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Could the Heresy of
Various Popes regarding Salvation Help Exonerate the Jansenists? Modern Traditionalists generally
admit the last five popes to have been heretics. Many of them - including
Father Feeney, Saint Benedict Center, Most Holy Family Monastery and RJMI -
consider popes from before Vatican II to have issued heretical statements.
Could, then those popes who condemned Jansenism have been heretical? We shall consider this
a step at a time. Heresy of the Vatican II popes The heresy of the popes
during and after the Second Vatican Council needs little proof, as it is so
well known to all Traditionalists bar some of the indult crowd. It is
conceded by both sedevacantists and non-sedevacantists alike. Their heresy concerns,
in particular, matters related to the possibility of salvation for
non-Catholics. We shall mention briefly the well-known papal errors
concerning; The Old Covenant still
being operative for Jews, The salvific role
claimed for the various religions, The Church being spread
through the various sects and religions, The practice of dialogue
and co-operation with other religions that is not aimed at conversion, &c. In particular we refer
the reader to ample
documentation exhibiting the heresy of the Vatican II establishment and
John Paul II in particular, that all people shall finally be saved (apokatastasis). Thus we can with
confidence list the five most recent popes as heretical; John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II and Benedict XVI. It should be noted that
we are not concerned here with explanations, that is, whether the popes were
contumacious, stubborn in their heresy or misinformed. We are concerned only
with the fact of papal heresy. A few examples We shall give just a few
examples of the heresy of these popes to make the point, before we proceed.
Pope John Paul II habitually taught heresy on the matter of salvation outside
the Church; here is an example. “Normally it will be in the
sincere practice of what is good in their own religious traditions and by
following the dictates of their own conscience that the members of other
religions respond positively to God’s invitation and receive salvation in
Jesus Christ, even while they do not recognize or acknowledge him as their
Saviour.” (General Audience of 9, 9, 1998) Even the brothers at
Saint Benedict Center in New Hampshire have denounced this statement as
heretical, writing “This is sheer, undeniable heresy” (Loyal Catholic
Resistance, FTHT 58). Pope Benedict XVI is also
well known to be a heretic on this score. While still a cardinal, Ratzinger
wrote as follows: “Q. But could we not also accept that someone
can be saved through a faith other than the Catholic? A.
That’s a different question altogether. It is definitely possible for someone to receive from his
religion directives that help him become a pure person, which also, if we
want to use the word, help him please God and reach salvation. This is not at all excluded by what I
said; on the contrary, this undoubtedly happens on a large scale.” (Salt of
the Earth, 1996, p. 24) Pope Paul VI encouraged
the heresy that the invincibly ignorant can be saved without receiving the
Catholic religion in his post-Vatican II creed. “We believe that the
Church is necessary for salvation, because Christ, who is the sole mediator
and way of salvation, renders Himself present for us in His body which is the
Church. But the divine design of salvation embraces all men, and those who without
fault on their part do not know the Gospel of Christ and His Church, but seek
God sincerely, and under the influence of grace endeavor to do His will as
recognized through the promptings of their conscience, they, in a number
known only to God, can obtain salvation.” (Credo of the People of God) Papal heresy in principle and precedent The case of the last five
popes should alert Traditional Catholics in common that there may have been
heretical popes before them. If these several popes can be heretical, then it
is evident that it is in principle possible for a pope to be heretical. Not only that, but
several precedents have been established all in a row. We should be less
surprised to find heresy before Vatican II than if there had been but one
case of papal heresy since. We should not be too surprised either to see the
present series of heretical popes extend before the Council to include the
popes immediately preceding them or to see cases of papal heresy some
centuries before. It makes no difference in
this regard whether the Vatican II popes are termed true popes or not. If
there have been heretical anti-popes since the council then there could have
been before; if there have been heretical true popes since the council then
there could have been before. Either way the possibility has been established
