On November 17 and 24, 2022, the American Catholic newspaper The Wanderer published articles by Fr. Brian Harrison about the statement ‘The Teaching of the Catholic Faith on the Reception of the Holy Eucharist,’ concerning Pope Francis’s Apostolic Letter Desiderio Desideravi (DD). The statement in question was signed by 56 Catholic clerics and scholars, and was issued on September 16, 2022. It accused Pope Francis of teaching heresy in the Apostolic Letter, as follows:
The recent Apostolic Letter Desiderio desideravi, given June 29th 2022, the Feast of SS. Peter and Paul, states:The world still does not know it, but everyone is invited to the supper of the wedding of the Lamb (Rev. 19:9). To be admitted to the feast all that is required is the wedding garment of faith which comes from the hearing of his Word (cf. Ro 10:17). [Il mondo ancora non lo sa, ma tutti sono invitati al banchetto di nozze dell’Agnello (Ap 19,9). Per accedervi occorre solo l’abito nuziale della fede che viene dall’ascolto della sua Parola (cfr. Rm 10,17)[…].The natural meaning of these words is that the only requirement for a Catholic to worthily receive the Holy Eucharist is possession of the virtue of faith, by which one believes Christian teaching on the grounds of its being divinely revealed. ... The claim that faith is the only requirement for worthy reception of the Holy Eucharist was condemned by the Council of Trent as a heresy.[1]
Fr. Harrison accepts that the position attributed by the statement to DD is a heresy, but denies that the papal document actually makes this claim. Part of his case is a criticism of some of my own arguments in defence of the statement (which I signed) denouncing Pope Francis for teaching heresy.[2] He concludes by inviting the signatories to withdraw their charge of heresy against the Holy Father.
The importance of the issues in this debate is evident. Fr. Harrison’s arguments are not telling ones, but he is an intelligent and knowledgeable scholar, and we can assume that the case he makes against the heretical character of Pope Francis’s statement is more or less the best that can be made. It therefore merits careful examination.
Fr. Harrison makes an initial point about the norms for interpreting papal statements:
This points to an important preliminary interpretative norm for seeking to understand a papal text lacking in clarity: given the very high authority from which it emanates, the burden of proof lies very much upon those who claim that its real meaning is unorthodox. In other words, where a reasonable doubt exists about its meaning, the benefit of the doubt must be given to the Pope, so that his text is understood in an orthodox sense. For even when not making use of their charism of infallibility, the Successors of Peter have been promised a certain assistance from the Holy Spirit also in their non-definitive (non-infallible) magisterium. And that makes doctrinal error a priori very unlikely, even though possible....Pope Francis said this in his general audience address of March 14, 2018: “In the ‘Our Father,’ in saying to the Lord: ‘Give us this day our daily bread,’ we ask not only for food for the body, but also the gift of the Eucharistic Bread, nourishment of the soul. We know that one who has committed a serious sin should not approach Holy Communion without having first obtained absolution in the sacrament of Reconciliation. Lent is an opportunity to approach the latter, to confess well and to encounter Christ in Holy Communion.”Dr. Lamont admitted that this was “a good and correct assertion on Pope Francis’s part,” but then tried to brush it aside as irrelevant, saying, “the question is not what he said in 2018, but what he said in 2022 in Desiderio Desideravi. Popes, like other men, can change their minds and contradict themselves.” I find this a very weak response, especially in view of the burden-of-proof norm that we recalled at the beginning of this article.
This general interpretive norm is correct as stated. However, it only applies in cases where the meaning of a papal text is genuinely uncertain, and there is a possibility of ascribing an orthodox meaning to these texts without having to distort their meaning and the clear intent of their author. This is of course the very point at issue in this debate, so the norm cannot be used on its own to argue for the orthodoxy of Pope Francis’s statement without begging the question.
Fr. Harrison’s point about the assistance given by the Holy Spirit to non-infallible papal teachings deserves consideration. There are degrees of authority among such teachings, and the assistance that the Holy Spirit can be expected to give to them varies with this degree of authority. Pope Francis describes DD at the outset in the following terms; ‘With this letter I do not intend to treat the question in an exhaustive way. I simply desire to offer some prompts or cues for reflections that can aid in the contemplation of the beauty and truth of Christian celebration.’ Prompts and cues for reflection do not fall into the category of authoritative teaching at all. DD cannot therefore be treated as a document of great authority, and cannot be claimed to benefit from much assistance from the Holy Spirit—if any.
Fr. Harrison here falls into a pitfall that often trips up ultramontane theologians. This is the practice of treating non-infallible papal statements as if they were really quite like infallible ones, and ought to be treated in largely the same way. This is not the case. Infallibility does not come in degrees. It is an extraordinary privilege and intervention of the Holy Spirit that guarantees the truth of a teaching with a certainty beyond any human certainty. It requires an assent of the theological virtue of faith, an assent that is a supernatural grace though which the believer attains directly to God. None of this is true of non-infallible papal teachings.
Of course the great majority of such teachings must be accepted as true, otherwise Catholic assent to them would make no sense. But we satisfy the respect due to them if we simply accept the great majority of them as true. The statement denouncing Pope Francis for heresy is not disputing that the vast majority of papal teachings are true, or even that the vast majority of the teachings of Pope Francis are true. It is simply pointing out that according to the natural meaning of its words, one of the non-infallible assertions of Pope Francis is false and heretical. This is in no way incompatible with the respect due to non-infallible magisterial pronouncements, or with the norms for interpreting such statements.
