This one is going to be a long post (I think it may actually be the longest one I have ever written), so buckle up.
So there is a list of supposed heresies on the part of Benedict XVI that was posted online. This list seems to have been created around 2006, and while the original site it was posted on is gone, others have re-posted it. Essentially, it takes things he said (labeled "Heresies of Benedict XVI") and compares them to past statements by popes (labeled "Truth of Divine and Catholic Faith") and claims there is a contradiction and therefore heresy.
Despite the fact the numbering indicates 101, there are actually 100 things listed. The list for some reason skips from 86 to 88 (one site I saw that had the list renumbered them to read 100). It's a rather sloppy thing to do, though the list is quite sloppy in multiple cases with things being cited incorrectly or pages being referred to that do not exist (to say nothing of various misrepresentations of what is being cited).
This list is very much a case of a shotgun approach to arguments. That is, to throw out as many arguments as possible (regardless of their quality) to try to win the argument by making it near-impossible for an opponent actually refute every argument made without spending a great amount of time on it. While good in terms of rhetoric (not only does it look quite impressive, it can prevent people from arguing back because of the amount they'd have to confront), in terms of actually proving your point it only works if the arguments you present are good.
But there are various problems with this list. Even in the paraphrased versions provided in the list, some can hardly be said to be in contradiction. And the paraphrases offered are frequently unreliable, with misrepresentations abounding, sometimes to absolutely absurd levels. Some are nothing more than re-stating previously given ones, meaning even they were just padded out in order to achieve a more impressive looking number. And some of the things said by former popes are offhand comments--thus even if Benedict contradicts those things they said, it is hardly "heresy." Similarly, cases where Benedict makes a brief and ambiguous comment are constantly interpreted in the worst possible light. And quite a few of the things in the list are essentially just repetitions or rehashes of previous ones, possibly just to pad the list out! There are only a few points here that I feel an honest person could even suggest as a real contradiction, and even those points are arguable.
So we'll be going through each of these one by one. I have slightly edited the format for better demonstration of it; I'll give the number, the claim of what Benedict XVI said, and then the supposedly contradicting claim of what a previous pope said (some of which were not actually statements by popes, but apparently are considered statements on their authority).
The person who made this list (it is attributed to a Patrick Pollock) also previously made one for John Paul II. Like this one, that one claims to be 101 heresies of John Paul II, but due to skipping over some numbers ends up not reaching that. I do not plan to go through that one because this already took long enough, but I did find someone who offered a critique. One can find it archived here. There is a live version here but for some reason it will sometimes, after loading the page, redirect you elsewhere, so the archived version is probably better. It is much more brief than this one, but as it is does exist I thought I should mention it, though I do not endorse all of its contents.
One may ask why I did all of this, particularly given the list in question is old and has largely fallen into obscurity. Well, I was curious about the claims and decided to look some of them up. I found them to have considerable problems, but was curious about some others and looked those up. Eventually I looked up enough that I decided while I was at it I might as well look into all of them, and if I was going to do that, I might as well put it online for the use of others. Even if obscure, the list is still out there and the fruits of this examination might be useful to someone.
A few final notes:
1) I attempted to type up quotations from books manually. Thus it is possible I may have accidentally typed something wrong despite my best efforts. I apologize if that is the case.
2) Most of these quotes are from writings of Joseph Ratzinger, Benedict XVI's name before he became pope. For simplicity, however, I will continue to refer to him as Benedict for those writings.
3) As its citations, it gives acronyms. The list included more in-depth citations at the end according to those acronyms. I will include those at the end of this post.
1.
Church is yet to be an united brotherhood. TOC: 115
The Church is truly now an unified brotherhood. Pius XI, MA: 7
Incorrect usage of "an" aside (it should be "a" because although "unified" begins with a vowel, the sound is a consonant and thus you should not use "an"), the statement "the Church is truly now an unified brotherhood," is a fair interpretation of Pius XI's remarks, even if he doesn't say it quite that explicitly. Essentially, Pius IX is noting how various non-Catholics wanted to unify the Church given all of the different denominations and beliefs, and he is saying that there already is such unity in the Catholic Church and if they wanted that unity they should join the Catholic Church. That is the context of what he is saying. With that in mind, let's look at what Benedict said. Benedict writes:
"For the Church as for the individual, election is identical with the missionary obligation. The Church is, therefore, "an open area, a dynamic concept; for all its visibility, the Church is only the movement of the kingdom of God into the world in the sense of an eschatological totality." In relation to Christian brotherhood this means that, however important it is for the Church to grow into the unity of a single brotherhood, it must always remember that it is only one of two sons, one brother beside another, and that its mission is not to condemn the wayward brother, but to save him. The Church, it is true, must unify itself to form a strong inner brotherhood in order to be truly one brother. But it does not seek to be one brother in order finally to shut itself off from the other; rather it seeks to be one brother because only in this way can it fulfill its task toward the other, living for whom it is the deepest meaning of its existence, which itself is grounded wholly in the vicarious existence of Jesus Christ."
(italics original)
The list's claim that it says the Church is yet to be a united brotherhood apparently comes from his statements of how the Church must unify itself to form a brotherhood. But is this saying that the church is not a brotherhood? It is talking about how it must unify itself, but that does not mean it is not already unified, but rather a statement of the importance of that being the case. Thus I do not see his statement as saying that the Catholic Church is not a unified brotherhood, but rather stressing the importance of it being such in order to convert others (the "wayward brother").
2.
The dogma of unbaptized infants going to Hell is unenlightened. GAW: 401
Whosoever criticizes the dogma that infants dying without baptism are not saved, such a person is anathema. Martin V, T. 422.
The list claims that unbaptized infants going to Hell is "dogma". And yet, he seems unable to find any dogmatic proclamation of it (there are some dogmatic proclamations that one can say imply it, but none that explicitly state it). Certainly, the citation he offers never claims it is dogma. It comes from a list of condemned statements ("it [the council] forbids each and every Catholic henceforth, under pain of anathema, to preach, teach, or hold the said articles or any one of them"). The applicable article (6) states "Those who claim that the children of the faithful dying, without sacramental baptism will not be saved, are stupid and presumptuous in saying this."
So
right from the get-go we can see that the list has misrepresented what
was said. It does not refer to, as the list claims, people who criticize
the idea that infants dying without baptism go to Hell, but rather
refers to people that consider "stupid and presumptuous" those who do
believe that infants dying without baptism are not saved. There is a difference between decreeing that people must not criticize Proposition X and decreeing that people must not say that those who believe in Proposition X are stupid and presumptuous for doing so (which does not prevent any criticism of Proposition X or the people who believe in it).
Now let us see what Benedict said:
"Earlier ages had devised a teaching that seems to me rather unenlightened. They said that baptism endows us, by means of sanctifying grace, with the capacity to gaze upon God. Now, certainly, the state of original sin, from which we are freed by baptism, consists in a lack of sanctifying grace. Children who die in this way are indeed without any personal sin, so they cannot be sent to hell, but on the other hand, they lack sanctifying grace and thus the potential for beholding God that this bestows. They will simply enjoy a state of natural blessedness, in which they will be happy. This state people call limbo."
So the question is: Is Benedict's statement that the idea Limbo "seems to me to be unenlightened" equivalent to claiming that those who believed in it were "stupid and presumptuous"? "Unenlightened" seems to fall a bit short of "stupid and presumptuous", but even if one were to equate them, he qualifies it with "it seems to me" to make it clear it is not an objective statement.
3.
Muslims worship the One True God. LR: 8/24/05, p. 9
Modernists hold that Muslims truly worship the One True God. St. Pius X, D. 2082
Unfortunately, I do not have access to archives of the L'Osservatore Romano (the LR) that far back, and thus cannot examine Benedict's statement to see how well it was represented. But we can see what Pius X says.
The "D" stands for Denzinger, and refers to a numbered compendium of important Catholic decrees, condemnations, declarations, and other such things. It is written in Latin, but an English translation of all of it (at least up through the 1950's) can be found here, itself taken from here (however, the latter site is no longer available). Note that this is in the old numbering; at some point they redid it with new numbering, but the new numbered version does not have an English translation that I see (though because the new numbering includes what the old numbers were, one can look for the applicable old numbering if they want a translation). Unfortunately, things like footnotes are omitted on that site. Regardless, this list does cite Denzinger on several occasions, so I will be using the translations found on the linked site. Here is what is found in the source, bolding added:
"this experience, when anyone has attained it, properly and truly makes a believer.--How far we are here from Catholic teachings. We have already seen [cf. n. 2072] such fabrications condemned by the Vatican Council. When these errors have once been admitted, together with others already mentioned, we shall express below how open the way is to atheism. It will be well to note at once that from this doctrine of experience joined with another of symbolism, any religion, not even excepting paganism, must be held as true. For why should not experiences of this kind not occur in any religion? In fact, more than one asserts that they have occurred. By what right will modernists deny the truth of an experience which an Islamite affirms, and claim true experiences for Catholics alone? In fact, modernists do not deny this; on the contrary some rather obscurely, others very openly contend that all religions are true. But it is manifest that they cannot think otherwise. For on what basis, then, should falsity have been attributed to any religion according to their precepts? Surely it would be either because of the falsity of the religious sense or because a false formula was set forth by the intellect. Now the religious sense is always one and the same, although sometimes it is more imperfect; but that the intellectual formula be true, it is enough that it respond to the religious sense and to the human believer, whatever may be the character of the perspicacity of the latter. In the conflict of different religions the modernists might be able to contend for one thing at most, that the Catholic religion, inasmuch as it is the more vivid, has more truth; and likewise that it is more worthy of the name of Christian, inasmuch as it corresponds more fully with the origins of Christianity."
The bolded is the only portion of this that mentions Islam at all, and it says nothing whatsoever about them worshipping, or not worshipping, "the One True God." All it says is that attempting to judge the truth or a religion by "experience" (better defined in the earlier 2081 section) can be applied to any religion and thus is of no value in determining the truth of a religion. How any of this translates to "Modernists hold that Muslims truly worship the One True God" I have no idea.
Incidentally, as it was Pius X who was cited for supposedly condemning the idea that "Muslims truly worship the One True God", perhaps we should see what the Catechism of St. Pius X had to say on the subject? As the name indicates, this was issued by Pius X. Note this portion from it:
"12 Q. Who are infidels?
A. Infidels are those who have not been baptised and do not believe in Jesus Christ, because they either believe in and worship false gods as idolaters do, or though admitting one true God, they do not believe in the Messiah, neither as already come in the Person of Jesus Christ, nor as to come; for instance, Mohammedans and the like."
This explicitly says that Muslims ("Mohammedans") are "admitting one true God" and draws a distinction between them and those who do "worship false gods." Thus, not only does the list's citation not prove its claim about Pius X, here we have a catechism issued by Pius X that says the opposite of what the list claims.
4.
The Eastern schismatic sect has apostolic succession. CN: 17
Only Catholic bishops in union with the Pope possess true apostolic succession. Leo XIII, SC: 14-15
The phrase "apostolic succession" is used in only one time in Leo XIII's work, section 9, and it is saying nothing about bishops not in union with the pope. Given the citation says 14-15, what is in mind presumably is this portion from section 15:
"From this it must be clearly understood that Bishops are deprived of the right and power of ruling, if they deliberately secede from Peter and his successors; because, by this secession, they are separated from the foundation on which the whole edifice must rest. They are therefore outside the edifice itself; and for this very reason they are separated from the fold, whose leader is the Chief Pastor; they are exiled from the Kingdom, the keys of which were given by Christ to Peter alone."
But it does not say they lack apostolic succession, but rather that they are deprived of the "right and power of ruling." Indeed, Benedict makes a similar statement, though in a much more mild tone:
"Since, however, communion with the universal Church, represented by Peter's Successor, is not an external complement to the particular Church, but one of its internal constituents, the situation of those venerable Christian communities [Eastern Orthodox churches] also means that their existence as particular Churches is wounded."
As this list does not give specification, it is not clear to me how Leo XIII's statements do not allow for apostolic succession in the Eastern churches. I am aware that Leo XIII said in "Apostolicae curae" that the Anglican church did not possess it, but that is a different church entirely.
5.
Heretical sects exist as means of salvation. DI: 17
Only the Catholic Church exists as means of salvation. Leo XIII, SC: 9
The statement in the first (quoting "Unitatis redintegratio, 3") is "Therefore, these separated Churches and communities as such, though we believe they suffer from defects, have by no means been deprived of significance and importance in the mystery of salvation. For the spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them as means of salvation which derive their efficacy from the very fullness of grace and truth entrusted to the Catholic Church."
As for Leo XIII's statement... the only thing I see in that chapter that is applicable is the ending sentence of "And it [the Catholic Church] alone supplies those means of salvation which accord with the ordinary counsels of Providence." I do not see a contradiction here. The first says that salvation can be available to those in separated churches, as they derive their efficacy from the Catholic Church. The latter says that the Catholic Church alone supplies the means of salvation. While the former goes farther in its statement, these are not contradictory, as both affirm that the salvation comes from the Catholic Church.
6.
Multireligious prayer stirs the heart of God. TT:107
Multireligious prayer is never approved by God. Pius XI, MA: 10
On page 107 of Truth and Tolerance, Benedict is discussing multireligious prayer. He warns of various dangers of it, but says he thinks that in very specific conditions, it can be acceptable. Where the claim of "Multireligious prayer stirs the heart of God" comes from I am unclear.
As for Mortalium Animos by Pius XI, his statement is "So, Venerable Brethren, it is clear why this Apostolic See has never allowed its subjects to take part in the assemblies of non-Catholics." This is not even a condemnation of multireligious prayer, but a condemnation of Catholics taking part in the assemblies of non-Catholics. It does not seem to me that the simple act of multireligious prayer qualifies as the assemblies of non-Catholics. Even if we do accept them as synonymous, note that the list claims it was not approved by God, but Pius XI refers to the Apostolic See. Another misrepresentation.
This article, incidentally, argues that the context of Mortalium Animos was specific and did not refer to ecumenical attempts in general. This one (same site) also goes more specifically on the question of prayer with non-Catholics. But even if those links are inaccurate, the list must misrepresent what both Benedict and Pius XI wrote in order to arrive at a contradiction.
7.
Pius IX's Religious Liberty decisions need correction. NMT: III
No condemnation by the Roman Church can be revised without incurring anathema. S. Simplicius I, D. 160
We will begin with the Simplicius citation, for by itself this seems to potentially negate the issue. Here is Denzinger 160:
"Those genuine and clear [truths] which flow from the very pure fountains of the Scriptures cannot be disturbed by any arguments of misty subtlety. For this same norm of apostolic doctrine endures in the successors of him upon whom the Lord imposed the care of the whole sheepfold [John 21:15 ff.], whom [He promised] He would not fail even to the end of the world [Matt. 28:20], against whom He promised that the gates of hell would never prevail, by whose judgment He testified that what was bound on earth could not be loosed in heaven [Matt. 16:18 ff.]. (6). . . Let whoever, as the Apostle proclaimed, attempts to disseminate something other, than what we have received, be anathema[ Gal. 1:8 f.]. Let no approach to your ears be thrown open to the pernicious plans of undermining, let no pledge of revising any of the old definitions be granted, because, as it must be repeated very often, what has deserved to be cut away with the sharp edge of the evangelical pruninghook by apostolic hands with the approval of the universal Church, cannot acquire the strength for a rebirth nor is it able to return to the fruitful shoot of the master's vine, because it is evident that it has been destined to eternal fire. Thus, finally, the machinations of all heresies laid down by decrees of the Church are never allowed to renew the struggles of their crushed attack."
This is cited to the
epistle "Cuperem quidem" to Basiliscus from Pope Simplicius. I cannot
read the full letter for full context (as it does not seem translated
into English in full), but let's still stick with the above. "No
condemnation by the Roman Church can be revised without incurring
anathema" is hardly an accurate representation. In fact, it doesn't even
say "Roman Church" in it! The key phrase here is "what has deserved to
be cut away with the sharp edge of the evangelical pruninghook by
apostolic hands with the approval of the universal church, cannot
acquire the strength for a rebirth nor is it able to return to the
fruitful shoot of the master's vine." In other words, it isn't talking
about just any old condemnation, or something from the Roman Church, but
condemnations "with the approval of the universal church." From what I
have been able to determine, the context of this was him criticizing
attempts to overthrow the Council of Chalcedon (e.g. here
it says, as part of a larger article on something else, "In the
post-Chalcedonian crisis of 453 onward, the Eastern Emperor Basiliscus
(a usurper to the throne, and a fierce combatant against Chalcedon) had
enacted to obliterate the Council of Chalcedon from the list of general
Councils. Pope St. Simplicius (venerated by the Eastern Orthodox, Feb
10th), wrote a letter stating the divine state of affairs as seen from
Rome"). So what the list offers is hardly an accurate representation of
it!
This is perhaps enough to dismiss this supposed contradiction, but let us look more into Benedict's statement. Firstly, I should note what the citation here says for NMT: "NMT Ratzinger. The Nature and Mission of Theology: Its Role in the Light of Present Controversy (San Francisco, Ignatius Press, 1995)." The actual full subtitle is "Approaches to Understanding Its Role in the Light of Present Controversy". Also, for some reason, WorldCat lists its subtitle as "Essays to Orient Theology in Today's Debates". Regardless of the proper title, the citation for the Nature and Mission of Theology above is very odd. Rather than giving any page number, it simply tells us "III." Now, the work is divided into three sections (and various subsections), so perhaps it means it's in the third section. Unfortunately, the third section ("Applications") runs from page 101 to 128--was there some reason a page number could not be given?
As far as I can tell, there is no explicit reference to Pius IX. I skimmed the entire book and saw no mention of his name. I could have missed it, of course, but if you go to the Amazon page for the work you can click on "Look inside" for the Kindle edition. Though it only offers the earliest parts of the book in its preview, there is a search option and you can use it to search the whole book, even parts that are not in the preview (I verified this by doing a search for something that shows up later in the book). A search for "Pius" turns up zero matches.
What appears to be in mind is the following on page 106. Concerning the document "Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian" (which is cited for other things in this list), which can be found here, he makes the following comment:
"It states–perhaps for the first time with such candor–that there are magisterial decisions which cannot be the final word on a given matter as such but, despite the permanent value of their principles, are chiefly also a signal for pastoral prudence, a sort of provisional policy. Their kernel remains valid, but the particulars determined by circumstances can stand in need of correction. In this connection, one will probably call to mind both the pontifical statements of the last century regarding freedom of religion and the anti-Modernist decisions of the then Biblical Commission. As warning calls against rash and superficial accommodations, they remain perfectly legitimate: no less a personage than J. B. Metz, for example, has remarked that the anti-Modernist decisions of the Church performed the great service of saving her from foundering in the bourgeois-liberal world. Nevertheless, with respect to particular aspects of their content, they were superseded after having fulfilled their pastoral function in the situation of the time."
It is possible I missed something, but this seems to be the closest to what was being referred to. I will continue on with the assumption this is in view; if the author had something else in mind, he should have been more specific about what he referred to.
As noted,
there is no mention at all of Pius IX, which is simply an assertion by
the list maker. In fact, Benedict's statement is fairly vague and it's
hard to really pull too much in the way of specifics out of it. It's not clear exactly what
Benedict is referring to with the reference to "pontifical statements of
the last century regarding freedom of religion". In fact, it's not even
clear what he means by "last century"; he wrote this in the 1990's, so
does he mean the prior 100 years (1890's onward)? If so, he can hardly
be referring to Pius IX, who died in 1878. Or is he saying last century
as in the 19th century, which could include Pius IX? But whoever and whatever they said that he had in mind, he refers to the "permanent value of their principles." It is
only the "particulars determined by circumstances" that were superseded.
One can easily have permanent principles that, by necessity, must have
the particulars be different based on circumstances. Even if Simplicius's comment was what was claimed by the list, this would not seem to be against that, asit is not a rejection. Regrettably, what
precisely he means by "particulars determined by the circumstances" must be confessed to be vague as well. Now, I would not criticize him for being vague on this. This was a minor point, so not explaining things in much detail is understandable; how was he supposed to know that about a decade later, someone would zero in on this? Ultimately, the list reads far too much into a brief statement. Depending on the specifics of what Benedict XVI intended, various defenses could certainly be raised, but I do not wish to spend a bunch of time defending things he might have intended.
Ultimately, the bottom line is that both of these statements have issues in being appealed to. Simplicius's statement is misrepresented, and the list reads more into Benedict XVI's statement than he actually says.
8.
Heretics are Christians. SOE: 242
No heretic is a Christian. Ven. Pius IX, EM: 25
Given our list maker appears to have been a sedevacantist (one who claims that the recent popes have all been heretics and therefore there was no pope during their tenures), it is rather ironic for a sedevacantist to appeal to Etsi Multis given that its critiques of the Old Catholic sect have been applied to sedevacantist groups.
But let's get to the important things. The only mention that Benedict makes of the term "Christian" on this page is when he says "An absolute unity of Christians within history is something I do not venture to hope for" given the various denominations and sect splitting. This does indicate that the term "Christian" applies to non-Catholics, but to work that into what the list claims is a bit of a stretch.
Pius IX does not say "no heretic is a Christian" but that "Cyprian, writing about schism, denied to the pseudobishop Novatian even the title of Christian, on the grounds that he was cut off and separated from the Church of Christ." Now, obviously, he strongly implies agreement with Cyprian on this point, but nevertheless does not explicitly endorse this definition. And even Cyprian appeared to be doing this not merely because Novatian was a heretic, but because he schismed away from the Catholic Church and created his own church.
However, even if we accept these statements as being valid interpretations of their writings, one can reconcile them simply by saying that they used different meanings for the term "Christian." Indeed, Pius XI in Mortalium Animos (which is cited elsewhere in this list to supposedly be in opposition to Benedict XVI, so our list maker cannot object to me citing it) uses Christian to refer to non-Catholics. For example, he says (section 2) "For which reason conventions, meetings and addresses are frequently arranged by these persons, at which a large number of listeners are present, and at which all without distinction are invited to join in the discussion, both infidels of every kind, and Christians, even those who have unhappily fallen away from Christ or who with obstinacy and pertinacity deny His divine nature and mission." In this one, he defines Christian broadly enough to even include those who have "fallen away from Christ" or "deny His divine nature and mission."
9.
Christological dogma has developed. JTE: 90
It is condemned as Modernism to say the dogma of Christ's Divinity was developed. S. Pius X, D. 2094
"Moreover, to complete this whole subject of faith and its various branches, it remains for us, Venerable Brethren, to consider finally the precepts of the modernists on the development of both.--Here is a general principle: in a religion which is living nothing is without change, and so there must be change. From here they make a step to what is essentially the chief point in their doctrines, namely, evolution. Dogma, then, Church, worship, the Books that we revere as sacred, even faith itself, unless we wish all these to be powerless, must be bound by the laws of evolution."
What he says is that the precepts of the modernists on the development of faith are that faith has evolution. The criticism is not towards development, but the modernists' precepts concerning development, namely the claims of evolution of faith. Evolution is problem, not development; this is why "evolution" is used seven times in Denzinger 2094 whereas "development" is used only once, and not in a condemnatory fashion.
Note also what Denzinger 2094 says concerning the divinity of Christ, or rather an example of what he views as the evolution of the dogma. It simply says:
"Thus, to pass over other examples, it happened in the case of Christ: in Him that divine something or other, which faith admitted, was slowly and gradually expanded, so that finally He was held to be God."
