Category: Canon Law

Pope Declines to Endorse Controversial Synod Proposals

On February 12, Pope Francis released a document responding to the October, 2019 Synod of Bishops on the Amazon.

The document has been expected for several months and has been the subject of intense speculation on several controversial topics.

These included proposals to ordain married men to the priesthood, to ordain women to the permanent diaconate, and to create a special Amazonian rite with its own form of liturgy.

Pope Francis did not accept any of these proposals.

Here are 8 things to know . . .

 

What is the Synod of Bishops?

The Synod of Bishops is a gathering of bishops from around the world that meets periodically. Since it first convened in 1967, it has met about once every two years.

Its purpose is to discuss how the Church can best respond to particular pastoral issues. In some cases, these deal with challenges the Church faces in particular regions, such as the Amazon.

The Synod typically meets for a few weeks, at the conclusion of which the attending bishops issue a document summarizing their reflections and making various proposals. This document is submitted to the pope for his consideration, and in recent years the document has been made public.

Following the Synod, the pope then prepares his own document—known as a “post-synodal apostolic exhortation”—in which he discusses the subjects the Synod took up and makes determinations for future courses of action.

 

What happened in this case?

The Synod of Bishops met from October 6-27. In attendance were several hundred bishops, mostly drawn from the nine countries in the Amazon region (Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Surinam, Venezuela, and French Guiana), along with a variety of non-voting attendees.

The Synod’s final document is online here.

In 2018, Pope Francis provided that “if it is expressly approved by the Roman pontiff, the final document participates in the ordinary magisterium of the successor of Peter” (Episcopalis Communio, art. 18 §1).

While Pope Francis has spoken positively of the document, he has not given it the kind of formal approval needed to make it part of his personal magisterium.

After the Synod met, the pope entrusted his advisors with drafting an apostolic exhortation, which he then reviewed and approved.

The new exhortation, which is titled Querida Amazonia (Spanish, “Beloved Amazonia”) is available online here.

In my book Teaching With Authority, I commented on the nature of apostolic exhortations:

As the name suggests, these are documents in which the pope exhorts (urges, advises, counsels). They are pastoral rather than doctrinal in the formal sense, though they routinely restate Church doctrine. As teaching documents, they rank lower than encyclicals, though it would be inaccurate to represent them as non-magisterial documents. They also aren’t legislative and don’t create or modify laws. However, they can indicate how popes believe moral and canon law should be applied.

 

What does the new exhortation contain?

Apart from an introductory section and the customary Marian conclusion for documents like this, it contains four main sections, each of which describes a “dream” that Pope Francis has for the Amazon region. He describes them as follows:

I dream of an Amazon region that fights for the rights of the poor, the original peoples and the least of our brothers and sisters, where their voices can be heard and their dignity advanced.

I dream of an Amazon region that can preserve its distinctive cultural riches, where the beauty of our humanity shines forth in so many varied ways.

I dream of an Amazon region that can jealously preserve its overwhelming natural beauty and the superabundant life teeming in its rivers and forests.

I dream of Christian communities capable of generous commitment, incarnate in the Amazon region, and giving the Church new faces with Amazonian features (n. 7).

These dreams—which are later referred to as the “social dream,” the “cultural dream,” the “ecological dream,” and the “ecclesial dream”—are then described in the four chapters of the document’s main text.

A basic overview of the document is provided by Edward Pentin, but we will look at three topics that have been controversially globally—the ordination of married priests, the ordination of women to the diaconate, and the creation of an Amazonian rite.

 

What has happened on the subject of married priests?

Citing the priest shortage in the Amazonian territory, which can cause communities to go months or years between the celebration of the Eucharist, the Synod’s final document proposed that an exception be made to the Latin Church’s general practice of ordaining only celibate (unmarried) men to the priesthood:

[W]e propose that criteria and dispositions be established by the competent authority [i.e., the Vatican], within the framework of Lumen Gentium 26, to ordain as priests suitable and respected men of the community with a legitimately constituted and stable family, who have had a fruitful permanent diaconate and receive an adequate formation for the priesthood, in order to sustain the life of the Christian community through the preaching of the Word and the celebration of the sacraments in the most remote areas of the Amazon region. In this regard, some [Synod fathers] were in favor of a more universal approach to the subject (n. 111).

In the period leading up to the release of Pope Francis’s exhortation, various online sources claimed to have seen drafts that endorsed this proposal. Other sources claimed to have seen drafts that did not do so.

When the exhortation was published, it did not make any mention of ordaining married men to the priesthood in the Amazon. Instead, it envisioned a renewed vocations campaign in the region. Pope Francis wrote:

This urgent need [for priests] leads me to urge all bishops, especially those in Latin America, not only to promote prayer for priestly vocations, but also to be more generous in encouraging those who display a missionary vocation to opt for the Amazon region (n. 90).

For the foreseeable future This effectively ends the idea of ordaining married men on an expanded basis in the Latin Church. Pope Francis received a request from a supermajority of the Synod’s bishops, and he chose not to accept the request.

This is not as surprising as it might be to some, as Cardinal Marc Ouellet—the head of the Congregation for Bishops—had previously hinted that Pope Francis was skeptical of the proposal.

 

What happened with respect to women deacons?

The Church’s Magisterium has infallibly taught that only men can be ordained to the priesthood. However, in 2002 Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger approved a document by the International Theological Commission that stated the Church has yet to “pronounce authoritatively” on the question of whether women could be ordained to the diaconate.

Consequently, in 2016 Pope Francis convened a commission to discuss this issue, though it reached inconclusive results.

The subject was further discussed at the Synod, whose final document stated:

In the many consultations carried out in the Amazon, the fundamental role of religious and lay women in the Church of the Amazon and its communities was recognized and emphasized, given the wealth of services they provide. In a large number of these consultations, the permanent diaconate for women was requested. This made it an important theme during the Synod. The Study Commission on the Diaconate of Women which Pope Francis created in 2016 has already arrived as a Commission at partial findings regarding the reality of the diaconate of women in the early centuries of the Church and its implications for today. We would therefore like to share our experiences and reflections with the Commission and we await its results (n. 103).

Following the Synod, Pope Francis said that he would reconvene the commission and allow further discussion of the topic. Given this statement, it is likely that this will happen.

However, no mention was made of ordaining women to the diaconate in the pope’s exhortation, and the language it used was not encouraging toward the idea of ordaining women.

The document contains a five-paragraph discussion of the role of women in the Amazonian churches, but it distinctly downplays the idea of conferring holy orders on women. First, the pope speaks positively of the role of women in the Amazon:

In the Amazon region, there are communities that have long preserved and handed on the faith even though no priest has come their way, even for decades. This could happen because of the presence of strong and generous women who, undoubtedly called and prompted by the Holy Spirit, baptized, catechized, prayed and acted as missionaries. For centuries, women have kept the Church alive in those places through their remarkable devotion and deep faith. Some of them, speaking at the Synod, moved us profoundly by their testimony (n. 99).

However, he cautions against the idea of conferring holy orders on women, continuing:

This summons us to broaden our vision, lest we restrict our understanding of the Church to her functional structures. Such a reductionism would lead us to believe that women would be granted a greater status and participation in the Church only if they were admitted to Holy Orders. But that approach would in fact narrow our vision; it would lead us to clericalize women, diminish the great value of what they have already accomplished, and subtly make their indispensable contribution less effective.

Jesus Christ appears as the Spouse of the community that celebrates the Eucharist through the figure of a man who presides as a sign of the one Priest. This dialogue between the Spouse and his Bride, which arises in adoration and sanctifies the community, should not trap us in partial conceptions of power in the Church. The Lord chose to reveal his power and his love through two human faces: the face of his divine Son made man and the face of a creature, a woman, Mary. Women make their contribution to the Church in a way that is properly theirs, by making present the tender strength of Mary, the Mother (n. 100-101).

Finally, he discusses the kind of positions and services that women should be given in the Amazon:

 [T]hose women who in fact have a central part to play in Amazonian communities should have access to positions, including ecclesial services, that do not entail Holy Orders and that can better signify the role that is theirs. Here it should be noted that these services entail stability, public recognition and a commission from the bishop. This would also allow women to have a real and effective impact on the organization, the most important decisions and the direction of communities, while continuing to do so in a way that reflects their womanhood (n. 103).

 

What has happened with respect to an Amazonian rite?

The Synod’s final document contained a section titled “A Rite for the Indigenous Peoples,” which stated:

We should give an authentically catholic response to the request of the Amazonian communities to adapt the liturgy by valuing the original worldview, traditions, symbols and rites that include transcendent, community and ecological dimensions. . . .

It is urgent to form committees for the translation of biblical and the preparation of liturgical texts in the different local languages, with the necessary resources, preserving the substance of the sacraments and adapting their form, without losing sight of what is essential. . . .

The new organism of the Church in the Amazon should establish a competent commission to study and discuss, according to the habits and customs of the ancestral peoples, the elaboration of an Amazonian rite that expresses the liturgical, theological, disciplinary, and spiritual patrimony of the Amazon (nn. 116-119).

Pope Francis’s exhortation endorsed the idea—affirmed in many Church documents in recent decades—of “inculturating” various aspects of Church life (that is, adapting them based on the local culture).

However, he did not endorse the idea of creating a new rite for the Amazon. Instead, he wrote:

[W]e can take up into the liturgy many elements proper to the experience of indigenous peoples in their contact with nature, and respect native forms of expression in song, dance, rituals, gestures, and symbols. The Second Vatican Council called for this effort to inculturate the liturgy among indigenous peoples; over fifty years have passed and we still have far to go along these lines (n. 82).

In a footnote, he stated:

During the Synod, there was a proposal to develop an “Amazonian rite.”

This holds out the possibility that such a rite might develop in the future, but it does not endorse the idea of one being created now.

 

Could any of these ideas—married priests, women deacons, or an Amazonian rite—come back in the future?

Of course. People proposed them now, and they can always re-propose them in the future. The question is what kind of papal reception they will have, and that depends on who the pope at the time is.

