It has been three decades now since the winds of the Second Vatican Council have swept the Catholic world. It requires no brilliant mind to discern that the smoke of Satan has indeed entered the Church as Pope Paul VI had observed a short time after the Council's conclusion. The nefarious 'Spirit of Vatican II', which became an euphemism for the Modernists to usurp the authority of the Magisterium and gut the truth, has settled down rather nicely these past thirty years. This pernicious Modernism, which Pius X called the "synthesis of all heresies" (Pascendi Dominici Gregis, 1907 A.D.), has indeed inflicted disaster on the Church in our sorry century.
Lionel: This article by John Pacheco in The Catholic Legate is an example of the Smoke of Satan.
Throughout Christianity, there have been a multitude of heresies attacking the deposit of Apostolic faith. ...one can see a similar pattern of the development of more contemporary heresies. Indeed, a parallel can be established between Nestorianism, Monophysistism, and Monothelitism in the earlier centuries of Church history on the one part and Protestantism, Rationalism-Modernism, and 'Feeneyitism' on the other part.
Lionel: How could 'Feeneyitism' be a heresy?.
Fr.Leonard Feeney affirmed the ex cathedra dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus. The dogma said everyone with no exception needs to enter the Catholic Church to go to Heaven and avoid Hell.
Here is the ex cathedra dogma he affirmed.
• “There is but one universal Church of the faithful, outside which no one at all is saved.” (Pope Innocent III, Fourth Lateran Council, 1215.)Fr.Leonard Feeney also taught that we cannot de facto know if anyone has the baptism of desire etc. Neither can The Catholic Legate specifically name people with implicit faith.
• “We declare, say, define, and pronounce that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff.” (Pope Boniface VIII, the Bull Unam Sanctam, 302.)
• “The most Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics, can have a share in life eternal; but that they will go into the eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless before death they are joined with Her; and that so important is the unity of this ecclesiastical body that only those remaining within this unity can profit by the sacraments of the Church unto salvation, and they alone can receive an eternal recompense for their fasts, their almsgivings, their other works of Christian piety and the duties of a Christian soldier. No one, let his almsgiving be as great as it may, no one, even if he pour out his blood for the Name of Christ, can be saved, unless he remain within the bosom and the unity of the Catholic Church.” (Pope Eugene IV, the Bull Cantate Domino, 1441.) – from the website Catholicism.org and “No Salvation outside the Church”: Link List, the Three Dogmatic Statements Regarding EENS) http://nosalvationoutsideofthecatholiicchurch.blogspot.com/
So how can you call this a heresy?
Art Sippo an apologist for The Catholic Legate has written on the Blog of Patrick Madrid that Fr.Leonard Feeney was not excommunicated for heresy.
On the one hand, Protestantism sought to diminish and destroy the Church's position ... Modernists, for the most part, are nothing more than latter-day Pelagians in disguise who trumpet man's conscience as a god unto itself.
It is from this perspective..
Lionel: A wrong perspective as seen above. It rejects the ex cathedra dogma and Vatican Council II.
that the question of "extra ecclesiam nulla salus" - "outside the Church, there is no salvation" must be considered. It is my contention that, in order to quash both the Modernist and Protestant errors, certain ultra-Traditionalist Catholics, or 'Feeneyites', have accepted another heresy, namely, the rigorist view of the subjective necessity of the Church for salvation.
Lionel: The ex cathedra dogma says that the Catholic Church is necessary subjectively and objectively for all, for salvation.
Vatican Council II (Ad Gentes 7) says the same.
Ad Gentes 7. … all must be converted to Him, made known by the Church's preaching, and all must be incorporated into Him by baptism and into the Church which is His body. For Christ Himself "by stressing in express language the necessity of faith and baptism (cf. Mark 16:16; John 3:5), at the same time confirmed the necessity of the Church, into which men enter by baptism, as by a door…’In the hopes of putting down religious indifferentism and the attacks on the Church's divine foundation, the followers of Father Feeney are adopting the polarized extreme on this question...
It is a defined article of faith that membership in the Church is necessary for all men for salvation.
Lionel: Wonderful! Now John Pacheco and The Catholic League are in accord with Fr.Leonard Feeney, the dogma and Vatican Council II.
Soon however, he will make a U-Turn as if it is the most natural thing to do.
...offering the historical context of the definition, nor elaborating on the object to whom the teaching was directed.
Lionel: Now under the guise of historical context etc come the heresies and rebellion.
In fact, even the citings that are provided by the rigorists cannot be held as conclusive proof for their interpretation simply because many of the Fathers they cite did not, in fact, hold to the rigorist view. ... St. Thomas Aquinas also concedes the possibility of salvation occurring extra-sacramentally (S. Th. III 68,2).