His example, therefore, is that in modernism Christ was originally felt to be divine in some sense, but it was only upon expansion that Christ was held to be God. Benedict never makes any such claim. Indeed, pages 87-88 has him argue against the claim that the usage of consubstantial ("consubstantial with the Father") in the Nicene creed is a deviation from the Bible: "This means that the philosophical term 'consubstantial' adds nothing to the New Testament, but as a definining witness it is the defence of the literal usage against any allegorising". Then he discusses development after the Council of Nicaea and Chalcedon, and it seems clear to me that he is again using development in the sense of offering greater precision, not an evolution.
Even if one wants to insist that Benedict was referring to an actual evolution (that is, a change, not development) after the Council of Nicaea--even though it seems clear to me he was not--it is not even the same thing that Pius X was referring to. Pius X was criticizing those who claimed there was evolution that originally consisted of Christ having a "divine something or other" which was expanded to be considered God. Benedict never makes any such claim; again, he explicitly argues that the Nicene Creed is not a deviation from the Bible.
So best-case scenario for our listmaker, Benedict and Pius are referring to different phases of Christological dogmas. Worst-case scenario (the scenario I think it is), they are not referring to even the same things within those different phases.
10.
Faith is a mere sensory experience that transcends man. PCT: 345
The Modernists teach that faith is a mere sense felt without any intellectual assent. S. Pius X, PDG: 7
The statement of Benedict that seems to be in view here is "The way to faith begins in sensory experience, and sensory experience as such is a sine qua non of faith and is capable of transcendence." It's not clear how the list gets "Faith is a mere sensory experience that transcends man" from this or anything else on the page.
11.
The Church ought to reconcile herself with liberalism & progress. PCT: 381
It is heretical to say the Head of the Church ought to reconcile the Church with liberalism & progress. Ven. Pius IX, D. 1780
So the statement made by Pius IX is that he is condemning "The Roman Pontiff can and should reconcile and adapt himself to progress, liberalism, and the modern civilization." And Benedict does indeed indicate that "exegesis and Church history adopted more and more the postulates of liberal science, and liberalism" but note he then says "and liberalism, too, was obliged to undergo many significant changes in the great political upheavals of the twentieth century." His suggestion is that the "liberalism" accepted by the Church had undergone many significant changes and therefore Pius IX's statement no longer applied because it referred to something different than what we have now. For that matter, Benedict does not even say that "the Church ought to reconcile herself with liberalism & progress" but rather that it accepted (past tense) some aspects of it. Even if someone says that he implies approval, it again must be weighed in the face of his indication that liberalism had to change.
12.
The Church ought not exclude those who hold contrary views. PCT: 229
The Church excludes all those who hold contrary views to Her teachings. Eugene IV, D. 705
Benedict's statement here is "It proposes to meet the crisis by a positive presentation especially of those points of Church doctrine that are under dispute and to establish the identity of Catholicism, not by excluding those who hold opposing views, but by an official enunciation of the constituent elements of Catholicism, obviously in the hope that such a statement will prove its effectiveness and lead to a clarification in one direction or another. We shall have to see whether these expectations are fulfilled; at least it will be clear whether or not this approach to discipline in matters of doctrine can serve as a model for the future." He is not even saying this is necessarily the right thing to do, merely that it is what is being done, and says that we will see as a result whether it works or not. Thus claiming he says "The Church ought..." is inaccurate.
Furthermore, the context of Denzinger 705 ("whoever, therefore, have adverse and contrary opinions the Church disapproves and anathematizes and declares to be foreign to the Christian body which is the Church") is referring to the Church's beliefs on the Trinity doctrine. As far as I can tell, that is not the issues that Benedict is referring to.
13.
Jews are not accursed. MRC: 42
The Jews reject Jesus Christ's Divinity, thus they are anathema. S. Vigilius, D. 222
Vigilus (or more accurately, the Secound Council of Constantinople) is not referring to that at all. Denzinger 222 does not even explicitly mention the Jews. It says "If anyone does not confess that Jesus Christ, our Lord, who was crucified in the flesh is true God, and Lord of glory, and one of the Holy Trinity, let such a one be anathema." But anyone who rejects the doctrine of the Trinity runs afoul of this, which is essentially every non-Christian group and even some self-identified Christian groups like Unitarians. Jews are no more "anathema" than any of those groups. Benedict is discussing something that is only specifically about the Jews, not something that applies to essentially every non-Christian.
So this is no contradiction, because they are referring to such completely different things.
14.
Catholics ought not try to dissolve Protestant sects. PCT: 202
Catholics must try to dissolve Protestant sects. S. Pius X, ED: 21-22
There is no "ED" listed in the references section. Presumably this was a typo for ES, as that was by Pius X. Having looked at it, I see nothing about dissolving Protestant sects at all. It refers to opposing error, which presumably includes Protestant sects, but not dissolving. As for Benedict's statement, what he says is "It means that the Catholic does not insist on the dissolution of the Protestant confessions and the demolishing of their churches." But what he is referring to here is the hope of unity in Protestant groups not by dissolving their beliefs or their churches being demolished, but by attempting to interpret their confessions in a manner that does not contradict Catholicism. This may be a vain hope, and he does note difficulties, but it is clearly a different idea than what the list has presented.
So essentially, Pius X didn't say what was claimed and even he did, Benedict isn't contradicting that.
15.
The Church is joined to heretics and schismatics. CTC: 17
Heretics are not joined to the Church. Pius XII, D. 2286
I have absolutely no idea whatsoever how this list gets the first statement out of the book. I don't see anything related to that on page 17 of Called to Communion. Is it possible this was a typo of some sort in what I was looking at? Well, I looked at another posting of this list, and it also said page 17.
In order to demonstrate my point, I am going to type up the entirety of page 17, plus a little before and after (as it opens and ends mid-paragraph). Here we go, and I apologize for any typos on my part:
"After the Second World War, humanity was divided ever more sharply into two camps: into a world of affluent peoples, who for the most part were once more living according to the liberal model, and into the Marxist block, which conceived of itself both as the spokesman of the poor nations in South America, Africa and Asia [page 17 starts here] and as their model for the future. Correspondingly, there arose a twofold division of theological tendencies.
In the neoliberal world of the West, a variant of the former liberal theology now became operative in a new guise: the eschatological interpretation of Jesus' message. Jesus, it is true, is no longer conceived as a pure moralist, yet he is once again construed in opposition to the cult and the historical institutions of the Old Testament. This interpretation was a revamping of the old framework that breaks up the Old Testament into priests and prophets: into cult, institution and law, on the one hand, and prophecy, charism and creative freedom, on the other. In this view, priests, cult and institution appear as the negative factor that must be overcome. Jesus, on the other hand, supposedly stands in the prophetic line and fulfills it in antithesis to the priesthood, which is said to have done away with him as it had the prophets.
A new variety of individualism thus comes into being: Jesus now proclaims the end of the institutions. Though his eschatological message may have been conceived according to the mentality of the time as an announcement of the end of the world, it is retrieved for our day as the revolutionary breakthrough from the institutional realm into the charismatic dimension, as the end of the religions, or, in any case, as "unwordly faith" that is ceaselessly re-creating its own forms. Once again there can be no question of the foundation of the Church: [page 17 ends here] such an act would, in fact, contradict this eschatological radicalness."
How does this relate at all to the questions of heretics and schismatics in any way? I double checked to make sure I have the same edition of the work being cited (1996 by Ignatius Press) and I do. Maybe the list cited the wrong thing, but I can only judge him based on the citations he gave, and this one has nothing to do with his claim.
As for the Pius XII citation... in truth it doesn't matter given the above error. However, this list pulls that one (Denzinger 2286) several more times, like in #28, so we'll address those again when we get to them.
16.
A Catholic cannot uphold the Councils of Trent and Vatican I. RR: 28
All Catholics are bound to uphold the orthodoxy of the Councils of Trent and Vatican I. Ven. Pius IX, D. 1000
Here is what Benedict said in that work:
"First: It is impossible ('for a Catholic') to take a position for Vatican II but against Trent or Vatican I. Whoever accepts Vatican II, as it has clearly expressed and understood itself, at the same time accepts the whole binding tradition of the Catholic Church, particularly also the two previous councils. And that also applies to the so-called 'progressivism', at least in its extreme forms. Second: "It is likewise impossible to decide in favor of Trent and Vatican I, but against Vatican II. Whoever denies Vatican Ii denies the authority that upholds the other two councils and thereby detaches them fro their foundation. And this applies to the so-called 'traditionalism', also in its extreme forms."
(italics original)
Benedict is saying that if one is accepting Trent and Vatican I, they must also accept Vatican II, and vice versa. Undoubtedly the listmaker disagrees with that statement as he presumably accepts Trent and Vatican I but rejects Vatican II, as is the typical position of a sedevacantist, though there are some that go back farther and reject Vatican I (and a few that will even reject Trent!). But it is profoundly dishonest to twist Benedict's quote into the claim that a Catholic cannot accept Trent and Vatican I when he is clearly saying that they should accept them (along with Vatican II).
17.
The Catholic Faith has developed over the ages. GAW: 262
Nothing can added to or taken away from the Catholic Faith, all Christians must be content with tradition. Benedict XV, ABA: 24-25
Although Benedict XV does say "Such is the nature of Catholicism that it does not admit of more or less, but must be held as a whole or as a whole rejected" (which does fit "Nothing can be added to or taken away from the Catholic Faith"), but he does not say anything like "all Christians must be content with tradition" that I see--the word tradition is not even used in the document, at least the English translation.
As for Benedict XVI's statement, the context here is that he is discussing the idea that the Catholic faith is too complex for someone to be able to understand, and he says "Certainly, the faith has been further developed and defined in the course of centuries, but it has not thereby evaporated into uncertainty." He does not qualify what he means (which makes sense given this is an offhand comment), but it is without doubt that there has been development and further definitions, because every ecumenical council has further defined and clarified things. That presumably is what Benedict XVI is referring to, and this has no contradiction with Benedict XV's statement.
18.
The Church ought to seek for unity of religions. SOE: 238
The Church must condemn and disband all false religions. Pius XI, MA: 2-8
Well, first, even the above statements are not in contradiction. Condemning and disbanding all false religions creates a unity of religions.
But what does Benedict say? Benedict's statement is "Unity of mankind, unity of religions, unity of Christians–we ought to search for these unities again, so that a more positive epoch may really begin." He does not state specifically what he means by this, which is understandable as it is a brief treatment. This list really does have a thing for choosing brief statements of Benedict and then reading more into it than he actually says.
What Pius XI is criticizing, from my understanding, is the idea of some kind of Christian unity that doesn't acknowledge Catholicism as being the church of Christ, but merely one among various other churches. Benedict does not deny that Catholicism is more than just one sect among many.
So these specific quotes really don't work that well against each other. That said, it is true that contradictions are often alleged between Mortalium Animos and modern Catholic ecumenism. An article that argues there is no contradiction can be found here, and I suppose people can read that (or others) and make up their own mind on the subject.
19.
The god Krishna is a symbol of Christ and reality. PCT: 326
No composition is possible between Christ and Belial. S. Pius X, CR: 30
Right from the get-go we find a misrepresentation. Benedict says "For the Christian, Krishna is a dramatic symbol of Christ, who is reality, and this relationship is not reversible." Note how the list claims he says Krishna is a symbol of Christ and reality, when Benedict never says Krishna is reality nor does he say Krishna is a symbol of reality. Indeed, here Benedict is discussing how some in Hinduism have tried to connect Jesus to Krishna by making Jesus some kind of "descent" of Krishna, which he rejects. The statement of Krishna being a symbol of Christ is to say that Christ, unlike Krishna, is reality, and thus Krishna would only be some kind of metaphorical symbol for Jesus rather than Jesus coming from Krishna. His remark is a little confusing, but it is clear that this list misrepresents him in a big way when it says "the god Krishna is a symbol of Christ and reality" when in fact Benedict never says Krishna is a symbol of reality, but rather that Christ is reality, in opposition to Krishna not being reality.
That should suffice to solve this one; the whole point of Benedict is that Christ is reality, Krishna is not. But just to be complete, let us see the full section from Pius X's writing:
"They err greatly, therefore, who lose faith during the storm, wishing for themselves and the Church a permanent state of perfect tranquillity, universal prosperity, and practical, unanimous and uncontested recognition of her sacred authority. But the error is worse when men deceive themselves with the idea of gaining an ephemeral peace by cloaking the rights and interests of the Church, by sacrificing them to private interests, by minimizing them unjustly, by truckling to the world, "the whole of which is seated in wickedness" (I Ioan. v. 19) on the pretext of reconciling the followers of novelties and bringing them back to the Church, as though any composition were possible between light and darkness, between Christ and Belial. This hallucination is as old as the world, but it is always modern and always present in the world so long as there are soldiers who are timid or treacherous, and at the first onset ready to throw down their arms or open negotiations with the enemy, who is the irreconcilable enemy of God and man."
How, precisely, does this contradict what Benedict actually said?
20.
There can be no return to Pius IX's Syllabus over Vatican II. PCT: 391
There can be no appeal to a Council over past infallible magisterial decisions. Pius II, D. 717.
What Benedict says here is that "The task is not, therefore, to suppress the Council but to discover the real Council and to deepen its true intention in the light of present experience. That means that there can be no return to the Syllabus, which may have marked the first stage in the confrontation with liberalism and a newly conceived Marxism but cannot be the last stage."
Denzinger 717, meanwhile, says:
"The execrable and hitherto unheard of abuse has grown up in our day, that certain persons, imbued with the spirit of rebellion, and not from a desire to secure a better judgment, but to escape the punishment of some offense which they have committed, presume to appeal to a future council from the Roman Pontiff, the vicar of Jesus Christ, to whom in the person of the blessed PETER was said: "Feed my sheep" [John 21:17], and, "Whatever thou shalt bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven" [Matt. 16:19]. . . . Wishing therefore to expel this pestiferous poison far from the Church of Christ and to care for the salvation of the flock entrusted to us, and to remove every cause of offense from the fold of our Savior . . . we condemn all such appeals and disprove them as erroneous and detestable."
This is a condemnation of appeals to a future council; that is, if someone were penalized by the pope for some offense, it is condemning them trying to get out of it by wanting a general council to overrule it. It says nothing at all about "infallible magisterial decisions."
Even if we accept the interpretation advanced for Denzinger 717 and further accept that the Syllabus of Errors meets the qualifications for "infallible magisterial decisions" (this is a debated point), we're still not seeing an actual contradiction. When Benedict says "there can be no return to the Syllabus" he appears to be saying that there can be no return in the sense that it is the "first stage" but there have been additional stages. A comparison point might be to say there can be no return to the Council of Nicaea because while it may have been an early stage in the defining of Christology, there were additional stages in subsequent councils, defining things with greater specificity.
21.
The Pope ought to promote ecumenism. GC: 5
The Apostolic See can never promote the motley of false-ecumenism. Pius XI, MA: 7-10
The text cited here for GC is "Sermo Gratia Copiosa, 5 April 2005."
The list errs, however, in claiming this was on April 5, when it was actually given on April 20. It also would have been more clear what it was referring to had it specified it was his first message as pope rather than the much more vague "Sermo Gratia Copiosa"--this term appears to have been arrived at by starting with "Sermo" (meaning Sermon") and the first two Latin words of the message being "Gratia Copiosa".
Anyway, the work can be found here. What appears to be in mind is that in chapter 5 it says "The current Successor of Peter is allowing himself to be called in the first person by this requirement and is prepared to do everything in his power to promote the fundamental cause of ecumenism."
But there isn't much to really add here, because it's just re-hashing #18 and the points there would seem to apply here. This will hardly be the last time we find one that is just a re-hash of a previous post, because it seemed like they wanted to pad the number out.
22.
There is blame on part of the Church for the Waldensian schism. PFF: 203
The Waldensians richly deserved anathema from the Holy See. Gregory XVI, MV:19
Even those statements don't seem in real contradiction (it's possible to say that the Waldensians deserved anathema but that the Church could have handled it better), but let's see what Benedict actually said:
"We will of course be unable to avoid seeing all the series of movements that failed or that led to lasting division: Montanists, Cathars, Waldensians, Hussites, the Reformation movement of the sixteenth century. And we will probably have to talk about there being faults on both sides that left division here in the end."
Even here he says there were "faults on both sides" meaning that while there were faults on the part of the Church, there were still faults by the other group. This statement is not in contradiction with any claim of the Waldensians "richly deserving" anathema.
23.
Apostate Jews are not excluded from salvation. GAW: 151
All Jews being outside the Catholic Church cannot be saved without entering and obeying Her.
Eugene IV, D. 712-714
Here Benedict writes, referring to Jews "On one hand, their No to Christ brings the Israelites into conflict with the subsequent acts of God, but at the same time we know that they are assured of the faithfulness of God. They are not excluded from salvation, but they serve salvation in a particular way, and thereby they stand within the patience of God, in which we, too, place our trust." This is placed in opposition to the other citation, which is fairly lengthy, but the critical portion (referring to the Catholic Church) says "It firmly believes, professes, and proclaims that those not living within the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics cannot become participants in eternal life, but will depart "into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels" [Matt. 25:41], unless before the end of life the same have been added to the flock; and that the unity of the ecclesiastical body is so strong that only to those remaining in it are the sacraments of the Church of benefit for salvation, and do fastings, almsgiving, and other functions of piety and exercises of Christian service produce eternal reward, and that no one, whatever almsgiving he has practiced, even if he has shed blood for the name of Christ, can be saved, unless he has remained in the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church."
This
is a case in which the question is much larger than these two
quotations, and is the disputed argument about what one should take the idea of "no
salvation outside the church" to mean and whether modern statements on the subject (such as the one by Benedict) are in contradiction with earlier ones (the other quote). As a result, I'll link to a few documents that argue
there is no a contradiction in these general ideas, and the reader may
judge for themselves: Here, here, here, and here (there are others, but I wished to try to only point to a few).
The reader can make up their own mind.
24.
Heretical sects are united to the Church. DI: 17
Sects are not united to the Church. Pius XI, MA:10-11
What Benedict wrote was "Therefore, there exists a single Church of Christ, which subsists in the Catholic Church, governed by the Successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him. The Churches which, while not existing in perfect communion with the Catholic Church, remain united to her by means of the closest bonds, that is, by apostolic succession and a valid Eucharist, are true particular Churches." (This is referring to the Orthodox Churches) The list apparently takes issue with the fact it says they are "united to her [the Catholic Church] by means of the closest bonds". But the way in which they are "united" is clearly qualified as referring to apostolic succession and a valid Eucharist. It is a point of commonality, but it does not mean they are fully united.
As for Pius XI, the time he uses the word united is, when referring to the Orthodox, "For if, as they continually state, they long to be united with Us and ours, why do they not hasten to enter the Church, "the Mother and mistress of all Christ's faithful"?" This implies they are not united (as it says "they long to be united"). But in this context he is clearly referring to a full unification.
When we consider Benedict's clear qualification on what he means by united, I do not believe these can be said to be in actual contradiction.
25.
Many people are saved outside the Catholic Faith. SOE: 24
No one can be saved outside the true Catholic Faith. Pius IV, D. 1000
Benedict's statement here is "It is definitely possible for someone to receive from his religion directives that help him become a pure person, which also, if we want to use the word, help him to please God and reach salvation. That is not at all excluded by what I said; on the contrary, this undoubtedly happens on a large scale. It is just that it would be misguided to deduce form this fact that the religions themselves all stand in simple equality to one another, as in one big concert, one big symphony in which ultimately all mean the same thing." This is regarded by the list as being in contradiction with the statement "This true Catholic faith, outside of which no one can be saved".
While not a repetition in citations (as both are different) in the sense we see in some other examples, the issue at hand is just a repetition of #23, so see comments there.
26.
The resurrection of the flesh is not of physical bodies. ITC: 357
The resurrection of the flesh is of the same body one possessed in their earthly life. Bl. Gregory X, D. 464
What seems to be in mind from Denzinger 464 is "We believe also in the true resurrection of this flesh, which now we bear, and in eternal life." But the phrase "which we now bear" is not the same thing as "the same body one possessed in their earthly life." It refers to resurrection of "this flesh, which we now bear", but by flesh does it mean the same body or does it refer to flesh more generally? It is not fully clear from this citation. Further, this particular statement is listed under a heading of "Variant readings".
But in any event, let's see what Benedict XVI said. I'm going to try to quote him a bit at length, starting with page 356. I had to type this up manually so excuse any typos. Here he is discussing the specific statement "resurrection of the body" from the Apostles' Creed. For context, he is referring to First Corinthians at the start:
"Let us start from verse 50, which seems to me to be a sort of key to the whole: I tell you this, brethren: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable." It seems to me that the sentence occupies much the same position in this text as verse 63 occupies in the eucharistic chapter 6 of St. John's Gospel: for these two seemingly widely separated texts are much more closely related than is apparent at first sight. There, in St. John, it says, just after the real presence of the flesh and blood of Jesus in the Eucharist has been sharply emphasized: "It is the [page 357 begins here] spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail." In both the Johannine and the Pauline texts, it is a question of developing the Christian realism of "the flesh". In John the realism of the sacraments, that is, the realism of Jesus' Resurrection and of his "flesh" that comes to us from it, is emphasized; in Paul it is a question of the realism of the resurrection of the "flesh," of the resurrection of Christians and of the salvation achieved for us in it. But both passages also contain a sharp counterpoint that emphasizes Christian realism as realism beyond the physical world, realism of the Holy Spirit, as opposed to a purely worldly, quasi-physical realism.
Here English cannot fully convey the enigmatic character of the biblical Greek. In Greek the word soma means something like 'body", but at the same time it also means "the self". And this soma can be sarx, that is, "body" in the earthly, historical, and thus chemical, physical, sense; but it can also be "breath"–according to the dictionary, it would then have to be translated "spirit"; in reality this means that the self, which now appears in a body that can be conceived in chemico-physical terms, can, again, appear definitively in the guise of a transphysical reality. In Paul's language "body" and "spirit" are not opposites; the opposites are called "physical body" and "spiritual body." We do not need to try here to pursue the complicated historical and philosophical problems posed by this. One thing at any rate may be fairly clear: both John (6:63) and Paul (1 Cort. 15:50) state with all possible emphasis that the "resurrection of the flesh", the "resurrection of the body", is not a "resurrection of physical bodies". Thus, from the point of view of modern thought, the Pauline sketch is far less naïve than later theological erudition with its subtle ways of construing how there can be eternal physical bodies. To recapitulate, Paul teaches, not the resurrection of physical bodies, but the resurrection of [page 357 ends here] persons, and this not in the return of the "fleshly body", that is, the biological structure, an idea he expressly describes as impossible ("the perishable cannot become imperishable"), but in the different form of the life of the resurrection, as shown in the risen Lord.
Has, then, the resurrection no relation at all to matter? And does this make the "Last Day" completely pointless in comparison with the life that always comes from the call of the Lord? Basically we have already answered this last question in our reflections on the second coming of Christ. If the cosmos is history and if matter represents a moment in the history of spirit, then there is no such thing as an eternal, neutral combination of matter and spirit; rather, there is a final "complexity" in which the world finds it omega and unity. In that case there is a final connection between matter and spirit in which the destiny of man and of the world is consummated, even if it is impossible for us today to define the nature of this connection. In that case there is such a thing as a "Last Day", on which the destiny of the individual man becomes full because the destiny of mankind is fulfilled."
