The Difference Between Legitimate Disagreement and Illegitimate Dissent

It is clear in Catholic doctrine that Church teaching is authoritative, as it comes from Christ, and is reliable to lead to truth, as it is guided by the Holy Spirit, and that therefore Catholics are required to assent to it.  The Church can teach in both a definitive manner and a non-definitive manner.  When the Church teaches definitively, Catholics are obliged to accept the teaching definitively and absolutely.  When the Church teaches with less than full definitiveness, Catholics are obliged to accept the teaching to the degree and in the form required by the intention of the teacher.  The Church has spelled out this schema in many places, such as in the CDF (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) document Donum Veritatis (1990):

When the Magisterium of the Church makes an infallible pronouncement and solemnly declares that a teaching is found in Revelation, the assent called for is that of theological faith. This kind of adherence is to be given even to the teaching of the ordinary and universal Magisterium when it proposes for belief a teaching of faith as divinely revealed.

When the Magisterium proposes "in a definitive way" truths concerning faith and morals, which, even if not divinely revealed, are nevertheless strictly and intimately connected with Revelation, these must be firmly accepted and held.

When the Magisterium, not intending to act "definitively", teaches a doctrine to aid a better understanding of Revelation and make explicit its contents, or to recall how some teaching is in conformity with the truths of faith, or finally to guard against ideas that are incompatible with these truths, the response called for is that of the religious submission of will and intellect. This kind of response cannot be simply exterior or disciplinary but must be understood within the logic of faith and under the impulse of obedience to the faith.  (#23, footnotes removed)

The CDF, in its Doctrinal Commentary on the Concluding Formula of the Professio fidei (1998), articulated that "teachings set forth by the authentic ordinary Magisterium in a non-definitive way . . . require degrees of adherence differentiated according to the mind and the will manifested; this is shown especially by the nature of the documents, by the frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or by the tenor of the verbal expression" (#11).  This language was echoing the Vatican II document Lumen Gentium, #25, which said this:

Bishops, teaching in communion with the Roman Pontiff, are to be respected by all as witnesses to divine and Catholic truth. In matters of faith and morals, the bishops speak in the name of Christ and the faithful are to accept their teaching and adhere to it with a religious assent. This religious submission of mind and will must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra; that is, it must be shown in such a way that his supreme magisterium is acknowledged with reverence, the judgments made by him are sincerely adhered to, according to his manifest mind and will. His mind and will in the matter may be known either from the character of the documents, from his frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or from his manner of speaking.

In modern times, those who have wished to dissent from some of the authoritative teachings of the Church in defiance of the Church's authority have sometimes attempted to justify their defiance by redefining "submission of mind and will" into something like "respectful consideration."  In their view, one must consider seriously the Church's non-definitive teaching, but one must not trust it implicitly.  One must use one's own private judgment to evaluate that teaching, and then one is justified in rejecting that teaching if it fails that private investigation.  Thus, whereas, with definitive teaching, the rule of belief is the Church's teaching, the rule of belief with regard to non-definitive teaching is not the authority of the Church but the agreement of the Church's teaching with one's private, independent judgment and confirmation.

A classic example of this kind of dissent is seen in the attitude of the Society of St. Pius X, which was founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1970 to continue what Lefrebre regarded as "authentic" Catholic faith and practice in opposition to what he considered to be the errors and deviations of the modern Church after Vatican II.  Lefebvre and his followers wanted to reject portions of Vatican II on the grounds that the Council did not intend to affirm anything in the form of a solemn, definitive declaration, but only under the authority of the "ordinary" magisterium, which they held to be subject to their private judgment.  But that loophole had already been cut off by the Council itself, as well as by Pope St. Paul VI, such as in his General Hearing of January 12, 1966:

There are those who ask what authority, what theological qualification the Council intended to give to its teachings, knowing that it avoided issuing solemn dogmatic definitions engaging the infallibility of the ecclesiastical Magisterium. The answer is known by whoever remembers the conciliar declaration of March 6, 1964, repeated on November 16, 1964: given the Council’s pastoral character, it avoided pronouncing, in an extraordinary manner, dogmas endowed with the note of infallibility.  But it has invested its teachings with the authority of the supreme ordinary magisterium, which ordinary magisterium is so obviously authentic that it must be accepted with docility and sincerity by all the faithful, according to the mind of the Council as expressed in the nature and aims of the individual documents.  (Pope St. Paul VI, General Hearing, Wednesday, January 12, 1966, following the translation found here by Dr. Jeff Mirus)

Pope St. Paul VI, in a letter to Archbishop Lefebvre in 1976, reminded him of this fact:

Again, you cannot appeal to the distinction between what is dogmatic and what is pastoral to accept certain texts of this Council and to refuse others.  Indeed, not everything in the Council requires an assent of the same nature: only what is affirmed by definitive acts as an object of faith or as a truth related to faith requires an assent of faith.  But the rest also forms part of the solemn magisterium of the Church to which each member of the faithful owes a confident acceptance and a sincere application.  ("Pope Paul VI's Letter to Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre", found on the Word on Fire website)

Now, it is true that non-definitive magisterial teachings can contain in them elements of varying degrees of authority.  The less formal, more "casual" (for lack of a better word) nature of the format of these teachings allows for such a mix.  Sometimes there are elements of non-definitive teachings that are provisional in nature, tied to the circumstances of the times and therefore subject to change as circumstances change, and sometimes there are incidental observations that the mind and the will of the magisterial teacher does not intend to put forward as authoritative teachings binding the minds of the faithful.  The Church tells us to use common sense, combined with good reading and listening skills--as well as asking for clarification if necessary--when we listen to non-definitive teachings and decide what response they call forth from us.  Sometimes magisterial decisions, particularly practical or prudential decisions, involve elements that can even invite respectful criticism from the faithful.  When the "mind and the will manifested" of the magisterial teacher allows such respectful criticism, it is legitimate and not a form of dissent from or defiance of the authority of the Church.  The CDF made this point explicitly in Donum Veritatis: 

The willingness to submit loyally to the teaching of the Magisterium on matters per se not irreformable must be the rule. It can happen, however, that a theologian may, according to the case, raise questions regarding the timeliness, the form, or even the contents of magisterial interventions. Here the theologian will need, first of all, to assess accurately the authoritativeness of the interventions which becomes clear from the nature of the documents, the insistence with which a teaching is repeated, and the very way in which it is expressed.  (#24, footnote removed)

One must therefore take into account the proper character of every exercise of the Magisterium, considering the extent to which its authority is engaged. It is also to be borne in mind that all acts of the Magisterium derive from the same source, that is, from Christ who desires that His People walk in the entire truth.  (#17)

But there is a fine line between legitimate criticism, within the bounds the Church has allowed, and dissent from Church teaching that involves defiance of the Church's authority.  Sometimes that line can be hard to see, and certain forms of expression can have the effect of obscuring that line.  For example, in 1968, the Catholic bishops of the United States issued a pastoral letter entitled "Human Life in Our Day".  Part of the impetus for this document was to defend Pope St. Paul VI's encyclical Humanae Vitae, which was very unpopular in "progressive" circles and was drawing a great deal of dissent.  But in the course of this pastoral letter, the US bishops tried to lay out some boundaries for legitimate dissent and criticism.  They said that professional theologians could, in limited circumstances, dissent from certain non-infallible magisterial teachings, provided they do so with great care and caution, respect for the consciences of others, in an appropriate manner, etc.

When there is question of theological dissent from non-infallible doctrine, we must recall that there is always a presumption in favor of the magisterium. Even non-infallible authentic doctrine, though it may admit of development or call for clarification or revision, remains binding and carries with it a moral certitude, especially when it is addressed to the universal Church, without ambiguity in response to urgent questions bound up with faith and crucial to morals. The expression of theological dissent from the magisterium is in order only if the reasons are serious and wellfounded, if the manner of the dissent does not question or impugn the teaching authority of the Church and is such as not to give scandal.  (Found here on the EWTN website, taken from L'Osservatore Romano, Weekly Edition in English, 12 December 1968, page 6 and 19 December 1968, page 5)

It has been observed that this last sentence is very ambiguous and could lend itself to being made use of by dissenters who wish to dissent from teaching the Church intends to bind them to, dissenters like Archbishop Lefebvre and his SSPX movement.  (Although, in the case of Humanae Vitae, the dissent was rather from the more liberal, "progressive" side of the Church.)  Catholic apologist Jimmy Akin discusses this in his book Teaching With Authority (El Cajon, CA: Catholic Answers Press, 2018).  He provides an interesting commentary from Cardinal Avery Dulles on the apparent subjectivity of the US bishops' criteria for legitimate dissent:

Cardinal Avery Dulles remarked that these conditions "proved difficult to apply.  Who was to say whether the reasons were well-founded?  How could one establish that the authority of the Magisterium was not being impugned when its teaching was being denied?  How could scandal be avoided when theologians were openly saying that the pope's teaching was wrong?"  [The Dulles quote is from The Craft of Theology: From Symbol to System, 2nd ed. (New York: Crossroad, 1996), 113.]

"Human Life in Our Day" was issued in 1968.  Since that time, the Church has issued several documents clarifying further the assent required of non-definitive teachings, including the CDF document we've quoted from a few times now, Donum Veritatis, and also the CDF commentary on the Professio Fidei, also quoted from earlier.  Donum Veritatis in particular focuses a good deal of attention on the illicitness of "dissent", while at the same time distinguishing it from legitimate dialogue and even criticisms that can sometimes be made with regard to magisterial pronouncements.  The US bishops, in 1992, issued another document entitled The Teaching Ministry of the Diocesan Bishops: A Pastoral Reflection (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1992).  In this document, the bishops are much more careful to make clear that dissent to Church teaching is not acceptable and that the Catholic faithful are required to assent to the non-definitive teaching of the Church with "submission of will and intellect."  They distinguish various forms of refusal of assent to non-definitive teachings--non-acceptance, private dissent, and public dissent--and they make it clear that all three are unacceptable.

    Perhaps, a more common experience of nonacceptance in the Church today is the withholding of assent to what is identified as nondefinitive teaching. . . .  While these manifestations of nonacceptance may fall short of outright rejection, nevertheless they remain nonacceptance, the withholding of the religiosum voluntatis et intellectus obsequium [religious submission of mind and will] due to the ordinary magisterium of the Church. . . .

    Quite distinct from the withholding of assent is the private, individual judgment that conclusively rejects the ordinary, nondefinitive teaching of the Church.  Such a judgment constitutes private dissent and is not consistent with that religiosum voluntatis et intellectus obsequium due to church teaching.  Even though dissent of this kind remains private, nevertheless it is unacceptable. . . .

    Sometimes the nonacceptance of nondefinitive teaching passes beyond the nature of a "difficulty" and becomes a judgment that an authoritative teaching is false.  This, of course, is quite different from a critical judgment about the adequacy of expression or the conceptual limitations of a particular teaching. . . .

    Bishops cannot be indifferent to the public denial or the contradiction of church teaching, especially by those whose position confers public influence.  Public dissent, especially in the form of advocacy for alternative positions, seriously impairs the Church as a communion of faith and witness.  (Teaching Ministry, pp. 17-19, footnotes removed)

The document recognizes that the "ordinary, nondefinitive teaching of individual popes and bishops may contain assertions that fall short of the full truth of the gospel and may be in need of development and amplification.  Interventions in the prudential order may even be in need of correction" (p. 15).  "At times . . . professional theologians or other competent persons may conclude that the search has not been completed or that what has been asserted is still imperfect, and their acceptance will be qualified accordingly" (p. 15).  Scholars may discuss difficulties in professional journals, etc.  However, "[t]these considerations presume that theologians and scholars are willing to take the necessary steps to overcome their difficulties and abide by an authoritative intervention on the part of the magisterium should it consider one necessary" (p. 18).

    Finally, the disposition toward the teaching authority of the bishop on the part of those who are dissenting must be taken into consideration.  If an individual or group dissents, but retains the disposition to abide by a final judgment of the magisterium on an issue, the possibility of obsequium religiosum remains.  On the other hand, if dissent is expressed in absolute terms and there are no signs of docility toward the Church, that possibility may well be foreclosed.  In that case, the bishop may initiate the process leading to the possible imposition of a canonical penalty (cf. c. 1371.1).  (p. 19).

(I should mention that this document, as well as Donum Veritatis and many of the other documents I've mentioned, are rich with pastoral suggestions regarding how to deal with people who struggle with certain Church teachings, sometimes in good conscience.  I cannot do justice to this aspect of the documents, or other important nuances, as well as the significant amount of good practical wisdom these documents contain, in such a short article as this.)

In conclusion, as we said earlier, we can indeed, at times, criticize and even disagree with some of the things the bishops and the Pope say.  But the real question is, Who determines the degree and form of assent required in any particular case?  The erroneous dissenters make themselves and their own judgment the determining factor in deciding what they are required to assent to and to what degree they are required to assent.  But the Church teaches that it is the bishops and the Pope who make that determination.  This is the fundamental point and the fundamental difference between legitimate diversity and criticism and illegitimate dissent and defiance.  We don't get to subject the teachings of the bishops and the Pope to our own judgment and decide, even against their intentions and requirements, what we will agree with and what we will disagree with.  We must assent to their teaching according to their manifest mind and will.  We must accept even non-definitive magisterial teaching as inherently reliable, so that we will not subject it to our judgment and disagree with it if the "validity of the given teaching is not evident or upon the opinion that the opposite position would be the more probable" (Donum Veritatis, #28)  So while there can sometimes legitimately be disagreement with some things the Pope or bishops say, there can never be dissent from magisterial teaching, in the sense of refusal to accept magisterial teaching to the extent that it is intended as authoritative and binding.  Whenever and to the extent that the bishops and/or the Pope make use of their magisterial authority with the intention to give to the Church an authentic, official teaching, leading the people of God into truth or showing them how to stay faithful to the truth, that teaching must be assented to.

