Category: Francis

Being Precise About Church Teaching on Hell

Pope Francis recently sparked a discussion when he told an Italian television program, “What I am going to say is not a dogma of faith but my own personal view: I like to think of hell as empty; I hope it is.”

I was not surprised he would have this view. It is common in some ecclesiastical circles and was proposed by theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar in his book Dare We Hope That All Men Be Saved?

Given how Pope Francis’s comments often function as a lightning-rod, I was not surprised by the discussion that followed, and one contribution was a recent article by Ralph Martin.

Although framed as a piece about what the Church teaches on hell, Martin spent much of it arguing for his own view, which is the traditional one, that hell is both a real possibility and an actual reality for many people. He explores this further in his book Will Many Be Saved?

I wish Martin well in arguing his case—and arguing it vigorously. The thought that hell might be a real but unrealized possibility is a comforting one that can be attractive to many today. However, Scripture contains serious warnings about hell that do not sound hypothetical in nature.

As a result, the theological field should not simply be ceded to what we moderns find comfortable and reassuring. If there is to be any reassessment of the traditional view of hell as an actual reality for many, Scripture’s statements need to be taken seriously, and both sides need to be argued vigorously.

(I’d note, in particular, that in his book von Balthasar never even addresses Luke 13:23-24, where in response to the question, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” Jesus responds, “Strive to enter by the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.”)

My sympathies are thus with Martin, but I would refine a few things about his article.

First, in regard to Pope Francis’s statement that what he was about to say was “not a dogma of faith,” Martin offers a definition of dogma that could suggest it is essentially connected with salvation. I would point out, by contrast, that in current theological jargon, a dogma is a truth that the Catholic Church has infallibly defined to be divinely revealed, whether or not it has any direct connection with salvation. (Culpably rejecting a dogma is a mortal sin; but the truth itself doesn’t have to have a direct connection with salvation.)

Second, there is a passage where Martin conveys a misleading impression about the views of Cardinal Avery Dulles. First, he says that “the traditional interpretation . . . . by the Church’s greatest theologians is that it is very likely that many people go [to hell],” then he identifies Dulles as “perhaps the leading American theologian of the 20th century,” and then he cites a 2003 article that Dulles wrote in First Things.

The problem is that Martin quotes a part of the article in which Dulles refers to several passages of Scripture and says, “Taken in their obvious meaning, passages such as these give the impression that there is a hell, and that many go there; more in fact, than are saved.” The impression is thus that Dulles is firmly in the line of “the Church’s greatest theologians” who believe that “many go there; more in fact, than are saved.”

However, this is not Dulles’s view! Dulles noted the obvious interpretation of various Bible passages without asserting that the obvious one is the only possible one. In fact, he concludes:

The search for numbers in the demography of hell is futile. God in His wisdom has seen fit not to disclose any statistics. Several sayings of Jesus in the Gospels give the impression that the majority are lost. Paul, without denying the likelihood that some sinners will die without sufficient repentance, teaches that the grace of Christ is more powerful than sin: “Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Romans 5:20). Passages such as these permit us to hope that very many, if not all, will be saved.

All told, it is good that God has left us without exact information. If we knew that virtually everybody would be damned, we would be tempted to despair. If we knew that all, or nearly all, are saved, we might become presumptuous. If we knew that some fixed percent, say fifty, would be saved, we would be caught in an unholy rivalry. We would rejoice in every sign that others were among the lost, since our own chances of election would thereby be increased. Such a competitive spirit would hardly be compatible with the gospel.

Martin’s article thus conveys a misleading impression of Dulles.

What does the Church actually teach? This is found in the Catechism, which says, in part, “The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell” (CCC 1035).

The Church thus teaches that hell is a real possibility. If you die in mortal sin, you go there. But does the Church leave room for the idea that God might rescue all from mortal sin—even at the last moment?

The Catechism states: “The Church prays that no one should be lost: ‘Lord, let me never be parted from you.’ If it is true that no one can save himself, it is also true that God ‘desires all men to be saved’ (1 Tim 2:4), and that for him ‘all things are possible’ (Mt 19:26)” (CCC 1058).

The Catechism thus seems open to the possibility that God—for whom “all things are possible”—might be able to rescue all from mortal sin and thus hell might be empty.

This view seems to be permitted on other grounds. After von Balthasar proposed it in Dare We Hope, John Paul II named him a cardinal—specifically for his theological contributions—though von Baltazar died before the consistory.

Further, as Dulles notes in his 2003 article, John Paul II seemed to have a change of view on this subject. Dulles notes that in his non-magisterial 1995 interview book Crossing the Threshold of Hope, the pope raised von Balthasar’s view and says, “yet the words of Christ are unequivocal. In Matthew’s Gospel he speaks clearly of those who will go to eternal punishment.”

However, in a magisterial text in 1999, Pope John Paul seemed to have shifted, saying, “Eternal damnation remains a possibility, but we are not granted, without special divine revelation, the knowledge of whether or which human beings are effectively involved in it” (Audience, July 28, 1999).

Based on what he said, the pontiff was open on the question of “whether” human beings actually go to hell, and Dulles concludes that “the Pope may have abandoned his criticism of Balthasar.”

It should be noted that in the version of the audience currently on the Vatican web site, the words “whether or” have been deleted. However, this does not alter what John Paul II apparently said, and we cannot know why the words were deleted or whether John Paul II gave his approval to this edit.

For his part, Benedict XVI also took an optimistic view regarding hell in his 2007 encyclical Spe Salvi. He states:

There can be people who have totally destroyed their desire for truth and readiness to love, people for whom everything has become a lie, people who have lived for hatred and have suppressed all love within themselves. This is a terrifying thought, but alarming profiles of this type can be seen in certain figures of our own history. In such people all would be beyond remedy and the destruction of good would be irrevocable: this is what we mean by the word Hell (n. 45).

He then contrasts these with people who are so pure they go straight to heaven and then concludes:

Yet we know from experience that neither case is normal in human life. For the great majority of people—we may suppose—there remains in the depths of their being an ultimate interior openness to truth, to love, to God (n. 46).

This latter category goes to purgatory to be purified. Pope Benedict thus thought that “we may suppose” that few go to hell, few go directly to heaven, and “the great majority of people” go to purgatory before heaven.

