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On the Modes of Exercise of the Magisterium – Part I

Editor’s note: As we continue our exploration of the Church’s magisterium in light of some more recently troubling papal documents, we are pleased to introduce this work from Dr. des. John P. Joy. Joy wrote his doctoral dissertation in dogmatic theology “On the Ordinary and Extraordinary Magisterium from Joseph Kleutgen to the Second Vatican Council” (SThD diss., University of Fribourg, Switzerland, 2017). He is also the Co-Founder and President of the St. Albert the Great Center for Scholastic Studies and resides in Madison, Wisconsin.

(Part I of a two-part series. Read Part II here.)


The State of the Question

The Chair of St. Peter, St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome

If one consults books, internet articles, etc., on the various modes of operation of the Church’s magisterium, one is likely to find a bewildering array of differing descriptions of the matter with different theologians using the terms ‘extraordinary magisterium’, ‘ordinary magisterium,’ and ‘ordinary and universal magisterium’ in different ways to mean different things.

Most theologians agree that the ‘extraordinary magisterium’ refers to the solemn and infallible judgments or definitions of popes and ecumenical councils. But they disagree about what counts as a solemn judgment or definition.

  1. Some would include any proposition of a matter of faith or morals that is set forth in a definitive way, that is, with the manifest intention of obliging the faithful to hold or believe it.
  2. Others would include only the definitive proposition of dogmas, that is, matters of faith or morals set forth specifically as divinely revealed truths.
  3. Still others would restrict this category still further to include only the definitive proposition of new dogmas, that is, matters of faith or morals set forth as divinely revealed truths which up until then had been open to legitimate dispute.

(I am convinced that the first position can be shown to be the correct one, but that is an essay for another day.)

Then regarding the ‘ordinary and universal magisterium’, most theologians agree that this is exercised by the college of bishops in union with the pope in their state of dispersion throughout the world.

  1. Some, taking the term ‘universal’ to refer to this universal dispersion of the bishops, extend their use of the term ‘ordinary and universal magisterium’ no further than this.
  2. But others, taking the term ‘universal’ to refer instead to the universality of the episcopal college itself, also apply the term ‘ordinary and universal magisterium’ to the non-solemn teaching of ecumenical councils.
  3. Still others, taking the term ‘universal’ to refer to the extension of authority over the universal Church, also apply the term ‘ordinary and universal magisterium’ to the magisterium of the pope when he is teaching the universal Church without speaking ex cathedra.

I will argue in this essay that the first position is the correct one.

Finally, there is the term ‘ordinary magisterium’ without the addition of ‘universal’. Most theologians agree that this category includes whatever is left over from the other two categories, though the details of what exactly is included here will vary greatly depending on how broadly or restrictively one understands those other two categories.

 

The Question of Infallibility

As if all this weren’t enough, there is also the question of infallibility. Most theologians agree that the extraordinary magisterium is always infallible and that the ordinary and universal magisterium at least can be infallible (some hold that it is always infallible). And most agree that the ordinary magisterium (non-universal) is not infallible.

The most significant diversity of opinion turns on how one deals with the fact that the Church teaches (e.g. in Lumen gentium 25): that the pope and ecumenical councils are infallible when they define doctrine (extraordinary magisterium); and that the bishops dispersed throughout the world are infallible when they propose a doctrine as definitively to be held (ordinary and universal magisterium). Why do the bishops appear to have two modes of infallible teaching while the pope has only one?

1.) Most theologians hold that the proposition of a doctrine as definitively to be held by a pope or a council is not enough to constitute a definition of the extraordinary magisterium.

a.) Some of these, arguing that the pope’s infallibility cannot be more limited than the bishops’ and that the bishops gathered in council cannot have less authority than the same bishops dispersed throughout the world, conclude that when a pope or a council proposes a doctrine as definitively to be held, they do so infallibly in virtue of the ordinary and universal magisterium.

b.) Others argue that the ‘dissymmetry’ in the Church’s teaching between papal and episcopal infallibility is deliberate and that there is no such thing as an infallible ordinary magisterium of the pope or an infallible papal exercise of the ordinary and universal magisterium, so that a pope who proposes a doctrine as definitively to be held does not do so infallibly whereas the bishops dispersed throughout the world (and perhaps also the bishops gathered in council?) are infallible when they propose a doctrine as definitively to be held.

c.) Another option, however, which is mostly overlooked on account of the confusion about the nature of the extraordinary magisterium, is to deny the presupposition of both the above positions and hold instead that the proposition of a doctrine as definitively to be held by a pope or an ecumenical council simply is a definition and that the bishops’ unique mode of teaching definitively without defining is due to the state of dispersion in which it occurs. (I hold that this last position is the correct one.)

The degree of confusion in these matters can be seen especially clearly in the case of Pope John Paul II’s declaration in Ordinatio sacerdotalis regarding the reservation of the priesthood to males alone.

1.) Some regard this declaration as an infallible definition of the extraordinary magisterium because in it the pope, acting as supreme head of the Church, proposes a doctrine of faith or morals as definitively to be held.

2.) Others regard it as an exercise of the ordinary magisterium because it defined nothing new but only confirmed what had always been held and taught in the Church.

a.) But some among these regard it as an infallible act of the ordinary and universal magisterium.

b.) Others argue that it the ordinary and universal magisterium can only be exercised by the universal episcopate and not by the pope alone and so this declaration can only belong to the non-infallible ordinary papal magisterium.

(I believe that the first position can be shown to be the correct one, but again, that is an essay for another day.)