If Pope Francis were to endorse any of these ideas in his pontificate, this was the most likely time for it, and he didn’t.

To appreciate this, it helps to realize that passages in the final document of a Synod need to be approved by a two-thirds majority of the bishops in attendance. A supermajority of the bishops selected to attend this Synod thus gave him direct invitations concerning each of these three proposals, and he chose not to follow up on them, despite the opportunity to do so.

In the future, he might re-evaluate this, but his refusal to endorse any of these proposals is highly noteworthy.

It also appears that Pope Francis wishes to cool the expectations currently being generated in Germany as part of the “binding synodal path” their bishops have undertaken. Indeed, certain statements in the exhortation—particularly those in a section entitled “Expanding Horizons Beyond Conflicts”—can be read as directed against exaggerated German expectations, even though Germany is not mentioned. He writes:

It often happens that in particular places pastoral workers envisage very different solutions to the problems they face, and consequently propose apparently opposed forms of ecclesial organization. When this occurs, it is probable that the real response to the challenges of evangelization lies in transcending the two approaches and finding other, better ways, perhaps not yet even imagined (n. 104).

In light of the present rejection of three major pastoral proposals made at the Amazonian Synod, and tensions between the Vatican and the German bishops, it is easy to see this as a warning not to expect radical pastoral proposals made for a particular area to be accepted. and that “it is probable” that—in the long run—the actual path to be followed will be something else, perhaps “not yet even imagined.”

 

Cardinal Gerhard Müller has been critical of proposals connected with the Synod. What was his reaction to the apostolic exhortation?

He released a letter, in which he stated:

Amid great hopes and anxious fears, the post-synodal letter has arrived. It refers to the final document of the Amazon Synod on October 6-27, 2019, and the Pope does not draw from it any dramatic and disconcerting conclusions.

Rather, he wishes to offer the Church and all people of good will his own answers, in order to help to ensure a “harmonious, creative and fruitful reception of the whole synodal process” (Art. 2). . . .

The entire letter is written in a personal and attractive tone. The Successor of Peter, as the universal shepherd of Christ’s flock and as the highest moral authority in the world, wants to win all Catholics and Christians of other denominations, but also all people of good will for a positive development of this region, so that our fellow men and fellow Christians living there may experience the uplifting and unifying power of the Gospel.

Imprimaturs and Private Revelations

In recent years, imprimaturs have been granted to books connected with unapproved private revelations, and this has led to some confusion.

It has been argued that imprimaturs and nihil obstats are acts of the Magisterium, and therefore the faithful are obliged to give the religious submission of mind and will that they must to any other act of the Magisterium.

This argument has been made, for example, by some supporters of the non-Catholic mystic Vassula Ryden.

Is this true? Are imprimaturs and nihil obstats acts of the Magisterium? What implications do they have for the faithful and how they are to regard private revelations?

The Code of Canon Law does not use the terms imprimatur and nihil obstat, but they are often used by Catholic publishers.

A nihil obstat (Latin, “nothing obstructs”) is a written opinion issued by a censor that nothing obstructs the publication of a book in terms of faith or morals (can. 830 §3).

In issuing this opinion, the censor is bound “to consider only the doctrine of the Church concerning faith and morals as it is proposed by the ecclesiastical Magisterium” (830 §2). This means that the censor is not to base the opinion on whether he agrees with everything claimed in the work—only whether the book contains statements that contradict Church teaching.

Censors are not typically bishops, so there is no question of whether nihil obstats are acts of the Magisterium. The Church’s Magisterium can be exercised only by bishops teaching in communion with the pope, so unless a censor is a bishop, there is no possibility that an opinion issued by a censor could be an act of the Magisterium.

An imprimatur (Latin, “Let it be published”) is an authorization given by a local ordinary (typically a bishop) to publish a work. The U.S. bishops’ Committee on Doctrine notes:

In the Latin Catholic Church, there are two primary forms of ecclesiastical authorization for written works. These are identified in church law as “permission” (licentia) and “approval” (approbatio). Since these terms are not used consistently within the various authoritative documents, a consensus has not yet emerged among canonical experts as to whether the terms are interchangeable or whether there is, in fact, a precise and practical distinction between the two (n. 2).

However, these terms are given precise meanings in the Code of Canons for the Eastern Churches, which provides:

1. Ecclesiastical permission, expressed only with the word imprimatur, means that the work is free from errors regarding Catholic faith and morals.

2. Approval granted by competent authority shows that the text is accepted by the Church or that the work is in accordance with the authentic doctrine of the Church (can. 661).

Are imprimaturs acts of the Magisterium? It should be pointed out that imprimaturs are issued by “local ordinaries” (cf. can. 824 §1), and not all local ordinaries are bishops. For example, local ordinaries include vicars general and episcopal vicars (can. 134 §1).

The fact that non-bishops can issue imprimaturs is a significant sign that they are not acts of the Magisterium.

Further, to exercise his personal magisterium, a bishop must himself issue a teaching, but this is not what is happening when an imprimatur is granted. The bishop himself does not teach something; he authorizes someone else to do something—namely, to publish a work.

The situation is similar to when a bishop issues a mandate for a theologian to teach in a Catholic university (cf. can. 812). He’s giving permission for someone else to teach, but that does not make everything the theologian says part of the bishop’s personal magisterium.

Similarly, when a local ordinary—even a bishop—gives permission for a book to be published, it does not make everything the book says part of the bishop’s personal magisterium.

As the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith explains:

Ecclesiastical permission or approval . . . guarantees that the writing in question contains nothing contrary to the Church’s authentic magisterium on faith or morals (II:7:2; cf. II:8:3).

This is a negative guarantee. It means that the work does not contradict Church teaching. However, it is not a positive guarantee that all of the opinions found in the book are true. In fact, this is sometimes expressly pointed out in the notification printed for an imprimatur.

For example, G. Van Noort’s 1954 book Dogmatic Theology: Volume I carries this notification:

The nihil obstat and imprimatur are official declarations that a book or pamphlet is free of doctrinal and moral error. No implication is contained therein that those who have granted the nihil obstat and imprimatur agree with the opinions expressed.

What about private revelations and imprimaturs? In the 1917 Code of Canon Law, it was required that books of private revelations carry an imprimatur (cf. can. 1399 n. 5), however this is no longer required.

In fact, very few books today require imprimaturs or other forms of ecclesiastical permission. These include translations of Scripture (can. 825), liturgical books, liturgical translations, prayer books (can. 826), catechetical materials, religious textbooks used in Catholic schools, books sold or exhibited in churches (can. 827), and collections of official Church documents (can. 828).

Since comparatively few books require imprimaturs, this is why most books by Catholic publishers—including Catholic Answers—don’t carry them, and the same applies to books dealing with private revelations.

So, what does it mean if a book on an apparition gets an imprimatur? It does not mean that apparition is genuine. The Church has a separate process for investigating apparitions, and unless that process has been used, the apparition has not been approved as genuinely supernatural.

Even when the Church does approve an apparition, it does not mean that the faithful are required to accept it, only that they are authorized to accept it if it seems prudent. As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger explained when he was head of the CDF:

Ecclesiastical approval of a private revelation has three elements: the message contains nothing contrary to faith or morals; it is lawful to make it public; and the faithful are authorized to accept it with prudence

It’s also worth noting that, when the Church does investigate an apparition, it’s not just any bishop who can do so. Although the Vatican or the conference of bishops could intervene, the only local bishop with the authority to conduct such an investigation is the one where the apparition has been reported.

This means that an imprimatur issued by a bishop in another part of the world would be unrelated to the apparition approval process.

What an imprimatur would mean is that a bishop somewhere in the world has judged (based on the opinion that the censor gave him) that the work does not contain anything that contradicts Church teaching.

It may not even express itself well. It may have ambiguous statements that don’t necessarily contradict Church teaching but that could be understood in an erroneous way. It also may contain theological opinions that are false but that the Church has not (yet) condemned. And it may contain statements about non-religious matters that are inaccurate.

Of course, an individual bishop might favor the book—and the apparition on which it is based—and he might recommend them to others.

This would mean that he, personally, favors them, but his granting an imprimatur would not constitute an act of the Magisterium binding the faithful to give “religious submission of intellect and will” (Lumen Gentium 25) to the apparition or what it says.

Even if he were (very extraordinarily!) to issue a teaching document endorsing the apparition, it would at most bind only the faithful of his own diocese (can. 753), for an individual bishop cannot bind the faithful of another diocese by his personal magisterium. Such a bishop also would likely get in trouble with the Vatican for overstepping the apparitions approval process.

So the implications for an imprimatur being given to a book of private revelations are the same as they are for any other book. It’s a judgment by an individual bishop that the work does not contradict Catholic doctrine. Nothing more.

New Books in the Bible? (& More Weird Questions)

It’s time for more weird questions with Jimmy Akin, including this time new books in the Bible; Heaven on another planet; impeaching the Pope; time travel & the Eucharist; marrying aliens; zombie apocalypses; and more.

Weird Questions in this Episode:

  • How does the Church view books like 3 Maccabees, the Prayer of Manasseh, Psalm 151, or the Greek Ezra (which are found in Bibles of the Byzantine tradition)? Was there ever an official statement or teaching on these other works which were sometimes in the Bible?
  • Is it possible that God has placed heaven, or the New Earth of Revelation, on a planet in another galaxy?
  • Could the pope make a canon law that allowed for impeachment of a pope?
  • Could intelligent non-human aliens receive the Eucharist?
  • Assuming time travel is possible and a priest and his parishioners are transported back to a time before the Incarnation of Christ. Since the Last Supper hadn’t happened yet in the natural timeline, is it possible to have a valid eucharistic consecration?
  • Why wouldn’t there be marriage in the age to come? Will the sex organs on our resurrected bodies not work?
  • If you can have a nihil obstat for books, why doesn’t the Church have a similar system for speakers and Catholic teachers?
  • Can a priest give himself confession if he is in a state of mortal sin and needs to say Mass and receive the Eucharist?
  • How did the animals get to places like Australia after the Great Flood?
  • If we found another sentient species (on earth or on another planet), would it be a violation of natural or moral law for a human to marry and/or procreate with that being?
  • Will God allow a zombie apocalypse possible to happen? Will killing a helpless, disabled, and starving zombie be criminal or immoral?