Fr. Harrison avoids an obvious question that arises in connection with Pope Francis’s statement: if the Pope understands ‘faith’ in the way that Fr. Harrison attributes to him, why has he not said so? It is not as if Pope Francis is averse to explaining his statements, or to endorsing particular interpretations of them as correct. He has done this, for example, in the case of the interpretation given by the bishops of the Buenos Aires region to chapter 8 of his encyclical Amoris laetitia. He sent them a cordial public letter saying that their interpretation of the chapter – a heterodox one –corresponded to the meaning of the text.[3]
Fr. Harrison also makes a mistake in taking a principle that is concerned with papal statements in general, and using it to interpret a particular statement of Pope Francis’s without considering the available evidence about Pope Francis’s beliefs, intentions, actions, and teachings. Does Pope Francis take care to not contradict the body of Catholic statements in his utterances? Has he never made statements that plausibly contradict Catholic teaching before? Is he consistent in his public statements, rather than being known to frequently contradict himself? Do his actions in governing the Church indicate honesty, fidelity and good character?
There is an abundant body of evidence that shows beyond a doubt that the answer to all these questions is ‘no’. Some of this evidence has been collected in published statements addressed to the Church or to Pope Francis himself, such as the Correctio filialis, the Open Letter to the bishops of the Catholic Church, and the Protest against Pope Francis’s Sacrilegious Acts (such texts are gathered in the book Defending the Faith Against Present Heresies); other evidence can be found in the book Dictator Pope and other sources. Given this evidence, there is nothing improbable a priori about Pope Francis’s having taught the heresy attributed to him in the statement. His doing so is perfectly consonant with what we know about him, and is indeed something that one would expect of him. Fr. Harrison is completely silent about these facts.
Fr. Harrison’s defence of Pope Francis on this topic does not however rest solely on these methodological considerations. He makes a positive argument for the Pope’s assertions having an orthodox meaning. This argument is the core of his case, and if it is correct then his defence of Pope Francis should be accepted. Fr. Harrison adopts the defence of Pope Francis made by Prof. Robert Fastiggi,[4] who asserts that the faith referred to by Pope Francis in DD is a faith that includes the theological virtues of hope and love, and that thus requires repentance, sacramental confession of sin, and sacramental absolution in the case of Catholics who are guilty of having committed mortal sin. Prof. Fastiggi correctly says that if ‘faith’ is so understood, Pope Francis’s description of faith as the sole condition for worthy reception of the Eucharist is not heretical.
Fr. Harrison rejects my own response to Fastiggi, which stated:
The standard meaning of “faith” in Catholic theology is the faith involved in the theological virtue of faith, not the faith informed by charity that is necessary for salvation and the worthy reception of the Holy Eucharist. This faith is thus described in Dei filius: “Faith, which is the beginning of human salvation, is a supernatural virtue by which we, with the aid and inspiration of the grace of God, believe that the things revealed by Him are true, not because the intrinsic truth of the revealed things has been perceived by the natural light of reason, but because of the authority of God Himself who reveals them, who can neither deceive nor be deceived.” If “faith” were to be standardly read as “formed faith,” then Catholic theology would have no term available for faith as described by Dei filius. This standard theological meaning of the term “faith” is the one that should be ascribed to the term when it is encountered in a papal document.
Fr. Harrison raises two objections to this assertion about the meaning of the term ‘faith’ in DD. The first objection is that Dei Filius did not in fact define faith as intellectual assent. The second objection is that this understanding of faith as the supernatural virtue by which one believes Christian teaching on the grounds of its being divinely revealed is not the principal understanding of faith that is found in the New Testament; instead, the New Testament almost always understands faith as justifying, and thus as including the theological virtues of hope and charity. But Pope Francis should be understood as having used the term ‘faith’ in the sense given it by the New Testament, not in the theological sense I provide. His statements in DD are therefore not heretical, for the reasons given by Prof. Fastiggi.
Fr. Harrison argues for his first objection as follows:
The Pope’s critics define “faith” in purely intellectual terms as “the virtue . . . by which one believes Christian teaching on the grounds of its being divinely revealed.” But Vatican Council I, in ch. 3 of its Constitution Dei Filius, includes more than the intellect in describing faith. It affirms that by means of this virtue we “offer to God who reveals [himself] a full submission of intellect and will” (emphasis added).
The text of ch. 3 of Dei filius to which Fr. Harrison refers runs as follows:
Since man is wholly dependent on God as his Creator and Lord, and since created reason is completely subject to uncreated truth, we are bound by faith to give full obedience of intellect and will to God who reveals. But the Catholic Church professes that this faith, which is the beginning of human salvation, is a supernatural virtue by which we, with the aid and inspiration of the grace of God, believe that the things revealed by Him are true, not because the intrinsic truth of the revealed things has been perceived by the natural light of reason, but because of the authority of God Himself who reveals them, who can neither deceive nor be deceived. For, "faith is," as the Apostle testifies, "the substance of things to be hoped for, the evidence of things that appear not" [Heb 11:1].[5]
This text states, not that we give a full submission of intellect and will to God in the act of faith, but that faith requires us to give a full submission of intellect and will to God. If the text had the former meaning, it would contradict itself in its next sentence by saying that faith is a ‘supernatural virtue by which we, with the aid and inspiration of the grace of God, believe that the things revealed by Him are true’, and by describing this faith as the beginning of salvation rather than as sufficient for salvation.
