In a relatively unknown interview with Fr. Jacque Servais, SJ, the late Pope Benedict XVI was asked about the apparent change in the Church’s doctrine concerning the salvation of the unbaptized. Fr. Servais begins by pointing out that at one time most in the Church believed the number of the unbaptized who were saved was exceedingly small, which is what motivated and energized the great missionary efforts of the Church in times past. But now, Fr. Servais notes, it seems that this very narrow reading of extra Ecclesiam nulla salus has given way to a far more expansive vision of salvation for those who die without baptism.
Before focusing on the answer given by Benedict, I want to affirm this is probably one of the top three unresolved theological issues of our time. Even before Vatican II, many theologians had already begun the process of greatly expanding the theological concept of the “baptism of desire” beyond its traditional formulation, which applied mostly to those who died without baptism but who were in the process of catechumenal instruction in order to be baptized. The traditional doctrine also took account of those who were martyred for the faith even if they were (as yet) unbaptized or those who longed for baptism but had no real means of receiving it.
Development and questions
But many modern theologies now call all of this into question and have inculcated a sense of religious relativism into many millions of average Catholics. In the light of the religious indifferentism spawned by these modern theologies, do we turn back the clock and reverse current theological trends in the Church to revive the older view that it is very difficult for a non-Catholic to attain salvation? Or do we accept that a development of doctrine has occurred and we need to find new ways of motivating missionary activity and personal faith commitment that do not hinge upon a notion of salvation wherein most people are destined for hell?
Pope Benedict’s answer, so typical of his incisive theological mind, is a robust affirmation that a development of doctrine has occurred, while at the same time acknowledging it has created problems requiring further nuance:
There is no doubt that on this point we are faced with a profound evolution of dogma. While the fathers and theologians of the Middle Ages could still be of the opinion that, essentially, the whole human race had become Catholic and that paganism existed now only on the margins, the discovery of the New World at the beginning of the modern era radically changed perspectives. In the second half of the last century it has been fully affirmed the understanding that God cannot let go to perdition all the unbaptized and that even a purely natural happiness for them does not represent a real answer to the question of human existence. If it is true that the great missionaries of the 16th century were still convinced that those who are not baptized are forever lost – and this explains their missionary commitment – in the Catholic Church after the Second Vatican Council that conviction was finally abandoned.
From this came a deep double crisis. On the one hand this seems to remove any motivation for a future missionary commitment. Why should one try to convince the people to accept the Christian faith when they can be saved even without it? But also for Christians an issue emerged: the obligatory nature of the faith and its way of life began to seem uncertain and problematic. If there are those who can save themselves in other ways, it is not clear, in the final analysis, why the Christian himself is bound by the requirements of the Christian faith and its morals. If faith and salvation are no longer interdependent, faith itself becomes unmotivated.
Benedict then goes on to describe two flawed responses to this “evolution of dogma”, both of which end up destroying the objective significance of conversion to the particularity of God’s revelation in Christ.
Two flawed responses
The first way is the famous “anonymous Christian” in Karl Rahner’s theology. In Rahner’s approach, the fundamental transcendental categories of our subjectivity are intrinsically ordered toward a final resolution in the Transcendent horizon to which their inner teleology points. Therefore, insofar as we authentically pursue this deep truth of our own nature, we are engaging in a kind of act of faith that is salvific and, therefore, already latently Christian. The problem with this approach, as Benedict sees it, is that it renders the Incarnation and the Paschal events of Holy Week as mere exemplars of an always reconciled God, and therefore that these events merely make “thematic and explicit” what is “unthematic and implicit”.
In short (and in my own words), it reduces the salvific component of the act of faith to a simple act of “being true to who you really are as a being oriented to Transcendence”. Christianity is reduced to a functionalist role as the “great clarifier” of already existing realities. It further makes the philosophical, sociological, and psychological analyses of anthropology more foundationally determinative of even our religious sense than any truth about our nature that Christianity “clarifies”, insofar as the Christian clarification is itself now colored and modified by the antecedent anthropological foundation provided by these allegedly more “scientific” disciplines.
If that sounds too “academic”, in a nutshell what I am saying is that in runaway forms of Rahnerianism the anthropological tail now wags the Christological dog.
And this is what leads us to what Benedict views as the second flawed response. The “pluralism of religions” school of thought, which relativizes Christ as just one savior figure among many. It places Christianity among the various world religions as just one more “language” about God and as just one religious path among many equally valid paths.
Ultimately, this view is internally incoherent since it sets itself up as the “final and ultimate” explanation of what “religions are really doing” and thus falls upon its own sword. How do its proponents “know” that God has not given us a definitive Revelation somewhere? How do they “know” that all religions are essentially saying the same thing? And in their quest for some kind of “universalizable” theory of religions, are they not displaying a latently Christian prejudice that somehow there must be a final, one-size-fits-all explanation of the spiritual dynamics of the human condition?
In reality, such a view can maintain that all religions are essentially equal only insofar as it maintains all religions are equally trivial in their actual positive constructions. In the end, it is predicated upon a cynical agnostic apophaticism that has more in common with the chic, celebrity derision of religion than it does with any real theological concept of the theological importance of the “apophatic moment” within our doctrinal formulations about God.
Two extreme temptations
But where does this leave us? How can we affirm the necessity and centrality of baptism and the Church for salvation while at the same time affirming a capacious salvational economy that makes it possible for those outside of the Church to be saved, and in large numbers? Honesty should compel us to admit that, so far, no satisfactory theological answer has been given. In order to dissolve the cognitive dissonance such a theological aporia creates, two differing and extreme temptations arise.
The first extreme is the answer given by the so-called “radical traditionalists” who solve the problem by simply rejecting as a distortion of the tradition the dogmatic development to which Benedict points. They propose that we embrace once again a far more constricted understanding of “no salvation outside of the Church”. They cite as evidence many legitimate magisterial documents from the past, countless statements from various Saints and Doctors of the Church, as well as visions of Hell that were allegedly seen by various seers. I think it is beyond doubt that they are accurate in their description of previous Church teaching favoring a far more literal understanding of the necessity of water baptism for salvation. This is precisely why Pope Benedict, with his typical honesty, stated that what is going on right now is a “profound evolution of dogma”.
Nevertheless, I think there can be no return to the idea that the vast majority of human beings are to be damned. This would make damnation, not salvation, the most basic reality in the economy of salvation, with salvation being the exception. I further think that despite the many warnings of Hell in the Gospels, the overall trajectory of the New Testament is oriented toward salvation and not damnation. Finally, I think that despite its utility as a motivational tool for evangelization, the message of “mass damnation” from the God of love is—again, merely on the level of utility—a non-starter.
But is a more expansive view of salvation an “evolution” or a reversal of established doctrine? Benedict does not say. Regardless of which it is, I think Benedict’s reserve here is related to the fact that the changes to the doctrine in question have been proposed by the highest levels of the Magisterium, both in an ecumenical council and in papal documents such as Bendict’s own encyclical, Spe Salvi (cf. sections 46-48). Therefore, we do not have the luxury of dismissing such developments of doctrine as heretical distortions of the tradition, since the clear direction of the Magisterium for the past 65 or so years is toward a more expansive view of salvation.
In light of this, it must be stated that an “evolution” of doctrine implies organic development. It further implies that there must be “seeds” of a more expansive understanding of salvation in that same tradition. This leads us to the second extreme response to the problem, which is the growing number of folks who are moving toward some version of universalism (i.e. “Everyone is eventually saved”) on the grounds that there were Church fathers who were universalists and there are biblical passages that imply its open possibility even in the midst of the many dominical warnings of damnation.
However, those in the Catholic fold who wish to hold this view must show how this is somehow not a reversal of previous teaching but a simple “development of doctrine”. Absent that, one would have to posit that this is just a straight-up reversal of previous teaching, which would itself call for an entirely new hermeneutical understanding of what we mean when we speak of the Church’s indefectibility. Not an easy task, to say the least.
The importance of further reflection
I see both of these views as “extreme” since I think both are claiming knowledge of things that Revelation simply does not give us to know. This is why I favor the approach of Hans Urs von Balthasar, who said that we must affirm the reality and the eternity of Hell, and the real possibility that some (or even many) of us will end up there, but that the Church allows us to hope that God will find a way to save everyone. This, of course, does not answer the question of how the Church is “necessary” for salvation, given the fact that such a hope implies that all those who are outside of the visible Church are somehow still a part of it. Thus, even though I think Balthasar’s views are thoroughly orthodox any give us an inkling of a path forward, they do not resolve the question of exactly how people are saved and how the Church is somehow necessary for that.
Furthermore, I would also be the first to admit that, on a popular level, these views of Balthasar’s could become a kind of closeted universalism that dissolves the very theo-dramatic seriousness of our choice for or against Christ that Balthasar spends thousands of pages unpacking in his trilogy. His “hope for the salvation of all” is my view as well, but it is not as yet a fully developed answer to the theological question at hand and comes with its own sets of further problems.
Therefore, I agree with Benedict when he concludes this section of the interview by saying, “It is clear that we need to further reflect on the whole question.” I think it is time for all of us to acknowledge the theologically unresolved nature of this question. This is important because it points us to the need for perhaps a fresh and creative perspective that builds on the best elements of all the various approaches.
Fortunately, Benedict does give us a small hint of a way forward that involves a change in how we view the nature of our role as disciples of Christ and as members of the Church. This involves a changed orientation in how we view what it means to be among the “saved”. It involves the deeper question: What is salvation anyway and in the first place? As such, it involves a recasting of “salvation” as an imitation of, and immersion in, the intercessory and “pro nobis” nature of Christ’s mission to save us through his kenotic descent into the abyss of our sinfulness.
This does not resolve the question in its entirety. But it is, I think, pointing us in a profound direction. The Church is necessary for salvation because God has willed in the economy of salvation that intercessors are necessary, that nobody is saved as an isolated monad, and that there is a deeply corporate element to salvation. We seek baptism because it is only as one who is fully sacramentally incorporated into the Body of Christ, and one who therefore participates in the Eucharistic sacrifice, can one fully achieve union with God who is love, which is to say, who is kenotic sacrifice in His essence. The Church is necessary for salvation because we are necessary for salvation as participators in the high priesthood—the only real priesthood—of Jesus Christ.
