Honorius, de Mattei, "Magisterial Heresy" and the Rule of Faith

[Michael Wilson]

Tuas Libenter is a letter, not even an encyclical

Popes are not bound by one form of teaching a doctrine over another, as Dom Paul Nau explained in "The Ordinary Magisterium Theologically Considered". The above letter of the Pope has been a standard reference for works of theology when dealing with the issue of the authority of the Ordinary Magisterium of the Church. Don Paul's example of Pius XII use of an address to the "Association of Catholic Midwives"; as an example of a Pope using this occasion to settle the question of the use of the infertile periods in marriage.

[Stubborn]

Tuas Libenter is a letter, not even an encyclical. While it holds greater weight coming from a Pope there are not very many weighty declarations from Councils or vehicles for Magistral teaching that repeat this idea of the universal consent of the Theologians.  In part it is an almost impossible claim to investigate.  Even if you could determine that Major Theological Schools had agreement in a certain place over a certain time, how are you going to investigate what Theologians where teaching in Lebanon, Poland or other places that also had major theological schools and are divided by language?

There was also never universal and constant consent among the theologians to the idea that the whole Church accepted Honorius as not a heretic. In another thread I pointed out that St. Frances de Sales, a Bishop and a Doctor of the Church, thought of him as a heretic.

When Pope Pius IX speaks about the "Universal and constant consent of theologians," he is telling us that we *are* obligated or bound to believe all those doctrines not infallibly defined yet nevertheless are doctrines that the Church has taught always and everywhere, and that the faithful have believed always and everywhere (since the time of the Apostles), *in addition* to all the doctrines, which, having been infallibly defined, are now dogmas. He said that it would be wrong to limit our submission only to the Church's dogmas.

A dogma is simply a doctrine, i.e. a teaching and belief already having met the above criteria, defined ex cathedra. This is to say  that a dogma is simply a doctrine defined ex cathedra.

Whether or not Honorius was a heretic is not something that was ever a doctrine, which is to say whether he was or was not a heretic cannot be one of the Church's dogmas, as such, the Church does not obligate us, nor are we bound to believe he was or was not a heretic.

[muffinman145]

At what point exactly does "the Spirit of Vatican II" become Magisterium? It's been taught by 4 Pope's and universally accepted by all the bishops for 60 years

[Stubborn]

At what point exactly does "the Spirit of Vatican II" become Magisterium? It's been taught by 4 Pope's and universally accepted by all the bishops for 60 years

We know the teachings of V2 are error because it's teachings are not found within the magisterium, iow, it's teachings are new and or previously condemned, meaning they are not doctrines of the Church therefore do not enjoy universal and constant consent of theologians and are only 'almost unanimously', but certainly not 'universally' accepted by all the bishops.

Whenever the Church speaks of anything "universal," she always includes the element of time, meaning "from the time of the Apostles until the end of time, always and everywhere ."  This is why Pope Pius IX said "universal and constant consent" - meaning "taught by the Church, believed by all of the faithful since the time of the Apostles," that's what that phrase means.   

[Michael Wilson]

At what point exactly does "the Spirit of Vatican II" become Magisterium? It's been taught by 4 Pope's and universally accepted by all the bishops for 60 years

"The Spirit of Vatican II" cannot be defined except as the rejection of the Catholic faith. The teachings of Vatican II on say Religious Liberty; Ecumenism or the non-identity between the Catholic Church and the Mystical Body of Christ; have all the characteristics of the Magisterium, except that according to the pre-Vatican II Magisterium, they are serious errors that have been condemned. A Catholic is therefore faced with a dilemma of which set of magisterial doctrines to follow, as both cannot be true.

[muffinman145]

"The Spirit of Vatican II" cannot be defined except as the rejection of the Catholic faith. The teachings of Vatican II on say Religious Liberty; Ecumenism or the non-identity between the Catholic Church and the Mystical Body of Christ; have all the characteristics of the Magisterium, except that according to the pre-Vatican II Magisterium, they are serious errors that have been condemned. A Catholic is therefore faced with a dilemma of which set of magisterial doctrines to follow, as both cannot be true.

