Tag Archives: Papal Infallibility

Tu Es Petrus

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You'll need to set some time aside to read it, but here's a scholarly paper titled Tu Es Petrus, "The Necessity of Peter for the Unity of the Church," by William A. Wheatley, a member of the Church of the Good Shepherd, Rosemont.

In the Introduction, Mr. Wheatley states, "Many who admire and respect the Catholic Church and who consider themselves Catholic Christians nevertheless reject the claims of the Papacy as not being supported by the Bible and not necessary doctrines for Christians to believe. This is true even of many who are otherwise Catholic in their faith. The purpose of this paper is to examine the Catholic claims regarding the Papacy and their foundation."

I encourage you to read the whole paper, and it may provide an opportunity for some interesting comments and discussion.

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Papal Accretions and What It Means to Be Catholic

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IMG 2902 1024x768 Papal Accretions and What It Means to Be Catholic

St. Peter's Basilica in the early morning before the tourists arrive

After I had been in the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada (ACCC) for about four years, and not long after I began writing for Roman Catholic newspapers,  a friend of mine who is a priest arranged for me to get an invitation to a dinner at the Apostolic Nunciature, in February 2005.

I joined people from Catholic Christian Outreach and others around a big table inside the Holy See's embassy.  My priest friend introduced me and said, "Deborah's doing a great job for the Catholic papers and the funny thing is, she's not even Catholic!"

"I am Catholic," I responded.  "I am Anglican Catholic."

It's a little embarrassing to admit that now.

Everyone around the table was too polite to correct me on the spot.  That's one of the gracious things about most Catholics who are not converts.  Many converts would have given me chapter and verse of why I was not Catholic, because being Catholic is not just holding a Catholic faith (which obviously was (and is) still in formation) that makes one a Catholic.  The Catholic Church (and I include all the Churches in communion with the Holy See) is both the mystical Body of Christ of which I am already a part, and an earthly institution that requires membership in order to be fully capital "C" Catholic.  And without membership, you are not in communion and thus not Catholic.

Cradle Catholics, especially the deeply faithful ones,  have a great deal of trust in the Holy Spirit and patience when it comes to dealing with someone like me who thinks she knows everything already.   Interestingly, one archbishop told me that it was probably better in some ways that I was both an outsider and a woman to be writing the way I did about the Church, and Holy Orders.  Maybe because I could not be suspected of "having to" toe the line on these matters.

In my early years in the cathedral, I was taught that the Catholic faith was the undivided faith shared by both East and West.  I loved this line from the Affirmation of St. Louis:

We acknowledge that rule of faith laid down by St. Vincent of Lerins: "Let us hold that which has been believed everywhere, always and by all, for that is truly and properly Catholic."

From a priest, I was told about "Papal accretions" — dogmata added afterwards such as "papal infallibility" and doctrines about Mary that were considered "pious opinion" because they were not held by all, everywhere.

I recalled a discussion among some Christian academics back in the 1990s where one scholar pointed out that even St. Thomas Aquinas had trouble with the Immaculate Conception.  If a doctor of the church had problems with this, why should I have to accept it?

And then I would look at the Roman Catholic Church and see it awash in liberalism and modernism.  Such a high bar for entry,  such a low bar for those who are actual members by virtue of birth and baptism. The catechesis they receive is sometimes terrible.

And oh, how some of my Catholic convert friends used to bug me.  They would throw Cardinal Newman in my face.  Once, after one of them, a lawyer, had pummeled me with Newman, I called my little cathedral and got one of the priests on the phone.  He comforted me by saying, "Oh, Newman's a liberal.  He believes in the development of doctrine."

Heh heh heh.  Newman's a liberal!  I no longer see that now.  And I understand we have to find a way between the extreme of some kind of pristine, pure faith frozen in amber at some point of history and the other extreme of the development of doctrine that looks too much like the small-"s" spirit of Vatican II running amok, so that instead of developing in the way Newman spoke, it is a rupture from the Apostolic faith, and something entirely new, the "Gospel of Welcome" that replaces the Gospel of Jesus Christ that focuses on His sacrifice for our sin.

I tell this because I urge all of us to be charitable towards those Anglicans who still believe the way I did as recently as five or six years ago. Why should be less charitable towards them than we might be to Christians of other denominations who are even further away from a catholic faith?

In our meeting on Sunday, many of the people who voted to leave hold the views I held then.   They see the bishops involved in an act of betrayal because they have changed, while they have remained the same.  They see it as similar to the change the Anglican Church of Canada pulled on them when they started ordaining women.  Some are deeply hurt by this.  Let's not be so eager to judge and condemn or accuse people who are having problems with the move.

During the debate, some of the people who voted to disaffiliate quoted back some of the remarks from speeches or homilies given by some of our founding bishops.  There was even a zinger from Bishop Peter Wilkinson from years ago, in which he defended the interpretation of "Upon this Rock I shall found my Church" in the Protestant manner.  The "rock" is not Peter, but Peter's testimony 0f faith, he asserted, according to the text.

Bishop Wilkinson sat calmly to the side as his own words were thrown up at him.  Alas, he had already had his 15 minutes of fame in the meeting and did not have a chance to refute his own words at the time.

+Wilkinson said after the meeting that his faith has grown and developed since then.

As has mine.  And it has been gradual.  It has been a little precept here, a little line there, a sudden flash of insight, often because of a God-timed, charitable and non pushy statement from someone when I was ready to hear it.

