A Case of Theological Malpractice

In his meandering attack on The Great Façade, The Wanderer’s “young theologian” mangles Catholic doctrine on the identity between the Mystical Body of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church, thereby misleading thousands of Wanderer readers. Al Matt may be unconcerned, but somebody must address this scandal.

I really did not want to write any sort of direct reply to The Wanderer’s six-part, 127-page attack on The Great Façade (TGF), written by a fellow named Gutierrez, whom Al Matt holds out to his readership as “a young theologian” based on a B.A. from the University of Steubenville. In page after page of vacuous disputation over the meaning of basic terms well understood by any reasonably informed Catholic layman, the young theologian has yet to develop a serious argument against the central claims of the book. The young theologian even claims that a 407-page book about the phenomenon of neo-Catholicism fails to explain what neo-Catholicism is. Dream on, young theologian, dream on.

The young theologian—let us call him YT to save typing—does, however, hurl accusations of dishonesty with great abandon. Like a trial lawyer who suspects he is getting nowhere with his cross-examination of a key witness, YT resorts to shouting “liar” in front of the jury, thereby revealing his own lack of confidence that the jury will find the witness incredible based on the skill of the cross-examination. An experienced trial lawyer knows enough to stand pat when the opposing lawyer conducts a meandering, ineffectual cross-exam of his witness. The best thing to do is wait for the cross-exam to come to its sputtering conclusion, rise up and say “No questions” on redirect, and let the witness go home. That was exactly how I intended to handle YT, even if he did manage to have his booklet full of insults and futile nitpicking published in The Wanderer.

But then my eyes happened to stray on Part IV of YT’s “brilliant and devastating” (BAD for short) critique. My heart sank when I realized that in attempting to discredit TGF the author of BAD has blundered horribly in his presentation of Catholic doctrine on the identity between the Mystical Body of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church. As I will demonstrate, the same fellow who holds himself out as an expert on precise theological definitions cannot even define “Roman Catholic Church” correctly. His errors could mislead thousands.

Al Matt, of course, could not care less. His only aim in publishing a critique of a book he hasn’t even read was to launch yet another clumsy ad hominem attack on traditionalist targets. But even if Al Matt will never correct YT’s errors, someone has to. And since I am well aware of the nature of these errors, I would be remiss if I said nothing. And so, to this extent, I am obliged respond directly to BAD.

In order to expose YT’s error and its relation to his critique of TGF, some preliminaries are necessary. I begin by noting that in his monumental encyclical Mystici corporis, Pope Pius XII, citing the teaching of his great predecessor Leo XIII in Satis cognitum, expounded with great force and clarity the Church’s traditional ecclesiology, according to which the Roman Catholic Church and the Mystical Body of Christ are held to be one and the same thing. As Pius XII declared: “If we would define and describe this true Church of Jesus Christ—which is the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Roman Church—we shall find nothing more noble, more sublime, or more divine than the expression ‘the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ’—an expression which springs from and is, as it were, the fair flowering of the repeated teaching of the Sacred Scriptures and the holy Fathers.” In one simple, elegant sentence Pius XII made it perfectly clear that the Church of Jesus Christ is the Roman Catholic Church, which is the Mystical Body of Christ. In other words: Church of Christ = Roman Catholic Church = Mystical Body of Christ.

In response to neo-modernist murmuring against this teaching, Pius XII reaffirmed it well nigh infallibly in his enyclical Humani Generis (1950), wherein His Holiness collected and condemned various neo-modernist errors of the so-called “new theology” that was emerging in the years just prior to Vatican II. Bringing the full weight of the Magisterium to bear on the temerity of those would dare to question the identity between the Roman Catholic Church and the Mystical Body, Pius XII declared:

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 [quae quidem docet corpus Christi mysticum et Ecclesiam Catholicam Romanam unum idemque esse]. Some reduce to a meaningless formula the necessity of belonging to the one true Church to gain eternal salvation…. These and like errors, it is clear, have crept in among Our sons who are deceived by an imprudent zeal for souls or by false silence. To them we are compelled with grief to repeat once again truths already well known, and to point out with solicitude clear errors and dangers of error.

Notice that this declaration qualifies the identity between the Mystical Body and the Roman Catholic Church as doctrine based on the very sources of Revelation—that is, as a revealed truth or at least a truth proximate to Revelation. Pius XII insists that this doctrine is binding on the faithful and condemns departure from it as a clear error that must be stamped out. His Holiness had left the neo-modernists with no wiggle room on the matter.

As we know, in Lumen Gentium, 8 the Second Vatican Council states that the Church of Christ “subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him…” In TGF Tom Woods and I noted the common concern that the phrase “subsists in the Catholic Church,” rather than simply “is the Catholic Church,” lends itself to the interpretation that the Church of Christ, while “subsisting” in the Catholic Church, is an entity greater in scope than the Catholic Church—a conclusion that would appear to contradict the teaching of Pius XII that the Church of Christ, the Roman Catholic Church and the Mystical Body of Christ are all terms for the same thing. We noted further that while neo-Catholic defenders of the ambiguous “subsists” had always defended this word as just a more powerful way of expressing “is,” Cardinal Ratzinger has recently opined that the more liberal interpretation is quite correct.

