Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Jesuits Fr. John Harden and Fr. Leonard Feeney In The Middle Of Unam Sanctum And Lumen Gentium

Just Exactly Where is the Church?
Mark Shay
December 5, 2007

Unam Sanctam is the sort of document that gives our Protestant brothers and sisters a real jolt, primarily because it looks at first blush as though it teaches that Catholics cannot have Protestant brothers and sisters. Written by Pope Boniface VIII in 1302, this papal bull concludes with this shocking dogmatic definition: "We declare, say, define and pronounce, that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff." The average modern reader concludes these words mean: "We know exactly where the Church both is and is not. It's in the visible Catholic communion and only members of the visible Catholic Church go to Heaven." After this basic assumption has been made, most people go on to assume it is simply a matter of deciding what you think about that proposition.

Generally, people fall into one of the following groups:
1. Those nice people who say hopefully, "That statement was not dogma, but just Boniface's opinion."
2. Those Progressive Dissenting Catholics who say, "That statement used to be narrow-minded Catholic dogma but Vatican II thankfully contradicts all that. How the Church has grown!"
3. Those anti-Catholics who say derisively, "That statement used to be unbiblical Catholic dogma but Vatican II reversed all that. How the supposedly infallible Church has flatly contradicted the Bible and itself!"
4. Those Reactionary Dissenting Catholics who say, "That statement used to be glorious Catholic dogma but Vatican II betrayed all that. How the Second Vatican Council has corrupted the One True Faith!"
5. Those orthodox Catholics who say, "Unam Sanctam's definition is still dogma and the teaching of the Second Vatican Council does not contradict it or the Bible. Rather, the Council develops the Faith of the Church infallibly taught since the apostles, a faith which has never demanded we believe that "The Church is found solely in the visible Catholic communion, nor that only members of the visible Catholic Church can go to Heaven."


Let's look at these five views of Unam Sanctam.
First things first, I must disappoint Group #1 by making clear that the Faith does not allow us the easy out of denying the dogmatic nature of Unam Sanctam any more than it allowed Arius to fudge the difficult and seemingly contradictory proposition that God is One, yet Three.
As John Hardon, S.J. points out in his Catholic Catechism, the passage cited
above was "solemnly defined and represents traditional Catholic dogma on the
Church's necessity for salvation."
When a Pope declares, pronounces and defines, he is using the formula to make crystal clear that he is delivering, not his personal opinion, but the dogmatic teaching of the Catholic Church. The fact is then, Pope Boniface VIII committed the Church to this proposition for the rest of her history. We cannot dodge this with a convenient "that was then, this is now." If it was dogma once, it still is. However, neither can we dodge another fact of Catholic history: the Second Vatican Council. At that Council, the Church formulated Lumen Gentium in which, 660 years after Unam Sanctam, she declared, "The Church knows that she is joined in many ways to the baptized who are honored by the name of Christian, but do not profess the Catholic faith in its entirety or have not preserved unity or communion under the successor of Peter."
To Groups 2, 3, and 4, this sounds like a flat contradiction. For all these folk make the fatal error of placing one or other of the Church's teachings in opposition to (and superiority over) the other. Thus, Progressive Dissenting Catholics, Anti-Catholics, and Reactionary Dissenting Catholics all assume that Unam Sanctam was simply vetoed by a newly-coined doctrine in Lumen Gentium which essentially declared that our relationship to the successor of Peter doesn't matter one iota. If we agree about this, all that remains for us to do is to decide whether to cheer along with Progressive Dissenters (for the Church's "deepened maturity") to gloat along with anti-Catholics (over the alleged collapse of the Church's infallibility) or to grumble along with Reactionary Dissenters (about those damned modernists who hijacked the Church at Vatican II). The problem with this assumption is simply this: it's not true. First, the Church, centuries before Vatican II, regarded Orthodox sacraments as valid, which is awfully hard to do if you don't think Christ can be found anywhere but in the Catholic Church. Similarly, it has always regarded the Baptism of non-Catholics as valid — and a valid Baptism means you are, in some sense, in union with Christ.

