The Successors of Peter – “The identity of modern Catholics comes with our recognition of a legal jurisdiction. Catholics recognize a legal authority—the pope—under whose governance their religion is to be lived.” Something of a Scofflaw: On the Lawgiving Function of the Papacy (The Lamp)
Typing Prompts – ” In order to call themselves artists, the ‘AI artists’ need to adopt a definition of art so expansive that it includes any activity involving human decision-making.” I am not a paintbrush (Dappled Things)
Doctrinally Problematic Statements – “A pope’s first duty is to safeguard the deposit of faith and to pass it on undiluted.” Sick from Heresy: On Francis and Church doctrine (The Lamp)
The Latin American Church – “Fr. Clodovis M. Boff, OSM, was a leading figure in the development of liberation theology before emerging as one of its sharpest critics. In the letter that follows, he warns that the Latin American Church has been drifting in the last fifty years, leading to the worst crisis in its history.” An Open Letter to the Bishops of Latin America (First Things)
The Challenge of Islam – “The book successfully addresses topics including Islamic radicalism, antisemitism, and attempts to legally restrict criticism of Islam.” Review of Tim Dieppe’s “The Challenge of Islam” (Providence)
Multiverse of Analyses – “Suppressing disfavored ideas from consideration has serious consequences for the possibility of scientifically informed public discourse in our day.” New Vindication for the Regnerus Same-Sex Parenting Study (Public Discourse)
Christian Persecution in Nigeria – “In Nigeria’s Edo state, gunmen stormed Immaculate Conception Minor Seminary in the Diocese of Auchi the night of July 10, killing a security officer and abducting three seminarians, according to Aid to the Church in Need.” 1 Officer Dead, 3 Seminarians Kidnapped after Attack on Nigerian Seminary (Our Sunday Visitor)
Rejecting Gender Diversity – “The Catholic Women’s Federation (KFD) of Münster has called for an immediate stop to the planned awarding of the Josef Pieper Prize to U.S. Bishop Robert Barron on 27 July, describing it as a “devastating signal” that honours views which ‘devalue queer people and deny women the right to freedom of conscience’”. German Catholic Women’s Association demands Bishop Barron be stripped of Josef Pieper Prize (The Catholic Herald)
Suicide in Modern Catholic Literature – “Catholic writers can teach us a lot about suffering, suicide and hope. So that begs the question, can Catholic fiction literature potentially save lives? Dr. Martin Lockerd thinks it can.” Professor Shares What to Read When the World Feels Hopeless (University of St. Thomas Houston Online Newsroom)
Digital Missionaries – “For the first time in its history, the Catholic Church will celebrate a Jubilee event within a Holy Year specifically dedicated to digital missionaries and Catholic influencers, formally recognising the digital environment as a true field of mission.” The Church prepares its first Jubilee for Catholic influencers (Vatican News)
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#8 – Rejecting Gender Diversity – more nonsense from Germany, this time from the “Catholic” Women’s Association.
Yes, Miss Cleo. More disappointing stuff from Germany. It’s a shame.
Doctrinally Problematic Statements – “A pope’s first duty is to safeguard the deposit of faith and to pass it on undiluted.” Sick from Heresy: On Francis and Church doctrine (The Lamp)
Feser gives it straight, sans histrionics. Aptly titled. He simply sums up the entire 12 years past as we watched, some with horror tinted by incredulity.
The man Frank defaced the Roman Catholic Church. May we soon recover.
“…the Church’s Pastors have the duty to act in conformity with their apostolic mission, insisting that THE RIGHT OF THE FAITHFUL [italics] to receive Catholic doctrine in its purity and integrity must always be respected” (Veritatis Splendor, 1993, n. 113).
The trick is to repeat the doctrines intact–and then to enable, signal, imply, remain silent about, synodalize and half-bless some carve-out exemptions.
Re: Sick From Heresy
The peerless Dr. Feser is admirably restrained — even gentle — in his takedown of Bergoglio’s stumblebum papacy.
