Parts I, II, and III of this series
should be read first.
The Holy Ghost Intervenes
Fr. O’Daniel describes Pope John’s
reaction:
“In the light
of the events that immediately followed, this
joint letter, we think, clearly exerted a salutary influence on the
Pontiff; for may we not refer to it John's subsequent steps as here
related? On January 3, the very next day after it was forwarded to him, John
held a consistory in which he showed himself more than ordinarily tolerant
towards those who had opposed him, and declared anew that he had never intended
dogmatically to settle the question, but had only sought, as he was still seeking,
to have all possible light thrown on it, with a view to having it set at rest
for all time.
“Seven days later, January 10, he
wrote Philip VI, declaring absolutely false the report that he had sent the
Minorite, Gerard Eudes, and the Dominican, Arnold of Saint-Michael, to
Paris for the purpose of winning favour or making proselytes to the doctrine he had preached; he positively asserted that such an idea
had never entered his head. Again, on March 12, he wrote and admonished Peter
Roger, Archbishop of Paris, of the order given at the late consistory,
requiring cardinals, bishops and others to make a careful study of the question
of the beatific vision and then to make known to the Pope the conclusion to
which they should come relatively to the merits of the two debated theories on
the subject. And finally, on March 20, he informed Philip VI
by letter that Father Thomas Walleys had been
transferred from the prison of the Inquisition to a room in his own
Papal Palace, and gave assurance that there he would be well treated.
Here the English Dominican remained a prisoner until after the election of
Benedict XII, John's successor.
“Feeling that he was at death's door,
John XXII called to his bedside the
cardinals and bishop’s resident at Avignon, together with the notaries public,
and in their presence made a retraction of whatever he had himself
preached or said, or caused others to preach or teach, on the beatific vision
that was not in perfect conformity with Catholic belief. He also declared that
he held with the Catholic Church that the just souls departed enjoy the vision
of God immediately that they are free from all stain and debt of sin. This was
on the third day of December, 1334; and on the day following he died with
sentiments of the deepest piety.”
A more beautiful ending to this story
could not be written. To his eternal credit, Pope John XXII finally admitted on
his death bed what he was too proud to admit for the previous four years.
Namely that the doctrine he preached and caused others to preach was not the
doctrine of the Catholic Church. With the grace of the Holy Ghost, he repented
and saw fit, as he fast approached his own day of judgment, to assent
completely to the perennial Catholic teaching on the matter, which he knew in his
heart to be true.
After the Catholic world had breathed
a sigh of relief upon John XXII’s retraction and death, his successor, Benedict
XII wasted no time in settling the matter once and for all. On January 29, 1336
he published his Constitution, Benedictua Deus defining the resistance’s Profession of Faith as Catholic dogma.
Fr. O’Daniel ends his piece by
confirming that the dogma of papal infallibility was never invoked by Pope John
XXII to bind his own teaching upon the faithful. Fr. O’Daniel’s words stand as
a refresher for all of us, especially in the age of Pope Francis:
“…were it undeniable that, in his
capacity of private theologian, John firmly believed and taught such an
erroneous doctrine, it would in no way militate against the Catholic dogma of
papal infallibility. For while we like to consider the public acts of the Head
of the Church as providential and history often proves them to have been such,
no well-instructed Catholic holds that the Sovereign Pontiff is infallible in
his private views, though made public, or that they must be accepted on faith
divine. The influx of the Holy Ghost, which alone renders his judgment unerring
in matters of faith and morals, is vouchsafed him only, when, acting precisely
in his capacity as Vicar of Christ and teacher of the faithful, he speaks ex
cathedra, proclaiming a truth to be believed under pain of anathema…
“…though the records of
ecclesiastical history are soiled by no such blot [infallible declaration of
error]-a fact which, we think, is due to a special care of Divine
Providence, -it has never been thought an impossibility that the
Head of the Church as an individual, or a private theologian, should fall into
formal heresy. No such an accusation can be laid at the door of John XXII. In
no sense of the term can he be said to have been a formal heretic; for the
doctrine of the immediate bestowal of the beatific vision upon the departed just soul, once it is free
from all trace and stain of sin,
though generally believed, had not then been made a dogma of Catholic faith.”
