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On a book review in ‘Commonweal’

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the-castle-of-the-pyrenees

The American journal Commonweal has recently published a book review of Thomas Crean’s and Alan Fimister’s Integralism: a manual of political philosophy.  The book review misrepresents the book in certain ways and criticises it in others.  The present article will explain some of the misrepresentations and analyse the criticisms.

The most serious misrepresentation lies in the reviewer’s statement that “Integralism clearly breaks with Vatican II’s teaching on religious liberty”.  The last ecumenical council’s document on religious liberty, Dignitatis humanae, meets the criteria for an infallible definition in its central teaching.  More precisely, it seems to contain a definition of a ‘secondary object’ of the magisterium, that is, something which may not be directly divinely revealed, but which can be taught infallibly insofar as it has a necessary connection with divine revelation.  But according to the ‘Doctrinal Commentary on the Professio Fidei’ produced by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1998, anyone who denies a secondary object of the magisterium which has thus been taught infallibly, is no longer in full communion with the Catholic Church.  Crean and Fimister, however, not only do not deny the central teaching of Dignitatis humanae; they take pains to explain what this teaching means, and how it is compatible with what Dignitatis humanae calls elsewhere “the duty of men and societies toward the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ”.  In accusing Crean and Fimister of upholding a position which would deprive them of communion with the Catholic Church, the editors of Commonweal have fallen into an error which they need to retract, lest they be liable to prosecution under canon 220 of the Code of Canon Law, which guarantees the right of the faithful to their good name.

Another serious, not to say libellous, misrepresentation in Commonweal’s book review is its claim that the authors are “driven more by nostalgia for the ancien régime than loyalty either to theological authorities or the Church’s magisterium”.  The phrase ancien régime, used without qualification, refers to those royal houses that lost their pre-eminence as a result of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars, especially the house of Bourbon.  The reviewer offers no evidence for his claim that the authors of Integralism are motivated even partly, let alone principally, by affection for these royal dynasties, an affection which in fact is not particularly common among Englishmen.  The reason why no evidence is offered is that there is none to offer: nothing in their manual suggests that its authors believe that the return of these royal houses is a necessary or natural prelude to the building of Christendom.  The reviewer is writing at random.

Connected to this error is his claim that the authors’ ideal is hereditary monarchy.  In fact, they examine the arguments for and against hereditary monarchy, without coming down on either side, concluding rather to the desirability of a variety of forms of polity.  The reviewer has perhaps misunderstood their statement that it seems desirable to include some element of hereditary power within a polity: but this need not mean hereditary monarchy, as the example of the House of Lords in Great Britain shows and, as they point out, citizenship is hereditary in almost all polities. They quote at length Leo XIII’s praise of the U.S. Constitution as a “well-ordered republic”. Equally astray is his claim that Crean and Fimister are followers of the 17th century author, Robert Filmer, for whom patriarchal monarchy was the only lawful form of government; they expressly state that Filmer’s account would apply only to unfallen man.

The reviewer errs, again, in claiming that Crean and Fimister recommend that women not have a right to vote except when they are at the head of a household.  They say, on the contrary, that it is fitting that all citizens enjoy a basic equality of suffrage, and women are explicitly included in this.  They go on to say that nothing prevents certain citizens from enjoying further titles to suffrage, such as education, military service or the headship of a family.  Integralism rejects not women’s suffrage but the dogmatic insistence on the principle ‘one person one vote’.  Likewise, there is nothing in the book to suggest that women should not occupy public office, whether legislative, judicial or executive.  So much for the reviewer’s claim that women are “written out of its narrative”.

He is also incorrect to claim that Integralism holds that all non-Catholics in a restored Christendom must be denied voting rights.  It states, rather that the higher public offices would be restricted to Catholics, while at the same time allowing for representatives of non-Catholic bodies, whose task would be to protect the rights and interests of such bodies, including the right of monotheists to freedom of worship within the due limits laid down by Dignitatis humanae.  Such representatives could be chosen by those whom they represent.

Still under the general heading of misrepresentations we may include the reviewer’s statement that the book has an “odd libertarian streak”.  He offers no examples of libertarian doctrines to be found in the book.  It defines and dismisses libertarianism in a footnote, condemns usury and upholds the living wage.

We may now turn to those criticisms which are not due simply to misrepresentations.  Some are classic examples of the suppressio veri and suggestio falsi.  Thus, Commonweal’s reviewer quotes the authors’ statement that slavery can be a “valid legal relationship”, something which anyone who believes in the divine origin of the Hebrew scriptures must accept, omitting to mention that the term ‘slavery’ in their analysis extends to most forms of paid employment and without quoting their further statement that it is wise for other forms of slavery to be forbidden in modern conditions, given the immense scope which they afford for abuse. Nor does he mention that they describe slavery as “the most extreme of all evils” and declare chattel slavery (what most mean by the term) null and void. He also paraphrases the authors, crudely enough, as saying that women “must offer sex” to their husbands whenever requested, offensively insinuating thereby that a passing assertion of the fact that both spouses owe each other the marriage debt (an uncontroversial repetition of the doctrine of St Paul) is some sort of license for marital rape. The reviewer can offer his apologies to the Apostle to the Gentiles when he meets him.

Next, the reviewer finds fault with the book’s sub-title, ‘A manual of political philosophy’.  Writing a ‘manual’ is, he warns, “an attempt to channel authority” – which apparently means laying claim to an authority to which one is not entitled.  Worse, it is “a subtle power play”, implying that one’s statements may not be questioned.  However, nemesis is in store for our two authors: they fall unsuspecting into a “deep irony”, since manuals are “a thoroughly modern notion”.  Things were done quite differently in the Middle Ages, you see; St Thomas Aquinas would have had no truck with manuals, since “in his greatest works” he avoided “a timeless, completed system”; he was interested in “genuinely responding to objections and frankly grappling with conflicting authorities”.  Not for him the “distinctly modern anxiety” about disagreements among Catholic authors from which Crean and Fimister suffer.

What a pother.  A manual is a book written in a concise style about a well-defined subject where the clarity and logical development of ideas are particularly aimed at.  As such, it is an obvious pedagogical device for every age.  The Summa theologiae is a 13th century manual of theology, albeit immeasurably superior to those of the 19th and 20th centuries, useful as these also are.  In the patristic period we may mention St John Damascene’s Exposition of the Orthodox Faith and St Augustine’s Enchiridion on Faith, Hope and Charity as examples of the same genre: ‘enchiridion’ is simply the Greek for ‘manual’, since both words mean hand-book.  Aristotle’s Peri Hermeneias is a manual of logic.  And so on.  Writing a manual on political philosophy yields no ‘irony’, whether deep or shallow.

