Year: 2004

It seems that this is the day for me to comment on the relative weight of magisterial statements. A reader writes:

Care to comment on the discussion taking place below in Mark She’as blog:

http://markshea.blogspot.com/

Scroll down to the entry titled “Just the other day, the press was casting this report as a Vatican puff piece on the Inquisition designed to exonerate the Church:” on June 25.

In the “Comments” section, I argue that it is a divinely revealed doctrine, taught by the Church’s Ordinary Magisterium for CENTURIES, that the Catholic State does have a right to limit the activities of heretics, inlucing prosecution, up to an including the death penalty.

Thus, the Inquisitions, while subject to abuses, were in totoal conformity with Catholic teaching, past and present.

However, in light of the crrent Magisterium’s guidance, even in the Catholic state the death penalty would be employed whenever absolutely necessary. Other punishments (i.e. fines, imprisonment, exile) should be employed first.

And of course, this does not apply to a non-Catholic state, which has no right to perseucte heretics, unless their teachings contradict the natural law (i.e. polygamy or abortion).

What do you think? I cited not only the Ordinary Magisterium, but Leo X’s Bull “Exurge Domine,” where he declares it heresy to say that “That heretics be burned is against the will of the Spirit.”

I took a look at the piece, and would like to read the book that the Vatican has released about the Inquisitions, but since I haven’t yet done so, I can’t comment that directly on the excerpts that are cited on Mark’s blog since I don’t know the context in which they were written.

However, regarding the discussion in the comments box, I would say the following: I don’t think that the reader can fairly accuse Cardinal Cottier (as he did) of having made a heretical statement on the basis of Exsurge Domine. The proposition you mention regarding the burning of heretics is indeed among those repudiated by Leo X in the bull, but he cannot be shown to have referred to it as heretical. Here are the censures that he applied to the rejected propositions:

With the advice and consent of these our venerable brothers, with mature deliberation on each and every one of the above theses, and by the authority of almighty God, the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and our own authority, we condemn, reprobate, and reject completely each of these theses or errors as either heretical, scandalous, false, offensive to pious ears or seductive of simple minds, and against Catholic truth [source].

As the relevant conjunctions indicate, the pope was applying these censures to the respective condemned propositions as a group, without assigning particular censures to particular propositions. Thus one cannot say that the proposition regarding burning heretics is censured as heretical or as something else. It could be censured merely as offensive to pious ears (which just means “badly phrased” and does not even imply its falsity). I don’t think the latter is what the pope likely had in mind, but from the way the formal censure is written, one cannot associate particular censures with particular propositions, and thus one cannot use the document to accuse Cardinal Cottier of having made a heretical statement when he said “The Church does not ask forgiveness for the Inquisition as a whole. She asks forgiveness for the fact of the violence employed during the Inquisition.”

That is a separate question from whether the use of the death penalty for heresy at the time was justified. The Church’s traditional teaching has acknowledged that the state has a right to use the death penalty for grave offenses against society (cf. CCC 2266 with 2267, though these are not exhaustive statements of the Church’s traditional teaching). It also acknowledges that religious liberty may be curbed when it interferes with the common good (CCC 2109).

In the judgment of the pontiffs of the time (and in the judgment of their Protestant opponents who persecuted Catholics), the use of capital punishment was seen as a proportionate and necessary means for dealing with the harm being done to the common good by the spread of heresy. In the judgment of many modern churchmen, they were wrong about this, but one should be careful in forming such an assessment of the times in which they lived. We know less about their time and what were the possible and effective ways of dealing with a situation than those who were living in the time itself. We are able to say with abundant confidence that such means should not be employed in our time, but one must proceed with caution in forming such judgments about other times, particularly in view of the biblical precedent on this matter.

Thought I would point out another problem regarding the Magisterium in the same discussion regarding economic theories and Catholic teaching.

In commenting on the discussion, one gentleman (Al Gunn) wrote the following:

[T]he teaching on Just Wage (that it cannot be left to market forces alone to set) since it is framed in terms of justice and scripture, would seem to be Ordinary and Universal Magisterium, which is infallible. There are several points in Pius XI where the phraseology is separate and definitive, and John XXIII also invokes a definitive formulation in Mater et Magistra [source].

Mr. Gunn’s remarks are not as clear as one might desire (understandably, giving the nature of on-line commenting), but it would be very difficult to sustain the claims from a theological perspective.

It would appear from the above quotation that Mr. Gunn thinks that the Church’s just wage teaching is infallible on the grounds that it is “framed in terms of justice and scripture” and thus a teaching of the ordinary and universal magisterium. If so, the argument he offers is based on a false premise. Just because a position is defended by citing Scripture and considerations of justice does not suffice to make it a teaching of the ordinary and universal magisterium.

Here is Vatican II’s discussion of the conditions under which the ordinary Magisterium teaches infallibly:

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].