We thus see the three most recent popes taking optimistic views of hell, with the later John Paul II seemingly open to the idea it may be empty, Benedict holding that we may suppose those who go there are few, and Francis hoping that it is empty.

I’m firmly convinced of the value for theological discussion of vigorously arguing the traditional view that some and even many go to hell—and hearing what the optimists have to say in response. At the same time, when presenting the teaching of the Church, we should be aware of the flexibility that is being displayed on this matter, including by the recent popes.

Mary Magdalene and Mary the Sister of Lazarus

Recently, Pope Francis added a memorial for the Bethany family—Martha, Mary, and Lazarus—to the General Roman Calendar.

The General Roman Calendar is the international liturgical calendar used in the Latin Church, and it is the basis of the particular calendars used in different countries.

A memorial is a liturgical commemoration ranking below a solemnity and a feast but above an optional memorial.

Given the prominence of the Bethany family in the Gospels—they are mentioned as friends of Jesus in both Luke and John—it may come as a bit of a surprise that they didn’t already have a place on the calendar.

And there’s a reason for that.

 

Which Mary?

The decree announcing the new memorial indicates that the reason the Bethany family didn’t have a common spot on the calendar up to now was due to uncertainty about how three biblical women should be identified:

The traditional uncertainty of the Latin Church about the identity of Mary—the Magdalene to whom Christ appeared after his resurrection, the sister of Martha, the sinner whose sins the Lord had forgiven—which resulted in the inclusion of Martha alone on 29 July in the Roman Calendar, has been resolved in recent studies and times, as attested by the current Roman Martyrology, which also commemorates Mary and Lazarus on that day.

The three women were thus:

  1. Mary Magdalene (John 20:1-18)
  2. Mary the sister of Martha (Luke 10:39, John 11:1-12:7)
  3. And the woman whose sins Jesus forgave (Luke 7:36-50)

In the Latin Catholic Church, there has historically been a question of whether these three figures are actually one person, with various authors holding that they were.

 

Why Would This Cause a Problem?

The reason this would cause a problem for giving the Bethany family a common slot on the calendar is that Mary Magdalene already had one.

Mary Magdalene is mentioned in all four Gospels as one of the witnesses of Jesus’ resurrection, and her liturgical day is July 22. What’s more, it’s a feast, which outranks a memorial.

So, it would be odd to have a second liturgical day dedicated to the Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, since Mary would be appearing on the calendar twice.

As a result, Martha alone had a day on the liturgical calendar—July 29—though in the current Roman Martyrology (the Latin Church’s official list of saints and martyrs) also lists Mary and Lazarus on that day.

 

Why the Question?

Why has there been a question about the identification of the three women?

Part of the reason is that the sinful woman that Luke mentions wiping Jesus’ feet with her hair is unnamed (Luke 7:36-50).

However, John says that Mary the sister of Martha and Lazarus wiped Jesus’ feet with her hair (John 11:2), and that could mean that they are the same person.

On the other hand, it may not, because in the very next chapter, John tells us the story of Mary wiping Jesus’ feet with her hair (John 12:3), and he does not present her as a sinner. Luke also mentions the woman weeping over Jesus’ feet, but John doesn’t mention Mary doing this.

Also, since Luke does mention Mary the sister of Martha and Lazarus in his Gospel (Luke 10:39), you’d think that he’d mention her by name if she was the sinful woman.

Further, Luke presents the hair wiping incident as occurring at a very different point in Jesus’ ministry. In Luke, it’s early on—before Jesus arrives in Jerusalem for Passion week, while in John, Mary wipes Jesus’ feet with her hair the day before the Triumphal Entry.

That could be because the Evangelists aren’t required to keep events in a strict chronological order, but it also could be that two different women performed similar actions to honor Jesus.

As a result, this matter is still ambiguous. There is evidence that points both ways.

 

One Mary or Two?

The identity of the sinful woman has not been the key obstacle to giving the Bethany family a spot on the calendar, though. Instead, it’s been the question of whether Mary Magdalene and Mary the sister of Martha and Lazarus are the same person.

There are, after all, multiple women named “Mary” in the New Testament.

In fact, more than one in five Jewish women in first century Palestine were named Mary (see Richard Bauckham’s outstanding book, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, ch. 4).

With a name that common, people in the first century Jewish community needed ways to tell them apart, and since they didn’t have last names like we do, they needed to use something else.

 

How They Did It

One of the most common ways of telling one person from another was to use a patronym—that is, to refer to them in connection with their father.

This is why Peter’s birth name is Simon bar-Jona, or “Simon the son of John.” It would distinguish him from other Simons, since most of their fathers wouldn’t also be named John.

But, if you didn’t know someone’s father, you might refer to them by a different relative—say, a brother. Thus, Peter’s brother Andrew can be referred to as “Andrew the brother of Simon” (Mark 1:16).

Uniquely, in Jesus’ case, he is referred to as “the son of Mary” (Mark 6:3).

In the case of women, you might refer to them by the names of their husbands. Thus, Luke refers to “Joanna the wife of Chuza” (Luke 8:3) and John refers to “Mary the wife of Clopas” (John 19:25).

But what do you do if you aren’t acquainted with a person’s relatives?

In that case, they were probably from somewhere else—since you’d know everybody in your own village—and so you could use their place of origin as a substitute.

This is why Jesus is known as “Jesus of Nazareth,” because outside of Nazareth, people didn’t know his family and so used the town in which he grew up. (Inside of Nazareth, they wouldn’t have called him this and would have used his family instead.)

This gives us the information we need to figure out the puzzle.

 

Mary the Sister of Martha and Lazarus

Both Luke and John refer to Mary as the sister of Martha, and John adds that she was the sister of Lazarus also.

They thus follow the standard naming conventions of the time.

Modern scholars often refer to them as “the Bethany family,” because that’s where they lived.

Bethany was a small village just outside Jerusalem, on the southeastern slope of the Mount of Olives.

And this was their stable place of residence. In fact, John introduces Lazarus by referring to him as “Lazarus of Bethany” and follows up by saying Bethany was “the village of Mary and her sister Martha” (John 11:1).

