UPDATE 5/31: Commentary from Fr. Joseph Fessio, Fr. John Zuhlsdorf, and Phil Lawler.
LifeSite reports that Prof. John Rist, one of the signatories of the recent open letter accusing Pope Francis of heresy, has abruptly been banned from all pontifical universities – which he learned one day by finding himself suddenly denied permission to park his car at the Augustinianum, where he had been doing research. Read the whole thing for the sorry details of the episode.
LifeSite reports that Prof. John Rist, one of the signatories of the recent open letter accusing Pope Francis of heresy, has abruptly been banned from all pontifical universities – which he learned one day by finding himself suddenly denied permission to park his car at the Augustinianum, where he had been doing research. Read the whole thing for the sorry details of the episode.
I
have been critical of the open letter, but this strikes me as undeservedly shabby
treatment. Whatever one thinks of his
views, Rist is not some hotheaded pamphleteer or hack blogger. He is a serious thinker, an eminent scholar
of classical and early Christian philosophy, the author of many important
books, a longtime professor at the Catholic University of America, and a loyal
and orthodox son of the Church. It seems
to me not irrelevant to point out that he is also 83 years old.
When Vatican
officials persistently refuse to address the actual substance of the arguments
of critics – and indeed, refuse even just to answer straightforward questions like
the dubia – and when heterodox Catholic academics and public intellectuals are
largely allowed free rein, this sort of action seems extremely petty, to say
the very least. Even dissidents like
Hans Küng and Charles Curran, who were disciplined by the Church under Pope St.
John Paul II, were first given due process and the opportunity to defend
themselves.
There is, to
my knowledge, no evidence that Pope Francis himself had anything to do with
what has happened. One hopes that,
should he learn of it, he will urge the relevant officials to show to Prof.
Rist the mercy that the pope has so heavily emphasized during his
pontificate.
At Twitter, Matthew
Schmitz calls
attention to the contrast between the treatment afforded Rist and the way
Cardinal Avery Dulles recommended dealing with dissidents. In
an earlier post, I discussed Pope Benedict XVI’s manner of dealing with
criticism.
"Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves."
ReplyDeleteOne hopes that, should he learn of it, he will urge the relevant officials to show to Prof. Rist the mercy that the pope has so heavily emphasized during his pontificate.
ReplyDeleteDo you sincerely believe this?
I am quite confident that Ed sincerely believes that Pope Francis has (in his various speeches, and in documents issued during his pontificate) often emphasized the word "mercy."
Delete(Note: Ed did not say, or even suggest, that he believes Pope Francis has in fact been particularly merciful during his pontificate; only that he has emphasized the topic. One can talk all day about a virtue without exercising it. Doesn't Hollywood frequently claim to oppose the objectification of women?)
This is a good example of a speech act. Ed saying that "well, given that he talks so much about mercy during his pontificate, we sure should expect him to show mercy to a conservative critic who is 180º opposite" has the connotation that Pope Francis is not going to do such an action.
DeleteGroundhog Day, again and again and again.
ReplyDeleteThis is no different from the 1960s and 1970s, when the changes came in and priests and laymen flooded Rome with complaints, appeals, and formal applications for redress. Silence, administrative persecution, or non-meaningful replies - you know, "we have received your complaint and we thank you for it, please see your bishop (who is currently spreading heresy/imposing the New Mass/permitting women to perform actions in the Sanctuary during Holy Mass/whatever outrage is your problem) who is your immediate father in Christ and we are sure he will act with all sweetness and charity and light and kindness and justice..."
I read the Rist interview linked to by Ed on the previous post, and it too was Groundhog Day. Much of what he said could have been copied from somebody orthodox writing in 1962, 1968, or 1978...
Much like the 19th century when priests complained that their bishops or penitents being unrepentant usurers. Response: Read Vix Pervenit and let them not be disturbed. Ground Hog Day has been going on for awhile.
DeleteOff topic as an outsider. I always thought that heresy would disqualify a pope. That is how I understood the general acceptance of norms and scandals by popes to not be a problem for a person to keep his office. I thought that however the line of heresy could not be crossed. Is this correct?
ReplyDeleteA pope cannot teach heresy because God won't allow it, not because the Church has some formal means of removing heretical popes. The latter isn't supposed to be a possibility. The controversy raging on this blog has been over whether that (for Catholics) impossibility has not only become possible, but has actually happened in the person of Pope Francis, and what it means for Catholicism. If a Pope in fact teaches heresy, it would seem to empirically falsify the claims the Church has made about itself (e.g. that it is protected by the Holy Spirit from teaching error).
DeleteI'm not taking a position on this issue one way or another, just illuminating what people think is at stake in the case of Pope Francis.
There is no Church teaching that a Pope cannot teach heresy. Papal infallibility means that he can't teach heresy and bind the whole Church to it. But he can teach heresy, even publicly, as a private theologian.
DeleteWell said dcs.
Delete"There is no Church teaching..." Well, that's the problem isn't it? Who is the final arbiter on what is or is not Church teaching on infallibility? Is it the same authority who is final arbiter on Church teaching on the death penalty?
DeleteThe discussion on this blog has prescinded from a discussion of what is Church teaching on the death penalty, to a discussion of what constitutes Church teaching on infallibility, as though we have any more authority to decide the answer to the latter question than we do the former. Pope Francis has given every indication that he means his death penalty teaching to be authoritative, and if you disagree with him, then you need to establish why your view is more authoritative than his. And if it is, then why not just say your view on the death penalty is more authoritative than the Pope's?
David,
DeleteI think DCS said it well, but could have said it a little better.
The better way to understand it, I think, is that the pope can teach or encourage heresy all day long; but if the pope attempts to exercise his Petrine office in a way that engages the charism of infallibility, then God will ensure (by whatever means He chooses) that the attempt will fail.
For example:
Imagine that Pope Francis were to attempt to write, sign, and publish a Papal Bull saying something along these lines: "I solemnly define and declare, by virtue of my Petrine Office, and in the exercise of my duty to confirm the brethren throughout the whole world, that the true doctrine of the Trinity, to be held by all the faithful, is that which states that there is one God, who is one Person, who acts in the role of Holy Spirit on some occasions, or as Father on other occasions, or as the Son on still other occasions." (I.e., the heresy of modalism.)
Now, as I understand it, God would simply not allow this to happen. Perhaps the pope would have a heart attack just before he set pen to paper. Or perhaps he would find himself thinking, "Eh, I'm hungry; I can always get back to this after lunch..." and then he'd never get around to completing the text. Or perhaps he and all his closest advisers would suddenly rush off a cliff and throw themselves into the sea. (There's precedent, after all.)
But the idea is that if something actually gets promulgated in a fashion that the charism of infallibility was engaged, then we have God's guarantee that it is true and we can embrace it. God does not override the pope's free will, nor does He ratify error; but He protects His Church, by whatever means He chooses to use.
@dcs - And there I think is the rub. No one, so far as I know, is basing suspicion or accusation of heresy on merely private conversations. They believe official documents of Francis such as Amoris laetitia and Laudato si contain errors. I'm not saying they do. Maybe they do, but I'm not an expert.
DeleteStill, when a man claiming to be the pope publishes an encyclical addressing the clergy and the general public under the auspices of being the pope of the Catholic Church and enters said document into the Acta Apostolicae Sedis, that by definition makes it both a public and official act of the Holy See. It is most certainly not the musings of a private theologian, whatever else he may do for a living. And Amoris laetitia has in fact been entered into the Acta.
If that doesn't matter to you, then there's nothing more I can say except pray this nightmare ends soon.
God bless you all, and Dr. Feser.
Yes, that is what I said in my first sentence. A pope cannot teach heresy because God won't allow it. He will prevent it through whatever divine intervention is necessary - a heart attack, whatever. Which is why the Church has no protocol for removing heretical popes - they are a theoretical impossibility.
DeleteSo what happens when, in actual fact, a Pope appears to contradict centuries of settled Church teaching, as Francis has done with respect to the death penalty? The options are to either concede that the Church has been wrong in her self-understanding, or deny that the contradiction really counts (because it doesn't fit the definition of an infallible teaching, for example). The problem (for me) with the latter try is that the historic teaching on the death penalty is clear and consistent, and certainly more clear and consistent than the specific requirements for an infallible teaching, so moving the discussion from the death penalty to infallibility doesn't make it any more tractable. And, in any case, the final arbiter as to the requirements of infallibility is the same as it is for the death penalty - the Pope. And while people on this blog insist the Pope's teaching on the death penalty does not carry the full weight of the authority of the Magisterium, I see no indication that Pope Francis feels that way.
Yes, that is what I said in my first sentence. A pope cannot teach heresy because God won't allow it.
DeleteHe can't teach heresy *in a way that binds the faithful to believe it*. He can teach heresy in a way that doesn't, however -- e.g., John XXII on the beatific vision.
And, in any case, the final arbiter as to the requirements of infallibility is the same as it is for the death penalty - the Pope.
Actually, no, it's the First Vatican Council, which holds that:
"when the Roman pontiff speaks EX CATHEDRA, that is, when,
1. in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians,
2. in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority,
3. he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole church,
he possesses, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, that infallibility which the divine Redeemer willed his church to enjoy in defining doctrine concerning faith or morals."
Now I do not think that this can mean just anything the pope says and teaches even in an official capacity, otherwise there'd be no need to qualify it with those three conditions.
Regarding the death penalty affair, I don't think it counts, since (1) the catechism is simply a compendium of Catholic teaching and does not, by itself, carry any particular authority; (2) Francis has not indicated that support for the change is necessary to remain a Catholic in good standing, as for example the Vatican I definition just quoted goes on to do ("So then, should anyone, which God forbid, have the temerity to reject this definition of ours: let him be anathema"); and (3) the phrasing of the change is itself ambiguous as to whether capital punishment is inherently wrong ("contrary to the spirit of the Gospel") or simply unnecessary (improvements in prison technology having rendered long-term imprisonment a viable way of dealing with offenders), and the faithful cannot be expected to adhere to an ambiguous teaching; moreover, if we are expected to oppose capital punishment because it's no longer necessary, that's a practical judgement, not a judgement concerning "faith and morals", and therefore not protected by the charism of infallibility.
Now I do not think that this can mean just anything the pope says and teaches even in an official capacity...
DeleteUnfortunately, your private opinion on what it means carries no more authority than does mine. People want to give the Pope the authority to speak ex cathedra on faith and morals, but reserve to themselves the authority to decide when those conditions for an ex cathedra teaching are actually met. But the Church doesn't distinguish its authority that way. Want to know when the Pope is speaking authoritatively? Ask him. He has the authority to decide that, not us. Which some of the bishops have done, and the Pope refuses to answer. So the Pope seems content, at least, to not contradict people who think he is speaking authoritatively.