I will conclude therefore giving Benedict the last word as he points us in the direction of Henri de Lubac for the beginnings of this answer:
Let us recall, lastly, above all Henri de Lubac and with him some other theologians who have reflected on the concept of vicarious substitution. For them the “pro-existence” (“being for”) of Christ would be an expression of the fundamental figure of the Christian life and of the Church as such. It is possible to explain this “being for” in a somewhat more abstract way. It is important to mankind that there is truth in it, this is believed and practiced. That one suffers for it. That one loves. These realities penetrate with their light into the world as such and support it. I think that in this present situation it becomes for us ever more clear what the Lord said to Abraham, that is, that 10 righteous would have been sufficient to save a city, but that it destroys itself if such a small number is not reached.
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“the message of “mass damnation” from the God of love is—again, merely on the level of utility—a non-starter.”
“It is better to lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell” Jesus Christ’s non-starter, Matthew 5:29.
Should we be sticking to the Chapp defined “traditional doctrine” and Jesus Christ or embrace the Freemasonic One World religion established via Vatican II?
The crux of the question is simple: Catholicism or Vatican II ?
No , Vatican II IS Catholicism!
No, Vatican II IS Catholicism!
If Vatican II was Catholicism, then why did monks, priests, and nuns abandon their vocations? Why did multitudes if people abandon the church? By their fruits you shall know them.
I understand what you’re saying and agree with it to a point, but if Catholicism before Vatican II had been so rock solid, why did it unravel virtually overnight afterward? My own feeling is that Vat II (or the so-called “spirit of Vatican II”) gave the green light to a lot of the foolishness and devastation that followed, but the engines had been revving up for decades.
The short answer is that there was a great deal of rot (moral, especially) within the Church in the U.S. in the mid-20th century, as well as a cultural Catholicism that was not capable of withstanding the sexual and cultural revolutions of the 1960s. And those revolutions were hardly new; the late 1800s and the 1920s were times of significant change. Further, there was the matter of technology, including The Pill. As for priests and religious, the formation many received was lacking and many orders and communities were (again) full of inner problems and tensions. The longer answer, of course, is even more complicated, but I’m convinced that The Sixties (by which I mean 1958-1973) contained more ideological, cultural, social, and moral changes than most people could navigate or comprehend. Finally, Paul VI, in my view, was a very weak pope who not only allowed a devastatingly poor “reform” of the Western Rite, he rarely stood up wayward bishops, priest, theologians, etc. He seems incapable of grasping what was happening. That’s understandable to some degree, but he appears to have mailed it in for about a decade (1968-78), during which time the crazies, heretics, nuts, agitators, degenerates, ideologies, and co. ran wild.
About Pope Paul VI: ” He seems incapable of grasping what was happening.” Yes and maybe also no…
He REAFFIRMED the connection between faith and morals by giving us first “The Credo of the People of God” (June 30, 1968) and then “Humanae Vitae” (July 25, 1968). Both.
In completing the COUNCIL, he caused the Explanatory Note to be voted into “Lumen Gentium,” clarifying nuanced ambiguities about the “hierarchical communion”—once he was informed that he was begin deliberately “betrayed” (reported in Fr. Wiltgen’s “The Rhine Flows into the Tiber”). Plus, other succinct but clarifying “interventions” in “Dei Verbum” (that revelation is not confined to Scripture alone, and on the historicity of the Gospels), and especially some nineteen other strategic inserts throughout “Ecumenism.”
Pope Paul VI was so demoralized by the orchestrated rejection of “Humanae Vitae” that he never published another encyclical, but he did publish the LANDMARK Apostolic Exhortation “Evangeli Nuntiandi” (Evangelization in the Modern World) which, rather than now signaling a “pluralism” of equivalent (?) religions, teaches:
“…Evangelization risks losing its power and disappearing altogether if one empties of adulterates its content under the pretext of translating it; if, in other words, one sacrifices this reality and destroys the unity without which there is no universality, out of a wish to adapt a universality to a local situation. Now, only a Church which preserves the awareness of her universality and shows that she is in fact universal is capable of having a message which can be heard by all, regardless of regional frontiers” [but also about sensitivity to interior and ‘popular piety’] …When it is well oriented, this popular religiosity can be more and more for the multitudes of our people a true encounter with God in Jesus Christ” (December 8, 1975).
BUT, YES, the GOVERNANCE DISASTER, which was sealed in 1968…
…when Pope Paul VI declined to support Cardinal O’Boyle in the United States, when the cardinal censured a dozen of his priests for signing the full-page letter of protest against “Humanae Vitae,” in the New York Times a day or two before the encyclical was even released. Cynically termed the “Truce of 1968”, the result this non-support was that all dissidents, everywhere, then knew that there would be no consequences for their uppity theology separating faith from the objective morality of specific actions, versus the Fundamental Option, proportionalism, and consequentialism, as elucidated later in St. John Paul II’s “Veritatis Splendor,” 1993. Several of O’Boyle’s priests soon left the priesthood altogether, and the rest is history, and current events…
TODAY, we await the day when the deconstructive tsunami of the late 1960s (and the Truce of 1968) is self-evident to all: the progressive and real “seamless garment” of contraception, then free sex and cohabitation, then pornography, then the abortion industry, then euthanasia, then LGBTQ tribalism, and then gender theory/transgender mutilation… Roundtable “synodality,” “Fiducia Supplicans,” and now an Ecclesial Assembly in 2028—“walking together” with Paul VI’s “Credo” plus “Humanae Vitae,” and “Evangelization in the Modern World”?
Don’t you accept the Council as valid? If not, bye-bye my friend.
Don’t you accept everything from AD33 to 1962 as valid? If not, you can accept the council…
Quite simply, Christ is believed to have said to what has become the Office of the Pope, ” what you bind on earth will be bound in heaven”. The Christ also made it clear that those who refuse to accept the authority of the Church refuse Him and the One who sent Him. The Teaching Office may be questioned and debated, but not refused without endangering your soul.
As far as this article goes, I believe this answer can be found in the dialog between Christ and the Samaritan woman at the well. However, without the teaching of the Church we would never know this. So, in a since we can say there is no salvation out side of the Catholic Church, for the knowledge of salvation was brought to the world by the Catholic Church. Outside of this the Holy Sprit works in mysterious ways.
Chapp’s conclusion: can liberal fudge prevent the V2 Freemasonic Wine from bursting the Venerable Catholic wineskin?
The martyrs did not die defending liberal fudge. The Liberal Fudge of New World Order – everyone goes to the happy place anyway – is simply Apostasy. And there is no way around it.
Aquinas’ Summa (III, Q. 68) explained the baptism of desire. Its implications were developed long before Vatican II to include those of good will who were unable to know, or understand the necessity of the Church. This understanding of the matter did not reduce missionary effort at all, because it’s obvious that, without the aid of the sacraments and the doctrines of the Church, it is much harder to live and die well. The most well-intentioned people in Aztec and Confucian society sanctioned ages of human sacrifice and infanticide respectively. The clincher for missionary effort is that the Church is willed by God as the means by which He wishes to be worshiped; if people have the opportunity to understand that (we live in an age of information), yet remain outside the Church, they are not in a good position and need all the help they can get. These issues remain unchanged by that completely different matter of how many will get to heaven or not; apart from a few canonisations, the living can only speculate. De Lubac and von Balthasar’s mushy, inconclusive opinions muddy the waters in a time when people require the clarity and charity of the missionary Church of all time. The Church will sort this out in the near future; it’s been distracted for a couple of generations.
Right on Miguel you summed it up simply, maybe if the professor reads your response he might recognize simplicity.
Chet thanks for recognizing that it’s easy to miss Chapp’s point.
Aristotle’s golden mean cuts through theological mush. Balthasar’s hope for small or large numbers of who is saved and who is damned is like hoping one’s guess of the Final Judgment day hits the jackpot. No one knows the date and no one knows the number. Yet some will continue to stand in the lottery line.
I think we are missing the crux of Chapp’s point here. The reference to Genesis 18:32 is the tell. I believe Chapp is trying to address the question “If all are saved, why bother being Catholic?” and the inverse “If none are saved why bother being Catholic?” The former leading to unreasonable optimism and the latter leading to unreasonable despair. God responds to Abraham “For the sake of 10 (righteous), I will not destroy it (the city). This verse, I believe when applied correctly to the lives of the faithful, will provide the strength and perseverance to remain walking in the Path. Jesus calls us to love, the ultimate sacrifice. What more can you do to love than to lay down your life for your friends? Why would we heap coals on the heads of our enemies? This is what the Lord asks us to do. Not sacrifice your faith, not to give up an ounce of conviction, to worship God as he wants to be worshiped because maybe he meant what he said in Genesis 18:32. If our Catholic Corporate worship of our Triune God may result in other lives being spared (Genesis 18:32) then what more motivation do we need? I think sometimes we forget that our faith isn’t about what we do for ourselves and reaching some sort of internal peace. It’s what we do for our Lord and persevering in that aim until our last breath.
Thank you. That is exactly my point. Although I think the last paragraphs were not written well insofar as it did not make this clear. This is an important point. It does not answer all the questions raised by the topic, but as Pope Benedict notes, it points us in the right direction.
As someone said:
“Why complain about it
When you can pray about it?”
https://wherepeteris.com/can-prayer-empty-hell/
IS THERE TRULY NO GOING BACK? WHO SAYS?
Professor Larry Chapp says in this article:
“But IS a more expansive view of salvation an ‘evolution” or A REVERSAL of established doctrine? Benedict does not say. REGARDLESS of which it is, I think Benedict’s reserve here is related to the fact that the changes to the doctrine in question have been proposed by the highest levels of the Magisterium, both in an ecumenical council and in papal documents such as Bendict’s own encyclical, Spe Salvi (cf. sections 46-48). Therefore, WE DO NOT HAVE the luxury of dismissing such developments of doctrine as heretical distortions of the tradition, since the clear direction of the Magisterium for the past 65 OR SO YEARS is toward a more expansive view of salvation.”
