Guest Column: Heresy: What Is It? by Jerry Meng

Because of his justified concern about the upcoming “beatification” of Karol Wojtyla, Mr. John Vennari recently wrote an excellent exposé of one of Wojtyla’s heresies (Cf. “John Paul II and the Old Covenant”, Catholic Family News, February 2011): that is, his public repudiation of the Catholic teaching that the New Covenant replaced or superseded the Old Covenant, when he declared to the Jewish community in Mainz, Germany on November 17, 1980 that, “The first dimension of this dialogue, that is, the meeting between the people of the Old Covenant, never revoked by God, and that of the New Covenant, is at the same time a dialogue within our Church, that is to say, between the first and second part of her Bible…Jews and Christians, as children of Abraham, are called to be a blessing to the world.”[1] This declaration by Karol Wojtyla aka John Paul II (John Paul II), besides being explicitly heretical, is fraught with dangerous implications.

First, it explodes Catholic teaching that the Church is one in faith, indefectible and infallible, and is an admission that the gates of Hell have prevailed, if one thinks or believes Wojtyla was a true pope.[2] Second, regarding the salvation of the Jewish people, and by extension to all adherents of false religions, it is a denial of the solemnly defined dogma of the New Covenant Church – the Catholic Church – which proclaims that outside the Catholic Church there is no salvation. Finally, there is the ambiguous novelty that seems to insinuate that the Catholic Church is a composite of Old Covenant Jews and New Covenant Catholics, because they are children of Abraham.[3]

In other words, the obvious purport of John Paul II’s statement is that the Jews can be saved without believing in Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, because the Old Covenant is a viable alternative to salvation – it has never been revoked by God! [4] This spells heresy. There is no other way to interpret this new, Modernist doctrine.

Yet, Mr. Vennari cannot bring himself to call it heresy. He merely calls it an error that Catholics must neither embrace nor applaud – although good advice on the face of it, but a grave error on his part, because Catholics are not allowed to pick and choose what a true Pope teaches about the Faith[5] and John Vennari believes that John Paul II was a true pope. So, his use of the word “error” becomes a white-washing, much to the detriment of the readers of Catholic Family News, who remain in a fog of doctrinal confusion, while it maintains the fiction that John Paul II was a true pope despite the evidence of perennial Catholic teaching and the evidence he himself presents in his article.

So, what is the thing named heresy that Mr. Vennari is reluctant to use to define Karol Wojtyla’s declaration in Mainz? St. Thomas Aquinas, the Angelic Doctor, states clearly in his Summa Theologica, Part II-II, Question 11, Article 1: “Falsehood is contrary to truth. Now a heretic is one who devises or follows false or new opinions. Therefore heresy is opposed to the truth, on which faith is founded; and consequently it is a species of unbelief.” Canon 1325.2 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law states that a heretic is “one who, after the reception of baptism pertinaciously denies or doubts any of the truths to be believed by divine and Catholic faith.” Dr. Ludwig Ott in his magisterial Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma points out, that “If a baptised [sic] person deliberately denies or doubts a dogma properly so-called, he is guilty of the sin of heresy (CIC 1325, Par. 2), and automatically becomes subject to the punishment of excommunication (CIC 2314, Par. I).” Question no. 205 of the Baltimore Catechism, asks “How does a Catholic sin against the faith?” The answer: “A Catholic sins against faith by apostasy, heresy, indifferentism, and by taking part in non-Catholic worship.” Explanation “(b)” to this question explains heresy: “Heresy is the refusal of baptized persons, retaining the name Christian, to accept one or more of the truths revealed by God and taught by the Catholic Church. If this refusal is voluntary and obstinate, it is formal heresy; if it is involuntary, it is material heresy.” In the excellent article, “Resisting the Pope, Sedevacantism and Frankenchurch”, Fr. Anthony Cekeda, citing the Catholic canonist A. Michel, points out that there are three distinguishing problems of heresy: dogmatic (heresy as false doctrine), Moral (heresy as sin), and Canonical (heresy as an ecclesiastical crime [delictum]). What is very important to understand is that no true pope can commit an ecclesiastical crime against canon law, because he is the supreme legislator. What concerns us, here, are the first two. Fr. Cekeda states, “The teaching must be an article ‘of divine and Catholic faith’ that the Church has authentically proposed as such. A prior ex cathedra or conciliar definition is not required. ‘The explicit teaching of the universal ordinary magisterium suffices for a truth to be authentically proposed for adherence by the faithful.’ The heretic may deny the doctrine ‘in explicit or equivalent terms,’ through either a contradictory or a contrary proposition.”[6] Thus, John Paul II’s statement about the Old Covenant never having been revoked by God is a contradictory proposition. It was explicitly made before an audience of Jews and it was reported in the media throughout the world.