In accusing the authors of Integralism of attempting, unlike St Thomas Aquinas, to write a ‘timeless, completed system’, the Commonweal reviewer is again writing at random, and, so to speak, thinking in clichés.  No one but a megalomaniac could suppose himself to have said the last word on any subject; but anyone who attempts to write philosophy or theology seeks to express timeless truths.  What is the Summa theologiae if not a vast ocean of such truths?

The authors are accused of ignoring “the messiness of Catholic tradition”.  Yet they mention many influential Catholic writers who have upheld positions with which they disagree, from Marsilius of Padua to Henry de Lubac, from William Barclay to Luigi Taparelli.   They note disagreements between important Catholic authorities, for example Suarez and Vitoria on the justification for an offensive war.  Even in the case of a doctor of the Church to whom they attribute a high authority, St Robert Bellarmine, they note that his account of the people as the subject of civil power was importantly qualified by Cardinal Ottaviani, and they consider that the 20th century cardinal hit the target more precisely than his 16th century predecessor.  The authors understand, with the angelic doctor, that in philosophy it takes time to reach the truth: the reviewer appears to confuse this proposition with the claim that there are no timeless truths to reach.

Integralism quotes from and harmonises a large number of fathers, saints and doctors of the Church, and many weighty magisterial teachings: for example, among others, St Gregory Nazianzen, St John Chrysostom, St Celestine I, St Leo I, St Gelasius I, St Augustine, St Gregory I, St John Damascene, St Gregory VII, St Peter Damian, St Bernard of Clairvaux, St Thomas Becket, St Thomas Aquinas, St Bonaventure, St Thomas More, St Robert Bellarmine, St Francis de Sales, Unam sanctam, Trent’s Decree on Baptism, Quanta cura, Libertas, Immortale Dei, Quas Primas, and Dignitatis humanae.  The reviewer nevertheless informs his readers that “the integralists’ problem is not too much tradition, but not enough – that they are depriving their followers of the richness and depth of Catholic political thought”.  Very good: we may now reasonably expect him to tell us about some of the riches and depths that Crean and Fimister overlooked, and then either to explain how these riches and depths complement the teachings which the authors have expounded, or, if the riches and depths are not compatible with these, why the teachings which Crean and Fimister overlooked should be given preference.  But he does nothing of the kind.  He simply tells us that Joseph Ratzinger once said that the teaching of Dignitatis humanae is in harmony with the patristic period – as if the authors had not said the same thing themselves, and explained why in great detail!

The reviewer is in fact ill at ease with the tradition of the fathers and doctors of the Church.  Referring to Crean and Fimister’s reference to the two swords in Luke 22 as standing for temporal and spiritual power, he accuses them of “exegetical perversities”, of twisting and abusing Scripture, and of serving the libido dominandi.  Strong words: but he omits to tell the reader what he must know at least from reading Integralism, namely, that this exegesis of the two swords is part of the patrimony of the Church, taught by many saints and doctors, and defined by Boniface VIII.  It is not Crean and Fimister whom he should be accusing of abusing Holy Scripture and serving the lust for power; it is St Peter Damian or St Bernard.  Let him do so if he dares.  Again, he would like to claim St Augustine for himself, but he will not find this easy when he reflects that the City of God gives as a model Christian ruler, Theodosius I, who made continuation in the right faith concerning the Blessed Trinity a requirement of Roman citizenship.

Commonweal’s reviewer objects not so much to Crean and Fimister as to Christendom itself.  For, despite the rhetorical dust kicked up by phrases such as “the messiness of Catholic tradition”, “debates that were precisely that: debates”, “the dialectical nature of tradition”, what he is opposing is the constitutional order that obtained from the time of Theodosius in the 4th century to the French Revolution.  In this constitutional order, the temporal community was a community of the baptised, and temporal rulers understood that their highest duty and honour was to assist the spiritual power in bringing souls to heaven by laws which would foster sacramental life and the observance of the law of God while restraining the heresies by which all supernatural life is destroyed.  This was Christendom.  In addition to its citations from the saints and the magisterium, Integralism provides various further justifications of such an arrangement, including the need of sanctifying grace so that a society of fallen men may reach even its natural end; the rights of God and of Christ; the subordination of powers as flowing from the subordination of ends; and the desire to make it less hard for human beings to be saved.

The reviewer ignores these arguments, as he ignores the citations from the saints and the magisterium.  Instead, he provides, or rather gestures towards, a counter-argument drawn from Holy Scripture.  Integralists, that is, people who think that Christendom is a good thing, “forget that his [Christ’s] Lordship is manifest in service, and that his victory is accomplished in the powerless of the Cross.”  They need to have their “imaginations […] remolded by Christ’s crucified body”, since otherwise they “disfigure his ecclesial body”. This appears to mean that just as our Lord suffered death for our salvation, so Christian rulers, whether spiritual or temporal, ought to allow His Church to be attacked by evil forces and not to use any temporal power to repel them.

One could point out in reply, as St Thomas pointed out in reply to the suggestion that Jewish children be baptised against their parents’ wishes, that this is not how the Christian rulers whom the Church venerates ever behaved, and that this answer should be enough for a Catholic.   One might also point out that Blessed Pius IX infallibly condemned the opinion that rulers have no general duty to restrain violators of the Catholic religion, except as public order may require.  But we may also answer the argument on its own terms.  Our Saviour knew by His prophetic knowledge that it was the Father’s will that He should die for the world’s salvation on a certain day, at a certain time and place, and in a certain manner.  Until His hour arrived, Christ preached the word, and He made use of supernatural power to restrain those who sought to harm or silence Him (Lk. 4:30; Jn. 8:59).  Christian rulers do not generally have prophetic knowledge, and hence they cannot know that God in His wisdom requires them to imitate Christ’s ‘weakness’ on the Cross unless circumstances show them that providence has so decreed – as when Blessed Charles of Austria went his way into exile.  Unless such circumstances arise, therefore, they do well to imitate their Lord by having the gospel preached, and restraining by the power that God has given them those who would silence or corrupt the word.

 

NO ABIDING CITY – THE CHALLENGE OF ST AUGUSTINE

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AmbroseTheodosius

Dr Alan Fimister

The following paper was given on 17 May 2019 at the Rome Life Forum

On the City of God Against the Pagans was written in response to the sack of Rome by the Visigoths in 410. It is hard to grasp the scale of the catastrophe represented by this event. A century earlier Constantine the Great saw the vision in the sky of a cross of light that led to his conversion to Christianity.[1] Eusebius Bishop of Caesarea applied to the new Christian Emperor the words of the prophet Daniel “the saints of the Most High shall inherit the kingdom”.[2] He considered this their literal sense i.e. that Christians would inherit the Roman Empire. The sovereignty of Constantine and his successors would be different in kind, Eusebius insisted, from that of his predecessors: “For how should he whose soul is impressed with a thousand absurd images of false deities, be able to exhibit a counterpart of the true and heavenly sovereignty?”[3] But for Constantine the conversion of the Emperor was not the repudiation but the climax of Roman history. The emperor himself perceived a prophecy of the birth of Christ in the writings of Virgil – Rome’s greatest poet – transferring, by implication, the ecstatic hope invested by the pagans of the first century in the person and line of Augustus, the first emperor, to the true Son of God and universal ruler, Christ.[4]

The history of Rome and its universal claims harmonised perfectly – so it seemed – with the triumph of Christ and His Church.

