PF has asked the Pontifical Council concerned with 'dialogue' to promote his grossly flawed document claiming that God wills diversity of religion. That council is doing so by commending it for study in Catholic universities.
The normal method of disseminating authentic teaching is by means of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and the world-wide Catholic Episcopate, fellow-teachers with the Roman Pontiff of Catholic Truth.
It is a matter for joy that PF has not contaminated these means by making use of them. The status of the document can thus clearly not be claimed to be Magisterial, even by his most sycophantic cronies. Popes do not share their Magisterium with Islamic Scholars. The CDF has not been corrupted by being associated with such a disgraceful statement.
What I find interesting is: Why? Did some of PF's collaborators object to an association of such an objectionable statement with the Church's doctrinal mechanisms? Or did the CDF, perhaps, itself courageously explain the problems involved?
Incidentally, I invite readers to revisit the superb CDF document of 2000, Dominus Iesus. It provides a succinct, complete, and convincing answer to PF's most recent public error.
The distinction between God's Will and and his permissive will is irrelevant. God's permissive will includes, for example, the Shoah. And the destruction of the Twin Towers. We are unlikely to find PF, with whatever daft verbal jiggery pokery, inviting justified world-wide opprobrium by suggesting that these events were God's will. Indeed, were he to do so, it would be and be perceived to be a major scandal and not least by the gullible meejah who, until recently, have given him such a soft ride.
What this remarkably unCatholic man meant to say, and did say, is perfectly clear . I don't know if it counts formally and canonically as heresy ... some of the deepest things in the Faith are so fundamental and are so inscribed on every part of Catholicism that they may never have been explicitly defined ex cathedra or by a Council.
The fact that there is only one name given under heaven for Salvation, JESUS, might be one of these undefined basics.
If it is true that Islam and other religions enjoy the status of having been willed by God, then there never need have been one single Christian Martyr.
Omnes Sancti Martyres Dei, orate pro nobis.
It is God who established religion -a Bond with Him - and because God is one , He established only one religion.
ReplyDeleteUnless we get this right, we will easily fall for the claims of those with no authority that they too have a religion. They do not.
There has ever existed only one religion; one religion that has no need of an qualifying adjectives.
God is He who established religion- the bond with Him - and because He is one God He established only one religion and there has only ever been one religion and if we don't get that right we will forever wander about taking fake movements seriously.
There has only ever been one religion
Q. What is religion ?
A. Religion, according to St. Augustine, is the bond which unites man to God ; in other words, religion is the society of man with God.
Q. Explain this answer?
A. Between parents and children there exist ties, or natural and sacred relations. In the same manner there exist relations between God, the creator and father of man, and man, who is the creature and child of God. The ties which exist between God and man are even more sacred than those which unite the son to his father.
Q. Why so?
A. Because we owe more to God than a son owes to his father ; God is our creator and our last end, which cannot be said of our earthly fathers. From which we must conclude that our obligations to God are much more holy than are the obligations of children to their parents.
Q. What does the word religion signify?
A. The word religion signifies the tie by excellence, or the re-tieing. The tie by excellence, because religion unites us in a supernatural manner to God, who is the most perfect of beings ; the re-tieing, because our Lord, by offering himself up to his father as a victim for us, has re-established the supernatural union which existed between God and man previous to original sin.
Q. Is there any other religion than the religion of Jesus Christ?
A . No, there is no other religion than the religion of Jesus Christ, because Jesus Christ alone, as both God and man, could expiate sin, reconcile man to God, and re-establish the supernatural tie which united them.
Q. Is the true religion, or religion of Jesus Christ, of ancient date?
A. The religion of Jesus Christ is as ancient as the world. For it goes back to the time when the Son of God offered himself to his Father to redeem man, and has always had as the object of its faith and its hope this same Mediator and the same rewards.
Q. Has religion been at all times as fully taught as it is at the present day?
A. No, religion has not been at all times as fully taught as it is at the present day. But it has not on that account ceased to be the same religion, any more than man, by passing through the different stages of life, ceases to be the same man.
Q. What difference is there between the faithful who preceded and those who have come after the Messiah ?
A . The difference is that the ancient just believed in Jesus Christ to come, whilst we believe in Jesus Christ already come. Our faith, our hope, our religion is the same as that of the patriarchs and prophets.
Q. Why did God delay so long the coming of the Messiah ?
ReplyDeleteA. He delayed the coming of the Messiah so long, 1st, in order that man might know, by a long experience of his miseries, the need he had of a Redeemer, and that he might desire his coming more ardently.
2d, that he might recognise Jesus Christ as the Messiah, seeing that all the figures, promises and prophecies were accomplished and verified in him.
Q. What has been the object of all the designs of God since the commission of original sin ?
A. The object of all the designs of God, since the commission of original sin, has been to save man. Be fore the coming of the Messiah, all his designs had for their end to prepare man s redemption, and since the coming, to maintain and extend its blessings to all men.
Q. What fruit do we derive from this truth ?
A . The fruit we ought to derive from this truth is, to love God as he has loved us, constantly and solely.
