Notes: Wednesday, May 3-Monday, May 9, 2011 (part 2 of 2)

6. A couple of recent items on socio-political doctrine

6.1 Fr. Rhonheimer on socio-political doctrine before and after Vatican II

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=37113

I don't have time to write a proper rebuttal of that fascinating piece, so my initial intention was just to mention the main points of interest, each with little or no accompanying commentary from me. But as I started selecting representative quotations, it became clear that Fr. Rhonheimer's article, or at least the extract which Mr. Magister provided, was so thoroughly riddled with error, and grave error at that, that that approach would simply not do it justice, so I'll just give the link.

Labels: Benedict XVI. Ratzinger, Church and State, Confessional State, Dignitatis Humanæ, Magisterium, Martin Rhonheimer, morality, Quanta Cura, religious liberty, Vatican II

6.2 The latest from H.H. The Pope on religious liberty

MESS/ VIS 20110504 (430)

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=37176

Labels: Benedict XVI. Ratzinger, Dignitatis Humanæ, Magisterium, morality, religious liberty, Vatican II

7. On "Apostolic Canon 34"

If you ever encounter on the Internet an apologist for the Eastern Schism, then you're likely to see "Apostolic Canon 34" cited at some point. I saw this cited by an Eastern-Catholic-turned-Eastern-Orthodox AQer a while ago, and most recently I've seen it cited in comments in the combox of a recent post by Mr. Schütz: See chiefly the comments in this sub-thread and also this comment. The comments of most interest to me were this one, this one, and this one. Some of The Catholic Encyclopedia's articles, such as those on the Apostolic Canons and on the councils in question, are also useful.

Labels: Eastern Schism, law

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. Gregory Nazianzen, Bishop, Confessor, Doctor of the Church, A.D. 2011

Notes: Friday, July 23, 2010

Just some blog comments by me:

At Mr. Schütz's blog:

Cardinal Pole
July 23, 2010 at 4:37 am

“It is true that we don’t have a collection of secular doctrines neatly arranged as a sort of “Secular Catechism” – but wouldn’t it be helpful if we did?”

We do. Read The Declaration of the Rights of Man, the Syllabus of Errors, Quanta cura, things like that.
[http://scecclesia.wordpress.com/2010/07/22/how-useful-would-a-secular-catechism-be/#comment-15995]

Cardinal Pole
July 23, 2010 at 4:53 am

“does secular ethics ever say it is possible to do harm to yourself, even if your action does no harm to anyone else?”

If by secular ethics we mean Godless ethics, and if without God there is no such thing as true and proper moral obligation, and if the absence of moral obligation is moral liberty, then secular ethics tells us that we not only have the moral liberty to harm ourselves, but also unrestricted moral liberty to harm others, indeed, to do anything we please. That’s why, as Fr. Fahey mentions in The Kingship of Christ according to the Principles of St. Thomas Aquinas, in the secularist ethics axiom which can be stated as ‘do whatever you want, however self- or mutually-destructive, so long as everyone involved consents’, the ‘so long as everyone else involved consents’ bit is baseless. Secular ethics’s first and only principle is: Do whatever you want, full stop. And if you don’t like the sound of that, then, as Professor Dawkins might say, tough!
[http://scecclesia.wordpress.com/2010/07/22/how-useful-would-a-secular-catechism-be/#comment-15996]

At Terra's blog:

Cardinal Pole said...

"compulsory voting was introduced in this country by (various) Governments solely because they believed it would be an advantage to them in an upcoming election."

Prove it. (Not that it would matter; a bad motive on the part of a legislator doesn't necessarily invalidate his legislation.)

"Compulsory Voting unjustly vitiates [your] ‘Right to Participate’ by depriving [you] of [your] ‘Right to Not Participate’."

Absurd. People in a democracy have no more 'right not to participate' than the king in a monarchy has a 'right not to participate'.

Another way to look at it is this: Rights are either natural or acquired. Obviously your supposed 'right not to participate' is not an acquired right, so it must be a natural right. So you need to show how the natural law gives you this 'right'.

"Given that ‘right’ and ‘duty’ are antithetical, the statement is
meaningless."

So you deny that someone with a right can conceivably have, on occasions, a duty to exercise that right?

July 23, 2010 2:54 AM
Your comment has been saved and will be visible after blog owner approval.
[http://australiaincognita.blogspot.com/2010/07/and-it-is-on-australia-goes-to-polls-on.html]

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. Apollinaris, Bishop, Martyr, and of St. Liborius, Bishop, Confessor, A.D. 2010

More on the Magisterial status of Quanta Cura

I have been discussing with Mr. Schütz at his blog Sentire cum Ecclesia the Magisterial status of the condemnations in Bl. Pius IX’s Encyclical Quanta Cura. I have shown at Mr. Schütz’s blog (and at my own blog some months ago: http://cardinalpole.blogspot.com/2008/08/couple-of-interesting-observations.html) that it satisfies the four criteria that characterise Acts of the Extraordinary Papal Magisterium (E.P.M.), and that accordingly every Catholic must join with Bl. Pius in condemning those errors as most certainly false. But Mr. Schütz has protested that the errors do not apply universally, therefore (he argues) their condemnation does not belong to the E.P.M. I have also shown at his blog that several of the errors do indeed apply universally. And I have discovered that none other than the Ven. John Henry, Cardinal Newman (in his famous Letter to The Duke of Norfolk) agrees with me on this, on at least one of the errors:

[Firstly, the error in question:] "Liberty of conscience and worship, is the inherent right of all men. 2. It ought to be proclaimed in every rightly constituted society. 3. It is a right to all sorts of liberty (omnimodam libertatem) such, that it ought not to be restrained by any authority, ecclesiastical or civil, as far as public speaking, printing, or any other public manifestation of opinions is concerned."