Actually, as Dr. Feser demonstrates, the Bergoglio grotesquery was worse than merely stumblebum, since its shortcomings were so clearly intentional.
Dr. Feser examines several examples of Bergoglio’s egregious affronts to Christ and His teachings that, in ages past, when truth mattered, would have earned him the repudiation he so richly deserved.
We have been through a historically destructive and discouraging period in Church history, one that I I have termed the Bergoglian Captivity.
Dr. Feser has ensured that historians centuries hence who study this papal degradation will not require any heavy lifting as they assess the extent of the damage and assign the blame.
I recommend Dr. Feser’s brief, direct, easy-to-understand piece to any CWR readers who are still inclined to give Bergoglio the benefit of any doubt.
I’m talking to you popesplainers out there who habitually jump into CWR comment forums with your non-judgmental judgements about how loving and supportive the leftist Argentinian zealot prelate was thought to have been.
You know who you are.
Thank you, Lord, for salt!
WELL and TRULY said.
Well said. I placed Francis on my All-Souls List for November as soon as learned of his passing. It’s incomprehensible that there are those who assume he took the direct path to heaven when he refused to ever backtrack on his proscriptions for a Church whose faith and tradition, which was his job to defend, he sometimes mocked.
Much of what Our Lord said in the Gospels spoke of His Church, like truth itself, having to be contrary to common expectations. Even modern apologists, from Chesterton to, well, everyone, have realized they have to be ironic in their observations of contemporary life. Francis, who lacked outward signs of self-awareness that his mission should be the guardian of the Faith, often sided with secular ideologies antithetical towards the Faith.
Most people outgrow the vanities typical of youth subservient to the myth of inevitable progress. Yet many adults remain tempted to sustain this vanity for life, which says the world would be better only if everyone would learn to think as I do while downplaying any reference to truths about the human condition that are unchangeable, not subject to cultural relativism. Francis, sadly, seemed so affected. The damage done matters. And we have an imperative to undo the damage and not pretend it doesn’t exist.
@ Digital Missionaries
One of Francis’ better angels must have suggested the idea of digital missionaries. Except it depends on the Gospel preached. If it’s Francis’ Todo Todo Todo and the spread of false mercy not good.
Layman Paolo Ruffini is the Francis appointed prefect. Ruffini, a known apologist for controversial documents. Fr James Martin SJ a consultor to the Dicastery. That taken into account ‘digital influencers’ has an unpleasant tone.
We already have several from fair to excellent Catholic websites. Pope Leo should give favorable account to the faithful influence the better websites have on the public domain here and abroad.
Should commenters expect attempts to be influenced by an army of programmed ‘digital influencers’? Perhaps a Ruffini Martin effort is already in place. Then, perhaps we already have or have the opportunity to re-influence the influencers.
Forgive my impertinence, Fr. Peter, but may I suggest that we dispense with Bergoglio’s vain inanity, “Todo, todo, todo.”
After all, Bergoglio’s Oz-like papacy is over.
We *are* in Kansas again.
Agree with you almost always, but did you not see that Father was critiquing that Bergoglian sentiment?
The Successors of Peter – “The identity of modern Catholics comes with our recognition of a legal jurisdiction. Catholics recognize a legal authority—the pope—under whose governance their religion is to be lived.” Something of a Scofflaw: On the Lawgiving Function of the Papacy (The Lamp)
The author says, “…we turn to recent papal documents that are much less intellectually distinguished and controlled. Consider the page-by-page (two hundred fifty-six of them!) rambling ambiguity of Amoris laetitia. What is it, exactly, that we are being taught? What specifically are we now under an obligation to believe? I spent a futile afternoon, which I’ll never get back, trying to work this out. It is not only the authority that is obscure but the basic content. And that seems intentional. We are supposed to get with some general program, the essence of which is a careful avoidance of intellectual definition. Should Catholics ever bother with such a document? How many actually have?”