Please notice what Prof. Chapp is saying here:
Regarding the new Vatican II-era liberal consensus view of “No Salvation Outside of the Church” (as held in common by Francis, Benedict XVI, JPII, Paul VI, and as expressed by Balthasar, de Lubac, the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church), Prof. Chapp seems to be saying:
EVEN IF THIS NEW UNDERSTANDING IS A REVERSAL of the Church’s prior almost 2,000 years of understanding and implementation of “No Salvation Outside of the Church,” we, the Church, are nevertheless STUCK with the new view. He’s declaring that there’s NO GOING BACK.
I ask:
Why is there no going back? Is it because we must regard Vatican II as constituting “super-dogma”? But Cardinal Ratzinger in 1988 specifically said that Vatican II did not teach “super-dogma.”
WHO SAID there’s no going back?
Doesn’t the weight of almost 2,000 years of consistent doctrinal history have more substance and authority than a mere 65 years of doctrinal novelty–years, by the way, that that be rife and plagued with decline, instability, chaos, rebellion, fear, anxiety, decadence, wreck and ruin?
When Arianism took over practically every parish and diocese in the Church, and many bishops issued documents favoring the Arian heresy, did that mean that there was no going back?
Is there really a definitive doctrine of the Church that says that there can never be an un-development of doctrine?
In fact, wasn’t (and isn’t) the whole Nouvelle théologie/ressourcement movement in the Church a movement pushing for the un-development of doctrine by skipping over centuries of magisterial doctrinal development and going back to the earliest sources, namely the Scripture and the Church Fathers, and with those earlier sources, carrying out a “do-over” of doctrinal development? At its essence, doesn’t such a “do-over” constitute an un-development of magisterial doctrine?
If Professor Chapp knows of some binding authority to show to us, that says that Church doctrine can NEVER reject recent magisterial developments and can never return to an earlier, long-held formulation of doctrine that rejects those recent magisterial developments, would he please educate us about that?
I humbly propose:
1. Nothing is accomplished in simply declaring that the more recent doctrinal statements must always overrule more ancient and traditional doctrinal statements.
2. I think it is by no means obvious or self-evident in the long tradition of Catholic theology that the more recent doctrinal statements must always overrule the older doctrinal statements, when the two cannot with integrity be reconciled.
A most profound rebuttal of Dr. Chapp’s proposals, you who confess to Almighty God. Thank you.
Adding to your insights, consider the sapient words of Mr. C.S. Lewis who writes in “Mere Christianity”:
“First, as to putting the clock back. Would you think I was joking if I said that you can put a clock back, and that if the clock is wrong it is often a very sensible thing to do? But I would rather get away from that whole idea of clocks. We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.”
And now let’s add the profound words of Mr. G.K. Chesterton from his “Orthodoxy”:
“Tradition may be defined as an extension of the franchise. Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death.”
How much more do Mr. Chesterton’s words pertain to Sacred Tradition?
I submit that any faithful Catholic who promotes Vatican II and post Vatican II as a virtually infallible corrective to what they believe has gone wrong with some aspects of Sacred Tradition prior to Vatican II do not fully respect or understand all of Sacred Tradition and the actual role of Vatican II as a Part of that tradition. As you rightly conclude, CDO: “it is by no means obvious or self-evident in the long tradition of Catholic theology that the more recent doctrinal statements must always overrule the older doctrinal statements, when the two cannot with integrity be reconciled.”
One more consideration that is also simpatico with what you have written is the fact that many things of Vatican II and so-called post Vatican II developments are at the very least debatable in terms of what constitute a legitimate development of doctrine or a degradation of doctrine.
Well said. “Democracy of the death” a great phrase.
Great comment CDO. You nailed it.
Thank you, Mel and Confiteor.
To put the unresolved theological question in some numerical perspective, I am completing a work on the global statistics of the population of the Catholic Church and the theological interpretation thereof. My motivation was three numbers: in 2020, the % Catholic population relative to the World population was about 17%, in 1970, 50 yrs earlier, it was about 18%, in 1900 it was about 16%. My projection based gives no more than about 20% to yr 2100. The Church has steadied at a 200 yr Witness “maximum” with about 80% of the globe outside the Church.
Love you Dr. Chapp but on this one will have to disagree somewhat….as noted the earlier church was very clear on what it took for salvation and after v2 it started to change…I believe it was caused by the understanding that was taking shape regarding our separated brethren, other Christian disciplines and not non Christian religions…they were discussed separately and that conclusion was God would judge their hearts and what their knowledge was regarding Christian truth….the baptism of desire I believe talked about converts to the faith who for some reason could not get baptized expeditiously but wanted to ( death bed experiences etc.)….Matthew the 7th chapter vs 14 and 21, Jesus tells us broad the gate and many go thru it and narrow the gate were few do…He adds many will come to him but says depart from me I never knew you…you evil doers…we need to be careful on the path of universalism lest we allow many souls to perish…..
Where did I say I was on the path to universalism? Did I not instead indicate that universalism is a path that is not open to us?
Nevertheless, I think there can be no return to the idea that the vast majority of human beings are to be damned. This would make damnation, not salvation, the most basic reality in the economy of salvation, with salvation being the exception (Chapp).
A basic approach driven by sentiment rather than revealed truth. As much as I appreciate Larry Chapp’s importance to the faith, here I find him hopeful, not a bad thing though overlapping into baseless exuberance. An example, “It is important to mankind that there is truth in it, this is believed and practiced. That one suffers for it. That one loves” (de Lubac). Citing Benedict’s muse that we must rethink the whole thing is musing.
What might the skeptic’s response be if not the crucifixion. Convince Jesus impaled to the wood for hours that his efforts are quite heroic although rather exaggerated because as de Lubac will point out in the future that, “10 righteous would have been sufficient to save a city [never mind Chorazin, Bethsaida, Capernaum], but that it destroys itself if such a small number is not reached”. This must mean, Lord, that the remainder will be saved. Is that not so? Don’t be so serious. The agony in the Garden, scouring at the pillar, such a pity. Mankind is quite capable of setting things right. Just look forward to 2025.
Your remarks indicate that you think de Lubac is proposing that our intercessory sufferings are a substitute for Christ’s sufferings, as if the former renders the latter superfluous. But this only shows that you don’t have the faintest concept of what de Lubac is really saying. Our sufferings are only rendered efficacious because they participate in Christ’s salvific sufferings. But your sarcasm gets the better of you and your need to debunk de Lubac even at the expense of actually getting him right is clearly evident.
And the theological view that salvation is the preeminent New Testament category is hardly a mere “sentiment” devoid of a real grounding in Revelation. What a telling remark! Are you implying that damnation is the preeminent category?
It’s not that it isn’t important to “mankind, that there is truth in it, this is believed and practiced”. It’s whether intercessory sufferings are sufficiently practiced by the faithful to have significant effect.
Let’s recall that Chorazin, Bethsaida, Capernaum were condemned although there were Christian communities within them. The early Church was centered in Jerusalem. My disagreement is not in your good will to hope for the salvation of a majority. That’s also my hope, which is where I agree with de Lubac. My disagreement is with your sentimental aggrandizing of that possibility seen in the example of Sodom and Gomorrah that “ten righteous” would have saved the city. As if saving the city would have meant salvation for the remainder.
This was allegory. Not to be assumed a gauge for future events.
Look at the world around us and convince anyone with intelligence that those of us, including you and I, who pray for its salvation are realistically sufficient to effect the salvation of a majority of the world’s populace. The example of Christ’s extreme suffering is not intended, as you interpret, to criticize intercessory prayer as an alleged substitute. It is intended to emphasize the severity of Mankind’s need for intercession.
For clarification, where it cites de Lubac in my first comment dated March 25 it is Benedict commenting on de Lubac.
Three comments:
FIRST, in the Old Testament there are four numbers that indicate completion or perfection: 3, 7, 10 and 12. So, is the current debate of numbers of those save, or not, invited rather than foreclosed by the finding of “ten” righteous in Nineveh?
SECOND, in part of his book length analysis on the development of doctrine, author Thomas G. Guarino offers this:
“Catholic theology has never considered ALL Christian doctrine, even positions that have been taught over a considerable period of time, to be irreformable. Earlier authentic teaching can legitimately be called into question. However, such reversals must be clearly distinguished from the annulment of fundamental dogmatic landmarks. Both the conciliar minority and the majority understood the legitimacy of homogeneous doctrinal progress over time. The entire history of the church witnesses to such growth. But the majority (and Paul VI) were willing, on occasion, to reverse antecedent magisterial teaching—ESPECIALLY IF this allowed the church to recover an earlier tradition that had become obscured over time” (“The Disputed Teachings of Vatican II: Continuity and Reversal in Catholic Doctrine,” Eerdmans, 2018, p. 193, CAPS added).
THIRD, about human freedom the overall fallacy of Rahner’s theo-ideology, Ratzinger/Benedict saw Rahner’s self-realization as a too-much exaggerated kind of freedom and transcendence, an action “appropriate to the absolute Spirit—to God—but not to man” [….]
Some fragments:
“Rahner…says that ‘salvation history is coexistent with the totality of human history [….] For Rahner, man is, in fact, self-transcendent being; hence the God-man can be deduced as the true Savior of mankind in terms of man’s own being: the Incarnation of God is the highest instance of the ontological fulfillment of human reality, the successful, perfect instance of transcendence [….] Ultimately, then, a synthesis that combines being and history [!] in a single, compelling logic of the understanding becomes, by the universality of its claim, a philosophy of necessity, even though this necessity is then explained as a process of freedom [….]
“[….] This means, in turn, that man does not find salvation in a reflective finding of himself but in the being-taken-out-of-himself that goes beyond reflection—not in continuing to be himself, but in going out from himself”[….] Such a philosophy of freedom and love is, at the same time, a philosophy of CONVERSION, of going out from oneself, of transformation [….which] has its foundation in the mystery of God, which is freedom and which, therefore, calls each individual by name that is known to no other” (“Faith and History,” in Principles of Catholic Theology, Ignatius, 1987, CAPS added).
Well said. Nailed it. And Guarino’s book is a must read.
