Should
You Go to a CMRI Mass or Take
Part in the Worship of Other Traditionalists?
+
+ +
How Denial of Common Dogma, Automatic
Excommunications
& Religious Separation Are
Inextricably Bound Together, and Why
These Considerations Also Apply to the SSPX,
SSPV, FSSP & etc.
+++
1. Are CMRI Masses an Option? +++
My dear reader, the answer to this question is simple:
No.
Why?
Because the CMRI
notoriously & pertinaciously denies the Salvation Dogma.
How so?
Most if not all CMRI clergy and laity will say they believe
in ‘no Salvation outside the Church’ --- they’ll even decry
the espousal of religious indifference and religious liberty at Vatican II.
However, what most if not all of them mean by ‘no Salvation outside the
Church’ and what a real Catholic means by ‘no Salvation outside the
Church’ are two very different things.
The CMRI means, “Only if a person knows he can’t save his soul outside the Catholic
Church, then --- and only then
--- there is no Salvation outside the Church for him.” Whereas, to the
contrary, the Catholic Church has always
meant, “Whether or not a person knows that he can’t save
his soul outside the Catholic Church, there is, most literally, no Salvation at all, ever, outside the
Church for him.”
If you understand this without protest, my dear soul, there is
hardly any more to be said.
+++
2. Salvation Is Narrow, Ignorance Is Broad +++
Yet do you doubt the narrowness of the Church’s teaching in
this matter, dear reader, while thinking yourself Catholic? Then you need to
read the short articles found here
and also here.
Too, bear in mind the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, Who warned us,
“Enter ye [all of you] in at the narrow gate:
for wide is the gate, and broad
is the way that leadeth to destruction,
and many there are who go in thereat. How narrow is the gate, and strait [not wide] is the way
that leadeth to life: and few there are that find it!” (Matthew 7:13-14
DRC, all emphasis & annotation added)
Nevertheless, it’s pretty obvious. Because why bother with missions
when much of the world --- due to not knowing any better and a presumably
sincere desire to do their best --- is destined to enter Heaven regardless
of believing in the Catholic Faith? And why endanger a soul by giving him
explicit knowledge about this Faith when, left as he is in his ignorance,
he’d probably go to Heaven, whereas, if told about Catholicism in
explicit terms, he’d most likely reject it and wind up burning in Hell as
a result? Why even bother saying
there’s ‘no Salvation outside the Church’ when the phrase
can’t possibly apply to so many human beings in existence due to the
qualification of an ‘invisible connection’ to the Catholic Church
via an ‘invincible ignorance’? The qualification about ‘invincible
ignorance’ and ‘invisible connections’ in this case is not
then a mere qualification --- as if it were only a little unimportant footnote
on the side --- but the main point, rendering the phrase ‘no
Salvation outside the Church’ woefully inadequate if not outright
deceptive!
Because there’s not, truly, ‘no Salvation outside the Church’
if, in fact, all sorts of people find salvation visibly outside the Church by means of an ‘invisible
connection’. Nevertheless, were we to stubbornly insist that the ancient &
hallowed phrase of ‘no Salvation outside the Church’ means
‘invisible connections’, as well, then what is the point of
authoritatively pronouncing that there’s ‘no Salvation outside the
Church’ when no one can even begin to know for sure who is actually on the inside of this Church due to
an ‘invisible connection’ via an ‘invincible ignorance’…
and who is not?
Where is the
logic in that?
The Church in this case should never
have taught ‘no Salvation outside the Church’ to start with! The
phrase is obviously a warning… a caution lest we not take
seriously the need to be inside
the Catholic Church in order to save our souls. Thus, if made into a mere
hypothetical ‘observation’ --- which for countless souls
can’t be known for sure whether they’re inside the Church or not
--- then what in the world is the phrase
for?!? It serves no purpose; it is meaningless. Indeed, it’s a big, fat,
huge lie!
+++
3. Don’t Be Lulled Just Because Popes Haven’t +++
Yet
Condemned ‘Salvation Through Ignorance’ by
Name
Nor should we be lulled into unwariness by the fact that no pope in
the last century or two has clearly & explicitly condemned, with infallible
authority, the notion of ‘invincible ignorance’ saving someone who
is visibly outside the Catholic Church and thus in the practice of false religion.
A notion need not be condemned explicitly to be explicitly opposed
to what the Church has already clearly
& explicitly proclaimed with infallibility. Both history and magisterium are stark:
No
self-proclaimed Roman Catholic
in ancient times ever dared to believe ‘no Salvation outside the
Church’ to have any loopholes,
qualifications or exceptions whatsoever. Indeed, as the Athanasian
Creed of the 4th century makes vivid against the possibility of
someone laboring under ‘invincible ignorance’ while believing in
the Arian heresy of old, the precise opposite was starkly upheld!
Again go to this article
to see that the Solemn Magisterium is plain; there is no room left
in their statements for the possibility of an ‘invincible ignorance’ saving
someone who is, in actuality, visibly outside the Church.
Such an idea is a novelty. It is an innovation of the last five hundred years which
plainly contradicts what Catholicism has taught since the beginning of Christianity
nearly 2000 years ago. Ergo, we do not
need an explicit condemnation by name --- of the idea of ‘invincible
ignorance’ saving anyone --- to know that it is rank heresy, just as
Roman Catholics did not need
the explicit condemnation by name of Arianism in AD
325 at the Nicene Council to be sure --- prior to 325 --- that Arianism was heretically opposed to what had been taught
since Christ & His Apostles!
For instance, let us look at a papal bull from 1302, one of my
favorite examples of the Salvation Dogma defined infallibly without
room for any loopholes or qualifications like ‘salvation through
invincible ignorance’ left in place:
“Urged by faith, we are obliged to believe and to maintain that
the Church is one, holy, catholic, and also apostolic. We believe in her firmly and we confess with simplicity that outside of
her there is neither salvation nor the remission of sins.... Therefore, if
the Greeks [Eastern Schismatics, what are today called adherents of
‘Eastern Orthodoxy’] or others should say that they are not
confided to Peter and to his successors [not subject to the supreme authority
of the papacy], they must confess not being the sheep of Christ [then they must
admit that they don’t truly belong to Christ and hence aren’t
really Christians], since Our Lord says in John ‘there is one sheepfold and one shepherd.’
....Furthermore, we declare, we
proclaim, we define that it is absolutely
necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to
the Roman Pontiff.” (Pope Boniface VIII’s
Unam sanctum, emphases & annotations
added)
This is my favorite infallible definition for obvious reasons;
several others exist. But Boniface VIII’s Unam sanctum is perfect… because how
can anyone in his right mind read what he said and not realize that he is
requiring explicit knowledge of the Catholic Faith in order to save your
soul? I mean, think about it. How could any human creature be subject --- in obedience --- to the Roman Pontiff
(the Pope!) if he doesn’t actually
know that the Pope is the Visible Head of Christ’s Roman Catholic Body?
The Eastern Schism had been around for several hundred years by the time
Boniface wrote this --- hence, if the Holy Ghost knows these latter generations
of Easterners are laboring under an ‘invincible ignorance’ that can
let them be saved despite not actually obeying the Papacy, then why would He
have allowed Boniface to say what he infallibly said? Because Unam sanctum very vividly & irrefutably
states, “….that it is absolutely
necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to
the Roman Pontiff.”
No exceptions, no loopholes, no qualifications permitted,
period… it is the language of total exclusion. And yet it is therefore logically impossible for this absolute
necessity to be met unless someone explicitly knows that the Catholic
Church exists and that a legitimate Bishop of
And if that weren’t enough, consider this --- that so-called
‘invincible ignorance’ is a double-edged sword. People who think it
can save someone, do so almost always applying it to someone with a sound
mind. That is to say, they think someone who has a God-given mind to see things
and know things can, nevertheless, be ‘invincibly ignorant’ about
something. (This is why, until recently, such people said unbaptized
babies go to that part of Hell called the ‘limbo of the babes’,
strangely unaware that if anyone at all is ‘invincibly ignorant’
then it would be infants. Why wouldn’t God take these little ones, of all
people, into Heaven if ‘invincible ignorance’ is so efficacious and
God is so merciful in the way they like to say?) Whereas the
only truly invincibly ignorant persons are babies, as well as those who are
mentally impaired or insane from earliest youth. Only they couldn’t possibly ever know
what they need to know about something!
