CDF NEGATES CATHOLIC DOGMA INDICATES CATHOLIC APOLOGIST MARK SHEA

CDF NEGATES CATHOLIC DOGMA INDICATES CATHOLIC APOLOGIST MARK SHEA




In an article, Can Non Catholics be Saved? , InsideCatholic.com, Mark Shea apologist writes Fr. Leonard Feeney was excommunicated for heresy.

He writes,' Rev. Leonard Feeney was excommunicated for insisting that only people in visible communion with the Catholic Church could be saved.’

It may be mentioned that Fr. Leonard Feeney taught that defacto everyone needs to enter the Catholic Church through Catholic Faith and the Baptism of water to go to Heaven and avoid Hell –and there were no exceptions.

This was the dogma of the Council of Florence and the Bull Sanctum of Pope Boniface. It is the teaching of Evangelii Nuntiandi of Pope Paul VI and Redemptoris Missio and Dominus Iesus of Pope John Paul II. It is referred to as the thrice defined dogma of the Catholic Church.

So if the Holy Office (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,CDF) excommunicated Fr. Leonard Feeney for heresy, then it means, the dogma has changed. It means there is a new doctrine.

It would mean the Vatican has changed the teaching on extra ecclesiam nulla salus and so it is no more a dogma.

It would mean that the past popes were not infallible and neither is the present Holy Father.

It would mean objective reality at the supernatural level has changed and the 1949 Letter refers to this change i.e. to avoid going to Hell the dogma said one must be a Catholic. This was the objective reality taught by Jesus and His Church over the centuries. So now objective reality has been changed by the CDF Mark Shea indicates.

Yet there is no new Catholic Revelation which indicates this change happened.

So if the Letter says Fr. Leonard Feeney was excommunicated for heresy (it does not) then it must mean that the cardinal who issued it was in error.

If for example there is a new pope tomorrow and he rejects the dogma of exclusive salvation in the Catholic Church, then he is fallible.

Since in faith and morals the Holy Father is always infallible, provided he teaches according to Sacred Tradition. Otherwise he would be considered an anti-pope,

This is implied by Mark Shea whose article of 24.10.2009 is a repeat of the one he wrote a few years back in Crisis magazine.