For more, see here, here, and here.

Why the Traditionalists Are Wrong

I then urge my fellow Catholics to re-learn these lessons that they have taught me so many years ago. It is not sufficient to rally against the protestants’ errors, if you do not remain vigilant to not fall in the same traps, even if the bait is different.

Trying to uphold Tradition while fostering dissent from the pope is just as untenable a position as trying to defend Scripture while fostering defiance to the scriptural authority of the petrine and apostolic faith. It is a paradoxical endeavor. No good will come out of it. Because one of the more traditional tenets of our Catholic faith is precisely the obedience due to our pope.

~ Pedro Gabriel, "Sola Traditio", Where Peter Is, 2/8/18

The Traditionalists are wrong for one, simple reason:  Although they peg themselves as the defenders of the historic Catholic faith, their distinctive position in fact contradicts and opposes the Catholic faith.

Let me be more specific, however.  When I speak of "Traditionalists" in this context, I am thinking of those self-proclaimed advocates of historic Catholic Tradition who dissent from the teaching of the Church and disobey her authority in certain areas.  I do not have in mind those of the faithful who simply prefer more "traditional" modes of worship, pious practices, etc., such as the Latin Mass or communion on the tongue, but who are also faithful and obedient to the authority of Church and do not oppose any of her teaching or disobey her rules.  There is nothing wrong with this obedient form of "traditionalism".

According to the Catholic faith--the faith of the Catholic Church--the preservation and guardianship of the divine revelations rests on the three-legged stool of Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium.  Scripture is the Word of God written.  Tradition is the Word of God passed down by the Church in other ways--preaching, teaching, living, and worshipping.  The Magisterium consists of the college of bishops together with the head of that college, the Bishop of Rome, who is the Successor of St. Peter.  Scripture and Tradition are the sources of the divine revelation, while the Magisterium is the God-guided guardian and interpreter of that revelation.  Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium are all necessary to properly preserve, interpret, and apply the divine revelation.  As the analogy of the three-legged stool suggests, all three are essential.  By God's guidance and grace, all three are in harmony and work together to convey the revelation of God.  They cannot be pitted against each other.  To pit one against the others is to destroy the very foundation of the Catholic epistemology.

Sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture form one sacred deposit of the word of God, committed to the Church. Holding fast to this deposit the entire holy people united with their shepherds remain always steadfast in the teaching of the Apostles, in the common life, in the breaking of the bread and in prayers (see Acts 2, 42, Greek text), so that holding to, practicing and professing the heritage of the faith, it becomes on the part of the bishops and faithful a single common effort.

But the task of authentically interpreting the word of God, whether written or handed on, has been entrusted exclusively to the living teaching office of the Church, whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ. This teaching office is not above the word of God, but serves it, teaching only what has been handed on, listening to it devoutly, guarding it scrupulously and explaining it faithfully in accord with a divine commission and with the help of the Holy Spirit, it draws from this one deposit of faith everything which it presents for belief as divinely revealed.

It is clear, therefore, that sacred tradition, Sacred Scripture and the teaching authority of the Church, in accord with God's most wise design, are so linked and joined together that one cannot stand without the others, and that all together and each in its own way under the action of the one Holy Spirit contribute effectively to the salvation of souls.  (Dei Verbum, 10, footnotes removed)

As I mentioned above, the Magisterium consists of the entire college of bishops united to the Pope.  Magisterial authority resides in the Pope as the Successor of St. Peter, in the entire college of bishops united with and in agreement with the Pope, and in the individual bishops so long as their teaching is in agreement with the rest of the college of bishops and with the Pope.

But the college or body of bishops has no authority unless it is understood together with the Roman Pontiff, the successor of Peter as its head. The pope's power of primacy over all, both pastors and faithful, remains whole and intact. In virtue of his office, that is as Vicar of Christ and pastor of the whole Church, the Roman Pontiff has full, supreme and universal power over the Church. And he is always free to exercise this power. The order of bishops, which succeeds to the college of apostles and gives this apostolic body continued existence, is also the subject of supreme and full power over the universal Church, provided we understand this body together with its head the Roman Pontiff and never without this head. This power can be exercised only with the consent of the Roman Pontiff. For our Lord placed Simon alone as the rock and the bearer of the keys of the Church, and made him shepherd of the whole flock; it is evident, however, that the power of binding and loosing, which was given to Peter, was granted also to the college of apostles, joined with their head. This college, insofar as it is composed of many, expresses the variety and universality of the People of God, but insofar as it is assembled under one head, it expresses the unity of the flock of Christ. In it, the bishops, faithfully recognizing the primacy and pre-eminence of their head, exercise their own authority for the good of their own faithful, and indeed of the whole Church, the Holy Spirit supporting its organic structure and harmony with moderation. The supreme power in the universal Church, which this college enjoys, is exercised in a solemn way in an ecumenical council. A council is never ecumenical unless it is confirmed or at least accepted as such by the successor of Peter; and it is prerogative of the Roman Pontiff to convoke these councils, to preside over them and to confirm them. This same collegiate power can be exercised together with the pope by the bishops living in all parts of the world, provided that the head of the college calls them to collegiate action, or at least approves of or freely accepts the united action of the scattered bishops, so that it is thereby made a collegiate act. . . .

Bishops, as vicars and ambassadors of Christ, govern the particular churches entrusted to them by their counsel, exhortations, example, and even by their authority and sacred power, which indeed they use only for the edification of their flock in truth and holiness, remembering that he who is greater should become as the lesser and he who is the chief become as the servant. This power, which they personally exercise in Christ's name, is proper, ordinary and immediate, although its exercise is ultimately regulated by the supreme authority of the Church, and can be circumscribed by certain limits, for the advantage of the Church or of the faithful. In virtue of this power, bishops have the sacred right and the duty before the Lord to make laws for their subjects, to pass judgment on them and to moderate everything pertaining to the ordering of worship and the apostolate.  (Lumen Gentium, 22, 27, footnotes removed)

Just as Scripture and Tradition are divinely protected so that they convey the revelation of God faithfully and accurately, so the Magisterium is given by God divine protection so that it faithfully proclaims the truth of God without error.  Therefore, all magisterial teaching is authoritative and requires assent from the Catholic faithful.  And the faithful are also required to submit to the rules and decrees of the Magisterium.

Bishops, with priests as co-workers, have as their first task "to preach the Gospel of God to all men," in keeping with the Lord's command. They are "heralds of faith, who draw new disciples to Christ; they are authentic teachers" of the apostolic faith "endowed with the authority of Christ."

In order to preserve the Church in the purity of the faith handed on by the apostles, Christ who is the Truth willed to confer on her a share in his own infallibility. By a "supernatural sense of faith" the People of God, under the guidance of the Church's living Magisterium, "unfailingly adheres to this faith."

The mission of the Magisterium is linked to the definitive nature of the covenant established by God with his people in Christ. It is this Magisterium's task to preserve God's people from deviations and defections and to guarantee them the objective possibility of professing the true faith without error. Thus, the pastoral duty of the Magisterium is aimed at seeing to it that the People of God abides in the truth that liberates.  (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 888-890, footnotes and number-headings removed)

Among the principal duties of bishops the preaching of the Gospel occupies an eminent place. For bishops are preachers of the faith, who lead new disciples to Christ, and they are authentic teachers, that is, teachers endowed with the authority of Christ, who preach to the people committed to them the faith they must believe and put into practice, and by the light of the Holy Spirit illustrate that faith. They bring forth from the treasury of Revelation new things and old, making it bear fruit and vigilantly warding off any errors that threaten their flock. Bishops, teaching in communion with the Roman Pontiff, are to be respected by all as witnesses to divine and Catholic truth. In matters of faith and morals, the bishops speak in the name of Christ and the faithful are to accept their teaching and adhere to it with a religious assent. This religious submission of mind and will must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra; that is, it must be shown in such a way that his supreme magisterium is acknowledged with reverence, the judgments made by him are sincerely adhered to, according to his manifest mind and will. His mind and will in the matter may be known either from the character of the documents, from his frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or from his manner of speaking.  (Lumen Gentium, 25, footnotes removed)

All the Christian faithful are obliged to observe the constitutions and decrees which the legitimate authority of the Church issues in order to propose doctrine and to proscribe erroneous opinions, particularly those which the Roman Pontiff or the college of bishops puts forth.  (Code of Canon Law, 754)

(For more on the unfailing reliability of all magisterial teaching, see here.)

I sometimes refer to the dissenting Traditionalists as "semi-Protestants", because they, like Protestants, oppose the teaching authority of the Church in favor of their own private (non-magisterial) interpretations of certain aspects of Scripture or Tradition.  The difference between Protestants and Traditionalists is that Protestants take Scripture and oppose it to Tradition and the Magisterium, while the Traditionalists tend to take both Scripture and Tradition and oppose them to the Magisterium.  So they are not Protestants, but they are akin to Protestants, in that, like Protestants, they break up the three-legged stool of Catholic epistemology by pitting some of the legs against others.  (I highly recommend Pedro Gabriel's article, "Sola Traditio", quoted in the quotation at the top of this article, for its masterful way of making this point.  And here is another one I wrote up.)  Since the Catholic faith puts forward the three-legged stool as its foundational epistemology, the Traditionalists, like the Protestants, are opposed to the Catholic faith in this area, and are therefore wrong.

One of the most important and influential founders of modern Traditionalism was Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.  In 1976, Pope St. Paul VI sent a letter to Lefebvre, exhorting him to give up his disobedience to magisterial authority and return to submission to the Church.  He urged him to cease to treat himself as the ultimate interpreter and guardian of the Church's Tradition and to return to trust in the Magisterium which Christ himself appointed for that purpose.  I would urge all Traditionalists, all those influenced by Traditionalism, all those tempted or swayed by it, and all those interested in it, to take the time to read through this letter.  It embodies in a powerful way the Church's response--the response of the Successor of St. Peter, the ultimate guardian of the true faith appointed by Christ--to the whole Traditionalist enterprise.  His words are not just applicable to Archbishop Lefebvre or to the specific movement he directly founded, but they apply to all forms of Traditionalism.  They constitute a powerful, heartfelt, and authoritative exhortation to all the Catholic faithful to give our full assent and trust to Christ himself to define the faith of his Church, and therefore to the ministers he has appointed as the authentic guardians and interpreters of that faith.  You can find the letter here.

P.S. One of the common tactics of Traditionalists is to attempt to pit past statements of the Magisterium against current statements of the Magisterium in order to claim obedience to the Magisterium while disobeying what it actually teaches today (like a child who disobeys mother's commands today in favor of mother's commands yesterday, thereby claiming to be an obedient child in the very midst of disobedience).  This tactic is addressed in the letter from Pope St. Paul VI that I linked to just above:

. . . a single bishop without a canonical mission does not have in actu expedito ad agendum, the faculty of deciding in general what the rule of faith is or of determining what tradition is.  In practice you are claiming that you alone are the judge of what tradition embraces. . . . You say that you are subject to the Church and faithful to tradition by the sole fact that you obey certain norms of the past that were decreed by the predecessor of him to whom God has today conferred the powers given to Peter. That is to say, on this point also, the concept of “tradition” that you invoke is distorted. . . . It is up to the pope and to councils to exercise judgment in order to discern in the traditions of the Church that which cannot be renounced without infidelity to the Lord and to the Holy Spirit—the deposit of faith—and that which, on the contrary, can and must be adapted to facilitate the prayer and the mission of the Church throughout a variety of times and places, in order better to translate the divine message into the language of today and better to communicate it, without an unwarranted surrender of principles. . . . Hence tradition is inseparable from the living magisterium of the Church, just as it is inseparable from sacred scripture.

As Pope St. Paul VI says, there are certain unchangeable elements in the Church's teaching and practice, but there are other elements that are subject to legitimate differing prudential applications by the Church at different times and in different places.  This is something Traditionalists often confuse and distort.  Another thing they often do to support their positions (intentionally or unintentionally) is to take snippets of older Magisterial teaching out of context in order to make it look like it opposes later teaching.  Sometimes this out-of-context-quoting can be egregious, and so I want to briefly call attention to a couple of examples in order to provide a bit of a warning to those who might be influenced by the Traditionalists.  Caveat Emptor!  Let the Buyer Beware!

These two illustrations come from a Traditionalist friend of mine, who was recently trying to argue that communion received in the hand (rather than on the tongue) is inherently wrong and opposed to the reverence required in receiving the Eucharist.  In order to support her position, she gave a long string of short snippets of quotations from earlier documents.  One of those documents was from the Council of Trent.  Another was from Pope St. John Paul II.  Starting with Trent and then moving on to John Paul II, I will give the snippet she provided, and then I will provide the fuller contextual quotation, so readers can see how my friend took her quotations totally out of context to making them say something completely different from what they were originally saying.  Readers who observe what my friend has done will hopefully be made wary when in discussions with other Traditionalists in the future who may try to sell such misleading "information".

Upon being challenged that she was relying on her private interpretations of earlier magisterial writings instead of submitting to the Church's interpretations, she replied, "[I]t is not I that claims it ... As my original post says it, it comes from the Council of Trent among others like these," and then followed her string of quotations.

Here is her quotation from the Council of Trent:

The Council of Trent (1545-1565): "The fact that only the priest gives Holy Communion with his consecrated hands is an Apostolic Tradition."

