Renowned philosopher signs petition calling on bishops to investigate Pope for heresy

FireDragon76 · May 7, 2019

mark kennedy said:
I'm still kind of puzzled what he did or said that was actual heresy. While I haven't really studied the letter in depth, it seems to me there are seven major points it makes:

A justified person has not the strength with God’s grace to carry out the objective demands of the divine law.

A Christian believer can have full knowledge of a divine law and voluntarily chose to break it in a serious matter, but not be in a state of mortal sin as the result of the action.

A person is able, while he obeys a divine prohibition, to sin against God by that very act of obedience.

Conscience can truly and rightly judge that sexual acts between persons who have contracted a civil marriage with each other, although one or both of them is sacramentally married to another person, can sometimes be morally right, or requested or even commanded by God.

It is false that the only sexual acts that are good of their kind and morally licit are acts between husband and wife.

Moral principles and moral truths contained in divine revelation and in the natural law do not include negative prohibitions that absolutely forbid particular kinds of actions, inasmuch as these are always gravely unlawful on account of their object.

God not only permits, but positively wills, the pluralism and diversity of religions, both Christian and non-Christian.

Sounds a bit like Francis ethics are closer to my own denomination's. It sounds vaguely Lutheran, albeit of a modernist sort.

I may not really understand this but the first one seems to be saying God's grace is insufficient to obey divine law post conversion (aka justification).

This is true, inasmuch as we cannot obey perfectly. It is consistent with Luther's teachings. As Philip Melanchthon wrote, "The Law always condemns".

Ok, that could be dismissed as awkward wording. The second one, the believer could have full knowledge of a divine law, break it and not be guilty of mortal sin. The question becomes, how? I don't know.

Because the only mortal sins are those that attack the gifts of faith, hope, and love within the subjectivity of the believer.

FireDragon76 · May 7, 2019

chevyontheriver said:
Standing firm vs falling over. Standing firm in the faith of the apostles would be better. And that conclusion is not Greco-Roman unless Peter and Paul were Greco-Roman more than disciples of Jesus.

You're reading it within a permeative tradition saturated with Greco-Roman thought. Francis understands the weaknesses of such a tradition and that they aren't really biblical so much as a reflection of dead Roman and Greek philosophers. In many ways, von Harnack was exactly right on this point.

chevyontheriver · May 7, 2019

mark kennedy said:
I'm still kind of puzzled what he did or said that was actual heresy. While I haven't really studied the letter in depth, it seems to me there are seven major points it makes:

A justified person has not the strength with God’s grace to carry out the objective demands of the divine law.

A Christian believer can have full knowledge of a divine law and voluntarily chose to break it in a serious matter, but not be in a state of mortal sin as the result of the action.

A person is able, while he obeys a divine prohibition, to sin against God by that very act of obedience.

Conscience can truly and rightly judge that sexual acts between persons who have contracted a civil marriage with each other, although one or both of them is sacramentally married to another person, can sometimes be morally right, or requested or even commanded by God.

It is false that the only sexual acts that are good of their kind and morally licit are acts between husband and wife.

Moral principles and moral truths contained in divine revelation and in the natural law do not include negative prohibitions that absolutely forbid particular kinds of actions, inasmuch as these are always gravely unlawful on account of their object.

God not only permits, but positively wills, the pluralism and diversity of religions, both Christian and non-Christian.

(Open Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church. Easter Week, 2019)

I may not really understand this but the first one seems to be saying God's grace is insufficient to obey divine law post conversion (aka justification). Ok, that could be dismissed as awkward wording. The second one, the believer could have full knowledge of a divine law, break it and not be guilty of mortal sin. The question becomes, how? I don't know.

I'll skip the others, this one really doesn't sound Roman Catholic to me. The seventh complaint that 'God not only permits, but positively will, the pluralism and diversity of religions'. I don't know that many Protestants that would buy into that one, let alone Catholics.

I really don't know if this is heresy but I can see why some have a problem. Anyway, I was having trouble figuring out what kind of heresy he is being accused of here, so I listed the summary in case I'm not the only one.

Grace and peace,
Mark

Just to look at the last one. Pope Francis recently stated that Islam was divinely ordained. Here is what he actually agreed to: "The pluralism and the diversity of religions, colour, sex, race and language are willed by God in his wisdom."

What sort of Christian would say or think that about a non-Christian religion? Is he misunderstood? Or does he misunderstand? Or did someone prepare for him a text that he didn't read before he delivered it? Who knows.

I am more of an Islamist than many of my peers, considering that I believe Muslims do worship the same God as Christians. But I don't think I could say Islam is salvific in and of it's own, except by accident. Nor that God willed Islam as an expression of diversity. Did the pope say it? Apparently so. What needs to happen is for this to be examined and resolved, with either a correction or an explanation that it is not what it seems to be.

