PART TWO: THE MAGISTERIUM ACCORDING TO ABBÉ MARCILLE
By Rev. Fr. Giuseppe Murro
(First appeared on Sodalitium No 45 IT – No 43 FR)
In the previous issue of Sodalitium we announced a response to the article by Abbé Philippe Marcille that appeared in the magazine Sì Sì No No, (1) with the title: “GRANDEZZA e VULNERABILITÀ del Magistero ordinario e universale della CHIESA” and later published in French with a few variations in the book “Eglise et Contre-Eglise au Concile Vatican II” (2) with the title: “La crise du Magistère Ordinaire et Universel”. In the present article we will refer to the text published in the journal Sì Sì No No, which transcribes «the lecture given by Abbé Philippe Marcille on the occasion of the Second Theological Conference of Sì Sì No No» (Albano Laziale, January 1996).
Sì Sì No No (whose director is Abbé du Chalard, a priest of the St. Pius X Fraternity) writes: “The author deals therein, with competence and fidelity to the great Catholic theology, with a subject of extreme gravity, on which it is necessary to have very clear ideas in the present crisis of the Churchb (3). The St Pius X Fraternity therefore endorses the position of Abbé Marcille (himself a member of this society). Unfortunately, after reading the article in question on this “subject of extreme gravity”, the reader does not come away with clearer ideas.
ABBREVIATIONS
M. = Abbé Philippe Marcille.
FSPX = St. Pius X Priestly Fraternity.
S. = Sì Sì No No.
O.U.M. = Ordinary and Universal Magisterium.
P. = Insegnamenti Pontifici – La Chiesa, Edizioni Paoline, Rome 1961.
DS = Denzinger-Schönmetzer, Enchiridion Symbolorum definitionum et declarationum, XXXVI ed., Herder, 1976.
Vat. Counc. = Vatican Council, indicating the Council celebrated in the Vatican from 8/12/1869 to 20/10/1870, commonly called Vatican Council I.
The purpose of M.’s article
M. writes: “The moral unanimity of the episcopate in communion with the Bishop of Rome is formally teaching as obligatory doctrines manifestly in opposition to the apostolic tradition. Now according to the First Vatican Council, the deposit of faith is found in the teaching of the Universal Ordinary Magisterium. Does this not contradict the deposit of faith? (4). How can today’s Magisterium contradict yesterday’s constant and unanimous Magisterium?… It is to this question that I propose to answer today” (5).
In doing so, Abbé M. sets out to justify the doctrinal and practical position of the FSPX against the supporters of the Second Vatican Council and the proponents of the vacancy of the Apostolic See, who use the same argument of the infallibility of the O.U.M. to arrive at opposing conclusions, yet agree that the position of the FSPX is wrong. Will M. succeed in proving his theory? According to Sodalitium absolutely not; rather, he will highlight a series of theses that are more or less at odds with the Church’s traditional teaching. Before examining these theses, I must make a preliminary remark on the method used by M.
Approximations and falsifications
“The following report is a very simplified summary of an enormous amount of work that began ten years ago” (6). Despite ten years of work, M.’s article does not seem to enjoy the scientificity required in theology. I refer first of all to the quotations: they are almost always approximate and often even falsified.
Often M. does not cite the page where the enclosed references can be found, forcing the reader into a long and sometimes vain search. He often refers to an author’s thought without quoting it in inverted commas, so that one does not know whether and to what extent it is really to be attributed to the quoted author or to M.: of Billot, for instance, only the number of the thesis is given, without any other indication. Are these approximations a sign of superficiality or do they serve to conceal genuine forgeries? The doubt came to me after checking some quotations. Here are the most serious examples.
1) M. affirms that “Vacant thinks that the highest note that can be given to a teaching of the O.U.M. is proxima fidei” (7); even if “the First Vatican Council says that the teaching of the O.U.M. must be believed to be of divine and catholic faith, the Vacant says that the highest note that can be given to a teaching of this same magisterium is proxima fidei” (8). As his only reference he gives Vacant’s book Le Magistère Ordinaire Universel et ses organes, without any indication of publisher or page. I will examine later how erroneous this statement by M. is. I immediately asked myself: how is it possible for a serious theologian like Vacant to assert such an enormity? Therefore, I consulted Vacant in his Etudes Théologiques sur les Constitutions du Concile du Vatican d’après les actes du Concile (9), which affirms exactly the opposite of what M. makes him say: “We must not forget,” says Vacant, “that the Council of the Vatican places the ordinary magisterium on the same level as the solemn judgments, without making any distinction between the truths that are its object. Theologians do the same. Therefore the ordinary Magisterium possesses sufficient authority to render of Catholic faith a truth that was of divine faith” (10). It is true that in n. 663, Vacant states that in practice it will be difficult to discern when the O.U.M. has pronounced with this authority; but it must be added that for Vacant this would be possible through the teachings of the Holy See (11). M. has therefore not presented Vacant’s thought objectively and completely.
2) M. maintains that in the Magisterium infallibility is “an accident correlative to the obligation of the faithful to believe in divine and catholic faith” (12) and to demonstrate this he quotes Card. Billot, in his De Ecclesia Thesis XVII: “Now, the order to believe firmly without examining the object… can generate a true obligation only if the authority is infallible” (13). The inattentive reader will think: what M. says must be true, since he relies on Billot’s authority. But in this sentence attributed to Billot it is simply said that only infallible authority can impose the act of Faith: if there is a possibility of error, if authority is not infallible, there can be no act of Faith; without infallibility there is no obligation to believe. Thus Billot affirms the opposite of what M. says: infallibility is not an accident correlative to the obligation to believe, it is a conditio sine qua non, a condition without which there can be no act of faith.
We then looked for the sentence attributed to Billot in Thesis XVII of the Treatise De Ecclesia. The Thesis consists of about thirty pages, divided into paragraphs: M. indicates neither the page nor the paragraph. After re-reading the thirty pages two or three times, we could not find the famous sentence: if it is Billot’s, where is it to be found? This time M. not only did not present the author’s thought objectively, he twisted it without giving the right references.
3) According to M. one of the historical cases of error of the Holy Pontiff would be that of Pope Honorius: St. Sophronius would have disobeyed a formal order of Honorius, “which earned him excommunication for this”. The source of this astonishing news can be found in footnote 48 (14): “DTC, entry Honorius, col. 123”. We have searched in vain in the DTC (which is far from being of “Roman” orientation) for this episode, as well as in various books of Ecclesiastical History: there has never been an excommunication by Pope Honorius to St. Sophronius!
4) To justify episcopal consecrations against the Pope’s prohibition (as Mgr Lefebvre did in 1988, while continuing to recognise the legitimacy of John Paul II), M. cites Dom Gréa, giving as usual an insufficient reference. According to M., Dom Gréa would affirm that the bishops have a power of substitution with respect to the pope to the point of being able to consecrate bishops, when precise conditions are fulfilled: danger for the existence of religion, impotence of the local pastor, “no hope of help from the Holy See” (15). We consulted Dom Gréa’s text (16): he states, for the last condition, “no hope of recourse to the Holy See”, i.e. when it is physically impossible to have recourse to the Pope. M. by surreptitiously substituting “succour” for “recourse” has changed Dom Gréa’s thinking. For Mgr Lefebvre the possibility of recourse was there. On the other hand, Dom Gréa states throughout the paragraph the need for bishops to be dependent on and in communion with the Pontiff even at such junctures.
The theses of Abbé Marcille
The theses expounded by Abbé M. are interconnected, so if we want to understand his thought, we must see it as a whole; not all of them have the same gravity. We will therefore group together the various arguments that are scattered throughout his article. We will deal with the Ordinary and Universal Magisterium, the Pope’s Ordinary Magisterium, infallibility, the indefectibility of the Church, the Rule of Faith, Roman Theology and then draw conclusions.
The Ordinary and Universal Magisterium
It seems that Abbé M. has not understood what the O.U.M. is, nor what the reason for its infallibility is: he practically nullifies the O.U.M. by reducing it to Tradition.
(a) Subject of the O.U.M.
According to Catholic doctrine, the subject of the O.U.M., that is who has the right to be able to use this Magisterium, is the body of Bishops, successors of the Apostles, united and subject to the Roman Pontiff (17). M. begins by saying that the subject of the O.U.M. are all the bishops, even those who do not have the power of jurisdiction: “The present jurisdiction over the baptised is not necessary” (18). But the doctrine of the Church teaches the opposite: only bishops with jurisdiction are part of the teaching Church and therefore they alone constitute the subject of the O.U.M. (19).
For M., on the other hand, to be a subject of the O.U.M., rather than jurisdiction, faith is necessary: “Every bishop who has the faith is a subject of the Ordinary and Universal Magisterium” (20). Proof of his assertion is taken from Franzelin, who recalls how “St Cyprian demanded that the newly elected to the episcopate expound his faith” (21). M. does not realise that this external profession of faith is necessary for the newly elected to be in communion with the Pope and thus receive jurisdiction! But M.’s error is not an oversight: he has surreptitiously replaced the objective criterion (jurisdiction) with a subjective one. How is one to know whether the bishop has the faith or not? “By means of the letters of communion [that give jurisdiction] with the Roman Pontiff”, Franzelin himself replies, a few lines down; this solution does not please M. However, by substituting the subjective criterion for the objective one, as M. does, it follows that, of any bishop, independently of any jurisdiction, it will be possible to affirm or deny that he has the faith and is subject to the O.U.M. Finally, we must note that even here Franzelin’s quotation (approximate, as usual) is truncated and his thought is distorted.
Still on the subject of the O.U.M., M. makes another confusion: if one bishop alone is not infallible, why should they all be infallible together? “How can the Magisterium of the bishops as a whole be infallible if that of the individual bishop is not?” (22). But the answer is simple: because of the indefectibility of the Church. M. insists: the diocesan Bishop constitutes “a fallible body” (23). We answer: yes, if taken individually, insofar as he teaches in his diocese. No, insofar as he is part of the Body of Bishops (united among themselves and subject to the Roman Pontiff) and teaches something concerning faith or morals: in that case, there is the assistance of the Holy Ghost who preserves from error (which is not the case for the individual Bishop).
