An analysis of
three principal errors of Vatican II: Personalism, a false notion of the
Church, and collegiality.
In beginning a series
of articles on the “magisterium” of the Second Vatican Council and the
encyclicals of John XXIII, we shall strive to explain and refute the principal
errors contained in it and to point out the logical link that unites it all.
The conciliar
“magisterium” can be summarized in three principal errors from which all the
others flow.
The principle and
foundation of Vatican II is the
personalist error (the cult of
man) from which flow the two others. This error of personalism is contained in
a specific way in Gaudium et Spes, no.
22, promulgated on December 7, 1965 (but which was introduced in Lumen Gentium, promulgated November 21,
1964, and by Pacem in Terris of John
XXIII, of April 11 1963), and has been amply developed by John Paul II in Redemptor Hominis. This error consists
in a type of christological pantheism in which man and God are confused and
identified because of a false notion of the dignity of the human person.
The second error
is a false notion of the Church of Christ (Lumen
Gentium no. 8) which, owing to personalism, is presented to us as something
more extended than the Catholic Church[1]. Such an error is taken up again and developed by
John Paul II in his speech to the Roman Curia in December, 1986, where he spoke
of the Church as the “symbol of the unity of the human race.” Connected to this
error is that of the collegiality
of bishops, which substantially
alters the nature of the Catholic Church.
The third error
is a practical consequence of the first two, and is that of religious liberty (Dignitatis Humanæ of December 7, 1965
no. 14 especially), according to which, again owing to personalism, it is
necessary to grant rights in the external forum to every imaginable personal
conviction, even if it should be erroneous and even if it only asks for the
Roman Church[2] a respect for its right to exist.
In this article I
will treat of the errors of (a) personalism, (b) the extension of the Catholic
Church (“subsistit in”) and (c)
collegiality. Of the error of religious liberty we shall not here speak, as it
has been discussed at length in other treatises.
I. The Cult of Man:
Personalism as Principle and Foundation of the
Conciliar “Magisterium”
“Human nature, by the very fact that
it was assumed, not absorbed, in him [Christ], has been raised in us also [eo
ipso etiam in nobis] to a dignity beyond compare. For, by his incarnation, he,
the Son of God, has in a certain way united himself with each man.” (Gaudium et Spes, no. 22)
In order to
comprehend completely and without any possibility of mistake or of attributing
to the document an unfavorable meaning which the text does not explicitly
contain, let us examine the authoritative commentary made by the “magisterium”
of John Paul II in Redemptor Hominis
in which he speaks about Gaudium et Spes
no. 22 and explains its implicit meaning.
The words, “in a
certain way,” are capable of many interpretations. The expression could be
interpreted in an orthodox manner to mean that the Second Person of the Blessed
Trinity united Himself to every man in
potency, that is, He desired the salvation of all men, but not all men will
be saved. In other words, not all men are united to him eternally in act.
John Paul II, in his first encyclical Redemptor Hominis (March 4, 1979)
intervenes and specifies the meaning of Gaudium
et Spes in an unambiguous manner.
First of all, we
ask ourselves, in what way did Christ unite Himself to every man? What has this
union done for man?
Redemptor Hominis no. 9 answers: “God in
Him [Christ] comes close to every man by giving him the three times Holy Spirit
of Truth.” The Holy Ghost, sanctifying grace, and divine life are the effect of
the union of Christ with every man.
“The dignity
which every man has attained in Christ is the dignity of divine adoption.” (Redemptor Hominis, no. 11)
But we ask
ourselves again: grace and divine adoption are offered to every man, but not
all accept it, or if they do accept it, can they not then lose it? Redemptor Hominis (no. 13) responds: “We
are not speaking of man in the abstract, but of real, concrete and historical
man, we are speaking of every man, because...with each man Christ has united Himself forever.” [emphasis added]
But do we then conclude that every man is in act united to God by the grace of
God? And is he so united independently of whether or not he corresponds to the
gift of God? Redemptor Hominis (N.
13) responds: “For this reason man — every man without any exception — has been redeemed by Christ, because with man — every man without any exception —
Christ is in some way united, even when man is not aware of it.” And it is
thus, even if he does not know it, and therefore does not want it, they are in
act united to God by sanctifying grace forever! Saint Augustine must have made
a mistake when he wrote: Qui creavit te
sine te non salvabit te sine te — He who created you without you will not save
you without you.
But from what moment does the Word unite Himself
to man, to every man? Perhaps John Paul II reassures us by telling us that it happens
at the moment when man will say to Him, “Yes, I will it.” Not at all. Redemptor Hominis (no. 13) responds:
“...the mystery [of the Redemption] in which each one of the four thousand
million human beings living on our planet has become a sharer from the moment he is conceived beneath the
heart of his mother.” [emphasis added] It is the dogma of the Immaculate
Conception and of the impeccability of man! This is why Paul VI on December 7,
1965 in his closing speech of the Council said, “We more than anyone else have the cult of man.” The cult of man is
precisely, according to Saint Pius X, the distinctive sign of the Antichrist! (E Supremi Apostolatu)
And Montini continued in this famous discourse:
“The Religion of God made man has met the religion of man who has become God.
What happened? A shock, a fight, an anathema: all this could have happened, but
in fact did not happen...”
The Catholic Doctrine
The Word in
incarnating itself did not unite itself to the universal human nature and therefore
to every man, but rather to a single human nature, the nature of Christ. The
Word divinized, by the hypostatic union, only this individual nature which He
assumed and not the universal nature, nor every man.
Gaudium et Spes therefore makes the Redemption
superfluous: in fact every man having the human nature, by that very fact, is
divinized, and no longer has need of the supernatural order.
Saint Thomas
teaches the exact opposite of Gaudium et
Spes. In the Summa Theologiæ (IIIª
q. 4 a. 5) the Angelic Doctor writes: “It was unfitting for human nature to be
assumed by the Word in all its supposita.” If the Word had assumed the
universal human nature, there would be a single (divine) Person in whom
subsists all human nature and there would not be the various human persons
distinct from one another. Consider what St. Thomas says in IIIª q. 2 a. 5 ad
2: “Neither can it be said that the Son of God assumed human nature as it is in
all the individuals of the same species, otherwise he would have assumed all
men.”
John Paul II took
up again the theme of Gaudium et Spes in
other encyclicals which came after Redemptor
Hominis. In Dominum et Vivificantem (no.
50) he writes:
“The Word became flesh.” The
Incarnation of God the Son signifies the taking up into unity with God not only
of human nature, but in this human
nature, in a sense, of everything that is “flesh”: the whole of humanity,
the entire visible and material world. The Incarnation, then, also has a cosmic
significance, a cosmic dimension.
In no. 54 he states
explicitly:
...he [God] is not only close to this world but present in it, and in a sense immanent, penetrating it and giving it
life from within. [emphasis in original]
John Paul II writes
furthermore in Dominum et Vivificantem (no.
