Posted on 04/01/2004 8:01:29 PM PST by Pyro7480
(Reprinted with permission from NEW OXFORD REVIEW, 1069 Kains Ave., Berkeley, CA 94706, U.S.A.)
(Part I here)
No Souls in Hell?
One of the most pernicious errors that plagues the Catholic Church today is creeping universalism. While few will come out and baldly state that no one is damned to hell, the door is left open to that conclusion by writers such as Hans Urs von Balthasar in his book Dare We Hope "That All Men Be Saved?". We have seen this played out in the pages of the NEW OXFORD REVIEW (Jan. 2001, July.-Aug. 2001, Oct. 2001), as the universalist tendencies of Fr. Richard John Neuhaus have come under scrutiny. And I have encountered any number of relatively prominent Catholic apologists who argue vociferously (although privately) in favor of the veiw that we cannot know for certain, based on Scripture and Tradition, that there are any human souls in Hell.
One finds, unfortunately, that support for this new-fangled notion be found at the very top of the Church's hierarchy. In a general audience of July 28, 1999, the Holy Fater stunned many faithful Catholics when he stated that: "Eternal damnation remains a real possibility, but we are not granted, without special divine revelation, the knowledge of whether or which human beings are effectively involved in it" (emphasis mine). This appears in the official version of the Pope's talks, Insegnamenti di Giovanni Paolo II, but without the doctrinally diffucult wording "whether" (se e in Italian). Presumably someone in the Vatican noticed that the words, as they were actually spoken, were problematic and intervened to make sure the official version conforms unambiguously to Chuch teaching. Still, it is the publicly spoken version that has received so much attention. Thus the Holy Father's spoken words appear to deny that the sources of public revelation (i.e., Scripture and Tradition) are sufficient to tell us whether any human souls at all are damned. And yet our Lord says quite plainly that many will fail to attain eternal salvation: "Enter through the narrow gate; for the fate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it" (Mt. 7:13-14; emphasis mine; also see: Mt. 13: 24-30, 36-51; 22:1-14; 25:14; Lk. 10:13-15; 13:23-24; Jude 7). And the entire Catholic Tradition has affirmed that we can indeed be certain that there are human souls damned, although we cannot know specifically which individuals are so affected. Numerous magisterial texts leave no room for a Hell empty of human souls. I will quote but two: "And so Our Predecessor, Benedict XIV, had just cause to write: "We declare that a great number of those who are condemned to eternal punishment suffer that everlasting calamity because of ignorance of those mysteries of faith which must be known and believed in order to numbered among the elect'" (Pope Pius X, Acerbo Nimis #3, citing Benedict XIV, Instit., 27:18). (What is being referred to here is vincible ignorance, not invincible ignorance.) Also, the current Catechism states regarding Christ's descent into Hell on Holy Saturday: "Scripture calls the abode of the dead, to which the dead Christ went down, 'hell' - Sheol in Hebrew or Hades in Greek - because those who are there are deprived of the vision of God. Such is the case for all the dead, whether evil or righteous, while they await the redeemer; which does not mean that their lot is identical, as Jesus showes through the parable of the poor man Lazarus who was received into 'Abraham's bosom'.... Jesus did not descend into hell to deliver the damned, nor to destroy the hell of damnation, but to free the just who had gone before him" (#633). This clearly indicates that there are human souls in Hell who will never escape.
Creeping univeralism has very troubling practical results. Most notably, it dampens missionary zeal and Catholic evangelism. The driving motive behind all the great missionary efforts in the history of the Catholic Church has been the understanding that, without Christ and His Church, human beings are in varying degrees in a disadvantageous situation regarding their salvation. The imperative to go and preach the Gospel, even in the face of torture and death, has been driven by the conviction that multitudes are in danger of eternal damnation if they are not reached. But if everybody will be saved or if Catholics may entertain true doubts whether anybody at all will end up in Hell, then a key motivation for missionary work and Catholic evangelism is subverted.
Collegiality & Lack of Ecclesiastical Discipline
Agnosticism about the reality of human damnation also stands in large measure behind the collapse of ecclesiastical discipline that plagues the Catholic Church. If a shepherd in the Church truly belived that the souls under his care are in jeopardy of hellfire on account of heresy, sacrilege, and mortal sin (as is taught by innumerable Fathers, Doctors, and popes) then he would act decisively to suppress these things and punish the individuals responsible for spreading them, even to the point of exclusing them from the body of the Church. This is what the entire tradition of the Church (and even her present canon law [see canon 915]) tells him to do.