Lionel: St. Thomas Aquinas held the ‘rigorist interpretation’ and yet also mentioned, conceptually that a person can be saved with implicit faith. He did not place implicit faith in opposition to the need for everyone with no exception to enter the Church. John Pacheco is about ready to move into a heretical position.
Similarly, two Popes who are cited above in support of the rigorist position did not hold this view at all.
Pius IX did not understood the article in the strict sense. His belief in the article was directed at modern religious indifferentism rather than to a universal, exclusive position: "By Faith it is to be firmly held that outside the Apostolic Roman Church none can achieve salvation. This is the only ark of salvation. He who does not enter into it will perish in the flood. Nevertheless, equally certainly it is to be held that those who suffer from invincible ignorance of the true religion, are not this reason guilty in the eyes of the Lord. Now, then, who could presume in himself an ability to set the boundaries of such ignorance, taking into consideration the natural differences of peoples, land, native talents, and so many other factors" (Singulari Quidem, 1863 A.D.). Hence, Pius IX distinguished between those who have knowledge of the Church and Her divine foundation, and those who have no such knowledge due to a number of mitigating circumstances.
Pius XII, who affirmed the doctrine in his Encyclicals 'Mystici Corporis (1943 A.D.)' and 'Humani Generis' (1950), also qualified its meaning in attempting to silence Father Leonard Feeney, S.J., an American Jesuit at Boston College and the 'father' of the rigorist movement (whose proponents, whether rightly or wrongly, are now referred to as the 'Feeneyites'). Father Feeney was expelled from his order and then excommunicated in the 1940's for holding and pushing the rigorist view as official Catholic teaching.
Lionel: According to Art Sippo an apologist with the same Catholic Legate, Fr. Feeney was not excommunicated for heresy. Anyway there is no Church document which says so.Fr.Francis Sullivan S.J, in Salvation Outside the Church? (Paulist Press) writes, Fr.Leonard Feeney was not excommunicated for heresy.
(He was later reconciled to the Church.) "In the aftermath of the controversy, the Archbishop of Boston, Richard Cushing, received a letter of clarification from the Holy Office. This letter, dated August 8, 1949, is important for its explanation of the necessity of the Church:
Lionel: The ex cathedra dogma says the Church is necessary.
she is necessary for salvation by divine command, not by intrinsic necessity. The Church, as Christ's mystical body, is the sole ark of salvation, but direct, formal membership in her through the sacraments is only the ordinary means of salvation.
Lionel: The Church is the ordinary means of salvation.
In other words, knowledge of the Church and of her Founder is required of anyone for whom is to be considered necessary for salvation." (Catholic Encyclopedia, p.862, Reverend Peter Stravinskas, Our Sunday Visitor, Inc., Huntington, Indiana, 1991)
Lionel: The Church is necessary for salvation by divine command it is said above. It is necessary for everyone with no exception. We do not know of any specific case for whom it is not necessary. So why begin all this confusion above ?
The Second Vatican Council also affirmed the qualified teaching in the *Dogmatic* Constitution on the Church: "Whosoever, therefore, knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by God through Jesus Christ, would refuse to enter her or to remain in her could not be saved" (Lumen Gentium, 14).
Lionel: Like Fr.Leonard Feeney LG 14 is saying that there are billions of people in modern cities in the developed world who know about the Church and yet do not enter.They are all oriented to Hell.
Is John Pacheco saying that billions of non Catholics in the world are oriented to Hell?
Nevertheless, "those also can attain to everlasting salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek God and, moved by grace, strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience" (Lumen Gentium, 16).
Even the early Church Fathers such as Justin Martyr (First Apology, 46) and Origen (Against Celsus 4:7) did not hold to the strict view. And even those who first appear to hold to such a strict interpretation may not have.
Lionel. We cannot place those who are saved with implicit faith, known to God only and unknown to us and in ‘certain circumstances’ (Letter, Holy Office 1949) against the ex cathedra infallible teaching that everyone needs to convert into the Catholic Church to avoid Hell.
St. Thomas Aquinas did not make this mistake. He held the view described as ‘rigorist’ by John Pacheco.
"Let them not think that the way of life or salvation exists for them, if they have refused to obey the bishops and priests, since the Lord says in the book of Deuteronomy: 'And any man who has the insolence to refuse to listen to the priest or judge, whoever he may be in those days, that man shall die.' (Deut. 17:12-13) And then, indeed, they were killed with the sword…but now the proud and insolent are killed with the sword of the Spirit, WHEN THEY ARE CAST OUT FROM THE CHURCH. For they cannot live outside, since there is only one house of God, and there can be no salvation for anyone except in the Church." [St. Cyprian, Letters, 61(4):4].
The important issue for me Pax is also the Eucharist.