50):
“The first born of all creation,”
becoming incarnate in the individual humanity of Christ, unites himself in some
way with the entire reality of man, which is also “flesh” — and in this reality
with all “flesh,” with the whole of creation.
This is an explicit
profession of pantheism. For pantheism, the world and God make a single thing. Acosmic pantheism (mystico-religious
pantheism) is the reduction of the world to God. The world is absorbed in God,
and is nothing more than an ensemble of manifestations of God which have no
permanent substance distinct from God. Thus God is the substance of “Soul of
the world.”
“One speaks of
the emanation of the world from God or of a hypostatic
union of the world with God: either the world subsists in the divine personality
or God is immanent in the world. (Sciacca, “Panteismo” Enciclopedia Cattolica). [emphasis added] We find here described
the very same doctrine as that of Karol Wojtyla — word for word.
Philosophical Origins of
Personalism
The roots of
personalism are to be looked for in immanentism or the denial of the
transcendence of God. (“...he [God] is not only close to this world but present
in it, and in a sense immanent,
penetrating it and giving it life from within.” — Dominum et Vivificantem, no. 54).
But one could
object here that immanence is not the
same thing as immanentism. Something is immanent if it is internal in a being
(e.g., God with regard to the world) without
necessarily excluding transcendence. God would be, the objection goes, both
immanent and transcendent, inasmuch as the universe exists by the power of God.
The transcendence of God implies therefore immanence as a mode of presence. On
the other hand, immanentism is that doctrine which excludes the transcendence
of God in the world. Therefore John Paul II is speaking only of immanence, but not of immanentism.
The response to
this objection is that the doctrine of Karol Wojtyla, being pantheism (as has
been demonstrated), is a derivative of immanentism
and not of immanence or the mere
presence of God in the world. (cf. Summa
Theologiæ Iª q. 8).
“The term of
presence as opposed to immanence expresses the progress of the christian
conception, which is founded on the absolute transcendence and liberty of God.”
(Fabro “Immanenza,” Enciclopedia Cattolica).
Sciacca distinguishes, on his part, between the presence of God in the world
(the christian concept) and modern immanence, which flows into pantheism. Karol
Wojtyla, with his doctrine of christological pantheism, espouses the latter
doctrine.
The principle of
immanentism was already implicit in the cogito
ergo sum of Descartes (d. 1650),
that is, in the primacy of thought over reality. Thought for Descartes does not
depend on the real, the object of thought being thought itself, and not
reality. Thought is separated from the real and is sufficient unto itself. Spinoza (d. 1667) goes much further: for
him “God is the immanent cause of all
things” [emphasis added] (Ethics, 1, 48). Kant (d. 1804) makes from the principle of immanence the
fundamental rule of knowing: thought is an a priori synthesis (subjective a
priori forms).
Post-kantian
idealism takes this principle to its ultimate conclusion. It denies the
objectivity which Kant conceded to the phenomenon. Fichte (d. 1814) said, “The thing is what is posited by the Ego.”
Finally comes Hegel (d. 1831) with his absolute
idealism, which criticizes and goes beyond even that of Fichte, inasmuch as the
Ego of Fichte is still something objective, while for Hegel everything is
becoming and affirms itself by denying (dialectic). Modern thought from
humanism all the way to Vatican II displays its immanentistic bent even to the
total elimination of religious transcendence.
While the various currents of human
thought both in the past and at the present have tended and still tend to
separate theocentrism and
anthropocentrism, and even to set them in opposition to each other, the church, [the conciliar church — cn] following
Christ, [the cosmic Christ — cn]
seeks to link them up in human history in
a deep and organic way. And this is also one of the basic principles, perhaps
the most imposrtant one, of the teaching of the last council.[3] [emphasis added]
We can say that
the philosopher who is the animator par
excellence of the immanentistic tendency of the conciliar “magisterium” is,
without a doubt, Hegel. For him, in fact, the problem of God is the true
problem of philosophy. Hegel is the supreme pontiff of modern philosophy.
“Philosophy has no other object than God.” (Hegel, Aesthetics).
Religion and
philosophy for this reason have, according to Hegel, the same object but they
do not perceive it in the same manner: religion understands God through myths
and images, whereas philosophy understands God by means of the concept. The God
of the preconciliar religion is only a preliminary and imperfect moment of the
life of the spirit. The higher levels of the spirit are three: (1) art, which grasps God by means of
sensible images; (2) religion, which
grasps God by means of myths and stories, and (3) philosophy, which grasps God on the level of the rational concept.
The rapport
between religion and philosophy is one of overcoming: philosophy overcomes
religion and renders it useless inasmuch as it brings it to its perfect
realization.
Religion becomes demythologized
and purified.
In fact religion [the pre-conciliar
religion — cn] remains on the
level of dualism between finite and
infinite; only philosophy [and the magisterium of Vatican II — cn] effects
the reconciliation [cf. Dives
in Misericordia], because it no
longer seeks God outside of the world,
but in the world. (“God is
immanent in the world and vivifies it from within” — Dives in Misericordia, 1). A God different from the world would be
nothing for Hegel. God for Hegel is no longer a transcendent person, a creator
distinct from the world.
To conceive God as a personal object
is to remain on the level of representation and of division [of the
pre-conciliar religion — cn].
Only philosophy [and Vatican II — cn] arriving at this reconciliation
between finite and infinite succeeds in comprehending the identity of God and
man, of God and the world (“theocentrism and anthropocentrism, God and man are
a single center, one single thing” — Dives
in Misericordia, 1). God is the human conscience which has freed itself of
its limits.”[4]
Professor
Martinetti wrote concerning Hegel: “In
Hegel’s system, in which one speaks of God continually, God is not to be found
anywhere.”[5]
In fact Hegel
(the true father of modernism, even more than Kant) wanted to alter the nature
of and abolish Christianity in a painless manner, not by combating it, but by
playing with it; thus Paul VI, John Paul II and Vatican II speak continually of
God, but their God is man or the teilhardian cosmic-Christ which unites the
finite and the infinite (“fecit ex utraque unum”). It is a type of
christological pantheism derived from hegelianism.
In order to eliminate God, Hegel does
not follow the route of violent killing, but that of euthanasia by means of
assimilation; he does not say “God does not exist,” but instead only says, “God
exists because everything is God.”
Accentuating
the Christian motive of the incarnation, Hegel divinizes the world and history:
inasmuch as the infinite has incarnated itself in the finite (cf. Gaudium et
Spes, no. 22), God and man united in Christ are coessential.” [emphasis
added][6]
Road to the Personalist Error:
John XXIII’s Pacem in Terris.
Already in 1963 (a
year before the promulgation of Gaudium
et Spes) John XXIII wrote:
Any well-regulated and productive association
of men in society demands the acceptance of one fundamental principle: that each individual man is truly a person.