Or hasn’t God given most human beings minds to know and
understand? Hasn’t He made it obvious to anyone without an axe to grind
(read: atheists, agnostics and other philosophical materialists) that there is
a Creator and that our creation is organized for a particular purpose?
Isn’t it, then, sensible & rational to ask Who
this God is and what our purpose may be? Is it not right & reasonable to
beg this Creator to tell us what we must do to please Him and so meet our
purpose in this existence? And is God unwilling to answer such a request, is He
incapable of hearing it? Or unable to respond with explicit
testimony about the Catholic Faith?
Starkly not. This is why ‘no Salvation
outside the Church’ in its most ancient & narrow sense is not
uncharitable of God. God can bestow the graces to convert anyone, anywhere and anywhen in this life! There is no one beyond His reach. Anyone can become Catholic if they
want to… and even if they don’t know, to begin with, that the
Catholic Church exists. The conversion of individuals and nations is replete
with examples of miraculous intervention by God --- even before missionaries
from the Church came to them. And yet, if the notion of ‘salvation
through ignorance’ were true, then that same ‘invincible
ignorance’ makes anyone, including
Catholics, subject to ultimate uncertainty in this life.
We repeat:
If
‘salvation through invincible ignorance’ were
true, then nobody --- and I mean
nobody --- can have any hope of knowing what he needs to know in order to
please God. Anyone at all could be ‘invincibly
ignorant’… even if
they’re Catholic! Think about it. How would you know that
you’re not ‘invincibly ignorant’? If you’re
‘invincibly ignorant’ then you’re ignorant, too, about
yourself being ‘invincibly ignorant’! The notion of ‘invincible
ignorance’ applying to people with sound minds thus calls into question everything that anyone thinks they know.
After all, how can we be sure we know it? What if we’re
wrong? What if we’re ‘invincibly ignorant’ and can’t
know any better? I mean, isn’t that what we claim about those who we say
couldn’t possibly know about the Catholic Faith, that it’s the True
Religion? Don’t such people go around thinking, honestly, that their
religion (or lack of religion) is the correct position to take? Don’t
they consider it impossible, or highly unlikely, that they’re mistaken? So how can this same principle not
apply to us, to those who are Catholic? What if we’re wrong? What
if we’re ‘invincibly ignorant’ and just can’t
know any better? How are we supposed to be sure about what we think
we know when something called ‘invincible ignorance’ exists that
can afflict people with sound minds, making it impossible for
them to know what they ought to be able to know?
Do you see the irrational trap that comes from a mixed up idea of
what ‘invincible ignorance’ really is?
Don’t get me wrong, dear reader:
The Hierarchy ought to speak up and act in order to keep
souls from being confused and deceived into everlasting hellfire;
notwithstanding, wise Catholics cannot in the meantime pretend that the matter
is unclear or undecided when it is not.
Moreover, we have no functioning Hierarchy right now due to the Great Apostasy
raging in our midst. Consequently, we cannot afford to wait for the Solemn
Magisterium to act when it might take who knows how many decades longer to
occur… and when it is not necessary to know, based on what the
Hierarchy has already authoritatively declared in years past, that the notion
is anathema to our Faith. In short, our God-given minds can make logical
conclusions based on what has been
already clearly & explicitly taught by the Hierarchy. Anything beyond
this --- like clear & explicit condemnations by name --- is pure gravy. They’d only make what is already
clear, even clearer.
Meanwhile, the
Catholic Church since the very first century has always sought to
evangelize everyone everywhere lest IGNORANCE
cause souls to die without the Catholic Faith and become damned forever!
+++
4. How to Know the CMRI Teaches Heresy: +++
Just
Ask Them
So why does the CMRI believe in their much wider road to salvation based on ‘ignorance’?
Because they’re a snapshot of Catholicism in
the
Yet how can we know that the CMRI believes in this, you might
wonder?
Easy. Just ask them. Call up a CMRI priest by
phone. Make an appointment. Or drop in to his parish and see if he has a few
minutes to speak. Be pleasant, of course. There’s no need for rudeness.
Make small talk, if you wish. But get to the point after a while. Say something
like, “Father, I was wondering. If a Hindu dies as a Hindu, unconverted
to the Catholic Faith, will he go to Heaven?”
It’s important to phrase the question carefully. CMRI folk
are like the Arian heretics of old. The Arians used orthodox ways of saying
things. They employed typical Catholic words & expressions. Ergo, the usual
way of saying things wouldn’t reveal them for what they were. You had to
ask really specific questions that would elicit really explicit responses in
order to reveal what they truly believed. For example, you couldn’t just
say, “Do you believe Jesus is the Son of God?” That wouldn’t
get anywhere. They’d only say, “Yes.” Rather, you’d
have to ask something like, “Do you believe that Jesus, as the Son of
God, is God from all of Eternity, an Uncreated Being, equally as much God as He
is a man?” Then you’d sit back and watch them squirm. Then
they’d become silent or refuse to answer, or mumble something
unintelligible, or give a non sequitur that didn’t address the actual
query, etc., etc.
Likewise the CMRI-type person. Simply asking
if they believe in ‘no Salvation outside the Church’ won’t
get anywhere. They’ll just say, “Yes.” You have to be
specific. Zero in on the key thing that distinguishes a relatively
‘conservative’ salvation heretic from someone who holds the
Salvation Dogma correctly. Get down to the bottom of what they mean by
Catholic words & expressions. For instance, what do they mean by ‘no Salvation outside the Church’?
Does this
orthodox way of saying things mean for them what the Church has always meant
to say? Or does it not mean something very, very different from what
Catholics of old intended to say by it?
That’s the real concern. That’s what truly matters.
That’s the nitty gritty. So ask them:
“If a Hindu dies without converting to the Catholic Church,
can he go to Heaven?”
Given that the person is orthodox, he’ll say something like,
“Absolutely not. A Hindu must convert to the True Religion in order to
have hope of salvation. Outside the Catholic Church there’s no chance to
save your soul.” Whereas a CMRI person might respond along the lines of,
“I wouldn’t be able to say. Only God knows the state of that
Hindu’s immortal soul.” To which you would then need to rejoinder:
“Okay, let’s say he was a really nice guy. Very sincere
and tried his hardest to be good. But he didn’t know about the Catholic
Church and was perfectly content being a Hindu. He had no desire to become
Catholic, and certainly wasn’t trying to profess the Catholic Faith. He
died a confirmed Hindu. Can this particular Hindu ever go to Heaven?” To
which the CMRI person will probably retort along the lines of, “If
he’s invincibly ignorant and follows the law of God as best as he knows
how, then, yes, he could go to Heaven. He would have an implicit desire for baptism
and be invisibly joined to the soul of the Church. Only God knows precisely who
these people are, or how many of them exist. We cannot judge.”
Voilá! Heresy
revealed and made plain as day.
But, just to be fair, ask him again in a slightly different way.
Say something to the effect of, “Father, I just want to make sure I
understand you. If a Hindu dies as a Hindu --- not actually practicing the True
Faith or even trying to be Catholic in any way at all --- are you saying, then,
that this particular Hindu can, dying in the practice of his Hindu religion, go
to Heaven?”
This will make certain his answer wasn’t a fluke or an
accident, but that he truly meant to say it. And again, if he’s from the
CMRI, having been trained and catechized by them, then he’ll repeat
something to you like what we’ve already stated above. He might even get
irritated at you, or become impatient, and refuse to answer again. Because this topic tends to rub a lot of people the wrong way.
They don’t like the implications of the Church’s obvious and
unqualified teachings about salvation.
How can I know this?
Because I’ve talked to people who are like
this. I’ve also talked to other people that have talked to people
who are like this. And I’ve read what many people have to say about them
talking to people who are like this. It all boils down to the same thing…
people who are like this don’t want to believe in ‘no Salvation
outside the Church’ like it’s always been meant to be understood by
the Catholic Church. They want to make the
+++
5. How to Know the CMRI Teaches Heresy: +++
Read
Their Stuff
But are you too lazy or too shy to ask these questions, my dear
soul?
Then get hold of the CMRI’s
magazine, The Reign of Mary.
