As I understand it, there are those in the SSPX who oppose freedom of religion vociferously. (This was actually one of Lefebvre’s big sticking points. He submitted a whole booklet to Cardinal Ratzinger on the topic)I find this a very bizarre thread…We happen
to live in a democracy …What right does anyone have to interfere in others beliefs?
If someone wants to proclaim their belief in little green men it’s none of my business, nor anyone elses
Cathguy,As I understand it, there are those in the SSPX who oppose freedom of religion vociferously. (This was actually one of Lefebvre’s big sticking points. He submitted a whole booklet to Cardinal Ratzinger on the topic)
We make a mistake when we conclude that the likes of Msgr. Williamson and those who would follow him are primarily concerned with Catholic tradition and liturgy. The Second Vatican Council’s emphasis on religious liberty gets up their nose more than anything else.
I think you will find it telling, if they are willing to speak here honestly, how many attached to the SSPX believe that anyone who is not Catholic should have no right to publicly proclaim and practice their faith.
AFAIK, the Syllabus of Errors was not a dogma which was defined as ex cathedra. If you have evidence to the contrary, please present it.Anyone who believes that proposition is condemened by the Church. The SSPX has not fallen into that error. They refuse to accept as true what the Church has condemned as an error, and for that they are condemned by most within the Church today.
I only said that many theologians maintain that the Syllabus is infallible. Here’s a source to back up my statement:AFAIK, the Syllabus of Errors was not a dogma which was defined as ex cathedra. If you have evidence to the contrary, please present it.
.Catholic Encyclopedia: “Many theologians are of the opinion that to the Syllabus as such an infallible teaching authority is to be ascribed, whether due to an ex-cathedra decision by the pope or to the subsequent acceptance by the Church”
Oh boy. This discussion… again. Look, Lefebvre was wrong, the Popes are right. (Popes in include Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI)Cathguy,
Allow me to introduce you to the Syllabus or errors of Pope Pius IX. These errors accompanied an ancyclical called Quanta Cura (be sure to look in up online and read it). The condemned proposition contained within the Syllabus were intended to counter the erroneous views of the Liberals.
Here’s just one of the condemned propostions. Keep in mind that the Syllabus is of such authority that it has been consindered by many theologians to reach the level of infallibility. In other words, these errors are no condemned merely with the authority of the ordinary magisterium, but of that extraordinary - infallible - magisterium. Here’s just one…
**Syllabus #15: **“Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true” - CONDEMNED
Anyone who believes that proposition is condemened by the Church. The SSPX has not fallen into that error. They refuse to accept as true what the Church has condemned as an error, and for that they are condemned by most within the Church today.
When you look up the Syllabus online, be sure to read numbers 76 through 80.
Uh…I only said that many theologians maintain that the Syllabus is infallible. Here’s a source to back up my statement:
.
But even if you will not accept that it is infallible, as a Catholic you are still required to accept what it teaches (or reject what it condemns), since it is certainly an exercise of the ordinary magisterium; and a Catholic is bound ato accept the teachings of the ordinary magisterium.
**Pope Pius XII: **" 20. Nor must it be thought that what is expounded in Encyclical Letters does not of itself demand consent, since in writing such Letters the Popes do not exercise the supreme power of their Teaching Authority. For these matters are taught with the ordinary teaching authority, of which it is true to say: "He who heareth you, heareth me";[3] and generally what is expounded and inculcated in Encyclical Letters already for other reasons appertains to Catholic doctrine". ( Humani Generis)
The only reason I can think of for a Catholic to halt in accepting a teaching coming from the ordinary magisterium would be if such teaching was previously condemned by the Church. But that is certainly not the case with the Syllabus. The Syllabus is perectly consistent with what the Church had always taught.
Really? You need to read your history. You can start with the Council of Vienne under Clement V.Furthermore, the syllabus of errors is actually a document that I find in many ways beautiful. However, freedom of religion is a tradition in the Church that dates to the earliest days in the Church.
