Catholic Info
Traditional Catholic Faith => Crisis in the Church => The Feeneyism Ghetto => Topic started by: Pax Vobis on February 21, 2020, 10:22:13 AM
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Here is an article written by the Modernist, Cardinal Avery Dulles. His article is a fabulous history of Church teaching which shows that up until the time of the 1500s, the Church teaching on BOD or salvation for non-catholics was very consistent. In the 16th century (as Ladislaus has pointed out many times) the floodgates opened up and all manner of liberal theologians starting arguing that salvation for the "natives in the new continent" could be possible. Thus these theologians ushered in heresy to the Church and contradicted the previous 1,500 years of Tradition.
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Let it be noted that the post-1500s ideas on salvation are not Traditional, not Scriptural and not Apostolic. This article clearly shows this departure from the Church Fathers and the liberalization of true doctrine. The theologians were not preaching "that which has always been taught" but were giving OPINIONS and THEORIES...many of which even modern popes have carried on. But such are speculations and not doctrine.
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As his history of EENS denial continues, Cardinal Dulles ends his article with a de-facto support of universal salvation. This is where modern BOD logic leads - if it is not interpreted/corralled according to Tradition, Scripture and Apostolic teachings - universal salvation according to V2's ecuмenism. And this ultra heresy ultimately ends with the goal of the modernists and V2 - a one-world religion with anti-Christ as its head, where all religions are equal and all men live together in peace and unity. Except that peace is not Christ, but the world's false peace. And the unity is not in Truth but in the devil's lies.
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Here are some facts about Cardinal Avery Dulles (he comes from a family of NWO globalist elites):
1. Born in 1918, son of John Foster Dulles, former Secretary of State after whom DC's Dulles airport is named.
2. His grandfather, John W. Foster, and his uncle, Robert Lansing, both served as United States Secretary of State.
3. His uncle, Allen Dulles, was director of the CIA.
4. Avery was raised Presbyterian and became agnostic in his early adult years.
5. Fr Feeney converted him to Catholicism in 1940.
6. He was the co-founded the St Benedict Center in 1941 along with Catherine Clarke, who was later the co-founder of the "Slaves of the Immaculate Heart".
7. After graduating Harvard Law school, he joined the Navy. After finishing the Navy, he became a Jesuit priest in 1956.
8. In 1994, he was a signer of the docuмent Evangelicals and Catholics Together (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelicals_and_Catholics_Together).
9. In 2001, Pope JPII gave him a dispensation to become a Cardinal, and he was not required to become a Bishop first.
10. He was a member of the United States Lutheran/Roman Catholic Dialogue.
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Below is his article, with certain parts in bold (emphasis mine).
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Who Can Be Saved?
by Avery Cardinal Dulles (https://www.firstthings.com/author/avery-cardinal-dulles)
February 2008
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Nothing is more striking in the New Testament than the confidence with which it proclaims the saving power of belief in Christ. Almost every page confronts us with a decision of eternal consequence: Will we follow Christ or the rulers of this world? The gospel is, according to Paul, “the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith” (Rom. 1:16). The apostles and their associates are convinced that in Jesus they have encountered the Lord of Life and that he has brought them into the way that leads to everlasting blessedness. By personal faith in him and by baptism in his name, Christians have passed from darkness to light, from error to truth, and from sin to holiness.
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Paul is the outstanding herald of salvation through faith. To the Romans he writes, “If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom. 10:9). Faith, for him, is inseparable from baptism, the sacrament of faith. By baptism, the Christian is immersed in the death of Christ so as to be raised with him to newness of life (Rom. 6:3-4).
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The Book of Acts shows the apostles preaching faith in Christ as the way to salvation. Those who believe the testimony of Peter on the first Pentecost ask him what they must do to be saved. He replies that they must be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins and thereby save themselves from the present crooked generation (Acts 2:37-40). When Peter and John are asked by the Jєωιѕн religious authorities by what authority they are preaching and performing miracles, they reply that they are acting in the name of Jesus Christ and that “there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Paul and his associates bring the gospel first of all to the Jews because it is the fulfillment of the Old Testament promises. When the Jews in large numbers reject the message, Paul and Barnabas announce that they are turning to the Gentiles in order to bring salvation to the uttermost parts of the earth (Acts 13:46-47).
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A few chapters later in Acts, we see Paul and Silas in prison at Philippi. When their jailer asks them, “What must I do to be saved?” they reply, “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.” The jailer and his family at once accept baptism and rejoice in their newfound faith (Acts 16:30-34).
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The same doctrine of salvation permeates the other books of the New Testament. Mark’s gospel ends with this missionary charge: “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole of creation. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned” (Mark 16:15-16).
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John in his gospel speaks no less clearly. Jesus at one point declares that those who hear his word and believe in him do not remain in darkness, whereas those who reject him will be judged on the last day (John 12:44-50). At the Last Supper, Jesus tells the Twelve, “This is eternal life, that they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent” (John 17:3). John concludes the body of his gospel with the statement that he has written his account “so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ and that believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:31).
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From these and many other texts, I draw the conclusion that, according to the primary Christian docuмents, salvation comes through personal faith in Jesus Christ, followed and signified by sacramental baptism.
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The New Testament is almost silent about the eternal fate of those to whom the gospel has not been preached. It seems apparent that those who became believers did not think they had been on the road to salvation before they heard the gospel. In his sermon at Athens, Paul says that in times past God overlooked the ignorance of the pagans, but he does not say that these pagans were saved. In the first chapter of Romans, Paul says that the Gentiles have come to a knowledge of God by reasoning from the created world, but that they are guilty because by their wickedness they have suppressed the truth and fallen into idolatry. In the second chapter of Romans, Paul indicates that Gentiles who are obedient to the biddings of conscience can be excused for their unbelief, but he indicates that they fall into many sins. He concludes that “all have sinned and fall short” of true righteousness (Rom. 3:23). For justification, Paul asserts, both Jews and Gentiles must rely on faith in Jesus Christ, who expiated the sins of the world on the cross.
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Animated by vibrant faith in Christ the Savior, the Christian Church was able to conquer the Roman Empire. The converts were convinced that in embracing Christianity they were escaping from the darkness of sin and superstition and entering into the realm of salvation. For them, Christianity was the true religion, the faith that saves. It would not have occurred to them that any other faith could save them.
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Christian theologians, however, soon had to face the question whether anyone could be saved without Christian faith. They did not give a wholly negative answer. They agreed that the patriarchs and prophets of Israel, because they looked forward in faith and hope to the Savior, could be saved by adhering in advance to him who was to come.
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The apologists of the second and third centuries made similar concessions with regard to certain Greek philosophers. The prologue to John’s gospel taught that the eternal Word enlightens all men who come into the world. Justin Martyr speculated that philosophers such as Socrates and Heraclitus had lived according to the Word of God, the Logos who was to become incarnate in Christ, and they could therefore be reckoned as being in some way Christians. Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen held that the Wisdom of God gave graces to people of every generation, both Greeks and barbarians.
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The saving grace of which these theologians were speaking, however, was given only to pagans who lived before the time of Christ. It was given by the Word of God who was to become incarnate in Jesus Christ. There was no doctrine that pagans could be saved since the promulgation of the gospel without embracing the Christian faith.
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Origen and Cyprian, in the third century, formulated the maxim that has come down to us in the words Extra ecclesiam nulla salus ””Outside the Church, no salvation.” They spoke these words with heretics and schismatics primarily in view, but they do not appear to have been any more optimistic about the prospects of salvation for pagans. Assuming that the gospel had been promulgated everywhere, writers of the high patristic age considered that, in the Christian era, Christians alone could be saved. In the East, this view is represented by Gregory of Nyssa and John Chrysostom. The view attributed to Origen that hell would in the end be evacuated and that all the damned would eventually be saved was condemned in the sixth century.
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In the West, following Ambrose and others, Augustine taught that, because faith comes by hearing, those who had never heard the gospel would be denied salvation. They would be eternally punished for original sin as well as for any personal sins they had committed. Augustine’s disciple Fulgentius of Ruspe exhorted his readers to “firmly hold and by no means doubt that not only all pagans, but also all Jews, and all heretics and schismatics who are outside the Catholic Church, will go to the eternal fire that was prepared for the devil and his angels.”
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The views of Augustine and Fulgentius remained dominant in the Christian West throughout the Middle Ages. The Fourth Lateran Council (1215) reaffirmed the formula “Outside the Church, no salvation,” as did Pope Boniface VIII in 1302. At the end of the Middle Ages, the Council of Florence (1442) repeated the formulation of Fulgentius to the effect that no pagan, Jew, schismatic, or heretic could be saved.
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On one point the medieval theologians diverged from rigid Augustinianism. On the basis of certain passages in the New Testament, they held that God seriously wills that all may be saved. They could cite the statement of Peter before the household of Cornelius: “Truly I perceive that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him” (Acts 10:34-35). The First Letter to Timothy, moreover, declares that God “desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:4). These assurances made for a certain tension in Catholic teaching on salvation. If faith in Christ was necessary for salvation, how could salvation be within reach of those who had no opportunity to learn about Christ?
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Thomas Aquinas, in dealing with this problem, took his departure from the axiom that there was no salvation outside the Church. To be inside the Church, he held, it was not enough to have faith in the existence of God and in divine providence, which would have sufficed before the coming of Christ. God now required explicit faith in the mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation. In two of his early works ( De Veritate and Commentary on Romans ), he discusses the hypothetical case of a man brought up in the wilderness, where the gospel was totally unknown. If this man lived an upright life with the help of the graces given him, Thomas reasoned, God would make it possible for him to become a Christian believer, either through an inner illumination or by sending a missionary to him. Thomas referred to the biblical example of the centurion Cornelius, who received the visitation of an angel before being evangelized and baptized by Peter (Acts 10). In his Summa Theologiae , however, Thomas omits any reference to miraculous instruction; he goes back to the Augustinian theory that those who had never heard the gospel would be eternally punished for original sin as well as their personal sins.
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A major theological development occurred in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The voyages of discovery had by this time disclosed that there were large populations in North and South America, Africa, and Asia who had lived since the time of Christ and had never had access to the preaching of the gospel. The missionaries found no sign that even the most upright among these peoples had learned the mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation by interior inspirations or angelic visitations.
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Luther, Calvin, and the Jansenists professed the strict Augustinian doctrine that God did not will to save everyone, but the majority of Catholic theologians rejected the idea that God had consigned all these unevangelized persons to hell without giving them any possibility of salvation. A series of theologians proposed more hopeful theories that they took to be compatible with Scripture and Catholic tradition.
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The Dominican Melchior Cano argued that these populations were in a situation no different from that of the pre-Christian pagans praised by Justin and others. They could be justified in this life (but not saved in the life to come) by implicit faith in the Christian mysteries. Another Dominican, Domingo de Soto, went further, holding that, for the unevangelized, implicit faith in Christ would be sufficient for salvation itself. Their contemporary, Albert Pighius, held that for these unevangelized persons the only faith required would be that mentioned in Hebrews 11:6: “Without faith it is impossible to please him. For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” They could therefore be saved by general revelation and grace even though no missionary came to evangelize them.
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The Jesuit Francisco Suarez, following these pioneers, argued for the sufficiency of implicit faith in the Trinity and the Incarnation, together with an implicit desire for baptism on the part of the unevangelized. Juan de Lugo agreed, but he added that such persons could not be saved if they had committed serious sins, unless they obtained forgiveness by an act of perfect contrition.
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In the mid-nineteenth century, the Jesuits of the Gregorian University followed in the tradition of Suarez and de Lugo, with certain modifications. Pope Pius IX incorporated some of their ideas in two important statements in 1854 and 1863. In the first, he said that, while no one can be saved outside the Church, God would not punish people for their ignorance of the true faith if their ignorance was invincible. In the second statement, Pius went further. He declared that persons invincibly ignorant of the Christian religion who observed the natural law and were ready to obey God would be able to attain eternal life, thanks to the workings of divine grace within them. In the same letter, the pope reaffirmed that no one could be saved outside the Catholic Church. He did not explain in what sense such persons were, or would come to be, in the Church. He could have meant that they would receive the further grace needed to join the Church, but nothing in his language suggests this. More probably he thought that such persons would be joined to the Church by implicit desire, as some theologians were teaching by his time.
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In 1943, Pius XII did take this further step. In his encyclical on the Mystical Body, Mystici Corporis, he distinguished between two ways of belonging to the Church: in actual fact ( in re ) or by desire ( in voto ). Those who belonged in voto , however, were not really members. They were ordered to the Church by the dynamism of grace itself, which related them to the Church in such a way that they were in some sense in it. The two kinds of relationship, however, were not equally conducive to salvation. Those adhering to the Church by desire could not have a sure hope of salvation because they lacked many spiritual gifts and helps available only to those visibly incorporated in the true Church.
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Mystici Corporis represents a forward step in its doctrine of adherence to the Church through implicit desire. From an ecuмenical point of view, that encyclical is deficient, since it does not distinguish between the status of non-Christians and non-Catholic Christians. The next important docuмent came from the Holy Office in its letter to Cardinal Cushing of Boston in 1949. The letter pointed out”in opposition to Father Leonard Feeney, S.J., and his associates at St. Benedict Center”that, although the Catholic Church was a necessary means for salvation, one could belong to it not only by actual membership but by also desire, even an unconscious desire. If that desire was accompanied by faith and perfect charity, it could lead to eternal salvation.
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Neither the encyclical Mystici Corporis nor the letter of the Holy Office specified the nature of the faith required for in voto status. Did the authors mean that the virtue of faith or the inclination to believe would suffice, or did they require actual faith in God and divine providence, or actual faith in the Trinity and the Incarnation?
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The Second Vatican Council, in its Dogmatic Constitution on the Church and its Decree on Ecuмenism, made some significant departures from the teaching of Pius XII. It avoided the term member and said nothing of an unconscious desire for incorporation in the Church. It taught that the Catholic Church was the all-embracing organ of salvation and was equipped with the fullness of means of salvation. Other Christian churches and communities possessed certain elements of sanctification and truth that were, however, derived from the one Church of Christ that subsists in the Catholic Church today. For this reason, God could use them as instruments of salvation. God had, however, made the Catholic Church necessary for salvation, and all who were aware of this had a serious obligation to enter the Church in order to be saved. God uses the Catholic Church not only for the redemption of her own members but also as an instrument for the redemption of all. Her witness and prayers, together with the eucharistic sacrifice, have an efficacy that goes out to the whole world.
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In several important texts, Vatican II took up the question of the salvation of non-Christians. Although they were related to the Church in various ways, they were not incorporated in her. God’s universal salvific will, it taught, means that he gives non-Christians, including even atheists, sufficient help to be saved. Whoever sincerely seeks God and, with his grace, follows the dictates of conscience is on the path to salvation. The Holy Spirit, in a manner known only to God, makes it possible for each and every person to be associated with the Paschal mystery. “God, in ways known to himself, can lead those inculpably ignorant of the gospel to that faith without which it is impossible to please him.” The council did not indicate whether it is necessary for salvation to come to explicit Christian faith before death, but the texts give the impression that implicit faith may suffice.
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Vatican II left open the question whether non-Christian religions contain revelation and are means that can lead their adherents to salvation. It did say, however, that other religions contain elements of truth and goodness, that they reflect rays of the truth that enlightens all men, and that they can serve as preparations for the gospel. Christian missionary activity serves to heal, ennoble, and perfect the seeds of truth and goodness that God has sown among non-Christian peoples, to the glory of God and the spiritual benefit of those evangelized.
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While repeatedly insisting that Christ is the one mediator of salvation, Vatican II shows forth a generally hopeful view of the prospects of non-Christians for salvation. Its hopefulness, however, is not unqualified: “Rather often, men, deceived by the evil one, have become caught up in futile reasoning and have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, serving the creature rather than the Creator. Or, some there are who, living and dying in a world without God, are subject to utter hopelessness.” The missionary activity of the Church is urgent for bringing such persons to salvation.
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After the council, Paul VI (in his pastoral exhortation “Evangelization in the Modern World”) and John Paul II (in his encyclical Redemptoris Missio ) interpreted the teaching of Vatican II in relation to certain problems and theological trends arising since the council. Both popes were on guard against political and liberation theology, which would seem to equate salvation with formation of a just society on earth and against certain styles of religious pluralism, which would attribute independent salvific value to non-Christian religions. In 2000, toward the end of John Paul’s pontificate, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued the declaration Dominus Iesus , which emphatically taught that all grace and salvation must come through Jesus Christ, the one mediator.
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Wisely, in my opinion, the popes and councils have avoided talk about implicit faith, a term that is vague and ambiguous. They do speak of persons who are sincerely seeking for the truth and of others who have found it in Christ. They make it clear that sufficient grace is offered to all and that God will not turn away those who do everything within their power to find God and live according to his law. We may count on him to lead such persons to the faith needed for salvation.
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One of the most interesting developments in post-conciliar theology has been Karl Rahner’s idea of “anonymous Christians.” He taught that God offers his grace to everyone and reveals himself in the interior offer of grace. Grace, moreover, is always mediated through Christ and tends to bring its recipients into union with him. Those who accept and live by the grace offered to them, even though they have never heard of Christ and the gospel, may be called anonymous Christians.
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Although Rahner denied that his theory undermined the importance of missionary activity, it was widely understood as depriving missions of their salvific importance. Some readers of his works understood him as teaching that the unevangelized could possess the whole of Christianity except the name. Saving faith, thus understood, would be a subjective attitude without any specifiable content. In that case, the message of the gospel would have little to do with salvation.
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The history of the doctrine of salvation through faith has gone through a number of stages since the High Middle Ages. Using the New Testament as their basic text, the Church Fathers regarded faith in Christ and baptism as essential for salvation. On the basis of his study of the New Testament and Augustine, Thomas Aquinas held that explicit belief in the Trinity and the Incarnation was necessary for everyone who lived since the time of Christ, but he granted that in earlier times it was sufficient to believe explicitly in the existence and providence of God.