He is a nature, that is, endowed with intelligence and free will. As such he
has rights and duties, which together flow as a direct consequence from his
nature. These rights and duties are universal and inviolable, and therefore
altogether inalienable. (Pacem in
Terris, 1, 11 April, 1963) [emphasis added]
A little further on
he states:
It
is always perfectly justifiable to distinguish between error as such and the
person who falls into error — even in the case of men who err regarding the
truth or who are led astray as a result of their inadequate knowledge, in
matters either of religion or of the highest ethical standards. A man who has
fallen into error does not cease to be man. He never forfeits his personal
dignity; and that is something which must be always taken into account. (Pacem in Terris, 5) [emphasis added]
We find here the
personalist error, which confuses the dignity of the person considered radically (i.e., who preserves his essence or human nature
even if he errs) and the dignity of the person considered totally (i.e., the person preserves his total dignity only
if his acts are ordered to the true and good, otherwise, although he might
preserve the radical dignity of the human nature, he loses the total dignity of
person in actu secundo, that is, in
his activity).
Permit me to
elaborate. The radical dignity or root of the dignity of the person is the
human nature, which the person always preserves even when he errs. The total
dignity is the human nature in actu
secundo or in action. The person preserves human dignity only if his action
is ordered to the true and good. If, on the other hand, he adheres to error or
does evil, he loses it. Proof of this is what we find in Holy Scripture: “God hates both the sinner and his
iniquities.” (Wisdom 14:9), and in the solemn magisterium of
the Church, which teaches that if the sinner dies in the state of mortal sin,
he goes to hell for all eternity, he and his sin.
God does not make
a distinction — like “Good Pope John” does between the sin and the sinner. This
doctrine is de fide divina catholica: cf.
Benedict XII, Dogmatic Constitution Benedictus
Deus:
Moreover, we declare that according
to the common arrangement of God, the souls of those who depart in actual
mortal sin immediately after death descend to hell where they are tortured by
infernal punishments...(Denz. 531).
The ordinary
magisterium of the Church has also pronounced on this subject through Leo XIII:
If the mind assents to false opinions
and the will chooses and follows after what is wrong, neither can attain its
native fullness, but both must fall from their native dignity into an abyss of
corruption. (Immortale Dei)
Finally, Saint
Thomas gives the theological reason for it (IIa IIæ q. 64 a. 2 ad 3):
By sinning man departs from the
order of reason, and consequently falls
away from the dignity of his manhood, insofar
as he is naturally free, and exists for himself, and he falls into the slavish
state of the beasts...[emphasis added]
The doctrine of Pacem in Terris is at least erroneous,
that is, it is opposed to a doctrine which is theologically certain, and in its
conclusions lead to pantheism.
Lumen Gentium: A More Explicit Affirmation
Lumen
Gentium (21 November 1964)
restates the personalist error of Pacem
in Terris and introduces the more explicit affirmation of Gaudium et Spes, no. 22:
In the human nature united to himself, the Son of God, by overcoming death through his own death and resurrection, redeemed man and changed him into a new creation.
In this text,
there is neither mention of a specific or particular human nature (and thus the
point remains ambiguous) nor of cooperation on the part of man. In contrast to Gaudium et Spes, no. 22, Lumen Gentium speaks of the death and
resurrection of our Lord. The interpretation of Lumen Gentium is totally clear only under the light of the entire
conciliar “magisterium” (particularly Redemptor
Hominis, Dominum et Vivificantem, and
Dives in Misericordia).
By itself, the
text of Lumen Gentium is only
ambiguous or male sonans: that is,
two readings are possible, by reason of the improper terms used, and therefore
is able to be interpreted in a heterodox manner. In the light of all of the
conciliar “magisterium” we can say that Lumen
Gentium, 7 is sapiens hæresim (smacking of heresy), that is, the
heretical meaning is that which has been sought, of which we have moral
certitude in the light of what we have explained at the beginning of this
article.
II. The “Subsists in” of Lumen Gentium:
or the False Notion of the Church
of Christ
Just as “by the Incarnation
the Son of God united himself in a certain way with every man” (Gaudium et Spes, 22), “forever, without any exception, even when
man is not aware of it” (John Paul II, Redemptor
Hominis), the Church of Christ is not only the Catholic Church, but rather extends far beyond it. We find this
consequence of the personalist error plainly declared in Lumen Gentium, 8:
This is the sole Church of
Christ...This Church...subsists in the Catholic Church.[7]
Subsists in: “Found in, but not
Exclusively Identified with”
What does this formula “subsists in” actually
mean? It was chosen deliberately in order to deny that the Church of Christ is
only the Catholic Church. “Subsistit in” means, in fact, that the Church of
Christ is found in the Catholic Church, but is not exclusively identified with
the Catholic Church.
“The change of est (Pius XII) to subsistit (Gaudium et Spes) took place for
ecumenical reasons,” explains Fr. Mucci, S.J. in Civiltà Cattolica (December 5, 1988). And Fr. Louis Bouyer writes
that thanks to the “subsistit” introduced by the Council, one has sought to
“propose again the idea of the one Church, even if it is presently divided
among the diverse Christian Churches, as if among many branches.”[8] This idea was taken up again by John Paul II in
Canterbury. Furthermore Cardinal Willebrands, on May 5th and 8th of 1987, held
some conferences in which he affirmed that the “subsistit” supersedes and corrects the est of Pius XII (cf. Documentation Catholique, January 3,
1988). While the Council was in progress, Bishop Carli (then Bishop of Segni)
and Fr. Aniceto Fernandez, Master General of the Dominicans, vigorously
intervened to request the correction of Lumen
Gentium by using the word est instead of “subsistit,” in order to unequivocally
reaffirm the Catholic Faith. But the ecumenical choice — or better, the
heretical choice — prevailed. Fr. Congar writes:
The problem remains if Lumen Gentium strictly and exclusively
identifies the Mystical Body of Christ with the Catholic Church, as did Pius
XII in Mystici Corporis. Can we not
call it into doubt when we observe that not only is the attribute “Roman”
missing, but also that one avoids saying that only Catholics are members of the
Mystical Body. Thus they are telling us (in Gaudium
et Spes) that the Church of Christ and of the Apostles subsistit in, is found in the Catholic Church. There is consequently no strict
identification, that is exclusive,
between the Church of Christ and the “Roman” Church. Vatican II admits,
fundamentally, that non-catholic christians are members of the Mystical Body
and not merely ordered to it. [emphasis added][9]
In fact Pius XII,
in Mystici Corporis, teaches that the
unique Church of Christ is (est) the Catholic Church. Lumen Gentium, on the other hand,
changes the est to subsistit because it no longer
identifies (est) the Church of
Christ with the Catholic Church. This is to say that the Church founded by
Christ exists in the catholic Church,
without excluding the other “separated churches.” (The conciliar magisterium uses capital C for the “separated
Churches”)
In short, the
Mystical Body of Christ has a greater extension than that of the Roman Catholic
Church.
