Are there any self-proclaimed Jansenists?

[Kreuzritter]

Again: if you reject Papal infallibility, you reject Vatican I's infallibility, and if you reject Vatican I's infallibility, you reject the infallibility of ecumenical councils, indeed, of any authority within the ecclesia docens, and therewith of the Church, to guarantee truth. Everything is then up for grabs, with no basis upon which to absolutely settle any question, and the whole thing is reduced to just another version of what the Protestants do, except maybe extending the material to argue over without any rule but "reason" to include the Church Fathers and theologians and whatnot - but why even accept them? Why accept the canon? Is the Trinity up for grabs too? With your sarcastic remark about the Filioque, who knows.

Logically, you're epistemologically in the same boat as Protestants when it comes to knowing any truth of revelation, though you pick, choose and perhaps interpret differently. But what, in fact, sets you apart in principle from the Modernist in how you approach the teaching of the extraordinary magisterium? Your very comments about Trent stink of the same rank historicism that characterises their ideas, and those about Vatican I of "development of doctrine".

So what, indeed, is your objection to Vatican II in the first place? That it doesn' fit a particular historical flavour of Christianity? It certainly can't be one of any dogmatic truth known solely by authority (the basis of our religion - see Deism for how far you get with trying to follow the rejection of authority to its logical conclusions within Christianity), so why not join the Modernists? At least they have a somewhat consistent way of accounting for their beliefs as "revelation" coming from the subject's ongoing encounter" with the divine within himself and others - or you could just go one better and opt for some sort of Gnosticism or perennialism after the fashion of Rene Guenon.

[Larry]

/quote]

Look around you, man!

Some people live on a different planet than the rest of us.

[Kreuzritter]

/quote]

Look around you, man!

Some people live on a different planet than the rest of us.

Context, man.

If he rejects Vatican I's infallibility, what is his authoritative basis for rejecting the perceived errors of Vatican 2? Or is it just a matter of taste?

[Kreuzritter]

I would sooner associate, any day of the week, with "Novus Ordo trads" who attempt to force Vatican II into an orthodox interpretation than with anyone who rejects formally defined dogmas of Vatican I.

It's the same thing with the SSPX: they call "Feeneyites" heretics while teaching the diabolical nonsense that it's possible to be saved without faith in Jesus Christ, while Benedict XVI taught explicitly that the strict understanding of EENS is an allowable position; ironically, for all their talk about the liturgy and morals and modernism, the SSPX teach the most diabolical Modernist doctrine of all - the denial of the necessity of the Catholic faith for salvation - while in the good ol' "Novus Irdo" one can be a "Feeneyite" - don't you just love what the absence of papal authority has done for the world? 

[Maximilian]

if you reject Papal infallibility, you reject Vatican I's infallibility,

That's just what I'm saying. Anyone who rejects the New Mass, the conciliar church, the new morality, etc., has already decided that doctrines solemnly promulgated by a validly-elected pope can be heretical, detrimental to the faith, pernicious, etc.

At the time that Paul VI did all these things, the word "sedevacantism" hadn't even been invented, and there was no one in the world who questioned whether or not Montini was the pope. He was the pope, he was universally recognized as such, he acted as such, he occupied the chair of Peter, and from that chair he destroyed the Catholic Church.

These things being self-evident to traditional Catholics, then the next question is, "How can this be infallible?" Clearly it is not. Vatican I was put to the test, and it failed spectacularly. It's like a bridge which doesn't fail by merely collapsing, but also explodes and annihilates the city around it.

and if you reject Vatican I's infallibility, you reject the infallibility of ecumenical councils,

There never was any infallibility attributed to ecumenical councils. Many of them have been widely acknowledged to have been in error. I listed a few of those councils previously on this thread.

indeed, of any authority within the ecclesia docens, and therewith of the Church, to guarantee truth.

As the Oath against Modernism says, the hierarchy has been given authority to preserve the truth, not to invent it. "What was believed always and everywhere and by everyone" is what the Church has been entrusted to guarantee.