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In the sixteenth century, theologians speculated that the unevangelized were in the same condition as pre-Christians and were not held to believe explicitly in Christ until the gospel was credibly preached to them. Pius IX and the Second Vatican Council taught that all who followed their conscience, with the help of the grace given to them, would be led to that faith that was necessary for them to be saved. During and after the council, Karl Rahner maintained that saving faith could be had without any definite belief in Christ or even in God.
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We seem to have come full circle from the teaching of Paul and the New Testament that belief in the message of Christ is the source of salvation. Reflecting on this development, one can see certain gains and certain losses. The New Testament and the theology of the first millennium give little hope for the salvation of those who, since the time of Christ, have had no chance of hearing the gospel. If God has a serious salvific will for all, this lacuna needed to be filled, as it has been by theological speculation and church teaching since the sixteenth century. Modern theology, preoccupied with the salvation of non-Christians, has tended to neglect the importance of explicit belief in Christ, so strongly emphasized in the first centuries. It should not be impossible, however, to reconcile the two perspectives.
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Scripture itself assures us that God has never left himself without a witness to any nation (Acts 14:17). His testimonies are marks of his saving dispensations toward all. The inner testimony of every human conscience bears witness to God as lawgiver, judge, and vindicator. In ancient times, the Jєωιѕн Scriptures drew on literature that came from Babylon, Egypt, and Greece. The Book of Wisdom and Paul’s Letter to the Romans speak of God manifesting his power and divinity through his works in nature. The religions generally promote prayer and sacrifice as ways of winning God’s favor. The traditions of all peoples contain elements of truth imbedded in their cultures, myths, and religious practices. These sound elements derive from God, who speaks to all his children through inward testimony and outward signs.
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The universal evidences of the divine, under the leading of grace, can give rise to a rudimentary faith that leans forward in hope and expectation to further manifestations of God’s merciful love and of his guidance for our lives. By welcoming the signs already given and placing their hope in God’s redeeming love, persons who have not heard the tidings of the gospel may nevertheless be on the road to salvation. If they are faithful to the grace given them, they may have good hope of receiving the truth and blessedness for which they yearn.
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The search, however, is no substitute for finding. To be blessed in this life, one must find the pearl of great price, the treasure hidden in the field, which is worth buying at the cost of everything one possesses. To Christians has been revealed the mystery hidden from past ages, which the patriarchs and prophets longed to know. By entering through baptism into the mystery of the cross and the Resurrection, Christians undergo a radical transformation that sets them unequivocally on the road to salvation. Only after conversion to explicit faith can one join the community that is nourished by the Word of God and the sacraments. These gifts of God, prayerfully received, enable the faithful to grow into ever greater union with Christ.
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In Christ’s Church, therefore, we have many aids to salvation and sanctification that are not available elsewhere. Cardinal Newman expressed the situation admirably in one of his early sermons:
The prerogative of Christians consists in the possession, not of exclusive knowledge and spiritual aid, but of gifts high and peculiar; and though the manifestation of the Divine character in the Incarnation is a singular and inestimable benefit, yet its absence is supplied in a degree, not only in the inspired record of Moses, but even, with more or less strength, in those various traditions concerning Divine Providences and Dispositions which are scattered through the heathen mythologies.
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We cannot take it for granted that everyone is seeking the truth and is prepared to submit to it when found. Some, perhaps many, resist the grace of God and reject the signs given to them. They are not on the road to salvation at all. In such cases, the fault is not God’s but theirs. The references to future punishment in the gospels cannot be written off as empty threats. As Paul says, God is not mocked (Gal. 6:7).
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We may conclude with certitude that God makes it possible for the unevangelized to attain the goal of their searching. How that happens is known to God alone, as Vatican II twice declares. We know only that their search is not in vain. “Seek, and you will find,” says the Lord (Matt. 7:7). If non-Christians are praying to an unknown God, it may be for us to help them find the one they worship in ignorance. God wants everyone to come to the truth. Perhaps some will reach the goal of their searching only at the moment of death. Who knows what transpires secretly in their consciousness at that solemn moment? We have no evidence that death is a moment of revelation, but it could be, especially for those in pursuit of the truth of God.
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Meanwhile, it is the responsibility of believers to help these seekers by word and by example. Whoever receives the gift of revealed truth has the obligation to share it with others. Christian faith is normally transmitted by testimony. Believers are called to be God’s witnesses to the ends of the earth.
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Who, then, can be saved? Catholics can be saved if they believe the Word of God as taught by the Church and if they obey the commandments. Other Christians can be saved if they submit their lives to Christ and join the community where they think he wills to be found. Jews can be saved if they look forward in hope to the Messiah and try to ascertain whether God’s promise has been fulfilled. Adherents of other religions can be saved if, with the help of grace, they sincerely seek God and strive to do his will. Even atheists can be saved if they worship God under some other name and place their lives at the service of truth and justice. God’s saving grace, channeled through Christ the one Mediator, leaves no one unassisted. But that same grace brings obligations to all who receive it. They must not receive the grace of God in vain. Much will be demanded of those to whom much is given.
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Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J. , holds the Laurence J. McGinley Chair in Religion and Society at Fordham University. This essay is adapted from the Laurence J. McGinley Lecture delivered on November 7, 2007.
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Anyone get a chance to read?
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Yes, I did. Thank you for posting it. Like Rahner, Dulles admits that the Catholic doctrine regarding salvation has morphed significantly ... to the point where he ends up declaring that anyone can be saved, reducing EENS to a meaningless formula.
You see, only a MODERNIST can think it's OK for one thing to be believed for the first 1500 years of Church history but then the complete opposite view being held today. This is MODERNISM in a nutshell, that doctrine can change from its original meaning or understanding.
I love it how the BoDers try to claim that we must accept BoD and implicit faith because the majority of theologians in the past couple hundred years believed in it. But what of the same obligation for the 16th-century innovators? Why were they not constrained to abide by 1500+ years of Catholic teaching and universal belief? It's OK for them to innovate, but not OK for us to de-innovate, as it were, and revert back to the TRADITIONAL teaching of the Church?
THIS is why faith is collapsing. If it's now OK to believe the OPPOSITE of the Church's universal teaching for 1500 years, then what does dogma mean? If a dogma I believe today may in fact be anti-dogma within a 100 years, what objective truth do I really believe in?
Modernists like Dulles and Rahner have the intellectual honesty to admit that today's believe represents a departure from the teaching of the Church for 1500 years ... they, as Modernist, just think it's OK for doctrine to "develop" in this manner.
All those Catholics who believed and taught, and would give their lives for the belief, that no one can be saved without explicit belief in Jesus Christ ... were just a bunch of deceived fools. The joke was on them.
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Traditional Catholics need to wake up about this problem. It is the very foundation of the entire Vatican II revolution. Traditional Catholics who believe in salvation by implicit faith have no leg to stand on and are objectively schismatic for opposing Vatican II. If I came to believe in implicit faith, I would immediately scurry back to the Conciliar Church. But, then, my faith would be greatly shaken, as now it would appear that the Modernists were right along, that the meaning of doctrine can change with the passage of time.
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The issue I have here is... if you believe (as the fathers seem to have) that the gospel had been promulgated everywhere, and on THAT BASIS denied any possibility of salvation for pagans, that seems like a DIFFERENT VIEW than the one you guys hold to, which takes into account the discovery of the New World etc but still denies that this changes the calculus.
Also what’s the point of even referring to a “conciliar church” if you think it’s core teaching has been tolerated even by stalwarts like st Pius V and St Pius X?
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The issue I have here is... if you believe (as the fathers seem to have) that the gospel had been promulgated everywhere, and on THAT BASIS denied any possibility of salvation for pagans, that seems like a DIFFERENT VIEW than the one you guys hold to, which takes into account the discovery of the New World etc but still denies that this changes the calculus.
No Church Father believed that the gospel had been preached 100% to every man, woman and child (it wasn't, but that was the goal). The Fathers believed in the NECESSITY of hearing the gospel in order to believe, and then be saved. They realized that there were many peoples who had NOT heard the gospel, and only Divine Providence knows the reason. Let's not forget Christ's instructions to the Apostles/disciples on whom they should preach to - And whosoever will not receive you, when ye go out of that city, shake off even the dust of your feet, for a testimony against them (Luke 9:5).
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God does not always waste graces on those whom He knows will reject them. Sometimes, He gives graces and allows them to be rejected. Many times He does not even allow the opportunity for rejection and simply allows the bad-willed to stay ignorant, because they care not for Truth. God knows all and has known all, since before the earth was made.
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This same approach applies to the new world, which there is historical evidence for explorers arriving long before the 1500s. And there is plenty of historical evidence showing that most of the natives were blood-thirsty savages who would've cared nothing about spiritual matters. Which, again, speaks to the wisdom of Divine Providence and God's wisdom in "not casting pearls before swine."
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No Church Father believed that the gospel had been preached 100% to every man, woman and child (it wasn't, but that was the goal). The Fathers believed in the NECESSITY of hearing the gospel in order to believe, and then be saved. They realized that there were many peoples who had NOT heard the gospel, and only Divine Providence knows the reason. Let's not forget Christ's instructions to the Apostles/disciples on whom they should preach to - And whosoever will not receive you, when ye go out of that city, shake off even the dust of your feet, for a testimony against them (Luke 9:5).
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God does not always waste graces on those whom He knows will reject them. Sometimes, He gives graces and allows them to be rejected. Many times He does not even allow the opportunity for rejection and simply allows the bad-willed to stay ignorant, because they care not for Truth. God knows all and has known all, since before the earth was made.
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This same approach applies to the new world, which there is historical evidence for explorers arriving long before the 1500s. And there is plenty of historical evidence showing that most of the natives were blood-thirsty savages who would've cared nothing about spiritual matters. Which, again, speaks to the wisdom of Divine Providence and God's wisdom in "not casting pearls before swine."
The article says they believed the whole world was evangelized though. Native America is unique in the sense that it can’t just be blamed on “the Church not doing its job” on behalf of some others.
And to be clear, I’m not arguing that any of those people were saved. I have no certainty of that. I’ve argued that it’s possible for some of them to be saved
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Also what’s the point of even referring to a “conciliar church” if you think it’s core teaching has been tolerated even by stalwarts like st Pius V and St Pius X?
Pius V did not "teach" salvation for the invincibly ignorant. Bl Pius IX did not either (although he is taken out of context often to "prove" he did). Bl Pius IX even condemned, in his "syllabus of errors" that one can come to supernatural faith by way of natural reason alone.
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St Pius X certainly did not "teach" salvation for the invicincibly ignorant, even if his catechism mentions BOD.
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Let's say this for the 1,000th time: The theory of BOD (while arguably acceptable in a strict sense) does NOT allow salvation for the invincibly ignorant, or for non-catholics who are still practicing their false religions.
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This is the error that Fr Feeney was fighting against. The liberalization which started in the 16th century, (after St Pius V was dead) and which even corrupted St Robert Bellarmine (to some degree), who said that it seemed "harsh" that the invincibly ignorant would be damned. Yet, if you look at the life of St Francis Xavier, and read his letters from his many, many missionary travels to the East Indies, including Japan, you see that these people, for the most part, did not accept the Faith, and attacked him many times. In Japan, he had little success and (like the native Indians of America), Japan was obsessed with warfare, and with the many different kingdoms always fighting for power. They had little time or interest for religious matters. They only cared about their ancestors to pray to them for "spiritual help" for world gains.
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The error of most is that they take the idea of BOD and liberalize it to include all manner of non-catholics to whom it was NEVER intended to apply.
- St Augustine, St Thomas, The Council of Trent, St Alphonsus, Bl Pope Pius IX, the catechism of St Pius X...NONE of them applied BOD to the invincibly ignorant, nor to jews, muslims, protestants, hindus, etc. To say otherwise, is to deny doctrine and historical facts. To say that BOD includes the ignorant or non-catholic is to promote heresy.
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The article says they believed the whole world was evangelized though.
I assume you're referring to this sentence:
Assuming that the gospel had been promulgated everywhere, writers of the high patristic age considered that, in the Christian era, Christians alone could be saved.
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First off, that assumption is Cardinal Dulles' opinion. We know it's an incorrect opinion, because Christ Himself told the Apostles to leave cities if they would not listen. So, logically, there were many places where the gospel had NOT been promulgated, because they didn't want the truth. For Cardinal Dulles to imply that the gospel had been promulgated everywhere, in real terms, is a bending of the truth and a historical inaccuracy. The gospel was preached to those who were open to it, but not every nation or city was. And even though the Apostles and disciples worked many miracles, God does not force the Truth on those who He knows will reject it.
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I assume you're referring to this sentence:
Assuming that the gospel had been promulgated everywhere, writers of the high patristic age considered that, in the Christian era, Christians alone could be saved.
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First off, that assumption is Cardinal Dulles' opinion. We know it's an incorrect opinion, because Christ Himself told the Apostles to leave cities if they would not listen. So, logically, there were many places where the gospel had NOT been promulgated, because they didn't want the truth. For Cardinal Dulles to imply that the gospel had been promulgated everywhere, in real terms, is a bending of the truth and a historical inaccuracy. The gospel was preached to those who were open to it, but not every nation or city was. And even though the Apostles and disciples worked many miracles, God does not force the Truth on those who He knows will reject it.
While I agree that the Church Fathers probably knew there were places the Gospel hadn't reached, your argument here is unfair. A city rejecting the Gospel is not at all the same as the Gospel never reaching it at all. The populace don't have to convert for a place to count as one that was preached to.
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Potato, potatoe. Some places the gospel was never preached (for reasons only God knows). Some places it was preached to a few, and was soundly rejected, and so the 99% of the rest of the cities population was left in ignorance. For other places, they heard through word-of-mouth about the gospel and the miracles worked by the Apostles, and they responded with only minor curiosity.
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Let’s not forget that even Our Lord did not preach everywhere and even He took the long way around certain cities even though they were on the way towards his next destination.
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Cardinal Dulles is setting up a straw man which says that the only reason the Church Fathers believed the gospel was required is because all men had heard of it. He’s arguing that in our modern times, if some have not heard, then the gospel isn’t required...in the same way as it was before. He’s arguing that salvific requirements change over time. This is heresy.
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While I agree that the Church Fathers probably knew there were places the Gospel hadn't reached, your argument here is unfair. A city rejecting the Gospel is not at all the same as the Gospel never reaching it at all. The populace don't have to convert for a place to count as one that was preached to.
There’s a difference too. Like if some places in the Old World weren’t reached you could perhaps blame sinful men in the church who didn’t have enough zeal or whatever but you can’t really blame that for native America.
And yes, I know Columbus wasn’t the first but that’s not the point. So realistically it was maybe 900 years instead of 1400 for certain tribes. Ok whatever.
But God just put people over there because they would reject it anyway. Ok maybe. Maybe. But that seems stretched.
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Attempting to require the promulgation of the Gospel to every part of the world essentially turns the requirement for explicit faith in Jesus Christ and the Holy Trinity into a necessity of precept, which is contrary to the teaching of the Church. St. Thomas considered the case of a savage who was invincibly ignorant, and reasoned that even such a one must be enlightened somehow before he could be saved, again considering this necessary by necessity of means.
Lax EENS turns the Church into a meaningless tautology.
Major: Someone can be saved only if he's within the Church.
Minor: But someone who knows and believes nothing about the faith can be saved by sincerely seeking the truth.
Conclusion: Anyone who sincerely seeks the truth is within the Church.
Thus all the teachings of Vatican II.
And the Church Fathers weren't stupid; they knew that there were large portions of the world that had not heard the Gospel yet.
What does that even mean, exactly, to have the Gospel promulgated throughout the whole world? If a missionary made it to Kenya, but didn't make it all the way to Uganda, then is it promulgated? If a missionary made it to the capital of some African country but not into the countryside, does that count? Basically what is meant by the promulgation of the Gospel throughout the world is that it spread outside Israel ... to the world at large, not that every single place in the world had yet been evangelized. Also, have you not heard about Mary of Agreda, who bilocated to teach the faith to Native Americans? God sent her to some of them because He had deemed them receptive to the faith ... backing up exactly what St. Thomas taught. If there were some Native Americans in A.D. 50 who were receptive to the faith, you could be sure that God would have brought the Gospel to them somehow, even if He had to miraculously transport St. Peter himself there. Now, that's not how God ordinarily works; those who are born in these types of places were born there for a reason, likely because God knew that they would not accept the faith and would be punished for their infidelity.
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Pius V did not "teach" salvation for the invincibly ignorant. Bl Pius IX did not either (although he is taken out of context often to "prove" he did). Bl Pius IX even condemned, in his "syllabus of errors" that one can come to supernatural faith by way of natural reason alone.
Invincible ignorance saves? Natural reason alone can come to supernatural faith?
Neither is the theology of BOD, not even implicit BOD. Are you just arguing against strawmen?
St Pius X certainly did not "teach" salvation for the invicincibly ignorant, even if his catechism mentions BOD.
However, it does teach implicit BOD. From the Catechism of Pius X:
Q29. But if a man through no fault of his own is outside the Church, can he be saved?
A. If he is outside the Church through no fault of his, that is, if he is in good faith, and if he has received Baptism, or at least has the implicit desire of Baptism; and if, moreover, he sincerely seeks the truth and does God's will as best he can such a man is indeed separated from the body of the Church, but is united to the soul of the Church and consequently is on the way of salvation
Q17. Can the absence of Baptism be supplied in any other way?
A. The absence of Baptism can be supplied by martyrdom, which is called Baptism of Blood, or by an act of perfect love of God, or of contrition, along with the desire, at least implicit, of Baptism, and this is called Baptism of Desire.
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Invincible ignorance saves? Natural reason alone can come to supernatural faith?
Neither is the theology of BOD, not even implicit BOD. Are you just arguing against strawmen?
However, it does teach implicit BOD. From the Catechism of Pius X:
Q29. But if a man through no fault of his own is outside the Church, can he be saved?
A. If he is outside the Church through no fault of his, that is, if he is in good faith, and if he has received Baptism, or at least has the implicit desire of Baptism; and if, moreover, he sincerely seeks the truth and does God's will as best he can such a man is indeed separated from the body of the Church, but is united to the soul of the Church and consequently is on the way of salvation
This Catechism nowhere states that such s one would be saved in that state, just that he is "on the way" ... very similar to what Pius IX stated. Even Dulles stated that Pius IX did NOT say this ... although he THOUGHT it was implied.
