Phillip of Hesse
Vol 10 Issue 3 ~ Editor: Rev. Fr. Courtney Edward Krier
January 21, 2017 ~ Saint Agnes, opn!
1. Baptism: Means of Salvation (102)
2. Third Sunday after Epiphany
3. Saints Vincent and Anastasius
4. Family and Marriage
5. Articles and notices
Dear Reader:
One of the first moral departures that Martin Luther introduced in his church was divorce. Allowing Phillip of Hesse to divorce Catherine was a confirmation that he rejected theSacramental system of the Church and that of the acceptance of the authority of Scripture being the infallible Word of God (Scripture was to be privately interpreted, making it relative) and placed marriage in the hands of the secular power. Henry VIII assumed the same, but went further by subjecting the Church to his authority. Bergoglio, Protestant as he is, has done the same: placing marriage in the secular sphere by both accepting Catholics who attempt to marry secularly as valid and by allowing those who obtain a divorce to be accepted by his church as model members allowed to participate at its communion service. After 500 years, Martin Luther must be gleeful in hell that he achieved the fall of Rome from the “Popery” of the Catholic Church that upheld the belief in Mass as a Sacrifice, grace, merit, Mary as Virgin and Intercessor, the intercession of Saints (not just saints as models of political correctness) and marriage as unchanging and unchangeable. Bergoglio is bold-faced in not only participating in Protestant events, but even issuing a stamp to commemorate a personal hero of his but an enemy to the Roman Catholic Church. As the Church prays during this Chair of Unity Octave for the conversion of non-Catholics to the Roman Catholic Faith, outside of which there is no salvation, may prayer also be made that non-Catholics and misguided Catholics understand the Conciliar Church is not the Catholic Church founded on Peter, but a Novus Ordo Church founded on Protestant Liberalism.
As always, enjoy the readings and commentaries provided for your benefit. —The Editor
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Baptism
Means of Salvation
Sacrament of Baptism
Baptism by Desire and Baptism in Blood
As the neo-Modernists were attempting to a meaningless formula the necessity of belonging to the true Church in order to gain eternal salvation, Leonard Feeney and the Saint Benedict Center of Boston College, in response, confined salvation only to baptized (with water) Catholics, that is, formal members of the Mystical Body. The Holy Office, with the approval of Pius XII, addressed the following decree to Archbishop Richard Cushing which was to set straight that the Church doctrine that baptism in voto cannot be denied unless one were to deny the Magisterium of the Church her authority and right to teach the Truth and the members of the Church the obligation to submit to her teaching. The decree was not published until October of 1952 seemingly to not detract from Pius XII’s attempt to stress the teachings he brought out in Mystici Corporis and Humani generis rejecting “eirenism” or what is now termed “ecumemism” and therefore truly seeking to bring non-Catholics to the fold by conversion to the Catholic Faith. Since Leonard Feeney did not retract his error, one may say the Church was blessed to have this document published that clearly explains extra ecclesiae non est salus.
Accordingly the Most Eminent and Most Reverend Cardinals of this Supreme Congregation, in a plenary session, held on Wednesday, July 27, 1949, decreed, and the August Pontiff in an audience on the following Thursday, July 28, 1949, deigned to give his approval, that the following explanations pertinent to the doctrine, and also that invitations and exhortations relevant to discipline, be given.
We are bound by divine and Catholic faith to believe all those things which are contained in the word of God, whether it be Scripture or Tradition, and are proposed by the Church to be believed as divinely revealed, not only through solemn judgment but also through the ordinary and universal teaching office (magisterium).
Now, among those things which the Church has always preached and will never cease to preach there is also contained that infallible statement by which we are taught that there is no salvation outside the Church.
However, this dogma must be understood in the sense in which the Church itself understands it. For Our Saviour gave the things that are contained in the deposit of faith to be explained by the ecclesiastical magisterium and not by private judgments.
Now, in the first place, the Church teaches us that in this matter we are dealing with a most strict precept of Jesus Christ. For He explicitly ordered His apostles to teach all nations to observe all things whatsoever He Himself had commanded.
