Dialogos Insititute Blog

Canon in honour of Saint Thomas Aquinas by John Plousiadenos (1429 – 1500)

Longing to praise the famous teacher of theology,
I approach You, O Christ, as one of infirm utterance.
Inspire me with wise speech so that I may worthily adorn him
by songs and harmonious melodies.

As a star from the West he illumined the Church of Christ:
The musical swan and subtle teacher,
Thomas, the wholly blessed, called Aquinas the sagacious.
Coming before him let us cry: Hail, teacher of the universe!

Sweet-smelling and pleasant myrrh gushed forth
from the precious coffin in which your all-holy
and lawgiving body reposes, most reverend father,
teacher of piety and the opponent of impiety.

The Theological Note of Integralism

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The Teaching of Quanta cura is Definitive:

A Reply to Robert T. Miller

By Dr. John P. Joy

In his recent article on “Integralism and Catholic Doctrine” (here at Public Discourse), Robert T. Miller argues against the integralist ideal of a Catholic confessional state, understood as one in which the state would “officially endorse the Catholic faith and act as the secular arm of the Church by punishing heresy among the baptized and by restricting false religious practices if they threaten Catholicism.” More specifically, he takes issue with the thesis, advanced by Joseph G. Trabbic (here), that this integralist ideal is normative Catholic doctrine.

In the course of his attempt to prove the contrary, Miller raises the question of the doctrinal weight of Quanta cura, in which Pope Pius IX condemns the chief errors of the time. He admits that “many nineteenth-century theologians (including such greats as Louis Billot and John Henry Newman) thought at least some teachings in Pius IX’s 1864 encyclical Quanta cura were ex cathedra,” but argues that this is “untenable.”

On the contrary, Quanta cura is a clear and evident example of infallible teaching ex cathedra. Hence, Catholics are required to reject the propositions condemned by the encyclical. Anyone who does not “is opposed to the doctrine of the Catholic Church” (CIC 750, §2).

The Conditions for Infallible Papal Teaching

Miller gives two reasons in support of his conclusion against the infallibility of Quanta cura. The first is this: “Pius IX taught ex cathedra in his bull Ineffabilis Deus (1854) defining the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, and Quanta Cura is nothing like Ineffabilis Deus.” This is true, but irrelevant. It is rather like saying that a child is not a human being because it is nothing like an adult; or that Pius IX was not the pope because he was nothing like St. Peter. A thing can fail to measure up to the most pre-eminent example of its kind or class while still being a member of that kind or class. The question is not whether Quanta cura measures up to Ineffabilis Deus, but whether it fulfills the conditions for infallible papal teaching set forth by Vatican I in Pastor aeternus and reiterated by Vatican II in Lumen gentium.

What are these conditions? The First Vatican Council defined that the pope is infallible when: “in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church” (PA 4).[1] According to the official relatio of Bishop Vincent Gasser on the intended sense of this definition, there are three essential conditions expressed therein: “The infallibility of the Roman Pontiff is restricted by reason of the subject, that is when the Pope, constituted in the chair of Peter, the center of the Church, speaks as universal teacher and supreme judge: it is restricted by reason of the object, i.e., when treating of matters of faith and morals; and by reason of the act itself, i.e., when the Pope defines what must be believed or rejected by all the faithful.”[2] These same three conditions are expressed even more succinctly in the Second Vatican Council’s reformulation of the doctrine: “The Roman pontiff, head of the college of bishops, by virtue of his office, enjoys this infallibility when, [subject] as supreme shepherd and teacher of all Christ’s faithful, who confirms his brethren in the faith (see Lk 22, 32), [act] he proclaims in a definitive act [object] a doctrine on faith or morals” (LG 25).[3]

Does Quanta cura fulfill these conditions? Let us look at the wording of the condemnation. Toward the end of the encyclical, Pius IX says this:

“In such great perversity of evil opinions, therefore, We, truly mindful of Our Apostolic duty, and especially solicitous about our most holy religion, about sound doctrine and the salvation of souls divinely entrusted to Us, and about the good of human society itself, have decided to lift Our Apostolic voice again. And so all and each evil opinion and doctrine individually mentioned in this letter, by Our Apostolic authority We reject, proscribe, and condemn; and We wish and command that they be considered as absolutely rejected, proscribed, and condemned by all the sons of the Catholic Church” (D 1699).[4]

Now the first condition, as we have seen, is that the pope must be “exercising his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority” (PA 4). According to Bishop Gasser’s official relatio on papal infallibility, this means that the pope must be speaking qua pope, that is, “as a public person in relation to the universal Church.… not, first of all, when he decrees something as a private teacher, nor only as the bishop and ordinary of a particular See and province, but when he teaches as exercising his office as supreme pastor and teacher of all Christians.”[5] Now there can be no doubt that in Quanta cura Pope Pius IX is exercising his office as supreme head of the Church. In the first place, the letter is addressed to all the bishops of the universal Church. And secondly, the pope explicitly invokes his apostolic authority. Miller makes a great deal of the fact that the he invokes “merely” his “apostolic authority” whereas in Ineffabilis Deus, he had invoked “the authority of Jesus Christ our Lord, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and his own authority.” Certainly the latter is a more solemn formulation of invocation; but it is not required for papal infallibility.

