Author Topic: The Baltimore Catechism Heresy (Read 15460 times)

Raoul76 · « **on:** December 16, 2009, 03:57:00 PM »

This carries on a conversation from another thread, where I was asked to start a new thread about the BC.

The heresy of the Baltimore Catechism is as follows:

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"Q. 510. Is it ever possible for one to be saved who does not know the Catholic Church to be the true Church?

A. It is possible for one to be saved who does not know the Catholic Church to be the true Church, provided that person:

1. Has been validly baptized;
2. Firmly believes the religion he professes and practices to be the true religion, and
3. Dies without the guilt of mortal sin on his soul.

Someone who FIRMLY BELIEVES IN THE RELIGION HE PROFESSES THAT IS NOT CATHOLIC CAN BE SAVED, according to Cardinal Gibbons and Co. The writers of this catechism even try to make it seem like a virtue for someone to be loyal to their false religion. Then they throw in that he must be free of mortal sin to make it sound conservative, sort of like how some Catholics think NFP is conservative because it's not condoms or the Pill.

This is incoherent, scandalous and heretical. The reality is that no one can be saved in a false religion. Now, if a Protestant at the last movement of his life decides to join the Catholic Church, and then dies, he ( a ) Is no longer a Protestant, and no longer spiritually "in" that religion and ( b ) May be saved by perfect contrition, which wipes out the mortal sin. If he is part of a religion that doesn't baptize, like Buddhism, he would have a chance to be saved through baptism of desire rather than perfect contrition.

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Q. 511. Why do we say it is only possible for a person to be saved who does not know the Catholic Church to be the true Church?

A. We say it is only possible for a person to be saved who does not know the Catholic Church to be the true Church, because the necessary conditions are not often found, especially that of dying in a state of grace without making use of the Sacrament of Penance.

The necessary conditions are not "often" found? Try NEVER found. Again, it sounds conservative but they slip in the poison.

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Q. 512. How are such persons said to belong to the Church?

A. Such persons are said to belong to the 'soul of the church'; that is, they are really members of the Church without knowing it. Those who share in its Sacraments and worship are said to belong to the body or visible part of the Church."

This could be refuted by a reductio ad absurdum. By this logic, everyone is a member of the Catholic Church without knowing it. The whole world is unconsciously Catholic. As we see in Vatican II, that is what they essentially teach.

The Baltimore Catechism being an AMERICANIST heretical catechism, was sort of the forerunner of Vatican II, the AMERICANIST new Church. America with its religious freedom is Mystery Babylon, or so I believe, and the VII Church is an Americanist counterfeit of the real Church.

But I believe that the heresy really began being taught from the "Throne of Peter" before VII by Pius XII, who was certainly one of the all-time great Anti-Christs because he seemed so holy -- indeed, I used to idolize him, and admired his policy in World War II. What you see in the Baltimore Catechism found muted and ambiguous expression in his "encyclical" Mystici Corporis Christi, which may have lost him the office. But that's for another thread...

CM · « **Reply #1 on:** December 16, 2009, 07:38:32 PM »

Dig deeper - but leave Pius X out of it, unless you catch him publicly teaching heresy.

Tradycja · « **Reply #2 on:** December 16, 2009, 10:48:21 PM »

That's right the Baltimore Catechism is heretical on that point you quote. Well at least now they have versions online now. You can edit the bad parts out for your children, LOL.

Raoul76 · « **Reply #3 on:** December 24, 2009, 03:11:58 AM »

I can see that the world has been set ablaze by my revelation.

CM, what you mean by "deeper" is really a distraction. You may have fallen for that Hegelian junk going on with Father Feeney, but I will not. THIS is the big deal that we have been hypnotized into ignoring. THIS is what everyone should be talking about.

Actually, this very heresy is what Father Feeney and his cohorts began to fight against, before being sidetracked. Here is an article from Time in 1949 showing what I mean --

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"The Church's famed Baltimore Catechism* states explicitly that those who remain outside the Roman Catholic Church "through no grave fault of their own and do not know it is the true Church can be saved by making use of the graces which God gives them . . ." Each man, the Catholic Church holds, gets enough grace to achieve salvation. Only God knows how he uses it."

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,856253,00.html#ixzz0aayFcUSp

60 years ago people were complaining about this catechism, but I guess that's all water under the bridge, since the SSPX and all the American sedevacantists I know of teach what it says. The others use the Pius XII Catechism which teaches the same thing, but in a more slick way befitting its namesake.

How much more slowly can we move, people? DEMAND from your clergy that they stop teaching or even believing in this heresy. What kind of molasses-like apathy have I been put on Earth to witness?