I was reminded of my experience teaching fifth-grade ‘faith formation’ in the late 1990s. My religious education director was partially bound in the fringes of the VCII’s dark spirit. She could recommend nothing much in the way of doctrinally pithy material, but she did suggest the newly minted, gladly welcomed, Catechism of the Catholic Church as a guide.
Yet the CCC didn’t always give clear and hard 1-line facts. Fifth-graders need a few concise ideas of Church teaching (on marriage or abortion, for example). I gleaned the CCC for grains, mustard seeds, kernels, wanting pith like that from a Baltimore Catechism. [Forget about finding clear 1-line statements in Gaudium et Spes or Lumen Gentium. That would be like looking for a mixed-wildflower bed in the strait-jacket gardens of Versailles. The analogy works better in obverse.]
The modern, verbose, loquacious, gluttonous masters of theology and hierarchy who write ‘magisterially’ today do seem intent on mixing traditional dogmatic, speculative, and heterodox theology. The result? Words in search of meaning and order.
The CCC was not written for 5th-graders. Neither was the Bible, if you haven’t noticed. If you find those too wordy and confusing, good luck with classics like CITY OF GOD by St. Augustine.
It’s a good thing that God has not left us with just the one-liners you want, which children would outgrow once they reached 6th grade.
Out,
Almost ¾ of US high school graduates achieve reading scores above basic but below proficient levels. Your comment exemplifies the student suffering from an inability to comprehend what he has read.
I think if you had tried you could have done better.
God bless your little heart.
Outis, the Gospel was first preached to fishermen & simple people. There’s nothing wordy or confusing unless we make it so.
The Sermon on the Mount contained the truths of shelves of books. Many of those who heard Our Lord for the first time understood what He was saying because He spoke to the truths woven into every human soul and is comprehensible when we approach simple truth with a purity of heart.
But the lies we tell ourselves create systems of complex avoidance of truth, individually, culturally, and even within the Church. The best apologists for the faith have had to contest sinful dishonesty while giving witness to sacredness and purity. Thus, we have the shelves of books.
@ Doctrinally Problematic Statements
“This was not an ex cathedra definition, so Honorius’s lapse is consistent with the conditions of papal infallibility” (Feser).
Feser is mistaken. Attempting to affirm the indefectibility of Roman pontiffs he misconstrues the error of Honorius I as an acceptable theological option. He says Christ’s possession of a human free will was never formally pronounced as doctrine. In fact that doctrine is included in the Nicaean Creed, Was incarnate of the Virgin Mary and became man.
A man must have a will. A man is not simply an organism. If Jesus did not have a complete human nature including a will he would not be the Son of Man. He could not have become a man. He would confirm the Arian heresy as a body used by the divine Word. That the historical Jesus of Nazareth was not the Word of God.
The Council of Chalcedon 451 AD affirmed that Jesus Christ has two natures: one divine and one human, united in one person without confusion, change, division, or separation. This doctrine is known as the hypostatic union. The Council affirmed that Jesus is fully God and fully human. This is settled doctrine.
Feser’s argument for indefectibility would be better made in terms of formal pronouncement, since Honorius was judged guilty of heresy on the testimony of private letters, that fall under the juridical premise of private testimony, whereas a Roman pontiff acts privately as a person outside of the province of infallibility.
This occasion would tentatively hold similar for certain suggestions, statements repeated during the former pontificate that were considered erroneous regards settled doctrine. It raises the issue whether a Roman pontiff can be held responsible and sanctioned for language and actions outside of formal pronouncement that contradict perennial doctrine. The Third Council of Constantinople would confirm this.
Further comment on the essence of a ‘being’ a human being, in this instance Jesus of Nazareth. Already addressed is that the absence of a will removes one of the three features of Man, mind [intellect], will, memory. A creature without any of the three is not a rational person.
Why is the reality of a complete human nature necessary? Because Man’s original sin was the cause of his own penalty of banishment, realized in his unworthiness to enter the gates of paradise. Man bore the onus of redeeming himself. Although that reconciliation with God the Father was beyond Man’s capacity, requiring an extraordinary effort of obedience and willingness to suffer attrition for his sin.