The second condition, which regards the object of infallibility, is that the pope must be speaking about a matter of faith or morals. As Bishop Gasser explains in the relatio on papal infallibility,[6] and as subsequent Church teaching has made even more abundantly clear, the infallibility of the Church, and hence of the pope, extends not only to truths directly contained in divine revelation, but also to “each and every thing which is required to safeguard reverently and to expound faithfully the same deposit of faith” (CIC 750, §2). Now according to Pius IX, the “false and perverted errors” condemned in Quanta cura are to be detested because they tend toward this end: “to impede and remove that salutary force which the Catholic Church, according to the institution and command of her divine founder, must exercise freely ‘unto the consummation of the world’ [Matt. 28:20], no less toward individual men, than toward nations, peoples, and their highest leaders…” (D 1688). But if infallibility extends as far as is necessary to safeguard the deposit of faith, then it must extend far enough to condemn false opinions which threaten to undermine the very institutions and commands of Christ.

The third condition, which pertains to the act of infallibility, is that the pope must be “defining doctrine to be held by the whole Church” (PA 4) or “proclaiming doctrine by a definitive act” (LG 25). According to Gasser’s official relatio, this means that “there is required the manifest intention of defining doctrine, either of putting an end to doubt about a certain doctrine or of defining a thing, giving a definitive judgment and proposing that doctrine as one which must be held by the universal Church.”[7] Or in other words, “as very many theologians say, when he definitively and conclusively proposes his judgment.”[8] The act of definition is the giving of a judgment or sentence that is ‘definitive’ in the sense of ‘final’ or ‘conclusive’. In Quanta cura, this note of definition is manifest in the whole formula of condemnation, and especially in this, that all the faithful are explicitly commanded to hold the false opinions condemned therein as “absolutely rejected, proscribed, and condemned” (D 1699). There is nothing in the least provisional or inconclusive in such a phrase. It could hardly be more definitive.

Not only is Miller’s comparison of Quanta cura to Ineffabilis Deus poor procedure, it entirely overlooks the distinction between the more solemn modus definitorius, which is traditionally used in dogmatic definitions of truths to be believed as divinely revealed, such as is found in the definitions of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of Mary, and the less solemn (but still infallible) modus definitivus, which is generally used in the definition of those truths not revealed in themselves but connected to divine revelation.

Heresy and the Lesser Theological Censures

Miller’s second argument has to do again with the object of infallibility. “Moreover,” he writes, “Pius never actually says that any of the condemned propositions is heretical (the opposite of de fide), leaving open the possibility that they are wrong in some lesser way (such as being ‘proximate to heresy,’ ‘erroneous,’ or ‘rash’—the so-called lesser theological censures).” It is unfortunately a common misconception that the pope is only infallible in defining divinely revealed dogmas or in condemning heresy, which is opposed to dogmas to be believed by divine and catholic faith. However, it is somewhat surprising that Miller falls into this error, since in the earlier part of his article he correctly distinguished between two levels of de fide teaching: “matters proposed ‘as divinely and formally revealed’ (propositions de fide divina et catholica)” and “matters ‘necessary for faithfully keeping and expounding the deposit of faith’ even if not themselves divinely revealed (propositions de fide ecclesiastica et catholica).” The doctrinal commentary of the CDF on the Profession of Faith uses a simpler terminology of de fide credenda (to be believed by faith) and de fide tenenda (to be held by faith).

As Miller himself correctly points out, the infallibility of the Church extends to both kinds of de fide teaching. And yet when it comes to the practical application of this principle with respect to Quanta cura, he restricts the scope of papal infallibility to the condemnation of heresy, which is opposed to dogmas of divine and catholic faith (de fide credenda), and excludes the condemnation of errors which are opposed to truths of Catholic doctrine (de fide tenenda). His mistake appears to lie in thinking that it is heresy to reject any de fide teaching, whereas in fact heresy is only opposed to teaching that is de fide in the strict sense, which is de fide credenda.

Gasser’s relatio makes it abundantly clear that papal infallibility is not to be restricted to the condemnation of heresy, but extends also to lesser theological censures such as ‘erroneous’ and ‘proximate to heresy’. In response to several fathers of the council who had raised this very question, Gasser explains:

“Indeed, the Deputation de fide is not of the mind that this word should be understood in a juridical sense (Lat. In sensu forensi) so that it only signifies putting an end to controversy which has arisen in respect to heresy and doctrine which is properly speaking de fide. Rather, the word ‘defines’ signifies that the pope directly and conclusively pronounces his sentence about a doctrine that concerns matters of faith or morals and does so in such a way that each one of the faithful can be certain of the mind of the Apostolic See, of the mind of the Roman pontiff; in such a way, indeed, that he or she knows for certain that such and such a doctrine is held to be heretical, proximate to heresy, certain or erroneous, et cetera, by the Roman pontiff. Such, therefore, is the meaning of the word ‘defines’.”[9]

Miller is right that according to canon law, “No doctrine is understood as defined infallibly unless this is manifestly evident” (CIC 749, §3). But it cannot reasonably count against the definitiveness of a teaching if its infallibility is not manifest to everyone, especially those with an incomplete grasp of what is required for infallibility. It is enough if it is manifestly evident in itself.

