Author Topic: Membership in and Visibility of the Church (Read 6200 times)

bowler · « **Reply #90 on:** February 07, 2014, 11:02:50 AM »

Fr. Fenton taught that Saint Robert Bellarmine was wrong in his explanation about the "Soul of the Church". He did that because he could not go against the teaching of Pius XII in Mystici Corporis a few years before his article. Then Fenton proceeded to teach the same thing in a way that could get around (as he thought) Mystici Corporis. Fr. Fenton like St. Robert Bellarmine and all those that attempted to explain how the unbaptized are "somehow" in the Church, was attempting to explain a contradiction, and he just replaced one obsolete error (the Soul of the Church theory) with another.

Anyhow, I believe that Fr. Fenton believed as St. Thomas, and rejected the teaching of the Salamances, that the unbaptized can be saved, even if they have no explicit desire to be Catholics, nor belief in the Trinity and the Incarnation.
Therefore, the point of using Fr. Fenton to teach the "within thing", is hypocricy, since you believe as the Salamances that the unbaptized can be saved, even if they have no explicit desire to be Catholics, nor belief in the Trinity and the Incarnation. You reject Fr. Fenton.

Fr. Fenton, The Catholic Church and Salvation, 1958,

page 127: “By all means the most important and the most widely employed of all the inadequate explanations of the Church’s necessity for salvation was the one that centered around a distinction between the ‘body’ and the ‘soul’ of the Catholic Church. The individual who tried to explain the dogma in this fashion generally designated the visible Church itself as the ‘body’ of the Church and applied the term ‘soul of the Church’ either to grace and the supernatural virtues or some fancied ‘invisible Church.’…there were several books and articles claiming that, while the ‘soul’ of the Church was in some way not separated from the ‘body,’ it was actually more extensive than this ‘body.’ Explanations of the Church’s necessity drawn up in terms of this distinction were at best inadequate and confusing and all too frequently infected with serious error.”

Page 173-174: “Yet, despite the perfection of St. Robert’s teaching and the clarity of his exposition, this section of the second chapter of his De ecclesia militante was destined to be a source of serious and highly unfortunate misunderstanding by subsequent theologians. The weak part of this, perhaps the most important single passage in the writings of any post Tridentine theologian, was St. Robert’s use of the terms ‘soul’ and ‘body’ with reference to the Church.”

page 179: “It is one of the ironical twists in history that St. Robert, pre-eminent among the writers of the Catholic Church for the clarity of his expression, should have offered the occasion for such serious misunderstanding.”

Page 181: “The misuse of St. Robert’s terminology went a step farther at the beginning of the eighteenth century in a well-written manual Elementa theologica written by the Sorbonne professor, Charles du Plessis d’Argentre.”

Lover of Truth · « **Reply #91 on:** February 07, 2014, 11:19:26 AM »

Quote from: bowler

Fr. Fenton taught that Saint Robert Bellarmine was wrong in his explanation about the "Soul of the Church". He did that because he could not go against the teaching of Pius XII in Mystici Corporis a few years before his article. Then Fenton proceeded to teach the same thing in a way that could get around (as he thought) Mystici Corporis. Fr. Fenton like St. Robert Bellarmine and all those that attempted to explain how the unbaptized are "somehow" in the Church, was attempting to explain a contradiction, and he just replaced one obsolete error (the Soul of the Church theory) with another.

Anyhow, I believe that Fr. Fenton believed as St. Thomas, and rejected the teaching of the Salamances, that the unbaptized can be saved, even if they have no explicit desire to be Catholics, nor belief in the Trinity and the Incarnation.
Therefore, the point of using Fr. Fenton to teach the "within thing", is hypocricy, since you believe as the Salamances that the unbaptized can be saved, even if they have no explicit desire to be Catholics, nor belief in the Trinity and the Incarnation. You reject Fr. Fenton.

Fr. Fenton, The Catholic Church and Salvation, 1958,

page 127: “By all means the most important and the most widely employed of all the inadequate explanations of the Church’s necessity for salvation was the one that centered around a distinction between the ‘body’ and the ‘soul’ of the Catholic Church. The individual who tried to explain the dogma in this fashion generally designated the visible Church itself as the ‘body’ of the Church and applied the term ‘soul of the Church’ either to grace and the supernatural virtues or some fancied ‘invisible Church.’…there were several books and articles claiming that, while the ‘soul’ of the Church was in some way not separated from the ‘body,’ it was actually more extensive than this ‘body.’ Explanations of the Church’s necessity drawn up in terms of this distinction were at best inadequate and confusing and all too frequently infected with serious error.”

Page 173-174: “Yet, despite the perfection of St. Robert’s teaching and the clarity of his exposition, this section of the second chapter of his De ecclesia militante was destined to be a source of serious and highly unfortunate misunderstanding by subsequent theologians. The weak part of this, perhaps the most important single passage in the writings of any post Tridentine theologian, was St. Robert’s use of the terms ‘soul’ and ‘body’ with reference to the Church.”

page 179: “It is one of the ironical twists in history that St. Robert, pre-eminent among the writers of the Catholic Church for the clarity of his expression, should have offered the occasion for such serious misunderstanding.”