Yes, and now returning to the mystery of sacramental Baptism in Christ:
What is it, exactly, about the mystery of human free will and then “sin” that renders so mysteriously “necessary” (not in the deterministic sense) the mysteriously free Self-donation of God [!] at Calvary?
With regard to the wide and narrow gate, and how many are “many” and how few are “few” – and whether there is anyone in hell – we are not required to believe private revelations, but Fatima is very much recognized and the three children said they were given a vision of hell and the humans there were distinguishable from the fallen angels.
I found a hopeful thought from a Jesuit writer years ago who said that he believed that in the end satan’s kingdom would not be larger than God’s kingdom.
Dr. Chapp the excellent spin-meister has referenced an interview between Pope Benedict XVI and Fr. Jacques Servais, SJ, that took place in October 2015 and published March 17, 2016 (https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/33591/full-text-of-benedict-xvis-recent-rare-and-lengthy-interview). Below are some quotations of Pope Benedict in the interview that are not specifically featured in Dr. Chapp’s article, followed by a very brief parenthetical statement on each one that helps to add some more important points that should also be considered.
“The Church must introduce the individual Christian into an encounter with Jesus Christ and bring Christians into His presence in the sacrament.”
(Pope Benedict speaking about the absolute obligation of the Church regarding the necessity of Baptism for Christians).
“Lately several attempts have been formulated in order to reconcile the universal necessity of the Christian faith with the opportunity to save oneself without it.”
(Pope Benedict emphasizes the universal necessity of the Church, and how some seek to include some exceptions while still maintaining the necessity.)
“Even less acceptable is the solution proposed by the pluralistic theories of religion, for which all religions, each in their own way, would be ways of salvation and in this sense, in their effects must be considered equivalent.”
(Pope Benedict rejects the notion that all religions are ways of salvation. This is directly opposite Pope Francis’ and his fellow travelers’ false expansionist views regarding other religions.)
“Even if the individual is responsible for a fragment of evil, and therefore is an accomplice of evil’s power, together with Christ he can nevertheless ‘complete what is lacking in his sufferings’ (cfr. Colossians 1, 24). The sacrament of penance certainly has an important role in this field. It means that we always allow ourselves to be molded and transformed by Christ and that we pass continuously from the side of him who destroys to the side of Him who saves.”
(Pope Benedict emphasizes the importance of the Sacrament of Penance. Of course, this sacrament is only available in the Catholic and Orthodox churches.)
~~~~
A few general observations: In other articles, Dr. Chapp has stated that Pope Benedict XVI was an admirer of Hans urs von Balthasar, and he does this to give the impression or suggest that Pope Benedict XVI also approved of von Balthasar’s problematic ideas on salvation. I don’t believe there is any evidence for this, and in the cited interview with Servais a grand opportunity to mention von Balthasar’s approach is not taken by Benedict. Perhaps Benedict found favor with von Balthasar’s approach and perhaps he did not, but unless Dr. Chapp can provide definitive evidence of Pope Benedict unequivocally supporting von Balthasar’s views on salvation the way Dr. Chapp presents and promotes them, he should honestly cease making the disingenuous reference to Pope Benedict’s admiration for von Balthasar as if he does support his views on salvation.
Yes.
Good grief. Ratzinger and Balthasar were close friends and collaborated with de Lubac and a few others to found the journal Communio together. Ratzinger did not completely share Balthasar’s theology of Holy Saturday. But he certainly believed, since he was a Catholic, that we should hope for the salvation of all.
Furthermore, all of your quotes from the interview seem premised on the idea that I am somehow denying the necessity of baptism and therefore “hiding” what Benedict says. But I linked to the whole interview which would be a strange thing to do if I am trying to hide something. And if you think my article was about denying the necessity of baptism then you clearly did not understand it.
Very, very sad.
Starting with the dismissive “Good grief” to set the stage for your follow-up disingenuous comments does not impart any value to your failed rebuttal of my comments, and your “rebuttal” is based on jumping to false conclusions that I am now pleased to disabuse you of having so that the truth shines through for all of us.
It doesn’t matter if Cardinal Ratzinger was even von Balthasar’s greatest friend. This is totally meaningless. And your statement about Holy Saturday is simply a dodge. The fact of the matter is not as you spin it, but that Cardinal Ratzinger did not share von Balthasar’s problematic views on salvation….period, and you cannot admit this so you make a weaselly declaration that “Ratzinger did not completely share Balthasar’s theology of Holy Saturday.” So disingenuous as is your next statement about wishing for the salvation for all. This is also not the issue. As I and others like the good Fr. Morello (who you also decided to insult in a would-be rebuttal to some of his comments) have pointed out, it is indeed a good thing to wish or hope for the salvation of all while faithfully and wisely recognizing that not all will be saved.
My quotations from the interview, as I pointed out, were to include those things not emphasized in your article as also in need of being considered. Since you emphasized what you wanted to emphasize, I emphasized certain things you chose not to emphasize, and which are also important for a more complete picture. Your referencing the entire interview does not impact what you chose to emphasize and what you chose not to emphasize in your article. You have jumped to another false conclusion since I do not suggest or imply you were hiding something; only that you chose to emphasize some things and not others.
Lastly, you jumped to another false conclusion by suggesting I implied that you denied the need for baptism. Since you clearly did not understand my point, note that it focuses on what Pope Benedict stated about the obligation of the Church to evangelize on the need for baptism; not simply the necessity of baptism itself as a separate issue. And when the Church so engages, the baptism it must promote is baptism in the Church for a greater union with Christ (even though it recognizes other legitimate baptisms outside our Lord’s Church) that can only be found in the Catholic Church.
LR, Chapp reports on Servais’ summary of Benedict’s interview. A court of law would classify both Chapp’s and Servais’ words as hearsay.
Benedict was 89 at the time of the interview in 2016. What did Benedict consider to be ‘a profound evolution of dogma’? Was it theologians tending to theodicy (to blame God for injustice and evil)? Was it a response to Servais’ suggestion to revise the Catechism? What exactly was ‘the point’? Benedict’s quote is reported: “There is no doubt that on this point we are faced with a profound evolution of dogma.”
TJ White’s essay in “Ressourcement Thomism” (Eds. Hutter & Levering) quotes LeGuillou’s “Christ and Church: A Theology of the Mystery.” (1966):
“Theology is today passing through a serious crisis which has raised doubts concerning its very purpose…To resolve this crisis, which has to do with the very notion of truth itself, there can be but one solution: to give back to theology an understanding of the Mystery of Christ, in the eschatological call to the beatific vision…By this we mean a revelation and a contemplation of the Mystery of God Himself, the supra-historical element without which sacred history would not be, and would never be truly known….It is thus HISTORY ITSELF which, IN THE MYSTERY OF CHRIST, CALLS FOR A PERSPECTIVE OF WISDOM.”
I cannot help but wonder that Benedict intended his final call for confession directly to theologians such as Servais and others who have gone lost or missing.
Benedict is quoted as having said: “There is no doubt that on this point we are faced with a profound evolution of dogma.”
If everyone is saved, why bother with Catholicism (or anything else?) and if hardly anyone is saved, what kind of God would damn everyone and what reason could I have to be Catholic except terror of Him?
When St John Fisher and St Thomas More arrived simultaneously by separate barges at the Tower of London and were led up together to the gate, turning St. John said, “Sir Thomas, this is a very narrow gate. We surely must be in the right way.” He was alluding to Mt. 7: 13-14, a passage notably absent from all the above discussion, but surely top of mind to men on the verge of eternity.
“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the way that leads to life, and only a few find it.”
Tellingly, our Lord immediately follows this up with “Beware of false prophets.”
But this is the risk you run, Larry when you preface your article by saying, “The idea that the vast majority of human beings are to be damned is, I think, just as problematic as the now popular notion that everyone will be saved. Where does that leave us?” It leaves me amazed that you, theologian par excellence, have a controversy with Jesus Christ on such a basic issue.
The massa damnata are all about us and it is no time to have our tongues wrestled into silence by the theology du jour. Lust, to take one example, is a deadly sin, but the country is saturated with pornography. Per GROK, “A 2022 survey by YouGov indicated that 60% of U.S. adults have a ‘habit’ of watching pornography.” Other vices and their adherents are not few. Homosexuality spreads over the land like poison gas and whoredom among our teenagers.
In view of this, in Lent the Church urgently quotes Is 58:1. “Cry out full throated and unsparingly. Tell my people their wickedness and the house of Jacob their sins.”
If people die in their sins, and most people die as they have lived, how would it be merciful of God to ruin Heaven by admitting people eternally fixed in their choice to despise Him and His will? Unrepentant murderers, thieves, sodomites, adulterers in Heaven? Impossible! What could be more uncharitable than to hold out hope of Heaven to the unrepentant? No, far more kind to provoke repentance by saying that for your sin there will be hell to pay. Such is the kindness of the great evangelists such as Vincent Ferrer, Francis Xavier, and yes, Billy Graham, who did not quibble with Scripture but proclaimed it.
What degree of magisterial authority and/or theological certainty does the opinion of a resigned, elderly pope emeritus command? Anyone??
Further, the pope emeritus is no longer alive to clarify or to verify that this published interview accurately represents his views and words.
Considering the above ‘points,’ the entire interview is best classed rightly as you, Lee, suggest: “theology du jour.” Tomorrow, something equally new and improved may captivate some/many/all of little faith, much presumption, and great pride.
Salvation is our goal and hope, as it is for Chapp and for many. As to quantity it depends on quality of a Christian life lived within the sacraments. That we can say with moral certitude. The rest is speculation insofar as numbers. Nevertheless, if Christ’s words and the extremity of his actions speak to the truth, we may hold with reasonable assurance that the pathway to salvation is not taken seriously by the multitudes. Yes, there is salvation outside the Church. Within narrow limits if we comprehend the Gospels, the Apostle Paul’s zeal and fervid love for souls.
An indication is missionary effort. When missionary zeal dies so does the faith. Reason is that people no longer believe it’s necessary to live the faith as was traditionally held by Catholicism. The idea of living a life of charity beyond oneself is exciting. We instead have turned inwardly sensually and are bored. Jaded. The tragedy in this is that many Catholics have turned to Evangelism simply because they have zeal, while Catholicism has become intellectually compromised and flabby. The fire requires ignition.