Still more recently and most plainly, (but still well before the Council) Fr. Leonard Feeney, S.J. was excommunicated for insisting that only people in visible communion with the Catholic Church could be saved. So this simplistic "We're in, you're out" reading of Unam Sanctam (and the corollary that Lumen Gentium "cancelled" it) doesn't fly.

.

So is there a more balanced picture that reverences both Unam Sanctam and Lumen Gentium as authentic magisterial teaching?
Read Mark Shay's full article (here)

1 comment:

Catholic Mission said...

LETTER OF THE HOLY OFFICE 1949 WAS CRITICAL OF ARCHBISHOP RICHARD CUSHING
A religious believes that Fr. Leonard Feeney was excommunicated for heresy and cites these passages from the Letter of the Holy Office 1949, the emphasis are his.

Bro.Ignatius Mary:
Letter of the Holy Office: This Supreme Sacred Congregation has followed very attentively the rise and the course of the grave controversy stirred up by certain associates of “St. Benedict Center” and “Boston College” in regard to the interpretation of that axiom: “Outside the Church there is no salvation.”

After having examined all the documents that are necessary or useful in this matter, among them information from your Chancery, as well as appeals and reports in which the associates of “St. Benedict Center” explain their opinions and complaints, and also many other documents pertinent to the controversy, officially collected, the same Sacred Congregation is convinced that the unfortunate controversy arose from the fact that the axiom, “outside the Church there is no salvation,” was not correctly understood and weighed,

However, this dogma must be understood in that sense in which the Church herself understands it. For, it was not to private judgments that Our Savior gave for explanation those things that are contained in the deposit of faith, but to the teaching authority of the Church.

Therefore, no one will be saved who, knowing the Church to have been divinely established by Christ, nevertheless refuses to submit to the Church or withholds obedience from the Roman Pontiff, the Vicar of Christ on earth.(Letter of the Holy Office 1949)

Lionel: Those 'who know' and do not enter the Church are oriented to Hell it is indicated in the Letter and also repeated in Vatican Council II . The issue is not 'those who know' or those who are in saved in invincible ignorance. Either way it is only known to God and only God can judge. The issue is that the dogma says every one with no exception on earth needs to convert into the Church for salvation. All non Catholics and non Christians are specified in the dogma. It’s not just those 'who know' or those who are in invincible ignorance. This would be judged only by Jesus.

The dogma,Fr. Leonard Feeney,many popes and saints say that all people with no exception on earth need Catholic Faith and the baptism of water for salvation and not just 'those who know'.Though they would agree that only 'those who know' are culpable. This teaching is repeated in Vatican Council II (LG 14, AG 7) which says all need Catholic Faith and the baptism of water for salvation. It is repeated in Dominus Iesus 20 which says though salvation is offered to all people to receive this salvation all need to enter the Church. This is Pope Pius XII ‘s message also here in the Letter, when he refers to ‘the dogma’. Fr.Leonard Feeney was in agreement with 'the dogma' which indicates every one needs to be a visible, explicit member of the Church for salvation. The dogma did not mention any exceptions. Neither did Fr.Leonard Feeney.

It was the Archbishop of Boston who considered those in invincible ignorance etc as exceptions to the dogma. When the Letter mentions only 'those who know' it is acknowledging the dejure,in principle cases of those who can be saved in invincible ignorance.Since they are in invincible ignorance 'they do not know' they can be saved.Those 'who know' and do not enter cannot be saved.


The Letter does not imply that those who do not know about Jesus and the Church are exceptions to the dogma. This was the false assumption of the Archbishop of Boston Richard Cushing.

The Letter does not support the Archbishop here.

CONTINUED
http://eucharistandmission.blogspot.com/2011/12/letter-of-holy-office-1949-says-non.html