TGF discusses Cardinal Ratzinger’s extensive interview in the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine (FA) following publication of Dominus Iesus (DI), during which the Cardinal made the following remarks concerning the Council’s use of subsistit:

When the Council Fathers replaced the word ‘is,’ used by Pius XII, with “subsistit” [...die Konzilsväter das von Pius XII gebrauchte Wort ‘ist’ durch ‘subsistit’ ersetzten], they did so for a very precise reason. The concept expressed by “is” (to be) is far broader than that expressed by “to subsist.” “To subsist” is a very precise way of being, that is, to be as a subject, which exists in itself. Thus the Council Fathers meant to say that the being of the Church as such is a broader entity than the Roman Catholic Church, but within the latter it acquires, in an incomparable way, the character of a true and proper subject.[1]

In TGF we raise the following obvious objection to this remark: “If the Mystical Body of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church are one and the same thing, then what exactly is this ‘Church of Christ’ whose ‘being as such is a broader entity than the Roman Catholic Church’… How can there be an ecclesial entity broader than the Mystical Body itself? As Catholic laymen who believe they understand their Faith, we do not see how Cardinal Ratzinger’s opinion can be reconciled with the teaching of Pius XII; and we also believe we have the right to ask how it can be reconciled.”

In TGF we anticipated the neo-Catholic reply that what Cardinal Ratzinger “really means” to say is that the Church of Christ is identical to the Mystical Body, and that the Mystical Body (being identical to the Church of Christ) subsists in the Catholic Church. But if the Church of Christ is identical to the Mystical Body, and if Pius XII taught that the Roman Catholic Church is identical to the Mystical Body, then the Church of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church must likewise be identical, since if A=B and C=B, then A=C. That, in fact, is precisely what Pius XII did teach in Mystici corporis when, as I note above, he declared “this true Church of Jesus Christ…is the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Roman Church” and that the Roman Catholic Church is aptly called “the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ….”

But, as we noted in TGF, in his FA interview Cardinal Ratzinger explicitly denied that the Church of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church are identical:

In his Encyclical, Pius XII said: The Roman Catholic Church “is” the one Church of Jesus Christ. This seems [!] to express a complete identity, which is why there was no Church outside the Catholic community. However, this is not the case: according to Catholic teaching, which Pius XII obviously also shared, the local Churches of the Eastern Church separated from Rome are authentic local Churches.

In TGF we also point out that “Cardinal Ratzinger provided no proof that what ‘seems’ to be the complete identity between the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Christ in the teaching of Pius XII is ‘not the case.’” Moreover, there was no demonstration that Pius XII “shared” the view that the Orthodox churches are “authentic local churches,” an assertion that also appears in DI 17, which calls the Orthodox Churches “true particular churches.” If Pius XII or the other preconciliar Popes had ever taught such a thing, one supposes their teaching would have been cited rather prominently in DI to show its continuity with the perennial Magisterium. On the contrary, as we point out in TGF, Leo XIII taught the following about the ecclesial status of non-Catholic sees in his encyclical Satis Cognitum:

[I]t must be clearly understood that Bishops are deprived of the right and power of ruling, if they deliberately secede from Peter and his successors; because, by this secession, they are separated from the foundation on which the whole edifice must rest. They are therefore outside the edifice itself; and for this very reason they are separated from the fold, whose leader is the Chief Pastor; they are exiled from the Kingdom, the keys of which were given by Christ to Peter alone.

Likewise, in his letter on reunion with the Eastern churches, St. Pius X declared as follows:

Let, then, all those who strive to defend the cause of unity go forth; let them go forth wearing the helmet of faith, holding to the anchor of hope, and inflamed with the fire of charity, to work unceasingly in this most heavenly enterprise; and God, the author and lover of peace, will hasten the day when the nations of the East shall return to Catholic unity, and, united to the Apostolic See, after casting away their errors, shall enter the port of everlasting salvation.

In TGF we state our view that there is an urgent need for the Magisterium to clarify how churches that lack all jurisdiction, are separated from the very foundation of the Church, are outside the edifice of the Church, not within the fold, exiled from the Kingdom, and not yet in the port of everlasting salvation, can be “true particular churches” or “authentic local churches” in any sense that matters.

Furthermore, how can such churches be part of the Mystical Body, which is one and the same thing as the Roman Catholic Church? As Pius XII taught in Mystici Corporis, churches not in communion with the Pope are not part of the Mystical Body, since they are not part of the visible Roman Catholic Church:

Actually, only those are to be included as members of the Church who have been baptized and profess the true faith, and who have not been so unfortunate as to separate themselves from the unity of the Body, or been excluded by legitimate authority for grave faults committed…. It follows that those who are divided in faith or government cannot be living in the unity of such a Body, nor can they be living the life of its one Divine Spirit.