It is true that the act of theological faith requires an act of will. This is because the intellect is only compelled to believe truths when they are grasped by it as self-evidently and necessarily true, and the divinely revealed truths that are believed by an act of the theological virtue of faith are not grasped as self-evidently and necessarily true by the believer. The act of faith in which the intellect assents to divine revelation must therefore be produced by an act of the will. Such an act of the will can have more than one motivation. If this act is motivated by acts of supernatural hope and charity—if the motivation for the choice to believe is the supernatural intention and decision to attain salvation by making this choice, and is supported by a supernatural hope that this salvation can be attained by this choice—then the act of faith can also be an act of charity, and will therefore be sufficient for salvation.
But charity is not the only motivation for acts of theological faith. An act of theological faith can be made for other motives, by a person who lacks the theological virtue of charity. In such a case, as Dei filius states, grace will still be necessary for theological faith; the grace in question will be an act of God giving the believer a supernatural virtue and activity that surpasses created nature, but it will not be an act of sanctifying grace that secures salvation. The selfsame virtue of faith will nonetheless exist in the believer and be exercised in the act of faith. The possibility and reality of such faith explains why faith can be retained in a believer who loses charity by committing a mortal sin against some virtue other than faith.
There are two ways in which faith calls us to give a full submission of intellect and will to God. The first and straightforward way is that the contents of the faith, the divinely revealed message itself, tells us to do so; it tells us to seek God and the kingdom of heaven and to believe the Gospel. The second way is that this submisssion is the reason for which faith exists and the function that it has by its nature; faith is instituted by God, as Dei filius tells us, to be the beginning of salvation. Both these ways rest on faith being an act of the intellect that is distinct from an act of charity. Fr. Harrison is thus mistaken in claiming that because Dei filius describes the act of faith as involving the will, it does not understand the term ‘faith’ (fides) in the sense provided by its own definition, as an act of the intellect assenting to what God says because God says it. This is an elementary mistake about a basic concept of Catholic theology.
Fr. Harrison asserts: ‘Words are sometimes used in different senses in the Bible, and in the case of “faith,” Catholic theologians have preferred the less common biblical sense [the sense of assent to divine revelation] in the interests of greater clarity in explaining Christian revelation.’ This is true. Fr. Harrison omits to remark that it is not only Catholic theologians, but Catholic magisterial documents, that require greater clarity in explaining Christian revelation, and that the magisterial documents have developed an agreed terminology—generally following agreed theological terminology—to meet this requirement. In the case of the term ‘faith’, an ecumenical council, Vatican I, has provided this agreed meaning, as described above in the examination of Dei filius on faith. Dei filius also identifies this agreed meaning with the Scriptural description of faith in Hebrews 11:1. There is an obvious and imperative reason for the term ‘faith’ in Catholic theology and magisterial teaching being given this meaning: for centuries, Protestants have rejected and attacked Catholic belief concerning justification by making the claim that justification is by faith alone. To give a meaning to the term ‘faith’ that implies that faith alone justifies would give the impression that the Protestant position is right, and would make it impossible to effectively oppose that position.
But, Fr. Harrison might reply, it remains the case that the normal meaning of the term ‘faith’ in the New Testament does in fact designate a kind of faith that includes hope and charity, and hence that justifies; and Pope Francis’s statements in DD should be understood as using the term ‘faith’ with that meaning. This is his second objection.
Yet it is not clear why we should assume that Pope Francis uses the term ‘faith’ in the same sense as the New Testament does, since his writings are not Holy Scripture and were not written by St. Paul. In fact, it is clear from the text itself of DD that Pope Francis does not understand the term in the sense that Fr. Harrison claims he does. This was pointed out by myself in my reply to Prof. Fastiggi. Pope Francis states in DD: ‘To be admitted to the feast all that is required is the wedding garment of faith which comes from the hearing of his Word (cf. Rom 10:17).’ Romans 10:17 states: ‘So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes by the preaching of Christ.’ The reference to Romans 10:17 and to faith coming by hearing makes it clear that the faith that is required for admission to the Eucharist is faith in the sense of Dei filius, namely, belief in divine revelation. It is belief in revelation that comes by hearing. Charity does not come by hearing; it is produced, as Fr. Harrison himself says, by an inner grace from the Holy Spirit to which the will assents. It presupposes hearing, because it presupposes the message of faith that presents the object loved by charity to the believer, and that gives a basis for hope that charity can attain the object it seeks. A person with faith but in a state of mortal sin will have the hearing, and will assent to it, but will lack charity. If such a persons repents and recovers charity, this does not happen through their hearing some new thing. It happens through their consenting to and willing the realization of an impulse of grace that acts directly on their heart without speaking, and that changes the orientation of the heart to the message that has already been heard. Fr. Harrison responds to this argument as follows:
[Lamont] points out that the Pope, in appealing to Rm 10:17, is teaching that the faith that’s sufficient for receiving Communion worthily is the same faith that St. Paul says comes from the hearing of the Word; but according to Lamont, charity is not part of that faith. He sums up his argument thus: “The faith that comes from hearing is not formed faith, because charity, which is a part of formed faith, does not come by hearing. What comes by hearing is belief in the word of God” (bold type in original).Here I think Lamont is making a false inference, on the basis of which he reads St. Paul—and therefore Pope Francis—incorrectly. It’s true that charity as such—considered simply in its own essence—does not come from hearing, but from an inner actual grace from the Holy Spirit prompting repentance from mortal sin and love of God above all things. But it doesn’t follow from this that it’s necessarily untrue to affirm that a faith formed by charity “comes by hearing.” For in the justification of someone who has hitherto been an unbeliever, the theological virtues of faith and charity are infused simultaneously (together with hope); and in that moment of justification, the virtue of faith, even though formed by charity, is still certainly something that has come by hearing. So whether in fact the Apostle is speaking of faith formed by charity in the verse referenced by the Holy Father is therefore something to be decided not a priori, but after studying its context.