That's the problem I keep running into. I would be a sede if I didn't think it creates more problems than it solved, but we're in a situation where the Pope is teaching error, clear as day. Pope Francis has said:
"This is magisterium: the council is the magisterium of the church," he said. "Either you are with the church and therefore you follow the council, or if you do not follow the council or you interpret it in your own way, as you wish, you are not with the church."

It just seems tough to get around. The Council taught error. The Pope's taught error and have promulgated errors without reservation in the "spirit of Vatican II". The Supreme Pontiff is unambiguous about it: Vatican II is Magisterium. It's hard to square all that with indefectibility.

What exactly am I required to believe? It's bizarre

[Stubborn]

"The Spirit of Vatican II" cannot be defined except as the rejection of the Catholic faith. The teachings of Vatican II on say Religious Liberty; Ecumenism or the non-identity between the Catholic Church and the Mystical Body of Christ; have all the characteristics of the Magisterium, except that according to the pre-Vatican II Magisterium, they are serious errors that have been condemned. A Catholic is therefore faced with a dilemma of which set of magisterial doctrines to follow, as both cannot be true.

That's the problem I keep running into. I would be a sede if I didn't think it creates more problems than it solved, but we're in a situation where the Pope is teaching error, clear as day. Pope Francis has said:
"This is magisterium: the council is the magisterium of the church," he said. "Either you are with the church and therefore you follow the council, or if you do not follow the council or you interpret it in your own way, as you wish, you are not with the church."

It just seems tough to get around. The Council taught error. The Pope's taught error and have promulgated errors without reservation in the "spirit of Vatican II". The Supreme Pontiff is unambiguous about it: Vatican II is Magisterium. It's hard to square all that with indefectibility.

What exactly am I required to believe? It's bizarre

This pope lies.

In Pascendi, Pope St. Pius X said about Modernists: "audacity is their chief characteristic" - which you have to admit that this pope saying he and V2 are the magisterium is pretty audacious.   

You are required to believe what Pope Pius IX said in Tuas Libenter:
"Even when it is only a question of the submission owed to divine faith, this cannot be limited merely to points defined by the express decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, or of the Roman Pontiffs and of this Apostolic See; this submission must also be extended to all that has been handed down as divinely revealed by the ordinary teaching authority of the entire Church spread over the whole world, and which, for this reason, Catholic theologians, with a universal and constant consent, regard as being of the faith."

And again at V1 where he declared:
"Wherefore, by divine and catholic faith all those things are to be believed which are contained in the word of God as found in scripture and tradition, and which are proposed by the church as matters to be believed as divinely revealed, whether by her solemn judgment or in her ordinary and universal magisterium."

Note that he never says we are to believe whatever popes tell us.

[christusimperat]

"The Spirit of Vatican II" cannot be defined except as the rejection of the Catholic faith. The teachings of Vatican II on say Religious Liberty; Ecumenism or the non-identity between the Catholic Church and the Mystical Body of Christ; have all the characteristics of the Magisterium, except that according to the pre-Vatican II Magisterium, they are serious errors that have been condemned. A Catholic is therefore faced with a dilemma of which set of magisterial doctrines to follow, as both cannot be true.

That's the problem I keep running into. I would be a sede if I didn't think it creates more problems than it solved, but we're in a situation where the Pope is teaching error, clear as day. Pope Francis has said:
"This is magisterium: the council is the magisterium of the church," he said. "Either you are with the church and therefore you follow the council, or if you do not follow the council or you interpret it in your own way, as you wish, you are not with the church."

It just seems tough to get around. The Council taught error. The Pope's taught error and have promulgated errors without reservation in the "spirit of Vatican II". The Supreme Pontiff is unambiguous about it: Vatican II is Magisterium. It's hard to square all that with indefectibility.