Precisely speaking, get hold of the Winter 1992 issue,
Vol. 24, No. 70. In this particular issue --- of which the overall magazine
functions as a kind of official mouthpiece for the organization as a whole ---
you will find an article entitled, “The Salvation of Those Outside the Church”. In it you will discover plenty of
statements that prove their adherence to the
In the meantime, there is testimony on the Internet about this
issue of their magazine. The sources aren’t necessarily good Catholics,
yet it is not to be discounted merely because of that. It can be found in
multiple places and is strong circumstantial evidence of the CMRI’s adherence to salvation heresy. There is also
the proof of the Baltimore Catechism that CMRI parishes use in teaching their
members; to my knowledge, every one of them relies on an edition printed in the
last 130 years. Simply look at one of these copies and
you will find, in a section about the Church, the claim that
‘ignorance’ can save a person despite not professing the Catholic
Faith or really visibly belonging to the
“The attitude of the Catholic Church towards pagans,
Mohammedans and Jews has always been clear --- there is no salvation outside
the Catholic Church. Even supposing a person were invincibly ignorant of the true Church,
he must still follow the natural law to
be saved (implicit baptism of desire).” [Retrieved 18
July 2011 from http://www.cmri.org/02-v2_non-christian.shtml, paragraph one,
all emphases added]
The evidence is clear, then, my precious soul. Whether you are
industrious enough and brave enough to talk to them yourself or not, asking
specific questions about the nature of salvation, the proof is there. At the
very least, if you are of good will but are too nervous to talk to them about
this matter, then you must be exceedingly cautious, knowing that there is very
good reason and numerous testimonies to cause you to suspect them of salvation
heresy. To think otherwise is foolhardy, if not wicked.
+++
6. May We Not Get the Sacraments +++
from
Heretics When We Have No Other Option?
Yet why should you avoid them if this is so? Aren’t the
sacraments terribly important for a Catholic to receive? Without proper
Catholic priests, can’t we justify ourselves in going to these heretics
in order to get the Blessed Sacrament as long as we don’t espouse their
heresies as our own?
The answer to the last query is stark --- absolutely not. But if you doubt or are uninstructed about
this matter, then please go here
to find out more. Your immortal soul is at stake and you cannot afford to be
stubborn, arrogant or careless in this matter. The webpage at this link will
quickly but more than adequately inform you about the authoritative mind of the
Church in this kind of situation.
Briefly, though, ponder these two canon laws and why the
Meanwhile, reflect on a little bit of history, easily authenticated
by anyone with access to a good public library or the World Wide Web. Did the
Church of Rome in the past one thousand years since the Schism of the East ever
permit Catholics to go to the masses of Eastern Schismatics (self-styled
‘Eastern Orthodoxy’) when no other mass was available? Was this ever a permissible option?
The rejoinder is facile: never.
In short, the Roman Catholic Faith comes before the Roman Catholic Mass. You must first have the
Catholic Faith whole & entire in order to have the privilege to receive
the Holy Eucharist, and, if in a position where no Catholic priest is
rightfully available to you, you are not
then allowed to attend a non-Catholic mass --- no matter how validly
consecrated the Eucharist may be --- to
receive the Most Blessed Sacrament from the hands of a man who is not
truly Catholic or who knowingly serves those who are notorious &
pertinacious heretics or schismatics. Indeed,
it is this public & obstinate display of heresy or schism --- either from himself or in those he serves --- which makes his Eucharist illegal,
i.e., not lawful to receive… and regardless of its validity (realness)
otherwise, as good sense and canon law make clear!
To do so would be tantamount, through your visible and voluntary
presence at their services of public prayer or worship, to joining with them religiously, of pretending to be in spiritual communion with
them as if both you and they belong to the same divine body and profess the
same divine faith. You, at a bare minimum, are suspect of heresy by doing so.
We say again:
Your fully aware
and willful participation in their worship or prayer is, in the eyes of God and
His Catholic Church, acting like the two of you are religiously united, espousing the same dogmas and obeying the
same leadership. It is, in the judgment of both God and Church, the same in appearance as becoming a heretic
or schismatic, just like them, and regardless of an orthodoxy that you may
keep hidden in your heart. You are, at a bare minimum, to be suspected of
heresy or schism by doing this.
That pretty much sums it up.
+++
7. Isn’t There a Loophole If Heretics +++
Aren’t
Yet Officially Condemned by the Church?
“But what about the Hierarchy?” you might say.
“Doesn’t the Magisterium need to rule and make it plain that
so-and-so is off-limits to worship with? Until then aren’t we off the
hook --- at least technically --- in joining with the public prayers of
heretics? Doesn’t the Great Schism of the West demonstrate this, doesn’t the example of the Arian Heresy prior to
the Nicene Council reveal this principle?”
My dear & precious soul, think very carefully. You may have
genuine concern, yet I suggest to you that your real motive, deep down, is a
fear of isolation or the lack of sacraments. In other words, you are afraid of
not having anyone with whom you may join in worship on Sundays and socialize
with as if everyone involved is a Catholic, or you are aghast at the pain of
being deprived of the Eucharist. Completely alone is how you would feel, with neither human companionship (or very limited companionship)
nor sacramentally divine companionship to assuage you in your grievous trial.
I do not mock you for this concern. I understand it. I go through
it myself. I therefore sympathize.
Let us remember, though, that Jesus Christ went through an
identical suffering. More than we can imagine, he felt isolated from everyone
around him. Only His Blessed Mother could even begin to truly comprehend His
Divine Nature & Mission. In the desert alone for forty days, without food
or drink, he faced hideous temptation by the Devil and yet remained firm in
God’s Catholic Testimony. In His Passion and on His Cross, He hung
bleeding & dying, bereft of all comfort and with most of His disciples
having completely abandoned Him. He even exclaimed in agony, “My God, my
God, why have you forsaken me?” A cry that went
unanswered, for He died in His Misery.
We, too, as real Catholics can cry out the same words in our agony
during the Great Apostasy. Except for this --- Jesus was sinless &
guiltless, undeserving of what He suffered. We are great sinners, and deserve
everything we get. Nevertheless, we must imitate His Constancy. We must
duplicate His Patience. We must suffer forlorn until the bitter end, if that is
what God requires.
That said, formal pronouncements or rulings from the Hierarchy can
be very helpful… but they are not always necessary. If the
conflict is over a common dogma --- something that every true Catholic with at
least an average mind must know & profess in order to be Catholic to begin
with --- then any Catholic with at
least an average mind can know when a common dogma is being professed
publicly in a right fashion and when it is not. Otherwise,
how in the world could he know that he himself is Catholic by professing this
common dogma? Ergo, where common dogma is being notoriously &
pertinaciously denied or opposed --- i.e., the denial or opposition is
obviously public and no good excuse for the appearance of this objective
wickedness exists --- then we may be sure of this:
That the denier or opponent is not Catholic.
We can be sure because notoriety (something known to the public,
whose meaning is clear, explicit and beyond rational dispute) and pertinacity
(the same thing repeated at least two or three times with no reasonable excuse
left for it, especially after a charitable admonishment) make it stark.
+++
8. Automatic Excommunication Is the Key +++
And if not Catholic, then the denier is excommunicated. For how can
you be a visible part of that which you visibly deny? And if denying what makes
a man Catholic in the first place, then how can you remain Catholic when you
deny these things, these common dogmas? Which is why the
Church decrees:
“All
apostates from the Christian faith, and all heretics and schismatics: (1) are ipso facto [by this very fact]
excommunicated.” (1917 Code of Canon Law, Canon 2314.1, all emphasis
& annotation added)
To say “ipso facto” (Latin for ‘by this very
fact’) is the same as to say that the excommunication is ‘latae sententiae’. In other
words, that it is automatic,
no official declaration from the Hierarchy needed to make it happen. The
relevant part of the Hierarchy (say, a bishop with jurisdiction over the
particular man in question) may, if willing and able, make a formal declaration
in the matter later on. However, this declaration would merely affirm
what has already taken place --- to wit, an excommunication that occurs through
the force of canon law by the very fact
of the crime itself. A crime against God’s Religion that any good
Catholic could recognize as such due to its public, and hence visible, nature,
and which is morally certain because of its obstinate commission, i.e.,
it’s obviously not a fluke or accidental thing.
