Over the last year or so, I’ve had the pleasure of exchanging a handful of cordial emails with the Australian born theologian, Fr. Brian Harrison, O.S.
Fr. Harrison is a staunch defender of Vatican II, particularly as it relates to the Council’s treatment of religious liberty. In fact, I think it’s fair to say that when it comes to arguments in favor of the alleged doctrinal continuity of Dignitatis Humanae, his are perhaps the best that the so-called “conservatives” have to offer.
Not long ago, Fr. Harrison shared with me his lecture notes for an address that he delivered at an event hosted by Credo St. Louis entitled, “Is Christ still King?” wherein he argues against the allegation put forth by Archbishop Lefebvre, “They have uncrowned Him.”
Upon request, Fr. Harrison has kindly granted me permission to quote one of the central points from his lecture here:
The Church at Vatican II, while never denying her doctrine of Christ’s social kingship, made a prudential judgment to place it on the ‘back burner’ in secularized post-Christian Western nations. But that was before they began rejecting even the natural moral law (legalized abortion, euthanasia, homosexual “marriage”, etc.). Now that increasingly hostile power élites have largely frustrated Church leaders’ hopes for fraternal collaboration with secular “men of good will”, the magisterium has begun reaffirming the need for the light of Christian faith in the public square.
So… the Social Kingship of our Lord Jesus Christ hasn’t been formally denied; the doctrine is simply being placed on the “back burner.” That’s it. This is perhaps the most credible defense that the “hermeneutic of continuity” movement can muster on the subject.
Now, that said, let’s be clear… Vatican Council II did not literally uncrown and dethrone Christ; no one can do that. Even so, these figures of speech do adequately describe how our churchmen, including the popes, have been behaving over these last fifty years.
In reality, the Kingship of Christ was never ours to give, nor is it ours to take away. Christ is King. He does have a social reign. It is only for us to avoid preaching the Social Kingship of Christ at our own peril, and that is precisely what we are doing.
As such, I agree with Fr. Harrison; the Council did indeed make a deliberate decision to place the immutable doctrine of Our Lord’s social reign on the back burner. Where Fr. Harrison and I may part company, however, is in our assessment of that decision.
In my view, by placing the Social Kingship of Christ on the back burner, our sacred hierarchs effectively abandoned the mission of the Church.
Scripture itself seems to indicate that it is not truly possible for the Church to carry out her mission apart from proclaiming loudly and clearly that Jesus Christ is King, and that He does indeed reign over society and all of its constituent parts.
In the audio excerpt below, taken from my presentation at the Catholic Identity Conference, I briefly make the case that Sacred Scripture itself attests to the inextricable link between the mission of the Church and the Kingship of Christ, and furthermore, the Church is obligated to preach said Kingship if she has any hope of effectively carrying out that mission.
As something of an excuse (or at least a mitigating factor) in support of those who found it expedient to “back burner” this doctrine, Fr. Harrison suggests that the Church was perhaps blindsided, with the Council Fathers having made this decision “before secularized post-Christian Western nations began rejecting even the natural moral law.”
It is reasonable, however, to consider that it was precisely the Church’s failure to preach the Social Kingship of Christ that brought about the widespread rejection of the natural law in the first place.
In any case, one would be hard pressed to deny that our prelates’ silence on this doctrine, and therefore their failure to proclaim that the empire of Our Lord “includes not only Catholic nations, not only baptized persons, but also all those who are outside the Christian faith; so that truly the whole of mankind is subject to the power of Jesus Christ” (cf Pope Leo XIII, Annum Sacrum), at the very least accelerated society’s decline.
Whatever the cause may be, Fr. Harrison does indeed recognize that secular élites have largely grown hostile in their approach to the Church and even the natural law, and as such, he points out, “the magisterium has begun reaffirming the need for the light of Christian faith in the public square.”
This is all well and good, but it raises an important question: Is it truly possible for the Church “to reaffirm the need for the light of Christian faith in the public square” without once again proclaiming the Social Kingship of Christ?
Clearly, at least in my mind, the answer is no.
And yet, I do not think that Fr. Harrison, or any other reasonable person for that matter, would argue that any of the post-conciliar popes have even tip toed in this water over the last fifty years.
In fact, each and every one of them, from John XXIII all the way up to Francis, have treated the magnificent encyclical of Pope Pius XI, Quas Primas, as if it were a dead letter.
In the book, They Have Uncrowned Him, Archbishop Lefebvre recounts a conversation that took place between himself and Bishop Ambrogio Marchioni (Apostolic Nuncio to Switzerland, 1967 – 1984) as follows:
Archbishop: “But the social Reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ, what are you doing about this?”
Nuncio: “You know, that is impossible now; perhaps in the distant future?… Right now, this Reign is in individuals; we have to open ourselves up to the masses.”
Archbishop: “But the encyclical Quas Primas, what do you do with that?”
Nuncio: “Oh… the Pope would not write that any more, now!”
One may reasonably ask, with the secular world’s hostility to the natural law now plain for all to see, why does the magisterium still steadfastly refuse to proclaim Our Lord’s sovereign rights over society?
The answer, it would seem, is no more complicated than the fact that our popes appear hell bent and determined to sing from the conciliar song sheet no matter how hostile the secular world becomes.
Given the anthropocentric orientation of the Council as a whole, there simply is no room for the Social Kingship of Christ among such men, and even the crumbling visible structures of the Holy Catholic Church, with the numbers of abandoned parishes growing on a near daily basis, isn’t enough to make them reconsider.
In response to my request to quote from his lecture, and having shared with him the excerpt from my Catholic Identity Conference presentation, Fr. Harrison suggested that “in fairness to Vatican Council II,” I should “point out that Dignitatis Humanae #13 … specifically references in footnote 33 those words you appeal to from the end of Matthew’s Gospel (as well as Mark 16: 15 and Pius XII’s 1939 Encyclical Summi Pontificatus), in order to back up the Church’s claim of a unique right granted by Christ vis-a-vis all temporal rulers.”
He continued:
The Council’s words are strong and forthright here, implicitly asserting the sovereignty of Christ over all nations, but we now seldom hear them quoted:
“In human society and in the face of any public power whatsoever, the Church claims liberty for herself in her capacity as the spiritual authority established by Christ the Lord, charged by divine mandate with the duty of going into all the world and preaching the Gospel to every creature.”
It seems clear that any government recognizing the validity of the above claim would ipso facto be recognizing the Kingship of Christ.
I’m not entirely sure which governments Father has in mind here, but suffice to say that I reject the suggestion that a State that simply affords the Catholic Church the freedom that is hers by divine right is necessarily “recognizing the validity of the above claim.” Much less can one say that a State that also grants the very same right to the Church’s enemies “would ipso facto be recognizing the Kingship of Christ.”
Besides, an “ipso facto” expression of subjugation to the King is a pathetic substitute for the teaching put forth in Quas Primas which states that “not only private individuals but also rulers and princes are bound to give public honor and obedience to Christ.”
Surely, a government that truly recognizes the Kingship of Christ would not grant, as the Council demands, a civil right to religious freedom to those who reject Jesus Christ and oppose His reign. This would be like a government defending the right of rebels to overthrow it!
Sure, a government that recognizes the Kingship of Christ, and therefore the Holy Catholic Church as the one true faith, might find it necessary to tolerate such false religions in order to avoid a greater evil (as the traditional doctrine states), but never would such a government relinquish its right, and at times its duty, to suppress them even beyond simply attempting to maintain a secular notion of “public order.” (In other words, such a State would not relinquish its duty to safeguard its citizens from spiritual threats at the hands of false religionists.)
In any event, pay close attention to the Council’s words above quoted. In claiming that the Church is “charged by divine mandate with the duty of going into all the world and preaching the Gospel to every creature,” the architects of this document are presenting in this place but a truncated version of her mission.
In spite of giving mention to her mission of “teaching” and “baptizing” in other paragraphs, the takeaway from Dignitatis Humanae is evident enough given the witness of the last fifty years.
The conciliar and post-conciliar popes and the bishops in union with them ask for no more of the State than the right to “preach the Gospel” as if she is called to compete in the marketplace of religious ideas as but one among equals with the many false religions of the world. As as result, our prelates have been content to see the voice of Christ the King treated as if His is just another opinion that deserves a fair hearing; the implication being that the doctrines of the Holy Catholic Church are of arguably no more service to the common good than that of any other religion or public interest group.
It is interesting that Fr. Harrison not only acknowledges, but even appears perhaps to lament, that those parts of Dignitatis Humanae that merely hint at the Social Kingship of Christ are now seldom quoted, and this in the face of a secular world that is growing increasingly hostile to the eternal law.