that popes were heretical before Vatican II. Nor would it matter if it
could be established that the popes before Vatican II were universally
acclaimed by Catholics as true popes – which is by no means established – for
sedevacantists are wont to argue that a heretical pope would not be a true
pope even if he were so acclaimed. As proof they are wont to cite the bull Cum
Ex Apostolatus. Papal heresy before Vatican II We shall argue in common
with various Traditionalists that, in fact, the present spate of heretical
popes does extend further back, with several popes before Vatican II
enunciating, or otherwise encouraging, heresy regarding the possibility of
the salvation of non-Catholics. The popes contradicted
the defined doctrine that “no one at all” is saved outside of the Catholic
Church. Pope Innocent III defined it as follows at the IV Lateran Council,
which was an ecumenical council held in 1215 that all Catholic theologians
recognize to be infallible: “One indeed is the Church
of the Faithful, outside of which no one at all is saved.” The list of heretical
popes who contradicted this dogma includes; Pius IX, Pius X and Pius XII. Pius XI may have been heretical
too but the evidence against him is only anecdotal and therefore not weighty. We shall provide some
documentation to substantiate these claims. The heresy of Pius IX It is well known that
Pius IX contradicted the defined dogma that no one can be saved who dies
outside of the Catholic Church. Liberal apologists have cited him in their
favor since the nineteenth century. There are several passages that people
cite from him but for the sake of brevity, we shall cite but one. “The Catholic Church is
the temple of God, outside of which, except with the excuse of invincible
ignorance, there is no hope of life or salvation.” (Singulari Quidem) Some Feeneyites are wont
to pretend that Pius IX was orthodox and was misrepresented on this point because
they imagine that it would harm their cause to admit that such an earlier
pope contradicted them. But most are more candid and concede the obvious.
Indeed, it is better to be honest if one is to accurately appraise the
situation. The heresy of Pius X Evidence against Pius X
is found in the 1905 Catechism that bears his name, which he had compiled for
the use of the laity of the whole Church and the use of which he imposed on
the diocese of Rome; he wrote most of it. The old Catholic Encyclopedia says
the following. “The present pontiff,
Pius X, has prescribed a catechism for use in the Diocese of Rome and in its
ecclesiastical province, and has expressed a desire that it should be adopted
throughout Italy. It has been translated into English, French, Spanish, and
German, and a movement has begun with a view to extending its use to other
countries besides Italy, especially to Spain, where the conditions are
similar.” (T.B. Scannell, Christian Doctrine) It is incredible that some
Feeneyites should claim that Pius was neither responsible for nor even
conscious of the Catechism’s contents. Indeed it is particularly laughable
that the Brothers Dimond have written that “it is just a fallible
Catechism that went out during his reign and was given his name”, as if
Pius had nothing to do with it and it had a life all of its own, especially
as they are so ready to accuse others of “dishonesty” and “human respect”. The following passage is
particularly incriminating. “29. Q. But if a man
through no fault of his own is outside the Church, can he be saved? A. If he
is outside the Church through no fault of his, that is, if he is in good
faith, and if he has received Baptism, or at least has the implicit desire of
Baptism; and if, moreover, he sincerely seeks the truth and does God’s will
as best he can, such a man is indeed separated from the body of the Church,
but is united to the soul of the Church and consequently is on the way of
salvation.” The brothers at Most Holy
Family Monastery have denounced this Catechism as heretical. “Here we see this
fallible Catechism word for word denying the dogma Outside the Church There
is No Salvation! It teaches that there can be salvation “outside” the Church.
This statement is so heretical, in fact, that it would be repudiated even by
most of the crafty heretics of our day, who know that they cannot say that
people are saved “outside,” so they argue that non-Catholics are not
“outside” but are “inside” somehow. So even those crafty heretics who reject
the true meaning of Outside the Church There is No Salvation would have to
admit that the above statement is heretical!” (Outside the Catholic Church
There is Absolutely No Salvation, Br. Peter Dimond) This just goes to
emphasize that canonizations are not infallible, nor are they proof of sound
teaching. It is as well to remember that canonizations by Rome are admitted
by all to have been a medieval innovation and not of apostolic origin.
