Vatican City, Mar 1, 2018 / 05:57 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A new letter issued by the Vatican’s doctrinal office has reaffirmed that Christian salvation can only come through Christ and the Church, and highlighted modern expressions of Pelagian and Gnostic thought which contradict this belief.
Signed by Archbishop Luis Ladaria SJ, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, on the Feb. 22 feast of the Chair of St. Peter, the letter is addressed to the world’s bishops.
It clarifies how the ancient heresies of Pelagianism and Gnosticism are diffused in modern culture, and urges Christians to evangelize while engaging with those from other religions in a spirit of genuine dialogue.
The four-and-a-half page letter consists of six points, including an introduction and conclusion, outlining the errors of Pelagianism and Gnosticism in light of Christian doctrine, and reaffirming Christ as the only means of salvation, which is offered through the sacraments.
According to the letter’s introduction, the aim in writing it is to “demonstrate certain aspects of Christian salvation that can be difficult to understand today because of recent cultural changes,” incorporating Pope Francis’ reflections on the issue.
Modern expressions of Pelagianism and Gnosticism
The letter pointed to the difficulty many have in accepting the teachings of Christianity in today’s society, noting that on one hand, “individualism centered on the autonomous subject tends to see the human person as a being whose sole fulfillment depends only on his or her own strength.”
In this view, Christ is seen as “a model that inspires generous actions with his words and his gestures,” but is not recognized as the one who transforms the human condition by incorporating mankind into a new, reconciled life with the Father.
On the other hand, the letter noted that “a merely interior vision of salvation is becoming common, a vision which, marked by a strong personal conviction or feeling of being united to God, does not take into account the need to accept, heal and renew our relationships with others and with the created world.”
Pope Francis, the letter said, has often spoken of these two tendencies, identifying them with the ancient heresies of Pelagianism and Gnosticism.
Pelagianism gets its name from the monk Pelagius, who lived in the 400s and taught that the human will, as created by God, was enough to live a sinless life. Gnosticism, on the other hand, was a widely diffused belief in the 2nd century that the material world is the result of error on the part of God.
Since the beginning of his pontificate Francis has spoken out about the two heresies, and in 2015 during his pastoral visit to Florence, told participants in the Fifth Convention of the Italian Church that Pelagianism and Gnosticism are two of the greatest temptations that lead the Church away from humility and beatitude.
In the speech, he said Pelagianism “spurs the Church not to be humble, disinterested and blessed,” and does so “through the appearance of something good. Pelagianism leads us to trust in structures, in organizations, in planning that is perfect because it is abstract. Often it also leads us to assume a controlling, harsh and normative manner.”
Norms, he said, “give Pelagianism the security of feeling superior, of having a precise bearing,” while Gnosticism “leads to trusting in logical and clear reasoning, which nonetheless loses the tenderness of a brother’s flesh.”
The attraction of Gnosticism, he said, is “a purely subjective faith whose only interest is a certain experience or a set of ideas and bits of information which are meant to console and enlighten, but which ultimately keep one imprisoned in his or her own thoughts and feeling.”
Likewise, in Cardinal Joseph Ratzingers’ 1986 spiritual exercises, the future Pope Benedict XVI also condemned the Palegian trend in modern society, calling it a “vice” and saying those who accept Palegianism “do not want forgiveness and in general they do not want any real gift from God either. They just want to be in order.”
“They don’t want hope they just want security,” he said, adding that “their aim is to gain the right to salvation through a strict practice of religious exercises, through prayers and action. What they lack is humility which is essential in order to love; the humility to receive gifts not just because we deserve it or because of how we act.”
In Thursday’s letter, Ladaria said a “new form” of Palegianism is spreading in today’s culture in which the individual, “understood to be radically autonomous, presumes to save oneself, without recognizing that, at the deepest level of being, he or she derives from God and from others.”
According to this thought, salvation “depends on the strength of the individual or on purely human structures, which are incapable of welcoming the newness of the Spirit of God,” the letter said.