Pope Pius IX incorporated some of their ideas in two important statements in 1854 and 1863. In the first, he said that, while no one can be saved outside the Church, God would not punish people for their ignorance of the true faith if their ignorance was invincible. In the second statement, Pius went further. He declared that persons invincibly ignorant of the Christian religion who observed the natural law and were ready to obey God would be able to attain eternal life, thanks to the workings of divine grace within them. In the same letter, the pope reaffirmed that no one could be saved outside the Catholic Church. He did not explain in what sense such persons were, or would come to be, in the Church. He could have meant that they would receive the further grace needed to join the Church ...
Pius IX later stated himself (as quoted by Father Wathen) that this is EXACTLY what he meant, and that those who interpreted it the other way were committing an "atrocious injustice" against him.
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Basically what is meant by the promulgation of the Gospel throughout the world is that it spread outside Israel
As an example, God used St Peter’s miraculous speech on the 1st Pentecost to reach 100s of different people, from all different tongues, from all different parts of the world. Thus, there were many 1,000s who were baptized that day and ALL of them went back to their homelands and spread the Faith. They were mini-disciples and helped to promulgate the Faith.
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along with the desire, at least implicit, of Baptism, and this is called Baptism of Desire.
Implicit desire just means they have a desire to get baptized but they haven’t openly told anyone (ie made it explicit).
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It does NOT mean that a sorrow for sins includes a desire for baptism. That’s heresy.
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Thus, those who are ignorant of the Faith cannot have an implicit desire for baptism. You can’t desire what you don’t know exists.
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Implicit Desire could be anything, depending on which BoDer you ask.
Explicit Desire: "I want to be baptized."
Implicit Desire 1: "I want to be a Catholic." without explicitly wanting Baptism.
Implicit Desire 2: "I want to do whatever God wants." Implicitly to become Catholic, implicitly to be Baptized.
Implicit Desire 3: "I am sincerely seeking truth." Implicit to find God, implicit to do what God wants, implicit to be Catholic, implicit to be Baptized.
Lots of BoDers cling to Implicit 3 ... which reduces Church EENS dogma to nonsense.
Also, the BoDers keep hiding behind implicit desire for Baptism. What we're talking about is whether implicit FAITH is possible.
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Both implicit desire 2 and 3 are heresy, yet most Trads believe such because they’ve listened to too many Modernists. They hear/read St Alphonsus use the word “implicit” and they think that Karl Rhaner’s use of it is ok. In fact, St Alphonsus would condemn most all BOD theories today as heresy, but the number of variations of it are so numerous that it’s impossible list.
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Anyone get a chance to read?
Yes, I read it. It is all there, what 99% of so-called BODers believe, but will rarely admit.
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Stanley and Byzcat - let's get back on topic. Do you agree/disagree with Cardinal Dulles’ conclusion? Please explain.
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Implicit Desire could be anything, depending on which BoDer you ask.
Explicit Desire: "I want to be baptized."
Implicit Desire 1: "I want to be a Catholic." without explicitly wanting Baptism.
Implicit Desire 2: "I want to do whatever God wants." Implicitly to become Catholic, implicitly to be Baptized.
Implicit Desire 3: "I am sincerely seeking truth." Implicit to find God, implicit to do what God wants, implicit to be Catholic, implicit to be Baptized.
Lots of BoDers cling to Implicit 3 ... which reduces Church EENS dogma to nonsense.
Also, the BoDers keep hiding behind implicit desire for Baptism. What we're talking about is whether implicit FAITH is possible.
I doubt any trads go past two
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#2 is still heresy though, it’s just not full-blown, modernist, V2 style heresy of #3. #2 is the sentimental-good-willed-native arguments of the 1600s. While #3 is an outright denial of EENS, #2 is more of a watering down of the doctrine. Either way, both are still heresy.
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This thread has given me much to think about.
Are the posters here (Lad, PV, etc) asserting that the Universal Ordinary Magisterium has been teaching heresy since the 16th century (vs Vatican II)? And if so, isn't that an assertion which translates into a defectible/defected Church?
Added: PV, can you please post the link where the OP came from?
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This thread has given me much to think about.
Are the posters here (Lad, PV, etc) asserting that the Universal Ordinary Magisterium has been teaching heresy since the 16th century (vs Vatican II)? And if so, isn't that an assertion which translates into a defectible/defected Church?
Added: PV, can you please post the link where the OP came from?
No, 2V, this has not been taught by the Church at all. In fact, the Church rejected "Rewarder God" theory. Rewarder God theorists based their novelty on a distinction, as St. Alphonsus described, that explicit belief in Jesus Christ and the Holy Trinity are required for salvation only by "necessity of precept", i.e. it's only a command that you must keep if you know about it. But in 1703 the Holy Office rejected this and stated that explicit belief in the Holy Trinity and Incarnation are necessary "by necessity of means", in other words, regardless of your sincerity, if you do not EXPLICITLY believe these core things, you cannot have supernatural faith. That squarely rejects Rewarder God theory.
Remember that we're not talking about Baptism of Desire, per se. BoD is a distraction from the core issue. What's at issue is what is necessary to believe in order to be able to have supernatural faith. St. Thomas Aquinas, as Dulles explains, taught that explicit belief in the Holy Trinity and Incarnation are in fact required. Even in the early 1960s Msgr. Fenton pointed out that it was still the majority opinion.
There have been posters here on CI who believed in BoD with whom I had zero problems. I don't care if someone wants to believe in a Thomistic Baptism of Desire. Who am I to denounce someone who wants to follow St. Thomas? What I have problems with is what reduces to "Anonymous Christianity". THIS is what allows the Modernists to expand the Church to include all manner of non-Catholics, and all the Vatican II errors derive directly from from this ecclesiology. If I believed that people who do not have Catholic faith can be saved, then I'm going right back to the Conciliar Church and abjuring my schism. There's no alternative.
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Here's Karl Rahner also admitting the teaching of the Church Fathers (acknowledging the same thing that Dulles did):
“. . . we have to admit . . . that the testimony of the Fathers, with regard to the possibility of salvation for someone outside the Church, is very weak. Certainly even the ancient Church knew that the grace of God can be found also outside the Church and even before Faith. But the view that such divine grace can lead man to his final salvation without leading him first into the visible Church, is something, at any rate, which met with very little approval in the ancient Church. For, with reference to the optimistic views on the salvation of catechumens as found in many of the Fathers, it must be noted that such a candidate for baptism was regarded in some sense or other as already ‘Christianus,’ and also that certain Fathers, such as Gregory nαzιanzen and Gregory of Nyssa deny altogether the justifying power of love or of the desire for baptism. Hence it will be impossible to speak of a consensus dogmaticus in the early Church regarding the possibility of salvation for the non-baptized, and especially for someone who is not even a catechumen. In fact, even St. Augustine, in his last (anti-pelagian) period, no longer maintained the possibility of a baptism by desire.” (Rahner, Karl, Theological Investigations, Volume II, Man in the Church, translated by Karl H. Kruger, pp.40, 41, 57)
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I doubt any trads go past two
You'd be surprised. I've run into a few of those.
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BODers and Rewarder God Theorists violate the First Commandment.
Vatican II violates the First Commandment.
God will rain down fire on the Novus Ordo Sect.
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Lad, thanks for your reply. I will be travelling today, so I probably won't have an opportunity to really digest it until at least later tonight.
However, your first comment that the Church never taught this, how is that so if we have catechisms that teach it?
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Lad, thanks for your reply. I will be travelling today, so I probably won't have an opportunity to really digest it until at least later tonight.
However, your first comment that the Church never taught this, how is that so if we have catechisms that teach it?
What is it that you believe the Catechisms teach? Some do imply the possibility of salvation by Baptism of Desire. But that is not the same thing that we're discussing. As I said, Catechisms are not infallible. Some Catechisms prior to Vatican I rejected the notion of papal infallibility (in an attempt to appeal to Protestants); these had to be changed after Vatican I. I think it's a huge mistake to think that Catechisms hold effectively the same weight as, say, a solemn dogmatic teaching, like at Vatican I. Those who imply the infallibility of Catechisms are effectively saying exactly that. I think that there are many people who misunderstand the Ordinary UNIVERSAL Magisterium. Just because something has become a common opinion doesn't make it right. For about 700 years every single theologian taught that infants who die without Baptism suffered in hell. This was eventually rejected by the Church.
And sometimes the Church tolerates things, including things that might be wrong. Take, for instance, the controversy between the Thomists and the Molinists. Both of these cannot be right, and at least one of them must be wrong. But the Church explicitly decided that both opinions are to be tolerated. So, then, the Church is likely tolerating an error here.
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PV, can you please post the link where the OP came from?
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2008/02/001-who-can-be-saved-8 (https://www.firstthings.com/article/2008/02/001-who-can-be-saved-8)
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Who am I to denounce someone who wants to follow St. Thomas?
And yet, that's exactly what you did.
You condemned something I said, then later stated the equivalent and attributed it to St. Thomas.
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But in 1703 the Holy Office rejected this and stated that explicit belief in the Holy Trinity and Incarnation are necessary "by necessity of means", in other words, regardless of your sincerity, if you do not EXPLICITLY believe these core things, you cannot have supernatural faith. That squarely rejects Rewarder God theory.
This has already been addressed. Yet you repeat it as if it hasn't.
If I believed that people who do not have Catholic faith can be saved, then I'm going right back to the Conciliar Church and abjuring my schism. There's no alternative.
You're in schism? How so?
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Both implicit desire 2 and 3 are heresy, ...
Please explain this assertion. Since you did not provide your reasoning I can't be sure what you are thinking here.
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Are the posters here (Lad, PV, etc) asserting that the Universal Ordinary Magisterium has been teaching heresy since the 16th century (vs Vatican II)? And if so, isn't that an assertion which translates into a defectible/defected Church?
2Vermont,
Here's my understanding of this question.
1. Since the 1600s, the main instigators of changes to Traditionally-held views on EENS were theologians. To some degree, it is part of their job to speculation and ask difficult questions. On the other hand, if they are not corralled and kept quarantine from "normal avg Catholics" (who are not used to theological speculation) then such "novelties" can cause much scandal and confusion.
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2. I'm not a historical expert on the Jesuits but it seems they were very involved in the push to water-down EENS (my guess is they were infiltrated) and they were eventually suppressed by one of the popes in the 1800s. So, the infiltrators succeeded on 2 fronts - attacking EENS and weakening the Jesuits (who were, for the most part, great defenders of the Faith and anti-freemasonic). The Jesuits were eventually un-suppressed but damage had been done to their reputation and also more infiltrators had joined.
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3. The point is - theological opinion is not a "teaching" of the Church. Theologians have no authority, no jurisdiction, no doctrinal weight. Their job is to support the Vatican and do research for any of the pope's needs. For example, before papal infallibility was defined at Vatican I, the pope had the best theologians and historians research the issue to make sure that the definition was clear, historically-accurate, etc.
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4. Even Cardinal Dulles says that Pope Pius IX, when speaking on the invincibly ignorant, was following "current opinion" on the topic. Pius IX was not "teaching" authoritatively, nor with any doctrinal weight. He was using his personal capacity as a private theologian; he was not speaking in his formal, Apostolic Authority, head-of-the-church mode.
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5. As has been shown, Pius IX's writings on the "invincibly ignorant" were interpreted liberally and incorrectly from his intentions. He corrected his writings but such were ignored or not distributed as widely as the original.
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6. Let's take a common example (below) and show how the Modernists have used their devilish trickery and cunning to attack dogma. The below example will also show why catechisms can never be infallible - because doctrine requires precise terms and concise language. Since the catechism is meant for children, or a child-like understanding of the Faith, the use of precision and concise language would hinder children from learning because it would require the use of more complex language and a larger vocabulary.
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7. Let us remember a FACT of history, which Pope St Pius X lamented and which even freemasons have admitted - if Pope St Pius X had not become pope in 1903, the church was so liberalized and infiltrated then, that V2 would've happened at that time. Let that sink in. Pope St Pius X openly lamented that he was "all alone" and "surrounded by" modernists. If he had not been elected, miraculously, then V2 would've happened 60 years earlier.
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8. Let's also not forget that the pope right before St Pius X was Bl Pius IX, who was almost killed by freemasons, and was instead imprisoned in the Vatican. The point is, freemasons were everywhere - all over Italy, Europe, and yes, even in the Vatican. And they were able to sneak modernist language into docuмents like the catechism (see below) just like they did at V2. All of the words/phrases I will highlight are general; they aren't precise theological words. Therefore, these imprecise words allow Modernists to "re-define" them and thus, water down doctrine.
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From the Catechism of Pius X:
Q29. But if a man through no fault of his own is outside the Church, can he be saved?
A. If he is outside the Church through no fault of his, that is, if he is in good faith, and if he has received Baptism, or at least has the implicit desire of Baptism; and if, moreover, he sincerely seeks the truth and does God's will as best he can such a man is indeed separated from the body of the Church, but is united to the soul of the Church and consequently is on the way of salvation
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Ok, so let's look at the problematic phrases, which are open to interpretation (and which Modernists like Rahner, Dulles, etc) all used in their successful attempts to water down EENS to pave the way for V2's ultra-heresies.
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1. Good Faith - what is this? How is it defined? How does one know who has it or not? None one knows. It's subjective, it's open-ended, it's open to sentiment and emotion.
2. Implicit Desire - what exactly does this mean? Is this St Alphonsus' implicit desire? Or Rahner's "anonymous catholic" version? It's not precise at all. Dangerous theology.
3. Sincerely seeks the truth - This seems pretty straightforward, right? Except that only God knows who is sincere or not, since none of us can read hearts. So, again, dangerous theology.
4. God's will as best he can - Same as above; only God can know this. Doctrine is black and white. This is theological opinion and is dangerous for most people to think about.
5. On the way of salvation - What does this even mean? A liberal/modernist would define this as the person can "be saved in his current non-Catholic state". An orthodox/traditional catholic would say that this means the non-Catholic is "progressing towards the full truth of the Church, which God will give to him, if he continues searching."
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Do you see the MAJOR DIFFERENCE between these 2 interpretations? Do you see the major problem with imprecise language? Don't you see how this was the exact same method used at V2?
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So, to answer the question...Did the Church actually "teach" error from the 1600s onwards? No. Theologians speculated and such opinions became widely known, which caused confusion. And ambiguous and imprecise language was slowly introduced by masons and modernists into catechisms and other docuмents, just like at V2. The only difference between then and now is that God gave the Church a saint in Pius X, who stemmed the tide of error, or else V2 would've happened in 1903.
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Please explain this assertion. Since you did not provide your reasoning I can't be sure what you are thinking here.
Stanley, i'm done explaining things to you because you never agree or disagree with what I write. You just continue to complain that you're being misinterpreted. I want to know what you think, in your own words. Please do not post articles or excerpts of catechisms, but speak plainly and tell us what you really think.
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Stanley, i'm done explaining things to you because you never agree or disagree with what I write. You just continue to complain that you're being misinterpreted. I want to know what you think, in your own words. Please do not post articles or excerpts of catechisms, but speak plainly and tell us what you really think.
What is freely affirmed is freely denied.
And no, I've not said I'm being misinterpreted per se. I've said that Laddy, and to a lesser extent you, are attributing things to me that I didn't say, and I haven't said what I believe or don't believe.
The responses to posting excerpts from catechisms, encyclicals and so on has generated interesting responses. "That's not dogma", "that's from the expository part of Trent not the canons", "that's not infallible", and mental gymnastics to rephrase texts to make them say something different than their plain sense.
And according to you and Laddy, I'm a modernist Pelagian who follows St. Thomas.
LOL.
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I promise to do a better job of responding to your posts, Lad and PV, but, for now, are you saying that what is in these catechisms are actually teachings from theologians, not the Church?
Also, although I agree that catechisms are not infallible per se and that there can be error, I also believe that such an error must be immaterial to the faith. These catechisms have been approved by popes to be used to teach the Faith. How can there be something in them that is contrary to the Faith??
As for theologians teachings not being teachings of the Church I thought that there are a number of "theological notes" that determine whether they must be believed or not.
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We can’t have a reasonable debate if you don’t explain yourself. If you want to play childish games of hide-and-seek with your views, go ahead.
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2Vermont, they aren’t contrary to the Faith directly, but are ambiguous in certain details due to imprecise language. These ambiguities were later “explained” by Modernists and so doctrine was corrupted. It’s a gradual process that’s happened over decades and decades.
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And according to you and Laddy, I'm a modernist Pelagian who follows St. Thomas.
You're a self-avowed follower of St Thomas yet you also liberally interpret St Pius X’s catechism in a way that is contrary to St Thomas. So, yes, you are a modernist because you hold both “a” and “not a” at the same time.
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And according to you and Laddy, I'm a modernist Pelagian who follows St. Thomas.
You have precious little to do with St. Thomas on this matter.
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We can’t have a reasonable debate if you don’t explain yourself.
Says the person who won't explain himself.
We should be able to have a reasonable discussion about doctrine without it being personal. But you and Laddy insist on making it personal with insults. THAT impedes reasonable discussion.
The fact is various church docuмents speak of invincible ignorance, baptism of desire, and implicit desire.
But none of them define very well (or at all) what these terms mean. What modernists do with that is not in the texts.
On the other hand:
Implicit desire just means they have a desire to get baptized but they haven’t openly told anyone (ie made it explicit).
That's also not in the texts.
You're a self-avowed follower of St Thomas yet you also liberally interpret St Pius X’s catechism in a way that is contrary to St Thomas.
The only "interpretation" of the St. Pius X catechism I did was to point out it teaches implicit BOD. Which it does, no? Is that "liberally interpret[ing]" the catechism?
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The only "interpretation" of the St. Pius X catechism I did was to point out it teaches implicit BOD. Which it does, no? Is that "liberally interpret[ing]" the catechism?
You say you follow St Thomas, who requires explicit faith, then you post supporting implicit desire. Yeah, I’d say you’re confused. And, no, a catechism isn’t a formal teaching. No one has to believe in implicit desire...it’s not even explained what it is.
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I promise to do a better job of responding to your posts, Lad and PV, but, for now, are you saying that what is in these catechisms are actually teachings from theologians, not the Church?