And here is more of the original context of this quotation:

Now as to the use of this holy sacrament, our Fathers have rightly and wisely distinguished three ways of receiving it. For they have taught that some receive it sacramentally only, to wit sinners: others spiritually only, those to wit who eating in desire that heavenly bread which is set before them, are, by a lively faith which worketh by charity, made sensible of the fruit and usefulness thereof: whereas the third (class) receive it both sacramentally and spiritually, and these are they who so prove and prepare themselves beforehand, as to approach to this divine table clothed with the wedding garment. Now as to the reception of the sacrament, it was always the custom in the Church of God, that laymen should receive the communion from priests; but that priests when celebrating should communicate themselves; which custom, as coming down from an apostolical tradition, ought with justice and reason to be retained. And finally this holy Synod with true fatherly affection admonishes, exhorts, begs, and beseeches, through the bowels of the mercy of our God, that all and each of those who bear the Christian name would now at length agree and be of one mind in this sign of unity, in this bond of charity, in this symbol of concord; and that mindful of the so great majesty, and the so exceeding love of our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave His own beloved soul as the price of our salvation, and gave us His own flesh to eat, they would believe and venerate these sacred mysteries of His body and blood with such constancy and firmness of faith, with such devotion of soul, with such piety and worship as to be able frequently to receive that supersubstantial bread, and that it may be to them truly the life of the soul, and the perpetual health of their mind; that being invigorated by the strength thereof, they may, after the journeying of this miserable pilgrimage, be able to arrive at their heavenly country, there to eat, without any veil, that same bread of angels which they now eat under the sacred veils.  (Council of Trent, Thirteenth Session, Chapter VIII, taken from the Hanover Historical Texts Project website at Hanover College, page number removed)

As you can see, the original quotation from Trent was not addressing communion on the hand vs. the tongue at all, but was only asserting that communion is to be given to the people by the priests, while the priests administer communion to themselves.

Here is my friend's quotation from Pope St. John Paul II:

Pope John Paul II: "To touch the sacred species and to distribute them with their own hands is a privilege of the ordained." (Dominicae Cenae, 11)

And here is more of the original context of the quotation:

In some countries the practice of receiving Communion in the hand has been introduced. This practice has been requested by individual episcopal conferences and has received approval from the Apostolic See. However, cases of a deplorable lack of respect towards the eucharistic species have been reported, cases which are imputable not only to the individuals guilty of such behavior but also to the pastors of the church who have not been vigilant enough regarding the attitude of the faithful towards the Eucharist. It also happens, on occasion, that the free choice of those who prefer to continue the practice of receiving the Eucharist on the tongue is not taken into account in those places where the distribution of Communion in the hand has been authorized. It is therefore difficult in the context of this present letter not to mention the sad phenomena previously referred to. This is in no way meant to refer to those who, receiving the Lord Jesus in the hand, do so with profound reverence and devotion, in those countries where this practice has been authorized.

But one must not forget the primary office of priests, who have been consecrated by their ordination to represent Christ the Priest: for this reason their hands, like their words and their will, have become the direct instruments of Christ. Through this fact, that is, as ministers of the Holy Eucharist, they have a primary responsibility for the sacred species, because it is a total responsibility: they offer the bread and wine, they consecrate it, and then distribute the sacred species to the participants in the assembly who wish to receive them. Deacons can only bring to the altar the offerings of the faithful and, once they have been consecrated by the priest, distribute them. How eloquent therefore, even if not of ancient custom, is the rite of the anointing of the hands in our Latin ordination, as though precisely for these hands a special grace and power of the Holy Spirit is necessary!

To touch the sacred species and to distribute them with their own hands is a privilege of the ordained, one which indicates an active participation in the ministry of the Eucharist. It is obvious that the Church can grant this faculty to those who are neither priests nor deacons, as is the case with acolytes in the exercise of their ministry, especially if they are destined for future ordination, or with other lay people who are chosen for this to meet a just need, but always after an adequate preparation.  (Pope St. John Paul II, Dominicae Cenae, 11)

As you can see, my friend completely distorted this quotation in order to make it look like it is saying the exact opposite of what it actually says.  (Actually, I'm sure she didn't twist this quotation herself.  She simply took it from some Traditionalist website without bothering to check its accuracy.)

You've been warned!  Watch out for such behavior from Traditionalists (or from anybody, for that matter)!  Caveat Emptor!

Published on the feast of St. Angela Merici

The Implicit Protestantism of Catholic Dissent

The category of Catholic dissenters includes strange companions.  There are liberals who dissent from certain Church teachings they regard as inimical to liberal values, such as teachings regarding contraception or homosexuality.  And on the conservative side we have the hyper-traditionalists, like the Society of St. Pius X, who dissent from certain Church teachings, like Vatican II's doctrine of "religious freedom" or the current inadmissibility of the death penalty, on the grounds that they don't fit with their own views of what "historic Catholic teaching" demands.  What unites the hyper-traditionalists and at least the more moderate of the liberal dissenters is that both hold a view of the authority of the Catholic Church that differs from the view of the Catholic Church herself.  The Church claims that all her teaching is divinely guided and protected from error and that Catholics are obligated to submit with mind and will to all official Church teaching.  The dissenters, however, hold that only some Church teaching is protected from error.  They hold that when the Church teaches definitively--such as when the Pope makes an ex cathedra statement or an Ecumenical Council issues solemn anathemas--her teaching is protected from error, but that all her less-definitive teaching is subject to error, can lead people astray and contradict the faith we ought to hold, and must sometimes be rejected and resisted by Catholics who want to be faithful to the "Tradition of the Church" (as they themselves, rather than the Church, define the content of that "Tradition").

None of these people would think of themselves as Protestants.  And yet there is no logical barrier between their epistemology and the epistemology of Protestants.  Perhaps a good way to bring this out is through a fictional dialogue between a Catholic dissenter and a Protestant.  So below you will find an imaginary conversation between Herbert, a Catholic hyper-traditionalist, and Linus, a Reformed Protestant.

Herbert:  Hey Linus!  Did you get the letter I sent you the other day?

Linus:  You mean the one with the pamphlets about the Catholic Church and why I should join it?

Herbert:  Yup, that's the one!

Linus:  Yeah, I got it.  I've been meaning to get back to you about it.  Have you got time for a conversation now?

Herbert: Sure!  So what did you think of the arguments?

Linus:  Well, I'm not convinced.  I'm kind of alarmed by some of the Catholic teachings.  For example, you guys believe in all kinds of unbiblical things, like praying to saints and to Mary, purgatory, the papacy, images of Christ, etc.  We don't find any of these things in the Word of God.  And some of them blatantly contradict the Word of God.  So how can we believe in them?

Herbert:  You're assuming the doctrine of Sola Scriptura--that the Bible alone is our infallible authority.  But the Catholic Church holds that authority is a three-legged stool involving Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium.  Scripture is the inspired Word of God, but the Word of God has also been passed down infallibly in the Church's Tradition.  And God has promised his guidance to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church--the Pope and the college of bishops united to the Pope--so that they are protected from error in interpreting God's revelation.  So it's kind of question-begging of you to declare things like prayers to the saints off limits simply because they aren't found in the Bible or don't match your own interpretation of the Bible.  You are assuming that Sola Scriptura is the right way to interpret Scripture.  But how do you know it's the right way?  The historic Church, before the Reformation, didn't hold to Sola Scriptura but rather followed the view the Catholic Church has always held and still holds today.

Linus:  Yes, I know that's the Catholic view.  I find that view kind of alarming.

Herbert:  Why?

Linus:  You seem to be putting an awful lot of trust in men.  Catholic leaders are only human, after all.  Even the Pope is only human.  He can make mistakes.  How can you put implicit trust in any mere human being?

Herbert:  Sure, Church leaders are human beings, but they are guided by the Holy Spirit and protected from error.  The writers of Scripture were mere human beings as well, and yet you trust the Scriptures as the inerrant Word of God.

Linus:  Yes, I see your point.  But the Catholic Church has contradicted itself in its teachings over the years, so how can we trust it implicitly?  For example, the Church used to be against the death penalty, but now Pope Francis has taught that the death penalty is wrong.

Herbert:  Not everything the Pope or the bishops say is correct.  Some teaching is infallible, but some teaching is fallible.

Linus:  Are you saying that you think Pope Francis is wrong about the death penalty?

Herbert:  Yes, I think he is wrong.  His new teaching contradicts what the Church has believed for thousands of years.

Linus:  Wow, I didn't expect you to say that!  But I'm confused.  Isn't Pope Francis's teaching on the death penalty official Church teaching?  Didn't he even put it into the Catechism of the Catholic Church?  Wait a minute.  Let me look it up. . . .  Ah yes, here it is.  Pope Francis amended the Catechism to include his new teaching.  Here is the new #2267:

2267. Recourse to the death penalty on the part of legitimate authority, following a fair trial, was long considered an appropriate response to the gravity of certain crimes and an acceptable, albeit extreme, means of safeguarding the common good. 

Today, however, there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes. In addition, a new understanding has emerged of the significance of penal sanctions imposed by the state. Lastly, more effective systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the due protection of citizens but, at the same time, do not definitively deprive the guilty of the possibility of redemption. 

Consequently, the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person”,[1] and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide.  (Catechism of the Catholic Church, section #2267, revised version)

It even says "the Church teaches"!  Sounds like official Church teaching to me.  And aren't Catholics bound to accept official Church teaching?

Herbert:  Well, yes, to an extent.  For example, #752 in the Code of Canon Law says this:

Can. 752 Although not an assent of faith, a religious submission of the intellect and will must be given to a doctrine which the Supreme Pontiff or the college of bishops declares concerning faith or morals when they exercise the authentic magisterium, even if they do not intend to proclaim it by definitive act; therefore, the Christian faithful are to take care to avoid those things which do not agree with it.  (Catholic Church, Code of Canon Law, Canon 752, embedded links removed, found here on the Vatican website)

Linus:  OK, then how can you justify disagreeing with Pope Francis's new teaching on the death penalty?

Herbert:  We are to submit with mind and will to the non-infallible teachings of the Popes and bishops, but that doesn't mean we just accept everything they say blindly.  Non-infallible teachings, as you can see by the very word non-infallible, can be wrong.  Since they can be wrong, we have to use discernment and test them when they come out.  We should certainly defer to them and accept them whenever we can, but, if they contradict what we know to be the truth, or if they contradict previous definitive Catholic teaching, we have an obligation to refuse to accept them.  We must put faithfulness to Catholic Tradition above blind obedience to any human authority.

Linus:  So Popes and bishops can err.  Can councils err too?

Herbert:  Local councils can err.  And even Ecumenical Councils can err when they are not teaching infallibly.  For example, the Second Vatican Council was an Ecumenical Council, but it deliberately avoided teaching anything definitive or infallible, and so its teaching is not absolutely guaranteed to have gotten everything right.  We should certainly defer to it, but we must not accept all of it blindly.  I think Vatican II did a lot of good things and taught some important truths.  But it might be argued that it planted some seeds that have led to some problematic fruit.

Linus:  I recall reading about some organization--the Society of St. Pius the something or other, I think, I can't remember the exact name--they rejected some of the teachings of the Church after Vatican II, and didn't they get into trouble over it?

Herbert:  Yes, and I'm not saying I agree with everything the Society of St. Pius X--that's the society you're talking about--says.  But you're right that Pope Paul VI and other Popes have chastised the SSPX for some of its refusals to accept certain modern Church teachings.  What I'm saying is that, even if we have to get chastised by the Pope or the bishops, it is better to have that happen than to betray the traditional teachings of the faith when the Pope or the bishops are teaching error.  We have to say with the apostles, "We must obey God rather than men."

Linus:  Hmm . . .

Herbert:  What is it?

Linus:  Well, I'm just trying to understand your position.  It doesn't sound all that different from mine as a Protestant.  I mean, the Protestant Reformation started out as a movement within the Catholic Church.  The Reformers were trying to recover teachings of the Word of God the Church of the sixteenth century had obscured or contradicted.  They believed in deferring to the authority of the Church and doing everything they could to maintain unity, but they also recognized that the leaders of the Church were human and could err, and that they could not be trusted in blindly.  In the end, if there was conflict, the Reformers knew that they had to go with the Word of God over the teachings of men, even if those men were leaders in the Church.  Isn't that precisely what you're saying as well?

Herbert:  No, no, it's completely different.  The Protestants rejected the teaching of the Church as authoritative.  They put their trust instead only in their own private interpretations of Scripture.

Linus:  But isn't that what you're saying as well?  You've said that you can't just blindly trust in the Church.  Sometimes the Popes and the bishops can be wrong, and when that happens, you have to go with God's Word over against what the human leaders of the Church are saying.  That's all the Protestants were saying as well.  They didn't deny that one should defer to the Church, should put a lot of stock in what the teachers of the Church are saying, etc.  They only held that one cannot trust blindly or implicitly the Church's human teachers, and that that might mean sometimes that there is a duty to resist them to uphold the Word of God.

Herbert:  But we don't believe in Sola Scriptura--that the Bible alone is infallible.  We believe that the Tradition of the Church is infallible as well.

Linus:  Where, exactly, do we find the Tradition of the Church?

Herbert:  In the teachings and practices the Church has accepted through the centuries.

Linus:  But you've said that the teachers of the Church can be wrong.  I assume you would accept that the laypeople in the Church can be wrong as well.

Herbert:  Of course.

Linus:  Well then, how do you know the Tradition of the Church is reliable, if it's just what the teachers of the Church teach and what the laypeople believe and practice?  If the teachers can be wrong, then their teachings can be wrong.  If Tradition is nothing more than "the teachings of the Church", then it can be wrong.

