In this installment, Don Pietro examines how the Council through its establishment of collegiality, set the Church on the slippery slope of diminishing the authority of the Supreme Pontiff, diminishing the monarchial authority of the Bishops in favour of Episcopal conferences and reduced the priest from the status of alter Christus thus placing him on the same level as the laity. As a consequence, the hierarchy of the Church is replaced by a bland, democratic egalitarianism. F.R.
The Council and the Eclipse of God-Part VI
THE CHURCH - part 2
The Church teaches infallibly
that: ‘If any-one says that in the Catholic Church there is no hierarchy
instituted by Divine ordinance that consist of bishops, priests, and ministers,
Anathema Sit’ 1 The Council, by contrast, calls into doubt that there is a hierarchy consisting
of the Pope, who enjoys the primacy, and consisting of the Bishops and the
Priests.
An illustration of Pius IX opening the First Vatican Council during which papal supremacy was proclaimed a dogma.
1.
The Pope
Historical Sketch 2.
The theory opposed to the
dogma of the primacy of the Pope is known as ‘collegiality’. The theory
ascribes excessive importance to the ‘College of Bishops’ by claiming that it
can enjoy authority more or less independently of the Pope, with or without the
Pope being member of the College. The Liberals envisaged this form of independent,
democratic authority as a legacy of the ‘Apostolic College of the Twelve’.
The driving forces behind this
movement were three in number. The first was ecumenical 3,
the primacy of Peter constituting, of course, the principal obstacle to
ecumenical dialogue. The term ‘collegiality 4’
first made its appearance in 1951 in the journal of the Monastery of Chevetogne
‘Irenikon’ in an article penned by
Father Yves Congar OP. In 1960 the Orthodox Institute St. Sergius in Paris
proposed the idea of a ‘collegial’ ecclesiology based on the primacy of ‘love’,
as against the Catholic ecclesiology based on the juridical notion of ‘power.’
Dom Olivier Rousseau of Chevetogne , close both to the Parisian Institute as
also to Monsignor Charue, Vice President of the conciliar Theological
Commission, did much to promote such ideas.
The second driving force
behind the collegialist movement was theological,
deriving from the Anti-infallibilism of the 19th century, from the
Febronianism of the 18th century, and the Conciliarism of the 15th
century. The third theory was expressed in the heterodox document Haec Sancta of the Council of Constance
(1418) in the claim that that Council ‘derives its power immediately from God,
and all, including the Pope, are obliged to obey it…’ Despite the fact that
this claim was later repeatedly condemned as heretical 5,
it re-emerged, albeit in a mitigated form, in a series of essays written by a
certain Dom Paul de Vooght in 1959.
Dom Paul de Vooght
The third force behind the movement was political, deriving from the Liberals’ distaste for a vision of the Church as an ‘absolute monarchy’ in opposition to the democratic form of modern society. The collegialists of a political bent saw the Council as a democratic assembly where the Bishops represented ‘the will of the People of God.’
Fathers Congar and Küng were influenced
by all three theories. The former noted in his diary: ‘For 1,000 years
everything with us has been seen and constructed from the viewpoint of the
Papacy, and not from that of the Episcopacy and its collegiality. The time has
come to make this history, this theology, and this Canon Law a reality.’
Father Yves Congar, peritus at the Second Vatican Council
Father Hans Kung, peritus at Second Vatican Council
To promote their cause, the
collegialists stressed the consecratory power of the Bishops (conferred upon
them by their ordination) as against their juridical power (conferred upon them
by the Pope). They viewed the Pope essentially as a Bishop, primus inter pares; they designated the
Traditional doctrine as giuridista 6,
from which they sought to liberate the Church, in favor of a new vision which
was apostolic, collegialist, and sacramental, and, in the final analysis,
democratic and egalitarian.
Collegiality was to become
crystallized into two forms: a radical form which maintained that the subject
of the supreme power of the Church was the Bishops’ College alone; and a
moderate form (subscribed to by Pope Paul) that there were two subjects of
supreme power: on the one hand the Pope and on the other hand the Bishops’
College united to the Pope.
On 30th October
1963, a preliminary text in favor of collegiality attained the necessary two
thirds majority of the Council Fathers. Father Küng described the event as ‘the
Catholic Church’s peaceful October Revolution’; Cardinal Suenens affirmed: ‘The
30th October is a decisive date in Church history. The battle of the
Twelve has been won’; on the following day, Pope Paul VI welcomed the three
Liberal Council Moderators, Cardinals Döpfner, Lercaro, and Suenens, with the
words: ‘So we have won!’ 7 Approximately a year later the Fathers voted on a final text, with the majority
again approving collegiality.