John Paceheco is in a public mortal sin with this article.He has denied the ex cathedra dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus.The dogma does not say that those who are in invincible ignorance do not have to convert into the Catholic Church.The dogma does not say that those who have the Baptism of Desire do not have to convert into the Catholic Church.Yet this is John Pacheco’s message.Over the last few months I have been sending him and Art Sippo messages and reports but have received no response.If John Pacheco interprets Vatican Council II , Lumen Gentium 16 as a break from the teaching of the ex cathedra dogma who has given him the right to use that interpretation ?
He is educated and aware and meets the three conditions for mortal listed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and which he mentions later in this article.
The belief of the Church, therefore, is this: there is no other *objective* means of salvation for any one other than through the Catholic Church.
Lionel: Now he has reverted back to orthodoxy. Soon he will move into heresy as before.
No other religion or quasi-Christian Church is pleasing to God since they teach contrary (at least in part) to the Catholic Church who alone is the ark of salvation and pillar of truth (Cf. 1 Timothy 3:15).
Arguments against the Rigorist position
1. Limitations of the Church
Jesus Christ established the Catholic Church. Although she is the visible means instituted by Jesus to pass on divine revelation, the Church is, however, neither omnipotent nor omnipresent. The Church's infallibility and indefectibility, however, are not compromised by denying these missing qualities.
The limitations of the Church are legion not because of Christ but because of her imperfect children, and precisely because the Church does have limitations, the rigorist position is untenable. Some of her limitations are:
i) The Church has had geographic limitations. She has not been visibly present in every age in every part of the world since her institution. Hence, those who need to hear a preacher do not have one, and therefore are not culpable for their ignorance.
Lionel: The Church is the Mystical Body of Jesus. All salvation comes through Jesus and His Mystical Body.
But, say the Rigorists, Divine Providence will furnish everyone with what is necessary for salvation, provided there is no hindrance on the person's part. Thus, if someone is raised in another religious tradition or lives in a country that is not open to the Church and if the person uses natural reason in seeking good and avoiding evil, God would either reveal to him through internal inspiration or through the means of an angel what has to be believed.
2. Problem with mortal sin
The most difficult problem with the rigorist position is their "de facto" denial of one of the central doctrines of the faith: mortal sin. Catholic theology holds that in order for someone to lose their salvation they must have committed a mortal sin.
Lionel: There are also mortal sins of faith. A mortal sin of faith is to reject an ex cathedra dogma. Those who do not believe will be condemned-Mark 16:16.
The commission of a mortal sin has essentially three criteria:
i) The sin must be serious.
ii) The sin must be committed freely, with the person's consent.
iii) The sin must be known to be a serious sin.
Lionel: The Catholic Legate apologist John Pacheco meets all the three conditions.
The commission of mortal sin, therefore, requires the individual to *know* it is a sin. Hence, if a non-Catholic does not *know* it is a serious sin to remain outside of the Catholic Church, then he cannot be guilty of a mortal sin, and therefore, he cannot be unequivocably condemned for being outside of the True Church of Jesus Christ. So, if the Rigorists deny any possibility of salvation to non-Catholics, then they must logically deny a central part of Catholic theology.
St. Thomas Aquinas explained it like this: "Now it is evident that whoever neglects to have or do what he ought to have or do, commits a sin of omission. Wherefore through negligence, ignorance of what one is bound to know, is a sin; whereas it is not imputed as a sin to a man, if he fails to know what he is unable to know. Consequently ignorance of such like things is called invincible, because it cannot be overcome by study. For this reason such like ignorance, not being voluntary, since it is not in our power to be rid of it, is not a sin: wherefore it is evident that no invincible ignorance is a sin. On the other hand vincible ignorance is a sin, if it be about things one is bound to know."
Now, the rigorists may deny that they are not rejecting the concept of mortal sin in Catholic theology. In order to address the requirement for *knowledge* of the mortal sin, they will repeat their oft mentioned argument: "God will either reveal to him through internal inspiration or through the means of an angel what has to be believed." Yet, this rationale simply will not hold. Under this scenario, why wouldn't God use such means with *everyone*, and not just those formally outside of the Church? Why wouldn't God just simply whisper the complete truth in everybody's ears? Why, for that matter, is ignorance a possibility at all - why wouldn't God 'clear things up' so there would be no question in regards to the seriousness of a sin?
4. Historical context
There is also the question of the historical context of the dogma. To whom were the Councils and Popes directing the teaching "extra ecclesiam nulla salus"? To every single person formally outside the Church? Or to those who obstinately reject the Church when exposed to the Gospel? Is it reasonable to assume that the Councils and Pontiffs were talking about the Mongol in Asia who was entirely ignorant of the Gospel, and where the Church was not? Is this not a dogma that is, by its very *nature*, a teaching that depends on the culpability of the person?