The two last bastions of ancient paganism were the Roman Senate and the Academy of Athens. The latter would endure for another century after Augustine’s time but the crucial fight for the soul of the Senate came four years before his conversion in 382 when the Altar of the goddess Victory was removed from the Senate House. Shortly after this trial of strength between the new religion and the pagan aristocracy the last ruler of the undivided Empire Theodosius (who formally adopted Catholicism as the religion of the empire in 380) extinguished the vestal fire, hearth of the city. The dying of this flame had long been thought to portend disaster. The vestal priestesses were also the guardians of the Palladium traditionally brought by Aeneas himself from Troy. Constantine had already removed this totemic object from Rome some sixty years earlier and taken it to Constantinople. The morning of the One True God had dawned upon the Roman Empire and from their last refuges the shadows of superstition were driven and exposed.

The remote causes of Rome’s fall from greatness are rooted deep in military and political developments stretching back many centuries. Even before Theodosius’s campaign against idolatry the empire had barely survived a mass armed migration of Goths across the Danube in 376. Order had never entirely been restored, nor, in fact, would it ever be. As Christopher Dawson observed “the storm was only beginning. It was to last, not for decades, but for generations, until the very memory of peace was gone. It was no ordinary political catastrophe, but ‘a day of the Lord’ such as the Hebrew prophets describe, a judgement of the nations in which a whole civilisation and social order which had failed to justify their existence were rooted up and thrown into the fire.”[5] The fatal blow would be a natural disaster. On 31 December 406 the other great European frontier of the Empire, the Rhine, froze solid and Vandals, Alans and Suebi swarmed across. It was a blow from which the people of the ancient world would never recover. Centuries of anarchy stretched before them.

Civilisation itself would in time be raised upon new foundations and, in large part, these would be the foundations to which Augustine pointed in the City of God but first he must turn the sword of blame from the Church for the temporal ruin which engulfed his flock.

The actual words of the pagan reproaches have not survived but we can well imagine what they said. Immortal Rome had flourished for more than a thousand years tending the altars of her gods. Even in her darkest hours the capitol itself had never fallen. Now eighty years after the Palladium was removed, fewer than thirty after the altar of victory was destroyed and a mere twelve years from the extinction of the Vestal fire the greatest city on earth had been put to the sword. Already the pagans charged that the virtues admired by Christians were inimical to the qualities that sustained the civic culture of antiquity. Now the consequences of that conflict and the vanity of the Judean superstition were plain for all to see.

How would the bishop of Hippo in North Africa respond to these charges? Celebrated convert from Paganism, baptised by St Ambrose himself the man who secured the removal of the Altar of Victory, Augustine had turned from a career as a statesman to the cloister and then (under protest) the cathedra. He was precisely the sort of person whose talents had been wasted by this new Christian age and might have prevented the fall of Rome.

Augustine’s response came in the form of the twenty-two books of the City of God. His defence of the Church against her critics was so profound and radical that it defined the Christian vision of history and society in the Latin West for a thousand years. Augustine completely rejected the priorities and assumptions of his pagan critics. He put their ideals on trial and cast them aside. As Das Kapital was to the Soviet Union so was the City of God to Mediaeval Christendom with dramatically different results. Charlemagne considered it his favourite book and St Thomas More lectured on it to the Carthusians of London (with whom he would later give his life for Christ) while he discerned his vocation as young man. At the beginning and the end of the ages of Faith Augustine was there guiding the thoughts and actions of the Church’s children.

About ten years ago a public debate was held in England between some Catholics and some opponents of the Church. The Catholics were generally not considered to have had the best of it (to put it mildly). The event triggered some trauma. An organisation was even founded to ensure that in any similar contest the Catholics would hold their own. What no one seemed to notice was the erroneous nature of the proposition the Catholic speakers were defending: that The Catholic Church is a force for good in the world. This is the error into which too many of the faithful had fallen in the century of their triumph from 310 to 410. It is the assumption the pagans thought had been refuted by the sack of Rome. It is the presupposition Augustine ignored and rejected in the City of God.

There are two senses of “the world” in the New Testament. There is the sense used in John 3:16: “God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting.” In this sense the world is good. God loves it and has saved it. Then there is the sense of the world used in John 17:9: “I pray for them. I pray not for the world, but for them whom thou hast given me: because they are thine.” In this sense the world is not good. Not at all. The Catholic Church is either the only force for good in the world or she is the world’s implacable enemy. She is never a force for good in this world. As Bl. John Henry Newman put it:

“Is not the world in itself evil? Is it an accident, is it an occasion, is it but an excess, or a crisis, or a complication of circumstances, which constitutes its sinfulness? or, rather, is it not one of our three great spiritual enemies, at all times, and under all circumstances and all changes, ungodly, unbelieving, seducing, and anti-christian? Surely we must grant it to be so. Why else in Baptism do we vow to wage war against it? Why else does Scripture speak of it in the terms which we know so well, if we will but attend to them? St James says, that ‘the friendship of the world is enmity with God,’ (James 4:4) so that ‘whosoever will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.’ And St Paul speaks of ‘walking according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience’; (Eph. 2:2) and exhorts us not to be ‘conformed to this world’, but to be ‘transformed by the renewing of our mind’; (Rom. 12:2) and he says that Christ ‘gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil world.’ (Gal. 1:4) In like manner St John says, ‘Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.’ (1 John 2:15) Let us be quite sure, then, that that confederacy of evil which Scripture calls the world, that conspiracy against Almighty God of which Satan is the secret instigator, is something wider, and more subtle, and more ordinary, than mere cruelty, or craft, or profligacy; it is that very world in which we are; it is not a certain body or party of men, but it is human society itself. This it is which is our greatest enemy.”[6]

This is a fundamental insight of the City of God. Christ’s Church is first and foremost the Church Triumphant in Heaven with which we are associated through baptism. The faithful of the Church Militant here below have no abiding City. Happiness cannot be found in this life. Those who seek it here below share in the rebellion of Lucifer who imagined he could make himself like the Most High (Is. 14:14). There is no common project to which the Catholic Church might contribute. No neutral space in which the brethren of Christ and the slaves of the evil one might labour in common. No end sought by humanity as a whole in this fallen state. There is indeed a natural unity to man but all who sin put themselves at enmity with this unity and all sin. We are reincorporated into it in so far as we are redeemed and the minority who accept and seek to live by the grace of redemption may form the true human city but insofar as they do they also put themselves at odds with the rest, with the vast bulk of mankind.

