U
una_fides
Guest
Thanks. Yeah, that verse actually explains the Latin for the name I chose on here “una fides” = “one faith”.
Look forward to more discussions as well.
- Status
Look forward to more discussions as well.
U
una_fides
Guest
thanks for your commen Japhy. to understand what i’m saying, please read the infallible declaration first and it should hopefully make more sense. not just jews, but it does name jews specifically. Every human creature is bound to become Catholic (be subject to the Roman Pontiff) before death. The question is how someone who is invincibly ignorant of the Catholic faith and who is not guilty for any deliberate sin would become Catholic before death. Some have speculated that God would send an angel to instruct them or perhaps infuse them with some divine knowledge of things needed to be believed pertaining to the Catholic faith. Some speculate that the person who has such an implicit desire for baptism would already be Catholic in a special way (united to the Soul of the Church); however, such a person then would not be understood by the Church to be a Jew, etc, but a Catholic. Once that person gains knowledge of the true faith, he or she would then leave their former beliefs and join the Church. They would not be saved in opposition to the Church, for God’s grace leads people to the fullness of the truth, which is in the Catholic Church only, and therefore if someone stubbornly rejects the Church, he is rejecting Christ himself. Unfortunately, pride keeps most people out of the Church. Pope Pius XI relays the following in his encyclical Mortalium Animos:
“if those who are separated from Us, humbly beg light from heaven, there is no doubt but that they will recognize the one true Church of Jesus Christ and will, at last, enter it, being united with us in perfect charity” http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius11/P11MORTA.HTM
U
una_fides
Guest
CCC 819 “Furthermore, many elements of sanctification and of truth” are found outside the visible confines of the Catholic Church: “the written Word of God; the life of grace; faith, hope, and charity, with the other interior gifts of the Holy Spirit, as well as visible elements.” Christ’s Spirit uses these Churches and ecclesial communities as means of salvation, whose power derives from the fullness of grace and truth that Christ has entrusted to the Catholic Church. All these blessings come from Christ and lead to him, and are in themselves calls to “Catholic unity.” scborromeo.org/ccc/para/819.htm
The underlined phrases are difficult for me to reconcile. Keeping in mind that no one is saved outside the Church, how could heretical sects bring salvation to their members? Yes, if the elements of truth brought them to the true Church, but that’s not what the text is saying. The text says that these communities themselves are a means of salvation. Also the wording here is vague. “Elements of sanctification”? How does the Bible sanctify someone outside the Church (make them holy)? Yes, they may live better lives and believe in Jesus, the Resurrection, etc, but they will still be outside of state of grace since whatever sacraments they may receive are of no benefit to them (Council of Florence). Then the next line says that they can live “a life of grace”?! How can they be in a state of grace (salvation) if they are still separated from the Church?? Do you see the difficulty in reconciling the two here? When we keep in mind that the declaration from the dogmatic Council of Florence is an infallible definition, whereas the statement from the recent Catechism though authoritative is non-infallible, you can only wonder why many Traditionalists are questioning whether the modern Church has gone too far and needs to make her position be more consistent and more easily reconcilable with her previous teachings.
J
japhy
Guest
Perhaps more context is needed.
The Second Vatican Council’s teaching about the existence of certain Catholic elements – sacraments, Scripture, liturgy, sacramentals, etc. – outside of the Catholic Church is that “These elements, as gifts belonging to the Church of Christ, are forces impelling toward catholic unity.” (LG 8)
I will continue to believe that Jesus founded one Church, the Catholic Church; and that all those local churches which are in communion with the Church of Rome, under her Bishop, the Pope, belong to her; and that God, by His grace, has allowed that certain elements of the one Catholic Church may exist outside her walls so that those Christians outside the one Church may eventually be compelled to unity with her; and that Vatican II has not changed that.
What I mean by that last statement – and I’m sorry if I suffer from Vatican II verbosity! – is that members of a Christian community which accepts liturgical and hierarchical and sacramental natures as proper to “the Church” are far more likely to come into the Catholic Church than a non-liturgical, non-hierarchical, non-sacramental community.