But to M. this does not seem possible: “A collective assistance of the Holy Ghost [is] absurd, he says, because supernatural accidents can only be inherent in a reasonable personal nature and therefore cannot be grafted onto a collective being” (24). Let us just point out to M.: when the bishops are gathered in the Ecumenical Council, is there or is there not “the collective assistance of the Holy Ghost”? And if there is, why could there not be in the O.U.M.? We repeat again: individual bishops are not assisted, the body of bishops is. Not having understood this, M. pulls out the sophism: sometimes the majority of the Episcopate is wrong, therefore the subject of the O.U.M. is not always infallible: “How is it conceivable that at a given time the majority… of the Catholic Episcopate could indicate a false direction, could give a teaching contrary to Tradition?” Here again the answer is the same: it is possible that one or many or all of the Bishops without the Pope may err, because they do not have divine assistance; but it is not possible that the Bishops with the Pope err, because in that case there is the assistance of the Holy Ghost. Leo XIII teaches: “The episcopal order alone must be held to be connected, as Christ commands, with Peter, if it is subject to Peter and obeys him: otherwise it is necessarily dispersed in a confused and disordered multiplicity” (26).
M.’s intention was thus to destroy the subject of the O.U.M.: those who have the power to exercise it, he said, can sometimes make mistakes. We seem to have clearly explained that Catholic doctrine teaches the opposite: the subject of the O.U.M. can never err.
b) Church membership
A similar error by M. concerns membership of the Church: “Every baptised person who has faith (due submission is a consequence) is a member of the Church, inestirpably a member of the Church” (27). Now if submission to legitimate pastors is only a consequence and not something essential, it may not be there! This thesis of M. is in agreement with the ecumenist doctrine of the Second Vatican Council (Unitatis Redintegratio, 3) and of John Paul II (Ut unum sint, 66, 77; 13, 17), according to which also members of other Christian religions are imperfect members of the Church, because of Baptism and faith. Pius XII had already spoken out against this doctrine in Mystici Corporis: the members of the Church are “exclusively”: 1) the baptised, 2) who profess the true faith, 3) who have not separated from the Church (they are subject to the legitimate Pastors, which excludes schismatics), 4) who were not separated with punishment (excommunication) from the legitimate authority (28). To belong to the Church therefore, submission to the Pope is not a consequence of faith, but is something essential that is added to the Faith, just as much as not having received excommunication. M. ignores points 3) and 4), with his usual approximation, and falsifies Catholic doctrine.
This shows us M.’s mentality: he excluded the necessity of submission to the Roman Pontiff both to be a subject of the O.U.M. and to be a member of the Church. These are two very serious errors that denote a schismatic tendency.
c) Purpose of the O.U.M.
According to the words of the Vat. Counc. (29), the O.U.M. can teach those revealed truths that must be believed by an act of divine and catholic faith. Now such truths constitute the dogmas of faith, which are infallible, definitive, irreformable. But M. disagrees: he begins by stating that this magisterium does not give irreformable (30), not even definitive (31) judgments, to conclude at the end that it is not infallible (32). In the next point, on the O.U.M.’s note, we will deal with these statements of his; here we only ask: what is the O.U.M. for? To “transmit the deposit”, responds M. (33), who perhaps ignores the fact that, by God’s will, the purpose of the entire Magisterium of the Church (and not only of the O.U.M.) is ordered to safeguard, transmit and explain the deposit of faith. “It is the undoubted duty of the Church to guard and propagate the doctrine of Christ unaltered and uncorrupted” (34), Leo XIII says.
d) Theological Note of the O.U.M.
This is a matter of utmost importance. Let us take up what we announced in the section on approximations and falsifications. For Abbé M. the conciliar definition does not fit, because it destroys the whole position of the FSPX, and here is what he comes up with: when the O.U.M. repeats something already solemnly defined, only then does its teaching deserve the theological note “of faith” (35); if not, the required assent will be inferior, “much weaker”, that is, “close to the faith” (36). “The word ‘infallible’ is not used in the text of Vatican I, and with reason” (37), says M. Hence the obligation to adhere to a proposition proposed by the O.U.M. is inferior to the obligation to adhere to a proposition proposed by the extraordinary Magisterium, since the O.U.M. is not infallible.
M.’s statement is very serious because it denies the Council’s definition that any teaching of the O.U.M. is of faith: “All those things which are contained in the written or handed down word of God and which are proposed for belief by the Church as revealed by God either by a solemn judgement or by the ordinary and universal Magisterium are to be believed of divine and catholic faith” (DS 3011) (29). The definition was also repeated by the Pio-Benedictine Code (Canon 1323, §1) and is of such clarity that it is impossible to be mistaken. Pius IX had already taught in Tuas libenter that the act of faith must not be limited to defined truths, but must extend to that “which is transmitted as divinely revealed by the ordinary Magisterium of the whole Church spread throughout the earth” (38). It is evident that the act of faith can only be made if the teaching is infallible.
Having read these texts, we ask: how can a Catholic priest deny the solemn definition of an Ecumenical Council? The answer is obvious: M. goes so far as to justify the position of the FSPX. In this way he empties the O.U.M. of its particular value, that of being a Magisterium that is in itself infallible, and which all must believe by an act of divine and Catholic faith. The authority of this Magisterium rests on the Bishops united with the Pope, who cannot err because they constitute the Hierarchy of the Church, which is indefectible. If what M. says were true, the O.U.M. would only be infallible when it repeats things that are… already infallible! It would be an infallibility of fact and not of law (39): the Holy Ghost would no longer have any particular function, he would teach truths that are only “close to the faith”! To better understand the gravity of what M. affirms, let us recall the intervention of Bishop d’Avanzo during the Vatican Council of 20/6/1870 on behalf of the Deputation of the Faith (40): “…Allow me to recall how infallibility is exercised in the Church. In fact we have two testimonies in the Scriptures on infallibility in the Church of Christ, Luke XXII: I have prayed for you, etc., words which concern Peter without the others; and the end of Matthew: Go, teach, etc., words which are spoken to the apostles, There is therefore a twofold mode of infallibility in the Church; the first is exercised by the ordinary magisterium of the Church: Go, teach… Therefore as the Holy Ghost, the spirit of truth, dwells in the Church every day; so every day the Church teaches the truths of faith with the assistance of the Holy Ghost. She teaches all these things that are either already defined, or contained explicitly in the treasury of revelation but undefined, or finally are believed implicitly: all these truths the Church teaches daily, either through the pope primarily, or through each of the bishops who adhere to the pope. All of them, pope and bishops, are infallible in this ordinary magisterium of the Church’s own infallibility: they differ only in this, that the bishops are not infallible by themselves, but need communion with the pope, by whom they are confirmed; the pope needs only the assistance of the Holy Ghost that has been promised to him (…). Even with the existence of this ordinary magisterium, it sometimes happens that the truths taught by this ordinary magisterium and already defined are challenged by a return of heresy, or that truths not yet defined, but held implicitly or explicitly, must be defined; and then the occasion for a dogmatic definition arises”. The other mode of infallibility, Bishop d’Avanzo would later say, is the solemn mode, which the Pope can exercise either alone or by convening an ecumenical council.
e) Ordinary Magisterium and Solemn Magisterium
A logical conclusion that M. draws from what he said earlier (41): between the extraordinary Magisterium and the O.U.M. there is an essential distinction, and not only an accidental one; to say that there is only an accidental difference would lead, he says, to collegiality! M. fails to understand that the Bishops, subject to the Pope, constitute a body, the teaching Church, the hierarchy of the Church as St. Pius X also affirmed (42); now “hierarchy” does not mean “collegiality”. M.’s theory is a heterogeneous innovation. Salaverri, for example, teaches the opposite: “The modes of exercising the Magisterium…, ordinary, i.e. outside the Council, extraordinary, i.e. in the Council, agree essentially in this, that both constitute an act of the whole teaching Church subject to the Roman Pontiff; they differ accidentally in the fact that the extraordinary mode entails in addition the local meeting of the bishops” (43). Zubizarreta teaches: “The body of Bishops in union with the Roman Pontiff, whether assembled in council or dispersed throughout the world, is the subject of the infallible magisterium, since this body of Pastors in communion with the Roman Pontiff is the successor of the apostolic college and by hereditary right has received the charge of teaching, governing and sanctifying men together with the prerogative of infallibility” (44). Archbishop Zinelli at the Vatican Council stated: “The agreement of the dispersed bishops has the same value as when they are reunited: for assistance was promised to the formal union of the bishops and not only to their material union” (45).
Abbé M. is so blinded by his passion to justify the FSPX, that he fails to see the gravity of his statement: if the difference between the Ordinary Magisterium and the Extraordinary Magisterium is not merely accidental, we would then have two Magisteriums in the Church! This would lead to a division and fragmentation of the teaching function of the Church which, in transmitting the deposit of Revelation, would sometimes be assisted by the Holy Ghost and sometimes not. But in Thomistic philosophy, the function is determined by its object: if the object (transmitting Revelation) is only one, only one function will correspond to it. “It is necessary to insist again because the sound notions of realist metaphysics seem to have been forgotten. Under pain of falling into a kind of ‘nominalism’, theology must read the reality of Revelation, in the light of reason enlightened by faith, and not ‘label’ it without dealing with the content… The manner of an act is an accidental qualification that does not change the specification of the function, power or potency that exercises the act! Consequently, if a category of propositions falls within the object of the Magisterium, the Magisterium can qualify and judge it infallibly, whether by exercising a solemn act, or by the simple exposition of doctrine… The modality of proposing doctrine cannot, in any case, affect or change the nature and extent of the object, since the object is determined solely by the nature and purpose of the Magisterium, as the very words of Our Lord (Mt XXVIII, 20) and of St. Paul (I Tim. VI, 20: The Church of the living God, the pillar and firmament of truth): the Church is assisted to qualify the relationship of every proposition to the revealed deposit. The Magisterium is the divinely assisted power to make this qualification” (46).
