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Introduction: Nicaea and Constantinople I
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INSTITVTE
INSTITVTE
A series of jovial guides to the twenty-one Ecumenical Councils.
Introduction: Nicaea and Constantinople I
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.
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 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:
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, 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.
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).