I have bent over backwards to defend pope Francis for his first three years. Most Catholics have. But for the last three years I just couldn't do it any longer. Is he a raving heretic? I donno. But at this point the question needs to be asked and answered. If he is a heretic he needs to leave. If he is not a heretic then several members of Team Francis need to have the same questions asked and answered about them.

Here's one of many Team Francis member to look at: Cardinal Tobin: Catechism language ‘very unfortunate’ on homosexuality | Catholic Herald

mark kennedy · May 7, 2019

chevyontheriver said:
Just to look at the last one. Pope Francis recently stated that Islam was divinely ordained. Here is what he actually agreed to: "The pluralism and the diversity of religions, colour, sex, race and language are willed by God in his wisdom."

What sort of Christian would say or think that about a non-Christian religion? Is he misunderstood? Or does he misunderstand? Or did someone prepare for him a text that he didn't read before he delivered it? Who knows.

I am more of an Islamist than many of my peers, considering that I believe Muslims do worship the same God as Christians. But I don't think I could say Islam is salvific in and of it's own, except by accident. Nor that God willed Islam as an expression of diversity. Did the pope say it? Apparently so. What needs to happen is for this to be examined and resolved, with either a correction or an explanation that it is not what it seems to be.

I have bent over backwards to defend pope Francis for his first three years. Most Catholics have. But for the last three years I just couldn't do it any longer. Is he a raving heretic? I donno. But at this point the question needs to be asked and answered. If he is a heretic he needs to leave. If he is not a heretic then several members of Team Francis need to have the same questions asked and answered about them.

Here's one of many Team Francis member to look at: Cardinal Tobin: Catechism language ‘very unfortunate’ on homosexuality | Catholic Herald

Appreciate the response, this must be a difficult thing to experience over years. This doesn't really sound like heresy to me, what it sounds like is classic liberal theology. It is constantly going around redefining traditional terms, a little here a little there. I guess now at least I understand the nature of the controversy. Thanks for the candor.

Grace and peace,
Mark

Barney2.0 · May 7, 2019

I believe that this is good, I believe Pope Francis should be investigated because we’re seeing wild claims flying from a man who should be leading and serving Christ’s Church on earth, not liberalism.

Bible Highlighter · May 7, 2019

redleghunter said:
Renowned philosopher signs petition calling on bishops to investigate Pope for heresy

May 6, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – World-renowned Catholic philosopher Dr. Josef Seifert has signed a petition calling on the bishops of the world to “investigate Pope Francis for heresy.”

The petition was launched by one of the signers of the April 30 Open Letter to Bishops where 19 prominent clergymen and scholars accused Pope Francis of committing heresy and asked the bishops of the Catholic Church, to whom the open letter is addressed, to "take the steps necessary to deal with the grave situation" of a pope committing this crime.

Seifert, president of the new laity-led Academy for Life and close friend of the late Pope St. John Paul II, defended signing the petition in a written statement provided to LifeSiteNews (see full statement below).

More at link: Renowned philosopher signs petition calling on bishops to investigate Pope for heresy

Maybe I do not understand Papal Infallibility correctly, but this sounds like a refutation of this doctrine that is held by the Catholic church. So if it is not a true doctrine (by this incident), then what does that say about other things they teach and do? Hopefully this will be a time of re-examination for some.

May God bless you all today.

Sparagmos · May 7, 2019

chevyontheriver said:
The 20 page letter of last week spells it out. Part of it does regard the pope's actions concerning sexual abusers, part his statement about Islam being ordained by God, part of it about his promotion of clerics in favor of LGBTQWERTY issues, but mostly about allowing second marriages for those already once validly married. That is precisely what the Dubia were about. The deeper significance is whether sexual morality matters or whether it's all OK now.

Ok, thanks. I didn’t see the 20 page letter. I’ll find it and look it over.

Jonathan Mathews · May 7, 2019

redleghunter said:
Renowned philosopher signs petition calling on bishops to investigate Pope for heresy

May 6, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – World-renowned Catholic philosopher Dr. Josef Seifert has signed a petition calling on the bishops of the world to “investigate Pope Francis for heresy.”

The petition was launched by one of the signers of the April 30 Open Letter to Bishops where 19 prominent clergymen and scholars accused Pope Francis of committing heresy and asked the bishops of the Catholic Church, to whom the open letter is addressed, to "take the steps necessary to deal with the grave situation" of a pope committing this crime.

Seifert, president of the new laity-led Academy for Life and close friend of the late Pope St. John Paul II, defended signing the petition in a written statement provided to LifeSiteNews (see full statement below).