With your sarcastic remark about the Filioque, who knows.

I wasn't being sarcastic.

Logically, you're epistemologically in the same boat as Protestants when it comes to knowing any truth of revelation, though you pick, choose and perhaps interpret differently.

Choosing differently is what makes us different. As far as guarantees, we must win our salvation in fear in trembling.

This question does, however, prompt interesting thoughts for meditation -- What exactly does make a Catholic different from a Protestant? If you asked this question to people some decades ago prior to Vatican II, most among both Catholics and Protestants would answer "The Pope."

But now that Vatican II and the conciliar church and the new sacraments and so forth have all been instituted by popes, supported by a virtually unanimous hierarchy, and the current pope is an embarrassment even to protestants, it forces one to dig deeper to search for a more true understanding of the real difference.

I'll have to give it more thought before answering.

But what, in fact, sets you apart in principle from the Modernist in how you approach the teaching of the extraordinary magisterium?

"The difference between me and a madman is that I am not mad."

[Arvinger]

Again: if you reject Papal infallibility, you reject Vatican I's infallibility, and if you reject Vatican I's infallibility, you reject the infallibility of ecumenical councils, indeed, of any authority within the ecclesia docens, and therewith of the Church, to guarantee truth. Everything is then up for grabs, with no basis upon which to absolutely settle any question, and the whole thing is reduced to just another version of what the Protestants do, except maybe extending the material to argue over without any rule but "reason" to include the Church Fathers and theologians and whatnot - but why even accept them? Why accept the canon? Is the Trinity up for grabs too? With your sarcastic remark about the Filioque, who knows.

Logically, you're epistemologically in the same boat as Protestants when it comes to knowing any truth of revelation, though you pick, choose and perhaps interpret differently. But what, in fact, sets you apart in principle from the Modernist in how you approach the teaching of the extraordinary magisterium? Your very comments about Trent stink of the same rank historicism that characterises their ideas, and those about Vatican I of "development of doctrine".

This. Honestly, if I believed what Maximilian believes I would have ceased to attend the Mass long time ago and find myself a church of my taste. Vatican I being wrong about Papal infallibility means that the claims of the Catholic Church have been empirically falsified and it is not a true Church found by Jesus Christ.

If Vatican I could be wrong about papal infallibility, then Trent could have been wrong about justification and Nicaea could have been wrong about deity of Christ. We don't even know which books are in the Bible - maybe Protestants are right in their rejection of the Deuterocanonical books and Trent was wrong? There is no way to draw a line defining Christian orthodoxy, since everything is reduced to fallible human opinion, just like in Protestantism and their hundreds of sects which hold contradicting beliefs. Consequently, there is no epistemological basis to hold anything as objective truth.

And I mean this not only in purely epistemological, but also very practical terms. Let's take the dogma of the Bodily Assumption of Our Lady. I believe this dogma because it was infallibly defined by Pope Pius XII. However, there is almost no Patristic or Scriptural evidence to support this dogma. There is only some very late support, like sermons of St. John Damascene (8th century), and interpretation of Revelation 12:1 as referring to Our Lady (which was not a unanimous interpretation of the Fathers at all). Of course, Papal infallibility guarantees that this dogma is indeed part of the deposit of faith and was believed by early Christians, even if no evidence for it survived. However, if Papal infallibility is false (and thus the authority of the Catholic Church is false), there is very little reason to believe that this is a revealed truth which should be believed by Christians.

That's just what I'm saying. Anyone who rejects the New Mass, the conciliar church, the new morality, etc., has already decided that doctrines solemnly promulgated by a validly-elected pope can be heretical, detrimental to the faith, pernicious, etc.

At the time that Paul VI did all these things, the word "sedevacantism" hadn't even been invented, and there was no one in the world who questioned whether or not Montini was the pope. He was the pope, he was universally recognized as such, he acted as such, he occupied the chair of Peter, and from that chair he destroyed the Catholic Church.