I also think we misunderstand the purpose of conciliar documents. Their purpose is not to grant to the laity an independent ground from which to criticize the clergy or decide for themselves when the clergy are teaching with authority. The authoritative interpreters of conciliar documents are bishops and the Pope, the first among equals. That this Pope has not made clear when he is teaching with authority and when he is not does not give the laity license to make the decision for themselves. It just means that the Pope is sowing confusion on many different fronts. It's hard to avoid the impression that he is deliberately sowing confusion, which is in some ways worse than being a straightforward heretic. At least with the latter we know what the problem is and can make a unified response with respect to it. The confusion the Pope has sown has had the effect of confusing his critics while undermining orthodoxy has surely as outright heterodoxy would. Maybe that is the point.
DeleteDavid T.
DeleteYou keep committing the Fastiggi fallacy of assuming that anytime someone gives an argument, that counts as "relying on their own authority" and thus is a kind of "private judgment." That would have the absurd consequence that even someone who says "I agree with Pope Francis 100% on capital punishment because that is what the Church requires me to do" is relying on his own authority, and thus on private judgment, when he reasons that this is what the Church wants him to do.
In short, you are appealing to a caricature of what the Church teaches vis-a-vis private judgment. When the theologians of John XXII's time criticized him (criticism he ended up accepting), when Aquinas affirmed that a Catholic could rebuke his prelate for heresy even publicly, when Donum Veritatis affirms that a theologian can raise legitimate questions about magisterial statements that are defective in some way, etc., none of them are guilty of "private judgment." In every case, what is in view is calling to the magisterium's attention other things that the magisterium itself says, and asking for consistency. That is not a matter of relying on one's own authority but on the contrary, asking for clear and consistent teaching from the relevant authority. When the authority seems to be contradicting itself, it is impossible to follow it, because you don't yet even know what it is saying.
That is what is going on with Francis right now. People aren't saying "I'm going to follow my own authority on this." They're saying "I want to follow the Church's authority, but I'm getting mixed signals."
You might respond: "But the critics won't accept any answer on e.g. capital punishment that contradicts past teaching." That's exactly correct, but that's not because the critics are guilty of private judgement, but rather, on the contrary, because they are relying on the magisterial judgment of millennia, including all past popes who have spoken on the subject. As long as some current statement seems to contradict traditional teaching, the message will by definition be a mixed and inconsistent one rather than a clear explanation of what exactly someone is being told to assent to.
Indeed, one of the things that the magisterium itself says is that the Church cannot contradict two millennia of consistent teaching on a matter of faith and morals. It is the authority itself that thereby acknowledges that the faithful are not obliged to accept anything that contradicts such a teaching.
Your position makes of the magisterium that can say "Affirm both p and not-p!" and then condemn you for private judgment when you don't affirm both -- which, of course, you can't. That's Orwellianism, not Catholicism, and despotism rather than authority.
Ed,
DeleteSee my comment on modernists near the bottom of this blogpost. It's not really just to judge them... because they're not doing it on purpose.
Indeed, one of the things that the magisterium itself says is that the Church cannot contradict two millennia of consistent teaching on a matter of faith and morals. It is the authority itself that thereby acknowledges that the faithful are not obliged to accept anything that contradicts such a teaching.
DeleteYour position makes of the magisterium that can say "Affirm both p and not-p!" and then condemn you for private judgment when you don't affirm both -- which, of course, you can't. That's Orwellianism, not Catholicism, and despotism rather than authority.
According to Francis, the Magisterium is not saying p and not-p with respect to, e.g. the death penalty. He claims Church teaching has not really changed, that the Church has always put the dignity of the human person first and just understands more deeply today what that requires than they did in the past. The fundamental teaching is about human dignity and that hasn't changed.
Yes, theologians can argue with the pope and point out that his teaching appears to contradict past doctrinal statements, and ask for consistency. Fair enough. But Francis has heard these objections and is satisfied that he is consistent with past teaching.
How do we take that? Do we continue to insist that Francis is simply wrong that there is in fact consistency? Francis is the living voice of the Magisterium. Your position implies that the Magisterium is not a single voice but multiple voices - at least, the present voice of Pope Francis and the past voices encapsulated in authoritative documents. And it's up to our individual judgment whether the present voice of the Magisterium is in fact consistent with past voices (and, perhaps, whether those past voices are consistent with each other). This seems to me a rather Protestant understanding of the Magisterium.
David, you're right, but so is Ed. "Private judgement" doesn't refer merely to the judgement of the individual, it refers to the standard against which we judge. The protestant judges by his own private standard, Catholics refer to the teaching of the Church. And if this weren't legitimate, indeed normal, then the faith would not be rational, but fideism.
DeleteOn the other hand, apparent authority declaring error is a real problem, not merely the kind of irritating triviality that so many conservatives reduce it to.
Rist and co. are following superb example in history, such as SAINT Bruno, who told Pascal II that if he didn't repudiate his heretical agreement with the emperor, you won't be pope.
How about we imitate Christ in his saints rather than work it all out for ourselves?
Aquinian, a Protestant would say he's not using a private standard, he's using the standard of Scripture. The problem, of course, is that Scripture is not self-interpreting. I think Scripture clearly and explicitly teaches the doctrine of the Eucharist but Protestants, including ones of good will, disagree with me.
DeleteNeither are conciliar documents self-interpreting, anymore than is Scripture. Some Catholics, including bishops, think Francis is inconsistent with prior conciliar documents, just as Protestants think he is inconsistent with Scripture. They have made their views known to the Pope, with arguments, a perfectly valid act in the Catholic Tradition, as Ed points out. Francis has heard them, and disagrees. He thinks he is consistent with the Tradition.
It seems to be Ed's view that, as long as Francis is not consistent with our private interpretation of Magisterial documents from the past, we may hold the Magisterium isn't really teaching anything at all, because it is contradicting itself. In other words, Francis is just wrong that he is harmony with the tradition until his interpretation of the Tradition agrees with mine.
What this misses is that the Pope, as the living voice of the Tradition, speaks for the tradition as a whole, and so when he insists that he is in conformity with the tradition, his opinion carries authority and ours doesn't. This is exactly what JP2 and B16 did with respect to Vatican II. They taught authoritatively that certain liberal interpretations of the council were just wrong. It doesn't matter whether individual Catholics disagreed with their interpretations of conciliar documents. Rome had spoken, and speaks with authority not only on contemporary teaching, but the meaning of the historic Magisterium for contemporary times.
Francis is doing the same thing, but with results that are a lot more disturbing, because he seems to be clearly contradicting past teaching. I find the whole thing a challenge to my faith.
Aquinian, a Protestant would say he's not using a private standard, he's using the standard of Scripture... Neither are conciliar documents self-interpreting, anymore than is Scripture.
DeleteBut why are papal utterances immune from this problem? Why isn't every utterance of any kind whatsoever? If the pope -- or anyone else, for that matter -- says "Amoris Laetitia is in accordance with Church teaching", then you have to interpret the meaning of those words, just as when the Council of Trent says "If any man shall say that the moral law is impossible to keep even for one in a state of grace, let him be anathema" you have to interpret what *those* words mean.
More generally, I think you're setting up a false dichotomy here. Yes, not everything in the Deposit of Faith is clear, and papal authority is necessary to resolve disputes which arise from time to time; but it doesn't follow that nothing is clear, or that it is impossible to interpret any of it without asking the pope. Indeed, the whole reason Francis is troubling so many people is precisely because the relevant parts of Church Tradition -- i.e., the indissolubility of marriage and capital punishment -- are clear enough for us to say that Francis is contradicting them.
Want to know when the Pope is speaking authoritatively? Ask him. He has the authority to decide that, not us. Which some of the bishops have done, and the Pope refuses to answer. So the Pope seems content, at least, to not contradict people who think he is speaking authoritatively.
There you go with your private interpretation of what the pope's actions mean...
More seriously, whilst the pope hasn't out and said "No, I wasn't teaching authoritatively," he *also* hasn't out and said "Yes, I was teaching authoritatively, now get into line or I'll start throwing anathemas around." So by your argument, until the Pope offers a clarification, Catholics are free to take either position as they see fit.
Also, it seems to me that your argument is caught on the horns of a dilemma. On the one hand, your claim that we can't say that the Pope is contradicting Tradition because Tradition isn't self-interpreting requires that we can't interpret Tradition on our own because it's too opaque. If this is the case, then we can just accept Francis' claims that his teaching is in line with the Magisterium without any problem. Problems only arise because, as you say, Francis "seems to be clearly contradicting past teaching". But we can only say that if past teaching is, in fact, clear enough (at least on the relevant topics) for us to reliably tell what does and does not contradict it. But if this is the case, then we can in fact say that the Pope is contradicting past teaching.
DeleteTl;dr: Either we're incapable of interpreting Tradition without the Pope, in which case we have no grounds for saying that PF's latest stuff is contrary to Tradition; or we can interpret (at least some parts of) Tradition with our ordinary non-papal intellects, in which case there is no difficulty in saying that the Pope is contradicting Tradition. (I mean no logical difficulty; obviously there is practical difficulty, and depending on the nature and seriousness of the contradiction there might well be theological difficulty as well.)
David, it is much more simple than you are taking it to be.
DeleteThere are teachings of the Church, which are in a hierarchy of being authoritative. Not all are infallible. Of the ones that are (which we know by their nature; for example, it is defined that a pope teaching in union with all the bishops would be infallible, as well would a papal declaration with the intention of using his authroity to declare to the entirety of Christendom, as Vatican I defined it), there can be no error.
There are legitimate criteria for determining how binding a teaching is; it is not arbitrary.
The pope changing the catechism is not exactly an authoritative declaration he intends to bind on all Christians. The catechism is sort of (as I understand it) like a summary of a great, huge book that is Church teaching. A summary getting something wrong does not mean the actual book got it wrong, or even that the actual book even comments on it.
Saying that a pope cannot be a heretic would be quite a surprise to ie Bellarmine, who talked about what he thought would happen if it were to occur (legally speaking), and it would definitely be a surprise to the Church when various popes were tried for/declared to hold heresy (posthumously).
Your faith need not be challenged by this, but rather this can be a chance to grow in Faith and understanding! Look up "Bishop Athanasius Schneider in the event of a heretical pope" and try to find the full text. God bless.
BTW, Ed has a good post on the different levels of authority enjoyed by various types of teaching here: http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2015/11/papal-fallibility.html
DeleteThank you for your answers to my question. I see the issue is complicated. But the link to that last post by Dr Feser certainly helps make things more clear.
