Sandri Magister reports that, in support of the ideas of Cardinal Kasper,
La Civiltà Cattolica -- the magazine with the papal imprimatur -- is now dusting off a concession granted by the Council of Trent for Catholics in the Greek islands under Venetian rule, some of whom remarried according to the Orthodox rite. Desperation.
17 comments:
>is now dusting off a concession granted by the Council of Trent for Catholics in the Greek islands under Venetian rule, some of whom remarried according to the Orthodox rite. Desperation.
This was done under the Council of Trent? Did the Fathers of Vatican II have a TARDIS they used to spread their novelties and ambiguity?
Sorry... I could not resist. I will be good.
Seriously it is not unknown that the Church has sometimes in the past done something that later doctrinal clarification would say is incorrect.
Some examples:
The Council of Florence said(outside of session six which was it's only infallible document) the handing over of Priestly Instruments during the rite of ordination was necessary for the validity of the Sacrament. If you consult your copies of OTT or Denzinger you will find the Church more definitively ruled later they where not necessary for the validity of the Sacrament of orders.
There was some question of the validity of forced baptism of adults thus in the beginning the Church ruled tentatively forcibly baptized persons thought the action merited punishment for the perpetrators never the less the victims could be forced to follow the Catholic faith since their baptism might be valid. Later church authorities taught persons above the age of reason had to give consent or the Baptism was invalid and the person was not a Christian.
Still could this be an exception that proves the rule?
I don't root either way. Since God via Providence has already decided this from all eternity & will prevent the Pope from taking this up it it is wrong.
It's that simple.
Quaeritur:
If the Pope were to declare that the divorced and civilly remarried might receive Holy Communion -- just for the sake of the argument, humor me -- what would be the right response of a faithful Catholic?
Chris,
The proper response for most of us would be to keep our eyes on the goal of getting our rear ends to heaven, but the proper response for a divorced and civilly remarried Catholic? Good heavens: I suppose it would be to form his conscience sufficiently by familiarizing himself with Catholic tradition so that, faced with the prospect, his head would explode. That, I believe, would be his PROPER response.
>If the Pope were to declare that the divorced and civilly remarried might receive Holy Communion -- just for the sake of the argument, humor me -- what would be the right response of a faithful Catholic?
What if Pope Vigilius after being elected the legitimate Pope (after an Eastern Empire general threatened to kill the Cardinals if they didn't elect him) really did declare the monophysite heresy the legitimate Christological doctrine?
(Instead he refused Empress Theodora's request to do so saying "Far be it me August Lady to teach as true what is in fact false." )
One Pope who was a Banezian Thomist was going to issue a decree condemning Molinism as pelagic heresy. He got sick and died before making the decree and his successor deep sixed it.
That is how absurd this sounds. "What if the Pope does that which Christ Promised he could not do and as evidenced in history alway prevented?".
OTOH I can't rule out a development in doctrine.
That would be a problem because to this day there are Feeneyites who reject the clear teaching of Pius IX and Vatican II on the salvation of those who are not formally visibly Catholic.
Whatever happens I obey. What else can you do?
To whom shall you go to get Eternal Life if not Christ's true Church?
BenY:
Re: "the salvation of those who are not formally visibly Catholic," the development of doctrine as articulated ins one thing, as widely taught, another. Witness the transformation from the idea some *can* be saved, to the idea that of course most *will* be saved. Entirely different essential meaning converted. Avery Dulles framed this well in his First Things piece in Hell.Somehow it disturbed him not. I guess if you breath the air in the engine room for so long, nothing smells very off.
JM,
I'm sure you meant to say that Avery Dulles framed this well in his First Things piece "on" Hell.
Your alternative probably has Hans Urs von Balthasar's body spinning in his grave.
One might be tempted to say more here, but restrained by prudence.
Kind regards, -- PP
@JM
> "the salvation of those who are not formally visibly Catholic," the development of doctrine as articulated ins one thing, as widely taught, another. Witness the transformation from the idea some *can* be saved, to the idea that of course most *will* be saved.
