Saturday, March 19, 2016

Chris Ferrara still misses the point : reasons irrationally like Pope Benedict

http://remnantnewspaper.com/web/index.php/articles/item/2374-benedict-breaks-his-silence-with-another-leaky-lifeboat

Thursday, March 17, 2016

Benedict Breaks His Silence... with another Leaky Lifeboat 

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Still searching for his hermeneutic-- pray for Pope BenedictStill searching for his hermeneutic-- pray for Pope Benedict
Avvenire, the newspaper of the Italian bishops’ conference, has just publisheda previously unpublished interview of Benedict XVI in October of last year by the liberal Jesuit theologian (forgive the redundancy) Jacques Servais, a leading exponent of the Nouvelle Théologie once suppressed by Rome. Servais is an avid promoter of Hans Urs (“Dare We Hope that All Men Be Saved?”) von Balthasar, who dropped dead days before John Paul II could accomplish the indignity of making him a cardinal.
 Christopher A. Ferrara

The interview is being spun as a devastating admission by the Pope Emeritus that the Church has gone badly astray on the question of the salvation of non-Catholics. If only it were so. We have here, on the contrary, a correct diagnosis followed by the usual post-Vatican II prescription: more of the same confusion that has plagued the Church since the Council’s volcanic ash cloud descended upon her.


Being a proponent of universal salvation à la von Balthasar, Servais posed a blatantly loaded question, clearly designed to elicit Benedict’s confirmation that the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus is now a dead letter. 

Lionel: Since Pope Benedict and Christopher Ferrara interpret LG 16 etc as referring to invisible and not invisble cases. So LG 16 becomes as exception to the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus (EENS).They both assume hypothetical cases are objectively visible.They both assume there is known salvation outside the Catholic Church.

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All translations are mine:

In the Spiritual Exercises, Ignatius of Loyola, does not employ the Old Testament images of vendetta, contrary to Paul (as is evinced in the Second Letter to the Thessalonians); nonetheless he invites contemplation of how men, until the Incarnation, “descended into Hell” and consideration of the example of “innumerable others who ended up there for sins much less than what I have committed.” It is in this spirit that Saint Francis Xavier lived his own pastoral activity, convinced of the duty to attempt to save from the terrible destiny of eternal perdition as many “infidels” as possible. Can it be said that on this point, in recent decades, there has been a sort of “development of dogma” of which the Catechism should take account?
Lionel: The development of dogma is based on LG 16 referring to visible instead of invisible cases.The dogma is made redundant.Pope Benedict uses the same reasoning as Ferrara.
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Notice, first of all, the snide dismissal of both the Old Testament and Saint Paul regarding God’s judgment and the threat of eternal punishment. Servais is the classic Modernist, who thinks nothing of divine revelation as opposed to his own theological sensibilities, informed by the hottest new developments in “post-conciliar thought.”

Contrary to the way this interview is being spun by optimistic commentators, Benedict takes the bait, admitting the (de facto) death of the dogma and the crisis this has caused, but avoiding any suggestion that what is needed is simply a recovery of the Church’s traditional teaching on the necessity of faith and baptism for salvation (cases of invincible ignorance being a matter of theological speculation as to which the Church can say nothing with any certainty):

Lionel: Chris Ferrara misses the point here.There is no known case of invincible ignorance.So presenting a theology of I.I is picking up the Cushingite bait.

The same mistake is made by the present day St.Benedict Centers, the communities of Fr.Leonard Feeney, also traditionalists.They do theology with being saved in I.I like Ferrara.Their theology is based on an irrationality i.e the known existence of cases of persons saved in I.I.

In the past supporters of the SSPX and the SBC would fence not knowing that there was no case of the baptism of desire or being saved in I.I. So there was really no connection between BOD, I.I and EENS.Those who made the connection in the past were wrong.

Since BOD and I.I are invisible they do not contradict EENS according to the 16 th century missionaries.
Chris Ferrara like the St.Benedict Center religious, assume LG 16 is an exception to EENS. So they reject Vatican Council II.

