SHOULD THE VATICAN RE- OPEN THE BOSTON CASE? WAS ARCHBISHOP RICHARD CUSHING IN HERESY? ARE THE JESUITS AT BOSTON COLLEGE STILL IN HERESY?

SHOULD THE VATICAN REOPEN THE BOSTON CASE? WAS ARCHBISHOP RICHARD CUSHING IN HERESY? ARE THE JESUITS AT BOSTON COLLEGE STILL IN HERESY?

EWTN’s report by Michael J. Mazza on the Internet EXTRA ECCLESIAM NULLA SALUS: FATHER FEENEY MAKES A COMEBACK states:

Three separate articles appeared on the subject of ,(in From the Housetops) culminating in a piece in the December 1948 issue entitled "Liberal Theology and Salvation," written by Raymond Karam. In discussing the necessity of visible membership in the Catholic Church for salvation, it read:

Our age is witnessing a terrible defection of Christ's word in the minds of innumerable Catholics. Infected with liberalism, surrendering their minds to teachers of error and heresy, they minimize the importance of dogma and of Catholic unity, and they distort the meaning of Charity, changing that sublime supernatural virtue into a sentimental shadow which, at best, can be termed mere charitableness.... The eternal salvation of man is achieved by adhering to the word of Christ, by abiding in the vine. Those alone bear good fruit who have been faithful to the word of Christ.... It is part, therefore, of the doctrine of Jesus Christ that no man can be saved outside the Catholic Church (Pepper, p. 18).

Enough concern was generated by this article that a priest from the Theology Department of Boston College drafted a brief five-page response. The Center, sensing it had struck a nerve, eagerly welcomed the challenge. Raymond Karam wrote a 57-page response, which was published in the Spring 1949 issue of From the Housetops. Fr. Feeney's support for Karam and his position is without question, given the Jesuit's influential position at the Center and with From the Housetops, as well as his later assertion that "what Mr. Karam holds is what I hold" (Pepper, p. 30).

Seeking to bring the matter to a head, three members of the Center who also were on the faculty of Boston College wrote their president on January 26, 1949 notifying him that the Theology Department of their institution was in heresy. One month later, these three were joined by a teacher from Boston College High School in writing to the Jesuit General Superior in Rome with the same accusations. The reaction was swift. The four were fired from their respective positions on April 13, 1949. Now the Center had its martyrs, and the war was on.

The ex cathedra dogma says no man can be saved outside the Catholic Church. This was the position of Fr.Leonard Feeney and St.Benedict Centre. This is the teaching of Fr.Leonard Feeney’s communities today, two of whom have been given canonical status in the diocese of Worcester,USA.

Yet the Jesuit Superior General of that time removed Fr.Leonard Feeney from the community. He was also removed as a professor at Boston College.

Was he really in heresy?

These theological subtleties were apparently lost on Fr. Feeney and his crowd. The renegade Jesuit had, in the meantime, immersed himself in his own cauldron of boiling oil by repeatedly refusing to obey an order by his now extremely concerned Jesuit superiors to leave the Center and go to another assignment at Holy Cross College. In April 1949, Fr. Feeney was visited by a former teacher of his who urged him "for the good of the Society, the good of the Province, and thereby the good of your soul," to comply, but Feeney refused, claiming "it is the Blessed Lady who is keeping me at St. Benedict Center" (Pepper, pp. 29-30).

Archbishop Cushing's subsequent suspension of Fr. Feeney's priestly faculties on April 18, 1949 only formalized what had already occurred, as the rebellious priest had moved out of the Jesuit Residence and into the Center itself some time previous. Fr. Feeney continued to celebrate the sacraments despite the fact he had no faculties to do so.- Michael Mazza

The Archbishop of Boston never affirmed the ex cathedra teaching in public. The Jewish Left newspapers reported that the Catholic Church had changed its teaching on outside the church there is no salvation. There was no clarification from the Archbishop.


Whatever Rome knew about the case came largely from the Archbishop as Fr.Feeney refused to go to Rome to defend himself.


Was he really in heresy? Time shows that the Jesuits at Boston College still reject the ex cathedra teaching.

How could Fr.Feeney or Bro.Francis Malus (Raymond Karam) be in heresy when you read the text of the infallible teaching ?


How can there be a de facto baptism of desire that we can know of?

Time shows that it was not Fr.Feeney or Bro. Francis Maluf who were in heresy.

Perhaps the Vatican already knows this but for political reasons does not want to intervene.

The Boston Case needs to be re opened and even though justice is delayed, it needs to be done.