We're not talking about baptism of desire or implicit faith here. We're talking about saying you can be saved in another religion. This is taught by Bishop McKenna, who says Jews can be saved without faith in Christ. Yet the sedevacantists are supposed to be our escape? They are the exact same heretics that were being protested against at Boston College in the 40's, for the love of Pete!

I have, or had, an 80-year old friend. We were discussing various matters, not in the intense way that I do here, but friendly-like. When I began saying that there was no way to be saved outside the Catholic Church, he said "Now hold on. What about someone who grows up in a Protestant family, their parents prejudice them against the Catholic religion, they can't be held responsible," and so on, showing that he has been trained Cardinal Gibbons-style, just like almost all Americans.
Luckily I was able to disabuse him of this error.

SJB · « **Reply #4 on:** December 24, 2009, 08:22:21 AM »

Quote from: Raoul76

We're not talking about baptism of desire or implicit faith here. We're talking about saying you can be saved in another religion. This is taught by Bishop McKenna, who says Jews can be saved without faith in Christ. Yet the sedevacantists are supposed to be our escape? They are the exact same heretics that were being protested against at Boston College in the 40's, for the love of Pete!

What was being taught at BC in the 40's was that it was not necessary to be incorporated into the Church for salvation. They were denying outright the Dogma of EENS. "Invincible ignorance" was not even on the radar.

CM · « **Reply #5 on:** December 24, 2009, 09:09:46 AM »

Quote from: Raoul76

CM, what you mean by "deeper" is really a distraction.

No it isn't. It's the wide open doorway that made the Baltimore Catechism heresy possible, the heresy that was flying under the radar all this time.

Quote from: Raoul76

You may have fallen for that Hegelian junk going on with Father Feeney, but I will not.

It has nothing to do with Father Feeney.

Here is what I've "fallen for" Mike:

Quote from: Pope Pius IX, Vatican Council

9. Therefore, faithfully adhering to the tradition received from the beginning of the Christian faith, to the glory of God our savior, for the exaltation of the Catholic religion and for the salvation of the Christian people, with the approval of the Sacred Council, we teach and define as a divinely revealed dogma that when the Roman Pontiff speaks EX CATHEDRA, that is, when, in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, 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. Therefore, such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are of themselves, and not by the consent of the Church, irreformable.

By the way, SJB has argued that the infallibility of the Pontiff was defined but not that of the Church. Hmmm... guess again SJB.

What does it say right up there?

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that infallibility which the divine Redeemer willed his Church to enjoy in defining doctrine concerning faith or morals

Yet you say I have been refuted many times? Tell yourself another lie and it still won't be true.

SJB · « **Reply #6 on:** December 24, 2009, 09:35:03 AM »

Quote from: CM

By the way, SJB has argued that the infallibility of the Pontiff was defined but not that of the Church. Hmmm... guess again SJB.

What does it say right up there?

That was Cardinal Manning speaking, not me. Read it again, CM.

CM · « **Reply #7 on:** December 24, 2009, 12:06:42 PM »

Quote from: Cardinal Manning, from "Four Great Evils of the Day"

"This spirit began in Germany. It says: 'I believe everything which the Church has defined. I believe all dogmas; everything which has been defined by a General Council.' This sounds a large and generous profession of faith; but they forget that whatsoever was revealed on the Day of Pentecost to the Apostles, and by the Apostles preached to the nations of the world, and has descended in the full stream of universal belief and constant tradition, though it has never been defined, is still matter of Divine faith.

That's right. The basic Christian Creed, as I have been stating all along, is a matter of Divine faith and it was so long before the Council of Nicaea.

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Thus there are truths of faith which have never been defined because they have never been contradicted. They are not defined because they have not been denied.

First of all, denied by whom? And this is really nothing more than a matter of opinion on his part, which he is really quite vague about it. Did he ever propose any CONCRETE examples of such doctrines?

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The definition of the truth is the fortification of the Church against the assaults of unbelief. Some of the greatest truths of revelation are to this day undefined. The infallibility of the Church has never been defined. The infallibility of the Head of the Church was only defined the other day.

In his OPINION he separates the two, ignoring what the decree actually says.

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But the infallibility of the Church, for which every Catholic would lay down his life, has never been defined until now; the infallibility of the Church is at this moment where the infallibility of the Pope was this time last year;

Actually, the Pontiff, in the above definition, refers to "that infallibility which the divine Redeemer willed his Church to enjoy in defining doctrine concerning faith or morals"

So evidently Manning was incorrect to say that the infallibility of the Church is yet undefined. That's not to say that there could not be a future definition which adds to our understand of the matter, so long as it firs with and does not contradict what has already been said.

