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They should follow their conscience but realize they can't call themselves Catholic.Yes, I know that most of you will say that they should submit and accept all Vatican II teachings. Still, should they do this even if their conscience tells them that the Vatican II teachings on Ecumenism and Religious Liberty contradict pre-Vatican II Magisterium teaching?
to be honestYes, I know that most of you will say that they should submit and accept all Vatican II teachings. Still, should they do this even if their conscience tells them that the Vatican II teachings on Ecumenism and Religious Liberty contradict pre-Vatican II Magisterium teaching?
to be honest
those two things kind of confuse me as well
They should accept it with the obsequium religiosum (religious submission) that is due to that decree and declaration. This assent is not the same as divine faith or ecclesiastical faith and is, in a sense, conditional, since such pronouncments are not strictly infallible. This assent requires a spirit of docility towards the teaching and presumption of truth and a good faith effort to assimilate the pronouncment, and, if this fails, then one may express one's criticisms to the teaching authority in a manner consonant with one's rank and expertise--always reserving the final judgment to the Apostolic See.
When the Institute of the Good Shephard was erected (it consisted of ex-SSPX members), it was expressly and explicitly granted permission to engage in serious criticism of Vatican II, but also affirmed it is ultimately the right of the Apostolic See to provide the final, definitive interpretion. In other words, both aspects of the proper religious submission were affirmed.
Why can't the SSPX do this?
The SSPX could do just that, but it seems they won't. They seem to refuse to accept the approbation of the Holy See unless the Holy See admits to errors being taught by the Council and also consistently by the Popes after the Council. They promote a strange idea that denies the permanent continuity of subject of the Magisterium in the Pope and bishops united to him and that it properly belongs to that permanently existing Magisterium to interpret both Scripture and Tradition in the present.
For example, Fr. Gleize, the SSPX professor of theology at Econe and participant in the doctrinal discussions with the Holy See, is a major proponent of this idea, which he is no doubt spreading to his students an advising the higher ups. Since he has definitively judged Vatican II to have taught error, he believes it cannot be considered "magisterium" at all. As such, he completely rejected the idea of obsequium religiousum towards the Council claiming it required no assent whatsoever in total (he explicitly rejected this idea in his response to the explanation of this kind of submission by Msgr. Ocariz of the CDF, another participant in the discussions). This is why a lot of SSPX rhetoric draws distinctions between the current Roman Church and "eternal Rome" as if they are not the same perduring subject.
This, to me, seems to be the major stumbling block with the SSPX that was not present with other groups which have reconciled and have been able to legitimately express reservations about certain decisions of the Council.
well before Vatican II the teaching of the Church on "extra ecclesiam nulla salus" was a lot more easy to understandAnything in particular about either?
Become EO?
I sometimes wonder why they haven't lol. They don't even accept the hierarchy they believe was divinely established. Awkward situation, but if you wanted something that claims to be untouched by modernism Eastern Orthodoxy certainly makes that claim.
Also, I agree with Rahmiel. I wonder about Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus too, and it does seem like everything was simpler and easier to understand before Vatican 2. Heretical Christianity and Apostate religions are seen as no big deal, you'll probably get to heaven anyway especially if you never hear anything about the Catholic Church.
I think people are misinterpreting what Vatican 2 is saying about EENS and taking it to an extreme of no evangelism and no hurting other people's feelings to try to lead them to Catholicism, but I'm still not sure I understand. Maybe QuantaCura (no pressure) can help us understand.
To assuage your fears:I sometimes wonder why they haven't lol. They don't even accept the hierarchy they believe was divinely established. Awkward situation, but if you wanted something that claims to be untouched by modernism Eastern Orthodoxy certainly makes that claim.
Also, I agree with Rahmiel. I wonder about Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus too, and it does seem like everything was simpler and easier to understand before Vatican 2. Heretical Christianity and Apostate religions are seen as no big deal, you'll probably get to heaven anyway especially if you never hear anything about the Catholic Church.
I think people are misinterpreting what Vatican 2 is saying about EENS and taking it to an extreme of no evangelism and no hurting other people's feelings to try to lead them to Catholicism, but I'm still not sure I understand. Maybe QuantaCura (no pressure) can help us understand.
Become EO?
I think part of it is really having examined the fruit of the earlier way of looking at things, well, it wasn't really very nice. Forced conversions, seeing all non-Christians as essentially Satanic, isn't really all that wonderful. Look at some of the terrible things you see about Muslims or neopagans on Christian websites which take a very conservative attitude to those who don't clearly accept Jesus. People seem all to ready to treat people as "other" even to the point of denying their humanity. So I think part of reason for the change in language is simply because people seemed to be failing to grasp the way it was explained before.
Mind you, I don't think the Catholic Church is nearly so ecumenical as to say "oh, everyone will probably get to Heaven no matter what". Some people will say that, but I have never got that impression from any of the better quality theologians or teachers.