From
left to right: Cardinals Lecaro,
Döpfner e Suenens at the Council, the 3
progressive moderators chosen by Paul VI.
Much to the displeasure of the
Liberals, however, who were later to call the week in question ‘Black Week’ 8,
their triumph was marred by an unexpected turn of events. A number of their
theologians had inserted ambiguous passages in the chapter of Lumen Gentium, the Constitution on the
Church, in favor of collegiality. ‘Then one of the extreme Liberals made the mistake
of referring in writing to some of the ambiguous passages, and indicating how
they would be interpreted after the Council…’ This paper fell into the hands of
prelates of the ‘Roman’ party who delivered it to the Pope, who, ‘realizing
finally that he had been deceived, broke down and wept.’ The most obvious
course of action, because the most honest and doctrinally the most effective,
would have been to excise the deliberately ambiguous, or ‘captious’, text from
the document. Since, however, the schema did not positively make any false
assertion, but merely used ambiguous terms, it was thought that the ambiguity
could be clarified by joining to the text a carefully phrased explanation. The
text was consequently left intact 9 and a ‘Preliminary Explanatory Note’ (Nota
explicativa praevia) appended to the schema 10.
Such an action was typical of the spirit of conciliation with which Pope Paul VI
governed the Council.
Pope Paul VI governed the Council with 'a spirit of conciliation'.
Analysis
of Texts
We proceed to examine first a
key text concerning collegiality, and then the Note in question.
i) ‘… the Roman Pontiff… has full, supreme and universal power over the
whole church… Together with its head, the Supreme Pontiff, and never apart from
him, it [the apostolic college] is the subject of supreme and full
authority over the Universal Church; but this power cannot be exercised without
the consent of the Roman Pontiff’ (Lumen
Gentium 3. 22).
The Council, by first stating
(correctly) that the Pope has supreme and universal power over the Church, and
by then stating that the Bishops are, together with the Pope a ‘subject of
supreme and full authority’ over the Church, suggests that not only the Pope
but also the ‘College of Bishops’ constitute a head of the Church, in
accordance with the moderate theory of collegiality which we have mentioned above.
This, however, is heterodox. For only the Pope possesses supreme and full
authority over the Universal Church, so that there can only be one (visible)
Head of the Church, and that Head of the Church is the Pope: ‘If any-one shall say that the Supreme Pontiff
has the office merely of inspection and direction and not a full and supreme
power of jurisdiction over the universal Church, not only in things which
belong to faith and morals, but also in those which relate to the discipline
and government of the Church spread out through the world… Anathema sit’ 11.
If the Pope therefore possesses a full and supreme power over the Church, it
follows that no other person or group of persons can do so: ‘The one and unique
Church… [has] not two heads, like a monster, but one body and one head, namely
Christ, and His Vicar, Peter’s successor…’ 12
ii) ‘The word College is… taken… as a permanent body whose form and
authority is to be ascertained from revelation…’ (Note, 1);
iii) ‘The idea of college necessarily and at all times involves a head and
in the college the head preserves intact his function as Vicar of Christ and
pastor of the universal church. In other words, it is not a distinction between
the Roman Pontiff and the bishops taken together but between the Roman Pontiff
by himself and the Roman Pontiff along with the bishops.’ (Note, 3).
Text (ii) teaches correctly
and in accordance with Revelation, that the Bishops in their totality (the
‘College of Bishops’) are the successors of the Apostles in their totality (the
‘College of the Apostles’); text (iii) clarifies the fact that there is only
one Head of the Church, namely the Pope, and that he can exercise his supreme
power either alone or together with the Bishops.
The Church teaches indeed that
as the successors of the Apostles, the Bishops are Pastors and Teachers; and
that as a teaching body of the Church (that is to say as a College, and not
individually in their dioceses) they enjoy the Church’s infallibility. They
enjoy this in two distinct manners: in an extraordinary manner, in the course
of a General (or ‘Ecumenical’) Council, when the Pope authorizes it, presides
over it (either personally or through a representative) and confirms its
decisions; in an ordinary manner (in the exercise of the Church’s ‘ordinary and
universal teaching office’) when the Bishops proclaim Catholic teaching on the
Faith or morals to be held by all the faithful, and do so unanimously amongst
themselves and in moral unity with the Pope.