These things being self-evident to traditional Catholics, then the next question is, "How can this be infallible?" Clearly it is not. Vatican I was put to the test, and it failed spectacularly. It's like a bridge which doesn't fail by merely collapsing, but also explodes and annihilates the city around it.

Few points:

1. A heretic is outside the Catholic Church and cannot hold any office in the Church, whether he is recognized to be a Pope, bishop etc. or not. That is the teaching of the Catholic Church - if anyone holds to a single heresy, he is not a Catholic.

2. The teaching about universal acceptance of the Pope being evidence for his legitimacy is a teaching of theologians. The Church never taught it - it could be wrong. Maybe the theologians got it wrong and an anti-Pope could be accepted by majority of Christians. Furthermore, whenever the argument of universal acceptance comes up I ask - universal acceptace by whom? Already in times of Paul VI most of Catholic were de facto heretics (as pushback against Humanae Vitae on contraception shows), therefore their recognition of anyone does not mean much.

3. Strictly speaking, V2 did not define anything which met three conditions of infallibility declared by Pastor Aeternus, therefore definition of V1 is not relevant here. I agree that fallible teachings of Ecumenical Council cannot be harmful to the faithful due to indefectibility of the Church, but that is a different issue than Papal infallibility. Just like Stubborn, you confuse the issues of infallibility and indefectibility of the Church, although you draw different conclusions from your error.

[abc123]

If Vatican I could be wrong about papal infallibility, then Trent could have been wrong about justification and Nicaea could have been wrong about deity of Christ.

The difference is that it can be verified that the received belief and Tradition of the entire Church prior to Nicaea was that Christ was/is Divine. The Church may not have crystallized exactly how that could be but that was the belief. Nicaea clarified and gave shape to the dogmatic belief of Christ's Divinity. It was only after this doctrine was challenged that the Church had to confront the error and give shape to the dogma.

For Vatican I to have been a true clarification of the Papal Office it would have had to demonstrate that the Bishop of Rome had always enjoyed a supreme authority over the Universal Church in matters both spiritual, practical and administrative. Moreover it would have to demonstrate that this understanding had always been the understanding of the entire Ecumenical Church from at least the time of the Apostles or soon afterward.

Both Vatican I and Nicaea are General Councils to Catholics but the situations under which they met, the dogmas they proclaimed, and the result of those dogmas, show it to be a non sequitur to state that rejection of the latter implies the possibility of rejecting the former.

[Michael Wilson]

abc stated:

The difference is that it can be verified that the received belief and Tradition of the entire Church prior to Nicaea was that Christ was/is Divine. The Church may not have crystallized exactly how that could be but that was the belief. Nicaea clarified and gave shape to the dogmatic belief of Christ's Divinity. It was only after this doctrine was challenged that the Church had to confront the error and give shape to the dogma.

No, even St. John had to fight against the Gnostics who denied that Christ was God in a different way that every creature was also "God" in their Pantheistic universe. The same can be said for the early Ebionites who also denied Christ's divinity. Arius himself was infected with Gnostic ideas from his association with Christian heretics.

[abc123]

abc stated:

The difference is that it can be verified that the received belief and Tradition of the entire Church prior to Nicaea was that Christ was/is Divine. The Church may not have crystallized exactly how that could be but that was the belief. Nicaea clarified and gave shape to the dogmatic belief of Christ's Divinity. It was only after this doctrine was challenged that the Church had to confront the error and give shape to the dogma.

No, even St. John had to fight against the Gnostics who denied that Christ was God in a different way that every creature was also "God" in their Pantheistic universe. The same can be said for the early Ebionites who also denied Christ's divinity. Arius himself was infected with Gnostic ideas from his association with Christian heretics.