So, they were all identified with Bethany in Judaea. If you were from somewhere else and knew only one of the siblings, you would have used “of Bethany” as their identifier.

In fact, modern scholars often refer to Mary as “Mary of Bethany” to avoid the lengthier “Mary the sister of Martha and Lazarus.”

 

Mary Magdalene

This means that, when Luke and John refer to “Mary Magdalene,” they are referring to a different person.

They already have a way of referring to the Mary who was related to Martha and Lazarus.

They’ve already introduced her to their audience using the sibling-identifier, and so they would be misleading their audience if they suddenly switched the identifier to something else and didn’t mention to their readers that they’re still talking about the same person.

In this case, the identifier—“Magdalene”—is a place name. “Mary Magdalene” means “Mary of Magdala.”

Magdala was a major fishing port on the Sea of Galilee, which is—of course, located up north in Galilee, way far away from Bethany down by Jerusalem.

That tells us several things:

  • Mary Magdalene was a Galilean, being associated with a city in Galilee.
  • She had no relatives who were well known to the Christian community (in particular, she had no husband, which fits with the fact she was free to follow the itinerant prophet Jesus).
  • She was a different person than Mary the sister of Martha and Lazarus, who was associated with a village in Judaea.

 

Putting It All Together

And so, the puzzle is resolved. Despite earlier identifications of Mary Magdalene with Mary of Bethany, they are really two different people.

This has become clear—as the Congregation for Divine Worship notes—“in recent studies” that have carefully examined the way first century Jewish names worked.

This growing awareness of the fact the two women are distinct resulted, first, in giving the Bethany family a common day in the Roman Martyrology, and now, in giving them a common day on the General Calendar.

The Straw Pope Fallacy


What I call the Straw Pope Fallacy is a variation of the famous Straw Man Fallacy that is applied to the pope.

The Straw Man Fallacy occurs when a person critiques an inaccurate version of someone’s position.

The name of the fallacy is based on the fact that it’s easier to knock down a straw man than a real man.

Thus, critics of a position are often tempted to try to knock down a false version of a position (a “straw man”) rather than tackling the position itself (the “real man” in the metaphor).

When a critic proposes an inaccurate version of the position he wants to disprove, it’s referred to as “setting up a straw man.”

 

An Example: Baptism & Salvation

Most Christians (e.g., people in the Catholic, Orthodox, Coptic, Assyrian, Lutheran, Anglican, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Church of Christ communities) hold that God uses water baptism as a means of communicating his saving grace to people by the power of Christ’s resurrection.

A critic might respond, “That’s clearly untrue. The physical action of water only removes dirt from the body. It doesn’t do anything with respect to salvation.”

The critic has just committed the Straw Man Fallacy, because the claim wasn’t that the physical action of water brings about salvation.

Instead, the claim is that God uses water baptism as a means by which he gives salvation through the power of Christ’s resurrection.

If you want to disprove belief in baptismal salvation, that’s the claim you need to knock down—not a parallel claim that the physical action of the water itself saves us.

The first pope—St. Peter—warned against this misunderstanding.

So did Martin Luther. In his Short Catechism, he writes:

How can water do such great things?

Answer: It is not the water indeed that does them, but the word of God which is in and with the water, and faith, which trusts such word of God in the water. For without the word of God the water is simple water and no baptism. But with the word of God it is a baptism, that is, a gracious water of life and a washing of regeneration in the Holy Ghost.

 

Setting Up a Straw Pope

It’s common—and understandable—for non-Catholics to misunderstand what the Catholic Church does and doesn’t claim about the pope.

As a result, it’s easy for them to set up straw popes—i.e., to propose inaccurate versions of Catholic teaching about the role and function of the pope.

This also can happen because some Catholics aren’t as educated in their faith as they should be, don’t fully grasp Church teaching, and make exaggerated claims.

For whatever cause, straw popes are common in apologetic discussions.

 

Infallibility vs. Sinful Popes

A classic example involves a confusion about the pope’s ability to teach infallibly.

This is often misunderstood as implying that popes can’t sin.

Critics will then point to examples of popes who have done things they regard as sinful and conclude that Catholic teaching about the pope can’t be true.

This is an example of the Straw Pope Fallacy because the Church does not claim that popes can’t sin.

The inability to sin is a gift known as impeccability, and it’s not the same thing as the ability to engage the Church’s gift of infallibility when teaching.

The latter will result in teaching that does not contain error, but it doesn’t mean that a pope will never sin.

In fact, the Church freely acknowledges that popes can sin. They have since the very beginning! St. Peter denied Christ three times!

Yet that didn’t stop Jesus from reaffirming him in his pastoral office with respect to the other disciples. Neither did it stop Peter from writing two inspired—and thus infallible—encyclical letters. (You can read the first here; and the second here.)

It’s thus knocking down a straw pope to point to individual popes who’ve done things you regard as sinful and claim this disproves Catholic teaching.

It doesn’t. The Church doesn’t teach that popes are sinless.

 

Perfect Prudence?

Sometimes the Straw Pope Fallacy involves an even more expansive idea than popes being impeccable.

Some critics cite what they take to be examples of doing things that are merely ill advised or imprudent as somehow violating Catholic teaching regarding the papacy.

That would be the case if the Church taught that popes are perfectly prudent and can’t make mistakes of a prudential nature.

However, the Church claims no such thing. There is nothing in Church teaching that says this won’t happen.

It thus would be erecting a straw pope to claim that it does.

 

Divine Guidance?

But perhaps we can find a way to improve this argument, for the Church does claim that the Holy Spirit provides guidance to the pope and the bishops as members of the Magisterium.

That God gives people divine guidance of some form—even to Christians that are not members of the Magisterium—is certainly true. St. James says so (Jas. 1:5).

Calvinists would presumably see John Calvin as a person to whom God gave special guidance, resulting in him having a particularly insightful theology. Lutherans would presumably do the same for Martin Luther, and Wesleyans for John Wesley.

And the Church acknowledges that God gives this guidance to bishops, including the pope, in a special way.

But this guidance is separate from the gift of infallibility. If infallibility is engaged, the resulting teaching is guaranteed to be free from error.

