Naming Names - is it always wrong?

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Bill_B_NY

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What I mean here is calling out a specific person.
We must be very careful. The potential for committing a sin against others is very great in this case. “So and so has done whatever and it is wrong or bad”.
Putting that on a public forum is really something significant.
So, normally - we would always avoid naming the name. I understand.
But I’m not only referring to CAF members saying things, but what about our bishops and even the Pope? Is it always wrong for them to point a criticism at an unnamed group?

During the Arian crisis - Arius was named. The faithful knew who the heretic was.
During Nestorian crisis - the same. Nestorius was named and condemned.
During the Donatis crisis - Donatus was named as the heretic. He was tried and named.

But as we move to the 20th century, for example, Pope Pius XII’s Humanae Generis, and also Pope St. Pius X’s Pascendi – the heresy is condemned, but the heretics are not named. We have had to try to figure out who they were talking about. For Pius XII, we realize he was talking about DeLubac, Teilhard and Blondel. But there were others in that group. Who, specifically?

Now, the idea of naming the name of heretics seems almost entirely lost.

On-line we might say “this group of people has a problem”. But is it ok to say “This person specifically”?

Should the Church return to the practice of saying the name of the teacher who is teaching falsely and then calling him in to be corrected and recant (or else to be judged)?

Why or why not?
 
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Bill_B_NY said:
What I mean here is calling out a specific person.
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Avoid all unjust injury.

Catechism of the Catholic Church
2477 Respect for the reputation of persons forbids every attitude and word likely to cause them unjust injury.278 He becomes guilty:
… - of detraction who, without objectively valid reason, discloses another’s faults and failings to persons who did not know them;279 …
 
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I don’t think it’s always wrong, no. Although I would think a public denunciation would be a last resort after milder forms of correction have failed.
 
As best I can determine, there were members of the conservative to very conservative side of the Church who had problems with Maurice Blondel, but as best I can determine, he never came under censure, let alone ex communication.

As to de Lubac, yes, there was the supposition that Humanae Generis implicated him. He was not shut down by the Holy Office (Cardinal Ottaviani was not Secretary of it until 1959, by which time de Lubac had been put back into the classroom). It was the Jesuit Superior General Jean-Baptiste Janssens who removed him from his teaching position in 1950 and sought to remove his books from Jesuit libraries.

As to being a heretic, per Humanae Genesis implications, I would simply note that he was appointed de Lubac as a consultant to the Preparatory Theological Commission, the planning group for Vatican II, and Pope Paul VI sought to make him a Cardinal; he demurred, noting that it would require him to be ordained a bishop. Pope John Paul II made him a Cardinal by waiving the requirement that he be a bishop (one of the very few).

His offenses? Renewed interest and attention to patristic sources and a focus on pastoral work, to name several.

And he had the company of several other prominent theologians, all of whom were silenced in the early 1950’s and who were later rehabilitated as proper theologians of the Church.

De Chardin, another Jesuit, had several of his works condemned by certaoin officials of the Holy Office (now known as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) in 1962, and as he died ion 1955, he never had the opportunity to defend his work. Cardinal Ratzinger has made positive comments on some of de Chardin’s ideas.

Of note is that none of his works were placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (aka the Index of Forbidden Books).

De Lubac wrote 3 volumes concerning Chardin’s theology, noting that while he was less than precise in some of his works, the works were not unorthodox. Said de Lubac: “We need not concern ourselves with the number of detractors of Teilhard, in whom emotion has blunted intelligence”.

When Cardinal Ratzinger wrote Introduction to Christianity, in there he noted the following:

“It must be regarded as an important service of Teilhard de Chardin’s that he rethought these ideas from the angle of the modern view of the world and, in spite of a not entirely unobjectionable tendency toward the biological approach, nevertheless on the whole grasped them correctly and in any case made them accessible once again.”

There are other quotes I could give from Cardinal Ratzinger, Cardinal Avery Dulles, Cardinal Christoph Schonborn, and Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi, but I would run out of space.

So to the question: Is naming names always wrong? (continued)
 
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(continued)

None of the above were condemned as heretics by the Church. There may have been prominent members of the Church who have held highly critical ideas and positions, and as noted, de Chardin had books condemned, although never put on the List. I am not trying to make him my hero, but if Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI has something positive to say about him, then I would take the position that Naming Names can be a dangerous game, when what is really occurring is a dispute between factions which has a whole lot more to do with understanding the writer than it does with the writer being Wrong.