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an undefined point of Christian revelation, believed by the Christian world, but not yet put in the form of a definition. When, therefore, men said they would only believe dogmas, and definitions by General Councils, they implied, without knowing it, that they would not believe in the infallibility of the Church. (From, "Four Great Evils of the Day".)

I know that you believe my position is the part in bold, but this is quite simply not so. I adhere to what the Vatican Council tells us about EXACTLY what doctrines are De Fide in Session 3, Chapter 3, #8:

Quote from: which

Wherefore, by divine and Catholic faith all those things are to be believed which are contained in the word of God as found in Scripture and tradition, and which are proposed by the Church as matters to be believed as divinely revealed, whether by her solemn judgment or in her Ordinary and Universal Magisterium[/u].

At the end of the day, the only thing that Manning could really be saying is that the Church has never defined the Ordinary and Universal Magisterium, but that the assent of faith, which dogmatic definitions demand, is also due in the same manner to the Ordinary and Universal Magisterium nevertheless (once a doctrine can be positively identified as pertaining to the same).

If that was what he meant, then I agree with him 100%.

Raoul76 · « **Reply #8 on:** December 24, 2009, 12:58:00 PM »

CM, please, as a favor, can we leave BoD for the other thread that now has thirteen or so pages? This one is about the Baltimore Catechism.

SJB, come right out and say it. You believe in what the Baltimore Catechism teaches, don't you? I notice you and some others here kind of creeping around it -- just put your money where your mouth is. It says a lot that you are so circuмspect and cautious with your words; it reminds me of CMRI.

Why are you bringing up "invincible ignorance"? Do you think a Protestant has invincible ignorance? Protestants are PROTESTING against the Catholic Church, hence the name "Protestant."

Just answer me this, SJB, with no mincing of words. Do you think that you can be saved in another religion through an "act of charity" or good will? Do you agree with what Abp. Lefebvre says here?

Against the Heresies, oh the irony! --

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"Evidently, certain distinctions must be made. Souls can be saved in a religion other than the Catholic religion (Protestantism, Islam, Buddhism, etc.), but not by this religion. There may be souls who, not knowing Our Lord, have by the grace of the good Lord, good interior dispositions, who submit to God...But some of these persons make an act of love which implicitly is equivalent to baptism of desire. It is uniquely by this means that they are able to be saved."

I'll be waiting... :farmer:

Jehanne · « **Reply #9 on:** December 24, 2009, 01:19:05 PM »

Very good OP, by the way. I think that you hit the nail right on the head, dead center.

SJB · « **Reply #10 on:** December 24, 2009, 01:56:39 PM »

Quote from: Raoul76

I'll be waiting... :farmer:

Are you just a peasant farmer or are you threatening me with that pitchfork?

Something to ponder over the weekend; consider what the Baltimore Catechism actually is and all the variations of it. I do agree that the wording is unfortunate in some places and I'll tell you where and why. I'll address your questions after Christmas.

Btw, A Blessed and Merry Christmas to all!

CM · « **Reply #11 on:** December 24, 2009, 02:13:24 PM »

Quote from: SJB

Something to ponder over the weekend; consider what the Baltimore Catechism actually is and all the variations of it. I do agree that the wording is unfortunate in some places and I'll tell you where and why. I'll address your questions after Christmas.

Sounds to me like a precursor to some word mincing. Time will tell.

SJB · « **Reply #12 on:** December 28, 2009, 07:50:11 PM »

Quote from: Raoul76

Quote from: SJB
Recant what? And to whom do they recant? You?

Who says that the Pope isn't the Pope? YOU?! Who says heresy is heresy? YOU?!

And who understands those are private judgments? I do.

Quote from: Raoul76

No, they don't recant to me. If they want salvation, they should recant, however, and on their own volition.

Recant what? What you think is heretical that nobody noticed at the time? An abjuration is required when one is involved with a false religion, a condemned sect. Condemned by the Church.

Quote from: Raoul76

I'll get into what they should recant in the Baltimore Catechism thread. I don't want to further intrude on Eamon's stomping grounds.

Here we are. I've never heard of someone having to recant part of a catechism they did not write.

SJB · « **Reply #13 on:** December 28, 2009, 08:07:14 PM »

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Each man, the Catholic Church holds, gets enough grace to achieve salvation.

Each man has sufficient grace to be saved. Do you deny this?

CM · « **Reply #14 on:** December 28, 2009, 08:09:04 PM »

Quote from: SJB

Recant what? What you think is heretical that nobody noticed at the time? An abjuration is required when one is involved with a false religion, a condemned sect. Condemned by the Church.

Correct. And it is required in other types of situations as well, such as when a person publicly professes a heretical opinion.

Galileo's opinion was held by many to be heretical, and he was ORDERED to abjure, just for one quick example.