 

A Question of Context

I am convinced that the root of the confusion surrounding these issues is the assumption that the terminology of ordinary and extraordinary magisterium refers to just one distinction, whereas in fact it applies to two separate but overlapping distinctions in two separate but overlapping contexts. The result is that the term ‘ordinary magisterium’ in particular is highly ambiguous (it means different things in different contexts) and thus arguments involving the term ‘ordinary magisterium’ easily fall into the fallacy of equivocation.

Let me begin by setting out these two different contexts in which the terminology of ordinary and extraordinary arises. The original context is that of the rule of faith (regula fidei) within the field of fundamental theology. The focus here is on the nature of divine revelation, the virtue of faith as man’s response to divine revelation, the relationship between faith and reason, Scripture and Tradition as the sources of divine revelation, and the role of the Church in safeguarding and transmitting divine revelation. At Vatican I, this was treated in Dei Filius, the dogmatic constitution on the Catholic faith; at Vatican II, this was treated in Dei Verbum, the dogmatic constitution on divine revelation.

The second context in which the same terminology arises is the nature of the Church within the field of ecclesiology. The focus here is on the nature of the Church, the members of the Church, the hierarchical structure of the Church, authority and jurisdiction in the Church, the Church’s mission of teaching, governing, and sanctifying, etc. At Vatican I, this was treated in Pastor Aeternus, the first dogmatic constitution on the Church of Christ (a second constitution was intended but never completed); at Vatican II, this was treated in Lumen gentium, the dogmatic constitution on the Church.

 

The Origins of the Terminology

The terminology of ordinary and extraordinary magisterium was invented by the German Jesuit neo-scholastic theologian Joseph Kleutgen in the middle of the 19th century in the context of his treatise on the rule of faith. The first question he set out to answer in his massive and highly influential work Die Theologie der Vorzeit verteidigt (a defense of scholastic theology) was: what are Catholics obliged to believe? And his principal concern in answering this question was to oppose the dogmatic minimalism, especially prevalent in contemporary German theology, according to which Catholics are only obliged to believe what has been formally and infallibly defined by the Church. Against this idea, he asserts that the Church exercises a double magisterium: the one is “ordinary and perpetual” (ordentlich und immerwährend) and it consists in all those ongoing apostolates of the Church by which the faith is handed down through the living tradition; the other is “extraordinary” (außerordentlich) and is used only at special times when false teachers disturb the Church (Kleutgen, Die Theologie, 1st ed., 47).

What did he mean by these terms and what exactly was the nature of the distinction between them? In Kleutgen’s works, the term ‘extraordinary magisterium’ refers to the explicit definitions of the Church in matters of faith and morals (see especially Die Theologie, 40–46). Let us look at each part of this definition in turn:

  • The object of the extraordinary magisterium is ‘matters of faith and morals’, whether contained directly in the deposit of faith (primary object) or intrinsically connected to the deposit of faith (secondary object).
  • The subject of the extraordinary magisterium is ‘the Church’, which means that it can be exercised only by those who bear supreme authority in the Church, namely the pope and the college of bishops (which includes the pope).
  • The act of the extraordinary magisterium is the act of ‘definition’, which means that the doctrine in question is proposed to the Church in a ‘definitive’ or ‘conclusive’ way as something that must be firmly believed or definitively held.
  • The distinguishing feature of the extraordinary magisterium as compared with the ordinary magisterium lies in the fact that its definitive teaching is ‘explicit’, which means that it is visibly and tangibly enshrined in a public document of the magisterium.

What, then, does Kleutgen intend by the term ‘ordinary magisterium’? The term ‘ordinary magisterium’ refers to the organic transmission of the contents of divine revelation through the living tradition of the Church (see especially Die Theologie, 46–53). Let us again look at each part of this definition:

  • The object of the ordinary magisterium is ‘the contents of divine revelation’, which is the same as saying ‘matters of faith and morals’.
  • The subject of the ordinary magisterium is ‘the Church’, which Kleutgen specifies as meaning the body of bishops in union with their head the pope (Die Theologie, 42).
  • The activity of the ordinary magisterium is the ‘organic transmission’ of divine revelation, which refers to the daily teaching, preaching, and handing on of the faith that occurs within the Church through her ‘living tradition’.
  • The distinguishing feature of the ordinary magisterium as compared with the extraordinary magisterium lies in its relative intangibility; it is the infallible teaching of the Church that occurs apart from the formal and visible documents of the Church’s magisterium.

The last point requires further explanation. The teaching of the extraordinary magisterium is found by looking within the documents of the magisterium; the teaching of the ordinary magisterium, by contrast, is found by looking outside the formal teaching documents of the magisterium to all the other sources of the living tradition, and in the first place to Scripture itself. Since the Church proposes all of Scripture as the divinely revealed word of God, as soon as one sees that a truth is clearly proposed in Scripture, one can also see that it is proposed by the Church as a divinely revealed truth and so one must accept and believe it as a dogma of faith (i.e. taught by the ordinary magisterium). It would be heresy to deny, for example, that Christ was transfigured on the mount, that the holy family fled to Egypt, or that Christians have a moral duty to love their enemies, even though none of these things have been formally defined by the Church. And then together with Sacred Scripture one looks to the writings of the Church Fathers, who are the privileged witnesses of Sacred Tradition, and then also to the Doctors of the Church and other eminent Catholic theologians, to the customs, liturgies, and laws of the Church, to the monuments of antiquity, the consensus of the faithful, and the statements of individual bishops and local councils.