M. says (47) that he found his theory in Vacant’s book cited above. We have already seen that Vacant instead affirms traditional doctrine and then distinguishes: de jure the O.U.M. can define a truth to be believed to be of Catholic faith: “The Vatican Council places the ordinary magisterium on the same level as the solemn judgments… Therefore the ordinary magisterium possesses sufficient authority to render a truth that was of divine faith of Catholic faith” (10). According to Vacant, de facto the Church, when defining a “new” dogma (48) or condemning a heresy, uses the solemn magisterium for greater clarity because in practice it is easier to recognise infallible teaching in an act of the solemn magisterium than in one of the ordinary magisterium. But Vacant does not exclude that the Church can also use the ordinary magisterium de facto: in that case its infallibility can be recognised through “the acts of the Holy See” (11), i.e. the Magisterium of the Pope. To make clear what Vacant’s thinking is, and how much M. has falsified it, let us quote another passage, again on the subject of the O.U.M.: “This mode of magisterium responds more fully to the mission that Jesus Christ entrusted to his apostles; in fact he ordered them to spread throughout all nations, to teach all his doctrine every day. His words are formal: ‘Go and instruct all nations and teach them to keep all that I have told you, and I will be with you always, until the end of time’ (Matthew 28: 19-20). It is with this teaching that the Church was established and the doctrine of Jesus Christ was manifested to the world, before the solemn definitions of the Councils and the Holy See, and it is the first rule of faith whose authority the Holy Fathers invoked” (49).
Furthermore, after the Vatican Council, the Church gave further teachings on the value of the O.U.M., which a Catholic must follow.
Pius XI teaches: “The Magisterium of the Church – established by divine will on earth, for the purpose of keeping perennially intact the revealed truths, and of bringing them safely and easily to the knowledge of men – every day, it is true, it is exercised through the Roman Pontiff and the Bishops who are in communion with him; but he has also the task of proceeding to define some point of doctrine, by solemn rites or decrees, when it is necessary to resist more forcefully the errors and contentions of heretics, or when it is necessary to impress with more precision and clarity certain points of doctrine in the minds of the faithful” (50). “It would be unworthy of a Christian… to hold that the Church, destined by God to be the teacher and ruler of peoples, is not sufficiently enlightened in regard to modern things and circumstances; or not to give her assent and obedience except in what she imposes by way of more solemn definitions, as if her other decisions could be presumed to be either false or not furnished with sufficient grounds of truth and honesty” (51).
Pius XII, on the subject of the dogma of the Assumption, declared that the O.U.M. teaches “in a certain and infallible way” that the truth of Our Lady’s Assumption into Heaven “is a truth revealed by God and contained in that divine deposit which Christ entrusted to his Bride… The Magisterium of the Church, certainly not by purely human industry, but by the assistance of the Spirit of truth, and therefore infallibly, fulfils its mandate to preserve eternally pure and integral the revealed truths, and transmits them without contamination, without additions, without diminutions” (52).
Rev. Fr Barbara illustrates this truth well: Pope and Bishops continue our Lord’s teaching action in two ways, as the Master himself did: “In a simple and ordinary way, the way Jesus habitually used: ‘And he spoke to them according to his way of teaching… Hear. The sower went out to sow… Does one take the lamp to put it under the bushel or under the bed? Or not rather to put it on the candlestick?’ (Mk 4:2; 21). In a solemn and extraordinary way… It began then with some solemn formula: ‘Verily, verily, I say unto you’ (…) ‘Blessed are ye’ or ‘Woe unto you’. The magisterium invented nothing… it adopted to teach the ways of Jesus” (53).
In conclusion: the teachings of the O.U.M. are infallible, and therefore much more than “theologically certain” or “close to the faith”, as M. claims.
f) Nature of the O.U.M.
We have already shown that the O.U.M. is the teaching of the Hierarchy of the Church, that is, of the Bishops in agreement with each other, united with and subject to the Roman Pontiff (17). This union with the Pontiff ensures that they are assisted by the Holy Ghost and are therefore infallible. Without union and submission there is no assistance or infallibility.
M. does not accept Catholic doctrine and writes: “The morally unanimous agreement of the Episcopate on a point of faith is a proper of the Universal Ordinary Magisterium and not its formal constitutive”; in other words, for him agreement is not essential. In this way, he says, the indefectibility of the O.U.M. is saved in the event of a crisis in the Church (54), whereby it may happen that the unanimity of the bishops errs in teaching a truth; in times of crisis, the O.U.M. may not be perceptible. Let us answer once again: the Bishops without the Pope are not infallible; united and submissive to the Pope they are infallible when they teach a doctrine contained in the deposit. This unity therefore of the bishops and their submission to the Holy Pontiff is essential: we will give further proof of it when dealing with the relationship between the Magisterium of the Pope and the bishops.
For M., the O.U.M. cannot give irreformable definitive definitions (55). From this we should logically conclude that it is not infallible, since the Vatican Council teaches that everything that the O.U.M. teaches must be believed to be divine and catholic (DS 3011) and theologians affirm that the Magisterium is infallible when it expresses itself in a definitive manner (56). Therefore we say: if the O.U.M. does not give a definitive and irreformable definition, then its teaching is not infallible; but if it gives it, then it is. We have already seen the distinction made by Vacant on the de jure and de facto possibility of such definitions.
g) Deficiency of the O.U.M.
M. denied the nature of the O.U.M.: it is not infallible Magisterium, it does not deserve to be believed of faith, in times of crisis it is not perceptible. M. now sinks his blows against this Magisterium. “The Ordinary and Universal Magisterium can be completely in the dark or even apparently lean towards heresy” (57); it can “not only be obscure, but also seem to point in a false direction” (58). The argument of the “obscure Magisterium” is not new; it had already been advocated by liberals during and after the Vatican Council, in order to reject or belittle the infallibility of the Pope’s ex cathedra Magisterium (59).
To explain the obscurity of the O.U.M., M. gives the case of the Arian heresy as an example: the Council of Nicaea, he says, did not regulate “all the connected questions”, “did not give an answer to several arguments of the Arians and the heresy did not cease” (60). The enormity of this example leaps to the eye: indeed, when the Church defines a doctrine explicitly, it implicitly answers all the questions connected to it. Like all heretics, the Arians clung to the “connected questions” in order not to submit to the Council’s definition. Similarly, the Council of Trent could not deal with all the objections of protestantism, and the heresy did not cease; St. Pius X condemned modernism, and we know well that it did not cease. The Vatican Council condemned Gallicanism, and yet it did not cease (and how!). Blame the Magisterium, or the heretics who did not accept it? Perhaps M. believes, like John Paul II, that it is the Church that is guilty of heresies and schisms? Or does he think that heresy is only due to an error of the intelligence and not of the will?
M. gives another example of the obscurity of the O.U.M.: during the Great Western Schism, he says, it was not known who the Pope was and the O.U.M. on this very important point “remained obscure for 50 years” (61). We answer that the question of the Great Schism was not a question of Magisterium, but first and foremost a question of jurisdiction: to know who the true Pope was. Furthermore, during the Great Schism the bishops were divided among themselves, they were not united, and therefore one of the essential conditions for the existence of the O.U.M., the union of the bishops among themselves, was missing.
h) Reducing the O.U.M. to Tradition
Let us now discover what M.’s idea of the O.U.M. is. He reduces the reason for the infallibility of the O.U.M. to the apologetic argument of Tradition. Let me explain with an example: if the Catholic Church and the schismatic Eastern Church on a doctrine say the same thing (e.g. that Confirmation is a Sacrament), it is concluded from their consensus that this statement must be true and come from Apostolic Tradition. In fact, agreement on a point of doctrine by two separate Churches is due to the fact that this doctrine was believed before their separation and thus goes back to the Apostles. M. cites St Augustine and Tertullian, who speak of the agreement between the primitive Churches: if the same teaching is found in the different Churches, it is a sign that it comes from Apostolic Tradition. At the same time in philosophy it is shown that if the whole human race holds an opinion to be true, it must be really true: in fact “an opinion admitted at all times and in all places necessarily has a single cause”, human reason, which by its nature adheres to the truth (62). This is why M. gives much importance to the fact that the O.U.M. must be a teaching of bishops “dispersed” throughout the world: “Precisely because it is dispersed, its (morally) unanimous teaching is a sure witness of apostolic preaching” (63). If the bishops dispersed throughout the world all teach the same thing, this doctrine can have no other origin than the teaching of the Apostles.
But Tradition has nothing to do with the de jure infallibility of the united episcopal body: these are two specifically distinct things. In Tradition, we discover the apostolic origin of a doctrine from the repeated testimonies in several places; in infallibility, we learn that a doctrine is revealed by the current infallible pronouncement of the Church’s authority, assisted by the Holy Ghost in its declaration.
M. admits that the O.U.M. can be infallible the instant it is pronounced: but he immediately contradicts himself by stating that to be sure of this infallibility it is necessary that this Magisterium be “constant over a certain period of time” (64), “constant, imparted… to several generations” (65). Therefore it is no longer infallible by itself: once again it contradicts the definition of the Vatican Council (DS 3011), adding a condition that the Council does not give. (On the “long time”, we refer to what we will say on the extension of the pope’s infallibility).
