Eastern Catholics are still *Roman* Catholics, says Fr Joseph Ratzinger

This is a helpful explanation to my Eastern Catholic brothers and sisters who have often insisted that they are *not* “Roman” Catholics. Fr. Ratzinger speaks of the word “Roman” as not indicative of a ritual, but of the essential dynamic that exists in the episcopate itself, namely, where the Head is stationed in relation to all the lawfully governing Bishops of the world.

“Let us finally turn once more to the religious-statistical formula ‘Roman Catholic’ with which we started. Basically it reflects the entire complex of problems which we have gone through in the course of these considerations. In that it says ‘Catholic’ it is distinguished from a Christianity based on Scripture alone, and instead acknowledges faith in the authority of the living word, i.e., in the office of the apostolic succession. In that it says ‘Roman’ it firmly refers this office to its centre, the office of the keys vested in the successor of St. Peter in the city consecrated by the blood of two Apostles. by uniting the two to say ‘Roman Catholic’ it expressed the pregnant dialectic between primacy and episcopate, neither of which exists without the other. A church which wished to be only ‘Catholic’, having no part with Rome, would thereby lose its Catholicity. A Church which, per impossibile, wished to be only Roman without being Catholic, would similarly deny herself and degenerate into a sect. ‘Roman’ guarantees true Catholicity; actual Catholicity attests Rome’s right.” (Fr. Joseph Ratzinger – The Episcopate and the Primacy, page 62)

St. Bede the Venerable (A.D. 672-735) – Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, Mother of God

St. Bede the Venerable

At the age of 7, a young English boy was committed to the care of a Benedictine Abbots, St. Benedict Biscop and Ceolfrid, and was both educated and raised in the Monastic life. Throughout these years of growing up, St. Bede the Venerable was entrenched in the Holy Scriptures, the chanting of English Catholicism, and observed strict Monastic discipline. He died in 735 as a saint in the Lord’s body. Below are two citations from his writings on the Blessed Virgin Mary.

“Following the example of the blessed ever-Virgin Mary, who was married and at the same time unstained, the Church conceives us as a Virgin by the working of the Holy Spirit; she gives birth to us as a Virgin without birth pangs; and as a woman married to one person but impregnated by another, throughout her individual parts that make her one and catholic, she remain visibly united to the legitimate [Roman] Pontiff set over her, but she increases in number by the invisible power of the Holy Spirit”  (In Lucam; PL 92, 330B)

“Now a most excellent and salutary custom has arisen in the holy Church: daily Mary’s hymn is sung by all, together with the psalms of evening praise, so that a renewed remembrance of the Lord’s incarnation enkindles the hearts of the faithful to feelings of devotion and a more frequent meditation on the example of the Lord’s Mother makes them strong, firmly established in the virtues” (In Visitatione B.M. – PL 94, 22A)

The Holy Spirit’s Relation to the Father and the Son, and His Function in the Life of God – Dr. H.B. Swete

Dr. Henry Barclay Swete (1834-1917),   Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge

 

Below is an extensive citation from Dr. Swete’s book The Holy Spirit in the Ancient Church: A Study of Christian Teaching in the Age of the Fathers (Page 367-71). I thought it was an interesting summation of his own pneumatology which he had spent years on throughout the course of his life. That he is Anglican is abundantly clear, for when he comments on the dogmatic Filioque which is taught by the Latins to have lacked any ecumenical support, he is, in fact, severing the pneumatology of the Eastern and Western Fathers, which was not the wanted conclusion of either the Latins or the Greeks in the re-union Councils. This would imply his holding to the Branch theory of Church unity, where there can be a divergence in faith, and yet one undivided body of the Lord. Aside from that, his synthesis on the matter is quite interesting.

Swete writes:

” The New Testament teaches that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of both the Father and of the Son. The ancient Church understood this to mean that He belongs essentially to both. Since the Son is of one substance with the Father, and has all things that the Father has, He has the Spirit of the Father for His own. The Spirit is the Son’s own (ίδιον) as He is the Father’s own. He is in the Son, as He is in the Father, in the way of essence and nature (ούσιωδώς, φυσικώς). He rests and abides in the Son; He is the image of the Son, as the Son is the image of the Father; He was sent by the Son from the Father, from whom He proceeds with and through the Son. In the West it was added that He proceeds also from the Son.