The state of sanctifying grace can be achieved prior to reception of the sacrament of baptism–through the desire for it (see Council of Trent). Moreover, acc. to St. Thomas, the first fully responsible act of a man either (a) places that man in the state of grace (not without the influx of God, of course)–if that act aims at the moral good (the true good, the good as right), or (b) places him in a state of personal mortal sin.
Sanctifying Grace is the very created soul of the church, and the church is a mystical person, the bride of Christ. She has a body and soul. That is, she has a visible aspect and an invisible one. Hence, anyone in the state of grace is truly inside the church of christ, at least as in her soul.
Correct Chris. My argument is not, and never was in denial of salvation outside the Church, rather that salvation within the Church and a sacramental life is far more conducive to salvation.
Yes, Fr. Peter, outside the *body* *of the church*, one lacks access to all the sacraments and the perfect doctrine which more easily moves one to salvation. As Pius XII says, people united to the body of the church merely by a half-conscious desire are insecure as to their salvation. Such people should move themselves to become actual members of the church of christ.
If that half-conscious desire, however, arises from and is accompanied by sanctifying grace, such persons are truly inside the church–that is, inside her soul–even if they are not actual conscious members of the church.
Have a great remainder of Lent and a Glorious Easter, Father, and thanks for your excellent contributions to this discussion.
Thanks Chris. What concerns me here is a well intended misconception. Certainly, the Church was created by Christ for the salvation of all, inclusive of those manifestly outside the Body. However, as a salvific category, we are mistaken if we attach a form of Teilhardian inevitability that by nature disregards the freedom of the individual to decide and make the effort for his salvation.
What such a believed predisposition encourages is laxity rather than effort. Indication of that is a dearth of missionary activity both by clergy and laity. There’s much talk about missionary effort by Laity although that effort has been largely confined to parish Synodal talk sessions.
I think it was Archbishop Sheen who said that what sets Christianity apart from other faiths is that no one else has ever made the unimaginable claim to be the Son of the LIVING God before Jesus the Christ.
What if our emphasis in evangelizing became truly sharing the good news of the gospel in illuminating and imagining the reality of heaven… the eternal exchange of love within the living eternal Holy Trinity now and in eternity than on the reality of hell?
In my opinion and experience, Catholic religious formation gave a lot of imaginative descriptive attention to the fires of hell and did not foster the same imaginative and joyful attention to the joys of heaven.
Yet another hopelessly convoluted attempt by the Communio School to “square the circle.” As a “rad trad” I honestly find refreshing the progresses who are at least straight forward enough to spare us these ridiculous mental gymnastics.
Actually the entire article was about how we have so far been unable to square the circle. I think that should matter.
A question: do you think the vast majority of human beings are going to be damned? This is the question I have for all of you self-identified rad trads. You speak of mental gymnastics? Ok then, let’s cut to the chase. If it is supremely difficult for all non Catholics to be saved then does that not mean that most non Catholics will be damned? Speak plainly here so as to avoid all mental gymnastics. Square your circle for me. Are most people going to be damned?
Dr. Chapp,
To answer your question my views essentially agree with what you wrote here: “legitimate magisterial documents from the past, countless statements from various Saints and Doctors of the Church, as well as visions of Hell that were allegedly seen by various seers.”
I think we can also at least agree that Communio played an indispensable role in introducing these novelties. You celebrate that fact, I deplore it. I noticed you also place great faith in what JPII and Benedict XVI wrote. But what were the actual practices at your average parish at the height of their rule in the 80s through 2000s? The ecumencial actions at Asissi speak louder than any turgid enclyical. I saw the decline, corruption and confusion of that era with my own eyes. For you to get on your perch and whitewash this will never sit right with me. This is what I mean by squaring the circle.
Things happened at Assisi that were outside of St. John Paul’s control, but if forced to choose between his interpretation of the event and its meaning and yours, I’ll go with him.
Msc,
Isolated it would have still been bad but we could probably contextualize it as one unfortunate event. But what about the hundreds of other interreligous gestures he undertook like kissing the Koran? Did he not known what he was doing then?
Hey Pseudo,
You may appreciate some backstory. I puzzled over Benedict’s point that an evolution of doctrine had occurred.
NOWHERE in the original interview does Benedict AFFIRM that he AGREED with the theological opinions of Johann Baptist Metz or those teaching similar dogmatic evolution. Benedict does ACKNOWLEDGE such theological opinions as strong and rife since VCII.
Metz’ cofounded the consilium (journal and/or movement). At one point Metz’s name was put forward to teach theology at the University of Munich. As Munich’s bishop at that time, Ratzinger opposed the appointment and Metz went elsewhere.
Metz formulated and/or greatly influenced liberation theology; Ratzinger at CDF wrote at least one Church document, perhaps two, cautioning against its Marxist leanings, among other points.
Rather than AFFIRMING that doctrine had evolved and that the catechism should be revised, Ratzinger is doing nothing more in the interview than acknowledging that these theological currents and waves had now become prevalent in Catholicism.
Fr. Fessio is listed as a member of the Lubac-Balthasar-Speyr Association under the umbrella or in association with CasaBalthasar. Ratzinger apparently suggested the formation of the group and/or the association. Nevertheless, I do not see the truth of the claim that Ratzinger AFFIRMED the theological speculations or opinions that CasaBalthasar affirmed or may still affirm by writers at CWR.
Also for those unable to affirm Balthasarian speculations, one may check the writing of Dr. Joshua Brotherton who offers some paths of reconciliation of Balthasar’s APORIA with traditional views of the hierarchy of grace/nature, God’s will to save and man’s freedom to resist.
http://www.casabalthasar.org/about
“Square your circle for me. Are most people going to be damned?”
Short answer – yes, I’m afraid so. You have no biblical basis for assuming that salvation will be universal, or near so. Broad is the way of destruction, and many there are who find it. At least according to Jesus. Maybe you should take your cues from the gospels.
Dr. Chapp,
Apart from any pluralism of religions as such, or the problematic over-evolution of doctrine within the Church, what is the bearing on a multitude of individual Gentile souls, in the unmentioned scriptural line from St. Paul—Romans 2:14? Damned, or not?
Damned or not? I do not know. Only God knows. But St. Paul seems to be arguing here for their salvation IF they do indeed live up to the law they have discovered written in their hearts. Paul seems to be articulating some early version of a natural law argument.
Yes, surely, personal conformity to the universal and inborn natural law, and in some/many (?) individual Gentile cases unaided and untransformed by sacramental Baptism.
But not merely “some early version of a natural law argument,” rather the permanently real is-ness of the inborn natural law, as distinct from later or secondary schools of thought about the is-ness of the inborn natural law. That is, the fact of individuated creation—within the natural law as part of the divine law (Aquinas?). What it means to be created “in the image and likeness of God”.
Human nature never part of the divine nature, surely, but gratuitously participating in the divine nature. God works through his Church and his gifted sacraments, surely, but about salvation for those few/many (?) of St. Paul’s Gentiles who really are upward-reaching by the not-so-obscure natural law: the infinite God need not be finitely limited to the sacraments. Yes?
The underlying question here is whether there can be a “profound evolution of dogma” such that said dogma no longer has the same meaning, without causing the whole thing to collapse on itself. One might argue that it this can happen, then the Church has falsified herself and thus lost all credibility. In the Catholic faith, a dogma is In Catholic theology, a dogma is a truth of faith that is divinely revealed and infallibly defined by the Church as such, meaning it is a binding truth for all Catholics to believe. How can such a thing “evolve” so “profoundly” as to mean essentially the opposite of what it once meant? Given this, my view is that the best we can say is that the Catholic Church provides the only sure and certain path to salvation, and that we entrust everyone outside her formal bounds to God’s loving hands.
“BXVI”,
The real Benedict XVI agrees, but not in all cases—which he differentiates…
As for the different levels of “infallibility” (definitively revealed, or definitively proposed, or religious submission of the intellect)—essential reading is “Ad Tuendam Fidem” (“To Protect the Faith: by Which Certain Norms Are Inserted into the Code of Canon Law and into the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches”) https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/motu_proprio/documents/hf_jp-ii_motu-proprio_30061998_ad-tuendam-fidem.html
Especially recommended, then, are sections 5 thru 9 of Ratzinger’s “Commentary on the Concluding Formula of the Professio Fide”(published by Pauline Books and Media, Boston June 29, 1998), written by Ratzinger/Benedict–his commentary on the (above linked) Apostolic Letter Motu Proprio of Pope John Paul II.
The commentary, where we read:
“As examples of DOCTRINES BELONGING TO THE THIRD PARAGRAPH [italics: neither definitively revealed, nor definitively proposed, but rather religious submission of the intellect] one can point in general to teachings set forth by the authentic ordinary Magisterium in a non-definitive way, which require degrees of adherence differentiated according to the mind and the will manifested, this is shown especially by the nature of the documents, by the frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or by the tenor of the verbal expression [citations to Lumen Gentium, n. 25; and the earlier Donum Veritatis, nn. 17,23,24] [….]
“With regard to those truths connected to revelation by historical necessity and which are to be held definitively, but are not able to be declared as divinely revealed [!], the following can be given: the legitimacy of the election of the Supreme Pontiff or of the celebration of an ecumenical council, the canonizations of saints (dogmatic facts), the declaration of Pope Leo XIII in the Apostolic Letter “Apostolica Curae on the invalidity of Anglican ordinations….”
QUESTION: In making the above differentiation, has “the Church lost all credibility”?
The irreducible difference between divine revelation and cerebral theology, a difference very much at risk if the Successors of the Apostles, as guardians of the Deposit of Faith, submit to procedural synodality apparently orchestrated by clericalist theologians, and then to a substitutional (?) Ecclesial Assembly in 2028.
But, who am I to judge?
I am very familiar with the referenced documents.
No doubt, non-definitive doctrine can evolve much more profoundly than definitive doctrines (aka dogmas) and in rare cases could potentially even be revoked. I do not believe the Church loses all credibility if and when she prudently develops or even amends non-definitive doctrines because they are not said to have been revealed by God. Ratzinger identifies these doctrines as those referenced in par. 3 of the Professio Fidei (which you reference above).