Contrary to Sacred Scripture, the Church, and the Most Holy Fathers

Having dispensed with the particular case of Quanta cura, Miller extends his argument to defend a more general claim that the integralist ideal of the Catholic confessional state cannot be taught infallibly, since it does not fall within the scope of “matters ‘divinely revealed’, things closely connected thereto, and the principles of natural law.” He proceeds to give his reasons for thinking that the doctrine in question is not part of the natural law, nor to be found in Scripture, nor in tradition, and then claims that this is why “none of the popes teaching this doctrine ever claimed it was divinely revealed (or closely connected to anything so revealed).” But this is simply false, as is especially clear with respect to the very condemnation cited by Miller as one of the strongest arguments for integralism, namely: “that the best condition of society is the one in which there is no acknowledgement by the government of the duty of restraining, by established penalties, offenders of the Catholic religion, except insofar as the public peace demands” (D 1689). And this false doctrine is to be condemned, according to Pius IX, as being “contrary to the doctrine of Sacred Scripture, of the Church, and of the most holy Fathers” (D 1689).

The Infallible Condemnations of Quanta cura

If the condemnations contained in Quanta cura are indeed infallible, Catholics ought to know what they are in order to avoid them. In the course of his argument, Miller twice implies that it is difficult to know which propositions are condemned in Quanta cura, but this is not true. They are easy to identify if one takes the trouble to read the whole letter. The errors infallibly condemned in Quanta cura are these:

“That the best plan for public society, and civil progress absolutely requires that human society be established and governed with no regard to religion, as if it did not exist, or at least, without making distinction between the true and the false religions” (D 1689).
“That the best condition of society is the one in which there is no acknowledgment by the government of the duty of restraining, by established penalties, offenders of the Catholic religion, except insofar as the public peace demands” (D 1689).
“That liberty of conscience and of worship is the proper right of every man, and should be proclaimed and asserted by law in every correctly established society; that the right to all manner of liberty rests in the citizens, not to be restrained by either ecclesiastical or civil authority; and that by this right they can manifest openly and publicly and declare their own concepts, whatever they be, by voice, by print, or in any other way” (D 1690).
“That the will of the people, manifested as they say by public opinion, or in some other way, constitutes the supreme law, freed from all divine and human right; and, that deeds consummated in the political order, by the very fact that they have been consummated, have the force of right” (D 1691).
“That [religious] orders have no legitimate reason for existing” (D 1692).
“That from the citizens and the Church must be taken away the power by which they can ask for alms openly in the cause of Christian charity, and also that the law should be repealed by which on some fixed days, because of the worship of God, servile works are prohibited” (D 1693).
“That domestic society or the family borrows the whole reason for its existence from the civil law alone; and, hence, all rights of parents over their children, especially the right of caring for their instruction and education, emanate from and depend wholly on the civil law” (D 1694).
“That the clergy as an enemy to the true and useful progress of science and government, must be removed from all responsibility and duty of instructing and training youth” (D 1695).
“That the laws of the Church do not bind in conscience, except when promulgated by the civil power” (D 1697).
“That the acts and decrees of the Roman Pontiffs relating to religion and the Church, need the sanction and approval, or at least the assent, of the civil power” (D 1697).
“That the Apostolic Constitutions, in which secret societies are condemned, whether an oath of secrecy is demanded in them or not, and their followers and sympathizers are punished with anathema, have no force in those regions of the world where societies of this sort are allowed by the civil government” (D 1697).
“That the excommunication uttered by the Council of Trent and the Roman Pontiffs against those who invade and usurp the rights and possessions of the Church rests upon a confusion between the spiritual order and the civil and political order for the attaining of a mundane good only” (D 1697).
“That the Church should decree nothing which could bind the consciences of the faithful in relation to the use of temporal goods” (D 1697).
“That to the Church does not belong the right to coerce by temporal punishments violators of its laws” (D 1697).
“That it is conformable to the principles of sacred theology, and to the principles of public law for the civil government to claim and defend the ownership of the goods which are possessed by churches, by religious orders, and by other pious places” (D 1697).
“That the ecclesiastical power is not by divine right distinct from and independent of the civil power, and that the distinction and independence of the same could not be preserved without the essential rights of the civil power being invaded and usurped by the Church” (D 1698).
“That without sin and with no loss of Catholic profession, one can withhold assent and obedience to those judgments and decrees of the Apostolic See, whose object is declared to relate to the general good of the Church and its rights and discipline, provided it does not touch dogmas of faith or morals” (D 1698).

Today no less than in 1864 all Catholics are obliged to reject and condemn each and every one of these false ideas and opinions.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

[1] Vatican I, Pastor aeternus, cap. 4; Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils (DEC), ed. Norman P. Tanner, S.J. (Sheed & Ward; Georgetown University Press, 1990), 816.

[2] The Gift of Infallibility: The Official Relatio on Infallibility of Bishop Vincent Ferrer Gasser at Vatican I, trans. James T. O’Connor (Ignatius Press, 2008), 49; Mansi 52:1214C.

[3] Vatican II, Lumen gentium, 25; DEC 869.

[4] Denzinger: The Sources of Catholic Dogma, 30^th ed., trans. Roy J. Deferrari (Loreto Publications, 2007).

[5] The Gift of Infallibility, 77; Mansi 52:1225B.

[6] See The Gift of Infallibility, 78-81; Mansi 52:1225-27.

[7] The Gift of Infallibility, 77; Mansi 52:1225C.

[8] The Gift of Infallibility, 81; Mansi 52:1227B.