That lends credence to my point. The Gnostics considered Christ Divine but not in the Apostolic understanding and were hence considered heretics. So we see a direct Apostolic link to the Orthodox understanding of Christ being Divine yet at the same time separate from both His Father and the general creation. So even though the correct understanding of Christ's Divinity was already seen in the New Testament it took an Ecumenical Council to put a fine point on the relation between Essence and Person but not in a way that ever contradicted the ancient Apostolic understanding of Christ's Divinity.

Where in the NT do we see the Apostles, or anyone else for that matter, submitting to St. Peter as if his opinion was the be all and end all of orthodoxy? We don't. Papal infallibility (a 19th century dogma) enjoys, to be charitable, scant biblical references and questionable hermeneutics. Indeed it seems plain that St. James rendered the ultimate verdict at the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15 even the 'first pope' was sitting there as one being spoken to.

In the history of the Church we do not see any bishops or priests denying the Divinity of Christ yet remaining in good standing with the Church. Those who denied this dogma were called heretics. Yet we see, even up until Vatican I, many Catholic bishops denying the premises of Vatican I and remaining Catholic bishops. This is a good indicator that this understanding of papal prerogatives was not universally accepted.

[Maximilian]

Vatican I being wrong about Papal infallibility means that the claims of the Catholic Church have been empirically falsified and it is not a true Church found by Jesus Christ.

Papal infallibility never was a claim of the Catholic Church, and so the fact that we have witnessed it being falsified in our own lifetimes does not in any way encourage me to cease believing that the Catholic Church is the true Church founded by Jesus Christ.

At the time of the Vatican I council, the catechism commonly used in England stated: "Q: Do Catholics believe the Pope is infallible? A: "No, that is a lie circulated by Protestants."

If Vatican I could be wrong about papal infallibility, then Trent could have been wrong about justification and Nicaea could have been wrong about deity of Christ.

It's simply a question of not rejecting the reality that is staring you in the face. Vatican I made claims about papal infallibility. They were put to the test. They were proved false. What heresy of Francis is in today's newspaper?

1. A heretic is outside the Catholic Church and cannot hold any office in the Church, whether he is recognized to be a Pope, bishop etc. or not. That is the teaching of the Catholic Church - if anyone holds to a single heresy, he is not a Catholic.

Clearly Fr. Wathen disagrees with this view. He represents the consensus. Possibly he is wrong and you are right. It's impossible for me to say. But what is clear is that there is no consensus either historically or contemporaneously for the sedevacantist view.

2. The teaching about universal acceptance of the Pope being evidence for his legitimacy is a teaching of theologians. The Church never taught it - it could be wrong. Maybe the theologians got it wrong and an anti-Pope could be accepted by majority of Christians. Furthermore, whenever the argument of universal acceptance comes up I ask - universal acceptace by whom? Already in times of Paul VI most of Catholic were de facto heretics (as pushback against Humanae Vitae on contraception shows), therefore their recognition of anyone does not mean much.

The answer to the question "By whom?" is "Everybody." Literally every single person in the world. There were no "sedevacantists" at the time that Paul VI "solemnly promulgated" the documents of Vatican II. He was still recognized as pope by every single person in the world at the time when he published the new vernacular canons with heretical and invalid words of consecration.

Perhaps secretly within his heart and in the sight of God he had fallen from office due to heresy at that point. But the fact that every single one of billions of people recognized him as the pope, including every single Catholic, including every single Catholic who did not accept birth control, means that continuing to believe in papal infallibility after that point in time is an application of the "No true Scotsman" fallacy. You are going back in time to change the terms of the argument in order to escape the inevitable conclusion of the original terms.

3. Strictly speaking, V2 did not define anything which met three conditions of infallibility declared by Pastor Aeternus, therefore definition of V1 is not relevant here. I agree that fallible teachings of Ecumenical Council cannot be harmful to the faithful due to indefectibility of the Church, but that is a different issue than Papal infallibility. Just like Stubborn, you confuse the issues of infallibility and indefectibility of the Church, although you draw different conclusions from your error.

All the documents of Vatican II were "solemnly promulgated by His Holiness Pope Paul VI." After being signed by 2,000 bishops. Therefore they implicate both papal infallibility and the indefectibility of the Church.