John Paul II’s Mainz assertion is also a new opinion and it is false. It was made voluntarily and with obstinacy. The canonist Michel says, “Because the act of heresy is an erroneous judgment of intelligence, to commit the sin of heresy it suffices to knowingly and willingly express this erroneous judgment in opposition to the Church’s magisterium. From the moment that one sufficiently knows the existence of the rule of the faith in the Church and that, on any point whatsoever, for whatever motive and in whatever form, one refuses to submit to it, formal heresy is complete. This willed opposition to the Church’s magisterium constitutes the pertinacity authors require for the sin of heresy. With Cajetan we must observe that pertinacity does not of necessity include long obstinacy by the heretic and warnings from the Church. A condition for the sin of heresy is one thing; a condition for the canonical crime of heresy, punishable by canon laws, is another.”[7] As Fr. Cekeda remarks, “This torpedoes the oft-heard R&R [Recognize and Resist policy of the Society of Saint Pius X] argument that a trial or canonical warnings would be required before one could conclude that a pope was pertinacious in heresy.”[8]

Mr. Vennari gives us plenty of Catholic evidence in his article to prove John Paul II’s heresy. For instance, from the New Testament when Our Lord warns the Jews, “If you do not believe that I am He [the Messiah], you will die in your sins.” (John 8:24) And, “You search the Scripture because in them you think you have life everlasting. And it is they that bear witness to Me, yet you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.” (John 5:39-40) And, “Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ. He is Antichrist who denies the Father and the Son.” (1 John 2:22). He cites St. Peter’s sermon to the Jews on Pentecost morning, when the first Pope told the Jews, “Do penance, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of your sins: and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is to you, and to your children, and to all that are far off, whomsoever the Lord our God shall call.” (Acts 2:38-39).As Mr. Vennari rightly observes, “He [St. Peter] did not tell them they had their own workable covenant independent from Christ.” He then quotes from the American theologian, Msgr. Joseph Clifford Fenton, who “pointed out that Saint Peter did not direct his words to men of no religion at all.Saint Peter, the first Pope, directed his words to pious Jews who had traveled from various parts of the world to attend the religious feasts at Jerusalem. Nonetheless, Saint Peter told these well-meaning Jews that the religion of the Old Covenant would not save them, but they must enter the New Covenant forged by the Blood of Jesus Christ, The Catholic Church.”

Again appealing to Holy Scripture, Mr. Vennari cites St. Paul’s letter to the Hebrews (8:13), wherein “St. Paul declares explicitly that Our Lord’s New Covenant ‘has made obsolete the former one,’ that is, made obsolete the old Judaic Covenant.”

He goes on to explain that “The doctrine of the supersession of the Old Testament by the New is a universal and perpetual doctrine of the Catholic Church. It is a defined article of the Catholic Faith that Catholics must believe.” The example he offers is the Profession of Faith of the Ecumenical Council of Florence under Eugene IV: “The sacrosanct Roman Church…firmly believes, professes, and teaches that the matter pertaining to the Old Testament, of the Mosaic law, which are divided into ceremonies, sacred rites, sacrifices, and sacraments, because they were established to signify something in the future, although they were suited to the divine worship at that time, after Our Lord’s coming had been signified by them, ceased, and the sacraments of the New Testament began;…All, therefore, who after that time observe circumcision and the Sabbath and the other requirements of the law, it (the Roman Church) declares alien to the Christian faith and not in the least fit to participate in eternal salvation, unless someday they recover from these errors.”