It was Bishop Robert Mercer who, in a casual remark near the coffee maker in our cathedral basement, who showed me the light on "Upon this Rock, I shall found my Church," that it refers to Peter himself.

And, since then, I have been able to tour the Scavi, the excavations under the altar at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, and see St. Peter's bone fragments, and how they were buried right under where the present altar is.  It was quite something to stand with a small group of people under ground and pray the Lord's Prayer near those bones, after hearing about his martyrdom, crucified upside down, and then climb up a narrow staircase taking us right under the present altar.

Bishop Peter explained on Sunday that the East does hold the Marian dogmas though they might explain them differently since their theology about Original Sin is a little different from the West's and the Orthodox have never felt a need to define them because they were not under assault in the East.

As for papal infallibility — it will be interesting to see how this is handled when it comes to talks with the Orthodox.  I no longer have a problem with that as well.  I see it as a supernatural protection for the Apostolic faith, which the Holy Father serves, he does not get to ad lib or make it up as he goes along.  And the present office holder?  Who can compare with him in the Christian world?  And Orthodoxy, while it may have preserved doctrinal and liturgical elements, it has become fractured.  Many Orthodox bodies are not in communion with each other.  Some have become vehicles in the West for preserving culture and language more than they have focused on spreading the Gospel.

A friend of mine told me one of his relatives converted to the Catholic faith after he read Humanae Vitae, and realized that while Pope Paul VI had much theological advice from fellow Catholics to approve artificial contraception and may have personally been tempted to lean in that direction, he could not and wrote that encyclical which many Canadian bishops distanced themselves from in the Winnipeg Statement.

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Bishop Edwin's Interview with InfoCatólica

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A few days ago, Bruno Moreno of the Spanish-language online newspaper InfoCatólica submitted an interview request in the form of a comment on Bishop Barnes' post First Things First asking for him or another contributor from The Anglo-Catholic to share some insights about Anglo-Catholicism, a movement unfamiliar to his audience.  Bishop Barnes graciously consented to the interview and it has just been published here.  An English translation is provided below.

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How would you define an Anglo-Catholic?

The Church of England contains many varieties of Christians. Those who are nearer to the Catholic understanding of Scripture, Tradition and the Church, and who express this in their language (speaking, for instance, of the Altar, rather than the Holy Table) and their practice (celebrating the Eucharist regularly and frequently, in many churches not simply every week, but every day) would be called ‘Anglo-Catholic’.

You have been an Anglican bishop for the past fifteen years. What has been your role as a ‘flying bishop’?

In 1992 the central Council of our Church, the General Synod, decided that women might be ordained to the priesthood. In doing so it also said that those who did not accept this innovation must have provision made for them to enable them to continue as faithful Anglicans. For this purpose each Archbishop (there are two in England) consecrated one or two bishops, themselves opposed to women’s ordination, to minister to individuals and congregations who voted to ask for such extra provision. They were suffragans of the Archbishops, and so known as Provincial Episcopal Visitors (PEV’s) or, colloquially, ‘flying bishops’. My remit, for six years from 1995-2001, was to travel the length and breadth of the Eastern half of the Canterbury Province. I was consecrated to the See of Richborough – a title taken from the site where St Augustine set foot in England on his mission from Pope Gregory. On my retirement I became simply a super-numerary and honorary bishop in the diocese where I live, Winchester. My successor as Bishop of Richborough is Bishop Keith Newton.

Did the creation by Pope Benedict XVI of new Personal Ordinariates for Anglicans who wish to enter full communion with the Catholic Church come as a surprise for you?

The Holy Father’s initiative, directed at Groups of Anglicans, came as a great and very welcome surprise.

Many people ask “why now?” If Anglo-Catholics wish to seek communion with the See of Rome, why have they waited until now? Is it just a matter of women bishops or something deeper?

Many of us have believed that the Church of England was moving, for the past century at least, in an ever more catholic direction. With the international conversations between the Anglican Communion and Rome (the ARCIC Conversations) we believed and hoped there would be corporate reunion for us in our lifetime. Since the ordination of women to the priesthood, and now the likelihood of their consecration as bishops, that has faded as an impossible dream.

What are the main elements of the Anglican Patrimony you would like the Ordinariates to preserve?

Our fathers in the faith spoke of “reserve” in matters of faith. That is, a sort of quiet and simple spirit in the best of Anglican use. It has seemed to me a religious voice, a tone, in keeping with our national character. The language of our Prayer Book which introduced the vernacular into our worship five centuries ago seems to catch something of this plain, undemonstrative but deeply felt religious sensibility. But in truth, I think we cannot discover our Patrimony until we see it in a completely Catholic context.

Do you expect the Anglican Ordinariates to attract many people in England and Wales? Will whole parishes take the plunge?

It is difficult at present to see how it will be possible for entire parishes to join the Ordinariate, simply because the Church of England is very territorial, and will not readily part with, for instance, its buildings. For all that, there are several priests I know who are preparing their congregations, and who will take the first opportunity of belonging whether they can retain their parish churches or not.

Do you believe some Anglican Bishops will enter the Ordinariates? Are you personally planning to avail yourself of this opportunity?

Certainly I know of several Bishops who are exploring the possibility, as I am myself. I can see no other future for catholics in the Church of England than this.

Would you be willing to seek ordination in the Roman Catholic Church? Would you consider ordination or whatever your role is in the Ordinariate a denial of your pastoral work in the Anglican Communion or rather a culmination of that work?