Now, not the least important among the commandments of Christ is that one by which we are commanded to be incorporated by baptism into the Mystical Body of Christ, which is the Church, and to remain united to Christ and to His Vicar, through whom He Himself governs the Church on earth in a visible manner, Therefore, no one will be saved who, knowing the Church to have been divinely established by Christ, nevertheless refuses to submit to the Church or withholds obedience from the Roman Pontiff, the Vicar of Christ on earth.
The Saviour not only gave the precept that all nations should enter the Church, but He also established the Church as a means of salvation, without which no one may be able to enter the kingdom of eternal glory. ln His infinite mercy God has willed that the effects, necessary for one to be saved, of those helps to salvation which are directed towards man’s final end, not by intrinsic necessity, but only by divine institution, can also be obtained in certain circumstances when these helps are used only in intention or desire. This we see clearly stated in the Sacred Council of Trent, both with reference to the sacrament of regeneration and with reference to the sacrament of penance.
ln its own way, the same thing must be said about the Church, insofar as the Church itself is a general help to salvation. Therefore, in order that one may obtain eternal salvation, it is not always required that he be incorporated into the Church actually as a member, but it is required that at least he be united to it by intention and desire.
However, this desire need not always be explicit, as it is in catechumens; but, when a person is involved in invincible ignorance, God accepts also an implicit intention (votum) which is so called because it is included in that good disposition of the soul whereby a person wishes his will to be conformed to the will of God.
These things are clearly taught in that dogmatic letter which was issued by the Sovereign Pontiff, Pope Pius XII, on June 29, 1943, “On the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ.” For in this letter the Sovereign Pontiff clearly distinguishes between those who are really (in re) incorporated into the Church as members and those who are joined to it only in intention (in voto).
Discussing the members of whom the Mystical Body is composed here on earth, the same August Pontiff says: “Only those who have received the laver of regeneration, who profess the true faith, who have not miserably separated themselves from the fabric of the Body or been expelled by legitimate authority by reason of very serious offences, are actually to be counted as members of the Church.”
Towards the end of the same encyclical letter, when most affectionately inviting to unity those who do not belong to the body of the Catholic Church, he mentions those who are “ordered to the Redeemer’s Mystical Body by a sort of unconscious desire and intention,” and these he by no means excludes from eternal salvation, but, on the contrary, asserts that they are in a condition in which “they cannot be secure about their own eternal salvation,” since ” they still lack so many and such great heavenly helps to salvation that can be enjoyed only in the Catholic Church.”
With these wise words he reproves both those who exclude from eternal salvation all those united to the Church only by implicit desire and those who falsely assert that men can be saved equally in every religion.
Nor must we think that any kind of intention of entering the Church is sufficient in order that one may be saved. It is requisite that the intention by which one is ordered to the Church should be informed by perfect charity; and no explicit intention can produce its effect unless the man have supernatural faith: “For he who comes to God must believe that God exists and is a rewarder of those who seek Him.” The Council of Trent declares: “Faith is the beginning of man’s salvation, the foundation and root of all justification, without which it is impossible to please God and attain to the fellowship of His children.”
Joseph Fenton, who is not writing to refute the error of Leonard Feeney but to defend the dogma Outside the (Catholic) Church there is no salvation, provides the following commentary:
This letter, known as the Suprema haec sacra, from the first three words of the Latin text, is of unique importance for the study of this section of sacred theology. It is an instruction of the Holy Office, sent out with the approval and at the bidding of the Sovereign Pontiff himself. As such, it is an authoritative, though obviously not an infallible, document. That is to say, the teachings contained in the Suprema haec sacra are not to be accepted as infallibly true on the authority of this particular document. Nevertheless, the fact remains that much of its teaching—indeed, what we may call the substance of its teaching—is material which has appeared in previous documents emanating from the Sovereign Pontiff himself and from Oecumenical Councils of the Catholic Church.
