Author Topic: What is heresy? (Read 3480 times)

Clovis · « **Reply #1 on:** February 28, 2010, 06:49:06 AM »

You are leaving aside the question of whether it is possible to have communion with a local Bishop who is a heretic.

trad123 · « **Reply #2 on:** February 28, 2010, 07:05:41 AM »

If you want theological notes listed in a chart, here you go:

http://strobertbellarmine.net/theolnotes.htm

Ladislaus · « **Reply #3 on:** February 28, 2010, 10:54:11 AM »

Quote from: Clovis

You are leaving aside the question of whether it is possible to have communion with a local Bishop who is a heretic.

Correct. I'm leaving that aside for now, and I'm also not yet discussing the formal vs. material or manifest vs. occult distinctions. I just want to talk about what objectively constitutes a heretical proposition.

Clovis · « **Reply #4 on:** February 28, 2010, 10:57:40 AM »

Quote from: Ladislaus

Quote from: Clovis
You are leaving aside the question of whether it is possible to have communion with a local Bishop who is a heretic.

Correct. I'm leaving that aside for now, and I'm also not yet discussing the formal vs. material or manifest vs. occult distinctions. I just want to talk about what objectively constitutes a heretical proposition.

But as most of us dont live in Rome the question of whether we can be in communion with a local heretical Bishop is of more practical importance than whether Benedict XVI is a legitimate Pope.

Ladislaus · « **Reply #5 on:** February 28, 2010, 11:00:31 AM »

Quote from: trad123

If you want theological notes listed in a chart, here you go:

http://strobertbellarmine.net/theolnotes.htm

There are some things on here that appear wrong to me, such as equating dogmatic fact with theological certainty. So, for instance, the legitimacy of Pius XI is not a theological conclusion. Theological conclusions come from a major that's dogma and a minor that's less than dogma. So dogmatic facts and theological conclusions are two different things. I'm guessing the problems come from Daly's "adaptation".

Ladislaus · « **Reply #6 on:** February 28, 2010, 11:06:27 AM »

Quote from: Clovis

But as most of us dont live in Rome the question of whether we can be in communion with a local heretical Bishop is of more practical importance than whether Benedict XVI is a legitimate Pope.

Yeah, but it's begging the question to call your bishop "heretical" without being able to define what it means to actually BE heretical.

Ladislaus · « **Reply #7 on:** February 28, 2010, 11:13:15 AM »

Could this be what Our Lady meant at Fatima when She said that [in Portugal] the "dogma of the Faith" would always be preserved? For the most part, I don't see any "direct and immediate" denials of defined dogma coming from Vatican II or the V2 popes. Yet the world appears to be inundated with grave theological errors.

trad123 · « **Reply #8 on:** February 28, 2010, 02:19:46 PM »

Quote from: Ladislaus

Could this be what Our Lady meant at Fatima when She said that [in Portugal] the "dogma of the Faith" would always be preserved? For the most part, I don't see any "direct and immediate" denials of defined dogma coming from Vatican II or the V2 popes. Yet the world appears to be inundated with grave theological errors.

Do you believe that ecuмenical councils are infallible?

Ladislaus · « **Reply #9 on:** February 28, 2010, 03:41:31 PM »

Quote from: trad123

Quote from: Ladislaus
Could this be what Our Lady meant at Fatima when She said that [in Portugal] the "dogma of the Faith" would always be preserved? For the most part, I don't see any "direct and immediate" denials of defined dogma coming from Vatican II or the V2 popes. Yet the world appears to be inundated with grave theological errors.

Do you believe that ecuмenical councils are infallible?

I know wheere you're trying to take this, but I want to stick with one argument at a time.

As I've pointed out before, there are two logically distinct lines of sedevacantist argument that both sedevacantists and anti-sedevacantists routinely conflate.

1) from personal heresy of V2 popes (modus ponentis)
2) from errors in V2 magisterium (modus tollentis)

I'm sticking right now to the personal heresy accusations.

So, with that said, my point is that almost every single proposition cited as proof of personal heresy on the part of the V2 popes actually refers to a proposition that is in fact at most proximate to heresy or some other degree of error--and not heresy proper.