Because the Holy Father’s appeal is to Groups of Anglicans, I believe my personal future is unimportant compared with what is offered to us all. If it is decided that my ministry can continue, and that I may be ordained a Priest in the Catholic Church, then I should be delighted – but I should join the Ordinariate unconditionally, and let others decide whether there might still be something for me to undertake. I am sure that the simple fact of joining the Ordinariate will be the crown and completion of my ministry up to this point.

What are the main difficulties you envisage in this adventure, both for yourself and for most Anglo-Catholics? Will the need to accept the faith of the Roman Catholic Church as proclaimed by the Catechism be an obstacle for many Anglo-Catholics?

I think for some Anglicans there are stumbling blocks within the Catechism. We have been separated from the Catholic mainstream for five hundred years, and there have been developments in doctrine with which we are unfamiliar. As a frequent visitor to Fatima, I have no difficulty with the Marian dogmas. There was a time when I found it hard to accept the Immaculate Conception (for I did not properly understand it) and Papal Infallibility. Others may still find these to be difficulties for them – I do not. And I hope and believe the Church will be very understanding and patient in explaining these matters. Far more important for me is the readiness of the Holy Father to accept and ordain men who have been married Anglican clergy. My wife has been a great help and adornment to my ministry, and I am glad there is the possibility that, should I be ordained a Catholic priest, this would continue.

Some members of the Ordinariates will come from the Anglican Communion, while others will come from different groups, such as the Traditional Anglican Communion, or even from Anglican Use parishes? Do you think that diversity will be a problem?

I believe that Anglicans in North America and elsewhere have been in such difficult situations that for them actual schism from the Anglican Communion has been necessary. I know several such priests and parishes, and have no doubt that we shall learn from one another and come to value one another. One of my greatest friends is a Priest of the Anglican Use in Texas, and I think he and I have more in common than I do with most of those in England who call themselves members of our church.

Do the Anglican Ordinariates have a future in the Catholic Church? How do you envisage them in, say, one hundred years?

I believe the Catholic Church is very patient; and I am sure she will want to learn from this experiment. I hope, personally, that the experience of a married priesthood might at some future date enable the Church to recognise that it is possible to have a double vocation, to the priesthood and to holy matrimony. I am greatly impressed by the way the Holy Father has introduced Anglicanorum Coetibus, making it clear that this is not a short-term solution to present-day problems, but a generous open offer for many years, perhaps centuries, to come. So who knows, it may be that eventually the Church of England will indeed return to her roots and become part of the One, Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church which she has always claimed to be.

How will the leaving (maybe we might say expelling) of Anglo-Catholics affect the Anglican Communion? Would it mean the end of its claim to be a branch of the Catholic Church? Do you expect the Anglican Communion to change much in the following years or decades?

It seems to me we are witnessing the break-up of the Anglican Communion – which was always a rather anomalous fruit of Empire. Gradually individual national churches will, I think, either join the Catholic Church, or dwindle into some amorphous protestant body, incapable of making any real witness to society.

What will the Roman Catholic Church gain by the ‘coming home’ of the Anglo-Catholics?

I hope we shall all gain enormously from this home-coming; it will be a reunion of friends, to replace the Parting of Friends of which Newman spoke.

How is Card. Newman regarded by Anglo-Catholics? Will you attend his beatification in September? Would you like to see him as one of the patron saints of the Ordinariates?

I believe John Henry Cardinal Newman has had a hand in what is happening in England today. Many of us are very glad to have him as a fellow-countryman. If I were permitted to be at his beatification I can think of no greater honour; and whether or not he is named as a patron of the Ordinariates, I am sure we should all be seeking his prayers at this wonderful time.

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Solid Rock or Stumbling Block?

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Fr. Samuel Edwards, SSM, Vicar of St. Peter's Anglican Church in Waynesville, NC (a mission of the Diocese of the Eastern United States of ACA/TAC) has written to commend his latest piece, a consideration of the Petrine Ministry in the Universal Church.  Fr. Edwards concludes that the doctrines of the Catholic Church with respect to the ministry of the Bishop of Rome meet the classical threefold Anglican test for legitimate teaching: conformability with Scripture, Tradition, and Reason.

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Solid Rock or Stumbling Block?

A Consideration of the Petrine Ministry

by Fr Samuel Edwards SSM

In my last article for this web page, I led you through a rather lengthy consideration of the catholic doctrines that involve the role of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the history of our redemption.  Now, I would invite you to consider with me the role of the Bishop of Rome in the Church which is Christ’s Bride and Body.  It is my hope that what follows will clarify matters so that those who, after much prayerful reflection, are led to the acceptance of the offer of Anglican Ordinariates in communion with the See of Rome, will know what it is they will be affirming and so that those who, after much prayerful reflection, decide not to accept it will understand what it is they are declining to affirm.

There are three basic and essential doctrinal elements related to catholic teaching concerning the Petrine ministry exercised by the Bishop of Rome, which may briefly be denoted by the words primacy, succession, and infallibility.  We will consider these in order, but at the outset it is worth noting that most Anglicans of the various species of “high churchmanship” (ranging from “prayer book catholic” to “anglo-papalist”) haven’t much difficulty with succession, and many have no great difficulty with primacy.  Most of the difficulty revolves around the last item: infallibility, about which there is more distortion and nonsense circulating than about the other two combined (which is saying a lot, since there is no small amount of distortion and nonsense in circulation about them).

