Bread of Life

Let's make a comparison between Fr. Feeney's private interpretation of Our Lord's teaching concerning baptism, and His teaching about the Eucharist.  The following is straight out of Feeney's book, with our Lord's teaching on baptism replaced by His teaching on communion under both kinds:

Our Lord said, "Except to eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you." ..
When you hear a theologian saying, "I know that was what Christ said, but first we must understand what He means," you know you have a sceptic on your hands, who is blasphemously trying to improve on the utterances of Jesus. He is implicitly telling you that Jesus gave us vague notions as to what receiving Communion meant, and that he (the theologian) is now going to clarify this matter.
He will then say to you, "Well, how were the souls in the Old Testament saved, before the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ was instituted?" You must reply to him, "There were no souls saved in the Old Testament. They had to wait in Limbo for the coming of Christ."
He will then say, indignantly, "Well, how were they justified? Was it not without receiving communion under both kinds?"

And you will say, "Obviously, if Communion under both kinds had not yet been instituted!"

He will then say, "Well, cannot you be justified in the New Testament without Communion under both kinds ?"

The answer to this is, "Suppose you can?"

He will then say, "If you die in the state of justification, without receiving Communion under both kinds, are you not saved?"

You must answer him, "No, you are not. That is your reasoning in the matter. That is not Christ’s statement."

And if he persists in saying, "Well, where does one go who dies in the state of justification which has been achieved without receiving Communion under both kinds?" – insist that he does not go to Heaven.

And if he goes on to yell at you angrily, "Where are you going to send him – to Hell?", say: "No, I am not going to send him to Hell because I am not the judge of the living and the dead.

I am going to say what Christ said, ‘He cannot go into Heaven unless he receives Communion under both kinds.’

It is important also to add, "I am making an act of Faith. You are not. I believe in the necessity of Communion under both kinds because Christ revealed it, not because I have also figured it out by my own notion concerning the intrinsic requirements for justification."

The reasons for a thing being so, are not the true motives of Faith. Also I believe that the reasons against a thing being so, are not the true defenses of Faith. There is only one true defense for the Catholic Faith, namely: That is not what Christ said. There is no one about to die in the state of justification whom God cannot secure Communion under both kinds for, and indeed, the true sacrament of Communion under both kinds  The schemes concerning salvation, I leave to the sceptics. The clear truths of salvation, I am preaching to you.

If the Liberal theologians are going to end up by handing me a group of justified people who have not yet received Communion under both kinds, who have to go to Heaven because they cannot go to Hell, I am going to hand them right back to the Liberal theologians to take care of!

If I seem to be cruel in this matter, I ask them what greater form of seeming cruelty could one offer than that of a Catholic mother’s child who died before receiving communion under both kinds, and whose one reason for not now having the Beatific Vision is because he did not receive Communion under both kinds. My own little brother was such a child, who died before he could receive Communion under both kinds. I have never believed that he has been saved; because I am trying to seek first the Kingdom of God and His justice, so as to save my own as yet unsaved soul.

Here is a brief catechism line-up, in case you would like to brush up on what I have been saying:

Q. Can anyone now be saved without receiving Communion under both kinds?

A. No one can be saved without receiving Communion under both kinds.

Q. Are the souls of those who die in the state of justification saved, if they have not received Communion under both kinds?

A. No. They are not saved.

Q. Where do these souls go if they die in the state of justification but have not received Communion under both kinds?

A. I do not know.

Q. Do they go to Hell?

A. No.

Q. Do they go to Heaven?

A. No.

Q. Are there any such souls?

A. I do not know! Neither do you!

Q. What are we to say to those who believe there are such souls?

A. We must say to them that they are making reason prevail over Faith, and the laws of probability over the Providence of God

Fr. Feeney fell into this absurd error because he relied on his private interpretation of Scripture to determine for himself what he would and would not believe.  His method was identical to that of Luther.  The only thing that surprises me is that anyone who calls himself a Traditional Catholic would accept Feeney's erroneous private interpretation of Scripture over the unanimous teaching of all the theologians at the time.  

The only thing that surprises me is how you can reconcile the teachings of the original theologians, i.e. the early Church fathers, and the constant papal teachings with the theologians of a specific time.

So, you're saying the Church fathers had it right, but the true doctrine was eventually corrupted and abandoned by later theologians.   That is exactly what Luther taught.  He was wrong then, and you are wrong now.  

Here's what Pope Innocent III taught, relying in the authority of the Fathers.  These quotes comes right out of Denzingers:

POPE INNOCENT III: To your inquiry we respond thus: We assert without hesitation (on the authority of the holy Fathers Augustine and Ambrose) that the priest whom you indicated (in your letter) had died without the water of baptism, because he persevered in the faith of Holy Mother the Church and in the confession of the name of Christ, was freed from original sin and attained the joy of the heavenly fatherland. Read (brother) in the eighth book of Augustine’s City of God where among other things it is written, “Baptism is ministered invisibly to one whom not contempt of religion but death excludes.” Read again the book also of the blessed Ambrose concerning the death of Valentinian where he says the same thing. Therefore, to questions concerning the dead, you should hold the opinions of the learned Fathers, and in your church you should join in prayers and you should have sacrifices offered to God for the priest mentioned (Apostolicam, Denzinger 388).

POPE INNOCENT III: You have, to be sure, intimated that a certain Jєω, when at the point of death, since he lived only among Jєωs, immersed himself in water while saying: “I baptize myself in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”  We respond that, since there should be a distinction between the one baptizing and the one baptized, as is clearly gathered from the words of the Lord, when He says to the Apostles: “Go baptize all nations in the name etc.” (cf. Matt. 28:19), the Jєω mentioned must be baptized again by another, that it may be shown that he who is baptized is one person, and he who baptizes another... If, however, such a one had died immediately, he would have rushed off to his heavenly home without delay because of the faith of the sacrament, although not because of the sacrament of faith (Debitum pastoralis officii, August 28, 1206:Denzinger 413).

So, you're saying the Church fathers had it right, but the true doctrine was eventually corrupted and abandoned by later theologians.   That is exactly what Luther taught.  He was wrong then, and you are wrong now.  

This coming from someone who claims that the entire Magisterium can err.

This coming from someone who claims that the entire Magisterium can err.

This coming from someone who thinks the entire Magisterium DID err and now no longer exists.

They use this as cover for their denial of EENS.  

Says the person who is extra ecclesia...

Says the person who is extra ecclesia...

oh, wow, a real zinger there.

Self-proclaimed genius might know that it's extra ecclesiaM.

False.  Nice try.  Your hypocrisy of claiming that theologians cannot err...

I never said theologians cannot err.  You just made that up.

while the Pope and all the world's bishops and every single Catholic theologian DID err in teaching and approving of the errors of Vatican II ... your hypocrisy has been exposed.

So, are you saying the Magisterium of the Catholic Church did not err when it approved Vatican II, or are you saying the "Magisterium" that approved Vatican II was not the Magisterium of the Catholic Church?