-Synodal Church, which will parallel the “Catholic” wing of the Church of England.
And this ecumenical, all-encompassing Synodal Church, is openly being constructed by the one who calls himself the Vicar of Christ. To recognize that Francis is not the pope, and that the See of Rome is vacant, is not an easy conclusion to reach and its implications are grave. It means that the Church of Christ has been temporarily deprived of her Visible Head and that the voice of her Supreme Teacher has been temporarily silenced. But it also assures us that she is what she has always been, the infallible oracle of truth, which no error can stain. We have the joy of knowing that she has not defected, that she has not failed in her sacred mission, and one day soon, in God’s good time, the Voice of Christ’s Vicar will be heard in Rome again. Perhaps this realization will lead us to feel the joy that Monsignor Benson’s “plain man” felt after his conversion with the priest. As John left the presbytery that night, a scrap or two of Scripture ran in his head like a song.
‘Ye are come unto Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem; and to the company of many thousands of angels; and to the Church of the first-born who are written in heaven; and to God the Judge of all; and to the spirits of the just made perfect; and to Jesus.’
‘Behold the tabernacle of God with men.’
References