However, a new form of Gnosticism is also widely diffused, promoting an understanding of salvation which is “merely interior, closed off in its own subjectivism.”
“In this model, salvation consists of improving oneself, of being intellectually capable of rising above the flesh of Jesus towards the mysteries of the unknown divinity,” the letter said. “It presumes to liberate the human person from the body and from the material universe” in which God is no longer found, “but only a reality deprived of meaning” and “easily manipulated by the interests of man.”
Comparing the two heresies is intended as a simple recognition of “general common features, without entering into judgments on the exact nature of the ancient error,” the letter said, emphasizing that there is a vast difference between modern, secularized society and the social context in which the heresies were born.
However, “both neo-Pelagian individualism and the neo-Gnostic disregard of the body deface the confession of faith in Christ, the one, universal Savior,” the letter said, and reaffirmed that “salvation consists in our union with Christ.”
Man’s search for salvation and Christ as Savior
The letter noted that each person, in their own way, seeks happiness and tries to obtain it through the means they have available.
Yet this desire is not always explicitly expressed, and is frequently “more secret and hidden than it may appear,” revealing itself only in situations of crisis, the letter said, noting that this desire can often be manifested as a desire for better health or economic well-being, and can be expressed as a need for interior peace and peace with others.
It also takes on the character of endurance and the desire to overcome pain, fighting off the “evil” of error, fragility, weakness, sickness and death.
Faced with these aspirations, faith, the letter said, teaches that in rejecting all attempts at “self-realization,” these desires “can be fulfilled completely only if God himself makes it possible, by drawing us toward Himself.”
“The total salvation of the person does not consist of the things that the human person can obtain by himself,” such as wealth, reputation or knowledge, the letter continued, noting that if redemption were judged solely according to the needs of mankind, “how could we avoid the suspicion of having simply created a Redeemer God in the image of our own need?”
The letter then emphasized that God has never stopped offering salvation to his people, and that this redemption has a concrete name and face in Jesus Christ.
Salvation, it said, doesn’t occur in just an interior manner, because Jesus was made flesh in order to communicate with mankind. And by becoming part of the human family, Jesus “has united himself in some fashion with every man and woman and has established a new kind of relationship with God, his Father, and with all humanity.”
Each person can be incorporated in this new relationship and participate in Jesus’ own life, the letter said, adding that Christ’s incarnation, “rather than limiting the salvific action,” allows him “to mediate the salvation of God for all of the sons and daughters of Adam.”
Given this understanding, when faced with the “individualist reductionism of Pelagian tendency, and the neo-Gnostic promise of a merely interior salvation,” Christians have to remember “the way in which Jesus is Savior.”
“He did not limit himself to showing us the way to encounter God, a path we can walk on our own by being obedient to his words and by imitating his example,” but instead opened the door to freedom and pointed to himself as the way.
This path, the letter said, “is not merely an interior journey at the margins of our relationships with others and with the created world,” but consists of a “new and living way” that Jesus inaugurated for mankind in his own flesh.
“Therefore, Christ is Savior in as much as he assumed the entirety of our humanity and lived a fully human life in communion with his Father and with others.”
Salvation is through the Church, the Body of Christ
The letter reaffirmed that the place where humanity receives the salvation of Jesus “is the Church,” beginning with baptism and continuing through the other sacraments.
“Both the individualistic and the merely interior visions of salvation contradict the sacramental economy through which God wants to save the human person,” the letter said.
Salvation cannot be achieved by one’s own individual efforts alone, as neo-Pelagian thought would argue, but is instead found “in the relationships that are born from the incarnate Son of God and that form the communion of the Church,” the letter said.
Likewise, it stressed that the grace of God leads us to concrete relationships that Christ himself formed, and of which the Church is an image.
Salvation, then, “does not consist in the self-realization of the isolated individual, nor in an interior fusion of the individual with the divine,” but rather means being incorporated “into a communion of persons that participates in the communion of the Trinity.”