“Delicts [offenses] of heresy and
apostasy are dealt with most severely…. [D]elicts
against faith are visited with her heaviest punishments. The heretic
immediately incurs excommunication, and is liable to further vindictive
punishments. The reason is plain. Heresy
indicates such a destruction of the Christian character of the delinquent, and,
being externalized, has such potentialities of hindering and preventing the
teaching of revealed truth to others, that immediate and decisive action
must be taken to prevent any spread of the contagions of error.”
(The Delict of
Heresy by Rev. Eric MacKenzie, page forty-three. Published by The
Fr. MacKenzie, who wrote the book cited above
from which we quote, was, as far as I can tell, a salvation heretic like
practically everybody else going by the name of ‘catholic’ in the
United States during the 1930s. Nevertheless, his The Delict of Heresy has much good
information in it, orthodox information which explains authoritatively exactly
what I have been saying. Namely, that automatic excommunications are automatic
precisely because the person excommunicated can no longer be a visible part of
that which he visibly denies, and thus must also be cut off from those who are
still Catholic so as not to inflict on them the spiritual disease --- heresy or
schism --- that he espouses. Waiting for an official condemnation in this case
before acting like the excommunication is certain would be needlessly
reckless… allowing deadly teachings or rebellion to spread where an
immediate remedy is necessary to stop the destruction of even more precious
souls! If the crime is notorious & pertinacious denial of common dogma,
then no more certainty is needed; the
Hierarchy cannot make any more sure that which
is already sure due to it being a stark
public fact. A later formal decree would only serve to clarify things for
Catholics who are ignorant & untaught, or who themselves are quietly
obstinate about this same crime. As another canon law expert from the early 20th
century states:
“A penalty latae sententiae [Latin for ‘given (already passed)
sentence’], whether corrective or vindictive, binds the delinquent ipso facto [by this very fact] both in
the external and in the internal forum, provided he is conscious of the crime [meaning, in the case of common
dogma, that he meant to say or do what he said or did against the dogma and even
if he doesn’t know it’s dogma to begin with; or, as is the case
with deeper dogma, that he both meant what he said or did against the
dogma and also actually knows it’s a dogma, if only after being
admonished].... The text continues [the text of the particular canon law being
discussed, which is Canon 2232.1]: and in
the external forum no one is allowed to demand this self-execution of this
penalty on the part of the delinquent unless the crime is notorious….
which leaves the issuance of a declaratory sentence to the discretion of
the superior and demands it only when the parties insist or when public welfare
is at stake.... A declaratory sentence
does not constitute a penalty, but
simply affirms that a penalty has been incurred, and hence throws the
penalty back to the moment when the crime was committed.”
(A Commentary on the New Code of Canon
Law, Vol. 8, Bk. 5, pp. 102-4. Published by W.E. Blake
& Sons, Ltd., in 1922. All italicizing of Latin
words and quote in English from canon law in the original published text.
All other emphases & annotation added.)
By the way, in the commentary above the word
“conscious” is essentially equivalent to the requirement for
‘pertinacity’. That is to say, the apparent crime (of word or deed
against the True Religion) must not have been a fluke or accident, but actually intended by the one who speaks
or acts. For crimes against common dogma, at least two or three incidences
of the same kind against the Catholic Religion are necessary to make it surely
“conscious” and hence ‘pertinacious’… and even if
the offender does not know, for some reason, the common dogma he is violating
(in which case he was never Catholic to begin with and his lack of true
Catholicity is only now being revealed
by his very public & repeated mistake). For crimes against deeper dogma the
same requirement holds --- of at least two or three incidences of the same kind
against the Catholic Religion --- but one must also make sure that this person knows about the deeper dogma
(which is deeper because it is not
part of that minimum absolutely necessary to make a person of sound mind
Catholic to start with). Without this specific knowledge about the deeper dogma
a fellow Catholic cannot justly presume the offender to have intended to
offend… which is why, normally, crimes against deeper dogma need a
functioning Hierarchy in order to judge the situation rightly, and why,
normally, crimes against deeper dogma do not incur automatic expulsion.
+++
9. Does the Great Schism of the West Excuse Us? +++
Which brings us to the Great Schism of the West. This schism was
not over common dogma; it was not even a division over deeper
dogma. In fact, it had nothing to do
with heresy. It was a confusion over the arcane rules
of papal election. In short, there was a dispute about who, amongst two (and
later three) viable candidates, really was elected pope. No one rejected a
claimant because he was heretical --- they rejected him because they
didn’t think he’d been rightly elected.
Nonetheless, knowledge of arcane rules of election is not
needed to save one’s soul: thus why Catholics could be on the wrong side
during this Great Schism and not
automatically suffer God’s Wrath. A person could be genuinely confused,
literally unable to know who he should support & obey. This is, as it were,
a very real example of ‘invincible ignorance’, an ignorance that,
in this particular case, Heaven neither demands it must be overcome in order to
save one’s soul nor guarantees to aid you in overcoming as if it was
absolutely necessary to save your soul. As a result, even saints were on
opposite sides during this horribly chaotic period while still being, in truth,
actual saints. Consequently, one could not correctly presume automatic
excommunication if someone chose the mistaken side. Schism between Catholics
back then was objective yet not necessarily culpable; wise Catholics pardoned
their opponents for splitting during this unavoidably troubling but mostly
venial, or utterly inculpable, confusion.
Once this Great Schism was over, though --- all Catholics uniting under
the leadership of Martin V, who was elected pope at the end of 39 years of
division --- a problem demanded Martin’s attention. Lots of priests in
the area of Germany were living in concubinage
(having a wife, which was legally forbidden to the clergy in the western part
of the Catholic Church) and good Catholics, stung by their consciences, were
refusing to participate in certain priests’ masses due to these priests
being accused (whether satisfactorily proven or not) of committing this scandalous
public sin and thus highly suspect.
What should the pope do?
Martin V responded with a document called Ad evitanda scandala,
which was part of a German concordat that the Holy See agreed to in 1418. The
text of this document relieved Catholics of any presumed duty to avoid such
accused or disputed priests in matters of religion until the proper Church
authority ruled against them and passed public sentence. Or, to put it another
way, no one would be held guilty of going to such a priest (who was actually living
in concubinage) for the sacraments until higher
Church authority with jurisdiction in the matter ruled against the priest and
publicly excommunicated him, forbidding his parishioners from going to his
masses.
+++
10. Why Ad evitanda
scandala Can’t
Apply to Heresy +++
Yet can this same papal document justify us in going to a CMRI
mass?
Not at all. What Martin V did in the
fifteenth century only applies to Catholics who are declared excommunicated, not heretics or schismatics
who are automatically excommunicated.
The point?
A heretic or schismatic is a heretic or schismatic in the eyes of
others as soon as his crime is notorious & pertinacious. There
is thus no ultimate need for a higher Church authority with jurisdiction to do
what is already automatically done
via Canon Law, or to make plain what is already
factually stark. That is to say --- and as we’ve seen prior to
this --- Church’s Canon Law makes excommunications of notorious &
pertinacious heretics or schismatics an automatic thing. It does not need a
bishop with jurisdiction to rule formally and make a public announcement. An
announcement from someone in authority might be helpful, providing guidance for
confused Catholics or strong boundaries for rebellious Catholics, but the excommunication
itself occurs whether or not a Church
authority says something, and the blatancy & obstinacy of the heresy or
schism itself makes it plain and inarguable for any good-willed Catholic of
sound mind to see. It happens regardless of a jurisdictional bishop
speaking up publicly.
We say once more:
Automatic
excommunications are automatic! An
official declaration can only affirm what has already occurred by
operation of the Church’s Canon Law. Where heresy or schism is
notorious & pertinacious, Catholics do not need a jurisdictional
bishop to formally rule or announce in order to know that the crime of heresy
or schism exists and that its punishment of excommunication is carried out.
And why would that be again?
Because automatic excommunications are automatic.
Automatic… as in, it happens automatically. No need to
do anything official to make it happen. The process is ready to go on its own,
all set up beforehand in the Church’s Canon Law, and is instantly put in
motion as soon as the crime of heresy or schism comes out into the open for any
real Catholics to see.
It’s automatic.