I believe it's not settled doctrine how many people will be saved(Majority vs Minority).
True a majority of the Church Fathers seem to believe only a minority of people will be saved thus the majority of the human race will not be saved.
But many Catholic writers (a minority) have put forth the hypothesis that the number of saved could be the majority and provided plausible alternate interpretations to various scriptures cited to claim only a minority of people will go too Heaven.
They have put forth these hypothesis with formal Church approval as valid opinions.
I remember reading it in Ott.
For myself I hold to a third opinion. We are not meant to know. If we knew for certain a majority of people will not be saved this might tempt us to the sin of despair. OTOH if we knew a majority of people will be saved this could tempt us to presumption and indifference.
So we don't know & most likely we shouldn't.
>Entirely different essential meaning converted. Avery Dulles framed this well in his First Things piece in Hell.Somehow it disturbed him not. I guess if you breath the air in the engine room for so long, nothing smells very off.
I just googled it and gave it a run threw.
Good stuff from Dulles.
>the Church Fathers seem to believe only a minority of people will be saved.
Ummm ... What about the Jesus' teaching?
@Charles
>Ummm ... What about the Jesus' teaching?
Whose interpretation of Jesus' teaching?
We are Catholics we don't believe in a Perspicacious Scripture like the Protestant heretics do. Nor are we hyper-literalists as they are reduced to(selectively) having no Church or Tradition to interpret Holy Writ & the words of Our Lord.
Jesus seemed to say as interpreted by some that a majority of people would be lost. OTOH he might have just been foretelling how a majority of the Jews at the time would not accept him not all people for all time.
If your are curious google Cardinal Dulles article.
In fact let me do you a solid & return the favor you did for me.
http://www.firstthings.com/article/2003/05/the-population-of-hell
Enjoy & Cheers.
The Dulles article isn't bad. In fact it's pretty good. This despite the fact that Dulles was always a mixed bag, "conservative" in some ways, "liberal" in others.
What I can't stomach are the Fr. Robert Barron types of creeping implicit universalism reminiscent of von Balthasar's nefarious influence, which is always more prepared to toss out the warnings of Jesus than the sweet nothings of von Balthasar. By contrast, Ralph Martin has written a decent rebuttal of such nonsense in his recent book, Will Many Be Saved? What Vatican II Actually Teaches and Its Implications for the New Evangelization.
>What I can't stomach are the Fr. Robert Barron types of creeping implicit universalism reminiscent of von Balthasar's nefarious influence, which is always more prepared to toss out the warnings of Jesus than the sweet nothings of von Balthasar.
I think the criticisms are overblown.
Even strict followers of Banez like Lagrange admit God gives all people sufficient grace, therefore somehow salvation is a real possibility for them because sufficient grace is truly sufficient even if it turns out not to be efficacious.
It doesn't take much to reason from that therefore it is a real possibility all people could be potentially saved.
Hypothetical potential Universalism merely points out the extent and unlimited Power of God to save nothing more.
Of course God is not obligated to make sure all persons wind up saved. The saved satisfy God's Divine Mercy as the damned satisfy the Divine Justice. Both serve the Ultimate Good & Predestination is a great mystery.
We can hope for the salvation of as many people as possible. Why not?
It's a thought experiment. Like in THE FOUR LAST THINGS by COCHEM where the author hypothesizes
what might happen if God remitted the punishment of the loss of the Beatific Vision for the damned and what it would be like to suffer every other torment in Hell but still have the Beatific Vision.
>By contrast, Ralph Martin has written a decent rebuttal of such nonsense in his recent book, Will Many Be Saved? What Vatican II Actually Teaches and Its Implications for the New Evangelization.
His view is valid too. God gives sufficient grace to all men that is in fact truly sufficient in some way but God is not obligated to give all men efficacious grace.
Still like I said I don't believe we are meant to know if the majority will be saved or if the majority will be damned.
@Charles
Fr. Barron's analysis of Martin
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/column.php?n=2383
Still I choose neither of them. We are not meant to know one way or the other in this life.
