Dr. Gavin Ashenden is making a really good point:
Gavin Ashenden and Larry Chapp discuss the state of Catholicism today
Gaudiumetspes22: Dr. Larry Chapp | 19 Jan. 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-bQdaXV4xQ
6:18 — 6:35
so I would say it took about seven or eight years for the fog to clear and when when it did clear and I realized that what I was trying to do which was effectively draw together five or six Anglican constituencies the absence of a magisteria made the whole process completely fatal
And again:
7:53 — 8:00
I think the stakes are really quite High uh and so returning to Catholicism is not a matter of personal preference or not a matter of choosing one Church which is better than the other uh it's a way of of being obedient to the will of Christ as he talks about it in John 17
So, on this view, the logical conclusion for me would be to:
- consider John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, Francis as Popes
- precisely as Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Benedict XV, Pius XI and Pius XII
- and to consider a persistent utterance of any of these as magisterial,
- which would by now certainly include Catechism of the Catholic Church (three of the first list, since 1992)
- and therefore also § 283 as true, however distasteful its content might be to me personally.
Let's be clear, the CCC, if the last three in the first list were (and for the last is) Popes, fulfils the conditions of the ordinary infallible magisterium.
While the Catechism of Pope St. Pius X was Young Earth Creationist or at least definitely compatible, it could be seen as having a back door to Day Age theory or Gap theory, but not to a mankind that's several tens of thousands or evn close to half a million years old or beyond, it was also a catechism which he imposed only on Italy. The Pope is the primas of Italy, precisely as the archbishop of Lyons is the primas of Gaul, the archbishop of Utrecht the primas of the Netherlands, so also the Pope himself is the primas of Italy.
The Catechism of Pope St. Pius X was endorsed by the saint in his quality of primas of Italy.
The "Catechism of the Catholic Church", as it is called, was imposed by "John Paul II, Benedict XV and" (so far) "Francis" as (supposedly) Popes of the Church universal.
In other words, if the "last three Popes" are really successors of St. Peter, then § 283 trumps the Young Earth Creationist passages in Catechism of St. Pius X.
Does it trump the Bible, though? A different question. I'll come back to it.
Now, let's suppose as a given of Roman Catholic doctrine that "the ordinary magisterium of several successive Popes cannot be heretical", logically two options exist. First, syllogism I:
- The magisterium of several successive Popes cannot be heretical
- (The magisterium of) John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis are (is the magisterium of) several successive Popes
- The magisterium of John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis cannot be heretical
- § 283 is (integral part of) the magisterium of John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis
- § 283 cannot be heretical.
Or, syllogism II:
- § 283 is the magisterium of John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis
- § 283 is heretical
- The magisterium of John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis is heretical
- The magisterium of several successive Popes cannot be heretical
- John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis are not several successive Popes.
In the light of this, Catholic doctrine allows two conclusions from "John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis" endorsing § 283.
- § 283 is not heretical
or: - John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis are not a series of Popes
Now, someone might say, the point of the papacy is there should be someone to submit to when the actual position of the Church, the actual truth of God would to some seem like a heresy.
Not totally wrong, but not necessarily right for most cases. The most submissions are not to something that seems like heresy, the most submissions are to things that seem already OK as dogma or at least as an optional doctrine that is OK. Then there are submissions from "I didn't think so myself, but I would not have called it heretical either" ... only a tiny and extreme case selection of submissions to the papacy are over "I thought that was total heresy, but now that the Pope says so" ... in most cases when someone thought something was total heresy, he was not going to be swayed by a Pope saying so either, in some cases, he didn't believe in papal infallibility (which was arguably already explicit in the acts of Nicaea II or even Ephesus) and in some cases, he continued in his heresy, ditching papal infallibility.
Döllinger may or may not have believed Papal infallibility prior to 1854. But he did believe the Immaculate Conception was total heresy. That's not a very typical belief in Catholic areas prior to 1854, and Döllinger was indeed from Bamberg, born in a Holy Roman Empire which had been religiously divided since 1648. He met with John Henry Newman while the latter was still an Anglican. He was a Catholic who upheld a kind of show before Protestants "no way, yes, there are some aberrations in popular devotions in that way, but no way this is becoming Catholic dogma and it certainly isn't now" .... or so I thought.