Earlier, they were by popular acclaim, which none think to have been
infallible. The Catholic faith comes
to us from the apostles, through the orthodox Fathers and in particular St.
Augustine, and has sometimes been defined by the popes when there was a need.
It is not based on canonizations, approved devotions, popular drawings or
anything else. Any deviation from that rule is just an excuse for heresy. The heresy of Pius XI The evidence against Pius
XI is only anecdotal. He is said to have said the
following to Cardinal Facchinetti, whom he had just appointed to be the
apostolic delegate to Libya. “Do you think that you
are going among infidels? Muslims attain to salvation. The ways of Providence
are infinite.” (Martin Lings, A Sufi Saint of the Twentieth Century
(University of California Press, 1973); L’Ultima, Anno VIII, 75-76, p. 261
(Florence, 1954)) Of course, this cannot be
taken as weighty proof and we have included the matter only for the sake of
completeness, though it is quite believable in the midst of so much papal
heresy. The heresy of Pius XII Evidence against the
orthodoxy of Pius XII is found in the 1949 Letter
of the Holy Office to the Archbishop of Boston. As the Letter says, Pius
“deigned to give his approval, that the … explanations pertinent to the
doctrine” of no salvation outside the Church, contained in the Letter, be
given. And as the introduction to the published Letter, written by an Archbishop,
says, “Pope Pius XII, has given full approval to [the] decision” of the Holy
Office to order the Archbishop to make the Letter public. The Letter gives support
to heresy by claiming that an implicit desire suffices for salvation in
circumstances of invincible ignorance, because he did not specify that an
explicit faith is essential in central mysteries such as the Trinity and the
Incarnation. Indeed, he knowingly left everyone to interpret him as saying
that non-Catholics can thus be saved. “That one may obtain
eternal salvation, it is not always required that he be incorporated into the
Church actually as a member, but it is necessary that at least he be united
to her by desire and longing. However, this desire need not always be
explicit, as it is in catechumens; but when a person is involved in
invincible ignorance God accepts also an implicit desire, so called because
it is included in that good disposition of soul whereby a person wishes his
will to be conformed to the will of God.” Pius XII also allowed the
Letter to quote him as supporting this position in his encyclical Mystici
Corporis and to imply that he was teaching that people can be saved in
other religions, just not “equally well”. “Toward the end of this
same encyclical letter, when most affectionately inviting to unity those who
do not belong to the body of the Catholic Church, he mentions those who ‘are
related to the Mystical Body of the Redeemer by a certain unconscious
yearning and desire,’ and these he by no means excludes from eternal
salvation, but on the other hand states that they are in a condition “in
which they cannot be sure of their salvation” since ‘they still remain
deprived of those many heavenly gifts and helps which can only be enjoyed in
the Catholic Church’. With these wise words he reproves both those who
exclude from eternal salvation all united to the Church only by implicit
desire, and those who falsely assert that men can be saved equally well in
every religion.” It is untenable that some
Feeneyites should claim that the Letter misrepresents Pius’ encyclical when
he gave his approval to the interpretation and to the order that it be made
public. Father Feeney and the
original Saint Benedict Center denounced the Letter as heretical. “On September 24, 1952, three
weeks after its publication in full, the Center addressed a letter to Pope
Pius XII in which it protested: ‘This Protocol is substantially defective in
that it contains heresy insofar as it states that one can be saved under
certain conditions outside the Roman Catholic Church and without personal
submission to the Roman Pontiff.’” (Father Feeney and the Truth About
Salvation, SBC NH) Richard Ibranyi (RJMI)
has incredibly gone so far as to question whether Pius XII even knew about
this Letter of the Holy Office, though he claims that he was a heretic on
another matter: “This heretical letter against Fr. Feeney… Whether Pius XII
knew of this letter or not is of no consequence [because] he was not pope at
the time because he lost his office in 1951 for teaching the heresy of
Natural Family Planning” (Why we lost the Pope, not the Papacy, and the
Mass). The Dimond Brothers too dont seem to grasp that Pius gave his approval
to the doctrine of the letter and that it be made public, quoting as it does
his encyclical in support. “If Pope Pius XII had come out in favor of the
Protocol and against Fr. Feeney then he would have been a heretic. This is
just a fact.” (Outside the Catholic Church There is Absolutely No Salvation,
Br. Peter Dimond) Again, it is clear that many Traditionalists are not being
frank about the heresy of pre-Vatican II popes regarding salvation because
they fear that it would harm their cause. Pius X never read his own Catechism
and Pius XII didn’t know of the 1949 Letter? The heresy of the anti-Jansenist popes It will be less
surprising to find that there were heretical popes in the centuries leading
up to Vatican II, given that we have cited eight instances of heretical popes
already. Indeed, the heresy of the
later popes can be understood as a continuation of the heretical course
pursued by the anti-Jansenist popes. They have likewise endorsed the ways of
the world (cupiditas) and falsified the doctrine of salvation to
include in beatitude not the orthodox Catholic elect but all the posterity of
Adam. The heretical course has culminated in the open profession by popes of
the heresy of universal salvation, which maintains that all men will finally
be saved. In the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, the papal heretics were led to condemn the infallibly
defined Augustinian teaching that has come to us from the patristic Church.