[9] The Gift of Infallibility, 92; Mansi 52:1316A-B.

The Spectre of the Byzantine by Derya Little

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Dr Derya Little is a Turk and an American Citizen. Raised in Islam she embraced atheism as an adolescent but was converted to Christianity by an evangelical from the US while a student in Ankara. Later she came to see that the Gospel could only be defended from the standpoint of Catholicism and was received into the Catholic Church during her doctoral studies at the University of Durham. She is married with several children and now resides in the United States. She recounts her story in her recent book From Islam to Christ: One Woman’s Path through the Riddles of God (published by Ignatius Press).

The superhero of my childhood did not wear a cape or bounce from building to building. Instead he wielded a long sword, hit the bullseye each time with an arrow, and was a mighty horse master. The villains of these movies were not laughable fictional characters like the Joker or Hydra, but real evil men who lived centuries ago: murderous Byzantine kings or ruthless Christian soldiers. We were told that these infidels were always pining for our hard-earned lands, and were ready to pounce at the first sight of weakness. Their corrupted religion and decadent ways were nothing but cautionary tales.

Just like most of Islamic teaching, the secular education in Turkey whitewashes all the blood and the gore that comes with conquering lands. In the sterile pages of history textbooks from elementary school to university, the Turkish advance into the Christian lands is taught as the natural expansion of empire. Often, there is a lengthy account of how just and fair was Ottoman rule and how the majority of conquered peoples would prefer to live under the Sultan’s rule and pay the jizya, rather than remain the subjects of the Christian king.

The denial has to be constant and active, because even today wherever one travels in Turkey there are remnants of a life lost. The first time I travelled to Cappadocia, near ancient Galatia, I was surprised to see all the ancient carvings of Christian symbols and icons. These church walls belonged to a time when Turks were still shamans. Often, there was hateful graffiti sprayed or scratched over the paintings, by the youth who had swallowed the Muslim and nationalist indoctrination about how Christians subverted the religion Allah sent to Prophet Jesus.

However, a few of us, under an icon in the dark church, wondered, staring at the blessing hand of Christ, why there were no longer any of these so-called deviants around to fill all the churches. Then a history teacher would fill us in about how Muslims brought cleanliness and civilization to these backward lands, and converted the all-too-willing Christians to the one true faith of Allah. We would nod in agreement, and forget the questions that nudged us some minutes prior.

The Christian heritage in Asia Minor is inescapable. Traces of icons, churches, images of the Blessed Virgin are everywhere. But with careful attention given to making sure that all Muslim students develop a certain revulsion towards all things Christian, an entire population can easily ignore these whispers from the former owners. After all, Muslim Turks are infinitely superior to the blasphemous Christians who dare to claim Jesus was God. That revulsion often turns into iconoclastic violence. Christ’s image is scored or painted over, and swearwords graffitied in buildings where mass was offered millennia ago.

One does not even need to mention the fate of the Hagia Sophia, where the residents of Constantinople hid during earthquakes, thinking that angels held up its massive dome in the absence of columns. It was customary to turn the biggest church into a mosque when a Christian city was subdued. If anything, Mehmed the Conqueror was true to his word when he fixed up the cathedral and converted it into a mosque, where he attended the first Friday prayer.

In spite of five hundred years of denial the shadow of Byzantine religion and culture follows the visitor to Istanbul wherever he goes. The Christians are gone, either killed, converted or forced to flee, but the spectre of their former empire finds the new masters in unexpected places.

I was almost twenty years old when I met a Christian who practiced her faith. Up until then, both my secular and religious education had taught me that Christianity was a Western invention, foreign to our culture, to our lands. When I told her this, the poor American woman had a confused look on her face, no doubt wondering whether I was joking or serious. She opened her Bible and showed me the map in the back. It was a map of Turkey. I thought, probably they always include a map of the country where the Bible was published. It would be a map of China, if we were in China. It is laughable, of course, but that was the extent of the indoctrination I had received despite my atheism. It was simply unbelievable that the God of the Christians had lived so close to my home, and St. Paul had travelled along the trails not far from the mountains of my childhood to bring the Gospel to the gentiles.

Most Turks, of course, go about their lives without giving a second thought to the people who used to live in the lands they now occupy. The history they hear glorifies the conquests and erases any wrongdoings for years until the fictional bad guys of movies become the reality. The Byzantine Christian becomes something to be feared and abhorred.

There is an annual pilgrimage at the Byzantine Catholic convent near my house. A few years ago, my Muslim father joined us for the yearly festivities of mass, confession and halushka. Surrounded with icons that he was taught to detest, and vestments that he was taught to fear, he did not speak or eat all day. For the infidel’s food is not halal, even without meat. As the family went about joining in the rituals, no doubt he felt betrayed and alone. The wall that was built by Islam and Turkish nationalism had done its job.

That continuous work of denial and revision creates a society that never sees beauty in Christian art, never accepts that Ottomans might have wronged anyone and still suspects all who bear the sign of the cross. The lands that St. Paul scaled with his preaching, where St John cared for the Mother of God, and which St Helena crossed to retrieve the Cross have now become one of the hardest soils for the Gospel.

There is hope, however, and Our Lord reaches the hardened hearts of Turks despite the near-death of the missionary spirit. There are more Turkish Christians now than ever before, and as Islam tightens its noose, in this age of free and accessible information, Christ’s light becomes brighter.