Here, Pius XII was repeating the teaching of his predecessor, Pius XI, in Mortalium Animos:

For since the mystical body of Christ, in the same manner as His physical body, is one, compacted and fitly joined together, it were foolish and out of place to say that the mystical body is made up of members which are disunited and scattered abroad: whosoever therefore is not united with the body is no member of it, neither is he in communion with Christ its head.

As a matter of fact, Vatican II affirms that Orthodox churches are not part of the Mystical Body when it teaches in Orientalium Ecclesiarum, 2-3 that

The Holy Catholic Church, which is the Mystical Body of Christ, is made up of the faithful who are organically united in the Holy Spirit by the same faith, the same sacraments and the same government and who, combining together into various groups which are held together by a hierarchy, form separate Churches or Rites… These individual Churches, whether of the East or the West, although they differ somewhat among themselves in rite (to use the current phrase), that is, in liturgy, ecclesiastical discipline, and spiritual heritage, are, nevertheless, each as much as the others, entrusted to the pastoral government of the Roman Pontiff…

In his encyclical Orientalis Ecclesiae, Pius XII described the members of the schismatic Orthodox churches as “those who are wafted towards her [the Catholic Church], as it were, on wings of yearning desire”—the same yearning and desire Pius attributed to morally upright, good-faith Protestants in Mystici Corporis. In Orientalis Ecclesiae Pius also spoke of “promoting the reunion of all our separated sons with the one Church of Christ.” Obviously, the Orthodox churches cannot be part of the Mystical Body if they are wafting toward the Roman Catholic Church and need to be reunited with “the one Church of Christ,” which Pius XII clearly identifies with the Roman Catholic Church, which is one and the same thing as the Mystical Body. But—and here is the problem with Cardinal Ratzinger’s affirmation—if the Orthodox churches are not part of the Mystical Body, how can they possibly be “true particular churches” in the sight of God?

Based on these considerations, TGF expressed the concern that Cardinal Ratzinger’s opinions appear to be irreconcilable with the teaching of Pius XII and his predecessors that the Church of Christ is the Roman Catholic Church, which is the Mystical Body of Christ. And this is no mere academic dispute. The doctrine of the Mystical Body affirmed by Pius XII (and even Vatican II!) is essential to preserving the vital distinction between the inside and the outside of the Church (for purposes of the dogma “no salvation outside the Church”), and membership and non-membership in her. If these distinctions are lost, Pius warned, the necessity of membership in the Church for salvation will be reduced to “a meaningless formula”—one of the signal errors of neo-modernism. As we have seen over the past forty years, this error leads inevitably to a drastic waning of the Church’s missionary zeal. For why should anyone be terribly concerned about making converts if formal membership in the Church—being inside the Church as a visible Mystical Body—is no longer viewed as crucial to anyone’s prospect of salvation?[2]

Yet, as we show in TGF, it was none other than Fr. Ratzinger who lauded the “shedding” of the term “membership” at Vatican II, calling that term “terminological armor.” It was necessary to shed this “terminological armor,” wrote Fr. Ratzinger, because “The Catholic has to recognize that his own Church is not yet prepared to accept the phenomenon of multiplicity in unity; he must orient himself toward this reality…. Meantime the Catholic Church has no right to absorb the other Churches…”—meaning, Protestant sects. Fr. Ratzinger even went so far as to say that “A basic unity—of Churches that remain Churches, yet become one Church—must replace the idea of conversion, even though conversion retains its meaningfulness for those in conscience motivated to seek it.”[3]

YT completely ignores these astonishing statements in his defense of Ratzinger and his attack on TGF. But Cardinal Ratzinger has never retracted this opinion. Perhaps this explains why DI, of which Ratzinger was the principal author, contains not a single reference to the Catholic doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ. DI 16 does refer to “a single body of Christ,” but makes no mention of the Mystical Body of preconciliar teaching, identified so precisely with the Roman Catholic Church by Pius XII and Leo XIII. In TGF we ask: “Are we witnessing the “shedding” of more “terminological armor” for the sake of ecumenism?”[4]

In his eagerness to demonstrate that Tom Woods and I are lying, lying, lying about everything, everything, everything, YT literally rewrites the teaching of the Catholic Church on this matter in order to make the argument that we have misrepresented the views of Cardinal Ratzinger. This is a classic case of the tail (the views of Cardinal Ratzinger) being allowed to wag the dog (the Magisterium of the Catholic Church).