Also, although I agree that catechisms are not infallible per se and that there can be error, I also believe that such an error must be immaterial to the faith. These catechisms have been approved by popes to be used to teach the Faith. How can there be something in them that is contrary to the Faith??
As for theologians teachings not being teachings of the Church I thought that there are a number of "theological notes" that determine whether they must be believed or not.
Are any of you familiar with the popular catechism "My Catholic Faith"? It has been around for a long time; the first printing was in the late 40's, I think, and has an imprimatur and nihil obstat. In many ways it is a good book for us to teach with and yet in the chapter on Baptism it suggests that according to some theologians there may be a fourth baptism called baptism by illumination. Some of the faithful who lived around Powers Lake with Father Frederick Nelson (RIP) believed in this "baptism" and consoled parents who had lost a child in utero saying that if parents were to place their hands on the mother's belly and pray something like the Apostles' Creed the unborn would be baptized and saved. Now,don't ask me to explain something I don't understand and completely disagree with. I'm just relating what one of the believers tried to persuade me to believe. But just look how far these theologians go and how much confusion they sow among the laity.
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a fourth baptism called baptism by illumination. ....But just look how far these theologians go and how much confusion they sow among the laity.
Why not? Isn’t a baby “sincere” in his love for God? A baby can’t sin against God, so they are conceived with an implicit love for God, right? And if they can’t sin, isn’t their love of God as “perfect as it can be”?
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Is it the baby’s fault that they died? Of course not. If they had been born, they would’ve been baptized, right? They would’ve had a chance to love God, right? So how can they be penalized for dying? Surely they go straight to heaven. (Modernism thought process is finally over).
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If you believe any part of the above, then you might as well believe what the Mormons believe and go to their temple and have your ANCESTORS baptized. It follows the same logic.
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Says the person who won't explain himself.
We should be able to have a reasonable discussion about doctrine without it being personal. But you and Laddy insist on making it personal with insults. THAT impedes reasonable discussion.
The fact is various church docuмents speak of invincible ignorance, baptism of desire, and implicit desire.
But none of them define very well (or at all) what these terms mean. What modernists do with that is not in the texts.
On the other hand:That's also not in the texts.
The only "interpretation" of the St. Pius X catechism I did was to point out it teaches implicit BOD. Which it does, no? Is that "liberally interpret[ing]" the catechism?
Go ahead an believe in salvation by implicit desire, Stan. But then you'd be a schismatic for rejecting Vatican II. There's no purported error in Vatican II is not simply a logical consequence of this soteriology and ecclesiology.
BTW, every theologian in the world endorsed Vatican II.
Contradictions and confusion are a sign of bad will. You simply want implicit BoD to be true, and yet you want to eat your cake too by continuing to denounce Vatican II as heretical.
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You keep repeating the assertion that Pius IX and the Catechism of St. Pius X teach the possibility of salvation by implicit desire. But even Dulles, an EENS laxist, asserts that Pius IX COULD HAVE MEANT that additional grace is needed for justification/salvation. There's no "could have" about it. He clearly says that these types will be saved by "LIGHT" (the opposite of ignorance). And Pius IX denounced YOUR VERY INTERPRETATION of his teaching as an "atrocious injustice" to him. Same thing is true of St. Pius X who deliberately uses the term that these are "on the way" of salvation. There's simply nothing there. But then you reject the teaching of St. Thomas, St. Robert Bellarmine, and St. Alphonsus regarding the need for explicit faith. You reject the 1703 Holy Office rejection that explicit belief in the Holy Trinity and Incarnation are not required by necessity of means for salvation. You're a hot mess.
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Are any of you familiar with the popular catechism "My Catholic Faith"? It has been around for a long time; the first printing was in the late 40's, I think, and has an imprimatur and nihil obstat. In many ways it is a good book for us to teach with and yet in the chapter on Baptism it suggests that according to some theologians there may be a fourth baptism called baptism by illumination. Some of the faithful who lived around Powers Lake with Father Frederick Nelson (RIP) believed in this "baptism" and consoled parents who had lost a child in utero saying that if parents were to place their hands on the mother's belly and pray something like the Apostles' Creed the unborn would be baptized and saved. Now,don't ask me to explain something I don't understand and completely disagree with. I'm just relating what one of the believers tried to persuade me to believe. But just look how far these theologians go and how much confusion they sow among the laity.
Yes, there's a bizarre extension of infallibility among the dogmatic sedevacantists to practically include anything that contains an imprimatur and nihil obstat. This is why the sedevacantists tend to be the absolute worst when it comes to EENS. On the other hand, you have the Dimonds who do a great disservice to the cause (the defense of EENS, that is) by declaring Baptism of Desire even for catechumens to be heretical.
I believe that Cajetan was the first to float a Baptism by VICARIOUS DESIRE for unbaptized infants. This was explicitly rejected by several popes. We creep closer and closer to full-blown Pelagianism. Vatican II is in fact the rehabilitation of Pelagius and the victory of Pelagianism. That's why I have St. Augustine as my avatar picture.
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Contradictions and confusion are a sign of bad will.
Well, you said it, not me. Are your contradictions also a sign of bad will?
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You say you follow St Thomas, who requires explicit faith, then you post supporting implicit desire. Yeah, I’d say you’re confused. And, no, a catechism isn’t a formal teaching. No one has to believe in implicit desire...it’s not even explained what it is.
The Catechism of Pius X teaches implicit BOD. It's a catechism. It teaches in the manner of a catechism.
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The Catechism of Pius X teaches implicit BOD.
No it doesn’t. The question was “can non Catholics be saved?” The answer was not clear. It said they can be “on the road to salvation” if they do x, y and z. It was a non-answer.
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Similar question with similar reasoning....”can a person in mortal sin make it to heaven?”. Modernist Answer: If that person is sorry for their sins, asks God for forgiveness and promises to go to confession, then God will forgive them....in other words, not a clear answer to the question.
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Real answer: No.
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No it doesn’t. The question was “can non Catholics be saved?” The answer was not clear. It said they can be “on the road to salvation” if they do x, y and z. It was a non-answer.
In English, it says "or at least has the implicit desire of Baptism". If you want to argue that "implicit desire of Baptism" is something different from "implicit Baptism of desire", then say so. Whatever that has to do with salvation is a separate thing.
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You’re missing the point. Being “saved” in a false religion is not equal to being “on the road to salvation”. The catechism is describing the circuмstances for one to LEAVE their FALSE religion and JOIN the CHRUCH.
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You’re missing the point. Being “saved” in a false religion is not equal to being “on the road to salvation”. The catechism is describing the circuмstances for one to LEAVE their FALSE religion and JOIN the CHURCH.
To be fair to Stanley, you and Lad have not responded to Q 17 in Pius X's Catechism (only Q 29):
Q17. Can the absence of Baptism be supplied in any other way?
A. The absence of Baptism can be supplied by martyrdom, which is called Baptism of Blood, or by an act of perfect love of God, or of contrition, along with the desire, at least implicit, of Baptism, and this is called Baptism of Desire.
The "on the way to salvation" mentioned in Q29 may mean that such a person must also have the act of perfect love of God or act of perfect contrition mentioned here, not just implicit desire for baptism.
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Are any of you familiar with the popular catechism "My Catholic Faith"? It has been around for a long time; the first printing was in the late 40's, I think, and has an imprimatur and nihil obstat. In many ways it is a good book for us to teach with and yet in the chapter on Baptism it suggests that according to some theologians there may be a fourth baptism called baptism by illumination.
That is interesting. I had never heard of that. At least in that catechism it does state quite clearly that this so-called fourth baptism is "according to some theologians". I have never seen a catechism that refers to theologians in that way.
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From the Catechism of Pius X:
Q29. But if a man through no fault of his own is outside the Church, can he be saved?
A. If he is outside the Church through no fault of his, that is, if he is in good faith, and if he has received Baptism, or at least has the implicit desire of Baptism; and if, moreover, he sincerely seeks the truth and does God's will as best he can such a man is indeed separated from the body of the Church, but is united to the soul of the Church and consequently is on the way of salvation
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Ok, so let's look at the problematic phrases, which are open to interpretation (and which Modernists like Rahner, Dulles, etc) all used in their successful attempts to water down EENS to pave the way for V2's ultra-heresies.
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1. Good Faith - what is this? How is it defined? How does one know who has it or not? None one knows. It's subjective, it's open-ended, it's open to sentiment and emotion.
2. Implicit Desire - what exactly does this mean? Is this St Alphonsus' implicit desire? Or Rahner's "anonymous catholic" version? It's not precise at all. Dangerous theology.
3. Sincerely seeks the truth - This seems pretty straightforward, right? Except that only God knows who is sincere or not, since none of us can read hearts. So, again, dangerous theology.
4. God's will as best he can - Same as above; only God can know this. Doctrine is black and white. This is theological opinion and is dangerous for most people to think about.
5. On the way of salvation - What does this even mean? A liberal/modernist would define this as the person can "be saved in his current non-Catholic state". An orthodox/traditional catholic would say that this means the non-Catholic is "progressing towards the full truth of the Church, which God will give to him, if he continues searching."
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Do you see the MAJOR DIFFERENCE between these 2 interpretations? Do you see the major problem with imprecise language? Don't you see how this was the exact same method used at V2?
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Yes, I do. I am definitely beginning to question this.
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To be fair to Stanley, you and Lad have not responded to Q 17 in Pius X's Catechism (only Q 29):
Q17. Can the absence of Baptism be supplied in any other way?
A. The absence of Baptism can be supplied by martyrdom, which is called Baptism of Blood, or by an act of perfect love of God, or of contrition, along with the desire, at least implicit, of Baptism, and this is called Baptism of Desire.
The scenarios where someone dies for the Faith are so remote that I don't waste time on baptism of blood.
The "on the way to salvation" mentioned in Q29 may mean that such a person must also have the act of perfect love of God or act of perfect contrition mentioned here, not just implicit desire for baptism.
You can't mix-and-match catechism answers to make up your own theology. If you want to know, definitively, what is required for BOD (and by extension, BOB) then go read Trent on justification and preparation for Baptism. Trent lays out the spiritual requirements necessary to join the Church - EXPLICIT FAITH, sorrow for sins, a change of life, and a desire for baptism. This is exactly what St Thomas said. More or less, it's what St Alphonsus said. Anything or anyone who preaches something less is anti-Trent.
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The scenarios where someone dies for the Faith are so remote that I don't waste time on baptism of blood.
You can't mix-and-match catechism answers to make up your own theology. If you want to know, definitively, what is required for BOD (and by extension, BOB) then go read Trent on justification and preparation for Baptism. Trent lays out the spiritual requirements necessary to join the Church - EXPLICIT FAITH, sorrow for sins, a change of life, and a desire for baptism. This is exactly what St Thomas said. More or less, it's what St Alphonsus said. Anything or anyone who preaches something less is anti-Trent.
But you still haven't responded to the reference to implicit desire in Q17 of Pius X's Catechism.
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Yes I mentioned implicit desire below.
2. Implicit Desire - what exactly does this mean? Is this St Alphonsus' implicit desire? Or Rahner's "anonymous catholic" version? It's not precise at all. Dangerous theology.
To further the critique above, 1) what is in the catechism is ABSOLUTELY CONTRARY to Trent, which specifically mentions Explicit Faith and desire. 2) So either the writers of the catechism believe in heretical “developments” in dogma, or they were woefully uneducated on Trent. Either case is bad news. 3) A dogmatic council of the Church trumps a catechism any day, all day and 3x on sundays.
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So all of you, pick a side. Trent or post-Trent. There’s quite a difference in teaching. Unless you can show how the liberalizations of our day are in Trent, then you’re supporting doctrinal evolution, which is heresy.
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No, 2V, this has not been taught by the Church at all. In fact, the Church rejected "Rewarder God" theory. Rewarder God theorists based their novelty on a distinction, as St. Alphonsus described, that explicit belief in Jesus Christ and the Holy Trinity are required for salvation only by "necessity of precept", i.e. it's only a command that you must keep if you know about it. But in 1703 the Holy Office rejected this and stated that explicit belief in the Holy Trinity and Incarnation are necessary "by necessity of means", in other words, regardless of your sincerity, if you do not EXPLICITLY believe these core things, you cannot have supernatural faith. That squarely rejects Rewarder God theory.
Remember that we're not talking about Baptism of Desire, per se. BoD is a distraction from the core issue. What's at issue is what is necessary to believe in order to be able to have supernatural faith. St. Thomas Aquinas, as Dulles explains, taught that explicit belief in the Holy Trinity and Incarnation are in fact required. Even in the early 1960s Msgr. Fenton pointed out that it was still the majority opinion.
There have been posters here on CI who believed in BoD with whom I had zero problems. I don't care if someone wants to believe in a Thomistic Baptism of Desire. Who am I to denounce someone who wants to follow St. Thomas? What I have problems with is what reduces to "Anonymous Christianity". THIS is what allows the Modernists to expand the Church to include all manner of non-Catholics, and all the Vatican II errors derive directly from from this ecclesiology. If I believed that people who do not have Catholic faith can be saved, then I'm going right back to the Conciliar Church and abjuring my schism. There's no alternative.
Lad, can you, in one post, be very specific in what all of these folks (St Thomas, St Augustine, etc) believed? I am getting confused.
Also, why do you refer to the Holy Office in 1703 if things started to "develop" in the 1600's?
I am hesitant to just go by what the Catechism of Trent says because catechisms don't always include everything about the Faith. So, Pax's requirement of picking a side (pro-Trent/anti-Trent) isn't really useful to me.
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Lad, can you, in one post, be very specific in what all of these folks (St Thomas, St Augustine, etc) believed? I am getting confused.
Also, why do you refer to the Holy Office in 1703 if things started to "develop" in the 1600's?
I am hesitant to just go by what the Catechism of Trent says because catechisms don't always include everything about the Faith. So, Pax's requirement of picking a side (pro-Trent/anti-Trent) isn't really useful to me.
St. Augustine is a bit more complicated. In his early days, he floated the notion of BoD. But after having matured, and having battled the Pelagians and Donatists, he vehemently rejected BoD ... as he saw how it led inexorably to Pelagianism.
https://catholicism.org/baptism-of-desire-its-origin-and-abandonment-in-the-thought-of-saint-augustine.html (https://catholicism.org/baptism-of-desire-its-origin-and-abandonment-in-the-thought-of-saint-augustine.html)
St. Thomas believed in Baptism of Desire, but he, like every Catholic until the mid 1500s, believed that people must have explicit belief in Jesus Christ and the Holy Trinity.
St. Robert Bellarmine explicitly limited Baptism of Desire to catechumens, based on Tridentine ecclesiology.
As for the Holy Office, the 1703 decision was specifically addressing those developments that had started to take place in the previous century or so.
When it comes to BoD, for those with explicit belief in the Holy Trinity and Incarnation, for catechumens in particular, there's no issue and no need to "pick a side", as the Church has long allowed a belief in BoD. That has never been my concern.
BoD isn't the main issue. What has really been the problem is those who believe that people without any knowledge of and belief in Jesus Christ and the Holy Trinity can be saved by a kind of "implicit faith." There is zero support from the Church for this opinion, and the 1703 Holy Office decision actually rules this out. It is this thinking, that some non-Catholics can be invisibly part of the Church, that has caused all the ecclesiological havoc that has led directly and demonstrably to Vatican II. Karl Rahner rightly characterized the "greatest achievement" (in his eyes) of Vatican II as being the increased hope for the salvation of non-Catholics.
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Yes I mentioned implicit desire below.
To further the critique above, 1) what is in the catechism is ABSOLUTELY CONTRARY to Trent, which specifically mentions Explicit Faith and desire. 2) So either the writers of the catechism believe in heretical “developments” in dogma, or they were woefully uneducated on Trent. Either case is bad news. 3) A dogmatic council of the Church trumps a catechism any day, all day and 3x on sundays.
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So all of you, pick a side. Trent or post-Trent. There’s quite a difference in teaching. Unless you can show how the liberalizations of our day are in Trent, then you’re supporting doctrinal evolution, which is heresy.
See, apart from the imprudence of it, I don't see any issue with the Catechism attributed to St. Pius X mentioning "implicit" desire. It never states that those who are in that state can be saved in that state, but just that they are "on the way of salvation", i.e. moving in the direction of salvation. It was imprudent given the climate of religious indifferentism, as was Pius IX's teaching, which he later came to regret. He was deeply disturbed by the way people were interpreting his teaching and denounced it as an "atrocious injustice against Us." This is precisely the same injustice that the modern interpreters, like Stan here, for instance, are committing.
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See, apart from the imprudence of it, I don't see any issue with the Catechism attributed to St. Pius X mentioning "implicit" desire. It never states that those who are in that state can be saved in that state, but just that they are "on the way of salvation", i.e. moving in the direction of salvation. It was imprudent given the climate of religious indifferentism, as was Pius IX's teaching, which he later came to regret. He was deeply disturbed by the way people were interpreting his teaching and denounced it as an "atrocious injustice against Us." This is precisely the same injustice that the modern interpreters, like Stan here, for instance, are committing.
I went back to see what the Baltimore Catechism stated just to see how it compared. Unless I missed it, it never mentions "implicit" desire. It specifically speaks of an "ardent wish" when there is no possibility of water baptism. I think what is interesting is that when seen through a different lens, that catechism is not teaching implicit BOD either.
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I went back to see what the Baltimore Catechism stated just to see how it compared. Unless I missed it, it never mentions "implicit" desire. It specifically speaks of an "ardent wish" when there is no possibility of water baptism. I think what is interesting is that when seen through a different lens, that catechism is not teaching implicit BOD either.
No, it's not. I think the reference to implicit desire comes from the Catechism (attributed to) St. Pius X. Now, there's no proof that this is the original Catechism. Struthio uncovered a very early version written in St. Pius X's own hand that makes no mention of a BoD, so who knows when or by whom that particular passage was inserted. Secondly, it doesn't actually say that people can be saved in that state, but just says they are "on the way/path". In fact, to read it as saying they can be saved in that state would make the passage heretical.
If [a man] is outside the Church ... [if certain conditions apply, then] ... he is on the way of salvation.