In fact, when I look it up, though Old Catholics do not believe the Immaculate Conception, the opposition of Döllinger was more against Ultramontanism as a politico-religious system. In Döllinger's works, on wikisource, I do not find any opposition against this dogma, prior to his excommunication or indeed any work of his after it. Here is wiki about the preambles to his schism:
He was vocal about his convictions, speaking among other places at a Catholic congress at Mechelen for a liberal solution to the problem of the relations of church and state. Pius IX ordered the assembly closed after four days of debate. In response to Döllinger and others, Pius IX issued the famous Syllabus Errorum in 1864, harshly criticizing liberalism and scientism.
This purports to be taken from:
Lias 1911, pp. 390–391.
Lias, John James (1911). "Döllinger, Johann Joseph Ignaz von". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 8 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 390–392.
The point is, the typical application of the dogma is in fact not "I thought this was total heresy, but now that the Pope says so ..." and the typical outcome of thinking something total heresy and the Pope declaring it dogma, and I mean actual Popes, is, frankly, schism. Changing one's mind about a thing one considers total heresy just because the Pope says so, is not the normal reaction of the human mind. It doesn't become the normal reaction even when it is the human mind of a Catholic.
But given the Catholic dogma, and given that "John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis" to many seem to be Popes, isn't it disingenious to pick the second syllogism, Syllogism II, rather than the first of the two above? Isn't it a betrayal of Catholic policy, if not a direct logic contradiction of Catholic dogma?
In fact, the Döllinger / Syllabus conflict backs up my position that "John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis" are not Popes. The whole line from "John XXIII to Francis" have fallen on Döllinger's side, rather than the Pope's on the political side of the Syllabus. Ratzinger admitted that Dignitatis Humanae and the Syllabus are in contradiction, this means that he indirectly admitted he was on Döllinger's side, not the Pope's.
The part where the Syllabus condemns Scientism is where it would probably be pretty easy to see how it condemns, in advance, § 283. Here are a handful:
2. All action of God upon man and the world is to be denied. — Ibid. [=Allocution “Maxima quidem,” June 9, 1862.]
8. As human reason is placed on a level with religion itself, so theological must be treated in the same manner as philosophical sciences. — Allocution “Singulari quadam,” Dec. 9, 1854.
9. All the dogmas of the Christian religion are indiscriminately the object of natural science or philosophy, and human reason, enlightened solely in an historical way, is able, by its own natural strength and principles, to attain to the true science of even the most abstruse dogmas; provided only that such dogmas be proposed to reason itself as its object. — Letters to the Archbishop of Munich, “Gravissimas inter,” Dec. 11, 1862, and “Tuas libenter,” Dec. 21, 1863.
13. The method and principles by which the old scholastic doctors cultivated theology are no longer suitable to the demands of our times and to the progress of the sciences. — Ibid.
14. Philosophy is to be treated without taking any account of supernatural revelation. — Ibid.
Now, the form of the syllabus is that of a syllabus. A syllabus is a list. But the full title is not "a syllabus of truths" it is "a syllabus of errors" or The Syllabus of Errors (Latin makes no distinction between definite and indefinite forms of nouns or adjectives).
To include § 2 of the syllabus may seem a stretch to some. There are other parts where CCC definitely affirms that God does provide some action on man and the world, so, globally, CCC would definitely not be condemned by this point. However, the method behind accepting Heliocentrism has in several debates since 2001 been shown to hinge sooner or later on "there is no God who turns the universe around earth, therefore earth turning around its own axis is the only possible mechanism" or "there are no angels that turn planets, Sun and Moon in orbits around earth, specifically Tychonian ones, therefore the only possible mechanism is the one that hinges on gravity and intertia, the Newtonian definition of an orbit, which excludes Sun from being what orbits Earth" ... so, specifically § 283 is at the very least in a kind of syncretistic relation with § 2 of Syllabus Errorum.