As a side note, there were Neo Scholastics who had less than positive things to say about John Paul II’s Theology of the Body. And the bottom of that dispute was that they were hide-bound to Aristotelian categories and could not process something which used a different methodology to address the issues - humanism and phenomenology.

That does not make neo Scholastics bad; but their lack of understanding and use of humanism and phenomenology wrong, either.

Guess I ran out of space… 😆
 
In order to correct or fix anything, once must first know & see the inner workings of the problem. The reason we are cautious, is the legal structure of defamation.
 
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In your examples the public naming of names, more specifically public condemnation or warning, came from those who held authority.

Today, our Bishops do issue warnings to the faithful about dangerous teachers or teachings. This can be as simple as a heads up sort of memo all the way to condemnation and excommunication.

So, it is not my job to go naming names, it is my duty to present any evidence of heresy or false teaching to my pastor/Bishop and trust them to do the right thing.

When I see a friend who is getting into a condemned false teaching, I need to present them with the documents from the Bishop.
 
otjm said:
Guess I ran out of space…
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You retraced some of the history but stopped short on the question.
As you say, “Humanae Generis implicated …” somebody.

That’s the point. Not for us to try to peel it apart and guess. Even more, to propose (as I would elsewhere on a different forum perhaps) that heretics who had teachings condemned and never recanted their errors were wrongly-rehabilitated and ended spreading those same errors through the Church - just as Arius did centuries ago.
NO THAT’S NOT THE TOPIC - please.

That’s not the topic here. It’s about this:

We know Pius XII did not Name Names. None of the following Popes have done it either - really, although Hans Kung was somewhat named.

Would Naming Names have been help for the Church until now. Or maybe on into the future? Some have already said “No” - it’s too dangerous in the possibility of calumny and detraction.

Are there enemies and dangers to the Faith from within the Church today that should be identified - along with names attached to such?
 
Bill_B_NY said:
Are there enemies and dangers to the Faith from within the Church today that should be identified - along with names attached to such?
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Bishops excommunicate people, suspend priests, and involuntarily laicize priests all the time. Popes and bishops have also issued other public corrections. Names are named and public announcements are made.

Do you not trust our Popes and bishops to do this when necessary?

Also, when has anyone on CAF or any other Catholic forum shied away from naming a public figure who they think is teaching wrongly or leading people astray?
 
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Do you not trust our Popes and bishops to do this when necessary?
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It is not my place to judge such matters. In the OP, we can see the historical facts. At one time, heretics were more openly Named then as it is in the present day. We are exploring the idea about that change. We are all (I hope) trying to help Our Lord’s Church to improve - it is never perfect. We have a high ideal - personally, to grow in virtue and also to make our needs known to our shepherds. For some, it is more beneficial to know, precisely who the Pope, for example, is talking about. For others, they are not interested or do not want such a thing.
There’s no right or wrong here. This is a discussion. We are not here to point fingers, blame or spread mistrust.
Also, when has anyone on CAF or any other Catholic forum shied away from naming a public figure who they think is teaching wrongly or leading people astray?
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It’s a great question to think about. I think you’re right - yes, CAF has been excellent at times in this area. We have good documentation on the great heresies of the past. Is there room for improvement – or perhaps a change of strategy?

Keep in mind, we have already heard from some who caution against such a thing - as I prefaced the OP here. There is a danger in Naming Names. But there is also a benefit.

When have other Catholic forums shied away from this? Well, we have a diversity of Catholic groups. Some more aware and interested in certain matters, and some less so.
 
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What has changed is we have many armchair theologians who are ready to cry “heretic” and they can tweet or.blog.it to the world.
 
The pastoral work of our Bishops is not a void. It is not flashy, there are not daily updates, there will be much done out of the public eye (the people I know who were formally excommunicated had been in discussion with the Bishop and his people for years before the actual excommunication happened).

There are times when someone wants to come speak in your Diocese and the Diocese does not grant that permission. Again, not something splashed on Facebook, just the Bishop doing his pastoral duty

There are even some people who want x person declared a heretic over politics or because they personally disagree with that person’s emphasis. Bishops don’t declare someone a danger based on such subjective matters.

Again, if you have evidence that someone is spreading heresy or false teaching, give it to the proper authorities and leave it in their hands.
 
Bill_B_NY said:
You retraced some of the history but stopped short on the question.
As you say, “Humanae Generis implicated …” somebody.
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I am not sure that I stopped short; some would say that all three whom I addressed were implicated by Humani Generis.