As such, I wonder if I might reasonably hope that Fr. Harrison will join me in calling on the Holy Father to proclaim anew the totality of Quas Primas, reaffirming the Sovereign Rights of Christ the King over society such as they were so eloquently articulated by his esteemed predecessor?
Here are two quotes from Cardinal Ratzinger on ‘change’ in decisions of the Magisterium:
“…that there are decisions of the Magisterium which cannot be and are not intended to be the last word on the matter as such, but are a substantial anchorage in the problem…”
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and
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“…Their core remains valid, but the individual details influenced by the circumstances at the time may need further rectification. In this regard one can refer to the statements of the popes during the last century on religious freedom as well as the anti-modernistic decisions at the beginning of this century, especially the decisions of the Biblical Commission of that time…”
These are from the Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian and appear to be about scripture, but they speak directly to what Louie has posted.
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Yes, it was fine in the good old days to natter on about Christ being Our King and all that. But let’s face it if we preached that today we’d be laughed at!! And we can’t have that can we? After all it’s much more important to stay relevant!
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Yes, the Pope and dozens of bishops are changing practice for the boobs in the pew, but they can say with a straight face that they are still in favour of using doctrine as ” substantial anchorage.”
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Louie is spot on. If this crucial teaching on the reality of Christ The King had been continued, ever louder, we’d not be in such a mess today – 90% of Catholics not being taught what they need for salvation.
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Read “Dollfuss An Austrian Patriot” (Fr. Johannes Messner) and the life of Garcia Moreno (sorry don’t have it to hand). Both bowed the knee to Christ The King, and led their countries, or tried to, with this as the First Principle.
Louie writes: “even the crumbling visible structures of the Holy Catholic Church…isn’t enough to make them reconsider”.
I think the problem is deeper, and worse, than this.
In the preface to his book, Jesus of Nazareth, Josef Ratzinger writes the following (emphases in bold added):
“Admittedly, to believe that, as man, [Jesus] truly was God, and that he communicated his divinity veiled in parables, yet with increasing clarity, exceeds the scope of the historical method“ (p.xxiii).
Do these words suggest that non-Christians (in fact, anyone) ought to believe that Christ is God (and therefore King)? Clearly not. They are, however, consistent with their author’s assertion, echoed by his successor in the Vatican, that “The Church does not engage in proselytism.”
Even worse, is the error that the Church is only authoritative in matters of salvation and not historicity or politically or scientifically. So ‘therefore’ the Church should not presume to tell the world how to conduct politics or science. Instead a ‘new’ hermeneutic of looking at Tradition, the Scriptures and Dogma becomes necessary… where emphasis is placed on the feelings and heavenly-end rather than on the historical accuracy, for example: over whether Christ even existed or not, which is utterly ridiculous because if the actual accounts of Scripture cannot be reliable, then why should the message? If you do not understand Earthly things, neither will you be able to understand Heavenly things. The heart cannot rejoice in what the head cannot comprehend.
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There is an ever greater need for apologetics and taking back science and history for the Glory of God. We are to take every philosophy captive. Stop running away! The modern world jumped off the cliff the moment it threw the Earth from its privileged position into the recesses of a twisted circus-mirror space the naturalists pulled out of their behind to avoid the fact that all the scientific data they could accumulate bowed its knee to the declarations of the Church against the Copernican heresy.
“The Church at Vatican II, while never denying her doctrine of Christ’s social kingship, made a prudential judgment to place it on the ‘back burner’ in secularized post-Christian Western nations. But that was before they began rejecting even the natural moral law (legalized abortion, euthanasia, homosexual ‘marriage’, etc.).”
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More likely de-emphasizing Christ the King caused those abominations. Right after Vatican II, in 1967 in California Gov. Reagan (yes, him) signed a law legalizing abortion, with negligible opposition from the Catholic hierarchy, which could have roused a population about 30% Catholic, bringing on board most Protestants. The United Kingdom did the same that year. Roe v. Wade came in 1973. You know the rest.
Dear Louie,
Great piece, and we appreciate your emphasis on the inseparable link between declaring the Social Kingship of Christ and carrying out His Mandate — the Churches mission to go teach and Baptize all nations..
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It’s sadly ironic that as you publish this complaint about the Hierarchy not requiring more of the State -writing:
–“as if she is called to compete in the marketplace of religious ideas as but one among equals with the many false religions of the world…”
and .”..content to see the voice of Christ the King treated as if His is just another opinion that deserves a fair hearing; the implication being that the doctrines of the Holy Catholic Church are of arguably no more service to the common good than that of any other religion or public interest group”–
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On the very same day the Vatican is winding up 3 days of speeches made from the heart of the Church, in Rome, in conjunction with at leas t14 other religion’s spokespersons on the topic of marriage, as if she has no more to offer than any other religion, and as if it is not dangerous to present them to the world from that place, when the things we hold in common on marriage in no way mitigate the errors their religions teach– in addition to their rejection of Christ. (The Sikh’s for example believe in one man and woman in marriage, and also in reincarnation and Karma.)
So they are given a podium to the world, and we remain silent on their need for Baptism to be saved. Unless they were called to conversion (we haven’t yet heard a full report) It’s gone way beyond the silence, all the way to public promotion of this indifferentism, with microphones–live from the Vatican…. .
“My King’s Kingship I will proclaim when I decide it to be expedient”‘!!!
You can’t treat a King like that unless you think you are in authority over Him -i.e he’s not really your King in your eyes. So the simple decision to place the Kingship of Christ on the back burner is in itself the denial of the Kingship. Who would do that to their King! You can’t treat an earthly King like that let alone the real KING. Puny man and his puny brain dares to pass over in silence the Kingship of his Creator. Back burner indeed. It’s enough to make you sick.
The core of our faith is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Holy Eucharist. The Second Vatican Council ushered in the New Order (Novus Ordo) “mass” and, in essence, abrogated the True Mass. With this change came a new theology and a desecration of Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist (communion in the hand, eucharistic ministers, the removal of the Communion rails and countless other abuses). If this doesn’t prove that Our Lord has been uncrowned, I don’t know what does. Perhaps, Father Harrison would like to explain how the documents of Vatican 2 had nothing to do with this horrendous behavior at every N. O. “mass” and the ultimate loss of faith in Christ as King of Kings.
Here is my typically contrarian response:
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Dignitatis Humanae represents a true doctrinal development under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. Why would the Holy Ghost do such a thing? Because to God all time is present at once. He knew that just 50 years later we would see the rise of ISIS and the Islamic death cult. That Islamic death cult recognizes no religious liberty. If you apostatize from Islam, the penalty is death. They will behead you or crucify you if you leave the Islamic cult.
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Now, thanks to Vatican II, we are not hypocrites when we oppose the savagery of the islamists. Before Vatican II they could have said, “We punish our heretics just like you punish yours” and what would our response have been?
“. . . Sacred Scripture itself attests to the inextricable link between the mission of the Church and the Kingship of Christ, and furthermore, the Church is obligated to preach said Kingship if she has any hope of effectively carrying out that mission.”
Amen and amen and amen!!!
Bravo, Louie – another great piece. Fr. Harrison’s (implicit) assertion that placing the acknowledgement of Christ as King on the “back-burner” was a fine ‘n dandy thing to do, just Catholic as all get-out, is completely preposterous.
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And, yes, of course this active cooperation with the world (never mind its prince, more present than ever), this pathetic offering of the Church’s own “Cult of Man”, had the only effect it could have: It hastened mankind’s descent into pervasive, institutionalized grave sin.
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Our modern churchmen never ceased proclaiming “the need for the light of Christian faith in the public square”, really – they just meekly proclaimed Our Savior’s influence as but one type that should be given weight among a multitude of valid faiths. And nothing whatsoever has changed, regardless of what Fr. Harrison may think.
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Fr. Harrison has drunk deeply of the Conciliar Cool-Aide, and that is about all there is to it. At least for now. Come on, Father, open your eyes.
Dear Ganganelli,
-not that we’re recommending going back to it–except in rare instances, but … 🙂 🙂
1. As the Supreme Authority on earth, representing God, the Catholic Church would be the only judicial body justified in pronouncing a death sentence for spritual crimes.
2. No other religion can claim such authority, nor could they claim it just, to punish someone for repudiating the falsehood, upon which their beliefs are based.