YT begins this curious exercise in the supercilious tone that characterizes his whole presentation:

The meaning of the good cardinal is clearly lost on the authors who again fail to grasp the distinction that Ratzinger and the fathers at Vatican II were trying to make. The authors would have us believe that the liberal members of the Vatican Council were trying to obfuscate the notion that “the Church of Christ is the Roman Catholic Church.”…

YT then proceeds to tell us what the Cardinal “really” means—a standard neo-Catholic apologetic technique for dealing with the multitude of dubious statements by high-ranking prelates these days:

Cardinal Ratzinger states that the word “is” broadens the meaning of “the Roman Catholic Church” too far and is therefore not the most accurate formulation.

So, YT informs us that the word “is”—which, as noted above, was the word used by Pius XII, as Cardinal Ratzinger conceded in the FA interview—broadens too far the meaning of “Roman Catholic Church” and is not “the most accurate formulation.” So much for the teaching of Pius XII! Referring to the Oriental or Eastern rites of the Catholic Church, which YT calls the “sui iuris churches” (because they have their own code of canon law and local patriarchs), YT next informs us of the properly restricted meaning of “Roman Catholic Church”:

Now a very specific reality is expressed by the use of the word “subsists.” Cardinal Ratzinger explains that “subsists” demonstrates that while “the Church of Christ as such is a broader entity than the Roman Catholic Church,” the latter bears a character of the Church of Christ which no other church, sui iuris or otherwise, can claim. This character is the character of “subject.” What does the prefect mean by this? A “subject” is, in philosophical language, the acting entity, the center of willing and perception…. Now the sui iuris [Oriental] Churches are all a part of the Church of Christ. However, the true and proper “subject,” or actor, for the Church of Christ is the Roman Catholic Church. The Church of Rome is distinct in that it represents the center of action for the Church of Christ. To say that the Church of Christ is the Roman Catholic Church is to suggest that the Church of Christ starts and ends within the borders of the Roman Church, and it does not address the specific role of the Roman Church in its relation to the other Catholic Churches….

Yes, you have read YT correctly. He actually maintains that when Pius XII referred to “the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Roman Church” in Mystici corporis, His Holiness meant only the “Church of Rome,” and did not include the Oriental rites (churches) in this term. Even more bizarre, YT claims that it was this “Church of Rome”—not the Catholic Church as a whole, including the Oriental rites—that was given the keys of the Kingdom via Peter:

The reason for this distinctive nature of the Roman Church over and above the other sui iuris Catholic Churches is that the Keys of the Kingdom were given to Peter and Peter alone. He is the center of action, the Rock on which the rest of the Church rests… Since the Pope—and no other—is the Vicar of Christ on earth… the Church over which he is patriarch—the Church of Rome—likewise becomes the acting “subject” of the Church of Christ…. It is then rightly fitting that the Church which is directly entrusted to the Vicar of Christ should also bear this “character of a true and proper subject”…. This is the impact and the true importance of the use of the word “subsist” instead of “is.”

Hence YT seriously contends that the Second Vatican Council taught, and that Cardinal Ratzinger meant to say, that the Church of Christ “subsists” only in “the Church of Rome” and not in the Oriental churches. That is, according to YT, the Church “subsists” only in the Roman Rite. Let his own words convict him of this grotesque error:

By Roman Catholic Church one is to understand that specific ecclesiastical structure which uses the Latin Rite, the Latin Code of Canon Law, and has the Bishop of Rome as its patriarch. This particular Church has the ‘character of a true and proper subject’ unlike any other of the legitimate Catholic Churches.

Hold your ecclesiological horses, YT! In the first place, this novel theory contradicts even the teaching of Vatican II in Lumen Gentium 8, already noted, which states that the Church of Christ subsists not merely in the Roman Rite, but “in the Catholic Church, governed by the Successor of Peter and the bishops in Communion with him [et Episcopis in eius communione]”—that is, all the bishops, both Latin and Oriental.

This “development” of doctrine by YT will come as a rude shock to Eastern Rite Catholics, who had always believed that they were as much a part of the “subsistence” of the Church of Christ as the Roman Rite. YT seems unaware that his novelty also flatly contradicts the teaching of Vatican II in Orientalium Ecclesiarum, 3 that all the rites of the Church are “of equal dignity, so that none of them is superior to the others as regards rite and they enjoy the same rights and are under the same obligations, also in respect of preaching the Gospel to the whole world (cf. Mark 16, 15) under the guidance of the Roman Pontiff.” Not even Vatican II supports YT’s peculiar theory.

Obviously, YT’s new doctrine would destroy the integrity of the Mystical Body of Christ by dividing it into two classes of Church: the “Church of Rome” in which the Church of Christ truly “subsists,” and the Oriental rites which, apparently, just sort of hang around in the Mystical Body, basking in the “subsistence” of the “Church of Rome.” Where did YT acquire this strange conception of the one, Holy, Catholic, Apsotolic and Roman Church described by Pope Pius XII? Perhaps it was at the University of Steubenville, where he became a “theologian.”

