Number CCCLXVI (366) July 19, 2014
Tradition’s Priority
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The word “Magisterium,” coming from the Latin for “master” (“magister”), means in the Church either the Church’s authoritative teaching or its authorised teachers. Now as teacher is superior to taught, so the Magisterium teaching is superior to the Catholic people being taught. But the Catholic Masters have free-will, and God leaves them free to err. Then if they err gravely, may the people stand up to them and tell them, however respectfully, that they are wrong? The question is answered by truth. It is only when most people have lost the truth, as today, that the question can become confused.
On the one hand it is certain that Our Lord endowed his Church with a teaching authority, to teach us fallible human beings that Truth which alone can get us to Heaven – “Peter, confirm they brethren.” On the other hand Peter was only to confirm them in that faith which Our Lord had taught him – “I have prayed that thy faith fail not, and thou being converted, confirm thy brethren” (Lk. XXII, 32). In other words that faith governs Peter which it is his function only to guard and expound faithfully, such as it was deposited with him, the Deposit of Faith, to be handed down for ever as Tradition. Tradition teaches Peter, who teaches the people.
Vatican I (1870) says the same thing. Catholics must believe “all truths contained in the word of God or handed down by Tradition” and which the Church puts forward as divinely revealed, by its Extraordinary or Ordinary Universal Magisterium (one recalls that without Tradition in its broadest sense, there would have been no “word of God,” or Bible). Vatican I says moreover that this Magisterium is gifted with the Church’s infallibility, but this infallibility excludes any novelty being taught. Then Tradition in its broadest sense governs what the Magisterium can say it is, and while the Magisterium has authority to teach inside Tradition, it has no authority to teach the people anything outside of Tradition.
Yet souls do need a living Magisterium to teach them the truths of salvation inside Catholic Tradition. These truths do not change any more than God or his Church change, but the circuмstances of the world in which the Church has to operate are changing all the time, and so according to the variety of these circuмstances the Church needs living Masters to vary all the time the presentation and explanation of the unvarying truths. Therefore no Catholic in his right mind disputes the need for the Church’s living Masters.
But what if these Masters claim that something is inside Tradition which is not there? On the one hand they are learned men, authorised by the Church to teach the people, and the people are relatively ignorant. On the other hand there is for instance the famous case of the Council of Ephesus (428), where the people rose up in Constantinople to defend the divine Motherhood of the Blessed Virgin Mary against the heretical Patriarch Nestor.
The answer is that objective truth is above Masters and people alike, so that if the people have the truth on their side, they are superior to their Masters if the Masters do not have the truth. On the other hand if the people do not have the truth, thay have no right to rise up against the Masters. In brief, if they are right, they have the right. If they are not right, they have no right. And what tells if they are right or not? Neither Masters (necessarily), nor people (still less necessarily), but reality, even if Masters or people, or both, conspire to smother it.
Kyrie eleison.
If the people have the truth on their side, they are superior to their Masters if the Masters do not have the truth.
Quid est veritas?
Just a few observations on H. E. Bishop Williamson's EC. He begins by pointing out that the word "magisterium" is equivocal which is good. But, then the he continues using the word indiscriminately which is not good. For clarity I think the word should be written with a capital "M," Magisterium, when it refers to the teaching office of the Church grounded in the attribute of infallibility which God has endowed His Church. The word should be written with a very small "m," magisterium, when referring to the teaching of churchmen by virtue of their grace of state. The distinction is one of kind and not of degree. The former, either in its ordinary and universal or its extra-ordinary mode of operation, is always infallible. The fruit of this teaching is known as dogma. The revealed truth of God proposed by the Church as a formal object of divine and Catholic faith. Dogma is not the only "reality" that can be known but it is the most certain.
The claim by +Williamson that the "teacher is superior to (what is) taught, so the Magisterum's teaching is superior to the Catholic people being taught," depends upon what is meant by "magisterium." It is true only if the teacher is God and the subject being taught is dogma. But if the "magisterium" is only a churchman regardless of his grace of state, the truth taught is always superior to the teacher. In this sense, the teacher and those taught are both subject to the truth. The only weapon of defense a subject has in opposition to the Master is the truth as +Williamson affirms in his last paragraph.