Benedict's point here is a bit confusing, and it required me to try to read back from the beginning of the section to better grasp it. Benedict has been contrasting what he views as the biblical view of the body and soul with the prior Greek thought, asserting that while the Greeks saw the physical body and soul as separate, Christian thought has them as part of a single whole. Thus, (if I am understanding him properly) he says that when the Apostles' Creed refers to the "resurrection of the body", it is not talking about the physical body isolated from the soul, but that the whole person--body and soul--is resurrected. He is therefore not at all trying to make any claim, as the list claims, that people do not have their physical bodies resurrected, but that by resurrection of the "body" it is not simply the physical body that is resurrected.
Even if he were saying that it was a different body, it is unclear if this is a contradiction given the ambiguities mentioned above about the other citation. But when read in better context, is seems obvious to me that he is not denying any resurrection of the same physical body, but rather is asserting that resurrection of the body does not only refer to the physical body.
27.
Vatican I's definition of Papal Primacy is not binding on all Christians. PCT: 198
All Christians must believe the definition of Pius IX on Papal Primacy. Ven. Pius IX, D. 1826
What Benedict says is "Certainly, no one who claims allegiance to Catholic theology can simply declare the doctrine of primacy null and void, especially not if he seeks to understand the objections and evaluates with an open mind the relative weight of what can be determined historically. Nor is it possible, on the other hand, for him to regard as the only possible form and, consequently, as binding on all Christians the form this primacy has taken in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries."
You may notice the fact he makes no mention of Vatican I's definition, nor anything about Vatican I. He instead says "the form this primacy has taken in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries". Thus, is he referring to the statement of the First Vatican Council or things (or interpretations of Vatican I) that happened since? The list simply assumes it refers to "Vatican I's definition of Papal Primacy" for the sake of pulling out a contradiction.
The fact the list has to make unwarranted assumptions in order to find the issue in Benedict's statement dismisses this section by itself. But what is odder is that Denzinger 1826 says nothing at all about "the definition of Pius IX on Papal Primacy". Rather, it says:
"Therefore, relying on the clear testimonies of Sacred Scripture, and adhering to the eloquent and manifest decisions not only of Our predecessors, the Roman Pontiffs, but also of the general Councils, We renew the definition of the Ecumenical Council of Florence, by which all the faithful of Christ most believe "that the Apostolic See and the Roman Pontiff hold primacy over the whole world, and that the Pontiff of Rome himself is the successor of the blessed Peter, the chief of the apostles, and is the true vicar of Christ and head of the whole Church and faith, and teacher of all Christians; and that to him was handed down in blessed Peter, by our Lord Jesus Christ, full power to feed, rule, and guide the universal Church, just as is also contained in the records of the ecumenical Councils and in the sacred canons" [see n.694]."
But this says nothing about the definition of Pius IX; this refers to a statement from the earlier Council of Florence. Now, the above quote does come from Vatican I (and therefore Pius IX, who was in charge of it), but this quote is simply repeating something from Florence and saying the faithful of Christ must accept that. Benedict's statement is already not an issue, but even if he flat out said Vatican I was wrong, the quotation chosen for opposition would not be in contradiction because it is taken from Florence!
28.
One can be saved without being a visible member of the Church. RR: 196
Only those who can be saved are those who are real members of the Church. Pius XII, D. 2286
The Denzinger citation (2286) is the same as #15, making this a bit of a rehash. Though unlike #15, they at least didn't cite a page from a work by Benedict that had nothing to do with what it claimed it did. Anyway, the citation from Denzinger (taken from Pius XII's encyclical Mystici Corporis) reads:
"Actually only those are to be numbered among the members of the Church who have received the laver of regeneration and profess the true faith, and have not, to their misfortune, separated themselves from the structure of the Body, or for very serious sins have not been excluded by lawful authority. "For in one spirit," says the Apostle, "were we all baptized into one Body, whether Jews or Gentiles, whether bond or free" [ 1 Cor. 12:13]. So, just as in the true community of the faithful of Christ there is only one Body, one Spirit, one Lord, and one Baptism, so there can be only one faith [cf. Eph. 4:5]; and so he who refuses to hear the Church, as the Lord bids "let him be as the heathen and publican" [cf. Matt. 18:17 ]. Therefore, those who are divided from one another in faith or in government cannot live in the unity of such a body, and in its one divine spirit."
I see nothing there about salvation. In fact, he indicates that salvation is not limited to only those people, as he later says in that very same document of Mystici Corporis in paragraph 103 that:
"As you know, Venerable Brethren, from the very beginning of Our Pontificate, We have committed to the protection and guidance of heaven those who do not belong to the visible Body of the Catholic Church, solemnly declaring that after the example of the Good Shepherd We desire nothing more ardently than that they may have life and have it more abundantly. Imploring the prayers of the whole Church We wish to repeat this solemn declaration in this Encyclical Letter in which We have proclaimed the praises of the "great and glorious Body of Christ" and from a heart overflowing with love We ask each and every one of them to correspond to the interior movements of grace, and to seek to withdraw from that state in which they cannot be sure of their salvation. For even though by an unconscious desire and longing they have a certain relationship with the Mystical Body of the Redeemer, they still remain deprived of those many heavenly gifts and helps which can only be enjoyed in the Catholic Church."
Note that he says that those who do not belong to the visible body are in a "state in which they cannot be sure of their salvation" he does not say they cannot be saved. He could have easily said that explicitly had that been his intention. Thus, Pius XII is expressing the same basic sentiments as Benedict did. And for those curious, here's the fuller context of Benedict's remarks:
"It is part of the Church's ancient, traditional teaching that every man is called to salvation and de facto can be saved if he sincerely follows the precepts of his own conscience, even without being a visible member of the Catholic Church. This teaching however, which (I repeat) was already accepted and beyond dispute, has been put forward in an extreme form since the Council on the basis of theories like that of 'anonymous Christians.' Ultimately it has been proposed that grace is always given provided that a person–believing in no religion at all or subscribing to any religion whatsoever–accepts himself as a human being. That is all that is necessary. According to these theories the Christian's 'plus' is only that he is aware of this grace, which inheres actually in all people, whether baptized or not. Hand in hand, then, with the weakening of the necessity of baptism, went the overemphasis on the values of the non-Christian religions, which many theologians saw not as extraordinary paths of salvation but precisely as ordinary ones."
(emphases original. He goes on to say that this has had an unfortunately negative effect on missionary attempts)
29.
Protestant sects ought to be strengthened. PCT: 202
All heretical sects are to be exterminated. Innocent III, T. 234-235
This is mostly a rehash of #14. In fact, the alleged heresy happens in the same sentence as in #14: "It means that the Catholic does not insist on the dissolution of the Protestant confessions and the demolishing of their churches but hopes, rather, that they will be strengthened in their confessions and n their ecclesial reality." The same consideration in #14 apply here; the statement of strengthening appears to be in regards to them trying to bring them in more line with Catholic doctrine through their confessions.
As for the second source (which should really be pages 233-235, as page 234 is the Latin counterpart to the English page 235), what is being said is that to root out heresy, Bishops should visit at least twice a year any parish of theirs in which heretics are said to live and attempt to find them, and then excommunicate them if they refuse to change their ways. It also lists various sanctions that would apply to the excommunicated. While obviously there is the goal of getting rid of heresy, or at least limiting it, it still does not exactly say "all heretical sects are to be exterminated." But even if it did, it does not contradict what Benedict wrote.
30.
There is sanctification in sects. DI: 16
There is no sanctification in sects. Pius XII, D. 2286
This is just a re-hash of #28, which itself is basically a re-hash of #15. The statement made by Benedict, quoting from Vatican II, is (referring to the Catholic Church) "outside of her structure, many elements can be found of sanctification and truth”, that is, in those Churches and ecclesial communities which are not yet in full communion with the Catholic Church. But with respect to these, it needs to be stated that “they derive their efficacy from the very fullness of grace and truth entrusted to the Catholic Church”." Strictly speaking, he says "many elements can be found of sanctification", not that sanctification is.
The points mentioned at #28 bear here, but it should be noted that Pius XII says nothing about sanctification here anyway. He merely says that members of the Catholic Church must have been baptized and possess the true faith (essentially saying "to be a Catholic, one must be a Catholic"). So Benedict's statement is not really properly represented, but even if it was, it wouldn't be contradicting the latter because it doesn't say anything about sanctification.
31.
Catholics ought to give communion to schismatics. PFF: 232
A schismatic is in mortal sin and cannot lawfully be given communion. Paul III, D. 893
Here is what Denzinger 893 (taken from the Council of Trent) says:
"If anyone says that faith alone is sufficient preparation for receiving the sacrament of the most Holy Eucharist: let him be anathema. And that so great a Sacrament may not be unworthily received, and therefore unto death and condemnation, this holy Council ordains and declares that sacramental confession must necessarily be made beforehand by those whose conscience is burdened by mortal sin, however contrite they may consider themselves. If anyone moreover teaches the contrary or preaches or obstinately asserts, or even publicly by disputation shall presume to defend the contrary, by that fact itself he is excommunicated"
This says nothing specifically about schismatics; it simply says those whose conscience is burdened by mortal sin must use sacramental confession before taking the Eucharist. While an "act of perfect contrition" does remove mortal sin without confession, this is a declaration that even if one does this (hence the statement of "however contrite they may consider themselves"), they still must go through the sacrament of confession prior to taking the Eucharist. That appears to me to be the purpose of this canon.
Now let us see what Benedict said:
"We ought not really to be asking: "Can we legitimately communicate with one another?"–but rather: "Can we legitimately refuse Communion to one another?" In this area we have, praise God, made some progress together. The two codes of canon law of the Catholic Church and her Ecumenical Directory show that under certain conditions admission to Communion between East and West is permissible or even positively recommended. An agreement is about to be concluded between the "Assyrian" and the "Chaldean" Churches about mutual admission to Communion in the wide area of the diaspora, where very often only one of the two has a priest available. The case needed special studies to be made, because the Anaphora of Addai and Mari most commonly in use by the Assyrians does not include an institution narrative. But these difficulties were able to be overcome, and thus in general, despite many problems, there are now and again little bits of encouragement that give us hope."
I am not sure what he means by "the two codes of canon law". This would presumably refer to the 1917 and 1983 code of canon law, but while the 1983 code of canon law allows for "under certain conditions admission to Communion between East and West" in canon 844, I am not sure where it is in the 1917, if it is; unless the other is supposed to be in the "Ecumenical Directory". Regardless, I will be focusing on the 1983 one. In canon 844.3, we see "Catholic ministers administer the sacraments of penance, Eucharist, and anointing of the sick licitly to members of Eastern Churches which do not have full communion with the Catholic Church if they seek such on their own accord and are properly disposed. This is also valid for members of other Churches which in the judgment of the Apostolic See are in the same condition in regard to the sacraments as these Eastern Churches."
In any event, it does say under certain circumstances they can receive the Eucharist at a Catholic church. Note it says they must be "properly disposed" which would, I believe, be in reference to how they must be cleared of mortal sin, in accordance with the Denzinger citation.
The Denzinger citation says nothing about "schismatics" in it. I would assume that the idea of the list is that it would say schism is a mortal sin and therefore anyone who is in a non-Catholic Eastern church would be inherently in mortal sin.
The problem is that this seems to be an inaccurate view under Catholic theology; this can qualify as mortal sin, but not always. As many a Catholic theology book will say, there are three things required for mortal sin. As the author of the list presumably rejects the current Catechism of the Catholic Church, I will instead use the earlier Catechism of St. Pius X as the source:
"29 Q. What is required for a sin to be mortal? A. For a sin to be mortal three things are required: (1) Grave matter, (2) Full advertence, (3) Perfect consent of the will.
30 Q. When is the matter to be considered grave?
A. The matter is grave when the thing under examination is seriously contrary to the laws of God and His Church.
31 Q. When is there full advertence in sinning?
A. Full advertence in sinning is had when we know perfectly well that we are doing a serious evil.
32 Q. When is perfect consent of the will verified in sinning?
A. Perfect consent of the will is verified in sinning when we deliberately determine to do a thing although we know that thing to be sinful."
There is, of course, debate in Catholic theological circles as to what precisely qualifies as "full advertence" (or full knowledge, as other sources render it), but at any rate unless an Eastern Orthodox fulfills these requirements, their status as an Eastern Orthodox does not become a mortal sin.
Now, I do think there are various good arguments why Canon 844.3 is not good policy (one being that while it is not necessarily mortal sin, the fact it can be indicates it should be avoided), but I do not think it violates the other citation. Again, it requires they be "properly disposed" to receive the Eucharist, presumably referring to confession which is in harmony with the first citation.
32.
There is no hope for real unity by converting heretics. PCT:197
The hope to promote Christian unity can only be promoted by converting heretics. Pius XI, MA: 10
It is not clear where he gets "there is no hope for real unity by converting heretics." My guess is the fact that Benedict writes:
"As regards Protestantism, the maximum demand of the Catholic Church would be that the Protestant ecclesiological ministries be regarded as totally invalid and that Protestants be converted to Catholicism; the maximum demand of Protestants, on the other hand, would be that the Catholic Church accept, along with the unconditional acknowledgement of all Protestant ministries, the Protestant concept of ministry and their understanding of the Church and thus, in practice, renounce the apostolic and sacramental structure of the Church, which would mean, in practice, the conversion of Catholics to Protestantism and their acceptance of a multiplicity of distinct community structures as the historical form of the Church."
He then (on page 198) writes "As a result, none of the maximum solutions offers any real hope for unity." Which is stating the bluntly obvious. If the listmaker or anyone else thinks Benedict is wrong, then by all means, go out and convince every Protestant to convert to Catholicism. Or at least get a notable Protestant denomination to convert to disband itself and join the Catholic Church (note I specify disband, not merely somehow enter communion with the Catholic Church while retaining some level of independence as is the case with Anglican Ordinariate or some Eastern Catholic churches). Good luck!
As for Mortalium Animos, Pius XI writes "for the union of Christians can only be promoted by promoting the return to the one true Church of Christ of those who are separated from it, for in the past they have unhappily left it." The context of this was that there were attempts by some Protestant groups to get some kind of unified Protestantism going. Pius XI is putting forward the statement that this kind of union would be achieved by them returning to the Catholic Church. However, he is presumably talking in a general sense, and does not actually believe that all Protestants everywhere joining the Catholic Church is something that is plausible anytime soon.
So really, I don't see a contradiction here. Benedict XVI's statement is concerning pragmatism, whereas Pius XI's is regarding the ideal.
33.
The Church is guilty of sins. PFF: 275
Holy Mother Church is immaculate and impeccable. Pius XII, MCC: 66
Benedict and Pius XII, quite frankly, are saying the same thing here: Members of the church are guilty of sins, but the church should not be held as such. At no point does Benedict say the Church itself is guilty of sins (he rhetorically asks "The many kinds of sin and failure that Church history tells us about–who is to blame for them? Can perhaps the Church herself be to blame?" but makes it rather obvious he views the fault as individuals, not the Church). Similarly, Pius XII admits forthright that members of the Church have committed sins in the past, writing "And if at times there appears in the Church something that indicates the weakness of our human nature, it should not be attributed to her juridical constitution, but rather to that regrettable inclination to evil found in each individual, which its Divine Founder permits even at times in the most exalted members of His Mystical Body, for the purpose of testing the virtue of the Shepherds no less than of the flocks, and that all may increase the merit of their Christian faith." He may be more blunt with his answer but ultimately I see them as saying the same basic thing.
34.
Catholics share with Protestants a hope for heaven. GAW: 130
It is heretical to say there is hope for the eternal salvation of Protestants who are no wise in the Church. Pius IX, D. 1717-1718
Both of these are distortions of what was said. Benedict's statement actually is "With our Protestant friends we share the hope that there is a heaven and a hell. The fact that they are unable to accept belief in purgatory derives in part from the teaching on justification." All he is saying here is that Protestants, like Catholics, believe there is is a heaven and a hell. Now, elsewhere Benedict does say that Protestants can go to heaven, so "Catholics share with Protestants a hope for heaven" is not an inaccurate statement to describe his theology, but it is thoroughly inaccurate for this specific citation.
But even if we were to suppose the list did give an accurate citation for Benedict, the other citation does not work. First, here are the two statements cited (Denzinger 1717 and 1718):
"We must have at least good hope concerning the eternal salvation of all those who in no wise are in the true Church of Christ."
and
"Protestantism is nothing else than a different form of the same true Christian religion, in which it is possible to serve God as well as in the Catholic Church."
Note that while these are cited in Denzinger, these both come from the Syllabus of Errors. The translations of Denzinger above are different than those of the translation of the Syllabus of Errors you typically see when looking specifically at the document (they presumably were done by different people), so for completeness I'll note what you'll see on other sites for the Syllabus of Errors:
"Good hope at least is to be entertained of the eternal salvation of all those who are not at all in the true Church of Christ"
and
"Protestantism is nothing more than another form of the same true Christian religion, in which form it is given to please God equally as in the Catholic Church."
These will be taken one at a time. The first one to look at is "We must have at least good hope concerning the eternal salvation of all those who in no wise are in the true Church of Christ." First, it should be noted the context of this. This comes from the Syllabus of Errors, a listing of ideas condemned by Pius IX. What is often missed about the Syllabus of Errors is that it is really a summary form of various things he wrote. This is why for each condemnation he refers to the writing of his in which the condemnation occurs, and this is important for figuring out the context of what he is talking about.
So with that in mind, what is the citation for the first of these condemned propositions? "Quanto Conficiamur Moerore" which can be viewed here. In that work, he makes a similar statement in Chapter 7, but it must be viewed in context:
"Here, too, our beloved sons and venerable brothers, it is again necessary to mention and censure a very grave error entrapping some Catholics who believe that it is possible to arrive at eternal salvation although living in error and alienated from the true faith and Catholic unity. Such belief is certainly opposed to Catholic teaching. There are, of course, those who are struggling with invincible ignorance about our most holy religion. Sincerely observing the natural law and its precepts inscribed by God on all hearts and ready to obey God, they live honest lives and are able to attain eternal life by the efficacious virtue of divine light and grace. Because God knows, searches and clearly understands the minds, hearts, thoughts, and nature of all, his supreme kindness and clemency do not permit anyone at all who is not guilty of deliberate sin to suffer eternal punishments."
Pius IX, immediately after saying that the idea "it is possible to arrive at external salvation although living in error and alienated from the true faith and Catholic unity... is certainly opposed to Catholic teaching", clarifies his statement, saying that despite that, there are those who "are able to attain eternal life" despite not being formal Catholics. In fact, you don't even need to go over to Quanto Conficiamur Moerore to see this and can find this in Denzinger itself--in Denzinger 1717 it says to see also 1677 (which contains the above) and 1646 (from Singular quadem, which conveys similar sentiments to the above quote).
Even if we set aside the original context of Pius IX's ideas in Quanto Conficiamur Moerore and examine it solely on the basis of the abbreviated version in the Syllabus of Errors, the above considerations still apply. After all, the condemnation is of the idea that "Good hope at least is to be entertained of the eternal salvation of all those who are not at all in the true Church of Christ"--in other words, it condemns that there must be at least good hope of all of those people having eternal salvation. So, if someone were to say "Good hope at least is to be entertained of the eternal salvation of some of those who are not at all in the true Church of Christ" then the condemnation would not apply. And the larger context of his remarks in Quanto Conficiamur Moerore makes it even more abundantly clear he did not intend to declare that no one who was "not at all in the true Church of Christ" could be saved. Yet that is what the list claims he did! An absurd misrepresentation.
The latter quote, "Protestantism is nothing else than a different form of the same true Christian religion, in which it is possible to serve God as well as in the Catholic Church," is much easier to discuss. All this is condemning is the idea that Protestantism is "on par" with Catholicism, which is contradicted by the fact that in Catholic belief, Catholicism is actually the only true church. The second portion is simply saying that one cannot serve God as well as one could in the Catholic Church, not saying one cannot serve God at all.
I know I wrote much on this, but only because both of these citations were so misrepresented (especially Pius IX's) and I wanted to demonstrate how.
35.
The Catholic Church ought not convert schismatic churches. EVT: 68
The Catholic Church must convert schismatic groups into her bosom. Pius XI, MA:12
Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian is what is cited here, and it can be found here. But there's a notable problem. There is no Chapter 68! It stops at Chapter 42. As a result, I cannot perform an analysis.
36.
Pius IX erred in his Syllabus. PCT: 381
No pope can err when solemnly condemning errors on faith or morals. Ven. Pius IX, D. 1798
This one may look familiar, because it is; he's practically duplicating #11. In any event, Benedict does not say that Pius IX erred in his Syllabus. What he actually says is, discussing the Vatican II document "Gaudium et spes":
"If it is desirable to offer a diagnosis of the text as a whole, we might say that (in conjunction with the texts on religious liberty and world religions) it is a revision of the Syllabus of Pius IX, a kind of countersyllabus. Harnack, as we know, interpreted the Sylalbus of Pius IX as nothing less than a declaration of war against his generation. This is correct insofar as the Syllabulus established a ilne of demarcation against the determining forces of the nineteenth century: against the scientific and political world view of liberalism. In the struggle against modernism this twofold delimitation was ratified and strengthened. Since then many things have changed."
This seems a stretch to say Pius IX erred; indeed, he seems to support the issuing of the document at the time. He rather seems to indicate that the changes of the world since have rendered some of it less relevant.
But even if we interpret this as him saying Pius IX erred, 1798 does not say "No pope may err when solemnly condemning errors on faith or morals." In fact, it doesn't say anything at all about the pope. What it says is:
"Further, the Church which, together with the apostolic duty of teaching, has received the command to guard the deposit of faith, has also, from divine Providence, the right and duty of proscribing "knowledge falsely so called" [1 Tim. 6:20 ], "lest anyone be cheated by philosophy and vain deceit" [cf.Col. 2:8; can. 2]. Wherefore, all faithful Christians not only are forbidden to defend opinions of this sort, which are known to be contrary to the teaching of faith, especially if they have been condemned by the Church, as the legitimate conclusions of science, but they shall be altogether bound to hold them rather as errors, which present a false appearance of truth. "
Okay, so this is saying that what opinions Church has condemned, faithful Christians cannot defend. Nothing is stated about the Pope. Now, the above one is from Vatican I which did declare something like what the list cited, but not in 1798, but 1839. 1839 says:
"And so We, adhering faithfully to the tradition received from the beginning of the Christian faith, to the glory of God, our Savior, the elevation of the Catholic religion and the salvation of Christian peoples, with the approbation of the sacred Council, teach and explain that the dogma has been divinely revealed: that the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra, that is, when carrying out the duty of the pastor and teacher of all Christians by virtue of his supreme apostolic authority he defines a doctrine of faith or morals to be held by the universal Church, through the divine assistance promised him in blessed Peter, operates with that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer wished that His church be instructed in defining doctrine on faith and morals; and so such definitions of the Roman Pontiff from himself, but not from the consensus of the Church, are unalterable."
The list's claim that "No pope can err when solemnly condemning errors on faith or morals" is an imperfect but close representation of the above. Now, exactly how "solemn" the Syllabus of Errors was was debated even at the time of its issuance, but supposing it did qualify, once against Benedict didn't say it was in error. He merely said it applied to those circumstances at the time.
So even if we swap out the irrelevant 1798 for the more promising 1839, to force a contradiction we must conclude the Syllabus of Errors was a "solemn condemnation" (very debatable) and that Benedict said Pius IX erred (he doesn't seem to say that) which requires two stretches in order to reach the contradiction.
37.