Here we see another example of how neo-Catholic thinkers have wandered so far into the realm of novelty that they are beginning to make the ambiguous documents of Vatican II sound positively conservative by comparison.

It hardly seems necessary to go on, but as I am a lawyer by trade, I cannot resist nailing down the point with as many nails as possible. It doesn’t take a theologian to see that neither Vatican II nor Pius XII ever taught anything resembling YT’s theory. As I have already noted, Pius XII drew no distinction between (a) the Church of Christ, (b) the Roman—I repeat, Roman—Catholic Church, and (c) the Mystical Body of Christ. All three terms refer to the same thing. To recall the Pope’s teaching again:

If we would define and describe this true Church of Jesus Christ—which IS the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Roman Church—we shall find nothing more noble, more sublime, or more divine than the expression “the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ”—an expression which springs from and is, as it were, the fair flowering of the repeated teaching of the Sacred Scriptures and the holy Fathers.

Moreover, further on in Mystici corporis Pius XII states that “What we have said of the Universal Church [i.e., the Church of Christ, the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Roman Church] must be understood also of the individual Christian communities, whether Oriental or Latin, which go to make up the one Catholic Church.” Thus, the only distinction Pius drew was between Oriental and Latin communities. He said nothing of any distinction between a “Church of Rome” and the Oriental churches with respect to what is meant by “Roman Catholic Church.”

But as YT would have it, the Roman Catholic Church—which he conveniently changes into “the Church of Rome”—is not the Church of Christ, but only part of the Church of Christ, along with the Oriental churches. Thus, YT not only denies that the Roman Catholic Church and the Mystical Body are one and the same thing, he even denies that the Roman Catholic Church and the Catholic Church are one and the same thing!

To add to all the theological confusion YT has created for The Wanderer’s readers, he acknowledges that the Oriental rites are, at least, part of the Mystical Body of the Christ, even if the Church of Christ does not “subsist” in them as it does in the “Church of Rome,” a/k/a the Roman Rite. But that would mean that the Church of Christ subsists in only part of the Mystical Body. YT apparently thinks that this is the case! Here are his own words:

And the word “is” was changed (!) to ‘subsist’ in order to make clearer this unique character of the Roman Church within the Mystical Body of Christ. The word “subsist” restates the “is” and distinguishes the particular kind of being that the Roman Catholic Church [as defined by YT—i.e, the Roman Rite] embodies….

When all is said and done, how does YT propose to get around Pius XII’s use of that stubborn little word is? As YT admits, Pius XII “essentially states that the Mystical Body of Christ is the Roman Catholic Church.” On what basis, then, does YT maintain that the Roman Catholic Church is something less than the whole Mystical Body but at the same time the only “subsistence” of the Church of Christ? In typical neo-Catholic fashion, he simply dismisses Pius XII’s terminology as inadequate to postconciliar needs: “But this is precisely the difficulty with the word ‘is.’ Pius XII did not utter an error, of course [of course!], but there is more that can be said.”

Ah, so Pius XII used a term that presents a difficulty. Well, it certainly does present a difficulty for YT, and perhaps also for Cardinal Ratzinger, but not for any Catholic who can read a simple sentence. Here yet again we see how in neo-Catholic thinking postconciliar novelties must prevail over preconciliar teaching. (Cf. TGF, Chapter 11) “Subsists” as used by Cardinal Ratzinger must somehow trump “is” as used by Pius XII, even if Vatican II itself never taught that the terminology of Pius XII was inadequate—and even if Vatican II itself must be contradicted!

Now, to recall where we began, YT has fashioned this entire contrivance out of whole cloth simply in order to explain what Cardinal Ratzinger “really meant” when he said that “the being of the Church as such is a broader entity than the Roman Catholic Church.” All Ratzinger “really” meant, he claims, is that the being of the Church includes the Oriental rites as well as the Roman Rite, but that the Church “subsists” only in the Roman Rite. And the Cardinal, he says, does not cast doubt on the identity of the Mystical Body with the “Roman Catholic Church”—which, again, YT equates with the Roman Rite. No, according to YT, the Cardinal does agree that the Roman Catholic Church (Roman Rite) is the Mystical Body, but so is each of the Oriental rites. As he puts it: “The Roman Catholic Church is the Mystical Body of Christ, but this does not make the Coptic Catholic Church any less part of this same Mystical Body (emphasis mine).” Notice the obfuscation: In the same sentence YT switches from “is the Mystical Body” to “part of… the Mystical Body,” evidently in the hope that no one will notice he is actually claiming that “is” means the same as “part of,” that the part is the same as the whole. Sure—and the young theologian’s left foot is the young theologian.[5]

But unfortunately for YT, Cardinal Ratzinger could not honestly accept this contrivance as his own view, for in his FA interview the Cardinal clearly assumed—as every other sensible Catholic does—that the term “Roman Catholic Church” means not only the “Church of Rome” but also the Oriental rites, which have equal standing relative to the problematical term “subsists.” Nowhere—absolutely nowhere—has Cardinal Ratzinger ever stated that “subsists” refers only to the “Church of Rome” or Roman Rite as distinguished from “other Catholic Churches.” Rather, as I have shown above, in FA the Cardinal said that “the being of the Church” includes not only the Roman Catholic Church in all her rites (in which integral and undifferentiated whole the being of the Church is said to “subsist”), but also extends beyond the Roman Catholic Church to the Orthodox churches, which he called “true particular churches.”