While Gnosticism has a negative view of creation, seeing it as a limitation of man’s freedom and therefore implying that salvation means freeing oneself from the body and concrete human relationships, true salvation offered by Christ includes the sanctification of the body, the letter said.
With the sacraments, “Christians are able to live faithful to the flesh of Christ and, as a result, in fidelity to the kind of relationships that he gave us,” the letter said, explaining that under this rationale, care for those who are suffering is especially important, particularly through the spiritual and corporal works of mercy.
The letter closed urging Christians to advance in announcing the “joy and light of the Gospel,” while also establishing a “sincere and constructive dialogue” with those from other religions, believing that God can lead all men of goodwill toward salvation in Christ.
“Total salvation of the body and of the soul is the final destiny to which God calls all of humanity,” it said, and urged believers to look forward to the coming of Christ, who will “change our lowly body to conform with his glorified body by the power that enables him also to bring all things into subjection to himself.”
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If the Pope is correct to say this to Ukraine then he is wrong to restrict the TLM.
Compare this quick action to defend Russian Orthodoxy versus papal inaction to defend the Catholic Faith after the Paris Opening Blasphemies.
Exactly right on both counts, dear Fool.
“Churches are not to be touched!”???
Hah!
Unless they offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass the same way it’s been offered for scores of generations.
Here contrary to disagreement, in instances conscientious resistance to the moral and structural policies including softening of perennial doctrine of Francis I, I’m in agreement with his stance on religious freedom, particularly the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christian Churches. He holds the same correct position in Ukraine as well as Russia.
Taking that into account, our dilemma is the West, and Roman Catholicism’s lack of coherency to its doctrines in practice, whereas Russian Orthodoxy in particular can claim far greater adherence to moral principles both Churches share. Abortion in Russia is limited to 12 weeks after conception – the US and most of Europe abortion is open season. Homosexuality is permitted in Russia between consenting adults, beyond that it’s prohibited under severe penalty, particularly LGBT promotion. It’s homosexuality in all its disordered forms that will destroy America unless the Church takes a strong stand against, which it doesn’t under Francis I who gives indication of acceptance.
Russia and the Russian Orthodox Church insofar as these key moral positions are now actually the world’s primary challenge to the moral decay of the West, including the Zelensky government and Ukraine. Although war with Ukraine has other political motives besides religion. Nevertheless it’s a factor. And likely why PM Orbán of Hungary with a large Catholic population is leaning toward Putin’s Russia due to EU opposition to his policies against the Gay conglomerate and its growing prominence in the West.
As usual, I agree with Father Morello. And I offer a few thoughts of my own.
The Russians’ contempt for the moral abyss into which the West has fallen is at the core of their struggle to keep Ukraine out of NATO and the EU. (It also has perfectly legitimate geopolitical motives.)This is written off by Western elites as “authoritarian contempt for ‘democracy'”. But we who are subject to those elites know all too well what they mean by “democracy”.
It was the Clinton/Bush/Obama neocon “nation builders” who thrust NATO and the EU up to the western frontiers of the Russian rump state that Putin now leads. Biden, as their proconsul, and the Biden family grifters fomented the so-called “Maidan revolution”, which overthrew the duly elected Ukrainian government and encouraged the subsequent Zelensky government to pursue a ruthless ethnic cleansing campaign in the Donbas. The alleged Russian aggression in Crimea merely undid the phoney “transfer” by the Ukrainian Soviet boss, Khruschev, of the peninsula from the Russian FSSR to the Ukrainian SSR, during the 1950s — all in the Soviet Communist family.
I long since have given up trying to read the mind of Pope Francis. It may well be that his view is grounded in the neo-Pelagian modernist quicksand of Dignitatis Humanae. But, from my perspective as an indietrist, an historic Christian people (albeit, regrettably, one whose church is in schism) have a duty to express resistance to a militantly secularist regime that afflicts their country.