However, the more general guidance God gives is not guaranteed to have this result—whether it’s the general guidance he gives to individual Christians, to gifted theologians, or to representatives of the Magisterium, like the bishops and popes.

The Church does not teach that, when operating under general guidance, the members of the Magisterium can’t make mistakes—and certainly not in the prudential order. In fact, it teaches:

When it comes to the question of interventions in the prudential order, it could happen that some magisterial documents might not be free from all deficiencies. Bishops and their advisors have not always taken into immediate consideration every aspect or the entire complexity of a question.

But it would be contrary to the truth, if, proceeding from some particular cases, one were to conclude that the Church’s Magisterium can be habitually mistaken in its prudential judgments, or that it does not enjoy divine assistance in the integral [i.e., overall] exercise of its mission (CDF, Donum Veritatis 24).

Here the topic is magisterial interventions of a prudential nature—that is, when the Church teaches on a prudential matter. This is not the same thing as the prudence of policy and administrative decisions, like whether to sign a treaty or who to appoint to a particular office.

On the level of decisions about what to teach on prudential matters, the Church acknowledges that the Holy Spirit guides the Magisterium so that it is not “habitually mistaken,” but that doesn’t mean this guidance prevents all mistakes, for “it could happen that some magisterial documents might not be free from all deficiencies.”

If that’s the case even when the Church is exercising its teaching authority, it’s even more the case when it comes to non-doctrinal decisions, such as international relations or personnel matters.

To truly engage with what the Church teaches regarding the guidance of the Magisterium, one would need to demonstrate that the Church is “habitually mistaken” in its prudential judgments (at least on doctrinal matters) and thus that it doesn’t enjoy the kind of divine guidance it claims.

That will be difficult to do since the Catholic Church is the world’s largest religious body—a fact that suggests they’ve been doing something right.

 

What About the Pope Himself?

The above discussion involves the guidance that the Holy Spirit gives to the Magisterium as a whole—that is, the bishops teaching in union with the pope—but could we configure a version of the argument that would be more specific to the pope himself?

We could, if the Church taught that the guidance that God gives the pope is sufficiently strong that it prevents him from making mistakes in the prudential order.

However, the Church does not teach this. Although the Holy Spirit offers guidance to the Church in selecting a new pope, this guidance doesn’t guarantee that the choice of pope will be a good one!

In a 1997 interview, Joseph Ratzinger (the future Pope Benedict XVI) was asked whether the Holy Spirit is responsible for the election of a pope. He replied:

I would not say so, in the sense that the Holy Spirit picks out the pope. . . . I would say that the Spirit does not exactly take control of the affair, but rather like a good educator, as it were, leaves us much space, much freedom, without entirely abandoning us.

Thus the Spirit’s role should be understood in a much more elastic sense, not that he dictates the candidate for whom one must vote. Probably the only assurance he offers is that the thing cannot be totally ruined (John Allen, The Rise of Benedict XVI, 6).

He continued:

There are too many contrary instances of popes the Holy Spirit obviously would not have picked!

It’s thus quite possible for there to be bad popes, as history has illustrated.

Protestant apologist James White has recently been proposing the idea of a debate on the merits of recent statements or actions by Pope Francis and what implications they may have for Catholic teachings about the pope.

But even if one were to conclude that Francis was a bad or unsuitable pope, that would not disprove Catholic teaching, because Catholic teaching allows there to be bad popes.

It would be erecting a straw pope to suppose otherwise.

You could infer from the conclusion that Francis is a bad pope that he’s an outlier.

But you wouldn’t be showing from this single data point that the Holy Spirit doesn’t guide the overall institution of the papacy or that he doesn’t work through bad popes.

After all, the Holy Spirit provided guidance to the overall institution of the Jewish high priesthood, but that didn’t stop there from being bad high priests—like Caiaphas—who plotted Jesus’ death.

Nor did it mean that God wouldn’t work through bad high priests once they had assumed their divinely instituted office. In fact, the Holy Spirit gave a genuine prophecy through Caiaphas even when he was in the act of plotting the death of the Messiah (John 11:47-53)!

Once again, you’d need to argue against the whole line of popes and show that they—as a body—lack the guidance that the Church holds they receive by virtue of their office.

You could do that by arguing that they systematically teach false doctrine—in which case you need to debate the doctrines.

However, if you want to do it by pointing to poor prudential decisions, you’ll have a hard row to hoe, because—once again—the Catholic Church is the largest religious body in the world, making it difficult to hold that popes are “habitually mistaken” in their prudential decisions. They’re obviously doing something right!

 

Appointing Officials?

As part of his argument for debating recent actions by Pope Francis, White says:

I think I’ve made a very strong case that we live at a point in time, right now, where there needs to be a clear discussion of the positive claims that Rome makes concerning the necessity of the papacy—and not just the papacy as some nebulous, unidentifiable, foggy chimera.

But you have a pope, and that pope has a worldview. And he is using that worldview to choose cardinals and bishops, scholars on the Pontifical Biblical Commission, that will influence the teaching in Roman Catholic schools for decades.

You know this to be true. This needs to be debated.

And if you’re going to debate sola scriptura, then both ultimate claims of an epistemological authority must be on the table. It is time for Roman Catholic apologists to stand up to their own claims.

White thus sees the pope’s appointment of cardinals, bishops, and biblical scholars as relevant to the question of whether Catholic teaching on the papacy is true.

Why would these be relevant?

Further light is shed on this question at another point in the video, where he says:

The worldview that allows Francis to look at the tradition, primarily delivered to him in the South American church, and interpret it the way he’s interpreting it, and then acting upon that—in putting people in positions of authority—results in the papacy teaching something differently now than it did in the past.

The concept of infallible teaching authority has to have meaning. Or your claims, and my claims, are empty.

White here relates the appointment of various individuals as somehow affecting “the concept of infallible teaching authority.”

His argument seems to be that Pope Francis has a worldview that leads him to appoint officials that will have an influence on Catholic teaching that will result in it changing in some way. He also said:

I remember very, very clearly pointing out a contradiction—this is back during John Paul II—a contradiction between what John Paul II had said, and [what] a previous bishop of Rome had said.