Indeed, think about it carefully. Why would the Church even bother
putting anything into Her Canon Law about automatic excommunications
(‘latae sententiae’
that occur ‘ipso facto’) if
this kind of excommunication can never be known until the Hierarchy issues a
formal declaration?
The whole thing is pointless.
Because if no one can know it happens until an official
declaration, then the person who is supposedly excommunicated
‘automatically’ is still treated by everyone around him as if he
is a part of the Church… as if
he’s not excommunicated. Hence,
to be honest & logical, the Church in Her Canon Law would instead have to
say that the excommunication takes place only after the proper ecclesial authority makes a public
announcement --- and not that it occurs automatically!
I beg the reader’s pardon for being repetitious. However, in
years of experience I’ve found this canonic principle is only rarely
understood. It’s like a sticking point, either because someone truly
didn’t know about it at all (and prior to the Great Apostasy, when did a
Catholic have to know about this principle, how often would they have needed to
act on it?) or else they’ve heard about it but are nervous or stubborn
concerning its application (and before the Great Apostasy, there was always a
Hierarchy to depend upon despite some excommunications being automatic…
whereas now, without a functioning Hierarchy, if the laity doesn’t know,
who’s left to identify those people that are automatically cast out?).
+++
11. Driving It Home: +++
Automatic Expulsions Are Automatic
Consequently, let us review evidence from the Church’s Canon
Law one more time:
“All
apostates from the Christian faith, and all heretics and schismatics: (1) are ipso facto [by this very fact]
excommunicated.” (1917 Code of Canon Law, Canon 2314.1, all emphasis
& annotation added)
And what does this canon law, or other canon laws like it, mean?
“Delicts [offenses] of heresy and
apostasy are dealt with most severely…. [D]elicts
against faith are visited with her heaviest punishments. The heretic
immediately incurs excommunication, and is liable to further vindictive
punishments. The reason is plain. Heresy
indicates such a destruction of the Christian character of the delinquent, and,
being externalized, has such potentialities of hindering and preventing the
teaching of revealed truth to others, that immediate and decisive action
must be taken to prevent any spread of the contagions of error.”
(The Delict of
Heresy by Rev. Eric MacKenzie, page forty-three. Published by The
That’s pretty clear. But could it be made any clearer?
“A penalty latae sententiae [Latin for ‘given (already passed)
sentence’], whether corrective or vindictive, binds the delinquent ipso facto [by this very fact] both in
the external and in the internal forum, provided he is conscious of the crime [meaning, in the case of common
dogma, that he meant to say or do what he said or did against the dogma and even
if he doesn’t know it’s dogma to begin with; or, as is the case
with deeper dogma, that he both meant what he said or did against the
dogma and also actually knows it’s a dogma, if only after being
admonished].... The text continues [the text of the particular canon law being
discussed, which is Canon 2232.1]: and in
the external forum no one is allowed to demand this self-execution of this
penalty on the part of the delinquent unless the crime is notorious….
which leaves the issuance of a declaratory sentence to the discretion of
the superior and demands it only when the parties insist or when public welfare
is at stake.... A declaratory sentence
does not constitute a penalty, but
simply affirms that a penalty has been incurred, and hence throws the
penalty back to the moment when the crime was committed.”
(A Commentary on the New Code of Canon
Law, Vol. 8, Bk. 5, pp. 102-4. Published by W.E. Blake
& Sons, Ltd., in 1922. All italicizing of Latin
words and quote in English from canon law in the original published text.
All other emphases & annotation added.)
Excellent. But I’m still wary. Can I see
this topic stated still another way?
“Ipso facto denotes
the automatic character of the loss of membership of a religious body by
someone guilty of a specified action. Within the Roman Catholic Church, the
phrase latae sententiae is more commonly used than ipso facto with regard to ecclesiastical penalties such as
excommunication. It indicates that the
effect follows even if no verdict (in Latin, sententia) is pronounced by an
ecclesiastical superior or tribunal.” (Entry for ‘Ipso
facto’ at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipso_facto, paragraph three, under
the subheading of ‘In religion’ and retrieved on 28 July 2011. Italicizing of all Latin words in original text. All other
emphases added.)
My dear soul, the facts are plain. As a layman in the Catholic
Church, we do not always need a Hierarchy in order to know, with moral
certainty, that excommunication has taken place when it comes to heresy against
common dogma. All we have to see is that the crime is both notorious and
pertinacious. Given these things, then we can reasonably conclude the
excommunication was automatic… accomplished
by the force of canon law itself, without need of official ruling or public
announcement from a Hierarchy.
How, then, does this apply to Pope Martin V’s Ad evitanda scandala?
Even if someone did not want to admit that Martin V intended his
words in Ad evitanda
scandala to apply solely to a Catholic guilty of
a public crime against morals
(such as priests in the western part of the Church openly having wives), the
force of the Church’s Canon Law as authoritatively issued in 1917,
centuries after Martin V’s papal document in 1418, thereby supersedes
--- causes the earlier law to no longer
have the force of current law --- the older law. In reality, this is not
the case. The evidence is sufficiently vivid for a thorough historian to see
that, while Martin V may not have composed this document as carefully as he
should, he was not consciously
going against a necessarily wise and millennia-old tradition concerning the
automatic excommunication of all notorious & pertinacious heretics or
schismatics… that notion only came about in the following century or two,
theologians of a modernist bent misinterpreting his intent --- perhaps on
purpose --- in order to avoid the fulfillment of an ipso facto expulsion, of those guilty of a public crime against faith, from the Church’s
Sanctuary.
This explanation, by the way, applies to St. Thomas Aquinas’
words in his Summa Theologica,
too. Certain clever people will cite him where he makes a distinction between
priests who are heretics, schismatics & excommunicates and those priests
who are merely sinners. That is to say, between a priest who is a notorious
& pertinacious heretic or schismatic and thus automatically excommunicated,
if not excommunicated already in some non-automatic but formal way… and
those who are simply great sinners (but not against dogma!) in a very public
way, or at least publicly accused of some serious moral crime. We cannot treat
these latter priests (who allegedly sin against morals), the saint asserts, as
excommunicated until the Hierarchy investigates the matter and officially says
so.
The correct interpretation of
+++
12. Does the Arian Heresy Excuse Us? +++
Bringing us to the Arian Heresy. For here we do have a dispute over dogma. Indeed, a
clash over common dogma, which makes all the difference in the world
since notorious & pertinacious denial of common dogma causes a person, if
Catholic to begin with, to be automatically
excommunicated. This is part of the Church’s Canon Law, as
we’ve seen again and again, and it’s because no one can be joined
to that which he does not actually submit. After all, if your arm did not agree
with your head or wish to acknowledge its own proper function in your body,
constantly disputing with and violently attacking the rest of the body ---
there being no way to make the arm behave and submit to its place in the sensible scheme
of things --- then could that arm remain a part of your body?
Absolutely not. It would have to be removed in
order to safeguard the rest of your body.
Even so with the notorious & pertinacious
heretic or schismatic. He opposes the proper function of Christ’s
Body, the Church, or refuses to submit to the Church’s Visible Head, a
legitimate pope. And if there’s no way to get this heretic or schismatic
to behave himself and submit to his place in the scheme of Christ’s
Ecclesial Body, then he must --- for simple good sense, the sake of honesty and
the welfare or survival of members of the Church --- be excommunicated.
In the case of a deeper dogma or a more challenging & complex
problem, the excommunication would normally need to be officially ruled upon
and announced in order to take effect.
Not so the
notorious & pertinacious denial of a common dogma.
This is dogma that anyone
of sound mind must know so as to be a part of Christ’s Body in the first
place. Ergo, it is dogma that anyone
of sound mind can recognize --- provided the denial is both notorious and
pertinacious --- is being denied. And since it must be believed so as to be Catholic to start with, then
its denial is equivalent to an arm refusing to submit to its place in the
scheme of things, constantly disputing and violently attacking its own body.
Therefore, the denier must be
automatically excommunicated, to protect the body, as we’ve already seen from
canon law itself.
We reiterate:
The notorious
& pertinacious denier of a common dogma is automatically excommunicated.
The excommunication is not contingent on an official pronouncement by
the Hierarchy… it is automatic.