Not only did they teach on "faith and morals," they actually went much further and deeper than that, and defined the nature of the Catholic Church.

[Arvinger]

The difference is that it can be verified that the received belief and Tradition of the entire Church prior to Nicaea was that Christ was/is Divine. The Church may not have crystallized exactly how that could be but that was the belief. Nicaea clarified and gave shape to the dogmatic belief of Christ's Divinity. It was only after this doctrine was challenged that the Church had to confront the error and give shape to the dogma.

How does that ensure that deity of Christ is true? If there was no infallible authority in the Early Church than the belief of early Christians was fallible, and as such it could be incorrect.

For Vatican I to have been a true clarification of the Papal Office it would have had to demonstrate that the Bishop of Rome had always enjoyed a supreme authority over the Universal Church in matters both spiritual, practical and administrative. Moreover it would have to demonstrate that this understanding had always been the understanding of the entire Ecumenical Church from at least the time of the Apostles or soon afterward.

Both Vatican I and Nicaea are General Councils to Catholics but the situations under which they met, the dogmas they proclaimed, and the result of those dogmas, show it to be a non sequitur to state that rejection of the latter implies the possibility of rejecting the former.

Are you saying that the teaching of Nicaea on deity of Christ was infallible, but Vatican I was not? That is just picking and choosing which council do you consider infallible and which not. Of course, this choice is fallible in itself, and so is everything that follows it. Eastern Orthodox bishop Kallistos Ware put it very succintly in his book The Orthodox Church:

"How then can one be certain that a particular gathering is truly an Ecumenical Council and therefore that its decrees are infallible? Many councils have considered themselves ecumenical and have claimed to speak in the name of the whole Church, and yet the Church has rejected them as heretical: [Second] Ephesus in 449, for example, or the Iconoclast Council of Hieria in 754, or Florence in 1438-9. Yet these councils seem in no way different in outward appearance from the Ecumenical Councils. What, then, is the criterion for determining whether a council is ecumenical?"

So, the epistemological problem remains - there is no way of knowing objectively whether a specific council was infallible or not, therefore any historic teaching of Christianity is a fair game - all you need to do is to reject infallibility of a specific council (there is no infallible list of infallible councils). At the end of the day, Eastern Orthodoxy falls into the same epistemological pit as Protestants.

[An aspiring Thomist]

1. A heretic is outside the Catholic Church and cannot hold any office in the Church, whether he is recognized to be a Pope, bishop etc. or not. That is the teaching of the Catholic Church - if anyone holds to a single heresy, he is not a Catholic.

Theologians have said that a heretic could hold office while tolerated by the Church. Furthermore a Pope (Martin V?) issued a bull or something stating Catholics didn?t need to separate from what they thought may  have been a heretical bishop before the Church?s judgment. It?s been a while since I read it and when I did I wasn?t sure if it was prescriptive or descriptive in nature. It?s kind of annoying how dogmatic sedes can get on theological points of controversy that support their position.

Also, if you get rid of dogmatic facts concerning Popes (or the hierarchy as a whole), it puts you in the
same epistemological camp as Protestants more or less. Maybe Pius IX wasn?t Pope and VI was an invalid ecumenical council. 

[Vetus Ordo]

The difference is that it can be verified that the received belief and Tradition of the entire Church prior to Nicaea was that Christ was/is Divine.

Not only was Christ's divinity the received belief and tradition of the Church since apostolic times (vd. Justin Martyr, etc.) but, more importantly even, it is the clear teaching of Scripture, which cannot contradict itself when taken as a whole. This was taught by Athanasius himself.