Lionel: Whatever be your opinion please do not assume it is the teaching of the Magisterium.
5. Necessity of denying baptism by desire and baptism by blood
"And one of the criminals who were hanged there was hurling abuse at Him, saying, 'Are You not the Christ? Save Yourself and us!' But the other answered, and rebuking him said, 'Do you not even fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.' And he was saying, 'Jesus, remember me when You come into Your kingdom!" And He said to him, 'Truly I say to you , today you shall be with Me in Paradise'" (Luke 23:39-43).
This is the case from Scripture for baptism by blood. The good thief, who likely did not receive water baptism before his death, asked for forgiveness from Jesus and was promised eternal life. His faith in Christ through his own blood sufficed for eternal glory.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church again affirms the Tradition of the Church on this point...
Apparently, the rigorists choose not to accept the current Catechism teaching on the subject.
Lionel: It depends how you interpret the Catechism. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that the Church is the only Ark of Noah that saves in the Flood. It says like the Church Fathers, that the Church is like a Door in which everyone needs to enter for salvation.
CCC 1257 states that the Church knows of no other means to eternal beatitude other than the baptism of water.
Lionel: I accept the ex cathedra dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus. I am also in agreement with Fr.Leonard Feeney that de facto everyone needs to enter the Catholic Church for salvation and there are no exceptions. I affirm Ad Gentes 7 and Lumen Gentium 14 which is in agreement with the dogma .I interpret Lumen Gentium 16 as referring to de jure salvation and so not opposed to the dogma. I attend Mass in Italian and English. Am I a rigorist ?
In regards to the interpretation offered on the conversion of the Good Thief, they point out that the using of the Good Thief (or the Holy Innocents) as examples of Baptism of Blood is not valid. The rigorist position holds that they died before the foundation of the Catholic Church at Pentecost, and therefore before the sacrament of Baptism became obligatory. Yet, this begs the questions: does God give us more or less graces under the New Covenant? Is it to be seriously considered that God would be so merciful before the establishment of the Church at Pentecost (which is itself arguable) with the Good Thief, but would not be so merciful with some poor slob afterwards?
6. The Rigorist train of thought
The rigorists demand that formal and explicit membership in the Church is necessary for salvation.
Lionel: It is necessary according to the dogma and Vatican Council II.
Question 1: For a baptized Catholic, is it absolutely necessary for salvation to receive the Eucharist as commanded by Jesus in John 6:53?
Question 2: If a baptized Catholic falls into mortal sin and is on the way to visit a priest to receive formal absolution but dies beforehand, will he go to hell?
If the answer to those questions is in the affirmative, then the rigorist position again contradicts Catholic teaching.
If the answer to those questions is in the negative, then it is inconsistent for the rigorists to hold to their position on formal membership since all three questions are 'formal' in nature.
7. Limbo
The Council of Florence (1438 A.D.) taught that "the souls of those who die in actual mortal sin, or only in Original Sin, immediately descend into Hell". This is also the explicit teaching of the Council of Lyons II (1274 A.D.).
Lionel: The Catholic Church still teaches that all adults need Catholic Faith and the Baptism of water to go to Heaven and avoid Hell.
There could be those with implicit faith who can be saved without the baptism of water, howver they are saved in 'certain circumstances'(Pope Pius XII, Letter of the Holy Office) and are known only to God. John Pacheco does not know of any particular case. So this should not be mistakenly considered as opposing the dogma that everyone with no exception needs to enter the Church to avoid Hell.
8. Aborted babies
It follows therefore that the rigorist position does not allow salvation for aborted babies. The notion of 'Baptism of Blood', they claim, is itself a mere fallible and undefined speculation. It cannot apply in this case, since aborted infants are not dying for the sake of Jesus Christ, nor the Faith, nor even for virtue.
Some closing thoughts…
It is a difficult path to walk:
Lionel: It becomes difficult when there is ambiguity and disobedience. With obedience it is simple.
on the one part, insisting on the Church's divine institution and the "extrinsic" necessity of belonging to her
Lionel :Correct.
versus
Lionel: There is no versus, why put it in opposition.
rejecting the absolute intrinsic and formal necessity of belonging to the Church on the other part.
Lionel: We do not reject it.
It is clear, however, that both the indifferentist position and the rigorist position pose serious problems from a moral and theological perspective.
Lionel : It is your claim that Catholic teaching is a rigorist and rejected teaching. This is a mortal sin of the apologist John Pacheco.
The former finds its foundation in protestantism and modernism while the latter attempts to quash the former with theological extremism. Neither of them witness to the truth.
Lionel: This article is an example of modernism.
Lionel Andrades
E-mail : lionelandrades10@gmail.com
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