The Note cannot be criticized
for what it says, but only for what it omits, namely the specification of the
area of competence of the Bishops’ College 13.
The area of its competence according to Tradition is, as we have seen, limited
to that of infallible teaching: in other words the two bearers, or subjects, of
infallibility are the Pope and the entire Episcopacy.
In a context, however, in
which the Council is treating the authority of the Pope and of the Bishops’
College on equal terms, it is natural to suppose that the area of their
authority is the same: that is to say that the area of authority of the Bishops
is as wide in extent as that of the Pope, which is however untrue. Moreover, in
a world impregnated by a democratic mentality, it is also natural to suppose
that the College will exercise its authority in a democratic manner, which is
equally untrue.
*
The net result of the Council
text and the Note is the following: The Council text (text i), although it
favors the heterodox collegiality, is left intact, so that it can be quoted out
of context to support that heterodoxy. As for the Explanatory Note, its force
is diminished by not in fact being ‘preliminary’ at all as it claims to be,
since it is located at the end of the long document 14 and therefore not readily accessible to the reader. Inasmuch as it reaches the
attention of the reader at all, it does indeed explain away the said
heterodoxy, but nevertheless gives an incomplete picture of the Bishops’
College.
All in all, the Council erodes
Catholic teaching on the primacy of the Pope and on the hierarchical structure
of the Church by giving undue weight to the idea of a Bishops’ College, whether
lending it the appearance of a head of the Church (text i); or of a body equal
in authority to that of the Pope, an authority, moreover, that may readily be
understood as democratic (texts ii & iii).
‘All in all, the Council erodes Catholic teaching on the primacy of the Pope and on the hierarchical structure of the Church by giving undue weight to the idea of a Bishops’ College…’
2. The Bishops
Historical Sketch 15
The principle of collegiality was
used by some Council Fathers to justify a wider use of the instance of the
Episcopal conference. Monsignor Carli in an influential speech demonstrated,
however, that ‘the three elements which seem to be essential to collegiality’
were lacking in such conferences, namely: ‘the union of all Bishops 16;
the participation bestowed… by the Head of the College, that is to say the
Roman Pontiff; the subject matter regarding the Church Universal.’ He pointed
out that the ordinary and immediate authority of each individual Bishop in his
diocese, which from ancient times had been considered ‘monarchical’, would be
limited by other Bishops of his nation. The month before, Monsignor de Proença
Sigaud had already warned the Fathers of the restrictions that such measures
would have imposed on the Bishops (and also on the Pope), Monsignor Lefebvre
confirming the statement on the basis of his missionary activity in Africa.
Monsignor
Luigi Carli, in regard to Collegiality pointed out at the Council: ‘…the
ordinary and immediate authority of each individual Bishop in his diocese,
which from ancient times had been considered ‘monarchical’, would be limited by
other Bishops of his nation.’
Analysis
of Texts
i) ‘It is often impossible, nowadays especially, for bishops to exercise
their office suitably and fruitfully unless they establish closer understanding
and cooperation with other bishops… [After a reference to fruitful effects
of already existing conferences, there follow dispositions for founding
episcopal conferences everywhere in the world] (Christus Dominus 37);
ii) ‘Decisions of the episcopal conferences [under certain
circumstances]… shall have the force of
law’ (CD 38.4).
The power given to the
episcopal conferences erodes Catholic teaching on the hierarchy of the Church
in the two ways just noted, namely:
-
by subtracting authority from the Holy See 17;
-
by diminishing de
facto the monarchical power of individual Bishops over their dioceses.
3. The Priest
We shall here
consider:
a) a)the people and the
priesthood;
b) b)the common and
sacramental priesthood;
c) c)the priesthood and
episcopacy.
a)
The People and the
Priesthood
i) ‘All are called to this catholic unity of the people of God…’ (LG 13)
The term ‘Mystical Body of
Christ’, the best adapted to the Church, is almost always neglected in favor of
the term the ‘People of God’18.
Inasmuch as the clergy in all its degrees is not here distinguished from the
‘people’, but rather is considered an integral part of it, this new term
assumes a democratic, communitarian, egalitarian sense foreign to the notion of
the hierarchical order established by Christ.
ii) ‘The people of God is made up of various ranks (ordinibus). This diversity among its members is either
by reason of their duties – some exercise the sacred ministry for the good of
their brothers and sisters […or by reason of the religious condition and
manner of their life…]’ (LG 13).
