Syllabus of Errors Vs. Dignitatis Humanae

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ThomasAugustine

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I am a former reformed seminary student, turned Roman Catholic two years ago. One of the first issues I had to deal with as a Catholic was the Church’s traditional taeching of the social Kingship of Christ, a feast which is still presently part of the New Order’s Church calendar. Yet, when one reads Dignitatis Humanae, one sees that the very errors condemned in Quas Primas and the Syllabus of Errors are emphatically promoted in Dignitatis Humanae. The purpose of this thread, then, is to debate this matter.

Sincerely,

Jay Dyer
 
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ThomasAugustine:
I am a former reformed seminary student, turned Roman Catholic two years ago. One of the first issues I had to deal with as a Catholic was the Church’s traditional taeching of the social Kingship of Christ, a feast which is still presently part of the New Order’s Church calendar. Yet, when one reads Dignitatis Humanae, one sees that the very errors condemned in Quas Primas and the Syllabus of Errors are emphatically promoted in Dignitatis Humanae. The purpose of this thread, then, is to debate this matter.

It would be nice if you can point out the issues in Dignitatis Humanae that you believe were condemned by Quas Primas and the Syllabus of Errors. Don’t presume everyone knows what those documents are and who issued them.

Antonio 🙂

Sincerely,

Jay Dyer
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As a Protestant, I’d say that it seems like you’ve had to face what anti-Catholics would call “contradictory infallible teaching.”

Now, I’m not so quick to jump on that bandwagon. I know there’s lots of issues at play and deep teaching on this and that in regards to infallibility and communion in Western Rite churches.

However, the link to matt1618.freeyellow.com seems to contain scholarly responses to your issue, and similar things like the SSPX. They’re not short reads though. I might check one out sometime myself.

If in fact the errors Pope Pius IX warned against are being promoted today, wouldn’t you want to be Eastern Orthodox or something? That seems legitimate. How else would you get out of the conondrum? After all, they’re another one and only church Christ founded! 🙂
 
I recently read Shawn M.'s critique of SSPX Bishop Williamson’s recent letter to the “Cardinals.” His points seemed to be plausible until he explicitly made a heretical statement concerning Kaspar’s statements on why we should no longer convert Jews. Kaspar is clear as day that Vatican II abandoned the replacement theology of the pre-conciliar Church. Shawn M. tries to v…indicate this heretical view by saying Jews who have rejected Christ can still be saved through Judaism, arguing that this is St. Paul’s view in Romans 2:28-29. This is heresy: Romans 2:28-29 is about Catholic Christians: true Jews, yet Shawn M. attempts to argue that the Talmud can be a v…ehicle of salvation. So, if this is the Novus Ordo answer to the problems in the Church today, I am not satisfied.

On the Easterns: Not only are they heretical in rejecting the dogma of the papacy, which is absurd, since the Easterns have, from the beginning, explicitly accepted the papacy from Constantinople I through Nicea II. They allow divorce, reject the filioque, and purgatory is apparently optional.

Third, the specific issues in Dignitatis Humanae are: Chpt. 1, sec. 2. the first sentence is a condemned proposition, and the rest of the rest paragraph. Chpt. 1:sec.4, 4th par. is a condemned proposition. Chpt. 2: sec. 11, 3rd sentence is a condemned proposition. Chpt. 2, sec. 11, 2nd par. is condemned. Chpt. 2, sec. 15, 1st paragraph is a condemned proposition. The second to last paragraph of the document hints that religious liberty will be necessary in the future one-world government.

VS.

“The Syllabus of Errors”
  1. The Church has not the power of defining dogmatically that the religion of the Catholic Church is the only true religion. – Damnatio “Multiplices inter,”
  2. The obligation by which Catholic teachers and authors are strictly bound is confined to those things only which are proposed to universal belief as dogmas of faith by the infallible j…udgment of the Church. – Letter to the Archbishop of Munich, “Tuas libenter,”
  3. The Church has not the power of using force, nor has she any temporal power, direct or indirect. – Apostolic Letter “Ad Apostolicae,”
  4. The sacred ministers of the Church and the Roman pontiff are to be absolutely excluded from every charge and dominion over temporal affairs. – Allocution “Maxima quidem,”
  5. Kings and princes are not only exempt from the jurisdiction of the Church, but are superior to the Church in deciding questions of jurisdiction. – Damnatio “Multiplices inter,”
  6. The children of the Christian and Catholic Church are divided amongst themselves about the c…ompatibility of the temporal with the spiritual power. – “Ad Apostolicae,” 76. The abolition of the temporal power of which the Apostolic See is possessed would contribute in the greatest degree to the liberty and prosperity of the Church. – Allocutions “Quibus quantisque,” April 20, 1849, “Si semper antea,”
  7. In the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship. – Allocution “Nemo vestrum,”
  8. Hence it has been wisely decided by law, in some Catholic countries, that persons coming to reside therein shall enjoy the public exercise of their own peculiar worship. – Allocution “Acerbissimum,” Sept. 27, 1852.
  9. Moreover, it is false that the civil liberty of every form of worship, and the full power, given to all, of overtly and publicly manifesting any opinions whatsoever and thoughts, conduce more easily to corrupt the morals and minds of the people, and to propagate the pest of indifferentism. – Allocution “Nunquam fore,”
  10. The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization.- -Allocution “Jamdudum cernimus,” March 18, 1861.
Jay
 