History Repeats Itself
The crisis of the 1330’s bears many
similarities with our current crisis. Most likely due to the same “special care
of Divine Providence” referred to by Fr. O’Daniel, the post-Conciliar popes
have treated infallible declarations as if they were the plague. To the
Conciliar popes, the Traditional doctrine of infallibility is an impediment to
both collegiality and ecumenism. Therefore it must be downplayed and never
utilized. Thus, like John XXII, they have not declared any infallible dogmas.
In addition, the post-Conciliar
popes, like John XXII, have convinced themselves that their own preaching and
teaching is in accordance and reconcilable with Catholic Tradition, even though
in many cases it is not. The reason? The post-Conciliar popes have an erroneous
notion of a “living Tradition” that can change. Like John XXII they believe
that their teachings are consistent with Scripture and the Early Church
Fathers. Like John XXII, they believe that if they get enough of a consensus
from Cardinals and theologians, that they can change Traditional Church
doctrine established in the years between the Early Church and their own time.
They believe that since the Pope interprets Tradition, any resulting official
teaching from themselves would be just as Catholic and Traditional as any
other.
If anyone doubts this, just take a
look at Francis’ statements regarding the upcoming Synod on the Family. The
perennial Catholic teaching on Communion for the divorced and remarried is
firmly settled, though it has never been the subject of any extraordinary
dogmatic definition. This is because the teaching has never been seriously
questioned in Church history. This is analogous to the Traditional teaching on
the Beatific Vision in the 1330’s.
Like John XXII, Francis is acting as
if there are two legitimate Catholic views on the Communion for the divorced
and remarried issue, which the faithful are free to accept. Also, like Pope
John XXII Francis is beginning to make it clear which view he prefers. He has
already called Cardinal Kasper’s proposal to allow Communion for the divorced
and remarried, “a beautiful and profound presentation.” In addition, a woman married to a divorced and remarried man has
publicly claimed the Pope told her she could receive Communion. To date there has been no denial by the Vatican.
The Death of Catholic Outrage
A few lines of Fr. O’Daniel’s article
struck me deeply. I will repeat them here. Describing the Catholic world in the
1330’s, Fr. O’Daniel states:
“The atmosphere was literally
palpitant with the scandal and unrest that had been caused by the Avignon
sermons. The minds of theologians were stirred and their hearts aflame. The
people were as a unit on the side of the defenders of the universal belief of
the Church. It was, further, an age of outspoken, blunt language; an age when
the faith was defended with all the energetic sincerity of a deep, living credo.”
This is a beautiful description of
what, in theological terms, is called the sensus fidelium (sense
of the faithful). It is a sort of innate sense that the Catholic faithful
through the ages have imbibed from Tradition. Even though the vast majority of
faithful in the 1330’s were simple people with no formal training in theology,
they knew counterfeit theology when they heard it.
That these simple medieval faithful,
almost without exception, rose up in protest against this new teaching, even
though it came straight from the pope, is remarkable when compared to our time.
It tells us something has changed in the minds of the faithful regarding the
relationship between the pope and Faith.
We need to truly ponder this as
Catholics. We need to consider that the sensus fidei of even
the Dominicans of the 1330’s, the staunchest defenders and allies of the papacy
and Pope John XXII in particular, not only permitted, but compelled them to
publicly and steadfastly resist his error, no matter what personal hardship,
condemnations, or imprisonment that entailed.
Where are such faithful Catholics in
our own day? For the most part, today’s Catholics are in de facto apostasy. The
majority of them do not attend weekly Mass and deny at least one, if not more,
Catholic dogmas. Of those Catholics who do accept Catholic dogma and are active
in their Faith, the great majority are what is known as conservatives. These
conservative faithful, by and large, do have the sensus fidei.