And why do they
assert this? It is simple: just as each man is divinized by the very fact that
the Word became incarnate, it is inconceivable that only Catholics are members
of the Mystical Body of Christ, but as well the sects and all men are united in
an indissoluble manner to Christ and form a part of His Mystical Body. (Cf.
John Paul II, Speech to the Roman Curia, December, 1986: “The Church as Symbol
of the Unity of the Human Race”)
Correct Interpretation of
“Subsists in”
But here it may be objected that this
interpretation of “subsistit in” is factious and extremist, and that, ultimately,
such a phrase could be interpreted in an orthodox way by seeing it “in the
light of tradition.” The very “conciliar magisterium,” however, taken as a
whole, gives us the “authentic” interpretation of the phrase.
Lumen Gentium continues:
Nevertheless, many elements of
sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible confines [that is,
outside the Catholic Church]. Since these are gifts proper to the Church of Christ, they are forces impelling towards Catholic unity. (no. 7)
[emphasis added]
This means that
elements of truth and holiness, proper to the Church of Christ, exist also outside the Roman Church, that is, they subsist in her, but do not coincide with her. These elements are found in the
Catholic Church as they are found in sects, as they are found in every man
united to Christ by the very fact of the Incarnation!
John Paul II
himself intervened to further explain Gaudium
et Spes on May 29, 1982 in Canterbury, where he gave a speech in which he
said:
The Church of our time is the Church
which participates in a particular manner in the prayer of Christ for
unity...The promise of Christ fills us with confidence in the power with which the Holy Spirit will heal every division
introduced into the Church in the course of the centuries since Pentecost.
As you can see, for the conciliar “magisterium”
the Church of Christ is not one (i.e., the Catholic Church), but is
divided and subsists or is found in the various sects and in every man and
therefore also in the Catholic Church.
John Paul II Explains:
“Identification of the Human Race
with the Church of Christ”
John Paul II, in an address to the Roman Curia,
speaks about the pan-christian ecumenical day of Assisi (October 27, 1986) and
says that:
Such a day seemed to express, in a
visible manner, the hidden but radical
unity which the Word has established among men and women of this world... the
fact of having come together at Assisi is like a sign of the profound unity of
those who seek spiritual values in religion... The Council has made a
connection between the identity of the
Church and the unity of the human race. (Lumen Gentium 1 and 9; Gaudium
et Spes, 42)
Therefore every
man, inasmuch as he is united to the Word by virtue of His Incarnation only, is
a member of the Church of Christ. The
Church of Christ is nothing else than the whole human race without any
exception! John Paul II goes on therefore to explain that the divine order
is that of the unity of all men who
seek values in religion, while the differences of faith and morals which as yet
remain, are the effect of the human order which has corrupted this divine
order; therefore his goal is to make the human element with its differences
disappear, and make the divine — or pantheistic — element become
ever more apparent. Let us cite his speech:
Religious differences reveal
themselves as pertaining to another order. If the order of unity is divine, the
religious differences are a human doing and must be overcome in the process
towards the realization of the grandiose design of unity which presides over
creation. It is possible that men not be conscious of their radical unity of
origin and of their insertion in the very same divine plan. But despite such
divisions, they are included in the grand and single design of God in Jesus
Christ, who united himself in a certain
way with every man (Gaudium et Spes, 22) even if he is not conscious of it.
We see how John Paul II explains the unity of the
Church of Christ by the union of the human race (even if unconscious of it)
with the Word, by the sole fact of the Incarnation. All men, therefore, form the Church of the Cosmic Christ! (A prefiguration of the reign of
Antichrist) John Paul II continues: “To this catholic unity of the people of
God all men are called, to this unity belong, in diverse forms, the catholic
faithful and those who look with faith towards Christ and finally all men
without exception.”
“Those Who Look With Faith Towards Jesus”
Lumen Gentium itself in paragraph 9
explains yet more clearly the meaning of “subsistit” when it affirms: “ All
those, who in faith look towards Jesus...God has gathered together and
established as the Church...”
In order to
belong to the body of the Church founded by Christ, it is no longer necessary
(as at one time, before the Council) to be baptized with water, to have
supernatural faith, to submit to the legitimate pastors and particularly to the
Roman Pontiff, and not to be excommunicated or schismatic, but rather only to “look with faith towards Jesus.” Nevertheless, he who “looks with faith
towards Jesus,” but who does not believe in the Immaculate Conception or in the
dogma of the infallibility of the pope, is still a part of the Church of
Christ, which is larger than the Catholic Church, that is, it (the Church of
Christ) subsists in her (the
Catholic Church) but is not exclusively
the Catholic Church.
Such a phrase, in itself, is at least male sonans. Taken in the ensemble of
the “conciliar magisterium,” however, it is sapiens
hæresim, that is, probably heretical, or in other words, the meaning
intended by Gaudium et Spes is
properly heretical.
In fact John Paul
II affirms that the Church of Christ is divided since the time of Pentecost,
while Pius XI in Mortalium Animos
teaches:
They [the heretics] deem, in fact,
that the unity of faith and of government, which is one of the marks of the
one, true Church of Christ, has never existed up to now, and today does not
exist.
Pius XII in Mystici Corporis wrote:
They wander away from divine truth
those who imagine the Church as if one could neither find it nor see it, as if
it were a spiritual thing, through which many
communities of christians, although separated by faith, would be
nevertheless joined together by an invisible bond.
Pius XII in this
same encyclical says that the Mystical Body is the visible and hierarchical
(Catholic) Church, and that only those who are baptized with water are part of
the Catholic Church, and that, on the other hand, excluded are the excommunicati vitandi, apostates,
heretics, and schismatics. Those baptized with baptism of desire or blood
belong to the soul of the Church, but not to the body of the Church.
The Catholic Faith and the
Conciliar Heresy
The truth that only the Roman Church is that which
was founded by Christ is de fide.
Whoever denies it is a heretic. Indeed the Church which Christ founded is hierarchical, monarchical, one, holy,
catholic, and apostolic. But only the Church of Rome is hierarchical,
monarchical, one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. Therefore only the Church of
Rome is the Church which Christ founded and in which one can be saved. (Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus).
That the Church
of Rome is hierarchical is de fide definita by the Council of
Trent, session 23, canon 6: “If anyone should say that in the Catholic Church
there is not a hierarchy by divine
institution, let him be anathema.” (Denz. 966). The same truth is taken up
again by Vatican I, session 4, canon 3 (Denz. 1828, and Code of Canon Law, can.
108 § 1 and can. 329 § 1).
That the Church
of Rome is monarchical is also de fide definita. The Council of
Florence defined that the pope is the successor of Peter:
We likewise define that the holy
Apostolic See, and the Roman Pontiff, hold the primacy throughout the entire
world; and that the Roman Pontiff himself is the successor of blessed Peter...”