Q. Why did God make known the mystery of the redemption only by degrees ?
A. God made known the mystery of the redemption only by degrees, in order to consult man's weakness. A great many previous miracles were necessary to di pose him to believe this greatest of all miracles.
The Messiah promised and prefigured. First Promise. Adam and Abel the first and second figures or types of the Messiah.
Q. How did God make known the Redeemer to come
A. God made known the Redeemer to come, 1st, by promises, 2d, figures, and 3d, by prophecies.
Q. What do you understand by figures of the Messiah ?
A. By figures of the Messiah, I understand certain actions, certain events, certain personages, that represented beforehand the characteristics and actions of the Messiah.
Q. How do we know that the patriarchs, the sacrifices, and the whole Jewish people were a figure of the Messiah ?
A. We know that the patriarchs, the sacrifices and the whole Jewish people were a figure of the Messiah, 1st, on the authority of our Lord himself, and that of the apostles and evangelists. St. Paul in particular says that Jesus Christ is the end of the Mosaic law, and that whatever happened to the Jews was a figure of what was accomplished among Christians.
2d, on the authority of the fathers of the church ; St. Augustine says that the whole Jewish people were only a grand figure of the Messiah.
3d, by the conformity or resemblance of the figures to our Lord, for in look ing at several portraits of the same person, drawn by
different artists, no one would say that all these por raits resemble the person merely by chance.
Q. Did the patriarchs and ancient Jews know, in general, the sense of the promises, figures, and prophecies of the Redeemer ?
A. The patriarchs and ancient Jews knew, in general, the sense of the promises, figures, and prophecies of the Redeemer : the better instructed among them had a clear knowledge of it, the rest had what was necessary for their salvation.
Catechism of Perseverance, Abbe Gaume
Yes, everyone PLEASE (re)read Dominus Iesus.
ReplyDeleteThere is so much wrong with "On Human Fraternity" that is being overlooked in favor of focusing on God's permissive/active will. The whole underlying theology of "On Human Fraternity", its direction, and its impetus, is condemned resoundingly by Dominus Iesus. It is why it was written -- to condemn, as not Christian, that which gave rise to and is "On Human Fraternity".
"On Human Fraternity" needs to be seen as an abandonment of the Missionary Mandate of the Church. It is not magisterial on that basis but it is also not magisterial, as Fr. pointed out, on the basis that the document is a joint Vatican-Sunni Islamic in its construction. It is not Pope Francis speaking to the Islamic world but rather Pope Francis speaking jointly with the Sunni Islamic world.
As to this document being taught in Academic Institutions -- You are not going to get solid faithful priests if the documents that are coming out of this papacy are used as the baseline for Catholic education and spiritual formation. These positions are not novel, they are just a codification of what has been floating around out there for decades, and condemned for decades. Consider for a moment being at a Jesuit university in the ’90s and trying to use the magisterial writings of JPII to argue against the material, of certain South American Jesuits, being used in class and presented as “normative”. Now consider the present situation of trying to do the same but with the material of this pontificate propping up those South American Jesuits.
I really do hope that people are paying attention to the noose that is being drawn around the magisterial teachings of JPII and BXVI and the removal of those teachings from the normative standards, what little they were, for intellectual and spiritual formation.
Amen, padre.
ReplyDeleteI remember being taught that even the 'bad popes' - the ones of terrible moral character - nonetheless did no harm to the doctrine of the Church, even though they caused grave scandal. As it seems to be God's permissive will that we must now endure this pontificate with its deeply disturbing incumbent - disturbing doctrinally rather than in moral character - can we still see confirmation of the papal grace of infallibility in the very fact that PF has not "contaminated ... the normal method of disseminating authentic teaching"? Perhaps he doesn't believe in using those tools of his office; maybe he doesn't trust anyone around him; maybe they won't collaborate in his error, as you suggest; or maybe he doesn't dare try! But whatever his motive, the pontifical barrier (remora) against corrupting Apostolic Truth does providentially seem to be in just about place despite the confusion he is sowing by other means and despite, or perhaps even because of, his own suspense of the authentic papal magisterium.
ReplyDelete"this remarkably unCatholic man"
ReplyDeleteYour phrase remarkably sums up PF's remarkedly unfortunate pontificate!
We must accept that Pope Francis is above all a politician and plays the political game far more than doing his job as the teacher of his flock as pope. Thus, his theological pronouncements are mostly twisted into statements of his view, for better or worse, of relative political expedience rather than clear Christian Catholic Dogma. This often results in his spouting absolute theological nonsense for a Catholic Pope. He seems to love manipulating Modernists' opinions by flirting with heretical vagueries and encourages them to endanger their immortal souls. His papacy is clearly detrimental to the spiritual welfare and salvation of every Catholic, and the greatest of threats to the present and future of the Church of God.
ReplyDelete"they may never have been explicitly defined ex cathedra or by a Council"
ReplyDeleteNor they need to be. If I am correct heresy is denial of any truth the Church teaches either by extraordinary or ordinary magisterium as revealed. Therefore, a solemn definition would not be necessary.