Could it be that our Holy Father does not exercise his disciplinary authority because he is not convinced that we can know whether there is anyone in Hell? Is it not possible that certains theological conclusions and practical outcomes logically go hand in glove?
It seems, too, that the lack of ecclesiastical discipline in the Church may be the product of other theological and philosophical shifts. Romano Amerio, a peritus at Vatican II, presents this fascnating commentary on the lack of discipline since Vatican II, which he poetically dubs a brevatio manus Domini a foreshortening of the hand of the Lord:
"The external fact is the disunity of the Church, visible in the disunity of the bishops among themselves, and with the Pope. The internal fact producing it is the renunciation, that is, the non-functioning of papal authority itself, from which the renunciation of all other authority derives...
Now, the peculiar feature of the pontificate of Paul VI was the tendency to shift the papacy from governing to admonishing, or in scholastic terminology, to restrict the field of preceptive law, which imposes an obligation, and to enlarge the field of directive law, which formulates a rule without imposing any obligation to observe it. The government of the Church thus loses half its scope, or to put it biblically, the hand of the Lord is foreshortened....
Two things are needed to maintain truth. First: remove the error from the doctrinal sphere, which is done by refuting erroneous arguments and showing that they are not convincing. Second: remove the person in error, that is depose him from officem which is done by an act of the Church's authority. If this pontifical service is not performed, it would seem unjustified to say that all means have been used to maintain the doctrine of the Church: we are in the presence of a brevatio manus Domini....
The origin of this whole brevatio manus lies quite clearly in the opening speech of the Second Vatican Council, which announced an end to the condemnation of error, a policy which was maintained by Paul VI throughout the whole of his pontificate. As a teacher, he held to the traditional formulas expressing the orthodox faith, but as a pastor, he did not prevent the free circulation of unorthodox ideas, assuming the they would of themselves eventually take an orthodox form and become compatible with truth. Errors were identified and the Catholic faith reiterated, but specific persons were not condemned for their erroneous teaching, and the schismatic situation in the Church was disguised and tolerated....
The general effect of a renunciation of authority is to bring authority into disrepute and to lead it to be ignored by those who are subject to it, since a subject cannot hold a higher view of authority than authority holds of itself....
The renunciation of authority, even as applied to doctrinal affairs, which had been begun by John XXIII and pursued by Paul VI, has been continued by John Paul II." (Iota Unum: A Study of Changes in the Catholic Church in the XXth Century)
Amerio cites the amazing testimony of Carinal Oddi, who spoke to a gathering of Catholic United for the Faith in the 1970s. Amerio shows, in his answer, that refusal to exercise discipline in the Church has at its heart a philosophical shift:
The Prefect for the Congregation of the Clergy was insistently asked why the Holy See did not remove those who taught error, such as Fr. Curran, who had for years been openly attacking Humanae Vitae, and who teaches the licitness of sodomy. Why was it that the Holy See did not correct and disavow those bishops, such as Mgr. Gerety, who depart from sound doctrine and protect those who corrupt the faith? The Cardinal replied that "The Church no longer imposes punishments. She hopes instead to persuade those who err." She has chosen this course "perhaps because she does not have precise information about the different cases in which error arises, perhaps because she thinks it imprudent to take energetic measures, perhaps too because she wants to avoid event greater scandal through disobedience. The Church believes it is better to tolerate certain errors in the hope that when certain difficulties have been overcome, the person in error will reject his error and return to the Church."
This is an admission of the brevatio manus... and an assertion of the innovation announced in the opening speech of the council: error contains within itself the means of its own correction, and there is no need to assist to process: it is enough to let it unfold, and it will correct itself. Charity is held to synonymous with tolerance, indulgence takes precedence over severity, the common good of the ecclesial community is overlooked in the interests of a misused individual liberty [and] the sensus logicus and the virtue of fortitude proper to the Church are lost. The reality is that the Church ought to preserve and defend the truth with all the means available to a perfect society." (ibid.)