Here’s an example:
Is baptism salvific? Is an infant baptized by an Anglican “priest” saved or not? There is only one baptism, and the Church recognizes the baptism of heretics and schismatics. And that fact, of that one baptism into the one Body of Christ (although that member might soon go astray because of the community which has performed the sacrament), is an indicator (to me, at least…) that the one baptism is a force “impelling towards catholic unity”.
U
una_fides
Guest
Thank you for your explanation. Though helpful, it does not answer the problem of how a heretical community could bring salvation to people who remain outside of Catholic unity. Although such people may be “impelled towards Catholic unity” that does not mean that they have entered therein, which is what would be necessary in order for them to be saved according to those infallible definitions earlier cited.
D
diggerdomer
Guest
The fact that it can be described as “pastoral” in no way means its teachings are not definitively binding, as all teachings of ecumenical councils are. The Church does not distinguish, in terms of teaching authority, between different kinds of ecumenical councils (I may be wrong, if so please help!). While the INTENT of calling the Council was not to refute heresy or define controversial doctrine, that in no way means that teachings the Council promulgated are not as binding as those of councils that were explicitly intentionally and primarily called for such purposes.
I wasn’t aware of that, can you tell us where? thanks. Also, again, regardless of whether a certain teaching is being taught infallibly, what the Magisterium teaches obliges our assent and obedience.
Lastl
You mentioned this in an earlier post to and I wanted to ask on what basis you claim the Council of Florence taught infallibly? The doctrine of infallibility was not clearly defined until much later of course, so how do we know, prior to that, what was taught infallibly?
D
diggerdomer
Guest
It might help to understand that (as Vatican II taught) the Church is, first, a mystery. Don’t think of it first, or necessarily primarily, as the visible hierarchical, clearly defined time-bound institution (like the Rotary club).
Unless I’m wrong, the idea that there is “no salvation outside the Church” was attributed to St. Cyprian in the mid 3rd century (so it’s not quite 2000 years old)–and if there’s an earlier reference anyone knows of please share of course. At the time, of course, “the Church” meant ALL CHRISTIANS. This was before any schisms etc. that unfortunately divided the Body of Christ.
Even St. Augustine realized and wrote about the “visible” Church vs. the invisible/spiritual Church (in The City of God). He recognized that there were those saved who were members of the visible Church as well as those outside the visible membership of the Church. Likewise, there were those who would not be saved who were outside the visible Church as well as those within.
U
una_fides
Guest
Good questions!
True, the teachings would still be binding just not infallibly so, and they also must be interpreted and understood in light of the prior teachings of the Church.
D
diggerdomer
Guest
U
una_fides
Guest
Yes, absolutely. However, in order to do so, we must first understand what they mean and to do that we must reconcile these teachings with the rest of the Church’s teaching tradition, which as I’ve pointed out is not very easy to do in some limited cases (i.e. teachings on No Salvation Outside the Church). If they are proved to be contrary to the faith, then we have a problem for the Church to reconcile and reject any teachings contrary to the already established truths of the faith. It would be our duty to point out any such discrepancies for the Church to clarify if they sincerely exist or seem to exist. The often vague wording in Vatican II documents, which leads to multiple interpretations also causes much difficulty.
U
una_fides
Guest
The Catholic Church IS the Mystical Body of Christ:
Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis Christi (On the Mystical Body of Christ), June 29, 1943:
“12… As He hung upon the Cross, Christ Jesus not only appeased the justice of the Eternal Father which had been violated, but He also won for us, His brethren, an ineffable flow of graces. It was possible for Him of Himself to impart these graces to mankind directly; but He willed to do so only through a visible Church made up of men, so that through her all might cooperate with Him in dispensing the graces of Redemption… 13. If we would define and describe this true Church of Jesus Christ—which is the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Roman Church[12]—we shall find nothing more noble, more sublime, or more divine than the expression “the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ”—an expression which springs from and is, as it were, the fair flowering of the repeated teaching of the Sacred Scriptures and the holy Fathers. 14. That the Church is a body is frequently asserted in the Sacred Scriptures. “Christ,” says the Apostle, “is the Head of the Body of the Church.”[13] If the Church is a body, it must be an unbroken unity, according to those words of Paul: “Though many we are one body in Christ.”[14] But it is not enough that the body of the Church should be an unbroken unity; it must also be something definite and perceptible to the senses as Our predecessor of happy memory, Leo XIII, in his Encyclical Satis Cognitum asserts: “the Church is visible because she is a body.”[15] Hence they err in a matter of divine truth, who imagine the Church to be invisible, intangible, a something merely “pneumatological” as they say, by which many Christian communities, though they differ from each other in their profession of faith, are united by an invisible bond.” ewtn.com/library/ENCYC/P12MYSTI.HTM
Actually the earliest statements are taken from Scripture and then we have early Church fathers as early as St. Ignatius of Antioch saying the following:
“Be not deceived, my brethren: If anyone follows a maker of schism , he does not inherit the kingdom of God; if anyone walks in strange doctrine , he has no part in the passion [of Christ]. Take care, then, to use one Eucharist, so that whatever you do, you do according to God: For there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup in the union of his blood; one altar, as there is one bishop, with the presbytery and my fellow servants, the deacons” (*Letter to the Philadelphians *3:3–4:1 [A.D. 110]).
