Posted on 07/07/2004 7:16:03 AM PDT by ultima ratio
This is really well done. And amazingly, Mario Derksen is a very young guy, possibly still in his early twenties, or not much older. Many in the younger generation are starting to wake up. A good friend of mine is a young man in his early twenties who left a New Mass seminary and moved over to traditional Catholicism. Like Mario Derksen, he was not raised in a traditional Catholic family, or even a practicing Catholic family at all. I am astounded when I realize how much they have learned in so short a time.
This article is a good short summary of the effect that false modern philosophies have had on JPII's theology. Everyone can agree that what we get from the Vatican today is "phenomenological personalism," even if some disagree whether it is good or bad. Fr. Richard Hogan, the big defender of the "theology of the body," admits the same but says that it is a good thing. I agree with Mario Derksen that it is ultimately incompatible with Catholicism. And I especially agree that the role of the supreme pontiff is NOT to propose speculative philosophical theories to the faithful, but rather to guard and protect the deposit of the Catholic faith.
LOL!! "Early twenties" = "think's he's smart but he ain't."
That is evidenced by Dirksen's open sedevacantism.
Perhaps he'll complete his education and realize that he is outside the Church, and he'll come back and work within.
Quoting from the SSPX and the Remnant makes one a sedevacantist?
I'd retrieve it, but I left my waders at home.
Additionally, he lacks formal training in moderate realism, the perennial philosophy of the Church.
The concept that Christ, through His Incarnation, is closely united with all creation is hardly an heretical notion.
It is a Catholic one and preeminently a Franciscan one, and is articulated in similar terms by St. Bonaventure, a Doctor of the Church and the intellectual father of Franciscan Neoplatonism.
I need hardly point out that phenomenology began as Husserl's effort to return to Plato. I personally prefer the Thomistic/Aristotelian approach to moderate realism but I cannot pretend, as Derksen does, that the Augustinian/Platonist view is either illegitimate or unfruitful.
One would be more justified in arguing that Derksen's position, which implies that Christ is not united to the world he created, smells of Marcionism, Manichaeanism and Catharism.
One might also add that these heresies also rejected the authority of the Holy See and promoted schism.
No, an article on one's website describing why one no longer considers JPII the legitimate Pope of the Roman Catholic Church is good enough earnest of one's sedevacantism.
I just checked out Mario Derksen's website, and he indeed is a sedevacantist.
Oh, but he's not outside the Church. Someone schismatic must deny the authority of the pope. A sedevacantist doesn't deny papal authority, he just doubts whether the man presently claiming that office is truly the pope. There's a difference.
The article is nevertheless a valid and coherent expression of what's wrong with JPII's approach to the faith. The fact of Derksen's recent conversion to sedevacantism--this article was written two years ago--in no way invalidates the cogent argument he presents.
Of course he's outside the Church, UR, your obfuscations and distinctions notwithstanding. If he denies the authority of the present pope, he denies papal authority.
He's a Protestant.
No there is not.
He is advocating that people remove their allegiance from the Pope and consider the Pope's authority null and void.
Any cafeteria Catholic of any other stripe can do the same thing.
He may pretend that the Holy See is vacant and that he will completely obey any new Pope who is elected to Mario Derksen's personal standards and who teaches in the way that Mario Derksen prefers, but in essence he claims that he is able to decide when and under what circumstances he will obey the Pope.
One cannot believe simultaneously in authority of the Papacy and one's own personal authority in acknowledging it.
Either the Pope can command obedience or he can't.
Additionally, his logic is thoroughly flawed in its basic assumption: Church discipline is not infallible but prudential.
I am in disagreement with you here. His analysis is not philosophically coherent and his argument is therefore invalid.
The fact of Derksen's recent conversion to sedevacantism--this article was written two years ago--in no way invalidates the cogent argument he presents.
I agree with you that the mere fact of his sedevacantism does not mean that his arguments are automatically wrong.
This is why I mentioned his philosophical incoherence as a reason to disregard Maximilian's estimation of his views.
By the way, thank you for describing his position so accurately and pithily as a "conversion to sedevacantism."
Sedevacantism is indeed a separate, non-Catholic religion and one must effectively convert from Catholicism in order to become a sedevacantist.