DeleteI've done some more reflecting on this and I can perhaps state more clearly what is troubling me.
DeleteI was a cradle Catholic, left the Church, then later came back. One of the most powerful pieces of apologetics for me was the point that the Church, throughout its history, has avoided being captured by the "Spirit of the Age." It has of course been heavily influenced by it, corrupted by it, but it has never succumbed to it the way other institutions, indeed all other institutions have.
Most impressively in recent history is Paul VI's reaffirmation of the Catholic rejection of contraception in Humanae Vitae, when all the world, including a great many Catholics, took it as given that he would affirm contraception. Later, JP2's and B16's pushback against the false interpretation of Vatican II was also impressive. The Popes, as successors to Peter, the Rock on which the Church is built, are the final break against the corruption of the Church.
This goes all the way back through history. There have been bad Popes, sinful Popes, even Popes put on the throne precisely for the purpose of changing the Church to reflect the Spirit of the Age. And yet, they have not done it. This is Chesterton's "Romance of Orthodoxy", the Church thundering through history, holding to its orthodoxy despite all expectations and temptations. It is William F. Buckley's Church that is 2,000 years out of date rather than 10 years out of date and huffing and puffing to catch up.
Well, with Francis, it seems like the Church is huffing and puffing to catch up. Francis appears to indeed have been captured by the Spirit of the Age. This isn't a Pope that happened to teach something heretical in a private letter, or some other one-off instance. It's a Pope that has been systematically undermining the historic teaching of the Church on matters of faith and morals.
Amoris Laetitia was published more than 3 years ago. There hasn't been a groundswell of opposition from bishops to it. Some bishops submitted a dubia, which Francis ignored, and nothing has come of it since. Neither has there been any great opposition to Francis's other innovations on the death penalty and otherwise. That's what makes the open letter so pathetic: It's something the bishops should be doing but have no interest in. They seem content to go along with Francis in surrendering to the Spirit of the Age.
The response here seems to be to fallback on technicalities concerning when or when not the Pope's teaching is infallible or authoritative, and rest content that whatever Francis says, it poses no threat to the historic understanding of the Church.
For me that misses the point. The Romance of Orthodoxy is impressive because the Church might surrender to the Spirit of the Age at any time, but never has. But if a Church surrender to the Spirit of the Age is a conceptual impossibility, because we've defined things such that technicalities can always save us from admitting that it has happened, the Church is a far less impressive institution than I thought.
"Neither are conciliar documents self-interpreting, anymore than is Scripture. Some Catholics, including bishops, think Francis is inconsistent with prior conciliar documents, just as Protestants think he is inconsistent with Scripture." - David T.
DeleteDavid, this common parallel between the Protestant and the 'Traditionalist' is too shallow; like all fallacies, it is based on appearances... For at first it seems that both are relying on their own interpretation of an authoritative text to oppose the authority having the sole prerogatives of interpretation.
But the documents of the Magisterium are different from Scripture in this regard. While the Church interprets Scripture for us by her teaching (her Magisterium) and at times with special solemnity in certain decrees and councils, we cannot say that we need the Magisterium to interpret the Magisterium, for then we would need the Magisterium to interpret the interpretation, and so on ad infinitum. No act of the Magisterium would then be sufficiently intelligible to require our faith.
Nor does it generally take a second act of the Magisterium to give authority to a first act of the Magisterium; the faithful do not in principle need a second infallible declaration to determine whether a first declaration was infallible. On the other hand, the authority of the Scripture is made ‘visible’ (and thus made a required object of faith) to the faithful by the Magisterium.
The Protestant undermines the objective criterion of faith (the teachings of the Church) by appealing to his own deficient judgment in interpreting Scripture over and above the Magisterium. On the other hand, the Traditionalist appeals to this very criterion, as expressed in the catechism and the various acts of the Magisterium, to reprove a teaching coming from the holders of the highest authority, but which cannot be ‘Magisterium’ because it is in contradiction with, or unheard of in, past teachings.
Someone may here object that the Traditionalist undermines the ‘living’ Magisterium by appealing to past teachings, and that this is a problem because the ‘living’ Magisterium of the past was the source of those written acts... thus engaging in a kind of self-contradiction. However, this is the same failure to look beyond appearances. For the person having the teaching authority is not the proximate and per se cause of an infallible teaching, but only the authorized person engaged in the act of teaching infallibly, as can be objectively determined by considering the conditions of the act.
That for most faithful the per se proximate cause (the infallible act) is less apparent than the accidental cause (the person of the pope) does not make the Traditionalist position illogical; it only makes it more important. For when a pope errs there is the gravest danger of scandal in the Church.
This is not pride or hypocrisy. It is simply being faithful to Christ’s eternal love, following the advice of the apostle Saint Paul who told the Galatians that should he come to teach them something contrary to what he had previously taught them, they should not listen to him. (Gal 1: 8)
But the documents of the Magisterium are different from Scripture in this regard. While the Church interprets Scripture for us by her teaching (her Magisterium) and at times with special solemnity in certain decrees and councils, we cannot say that we need the Magisterium to interpret the Magisterium, for then we would need the Magisterium to interpret the interpretation, and so on ad infinitum. No act of the Magisterium would then be sufficiently intelligible to require our faith.
DeleteThis seems to be a Cartesian understanding of Magisterial teaching: It is so clear and distinct as to be impossible of misinterpretation. And if it isn't, then it can't command our assent in faith.
But it manifestly is open to misinterpretation. Nevertheless, the fact that it is open to misinterpretation is not an excuse to avoid submitting to the teaching authority of the Church.
Indeed, the belief that Magisterial teaching has been so misinterpreted with respect to the death penalty (by Francis and plenty of bishops, no less), is the whole reason for the current thread on this blog. Well, if Francis can misinterpret the historic teaching of the Magisterium, can't we?
The question is how such competing interpretations are to be resolved. One way is to insist that historic Magisterial documents are so manifestly clear that only a single legitimate interpretation (ours, it turns out) is possible. This carries the unfortunate logic that anyone who disagrees with us must harbor a bad will, since our disagreement can't be one of honest misinterpretation since Magisterial documents (by hypothesis) aren't open to that.
The other is to acknowledge that the office of the Pope was instituted by Christ precisely to resolve such controversies. Paul told the Galatians not to listen to him should he contradict himself. He also corrected their misinterpretations of his prior teachings. That's the point of having a living voice as a teacher: Misinterpretations are always possible, and a living voice can correct them. And, yes, it is an ongoing and even infinite process, since human understanding is always fallible.
I think Francis has clearly contradicted prior teaching in AL and on the death penalty. But then, many Catholics, including many learned theologians and bishops, do not think he has. They think these things are legitimate developments of doctrine. How is this possible if historic Magisterial documents are not open to misinterpretation?
The Catholic Church's self-understanding is that she holds the promise of the Holy Spirit to protect her from error. This promise was one of contingent fact: The Church might possibly teach error, but the Holy Spirit would prevent that from actually happening.
It seems people have a different understanding of the Church: The Holy Spirit has made it a conceptual impossibility for the Church to teach error. No instance of apparent contradiction, by Francis or anyone else, can count as a contradiction since such contradiction is impossible. QED.
I don't think this acknowledges the real challenge that Francis poses to our faith. If his pontificate really does force us to change our understanding of the Church from one that is contingently protected from error, to one that is conceptually impossible of error, we've given the game away of the Catholic Church as an historically miraculous institution. No one needs a miracle to avoid the conceptually impossible.
I'm not there yet, but I'm not going to take what I think is the easy way out.
@ David T:
DeleteI think you're over-thinking the communication issue TBH. Despite the vagaries of human language, people manage to successfully communicate all the time. I see no reason why that shouldn't be the case just because the communication in question takes the form of a Magisterial document. Indeed, it has to be the case that at least *some* Magisterial teaching is comprehensible without further clarification, otherwise you end up with the infinite regress problem which Thomas L. C. raises.
The question is how such competing interpretations are to be resolved. One way is to insist that historic Magisterial documents are so manifestly clear that only a single legitimate interpretation (ours, it turns out) is possible. This carries the unfortunate logic that anyone who disagrees with us must harbor a bad will, since our disagreement can't be one of honest misinterpretation since Magisterial documents (by hypothesis) aren't open to that.
Well, there's a reason why obstinate heretics were considered sinners and not just mistaken. When Arius and his followers went around denying the consubstantiality of the Father and the Son, Athanasius didn't say "Oh, it looks like the Nice Creed wasn't clear enough, since poor old Arius has misinterpreted it," he said "Arius is a bad and arrogant person, because he denies the clear teaching of the Church as laid down in the Council of Nicaea."
The Catholic Church's self-understanding is that she holds the promise of the Holy Spirit to protect her from error. This promise was one of contingent fact: The Church might possibly teach error, but the Holy Spirit would prevent that from actually happening. It seems people have a different understanding of the Church: The Holy Spirit has made it a conceptual impossibility for the Church to teach error. No instance of apparent contradiction, by Francis or anyone else, can count as a contradiction since such contradiction is impossible. QED.
DeleteI understand your concerns here, but I don't think the two positions are as exclusive as you suggest. If we accept, for the sake of argument, that a contradiction of settled doctrine would ipso facto be unable to be magisterial, this only guarantees that the Church doesn't teach error if the settled doctrine is itself correct. Basically, I think there are three main stages in the development of doctrine:
1. The Church does not yet have a clear position on the issue, and hence Catholics can hold two or more positions without committing heresy (think of the mediaeval debates surrounding the Immaculate Conception, for example).
2. The Church, either through an ex Cathedra papal pronouncement or through an Ecumenical Council, defines the doctrine.
3. Since the doctrine has now been defined, any denial of it would contradict the Magisterium, and hence said denial could not itself be magisterial.
Now, even if it is conceptually impossible for the Church to magisterially contradict settled doctrine, this in itself doesn't guarantee that it is conceptually impossible for the Church to teach error, since it might be the case, absent divine protection, that the original doctrine is itself wrong. If Nicaea was wrong to embrace Trinitarianism, or if Pius IX was wrong to define the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, then not only would the Church be currently teaching error, but it would be conceptually impossible for her to ever teach truth, since any affirmation of the truth would ex hypothesi have to count as non-magisterial.
Also, it seems to me that there's contradiction and contradiction. Somebody, whose name I've since forgotten, once put it that the guarantee of the Church's truth is fundamentally a guarantee that we'll never have to choose between heresy and schism. So, whereas Francis might use all sorts of ambiguities and underhand tactics to undermine Catholic doctrine, the Holy Spirit would not let him demand assent to heresy as a condition for being in communion with the Holy See. Compare that to the situation in many Protestant Churches, where to be a member in good standing you often have to sign up to various propositions contrary to those of historic Christianity, and often even contrary to those which the very same denomination held not that long ago.