Herbert:  Tradition is more than just the teachings of the teachers of the Church.  It's the teaching of the apostles handed down through history by the Church.

Linus:  But if the teachers can make mistakes and teach errors, how do we know they passed down the teaching of the apostles correctly?  For example, you say, I think, that the apostles taught that people should be anointed with oil at baptism, even though there's nothing about this in the New Testament.  So you believe this was mandated by the apostles simply because the early teachers of the Church said it was.  Right?

Herbert:  Right.

Linus:  But, as you've said, the teachers of the Church can be wrong.  So how do you know that it isn't the case that it became a popular belief early on among the teachers of the Church that the apostles had mandated oil in baptism, and yet this popular belief is in fact incorrect, because the apostles mandated no such thing?  After all, I think the early teachers of the Church said some odd things sometimes.  Didn't Tertullian, for example, who was a very early Church teacher, teach that it was an apostolic tradition that people shouldn't take a bath for a week after being baptized?  You don't think that was a real tradition from the apostles, do you?  And the Fathers disagreed about alleged traditions.  There was some disagreement on when to celebrate Easter, as I recall, with some claiming an apostolic tradition one way and some claiming one another way.

Also, it seems to me that some of your traditions are relatively newer and weren't held in the early Church, like the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception--the idea that Mary was kept free from original sin at conception.  That wasn't held by everyone in the early Church, was it?  So then, how do you know it is true, if you have it only on the authority of Church teachers who can err?

Herbert:  No, no, no!  The problem with your reasoning is that you are failing to keep in mind a crucial distinction in Catholic teaching--the distinction between infallible and fallible teachings.  As I said before, some of the teaching of the Pope and the bishops is fallible, but not all of it is fallible.  Some of it is infallible.  When the Pope or the entire college of bishops in union with the Pope give a solemn, definitive judgment on some matter of faith or morals, for example, that teaching is infallible.  You've just mentioned an example of this--the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.  That doctrine was declared to be a dogma of the Church in an infallible papal pronouncement in 1854.

Linus:  How can you tell when something is taught infallibly?

Herbert:  The Church has laid out very clearly the conditions under which infallibility operates.  You can see this discussed, for example, in the First Dogmatic Constitution on the Church of Christ from Vatican I, or Lumen Gentium #25 from the Second Vatican Council.  The discussion of this in the Catechism of the Catholic Church can be found in #888-892.

Linus:  OK, I see that the leaders of the Catholic Church have taught this.  But how do we know they were right?

Herbert:  About what?

Linus:  About the Pope and the bishops sometimes being infallible, and how that infallibility works.

Herbert:  (blank stare)

Linus:  Herbert?

Herbert:  Well, we know they were right, because they were speaking infallibly.

Linus:  But you said earlier that Vatican II was not infallible, and you also said you disagreed with a part of the Catechism, the new part on the death penalty, so that can't be infallible either.

Herbert:  Well, Vatican I was infallible.

Linus:  How do you know?

Herbert:  Well, it was an Ecumenical Council.

Linus:  How do you know that Ecumenical Councils are infallible?

Herbert:  The Church has always held them to be infallible--but only when they are issuing solemn, definitive judgments.

Linus:  Who's "the Church"?

Herbert:  All the people, especially the Popes and the bishops.

Linus:  And an Ecumenical Council is just a body of the Pope and bishops working together, right?  I mean, there's nobody else there, is there, humanly speaking?

Herbert:  Yes, that's right.

Linus:  So let me get this straight.  You are telling me that we know that Ecumenical Councils--that is, gatherings of the Pope and all the bishops--are infallible because the Popes and the bishops have said that they are?

Herbert:  Um, yes.

Linus:  But you've already told me the Pope and the bishops can be wrong.

Herbert:  But only when they aren't speaking infallibly.

Linus:  Which is just to say that the Pope and the bishops can be wrong, except when they can't be.  And we know when they can't be wrong, because they tell us?

Herbert:  Um, yes.

Linus:  Well, this seems like sort of an obvious question, but if the Popes and the bishops can be wrong sometimes, how do we know they weren't wrong when they told us that they can't be wrong sometimes?  I mean, Pope Francis has told us that we should believe the death penalty to be inadmissible.  But you say he's wrong, and that you should resist him on this because "we must obey God rather than men."  But then you turn around and tell me that we have to believe Pope Pius IX when he said in 1854 that the Immaculate Conception is a dogma of the faith.  You will say that this is different, because he was speaking infallibly.  Well, how do we know?  Perhaps he thought and claimed to be speaking infallibly, but he was wrong.  If Popes can be wrong, how do you know he was right?

Consider an analogy:  What if I told you that 2+2=5.  I would be wrong, right?

Herbert:  Yes.

Linus:  Well, suppose that after I told you that, I then told you that I am sometimes infallible, but not always.  After about five minutes, my eyes start to go wide, and I say to you, "Hey now, you better listen up!  I'm about to say something infallible!"  And then I say, "There is definitely life on a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri."  Are you going to believe me?

Herbert:  Well, no.

Linus:  Why not?

Herbert:  Well, for one thing, because I have no reason to think you are infallible.

Linus:  Is that all?

Herbert:  Well . . . You just told me that 2+2=5, which I know is wrong.  So obviously you're not completely reliable.  And if I can't trust you in all that you say, how can I know I can trust you just because you say that some particular statement of yours is absolutely trustworthy and infallible?

Linus:  Exactly.  You see my point?

Herbert:  I suppose . . .

Linus:  You obviously don't think the Pope and the bishops are entirely reliable.  You think they can lead you into error, and sometimes it is your job to resist them and stand up for the truth in opposition to them.  They are not reliable guides.  You have to test what they say so as not to be led into errors by them--even dangerous errors.  I've heard that some Catholics think that Pope Francis's teaching is so dangerous, it's like a spiritual poison.  It's a betrayal of the gospel, and can even lead people to hell.  Do you think that?

Herbert:  Well, yes, to a degree.  I mean, Pope Francis has taught that Atheists can be saved, and that people who are in adultery can be received into communion.  He's even promoted idolatry, with that Pachamama statue at the Vatican last year.  He's watered down the gospel.  Actually, the whole Church since Vatican II has had some serious problems.  The Mass has been watered down and made irreverent; inappropriate, irreverent practices like communion in the hand have been allowed; prayer has been promoted between Catholics and members of false religions; and many other things.  Although there has been a lot of good in the Church since Vatican II, there has been a lot of evil as well, as our leaders seem more and more to be telling us to turn away from the traditions and practices that the Church has always found to be so very important for the health of the people of God.

Linus:  Well, you're not going to get any argument from me.  I totally agree.  Except that I think you're a bit late to the game.  The Church has had corruption for a lot longer than merely since Vatican II.  The pre-Vatican II Church had mixed in corruptions with the faith as well.  At Vatican I, the infallibility of the Pope was made a dogma of the Church, even though it hadn't been before.  A bunch of Catholics (the "Old Catholics", as they called themselves) refused to accept Vatican I for precisely that reason--they saw that they needed to stand up for the authentic, historic teachings of the faith against the erroneous, novel teachings of men.  And Vatican I wasn't the beginning of the corruption either.  There had been corruption before.  For example, during the Middle Ages, the Church stopped giving the cup at communion to the laity, even though Jesus plainly said "Drink ye all of it" (Matthew 26:27, etc.).  Lots of false doctrines have been introduced into the Church over the centuries, like Transubstantiation, or praying to the saints, or devotion to Mary.  None of this is in the Bible.  These are teachings of men.  That's what the Protestant Reformation was all about.  We love the Church.  We love the Word of God.  We love the true, historic teachings of the faith.  But we refuse to give implicit trust to anything other than the Word of God.  We refuse to give blind obedience to human teachers who are capable of error.  The Protestant Reformers knew that they must obey God rather than men, and so they refused to accept the corruptions that had been introduced into the Church over the centuries, basing their stand firmly on the Word of God alone.  It sounds like you should join us, Herbert, since you seem to fundamentally agree with us that the Pope and the bishops, and councils, can err and even lead the faithful terribly astray.

Herbert:  No!  I am not a Protestant!  I accept the traditional teachings of the Church, like praying to the saints!

Linus:  Why do you accept praying to saints, Herbert?  Praying to saints is not in the Bible.  The Word of God says nothing about it.  It's a tradition of men.  The Bible teaches us to pray to God alone.  That's the only thing we see in the Bible.

Herbert:  The Church has taught this doctrine for centuries!

Linus:  Who cares how long they've taught it?  Do errors become true simply because they've been taught for a long time?

Herbert:  But this is a central teaching of the Catholic faith!  To reject it is heresy!

Linus: Says who?  You just mean that you believe it because the Popes and bishops have told you so.  But, as you've acknowledged, it's Popes and bishops who have sold out the Church in recent times.  Why trust Popes and bishops?  Sure, there have been good Popes and bishops, but even good people who are fallible can be wrong and should not be trusted implicitly.  You're quite right to want to avoid blind belief in human teachers.  So follow through on that and stop believing in things like praying to saints just because human teachers told you to do so.

Herbert:  Well, I think I've had enough of this conversation for now.

Linus:  There's certainly a lot to think about.  Well, until next time, Herbert!  I'll be praying for you, praying that you keep going on the path you're on until you shed not just some but all of these human traditions and teachings and rest in the Word of God alone.

Since Linus has raised some important questions regarding how Catholics can justify their trust in the authority of the Church, I would refer you here, here, and here for further discussion and defense of this.  What I have tried to do here is to point out that, once the Catholic dissenter has departed from Catholic teaching and admitted that the Magisterium can err, he has logically severed his connection to the Catholic epistemology which points towards trust in the Church and her Tradition.  He no longer has access to this point of view, and so, if he will be logical, he must move away towards Protestantism or some other non-Catholic epistemology.  He has no basis in principle to object to what the Protestant Reformers did when they opposed the Church and her teaching in the name of their own private interpretations of Scripture.  What else could they do, since they had accepted that the Church and her teachings could err?  They could no longer trust the Church implicitly, and the only alternative to that is to test everything the Church teaches in the light of some higher standard, some standard that the tester has decided is more authoritative.

Church History Companion Unit 8: Vatican II to the Present Day

To return to the Introduction and Table of Contents, click here.

This unit goes from about 1960 to the present day (2020).

This unit corresponds with pp. 128-162 in our textbook.

Vatican II

In 1958, John XXIII was elected Pope.  It is said that a lot of people expected him to be a "caretaker" Pope--that is, a Pope who just keeps things going but doesn't initiate anything significantly new.  This turned out definitely not to be the case.  Only two months into his pontificate, John XXIII called for a new ecumenical council.  The council--The Second Vatican Council--was opened at the Vatican on October 11, 1962, and continued to meet until December of 1965.  John XXIII died in June of 1963 and was succeeded by Pope Paul VI, who reigned until 1978, and who continued to oversee the council until its closing in 1965.

In our previous unit, we talked about the positive and the negative roles of the Church in her dialogue with the ideas and practices current in the world.  She has a responsibility to guard the truths of divine revelation, to affirm them, and to refute errors that contradict them.  But she also has a responsibility to learn from the dialogue and to grow in her own understanding of the depths of divine revelation.  The "modern" period, with the Protestant Reformation, the growth of Agnostic ideas, secular governments, the ending of Christendom, etc., put her on the defensive, especially in the nineteenth century.  But this has been a time, also, of growth and development, and the Church has tried to come to terms with new ideas, ways, and practices, and to discern how to apply the riches of the divine deposit of revelation fruitfully in this new context.  Vatican II was a high point in this process.  Whereas Vatican I had been a very defensive council, defining and asserting the historic truths of the faith in the face of modern errors, Vatican II had a very different tone, emphasizing positive dialogue with modern culture.  This different tone was evident from the very beginning, as we can see from a selection from John XXIII's speech by which he opened the council:

At the outset of the Second Vatican Council, it is evident, as always, that the truth of the Lord will remain forever. We see, in fact, as one age succeeds another, that the opinions of men follow one another and exclude each other. And often errors vanish as quickly as they arise, like fog before the sun. The Church has always opposed these errors. Frequently she has condemned them with the greatest severity. Nowadays however, the Spouse of Christ prefers to make use of the medicine of mercy rather than that of severity. She consider that she meets the needs of the present day by demonstrating the validity of her teaching rather than by condemnations. Not, certainly, that there is a lack of fallacious teaching, opinions, and dangerous concepts to be guarded against an dissipated. But these are so obviously in contrast with the right norm of honesty, and have produced such lethal fruits that by now it would seem that men of themselves are inclined to condemn them, particularly those ways of life which despise God and His law or place excessive confidence in technical progress and a well-being based exclusively on the comforts of life. They are ever more deeply convinced of the paramount dignity of the human person and of his perfection as well as of the duties which that implies. Even more important, experience has taught men that violence inflicted on others, the might of arms, and political domination, are of no help at all in finding a happy solution to the grave problems which afflict them. 

That being so, the Catholic Church, raising the torch of religious truth by means of this Ecumenical Council, desires to show herself to be the loving mother of all, benign, patient, full of mercy and goodness toward the brethren who are separated from her. To mankind, oppressed by so many difficulties, the Church says, as Peter said to the poor who begged alms from him: "I have neither gold nor silver, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise and walk" (Acts 3:6). In other words, the Church does not offer to the men of today riches that pass, nor does she promise them merely earthly happiness. But she distributes to them the goods of divine grace which, raising men to the dignity of sons of God, are the most efficacious safeguards and aids toward a more human life. She opens the fountain of her life-giving doctrine which allows men, enlightened by the light of Christ, to understand well what they really are, what their lofty dignity and their purpose are, and, finally, through her children, she spreads everywhere the fullness of Christian charity, than which nothing is more effective in eradicating the seeds of discord, nothing more efficacious in promoting concord, just peace, and the brotherly unity of all.