Fr. Harrison here confuses theological faith being present in the absence of charity, as it is with believers in a state of mortal sin, with theological faith as something distinct from charity. Of course theological faith can and should occur together with charity. But even when it occurs together with charity, it is not the same thing as charity. It does not have the same nature and the same cause. The context of St. Paul’s assertion makes no difference to this fact. The apostle is referring in this passage cited by Pope Francis to the faith that comes by hearing, and this faith is belief in divine revelation, which is distinct from charity, and does not include it.
Fr. Harrison observes that ‘those accusing Francis of heresy also attempt to back up their charge by placing DD 5 in the context of several other words and actions of his which they say “suggest that renunciation of sin is not necessary for one’s reception of the Eucharist to be acceptable to God.”’ In response to this evidence, he says that ‘the limitations of space preclude an analysis of all these supposedly confirmatory words and actions, which the Pope’s critics themselves do not claim are conclusive. In fact they are all open to more than one interpretation.’
This, however, is not an answer to a case based on cumulative pieces of evidence. The nature of such a case is that although each individual bit of evidence might be explained away, the evidence taken together can only have one explanation. They must therefore all be considered. Fr. Harrison not only does not do this, he limits himself to considering one of the weaker bits of evidence in this cumulative case. This is U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s being given communion in his presence in St. Peter’s basilica, after Pelosi had been banned from receiving communion by her archbishop for her support of legislation permitting abortion up to birth. I concede that this by itself is a weak argument for Pope Francis’s holding that faith alone is necessary for the worthy reception of the Eucharist. It is probable that Pope Francis does not see anything wrong with passing legislation removing any limits on legal abortion. This attitude of his is indicated by his enthusiastic praise for the Italian abortionist Emma Bonino, and by his gutting John Paul II’s Pontifical Academy for Life and ensuring that several pro-abortionists were named to it. He probably thought that Pelosi had done nothing wrong in her support for the legalization of abortion, and therefore that she should not have been banned from communion for it.
Fr. Harrison however ignores the strong and indeed decisive evidence outside of DD that is adduced by the statement. This evidence is Pope Francis’s public, clear and unambiguous endorsement of Martin Luther’s theology of justification. Pope Francis stated in an in-flight press conference on June 26th, 2016 that on the very important question of justification, Martin Luther was not mistaken. This is not talking about any agreements arrived at in Catholic and Lutheran discussion of justification that occurred several centuries after Luther’s death (agreements that were themselvs not accepted by the Holy See). It is talking about the personal views of Martin Luther himself. Central to Luther’s life and thought was his conviction that an inner love of God in the sinner is not required for justification, and does not justify the sinner. Luther explicitly drew out the implications of this view for the worthy reception of Holy Communion, and taught that belief in God’s statements is the sole requirement for such worthy reception. These implications for the reception of communion are not separable from his views on justification. In his Small Catechism, Luther wrote:
Fasting and bodily preparation are indeed a fine outward training; but he is truly worthy and well prepared who has faith in these words, “Given and shed for you for the remission of sins.” But he who does not believe these words, or doubts them, is unworthy and unprepared; for the words “for you” require truly believing hearts.
In his Large Catechism, Luther says the same thing:
Now we must also see who is the person that receives this power and benefit. That is answered briefly, as we said above of Baptism and often elsewhere: Whoever believes it has what the words declare and bring. For they are not spoken or proclaimed to stone and wood, but to those who hear them, to whom He says: “Take and eat,” etc. And because He offers and promises forgiveness of sin, it cannot be received otherwise than by faith. This faith He Himself demands in the Word when He says: “Given and shed for you.” As if He said: For this reason I give it, and bid you eat and drink, that you may claim it as yours and enjoy it. Whoever now accepts these words, and believes that what they declare is true, has it. But whoever does not believe it has nothing, as he allows it to be offered to him in vain, and refuses to enjoy such a saving good. The treasure, indeed, is opened and placed at every one’s door, yea, upon his table, but it is necessary that you also claim it, and confidently view it as the words suggest to you. This, now, is the entire Christian preparation for receiving this Sacrament worthily.