Protestants who believe in the Eucharist share in the True Presence. PCT: 236
Abjuration, confession, and absolution are needed before a heretic could communicate. Paul III, D. 893
The second is the exact same one as in #31, making this essentially a duplicate, but making less sense. At least in #31 it was Benedict saying Eastern Orthodox could take communion in certain circumstances. But here? Benedict's statement is "But the Catholic teaching here recalled to memory does not in any way deny that Protestant Christians who believe in the presence of the Lord also share in that presence." He appears to be saying that Protestants who believe in the True Presence share in it in some mystical fashion. He is not saying anything about giving communion, let alone that Protestants should take it from Catholics. Now, Paul III's statement is the following:
"If anyone says that faith alone is sufficient preparation for receiving the sacrament of the most Holy Eucharist: let him be anathema. And that so great a Sacrament may not be unworthily received, and therefore unto death and condemnation, this holy Council ordains and declares that sacramental confession must necessarily be made beforehand by those whose conscience is burdened by mortal sin, however contrite they may consider themselves. If anyone moreover teaches the contrary or preaches or obstinately asserts, or even publicly by disputation shall presume to defend the contrary, by that fact itself he is excommunicated"
However, as Benedict is not saying anything at all about Protestants receiving communion, this supposed contradiction fails on the spot.
38.
Unity of Christians needs to process to become reality. GAW: 453
The unity of Christians is already a reality in the Catholic Church. Pius XI, MA:7-10
The examination up until this point has clearly showed that one should be very careful trusting the representations of this list of the material being cited. However, even the summaries the list offers in this case are hard to see in contradiciton. Even if there is unity within the Catholic Church, anyone can see that not all Christians are Catholic and thus unity is lacking. Looking at the works cited merely confirms this. (Pius XI's statement is too lengthy to really quote, but Benedict's statement is "The unity of Christians cannot be restored by some kind of political coup or by cutting the Gordian knot with a sword. It's a matter of living processes.")
39.
Theologians can develop Church doctrine. EVT: 33
No divine doctrine can be developed. Pius XII, D. 2314
The claim that paragraph 33 of Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of Theologian somehow translates to "Theologians can develop Church doctrine" is utterly nonsensical. Here is the paragraph:
"Dissent has different aspects. In its most radical form, it aims at changing the Church following a model of protest which takes its inspiration from political society. More frequently, it is asserted that the theologian is not bound to adhere to any Magisterial teaching unless it is infallible. Thus a Kind of theological positivism is adopted, according to which, doctrines proposed without exercise of the charism of infallibility are said to have no obligatory character about them, leaving the individual completely at liberty to adhere to them or not. The theologian would accordingly be totally free to raise doubts or reject the non-infallible teaching of the Magisterium particularly in the case of specific moral norms. With such critical opposition, he would even be making a contribution to the development of doctrine."
The reference to a theologian making a contribution to the development of doctrine comes in the final sentence, but when read in context, this is something that Benedict is criticizing. The list has actually taken something Benedict is explicitly standing against and is presenting it as his position!
40.
There are essential and non-essential elements of Faith. GAW: 453
All articles of faith are fundamental. Pius XI, MA: 9
The statement apparently being referred to is Benedict writing that "We can only humbly seek to essentialize our faith, that is, to recognize what are the really essential elements in it–the things we have not made but have received from the Lord–and in this attitude of turning to the Lord and to the center, to open ourselves in this essentializing so that he may lead us onward, he alone."
This is posed as in contradiction, I believe, to this statement of Pius XI:
"Besides this, in connection with things which must be believed, it is nowise licit to use that distinction which some have seen fit to introduce between those articles of faith which are fundamental and those which are not fundamental, as they say, as if the former are to be accepted by all, while the latter may be left to the free assent of the faithful: for the supernatural virtue of faith has a formal cause, namely the authority of God revealing, and this is patient of no such distinction."
But this is no contradiction at all. Pius XI is referring to people who try to draw a distinction between the fundamental and non-fundamental articles of faith. Benedict XVI does not seem to be referring to those as being non-essential--indeed, those I would expect are the essential things he is referring to.
41.
Rome must not require the Greek schismatics to abjure their errors on the Papal Primacy. PCT: 199
Greeks must repudiate all errors and hold all dogmas taught from the Apostolic Chair of Peter. S. Pius X, PTC: 743-746
Still, Benedict's statement here is: "When the Patriarch Athenagoras, on July 25, 1967, on the occasion of he Pope's visit to Phanar, designated him as the successor of St. Peter, as the most esteemed among us, as one who presides in charity, this great Church leader was expressing the essential content of the doctrine of primacy as it was known in the first millenium. [sic] Rome need not ask for more. Reunion could take place in this context if, on the other hand, the East would cease to oppose as heretical the developments that took place in the West in the second millennium and would accept the Catholic Church as legitimate and orthodox in the form she had acquired in the course of that development, while on the other hand, the West would recognize the Church of the East as orthodox and legitimate in the form she has always had."
Benedict is a bit vague here on exactly how this would work (of course, he's offering speculations here anyway), but he does clearly say that the East would cease to oppose as heretical what occurred in the second millennium, meaning there would have to be some change. Thus to claim they must not require them to abjure errors seems an odd interpretation. So even judging by just that, this seems a bit dubious.
However, things get weaker when we look at the other statement. The 199 refers not to the page number, but the section number; it
would have been nice had that been specified. Still, I will now attempt
to type up the entirety of this section. The source of given for this,
incidentally, is "In suprema Petri" (full title "In Suprema Petri
Apostoli Sede"), a letter sent by Pius IX in 1848, meaning the list
makes an error by attributing it to Pius X. While the work does not explicitly state which pope wrote it, it does mention it was from 1848 and simply looking at who was pope at the time shows it was Pius IX (Pius X would not become pope until nearly 60 years later).
Anyway, here is the full section of 199, with footnotes included:
"We know that you all hold to the preservation of the doctrine kept by your ancestors. Therefore, follow, too, those bishops of antiquity and those first Christians of the East; innumerable monuments attest to the fact that, together with the Christians of the West, they respected the authority of the Roman Pontiffs. Among the most remarkable documents which the East of antiquity has left on this subject (beyond the testimony of Irenaeus which We have just cited), We love to recall what happened in the fourth century in the case of Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, distinguished for his sanctity no less than for his teaching and his pastoral zeal. Unjustly condemned by the Bishops of the East, partiuclarly at the Council of Tyre, and driven from his Church, he came to Rome where there were at the same time other Bishops from the East, like Athanasius unjustly deprived of their sees. "The Bishop of Rome, Our predecessor Julius I, having examined the case of each one of them and finding them all loyal to the teaching of the Council of Nicaea, received them into communion with him. And because, by reason of the dignity of his see, he was charged with the care of all, he restored his church to each of these bishops. He also wrote to the Eastern Bishops to reprimand them because they had not judged according to justice in the cause of these bishops, and because they had disturbed the peace of the churches" (a). At the beginning of the fifth century John Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople, no less illustrious than Athanasius, having been condemned most unjustly at Chalcedon at the Council of the Oak, in his turn had recourse by letters and envoys to Our Apostolic See, and was declared innocent by Our prdecessor St. Innocent I (b).
199a Sozomenius, Hist. Eccl. III. 8.
199b Cf. Letters of St Innocent I to St. John Chrysostom"
The Irenaeus testimony that was mentioned was cited in the previous section, for those curious, refers to "Adv. Haer., III, iii, 2."
It is not clear to me how "Greeks
must repudiate all errors and hold all dogmas taught from the Apostolic
Chair of Peter" is derived from the above. All it is saying is to point
up examples it holds as Rome correcting errors of the Eastern churches,
but not anything about requiring repudiation of errors or holding all
dogmas. Even if we were to interpret it as such, for the reasons given, Benedict's statement is really not represented properly.
42.
The Idea of the 'the Body of Christ' was developed. ECV: 18
The doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ was taught by the Redeemer Himself. Pius XII, MCC: 1
The first source, "The Ecclesiology of Vatican II", was originally published in the L'Osservatore Romano newspaper, which I do not have access to. However, the work itself can be read here, but without the original format I do not know exactly what they had in mind with "18" (this presumably referred to the page number of the newspaper, but that's not reproduced at the link).
I think what the list refers to is the statement that "The idea of the Body of Christ was developed within the Catholic Church, when the Church was designated as "Christ who continues to live on earth" and so the Church was described as the incarnation of the Son that continues to the end of time." But as far as I can tell, this is not saying that the basic idea was developed, but rather that the way people thought about it developed. Indeed, he declares:
"Let us go back and look at developments in the pre-Conciliar era. Reflection on the Mystical Body of Christ marked the first phase of the Church's interior re-discovery; it began with St Paul and led to placing in the foreground the presence of Christ and the dynamics of what is alive (in Him and us). Further research led to a fresh awareness. Above all, more than anyone else, the great French theologian Henri de Lubac in his magnificent and learned studies made it clear that in the beginning the term "corpus mysticum" referred to the Eucharist. For St Paul and the Fathers of the Church the idea of the Church as the Body of Christ was inseparably connected with the concept of the Eucharist in which the Lord is bodily present and which He gives us His Body as food. This is how a Eucharistic ecclesiology came into existence.
If he's saying that St. Paul had the idea, obviously he's not saying that it was created later! Someone might try to quibble and say that while Pius XII said "The doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ, which is the Church, 1 was first taught us by the Redeemer Himself", Benedict says it started with St. Paul, but if one looks at his words, you see he does not say that the idea of the Mystical Body of Christ bgan with St. Paul, but that reflection on it began with St. Paul.
Benedict's statements are not in tension with Pius XII's. All Benedict is saying is that how people thought about it developed, but he does not deny Jesus taught it (indeed, for St. Paul to reflect upon it, it had to predate St. Paul!).
43.
There is hope for infants who die without baptism. GAW: 402
There is no hope for the salvation of anyone outside the Catholic Church. Ven. Pius IX, D. 1719
The first seems to be reasonably represented, but Denzinger 1719 reads as the following (note this is a proposition that is condemned):
"The Church is not a true and perfect society absolutely free, nor does it operate by its own fixed and proper rights conferred on it by its divine founder; but it belongs to the civil power to define which are the rights of the Church, and the limits within which it may exercise these rights."
This has absolutely nothing to do with the question of salvation outside the Catholic Church. I'm guessing this was a mis-cite of some kind, but I can only judge it based on the citations given, and this citation is wrong. It's possible he was referring to 1717, but if so he's making the same error he did back in #34.
44.
The doctrinal understanding of Papal Infallibility has developed. DCF: 11
The doctrinal understanding of Papal Infallibility is that no new dogma may be developed. Ven. Pius IX, D.1836
So the first article in question, originally published in a newspaper, is available here.
"One can consider, for example, the development in the understanding of the doctrine connected with the definition of papal infallibility, prior to the dogmatic definition of the First Vatican Council. The primacy of the Successor of Peter was always believed as a revealed fact, although until Vatican I the discussion remained open as to whether the conceptual elaboration of what is understood by the terms 'jurisdiction' and 'infallibility' was to be considered an intrinsic part of revelation or only a logical consequence. On the other hand, although its character as a divinely revealed truth was defined in the First Vatican Council, the doctrine on the infallibility and primacy of jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff was already recognized as definitive in the period before the council. History clearly shows, therefore, that what was accepted into the consciousness of the Church was considered a true doctrine from the beginning, and was subsequently held to be definitive; however, only in the final stage - the definition of Vatican I - was it also accepted as a divinely revealed truth."
He does say there is development "in the understanding of the doctrine". However, he says "the primacy of the Successor of Peter was always believed as a revealed fact" and it "was considered a true doctrine from the beginning." So he does view it as always having been there.
The contrasting one by the list is to claim that the understanding of Papal Infallibility is that no new dogma may be developed. But Benedict doesn't say a new dogma was developed, but rather than understanding of the dogma did. Even more pertinently, the list is claiming that the understanding of papal infallibility is that no new dogma may be developed. But papal infallibility doesn't have anything to do with that! It says that under some circumstances the pope speaks infallibly; there's nothing about whether dogma can be developed. This claim of the list doesn't make sense.
If one expects that looking up the citation will explain how it makes sense, prepare to be disappointed, because Denzinger 1836 seems to have nothing to do with the claim of what the list claims it does. Here's what it says:
"To satisfy this pastoral duty, our predecessors always gave tireless attention that the saving doctrine of Christ be spread among all the peoples of the earth, and with equal care they watched that, wherever it was received, it was preserved sound and pure. Therefore, the bishops of the whole world, now individually, now gathered in Synods, following a long custom of the churches and the formula of the ancient rule, referred to this Holy See those dangers particularly which emerged in the affairs of faith, that there especially the damages to faith might be repaired where faith cannot experience a failure. * The Roman Pontiffs, moreover, according as the condition of the times and affairs advised, sometimes by calling ecumenical Councils or by examining the opinion of the Church spread throughout the world; sometimes by particular synods, sometimes by employing other helps which divine Providence supplied, have defined that those matters must be held which with God's help they have recognized as in agreement with Sacred Scripture and apostolic tradition. For, the Holy Spirit was not promised to the successors of Peter that by His revelation they might disclose new doctrine, but that by His help they might guard sacredly the revelation transmitted through the apostles and the deposit of faith, and might faithfully set it forth. Indeed, all the venerable fathers have embraced their apostolic doctrine, and the holy orthodox Doctors have venerated and followed it, knowing full well that the See of St. Peter always remains unimpaired by any error, according to the divine promise of our Lord the Savior made to the chief of His disciples: "I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren""
What does this say anything about dogmas or development? I don't see it.
45.
There are invisble members of the Church who are saved. DI: 20
The Church is visible and so are Her elected members. Pius XII, D. 2286
The typo of "invisible" appears to be in the original list. Again this is really just a repetition of previous points (#15, #28, and #30) in which he makes the same citation of Denzinger 2286, because I suppose he had to pad things out to get to the number he wanted. The same points mentioned there, particularly #28, apply here.
46.
Eastern schismatics are united to Catholic Church. CTC: 17
Eastern schismatics are not united to the Catholic Church. Pius XI, MA: 10-11
Page 17 of Called to Communion has absolutely nothing to do with the claim "Eastern schismatics are united to the Catholic Church." This is the second time he has made this error, see #15 where he alleged a similar sentiment from Page 17 that was nowhere to be found. Given this, we do not even need to examine the second citation.
47.
The Church needs renewal and reform to become Church. ECV:18
It is absurd to say the Church needs reform as if it is a human institution. Gregory XVI, MV: 10
So here is what Gregory XVI wrote in that section:
"To use the words of the fathers of Trent, it is certain that the Church “was instructed by Jesus Christ and His Apostles and that all truth was daily taught it by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.” Therefore, it is obviously absurd and injurious to propose a certain “restoration and regeneration” for her as though necessary for her safety and growth, as if she could be considered subject to defect or obscuration or other misfortune. Indeed these authors of novelties consider that a “foundation may be laid of a new human institution,” and what Cyprian detested may come to pass, that what was a divine thing “may become a human church.” Let those who devise such plans be aware that, according to the testimony of St. Leo, “the right to grant dispensation from the canons is given” only to the Roman Pontiff. He alone, and no private person, can decide anything “about the rules of the Church Fathers.” As St. Gelasius writes: “It is the papal responsibility to keep the canonical decrees in their place and to evaluate the precepts of previous popes so that when the times demand relaxation in order to rejuvenate the churches, they may be adjusted after diligent consideration.”"
Gregory never uses the phrase "reform", though he does say "restoration and regeneration". The quotation marks he uses indicate he's taking the phrase from somewhere else, but it's not clear where it is from or even precisely what he is referring to with it is. Context appears missing. It's clear that restoration in some sense is unnecessary, but precisely what that sense is is not entirely clear. Now we turn to Benedict's statement.
Unfortunately, the number "18" in the citation presumably refers to the page of the newspaper it was originally published in, which I am unable to look at. The document is available here but without its original page numbers. Thus it is not completely clear what part, and I have to make a guess. However, doing a search for "reform", the only match is the following:
"She [the Catholic Church] is a Church of sinners, ever in need of purification and renewal, ever needing to become Church. The idea of reform became a decisive element of the concept of the People of God, while it would be difficult to develop the idea of reform within the framework of the Body of Christ."
If this is what is in mind, the statement is by itself ambiguous as to whether the thing that is "ever in need of purification of renewal" refers to the "she" (the Catholic Church) or the "sinners" (individuals within the church) but based on the context it seems to me that it is saying the sinners are "ever in need of purification and renewal". As for the mention of reform, given the preceding mention of sinners, it seems to be talking about the need for reform on the individual level. Even if we were to suppose that the "purification and renewal" and "reform" are referring to the church, it is not clear if this is referring to the same kind of "restorationa and regeneration" as Gregory was.
48.
Many false religions fall within the plan of salvation. DI: 14
Only the Catholic Religion falls within the plan of salvation. Leo XII, UP: 14
Let's begin with Leo XII's statement. Here is the section being cited:
"Certainly
many remarkable authors, adherents of the true philosophy, have taken
pains to attack and crush this strange view. But the matter is so
self-evident that it is superfluous to give additional arguments. It is
impossible for the most true God, who is Truth Itself, the best, the
wisest Provider, and the Rewarder of good men, to approve all sects who
profess false teachings which are often inconsistent with one another
and contradictory, and to confer eternal rewards on their members. For
we have a surer word of the prophet, and in writing to you We speak
wisdom among the perfect; not the wisdom of this world but the wisdom of
God in a mystery. By it we are taught, and by divine faith we hold one
Lord, one faith, one baptism, and that no other name under heaven is
given to men except the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth in which we
must be saved. This is why we profess that there is no salvation outside
the Church."
With this in mind, let us see what Benedict said. Emphases original:
"It must therefore be firmly believed as a truth of Catholic faith that the universal salvific will of the One and Triune God is offered and accomplished once for all in the mystery of the incarnation, death, and resurrection of the Son of God.Bearing in mind this article of faith, theology today, in its reflection on the existence of other religious experiences and on their meaning in God's salvific plan, is invited to explore if and in what way the historical figures and positive elements of these religions may fall within the divine plan of salvation. In this undertaking, theological research has a vast field of work under the guidance of the Church's Magisterium. The Second Vatican Council, in fact, has stated that: “the unique mediation of the Redeemer does not exclude, but rather gives rise to a manifold cooperation which is but a participation in this one source”. The content of this participated mediation should be explored more deeply, but must remain always consistent with the principle of Christ's unique mediation: “Although participated forms of mediation of different kinds and degrees are not excluded, they acquire meaning and value only from Christ's own mediation, and they cannot be understood as parallel or complementary to his”. Hence, those solutions that propose a salvific action of God beyond the unique mediation of Christ would be contrary to Christian and Catholic faith."
We can see Benedict's statement is much more cautious than the above claim makes it out to be. He says that "It must therefore be firmly believed as a truth of Catholic faith that the universal salvific will of the One and Triune God is offered and accomplished once for all in the mystery of the incarnation, death, and resurrection of the Son of God" and the statements of "if and in what way" as well as "may fall within" conveys some level of uncertainty. Note finally he refers to the "positive elements" of those religions falling within the plan of salvation, not that the religions themselves necessarily do.
I thus ultimately don't see these in tension.
49.
Non-Catholic religions possess truth. DI: 2
Only the Catholic Religion possesses truth. Gregory XVI, D. 1617
"In considering the values which these religions witness to and offer humanity, with an open and positive approach, the Second Vatican Council's Declaration on the relation of the Church to non-Christian religions states: “The Catholic Church rejects nothing of what is true and holy in these religions. She has a high regard for the manner of life and conduct, the precepts and teachings, which, although differing in many ways from her own teaching, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that truth which enlightens all men”."
All it says here is that the Catholic Church rejects nothing of what is true and holy in other religions. This can hardly be considered controversial. In virtually all other religions, there are some points of commonalities between them and Catholicism. For a Catholic to claim that "non-Catholic religions possess truth" is a false statement is blatantly absurd because there are absolutely points of commonality and those would be considered the truth; if non-Catholic religions do not possess truth, then that must mean the entire Bible must be disregarded because non-Catholic religions make use of it. The fact there is some truth to be found in non-Catholic religions is all that the above is saying.
But what of the second citation? It says:
"But it is a very mournful thing, by which the ravings of human reason go to ruin when someone is eager for revolution and, against the advice of the Apostle, strives "to be more wise than it behooveth to be wise" [cf. Rom. 12:3 ], and trusting too much in himself, affirms that truth must be sought outside of the Catholic Church in which truth itself is found far from even the slightest defilement of error, and which therefore, is called and is "the pillar and ground of the truth" [1 Tim. 3 15 ]. But you well understand, Venerable Brothers, that We are here speaking in open disapproval of that false system of philosophy, not so long ago introduced, by which, because of an extended and unbridled desire of novelty, truth is not sought where it truly resides, and, with a disregard for the holy and apostolic traditions, other vain, futile, uncertain doctrines, not approved by the Church are accepted as true, on which very vain men mistakenly think that truth itself is supported and sustained."
Presumably what is in mind is the criticism of he who "affirms that truth must be sought outside of the Catholic Church in which truth itself is found far from even the slightest defilement of error." But note what it says; the affirmation is that truth must be sought outside of the Catholic Church. If truth must be sought outside, that means the truth outside is not also within the Catholic Church. He is thus criticizing the idea that there is truth outside not also found inside. He is not criticizing the idea that any truth outside the Catholic Church would also be found inside, which was the point Benedict seemed to be making. Indeed, it would be nonsensical for him to do so, as discussed earlier (the New Testament and Trinity must be rejected, for most Protestant groups accept them!).
50.
Non-Christians can be saved as such. DI: 21
No non-Christians can be saved as such. Eugene IV, T. 551
First, here is what is said in section 21 of the Benedict citation (italics original, footnotes omitted):
"With respect to the way in which the salvific grace of God - which is always given by means of Christ in the Spirit and has a mysterious relationship to the Church - comes to individual non-Christians, the Second Vatican Council limited itself to the statement that God bestows it “in ways known to himself”. Theologians are seeking to understand this question more fully. Their work is to be encouraged, since it is certainly useful for understanding better God's salvific plan and the ways in which it is accomplished. However, from what has been stated above about the mediation of Jesus Christ and the “unique and special relationship” which the Church has with the kingdom of God among men - which in substance is the universal kingdom of Christ the Saviour - it is clear that it would be contrary to the faith to consider the Church as one way of salvation alongside those constituted by the other religions, seen as complementary to the Church or substantially equivalent to her, even if these are said to be converging with the Church toward the eschatological kingdom of God.
Certainly, the various religious traditions contain and offer religious elements which come from God, and which are part of what “the Spirit brings about in human hearts and in the history of peoples, in cultures, and religions”. Indeed, some prayers and rituals of the other religions may assume a role of preparation for the Gospel, in that they are occasions or pedagogical helps in which the human heart is prompted to be open to the action of God. One cannot attribute to these, however, a divine origin or an ex opere operato salvific efficacy, which is proper to the Christian sacraments. Furthermore, it cannot be overlooked that other rituals, insofar as they depend on superstitions or other errors (cf. 1 Cor 10:20-21), constitute an obstacle to salvation."
With this in mind, we turn to the list's representation of it, namely "Non-Christians can be saved as such" Exactly what "as such" is supposed to mean is unclear. Perhaps it is criticizing the idea that non-Christians can be saved through their own religion, rather than them being saved being an effect of the Christian religion. If so, that actually goes against what is written in the cited section, where Benedict writes "it is clear that it would be contrary to the faith to consider the Church as one way of salvation alongside those constituted by the other religions, seen as complementary to the Church or substantially equivalent to her, even if these are said to be converging with the Church toward the eschatological kingdom of God."
