PV,
Would you agree that the below teaching from Fr. Joseph Clifford Fenton in 1949 which Lad has posted numerous times, is a prime example of the above quote from Fr. Le Floch?

"In this field, God has given the Holy Father a kind of infallibility distinct from the charism of doctrinal infallibility in the strict sense. He has so constructed and ordered the Church that those who follow the directives given to the entire kingdom of God on earth will never be brought into the position of ruining themselves spiritually through this obedience. Our Lord dwells within His Church in such a way that those who obey disciplinary and doctrinal directives of this society can never find themselves displeasing God through their adherence to the teachings and the commands given to the universal Church militant. Hence there can be no valid reason to discountenance even the non-infallible teaching authority of Christ’s vicar on earth".

Fr Pivert said this in his study defending Archbishop Lefebvre's 1988 episcopal consecrations:
"We cannot deny the fact that the crisis of the Church is a well-determined, new, and grave case, for which no explicit provision can be found in Canon Law... a situation which lies outside the scope of all the ordinary rules of Canon Law..."
What he says here specifically about Canon Law, I think we can apply in a much broader sense, even to theological speculation, even to what Fr Fenton says in your quote.
In normal times, what he says makes sense, but who dreamed the 'passion' of the Church would look like this, and may yet look a whole lot worse, whether you want to believe we have a pope or not.
This is where even Archbishop Lefebvre hesitated when confronted with a Pope calling all the false religions of the world into the Catholic sanctuary to pray to their devils.
It appears to me that the doctrine of the Church, as laid down by Vatican I and Tradition, in the context of this crisis, is better explained in the article in the OP and by Dom Paul Nau and Canon Berthod in the book referenced that by this quote. Would Fr Fenton write the same today? It's a little like asking if ABL would be a sedevacantist today!

Stubborn, you can’t be for real!? The two are totally opposed to one another. Are you that blinded? Wait! I’m sure PV, the Gallican, will make the connection.

That is exactly what Stubborn was meaning, QV, of course they are opposed. He's asking if I believe that this opinion expressed by Fr Fenton is what Fr le Floch was fearing in terms of the exaggeration of Papal Infallibility.

I'm an ultramontanist like you, not a Gallican. Read the OP and the book.

Yep.

The Hungarians never did understand the French!

Fr Pivert said this in his study defending Archbishop Lefebvre's 1988 episcopal consecrations:
"We cannot deny the fact that the crisis of the Church is a well-determined, new, and grave case, for which no explicit provision can be found in Canon Law... a situation which lies outside the scope of all the ordinary rules of Canon Law..."
What he says here specifically about Canon Law, I think we can apply in a much broader sense, even to theological speculation, even to what Fr Fenton says in your quote.
In normal times, what he says makes sense, but who dreamed the 'passion' of the Church would look like this, and may yet look a whole lot worse, whether you want to believe we have a pope or not.
This is where even Archbishop Lefebvre hesitated when confronted with a Pope calling all the false religions of the world into the Catholic sanctuary to pray to their devils.
It appears to me that the doctrine of the Church, as laid down by Vatican I and Tradition, in the context of this crisis, is better explained in the article in the OP and by Dom Paul Nau and Canon Berthod in the book referenced that by this quote. Would Fr Fenton write the same today? It's a little like asking if ABL would be a sedevacantist today!

Good post and yes, the OP better explains but the sedes cannot accept that explanation for fear of putting their sedeism in jeopardy.

I think Fr. Fenton's idea should have been condemned and corrected, but as you say, at the time he made sense because popes were reliable shepherds, even tho per V1 what Fr. Fenton taught there was wrong, even in those days.

I often wondered why, as the OP mentions, so many theologians, even immediately after V1 and since, have taught essentially the same error, yet the Church never condemned or corrected them in any way. If the Church ever did, the OP did not mention it far as I could see.

What I believe is that along with NOers and sedes, all of the conciliar popes believe this error is V1's dogmatic teaching.

I mean consider that if you were pope and believed it a dogma that no matter what you did, you could never harm the Church etc., then why not a new mass pleasing to the Church's enemies, meet with heretics, kiss their Koran, and all the other heretical teachings and acts of false ecuмenism? As a pope who cannot harm the Church and whose intention is to get the most people into heaven, why not do whatever?   

With that in mind, the thing to be discarded is tradition - who needs it? Certainly not the pope, because being divinely protected in whatever he does means the main impediment is Church tradition because tradition only serves as one big source of interference, or it's nothing more than that gnat that keeps buzzing your face. In the popes' mind, if it weren't for Church traditions, imagine how easy of a time he would have to save everyone on earth. Which explains the conciliar popes' abhorrence of all things tradition.  

 Of course the sedes cling to both, the error and tradition, so they cannot fathom how popes, who believe the exact same error they do, can apply it the way the conciliar popes understand and apply it.

So instead of realizing the idea so clearly expressed from Fr. Fenton is, in light of V1, error, sedes believe the error to be dogma, and on that account popes are not popes.