I pray (as I did this morning, the Rosary in Latin, with a small congregation made up largely of Roman Catholic Poles and Ukrainians) for peace in Ukraine. Let us not forget that, when in 1917 Our Lady of Fatima asked for prayers for the conversion of “Russia” and for its consecration to her Immaculate Heart, “Russia” was “all the Russias”, including Ukraine. Maybe, after all, Francis got the consecration right in the way he proclaimed it a few years ago!
You cannot licitly fight evil by means of another evil. The Russian Orthodox Church is a schismatic and heretical Tsar-worshipping, warmongering sect that is out of communion with the rest of Orthodoxy, let alone Rome.
Russia is the abortion capital of the world, with regular church attendance in the low single figures, much lower than in Poland and Ukraine. In the territory of Ukraine under Russian occupation, there is no Catholic life at all, nor any Christian life other than that overseen by the Patriarchate of Moscow.
Yes Michael, Russia has the world’s highest abortion rate. Although it has a higher birth rate than some European nations. Example: Birth and death rate per increment of 1000 persons
UK 10/9.5 Poland 7.4/11.1 Russia 8.9/11.3 France 9.9/9.2 Italy 6.4/11.2 Spain 6.7/9.0 Germany 8.3/12.3 Institute National D’etudes Démographique. Russia has a higher birth rate than Poland, Italy, Germany, and Spain, while death rates except Spain are similar. What that likely indicates is greater usage of abortifacients and contraceptives in Italy, Poland, and Spain v abortions in Russia.
I agree with your assessment of Archbishop of Moscow Kirill and the Russian myth of a greater universal Russia. My comment was not to imply Russia is a moral paragon, rather based on face value it is better disposed on those moral issues.
“You cannot licitly fight evil by means of another evil. The Russian Orthodox Church is a schismatic and heretical Tsar-worshipping, warmongering sect that is out of communion with the rest of Orthodoxy, let alone Rome.”
I agree with you re: one should never fight evil by means of siding with another evil. Your description of the Russian Orthodox Church is a bit off. For a start, it does not worship tsar but there is a sect of so-called “tsarebozhiki” who worship emperor Nicholas II, considering him to be a co-redemptor with Our Lord. This sect was condemned by the Russian Orthodox Church. Also, there is an antiwar resistance within the Russian Orthodox Church and many priests were prohibited to serve or even arrested as a result of their activities. As for schismatics, “no, it is you (Catholics) who are schismatics because you broke off from the true Church” as any Orthodox (especially Greek) would say to you. Also, common believers learnt not to take mutual excommunications too seriously – if they did, we would not have a centuries-long precedent of Roman Catholics receiving communion in the Russian Orthodox Church and vice versa (please check how Catherine the Great saved Jesuits and how Catholic and Orthodox worshiped together in the USSR – persecution tends to release people from secondary things).
Now to the current affairs: there is a natural evil and there is an unnatural evil. Natural evil is practiced by Russia and like-minded. It is murder, slavery and so on, brutality without sophistication, cruelty which is not ashamed of looking cruel. Unnatural evil is transhumanism, transgender ideology, euthanasia “for the sake of preservation of dignity” and so on. It is the evil which is afraid of being seen as such so it covers itself with various “for your own good”. Russia (Putin) is the natural evil, West (Biden) is an unnatural evil. They are like two apocalyptic beasts, two types of human psyche clashing. People choose what they prefer. Personally, I prefer natural evil because it is at least straightforward. The unnatural evil repels me much more. Yet, being a Christian I know that I must not choose any but stick to Christ.
Most importantly, b of those evils are postmodern. That means Putin is not Orthodox and Biden is not Catholic. Putin represents a FAKE RUSSIA and Biden represents a FAKE WEST. Hence one who chooses either chooses a fake.
If you read my comment, you’ll see that it says that the Russian Church is in schism from Orthodoxy, let alone from Rome. So either way, the Russians are in schism. The Russian Church always was unique in the extent of its subjection to the Tsars, which was even more abject than elsewhere in Orthodoxy.
