EXTRA ECCLESIAM NULLA SALUS: FATHER FEENEY MAKES A COMEBACKBy Michael J. Mazza
Michael J. Mazza is director of catechetics for the Diocese of Sioux Falls, South Dakota
.Michael J. Mazza is director of catechetics for the Diocese of Sioux Falls, South Dakota
It was a bitterly cold winter that year. The Depression had made heating oil as scarce as it had made employment prospects, giving the residents of New England precious little to look forward to as the first few days of 1936 arrived. But in the first month of that year, a small book store opened that would eventually create not only enough heat to warm a continent, but would also serve as the seed bed for one of the most unlikely heresies of the twentieth century.
, Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1988, p. 3). Father Leonard J. Feeney evidently liked what he saw when he first visited the Center in 1941, and by 1945, with the approval of his Jesuit superior, had become its first full-time priest chaplain. Dismayed by what they perceived as the general decay in their society and the Church in the years after World War II, Fr. Feeney and the devotees of the St. Benedict Center labored vigorously in a variety of ways in an effort to reform both their nation and their Church. Their particular kind of solution to the problems at hand, however, did not leave everyone equally impressed.
A small group of lay people opened the doors of the "St. Thomas More Lending Library and Book Shop" for the first time in January, 1936. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it soon attracted a fair number of people from all walks of life who were drawn together by their shared interest in Catholicism. As the book store's influence grew, so did its need for space. In March of 1940, a committed core of the bookshop's patrons—among them the young convert and future priest by the name of Avery Dulles—rented a storefront, and the "St. Benedict Center" was born. Interestingly enough, Dulles, the future Jesuit, had proposed naming the center after St. Robert Bellarmine, but his suggestion was vetoed by the others out of a fear that it would be offensive to non-Catholics(George B. Pepper,
Link to the long, lengthy and interesting article (here)
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Extraordinary Magisterium:
“There is but one universal Church of the faithful, outside which no one at all is saved.” (Pope Innocent III, Fourth Lateran Council, 1215.)
“With Faith urging us we are forced to believe and to hold the one, holy, Catholic Church and that, apostolic, and we firmly believe and simply confess this Church outside of which there is no salvation nor remission of sin… Furthermore, we declare, say, define, and proclaim to every human creature that they by absolute necessity for salvation are entirely subject to the Roman Pontiff.”
(Pope Boniface VIII, Unam Sanctam, Nov. 18, 1302)
“The most Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics, can have a share in life eternal; but that they will go into the eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless before death they are joined with Her; and that so important is the unity of this ecclesiastical body that only those remaining within this unity can profit by the sacraments of the Church unto salvation, and they alone can receive an eternal recompense for their fasts, their almsgivings, their other works of Christian piety and the duties of a Christian soldier. No one, let his almsgiving be as great as it may, no one, even if he pour out his blood for the Name of Christ, can be saved, unless he remain within the bosom and the unity of the Catholic Church.” (Pope Eugene IV, the Bull Cantate Domino, 1441.)
If anyone says that true and natural water is not necessary for baptism and thus twists into some metaphor the words of Our Lord Jesus Christ: “Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven,” let him be anathema. [Council of Trent: Canon 2 of the Canons on Baptism, 7th Session, Sacrament of Baptism]
"IF ANYONE SHALL SAY THAT BAPTISM IS OPTIONAL, THAT IS, NOT NECESSARY FOR SALVATION (cf. John 3:5): let him be anathema." [Council of Trent: Canon 5 of the Canons on Baptism, 7th Session, Sacrament of Baptism]
The faith which God has revealed has not been proposed like a theory of philosophy, to be elaborated upon by human understanding, but as a divine deposit to be faithfully guarded and infallibly declared. Therefore, that sense of sacred dogmas is to be kept forever which Holy Mother Church has once declared, and it must never be deviated from on the specious pretext of a more profound understanding. Let intelligence, and science, and wisdom increase, but only according to the same dogma, the same sense, the same meaning. If anyone shall have said that there may ever be attributed to the doctrines proposed by the Church a sense which is different from the sense which the Church has once understood and now understands: let him be anathema. (I Vatican Council)
Ordinary Magisterium:
Wretches tainted with Indifferentism and Modernism hold that dogmatic truth is not absolute, but relative; that is, that it must adapt itself to the varying necessities of the times and varying dispositions of souls, since it is not contained in an unchangeable revelation but is, by its very nature, meant to accommodate itself to the life of man. (Pope Pius XI "Mortalium Animos")
“For, regulars and seculars, prelates and subjects, exempt and non-exempt, belong to the one universal Church, outside of which no one at all is saved, and they all have one Lord and one faith.” (Pope Leo X, Fifth Lateran Council, Session 11, Dec. 19, 1516)
# 22,: “Actually only those are to be numbered among the members of the Church who have received the laver of regeneration and profess the true faith.”
#18:"Through the waters of Baptism those who are born into this world dead in sin are not only born again and made members of the Church, but being stamped with a spiritual seal they become able and fit to receive the other Sacraments."
(Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, 1943)
“We address all of you who are still removed from the true Church and the road to salvation. In this universal rejoicing, one thing is lacking: that having been called by the inspiration of the Heavenly Spirit and having broken every decisive snare, you might sincerely agree with the mother Church, outside of whose teachings there is no salvation.” (Pope Leo XII, Quod hoc ineunte (# 8), May 24, 1824)
For, it must be held by faith that outside the Apostolic Roman Church, no one can be saved; that this is the only ark of salvation; that he who shall not have entered therein will perish in the flood; but, on the other hand, it is necessary to hold for certain that they who labor in ignorance of the true religion, if this ignorance is invincible, are not stained by any guilt in this matter in the eyes of God. (Pope Pius IX, Singulari Quadem, #7)
“It is impossible for the most true God, who is Truth itself, the best, the wisest Provider, and the Rewarder of good men, to approve all sects who profess false teachings which are often inconsistent with one another and contradictory, and to confer eternal rewards on their members… by divine faith we hold one Lord, one faith, one baptism… This is why we profess that there is no salvation outside the Church.” (Pope Leo XII, Ubi Primum #14. May 5, 1824)
Other quotes:
"The doctrine of faith was handed down to us from the Apostles through the orthodox Fathers in exactly the same meaning and always in the same purport. Therefore, I entirely reject the heretical misrepresentation that dogmas evolve and change from one meaning to another different from the one which the Church held previously." [Oath against Modernism: Sacrorum Antistitum, September 1, 1910.]
Peter Vere on the status of Feeney's position:
http://www.catholicism.org/downloads/Peter_Vere_SBC.pdf
Website links to groups approved in the Diocese of Worcester that hold Feeney's position:
Benedictine Abbey (Novus Ordo rite): http://www.abbey.org
Sisters of Saint Benedict: http://sistersofstbenedictcenter.org/index.html
Saint Benedict Center Still River, Mass: http://www.saintbenedict.com
Diocese that approves them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholic_Diocese_of_Worcester
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