Vol 10 Issue 11 ~ Editor: Rev. Fr. Courtney Edward Krier
March 18, 2017 ~ Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, opn.
1. Is the Chair of Peter Vacant? An Argument for Sedevacantism
2. Third Sunday in Lent
3. Saint Joseph (Transferred to March 20 this year)
4. Family and Marriage
5. Articles and notices
Dear Reader:
Next Saturday the Church celebrates the anniversary of the Incarnation. There are three feasts that Holy Mother Church uses since this event, the Incarnation, is the center of the history of salvation. Everything points to this event or extends from this event. March 25 is preceded by the Feast of Saint Gabriel to put in our minds (quasi vigil) the great event he would announce also thrice: To Daniel (Daniel 9:21):
Seventy weeks are shortened upon thy people, and upon thy holy city, that transgression may be finished, and sin may have an end, and iniquity may be abolished; and everlasting justice may be brought; and vision and prophecy may be fulfilled; and the saint of saints may be anointed. Know thou therefore, and take notice: that from the going forth of the word, to build up Jerusalem again, unto Christ the prince, there shall be seven weeks, and sixty-two weeks (Daniel 9:21ff);
to Zachary:
But the angel said to him: Fear not, Zachary, for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John. . . And he (John) shall go before him (Christ) in the spirit and power of Elias; that he may turn the hearts of the fathers unto the children, and the incredulous to the wisdom of the just, to prepare unto the Lord a perfect people. . . I am Gabriel, who stand before God: and am sent to speak to thee, and to bring thee these good tidings. . . (Luke 1: 13ff)
and to Mary:
And in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God into a city of Galilee, called Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’ s name was Mary. And the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. . . Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a son; and thou shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the most High; and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of David his father; and he shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever. And of his kingdom there shall be no end. (Ibid. 1:26ff)
Therefore, on Christmas (December 25) she celebrates the Incarnation, where Christ becomes visible to humanity; on the feast of the Annunciation, as mentioned, she commemorates the event of the Incarnation; and on October 11 (January 1 now stresses more the Circumcision), the Feast of the Divine Materity, Theotokos, in which the Council of Ephesus proclaimed the Incarnation when the Church declared Mary truly the Mother of God, because Christ her Son was truly God and truly man, i.e., the Incarnation.
Though not a day of obligation, may faithful Catholics give thanks to the Father for giving us His Son. And may Catholics give thanks to Mary His Mother for saying her fiat. Let us remember that as we say the Hail Mary, the Angelus and the Last Gospel we profess our faith in the Incarnation.
As always, enjoy the readings and commentaries provided for your benefit. —The Editor
___________________
Is the Chair of Peter Vacant?
An Argument for Sedevacantism
by Rev. Courtney Edward Krier
3. The Church Possesses the Attributes of Authority, Infallibility and Indefectibility
Continued:
b. What is the infallibility of the Church? It is the impossibility of the Church to fall into error regarding her Faith and morals.
A full explanation of the infallibility of the Church would include papal infallibility, which must and will be covered in its own right. Yet, let me insert that the admittance the Church is a divine institution, guided by the Holy Ghost, is the key to understand its inerrancy. The intrinsic basis of the infallibility of the Church lies in the assistance of the Holy Ghost, which was promised to her especially for the exercise of the teaching office: And I will ask the Father and He will give you another Advocate to dwell with you forever, the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you shall know Him, because He will dwell with you, and be in you (John 14: 16-17).
This inerrancy St. Irenaeus stresses against the Gnostic error that the promulgation of the Church is always the same, because she possesses the Spirit of the Holy Ghost: Where thy Church is, there is also the Spirit of God, and where the Spirit of God is, there is the Church and all grace; but the Spirit is truth (Adv. haer., iii. 24,1), and where he states the Church as the house of the truth, from which false teaching is excluded (iii. 24,2). Again he informs us that the unfalsified tradition of the apostolic teaching is guaranteed by the uninterrupted succession of the Bishops from the Apostles downwards. They have received the certain charisma of the truth according to the pleasure of the Father, with the succession in the office of Bishop (iv. 26, 2). And the Roman Catechism teaches:
[T]his one Church, because governed by the Holy Ghost, cannot err in delivering the discipline of faith and morals; so all other societies, which arrogate to themselves the name of Church, because guided by the spirit of the devil, are necessarily sunk in the most pernicious errors both of doctrine and morals (Part I, ch. X).