I will, however, print out and read the “counter syllabus canard.”

These are the Ratzinger quotes on the subject:

“If it is desirable to offer a diagnosis of the text [of *Gaudium et Spes] as a whole, we might say that (in conjunction with the texts on religious liberty and world religions) it is a revision of the Syllabus of Pius IX, a kind of counter syllabus.”

“the one-sidedness of the position adopted by the Church under Pius IX and Pius in response to the situation created by the new phase of history inaugurated by the French Revolution was, to a large extent, corrected via facti, especially in Central Europe, but there was still no basic statement of the relationship that should exist between the Church and the world that had come into existence after 1789.” (the Masonic French Revolution!!)

The “one-sidedness” is the position of the Church from the beginning. It wasnt a conventional idea “adopted” by Pius IX. One can read St. Augustine’s Letter 185 to see that to be the case. All I can say is, what concord hath Christ with Belial?

from Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, 381-382*.*

Jay
 
If you’re implying the claim that the Catholic-type claims of the eastern “orthodox” to be the true Catholic Church make the Roman Catholic claims equally dubious, I would say, first of all, that they have apostolic succession: but having apostolic succession while holding to heresy doesn’t save. A Catholic may, in cases of absolute necessity, recieve eastern “orthodox” sacraments, because they are valid, due to aspostolic sucession. However, as St. Augustine, St. Gregory, Boniface VIII, and Eugene IV make clear, validity does not equal salvation for those adhering to the errors, existing in schism.

And, I would ask you:
  1. Is Christ’s body visible?
  2. If it is visible (and it is, for to deny this is to be gnostic), then it cannot be divided, as St. Paul argues in 1 Cor. 12.
  3. Christ’s body must be the visible, Institutional Church that descends from apostolic times.
  4. The only Church that descends from apostolic times is the Roman Catholic Church, for only she is One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic.
jay
 
How about we explore it one at a time:
  1. The Church has not the power of defining dogmatically that the religion of the Catholic Church is the only true religion. – Damnatio “Multiplices inter,”
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Does this address it?
“We believe that this one true religion subsists in the Catholic and Apostolic Church, to which the Lord Jesus committed the duty of spreading it abroad among all men.”

"…[This Vatican Council] leaves untouched traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and societies toward the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ.

(Dignitatis Humanae 1)
 
Who Said the Following?
“[T]he Freemasons…are planning the destruction of holy Church publicly and openly…Indeed, with them it is lawful to attack with impunity the very foundations of the Catholic religion, in speech, in writing, and in teaching; and even the rights of the Church are not spared, and the offices with which it is divinely invested are not safe…in secret among themselves they have for a long time plotted, that the sacred power of the Pontiffs must be abolished, and that the papacy itself, founded by divine right, must be utterly destroyed.”

Your Options:
(A) Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre
(B) Mel Gibson’s father, Hutton Gibson
(C) some other wacky radical traditionalist conspiracy freak
(D) Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical Humanum Genus in 1884

Yep, you guessed it! It’s D!
So when was the last time you heard someone in the New Religion talk about Freemasonic plots? What, did they simply disappear after 1958?
from www.novusordowatch.org
 
Well, Vincent, has the new vatican kept in tact the traditional teaching? Have you not noticed the present hierarchy’s ambiguities? Do you think the traditional teaching was left in tact when Paul VI gave away the Papal Tiara, symbolozing the three-fold power of the Pope, including his full temporal power? Was it being left in tact when John Paul II suggested Spain and France no longer be called “Catholic” nations? (Note-not for immoral reasons, but for Dignitatis Humanae reasons). Is it in tact when John Paul II prays with demonic religions? Or have they departed?

Jay
 
Is it in tact when John Paul II tells Jacques Chirac the Catholic Church wants a world built on the principles of the French Revolution? You’ll find these terms explained quite clearly in Pope St. Pius X’s “Our Apostolic Mandate.”