However, there is grave danger of losing all credibility when the Church reverses herself on dogmas that are a) said to have been divinely revealed and are thus infallible; and which b) the faithful are bound to accept with “the irrevocable obedience of faith.” As Ratzinger point out, these dogmas fall under par. 1 of the Professio Fidei. Note how he states that they are “irreformable”:
“5. The first paragraph states: “With firm faith, I also believe everything contained in the word of God, whether written or handed down in tradition, which the Church, either by solemn judgment or by the ordinary and universal Magisterium, sets forth to be believed as divinely revealed”. The object taught in this paragraph is constituted by all those doctrines of divine and catholic faith which the Church proposes as divinely and formally revealed and, as such, as irreformable.
These doctrines are contained in the word of God, written or handed down, and defined with a solemn judgment as divinely revealed truths either by the Roman pontiff when he speaks “ex cathedra” or by the college of bishops gathered in council, or infallibly proposed for belief by the ordinary and universal Magisterium.
These doctrines require the assent of theological faith by all members of the faithful. Thus, whoever obstinately places them in doubt or denies them falls under the censure of heresy, as indicated by the respective canons of the codes of canon law.”
The Commentary–about which you announce that you are “very familiar”–actually lists (see below) the “irreformable” dogmas which you defend but do not identify.
Which of these is/are currently reversed or denied?
Sharing your sensitivities, but not your views, my contention is that clerics in high places are intent, instead, on restating these dogmas of faith while at the same time carving out exemptions in practice to objective morality, a strategy (or even a synodal “style”?) of just going with the flow while destroying the Church, but at the same time evading formal heresy.
Ratzinger: “To the truths of the first paragraph belong the article of faith of the Creed, the vrious Christological dogmas and the Marian dogmas; the doctrine of the institution of the sacraments by Christ and their efficacy with regard to grace; the doctrine of the real and substantial presence of Christ in the Eucharist and the sacrificial nature of the Eucharistic celebration; the foundation of the Church by the will of Christ; the doctrine on the primacy and infallibility of the Roman Pontiff; the doctrine on the existence of original sin; the doctrine on the immortality of the spiritual soul and on the immediate recompense after death; the absence of error in the inspired sacred texts; the doctrine on the grave immorality of direct and voluntary killing of an innocent human being” (“Commentary on the Concluding Formula of the ‘Professio Fidei,” n. 11).
St. John Paul II got in front of this subterfuge (retained dogma, but with pastoral moral exemptions in practice) by publishing the Catechism, and then “Veritatis Splendor” which explicitly elevates the ever-present natural law and moral absolutes into the ordinary Magisterium (like Humanae Vitae)—and of which he also teaches (!): “The Church is no way the author or the arbiter of this [‘moral’] norm” (Veritatis Splendor, n. 95).
The point raised in the “dubia” (re Amoris Laetitia) and met not with denial, but with silence. And then met with the artful signaling (but, again, short of formal heresy) wording of the clericalist and synodalistic “Fiducia Supplicans.” The end game?
God IS and God is Love. The first and greatest COMMANDMENT, not suggestion, is to love God with all our heart, mind and strength (to return that love), and the second greatest commandment flows out of doing the first, to then selflessly love others. The only power we have capable of apprehending God is love, reason falls short as it cannot contain the infinite. The Church proclaims this truth in our purpose being to know-love/love-know and serve God, and the Christ/God-became-man happened as the vast majority were incapable this without aid, and so we were blessed with a demonstration of God’s perfect love and the means and way of returning it, and the Church and sacraments to teach and foster this love, so that we might be united to God in this love here and the here-after.
The Church has forgotten the vast store of spiritual riches it contains and has become dependent upon ritual and law as ends in themselves, something the Christ denounced in strongest terms, “this people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me”, and flocks wander away from shepherds who cannot show the way to experience and know God.
As for who can, might or will be saved, if someone habitually broke all ten commandments, their salvation might be thought as in doubt. The Christ (and others before Him, and after Him) proclaimed the ten were contained in the two, and although it doubtful any human has ever perfectly practiced the two, some have come close (while proclaiming they were the worst as they could see how short they fell)….
but who even honestly tries? It would appear a minority inside the Church, and an even smaller minority outside the Church even try to follow these commandments, those outside groping only through natural impulse to seek the light, while clearly being within the Church there is a far better chance of doing as God desires. But to think anyone will be united in love for all eternity to a Love utterly ignored or only given scantest attention and lip service, seems a vast presumption. Damnation is separation from God for all eternity, and if that is all we practice in this life by our own free will, they choice is ours…
but, I repeat myself, I repeat myself…
http://www.mysticprayer.blogspot.com
I like this comment. It seems like a wise and charitable expression of the perennial doctrine of the Church.
Isn’t it a shame and a tragedy that, ever since the VII Council, so many really smart people have to spend so much time and energy trying to convince their fellow Catholics, and maybe try to convince themselves as well, as to what the true teachings of the Church and of God are on various core dogmatic subjects?
Just think all the fruit-bearing, holy activities that all this passion could be better spent on instead!
To quote a book title from a famous/infamous prelate, “J’accuse le Concile!”
Please Omnipotens Deus, please fratres, will this fractious, boiling instability ever end?
Will it just be Dubium, Dubium, Dubium, Dubium, Dubium…from now on until the end of time? Is this 70 years of chaos the new “healthy” or the new “as good as it gets” norm in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church?
The traditional popes would have never let such dire confusion and distress reign for so long in the flock under their care.
It’s like watching Larry Chapp jump around on a Texas two-step dance floor. I have to say, though, it’s about time we get an article that isn’t a very bitter and unpleasant onslaught of bellyaching about Synodality and Pope Francis. And the comments, for the most part, only corroborate what I’ve been saying about the kinds of people reading this journal–unless it is a very unrepresentative sample, which is quite possible.
Larry Chapp was very restrained in this article. I think a stronger universalism is warranted, but beggars can’t be choosers.
Larry writes: “Absent that, one would have to posit that this is just a straight-up reversal of previous teaching, which would itself call for an entirely new hermeneutical understanding of what we mean when we speak of the Church’s indefectibility. Not an easy task, to say the least.”
I’m not sure how indefectibility becomes problematic here, but a new understanding of infallibility is certainly in order. How that charism works is very difficult to nail down, given all the reversals in ordinary church teaching throughout the centuries. I do respect von Balthasar’s work in this area, but in my humble opinion it just does not compare in depth to Sergei Bulgakov, or Jurgen Moltmann, or Thomas Allin (1885), even Andrew Jukes, or Thomas Talbott, or George MacDonald, Robin Perry, or the work of Ilaria Ramelli, etc. It’s just too bad many Catholics do not feel they have the freedom to explore this beautiful issue, which unfortunately causes them a great deal of cognitive dissonance and causes them to move into a hyper-vigilant defensive posture so characteristic of the “us and them” sectarian. But there is no doubt in my mind that the Roman Church is moving in the right direction.
Thomas, trust me when I tell you that you do not want to see me on a dance floor. I am a horrible dancer as my wife can attest. However, you are correct that this article involves certain dance moves since the topic is larded with all kinds of potential pitfalls.
I too like Bulgakov, but I also think he has some serious theological problems — problems Balthasar avoids. Moltmann is just too Hegelian for my tastes. But of all the names you mention I think the work done by Illaria Ramelli is extraordinary. I could not put down her book “A Larger Hope”. So good.
“universalism” leaves you with a god who pulls the wings off flies for fun, but that’s ok, because he puts them back on later, and that physical existence has no point or meaning, that it’s all a sham, we are merely puppets with no choice, no freedom, and nothing to learn. All the pain and sorrow a show put on by divine puppetmaster for his own bizarre self-entertainment where after all the carnage, he puts them back together, a little paint touch-up, and back in the box, safe for all eternity.
Was the Roman Catholic Church moving in the right direction when James Martin spread blasphemous images of the Blessed Virgin Mary and was rewarded by the Bishop of Rome with a job in Vatican Communications?
“BY His incarnation THE SON OF GOD HAS UNITED HIMSELF in some fashion WITH EVERY MAN.”
(Gaudium et Spec # 22, the Pastoral Constitution issued by the Vatican II Council)
The phrase “in some fashion” in the quotation above from “Gaudium et Spes” might at first glance seem like a big qualification, limitation, and clarification. But really I think it is not that, since, in absolutely everything that God does, He does “in some fashion.”
So, I think that the Vatican II passage above can really be shortened to:
“By His incarnation the Son of God has united Himself with every man.”
Pope John Paul II made that line of doctrine one of the main themes of his papacy. He repeated it constantly.
Pope John Paul II wrote this: “We are not dealing with the ‘abstract’ man, but the real, ‘concrete’, ‘historical’ man. We are dealing with ‘each’ man, for each one is included in the mystery of the Redemption and WITH EACH ONE CHRIST HAS UNITED HIMSELF FOREVER through this mystery.” (Redemptor Hominis, #13)
How much clearer can anyone be? Can anyone be united to Christ forever and also be in eternal Hell? Of course not! So, Hell must be empty! Quod erat demonstrandum (Q.E.D.), right?
There are a few Catholic theologians, both Progressive theologians and Traditional theologians, who have openly written about how that one line of unprecedented doctrine upsets the whole “economy of salvation” by practically and pastorally eliminating:
–The necessity of baptism.
–The necessity of faith.
–The necessity of repentance for mortal sins.
–The necessity of the Sacrament of Penance.
–The necessity of Holy Communion with the Real Presence of the Lord in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass
–Any meaningful substance to the doctrine of “No Salvation Outside the Church”
–The whole doctrine of original sin.
I believe that this is one line of doctrine is a doctrinal deviancy, and that this doctrinal deviancy is far, far more irreconcilable with Catholicism than anything that the original Protestant Reformers ever taught.
Thus, since the VII Council, baptism has been reduced to an introductory ritual that simply makes public a person’s commitment to fullness of communion with the Church of Rome.
But that fulness of communion doesn’t save you, since you and everyone else were already irreversibly saved at the Incarnation.
