Author Topic: Modernists are ipso facto excommunicated? (Read 926 times)

Geremia · « **on:** December 05, 2013, 10:11:52 AM »

Are Modernists ipso facto excommunicated, and what magisterial docuмents show this?

Neil Obstat · « **Reply #1 on:** December 05, 2013, 10:53:21 AM »

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I think you mean to say latae sententiae (instead of ipso facto).

That would have to be in the Code of Canon Law, but I don't think it's in there. Certainly not in the 1983 Newcode! But probably not in the 1914 Code, either. The cases where Pope St. Pius X used his power to sanction individual Modernists, it was by removing them from positions of authority, like rectors or professors or prelates or abbots or pastors and that sort of thing. You can read about the rules he set up in the latter pages of Pascendi. But those are all removing them from office, not excommunicating them.

And then there was the parade of whiners who came back to him appealing for being given an exemption for one thing or another. They were relentless. It would seem likely that the minute he would allow one exception would be the minute the cries for clemency would multiply.

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Mithrandylan · « **Reply #2 on:** December 05, 2013, 11:43:42 AM »

Public heretics lose their membership in the Church and are therefore non-Catholics. Non-Catholics cannot hold office in the Church.

Distinct from that is that public heretics, according to canon 188/4 (1917 CIC) have resigned their office by the fact of their heresy

Even distinct from that, acccording to the same CIC, public heretics incur a latae sententiae excommunication by the fact of their heresy.

From phone

TKGS · « **Reply #3 on:** December 05, 2013, 11:44:22 AM »

Are you seriously asking what magisterial docuмents declare non-Catholics to be non-Catholic?

Geremia · « **Reply #4 on:** December 05, 2013, 12:43:43 PM »

Quote from: TKGS

Are you seriously asking what magisterial docuмents declare non-Catholics to be non-Catholic?

It's essentially a question about mentevacantism.

TKGS · « **Reply #5 on:** December 05, 2013, 01:57:00 PM »

Quote from: Geremia

Quote from: TKGS
Are you seriously asking what magisterial docuмents declare non-Catholics to be non-Catholic?
It's essentially a question about mentevacantism.

No human can read the heart of any man. We cannot know what's in anyone's heart.

On the other hand, we can read the actions and statements of anyone who does or says something. If a man declares that he has Catholic Faith and his actions do not contradict that declaration, we must accept that person as a Catholic (assuming, of course, he has been baptized).

If, however, a man declares a faith contrary to the Catholic Faith and his actions (i.e., his teaching, his work, etc.) confirm that his faith is contrary to the Catholic Faith, then we must accept that person as an heretic or apostate (if he has been baptized).

Bishop Williamson has posited a theory that a pope may be Catholic but not actually confirm the faith in words or deeds and, in fact, work against the faith in words and deeds because of...confusion. (Please correct me if I have that wrong, but that is my understanding from reading his newsletter.) As far as I have ever read, Bishop Williamson has never supported that supposition with any evidence or with any authorities other than his own.

But such a theory is condemned by the history of the Church in crisis after crisis as heresies and heretics have been condemned for 19 centuries. Only in the twentieth Century does it seem that bishops (including the "Bishop of Rome") stopped condemning heresies or heretics.

In hindsight, it seems that the Catholic world was united against Arius or Nestorius. And, actually, it was. But the during the heydays of Arius and Nestorius the people who said they were Catholics but supported the heresies of these heresiarchs outnumbered the faithful Catholics. Bishop Williamson and people who follow his theories simply don't think such a thing could happen in our own day--yet it has.

You want a magisterial docuмent? How about the Gospel of St. Matthew 12:30 and the Gospel of St. Luke 11:23.

Geremia · « **Reply #6 on:** December 07, 2013, 11:19:42 AM »

Quote from: St. Pius X. Motu Proprio, "Praestantia Scripturae," Nov. 18, 1907, Denzinger 2114

In addition to this, intending to repress the daily increasing boldness of spirit of many Modernists, who by sophisms and artifices of every kind endeavor to destroy the force and the efficacy not only of the Decree, "Lamentabili sane exitu," which was published at Our command by the Sacred Roman and Universal Inquisition on the third of July of the current year [see n. 2071 ff.],but also of Our Encyclical Letter, "Pascendi Dominici gregis,"given on the eighth of September of this same year [see n. 2071 ff.] by Our Apostolic authority, We repeat and confirm not only that Decree of the Sacred Supreme Congregation, but also that Encyclical Letter of Ours, adding the penalty of excommunication against all who contradict them; and We declare and decree this: if anyone, which may God forbid, proceeds to such a point of boldness that he defends any of the propositions, opinions, and doctrines disproved in either docuмent mentioned above, he is ipso facto afflicted by the censure imposed in the chapter Docentes of the Constitution of the Apostolic See, first among those excommunications latae sententiae which are reserved simply to the Roman Pontiff. This excommunication, however, is to be understood with no change in the punishments, which those who have committed anything against the above mentioned docuмents may incur, if at any time their propositions, opinions, or doctrines are heretical; which indeed has happened more than once in the case of the adversaries of both these docuмents, but especially when they defend the errors of modernism, that is, the refuge of all heresies.

Hat tip to Michael Wilson on SD for pointing this out.

Yet, the ipso facto excommunication in "the chapter Docentes of the Constitution of the Apostolic See" has probably been since removed.