Kleutgen’s main purpose in speaking at all about an ‘ordinary magisterium’ was to re-assert against the dogmatic minimalists of his time (who are still with us today) the binding authority of the living tradition of the Church; he wanted to re-direct our attention away from an obsessive fixation on the formal teaching documents of the Church toward the broader horizons and greater depths of the entire living tradition. At the same time, however, he was also wary of asserting the authority of Scripture and Tradition apart from the explicit judgments of the Church without linking them in some way to the magisterium in order to maintain (against the Protestant principle of private interpretation) the Catholic principle of ecclesiastical mediation according to which Catholics believe all that and only that which God has revealed and which has been proposed as such by the Church. Hence his reinterpretation of the living tradition of the Church, by which Scripture and the oral Tradition are perpetually handed down in the Church, as an exercise of the magisterium of the Church.

There are two concluding points worth emphasizing about Kleutgen’s understanding of the ordinary magisterium.

First, the ordinary magisterium is exercised only by the whole Church in its state of being dispersed throughout the world for the quite simple and obvious reason that the teaching of popes and ecumenical councils are necessarily formal and explicit acts of teaching formulated in public documents of the supreme magisterium (which is exactly what the teaching of the ordinary magisterium is not). Hence, for Kleutgen it would be quite absurd to talk about an ecumenical council or a pope exercising the ordinary magisterium as is commonly done today.

Second, in Kleutgen’s writings there is no distinction between an ‘ordinary magisterium’ and an ‘ordinary and universal magisterium’. There is only one ordinary magisterium and it is always infallible. Because he is writing in the context of the rule of faith, only the infallible teaching of the Church comes into view, for only infallible teaching can oblige the faithful to give an assent of faith. Non-infallible teaching does not constitute part of the rule of faith because the response due to the non-infallible but still authoritative teaching of the Church is a religious submission (obsequium religiosum) rather than the submission of faith (obsequium fidei). The distinction between the ordinary and the extraordinary magisterium occurs for Kleutgen within the context of the Church’s infallible teaching as a distinction between doctrines that have been defined as of faith (de fide definita) and doctrines that are of faith (de fide) even without having been defined as such (de fide non definita).

 

Pope Pius IX and Vatican I

The substance of Kleutgen’s teaching on the ordinary magisterium was taken up and confirmed by Pope Pius IX in the apostolic letter Tuas libenter and by the First Vatican Council in the dogmatic constitution Dei Filius. In each of these documents the same distinction (between the explicit judgments or definitions of the Church and the ordinary magisterium of the Church) is introduced in the same context (the rule of faith) in order to oppose the same problem (dogmatic minimalism):

Pope Pius IX: “For even if it were a matter of that submission which must be manifested by an act of divine faith, nevertheless, this would not have to be limited to those matters that have been defined by explicit decrees of ecumenical councils or by the Roman pontiffs and by this Apostolic See, but would also have to be extended to those matters transmitted as divinely revealed by the ordinary magisterium of the whole Church dispersed throughout the world and, for that reason, held by the universal and constant consensus of Catholic theologians as belonging to the faith” (Tuas libenter, Denz. 2879).

Vatican I: “All those things are to be believed with divine and Catholic faith that are contained in the word of God, written or handed down, and which by the Church, either in solemn judgment or through her ordinary and universal magisterium, are proposed for belief as having been divinely revealed” (Dei Filius, Denz. 3011).

The discussions that took place among the fathers of the First Vatican Council and the official explanations and clarifications of the intended meaning of the text that can be found in the conciliar acta make it clear that the intended sense of this distinction in the conciliar text corresponds closely to the way in which Kleutgen understood it. An important point is that the word ‘universal’ was added to the term ‘ordinary magisterium’ specifically in order to express the same thing that Pius IX had expressed in speaking of the “ordinary magisterium dispersed throughout the world” and in order to make it clear that the text did not speak about a papal exercise of the magisterium (Mansi 51:322).

There is still no distinction between an ‘ordinary magisterium’ and an ‘ordinary and universal magisterium’. The ordinary magisterium simply is universal in the sense that it is exercised by the Church dispersed throughout the world (as opposed to by the pope or an ecumenical council). No explanation of this is given in the magisterial texts themselves, but if we understand that the ordinary magisterium refers to the transmission of Scripture and Tradition through the living tradition outside the documents of the magisterium, then it makes perfect sense why this must be the case.

 

A Shift in Meaning and Application

An important shift occurred in the understanding and use of these terms after Vatican I. After the definition of papal infallibility, it was generally understood that the pope exercised the extraordinary magisterium in his solemn definitions ex cathedra; but many of the magisterial acts of the popes clearly fell short of being solemn definitions ex cathedra; thus they were attributed to an ordinary magisterium exercised by the pope. The concept of an ordinary papal magisterium was thus born and this had several effects.

The first effect was a distortion in the original meaning of the term ‘ordinary magisterium’. Since this ‘ordinary’ teaching of the popes (for example, in their encyclical letters) was quite explicit and documented, Kleutgen’s emphasis on the ordinary magisterium as a means of transmitting the faith apart from the explicit documents of the hierarchy faded from view. The concept of an ordinary magisterium, which had been intended to move beyond a narrow focus on the statements of the hierarchy toward a broader view of the rule of faith grounded in Scripture, Tradition, the liturgy, etc., was reinterpreted as just another kind of magisterial document.