3. What St.Thomas Aquinas taught appears to be similar to the reasons used to justify Capital punishment by a government body for the public’s safety:
“– heretics: 1…there is the sin whereby they deserve to be separated from the Church by excommunication, but also to be severed from the world by death… it is a much more serious matter to corrupt the faith which gives life to the soul than to counterfeit that which supports temporal life. ..if counterfeiters and other evil-doers are immediately condemned to death by the secular authorities, there is much more reason for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, not only to be excommunicated but even put to death.”
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2.(St. Thomas) ..On the part of the Church, however, there is mercy, which looks to the conversion of the wanderer; wherefore, she condemns not at once, but “after the first and second warning”, as the Apostle directs (Titus 3:10). After that, if he is still stubborn, the Church, no longer hoping for his conversion, looks to the salvation of others by excommunicating him and separating him from the Church; and, furthermore, she delivers him over to the secular tribunal, thereby to be exterminated from the world by death.”
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More than a few other Saints and Popes have weighed in:
–“The only way to argue with a blasphemer is by running your sword through his bowels, as far as it will go.” St. Louis IX, King of France
–“… as Magistrate I do promise assiduously to perform my duty in investigating them. Heresy is a kind of treason, and if a heretic persisteth in his false belief, he may be handed over to be burned.” St. Thomas More
–“Error will never be suppressed unless the criminal elements of depravity be consumed in flames.” Pope Clement XII
–“That it is against the will of the Spirit to burn heretics at the stake is condemned as false.” Pope Leo X
–“Even if my own father were a heretic, I would gather the wood to burn him at the stake.” Pope Paul IV
In this excellent interview of +Athanasius Schneider by Michael Voris there is a very good section on the Kingship of Christ. The Bishop explains it with great clarity, but without being polemical. Hearing him speak is a joy – like drinking pure water!
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8iBeaGeuxw
Indignus,
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Excellent summary of the traditional doctrine that was overturned by Vatican II’s declaration Dignitatis Humanae. Thank you for your honesty as I don’t know how many traditionalists have told me that it wasn’t really the doctrine, times change, etc.
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Now, if only there was one honest journalist in the world who would put the question to the likes of Cardinal Burke who endlessly state that the Church “can’t change her teaching”.
Then why didn’t God change Church Doctrine ahead of Muhammed’s arrival?
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Also the Church never changed her teaching, merely her disciplinary action – death penalty for apostatizing/heresy which threatened the state.
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The teaching – Apostasy – remains a grave and dangerous sin.
I should clarify that I’m referring to the specific instance of putting people to death. Not to how we interpret the religious freedom of VII, which again according to the Council, only dealt with pastoralism in this regard, not to whether or not (interpretatively/arguably) religious freedom is a virtue of itself. So it seems that the doctrine – that man is obligated to convert to the one true religion, and that religious freedom for its own sake is error – was likewise put on some back-burner. Which was left covered, with people starving for lack of it for the last 50 years.
Speaking of deluded Catholics who’re drunk on kool-aid and like to hide the faith far away on the back burner…
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SHAME on you Karl Keating!
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SHAME on you Jimmy Akin! I thought better of you until now!
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Please stop your embarrassing crusade to cover up an unholy marriage of Catholicism to Modernism!
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Welcome to Catholic ‘Star Wars’
The Principle versus Catholic Answers
http://galileowaswrong.com/welcome-to-catholic-star-wars-the-principle-v-catholic-answers/
Lou,
The signification of Father Harrison’s admission, that at V2 they placed the social reign of Christ on the backburner, so to say, is, I agree, the central deviation of the Council.
For, the Church, faithful to Christ’s teaching, has always put Her loving service totally in commitment to the love of God above all things, beyond all things, more than all things, and that for His own sake.
As soon as Bishops convene together and decide to do anything differently, they are acting as men, and not as God would have them. Thus Vatican II.
Thus, Fr. Harrison is admitting, theologically, that Vatican II is not pastoral, its not even Christian, and that its teaching is founded upon a grave error in theology and morals.
Dear Ganganelli,
It is our understanding that Vatican II was declared a pastoral council.
Does that not mean that it was legally incapable of “overturning” any doctrine?
If, as you say, what we presented to you–which appears to us to be the accepted, common practices and beliefs of the Church for many years–is, in fact “doctrine”, then would it not still stand today, even if it has fallen into disuse, rather than being overturned?
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Would you help us out a bit by pointing to where it was made official doctrine, rather than practice, in the past, and where that was specifically attempted to be overturned in Dignitatis Humanae? We’re not challenging your statements, as we have no proof either way, just wondering how you came to be certain about them?
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Also, isn’t there a difference between unchanging “dogma” and “doctrine”? and would that also come into play here? When JPII wrote about capital punishment, we noticed he gave a lot of reasons it need not be carried out today, -such as life imprisonment being an alternative for the incorrigible, but didn’t go so far as to outlaw it. (Of course we know he was not referring to that as the punishment for heresy)
Also, the Church used to excommunicate formally (bell, book and candle) and have long since ceased doing that. Could they not resume that practice at any time, if the Hierarchy decided it was, after all, the best means to use for both calling back the heretic and protecting the flock? How would that be any different?
Vatican II Council cannot have changed Church doctrine, which is unchangeable. The Council itself stated this. The Council made no formal declaration of teaching to be held to by the Faithful on pain of anathema.
Insofar as any part of the VII documents can possibly be read in conformity with the unchangeable Deposit of Faith and moral law, it must be so read. Insofar as any part of the VII documents cannot be read in conformity with the Deposit of Faith and morals, it must be disregarded as necessarily erroneous.
The vast majority of bishops have ceased to acknowledge Christ as King in the public square but rather bow to evil temporal leaders and governments, and support them in persecuting the faithful, if only by acquiescent silence. As in for instance, the widespread institutional persecution of those who uphold the sacredness and inviolability of human life, the sacredness of marriage and family, etc., by subversion of criminal and other invalid laws. Whilst their bishops and priests refuse to defend them and denounce the flagrant injustice, persecution. “First, they came for the Jews . . .”
And again we see the craftiness of the Evil One behind this. VII doesn’t actually do away with the teaching on Christ The King. It’s just de-emphasized. Doesn’t that sound familiar? The Pope states that ‘we all agree’ that marriage is between one man and one woman to the exclusion of any other, and for life, HOWEVER we’ll just put this on that handy back burner so we can do what we think is much better for ‘man.’
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The Evil One is in charge – he is, after all, the prince of this world.
Thank you, again, Ganganelli, for proving that you are an true-blue Modernist. Saying dogma changes proves you don’t believe as Catholics should!
Indignus,
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Compare and contrast.
Pope Leo X condemned the following proposition of Luther as heretical which means it concerns doctrine:
“That heretics be burned is against the will of the Spirit.”
The 2nd Vatican Council declared:
“This Vatican Council declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power, in such wise that no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits.”
Call it development of doctrine or change of doctrine…I don’t really care. I’m just glad we’ll never again have a Catholic version of the Islamic State.
And isn’t it amazing how the Holy Spirit works. The doctrine on religious liberty is one of the reasons that Lefebvre broke communion with the Church. And yet, God who sees all of time knew that in just 50 years we would have the rise of ISIS.
I could just imagine the amount of Islamic apologists who would be claiming, “Why are you attacking us, YOU have the same doctrine!”
Fr. Harrison corrects The Wanderer for their misinterpretation of Cantate Domino
http://www.fisheaters.com/forums/index.php/topic,3436623.0.html
Lionel,
Thank you for the Fish Eater link. It was great and very insightful. I hope that this article will help me to be able to use Father Harrison’s points on this topic to explain and defend “No Salvation outside the Catholic Church.”
I’ve said on other blog entries to this site and on other sites.
Vatican II didn’t see wholesale legislative change in the main.
Vatican II saw the church simply disregard, simply ignore, age old teachings.
Like the way TLM wasn’t prohibited, it was simply ignored as a result of VII and folk assumed that it had been outlawed.
And the ignoring and disregarding of age old teaching – “putting it all on the backburner” – is a very pernicious and cynical tactic.
Dear Ganganelli,
1. Looking at it, Luther’s statement, it may have been condemned for its implicit claim that he knew the will of the Spirit in a way the Church did not in which case the validity or error of that claim would seem to be separate matter from that of the death penalty for heresy. We can’t say, not having enough info.
2. We don’t think the declaration on religious freedom was addressing interior Church disciplines when it discussed people being “free from coercion and from forced to act in a manner contrary to their own beliefs. Wasn’t it aimed at not forcing people of other faiths, to become Catholic against their will?
– If not, how do you explain the Italian Bishop’s proclamation that anyone attending SSPX Masses and Sacraments in his diocese would be ex-communicated? Aren’t the Italian Catholics free to believe as they wish? Apparently he thinks since they are registered in his Diocese, they have to do as he wishes regarding belief and worship.
