The Neo-Catechumenal Way Gathers No Moss

Catholic Family News ^ | October, 2002 | Mark Alessio

[Desdemona]

Are there ANY silver linings in your thunderclouds?

[St.Chuck]

This pope is no friend to Catholic tradition. On the contrary, he subverts it.<

My main gripe about this papacy is the novel practice of not calling for a crusade against the infidels, wherever they may be. This innovation is scandalous and disrepects the piety of all his predecessors.

[St.Chuck]

Are there ANY silver linings in your thunderclouds?

What you see is the fruit of too much time on the Gloomy Mysteries.

[ultima ratio]

What's to cheer about? If Rome won't repremand apostates or do anything about corruption, we're in deep doo-doo. That's what I've been saying all along. All I hear in return is "You're schismatic!" Meanwhile this obviously heretical group gets papal approval, though it has actively condemned the Church since the days of Constantine and has been preaching a radical new religious doctrine. So who's right in the debate--those who stick with the teachings of the perennial Church, or those who chase after novelties pushed by Rome? Or let me put it another way: those who stick with the deposit of faith or those who stick with the Pope against all logic?

[Desdemona]

What if, and this isn't strictly hypothetical, the corrections are gradual and not public, but very much behind the scenes?

What if the gestures are just that?

What if the laity themselves do not follow the looney ideas because they recognize them as just that and those ideas die on the vine?

ROman Catholicism is not a faith for the dim-witted. It's a huge challenge. I'm willing to believe that the people of my age group, the ones born during the Vietnam-Watergate time period, aren't going to let the old just die away. In fact, most of us really resent that our past has just been chucked. And we're a lot more religious than many born in the 20 years before us.

There's a lot that Rome does not do that does bother me. But, I also see that the old ideals of liberalism are going to die out. It's just going to take time. And, yes, the people my age know we have a mess to clean up - and we're not very happy about it, either.

[Catholicguy]

"There are three ex cathedra pronouncements that outside the Catholic Church there is no salvation. The most explicit and forceful of the three is from Pope Eugene IV at the Council of Florence which declares infallibly: " . . . None of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews, heretics, and schismatics, can ever be partakers of eternal life, but that they are to go into the eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels,' (Mt. 25: 41) unless before death they are joined with Her; . . .no one, even if he pour out his blood for the Name of Christ, can be saved unless they abide within the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church," Bull, Cantate Domino, Eugene IV, Feb. 4, 1442, Council of Florence. 10. Quoted from The Apostolic Digest, (Our Lady of Victory Publications, San Marino, CA) p.25. 11. Mediator Dei, Par. 44. 12. Sapienta Christianae, Pope Leo XIII, 1890, par. 16. (Emphasis added.)"

<> This is an example of the schismtic erring in private (protestant) interpretation. Mr. McElhinney (former sspx'er) helps correct this common error re EENS<>

Extra Ecclesia Nulla Salus - A Brief Synopsis: To understand the gist of the response I will be blogging next, I will put up part of an email I wrote which outlined this subject.

My position in a nutshell is this:

1) All salvation comes through Christ.

2) The Church is the sacrament of salvation through which all graces flow.

3) Outside the Church there is no salvation.

4) The Church as the Mystical Body of Christ has both visible and invisible components. Members properly so-called are incorporated by baptism and maintain their membership in the Mystical Body by both profession of faith and submission to the Church's authority. Any one of these elements lacking and the person cannot be accounted as a member of the Church and has no part of the ecclesiastical body.

5) The fullness of truth subsists in the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman Church (cf. Lumen Gentium §8) which is "the axis of convergence" around which all truth is found (cf. Pope Paul VI).

6) Subsistance in Scholastic terminology is a unique quality which denotes existence in itself. Thus God subsists and we merely exist. Existence involves dependance whereas subsistance does not. This is the relationship of all other churches, ecclesial communities, and faiths to the Catholic Church.

7) Any and all Churches, ecclesial communities, or other belief systems to the extent that they proclaim truth proclaim a portion of what the Church possesses and professes.

8) Thus any salvific efficacy from the elements they possess are derived from the Church and without such elements, salvation is impossible.

9) These elements deriving as they do from Christ thus "lead back to Christ, belong by right to the one Church of Christ" (cf. Unitatis redintegratio §3).

10) Those who for reasons beyond their control do not understand the necessity of unity of the ecclesiastical body can through desire to fulfill the will of the Creator and the practice of charity be joined to the Soul of the Church which is the animating element of life of the Mystical Body. (Much as the human soul is the animating element of life for the human body.) In this manner they may achieve eternal salvation.

That in essence outlines my position in brief. It allows for the possibility of salvation for many people not formally within the Church's ecclesiastical body. I am inclined to think that more people are saved then damned if only for the fact that salvation is by grace alone, God is infinitely loving, and I cannot see how the Kingdom of Heaven having less people than the Kingdom of Satan would not give the Evil One cause to boast.

:: I. Shawn McElhinney 2:12 PM [+] ::

[ultima ratio]

I would take issue with three of your points.

No quarrel with the third point, though it needs qualification. In modern times popes have taught that the unbaptized who are just and follow the dictates of reason reflected in the Natural Law, may also be saved.

The fourth point needs to be qualified as well. The Doctors of the Church--and reason itself--teach that submission to Church authority assumes that the demand for submission is legitimate. A pope, for instance, can't order me to kill somebody. That would be an illigitimate command. Nor can a pope command me to give up a single tenet of the deposit of faith. The faith itself has precedence over all else. As St. Paul advised the Galatians, not even an angel come down from heaven can order us to believe what is not the Gospel.

