Observations from Father Lawrence C. Smith on Pope Benedict's XVI's Theology
[Publisher's Note: I asked Father Lawrence C. Smith to review "The Path to Peace: Fatima" and Mr. James Larson's article in Christian Order, "When to Be Is Not to Be." I thank Father Smith for his comments and for his permission to post them on this site. I hope that the readers of this site will take his comments very seriously. Thomas A. Droleskey]
You asked for a comment or two. Here is a comment or two or twenty:
1) Ninety-nine percent of Mr. Larson’s article is excellent. I find fault in the following
- n Pope John Paul II preceded Cardinal Ratzinger on the road to heterodoxy
- n Pope John Paul II appointed Cardinal Ratzinger to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
- n Pope John Paul II appointed all of the Cardinals who elected Cardinal Ratzinger to be his successor as Pope Benedict XVI
- n Clarity from Mr. Larson should include these facts – why would “very intelligent and learned Catholics” fail to make mention of how Cardinal Ratzinger came to be in a position to promulgate his heterodoxy for over a quarter of a century at the CDF?
2) Cardinal Ratzinger spews gibberish when he speaks of a “nucleus” borne in a “provisional disposition” fundamentally valid, but whose particulars become “obsolete” when they have “fulfilled their pastoral mission in the proper moment”. Such rubbish can in no wise be applied to dogma, that is to say, unerring truth founded in Jesus Christ who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
3) As to Hegel and the hegelians: Truth is of God and Jesus is the Truth and God can not deny Himself; ergo, Truth by definition is incapable of “contain[ing] within itself the seeds of its own contradiction”.
4) As to a “more profound understanding” of perennial truth, note this from the Oath Against Modernism taken by Father Ratzinger and Father Woltyla: I, N., firmly embrace and accept each and every definition that has been set forth and declared by the unerring teaching authority of the Church, especially those principal truths which are directly opposed to the errors of this day. And first of all, I profess that God, the origin and end of all things, can be known with certainty by the natural light of reason from the created world (see Romans 1:20), that is, from the visible works of creation, as a cause from its effects, and that, therefore, His existence can also be demonstrated… Fourthly, I sincerely hold that the doctrine of faith was handed down to us from the apostles through the orthodox Fathers in exactly the same meaning and always in the same purport. Therefore, I entirely reject the heretical misrepresentation that dogmas evolve and change from one meaning to another different from the one which the Church held previously. I also condemn every error according to which, in place of the divine deposit which has been given the spouse of Christ to be carefully guarded by her, there is put a philosophical figment or product of a human conscience that has gradually been developed by human effort and will continue to develop indefinitely…Furthermore, with due reverence, I submit and adhere with my whole heart to the condemnations, declarations, and all the prescripts contained in the encyclical Pascendi and in the decree Lamentabili, especially those concerning what is known as the history of dogmas. I also reject the error of those who say that the faith held by the Church can contradict history, and that Catholic dogmas, in the sense in which they are now understood, are irreconcilable with a more realistic view of the origins of the Christian religion. I also condemn and reject the opinion of those who say that a well-educated Christian assumes a dual personality – that of a believer and at the same time of a historian; as if it were permissible for a historian to hold things that contradict the faith of the believer, or to establish premises which, provided there be no direct denial of dogmas, would lead to the conclusion that dogmas are either false or doubtful…Finally, I declare that I am completely opposed to the error of the modernists who hold that there is nothing divine in sacred tradition; or what is far worse, say that there is, but in a pantheistic sense, with the result that there would remain nothing but this plain simple fact – one to be put on a par with the ordinary facts of history – the fact, namely, that a group of men by their own labor, skill, and talent have continued through subsequent ages a school begun by Christ and His apostles. I firmly hold, then, and shall hold to my dying breath, the belief of the Fathers in the charism of truth, which certainly is, was, and always will be in the succession of the episcopacy from the apostles. The purpose of that is, then, not that dogma may be tailored according to what seems better and more suited to the culture of each age; rather, that the absolute and immutable truth preached by the apostles from the beginning may never be believed to be different, may never be understood in any other way…
5) As to the reticence of the modern Magisterium to assert the necessity of being Catholic for salvation, and of the Church’s obligation to Christianize the state: Ascribing to God the creation of the fullness of revealed truth within Catholicism and creeds whose errors fall short thereof, reduces Him to the status of a child incapable of making up his mind about what he wants for Christmas. It inflates the purely human inventions of false religions such that man’s fervid imagination is made coequal with the divine Will expressed by Christ on the Cross. This idea insults God by making Him the author of error, and insults man by claiming he is incapable of knowing truth from error. Justice is denied both God and man.