Well, it’s all too plain to Mr. Vennari, because he rightly concludes, “It is clear then that no Pope could trample underfoot this Scriptural and Dogmatic truth if he wished to be true to the Catholic Faith, and to the Papal Office.”However, this is exactly what John Paul II did. He trampled underfoot this ‘Scriptural and Dogmatic truth”. Still, for some reason baffling to this writer, he does not equate John Paul II’s repudiation as heresy. Instead, he has fallen into line with the preposterous policy of the Society of St. Pius X, which is one of “recognize and resist”. He writes, “We know, then, that Pope John Paul’s rejection of supersessionism is an error that must be neither embraced nor applauded. Catholics have a duty to resist Pope John Paul II’s new teaching, as it defies Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition” (emphasis added). Based on the above definition of St. Thomas Aquinas, common sense would conclude that John Paul II’s words are a species of unbelief, that is, they are heretical. However, and for some reason which is truly mysterious, the Society of Saint Pius X and Mr. John Vennari want to influence the Traditional Catholic world into thinking that a man who has committed heresy in this matter (and in so many others) has actually only made an error, and that he is still a true pope, whom they may resist by sifting papal acts and words in matters of Catholic doctrine. This policy of the Society of Saint Pius X is not only a grievous distortion of Catholic teaching, but it also demands an answer to the question: who gave authority to the Society of Saint Pius X to resist a man they consider to be a true pope.

As I wrote in a previous article, “Because of Catholic teaching before Vatican II, we know there can be no lack of continuity with past Catholic doctrine, since Vatican I (Session IV, July 18, 1870, Dogmatic Constitution I on the Church of Christ) taught, that the faith of Peter [the Pope] cannot fail and no new doctrines can be taught.” Yet, in John Paul II’s public repudiation of supersessionism we certainly have a discontinuity with past Catholic doctrine, a discontinuity which is the introduction of a new and false opinion, which, according to St. Thomas Aquinas, is a species of unbelief and that is heresy. Pope Leo XIII explained in his encyclical Satis Cognitum, “The practice of the Church has always been the same, as is shown by the unanimous teaching of the Fathers, who were wont to hold as outside Catholic communion, and alien to the Church, whoever would recede in the least degree from any point of doctrine proposed by her authoritative Magisterium.” In Mystici Corporis Christi, Pope Pius XII teaches, “For not every sin, however grave and enormous it be, is such as to sever a man automatically from the Body of the Church, as does schism or heresy or apostasy.” Canon 188.4 states, “all offices whatsoever fall vacant and without any declaration if the cleric…publicly defects from the Catholic Faith.” This is exactly what John Paul II did in Mainz in November 1980. Based on the infallible teaching of Vatican I cited above, John Paul II, therefore, could never have even been a true pope from the start.

Now, some readers may question my conclusion that John Paul II was a manifest heretic, but he has exhibited all of the requirements that justify my reasonable conclusion. He denied a Catholic teaching in public, and he knew with what he was in conflict. Anyone who says John Paul II believed that his heresies were Catholic doctrine is totally ignorant themselves. As Mr. John Lane wrote while John Paul II was alive, “he [John Paul II] received a Doctorate in Sacred Theology from the Angelicum (Rome) in 1948 under the guidance of Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, one of the few real Thomists of that era. In fact, Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange was openly anti-Modernist, and caused a huge controversy at that time by publishing a refutation of heretical arguments which were being spread by hand among theologians and students in unpublished tracts. For this action Garrigou-Lagrange was viciously attacked by the Modernists, who asserted that it was ‘unfair’ to publish what had previously only been privately circulated. The Modernists had their final answer when Pope Pius XII alluded, in strong terms, to these tracts, in Humani Generis, thus vindicating Garrigou-Lagrange. Karol Wojtyla was an eye-witness to these events, in daily contact with Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, who was the sponsor of his doctoral thesis….In the light of these facts, it cannot seriously be maintained that JP2 is unaware of the conflict between his Modernist heresies and Catholic doctrine. All canonists teach that if a man is aware of the conflict between his own doctrines and Catholic doctrine, then he is pertinacious.”[9]