White thus takes differences in Church teaching over time—such as the one he remembers finding between John Paul II and a prior pope, or the ones he thinks Francis’s appointees might one day produce—as contradicting “the concept of infallible teaching authority.”

 

No Doctrinal Development?

I have to have some sympathy for White, because there are a large number of Catholics who say things like “[Catholic] Doctrine can’t change.”

As I point out in my book Teaching With Authority, the Church does not use this language.

Instead, it acknowledges that doctrinal development happens over time:

In order to serve the People of God as well as possible, in particular, by warning them of dangerous opinions which could lead to error, the Magisterium can intervene in questions under discussion which involve, in addition to solid principles, certain contingent and conjectural elements. It often only becomes possible with the passage of time to distinguish between what is necessary and what is contingent.

The willingness to submit loyally to the teaching of the Magisterium on matters per se not [infallible] must be the rule. It can happen, however, that a theologian may, according to the case, raise questions regarding the timeliness, the form, or even the contents of magisterial interventions. Here the theologian will need, first of all, to assess accurately the authoritativeness of the interventions which becomes clear from the nature of the documents, the insistence with which a teaching is repeated, and the very way in which it is expressed. . . .

In fact, the theologian, who cannot pursue his discipline well without a certain competence in history, is aware of the filtering which occurs with the passage of time. This is not to be understood in the sense of a relativization of the tenets of the faith. The theologian knows that some judgments of the Magisterium could be justified at the time in which they were made, because while the pronouncements contained true assertions and others which were not sure, both types were inextricably connected. Only time has permitted discernment and, after deeper study, the attainment of true doctrinal progress (CDF, Donum Veritatis 24).

The Church thus acknowledges that, as it seeks to articulate Christian doctrine, its statements have varying levels of authority.

As long as these are not on the infallible level, they can contain both “solid principles” that are “necessary,” as well as “certain contingent and conjectural elements,” and that “it often only becomes possible with the passage of time to distinguish” between them.

This process, which occurs under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, is referred to as doctrinal development.

Therefore, it is possible in particular situations to consider non-infallible teachings and “raise questions regarding the timeliness, the form, or even the contents of magisterial interventions.”

Which is to say: Non-infallible teachings are not infallible.

They have differing levels of authority, from the tentative to the very firm, and their overall reliability is found in the guidance that the Holy Spirit gives the Church even when infallibility isn’t being invoked. But they can contain “contingent and conjectural elements” that will be removed over the course of time as the Holy Spirit guides the Church “into all the truth” (John 16:13).

Therefore, one erects a straw pope if one proposes that no imperfections and no doctrinal development can occur.

This seems to be what James White is doing, because merely finding a difference between what John Paul II said and what a prior pope said does not engage “the concept of infallible teaching authority”—with one possible exception.

 

The Real Issue

The one exception occurs if you can find:

  1. A papal teaching that is infallible,
  2. A Church teaching that is infallible (whether by a pope or the Magisterium in general), and
  3. Both of these teachings contradict each other.

If you could find such a situation, then you would have a disproof of papal infallibility by counter-example, which is one of two strategies one could employ (the other would be a disproof of the doctrine on the level of principle rather than by example).

Consequently, this is the real issue for example-based disproofs of papal infallibility. Everything else is a distraction that involves setting up a straw pope.

It does not matter if:

  • A pope commits sins
  • A pope does imprudent things
  • A pope is a bad pope
  • A pope says something different than what has been said in the past

To disprove papal infallibility by counter-example you need an infallible papal teaching that contradicts another infallible teaching.

Nothing else will do the job.

I’ve already explained why I’m not interested in debating statements or actions by Pope Francis for various practical reasons.

However, the above explains why on the doctrinal level: Pope Francis has never attempted to teach infallibility on a matter of doctrine, and therefore the relevant issue is not on the table. Such a debate would, of necessity, be an exercise in irrelevance.

Which is what the Straw Pope and the Straw Man fallacies are—fallacies of relevance.

To actually do this kind of disproof, you’d need to comb through the list of papal documents that contain infallible definitions (and, as I point out in Teaching With Authority, the list is quite small) and then find a contradiction to another infallible teaching.

 

But . . . ! But . . . !

The above will not be satisfying to many critics of the Catholic Church, because it makes their job much harder than it otherwise would be.

It’s one thing to argue that a pope sins, does imprudent things, is bad at his job, or says something different than prior popes.

It’s another thing entirely to find contradictions between items in the relatively modest body of infallible teachings.

Some may argue that they ought to be able to appeal to these other things—that the papacy should work the way they want it to.

And one can have some sympathy for them, as individual Catholics sometimes make exaggerated claims that would support a more expansive view of how it works.

But the fact is that the Church does not teach such a view. The Church teaches that the Holy Spirit provides the Magisterium guidance that guarantees the reliability of its teachings in a general fashion, but he only guarantees the complete reliability of specific teachings when they are taught infallibly.

Consequently, if you want to disprove infallibility, it’s to that set of teachings you must appeal.

You can’t disprove infallibility by appealing to non-infallible teachings (or things that aren’t even teachings).

You can say that the Church should teach something else about the papacy—something that’s easier for you to knock down.

But that’s the definition of attacking a straw man—or, in this case, a straw pope.

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.

 

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.

New Vatican Document on Salvation: Top Ten Things to Know

salvation_intro_at_the_crossThe Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) has released a new document on the subject of salvation.

The CDF is the department at the Vatican charged with looking out for doctrinal errors, and it does not release documents very often.

 

1) Why was the document released?

On March 1, the prefect and secretary of the CDF—Archbishops Luis Ladaria and Giacomo Morandi—held a press conference in which they announced the new document.

The document can be read online here.

Archbishop Ladaria explained that the document arose after some theologians asked the Congregation to further examine themes discussed in its earlier document on salvation, Dominus Iesus (2000).

This document proved controversial because it explained the Church’s faith in Jesus Christ as the unique Savior of mankind, which some took as a slight to non-Christian religions.

The new document—Placuit Deo (Latin, “It has pleased God”)—reaffirms Christian teaching on Jesus as “the only Savior of the whole human person and of all humanity” (n. 2), but it does not dwell on the issue.

