The Case of Father Feeney
Heretics and modernists resist the truth, just as they resist Him who is the Truth (Jn. 14:6). And because they resist the truth they resist facts, because facts report truth without any error. One of the facts that the modernists and heretics resist most of all is the fact that the Catholic Church has infallibly taught that Outside the Catholic Church There is No Salvation and that John 3:5 is to be taken as it is written and that the Sacrament of Baptism is necessary for salvation (Trent, Sess. 7, Can. 5 on the Sacrament).
So what do these people do with these facts staring them in the face? They resort to attacking the reporter of these facts (argumentum ad hominem), which enables them to ignore the facts themselves. The episode of Father Leonard Feeney, S.J. is a case in point.
The dogma Outside the Catholic Church There is No Salvation really has nothing to do with Father Leonard Feeney. (In fact, I had never heard of Fr. Feeney when I came to the same conclusion – based upon Catholic dogma – that the Sacrament of Baptism is absolutely necessary for salvation and that all those who die as non-Catholics are lost.) It has to do with the teaching of the Chair of St. Peter, as has been shown, which is the authentic and infallible teaching of Christ. To reject this Catholic dogma is to reject Christ Himself.
Pope Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum (# 5), June 29, 1896: “But he who dissents even in one point from divinely revealed truth absolutely rejects all faith,since he thereby refuses to honor God as the supreme truth and the formal motive of faith.”
Father Feeney became famous for his public stand for the dogma Outside the Catholic Church There is No Salvation in the 1940’s and 1950’s. Most people fail to realize that, at that time, the world’s bishops were by no means staunch traditionalists. Most of the world’s bishops had already embraced the heresy of indifferentism, which explains why almost all of them signed the heretical Vatican II documents just a short time later. They had embraced the heretical idea that “invincible ignorance” saves those who die as non-Catholics. This is why one can easily detect heresy against the dogma in most theology manuals and texts beginning as early as the late 19th century. In fact, during his time, Father Feeney wrote to all of the bishops of the world about the dogma Outside the Church There is No Salvation and received only three positive responses. In other words, only three of the world’s bishops at that time manifested a positive belief in the dogma Outside the Catholic Church There is No salvation as it had been defined. It is no wonder that Vatican II went through with virtually no resistance from the Episcopate.
Father Feeney believed and preached the dogma – as it had been defined – publicly in Boston. He believed and preached that unless a man embraces the Catholic Faith – whether he be a Jew, Muslim, Protestant or agnostic – he will perish forever in Hell. Many converted, and many were angry. He had not a few enemies, especially among the increasingly modernist, politically correct and compromised clergy.
One of his main enemies was the “Archbishop” of Boston, Richard Cushing, a B’nai Brith (Jewish Freemasons) man of the year, and someone who called the dogma Outside the Catholic Church There is No Salvation “nonsense.” In April of 1949, Cushing silenced Fr. Feeney and interdicted St. Benedict Center (the apostolate affiliated with Fr. Feeney). The reason given by Cushing was “disobedience,” but the real reason was Father Feeney’s public stand for the dogma Outside the Catholic Church There is No Salvation. It was not due to Father Feeney’s stand against the theory of baptism of desire either, since this wasn’t first published until 1952. Cushing’s dissatisfaction with Fr. Feeney was strictly based on Father Feeney’s stand for the defined dogma that only Catholics – and those who become Catholics – can be saved.
CONTINUED
http://www.traditionalcatholic.info/fr-leonard-feeney-and-feeneyism/
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