Our Lord warned us, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. By their fruits you shall know them.” (Matt. 7:15-16) In other words, by what is apparent, what is visible, what is produced; not by the judgment of the Church. What kind of fruit was it that John Paul II publicly gave to the world in Mainz in 1980 when he repudiated Catholic teaching? It wasn’t Catholic fruit; it was the bitter fruit of heresy. It was new and it was false. It was not Catholic truth. This is heresy according to St. Thomas Aquinas. One guilty of formal heresy is no longer a Catholic, because as Popes Leo XIII and Pius XII taught, it is the sin which ipso facto separates a person from the Church. It does not need a Church declaration as Canon 188.4 affirms. Therefore, the conclusion is that John Paul II was not and cannot have been a true pope. As Fr. Anthony Cekeda explains in his article, “Is Sedevacantism ‘Pope-Sifting’?”, “Traditional Catholics have tried to explain in various ways how the errors and evils of the officially-sanctioned Vatican II changes could come from what appears to be the authority of an infallible Church. The sedevacantist position maintains that the only coherent explanation for this state of affairs is to conclude that, since error and evil cannot come from the authority of an indefectible and infallible Church, the ecclesiastics who promulgated these changes – from pope on down – at some point lost their office and authority through personal heresy.” It is hoped the reader will understand that this is a reasonable conclusion based on the state of affairs and is not the same thing as a confirmatory declaration of fact from the Church.

One must remember what Pope Pius XII emphasized, “That Christ and His Vicar constitute one only Head is the solemn teaching of Our predecessor of immortal memory Boniface VIII in the Apostolic Letter Unam Sanctam; and his successors have never ceased to repeat the same” [Mystici Corporis, #40]. What St. Ambrose meant when he said, “where Peter is, there is the Church” was explained by Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical Testem benevolentiae to Cardinal Gibbons, January 22, 1899. “One in unity of doctrine as in unity of government and this Catholic, such is the Church; and since God has established that its center and foundation be in the Chair of Peter, it is rightly called Roman; for ‘where Peter is, there is the Church.’” Consequently, it would be deceptive to say that John Paul II was one with Christ and that the Church was in Mainz in 1980, when he declared that the Old Covenant had not been revoked by God. It would be contrary to Catholic belief and to common sense to assert that the Catholic Church is infallible and indefectible in the face of the doctrinal fiasco committed in Mainz.

In light of these contradictions, it is an absolute absurdity for Mr. John Vennari, obviously, under the influence of the Society of Saint Pius X, to insist that John Paul II was a true pope. Worse still, it puts him and the Society of Saint Pius X in a dangerous dilemma, because of the Society of Saint Pius X’s “recognize and resist” policy. In other words, according to the Society of Saint Pius X, Catholics may “recognize” a pope while at the same time “resisting” his bad laws and doctrinal errors. This, however, is not Catholic teaching. Briefly, Vatican I taught that no Catholic is free to reject rites promulgated by the Church; condemned the proposition that the Pope cannot be trusted to make judgments on faith and morals; condemned the proposition that Catholics are free to reject or accept ordinary magisterial teachings from a pope since they can be in error; and condemned the proposition that the faith of a pope can fail.

With these facts before us, we can see that the Traditionalist Catholic Mr. John Vennari and the Society of Saint Pius X have been disobedient to those whom they believe to be legitimate and valid popes since the death of Pope Pius XII, because they have refused to accept or have condemned certain teachings or rites presented by these popes to the Catholic world for belief and practice, particularly, in this article, John Paul II’s repudiation of supersessionism. Therefore, Mr. Vennari and the Society of Saint Pius X have rejected the authority of the man they believe to be a true pope and have fallen into schism. They are no longer Catholic according to the teaching of popes and ecumenical councils. The only other option they have, not to be schismatics and to remain consistent with their thinking (leaving out the option of sedevacantism), is to give their assent to the new teachings. Of course, this would mean that the Catholic Church defected and it would be an acknowledgement that the gates of hell have prevailed against the Church, which Our Lord promised would never happen.

You can’t have it both ways, Mr. Vennari. It is a metaphysical impossibility. Our Lord said, “He that is not with me is against me: and he that gathereth not with me, scattereth.” (Luke 11:23). It is impossible to be with and against Christ at the same time. To assert that one can is a matter of blasphemy.