God is thus deprived of His majesty as the all-good creator of all that is good. Man is deprived of his dignity as cooperator with God and instead is made God’s rival – a rival author of salvation. This is a role more appropriate to Satan than to the creature made in the image and likeness of God.
Either eternal life is “to know the one true God and Jesus Christ Whom He sent” (John 17:3); and “there is no other Name by which men can be saved” (Acts 4:12); and “if [we] deny [Christ] before men, [He] will deny [us] before God” (Matthew 10:33); or Jesus is just “one of several ways to salvation”.
God does not reveal truth and error. He does not reveal truth mixed with error. Our Lord does not reveal that He is truth disguised as error.
Jesus is “the way, the truth, and the life!” (John 14:6) Matthew 16:16-19, John 8:31-58, Revelation 22:16, and the unanimous Tradition and authentic Magisterium of the Church make it abundantly clear that “Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father!” (Philippians 2:11) As Jesus Himself teaches us, “The Lord is God; Him alone shall you worship” (Matthew 4:10). One can not offer God the worship He desires in Spirit and in Truth (John 4:23-24) if one denies Jesus Christ who is Truth incarnate (cf. John 1:1-18). This Jesus, His truth, and the one Church who is the instrument of Truth is “the same yesterday, today, and forever!” (Hebrews 13:8)
Many insist, nonetheless, that salvation is possible without explicit assent in faith to the teachings of the Church. This is based on either the erroneous notion that the Church can be redefined so that it has no outside; or that heretic and schismatic sects continue to be in the Church. Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus! has been cleverly circumnavigated by reasserting its truth – there is no salvation outside the Church – and then proceeding to make the claim that the Incarnation imparts faith on all men, that the religious sense native to man leads by any religious expression to Christ, and that baptized heretics and schismatics retain inseparable membership in the Body of Christ by virtue of the sacrament(s). Thus pagans, Jews, muslims, atheists, lutherans, and photians can be included as participants in the “Paschal Mystery”. Through that participation they are “in” the Church and gain access to salvation. Curiously, the only ones left outside this redefined “Church” are those who persist in and insist on believing that there is an outside of the Church that is real, definable, and in peril of damnation. Such ecumenical neaderthals want everyone baptized, in a state of grace, and under holy obedience to the See of Peter.
6) Vis a vis Rosmini, the Word is not material, neither seen material nor unseen material; God is absolutely other; God is absolutely simple; the Three divine Persons are absolutely distinct although not separate, i.e., they are absolutely One (the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Holy Ghost, the Holy Ghost is not the Father, and all Three are One God); a creature without personal free will is not a human being – the Monothelite heresy not only deprives Jesus of His human will, but thereby denies Him all humanity, and thus denies humanity its Savior
7) Cardinal Ratzinger is accusing Pope Leo XIII of imbecility, of being incapable of reading Rosmini (it is excusable if anyone were incapable of deciphering Rosmini, but that is not a matter of imbecility, but of Rosmini’s incoherence)
8) In other words, according to the CDF ruling under Cardinal Ratzinger, if Rosmini’s propositions are in error, the Leonine condemnation stands; the propositions are in error, ergo, they are condemned; the CDF under Cardinal Ratzinger effected nothing – other than the impression that Rosmini’s propositions are valid and true. This is vital to understanding the modernists’ modus operandi: They do not intend to make an outright denial of perennial truth so much as to effect an inability amongst the faithful to assert the truth. This is accomplished through confusion, obfuscation, and misapplying traditional terminology in such a way as to lure the faithful into heterodoxy without technically bringing the Magisterium into error. At the end of the day, Ratzinger and his ilk can claim not to have officially condoned error. They will claim that the error lies in ascribing “meaning [to] the propositions…[which do] not belong to the authentic position of [the modernists], but to conclusions that may possibly have been drawn from the reading of [their] works." Cardinal Ratzinger would have himself absolved in the same way and on the same grounds that he sought to absolve Rosmini.