Again, the Vatican Council (Sess. IV, cap. 3) instructs and lays before us the correct belief:
To satisfy this pastoral duty, Our predecessors have always expended untiring effort to propagate Christ’s doctrine of salvation among all people of the world. And with similar care they have watched that the doctrine might be preserved genuine and pure wherever it was received. Therefore, the bishops of the whole world, sometimes singly, sometimes assembled in councils, following the long-standing custom of the churches and the form of the ancient rule, reported to this Apostolic See those dangers especially which came up in matters of faith, so that here where the faith can suffer no diminution, the harm suffered by the faith might be repaired. However, the Roman Pontiffs on their part, according as the condition of the times and the circumstances dictated, sometimes calling together ecumenical councils or sounding out the mind of the Church throughout the whole world, sometimes through regional councils, or sometimes by using other helps which divine Providence supplied, have, with the help of God, defined as to be held such matters as they had found consonant with Holy Scripture and with apostolic tradition. The reason for this is that the Holy Spirit was promised to the successors of St. Peter not that they might make known new doctrine by His revelation, but rather, that with His assistance they might religiously guard and faithfully explain the revelation or deposit of faith that was handed down through the apostles. Indeed, it was this apostolic doctrine that all the Fathers held and the holy orthodox Doctors reverenced and followed. For they fully realized that this See of St. Peter always remains untainted by any error, according to the divine promise of our Lord and Savior made to the prince of His disciples, ‘I have prayed for thee, that thy faith may not fail; and thou, when once thou hast turned again, strengthen thy brethren’” (Luke 22: 32; cf. D 1836).
Now, if the Church could err in her opinion, consequences would arise which would be incompatible with the sanctity of the Church. There would be no guarantee that we are taught the same doctrines, receiving the Sacraments, obeying the Church. Rather, as Pope Leo XIII writes in his Encyclical on the Unity of the Church:
Therefore, as appears from what has been said, Christ instituted in the Church a living authoritative, and permanent Magisterium, which by His own power He strengthened, by the Spirit of Truth, He taught, and by miracles confirmed. He willed and ordered, under gravest penalties, that its teachings should be received as if they were His own. As often, therefore, as it is declared on the authority of this teaching that this or that is contained in the deposit of divine in virtue of an everlasting covenant (Hebr. 13:20) revelation, it must be believed by everyone as true. If it could in any way be false, an evident contradiction follows; for then God Himself would be the author of error in man. “Lord, if we be in error, we are being deceived by Thee” (Richard of St. Victor, De Trin., l. 1, c. 2). In this manner, all cause for doubting being removed, can it be lawful for anyone to reject any one of those truths without by the very fact falling into heresy? –without separating himself from the Church? —without repudiating in one sweeping act the whole of Christian teaching? For such is the nature of faith that nothing can be more absurd than to accept some things and reject others. . . (9)
Ott speaks of an active and a passive infallibility, a teaching office and a believing church: The former belongs to the pastors of the Church in the exercise of their teaching office (infallibilitas in docendo), the latter to the faithful as a whole in its assent to the message of faith (infallibilitas in credendo). Active and passive are related as cause and effect. (Bk 4, pt 2, par 13)
When the Church teaches the faith, the faithful believe. If the Church teaches error, the faithful believe error. As man was made to believe truth he would have to reject the teachings of the Church unless there was an assurance that those teachings the Church teaches are not erroneous. What guarantee is there? The Spirit of Truth (cf. John 14:16-17) that bestows on the Church the Charism of infallibility. The Holy Ghost dwells in the members of the Church, the Head of which is Christ who places Peter as His visible representative (cf. Matt. 16:18f) and entrusts the flock to Peter’s care (cf. John 21:15ff) after telling Peter, I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren. (Luke 22:32)
The Vatican Council, convoked to define the teaching of Papal Infallibility, gave this definition in Session IV Dogmatic Constitution I on the Church of Christ (Pastor Aeternus, July 18, 1870):
And so, faithfully keeping to the tradition received from the beginning of the Christian faith, for the glory of God our Saviour, for the exaltation of the Catholic religion, and for the salvation of Christian peoples, we, with the approval of the sacred Council, teach and define that it is a divinely revealed dogma: that the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra, that is, when, acting in the office of shepherd and teacher of all Christians, he defines, by virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the universal Church, possesses through the divine assistance promised him in the person of St. Peter, the infallibility with which the divine Redeemer willed His Church to be endowed in defining doctrine concerning faith or morals; and that such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are therefore irreformable because of their nature, but not because of the agreement of the Church(cf. D 1839).
Therefore, in the final decision on doctrines concerning Faith and Morals the Church is Infallible is de fide. This is not to say the Pope is the Church, but to say the Pope speaks for the Church which is infallible, and why the Pope must therefore have the Faith of the Catholic Church.