John Paul II, Address to Jacques Chirac, August 14, 2004: “With respect for the responsibilities and competences of all, the Catholic Church desires to offer society a specific contribution towards the building of a world in which the great ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity can form the basis of social life, in the tireless pursuit and promotion of the common good.” (L’Osservatore Romano, Aug. 25, 2004, p. 5.)

Jay Dyer
 
Is Ratzinger correct that the Syllabus of Errors was “adopted” by Pius IX for the needs of the 19th century, or is it merely a statement of the traditional doctrine, taught quite clearly in St. Augustine’s below letter?

newadvent.org/fathers/1102185.htm

Notice that he advocates the burning of recalcitrant heretics.

jay
 
I have rest most of the “counter syllabus canard.” Some of his points are valid against traditionalists, but then again many of the traditonalists I know do not make the bad arguments he is exposing. I find it interesting, however, that he admits at the very beginning that some of it is very hard to reconcile.

I also find his defense of a state tolerant of false religions as being in line with the traditional Catholic doctrine erroneous, since Quanta Cura explicitly says the doctrine of pernicious heretics wants to limit the influence of the Catholic State to only interfering when public peace is disturbed: this is precisely what Shawn M. and Dignitatis Humanae are proposing. Furthermore, Quanta Cura and its condemnations are not, as Shawn M. thinks, limited to certain historical instances and subject to change over time. This is the modernist view condemned in Pascendi Dominici Gregis.
 
ThomasAugustine:

I think you fail to distinguish between a) Catholic teaching and b) the Church’s application of these teachings to the changing times.

The Church’s teachings on religious freedom and toleration, so far as I know, are the same today as they were 100 years ago, although they have been developed.
  1. If the majority of the people in a state are Catholic, the state also must be Catholic.
  2. Whoever has a different religious belief has no right to practice it in public (in a Catholic state).
  3. For the general well being, however, the Catholic state can or has to tolerate different religions, but only as a kind of trouble.
  4. On the other hand, if the majority in the state are not Catholics, then that state has to follow natural law.
  5. This means that the non-Catholic state has to give complete freedom to each individual Catholic, and to the Church as a whole.
The problem today is that there no longer exist any Catholic states. And so the states must operate by at least natural law, which prohibits any man from being externally compelled to accept a particular system of belief, even Catholicism.

And really, this applies even in a Catholic state. The Inquisition rightly prosecuted public heretics and delivered them to the secular arm to be punished. No one has a right to practice his false religion publicly, and so lead other souls into hell.

Where the Inquisition went wrong, however, was also torturing and delivering to the secular arm people whose heresies were only privately held, and not preached or practiced publicly.

No man can be compelled to accept a faith he does not believe in. This is just plain common sense. He can give lip service, but not really believe.

And of course, torture is never morally justifiable, despire the nfact that Popes allowed its use during the Inquisitions. Popes throughout history have been known to endorse and tolerate things immoral. Not everything tolerated or endorsed by the Papacy is good and infallible.
 
I understand your points, and much of what you have said I agree with. I dont think forced conversion is even in question. However, I think the direction the periti (namely JP2) are aiming for in the case of Dignitatis Humanae is clearly not in the direction of faithfulness to tradition. Again, when you read Quanta Cura, you dont get the idea that any of it was dealing with problems solely of that era, but rather an entire Masonic-anti-Catholic movement from the French Revolution onwards. Thus, if the philosophy and polictical views of the Revolution are erroneous in the 18th and 19th century, then they are erroneous now. Its precisely this time-bound view of dogma that is condemned in Pascendi. I like, therefore, the fact that Ratzinger is honet that Gaudium and DH are attempts at reconciliation with French Revolution thinking. Are Christ and Belial to be reconciled?
 
Thus, if the philosophy and polictical views of the Revolution are erroneous in the 18th and 19th century, then they are erroneous now. Its precisely this time-bound view of dogma that is condemned in Pascendi.
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Again, the Church’s teachings, her principles, are timeless. But her application of these can vary greattly, depending on the needs of the times.
Are Christ and Belial to be reconciled?
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To an extent, yes. Trinitarian dogma and much of Cathooic moral theology is a reconciliation of Greek and Roman pagan philosophy, for example. The Church takes what is good out of any movement, and tends to conform herself as much as possible, without actually compromising her sacred dogmas.

You see this in a variety of areas: usury, capital punishment, just warfare, and the persecution of heretics. A quick survery of what the early Church Fathers wrote on these subjects, compared to medieval theologians, reveals some very apparent contrasts, perhaps even contradictions.