I am glad that my comment seemed to cause you to reduce your generalisations a bit (from “heretical Tsar-worshipping” to more realistic “The Russian Church always was unique in the extent of its subjection to the Tsars, which was even more abject than elsewhere in Orthodoxy”). Indeed, the Russian Church has been severely oppressed since Peter the Great who abolished the instruction of Patriarchs. The fact that the Russian Orthodox Church elected the Patriarch immediately after it got freedom from the state after the 1917 revolution, shows that the Church knew it was an abnormal situation – at least the vibrant part of it which later was martyred or went into catacombs. I am a product of that free-thinking Church which never ceased to exist. It is the Church of Fr Edelstein, Fr Alexander Men, nun Juliana (Sokolova) and many others.
“If you read my comment, you’ll see that it says that the Russian Church is in schism from Orthodoxy, let alone from Rome. So, either way, the Russians are in schism.”
Again, a generalization. The Russian Orthodox Church broke a communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate over the latter giving an autocephalic status to the Ukrainian Church. Ecumenical Patriarchate is not (whole) “Orthodoxy”. Some local Churches supported Constantinople, some did not. It is a very sad event but it has happened in the life of the Orthodox Church before. Common believers, especially abroad, usually disregard that.
And yet he refuses to condemn the persecution of Catholics in communist dictatorships like Nicaragua, Venezuela and China.
There is a prophecy of Garabandal I and many others believe is coming during this pontificate. The prophecy is that a pope will make a trip to Moscow and as soon as he returns to the Vatican, “hostilities will break out in different parts of Europe.” This is in light of the message of Fatima. Francis is a globalist, and it is difficult to tell what his agendas are when he seems to make a comment such as this. He sides with China and shut down churches during Covid… I think he is working for the new word order that will come out of the crisis. He is always speaking of global human fraternity as if it is above the importance of Catholic doctrine and truth. Watch for a trip to Russia in 2025 to kick of the prophesied tribulation.
For once, I have to agree with PF.
I would be inclined to defer to the local Catholic bishop on this one, someone who knows what’s going on. I would like to hear a bit more from the Vatican about Russia attacking and destroying Ukrainian cities.
What the above comment illustrates is how far Roman Catholic Christianity has drifted from its own essential doctrines revealed to it by its author Jesus Christ.
Our Synod on Synodality process underway to assertedly renew and revitalize the Church reduces our Apostolic successors the bishops to facilitators for a diversity of Catholic and non Catholic laity committed to a search for meaning of Synodality with pretense of adopting the Jesuit discernment method by listening to the expected voice of the Holy Spirit for new revelation – defies both reason and St Ignatius’ methodology resulting in acceleration of the drift to a riptide. Resolution. Return to the Cross of Christ and revealed doctrine.
This is definitely a 50/50 argument. I’m
guessing that one of the reasons why Pope Francis doesn’t support this law is because he wants the Russian Orthodox to one day return to full communion with Rome. One the other hand, Abp Metropolitan Shevchuk’s support of the law makes for a compelling debate since the UGCC is a sui iuris (self governing) autonomous Church in full communion with Rome. Everything considered, I believe that Russian Orthodox faithful aren’t bad people. But Moscow Patriarch Kirill is a disgrace.
I think this act of Francis’ points up what so many have sensed: he is less ‘homo religiosus’ than he is ‘homo politico.’
Francis injects himself into the profane arena when it suits his own political proclivities. He sends a new papal nuncio to Venezuela after a three-year hiatus to send an approval signal to the dictatorship of the Maduro government. He says nothing about the persecution of the Church by the Marxist Daniel Ortega. He allows the dictatorial communist rulers of a billion Chinese to choose Catholic bishops, etc., etc. At the same time, he hates America, the Catholic Church in America, the Latin Mass, and traditional Catholic values. He gives protection to prelates who promote the desacralization of the Catholic Church.
We see Francis more clearly with every passing day by where he places his priorities.
How many churches have to be burned down or priests arrested for you lot to stop idolizing Putin?