Links for this episode:

Direct Link to the Episode.

Subscribe on iTunes. | Other Ways to Subscribe.

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Just the Facts: the Amazon Synod

The three-week Synod of Bishops for the Amazon has drawn to a close, with a final Mass celebrated by Pope Francis on Sunday, October 27.

The synod was held to address two principal topics, both mentioned its title, Amazonia: New Paths for the Church and for an Integral Ecology.

By discussing “new paths for the Church,” it sought to address pastoral concerns in the pan-Amazon region of South America, and by discussing “an integral (i.e., complete) ecology,” it sought to address environmental concerns in the region.

So, what happened, and what happens now?

Controversy erupted over the synod before it even began, with some criticizing its initial working document as being insufficiently focused on Christ and the Christian faith.

The controversy expanded following a tree-planting ceremony held at the Vatican on October 4, just before the start of the synod.

This ceremony featured several wooden carvings of a naked, pregnant woman whose identity was ambiguous. They were identified by various parties as representations the Virgin Mary, Mother Earth, the Incan earth deity Pachamama, or some kind of symbol of life.

These carvings were taken from the Roman church where they were housed and thrown into the Tiber River, though they were later recovered.

The Italian police commander who took charge of them upon their recovery suggested that they might be present during the closing Mass of the synod, but this did not happen. Instead, a traditional image of Mary was used.

When the Synod of Bishops meets, it uses a working document prepared ahead of time as a starting point for its discussions, and then it prepares a final document that is submitted to the pope.

It’s then up to the pope to decide what—if anything—is to be done on the basis of the synod’s advice.

The final document produced by this synod discussed a wide variety of subjects—many more than we can cover here—but we will focus on two that have been lightning rods.

Based on the initial working document, various commentators expressed concerns that the synod might call for the ordination of married men to the priesthood and for the ordination of women to the diaconate.

The final document submitted to the pope did contain paragraphs discussing these subjects, though they contained qualifiers that weren’t always reported in the press. John Allen notes:

In the final document of the synod released Saturday night Rome time, the 184 voting members, mostly bishops from the nine countries that contain a share of the Amazon rainforest, appeared to offer cautious approval to all three ideas—married priests, women deacons, and an Amazon rite—but with an emphasis on “caution.”

Some of that was actually anti-climactic, since Francis himself drew the synod to a close by insisting that it would be a mistake to focus on internal Church debates, saying the emphasis instead should be on the fate of the Amazon itself.

On ordaining married men to the priesthood, the final document cited a shortage of priests in the Amazon that can lead to gaps of months or years between visits by a priest who can celebrate the Eucharist, confessions, and the anointing of the sick.

It therefore proposed establishing criteria to ordain priests who are “suitable and esteemed men of the community, who have had a fruitful permanent diaconate and receive and adequate formation for the priesthood, having a legitimately constituted and stable family” to serve “in the most remote areas of the Amazon region.”

Married priests are found in many Eastern rite Catholic churches, but for many centuries, the Latin rite of the Catholic Church has ordained only celibate men to the priesthood—at least under ordinary circumstances.

There have been exceptions, such as when a couple with no children at home separates to devote themselves to God (e.g., the wife becomes a nun and the husband becomes a monk or priest). Recently, the Holy See has allowed the ordination of married men in the Latin rite who were clergymen in another Christian body.

Under present Latin canon law, a man who has a wife is impeded from ordination except to the permanent diaconate (can. 1041 §1), but this impediment can be dispensed by the Holy See (can. 1047 §2 n. 3).

The final synod document proposes that a new exception be made for certain married men in the Amazon, though the document notes that some synod members preferred “a more universal approach to this subject.”

Since divine law and Church teaching do not require that only unmarried men be ordained to the priesthood, the question of ordaining married men is a subject of prudential judgment on which Catholics can hold different views.

The situation is different when it comes to women deacons, for here Church teaching is involved.

The Church teaches that “Only a baptized man validly receives sacred ordination” (CCC 1577). It also teaches that the diaconate is one of the three grades of holy orders (CCC 1554). From that, it follows that the Church teaches only a baptized man can validly be ordained to the diaconate.

Yet in the early Church there were women who were called “deaconesses” (cf. Rom. 16:1).

How can these things be squared? The standard view is that the deaconesses in the early Church did not receive the sacrament of ordination but were called “deaconesses” because of their role in serving the Church (Greek, diakonos, “servant”). However, some argue that they were ordained.

In 2016, Pope Francis convened a commission to study the subject, but its results were inconclusive.

The synod referred to this commission, and its concluding document noted that some of the synod fathers favored the permanent diaconate for women. It stated, “We would therefore like to share our experiences and reflections with the commission and await its results.”

Here the participants ask to provide input to the commission. No doubt, the bishops who favored ordaining women to the diaconate would continue to urge that, while bishops who did not favor this proposal would urge the reverse.

Unlike ordaining married men to the priesthood, ordaining women to the diaconate would require a change in Church teaching. Would such a change be possible?

In 1994, John Paul II ruled that it has been definitively (infallibly) settled that women cannot be ordained to the priesthood, and in 2002, Joseph Ratzinger approved a document of the International Theological Commission that concluded that, on the subject of ordaining women to the diaconate, it still “pertains to the ministry of discernment which the Lord established in his Church to pronounce authoritatively on this question.”

It thus held that this was still a subject of possible doctrinal development.

What is Pope Francis likely to do in regard to these questions?

Just before the synod, Cardinal Marc Ouellet, head of the Congregation for Bishops, indicated that Pope Francis is skeptical of ordaining married men to the priesthood, though he noted that he had authorized discussion on the subject.

Whether he will agree to the synod’s request to make exceptions for married men in certain regions of the Amazon remains to be seen.

On the question of women deacons, Pope Francis has indicated he will try to reconvene the commission studying this question for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Whether a reconstituted commission would be able to achieve more of a consensus than the first one did remains to be seen—and it would take some time for the new commission to do its work.

The next concrete development is expected to be the publication of a document that popes traditionally release after a synod (known as a post-synodal apostolic exhortation). This may happen before the end of the year, and it will provide a clearer idea of what Pope Francis plans to do in response to the synod.

Now, as Pope Francis discerns his response, is a good time for prayer.

 

Why Was Arius a Heretic?

Erick Thomas Ybarra writes:

Jimmy Akin’s argument here on the doctrine of Justification is right on the money, and it is why I wish the authors of the Open Letter did not write on this point. It is very clear Amoris dodges this accusation. . . .

My concern, however, with Akin’s article, and I would ask him to clarify for me, is that his argument on the “canonical crime of heresy” vis-a-vis the definition of dogma which requires both divine & catholic faith, would render the ancient presbyter Arius as free of the canonical crime of heresy.

The Council of Nicaea (325) gives us the Creed with “homoousian” (one substance), but only anathematizes those who hold to it, and does not specify anywhere in clear enough terms that the matter is “divinely revealed”.

Happy to oblige!

The reason that Arius counts as a heretic can be answered in more than one way.

 

By Historical Standards

The first way involves judging him by the standards of his own time. In this era, the term “heresy” did not have its modern, technical meaning.

Instead, as I discuss here, it was used in a broader sense that could refer to anything that conflicted with basic Christian doctrine or practice.

Consequently, it was not necessary at that time to show that a particular doctrine had been infallibly defined as divinely revealed to label someone a heretic.

Arius’s denial of the divinity of Christ unambiguously conflicted with basic Christian teaching, as solemnly confirmed by the First Council of Nicaea, and so he was labelled a heretic.

Thus, Arius has been known as a heretic down through history.

 

By Modern Standards

A second way of approaching the question is to apply the standards of our time, retrospectively, to the case of Arius. In other words: Would he be convictable as a heretic given the modern use of the term?

Today the term heresy, in simple language, refers to the obstinate, post-baptismal refusal to believe a dogma (for the technical definition, see CIC 751 with CIC 750).

Arius certainly was obstinate at the Council of Nicaea. He refused to submit to its teaching on the divinity of Christ and was consequently sent into exile. He also was baptized.

This leaves us with the question of whether the divinity of Christ is a dogma—that is, a truth that the Magisterium has infallibly defined to be divinely revealed.

There are several issues to be considered here:

  1. What the Council of Nicaea actually said
  2. What authority the Council was understood to have at the time
  3. What authority it is understood to have today

 

What Nicaea Said

Regarding the first question, the Council published what scholars refer to as the Creed of Nicaea. It was later supplemented at the First Council of Constantinople (381) to for the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed (more popularly called the “Nicene” Creed).

The main difference between the two creeds is that the Creed of Nicaea did not end the same way. It didn’t have the passage declaring the divinity of the Holy Spirit. Instead, it ended this way:

[We believe . . .] in the Holy Spirit.

However, those who say: “There was a time when he [the Son] was not” and “Before he was born he was not” and that he was made from nothing or who say that the Son of God may be of a different hypostasis or essence, or may be created or subject to change and alteration, [such persons] the Catholic Church anathematizes (DH 126).

As Erick points out, the anathema at the end of the Creed does not mention the doctrine being divinely revealed.

However, another part of the Creed indicates that divine revelation is involved. The Creed begins:

We believe in one God, the Father almighty, creator of all things, visible and invisible, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Only-Begotten gener­ated from the Father, that is, from the being of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, one in being with [homoousion] the Father, through whom all things were made, those in heaven and those on earth . . . (DH 125).

The key part of this for our purposes is the verb that introduces and governs the entire sentence: “We believe” (Greek, pisteuomen, Latin, credimus).

This verb indicates that the truths articulated belong to the Faith (Greek, hê pistis, Latin, fides), and thus as belonging to divine revelation.

We thus have the text of Nicaea indicating that divine revelation is involved.