The Catholic doctrine of grace and predestination has now almost completely
vanished from sight behind the smoke and mirrors of the non-infallible
condemnations issued by the anti-Jansenist popes and now a heretical
“pastoral” ecumenical council. It is apparently granted to very few these
days to recognize the true doctrine of the faith on this matter. As the early teaching is
less well known, we shall compare the statements of the later Augustinian
writers that were condemned by the heretical anti-Jansenist popes side by
side with early definitions and the similarity will be obvious. We shall
quote canons taught by early popes as the rule of the faith, that are
sentences extracted from the writings of Augustine and that express his
doctrine and accordingly must be understood in their original, Augustinian
sense, which is the “sense once defined” as Vatican I (a proper, infallible
doctrinal council) said they must. Indeed, the early popes were wont to
profess that they were teaching the doctrine of Augustine as their own: Pope St. Hormisdas: “What
the Roman, that is the Catholic, Church follows and preserves concerning free
will and the grace of God can be abundantly recognised in the various books
of the blessed Augustine, and especially in those to Hilary and Prosper [his
last two books, called the Predestination of the Saints and the Gift of
Perseverance].” (Sicut Rationi) Again, it is not our
intention to show every papal error here, so we shall make just one or two
comparisons for each anti-Jansenist pope. These popes condemned dozens of
orthodox sentences and often each of these sentences demonstrably accorded
perfectly with various early canons but we shall be brief. The heresy of Pius V Pius V condemned in Ex
Omnibus Afflictionibus (1567) various Augustinian propositions advanced
by Michael Bajus that had been infallibly approved by popes of the patristic
Church. Pope Boniface II approved
the Second Council of Orange (529) as a rule of faith for the Church and its
canons are grudgingly admitted by Catholic theologians to be infallible
definitions of the doctrine of the faith, though few would honestly own its
teaching. Pope Pius XI: “It is a
further tribute to the glory of the Bishop of Hippo [Augustine], that more
than once the Fathers in lawful Councils assembled, made use of his very
words in defining Catholic truth. In illustration it is enough to cite the
Second Council of Orange”. (Ad Salutem)
The heresy of Innocent X Innocent condemned in Cum
Occasione (1653) defined Augustinian doctrine, supposedly in sentences
taken from the writings of Cornelius Jansen.
Some theological explanation of the contradiction is
called for here. The canon quoted from the Indiculus defines
Augustine’s doctrine of efficacious grace, using his terminology of the “adjutorium
quo” (the help by which), which is the help by which the good act is
effected in man, as distinguished from the purely “adjutorium sine
quo non” (the help without which it cannot be), the help had by Adam
which did not itself effect the good act but only made it possible.