An official pronouncement might be good; it might avoid confusion or obstinacy
on the part of certain Catholics. But it is not --- we repeat, not --- necessary for the
excommunication to take place. An automatic excommunication occurs whether or not it is later officially
announced. And it does so because any
real Catholic can know when notorious & pertinacious heresy has taken place.
Period.
The Arian heretic denied
the Divinity of Jesus Christ. And yet the Divinity of Jesus Christ --- His
Eternal Divinity before all creation as One of Three Persons in the Godhead ---
is a common dogma, taught by Jesus & His Twelve Apostles and
included in the Apostle’s Creed since the very first century. As a
result, when a Catholic became Arian and denied Christ’s Divinity, he was
automatically excommunicated
from the Church and ceased to be Catholic.
This is not speculation, nor is it debatable. It is canon law and
thus hard fact.
Consequently, when a Catholic priest or bishop went bad at that
time, during the fourth century when Arianism struck
terribly and spread widely throughout the ranks of the Church, a good &
wise Catholic could know, with complete moral certainty, that he was not to
have anything to do, religiously speaking, with this excommunicated Arian. And
he could know because a common dogma was being notoriously & pertinaciously
denied, and that, therefore, an automatic
excommunication --- as well as automatic
loss of office --- had taken place.
+++
13. The Problem of Confusion Amongst Catholics +++
All the same, not every Catholic is equally knowledgeable.
Plus, novel situations can arise that no one has ever yet faced,
including the clergy. This was the case with Arian Heresy in the early AD 300s.
On top of this, Arian heretics were --- as we noted before --- famously
difficult to tease out into the open. They used the same Catholic words &
phrases, they professed the same Catholic formulas & creeds, they worshipped in the same Catholic devotions &
ceremonies. You could not always know, merely on the surface, what they meant.
Hence, how were they to be recognized for their heresy?
This is why confusion was rampant, at least in the first few
decades of the heresy’s ascendancy. At first, most real Catholics
didn’t even know that anyone
was an Arian heretic to start with. Then, when aware of the rise of Arian
Heresy, many real Catholics didn’t know how to identify, for sure,
exactly who was an Arian heretic.
Next, when finally aware of a particular someone’s Arianism,
many (maybe even most) Catholics didn’t know that this particular someone
could no longer be Catholic due to an automatic
excommunication. And, if that were not enough, even if aware of the
Arian’s automatic ouster from the Church, many Catholics didn’t
realize that, when a priest or bishop is a notorious & pertinacious Arian
heretic, they should no longer participate
in his masses or receive the
sacraments from him… and despite the fact that he hasn’t yet been officially
declared as so with both a formal and public pronouncement from the Hierarchy.
This is because the Arian Heresy was massive, quick &
unprecedented. It’s also because most laity --- and even much of the
clergy --- never study these things or think about them deeply. Ergo, how are
they to know what to do in the face of such a crisis?
This is why I am writing what I am writing, to make Catholics aware
of these things today, right now.
Which then brings us to the point about Pope
Innocent III and the 4th Lateran Council that we mentioned in
chapter eleven just above. Because he solemnly approved the
Council where it stated:
“Moreover, we determine to subject to excommunication believers who receive, defend or support heretics… If
any refuse to avoid such persons after they have been pointed out by the
Church, let them be punished with the sentence of excommunication until they
make suitable satisfaction.” (4th Lateran Council, Constitution
3, On Heretics, in AD 1215)
As already hinted at, certain clever people make much of the clause
“…after they have been pointed out by the Church…” Aha! say they. Innocent III makes it plain that a Catholic doesn’t
have to avoid these heretics in matters of religion until the Church has
officially declared them to be heretics.
In reality, though, this is not the case. How can we know?
Because Canon Law provides for automatic excommunication of all notoriously pertinacious
apostates, heretics & schismatics. “All apostates from the Christian faith, and all heretics and
schismatics: (1) are ipso facto [by
this very fact] excommunicated.” (1917 Code of Canon Law, Canon
2314.1, all emphasis & annotation added) Automatic, as in the Hierarchy
does not have to act further or announce publicly to make it happen. It
already happened… automatically. Ipso facto, by the
very fact of the notorious & pertinacious apostasy, heresy or schism
itself. And what have we seen that Canon Law also says?
“It is unlawful
for the faithful to assist in any active manner, or to take part in the sacred services of non-Catholics.” (1917 Code of
Canon Law, Canon 1258, Paragraph 1) And: “A
person who of his own accord and knowingly helps in any manner to propagate
heresy, or who communicates in sacred
rites [in divines] with heretics in violation of the prohibition of Canon 1258,
incurs suspicion of heresy.” (1917 Code of
Canon Law, Canon 2316. All emphasis or annotation added in this and the
previous quotes.)
Therefore, if you take part in the religious services of those who
are automatically excommunicated, then you are committing an objectively
unlawful act (Canon 1258.1), a deed that is against the Most Holy Law of
both God and His Church. And if you know
people are automatically excommunicated --- or if you ought to know, just not facing up to your God-given obligation to
figure it out --- then you are not only committing an unlawful act by taking
part in their religious services, but you are as well incurring the suspicion
of heresy (Canon 2316) by doing so.
It is to this that the 4th Lateran Council was
referring. To wit, not every Roman Catholic is equally knowledgeable. If they
were, then I wouldn’t have to write this article, telling Catholics that
they shouldn’t have anything to do with the CMRI or other so-called
‘traditionalists’ because of their salvation heresy. But inasmuch
as these purported Catholics do go ahead and participate in the sacraments of
the traditionalists, then it’s unlawful to do what they’re
doing, whether or not they know any better. And inasmuch as they do so of their
own free will, knowing that these traditionalists are indeed heretics, then they make themselves fall under suspicion for
holding the same heresy as the traditionalists.
And that’s what the Lateran Council was talking about. If the
heretic is a heretic because he denies a common dogma, then many Catholics are
going to be confused, not knowing what to do since they don’t know that
notorious & pertinacious heretics against a common dogma are automatically
excommunicated even without a formal declaration from the Hierarchy. Such
confused Catholics then end up, oftentimes, religiously
mingling with these automatically excommunicated heretics, committing an
objectively unlawful act by doing so. Nevertheless, their guilt is excused or
reduced in the meantime by their inculpable ignorance. Once the Hierarchy makes
a formal declaration, though… ah, well, then
they have no excuse left, do they? The Church has spoken and they should know
better. Or, if the heretic is a heretic because he denies a deeper dogma, then
Catholics must normally wait until the Hierarchy investigates carefully so as
to have moral certainty in the matter and rule officially.
In either case, the conclusion is clear:
Once the Church makes a formal declaration, no Catholic is excusable and will be excommunicated by a vigilant
Hierarchy for mingling religiously with heretics who have been pointed out.
Whereas, before a formal declaration is made, such a Catholic --- who
mingles religiously with those who are notoriously and pertinaciously heretical
against a common dogma --- is not excommunicated but, if doing so of his
own free will and knowing that those he mingles with are notorious and
pertinacious heretics, he makes himself
look like he may hold heresy and so, in the sight of other Catholics, comes under reasonable suspicion of being a heretic.
This is what Pope Innocent III and the Lateran Council were talking
about, and it’s because simple laymen… and even priests and
bishops… can get confused, not knowing the right thing to do. Which is understandable. I mean, isn’t confusion the
very nature of heresy & schism when it arises?
+++
14. Modernism… the +++
Greatest
Crisis the Church Has Ever Faced
It certainly is. And we are facing a crisis equal to the Arian Heresy of the 4th
century, which afflicted the Church until the AD 600s. Indeed, we are facing a
crisis that exceeds the Arian Heresy.
For this is the Great Apostasy near the time of the end with Christ’s
Return and, like a corresponding bookend to the Arian crisis near the time of
the beginning of the New Testament with Christ’s Advent, we face the
Modernist Heresy of the eighteenth century (which is when this horrible scourge
spread in earnest amongst Catholics, although its origin, like Arianism in the AD 300s, was even earlier).
How much longer will it last?
I know not. I do know, though, that we cannot begin to battle it
effectively, not even in our own personal lives, until we know the facts and
act accordingly. Catholics not knowing the facts --- or not caring in spite of
knowing the facts --- are what allowed the Modernist Heresy to flourish. Likewise the Arian Heresy. And until Catholics knew the
facts --- and cared about them --- the Arian Heresy was not defeated
effectively. Fortunately, the Church held the Nicene Council in AD 325,
primarily to combat Arianism. The great and saintly Athanasius was a mighty blessing, bringing clarity and
resolve to its bishops’ minds about how to stand against what was, at
that time in the fourth century, the greatest threat to Catholicity that had
ever existed.