 

What Authority the Council Was Understood to Have at the Time

The First Council of Nicaea was initially confirmed by the authority of the Emperor Constantine. Bishop Karl Josef von Hefele notes:

Constantine the Great solemnly confirmed the Nicene Creed immediately after it had been drawn up by the Council, and he threatened such as would not subscribe it with exile. At the conclusion of the Synod he raised all the decrees of the assembly to the position of laws of the empire; declared them to be divinely inspired; and in several edicts still partially extant, he required that they should be most faithfully observed by all his subjects (A History of the Councils of the Church, I:42).

This is interesting from the point of view of history, but the question from a theological perspective is what the pope said about the Council. According to von Hefele:

The signatures of the Pope’s legates, Hosius, Vitus, and Vincentius, subscribed to the acts of the Council before the other bishops, must be regarded as a sanction from the See of Rome to the decrees of Nicaea. Five documents, dating from the fifth century, mention, besides, a solemn approval of the acts of the Council of Nicaea, given by Pope Sylvester and a Roman synod of 275 bishops. It is granted that these documents are not authentic, as we shall show in the history of the Council of Nicaea; but we nevertheless consider it very probable that the Council of Nicaea was recognized and approved by an especial act of Pope Sylvester, and not merely by the signature of his legates, for the following reasons:—

It is undeniable, as we shall presently see, that

α. The fourth ecumenical council looked upon the papal confirmation as absolutely necessary for ensuring the validity of the decrees of the Council; and there is no good ground for maintaining that this was a new principle, and one which was not known and recognized at the time of the Nicene Council.

β. Again, in 485, a synod, composed of above forty bishops from different parts of Italy, was quite unanimous in asserting, in opposition to the Greeks, that the three hundred and eighteen bishops of Nicaea had their decisions confirmed by the authority of the holy Roman Church (confirmationem rerum atque auctoritatem sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae detulerunt).

γ. Pope Julius I [r. 337-352] in the same way declared, a few years after the close of the Council of Nicaea, that ecclesiastical decrees (the decisions of synods) ought not to be published without the consent of the Bishop of Rome, and that this is a rule and a law of the Church.

δ. Dionysius the Less also maintained that the decisions of the Council of Nicaea were sent to Rome for approval; and it is not improbable that it was the general opinion upon this point which contributed to produce those spurious documents which we possess (ibid. I:44-45).

At this time, the theology of ecumenical councils and when they teach infallibly had not been worked out. That was a subject that would be clarified through later doctrinal development. However, Nicaea was held by its supporters to be divinely guided and supremely authoritative. (The Arians, naturally, disagreed.)

 

What Authority the Council Is Understood to Have Today

Now that the theology of ecumenical councils has undergone a high degree of doctrinal development, how is First Nicaea viewed from a contemporary perspective?

It is universally regarded as the first of the ecumenical councils. According to Church teaching:

The college of bishops exercises power over the universal Church in a solemn manner in an ecumenical council. But there never is an ecumenical council which is not confirmed or at least recognized as such by Peter’s successor (CCC 884).

Bishop von Hefele argues that First Nicaea was recognized as ecumenical by a special act of Pope Sylvester I (r. 314-335), during whose reign it occurred.

However, even if it turned out that Pope Sylvester did not recognize it by a special act, the council would still be ecumenical.

A special act of recognition by the pope is not required—only the recognition itself. Subsequent popes—including all of the recent ones—have unmistakably recognized this council as ecumenical, and so it is.

 

Prosecuting Arius for Heresy by Modern Standards

That brings us to the Creed of Nicaea’s infallibility. While the theology of magisterial infallibility also had not been developed at the time the Council met, it has now, and the Church holds that:

[When the bishops are] gathered together in an ecumenical council, they are teachers and judges of faith and morals for the universal Church, whose definitions must be adhered to with the submission of faith (Lumen Gentium 25).

At Nicaea, the bishops were gathered in an ecumenical council, so that leaves us with the question of whether the Creed of Nicaea counted as a definition—that is, as a statement the bishops intended to be binding on all the faithful and to absolutely bring all legitimate discussion of a matter to an end.

Note that an ecumenical council—like a pope—does not have to use any set form of words to issue a definition. It does not have to say “anathema” or “we define.” It just has to indicate in one way or another that the matter is definitively settled.

In this case, it did. The bishops of the Council of Nicaea clearly intended to bring all legitimate discussion of the topic to an end, for all of the faithful, and to make this point they put their teaching in the form of a profession of faith for the faithful to say.

This profession of faith also has become universal in both East and West as an obligatory expression of Christian truth. One cannot be an orthodox Christian and deny it. (This means, among other things, that the ordinary and universal magisterium also has infallibly taught it, not just the extraordinary magisterium.)

That brings us to the final issue, which is whether the use of the verb “believe” (pisteuomen/credimus) indicates a matter of divine revelation.

It does. In the Doctrinal Commentary on the Concluding Formula of the Professio Fidei, Ratzinger and Bertone note that the verb “believe” (Latin, credo) is used for “all those doctrines of divine and Catholic faith which the Church proposes as divinely and formally revealed and, as such, as irreformable” (n. 5).

By contrast, the verbs “accept and hold” (Latin, amplector ac retineo) are used for “all those teachings belonging to the dogmatic or moral area, which are necessary for faithfully keeping and expounding the deposit of faith, even if they have not been proposed by the Magisterium of the Church as formally revealed” (n. 6).

Such a truth is thus a “sententia definitive tenenda” (Latin, “opinion to be definitively held”—as opposed to be believed with divine and Catholic faith).

Thus, from a modern perspective, the confession of faith offered in the Creed of Nicaea—or the modern Nicene Creed—consists of matters to be believed, not merely held, and thus as consisting of truths contained in divine revelation.

Consequently, Ratzinger and Bertone state that among truths of this kind “belong the articles of faith of the Creed, the various Christological dogmas and Marian dogmas” (n. 11).

By requiring Christians to profess belief in the divinity of Christ, Nicaea thus infallibly defined that this is a truth of divine revelation.

Therefore, even when we apply modern criteria, Arius was a heretic.

A Second Response to Peter Kwasniewski

Peter Kwasniewski, responding to my previous post, says:

Jimmy Akin wrote a reply to some stray comments of mine on Facebook, and I therefore owe him and my readers at least a brief response. (In the coming days, you can expect to see a more robust rejoinder or two made to all of our critics; it will be worth the wait.)

He then says:

There are two problems with Akin’s argument.

Let’s look at both of them.

 

Kwasniewski’s First Argument: The Possibility of Observing the Commandments

He writes:

1) The letter certainly contains charges that fulfill even Mr Akin’s definition of the requirements for the delict of heresy. Most obviously the first one:

“A justified person has not the strength with God’s grace to carry out the objective demands of the divine law, as though any of the commandments of God are impossible for the justified; or as meaning that God’s grace, when it produces justification in an individual, does not invariably and of its nature produce conversion from all serious sin, or is not sufficient for conversion from all serious sin.”

This rests on the dogmatic pronouncement of the Council of Trent, session 6, canon 18:

“If anyone says that the commandments of God are impossible to observe even for a man who is justified and established in grace, let him be anathema” (DH 1568).

The initial quotation (“A justified person has not the strength . . .”) is not a quotation of Pope Francis. It is a construction of the authors of the Open Letter, whose meaning they attribute to Pope Francis. They only later quote Pope Francis’s words in an attempt to justify their initial paraphrase, and they do not provide argumentation as to why we should take his words in the sense they attribute to him.

This is a flaw in the drafting of the Open Letter. It would be better if they had used Pope Francis’s own words and contrasted them directly with the quotation from Trent, providing exegesis as to why we must understand something Francis said as contradicting Trent. This they do not attempt.

They also fail to provide the needed analysis of Trent’s statement. The use of the penalty of anathema, in this case, indicates that Trent is making an infallible definition. However, as I document here, it does not indicate that Trent is saying this matter is divinely revealed and thus a dogma. More than a mere use of “anathema” is needed for that.

It is possible for the canon to be understood as asserting a truth known by reason or “founded upon” Scripture without being directly contained in divine revelation (see my previous documentation). I can think of arguments on both sides of the issue.

Whatever conclusion one might draw based on them, this canon will not sustain a successful charge of heresy against Pope Francis.

To see why, we need to do the work that the authors of the Open Letter failed to do—i.e., to conduct an exegesis of the relevant texts.

In the first place, we need to understand Trent. As is regularly underscored in textbooks on magisterial statements, the decrees of ecumenical councils must be understood in terms of the problems that they were addressing. The same is true of Scripture. Only after this step is completed can we relate what they have to say to problems raised in later ages.

So, what was Trent combatting in this canon? Basically, there were Protestant authors who were saying that it was altogether impossible for a justified man to observe God’s commandments. Some went as far as saying that every single thing a person did was mortal sin.

Trent’s concern is to reject this error and affirm that it is possible for “a man who is justified and established in grace” to observe God’s commandments.

Note the inclusion of the phrase “and established in grace.” This means that factors in addition to justification are needed for a man to observe God’s commandments. This is proved by canon 22, which reads:

If anyone says that without God’s special help a justified man can persevere in the justice he has received or that with it he cannot persevere, let him be anathema (DH 1572, emphasis added).

In other words, the just man requires God’s “special help” (Latin, speciali auxilio) to observe the commandments. This is what is meant in canon 18 when it refers to the just man being “established in grace.” Trent thus is not saying that justification alone provides this ability.

Trent also is assuming the usual conditions needed for mortal sin are met. It is talking about people who are capable of performing human acts, and who thus have adequate consent and knowledge. It is not talking about people who are deprived of the needed consent or knowledge.

There is no guarantee here that God will ensure that the just always have the knowledge and freedom needed to avoid objectively grave sins. For example, there is no guarantee that a baptized child below the age of reason—who is justified by virtue of baptism—will always be able to avoid objectively grave sin. God does not guarantee, and Trent does not mean, that a baptized three-year old will always have the knowledge and freedom needed to resist the urge to run into oncoming traffic or eat something labelled “poison.”

