C
cooterhein
Guest
I should probably explain why this is in the Traditional Catholicism section.
In this specific instance, I want to explore the “situation” that involved Marcel Lefabvre and four others in 1988- but especially Monsieur Marcel.
Couple of fact-checking points: First, on the issue of papal infallibility. Good Catholics must affirm it, but the pope is generally not infallible. When the pope declares someone to be excommunicated, he is acting in a capacity where he is fallible, unless I am very much mistaken.
Second, the pope doesn’t actually cause people to be excommunicated. Individuals who unite themselves to Rome may at a later time act, believe, teach, and so forth in such a way that they cause themselves to stop being united to Christ’s One Body, the Church, whose head is of course in Rome. Then (this is a rough summary, not taking into account activities at lower levels of authority that are then submitted to those in higher levels) the pope simply declares the natural effect of what they did. You cause yourself to stop being united to Rome, and then the pope tells you what you did and gives you the opportunity to repent of it and restore yourself to unity.
Here’s the thing. The pope is fallible when he does this. So suppose a situation arises where an archbishop in France does something to incur the automatic excommunication of him and four others. But the archbishop (a traditionalist named Lefabvre) claims that he has not, in fact, separated himself from Rome or caused himself to be any less united to the Body of Christ. It’s a sharp point of disagreement- his word against that of a pope who upholds and affirms his “excommunicated” status. It’s one of those situations where the authoritative word of the pope (acting fallibly, mind you) comes under serious and legitimate scrutiny.
Also remember that Lefabvre died three years after this in '91. He went to his grave still in disagreement with the pontiff on whether or not he was still a part of the Roman Catholic Church. And one more thing to remember- the excommunication of the other bishops was lifted in 2009. (Does anyone have details on the exact nature of the decision to do so? Was there any clarification to the effect that the Holy See acted fallibly, and coincidentally, wrongly? Perhaps this has been settled and I just don’t know it).
But it was too late for Lefabvre. He died in whatever state he’d been in since '88. So what sort of state was he in? Did he actually separate himself from unity with Rome? Whether Pope John Paul II was right or wrong in upholding the automatic excommunication, how would you know?
So my two main questions, if I may:
What do you conclude? Did Lefabvre actually separate himself from the Church and stay that way until he died? Careful, this has possibilities for eternal implications on his part. (Assuming a Catholic POV).
When a pope makes a contestable decision that is fallible, how do you know if he’s right or not? It’s not like the pope can definitively affirm his rightness, unless he decides to speak ex cathedra on the state of Lefabvre’s soul. That’s extremely unlikely, slightly absurd, and more to the point, it hasn’t happened. So what do you turn to?
In this specific instance, I want to explore the “situation” that involved Marcel Lefabvre and four others in 1988- but especially Monsieur Marcel.
Couple of fact-checking points: First, on the issue of papal infallibility. Good Catholics must affirm it, but the pope is generally not infallible. When the pope declares someone to be excommunicated, he is acting in a capacity where he is fallible, unless I am very much mistaken.
Second, the pope doesn’t actually cause people to be excommunicated. Individuals who unite themselves to Rome may at a later time act, believe, teach, and so forth in such a way that they cause themselves to stop being united to Christ’s One Body, the Church, whose head is of course in Rome. Then (this is a rough summary, not taking into account activities at lower levels of authority that are then submitted to those in higher levels) the pope simply declares the natural effect of what they did. You cause yourself to stop being united to Rome, and then the pope tells you what you did and gives you the opportunity to repent of it and restore yourself to unity.
Here’s the thing. The pope is fallible when he does this. So suppose a situation arises where an archbishop in France does something to incur the automatic excommunication of him and four others. But the archbishop (a traditionalist named Lefabvre) claims that he has not, in fact, separated himself from Rome or caused himself to be any less united to the Body of Christ. It’s a sharp point of disagreement- his word against that of a pope who upholds and affirms his “excommunicated” status. It’s one of those situations where the authoritative word of the pope (acting fallibly, mind you) comes under serious and legitimate scrutiny.
Also remember that Lefabvre died three years after this in '91. He went to his grave still in disagreement with the pontiff on whether or not he was still a part of the Roman Catholic Church. And one more thing to remember- the excommunication of the other bishops was lifted in 2009. (Does anyone have details on the exact nature of the decision to do so? Was there any clarification to the effect that the Holy See acted fallibly, and coincidentally, wrongly? Perhaps this has been settled and I just don’t know it).
But it was too late for Lefabvre. He died in whatever state he’d been in since '88. So what sort of state was he in? Did he actually separate himself from unity with Rome? Whether Pope John Paul II was right or wrong in upholding the automatic excommunication, how would you know?
So my two main questions, if I may:
What do you conclude? Did Lefabvre actually separate himself from the Church and stay that way until he died? Careful, this has possibilities for eternal implications on his part. (Assuming a Catholic POV).
When a pope makes a contestable decision that is fallible, how do you know if he’s right or not? It’s not like the pope can definitively affirm his rightness, unless he decides to speak ex cathedra on the state of Lefabvre’s soul. That’s extremely unlikely, slightly absurd, and more to the point, it hasn’t happened. So what do you turn to?