And so a future Pope could change the canon Laws again at will, to reinstate more rigorous disciplines. We wouldn’t mind seeing a bit more of that. 🙂
Contemporary Roman Catholicism has, with swift efficiency, transformed into an uber-protestantism of the most treacherous degree. Anyone with a mustard seed’s size of understanding of Christ’s Church knows this. It has outstripped any of the imaginings of Luther or his kind or indeed any of the hopes of freemasonry. Post-apostolic Catholicism (which is contemporary Roman Catholicism), has one aim: to destroy the sanctifying and salvific qualities it ‘inherited’.
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2 Thessalonians 2:15 Therefore, brethren, stand fast; and hold the traditions which you have learned, whether by word, or by our epistle.
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2 Corinthians 11:4 For if some one comes and preaches another Jesus than the one we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you submit to it readily enough.
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St Paul is warning and chastising against those who have rejected the True Jesus and the True Tradition for a false one (whatever the excuse). Where, these days, is the True Jesus and the True Tradition submitted to? The True Jesus and the True Tradition has not been submitted to in Rome for a long time, now. St Paul, if he were with us now, would certainly have, cried anathema over the lot of them.
The past fifty years have produced nothing but heretical and treacherous Bishops in Rome. They have proved themselves, to be servants of a fabricated ‘Jesus’ and a fabricated ‘Tradition’. The blatant fact is that the Catholicism established in Rome in the 60s and poured out like poison upon the parishes from there is not One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic (quite literally on the last count soon given the false rites of ordination established after VII). It ceased to be ‘One’ when it broke from the One Church which preceded it. The fact that those who teach an alternative Jesus and an alternative tradition inhabit the same buidlings that used to be inhabited by those who taught the True Jesus and handed on the True Tradition might confuse, but it is no excuse in the end for not knowing the True Jesus and the True Tradition. The alternative ‘Catholic Church’ It represents a substantial, radical transformation from the authentic Faith. Nothing has been left in place, not teaching, not worship and not discipline.
Fr. Harrison also has some “interesting” views on ecclesiology. Here is a sede apologist engaging him on the subject:
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http://stevensperay.wordpress.com/2014/11/19/my-latest-to-rev-brian-harrison-concerning-the-dogma-on-the-churchs-oneness-in-faith/
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Nota bene: Citing to this person’s blog is not an attempt to convert anyone to the sede position. I only cite to this blog here because it had a post about Fr. Harrison.
Interesting link and response from Mr Speray. (it is my opinion (even though, as the saying goes, ‘opinions are like a-holes’ – everyone has one), nonetheless, that Catholics of genuine intent are thirsting for ‘sede’ Truths in this day of inauthentic qatholicism – that is, of a Catholicism that hasn’t, as Mr Speray put, ‘abandoned’ Truth). Harrison was baptized Methodist, raised Presbyterian, worked with a Lutheran mission, then converted to Roman Catholicism in 1972…the reason for pointing this out is that if he only converted in ’72 (can’t find when he was ordained), by 1972 the new rites of ordination were in place in Concillar Roman Catholicism. Is he, therefore, Fr Harrison, Mr Harrison?
Here is another cite to Fr. Harrison relevant to a recent HTF blog topic:
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http://www.catholic.com/magazine/articles/is-ecumenism-a-heresy
When the twelve tribes of Israel settled in the land given to them by God, the assembled elders approached the prophet Samuel demanding he appoint a king to rule over them. “The Lord said (to Samuel): Listen to whatever the people say. You are not the one they are rejecting. They are rejecting me as their king.” (1 Sam 8:7).
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Likewise, when they saw Nahash, king of the Ammonites, advancing against them, they rejected the teachings of their elders and prophets, saying: “‘No! A king must rule us’,’ even though the Lord (their) God (was their) king.” (1 Sam 12:12) They rejected God as their king and sought a wordly king, like the king of the Ammonites.
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So too today, Catholics are being punished for rejecting their faith and instead imitating the non-Catholics around them; for — one can say — following the Jones’, i.e. the ‘wasps’ — at least in the western world.
It’s logical afterall. After WWII, the ‘catholic’ nations had felt and were dominated by the power and might of the protestant Anglo-Americans, the nazi Germans and the communist Russians. They and their children wanted a share in this power, so they were delivered to these powers…. and principalities.
The catholics of Lower Canada (i.e Quebec) imitated their protestant overlords in Upper Canada (i.e. Ontario), rejecting God and their traditions making their language their religion. The Irish Catholics of Massachusettes and New York similarily became “Kennedy catholics’ worshiping the ‘wasp’ lifestyle. Catholicism in Quebec and Boston were ruined. And all the prelates from New England and New York spread “Kennedy catholicism” wherever they went in the northeast hub of North America with the spirit of Vatican II behind them teaching the children of Catholic immigrants to imitate and assimilate with the nations and religions around them.
The heresy we suffer from is as much like that of iconoclasm as that of arianism. The Byzantines having lost a series of wars against the Muslims began doubting the veracity of their faith and traditions and turned against the traditions of their churches destroying their icons.
So too, it seems, with today’s VII church.
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“Pilate said to them. ‘Shall I crucify your king?’ The chief priests answered, ‘We have no king but Caesar.” (John 19:15)
@Alarico: Wasn’t this foretold, and haven’t generations of Catholics been reminded of this future fate, by the movement of the missal from the gospel to the epistle side of the altar every Sunday? Now those in the NO don’t even know what I am talking about!
Fr.Brian Harrison says Vatican Council II affirms the Social Kingship of Christ and that we must do the same. Correct! However he supports the Letter of the Holy Office 1949 which infers that there is salvation outside the Church.
If there is salvation outside the Church, which is the position of the liberals at the International Theological Commission, etc, then why proclaim the Social Kingship of Christ?
According to the dogma (Cantate Domino, Council of Florence 1441) and Vatican Council II (AG 7) every one needs to be a member of the Catholic Church.This is the defacto requirement. In 2014 we do not know any one saved or going to be saved ‘united to her by desire and longing’.So this is factually incorrect. The Holy Office is assuming that possibilities of salvation, hypothetical cases, are defacto known in the present times.Oops!
So what if there is a case in invincible ignorance ?. It is not objective for us. It is not explicit. It has nothing to do with the traditional interpretation of Fr.Leonard Feeney.
Those who are united to the Church only by implicit desire and saved are unknown to us in 2014. They are unknown to us over the last 100 years or more.They were unknown also during the pontificate of Pope Pius XII.When we do not know any such case personally and cannot in future know any such case, then why should we claim that someone is saved united to the Church only by implicit desire?
Letter of the Holy Office 1949
That one may obtain eternal salvation, it is not always required that he be incorporated into the Church actually as a member, but it is necessary that at least he be united to her by desire and longing.-Letter of the Holy Office 1949.
Lionel:
Irrational we do not know any one united by desire and longing in 2014 who does not need to enter the Church with the baptism of water.
With these wise words he reproves both those who exclude from salvation all united to the Church only by implicit desire…-Letter of the Holy Office 1949
Lionel:
Irrational and non traditional. Why should we assume that the baptism of desire must not be followed with the baptism of water, these cases are only hypothetical ? Also why should I claim that someone was saved or is going to be saved without the baptism of water ,when none of us knows of any such exception?
Why should I accept this new, irrational doctrine which had no precedent before 1946 ?
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Cyprian
Thanks for the link to Speray’s blog.
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From Steven Speray’s blog:
My latest reply to Harrison:
Rev. Harrison,
The issue at stake is the redefinition of the sacred dogma on the Church being one in faith which is condemned by Vatican I. Your articles don’t touch it. We all know Feeneyism is wrong.
Lionel:
Feeneyism is wrong?
Why ? Since the baptism of desire etc are exceptions to the traditional interpretation of the dogma? Theoretical cases, of the deceased, are visible in town in the present times?
It is with the false premise that he begins to interpret Vatican Council II as he has done with the Letter of the Holy Office.
He is using Cushingism i.e the dead are visible one earth and so are explicit exceptions to all needing the baptism of water for salvation in the present times.
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Vatican 2 renders meaningless the teaching of Pope Pius XII in Mystici Corporis Christi that “only those are to be accounted really members of the Church who have been regenerated in the waters of Baptism and profess the true faith.”
Lionel:
Do you observe the error which has come from the Letter of the Holy Office 1949?
For him, like the baptism of desire, those saved in imperfect communion with the Church (UR 3) etc would be visible and known to us in 2014 to be exceptions to all needing the baptism of water for salvation.