Neither is there a guarantee that these will be the case for people at later stages of life. People can go senile. They can go insane. They can get brain damage. They can be incompletely or even erroneously catechized. There are all kind of things that can cause a just person to be deprived of the knowledge and freedom necessary to objectively observe the commandments.

None of those situations are covered by Trent’s definition, which is meant to deal with the situation of a just man who is established in grace, who possesses reason and is capable of performing human acts—i.e., who has sufficient freedom and knowledge.

So how does that relate to what Pope Francis said?

When the authors of the Open Letter attempt to document the error they attribute to him in the quotation above, they cite four texts (see Open Letter [A] 1, 9-11).

Three of these are quotations in which the Pope says things about Martin Luther and the Reformation. None of these even mention the issue at hand—whether it is impossible for a just man established in grace to observe the commandments. They are therefore inadequate to proving a charge of heresy on this point.

The remaining one is this:

Saint John Paul II proposed the so-called “law of gradualness” in the knowledge that the human being “knows, loves and accomplishes moral good by different stages of growth.” This is not a “gradualness of law” but rather a gradualness in the prudential exercise of free acts on the part of subjects who are not in a position to understand, appreciate, or fully carry out the objective demands of the law (Amoris Laetitia 295).

Here Pope Francis refers to John Paul II’s discussion of the law of gradualness in Familiaris Consortio 34. One can ask whether Pope Francis understands this principle in exactly the same way as John Paul II, but that’s not our question here. Our question is whether Pope Francis contradicts canon 18 of Trent’s Decree on Justification.

So, what can we say about that?

Unfortunately, the authors of the Open Letter have truncated Pope Francis’s remarks in a way that hides relevant context from the reader. To quote him more fully, he says:

This is not a “gradualness of law” but rather a gradualness in the prudential exercise of free acts on the part of subjects who are not in a position to understand, appreciate, or fully carry out the objective demands of the law. For the law is itself a gift of God which points out the way, a gift for everyone without exception; it can be followed with the help of grace, even though each human being “advances gradually with the progressive integration of the gifts of God and the demands of God’s definitive and absolute love in his or her entire personal and social life” (Amoris Laetitia 295, emphasis added).

The authors of the Open Letter omitted Pope Francis’s words stressing that God’s law is the same for everyone and that it can be kept with the help of grace! That’s precisely what Trent was saying!

This omission is so significant, given the error Pope Francis is being accused of, that it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that it was deliberately left out to deprive the Open Letter’s readers of information that would be damaging to the authors’ case.

Where Pope Francis goes beyond canon 18 is in calling attention to the fact that there are some situations, particularly at early stages of moral catechesis, where people “are not in a position to understand, appreciate, or fully carry out the objective demands of the law.”

But Trent didn’t deny that. It never said that the moment you’re justified you’re guaranteed divinely infused catechesis about the whole law of God. If that did happen, we wouldn’t need children to memorize the commandments or learn their meanings and applications as part of their catechism classes.

Trent assumed in canon 18 that we’re talking about a person who has the knowledge and freedom needed to place an authentically human act.

So, what if you get bad catechesis early in life and thus a late start on mature moral development?

In that case, you need to recognize the truth of God’s law, which “points out the way . . . for everyone without exception” and “can be followed with the help of grace,” even if this means that one “advances gradually with the progressive integration of the gifts of God and the demands of God’s definitive and absolute love in his or her entire personal and social life.”

That last quotation, which Amoris Laetitia gives, by the way, is also from John Paul II. It’s from Familiaris Consortio 9.

The Open Letter thus wholly fails to sustain a charge of heresy against Pope Francis on this point.

 

A Side Question from Louie Verrecchio

Although the authors of the Open Letter do not cite Amoris Laetitia 301 in relation to their first charge of heresy, Louie Verrecchio thinks it relevant. He quotes the passage as follows:

A subject may know full well the rule [divine law concerning the mortal sin of adultery], yet have great difficulty in understanding its inherent values, or be in a concrete situation which does not allow him or her to act differently and decide otherwise without further sin. (AL 301)

Given the analysis of Trent that we have already offered, part of the solution to Louie’s query is clear: When section 301 refers to the possibility of someone having “great difficulty in understanding its [the law’s] inherent values,” there is no conflict with Trent. The Council did not define that people will never have incomplete or bad catechesis, resulting in a malformed conscience.

But what about the statement that it’s possible a person may “be in a concrete situation which does not allow him or her to act differently and decide otherwise without further sin”?

What might that mean?

This could have been expressed more clearly—e.g., with the addition of a relevant example—but it is possible to imagine situations that the pope would see as fitting this description.

For example: Suppose that a person has been raised culturally Catholic but given no catechesis at all. Let’s suppose that it’s a woman from one of the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. She marries a man, but he beats her, and she divorces him. She then marries another man, without an annulment, and they have several children. He then starts beating her, too. She thinks about leaving him also, but he makes it clear that if she does so, he will kill both her and the children. In fact, she realizes that she will be in danger if she even stops sleeping with him.

At this point, out of desperation, she turns to God and has a religious conversion. She begins attending religious education classes at her local parish and discovers that she’s been living out of conformity with God’s law all this time.

There is certainly a way through this situation that—however difficult it may be—does not involve her sinning.

But at her present stage of moral catechesis, she may believe that her moral duty to protect the children and provide for their welfare is such that she believes it would be a sin for her to stop sleeping with this monster. She may thus believe that she is in “a concrete situation which does not allow him or her to act differently and decide otherwise without further sin.”

The situation I have proposed is extreme, but extreme situations help make points clear. That’s why they’re used in thought experiments.

Of course, however difficult it may be for her to discern, there is a way for her to deal with this situation without sin. God’s law never creates true double-bind situations.

But his permissive will allows situations to exist where it is very difficult to discern and follow the right path.

I take that to be what Amoris Laetitia means. Indeed, the context is one in which the document is discussing difficult situations that make it difficult to fully follow God—a process of discernment that “must remain ever open to new stages of growth and to new decisions which can enable the ideal to be more fully realized” (AL 304).

Given all of these factors, an orthodox reading of AL 301 is entirely possible. One cannot show from the text that Pope Francis is intending to teach that God’s law contradicts itself in such a way that there is literally no non-sinful option in some cases.

But if he’s not saying that, then he’s not saying that it’s impossible to keep the commandments.

AL 301 is thus not a suitable basis for sustaining a charge of heresy, even if canon 18 of the Decree on Justification is taken as establishing a dogma rather than just an infallible truth. You’d need something much more explicit and unambiguous to sustain a charge of heresy.

 

Kwasniewski’s Second Argument: Understanding Dogma

For his second argument, Kwasniewski writes:

2) Akin supposes that for a truth to be held of Divine and Catholic Faith, it must be expressly taught by the organs of the extraordinary magisterium as divinely revealed, but this is not so.

It’s not so, and Kwasniewski is misrepresenting me. The extraordinary magisterium does not have to be involved. The ordinary and universal magisterium can do it.

A truth should also be held with Divine and Catholic Faith if it is taught by the ordinary and universal magisterium as divinely revealed . . .

Correct. At this point, Kwasniewiski inserts a footnote, which reads:

He [Akin] verbally concedes this point but then restricts the definition of the ordinary and universal magisterium to a consensus of the episcopate so explicit that it would actually end up forming part of the extraordinary magisterium.

I do no such thing. The criteria for the ordinary and universal magisterium defining a point are as follows:

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 maintaining the bond of communion among themselves and with the successor of Peter, and authentically teaching matters of faith and morals, they are in agreement on one position as definitively to be held (Lumen Gentium 25).

Kwasniewski appears to confuse two issues: (1) the degree of consensus that exists among the bishops and (2) whether they are meeting in an ecumenical council. The latter is what is relevant to the bishops exercising the extraordinary magisterium; the former is not. There is no degree of consensus among the world’s bishops—however high it may be—that would turn an act of the ordinary and universal magisterium into an act of the extraordinary magisterium.

His assertion that I restrict the ordinary and universal magisterium “to a consensus of the episcopate so explicit that it would actually end up forming part of the extraordinary magisterium” appears to indicate that he does not know what these terms mean.

To resume:

. . . — and such truths are not (as Mr Akin falsely supposes) limited to those truths taught AS divinely revealed by the episcopate dispe[r]sed  throughout the world . . .

Once again, Kwasniewski misrepresents me. I do not suppose that the ordinary and universal magisterium is capable only of defining something as divinely revealed. It’s not. It can also define various non-revealed truths, and it can define revealed truths as true–without defining them as divinely revealed (as Ratzinger and Bertone indicate it did with papal infallibility prior to Vatican I, which raised that infallible teaching to the status of a dogma).

However, if it does so, then it does not have to be held by divine and Catholic faith, only Catholic faith.

If you’re going to sustain a charge of heresy based on the ordinary and universal magisterium, you must show that the ordinary and universal magisterium has defined a truth “proposed as divinely revealed either by the solemn magisterium of the Church or by its ordinary and universal magisterium” (CIC 750 §1; cf. 751)—i.e., a dogma.

I would note that, in the Open Letter, the signatories nowhere appeal to the ordinary and universal magisterium. The term does not appear anywhere in the document. If they are reconfiguring their case to appeal to the ordinary and universal magisterium (as I, frankly, expected they would once criticism of the document started), then I take this as a recognition of the weaknesses and inadequacies of the initial case they presented.

. . . but also include anything taught directly in the literal sense of scripture (because both the ordinary and universal magisterium and the extraordinary magisterium have taught the inspiration and inerrancy of scripture), the unanimous scriptural interpretations of the Fathers (from which a Catholic may not dissent, according to the definitions of Trent, Pius IV, and Vatican I), the unanimous consensus of the faithful concerning divine revelation (Lumen Gentium 12), and even the “universal and constant consent” of theologians concerning divinely revealed truth (Pius IX, Tuas libenter).