What exactly am I required to believe? It's bizarre

Luckily there are two articles which are addressing your concerns:

https://wmreview.co.uk/2021/06/09/weaponized-orthodoxy/

And the one posted at the beginning:
https://wmreview.co.uk/2021/09/17/honorius-de-mattei-iiia-rule-of-faith/

Incidentally, sedevacantism is just the idea that Francis and recent predecessors are not popes. Seems to me that many of the "extra problems" that people think are created are really inferences and gratuitous extrapolations (like you can't go to Masses of those who don't agree with you, or the hierarchy have disappeared, etc). This goes some way as a palate-cleanser for that particular idea: https://akacatholic.com/sedevacantism-and-theology-of-the-church/

Hope some of that helps.

[christusimperat]

Tuas Libenter is a letter, not even an encyclical. While it holds greater weight coming from a Pope there are not very many weighty declarations from Councils or vehicles for Magistral teaching that repeat this idea of the universal consent of the Theologians.  In part it is an almost impossible claim to investigate.  Even if you could determine that Major Theological Schools had agreement in a certain place over a certain time, how are you going to investigate what Theologians where teaching in Lebanon, Poland or other places that also had major theological schools and are divided by language?

There was also never universal and constant consent among the theologians to the idea that the whole Church accepted Honorius as not a heretic. In another thread I pointed out that St. Frances de Sales, a Bishop and a Doctor of the Church, thought of him as a heretic.

Well, St Francis hardly thought of him as a heretic:

"Thus we do not say that the Pope cannot err in his private opinions, as did John XXII; or be altogether a heretic, as perhaps Honorius was."

Not really a ringing endorsement. He also immediately follows it with this:

"Now when he is explicitly a heretic, he falls ipso facto from his dignity and out of the Church, and the Church must either deprive him, or, as some say, declare him deprived, of his Apostolic See, and must say as S. Peter did: Let another take his bishopric. (Acts i.)"

https://sensusfidelium.us/apologetics/the-catholic-controversy-st-francis-de-sales/the-authority-of-the-pope/chapter-xiv/

Further, don't worry about Tuas Libenter and the infallibility of the consensus of theologians, we can leave that to one side because the problem is much greater than that.

We mention the theologians for two reasons:

1. If so many theologians are teaching something contrary to what some are claiming is the teaching of the Church, namely that Honorius was a heretic and taught heresy, and the Church tolerated and approved their working, this (if an accurate description of the state of affairs) would be such a grave negligence as to constitute a defection.

2. From a different angle, the point is that St Robert Bellarmine, St Alphonsus, Cardinals Billot, Journet, Hergenröther, and Manning, and the various theologians or manualists such as Salaverri, Berry, Van Noort, Wilhelm and Scannell and all the rest - not to mention the saintly Dom Prosper Gueranger - have a much higher degree of plausibility than people writing their interpretation of the facts on the internet. And they all held that he didn't err and wasn't condemned as a heretic in the sense that people want it to mean today (i.e. to give us a precedent for Francis and co). They aren't denying the facts, as people on here say of them. They are giving the true facts, without anti-papal spin.

Those who go for the "simple" narrative seem proud of saying that they are just relying on their interpretation of the the sixth ecumenical council etc, and of not reading into the subject beyond the Catholic Encyclopaedia, and of dismissing the authorities mentioned above.

[nmoerbeek]

Tuas Libenter is a letter, not even an encyclical

Popes are not bound by one form of teaching a doctrine over another, as Dom Paul Nau explained in "The Ordinary Magisterium Theologically Considered". The above letter of the Pope has been a standard reference for works of theology when dealing with the issue of the authority of the Ordinary Magisterium of the Church. Don Paul's example of Pius XII use of an address to the "Association of Catholic Midwives"; as an example of a Pope using this occasion to settle the question of the use of the infertile periods in marriage.