Here, it seems, is a directclash between the Church's pre-conciliar Thomistic realism and a post-conciliar emphasis on a certain kind of personalism which increasingly looks like a divorce from reality and a rejection of commmon sense. Further, as the years have passed since Vatican II, these now-stock excuses for why the Vatican has refused to discipline renegade priests and bishops have crumbled, one by one. Certainly the many decades over which the crisis has spread have been sufficient to gather the information necessary to judge the erroneous opinions of various priests and bishops accurately and justly. And the "greater scandal" argument - most often formulated in terms of the avoidance of open schism - has now been shown falses in the most recent clerical sex scandals. The Holy Father could have removed many deviant bishops and priests with complete impunity. The other bishops would have not dared defy him on such an issue, especially since those most apt to break openly with Rome tend to have scandalous skeletons in their own closets. With even the secular world rightly expecting tough treatment of such deviancy, who would have dared go into schism over the situation? But has any disciplinary action been taken? Rather, in yet another bow to the novelty of collegiality, the entire problem was handed back to the national hierarchy which, through its own laxity, spawned the scandal in the first place.
How about this,
The [First] Vatican Council has defined as "a divinely revealed dogma" that "the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra -- that is, when in the exercise of his office as pastor and teacher of all Christians he defines, by virtue of his supreme Apostolic authority, a doctrine of faith or morals to be held by the whole Church -- is, by reason of the Divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, possessed of that infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer wished His Church to be endowed in defining doctrines of faith and morals; and consequently that such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are irreformable of their own nature (ex sese) and not by reason of the Church's consent" (Densinger no. 1839 -- old no. 1680).
Funny, I was just thinking that your little "criticizing the Pope is heresy; you are all heretics; blah blah blah" tantrum was no different than the misrepresentations found in the anti-Catholic press, accusing us of worshipping the Pope.
Were I not convinced you were a Protestant shill sent to make Catholics seem ridiculous through this thin little charade, I'd take you seriously, and perhaps attempt to engage you in what we adults call an "intelligent conversation."
But I'm sure the length of this post must be making your head hurt by now, so I will allow you to return to your non sequitur sound bites and heroic leaps of logic. ;)
I don't know where you are trying to go with this.
The Sacred Scriptures are still appropriately interpreted and taught by the Church's Teaching Magisterium. No confusion there whatsoever. Only lack or the rejection of Church's Teaching Authority leads to confusion.
Earth to heyheyhey! Popes don't often speak ex cathedra. None of the instances that the author mentions is the pope speaking ex cathedra.
LOL.
I knew quoting John 3:16 would get me in trouble. :D
FYI, I am a Roman Catholic shill.
What happens when the Church's Teaching Authority teaches something that is obviously heterodox?
Says WHO????
There have been several occasions lately of selective quotation of documents, most memorably of an apostolic constitution of Pope Paul IV in the 1500s, which have been VERY opportunistic in what was omitted (such as Paul IV's views of how we are to react to schisms). If Fr. Brian Harrison has quoted Canon 212 incompletely without even an ellipsis to indicate that he omitted material, that is not a good methodology in scholarly circles or debate. This is particularly true when omitted material suggests conclusions contrary to those of the person so editing the work of another while relying on the altered text.
Likewise, we are not possessed of the knowledge that is the Vatican's. We can know that there was an awful lot of very naughty behavior by priests in the Archdiocese of Boston in recent decades and that Boston was by no means alone. We can generally have a good idea of what discipline, if any, was imposed (at least public discipline) upon offending priests or bishops. Hans Kung was disciplined. So was Edward Schillebeeckx. So were the "liberation theologians." We have to recognize the authority and responsibility lie with the Vatican and its subsdiaries and not with us. As Americans, we do not like to do that.
As Catholics, we practice the principle of subsidiarity and attempt to resolve problems on as local a basis as possible. If a priest preaches from the pulpit a heresy (say: Christ did not know He was God even on the Cross which is one that I have heard in Connecticut from a now dead Dominican priest), first go to the priest directly. If that does not work, go to the pastor. If that does not work, go to the bishop. The USCCB has no authority of its own because apostolic succession is not collective. Ignore USCCB. At that point, you may consider going to the Vatican to the Congregation for Priests or to the Holy Office or to the pope. It is not likely that any of these Vatican congregations or their leaders or the pope will track down the truth as to each accusation or that they could. Their numbers are limited compared to the numbers in diocesan authority. The Vatican is more remote and not as familiar with the individuals. These are reasons why the Church uses subsidiarity.