We Traditional Catholics know this
because the vast majority of us were conservatives in the past. Our sense of
Faith told us something was wrong in the Conciliar Church. Conservatives
experience this every time they see the Blessed Sacrament treated with
irreverence or they hear a priest preaching Modernism from the pulpit.
Conservative faithful are potentially the Church’s secret weapon in resolving
this crisis.
The problem? Conservative Catholics
are continually prevented from acting upon their sensus fidei by
the mainstream Catholic media/ apologetics institutions they get their news
from. The information they are receiving shapes their views and opinions and
influences their reaction to the crisis we see going on around us.
In the 1330’s there was no media
filter. The faithful got their information by word of mouth and their Faith
from their priests. There was no third party middle man they were dependent on
to get their carefully filtered and spun news from. Nor was there a parallel
media magisterium made up of laymen, telling them to squash their Catholic
sense and be silent as their Church crumbles around them.
On the theological level, the
difference between 1330 and 2014 can be summed up by the prescient words of Fr.
Henri Le Floch. Fr. Le Floch was the rector of the French Seminary in Rome in
the 1920’s. In 1926 he predicted:
“The heresy which is now being born
will become the most dangerous of all; the exaggeration of the respect due to
the pope and the illegitimate extension of his infallibility.”
The “heresy” Fr. Le Floch described
is now considered dogma to most Catholic apologists of our day. As I pointed
out several times in this article, the approach that the conservative
apologists and media tell us is “Catholic” would not have been recognizably
Catholic to any Catholic in 1330. In fact, the conservative apologists would
have been on the wrong side of history at every single turn during the crisis
caused by Pope John regarding the Beatific Vision.
The Way Forward
So what have we learned by looking
back at the crisis in Pope John XXII’s time? Where do we go from here? Let’s
look at what the Catholic resistance of that time did.
1.) Religious orders, theologians,
and Catholic faithful united in resistance to the novel doctrine being promoted
by pope and united in defending the Traditional doctrine. They spoke out
publicly and vociferously against the pope’s novel doctrine, knowing it was
their duty to do so.
2.) The resistance was consistent and
unrelenting. Even in the face of banishment, theological condemnations,
imprisonment, and vigorous defences of the novel doctrine by the pope and those
close to him. Even in the face of the pope rewarding and promoting those favouring
his new doctrine and demoting and punishing those opposing his new doctrine. In
fact, the more the pope stepped up his persecution of the resistance, the more
strengthened the resistance became.
3.) An influential Catholic head of
state and important figures in the Church supported the resistance, eventually
organizing a sizeable group of notable theologians and Cardinals to sign a
Profession of Faith that the pope could not ignore. This coupled with the growing
pressure of the resistance from all sides provided one clear path whereby the
pope could both save face and save the Church.
4.) The resistance, though not
mentioned in the article, certainly offered unrelenting prayers for the pope to
change course, retract his novel erroneous doctrine and to restore order in the
Church.
This path that our Catholic forebears
laid out, along with the intercession of the Holy Ghost, is the only path that
will lead us out of our current crisis. The first step for us is to wake up our
conservative brothers and sisters. They are the sleeping giant we will need to
fight the enemy. It is only by joining forces en masse that a resistance can
build enough pressure to start to influence bishops, Cardinals, and eventually
a pope.
How do we do this? We must first get
around the “Matrix-like” false reality presented to these faithful Catholics by
the Neo-Catholic apologetics and media complex. We must work to get news to the
faithful that the mainstream outlets refuse to report through alternative media
like the internet, podcasts, video clips, etc. We must start radio and TV
networks. But beyond this, we need more outreach and education at the grass
roots level. Organizing local talks, speeches, and debates. Organizing
Tradition based clubs and organizations at parishes. Talking with our
conservative friends one on one about these issues in a spirit of fraternal
charity.