[Now, Cardinal Newman’s observations:] […] Which of the two in this matter is peremptory and sweeping in his utterance, the author of this thesis himself, or the Pope who has condemned what the other has uttered? Which of the two is it who would force upon the world a universal? All that the Pope has done is to deny a universal, and what a universal! a universal liberty to all men to say out whatever
doctrines they may hold by preaching, or by the press, uncurbed by church or civil power.
(italics in the original,
http://www.newmanreader.org/works/anglicans/volume2/gladstone/section6.html)

But Cardinal Newman does not leave it to the reader to infer what he thinks of the status of Quanta Cura—he spells it out for him or her:

who will dream of saying, be he Anglican, Protestant, unbeliever, or on {317} the other hand Catholic, that Honorius on the occasion in question did actually intend to exert that infallible teaching voice which is heard so distinctly in the Quantâ curâ and the Pastor Æternus?
(my bold type,
http://www.newmanreader.org/works/anglicans/volume2/gladstone/section8.html)

And if one requires more evidence for the infallibility with which the errors in Quanta Cura were condemned, one need only look to the authoritative Catholic Encyclopedia:

The binding power of the Syllabus of Pius IX is differently explained by Catholic theologians. All are of the opinion that many of the propositions are condemned if not in the Syllabus, then certainly in other final decisions of the infallible teaching authority of the Church, for instance in the Encyclical "Quanta Cura".
(http://newadvent.org/cathen/14368b.htm)

So Quanta Cura contains final decisions (Catholic Encyclopedia) on universal moral matters (Cardinal Newman), delivered with Apostolic authority (Quanta Cura, §6) and imposed as binding on all the Faithful (Quanta Cura, §6) . What more does one need to be convinced that the condemned errors of that Encyclical are condemned as an Act of the Extraordinary Papal Magisterium?

Reginaldvs Cantvar
17.XII.2008 A.D.

A comment on the Magisterial status of the condemnations in Quanta Cura

http://cumecclesia.blogspot.com/2008/12/when-even-kings-are-persecuted-by-their.html

Here is a comment that I have posted at Mr. David Schütz’s blog Sentire cum Ecclesia:

***

Mr. Schütz,

Thank you for your response.

You said that you

“do not deny that Quanta Cura was "an Act of the Papal Magisterium" - although I would think "ordinary" rather than "extraodinary".”

Now an Act of the Ordinary Papal Magisterium is something that is pronounced

1) On a matter of faith or morals
2) In the Pope’s capacity as Head of the Church Militant

Acts of the Ordinary Papal Magisterium are infallible when they are universal (i.e. in common with the other Popes). But Acts of the Extraordinary Papal Magisterium (E.P.A.) are infallible in and of themselves, and the criteria for judging whether any given Act belongs to the E.P.A. are that the teaching be pronounced

1) On a matter of faith or morals
2) In the Pope’s capacity as Head of the Church Militant
3) As binding on all the Faithful
4) In a definitive and irrevocable manner

So I suppose I am really asking you to show that one or more of these criteria are not to be found in Quanta Cura. But Section 6. is quite clear:

Amidst, therefore, such great perversity of depraved opinions, we, well remembering our Apostolic Office, and very greatly solicitous for our most holy Religion, for sound doctrine and the salvation of souls which is intrusted to us by God, and (solicitous also) for the welfare of human society itself, have thought it right again to raise up our Apostolic voice. Therefore, by our Apostolic authority[2], we reprobate, proscribe, and condemn all the singular and evil opinions and doctrines severally mentioned in this letter, and will and command that they be thoroughly held by all children of the Catholic Church as reprobated, proscribed and condemned[3].
(my emphasis and numbering)
(http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius09/p9quanta.htm)

2) and 3) are clearly present in Section 6., and 1) and 4) are clear from the letter of the condemned errors, e.g.

“the best constitution of public society and (also) civil progress altogether require that human society be conducted and governed without regard being had to religion any more than if it did not exist; or, at least, without any distinction being made between the true religion and false ones.”

“that is the best condition of civil society, in which no duty is recognized, as attached to the civil power, of restraining by enacted penalties, offenders against the Catholic religion, except so far as public peace may require.”

“liberty of conscience and worship is each man's personal right, which ought to be legally proclaimed and asserted in every rightly constituted society; and that a right resides in the citizens to an absolute liberty, which should be restrained by no authority whether ecclesiastical or civil, whereby they may be able openly and publicly to manifest and declare any of their ideas whatever, either by word of mouth, by the press, or in any other way.”