The error is with his inference and not the text of Vatican Council II.
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The external forum is presumed as it continues, “…so there can be only one faith. And therefore if a man refuse to hear the Church let him be considered — so the Lord commands — as a heathen and a publican.”
To the contrary, Vatican 2 implies that if a man refuse to hear the Church let him NOT be considered as a heathen and a publican, but as a Christian who doesn’t have the fullness of the truth: “Speaking of the members of these Communities, it declares: ‘All those justified by faith through Baptism are incorporated into Christ. They therefore have a right to be honoured by the title of Christian, and are properly regarded as brothers and sisters in the Lord by the sons and daughters of the Catholic Church’.” (UR 3 and UUS 13)
Lionel:
They are our brothers and sisters in Christ and they need to convert into the Catholic Church with Catholic faith (AG 7) for salvation.UR 3 does not say they are saved. Instead there are passages in UR which support AG 7 and mention that they are not in full ecclesiastical communion.
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“Incorporated into Christ” and “in the Lord” means that baptized non-Catholics are members of the Church or else they wouldn’t be incorporated or in Christ.
Lionel:
It does not state that these persons who are incorporated in the Church, as possibilities, known to God only, are visible and known exceptions to Ad Gentes 7 or the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus.This has to be wrongly inferred. The text does not state it.
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Vatican 2 assumes every baptized non-Catholic is invincibly ignorant, an assumption it’s utterly incapable of making because only God judges the internal forum.
Lionel:
No where does Vatican Council II make this statement.
If it did it would contradict AG 7 and LG 14.
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This new teaching is why Catholic Answers refers to Protestants and Eastern Orthodox (the other lung of the Church?) as members of the Body of Christ and why in a 2002 debate, Patrick Madrid says the same of notorious anti-Catholic apologist James White.
Lionel:
Karl Keating, Patrick Madrid and other speakers at EWTN in general use the irrational premise in the interpretation of Vatican Council II.
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John Paul II even approved the Balamand statement in UUS 59 which recognizes a false religion as part of the Church of Christ.So now it’s not just baptized non-Catholics but their false religions that make up the one Church of Christ.
Regarding the Balamand Declaration see this link:
‘It is not always required that a person be incorporated in reality (reapse) as a member of the Church’ in Rome, in 2014, for example?. Legion of Christ priest does not answer
http://eucharistandmission.blogspot.it/2014/09/it-is-not-always-required-that-person.html#links
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It’s so blatantly obvious this new teaching under the pretext of a more profound understanding is an abandonment of the sacred dogma in the same sense as Holy Mother Church once declared. It clearly falls under the condemnation of Vatican I. Therefore, the new ecclesiology is anathematized.
Lionel:
It is anathematized when the inference is used in the interpretation.It is heretcial.The sedevacantists CMRI and MHFM use the same irrational inference as do Karl Keating, Patrick Madrid and other apologists who are traditional on other aspects of the Catholic Faith.
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It’s astounding you defend it, meaning you don’t really believe in the Catholic Faith.
Steven Speray
http://www.catholictopgun.com
Lionel:
Steven is not aware of the difference between Cushingism and Feeneyism.It is Cushingism, which he uses in the interpretation of Church documents, that is irrational and non traditional.
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Anastasia,
You could also review this link:
Fr.Brian Harrison supports the Letter of the Holy Office 1949 which contradicts the teaching on the Social Kingship of Christ
http://eucharistandmission.blogspot.it/2014/11/frbrian-harrison-supports-letter-of.html
Cyprian:
This is with reference to Fr.Harrison’s article on Ecumenism .I agree with him.
The Decree: No Error Here
Now we can go on to consider UR in the light of the four above-mentioned doctrinal errors reprobated by Pope Pius:
(1) Does Vatican II adopt a “lowest common denominator” approach to “balance” unity and truth? Not at all. Unitatis Redintegratio 3 affirms that while the separated brethren have many elements of truth, God’s will is that they all come to that plenitude which can be found only in Catholicism:
For it is through Christ’s Catholic Church alone . . . that the fullness of the means of salvation can be obtained. It was to the apostolic College alone, of which Peter is the head . . . that we believe the Lord entrusted all the benefits of the New Covenant in order to establish on earth the one Body of Christ, into which all those who already in some way belong to the people of God ought to be fully incorporated. (UR 3, emphases added)
Lionel: I agree with Fr.Harrison here.
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The Decree also recalls that while there is a “hierarchy” of Catholic truths, insofar as these vary in “their relationship to the foundation of the Christian faith,” this does not mean that the less “fundamental” Catholic beliefs—those not shared by Protestant or Orthodox Christians—are “negotiable” or can be swept under the rug. (The revealed truths about our Lady, for instance, derive from the Incarnation, not vice versa.) On the contrary, “It is of course essential that [Catholic] doctrine be presented in its entirety. Nothing is so foreign to the spirit of ecumenism as a false irenicism which harms the purity of Catholic doctrine and obscures its genuine and certain meaning” (UR 11).
Lionel: Agreed!
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(2) Does UR imply a gradual descent into naturalism at the expense of divine revelation, leading to an abandonment of all revealed truth? No, because it never accepts the premise that Pius XI says leads to that “dead end,” namely, the modernist idea that the different religions all just “give expression, under various forms, to that innate sense which leads men to God.” The conciliar teaching, in contrast to this naturalistic account of religion, stresses the supernatural realities of revelation and faith. UR asserts that “the Catholic Church has been endowed with all divinely revealed truth and with all means of grace” (UR 4; cf. UR 3). Furthermore, “Christ entrusted to the College of the Twelve the task of teaching, ruling and sanctifying. . . . And after Peter’s confession of faith, he determined that upon him he would build his Church . . . [and] entrusted all his sheep to him to be confirmed in faith” (UR 2). The Fathers who promulgated UR were of course also those who, just one year later, promulgated the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, which serves as an interpretative key to other conciliar documents touching on that subject.
Lionel: I am still am with Fr.Harrison.
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(3) Does UR envisage a united “Church” of the future as being a “federation” of different Christian denominations agreeing to differ in at least some doctrinal matters? Nowhere is there any such suggestion.
Lionel: I agree!
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Vatican II presents the unity willed by God as one in which everyone is—surprise, surprise!—Catholic. Having made it clear that by “the Church” they mean the body led by “the bishops with Peter’s successor at their head”—i.e., the Roman Catholic Church—the Fathers continue:
The Church, then, God’s only flock, like a standard lifted high for the nations to see it, ministers the gospel of peace to all mankind, as it makes its pilgrim way in hope towards its goal, the fatherland above. This is the sacred mystery of the unity of the Church, in Christ and through Christ, with the Holy Spirit energizing its various functions. (UR 2, emphases added)
Lionel: Unitatis Redintigratio is orthodox.
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(4) From what has been said already, it should be clear that the Decree on Ecumenism does not teach the fourth heresy censured by Pius XI in Mortalium Animos, namely, the idea that Church unity is a mere future ideal which separated Christians must work to construct, insofar as it does not yet exist. Of course, we need to distinguish carefully here between the unity of the Church as such and unity among Christians. Obviously, if we understand the word “Christian” to cover everyone who professes faith in Christ, the latter unity does not exist yet—and never has existed since the first schisms arose in New Testament times! But such divisions do not imply that the Church herself is—or ever could be—disunited, in the sense of being divided into different denominations holding different doctrines. Our creedal article of belief in ” One, holy, Catholic, apostolic Church” rules this out. And so does UR when it expresses the hope that, as a result of ecumenism,
little by little as the obstacles to perfect ecclesiastical communion are overcome, all Christians will be gathered, in a common celebration of the Eucharist, into the unity of the one and only Church, which Christ bestowed on his Church from the beginning. This unity, we believe, exists completely (Lat., subsistit) in the Catholic Church as something she can never lose, and which we hope will continue to increase until the end of time. (UR 4, emphases added)
Lionel: Still orthodox!
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Whether or not, in the decades since Vatican II, ecumenism as UR expounds it has always been faithfully implemented—even by the Church’s own leadership—is of course a distinct question. A further one is whether or not the results achieved after about half a century vindicate, with the benefit of hindsight, the prudence of UR’s “window-opening” disciplinary changes. I think Catholics can now legitimately debate both these questions. In any case, if this brief comparison has helped to show that the Council did not fall into the doctrinal aberrations reprobated by Pius XI in 1928, it will hopefully have served a useful purpose.
Lionel: Praised be Jesus and Our Lady ! It is nice to read a rational approach to UR.
