Tuesday, July 5, 2011

KARL KEATING SAYS FR.LEONARD FEENEY WAS NOT EXCOMMUNICATED FOR HERESY

I have come across Karl Keating the  founder of Catholic Answers' E-Letter Jan 13, 2004, in which he  writes :

From the late 1940s until his death he was known instead for his rigorist interpretation of the maxim "extra ecclesiam nulla salus" ("no salvation outside the Church"). Adherents to his interpretation became known as "Feeneyites."
Ordered to stop teaching his interpretation, Feeney refused and was excommunicated, not technically for teaching heresy but for disobedience.
Karl Keating says that Fr.Leonard Feeney was not excommunicated for heresy but he held the ‘rigorist interpretation of the maxim “extra ecclesiam nulla salus”.

It was not a maxim it was a dogma Mr.Keating and the dogma held the ‘rigorist interpretation’ of outside the church there is no salvation.

Pope Pius XII in the Letter of the Holy Office 1949 referred to this 'dogma', the 'infallible'teaching.
So if Fr.Leonard Feeney was not excommunicated for heresy and held the same teaching as the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus, did the Letter of the Holy Office to the Archbishop of Boston support Fr.Leonard Feeney on dogma/doctrine ?
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The Popes through the centuries have defended the doctrine “outside the Church there is no salvation.” Here is small reference of their teachings on the matter:


Ordinary Magisterium

Pope Pelagius II (A.D. 578 – 590): “Consider the fact that whoever has not been in the peace and unity of the Church cannot have the Lord. …Although given over to flames and fires, they burn, or, thrown to wild beasts, they lay down their lives, there will not be (for them) that crown of faith but the punishment of faithlessness. …Such a one can be slain, he cannot be crowned. …[If] slain outside the Church, he cannot attain the rewards of the Church.” (Denzinger 246-247)

Pope Saint Gregory the Great (A.D. 590 – 604): “Now the holy Church universal proclaims that God cannot be truly worshipped saving within herself, asserting that all they that are without her shall never be saved.” (Moralia )

Pope Innocent III (A.D. 1198 – 1216): “With our hearts we believe and with our lips we confess but one Church, not that of the heretics, but the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church, outside which we believe that no one is saved.” (Denzinger 423)

Pope Leo XII (A.D. 1823 – 1829): “We profess that there is no salvation outside the Church. …For the Church is the pillar and ground of the truth. With reference to those words Augustine says: `If any man be outside the Church he will be excluded from the number of sons, and will not have God for Father since he has not the Church for mother.’” (Encyclical, Ubi Primum )

Pope Gregory XVI (A.D. 1831 – 1846): “It is not possible to worship God truly except in Her; all who are outside Her will not be saved.” (Encyclical, Summo Jugiter )

Pope Pius IX (A.D. 1846 – 1878): “It must be held by faith that outside the Apostolic Roman Church, no one can be saved; that this is the only ark of salvation; that he who shall not have entered therein will perish in the flood.” (Denzinger 1647)

Pope Leo XIII (A.D. 1878 – 1903): “This is our last lesson to you; receive it, engrave it in your minds, all of you: by God’s commandment salvation is to be found nowhere but in the Church.” (Encyclical, Annum Ingressi Sumus )

“He scatters and gathers not who gathers not with the Church and with Jesus Christ, and all who fight not jointly with Him and with the Church are in very truth contending against God.” (Encyclical, Sapientiae Christianae )

Pope Saint Pius X (A.D. 1903 – 1914): “It is our duty to recall to everyone great and small, as the Holy Pontiff Gregory did in ages past, the absolute necessity which is ours, to have recourse to this Church to effect our eternal salvation.” (Encyclical, Jucunda Sane )

Pope Benedict XV (A.D. 1914 – 1922): “Such is the nature of the Catholic faith that it does not admit of more or less, but must be held as a whole, or as a whole rejected: This is the Catholic faith, which unless a man believe faithfully and firmly, he cannot be saved.” (Encyclical, Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum )

Pope Pius XI (A.D. 1922 – 1939): “The Catholic Church alone is keeping the true worship. This is the font of truth, this is the house of faith, this is the temple of God; if any man enter not here, or if any man go forth from it, he is a stranger to the hope of life and salvation….Furthermore, in this one Church of Christ, no man can be or remain who does not accept, recognize and obey the authority and supremacy of Peter and his legitimate successors.” (Encyclical, Mortalium Animos )