The eternal Word ever present with the Father was our only hope. Although he required a body. Therein is the problem. This body was required to be one of us. A human person. But how could a person other than the person of the Word achieve our salvation? By the mystery of the incarnation. A unity of two complete natures divine and human in one person Jesus of Nazareth. Thus, Jesus could implore Philip to recognize his, Jesus’ divinity, in claiming identity with the Father, and saying elsewhere that the Son of Man must suffer and die [a human son who could cry out from the cross Eli Eli Lama Sabachthani?], then rise in three days. Thus, what Aquinas called the miracle of God’s love, our salvation became possible.
I should add to “requiring an extraordinary effort of obedience and willingness to suffer attrition for his sin”, while exhibiting an extraordinary patience and love for God while suffering.
Finally, I regret saying Feser is mistaken. We’re entitled to express our own opinions on a complex matter. A single will proposition has been thought amenable to Catholic doctrine for sake of ecumenism, although I disagree as argued.
@ The Successors of Peter
Author Thomas Pink notes the difference between the Church’s “magisterial teachings” and the “opinions of theologians”, plus the difference between both of these and “governance” actions the Church. But, not addressed in this article is that actual content of magisterial teachings and the different levels of this content…
As for the different levels of magisterial teachings (definitively revealed, or definitively proposed, or still requiring religious submission of the intellect)—recommended is Ad Tuendam Fidem (To Protect the Faith: by Which Certain Norms Are Inserted into the Code of Canon Law and into the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches) https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/motu_proprio/documents/hf_jp-ii_motu-proprio_30061998_ad-tuendam-fidem.html Sections 5 thru 11 of an ATTACHED “Commentary on the Concluding Formula of the Professio Fide,” (Ratzinger/Bertone, Pauline Books and Media, 1998) give definition:
ABOUT what is divinely revealed: “…the articles of faith in the Creed, the various Christological dogmas and the Marian dogmas; the doctrine of the institution of the sacraments by Christ and their efficacy with regard to grace; the doctrine of the real and substantial presence of Christ in the Eucharist and the sacrificial nature of the Eucharistic celebration; the doctrine on the primacy and infallibility of the Roman Pontiff; the doctrine on the existence of original sin; the doctrine on the immorality of the spiritual soul and the immediate recompense after death; the absence of error in the inspired sacred texts; the doctrine on the grave immorality of direct and voluntary killing of an innocent human being.”
ABOUT “truths connected with revelation by a logical necessity and to be held definitively,” e.g., that “priestly ordination is reserved only for men,” and which have been preserved by constant Tradition and now set forth infallibly by the ordinary and universal Magisterium (Ordinatio Sacredotalis, 1994). Other examples are “the illicitness of euthanasia […], prostitution and of fornication.”
ABOUT “truths connected to revelation by historical necessity and which are to be held definitively, but are not able to be declared as divinely revealed”: “the legitimacy of the election of the Supreme Pontiff or of the celebration of an ecumenical council, the canonization of saints (‘dogmatic facts’), the declaration of Pope Leo XIII in the Apostolic Letter Apostolicae Curae on the invalidity of Anglican ordinations…”.
ABOUT other doctrines “set forth by the authentic Magisterium in a non-definitive way which require degrees of adherence differentiated according to the mind and the will manifested, this is shown especially by the nature of the documents, by the frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or by the tenor of the verbal expression.” [Counting low might be obscure signaling, implied carve-outs from the universal natural law, strategic silences, non-verbal photo-ops, and informal/ uncorrected interview summaries.]
Also, Cdl Ratzinger then prefect for the CDF wrote in 1990 a doctrinal commentary to Ad Tuendam Fidem. A sample: No’s 5 and 6 give an encapsulated diagram of levels observance.
CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH
Doctrinal Commentary
on the Concluding Formula of the Professio fidei
5. The first paragraph states: “With firm faith, I also believe everything contained in the word of God, whether written or handed down in Tradition, which the Church, either by a solemn judgement or by the ordinary and universal Magisterium, sets forth to be believed as divinely revealed”. The object taught in this paragraph is constituted by all those doctrines of divine and catholic faith which the Church proposes as divinely and formally revealed and, as such, as irreformable.11
These doctrines are contained in the word of God, written or handed down, and defined with a solemn judgement as divinely revealed truths either by the Roman Pontiff when he speaks ‘ex cathedra,’ or by the College of Bishops gathered in council, or infallibly proposed for belief by the ordinary and universal Magisterium.
These doctrines require the assent of theological faith by all members of the faithful. Thus, whoever obstinately places them in doubt or denies them falls under the censure of heresy, as indicated by the respective canons of the Codes of Canon Law.
6. The second proposition of the Professio fidei states: “I also firmly accept and hold each and everything definitively proposed by the Church regarding teaching on faith and morals”. The object taught by this formula includes all those teachings belonging to the dogmatic or moral area,13 which are necessary for faithfully keeping and expounding the deposit of faith, even if they have not been proposed by the Magisterium of the Church as formally revealed. Such doctrines can be defined solemnly by the Roman Pontiff when he speaks ‘ex cathedra’ or by the College of Bishops gathered in council, or they can be taught infallibly by the ordinary and universal Magisterium of the Church as a ‘sententia definitive tenenda’.14 Every believer, therefore, is required to give firm and definitive assent to these truths, based on faith in the Holy Spirit’s assistance to the Church’s Magisterium, and on the Catholic doctrine of the infallibility of the Magisterium in these matters.15 Whoever denies these truths would be in a position of rejecting a truth of Catholic doctrine 16 and would therefore no longer be in full communion with the Catholic Church.
I now see you already refer to the commentary. At any rate a direct excerpt from the Commentary may be of benefit for readers.
Some truths should be repeated at least once every half-century or so, whether needed or not!
On the Papacy. Pink’s focus on juridical governance as the defining feature of the papacy presents an overly narrow and institutional view that neglects essential dimensions of ecclesial life. By centering Catholic identity primarily on submission to papal jurisdiction, the vision risks reducing the Church to a legal structure rather than a communion of faith. This overlooks the renewed ecclesiology of communion and synodality emphasized in recent Church teaching, which recognizes the importance of shared discernment, collegiality, and the sensus fidelium in the Church’s life and mission. Synodality is not a threat to papal authority but a deeper expression of it, grounded in listening, dialogue, and co-responsibility among all the baptized. The limitation of the author’s approach lies in equating unity with centralized control, rather than with a dynamic communion animated by the Holy Spirit. This juridical reduction marginalizes the teaching and pastoral roles of the pope, as well as the contributions of local churches and episcopal conferences. A fuller theology of the papacy affirms that governance, teaching, and pastoral care are inseparable, and that authority in the Church must always be exercised in service to communion, truth, and mission, not merely through legal mechanisms, but through a synodal and sacramental vision of the Church.
Appreciating your focus on a “communion of faith;” but then we read of “communion and synodality” as if these are synonymous, and simply question this implied equivalence, given the inept manner (and worse) in which “synodality” has actually been conducted. Meaning the skewed pattern of roundtable inclusions (Fr. James Martin) and exclusions (Courage International), for example.
The shoe is on the other foot, with “synodality” in practice positioning itself to displace the institutional and personal role of successors of the apostles as guardians of the Deposit of Faith. And, then, with communio and authentic teaching, both, subordinated to a power struggle over governance as a third and distinct theme.
About your appeal to the sensus fidelium, the authentic and inclusive (!) definition: “the supernatural appreciation of faith on the part of the whole people, when, from the bishops [who?] to the last of the faithful, they manifest a universal [?] consent in matters of faith and morals” (CCC, n. 92). Not much of that if the circular self-validation of the Synod on Synodality (say what?}. Rome never should have imported the German model of totally combining “communio” with the “hierarchical communion” which is the Church (Lumen Gentium). The drop of cyanide in the punch bowl…
The devil is in the details. You just can’t get good help these days! Hollerich, Grech and insider functionaries intent on just moving things along. Then the damn “backwardists” keep getting in the way!