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There is no doubt that on this point we are faced with a profound evolution of dogma. While the Fathers and the medieval theologians could still be of the view that in substance all of the human race had become Catholic and that paganism now existed only at the margins, the discovery of the New World at the beginning of the modern era changed that perspective in a radical manner.
The Pope Emeritus here blithely accepts the very essence of Modernism, condemned as such by Saint Pius X inPascendithat the dogmas of the faith can “evolve” according to changing religious sentiments (here a “changed perspective”).
Lionel: They have also evolved for Ferrara.Since being saved in I.I refers to a known case.So since there are known exceptions to the dogma we do not have EENS according to the old Jesuit missionaries.
There are books and articles by SSPX priests which say BOD and I.I are exceptions to EENS. So it means there are visible cases of BOD and I.I for them to be exceptions.This is an innovation brought into the Church.So they could agree with Pope Benedict that there are exceptions to the Feneyite traditional interpretation of EENS.
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 That dogma can “evolve” is a sophism which, Pius X warned, “ruins and destroys all religion.” 
Lionel: However it has evolved for Chris Ferrara and SSPX priests who say every one needs to enter the Catholic Church except for those saved with BOD and I.I.
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Benedict’s uncritical reference to “a profound evolution of dogma” in itself qualifies the interview as a disaster.
Lionel: Why? The pope is using the same irrational thinking as Ferrara to project LG 16 as being objectively known, and so Vatican Council II is a break with EENS and Tradition.
What if LG 16 is not explicit? The result is different.
It would be the same Vatican Council II in which LG 16 ( invincible ignorance) would not be an exception to EENS according to the 16th century missionaries. There would be no development of doctine or dogma.
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That aside, it is absurd to suggest that the mere discovery of the New World and vast numbers of infidels in need of conversion would change the dogma on the necessity of conversion for salvation. On the contrary, it would all the more impel missionary activity. Indeed, Benedict admits “it is true that the great missionaries of the 16th century were still convinced [!] that he who is not baptized is lost forever, and this explains their missionary task…”



And then comes this stupefying declaration in the same sentence: “in the Catholic Church after the Second Vatican Council, this conviction was definitively abandoned.” 

Lionel: Precisely.Since the magisterium and the traditionalists assumed  LG 16 refers to objective cases, objective exceptions to EENS, EENS was abandoned. Even Bishop Fellay has made this error on line.

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Read it again in order to convince yourself that this is what the Pope Emeritus actually said. [For the skeptical, herewith the original Italian: “nella Chiesa cattolica dopo il Concilio Vaticano II tale convinzione è stata definitivamente abbandonata.”]
Lionel: Chris Ferrara should read again what I have written above.
Since the magisterium and the traditionalists  assumed  LG 16 refers to objective cases, objective exceptions to EENS, EENS was abandoned. Even Bishop Fellay has made this error on line.
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So, the posited change in “perspective” has nothing to do with the discovery of the New World, after all, or the intervening centuries since then, but rather with the seemingly endless lava flow from that ecclesial Vesuvius of ambiguity known as the Second Vatican Council. Why are we not surprised?

It should be noted that the two Popes who reigned immediately before 1962 evinced no “radical” change in “perspective” regarding the necessity of converting the infidels—that’s the right, the infidels—for their salvation. Two examples suffice:

In Evangellii Praecones (1951), Ven. Pius XII preached the urgency of missionary work in the aftermath of World II with Communism on the rise. He expressed concern for “the countless peoples who are to be called to the one fold and to the one haven of salvation by the preaching of these missionaries…” and he praised the Society of the Holy Childhood, whose members “pray earnestly for the salvation of the infidel…”

In Rerum Ecclesiae (1926), Pius XI referred no fewer than fourteen times to the urgent work of converting “the heathen,” declaring that “[t]he Orders and Religious Congregations may well be proud of the missions given them among the heathen and of the conquests made up to the present hour for the Kingdom of Christ…. Do not be ashamed, Venerable Brothers, to make yourselves even beggars for Christ and the salvation of souls.”

Then, only a few years later, there was a sudden “definitive abandonment” of the very conviction these two great Popes expressedProving entirely the case I made in my recent debate with Mark SheaPope Benedict admits that the “definitive abandonment” of the missionary conviction in favor of the mysteriously emergent new “perspective” has produced:

a profound double crisis. On the one hand, this seems to remove all motivation to a future missionary commitment. Why should one ever try to convince people to accept the Christian faith when they can save themselves without it? But even for Christians a question emerged: the obligatoriness of the faith and of its form of life became uncertain and problematic.
Lionel : 'they can save themselves without it?' He means there is salvation outside the Church.Even for Chris  Ferrara there is salvation outside the Church. Even for Archbishop Lefebvre there was salvation outside the Church.BOD and and I..I were explicit.So it  was assumed that there there was a link with EENs.
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If there are those who can be saved in other ways, it is no longer evident, in the end, why the Christian himself should be bound by the exigencies of the Christian faith and its morality.
Lionel: Notice that Ferrara does not contest this point.He accepts that LG 16 refers to non Catholics saved without faith and baptism.He does not say that I.I never had any connection with EENs.Whether we know or do not know of any case of I.I there is a link with EENS for Ferrara.
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But if faith and salvation are no longer interdependent, the faith also becomes unmotivated. In recent times there have been formulated different attempts to reconcile the universal necessity of Christian faith with the possibility of saving oneself without it.
Lionel: Since outside the Church there is known salvation for all groups.
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Notice that Benedict does not view the “definitive abandonment” of the Church’s missionary conviction—that is, her divine commission! —as a grave error of the past fifty years that must be corrected immediately. Out of the question! One must never admit that the Church (humanly speaking) took a wrong turn at the Council.
Lionel: I am reminded of Pope Benedict saying we can evangelise based on the beautiful face of Jesus.The late Fr.Nicholas Gruner took exception to this. Fr. Gruner did not realize that for him too LG 16 refers to a visible case.So he could not see the flaw in the pope's reasoning.For Fr.Gruner too LG 16 was explicit.So it was a break with EENS.
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 Rather, Benedict accepts the “abandonment” as an irremediable given, leaving the Church only with “attempts” to reconcile the necessity of faith for salvation with the non-necessity of faith for salvation—that is, to reconcile X with not-X, a familiar problem in post-conciliar thinking.