Think about this for a second. If saying that someone is "on the way of salvation means that he can be saved, this statement is objectively heretical. It says that someone "outside the Church" can be saved. I, for one, opt to believe that this is not heretical, and so I will interpret it in the non-heretical way ... which, as Catholics, we have an obligation to do.
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No, it's not. I think the reference to implicit desire comes from the Catechism (attributed to) St. Pius X. Now, there's no proof that this is the original Catechism. Struthio uncovered a very early version written in St. Pius X's own hand that makes no mention of a BoD, so who knows when or by whom that particular passage was inserted. Secondly, it doesn't actually say that people can be saved in that state, but just says they are "on the way/path". In fact, to read it as saying they can be saved in that state would make the passage heretical.
Think about this for a second. If saying that someone is "on the way of salvation means that he can be saved, this statement is objectively heretical. It says that someone "outside the Church" can be saved. I, for one, opt to believe that this is not heretical, and so I will interpret it in the non-heretical way ... which, as Catholics, we have an obligation to do.
I see the phrase you are speaking of, and yes, it does not say they are saved. I was just looking up the Baltimore Catechism to see if there was something similar, and after reading through everything that speaks of "desire", I do not think one can state that it teaches one is saved by implicit BOD either.
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See, apart from the imprudence of it, I don't see any issue with the Catechism attributed to St. Pius X mentioning "implicit" desire.
It may not have been imprudent at the time, but it's problematic now. Where is "implicit desire" defined? It's not. So it's subjective theology. Can't turn back the clock, so what are you gonna do?
It never states that those who are in that state can be saved in that state, but just that they are "on the way of salvation", i.e. moving in the direction of salvation.
Again, nowadays, with the muddled thinking of most catholics on this issue, I can easily see someone saying that "Well, all of us are "on the way" to salvation because no one is saved until they die, right? Of course this applies to catholics and non-catholics because the Church doesn't tell us who is and isn't in hell."
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Again, can't turn back the clock, but I agree, on its face, this is not heretical. Anyone who is of good-will can see that "on the way to salvation" meant "on the way to joining the Church" ...which is what should've been said, to be more precise.
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The written decrees of the Council of Trent explains that "baptism of desire" takes effect at the pouring of the water - at the sacrament itself.
Priest: "N., do you wish to be baptized?"
N. (or the Godparents for an infant): "I do"
The catechumen has to indicate the will or wish to be baptized, then the sacrament's form and matter follow. That will / wish to be baptized is the **DESIRE** which is necessary for the sacrament to be effected as long as the proper form and matter follow. It's not what the modernists have erringly or, at worst, insidiously, interpreted "desire" from the Trent Catechism and subsequent writings to mean.
2Vermont, you have been thoroughly lectured on this matter. Don't balk at truth by remaining obstinate in your modernist views of "BOD".
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The written decrees of the Council of Trent explains that "baptism of desire" takes effect at the pouring of the water - at the sacrament itself.
Priest: "N., do you wish to be baptized?"
N. (or the Godparents for an infant): "I do"
The catechumen has to indicate the will or wish to be baptized, then the sacrament's form and matter follow. That will / wish to be baptized is the **DESIRE** which is necessary for the sacrament to be effected as long as the proper form and matter follow. It's not what the modernists have erringly or, at worst, insidiously, interpreted "desire" from the Trent Catechism and subsequent writings to mean.
2Vermont, you have been thoroughly lectured on this matter. Don't balk at truth by remaining obstinate in your modernist views of "BOD".
Clearly you are not reading my posts in this thread, Croix. It's pretty clear that I have been seriously questioning "implicit" BOD. Is it possible you are the one being obstinate here? ;)
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Here is a hypothetical case:
A feral child (man) somehow overcomes the hardships of life and survives in the wilderness. Because he was abandoned when he was very young, his knowledge of the spoken language is very limited. He is sort of like a Tarzan character. He is of good nature and when he looks at nature he realizes that there must be a God who has created him and all that he sees. God, not to be outdone in His charity, sends him a priest near the end of his life. The priest instructs him on the most important things, the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Redemption and plans to instruct him more the following day, as it does not seem that death is imminent. The priest goes to see him the next day and finds him dead.
Could that man be saved by BOD? If so, did the individual have an implicit desire or an explicit desire for the sacrament? Obviously, a case like this is far fetched and I’m sure that it most likely never happened, but it does focus on the need for the explicit knowledge of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Redemption and not the explicit knowledge of the sacrament of Baptism. I say that in a case like this, the person would only need to have an implicit desire for the sacrament. What do you think?
BTW: I’m sure most of you would say that if God sent a priest to instruct him on his deathbed, He certainly would have made sure that the man received baptism. I would probably agree with you. 😀
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You'd be surprised. I've run into a few of those.
That seems pelagian to me. Though I realize you’d say the same about number two
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Novus Ordo bishop denies (implicit) baptism of desire and calls it, "so-called baptism of desire". Says it diminishes sacramental Baptism. Starts about 12:00 in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhe4iCxtafY&t=982s
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Yes!
Priest: "N., do you wish (DESIRE!) to be baptized?"
N. (or the Godparents for an infant): "I do"
Without this, there is no sacrament. You can't baptized against a person's will.
And the way that if you are in mortal sin but say a sincere Act of Contrition it will get you into the state of grace - PROVIDED you get to confession about it as soon as you can (otherwise the sin reverts to you) … is the same as being desirous of baptism can put you into the state of justification PROVIDED you proceed to actually get baptized with water.
"Unless a man be born again of WATER and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven." - Our Lord
Q. What is a Sacrament?
A. A sacrament is an OUTWARD sign, instituted by Christ to give grace.
Baptism of Desire is not an outward sign, nor instituted by Christ.
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The written decrees of the Council of Trent explains that "baptism of desire" takes effect at the pouring of the water - at the sacrament itself.
Priest: "N., do you wish to be baptized?"
N. (or the Godparents for an infant): "I do"
The catechumen has to indicate the will or wish to be baptized, then the sacrament's form and matter follow. That will / wish to be baptized is the **DESIRE** which is necessary for the sacrament to be effected as long as the proper form and matter follow. It's not what the modernists have erringly or, at worst, insidiously, interpreted "desire" from the Trent Catechism and subsequent writings to mean.
2Vermont, you have been thoroughly lectured on this matter. Don't balk at truth by remaining obstinate in your modernist views of "BOD".
St. Robert Bellarmine and St. Alphonsus Liguori teach that the Council of Trent Session 6, Chapter 4 teaches Baptism of Desire. They were not modernists.
St. Robert Bellarmine (1542-1621)
De Baptismo, Lib. I, Cap. VI
But it must be believed without doubt that true conversion supplies for Baptism of water when, not of contempt, but of necessity some die without Baptism of water. It is expressly stated, Ezech. 18, if the wicked do penance for all his sins, I will not remember all his iniquities. Thus also Ambrose clearly teaches in his oration on the death of Valentinian the younger: Whom I was, he says, about to regenerate, I have lost; but he did not lose the grace which he had hoped for. Thus also Augustine lib.4. de baptism, cap.22. & Bernard epist.77 & after them Innocent III. cap. Apostolicam, de presbytero non baptizato, whence also the Council of Trent, Session 6, Chapter 4 says that Baptism is necessary in fact or in desire.
St. Alphonsus Liguori (1696-1787)
Theologia Moralis, Tomos Quintus
Now it is de fide that men are also saved by Baptism of desire, by virtue of the Canon Apostolicam, “de presbytero non baptizato” and of the Council of Trent, session 6, Chapter 4 where it is said that no one can be saved “without the laver of regeneration or the desire for it.”
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St. Robert Bellarmine and St. Alphonsus Liguori teach that the Council of Trent Session 6, Chapter 4 teaches Baptism of Desire. They were not modernists.
Tell us something we don't know. No, they were not Modernists, but they were not gods, not infallible, and not even popes. Some of us respectfully disagree. They disagree with one another on some things.
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Quote from St. Augustine Sermon 27.6
How many rascals are saved by being baptized on their deathbeds? And how many sincere catechumens die unbaptized and are thus lost forever!...When we shall have come into the sight of God, we shall behold the equity of His justice. At that time, no one will say : "Why did he help this one and not that one? Why was this man led by God's direction to be baptized, while this man, though he live properly as a catechumen, was killed in a sudden disaster and not baptized?" Look for rewards and you will find nothing but punishments!....For of what use would repentance be, even before Baptism, if Baptism did not follow?...No matter what progress a catechumen may make, he still carries the burden of iniquity, and it is not taken away until he has been baptized.
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Quote from St. Augustine Sermon 27.6
"How many rascals are saved by being baptized on their deathbeds? And how many sincere catechumens die unbaptized and are thus lost forever!...When we shall have come into the sight of God, we shall behold the equity of His justice. At that time, no one will say : "Why did he help this one and not that one? Why was this man led by God's direction to be baptized, while this man, though he live properly as a catechumen, was killed in a sudden disaster and not baptized?" Look for rewards and you will find nothing but punishments!....For of what use would repentance be, even before Baptism, if Baptism did not follow?...No matter what progress a catechumen may make, he still carries the burden of iniquity, and it is not taken away until he has been baptized."
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Quote from St. Augustine Sermon 27.6
"How many rascals are saved by being baptized on their deathbeds? And how many sincere catechumens die unbaptized and are thus lost forever!...When we shall have come into the sight of God, we shall behold the equity of His justice. At that time, no one will say : "Why did he help this one and not that one? Why was this man led by God's direction to be baptized, while this man, though he live properly as a catechumen, was killed in a sudden disaster and not baptized?" Look for rewards and you will find nothing but punishments!....For of what use would repentance be, even before Baptism, if Baptism did not follow?...No matter what progress a catechumen may make, he still carries the burden of iniquity, and it is not taken away until he has been baptized."
Indeed, some of the strongest anti-BoD statements in existence come from St. Augustine ... after he had matured in the faith by battling the Pelagians and Donatists. Tragically, this was not known to the early scholastics and to St. Bernard, so they kept mistakenly relying on Augustine's "authority" on the matter to learn towards accepting BoD. But God allowed this to happen. Without this BoD doctrine, there could not be this Crisis in the Church, since the false soteriology and ecclesiology could never have achieved a foothold in Catholic theology.
This sermon explains the origins of BoD speculation (as confirmed by another Father ... I forget which one). People saw sincere and dedicated catechumens dying before Baptism and other "rascals ... baptized on their deathbeds," who had put off Baptism so they could continue living in sin. This was "emotional theology" ... not deriving from rational syllogisms from revealed doctrine, but rather from an emotional sense of "that's not fair." This thinking St. Augustine elsewhere condemned as leading to a "vortex of confusion".
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St. Alphonsus Liguori (1696-1787)
Theologia Moralis, Tomos Quintus
Now it is de fide that men are also saved by Baptism of desire, by virtue of the Canon Apostolicam, “de presbytero non baptizato” and of the Council of Trent, session 6, Chapter 4 where it is said that no one can be saved “without the laver of regeneration or the desire for it.”
Whenever you post St. Alphonsus teaching a BOD, you should also include his own rebuttal to that teaching:
From: (An Exposition and Defence of All the Points of Faith Discussed and Defined by the Sacred Council of Trent, Along With the Refutation of the Errors of the Pretended Reformers, Saint Alphonsus Liguori, Dublin, 1846.)
The heretics say that no sacrament is necessary, inasmuch as they hold that man is justified by faith alone, and that the sacraments only serve to excite and nourish this faith, which (as they say) can be equally excited and nourished by preaching. But this is certainly false, and is condemned in the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth canons: for as we know from the Scriptures, some of the sacraments are necessary as a means without which salvation is impossible. Thus Baptism is necessary for all, Penance for them who have fallen into sin after Baptism, and the Eucharist is necessary for all at least in desire.
FWIW, St. Alphonsus is mistaken simply because Trent's 6th Session Chapter 4 does not say what he said it says - he made a mistake when he quoted that particular teaching because Trent does not say that "no one can be saved...", rather, Trent says that no one can be justified without the laver or desire thereof. The great St. Alphonsus is mistaken is all, as you can plainly see below in Session 6, Chapter 4:
Session 6
DECREE ON JUSTIFICATION [not salvation]
CHAPTER IV.
A description is introduced of the Justification of the impious, and of the Manner thereof under the law of grace.
By which words, a description of the Justification of the impious is indicated,-as being a translation, from that state wherein man is born a child of the first Adam, to the state of grace, and of the adoption of the sons of God, through the second Adam, Jesus Christ, our Saviour. And this translation, since the promulgation of the Gospel, cannot be effected, without the laver of regeneration, or the desire thereof, as it is written; unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God.
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Tell us something we don't know. No, they were not Modernists, but they were not gods, not infallible, and not even popes. Some of us respectfully disagree. They disagree with one another on some things.
I was addressing Patristic Ew's assertion that interpreting "desire" as BOD in the Catechism of Trent and other writings was an interpretation started by modernists, and that the decrees of Trent teach differently. My point was to show that that assertion regarding modernists was not true, as, whatever interpretations modernists have, great saints and doctors of the Church interpret the decrees of Trent themselves as teaching BOD.
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Quote from St. Augustine Sermon 27.6
"How many rascals are saved by being baptized on their deathbeds? And how many sincere catechumens die unbaptized and are thus lost forever!...When we shall have come into the sight of God, we shall behold the equity of His justice. At that time, no one will say : "Why did he help this one and not that one? Why was this man led by God's direction to be baptized, while this man, though he live properly as a catechumen, was killed in a sudden disaster and not baptized?" Look for rewards and you will find nothing but punishments!....For of what use would repentance be, even before Baptism, if Baptism did not follow?...No matter what progress a catechumen may make, he still carries the burden of iniquity, and it is not taken away until he has been baptized."
That's a fraudulent quote. It's a bunch of sentences strung together from different places, none of which are from St. Augustine's Sermon 27.
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Whenever you post St. Alphonsus teaching a BOD, you should also include his own rebuttal to that teaching:
FWIW, St. Alphonsus is mistaken simply because Trent's 6th Session Chapter 4 does not say what he said it says - he made a mistake when he quoted that particular teaching because Trent does not say that "no one can be saved...", rather, Trent says that no one can be justified without the laver or desire thereof. The great St. Alphonsus is mistaken is all, as you can plainly see below in Session 6, Chapter 4:
Session 6
DECREE ON JUSTIFICATION [not salvation]
CHAPTER IV.
A description is introduced of the Justification of the impious, and of the Manner thereof under the law of grace.
By which words, a description of the Justification of the impious is indicated,-as being a translation, from that state wherein man is born a child of the first Adam, to the state of grace, and of the adoption of the sons of God, through the second Adam, Jesus Christ, our Saviour. And this translation, since the promulgation of the Gospel, cannot be effected, without the laver of regeneration, or the desire thereof, as it is written; unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God.
St. Alphonsus was not rebutting BOD in this commentary. He teaches BOD as part of this very same commentary, in the very next paragraph.
An Exposition and Defence of All the Points of Faith Discussed and Defined by the Sacred Council of Trent, Along With the Refutation of the Errors of the Pretended Reformers.
11. Can. 4: Si quis dixerit sacramenta novae legis non esse ad salutem necessaria, sed superflua; et sine eis aut eorum voto per solam fidem homines a Deo gratiam justificationis adipisci, licet omnia singulis necessaria non siut, anathema sit."
12. The heretics say that no sacrament is necessary, inasmuch as they hold that man is justified by faith alone, and that the sacraments only serve to excite and nourish this faith, which (as they say) can be equally excited and nourished by preaching. But this is certainly false, and is condemned in the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth canons: for as we know from the Scriptures, some of the sacraments are necessary (necessitate Medii) as a means without which salvation is impossible. Thus Baptism is necessary for all, Penance for them who have fallen into sin after Baptism, and the Eucharist is necessary for all at least in desire (in voto).
13. Soave says that at least the implicit desire of Baptism (the same holds for penance in regards to sinners) appeared to many of the fathers not to be necessary for justification: because Cornelius and the good thief were justified without having any knowledge of Baptism. But, Pallavicini says that this is a mere dream of Soave: for the theologians of Trent could not have adduced the example of Cornelius or of the good thief in defence of such an opinion, when everyone knew that the obligation of Baptism did not commence till after the death of the Saviour, and after the promulgation of the Gospel. Besides, who can deny that the act of perfect love of God, which is sufficient for justification, includes an implicit desire of Baptism, of Penance and of the Eucharist. He who wishes the whole, wishes every part of that whole, and all the means for its attainment. In order to be justified without Baptism, an infidel must love God above all things and must have a universal will to observe the divine precepts, among which the first is to receive Baptism: and therefore in order to be justified it is necessary for him to have at least an implicit desire of that sacrament. For it is certain that to such desire is ascribed the spiritual regeneration of a person who has not been baptized, and the remission of sins to baptized persons who have contrition, is likewise ascribed to the explicit or implicit desire of sacramental absolution.
14. In the fourth canon the words licet omnia singulis necessaria non sint, were afterwards inserted. By this canon it was intended to condemn Luther, who asserts that none of the sacraments is absolutely necessary for salvation, because as has been already said, he ascribed all salvation to faith, and nothing to the efficacy of the sacraments.
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St Alphonsus is free to give his opinion on how justification works, but he's contrary to Trent, which gave the Church the clear requirements. A Doctor of the Church CANNOT EVER add to, or edit Church teachings. Trent is quite clear on the requirements, preparations and beliefs required for justification and baptism. There's really nothing to add to the discussion; it's all there.
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That's a fraudulent quote. It's a bunch of sentences strung together from different places, none of which are from St. Augustine's Sermon 27.
If this is so, please quote the whole sermon
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If this is so, please quote the whole sermon
https://www.cathinfo.com/baptism-of-desire-and-feeneyism/will-be-interested-to-hear-thoughts-on-this-new-bodbob-book/msg634706/#msg634706
Augustine the Bishop by F. Van der Meer
pgs. 149 - 150
7. Day-to-Day Pastoral Work
(. . .)
The Indifferent
(. . .)