Meanwhile, let us raise heaven with prayers for the conversion of Turks, and bountiful missionaries to gather the harvest.

THOMAS LATINUS – THOMAS GRAECUS

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Thomas Aquinas and his Reception in Byzantium

International Conference

National Library of Greece, Books Tower,

Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center

Athens

15–16 December 2017

Co-organizers:

NATIONAL LIBRARY OF GREECE

UNIVERSITY OF PATRAS

THE HELLENIC INSTITUTE, ROYAL HOLLOWAY, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON

Dignitatis Humane Colloquium: Dialogos Institute Collection Volume I

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This book contains the papers given at a historic conference on religious liberty that took place in 2015 in Norcia, Italy, in the presence of Cardinal Raymond Burke, under the auspices of the Dialogos Institute. 8 Catholic scholars from around the world met to discuss this most controversial of theological questions. Their papers focus on Vatican II’s ‘Declaration on Religious Liberty’, Dignitatis humanae, setting it in its historical and doctrinal context. The speakers debate the meaning of this document and its compatibility with other teachings of the Catholic Church. This book contains the introductory address given by Cardinal Burke, and the speeches given by the participants, revised and in some cases augmented by themselves. It concludes with an original essay arising out of the papers and subsequent discussions, in which Dr Alan Fimister of the Dialogos Institute attempts an original synthesis of the insights of the various speakers. The 2015 Dignitatis humanae colloquium was a unique occasion which brought together orthodox Catholic speakers which greatly differing views on a complex and fascinating subject. No serious student of the Church’s teaching on religious liberty, on the role of Church and State, or on the social kingship of Christ will want to be without this volume.

Limbo

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This summer at the Shrine of St Augustine of Canterbury in Ramsgate, Kent the Dialogos Institute held its second Colloquium on the doctrine of Limbo. Discussion was lively and extremely well informed. The proceedings will be published some time in 2018. In anticipation of the Colloquium the Director gave an interview to Diane Montagna on Aleteia and wrote a piece on the theme of Limbo for the Catholic Herald. This provoked a response to which he replied. The doctrine of Limbo is a particularly appropriate subject for the Dialogos Institute as we like to focus upon questions about which there legitimate disagreement is possible and profitable among orthodox scholars. It is also an area in which a bipulmonary perspective is especially fruitful.

Capital Punishment and the Infallibility of the Church – John P. Joy

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In a two-part essay at Public Discourse (here and here), E. Christian Brugger has responded to Edward Feser and Joseph M. Bassette’s new book on capital punishment (By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed: A Catholic Defense of Capital Punishment). Feser and Bessette argue that the Church’s traditional teaching on the moral permissibility of the death penalty is irreformable and that it is therefore illegitimate – indeed, “close to heresy” – for any Catholic to assert that the death penalty is intrinsically wrong (they allow that Catholics may legitimately disagree about the prudence of employing the death penalty in any particular circumstances). Brugger claims that they are wrong; and that capital punishment is intrinsically wrong. But he is wrong.

In his response to Feser and Bassette, Brugger attempts to show that the Church has never infallibly taught that capital punishment is morally permissible in principle. But in order to do so he relies on an excessively narrow conception of the ordinary magisterium.

Brugger relies on the text of Lumen gentium 25 in setting out what he takes to be the four necessary conditions for the infallible exercise of the ordinary and universal magisterium and argues that the traditional teaching of the Church regarding the morality of the death penalty fails to meet any of them. (Really? The bishops have never maintained the bond of communion among themselves and with the successor of Peter?)

The text he cites is this (with his enumeration):

“Although the individual bishops do not enjoy the prerogative of infallibility, they nevertheless proclaim Christ’s doctrine infallibly whenever, even though dispersed through the world, but still (1) maintaining the bond of communion among themselves and with the successor of Peter, and (2) authentically teaching matters of faith and morals, (3) they are in agreement on one position (4) as definitively to be held.”

But, Brugger claims, not many bishops have ever authentically taught the legitimacy of the death penalty, and only very few taught this as a doctrine that must be definitively held. Regardless of the truth of these claims, however, Brugger’s fundamental mistake is to assume that the infallible teaching of the ordinary and universal magisterium can only be found in the explicit statements of the bishops.

Admittedly, one could easily come to such a conclusion from reading this text in isolation, but the fact is that the ordinary and universal magisterium encompasses much more than this.

The Origins of the Term ‘Ordinary Magisterium’

The term ‘ordinary magisterium’ originated with Joseph Kleutgen, a neo-scholastic Jesuit theologian of the middle of the nineteenth century. He was concerned to combat the tendency of many modern theologians (especially in Germany) to assume that if a doctrine had not been defined by a judgment of the Church, then it was a matter of free opinion. Against this idea, he wanted to reassert the fundamental authority of Scripture and Tradition against an excessive reliance only on the explicit judgments of the Church. But he also wanted to uphold the Catholic principle of ecclesiastical mediation against the Protestant principle of Private Interpretation. His solution was to describe the living tradition itself as a mode of exercise of the magisterium. The term ‘ordinary magisterium’ is not meant to describe a certain kind of magisterial document. It is meant to describe the living tradition itself, and especially meant to highlight the authoritative nature of the Church’s transmission of divine revelation apart from and in addition to the explicit magisterial statements of the hierarchy.