Or perhaps it is complaining is that the list maker indicates any possibility of salvation for non-Christians (in which case I do not understand why he said "as such" at all). What is cited in opposition is the Athanasian Creed, and presumably alludes to its beginning that "Whoever wills to be saved, before all things it is necessary that he holds the catholic faith. Unless a person keeps this faith whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish eternally." The Athanasian Creed then offers its definition of the catholic faith, primarily focusing on the Trinity and incarnation. So the claim is that as non-Christians reject the Trinity, they do not accept that and cannot be saved.
This seems to just be another case of the arguments over the meaning of "no salvation outside the church" to which I direct the reader to #23 for considerations, particularly the links given at the end. However, those treat it more generally--for the Athanasian Creed specifically, an explanation for that has been offered here.
51.
Christianity failed to make itself heard. ITC: 11
Christianity cannot fail at anything. Leo XIII, SC: 3
Benedict's statement here is:
"The year 1968 marked the rebellion of a new generation, which not only considered postwar reconstruction in Europe as inadequate, full of injustice, full of selfishness and greed, but also viewed the entire course of history since the triumph of Christianity as a mistake and a failure. These young people wanted to improve things at least, to bring about freedom, equality, and justice, and they were convinced that they had found the way to this better world in the mainstream of Marxist thought. The year 1989 brought the surprising collapse of the socialist regimes in Europe, which left behind a sorry legacy of ruined land and ruined souls. Anyone who expected that the hour had come again for the Christian message was disappointed. Although the number of believing Christians throughout the world is not small, Christianity failed at that historical moment to make itself heard as an epoch-making alternative."
Laying aside the fact this seems to honestly be objective historic fact, is this actually in contradiction to the Leo XIII citation? Satis Cognitum Section 3 is a bit too long to quote in its entirety, but I don't see where the list is getting the statement "Christianity cannot fail at anything." The closest thing I see is it saying that the Catholic Church will never disappear, but that is a rather different statement. Thus there is no apparent contradiction.
52.
The Doctrine of Papal Primacy was developed. GAW: 379
The Doctrine of Papal Primacy defined as such was already a constant belief of every age. Leo XIII, SC: 15
What occurs in Leo XIII's document is he offers arguments that the Bishop of Rome was always seen as having primacy, and he concludes with "Wherefore, in the decree of the Vatican Council as to the nature and authority of the primacy of the Roman Pontiff, no newly conceived opinion is set forth, but the venerable and constant belief of every age."
The key point he repeatedly stresses is that the pope is a point of unity, and to be in communion with the pope shows one to be in the Catholic Church. Benedict says essentially the same thing. He says "That he [the pope] also has a special responsibility as a focal point for unity is shown quite clearly in the second century, in the dispute about the celebration of Easter."
Him referring to papal primacy being developed refers to how, in his view, the pope gradually took a more and more direct role in the church at large. For example, he remarks "He [the pope] did not exercise a university government that was always at work, as is the case today, but at critical moments people knew that the bishop of Rome had a special function."
It is true that Benedict puts a greater emphasis on how the authority of the pope expanded, but he appears to view this as a matter of popes exercising more frequently and more greatly an ability that was always there. As he says on page 380, concerning the proclamation of papal primacy in Vatican
I, "In that sense, the dogma in its new and more pointed form
contributes more precision, but nothing substantially new; rather, it
gathers together and gives concrete form to what had been shaped, what
had been happening, throughout history."
53.
All non-Christians are not destined for hell. GAW: 68
All existing outside the Catholic Church are on the road to hell unless they enter the Church. Eugene IV, D. 714
The representation of Benedict's statement would be better rendered "Not all non-Christians are destined for hell" (the list makes it sound as if he is espousing universalism, which he is not). But ultimately, this is just a repetition of #23, with the same citation from Eugene IV, just swapped out with a different statement from Benedict. Go and read that one for the analysis. Again, it appears the author simply had to pad out this list with these sorts of repetitions to make it to his goal (although even with the repetitions, he still fell short of 101).
54.
The term "Original Sin" is imprecise and mistakable. ITB: 71
The term "Original Sin" is precisely understandable and true as the Church always understood. Paul III, D. 791
Denzinger 791 mentions original sin, but says nothing about at all about it being "precisely understandable" as a term; that by itself is perhaps enough to dismiss this supposed contradiction. In fact, even those two above statements as presented in this list do not seem to be in contradiction. A term can be imprecise and mistakable but still be understandable after it has been properly explained.
And that seems to be just what Benedict is referring to. Concerning Genesis, he writes "Sin is not spoken of in general as an abstract possibility but as a deed, as the sin of a particular person, Adam, who stands at the origin of humankind and with whom the history of sin begins. The account tells us that sin begets sin, and that therefore all the sins of history are interlinked. Theology refers to this state of affairs by the certainly misleading and imprecise term "original sin."" He then goes on to offer what he believes is the correct understanding of original sin. He is not saying that original sin cannot be understandable, or that it is not true as the Church always understood, but is saying that the term brings about misconceptions until clarified.
55.
Thank God for the loss of the Papal States. GAW: 382
The Usurpation of the Papal States is a criminal act condemned by God. Ven. Pius IX, RS: 12
I do not see an explicit statement from Pius IX that it is condemned by God in the above chapter. The closest is when he says: "And indeed as Our predecessor Pius VII said: “To do violence to this highest power of the Apostolic See, to disjoin its temporal authority from its spiritual power, to disassociate, separate by force and cut off the duties of Pastor and Prince, is nothing less than to overturn and destroy the work of God. It is nothing less then to attempt to inflict the greatest damage on religion and to deprive it of its most effective defense. Then the highest Ruler of the Church would be unable to offer help to the Catholics spread all over the earth, who request his help and support because of his spiritual power.”" But even that does not explicitly say it was condemned by God, though saying "overturn and destroy the work of God" implies it I suppose.
Even if one takes this interpretation as it being condemned by God, one should note that this portion refers not the loss of the papal states, but the loss of all territory ("disjoining its temporal authority from its spiritual power"). Later on, when Vatican City was created, the papal states were still lost, but it had temporal power. It is absolutely true, of course, that Pius IX criticizes the taking of any of the papal states, but the strongest condemnation in chapter 12, quoted above, appears to refer specifically to the removal of all territory.
Benedict's statement is simply "Later on, the Papal States grew out of this situation, bringing with them many disastrous associations, until they were finally lost in 1870–thank God, we would have to say today. In their place came this artificial construct of a mini-state. Its only purpose is to ensure that the pope has sufficient freedom to carry out his ministry. Whether this could be simplified still is a question we may ask." But here his declaration is referring to the loss of the papal states, not necessarily the loss of all land. He asserts that it is important (which he goes into a little more detail on the preceding page) for the Vatican to be its own separate entity from any other country, but the papal states are not necessary for that.
Even if one asserts these statements are in contradiction, I should note something: Even if they are, this isn't heresy, as no dogma seems to be being proclaimed with those statements. Indeed, this is true for a whole lot of these, but it is especially true here.
56.
The Tridentine texts on Holy Orders are merely polemics against Luther. PCT: 249
The purpose of the Tridentine texts on Holy Orders is to teach the Rule of Faith to the faithful. Paul III, D. 960
What Benedict writes is, "It follows that the Tridentine text can be correctly understood only if we read it, not as an exhaustive and positive presentation of the Catholic understanding of the priesthood, but as a polemical statement, the sole purpose of which was to formulate antitheses to Luther's main theses." (this is part of a larger discussion but that is the most pertinent portion)
What Benedict is saying here is not that they were "merely polemics", but rather that their goal was to correct and rebut the arguments of Luther, but not to exhaustively define the priesthood by itself. As a result, it did not provide a comprehensive, standalone explanation of the priesthood due to that. So to say he said that it is "merely polemics" is a misrepresentation. Furthermore, Benedict does not at all say it was not to teach the faithful.
With Benedict's statement being misrepresented, it isn't really necessary to analyze the other one.
57.
The Church is yet to be united. PCT: 302
The Church has full unity. Leo XIII, SC: 4-5
It is not clear to me what on page 302 is in mind with the statement of "The Church is yet to be united." Presumably it's because Benedict is talking about reunion of churches (he is discussing how some talk about doing so on an institutional level and others talk about doing so on a base level), so I suppose it's claiming that because of him talking about reunion, it means the Church isn't unified. Which it isn't. The fact that Protestants are not unified with the Catholic Church is blatantly obvious. As for Leo XIII's work, he is saying that the Catholic Church has full unity, whereas the other churches do not.
So they are referring to different things. Benedict is saying that Christendom as a whole is not united, whereas Leo XIII is saying that the Catholic Church is united. To claim this as a contradiction makes no sense.
58.
The Church is sinful. ITC: 339
The Church can never be contaminated, She is incorrupt. Pius XI, MA: 10
The statement that seems to be in view from the first source is the following, concerning the phrase "holy, Catholic church" from the Creed. He writes "We are tempted to say, if we are honest with ourselves, that the Church is neither holy nor catholic: the Second Vatican Council itself ventured to the point of speaking no longer merely of the holy Church but of the sinful Church, and the only reproach it incurred was that of still being far too timorous; so deeply aware are we all of the sinfulness of the Church.""
However, note the fact he says "we are tempted to say." He then goes on to explain how while there are certainly sinful members of it, that does not refute it as being holy. To give a brief excerpt: "As we have already seen, in all these statements of faith the word "holy" does not apply in the first place to the holiness of human persons but refers to the divine gift that bestows holiness in the midst of human unholiness". Thus, any sinfulness is of humans, but the church is still holy. Benedict is disagreeing with the statement the list claims he made!
As for the Mortalium Animos citation, Pius XI says, "During the lapse of centuries, the mystical Spouse of Christ has never been contaminated, nor can she ever in the future be contaminated, as Cyprian bears witness: "The Bride of Christ cannot be made false to her Spouse: she is incorrupt and modest. She knows but one dwelling, she guards the sanctity of the nuptial chamber chastely and modestly."" But this is no denial that members--perhaps many members--could not be sinful. One is hard pressed to find a real contradiction here. Indeed, Pius XI does not even seem to be discussing issues of sin, but rather purity of doctrine, which Benedict was not addressing.
59.
Catholics ought to receive communion from schismatics. PFF: 232
No Catholic may hold communion with schismatics in divine worship. Pius VI, CH: 32
This is just a repeat of #31 (the same thing from Benedict is cited) so the points brought up there apply. However, here is what part 32 of Charitas by Pius VI says:
"At length We beseech you all, beloved Catholic children, in the kingdom of France; as you recall the religion and faith of your fathers, We urge you lovingly not to abandon it. For it is the one true religion which both confers eternal life and makes safe and thriving civil societies. Carefully beware of lending your ears to the treacherous speech of the philosophy of this age which leads to death. Keep away from all intruders, whether called archbishops, bishops, or parish priests; do not hold communion with them especially in divine worship. Listen carefully to the message of your lawful pastors who are still living, and who will be put in charge of you later, according to the canons. Finally, in one word, stay close to Us. For no one can be in the Church of Christ without being in unity with its visible head and founded on the See of Peter."
For context, at the time in France, the French National Assembly had created a "Civil Oath" that required all of the clergy to take an oath of loyalty to France. Pius VI condemned the requirement, forbade clergy to take it, and that if any had taken it prior to his condemnation they must repent of it. The intruders he is referring to are those who took the oath. Thus this declaration of "Keep away from all intruders... do not hold communion with them especially in divine worship" is referring to those who had taken the oath, not anything about "schismatics" in general.
60.
Heretical sects are true particular churches. DI: 17
Only churches united to the Apostolic See are true churches. Ven. Pius IX, PTC: 416
This one is essentially a re-hash of #24 due to citing the same thing from Benedict, but we'll examine the other citation for the sake of completeness. Now, here is what section 416 (found on page 235) says in its entirety:
"For the rest, they who do not fear to call the Apostolic See "a foreign power" rend the unity of the Church by speaking in this manner, or at least they furnish a pretext for rending it, since by words like these they deny to the successor of St. Peter the title and the rights of Universal Pastor. Therefore, they fail in that loyalty which they owe to the Catholic Church if they are numbered among her children, or they assail the liberty which is necessary to her if they are not of her fold, for Our Lord Jesus Christ plainly taught that the sheep must know and hear the voice of the Shepherd and follow him, while they flee the voice of the stranger because they know not the voice of strangers. If, therefore, the Sovereign Pontiff is called a stranger by any one of the Churches, that Church will be, in consequence, a stranger to the Apostolic See, that is, to the Catholic Church which is one, and which alone was founded on Peter the Lord's word. Whoever separates the Church from the foundation no longer preserves the divine and Catholic Church, but is striving to make a human church. Now a church like that, united solely by human bonds bonds that are called national, would not be united by the bond of priests firmly attached to the Chair of Peter, would not be made firm by the solidity of that same Chair, and would not belong to the universal and perfect unity of the Catholic Church."
This quote says nothing explicitly about "true churches". It does, of course, say that anyone not in communion with the pope "no longer preserves the divine and Catholic Church, but is striving to make a human church." But this is not in contradiction to Benedict's statement, as he said they were true particular churches (an ecclesiastical term, as I understand it). Does the above quote in any way deny they are particular churches? No, it does not. Heck, even in the claims in the list we are not in a contradiction, as he has to make the supposed contradiction between "true church" and "true particular church" which seem to be rather different things.
61.
The Church is in constant renewal. CTC: 133
It is absurd to say the Church needs renewal as if it is a mere human institution. Gregory XVI, MV: 10
You may notice that this quote from Gregory XVI was already cited back in #47, so this is just more padding on the part of the list. In fact, while in other cases where it offers thes ame citation, it usually at least quotes something slightly different out of the section, but it simply repeats what was said before, only adding the word "mere" as if to try to find some differentiation.
It was noted back in #47 that Benedict's remarks of renewal appeared to refer to the people in the Church rather than the Church itself. Let's see if that's the case here as well. Here, Benedict is asking rhetorically about reform... and actually the important part is on page 134, not 133. He writes "The word Church and the reality it stands for have been discredited. It seems that even constant reform can hardly do much to change this situation. Or is it just that so far no one has discovered the kind of reform that could make the Church a company worth belonging to?"
A bit later on, he talks more in-depth of what he views as true reform under the section "true reform" (pages 140-147). But the reforms he is referring to are more outwardly ones, such as replacing ecclesiastical institutions and juridicial organizations; in other words, reform of what could be considered exteriors of the church, not reform of the more intrinsic portions of the faith as Leo seems to allude to. Or, at least, that's how it seems to me. But ultimately, it must be demonstrated they are referring to the same kind of "reform," which has not been done.
62.
Doctrine of Predestination has developed. GAW: 58
A divine doctrine can never develop for it is an immutable truth of God. S. Pius X, D. 2145
Here is Benedict's remark.
"In Christianity, too, the so-called teaching on predestination was developed. According to this teaching, it is already settled that those for whom it is planned will go to hell, and the others to heaven; it has been decided from all eternity. The faith of the Church has always rejected this. For the idea that as an individual I can do nothing one way or the other–that if I am bound for hell, then I just am, and if I am going to heaven, then that's the way it is–is certainly not consistent with the faith."
Now, initially I thought the complaint here was that that Benedict is criticizing predestination as not consistent with the faith, and the list was arguing that predestination was a Catholic belief. It is true that predestination is a Catholic belief, but there are various different formulations of the idea of predestination; some are perfectly compatible with Catholicism, others are regarded as heretical in Catholicism. The specifics of this are a bit complicated, but the Catholic Encyclopedia's article on predestination gives some information on the Catholic view, and what views Catholicism rejects. Now, Benedict's phrasing could be regarded as imprecise--I can see multiple ways to take it, some perfectly compatible with Catholicism, others not so much--but we also need to remember that this was a book meant for a general audience and thus some simplification is to be expected.
However, I then realized that I was giving the list far too much credit. For it is not making the claim that Benedict was denying predestination (at least Catholic versions of it). No, instead it is complaining that he said that predestination developed which supposedly goes against the statement that divine doctrines cannot evolve (technically speaking, what Pius X condemns is "the heretical invention of the evolution of dogmas, passing from one meaning to another, different from that which the Church first had"), but Benedict is not saying a divine doctrine (predestination as understood by the Catholic Church) developed, but rather that a false teaching (a different understanding of predestination) did!
Thus to find a "contradiction" one must misrepresent Benedict considerably, as the "predestination" he was referring to was not the kind that is acceptable in the Catholic Church.
63.
The Liturgy ought to be in the vernacular. GAW: 417
The introduction of popular language into the Mass is condemned. Pius VI, D. 1566
It should be noted that, like most of the things in this list, the above was written before he became pope. After he became pope, he did permit greater usage of the Latin Mass, though it appears that occurred after this list was made. But in any event, does the latter citation actually condemn the introduction of popular language in the Mass, as the list claims?
Well, the citation comes from a list of condemnations of
propositions made by the Synod of Pistoia (a gathering by some members
of the French clergy). In this case, it condemns:
"1566 66. The proposition
asserting that "it would be against apostolic practice and the plans of
God, unless easier ways were prepared for the people to unite their
voice with that of the whole Church"; if understood to signify
introducing of the use of popular language into the liturgical
prayers,--false, rash, disturbing to the order prescribed for the
celebration of the mysteries, easily productive of many evils."
First, while it describes it as false, rash, and so on, it does not identify it as heretical, as some other propositions are identified as, meaning disagreement with it does not constitute heresy; in other words, even if Benedict was saying exactly what was condemned, it would not be a "heresy" of his. But is his statement in contradiction at all? Let's look at the condemnation itself. It is true that it says if this specific proposition refers to the use of popular language into the liturgical prayers, it would be "false, rash, disturbing to the order prescribed for the celebration of the mysteries, easily productive of many evils" (though not heretical). But what is the proposition actually saying? Unfortunately, only a fragment of Pistoia is quoted, and the texts I have found of the Council of Pistoia are only in French or Latin. I did find the book "Church reform in 18th century Italy" by Charles Bolton which is about the Synod of Pistoia and mentions the proposition, though, which it translates on page 104 as: "We know that it would be contrary to the practice of the Apostles and the intentions of God not to provide for the simple people more easy means of uniting its voice with that of the whole church."
It is not entirely clear if this is in fact referring to the introduction of the vernacular into the liturgy, which is why the condemnation says it's only condemned if that was in reference to. For the purpose of simplicity, I will treat it as if it was referring to the addition of the vernacular. But note what the condemned proposition begins with, namely "it would be against the apostolic practice and the plans of God". In other words, the condemnation is not against a statement that one should add vernacular, but is rather against a statement that "it would be against apostolic practice and the plans of God" to not add vernacular.
There is a considerable difference between saying something should not be done versus saying something does not need to be done. And in the same way, there is a considerable difference between condemning a proposition suggesting usage of the vernacular versus condemning a proposition saying it's "against the apostolic practice and the plans of God" to not use the vernacular. And it is the latter that is being condemned.
This is therefore not saying there is anything wrong with introducing
popular language or that it cannot be done. It is simply saying that to not do so is
not against the plans of God. Thus the claim that Pius VI proclaimed that "The introduction of popular language into the Mass is condemned" appears to be inaccurate. What he actually condemned was the idea that it was "against the apostolic practice and the plans of God" to not add the popular language. And even if he was condemning any introduction of the vernacular, it is not not listed as a heresy.
64.
The Bible is readily comprehensible to all. GAW: 155
It is heretical to say the Scriptures are for all in every age and circumstance unto understanding. Leo XII, D.1604-1606
So here is what Benedict says:
"It is true that the Bible was written by the people of God; the individual authors are inspired, and thus the Church is active in speaking through them, and God is speaking through the Church. Because of this, it is made just as much available for the faith of simple people. In order to expound the purely historical, technical matters, obviously learned people, specialists, are needed. But the real and essential meaning of the Bible is something the simple believer can grasp just as well. It really is made available to everyone and in its way is comprehensible to everyone."
Observe his qualifications. He says that while the "real and essential meaning" is something that can be grasped by anyone, the more historical and technical matters require learned people.
It is not clear how this is in contradiction to the statement attributed to Leo XII, which says it is heretical to say that the Scriptures are for all in every age and circumstance unto understanding. Even if we stretch Benedict's statement to mean that all people can understand it, which as noted above he did not say, he was referring to the present, which would therefore not go against the claim that everyone in every age could.
But it becomes even harder to justify this as a contradiction, let alone a heresy, when one examines what Leo XII actually said rather than the above paraphrase. The general purpose here is Leo XII is criticizing non-Catholic vernacular translations of the Bible as they can lead people into error. The above statement seems to be a conglomeration of two separate things he says. First he says:
"Therefore, in that famous letter of his to the faithful of the Church at Meta, Our predecessor, Innocent III, * quite wisely prescribes as follows: "In truth the secret mysteries of faith are not to be exposed to all everywhere, since they cannot be understood by all everywhere, but only by those who can grasp them with the intellect of faith. Therefore, to the more simple the Apostle says: "I gave you milk to drink as unto little ones in Christ, not meat" [ 1 Cor. 3:2]. For solid food is for the elders, as he said: "We speak wisdom . . . among the perfect" [1 Cor 2:6]; "for I judged not myself to know anything among you, but Jesus Christ and Him Crucified" [ 1 Cor. 2:2 ]. For so great is the depth of Divine Scripture that not only the simple and the unlettered, but even the learned and prudent are not fully able to explore the understanding of it. Therefore, Scripture says that many "searching have failed in their search" [Ps. 63:7]."
So it is stated that the scriptures "cannot be understood by all everywhere." (though he does not say it is heretical to claim otherwise). Later he says what appears to be the quote that is principally in view:
"But, what the mind of the Church is in regard to the reading and interpretation of Scripture your fraternity may know very clearly from the excellent Constitution of another of Our predecessors, CLEMENT XI, "Unigenitus," in which those doctrines were thoroughly condemned in which it was asserted that it is useful and necessary to every age, to every place, to every type of person to know the mysteries of Sacred Scripture, the reading of which was to be open to all, and that it was harmful to withdraw Christian people from it, nay more, that the mouth of Christ was closed for the faithful when the New Testament was snatched from their hands."
This is the time when he actually indicates something may be heretical (or rather, he says it was condemned, which is not necessarily the same thing, but we'll set that aside for now). However, he says nothing at all about understanding here, merely whether it is "useful and necessary" for every type of person in every age in every place to read it. Thus the list seems to insert the earlier mention of understanding into this latter portion. But that's simply inaccurate--you can't take a condemnation of one statement ("those doctrines were thoroughly condemned in which it was asserted that it is useful and necessary to every age, to every place, to every type of person to know the mysteries of Sacred Scripture"), then sneak in something else which wasn't offering an explicit condemnation to count as part of that condemnation.
So the two statements are hard to see in contradiction even in the paraphrased form offered by the list, but when we look at their context it makes even less sense.
Incidentally, as the statements of Unigenitus can get attacked for allegedly forbidding the reading of the Bible, one may wish to read this argument by a Catholic apologist that that is not what it is doing.
65.
The Pope has no absolute powers. GAW: 453
The Pope has the supreme powers to rule and teach the universal Church. Ven. Pius IX, D. 1827-1831
Let us look at Benedict's statement in context:
"... the unity of Christians cannot be restored by some kind of political coup or by cutting the Gordian knot with a sword. It's a matter of living processes. And neither a pope nor a World Council of Churches can simply say, Dear friends, let's do it this way! Faith is something alive and deeply rooted in each one of us and is answerable to God. The Pope, as we were saying, has no totalitarian or absolute powers but is serving the obedience of faith."