Instead, it focuses on two problematic tendencies in modern society that Pope Francis has called attention to, comparing them to the ancient heresies of Pelagianism and Gnosticism.

 

2) What is Pelagianism?

Pelagianism was a heresy which minimized or denied the need for God’s grace in avoiding sin and achieving salvation.

It is named after Pelagius, a monk from the British isles who lived in the 300s and 400s.

Pelagianism was fought by St. Augustine and others, and it was condemned at a variety of councils.

The new document, Placuit Deo, explains:

According to the Pelagian heresy, developed during the fifth century around Pelagius, the man, in order to fulfil the commandments of God and to be saved, needs grace only as an external help to his freedom (like light, for example, [or] power), not like a radical healing and regeneration of the freedom, without prior merit, until he can do good and reach the eternal life (fn. 9).

 

3) What is Gnosticism?

Gnosticism was a heresy that arose in the second and third century. It took many different forms.

Gnostics claimed to have special knowledge about the nature of the world and an alleged hierarchy of divine, celestial beings.

They commonly saw the material world as evil, being produced by an inferior divine power who was identified with the God of the Old Testament.

Salvation consisted in liberation from the flesh by embracing the gnostic message.

 

4) Is Gnosticism the belief that we are “saved through knowledge”?

No. This common claim is a mistake based on where the word “gnostic” comes from (gnosis, one of the Greek words for knowledge) and that ignores what gnostics actually believed.

Religions generally see a connection between salvation and knowledge. They hold people need to know what to do to be saved:

  • In Christianity, people need to know and act on the gospel of Jesus Christ.
  • In Buddhism, people need to recognize the Four Noble Truths and follow the Eightfold Path.
  • In Islam, people need to know and submit to the will of God.

Each of these religions could be called “gnostic” if all you mean by that is that they think people need knowledge to be saved.

What makes Gnosticism distinct is not its belief that knowledge is important for salvation. It’s the specific content of the knowledge they thought would let one achieve salvation. The CDF explains:

In general, the gnostics believed that the salvation is obtained through an esoteric knowledge or gnosis. Such gnosis reveals to the gnostic his true essence, i.e., a spark of the divine spirit that lives inside him, which has to be liberated from the body, external to his true humanity. Only in this manner, the gnostic returns to his original being in God from whom he has turned away due to a primordial fall (fn. 9).

 

5) What are the tendencies in modern society that the CDF warns against in the new letter?

The first tendency is a kind of self-sufficient individualism that doesn’t properly appreciate the role of Jesus in salvation:

On one hand, individualism centered on the autonomous subject tends to see the human person as a being whose sole fulfilment depends only on his or her own strength.

In this vision, the figure of Christ appears as a model that inspires generous actions with his words and his gestures, rather than as he who transforms the human condition by incorporating us into a new existence, reconciling us with the Father and dwelling among us in the Spirit (n. 2).

The second tendency is a kind of isolationism that conceives of salvation as an exclusively personal thing that involves only the individual and God. This is sometimes called a “just me and Jesus” attitude, and it does not appreciate our obligations toward others and the world:

On the other hand, a merely interior vision of salvation is becoming common, a vision which, marked by a strong personal conviction or feeling of being united to God, does not take into account the need to accept, heal, and renew our relationships with others and with the created world (ibid.).

 

6) How has Pope Francis spoken of these tendencies?

The CDF explains:

Pope Francis, in his ordinary magisterium, often has made reference to the two tendencies described above, that resemble certain aspects of two ancient heresies, Pelagianism and Gnosticism.

A new form of Pelagianism is spreading in our days, one in which the individual, understood to be radically autonomous, presumes to save oneself, without recognizing that, at the deepest level of being, he or she derives from God and from others. . . .

On the other hand, a new form of Gnosticism puts forward a model of salvation that is merely interior, closed off in its own subjectivism. . . .

It presumes to liberate the human person from the body and from the material universe, in which traces of the provident hand of the Creator are no longer found (n. 3).

 

7) In speaking of these tendencies as Pelagianism and Gnosticism, is the pope being literal?

No. The CDF explains:

Clearly, the comparison with the Pelagian and Gnostic heresies intends only to recall general common features, without entering into judgments on the exact nature of the ancient errors. . . .

However, insofar as Gnosticism and Pelagianism represent perennial dangers for misunderstanding biblical faith, it is possible to find similarities between the ancient heresies and the modern tendencies just described (n. 3).

 

8) What does the CDF see as the antidotes to these problems?

A complete discussion can be found by reading the document in full, but put concisely:

  • Contra individualism (“neo-Pelagianism”), we cannot rely simply on ourselves for salvation (e.g., by trying to be morally good person). God’s grace in Jesus Christ is essential for salvation. The sacraments are means by which God gives us his grace.
  • Contra isolationism (“neo-Gnosticism”), salvation is not a purely private and spiritual matter. We must take seriously our responsibilities toward other Christians, the Church, and all of creation.

 

9) Are there any particularly interesting points the document discusses?

One is a rejection of the common idea that our final destiny is to live as disembodied spirits with God in heaven. While we may be disembodied before the final resurrection, the document reminds us that, “total salvation of the body and of the soul is the final destiny to which God calls all of humanity” (n. 15).

Another point, which will be particularly interesting for Protestant Christians, is the document’s acknowledgement that Mary is “first among the saved” (n. 15), meaning that she also is a recipient of God’s grace (cf. CCC 508).

 

10) Did we have any idea this document was coming?

Yes. In his annual address to the CDF last January, Pope Francis mentioned it.

He also mentioned that the CDF has been doing a study of Christian principles and economics and another study on euthanasia and the care of the terminally ill.

We may soon see documents on those subject also.

Pray for Terminally Ill Baby Charlie Gard

charlie_gard

Charlie Gard is an eleven-month old baby in England. He has a rare genetic disorder known as mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome.

According to press accounts, Charlie is terminally ill at this point. His parents have raised more than $1 million to try an experimental treatment to help him, but hospital officials—backed by British and European courts—have forbidden his parents to take him from the London hospital where he currently is.

Officials have also forbidden his parents to take him home to die.

According to the British tabloid newspaper, The Sun:

Charlie’s mum and dad say he is a “prisoner” in hospital and Great Ormond Street [hospital]’s treatment has been “inhuman”.