Wrong. You must believe someone is pope before you can be schismatic. If you truly believe someone is not the pope, but affirm papal authority nevertheless, there is no schismatic intent.
In the early fifteenth century there were once three claimants to the papal office and each had his adherents. Were those who denied the authority of the other two claimants schismatic? No.
According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, "under these circumstances good faith may, at least for a time, prevent a formal schism; this begins when the legitimacy of one of the pontiffs becomes so evident as to render adhesion to a rival inexcusable."
So good faith is the key. So also is the self-evidence of the legitimacy of the pontiff himself. I personally believe Derksen has been rash--but he seems to me in good faith nevertheless, even as the heterodoxy of this Pope has become more and more obvious.
On the contrary, his argument is brilliant. The Pope is a humanist--all his writings, his speeches, his actions, show this beyond a shadow of a doubt. It explains Assisi I and II--which are a scandal to the rest of us and a violation of the First Commandment. This Pontiff's grounding is not in Thomistic realism but in the methodologies of personalism and phenomenology--where truth itself is a shifting thing, according to one's experience of it.
It's these kind of dismissive and inaccurate comments that really raise my hackles.
This is an incredibly sloppy statement.
Christ came to reveal all truth.
Any truth about God and about salvation that we did not know before has a profound and transformative effect on our conception of man.
It is Christ who reveals to us that our bodies are temples the Holy Ghost.
It is Christ who reveals to us that marriage is a Sacrament and not merely a contract.
It is Christ who reveals to us the true meaning of clean and unclean behavior that was hinted at in the Old Testament.
It is Christ who came to make all things new, including our fallen human nature.
I find it hard to believe that someone who claims to have so firm a grasp of Thomistic realism can forget that Thomas devoted a substantial portion of his Summa purely to theological anthropology.
Derksen's notion that Christ teaches us nothing new about ourselves and our nature is a frighteningly ignorant comment.
This is a mind who takes upon himself the authority to judge Popes?
This is a very poor analogy.
The antipopes of this time all claimed legitimate election by different factions of the College of Cardinals. They had, weak or strong, juridical claims.
Derksen is saying that Pope John Paul II was indeed elected by the College of Cardinals, but that by promulgating a Code of Canon Law that Derksen personally dislikes he invalidated his own election.
This is a novel claim and not at all analogous to the factionalism of the 1400s.
The Orthodox do not believe anyone is Pope or such a thing as a Papal office exists.
Yet they are schismatics without naming any alternate candidate.
A schismatic is a person who advocates sundering the unity of the Church.
Are you listening, Ralph Nader? After you lose your next Presidential bid there's a nice cushy job in Rome waiting for you; 'Pontifical Advisor On Ecological Affairs'.
O.K., now that I vented my sarcasm I must say that this Pope spends far too much time philosophising about humanitarian and natural affairs, and expends far too little energy addressing the real problems facing the Catholic Church, such as worldwide Islamic persecution of Christians, the scandalous abuse of Catholic children by clergy, rampant clerical homosexuality, progressive theology, disregard of Vatican directives by American bishops, the sorrowful closing of Church doors, the general loss of faith in the Eucharist, sparse attendance at Mass, pro-abortion politicians, etc, etc.
It seems there's a leak in the roof of the Catholic Church, and the Holy Father is busy buying buckets to contain the water instead of calling a carpenter to fix the problem.
Thius is a matter of taste.
In point of fact, Derksen is saying nothing new, nothing accurate and is simply stringing together a tissue of his own interpretations of someone else's words as evidence.
Few consider this kind of argumentation as "brilliant", let alone competent.
The Pope is a humanist--all his writings, his speeches, his actions, show this beyond a shadow of a doubt.
St. Thomas More was a humanist. I was not aware that his orthodoxy was in question.
It explains Assisi I and II--which are a scandal to the rest of us and a violation of the First Commandment.
"Humanism" does not explain these phenomena. Disciplinary slackness and overeager eirenicism does.
This Pontiff's grounding is not in Thomistic realism but in the methodologies of personalism and phenomenology--where truth itself is a shifting thing, according to one's experience of it.
Phenomenology does not posit that truth is a shifting thing. It posits that our knowledge of a thing or person is always imperfect because our faculties of perception are not infallible.
Coincidentally, this is also the position of St. Thomas.
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