(Denz. 694)
Vatican I
repeated this doctrine in session 4, canon 2 (Denz. 1825). That Peter has a
true primacy of jurisdiction is de fide
definita by Vatican I, session 4, canon 1 (Denz. 1823) and session 4, canon
2 (Denz. 1825):
If anyone says that it is not from
the institution of Christ the Lord Himself, or by divine right that the blessed
Peter has perpetual successors in the primacy over the universal Church, or
that the Roman Pontiff is not the successor of blessed Peter in the same
primacy, let him be anathema.
Therefore the
assertion of Lumen Gentium, taken in
its complete meaning as given to us by all of the “conciliar magisterium,” is
heretical.
To assert this is
to blaspheme and to deny the Catholic Faith. Protestant “churches” lack the
following things:
(a) essential sanctity (i.e., in the causes which brought them into being).
The four causes of the protestant sects are deprived of sanctity. But the effect does not surpass the cause. Therefore the
Protestant “churches” cannot be holy. Let us prove this statement. With regard
to the efficient cause, Luther, Calvin, and Henry VIII are heresiarchs and all
taught and practiced immorality. With regard to the final cause: it is the
absolute liberty of the person without any restraint, which ends up in license.
With regard to the formal cause: there are heresies with regard to both faith
and morals. With regard to the material cause: the “faithful” are abandoned to
their caprice with regard to their sanctification. The Protestant “churches”
also lack:
(b) active sanctity (i.e., in their dogmatic and moral principles).
Their principles stray from truth and sanctity (“pecca fortiter sed fortius
crede” — sin boldly but believe more
boldly); thus such sects do not have efficacious means of sanctification.
In fact, with regard to dogmatic principles, God — for the Protestants — is the
author of sin! Man is not free to not sin; God positively predestines certain
people to hell through no fault of their own, even if they live well and do not
commit sin. With regard to their moral teaching, they hold that good works are
not necessary, that chastity and indissolubility of marriage are impossible to
observe, even with grace. But those who “interpret Vatican II in the light of
Tradition” will object: nevertheless there are certain elements of
sanctification instituted by Christ (e.g., the sacraments) which the
protestants have still kept, Baptism, Matrimony, and the “Eucharist,” for
example. The response is simple: they maintain Baptism but do not think that
its wipes away original sin; and for this reason the Church redoes them sub conditione. Matrimony for the
Protestants is not indissoluble, and therefore they separate what God has put
together. The “eucharist” is a corruption of the Sacrifice of the Mass, which
Luther called a “diabolical artifice.” (De
abroganda Missa privata, 1).
On the other
hand, with regard to the eastern schismatic churches (the other lung of the
Church of Christ, as John Paul II calls them):
(a) essential sanctity: their cause (that is, their schism) is the
refusal of obedience to the pope, who stands in God’s stead on earth; it is the
perpetuation for centuries of the non
serviam of Lucifer.
(b) active sanctity: these schismatics, in refusing the supreme and
infallible living magisterium, no longer have a sure guide assisted by the Holy
Ghost in the adherence to truth, and are slaves of the temporal authority,
which is today atheistic and materialistic, to which Christ has not promised
assistance.
(c) passive sanctity: Photius, their founder, was condemned by the
council as “pervasorem et adulterum.”
Therefore outside
of the Roman Church, there are not principles of truth or sanctity. It is not
to say that there is total error, but there is not, nevertheless, the whole and
pure truth. But “bonum ex integra causa, malum ex uno defectu.” Therefore if
some member of a non-catholic sect sanctifies himself, he owes that to the
grace of God which “blows where it will” and touches him despite the false
principles of a sect in which he finds himself through invincible ignorance.
But heresy and schism as such are not able to have elements of truth and of
sanctification, being by definition error and disobedience. Therefore to say
that the sects separated from Rome have, in themselves, elements of truth and
sanctification is certainly opposed to the Catholic Faith, and is, in short,
heretical.
From the foregoing we conclude the Conciliar
Church is not the Church founded by the Incarnate Word. It is — by its own
explicit affirmation — the universal temple of the whole human race united
mysteriously to the Cosmic Christ, to the Grand Architect of the Universe.
III. “College
of Bishops” in Lumen Gentium:
Altering the Divine Structure of
the Church.
After the subsistit in, which is the first error
of the conciliar “magisterium” on the nature of the Church of Christ, which no longer
coincides with the Catholic Church, but which is much more extended than it,
inasmuch as it identifies itself with the entire human race or the people of
God, we study collegiality or the College of Bishops as a permanent group.
Paragraph 22 of Lumen Gentium affirms:
The
order of bishops is the successor to the college of the apostles in their role
as teachers and pastors, and in it the apostolic college is perpetuated. Together with their head, the Supreme Pontiff,
and never apart from him, they have
supreme and full authority over the universal Church; but this power cannot
be exercised without the agreement of the Roman Pontiff. The Lord made Peter
alone the rock-foundation and the holder of the keys of the Church, and
constituted him shepherd of his whole flock. It is clear, however, that the office of binding and loosing
which was given to Peter, was also
assigned to the college of Apostles united to its head. [emphasis added]
According to
Catholic doctrine, the subject of the supreme (highest), full (total, i.e.,
capable of everything by himself), and universal (over the whole Church) power
of teaching and of jurisdiction is the pope, who, when he wishes, may associate with himself the body of bishops, for a
determined period of time. The pope by himself is able to exercise the
supreme, total, and universal power of teaching and jurisdiction without having
to unite to himself the body of bishops.
In Lumen Gentium no. 22, however, the
usual, permanent, and ordinary subject of supreme, full, and universal power of
teaching and jurisdiction is the College of Bishops with Peter at its head.
Such a doctrine avoids the heresy of “episcopalism” or conciliarism, which
confers on the body of bishops alone, without
its head, the supreme power of jurisdiction; but it wanders away from
Catholic doctrine which has never spoken of a permanent and necessary college
of bishops, even if it should be cum
Petro and sub Petro.
Lumen
Gentium no. 22 nevertheless says, “Just as, in
accordance with the Lord’s decree, St. Peter and the rest of the Apostles
constitute a unique apostolic college, so in
like fashion, the Roman Pontiff, Peter’s successor, and the bishops, the
successors of the Apostles, are related with and united to one another.”
The doctrine of Lumen Gentium no. 22 was hotly contested
in the course of the conciliar discussions to such an extent that it was
necessary that it be “corrected” with the addition
of a Nota Explicativa Prævia (!)
which sounds like this:
The College of Bishops as subject of
supreme, total, and universal power exists all the time, but does not always
act in full act.
Thus with addition of the Nota Prævia (!) the College of Bishops is a permanent group which
necessarily and always includes its head, that is, the pope (“Necessario et
semper cointelligit caput suum”). The addition
of the Nota Prævia did not correct
the error, but simply made it more disguised and therefore more dangerous. In
fact, even if the College of Bishops does not act always in full act, it exists
always in actu primo. (Nota Prævia).