A further result of this distortion was a new application of the same terminology of ordinary and extraordinary magisterium to a different distinction. The same terminology that had been used within the context of the rule of faith to distinguish between defined and undefined doctrines of faith, now began to be applied within the context of the evaluation of individual acts of magisterial teaching to distinguish between definitive and non-definitive acts of explicitly documented magisterial teaching. And this new distinction has been superimposed upon the original distinction, as illustrated below:

The root of the difficulty is this: if the extraordinary magisterium is the organ of Church teaching that is at once both explicit and definitive, then two very different kinds of teaching can be contrasted against it, and both will appear to be ‘ordinary’ by comparison. One is the teaching of the Church that is definitive but not explicit, and this is what Kleutgen had in mind, and what was intended by the term ‘ordinary magisterium’ as it was used by Pius IX and by Vatican I. The other is the teaching of the Church that is explicit but not definitive, and this appears to be what Pius XII, for example, has in mind in Humani generis when he calls for a religious assent (but not an assent of faith) to the teaching contained in papal encyclical letters. The former ‘ordinary magisterium’ is the infallible living tradition itself; the latter ‘ordinary magisterium’ is the authentic but not infallible magisterium of the pope and bishops. These are completely opposite forms of teaching, sharing in common only the fact that neither is a third thing, namely the extraordinary magisterium. Calling them both by the same name is a little bit like calling angels and apes by the same name simply because neither are men.

Let me repeat that point. I am convinced that the most important thing to understand, in order to gain some clarity regarding the ordinary and extraordinary magisterium, is that this terminology covers not one distinction but two. One usage refers to the distinction between defined and undefined doctrines taught infallibly by the Church; another usage refers to the distinction between infallible and merely authentic acts of teaching. And whereas the meaning of the term ‘extraordinary’ is the same in both cases, the two meanings of ‘ordinary’ are very different. It is this ambiguity of the term ‘ordinary magisterium’ that breeds constant confusion and derails so many arguments.

 

Vatican II

The Second Vatican Council completely avoided the use of the terminology of ordinary and extraordinary magisterium in its constitution on the Church Lumen gentium, which outlines three basic forms of magisterial teaching: (1) the authentic (i.e. authoritative) but not infallible teaching of the pope and bishops; (2) the infallible definitions of popes and ecumenical councils; and (3) the infallible teaching of the bishops dispersed throughout the world (a footnote referring to Tuas libenter and Dei Filius makes it clear that this is a reference to the ordinary and universal magisterium).

I believe that much confusion could be avoided if we were to follow the example of Lumen gentium in speaking consistently of the ‘authentic magisterium’ of popes and bishops when it is a question of their non-infallible teaching, while reserving the term ‘ordinary magisterium’ for the infallible teaching of the Church dispersed throughout the world.

And we would do well to pay closer attention to employing the right distinction in the right context. When it is a question of evaluating the degree of authority exercised in an individual act of teaching and the response owed to that particular act of teaching, the relevant distinction is between definitive and non-definitive acts of teaching; that is, between the exercise of the ‘infallible magisterium’ or the ‘merely authentic magisterium’ (following Lumen gentium, where the context is the magisterium).

When it is a question of evaluating the status of a given doctrine and the source of our obligation to believe or hold that doctrine, then the relevant distinction is between defined and undefined doctrines taught by the Church; that is, between the ‘extraordinary magisterium’ and the ‘ordinary magisterium’ (following Dei Filius, where the context is the rule of faith).

The ambiguity of the term ‘ordinary magisterium’ makes this topic unnecessarily complex. If we would only resolve the ambiguity by substituting the term ‘authentic magisterium’ for ‘ordinary magisterium’ whenever we are dealing with magisterial documents that do not contain solemn definitions, the whole question would immediately become much clearer and simpler, which would be a good thing if our goal is clarity and truth rather than confusion and obfuscation.

65 thoughts on “On the Modes of Exercise of the Magisterium – Part I”

  1. Dr. des Joy, if you are reading this, I would like to know your opinion on John Paul II’s fundamental redefinition of Catholic teaching concerning capital punishment for murder, especially when Evangelium Vitae is compared with Aquinas’ and Augustine’s views and with Genesis 9:5-6.

    Reply
    • Hi Joseph. Since John Paul II’s teaching on the death penalty in EV was not an infallible ex cathedra definition, it is an exercise of the authentic magisterium at best (see Lumen gentium 25), which means we owe to it a religious submission of will and intellect, which means that we ought as a matter of obedience to agree with it internally unless there are sufficiently grave reasons not to (such as if it were to contradict divine revelation and the infallible teaching of the Church). In this case, we would have the right and possibly even the duty to respectfully point out the difficulties and to ask for clarification. But I’m not sure at this point whether it does contradict Church teaching. I have high hopes for the new book by Edward Feser and Joseph Bassette, “By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed: A Catholic Defense of Capital Punishment,” which tackles precisely this question, but I haven’t had a chance to read it yet. For now, however, I am content to say that I accept the teaching of Pope John Paul II in EV about capital punishment exactly insofar as and in the sense in which it coheres with divine revelation and the teaching of the Church, which is that capital punishment is in principle able to be justified.

      Reply
  2. How would this help us resolve the epistemic crisis casused by Lumen Gentium as it is a break of continuity of teaching? What is in that case a stronger authority? Tradition or Magisterium?

    Reply
    • Know both because the Magisterium cannot propose for belief anything on faith and morals which moves away from the Apostolic teaching which has been consistently taught in every place and time. See Fr. Ripperger on both.

      Reply
      • This is true if by ‘Magisterium’ you mean the infallible magisterium. But the authentic magisterium is able to teach error (though it normally doesn’t). That’s the point of distinguishing it from the infallible magisterium. So to the original question, we don’t need to ask whether Tradition or the infallible magisterium has a stronger authority, since they can never disagree. But the infallible magisterium certainly has a stronger authority than the merely authentic magisterium, so that if they ever disagree (which is rare but can happen), then we are obliged to accept the teaching of the infallible magisterium and to respectfully ask for or await clarification of the teaching of the authentic magisterium.