'But it manifestly is open to misinterpretation.' David T.
DeleteI am not as certain as you that misinterpretations are possible. The acts of the Magisterium are readily understood when approached with sufficient philosophical and theological education to understand the very precise and technical wordings that is generally used. This language is of such high precision in order to make misinterpretation impossible.
It is of course possible to be intellectually corrupted by an Heraclitean philosophy, (as it appears many in the clergy unfortunately are) and to no longer correctly understand what is readily understood. As Benedict XVI used to say: "That's not a contradiction, that's an evolution!" Unfortunately, the continuity of Catholic doctrine is not the continuity of an evolution... It seems Francis operates with a similar mindset.
Saint Paul corrected prior teaching that had been misunderstood? What are you referring to exactly?
One of the roles of the papacy is indeed to resolve disputes that arise over the contents of faith. The dispute can be resolved by a definition. But once the definition is made saying "such and such is part of the deposit of the faith," then further dispute is not longer legitimate. Further disputes are condemned ipso facto by the definition's anathema.
In none of this is there any 'intellectual squirming' to make it conceptually impossible for the Church to err. It is on the one hand a more precise and accurate understanding of the Church's teaching power (these contradictions never appear in acts bearing the marks of a solemn definition), and on the other hand, an act of faith.
Catholics today who perceive the contradictions are like the apostles during the passion of our Lord. How can this be? How long will this last? How far will it go? God knows. But we must hold fast to the conviction that Christ is God and that the gates of hell will not prevail again His Church. Ave Maria.
'But it manifestly is open to misinterpretation.' David T.
DeleteI am not as certain as you that misinterpretations are possible. The acts of the Magisterium are readily understood when approached with sufficient philosophical and theological education to understand the very precise and technical wordings that is generally used. This language is of such high precision in order to make misinterpretation impossible.
It is of course possible to be intellectually corrupted by an Heraclitean philosophy, (as it appears many in the clergy unfortunately are) and to no longer correctly understand what is readily understood. As Benedict XVI used to say: "That's not a contradiction, that's an evolution!" Unfortunately, the continuity of Catholic doctrine is not the continuity of an evolution... It seems Francis operates with a similar mindset.
Saint Paul corrected prior teaching that had been misunderstood? What are you referring to exactly?
One of the roles of the papacy is indeed to resolve disputes that arise over the contents of faith. The dispute can be resolved by a definition. But once the definition is made saying "such and such is part of the deposit of the faith," then further dispute is not longer legitimate. Further disputes are condemned ipso facto by the definition's anathema.
In none of this is there any 'intellectual squirming' to make it conceptually impossible for the Church to err. It is on the one hand a more precise and accurate understanding of the Church's teaching power (these contradictions never appear in acts bearing the marks of a solemn definition), and on the other hand, an act of faith.
Catholics today who perceive the contradictions are like the apostles during the passion of our Lord. How can this be? How long will this last? How far will it go? God knows. But we must hold fast to the conviction that Christ is God and that the gates of hell will not prevail again His Church. Ave Maria.
Thomas, in 1 Corinthians 15:1-19, Paul reminds the Corinthians of the Gospel he preached to them, and corrects some of them who nonetheless think there is no resurrection from the dead. Clearly, there were some Corinthian Christians who had heard Paul's teaching but nonetheless thought there was no resurrection.
DeleteI am not as certain as you that misinterpretations are possible. The acts of the Magisterium are readily understood when approached with sufficient philosophical and theological education to understand the very precise and technical wordings that is generally used
But the point of having the office of the Pope is to save everyone from having to become philosophers and theologians to have confidence in knowing what the Church teaches. A "well-catechized" Catholic in the traditional meaning is a Catholic, not necessarily an academic, who is well-versed in the Church's teaching on doctrine and practice, through catechisms or the teaching of (living) priests and bishops. It isn't a Catholic who has vetted contemporary Church teaching against historical Church teaching so he can sift out the truth from bogus innovations. The Church is supposed to have already done that for him.
That is what faith in the Church as guided by the Holy Spirit is supposed to mean. It means I can be confident I'm getting the authentic Gospel from the Church today, and based on what I'm taught, I can go about my life (as engineer, as a father, etc.) knowing I am living in the truth without the need to scrutinize everything the Pope says against the totality of Church history. What I'm getting from you is that the promise of the Holy Spirit only means that I'm authorized to reject anything the Pope says if I conclude it is not consistent with historic teaching - not that I can be confident that the Pope won't teach me a bogus innovations. If that's what the promise of the Holy Spirit really is, it really hasn't saved me from much.
I understand that a Pope might teach things unofficially or in an off-hand manner that are not correct - of course. That's not what is happening here. Amoris Laetitia is not an offhand remark but an official publication. Francis has updated the Catechism to reflect his teaching on the death penalty. Well, if the Catechism can no longer be trusted to provide the truth of the Catholic Faith, what the @#$%^! good is it? The whole point of the Catechism is to save Catholics from having to engage in a research project to find out the truth of the Gospel in all its fullness. That's the advantage we Catholics have over Protestants: In order to know the truth, every Protestant has to be biblical scholar, since there is no living voice of authority who can be trusted to have done the research for him. But it turns out that Catholics must spend their time in research projects as well, since he can't trust the living voice of the Church to teach him the truth.
I haven't lost my faith. My faith is challenged by Francis because he seems to be undermining the trust Catholics can have in the teaching authority of the living Church, which is one of the basic reasons for being a Catholic. Suggestions that Francis's teaching shouldn't be worrisome, because it is merely one bit of evidence in an ongoing personal research project to sift out the truth against historic Church teaching, doesn't help.
Thomas, your last paragraph is very good and expresses my feelings. I haven't lost my faith, but I'm very troubled by what is happening. I think we should all pray for Pope Francis.
DeleteBut I will say, the state of the Apostles you describe was their state before both the Resurrection and Pentecost. Post Pentecost, the Apostles confidently proclaimed the Gospel because they had received the Holy Spirit. So, the Apostles had an excuse during the passion - they hadn't received the Holy Spirit. What's their excuse now?
DeleteThat is what faith in the Church as guided by the Holy Spirit is supposed to mean. It means I can be confident I'm getting the authentic Gospel from the Church today, and based on what I'm taught, I can go about my life (as engineer, as a father, etc.) knowing I am living in the truth without the need to scrutinize everything the Pope says against the totality of Church history.
DeleteI don't think that's what the guidance of the Holy Spirit is meant to entail, because there have been plenty of times before now when people couldn't be confident that they were getting the Gospel from their priests and bishops. E.g., at the height of the Arian crisis, some 80-90% of the world episcopate were either open heretics or tacitly supporting heresy by teaching ambiguously and maintaining communion with those who were openly heretical. Pope Honorius I supported the monothelite heresy, for which he was posthumously anathematised. Pope John XXII taught that the souls of the dead do not enjoy the Beatific Vision until after the General Resurrection, for which he was roundly criticised and eventually forced to recant. During the Great Western Schism, there were as many as three people claiming to be the true Pope, with no easy way of telling who was correct. During the sixteenth century, large sections of the clergy knew practically no theology and often didn't even have enough Latin to understand what they were saying at Mass, which was a major factor in the rapid falling-away of entire countries to the Protestant heresy.
Many of these crises involved the pope himself, and even when they didn't, that wasn't really much help for most people. If you were a sixteenth-century Norwegian peasant, chances are that you wouldn't be literate even in Norwegian, let alone in Latin, and even if you somehow had picked up the language you wouldn't have had been able to access any official papal documents. Hence simply following what the pope said wouldn't have been an option for you; you had to rely on your local priest, and if he didn't know what he was talking about, then tough luck, because you weren't going to get anything better.
It's true that, if things are functioning well, the laity wouldn't have to worry overmuch about theological questions, because they'd be able to trust that whatever they heard from their priests and bishops would be clear and accurate expositions of the Catholic faith. As a point of historical fact, however, it's evidence that this situation hasn't obtained in various places and in various times over the history of the Church. So if Catholicism means that you can always go about your life without worrying over doctrine because the official teaching organs of the Church will always impart sound doctrine, then Catholicism was already disproved seventeen hundred years before Francis first stepped out onto the balcony.
Gaius, that's fair enough. But we should remember that in those days, life was short and communication slow. People lived mostly in isolation from each other. That is, a bishop in Athens wouldn't know much about what the bishop in London was saying, or maybe, even that much about what was going on in Rome. And in resolving any controversy, it takes a long time to assemble the relevant parties and hash things out and communicate things everywhere. Some of that communication won't even be successful. In those conditions, I would expect a lot of muddiness and imperfect doctrine, and a Pope to, inadvertently or not, occasionally teach false doctrine for long periods of time.
DeleteToday communication is instant. The universal church knows immediately what the Pope is teaching and every bishop in the world can immediately communicate with any other bishop. So if the Pope steps out of line, every bishop in the world should know about it and can move immediately to correct him. Yet I see no mass movement of bishops urgently trying to correct Francis. There was the Dubia submitted by several bishops, which was ignored by Francis and apparently then forgotten by all concerned. Francis has revised the Catechism in terms of his reforms with no effective opposition from bishops. The only significant bishop I am aware of forcefully calling out Francis is Archbishop Vigano, and he seems primarily concerned with Francis's handling of the sex abuse crisis. The only conclusion to draw is that the collection of bishops really isn't all that concerned with what Francis is doing. Is this what a Church guided by the Holy Spirit looks like?
What would a church that isn't guided by the Holy Spirit look like? Would it look a lot like the one we have today? If so, what difference does the Holy Spirit make? (I hope that didn't sound blasphemous, but there it is.)
Gaius, that's fair enough. But we should remember that in those days, life was short and communication slow. People lived mostly in isolation from each other. That is, a bishop in Athens wouldn't know much about what the bishop in London was saying, or maybe, even that much about what was going on in Rome. And in resolving any controversy, it takes a long time to assemble the relevant parties and hash things out and communicate things everywhere. Some of that communication won't even be successful. In those conditions, I would expect a lot of muddiness and imperfect doctrine, and a Pope to, inadvertently or not, occasionally teach false doctrine for long periods of time.
DeleteThat would be true in some cases, but not in others. E.g., the Great Western Schism went on for 49 years (1378-1417), the Arian crisis for 56 (325-381). Sure communications were slow, but not that slow.
