Sunday, October 19, 2014

Muller-Fellay doctrinal deadlock : stuck on the ' visible dead ' issue

How can both groups get past the dead-end theology before them? For Muller there are known exceptions in Vatican Council II to the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus.He told this to Edward Pentin of the National Catholic Register in an interview. For the SSPX, the General Chapter Statement 2012 said there are no known exceptions to extra ecclesiam nulla salus.
How can they solve this doctrinal problem ?
It's easy. It is not a problem if they have a particular insight.
It is now a doctrinal problem since Cardinal Gerhard Muller and Bishop Bernard Fellay are not willing to say in public that the deceased are not visible to us in 2014 and so LG 16,LG 8,UR 3,NA 2, etc are not exceptions to the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus.
If they were honest the doctrinal issue would be solved.
If they were honest,however,  then Cardinal Muller would be saying that the Letter of the Holy Office 1949 made an objective mistake and this mistake has been carried over into the Catechism of the Catholic Church 1257-1260 and other magisterial documents.
If they were honest then Bishop Fellay would be saying that Archbishop Lefebvre and the rest of the SSPX all these years made a mistake in the interpretation of the Letter of the Holy Office 1949 and Vatican Council II
.
Both groups had wrongly assumed that the deceased now saved were visible in 2014 and so were exceptions to Tradition (Syllabus of Errors etc). Cardinal Muller unaware, accepted this error ( the dead-saved are visible exceptions to extra ecclesiam nulla salus)  and also accepted the Letter of the Holy Office 1949 and  Vatican Council II. Bishop Fellay used the same error; the same premise, and accepted the Letter of the Holy Office but rejected Vatican Council II.
There needs to be a third party, an independent source who will make all this public and who will intervene with the true facts and break the dead lock.
There are no doctrinal differences over Vatican Council II when it is announced that the dead are not visible on earth.This is common knowledge.So it should not be difficult.
The announcement implies that Vatican Council II can be interpreted while assuming that the dead are visible on earth (LG 16 is  a break with the dogma and Tradition) or it can be interpreted knowing that the dead are not visible on earth( LG 16,LG 8,UR 3 etc are not a break with Tradition).Vatican Council II (AG 7) is traditional on other religions and Christian communities.
It is the premise which creates a hermeneutic of continuity or rupture in Vatican Council II.Presently both Cardinal Muller and Bishop Fellay are using the premise in the interpretation of the Council and so there is the hermeneutic of rupture.Even Archbishop Di Noia in an interview to Edward Pentin of the National Catholic Register ,said, that LG 8 (elements of sanctification and truth) was an exception to extra ecclesiam nulla salus. So LG 8 referred to visible cases for him. Otherwise how could it be an exception.With visible exceptions to the dogma there can be no hermeneutic of continuity.
There is no doctrinal problem if the premise is identified and avoided.
-Lionel Andrades


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