There are several problems here:

  1. Things taught in the literal sense of Scripture require divine faith—because they are divinely revealed. They do not require divine and Catholic faith if the Magisterium has not defined their sense. The fact that the Magisterium has defined the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture does not mean that it has defined what an individual passage of Scripture means in its literal sense. Therefore, divine and Catholic faith does not apply to such truths, only divine faith.
  2. Trent issued a disciplinary decree (not a doctrinal definition) that required Catholic authors not to hold positions “contrary to the unanimous consent of the Fathers; even though such interpretations were never (intended) to be at any time published.” It did not define that the Fathers (who included non-bishops) could infallibly define doctrines apart from the exercise of the Magisterium of their day. Pius IV required adherence to this principle, and Vatican I renewed the same decree, but neither defined that the Fathers—as a body—could infallibly define things. The Magisterium of their day—either extraordinary or ordinary and universal—could do so, but that’s a distinct and only partially overlapping body.
  3. The supernatural discernment of the faithful discussed in Lumen Gentium 12 is not exercised independently of the Magisterium. If you want to show that a matter has been infallibly defined, it has to be the Magisterium that does it, not the faithful conceived of separately.
  4. Kwasniewski flatly misreads Tuas Libenter. In it, Pius IX states that divine faith must be extended “to those matters transmitted as divinely revealed by the ordinary Magisterium of the whole Church dispersed throughout the world”—and which are therefore “for that reason, held by the universal and constant consensus of Catholic theologians as belonging to the faith” (DH 2879, emphasis added). In other words, Catholic theologians have always accepted what the ordinary and universal Magisterium has said belongs to the faith as belonging to it. He doesn’t say that orthodox theologians can themselves define that something belongs to divine revelation, apart from the Magisterium, or that the Magisterium always infallibly defines a sufficiently agreed-upon theological opinion. Kwasniewsky has the causal arrow pointing the wrong way.

Given the number of misrepresentations and misunderstandings we have documented—including of basic terms—it will be interesting to see the response that Kwasniewsky says is forthcoming from the signatories.

A Response to Peter Kwasniewski

Peter Kwasniewski—a philosopher and one of the signatories of the Open Letter accusing Pope Francis of heresy—has briefly responded on Facebook to my post On Charging a Pope with Heresy. He writes:

Jimmy Akin’s article at the NC Register, attempting to show why the Open Letter fails, will likely mislead many because of his know-it-all tone and seemingly watertight argument.

By his exceedingly narrow definition of dogma, Akin shifts the goal posts to such an extent that a vast number of actual condemnations for heresy in Church history would be excluded by it. Indeed, by his definition, the resurrection of Christ would not be a dogma, because it has never been solemnly defined as such; thus the denial of it would not constitute a heresy. Good news for modernist theologians!

On the other hand, even a kid brought up on the Baltimore Catechism would be able to say that someone who says that (e.g.) sinning is sometimes the best God asks of some people is a heretic.

On Michael Liccione’s page on Facebook, Kwasniewski states:

It’s [Kwasniewski’s previous response is] not an attack on his [Akin’s] person — I do not know him personally — but on his ridiculous definition of dogma and heresy. By his definition, many of the condemnations made by the Church Fathers would be rendered pointless. We can parse out canonical niceties until the cows come home, but if you need a doctorate to know what is and is not Catholicism — on rather basic issues like whether there is more than one religion on Earth that God positively wills, or whether cohabiting non-spouses can go up for Communion — then the whole project has failed, and we might as well hang up our hats and go to bed.

I would make several points in response.

I’m not going to engage Kwasniewski’s paraphrases of positions he attributes to Pope Francis. I agree that there have been any number of poorly phrased statements that need proper clarification. That is not the issue at hand: The charge of heresy is, and as I’ve shown, the signatories of the letter fail to prove their case.

I have not “shifted the goal posts” in any way. I explained the Church’s definition of the term heresy, and I have backed it up by quoting the relevant passages of its documents. That is why my piece offers a “seemingly watertight argument.” The actual goalpost shifting is by the signatories of the Open Letter, who have adopted a sloppy and overbroad understanding of heresy in order to make their case.

The Church’s definition of heresy does not exclude “a vast number of actual condemnations for heresy in Church history.” It embraces all of the magisterial condemnations for heresy where that term is used in its established sense.

By saying that “the resurrection of Christ would not be a dogma, because it has never been solemnly defined as such,” Kwasniewski neglects the fact that it was defined by the solemn Magisterium of the Church at the First Council of Nicaea (325) and the First Council of Constantinople (381), which is why it is part of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, which the Church uses in its profession of faith. The entire Creed is thus a statement of dogma.

Ratzinger and Bertone, in their 1998 Doctrinal Commentary on the Concluding Formula of the Professio Fidei, list “the articles of faith of the Creed” (n. 11) as truths “which the Church, either by a solemn judgment or by the ordinary and universal Magisterium, sets forth to be believed as divinely revealed” (n. 5)—i.e., as dogmas.

I would add that, even prior to I Nicaea, the Resurrection had been infallibly defined by the ordinary and universal Magisterium—a possibility that Kwasniewski also fails to discuss.

Kwasniewski’s statement that “even a kid brought up on the Baltimore Catechism would be able to say that someone who says that (e.g.) sinning is sometimes the best God asks of some people is a heretic” is a cute rhetorical flourish, but it does not correspond to the facts.

A “kid brought up on the Baltimore Catechism” could plausibly deduce that something is problematic about the statement in question, but the Baltimore Catechism does not identify this as a heresy, and it does not train children to be experts in diagnosing heresy.

By stating that the definitions I have offered for dogma and heresy are “ridiculous,” Kwasniewski reveals either (1) that he does not know how the Magisterium uses these terms or (2) that he considers the Magisterium’s use to be “ridiculous,” in which case his problem is with the Magisterium, not with me.

The use of these definitions in no way renders “many of the condemnations made by the Church Fathers” pointless. They retain their full force.

Kwasniewski complains about parsing out “canonical niceties,” but this is precisely the area that he and his co-signatories have ventured into by writing—in their words (in the Open Letter)—“to accuse Pope Francis of the canonical delict of heresy.”

You can’t accuse people of canonical delicts and then complain if you are being held to a canonical standard of proof. That is moving the goal post.

As I said before, it’s one thing to ask for clarifications, voice concerns, or express disagreement, but it’s another to start making charges of the canonical crime of heresy. When you do that, you’d better be able to prove your case, but Kwasniewski’s responses indicate that he can’t.

Some Clarifications Regarding the Open Letter

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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.

On Charging a Pope with Heresy

There are multiple problems with the recent Open Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church that charges Pope Francis with heresy, but here we will focus on the core problem: the letter fails to sustain the charge of heresy.

This fault is likely due to the lack of familiarity that the nineteen signatories have with the details of the concept.

A cursory review of the list of signatories indicates that none have doctorates in the relevant fields of canon law or sacred theology, though a few have licentiates (the equivalent of master’s degrees).

None seem to be specialists in ecclesiology—the branch of theology that deals most directly with the Magisterium of the Church—and none seem to have published a book on the Magisterium and how it engages its infallibility.

From this perspective, some of the flaws in the letter may be understandable, but from another perspective, they are not.

If you are going to charge anybody with heresy—but especially if you are going to charge a pope with it—you need to prove your case, and this letter doesn’t.

 

What Heresy Is

According to the Code of Canon Law, “heresy is the obstinate denial or obstinate doubt after the reception of baptism of some truth which is to be believed by divine and Catholic faith” (CIC 751; cf. CCC 2089).

For heresy to occur, the following conditions must be met:

  1. The person committing it must be baptized
  2. Afterwards, he must refuse to believe (doubt or deny) a particular truth
  3. He must do so obstinately
  4. The truth in question must be one that is to be believed by “divine and Catholic faith”

 

What Divine and Catholic Faith Is

“Divine and Catholic faith” is a term of art that is explained in the previous canon:

A person must believe with divine and Catholic faith all those things contained in the word of God, written or handed on, that is, in the one deposit of faith entrusted to the Church, and at the same time proposed as divinely revealed either by the solemn magisterium of the Church or by its ordinary and universal magisterium (CIC 750 §1).

This requires some unpacking, but for a truth to require divine and Catholic faith, the following conditions must be met:

  1. It must be divinely revealed (i.e., be found in Scripture or Tradition)
  2. The Magisterium must have proposed it to be divinely revealed
  3. The Magisterium must have done so, either by (a) the solemn magisterium or (b) the ordinary and universal magisterium.

“The solemn magisterium” means an infallible definition issued either by a pope or an ecumenical council.

“The ordinary and universal magisterium” means an infallible exercise of teaching performed by the bishops in union with the pope, even though they are not gathered in an ecumenical council.

Consequently, a truth that requires divine and Catholic faith is a truth that, one way or another, the Magisterium has infallibly defined to be divinely revealed.

We have a name for such truths: dogmas.

 

What Dogma Is

A dogma is a special kind of Church teaching. Any time the Church authoritatively teaches something, it is a doctrine (Latin, doctrina = “teaching”).

Within the set of doctrines is a smaller set of teachings that have been infallibly defined by the Magisterium. These are infallible doctrines.

Within the set of infallible doctrines is a smaller set that consists of those infallible teachings that the Magisterium has infallibly defined to be divinely revealed. These are the dogmas.

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.

The distinctions between these categories, as well as examples of doctrines that belong to them, are discussed in a 1998 commentary by Joseph Ratzinger and Tarcisio Bertone.

They are also discussed, at length, in my book Teaching With Authority: How to Cut Through Doctrinal Confusion & Understand What the Church Really Says.

To give one example of how a doctrine can be infallible but not a dogma, Ratzinger and Bertone note that the Magisterium has infallibly defined that the priesthood can only be conferred on men, but it has not yet defined that this truth is divinely revealed.

Consequently, the reservation of the priesthood to men is an infallible doctrine but not a dogma—at least not yet.

 

Preliminary Consolidation

Putting the above together, the following conditions need to be met to sustain a charge of heresy:

  1. The person committing it must be baptized
  2. Afterwards, he must refuse to believe (doubt or deny) a particular truth
  3. He must do so obstinately
  4. The truth in question must be a dogma—that is, a truth the Magisterium has infallibly defined to be divinely revealed.