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[This article first appeared in the July-September 2008 issue of the Australian quarterly Oriens. Reprinted with permission.]
SIDEBAR
The “Subsists In” Controversy
In June 2007, the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith released a statement, Commentary on the Document: Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church, which sought to clarify some of the Second Vatican Council’s teachings on authentic ecumenism. The CDF statement was met with some controversy because it stated that non-Catholic Christian “ecclesial communities” (with the exception of Orthodox traditions) could not be termed true “churches.” In saying this, however, the CDF was merely reiterating what Unitatis Redintegratio had already established:
Catholic ecumenism might seem, at first sight, somewhat paradoxical. The Second Vatican Council used the phrase ” subsistit in ” in order to try to harmonize two doctrinal affirmations: on the one hand, that despite all the divisions between Christians the Church of Christ continues to exist fully only in the Catholic Church, and on the other hand that numerous elements of sanctification and truth do exist without the visible boundaries of the Catholic Church whether in the particular churches or in the ecclesial communities that are not fully in communion with the Catholic Church. For this reason, the same Decree of Vatican II on ecumenism Unitatis Redintegratio introduced the term fullness ( unitatis/catholicitatis) specifically to help better understand this somewhat paradoxical situation. Although the Catholic Church has the fullness of the means of salvation, nevertheless, the divisions among Christians prevent the Church from effecting the fullness of catholicity proper to her in those of her children who, though joined to her by baptism, are yet separated from full communion with her. The fullness of the Catholic Church, therefore, already exists, but still has to grow in the brethren who are not yet in full communion with it and also in its own members who are sinners until it happily arrives at the fullness of eternal glory in the heavenly Jerusalem. This progress in fullness is rooted in the ongoing process of dynamic union with Christ: Union with Christ is also union with all those to whom he gives himself. I cannot possess Christ just for myself; I can belong to him only in union with all those who have become, or will become, his own. Communion draws me out of myself towards him, and thus also towards unity with all Christians. ( Commentary on the Document: Responses to Some Questions)
Lionel: Lumen Gentium 8, ‘elements of sanctification and truth’ and the ‘subsistit it’ issue do not contradict the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus.
Even for Fr.Harrison LG 8 is not a break with Tradition.
I also agree with Fr.Harrison’s views on Religious Liberty ( on Stevem Speray’s blog).
In the footnotes of Dignitatis Humanae, Vatican Council II there is a reference to a state with a secular Constituion. When we make the distinction between a Catholic Confessional state and a state with a secular Constituion, DH is not a break with the past.
-Lionel Andrades
Cyprian:
Fr.Brian Harrison interprets ecumenism and religious liberty in Vatican Council II as a continuity with the past : I agree with him
http://eucharistandmission.blogspot.it/2014/11/frbrian-harrison-interprets-ecumenism.html
Hey, off topic, but what happened to the ‘dialogue’ between Louie and Jimmy?
Not a word for ages. Is this still going to proceed? My sense is now that Louie has begun to define terms, and not just offer opinion in general, Jimmy has decided he’s way too busy….I must be wrong!
dear salvemur,
The response to your question is– yes. He is Mr. Harrison.
dear Dumb_ox,
Superb comment.
dear Mr. V.,
I liked this. I’ve tried to listen/watch all of your talks on this topic & have liked all of them– especially when you were asked by one who questioned about implementation, if you will, in everyday Catholic life. You respond consistently with ,{in my words,} get over it & do what has to be done. I admire you immensely for this.
When I hear questions like that posed to you and others, once again the effeminacy of the culture becomes glaringly obvious. A huge reason why priests have become social workers and stand up comedians. Hence one side effect is that true Catholic spiiritual direction is virtually non-existent. They don’t want a Monarch -His Divine Majesty Our Lord Jesus Christ. They want to journey with and dialogue. Objectively speaking, of course. And, I might add, to what end-we know not.
especially when you were asked by one who questioned about implementation, if you will, in everyday Catholic life. You respond consistently with ,{in my words,} get over it & do what has to be done.
Lionel:
Some Catholics with the few Catholic political organisations iin Italy are aware of the need for proclaiming the Social Kingship of Christ over all legisation.But he will also assume that Vatican Council II and the Letter of the Holy Office 1949 contradict Quas Primas.This is sad.
Fr.Brian Harrison believes that Fr.Brian Harrison interprets ecumenism and religious liberty in Vatican Council II as a continuity with the past and I agree with him, but he does not state that Vatican has a continuity with the past with respect to the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus.So this is confusion with respect to the teaching on the Social Kingship of Christ.
For me Vatican Council II has a continuity with the past with respect to the other religions ( dogma on salvation), ecumenism and religous liberty.
If Louie and Fr.Harrison could agree with me it would make it easier for Bishop Bernard Fellay to accept Vatican Council II.
Bishop Fellay has said that the SSPX accepts Vatican Council II as a historical even, they also accept 95% of the Council, they only reject the teachings on other religions, ecumenism and religious liberty.
I have received an e-mail from Steven Speray yesterday. He also uses the irrational premise in the interpretation of the Council but he understands that the baptism of desire is not visible and known to us.
He writes, ‘you don’t have to believe anyone has actually been saved through baptism of desire, but only that it’s a possibility . You can’t deny the possibility without anathamatizing yourself. I explain on my blog why.’
I wrote a book about baptism of desire and explain that the 1949 letter is terribly written. Yes, it is erroneous if taken at face value, but can be interpreted correctly. I don’t like it all.’
If Louie and Fr.Harrison could clarify this point then Vatican Council II would be in agreement with Quas Primas.
From today’s Gospel…
“Now He is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to Him all of them are alive.”
Luke 20:38
They appear to be alive, whether we see them or not…….
Some of us do still preach it in our typical Novus Ordo parishes, but much of what we preach falls on deaf ears.
“I lift up my eyes to the mountain, whence shall help come to me? My help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.”
Our only help to day will come through the consecration of Russia. Heaven waits for tha day to unleash a torrent of grace.e
Ganganelli,
Remember, when reading the VII documents, they must be read with the hermeneutic of continuity. Hence, to be able to define the “within due limits”, we need to understand the limits throughout the previous 1900 years of history. Just because a false religion arrogates a duty of the Church to themselves, it does not make the Church wrong to have practiced it nor prevent Her from taking it up again.
A little O.T., but interesting, –From http://catholicism.org/ad-rem-no-238.html we read:
In the nineteenth century, there existed in Rome the archconfraternity of San Giovanni Decollato (“Saint John Beheaded”), whose members did penance for those we now call death-row inmates. For them, part of being Christian also meant looking out for the spiritual welfare of the condemned. The Papal States were quite interested in man’s supernatural end, too. For this reason, execution days in Rome were days of prayer and penance. Saint Vincent Pallotti used to work with the archconfraternity of San Giovanni Decollato, and never complained that the popes, one of whom was Blessed Pio Nono, (Pius IX), were “violating human dignity.”… And again:
But there is a new body of teaching today, part of the paramagisterium, which has it that the death penalty is an intrinsic violation of the dignity of the human person. We hear it from bishops, priests, and pious lay faithful engaged in the pro-life movement. The logical question presents itself: If this is so, why did Christ’s infallible Church, for the entirety of her history, teach and act otherwise until the late twentieth century? This cannot be justified as a legitimate “development of doctrine,” because these individuals negate capital punishment in principle and based upon fundamental anthropological truths that the Church has either not known or overlooked until the ascendancy of personalist philosophy in the twentieth century.
OBAMA – AMERICA’S FIRST EMPEROR
http://youtu.be/8PK3LnRRh1A
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So democracy has led to its own end – the progressive election of an inevitable tyrant/king who can do whatever he wants. Voters return to the ballot box like trained hamsters year after year to choose from a small pool of dynastic Bush/Clinton families hand-picked by elite globalist organizations.
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Here’s a fact people – Power is ALWAYS a top-down structure. It is NEVER bottom-up. This is how God instituted order in this world and why every political system is inevitably going to lead to an oligarchy or a defacto-monarchy. Democracy only works according tot he principle of subsidiarity within small localities within what the people can actually control. And democracy unchecked usually leads to chaos. America is a Constitutional Republic, but as we see continual powers being granted to one man – the President – America will end up like Rome.
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If Christ is not King, then the people will be eager to crown just about anyone else in His place!
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As so-called Western democracies continue to fall into government tyranny and communism. And as ISIS fights for their Caliphate, the question should be asked – How is the Catholic Church going to adapt to the ACTUAL REALITY of the world? A world that intends to impose rules of – religious freedom and tolerance on the Church but by which it itself doesn’t wish to follow? The Church hierarchy, by catering to modernism has been trapped and deserves to lose its influence and this will even cost the lives of the faithful for its betrayal of its King.