As far as the SSPX - I think it is pretty simply as far as their priests go. Most of them do not want to submit to authority, and a number of them seem to be rather hateful. While the EO, or even some Anglican or Old Catholic groups would seem to be a logical fit, they would still be under authority.
well before Vatican II the teaching of the Church on "extra ecclesiam nulla salus" was a lot more easy to understand
I do understand the more nuanced teaching but it is kind of tricky and has caused a lot of Catholics to be very blase about evangelical works.
people no longer seem to think that heresy is a sin
CHURCH FATHERS: Letter 43 (St. Augustine)But though the doctrine which men hold be false and perverse, if they do not maintain it with passionate obstinacy, especially when they have not devised it by the rashness of their own presumption, but have accepted it from parents who had been misguided and had fallen into error, and if they are with anxiety seeking the truth, and are prepared to be set right when they have found it, such men are not to be counted heretics.
In the Treatise which we Wrote against the Published Epistle of Parmenianus To...For now he is a recognized member of their own body, in company with those very men whom he baptized while he was separated from them in the schism of Maximianus. And so others could receive from them, whilst they still had not joined our society, what they themselves had not lost by severance from our society. And hence it is clear that they are guilty of impiety who endeavor to rebaptize those who are in Catholic unity; and we act rightly who do not dare to repudiate God's sacraments, even when administered in schism. For in all points in which they think with us, they also are in communion with us, and only are severed from us in those points in which they dissent from us. For contact and disunion are not to be measured by different laws in the case of material or spiritual affinities. For as union of bodies arises from continuity of position, so in the agreement of wills there is a kind of contact between souls. If, therefore, a man who has severed himself from unity wishes to do anything different from that which had been impressed on him while in the state of unity, in this point he does sever himself, and is no longer a part of the united whole; but wherever he desires to conduct himself as is customary in the state of unity, in which he himself learned and received the lessons which he seeks to follow, in these points he remains a member, and is united to the corporate whole.
“The Church is necessary; the Church is the one ark of salvation; we must state it. That has always been the adage of theology: 'Outside the Church there is no Salvation'... This does not mean that none among other religions may be saved. But none is saved by his erroneous and false religion. If men are saved in Protestantism, Buddhism or Islam, they are saved by the Catholic Church, by the grace of Our Lord, by the prayers of those in the Church, by the Blood of Our Lord as individuals, perhaps through the practice of their religion, perhaps because of what they understand in their religion, but not by their religion, since none can be saved by error.” (From an address given at Rennes, France in 1972.)
“We are Catholics; we affirm our faith in the divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, we affirm our faith in the divinity of the Holy Catholic Church, we think that Jesus Christ is the sole way, the sole truth, and that one cannot be saved outside Our Lord Jesus Christ and consequently outside His Mystical Spouse, the Holy Catholic Church. No doubt, the graces of God are distributed outside the Catholic Church; but those who are saved, even outside the Catholic Church, are saved by the Catholic Church, by Our Lord Jesus Christ, even if they do not know it, even if they are not aware of it . . .” (From a sermon preached in Geneva in 1976 at the First Mass of one of his newly ordained priests.)
I think part of it is really having examined the fruit of the earlier way of looking at things, well, it wasn't really very nice. Forced conversions, seeing all non-Christians as essentially Satanic, isn't really all that wonderful. Look at some of the terrible things you see about Muslims or neopagans on Christian websites which take a very conservative attitude to those who don't clearly accept Jesus. People seem all to ready to treat people as "other" even to the point of denying their humanity. So I think part of reason for the change in language is simply because people seemed to be failing to grasp the way it was explained before.
Mind you, I don't think the Catholic Church is nearly so ecumenical as to say "oh, everyone will probably get to Heaven no matter what". Some people will say that, but I have never got that impression from any of the better quality theologians or teachers.
As far as the SSPX - I think it is pretty simply as far as their priests go. Most of them do not want to submit to authority, and a number of them seem to be rather hateful. While the EO, or even some Anglican or Old Catholic groups would seem to be a logical fit, they would still be under authority.
The thing is, the "more nuanced" view was taught consistently before the Council as well--it was really nothing new. While the underlying idea that it was possible for even non-Catholics to be saved given certain circumstances goes all the way back to the Fathers, it was first really explained in detail around the 16th century. Both large swaths of people being led away into Protestantism and the discovery in the new world of huge populations of people where the Gospel was never promulgated led to this development. This is when St. Robert Bellarmine developed the terminology of belonging to the Church "in voto," as compared to being an actual member, for example.
From then, all the old theological manuals and catechisms right up to Vatican II affirm the same thing.
Likewise, the idea that people born into heresies are themselves not to be presumed guilty of heresy is also not new. It is found in the writings of Cardinal Manning concerning Anglicans (Manning is historically contrasted to his contemporary Cardinal Newman as being much more conservative than Newman on such matters).
This idea itself goes back at least to St. Augustine, who noted:
CHURCH FATHERS: Letter 43 (St. Augustine)
St. Augustine also taught the idea of partial communion:
In the Treatise which we Wrote against the Published Epistle of Parmenianus To...
These ideas didn't get rid of evangelical zeal or fear of heresy before, so why now? That's why I think it must be something different than just the repetition of this idea by the Council.
He that heareth you, heareth me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth me; and he that despiseth me, despiseth him that sent me
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