And communion with some other church or religion doesn’t obstruct your salvation, either (except in the extremely rare or possibly completely non-occurring case of a person who is 100% certain that he/she should be in the Church of Rome but for some worldly reason he/she keeps out of it; in matters of religion, very few people are ever 100% sure about anything–maybe none ever are, this is just that nature of faith. Most of us never see a miracle, theophany, or apparition with our own eyes.).
Read various official documents of the VII era, and I think you’ll see verified what I have just described.
Yes, you can find official statements that somewhat dispute this understanding, too, but that’s part of the endless disputations and permanent doctrinal unsettledness and flux of the VII era.
I tried to find statements by Professor Larry Chapp in which he has given his interpretation of the quotation that opens this comment, the quotation being take from the Vatican II document “Gaudium et Spes #22.” Prof. Chapp has a blog titled “Gaudium et Spes 22.” But despite multiple good faith searches on that blog and across the whole Internet via Google, I could not find any commentary by Prof. Chapp on the quotation that opens this comment.
Many of the Vatican II-reformers say that only mentally sick Catholic “fundamentalists” want this unsettledness and flux of the post-Vatican II era to end, and that the mentally healthy Catholics are always open-minded to change and are devoted to being maximally inclusive.
I request corrections. If I am wrong in my understandings herein stated, I plead for fratres to bring me quotes that have the substance to show that I’ve been misled, have misled myself, and am misleading others.
If you think I’ve expressed a valid concern, then we must pray, pray, and pray some more, but never ever lose faith, hope, or charity.
Lastly, I think that there are very, very few people of actual ill-will among those who endorse and promote this seemingly new doctrine that I’ve focused on here.
Most are just doing the Catholic thing and are innocently and trustingly following and handling on what Church authorities in recent decades have handed to them. Very few Catholics read and study official Church documents from the pre-Vatican II era.
But somewhere in this long chain of doctrinal connection and causation stretching back 70 years or so, I do think that there must be or were some men of ill-will, maybe just tiny handful. I don’t see how we got into this big mess just by accident. Do you?
After all, didn’t Pope Saint Paul VI (who signed and gave papal authority to all the documents of Vatican II), write this in 1972, seven after the Council:
“… We would say that, through some mysterious crack—no, it’s not mysterious; through some crack, THE SMOKE OF SATAN HAS ENTERED THE CHURCH of God. There is doubt, uncertainty, problems, unrest, dissatisfaction, confrontation. The Church is no longer trusted. We trust the first pagan prophet we see who speaks to us in some newspaper, and we run behind him and ask him if he has the formula for true life. I repeat, doubt has entered our conscience.”
“BY His incarnation THE SON OF GOD HAS UNITED HIMSELF in some fashion WITH EVERY MAN.”
(Gaudium et Spec # 22, the Pastoral Constitution issued by the Vatican II Council) You argue that the words “in some fashion” can just be omitted. I don’t think so – for example one fashion might be “potentially” and the alternative fashion might be “actually”.
Yes, I think the traditional theology of the Incarnation is that while it consisted of a miraculous and unprecedented union of Divine Nature and Human Nature, this union did not have any effect on human beings in general until the Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross, and also until particular human beings gained access to the benefits won by Christ on the Cross by means of faith, the Sacrament of Baptism, and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass that are made available via the one Church of Christ, which is the Roman Catholic Church and only the Roman Catholic Church.
But this traditional theology of the Incarnation seems to be specifically ruled out by Pope John Paul II, when he wrote this:
“We are not dealing with the ‘abstract’ man, but the real, ‘concrete’, ‘historical’ man. We are dealing with ‘each’ man, for each one is included in the mystery of the Redemption and WITH EACH ONE CHRIST HAS UNITED HIMSELF FOREVER through this mystery.” (Redemptor Hominis, #13)
The title of my blog is based on the following quote from GS22 and not the one you cite:
“The truth is that only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light.” And I do comment on what this means…
This line is quoted at the very top of my blog. As for the quote to which you are referring I think the term “in some fashion” is indeed important and is not irrelevant. If you read the acts of the council and the various debates it is clear the council fathers wanted this to be in there in order to say that Christ is not united to every human being via his incarnation in a simple and univocal manner. Christ is united to each of us via his incarnation in a foundational Athanasian way (what is not assumed is not saved) but it is then up to our freedom to embrace or reject this assumption into the humanity of Christ. Therefore, this line from GS 22 does not reject the possibility of perdition since it in no way implies that the incarnation has the same divinizing effects in all of us in some kind of automatic way. It has to be appropriated by us in faith.
This is excerpt from Cornelius Lapide’s scripture commentary on the “narrow gate” to salvation. Lapide’s no slouch, I’ve noticed St. Alphonsus De Liquori referring to his commentaries many times in his own writings:
“The measure of the straightness and narrowness of the way to heaven, and the few of those who find it, and are saved you may gather from the types. First there is Lot, who only with his two daughters escaped from the burning Sodom and the other cities of the plain, when all the rest were burnt up because of their lusts. For the world is like Sodom, it is inflamed with lusts and passions. Wherefore the greater part of the lost are damned on account of pollution’s and lusts. The second type is the deluge. From this Noah only, with seven souls, escaped. The deluge swallowed up all the rest on account of their sins. In the world is a deluge of inequity, and thus of punishment and all calamities. The third was the entrance into the Promised Land, which was a type of heaven. Into this of 600,000 Israelites, there entered but two, Caleb and Joshua. All this is taught too by the infallible words of Christ: ‘Many are called but few chosen.’ Wisely does Cassian advise ‘Live with the poor that thou mayest deserve to be found and saved among the few.’
This moreover is true if you consider the mass of mankind. For by far the greater portion of men are infidels, Turks, Saracens, or heretics.” ~ From Cornelius Lapide’s Commentary.
Say what you will about Father Feeney but once you get away from his strict interpretation of “extra ecclessis nulla salus” it will always inevitably lead to these never ending discussions I’ve been reading for over the last 20 years on what “eens” is actually supposed to mean and is why I believe Pope Pius XII warned us about those who would “Reduce to a MEANINGLESS FORMULA the necessity of belonging to the true Church in order to gain eternal salvation.” ~ Pope Pius XII Encyclical “Humani Generis” 1950
Thank you. Every discussion of the doctrine of “No salvation outside the church” should, if it is to have integrity, should include that quote.
Here is a little bit more of the context of that quote from Pope Pius XII’s “Humani Generis”:
“Some say they are not bound by the doctrine, explained in Our Encyclical Letter of a few years ago, and based on the Sources of Revelation, which teaches that the Mystical Body of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church ARE ONE AND THE SAME THING. Some reduce to a meaningless formula the necessity of belonging to the true Church in order to gain eternal salvation.”
This statement by Pope Pius XII that the Mystical Body of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church are ONE AND THE SAME THING is relevant to another subtle but profound doctrinal made in the documents of the Vatican II Council.
Lots has been written about this by now, but I will still summarize it briefly here.
Vatican II, Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium, n. 8 says this:
“This Church constituted and organized in the world as a society, SUBSISTS IN the Catholic Church.”
In the official Latin text, this sentence is as follows: “Haec Ecclesia, in hoc mundo ut societas constituta et ordinata, SUBSISTIT IN Ecclesia catholica.”
In Latin, “est” is the word for “is” and this differs profoundly in meaning from the Latin “subsistit in.”
Some bishops during the Vatican II Council objected to the change from using the Latin “est” to signify the traditional exact identification of the Roman Catholic Church with Christ’s Church, to using “subsistit in” to indicate that Christ’s Church is in the Roman Catholic Church but that Christ’s Church is also in other churches.
Cardinal Ratzinger acknowledged the profound difference in the change from “est” to “subsistit in” when he wrote this:
“With this expression [subsistit], the Council differs from the formula of Pius XII, who said in his Encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi: “The Catholic Church ‘is’ (est) the one mystical body of Christ”. The difference between subsistit and est conceals within itself the whole ecumenical problem.”
(Joseph Ratzinger, “The Ecclesiology of the Constitution on the Church”, Osservatore Romano, English edition [Sep. 19, 2001], p. 5; italics given.)
I believe that anyone writing about the doctrine of “No Salvation Outside of the Church,” who wishes to write with integrity, is duty bound to bring into his/her analysis what Pope Pius XII (the pope right before Vatican II) wrote about this matter, and also must include the whole “est” vs. “subsistit in” issue.
I think “Some reduce to a meaningless formula…” could apply to most of the comments being posted.
About “est” and “subsistit in” (is or subsist), might we recall with Aquinas the difference between saying incorrectly that God “exists” (as from a cause outside of Himself) and correctly that God “subsists”, that is, owes his existence to his very nature and not to another? That is, His “existence” IS his very essence and his essence IS his “existence.” God is what he does and does what he is (“God is love,” 1 Jn 4:8). God is Ipsum Esse (i.e., Existence or Act of Existence Itself, subsistent of Itself or subsisting by Itself) (Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I, q. 4, a. 2).
Likewise, might Ratzinger (cited in Osservatore Romano) mean more the opposite of what you interpret? The resulting “ecumenical problem” is unpacked into:
“The Church, constituted and organized in the world as a society, SUBSISTS in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in union with that successor, although many elements of sanctification and of truth can be found outside of her visible structure. These elements, however, as gifts properly belonging to the Church of Christ, possess an inner dynamism toward Catholic Unity” (Lumen Gentium, n. 8).
Such “elements” include valid baptism (yes?), belief in Scripture (however misinterpreted), and belief in Jesus Christ as Savior, rather than not (yes?). To broad-brush a draconian meaning of “no [personal] salvation outside [!] the Church,” then, seems stuck in the previously undefined meaning of “outside.”
Yes, there does remain the categorical distinction that the Catholic Church in all of its particular dioceses and parishes is constituted by (subsists in?) the one Eucharistic and the sacramental Real Presence (CCC 1374) of the incarnate Jesus Christ. Such that the Council, therefore, refers to the disunited Protestant sects, as such, not as “churches” but accurately as “ecclesial communities” (Ecumenism, n. 22), because outside of the Apostolic Succession, and therefore lacking valid sacramental orders. Only a congregational and symbolic eucharist.