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Observe commenter Ganganelli’s praising of VII for turning the Church into a system of cowardice trying to claim it’s a more peaceful tactic when in reality the ulterior motive is cowardice in the face of upholding its Truth and using all means at its disposal to fight against the onslaught and religious persecution and death from Islam and Western Secularism hand in hand together.
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The age of Democracy is ending. If everyone is keen on trying to institute a New World Order for Communist Systems and tyrants, I see no reason why faithful Catholics can’t fight for the return of a true Catholic Monarchy that establishes the true face of order in this world, puts an end to the farce of the illusion of democratic rule, doesn’t divide the people, doesn’t waste countless money on useless elections, and imposes on the monarch obedience to the Pope under the Social Reign of Christ. If any democratic politic methods should be left, then it will operate under subsidiarity & distributism.
No King? Well, why stop there? Why not, no parental authority either!
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The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) published its annual State of World Population report Nov. 18. In it, the UNFPA revealed an agenda: a removal of “barriers” like parents in order to readily provide contraception and abortions – to teenagers.
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Parents repeatedly surfaced as an annoyance – and obstacle – for the UNFPA as the report highlighted how “social pressures are a strong impediment to young men and women.”
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“Young people live within communities, and gate-keepers such as religious and traditional leaders, parents, teachers, and others regulate their access to information and services,” the report read.
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One chart even cited “opposition of parents” as an “obstacle” to “achieving progress” in “youth-empowerment” (i.e. “comprehensive and sexual reproductive health services for adolescents”).
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According to the UNFPA, “In many countries and many contexts, parents, families, and communities do not respect the emerging autonomy of young people, adolescents in particular.”
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https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/media-hide-teen-abortion-agenda-in-new-un-report
Ah, yes, the UN knows what’s best for children and adolescents and will impose its ideology on children whilst negating the authority and responsibility of their mothers and fathers. And from where does the UN get its self-declared authority over the moral education of young people? Diabolic.
SUPPORT THE STRUGGLE !!
Who has a greater struggle, than he who strives to overcome himself?
Thomas a Kempis
The UN has been a hot-bed of socialists, atheists, and Marxists since the beginning. Their basic hatred of ‘the west’ is also coming more and more to the surface.
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The UN is also prototype for one world government and one world religion. That’s why top ranked cardinals and popes can stand up at the podium and spew all the socialist, religion of ‘man’ propaganda with real conviction.
Lionel, it is nonsense you’re sprouting. You don’t understand BOD at all when you say it is an exception to EENS or that the 1949 letter is wrong. It is based on the Council of Trent and on the 1917 Code of Canon Law when they treat catechumens who die without baptism through no fault of their own as baptised. This is also why it’s rubbish to hear you say Archbishop Lefebvre is wrong in talking to the catechumen if he dies without baptism through no fault of his own, he will be saved. Or do you contradict even the Council of Trent catechism?!
I should also say, Lionel, it’s no wonder you support Vatican II religious liberty, since you don’t understand the crucial issue of the Social Kingship of Christ, neglected since Vatican II and the consequence of Vatican II!
God bless you, de Maria. You know it and I know it, but will ‘they’ ever ‘know’ it? The great apostasy promulgated by false ‘popes’ and false ‘churchmen’ has removed the ‘restrainer’ of whom St Paul spoke. The one who had restrained or held back the ambitions of antichrist.
Religious liberty as evinced by VII was simply another formal embrace of falsehood. Ecumenism has been described as offering ‘Love instead of hate, cooperation instead of confrontation, communion instead of division’. The Truth is this: it is adopting a love of falsehood and a hatred of Truth; a cooperation with lies and a confrontation with those who fight the lies; a communion with belial and a disunion with Christ. And what good does this do any soul?
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When Wojtlya (a false-pope par excellence) invited every Christ-hating, Church-denying and divisive ‘ism’ into the ‘world faith’ of New Ecumenical Roman Catholicism, he declared himself ‘anathema’. But they all, all the faith distorting belial embracing ‘Bishops’, should be declared anathema. By at least one True Apostolic son.
Off topic but re: Vennari video:
THE 2 V’s – WHAT A TEAM!
Reply
Quo Vadis Petre
Lionel, it is nonsense you’re sprouting. You don’t understand BOD at all when you say it is an exception to EENS
Lionel:
On the contrary I say it is not an exception.
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Quo Vadis Petre
or that the 1949 letter is wrong.
Lionel:
It infers that the baptism of desire is an exception to the traditional interpretation of extra ecclesiam nulla salus(EENS).
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Quo Vadis Petre:
It is based on the Council of Trent and on the 1917 Code of Canon Law when they treat catechumens who die without baptism through no fault of their own as baptised.
Lionel:
Neither of the two state that these cases are visible and known to us and so are exceptions to the dogma on salvation.
The Council of Trent only mentions implicit desire. It does not state that it is visible to us or an exception to the dogma. This has been wrongly implied by the Letter.
A catechumen can be saved with the baptism of desire ( for me followed by the baptism of water) but it would not be known to us in personal cases to be exception to all needing the baptism of water for salvation in 2014. An exception must exist in our reality. Defacto there are no known exceptions.
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Quo Vadis Petre:
This is also why it’s rubbish to hear you say Archbishop Lefebvre is wrong in talking to the catechumen if he dies without baptism through no fault of his own, he will be saved.
Lionel:
The Catechuman can be saved. This is acceptable.
However to imply that this case is an exception to the dogma is irrational.
A theoretical case cannot be a defacto exception in 2014.
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Quo Vadis Petre:
Or do you contradict even the Council of Trent catechism?!
Lionel:
The Council of Trent has only cited implicit desire and not said it is an exception.
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Reply
QuoVadisPetre :
I should also say, Lionel, it’s no wonder you support Vatican II religious liberty, since you don’t understand the crucial issue of the Social Kingship of Christ, neglected since Vatican II and the consequence of Vatican II!
Lionel:
Fr.Harrison has said that the text of Vatican Council II supports the traditional understanding of Religiuous Liberty.
I agree with him.
If what Fr. Harrison says about the philosophy of Vatican Council II with regards to its policy of compromise with the world for now until the “prudent” time arrives when the social reign of Christ can be restored, then we are in truly sorry shape because it shows the bishops were ignorant of the basics of Salvation History and Old Testament Covenant theology. Oikonomia (economy of salvation) as applied in the Old Testament was understood largely as a process of accommodation and condescension to the sinful weakness of the people. Lesser sin (divorce, usury, vengeance, adultery etc) was allowed to guard against big sin (murder, apostasy, idolatry). This is largely what Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic covenant (“2nd law”) were about. When the Messiah arrived a new covenant (and a new philosophy) were instituted. The most notable example of course is when Jesus rejected divorce by saying that Moses allowed it because of the hardness of the people’s hearts. Jesus “republished” the 10 Commandments so to speak but made them His own, giving them new life and significance. Accommodation and “condescension” to the weakness of the people continued in the early Church, but St. John Chrysostom taught that Christ wanted the Church to do away with not just divorce, but marriage (and conjugal relations!) itself with the understanding that virginity was a superior life because it provided greater scope for holiness — a holiness that would be necessary as a beacon of light if the Church were to continue His mission of spreading the Gospel and saving souls. When Christ said, “be perfect even as your heavenly Father is perfect,” he meant it! This nonsense about trying to pacify the world with the natural law and a watered down minimalist pastoral approach is a residue of the Old Testament / Old Covenant. St. Paul had a name for one who followed that approach: Judaizer.
Dear IH,
We were reading your post with interest and agreement, until we came to the line:
“…but St. John Chrysostom taught that Christ wanted the Church to do away with not just divorce, but marriage (and conjugal relations!) itself with the understanding that virginity was a superior life because it provided greater scope for holiness..”
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Was that perhaps an accidental erroneous overstatement, based on trying to emphasize the value of the state of celibacy offered to God?
We know St. John was known for statements like this:
“The love of husband and wife is the force that welds society together”
http://www.roca.org/OA/121/121b.htm
It’s so easy to take things out of context!! Let us not misunderstand about virginity vs the married state.
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Virginity is the higher state. But we are called to each state, and obviously not everyone is called to virginity nor are all called to the married state.
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Giving of the total self to God as a virgin means just that: giving all. However, this state is relatively rare – and must be so or the world would not continue to go round…”be fruitful and multiply” for example to build society for God.
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We are called to be holy as Our Father in heaven is holy, but we must do this where we are called to be.