The only conclusion to draw is that the collection of bishops really isn't all that concerned with what Francis is doing.
Not necessarily; it could also be that they are opposed to what he's doing, but they're trying to wait it out until Francis dies or retires and someone better comes along. Note that, despite Francis and his allies' repeated requests that bishops lend their support to the idea of communion for the divorced and remarried, very few have actually done so.
Now, you might say that this is a bad strategy which has a high chance of failure. I agree. But it's still compatible with both the observed evidence and with the idea that the bishops are actually concerned with what Francis is doing.
What would a church that isn't guided by the Holy Spirit look like? Would it look a lot like the one we have today? If so, what difference does the Holy Spirit make? (I hope that didn't sound blasphemous, but there it is.)
I expect it would look a lot like the major Protestant denominations do today, with doctrines which were once condemned as heretical now being explicitly accepted and required for membership.
As for the difference the Holy Spirit makes, I can think of at least two. In the first place, as I mentioned above, it means that we aren't required to choose between heresy and schism. If you're a conservative Protestant and your denomination's governing body votes to officially accept gay marriage, you can either accept this new doctrine (which is probably diametrically opposed to the doctrine you had to accept the day before the vote) and so embrace a heretical understanding of marriage, or you can find a new denomination more suited to your sensibilities, and thus go into schism. (Of course, as a Protestant you'd already be a [material] heretic and schismatic anyway, but you know what I mean.) Catholic bishops and popes turning a blind eye to doctrinal and liturgical abuses, or sending out ambiguous signals over what the Church teaches, cause great scandal and loss of souls, but they don't put us in a position where we are forced to sin, which is what would happen if we were in a situation where we were forced to commit the mortal sin of heresy in order to avoid the mortal sin of schism, or vice versa.
The second difference is that, as long as official doctrine remains unchanged, the Church always had the theological resources for a renewal of orthodoxy, even if the majority -- even if the vast majority -- of bishops end up promoting heresy. (Not that I think this is the case; it's easy to forget it because we live in the West, but the Catholic bishops of the Third World tend not to have any time for Amoris Laetitia-style messing about, and their flock makes up an increasingly large portion of the Catholic Church.) Whereas if the Church were to embrace heresy as her official doctrine, then she wouldn't have the resources for a renewal, because her theology would now itself be unorthodox.
I've been thinking about your point concerning not being forced to choose between orthodoxy and schism. I don't think schism is ever really an option for a Catholic, or shouldn't be. The choices are orthodoxy or martyrdom.
DeleteAnd I think that choice is regularly forced on Catholics. Suppose you are a priest in one of the dioceses headed by a bishop that supports the controversial innovations of Amoris Laetitia, and your bishop commands you to give communion to divorced and remarried Catholics. In the old days, the priest might "appeal to Rome" to be saved from embracing the heresy, but in this case, Rome supports it. So to remain orthodox, the priest must defy his bishop, who won't burn him at the stake, but might suspend his priestly faculties or transfer him to some obscure post - mild forms of martyrdom.
In fact, a reason that bishops are having trouble responding to Francis is that Francis is simply validating what is already almost universal practice, even in diocese considered orthodox: Divorced and remarried Catholics receive communion all the time. What makes news isn't when a priest gives communion to Catholics living in objective mortal sin, it's when a priest refuses to do so. I know priests who would prefer not to, but aren't interested in making waves, so they just go along with it. This is, in the end, a mild form of coercion to embrace heterodox practice.
I was not quite correct earlier when I said that Francis had ignored the Dubia. He didn't quite do that; he said, through spokesmen, that AL was perfectly clear and needed no further elucidation. I'm wondering if this wasn't actually a clever move by Francis: He knows well enough that there are plenty of divorced/remarried Catholics receiving communion in the diocese of the authors of the Dubia, and he was issuing them a challenge. If they think communion should be withheld from the divorced and remarried, they are perfectly free to enforce that in their diocese. Do they wish to continue to push the issue? Then they will be exposed as hypocrites. I suspect the failure to press the issue is probably for this reason.
I don't think schism is ever really an option for a Catholic, or shouldn't be.
DeleteWhat if a Pope, or an Ecumenical Council, were to solemnly declare "There is nothing morally objectionable about same-sex sexual activity, and moreover the term 'marriage' can be applied univocally to domestic partnerships between two men, two women, or a man and a woman. If anybody shall deny these teachings, let him be anathema"? Either you'd have to affirm the liceity of sodomy and of gay marriage, and so affirm heresy, or you'd have to reject it and fall under anathema, and so go into schism.
And I think that choice is regularly forced on Catholics. Suppose you are a priest in one of the dioceses headed by a bishop that supports the controversial innovations of Amoris Laetitia, and your bishop commands you to give communion to divorced and remarried Catholics. In the old days, the priest might "appeal to Rome" to be saved from embracing the heresy, but in this case, Rome supports it. So to remain orthodox, the priest must defy his bishop, who won't burn him at the stake, but might suspend his priestly faculties or transfer him to some obscure post - mild forms of martyrdom.
I'm not sure how regular that choice is, all things considered -- as I pointed out above, the vast majority of the episcopate seem to be saying nothing and hoping the controversy somehow goes away. I don't think that's a very good strategy, but it's not one which tends to result in priests being forced to give communion to adulterers.
I'm also not sure this is as novel a situation as you seem to be suggesting. For the vast majority of the Church's history, communications were so slow and expensive that appealing to Rome wasn't really an option for the average priest. Even if it were, there have been pope who couldn't be relied upon to enforce proper practice, whether due to a lack of fortitude (Paul VI), personal corruption (the Borgias), or sympathy for heretical views (John XXII, Honorius I). And even if the pope did condemn the error in question, there was no guarantee that his condemnation would actually be heeded. Did the Paul III's condemnations of Henry VIII, or Pius V's of Elizabeth, have any notable effect on the course of the English Reformation?
And if we are forced to choose between heresy and martyrdom -- well, isn't that what Christ promised us? And isn't that precisely the choice which millions of Christians have been faced with since the martyrdom of St. Stephen? And it's not like bishops have never been involved in persecuting their own flocks, either -- all but one of the English bishops under Henry VIII took his side in the Reformation, for example.
I am shocked, absolutely shocked I tell you, that the Vatican would behave in this fashion.
ReplyDeleteI have little sympathy for him. He crossed a line. Pope Francis might one day go the way of Pope John XXII or other bad Popes but Rist didn't help rather he hurt the situation.
ReplyDeleteAccusing a sitting Pope of formal heresy without hard proof & suggesting he might no longer be Pope is as dangerous to faith as any stupid thing Pope Francis might have done or will do.
It is like accusing the President of Russian Colusion and calling for impeachment (which will harm the country) without evidence.
Any Cardinal Burke or Vigano style rebuke it fine but this was irresponsible. BTW don't anybody bore me with what Pope Francis has done to hurt the Church. My response is why help him?
Cardinal Burke is the gold standard of Papal Criticism. Rist is at best Brass and I am being very very generous.
Cardinal Burke is the gold standard of Papal Criticism.
DeleteCardinal Burke's criticism has achieved precisely nothing.
Your ends justify the means mentality is noted.
DeleteOTOH if what you say is true Rist's criticism will do even less since the charge of heresy is over the top and unjustified thus Papal defenders are handed a stick by which to beat not only Rist but by extention Burke or Vigano.
Thanks for nothing.
It's out of your hands Jim the Scott...
DeleteThe Roman Catholic Church is simply following it's future path to becoming the Universal Church... all this talk of heresy is just preparation
Ah the Atheist lunatic from Strange Notions pops in.........
Delete>The Roman Catholic Church is simply following it's future path to becoming the Universal Church...
Ummm "Catholic" means "Universal". That like saying the President of the United States is simply following his future path to become the chief Executive and Head of State.
Philip I will repeat the question I asked Dr. Bonnette. What are you smoking dude and wear can I score some?
It's a source of enduring disappointment to me that, so often, the church behaves with even less regard for fairness or process than the modern liberal state. (I'm a Protestant, and I include the bulk of our communions in this sweeping generalization.)
ReplyDeleteYes, instead of systematic propaganda and manipulation at all levels of life from cradle to grave they act swiftly with little effect but embarrassment on a handful of men who have declared themselves against leadership in the highest degree. How shocking and extreme. This is what happens in actual human conflict, as opposed to the bureaucratic monstrosity you have been formed in. He's lucky he wasn't flogged as of old.
DeleteThere is a process of canon law for punishing those who ‘declare themselves against leadership’. This process was not followed. Pray that your sins will not be treated in the same fashion as Prof. Rist’s. You don’t deserve to have that prayer answered, but you will need it.
DeleteOh I do not disagree that this is unjust, but the man did what he did and expected to keep his parking pass?
DeleteThe very point is that OP cannot stand public and typical retribution and thinks it somehow *worse* than the slow death by propaganda, committee, and neglect that is typical of liberal democratic form. Had Benedict XVI had more retribution and good liberal less hesitancy to look bad, we would not be in this position. And we will continue to be in this position as long as the "less bad" liberal methods are preferred.
Why would he NOT expect to keep a freaking parking pass, with no due process, no formal discipline, and no warning?
DeleteI reccomend you convert to the Church Christ founded. It's the same story as always: so often awful human leadership, but it'll stand to the end because of Christ's protection (it has already outlast every empire though history). The divine origins are thus manifest.
DeleteThere is a process of canon law for punishing those who ‘declare themselves against leadership’. This process was not followed.
ReplyDeleteOh come. The "process" is for canonical penalties, not removal of non-ecclesiastical privileges.
As horrified as I am (and I agree completely with Prof. Feser, and Vince S) at this disgusting and truly uncharitable treatment, one cannot pretend that it amounts to a canonical penalty. It is unfair, granted. It is uncharitable, granted. It is revolting, granted. It should be reversed, WITH public apology, granted. Yes, and more. But the Church, like any institution, has lots and lots of room in between "I canonize X as a saint" and "I rebuke X with canonical penalties" to hand people social rewards and rebukes outside of the legal framework. Not giving someone a job, visitation rights, or a parking space, is certainly subject to moral constraints, but it is not a matter of law.
But if anyone was truly surprised by this, after the treatment of Professor Siefert in August 2017, they were not paying attention. He was outright fired at a moment's notice for publishing an article critical of AL. Apparently, without even a hearing of any sort, too. So, the writing has been on the wall here.
There is, to my knowledge, no evidence that Pope Francis himself had anything to do with what has happened.
It is virtually certain that there NEVER WILL be any evidence of any direct involvement. Yet one must not then conclude that Francis "had nothing to do with it" tout court.