I would summarise your other objections as follows:

A) The circumstances that elicited the condemnation
B) The circumstances in which the condemnation applies

Now A) is clearly an invalid objection, since the errors are condemned in and of themselves; the circumstances that elicited them and the arguments on which the condemnations are built up do not matter. This is as true for Quanta Cura as it is for Ineffabilis Deus. (Speaking of which, compare the definition in that document to the condemnations in Quanta Cura:

“by the authority of Jesus Christ our Lord, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own[2]: "We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin[4], is a doctrine revealed by God[1] and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful[3]."”
(my numbering)
(http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius09/p9ineff.htm)

All the same criteria are there.) I am aware of His Holiness’s apparent endorsement of some opinions on the supposedly Christian foundations of liberalism (I blogged on this last week), but the origins of European or American liberalism are irrelevant to the question of the infallibility with which the errors were condemned in Quanta Cura.

Objection B) is also invalid; you mention that you

“have pointed out that they did not apply at the time to the missions in the highlands of New Guinea.”

But this is irrelevant for two reasons: firstly, it would be like saying that Catholic teaching on the just wage does not apply to the Papuan highlands because there is not yet a market economy there. That might be true, but once a market economy does begin to operate, Catholic economic teaching will certainly begin to apply. And secondly, in any case, the three errors I quoted apply universally to the human race, since they pre-suppose only one key circumstance, namely, man’s social nature.

Then you mention that you

“could also point out that there is no sense in which they could have applied to the United States in 1864.”

But you have asserted this, not demonstrated it; in fact, the American system of government and society was founded largely on those three errors that I have quoted. I would have thought that to be indisputable.

So in fact, the errors condemned in Quanta Cura were condemned with the seal of Papal infallibility; they remain binding on the conscience of every Catholic.

Thursday, December 11, 2008 4:04:00 PM

***

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. Damasus I, Pope, Confessor, 2008 A.D.

A couple of interesting observations regarding ‘religious liberty’

(From ‘Religious Liberty Questioned’ by Msgr. Lefebvre; available from the St. Benedict Book Centre or from Angelus Press)

1) As late as 1955, a mere ten years before the promulgation of Dignitatis Humanæ, His late Holiness Pius XII said that

“Historians must not forget that if the Church and the State did have hours or years of struggle there were, from Constantine the Great even to this day, periods of tranquility, often long, in which they cooperated, with full comprehension, in the education of the same persons. The Church does not hide the fact that it [sic] considers, in principle, this cooperation as normal and that it sees as an ideal the unity of the people in the true religion and the unanimity in action between her and the State.”

(Allocution to the tenth International Congress of Historical Sciences, September 7, 1955)

Pius XII also reminds us that “… that which does not correspond to truth or to the norm of morality objectively has no right to exist, to be spread or to be activated” (Allocution 'Ci Riesce' to Italian jurists, December 6, 1953). Perhaps, then, Mr. Michael Costigan was wrong to say, in a book review in the Sydney Catholic Weekly of March 16, 2008 that “It was in the era [shortly before and during Vatican II] of these documents, coinciding with the rising popularity of ecumenism, that the old Catholic saying that ‘error has no rights’ was finally abandoned”?

2) It appears that Bl. Pius IX exercised his Extraordinary Papal Magisterium in condemning the following errors in his encyclical Quanta Cura:

“that is the best condition of civil society, in which no duty is recognized, as attached to the civil power, of restraining by enacted penalties, offenders against the Catholic religion, except so far as public peace may require.”

“liberty of conscience and worship is each man's personal right, which ought to be legally proclaimed and asserted in every rightly constituted society; and that a right resides in the citizens to an absolute liberty, which should be restrained by no authority whether ecclesiastical or civil, whereby they may be able openly and publicly to manifest and declare any of their ideas whatever, either by word of mouth, by the press, or in any other way.”

In section 6 of Quanta Cura the four criteria for the Extraordinary Papal Magisterium appear to find their satisfaction:

“6. Amidst, therefore, such great perversity of depraved opinions, we, well remembering our Apostolic Office, and very greatly solicitous for our most holy Religion, for sound doctrine and the salvation of souls which is intrusted to us by God, and (solicitous also) for the welfare of human society itself, have thought it right again to raise up our Apostolic voice. Therefore, by our Apostolic authority, we reprobate, proscribe, and condemn all the singular and evil opinions and doctrines severally mentioned in this letter, and will and command that they be thoroughly held by all children of the Catholic Church as reprobated, proscribed and condemned.”

It is issued, therefore, in the Pope’s capacity as Head of the Church Militant (“by our Apostolic authority”), it is clearly a matter of faith or morals, it is definitive (the errors are defined unambiguously and are “reprobated, proscribed and condemned”), and addressed “To Our Venerable Brethren, all Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops, and Bishops having favor and Communion of the Holy See” and intended as binding for “all children of the Catholic Church”.

Reginaldvs Cantvar