Continue reading →

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Exploring Doctrine: Papal Infallibility

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There are some protestant-minded Anglicans who are showing an excessive interest in the practical details of the implementation of Anglicanorum coetibus.  In fact, a few seem to have gone off the deep end in an effort to describe the chamber of horrors waiting for those unsuspecting individuals who plan to enter an Ordinariate, broadcasting warnings that people will be having to convert and submit and believe all sorts of abhorrent things.

Amongst the Catholic doctrines most troublesome to many Protestants (and many Orthodox, too) is that of papal infallibility.  Perhaps it conjures up visions of flabella and the sedia gestatoria, or a not-so-subtle Vatican form of mind control, or even an abuse of our valued freedom of conscience.

Actually, it’s a rather straightforward sign of God’s love for His Church.

First of all, papal infallibility is not to be confused with impeccability.  Most people understand this, but there are some who think Catholics are supposed to believe that the Pope cannot sin.  Infallibility has nothing to do with the absence of sin.  It’s a charism – a gift – which God imparts.  Although it is rightly referred to as “papal infallibility," nonetheless it is something shared with the whole body of Catholic bishops.  Although they do not have this charism individually, they do exercise the gift when they teach in doctrinal unity with the Successor of St. Peter.  This is defined in Lumen Gentium, n. 25:

Although the individual bishops do not enjoy the prerogative of infallibility, they can nevertheless proclaim Christ’s doctrine infallibly. This is so, even when they are dispersed around the world, provided that while maintaining the bond of unity among themselves and with Peter’s successor, and while teaching authentically on a matter of faith or morals, they concur in a single viewpoint as the one which must be held conclusively. This authority is even more clearly verified when, gathered together in an ecumenical council, they are teachers and judges of faith and morals for the universal Church. Their definitions must then be adhered to with the submission of faith.

Despite the myths held by some, the Pope doesn’t wake up in the morning and think to himself, “I think I shall proclaim something infallibly today,” nor are Catholics inhabitants of an ecclesiastical Wonderland in which they are required to believe “six impossible things before breakfast.”

So what is papal infallibility?  It is defined in the First Dogmatic Constitution on the Church of Christ, Pastor Aeternus, Chapter 4, n. 9:

Therefore, faithfully adhering to the tradition received from the beginning of the Christian faith, to the glory of God our savior, for the exaltation of the Catholic religion and for the salvation of the Christian people, with the approval of the Sacred Council, we teach and define as a divinely revealed dogma that when the Roman Pontiff speaks EX CATHEDRA, that is, when, in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church, he possesses, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, that infallibility which the divine Redeemer willed his Church to enjoy in defining doctrine concerning faith or morals. Therefore, such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are of themselves, and not by the consent of the Church, irreformable.

This was confirmed by the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council in Lumen Gentium, n. 25:

And this infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer willed His Church to be endowed in defining doctrine of faith and morals, extends as far as the deposit of Revelation extends, which must be religiously guarded and faithfully expounded. And this is the infallibility which the Roman Pontiff, the head of the college of bishops, enjoys in virtue of his office, when, as the supreme shepherd and teacher of all the faithful, who confirms his brethren in their faith, by a definitive act he proclaims a doctrine of faith or morals. And therefore his definitions, of themselves, and not from the consent of the Church, are justly styled irreformable, since they are pronounced with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, promised to him in blessed Peter, and therefore they need no approval of others, nor do they allow an appeal to any other judgment. For then the Roman Pontiff is not pronouncing judgment as a private person, but as the supreme teacher of the universal Church, in whom the charism of infallibility of the Church itself is individually present, he is expounding or defending a doctrine of Catholic faith.

The doctrine of papal infallibility did not abruptly appear in the 19th century.  It was found implicitly from the earliest days of the Church, and indeed has its foundation in Holy Scripture itself.  In St. John’s Gospel (21:15-17) Christ makes it clear to St. Peter that he, Peter, is to tend the flock and feed the sheep; in St. Luke’s Gospel (22:32) our Lord tells Peter that He will pray for him, so that his faith will not fail, and for him to strengthen the other apostles; in St. Matthew’s Gospel (16:18) Christ proclaims Peter to be the Rock on which He would build His Church.

The Church, founded by our divine Saviour, was commanded by Him to teach everything that He had revealed to His apostles (St. Matthew 28:20), and He promised them that they would be guided into all truth by the Holy Spirit (St. John 16:13).  As the teaching authority of the Church, along with the primacy of St. Peter and his successors, was more and more comprehended, there came a clearer understanding of the protection God provides through the gift of infallibility.  From the scriptural testimony, on through such witnesses as St. Cyprian of Carthage and St. Augustine of Hippo, it is clear the Church has always understood that God reveals and safeguards His truth through this charism.

There is an erroneous idea that a formal statement of infallible truth marks the occasion when the Church only began to teach a particular doctrine – in other words, that belief in papal infallibility began in only in 1870.  However, infallible pronouncements are usually made only when some doctrine has been called into question.  Most doctrines have never been doubted by the large majority of Catholics, and so have never required a formal and infallible statement.  We see this even with a cursory reading of the Catechism, where most of the doctrines outlined in its pages require no corresponding papal document to confirm what is simply part of the ordinary magisterium of the Church.

If we scratch the surface of most arguments against the doctrine of papal infallibility, we will often find that there is confusion between infallibility and impeccability (“look at the sinful popes in history”), along with an independent streak of protestantism (“no one is going to tell me what I have to believe”).  I find it to be both amazing and amusing, that those who are most vociferous against papal infallibility present their arguments with a certitude which could only be described as infallible.