Francis has a strong tendency to appoint people who think like he does, and fire people who do not. He also has a strong tendency to give pats on the back for people who do the sorts of things he would have approved of, and to publicly humiliate people who do the sorts of things he doesn't like. He has been known to be vindictive in how he handles affairs. His appointees, by now, all know this. So, first of all, Francis is the one who (in general) set this sort of thing in motion by his appointments and by his behavior to men under his power. Secondly, it is highly unlikely that the official who made this happen did so in the slightest bit of worry that the move would upset Francis. Thirdly, it is almost unheard of that in a small bureaucracy like the Vatican, not everyone would quickly hear about any public event and all the scuttlebut about it: Francis KNOWS what happened. If he wants to do anything about it, he has all the power and authority needed, with a mere comment, to reverse it or correct it.
Not giving someone a job, visitation rights, or a parking space, is certainly subject to moral constraints, but it is not a matter of law.
DeleteUniversities, as a general thing, have a list of privileges that are extended as a matter of course to recognized visiting scholars, and those privileges are not supposed to be revoked without process. Since there was no question of a canonical penalty to be imposed upon Prof. Rist, there were manifestly no grounds to revoke his privileges as a scholar.
When the Catholic Church invented the university in the Middle Ages, the privileges of scholars were such that even a blatant heretic, if operating under the protection of a chartered university, could not be disciplined by the Church at large. Popes and prelates who tried to do so were answered at minimum by flat disobedience and at most by full-scale riots.
Now we have declined to the stage where a Catholic university professor can be punished without any process or form of law for teaching orthodoxy. ‘Oh, well, what did you expect?’ is not an adequate response to this. Prof. Rist has been treated as tyrants treat their disobedient slaves. He is not a slave, and the Pope is not supposed to be a tyrant; and anybody who thinks this kind of action should be considered as part of the normal course of events is contributing to the sin and to the scandal. Acedia takes many forms, and one of them is cynicism.
‘Oh, well, what did you expect?’ is not an adequate response to this.
DeleteI agree. This whole affair is appalling. The official who approved this should be made to do a public apology, groveling if possible.
Universities, as a general thing, have a list of privileges that are extended as a matter of course to recognized visiting scholars, and those privileges are not supposed to be revoked without process. Since there was no question of a canonical penalty to be imposed upon Prof. Rist, there were manifestly no grounds to revoke his privileges as a scholar.
There are indeed rules for universities, including rules for pontifical institutes. They are not canon law, but lower forms of rules.
I think we can take it as granted that Rist was not allowed the due process of those rules that do apply. This was an injustice. Someone (hopefully, a whole cadre of canon lawyers) should step in on Rist's behalf and appeal every aspect of this. For the sake of justice, even if not for Rist's own personal satisfaction.
and anybody who thinks this kind of action should be considered as part of the normal course of events is contributing to the sin and to the scandal.
I was not making light of the wrongness here, certainly not calling it "normal". I spoke out against it in no uncertain terms. I only caution against calling this a canonical infraction.
Son of Yakov writes:
ReplyDeleteI have little sympathy for him. He crossed a line.
[etc.]
Can't agree, Ben, sorry. Those priests and bishops who are, in the name of Amoris, leading people into grave error re: divorce, remarriage, Holy Communion, etc. are doing far more harm to souls than anything Rist has done. A handful of people know about the open letter, and even fewer agree with it. By contrast, thousands, perhaps even millions, of people are being made complacent in their sins of adultery and sacrilege against the blessed sacrament. And, mind you, by bishops and priests in good standing (and with the best parking spots to boot, no doubt). And Rist is the one we should get upset about?
Then there is the fact that he is, as I said, in his 80s, as my late father was when he died, and as my mother is. If anyone -- and I don't care who it is -- treated one of my parents the way Rist was apparently treated by the staff at the Augustinianum, I would be righteously pissed off about it. I imagine you would be too if it were your dad.
@Dr. Feser
Delete>Can't agree, Ben, sorry.
No need to apologize. I am a big fan but I am not a Fanboyz.:-) I've disagreed with you before and will likely do so again. You are still Da Man IMHO.
>Those priests and bishops who are, in the name of Amoris, leading people into grave error re: divorce, remarriage, Holy Communion, etc. are doing far more harm to souls than anything Rist has done.
Which is only illustrative of my point. Why help the useless Bishops do that? Why add insult to injury? Why be part of the problem and not the solution?
>A handful of people know about the open letter, and even fewer agree with it.
By contrast, thousands, perhaps even millions, of people are being made complacent in their sins of adultery and sacrilege against the blessed sacrament.
It seems to me serious Catholics have heard of it and many might be tempted to loose their faith over it or fall into error. They may not know enough to know why Rist is wrong and he just added to their confusion. These are the ranks of the Catholics who care about the faith. Those who treat it seriously & are not mere "cultural" Catholic. The C&E crowd are unaffected except the class of Catholics who need to bring the gospel to them have taken a hit because Rist & Co might cause them to stumble into Schismatic Traditionalism or Eastern Orthodoxy or Sede Nonsense. If they all leave who will stand against the liberals?
> And, mind you, by bishops and priests in good standing (and with the best parking spots to boot, no doubt). And Rist is the one we should get upset about?
Yes we should. I hold faithful & above all knowledgeable Catholics to a higher standard than the ignorant rabble and or ignorant brain liberals. They should know better. As you know I have Autistic kids. My son is way more high functioning then my daughters. I hold him to a higher standard when he misbehaves then I do them. Because he really should know better as he has the capacity to know better. Rist is the same way. He is a an orthodox Catholic and not an SSPX weirdo or Hans Kung. He should not have put his name to this document.
>Then there is the fact that he is, as I said, in his 80s, as my late father was when he died, and as my mother is. If anyone -- and I don't care who it is -- treated one of my parents the way Rist was apparently treated by the staff at the Augustinianum, I would be righteously pissed off about it. I imagine you would be too if it were your dad.
I half agree with you. Sure anybody who attacks my Father (even if he brought it on himself...which he could) I would flash fry without mercy. But he is my Father & I am his son so what can I do and by extension Francis is my Father and yours not our "political" leader. So he deserves better by that fact (& God will judge his heart and lack luster performance as Pope)."
OTOH if he is old enough to accuse the Pope of being a formal heretic then he is old enough to take the consequences. Pope Francis is 82. The age factor doesn't move me. I am friends with Dr. Bonnette. He is brillant at his age & I think he is tough for all he has to deal with.
Anyway like I said with my political analogy (which I revised) there is a moral difference between a principled and I add effective criticism of a Ben Shapiro toward President Trump and the flawed & extremist criticism of Bill Kristol (I replaced Rachel Madow with him because I thought her too extreme to represent Rist. Kristol is a nice fit).
Rist should take his name off the document and attach it to one that dishes out legitimate criticism.
It seems to me serious Catholics have heard of it and many might be tempted to loose their faith over it or fall into error. They may not know enough to know why Rist is wrong and he just added to their confusion. These are the ranks of the Catholics who care about the faith. Those who treat it seriously & are not mere "cultural" Catholic. The C&E crowd are unaffected except the class of Catholics who need to bring the gospel to them have taken a hit because Rist & Co might cause them to stumble into Schismatic Traditionalism or Eastern Orthodoxy or Sede Nonsense. If they all leave who will stand against the liberals?
DeleteAnd what about people who are tempted to lose faith because they see the Pope blithely contradicting fundamental doctrines? Should we just ignore them and their difficulties?
And since you bring up Eastern Orthodoxy, one of the problems the Eastern Orthodox (and Protestants, for that matter) have against Catholicism is that they think of the pope as a sort of arbitrary dictator who can change doctrine by personal fiat, and consequently that becoming Catholic means holding their beliefs hostage to whatever far-out idea some future pope might advance. Now do you think the sight of Pope Francis going around contradicting previously-settled doctrine is likely to make such people more or less likely to convert?
Nor is it just limited to Protestants and EO. As Ed said in a previous post (I think it was called "Nudge, nudge, wink, wink" or something like that), when conservative Catholics try and claim that obviously contradictory teachings are in fact perfectly congruent, it gives the impression that being a Catholic requires you to leave your brain outside and become an unthinking shill for whatever the current party line is. Again, do you think that's going to attract or repel potential converts?
>And what about people who are tempted to lose faith because they see the Pope blithely contradicting fundamental doctrines? Should we just ignore them and their difficulties?
DeleteTwo responses. 1) If the Pope is doing that why help him? 2) If the Pope & Bishops have gone off then what is left are orthodox laity. Why harm the last line of defense by undermining them? Sure God will deliver the Church in the end but why make it worst?
>And since you bring up Eastern Orthodoxy, one of the problems the Eastern Orthodox (and Protestants, for that matter) have against Catholicism is that they think of the pope as a sort of arbitrary dictator who can change doctrine by personal fiat, and consequently that becoming Catholic means holding their beliefs hostage to whatever far-out idea some future pope might advance.
Well the Pope does have autocratic authority. He can depose any Bishop from any SEW but is himself judged by nobody. Why downplay truth?
OTOH if I want to piss off the EO I ask them which EO Church do I join? The one that is headed by the Patriarch of Constantinople or Moscow who has broken communion with them and claims the mantle of being head of the "True Church"?
Francis might suck but I know where to turn. Here is Peter. Wither Peter is St Pius V or X or JP2 or B16 or Francis or Alexander VI.
>Now do you think the sight of Pope Francis going around contradicting previously-settled doctrine is likely to make such people more or less likely to convert?
Rather I like to point out the Pope hasn't used his office to make his apparent contradictions the doctrine of the Church & I like to point out his ambiguity. I then pivot to heterodox and false religious teachers like Muhammed or Joseph Smith who claiming to speak for God & blatantly changed the doctrines of the their religion without any ambiguity. I then crow "Yeh if the Pope's office wasn't from God he would have just unambiguously changed doctrine by now". Alexander VI and Sergus III banged their mistresses at the Vatican but unlike Joseph Smith they never authorized fornication.
I find that works better than extemist radtrads & their rhetoric who might give the impression Matt 16:18 & Vatican I on Infallibility are bunk.
>Nor is it just limited to Protestants and EO. As Ed said in a previous post (I think it was called "Nudge, nudge, wink, wink" or something like that), when conservative Catholics try and claim that obviously contradictory teachings are in fact perfectly congruent, it gives the impression that being a Catholic requires you to leave your brain outside and become an unthinking shill for whatever the current party line is. Again, do you think that's going to attract or repel potential converts?