It’s silly to assume that the Church’s application of her teachings haven’t changed, in the slightest, with the changing times.
On the issue of forced reversion, St. Augustine makes a compelling argument in Letter 185 dealing with the Donatists.
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To be honest, I don’t have the time of day write now to read the whole thing, and won’t have it for a while. Could you please distill the argument for me?

In any event, I believe Saint Augustine would be wrong, if he did indeed endorse this. Even a former Catholic cannot really be forced to renounce his new-found heresy. He can be made to stop publicly manifesting it, and rightly so, but no one can be compelles to accept a belief that is not his own, even if he formerly held it. The most he can give is lip service. Such a forced re-belief cannot be pleasing to God.
 
Well, please allow me to use my religious freedom to resurrect an old thread, now that it can be discussed without the thread starter getting in the way of it’s discussion 😛

In defense of Vatican 2, Paul VI, and Dignitatis Humanae, let me simply paste the following:

This Vatican Council likewise professes its belief that it is upon the human conscience that these obligations fall and exert their binding force. The truth cannot impose itself except by virtue of its own truth, as it makes its entrance into the mind at once quietly and with power.

Religious freedom, in turn, which men demand as necessary to fulfill their duty to worship God, has to do with immunity from coercion in civil society. Therefore it leaves untouched traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and societies toward the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ.

Over and above all this, the council intends to develop the doctrine of recent popes on the inviolable rights of the human person and the constitutional order of society.

Now sure, maybe Shawn McKelhenney made some heretical statements, and maybe there is an apparent shift in attitudes, but Paul VI was very clear here, and in Missale Romanum, which is also prone to attack, that it is not teaching that is being changed, much less integral points of the faith.

While I was reading (or rereading, ??) Dignitatis Humanae just now, it hit me how this basic understanding is clear from the Church’s Augustinian (or if you will, anti-Calvinistic) understanding of grace and free will. Reading on, I observed that, in paragraph 10, Pope Paul VI wrote
  1. It is one of the major tenets of Catholic doctrine that man’s response to God in faith must be free: no one therefore is to be forced to embrace the Christian faith against his own will.(8) This doctrine is contained in the word of God and it was constantly proclaimed by the Fathers of the Church.(7) The act of faith is of its very nature a free act. Man, redeemed by Christ the Savior and through Christ Jesus called to be God’s adopted son,(9) cannot give his adherence to God revealing Himself unless, under the drawing of the Father,(10) he offers to God the reasonable and free submission of faith.
Now, one may have disagreements on the conclusion that’s drawn, but if that’s a true premise, then you’re left attacking his reasoning, not his premise. So, yes, it is false to say that the Catholic Church can’t declare that it’s the only true religion. Paul VI doesn’t deny that, so he’s off the hook there.
 
And as for these other two condemned propositions, noted in post #5:
  1. In the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship. – Allocution “Nemo vestrum,”
  2. Hence it has been wisely decided by law, in some Catholic countries, that persons coming to reside therein shall enjoy the public exercise of their own peculiar worship. – Allocution “Acerbissimum,” Sept. 27, 1852.
Perhaps one would take the “present day” clause and run with that, but I’d rather reply with the following:

…this certainly is preeminent, namely, that** the Church should enjoy that full measure of freedom which her care for the salvation of men requires.(31) This is a sacred freedom, because the only-begotten Son endowed with it the Church which He purchased with His blood. Indeed it is so much the property of the Church that to act against it is to act against the will of God.**
…In turn, where the principle of religious freedom is not only proclaimed in words or simply incorporated in law but also given** sincere and practical application**, there the Church succeeds in achieving a stable situation of right as well as of fact and the independence which is necessary for the fulfillment of her divine mission."
  • Dignitatis Humanae, 13

    Bear with me, I go on a little further…
    The further fact is that forms of government still exist under which, even though freedom of religious worship receives constitutional recognition, the powers of government are engaged in the effort to deter citizens from the profession of religion and to make life very difficult and dangerous for religious communities. - Dignitatis Humanae, 15

    Now tell me, in response to that above statement, how many nations were there in December, 1965, that were deplorably in the situation of having Christianity, or heaven forbid, Catholicism, be their state religion!!?? I’m being sarcastic! Those nations and governments that deny freedom of religion do so on anti-Chrisian presumptions, not Christian presumptions. So, it is not that Paul VI is speaking out against Christianity, he’s speaking out against the repression of Christianity. And, well, religion in general, but his concern is that you don’t have civil government coercing people to practice Islam, or Presbyterianism, or even Catholicism (By the way, I’m not equating the 3 religions). He wants people to be subject to Christ as “slaves of Christ” not as “slaves of the civil government.”
 
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