The point I was trying to make is that “naming someone” can bring permanent damage to some named, when the real issue is that at that time and place they were considered either on the edge or over the edge in acceptable statements, not because they were wrong, but rather because someone - either strongly conservative or strongly liberal, judged them so, and when the Magisterium later reviewed the matter of their writings/teachings, they were not on or over the edge.

And lest we get into a side issue that “the Magisterium” never spoke specifically about those individuals, I am inclined to think that making one a Cardinal is “speech” in regards to the underlying issue.

Which is another way of saying that “wrong” may not be intrinsic, but a matter that the individual may be ahead of their time.

Interestingly, Arius was followed by a lot of clergy, at least one writer has given credit to the laity in helping to right that ship. Agreed - we won’t spin off in that direction.

It is my impression (as I do not follow the Congregation) that when there is a need for correction, they are not exactly made sub rosa. I would presume that if anyone is seriously interested in following up on a theologian (other than on the internet to see who outside the Congregation has an opinion), that one can fairly easily determine if Rome has an issue.

As such, there is a difference between a papal document, not naming names, and the workings of the Congregation, which gets down to the individual and the nitty gritty. And we have seen that since Vatican 2, with issues both on the liberal and the conservative ends of the spectrum where bishop, theologians and priests have been addressed by the Congregation.

In general, it appears that Rome does not seek to name names when writing an encyclical; and considering the scope of Humani Generis to include issues of Communism, scripture analysis, and other topics, it might have been quite a list. The Congregation, on the other hand, can and does name names in seeking to correct.

NOTE: I am not presuming that no one goes over the edge; my original comments concerning the three individuals the OP named was to show that while those three individuals were on the “outs” with the Holy Office, they were not contrary to the Magisterium (and with the caveat that de Chardin was, for lack of a better term, less than focused in some areas.
 
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TheLittleLady said:
It is not flashy, there are not daily updates, there will be much done out of the public eye (the people I know who were formally excommunicated had been in discussion with the Bishop and his people for years before the actual excommunication happened).
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Yes, thanks I know the current process as described. The question is, why not make it flashy? Why not make big statements saying “so and so is a heretic - avoid him!”? That’s the question under discussion, not what the current practice is. If you think the current approach is the best one, that’s fine - that’s a good answer.
 
otjm said:
The point I was trying to make is that “naming someone” can bring permanent damage to some named, when the real issue is that at that time and place they were considered either on the edge or over the edge in acceptable statements, not because they were wrong, but rather because someone - either strongly conservative or strongly liberal, judged them so, and when the Magisterium later reviewed the matter of their writings/teachings, they were not on or over the edge.
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Yes, thank you. So I believe you’re saying that it is not good to Name Names - perhaps always (never) or only on the rarest occasions.
At the same time, we can consider that a person can be invited to recant, given ample opportunities but can remain obstinate, publicly adhering to error. Would the risk of “permanent damage” be greater than the possibility that public Naming would move the person to repentance?
 
otjm said:
In general, it appears that Rome does not seek to name names when writing an encyclical
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Yes, that’s how I opened this thread. Today, there is rarely Naming of Names. In the past, it was more prominent - more of the ordinary way of exposing heresies.
We might see even in Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical on Americanism, he didn’t name Fr Hecker (I don’t think - I should check that), so it goes back a ways where the heretic would be concealed and we had to figure it out somehow.
 
Having been here the Sunday we rolled in to find national news vans cameras and reporters all over the parish grounds, I don’t understand how public excommunications could be less flashy.

The time prior to that is a pastor trying to reconcile a person. That is a private matter. It would be wrong to make that public.
 
I suspect we may be talking past each other. The names in the OP were not and are not heretics. Certainly many considered all three to be at least impliedly guilty of heresy. And that, in a nutshell, is part of the problem of armchair theologians - and some theologians who actually have the title.

But they (the three) were not; rather, they were the subjects of over-reaching by the Holy Office (Blondel not being named by the Office, but people presuming he was a target).

And this is why, in short, names should not be named in an encyclical.

Additionally, the Holy Office, now the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, does not go off slapping the title of Heretic on people. Their first and often continued approach is to try to rectify and reconcile; and even then they are slow to move to the point of labeling Heretic; Father Hans Kung and Father Tissa Balasuriya being prime examples.

There are all too many people on the internet and elsewhere who seem to want a pound of flesh rather than a reconciliation. The Church is in the business of salvation, not the business of swinging people from the yardarm.

I am all for truth and for following the Magisterium. If someone is on the edge or over the edge, I want that known (and it is fairly easy if one watches the news); And the Church does generally a good job of it; but as the three cases show, not always.
 
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