And St. Irenaeus: “In the Church God has placed apostles, prophets, teachers, and every other working of the Spirit, of whom none of those are sharers who do not conform to the Church, but who defraud themselves of life by an evil mind and even worse way of acting. Where the Church is, there is the Spirit of God; where the Spirit of God is, there is the Church and all grace” (Against Heresies 3:24:1 [A.D. 189]).
Regarding schisms, they were present from the beginning of the Church, and the Church was not merely understood as just people, but it was the people in union with the bishops, as the quote from Ignatius should help clarify. The Church is also described in Scripture as “the pillar and foundation of truth” (1 Tim 3:15). So even Scripture itself referrs to this universal body.
Matthew 18:17-18: 7 And if he will not hear them: tell the Church. And if he will not hear the Church, let him be to thee as the heathen and publican. 18 Amen I say to you, whatsoever you shall bind upon earth, shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever you shall loose upon earth, shall be loosed also in heaven.
The Church has always understood the underlined statement as referring to excommunication as attested to by the fathers and subsequent popes.
Spoken by Christ to his apostles and by extension to their successors: “He that hears you hears me: and he that despises you despises me: and he that despises me despises him that sent me” (Luke 10:16).
U
una_fides
Guest
Your comments on what Augustine believed concerning no salvation outside the Church seem to demonstrate that you are reading into his texts something never intended. If you take certain of his statements out of context, they can seem to say that; however, in their context they are clearly not at all saying that those outside of the Body of Christ can be saved. Augustine most clearly taught NSOC. Here are a couple excerpts:
“We believe also in the holy Church, that is, the Catholic Church. For heretics violate the faith itself by a false opinion about God; schismatics, however, withdraw from fraternal love by hostile separations, although they believe the same things we do. Consequently, neither heretics nor schismatics belong to the Catholic Church; not heretics, because the Church loves God; and not schismatics, because the Church loves neighbor” (*Faith and the Creed *10:21 [A.D. 393]).
“[J]ust as baptism is of no profit to the man who renounces the world in words and not in deeds, so it is of no profit to him who is baptized in heresy or schism; but each of them, when he amends his ways, begins to receive profit from that which before was not profitable, but was yet already in him” (*On Baptism, Against the Donatists *4:4[6] [A.D. 400]).
“Whoever is separated from this Catholic Church, by this single sin of being separated from the unity of Christ, no matter how estimable a life he may imagine he is living, shall not have life, but the wrath of God rests upon him” (ibid., 141:5).
Augustine certainly says that many within the Church will perish but he never says that those outside the Church will be saved. They may be catechumens with an explicit desire for baptism who could be saved in his opinion but not those who were actually outside of the visible fold, such as Jews, heretics, schismatics, etc…
P
pnewton
Guest
The same could be said for what you see in St. Augustine. For example, I notice you rolled Jews in there with ease, even though that is not what is in the Augustine quotes. From what I read on first reading, it seems clear he is talking about deliberate schismatics and heretics.
In any case, this difference of opinion shows the necessity of the authority of the Church in time. If authority is needed for interpretation of Sacred Scripture to prevent the fracturing of Chrisitanity, how much more is it need for understanding the Church’s Tradition. We need to stay in the Bark of Peter and release all this sectarian need to write our own personal Catechism of the Catholic Church.