Page 181: “The misuse of St. Robert’s terminology went a step farther at the beginning of the eighteenth century in a well-written manual Elementa theologica written by the Sorbonne professor, Charles du Plessis d’Argentre.”

For the hundredth time Monsignor Fenton agrees 100% with Bellarmine's teaching. He goes into great detail defending and explains how others misunderstood it.

Do you recall me mentioning this before and then sending proof?

Lover of Truth · « **Reply #92 on:** February 07, 2014, 11:25:06 AM »

Quote

St. Robert’s De ecclesia militante is essentially devoted to the defense of one thesis: the truth that God’s true and only ecclesia of the New Testament is an organized and visible social unit. This thesis is presented in the second chapter of the book, and all the rest of the work is devoted to a detailed and classically effective demonstration of this truth. It will be impossible to understand how St. Robert’s teaching was misinterpreted without a knowledge of what he actually said in that second chapter. Fenton

Let me know if you need more details. What you say about Father Fenton in regards to Saint Bellarmine is precisely the opposite of the truth.

bowler · « **Reply #93 on:** February 07, 2014, 01:02:59 PM »

Quote from: Lover of Truth

Quote from: bowler
Fr. Fenton taught that Saint Robert Bellarmine was wrong in his explanation about the "Soul of the Church". He did that because he could not go against the teaching of Pius XII in Mystici Corporis a few years before his article. Then Fenton proceeded to teach the same thing in a way that could get around (as he thought) Mystici Corporis. Fr. Fenton like St. Robert Bellarmine and all those that attempted to explain how the unbaptized are "somehow" in the Church, was attempting to explain a contradiction, and he just replaced one obsolete error (the Soul of the Church theory) with another.

Anyhow, I believe that Fr. Fenton believed as St. Thomas, and rejected the teaching of the Salamances, that the unbaptized can be saved, even if they have no explicit desire to be Catholics, nor belief in the Trinity and the Incarnation.
Therefore, the point of using Fr. Fenton to teach the "within thing", is hypocricy, since you believe as the Salamances that the unbaptized can be saved, even if they have no explicit desire to be Catholics, nor belief in the Trinity and the Incarnation. You reject Fr. Fenton.

Fr. Fenton, The Catholic Church and Salvation, 1958,

page 127: “By all means the most important and the most widely employed of all the inadequate explanations of the Church’s necessity for salvation was the one that centered around a distinction between the ‘body’ and the ‘soul’ of the Catholic Church. The individual who tried to explain the dogma in this fashion generally designated the visible Church itself as the ‘body’ of the Church and applied the term ‘soul of the Church’ either to grace and the supernatural virtues or some fancied ‘invisible Church.’…there were several books and articles claiming that, while the ‘soul’ of the Church was in some way not separated from the ‘body,’ it was actually more extensive than this ‘body.’ Explanations of the Church’s necessity drawn up in terms of this distinction were at best inadequate and confusing and all too frequently infected with serious error.”

Page 173-174: “Yet, despite the perfection of St. Robert’s teaching and the clarity of his exposition, this section of the second chapter of his De ecclesia militante was destined to be a source of serious and highly unfortunate misunderstanding by subsequent theologians. The weak part of this, perhaps the most important single passage in the writings of any post Tridentine theologian, was St. Robert’s use of the terms ‘soul’ and ‘body’ with reference to the Church.”

page 179: “It is one of the ironical twists in history that St. Robert, pre-eminent among the writers of the Catholic Church for the clarity of his expression, should have offered the occasion for such serious misunderstanding.”

Page 181: “The misuse of St. Robert’s terminology went a step farther at the beginning of the eighteenth century in a well-written manual Elementa theologica written by the Sorbonne professor, Charles du Plessis d’Argentre.”

For the hundredth time Monsignor Fenton agrees 100% with Bellarmine's teaching. He goes into great detail defending and explains how others misunderstood it.

Do you recall me mentioning this before and then sending proof?

I posted what he wrote. If that looks to you like he's defending St. Robert Bellarmine, then I guess you are telling me to interpret it NOT as it is written?

bowler · « **Reply #94 on:** February 07, 2014, 01:04:26 PM »

The truth is that once the Catholic has fully digested Fenton’s “theology” and his treatment of the dogma, all that remains of the defined dogma Outside the Church There is No Salvation is: unless you believe in God, and that He rewards good and punishes evil, you cannot be saved. The necessity of having the “Catholic Faith” is gone; people who have the “Faith” of Jews and Muslims can be “inside” the Church without being members.

And thus all the bishops at Vatican II thought like Fenton, and signed all the docuмents on religious freedom and ecuмenism:

Quote

Bishop Lefebvre, Sermon at first Mass of a newly ordained priest (Geneva: 1976):
“We are Catholics; we affirm our faith in the divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ; we affirm our faith in the divinity of the Holy Catholic Church; we think that Jesus Christ is the sole way, the sole truth, the sole life, and that one cannot be saved outside Our Lord Jesus Christ and consequently outside His Mystical Spouse, the Holy Catholic Church. No doubt, the graces of God are distributed outside the Catholic Church, but those who are saved, even outside the Catholic Church, are saved by the Catholic Church, by Our Lord Jesus Christ, even if they do not know it, even if they are unaware of it...”