The context is that he is saying the pope cannot simply decree something and the entire world will follow it. Such a thing is common sense and is what he is referring to with the absolute powers comment.
The supposedly opposing citation by Pius IX refers to the Pope having powers to rule and teach the universal Church. That is not at all what Benedict is referring to; he is referring to practical powers of saying something and people following it. Obviously, those who consider themselves to not be under the pope's purview will disregard any such orders.
66.
Neither Christ or the Apostles ever defined a body of dogmas. ITC: 96
It is heretical to teach Christ never defined a body of dogmas. S. Pius X, D. 2059
So here is what Benedict actually said:
"Our consideration of the history of the Apostles' Creed has led us to the recognition that here, in the baptismal formulary, Christian doctrine stands before us in its original shape and, thus, also in its primitive form, what we today call "dogma". Originally there was no such thing as a series of doctrinal propositions that could be enumerated, one after the other and entered in a book as a well-defined body of dogmas. Such a notion, which today may be difficult to resist, would have to be described as a misconception of the nature of the Christian assent to the God revealed in Christ. The content of the Christian faith has its inalienable place in the context of the profession of faith, which is, as we saw, in the form of assent and renunciation, a conversion, an about-turn of human existence into a new direction of life. In other words, Christian doctrine does not exist in the form of discrete propositions but in the unity of the symbolum, as the ancient Church called the baptismal profession of faith."
Here he is simply saying that originally there was not, as he said, a series of doctrinal propositions that could be enumerated one after the other in the way we have now. With that in mind, let's look at Denzinger 2059. It is part of a list of condemned propositions, and it reads "Christ did not teach a defined body of doctrine applicable to all times and to all men, but rather began a religious movement adapted, or to be adapted to different times and places."
We should note first that "dogma" is not used here, but doctrine (I checked the Latin just to be sure, it uses "doctrina", not "dogma"). But what is more important is what the point is. What Pius is condemning is the idea that there was nothing taught by Jesus that was defined and applicable to all times and to all men, but rather just adapted to different times and places. Pius does not state that this defined body of doctrine was "a series of doctrinal propositions that could be enumerated, one after the other". This is hard to see as a contradiction.
67.
God's Church is built up when schismatics receive the Eucharist. CN: 17
Schismatics that eat the Eucharist commit sacrilege. Gregory XVI, CD: 11
"This communion exists especially with the Eastern orthodox Churches, which, though separated from the See of Peter, remain united to the Catholic Church by means of very close bonds, such as the apostolic succession and a valid Eucharist, and therefore merit the title of particular Churches. Indeed, "through the celebration of the Eucharist of the Lord in each of these Churches, the Church of God is built up and grows in stature", for in every valid celebration of the Eucharist the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church becomes truly present.
Since, however, communion with the universal Church, represented by Peter's Successor, is not an external complement to the particular Church, but one of its internal constituents, the situation of those venerable Christian communities also means that their existence as particular Churches is wounded. The wound is even deeper in those ecclesial communities which have not retained the apostolic succession and a valid Eucharist. This in turn also injures the Catholic Church, called by the Lord to become for all "one flock" with "one shepherd", in that it hinders the complete fulfilment of its universality in history."
Now let's look at Gregory XVI's writing:
"In the words of St. Leo, who continues speaking about the Holy See of Peter: “It is necessary that the Church throughout the world be united and cleave to the center of Catholic unity and ecclesiastical communion, so that whoever dares to depart from the unity of Peter might understand that he no longer shares in the divine mystery.” St. Jerome adds: “Whoever eats the lamb outside of this house is unholy. Those who were not in the ark of Noah perished in the flood.” Just as he who does not gather with Christ, so he who does not gather with Christ’s Vicar on earth, clearly scatters. How can someone who destroys the holy authority of the Vicar of Christ and who infringes on his rights gather with him? It is through these rights that the pope is the center of unity, that he has the primacy of order and jurisdiction, and that he has the full power of nurturing, ruling, and governing the universal Church."
Firstly, context should be noted--the whole point of this writing is somewhat given by its title of "Church and State". Gregory is criticizing the civil state having too much power over the church, including the church's sacraments (he also is criticizing bishops who take power he thinks only the pope has). The above discussion is really an aside, with him trying to stress the importance of unity with the pope.
The point presumably in view here is the Jerome quote of "Whoever eats the lamb outside of this house is unholy. Those who were not in the ark of Noah perished in the flood." But is either Jerome or Gregory trying to make a specific point about the Eucharist here, or is it a simple statement on the importance of remaining with the Bishop of Rome? Is the "unholy" thing the act of eating the lamb outside of this house, or is it being outside of this house at all and the eating of the lamb is incidental? Given the point Gregory is making here is the importance of unity, I do not think he was trying to say something about the Eucharist here, and this mention was incidental.
Even if Gregory was trying to make a statement about the Eucharist and Benedict's statement was in contradiction (though note he did still declare that communion outside of the Catholic Church is "wounded"), this was a brief remark in what was already an aside. Going against such a thing is hardly "heresy".
68.
The Eastern schismatics have communion with the Roman Church. CN: 17
The Eastern schismatics have no communion with the Catholic Church. Leo XIII, SC:4-5, 13
It is not clear exactly what portion of the cited chapters of Satis Cognitum (Leo's work) are in mind that are supposed to be saying "the Eastern schismatics have no communion with the Catholic Church". I would guess that it is the emphasis that Leo is trying to put on the idea that the church is one, rather than several different churches.
However, it should be noted what Benedict actually stated, which was:
"Among the non-Catholic Churches and Christian communities, there are indeed to be found many elements of the Church of Christ, which allow us, amid joy and hope, to acknowledge the existence of a certain communion, albeit imperfect(73).
This communion exists especially with the Eastern orthodox Churches, which, though separated from the See of Peter, remain united to the Catholic Church by means of very close bonds, such as the apostolic succession and a valid Eucharist, and therefore merit the title of particular Churches(74)."
Benedict simply says that they have "a certain communion, albeit imperfect." In other words, clearly there is no full communion involved, making the list's claim he said they "have communion" with the Roman Church misleading. Given what Benedict actually said, I do not see how this is in any way going against anything Leo XIII said.
69.
The Latin Liturgy ought not to be the normal Roman Rite. SOE: 177
The introduction of popular language into the Mass is condemned. Pius VI, D. 1566
This is nothing more than a repeat of #63, just with a different work of Benedict cited. As I have noted before and will continue to note, it looks like the author of this list was really desperate to pad it out. Anyway, see my comments on that for why this appears a misreading.
70.
The Church has contributed to the crisis of tradition afflicting man. PCT: 100
Modernists seek to falsify and weaken the force of Sacred Tradition. S. Pius X, PDG: 42
Even as given, I do not see any contradiction; it is certainly possible for the Church to contribute to a crisis of tradition while Modernists seek to falsify and weaken that tradition.
But let's look at them now. The description of Pius X's writing, while simplified, is largely reasonable. We now turn to Benedict. The statement made by Benedict here is "The Church is tradition, the concrete situs of the traditio of Jesus, into which–let us admit it–much human pseudotradition has found its way; so much so, in fact, that even, and more precisely, the Church has contributed to the general crisis of tradition that afflicts mankind. What, then, are we to do? Where shall we turn?"
His subsequent discussion/answer is lengthy and I will not attempt to summarize it, though he does immediately dismiss the ideas of either ignoring the bearer of tradition (the Church) entirely or "to cut tradition off at a given point" and ignore what occurs later. But what is at question here is whether we see a contradiction between the cited statements. As noted above, even taking the list's descriptions at plain value there seems no contradiction.
71.
The Creed offers no teaching of Jesus. ITC: 203
The Creed is full of Jesus' teachings. S. Leo I, T. 86-87
This one is an especially bad misrepresentation. The problem here is that when one examines them in context, they are referring to different creeds. The first refers to the Apostles' Creed, the other to the Nicene Creed. How does the list maker miss this fact?
Here is Benedict's remark, first of all:
"Jesus did not leave behind him (again, as the faith expressed in the Creed understood it) a body of teaching that could be separated from his "I", as one can collect and evaluate the ideas of great thinkers without going into the personalities of the thinkers themselves. The Creed offers no teachings of Jesus; evidently no one even conceived the–to us–obvious idea of attempting anything like this, because the operative understanding pointed in a completely different direction."
We know that the Creed in reference here is the Apostles' Creed, as this occurs in the context of a very lengthy line-by-line examination of the Apostles' Creed that takes up a significant portion of the book. Now what of the second statement that it attributes to Leo I? The relevant portion of pages 86-87 seems to be:
"he [Jesus] is not parted or divided into two persons, but is one and the same only-begotten Son, God, Word, Lord Jesus Christ, just as the prophets taught from the beginning about him, and as the Lord Jesus Christ himself instructed us, and as the creed of the fathers handed it down to us."
This comes from the Council of Chalcedon. This can hardly be referring to the Apostles' Creed, which does not really entreat with the above issues. What does deal with those issues, however, is the Nicene Creed. This is confirmed by the fact that on the preceding page (page 85) it refers to "the creed of the 318 fathers", which can only refer to the Nicene Creed, as 318 is the traditional number given for attendance at the council.
Thus there is no contradiction, as different creeds are being referred to.
72.
Christ's followers lack visible unity. GC: 5
All Christ's followers are united in His One True Church. Pius XI, MA: 7-12
This is just a rehash of #21, itself a rehash of #18. They really had to pad this out to reach the number they wanted, didn't they?
73.
Heretics are in communion with the Church. ECV: 17
No heretic is in communion with the Catholic Church. Leo XIII, SC:4-5, 13
As noted in previous cases where "The Ecclesiology of Vatican II" was referenced, the number presumably refers to the page of the newspaper it was in, as it was originally published in a newspaper. I do not have access to that and must instead look at it online, so it is harder to determine what is being referred to. Without that, I can only make a guess that it refers to the statement "It could describe the relationship of non-Catholic Christians to the Church as being "in communion" and that of non-Christians as being "ordered" to the Church where in both cases one relies on the idea of the People of God (Lumen Gentium,nn. 15, 16).".
Now, "in communion" is used in quotation marks, but looking at Lumen Gentium, at least in the English, I do not see any mention of that in 15-16. The only mention of communion at all there is when it says "The Church recognizes that in many ways she is linked with those who, being baptized, are honored with the name of Christian, though they do not profess the faith in its entirety or do not preserve unity of communion with the successor of Peter." This denies communion. As the phrase "in communion" is not there, my guess is that the quotation marks are not there to be used as a quote from there, but rather using it to present a hypothetical phrase. And the fact he's citing something that says the non-Catholic Christians are not in communion would certainly indicate he's not saying they are in communion.
However, this does raise the question of what exactly he is saying. As the point of the phrase "in communion" in regards to non-Catholic Christians is to present it as a distinction from non-Christians (who are "being "ordered" to the Church"), the purpose of this remark seems more to be saying that non-Catholic Christians belong to a closer category to Catholics than non-Christians. It therefore appears not to be any statement on the idea of communion in a formal sense.
As for Leo XIII's work, I'm not sure why 4-5 are cited at all. 13 does refer to the idea of how true communion involves being in communion with the pope, but that does not appear to pose an issue for the reasons given above, as Leo is talking about more formal communion while Benedict, as just mentioned, does not.
In truth I think Benedict's statement here is not very well expressed, but at
the same time this only serves to make the list's claim weaker because
of that; it has to assume an uncharitable interpretation that, in my view, is not warranted by the text.
74.
The Church always needs reform. RR: 50
It is absurd to say the Church needs reform as if it is a human institution. Gregory XVI, MV: 10
"To be sure, in her human structures the Church is semper reformanda, but one must be clear in this question as to how and up to what point. The text cited from Vatican II [Gaudium et spes 43] already gives a quite precise indication, by speaking of the 'fidelity of the Bride of Christ' which is not called in question by the infidelities of her members."
Beyond that, the points brought up in #47 and #60 apply.
75.
The necessity of infant baptism is questionable. ITB: 401-402
Infants must be baptized immediately and without question. Eugene IV, D. 712
Benedict's book in question (In the Beginning) has only 100 pages, so clearly nothing is found on page 401 or 402.
Now, #90 makes basically the same claim with the same source credited to Eugene IV, but that cites God and the World page 402. It looks like this one is just a duplicate of #90 but with the wrong work cited. I'm not sure if this was sloppiness or if the compiler of this list was just that desperate to reach 101 heresies, but it reflects rather poorly on him.
Because the correct citation is provided on #90 and not here, the issue will be discussed there. But for this, there is no contradiction because there is no page 401 or 402 on the cited work.
76.
The Church in the First Millenium did not hold the Supremacy of the Pope. PCT: 199
The Church always held the Supremacy of Peter and His Successors. Ven. Pius IX, D. 1824
What Benedict says is, in suggesting possible reconciliation between the Orthodox and Catholics, that:
"Rome must not require more from the East with respect to the doctrine of primacy than had been formulated and was lived in the first millenium. When the Patriarch Athenagoras, on July 25, 1967 on the occasion of the Pope's visit to Phanar, designated him as the successor of St. Peter, as the most esteemed among us, as one who presides in charity, this great Church leader was expressing the essential content of the doctrine of primacy as it was known in the first millennium. Rome need not ask for more. Reunion could take place in this context if, on the one hand, the East would cease to oppose as heretical the developments that took place in the West in the second millenium and would accept the Catholic Church as legitimate and orthodox in the form she had acquired in the course of that development, while, on the other hand, the West would recognize the Church of the East as orthodox and legitimate in the form she has always had."
For those curious, "millenium" is indeed spelled that way rather than "millennium". That aside, now that we've seen what he said, what does the other citation say?
"Moreover, what the Chief of pastors and the Great Pastor of sheep, the Lord Jesus, established in the blessed Apostle Peter for the perpetual salvation and perennial good of the Church, this by the same Author must endure always in the Church which was founded upon a rock and will endure firm until the end of the ages. Surely "no one has doubt, rather all ages have known that the holy and most blessed Peter, chief and head of the apostles and pillar of faith and foundation of the Catholic Church, received the keys of the kingdom from our Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior and Redeemer of the human race; and he up to this time and always lives and presides and exercises judgment in his successors, the bishops of the holy See of Rome, which was founded by him and consecrated by his blood. Therefore, whoever succeeds Peter in this chair, he according to the institution of Christ himself, holds the primacy of Peter over the whole Church. "Therefore the disposition of truth remains, and blessed Peter persevering in the accepted fortitude of the rock does not abandon the guidance of the Church which he has received.'' For this reason "it has always been necessary because of mightier pre-eminence for every church to come to the Church of Rome, that is those who are the faithful everywhere," so that in this See, from which the laws of "venerable communion" emanate over all, they as members associated in one head, coalesce into one bodily structure."
Neither of these quotes say anything about papal supremacy as is claimed by the list, but rather papal primacy. Nor do I see particular contradiction between the two. Benedict refers to there being a doctrine of primacy in the first millennium and the latter... also says there had always been papal primacy. The second quote says that popes hold "the primacy of Peter over the whole Church" and that "it has always been necessary because of mightier pre-eminence for every church to come to the Church of Rome". This, too, fits with Benedict's statement that the expression of the pope "as the successor of St. Peter, as the most esteemed among us, as one who presides in charity". The second quote might go farther in its claims, but I do not see them in contradiction.
77.
There are non-irreformable magisterial teachings. EVT: 28
All magisterial teachings are infallible and irreformable. Ven. Pius IX, D. 1839
This is the entirety of Section 28 of Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian:
"The preceding considerations have a particular application to the case of the theologian who might have serious difficulties, for reasons which appear to him wellfounded, in accepting a non-irreformable magisterial teaching.
Such a disagreement could not be justified if it were based solely upon the fact that the validity of the given teaching is not evident or upon the opinion that the opposite position would be the more probable. Nor, furthermore, would the judgment of the subjective conscience of the theologian justify it because conscience does not constitute an autonomous and exclusive authority for deciding the truth of a doctrine."
Now let's see the later citation:
"And so We, adhering faithfully to the tradition received from the beginning of the Christian faith, to the glory of God, our Savior, the elevation of the Catholic religion and the salvation of Christian peoples, with the approbation of the sacred Council, teach and explain that the dogma has been divinely revealed: that the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra, that is, when carrying out the duty of the pastor and teacher of all Christians by virtue of his supreme apostolic authority he defines a doctrine of faith or morals to be held by the universal Church, through the divine assistance promised him in blessed Peter, operates with that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer wished that His church be instructed in defining doctrine on faith and morals; and so such definitions of the Roman Pontiff from himself, but not from the consensus of the Church, are unalterable."
The latter is, of course, the formal definition of papal infallibility as set by the First Vatican Council. And it says that when popes make statements that fit the criteria described there, they are unalterable.
But this is referring only to such statements by the pope. The list's claim that "all magisterial teachings are infallible and irreformable" is somehow expressed by this is simply wrong. It's only a specific form of magisterial teaching that is being discussed here. A more accurate description would be "all teachings by the pope given ex cathedra are infallible and irreformable" but of course that wouldn't create the alleged contradiction, so the list has to fudge things to get there.
78.
The validity of the Liturgy depends not on form, but on community. PCT: 377
The form operated by the minister is essential to confect the sacrament, not the community. Pius XII. D. 2300
Benedict's statement is: "There is an obsession with the letter that regards the liturgy of the Church as invalid and thus puts itself outside the Church. It is forgotten here that the validity of the liturgy depends primarily, not on specific words, but on the community of the Church; under the pretext of Catholicism, the very principle of Catholicism is denied, and, to a large extent, custom is substitute for truth."
As for the other, Denzinger 2300 is surprisingly long, but I will quote the entire thing for completeness anyway:
"It is expedient that all the faithful in Christ understand that it is their supreme duty and dignity to participate in the Eucharistic Sacrifice. . . .
Yet, because the faithful in Christ participate in the Eucharistic Sacrifice, they do not on this account enjoy sacerdotal power. It is indeed quite necessary that you keep this clearly before the eyes of your flocks.
For there are those . . . who today revive errors long since condemned, and teach that in the New Testament the name "priesthood" includes all who have been cleansed by the water of baptism; and likewise that that precept by which Jesus Christ at the Last Supper entrusted to the apostles the doing of what He Himself had done, pertained directly to the entire Church of the faithful in Christ; and that hence, and hence only, has arisen the hierarchical priesthood. Therefore, they imagine that the people enjoy true sacerdotal power, but that the priest acts only by virtue of an office delegated by the community. So they believe that the Eucharistic Sacrifice is truly called a "concelebration," and they think that it is more expedient for priests standing together with the people to "concelebrate" than to offer the Sacrifice privately in the absence of the people.
It is superfluous to explain how captious errors of this kind contradict those truths which we have stated above, when treating of the rank which the priest enjoys in the mystical body of Christ. Yet we think that we must call this to mind namely, that the priest acts in place of the people only for this reason, that he plays the part of our Lord, Jesus Christ, insofar as He is the Head of all the members, and offers himself for them, and that for this reason he approaches the altar as a minister of Christ, inferior to Christ, but superior to the people. The people, on the other hand, inasmuch as they do not in any way play the part of the divine Redeemer, and are not a conciliator between themselves and God, can by no means enjoy the sacerdotal right.
All this, indeed, is established by the certitude of faith; yet, furthermore, the faithful in Christ are also to be said to offer the divine victim, but in a different way.
Now some of Our predecessors and doctors of the Church have declared this very clearly. "Not only," says Innocent III of immortal memory, "do the priests offer the Sacrifice, but all the faithful also; for what is specially fulfilled by the ministry of the priests, this is done collectively by the prayers of the faithful." And it is pleasing to bring to bear on this subject at least one of the many statements of St. Robert Bellarmine: "The Sacrifice," he says, "is offered chiefly in the person of Christ. And so the oblation that follows the Consecration is a kind of attestation that the whole Church consents in the oblation made by Christ, and offers it at the same time with him."
The rite and the prayers of the Eucharistic Sacrifice no less clearly point out and show that the oblation of the victim is performed by the priests together with the people. . . .
It is not surprising that the faithful of Christ are raised to such a dignity. For, by the waters of baptism, by the general title of Christian they are made members of the mystical body of Christ, the priest, and by the "character", as it were, imprinted upon their souls, they are assigned to divine worship; and so they participate in the priesthood of Christ Himself according to their condition. . . .
But there is also a very profound reason why all Christians, especially those who are present at the altar, are said to offer the Sacrifice.
In this very important subject, lest insidious error arise, we should limit the word "offer" by terms of exact meaning. For that unbloody immolation, by which, when the words of consecration are uttered, Christ is made present on the altar in the state of a victim, is performed by the priest alone, because he bears the role of Christ, and not because he plays the role of the faithful in Christ. And so, because the priest places the victim upon the altar, he offers to God the Father, the same Victim by which he offers an oblation for the glory of the Most Holy Trinity and for the good of the whole Church. But the faithful in Christ participate in this oblation in a restricted sense in their own fashion, and in a twofold manner, namely, because they offer the Sacrifice not only through the hands of the priest, but also, in a manner, together with him; indeed, because of this participation the oblation of the people is also referred to the liturgical worship.
Moreover, it is clear that the faithful in Christ offer the Sacrifice through the hands of the priest from this, that the minister at the altar plays the part of Christ, as of the Head, making His offering in the name of all His members, whereby indeed it happens that the whole Church is rightly said to offer the oblation of the Victim through Christ. But that the people together with the priest himself offer the Sacrifice is not established because of this, because the members of the Church, just as the priest himself, perform a visible liturgical rite, which belongs only to the minister divinely assigned to this; but for the reason that they join their prayer of praise, impetration, expiation, and thanksgiving with the prayers or intention of the priest, even of the High Priest Himself; so that in the very same oblation of the Victim, also according to an external rite by the priest, they may be presented to God, the Father. For the external rite must by its very nature manifest internal worship; but the Sacrifice of the New Law signifies that supreme allegiance by means of which the principal Offerer Himself, who is Christ, and together with Him and through Him all of His mystical members attend and venerate God with due honor."
That was quite a bit. But where exactly does this say anything at all about form or community? Perhaps what is in view is the the statement at the start of the second-to-last paragraph that "when the words of consecration are uttered, Christ is made present on
the altar in the state of a victim, is performed by the priest alone,
because he bears the role of Christ, and not because he plays the role
of the faithful in Christ" and thus it is stating that the words of consecration must be spoken in order for the Eucharist to occur. If that is the case, then what is the problem with Benedict's remarks? Benedict's remarks as far as I can tell are regarding the changes to the celebration of the mass, but the words of consecration are still said in the new mass! Thus to find a "contradiction" it must find a reference to something different than what he is saying. In fact, the second citation would seem to very much support the idea of it depending on the community of the church given that it talks so much about the whole of the non-priestly faithful!
79.
Tridentine doctrine of grace has developed. SOE: 263
The doctrines on grace and justification defined at the Council of Trent have been always taught. Paul III, D. 792a
Benedict says "The sacramental theology of the Council of Trent (1545-1563), as well as its doctrine of grace (the controversy about justification with the Reformation!), has not become false, and cannot become false, but it has developed further."
The development he refers to is after the Council of Trent. Thus a statement that the doctrines on grace and justification defined at the Council of Trent have always been taught has nothing to do with what Benedict says, as one is referring to before, and the other is referring to after. And, as Benedict makes it clear, the development does not consist in making Trent false.
80.