Benedict first considers Rahner’s “anonymous Christian” theory, which he views as “fascinating” but rejects because it “reduces Christianity itself to a… presentation of that which the human being is in itself and thus neglects the drama of the change and renewal which is central to Christianity.” Neglects the drama? How about neglecting infallibly defined dogmas concerning the necessity of baptism, sanctifying grace, faith, justification and membership in the Church for salvation?

Lionel: Why? Is not LG 16 a break with all that for both of you? In the same leaky boat.

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Benedict next pronounces “even less acceptable the solution proposed by pluralistic theories of religion, according to which all religions, each in its own way, would be ways of salvation and in this sense their effects would have to be considered equivalent. The critique of religion of the type exercised by the Old Testament, by the New Testament and by the primitive Church is essentially more realistic in its examination of the various religions. A reception so simplistic is not proportional to the greatness of the question.”

What is this? Literary criticism or a defense of divine revelation? But revelation seems no longer to be in view as the first Pope Emeritus in Church history attempts to negotiate the post-conciliar fog bank.



Lionel: Revelation has been changed with the LG 16 ( objective) innovation.

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So, neither Rahner’s theory that everyone is essentially a Christian by virtue of being human nor various theories of religious pluralism can solve the “problem” posed by the “new perspective.” One would think that the Church, then, should reject the “new perspective” and simply reaffirm the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus, leaving the unknown fate of the invincibly ignorant unbeliever to the inscrutable mercy of God, just as Blessed Pius IX insisted when he forbade all further speculation in this regard. [Cf. Allocution Singulari Quadam (1854)].

Lionel: I.I and BOD have nothing to do with the dogma EENS. Ferrara should end the speculation.

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But no, the “new perspective” must be served. And so Benedict finally suggests that perhaps none other than Henri de Lubac can save the Church from the dilemma of having no way to explain how the “new perspective” can be reconciled with the traditional teaching of the Church on her own necessity for salvation.

Lionel: There is no new perspective once the LG 16 irrationality is identified.

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 This would involve what Benedict calls “the concept of vicarious substitution,” according to which the Mystical Body of Christ, which is the Church, would somehow save souls outside the Church by the very fact of her existence.


But that is just another formula for universal salvation without faith or baptism, which would do nothing to solve the “double crisis” Benedict admits has arisen because the missionary conviction has been “definitively abandoned” on account of the “new perspective.” Indeed, Benedict admits “it is true that the problem is not entirely resolved” by Lubac’s notion.


So there we have it: There is no real explanation for how the necessity of faith for salvation can be reconciled with its non-necessity according to the “new perspective,” 

Lionel: It can be reconciled by removing the irrational innovation which Ferrara uses to interpret Vatican Council II.The reasoning is based on the error of the Letter of the Holy Office which the SSPX has accepted.

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which has led to a “definitive abandonment” of the Church’s perennial missionary conviction that souls will be lost unless they are brought into the Church. But under no circumstances can it admitted that the “new perspective” is mistaken, even though it is a novelty unheard of before Vatican II. In fact, as Servais admits, not even the new Catechism has adopted it as Church teaching.


The Pope Emeritus thus concludes: “It is clear that we must reflect on this entire question.” It is as if the entire teaching of the Magisterium for nearly 2,000 years on the salvation of non-Catholics suddenly disappeared in 1962, leaving us with no one but Henri de Lubac to attempt to fill the theological vacuum.

Unbelievable. But such is the post-conciliar crisis in the Church. And with Francis on the Chair of Peter, we have not yet seen the worst of it. 
Lionel: He too like the Jesuits uses Cushingism instead of Feneeyism as a theology, as does Chris Ferrara and other supporters of the SSPX.
-Lionel Andrades


Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!

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