Thank you, yes it is a standard reference.  It is pretty standard manualist style theology though to discuss the degrees and vehicles and their subsequent authority.  It is standard because it is the highest authority saying that, this teaching is notably absent from other vehicles of papal teaching.

My point was that it is misleading to believe that this idea of universal teaching of the theologians is a teaching of the Church, it is a development of doctrine that I think has died. 

[Maximilian]

we're in a situation where the Pope is teaching error, clear as day.

Yes.

Pope Francis has said: "Either you are with the church and therefore you follow the council, or if you do not follow the council or you interpret it in your own way, as you wish, you are not with the church."

Yes, that is the whole point of Traditionis custodes. But I was just reading a transcript of Archbishop Lefebvre's meeting with Pope Paul VI, and PVI was every bit as bad as Francis.

The Council taught error. The Pope's taught error and have promulgated errors without reservation in the "spirit of Vatican II".

Yes.

The Supreme Pontiff is unambiguous about it: Vatican II is Magisterium. It's hard to square all that with indefectibility.

Yes.

What's most important for our mental health as well as the good of our souls is to stick with reality and to resist the temptation to magically solve our dilemmas through wandering into fantasy land. It appears that you're doing pretty well with that so far.

[Maximilian]

And they all held that he didn't err and wasn't condemned as a heretic in the sense that people want it to mean today (i.e. to give us a precedent for Francis and co). They aren't denying the facts, as people on here say of them. They are giving the true facts, without anti-papal spin.

On one side are facts, as plain as day, as simple as black and white, as clear as words can possibly express them.

On the other side is outrageous spin, trying to make black into white, night into day.

Here is the history of what actually happened:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Honorius_I

- In the Third Council of Constantinople, the monothelites were anathematized by name "and with them Honorius, who was Prelate of Rome, as having followed them in all things" in the XIII session.

- Citing his written correspondence with Sergius, Honorious was subsequently accused of having confirmed his impious doctrines;

- the XVI session reaffirmed the condemnation of the heretics explicitly stating "to Honorius, the heretic, anathema!",[7][8] and

- concluding with the decree of the XVII session that Honorius had not stopped provoking scandal and error in the Body of the Church; for he had "with unheard of expressions disseminated amidst the faithful people the heresy of the one will", doing so "in agreement with the insane false doctrine of the impious Apollinaire, Severus and Themistius".[9]

- The Roman legates made no objection to his condemnation.[1]

- Pope Leo II's letter of confirmation of the Council commended it for it had "perfectly preached the definition of the true faith"[10] and made reference to the condemnation of his predecessor:[11]

"We anathematize the inventors of the new error, that is, Theodore, Bishop of Pharan, Sergius, Pyrrhus, Paul, and Peter, betrayers rather than leaders of the Church of Constantinople, and also Honorius, who did not attempt to sanctify this Apostolic Church with the teaching of apostolic tradition, but by profane treachery permitted its purity to be polluted." [9]

- Within the year a Latin translation of the Acts of the council had been disseminated and signed by the Bishops throughout the West.

- The condemnation of Pope Honorius was reiterated by Pope Leo's successors,[12] subsequent councils[13] and included in Breviary lessons up until the eighteenth century.

[Michael Wilson]

nmoerbeek,
it isn't per se the 'universal teaching of theologians'; it's theologians agreeing what the Church teaches on a given subject. So if theologians agree that "The Mystical Body of Christ is the Catholic Church" per the teachings of Pius XII; Pius XI and so on and so forth; this is what the Church teaches on the subject.
To say that it is a 'development of doctrine' is not the same as to say that it can be disregarded; a lot of the doctrine that we hold today was the result of this development. For example the Cristological definitions of the early Church Councils and the Marian doctrines including the Immaculate Conception. There is room for legitimate doctrinal development in the Church.