Pope Pius XII (A.D. 1939 – 1958): “By divine mandate the interpreter and guardian of the Scriptures, and the depository of Sacred Tradition living within her, the Church alone is the entrance to salvation: She alone, by herself, and under the protection and guidance of the Holy Spirit, is the source of truth.” (Allocution to the Gregorian, October 17, 1953)

Extraordinary Magisterium

Then, as though to set this constant teaching of the Fathers, Doctors and Popes “in concrete,” so to speak, we have the following definitions from the Solemn Magisterium of the Church:

Pope Innocent III and Lateran Council IV (A.D. 1215): “One indeed is the universal Church of the faithful outside which no one at all is saved…”

Pope Boniface VIII in his Papal Bull Unam Sanctam (A.D. 1302): “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 Eugene IV and the Council of Florence (A.D. 1438 – 1445): “[The most Holy Roman Church] firmly believes, professes, and proclaims that those not living within the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics cannot become participants in eternal life, but will depart `into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels’ (Matt. 25:41), unless before the end of life the same have been added to the flock; and that the unity of the ecclesiastical body is so strong that only to those remaining in it are the sacraments of the Church of benefit for salvation, and do fastings, almsgiving, and other functions of piety and exercises of Christian service produce eternal reward, and that no one, whatever almsgiving he has practiced, even if he has shed blood for the name of Christ, can be saved, unless he has remained in the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church.” -from the website Catholicism.org

VATICAN COUNCIL II SAYS OUTSIDE THE CATHOLIC CHURCH THERE IS NO SALVATION

Vatican Council II says outside the Catholic Church there is no salvation. Extra ecclesiam nulla salus.

The Catholic Church teaches after Vatican Council II (1965) that all people need to enter the Catholic Church to go to Heaven (Ad Gentes 7, Vatican Council II).

Catholic Faith with the Baptism of water is the normal, ordinary way of salvation for all people (Lumen Gentium 14, Vatican Council II).The Catholic Church is the ordinary way of salvation for all people (Lumen Gentium 14).Non Catholics however can be saved through the extraordinary means of salvation (Lumen Gentium 16).Only God knows who are the non-Catholics saved through the extraordinary means of salvation; the exceptions. We do not know who the exceptions are. We cannot judge. Jesus, the Church, Scripture and Vatican Council II indicate that the priority is Catholic Faith and the Baptism of water for all people.

So everyone needs to enter the Catholic Church which is the like the only Ark of Noah that saves in the Flood (CCC).Non Catholic religions have good things in them. However they are not paths to salvation. All salvation comes through Jesus and His Mystical Body the Church. Those non-Catholics who know the above information and yet do not enter the Church are oriented to Hell (Ad Gentes 7, Lumen Gentium 14).Those non-Catholics participating in inter religious dialogue, are educated. They know. They are oriented to Hell.

Outside the Church there is no salvation. Catholic Faith and the Baptism of water are needed for all people. This is Vatican Council II.

No where in Nostra Aetate, Vatican Council II is it said that non Catholic religions are paths to salvation.

Vatican Council II is in harmony with John 3:5, the Church Fathers, Council of Florence, Evangelii Nuntiandi, Redemptoris Missio, Catechism of the Catholic Church, Dominus Iesus, Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, Notification on Fr. Jacques Dupuis etc.

Don’t let people fool you about Vatican Council II. Check the details and affirm the Faith which does not change.

Jesus called the Catholic Church “…my church…” He told St. Peter that it would prevail against Satan and be there for all time.

Let's begin by using the terms used by the Church.In the Introduction to Dominus Iesus there is a reference to: dejure and de facto.

In Redemptoris Missio 55 there is the reference to the ordinary way of salvation. Let’s continue with the understanding of the Catholic Church.

In the Letter of the Holy Office to the Archbishop of Boston relative to Fr. Leonard Feeney (1949) the Church affirms 'the dogma', the 'infallible' teaching.

The dogma according to the Council of Trent, ex cathedra, was that de facto all persons need to enter the Catholic Church, there are no exceptions. This was the teaching of Church Councils and popes. Extra ecclesiam nulla salus. -Lionel Andrades