Again, Scripture points to the Church holding this attribute: Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and behold, I am with you all days, even unto the consummation of the world (Matt. 28: 20). And I will ask the Father and He will give you another Advocate to dwell with you forever, the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you shall know Him, because He will dwell with you, and be in you (John 14:16-17). He who hears you, hears Me; and he who rejects you, rejects Me; and he who rejects Me rejects Him who sent Me (Luke 10:16). I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren. (Luke 22:32)
Saint Paul emphasizes not just faith but the Faith, for in writing to the Romans he holds the agreement of faith: By whom we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith, in all nations, for his name; Among whom are you also the called of Jesus Christ. (Rom. 1:5-6) and to Timothy: that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. (1Tim 3:15) To the Galatians, Paul reprimands them for error of faith and insisting that they even reject him if he departs from the faith:
I wonder that you are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ, unto another gospel. Which is not another, only there are some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema. As we said before, so now I say again: If any one preach to you a gospel, besides that which you have received, let him be anathema. For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ. (Gal. 1:6-10)
The Apostolic Fathers have already been referenced, but here would be well to include others to point out the unity of Faith in its Catholicity and Apostolicity for the sanctity of the members of the Church. Saint Ignatius writes to the Ephesians:
Do not err, my brethren. (James 1:16) Those that corrupt families shall not inherit the kingdom of God. (1 Cor. 6:9-10) If, then, those who do this as respects the flesh have suffered death, how much more shall this be the case with any one who corrupts by wicked doctrine the faith of God, for which Jesus Christ was crucified! Such an one becoming defiled [in this way], shall go away into everlasting fire, and so shall every one that hearkens unto him.
For this end did the Lord allow the ointment to be poured upon His head, John 12:7 that He might breathe immortality into His Church. Be not anointed with the bad odour of the doctrine of the prince of this world; let him not lead you away captive from the life which is set before you. And why are we not all prudent, since we have received the knowledge of God, which is Jesus Christ? Why do we foolishly perish, not recognising the gift which the Lord has of a truth sent to us? (Epistle to the Ephesians, 16-17)
Again, St. Irenaeus writes: One should obey the presbyters [bishops] of the Church, for they are the successors of the apostles and along with episcopal succession have received the sure charism of truth according to the good pleasure of the Father. (Adv. haer., iv. 26, 2.) Tertullian asks how it is possible that all Catholics had the same faith unless the prayer of Christ was granted:
Grant, then, that all have erred; that the apostle was mistaken in giving his testimony; that the Holy Ghost had no such respect to any one (church) as to lead it into truth, although sent with this view by Christ, John 14:26 and for this asked of the Father that He might be the teacher of truth; John 15:26 grant, also, that He, the Steward of God, the Vicar of Christ, neglected His office, permitting the churches for a time to understand differently, (and) to believe differently, what He Himself was preaching by the apostles—is it likely that so many churches, and they so great, should have gone astray into one and the same faith? No casualty distributed among many men issues in one and the same result. Error of doctrine in the churches must necessarily have produced various issues. When, however, that which is deposited among many is found to be one and the same, it is not the result of error, but of tradition. Can any one, then, be reckless enough to say that they were in error who handed on the tradition? (De praescriptione 28.)
Saint Cyprian of Carthage writes to Pope Cornelius against the heretics:
Nor ought it, my dearest brother, to disturb any one who is faithful and mindful of the Gospel, and retains the commands of the apostle who forewarns us; if in the last days certain persons, proud, contumacious, and enemies of God’s priests, either depart from the Church or act against the Church, since both the Lord and His apostles have previously foretold that there should be such. Nor let any one wonder that the servant placed over them should be forsaken by some, when His own disciples forsook the Lord Himself, who performed such great and wonderful works, and illustrated the attributes of God the Father by the testimony of His doings. And yet He did not rebuke them when they went away, nor even severely threaten them; but rather, turning to His apostles, He said, Will you also go away? John 6:67 manifestly observing the law whereby a man left to his own liberty, and established in his own choice, himself desires for himself either death or salvation. Nevertheless, Peter, upon whom by the same Lord the Church had been built, speaking one for all, and answering with the voice of the Church, says, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life; and we believe, and are sure that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God: Matthew 15:13 signifying, doubtless, and showing that those who departed from Christ perished by their own fault, yet that the Church which believes on Christ, and holds that which it has once learned, never departs from Him at all, and that those are the Church who remain in the house of God; but that, on the other hand, they are not the plantation planted by God the Father, whom we see not to be established with the stability of wheat, but blown about like chaff by the breath of the enemy scattering them, of whom John also in his epistle says, They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, no doubt they would have continued with us. 1 John 2:19 Paul also warns us, when evil men perish out of the Church, not to be disturbed, nor to let our faith be lessened by the departure of the faithless. For what, he says, if some of them have departed from the faith? Hath their unbelief made the faith of God of none effect? God forbid! For God is true, but every man a liar. Romans 3:3-4 (Letter 59 (54), 7)
(To be continued)
————————–
The Ecclesiastical Year (1880)
INSTRUCTION ON THE SECOND SUNDAY IN LENT
…
[Message clipped] View entire message