When I spoke to the two young priests over this week
on Via 20 Settembre, Rome, they understood immediately the importance of the
red passages. The red passages! Here is the secret. From here we have a
hermeneutic of continuity or a development of doctrine. Doctrine revolves
around the red passages only. The blue passages are in harmony with Tradition
for the liberals and traditionalists, and so in a sense, are inconsequential.
The blue passages do not determine if Vatican Council II is a break or
continuity with Tradition.
Pope Benedict could affirm the red and blue passages
and say that Vatican Council II is a break with Tradition or he could choose to
say that the Council has a hermeneutic of continuity.
He would project physically invisible cases of LG 8,
14, 15, 16 etc – in the red passages- as being physically visible (and not
invisible) examples of salvation outside the Catholic Church. So Vatican
Council II had to be a rupture with the strict interpretation of the dogma
extra ecclesiam nulla salus. LG 8, 14, 15, 16 were objective exceptions for
him.
He was following the mistake of Pope Pius XII in the
1949 Letter of the Holy Office to the Archbishop of Boston. It confused
invisible cases of the baptism of desire and being saved in invincible
ignorance as being visible exceptions for the dogma EENS.
The two young priests understood, that the baptism of
desire and being saved in invincible ignorance in Vatican Council II were
always hypothetical. They always referred to physically invisible cases. They
were part of the red passages.
They understood that what was invisible could not be
visible at the same time. LG 8, 14, 15.16, UR 3 were subjective and not
objective
So for them Vatican Council II had to have a
hermeneutic of continuity with the past. They had got the red passages
corrects.
So Vatican Council II also had coherence in itself i.e. the red hypothetical passages which referred
to physically invisible cases in the present times, did not contradict the blue
orthodox passages in the Council –text. So when we read the orthodox passages
alongside the hypothetical one, there should not more be confusion. There is no
contradiction.
"Outside the Church there is no salvation" 846 How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers? Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body:
- Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.
847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church: 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 - those too may achieve eternal salvation.
848 "Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men."
-Catechism of the Catholic Church 846-848
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"Outside the Church there is no salvation" 846 How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers? Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body:
- Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door.
- ARE THE PASSAGES IN RED IMPLICIT OR EXPLICIT FOR YOU ? THEY ARE IMPLICIT AND SUBJECTIVE FOR ME.
- Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.
847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:
- 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 - those too may achieve eternal salvation.
848 "Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men."
-Catechism of the Catholic Church 846-848
_____________________
HOW DO YOU INTERPRET THE PASSAGES IN RED ? DO THEY REFER TO PHYSICALLY INVISIBLE OR VISIBLE CASES IN 2023 ?
Therefore, all must be converted to Him, made known by the Church's preaching, and all must be incorporated into Him by baptism and into the Church which is His body. For Christ Himself "by stressing in express language the necessity of faith and baptism (cf. Mark 16:16; John 3:5), at the same time confirmed the necessity of the Church, into which men enter by baptism, as by a door. Therefore those men cannot be saved, who though aware that God, through Jesus Christ founded the Church as something necessary, still do not wish to enter into it, or to persevere in it." Therefore though God in ways known to Himself can lead those inculpably ignorant of the Gospel to find that faith without which it is impossible to please Him...- Ad Gentes 7. Vatican Council II
They are fully incorporated in the society of the Church who, possessing the Spirit of Christ accept her entire system and all the means of salvation given to her, and are united with her as part of her visible bodily structure and through her with Christ, who rules her through the Supreme Pontiff and the bishops. The bonds which bind men to the Church in a visible way are profession of faith, the sacraments, and ecclesiastical government and communion. He is not saved, however, who, though part of the body of the Church, does not persevere in charity. He remains indeed in the bosom of the Church, but, as it were, only in a "bodily" manner and not "in his heart."(12*) All the Church's children should remember that their exalted status is to be attributed not to their own merits but to the special grace of Christ. If they fail moreover to respond to that grace in thought, word and deed, not only shall they not be saved but they will be the more severely judged.(13*)
Catechumens who, moved by the Holy Spirit, seek with explicit intention to be incorporated into the Church are by that very intention joined with her. With love and solicitude Mother Church already embraces them as her own.- Lumen Gentium 14, Vatican Council II
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