M.’s position follows a widespread error: the O.U.M. would be infallible when it teaches truths that have always and everywhere been believed, according to a thesis falsely attributed to St. Vincent of Lerinus. M. says: “What one must avidly seek and follow as a rule of faith is the constant and unanimous consensus of the Fathers”, i.e. what has always and everywhere been taught in the Church (“semper et ubique”) (66). Sodalitium has already responded to this error (67). Let us recall that the canon of St. Vincent serves to recognise the remote or objective rule of faith (Tradition) and not the proximate or directive rule (the infallible Magisterium). We take up the words of Card. Franzelin during the Vatican Council: “One interprets the canon against the mind of the author if one refers it to what is called the infallible directive norm in the Catholic Church. For Lerino, the canon concerns the objective norm (i.e. divine tradition), as the context shows; and thus the proposed canon contains a criterion for recognising the ‘tradition of the Catholic Church’ through which, ‘in union with the authority of divine law, divine faith is defended’. Whether the said canon contains a necessary condition for a doctrine to be defined infallibly by the Magisterium of the Catholic Church is quite another matter. This, Vincent never taught, indeed he said just the opposite… One would be distancing the Lerinian canon from its true meaning if, in its name, one claimed universal consensus or the unanimity of all the bishops for a doctrine to be defined as a dogma of faith by the Magisterium of the Church, in which the directive norm of faith is found. One would pervert this Lerinian canon by seeking in it at the same time the objective norm and the directive norm, as if the only infallible norm of the Catholic Faith were to be found in the constant and universal agreement of the Church; then, in matters of faith, only that which would be believed by constant agreement would be absolutely certain and infallible, and no one could believe anything, of this divine faith that is absolutely and infallibly certain, without himself seeing this constant and universal agreement of the Church” (68).
The logical conclusion of M.’s confusion is as follows: if the O.U.M. teaches only what is preached everywhere “over a long period of time”, when there is controversy this Magisterium will be divergent and obscure (69). We refer readers to what we have already said in point h) of this paragraph. M. does not realise that he is speaking of a case where the terms contradict each other: if there is divergence then there is no union and there is also no O.U.M. When, on the other hand, there is O.U.M., then there is no longer divergence.
Conclusion. Let us end with the words of Zapelena (70): “The college of bishops, which succeeds the college of apostles, is infallible in proposing revealed doctrine or doctrine related to Revelation… Now this college in the ordinary or dispersed magisterium of the bishops is not inferior to the extraordinary or conciliar magisterium. Therefore bishops are no less infallible when they teach in concordance with their ordinary magisterium than when they exercise their extraordinary or solemn magisterium. In fact, Christ’s assistance and promises are by no means limited to the exercise of the solemn and extraordinary magisterium; rather, they concern the ordinary and daily magisterium of the bishops: ‘I am with you always, until the end of time’ (Mt 28:20)”.
The Pope
With regard to the Holy Pontiff, it appears that Abbé M. believes neither in the infallibility of the Pope’s ordinary Magisterium, nor that he is the proximate Rule of the faith; hence the relationship between the Magisterium of the Pope and the Magisterium of the Bishops is distorted.
a) The infallibility of the Pope’s Ordinary Magisterium
M. explicitly denies the infallibility of the Pope’s Ordinary Magisterium: “It must be said that the Pope is not infallibly assisted in his Ordinary Magisterium even if it is directed to the whole Church” (71). His reasoning is simple: the Vatican Council in its famous definition (quoted in the Note of the O.U.M., DS 3011) affirms that the Church is infallible with the solemn Magisterium or with the ordinary and universal Magisterium, and therefore, he concludes, “there are no other acts of infallible Magisterium in the Church” (72). M. is wrong. First of all because at that point “the Deputation of the Faith had no intention whatsoever of dealing, either directly or indirectly, with the question of the infallibility of the Supreme Pontiff” (73), Bishop Martin pointed out to the Council Fathers on 31 March 1870. M. knows this discourse, since he quotes part of it, but is silent on this sentence. How come?
Moreover, to deny the infallibility of the Pope in his ordinary Magisterium is serious, since it is a certain theological conclusion (74), taught moreover by the Magisterium of the Church.
The Vatican Council has defined that the Supreme Pontiff “enjoys that infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer willed that his Church should be endowed” (DS 3074); with this declaration the Gallicans were condemned, for whom “the Pope is inferior to the Church in matters of faith” (75); the Pope is therefore in no way inferior to the Church. Now the Church has been endowed with the extraordinary and ordinary mode of infallibility (DS 3011). The Pope too therefore can exercise his infallibility in a twofold manner.
The Holy Pontiff has in the Church “all the fullness of supreme power” (DS 3064): therefore he must also have all the ways of exercising this supreme power. Now the supreme power of infallibility is given to the Church in a twofold manner, extraordinary and ordinary. Therefore the Holy Pontiff also has the power of infallibility in an ordinary manner, otherwise it would have to be concluded that the supreme power of infallibility, at least in the manner in which it is exercised, would be more restricted in the Pope than in the Church. This cannot be, since the Pope has the fullness of supreme power without any limitations.
The Holy Pontiff has the threefold power to rule, to teach, to sanctify. If his teaching were infallible only when he solemnly defines, it would then be very rare; many Pontiffs would never have used it, they would never have played the role of “confirming the brethren” and the faithful would have had no certain teaching from the Head of the Church, from the Vicar of Christ. This is repugnant to the structure of the Church and the promises of Our Lord to St. Peter. During the Vatican Council, Archbishop Gasser responded to those who claimed that the Pontiff must observe a certain form when giving definitions: “This cannot be done, for it is not a new thing. Already thousands and thousands of dogmatic judgements have been issued by the Apostolic See; but where is the canon that prescribes the form to be observed in such judgements?” (76).
Pius XI: “The Magisterium of the Church – which by divine Providence was established in the world so that revealed truths might always be preserved unimpaired and easily and safely come to the knowledge of men – although it is exercised daily by the Roman Pontiff and the Bishops in communion with him, he also has the office (munus) to proceed appropriately to define some point of doctrine by solemn rites and decrees, if it happens to be necessary to oppose more effectively the errors and assaults of heretics or to impress on the minds of the faithful points of sacred doctrine explained with more clarity and precision” (77). From this text we deduce that the Magisterium is one, with two modes of expression.
Pius XII: “Nor should it be held that the teachings of the Encyclicals do not in themselves require our assent, on the pretext that the Pontiffs do not exercise in them the power of their Supreme Magisterium. In fact, these teachings are of the ordinary Magisterium, whose words: ‘He who listens to you, listens to me’ (Lk X, 16) are also valid; and for the most part, what is proposed and inculcated in the Encyclicals is already, for other reasons, patrimony of Catholic doctrine. That if then the Supreme Pontiffs in their acts purposely issue a judgement on a hitherto controversial matter, it is evident to all that this question, according to the intention and will of the Pontiffs themselves, can no longer constitute the object of free discussion among theologians” (78). Pius XII again: “Is not the Magisterium… the first office of Our Apostolic See? (…) We are seated on the Chair of Peter solely because we are the Vicar of Christ. We are His Representative on earth; we are the organ through which He who is the only Teacher of all makes His voice heard (Ecce dedi verba mea in ore tuo, Jer 1:9)” (79). Precisely through the Ordinary Magisterium Leo XIII defined the question on the validity of Anglican ordinations, Pius XII on the use of the so-called “natural methods” (80) and on the matter and form of the Sacrament of Orders.
b) The Pope is the Next Rule of Faith
It is a truth taught by the Magisterium of the Church as well as by the unanimity of theologians. We refer readers to the article that appeared in the last issue of Sodalitium (81). It is also a logical conclusion of the infallibility of the Pope’s Ordinary Magisterium: if de jure he cannot err, all – bishops and faithful alike – must embrace the doctrine he teaches.
M. affirms that the Pope is the living Rule of the faith only with the Solemn Magisterium (82), not with the Ordinary Magisterium otherwise “this would mean,” he says, “that the deposit of faith is to be found in the living Pope’s Magisterium: which is close to heresy” (83). But the deposit of Faith is one thing, and the Rule is another, which allows one to discern what is contained in and what is opposed to this deposit. We have seen that the Magisterium of the Church teaches the opposite, as for example the Catechism of St. Pius X: “In obedience to this supreme authority of the Church and of the Supreme Pontiff, by whose authority the truths of the faith are proposed to us, the laws of the Church are imposed upon us and everything necessary for the good government of the Church is commanded to us, lies the rule of our faith” (84). Therefore, if the rule of faith is also found in the discipline imposed on us by the Pope, a fortiori it is found in his Ordinary Magisterium. Not having understood this, M. falsifies not only Vacant’s thinking, but also that of Dom Gréa: “For him, says M., the deposit of faith is always in the Ordinary Magisterium of the Roman Pontiff who communicates it unceasingly to the episcopal body… This thesis is rejected by Vacant” (85). Dom Gréa, on the other hand, affirms that the Pope teaches us which are the truths revealed by Our Lord, and that the Bishops receive his teaching in order to transmit it to the faithful: “How can we say that Jesus Christ speaks in the Church? (…) He has provided for this by the institution of a Vicar who is his permanent organ, the guardian and infallible preacher of his word, and ‘around whom’ (86) all the bishops gather, unite with him and receive from him the power to form with him and through him a single and unique Magisterium of the universal Church” (87). Dom Gréa therefore speaks of Magisterium and not of deposit of faith. As for Vacant, we have shown that M. does not present his thought objectively.
c) Relationship between the Magisterium of the Pope and the Magisterium of the Bishops
M. states that the Pope only enjoys greater divine assistance than the Bishops (88). We reply: between the Pope and the Bishops there is an essential distinction and not one of degree, the Pope in fact has a unique assistance from the Holy Ghost that the Bishops, considered individually, do not have.
According to M. the Pope’s Ordinary Magisterium and the O.U.M. are not on the same level: “It is false to equate, as Dom Nau does, the Pontifical Ordinary Magisterium addressed to the whole Church with the Universal Ordinary Magisterium” (89). We reply that both these Magisteriums are infallible. The distinction consists only in this: the infallibility of the O.U.M. has been solemnly defined, that of the Pope is a certain theological conclusion.