Rev. Cornelius a Lapide has a good and timely commentary on Luke 22:32. He says that Jesus Christ conferred two graces. One was a personal grace gifted to St. Peter in that his faith would not fail. This personal grace to St. Peter was not conferred upon his successors. The second grace was to His Church that it would never engage the Magisterium to teach error. The Pope can err in his personal magisterium and fall away from the faith but he will not be able to engage the attribute of infallibility to Magisterially teach error. His "function," as +Williamson says, is "to guard and expound faithfully.... the Deposit of Faith."
Which introduces the next problem with +Williamson's EC regarding the "living magisterium" to reformulate perennial truths to a changing world. This is the same thing Pope John XXIII said in his opening remarks at Vatican II, and it was the core principle of Pope Benedict XVI "hermeneutic of continuity" which directly referenced John XXIII's quotation. That is, the truths of faith are one thing and their dogmatic formulations are another. That we can keep the truths of faith while adopting new formulations that are more receptive to the modern world.
This is wrong. The "living magisterium" may dogmatically define a doctrine but that definition is the work of God for the truths of our faith are revealed by God and not by the Magisterium. This is why it is absurd to consider changing any dogmatic formulations even for what may be considered greater clarity. Dogma is a universal truth and this does not change. The only things regarding its relationship with the changing world is that error is manifold and can corrupt and reject truth by any number of ways therefore the truth must be defended from varied assaults. But the formulation of truth does not change and does not require any reformulation any more than the universal "chair" as understood by Aristotle or St. Thomas has to be reformulated for each successive age. It is nothing but the error of Modernism to say, that the "Church needs living Masters to vary all the time the presentation and explanation of the unvarying truths." This is in fact the cause of the current crisis.
It is insupportable to argue that a "living magisterium" is necessary to reinterpret dogma for the benefit of a changing world and then appeal to "reality" as the criteria to judge whether or not the "magisterium" is or is not sufficiently faithful to the perennial truths. Our understanding of "reality" is a human approximation of truth at best and subject to error. We are far better off than the faithful who rose against Nestorius and stand on firmer ground. Their opposition was based upon the received Tradition of faith. Their defense of Catholic doctrine led to the formulation of dogma which has enriched the Church for all time. The criteria to judge is revealed truth of dogma.
It is important to pray and offer penitential sacrifices for +Williamson that he may have clarity of thought and decisiveness in action.
Drew
I really appreciate your insightful comments, Drew. It's nice to actually have a conversation.
The definition of
magister and
magisterium is instructive. My Latin dictionary has the following:
magis-ter -tri m chief, master, director; teacher; advisor, guardian; ringleader, author;
(in apposition with noun in the gen) expert:
(keeper of animals) shepherd, herdsnman;
magister equitum (title of dictator's second in command) Master of the Calvary,
magister morum censor;
magister sacrorum chief priest;
magister vici ward boss;
navis magister ship's captain
magister-ium -(i)i n dictatorship, presidency, superintendence; control, governance; instruction;
magisterium morum censorship
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It seems to me that modern man rebels against the principle of having a master: against the principle of there being anything GOOD or BENEFICIAL in censorship; and therefore, modern man, in this willful abhorrence of the proper definition(s) of words and phrases rooted in the Latin
magister, simply wants nothing to do with them.
Therein lies the rub.
Notice that the Latin word
magister / magistri is a male gender noun (indicated by
m), however, when you look at
magisterium / magisterii it's not male but rather neuter (indicated by
n). Therefore, it is sloppy scholarship to equate the connotation of
magister with that of
magisterium or
Magisterium, because the latter is not a person, but a thing, if Latin carries any proper meaning into the adoptive language. If it does,
Magisterium cannot refer to men ('men' is plural and male gender), but only to the teaching OFFICE (singular, neuter) that the men occupy. You don't say that the papacy is a man or the presidency is a man, do you?
It is one of the earmarks of post-Conciliar ambiguity to presume that there are men (plural number, male gender noun) to whom the term Magisterium (singular number, neuter noun) applies, disregarding the teaching office (neuter).
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Topic: ELEISON COMMENTS CCCLXVI (366) July 19,2014 A.D. (Read 41499 times)