Fr. Harrison makes an oblique reference to Pope Francis’s statements on Luther when he says that ‘the present Pontiff’s frequent spontaneous conversations and unrehearsed interviews with the media, however, do not constitute magisterial teaching at any level, and Pope Francis himself has never suggested that they do.’ But this consideration is irrelevant to the question of what Pope Francis means in DD. Pope Francis’s statements in interviews have no magisterial weight. But they are not off-the-cuff, unconsidered private remarks. Pope Francis makes them knowing that they are public and that they will be reported around the world. They are thus reliable guides to what he thinks and means, and can be used to interpret his meaning in more formal documents. The statement criticized by Fr. Harrion does not after all claim that Pope Francis has taught heresy in an authoritative magisterial utterance (something that would be impossible, since the fact that it is heresy would deprive it of authority); it simply claims that he has made a clearly heretical statement in a public utterance.
Pope Francis thus understands ‘faith’ in the sense attributed to him by the statement. It is important to point out that, contrary to Fr. Harrison’s claim, the New Testament also typically uses the term ‘faith’ (πίστις) in this sense. Fr. Harrison’s assertion that the standard meaning of ‘faith’ in the New Testament is a faith that justifies the believer is rejected by Catholic theologians. This can be seen by examining the article on faith by Stéphane Harent, S.J., in the authoritative Dictionnaire de théologie catholique.[6] Fr. Harent anticipates the positions and arguments made by Fr. Harrison on this subject, and refutes them a century before Fr. Harrison committed them to print. He is able to do this because Fr. Harrison is simply reinventing arguments that were made by Protestant theologians to support Protestant positions in Fr. Harent’s day. Since the article has not been translated into English, it is worth providing those elements of the case made by Fr. Harent that are pertinent to our question.
Fr. Harent first sets forth the Catholic understanding of faith:
To give only a generic idea of the act of faith, which it is essential to specify at the outset: faith, according to the documents of the Church that we shall cite, is an intellectual assent, although produced under the impulse of the will. This can be expressed in the language of contemporary philosophy by the term ‘belief’.... Several contemporaries, with whom we shall have to enter in to discussion, also use the term ‘faith’, and deny that faith is the New Testament is belief, or at least deny that it is simply belief.... For Catholics, faith, commanded by the will as St. Thomas states, is realized in the intelligence—without of course denying the necessity for the Christian life of other acts of the will, such as charity and hope, that are disinct from faith. For Protestants, faith reaches its ultimate fulfilment in these feelings or acts of the will, or in some of them…
Fr. Harent distinguishes between a radical and a moderate Protestant conception of faith in the New Tesament. For the radical view, ‘faith’ never refers to belief. For the moderate view, although the Scriptures and even St. Paul do sometimes use the terms ‘faith’ and ‘believing’ in the philosophical sense of belief as assent to some proposition, the principal understanding of faith in the New Testament is another, stronger view. We will not consider the radical view, since it is not pertinent to our enquiry. According to the moderate view, the proper sense of ‘faith’ includes or presupposes the element of belief, but adds to it an affective element that is described differently by different thinkers. Fr. Harent quotes the French Protestant theologian Auguste Sabatier to this effect:
What is faith? Is it intellectual adhesion to dogmas or submission to an exterior authority? No. It is an act of trust, the act of the heart of a child, who discovers with joy the Father that he did not know, and who, without any kind of pride, is from then on happy to hold on to Him with all his strength. This is what Luther found in the preaching of St. Paul: The just man will live by faith...
Fr. Harent accepts that a certain form of trust is essential to faith, since faith is belief in divine testimony and hence involves trust in divine knowledge and truthfulness. This sort of trust is the act of belief itself for Catholics, but for Protestants it is only the preliminary to the trust involved in faith. The willingness and choice to act on the promises of God, as opposed to intellectual assent to the belief that God has made certain promises and will necessarily be true to them, falls under the virtue of hope for Catholics, not the virtue of faith.
Fr. Harent then goes on to a detailed analysis of the uses of ‘faith’ (πίστις) in the New Testament, in which he refutes the Protestant claims. We will only consider his discussion of the texts that Fr. Harrison adduces in support of this thesis—which, it is apparent, is a form of the moderate Protestant position opposed by Fr. Harent.
Fr. Harrison cites the faith of Abraham to support his position:
In the fourth chapter of his letter to the Romans, St. Paul explains that the faith that justified Abraham (cf. Gn. 15:6) is a model of faith for Christian believers. And Abraham’s justifying faith did not involve only his intellectual acceptance of God’s words as being true, but also his trust in the power and benevolence towards himself of a God who promises him a glorious inheritance (cf. v. 5) in a vision beginning with this reassurance: “Fear not, Abram! I am your shield; I will make your reward very great” (v. 2). St. Paul then stresses Abraham’s unwavering confidence or trust in the God who, in spite of all appearances, promises to make him “the father of many nations” (Rm 4:18); and although the Apostle does not use the word “love,” it is clearly implied that this disposition permeated the faith that justified the patriarch: “He did not doubt God’s promise in unbelief; rather, he was empowered by faith and gave glory to God and was fully convinced that what he had promised he was also able to do. That is why ‘it was credited to him as righteousness’” (vv. 20-22, emphasis added). After all, what is “giving glory to God” if not a freely willed act of love for him?