For M., Roman theology has made a mistake: considering that the Magisterium of the bishops is a reflection of the Roman Magisterium (90). “The bishops are… the echo of apostolic doctrine, not Roman doctrine” (91). First of all M. contradicts himself, because he himself states that the obscuration of the O.U.M. (which is possible for him) is caused by the “disappearance of the See of Peter” (92). Furthermore, we have seen with regard to the Rule of Faith, that even the bishops are instructed by the Pope, whose function it is to confirm them in the Faith. As St. Peter was the Head of the Apostles, so the Holy Pontiff is the Head of the Bishops. M. recognises that the Pope has the power of “universal jurisdiction”, but inexplicably he does not recognise the Primacy in the “doctrinal function”, the potestas docendi: such a way of seeing things would be, he says, dangerous, because “it leads one to see in the Supreme Pontiff above all a doctrinal function” (93).
Leo XIII teaches the opposite: “It is to the Holy See, in the first place, and also, under its dependence, to the other pastors established by the Holy Ghost to govern the Church of God, that the doctrinal ministry belongs by right. The part of the simple faithful is reduced to a single duty, to accept the teachings imparted to them, to conform their conduct to them, and to second the intentions of the Church” (94).
The Vat. Counc. defined: “We therefore teach and declare that (…) this power of jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff, being truly episcopal, is immediate: therefore the pastors of all ranks and rites and the faithful, both individually and all together, are bound to the duty of hierarchical subordination and true obedience, not only in matters concerning faith and morals, but also in those relating to the discipline and government of the Church spread throughout the earth. So that, preserving the unity of communion and profession of the same faith with the Roman Pontiff, the Church of Christ may be one flock under one supreme shepherd (Jn 10:16). This is the doctrine of Catholic truth, from which no one can depart without danger to his own faith and salvation” (95). We have already talked about the theological note of the O.U.M. and what Bishop d’Avanzo taught: “Therefore, just as the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of truth, dwells in the Church every day; so every day the Church teaches the truths of faith with the assistance of the Holy Ghost. She teaches all these things that are either already defined, or contained explicitly in the treasury of revelation but not defined, or finally believed implicitly: all these truths the Church teaches daily, either through the pope primarily, or through each of the bishops who adhere to the pope. All, pope and bishops, are infallible in this ordinary magisterium of the Church’s own infallibility: they differ only in this, that the bishops are not infallible by themselves, but need communion with the pope, by whom they are confirmed; the pope needs only the assistance of the Holy Ghost which has been promised to him (…)” (40).
d) Extension of infallibility
M. maintains that assistance to the Pope varies according to the people he addresses: “It is certainly greater when addressed to the Universal Church than when addressed to a nation; it is less if addressed to the baptised of the diocese of Rome, less still if addressed to a group of pilgrims” (96). This is false: it matters little to whom the Pope addresses himself, if the doctrine he teaches applies to the whole Church, it is infallible. On the other hand, there are no ‘degrees’ in the assistance of the Holy Ghost: either there is and then it preserves from error, or there is not. Moreover, M. himself later contradicts himself: in fact he affirms, and this is true, that a letter of the Holy Pontiff, even if addressed to a Patriarch, in fact concerns the universal Church and therefore constitutes Ordinary Pontifical Magisterium (97). Gregory XVI, addressing the Bishop of Freiburg, teaches: “[What we say] is in conformity with the teachings and advice that you already know, O Venerable Brother, from Our Letters or Instructions written to various archbishops and bishops, either in the Letters of Our predecessor Pius VIII, printed for his or Our orders. It matters little if these Instructions were addressed only to a few bishops who had asked for information from the Apostolic See: as if the other bishops had been granted the freedom not to abide by those decisions!” (98). In the same way Pius XII defined a question of morality in a speech addressed to midwives (80).
Another of M.’s errors consists in considering that “an isolated magisterial act of the pope” is not infallible: such teaching must be constant, of “long duration” (99). We have already responded to this theory: M. reduces the infallibility of the Magisterium to an apologetic argument, that of Tradition. The absurdity of this assertion is evident: when St. Pius X condemned the modernists, since it was an “isolated” document (the first) it would have been licit to doubt its infallibility! The same happened when Pius XII condemned the “nouvelle théologie” in Humani Generis, or when Leo XIII defined the invalidity of Anglican Ordinations! Let us respond with St. Augustine: “Roma locuta, causa finita” (100).
e) “Errors” of the Supreme Pontiffs
In the Pope’s teaching there can be a material error, which has no influence on faith or morals. There may also be things that are more or less opportune, according to the prudentiality of the act: in that case it is not for us to judge, it will then be the subsequent Popes who may decide differently; but there can never be in the Pope’s teaching anything harmful to faith or morals
M., on the other hand, after downplaying the infallibility of the Pope’s Ordinary Magisterium, ends up denying it, as he did earlier for the O.U.M. “Popes,” he says, “can give a magisterium that is imprudent, harmful to the faith or erroneous” (101), an Encyclical can be “gravely harmful to the good of the Church” (102). We will not dwell on the word “imprudent”, but M. has no right to affirm the rest if he wants to be Catholic. In fact, the Church has condemned the same expressions, used by the Council of Pistoia, according to which in the discipline of the Church there can be something “dangerous or harmful” (103). Now if not even in discipline can such a thing happen, a fortiori in the teaching of the Pope! Thus again the Church has claimed infallibility in liturgical decrees (104), which are less important than the doctrinal decrees of the Holy Pontiff. M. even states that “it has in fact happened” that the Roman Church has taught “an error” and prescribed “an evil” (105), thus contradicting the teaching of the Vat. Counc.: “(…) This See of Peter always remains immune from all error, according to the divine promise of our Lord…. This charism of truth and faith, which is never defectible, was granted by God to Peter and his successors on this See, so that they might exercise this most lofty office for the salvation of all, because the universal flock of Christ, removed by their work from the poisoned bait of error, would be nourished with the food of heavenly doctrine, and, eliminating every occasion of schism, the whole Church would be preserved in unity and, established in its foundation, would stand unshaken against the gates of hell” (106).
Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum: “… Jesus Christ instituted in the Church a living, authentic, and, moreover, perpetual Magisterium, which He invested with His own authority, clothed with the spirit of truth, confirmed with miracles, and willed and sternly commanded that the doctrinal teachings of this Magisterium should be received as His own. Whenever the word of this magisterium declares that such and such a truth is part of the whole of divinely revealed doctrine, each one must believe with certainty that this is true; for if this could in any way be false, it would follow, which is evidently absurd, that God Himself would be the author of the error of men… The Fathers of the Vatican Council did not therefore publish anything new, but did nothing more than conform to the divine institution, to the ancient and constant doctrine of the Church, and to the very nature of faith, when they formulated this decree: ‘One must believe of divine and catholic faith…’ [follows the quotation from Chapter 3 of Dei Filius, DS 3011, ed.]” (107). It is evident that Leo XIII gives here an authentic interpretation of the conciliar definition.
Let us now come to the list of “errors” that, according to M., the Popes have committed (108). Let us immediately note that it was the Jansenists, the Gallicans and the anti-infallibilists at the Vatican Council (109) who supported the possibility of “error facti” on the part of the Supreme Pontiff, according to the DTC. These are M.’s predecessors! He claims to have taken many examples from Journet (110): to take Journet as a guide in these matters is to take a very bad guide. Journet in fact introduced into theology the liberal mentality of Maritain and Paul VI, who, not by chance, gave him the cardinal’s hat.
As for Honorius having excommunicated St. Sophronius (108), we have seen that this is false (in the section on approximations and falsifications).
St Peter, “driven by human motives, gives the opposite example to what he himself had prescribed”, says M. (111). But this is behaviour and not St. Peter’s teaching!
John XII granted Photius communion with him (108): M. himself admits that the Pope was deceived. M. brings this example to prove that the pope can err when he grants a bishop communion: but this act does not belong to the Magisterium. M. uses this case to introduce the question of an excommunication unjustly imposed by the Pope (112). It should be borne in mind that even in such cases, which are rare, all the faithful must believe that the excommunication is just (DS 1272) and the excommunicated person must submit both inwardly and outwardly (CJC can. 2219 §2).
Athanasius and Pope Liberius in the Arian crisis: M., who mentions this episode no less than seven times, accuses Pope Liberius of being pro-Arian. This is completely false. Liberius is accused by non-Catholics of having signed an Arian or semi-Arian profession of faith. Let us answer this accusation: 1st we are not certain that Pope Liberius signed anything; 2nd if he did sign, we do not know what document; 3rd whatever Liberius signed, if he did, he would have done so while in exile as a prisoner of the emperor: now a document extorted in prison has no value; 4th Liberius, before and after his exile, fought Arianism (that is why he was sent into exile), and always professed the faith intact. M. again says that “for 30 years there was a moral quasi-unanimity of the Episcopate in favour of heresy… confirmed by the silence (if not complicity) of Liberius” (113): this is historically false, because many bishops were against the Arians, such as St Eusebius, St Hilary and Liberius himself, whom Mgr Benigni defines as “the second Athanasius”.
The condemnation of Galilei: M. himself is aware that this condemnation was only approved in communal form, it was therefore the act of a Congregation and not of the Pontifical Magisterium (108). However, even in this case, as with all Church teachings, Salaverri explains, it was necessary for Catholics to adhere “corde et ore” (114). Even if there was a material error, one had to submit, because it was “safe” teaching. Such adherence not only involved no error against faith and morals, but was necessary: “At that time there was a need,” says Salaverri, “to preserve the faithful from the grave danger of doubting the inerrancy of Scripture, with which it was hard to see how they could reconcile the opinions of Galilei, which were then bitterly debated. To the decree, considered in this sense, which is the true and proper sense, the faithful had to give their morally certain assent; this assent was relative and conditional, i.e. it had to last until the progress of science had shown that there was no longer any danger of the doctrine of faith on the inerrancy of Holy Scripture being denied” (115). Even Journet, who does not hold the same position as Salaverri, affirms the need to accept and submit to the Congregation’s decree (116). It is therefore hard to see how M. can say that it was an error of the Pontifical Magisterium, and how he can refuse to submit to the decrees of the Congregations.