Fr Fenton's opinion about the "infallible non-infallible" magisterium is non-sensical and wrong.

While you're entitled to disagree, I object to dismissing something written by arguably-the-top theologian in the US prior to and leading up to Vatican II as "non-sensical".  It's not.  I believe that he articulated the problem extremely well.  I just think that this does not fit into the same "infallible vs. non-infallible" false dichotomy that has largely been created by R&R, and not particularly well addressed by SVs either (since many of them responded by exaggerating the scope of infallibility).

While you're entitled to disagree, I object to dismissing something written by arguably-the-top theologian in the US prior to and leading up to Vatican II as "non-sensical".  It's not.  I believe that he articulated the problem extremely well.  I just think that this does not fit into the same "infallible vs. non-infallible" false dichotomy that has largely been created by R&R, and not particularly well addressed by SVs either (since many of them responded by exaggerating the scope of infallibility).

He was part of the problem, still is....

The Point - May 1953

...Of these doctrinal dictators, the three outstanding are Father Francis J. Connell, C. Ss. R., Monsignor Joseph C. Fenton, and Monsignor Matthew Smith. These three priests have emerged from nowhere to set themselves up as the official and unquestioned American theologians. Not even the Pope is able to speak to American Catholics without their mediation. His pronouncements require their interpretations, which infallibly follow, in order to make them clear and to show what he was really trying to say.

The opinions and interpretations of Fathers Connell, Fenton, and Smith are disseminated by means of one journal, one university, and many newspapers. These are, respectively, The American Ecclesiastical Review, of which Fenton is the editor and Connell the associate editor; the Catholic University of America, at which Fenton was, and Connell is, Dean of the School of Theology; and the newspapers that print articles issued by the National Catholic Welfare Conference, of which Connell is the star performer, together with the Denver Register, of which Smith is the editor and featured columnist.

Properly speaking, Monsignor Smith is not a professional theologian at all, but only a journalist with a flair for theological dabbling. Connell and Fenton are really the original thinkers, issuing their proclamations from the nation’s capital. Smith is merely their parrot, the voice out of the West. His job is to see to it, by means of his newspaper, that American Catholics are informed of the opinions Connell and Fenton have decided they ought to have. However, he does his job so faithfully and so well — besides which he often adds bright touches and anecdotes of his own — that he deserves to rank with the other two.

Father Connell specializes in giving the “Catholic position” on the latest newspaper headlines. There is not a single curiosity or scandal that he fails to notice and to comment on for the edification of American Catholics. Typical of his unholy interests and faithless comments is the article he wrote last year during the “flying saucer” ruckus. Asking himself the question, how could men on other planets be redeemed, he casually elaborated a scheme of multiple Incarnations and reincarnations of the Persons of the Blessed Trinity, a scheme which turns Our Lady from Virgo Singularis into just one of the mothers of one of the Divine Persons who became man.

Monsignor Fenton likes to make it appear that he is terribly strong and intransigent on the matter of dogma, and that he is persecuted on account of this by those with more liberal ideas. However, as is plainly evident to any long-term reader of Fenton’s Ecclesiastical Review, there is no lasting difference between him and the liberals; he merely says what they say two years later.

In his interpretations of the doctrine “no salvation outside the Church,” his prize interpretations, Fenton lays down conditions for non-Catholic salvation that are so rigid and far-fetched that practically no one can meet them. (This is to show his “terrible strength.”) However, it does not bother him that those who want to go all out for getting non-Catholics into Heaven, do so using his reasons and his authority. All the liberals need is one little loophole, which Fenton gives. Through that loophole, the liberals are able, in their need, to squeeze every Protestant and Jew in America.

While you're entitled to disagree, I object to dismissing something written by arguably-the-top theologian in the US prior to and leading up to Vatican II as "non-sensical".  It's not.  I believe that he articulated the problem extremely well.  I just think that this does not fit into the same "infallible vs. non-infallible" false dichotomy that has largely been created by R&R, and not particularly well addressed by SVs either (since many of them responded by exaggerating the scope of infallibility).

Fenton's "infallibly safe" nonsense waters down the whole notion of infallibility itself, which is meant to be a unique and sacred papal event.  At the same time, it has the danger of elevating every papal act into some sort of Divinely-inspired message, which we see was taken advantage of by V2, in their "blind obedience" mantra which brainwashed catholics of the 50s, 60s and 70s.


And yes, there is a dichotomy (not a false one) of infallible vs non-infallible, just as there exists valid vs non-valid sacraments and mortal vs venial sins.  

Fenton's "infallibly safe" nonsense waters down the whole notion of infallibility itself, which is meant to be a unique and sacred papal event.  At the same time, it has the danger of elevating every papal act into some sort of Divinely-inspired message, which we see was taken advantage of by V2, in their "blind obedience" mantra which brainwashed catholics of the 50s, 60s and 70s.


And yes, there is a dichotomy (not a false one) of infallible vs non-infallible, just as there exists valid vs non-valid sacraments and mortal vs venial sins. 

Well said.