Now we face an even greater threat… and I am no Athanasius. Yet nobody is totally off the hook as a result.
We are still called upon to stand up in the face of confusion, where clarity
resides in our minds, in order to fight the enemy that confronts us. And, to
make matters worse, we have no functioning Hierarchy to defend us like good
shepherds. We are sheep all alone facing the wolf.
How will the lamb survive?
By depending humbly on God’s Graces. St. David,
though but a boy, bravely faced the giant warrior, Goliath, and slew him. So
we, too, may use our little slingshot, armed with the small stones of Catholic
Truth which our Mother, the
And that Rock… each of Her small
stones… is your weapon: truth
against lie.
Catholics in the AD 300s finally saw the truth that was already at
their disposal, and acted accordingly. They separated from Arian heretics and
refused to receive sacraments from the hands of notoriously &
pertinaciously heretical priests or bishops. The Hierarchy had to officially
act before many of them could know what to do in the face of an unprecedented
crisis. However, no such excuse is left for us. We have the Church’s
Canon Law and we have nearly two thousand years of Church Teaching &
History to guide us, if only we know how to humbly hear, humbly acknowledge,
and humbly obey these lessons.
The lesson is stark in this case. We cannot fraternize
religiously with notorious & pertinacious heretics against a common dogma.
Most, if not all, CMRI adherents uphold salvation heresy, which is the root of
the Modernist Heresy. They are really no different, in the final analysis, from
the rest of the world. They just don’t go quite as far as the rest of the
modernists, and hold on to a lot of Catholicity. Nevertheless, Catholicism is a
whole package. You either have all of it, or none of it. To wit, you either
profess all of the Church’s common dogmas, or else lose the advantage of
every common dogma by denying one.
+++
15. God’s Mercy Overlooks Confusion for a +++
Time,
Yet Then We Must Face Facts and Cut Off from Heretics
There is no middle ground. Some people get involved in the
CMRI, not knowing they espouse salvation heresy. Perhaps some people in the CMRI
privately profess the Salvation Dogma while knowing full well that their CMRI comrades
uphold heresy. Whichever --- and as we said previously ---
the result is still the same:
The appearance
of upholding falsehood by everyone involved, including the privately
orthodox man.
And again, those who truly don’t know about the CMRI’s
salvation heresy are excused (at least for a time) for mixing
religiously with these notorious & pertinacious heretics. They are not
excommunicated right away for their religious communion with excommunicated
heretics, although they necessarily come under suspicion of holding
heresy due to their mingling with them for prayer & worship.
Notwithstanding, such ignorant souls can only remain ignorant for
so long. Or, should we say, they can remain inculpably
ignorant for only so long. After a while, the period of grace expires. The soul
of sound mind --- of at least average intelligence --- should have known
better. He should have seen the clues or heeded the explicit warning and
investigated or prayed or thought about the matter much more carefully. He
should have taken the situation seriously, and not taken it for granted.
Such is the case with the CMRI. I can understand how certain
souls get involved with them. I myself had a dalliance with them for a few
years. They’re sedevacantist and serve the
sacraments. They seem, on the outside, to be very, very, very Catholic. And to
whom else can you turn during these dark days? I therefore have great
compassion on those who use the CMRI to receive the sacraments or to have
spiritual companionship while they themselves, personally, espouse the
Salvation Dogma and not the salvation heresy of the CMRI. I do not expect them,
necessarily, to see the light all at once. Nor do I expect, necessarily, that
they will break off communion with these heretics instantaneously.
What I do expect is for
them to take my words seriously, and to think, investigate & pray
earnestly. I expect them to humbly beg Heaven’s Help, that they may not
be blind to their sins or the sins of others in their actions, especially when
it comes to the matter of religion & worship. I expect them to realize that
they’re not all-knowing or never-wrong, and that they --- along with
everyone else in this world --- must use his God-given mind rightly, in order
to distinguish truth from falsehood and right from wrong.
In a word, I
expect them to care about what God & His Church command us to do.
+++
16. Where the Salvation +++
Heresy
of the Traditionalists Comes from
Moreover, what we have said here about the CMRI applies to other
traditionalist outfits, too. For instance, the SSPX, the
SSPV, the FSSP, and so forth and so on. How so? Because
they, too, fail to uphold the Salvation Dogma correctly. They, too ---
most of their adherents, if not all of them --- espouse heresy against the ways
& means of our salvation, which is God’s Holy Roman Catholic Church,
and which is at the root of Modernist Heresy and resultant Great Apostasy of
our evil times. Why would they do this?
The short & immediate answer is the same as with the CMRI:
Because they are a freeze-frame of American Catholicism in the
mid-twentieth century right before the Great Apostasy erupted out into the open
with Vatican II. And pretty much all Catholics of the
This revised edition from 1941 of the catechism was preceded by an
earlier version of the Baltimore Catechism issued fifty-six years before. There
they merely asserted, “It is possible for one to be saved who does not
know the Catholic Church to be the true Church, provided that person: 1) has
been validly baptized; 2) firmly believes the religion he professes and
practices to be the true religion; and 3) dies without the guilt of mortal sin
on his soul.” (Baltimore Catechism No. 3, version of 1885, Question #510)
Only Eastern Schismatics or certain Protestant Heretics bothering to baptize
someone validly, there being few or no Easterners living in the United States
at that time, we see that they had to have been, logically speaking, talking
about Protestants as the primary
potential candidates for getting into Heaven without actually being Catholic.
We realize, too, that they were a bit more conservative
about the possibility of non-Catholics being saved than were their successors a
couple of generations later in 1941, who in their version of the Baltimore
Catechism only insisted that someone “love God” and “try to
do His will” --- any need for a valid baptism being tossed to the side
and forgotten altogether, not to mention any troubling concern about mortal sin
being on the non-Catholic’s priceless soul.
Yet why did the writers of these catechisms even dare to say such
things about salvation in opposition to the constant & unchanging Sacred
Tradition of the Catholic Church from most ancient times, which was utterly
narrow & exclusive, as well as opposing the infallible definitions later on
from Holy Church in tighter and tighter terms against such a heretical notion,
thereby closing off all ‘loopholes’?
Because the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1884 --- a local
(not a general or ecumenical and hence not infallible) council of the bishops
of the
By this time in history, the late 1800s, a good half or more of the
Yet do you doubt what I say, my dear soul? Then look at any ancient
catechism of the Catholic Church. You will not find a single word breathed
about the possibility of salvation for those who are not actually Catholic, or
who are not catechumens and thus consciously trying to be Catholic. Indeed,
examine the Church’s greatest catechism ever --- the Catechism of the
Council of Trent, or Roman Catechism, as it is known --- and tell me if you can
find even the smallest hint of the idea that ignorance of the Catholic Faith
can ever save anyone into Heaven!
You will search in vain. I know, because I’ve looked.
+++
17. How ‘Salvation Through +++
Ignorance’
Originated and Then Spread Everywhere
The notion of some sort of ‘invincible ignorance’
saving anyone did not arise until the discovery of the American continents by
European explorers. Then the existence of huge numbers of natives who had been
heathen since the time of Christ (or so some Catholics assumed) caused some
theologians to speculate, based on Thomistic
thinking, that maybe God takes ‘good willed’ heathens into Heaven
even without knowledge and profession of the Catholic Faith. St. Thomas Aquinas
had already established in the Church’s membership the widespread idea of
‘baptism of desire’ for those catechumens who die
‘accidentally’ before receiving the laver of regeneration, and he had
demonstrated logically how an ignorance that is invincible must protect certain
souls from incurring guilt from sin that certainly is objectively committed,
and even if willfully so… consequently,
thought some thinkers (such as Albert Pigghe --- who
focused primarily on the plight of Muslims who had never heard the Catholic
Gospel --- Francisco Suarez, John de Lugo and others), why wouldn’t God
let ignorant & sincere natives enter Heaven despite their objective sin
against the One True Faith by being heathen or infidel?