You can read more about the treatment controversy surrounding Charlie here.

 

Why are officials denying the wishes of Charlie’s parents?

According to their public statements, they believe that Charlie’s condition is too grave and that the proposed medical treatments are not in his interest (meaning, they would be too burdensome, too likely to be ineffective, or both).

Consequently, rather than undertake the treatments desired by his parents, hospital authorities state that it would be in Charlie’s best interests to allow him to die.

They therefore propose discontinuing the things keeping him alive.

 

What does Catholic moral theology hold about situations like this?

The Church does not have a teaching addressing Charlie’s specific condition, but it has articulated principles that address situations like this in general.

The usual obligation to use medical procedures to extend life does not apply when the treatments would be “heroic” or disproportional to the good to be achieved.

In other words, if the treatments would be too burdensome, too unlikely to succeed, or both, they are not obligatory.

Experimental treatments like the one proposed for Charlie typically are riskier than approved treatments—commonly involving both a higher burden on the patient (e.g., more side-effects) and lower chances of success.

Because of this, such experimental treatments generally are not morally obligatory.

 

If the treatment is not morally obligatory, what’s the controversy about?

Ordinarily, a patient would speak for himself regarding whether he wishes to receive such treatments.

However, in this case the patient is a baby and cannot do so. Therefore, the parents—by natural law—are the logical ones to make the decision.

Only if the parents are incapable of making a rational decision would it be warranted for others to step in and make the decision in their place.

Note the test required for intervention by others: It isn’t that the parents must make the correct decision. People can have a legitimate diversity of opinions on which medical procedures are warranted in a case. That’s why patients are often encouraged to seek “second opinions” from physicians.

The standard that must be met is that the parents aren’t capable of making a decision that is within the pale of reason. They must be making a patently irrational one before others should intervene.

In this case, the treatment proposed for Charlie has worked for others, indicating a rational hope it would work for him.

Consequently, the attempt by the hospital officials and the relevant courts to impose their will on Charlie, against his parents’ explicit wishes, appears a monstrous and inhuman overreach.

The refusal to let the parents take baby Charlie home to die (as if palliative care couldn’t be given in a home environment!) only twists the knife.

The way the situation has played out, it looks like an Orwellian, faceless bureaucracy is determined to kill this child against the reasonable will of the parents.

That bodes ill for all of us, given the statist and anti-life trends on the loose in Western culture.

 

What has the Catholic Church in the UK said about this situation?

Archbishop Peter Smith issued a statement which you can read here.

He expressed sympathy with the parents and reviewed some relevant moral principles.

Toward the end of his statement, Archbishop Smith said:

We do, sometimes, however, have to recognise the limitations of what can be done, while always acting humanely in the service of the sick person until the time of natural death occurs.

The statement as a whole was carefully balanced, but this sentence could come across as discouraging the parents’ efforts to save Charlie’s life.

A much more problematic statement was issued in the name of the Pontifical Academy of Life in Rome.

 

What did the Pontifical Academy of Life say about Charlie’s situation?

Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the academy, issued a statement which you can read here.

This statement also expressed sympathy for the parents. However, it went on to say:

The proper question to be raised in this and in any other unfortunately similar case is this: what are the best interests of the patient?

We must do what advances the health of the patient, but we must also accept the limits of medicine and, as stated in paragraph 65 of the Encyclical Evangelium Vitae, avoid aggressive medical procedures that are disproportionate to any expected results or excessively burdensome to the patient or the family.

Archbishop Paglia has mischaracterized what Evangelium Vitae says. It does not say that we should “avoid” such medical procedures. It says that refusing them is not the same thing as euthanasia. It says “one can in conscience refuse” such treatments, but not that one should or must do so.

Evangelium Vitae leaves open the question of what treatments can be used in an effort to preserve life. If a patient—or those who speak for him—feel it is appropriate to use aggressive or experimental treatments, that is not precluded by Evangelium Vitae 65.

Even more unfortunately, Archbishop Paglia continued:

Likewise, the wishes of parents must heard and respected, but they too must be helped to understand the unique difficulty of their situation and not be left to face their painful decisions alone.

Although this could be taken as a statement of abstract principle, in this context it comes across as a paternalistic statement regarding Charlie’s parents and how they “must be helped to understand the unique difficulty of their situation”—as if an archbishop in Rome were more familiar with it than the parents who are having to live the situation!

The statement was therefore widely criticized. It came across as out-of-touch, pastorally insensitive, and precisely the kind of thing that would drive hurting parents away from the Church.

Fortunately, Pope Francis walked it back.

 

What did Pope Francis say?

According to Crux:

Wading directly into a charged moral and political debate in the UK, and also appearing to recalibrate an earlier statement from the head of his own Pontifical Academy for Life, Pope Francis on Sunday expressed hope that the desire of 10-month-old Charlie Gard’s parents “to accompany and care for their own child to the end” will be respected.

“The Holy Father follows with affection and commotion the situation of Charlie Gard, and expresses his own closeness to his parents,” reads a statement issued by Greg Burke, the pope’s spokesperson.

“He prays for them, wishing that their desire to accompany and care for their own child to the end will be respected.”

Pope Francis also Tweeted:

To defend human life, above all when it is wounded by illness, is a duty of love that God entrusts to all.

Following this, the pediatric hospital Bambino Jesu (“Child Jesus”) in Rome—which also treats the popes—offered to treat Charlie.

American President Donald Trump also offered to facilitate treatment in America, saying:

If we can help little #CharlieGard, as per our friends in the U.K. and the Pope, we would be delighted to do so.

Thus far British officials have sent mixed signals regarding whether the parents will be allowed to take Charlie from the hospital where he is currently being held.

Let’s all pray for this horrific situation.

Pope Francis’s Commission on Women Deacons: 12 things to know and share

popr-francis-teachingPope Francis has agreed to create a commission to study the possibility of women deacons.

Here are 12 things to know and share . . .

 

1) What has happened?

On Thursday, May 12, Pope Francis was meeting with a group of women religious who asked him about the possibility of creating a commission to study the possibility of women deacons, or deaconesses.

