Recently I published a piece called On Charging the Pope with Heresy, which looks at the main problem with the recent Open Letter accusing Pope Francis of heresy—namely, that it fails to make its case.
So far, the most thorough engagement with the piece that I’ve seen is by Louie Verrecchio.
He thoughtfully and charitably asks if I could provide a few clarifications, and I’m happy to do so.
First, though, I’d like to add one of my own . . .
On the Matter of Credentials
At the beginning of my piece, I noted that none of the signatories of the Open Letter had doctorates in the relevant fields of canon law and sacred theology and that none appeared to be ecclesiologists or had published books on the Magisterium and how it exercises its infallibility.
A number of people, including Louie, took this as disparaging the signatories, but this was not my intent.
The National Catholic Register asked me to discuss the signatories’ credentials, and I agreed that this was needed because various press outlets were presenting them as highly respected scholars who would have expertise in this area.
In fact, only one of them is prominent as a theologian, and this isn’t his area of specialization.
I thus included the reference to help provide context for ordinary readers in understanding the degree of expertise the signatories have in this area, to keep them from overestimating the matter.
Also, because they aren’t experts in ecclesiology, it was my way of letting them off the hook, which is why I said that it made some of the flaws in the letter understandable.
Noting that someone is not an expert in a subject is a matter of fact that in no way disparages the person or diminishes their expertise in other areas or their other contributions.
Also, my critique of the letter’s contents did not involve their level of expertise. I did not argue that their charges should be dismissed because of lack of credentials. I never make that argument, for anyone, on any subject. That’s the ad hominem fallacy.
People’s arguments need to be met on the merits, and after providing this bit of context, that’s what I did: Look at the merits of the argument they made.
The need to consider the merits is something that I’m very aware of. As an autodidact, most of my own expertise in different subjects is through independent study, and this happens to be an area I’ve specialized in. I’ve even published a theological manual on the topic.
Thus, I would never argue that someone’s argument should be dismissed because they aren’t credentialed in an area.
However, enough people misunderstood my intention that I realize I could have done more to clarify the reason I brought up the subject.
It’s my fault for not doing so.
Now, let’s look at the clarifications Louie requested . . .
The Nature of Heresy
Louie’s discussion deals with the nature of heresy, so it will be helpful to note a few points up front.
The term heresy has had several meanings over the course of Church history.
Originally, the Greek word hairesis meant “sect,” “party,” “school,” “faction” or the views characterizing such a group—i.e., “opinion,” “dogma” (see A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed., by Bauer, Danker, Arndt, and Gingrich [BDAG]).
The adjective hairetikos thus meant “factious,” “division-making” (BDAG).
Thus, when Paul tells Titus,
As for a man who is factious [Gk., hairetikos], after admonishing him once or twice, have nothing more to do with him (Tit. 3:10).
He means don’t waste your time on someone who persists in being divisive after you’ve warned him a couple of times.
In later centuries, the term heresy came to be applied—broadly—to any position that was in some way in conflict with Christian teaching and practice, but it didn’t have the technical meaning that it does today.
This has to be taken into account when reading older Christian documents, because we can’t impose on them a modern, technical meaning that the term had not yet acquired.
Today, the term heresy has a very technical meaning, which I document and explore in my original post. I go into even more detail in Teaching With Authority.
To put it concisely, today heresy is a canonical crime in which, after baptism, a person obstinately refuses to believe (i.e., doubts or denies) a dogma.
This is the sense of the term that is relevant if you want to charge a contemporary person—such as the pope—with heresy.
So, we need to know what dogma is.
The Nature of Dogma
Like the term heresy, the term dogma has had several meanings in the history of theology.
Originally, the Greek word dogma meant “ordinance,” “decision,” “command” (BDAG). That’s why Luke can say:
In those days a decree [Gk., dogma] went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled (Luke 2:1).
It also could refer to a tenet or statement of belief—i.e., “doctrine” or “dogma” in a loose, pre-modern sense (BDAG).
In later centuries, the term dogma came to refer to Christian teaching in general, without referring to a specific kind of teaching. This also has to be taken into account when reading older documents, when the term was still a synonym for doctrine (Latin, doctrina).
However, by the 18th century the term had come to refer to a subset of doctrines that must be believed “with divine and Catholic faith.”