Text (ii) presents the
priesthood simply as a ‘rank’ (or function) of the people of God. It thereby
insinuates that the priest is a priest of the people rather than of God; it
also insinuates that what is important about the priest is his function. For the
text presents the priest not primarily according to his nature (that is as an alter Christus) from which his
characteristic function derives, but only in terms of his function, which is of
course only a secondary aspect of the priesthood. It is a secondary aspect
because, according to the principle of agere
sequitur esse, action follows upon, and is the logical consequence of, the
nature of a person or a thing. This silencing of the precise nature of the
priesthood corresponds to the Council’s preference for action over being 19 and its dislike for Scholastic thought.
iii) ‘The Lord also appointed certain men [amongst the members of the
Church] as ministers, in order that they
[the faithful] might be united in
one body […]. These men held in the community of the faithful the sacred power
of order…’ (Presbyterorum Ordinis
2).
Here it is asserted that the
Lord elected priests from the number of the faithful, whereas, according to the
Gospel accounts, He first elected the Apostles in order to prepare them for the
formation of faithful. By this assertion, as also by the assertion that Our
Lord elected priests as the principle of unity for the community, the Council
again subordinates the priesthood to the community.
a)
The Common and the
Sacramental Priesthood
iv) ‘Though they differ essentially and not only in degree, the common
priesthood of the faithful and the ministerial or hierarchical priesthood are
none the less interrelated (ad invicem tamen
ordinantur); each in its own way shares in the one priesthood of Christ’
(LG 10).
The two forms of priesthood
are here put on the same level as both sharing, in an unqualified sense, in the
one priesthood of Christ, and in being ordered the one to the other. The Church
has always taught rather that the common priesthood, that by which all the
baptized offer spiritual sacrifices to God, is subordinated to the sacramental
priesthood.
v) ‘The Lord Jesus […] gave His whole Mystical body a share in the anointing
of the Spirit with which He was anointed […]. In that Body all the faithful are
made a holy and kingly priesthood…’ (PO 2).
The decree on the priesthood,
after a brief introduction, begins with this notion of the common priesthood of
the faithful, which is thereby given a pre-eminent position in the document.
vi) ‘Through the ministry of priests, the spiritual sacrifice of the
faithful is completed in union with the sacrifice of Christ… which in the
Eucharist is offered through the priests’ hands…’ (PO 2).
Here the sacramental priesthood is subordinated to the common priesthood
a) The Priesthood and Episcopacy
vii) Priests are ‘co-workers of the Bishops’ (PO 4);
viii) ‘Because it is joined with the Episcopal order, the priesthood shares in
the authority by which Christ Himself builds up, sanctifies and rules His body’
(PO 2).
Here the priesthood is
understood in relation to the episcopacy rather than in itself, in its own
position in the hierarchy of the Church.
*
In synthesis, in subsection
(a) we see how the Council absorbs the priest into the people 20:
by viewing him as a part of the
people, as a rank of the people, and
as being chosen from among the
people; in subsection (b) we see how the Council views his sacramental
priesthood variously as on the same level as the common priesthood, as
secondary to it, and as inferior to it; in subsection (c) we see how the
Council views him not in his own right, but solely as a collaborator with the
Bishop. In all the subsections we see how the Council silences the sacramental,
the supernatural, and the Christological nature of the priesthood.
Summary
of Section B
In this whole section, we have
seen how a hierarchical concept of the Church yields to a democratic one:
-
the Pope’s authority is eroded by that of the Bishops’
College;
-
the Bishop’s authority is eroded by that of the
Bishops’ Conferences;
-
the Priest’s authority is eroded by the reduction of
the priesthood to the level of the ‘People of God’ or of the laity. His role in
the hierarchy is further obscured by its being defined in relation to the
Episcopacy.
Apart from the instances of
the principles of naturalism and degree that we have noted above in this
section B, we particularly observe the principle of flux (or evolution) in the
Council’s attempt to dissolve the immutable dogma of the Church’s Hierarchy 21.
Corollary:
Egalitarianism
Egalitarianism is an aim of
Revolution, and born of pride. The Protestants in the 16th century
rose up against the Papacy, the ultimate symbol of the monarchical character of
the Universal Church, as Professor Plinio Correa de Oliveira remarks 22.