The Church rejects nothing holy and true in false religions. PFF: 214
Outside the Church the Truth cannot be found. Gregory XVI, D.1617
Even before looking at these, the reconciliation is blatantly obvious. The first is merely saying that if something in a false religion is true, the Church would not reject that aspect of it--if it had to reject everything in any other religion, then it would have to reject monotheism, the afterlife, and even prayer itself, as at least some other religions believe in those. The second, meanwhile, would simply be saying that the full truth cannot be found outside of the Church, not that no truth whatsoever could be. The only way to find a contradiction is to claim that Gregory XVI was declaring that there was not truth at all outside of the Church, which obviously cannot be true because other religions do have some points of commonality.
And this is of course confirmed by the actual quotes. The first quote by Benedict is accurate, though it ignores the subsequent qualifier of "Yet we cannot shut our eyes to the errors and illusions that are present in these religions." As for the second, it reads:
"But it is a very mournful thing, by which the ravings of human reason go to ruin when someone is eager for revolution and, against the advice of the Apostle, strives "to be more wise than it behooveth to be wise" [cf. Rom. 12:3 ], and trusting too much in himself, affirms that truth must be sought outside of the Catholic Church in which truth itself is found far from even the slightest defilement of error, and which therefore, is called and is "the pillar and ground of the truth" [1 Tim. 3 15 ]. But you well understand, Venerable Brothers, that We are here speaking in open disapproval of that false system of philosophy, not so long ago introduced, by which, because of an extended and unbridled desire of novelty, truth is not sought where it truly resides, and, with a disregard for the holy and apostolic traditions, other vain, futile, uncertain doctrines, not approved by the Church are accepted as true, on which very vain men mistakenly think that truth itself is supported and sustained."
But where exactly does this ay that outside the Church the truth cannot be found? The closest thing is the condemnation of someone who "affirms that truth must be sought outside of the Catholic Church in which truth itself is found far from even the slightest defilement of error." But this is not saying that there is no truth found outside of the Church; rather, it is a condemnation of the claim that truth must be sought outside of the Catholic Church. If the full truth is found in the Catholic Church, then obviously there is no need to seek it outside. But to say that it is false to say one must look outside of the church for truth is a different statement than saying that there is no truth outside of the Church. One has to misrepresent what Gregory XVI said to find a contradiction.
81.
The Bishops exercise supreme and full power over all the Church. DCF: 4
Only the Roman Pontiff exercises supreme and full power over all the Church. Leo XIII, SC: 14-15
"Doctrinal Commentary on the Concluding Formula of the Professio Fidei" was originally published in a newspaper. I do not have access to the newspaper, but it is available here. This appears to be what the list has in mind with its citation: (footnotes omitted)
"In this area, it is clear that, on questions of faith and morals, the only subject qualified to fulfil the office of teaching with binding authority for the faithful is the Supreme Pontiff and the College of Bishops in communion with him. The Bishops are the "authentic teachers" of the faith, "endowed with the authority of Christ," because by divine institution they are the successors of the Apostles "in teaching and in pastoral governance": together with the Roman Pontiff they exercise supreme and full power over all the Church, although this power cannot be exercised without the consent of the Roman Pontiff."
So as we can see, the list is only able to come up with "The Bishops exercise supreme and full power over all the Church" by removing the important phrases "together with the Roman Pontiff" and the even more explicit statement that "although this power cannot be exercised without the consent of the Roman Pontiff." Thus Benedict's writing, when you don't cut out these critical parts, is in clear agreement with the idea that "only the Roman Pontiff exercises supreme and full power over all the Church."
Simply seeing what Benedict actually wrote should be sufficient to dispel this, but let's look at Leo XIII anyway. The relevant portion appears to be this:
"But if the authority of Peter and his successors is plenary and supreme, it is not to be regarded as the sole authority. For He who made Peter the foundation of the Church also "chose, twelve, whom He called apostles" (Luke vi., 13); and just as it is necessary that the authority of Peter should be perpetuated in the Roman Pontiff, so, by the fact that the bishops succeed the Apostles, they inherit their ordinary power, and thus the episcopal order necessarily belongs to the essential constitution of the Church. Although they do not receive plenary, or universal, or supreme authority, they are not to be looked as vicars of the Roman Pontiffs; because they exercise a power really their own, and are most truly called the ordinary pastors of the peoples over whom they rule."
This one is in agreement with what is attributed to Leo... but as noted, to find a contradiction it was necessary to cut critical context out of Benedict's statement.
82.
Praying with false religions can bring peace. TT:106
Praying with false religions for peace is condemned! Pius XI, MA:1-17
I am not sure why there is that odd exclamation mark for the latter. Also, its citation is oddly Mortalium Animos 1-17 even though Mortalium Animos has only 13 chapters.
However, this one, when you get down to it, is mostly a
repetition of #6 (it's the same work, just citing the prior page), so see there for more information. Still, for those curious about what Benedict actually said here, here is what is found on page 106 with a bit of page 107:
"In the age of dialogue and of the encounter between religions the question has necessarily arisen as to whether we can pray with each other. Nowadays people make a distinction here between multireligious and interreligious prayer. The model for multireligious prayer is offered by the two World days of Prayer for Peace in Assisi, in 1986 and 2002. People belonging to various religious affiliations meet together. They have in common an acute concern for the needs of the world and its lack of peace; they share a longing for help from above against the powers of evil, that peace and justice might enter into the world. Hence their intention to give a public sign of this longing, which might stir up all men and strengthen the good will that is a condition of peace. Those who meet also know that their understandings of the divine, and hence their way of turning to him, are so varied that shared prayer would be a fiction, far from the truth. They meet to give a sign of their shared longing; but they pray–albeit simultaneously–in separate places, each in his own fashion. "Praying" in the case of an impersonal understanding of God (often associated with polytheism) obviously means something quite different from praying in faith to the one personal God The distinction is visibly represented, though in such a fashion as to become at the same time a cry for the healing of our divisions.
Following from Assisi–in 1986 and in 2002–the question was repeatedly and most seriously asked: Can one do this? Does this not give people a false impression of common ground that does not exist in reality? Does this not promote relativism, the opinion that, fundamentally, the differences that divie "religions" are merely penultimate? And is not the seriousness of faith being undermined thereby and God set farther away from us, in the end, our forsakenness intensified? We should not lightly set aside such questions. There are undeniable dangers, and it is indisputable that the Assisi meetings, especially in 1986 were misinterpreted by many people. It would, on the other hand, be wrong to reject, completely and unconditionally, multireligious prayer of the kind I have described. To me, the right thing in this case seems to be, rather, to link it with conditions corresponding to the demands of inner truth and responsibility for such a great undertaking as the public appeal to God before all the world."
He then goes on to set what he sees as basic conditions for such multireligious prayer to be acceptable (it must not be common and the purpose must be made sufficiently clear in order to not promote relativism). In the above quote he also contrasts it with interreligious prayer, which he does talk a little more of afterwards. He defines interreligious prayer as "people or groups of various religious allegiances praying together" and says "Is that, in all truth and in all honesty, possible at all? I doubt it" though he does say it may be possible under some strict conditions. I don't see him as explicitly saying "Praying with false religions can bring peace" though the fact he doesn't rule it out could be seen as an affirmation (note again, however, his apparent approval is limited to multireligious prayer rather than interreligious prayer).
Beyond that, the considerations noted back in #6 largely seem to apply. Given the larger citation of Mortalium Animos this time around ("1-17" rather than just 10) perhaps some other part of the document was in mind, but if they aren't going to specify it, I'm not going to try to look for it, especially if the citation is so sloppy it says 1-17 despite there only being 13 chapters.
83.
Charismatic sects like Taize ought to be formed elsewhere as well. PCT: 304
All heretical sects are to be exterminated. Innocent III, T. 234-235
The statement made by Benedict is:
"For more than a decade, Taizé has been, without a doubt, the leading example of an ecumenical inspiration, emanating from a local center inspired by a particular "charism". Similar communities of faith and of shared living should be formed elsewhere in which the foregoing of a communal reception of the Eucharist would, without ceasing to be a hardship, become comprehensible and in which its necessity would be understood by a prayer community that cannot answer its own prayer but is, nevertheless, calmly certain it will be answered. It should be the task of those forces that seek actively for unity to find positive alternatives to interconfessional communion–perhaps on the model of the penitential and catechumenal liturgies of the ancient Church."
Now we look at the other citation, from the Fourth Lateran Council. It is fairly clear that this is a disciplinary decree--that is, not dogmatic. Disciplinary decrees are about setting up rules and possibly punishments for things, but do not reflect actual dogma and thus can be changed. Thus contradicting this one is hardly heresy. Indeed, long before Benedict XVI or even Vatican II its charges were clearly no longer in effect. The section is a lengthy statement of punishments for heretics and how secular authorities should attempt to expel them from their lands. What seems to be in mind is:
"If however a temporal lord, required and instructed by the church, neglects to cleanse his territory of this heretical filth, he shall be found with the bond of excommunication by the metropolitan and other bishops of the province. If he refuses to give satisfaction within a year, this shall be reported to the supreme pontiff so that he may then declare his vassals absolved from their fealty to him and make the land available for occupation by Catholics so that these may, after they have expelled the heretics, possess it unopposed and preserve it in the purity of the faith–saving the right of the suzerain provided that he makes no difficulty in the matter and puts no impediment in the way."
Does this (and the other measures against those deemed as heretics listed) amount to "All heretical sects are to be exterminated"? I guess that depends on your perspective. But even if so, all of this is disciplinary, not dogmatic.
That said, while the rules may have been disciplinary rather than dogmatic, clearly it reflects a belief that it is better to have all churches cease any heresy and join the Catholic Church instead of being separate. And indeed, the position of Catholicism is that it is preferable for all non-Catholic groups to become Catholic. But such is not the world we live in, and "heretical sects" (at least heretical according to Catholicism) do exist. It seems to me that what Benedict is saying is that it would be good to set up more places like Taizé in order to bring them closer to the Catholic faitdh and attempt for greater degree of unity.
84.
The Tradition of the Church is growing through human experience. PCT: 88
The Modernists teach that Tradition develops through human experiences. S. Pius X, PDG: 15, 28
The closest thing I see to the above claim is Benedict's statement of "Yet, at the same time, it [speech] fulfills its function of preserving history only if it is open to the ever new experiences of new generations and so maintains its ability to give expression to the tradition that is continually in the process of formation, to the purification of tradition and hence to the history that is still to be made."
The problem here is that Benedict is quite clearly referring to the general idea of experience, not the specific "Tradition of the Church." He is discussing how knowledge is passed down. It is later that he begins discussing more specifically church tradition.
This fact dispenses with this supposed contradiction/heresy to begin with, but let's take a look at Pius X anyway, which cites Sections 15 and 28. In Section 15, he is saying that to Modernists, "tradition" is people taking their individual religious experiences and sharing them, and true tradition is what sticks around and demonstrates truth. Pius X says this makes no sense because it means all religions are true as they stuck around. But this idea is not what Benedict is talking about at all. Section 28, meanwhile, is not anything at all about human experiences, but rather him saying that to Modernists "there is to be nothing stable, nothing immutable in the Church" which is not at all stated by Benedict on this page, given he is (as noted) not even discussing church tradition.
85.
The Church has sinned. ITC: 341
The Church can never be contaminated, She is incorrupt. Pius XI, MA: 10
Again we see what is essentially a repeat, this time of #58. However, this one appears an even worse example, as I do not see any real statement on page 341 that the church has sinned. It refers to how members of the church can be sinful, but I see no explicit statement that the Church has sinned. Even if I am somehow missing something, there is a clear distinction between the holiness of the church and sinfulness of members of the church, as is explicitly stated: "The holiness of the Church consists in that power of sanctification which God exerts in her in spite of human sinfulness."
86.
Non-christians can practice the virtue of charity out of the Church. CTC: 145
There is no charity for those in the state of grievous sin. Pius XII, MCC: 23
This is a nonsense interpretation of what Benedict is talking about in Called to Communion. I am going to offer a bit of a lengthy quote:
"Nowadays the opinion surfaces occasionally even in ecclesiastical circles that a man is more Christian the more he is involved in Church activities. We have a kind of ecclesiastical occupational therapy; a committee, or at any rate some sort of activity in the Church, is sought for everyone. People–according to this way of thinking–must constantly be busy about the Church, they must always be talking about the Church, or doing something to or in her. But a mirror that reflects only itself is no longer a mirror; a window that no longer lets us see the wide open spaces outside, but gets in the way of the view, has lost its reason for being.
There can be people who are engaged uninterruptedly in the activities of Church associations and yet are not Christians. There can be people who simply live by word and sacrament alone and practice the love born of faith without ever having attended Church groups, without ever having concerned themselves with the novelties of ecclesiastical politics, without having taken part in synods and voted in them–and yet are true Christians."
Now, where exactly does one get the idea that "non-christians" can practice the virtue of charity out of the Church"? He makes two statements: One is that people can be engaged in the activities of Church associations without not being true Christians, while true Christians can go through life without having to attend Church groups or getting involved in ecclesiastical politics. In neither of these is anything about non-Christians said practicing virtue of charity outside the Church! The only time "non-christians" (technically "not Christians') is used is in referring to those who are engaged in Church association activities, not anything about practicing the virtue of charity outside the Church.
With the first so badly misrepresented, there is not even a need to look at the Pius XII quote.
88.
The Church needs purification. PFF: 277
The Church needs no purification for She is Most Pure. Pius XI, DIM: 101
If you are wondering where 87 is, there is none. As mentioned at the start, this list of 101 heresies is actually 100 because #87 is simply skipped over.
Anyway, Benedict's statement here is "the Church is at the same time holy and constantly in need of purification", referring to how the Church is holy, but due to sinfulness of humans must be constantly purified. With that in mind, we look at Pius XI to see... he says nothing about the Church not needing purification (he says nothing about purification at all), or the church being "most pure". Here is the entirety of chapter 101 of Divini Illius Magistri, which is mostly a quote from Augustine:
"Now all this array of priceless educational treasures which We have barely touched upon, is so truly a property of the Church as to form her very substance, since she is the mystical body of Christ, the immaculate spouse of Christ, and consequently a most admirable mother and an incomparable and perfect teacher. This thought inspired St. Augustine, the great genius of whose blessed death we are about to celebrate the fifteenth centenary, with accents of tenderest love for so glorious a mother:
O Catholic Church, true Mother of Christians! Not only doest thou preach to us, as is meet, how purely and chastely we are to worship God Himself, Whom to possess is life most blessed; thou does moreover so cherish neighborly love and charity, that all the infirmities to which sinful souls are subject, find their most potent remedy in thee. Childlike thou are in molding the child, strong with the young man, gentle with the aged, dealing with each according to his needs of mind of body. Thou does subject child to parent in a sort of free servitude, and settest parent over child in a jurisdiction of love. Thou bindest brethren to brethren by the bond of religion, stronger and closer then the bond of blood .... Thou unitest citizen to citizen, nation to nation, yea, all men, in a union not of companionship only, but of brotherhood, reminding them of their common origin. Thou teachest kings to care for their people, and biddest people to be subject to their kings. Thou teachest assiduously to whom honor is due, to whom love, to whom reverence, to whom fear, to whom comfort, to whom rebuke, to whom punishment; showing us that whilst not all things nor the same things are due to all, charity is due to all and offense to none"
The only time the word "pure" or anything similar is when Augustine says "how purely and chastely we are to worship God Himself" which is saying nothing about the church. Thus Pius XI is not saying anything at all about what it claimed he did.
89.
The Vatican II Council was right in vernacularizing the Liturgy. MM: 148
The introduction of popular language into the Mass is condemned. Pius VI, D. 1566
Benedict's statement is "It was reasonable and right of the Council to order a revision of the missal such as had often taken place before and which this time had to be more thorough than before, above all because of the introduction of the vernacular." But ultimately this
is nothing more than a repeat of #69 (itself a repeat of #63), just with a different work of Benedict's being cited. So simply see my comments on #63. Since this list is repeating things, I'll repeat myself: it looks like the author of this
list was really desperate to pad it out to 101.
90.
The practice of early infant baptism is questionable. GAW: 402
Infants must be baptized immediately and without question. Eugene IV, D. 712
This is just a re-hash of #75, though it gets the citation right this time around (#75 cited "ITB: 401-402" despite the fact that the work in question has only 100 pages; presumably the above citation was what was in mind). So it's another duplicate one, because of an apparent need to pad things out.
But since he has actually cited something real this time around, let's look into it. Benedict here has just discussed the idea of Limbo, then writes "This was one way in which people sought to justify the necessity of baptizing infants as early as possible, but the solution is itself questionable."
Benedict is not saying that the practice of early infant baptism is questionable (in fact, on page 400 he writes "infant baptism is clearly justified"). What he is saying is that the idea that unbaptized infants cannot enter heaven and must settle for Limbo as the rationale for infant baptism is questionable. Thus there is no contradiction between the two statements. To create one requires Benedict to be misrepresented.
91.
The Church of Rome is not the Mother of all churches. PFF: 238
The Holy Roman Church is the Mother of all churches. Leo X, EXD: 2
Benedict's statement comes from a letter to "Metropolitan Damaskinos of Switzerland". He writes, bolding and italics original:
"And then there is the other difficulty, the concept of the "Mother Church". I think it is important to distinguish, here again, the two levels of the concept of "Church". There is, first of all, the level at which the plural may correctly be used–that of the Churches within the Church. On this level, the Church of Rome is the Mother Church of the Churches of Italy, but not of course the Mother Church of all the others. Jerusalem is the Mother Church of many Churches; Antioch and Constantinople are Mother Churches. Yet this "motherhood" can only be an image of the real "Mother Church"–the "Jerusalem above" that Paul talks about (Gal 4:26), of which the Fathers speak so movingly. I might remind you of the wonderful collection of passages made by H. Rahner: Mater Ecclesia (1944)."
Unfortunately, the cited work seems to only be available in German. At any rate, we turn to the other citation from Leo X. Leo X does at the start "Give heed to the cause of the holy Roman Church, mother of all churches and teacher of the faith, whom you by the order of God, have consecrated by your blood."
The thing is, Benedict does not say the "the Roman Church is not of course mother and teacher of all churches." He instead says "the Church of Rome is... not of course the Mother Church of all the others." We notice two differences in verbiage compared to Leo X: Benedict says "Church of Rome" instead of "Roman Church" and says "mother church" instead of "mother and teacher of all churches."
This may seem to be quibbles at first glance. While generally speaking "Church of Rome" refers specifically to the church found specifically in Rome, whereas "Roman Church" is a more broad term encapsulating the larger Latin Church (that is, those in the Latin Rite), this is not a particularly consistent distinction in ecclesiastical documents. But the "mother church" versus "mother and teacher of all churches" is more notable.
The specific phrase "mother church" is a term, as I understand it, used to refer to a church from which other churches have had their origin, or to refer to a head church of a particular locality (it can also be used to refer to the church in general as one's mother, such as "Holy Mother Church", but that is not the meaning being used here). Under this definition, Rome could, as stated, be considered the "mother church" of the churches of Italy which came from it, but would not be the "mother church" of all the churches, given that various churches were founded before the Church of Rome and thus it hardly could be the mother church of those churches in this sense.
So it seems to me that they are using these terms for different things. "Mother and teacher of all churches" is more about it leading and teaching other churches (hence the usage of "teacher") but being "mother and teacher" of another church is different from saying that church specifically came out of the Roman Church in the way the term "mother church" does. It seems to me that they are just using the terms with different meanings, particularly considering the fact the terms are not identical.
92.
The Immaculate Conception is a doctrinal development. GAW: 304
The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception always existed in the Church and has never changed. Ven. Pius IX, ID:16
Let's begin with Benedict's statement. In response to the question "What was the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of 1854 trying to say?" he said:
"The background of this is the teaching on original sin. This says that every man comes forth from a background of sin–a "damaged relationship", we called it–and in this way is burdened with a disorder in his relation to God. In the course of time the idea developed within Christendom that the one who, from the beginning, is there to serve as a gate for God, who was specifically intended for him, could not be affected in this way.
There was a great dispute about this in the Middle Ages. On one side were the Dominicans. They said, No, Mary is a human being just like any other, so she also suffers from original sin. On the other side were the Franciscans, who upheld the other view. To cut a long story short, in the course of this dispute people came to see that Mary belongs to Christ more than to Adam. And further: that her being set apart for Christ was already there in advance–for God is always already ahead of us, and his thoughts shape our lives from the beginning–was the characteristic trait of her life. Since a new beginning takes shape in her, Mary cannot possibly belong to this sinful state of things: her relations to God is not disordered; she stands from the outset, in a special way, in the sight of God, who had "looked upon her" (Magnificat) and allowed her to look upon him.
More than this, her belonging in a special way to Christ brings with it a complete state of grace. Those words of the angel, at first sight so simple, "You are full of grace", can then be interpreted so as fully to comprehend her entire life. In that sense it expresses, in the end, not merely a privilege for Mary, but a hope for us all."
My guess is that the list is referring to the statement that "In the course of time the idea developed within Christendom".
Now for the other, Ineffabilis Deus, the document which declared the immaculate conception of Mary to be dogma. As far as I understand, Catholics normally consider only the ultimate definition of the document to be infallible ("We declare, pronounce, and define that the
doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first
instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by
Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the
human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a
doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and
constantly by all the faithful") and the rest of it is not, and is rather preperatory material. But supposing it extends to more of the document, let's look at what the list is specifically citing. The version of Ineffabilis Deus I found does not have section numbers, but if I manually count the paragraphs I end up with this as the 16th:
"And indeed, illustrious documents of venerable antiquity, of both the Eastern and the Western Church, very forcibly testify that this doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the most Blessed Virgin, which was daily more and more splendidly explained, stated and confirmed by the highest authority, teaching, zeal, knowledge, and wisdom of the Church, and which was disseminated among all peoples and nations of the Catholic world in a marvelous manner — this doctrine always existed in the Church as a doctrine that has been received from our ancestors, and that has been stamped with the character of revealed doctrine. For the Church of Christ, watchful guardian that she is, and defender of the dogmas deposited with her, never changes anything, never diminishes anything, never adds anything to them; but with all diligence she treats the ancient documents faithfully and wisely; if they really are of ancient origin and if the faith of the Fathers has transmitted them, she strives to investigate and explain them in such a way that the ancient dogmas of heavenly doctrine will be made evident and clear, but will retain their full, integral, and proper nature, and will grown only within their own genus — that is, within the same dogma, in the same sense and the same meaning."
But this seems to acknowledge there was a degree of development to it. Yes, he says "this doctrine always existed in the church" but also says this "was daily more and more splendidly explained". And while he says dogmas "will grow only within their own genus" you can still see the usage of "grow".
So while Benedict perhaps gives more emphasis to the development than Pius IX does, these do not seem in contradiction.
93.
Man evolved out of the earth. GAW: 76
God produced all things (spiritual and material) existing in the world out of nothing (ex nihil). Ven. Pius IX, D. 1805
This is an odd interpretation indeed of page 76 of God and the World. Benedict, concerning Genesis 2:7, says "It suggests that man is one who springs from the earth and its possibilities. But that's not all. There is something more, which does not come from the earth and which has not simply been developed, but which is completely new: and that is God's own breath."
The list claims that he said "Man evolved out of the earth." Do you see a mention of evolution here? I do not. The term does appear on the previous page, but in the sentence "For this reason it is essential to look beyond sheer factual reality and to recognize that man was not just thrown up into the world by some quirk of evolution" which is neither confirming nor denying evolution beyond saying man wasn't a "quirk of evolution". Nor does it appear on the page after page 76.
Now, to be fair, I believe that Benedict does accept evolution. But if that is the problem, it is odd indeed that this list, rather than cite any time he said such, to instead give a citation that doesn't even say the world evolution.