It is to say that the pope can act on his own, with regard to the supreme power
of teaching and jurisdiction, but he does
it as the head of a permanent college which exists always and necessarily in
actu primo, even if it does
not always act in actu secundo.
Romano Amerio in Jota Unum,[10] writes:
The Nota Prævia removes from collegiality its classical interpretation,
according to which the subject of the supreme power in the Church is the pope
alone who shares it when he wishes with the universality of bishops called by
him in a council. The highest power is collegial only through the communication
ad nutum of the pope...One does not
know if the inclination of Vatican II to free itself from the strict continuity
with tradition and to create for itself forms and procedures which are
atypical, should be attributed to the spirit of modernization which empowers it
and directs it, or to the mind and the influence of Paul VI. Probably the
tendency is to attribute it partially to the Council and partially to Paul VI.
The result was a change of the very being of the Church....What leaves
something to be desired is the singularity,
if even formal, of the Nota Prævia.
In the first place, there is no example in the history of councils of a commentary
of this type affixed to a dogmatic constitution, which Lumen Gentium is, and attached to it so as to make an organic
whole. In the second place, it seems unexplainable that, in the very act in
which the Council promulgates a doctrinal document, after so many consultations
and amendments, there emanates a document so imperfect that it must be
accompanied by an explicative note. There is finally this curious singularity
concerning the Nota Prævia: it should
be read before the constitution to which it is attached, when in fact it is
seen printed at the end of it.
The error of
collegiality has been repeated by the decree Christus Dominus of Vatican II (October 28, 1965) concerning the
pastoral office of bishops. We cite it: “The order of bishops is the successor
to the college of the Apostles in their role as teachers and pastors, and in it
the apostolic college is perpetuated. Together with their head, the Supreme
Pontiff, and never apart from him, they have supreme and full authority over
the universal Church, but this power cannot be exercised without the agreement
of the Roman Pontiff.”[11]
The New Code of
Canon Law (1983) in Canon 336 repeats the same doctrine in these terms:
Collegium Episcoporum cuius caput est
Summus Pontifex cuiusque membra sunt episcopi...una cum capite suo et numquam
sine hoc capite, subiectum quoque supremæ et plenæ potestatis in universam
ecclesiam existit.
Even the most
conservative theologians have ended up by accepting such a novelty as
collegiality. Cardinal Palazzini[12] affirms “the mission of salvation, the duty to
baptize and to preach is of itself not confided to each of the Apostles, but to
the apostolic college with Peter at its head. The episcopal college, with the
pope at its head, succeeds that apostolic college and is in the Church a
permanent hierarchical organ of divine right.”
Even Professor
Ludwig Ott, in his compendium of dogmatic theology,[13] presents the collegiality of the episcopacy as a sententia certa. “The concept of a
college according to the Nota Explicativa
Prævia (no. 1) must not be taken in a strictly juridical sense, to be a group of equals who have asked for their
power from him who presides, but in the sense of a permanent group (cœtus
stabilis) whose structure and authority must be deduced from revelation.” [emphasis
added]
The bishops are
by divine right a body constituted in
the Church even if they should be dispersed in the world, but are not a college in act. In fact a body is an ensemble of persons which has
a particular organic bond among them, and a bond with the public authority
(e.g., a body of lawyers, of magistrates, of engineers...). In the Church there
are bishops, and they are bound one to another and with the pope, and thus form
a body.
A college is different from a body. A
college is a moral person which has power inasmuch as it is a moral person.
That is, the subject of power is only the moral person, and not the singular
physical persons which form the college.
But the episcopal
body, or the episcopate dispersed throughout the world, is not necessarily and always (as Vatican II
affirms) a college, namely a moral person which acts only in a collegial
manner, inasmuch as it is a moral person. But sometimes (extraordinarily) the
episcopate or episcopal body becomes a college, for example, during an
ecumenical council; the episcopate united in council deliberates, defines, and
promulgates at that time as a college, collegially, because Peter has desired
to unite the episcopal body in a council and made it become a college in act
for a certain time. But even when the body of bishops is united in council, it
forms a college sui generis, because it has a head (the pope) from
which it derives its being and activity.
One cannot
understand, therefore, how the above cited Romano Amerio, who had nevertheless
singled out the anomaly of the doctrine of collegiality could write: “ The Nota Prævia repudiates also the doctrine
according to which the subject of the supreme power of the Church is the
College united with the pope and not without the pope, who is the head of it,
but in this way, that when the pope exercises even by himself the supreme
power, he exercises it inasmuch as he is the head of the College.”[14]
Absolutely not!
The Nota Prævia says exactly the
contrary. “The College is a permanent group…The College is said as well to be
the subject of supreme and full power over the whole Church…The notion of the
College necessarily includes its head.” The Nota
clearly states that the College always exists, is the subject of supreme and
full power over the universal Church, but is not always in actu pleno.
While for the
Catholic doctrine the bishops habitually and per se are a body and only extraordinarily and per accidens do they become a college. Only the pope can and is
free to erect as a college the body of bishops (when, for instance, he convokes
a council) without being necessitated to it by a divine institution, as the
conciliar “magisterium” says.
The body of
bishops has an aptitude or a capacity to be constituted as a college;
but an aptitude or passive potency
does not indicate necessity as Lumen Gentium would like. In the same
way man has a passive, obediential potency to be elevated by God to the
supernatural order, a passive potency which is something more than a simple possibility or non-repugnance (which non-being has to
become something under the action of the creative omnipotence of God) but which
is not the need or the right or the
active capacity to arrive necessarily at the supernatural order (as man has
the active capacity to see by opening his eyes): man, in fact, has only the
passive capacity to receive grace, and to be elevated to the supernatural order
in the same way that wood has the passive capacity to receive the form of a
statue given to it freely by the carver.
Thus the body of
bishops has only this passive capacity to receive the form of a college, by
being united freely by the pope in a council ad tempus. Such a doctrine is proxima
fidei, and he who denies it is close to heresy. And just as aptitude is not
need, it can very easily remain in a state of potency without being actuated,
without undergoing any injustice (just like wood that is not formed into a
statue).
Such has been the
case of thousands of bishops who in twenty centuries have not been called by a
pope into a council, and have not received, in act, the form of a college,
which they were able to receive, however, in potency (just as wood was able to
become a statue).
The celebration
of a council is not of divine right, but is only of pontifical right, because
it is the pope who decides if a council should take place or not; the council
is not therefore demanded by the esse
simpliciter of the Church, but only for its melius esse. The pope, therefore, puts in act collegiality for a
time, when he considers it opportune, by convoking a council, but it is false
to say — as Lumen Gentium does — that
collegiality exists “always and necessarily” by divine institution, and that
therefore the pope even when he acts alone, acts as the head of a college that
is always existing in actu primo.