The great importance of the Suprema haec sacra is based on the fact that this letter sets forth in full explicitness some distinctions and explanations that had been clearly implied and forcefully taught in previous authoritative documents of the teaching Church, but which had never before been set forth in these authoritative pronouncements as explicitly as in the writings of the traditional Catholic theologians. Among these teachings are: (1) the statement that the Catholic Church is necessary for salvation with the necessity of means and with the necessity of precept; (2) the fact that when we describe an individual who is convinced that the Catholic Church has truly been established by Our Lord, and who still obdurately refuses to enter the Church, as being in a condition in which he cannot attain his eternal salvation, we are speaking of the Church’s necessity of precept rather than of its necessity of means; (3) the explicit distinction between an explicit and an implicit will to enter the Church; (4) the outright assertion that a person who has merely an implicit will to enter the Church can be saved; and (5) the fact that no will or desire of entering the Church can be effective for the attainment of eternal salvation unless it is enlightened by true supernatural faith and animated by perfect charity. (103-104)
Joseph Fenton was a peritus (theologian) chosen by Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani during Vatican II. Cardinal Ottaviani was the most notable voice among the Church Fathers to oppose Vatican II and the Novus Ordo, but apparently succumbed to the oxymoron of a non-Catholic claiming to be Pope. Ottaviani left the Vatican in 1968 but upon the introduction of the Novus Ordo of Giovanni Montini still attempted to stop the apostasy by showing the Novus Ordo to be nothing more than a revised Protestant service (cf. Ottaviani Intervention, 25 September, 1969). He died on August 3, 1979. Joseph Fenton, in his diary, was to write about the Council as it opened: If I did not believe God, I would be convinced that the Catholic Church was about to end. (Joseph Fenton Clifford Diaries, entry for November 23, 1962, 129)
How does Joseph Fenton reconcile the dogma of No salvation outside the Catholic Church and that of Baptism in voto with that of member of the Mystical Body of Christ?
The Mystici Corporis teaches by clear implication and the Suprema haec sacra teaches quite explicitly that men may be saved only “within” the Catholic Church. They can be “within ” this society so as to obtain salvation in it either as members of this organization or as people who seek truly, even if only implicitly, to join it. There is no other religion “within” which men may attain the Beatific Vision. It would be a gross understatement to say that men cannot be saved “equally well” in every religion. The only one within which they can attain their ultimate supernatural end is that of the Catholic Church. Thus, it would seem that the meaning of the Latin “aequaliter” in its context in the Holy Office letter, is best expressed in English by the term “equally,” rather than by “equally well.”
(14) In some ways this last paragraph in the doctrinal section of the letter Suprema haec sacra contains its most important contribution to the section of sacred theology that deals with the Church’s necessity for the attainment of eternal salvation. Here the Holy Office insists that it is a mistake to think “that any kind of intention of entering the Church is sufficient in order that one may be saved.” It states that no desire of entering the Church can be effective for the attainment of eternal salvation unless it be animated or informed by perfect charity and enlightened by supernatural faith.
The expression “perfect charity,” here in the context of the Suprema haec sacra, means a genuine and supernatural love of friendship for God based on the awareness of divine faith. It is, in other words, a love of God known as He has told us about Himself in the content of divine public revelation. In the love of charity, as distinct from the merely natural love of God which definitely does not suffice for the attainment of eternal salvation, there is a love of friendship for God known, at least in a confused way, in the Trinity of His Persons.
This charity is distinct from the supernatural affection of hope, in which man loves the Triune God as man’s own ultimate Good. It is distinct from the initial love of which the Council of Trent speaks, in that this charity is a love of benevolence and of friendship, founded on a common possession. This common good is the divine nature itself, which is the Godhead, and which is shared by the person who lives the life of sanctifying grace.
The Holy Office letter also teaches that “no implicit intention can produce its effect [of eternal salvation] unless the man has supernatural faith.” Here it is imperative to remember that the document speaks of that faith which is defined by the Vatican Council as “the supernatural virtue by which, with the impulse and aid of God’s grace, we believe the things He has revealed to be true, not because of their intrinsic truth, seen in the natural light of reason, but because of the authority of God Himself revealing, who can neither be deceived nor deceive.” This is the faith which the same Vatican Council described as ” the beginning of human salvation.”
In the text of the Suprema haec sacra we are reminded that the need for this supernatural faith holds true even where there is merely an implicit desire to enter the Church. In other words, it is possible to have a man attain salvation when he has no clear-cut notion of the Church, and desires to enter it only insofar as he wills to do all the things God wills that he should do. The desire to enter the Church can be implicit in the desire to please God and to achieve salvation. But, at the same time, there must be some explicit supernatural truth, actually revealed by God and actually accepted as true on the authority of God revealing, on the part of every man who attains eternal salvation.