First of all Augustine refutes the pagans’ arguments. If the Roman gods would have preserved the city why did they not preserve Troy? The Palladium was only in Rome in the first place because it had to be rescued from Troy and taken to Italy by Aeneus. Virgil himself even helpfully refers to the Trojan’s “vanquished gods”. What use are deities who need to be guarded by their own worshipers? The claim that the Roman dominions would never decrease was refuted long ago in 117 when Hadrian abandoned many of the conquests of Trajan.

What is the temporal happiness for which the pagans claim they impetrate their pantheon, Augustine asks? According to respectable authors it is the life of virtue but the pagan gods showed precious little interest in this. The myths of the gods imbedded in the images and rites of pagan worship are a catalogue of crimes and abominations. If the Romans of the early Republic were virtuous it was despite and not because of their “religion”. Even this was no true virtue but custom animated by pride or a thirst for glory and honour that is: human praise. But Christ is as good as His word. Three times in the Sermon on the Mount He declares of those who simulate virtue for human respect: “Amen I say to you, they have received their reward.” Accordingly, the ancient Romans receive human glory, wide dominion, and the wonder of the ages. But such glory is transitory and as the splendid vices of the Romans faded so did the conquests dry up and the qualified reality of their commonwealth dissipated. Even their own authors treat the Republic as a vanished age by the time of the Incarnation. The pagan philosophers purport to seek happiness in the next life by the worship of their gods but the fables they defend expose these beings for the noxious demons they are while the philosophy itself purged of these fables would lead an honest man to the Church not the heathen temple.

In fact, the republican nostalgists are too generous. Truth be told the republic didn’t perish in the vices of the first century BC – it never existed. Taking the unimpeachable Roman authority Marcus Tullius Cicero, Augustine defines the people of a republic as “a multitude united in association by a community of interest and a common sense of right (or ius)”. But there can be no ius without iustitia no right without righteousness. Unless it is animated by the perpetual resolve to render unto each that which is his due there can be no republic and to whom is more due than God the creator and sustainer and perfecter of all things? By refusing to worship the one true God in the manner He has appointed the Romans evacuated their city of justice. But there is only one way of approaching the Living One: through the Cross – the one acceptable sacrifice foreshadowed by Abel and made present daily on the Catholic altar. And so, Augustine concludes: “there is no justice save in that republic whose founder and ruler is Christ”. As the first of all deceivers rebelled against God by claiming a right to the godhead; so his followers, in denying the due of the Almighty, usurp the right to all other things. As the Catholic Church is constituted by Christ’s sacrifice so the rebellion of Satan stands behind every alliance of men and angels separate from her. The acceptable worship of Abel manifested the Heavenly City and the rejected offering of Cain the earthly.

“Jerusalem received beginning through Abel, Babylon through Cain”.[7]

“[T]his is the characteristic of the earthly city, that it worships God or gods who may aid it in reigning victoriously and peacefully on earth not through love of doing good, but through lust of rule. The good use the world that they may enjoy God: the wicked, on the contrary, that they may enjoy the world would fain use God — those of them, at least, who have attained to the belief that He is and takes an interest in human affairs.”[8]

“Justice being taken away, then, what are kingdoms but great robberies? For what are robberies themselves, but little kingdoms? The band itself is made up of men; it is ruled by the authority of a prince, it is knit together by the pact of the confederacy; the booty is divided by the law agreed on. If, by the admittance of abandoned men, this evil increases to such a degree that it holds places, fixes abodes, takes possession of cities, and subdues peoples, it assumes the more plainly the name of a kingdom, because the reality is now manifestly conferred on it, not by the removal of covetousness, but by the addition of impunity. Indeed, that was an apt and true reply which was given to Alexander the Great by a pirate who had been seized. For when that king had asked the man what he meant by keeping hostile possession of the sea, he answered with bold pride: ‘What you mean by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, while you who does it with a great fleet are styled emperor.’”[9]

One of the great instruments in clouding Augustine’s doctrine from later ages is the modern concept of “the state”. Augustine has no place for “the state” in his vision. There is, in the first place, the Republic or City which Cicero correctly defined but which nowhere exists outside the Catholic Church. Secondly there are the multitude of brigandages the earthly confederacies that have no true right to exist but prey upon mankind. Finally, there is the grand confederacy of all those implicated in the rebellion against God. It is in this sense that there are two cities, two multitudes united in association by a common agreement on the object of their love. “Two loves formed two cities: the love of self, reaching even to contempt of God, an earthly city; and the love of God, reaching to contempt of self, a heavenly one.”[10]

Newman breathes the true doctrine of the great African when he considers the true nature of the so-called state:

“Earthly kingdoms are founded, not in justice, but in injustice. They are created by the sword, by robbery, cruelty, perjury, craft, and fraud. There never was a kingdom, except Christ’s, which was not conceived and born, nurtured and educated, in sin. There never was a state but was committed to acts and maxims which it is its crime to maintain, and its ruin to abandon. What monarchy is there but began in invasion or usurpation? What revolution has been effected without self-will, violence, or hypocrisy? What popular government but is blown about by every wind, as if it had no conscience and no responsibilities? What dominion of the few but is selfish and unscrupulous? Where is military strength without the passion for war? Where is trade without the love of filthy lucre, which is the root of all evil?”[11]

The idea of a neutral city has no place in Augustine’s analysis nor should it in ours. It is a mirage – worse than that – a lie designed to win us away from our true loyalty to the city which is above.

Where then does the temporal polity that submits to Christ’s kingship fall in Augustine’s taxonomy? There seems no place for it.

A few years before the calamity of 410 Augustine became involved in another much more local conflict between Christian and pagan in the city of Calama near to his own see of Hippo. The local pagans were outraged by a recent Imperial law forbidding idolatrous festivals. The pagans celebrated their festival anyway, rioted, killed a number of Christians, destroyed the cathedral and drove the Christians out of the City. A local pagan magistrate, Nectarius, appealed to Augustine to dissuade the authorities from severe reprisals. As it happened Augustine was willing to try to prevent the use of lethal force or torture (of which he disapproved) by the authorities but he would not seek a general clemency that might encourage future outrages of this kind, nor plead on behalf of the property of the offending pagans. More fundamentally Augustine rejects Nectarius’s argument (taken from Cicero) that “there is no limit either in measure or in time to the claims which their country has upon the care and service of right-hearted men”. For Augustine there is no value to the service of any temporal city unless and until it is incorporated into the heavenly one. Or rather, the only true service one can do the temporal city outside the Church is that which furthers this incorporation. Nectarius, imagining that nature has concrete value apart from the question of true worship, falsely supposes Augustine and he could share some perspective on the good for his city.

