DISSENTING WEBSITE CATHOLICA ADMITS FR. LEONARD FEENEY NOT EXCOMMUNICATED FOR HERESY

The Australian dissenting website Catholica concedes that the priest Fr. Leonard Feeney was not excommunicated for heresy.

Catholica which usually urges Catholics to throw away Church  teachings and accept whatever  they like has an article by Fr. Dan Donowan http://www.catholica.com.au/gc2/dd/035_dd_300611.php

It says:

By February 4 1953 a plenary session of the Holy Office declared Feeney excommunicated ipso facto and the decree of excommunication was dated February 13 1953. His excommunication was not for upholding Catholic teaching but for his grave and scandalous disobedience to legitimate Church authority...

Feeney was never charged with heresy nor was he required to recant any aspect of his teaching when Cardinal Humberto Medeiros of Boston (1970-1983), petitioned Paul VI for Feeney's reconciliation. On August 23 1972, auxiliary Bishop Lawrence Riley of Boston went to St Benedict Center at Still River where Feeney recited the Athanasian Creed which begins thus; "Whoever wishes to be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic Faith. Which Faith except everyone do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt shall perish everlastingly..." The Abbey continues to celebrate the Latin liturgy and members still profess that "extra ecclesia nulla salus".

The report by Fr.Donowan does not say that the Letter of the Holy Office mentioned 'the dogma'. The dogma was a criticism of the Archbishop of Boston who suggested that the baptism of desire and invincible ignorance were exceptions to the dogma outside the church no salvation and to the traditional interpretation of Fr.Leonard Feeney. The dogma does not mention these exceptions.


Also the Catholica report cites the case of the sister of Archbishop Richard Cushing who married a Jew who influenced the non traditional decision of the Archbishop. It does not mention that the Jewish Left media in Boston projected  the Catholic Church as having changed its teaching on the dogma. This had Catholics assuming that the Church excommunicated Fr.Leonard Feeney for heresy. The role of the media is not mentioned in the article by Fr.Donawan.


Neither is it said that the Church has not retracted the dogma or that Vatican Council II (LG 14, Ag 7) has the same message as the defined dogma outside the church no salvation.

Instead Catholics wrongly assume that LG 16 on invincible ignorance, is an exception to the dogma. They believe irrationally  that those saved in invincible ignorance etc are known defacto. This is the legacy of the Archbishop of Boston and the Jews at Boston College. We now know there can be no visible baptism of desire and so it cannot be a contradiction of the dogma.


No where in the Letter of the Holy Office 1949 is it said that the baptism of desire etc are exceptions to the dogma.-Lionel Andrades