By the way, YT never addresses our concern about the Cardinal’s statement that the schismatic Orthodox churches are “true particular churches.” He seems to have lost sight of the issue in the process of inventing his new doctrine of the “subsistence” of the Church of Christ only in the Roman Rite.

As we can see, then, YT has invented his new ecclesiological doctrine solely in order to make Cardinal Ratzinger’s statements seem completely unexceptionable, so that he could portray Tom Woods and me as dishonest for suggesting there was anything controversial in the Cardinal’s views. For that indeed is the whole point of BAD; that indeed is what Al Matt paid his money for—six consecutive installments of a rash young man who is willing to cry liar, liar, liar based on nothing but his own misconceptions about theological matters as basic as the meaning of “Roman Catholic Church.” And this gaffe, mind you, has been committed by someone who thinks himself qualified to correct supposed theological ignorance and imprecision in the thinking of traditionalists. This is Al Matt’s new paladin of the neo-Catholic apologetic? What better vindication of the traditionalist case could we ask for?

It is not the well-founded claims of traditionalists but the pages of The Wanderer that lie to us; endless pages filled with the cocksure pronouncements of a “theologian” who thinks he knows it all, but is really the greenest of rookies in this debate. As Editor, Al Matt is directly responsible for promulgating this young man’s serious theological error—and for no other reason than to prolong his grudge match against The Remnant and its writers. Did Mr. Matt even bother to have YT’s manuscript reviewed by someone—anyone—for theological accuracy before he rushed it into print? Mr. Matt now has a duty to his readers and to the Church to publish a retraction of YT’s departure from Catholic doctrine. If he fails to do so, then The Wanderer forfeits whatever credibility it has not already squandered in its senseless anti-traditionalist campaign.

I will have no further comment (at least not in this venue) on the “brilliant and devastating critique.” But I am very curious to see if “the young theologian” and his second are prepared to stand up and defend his views in an open forum before a live audience. As Tom Woods and I have said in our challenge to The Wanderer, we will give BAD two hours of our time. And that is two hours more than BAD is worth.

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[1]L’Osservatore Romano, Italian edition, October 8, 2000, p. 4: “Quando i Padri conciliar sostituirono la parola ‘è’ con la parola ‘subsistit’ lo fecera con un scopo ben preciso. Il concetto espresso da ‘è’ (essere) è piu ampio di quello espresso da ‘sussistere.’ ‘Sussitere’ è un modo ben preciso di essere, ossia essere come soggeto che esiste in sé. I Padri conciliari dunque intendevano dire che l’essere dlla Chiesa in quanto tale è un entità piu ampia dell Chiesa cattolica romana.”

In our research for TGF we discovered that the L’Osservatore translation curiously omits several key words from the Cardinal’s remarks to Frankfurter Allgemeine. The original German reads, “...die Konzilsväter das von Pius XII gebrauchte Wort ‘ist’ durch ‘subsistit’ ersetzten”—literally, “...the Council Fathers replaced the word ‘is,’ used by Pius XII, with ‘subsistit.’” (German translations by Tom Woods.) This apparently deliberate omission is of great importance. L’Osservatore’s translation makes it appear that the word “is,” as in the Mystical Body of Christ is the Catholic Church, was simply a way of speaking that had somehow become part of the Church’s intellectual milieu. But the Cardinal’s German words reveal an acknowledgment that the use of the word “is” in this context can be traced directly to a pope, and a recent one at that: Pius XII. Excising these words obscures the degree of novelty contained in Ratzinger’s position.

The L’Osservatore translation is deficient in another regard: In the last sentence of this passage, the original German reads, “So wollten die Väter sagen: Das Sein der Kirche als solches reicht viel weiter als die römisch-katholische Kirche,”—literally, “Thus the Fathers meant to say: the being of the Church as such extends much further than the Roman Catholic Church.” The L’Osservatore translation, above, which translates this phrase to say that “the being of the Church as such is a broader entity than the Roman Catholic Church,” once again plays down the radical nature of what Ratzinger is saying. “Extends much further” is a fairly startling statement, certainly more troubling than the admittedly problematic “is a broader entity.” (Note: Italian translations by C. Ferrara; German translations by T. Woods.)