Augustine never sought to make easy excuses for those who kept putting off baptism. Some did this from indifference and through the lack of any serious element in their dispositions, some from that peculiar laziness which Augustine had himself had occasion to observe in his own father Patricius, for Patricius, after being a catechumen for many years, was only baptized in 371, when he was actually on his death-bed and Augustine himself was already seventeen years of age.(94) There were others who pointed to some baptized blockhead, who was a scoundrel in the bargain, and haughtily demanded whether they were not better men than he. Augustine's comment on these occasions was that Christ himself had been baptized "for the sake of the proud men who were still to come".
"It often happens that a catechumen knows more of his religion and leads a better life than many others who have been baptized. He sees how badly instructed a baptized person can often be and that his way of life is often much less recollected and much less chaste than his own. He himself never thinks of women, yet he sees Christians, who, while remaining innocent of actual adultery, practice little self control toward their wives. Even so, no man has a right to puff himself up and say, 'Why should I be baptized? Why should I desire desire to partake of something that happens to be possessed by another who is my inferior both in the matter of conduct and knowledge? The Lord will answer him, 'How much is he thy inferior? As much as those art mine? Or is perhaps the servant greater than the master?' ".(95)
In most cases the motive for avoiding baptism lay in the desire of such men not to be bound. They wanted to be free to sin and then get rid of their sins cheaply and all at once when the appropriate moment came. Augustine did not mince matters in this connection. They think, he said, that as catechumens they can make light of their adulteries, and then have the effrontery to compare themselves with the woman in the Temple who "also was not condemned".(96)
This whole evil was one with which Augustine never wearied in doing battle. Even the anniversary of his consecration found him in fighting mood. I care naught, he cried out on this occasion, that today of all the days you expect to hear something pleasant from me. I must warn you in the words of Holy Scripture: "Defer it not from day to day, for his wrath shall come on a sudden." God knows that I tremble in my cathedra myself when I hear those words. I must not, I cannot be silent. I am compelled to preach to you on this matter and "to make you fearful, being myself full of fear".(97)
How dangerous, he says, is is every delay! How many rascals are saved by being baptized on their death on their death-beds? And how many earnest catechumens die unbaptized?--which, for Augustine, is equivalent to saying that they are lost for ever.(98 ) He compares the carefree condition of mind that such people often display with the dread sleeping-sickness of an old man, who keeps on saying "Let me sleep", although the doctor keeps warning those around him that sleep is the one thing he must not do. And do not make it a reproach to me, he continues, that I disturb your peace of mind. How can I comfort you when the threat comes from God himself? For I am but the steward, not the father of the house.(99) "You say, 'I will do it later, I will do it tomorrow. Why do you frighten us? Have we not been promised forgiveness?' Yes, forgiveness is promised you, but it has been promised to you that you shall see tomorrow."
Notes from pg. 613
95. IP, 90, 2, 6.
96. DSI, 20, 6.
97. FSA, 2, 7 and 8; see Ecclus. v.8-9
98. SE, 27, 6.
99. FSA, 2, 8b-9
Abbrevations can be found starting on page XI, in the front of the book.
IP = Enarrationes in Psalmos
DSI = Denis, Sancti Aurelii Augustini Sermones Inediti
FSA = Frangipane, Sancti Aurelii Augustini Hipponensis Episcopi Sermones X
SE = Sermones
Note 95, Exposition on Psalm 90:
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1801090.htm (http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1801090.htm)
Note 96 text, Jesuit, Michael Denis:
https://books.google.com/books?id=oGg7WvZhAckC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false (https://books.google.com/books?id=oGg7WvZhAckC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false)
Note 97 and 99 text, Dom Frangipane:
https://books.google.com/books?id=gdZLAAAAcAAJ&pg=PP7&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=2#v=onepage&q&f=false (https://books.google.com/books?id=gdZLAAAAcAAJ&pg=PP7&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=2#v=onepage&q&f=false)
Note 98 refers to Sermon 27 which I already posted:
https://www.cathinfo.com/baptism-of-desire-and-feeneyism/will-be-interested-to-hear-thoughts-on-this-new-bodbob-book/msg634012/#msg634012 (https://www.cathinfo.com/baptism-of-desire-and-feeneyism/will-be-interested-to-hear-thoughts-on-this-new-bodbob-book/msg634012/#msg634012)
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https://www.cathinfo.com/baptism-of-desire-and-feeneyism/will-be-interested-to-hear-thoughts-on-this-new-bodbob-book/msg634708/#msg634708
The words are Fr. Meer's, a paraphrase of St. Augustine's Sermon 27.
Fr. Meer:
Quote
How dangerous, he says, is is every delay! How many rascals are saved by being baptized on their death on their death-beds? And how many earnest catechumens die unbaptized?
St. Augustine:
Quote
"Why did he come to the help of this one and not that one? Why was this one steered by God's guiding hand to get baptized, while that other one who had lived a good life as a catechumen suddenly collapsed and died, without ever reaching baptism? That other one again, who lived such a vicious life, as a lecher, as an adulterer, as a play-actor, as a bullfighter, fell ill, was baptized, departed this life, and in him sin was overcome, in him sin was eliminated-why?"
Look for desserts, and all you will find is punishment. Look for grace-Oh the depth of the riches! Peter denies, the thief believes-Oh the depth of the riches! (Rom 11:33).
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https://www.cathinfo.com/baptism-of-desire-and-feeneyism/will-be-interested-to-hear-thoughts-on-this-new-bodbob-book/msg634709/#msg634709
The words of St. Augustine are more forceful, the entirety of Sermon 27 deals with justice and unfairness. The word delay is not mentioned, there is no exposition about deferring Baptism.
https://books.google.com/books?id=Z3XYAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false (https://books.google.com/books?id=Z3XYAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false)
It's from pages 104 to 110, including the notes.
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That's a fraudulent quote. It's a bunch of sentences strung together from different places, none of which are from St. Augustine's Sermon 27.
None?
https://books.google.com/books?id=Z3XYAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false (https://books.google.com/books?id=Z3XYAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false)
Sermons II (20-50) on the Old Testament
pgs. 107-108
Sermon 27
6.
(. . .)
So then, in this life let us hold on tight to the deformed Christ. What do I mean, the deformed Christ? Far be it from me to boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world (Gal 6:14). That's the deformity of Christ. Did I ever say I knew anything among you, except the road? This is the road, to believe in the crucified. We carry the sign of this deformity on our foreheads. Let us not be ashamed of this deformity of Christ. Let us hold to the way, and we shall arrive at the sight. When we arrive at the sight, we shall see the equal-handedness of God. And no longer will there be any occasion to say there,
"Why did he come to the help of this one and not that one? Why was this one steered by God's guiding hand to get baptized, while that other one who had lived a good life as a catechumen suddenly collapsed and died, without ever reaching baptism? That other one again, who lived such a vicious life, as a lecher, as an adulterer, as a play-actor, as a bullfighter, fell ill, was baptized, departed this life, and in him sin was overcome, in him sin was eliminated-why?"
Look for desserts, and all you will find is punishment. Look for grace-Oh the depth of the riches! Peter denies, the thief believes-Oh the depth of the riches! (Rom 11:33).
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St. Alphonsus was not rebutting BOD in this commentary. He teaches BOD as part of this very same commentary, in the very next paragraph.
An Exposition and Defence of All the Points of Faith Discussed and Defined by the Sacred Council of Trent, Along With the Refutation of the Errors of the Pretended Reformers.
14. In the fourth canon the words licet omnia singulis necessaria non sint, were afterwards inserted. By this canon it was intended to condemn Luther, who asserts that none of the sacraments is absolutely necessary for salvation, because as has been already said, he ascribed all salvation to faith, and nothing to the efficacy of the sacraments.
https://www.cathinfo.com/baptism-of-desire-and-feeneyism/condemned-savation-for-good-willed-ignorant-pagans/msg662772/#msg662772
Council of Trent 1545-1563
Canons on the Sacraments in General: - (Canon 4):
"If anyone shall say that the sacraments of the New Law are not necessary for salvation, but are superfluous, and that although all are not necessary for every individual, without them or without the desire of them (sine eis aut eorum voto), through faith alone men obtain from God the grace of justification; let him be anathema."
Bernard Of Clairvaux: On Baptism And The Office of the Bishops, pgs. 159 - 160
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0879075678/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0879075678&linkCode=as2&tag=httpwwwchanco-20 (https://aax-us-east.amazon-adsystem.com/x/c/Qt8HPronNgETEYqsa4i58_oAAAFseWi2LQEAAAFKAbupbzY/https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0879075678/ref=as_li_tl?imprToken=eDXlbyXVSV2cEH7O1B1ngw&slotNum=0&ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0879075678&linkCode=w61&tag=httpwwwchanco-20)
8. It would be hard, believe me, to tear me away from these two pillars--I mean Augustine and Ambrose. I own to going along with them in wisdom or in error, for I too believe that a person can be saved by faith alone, through the desire to receive the sacrament, but only if such a one is forestalled by death or prevented by some other insuperable force from implementing this devout desire. Perhaps this was why the Savior, when he said: Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, took care not to repeat 'whoever is not baptized', but only, whoever does not believe will be condemned, imitating strongly that faith is sometimes sufficient for salvation and that without it nothing suffices.
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I doubt any trads go past two
Are you joking? There's a plethora of laity and clergy that say salvation is possible for Muslims, Jews, Hindu's etc.
AS THEY ARE.
There is no conversion. There is no cessation of their observances and practices of their false faith. They act, speak, and identify publicly with their false religion unto their very death.
The Muslim dies a Muslim. The Jew dies a Jew, etc.
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God does not want us to commit idolatry.
Idolatry is a mortal sin.
This isn't stopping Bishop Fellay from having stated the possibility of the salvation of a invincibly ignorant Hindu in Tibet.
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This Catechism nowhere states that such s one would be saved in that state, just that he is "on the way" ... very similar to what Pius IX stated. Even Dulles stated that Pius IX did NOT say this ... although he THOUGHT it was implied.
Pius IX later stated himself (as quoted by Father Wathen) that this is EXACTLY what he meant, and that those who interpreted it the other way were committing an "atrocious injustice" against him.
https://www.cathinfo.com/baptism-of-desire-and-feeneyism/pius-ix-and-invincible-ignorance/
2 Corinthians 4:3-4
And if our gospel be also hid, it is hid to them that are lost, In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of unbelievers, that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not shine unto them.
Summa Theologica I-II
Question 62. The theological virtues
Article 3:
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/2062.htm (http://www.newadvent.org/summa/2062.htm)
Quote
First, as regards the intellect, man receives certain supernatural principles, which are held by means of a Divine light: these are the articles of faith, about which is faith.
Pius IX, On Promotion of False Doctrines, 1863
http://www.papalencyclicals.net/pius09/p9quanto.htm (http://www.papalencyclicals.net/pius09/p9quanto.htm)
7. Here, too, our beloved sons and venerable brothers, it is again necessary to mention and censure a very grave error entrapping some Catholics who believe that it is possible to arrive at eternal salvation although living in error and alienated from the true faith and Catholic unity. Such belief is certainly opposed to Catholic teaching. There are, of course, those who are struggling with invincible ignorance about our most holy religion. Sincerely observing the natural law and its precepts inscribed by God on all hearts and ready to obey God, they live honest lives and are able to attain eternal life by the efficacious virtue of divine light and grace. Because God knows, searches and clearly understands the minds, hearts, thoughts, and nature of all, his supreme kindness and clemency do not permit anyone at all who is not guilty of deliberate sin to suffer eternal punishments.
19.
(. . .)
Let us pray that the errant be flooded with the light of his divine grace, may turn back from the path of error into the way of truth and justice and, experiencing the worthy fruit of repentance, may possess perpetual love and fear of his holy name.
Leo XIII, On Mission Societies, 1880
http://www.papalencyclicals.net/leo13/l13mis.htm (http://www.papalencyclicals.net/leo13/l13mis.htm)
6.
(. . .)
Do men like these pour forth their prayers to God that in His mercy he may bring to the Divine light of the Gospel by His victorious grace the people sitting in the darkness?
Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos, 1832
http://www.papalencyclicals.net/greg16/g16mirar.htm (http://www.papalencyclicals.net/greg16/g16mirar.htm)
13. Now We consider another abundant source of the evils with which the Church is afflicted at present: indifferentism. This perverse opinion is spread on all sides by the fraud of the wicked who claim that it is possible to obtain the eternal salvation of the soul by the profession of any kind of religion, as long as morality is maintained. Surely, in so clear a matter, you will drive this deadly error far from the people committed to your care. With the admonition of the apostle that “there is one God, one faith, one baptism”[16] may those fear who contrive the notion that the safe harbor of salvation is open to persons of any religion whatever. They should consider the testimony of Christ Himself that “those who are not with Christ are against Him,”[17] and that they disperse unhappily who do not gather with Him. Therefore “without a doubt, they will perish forever, unless they hold the Catholic faith whole and inviolate.”[18] Let them hear Jerome who, while the Church was torn into three parts by schism, tells us that whenever someone tried to persuade him to join his group he always exclaimed: “He who is for the See of Peter is for me.”[19] A schismatic flatters himself falsely if he asserts that he, too, has been washed in the waters of regeneration. Indeed Augustine would reply to such a man: “The branch has the same form when it has been cut off from the vine; but of what profit for it is the form, if it does not live from the root?”
The life of Pope Pius IX and the great events in the history of the Church during his pontificate
By John Gilmary Shea, published 1877
pgs. 97 - 103
https://archive.org/details/TheLifeOfPopePiusIX1877 (https://archive.org/details/TheLifeOfPopePiusIX1877)
In an allocution to the cardinals on the Consistory of the 17th of December, 1847, Pius IX. congratulated the sacred college on the renewal of a cordial understanding with Spain, by means of which he had been enabled to appoint a number of bishops in that country once so devoted to the Church. He alluded too to the favorable appearance of the Catholic cause in Russia, and repudiated certain theories ascribed to him. Against religious indifferentism so zealously advocated in our days, and made as it were a state creed, he said : "It is assuredly not unknown to you, venerable brethren, that in our times many of the enemies of the Catholic faith especially direct their efforts toward placing every monstrous opinion on the same level with the doctrine of Christ, or of confounding it therewith, and so they try more and more to propagate that impious system of the indifference of religions.
But quite recently, we shudder to say it, men have appeared who have thrown such reproaches upon our name and apostolic dignity, that they do not hesitate to slander us, as if we shared in their folly and favored the aforesaid most wicked system. From the measures, in no' wise incompatible with the sanctity of the Catholic religion, which, in certain affairs relating to the civil government of the Pontifical States, we thought fit in kindness to adopt, as tending to the public advantage and prosperity, and from the amnesty graciously bestowed upon some of the subjects of the same States at the beginning of our pontificate, it appears that these men have desired to infer that we think so benevolently concerning every, class of mankind, as to suppose that not only the sons of the Church, but that the rest also, however alienated from Catholic unity they may remain, are alike in the way of salvation, and may arrive at everlasting life."
We are at a loss from horror to find words to express our detestation of this new and atrocious injustice that is done us. We do indeed love all mankind with the inmost affection of our heart, yet not otherwise than in the love of God, and of our Lord Jesus Christ, who came to seek and to save that which had perished, who died for all, who wills all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth ; who therefore sent his disciples into the whole world to preach the gospel to every creature, proclaiming that they who should believe and be baptized should be saved, but they who should believe not should be condemned ; who therefore will be saved let them come to the pillar and ground of faith, which is the Church; let them come to the true Church of Christ, which in its bishops and in the Roman Pontiff, the chief head of all, has the succession of apostolical authority, never at any time interrupted; which has never counted aught of greater moment than to preach and by all means to keep and defend the doctrine proclaim ed by the apostles, by Christ's command; which, from the apostles' time downward, has increased in the midst of difficulties of every kind ; and being illustrious through out the whole world by the splendor of miracles, multiplied by the blood of martyrs, exalted by the virtues of confessors and virgins, strengthened by the most wise testimonies of the fathers, hath flourished and doth flourish in all the regions of the earth, and shines refulgent in the perfect unity of the faith, of sacraments, and of holy discipline."
Let me paraphrase the above excerpt:
Pius IX
Allocution to the cardinals on the Consistory of the 17th of December, 1847, Pius IX:
It is assuredly not unknown to you, venerable brethren, that in our times many of the enemies of the Catholic faith especially direct their efforts toward placing every monstrous opinion on the same level with the doctrine of Christ, or of confounding it therewith, and so they try more and more to propagate that impious system of the indifference of religions.
But quite recently, we shudder to say it, men have appeared who have thrown such reproaches upon our name and apostolic dignity, that they do not hesitate to slander us, as if we shared in their folly and favored the aforesaid most wicked system.
(. . .) as to suppose that not only the sons of the Church, but that the rest also, however alienated from Catholic unity they may remain, are alike in the way of salvation, and may arrive at everlasting life."
We are at a loss from horror to find words to express our detestation of this new and atrocious injustice that is done us.
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Pope Gregory XVI - 1832
Summo Iugiter Studio, On Mixed Marriages
https://www.papalencyclicals.net/Greg16/g16summo.htm (https://www.papalencyclicals.net/Greg16/g16summo.htm)
Quote
2. Therefore, guided by the example of Our predecessors, We are grieved to hear reports from your dioceses which indicate that some of the people committed to your care freely encourage mixed marriages. Furthermore, they are promoting opinions contrary to the Catholic faith:
(. . .)
Finally some of these misguided people attempt to persuade themselves and others that men are not saved only in the Catholic religion, but that even heretics may attain eternal life.
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The Athanasian Creed
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02033b.htm
Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic Faith. Which Faith except everyone do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.
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St. Alphonsus was not rebutting BOD in this commentary. He teaches BOD as part of this very same commentary, in the very next paragraph.
An Exposition and Defence of All the Points of Faith Discussed and Defined by the Sacred Council of Trent, Along With the Refutation of the Errors of the Pretended Reformers.
No, he is not, not in that commentary. In that commentary, he is clearly talking strictly about justification, certainly not salvation.