9) Proceeding from the previous point, when such self-contradictory and absurd implications are demonstrated to the modernists, the modernists seek to explain away the contradictions as being inadequately articulated or insufficiently understood by the critics; criticism is impossible for the uninitiated and inconceivable to the true believer; terms are rarely, if ever, defined; traditional terms and formulas are co-opted, redefined, and twisted to carry new and contradictory meanings in order to advance the programme of the modernists while retaining the savor of orthodoxy.
10) Mr. Larson is absolutely correct in his characterization that the modern decadence in the realm of ontology results in opening “the doors of Hell…surrender[ing] ourselves to intellectual insanity – with moral and emotional insanity a short distance down the road.”
11) Regarding St. Thomas and the attacks on him by the modernists: Seminaries were given a special charge to maintain the scholarship of the Angelic Doctor as a potent weapon against modernism. Pope St. Pius X echoed Trent and Vatican I in this. He also anticipated the Code of Canon Law of 1917, the Code of 1983, Vatican II, statements of the Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education from the 1970’s through the ‘90’s, and Pope John Paul II in his encyclical letter Fides et Ratio. Sad to say, this emphasis on St. Thomas is observed mostly in its being breached. In Catholic orthodoxy, St. Thomas holds a position similar to that of Plato in philosophy, of whose thought it has been said that all of Western philosophy is merely footnotes. Defense of the faith against modernism depends not on a slavish or idolatrous parroting of Aquinas, but on a return to his principles so that the thread of his thought can be retrieved and extended. Modernism has not surpassed St. Thomas; it ignores St. Thomas. Those who would be faithful to authentic Catholicism ignore St. Thomas at their peril. To further the truths explained by St. Thomas, we must first study, understand, and internalize St. Thomas.
12) Modernity’s attack on ontology is rooted in the fact that modernism is an ontology based on accidents. Being is reduced to a complex of duration-matter-change. In classical philosophical terms duration is analogous to substance, matter to essence, and change to action. There is nothing that is not in time. There is no immaterial being. All is subject to change. Change affects knowledge, knowledge of the divine will, the Church and her teaching, moral law, and human being. Mutability is the arena of all existence. Nothing and no one is permanent. Since all is in flux, it can not matter in the ultimate sense where one stands – physically or philosophically – at any given time. It does not matter where your neighbor is. You and he will be someplace else tomorrow. There are those comfortable saying that even eternity is in flux. Neither the bliss of Heaven nor the pains of hell are eternal. Nothing is. Nothing simply is. So what are the ultimate meaning, purpose, final cause of the universe? Relativism answers with an emphatic, “Who knows?” The penultimate opinion of modernity about ultimate things is a rabid agnosticism. Modern epistemology is a gigantic question mark. The only knowledge acknowledged is the knowledge that denies knowing and knowability. This is not the healthy Socratic ignorance that leads to wisdom, but a pathology proclaiming all certitude impossible and facts merely provisional. (Who but a fool or a lunatic would heed a fiend or madman’s assertion that nothing can be known, brazenly ignoring the fact that such a statement is by self-definition incapable of certitude?) Under the weight of this raging agnosticism, reason must collapse. Reason must have facts and principles on which to work. If all knowledge disintegrates with time and matter, meaning can not be determined or defined. Without definitions discourse can not occur. Lacking discourse, there can be no fruitful communication of things bearing lasting significance. “In the end, three things perdure: Faith, Hope, and Charity – and the greatest of these is Charity!” (1 Corinthians 13:13) But Charity depends on Faith, because God is Love, and without Faith, God can not be known. Love is built on Faith. Faith is built on reason. Reason is built on facts and principles. Yet in a world lacking hard facts and immutable principles, reason can not operate. Absent reason, Faith’s grace has no nature to build on. Faith denied precludes knowledge of God and of His Love. The greatest transcendent attribute is relegated to non-being. Love, as all things, does not last forever, for its basis, Faith, changes because of reason being mutable as a result of the transitory state of knowledge. These different minds with different beliefs and different loves will have different gods, and the existence of many gods denies the existence of one God.