We must also get true Catholic
doctrine and thinking out to the faithful by presenting them with historical
examples like the one in this article. Some of our biggest weapons are
relatable stories from Church history. These help our conservative friends see
in a very real way that we are not presenting them with anything new. This is
not our own novel doctrine, like the doctrine of John XXII or the doctrine of
the “New Theology.” We are presenting anew only what the Church has always
taught.
Most importantly, historical examples
like these will show we are not resisting certain erroneous teachings of the
pope simply because we are disobedient or do not like his person. We are
resisting these errors because this is our Catholic obligation to do so. The
pope is not above the Faith, he is bound to it. Historical examples like the
one in this article help to drive this point home. Our conservative friends can
see for themselves that the faithful in 1330 were Catholic to the core and they
resisted their pope when he proposed a teaching against Tradition. This is not
just a new rationalization we have invented in order to justify a position of
resistance. It is a Catholic moral teaching espoused by saints and popes that
says we have not only the moral right, but the moral obligation to resist error
no matter what the source.
Tradition is just as much the
treasure and the birthright of our conservative Catholic friends as it is ours.
We must help them to see it for the valuable thing it is and help them claim
it. To want to draw our Catholic brethren away from what passes for liturgy in
most of their churches and back towards their own blessed patrimony is not an
act of disobedience, but rather an act of love.
Conclusion
One important thought I want to leave
you with is to think about the amount of work and suffering it took those
faithful Catholics in the 1330’s over a small period of just four years in
order to help save the Church from disaster. They rallied and fought
constantly, suffered persecution and setbacks, organized a mass resistance, and
then launched their last best effort. Until that point all seemed lost.
It was then and only then that the
Holy Ghost stepped in and converted John XXII. Our Lord wanted the Catholic
faithful to utilize the Catholic sense He Himself put in their heart and to
utilize the Catholic moral theology which fully allows and compels our defence
of the Faith and resistance to error.
I firmly believe that it was because
these faithful Catholics of the 1330’s proved their love for Christ by fighting
for His Holy Tradition even against their own beloved pope and no matter what
the cost, that the Holy Ghost ended their crisis in four short years. How long
might the crisis of the 1330’s have lasted if hardly any Catholic faithful had
risen to the challenge?
Regardless, what an indictment the
example of our Catholic brothers and sisters of the 1330 makes of our
generation. The Catholic faithful of our day, besides being far more educated
and having far more resources have, besides small pockets of resistance, really
offered little organized fight in nearly fifty years. Only now, it seems, are
some broader signs of resistance beginning to coalesce.
For the last fifty years innovators
in the Church have tried to change our Faith. They took away our Mass. They
took away our churches. They’ve preached heresy in our pulpits. They’ve brought
rock bands into the sanctuary. They’ve distributed Our Blessed Lord’s Body into
unconsecrated hands with particles falling to the floor to be trampled.
Our popes have prayed with pagans in
forests, kissed the Koran, asked St. John the Baptist to “protect Islam”,
kissed the hands of pro-homosexual priests, and allowed, even if by acts of
omission, the sexual abuse of countless Catholic children by shuffling the
offending priests around from diocese to diocese.
And what do the vast majority of us
Catholics do? We do nothing. We act as if there is no crisis and the Church is
the same as it always was.
I firmly believe that God is testing
us. Until we do something, until we as a unified Catholic faithful
start to act like our Faith and our Church and our God means as much to us as
it did to Barnabas of Vercelli, Durandus of Saint-Porcain,
and Thomas Walleis, I think Our Lord is content to see
just how bad it has to get before we react. For the age old admonition is true:
God helps those who help themselves.
And woe to those who live in this
current crisis and do not react. For as Dante says, ”The darkest places in hell
are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of great moral
crisis.”
Indeed there is no time in Catholic
history that is more in need of every single believing Catholic rising up in
holy defence of Tradition to end this crisis. I believe God’s message to each
of us in this crisis can best be understood through a poem about how God
chooses to act through each of us in this life. It is widely attributed to St.
Therese of Avila. I will end with it.
Christ Has No Body
Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.
Source: The Remnant.
No comments:
Post a Comment