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It is evident that the idea that non-Catholics can be saved is something new. Here is Dom Gueranger (Liturgical Year, Tuesday, Third Week of Lent):
And lastly, let us not pass by unnoticed this other sentence, which has a close relation with the one we have just alluded to: If a man hear not the Church, let him be to thee as a heathen and publican. What is this Church? Men, to whom Jesus Christ said: 'He that heareth you, heareth Me.'(St. Luke x. 16) Men, from whose lips comes to the world the truth, without which there is no salvation: men, who alone on earth have power to reconcile the sinner with his God, save him from the hell he has deserved, and open to him the gates of heaven. Can we be suprised, after this, that our Saviour---who would have these men to be His instruments, and as it were, the communication between Himself and mankind---should treat as a heathen, as one that has never received Baptism, him that refuses to acknowledge their authority? There is no revealed truth, except through their teaching; there is no salvation, except through the Sacraments which they administer; there is no hoping in Christ Jesus, except where there is submission to the spiritual laws which they promulgate.
This quote doesn't rule out BOD but it certainly does indicate that Catholic faith and the reception of the Sacraments is necessary (in particular Baptism) as well as submission to the authority of the Church. Which could potentially be the case for individual unbaptized catechumens. It looks to me like Fr. Feeney was more faithful to this tradition than the post-V2 traditionalists and pre-V2 theologians who assert that non-Catholics can be saved without first converting to the Catholic faith.
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I remember on one of the other threads that Fr. Cekada was quoted as basing his belief that non-Catholics could be saved on the idea that we would have to conclude that God was cruel if the vast majority of the human race is non-Catholic and destined for hell. I hope I'm not exaggerating his position. I think that was the general gist of it. In any case, I offer this quote from The Imitation of Christ as an answer to that concern:
Not Searching Into High Matters Nor Into the Secret Judgments of God
Christ:
Son, see thou dispute not of high matters, nor of the hidden judgments of God; why this man is left thus, and this other is raised to so great a grace, or why this person is so much afflicted and that other so highly exalted.
These things are above the reach of man, neither can any reason or discourse penetrate into the judgments of God.
When, therefore, the enemy suggests to thee such things as these, or thou hearest curious men inquiring into them, answer with the prophet: "Thou art just, O Lord, and Thy judgment is right." -- Ps. CXVIII. 137.
And again: "The judgments of the Lord are true, justified in themselves." -- Ps. XVIII. 10.
My judgments are to be feared, not to be searched into; for they are incomprehensible to human understanding. -- Rom. XI. 23.
...
I foreknew My beloved ones before the creation; I chose them out of the world; they did not first choose Me. -- John XV. 16.
My Imitation of Christ, Thomas a Kempis, (c) 1982, Confraternity of the Precious Blood, Book Three, Chapter 58, p. 368.
I don't think concern for the salvation of those who died outside the Church should be the foundation of any Catholic theology. If we can't find support for it in Sacred Scripture nor in the tradition of the Church, theological propositions should be immediately ruled out. And we find nothing in Sacred Scripture nor in the tradition of the Church to support salvation for non-Catholics. Instead, we find that 3 times it was clearly and explicitly defined that those who die outside the Church are damned. No need to search into why that is. We can just accept that all of Our Lord's judgments are true and just.
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None?
https://books.google.com/books?id=Z3XYAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false (https://books.google.com/books?id=Z3XYAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false)
Sermons II (20-50) on the Old Testament
pgs. 107-108
Ah, part of it's from Sermon 27 on the Old Testament. I had checked Sermon 27 on the New Testament. Nice work.
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If this is so, please quote the whole sermon
Part of the quote is from St. Augustine's Sermon 27 on the Old Testament, as Trad123 pointed out and provided links to. I had only checked Sermon 27 of the New Testament.
The sentences in the quote are pieced together from four different writings. The first two sentences are Fr. Van Der Meer in his 1961 book "Augustine the Bishop. The next three sentences are from St. Augustine's Sermon 27 on the Old Testament. The fourth sentence is from St. Augustine's book "On Marriage and Concupiscence." The fifth sentence is from St. Augustine's Tractate 13 on the Gospel of John (verses 22-29)
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No, he is not, not in that commentary. In that commentary, he is clearly talking strictly about justification, certainly not salvation.
The commentary I posted was the same commentary from which you posted the first paragraph, and said it was St. Alphonsus' rebuttal against BOD. The full commentary shows he was not rebutting BOD, as he teaches it in the very next paragraph of that same commentary.
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I remember on one of the other threads that Fr. Cekada was quoted as basing his belief that non-Catholics could be saved on the idea that we would have to conclude that God was cruel if the vast majority of the human race is non-Catholic and destined for hell. I hope I'm not exaggerating his position. I think that was the general gist of it.
You're not exaggerating. LastTrad has the quote handy and could probably post it.
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St Alphonsus is free to give his opinion on how justification works, but he's contrary to Trent, which gave the Church the clear requirements. A Doctor of the Church CANNOT EVER add to, or edit Church teachings. Trent is quite clear on the requirements, preparations and beliefs required for justification and baptism. There's really nothing to add to the discussion; it's all there.
St. Alphonsus and St. Robert Bellarmine, among others, don't just teach how justification works, they teach that Trent teaches BOD, and cite it as such.
it's no longer a question, then, of what Trent teaches vs. what St. Alphonsus and St. Robert Bellarmine teaches. it's a question of what we understand Trent to be teaching vs. what St. Alphonsus and St. Robert Bellarmine understood Trent to be teaching. If we understand Trent Session 6, Chapter 4 to not be teaching BOD, then our reading and understanding of Trent is contrary to how St. Alphonsus and St. Robert Bellarmine's read and understood the same words. Either we aren't understanding Trent correctly, or both St. Alphonsus and St. Robert Bellarmine didn't understand Trent.
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This quote doesn't rule out BOD but it certainly does indicate that Catholic faith and the reception of the Sacraments is necessary (in particular Baptism) as well as submission to the authority of the Church. Which could potentially be the case for individual unbaptized catechumens. It looks to me like Fr. Feeney was more faithful to this tradition than the post-V2 traditionalists and pre-V2 theologians who assert that non-Catholics can be saved without first converting to the Catholic faith.
The following quote was taken from The Loyolas and the Cabots : Ch. 24 P.92 of the pdf. In the Boston heresy case it was written to refute 'Vatican sources' as being faithful interpreters of true doctrine.
‘A dogma admits to no exception. There can be cases that require careful attention to show how they fit in the dogma. But a dogma is absolute in its own order and cannot be destroyed by evasions and doubtful terminology.
“‘Every actual grace given to a person outside the church is given for the purpose of leading him into it. It is only after a man is in the Catholic faith that the rest of his sanctification can go on. Faith is the beginning of salvation.
“‘The definite impression everyone gets from the statements of liberal Catholic theologians is opposite to that which the dogma intended to convey. This is bad teaching and the Church is intended to teach and teach clearly.
“‘Due to the confusion of new terms introduced by contemporary theologians we feel that there is an urgent need for a reaffirmation of the dogma of no salvation outside the Church by the living voice of the infallible guardian of the faith. Therefore, as faithful children of Holy Mother the Church we entreat His Holiness Pope Pius XII to make an ex cathedra pronouncement.'”
[...]
However, we had come to learn not to take too seriously reports purporting to come from “Vatican authorities” or “unofficial Vatican sources”. We knew by this time that Liberalism was world-wide, and that it had reached even into the Vatican. We realized it was possible, unfortunately, to have Popes who were Liberal. The one time it was not possible to fear Liberalism in papal utterance would be when a Pope spoke ex cathedra, or infallibly.” A Pope might refuse to define ex cathedra, and limit himself to encyclical letters and allocutions. And any one of these latter might be suspect of Liberal outlook. But once the Pope pronounced ex cathedra, we knew that pronouncement to be divinely protected against error. (An example of this is the famous bull of Pope Boniface VIII, Unam Sanctam, of November 18, 1302. The whole bull is the preamble to one infallible pronouncement, which is: “Further, we declare, say, define and pronounce that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff.”)
Two sentences in the first three paragraphs of Mr. Humphrey’s report to the New York Herald Tribune also reassured us that the article need not be taken too seriously. The first sentence was:
“The priests who interpret church policy through endless research in the Vatican archives said flatly...”
Now, the Boston heresy dispute did not center around an interpretation of Church policy, but rather concerned an interpretation of Church doctrine. Doctrine is not subject to Church policy, nor are its safeguards those who make endless research in the Vatican archives and speak flatly to the Press.
The Jesuit weekly America was also to confuse this point of doctrine and policy in a day or two with an assertion which was tantamount to saying that the dogma “No Salvation Outside the Church” had held for the Arian, the Pelagian, the Monophysite, the Albigensian and all other heresies up to 1517, but after the Protestant heresy, all was changed. This dogma has a new interpretation “since the Reformation”. We knew that this was not true. The very purpose of placing the truths of the Faith into dogmatic form was to guard against the possibility of change or misinterpretation. The dogmas are cast in a dead language (Latin) as a further safeguard against even the change of meaning which a living language might give, in the course of time.
We were, therefore, not impressed with the opinion of “priests who interpret church policy through endless research in the Vatican archives” in so far as they held interpretation of defined dogma which was contrary to the definitions of the Popes and Councils.
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A Catholic Dictionary, Donald Attwater, Macmillan, New York, 1943, p. 267. Infallibility of the Pope. “The Vatican Council (1870) declared it to be a dogma of divine revelation that when the Roman Pontiff speaks ex cathedra- that is, when he, using his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his apostolic authority, defines a doctrine of faith and morals to be held by the whole Church- he, by the divine assistance promised him in blessed Peter, possesses that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer was pleased to invest his Church in the definition of doctrine on faith and morals, and that, therefore, such doctrines of the Roman Pontiff are irreformable in their own nature and not because of the consent of the Church.’ Note that this infallibility refers only to teaching concerning faith and morals, and then only when the pope speaks officially as teacher addressing the whole Church with the intention of obliging its members to assent to his definition and his intention must be manifest, though not necessarily expressed): that neither impeccability nor inspiration (qq.v.) are claimed; that infallibility is personal with the pope and independent of the consent of the Church. This doctrine the Vatican Fathers declared to be ‘a tradition handed down from the beginning of the Christian faith,’ that it was implicit (q.v.) in the teaching of the Church up to that time. Infallibility does not by any means do away with the necessity of study and learning, but simply under certain conditions guarantees that the conclusions drawn from study and learning are free from error; the pope’s knowledge is not infused into him by God; he gains it just as does any other man. But he is assisted, watched over, by the Holy Spirit so that he does not use his authority and his knowledge to mislead the Church at the times and under the conditions stated above.”
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The commentary I posted was the same commentary from which you posted the first paragraph, and said it was St. Alphonsus' rebuttal against BOD. The full commentary shows he was not rebutting BOD, as he teaches it in the very next paragraph of that same commentary.
No, he is not teaching it. The next paragraph speaks of justification, not salvation: "Soave says that at least the implicit desire of Baptism (the same holds for penance in regards to sinners) appeared to many of the fathers not to be necessary for justification:"
The next paragraph he teaches: "In the fourth canon the words, licet omnia singulis necessaria non sint, were afterwards inserted. By this canon it was intended to condemn Luther, who asserts that none of the sacraments is absolutely necessary for salvation, because as has been already said, he ascribed all salvation to faith, and nothing to the efficacy of the sacraments".
I'm not sure what it is with BODers and the word "desire". It is as if - no, not "as if" - rather, they *actually do* completely abandon what is actually being taught, decreed and/or defined, and replace it with a salvation via no sacrament at all, which, as St. Alphonsus says directly above, is a doctrine of Luther.
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Implicit Desire could be anything, depending on which BoDer you ask.
Explicit Desire: "I want to be baptized."
Implicit Desire 1: "I want to be a Catholic." without explicitly wanting Baptism.
Implicit Desire 2: "I want to do whatever God wants." Implicitly to become Catholic, implicitly to be Baptized.
Implicit Desire 3: "I am sincerely seeking truth." Implicit to find God, implicit to do what God wants, implicit to be Catholic, implicit to be Baptized.
Lots of BoDers cling to Implicit 3 ... which reduces Church EENS dogma to nonsense.
Also, the BoDers keep hiding behind implicit desire for Baptism. What we're talking about is whether implicit FAITH is possible.
I've been wondering about this for a while: couldn't you agree with the subsists clause of Vatican 2, but also believe Explicit Desire is required for salvation? To say that the Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church is only to say that certain salvific elements that are completely fulfilled in the Church can also be found outside of the Church. So, for instance, a Buddhist who doesn't believe in God can at least know that the world isn't fulfilling and tries to find a spiritual path to overcome that.
But that isn't to say that they're going to be saved, either. And, in fact, Vatican 2's docuмents never explicitly say that he or she will be saved if he stays a Buddhist. Just interacting with the little piece of the Church that is "outside" of the Catholic Church doesn't mean you're going to be saved. As Dulles even says, Vatican 2 doesn't say implicit faith will save you: it just says that those who sincerely seek God will find the grace to be saved- which can be interpreted in an Augustinian way too, in that those who sincerely seek God will be baptized into the Church, or a Thomistic way, whereby they will at least have explicit faith in the Church. Ambiguous? Yes. But I can see why someone would be inclined to say that Vatican 2 was still valid given the problems with contrary explanations and their lack of visible unity of government and visible unity of communion.
The last thirteen paragraphs of this article have no explicit quotes from Vatican 2 whatsoever. Dulles is simply doing his own weird theology inspired by the modernistic Rahner. All I am trying to say here is that it certainly seems like Dulles has to make some major logical leaps not included in the council to get from Vatican 2's subsists clause to his universal salvation ecclesiology. Then again, perhaps this also casts some significant doubt onto the many "traditionalists" whose ecclesiology ultimately boils down not even to Vatican 2's, but to Dulles' theology. That Jews, Muslims, and those who aren't Catholic at death can't be saved at all is dogma.
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If we understand Trent Session 6, Chapter 4 to not be teaching BOD, then our reading and understanding of Trent is contrary to how St. Alphonsus and St. Robert Bellarmine's read and understood the same words. Either we aren't understanding Trent correctly, or both St. Alphonsus and St. Robert Bellarmine didn't understand Trent.
St Bellarmine was 3 yrs old when Trent began and a teenager when the council closed. St Alphonsus lived long after Trent. Neither was a Council Father, so they aren't infallible in their comments on it.
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Secondly, both +Bellarmine and +Alphonsus teach that BOD only applies to catechumens, which is 100% consistent with the perspective of Trent's BOD.
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Thirdly, +Bellarmine mentions that he thinks (personal opinion, not church teaching) that it "seems harsh" that the invincibly ignorant would go to hell. No one is obligated to agree with him.
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Fourthly, +Alphonsus has written on both sides of the BOD debate, just like +Augustine. So which one of his writings do we take as his official stand?
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Fifthly, +Alphonsus mentions "implicit desire" (which is a liberalization of St Augustine's, St Thomas' and Trent's (and other saints') views) but...his "implicit desire" is NOT the same as the pre-modernism of the 1800s and modernism of the 1900s where "implicit desire" has been so liberalized as to mean "implicit faith in a God that exists". So, you have to define terms and compare meanings on this topic. Terms and meanings have changed, and been liberalized, multiple times since the 1500s.
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Finally, the whole point is that St Augustine, St Ambrose, St Thomas, St Bellarmine and St Alphonsus (most of the time) all agree with Trent that BOD only applies (in theory) to formal catechumens who are learning the Faith. To say that BOD applies to anyone else, is to believe in quasi-heresy which has no basis in Church History.
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I've been wondering about this for a while: couldn't you agree with the subsists clause of Vatican 2, but also believe Explicit Desire is required for salvation? To say that the Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church is only to say that certain salvific elements that are completely fulfilled in the Church can also be found outside of the Church. So, for instance, a Buddhist who doesn't believe in God can at least know that the world isn't fulfilling and tries to find a spiritual path to overcome that.
No, the "subsists" argument is heresy because it cheapens the definition, solemnity and truths of the "Church of Christ". To be with Christ, you must hold ALL of His Divine Truths; not 90% or 70%. Christ cannot be divided so that we can say that His Church is part over here but fully over there. As He told us, "He who is not with Me, is against Me." We must accept the WHOLE Christ, not just part of Him. There are certainly truths of the Church which non-Catholic religions hold, but it is heresy to describe these truths as "salvific elements" (for they can in no way save anyone, just like half of a car engine cannot run).
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As Dulles even says, Vatican 2 doesn't say implicit faith will save you: it just says that those who sincerely seek God will find the grace to be saved- which can be interpreted in an Augustinian way too, in that those who sincerely seek God will be baptized into the Church, or a Thomistic way, whereby they will at least have explicit faith in the Church.
St Augustine and St Thomas agree wholeheartedly in this. They also agree with Trent. V2 agrees with them, but then contradicts itself using the "subsists" phrase. This ambiguity is heresy because the Church, and all Catholics, have the duty to preach the pure, unadulterated Truth, at all times, in all circuмstances.
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No, the "subsists" argument is heresy because it cheapens the definition, solemnity and truths of the "Church of Christ". To be with Christ, you must hold ALL of His Divine Truths; not 90% or 70%. Christ cannot be divided so that we can say that His Church is part over here but fully over there. As He told us, "He who is not with Me, is against Me." We must accept the WHOLE Christ, not just part of Him. There are certainly truths of the Church which non-Catholic religions hold, but it is heresy to describe these truths as "salvific elements" (for they can in no way save anyone, just like half of a car engine cannot run).
.St Augustine and St Thomas agree wholeheartedly in this. They also agree with Trent. V2 agrees with them, but then contradicts itself using the "subsists" phrase. This ambiguity is heresy because the Church, and all Catholics, have the duty to preach the pure, unadulterated Truth, at all times, in all circuмstances.
I also agree with St. Augustine, St. Thomas, St. Bellarmine, and St. Alphonsus. I would not apply BoD to anyone beyond the catechumen, nor would anyone trying to make a coherent ecclesiology. I agree that you must hold all of Christ's Divine Truths.
What I'm not convinced of is that the subsists ecclesiology prevents that. I know it sounds a bit unintuitive, but even as early as the conflict with the Donatists, St. Augustine professed that their baptisms were valid. In fact, many Protestant baptisms are valid as long as they use the proper Trinitarian formula. For something to be a salvific element is not to say that it will save, but that it will lead the heretic to the Catholic Church, in which the Church of Christ fully subsists, and outside of which no one can be saved. The salvific elements do not save on their own, and if a Muslim dies only believing in God and with "implicit faith," he will be damned. Baptism, or at least the votum, is still necessary.