The suppression of the Jesuits by Clement XIV (108): the approval of a religious Order concerns the aim, the rule, the laws, in their relationship with Catholic doctrine; infallibility does not concern prudential judgement, that is, whether this approval or eventual suppression (such as that of the Jesuits) is opportune or prudent (117). All submitted to the Pope’s order; even St. Alphonsus affirmed the necessity of submission.
Nicholas I forbade torture and Innocent IV (not Innocent V, as M. says) permitted it in the Inquisitorial Code (108). We reply that both were right: Nicholas I forbade torture indiscriminately, Innocent IV allowed it with limits. It is not clear how M. could follow a liberal author like Journet on this, who attacks various Popes – even St. Pius V! – in order to denigrate them (118).
Leo XIII’s encyclical Au milieu: “seems orthodox… in fact it was gravely harmful to the good of the Church” (119). We have already seen at the beginning of this paragraph that the presence of something dangerous, harmful, erroneous in pontifical acts is not possible. But M. says far worse things about this Encyclical (120).
1st “One may wonder,” says M., “whether such a text does not implicitly contain the declaration on religious freedom’” Here M. is in complete absurdity. Both because of the context: Leo XIII strongly fought against liberalism (just think of the Encyclical Libertas). And because with this accusation M. shoots himself in the foot: in this way the Second Vatican Council would be “traditional” in repeating the teaching of a pre-conciliar pope. The proof that “Card. Seper and the post-conciliars sought without success” (121), now it is M. who gives it!
2nd M. insults the Pope: “Leo XIII’s text roughly means: save the safe and sacrifice the tabernacle”; the same Pope is said to have had “indolence” in condemning serious heresies. ¢Under Leo XIII, theological science, piety and loyalty to the Holy See were of no value if one bore the label ‘refractory’”. “The unprecedented cult of personality… surrounded that Pope“. How sad to hear this from a Catholic priest!
3rd M. states that during this pontificate there was “an ‘opacification’ of the Church: it no longer lets Our Lord Jesus Christ be seen”. If the Church no longer lets Jesus Christ be seen, it means that it is no longer the true Church! The same expression was used by Karol Wojtyla in Tertio Millennio adveniente: the opposition to the Catholic Church finds them in agreement.
For some insulting expressions against Pope Leo XIII, St. Pius X, while esteeming Abbé Barbier, had one of his works placed on the Index of prohibited books. Abbé M.’s expressions deserve the same punishment, and far worse!
Let us finally answer the question briefly. Leo XIII does not affirm in the Encyclical Au milieu that power is legitimate in France. He only affirms two things: on the one hand, the unity of Catholics; on the other, the duty of Catholics to be submissive to the constituted power, if the demands of the common good so require (a revolt would have caused worse evils). Let us quote Abbé Belmont’s words on this subject: “The criticism of Leo XIII’s teaching, which has become a sort of fashion, resembles free examination too much for us to accept it or even consider it… On the other hand, it is most unjust and destroys the authority of the pontifical magisterium. Those who have been minimizing this authority for a long time now are only sowing weeds in the field of the Father of the family and are fostering a destructive state of mind that will spare nothing” (122).
Another error cited by M. is “the unjust excommunication fulminated by Pius XI against the defenders of Action Française” (108). We cannot make a particular study of Action Française (A. F.) or its founder and leader Charles Maurras, who, unfortunately, was an atheist. We only note that, while also affirming many right things, the A. F. was animated by naturalist principles. M. not only disregards this, but perhaps ignores that the Holy Office had prepared the condemnation on 29/1/1914 and that it had been approved by the then reigning Pope, St Pius X, who preferred not to publish it at that time for reasons of expediency. One can therefore argue about the expediency or otherwise of this condemnation, but not about the fact, admitted even by St. Pius X, that many of Maurras’ theses were condemnable. Can M. believe that the very patron saint of the Fraternity to which he belongs would not have objected to the condemnation of A. F.? He should meditate on this sentence of Pius XI: “Pius X was too anti-modernist not to condemn this particular species of political, doctrinal and practical modernism with which we are confronted” (123).
Also erroneous would be a letter from Pius XI to the Bishops of France, in which the Pope is said to have forbidden them “to order Catholics not to vote for a candidate who supports secularism” (124). We have searched in vain for this letter in the Acta Apostolicæ Sedis of 1924: once again, the citation is wrong and therefore we could not read the Pope’s text. But we can say that the Church has repeatedly affirmed that in certain circumstances, in order to avoid greater evil, it is not always morally illicit to vote for a non-Catholic, if he guarantees that he is acting without causing any harm to the Catholic Church. St. Pius X, with the Gentiloni Pact, allowed exactly this to Italian Catholics in order to oppose socialism: to vote for a liberal deputy who seriously guaranteed not to legislate against the Catholic religion. Is M. more Catholic than St. Pius X?
(f) Offences
The hierarchy of the Church is described by M. as a “clan in power” (125): however ironic M.’s intention may be, the expression is offensive.
M. opposes the thesis that “he who obeys the pope is always right” (126); his way of expressing himself is at least ill-sounding. For other offensive expressions, see the previous point.
Indefectibility of the Church
The Catholic Church is indefectible, according to Our Lord’s promise to St. Peter: “You are Peter, and upon this rock I will found my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Mt 16:18). Since the Catholic Church was instituted by God, she can never fail; she is, said St. Pius X, “indefectible in her essence, united with an indissoluble bond with her Spouse” (127).
M. practically denies the dogma of indefectibility: for him, the Church is only “almost” indefectible, often… but not always! He maintains that the “deficiency of the Roman Church” (128) is possible, because the promises made by Our Lord are valid “outside exceptional periods of grave crisis” (129); “Our Lord’s promises of indefectibility made to His Church guarantee one thing only: the relative rarity and relative brevity of these grave crises” (130), the Church at certain moments in history can “lose the truth” (131). Historical examples: the Arian crisis in which the Church would fail for a good “30 years” (132); the “great schism of the West: 50 years” (133); under the pontificate of Leo XIII there was “the ‘opacification’ of the Church: she no longer lets Our Lord Jesus Christ be seen” (134): we have already examined all these examples. For M. the defectiveness affects both the O.U.M. and the Pope (135).
We answer that if God has instituted a religion and endowed it with an infallible Magisterium, the latter must remain so, eternally, without interruption. “And since,” teaches Leo XIII, “the Church is such by divine will and institution, she must remain so in perpetuity; if she did not remain so for ever, she would certainly not be founded for immortality” (136).
Roman Theology
Everyone knows that the Roman Church is the Mother and Teacher of all Churches, and that the theology faithful to Rome and its Bishop is the one closest to Church doctrine. And it is precisely Mgr Lefebvre, a great defender of Roman theologians, such as the school of Solesmes (137), who has a descendant who attacks Roman theology. This is the counter-evidence that, to defend the position of the FSPX, one must go against good theology.
M. attacked the Pope and his indefectibility; he must logically also attack Roman Theology. “The extent of [the Pope’s] authority often seems to us exaggerated by theologians too eager to concentrate all ecclesiastical authority in the Pope” (138). We respond, as already said for the relationship between Pope and bishops, that the Vatican Council has defined that in the Church the Pope has supreme and monarchical authority: “This is the doctrine of Catholic truth, from which no one can depart without danger to his faith and salvation” (139). M. insists: “Certain theologians, though worthy of esteem” have fallen into temptation and committed implicit errors “which are not without consequences”. “And so the flamboyant declarations of Romanism of Solesmes, along the lines of Dom Nau, has [sic] resulted in infidelity to Christ, because – they thought – it was better to risk being against Christ with the pope than to be with Christ against the pope” (140). A Protestant would not speak otherwise: to be faithful to Christ one must be against the pope.
Besides Solesmes, he repeatedly attacks certain Roman theologians such as Dom Nau (141), Dom Gréa (142), Billot (143). On the contrary, he quotes without reservation progressives such as Von Hildebrand (144), Journet (145), Congar (146), or a Gallican like Bossuet (147). What can I say? To convince M., more than the authority of the Pope, the bishops, and Catholic theologians, the words of the Director of Sì Sì No No, who said: “The anti-Roman complex is precisely that of the modernists”! (148).
So Sì Sì No No founded by Don Putti to be an “anti-modernist” newspaper welcomes, as its Director implicitly testifies, articles with obvious modernist tendencies!
Current discipline
1) The lighthouse-Bishop
What should be done in the present era? M. has an answer: in times of crisis, the episcopate performs “a particular action” (149); “In times of crisis, it is sometimes… a beacon-bishop that serves as a reference” (150). We knew that there is only one beacon of truth, the Pope (Fr Vallet). M. informs us that this one can be extinguished, while the other one cannot: “For the moment the magisterium of a venerable Bishop can be a beacon for the Church more than the Pope” (151). M. thus inaugurates a new theology that we could call “episcopalian-seafaring”. But, what is serious, he inaugurates a new rule of faith, no longer the objective one that Our Lord has given us, the infallible Magisterium of Peter, but a subjective and fallible one: “a bishop of whom experience will have shown that he deserves trust, and, once this trust has been granted, [one must] accept his teaching” (152). In this way M. imitates the Jansenists who placed the authority of a Father of the Church, St Augustine, before that of the infallible Magisterium; M. places the authority of the lighthouse-bishop, chosen by his own experience. Among the lighthouse-bishops of the past, M. points us to Bossuet, who also had to die out when he started supporting the Gallican theses (153). Among today’s lighthouse-bishops, M. does not say so but it is clear all the same, is Bishop Lefebvre and the Bishops he consecrated in 1988. Therefore the saying “ubi Petrus ibi Ecclesia” no longer applies, but “ubi pharus ibi Ecclesia”!
As we have already seen in the section on falsifications, M. bases his thesis “on the extraordinary function of the Episcopate” by falsifying Dom Gréa’s thinking. In times of crisis, according to M. the bishops can act independently of the Pope; for Dom Gréa instead, “the bishops, always dependent in this as in all things on the Supreme Pontiff and acting in virtue of his communion, i.e. receiving all their power from him, use this faculty for the salvation of the people” (154).