No scholastic would have fallen for the arguments by which Heliocentrism and Deep Time and Man Evolving from Subhuman Species / Nonhuman Species (like Ardipithecus, if that's still on the agenda), is promoted as proven fact. The idea of proving them hinge heavily on denying the supernatural, which definitely sidesteps supernatural revelation. The § 283 explicitly puts the knowledge of scientists on par with Solomon's knowledge from God, in the revelation that Wisdom constitutes. The idea also involves getting at "the origin of man" or "the greatness of the universe" from a purely reasoned conclusion, at the expense of taking a look at what God's word actually says on the topics from the standpoint of God's omniscience and obviously experience of doing what He did. I think I have shown a contradiction, more or less direct between the orthodoxy Pius IX upheld against §§ 2, 8, 9, 13 and 14, and the supposed "orthodoxy" of § 283. Tell me if I missed one.
So, the question is, whether it's more apparent that "John XXIII, Benedict XVI and Francis" are a series of Popes, or more apparent that § 283 is heresy. This brings us to the Bible.
Now, it may be a surprise to some, the Catholic Church in fact professes to believe the Bible, to be the guardian of the Bible as divinely revealed. The Bible is not irrelevant. There are parts of the Bible that are obscure, as St. Peter said about the Epistles of St. Paul. This doesn't mean that all of the Bible is so obscure that the only way to know with reasonable certainty what it really means is to believe the Papal magisterium. If that were the case, what a bad luck for converts. As per their previous confession, they weren't believing the papal magisterium, and therefore they had no way of knowing that Matthew 16:16—19 or John 21:15—17 mean that Jesus made Peter His Vicar on Earth, promised to do so, before the Crucifixion, and actually did so after the Resurrection, on the third appearance.
It would be really hard on us, if the idea we had Scriptural proof that this was so, was an illusion, because we had so far no position from which to believe the Papal magisterium. And therefore no way to know this as the true meaning of those texts as it is the magisterial one. Or that Ephesians 2:8—10 proves (with texts in the Gospels, both Matthew 25 and Luke 16) that works of righteousness are indispensable for salvation, not as preceding initial justification, but as a necessary means of staying justified. And so on and so forth.
But this is not how the Church traditionally sees our reading of such texts. On the contrary, even the Vatican II Sect in Lumen Gentium teaches that access to Bible texts is one way in which non-Catholic Christian denominations contribute to Salvation. Please note, it never says in so many words that someone can ordinarily be saved in his death hour if remaining in them. The way they become means to Salvation is, for instance, preparing someone to become a Catholic. It says there is a plan of salvation which includes such and such, but doesn't say such and such can be saved while yet such and such rather than Catholics. § 15 which introduces the non-Catholic Christians doesn't even include the word "salvation" ...
It doesn't make much sense to:
- on the one hand profess that "The Church recognizes that in many ways she is linked with those ... many who honor Sacred Scripture, taking it as a norm of belief and a pattern of life, and who show a sincere zeal," and
- on the other hand pretend Sacred Scripture is so obscure that no non-Catholic can have any clue of what it means independently of first submitting to the Papal magisterium.
Unless the "sense" is supposed to be one of hypocritical tactics.
Because, if even non-Catholic Christians, by the fact of having the Bible text, even if they in fact make some mistakes that preclude them from salvation, are accessing salvific truth, that would definitely mean that a Catholic can have access to salvific truth simply by having the Bible text. By the magisterium of the ages, he is preserved from most or all of such mistakes. And that means, you'd have to argue very subtly or convincingly before getting me to acknowledge that Bible and Church fathers don't prove § 283 wrong.
Hence, yes, I'm proving from the Bible that Papal infallibility exists, and I am drawing the canon from infallible Popes, like St. Damasus or Paul III, no, the circle is not vicious, and yes, I am also proving from the Bible that § 283 is heresy. It follows that the men who have upheld § 283 were and are not Popes. There is however no explicit mention in the Bible of them being Popes, so, the Bible should be a sufficient standard from which to conclude that they aren't.
Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
III Lord's Day After Epiphany
21.I.2024
which was arguably already explicit in the acts of Nicaea II or even Ephesus
I actually had it directly from a video by Dimond Brothers, for Nicaea II, but they may have it from Bellarmite:
Does Peter Dimond WATCH my videos???
Bellarmite | 20 Jan. 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Or3iFR5eeY
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