The only conclusion reachable by subjectivism follows a road through relativism, past indifferentism, into agnosticism, and dead-ends in atheism. What begins as a rebellion against divine authority in the papacy proceeds to assert personal authority in morals, then deposes state authority referent to any faith, and ends in a denial not of divine authority, but in a denial of the divine itself. Modernism would make God corruptible and mutable. Change, the corruption of being, is attributed to God. But “what is seen is transitory; what is unseen is eternal.” And “that which is corruptible must clothe itself with incorruptibility, and that which is mortal must clothe itself with immortality.” (cf. 2 Corinthians 4:18 and 1 Corinthians 15:53) God must be immortal, incorruptible, and immutable! God must be! Simply be: I AM WHO AM!
13) Yes! Seewald’s remark and the Cardinal’s response definitely deny the real change of the Eucharistic species, and affirm consubstantiation.
14) Perhaps a Lutheran-Catholic statement on Transubstantiation will complete the statement on justification.
15) Lutheran Eucharistic “theology” would have us believe that Jesus is truly God, truly man, truly bread, and truly wine. Man can be united with God because he is created from the beginning in the image of God – nothing of the sort can be said of bread and wine – they must be replaced, not altered, by Transubstantiation – they are apt matter for the Sacrament as a sign, but they are not appropriate for union with God – nor is any other material being nor any spiritual being, but only man and man alone.
16) If explicit membership in the Body of Christ is not necessary to avoid perdition, then no one can define what constitutes culpable sin. The moment such a definition is made, one establishes the locus for the authority so to define sin and so to articulate the conditions for salvation. Refusal to accept that authority (a.k.a. the Catholic Church) excludes obeying its prescriptions and thus incurs the penalty attached to disbelief, i.e., hell. If no one can say what would guarantee Heaven, then no one can say what would result in hell. If no one can tell us what we must do, then none can say what we may not do. If there is no sure means to be holy, there can be no certainty of what it takes to be damned. To deny an obligation to belong to the one true Church is not to ensure universal salvation, but to call into question whether any Church exists, whether salvation is even possible, whether there is a God willing both salvation and a Church to accomplish His will. Any argument that natural reason can come to a definitive understanding of right and wrong entirely independent of an ultimate appeal to divine judgement is doomed to failure on two counts: 1) since no final authority can be recognized to impose moral obligations, adherence to law will be reduced to obedience in the face of physical force; and 2) natural reason will have nothing to say about the supernatural categories of sin and grace, perdition and salvation, satan and God.
17) One can easily demonstrate that whole families, nations, and sects (not to mention religions) actively deny the truth of Catholicism, and much more its claims of divine institution and the moral binding flowing therefrom. These people do not want to be Catholic. They find Catholicism repugnant. Many of them declare the very idea of God an affront and a personal insult. To suggest that such a disposition is consonant with the attainment of sanctity necessary for beatitude can not in the least be reconciled with the Church’s understanding of herself or her obligation to form her children in obedience to Christ. To suggest that Catholicism would make atheists, muslims, Jews, pagans, heretics, and schismatics happy is absurd. Only a sinful condescension could claim that these people desire Catholicism without knowing it. If free will exists at all, it operates exclusively on the conscious level, the human subject is obliged to use the faculty, and by definition his use can be directed toward any end he chooses – including an absolute rejection of Catholicism and, thus, salvation.