The principal text, Rom. 4:18 ff., where St. Paul explains the text of Genesis concerning the faith of Abraham (Gen. 15:6; c. Rom. 4:3) describes admirably faith in the sense of belief, intellectual assent given to divine revelation (mentioned in verse 18) under the influence of a rightly-disposed will. This will prevents the intelligence from halting at the difficulties that spring up aginst the revelation, v. 19, and by thus doing prevents doubt (οὐ διεκρίθη), cf. Rom. 14:23, Mt. 21:21, etc., and yielding to incredulity (ἀπιστίᾳ), v. 20. Thus, ‘by the force of his faith’ Abraham ‘gave glory to God’, v. 20, by believing Him at his word, and by placing with full conviction the almighty power of God’ above the apparent impossibility of the miracle that is predicted, v. 21. If the apostle associates the words ‘faith’ and ‘hope’, if he says that Abraham, ‘against hope’—that is, contrary to what could humanly be hoped for—believed, with hope or in hope, ἐπ’ ἐλπίδι—that he would be the father of many nations, does this prove that for St. Paul ‘to believe’ means ‘to hope’? From the fact that hope is mentioned by him as accompanying the faith of Abraham, or as an effect of that faith, does it follow that the word ‘faith’ signifies that effect? ... We can accept, together with many Catholic controversialists, that in the Scriptures the words ‘faith, belief’ can, on rare occasions, signify in a secondary way an affective movement towards the object promised, in addition to signifying the primary meaning of belief in the promise made. But this can only happen per accidens, in cases where the revelation that is believed contains a promise and can therefore excite hope of attaining the thing promised and confidence in the one who makes the promise. But in a multitude of cases, divine revelations and utterances have some other content—a punishment that is threatened, a dogma that is affirmed, a precept that is given—and promise nothing.
Fr. Harrison also appeals to Scriptural passages in which justification is said to be produced by faith in support of his thesis:
Again and again Jesus tells those he heals, ‘Your faith has saved you’ (cf. Mk. 5:34, 10:52; Lk. 17:19, 18:42), in situations where their disposition to believe whatever he might teach them, though undoubtedly present, is much less prominent than their firm confidence in his God-given power and benevolence. […]In the following chapter [of Romans], Paul affirms that having been ‘justified by faith, we have peace with God’ (5:1) as well as ‘hope of the glory of God’ in spite of whatever afflictions may befall us (cf. vv. 2-3). And, he says, this hope of future glory is well founded ‘because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us’ (v. 5, emphasis added). Since an intrinsic and fundamental aspect of justification is our becoming God’s adopted children and heirs through the power of the Spirit (cf. Rm 8:14-16), the clear implication is that the moment when that love of God was ‘poured out into our hearts’ was the very moment of our justification. In other words, the faith by which we are justified is a faith permeated or formed by the love of God—charity…. That a believer’s heartfelt loving trust in God—an act of the will more than of the intellect—is an essential component of the faith that justifies and saves him comes through even more prominently in the Gospels.
Fr. Harent gives a global consideration of all texts of this sort in order to refute this claim:
St. Paul says that we are ‘justified by faith’, Rom. 5:1 etc., and not by ‘faith only’, as Luther made him say in his German translation of the Bible, and as many Protestants believe that he did in fact say.... Nothing proves that in using the word ‘faith’, the apostle was departing from the sense of faith as belief that he uses so often (see cols. 58-60); nothing proves that he understands by ‘faith’ the totality of all the religious convictions and interior acts, including charity, that lead to justification. The Scriptures, not being a didactic treatise, nowhere make a complete enumeration of the conditions for salvation, but give one condition here and another there, with the result that the complete doctrine of justification can only be discerned from the entire collection of texts found in various different places.This is the case with the apostle. If in the texts cited to object to the Catholic position he attributes salvation to faith, without adding anything else, in other places he states that charity must be added to faith for that faith to be efficacious; Gal. 5:6. Charity is replaced in a parallel text by ‘observation of God’s commandments’, 1 Cor. 7:19. Elsewhere, he represents charity as so necessary that without her everything else is worth nothing and is good for nothing, 1 Cor. 13:1-3. In other texts it is grace that justifies, Rom. 3:24, or baptism, Eph. 5:28, Tit. 3:5. If all of these texts are used to complete one another, all the conditions for justification and salvation will be found; and in those texts which speak only of faith, you will not be obliged to unduly extend the meaning of that word.In the Gospels, as well, Christ sometimes mentions only faith as a condition for salvation, seemingly neglecting the rest (Jn. 3:16); sometimes the observance of the commandments, seemingly neglecting faith (Mt. 19:16 ff.); sometimes mentioning only the assistance given by grace (Jn. 3:5), or baptism with faith (Mk. 16:16), or final perseverance (Mt. 10:22). In a passage where salvation is promised in a general way to acts of a particular kind, it is necessary to always assume the other conditions of salvation indicated elsewhere. This is the flexible solution already given very clearly by St. Augustine in De fide et operibus 13, and by Catholic exegetes and controversialists.... “These universal promises (such as Jn. 3:16) must always be understood as subject to the conditions expressed in other parts of the Scriptures. We read: ‘All those who ask, receive’, Mt. 7:8. This is to be understood as; ‘provided that their prayer satisfies the necessary conditions’... ‘You ask and you do not receive, because you ask wrongly’, James 4:3.” (Walenburch brothers, De justificatione, ch. 75, n. 27, in Tractatus de controversiis fidei, Colegne, 1671, vol. 2).... Thus, in the Pauline phrase ‘justified by faith’, the term ‘faith’ does not change its usual meaning: it does not signify all the other dispositions needed for justification, it assumes them—just as in the case where the justification of an adult is attributed by St. Paul to baptism. In this case the term ‘baptism’ does not change its sense and take on a fuller meaning; rather, we know that the other dispositions necessary for justification must be presupposed in this adult.Objections to this position. Even if we do make the assumptions demanded, in order to attribute justification to faith understood as belief it is necessary to attribute at least some moral value to such belief. But belief does not have such moral value. ‘Belief in a dogma or a fact, however true it may be, cannot have any power at all for salvation, any more than an erroneous thought could in good morality be a reason for condemnation, salvation must depend, not on an intellectual act, but uopn a more profound and intimate movement of the soul.’ Ménégoz, Le fidéisme, p. 31.Response. This mistakenly supposes that Catholics mean by belief an act of the intellect alone. In fact, we understand belief, along with the majority of philosophers even in modern times, as an act where the will has some influence on the intellect; and in this sense it is possible to make errors that are morally blameworthy. See DTC vol. 3, article ‘Croyance’, cols. 2365, 2375, 2377, 2379, 2384 ff. The act by which we believe a dogma does not fall outside this general conception of belief. It presupposes…a pius affectus credendi, a movement of the soul towards God, whom we honour by believing his word. Belief in a dogma, whatever conditions such belief is subject to, can thus have a moral and religious value, if we consider that it is a supernatural act, a gift of grace. Thus St. Thomas says that ‘the first union of the soul with God is brought about by faith’, In 4 Sent. l. 4, d. 39, q. 1, a. 6 ad 2; and that ‘the first principle of purification of the heart is faith, which removes the impurity of error, and which if perfected by charity givs rise to perfect purification’, 2a2ae q. 7 a. 2....Objection. But, it will be objected, why does St. Paul attribute justification not to charity but to faith in the majority of his texts, since faith is an inferior virtue in the sense just provided?Response. Faith understood as belief, although an inferior virtue, has a special title to more frequent mention. In the psychological order of dispositions to justification, faith comes first. This is how St.Augustine explains the apostle; ‘Ex fide dicit justificari hominem, quia ipsa prima datur, ex qua impetratur cetera [Man is said to be justified by faith, because faith is the first thing given, and from it we pray for the other things required for justification].’ De praedes. sanctorum, c. 8.... It is the door by which we enter into Christianity: and, just as when we are asked where a certain house is to be found, we indicate the door of the house rather than some other more private or more important part of the structure, so faith understood as belief had to be emphasised; especially by the apostles, who had the function of instructing Jews and Gentiles in Christian beliefs. Obtaining the faith of their hearers was for the apostles, the first necessity, after which it was far easier to obtain all the rest.... Another claim for priority of faith is the fact that it always founds and upholds all other virtuous acts.... We may add that St. Paul...took as his example of justification Abraham, the just man who God called his friend. But if we examine the life of Abraham in the book of Genesis, the only reason given for describing Abraham as a just man is having believed God (Gen. 15:6); and belief here is meant in the sense of believing what God said.
Fr. Harent observes that a few Catholic authors have maintained that St. Paul is referring to faith formed by charity when he describes faith as justifying. This is not the thesis advanced by Fr. Harrison, since it does not say, as Fr. Harrison does, that this meaning of faith is the principal one in the New Testament; it only claims to find this meaning of the term ‘faith’ in those few texts where St. Paul explicitly describes faith as justifying. Fr. Harent nonetheless finds problems with this view as well:
The only difficulty that we find with this solution is that it makes the apostle pass abruptly and without any warning from one sense of ‘faith’ to another, at the risk of leading the faithful astray. He would be doing this even in his controversy with the Judaizers, where he would on some occasions brusquely abandon the sense of faith as belief that we have attributed to him, only to return to it with equal brusqueness immediately after; see e.g. Rom. 10:9, Gal. 5:6. The same word ‘faith’ would sometimes include charity, and sometimes not. Are we entitled to suppose such a confusion of language about important ideas in the inspired author when we can avoid doing so by the classic solution given here, according to which the word ‘faith’ always has the same sense?
Was Fr. Harent inspired by some sort of prophetic vision in refuting the arguments of Fr. Harrison a century before they were made? The explanation for the coincidence betweem Fr. Harrison’s views and Fr. Harent’s refutations is more prosaic. Because Fr. Harrison was defending statements by Pope Francis that expressed a Protestant view of justification, he had to use Protestant interpretations of the Scripture that were already current, and already refuted by Catholics, long before Fr. Harent came to write his article on the faith. The same is true of Prof. Fastiggi, who also proposed this Protestamt exegesis. This is itself an indication of the Pope’s heterodoxy. If defending the Pope on this question leads even dedicated Catholic scholars to stray from the faith by adopting a heterodox interpretation of the Scriptures, then what is defended is pretty certainly heretical.
There is another, more general sense in which a determination to defend Pope Francis’s orthodoxy at all costs poses a danger to the faith. We are required by faith to accept papal teachings that are infallibly defined, and to believe in the power of the Pope to pronounce such teachings. This is itself a great and difficult act of faith. But the Catholic faith also requires that we accept the following teachings of Scripture:
Matthew 7. 15 Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 16 You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? 17 So, every sound tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears evil fruit. 18 A sound tree cannot bear evil fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus you will know them by their fruits.
