Author Topic: Problem with BOD - 20th Century Morphing (Read 5397 times)

Lover of Truth · « **Reply #60 on:** November 12, 2013, 11:02:28 AM »

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"The Mystici Corporis speaks of these two bonds of union with Christ and describes them as St. Robert Bellarmine did in his De Ecclesia Militante. It is interesting to note that in the De Ecclesia Militante the inward and outward bonds of unity with our Lord are designated under the names of the soul and the body of the Church. Years before St. Robert, James Latomus had fully described these two bonds of unity and had designated them as the spiritual and the bodily communication with the Church. St. Robert simply took the distinction which Latomus had employed to show the effects of excommunication and used that distinction to show that even occult heretics might be truly within the body which is the Church of Jesus Christ, in as much as they possess a real, though external bond of unity with the head of that Church. Catholic Theology since his day has accepted his argument and his definition. It has thereby approved his use of the Corpus Mysticuм. Fenton

bowler · « **Reply #61 on:** November 12, 2013, 11:11:39 AM »

Quote from: bowler

Quote from: Lover of Truth
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The BODers claim that Pius XII approved of the Letter of 1949, and yet I ask, why was it not included by the pope in his Acta?

...I'm not sure if he put it in his Acta or not.

Then you have no business discussing the subject of the 1949 letter.

Lover of Truth · « **Reply #62 on:** November 12, 2013, 11:50:21 AM »

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"The concept of the Mystical Body enters into most of theses of the De Ecclesia Militante as proof or an explanation of St. Robert's teaching. The other names of the Church are used with it. St. Robert, like the other classical ecclesiologists, never permitted himself to forget that the institution he was describing and defending was the society which St. Paul had described as Christ's Body. As a result the theses of the classical theology on the Catholic Church are conclusions formulated and developed in the light of the Mystical Body concept. These were the theses which entered and remained in the school theology De Ecclesia Christi. Whatever else it may have done, that school theology certainly did not neglect the doctrine of the Mystical Body. Fenton

Lover of Truth · « **Reply #63 on:** November 13, 2013, 07:15:57 AM »

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"At least one misconception which crept into the works of some theologians after the time of St. Robert and his fellows came from an unregulated application of the Body-analogy rather than from any failure to consider it. A good number of subsequent theologians, impressed by St. Robert's use of the terms body and soul of the Church, hastened to include them in their own writings. Unfortunately however they neglected the purpose for which St. Robert had employed these terms. Thus the body and the soul of the Church came ultimately to be considered as societies in some way distinct from one another instead of what they had been in the De Ecclesia Militante, factors by which men were joined together in the unity of the Catholic Church. Fenton

These quotes from Fenton on the Church's understanding of her role in salvation show that the Church has inner and outer bonds of unity and that a non-member can partake of the inner bonds of unity, i.e. the Theological Virtues and Gifts of the Holy Ghost and be saved within that Church. But he also clarifies that that there is only one Church in which one can be saved within. There is not a "soul" of the Church which is distinct or more broad than the Catholic Church which is the Mystical Body of Christ. Non-members who partake of the inner bonds of unity within the Church can be saved within that Church whereas members of the Catholic Church who lack the inner bond of unity of sanctifying grace can be damned.

The teaching itself is rather simple and easy to understand but some distinctions within the teaching have been misunderstood in recent decades.

Again it is not a member/non-member distinction but a within/outside of distinction that needs to be made when considering the EEENS Dogma.

Likewise it is not a member/non-member distinction that needs to be made when considering whether one can be saved but a dying in a state of sanctifying grace or not which settles the issue.

This is what happens when people focus on one thing to the exclusion of something even more important.

Yes member/non-member is a very important distinction to make but whether one dies within/or outside the Church in a state of sanctifying grace is the over-riding distinction that needs to be made.

Same with other issues like SV. Yes formal and material heresy is an important distinction to make, especially in so far as how a person will be Judged by God, but when it comes to legitimately holding ecclesiastical office and the visible unity of the Church the over-riding distinction that needs to be made is whether one is an occult or public heretic.

I would not be surprised if such distinctions can be made on other issues as well such as jurisdiction. Yes the mandate is necessary but how is it applied in varying circuмstances.

It is very important to be able to think critically and logically and to take time to read and study docuмents. By study I mean going back over what you have read a few times if it seems confusing at first. Applying what it teaches to our current circuмstances and seeing if those circuмstances are addressed or not. Is there room for legitimate debate on its application?