I don't have to agree they are obviously contradictory across the board. Indeed individual statements must be dealt with individually and I don't like lunatics who abuse his valid insight to make up a rule that says all the Pope's statements must be de facto understood in a heterodox fashion across the board till proven innocent(which can never be done and if you try you are labelled an Ultramontanist by the Radtrad critic). Also some statements from the Pope are objectively benign but reactionaries read error into them that does not appear in the context. A notorious example of this is the "Who am I to Judge" statement which read in context cannot possibly by any rational being be understood as an endorsement of homosexuality. But to this day the Radtrads still think it's code for that. I will have none of that.
Yak, I sympathize with your point here. But I think you take it a little too far.
DeleteThe problems of the Open Letter (and I felt, as did Ed, that it has problems) are more of the sort of overstating the weight of the evidence toward establishing whether the pope is a heretic, than anything else. Yes, the authors of the document should have paid more attention to the formal, canonical meaning of heresy. Yes, they should have been more careful about how the evidence stacks up to that canonical crime.
No, however, they did not damage belief either in the office of the papacy, nor in orthodox Catholicism. This is because their mistakes were of the sort that reflects poor jurisprudence, not of poor theology. Nor do their mistakes tend to lead toward apostasy or schism, either. So what if these guys don't get canon law adequately - that's no real danger to the faith of others. Yes, it is a tactical error in concluding that the Pope's statements and actions together make a conclusive case for his heretical thinking, if they only make a pretty strong probable case for it, but determining as a matter of probability that the pope, with high credibility, holds heretical positions, on the evidence, should lead no one into sin, because the Church has never said a pope cannot do so.
Indeed individual statements must be dealt with individually
Sometimes that's true. But sometimes not. This, in part, touches on the core of the problem here: If the pope holds heresy, it is either modernism as a whole, or something that aligns very well with modernism (as one of its daughters, for example). The problem with modernism is that it feels free to change the meanings of words, to change the topic of debate, to pull the rug out from under any discussion, when it appears the modernist is not winning. This means that a modernists comments in ONE discussion may seem reasonable, but when you pin the meaning of the terms down through comments in another discussion, you find that the comments in the first were anything but reasonable. They are chameleons that change their skins. You HAVE TO use what the modernist says in many different contexts to have a hope of identifying what he actually means. Each individual comment alone is not enough.
(This could explain why the Vatican did almost nothing to try to go after modernist theologians to rein them in - if only we had seen them try in official efforts and get nowhere.)
In any case, it is unfair to attack the critique of Francis (or any teacher) because the critique gathers his statements from many sources and puts them together: this synthesis is exactly the sort of thing that must occur. What needs to be observed, though, is due decorum in making sure that you keep the sense sufficiently tied to its context that you don't damage the original's real intent.
A notorious example of this is the "Who am I to Judge" statement which read in context cannot possibly by any rational being be understood as an endorsement of homosexuality. But to this day the Radtrads still think it's code for that.
No, it is properly read as code for "the pope does not have the authority to judge a penitent."
Ah Tony! At last someone challenging (sans Dr. Feser of course).
Delete> But I think you take it a little too far.
You are entitled to any opinion I reject. I don't think I do I just have little sympathy for Rist much like I do Bill Kristol. There are better ways to deal with the Pope & this wasn't one of them. If it blows back on him well he brought it on himself. Better to take his name off the letter and write a better one. More Cardinal Burke less The Remnant/Catholic Family News.
>No, however, they did not damage belief either in the office of the papacy, nor in orthodox Catholicism.
Five minutes reading the extremist responses of many in the comboxes over at Lifesite or Crisis or CWR and a few here leads me to believe that is not likely true. The Sede sympathizers and SSPX wannabes are out in force and holding up this letter. Rist went too far. Suggesting the Pope is a formal heretic which can lead to the idea he has ceased to be Pope is not healthy or good(also given that theology is not developed) & without hard evidence. As I write this I look with interest at Taylor Marshall's new conspiracy theory book which will further confuse faithful orthodox Catholics. One reactionary begets another. His book is being panned by a host of orthodox Catholics and not too few Papal critics. Because it accuses with innuendo not facts. Is this where we are headed? One has to almost marvel at how the Devil will wage war on multiple fronts.
>This is because their mistakes were of the sort that reflects poor jurisprudence, not of poor theology.
I don't see how they can be separated here?
Part two
Delete>if they only make a pretty strong probable case for it, but determining as a matter of probability that the pope, with high credibility, holds heretical positions, on the evidence, should lead no one into sin, because the Church has never said a pope cannot do so.
Of course any Pope in theory could be an occult heretic. But if you are not going to give solid evidence he is a formal one you risk undermining confidence in the Papacy and the Church. It's like Russian Collusion. There is no evidence and the Demorats would be better served not dividing the country over something they haven't proven. Trying to figure out what is in either Trump's or Francis' mind is a complete waste of time as is speculating about the Pope's orthodoxy without hard evidence. What matters is getting the Pope to do his job.
What matters is uniting the orthodox faithful not dividing them.
>Sometimes that's true. But sometimes not.
Obviously.
>If the pope holds heresy, it is either modernism as a whole, or something that aligns very well with modernism (as one of its daughters, for example).
That is also a mere speculation and modernism isn't IMHO a clearly defined heresy. Like Arianism or Nestorianism. I reads more like St Pius X was complaining about Sophistry. Which after butting heads with Aquinian I have a great deal of sympathy.
>You HAVE TO use what the modernist says in many different contexts to have a hope of identifying what he actually means.
Modernism is a loose gestalt of liberal theological opinions but you can't pin it down thus your only real criticism is it doesn't teach anything and only makes things more obscure. It is sophistry not clear doctrinal views.
Yes they are sophists. I get it but that isn't a doctrinal error. That is being useless and cagey. Accuse the Pope of doing a shitty job &of being dangerously obscure but accuse him of the right thing.
>No, it is properly read as code for "the pope does not have the authority to judge a penitent."
That cannot be true taken from the context.
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/2018/01/lawler-vs-pope-francis-2-homosexuality-judging.html
On paper, even recently, the Pope is against homosexual conduct & has said "gay marriage" isn't. He just sucks at getting rid of homosexual clergy but JP2 and B16 had the same problem. Would you accuse them of formal heresy over it?
Anyway we all agree the Letter was a mistake. Withdraw it and issue a corrected on and sooner or later Francis will resign or God will call him home. The next could be better or worst. But Matt 16:18 still applies.
Yak:
DeleteFirst of all,
But Matt 16:18 still applies.
Agreed. This is the most important point, the rest is just moving pegs around on the board.
Second, I read the context you linked for "who am I to judge". I had read some of it before, but had not seen the complete passage reported. You are somewhat right about the context clarifying (and I never did think the claims that it meant Francis accepted homosexuality as OK). But it STILL is soft on the judging part: if a Catholic suffering from SSA goes to confession and in talking to the priest indicates a true turning away, then the priest's absolution just is the concrete indication of forgiveness, and one more instance of what Jesus said "what you loose on Earth is loosed in heaven, what you hold bound on Earth is held bound in heaven." If the priest - i.e. the CHURCH ON EARTH - looses the bond, it is loosed. There is no call for Francis to be reticent about this: the Church HAS judged, and loosed the chain. There is no more judgment to make because judgment HAS been made. (Or, alternatively, if the priest - even Francis in the confessional hearing penitents - decides that the sinner, say, wants to have his cake and eat it too (wants to be absolved from past sins without admitting that the desire itself is disordered and he intends to at least entertain the desire in the future), refusing absolution JUST IS the concrete act of the Church on Earth judging and holding bound. The pope is the final arbiter here, the highest earthly authority to make this judgment: he has no business declaiming that authority, (and implicitly) denigrating the role of the priest as part of the process of being forgiven of the sin.
(I am going to pass on by the pope's saying "theyand even with this sin made him [Peter] Pope". No, there was no "they" involved, Christ did it point blank and direct without any help from the other Apostles, and the other Apostles only recognized that truth. But hey, the pope was speaking extemporaneously, and we all get our pronouns and tenses muddled in such contexts, so we'll give him a pass. )
But if you are not going to give solid evidence he is a formal one you risk undermining confidence in the Papacy and the Church.
DeleteThere is a bit of truth to this, but also a bit of another side of the coin. In any prosecutor's office, you have to weigh which prosecutions to proceed with and which to not bother with. In general, you have to try at least a few prosecutions where the evidence is a bit weak here or there, even though (in your opinion) the evidence is adequate for "beyond a reasonable doubt": you can't only proceed with the ones where the evidence is SO FAR BEYOND doubt that it's even beyond UNreasonable doubts, that's going by too high a standard. And once in a while you are going to miss. You thought the evidence was adequate, but it wasn't - according to the jury, anyway. If you only go forward with the ones where you are locked in with certainty, having no doubt whatsoever, you are letting a large number of convictable criminals go without reason.
Admittedly, the evidence here is less than adequate, but it ISN'T so bad as to be completely ridiculous. (At least, in my view). Yes, they mis-estimated - but plausibly. More so, because they aren't canon lawyers. (And I have already said they were imprudent for undertaking this without running it past some canon lawyers.)
And as for risk of undermining the papacy: the people who are jumping up and down on this were the sedes anyway, or other protestants, atheists, and those who are not friends of the Catholic Church anyway, most of them. Sane and sound Catholics weren't going to do anything about this without seeing what the bishops did with the letter - it is addressed to them, after all, because any action is in their hands, not yours and mine. So, the "harm" that it is doing is really more the harm Francis has been causing all along, brought under one head as related to his own position. He started it, they described it. They overstated the diagnosis, but not by wild leaps of the imagination.
Tony,
Delete>Yak:
You may call me Jim.
>But it STILL is soft on the judging part.
Or he is merely being properly charitable(at least at that time)? A homosexual disposition is not sinful it is merely objectively disordered. It is a defect that has potential for sin but it is not itself a moral failing in many cases. What he said in principle could have been uttered by Benedict or St John Paul II(indeed somebody it may have been Dave Armstrong or Mark Shea, the later when I still thought him a good guy, who produced a similar statement from Benedict passed off as Francis' words in order to get the usual suspects to condemn it. Sadly it worked & it was funny when they pulled the rug out).. Reactionary trads have used this statement to slander the Pope unjustly and whatever Francis's faults that is wicked pure and simple and more over it is self defeating in dealing with Pope Francis' faults. Like I said before. You can have Ben Shapiro's reasoned criticism of POTUS or Rachel Madcow's fruitcakery. One is clearly better on every level.
My meta point was reactionary trads (who I would contend are as harmful to Catholicism as Liberalism & are an affliction on legitimate traditionalism) are prone to over react and their over reactions harm more then help. This idiot document is an example of it. It did not help. Other documents that went before where way better by contrast.