“These things I have said, [Augustine corrects him] because of your having written that the nearer you come to the end of life, the greater is your desire to leave your country in a safe and flourishing condition. Away with all these vanities and follies, and let men be converted to the true worship of God, and to chaste and pious manners: then will you see your country flourishing, not in the vain opinion of fools, but in the sound judgment of the wise; when your fatherland here on earth shall have become a portion of that Fatherland into which we are born not by the flesh, but by faith, and in which all the holy and faithful servants of God shall bloom in the eternal summer, when their labours in the winter of time are done.”[12]

This is the logic from which the institutions of Christendom would grow. The concept of “Church and State” with which we are so familiar in the modern age had no place in the Augustinian centuries. As Pope Boniface VIII defined in 1302 in the “Church and in its power are two swords; namely, the spiritual and the temporal.” There is no salvation for the temporal community other than, as Augustine puts it, “a portion of that Fatherland into which we are born not by the flesh, but by faith”. This is why mediaeval kings and emperors were deemed deposed by the ban of excommunication. Outside the Church they were mere brigands once again. But there is another side to this truth. Just as there is no state, no neutral polity for which Christian and pagan can toil together, so too the concept of the Church which identifies her with the clergy is a distortion that obscures her true nature and the role of the lay faithful. As the last Council observed, “the effort to infuse a Christian spirit into the mentality, customs, laws, and structures of the community in which one lives, is so much the duty and responsibility of the laity that it can never be performed properly by others.”[13] But that community, once it has been so transformed, is not external to the Church but merely a temporal province of Christ’s kingdom on earth. Newman again:

“…it is only in proportion as things that be are brought into this kingdom, and made subservient to it; it is only as kings and princes, nobles and rulers, men of business and men of letters, the craftsman, and the trader, and the labourer, humble themselves to Christ’s Church, and (in the language of the prophet Isaiah) ‘bow down to her with their faces toward the earth, and lick up the dust of her feet’, that the world becomes living and spiritual, and a fit object of love and a resting-place to the Christian.”[14]

If man’s end in this world were merely proportionate to his nature then the aptitudes and qualities that fit a man to be a statesman would be virtue simply speaking and the very fact that one man exercised civil authority over another would establish a strong presumption that he was fit to do so and exceeded his subjects in goodness. But the gift of God far exceeds the goods of nature and since the fall there has been a tension between the pursuit of temporal and spiritual goods. The temporal polity is not the visible manifestation of the damned city as the Church is of the elect but it forever tends in this direction. As Pope Gelasius I explained:

“Christ, mindful of human frailty, regulated with an excellent disposition what pertained to the salvation of his people. Thus he distinguished between the offices of both powers according to their own proper activities and separate dignities, wanting his people to be saved by healthful humility and not carried away again by human pride, so that Christian emperors would need priests for attaining eternal life, and priests would avail themselves of imperial regulations in the conduct of temporal affairs.”[15]

In this order of providence the aptitudes necessary for the government of temporal affairs are skills not virtues. It is no more impossible for a man to be a good statesman and a bad man as it is for him to be a good chemist and a bad man. Only in the heavenly city do rank and virtue coincide. In fact, it is worse than that. The temporal commonwealth is precisely the community constituted by the end proportionate to man’s nature and Satan’s rebellion consisted precisely in the claim that the absolutely final end is proportionate to the nature of every intellectual creature, that created persons are owed beatitude by God, and should not have to receive it as a gift on God’s terms.[16]For all those united by the love of self to the point of contempt for God the very existence of the Church is an affront to the dignity of man, of the intellectual creature. The temporal commonwealth is the object of their hopes and aspirations or their worship indeed. As the Catechism explains:

“Every institution is inspired, at least implicitly, by a vision of man and his destiny, from which it derives the point of reference for its judgment, its hierarchy of values, its line of conduct. Most societies have formed their institutions in the recognition of a certain preeminence of man over things. Only the divinely revealed religion has clearly recognised man’s origin and destiny in God, the Creator and Redeemer. The Church invites political authorities to measure their judgments and decisions against this inspired truth about God and man: societies not recognising this vision or rejecting it in the name of their independence from God are brought to seek their criteria and goal in themselves or to borrow them from some ideology. Since they do not admit that one can defend an objective criterion of good and evil, they arrogate to themselves an explicit or implicit totalitarian power over man and his destiny, as history shows.”[17]

Contingent factors undoubtedly played a decisive role in the rise of the hereditary principle and the concept of representative democracy in mediaeval Christendom but they both have a fitting place there. For a healthy and natural (or rather supernatural) suspicion must always attend those drawn to temporal statesmanship. It is a worthy and honourable task but, as with the episcopate, just because a man who desires the office of a statesman, desires a noble task does not mean the one who desires it or the desire itself is always or even often noble. It was natural that Christian man during the Augustinian centuries should, while desiring competence in the ministers of temporal power, have placed checks upon these men from those who either did not seek or did not hold such power.

The City of God is the Catholic Church.[18] Many among the baptised (all those in mortal sin) are not citizens of that city but no one who is wholly outside her pale belongs to it. Many who lack a living faith will one day enter her gates and some who possess such faith will depart from her before they die. But the Church is a city built upon a hilltop that cannot be hidden. There are not many ways to heaven. As the Doctor of Grace warned Nectarius:

“[y]ou said that all religions by diverse roads and pathways aspire to that one dwelling-place, I fear lest, perchance, while supposing that the way in which you are now found tends there, you should be somewhat reluctant to embrace the way which alone leads men to heaven. Observing, however, more carefully the word which you used, I think that it is not presumptuous for me to expound its meaning somewhat differently; for you did not say that all religions by diverse roads and pathways reach heaven, or reveal, or find, or enter, or secure that blessed land, but by saying in a phrase deliberately weighed and chosen that all religions aspire to it, you have indicated, not the fruition, but the desire of heaven as common to all religions. You have in these words neither shut out the one religion which is true, nor admitted other religions which are false; for certainly the way which brings us to the goal aspires thitherward, but not every way which aspires thitherward brings us to the place wherein all who are brought there are unquestionably blessed. Now we all wish, that is, we aspire, to be blessed; but we cannot all achieve what we wish, that is, we do not all obtain what we aspire to. That man, therefore, obtains heaven who walks in the way which not only aspires thitherward, but actually brings him there, separating himself from others who keep to the ways which aspire heavenward without finally reaching heaven. For there would be no wandering if men were content to aspire to nothing, or if the truth which men aspire to were obtained … Christ has said, I am the way, [John 14:6] it is in Him that mercy and truth are to be sought: if we seek these in any other way, we must go astray, following a path which aspires to the true goal, but does not lead men there.”[19]

