Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus VS Vatican II

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Fr Feeney was not excommunicated for his position on EENS.

And his excommunication was lifted without him recanting his position on EENS.
 
I don’t think technically it would be unjust. But I trust His mercy goes above-and-beyond here!
 
lukewberg said:
Please know that I am a Catholic, and that I take the “no teachings have been changed” shilling as an offense to my intelligence (as measly as it may be). I am asking questions that pertain to the possibility that a teaching may have been made unclear at best, or changed at worst (which I understand would have larger implications for the validity of the council). I seek and hope that there are answers that will clear this up, but I am open to the possibility that there aren’t any such answers, as any honest person would be.
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There is some frustrating ambiguity or loose wording in certain documents and catechism. I understand what you are saying.
It seems with the recent death penalty issue in the catechism, that on another thread the issue of wording and obedience to the letter of the law in catechism was thrashed out a bit.

To get a handle on the wording and what seems to be ambiguity takes a bit of a mind map at times. Put the question in the middle, get all the info about it from every source, read and discern.

Sometimes just pray and discern.

I was walking through a clothing store today. Two people were having a loud conversation behind me about a child in Catholic school and getting scholarships.
One of them asked how to get a child in to Catholic School, the other listed off a few qualities then said baptism helps. Being baptised.
The other person in an incredulous tone, said really, baptism. You have to baptise your children? That attitude is so prevalent in our secular society.
 
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CradleRC58 said:
Fr Feeney was not excommunicated for his position on EENS.
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My understanding is he was excommunicated for disobedience to instructions concerning his heretical belief, not to split hairs. I tried to look into it and the only sites I found differing views had rather extreme views in other areas. But the point still remains, this was a controversy before Vatican II.
 
pnewton said:
My understanding is he was excommunicated for disobedience to instructions concerning his heretical belief, not to split hairs. I tried to look into it and the only sites I found differing views had rather extreme views in other areas. But the point still remains, this was a controversy before Vatican II.
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This is correct. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Fr Feeney was involved in ministry at several colleges in the Boston area and got into trouble for his preaching on EENS which did not align with Church teaching; among other things he did not believe in “baptism of desire” which was an established teaching of the Church. This escalated into a public scandal where Fr. Feeney, who at the time was a public figure in Boston who ran a ministry center, gave public speeches on campuses and had a cult following, was publicly arguing with the local Archbishop (later Cardinal) Cushing and also refusing to obey orders from his Jesuit superior. The Vatican stepped in, wrote a letter clarifying the EENS doctrine of the Church, and summoned Fr Feeney to come to Rome and explain himself. Fr Feeney repeatedly refused to show up and was finally excommunicated.

Some years later, when he was old and in poor health, he was readmitted to the Church through the efforts of Cardinal Medeiros and he died a few years later. However, because he was old and ill, he wasn’t required to recant his teachings in order to get back into the Church.

It’s been stated that his teachings on subjects other than EENS were generally okay, but there is no question that his teachings on EENS were at odds with the Church and were a major factor leading eventually to his excommunication. To claim he was not excommunicated for his position on EENS is obfuscating the issue, because without his teachings on EENS, he would likely not have gotten into all the disputes he did with Church authorities that led to his excommunication.
 
Yes, as I explicitly posted above with a full explanation of the entire EENS context.

I don’t think further discussion of this is necessary, so I will be stepping out of it. Have a nice day.
 
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If I’m correct, I think the excommunication was lifted by his reciting the Athanasius creed which starts out - Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic faith, which Faith except everyone do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.
 
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I had not heard of that but have no reason to doubt it.

If he were asked to recite the Nicene Creed, I can see him pausing after " I confess ONE baptism for the Forgiveness of sins"… And saying “See ! I told you so !”
:grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:
 
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lukewberg said:
Certainly newly born Infants would have the greatest claim to invincible ignorance, wouldn’t they? And yet, the council of Florence states that even infants cannot escape damnation without baptism. Considering this, how could it be possible that Pagans or Protestants could be saved when they are outside the Catholic Church? Both of these Councils claim infallibility, but it looks as if these are mutually exclusive. Who is wrong here?
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It’s because for grace to be received through “baptism by desire” an act of faith and charity is necessary to supply where baptism lacks (since, ordinarily, baptism is the sacrament of faith and it infuses charity).

The Catechism (published in 1997) says the same as Florence:
1257…The Church does not know of any means other than Baptism that assures entry into eternal beatitude; this is why she takes care not to neglect the mission she has received from the Lord to see that all who can be baptized are “reborn of water and the Spirit.”
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There are no other remedies available to us, but, on the other hand, all things are possible with God. He simply has neither revealed that He takes any other particular action nor that He doesn’t. That is why it is ok to pray to Him to supply where baptism lacks in one incapable of faith and charity on their own–we can hope He answers those prayers favorably, but we have no assurance like we do with His promises tied to Baptism.