U
una_fides
Guest
I inserted the word “Jews” in there because I took that from an infallible declaration. Not my words so please don’t shoot the messenger here. I’m not writing a catechsim; I’m just trying to understand it. From what I’ve read, Augustine also does not limit schismatics and heretics to those who are deliberate. If you can find me somewhere that he states that “only” those who are “deliberately” in schism / heresy are outside the Church, then I will amend; otherwise, if we understand these words as the early Church used them, it is my understanding that they called everyone who followed a schismatic also a schismatic and same with a heretic (see quote from Ignatius earlier).
I agree 100% that we need the authority of the Church to understand her own teachings. We also must understand that these teachings have to be able to be reconcilled. When you encounter teachings before a council conflicting with those after, then it’s our job to reconcile them rather than just to blindedly follow what we could very well wrongly think to be true. Remember there was a time when the vast majority of bishops of the Church were heretics during the Arian heresy. If you just followed your local bishop, you were most likely to fall into heresy. It was in this atmosphere that St. Athanasius relayed the following famous line:
“Even if Catholics faithful to Tradition are reduced to a handful, they are the ones who are the true Church of Jesus Christ” (Saint Athanasius, AD 373).
H
Hypothesis
Guest
I would say this applies to Vatican II, since the Roman Pontiff overseen it.
U
una_fides
Guest
The only clear instance I can think of pertaining to how “separated communities” could themselves be “means of salvation” is pertaining to baptism of infants. The infants who would die baptized by these separated groups would go to heaven because they have not embraced heresy or committed any actual sins. However, the text we are discussing doesn’t even mention baptism in its list of the “elements of sanctification” that “exist outside” of the Church’s visible realm. Perhaps someone could help me interpret that text to reconcile it with pre-Vatican II teachings on this matter. Here’s the post that contains the teaching in question from the current catechism: forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=5160002&postcount=23
From my reading of the text, it seems as if they are saying that these separated communities themselves are the means of salvation through the “elements of sanctification.” I could understand if we interpreted the text to mean that these groups and their elements of truth led people to become Catholic, but to me, that doesn’t seem to be what the text is saying. Could someone help me see how to interpret this text correctly?
P
pnewton
Guest
I do not know how familiar you are with the Protestant technique of proof-texting, but this is precisely what they do: cut and paste from one place to another to make a third point of view. When one does this, context is lost in both passages.
He didn’t say “only”, nor did I imply he did. Yet we have to understand that St. Augustine was speaking against the problems of the Church in his day and age. He could not address issues of which he could not imagine. What would he write today? Who knows. He is not here. For that we have Pope Benedict XVI. We also have the Catechism of Pope John Paul II.
J
jam070406
Guest
I’m enjoying this thread and find it very interesting! Though, I’ll sit back and let others that are more studied help us all to better understand these issues.
I will offer this:
vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070629_responsa-quaestiones_en.html
una fides, does this document help clarify the issue at all?
I’m interested to hear your feedback.
God bless!
I will offer this:
vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070629_responsa-quaestiones_en.html
una fides, does this document help clarify the issue at all?
I’m interested to hear your feedback.
God bless!
S
Spirithound
Guest
Maybe one of the “elements of sanctification” is that they may be inspired to make Perfect Acts of Contrition.
U
una_fides
Guest
I’m pretty familiar with this document. Last time I read it, it made me scratch my head more than I wanted. I was left more confused, and now am revisiting.I’m enjoying this thread and find it very interesting! Though, I’ll sit back and let others that are more studied help us all to better understand these issues.
I will offer this:
vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070629_responsa-quaestiones_en.html
una fides, does this document help clarify the issue at all?
I’m interested to hear your feedback.
God bless!
The document perplexes me because it claims, “In simple terms that which was assumed, is now explicit; that which was uncertain, is now clarified; that which was meditated upon, discussed and sometimes argued over, is now put together in one clear formulation”
To me it seems the Church’s teachings regarding herself and salvation were much more clear prior to Vatican II and now they are very confusing, perplexing, and seem quite vague: the exact opposite of what this document claims to do. I will re-read it and see if I can come to a conclusion / better understanding. If anyone has any insights to share in reconciling the two, I’m open to hear.
- Status