CathInfo.com

"once a Catholic, always a Catholic"?

There's some (tiny bit of) truth to it, but it's misused by R&R types like Father Wathen and Stubborn.

In one sense, once someone has been baptized a Catholic and come into subjection to the Pope, that relationship remains.  That's why, for instance, those who were baptized Catholic, even if raised Protestant, cannot validly marry outside the Church ... because the Church retains this jurisdiction over them.

But it's patently false to say that a Catholic can never lose membership in the Church.  There's no Pope, no Church Father, no Doctor, and no approved Catholic theologians who has ever taught that one cannot leave the Church, lose membership in the Church, and go from inside the Church to outside the Church.  That is a novelty invented by Father Wathen to explain R&R ... and Stubborn has been pushing this nonsense around here for a long time.

Now, if one wanted to argue that the Baptismal character alone suffices to hold office in the Church, even without profession of the true faith and subjection to the Holy Father, then one could try to make that case.  But "once Catholic always Catholic" is ridiculous.

5.

( . . . )

“See what you must beware of – see what you must avoid – see what you must dread. It happens that, as in the human body, some member may be cut off a hand, a finger, a foot. Does the soul follow the amputated member? As long as it was in the body, it lived; separated, it forfeits its life. So the Christian is a Catholic as long as he lives in the body: cut off from it he becomes a heretic – the life of the spirit follows not the amputated member” (S. Augustinus, Sermo cclxvii., n. 4).

(. . .)

9. The Church, founded on these principles and mindful of her office, has done nothing with greater zeal and endeavour than she has displayed in guarding the integrity of the faith. Hence she regarded as rebels and expelled from the ranks of her children all who held beliefs on any point of doctrine different from her own. The Arians, the Montanists, the Novatians, the Quartodecimans, the Eutychians, did not certainly reject all Catholic doctrine: they abandoned only a certain portion of it. Still who does not know that they were declared heretics and banished from the bosom of the Church? In like manner were condemned all authors of heretical tenets who followed them in subsequent ages. “There can be nothing more dangerous than those heretics who admit nearly the whole cycle of doctrine, and yet by one word, as with a drop of poison, infect the real and simple faith taught by our Lord and handed down by Apostolic tradition” (Auctor Tract. de Fide Orthodoxa contra Arianos).

The practice of the Church has always been the same, as is shown by the unanimous teaching of the Fathers, who were wont to hold as outside Catholic communion, and alien to the Church, whoever would recede in the least degree from any point of doctrine proposed by her authoritative Magisterium. Epiphanius, Augustine, Theodore :, drew up a long list of the heresies of their times. St. Augustine notes that other heresies may spring up, to a single one of which, should any one give his assent, he is by the very fact cut off from Catholic unity. “No one who merely disbelieves in all (these heresies) can for that reason regard himself as a Catholic or call himself one. For there may be or may arise some other heresies, which are not set out in this work of ours, and, if any one holds to one single one of these he is not a Catholic” (S. Augustinus, De Haeresibus, n. 88).

Heretics and schismatics, if they ever were members, remain members of the Church, as Trent's catechism teaches: "Heretics and schismatics are excluded from the Church, because they have separated from her and belong to her only as deserters belong to the army from which they have deserted".

Please take note that although they belong to her only as deserters, the catechism says they still belong to her - this, in spite of their trying to get out of it by separating themselves from her via their heresy and schism. Once a Catholic, always a Catholic.      
  
Also note that the heretics and schismatics have separated themselves from the Church, the catechism does *not* teach that the Church has separated herself from heretics and schismatics - oh no, being members, they still have to answer to her, just the same as a deserter has to answer to the army - to which he still belongs.

CHAPTER IV: On Heretics and Apostates

ALPHONSUS DE CASTRO teaches that heretics and baptized apostates are members and parts of the Church, even if they openly profess a false doctrine. Such an opinion is clearly false, and it can easily be refuted.

Thirdly, the argument is made that the Church can judge and punish heretics, therefore they are within it, “For what is it to me to judge those who are on the outside?” Besides, heretics retain the character of Baptism and priesthood, therefore they are Christians and priests.


I respond: Although heretics are not in the Church, nevertheless they ought to be; hence they pertain to her like sheep to the sheepfold when they roam outside the sheepfold. The Church can judge concerning those who are inside by that very fact, or who ought to be, just as a pastor really can judge and compel the sheep who wander outside of the sheepfold through the mountains to return to it. In the same way, a general can compel by force a deserter from the army who has fled across to the camp of the enemy to return or even to hang him. The Apostle, on the other hand, speaks on those who were never truly in the Church.

Now I speak to that which relates to the character. Heretics retain those indelible characters outside of the Church, just as lost sheep retain the branding in their back and deserters of the army military signs: but they are not in the Church for that reason because those characters do not suffice to constitute someone in the Church; otherwise the Church would also be in hell. St. Thomas Aquinas says that the damned are not members of Christ in either act or potency. Besides, the character does not properly unite a man with the head, rather it is a sign of the power of a certain union, and consequently, in hell they are recognized by that sign as men who were members of Christ. Nevertheless, that it does not unite them is clear since something that is invisible cannot unite outwardly, nor interiorly when it is not in act or when it is not an operative habit. For that reason St. Thomas places the first internal union in faith.