According to the
conciliar “magisterium” of Lumen Gentium,
together with its Nota Explicativa,
the answer is yes.
Collegium non intelligitur sensu stricte iuridico, scilicet de cœtu æqualium, qui potestatem suam
præsidi suo demandarent, sed de cœtu
stabili, cuius structura et auctoritas ex revelatione deduci debet. [emphasis
added][15]
The college is
therefore presented to us as a permanent group whose structure is deduced from
revelation. Therefore, according to the “magisterium” of Vatican II, the idea
that the body of bishops is a permanent college is connected with revelation. Lumen Gentium therefore alters the
nature of the Church of Christ. In fact it presents to us as connected with
revelation the existence of a college of bishops as a permanent group, which
“necessario et semper caput suum cointelligit…qui licet semper existat, non
permanenter actione stricte collegiali agit.”[16] For
the conciliar “magisterium” the nature of the Church is collegial “necessario
et semper” even if it does not always act
collegially. But this is impossible for Catholic doctrine! The body of bishops
has only a passive potency (de iure
divino) to receive from the pope — temporary at that — the status of being
a college in act (de iure pontificio).
The conciliar “magisterium” not only alters and corrupts the divine nature and
constitution of the Church, but also in the Nota
Prævia it presents this new collegial structure of the Church as connected
with revelation! Also Karol Wojtyla in his book Alle fonti del Rinovamento — a study of the implementation of the
Second Vatican Council — asserts: “The principle of collegiality demonstrates
the principle of the primacy in that both
come forth from the institution of Christ.”[17]
Theological Note
Lumen Gentium introduces a sophistic and
false notion of the subject of the power of teaching and jurisdiction in the
Church, and therefore alters the divine structure of the Church. In short, the
nature of the “Church” presented to us by Lumen
Gentium is essentially different from the Church instituted by Christ.
The Catholic
doctrine that the college of bishops exists only virtually (i.e., when constituted
by the pope) is at least proxima fidei:
he who denies it is therefore close to heresy. (Cf. Abbé Berto, La Sainte Eglise Romaine, Editions du
Cèdre, pages 217–280).
The Apostolic College and the
“Episcopal College”
The Apostles form
a college in the broad sense of the term. It is therefore licit to speak of the
apostolic college.
The Gospel and
the Acts teach us that the Apostles were chosen in order to live together with
Our Lord, in order to receive together their teaching, in order to live together as witnesses of the Passion and
Resurrection, in order to be elevated together
to the plenitude of the priesthood. The expression “apostolic college” is licit
and even sacred, but it is necessary to point out that the Apostles were not a
college in the strict sense, that is, a moral person endowed as such with
powers that no physical person who would be a member of it (each of the
Apostles) would have by himself. In Sacred Scripture, there is not a single
word about this moral person or college in the strict sense, nor is there
anything found in the magisterium. All of the texts prove that the Apostles
were a college in the broad sense. The expressions which Our Lord used in the
plural to address the Apostles do not prove anything. In fact the plural is not
necessarily collegial, and not even collective; rather it can often be
distributive. When, for example, a teacher says to the students “Do your
homework,” such an action is not to be done in a collegial manner, but by each
of the students. In a similar way, when Our Blessed Lord said to the Apostles:
“Do this in commemoration of me,” he did not desire that they celebrate
collegially, or that they “concelebrate.” And when he said to them, “Going,
therefore, teach ye all nations and baptize them,” He did not desire that the
magisterium or the priesthood be exercised collegially; the gospel accounts and
the acts give us the proof of this: the Apostles act collegially only at the
Council of Jerusalem. We do not ever read in the gospels or in the acts that
the Apostles heard confessions, baptized, or taught collegially.
With regard to
the “episcopal college,” therefore,
it is false to say, as Lumen Gentium
says, that the “college” of bishops succeeds to the college of the Apostles. In
fact the Apostles were elected to receive together the gospel, to receive
together Holy Orders, and they form a college in the broad sense. But the first
bishops were not instituted by the apostolic college, but by a single apostle.
(Timothy and Titus were chosen by St. Paul) Not even the first bishops were
established to be and to form a college. Titus and Timothy were not invited to
form a moral person or college by Saint Paul.
In Sacred
Scripture there is not a single word which permits us to affirm collegiality.
Rather in it there is an implicit negation of it. The subject of the decisions
to be made is not a college, but Titus and Timothy. “Singuli episcopi singulos
greges” (Vatican I): single bishops or physical persons govern each one his own
flock and not collegially.
Collegiality and the Church as
“People of God” according to Joseph Ratzinger
Joseph Ratzinger is one of the “theologians” of
Vatican II who, together with Karl Rahner, insisted most on collegiality. He
wrote a historical article in the first issue of the well-known review Concilium in 1965[18] entitled “The Pastoral Implications of the
Doctrine of the Collegiality of Bishops.” In it he affirms “ The bishops are the successors of the
Apostles, and therefore they as well are
constituted collegially as the college of bishops and as the succession to the
college of the Apostles and, just as every Apostle only had his function
through his belonging to the others who form with him the apostolic continuity,
so the bishop does not possess his ministry except by the fact that he belongs
to the college which represents the post-apostolic prolongation of the college
of the Apostles.” (page 36)
A little later,
desirous of giving an explanation of whether the term college should be taken in
the strict or juridical sense, Ratzinger affirms: “The lovers of precise
definitions [scholastic theologians — cn]
wanted to know (in the course of the conciliar debates) if the term college was
a community of equals; now the college of bishops in whose bosom is found the
primacy of the jurisdiction of Peter, cannot be obviously a community of
equals. Therefore one cannot speak of a college in the sense of Roman law.” The
explanation given is in line with Nota
Prævia, avoids the conciliarist heresy, that is, the pope is not a primus inter pares, the college of
bishops should not be taken in the proper sense of Roman law. But it does not
avoid the error that the college of bishops succeeds that of the Apostles, and
is by nature permanent.
Ratzinger continues:
“But despite this, the college is more than a non-binding moral sense or moral
deferment to the unanimity of bishops. It rests on a reality that is not
deducible from other systems already given…The concept of collegiality must
not, therefore, be taken in a profane juridical sense, but much less ought it
to be relegated to insignificance as a simple flower of rhetoric.”
Ratzinger, as a
good immanentist, has a horror of “those who love precise definitions,” and
gives only extremely vague ones which define absolutely nothing, but which
succeed in establishing a new “thing.” What exactly this college of bishops is,
is very difficult to say if we only base ourselves on this last “definition.”