If there is so stark a gulf between the one and only human community – God’s City – how can we give any loyalty to the latrocinium in which we are born especially in an age when scarcely a temporal polity on earth submits to the Kingship of Christ? Did not St Paul say in the days of Nero “the powers that be are ordained of God”? Nero was no Christian how then could he command obedience as St Paul assures us he could. A useful analogy can be found here, I believe, with the authority of parents. Failure to baptise one’s children, though a grave fault in parents, does not (because a failure to meet a positive rather than a negative precept) take away obedience still less the loyalty and love owed by children to those who begot them and licences a stranger to baptise an infant only in the imminent danger of death. So long as our temporal homeland does not require of us any violation of natural or divine law (even while it permits such violations to others) we owe it our obedience. But our estimation of all that true loyalty and love demand of us in its regard cannot but diverge from that of its rulers so long as they remain in the service of the enemy. There will be some overlap, as Our Lord Himself observes: “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”[20] but the fundamental motivations and intentions remain utterly opposed. If we forget this we do our God, our temporal homeland and ourselves no good service. Indeed, we depart entirely from the service of God. Permit me to close with another, shocking, observation by Bl. John Henry Newman. Shocking especially for those seduced by the siren voices who insist that the Catholic Church is a force for good in the world.

“Nature is one with nature, grace with grace; the world then witnesses against you by being good friends with you; you could not have got on with the world so well, without surrendering something which was precious and sacred. The world likes you, all but your professed creed; distinguishes you from your creed in its judgment of you, and would fain separate you from it in fact. Men say: ‘These persons are better than their Church; we have not a word to say for their Church; but Catholics are not what they were, they are very much like other men now. Their Creed certainly is bigoted and cruel, but what would you have of them? You cannot expect them to confess this; let them change quietly, no one changes in public,—be satisfied that they are changed. They are as fond of the world as we are; they take up political objects as warmly; they like their own way just as well; they do not like strictness a whit better; they hate spiritual thraldom, and they are half ashamed of the Pope and his Councils. They hardly believe any miracles now, and are annoyed when their own brethren confess that there are such; they never speak of purgatory; they are sore about images; they avoid the subject of Indulgences; and they will not commit themselves to the doctrine of exclusive salvation. The Catholic doctrines are now mere badges of party. Catholics think for themselves and judge for themselves, just as we do; they are kept in their Church by a point of honour, and a reluctance at seeming to abandon a fallen cause.’ Such is the judgment of the world, and you, my brethren, are shocked to hear it;—but may it not be, that the world knows more about you than you know about yourselves? ‘If ye had been of the world,’ says Christ, ‘the world would love its own; but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.’ So speaks Christ of His Apostles. How run His words when applied to you? ‘If ye be of the world, the world will love its own; therefore ye are of the world, and I have not chosen you out of the world, because the world doth love you.’ Do not complain of the world’s imputing to you more than is true; those who live as the world lives give countenance to those who think them of the world, and seem to form but one party with them. In proportion as you put off the yoke of Christ, so does the world by a sort of instinct recognise you, and think well of you accordingly. Its highest compliment is to tell you that you disbelieve. O my brethren, there is an eternal enmity between the world and the Church. The Church declares by the mouth of an Apostle” ‘Whoso will be a friend of the world, becomes an enemy of God;’ and the world retorts, and calls the Church apostate, sorceress, Beelzebub, and Antichrist. She is the image and the mother of the predestinate, and, if you would be found among her children when you die, you must have part in her reproach while you live.”[21]

Endnotes:

[1] Probably in 310. The impression is given by Lactantius and Eusebius that the vision of the cross occurred soon before the dream of Christ that Constantine had the night before the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in October 312 but they never actually say this. On the other hand, we have a pagan account of what seems to be the cross vision (seen by the army as well as Constantine) shortly after Constantine’s final conflict with his father-in-law Maximian in 310. R.A.B. Mynors (trans.), XII Pangyrici Latini (Oxford: OUP, 1964) 201-202.

[2] Eusebius of Caesarea, Oration in Praise of Constantine, 3.2. in (E.C. Richardson trans.) Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 1 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1890). PG 20.

[3] Eusebius, Oration, 5.3.

[4] Constantine I, Oration to the Assembly of the Saints, 20 in (E.C. Richardson trans.) Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 1 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1890). PG 20.

[5] M.C. D’Arcy et al., A Monument to Saint Augustine (London: Sheed & Ward, 1930) 37-38.

[6] John Henry Newman, Sermons on Subjects of the Day (Longmans, Green & Co.: London, 1902) 79-80.

[7] St Augustine, Exposition on Psalm 65, 2 in (J.E. Tweed trans.) Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 8 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1888).

[8] St Augustine, On the City of God, 15.7 in (M. Dods trans.) Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 2 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1887).

[9] St Augustine, On the City of God, 4.4 in (M. Dods trans.) Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 2 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1887).

[10] “fecerunt civitates duas amores duo: terrenam scilicet amor sui usque ad contemptum Dei: caelestem vero amor Dei usque ad contemptum sui” De civitate Dei, 14, 28 (PL 41, 436). See: Leo XIII, Humanum genus (Rome, 1884) no. 1.

[11] John Henry Newman, Sermons on Subjects of the Day (Longmans, Green & Co.: London, 1902) 242.

[12] St Augustine, Letter 91, 6.in J.G. Cunningham (trans.) Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 1 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1887).

[13] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Decree on The Apostolate of The Laity Apostolicam Actuositatem (Rome, 1965) no. 13.

[14] John Henry Newman, Sermons on Subjects of the Day (Longmans, Green & Co.: London, 1902) 106.

[15] St Gelasius I, Tractate IV in B. Tierney, The Crisis of Church and State, 1050-1300 (University of Toronto Press: Toronto, 1988) 15. Even our contemporaries dimly sense this need for a non-political higher and universal tribunal capable of striking down temporal laws and executive measures when these diverge from the moral law as witnessed by their futile enthusiasm for judicial supremacy and “human rights” tribunals.

[16] See: Pius X, Pascendi (Rome, 1907) no. 37 and Pius XII, Humani generis (Rome, 1950) no. 26.

[17] St John Paul II, Catechism of the Catholic Church (1997) no. 2244.

[18] De civitate Dei, 13, 16.

[19] St Augustine, Letter 104, 4.12 in J.G. Cunningham (trans.) Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 1 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1887).

[20] Matthew 7:11 (ESV).