In proof of the authority of the living tradition-ordinary magisterium, Kleutgen appeals to the practice of the ancient fathers of the Church, who did not hesitate to accuse Marcion, Arius, Nestorius, and many others of heresy even before their doctrines had been condemned by a judgment of the Church; in fact, it was precisely this vigorous opposition that eventually led to their formal condemnation. Yet how could this be if the faith of the Church were unable to be known with certitude apart from her formal judgments? The fathers of the Church who opposed Arius, for example, seem to have acted on the assumption that the co-equal divinity of Father and Son was sufficiently taught by the Church such that its denial constituted heresy even prior to its solemn definition at the First Council of Nicaea. In Kleutgen’s terminology, it was already infallibly proposed as a dogma of faith by the ordinary magisterium prior to its solemn definition by the extraordinary magisterium. And the fathers of the Church were not gathering citations from the authentic teaching documents of every bishop dispersed throughout the world. They were citing the clear teaching of Scripture and the Tradition received from the apostles.

Identifying the Teaching of the Ordinary Magisterium

The teaching of the ordinary magisterium may be seen in many places, but most clearly in Scripture itself. Kleutgen writes:

“The Church, initially through her constant and ordinary magisterium, subsequently also through explicit conciliar definitions, has declared that the Holy Scriptures, as we have them now, are the genuine and unadulterated word of God. Thus she has also proposed to us for belief their entire contents as the revelation of God. Therefore, as soon as we cannot doubt that something is contained in the Scriptures, so we are also certain that this is taught by the Church as revealed truth.” (Die Theologie der Vorzeit, 1st ed., 49)

And even for those passages in Scripture which are not sufficiently clear in themselves, says Kleutgen, the Council of Trent refers the faithful not to the explicit judgments of the Church but to “that meaning which she has always held and holds” and to “the unanimous interpretation of the fathers,” or in other words, to the living tradition.

So when Kleutgen says that Catholics are bound not only by the extraordinary magisterium but also by the infallible teaching of the ordinary magisterium, he means that Catholics are bound not only by the formal judgments of the Church, but also by the word of God itself handed down in the Church through her living tradition. In addition to the plain sense of Scripture, therefore, one ought to look for the teaching of the ordinary magisterium in the teaching of the fathers, who are the privileged witnesses of the Church’s tradition, and then also in the writings of other prominent doctors and theologians, the monuments of antiquity (e.g. graves with their inscriptions, churches with their altars and paintings), the customs, laws, and liturgies of the Church, and the decrees of individual bishops and local councils (Ibid., 51). In other words, the teaching of the ordinary magisterium is to be sought in all the traditional loci theologici; and the statements of individual bishops comes only at the end of the list.

Finally, because the investigation of all the sources of theology may often be long and arduous, Kleutgen also proposes “a short and easy path for recognizing, even in difficult cases, whether something belongs to the general faith of the Church” (Ibid., 57). This is the unanimous consensus of the most prestigious theologians. His basic claim is that, when all the most prestigious theologians agree that something is a dogma of faith, even though not determined by a solemn judgment of the Church, they are witnesses of the fact that it belongs to the general faith of the Church. And although the theologians themselves are certainly not infallible, “their testimony, when it is so explicit and unanimous, must be held as unobjectionable” (Ibid., 58).

As examples of dogmas never defined by explicit judgment but taught infallibly by the ordinary magisterium, Kleutgen includes: that Christians have the moral duty to love their neighbors; that pride is a sin and humility a virtue; that God is infinite according to his nature, that he is all good and all knowing, that he foresees the free actions of men; that he freely created and rules the world; that creatures not only receive their existence from him, but are also held in being by him; that his providence extends over everything; that the fallen angels are all damned; and that the souls in purgatory are unable to grow in virtue and merit.

Are we unable to present all eight beatitudes with confidence as doctrines of our Lord or must we choose only those few which are partially reflected in judgments of the Church? Can we not present the flight of our Lord to Egypt as part of the faith with as much confidence as his birth and crucifixion? May we not believe in the sending of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost and our Lord’s prior promise of this sending just as we believe in the divinity of the Holy Spirit as divinely revealed truths? According to Kleutgen, we can and indeed we must.

By Brugger’s standards, all of these doctrines would apparently be up for grabs.

Vatican I on the Ordinary Magisterium

Kleutgen’s new term ‘ordinary magisterium’ was soon picked up and introduced into the official vocabulary of the Church by Pope Pius IX in the apostolic letter Tuas libenter (1863) and then by Vatican I in the constitution on the Catholic faith Dei Filius (1870). The influence of Kleutgen on these documents is clear not only from their contents, but also from the historical records in the Vatican Archives. Kleutgen was even directly involved in the drafting of Dei Filius as a peritus at the council. His influence is most clearly felt in ch. 3, which states:

“Wherefore, by divine and Catholic faith all those things are to be believed which are contained in the word of God as found in Scripture and tradition, and which are proposed by the Church as matters to be believed as divinely revealed, whether by her solemn judgment or in her ordinary and universal magisterium.”