        Reply
        • “so that if they ever disagree (which is rare but can happen), ”

          It used to be rare prior to 2013 – then along came Frankenpope…..

          Reply
    • Hi Medic. If you don’t mind expanding, I wonder what in Lumen Gentium you view as a break of continuity of teaching?

      Reply
      • Salvation before it as proclaimed by numerous popes in what would I assume be ordinary magisterium, for hundreds of years, necessitated recognition of the pope as the supreme head of the Church and obedience to him, but Lumen Gentium changed that and proclaimed one does not need to be Catholic (not formally at least, but through some mysterious ways, where before they were quite clear) to be saved. We went from no salvation of protestants to including them, which is it seems to me a very significant break of Tradition.
        If you have any books on the subject I would gladly read them.

        Reply
        • Yes. How can one possibly square Cantate Domino with the teachings of Vatican II and the post-Council Church? Now you don’t even have to have faith – and just natural good works save.

          I would also be more than interested to see how Dr. Joy deals with that question.

          Reply
          • It is certainly heresy to claim (I’m not accusing you of this!) that natural good works without faith can be salvific. But I think Vatican II can be cleared of this charge (and brought into agreement with Cantate Domino) if Lumen Gentium 16 is interpreted in light of Ad Gentes 7 (see comment above).

            Much more problematic is Evangelii Gaudium 254, where Pope Francis says that “Non-Christians, by God’s gracious initiative, when they are faithful to their own consciences, can live ‘justified by the grace of God’. (The reference here in the footnotes, by the way, is to a non-magisterial text!). I don’t have any solution to offer to this one other than that of respectfully asking the holy father for clarification.

          • Send Francis a letter addressing your dubia: I am certain that he will eagerly give the clarifications you need.

          • Perhaps an ethical principal would help. A law that is not sufficiently promulgated does not bind. In other words gobbelty gook doesn’t bind.

          • “It is certainly heresy to claim (I’m not accusing you of this!) that natural good works without faith can be salvific.”

            But this is precisely what Bergoglio has said with regard to atheists!

          • Fits his anthropocentric misquote of Jesus in EG 161.

            But then, that one was plucked from Gaudium et Spes 24, so we are back to scratching our heads about V2 docs………….

          • There’s one thing I don’t understand: Vatican II is a pastoral council, yet some of the documents (e.g. Lumen Gentium which has the infamous “subsistit in”, are dogmatic constitutions (e.g. LG is the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church). So are they dogmatic or pastoral? If dogmatic, in what way?

          • Good point …I heard “dogmatic ” was added later which sounds likely since Vat II did everything possible to avoid the rigid vocabulary of the past.

          • If I understand you correctly, apparently the only thing “dogmatic” about the dogmatic constitutions is their titles?

          • Hi Margaret,

            I don’t think pastoral and dogmatic can really be opposed to each other. ‘Pastoral’ means something like ‘ordered toward the salvation of souls’ and since it is necessary for salvation that we believe what the Church teaches as divinely revealed, dogma is eminently pastoral.

            At Vatican II the term ‘pastoral’ seems to have been used to describe an approach that emphasized positive expositions of Catholic truth rather than negative condemnations of error; and that emphasized re-formulations of Catholic truth in ways supposed to be more understandable to modern men rather than the definition of new doctrines. But the Catholic truths that were positively expounded and re-formulated can still be dogmas. So there’s no real opposition; just a difference of emphasis.

          • I don’t know either.

            I can’t find a comfortable home for Mortalium Animos in the tents pitched by any Pope since P12.

        • I would recommend the book “The Catholic Church and Salvation” by Msgr. Joseph Clifford Fenton. It’s from 1958 so it won’t answer the question about Lumen Gentium, but it does a good job of providing the necessary principles that will make the interpretation of LG 16 easier. He also wrote a shorter article on the topic which is available here: http://www.catholicapologetics.info/modernproblems/ecumenism/meaning.htm

          Regarding Lumen Gentium, that’s probably worth an article in itself. But briefly, there are two questions: (1) on the possibility of salvation for non-Catholic Christians, it was commonly taught well before Vatican II that an implicit desire for membership in the Church could suffice for those who are inculpably ignorant of the obligation to join her, and I don’t see that LG goes beyond this.

          The thornier question is the possibility of salvation for non-Christians (i.e. those without explicit faith in Jesus Christ), but I think the key lies in the parallel text of Vatican II in Ad Gentes 7, where it says that “though God in ways known to Himself can lead those inculpably ignorant of the Gospel to find that faith without which it is impossible to please Him…”

          To say that God can *lead them to* saving faith implies that they *don’t have* saving faith. So when LG 16 teaches that salvation is possible for non-Christians, I would interpret it according to AG 7 as meaning that salvation is possible precisely because (and insofar as) it is possible for God to lead them to explicit faith in Jesus Christ before they die. And the way he normally does that is by sending preachers and missionaries to evangelize them. Hence the urgency of evangelization for the salvation of souls.

          Reply
          • Thank you for mentioning The Catholic Church and Salvation by Msgr. Fenton. This book should be required reading for all Catholics. It’s very deep but still easy to read. I highly recommend it.

          • The road to salvation is the Catholic Church. It is the only way wholly faithful to the teachings of Christ …founded by ,our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Are those who are invincibilly ignorant of Catholism doomed to go to Hell?
            Not if they seek to lead a good life that is pleasing to God and would follow Christ and the Church if they knew it was the necessary way for salvation.
            St Thomas Acquinas makes some mention of those who would limit God’s
            ability to distribute graces to those whom He chooses.