I just don't see any explicit indication that the salvific elements can save in the actual text of Vatican 2. In fact, Fr. Sebastiaan Tromp not only contributed the subsists clause in Vatican 2, but was actually the ghostwriter of Mystici Corporis Christi. I do agree that it can be taken in a whole bunch of different directions, but I don't know if it necessarily goes into the direction of heresy.
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For something to be a salvific element is not to say that it will save,
Logically, if the modernists used the term "salvific element" but then say, as you do, that it doesn't mean these "elements" can save, then the use of the term "salvific" is contradictory, confusing and heretical. The reason why they used the term is PRECISELY to IMPLY that such elements CAN save. The liberals use this phrase to teach 'universal salvation' to their 'protestant brethren' and to further the heretical, one-world, new age ecuмenism.
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The salvific elements do not save on their own, and if a Muslim dies only believing in God and with "implicit faith," he will be damned. Baptism, or at least the votum, is still necessary.
Nowhere in V2 is this made clear. So, if one reads V2 by itself, one can easily be led to believe that one can be saved outside the Faith.
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I just don't see any explicit indication that the salvific elements can save in the actual text of Vatican 2. In fact, Fr. Sebastiaan Tromp not only contributed the subsists clause in Vatican 2, but was actually the ghostwriter of Mystici Corporis Christi. I do agree that it can be taken in a whole bunch of different directions, but I don't know if it necessarily goes into the direction of heresy.
Le'ts say that Catholic Doctrine = A. Heresy does not have to say "not A" or "I completely reject A" or "A is wrong". Heresy can simply be "A + part B". Or "A + Z" or "A minus C". You are defining heresy in too strict of terms. Heresy is any addition, deletion, edit, implication, or alteration of Dogma (however small).
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To say that the Christ's Church "subsists in" the Catholic Church is heresy. Pure and simple. The Catholic dogma = Christ's Church IS the Catholic Church.
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To imply, as V2 did, that Christ's Church ALSO exists partly in other religions is heresy. You can say that certain truths exist in other religions, but these truths are not equal to Christ's Church, which by definition, is ALL Truth and the FULLNESS of truth.
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As an example, if you mix together Kool-Aid with water, you get a new drink. You can say that a Kool-Aid mix "subsists in" the water, but you cannot say that water "subsists in" the Kool-Aid. This is backwards. There is no Kool-Aid without water but there can be water without Kool-Aid.
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In the same way, Christ's Church is made up of ALL the Divine Truths of the Faith. You can say that the Divine Truths "subsist in" Christ's Church, but you cannot say that Christ's Church "subsist in" the Divine Truths. This is backwards. The Divine Truths may be partly believed outside of Christ's Church, but you cannot have Christ's Church without the FULLNESS of Truth.
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Logically, if the modernists used the term "salvific element" but then say, as you do, that it doesn't mean these "elements" can save, then the use of the term "salvific" is contradictory, confusing and heretical. The reason why they used the term is PRECISELY to IMPLY that such elements CAN save. The liberals use this phrase to teach 'universal salvation' to their 'protestant brethren' and to further the heretical, one-world, new age ecuмenism.
. Nowhere in V2 is this made clear. So, if one reads V2 by itself, one can easily be led to believe that one can be saved outside the Faith.
.Le'ts say that Catholic Doctrine = A. Heresy does not have to say "not A" or "I completely reject A" or "A is wrong". Heresy can simply be "A + part B". Or "A + Z" or "A minus C". You are defining heresy in too strict of terms. Heresy is any addition, deletion, edit, implication, or alteration of Dogma (however small).
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To say that the Christ's Church "subsists in" the Catholic Church is heresy. Pure and simple. The Catholic dogma = Christ's Church IS the Catholic Church.
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To imply, as V2 did, that Christ's Church ALSO exists partly in other religions is heresy. You can say that certain truths exist in other religions, but these truths are not equal to Christ's Church, which by definition, is ALL Truth and the FULLNESS of truth.
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As an example, if you mix together Kool-Aid with water, you get a new drink. You can say that a Kool-Aid mix "subsists in" the water, but you cannot say that water "subsists in" the Kool-Aid. This is backwards. There is no Kool-Aid without water but there can be water without Kool-Aid.
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In the same way, Christ's Church is made up of ALL the Divine Truths of the Faith. You can say that the Divine Truths "subsist in" Christ's Church, but you cannot say that Christ's Church "subsist in" the Divine Truths. This is backwards. The Divine Truths may be partly believed outside of Christ's Church, but you cannot have Christ's Church without the FULLNESS of Truth.
I am describing a possible theory, not necessarily my actual thoughts.
When I hear the phrase salvific element, I don't get the impression that it alone can save. I get the impression that it is merely an element of salvation that can lead us to the fullness of the necessity of means, in other words, the Catholic Church. If you can find me a dogmatic quotation verifying that the salvific elements alone can save, then please do. I don't see any implication of that in Vatican 2.
I agree that Vatican 2 can be taken in a lot of different directions, but I'm not sure if it can be definitively ruled out as you have. The liberals take it in a modernistic direction, however. They are heretical and wrong. Yet, I'm not saying that heresy "not A" must COMPLETELY REJECT dogma "A." However, "not A" *is* A + B, A + Z, or A - C. All of those are not A, and all of them would be heresy. However, I'm wondering whether EENS can be dogma A, and that the Church of Christ also subsists in the Catholic Church can be dogma B. There is no necessary incompatibility here. You can say that there are salvific elements that don't save on their own outside of the visible hierarchy of the Catholic Church, such as valid Protestant baptisms, while also saying that you need to be in the Catholic Church, in which all of those salvific elements are present, to be saved. (Because you can't be PARTIALLY saved, of course.)
You said that "Christ's Church is made up of ALL the Divine Truths of the Faith. You can say that the Divine Truths "subsist in" Christ's Church, but you cannot say that Christ's Church "subsist in" the Divine Truths. This is backwards. The Divine Truths may be partly believed outside of Christ's Church, but you cannot have Christ's Church without the FULLNESS of Truth."
This is precisely what Vatican 2 seems to imply. That's why they're salvific elements and not the necessary means to salvation. They don't save on their own. In my opinion, this theory needs to be looked at thoroughly before we reject what the vast majority of people think is the legitimate hierarchy of the Catholic Church. Because, otherwise, we lose visible unity of government and visible unity of communion, which as Satis Cognitum says, are essential to the constitution of the Church. This is very important.
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When I hear the phrase salvific element, I don't get the impression that it alone can save. I get the impression that it is merely an element of salvation that can lead us to the fullness of the necessity of means, in other words, the Catholic Church.
You don't have this impression because you know your Faith and you are interpreting this phrase in a traditional light. Those that don't know their Faith, and those who are modernist heretics, can use the phrase "salvific elements" to argue that V2 teaches that those non-Catholics who are "sincere" can be saved. In fact, that sincerity and good will can save, is said by V2 in its other docuмents (I forget which).
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The correct phrase should've been "truthful elements", in that, some non-Catholic religions have some truths in them. This is obviously correct. If these elements have nothing to do with salvation, as you argue, then the term "salvific" is unnecessary. Why was it used? Of course, it was put in there by modernists so that they can use this phrase, along with other phrases like "sincere" and "ecuмenism" and "good will" and "religious freedom" to spin together the story that non-catholics can be saved. And they've spun this story well and V2 is the leading reason why 99% of population will accept the coming one-world-religion.
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If you can find me a dogmatic quotation verifying that the salvific elements alone can save, then please do. I don't see any implication of that in Vatican 2.
If the phrase "salvific elements" has nothing to do with salvation, then why use the word "salvific"? You make no sense. Your argument is silly. It's plainly obvious.
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I agree that Vatican 2 can be taken in a lot of different directions, but I'm not sure if it can be definitively ruled out as you have. The liberals take it in a modernistic direction, however. They are heretical and wrong. Yet, I'm not saying that heresy "not A" must COMPLETELY REJECT dogma "A." However, "not A" *is* A + B, A + Z, or A - C. All of those are not A, and all of them would be heresy. However, I'm wondering whether EENS can be dogma A, and that the Church of Christ also subsists in the Catholic Church can be dogma B. There is no necessary incompatibility here. You can say that there are salvific elements that don't save on their own outside of the visible hierarchy of the Catholic Church, such as valid Protestant baptisms, while also saying that you need to be in the Catholic Church, in which all of those salvific elements are present, to be saved. (Because you can't be PARTIALLY saved, of course.)
If a salvific element doesn't save, then it's a contradiction in meaning. If a salvific element of the protestant religion can save outside of the Catholic Faith, then that's heresy. So the phrase, as it's used in that V2 passage, is either illogical nonsense or heresy. Pick one or the other. Either way, it is wrong.
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You said that "Christ's Church is made up of ALL the Divine Truths of the Faith. You can say that the Divine Truths "subsist in" Christ's Church, but you cannot say that Christ's Church "subsist in" the Divine Truths. This is backwards. The Divine Truths may be partly believed outside of Christ's Church, but you cannot have Christ's Church without the FULLNESS of Truth."
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This is precisely what Vatican 2 seems to imply. That's why they're salvific elements and not the necessary means to salvation. They don't save on their own. In my opinion, this theory needs to be looked at thoroughly before we reject what the vast majority of people think is the legitimate hierarchy of the Catholic Church. Because, otherwise, we lose visible unity of government and visible unity of communion, which as Satis Cognitum says, are essential to the constitution of the Church. This is very important.
You are like most conservative catholics who try to read V2 in a positive light - you infer things which simply aren't there. You ignore plain English and interpret a traditional meaning, whilst ignoring the obvious heretical problems.
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Non-catholic religions have certain Divine Truths; they do not have ANY salvific elements. They cannot save, period. V2 says they have both. If V2 had simply said that some Divine Truths are contained partly in non-catholic religions, fine. But it went beyond this boundary and implied that a religion with only PART of Divine Truth can save. Again, as it is written, in plain English, this is either illogical, imprecise, faulty theology or it's heresy. You choose. Either way, it's wrong.
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You don't have this impression because you know your Faith and you are interpreting this phrase in a traditional light. Those that don't know their Faith, and those who are modernist heretics, can use the phrase "salvific elements" to argue that V2 teaches that those non-Catholics who are "sincere" can be saved. In fact, that sincerity and good will can save, is said by V2 in its other docuмents (I forget which).
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The correct phrase should've been "truthful elements", in that, some non-Catholic religions have some truths in them. This is obviously correct. If these elements have nothing to do with salvation, as you argue, then the term "salvific" is unnecessary. Why was it used? Of course, it was put in there by modernists so that they can use this phrase, along with other phrases like "sincere" and "ecuмenism" and "good will" and "religious freedom" to spin together the story that non-catholics can be saved. And they've spun this story well and V2 is the leading reason why 99% of population will accept the coming one-world-religion.
.If the phrase "salvific elements" has nothing to do with salvation, then why use the word "salvific"? You make no sense. Your argument is silly. It's plainly obvious.
.If a salvific element doesn't save, then it's a contradiction in meaning. If a salvific element of the protestant religion can save outside of the Catholic Faith, then that's heresy. So the phrase, as it's used in that V2 passage, is either illogical nonsense or heresy. Pick one or the other. Either way, it is wrong.
.You are like most conservative catholics who try to read V2 in a positive light - you infer things which simply aren't there. You ignore plain English and interpret a traditional meaning, whilst ignoring the obvious heretical problems.
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Non-catholic religions have certain Divine Truths; they do not have ANY salvific elements. They cannot save, period. V2 says they have both. If V2 had simply said that some Divine Truths are contained partly in non-catholic religions, fine. But it went beyond this boundary and implied that a religion with only PART of Divine Truth can save. Again, as it is written, in plain English, this is either illogical, imprecise, faulty theology or it's heresy. You choose. Either way, it's wrong.
Here is what Lumen Gentium states:
"This is the one Church of Christ which in the Creed is professed as one, holy, catholic and apostolic, (12*) which our Saviour, after His Resurrection, commissioned Peter to shepherd,(74) and him and the other apostles to extend and direct with authority,(75) which He erected for all ages as "the pillar and mainstay of the truth".(76) This Church constituted and organized in the world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him,(13*) although many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure. These elements, as gifts belonging to the Church of Christ, are forces impelling toward catholic unity."
I don't know that the text is saying that people can be saved only with those elements of sanctification and truth present in other religions. An atheist turned Jew will likely become a better person by believing in one monotheistic God, and those elements of truth and sanctification naturally lead us to the true faith. If the person dies a Jew, then we know he wasn't saved, despite the sanctifying and truthful elements he encountered. If you can find me that citation confirming that implicit desire for the faith can save, then I'll concede the possibility entirely. That would confirm it. But we should make a major effort to interpret the docuмents in a traditional light before bringing unity of government and communion into contention.
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This passage is heretical because it subtly and devilishly splits the “Church of Christ” from the “Catholic Church” and explains them as 2 different things, when in fact, doctrinally, they are one and the same.
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It says that the Catholic Church is the visible society where Christ’s Church is organized, but ...it then heretically implies that Christ’s Church, HAS AN INVISIBLE SIDE TO IT, which is apart from the visible, Catholic Church. Then it further heretically says that there are “sanctifying” elements in this non-visible, non-Catholic, Church of Christ. This is total modernist garbage.
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The Church of Christ is the Catholic Church. Both visibly and invisibly. They are one and the same, in degree, and in all things. There is no Church of Christ without the Catholic Church and there is no Church of Christ outside, invisible, apart or in addition to, the Catholic Church. You cannot separate these 2 ideas. Those who wrote such things are anathema.
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This passage is heretical because it subtly and devilishly splits the “Church of Christ” from the “Catholic Church” and explains them as 2 different things, when in fact, doctrinally, they are one and the same.
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It says that the Catholic Church is the visible society where Christ’s Church is organized, but ...it then heretically implies that Christ’s Church, HAS AN INVISIBLE SIDE TO IT, which is apart from the visible, Catholic Church. Then it further heretically says that there are “sanctifying” elements in this non-visible, non-Catholic, Church of Christ. This is total modernist garbage.
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The Church of Christ is the Catholic Church. Both visibly and invisibly. They are one and the same, in degree, and in all things. There is no Church of Christ without the Catholic Church and there is no Church of Christ outside, invisible, apart or in addition to, the Catholic Church. You cannot separate these 2 ideas. Those who wrote such things are anathema.
Do valid Protestant baptisms take place in the visible Catholic Church?
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There is no such thing as a Protestant baptism because baptism is a catholic sacrament. There are only catholic baptisms performed by Protestants. Yet baptisms can be even performed by atheists, Jews and heretics too. So there is no contradiction.
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When one is baptized by a Protestant, they become 100% catholic and are part of the visible church, who, because God in His Providence decided to bestow this sacramental character on the person, they are now under the spiritual authority of the pope.
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Only when the person grows up, and rejects the Catholic Faith (by accepting Protestant heresies) is the person then a schismatic and is guilty of rejecting the Truth.
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But all valid baptisms are Catholic baptisms. A Protestant baptism would be a parody of it, using incorrect words or only being immersed/dunked in water and then only generally “accepting Christ”. This is obviously invalid and baptism doesn’t occur.
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There is no such thing as a Protestant baptism because baptism is a catholic sacrament. There are only catholic baptisms performed by Protestants. Yet baptisms can be even performed by atheists, Jews and heretics too. So there is no contradiction.
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When one is baptized by a Protestant, they become 100% catholic and are part of the visible church, who, because God in His Providence decided to bestow this sacramental character on the person, they are now under the spiritual authority of the pope.
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Only when the person grows up, and rejects the Catholic Faith (by accepting Protestant heresies) is the person then a schismatic and is guilty of rejecting the Truth.
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But all valid baptisms are Catholic baptisms. A Protestant baptism would be a parody of it, using incorrect words or only being immersed/dunked in water and then only generally “accepting Christ”. This is obviously invalid and baptism doesn’t occur.
I agree with this. There is no good reason for anyone to go from Catholicism to any other religion and no one can be saved in any other religion. But I still do not see a problem with Vatican 2 per se!
Christ obviously acts beyond the Catholic Church, trying to get people to the one true Church. Just associating with those sanctifying elements cannot save, though, and I see no evidence to suggest that it does even according to Vatican 2. If there was evidence for it, then I'd imagine that Dulles would have mentioned it.
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I definitely take more of a sede-doubtist position on the whole of Vatican 2, though. I'm trying to argue that there may be SOME way to reconcile V2 with tradition, but it's only really a logical possibility, and not one that I can even entirely believe. But it's still POSSIBLE. The valid Bishops of the Church still provide unity of Communion and Government, methinks, even in this era of confusion.
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Christ obviously acts beyond the Catholic Church, trying to get people to the one true Church.
Christ gives all men, every moment of their life, potential actual graces. They can either accept or reject these graces. But actual grace is not sanctifying, except for those Catholics who are already in the state of grace. Non-Catholics can never be in the state of grace so the actual graces they accept do not sanctify but only prod them towards the Church, for their conversion.
Just associating with those sanctifying elements cannot save, though,
You are using incorrect theological language. There can be no sanctifying elements outside the Church because the only means of sanctification is through the 7 sacraments, which do not, and cannot, exist outside the Church. Actual grace does not sanctify. Only sanctifying grace sanctifies. Only sanctifying grace is found in the Catholic Church. V2 is wrong.
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I'm trying to argue that there may be SOME way to reconcile V2 with tradition, but it's only really a logical possibility, and not one that I can even entirely believe. But it's still POSSIBLE.
No, not possible. After 50 years, it’s beyond a doubt that V2 is heretical.
The valid Bishops of the Church still provide unity of Communion and Government, methinks, even in this era of confusion.
Just because V2 is heretical doesn’t mean that sedevacantism must be held. They aren’t connected logically. There are plenty of reasons to be a sedevacantist and they have nothing to do with V2. The council wasn’t doctrinal and it never claimed to be infallible so its heresies do not affect the status of the pope. But that’s another topic I don’t want to get into...
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Thank you for helping me unpack this. I think you're right about V2 being heretical. God bless you.