18) That which is in denial of the permanence of Truth as it comes from God in revelation, as it is taught by the Magisterium and through the tradition of the Church, and according to the tenets of right reason knowable through the natural law and the human intellect, is not the licit object of communion for those who would be citizens of the eternal City of God. Thus, nation states, false religions, and errors against Catholic dogma given over to the vagaries of rule by brute force, worship of demons, or the propagation of lies whose source is the devil, may not be embraced by men desirous of a place in the Kingdom of Heaven. Catholic Faith demands of the faithful that they ally themselves only with those human structures designed with the intention of discerning and obeying the will of God. To do otherwise is to receive the punishment of perdition assigned to the Whore of Babylon, the minions of satan, and the ephemera of this passing world: the lake of fire, the second death, eternal, immutable, permanent damnation. That which is of divine truth is the object of the Catholic Faith. Divine truth is immutable. The faithful Catholic can not and may not enter into a communion of body, mind, or soul with any entity which rejects the immutable divine truth by virtue of an inordinate attachment to the transitory things seen in the world of the flesh ruled by the devil. Neither may the Catholic league himself to a political body wedded to rule by any sovereign other than Christ the King, nor may the Catholic admit of a unity with an intellectual school predicated on the errors of modernism spawned in the protestant revolt, nor may the Catholic delude himself to believe that membership in the Body of Christ can be maintained in the present while actively severing all bonds with the patrimony handed down in the Deposit of the Faith from Christ Himself, through the Apostles, to the constant Magisterium, within ancient and living tradition, consonant with divine and revealed truth enfleshed within the laity in but not of the world. In short, the Catholic may not seek concourse with belial in any of his guises, but may find communion only within the Church: Militant on earth, Suffering in Purgatory, Triumphant in the glory of Heaven.
19) The faithful are called to make a permanent commitment of obedience to the truth; the truth to which they commit their obedience must be permanent.
20) God is not a man that He should lie, nor as the son of man, that He should be changed. Hath He said, then, and will He not do? Hath He spoken, and will He not fulfill? – Numbers 23:19
n And thou shalt know that the Lord thy God, He is a strong and faithful God, keeping His covenant and mercy to them that love Him, and to them that keep His commandments, unto a thousand generations. – Deuteronomy 7:9
n The wicked have told me fables: but not as thy law. All thy statutes are truth. They have persecuted me unjustly: do thou help me. They had almost made an end of me upon earth: but I have not forsaken thy commandments…For ever, O Lord, thy word standeth firm in Heaven: thy truth unto all generations…Thy justice is justice for ever: and thy law is the truth…Thy testimonies are justice for ever: give me understanding and I shall live…Thou art near, O Lord: and all thy ways are truth: I have known from the beginning concerning thy testimonies, that thou hast founded them forever…The beginning of thy words is truth: all the judgements of thy justice are for ever…– Psalm 118:85-87; 89-90; 142, 144;151-152; 160
n But the word of God is not bound. Therefore I endure all things for the sake of the elect, that they may also obtain the salvation which is Christ Jesus, with heavenly glory. A faithful saying: for if we be dead with Him, we shall live also with Him. If we suffer, we shall also reign with Him. If we deny Him, He will also deny us. If we believe not, He continueth faithful: He cannot deny Himself…Preach the word: be instant in season, out of season: reprove, entreat, rebuke in all patience and doctrine. For there shall be a time when they will not endure sound doctrine but, according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears: And will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables… – 2 Timothy 2:9-13; 4:2-14
n Let your manners be without covetousness, contented with such things as you have. For He hath said: I will not leave thee, neither will I forsake thee. So that we may confidently say: The Lord is my helper: I will not fear what man shall do to me. Remember your prelates who have spoken the word of God to you: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation, Jesus Christ, yesterday and today: and the same for ever. Be not led away with various and strange doctrines. For it is best that the heart be established with grace, not with meats: which have not profited those that walk in them. We have an altar whereof they have no power to eat who serve the tabernacle…Hebrews 13:5-10
n St. Peter, in his second letter, warns: But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their licentiousness, and because of them the way of truth will be reviled. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words; from of old their condemnation has not been idle, and their destruction has not been asleep.
n Do not think that I am come to destroy the law and the prophets. I am come not to destroy but to fulfill. For amen I say to you, till Heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall not pass of the law, till all be fulfilled. He therefore that shall break one of these least commandments and shall so teach men shall be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. But he that shall do and teach, he shall be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven. – St. Matthew 5:17-19
n Jesus said to them: Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham was made I AM.
God bless you,
Father Smith.
18 April 2006
Easter Tuesday
Holy Family House, Silver Cliff, Wisconsin
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