          • I agree with your first assertion. Then in answer to your question about those invincibly ignorant of Catholicism, I would say that they are not necessarily doomed to hell, which I thought I had spelled out above.

            But I disagree with the assertion that anyone at all can be saved simply by living a good life and without supernatural faith. That would be Pelagianism. But perhaps you just meant that those who did their best according to their natural lights would not be abandoned by God and that he would lead them to the faith that is necessary for salvation. I would agree with that.

            And finally, I’m sure St. Thomas is right about those who limit God’s ability to distribute grace to those whom he chooses, but I fail to see how I have done that (if that’s what you meant to imply).

          • Supernatural grace is necessary for salvation. …that’s why I mentioned it.
            No, I don’t think you implied any such thing. I think you are sincere and quite knowledgeable about this subject. We just like to discuss Church matters here at Onepeterfive.

  3. Since Vatican II the Catholic Church has lost it’s ability to state moral matters with clarity, perhaps due to no longer using Thomas Aquinas as the ultimate theological guide. The latest example being the “work of Pope Francis who has married heresy to confusion and making himself a one man Magisterium. We need a Council of Trent II–and quick.

    Reply
    • Lost the ability or lost the will? I wonder. Though there are at least a few counter-examples, such as John Paul II’s condemnations of murder, abortion, and euthanasia in Evangelium Vitae. There’s a good case to be made that those are infallible ex cathedra definitions.

      Reply
      • Point well taken. For the most part abortion, murder and euthanasia are not particularly controversial among Catholics. My point was the lack of emphasis and seeming tacit permission regarding sexual morality where all the action is.

        Reply
      • I thought the Church did not make infallible statements especially ex cathedral ones about violations of the Natural Law…..murder, abortion, and euthanasia
        because one is supposed to know these things are wrong by reason…common sense.

        Reply
        • The Church is able to make infallible statements about any matter of faith or morals that is divinely revealed or intimately connected with divine revelation; and the immorality of murder, abortion, and euthanasia certainly fall within that category.

          You certainly might be right that the Church shouldn’t need to make infallible statements about matters of natural law since that is knowable by natural reason, but common sense isn’t always so common as it ought to be. The same reasoning would apply to the 5th commandment. God shouldn’t have needed to include that because the Israelites should have been able to figure out that murder is wrong; but sometimes we fallen human beings need to be reminded even of things that should be obvious.

          And while it is often true historically that infallible definitions were issued in response to a belief falling into obscurity, that need not always be the case. But regardless of that, surely the belief that abortion and euthanasia are wrong (and maybe murder too) has been falling into obscurity in the minds of many of our contemporaries.

          To your last point, for the pope to be speaking ex cathedra it is not necessary that he make a solemn pronouncement that he is speaking ex cathedra. I don’t think that has ever happened. What is necessary is for him to make a solemn pronouncement that a doctrine of faith or morals must be held or believed by the whole Church. No particular form of words is required, but he must in some way express the intention of giving a conclusive and binding judgment about a matter, which John Paul II seems to me to have done in those three cases in Evangelium Vitae.

          Reply
          • Thank you for your response. Yes, the Pope must make it clear when he is
            making a binding judgement for the whole church..to be clear he ought to say he is speaking ex cathedra . Faithful Catholics know murder is a serious sin it should not be necessary for the Holy Father to tell Catholics that the fifth commandment is binding.

          • Hi D.

            Thanks to you as well for engaging on the topic.

            I’m not actually sure whether we are disagreeing here. If you’re just saying that it shouldn’t have been necessary to define these doctrines because we all should have known these things anyways, then I agree with you and lament the fallen condition of man and the special depravity of our own age that makes such things necessary.

            But if you’re arguing that these declarations of John Paul II were not infallible (which is a conclusion I’m open to; I only said there was a good case to be made for their infallibility), then I’m not yet convinced.

            1) The fact that ex cathedra definitions are oftentimes used to define doctrines that have fallen into widespread doubt does not imply that they cannot be used to define doctrines that we all already know. Pius XII’s definition of the Assumption of Mary is a good example of this. He says in the body of the constitution in which he defines the dogma that it is already taught and believed throughout the Church. Furthermore, even if they were limited to defining doctrines that have fallen into doubt, this still wouldn’t prove the point, since the immorality of abortion and euthanasia are widely denied today.

            2) The fact that the pope doesn’t say that he is defining ex cathedra does not prove that it was not ex cathedra. I do not think that any ex cathedra definition in the history of the Church has ever proclaimed itself as ex cathedra. We can say that it would be nice for the pope to be that explicit, but it would be unreasonable to require it as a condition of his infallibility. At Vatican I some of the council fathers suggested that the pope should be required to use certain forms in order to speak infallibly (which is what it sounds like you are suggesting, though perhaps I misunderstand you), and the official response of the deputation de fide that was in charge of drafting the text was that:

            “this proposal simply cannot be accepted because we are not dealing with something new here. Already thousands and thousands of dogmatic judgments have gone forth from the Apostolic See; where is the law which prescribed the form to be observed in such judgments? Perhaps someone will say: if we don’t have a law, let us make one. But let us not do this lest we run up against that already condemned law that said that the council was above the Pope.” (Mansi 52:1215).

            But as I said, perhaps you weren’t intending those as reasons against regarding the three declarations of Evangelium Vitae as infallible. My apologies if I misread you.

