As someone who once suffered from semi-Feeneyite scruples, let me give some advice to those who are trying to enlighten the Feeney crowd.
Forget about using Pius XII and excommunication and the letter of the Vatican II Cardinal. Pius XII, since he came right before Vatican II, since he was instrumental in putting Bugnini in power, does not have much credibility beyond his infallible teachings. That Holy Office letter is also doubtfully magisterial, though I'm not sure about that. I don't know if letters are in the same league as encylicals.
You will only enrage the Feeneyites by talking about Father Feeney's excommunication when, it is an indubitable fact, other kinds of heretics -- if Father Feeney was a heretic, which I'm not sure about -- were running rampant in the Church and little was done to stop them. It just makes it look like there was a conspiracy against the truth. But the reality is that Feeneyism ( on the right ) and Vatican II-style religious indifferentism ( on the left ) are BOTH errors.
The connection that Feeneyites make between Vatican II religious indifferentism and the idea of implicit faith doesn't wash. Implicit faith has been taught for centuries, and was never confused with religious indifferentism. You aren't making the distinction that needs to be made.
Religious indifferentism says other "faiths" have merit and souls can be saved in them. Implicit faith says souls are saved BY THE CATHOLIC CHURCH even if they happen to be in another faith or in no faith at all. They would have to have invincible ignorance. Invincible ignorance can help exonerate certain souls, but who knows how many people qualify? It's not something anyone would want to count on.
Have blind faith in St. Alphonsus. God put him here to help us through this mess, I'm nearly convinced. All his writings were examined with a fine-toothed comb and there was NO TRACE of error found in any of them.
Instead of going to Pius XII, it's much better to focus on the fact that great theologians like St. Alphonsus and Adolphe Tanquerey ( whose writings in my opinion are up there with the best ) and pretty much everyone else for centuries taught BoD and BoB and implicit faith. I also try to remind the Feeneyites that implicit faith was taught for centuries upon centuries and no Pope ever condemned it. So even if it weren't true, it is, manifestly and undeniably, an allowed opinion.
The contradiction that you all see with the Council of Florence is not really there. Mgr. Fenton is not my favorite writer, you have to sift the good from the bad, but it's very simple. Those with baptism of desire become members of the Church by desire -- they are not outside the Church in the way that the Jєωs, heretics, etc. spoken of at Florence are outside the Church.
Unfortunately many Feeneyites, I think, like the Jansenists whom they resemble in so many ways, base their entire identity as Catholics around this error. It's apparent that many people who are Feeneyites talk about almost nothing else.
You need to read this article on the changes to
Raccolta which occurred under Pius XII's watch:
http://catholicism.org/law-of-praying-is-the-law-of-believing.htmlAs for "implicit faith" being "taught" for centuries, it only goes back to the 17th-century, and even then, it was only a minority opinion, at least at first; no one, to my knowledge, was teaching it prior to that time. If you read
The Catholic Dogma by the late Father Muller, he says this about explicit faith, "
We also learn from Christ and his Church,
that the explicit faith in the mysteries of the Holy Trinity and of the Incarnation of the Son of God is also required as a necessary means of salvation." (
The Catholic Dogma, pg. 10) That's a pretty strong statement. Even the Council of Trent appeared to teach the same thing,
"But when the Apostle says that man is justified by faith and freely,
these words are to be understood in that sense in which the uninterrupted unanimity of the Catholic Church has held and expressed them, namely, that we are therefore said to be justified by faith, because faith is the beginning of human salvation, the foundation and root of all justification, without which it is impossible to please God and to come to the fellowship of His sons;..." (Session 6, Chapter VIII, Decree Concerning Justification -- Jan. 13, 1547)
Again, interpreting Trent in light of Saint Thomas, we read this,
"After grace had been revealed,
both learned and simple folk are bound to explicit faith in the mysteries of Christ, chiefly as regards those which are observed throughout the Church, and publicly proclaimed, such as the articles which refer to the Incarnation, of which we have spoken above (Question 1, Article 8). As to other minute points in reference to the articles of the Incarnation, men have been bound to believe them more or less explicitly according to each one's state and office." (ST, II II, 2, 7)
Topic: The Feeneyite Heresy (Read 4042 times)