Barron's "analysis" of Martin? That's a joke, right?
>... God gives all people sufficient grace, therefore somehow salvation is a real possibility for them ...
What do you think this means? Does it mean anything more than that God's grace and offer of salvation is open to all?
But so what? We have free will, don't we? What do you expect of this frail human reed?
Our Lord said, in Mt 7:13-14: "Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it."
Is that so subtle that you need Fr. Barron or von Balthasar or Pope Francis to interpret for you its finer nuances?
A better edited version. I hope.
>Barron's "analysis" of Martin? That's a joke, right?
This is a mere dismissal rather then read or analyze Fr Barron fairly by looking at his own words. Tedious & lazy! You can do better Charles.
>What do you think this means? Does it mean anything more than that God's grace and offer of salvation is open to all?
No for grace to be truly sufficient then salvation must be a real possibility. You cannot make a move toward salvation without grace. It is not just a mere offer. We have to believe that it was a real possibility that Judas might have done other then what he did & could have become St Judas. It didn’t happen that way but for the Grace God gave Judas, to be truly sufficient, that must be the case otherwise we have Calvinism where God offers salvation to those who cannot except it at all. We hate Calvinism
>But so what? We have free will, don't we? What do you expect of this frail human reed?
I don’t expect anything without sufficient grace. Not a thing.
>Our Lord said, in Mt 7:13-14: "Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it."
>Is that so subtle that you need Fr. Barron or von Balthasar or Pope Francis to interpret for you its finer nuances?
Of course I do (in regards to the Pope) since as a Catholic I reject private interpretation(that is making authoritative binding interpretations of Holy Writ apart from the authority of the Church and Tradition). I reject perspicuity as Luther’s delusion. This passage could mean more people will be damned then saved. Just as “If thy right hand offend thee cut it off” can be a command that advocates self-mutilation. Or maybe it just means it’s easier to be damned then saved because there are many ways to loose salvation and only one way to find it & has nothing to do with the number of elect per say? It may be speaking of all time but it could also be speaking only of Our Lord’s time. After all the next few passages warn of false prophets and false believers which became an immediate problem in the 1st century church. Like I said the majority of Jews at the Time rejected Jesus only a minority excepted him.
So barring ruling from Pope Francis I could except Martins view or Pope Benedict’s from SPE SALVI.
>No for grace to be truly sufficient then salvation must be a real possibility. You cannot make a move toward salvation without grace. It is not just a mere offer.
We're talking past each other here, because you have no disagreement with me here. Note that I said that God's grace is made available, not only an offer of salvation.
You say, as though I might disagree, that "salvation must be a real possibility." Well of course! How could any of us be saved were it not so?
Of course, by the same token, damnation must be a real possibility as well.
Not much to disagree with in the rest of what you say, happily. I'm not sure that the magisterium works quite in the way you suggest in your closing paragraph, however. I respect the point you're making, which, when carried to its logical conclusion, is well expressed by St. Ignatius of Loyola, who reportedly once declared that if the pope said black were white, he would submit to the pope's judgment.
However, I don't think the Catholic faith consists entirely or even primarily of dogmatically defined doctrines but rather in a traditional body of beliefs passed down from the apostles, a large part of which are undefined and left to the generally unquestioned meaning on the face of the tradition or text.
Many matters are what some theological traditions refer to as adiaphora, matters not thought to be essential to faith and morals, such as that Ehud killed King Eglon. Hence, no formal magisterial teaching exists on the matter, and people freely understand it as it is apparently intended to be understood on the face of Holy Writ.
There are similarly a lot of details concerning the Four Last Things that have been left undefined, and the faithful are given some latitude in how they understand these matters as yet.
Here I'm guessing a bit, but I don't think that even the general skepticism or agnosticism about whether hell is empty or not has been given any sort of official interpretation by the Church, and this is probably wise, given that there is much in Scripture that would seeem prima facie to countradict such agnosticism.
Well said Charles.
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