Sunday, March 20, 2016

Rahner's Anonymous Christian is main line Catholic theology : coming back full circle

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When Fr.Karl Rahner S.J created the term Anonymous Christian he had accepted that there was salvation outside the Church.So did the Fr.Ratzinger of that time.
So with the new theology they said all who are saved are saved through Jesus and the Church.They were no more saying everyone needs to be a member of the Church for salvation.They had rejected a defined dogma.
Now when Pope Benedict seems to criticize Rahner's Anonymous Christian, he has traditionalists fooled.They actually believe him.CMTV,Fr.Z, Tancred...
For Rahner and Ratzinger there was salvation outside the Church because
1)  they could allegedly see people in Heaven saved without the baptism of water,
2)  hypothetical cases were now known exceptions  to EENS,
3) and the Baltimore Catechism said the desire for the baptism of water was a baptism like the baptism of water. Or, the Holy Office 1949 had accepted, according to Rahner and Ratzinger:
1) hypothetical cases are known exceptions to EENS,
2) the baptism of desire was a baptism like the baptism of water,
3) there is known salvation outside the Church
4) and  Fr.Leonard Feeney and the St. Benedict Center, the popes and saints of the past were all wrong.
Pope Pius XII and the subsequent popes really agreed with them. They could not support Fr.Leonard Feeney in public.
So then Rahner-Ratzinger and the others created the new theology based on salvation outside the Church.
Those who accepted the new theology were made members of the  International Theological Commission, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith or Ecclesia Dei.
The sedevacantists and traditionalists also accepted the new theology.There was salvation outside the Church for them.The baptism of desire and being saved in invincible ignorance were known exceptions to EENS.There was now a development of doctrine.
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The Vatican's International Theological Commission and the Catechism of the Catholic Church explained the new theology.It was based on known salvation outside the Church.
The St.Benedict Centers, the communities of Fr.Leonard Feeney in the USA rejected there being salvation outside the Church.
How could the popes and saints be wrong all these years they asked ? They were supported by many traditionalists.
For the St.Benedict Center 1) the Baltimore Catechism was wrong and 2) the Letter of the Holy Office to the Archbishop of Boston (1949) was also wrong.There could not be salvation outside the Church.
But then they rejected Lumen Gentium  16 and Vatican Council II.It was a break with EENS they thought .They did not realise LG 16 was a hypothetical case.
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So in the rejection of LG 16 the St.Benedict Center and  the SSPX ,both traditionalists, were now saying that they could know or see people in Heaven, saved with or without the baptism of water.Or that they knew people on earth who would be saved with or without the baptism of water.For the SBC it was the baptism of desire with the baptism of water for many supporters of the SSPX it was without the baptism of water.The SSPX position was the same as the liberals.
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The Vatican Curia, the magisterium, used the same reasoning but they were open to Vatican Council II.
In a sense the whole Church was now using this irrational theology.
This was mainline, except for some Catholics, may be many, who asked where are these so-called exceptions? What are their names, where do they live?
They were suppressed. Threatened.
But then reports began appearing on the Internet.They asked if the SSPX, Franciscans of the Immaculate and the St.Benedict Centers could interpret LG 16 as referring to :
1) unknown persons,
2) theoretical and speculative cases,
3)  known only to God 
4) followed by the baptism of water since this was the dogmatic teaching of EENS 
5) and not explicit exceptions to EENS.
Was this possible?
Many Catholic priests in Rome answered with a clear "YES".
This means Vatican Council II does not contradict EENS as the 16th century missionaries interpreted the dogma.
The Ratzinger-Rahner theology had an alternative.There was a rational option.Without the irrationality the ecclesiology was once again traditional.There was a new possibility open in the SSPX-Vatican dialogue. The scenario had changed.The old theology was still an option.
The new theology is set aside.It is meaningless.
There is no development.Since there is no known salvation outside the Church.
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Rahner and Ratzinger's work was in vain.Theological straw.
We are back to the teaching which Fr.Leonard Feeney and the St.Benedict Center defended so well.
The two popes know this.
-Lionel Andrades

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