[1] “Those of the seed of Abraham who live according to the Law of Moses and who do not believe in Christ before death shall not be saved; especially they who curse this very Christ in the synagogues; who curse everything by which they might obtain salvation and escape the vengeance of fire” (St. Justin Martyr). “So clearly was the transition then made from the Synagogue to the Church that, when the Lord gave up His soul, the veil of the Temple was rent in two” (Pope St. Leo the Great). “Many, I know, respect the Jews and think that their present way of life is a venerable one. This is why I hasten to uproot and tear out this deadly opinion. I said that the synagogue is no better than a theater and I bring forward a prophet as my witness. Surely the Jews are not more deserving of belief than their prophets. ‘You had a harlot’s brow; you became shameless before all’. Where a harlot has set herself up, that place is a brothel. But the synagogue in not only a brothel and a theater; it also is a den of robbers and a lodging for wild beasts. Jeremiah said: ‘Your house has become for me the den of a hyena’. He does not simply say ‘of wild beast’, but ‘of a filthy wild beast’, and again: ‘I have abandoned my house, I have cast off my inheritance’. But when God forsakes a people, what hope of salvation is left? When God forsakes a place, that place becomes the dwelling of demons” (St. John Chrysostom). In commenting on Matthew 23:15, St. Hilary said, “For after the preaching of Christ there was no faith left in their doctrine [Scribes/Pharisees], but whoever was gained to the faith of the Jews became a child of hell” (Catena Aurea). Despite these dire warnings and statements of fact, John Paul II and his successor have visited various synagogues and confirmed the Jews in their false worship.

[2] One of the four marks of the true Church of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is that it is one – its oneness or unity. Dr. Ludwig Ott in his Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, says, “By unity is to be understood not merely numerical unity or unicity, but above all the inner unity or unicity in the sense of being undivided.” He points out that Our Lord “placed Peter over the other Apostles and instituted in him both a perpetual principle of unity and a visible foundation.” In Testem benevolentiae Pope Leo XIII cites St. Ambrose, “where Peter is, there is the Church.” Pope Pius XII in Mystici Corporis taught, “That Christ and His Vicar constitute one only Head is the solemn teaching of Our predecessor of immortal memory Boniface VIII in the Apostolic Letter Unam Sanctam; and his successors have never ceased to repeat the same.” Vatican I, Session IV defined that the faith of Peter cannot fail. Fathers Francisco and Dominic Radecki, CMRI, in their work entitled Tumultuous Times, cite St. Ambrose: “[He] tells us that faith is the foundation of the Church; because of the faith, and the person of Peter, the Church will always be preserved from error [infallibility]. Indefectibility means that the Catholic Church will, until the end of time, remain essentially what she is. Again, Ott: “In saying that the Church is indefectible we assert both her imperishableness, that is, her constant duration to the end of the world, and the essential immutability of her teaching, her constitution and her liturgy. This does not exclude the decay of individual ‘churches’ and accidental changes.” The indefectibility of the Church requires that at least a remnant of the Church will exist until the end of the world, and a true pope will never authoritatively teach error to the entire Church. It does not exclude antipopes posing as popes…or a counterfeit sect that reduces the adherents of the true Catholic Church to a remnant in the last days.

[3] What did Wojtyla mean by “our Church”? It seems to fit the new ecclesiology of Vatican II wherein the Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church. That is, that the Church of Christ is no longer identified as the Catholic Church. It has a greater extension to include more than just Catholics. Fr. Curzio Nitoglia states that “The concoction of this ‘new church’ was to justify false ecumenism and inter-denominational dialogue and prayer meetings so rabidly encouraged and practiced by the Roman Modernists. It is diametrically opposed to Catholic teaching.” So, was Wojtyla referring to the Catholic Church per se or to the Modernist invention: the umbrella church called the Church of Christ which subsists in the Catholic Church?

[4] In a Zenit News Story, “Are Believers of other Religions Saved?”, Sept. 5, 2000, Cardinal Ratzinger made the following statement, “[W]e are in agreement that a Jew, and this is true for believers of other religions, does not need to know or acknowledge Christ as the Son of God in order to be saved, if there are insurmountable impediments, of which he is not blameworthy, to preclude it.” This accords, perfectly, with John Paul II’s Mainz talk to the Jewish community. Another evil implication derived from this rejection of Jesus Christ is that those who convert to Judaism from Catholicism can be saved. We have an example of this during the episcopacy of John Cardinal O’Connor of New York noted by Dr. Thomas A. Droleskey when he wrote, “ABC-TV's Nightline televised a story on Christmas night in the late 1990s that dealt with a young Catholic man, Stephen Dubner, who had found out that his parents had converted from Judaism to Catholicism. Horrified by this knowledge he learned in his twenties, Mr. Dubner decided to "rectify" the injustice of his parents' conversion by converting to Judaism. Mr. Dubner reached out to the then Archbishop of New York, the late John Cardinal O'Connor, to ask him how to deal with his mother's grief at his conversion to her former religion. Cardinal O'Connor did not attempt to dissuade Mr. Dubner from converting out of the true Faith. Indeed, His Eminence told his interviewer that "God is smiling on all of this" as the interview ended. This prompted me to write an article for The Wanderer entitled, "How to Break a Mother's Heart." The Mother was, of course, Our Most Blessed Mother, Mary ever Virgin.” Cf. Dr. Droleskey’s website www.Christorchaos.com.