[nmoerbeek]

nmoerbeek,
it isn't per se the 'universal teaching of theologians'; it's theologians agreeing what the Church teaches on a given subject. So if theologians agree that "The Mystical Body of Christ is the Catholic Church" per the teachings of Pius XII; Pius XI and so on and so forth; this is what the Church teaches on the subject.
To say that it is a 'development of doctrine' is not the same as to say that it can be disregarded; a lot of the doctrine that we hold today was the result of this development. For example the Cristological definitions of the early Church Councils and the Marian doctrines including the Immaculate Conception. There is room for legitimate doctrinal development in the Church.

You may believe that is what it says, but I have read/heard on this particular letter more than once, and it appears at least that some people believe that it is dealing with a much more narrow and specific criteria when speaking about the Theologians. At least the way it appears to me is you are trying to make it more broad concerning what the Church teaches about Ecclesia docens, which would include the Theologians.  However, putting a finger on the scales by saying that if the Theologians universally teach something it is the Catholic Faith which: I don't think could ever be established, and if it was attempted (as it was in this thread) it will lead to problems.  Just because some manuals from the same period of time in the Church agree, does not mean that a person can conclude that this is an infallible opinion, or those few opinions then constitute a matter of the Catholic Faith.

Max in particular, and I to a lesser degree have already in other threads pointed out the numerous problems with taking the Manualist position on Honorius. 

Furthermore, the much more complete Catholic Teaching of the Ecclesia Docens teaches that liturgical practice is also to be considered for what is the "teaching" of the Church.  The fact that this was taught in the Breviary for nearly a thousand years would undermine the idea of infallibility much greater than a few manualist getting it wrong.  Many priests throughout history may have never read a manual more than off and on, but said their breviaries ever day for years on end.  A normal monk or Parish priest would have thought Honorious was a heretic, by extension these Men would have taught that from the Pulpit to the faithful.

Finally,
I believe in the development of doctrine.

I am not saying that it should be disregarded, I am saying that the particular idea that when the Theologians teach with unanimity it is infallible is an idea that has seen the end of its development.  I do believe  in the teachings that have developed, but I don't believe the Theologians should be considered as a separate group from the Faithful, or the clergy as having a Charism when they speak in line with what was always taught.

[Michael Wilson]

nmoerbeek,
The Manualist position on Honorius appears to be the position of the Church; the removal of his name from the readings of the breviary and the defense of his reputation by Catholic apologists who's works enjoy the blessing of the Popes and the Church, such as St. Robert is a clear indication of this.
In Fr. Ruben Parson's "Studies in Church History" Vol. I; Fr. Parson's publishes the letters and demonstrates that they do not contain any heresy, that they are perfectly orthodox. The condemnation of persons in General Councils (as opposed to doctrines), is not infallible; but applicable only to the extent that the person held the condemned errors. His immediate successor testified to Honorius' orthodoxy. The case of Origen is illustrative of this; he was condemned after his death of holding the theory of "Apocastasis"; but in more modern times, there is doubt that he did indeed hold to this opinion; if he did not, then the condemnation would not be valid.
As to Tuas and its doctrine:

"...Even when it is only a question of the submission owed to divine faith, this cannot be limited merely to points defined by the express decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, or of the Roman Pontiffs and of this Apostolic See; this submission must also be extended to [the Church's Magisterium, i.e.] all that has been handed down as divinely revealed by the ordinary teaching authority of the entire Church spread over the whole world, and which, for this reason, Catholic theologians, with a universal and constant consent, regard as being of the faith..."

It is clear that Pius is speaking of the consent of theologians that a doctrine "has been handed down as divinely revealed by the ordinary teaching authority of the entire Church...for this reason etc.
Because the theologians are witnesses to the teaching of the universal Church. It is the teaching that is infallible.
As for Max, he denies the infallibility of Vatican I. I think this makes him a person who's opinion should not be followed on Catholic doctrine.