There are drawbacks and obvious ones to subsidiarity. Often the miscreants are close to their diocesan authorities (see AmChurch generally). The dioceses may refuse to carry out Vatican policy in ways less than obvious like claiming that there was insufficient proof of allegations or that it depended on the definition of "is" or other Clintonian or Mahoneyan or Weaklandian devices. Or like Bishop Grahmann, they may say: "I will resign when I get good and ready whether you Vatican reactionaries like it or not. Harrumph!!!" or some such thing less honestly stated.
We certainly have more than enough info in our own country on Mahoney, Hubbard, Loverde, Pilla, Pilarczyk and so many, many more to justify launching them to the planet Pluto or at least to set up for burnings at the stake. We can indeed so conclude accurately and justly.
We did not need the press and media coverage to know that there was a great scandal and probably still is a diminished one of utterly unacceptable behavior. We have been there before and survived nicely. See the Cluniac Reform, inter alia.
Before there was declared an SSPX schism, E. Michael Jones did an article in Fidelity Magazine about the sexual and physical abuse of a child of a very wealthy Chicago couple (lawyers both), the wife descended from a 1930s founder of the present Democratic machine, who had given many millions to the Archdiocese of Chicago and to the Vatican itself. Their son had been sexually abused by a priest at a parochial school and he was then so physically abused by an ex-nun functioning as principal that he was rendered steriile. the parents are or were worth hundreds of millions (courtesy of machine patronage). They investigated the priest and found that he had been moved repeatedly by Bernardin at very short intervals. They went to Bernardin and he gave them the runaround. They went to Cardinal Gagnon (formerly of Toronto) then serving as head of the Congregation on the Family in the Vatican. With his permission, they taped the conversation. The cardinal told them that the pope would not meet with them because there would be no purpose in doing so. Bernardin would refuse to obey and be backed by the American Church. He also told them that the American Church was effectively in schism then nearly twenty years ago. Maybe the Vatican is using attrition and surely that is one truth. OTOH, many bad bishops have been appointed here and elsewhere since Cardinal Gagnon spoke. Lately it has seemed to improve.
I don't really care what the secular world expects and I hope the Church never does either> I simply hope that the Church faithfully follows its own commission from Jesus Christ. Always imperfectly but as perfectly as the leadership can follow that commission.
We can also recognize the unlikelihood of dramatic solutions from on high so late in this papacy and so late in JP II's life. If I made the decisions, he would resign to a well-deserved retirement out of the world's view. Ronald Reagan is in much worse shape and even older but his isolation brings dignity. Margaret Thatcher is considerably younger but a bit affected by age and is restricted as to public appearances. Resignation is not without precedent (Gregory VII, previously known as Hildebrand). I would like to see a young, vigorous, orthodox and determined pope prepared to purge as necessary regardless of secular or finite consequences. That should be the policy of the next conclave and of the next pontiff.
It is not up to me or you or anyone but His Holiness. One begins to feel as the Lubavitchers must have felt as their final Schneerson Rebbe was struck dumb by a stroke in his 90s and yet enjoyed generally decent health. Unlike the Lubavitchers, we can elect a successor to Peter and to John Paul II now or later. JP II's condition is such that we have a bit of the quality of interregnum. He is an ecclesiastical Arthur after the betrayal by Guinevere and Lancelot and before the war with Mordred. Unlike Arthur, his frailty is irreversible.
I believe that JP II's health has crumbled and that those "excuses for why the Vatican has refused...." have not; that we simply must hold on, resist schism and heresy, pray, do our individual parts (what we can actually do personally and not just say the right thing), recruit others from outside the Church, have many children and raise them well with piety and morals and Catholic orthodoxy and courage and determination to overcome the Church's enemies when we are gone or to raise similar generations. I we can have no more children of our own, we can help those hardcore catholic parents who can and do.
I rather doubt that the NOR will go schismatic and, if it does, that will be another reason why God invented the Wanderer. The Wanderer is not the Remnant as both would gladly concede.
When you talk about bishops outside the Vatican, suggesting their orthodoxy, I trust we are not talking about Hubbard or Mahoney or their ilk. Are you talking about the excommunicated Fellay and Williamson and their ilk?
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