Saturday, September 10, 2011

THE LETTER OF THE HOLY OFFICE COULD BE A POLITE CORRECTION OF THE ARCHBISHOP OF BOSTON

 Fr.Leonard Feeney, the popes and the Church Fathers were not in error for holding that one must be a visible member of the Church to avoid Hell. To assume otherwise is the error of Wikipedia, Fr.William Most, Catholic Culture, Most Holy Family Monastery etc.


Jim: Why are you sending me quotations which no believing Catholic denies?
Lionel: Jim I sent you  quotations of the popes affirming the necessity of the Church for salvation, the necessity to be a visible, formal member with Catholic Faith and the baptism of water. Catholic Faith and the baptism of water is necessary for salvation for all people on earth whom we can know or meet, with no exceptions.

Jim: The documents quoted state that no one can be saved who culpably rejects Christ and His Church. (Lumen Gentium, 14).

The popes I quoted from Wikipedia nowhere mention that only they can be saved who culpably reject Christ and His Church. Wikipedia and you make this assumption.The popes were saying every one, all people need to convert into the Church for salvation.
Only Jesus can judge who is saved who ‘knows’ about the Church and who is in invincible ignorance.

Jim:They do not deny that non-Catholics and non-Christians in good faith and conscience can be saved. Fr. Feeney’s error was in holding that one must be a visible member of the Church to be saved.

Lionel :Like the popes quoted, and the Church Fathers, one can believe that in principle (de jure) a non Catholic can be saved in good faith and conscience, while at the same time believing that on earth all people whom we can know or meet, with no exceptions, must be a visible member of the Church to be saved.

There is no contradiction since de facto (in reality) there is no case that we can know of, meet on the streets, of a non Catholic saved in good faith or good conscience.

So Fr.Leonard Feeney, the popes and the Church Fathers were not in error for holding that one must be a visible member of the Church to avoid Hell. To assume otherwise is the error of Wikipedia, Fr.William Most, Catholic Culture, Most Holy Family Monastery etc.

Jim: The Church has rejected that misunderstanding of “No Salvation Outside the Church”.

Lionel: There is no misunderstanding except that created by Catholic liberals and the owners of the secular newspapers. They assume that those non Catholics saved with a good conscience or in good faith are known to us in the present times and so it contradicts the teaching that everyone needs to be a visible member of the Church.

Jim: The Catholic Church has clarified that non-Catholics can be saved without visible membership in the Church by truths and sacraments of the faith they hold which join or link them to the Church or by “baptism of blood” (Martyrdom).

Lionel: This was known throughout Church history and was not a problem.Even the communities of Fr.Leonard Feeney approved by the Church accept that a person can be saved with the conditions necessary for the baptism of desire. They have provided a definition of the baptism of desire.

Jim: As the Holy Office document “Suprema Haec Sacra” clearly taught in rejecting Fr. Feeney’s thesis, “In order that one may obtain eternal salvation, it is not always required that he be incorporated into the Church [by baptism] actually as a member, but it is required that at least he be united to it by intention and desire (voto et desiderio).”

Lionel: It depends on who is interpreting the Suprema Haec Sacra and the Letter of the Holy Office 1949. It could be interpreted as a polite correction of the Archbishop of Boston Cardinal Cushing. The Letter supported Fr.Leonard Feeney on doctrine and no where claims he was excommunicated for heresy.

The passage  quoted above mentions the possibility of a non Catholic being saved with the baptism of desire ‘in certain circumstances’(Letter of the Holy Office), as an exception and known only to God. De facto every one needs to be a visible member of the Church. This is the teaching of ‘the dogma’, ‘the infallible teaching’(Letter of the Holy Office).

Jim: The Church also teaches that in the merciful designs of God, Non-Christians, too, can be saved by living according to the Natural Law of God as far as they know it and will to do all the things God wills that they should do. All these good souls achieving salvation may be said to have been “within the Church” and thus within the One Ark of Salvation that God has provided for the salvation of all men. But such non-Catholics and non-Christians, if achieving salvation (the Beatific Vision of God) ,please note, were never visible members of the Church.