Acts 20. And from Mile′tus he sent to Ephesus and called to him the elders of the church. 18 And when they came to him, he said to them… 25 And now, behold, I know that all you among whom I have gone about preaching the kingdom will see my face no more. 26 Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all of you, 27 for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. 28 Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you guardians, to feed the church of the Lord which he obtained with his own blood. 29 I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; 30 and from among your own selves will arise men speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. 31 Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears.Galatians 1. 8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again, If any one is preaching to you a gospel contrary to that which you received, let him be accursed.
Every Pope is a man and a sinner. Outside of their exercise of the infallible papal magisterium, these Scriptural warnings can apply to a Pope as much as to any person with teaching authority in the Church. Note that the above warnings do not apply to lay members of the Church. They are applied to prophets, to St. Paul’s fellow elders, to apostles—since St. Paul includes himself in these warnings—and to the angels themselves. Not that the angels in heaven are going to preach a false gospel; St. Paul mentions them because no teacher in the Church, even a Pope, is above the angels in heaven who see God face to face. If the possibility of an angel from heaven preaching a false gospel is per impossibile proposed by the apostle, it is to emphasise that bishops, apostles, and Popes can do so.
It is now apparent to every reasonable and well-informed Catholic that Pope Francis is one of the false prophets and ravenous wolves against which the Scriptures warn us. It is even unfair to him, in a way, to deny this. He might well ask himself ‘What more do I have to do to carry out my task of false prophet? How much harder do I have to work at it? Could I not rest from this labour a bit in my old age, and have people accept me for what I am?’
No one can deny that Pope Francis has made every effort to enable Catholics to carry out their duty of making acts of faith in the above Scriptural passages. Efforts to deny his meaning and intention by desperately twisting the words of his statements in order to preserve the fiction that he has not denied the Catholic faith are not motivated by a real concern for souls, or by the Catholic faith itself. They are products of a cult-like understanding of leadership and obedience that sees the Church as demanding the surrender of the intellect and will to her human leaders, and that undermines and destroys the faith rather than upholding it.[7]
What is now endangering the faith of Catholics is the failure of Catholic bishops to denounce Pope Francis as an enemy of the faith. That inclines them either to conclude that Francis is orthodox and his positions can be accepted – which means falling into heresy – or to conclude that the whole body of the Catholic clergy, which is refusing to speak out against the heresies of the Pope, is unfaithful to the teachings of Our Lord, and hence that the claims of the Catholic Church to be guided by the Holy Spirit are false. Why should the faithful be scandalised by the correction of Pope Francis's obvious errors, unless they adhere to a cult-like mentality that sees the merely human leadership of the Church as beyond criticism, error or sin? The fact is that bishops and priests rely on this cult-like obedience themselves for such authority as they still possess, and are not willing to undermine it. That explains the resounding silence of virtually all of those clerics who still believe.
An admission that Pope Francis is a heretic destroys this cult-like understanding of the Church. It requires the Catholic faithful to exercise their faith in the words of Our Lord on their own, without the instruction of their bishops, and even in the face of massive episcopal dishonesty, obfuscation, and evasion. The faithful are thereby helped to grasp that their belief in the ecclesiastical hierarchy and its teachings is based on their belief in Christ, rather than vice versa, and that their ultimate loyalty is to Christ alone. One may reasonably suppose that this is a purpose of Pope Francis’s papacy in the plans of Divine Providence.
NOTES
[1] See https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2022/09/the-teaching-of-catholic-faith-on.html for the statement.
[2] These arguments can be found here: https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2022/09/lamont-responds-to-fastiggi-et-al-pope.html.
[3] The letter is cited in the Correctio filialis; see here – http://www.correctiofilialis.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Correctio-filialis_English_1.pdf.
[4] Prof. Fastiggi’s defence can be found here: https://wherepeteris.com/does-pope-francis-contradict-the-council-of-trent/.
[5] The orginal Latin text runs: ‘Quum homo a Deo tamquam Creatore et Domino suo totus dependeat, et ratio creata increatae Veritati penitus subiecta sit, plenum revelanti Deo intellectus et voluntatis obsequium fide praestare tenemur. Hanc vero fidem, quae humanae salutis initium est, Ecclesia catholica profitetur, virtutem esse supernaturalem, qua, Dei aspirante et adiuvante gratia, ab eo revelata vera esse credimus, non propter intrinsecam rerum veritatem naturali rationis lumine perspectam, sed propter auctoritatem psius Dei revelantis, qui nec falli nec fallere potest. Est enim fides, testante Apostolo, sperandarum substantia rerum, argumentum non apparentium (Hebr. XI, 1).’
[6] Stéphane Harent S.J., ‘Foi’, Dictionnaire de théologie catholique t. VI, ‘Flacius Illyricus-Hizler’, Vacant and Mangenot eds. (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1920), cols. 55-514; as can be seen, the article is in fact a treatise of approximately 450 pages.
[7] On this understandinng see https://sthughofcluny.org/2014/05/the-catholic-church-and-the-rule-of-law-part-i.html, https://sthughofcluny.org/2014/05/the-catholic-church-and-the-rule-of-law-part-ii.html, https://catholicfamilynews.com/blog/2018/10/27/2018-10-27-tyranny-and-sexual-abuse-in-the-catholic-church-a-jesuit-tragedy/.