This sets forth a number of conditions required for the exercise of infallibility when the bishops are not gathered in an ecumenical council: (1) the bishops are teaching while “maintaining the bond of communion among themselves and with the successor of Peter”, (2) they are “authentically teaching matters of faith and morals”, and (3) “they are in agreement on one position as definitively to be held.”

If one applies these conditions to the just wage doctrine, it does not appear that the conditions are met, even when the teaching is construed in the minimal form that Mr. Gunn gives it (i.e., that a just wage “cannot be left to market forces alone to set”). The reason is that the third condition does not obtain.

It cannot be clearly established that the bishops have even entertained in their authoritative teaching the question of whether the just wage can be reached by market forces alone, much less that they have determined that the rejection of this proposition is definitively to be held by all the faithful. It would be possible to say that many bishops would be skeptical of this proposition and even possible to speak of a skeptical consensus on this point. But it would not be accurate to say that this skeptical consensus has resulted in the bishops requiring the faithful to definitively reject the idea that market forces can protect the goods meant to be ensured by the Church’s just wage teaching.

Consequently, it cannot be maintained that there is an infallible teaching here, for as the Code of Canon Law states: “No doctrine is understood as defined infallibly unless this is manifestly evident” (CIC 749 §3).

Mr. Gunn’s argument that “[t]here are several points in Pius XI where the phraseology is separate and definitive, and John XXIII also invokes a definitive formulation in Mater et Magistra” involves an appeal to the papal magisterium rather than the ordinary magisterium. It is also inaccurate. If Mr. Gunn specified the passages of which he was thinking, it would be possible to examine their particulars, but suffice it to say that nothing in these encyclicals even approaches the level of force needed to qualify as a definitive statement.

Having said this, I want to stress that confusion in this are is understandable given the technical nature of what counts as a definition and the general confusion that has been spread concerning it, and so Mr. Gunn’s remarks should be read with charity. Still, it should not be represented that the Church’s teaching on the just wage has reached a definitive formulation or that it has been invested with the force of infallibility.

I don’t normally read political sites and blogs, but this weekend I was surfing around the Web and ran across an exchange between several folks (Stephan Kinsella, Scott P. Richert, Thomas Storck, Thomas Fleming, and Thomas Woods) regarding different economic theories and the extent to which they correspond with authentic Catholic social teaching.

In the course of the discussion, one of the participants (Stephan Kinsella) claimed that the others believed papal encyclicals on economics are infallible. This provoked and objection and a subsequent retraction of the claim. So far so good. They’re not infallible. In fact, the subject matter of such encyclicals is only indirectly related to the deposit of faith, and thus they have less relative weight compared to encyclicals whose contents are directly related to the deposit of faith.

Unfortunately, in the course of the discussion one one of the participants (Scott P. Richert) said the following:

Papal infallibility is widely misunderstood by Catholics and non-Catholics alike. Infallibility has been invoked by popes only twice: by Pius IX, in defining the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin in 1854 (16 years before papal infallibility itself was actually defined at Vatican I), and by Pius XII, in defining the dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin in 1950. That’s it: Leo XIII, in Rerum novarum, and Pius XI, in Quadragesimo anno, did not invoke it [source].

It is certainly true that papal infallibility is widely misunderstood, but I regret to say that this statement falls into a common misunderstanding of it: namely, the idea that it has only been exercised twice. This claim is commonly made by dissident Catholics who wish to minimize the practical impact of the doctrine of papal infallibility, and the claim has been so commonly made that even many orthodox Catholics have absorbed it and repeat it in good conscience.

But it isn’t true.

Papal infallibility has been exercised far more than two times. In fact, it had been used many times prior to 1870, when it was defined by the First Vatican Council. This was the clear understanding of the council, as shown–for example–by reading the later Archbishop Gasser’s relatio to the council fathers. This was a briefing given to the bishops at Vatican I to ensure a common understanding of the proposals regarding papal infallibility they were voting on. It is reprinted in the excellent book The Gift of Infallibility (which is the best book on the subject), and in the course of the relatio, Gasser alludes to the numerous times papal infallibility had been used before the Council.

Papal infallibility continues to be widely used. In fact, the current pontiff has used it more than any of his predecessors. The reason is that papal canonizations of saints are infallible. In the course of performing a canonization, the pope states “we declare and define that Blessed N., is a saint” (example). This triggers the Church’s gift of infallibility, which Vatican I teaches “the divine Redeemer willed his Church to enjoy in defining doctrine concerning faith or morals” (source). Consequently, the verb “define” has come to be used as a trigger word for infallible papal statements. If you see a pope say “we define” or “I define,” it is a signal that he is making a definition and thus exercising the Church’s gift of infallibility. (This is not the only way in which he can do this, but it is the standard way.)

The Immaculate Conception and the Assumption thus are not the only two exercises of papal infallibilty in history. They are arguably the only two dogmatic definitions (i.e., definitions of dogmas; saint canonizations being definitions of what are known as dogmatic facts rather than dogmas per se) in the last hundred and fifty years, but they are far from the only two in history.