When this text came up for discussion at the First Vatican Council it was met with some opposition. Several bishops objected that it should be moved to the schema on the Church instead of that on the Catholic faith. One bishop argued that it was simply false because doctrines taught by the ordinary magisterium are not to be believed with Catholic faith. Many bishops objected (prophetically, as it turns out) that the term ‘ordinary magisterium’ is obscure and ambiguous. The only bishop to voice support for the text initially was one who thought the term ‘ordinary magisterium’ was meant to be understood in reference to the papal magisterium (a misunderstanding which was then urged by others as further proof of the obscurity and ambiguity of the term).

Bishop Martin of Paderborn intervened on behalf of the deputation responsible for drafting the text in order to respond to these objections. He defended the use of the novel term ‘ordinary magisterium’ by pointing out that it had already been used by Pope Pius IX in Tuas libenter.

After this, several more bishops commented (more approvingly) on the text and expressed their understanding of the ordinary magisterium in various ways as consisting in the daily preaching, liturgical prayers, method of conducting and defining business in the episcopal courts, and in the Roman congregations; as being exercised under the authority of the hierarchy, through pastors and teachers, through bishops and parish priests, through the words of preachers, through orthodox theologians, through approved books, through liturgical books and catechisms, etc.

Granted, none of this detail enters into the final text of Dei Filius, nor is the meaning of the term ‘ordinary magisterium’ explained in any more detail in Tuas libenter, and it is not even used in the text of Lumen gentium, which is Brugger’s only source. The fact is that the Church has offered very little explicit clarification of the term ‘ordinary magisterium’ even while insisting on its authority. But it is sufficiently clear that the way in which it was used and intended to be understood by Pius IX and the First Vatican Council (which are cited in a footnote on the relevant passage of Lumen gentium together with a commentary by Kleutgen himself) is quite a far cry from Brugger’s more limited notion of the ordinary magisterium consisting exclusively in the explicit magisterial statements of the bishops.

What Feser and Bassette have done in their recent work on capital punishment is to build an impressive case for the irreformability of the Church’s traditional teaching by amassing evidence of the teaching of the ordinary magisterium in all its dimensions. To argue that not much of this evidence comes from explicit magisterial statements of bishops is beside the point.

Dr. John P. Joy is the President of the St. Albert the Great Center for Scholastic Studies. He is the author of the forthcoming “On the Ordinary and Extraordinary Magisterium from Joseph Kleutgen to the Second Vatican Council” (Dec. 31, 2017).

Religious Liberty

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The Colloquium on Dignitatis Humanae held in Norcia over All Saints 2015 presented all the main orthodox views on the document. By orthodox I mean that no one accepted that an authoritative and binding document of the Church’s magisterium could overthrow the teaching of a previous document of the same or a higher authority. There was of course plenty of room for discussion as to the relative authority of the various texts in question. Broadly there were two approaches to the problem the playing down of the extent or level of the authority of Dignitatis Humanae or the construction of the text is such a way as removed the apparent contradiction with the previous magisterium. Fr Brian Harrison, Fr Dominique and Fr Basile were ‘constructionists’ while John Lamont and James Bogle were ‘minimalists’. While nether man exuded approval for the Declaration, John Rao and Roberto de Mattei’s approach was historical. Thomas Pink really stands alone with his, what might be called, ‘gordian’ solution. Consensus was tricky especially (as so often happens) as the time for discussion at the end was too short (mea culpa). Of course, the minimalist contention does not touch per se upon whether the document can be reconciled with the preceding magisterium only on whether it needs to be. It might be that it does not need to be and yet it can be. However, it would be fair to say that the minimalists were both unconvinced that it can be.

Although there were subtle differences between the readings of the three constuctionists their approaches were compatible and in the case of the two Frenchmen very similar. One area in which Frs Basile and Dominique seemed to part company was the question of conscience. In section 3 of the Declaration it asserts “In all his activity a man is bound to follow his conscience in order that he may come to God, the end and purpose of life. It follows that he is not to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his conscience. Nor, on the other hand, is he to be restrained from acting in accordance with his conscience, especially in matters religious.” This may be taken as an explanation of the earlier line “no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs” in the most authoritative sounding passage of the Declaration. The role of conscience is crucial because, while the Declaration maintains that immunity from coercion persists even for those whose err in their beliefs, it makes no mention of those who deliberately act contrary to their beliefs. A formal heretic ex hypothesi acts contrary to his conscience not merely on the basis of an erroneous conscience. Thus the punishment of formal heretics by the temporal power in former times would seem not to fall under the censure of the Declaration (whether by accident or design).

A similar question arises in regard to the meaning of the term ‘religion’. Section 4 of the Declaration states,

Provided the just demands of public order are observed, religious communities rightfully claim freedom in order that they may govern themselves according to their own norms, honour the Supreme Being in public worship, assist their members in the practice of the religious life, strengthen them by instruction, and promote institutions in which they may join together for the purpose of ordering their own lives in accordance with their religious principles.

It would seem from this passage that ‘religion’ only extends to monotheism. While the ability to diagnose formal heresy is beyond the power of the state and thus the scenario arising from the construction of the phrase “in accordance with his conscience” arises only in the context of a Catholic state recognising the jurisdiction of the Church, the ability to recognise idolatry and to proscribe it belongs to reason alone. The constructionists have on their side, therefore, the claim that the Declaration when read correctly allows for the punishment of formal heresy (as identified by the ecclesiastical tribunal) in a Catholic state and of idolatry in any state. All it does not permit is the forcible conversion of the un-baptised to Catholicism or the proscription of erring monotheism among them. Neither of these prohibitions are novelties.

