Author Topic: Membership in and Visibility of the Church (Read 6213 times)

Lover of Truth · « **Reply #60 on:** December 20, 2013, 06:09:52 AM »

Quote

St. Robert Bellarmine was engaged in controversy against opponents who agreed with him about the basic concept of the one true Church of Jesus Christ. All of the participants in this dispute were in perfect accord about the existence of a community or group of men within which alone salvific contact with Our Lord was to be found. [ Note from J.G. - we have "salvific contact" with Our Lord in the governing Church, through the infallible teachings of the Church, and most especially in the Sacraments.] The point at issue was the identity of this community. The Protestant writers had renewed, with some modifications of their own, the old heretical teaching that this community was not an organized society over which the Bishop of Rome presides as the visible head. The Catholic writers were firm in their insistence that the true Church, the Mystical body of Christ, the one kingdom of God on this earth, was that very organization. When these men declared that the true Church is visible, they meant that the kingdom of God on earth, the only assembly within which men have salvific contact with Christ, is a society, including in its membership both good and evil men, both the reprobate and the predestined. When, on the other hand, the Protestant writers defended the concept of an invisible Church, they meant that the assembly of the Saints was not an organized social group at all, and that salvific contact with Our Lord could be achieved independently of any organization. Fenton

Any errors here?

Lover of Truth · « **Reply #61 on:** December 20, 2013, 08:26:52 AM »

Quote

The Catholic truth, in other words, is the teaching that the Mystical body of Jesus Christ on this earth is an organized society, and hence a community in which men possess membership by reason of certain definitely recognizable or visible factors. St. Robert, and Becanus after him, were perfectly justified in appealing to the parallel of the political groups extant in their own times. By the favor of divine providence, [Note from J.G. - We have lost that favor of divine providence due to our neglect of the faith, sloth in studying it, indifference towards it, and our sins. Because the Faith was taken for granted, as was common in the 1950's, it was taken away from all but a faithful remnant, with the result being that the Church is no longer as easily seen as she was before the death of Pope Pius XII.] the true and only Church of Jesus Christ on earth is as visible and manifest an organization as the republic of Venice or the kingdom of France ever were. St. Robert did not "forget" anything when he insisted upon this truth. Fenton

Lover of Truth · « **Reply #62 on:** December 20, 2013, 09:17:17 AM »

Quote

Furthermore, he [Bellarmine] was perfectly faithful to Our Lord's own teaching about His Church when he left charity and the supernatural virtue of faith out of the formula which he meant to express the minimum requisites for membership in that Church. One of the main themes in Our Lord's parables of the kingdom is the warning that on the last day the Church will be purified by the permanent expulsion of those members who have passed from this world without the supernatural virtues. The obvious implication of this warning is that here on earth men who are devoid at least of charity can retain their membership in His Mystical Body. Fenton

Any errors here?

Lover of Truth · « **Reply #63 on:** December 20, 2013, 11:23:40 AM »

Quote

One of the central errors about the constitution of Our Lord's Church has always taken the form of a certain ecclesiastical Docetism. Just as the Docetists long ago were unwilling to admit that a real man, who really suffered and was really repudiated and crucified, could actually be the Son of God, so, in more recent times, there have always been individuals who were repelled by the thought that this organization, with its bad members intermingled with the good, is really the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ. They have been too delicate to accept the fact that God wills us to find our salvific contact with Our Lord in an organization, anyone of whose members or even superiors may not be living the life of divine grace at all. It was precisely against this tendency that St. Robert wrote his book, De ecclesia militante. Unfortunately, it is this tendency which would designate his chapter on the definition of the Church as "cet infortune chapitre." Fenton

Lover of Truth · « **Reply #64 on:** January 27, 2014, 10:00:45 AM »

Remember Father Fenton never taught that Robert Bellarmine erred on the issue. Rather he clarified how others misinterpreted his teaching:

Quote

When Fr. Journet objects against St. Robert's omission of the factors which, for him, constituted the "soul" of the Church from his definition in terms of membership, he betrays a serious misconception of St. Robert's procedure and habitual terminology. Fr. Journet, as a matter of fact, builds his central concept of the Church around the notions of "soul" and "body". He distinguishes sedulously between the uncreated Soul of the Church and its created soul. For him, as we shall see, the "souls" and the "body" go together to form the Church itself.

Fenton