>Yes, they mis-estimated - but plausibly.
I don't buy it. They have the education and they had at least one canon lawyer who signed. Here we will have to agree to disagree.
We have some agreement and some disagreement so in essentials unity and non-essentials liberty and in all things charity.
>If you only go forward with the ones where you are locked in with certainty, having no doubt whatsoever, you are letting a large number of convictable criminals go without reason.
Which according to the Talmud (& Jesus said the Pharisees succeeded Moses and the Rabbis succeeded the Pharisees so I put some weight to it) that is better then to convict one innocent man.
I live my life by it.
Cheers.
'...extremely petty, to say the very least. ' judging by the way your fellow philosophers have been treated by the Bergoglio regime, that is indeed the very least and an absolute understatement. More and more, we confirm that the title of the dictator Pope is more than apt. To kindly speculate whether Bergoglio had a hand in this matter is to ignore the climate of fear and repression that he has unmistakably created in the Vatican.
ReplyDeleteFor decades the hierarchy of the church has tolerated doctrinal confusion, the most shameful public scandals, the shielding of the most disgusting crimes, vociferous dissent, and has even promoted the people guilty of these acts. But an elderly professor accuses the pope of heresy, and retribution comes swiftly. I'm actually glad they do this so openly; the more they do this type of thing the more intense the response will be when it comes.
ReplyDeleteMore graphically, we could say Rist was “slashed”
ReplyDeleteRe the update:
ReplyDelete"In an earlier post, I discussed Pope Benedict XVI’s manner of dealing with criticism."
Ed, maybe I'm misreading the exact preference you have on authority here but didn't you just tell us not too long ago:
"In short, though we admirers of John Paul II and Benedict XVI often think of them as Philosopher-Kings, they were really Professor-Presidents. And the students they should have failed or dropped from the class have now taken over the classroom."
From this I understood you to be saying that basically Benedict handled conflict ultimately poorly.
Let me put it another way:
Is there any reason on your thinking that we shouldn't think that a good orthodox prelate like Benedict should have had more of a authoritative edge to him like Francis does?
The way I'm looking at it right now, it seems to me that the most unfortunate thing is that the theologically dubious prelate rediscovered authority before the more obviously orthodox prelates. Imagine if John Paul II had spent is entire pontificate weeding out heretical clergy. I don't know, maybe it would have caused schism, but it is hard to see how with the collapse of the liberal orders in liberal parishes that Benedict himself should have continued with such caution. Were all these prelates going to leave the Church and take no parishioners with them?
Iwpoe,
DeleteYes, I think John Paul II and Benedict XVI should have been harder on heretics. How on earth does that contradict anything I've said here? For example, how does it commit me to favoring petty vindictive moves like suddenly telling an elderly man that he can't park his car the place he had previously been allowed to park it, and thereby putting him into a situation where he has to pay hundreds of dollars to store it somewhere? Hans Küng is 91 years old now. I would be outraged if he were treated this way.
Furthermore, unlike Küng, who dissents from irreformable magisterial teaching, Rist is upholding irreformaable magisterial teaching, and thus (unlike Küng) can argue that his position falls within what the Church herself acknowledges (e.g. in Donum Veritatis) is permissible criticism.
Whether or not one would agree with such a defense, the point is that the case of Rist and the other open letter signatories on the one hand, and dissidents like Küng on the other, are simply not parallel. If the open letter people are wrong, it is not for the same kind of reason that heretics are wrong.
You write:
DeleteIs there any reason on your thinking that we shouldn't think that a good orthodox prelate like Benedict should have had more of a authoritative edge to him like Francis does?
You are confusing "authoritative" with "authoritarian." I favor the first, not the second. That many people seem not to know the difference is part of the problem with the situation in the Church these days.
Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger's reasonable and lawlike way of dealing with the likes of Küng and Curran is not the problem. On the contrary, it is to their great credit that they tried to engage rationally with these people, that the CDF followed procedures rather than acting arbitrarily and via petty moves like suddenly revoking parking spots, etc. The problem is rather that the sanctions at the end of the overall process were too mild and that too many other people were allowed to get away with murder for too long.
To add to what Ed says here: Both JPII and Benedict (and Paul before them) had lots and lots of opportunity to employ the forces of law as written, to enforce canon law, against the dissenters, heretics, and quiet apostacy going on around them. They chose rather - almost exclusively - the tool of attempted persuasion. This is a fine tool in its place, and indispensable for evangelizing. It's out of order in dealing with hardened modernists, who use dialogue in bad faith as a weapon. These popes failed to attempt to enforce the law and thus harm came to the Church by their allowing heresy to expand and multiply many-fold.
DeleteIt is not "arbitrary" to take heretics and subject them - under due process, with legal protections in place - to THE LAWS that forbid heresy and punish it. This is the due and proper use of authority.
It cannot be ignored that as good as they were, JPII and Benedict were strongly influenced by the liberal notions of "academic freedom" in their idea of how authority is to be wielded (i.e. very little). For example, when JPII was faced with Archbishop Lefevre claiming "but Pope Paul never abrogated the use of the old Mass", he could have used his plenary Petrine authority and simply declared "I hereby abrogate the permission of any priest to celebrate the old Mass" and the whole pathway of argument would have been obsolete. He had the authority to solve the dispute, but refused to wield that authority.
"How on earth does that contradict anything I've said here? For example, how does it commit me to favoring petty vindictive moves like suddenly telling an elderly man that he can't park his car the place he had previously been allowed to park it"
DeleteI'm not saying it does. And does it commit you to favoring petty vindictive motives? I doubt that it does. I'm saying that this tends to happen whenever hard power is executed. The only way to consistently avoid it in a large organization is essentially the soft power activities of the previous two pontificates which I understood you to not favor.
It is not unusual in every area of life for a hard decision against a man to be accompanied by petty vindictive actions by others: if you throw a man out, even if he deserves it, hangers-on, suck-ups, and the man's
enemies always pile on. That is a reality of hard power.
In other words, what I'm telling you, is that while I agree with you that it is unjust treatment, I do not see any way to exercise hard public authority- either in the form of CDF procedure or whatever "Francis doesn't like you now" situation this is -which can avoid it. It's much like the situation of the sentencing of a notorious criminal. He and his family will inevitably suffer tack on nonsense from the public for quite some time while he may be otherwise being justly dealt with. If we want hard sentences, we it seems to me have to be ready to see such things on our side as well and to be accused of such things on our side. Otherwise you're going to get more situations like Benedict sentencing a man to perpetual prayer but not making a big public deal out of it and not enforcing it so as to avoid public problems.
>In other words, what I'm telling you, is that while I agree with you that it is unjust treatment, I do not see any way to exercise hard public authority
DeleteIt unclear to me why you are hung up on presenting this dilemma of ultra-lenient/no consequences approach vs hard public authority with no due process or mercy. There is a vast middle of the road, common sense, approach, to these sorts of things. Just because the proverbial pendulum was on the far left side and swung to the far right, does not mean there is no appropriate middle position.
"It unclear to me why you are hung up on presenting this dilemma of ultra-lenient/no consequences approach vs hard public authority with no due process or mercy."
DeleteI am saying that even when you have due process and mercy from the leader you always have tack on nonsense like this from secondary actors, just as we have secondary actors who shame and condemn the family friends and general activity of justly tried criminals in ordinary law. If you go against a functional leader people tend to do crappy things to you. That is what is occurring in this case unless it can be demonstrated that Francis has passively aggressively ordered this. There is no way to avoid this. It will always be a wedge if you want public consequences but are not comfortable with bad things happening.
There is no way to avoid this. It will always be a wedge
DeleteSo? If it is unavoidable, let's stop worrying about it. We should do what is right, and let the unavoidable take care of itself. We are not gods, to control all events.
You seem to be pointing out a difficulty with ALL acts of justice in punishing malefactors. If so, then there is nothing special about THIS particular institution, or this set of rules. Nothing in what you have said makes it wrong to carry out legal justice, though perhaps it implies that both the lawmakers and judges should include a secondary layer of prudence in reflecting on the second level of consequences. The great thing about secondary, and tertiary (and further) consequences of acts (whether personal or institutional) is that the precisely to the extent it is more difficult to estimate them, just to that extent it is less necessary that we worry about them in making morally upright decisions. You seem to have identified a universal problem with punishing wrongdoers, but it is not a special kind of problem that makes it impossible to act with justice.
"I have been critical of the open letter, but this strikes me as undeservedly shabby treatment." Ah yes, but TRUE humility comes down to choosing inconspicuous shoes, not with how one deals with one's critics.
ReplyDeleteModernists only see the future as far as THE NEXT GENERATION. So if you explain to them that homosexuality will lead to pedophilia being normalized they'll become confused because such an effect will happen several generations from now...which is outside of THE NEXT GENERATION and so might as well be never. Telling a modernist of things to come beyond THE NEXT GENERATION will cause him to say you're committing a "slippery slope."
ReplyDeleteThis is the 4th such incident I hear about in the last year or so. Intimidation against debate.
ReplyDeleteThe most shocking was Dr. Stephane Mercier who was defamed in the media and let go from the Catholic University of Louvain because in one of his lectures and class discussions he invited his students to consider some of the fallacies of pro-abortion propaganda. Young professor, recently married with a first child. And a most reasonable man. This was a kind of professional execution. The bishop did nothing.
At some point it has to occur to people that it's no longer a matter of honest confusions, naive choices of advisors, and a mere stretching of the fabric of the Church.
ReplyDeleteWhy, the English language spokesmen of the mercy movement are not even bothering with that cover anymore. They have a new Church that suits them just fine thank you, and don't let the door hit you on the ass on your way out.
Recall Rosica's triumphalist blog statement, now "disappeared" , "With the advent of this first Jesuit pope, it is openly ruled by an individual rather than by the authority of Scripture alone or even its own dictates of tradition plus Scripture."
That fact that Rosica first plagiarized and then inverted the intent of what had originally been a critical passage into a laudatory tone, is irrelevant to our purposes; if not somewhat comical.
But really ... why pretend?
"At Twitter, Matthew Schmitz calls attention to the contrast between the treatment afforded Rist and the way Cardinal Avery Dulles recommended dealing with dissidents. "
ReplyDeleteWhat kind of man, head of a church (and a state no less), is so frequently photographed looking sidelong or at the camera from the corner of his eyes?
The vicar of Christ looking at you out of the corner of his eyes. Are there some cultures where men behave that way?
Eh ... maybe he just has a stiff neck.
Minor correction: He was a longtime professor at the University of Toronto, and intermittently affiliated with Catholic.
ReplyDelete