Efficacious grace is both adjutorium “quo” and “sine quo non”
as we cannot now do anything good without it. The phrase in the Indiculus
“received through the daily help of God” is the “adjutorium quo”
concept translated into English. The canon teaches that man can persevere in
good acts only through this efficacious help. Accordingly, the justified
cannot keep the commandments if this grace is wanting and that is the only
meaning which can be given to the canon supposedly condemning Jansen. The Indiculus seu præteritorum Sedis Apostolicæ
episcoporum auctoritates (Indiculus de gratia Dei), from which we
have just quoted, was compiled by St. Prosper of Aquitaine for Pope St.
Sixtus III and contains a series of quotes on the Catholic doctrine of grace
from popes St. Innocent I and St. Zosimus and from the Carthaginian Council
approved by Rome. Catholic theologians consider it to be infallible and to
have certainly always been recognized as such. The Catholic Encyclopedia
says, “The Augustinian standpoint of the compiler is as unmistakable as the
anti-Semipelagian tendency of the whole work… It is certain that about A. D.
500 this work was recognized as the official expression of the views of the
Apostolic See.” (Pohle, Semi-Pelagianism) The 1957 edition of Denzinger’s Sources
of Catholic Dogma says that the Indiculus was “recognized
universally as the genuine doctrine of the Apostolic See”. The heresy of Clement XI We should be here all day
if we were to compare every error of Clement with the early teaching. He
condemned in Unigenitus (1713) defined Augustinian teaching in the
writings of Pasquier Quesnel.
Again, the canons from
Orange and the Indiculus express Augustine's doctrine that we cannot
do good without efficacious grace, the “adjutorium quo” that is the grace of
(given by) Christ in distinction from the grace of (had by) Adam. The heresy of Pius VI Pius VI attempted to
rehabilitate in Auctorem Fidei (1794) the heretical Pelagian fable of
Limbo, ignoring the definition of Carthage XVI that is contrary to him.
Carthage taught that unbaptised infants have the punishment of fire in hell
with the devil and that there is no place of rest and happiness for them
anywhere (limbo). The canons of Council of
Carthage XVI (418) were composed by Augustine and were infallibly approved as
a rule of faith by Popes Innocent I and Zosimus I. Again, they are recognized
as infallible by all Catholic theologians, though few would honestly own
their teaching.
The canon of Carthage
taught that infants have the pain of fire, for they “run into the left” and
are, in their fate a “partner of the devil”. This refers to the last
judgement scene narrated in the twenty-fifth chapter of the Gospel of St.
Matthew. “Then he shall say to
them also that shall be on his left: Depart from me, you cursed, into
everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels. ... And
these shall go away into everlasting punishment.” (St. Matthew 25:41, 46) Thus it is defined by
Carthage that unbaptised infants receive their everlasting punishment with
the devil in the fires of hell. St. Augustine often taught this in his
writings and it was characteristic of him to do so with reference to Bible
passages. It is also condemned that there is “some place anywhere where happy
infants live who departed from this life without baptism”. Conclusion – twelve heretical popes exposed We have exposed twelve
popes as heretical. Traditionalists generally
admit the five most recent popes to have been heretics, whether they are
sedevacantists or not. Many Feeneyites admit a
further three popes to have been heretical. Jansenists, with just as
much reason as the Traditionalists and the Feeneyites, admit a further four
popes to have been heretical. It is not our intention
to imply that these are the only twelve popes who have been heretics or that
no other popes fell into heresy over the issue of “Jansenism” (which is
simply the doctrine and discipline of the patristic Church as historians are
wont to admit). Catholic theologians
generally admit several other popes to have been heretical, including, most
famously Liberius and Honorious. It is not particularly
controversial amongst Catholic theologians to say that popes have been
heretical. Indeed, Pope Adrian VI stated as follows. “If by the Roman Church
you mean its head or pontiff, it is beyond question that he can err even in
matters touching the faith. He does this when he teaches heresy by his own
judgement or decretal. In truth, many Roman pontiffs were heretics. The last
of them was Pope John XXII.” (Quaest. in IV Sent.) For further commentary on
papal heresy, see the essay, The Right and Duty to
Resist a Pope, which was republished by Saint Benedict Center. |
St. Augustine, Doctor of Grace
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