[5] According to the twist Society of Saint Pius X authorities have put on it is this: we are free to sift what is Catholic in the teachings of a pope on matters of faith and morals, because he can’t be trusted to make judgments on these matters. Their seeming justification is Galatians 2:11-14 in which is described St. Paul’s public rebuke of St. Peter for “dissimulating about observing the Old Testament dietary laws: ‘I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed.’” Fr. Cekeda remarks, “St. Thomas and others observe that St. Paul gave an example of how subjects should give fraternal correction to their prelates ‘even publicly’ if they commit a crime that is public, scandalous and a danger to the faith. This is standard teaching in moral theology manuals. The principle, however, applies only to fraternal correction. No theologian I know of extends it to rejecting a pope’s universal disciplinary laws or teachings of his universal ordinary magisterium. The theologian Suarez, in fact, says that neither Gal 2:11-14 nor Mt 18:17 allow ‘fraternal correction’ of a pope through public denunciation of his crime” (Cf. Resisting the Pope, Sedevacantism and Frankenchurch). The “recognize and resist” policy of the Society of Saint Pius X is a grave error and possibly heretical, because it was condemned by Vatican I (cf. Denziger 1792) and by Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical Satis Cognitum #15. This erroneous teaching of the Society of Saint Pius X has influenced thousands of Traditional Catholics, unfortunately.

[6] Cf. www.traditionalmass.org. In footnote 41, Fr. Cekeda gives an illustration of both. “Example: Christ is God-Man = de fide. Christ is not God-Man = contradictory proposition. Christ is pure man, Christ is an angel = contrary propositions.”

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid. In another article by Fr. Cekeda, “Did Bellarmine Condemn Sedevacantism?” he mentions that St. Robert Bellarmine in his work De Romano Pontifice, II. 30, treats the question of whether a heretical pope can be deposed. “A pope who is a manifest heretic automatically (per se) ceases to be pope and head, just as he ceases automatically to be a Christian and a member of the Church. Wherefore, he can be judged and punished by the Church. This is the teaching of all the ancient Fathers who teach that manifest heretics immediately lose all jurisdiction.”

[9] Cf. www.sedevacantist.com/post7.html. New information indicates that Karol Wojtyla did not receive his doctorate at the Angelicum, at least, according to Fr. Luigi Villa in an extensive article he wrote in Chiesa viva of September 2010. It is titled, “Karol Wojtyla Beatified? Never!” In a chronological section of the article that describes Wojtyla’s life before 1978, Fr. Villa presents the following: "1948 (June 14) Took the admission examination for his Ph.D. Cardinal Sapieha sent him to Rome to continue his studies at the Angelicum. But there was, at that time, as Rector of the university, the great theologian and writer Father Garrigou-Lagrange, who was a giant on Thomism. Wojtyla, not being a member of that teaching, was following the philosophy that he wanted, that of existentialism, the modern type of Kant. Therefore his dissertation, 'Faith according to St. John of the Cross,' was criticized and rejected by Lagrange, because it supported the ideas of the Modernists who claimed that Faith is based on personal experience. For this, Wojtyla was not accepted for the doctorate and he had to return to the University of Krakow, where there he was accepted." This is certainly proof of Wojtyla's Modernism. (see http://www.ourladyofgoodsuccess.com/frames-3-4-2005/chiesa-viva/Chiesa%20viva%20430%20S%20en[2].pdf.)


© Copyright 2011, Jerry Meng. All rights reserved.

Guest Column: Heresy? What Is It?