Edward Pentin reports:

Speaking to around 900 members of the International Union of Superiors General today, representing half a million religious sisters from 80 countries, the Pope was asked if he would establish “an official commission” to study the question of women deacons.

He replied: “I accept. It would be useful for the Church to clarify this question. I agree.”

 

2) Who would be on this commission, when would it meet, and when would we know its results?

At present, all of these are unknown.

The commission could be run under the auspices of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF).

The International Theological Commission, which is an advisory body run by the CDF, could be tasked with studying the issue.

Alternately, a new commission run by the CDF could be created to study the question.

Or a special, independent commission could be created, though its results would be vetted by the CDF.

Since the pope has only just agreed to the proposal, no timetable has been announced.

The commission could begin meeting within a year, but it likely would be several years before its work would be finished.

Once it is finished, the resulting report(s) would be submitted to the CDF and/or the pope.

They might or might not then be released publicly.

 

3) Why doesn’t the Church presently ordain women to the diaconate?

The Church holds that:

Only a baptized man (Latin, vir) validly receives sacred ordination (CCC 1577).

Although the matter has been debated historically, the Church’s present understanding is that the diaconate belongs to the sacrament of holy orders:

Catholic doctrine teaches that the degrees of priestly participation (episcopate and presbyterate) and the degree of service (diaconate) are all three conferred by a sacramental act called “ordination,” that is, by the sacrament of Holy Orders (CCC 1554).

If the sacrament of holy orders can be validly received only by a baptized man and if the diaconate is a grade of holy orders then only a baptized man can be validly ordained a deacon.

Thus women could not be ordained to the diaconate, understood in its sacramental sense.

 

4) Are there other senses in which the term “deacon” can be used?

The Greek term for deacon is diakonos. Its basic meaning is “servant” or “minister,” and it can be used in a wide variety of senses.

Indeed, Jesus himself says the he came not to be served but to serve (diakonesai) in Matthew 20:28.

Similarly, Paul says he and Apollos are “servants” (diakonoi) in 1 Corinthians 3:5.

And all Christians are called to play this role, for “he who is greatest among you shall be your servant (diakonos)” (Matt. 23:11).

The term thus has a wide variety of meanings besides the one the Church understands as a grade of ordained ministry.

 

5) Were there female deacons—or deaconesses—in the early Church?

Yes. For example, St. Paul’s letter to the Romans was carried from Cenchreae (the port of Corinth, where Paul wrote it) to Rome by a deaconess named Phoebe. St. Paul writes:

I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deaconess of the church at Cenchreae, that you may receive her in the Lord as befits the saints, and help her in whatever she may require from you, for she has been a helper of many and of myself as well (Rom. 16:1-2).

In later centuries, deaconesses performed a variety of roles, primarily in ministry to women.

 

6) How could there be female deacons if only a male can be validly ordained?

This would be possible if the term “deaconess” was being used in a different way than to refer to the diaconal grade of ordained ministry.

Thus the canons of the First Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325) refer to deaconesses that have not been ordained:

And we mean by deaconesses such as have assumed the habit, but who, since they have no imposition of hands, are to be numbered only among the laity (canon 19).

In other words, these deaconesses were servants or ministers in the Church but did not exercise ordained ministry.

 

7) Does the Church teach infallibly that only men can be ordained?

At present, the Church teaches infallibly that:

[T]he Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful (John Paul II, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis)

This teaching is not regarded as being infallible due to a papal statement but because of the ordinary and universal exercise of the Magisterium (see here).

The Church thus infallibly teaches that that priestly ordination (i.e., ordination to the rank of priest or bishop) cannot be conferred on women, but this teaching has not been extended to diaconal ordination.

As we saw under (3), above, one can deduce that women cannot receive diaconal ordination from the fact that the Church teaches only a baptized man can be ordained and that the diaconate is a grade of holy orders, but the Church has not yet confirmed this inference as an infallible teaching.

 

8) Does that mean that the Church could one day revise this part of its teaching and allow women to be ordained to the diaconate?

That is, presumably, one of the questions the commission would be tasked with clarifying.

 

9) What might the commission recommend?

Assuming it issued a single report (as opposed to a set of reports reflecting the different positions of commission members), it might recommend a number of things, including:

  • No change to present teaching and discipline
  • Ordination of women to the diaconal grade of holy orders
  • Reintroduction of non-ordained deaconesses
  • Further study of the question

 

10) Would the commission’s recommendations change anything?

Commissions are advisory bodies. The Magisterium may take or not take their recommendations.

Any change to the Church’s present teaching and practice in this area would, at a minimum, require the pope’s authorization, and it might well involve a broader consultation of the Magisterium, such as by a synod of bishops.

 

11) What is the best guide to current, orthodox Catholic thought on the subject on women and the diaconate?

In 2002 the International Theological Commission, one of the advisory bodies operated by the CDF, issued a report titled From the Diakonia of Christ to the Diakonia of the Apostles.

Although not a document of the Magisterium, it was approved for release by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and represents orthodox and learned Catholic opinion on the topic.

This document will likely serve as the starting point for the forthcoming commission on the question.

You can read it here.

 

12) What does the document say?

It has an extended section (IV. The Ministry of Deaconesses) dealing with the way deaconesses functioned in the early Church.

On the question of ordination, the document concludes by saying:

With regard to the ordination of women to the diaconate, it should be noted that two important indications emerge from what has been said up to this point:

  1. The deaconesses mentioned in the tradition of the ancient Church—as evidenced by the rite of institution and the functions they exercised—were not purely and simply equivalent to the deacons;
  2. The unity of the sacrament of Holy Orders, in the clear distinction between the ministries of the bishop and the priests on the one hand and the diaconal ministry on the other, is strongly underlined by ecclesial tradition, especially in the teaching of the Magisterium.

In the light of these elements which have been set out in the present historico-theological research document, it pertains to the ministry of discernment which the Lord established in his Church to pronounce authoritatively on this question.

The two points that it makes—that the ancient deaconesses “were not purely and simply equivalent to the deacons” and the support that tradition and the magisterium have given to the diaconal ministry as an element of holy orders—suggest that women could not be ordained to the diaconate. However, the matter was left to the future discernment of the Magisterium.

 

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