The Second Vatican Council dealt with many issues.  It addressed the question of religious liberty and liberty of conscience.  It addressed the salvation of non-Catholics and the relationship between the Catholic Church and other churches and religions.  It addressed questions of social justice, questions of liturgy and the sacraments, and many other issues.  Many characteristics of the Church that have become familiar to modern Catholics (especially Latin Catholics) trace themselves back to Vatican II or to policies and practices that developed in the years following Vatican II, including the use of vernacular languages in the Mass, having the priest face the people during the consecration of the elements, a wider variety of forms of church music, allowance of the laity to receive the chalice, and many other things.

At Vatican II, the Church reasserted her classic teaching, but she also rearticulated it in light of modern language and culture so that it could better address the realities, ideas, values, and feelings of modern life.

Vatican II issued several key documents.  Lumen Gentium focused on the doctrine of the Church and the Church's relationship to the people of the world.  Gaudium et spes dealt with many aspects of life in the modern world, discussing things like human dignity, social justice, the role of the Church in the world, international peace, etc.  Sacrosanctum concilium dealt with the liturgy.  Dei Verbum discussed divine revelation and its preservation, interpretation, and transmission.  Unitatis redintegratio discussed ecumenism and the relationship of the Catholic Church to other churches.  Nostra aetate discussed the relationship between the Church and the Catholic faith and other religions.  Dignitatis humanae dealt with religious freedom and liberty of conscience.

https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/16-documents-of-the-second-vatican-council-1509 - List of documents produced by the Second Vatican Council.

https://scalar.usc.edu/works/god-man-and-the-universe-week-two/gaudet-mater-ecclesia - Pope St. John XXIII's Gaudet Mater Ecclesia, the opening speech of the Second Vatican Council.

Religious Freedom and Liberty of Conscience

To illustrate the doctrinal development of the Church, we can look at two issues we mentioned back in Unit 6--liberty of conscience and the salvation of non-Catholics--and see how the conversation continued in the Church after the nineteenth century and through Vatican II.  With regard to religious freedom, the Vatican II document Dignitatis humanae carried further the nuances that had been coming more to the fore over the previous century regarding the role of toleration of non-Catholic religion in civil societies.  We recall that Pope Leo XIII and others had re-emphasized the duty of civil societies to acknowledge and reverence God and to follow the true religion and support the true Church, and they had condemned the growing secular ideal of a (supposedly) "neutral" state which was in fact based on a practical Agnosticism or Atheism.  However, these same Popes had also recognized that the civil magistrate has a number of concerns to balance in the protection of the common good.  False religion may be a great evil, but it may be that in modern societies the attempt to suppress it would cause greater harm.  In such a case, the protection of the greater good calls for a degree of toleration.  The Vatican II council Fathers professed an intention "to develop the doctrine of recent popes on the inviolable rights of the human person and the constitutional order of society" (DH #1).

We also recall that the Church, throughout her history, has recognized the value of conscience and the voluntary nature of faith.  The early Church Fathers often appealed to these principles in their arguments against Roman persecution of Christians.  Even in the Middle Ages, at the height of Christendom, when Western society was saturated with Christianity and political power was at the service of the Church's beliefs, values, and ideals, these principles were recognized and taken seriously.  Hence, the Church opposed the forceful conversion of non-believers--even Jews or other non-believers living within Christian lands--and protected certain fundamental rights that they had--such as the right to raise their own children in their own faith.  We recall the vigorous arguments of the Spanish Dominicans against the conquest and subjugation of the inhabitants of the "New World" in the Americas on the grounds that the Church--and Spain--had no jurisdiction over them, that they must embrace the faith voluntarily, etc.

The council Fathers at Vatican II, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, carried on the development of the Church's understanding of all of these principles and their application in the modern day.  First, they recognized the growing concern for liberty of conscience in the world at large and declared that this concern was a well-grounded one, in accordance with objective truth and morality.  Next, they reiterated their belief that the Catholic faith is the one true faith and the Catholic Church is the one true Church, and that, "[o]n their part, all men are bound to seek the truth, especially in what concerns God and His Church, and to embrace the truth they come to know, and to hold fast to it."  They noted that, if people are going to be able to fulfill their duty to seek and to embrace truth, their consciences must be allowed room to do this without being micromanaged by the civil authority.  "The truth cannot impose itself except by virtue of its own truth, as it makes its entrance into the mind at once quietly and with power."  From this arises a right that every member of society has to a sufficient degree of religious freedom--that is, to immunity from interference from civil government in matters of conscience--to allow them to pursue and embrace the truth.

2. 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. 

The council further declares that the right to religious freedom has its foundation in the very dignity of the human person as this dignity is known through the revealed word of God and by reason itself. This right of the human person to religious freedom is to be recognized in the constitutional law whereby society is governed and thus it is to become a civil right. 

It is in accordance with their dignity as persons-that is, beings endowed with reason and free will and therefore privileged to bear personal responsibility-that all men should be at once impelled by nature and also bound by a moral obligation to seek the truth, especially religious truth. They are also bound to adhere to the truth, once it is known, and to order their whole lives in accord with the demands of truth. However, men cannot discharge these obligations in a manner in keeping with their own nature unless they enjoy immunity from external coercion as well as psychological freedom. Therefore the right to religious freedom has its foundation not in the subjective disposition of the person, but in his very nature. In consequence, the right to this immunity continues to exist even in those who do not live up to their obligation of seeking the truth and adhering to it and the exercise of this right is not to be impeded, provided that just public order be observed.  (DH #2, footnote removed)

The council Fathers were very clear to distinguish the sort of "religious freedom" they were advocating from the Agnosticism-grounded ideal of "religious freedom" that would root that freedom in the idea that everyone has a moral right to believe whatever they want and no duty to believe in any particular religion.  This might make sense if no one can really know objectively what the true religion is anyway, but it makes no sense on the foundation of the Catholic worldview, which asserts the knowability and the importance of religious truth.  On the contrary, a true idea of "religious freedom" is grounded in the fact that because seeking and finding religious truth is so important, the civil authority has an objective moral obligation to allow people to exercise their reason and consciences in pursuit of truth and in following what they believe to be true.

Religious freedom, in turn, which men demand as necessary to fulfill their duty to worship God, has to do with immunity from coercion in civil society. Therefore it leaves untouched traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and societies toward the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ.  (DH #1)

Human individuals, as well as human societies, have a moral duty to embrace the true religion and the one Church of Christ.  So there is no idea here of the kind of secularism where a society seeks "religious neutrality"--really, practical Agnosticism--as an ideal.  The Church has reiterated this subsequently to Vatican II as well.  The current Catechism of the Catholic Church, in section #2108, puts it this way:

The right to religious liberty is neither a moral license to adhere to error, nor a supposed right to error, but rather a natural right of the human person to civil liberty, i.e., immunity, within just limits, from external constraint in religious matters by political authorities.  (Footnote removed.)

The Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, #463, puts it this way:

Authority should always be exercised as a service, respecting fundamental human rights, a just hierarchy of values, laws, distributive justice, and the principle of subsidiarity. All those who exercise authority should seek the interests of the community before their own interest and allow their decisions to be inspired by the truth about God, about man and about the world.

Civil authority must not interfere with conscience any more than is necessary, because when people are acting in accordance with their "conscience", what that means is that they are acting in accordance with what they believe to be true and right.  Civil authority cannot make someone think something is true or good by force; all it can do is try to use external means to motivate or threaten them into believing what they think is false or doing what they think is wrong.  But human beings always have a duty to follow their consciences--which is just to say we always have a duty to believe what we think is true and to do what we think is right.  Of course, we also have a moral duty to form our consciences--that is, to educate them and train them to get reality right so that their judgments will be in accordance with objective truth (see the Catechism's balanced discussion of conscience here)--but the fact remains that we always have a duty to follow what we really believe.  If the state should coerce someone into going against his conscience, it will have coerced him into sinning--for even when we are doing something objectively right, if we believe it to be wrong, it is sin to us.  (See St. Paul's discussion of this principle in Romans 14:13-23.)  Therefore, civil authority has a grave moral duty to grant freedom to people to live according to their consciences.

However, this freedom is not absolute.  Civil authority must balance many concerns, and that often involves deciding which principles or concerns take precedence in particular situations.  Hence, the council Fathers constantly reiterated the idea that everyone has a right to religious freedom, but only "within due limits" or "provided that just public order be observed."  It is a harm to coerce someone to violate his conscience.  It is also a harm to allow someone to follow his conscience when doing so injures himself or others.  To take an obvious example, if I think it my conscientious duty to blow up a market place in a suicide bombing, pretty much all societies on earth will try to stop me.  if I plead conscience in the matter, I will be told that the concern for public safety in this case outweighs the concern to protect my ability to act according to my conscience.  So liberty of conscience is not an absolute.  It is one value among others that must be protected in a balanced way.  We saw this point made in Unit 6 by Pope Leo XIII in his discussion of religious toleration.

But how do we know how to balance these competing concerns?  Here is where we are reminded of how important it is that civil authorities "allow their decisions to be inspired by the truth about God, about man and about the world."  What is the standard by which right and wrong--for individuals or for societies--is to be determined?  Is it the feelings or desires of human beings?  Or is it something more--the objective moral law of God?  Of course, the Catholic faith says it is the latter.  Just as individuals can only successfully live a morally balanced life if they are grounded in the objective truths of God, so the same is true of human societies.  So, ironic as it may seem to an Agnostic, "secular" mindset, it is only when the State embraces and follows the true religion that it is made capable of truly and effectively respecting social justice, including the right of individuals to religious freedom.

The right to religious liberty can of itself be neither unlimited nor limited only by a "public order" conceived in a positivist or naturalist manner. The "due limits" which are inherent in it must be determined for each social situation by political prudence, according to the requirements of the common good, and ratified by the civil authority in accordance with "legal principles which are in conformity with the objective moral order."  (Catechism #2109, footnotes removed.)

https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/ci-riesce-8948 - Ci Riesce, an address by Pope Pius XII given in 1953 to the National Convention of Italian Catholic Jurists.  In it, among other things, Pius XII reiterates previous papal teaching on the balance between opposing false teaching and tolerating false teaching in accordance with what is best for the common good in particular situations, and he specifically mentions the role of respect for conscience in this balance, thus foreshadowing the discussion at Vatican II.

http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651207_dignitatis-humanae_en.html - Dignitatis Humanae.

http://freethoughtforchrist.blogspot.com/2015/10/gods-law-civil-law-and-liberty-of.html - An article I wrote up attempting to describe the overall doctrine of the Church with regard to civil authority, the law of God, and liberty of conscience.

https://freethoughtforchrist.blogspot.com/2017/08/two-versions-of-secularism.html - In this article, I look at two very different ideas of "secularism"--one of which Catholic faith can endorse and the other of which it cannot.

Salvation of Non-Catholics

We saw in the previous unit how the Church, facing the disintegration of Christendom and the growth of pluralism in Western societies, began to emphasize more the fact that while salvation only comes through Christ and his Church, individuals can be connected to Christ and his Church in unusual and imperfect ways even when they are not explicitly members of the visible Catholic community.  So it is not necessarily the case that all people who die outside of the visible Catholic Church are damned.  The Church continued in the twentieth century to explore this fact, and the council Fathers of Vatican II made it a clear and explicit part of their teaching, articulating the same balance the Church had always had but going further in terms of recognition of how the mercy of God can impact even those who seem far removed from the Catholic community.

Lumen Gentium begins by recognizing the necessity of the Church for salvation:

This Sacred Council wishes to turn its attention firstly to the Catholic faithful. Basing itself upon Sacred Scripture and Tradition, it teaches that the Church, now sojourning on earth as an exile, is necessary for salvation. Christ, present to us in His Body, which is the Church, is the one Mediator and the unique way of salvation. In explicit terms He Himself affirmed the necessity of faith and baptism and thereby affirmed also the necessity of the Church, for through baptism as through a door men enter the Church. Whosoever, therefore, knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ, would refuse to enter or to remain in it, could not be saved. (#14, footnote removed)

If I know that God wants me to enter the Catholic Church, and that she is necessary for salvation, and I understand sufficiently what this means, rejection of the Church is spiritually fatal, for I am intentionally rejecting the only means of my own salvation.  But if I don't fully know or understand this, I am not therefore of necessity cut off from communion with the Church if, by grace, I have at least an implicit intention to follow where God is leading.  As Popes Pius IX and X had previously articulated, through my intention grace is connecting me to that which I do not yet fully and explicitly know.

There are many baptized Christians who are not in full communion with the Catholic Church--Eastern Orthodox, Protestants, etc.  Even though these are not in full communion with the Church, their baptism puts them into at least an imperfect communion with the Church.  And, if they are truly following Christ in their hearts, they are receivers of God's grace.

3. Even in the beginnings of this one and only Church of God there arose certain rifts, which the Apostle strongly condemned. But in subsequent centuries much more serious dissensions made their appearance and quite large communities came to be separated from full communion with the Catholic Church - for which, often enough, men of both sides were to blame. The children who are born into these Communities and who grow up believing in Christ cannot be accused of the sin involved in the separation, and the Catholic Church embraces upon them as brothers, with respect and affection. For men who believe in Christ and have been truly baptized are in communion with the Catholic Church even though this communion is imperfect. The differences that exist in varying degrees between them and the Catholic Church - whether in doctrine and sometimes in discipline, or concerning the structure of the Church - do indeed create many obstacles, sometimes serious ones, to full ecclesiastical communion. The ecumenical movement is striving to overcome these obstacles. But even in spite of them it remains true that all who have been justified by faith in Baptism are members of Christ's body, and have a right to be called Christian, and so are correctly accepted as brothers by the children of the Catholic Church.