You are absolutely wrong about the meaning of "subsists" as opposed to "is". In Latin the verb "substare" means to "stand under". The verb "esse" shows identity, as in English. Clearly the former is a much weaker term to describe Christ's Church vis a vis the Catholic Church than would be the latter. Also, the distinction you make is not scholastic. The Thomistic teaching is that God is Existence Itself.

I have no quarrel with your remaining points.

[ultima ratio]

This has to be put in context with everything else. Rome doesn't push to catechize the young and catechesis is deficient everywhere. Two-thirds of all Catholics no longer believe in the Real Presence, according to Gallup. Yet Rome is indifferent and does not push to redress this deficiency. It makes no move to redress the deficiencies in the Novus Ordo Mass either. Everyone agrees reform is necessary, but it never happens. Yet Rome approves this heretical outfit. Why? Can it be because it agrees with its theological perspective? The suspicion is that it does. It shows it does in a thousand different ways. Remember, the heirs of Schillebeeckx and Suenens and Congor have taken over the Vatican.

[Desdemona]

Well, you make some good points, but my main problem is with your remedies. I don't think an iron fist is going to solve much. If anything it's going to make matters worse - at least at first. If changes are made gradually, and though of as new and exciting (even if they're really re-packaged) they have a better chance of succeeding. That's a marketing trick.

Two-thirds of all Catholics no longer believe in the Real Presence, according to Gallup

Two-thirds of Americans don't get proper nutrition, either. It's not for lack of teaching or availibility. It's a matter of not being interested. There's no deep thinking going on either (hence two terms of Bill Clinton and the facination with sit-coms).

It makes no move to redress the deficiencies in the Novus Ordo Mass either.

Rome has made noise, quite a bit actually, and the bishops have ignored it. Although, there are signs that this is changing.

Everyone agrees reform is necessary, but it never happens.

Because no one seems to be able to compromise on how the reform should happen....

Yet Rome approves this heretical outfit. Why? Can it be because it agrees with its theological perspective?

Man, I hope not. I hate the holding hands for everything.

Remember, the heirs of Schillebeeckx and Suenens and Congor have taken over the Vatican.

Remember, the Vatican library and archives are still intact. Until those are destroyed, the past lives. There is hope. As a follower of Christ that is very important.

[sinkspur]

Two-thirds of all Catholics no longer believe in the Real Presence, according to Gallup.

The survey was phoney. Catholics were asked to pick (on the telephone) from four statements as to which was true, and all four statements contained the same language, with one or two words changed.

You have been told this, over and over. Sitetest, who knows quite a bit about statistical analysis, has told you, over and over, that the methodology was faulty and that it was basically a worthless survey.

So much of what you peddle is discredited I don't know how you sleep at night.

Catholics believe, overwhelmingly, in the Real Presence. They just cannot recite the Thomistic language as precisely as you would like.

[Catholicguy]

<>Henri Cardinal Du Lubac's words to ponder<>


"[T]he Church seen in her members is never completely faithful. Sin, which is to be found everywhere, does not spare the Church--neither sin nor all the other marks of human frailty. It is no less true, however, that is is still the Church which brings us the gospel of Christ and, still more important, more true today than ever before that the generalized criticism of the Church is linked to a movement that draws away from the gospels.

I would not be so concerned if this were something from outside the Church. But when each one takes as his mission to criticize everything, when each one sets out to rewrite dogma and morality according to his own wishes, the Church disintegrates. When the center of unity becomes the target of the most impassioned attacks, each one feeling that he has the right to criticize the successor of Peter before the whole world on any point whatsoever, the Church herself is therefore wounded. Those who take this liberty do not fully realize what they are doing. Regardless of what pretext they may invoke, however, they are turning their backs on the gospel of Christ, and they scandalize, in the fullest sense of the word, many of their brethren...

[Catholicguy]

<> I wasn't the one using "subsists." That was Shawn McElhinney, a former SSPX'er who has forgotten more about Dogmatic Theology than you will ever know.<>

[ultima ratio]

He may have forgotten what I'll ever know about dogmatic theology, but he's still wrong about the meaning of "subsist." Maybe he should return to SSPX--his thinking has gotten a little cloudy.

[ultima ratio]

The Cardinal is understandably defensive. But it's not the faithful who create these crises--they have been created by the hierarchy more than anyone else, though it blames others for its own failures. Now it's trying to distance itself from the disastrous consequences of its own bad judgments. Did the Cardinal imagine that Paul VI could have banished the Mass of the Ages as if it were a matter of minor consequence and then put in its place a protestantized fabrication that makes a mockery of major Catholic doctrines--and not have a dire reaction? Did he imagine this would not create enormous spiritual dislocation--precisely among those Catholics who were most knowledgable and most devout? No, it has been Rome most of all which is the source of the present distress--and it is Rome above all which must repent.

[ultima ratio]

The survey was done by Gallup. But even if it's inaccurate, if even half that number are ignorant of the faith, that is already too many. Catholic World Report published the survey and Rome is aware of it and has not questioned it publicly. Yet it makes no move to redress the problem. The suspicion is, it would like the doctrine of the Real Presence to fade away, which is why it tolerates its outrageous suppression during the new Mass. I've witnessed teenagers standing for the Canon of the Mass with their hands in their pockets. Not surprising. If they'd been taught about the Real Presence, the urge to kneel and adore would be irresistable. Instead, they believe exactly as Protestants.

[WriteOn]

ROman Catholicism is not a faith for the dim-witted. It's a huge challenge.

Amen

[narses]

From the debates two years ago.