Lionel: Yes as mentioned above these exceptional cases are a possibility we accept them in principle, de facto we do not know any person saved in the present times who was living according to the Natural Law etc.

This does not contradict the ex cathedra teaching which indicates every one must be a visible member of the Church.

Jim: What I gather from your communications is that you are indeed a Feeneyite, for you deny that the Church has contradicted Fr. Leonard Feeney.

Lionel: The popes, Church Fathers and Pope John Paul II were ‘Feeneyites’. The Church has contradicted the liberal and false interpretations in the name of the Fr.Leonard Feeney. This can be seen in the Magisterial texts including that of Vatican Council II.

Jim: but it has, as explained above. You write: “So if we do not know any explicit case of a non-Catholic saved with the baptism of desire or invincible ignorance (L.G. 16), how can people claim that it contradicts Fr. Leonard Feeney [who] taught every one needs to be a visible, formal, ‘card carrying’ member of the Catholic Church to avoid Hell?”

Well, quite easily. Vatican II in L.G., 16, specifically notes :”Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience-THESE TOO MAY ACHIEVE ETERNAL SALVATION.”

Lionel: Correct they too may achieve eternal salvation and this is in accord with Lumen Gentium 14 and Ad Gentes 7 which says all people, ALL need Catholic Faith and the baptism of water for salvation.

Jim: Vatican II did not teach that non-Christians can not achieve salvation unless they were “formal, ‘card carrying’ members of the Catholic Church to avoid Hell !

Lionel: Ad Gentes 7, Lumen Gentes 14 refer to all people needing Catholic Faith and the baptism of water for salvation.

Jim: How is it you can not see that Fr. Feeney’ teaching is incompatible with that of the Catholic Church. His grave error was rightly condemned, and you should stop teaching it.

Lionel: It depends on who is doing the interpretation of what the Church teaches.I have quoted you Magisterial texts which support Fr.Leonard Feeney. You base your theory on the explicit-knowable baptism of desire and other implicit exceptions.
-Lionel Andrades

Michael Voris Hits the Jackpot…that is, “the dogma”- Brother André Marie MICM

RealCatholicTV affirms the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus

Outside the Church there is no Salvation (Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus)

“Outside the Church there is no salvation” (extra ecclesiam nulla salus) is a doctrine of the Catholic Faith that was taught By Jesus Christ to His Apostles, preached by the Fathers, defined by popes and councils and piously believed by the faithful in every age of the Church. Here is how the Popes defined it:

• “There is but one universal Church of the faithful, outside which no one at all is saved.” (Pope Innocent III, Fourth Lateran Council, 1215.)

• “We declare, say, define, and pronounce that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff.” (Pope Boniface VIII, the Bull Unam Sanctam, 1302.)

• “The most Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics, can have a share in life eternal; but that they will go into the eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless before death they are joined with Her; and that so important is the unity of this ecclesiastical body that only those remaining within this unity can profit by the sacraments of the Church unto salvation, and they alone can receive an eternal recompense for their fasts, their almsgivings, their other works of Christian piety and the duties of a Christian soldier. No one, let his almsgiving be as great as it may, no one, even if he pour out his blood for the Name of Christ, can be saved, unless he remain within the bosom and the unity of the Catholic Church.” (Pope Eugene IV, the Bull Cantate Domino, 1441.)

But man, following the example of his natural father, Adam, often disobeys the authority of God. The fact that the doctrine had to be thrice defined itself proves the Church’s paternal solicitude in correcting her erring children who fall into indifferentism. The first goal of Saint Benedict Center’s doctrinal Crusade is to defend this doctrine. We present here a selection of various articles written for that end.

Here are some recommended starting points on this all-important subject:

• The Popes on Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus

• The Fathers of the Church on Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus

• Doctrinal Summary

• Sentimental Theology

• Pelagius Lives

• Our Status in the Church (focusing on the doctrinal stance of Saint Benedict Center and the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary) –from the website Catholicism.org