Nevertheless Ratzinger here and there makes his thought a little more clear: “The primacy of the Pope cannot be understood
on the model of an absolute monarchy, as if the Bishop of Rome were a monarch
without the restriction of a supernatural communal entity, the Church with a
central constitution.” (page 43)
“The attempts
excessively in vogue of founding the primacy of the pope upon a political
philosophy based on Plato and Aristotle, according to which monarchy is the
best form of government are doomed to the extent that they attempt to describe
the Church with categories of monarchy that are not proper to it.” (page 52)
The Council of
Florence, however, declared de fide
definita that the Church of Rome is monarchical (Denz. 694) and Vatican I
repeated this same doctrine (Denz. 1822).
In short for
Ratzinger the Church is not a monarchy, and therefore the subject of the
supreme power is not the pope who, when he wants and if he wants, convokes a
council and makes the bishops, constituted in act as a college (sui generis), participate in his supreme power; but rather for Ratzinger the subject of
such power is the pope as head of the college, or the college with its head the
pope, and all of this through divine institution. Such a doctrine of
collegiality in the obvious meaning which we have set forth by means of the affirmations
of those who elaborated on it in the Council and in the review Concilium is heretical inasmuch as it contradicts a dogma de fide definita. Such a doctrine expressed by the young Ratzinger
in Concilium in 1965 is repeated and
made even worse by the mature Ratzinger (the conservative and traditionalist
“iron cardinal”). Ratzinger in Chiesa
ecumenismo e politica[19], puts in rapport collegiality (a “cosmic concept”
— page 18) with the Church as People of God:
In treating the idea of collegiality,
the word Church as People of God ultimately resounds…After the first enthusiasm
after the discovery of the idea of the Mystical Body, there were added some
deeper understandings and corrections [of
Saint Paul and Pius XII — author’s note].
In Germany various theologians
criticize the fact that with the idea of the Mystical Body the
relation between the visible and the invisible remained unclear. They
therefore proposed the concept of People
of God as a more ample description of the Church [now one sees how collegiality
is a consequence of the subsistit in; the Church of Christ is no longer the
Mystical Body or the Catholic Church, but is the whole People of God or the
human race — cn. cf. Sodalitium no. 22]…
Pius XII published the encyclical Mystici Corporis on the twenty-ninth of
June, 1943. He established that in order to belong to the Church, three things
were necessary: to be baptized, to profess the true faith, and to belong to the
juridical unity of the Church. With this,
however, non-catholics were completely excluded from belonging to the Church…We
ask ourselves then if the image of the Mystical Body was not too restricted
as a point of departure in order to define the multiple forms of belonging to
the Church. The image of body involves the problem that “belonging” has the
representation of a member; members either are or are not, and there are no
gray areas [something which disturbs Ratzinger a great deal — cn]. Thus we discovered in the concept
of the People of God that it is much more
ample and supple…thus one could say that the concept of People of God was
introduced by the Council above all as an ecumenical bridge. (pp. 20–21)
[emphasis added].
Finally in the
second chapter of the first part of the book, Ratzinger treats of the “primacy
of the pope” and affirms: “The subject of the papacy was not a popular theme
during the years of the Second Vatican Council. It was an obvious theme to the
extent that monarchy corresponded to it on the political plane [as if the
Church had borrowed its monarchical structure from the world and not vice
versa, given that the Church is the Kingdom of God, and given that God is one
in nature and three in persons, the King of the Universe — cn]. But no sooner had the monarchical idea practically disappeared and was
replaced by the democratic idea, did it become insufficient as a point of
reference and a basis for our thought with regard to the pontifical primacy. It
is not the case, certainly, that Vatican I polarized itself on the primacy of
the pope, and in turn Vatican II has polarized itself on the concept of
collegiality.” (page 33)
Catholic doctrine
affirms that the hierarchy is composed of the supreme pontificate and of a
subordinated episcopate (Vatican I). The relation between these two levels,
pope and bishops is, by divine institution, immediate. To interpose between the
pope and each bishop a moral person or episcopal “college” of so-called divine
institution (as Lumen Gentium does)
is to falsify the divine constitution of the Church. The bishops are true
successors of the Apostles inasmuch as they have been elected as singular
Apostles; it is false to say, however, (as Lumen
Gentium says) that the college of the Apostles perdures in the “college” of
the bishops, because the college of the Apostles never was a college in the
strict sense, or because it became extinct as a habitual and permanent college
in the broad sense with the death of the Apostles. To it succeeded the body of
bishops, which is a college only in potency (de iure divino) and which is able to be reduced to act by the pope
(de iure pontificio) by his free
decision for a determined period of time. Lumen Gentium presents to us the
episcopate not only as a body but as a moral person or college which is
permanent in act, distinct from the singular bishops who compose it, and
subject of the supreme power of teaching and of jurisdiction, which, even when
it is exercised by the Roman Pontiff alone, is always an act of the head of the
college, and therefore a collegial act. The church of Vatican II is therefore
not the Apostolic and Roman Catholic Church instituted by our Lord Jesus
Christ.
“Considering the
changes that are being made, we arrive at the conclusion that at the interior
of the Roman Catholic Church, there is in the process of development a new
religion, substantially different from that of Christ, with gnostic and
cabalistic characteristics.”[20]
(Sacerdotium 13, Autumn 1994)
[1]The
Council uses the term subsistit in, that is the Church of Christ “subsists in”
the Catholic Church.
[2]The
Roman Church, according to Lumen Gentium(no. 8), is only one of those Churches
in which the Church of Christ “subsists”.
[3]John
Paul II, Dives in Misericordia, 3.
[4]Morra,
Marxismo e Religione, Rusconi, pp. 22–23.
[5]Ragione
e Fide, Torino: 1944, p. 517.
[6]Morra,
op. cit., pp. 26–27.
[7]The
entire context of this statement is as follows: This is the sole Church of
Christ which in the Creed we profess to be one, holy, catholic and apostolic,
which our Saviour, after his resurrection, entrusted to Peter’s pastoral care
(Jn. 21:17), commanding him and the other apostles to extend and rule it (cf.
Matt. 28:18, etc.), and which he raised up for all ages as the “pillar and
mainstay of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15). This Church, constituted and organized as
a society in the present world, subsists in the Catholic Church which is
governed by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in communion with him.
[8]La Chiesa
di Dio corpo di Cristo e tempio dello Spirito, (Cittadella: 1971) p. 603.
[9]Le
Concile de Vatican II, (Paris: Beauchesne) p. 160.
[10]Ricciardi
Editions, 1985, pp. 7980.
[11]
Paragraph 4.
[12] in Vita
Sacramentale, part II, section 2 Ed. Paoline, p. 58.
[13] Italian
post-Vatican II edition, Marietti, page 486.
[14]op.
cit., page 79.
[15]Nota
Prævia, no. 1.
[16]ibid. no.
4.
[17]Libreria
Editrice Vaticana, page 147.
[18] pp.
33–55.
[19] ed.
Paoline, 1986.
[20]Don
Julio Meinvielle, Dalla kabala al progressismo, privately edited by don Julio Innocenti, page 245.