SUMMARY: For his part, Pope Leo XIV is “a pope for us, AND a Christian with us.” A concise and refreshing summary of the above clarifications: the ecclesiology of walking and chewing gum at the same time!
Identifying the problem correctly is 90% of the solution –so it is said. Or call it Chesterton’s Fence if you prefer. My comments here correct Deacon Dom. It is wrong to propose “Church is a concept” and stand apart “from it” and argue for something else to replace it that “needs to be launched”.
Addressing matters raised by Pink and Feser, both take a too conceptual-analytic approach. Though not so bad as DD.
Pink needs to allow for personal responsibility. At CWR recently they were talking about prudential judgment and for us Christians we meet circumstances, exigencies and everyday affairs, with prudence in the sway and direct of grace. In turn they get conditioned by witness. This is what is intended in VATICAN II in right senses.
Feser needs pertinent actual current contextualization; it just can’t be rationalized custom history. Here’s a position I can describe arising on realities personally present to me. It also shows that DD is not novel.
I know of a priest teaching 30 years ago that the Church had to return to its “pre-Constantine simplicity” and that it became bureaucratic and over-laden because of being made the formal religion of state. He also taught that since the Kingdom is about marriage there could be no exclusions since the Lord had taught that there must be no divorce in the Kingdom. Today they are trying to beatify the bishop that was over this priest at the time and we actually do not know if they are attempting to legitimize these kinds of teachings through that process.
My reflection on that goes as follows. Queer or odd or perverse teachings arise from different sources and roots including the lodge and human error and delinquency. The larger part of the problem is those who take the duping and confusion as a call to spread the errors as a truth and witness and God’s action. The original name for the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, the Paraclete, is Holy Ghost – Confirmer, Counselor, etc. The pedestrian/perambulatory church meant to reflect “God walking with His people” in Scripture, has become an elaboration that went too far and became in some ways meaningless and in other ways counter-witness. What we are seeing in the name of the Holy Spirit is not “Holy Ghost”; and it is by and large either blasphemous of the Holy Spirit outright or leading into the blasphemy. Some of them do not see where they are being led. Some of the leaders know where they want to it to reach and keep sublimating and denying. Some of the leaders only sense it and are willing to dabble. Imagine the early Jerusalem Church forced to abide by the rules of the Synogague and accepting it in existentialized compacts with themselves, in “appropriate units”; throwing out St. Paul rather than taking his lead in the resolution of the issues. And setting up “dicasteries” for the “compartments”.
Contrary to the Dom’s assertion, Pink’s article “Something of a Scofflaw” DOES NOT restrict the papacy to ‘juridical government.’ Like ‘Nobody’ above, Dom presents as someone whose reading ability I question.
Pink’s first paragraph notes papal governance as a factor unique to ‘Catholic’ (opposed to a non-Catholic) identity.
Pink’s second paragraph begins: “But is not the pope more than a lawgiver? Is he not a teacher of doctrine? Yes, that is his function.” The next ten or so paragraphs discuss the papacy’s teaching of doctrine and theology.
How is that a ‘neglect ‘ of ‘essential dimensions of ecclesial life’ about which the dom complains?
Finally, the dom apparently misread the final paragraph. ONE pope in particular is named and described as a scofflawed lawgiver.
Many will remember Francis as a petty breaker of Church ‘laws’ on communion, as a petty disrespector of Church ‘law’ and customs and scripture on liturgy, as a father who failed in pastoral care (toward all sheep as Jesus commanded Peter), as a ruler who disparaged the Church’s broad sensus fidelium and its tradition of collegiality and shared discernment. Pink uses the word “SCOFFLAW.” Francis chose his name and his acts. Francis chose how to wield his papal authority. Just so. The Church will remember him by words that do him justice.
Now, back to school, Dom.