John Lamont, on the other hand, might well deny that the latter is no novelty. In this regard the October 598 letter of St Gregory the Great to Fantinus, Administrator of Palermo in which St Gregory Dialogos asserts that the removal from Jews of their places of worship is “contrary to justice and equity” assumed a particular importance. John Lamont also alleges that the weight of patristic authority is behind an inherent right on the part of the state to supress religious error. This claim brings him up against the gordian position of Thomas Pink that the Declaration refers only to the abstract competence of the state qua state and so does not touch upon the powers of the state as instrument of the Church. Pink’s case for this is very strong both in terms of the discussions and statements surrounding the drafting of the text and the fact that Paul VI and a significant proportion of the council fathers were Maritainians and did indeed demonstrably deny such competence to the state qua state. The problem posed for this interpretation by Lamont is that it would seem that the fathers do indeed attribute such competence to the civil power and so the gordian solution merely exchanges one error for another.

It seems to me that this objection to Pink is easily overcome by reference to St Augustine’s doctrine in De Civitate Dei. It is part of the essence of a true polity that it worship the one true God in the manner which He has appointed. Every state is thus obliged to discover the true religion and embrace it corporately. As it happens the true religion is Catholicism and part of the revelation upon which Catholicism is founded is the reservation of judgement in religious matters to the spiritual power. The state does indeed have of its own nature competence in religious maters but the only true polity without qualification is the City of God, the Catholic Church. It is through adherence to the Catholic Church that temporal polities receive their perfection as human societies. As Pink often emphasises, Leo XIII teaches that the proper relationship between Church and state is that of soul and body. It is the nature of the body to be united to the soul. Without the soul there is no human body. Thus it is part of the essence of the state to coerce in religious matters but in this order of providence it is also part of the essence of the state to exist within the Catholic Church; a civil power that is not united to the Church thus lacks de facto this right that belongs in the abstract to the state. As St Augustine says “there is no justice save in that commonwealth whose founder and ruler is Christ” and “kingdoms without justice are but criminal gangs”.

The error of the Maritainians lies not their analysis of the competence of the state in abstraction from the Church but in their contention that the realisation of this separation in reality could be legitimate or desirable. This contention is not made in the Declaration however much its authors may have assumed it. For the body when separated from the soul does not become some other sort of body it perishes and decomposes. There are other living bodies than human ones but the human body cannot turn into them directly. It must first be slain and then devoured. Thus the states of Christendom had to be overthrown by revolution in order to be transformed into the bestial latrocinia of secular modernity (see: Daniel 7).

With a healthy dose of St Augustine there was therefore, it seems to me at least, a virtual if not an actual consensus underneath the great diversity of views expressed at the colloquium. Whether the participants would agree or not is another question entirely.

Press release – October 2015, Norcia, Italy

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“Anti-Christian hostility growing” says leading bishop, as experts gather to debate controversial Vatican II document

Leading experts from the fields of philosophy, theology, law, and history will gather just outside of Rome this month in an attempt to settle the debate over the Second Vatican Council’s most controversial document.

Over three days, a series of presentations and panel debates will focus on Dignitatis Humanae, the hotly contested Vatican II document on religious liberty and the relation between Church and State.

The colloquium will be officially opened by Cardinal Raymond Burke, and has received strong episcopal backing from Bishop Athanasius Schneider.

Speaking about the event, Bishop Schneider said, “A theological colloquium on the topic of religious liberty is very necessary,” adding, “We’re currently witnessing a situation of a widespread doctrinal confusion inside the Church from one side and the growth of an almost global anti-Christian hostility in politics and in the media from the other.”

Co-organsier of the colloquium, priest and author Rev Thomas Crean OP, emphasised that this would be a balanced academic event with a variety of viewpoints. “The aim is to understand the whole gamut of the Church’s teaching on Church and State. There are different theories about how Catholics should reconcile the claims of religious truth and freedom. This conference hopes to synthezise whatever is true in all these views. It’s both an important question for the Church herself and also vital for her relations to society,”

Professor John Milbank of the University of Nottingham, has also given his backing to the event.

He is interested in how the Christian insistence on the freedom of religious assent should be distinguished from the dominant view of modern secular society, that religion is a merely private matter.

“In a world newly threatened on the one hand by religious bigotry and on the other by atheist intolerance of public religion, this crucial colloquium will consider this pressing question,” he explained.

Crean thinks the colloquium also has a special relationship to the Vatican’s family synod, which closes just days before. “Across the world, the Church is coming under intense pressure to renounce her claim to be, in the words of St John XXIII, ‘Mother and Teacher of all nations.’ This is especially true in matters relating to marriage and the family. All the more need for Catholics to understand the political dimension of their faith correctly.”

Speakers include Professor Thomas Pink from King’s College London; barrister and president of Una Voce, Mr James Bogle; Italian historian and President of the Lepanto Foundation, Professor Roberto De Mattei; the Canadian theologian Dr John Lamont; the American historian Dr John Rao; the Australian theologian Professor Brian Harrison; Fr Dominique de Saint-Laumer, the superior of the Society of St Vincent Ferrer and Dom Basile Valuet, a monk from the monastery of Le Barroux in France. December 2015 marks the 50th anniversary of Dignitatis Humanae.

Rev Thomas Crean OP and a selection of speakers will be available for comment and interview.