It takes no great leap of faith to accept the fact that the God who created the universe and raises the dead, would also ensure that His children are given the truth.  That He protects His Vicar on earth from solemnly defining something as true, if it’s really false, not only harmonizes with Scripture, but it is reflected in the unbroken history of the Church.  We should derive great comfort from the doctrine of infallibility, because it’s a beautiful act of God’s divine love.

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The Modern Cult of the Pope

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jp2superstar 227x300 The Modern Cult of the PopeThere is a blog I like to follow, run by a Catholic layman of Mexican roots living in California and highly interested in questions of folk religion and Catholicism at its most “natural”. The name of the blog is Reditus: A Chronicle of Aesthetic Christianity. The article that particularly interests me today is On Papalotry. Between those who deny the Pope entirely and those who worship him, we indeed live in unbalanced and spiritually dangerous times!

The article is to some extent inspired by this article concerning the Pope and his relationship with the Church. The nineteenth and twentieth centuries gave a complete caricature of authority in the persons of Hitler and the clown-emperor Mussolini. I am personally persuaded that John Paul II was an extremely devout and spiritual man – but he was also a showman. When the Holy Father was in England in 1982, I remember him preaching in a football stadium about the evils of contraception and abortion – and he received standing ovations and hysterical screaming from the very young women who were probably at that very time discovering their sexual liberation! The words spoken were of no importance to the crowd, but the figure saying them!

I remember buying a copy of the Encyclical Laborem Exercens, the great social teaching of John Paul II in the wake of Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum. I don’t think I got beyond the first page of this turgid and barely comprehensible language (I was reading the English translation of course). I find the language of Benedict XVI refreshingly easier to follow and read, much like that of Popes like Pius XII, except that he no longer uses the royal “we”.

In my article on Erastianism, I sketched the development of Papal power throughout the second millennium in particular, and I make no secret of the fact that I would have been an “inopportunist” had I been involved in the 1870 Vatican Council. Like Newman, I would have been opposed to a formal definition of Papal infalliblity in those historical circumstances, but would have pressed for what happened, the infallibility of the Pope being limited to his Extraordinary Magisterium when defining a dogma of faith ex cathedra. In the Petition the TAC Episcopate sent to the CDF in October 2007, this was stated:

  1. We accept the ministry of the Bishop of Rome, the successor of Peter, which is a ministry of teaching and discerning the faith and a “perpetual and visible principle and foundation of unity” and understand this ministry is essential to the Church founded by Jesus Christ.  We accept that this ministry, in the words of the late John Paul II in Ut Unum Sint, is to “ensure the unity of all the Churches”.  We understand his words in the same Letter when he explains to the separated churches that the Bishop of Rome “when circumstances require it, speaks in the name of all the Pastors in communion with him.  He can also – under very specific conditions clearly laid down by the First Vatican Council – declare ex cathedra that a certain doctrine belongs to the deposit of faith.  By thus bearing witness to the truth, he serves unity”.  We understand that, as bishops separated from communion with the Bishop of Rome, we are among those for whom Jesus prayed before his death “that they may be completely one”, and that we teach and define matters of faith and morals in a way that is, while still under the influence of Divine Grace, of necessity more tenuously connected to the teaching voice of catholic bishops throughout the world.
  2. We accept that the Church founded by Jesus Christ subsists most perfectly in the churches in communion with the See of Peter, to whom (after the repeated protestation of his love for Jesus) and to whose successors, our Divine Master gave the duty of feeding the lambs and the sheep of his flock.
  3. We accept that the most complete and authentic expression and application of the catholic faith in this moment of time is found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and its Compendium, which we have signed together with this Letter as attesting to the faith we aspire to teach and hold.
  4. Driven by these realizations, which we must now in good conscience bring to the attention of the Holy See, we seek a communal and ecclesial way of being Anglican Catholics in communion with the Holy See, at once treasuring the full expression of catholic faith and treasuring our tradition within which we have come to this moment.  We seek the guidance of the Holy See as to the fulfilment of these our desires and those of the churches in which we have been called to serve.

The tendency of adoring the Pope is a recent development no older than the mid nineteenth century, and a considerable amount of pressure was applied on the Fathers of Vatican I to define an understanding of Papal authority that would have gone far beyond the limits of Tradition and Catholic orthodoxy. I have read Döllinger’s The Pope and the Council. It is a most illuminating book, but I stop short of denying a dogma that was defined by an Ecumenical Council and which curbed the excesses of both the Gallican remnant and the extreme infallibilists. The moderation of this definition is what I find most comforting and expressive of the power of the Holy Spirit in these solemn moments of the Church’s history.

Much of the nonsense was to a large extent corrected by the constitution of Vatican II Lumen Gentium (of course with the Nota Praevia Paul VI had inserted to correct the “gallican” and liberal tendencies among the conciliar Fathers). Over the past couple of hundred years or so, Popes have been great and devout men, and this has served to nourish the myth of an impeccable figure who did not share the common human condition of fallibility and sinfulness. What happens when we get an immoral or a heretical Pope? This speculation is of actuality in sectarian groups of radical traditionalists called sedevacantists. Theologians have been divided over the question of whether a bad Pope tacitly abdicates and can thus be physically removed by the Cardinals or bishops, or whether one has simply to put up and shut up until he dies. I find the speculation pointless, and no more productive than the sterile arguments of some for obscure quotations of Hooker and the 39 Articles most Anglicans consider of historical interest only!