M. implies that the bishops consecrated by Mgr Lefebvre, have a “supplied jurisdiction” (155). We reply that these bishops have no jurisdiction because they have never been either diocesan or titular, therefore they do not have the “solicitude of the universal Church”; on the other hand, neither did Monsignor Lefebvre ever have either jurisdiction outside his diocese (of which he had been deprived since 1962) or magisterium. Jurisdiction in fact comes from the Pope and not from the faithful.
2) The Faith of the faithful is more secure than the teaching of pastors
Catholic doctrine teaches that the teaching Church (Ecclesia docens), formed by the Pope and the bishops, is infallible because it is assisted by the Holy Ghost; the faithful (Ecclesia discens) have infallibility in the act of believing, due to the infallible teaching they have received. M. subverts this order, and states that the faithful have an infallible faith independent of their pastors. “In times of crisis, the faith of the faithful can be a safer criterion for knowing a point of faith than the actual teaching of the Pastors” (156); it is even easier to consult “the faith of the Ecclesia discens” than the teaching Church (157). As proof of his assertion, M. gives the reference of a thesis of Franzelin (158). Let us read it: “To this perpetual, indefectible and infallible magisterium, by the very institution of Christ, corresponds a perpetual ‘obedience of faith’ for believers. Therefore, just as the Holy Ghost always preserves from error the preaching and the witnessing in the unity of the pastors and teachers; so through this same infallible witnessing of the teachers [Ecclesia docens], He always preserves from error the faith of those who are taught [Ecclesia discens], who through the obedience of faith remain in consent and communion with the unanimity of the pastors: Christ is the Word of the Father, the bishops (…) are in the thought of Christ, the faithful in the judgment of the bishops” (159). M. also states that Franzelin gives many examples proving that the faith of the faithful is more certain than the consensus of the bishops: however, the “Ubi pharus ibi Ecclesia” examples illustrated by Franzelin (p. 104) concern cases of individual bishops who erred, while the faithful remained in the faith. Only in this sense can the faith of the faithful be more secure than that of some bishops (even many, but never all if they are united to Peter): and this only because these faithful believe what they have received from the teaching church. Once again M. alters the authors’ thinking for the needs of the cause. We quote again the teaching of Leo XIII: “It is to the Holy See, first of all, and also, under its dependence, to the other pastors established by the Holy Ghost to govern the Church of God, that the doctrinal ministry belongs by right. The part of the simple faithful is reduced to a single duty, to accept the teachings imparted to them, to conform their conduct to them, and to second the intentions of the Church” (160).
Conclusion
Abbé M. could object that he has nevertheless affirmed Catholic doctrine in some of the phrases we contested with him. But even so, he has emptied it of its meaning because he actually denies it. The Arians also affirmed that “Jesus is God”, but in reality they thought he was a creature of God.
M. changed the notion of infallibility: only that which does not err in fact (and not also in law) is infallible. He then substituted the infallible Magisterium of the pope and bishops with Tradition, interpreted by himself, by the faithful, by a lighthouse-bishop, in short with a subjective criterion, as the criterion of Faith. In this he approaches the theses of the “orthodox” schismatics, for whom Tradition is the proximate rule of faith (and not the remote one). He also approaches the Jansenists in rejecting the Church’s living Magisterium and approaches the Gallicans in practically denying its infallibility. M. wants to diminish the infallibility of the (legitimate) pope and bishops and prove that one can disobey them, and then ask us for a blind act of faith in the lighthouse-bishops, in the charismatic leader, who in fact never errs.
We prefer to obey the Pope, the real one who has authority: we prefer to conform to his teachings rather than those of anyone else. “The Pope is the guardian of dogma and morality; he is the depositary of the principles that make the family honest, the nations great, the souls holy; he is the counsellor of princes and peoples; he is the head under whom no one should feel tyrannized, because he represents God himself; he is the father par excellence who unites in himself all that can be loving, tender, divine.
It seems unbelievable, and it is also painful, that there are priests to whom this recommendation must be made, but we are unfortunately in this harsh, unhappy condition today of having to say to priests: love the Pope!
And how is one to love the Pope? Non verbo neque lingua, sed opere et veritate, with deeds and truth (I Jn 3:18). When one loves a person one tries to carry out his wishes, to interpret his desires. And if our Lord Jesus Christ said of himself: si quis diligit me, sermonem meum servabit, that who loves me, will observe my word (Jn 14:23), so to show our love for the Pope it is necessary to obey him.
Therefore, when one loves the Pope, one does not argue about what he disposes or demands, or how far obedience should go, and in what things one should obey; when one loves the Pope, one does not say that he has not spoken clearly enough, as if he were obliged to repeat to everyone’s ears that will clearly expressed so many times not only verbally, but in letters and other public documents; His orders are not questioned, using the easy pretext of those who do not want to obey, that it is not the Pope who commands, but those who surround him; the field in which he can and must exercise his authority is not limited; the authority of other people, however learned, but who disagree with the Pope, is not to be put before that of the Pope, because however learned they are not holy, because he who is holy cannot disagree with the Pope”. These are the words of St Pius X (161). The Fraternity that bears his name, and its faithful should meditate more on these words.
Notes
1) Year XXII, No 8, dated 15/5/96, pp. 1-7 and No 9, dated 30/5/96, pp. 1-5.
2) Actes du 2ème Congrès Théologiques de Sì Sì No No, Publications du Courrier de Rome, 1996, pp. 255-286.
3) Sì Sì No No, 15 May 1996, No 8, p. 1, col. 1.
4) This statement is one of many proofs of the superficiality of M. The deposit of faith does not consist in the O.U.M., but in the written or handed down word of God (Scripture and Tradition). The O.U.M., like the solemn Magisterium, is the infallible rule or criterion for knowing which truths are actually contained in Revelation (see D 1792 and DS 3011).
5) S. No. 8, p. 1, col. 1-2.
6) This sentence is found only in the French edition cited at the beginning of this article, La crise du Magistère Ordinaire et Universel, p. 256.
7) S. No. 8, p. 6, col. 1.
8) S. No. 9, p. 2, col. 2 and p. 5, footnote 40. French text, p. 267 footnote 23.
9) JEAN-MICHEL-ALFRED VACANT, Etudes Théologiques sur les Constitutions du Concile du Vatican d’après les actes du Concile, Paris – Lyon, 1895, Delhomme et Briguet.
10) VACANT, Ibid., Tome 2, ch. III, para. IV, art. 107, no. 662, p. 120.
11) VACANT, Ibid., Tome 2, No. 663, p. 122, footnote 3.
12) S. No. 8, p. 3, col. 1.
13) S. No. 8, footnote 7.
14) S. No. 9, p. 3, col. 1; p. 5 footnote 48.
15) S. No. 9, p. 4, col. 3.
16) DOM A. GRÉA, De l’Eglise et de sa divine constitution, Tome premier, l. II, 2ème partie, cap. IV, § 3, pp. 218-9, Maison de la Bonne Presse, Paris 1907.
17) V. ZUBIZARRETA O.C.D., Theologia dogmaticoscholastica ad mentem S. Thomæ Aquinatis, vol. I, Theologia Fundamentalis, Tratt. II, Q. XIX, a. III, § 3, no. 458 ff., Bilbao 1948, pp. 394-6.
18) S. No. 8, p. 3, col. 3.
19) See: SALAVERRI, Sacræ Teologiæ Summa, Teologia Fundamentalis, T. III De Ecclesia Christi, L. 2, c. 2, a. 1, n. 541-2, B.A.C., Madrid 1962, p. 665-6.
20) S. No. 8, p. 4, col. 2.
21) S. No. 8, p. 6, footnote 20. I. B. FRANZELIN, De Divina Traditione et Scriptura, sectio I, ch. I, Thesis IX, point I, Rome 1896, p. 76.
22) S. No. 8, p. 6, col. 1.
23) S. No. 9, p. 2, col. 2.
24) S. No. 9, p. 1, col. 1.
25) S. No. 9, p. 2, col. 3.
26) Enc. Satis Cognitum, 29/6/1896, I. P. no. 605.
27) S. No. 8, p. 4, col. 2.
28) PIUS XII, Mystici Corporis, DS 3802, in Sodalitium, no. 43, pp. 23-24.
29) Constitution Dei Filius, ch. 3 De Fide, 24/4/1870, DS 3011.
30) S. No. 8, p. 2, col. 1.
31) S. No. 8, p. 2, col. 2.
32) S. No. 8, p. 3, col. 2.
33) S. No. 8, p. 2, col. 2.
34) Satis cognitum, I. P. no. 576.
35) For an explanation of the theological notes, see The Errors of Sì Sì No No, in Sodalitium, no. 44, p. 51 and p. 54 footnote 4.
36) S. No. 8, p. 5, col. 3; p. 6, col. 1; S. No. 9, p. 2 col. 2 and p. 5, footnote 40.
37) S. No. 8, p. 6, col. 1. 48
38) PIUS IX, Tuas libenter, 21/12/1863, to the Archbishop of Munich, DS 2875-80, in Sodalitium no. 41, The Infallibility of the Church, p. 68-9.
39) See Sodalitium No 41, p. 58.
40) Mansi 52, 763 D9-764 C7. Text quoted from ABBÉ BERNARD LUCIEN, L’infaillibilité du Magistère ordinaire et universel de l’Eglise, Documents de Catholicité, 1984, pp. 21-3.
41) S. No. 9, p. 2, col. 3.
42) Vehementer nos, I. P. no. 683.
43) SALAVERRI, op. cit., no. 546, p. 667.
44) ZUBIZARRETA, op. cit., no. 461, p. 396.
45) MONS. ZINELLI, Mansi 51, 676A. In LUCIEN, op. cit., p. 31.
46) P. L. M. DE BLIGNIERES, The Infallibility of the Ordinary Magisterium, Pro manuscripto, p. 12.