"Vainly then do they run about with the pretext that they have demanded Councils for the faith's sake; for divine Scripture is sufficient above all things; but if a Council be needed on the point, there are the proceedings of the Fathers, for the Nicene Bishops did not neglect this matter, but stated the doctrine so exactly, that persons reading their words honestly, cannot but be reminded by them of the religion towards Christ, announced in divine Scripture." (Athanasius, de Synodis, Part 1, 6)

[An aspiring Thomist]

At the time of the Vatican I council, the catechism commonly used in England stated: "Q: Do Catholics believe the Pope is infallible? A: "No, that is a lie circulated by Protestants."

Is that really that surprising coming from Catholics in England? After being persecuted for centuries for being papists, they problem wanted to be seen the least papist as possible.

[Arvinger]

Papal infallibility never was a claim of the Catholic Church, and so the fact that we have witnessed it being falsified in our own lifetimes does not in any way encourage me to cease believing that the Catholic Church is the true Church founded by Jesus Christ.

It is a claim of the Catholic Church that she is indefectible and will never teach grave error to the faithful. If V1 was in error dogmatically defining Papal infallibility, it means the Church taught heresy and tried to bind it on the faithful. That means the Church has defected and her claims were empirically falsified.

At the time of the Vatican I council, the catechism commonly used in England stated: "Q: Do Catholics believe the Pope is infallible? A: "No, that is a lie circulated by Protestants."

Catechisms are not infallible, Ecumenical Council trumps them. And technically it was true, since before V1 Papal infallibility was not de fide.

It's simply a question of not rejecting the reality that is staring you in the face. Vatican I made claims about papal infallibility. They were put to the test. They were proved false. What heresy of Francis is in today's newspaper?

No, it is a matter of epistemology. If V1 dogmatically taught error, there is no guarantee that Nicaea, Chalcedon and Trent did not teach error dogmatically. None whatsoever. They could all be wrong. Truthfulness of the sacrifice of the Mass, Purgatory, Communion of Saints etc. is reduced to the level of fallible opinion.

"Reality staring in the face" - an atheist will tell you that "reality is starring in the face - there are errors and contradictions in Sacred Scripture". With your approach you have to grant theoretical possibility that there are errors in the Bible. But of course we don't - we start from the knowledge that there cannot be any error in the Bible, and we approach any difficulties with that in mind. We do not start from our fallible understanding of reality and judge teaching of the Church through it, we start from teaching of the Church and understand reality through it. I believe in order to understand, not the other way around. This is fundamental epistemological issue.

Finally, Vatican II did not define anything infallibly. No dogmatic definition was included, none of the documents met three conditions for infallibility set in Pastor Aeternus.

Clearly Fr. Wathen disagrees with this view. He represents the consensus. Possibly he is wrong and you are right.

And he is wrong, he contradicts Pope Leo XIII and Pope Pius XII

It's impossible for me to say.

All you need to do is to read clear teaching of Pope Leo XIII and Pope Pius XII that heretic loses membership in the Church.

But what is clear is that there is no consensus either historically or contemporaneously for the sedevacantist view.

There is consensus that heretics lose membership in the Church and cannot hold any office in the Church. As St. Robert Bellarmine says, this is consensus of the Church Fathers. Whether conciliar claimants to the Papacy are indeed heretics is another matter.

The answer to the question "By whom?" is "Everybody." Literally every single person in the world. There were no "sedevacantists" at the time that Paul VI "solemnly promulgated" the documents of Vatican II. He was still recognized as pope by every single person in the world at the time when he published the new vernacular canons with heretical and invalid words of consecration.

And vast majority of those who recognized him were heretics themselves, therefore their recognition is meaningless. And, as I already wrote, the Church never taught that universal acceptance of the Pope is infallible sign of his legitimacy. This is just opinion of theologians which could be wrong.

All the documents of Vatican II were "solemnly promulgated by His Holiness Pope Paul VI." After being signed by 2,000 bishops. Therefore they implicate both papal infallibility and the indefectibility of the Church.

Not only did they teach on "faith and morals," they actually went much further and deeper than that, and defined the nature of the Catholic Church.

They did not define anything dogmatically and never used solemn language of dogmatic definition. They did not fulfill criteria of Pastor Aeternus.