Moreover, some and even very many of the significant elements and endowments which together go to build up and give life to the Church itself, can exist outside the visible boundaries of the Catholic Church: the written word of God; the life of grace; faith, hope and charity, with the other interior gifts of the Holy Spirit, and visible elements too. All of these, which come from Christ and lead back to Christ, belong by right to the one Church of Christ. . . . 

Nevertheless, our separated brethren, whether considered as individuals or as Communities and Churches, are not blessed with that unity which Jesus Christ wished to bestow on all those who through Him were born again into one body, and with Him quickened to newness of life - that unity which the Holy Scriptures and the ancient Tradition of the Church proclaim. For it is only through Christ's Catholic Church, which is "the all-embracing means of salvation," that they can benefit fully from the means of salvation. We believe that Our Lord entrusted all the blessings of the New Covenant to the apostolic college alone, of which Peter is the head, in order to establish the one Body of Christ on earth to which all should be fully incorporated who belong in any way to the people of God. This people of God, though still in its members liable to sin, is ever growing in Christ during its pilgrimage on earth, and is guided by God's gentle wisdom, according to His hidden designs, until it shall happily arrive at the fullness of eternal glory in the heavenly Jerusalem.  (Unitatis redintegratio, #3, footnotes removed)

What about non-Christians?  Jews, Muslims, pagans, even Atheists and Agnostics?

16. Finally, those who have not yet received the Gospel are related in various ways to the people of God. In the first place we must recall the people to whom the testament and the promises were given and from whom Christ was born according to the flesh. On account of their fathers this people remains most dear to God, for God does not repent of the gifts He makes nor of the calls He issues. But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place amongst these there are the Muslims, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind. Nor is God far distant from those who in shadows and images seek the unknown God, for it is He who gives to all men life and breath and all things, and as Saviour wills that all men be saved. Those also can attain to salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience. Nor does Divine Providence deny the helps necessary for salvation to those who, without blame on their part, have not yet arrived at an explicit knowledge of God and with His grace strive to live a good life. Whatever good or truth is found amongst them is looked upon by the Church as a preparation for the Gospel. She knows that it is given by Him who enlightens all men so that they may finally have life. But often men, deceived by the Evil One, have become vain in their reasonings and have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, serving the creature rather than the Creator. Or some there are who, living and dying in this world without God, are exposed to final despair. Wherefore to promote the glory of God and procure the salvation of all of these, and mindful of the command of the Lord, "Preach the Gospel to every creature", the Church fosters the missions with care and attention.  (Lumen Gentium, #16, footnotes removed)

http://shamelesspopery.com/salvation-outside-of-the-church/ - Helpful article on the Church's view of the salvation of non-Catholics and the Church's necessity for salvation.  (I linked to this after the discussion in Unit 6 as well.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feeneyism#:~:text=Feeneyism%20is%20the%20doctrinal%20position,there%20is%20no%20salvation%22). - Discussion of a view called Feeneyism which was condemned by the Holy Office in 1949 for denying that people who are united to the Church through implicit desire, though in innocent ignorance, can be saved.

Hyper-Traditionalist Backlash and Liberal Over-Exuberance

Ecumenical councils have a way of irritating some people.  As we've seen, a number of the most significant splits in Church history occurred as backlash to an ecumenical council.  Vatican II was no different.  In this case, the concern came from those who felt that the modern Church, and especially Vatican II, had contradicted previous Church teachings and had capitulated to erroneous modern ideas.  Whereas the Church previously had affirmed that only Catholics could be saved, allegedly, now she was teaching that others could be saved as well.  Whereas before the Church had taught that civil authority ought to embrace the true religion and suppress false religion, now, it was said, she was teaching that the State ought to grant everyone liberty to practice false religion.  There was concern also over Vatican II and post-Vatican-II liturgical changes.  It was believed that allowing Masses in the vernacular languages, allowing priests to face the people when before they had faced away from the people, allowing communion to be received in the hand, allowing a wider array of liturgical music, etc., had violated the beauty and reverence of the Mass and had allowed irreverence and disorder to take over.

These charges were bolstered by the fact that, on the other side of the political aisle, there were plenty of more liberal-leaning Catholics who wanted to take up what they considered to be the "spirit of Vatican II", going beyond what Vatican II actually said, and embrace all the fads of modernity and abandon many traditional teachings and practices.  Vatican II and post-conciliar decisions and documents had indeed brought a lot of changes, and there was a lot of disorder in the decades following the council.  There were real examples of serious liturgical abuse.  Extremists on both sides tried to pull the Church in their own directions.

One of the most important of the "Hyper-Traditionalist" movements was the Society of St. Pius X.  Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre founded the society in 1970.  Lefebvre and the society began to criticize and attack some of the doctrines of the Second Vatican Council, alleging their incompatibility with earlier Catholic teaching.  This, not surprisingly, got them in trouble with Rome, and a conflict ensued.  The Church attempted to suppress Lefebvre and his society, but they continued to defy the Church and perform various functions without authorization, insisting that they were acting for the good of the Church.  Eventually, in 1988, Lefebvre got himself excommunicated for ordaining bishops in explicit defiance of papal prohibition, along with the bishops he ordained.  (Eventually, in 2009, Pope Benedict XVI removed the excommunications as an act of mercy, though the society remained out of full communion with the Church and continues in that condition to this day.)

Lefebvre and the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) attempted to justify themselves in part by declaring that the teachings of Vatican II were not binding because the council had not issued any dogmatic decrees but was more pastoral in nature.  This was a specious argument, however, since Vatican II, as an ecumenical council of the Church, was an exercise of the authentic Magisterium of the Catholic Church to which all Catholics are required to submit.  Pope Paul VI, several times, explicitly affirmed the binding authority of the council and explicitly rejected the idea that because the council took a more "pastoral" tone it therefore did not require the assent of the faithful.

But one thing must be noted here, namely, that the teaching authority of the Church, even though not wishing to issue extraordinary dogmatic pronouncements, has made thoroughly known its authoritative teaching on a number of questions which today weigh upon man's conscience and activity, descending, so to speak, into a dialogue with him, but ever preserving its own authority and force; it has spoken with the accommodating friendly voice of pastoral charity; its desire has been to be heard and understood by everyone; it has not merely concentrated on intellectual understanding but has also sought to express itself in simple, up-to-date, conversational style, derived from actual experience and a cordial approach which make it more vital, attractive and persuasive; it has spoken to modern man as he is.  (Address of Pope Paul VI During the Last General Meeting of the Second Vatican Council, December, 1965) 

We decided moreover that all that has been established synodally is to be religiously observed by all the faithful, for the glory of God and the dignity of the Church and for the tranquillity and peace of all men. We have approved and established these things, decreeing that the present letters are and remain stable and valid, and are to have legal effectiveness, so that they be disseminated and obtain full and complete effect, and so that they may be fully convalidated by those whom they concern or may concern now and in the future; and so that, as it be judged and described, all efforts contrary to these things by whomever or whatever authority, knowingly or in ignorance be invalid and worthless from now on.  (Pope Paul VI, In Spiritu Sancto, for the closing of the council) 

There are those who ask what authority, what theological qualification the Council intended to give to its teachings, knowing that it avoided issuing solemn dogmatic definitions engaging the infallibility of the ecclesiastical Magisterium. The answer is known by whoever remembers the conciliar declaration of March 6, 1964, repeated on November 16, 1964: given the Council’s pastoral character, it avoided pronouncing, in an extraordinary manner, dogmas endowed with the note of infallibility.  But it has invested its teachings with the authority of the supreme ordinary magisterium, which ordinary magisterium is so obviously authentic that it must be accepted with docility and sincerity by all the faithful, according to the mind of the Council as expressed in the nature and aims of the individual documents.  (Pope Paul VI, General Hearing, Wednesday, January 12, 1966, following the translation found here by Dr. Jeff Mirus)

In other words, while the council refrained from issuing formal, definitive, dogmatic definitions, it still taught with the full authority of the Catholic Church and its teachings are therefore authentic and reliable and binding on the faithful according to the council's intentions.

Pope Paul VI called out Lefebvre and those who followed him for their refusal to submit to the Magisterium of the Church, putting their own ideas forward instead as if they had greater magisterial authority than the Pope and the bishops and an ecumenical council.

On the one hand, here are those who, under the pretext of a greater fidelity to the Church and to the Magisterium, systematically reject the teachings of the Council itself, its application and the reforms that derive from it, its gradual application by the Apostolic See and of the Episcopal Conferences, under our authority, willed by Christ. Discredit is cast on the authority of the Church in the name of a Tradition, of which respect is only materially and verbally attested; the faithful move away from the bonds of obedience to the See of Peter as to their legitimate Bishops; today's authority is rejected in the name of yesterday's. And the fact is all the more serious, since the opposition we speak of is not only encouraged by some priests, but led by a Bishop, however always venerated by Us, Monsignor Marcel Lefebvre. 

It is so painful to notice it: but how can we fail to see in this attitude - whatever the intentions of these people may be - put ourselves out of obedience and communion with the Successor of Peter and therefore of the Church? 

Since this, unfortunately, is the logical consequence, that is when it is argued that it is preferable to disobey on the pretext of keeping one's faith intact, of working in one's own way to preserve the Catholic Church, while denying it an effective obedience. And it is said openly! We dare to say that the Second Vatican Council is not binding; that faith would also be in danger because of the post-conciliar reforms and guidelines, which one has the duty to disobey in order to preserve certain traditions. What traditions? It is this group, and not the Pope, not the Episcopal College, not the Ecumenical Council, that establishes which, among the innumerable traditions, must be considered as a norm of faith! As you see, our venerable Brothers, this attitude arises as a judge of that divine will,Luc . 22, 32; Me . 21, 15 ff.), Which established him as guarantor and custodian of the deposit of Faith.  (Pope Paul VI, Secret Consistory of the Holy Father Paul VI for the Appointment of Twenty Cardinals, May 24, 1976, translated from Italian by the translator in Google Chrome)

On the other hand, those on the liberal side who wanted to use Vatican II as a pretext for advancing their own ideas in opposition to the Magisterium were also criticized by the Church.  For example, shortly after his election as Pope, Benedict XVI, in December of 2005, commented on those who would interpret Vatican II by means of what he called a "hermeneutic of rupture or discontinuity" rather than a "hermeneutic of reform."  In a "hermeneutic of rupture," Vatican II is seen as rejecting all the previous traditions and teachings of the Church in order to create a new, modern, liberal constitution.  In a "hermeneutic of reform," on the other hand, Vatican II is seen as in continuity with what the Church has always been and always taught, moving forward with doctrinal development in consistency with the past.

The hermeneutic of discontinuity risks ending in a split between the pre-conciliar Church and the post-conciliar Church. It asserts that the texts of the Council as such do not yet express the true spirit of the Council. It claims that they are the result of compromises in which, to reach unanimity, it was found necessary to keep and reconfirm many old things that are now pointless. However, the true spirit of the Council is not to be found in these compromises but instead in the impulses toward the new that are contained in the texts. 

These innovations alone were supposed to represent the true spirit of the Council, and starting from and in conformity with them, it would be possible to move ahead. Precisely because the texts would only imperfectly reflect the true spirit of the Council and its newness, it would be necessary to go courageously beyond the texts and make room for the newness in which the Council's deepest intention would be expressed, even if it were still vague. 

In a word:  it would be necessary not to follow the texts of the Council but its spirit. In this way, obviously, a vast margin was left open for the question on how this spirit should subsequently be defined and room was consequently made for every whim. . . . 

The hermeneutic of discontinuity is countered by the hermeneutic of reform, as it was presented first by Pope John XXIII in his Speech inaugurating the Council on 11 October 1962 and later by Pope Paul VI in his Discourse for the Council's conclusion on 7 December 1965. 

Here I shall cite only John XXIII's well-known words, which unequivocally express this hermeneutic when he says that the Council wishes "to transmit the doctrine, pure and integral, without any attenuation or distortion". And he continues:  "Our duty is not only to guard this precious treasure, as if we were concerned only with antiquity, but to dedicate ourselves with an earnest will and without fear to that work which our era demands of us...". It is necessary that "adherence to all the teaching of the Church in its entirety and preciseness..." be presented in "faithful and perfect conformity to the authentic doctrine, which, however, should be studied and expounded through the methods of research and through the literary forms of modern thought. The substance of the ancient doctrine of the deposit of faith is one thing, and the way in which it is presented is another...", retaining the same meaning and message (The Documents of Vatican II, Walter M. Abbott, S.J., p. 715). . . . 

The Second Vatican Council, with its new definition of the relationship between the faith of the Church and certain essential elements of modern thought, has reviewed or even corrected certain historical decisions, but in this apparent discontinuity it has actually preserved and deepened her inmost nature and true identity. 

The Church, both before and after the Council, was and is the same Church, one, holy, catholic and apostolic, journeying on through time; she continues "her pilgrimage amid the persecutions of the world and the consolations of God", proclaiming the death of the Lord until he comes (cf. Lumen Gentium, n. 8). (Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI to the Roman Curia Offering Them His Christmas Greetings, December 22, 2005)

Pope Benedict XVI gave a concise reprimand to both conservative and liberal extremists and their views of Vatican II in his 2009 letter to the world's bishops explaining his attitude towards the Society of St. Pius X:

The Church’s teaching authority cannot be frozen in the year 1962 – this must be quite clear to the Society. But some of those who put themselves forward as great defenders of the Council also need to be reminded that Vatican II embraces the entire doctrinal history of the Church. Anyone who wishes to be obedient to the Council has to accept the faith professed over the centuries, and cannot sever the roots from which the tree draws its life.