The myth of the “impeccable” Pope was, for some exploded, for others reinforced, in the wake of Vatican II. The most notable event that profoundly disturbed the life of Catholics was the new rite of Mass issued in 1969 by Paul VI. Other events and teachings also led to the increasing polarisation between conservatives and liberals / progressives. For some time in the late 1980’s, I took an interest in the idea of Western Rite Orthodoxy and its parallel in the “classical” Anglican Continuum, and was attracted to the idea of Western Catholicism modelled on the ecclesiology and spirituality of Eastern Orthodoxy. There appear to be successful Western Rite Orthodox communities in the USA, slightly less marginal than the Anglican Use in the Catholic Church, but on the whole, Anglicans are not well accepted in Orthodoxy. The Old Catholicism of the old archdiocese of Utrecht, French Gallicans like Bossuet and Dupanloup and German intellectuals like Döllinger can be very attractive in theory, but it is exactly that, a theoretical religion devised by intellectuals, and of no relevance to ordinary people. In more recent years, the Union of Utrecht is entirely modelled on Ms. Schori's Episcopal Church (ugh!) with the radical feminist and LGBT agendas. In considering "non-Roman" Catholicism as an attractive option, I perhaps reacted against having been in my twenties and thirties during the pontificate of John Paul II, the super star Pontiff presiding over a Church that was less and less favourable to a traditional ecclesiology and liturgical life.

When confronted with the writings and opinions of some Anglicans showing their critical attitude in regard to the TAC, my reaction is “saw the film, read the book and went there…”.

The election of Benedict XVI has brought us to a more realistic view of the Papacy, something he himself wanted from the moment of his election in April 2005. I think he is a devout, pleasant and highly cultivated person, but what interests me in Benedict XVI is the content of his teaching and observations on the current situation. Those who worshipped John Paul II are now condemning Benedict XVI for delivering exactly the same moral teachings and “hard sayings”. Of course the Holy Father could die before having neutralised the influences that would bring us back to the 1970’s. We might get an out-and-out evil Pope. Anything can happen. But, I refuse to worry about it.

I think few of us in the future Ordinariates will be tempted to be Pope-worshippers. We are Anglicans and accustomed to intellectual criticism and going into things open-eyed. We do need to remain lucid, not suspicious or fearful but bringing our way into helping the Church to have a more balanced attitude about the Pope and authority in the Church.

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"You expect me to believe that?"

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From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

889 In order to preserve the Church in the purity of the faith handed on by the apostles, Christ who is the Truth willed to confer on her a share in his own infallibility. By a "supernatural sense of faith" the People of God, under the guidance of the Church's living Magisterium, "unfailingly adheres to this faith."

890 The mission of the Magisterium is linked to the definitive nature of the covenant established by God with his people in Christ. It is this Magisterium's task to preserve God's people from deviations and defections and to guarantee them the objective possibility of professing the true faith without error. Thus, the pastoral duty of the Magisterium is aimed at seeing to it that the People of God abides in the truth that liberates. To fulfill this service, Christ endowed the Church's shepherds with the charism of infallibility in matters of faith and morals. The exercise of this charism takes several forms:

891 "The Roman Pontiff, head of the college of bishops, enjoys this infallibility in virtue of his office, when, as supreme pastor and teacher of all the faithful – who confirms his brethren in the faith he proclaims by a definitive act a doctrine pertaining to faith or morals. . . . The infallibility promised to the Church is also present in the body of bishops when, together with Peter's successor, they exercise the supreme Magisterium," above all in an Ecumenical Council. When the Church through its supreme Magisterium proposes a doctrine "for belief as being divinely revealed," and as the teaching of Christ, the definitions "must be adhered to with the obedience of faith." This infallibility extends as far as the deposit of divine Revelation itself.

892 Divine assistance is also given to the successors of the apostles, teaching in communion with the successor of Peter, and, in a particular way, to the bishop of Rome, pastor of the whole Church, when, without arriving at an infallible definition and without pronouncing in a "definitive manner," they propose in the exercise of the ordinary Magisterium a teaching that leads to better understanding of Revelation in matters of faith and morals. To this ordinary teaching the faithful "are to adhere to it with religious assent" which, though distinct from the assent of faith, is nonetheless an extension of it.

From a comment on a blog discussing Anglicanorum coetibus:

“Papal Infallibility for me is the dogma that prevents me from joining the Roman Catholic Church.”

In my work with potential converts to the Catholic faith, I can’t remember how many times someone has told me, “I just can’t accept ______” (fill in the blank).  It might be the Immaculate Conception, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, papal infallibility, transubstantiation, or some other Catholic doctrine.  My response is always, “Tell me what you think the Church teaches about that.”  When they tell me, it’s not surprising they’re having trouble accepting it.  I wouldn’t be able to, either.

Taking just the matter of papal infallibility, it’s remarkable how many people confuse it with impeccability, thinking we’re claiming that the Pope can’t sin.  Or they imagine that it applies to every single thing he says, and every random thought that crosses his mind.  Frequently, people have a too-narrow idea of it, not understanding that it belongs to the whole Church, and flows from an adherence to the Magisterium.

Some people think it gives a kind of super-power to the Pope, when in reality it limits him simply to teaching the truth.

So if someone says they can’t accept infallibility, or the Marian dogmas, or any other aspect of the Faith, let’s make sure what they “can’t accept” is what the Church really teaches.