This is where the flaws in the Open Letter come in.

 

Failing to Demonstrate that Dogmas are Involved

The Open Letter lists seven propositions that the signatories take to be heresies, or denials of dogmas.

To support each claim, they cite various biblical passages and Church documents.

The biblical passages are neither necessary nor sufficient to demonstrate a dogma. They are not necessary because a dogma can be based in Tradition rather than Scripture.

They are not sufficient because, at most, they show that a truth is found in divine revelation. They do not show that the Magisterium has infallibly defined it to be divinely revealed.

This means that, to demonstrate a dogma, we need to focus on the Church documents.

Unfortunately, many of the documents they cite are simply not relevant to this endeavor. Many do not contain any infallible definitions, and nobody has ever claimed that they do.

Others do contain infallible definitions, but it is not clear that they give rise to dogmas. Remember: To be a dogma, the Magisterium must infallibly define that a truth is divinely revealed, not just that it is true.

In some cases, the documents use language indicating infallibility (e.g., the word “anathema,” though one has to be careful about this word, as it is sometimes used without making a definition, see Teaching With Authority §§480-488).

But to create a dogma, the Magisterium needs to go further and, in some way, 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).

The signatories of the Open Letter make no attempt to do the needed work. They either do not quote the language used by Church documents or they do not argue that the language they do quote shows that a truth has been infallibly defined as divinely revealed.

Instead, they cite passages as if the sheer number of them proves their case, which it doesn’t.

Indeed, it isn’t even clear that the passages they cite mandate the specific propositions they have in mind.

This is sloppy. It may sound impressive to someone not familiar with this area, but it is simply inadequate to the task they are attempting.

 

Failure to Demonstrate the Allegation

In addition to failing to demonstrate dogmas, the Open Letter also fails to demonstrate that Pope Francis obstinately doubts or denies dogmas.

One of the requirements for doing this is showing that his statements or actions cannot be understood in another sense.

If they can be understood consistently with dogma then the obligation of charity—and Pope Benedict’s “hermeneutic of continuity”—requires that they be taken this way.

Many of the Open Letter’s charges deal with the issue of divorce and civil remarriage, as discussed in the apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia, but as Cardinal Gerhard Muller has shown, the relevant statements in this document can be understood in harmony with Church teaching.

You can’t make a successful charge of heresy as long as this is the case.

Neither does the piling up of questionable staffing decisions—which the Open Letter does at length—prove the case. Staffing decisions are influenced by multiple factors, and you can’t cherry pick the data to support a claim of heresy, especially when the person in question is on record supporting Church teaching (e.g., regarding homosexuality).

 

Summing Up

The Open Letter has many other flaws, but its chief one is that it fails to make the case that the present pope is guilty of heresy. To do that, it would need to show the following:

  1. The Magisterium has infallibly defined some specific truth
  2. It has infallibly defined that this specific truth is divinely revealed, creating a dogma
  3. The pope has been baptized (that’s easy)
  4. The pope’s words or actions indicate that he refuses to believe the dogma
  5. His words or actions cannot be understood in a way consistent with the dogma
  6. He does so obstinately

If you can’t do those things, then don’t waste the public’s time.

In particular, don’t waste our time citing irrelevant documents that don’t prove your point, and don’t waste our time—as the signatories of the Open Letter do—with loopy charges regarding a pastoral staff that the pope has carried or a cross he has worn.

It’s one thing to ask for clarifications, voice concerns, or express disagreement, but making charges of heresy is another matter.

It’s gravely reckless and irresponsible to charge anyone with an ecclesiastical crime as serious as heresy if you can’t prove it, and it’s even worse to do so with regard to the pope, given the scandal, confusion, and risk of individual schism that it will create for the faithful.

Understanding the “Unanimous Consent” of the Church Fathers

fathers know bestIn 1546, the Council of Trent issued a decree which prohibited people from interpreting Scripture “contrary to the unanimous consent of the Fathers.”

The meaning and significance of this concept has been widely misunderstood, so let’s take a look at the subject.

Here are 15 things to know and share . . .

 

1) What was the context of the decree?

The Council of Trent (1545-1563) was called to deal with two subjects: (1) doctrinal errors that were being spread by the Protestant Reformers and (2) internal reforms needed within the Catholic Church. Consequently, historian Hubert Jedin notes:

By the terms of the decision of 22 January [1564], dogma and reform were to be discussed simultaneously and every dogmatic decree was to be matched by a decree on Church reform (A History of the Council of Trent 2:87-88).

Therefore, the decrees of Trent are divided between those of a doctrinal nature and those of a disciplinary nature. Thus the fourth session of the Council thus released two decrees:

  • Decree Concerning Canonical Scriptures
  • Decree Concerning the Edition, and the Use, of the Sacred Books

The first of these decrees was dogmatic (i.e., concerning doctrinal matters), and it dealt with which books the Catholic Church regards as sacred and canonical.

The second decree concerned Church reform (i.e., disciplinary matters), and it’s the one that mentions the unanimous consent of the Fathers.

 

2) What subjects did the second decree cover?

It dealt with several abuses that had been proposed for reform by one of the Council’s committees (Jedin, 70-71). The final, published form of the decree established several disciplinary norms:

  • Of all the Latin editions of Scripture then in circulation, the Vulgate would be used as the standard one “in public lectures, disputations, sermons, and expositions.”
  • No one is to interpret the Scripture contrary to the sense held by the Church or the unanimous consent of the Fathers.
  • Printers are not to publish copies of the Scriptures unless they have been approved by the local bishop; the same applies to books of a theological nature, which also must carry their authors’ names; and the same applies to the circulation of unprinted manuscripts.
  • No one is to use the words of Scripture in superstitious or profane practices (e.g., incantations or defamatory libels).

The second decree also empowered bishops to impose appropriate penalties on those who violated these norms.

 

3) What did the second decree say about the unanimous consent of the Fathers?

The relevant provision says:

Furthermore, in order to restrain petulant spirits, [the Council] decrees, that no one, relying on his own skill, shall—in matters of faith, and of morals pertaining to the edification of Christian doctrine—wresting the sacred Scripture to his own senses, presume to interpret the said sacred Scripture contrary to that sense which holy mother Church—whose it is to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the holy Scriptures—hath held and doth hold; or even contrary to the unanimous consent of the Fathers; even though such interpretations were never (intended) to be at any time published.

Contraveners shall be made known by their Ordinaries [i.e., bishops], and be punished with the penalties by law established.

The core of this statement is:

No one . . . shall—in matters of faith and of morals . . . —interpret the said sacred Scripture contrary to that sense which holy mother Church . . . hath held and doth hold; or even contrary to the unanimous consent of the Fathers; even though such interpretations were never (intended) to be at any time published.

 

4) What does this mean?

It means that the Council is establishing a law providing that—even in writings not intended for publication—Catholics are not to contradict (1) the teaching of the Church about the meaning of Scripture or (2) the unanimous consent of the Fathers about what it means, and if they do, their bishops can apply appropriate penalties.

 

5) Is this an infallible doctrine?

Here we encounter a major misunderstanding of the text.

Trent’s doctrinal decrees contain infallible teachings. These are found among its canons, which use the formula “If anyone says . . . let him be anathema”—anathema being a type of excommunication that existed at the time (not a condemnation to hell).

However, this is not a doctrinal decree but a reform decree. It does not have canons, and it does not use the requisite anathema formula, as the quotation above indicates.

Consequently, it’s establishing a discipline—a law—that barred Catholics from contradicting Church teaching or the unanimous consent of the Fathers about the meaning of Scripture, even in writings not intended for publication.

This law is based on doctrinal principles—which we will cover below—but it isn’t itself a doctrine. It’s a discipline regulating discourse within the Church (note the context, which deals with the edition of Scripture to be used in public, what book printers must and mustn’t do, how people are to avoid profaning God’s word).

The status of this requirement as a law was underscored by Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903), who referred to it as a “very wise law” (Providentissimus Deus 14) and by Pope Pius XII (1939-1958), who included it among “the rules and laws promulgated by the Church” (Divino Afflante Spiritu 47).

 

6) Does the decree mean that Catholics can’t interpret the Bible and must simply repeat what the Church or the Fathers say it means?

No. The decree doesn’t say anything so restrictive. Catholics are free to read and interpret the Scriptures.

The law merely established that they weren’t to contradict Church teaching or the unanimous consent of the Fathers when these sources had a definitive teaching on the meaning of a passage.

 

7) Are there many such passages?

No. Pope Pius XII pointed out in his encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu:

There are but few texts whose sense has been defined by the authority of the Church, nor are those more numerous about which the teaching of the Holy Fathers is unanimous (n. 47).

Catholic biblical interpreters thus have a broad liberty of interpretation. As Leo XIII stated:

By this very wise law the Church by no means retards or blocks the investigations of biblical science, but rather keeps it free of error, and aids it very much in true progress. For, to every private teacher a large field is open in which along safe paths, by his industry in interpretation, he may labor efficaciously and profitably for the Church (Providentissimus Deus 14).

 

8) What is the status of the law today?

There is more to its legislative history than we can cover here, but the short answer is that it is no longer part of Church law per se.

Trent added the requirement to the body of canon law that existed at the time, which was scattered in many documents. Subsequently, Vatican I (1870) renewed the decree, and when canon law was codified (brought together in a single volume) in 1917, the first edition of the Code of Canon Law contained provisions that gave the requirement ongoing legal force.

However, Vatican II (1962-1965) did not repeat the requirement, and after the Council it was dropped from the legal instruments where it still existed.

When the 1983 Code of Canon Law was released, it abrogated both the 1917 Code and “any universal or particular penal laws whatsoever issued by the Apostolic See unless they are contained in this Code” (see can. 6, §1, 1° and 3°).

Consequently, canon law has been revised in a way that the decree no longer has legal force.

However, this does not mean that we don’t have to honor the doctrinal principles behind it.

 

9) What are the doctrinal principles behind the decree?