Watch in class - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4h2ntfF76k&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR3eFQ7lE4wk2sKSGoPNjYlrThmRUhhgo1bP1tcc-DouAuN-7pnlwC609y4 - Wonderful, short video by Bishop Robert Barron articulating how the Church both challenges and learns from the culture, and how a proper view of Catholic Tradition requires not the rejection of the developments of Vatican II but the full embrace of them.

Look at in class - https://fsspx.org/en/1974-declaration-of-archbishop-lefebvre - The 1974 Declaration of Archbishop Lefebvre, in which he stated clearly his intention to resist the Magisterium of the Catholic Church in the name of his own ideas about Tradition.

http://archives.sspx.org/SSPX_FAQs/q6_vatican_ii.htm - Document from the SSPX outlining alleged contradictions between the teaching of Vatican II and previous Church teaching.

https://www.wordonfire.org/paul-vi-lefebvre/ - In October of 1976, Pope St. Paul VI sent this letter to Archbiship Lefebvre, in which he articulated very clearly the errors of Lefebvre and his party, the authority and reliability of the Church's Magisterium, and the duty of Lefebvre to repent and return to obedience to the Church.

http://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/motu_proprio/documents/hf_jp-ii_motu-proprio_02071988_ecclesia-dei.html - Pope John Paul II's 1988 Apostolic Letter Ecclesia Dei, in which he articulated and enacted his response to the illegitimate episcopal ordinations of Archbishop Lefebvre.

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cbishops/documents/rc_con_cbishops_doc_20090121_remissione-scomunica_en.html - Pope Benedict XVI's decree remitting the 1988 SSPX excommunications.

http://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/letters/2009/documents/hf_ben-xvi_let_20090310_remissione-scomunica.html - Pope Benedict XVI's 2009 letter to the bishops of the world explaining further his remitting of the 1988 excommunications and the general status of the SSPX in relation to the Catholic Church.

https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/pope-paul-vi-on-vatican-ii/ - Helpful article on the authority of Vatican II and the submission owed to it.

https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=9793 - Another helpful article on this subject.

https://www.wordonfire.org/vatican-ii-faq/ - Another helpful article on defending Vatican II from conservative and liberal extremism.

The Reliability of the Ordinary Magisterium

I mentioned in the previous unit how Vatican I had defined very carefully and narrowly the infallibility of ex cathedra papal statements--that is, formal statements issued by the Pope intending to define a doctrine of the faith in a definitive manner--and how the narrowness of this definition gave occasion for some people to claim that Catholics are only required to submit to ex cathedra papal definitions.  Other papal teaching, in this view, is held to be fallible and thus potentially rejectable as false.  This loophole has been appealed to both by hyper-traditionalists as well as by more extreme liberals who wish to reject some of the official teachings of the Church.  (We just saw in the previous section this loophole used by the SSPX to escape the binding force of the teachings of Vatican II.)  Vatican I gave no sanction to this idea, but its language provided a way for people to try to use it to their advantage.  After Vatican I, the Church addressed this situation and clearly and explicitly closed this loophole.  We see this, for example, in the Vatican II document Lumen Gentium, as it discusses the teaching authority of the Church:

25. Among the principal duties of bishops the preaching of the Gospel occupies an eminent place. For bishops are preachers of the faith, who lead new disciples to Christ, and they are authentic teachers, that is, teachers endowed with the authority of Christ, who preach to the people committed to them the faith they must believe and put into practice, and by the light of the Holy Spirit illustrate that faith. They bring forth from the treasury of Revelation new things and old, making it bear fruit and vigilantly warding off any errors that threaten their flock. Bishops, teaching in communion with the Roman Pontiff, are to be respected by all as witnesses to divine and Catholic truth. In matters of faith and morals, the bishops speak in the name of Christ and the faithful are to accept their teaching and adhere to it with a religious assent. This religious submission of mind and will must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra; that is, it must be shown in such a way that his supreme magisterium is acknowledged with reverence, the judgments made by him are sincerely adhered to, according to his manifest mind and will. His mind and will in the matter may be known either from the character of the documents, from his frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or from his manner of speaking.  (Lumen Gentium, #25, footnotes removed)

Pope St. John Paul II, in a General Audience in 1993, pointed out that all papal teaching is protected from error by the Holy Spirit and has authority from Christ and is therefore to be submitted to by Catholics.

2. This supreme authority of the papal magisterium, which traditionally is usually defined apostolic, also in its ordinary exercise, derives from the institutional fact by which the Roman Pontiff is the successor of Peter in the mission to teach, confirm his brothers and ensure the conformity of the preaching of the Church with the deposit of the faith of the Apostles and with the doctrine of Christ. But it also derives from the conviction, matured in the Christian tradition, that the Bishop of Rome is the heir of Peter also in the charisms of special assistance that Jesus assured him when he said: «I have prayed for you» (Lc.22, 32). This means a continuous help of the Holy Spirit in the whole exercise of the doctrinal mission, aimed at making understood the revealed truth and its consequences in human life.  

For this reason, the Second Vatican Council affirms that the whole teaching of the Pope deserves to be heard and accepted, even when it is not ex cathedra, but presented in the ordinary exercise of the magisterium with clear intention to enunciate, remember or reaffirm the doctrine of faith. It is a consequence of the institutional fact and of the spiritual inheritance given by the complete dimensions of Peter's succession.  (Pope John Paul II, General Audience, Wednesday, March 17, 1993, #2, found here on the Vatican website, translated from Spanish, with slight tweaking, by the automatic translation system on Google Chrome)  

However, it is evident that the Roman Pontiff has not been granted infallibility as a private person, but rather that he is the pastor and teacher of all Christians. Moreover, he does not exercise it as having authority in himself or in himself, but "by his supreme apostolic authority" and "by the assistance of the Holy Spirit, promised to him in the person of St. Peter." Finally, he does not possess it as if he could dispose of it or count on it in any circumstance, but only when he speaks ex cathedra, and only in a doctrinal field limited to the truths of faith and morals, and to those that are intimately related to them. . . .  

Along with this infallibility of the ex cathedra definitions, there exists the charism of assistance of the Holy Spirit, granted to Peter and his successors so that they do not commit errors in matters of faith and morals, and, on the contrary, enlighten the Christian people well. This charism is not limited to exceptional cases, but embraces in varying degrees the whole exercise of the Magisterium. (Pope John Paul II, General Audience, Wednesday, March 24, 1993, #1, 4, found here on the Vatican website, translated from Spanish, with slight tweaking inspired by the translation at http://totus2us.com/vocation/jpii-catechesis-on-the-church/the-holy-spirit-assists-the-roman-pontiff/, by the automatic translation system on Google Chrome)

During the pontificate of Pope John Paul II, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued several documents reiterating the submission owed to all magisterial teaching, including a commentary delineating specifically the various kinds of teachings the Magisterium might give and the kinds of submission owed to them.

Discuss the categories discussed in this document in class. - http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_1998_professio-fidei_en.html - The last document in this link is a commentary from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on the various forms of magisterial teaching and the submission required of them.

http://freethoughtforchrist.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-infallibility-of-ordinary.html - An article of mine on the Church's teaching regarding the unfailing reliability of all magisterial teaching.

Pope St. Paul VI

As I mentioned, Pope Paul VI reigned as Pope from 1963 to 1978.  As with all the Popes, much could be said.  I will point out a few highlights.

Pope Paul VI worked hard on ecumenism, visiting and meeting with Protestant, Anglican, and Eastern Orthodox leaders to work towards unity.  In 1965, he and Athenagoras, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, issued jointly a declaration rescinding the excommunications of 1054, the ones we discussed back in Unit 4 which started off the Great Schism between the Catholic Church and the Eastern churches.  This didn't end the schism, as it did not resolve all the issues that still keep the churches apart, but it was a hugely important step in that direction.

In 1968, Paul VI published his encyclical Humanae vitae.  In it, he discussed love, marriage, sexuality, childbearing, and other issues.  Famously, he also re-affirmed the Church's historic teaching regarding artificial contraception, a view which is diametrically opposed to general trends in modern culture.  Here again we are reminded of the fact that the Church is not merely a human institution, but has been given the guidance of the Holy Spirit to enable her to proclaim the truth given to her by God.  Sometimes that truth is in conformity with the prevailing views of the surrounding culture.  But sometimes it is not.  Truth often has nuances that human minds have trouble wrapping themselves around.  Human beings tend to go to extremes, and the Church is a corrective to that.  We recall that in the early days of the Church, when the Church was protesting vigorously against various heresies, some in the Church wanted to re-baptize those who had been baptized by heretics, thinking that if heresy is bad and if heretics have cut themselves off from the Church, surely they cannot possess a valid baptism.  But Pope St. Stephen rejected this tidy view, and affirmed that although heresy is evil, yet heretical baptisms can be valid.  Some, among them even saints, had trouble with this, and refused to submit.  Likewise, in an age when the Church was trying hard to listen to and understand modern culture and to connect with the good ideas and impulses in it, yet still she stood up and resisted modern culture when it went wrong.  More liberal-leaning Catholics loved the new, more culture-embracing attitude the Church had been adopting recently, and they were greatly hoping to see the Church even more conform to modern trends by abandoning her "outdated, archaic" notions regarding sexuality and contraception.  When Paul VI, instead, re-affirmed this historic teaching, many liberal Catholics were greatly frustrated and refused to consent, and there was a widespread movement of dissent that went on for some time.  Some still dissent today.  But the Church goes on anyway, testifying to the truth of God through the guidance and power of the Holy Spirit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Paul_VI

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanae_vitae

Go through this and share some highlights in class - http://w2.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae.html - The text of Humanae vitae.

https://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p2s2c3a7.htm - Teaching from the Catechism of the Catholic Church on marriage.

https://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s2c2a6.htm - Teaching from the Catechism on sexuality (including contraception).

Familiarize yourself with the basics of Church teaching on these things and summarize for us.

Read in class - http://www.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/speeches/1965/documents/hf_p-vi_spe_19651207_common-declaration.html - Text of the Joint Catholic-Orthodox Declaration of His Holiness Pope Paul VI and the Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras I, in which the two leaders rescind the excommunications of 1054.

Pope Venerable John Paul I

Pope John Paul I began his reign as Pope on August 26, 1978, but he died only 33 days later, on September 28.  He was known for his warm and kind personality which endeared many people to him.  He has been declared "Venerable" by the Church and is on a path towards canonization.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_John_Paul_I

Pope St. John Paul II

Pope John Paul II began his pontificate on October 16, 1978, and he was Pope until April 2, 2005.  Pope John Paul II was a very well-respected and influential Pope.  He was born and grew up in Poland.  He had an interest in philosophy and also in the arts.  He was involved in sports and theater as a youth.  As Pope, he traveled widely and met with many people of all religious and political backgrounds, following the legacy of Pope Paul VI.  He was especially influential in his native Poland, where he is credited with being an inspiration to the Polish resistance to Communism and thereby aiding in the fall of Communism within the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.  He began the tradition of the World Youth Days, which have been immensely popular with young people.  He issued numerous encyclicals and other documents in which he expressed his teaching, dealing with many issues, including euthanasia, abortion, faith and reason, marriage and divorce, women's ordination, social justice, the death penalty, the role of women, family life, ecumenism, etc.  John Paul II and Joseph Ratzinger, who was the Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith during most of John Paul II's pontificate, worked together on many projects and were very influential in shaping the direction of doctrinal development in the Catholic Church during this time.  Their work helped the Church to regain some of her foothold after some of the confusions that had followed the Second Vatican Council as the Church tried to figure out how to relate to the world in faithfulness to the vision Vatican II had promoted.

In 1981, John Paul II was shot in an assassination attempt, but he survived.  He later went and talked with the man who shot him and declared that he forgave him.

He issued several apologies to various people and groups for things Catholics had done wrong through the centuries, including Catholics' involvement in the slave trade, persecutions of Protestants, the treatment of Galileo, not doing enough during the Holocaust, etc.

He overhauled and updated canon law, promulgating a new Code of Canon Law in 1983 (and one for the Eastern churches in 1990).

He gave a series of lectures between 1979 and 1984 discussing various aspects of human sexuality.  This teaching has come to be referred to as the Theology of the Body and has been very influential in Catholic thought and teaching.

In 1999, He issued a letter to artists, which is a beautiful affirmation of the crucial importance of the arts and an exhortation and an encouragement to artists to use their talents for the good of the world and the glory of God.

He suffered from Parkinson's disease in the later years of his life.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_John_Paul_II

https://www.vatican.va/special/canonizzazione-27042014/documents/biografia_gpii_canonizzazione_en.html - Short, biographical profile of John Paul II.

https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/_INDEX.HTM - The 1983 Code of Canon Law.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theology_of_the_Body

https://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/letters/1999/documents/hf_jp-ii_let_23041999_artists.html - Letter of His Holiness John Paul II to Artists

The Catechism of the Catholic Church

One of the greatest contributions of John Paul II was the Catechism of the Catholic Church.  After Vatican II, many people felt a need that a new, official catechism should be written that could authoritatively articulate the substance of the faith, updated for the modern age.  The last catechism for the universal Church had been the Catechism of the Council of Trent, which had been published in 1566.  Obviously, much had changed in the world since then, and a contemporary articulation of the faith was needed.