But jurisdiction is another thread the point I'm making here is on salvation within the Church and how we should not focus on membership/non-membership to the exclusion of within/outside of the Church and sanctifying grace/no sanctifying grace when it comes to salvation within the Church.

Lover of Truth · « **Reply #64 on:** November 14, 2013, 05:04:00 AM »

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"It took well over a century and a half to complete this twisting of St. Robert Bellarmine's teaching. The process however began with a contemporary of the great Controversialist. In his immensely popular seminary manual, the Breviarium Theologicuм, John Polman (1649) merely copied what St. Robert had set down about the soul and the body of the Church without giving any hint of the purpose for which these terms had been used. The casual reader of Polman would hardly suspect that his terms referred to factors which had long been known in ecclesiology as the inward and the outward bonds of unity within the visible Church of Jesus Christ.
Fenton

Lover of Truth · « **Reply #65 on:** November 15, 2013, 05:50:19 AM »

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A more seriously confused use of St. Robert's terminology on the Mystical Body entered some manuals of school theology through the writings of Charles du Plessis d'Argentre (1740) and Honoratus Tournely (1729). D'Argentre, whose Elementa Theologica appeared some years earlier than the Praelectiones Theologicae de Ecclesia Christi of his older Sorbonne confrere, used the concept of the Mystical body for his fundamental teaching on the Church. 'So great is the analogy between the Mystical Body of the Church and the natural human body that you can easily understand the essence and the properties of the former through the latter.'
Fenton

Lover of Truth · « **Reply #66 on:** November 18, 2013, 11:19:00 AM »

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"D'Argentre could never be accused of neglecting the concept of the Mystical Body. However he was somewhat careless in handling his analogy, and failed to check his teachings properly with the dicta of traditional theology. He paid comparatively little attention to the other names of the Church. As a result he drew inferences quite at variance with the pronouncements of his predecessors. Fenton

This can happen to the best of orthodox theologians and certainly to bloggers as well.

Solidus · « **Reply #67 on:** November 18, 2013, 07:38:31 PM »

Wait...

I remember learning about a raid on a Huron village that took place while the Jesuits were baptizing the aboriginals. Some of those people died before they could get baptized.

So are these souls that were minutes or even secounds away from being baptized going to hell?

Lover of Truth · « **Reply #68 on:** November 19, 2013, 06:17:56 AM »

Quote from: Solidus

Wait...

I remember learning about a raid on a Huron village that took place while the Jesuits were baptizing the aboriginals. Some of those people died before they could get baptized.

So are these souls that were minutes or even secounds away from being baptized going to hell?

No, God is not an arbitrary tyrant that ignores the heart and looks for the water.

Lover of Truth · « **Reply #69 on:** November 19, 2013, 06:23:02 AM »

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"He was among the first to suggest that the Church could be defined in function of what St. Robert had named the soul of the Church, despite the fact that St. Robert himself had brought up the concept of the inward bond of unity and applied the name soul to it precisely in order to show that it should not be an element in such a definition. Furthermore, at the hands of D'Argentre, this inward communication became the soul of the Church, a basic factor in several faulty explanations. He used the visible Church itself, rather than the external bond of unity as the co-relative of this soul and taught that catechumens who died before being received into the Church might be saved through belonging to its soul. Fenton

Here is something our Feeneyite friends might read and I believe may rightfully cause them to cringe. There are other sentiments like the above in Imprimatured and the Nihil Obstated theology manuals of the pre-Vatican 2 variety. Analogies are analogies. By definition they are not perfect or exact but only similar. They are used to make things easier to understand but faulty or exaggerated analogies can in fact complicate matters. If the doctrine of baptism of blood and baptism of desire were based on such faulty analogies [that the Church could be defined in function of the "soul" of the Church i.e. that such were actual "members" of the "soul" of the Church] then the Feeneyites would have something to gripe about. But baptism of blood and baptism of desire are not based upon faulty or imperfect analogies, but rather the infallible ordinary teaching of the Magisterium. Obviously catechumens can be saved but they are not members of the ["soul" of the] Church.