          • Actually I don’t know what JPIiI wrote in Evangelium Vitae . My point was about the importance of clarity. It is not necessary for the Pope to use the actual words ex cathedra but to make it clear he is making a binding pronouncement. Just looked up Pope Pius XII’s pronouncement of the dogma of the Assumption….he could not have been any clearer that he was making an infallible statement…hence ex cathedra.
            The other point was that faithful Catholics believe that murder is wrong and
            It should not be necessary to proclaim it infallibly….if the faithful Catholics
            started wondering about it then maybe it would be necessary.
            I’m sure you know a lot more about these things than I.

    • The Church has not lost its ability to state moral matters with clarity, and she has in fact done so intermittently since the Second Vatican Council. If you have not read enough post-conciliar magisterial documents to be aware of this, I earnestly recommend correcting this deficit so that you will no longer write erroneously about her in this regard.

      Reply
      • You have got to be kidding Hidden One. Post-councilor documents are unquestionably confusing and misleading. This is precisely the point of having web sites such as One Peter 5 to explain the truth since it is not forthcoming from the official Church. Vatican II essentially destroyed the Church as an effective force for moral change.

        Reply
        • As I wrote above, it depends on which post-conciliar documents you read, if you bother to read them. Most Catholics, traditionalists and not, largely don’t.

          Reply
    • To St Thomas, add Jesus and St Paul, at least, or rather, to Jesus and St Paul, add St Thomas.

      I agree about the need for a Trent 2, but can you imagine if it took place now?

      I shudder….

      Reply
      • The Church membership could be reduced by 90% but I doubt that would happen. To most Catholics the truth of Catholicism would be an eye opening revelation and bring hope to the world. My guess is that the loss of membership would be less than 50%. The Church is rapidly losing membership right now so a Council of Trent II should not result in any more damage than what is happening now with the Church selling worldly values. Let’s give heavenly values a chance. I think many in the clergy would be surprised at how well they would work.

        Reply
  4. what part does “anathematizing” and “incurring the wrath of Peter and Paul” play in all of this? Because Vatican I anathematises a lot (it seems like every other sentence!). Vatican II, I don’t think anathematises one thing.

    Reply
    • That seems to have been a strategic decision on the part of Vatican II (see the opening speech of John XXIII where he speaks about laying down the “arms of condemnation” and taking up instead the “medicine of mercy”). Whether it was a prudent strategy is open to question.

      But it doesn’t directly affect the degree of authority of the statements since it is just as possible for the Church to teach infallibly through positive declarations of what is true as through negative declarations of what is false. And there are some positive declarations of doctrine in Vatican II that I think are infallible, such as Dei Verbum 19:

      “Holy Mother Church has firmly and with absolute constancy held, and continues to hold, that the four Gospels just named, whose historical character the Church unhesitatingly asserts, faithfully hand on what Jesus Christ, while living among men, really did and taught for their eternal salvation until the day He was taken up into heaven (see Acts 1:1).” This hits all three of the criteria for a solemn definition: (1) it proceeds from supreme authority in the Church; (2) it has to do with a matter of faith or morals; (3) it strikes the note of absolute definitiveness.

      Reply
    • That seems to have been a strategic decision on the part of Vatican II (see the opening speech of John XXIII where he speaks about laying down the “arms of condemnation” and taking up instead the “medicine of mercy”). Whether it was a prudent strategy is open to question.

      But it doesn’t directly affect the degree of authority of the statements since it is just as possible for the Church to teach infallibly through positive declarations of what is true as through negative declarations of what is false. And there are some positive declarations of doctrine in Vatican II that I think are infallible, such as Dei Verbum 19:

      “Holy Mother Church has firmly and with absolute constancy held, and continues to hold, that the four Gospels just named, whose historical character the Church unhesitatingly asserts, faithfully hand on what Jesus Christ, while living among men, really did and taught for their eternal salvation until the day He was taken up into heaven (see Acts 1:1).”

      This hits all three of the criteria for a solemn definition: (1) it proceeds from supreme authority in the Church; (2) it has to do with a matter of faith or morals; (3) it strikes the note of absolute definitiveness.

      Reply
        • Yes, it is. That doesn’t mean that Vatican II didn’t solemnly define it infallibly. There’s no rule that says a doctrine can only be taught infallibly once or only in one way. I didn’t cite it as an example of a new teaching introduced by Vatican II but as an example of an infallible definition stated as a positive truth rather than through a condemnation of error.

          Reply
  5. We can compare and compare, … and we can keep us busy with comparison between things before Vatican II and after.
    But, it is too obvious that some certain and VERY IMPORTANT things are not possible to compare. Between those which are of critical significance, but which are diagonal opposite one to another, every faithful man must make his own choice. With this saying, being coercible to make of those choices, every true, faithful Catholic must (sooner or later) make also another, much more important choice; WHO SHOULD I FOLLOW?!
    Not accidentally I was today reading about an good article and even good example of the old saying: “The Devil doth quote the Scripture.” Not accidentally I came to this, above mentioned article of the Lepanto Institute, via another good article with the title “To Whom Do Democrats Pray?”
    I suggest people to read this (if necessary again), in the sense of this and all those things which happened and still are happening to us. Us who belongs to the one and only true Catholic Church of our God and Lord Jesus Christ.
    http://www.lepantoinstitute.org/cchd/the-marxist-core-of-the-catholic-campaign-for-human-development/

    I think our biggest problem is that we stuck and go in the loop… whenever we even think about some certain things which is spoken by authority,… and it seems we cannot find a way out of the contradictory situation because we are afraid, and we are afraid because the illogical and even impossible ones came from the recent, the living authorities. But why we are afraid? Why? If we see, know, and deeply believe, that the Church teaching which only can be right is teaching which goes accordingly the Holy Scripture, as that so was foor all our forefathers and Church Fathers and all Saints who lived our Faith for last 1900 years always as they and we should, as our Lord has recommended then, so recommend He it now and forever.