[2] YT falsely suggests that in discussing the common concern over the ambiguous term “subsists,” Tom Woods and I are accusing Vatican II of teaching universal salvation: “The reason for this trickery, the authors would [my emphasis] argue, is so that liberal Catholics could expand membership in the Church of Christ to the whole world, Catholic and non-Catholic. This would advance a position of practical universal salvation, for if the whole world can be part of the Church of Christ regardless of their [sic] actual religious affiliation, then everyone is saved.”

Of course, TGF says nothing of the kind, which is why YT engages in the ruse of writing about what we “would” argue, as opposed to what we do argue. The argument against Vatican II’s term “subsist,” versus Pius XII’s simple “is,” is that “subsist” has led to the very interpretation now advanced by Cardinal Ratzinger: that the Church of Christ is “broader” than the Roman Catholic Church. This is gravely problematical, but hardly amounts to saying that the Church of Christ includes everyone in the world. Here we see one of the many crude caricatures of our position that make the “brilliant and devastating critique” worthless as a serious reply to our book. Quite simply, the book we wrote is not the one YT critiqued; but that is a common problem with reviewers who have an axe to grind. YT’s claim that he was “surprised” that he found the book unconvincing is a typical pose for this type of reviewer.

[3]Joseph Ratzinger, Theological Highlights of Vatican II (New York: Paulist Press, 1966), pp. 61, 68.

[4]Mystici Corporis is relegated to a footnote in support of a reference unrelated to the doctrine of the Mystical Body. See DI, footnote 92.

[5] In this connection, YT conveniently overlooks Pius XII’s teaching that “the Mystical Body of Christ are and the Roman Catholic Church are one and the same thing.” YT’s claim thus reduces to the absurdity that the Coptic Catholic Church and the Mystical Body of Christ are one and the same thing.

LOL!!! I hope The Wanderer accepts Chris Ferrara's and Tom Woods' challenge to public debate:

AUTHORS OF GREAT FAÇADE
CHALLENGE WANDERER TO PUBLIC DEBATE

In May 2003, The Wanderer began what we are told will be a six-part series attacking our book, The Great Façade. Thus far, we have found it no different in essence from the Wanderer’s seven-part series several years ago attacking traditionalists, serialized into a pamphlet called “Traditionalists,” Tradition, and Private Judgment, which served as the impetus for our own book.

At the outset, Wanderer editor Al Matt introduces us to the “young theologian” who has penned the critique – he is, we are told, a graduate of the Franciscan University of Steubenville. This young theologian, it should be conceded, at least possesses the virtue of actually quoting the traditionalists he criticizes, which is more than can be said for the puerile attacks of the pamphlet. Apart from that, his series barely rises above the level of its predecessor in its name-calling and obfuscation.

Al Matt, however, calls his young theologian’s work “brilliant and devastating.” He describes The Great Façade as a work having “a certain appeal to those Catholics, mainly younger ones, who have little education in the Catholic faith or Church history.”

That Al should make such statements about a book he has not read should not come as a surprise to anyone. His interaction with traditionalists has not exactly been known for its dignity or professionalism. When a Wanderer columnist spent 2,700 words attacking one of us last year, Al would not even publish a brief letter to the editor in reply. Even the New York Times and the National Catholic Reporter do not behave like that. When he launched an unprovoked attack on The Latin Mass magazine last year, solemnly warning his readers against that subversive publication, poor Al was utterly taken aback when editor-in-chief Fr. James McLucas not only refused to take the bait but also wrote Al a cordial letter inviting him to more fruitful discussion and less name-calling in the future. Totally outclassed, poor Al could barely splutter a response.

Let’s consider a few of our book’s supporters. Tom Bethell of The American Spectator and the Hoover Institution has described the book as “a breakthrough.” Wanderer columnist Joe Sobran wrote a laudatory column about the book in his newsletter, Sobran’s. Former Wanderer columnist Dr. Thomas Droleskey has praised the book lavishly. (Why did Al have in his employ all those years a man who apparently has “little education in the Catholic faith or Church history”?) John Blewett, former head of the Wanderer Forum, continues to praise the book. Fr. Kenneth Baker, author and editor of the venerable Homiletic and Pastoral Review, gave the book a respectful and friendly review. Perhaps Al will get around to insulting all these men to their faces, though probably not.

The book, says the young theologian in his first installment, is a “farce.” Sure – that’s why he’s written a 127-page manuscript and a six-part Wanderer series against it.

The first installment is taken up by a lengthy harangue regarding our failure to “define” commonly understood terms. To his horror, we do not “define” such terms as “Magisterium,” “orthodoxy,” “tradition,” and “assent.” (Yes, what could be more obscure and in need of definition than those words?)

Worst of all, he argues, is that we nowhere define the term neo-Catholic! “A neo-Catholic, then,” he correctly quotes us as saying, “is someone who more or less lives according to the neo-Catholic idea.” But he alleges that we define “the neo-Catholic idea” by reference to the statements of people we have already described as neo-Catholics. He accuses us of saying, in effect, that neo-Catholics believe in the neo-Catholic idea, and the neo-Catholic idea is what neo-Catholics believe. So the argument is circular, a mere tautology!