Sedevacantists tend to find heresy everywhere and are extremely free in tossing the accusation of "heresy" around. Just as CM and fk called heretics anyone who denied explicit BoD.

I'll start by taking their case.

There is NO EXPLICIT DOGMATIC DEFINITION stating that Catholics must reject explicit BoD (of catechumens).

CM and fk REASONED to it from such dogmas as the necessity of baptism and EENS.

Yes, baptism is necessary for salvation; that's dogma. But the explicit BoD proponents claim that baptism is necessary by a necessity of precept rather than of means so that the graces of the sacrament can be received directly in a manner analogous to Confession. So they distinguish types of "necessity". I think that they're wrong on the necessity of precept, but they do not DIRECTLY AND IMMEDIATELY contradict the dogma regarding the necessity of baptism, but would do so indirectly if at all. That's called theological error, perhaps even proximate to heresy, but it's not heresy proper.

Then there's the case of Cardinal Cushing, the archnemesis of Father Feeney, who once stated: "No salvation outside the Church? Nonsense. Nobody's going to tell me that Christ came to die for any select group." Now that's heresy !

Ladislaus · « **Reply #10 on:** February 28, 2010, 05:11:02 PM »

Let me pull out the salient part of the extended quotation above:

Quote

A proposition is branded heretical when it goes directly and immediately against a revealed or defined dogma, or dogma de fide; erroneous when it contradicts only a certain (certa) theological conclusion or truth clearly deduced from two premises, one an article of faith, the other naturally certain.

Ladislaus · « **Reply #11 on:** February 28, 2010, 05:21:56 PM »

And here's the other part that's important:

Quote

The authority of theological censures depends upon the source from which they come and the intention with which they are issued. Condemnations coming from the seat of infallibility, pope or council, and vested with the usual conditions of an ex cathedra pronouncement are themselves infallible, and consequently require both our external obedience and internal assent. There is no reason for restricting the infallibility of the censures to the sole note heretica as some theologians would do. The difference between the note of heresy and other inferior notes is not one of infallibility, but of different matters covered by infallibility. The note of heresy attached to a proposition makes it contradictory to an article of faith, which is not the case with other notes, even if they are infallible.

So I contend that even if one would state that previous papal condemnations of religious liberty are infallible pronouncements, to accept religious liberty would be a grave theological error and sin against the faith, but not heresy proper--which is required to exclude someone from the body of the Church (absent explicit excommunication).

Rejection of religious liberty has been deduced from revealed truths and has not been directly revealed. Religious liberty IMO has not been condemned with the note of heresy. So we can start with that. Is religious liberty "heresy"?

Raoul76 · « **Reply #12 on:** February 28, 2010, 07:07:26 PM »

This Catholic Encyclopedia article is written by Sollier. By coincidence, I'd mentioned his name along with Pohle earlier today in another thread ( "A Question on the Origin of the Soul" in General Discussion ) as one of two Catholic Encyclopeia contributors who are not to be trusted. Sollier wrote like Ratzinger before Ratzinger was born.

One way that certain "theologians" prepared the ground for Vatican II was by muddying up terms and turning brains into mush. You can see the culmination of this with Ratzinger. It's ironic, Ladislaus, that you are covering us all with a blanket condemnation for being unclear, sedes and anti-sedes, and then quoting Sollier to try to help us sharpen up. That ain't the way to do it! We are unclear because we are all fighting our way out of a vast brume, a muddy, foggy morass of theologians who turned the truth into oatmeal.

What struck me right away about Sollier's entry which you cite is that I, for one, don't understand the difference between a "dogma" and an "article of faith." In fact, I don't really understand a lot of the distinctions he's making and I don't think it's just me. Let me go through it piece-by-piece.

Quote

"A proposition is branded heretical when it goes directly and immediately against a revealed or defined dogma, or dogma de fide"

Okay, I am with him so far. It is heresy to go against the Solemn Magisterium, which is what he means by a "defined dogma, or dogma de fide."