In the case of Catholics not contradicting the teaching of the Church regarding the meaning of Scripture, the decree spelled out the underlying doctrinal principle. Catholics aren’t to do this because the Church “is to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the holy Scriptures.”

That’s just as true today as ever, and Catholics are bound today to honor the teaching of the Church when it intervenes authoritatively on the meaning of a Scripture passage.

However, apart from a handful of cases, the Church presently gives interpreters very broad liberty in how they take particular passages (see my piece, The Limits of Scripture Interpretation).

Trent did not spell out the doctrinal principles underlying the requirement that Catholics not contradict the unanimous consent of the Fathers. However, it was explored by Leo XIII in Providentissimus Deus:

The Holy Fathers, we say, are of supreme authority, whenever they all interpret in one and the same manner any text of the Bible, as pertaining to the doctrine of faith or morals; for their unanimity clearly evinces that such interpretation has come down from the apostles as a matter of Catholic faith. The opinion of the Fathers is also of very great weight when they treat of these matters in their capacity of doctors, unofficially (n. 14).

Here he considers two different situations:

  1. When the Fathers “all interpret in one and the same manner any text of the Bible, as pertaining to the doctrine of faith and morals,” and
  2. “When they treat of these matters in their capacity as doctors [i.e., teachers], unofficially.”

In the first situation, he says that their unanimity shows that “such interpretation has come down from the apostles as a matter of Catholic faith,” while in the second situation he says that their opinion is “of very great weight.”

We thus need to distinguish, in any given case, which of these two applies. If it is the latter then a modern interpreter needs to give the Fathers’ views due weight, but he is not ultimately bound to accept them.

If, however, something they teach is a matter of Catholic faith, then it is binding.

In fact, to say that something is “a matter of Catholic faith” is a term of art in theology that indicates an infallibly defined teaching.

This means that we need to situate Leo XIII’s statement within the doctrinal development that has occurred on when the Church teaches infallibly.

 

10) What doctrinal development has occurred on the Church’s infallibility?

When Leo XIII issued Providentissimus Deus  in 1893, the First Vatican Council (1870) had met and defined papal infallibility.

However, because of the wars going on in Europe at the time, the Council was unable to complete its work, and it fell to Vatican II to formulate other aspects of the Church’s infallibility. This was done in its document Lumen Gentium.

It held that God has given the Church a charism of infallibility. This gift protects the Church as a whole from error in matters of belief (in credendo), and it protects the Church’s Magisterium from error in matters of teaching (in docendo). Infallibility manifests in the following ways:

  • Through the sensus fidelium (the sense of the faithful, “from the bishops down to the last member of the laity”)
  • Through the “ordinary magisterium” of the bishops scattered throughout the world, teaching in union with the pope
  • Through the “extraordinary magisterium” of the bishops meeting in an ecumenical council
  • Through the “extraordinary magisterium” of the pope when he issues an ex cathedra statement

The conditions for the first of these are discussed in Lumen Gentium 12 (cf. CDF, Mysterium Ecclesiae 2) and the others in Lumen Gentium 25.

 

11) How do the Fathers relate to these categories?

The Fathers were a mixed group. Some were bishops (e.g., St. Augustine), some priests (e.g., St. Jerome), some deacons (e.g., St. Ephrem the Syrian), and some lay faithful (e.g., St. Anthony of Egypt).

The Fathers as a whole thus do not represent the Church’s Magisterium, which consists only of the bishops teaching in union with the pope.

They would, however, be representative of the whole people of God in their day, and thus a unanimous consensus among them could be taken as an unerring manifestation of the sensus fidelium.

On the other hand, the Fathers who were bishops would be capable of exercising the Church’s infallibility, and a unanimous consensus among them could be taken as an infallible exercise of the ordinary magisterium.

 

12) How would a consensus of the Fathers as a whole manifest the unerring sensus fidelium?

According to Lumen Gentium 12:

The entire body of the faithful . . . cannot err in matters of belief. They manifest this special property by means of the whole peoples’ supernatural discernment in matters of faith when from the bishops down to the last of the lay faithful they show universal agreement in matters of faith and morals.

One of the keys to understanding this passage is recognizing that the Church’s infallibility applies “in matters of belief” (Latin, in credendo). This is a technical term referring to truths which must be believed as part of the faith, as opposed to mere theological opinions. They therefore represent things which have a definitive character—things that are to be held by the faithful definitively.

The passage then indicates that the unerring sense of the faithful is manifested in these matters when three conditions are met:

  1. “The entire body of the faithful . . . from the bishops down to the last of the lay faithful” is involved
  2. “They show universal agreement”
  3. This agreement concerns “matters of faith and morals”

For the Fathers to fulfill these conditions regarding the interpretation of Scripture, we would need to understand them as representative of the people of God of their time, which is reasonable, thus fulfilling condition (1).

The Fathers then would need to show universal agreement, fulfilling condition (2). The precise nature of this agreement will be discussed below.

Finally, to fulfill condition (3), the matter in question would have to be the interpretation of a particular Scripture text involving “matters of faith and morals.” This is significant because, as Leo XIII noted in Providentissimus Deus:

[The Fathers], in interpreting passages where physical matters are concerned, have made judgments according to the opinions of the age, and thus not always according to truth, so that they have made statements which today are not approved. Therefore, we must carefully discern what they hand down which really pertains to faith or is intimately connected with it . . . for in those matters which are not under the obligation of faith, the saints were free to have different opinions, just as we are (n. 19).

Here the pontiff has in mind matters like the geocentric model of the cosmos, which was one of “the opinions of the age” in which the Fathers lived but which was a “physical matter” that did not “really pertain to faith.”

As noted above, the Fathers would have to be in agreement that this interpretation represents a mandatory belief for all Christians—that it is a belief to be held definitively.

This corresponds to Leo XIII’s distinction between what the Fathers hand on as “a matter of Catholic faith” versus what they teach “in their capacity of doctors, unofficially” (Providentissimus Deus 14).

 

13) How would the bishop Fathers exercise the ordinary magisterium infallibly?

According to Lumen Gentium 25:

[The bishops] proclaim Christ’s doctrine infallibly whenever, even though dispersed through the world, but still maintaining the bond of communion among themselves and with the successor of Peter, and authentically teaching matters of faith and morals, they are in agreement on one position as definitively to be held.

The following conditions thus need to be met:

  1. The bishops are “dispersed through the world”
  2. They maintain “the bond of communion among themselves and with the successor of Peter”
  3. They are “authentically [i.e., authoritatively] teaching matters of faith and morals”
  4. They “are in agreement on one position as definitively to be held”

Conditions (1) and (2) represent the normal state of the Fathers.

Condition (3) corresponds to Leo XIII’s distinction between what the Fathers hand on as “a matter of Catholic faith” versus what they teach “in their capacity of doctors, unofficially” (Providentissimus Deus 14).

For it to be fulfilled in our context, the subject of their authoritative teaching would have to be the interpretation of a particular Scripture text regarding “matters of faith and morals”—as opposed, for example, to merely “physical matters” or “the opinions of the age” (Providentissimus Deus 19).

Finally, condition (4) would be fulfilled when they unanimously agree on this particular interpretation of Scripture “as definitively to be held.”

 

14) What kind of unanimity would the Fathers need to display?

The Church has not given us a mathematical way of determining what kind of consensus the Fathers would need to display either for the body as a whole to represent the unerring sense of the faithful or for the bishop Fathers to infallibly exercise the ordinary magisterium.

In fact, the difficulties of verifying when the conditions regarding these two modes of infallibility are met are the main reason we need the extraordinary magisterium (i.e., the infallible definitions issued by ecumenical councils and popes).

However, we can discern the general circumstances that need to occur:

  1. We would need a large number of the Fathers to address the interpretation of a specific passage of Scripture. One could not say that a consensus existed among them—much less a unanimous one—if only a relatively small number address the passage.
  2. They would need to teach a single interpretation of this passage as true. Assessing this could be somewhat complex because the Fathers could see passages as teaching several things, based on the different senses of Scripture. However, they would have to hold at least one of these interpretations in common.
  3. They would need to teach this interpretation as definitive—i.e., not just something they believe to be true but that something all Christians must hold to be true. Otherwise, the conditions needed for the unerring sense of the faithful or the infallible exercise of the ordinary magisterium would not be met.

It is frequently pointed out that absolute unanimity is not needed and that a moral unanimity suffices. This is true. However, the Fathers represent such a small number of individuals that even a few dissenting voices on a question would prevent us from describing their consensus as unanimous.

In fact, even a single, highly influential Father—such as an Augustine—who held a contrary view could be seen as preventing unanimity, though a Father of minor status might not.

In view of the difficulty in verifying that the needed conditions have been met, Pius XII’s judgment that the unanimous consent of the Fathers applies only to a few passages seems justified (Divino Afflante Spiritu 47).

Anyone who has worked with the texts of the Fathers knows that it is difficult to find cases where the above conditions have been fulfilled.

The Fathers are a relatively small group of individuals, often only a few of them comment on a given passage of Scripture, and when they do they frequently make different proposals about its meaning.

When there is a reasonable doubt, one must assume that infallibility has not been engaged, for “no doctrine is understood as defined infallibly unless this is manifestly evident” (Code of Canon Law 749 §3).

 

15) What’s the bottom line?

The concept of the unanimous consent of the Fathers is widely misunderstood.

Trent established a discipline that barred Catholics—even in writings not meant for publication—from contradicting the unanimous consent of the Fathers regarding the interpretation of Scripture.

This law remained in force until the 20th century, but it lost legal force following the Second Vatican Council.

However, the law was undergirded by important theological principles that remain in force and that have been illuminated by doctrinal development.

The unanimous consent of the Fathers as a whole can manifest the unerring sense of the faithful, and the bishops among the Fathers represented the Magisterium of their day and thus could teach infallibly under the usual conditions for the infallible exercise of the ordinary magisterium.

The number of cases where this applies to the interpretation of a particular passage of Scripture is small, but such cases must be taken seriously.