In 1986, Pope John Paul II appointed a committee to oversee the production of the text of the new catechism, headed up by the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, and there was widespread input from the bishops of all the world.  So the end result was a collaborative effort of the universal episcopate.

In his apostolic constitution ordering the publication of the completed catechism, in 1992, Pope John Paul II described his idea of what a catechism should be:

A catechism should faithfully and systematically present the teaching of Sacred Scripture, the living Tradition of the Church and the authentic Magisterium, as well as the spiritual heritage of the Fathers and the Church's saints, to allow for a better knowledge of the Christian mystery and for enlivening the faith of the People of God. It should take into account the doctrinal statements which down the centuries the Holy Spirit has intimated to his Church. It should also help illumine with the light of faith the new situations and problems which had not yet emerged in the past.

The catechism will thus contain the new and the old (cf. Mt 13:52), because the faith is always the same yet the source of ever new light.  (Fidei Depositum, found on the Vatican website)

The Pope went on to discuss the authoritativeness of the text and how it should be used:

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, which I approved 25 June last and the publication of which I today order by virtue of my Apostolic Authority, is a statement of the Church's faith and of Catholic doctrine, attested to or illumined by Sacred Scripture, Apostolic Tradition and the Church's Magisterium. I declare it to be a valid and legitimate instrument for ecclesial communion and a sure norm for teaching the faith. May it serve the renewal to which the Holy Spirit ceaselessly calls the Church of God, the Body of Christ, on her pilgrimage to the undiminished light of the kingdom!

The approval and publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church represents a service which the Successor of Peter wishes to offer to the Holy Catholic Church, and to all the particular Churches in peace and communion with the Apostolic See: the service, that is, of supporting and confirming the faith of all the Lord Jesus' disciples (cf. Lk 22:32), as well as of strengthening the bonds of unity in the same apostolic faith.

Therefore, I ask the Church's Pastors and the Christian faithful to receive this catechism in a spirit of communion and to use it assiduously in fulfilling their mission of proclaiming the faith and calling people to the Gospel life. This catechism is given to them that it may be a sure and authentic reference text for teaching Catholic doctrine and particularly for preparing local catechisms. It is also offered to all the faithful who wish to deepen their knowledge of the unfathomable riches of salvation (cf. Jn 8:32). It is meant to support ecumenical efforts that are moved by the holy desire for the unity of all Christians, showing carefully the content and wondrous harmony of the Catholic faith. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, lastly, is offered to every individual who asks us to give an account of the hope that is in us (cf. 1 Pt 3:15) and who wants to know what the Catholic Church believes.

https://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_jp-ii_apc_19921011_fidei-depositum.html - Fidei Depositum

https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM - The Catechism of the Catholic Church online.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1601376499/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1 - Hard copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Pope Benedict XVI

When Pope John Paul II died in 2005, he was succeeded by his long-time associate and co-worker, Joseph Ratzinger, who took the name Benedict XVI.  Benedict had already been very influential as the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and he continued to lead the Church according to precedents that had been set before by John Paul II.

In February of 2013, Benedict shocked the world by announcing that he would resign the papacy.  He was the first Pope to resign the papacy (rather than leaving it by death) since Gregory XII in 1415, during the Great Western Schism.  He gave his reasons for resigning in his Declaration (found on the Vatican website):

After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry.

After his resignation, Benedict adopted the designation of "Pope Emeritus" and moved to the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in Vatican City, where he still resides.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Benedict_XVI

Pope Francis

Jorge Bergoglio was elected Pope on March 13, 2013, after the resignation of Benedict XVI, and took the name Pope Francis (after St. Francis of Assisi).  He is the 266th Pope in the line of St. Peter.  He is the first Jesuit Pope.

Pope Francis's pontificate, thus far, has been marked by a tone emphasizing mercy towards those oppressed, marginalized, and suffering, as well as by concern for social justice and protection of the earth, our common home.  His pastoral approach tends to be much less formal than that of his predecessor, Benedict XVI.  He has been an instigator of reform, both in the broader world and in the Church.  Just as John Paul II and Benedict XVI had been especially lauded by more "conservative"-leaning Catholics, Pope Francis has been lauded by those leaning to the more "liberal" side--even though John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis have all been champions of Catholic orthodoxy as well as of dialogue with modern culture and of social justice.  Just as John Paul II and Benedict XVI sometimes baffled conservatives by their positive attitudes towards people of other religions and their concern for issues of social justice, so Francis sometimes baffles liberals by his continuing to uphold traditional Church teachings on homosexuality, women's ordination, etc.

Pope Francis has instigated reforms that have been of great benefit to many, but have caused confusion among others.  In 2015, Pope Francis issued the apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia ("The Joy of Love"), which was focused on love in family life and pastoral support of families.  Though the vast majority of it reiterated--in beautiful ways--classic Catholic teaching on family life, there was a small footnote which raised the question of whether, in some cases, the sacraments might be made available to people who are divorced and remarried.  Later on, Pope Francis made it clear that he intended to allow priests the right to make pastoral decisions in their care of souls that could include the decision, in specific cases, to allow a divorced and remarried person to receive communion.  In Catholic theology, sacramental marriage is indissoluble by anything except death.  In cases of true necessity, a person may be allowed to separate from a spouse for good reasons (for example, to escape abuse), but the marriage remains unbroken.  There can therefore be no remarriage, for remarriage in such a case would involve adultery (since the previous marriage is unbroken).  Objectively speaking, therefore, a person in such a remarriage has a moral obligation to leave the relationship.  But, in some cases, the situation may be very complex.  Imagine, for example, a person who was previously validly married in a sacramental marriage but who later fell away from the faith.  He subsequently remarried, and has now come back to the faith.  But he has been remarried for a long time, and he and his new wife have had children together and have formed a stable family.  Should he simply leave his current family?  What about the possible harm to his spouse, his children, etc.?  Pope John Paul II had allowed people in situations like this to continue living with their current spouse, but without engaging in sexual relations.  But sexuality can be a serious issue in relationships.  What if a refusal to engage in sexual relations might have an effect of harming the relationship and endangering the family?  What Pope Francis said in Amoris Laetitia and afterwards is that, in cases like this, a priest may decide, based on his personal knowledge of and counseling of an individual, that the individual, while out of objective conformity with the laws of marriage, is sincerely attempting to do the right thing, but is having difficulties in conscience knowing how to proceed.  In such a case, a priest might allow such a person to receive communion, since he exhibits signs of being in a state of grace in his desire to follow Christ and to avoid sin as best as he can.  In the meantime, the priest could continue to guide such a person towards a clearer understanding of his duty in his particular case and how it might be best carried out.

Pope Francis has received a lot of backlash from people on the more conservative side of the Church for taking this position.  It is argued that he has jettisoned or at least watered down traditional Catholic teaching on marriage, turned a blind eye to adultery, etc.  But Pope Francis himself sees what he is doing as applying needed pastoral nuance to the application of the revelation of God in this area--not jettisoning the Church's traditional teaching but rather trying to apply it in a pastorally responsible way in the current age.

Another example of a reform made by Pope Francis is his teaching on the death penalty.  Prior to the summer of 2018, the Church did not entirely rule out the death penalty as possibly being, in some cases, necessary for the defense of the common good.  In the summer of 2018, however, Pope Francis made the determination that, in light of circumstances in the modern day, the principles of Catholic teaching lead to the conclusion that use of the death penalty is inadmissible and that all societies ought therefore to work for its abolition.  He amended the Catechism of the Catholic Church to reflect this development.  Again, there has been a great deal of backlash among some conservative-leaning Catholics, who charge Pope Francis with abandoning the traditional teaching of the Church which allowed for the death penalty.  And again, Pope Francis's response is that there has not been a rejection of previous Church teaching but rather a new look at how best to apply the perennial principles of Church teaching to the modern day.  There is thus change within continuity.  There is change, because the world changes, and because we grow in our understanding of how best to apply divine revelation to our lives, but there is continuity, because we are always applying the faith once delivered to the saints.

Many other things that Pope Francis has done have provoked concern and opposition from some conservative-minded Catholics, including his tendency to make off-the-cuff remarks in airplane interviews that don't always include the nuances some conservatives would wish that he would make, his recent calling of a synod to deal with problems with society and the Church in the region of the Amazon Rain Forest, and many other things.

Overall, Pope Francis's contributions are marked by a commitment to the historic Catholic faith and a desire to apply the principles of that faith in such a way as to truly address the ethos, the realities, the virtues, and the blind spots, of the modern day, and especially to lead the Church in living out the faith in love of neighbor, particularly those who are "on the margins"--the poor, oppressed, migrants, refugees, etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Francis

http://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/biography/documents/papa-francesco-biografia-bergoglio.html - Brief biographical sketch.

https://w2.vatican.va/content/dam/francesco/pdf/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20160319_amoris-laetitia_en.pdf - Amoris Laetitia.

https://www.chicagocatholic.com/vatican/-/article/2016/08/01/the-joy-of-love-and-the-consternation-of-theologians - Helpful article on the controversy over Amoris Laetitia.

http://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2018/08/02/180802a.html - Pope Francis's revision to the Catechism of the Catholic Church on the death penalty.

http://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pubblico/2018/08/02/0556/01210.html#letteraing - A letter from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith giving further explanation of the meaning and context of the revision of the Catechism on the death penalty.

https://freethoughtforchrist.blogspot.com/2018/08/the-death-penalty-in-catholic-teaching.html - An article of my own on Catholic teaching on the death penalty and the history of this teaching.

http://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html - Encyclical of Pope Francis "on the care of our common home."

https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2020/02/12/200212c.html - Pope Francis's apostolic exhortation on the Amazon Rain Forest region.

http://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en.html - Writings of Pope Francis (on the left side of the page).

Some saints of this period:  Pope Paul VI, Pope John Paul II, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Óscar Romero.

Mother Teresa movie?

Going Forward

We live in interesting times.  Our world is changing rapidly and dramatically.  It is hard to imagine what the world will look like at the end of the 21st century.  The philosophical and cultural shifts that have been going on since the time of the Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment continue to advance, and the culture becomes less and less Christian, particularly in the Western world (while Christianity is growing in other parts of the world, such as in Africa).  Agnosticism continues to grow in the Western world, along with a new, post-Christian sense of religiosity.  For a Church that remembers the days of Christendom, which did not disappear all at once but has been receding slowly for centuries, the post-Christian course of our culture is greatly disconcerting.  But it is also a field of great opportunity.  As our culture has more opportunity to distance itself from Christianity and to try other worldviews, the Church has the opportunity to present the gospel to her neighbors in a fresh way, to contrast the Christian worldview with the bankruptcy of other ways, and to build on the good found in many modern ideas and points of view.

In many ways, ethics in modern Western culture are deteriorating.  We've seen a constant course of shifts away from orthodox Christian views in areas like marriage, family, and sexuality.  But, again, this situation, while disconcerting, presents opportunities, as it allows the world to be reminded of what Christianity has done for Western civilization and what will tend to happen when the beliefs underlying those values are removed.  Christians fascinated the ancient Roman world partly by their commitment to a consistent ethic that honored God and demanded value and respect for human beings--even the marginalized and unwanted.  As our culture sees more and more first hand the dangers of a lack of compassion and empathy in our political and social discourse, the disunity of a society that has no unifying objective beliefs and values to turn to as its foundation, the difficulty of balancing competing ethical values without a clear, agreed-upon worldview that can play the umpire for such disputes, deep and honest questions will be asked more and more.  As we see that Agnosticism, Atheism, religious indifferentism, I-define-my-own-values-and-identity-ism, and amorphous and substanceless free-for-all paganism cannot ground the need we feel to sacrifice for the good of others, to care for the poor, the immigrant, the refugee, and others in need, to make the sacrifices necessary to protect the earth and its environment, etc., there is an opportunity for people to be presented afresh with a worldview that can make sense out of all of this and deliver a consistent ideal towards which we can move forward.

In many ways, the realities of modern life have caused much moral growth in our culture.  We've seen increasing concern for justice and care to be given to all people, especially the poor and oppressed.  We've seen a greater awareness that all humans form one people, and we must live in harmony and unity.  We've seen increasing concern for the environment.  These concerns dovetail with the Church's vision and mission, and we can work as allies in these areas.  On the other hand, in other areas, such as sexuality, the Church increasingly finds herself having to stand up and testify to things the world around us does not want to hear.  But this has always been the task of the Church--to dialogue with the world, to learn from that dialogue how better to understand, articulate, and live out faithfully the divine revelation she has been given, and to challenge the world on the basis of that same revelation when the world is following a course of error, sin, and imbalance.

The Church continues to struggle with her own mix of humanity and divinity, as she always has.  She often trips herself up in the pursuit of her own mission.  The world is at a good place--with its broken families, high divorce rates, unwanted children, abortions, sexual promiscuity and all the harm that that causes, gender confusion, etc.--to be presented afresh with a true vision of the human person, the nature of the family and marriage, sexuality, etc.  And yet we find the Church embroiled in controversy over cases of sexual abuse among her own clergy, which is not only reprehensible in itself, but also clouds her presentation of the Christian worldview to the culture around her (due both to the reality of her problems and the exaggerations and stereotypes that these problems give birth to).  But, again, there is nothing new here.  The Church and the gospel have emerged from far worse scandals in her history, and she has learned much from her struggles to overcome her own sins and be more faithful to her own message.

Who knows what the future will bring.  As Master Yoda would say, "Impossible to see the future is."  But what we do know is that, whatever comes, the Church will continue to go on, guided and protected by the Holy Spirit, preaching the gospel and communicating Christ and his divine life and grace to the world, struggling with her own humanity, until the Author of history brings his great story to its final conclusion.