Lover of Truth · « **Reply #70 on:** November 20, 2013, 06:35:28 AM »

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"Tournely listed a great number of names and figures of the Church. In his theses however, the name Mystical Body is used more than the others. The same tendencies which appear in D'Argentre's work are manifest in his. As a matter of fact, Tournely went further astray than had his younger colleague. Where D'Argentre had suggested a definition of the Church in function of the soul, Tournely actually offered such a definition. Futhermore Tournely was much more effective in popularizing this confusion. Herter's Nomenclator Literarius lists D'Argentre's Elementa Theologica as a rare book. Tournely's manuals were among the most popular handbooks in the history of theological education. Fenton

Father Fenton collects all the teachings by orthodox theologians throughout the Church's history along with all the infallible teachings of Popes and councils and shows how the teaching on the Church and salvation started to veer slightly off track in theology manuals published by otherwise orthodox theologians in recent centuries as they started using the term "soul" a term Bellarmine used to describe the "inner bonds of unity" within the Church to actually describe the Church itself in a way that was distinct or broader than the mystical body of Christ, thus teaching the exact opposite of what Bellarmine taught while teaching what they believed he taught.

Saint Robert Bellarmine taught that members of the Church were those who professed the faith, partook of the sacraments and submitted to legitimate ecclesiastical authority. He taught that Mystical Body of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church are one and the same. He taught that there were inner bonds of unity and outward bonds of unity within this Church.

He along with the Catholic Church teaches that members of the Church can lack the inner bonds of unity essential for salvation such as sanctifying grace. He in union with the Catholic Church teaches that non-members of the Church, who lack one or more of the outer bonds of unity can partake of the inner bonds of unity necessary for salvation such as sanctifying grace and be saved.

Understanding the above is the key to understanding the Catholic Church's teaching on her necessity for salvation. Non-members of the Church who share in her inner bonds of unity can be saved within the Church. The Dogma teaches that there is no salvation outside the Church. Non-members of that Church who partake of the inner bonds of unity can be saved within the Church despite not being members of that Church.

If was forced to pick one or the other I would much prefer to be a non-member who dies in a state of sanctifying grace than to die as a member not in a state of sanctifying grace. How about you?

Stubborn · « **Reply #71 on:** November 20, 2013, 07:36:29 AM »

Quote from: Solidus

Wait...

I remember learning about a raid on a Huron village that took place while the Jesuits were baptizing the aboriginals. Some of those people died before they could get baptized.

So are these souls that were minutes or even secounds away from being baptized going to hell?

According to the Fr. Fenton stories, it would not matter one way or the other so it's sort of odd there would even be any mention of that episode - unless of course whoever you learned that from was striving to promulgate the negation of the absolute necessity of the Sacrament.

If those who were assumed to have perished prior to reception of the sacrament made it to heaven, then it pretty much makes the entire episode a collossal joke. I mean what was the purpose of baptizing them at all if they didn't really need it to be saved?

FWIW, If God can arrange for you to be baptized and therefore become a member of the Church, by the very same Providence He can arrange for anyone else who desires or is willing to enter it. There is absolutely no obstacle (not even a fatal surprise attack on aboriginals) to the invincible God's achieving His designs, except the intractable wills of His children.

Lover of Truth · « **Reply #72 on:** November 20, 2013, 08:03:41 AM »

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"Where Tournely had simply offered a definition of the Church in terms of the soul, the brilliant German Jesuit Heinrich Kilber (1783) made a triple definition of the Church the basis of his ecclesiology. Two of Kilber's formulae describe the Church "inadequately," one in function of the soul alone, and the other in function of the body alone. The inadequate definition in the light of the body is similar to St. Robert's definition of the Church itself. The definition which described the Church "adequately" took in both the soul and the body. The famous Sorbonne theologian Louis Legrand (1780) finally defined the soul of the Church as a society in some manner distinct from the visible Church itself. Fenton

Here we see orthodox theologians who I believe were good willed even straying further due to a misunderstanding of the term "soul" of the Church and its correct meaning.

Lover of Truth · « **Reply #73 on:** November 21, 2013, 07:09:19 AM »

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"Although some few school texts incorporated Legrand's teaching about the soul of the Church into their treatises De Ecclesia, this misapplication of the Mystical Body concept was never very influential among the Scholastics. Popularizers rather than proponents of the school theology employed it. The school theology as a whole continued the theses of the classical ecclesiologists, these constructed in the light of an accurate Mystical Body teaching. The school theology since the middle ages prepared the way for the Mystici Corporis." (JOSEPH CLIFFORD FENTON, Washington, D. C., March 1944)

Understand that the phrase "The Mystical Body of Christ" is a phrase that distinguishes Catholic Church from the Physical Body of our Lord. Do not get confused by the term "mystical" and think it means something other than or more than the Catholic Church. The Mystical Body of Christ IS the Catholic Church, plain and simple.

For those who love Truth, it is time crack open Mystici Corporis again and re-study this masterful work written seventy years ago.