When the desire is merely implicit, then a man’s faith in the divinely revealed truths about the Church is likewise implicit. The point made here by the Holy Office letter is precisely that there must be some definite and explicit content to any act of genuine supernatural faith. If a man is to be saved, he must accept as true, on the authority of God revealing, the teaching which God has communicated to the world as His public and supernatural message. (Fenton, 115-117)
(To be continued)
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Fr. Leonard Goffine
The Ecclesiastical Year (1880)
The Introit of this day’s Mass says: Adore God, all ye His angels: Sion heard, and was glad; and the daughters of Juda rejoiced. The Lord hath reigned; let the earth rejoice; let the many islands be glad. (Ps. xcvi. 1.) Glory be to the Father, &c.
Prayer of the Church: Almighty everlasting God, mercifully look upon our infirmity, and stretch forth the right hand of Thy majesty for our protection. Through our protection. Through our etc.
EPISTLE (Rom. xii. 16-21.) Brethren, be not wise in your own conceits. To no man rendering evil for evil: providing good things not only in the sight of God, but also in the sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as is in you, having peace with all men; not revenging yourselves, my dearly beloved but give place unto wrath; for it is written: Revenge is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. But if thy enemy be hungry, give him to eat; if he thirst, give him to drink; for doing this, thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head. Be not overcome by evil, but overcome evil by good.
When are we overcome by evil?
When we wish to take revenge. “Revenge is no sign of courage,” says St. Ambrose, “but rather of weakness and cowardice. As it is the sign of a very weak stomach to be unable to digest food, so it is the mark of a very weak mind to be unable to bear a harsh word.” “Are you impatient,” says the same saint, “you are overcome; are you patient, you have overcome.”
What should we do if our reputation is injured?
We should leave its revenge, or its defence and protection to God, who has retained that for Himself. “But as a good name,” says St. Francis de Sales, “is the main support of human society, and as without it we could not be useful to that society, but even hurtful to it on account of scandal, we should feel bound, for love of our neighbor, to aim after a good reputation, and to preserve it.” We should not be too sensitive about this, however, for too great a sensitiveness makes one obstinate, eccentric, and intolerable, and only tends to excite and increase the malice of the detractors. The silence and contempt with which we meet a slander or an injustice, is generally a more efficacious antidote than sensitiveness, anger, or revenge. The contempt of a slander at once disperses it, but anger shows a weakness, and gives the accusation an appearance of probability. If this does not suffice, and the slander continues, let us persevere in humility’ and lay our honor and our soul into the hands of God, according to the admonitions of the Apostle.
How do we “heap coals of fire on the head of our enemy?”
When we return him good for evil, for seeing our well meaning towards him, the flush of shame reddens his face for the wrongs he has done us. St. Augustine explains these words thus: “By giving food and drink or doing other kindnesses to your enemy, you will heap coals, not of anger, but of love, upon his head, which will inflame him to return love for love.” Learn therefore, from the example of Christ and His saints, not to allow yourself to be overcome by evil, but do good to those that hate and persecute you.
ASPIRATION Ah, that I might, according to the words of St. Paul, so live that I may be a child of the Heavenly Father, who lets His sun shine on the just and the unjust!
GOSPEL (Matt. viii. 1-13.) At that time, when Jesus was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him; and behold, a leper came and adored him, saying: Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus, stretching forth his hand, touched him, saying: I will, be thou made clean. And forthwith his leprosy was cleansed. And Jesus saith to him, See thou tell no man: but go, show thyself to the priest, and offer the gift which Moses commanded for a testimony unto them. And when he had entered into Capharnaum, there came to him a centurion, beseeching him, and saying: Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, and is grievously tormented. And Jesus saith to him: I will come and heal him. And the centurion making answer, said: Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldst enter under my roof; but only say the word, and my servant shall be healed. For I also am a man subject to authority, having under me soldiers; and I say to this man: Go, and he goeth; and to another: Come, and he cometh; and to my servant: Do this, and he doeth it. And Jesus hearing this, marvelled; and said to them that followed him: Amen I say to you, I have not found so great faith in Israel. And I say to you that many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; but the children of the kingdom shall be cast into the exterior darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And Jesus said to the centurion: Go, and as thou hast believed, so be it done to thee; and the serva
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