For example, St. Thomas says the following about those in the womb (in reply to the objection that original sin is more powerful than the salvation of Christ, since original sin reaches where baptism is impeded from reaching):

St. Thomas Aquinas
Children while in the mother’s womb have not yet come forth into the world to live among other men. Consequently they cannot be subject to the action of man, so as to receive the sacrament, at the hands of man, unto salvation. They can, however, be subject to the action of God, in Whose sight they live, so as, by a kind of privilege, to receive the grace of sanctification; as was the case with those who were sanctified in the womb.
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newadvent.org/summa/4068.htm#article11

As St. Thomas notes, there are examples of this in Scripture.

The same rationale could apply to children impeded from baptism in other ways.
 
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As a general comment, I just wanted to point out how the following is still true:

Council of Florence
It firmly believes, professes and preaches that all those who are outside the catholic church, not only pagans but also Jews or heretics and schismatics, cannot share in eternal life and will go into the everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless they are joined to the catholic church before the end of their lives; .
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Take heretics and schismatics first. Heresy and schism are mortal sins, so if one perseveres to the end in such a sin, one could not be saved. However, like mortal sins, they require the requisite knowledge and deliberation. Baptized persons with faith in Christ who are wrong in good faith are still “joined to the catholic church.” This is nothing new:

St. Augustine:
But though the doctrine which men hold be false and perverse, if they do not maintain it with passionate obstinacy, especially when they have not devised it by the rashness of their own presumption, but have accepted it from parents who had been misguided and had fallen into error, and if they are with anxiety seeking the truth, and are prepared to be set right when they have found it, such men are not to be counted heretics.
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newadvent.org/fathers/1102043.htm

As for those classes of persons Florence notes that lack faith in Christ, if they persevere to the end in this they cannot be saved:

Catechism:
The necessity of faith

161 Believing in Jesus Christ and in the One who sent him for our salvation is necessary for obtaining that salvation.42 "Since “without faith it is impossible to please [God]” and to attain to the fellowship of his sons, therefore without faith no one has ever attained justification, nor will anyone obtain eternal life ‘But he who endures to the end.’"43
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However, God desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth (cf. 1 Tim. 2:4). Therefore as Vatican II says of those following an upright conscience, “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.” (Vatican II, Ad Gentes 7). This may even happen at the “eleventh hour” (Cf. Matt. 20:6-9). Such persons would indeed be “joined to the Catholic Church before the end of their lives” as Florence says and if they also persevere in grace and charity, will be saved.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
The Vatican stepped in, wrote a letter clarifying the EENS doctrine of the Church, and summoned Fr Feeney to come to Rome and explain himself.
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Wow, I wish the Vatican still handled unclear or untrue statements with a clarifying statement & a call to Rome for the speaker! A girl can dream…

Sad about Fr. Feeney. I remember really enjoying his poetry and prose back in high school. He was a gifted writer.
 
A lot of young people liked him from what I have read. That was part of the concern, that he was leading young people astray.

Anyway he did die in communion with the Church and had a Catholic funeral, so one can hope he is in Heaven now.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
This escalated into a public scandal where Fr. Feeney, who at the time was a public figure in Boston who ran a ministry center, gave public speeches on campuses and had a cult following,
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Would that we had a traditional, orthodox Catholic priest speaking on campuses today and gaining a following! (I won’t say “cult” because that’s disagreeable to modern ears, though there’s not a thing in the world wrong with that word.)

I wouldn’t call myself a “Feeneyite” but I believe EENS — it’s a dogma, I have to — and today’s Church has stretched it virtually to the breaking point. I will assume that “stretching” is the work of the Holy Spirit, but that said, I work, pray, and make sacrifices that all souls will visibly come into union with the See of Peter.

In deference to the 2000-year tradition of the Orthodox, I would make that union as light and unburdensome to them as possible, but it still needs to be there in some fashion. What did union with Rome look like in the East in, let’s say, the year 800 or 900, before the schism? Could we get back to that and no more?
 
If one finds themselves in heaven they will be Catholic and it will have come through the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church Jesus founded for that very reason.
 
Trent

CANON II.-If any one saith, that true and natural water is not of necessity for baptism, and, on that account, wrests, to some sort of metaphor, those words of our Lord Jesus Christ; Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost; let him be anathema

What about them apples ?
 
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What about it? No one is denying the normality of baptism. No one is saying it is just a metaphor.
CradleRC58 said:
and, on that account, wrests, to some sort of metaphor,
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I do not know why this came out of that council. I would bet you weren’t there either, which is the problem selecting quotes from the past, Scripture or Church, without context. Perhaps John 3 was being used as support for some heresy.

I thought of something else, and I thank you for bringing this up. I remember years ago some radio apologist mentioned there were only a handful of passages that the Church has given definitive interpretations to, and that this passage from John 3 is one of them. I did not know before where or when this was done, but it seems Trent spoke specifically to this.
 
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CradleRC58 said:
CANON II.-If any one saith, that true and natural water is not of necessity for baptism
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The quotation addresses the use of natural water for baptism, as opposed to perhaps using no water or another substance. The Council further quotes Our Lord’s words that water is to be used for baptism.

I do not see your point. This does not prove EENS .
 
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