47) S. No. 8, p. 6, col. 1; No. 9, p. 2, col. 2.
48) New to our explicit knowledge, but implicitly contained in Revelation, which ended with the death of the Apostle St. John: cf. Sodalitium, no. 44, pp. 49-50.
49) VACANT, Etudes théologiques… no. 625, p. 93.
50) PIUS XI, Mortalium animos, 6-1-1928. DS 3683. The text is reported in I. P. n. 871.
51) PIUS XI Casti Connubi, 31/1/1930, I. P. n. 904-5.
52) PIUS XII, Munificentissimus Deus, 1/11/1950, I. P. n. 1291. Cf. Sodalitium, n. 41, p. 69.
53) R. P. BARBARA, Analyse critique des actes du IIème Congrès théologique de la Fraternité Saint Pie X – janvier 1996, Critique of the Congress, Fourth Critique, point c).
54) S. No. 9, p. 2, col. 1; see also footnote 46.
55) S. No. 9, p. 2, col. 2.
56) LUDOVICO BILLOT S. I., De Ecclesia Christi, Tomus prior, Rome 1927. E.g. see Quæstio X, pp. 410-8.
57) S. No. 9, p. 2, col. 2; see also p. 3, col. 2
58) S. No. 9, p. 3, col. 3.
59) BILLOT, op. cit., pp. 658-660.
60) S. No. 9, pp. 4-5, footnote 39.
61) S. No. 9, p. 5, footnote 42.
62) S. No. 9, p. 1, col. 2 and 3.
63) S. n. 9, p. 2, col. 2; p. 3, col. 2 and 3. The same is stated by R. P. PIERRE-MARIE, “L’autorité du Concile” in Eglise et Contre-Eglise… pp. 307 ff.
64) S. No. 9, p. 5, footnote 44.
65) S. No. 9, p. 2, col. 3. R. P. PIERRE-MARIE, op. cit., p. 304 ff.
66) S. No. 9, p. 4, col. 1.
67) Sodalitium, no. 41, pp. 71-2.
68) Mansi 52, 26-27. Quoted by B. LUCIEN, Le canon de St Vincent de Lérins, in Cahiers de Cassiciacum, no. 6, pp. 83-95.
69) S. No. 9, p. 3, col. 2.
70) T. ZAPELENA, De Ecclesia Christi, pars altera, Gregoriana, Rome 1940, pp. 60 ff. In ABBÉ B. LUCIEN, L’infaillibilité…, p. 68.
71) S. No. 8, p. 6, footnote 28.
72) S. No. 8, p. 3, col. 1.
73) Intervention by MONS. MARTIN on behalf of the Deputation of the Faith during the Vatican Council, 31/3/1870. Quoted byB. LUCIEN, L’infaillibilité…, p. 17.
74) This point is explained very well by R. P. NOEL BARBARA, in La Bergerie du Christ et le loup dans la Bergerie, éd. Fortsdans la Foi, Tours 1995, pp. 177 ff.
75) Mansi, 49, 673; 52, 1230. In SALAVERRI, op. cit., no. 647.
76) MONS. GASSER, Report to the 84th General Congregation, 11-7-1870, Mansi 1215.
77) PIUS XI, Mortalium animos, 6/1/1928, DS 3683, I.P. 871.
78) PIUS XII, Humani Generis, 12-8-1950, I. P. n. 1280.
79) PIUS XII, Commossi, 4-11-1950, I. P. n. 1295.
80) P. N. BARBARA, op. cit., p. 158.
81) Sodalitium No. 44, pp. 48-49.
82) S. No. 8, p. 6, footnote 24: in the French text it is called “extraordinary”.
83) S. No. 8, p. 6, footnote 24.
84) S. PIUS X, Catechismo Maggiore, Breve Storia della Religione, ed. Ares, Milano 1991, pg. 290.
85) S. No. 8, p. 7, footnote 31.
86) “St Ignatius of Antioch calls the apostles: ‘those around Peter’ Epist. ad Smyrn., n. 13. This expression means among the Greeks the court of the sovereign and the dependence of his retinue”: note in Dom Gréa’s text.
87) DOM A. GRÉA, op. cit., Tome premier, l. I, ch. VI, § 2, p. 82. See also l. II, ch. 2, § 3, p. 145-146.
88) S. No 8, p. 5, col. 1; No 9, p. 1, col. 1.
89) S. No. 8, p. 5, col. 3; p. 6, footnote 8.
90) S. No. 8, p. 5, col. 2; p. 6, footnote 5.
91) S. No. 8, p. 5, col. 2.
92) S. No. 9, p. 5, footnote 55.
93) S. No. 8, p. 6, footnote 24.
94) LEO XIII, In the Middle, 4-11-1884, I. P. no. 458.
95) Vat. Counc., Const. Pastor Aeternus, 18/7/1870, DS 3060.
96) S. No. 8, p. 5, col. 1.
97) S. No. 9, p. 5, footnote 48.
98) GREGORY XVI, Non sine gravi, to the Bishop of Freiburg, 23/5/1846, I. P., vol. I, no. 190.
99) S. No. 8, p. 5, col. 1.
100) Serm. 131, 10, 10.
101) S. No 9, p. 3, col. 1; p. 1, col. 1; No 8, p. 5, col. 1.
102) S. No. 9, p. 3, col. 2.
103) PIUS VI, Auctorem fidei, 28-8-1794, DS 1578.
104) DS: 1198-1200, 1645, 1657, 1727-34, 1745-59, 3315-9.
105) S. No. 8, p. 5, col. 2.
106) Pastor Aeternus, DS 3070 and 3071.
107) I. P., vol. I, no. 571-2.
108) S. No. 9, p. 2, col. 3; p. 3, col. 1.
109) DTC, Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, entry Honorius Ier, col. 125-6. Recall that the DTC is far from being “Roman” in orientation.
110) S. n. 9, p. 5, note 51: JOURNET, L’Eglise du Verbe Incarné, t. I, p. 428, excursus 5. The exact reference is: T. I, ch. IV, pp. 347-51 and ch. VII, pp. 428-33. Desclée, de Brouwer, Paris, 1941. We have been unable to find the case of Clement XIV.
111) S. No. 9, p. 4, footnote 37.
112) S. No. 9, p. 5, footnote 49.
113) S. No. 9, p. 3, col. 2.
114) DS: 2390, 2879, 2895, 2922, 3407, 3884. D 1880, deleted in DS.
115) SALAVERRI, op. cit., l. 2, c. 2, a. 3, nos. 682-3, p. 712-3.
116) JOURNET, op. cit., p. 431.
117) SALAVERRI, op. cit., a. 2, n. 727-9. Sodalitium, no. 41 p. 66.
118) JOURNET, op. cit., p. 351, footnote 1.
119) S. No. 9, p. 3, col. 2.
120) S. No. 9, p. 5, footnote 52.
121) Mgr. Lefebvre and the Holy Office, Volpe Editore, 1980, pp. 11-13 and 25-69.
122) ABBÉ H. BELMONT, Léon XIII et saint Thomas d’Aquin, in Notre-Dame de la Sainte-Espérance, janvier 1994, no. 92, p. 6. 49
123) PIUS XI, Chirographe à Paulin-Pierre Andrieu, Archevêque de Bordeaux, 5-1-1927; in Actes de S. S. Pie XI, Tome IV, Année 1927 et 1928, Maison de la Bonne Presse, Paris 1932.
124) S. No. 9, p. 3, col. 2.
125) S. No. 8, p. 4, col. 2.
126) S. No. 9, p. 2, col. 1.
127) S. PIUS X, Iucunda sane, 12-3-1904, I. P. 667.
128) S. No. 8, p. 4, col. 3.
129) S. No. 9, p. 1, col. 3.
130) S. No. 8, p. 6, footnote 22.
131) S. No. 9, p. 2, col. 3.
132) S. No. 9, p. 3, col. 2.
133) S. No. 9, p. 5, footnote 56.
134) S. No. 9, p. 3, col. 2.
135) S. No. 9, p. 2, col. 1 and 2; p. 3, col. 1 and 2.
136) LEO XIII, Satis Cognitum, 29-6-1896, I. P. n. 544.
137) R. WILTGEN, Le Rhin se jette dans le Tibre, Ed. du Cèdre, 1976, p. 243.
138) S. No. 8, p. 4, col. 3.
139) Vat. Council, Const. Pastor Aeternus, 18/7/1870, DS 3060.
140) S. No. 8, p. 5, col. 3.
141) S. No. 8, p. 6, footnotes 5, 6, 24.
142) S. No. 8, p. 6, footnotes 24 and 31.
143) S. No. 8, p. 6, footnote 28.
144) S. No. 8, p. 6, footnote 21: He was the initiator of the new theology on marriage.
145) S. No. 9, p. 3, col. 1.
146) S. No. 9, p. 5, footnote 41.
147) S. No. 9, p. 5, footnote 47.
148) This is the opening address of the Theological Congress, delivered by Abbé E. du Chalard de Taveau, Director of S., in honour of Mons. Francesco Spadafora. We have before us the French text: Eglise et Contre-Eglise… page 11.
149) S. No. 9, p. 4, col. 2 and 3.
150) S. No. 9, p. 5, footnote 47.
151) S. No. 8, p. 5, col. 2.
152) S. No. 9, p. 4, col. 2.
153) DS 2281 et seq.
154) DOM A. GRÉA, op. cit., pp. 218-219.
155) S. No. 9, p. 4, col. 3.
156) S. No. 9, p. 2, col. 1.
157) S. No. 9, p. 3, col. 2.
158) S. No. 9, p. 4, footnote 38.
159) I. B. FRANZELIN, op. cit., sectio prima, c. II, T. XII, p. 97.
160) LEO XIII, In the Middle, 4-11-1884, I. P. no. 458.
161) S. PIUS X, I thank you, to the members of the Apostolic Union, 18/12/1912, I. P. 750-2.