Weren’t they ignorant, and unassailably so, all the way over
in the
So the new theologians reasoned. And this is where the modern form
of the salvation heresy --- a form which accentuates the importance of
ignorance as a reason why, say they, God cannot, without horrible cruelty,
condemn such souls to Hell --- came from, which was seized on by Talmudic Jews
and their Gentile servants, the Freemasons, as a tool to corrupt Catholics in
their religious thinking after the Protestant Rebellion and the later lies of
the so-called Enlightenment made the soil fertile. By the 19th
century this kind of belief had penetrated into European theological thought
deeply, even in the Catholic nations (read several papal encyclicals from the
first half of the 1800s, which warned vehemently against this contagion, to
know that this is true). And by the late 1800s, it had essentially won
dominance over American theologians. All that was left was to enshrine it in a
catechism.
Of course, it doesn’t help that salvation heretics often cite
three of Pope Pius IX’s documents as
‘proof’ of the saving efficacy of ignorance. Two of these texts (Singulari quadem and Quanto conficiamur moerore) are mangled illogically. Anyone of fair &
intelligent mind can read the entire context of Pius’ words --- not
limiting themselves to the highly restricted quotes that such people always
cite --- and see that, far from upholding ‘salvation through
ignorance’, he was a champion of the timeless dogma of ‘no
Salvation outside the Church’ in its unchanging & narrow meaning of
the Catholic Faith being necessary to explicitly know in order to save your
soul. The third, Singulari quidem, is actually
their strongest card. In its English translation, it really does look, on the
surface and isolated from everything else, like he’s touting
‘salvation through ignorance’. So why shouldn’t we follow
their lead in this matter? Because we don’t truly know he said in Latin
(the language he approved the text in) what we read in English; the quote has
an entirely orthodox interpretation (namely, that he was talking about the
unavoidable ignorance of baptized children being raised as heretics who die before
they reach the use of reason); and the document is fallible. Hence, we
don’t have to believe it upheld ‘salvation through
ignorance’, but even if it did, we’re not required to believe it
since Pius didn’t invoke his charism of
infallibility. (Curious readers may find out more on this website in Chapter 6
of Was Benedict XV an Antipope? Additional information
is in Chapter 11 of The
Hideous Schism of Catholic Fundamentalism.)
In any case, no real Catholic should be unduly disturbed by the
fact that catechisms or theologians can be wrong, and even heretical, in their
teachings. It is a tragedy, but it’s also possible. This is because no one except a pope is
guaranteed the charism of infallibility. And even a
pope is only infallible when he teaches officially from the Throne of St. Peter
on Faith & Morals to the Church! Ergo, catechisms and theologians --- or
popes when they speak unofficially, or on topics other than Faith & Morals
--- can be mistaken… even
heretical! This ought not to be, and, thank God, it’s rarely ever the
case during good times and in piously Catholic countries. But it can happen. Truly, saints have foretold
that it would happen near the end, and we are now seeing the prophecies
fulfilled during the Great Apostasy.
Nonetheless, a reader might worry,
doesn’t this undermine the Church’s Infallibility?
Not ultimately. Because the Church Herself does not fail when a
member (pope though that member may be!) falls and proves unfaithful. Her
Catholic Gospel is obscured by these failures of Her
individual members, and the Saving Truth can be brought into disrepute or
forgotten. All the same, that Truth remains unvanquished and available as long
as somewhere in this creation it still exists. And God promises us that this
Truth will triumph in the end. The key in the meantime is to compare carefully
what we read or hear in recent centuries with what we read or hear in the
earliest centuries. In other words, to hold fast to Catholicity &
Apostolicity!
Unsure what a theologian of the past five centuries teaches? Then
compare his words with those of the earliest Church fathers, who were marvelous
theologians. Are they compatible? Or do they contradict inescapably?
Is a more recent catechism like the one from the Baltimore Council
suspect? Then compare its words to the words of older catechisms from previous
centuries. Are they compatible? Or do they contradict unavoidably?
Does a pope of more recent times speak carelessly or misleadingly?
Then compare his words to those of more ancient popes (remembering that not
everything a pope says is infallible, nor everything that he does without sin).
Are they compatible? Or does the later pope fudge or get ambiguous?
This is how we keep things clear during our confusing times. And
this is why I’ve established this website, The Epistemologic
Works, that you, my dear soul, may have a Catholic
Light shining in the Apostate Darkness, round which you may gather and by which
you may navigate securely into the
But most of the CMRI doesn’t believe in salvation heresy
merely because of some papal documents from Pius the Ninth; not many of them
probably even have a clear idea of what Pius is supposed to have said. No,
they believe in salvation heresy for far simpler & immediate reasons --- because that’s what they were taught
while growing up. Hence why all of these traditionalist
outfits are the same, when you get right down to it, about salvation. Because they all, each and every one of them, highly revere and
venerate the Baltimore Catechism. This is what their leaders were raised
on. This is what they learned from. Ergo, in their minds, the salvation heresy
is infallible orthodoxy… and even
though, as we’ve noted above, no catechism has ever been
decreed infallible!
Therefore, my precious soul, you must learn to avoid all religious
contact with these heretics. Don’t receive the sacraments from CMRI,
SSPX, SSPV, FSSP or anyone like them. This includes
independent priests and parishes. Unless you know for a moral certainty that
they do not uphold salvation heresy, then you should not even begin to
entertain the notion of mingling with them religiously --- period.
+++
18. Other Problems With Traditionalists, +++
And
a Somber Yet Merciful Warning to the Reader
Not that salvation is their sole problem.
E.g., CMRI parishes usually let complete strangers go to the communion
rail to receive the Eucharist. These strangers could be Hindu or Muslim or
atheist or blatant adulterers for all they know, and they would still place the
Flesh of God upon their tongues in the Most Holy Eucharist! This is a crime of
the highest order, and --- even if the CMRI was truly orthodox --- would cause
good Roman Catholics to refrain from taking part in their masses.
Too, CMRI clergy act as if they are a functioning (albeit
truncated) Hierarchy in the Roman Catholic Church. But even if they were truly
Catholic, they could not exercise real jurisdiction without a reigning pope
having granted them their specific duties & boundaries! Ergo, a good
Catholic is wise to avoid their masses for that fact alone. For, while
Church’s Canon Law clearly permits clergy to act in certain unusual or
urgent situations without actual jurisdiction (the correct understanding here
being that the Church gives the priest or bishop a ‘supplied
jurisdiction’ for such unusual or urgent situations) --- and the ancient
principle of epikeia
(Greek for ‘reasonableness’) allows Catholics to objectively break
Church Law in certain unusual or urgent situations so as to achieve the greater
good of the Church, which is the salvation of souls, and which the lawmaker
could not foresee, or expect us to comprehend, before the legislation was
written --- bishops & priests are forbidden, valid and licit though
they may be, to go around acting like they can set up their own jurisdictions
without the approval of a proper authority over them. Which,
in the case of a priest, means a bishop with jurisdiction, and, in the case of
a bishop, means a legitimate pope, who is the universal bishop with
jurisdiction over all other bishops.
Notwithstanding, my dear reader, we cannot expect everyone to know
and understand these things all at once. It will take time. We will have to be
winnowed down until each person is revealed for what he is: whether truly
Catholic or not, and, if truly Catholic, whether wise or foolish… or
somewhere in the middle. A soul might not know the commandment of God or His
Church for a while during our difficult times. Such is often the case with the
CMRI. There is, then, a time of mercy granted both by God and His Church to
these souls in order to figure it out, provided they have the common dogmas
whole & entire to start with. Without these common dogmas they are not even
Catholic. But given that you are truly Catholic, my dear reader, then you must
not abuse this mercy or exceed the time granted. You have a rational mind for a
reason --- to figure things out. And you have a free will for a reason --- to
choose to do the right thing. And you have fellow Roman Catholics (however few
we are) for a reason --- to sharpen each other, honing one another’s
sanctity and spiritual knowledge to a fine edge.
I am doing my duty. I have written these words. Now it’s up
to you, dear soul, to do yours.
May the Celestial Love of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus & Mary
enflame your heart with a holy desire to know the truth necessary to please God
and do the good that He demands of us regardless of our circumstances, even
unto the shedding of our blood! Amen.
+
+ +
Pilate’s
query met:
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