SUMMARY: in referring to “the whole ecumenical problem,” is Ratzinger simply indicating the earlier meaning of Pius XII—while now consistently unpacking it, with the Council and without contradiction?
I think Fr. Feeney recanted. Thankfully.
That’s 100% wrong mrscracker. Father Feeney absolutely positively never recanted. Second of all he never got excommunicated for his position on “eens” he was excommunicated for some other technicality like not showing up for questioning from the Vatican. Third of all, if anything, it was the Church that actually recanted and lifted his excommunication before he died even though like I said he wasn’t excommunicated for his literal, strict interpretation to begin with which was what the church always taught anyway up until around Pope Pius the 9th. So in a way the Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit actually was protecting the true traditional teachings of the Church on “EENS.” Thanks be to God!!
I’m sorry to hear Father Feeney didn’t recant but I’m glad he was reconciled. Thank you for the information.
As I stated earlier and as Peters wikipedia reply to my comment confirmed everything I stated about Father Feeney was correct so there would be no need for Fr. Feeney to “recant” of his traditional literal interpretation of “EENS” because he was never excommunicated for that reason to begin with. If anything it was the Church that recanted, reconciled and admitted they were wrong about Father Feeney when they lifted his excommunication without him changing one iota of his beliefs or positions. So the more accurate statement would be to say: “I’m glad to see the Church was able to recant and reconcile with Father Feeney.”
Not so sure. Silenced in 1949 and then excommunicated in 1953 for disobedience. Apparently he was very late reconciled with the Church, but without recanting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Feeney
Dr. Chapp,
Very good article! I would like to add something that I think you might agree with: It’s just better to be agnostic about the numbers/percentages/proportions, because we are not told. In that way, we’re still motivated to evangelize (in part) by the danger of hell for unbelievers — but we’re not motivated by the assumption of the mass majority being lost.
I wrote on this kind of thing here in CWR: https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2022/12/01/is-the-doctrine-of-hell-a-legitimate-motivation-for-evangelization/
And also here: https://theologyforevangelists.com/2022/02/11/how-many-will-be-saved-luke-1323-25/
In the Catena Aurea, St Thomas includes two patristic commentaries on Luke 13 (where the disciples ask if only a few will be saved): Augustine, and Cyril of Alexandria. Augustine’s seems to interpret Luke 13 in light of a “most damned” interpretation of Matthew 7, and Cyril’s interpretation of Luke 13 suggests that he would probably read Matthew 7 in its light, suggesting agnosticism on final numbers. The question is, then, which of the two do we go with? I think we should go with Cyril.
The Church of Christ and the Catholic Church are one and the same thing.
This Church is a mystical person, the Bride of Christ.
This one and unique Church has a visible aspect and an invisible aspect.
The visible is the ensemble of those who are baptized, confess the Catholic Faith, and who submit to the authorities (including, of course, the Roman Pontiff) established by Christ. This ensemble can sometimes be called the body of the Church (as distinguished from the body which is the Church–this will involve a related discussion if we use the other term for the Church–the Mystical Body of Christ). This ensemble consists of those who are members in fact of the one and unique Church of Christ (the Catholic Church).
The invisible aspect is sanctifying grace (the grace of Christ, who is the spouse of the Bride). This grace is the created soul of the one, unique, mystical person (who has an uncreated soul as well, the Holy Ghost)
Sanctifying grace can and does go beyond those who are members in fact of the Church of Christ. *But it does not go beyond the Church.*
I would recommend reading Maritain’s “On the Church of Christ” for a more extended treatment of this (for what it is worth, I do not agree with all that he says in this work–which is a little too “ecu-maniacal”, in my opinion.)
Man after the fall from grace was prohibited to enter the kingdom of God. Natural Law alone would not suffice. It required Jesus of Nazareth the Son of Man to lay down his life that Man might receive those graces that inspire heroic virtue, virtue that surpass natural law and are required for our salvation.
So true, Father. “Without [the supernatural virtue of] faith, it is impossible to please God.”
I think, ultimately, if the doctrine on salvation “develops” as argued above, it reverberates in untold ways. Baptism and Sunday Mass attendance being downgraded to “helpful but not essential” can only feed an expectation of the “development” of a host of other doctrines as well, primarily those concerning sexual ethics. It all stands or falls together. Argue that this is a matter of nuance and language til you’re blue in the face. People grasp the drift.
Very true. I think you have grasped well the nettle of the problem I am trying to address in the essay. How do we acknowledge that there has been a “profound evolution of dogma” (Benedict) on this topic of salvation and not have it affect all kinds of other downstream issues? How do we see this “evolution” as an organic development of doctrine rather than a straightforward and revolutionary reversal of a previous doctrine? I think this is why Benedict says that much more work needs to be done on this topic in order to avoid that problem. Can we? I do not know. I do not have an answer for that. The conundrum we face, as Benedict points out, is that many of us do not think it is consistent with the Gospel to simply consign the vast majority of human beings to hell. But as many comments on here suggest, there is a deep reservoir of folks who think that is indeed consonant with the Gospel and most people will indeed be in hell. That view certainly solves the problem of a contradiction between magisterial pronouncements. It rejects the modern magisterium (on this topic) as false and the older magisterium as true. End of problem.
But is it the end of the problem? The fact is that it is not you or I who get to decide what is proper magisterial teaching and what is not. It is the magisterium itself which is the divinely appointed office in the Church for adjudicating true and false teachings. Thus, when it comes to a development of doctrine, it is the magisterium that gets to decide which past magisterial teachings are in need of revision or, in rare cases, rejection. I don’t think current magisterial teaching on the subject of salvation has definitely rejected any previous teaching. But it has not made clear either how the current magisterial approach can be squared with previous teaching. Hence the theological impasse I am trying to describe in the essay. But there are those in this thread who seem to think that they are the ones who get to decide “which magisterium” to follow and which teachings to embrace or reject, and then to condemn as a dangerous modernist anyone who disagrees with them. In contrast, I think to be a faithful Catholic today involves an admission that the issue is in flux on a magisterial level and therefore we need to adopt a posture of epistemic humility when it comes to discussing this with our fellow Catholics. I do not condemn traditionalists who hold that the vast majority of the unbaptized will be damned., But I do disagree with them.
Pope Francis has not helped in this regard since he has only added to the state of flux and confusion. Both JPII and Benedict greatly admired Balthasar’s theology in general and his hope for the salvation of all in particular, but did not completely embrace it either. And so the question, like a hanging chad, remains ambiguously addressed and in need of further magisterial clarification. I doubt we will be getting such clarification from Francis.
But as your post makes clear, there is a lot at stake in this debate. And we need a deeper clarification of this issue from the magisterium.
Why do we need any more deeper clarification than we already have? It’s been infallibly defined by three different popes. I don’t think any other doctrine in the history of the church has been defined infallibly that many times and especially the last time when it was defined by Pope Urban where he, or anyone else including future Popes, could not be any more clearer as to what “EENS” means. https://catholicism.org/outside-the-church-there-is-no-salvation
Thank you also, Mr Peter for the information about Father Feeney. That’s a shame when our shepherds go off the rails.
I agree it’s a shame when the shepherds go off the rails but we have to get them credit because in this case for once they admitted they were wrong and lifted the excommunication of Father Feeney, who I consider the original authentic and first of all the “Canceled Priests.”
Was Pope Pius IX’s referring to the comments on here with his “Syllabus of Errors” (1853) in which he condemns the popular proposition “Good hope at least is to be entertained for the eternal salvation of all those not at all in the true Church of Christ.”— CONDEMNED
The problem is the worship by many of VaricanII as an almost infallible council whose documents are inerrant in every word or statement. They contain many good things, but also very bad ones, as in Nostra Aetate, which produced such absurdities as the dual covenant and the claim that Muslims and Christians worship the same God. I’m convinced that God can and will save many souls outside the Catholic church, especially those who follow God’s commandments engraved in their human hearts, but always with the help of Christ’s redemptive grace working in them as human beings created in the image of God.This does not preclude an incessant, persevering missionary effort on the part of the one true Catholic Church.
What is also relevant in the economy of salvation is seemingly referenced by Christ when he says, There are many mansions in my Father’s house. That may include a dimension of salvation absent of the beatific vision reserved exclusively for the baptized.
Indication is found in a corrective letter sent by Innocent III in 1201 to the Archbishop of Arles in which he instructed the Archbishop, who was teaching the position held by Augustine and Aquinas, with reservations, that the unbaptized, including infants were destined for damnation to Hell. Innocent’s correction is that only those personally guilty of unrepentant mortal sin are condemned.
Consequently, the Church held to the notion of Limbo, meaning undetermined, or an undetermined state. Dante Alighieri describes such a place, a level of life after death which is pleasant though lacking the supreme joys of heaven. Where putatively Virgil, Cicero, Aristotle and the like would spend eternity. Aquinas refers to this in II Sent d33, q2, a2. Later in De Malo, q5, a3 musing it was a ‘milder’ form of Hell absent of suffering, since their lack of knowledge of their loss of the beatific vision would not cause distress.
The Catholic Church provides the only sure and certain path to salvation. I really balk at any sort of statement that it is “certain” or even “likely” that people outside the Church will be saved. I don’t think Lumen Gentium or the other Vatican II documents support that, and I don’t thing the Magisterium developed since Vatican II requires it.
Those outside the formal bounds of the Church are in a “gravely deficient” position compared to those within. See Dominus Iesus 22. My view is that the most we can say about anyone outside the formal bounds of the Catholic Church is that their salvation is not impossible and that we hope and pray for it. Going any further, in my opinion, goes too far and puts us on a slippery slope toward logical consequences that are devastating to the overall coherence of the Catholic faith.
Thomas James’ name-drop technique is a stylized invitation -provocation- to his audience to trip off into cognitive dissonance; for which he then stands ready to accuse anyone attempting to unravel it, as sectarian. What manner of thing coming from a priest using a tag name to profess about who is representative in comboxes he labels “one way”.
This day and age. I tell you. Lord have mercy.
From the news we got Pope Francis would have had “his worst” moment during his sickness, on February 28 2025, the 12th anniversary of Benedict demitting office.