Quote

"...Erroneous when it contradicts only a certain (certa) theological conclusion or truth clearly deduced from two premises, one an article of faith, the other naturally certain."

That doesn't ring true to me; this sounds overly complicated and specious. Here he starts mixing all sorts of concepts. Number one, what is an article of faith and how is this different than a dogma? Number two, who ever spoke of these "two premises" before? Number three, what is "naturally certain," does that mean pertaining to the natural law?

Quote

Even though a statement be not obviously a heresy or an error it may yet come near to either. It is styled next, proximate to heresy when its opposition to a revealed and defined dogma is not certain, or chiefly when the truth it contradicts, though commonly accepted as revealed, has yet never been the object of a definition (proxima fidei).

He is talking about the Ordinary and Universal Magisterium here, since a truth "commonly accepted as revealed," that has not "yet been the object of a definition," clearly refers to a dogma of the OAUM.

However, he diverges from most theologians, who do say that going against the OAUM is heresy. Sollier is trying to draw a neat parallel between "proximate to faith" and "proximate to heresy" but dogmas of the OAUM are not proximate to faith, they are actually dogmas.

Tanquerey ( probably another heretic ) on the OUAM --

Quote

"1. The Morally Unanimous Preaching (Teaching) of the Bishops

Bishops teach the flock entrusted and subject to them by means of catechisms, by synodal directives, mandates, and in public sermons. If it is evident from these docuмents that some doctrine is being set forth universally as an object of faith, then nothing else is required for this doctrine to be accepted de fide. Bishops spread throughout the world, but with the Roman Pontiff forming one Corporate Body, are infallible when declaring a teaching on faith or morals.

Essentially, what Sollier is doing in the portion I've quoted is divvying up three kinds of heresy qua heresy into heresy, error, and proximate to heresy. He is alchemically breaking down heresies into tolerable, lesser evils, which really was the goal of most of the pre-VII theologians. He's adding distinctions that don't really exist, which of course makes it easier for heretics to push across heresies, since it helps their cause if what they are doing is seen as "proximate to heresy" or mere speculation rather than screaming, red-alert heresy.

Sollier also mashes up three kinds of knowledge that must be accepted by Catholics -- defined dogma, an article of faith, and undefined dogma. He uses these distinctions to sell his other distinctions between what is heresy, proximate to heresy, and error. But contradicting a defined dogma of the Solemn Magisterium OR an undefined dogma of the Ordinary and Universal Magisterium are both simple heresy. As for his "article of faith," this strange noosphere in-between the two, I don't even know what it is in his mind. An article of faith could be either a defined or an undefined dogma. Sollier is using two different terms for the same thing to introduce more false distinctions.

Ladislaus, I recommend you get another theologian to give us the "notes." Sollier cannot help us form a coherent approach to theological censures.

Raoul76 · « **Reply #13 on:** February 28, 2010, 07:31:03 PM »

Correction: I referred to Tanquerey as "probably another heretic," as if Sollier was a heretic. I have EENS heresies on the brain and that's what I'm alluding to. I don't know that Sollier is a heretic though. I haven't caught him in any heresies yet, just in ambiguities which smack of a heretical mindset. Pohle was definitely a heretic though.

Speaking of heretics, here is Mgr. Fenton -- an EENS heretic extraordinaire who posed as the white-knight of EENS -- who nevertheless shows the general consensus about what a dogma is.

Mgr. Fenton, The Catholic Church and Salvation, pg. 3

Quote

"A dogma is a truth which the Church finds in Scripture or in divine apostolic tradition and, which either in solemn judgment or in its ordinary and universal teaching activity, it presents to its people as a doctrine revealed by God and as something which all are obligated to accept with the assent of divine and Catholic faith."

So much for Sollier's distinction between the OUAM and the Solemn Magisterium, where only transgressions of the Solemn Magisterium classify as heresy, while transgressions of the OAUM are "proximate to heresy."

Caminus · « **Reply #14 on:** February 28, 2010, 07:37:48 PM »

How can you in good faith comment on things of which you are obviously ignorant?