DIGNITATIS HUMANAE DOES NOT CONTRADICT THE CHURCH’S TRADITIONAL DOCTRINE
http://eucharistandmission.blogspot.it/2013/01/dignitatis-humanae-does-not-contrdict.html
Barb:
John Chrysostom, the “father of condescension,” the most eloquent of the Fathers, took the concept of accommodation and condescension to a level unequaled among other Fathers. According to St. John, Marriage [conjugal relations] is a concession to human weakness, and thus should not be preferred to virginity; marriage is a condescension.
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According to Chrysostom, Christ (cf. Matt. 19:12) wanted mankind to leave marriage behind. The commandment in Genesis 1:28 – “be fruitful and multiply” – was required by the times since man’s nature raved and was unable to be checked. Had Adam remained obedient to God, there would have been no need for marriage. Marriage was an intrusion in history — it originally served to populate the world and suppress sexual desires. Now that the world is populated its only purpose is to suppress debauchery and licentiousness. Marriage was not superior to virginity. “Marriage did not make Abraham what he was.”
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This is all covered in “Footprints of God: Divine Accommodation in Jewish and
Christian Thought” by S. Benin. Happy reading!
Dear IH,
So if all those early Christians had done God’s Will back then, John Chrysostom would never have been born?
Dear Unworthy:
Never mind. I don’t think you understand the concept of divine accommodation. The important thing is that for God’s Kingdom, the Church, to prosper on earth, many many saints are required. Marriage is not a reliable vector for sainthood or for building up the Body of Christ. The number of married saints is small compared to the number of celibate or virgin saints. The married saints were saints in spite of their married state, not because of it. Though the “eunuchs” referred to in Matt. 19:12 have no physical children of their own, they have the power in God’s name to reap a harvest of literally millions of converts down through the centuries (cf. the Communion of Saints). Sexual innocence provides a much greater scope for holiness than does married life. The saintly example of holiness is where the numbers of future Christians will come from, not from medium to large Catholic new-church families whose children assimilate into the growing pagan and non-Christian populations having nothing passed on to them except lukewarm Catholicism. The missionary life of the Church requires making converts from other faiths or from no faith. If you look around you will see that marriage is not held in high regard anymore. Outside the Church, marriage can mean almost anything, and therefore it means nothing. “Be fruitful and multiply” was not God’s call to build a Godly society, it was a divine accommodation to the weakness of fallen nature. If you check the story of Noah in Genesis you will see that the fruitful multiplication resulted not in a Godly society but in a “seed” that was “narrowed” out of existence by the Godly Flood.
Dear I H,
Sorry, didn’t mean to frustrate you. We were just kidding . 🙂 🙂
You’re right, we know zip about this concept of Divine accommodation, but do have a lifetime of experience with Holy Matrimony, which your ideas seem to vastly underrate. It’s likely God created all the Sacraments to accommodate our fallen natures, but the Church teaches that He calls people to different vocations, and what comes from each of those depends on individual responses to His Graces, making the unseen results knowable only to Him- until we reach heaven, or He chooses to reveal them.
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Your statements appear to be trying to discount or lessen the importance and value of the Sacrament of marriage, and that makes us wish we could express to you, what an amazing journey it actually is, as limitless in its blessings and possibilities for sanctification, as God leads the way for it to become, and then depending only on the couple’s cooperation with Him and His Graces. Mystical experiences and sufferings like those of St. Therese, St. John of the Cross, and many others, are not at all exclusive to cloisters and monasteries.
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And it’s impossible for you to quantify the results for comparing them with other vocations. How many souls has your life helped save so far? How many have ours? Only God can determine that., and it goes far beyond those you can see on earth, when you factor in daily prayers and sacrifices for the countless souls in Purgatory, and for those yet to be born. God leads parents to extend their love beyond their own offspring, to the rest of His potentially saved children.
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And you can number and study statistics on lists of canonized Saints among parents and religious, without ever coming close to knowing how many of each of those categories are actually in heaven. Neither can you assert with any assurance, that there are more actually saintly people in convents or monasteries today, than in Catholic families. You’d have to be God to do that, with total knowledge and ability to judge souls..
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Marriage not being held in high regard any more is only how the worldly see it. There are many Catholic families holding it in extremely high regard, and God is, and will continue to make good use of them and the children they help regenerate, for their good and the good of the whole Church, to the degree to which they turn their wills over to Him..
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Like Holy Orders, Matrimony is a living sign, instituted by Christ, to give Grace which lived in union with Him, brings great blessings to the this fallen world, and will continue to do so, until God’s plan brings it to an end.
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You don’t seem to describe it, the way we know it to be. So we hope this helps in any way it can.
God Bless
I.H.
If what Fr. Harrison says about the philosophy of Vatican Council II with regards to its policy of compromise with the world for now until the “prudent” time arrives when the social reign of Christ can be restored, then we are in truly sorry shape because it shows the bishops were ignorant of the basics of Salvation History and Old Testament Covenant theology.
Lionel:
Last Sunday there was Mass here in Italian. It was a subdued feast of Christ the King . There was no mention of the need for the Social Reign of Christ over all political and social legislation. Nor was there an affirmation of the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus or Vatican Council II(AG 7) , which affirms the Reign of Christ the King over all the universe, in concrete terms.
The priests could not speak about this, if they knew about it, since it is prohibited by the Vatican. There are political forces that have been constantly threathening the Vatican.Now there is a pope who is not affirming the Social Reign of Christ the King over all political systems. Instead he has gone to the other extreme. This was seen in the recent Synod. He is instead adapting to the evil system.
I recently spoke to an Augustinian Recollect priest who is studying some aspect of St. Augustine at a pontifical university in Rome. He was not aware of the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus.
One cannot blame him. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger did not mention it in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.He himself did not seem to believe in it.
Pope Benedict XVI seemed to believe that there is salvation outside the Church.It was as if he knew someone who was saved in the present times without the baptism of water.This is the compulsory political teaching at the pontifical universities.
Catholic seminarians have to claim :
1.They can see the dead saved in Heaven who are visible on earth.
2.These deceased now saved in Heaven are exceptions to the traditional teaching on salvation and the Social Kingship of Christ the King.
This is acceptable politically by the Left even though it is irrational and not Catholic.
A few minutes back on the teleradiopadrepio 1 I saw Monsignor Lorenzo Leucci, one of the auxiliary bishops of Rome in the Holy Land with a group of pilgrims representing the Rome Vicariate.
Mons.Lorenzo like the other bishops here will not affirm the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus.I asked him last year if we knew of any one in the present times, saved in invincible ignorance or the baptism of desire. He would not answer. I asked him if being saved in invincible ignorance and the baptism of desire, (which is unknown to us in the present times), could be an explicit exception to the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus. He would not answer.
These questions were asked of him in writing.
So what kind of dialogue is he and the other Catholic religious promoting in the Holy Land and everywhere else.It is a dialogue based on not speaking the truth about Catholic teachings. This is accepted by the political forces who overlook the Vatican.
He is also promoting a n irrational version of Vatican Council II.It is a Vatican Council II in which those saved in invincible ignorance (LG 16), seeds of the Word (AG 11) etc refer to known persons in the present times.
He alleges also that these people now in Heaven are known and visible to us and so are exceptions to the traditional teaching on salvation, ecumenism,religous liberty( based on the dogma) and the teaching on the need of jesus Christ as known in the Catholic Church, being at the center of all political legislation.It means affirming, that in Rome all people with no exception, need the Eucharist, the Sacrament of Confession and the other Sacraments.
1.
http://www.teleradiopadrepio.it/interna.php?bread=Video&inc=video&t=Video
Dear Ignoramus,
What kind of confused unCatholic thinking is this of yours that says “Now that the world is populated its (marriage’s) only purpose is to suppress debauchery.” And who decided when this populated world needed no more population. You? Didn’t our Lord say in Genesis before the fall and not after the fall to be fruitful and multiply? And your “Marriage was an intrusion in history- it originally served to populate the world and suppress sexual desires” is truly disordered thinking. Did you ever think to ask yourself what was our Lord’s reason to desire the population of the world? Please don’t tell me His purpose for wanting us to be fruitful and multiply was to build castles and bridges and roads and grow food for a select number of people and now He is unhappy with us because we have gone over His limit. Sounds like someone who has an issue with large families, has a contraceptive mentality, and frustrated population control issues and not to mention an impoverished idea about our Lord’s ability to love many and to desire many with Him in Heaven. How sad of you to be so stingy minded.
If marriage were to be no longer, and thus procreation no longer, there would be no more human beings on Earth in a hundred years.