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Some Thoughts From Newman

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To add to the discussion of the doctrine of papal infallibility, here are a couple of quotes from the Venerable John Henry Newman:

What I believe about the Pope, I believe, as I believe any other doctrine, – because the Church teaches it – but, for me, the Church directs me to the Pope not the Pope directs me to the Church.  – from Letters and Diaries, Vol. XXII, p.95

 Its communion with the see of St. Peter is not a 'Note of the Church'. How then do I know which is the true Church? I know it by the tokens of its unity, its apostolicity, its pretensions etc etc. I admit that there are able men who have been led into the Church through belief in the Pope's prerogatives. But a man need not believe in the jus divinum of the see of St. Peter in order to submit himself to the church which is in communion with it. This was my own case. I did not distinctly believe in the jus divinum of the Holy See till I joined the Church. I then believed in it as I believed in any other doctrine of the Church, because she was the Church, the oracle of Christ. I believed in the seven sacraments forthwith, because she taught them de fide; and for the same reason I believed in the jus divinum of the Papacy forthwith.  – from Letters and Diaries, Vol. XX, p.308

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A Quick Note on Papal Infallibility

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Here is a succinct and recent article – http://www.catholic.com/library/Papal_Infallibility.asp

papal keys A Quick Note on Papal InfallibilityKeeping this as simple as possible, we find that the Pope to the Church is like a rudder to a boat. When we look at what is happening in the Anglican Communion, the Lutherans in the various northern European national churches, Protestants, liberals and so forth, we see the real and urgent need for a shepherd, a teacher, a guide, a Father in God.

This whole situation somewhat reminds me of 1945 when Mussolini was dead, Hitler was on the point of being defeated in Berlin and taking his own life. Europe and its totalitarian ideologies were in ruins. Someone remained to give hope and sanity to a broken world – Pius XII. Everyone looked to the Holy Father, including the Jewish people whose lives (as many as possible) he saved. I’m sure you can easily see the parallels with the ravages of liberalism and “revisionism” since the 1960’s and 1970’s – the very institutions those ideas were intended to reform are collapsing and imploding.

We are certainly going to be better off under the good authority of the Pope than under the dictatorship of relativism and the tyranny of the arbitrary. Even if we only look at things this way, I see nothing unreasonable about this Papal authority being of God. The fact remains that the Papacy was instituted by Christ, and the evidence of it is clearly written in the New Testament and the Tradition of the Church.

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The Catechism of the Catholic Church, Papal Infallibility, and the TAC

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Writing for the National Catholic Register, Pat Archbold addresses the issue of papal infallibility as a stumbling block to the acceptance of Anglicanorum Coetibus on the part of many Anglicans.

A hermeneutic is a hard thing to shake.

We all have our own hermeneutic, a lens through which we view the world, which can either serve to distort or clarify.  The impression that I have is that William Lind may be wearing bifocals. He sees certain things with clarity while other things are distorted.

Lind writes at The American Conservative about the disintegration of the Anglican Communion and how Pope Benedict’s offer to Anglicans might be the first step in a “counter-reformation.”

With delightfully witty tone, he decries the abandonment of orthodoxy in favor of a wholly new religion of its own invention.

Starting sometime in the 1960s, God’s frozen people melted, generating the mother of all theological mud puddles. From the abandonment of Thomas Cranmer’s Book of Common Prayer to the introduction of priestesses in the 1970s and the ongoing election of homosexual bishops, the Episcopal Church forsook traditional Christian doctrine in favor of its own invented religion.

He excitedly details the Pope’s offer to Anglicans and acknowledges the Pope’s shrewdness in creating separate ordinariates to shield them from the whims of liberal bishops and the bad taste of the “snakebelly-low post-Vatican II vernacular Roman Mass.”

While Lind is delighted with much of what is in Anglicanorum Coetibus, he worries about one giant fly in the ointment that might doom the entire enterprise to failure, the Catholic Faith.

One problem is likely to be the doctrine of papal infallibility, a 19th-century Roman innovation. The Apostolic Constitution stipulates that Anglicans would have to accept “The Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church as the authoritative expression of the Catholic faith professed by members of the ordinariate.” This could mean accepting papal infallibility as expressed in the catechism, and if Rome remains inflexible on that point, Pope Benedict’s initiative seems likely to fail.

Leaving aside his ahistorical assertions, Lind sees papal infallibility as an obstacle to unity.  Apparently lost on Lind is that papal infallibility as exercised by the Pope is the source of unity.  Without the office of the Pope and the necessity of visible communion with it, all of Christianity would be the giant “theological mud puddle” that he rightly derides in his own Communion. The difference then would be that there would be nowhere to turn to achieve the unity and orthodoxy that he desires.

With no wish to sound harsh (I don’t mind being harsh I just don’t want to sound that way), we don’t want any Anglican that is hung up on Papal infallibility.  If you desire the full faith, the faith as taught by the Apostles and protected by the Holy Spirit, come on over.  If you wish to remain a de-facto Protestant, stay put.  We have enough de-facto Protestants in the Catholic Church as it is.

Writing in the context of a Forward in Faith parish in the Church of England, Fr. Giles Pinnock, SSC, Parish Priest of St. Mary-the-Virgin, Kenton, has identified other "hang-ups" for some of his people.

As the vicar of an Anglo-Catholic parish that is presently discussing why we should respond positively to Anglicanorum coetibus, and why some might not want to, I can confirm that papal infallibility is a stumbling block for some.