If you read the encyclical Libertas, you will see what true religios liberty is: it is that liberty which those of the True Faith possess, in which they (and they alone) have the right from God to profess. The profession of a false religion can most certainly be supressed by the State."It is an insult to the holy name and a disgrace to the Christian faith that in certain parts of the world subject to Christian princes where Saracens (Muslims) live, sometimes apart, sometimes intermingled with Christians, the Saracen priests commonly called Zabazala, in their temples or mosques, in which the Saracens meet to adore the infidel Mahomet, loudly invoke and extol his name each day at certain hours from a high place, in the hearing of both Christians and Saracens and there make public declarations in his honour. … This brings disrepute on our faith and gives great scandal to the faithful. These practices cannot be tolerated any further without displeasing the divine majesty. We therefore, with the sacred council’s approval, strictly forbid such practices henceforth in Christian lands. We enjoin on catholic princes, one and all, who hold sovereignty over the said Saracens and in whose territory these practices occur, and we lay on them a pressing obligation under the divine judgment that, as true Catholics and zealous for the Christian faith, they give consideration to the disgrace heaped on both them and other Christians. They are to remove this offence altogether from their territories and take care that their subjects remove it, so that they may thereby attain the reward of eternal happiness. They are to forbid expressly the public invocation of the sacrilegious name of Mahomet.
The Pope was giving his own particular interpretation of Church Tradition? He was the Pope! And his teaching was perfectly in line with the teaching and practice of the Church from the time in which Catholic states began.When Pius IX condemned this “error” in his encyclical, he was not proclaiming infallible Church teaching at all, but was professing his own particular interpretation of Catholic Tradition in light of challenges the Church faced in that time and place.
I see, so Pope John Paul and Pope Benedict undertand Catholic Tradition, but Pius IX did not? What Pius IX taught was consistent with what the Church always taught - right up to Vatican II. Pius IX did not change anything, Vatican II did.You see, Pope John Paul II, and Pope Benedict XVI, understand Catholic tradition better than you or I do. They have defended freedom of religion.
John Paul II taught what previous Popes explicitly condemned - not just Pius IX, many Popes. We have 1960 years of consistent Catholic teachings that were completely reversed by a non-infallible Council (Vatican II). If Vatican II would have chosen to be infallible, the Holy Ghost never would have allowed it. But it did not. It specifically chose to remain in the level of a “merely pastoral council” (to use the words of Cardinal Ratzinger).Is the Pope no longer Catholic, or do you still refuse to recognize the magesterium of these Popes? These are Popes after all. Do you still refuse to accept Papal teaching coming from the chair today… right now… in favor of misreading the Popes of past, and doing what Pius IX never would have countenanced, i.e. denying the authority of the Pope currently sitting on the Chair of St. Peter?
That is not a developement of doctrine. That is the formally condemned error of “evolution of doctrine” (See the Oath Against Modernism that both John Paul II and Pope Benedict took)Consider, the development of doctrine that has been organic and ongoing has leaned towards freedom of religion, and an actual condemning of its absence.
Are you saying that Vatican II taught what the Church has condemned? But I thought Vatican II did not change anything; and that the problem was that it was only being misinterpreted? But from what you are saying, it appears that it may indeed teach formally condemned errors. Is that what you are implying? Does Vatican II really teach what Pope Pius IX condemned as an error?Uh…
We have a Church Council which accepts and professes freedom of religion. Do you accept or reject it?
We have Popes who have taught freedom of religion. Do you accept or reject them?
Pope Leo XIII: "2. We have on other occasions, and especially in Our encyclical letter Immortale Dei,(2) in treating of the so-called modern liberties, distinguished between their good and evil elements; and We have shown that whatsoever is good in those liberties is as ancient as truth itself, and that the Church has always most willingly approved and practiced that good: but whatsoever has been added as new is, to tell the plain truth, of a vitiated kind, the fruit of the disorders of the age, and of an insatiate longing after novelties. Seeing, however, that many cling so obstinately to their own opinion in this matter as to imagine these modern liberties, cankered as they are, to be the greatest glory of our age, and the very basis of civil life, without which no perfect government can be conceived, We feel it a pressing duty, for the sake of the common good, to treat separately of this subject.…
- To make this more evident, the growth of liberty ascribed to our age must be considered apart in its various details. And, first, let us examine that liberty in individuals which is so opposed to the virtue of religion, namely, the liberty of worship, as it is called. This is based on the principle that every man is free to profess as he may choose any religion or none.
- But, assuredly, of all the duties which man has to fulfill, that, without doubt, is the chiefest and holiest which commands him to worship God with devotion and piety. This follows of necessity from the truth that we are ever in the power of God, are ever guided by His will and providence, and, having come forth from Him, must return to Him. Add to which, no true virtue can exist without religion, for moral virtue is concerned with those things which lead to God as man’s supreme and ultimate good; and therefore religion, which (as St. Thomas says) “performs those actions which are directly and immediately ordained for the divine honor”,(7) rules and tempers all virtues. And if it be asked which of the many conflicting religions it is necessary to adopt, reason and the natural law unhesitatingly tell us to practice that one which God enjoins, and which men can easily recognize by certain exterior notes, whereby Divine Providence has willed that it should be distinguished, because, in a matter of such moment, the most terrible loss would be the consequence of error. Wherefore, when a liberty [freedom of worship] such as We have described is offered to man, the power is given him to pervert or abandon with impunity the most sacred of duties, and to exchange the unchangeable good for evil; which, as We have said, is no liberty, but its degradation, and the abject submission of the soul to sin.