[21] John Henry Newman, Discourses Addressed to Mixed Congregations (Longmans, Green & Co.: London, 1906) 165-167.

Integralism and the Infallibility of Quanta cura:

3 Replies

Pope-Pius-IX

 

A Reply to Lawrence King and Robert T. Miller

By John P. Joy

In a recent article at Public Discourse, Lawrence King and Robert T. Miller offered a cordial critique of some arguments I had made here at the Dialogos Institute, in which I defended the infallibility of the condemnations of modern errors contained in the encyclical letter Quanta cura of Pope Pius IX.

The context of the question is the renewed interest in Catholic integralism that has been growing among some theologians. The question is also of special interest in light of the apparent conflict between the teaching of Quanta cura and the Second Vatican Council’s declaration on religious liberty. For the present, however, I will leave such larger questions aside and focus only on the doctrinal status of Quanta cura. Does it contain infallible teaching?

There are, as King and Miller agree, three conditions that have to be met in order for the pope to be “speaking ex cathedra” (i.e., infallibly) in the sense defined by Vatican I. These have to do with the subject, the object, and the act of the teaching, respectively. King and Miller grant that Quanta cura satisfies the condition regarding the subject, which is that the pope must be teaching as head of the universal Church (and not, for example, as a private person). And they grant, at least for the sake of argument, that it also satisfies the condition regarding the object, which is that it must be a matter of faith or morals (and not, for example, a matter of discipline or governance). But they deny that it fulfills the condition regarding the act itself, which is that the teaching in question must be proposed definitively, i.e. conclusively, in a way that clearly indicates the intention of the pope to put an end to all legitimate debate on the topic.

The logic of their argument appears to involve two basic premises. The first is that condemnations utilizing some of the lesser theological censures, such as ‘rash’ or ‘offensive to pious ears’, are unable to be infallibly defined. From this they conclude that any condemnation that does not specify precise theological censures for individual propositions cannot be regarded as infallible, because in such cases we cannot know whether a particular proposition was meant to be condemned as anything more than rash or offensive to pious ears, etc. Their second premise is the claim that in Quanta cura the pope does not in fact apply any precise theological censures to the condemned propositions.

I will reply to these two points in turn and then close with some remarks on two ancillary arguments with which King and Miller conclude their essay.

Infallibility and the Minor Theological Censures

From the middle ages until the middle of the twentieth century, theological censures were often used both by theologians and in magisterial documents in order to indicate precisely in what ways various propositions were theologically objectionable. The gravest censure is ‘heresy’, then ‘error’, and so forth, all the way down to minor censures such as ‘evil sounding’ or ‘offensive to pious ears’, etc. Bishop Gasser’s official explanation at Vatican I of the intended sense of the definition of papal infallibility made it clear that the infallibility of the pope extends beyond the censure of heresy (Mansi 52:1316), but he did not say whether it extends to all of the lesser theological censures. And so there is some question especially about the minor censures which do not directly address the truth or falsity of a proposition. For example, an ‘evil sounding’ proposition may express something true but in an improper way.

Now some theologians hold that these minor censures which do not involve a definite judgment of falsity should be understood merely as proscribing a proposition as somehow dangerous in the concrete circumstances of that time, while allowing for the possibility that they could be held and taught without danger at some future time. On this view, such condemnations are essentially reformable, and therefore cannot be infallible. This seems to be the view of King and Miller, as well as other weighty theologians such as Christian Pesch, Adolphe Tanquerey, John Henry Newman, Francis A. Sullivan, and Brian W. Harrison. Tanquerey, for example, as King says in his excellent dissertation, “considers it a common and true opinion that the censures ‘proximate to heresy,’ ‘erroneous in faith,’ and ‘false’ can be issued infallibly, but argues that ‘temerarious,’ ‘offensive to pious ears,’ and ‘improbable’ cannot be, because these notes ‘do not seem to define a doctrine’” (pp. 85-86).

Many other eminent theologians, however, including St. Alphonsus Ligouri, Johann Franzelin, Joseph Kleutgen, Matthias Scheeben, Louis Billot, and Charles Journet, hold that even though such censures might not involve a definite judgment of the falsity of the doctrine, there is still an infallible judgment at least as to the objectionable quality specified by the censure. On this view, a proposition condemned, for example, as ‘offensive to pious ears’ is infallibly condemned, not necessarily as false, but precisely as offensive to pious ears.

To me at least, this latter position seems more in agreement with the solemn and definitive mode of expression typically used by the supreme pontiffs in condemnations of this kind. It strains credulity to say that Pope Clement XI, for example, was intending to speak only provisionally or tentatively—and not definitively and irrevocably—when he says in Unigenitus (1713):

“By this our perpetually valid (perpetuo valitura) Constitution, we declare, condemn, and reject each and every one of the propositions listed above as respectively false, captious, evil-sounding, offensive to pious ears, scandalous, pernicious, rash, injurious to the Church and her practice, insulting not only to the Church but also to the secular powers, seditious, impious, blasphemous, suspected of heresy and smacking of the same heresy, as well as favoring heretics and heresies and also schisms, erroneous, proximate to heresy, many times condemned, and finally heretical; clearly renewing many heresies and most especially those which are contained in the infamous propositions of Jansen, and indeed taken in that sense in which these have been condemned.”

Moreover, as Scheeben points out:

“The Council of Embrun, which was ratified ‘plenissime’ [most fully] by Benedict XIV [sic], says about the Bull Unigenitus: ‘The Constitution Unigenitus is a dogmatic, definitive, and irrevocable judgment of that Church about which it was said by the mouth of the Lord: the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Therefore if anyone does not agree heart and mind with this same Constitution, or does not give it true and sincere obedience, let him be considered among those who have made shipwreck of their faith’” (p. 369).

Indeed, in the Bull Pastoralis officii (1718), Pope Clement XI passed sentence of excommunication on those who would not accept Unigenitus, which would seem rather extreme if he had intended this constitution merely as a non-definitive exercise of his magisterium. Since, therefore, the case built by King and Miller against Quanta cura tells equally against Unigenitus, it seems to me that Quanta cura stands on firm ground.

No doubt there is much more that could and should be said about how to interpret all the various theological censures, but with respect to the question of infallibility, I would suggest that we ought to be asking more simply and directly whether a doctrine is being proposed as ‘to be believed as divinely revealed’ or as ‘to be held definitively’. These are the ‘notes’ specified by Vatican I and Vatican II as the criteria for infallible teaching. Moreover, these two notes are (relatively) easily understood and generally known; whereas the complex history of the terminology of theological censures (of which there are many, and many of whose precise meanings have been understood in different ways by different theologians), is familiar only to theologians. And as King and Miller themselves point out: “Any theory that implies that only professional scholars can figure out what has been taught infallibly has to be wrong.” Therefore, when a proposition is condemned in absolute terms as ‘to be rejected and condemned’, even without further specification, I submit that this should be understood as proposing the contradictory proposition as ‘definitively to be held’. For ‘to reject’ is the opposite of ‘to hold’ and to reject a doctrine ‘absolutely’ is the opposite of holding it ‘definitively’.