As are inter alia, in no particular order:

  • Humanae vitae
  • the Marian dogmas – ie, the Assumption and the Immaculate Conception – ie, ‘how much of all this do we have to believe?’
  • didn’t the Pope support Spain against England in past wars (I’m not kidding)
  • Bloody Mary’s persecution vs Good Queen Bess putting it all back together (again, I’m not kidding)
  • waiting for General Synod to come up with a better way for us to avoid women bishops (missing entirely the point of Anglicanorum coetibus)
  • ‘our’ church buildings – although I do appreciate the wrench that many would experience in leaving for the last time a building in which they may have been baptized and married, seen children and grandchildren baptized and married, and from which parents may have been buried
  • the Reformation had to happen because of the abuses of the monasteries
  • humane and pastoral Anglicanism over against harsh dogmatic Rome
  • … I could go on …

These are all fig leaves behind which hides an innate and visceral anti-Catholicism into which generations of Anglicans – particularly English Anglicans – have been indoctrinated in support of an English (or Anglophile) Anglican and anti-Catholic self-identification that is so deep set that it would in many apparently require genetic resequencing to overcome.

While many individual Anglicans — even within the Traditional Anglican Communion — may have "hang-ups" over papal infallibility or the acceptance of the Catechism of the Catholic Church as a doctrinal standard, a couple of points ought to be firmly established with respect to the doctrine of the TAC bishops themselves.

In the next several days, the Primate of the TAC will release via The Anglo-Catholic several important documents.  For the first time, the entire text of the October 2007 "Portsmouth Letter" (in which the TAC appealed to the Holy See for a means to achieve corporate reunion) will be available to the general public.  As this document was part of an ongoing dialogue between the TAC episcopate and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to this point, only brief excerpts have been publicized.  The release of the entire letter will make very clear the unambiguous position of the TAC.

From one of the excerpts already released, it is known that our bishops have proposed the Catechism as “the most perfect expression of the Catholic faith in the world today,” a faith which they “aspire to hold and teach.”  Some have tried to rationalize and "spin" this confession.  Perhaps the curious phrase "the most perfect expression" provides some wiggle room?  Certainly the TAC bishops could not have meant to accept the recent Marian dogmas or those of papal infallibility and universal jurisdiction?

The coming days will make these questions crystal clear.  But for those holding out for wiggle room, I'll go ahead and burst their bubble.  After all, though some have endeavored to ignore the facts, the reality is no secret.

Anglicanorum Coetibus informs us:

§5 The Catechism of the Catholic Church is the authoritative expression of the Catholic faith professed by members of the Ordinariate.

There is a very simple reason for this requirement in the Apostolic Constitution.  The bishops of the TAC themselves proposed the Catechism as the doctrinal standard for a future corporate reunion — and their confession of the doctrines contained therein was unconditional.

Far from the admission of any wiggle room, the full text of the "Portsmouth Letter" makes absolutely clear that our bishops assent, not to the teaching of the Catechism generally, but to specific doctrines — indeed to those doctrines upon which all of the others hang.  The Magisterium of the Catholic Church is accepted without reservation.  The ministry of the Successor of St. Peter is confessed in terms that would be familiar to a father of the First Vatican Council!

Not only did the TAC bishops assembled — unanimously — approve the text of the letter to the Holy See, the entire college signed their confession in a solemn act.  Here is what the same Catechism says of a solemn oath:

2150 The second commandment forbids false oaths. Taking an oath or swearing is to take God as witness to what one affirms. It is to invoke the divine truthfulness as a pledge of one's own truthfulness. An oath engages the Lord's name. "You shall fear the LORD your God; you shall serve him, and swear by his name."

2151 Rejection of false oaths is a duty toward God. As Creator and Lord, God is the norm of all truth. Human speech is either in accord with or in opposition to God who is Truth itself. When it is truthful and legitimate, an oath highlights the relationship of human speech with God's truth. A false oath calls on God to be witness to a lie.

2152 A person commits perjury when he makes a promise under oath with no intention of keeping it, or when after promising on oath he does not keep it. Perjury is a grave lack of respect for the Lord of all speech. Pledging oneself by oath to commit an evil deed is contrary to the holiness of the divine name.

This solemn oath of the TAC bishops is irrevocable.  And from October 2007, the Catechism of the Catholic Church has been, at least, the de facto official doctrine of the Traditional Anglican Communion.

As in Fr. Pinnock's Church of England congregation, there are not a few of our people in the TAC who look forward to union with Rome and ask, "How much of this will I have to believe?"  Let us be clear.  Whatever happens in the coming months, the decisions to be made are essentially ecclesiastical politics; the doctrinal questions have long been decided.  Our bishops have not confessed the Catechism of the Catholic Church with reservations; the Catechism, in its entirety, is commended to the faithful of the TAC by our whole episcopate.  This is faith that we "aspire to hold" and that our bishops are pledged to teach.

For those communicants of the TAC who are yet reluctant to accept unfamiliar or difficult doctrines on the authority of the Roman Pontiff, what of your own bishops?  You believe them to be the successors to the Apostles and you have a duty to heed the call of your shepherds.  These same bishops believe themselves to be led by the Holy Ghost, now to set aside the contentions of the past and to sacrifice for the unity of Christ's One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.  You may not be persuaded by the Bishop of Rome, but will you reject even your own shepherds?  Heed the voice of the Spirit speaking through them "ut omnes unum sint."

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