It would be fascinating to find out the IQ scores of people who read The Great Façade and walked away with no idea of what a neo-Catholic was. Nowhere mentioned in this “brilliant and devastating critique” is that we had just spent page after page defining the neo-Catholic idea very precisely. Our young theologian gives the game away when he concedes that he knows the term applies to him – a fact it would be impossible for him to know if our argument were really circular and without definitional content. No wonder Fr. Brian Harrison, who is not himself a traditionalist, wrote to The Wanderer to protest this argument, which he calls “so superficial as to be preposterous.” So superficial as to be preposterous. Al Matt calls it “brilliant and devastating.”

The young theologian accuses us of distorting papal statements, despite the fact that one of our points is that it has been the Wanderer crowd that has distorted them, selectively quoting traditional-sounding remarks and concealing more radical ones. Not a peep out of our young theologian about that.

For our young theologian, all the apparent contradiction, scandal, and outright inanity are easily explained. If only traditionalists weren’t always misquoting or misrepresenting the statements of Vatican officials, everyone would see that all their remarks are perfectly traditional. Thus not a single one of the thousands of problematic statements and actions we cite in our book gives the young theologian the slightest pause – all can be accounted for. Every one of them can be explained (even if the explanations and disclaimers provided by the young theologian do not appear to have occurred to the perpetrators themselves), and only the perverse obstinacy for which we traditionalists are known can account for our refusal to accept these perfectly reasonable explanations.

We invite readers to judge for themselves.

One of the key arguments in his manuscript is another typical one: that we are guilty of the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. That is, just because the devastation followed the Council and the introduction of the novelties (principally ecumenism, “dialogue,” and the new liturgy) doesn’t mean it was caused by them. The statistically measurable devastation of the Church – in terms of conversions, Mass attendance, vocations, and the like – in the post-conciliar period could all have been a coincidence, says the young theologian, and not have anything to do with the novelties at all. How do we know why all those people left the Church? He demands to know whether we interviewed them all.

This is the last desperate claim of one forced to acknowledge that all the talk of a “new springtime” in the Church is completely illusory. Consider just one example of what this argument means. The language of conversion all but drops out of the postconciliar vocabulary (when was the last time the American bishops called for the conversion of America – a routine occurrence in the preconciliar years?), key cardinals speak of “convergence” as replacing conversion, and our young theologian considers it downright impertinent to suggest that the dramatic decline in conversions might actually have something to do with this observable and apparently deliberate decline in evangelical zeal. Writing in The Latin Mass, Joe Sobran wonders if he “would have bothered joining the Church if I had received the kind of introduction to the Faith today’s young people get.”

If it’s post hoc arguments he dislikes, the young theologian should direct some of his wrath at Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, who wrote, “I am convinced that the ecclesial crisis in which we find ourselves today depends in great part on the collapse of the liturgy.” How does he know that? Perhaps the relationship between the crisis and the new liturgy is entirely coincidental!

This month, Fr. John McCloskey, the Opus Dei priest who heads the Catholic Information Center in Washington, D.C., and who is also not a traditionalist, was quoted by United Press International as saying that the liturgical degeneration that followed the abandonment of the traditional Mass “must have driven hundreds of thousands out of our churches.” Go get him, young theologian! For how can he know that? Did he interview all those people?

The rest of the young theologian’s critique involves the same tired arguments we’ve heard before: the new Mass isn’t really new, the novelties aren’t really novel, etc. He also claims that the Church has opposed doctrinal novelties but not novelties in non-dogmatic areas of her life – a position that simply ignores the papal statements we quoted in the book, and others we could add if we considered it worth our time to debate such an obvious point.

We have no desire to write another book in defense of our first book. Moreover, the two of us dealt with the young theologian’s claims at length at a conference in May sponsored by Una Voce Los Angeles. However, for the edification of traditional faithful, we are willing to grant the young theologian (and a partner of his choice) two hours of our time for a formal public debate. The debate would revolve around this question: “RESOLVED, that the ecclesial novelties of the past forty years (including ecumenism, ‘dialogue,’ ‘interreligious dialogue,’ and the Novus Ordo Mass) have caused grave damage to the Church and should be abandoned in favor of a return to the Church’s traditional teaching, practice, and worship.”

We favor a public debate not only because it would save a great deal of time as compared with an endless series of tit-for-tat exchanges, but also because in such a setting it will be much more difficult for our opponents to misrepresent our position or avoid answering our central claims. Let’s see how the young theologian handles our challenge to stand up in public and deliver on his accusations against our book. Let the public judge – in an open forum where one cannot hide from a simple question – which side is telling the truth about the post-conciliar crisis in the Church.

Christopher A. Ferrara
Thomas E. Woods, Jr.

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