But let us look at what supposedly is the contradiction. The application portion of Denzinger 1805 states "If anyone does not confess that the world and all things which are contained in it, both spiritual and material, as regards their whole substance, have been produced by God from nothing... let him be anathema."
But how is this even remotely a contradiction with the claim that "man evolved out of the earth"? (which, again, Benedict didn't even say on the cited page!) If the claim is that it is saying that man was created from nothing at all--Adam was just popped into existence from no pre-existent matter--then the above quote goes against a literal reading of Genesis 2:7, which states that man was formed from the dust of the Earth.
No, what this statement from Denzinger clearly has in mind, and is indicated by its specification of "as regards their whole substance," is the idea that the world and everything contained in it in substance was created from nothing. That does not mean that nothing else can be created from that substance once it exists. In a literal interpretation of Genesis, we have man formed from the pre-existing dust of the Earth. And in the idea of evolution, we have man evolving out of the pre-existing Earth. In both cases, man is formed from pre-existing materials. But all of that material ultimately was created from nothing. This idea is perfectly compatible with evolution.
94.
The Church continually develops the doctrine on Papal Primacy. PSP:2
The Church can only guard the divine teaching of Papal Primacy. Ven. Pius IX, D. 1836
So, what Benedict's writing in the cited section says is:
"In his Message to those attending the symposium, the Holy Father wrote: "The Catholic Church is conscious of having preserved, in fidelity to the Apostolic Tradition and the faith of the Fathers, the ministry of the Successor of Peter".3 In the history of the Church, there is a continuity of doctrinal development on the primacy. In preparing the present text, which appears in the Appendix of the above-mentioned Proceedings,4 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has used the contributions of the scholars who took part in the symposium, but without intending to offer a synthesis of them or to go into questions requiring further study. These "Reflections" - appended to the symposium - are meant only to recall the essential points of Catholic doctrine on the primacy, Christ's great gift to his Church because it is a necessary service to unity and, as history shows, it has often defended the freedom of Bishops and the particular Churches against the interference of political authorities."
This does refer to "continuity of doctrinal development" but only briefly, so it isn't clear exactly what he views as development; I did read the rest of it, but it is concerning the present role of the pope, and does not really address any question of development, outside of perhaps "This reminder is also useful for avoiding the continual possibility of relapsing into biased and one-sided positions already rejected by the Church in the past (Febronianism, Gallicanism, ultramontanism, conciliarism, etc.)." So one should not try to read too much into an ambiguous statement when finding "heresies". But let us now see Denzinger 1836 for comparison:
"[Argument from the assent of the Church]. To satisfy this pastoral duty, our predecessors always gave tireless attention that the saving doctrine of Christ be spread among all the peoples of the earth, and with equal care they watched that, wherever it was received, it was preserved sound and pure. Therefore, the bishops of the whole world, now individually, now gathered in Synods, following a long custom of the churches and the formula of the ancient rule, referred to this Holy See those dangers particularly which emerged in the affairs of faith, that there especially the damages to faith might be repaired where faith cannot experience a failure. * The Roman Pontiffs, moreover, according as the condition of the times and affairs advised, sometimes by calling ecumenical Councils or by examining the opinion of the Church spread throughout the world; sometimes by particular synods, sometimes by employing other helps which divine Providence supplied, have defined that those matters must be held which with God's help they have recognized as in agreement with Sacred Scripture and apostolic tradition. For, the Holy Spirit was not promised to the successors of Peter that by His revelation they might disclose new doctrine, but that by His help they might guard sacredly the revelation transmitted through the apostles and the deposit of faith, and might faithfully set it forth. Indeed, all the venerable fathers have embraced their apostolic doctrine, and the holy orthodox Doctors have venerated and followed it, knowing full well that the See of St. Peter always remains unimpaired by any error, according to the divine promise of our Lord the Savior made to the chief of His disciples: "I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren" [Luke 22:32]."
This talks up the importance of the pope, but to turn it into "The Church can only guard the divine teaching of Papal Primacy" seems a stretch. And I also cannot see how it in any way contradicts Benedict's remark; heck, if Benedict had straight up said "the pope was originally just a normal bishop with no special power of primacy, but took a lot of power as time went on" it still wouldn't have actually contradicted the above section (it might have contradicted other portions, but not the above). So this one is hardly a heresy or even contradiction.
95.
The Vatican II Council was right in revising the Order of Mass. MM: 148
It is heretical to say the rite of Mass can be changed lawfully. Paul III, D. 856
This is the same citation of Benedict that was mentioned in #89, making this a re-hash, though the second citation is different this time. But we can see this argument fails simply by looking at the other citation. Denzinger 856 (Council of Trent, Session 7, Canon 13) says:
"If anyone shall say that the received and approved rites of the Catholic Church accustomed to be used in the solemn administration of the sacraments may be disdained or omitted by the minister without sin and at pleasure, or may be changed by any pastor of the churches to other new ones: let him be anathema."
This is sometimes cited as evidence that the Mass could not be changed, or could not even be translated. But this claim it somehow prohibits any change is an odd one, as there were changes that occurred after Trent but long before the 20th century changes (for example, the Tridentine Mass itself was a revision of prior masses; a less radical revision, but still a revision).
Indeed, those who make this argument I have noticed never offer any actual authority that thought this was how to interpret the canon. I will now cite an authority that rejects the interpretation the list gives. I refer to Alphonsus Liguori in his work "An Exposition and Defence of all the points of Faith Discussed and Defined by the Sacred Council of Trent". This was originally in Italian, but was translated into English and published in 1846 under the aforementioned title. As Alphonsus Liguori would later be declared a doctor of the Catholic Church in 1871, his opinion carries considerable weight. As the title indicates, this is him defending the Council of Trent, and he entreats upon this canon. It was actually by chance that I happened to find this; I looked into Liguori's book for a completely unrelated reason, but then thought to myself that as long as I had it, I should look to see if he said anything about the applicable canon, and he did. These are his remarks, found on pages 136-137:
"There is no doubt but the Church has power to institute and to change the rites and ceremonies to be employed in the administration of the sacraments, as the Council of Trent itself declared in the twenty-first session, (c. 2): "Hanc potestatem," says the Council, "perpetuo in Ecclesia fuisse ut in sacramentorum dispensatione, salva illorum substantia, ea statueret vel mutaret quae suscipientium utilitati seu ipsoram sacramentorum venerationi pro rerum, temporum et locorum verietate magis expedire judicaret." But this power belongs only to the Church: hence she has justly forbidden any change in her rites: otherwise, as St. Augustine says, (epist. 54, alias 108,) by the novelties of different ministers, the common order and peace of the Church would be disturbed."
Here we have a highly respected Catholic theologian--and from a good deal in the past, so it isn't some kind of modern innovation--stating that this canon allowed the church to make changes. According to him, the forbidding of changes in the church's rites was to prevent, as it says, "the novelties of different ministers." In the case of the new mass, it was a change by the church and issued by the pope, and therefore (by the standards Liguori sets here) the mass revision would be allowed.
Of course, the statement of one Catholic theologian, even one declared a doctor of the church, does not dogma make. Nevertheless, it shows that the interpretation that the church itself can revise its rites, including the mass, is not merely the position of a some guy posting random thoughts on the Internet but was held by a major theologian without any apparent controversy.
96.
We need to essentialize what are essential elements of faith. GAW: 453
All matters of faith are fundamentally revealed by God and cannot be non-essentialized. Pius XI, MA: 9
This is just a repetition of #40. In fact, it's even worse than prior repetitions, because those at least changed one of the citations. Here we have the same one! Here's what #40 said:
"There are essential and non-essential elements of Faith. GAW: 453
All articles of faith are fundamental. Pius XI, MA: 9"
It's the exact same things being cited for both. They just changed the paraphrases a little. Thus there is nothing to say here as it is simply a repeat of 40. Once again: They really had to pad this out, didn't they?
97.
Sects are in communion with the Catholic Church. CN: 17
No sect is in communion with the Catholic Church. Leo XIII, SC:4-5, 13
Just like the preceding one (#96), this one is doing nothng more than taking a previous citation and changing the paraphrases slightly. Namely, it did this for #68, which said:
"The Eastern schismatics have communion with the Roman Church. CN: 17
The Eastern schismatics have no communion with the Catholic Church. Leo XIII, SC:4-5, 13"
It's the exact same citations, just a slightly different paraphrase. One can look back to #68 for my analysis of it. Time for me to repeat what I said in the previous one: "Once again: They really had to pad this out, didn't they?"
98.
Pius X's Anti-Modernist decisions need correction. NMT: III
Anyone trying to destroy the force and efficacy of Pius X's Anti-Modernist Decrees is anathema. S. Pius X, D. 2114
Like in #7, the citation is extremely vague, giving us only the ambiguous "III" rather than an actual page number. Like there, I will assume that page 106 is at hand. Again, the quote in question is:
"It states–perhaps for the first time with such candor–that there are magisterial decisions which cannot be the final word on a given matter as such but, despite the permanent value of their principles, are chiefly also a signal for pastoral prudence, a sort of provisional policy. Their kernel remains valid, but the particulars determined by circumstances can stand in need of correction. In this connection, one will probably call to mind both the pontifical statements of the last century regarding freedom of religion and the anti-Modernist decisions of the then Biblical Commission. As warning calls against rash and superficial accommodations, they remain perfectly legitimate: no less a personage than J. B. Metz, for example, has remarked that the anti-Modernist decisions of the Church performed the great service of saving her from foundering in the bourgeois-liberal world. Nevertheless, with respect to particular aspects of their content, they were superseded after having fulfilled their pastoral function in the situation of the time."
The list presuambly refers to the statement of "the anti-Modern decisions of the then Biblical Commission". Now let's take a look at Denzinger 2114:
"In addition to this, intending to repress the daily increasing boldness of spirit of many Modernists, who by sophisms and artifices of every kind endeavor to destroy the force and the efficacy not only of the Decree, "Lamentabili sane exitu," which was published at Our command by the Sacred Roman and Universal Inquisition on the third of July of the current year [see n. 2071 ff.], but also of Our Encyclical Letter, "Pascendi Dominici gregis," given on the eighth of September of this same year [see n. 2071 ff.] by Our Apostolic authority, We repeat and confirm not only that Decree of the Sacred Supreme Congregation, but also that Encyclical Letter of Ours, adding the penalty of excommunication against all who contradict them; and We declare and decree this: if anyone, which may God forbid, proceeds to such a point of boldness that he defends any of the propositions, opinions, and doctrines disproved in either document mentioned above, he is ipso facto afflicted by the censure imposed in the chapter Docentes of the Constitution of the Apostolic See, first among those excommunications latae sententiae which are reserved simply to the Roman Pontiff. This excommunication, however, is to be understood with no change in the punishments, which those who have committed anything against the above mentioned documents may incur, if at any time their propositions, opinions, or doctrines are heretical; which indeed has happened more than once in the case of the adversaries of both these documents, but especially when they defend the errors of modernism, that is, the refuge of all heresies."
The problem here is that it is confusing two different things. Pius X does refer to the Biblical Commission in Denzinger 2113, where he says "all are bound by the duty of conscience to submit to the decisions of the Biblical Pontifical Commission, both those which have thus far been published and those which will hereafter be proclaimed, just as to the decrees of the Sacred Congregations which pertain to doctrine and have been approved by the Pontiff; and that all who impugn such decisions as these by word or in writing cannot avoid the charge of disobedience, or on this account be free of grave sin; and this besides the scandal by which they offend, and the other matters for which they can be responsible before God, especially because of other pronouncements in these matters made rashly and erroneously."
Notice how the language is significantly less severe than that in Denzinger 2114, which refers not merely to sin and scandal, but to outright excommunication. But Denzinger 2114 is referring to the "Lamentabili sane exitu" decree and the "Pascendi Dominici Gregis" encyclical letter, which are separate documents, while Denzinger 2113 is referring to the decisions of the Pontifical Biblical Commission. Thus it is incorrectly conflating the harsh condemnations on those who deny Lamentabili sane exitu/Pascendi Dominici Gregis with the less harsh condemnations of those who ignore the decisions of the Pontifical Biblical Commission.
Of course, one may point out that, even if it does not lead to excommunication, it nevertheless asserts there is sin in rejecting the decisions of the Pontificial Biblical Commission. But that is not heresy. Furthermore, the Pontificial Biblical Commission, as far as I can tell, can change its decrees if it so desires, as there is nothing infallible about them. Benedict does not specify which decrees he is referring to, unfortunately, but of course this was a fairly brief note and such specifics may not have been seen as necessary. In any event, the other considerations already discussed at #7 still apply.
99.
A Jew or anyone does not need to believe in Christ as the Son of God to be saved. Z: 2
Whoever wishes to be saved must hold the Catholic Faith, which includes the Trinity and the Incarnation. Eugene IV, T. 551-3
This one is really just repeating #50, citing again the Athanasian Creed and trying to contrast it with the statement of Benedict. For those curious as to what he did say, the article cited from Zenit is no longer online it seems, but fortunately the Internet Archive has a backup here.
The critical aspect here is:
"Referring to a believing Jew, Cardinal Ratzinger clarified that "we 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. However, the fact that the Son of God entered history, made himself part of history, and is present as a reality in history, affects everyone.""
The list removes the rather important qualification "if there are insurmountable impediments, of which he is not blameworthy, to preclude it". This makes his remarks really about the same as Pius IX's in #34 (I refer to Pius IX's actual remarks, not the misleading paraphrase the list made)
Ultimately, though, this is simply a repetition of #50 (again, more padding on the part of the list) and thus the reader is referred there.
100.
Bread and wine does not physically change to be Christ. GAW: 408
Bread and wine does physically change to be Christ which is termed Transubstantiation. Paul III. D. 854
Denzinger 854 has this to say:
"If anyone shall say that in ministers, when they effect and confer the sacraments, the intention at least of doing what the Church does is not required: let him be anathema."
This has absolutely nothing to do with bread and wine changing or transubstantiation. My guess is that 884 was in view here, which says:
"If anyone says that in the sacred and holy sacrament of the Eucharist there remains the substance of bread and wine together with the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and denies that wonderful and singular conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the body, and of the entire substance of the wine into the blood, the species of the bread and wine only remaining, a change which the Catholic Church most fittingly calls transubstantiation: let him be anathema."
I will continue with the assumption that this is what was meant, for there is obviously no contradiction with 854; if something else was in mind, then it's the fault of the author of this list for not citing it properly. Moving forward with this assumption, where exactly does one see the statement of "physical" in 884? It discusses the substance of it. What it is condemning is the idea that the substance of bread and wine remain in the eucharist with the body and blood of Christ (as I understand it, this is the Lutheran viewpoint). It instead asserts that the whole substance is changed, and that only the species of the bread and wine remain; an alternate translation is to say only the appearance of the bread and wine remain.
Just to be sure, I did a search for the word "physical" in the document, but nothing about transubstantiation was found there with that word. Now, the Denzinger citation (from the Council of Trent) uses some terms that might be a little confusing nowadays, so here's a more recent definition from the Baltimore Catechism, published in the early 20th century (a revision of a late 19th century catechism):
"The Holy Eucharist is the Sacrament which contains the body and blood, soul and divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ under the appearances of bread and wine.
When we say “contains,” we mean the Sacrament which is the body and blood, etc. The Holy Eucharist is the same living body of Our Lord which He had upon earth; but it is in a new form, under the appearances of bread and wine."
I select the Baltimore Catechism because our list-maker, a sedevacantist, presumably would reject more recent catechisms. The Baltimore Catechism's definition is largely the same, but does use "appearance" rather than "species" to be more clear to a more modern reader.
So, essentially, transubstantiation says that the Eucharist during mass changes into the body and blood of Christ but retains the appearance of bread and wine. With all that in mind, what did Benedict say? After discussing the Eucharist, he responds to the statement of "But anyone can see tha the wine remains wine." He then says:
"But this is not a statement of physics. It has never been asserted that, so to say, nature in a physical sense is being changed. The transformation reaches down to a more profound level. Tradition has it that this is a metaphysical process. Christ lays hold upon what is, from a purely physical viewpoint, bread and wine, in its inmost being, so that it is changed from within and Christ truly gives himself in them."
This seems to be saying the same thing. Even if someone wants to claim that the substance changing is supposed to mean a physical change (though one that cannot be seen), he makes it clear what he means by that when he says "from a purely physical viewpoint." Which is accurate--if you examine the Eucharist by sight or touch or anything else, it looks to be bread and wine. Transubstantiation says that, despite that, the substance is that of the body and blood of Christ (again, Transubstantiation asserts that it remains under the appearance of bread and wine). As Benedict is clearly referring to what it appears to be with his remark on the lack of a physical change, there is no contradiction here.
101.
There are magisterial decisions which are not the final word. NMT: III
Rome has spoken the cause is finished. Pius XI, AS: 17
This one is re-hashing #7 and #98, though not quite as badly as some of the other re-hashes we've seen on this list have been, so I will do an investigation of this specific one rather than simply referring to the reader to those prior ones. The statement from the first that seems to be in mind is this:
""It states–perhaps for the first time with such candor–that there are magisterial decisions which cannot be the final word on a given matter as such but, despite the permanent value of their principles, are chiefly also a signal for pastoral prudence, a sort of provisional policy. Their kernel remains valid, but the particulars determined by circumstances can stand in need of correction. In this connection, one will probably call to mind both the pontifical statements of the last century regarding freedom of religion and the anti-Modernist decisions of the then Biblical Commission. As warning calls against rash and superficial accommodations, they remain perfectly legitimate: no less a personage than J. B. Metz, for example, has remarked that the anti-Modernist decisions of the Church performed the great service of saving her from foundering in the bourgeois-liberal world. Nevertheless, with respect to particular aspects of their content, they were superseded after having fulfilled their pastoral function in the situation of the time.""
Yet, as has been pointed out in those previous sections, he does say, regarding these decisions, that they have "permanent value of their principles" and "their kernel remains valid". He is saying that the corrections are for particulars. Now let us look at the other quote:
"“They know,” he wrote, “that from the apostolic fountain-head issue answers to inquirers through all provinces. Particularly when a matter of Faith is in question, I think that our brothers and fellow-bishops should have recourse to Peter alone, namely to the author of the title and rank they hold, even as you, beloved Brethren, have now appealed, because he can give universal aid to all churches through the whole world.”[30] When Augustine, accordingly, had learned of the Roman Pontiffs condemnation of Pelagius and Caelestius, he uttered the following memorable words in a sermon to the people: “The views of two councils touching this controversy have been transmitted to the Apostolic See, and the answer has been sent back. The case has been settled. God grant that the error be ended likewise.”[31] These words of his, condensed a trifle, have passed into a proverb: “Rome has spoken, the cause is finished.” Again in another occasion, after citing the decision of Pope Zosimus put under the ban of his condemnation all Pelagians in all parts of the world, the saint wrote: “The Catholic doctrine is so ancient and well-grounded, so certain and clear in these words of the Apostolic See, that it would be criminal in a Christian to doubt of this truth.”[32]"
Even if these were in contradiction, going against a brief mention of a what Pius XI identifies as a proverb can hardly be construed as a heresy. But even if we were to apply Benedict's remarks against Pelagius and Pelagianism, they would mean that the basic decision (a condemnation of Pelagianism) is accurate, but that the particulars might be modified. Even this does not seem to me to be in contradiction.
And with this, we conclude our examination of this highly flawed list. As the original list did include the abbreviations at the end, I will include those for reference to the reader.
Table of Sources - Abbreviations
Abb. Source: Name, Author, Publisher, Date, etc.
ABA Benedict XV, Pope. Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum, 1 November 1914.
AS Pius XI, Pope. Ad Salutem, 30 April, 1930.
CD Gregory XVI, Pope. Commissum Divinitus, 17 May 1835.
CH Pius VI, Pope. Charitas, 13 April 1791.
CN Ratzinger, Joseph (Benedict XVI). Letter To The Bishops Of The Catholic Church On Some Aspects Of The Church Understood As Communion, 28 May 1992.
CR Pius X, Pope St., Communium Rerum, 21 April 1909.
CTC Ratzinger. Called to Communion: Understanding the Church Today (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1996).
D. Denzinger, Rev. Henry (ed.), Enchiridion symbolorum, definitionum et declarationum de rebus fidei et morum, (Barcelona: Editorial Herder, 27th ed., 1951).
DCF Ratzinger. Doctrinal Commentary on the Concluding Formula of the Professio Fidei, L'Osservatore Romano, English edition, 15 July 1998, pp. 3-4.
DI Ratzinger. Declaration Dominus Iesus on the Unicity and Salvific Universality of Jesus Christ and the Church, 6 August 2000.
DIM Pius XI, Pope. Divini illius magistri, 31 December 1929.
ECV Ratzinger. The Ecclesiology of Vatican II, 15 September 2001, L'Osservatore Romano, English edition, 23 January 2002, p. 5.
EM Pius IX, Pope Ven., Etsi Multa, 21 November 1873.
ES Pius X, Editae Saepe, 26 May 1910.
EVT Ratzinger. Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian, 24 May 1990.
EXD Leo X, Pope. Exsurge Domine, 15 June 1520.
GAW Ratzinger. God and the World: Believing and Living in Our Time: A Conversation with Peter Seewald (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2002).
GC Ratzinger. Sermo Gratia Copiosa, 5 April 2005.
ID Pius IX. Ineffabilis Deus, 8 December 1854.
ITB Ratzinger. In the Beginning: A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall, (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Erdmans Publishing Co., 1995).
ITC Ratzinger. Introduction To Christianity (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004).
JTE Ratzinger. Journey Towards Easter (New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1987).
LB Ratzinger. Letter to Bartholomew I, 26 November 2005.
LR L'Osservatore Romano
MA Pius XI, Pope. Mortalium Animos, 6 January 1928.
MCC Pius XII, Pope. Mystici Corporis Christi, 29 June 1943.
MRC Ratzinger. Many Religions - One Covenant: Israel, the Church, and the World (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000).
MM Ratzinger. Milestones: Memoirs 1927-1977 (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1998).
MV Gregory XVI, Pope. Mirari Vos, 15 August 1832.
NMT Ratzinger. The Nature and Mission of Theology: Its Role in the Light of Present Controversy (San Francisco, Ignatius Press, 1995).
PCT Ratzinger. Principles of Catholic Theology (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987).
PDG Pius X, Pope St. Pascendi Dominici Gregis, 8 September 1907.
PFF Ratzinger. Pilgrim Fellowship of Faith (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2005).
PSP Ratzinger. The Primacy of the Successor of Peter in the Mystery of the Church, L'Osservatore Romano, English edition, 18 November, 1998, pp. 5-6.
PTC Papal Teachings: The Church, ed. by the Benedictine Monks of Solesmes (Boston: St. Paul Editions, 1962).
RR Ratzinger and Messori, Vittorio. The Ratzinger Report (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1985).
RS Pius IX, Respicientes, 1 November 1870.
SC Leo XIII, Pope. Satis Cognitum, 29 June 1896.
SOE Ratzinger and Seewald, Peter. Salt of the Earth (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1997).
T. Tanner, Norman P. (ed.), Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, (London: Sheed & Ward, 1990), Volume 1.
TOC Ratzinger. The Open Circle: The Meaning of Christian Brotherhood (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1966).
TT Ratzinger. Truth and Tolerance (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004).
UP Leo XII, Pope. Ubi Primum, 5 May 1824.
Z Zenit News Agency, "Are Believers of Other Religions Saved?", Published 5 September, 2000.
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