    It is not a big problem to find and recognize the deceivers, heretics, apostates, and all other fallen scum, but the real problem is that we not dare to address it, to point to all of them with the finger and loudly and clearly voice condemn them whenever and whoever deserve to be condemned, as one of our great teachers, forefathers, Church Fathers, apostles, saints, once before clearly told to us ALL:
    “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and turning to a different gospel not that there is another gospel, but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, If any one is preaching to you a gospel contrary to that which you received, let him be accursed.
    Am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still pleasing men, I should not be a servant of Christ.”
    (Galatians 1,6-10)

    Keep in mind, st Paul was not talking here about the poor people, infidels who still NEEDS to meet Jesus, who needs to hear about Him and His Gospel.
    He was talking about those who are OFFICIALLY preaching some different ‘gospel’, about those WHO WANTS TO PERVERT THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST!

    Reply
    • The reason why it is important to compare magisterial texts and discuss their levels of authority is because one of the very traditional teachings of the Church to which we are committed is the infallibility of the Magisterium of the Church. And among the errors to which the Church is traditionally opposed are the Protestant doctrine of ‘Scripture Alone’ and the Protestant principle of private interpretation. So it’s no good for a traditional Catholic just to disregard the magisterial statements of the hierarchy whenever they seem to us to teach or imply something erroneous.

      So our first step is to evaluate the degree of authority of an individual statement. If it fails to meet the criteria for infallibility on independent grounds (it’s no good arguing that something must not be infallible because we know that it’s false), then our second step is to try to reconcile it with the infallible teaching of the Church. Our operating assumption should always be that we are more likely to have misunderstood than that God would have allowed the pope or bishops to teach error (though this is not impossible if we are not dealing with infallible teaching). Hence we make the comparison of texts and try to find a way to reconcile them.

      If we cannot find a plausible reconciliation, then our third step is to respectfully express our difficulties in accepting the teaching in question and to request clarification from legitimate authority.

      This is the Catholic way to deal with troubling papal statements. The Protestant way is to say: Who needs the pope? We have Scripture on our side!

      Reply
      • May I assume that you do not even think that I even think about anything as any protestant?
        Besides, we are dealing with much more concerns than only with ‘troubling of papal statements’. Don’t forget many if not dozens of cardinals and bishops who are on the same ‘length’ with this one, the last pontif, which seems for me to be a real fruit of the erroneous teaching of a few decades. So, it is not just about one or two simple ‘troubled statements’ of 266th successor of Peter Kefa…
        As you mentioned in the so-called third step of ‘our solution’ for this kind of ‘situation’ with in our Church, you forgot to mention one other very important matter, matter of time. When should we (the cardinals and the bishops, with all other clergy, in first place) respectfully express not our difficulties to accept ‘problematic teaching’… but openly condemn all heresies, every single sentence, word and act, from whomever they come. Openly and loudly, before Christ and all people! Otherwise there will never be right impact, neither good result, of our ‘efforts’ to defend the true Faith, the true Gospel, the true Church to which we belongs, and are obligated to defend. From anyone who is attacking it, from inside or outside.
        As the same apostle once did that, exactly and only right thing what had to be done:
        “But when Cephas came to Antioch I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he ate with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. And with him the rest of the Jews acted insincerely, so that even Barnabas was carried away by their insincerity. But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?” (Galatians 2,11-14)

        As we can see this “I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned”, was possible then, and I know as you know, this was for sure the way that our shepherds have talk to the brothers, WHEN necessary.
        Thus, what actually happens to the shepherds, and their faith in the last few decades? When we from (almost) all of them only can hear millions of billions many kind of words, except those words which they had to say already, long time ago. Clearly, loudly and briefly.

        Reply
        • Dear Ivan,

          I didn’t mean to understate the seriousness of the state of confusion that we are living through in the Church right now. I agree that it is indeed serious. My point was just to caution that we shouldn’t overreact to that confusion by casting doubt on the divinely established prerogatives of the Petrine office.

          Reply
          • And it is everywhere.

            The more I read pre-V2 documents, the more clear it gets.

            Something must be done to draw the culture of the Church back home, for while we still have the paper doctrines, the practice and the public witness if the Church is in serious crisis.

  6. Very interesting article. I’d like to see more here from Dr. Joy on dogmatic theology in the future. Of particular pertinence for today’s problems in the church would be rediscovering the role, value and relationship of the traditional 10 Loci Theologici. They’ve mostly been flattened out of view by the very dogmatic minimalism that Dr. Joy speaks to in the article.

    Reply
    • Thank you. You make an excellent point about the Loci Theologici. I really think that the concept of the ‘ordinary magisterium’ was originally intended to be a way of emphasizing the importance and authoritative nature of the Loci Theologici. Obviously that didn’t happen though.

      Reply
  7. My reading of this is that formal definitions of Ecumenical Councils are exercises of the Extraordinary Magisterium, and so while not examples of “Papal Infallibility”, are infallible subject to the same rules as papal ex cathedra statements, as stipulated by Vatican I (apart from the ex Cathedra bit, presumably).

    Have I got this right?

    Reply
    • Yes, absolutely. All the same rules apply equally to popes and ecumenical councils. Either one is infallible when it proposes a matter of faith or morals as definitively to be held. When the pope does this we call is ‘ex cathedra’, from the chair. When an ecumenical council does the same thing, I suppose we could call it ‘ex aula’, from the hall. Either one would also be called an exercise of the extraordinary magisterium.

      Reply

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