This is, in essence, the set of beliefs that are contained in divine revelation (requiring divine faith) and that have been infallibly defined by the Magisterium as being part of divine revelation (requiring Catholic faith).
The upshot is that, today, the word dogma is used for those truths that the Magisterium has infallibly defined to be divinely revealed.
Heresy, then, is the obstinate, post-baptismal refusal to believe such a truth.
However, the Magisterium sometimes infallibly defines a truth without defining that it is divinely revealed. In that case, it is an infallible doctrine but not a dogma.
So, how can we tell which it is?
Infallible Doctrine or Dogma?
In my original piece, I wrote:
Note that just because something is infallible, that doesn’t make it a dogma. The Magisterium has to have infallibly said that it is divinely revealed for that to be the case.
Louie then says:
I would invite Mr. Akin to correct me if I have misread his position, but he seems to be treating the phrase “divinely revealed” almost, if not entirely, formulaically; as if a General Council that fails to explicitly state as much fails to teach dogmatically.
I’m not entirely sure what he means by “formulaically.” However, there is no set formula that the Magisterium must use, but it must in some way indicate not just that the matter is to be held definitively but that it is to be believed as a matter of theological faith, and thus is contained in divine revelation.
This is what I meant when I wrote:
But to create a dogma, the Magisterium needs to go further and, in some way [emphasis added], indicate that a truth is divinely revealed (e.g., by saying “is divinely revealed” in the case of a positive expression of dogma or by saying “is heretical” in the case of a doctrinal violation).
“Is divinely revealed” and “is heretical” are two possible ways of indicating this, but they are not the only ones. Saying things like “is a matter of faith” would also work, and there are other possibilities as well. As with papal infallibility, there is no set form of words that has to be used, but the concept has to be communicated in some way.
This gets us into how that happens in practice . . .
The Implications of “Anathema”
Louie writes:
My first thought upon reading his article up to this point is that when a council; e.g., the Council of Trent, employs the formula anathema sit, this alone is enough to inform the faithful that the truth in question is sufficiently based in revelation as to be considered divinely revealed; i.e., dogma.
I understand this impulse, and it’s a reasonable proposal when first considering the matter.
However, an examination of the historical record reveals that it isn’t the case.
As I discuss in Teaching With Authority (§§480-488), the term “anathema” literally referred to a special kind of excommunication, and it could be applied to non-doctrinal offenses.
For example, the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) imposed anathema on Christians who sent ships to trade with certain countries “for a period of four years.”
That’s not a doctrinal matter at all; it’s a disciplinary infraction, as indicated by the sunset clause of four years. It’s not like Christian doctrine is going to change in four years, such that what’s intrinsically wrong now will cease to be when we hit the four-year date.
Some uses of the penalty of anathema thus do not establish doctrines. However, anathema was the strongest penalty that could be applied, and so when it is applied to a doctrinal matter, the Magisterium may be seen as invoking the supreme level of its teaching authority—i.e., infallibility.
That still leaves open the question of whether it’s defining that a doctrine is true or whether it’s defining that a doctrine is divinely revealed.
We can demonstrate that anathema is not always used to do the latter. This is clear when it’s used to define things that aren’t divinely revealed. For example, consider this canon from the Council of Trent:
If anyone says that in the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist the substance of bread and wine remains together with the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ and denies that wonderful and unique change of the whole substance of the bread into his body and of the whole substance of the wine into his blood while only the species of bread and wine remain, a change which the Catholic Church very fittingly calls transubstantiation, let him be anathema [emphasis added] (Decree on the Eucharist, can. 2; DH 1652).
This canon appears to make two definitions:
- In the Eucharist, the whole substance of bread and wine is changed to Christ’s body and blood so that the bread and wine do not remain.
- The Catholic Church very fittingly calls this change transubstantiation.
The second of these points is not a matter of divine revelation. The term transubstantiation was not coined until the 1000s, and so the term is not part of the deposit of faith that Christ gave to the apostles. The fittingness of the term for this miraculous change is thus what specialists refer to as a “dogmatic fact” rather than a dogma.
Thus, writing in 1896, Sylvester Hunter, S.J. stated:
In the same way [as other dogmatic facts had been defined], the Council of Trent (Sess. 13, can. 2; Denz. 764) defined that the word transubstantiation was most fit to apply to the change of the elements in the Eucharist (Sylvester Joseph Hunter, Outlines of Dogmatic Theology, 3rd ed., vol. 1 [New York: Benzinger Brothers, 1896], §221).