More at link: Renowned philosopher signs petition calling on bishops to investigate Pope for heresy

What is the heresy they are accusing him of? I read the link and it does not say.

redleghunter · May 7, 2019

FireDragon76 said:
Sounds a bit like Francis ethics are closer to my own denomination's. It sounds vaguely Lutheran, albeit of a modernist sort.

Actually his comments have been ambiguous at best and post-modern in theme. He has been on occasion ambiguously relative on moral issues.

Of course Lutheran Satire picked up on this:

Which Roman Catholics reacted to:

redleghunter · May 7, 2019

FireDragon76 said:
You're reading it within a permeative tradition saturated with Greco-Roman thought. Francis understands the weaknesses of such a tradition and that they aren't really biblical so much as a reflection of dead Roman and Greek philosophers. In many ways, von Harnack was exactly right on this point.

So Roman Catholics need not be Roman Catholic? What are they to become? Methodists?

Davidnic · May 7, 2019

Jonathan Mathews said:
What is the heresy they are accusing him of? I read the link and it does not say.

This is a follow up document to the original correction that has the 7 items they say are heresy. Here is that original document:

http://www.correctiofilialis.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Correctio-filialis_English_1.pdf

FireDragon76 · May 7, 2019

redleghunter said:
So Roman Catholics need not be Roman Catholic? What are they to become? Methodists?

The majority of Catholics are already sort of like Methodists in the developed world. They clearly don't accept their own church's teachings on many issues, and for good reason. All Francis is trying to do is making the church's teachings more realistic.

mark kennedy · May 7, 2019

FireDragon76 said:
Why are you in the thread when you don't seem to understand anything about historical theology?

I understand that liberal theology isn't historical theology at all, it's modernist philosophy in theological language.

Davidnic · May 7, 2019

MOD HAT

This thread has had a clean. Please keep to the topic.

MOD HAT

redleghunter · May 7, 2019

FireDragon76 said:
All Francis is trying to do is making the church's teachings more realistic.

So he is a heretic?

FireDragon76 · May 7, 2019

redleghunter said:
So he is a heretic?

Who would determine that? He is the Vicar of Christ in their minds, they do owe him a measure of trust if they believe that.

bekkilyn · May 7, 2019

redleghunter said:
So Roman Catholics need not be Roman Catholic? What are they to become? Methodists?

One could always use a bit more spiritual discipline in life.

redleghunter · May 7, 2019

bekkilyn said:
One could always use a bit more spiritual discipline in life.

LOL what a great response.

truefiction1 · May 7, 2019

redleghunter said:
Renowned philosopher signs petition calling on bishops to investigate Pope for heresy

May 6, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – World-renowned Catholic philosopher Dr. Josef Seifert has signed a petition calling on the bishops of the world to “investigate Pope Francis for heresy.”

The petition was launched by one of the signers of the April 30 Open Letter to Bishops where 19 prominent clergymen and scholars accused Pope Francis of committing heresy and asked the bishops of the Catholic Church, to whom the open letter is addressed, to "take the steps necessary to deal with the grave situation" of a pope committing this crime.

Seifert, president of the new laity-led Academy for Life and close friend of the late Pope St. John Paul II, defended signing the petition in a written statement provided to LifeSiteNews (see full statement below).

More at link: Renowned philosopher signs petition calling on bishops to investigate Pope for heresy

Well, I'd simply say that the petition is wrong on at least one account (the issue of the remarried receiving Communion), because in the history of the Catholic Church, the remarried were able to Commune, and thus, the full participation of those remarried after divorce can not be heretical, as indicated in the historical account below:

"In the Christian Empire under Constantine, Theodosius, Justinian and others, laws defined the various legal grounds and conditions on which divorce and remarriage were permissible. It is sufficient to say that they were relatively lenient. However, no Father of the Church ever denounced these imperial laws as contrary to Christianity. St. Epiphanius of Cyprus (d403) says, 'He who cannot keep continence after the death of his first wife, or who has separated from his wife for a valid motive, as fornication, adultery, or another misdeed, if he takes another wife, or if the wife takes another husband, the divine word does not condemn him nor exclude him from the Church or the life; but she tolerates it rather on account of his weakness' (Against Heresies)." -- [Quoted from "Marriage: an Orthodox Perspective"; John Meyendorff
St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1975; XII. Divorce (p.54)]

redleghunter · May 7, 2019

mark kennedy said:
It smacks of pure semantics which is the mark of modernist philosophy passing itself off as theology. It can be subtle but it's relentless. What is your interest in the thread anyway because it doesn't seem to be Pope Francis.

Actually what you presented in your previous post is more insidious with regards to liberal theology. As in the constant chipping away of orthodox beliefs. Which is the spirit of anti-Christ. I found your post insightful and informative.

Renowned philosopher signs petition calling on bishops to investigate Pope for heresy

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