If the Syllabus means that other religions, Judaism in particular, should be suppressed outright, than Pius himself did not follow it, because the same pope that issued the syllabus repealed the laws forcing the Jews to attend Catholic services, and allowed foreign Protestants traveling through Rome to worship as they pleased.The Pope was giving his own particular interpretation of Church Tradition? He was the Pope! And his teaching was perfectly in line with the teaching and practice of the Church from the time in which Catholic states began.
If that last paragraph in blue does not meet the requirements for Papal Infallibility, please explain why?Quanta Cura, Pope Pius IX: For you well know, venerable brethren, that at this time men are found not a few who, applying to civil society the impious and absurd principle of “naturalism,” as they call it, dare to teach that “the best constitution of public society and (also) civil progress altogether require that human society be conducted and governed without regard being had to religion any more than if it did not exist; or, at least, without any distinction being made between the true religion and false ones.” And, against the doctrine of Scripture, of the Church, and of the Holy Fathers, they do not hesitate to assert that “that is the best condition of civil society, in which no duty is recognized, as attached to the civil power, of restraining by enacted penalties, offenders against the Catholic religion, except so far as public peace may require.” From which totally false idea of social government they do not fear to foster that erroneous opinion, most fatal in its effects on the Catholic Church and the salvation of souls, called by Our Predecessor, Gregory XVI, an "insanity,"2 viz., that “liberty of conscience and worship is each man’s personal right, which ought to be legally proclaimed and asserted in every rightly constituted society; and that a right resides in the citizens to an absolute liberty, which should be restrained by no authority whether ecclesiastical or civil, whereby they may be able openly and publicly to manifest and declare any of their ideas whatever, either by word of mouth, by the press, or in any other way.” But, while they rashly affirm this, they do not think and consider that they are preaching "liberty of perdition; and that "if human arguments are always allowed free room for discussion, there will never be wanting men who will dare to resist truth, and to trust in the flowing speech of human wisdom; whereas we know, from the very teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, how carefully Christian faith and wisdom should avoid this most injurious babbling…
Therefore, by our Apostolic authority, we reprobate, proscribe, and condemn all the singular and evil opinions and doctrines severally mentioned in this letter, and will and command that they be thoroughly held by all children of the Catholic Church as reprobated, proscribed and condemned.
No, it doesn’t mean that they must always be supressed; it just means that they do not have a right to exist, since our rights proceed from God and God gives no one the right to violate the first commandment, which forbids false religions. The Church has the “principle of toleration” whereby it may find it prudent to tolerate false religions in order to avoid a greater evil. This is perfectly just and is discussed in the encyclical Libertas.If the Syllabus means that other religions, Judaism in particular, should be suppressed outright, than Pius himself did not follow it,
Yes, that would be an implementation of the principle of toleration.because the same pope that issued the syllabus repealed the laws forcing the Jews to attend Catholic services, and allowed foreign Protestants traveling through Rome to worship as they pleased.
No, it is you who did not understand the principe of toleration. That’s why you thought the teaching of the Syllabus was in contradiction to the practice of the Pope.Considering Pius wrote the Syllabus, he clearly believed it meant something different than you do.
Pope Leo XIII, Libertas: "Yet, with the discernment of a true mother, the Church weighs the great burden of human weakness, and well knows the course down which the minds and actions of men are in this our age being borne. For this reason, while not conceding any right to anything save what is true and honest, she does not forbid public authority to tolerate what is at variance with truth and justice, for the sake of avoiding some greater evil, or of obtaining or preserving some greater good …But if, in such circumstances, for the sake of the common good (and this is the only legitimate reason), human law may or even should tolerate evil, it may not and should not approve or desire evil for its own sake; for evil of itself, being a privation of good, is opposed to the common welfare which every legislator is bound to desire and defend to the best of his ability…
- But, to judge aright, we must acknowledge that, the more a State is driven to tolerate evil, the further is it from perfection; and that the tolerance of evil which is dictated by political prudence should be strictly confined to the limits which its justifying cause, the public welfare, requires. Wherefore, if such tolerance would be injurious to the public welfare, and entail greater evils on the State, it would not be lawful; for in such case the motive of good is wanting.