Theological Censures Used in Quanta cura

We come now to the second premise of the argument, which is the claim that Quanta cura does not specify any precise theological censures. But in fact it does. Although one has to read the whole document—and not only the final formula of condemnation—in order to see this. And this is most evident in precisely that proposition which is at the heart of the present debate about the theological note of integralism. For the condemned proposition which states (D 1689): “That the best condition of civil society is one in which no duty is recognized, as attached to the civil power, of restraining by enacted penalties, offenders against the Catholic religion, except so far as public peace may require” is condemned specifically as being “against the doctrine of Scripture, of the Church, and of the Holy Fathers” (contra sacrarum Litterarum Ecclesiæ sanctorumque Patrum doctrinam). That is no minor theological censure. In fact, it is hard to see how it could equate to anything less than a censure of heresy. The integralist doctrine expressed in this condemnation is therefore securely established as being at least definitive Catholic doctrine (de fide tenenda), if not even Catholic dogma (de fide credenda).

Another one of the condemned propositions is this (D 1698): “That one can, without sin and with no loss of Catholic profession, 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.” This proposition is condemned specifically as being “opposed to the Catholic dogma of the full power given from God by Christ our Lord Himself to the Roman Pontiff of feeding, ruling and guiding the Universal Church” (adversetur catholico dogmati plenae potestatis Romano Pontifici). Once again, it is very hard to see how this can equate to anything other than a censure of heresy.

Another proposition states (D 1690): “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; and 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 declare publicly their own concepts, whatever they be, by voice, by print, or in any other way.” This is condemned as “erroneous” and “maximally destructive to the Catholic Church and to the salvation of souls” (erroneam opinionem Catholicae Ecclesiae, animarumque saluti maxime exitialem). That doesn’t sound like an opinion that is merely ‘rash’ or ‘offensive to pious ears’. In fact, ‘erroneous’ is specifically mentioned by Bishop Gasser as one of the censures falling within the scope of papal infallibility (Mansi 52:1316).

Finally, in addition to the particular censures applied to some of the individual propositions, Pope Pius IX expressly describes all the propositions condemned in this encyclical as (D 1688): “false and perverse opinions” (falsae ac perversae opiniones). The term ‘false’ is especially important here because falsehood is absolutely and unambiguously opposed to truth. King and Miller sum up their argument by saying that Pius IX “could have used traditional language to definitively pronounce on the truth of these propositions, and yet chose not to do so.” But the plain fact of the matter is that by declaring them false, he did pronounce on their truth (in the negative); and he did so in a definitive way, by commanding all Catholics, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, to hold them as wholly and entirely (omnino) rejected, proscribed, and condemned.

Therefore, even if the minor theological censures cannot be defined infallibly; and even if papal condemnations were required to utilize specific theological censures in order to be infallible; nevertheless, Quanta cura would still meet the criteria for infallible ex cathedra teaching.

St. John Paul II and the Authority of the Magisterium

King and Miller close their essay with two further arguments which they say they regard as “conclusive” against the infallibility of Quanta cura. The first is based on their claim that Pope St. John Paul II “expressly rejected integralism” in an address to the European Parliament (1988) and implied such a rejection in his encyclical Centesimus annus (1991) by equating the right to religious freedom proclaimed by the Second Vatican Council with that found in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This, they say, would make the pope a material heretic (if the integralist thesis is a dogma), or at least materially in error about something proximate to heresy (if the integralist thesis is definitive Catholic doctrine), and what is worse it would mean that he officially “taught error as Catholic doctrine.”

Now I for one would not want to rashly accuse the saintly pontiff of any such thing, and so I would want to make a much more thorough study of his teaching on this subject than I have space for here before coming to such a conclusion, but it cannot simply be ruled out a priori that any pope could officially teach error when he is not speaking ex cathedra. Indeed, that is why we call such teaching ‘non-definitive’ or ‘non-infallible’. It seems to me quite ironic that King and Miller describe me as advocating a “maximalist view of infallibility” while at the same time apparently regarding it as unthinkable that Pope John Paul II could have taught error as Catholic doctrine in a speech to the European Parliament or implied something erroneous in an encyclical letter. But in any case, the very same problem faces King and Miller with respect to Pope Pius IX. For if any of the propositions condemned in Quanta cura are actually true, then that blessed pontiff would have been guilty of officially teaching error as Catholic doctrine when he described them all as false.

The final argument put forward by King and Miller consists in the claim that defending the infallibility of Quanta cura (as I do) undermines the authority of the magisterium, whereas holding that it teaches error (as Miller does) or at least thinking that it might (as King does) better safeguards the authority of the magisterium. Such a paradoxical claim only makes sense in light of their prior claim that there is a real contradiction between the teaching of Pope Pius IX (and other pre-Vatican II popes) and that of Vatican II (and post-conciliar popes). This claim necessarily implies that at least some magisterial teaching is in error. But if we are to judge between competing claims based on which view best safeguards the authority of the magisterium, then Thomas Pink’s position has the best claim, for he argues (convincingly, as I think), that there is no real contradiction on this point between Vatican II and prior magisterial teaching.

In any case, however, this argument simply begs the question with regard to the infallibility of Quanta cura. For if Quanta cura is infallible, then defending it even against some hypothetically contradictory teaching of the non-definitive magisterium would not be undermining the magisterium of the Church at all, but actually safeguarding it against the most dangerous kind of threat. Whereas, if Quanta cura is not infallible—indeed, only if it has lesser authority than some hypothetically contradictory non-definitive teaching—only then would its defense be undermining of the magisterium. But since the infallibility of Quanta cura is precisely the point under dispute, its fallibility cannot be presupposed in the premise of an argument without begging the question.

The Theological Note of Integralism

6 Replies

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:

  1. “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).
  2. “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).
  3. “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).
  4. “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).
  5. “That [religious] orders have no legitimate reason for existing” (D 1692).
  6. “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).
  7. “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).
  8. “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).
  9. “That the laws of the Church do not bind in conscience, except when promulgated by the civil power” (D 1697).
  10. “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).
  11. “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).
  12. “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).
  13. “That the Church should decree nothing which could bind the consciences of the faithful in relation to the use of temporal goods” (D 1697).
  14. “That to the Church does not belong the right to coerce by temporal punishments violators of its laws” (D 1697).
  15. “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).
  16. “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).
  17. “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.

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[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, 30th 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.