Therefore, from the mere use of the word anathema—even when it is applied to a doctrinal matter—we can’t infer that it’s establishing a dogma (something that belongs to divine revelation and thus the “primary object of infallibility”) rather than a dogmatic fact or another part of the “secondary object of infallibility.”
So how can we tell?
Clear and Less-Clear Indicators
If the Magisterium uses a phrase equivalent to “is divinely revealed” then it’s a slam-dunk that a dogma rather than just an infallible teaching is being established.
The same is true if a phrase equivalent to “is heretical” is used—provided we’re looking at a document written after the term heresy acquired its modern meaning.
If we’re looking at a document written when heresy could either mean what it does today or just mean opposed to Christian teaching and practice in a more general way, then the matter is less clear.
This can be a very tricky matter, and it has to be dealt with cautiously, on a case-by-case basis because, as we’ve said, there is no single phrase or set of phrases that has to be used.
The Magisterium needs to somehow teach that the doctrine is divinely revealed—otherwise, the modern definition of “dogma” is not met—but the matter can be difficult to discern in practice.
My sense is that, going forward, the Magisterium will be making it abundantly clear whether something is revealed, but in looking at older documents, before the present distinctions were made, the matter is more difficult to discern.
So, are there any case studies we can look to for guidance?
Two Helpful Examples
In 1998, Joseph Ratzinger and Tarcisio Bertone issued a Doctrinal Commentary on the Concluding Formula of the Professio Fidei.
Because it did not carry papal approval, it does not itself qualify as a document of the Magisterium, but it represents the opinion of the top two doctrinal officials of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and thus it’s an extremely helpful guide.
In it, they offer two examples of matters that are (or were) infallible truths but not dogmas.
The first concerns the infallibility and primacy of the Roman pontiff. They write:
[T]he doctrine on the infallibility and primacy of jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff was already recognized as definitive in the period before the [First Vatican] council. History clearly shows, therefore, that what was accepted into the consciousness of the Church was considered a true doctrine from the beginning, and was subsequently held to be definitive; however, only in the final stage—the definition of Vatican I—was it also accepted as a divinely revealed truth.
Thus, prior to 1870 it was already an infallible teaching that the pope could exercise infallibility and that he held the primacy of jurisdiction over the Church. Then, in 1870, Vatican I elevated these truths to the status of dogmas.
The second matter concerns women’s ordination. They write:
A similar process can be observed in the more recent teaching regarding the doctrine that priestly ordination is reserved only to men. The Supreme Pontiff [John Paul II], while not wishing to proceed to a dogmatic definition, intended to reaffirm that this doctrine is to be held definitively, since, founded on the written Word of God, constantly preserved and applied in the Tradition of the Church, it has been set forth infallibly by the ordinary and universal Magisterium. As the prior example illustrates, this does not foreclose the possibility that, in the future, the consciousness of the Church might progress to the point where this teaching could be defined as a doctrine to be believed as divinely revealed.
Thus, they hold that John Paul II confirmed that the ordinary and universal Magisterium has already established that the reservation of priestly ordination to men is an infallible truth.
But, they indicate, it’s not yet a dogma.
This is fascinating, because they even say it’s a truth “founded on the written word of God, constantly preserved and applied in the Tradition of the Church.”
They thus draw a distinction between being “divinely revealed” and being “founded on” divine revelation. Presumably, this involves the distinction between something required by divine revelation but not contained within it (e.g., as a dogmatic fact) and something that is directly contained in divine revelation.
In view of these two examples, it seems to me that highly reputable theological minds today are being very careful about declaring something a dogma as opposed to an infallible teaching.
Consequently, in cases of doubt, the prudent course would be to assume that something is merely an infallible teaching.
The burden of proof would be on one to show why it is a dogma, especially in the absence of a clear indicator like “is divinely revealed” or “is heretical” (in the modern sense).
I hope this clarifies my understanding of the more theoretical matters that Louie asks about in his post. He also asks about a concrete issue raised in the Open Letter. However, this post is already long, so I will try to do another one on that subject.
I want to close by thanking Louie for his thoughtful and charitable interaction with my original post.