‘Some of the more radical sects also denied what could be called the higher
aristocracy of the Church, namely the Bishops, her princes. Others also denied
the hierarchical character of the priesthood itself by reducing it to a mere
delegation of the people, lauded as the only true holder of the priestly
power.’
We have seen above how the
egalitarian program of the Protestants was revived by Churchmen 500 years later
in what was termed by Cardinal Suenens ‘the 1789 of the Church.’ In the
following pages we shall see how it was implemented not only in regard to the
hierarchy, but also in regard to other Christian denominations, other
religions, the state, the world, and ultimately even in man’s relation to God
Himself 23.
Pope Paul VI, Cardinal Suenens and other Bishops at the Second Vatican Council.
After the vote on
Collegiality he greeted the 3 Cardinal Moderators , Suenens, Lecaro and Dopfner the next day with ‘So we have won!’ Later, after
discovering the deceit of some progressives, he wept.
[1] Council of Trent can. 6, D 1776
2 RdM IV 9, V 13
3 see the historical sketch on Ecumenism at the beginning of chapter II
4 translating the Russian term sobornost
5 Eugenio IV solemnly defined the primacy of the Pope against Haec Sancta in 1439, as did Pius II in
the Bull Exsecrabilis, 1460
6 ‘juridicalist’
7 Dunque abbiamo vinto!
8 also because of the honours accorded to Our
Blessed Lady (see chapter VI below), the postponement of the discussion on
Religious Liberty, and the amendments to the text on Ecumenism.
9 we recall a similar attempt to explain away
heterodoxy (this time in the Novus Ordo
Missae), by appending certain phrases (in the introduction the new Missal),
and without changing the substance of the text. (The Destruction of the Roman
Rite, I A2, don Pietro Leone)
10 The Rhine Flows into the Tiber, Father Ralph Wiltgen SVD, MD rl p.142
11 Vatican I, Pastor Aeternus c.3
12 Unam Sanctam
13 This omission was to make it possible for Council Fathers to argue for a
proliferation of Episcopal Conferences by appealing to the concept of the
‘Apostolic College’, as we shall see in the next section.
14 over 60 pages afterwards in the Abbott translation on which this book
relies
15 RdM IV 9
16 Here the Council Fathers illegitimately rely on the principle of
‘degree’ or ‘gradation’ that we have expounded
in the Introduction
17 Concrete examples of the bestowal
of this authority may be seen elsewhere in the Council in the case of
concelebration Sacrosanctum Concilium (‘SC’) 57, 1.2, 2.1; in the case of
Bible translations SC 36.4, Dei Verbum
25; and in that of priestly formation
Optatum Totius 1
18 LG 9-13
19 We have referred to this in the historical introduction to the book in
our comments on the pastorality of the Council.
20 We shall see further examples of this
reduction in the later sections of the book concerning the Holy Mass and the
priesthood.
21 ‘The organic constitution of the Church is not immutable. Like human
society, Christian society is subject to perpetual evolution.’Lamentabili, Condemned Proposition 53; ‘
Dogmas, sacraments, and hierarchy... are only interpretations and evolutions of
the Christian intelligence...’ Condemned Proposition 54.
22 Revolution and Counter-Revolution, TFP, 1993,
p.16.
23 ibid. pp. 47-51 of the book Revolution and
Counter-Revolution, where the author gives a list of the various ‘equalities’
promoted by the Revolution, including that of the ‘equality of souls’, which
encompasses that between the sexes. In the section on marriage in Gaudium et Spes we shall later see how
husband and wife are put on the same level for the first time in Church
Magisterium. Such egalitarianism is reflected in the new marriage rite in
various ways, as for instance when in four places blessings for the bride are
rewritten with the gender-neutral pronouns ‘them’ and ‘they.’ See the
excellent Lex Orandi, Preview Press, 2015 (p.134), a Comparison of the Old
and New Sacramental Rites’, Graham Leonard. The author observes: ‘With a few
word changes… one could use the Novus Ordo Rite of Marriage to officiate a
same-sex wedding.’ He sets forth (on p.198) the egalitarianism of the new
sacramental rites promoted by the Council, remarking: ‘the Novus Ordo rites
eliminate ranks in clergy, marginalize the role of the priest, appear to level
the roles of clergy and laity, and even corrupt the translations of scripture
to become gender-neutral. The Novus Ordo Mass even eliminates the ranks of
angels in heaven’. In the section on the dignity of man below, we shall see a
further example of egalitarianism in the abandonment of the principle of the
(essentially hierarchical) supernatural dignity of man.
