Friday, September 19, 2014

Mons.Joseph Clifford Fenton and the SSPX's Angelus Press infer hypothetical cases are visible exceptions to the interpretation of Fr.Leonard Feeney

The Catholic Church and Salvation
Monsignor Joseph Clifford Fenton's THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND SALVATION Chapter 7 (sold by the SSPX Angelus Press)
 
When the desire is merely implicit, then a man’s faith in the divinely revealed truths about the Church is likewise implicit. The point made here by the Holy Office letter is precisely that there must be some definite and explicit content to any act of genuine supernatural faith. If a man is to be saved, he must accept as true, on the authority of God revealing, the teaching which God has communicated to the world as His public and supernatural message. 
(Lionel: This has nothing to do with the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus since these cases are known only to God. They are not known to us in the present times. So they cannot be exceptions or relevant to the interpretation of Fr.Leonard Feeney.
What is mentioned above is fine in itself. When it is inferred that it is a reference  to visible and known cases then it becomes a factual error.)

    The following, then, are the explicit lessons brought out in the text of the Suprema haec sacra(He is referring to the Letter of the Holy Office 1949 during the pontificate of Pope Pius XII) :

(1) The teaching that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church is a dogma of the Catholic faith. 
Lionel:Agreed.    (2) This dogma has always been taught, and will always be taught, infallibly by the Church’s magisterium. 
Lionel:Agreed.
    (3) The dogma must be understood and explained as the Church’s magisterium understands and explains it. 
Lionel:Agreed.    (4) The Church is necessary for salvation with both a necessity of precept and a necessity of means. 
(Lionel: Necessity of precept and means are known only to God. It has nothing to do with the traditional interpretation of the dogma by Fr.Leonard Feeney. In 2014 we do not know any one who is going to be saved or is saved as such)
    (5) Because the Church is necessary for salvation with the necessity of precept, any person who knows the Church to have been divinely instituted by Our Lord and yet refuses to enter it or to remain within it cannot attain eternal salvation.
(Lionel: There is no such person known to us in 2014. He is referring to a hypothetical case which has no bearing on the traditional interpretation of extra ecclesiam nulla salus.)
    (6) The Church is a general and necessary means for salvation, not by reason of any intrinsic necessity, but only by God’s own institution, that is, because God in His merciful wisdom has established it as such.
(7) In order that a man may be saved “within” the Church, it is not always necessary that he belong to the Church in re, actually as a member, but it can sometimes be enough that he belong to it as one who desires or wills to be in it. In other words, it is possible for one who belongs to the Church only in desire or in voto to be saved. 
(Lionel: Yes as a hypothetical case. In reality we do not know any such person.So this is confusion. If the Letter assumes that this person is visible and known to us then it is a factual error.)
    (8) It is possible for this desire of entering the Church to be effective, not only when it is explicit, but also (when the person is invincibly ignorant of the true Church) even when that desire or votum is merely implicit. 
(Lionel: Again if he infers that this case is visible and so an exception to the extra ecclesiam nulla salus then it is an objective error.)
    (9) The Mystici Corporis reproved both the error of those who teach the impossibility of salvation for those who have only an implicit desire of entering the Church, and the false doctrine of those who claim that men may find salvation equally in every religion. 
(Lionel: Those who have an implicit desire to enter the Church and who are saved are known only to God. So these cases are not exceptions, for example, to every one needing the baptism of water in 2014 for salvation.To assume that they are known and are exceptions is Cushingism. )
    (10) No desire to enter the Church can be effective for salvation unless it is enlightened by supernatural faith and animated or motivated by perfect charity.
 
 
Angelus Press
 

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