That the Divine Essence in the Second and Third Persons is derived from the First Person was understood on all hands to be a doctrine necessary to the maintenance of the Monarchia. The Nicaene faith had declared the Son to be ‘God, of God, begotten of the Father, only-begotten that is, of the essence of the Father; i.e., deriving His being from the begin of the Father by unique generation. A corresponding clause in the Constantinopolitan Creed defined the derivation of the Holy Spirit in the words ‘who proceeds from the Father’. This phrase is taken from the gospel of St. John, with a significant change of preposition which makes it analogous to ‘begotten of the Father’ in the second paragraph of the Nicene form. Thus it was explicitly taught by the Church in her symbol that the source of both the Son and the Spirit is the being of the Father, and that the sole difference between the derived persons is that the Son is from the Father by generation and the Spirit by procession. It was assumed that the procession of the Spirit, like the generation of the Son, has reference to essential life and not to mission only; the mission of the Paraclete, it was seen, rested on and arose out of His eternal dependence on the essence of the Father. Other spirits are sent by God to do His pleasure, and these too are from God, but as the work of His hands; the Spirit of God alone proceeds from God in the sense of deriving His being from the being of God.

The Son and the Spirit then have this in common that both are eternally and essentially from God. Both persons have their source in the Father, who is the one Source of Godhead. Neither person is inferior or posterior to the other; as they eternally co-exist, so they simultaneously come from from God. From these premises it would seem to follow that the eternal procession of the Spirit must be, like the eternal generation of the Son, from the Father alone; and this view was strongly held by some of the Greek theologians long before the separation of East and West. But the great majority of those who dealt with the question saw that the mediating position of the Son in the order of the divine life involved his intervention in the procession of the Spirit. On this ground the divine essence is conceived as passing eternally through the second person into the third, so that while the second derives His being immediately from the first, the third proceeds mediately, through the second. Scriptural authority for this doctrine is found in St. John 16:14, where the Spirit is said to receive of that which is the Son’s, and the Son to have all that the Father has — words which are taken to refer not only to divine prerogatives, but to divine life itself. Greek writers of the fourth century are content to say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and receives from the Son; others, or the same writers at other times, speak of Him as proceeding from the Father through the Son; or they use less guarded language, which seems to make the Son a secondary source of the Spirit. The Latins before Augustine generally follow the Greeks, without investigating the meaning of their formulas. Augustine, perceiving the obscurity in which the question was involved, gave it his attention for many years, and ultimately embodied his conclusions in a form of words which established itself in Western theology and even in Western translations of the Ecumenical Creed. The Father and the Son are (he taught) the common source of the Holy Spirit; He proceeds from both. But he proceeds from both as one source, and by one spiration. Procession from the Father involves procession from the Son, since the Father and the Son are one in substance; together with the eternal life of the Father’s essence, the Son receives also the power to communicate that essence to the Holy Spirit. Thus guarded, Augustine’s doctrine is not exposed to the charge of involving two ‘principles’ of divine life, a supposition which he explicitly rejects; and it does not differ seriously from the Greek theory of the transmission of the divine essence through the Son. But while it appealed to the Western mind, which regarded it as completing the doctrine of the Trinity, the East viewed it with growing mistrust, which became active hostility when it was discovered that the Filioque had been added to the Latin Creed. Thus to this day Augustine’s view rests only on Western authority, and cannot be regarded as an integral part of Catholic faith. The doctrine upon which the whole ancient Church was agreed is that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son. It is impossible not to regret that the Latin Church, if an addition to the Constantinoplitan Creed was judged to be necessary , did not add per filium rather than et filio, and make this change in concert with the Greek East….. “

Blessed John Henry Newman For Our Time- Dispelling the Myths surrounding Papal Infallibility

St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre (1572)

What is known as St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre was undeniably one of, if not the most, violent events of 16th France. Supposedly, as a result of the treaty of Saint-Germain-en-laye, the

Catherine de’ Medici

Catholics and Protestants had found an end to their civil war, and which put an end to the third of the French Wars of Religion. The Queen mother, Catherine de’ Medici, wanting to cement this peace, arranged her daughter to marry the Protestant Hugenot Prince Henry of Navarre in Paris on August 18th, 1572. Now, many traditional Catholic Parisians were very anti-Hugenot, and thus against the marriage, as was Pope Gregory XIII and King Philip II of Spain. Following the wedding day, on the 22nd of August, there was an assassination attempt on Admiral de Coligny, a leading Hugenot who remained in Paris to finish discussions on the peace treaty. Though he survived, this attempted assassination sparked a massacre between the Catholics versus the Protestants. Initially, measures were taken to prevent any violence, but soon enough municipal authorities had closed the city gates and armed the citizenry to prevent a Protestant uprising against Paris. Coligny was eventually killed and the tension continued to build until it was an all out massacre, with the Hugenots being the side which lost extremely high numbers. The death toll varies according to source, but altogether we can estimate around 20 to 30 thousand.

Pope Gregory XIII

Now, word of this got to Rome and apparently it was received as an act of victorious deliverance from the Hugenots. For instance, the head of Coligny was dispatched to the Pope, though it did not make it to Rome. In addition, upon the news, the Pope had the Te Deum sung as a special thanksgiving and had a metal struck with the words Ugonottorum Strages 1571, which reads Slaughter of the Hugenots and which had the image of an angel bearing the cross of Christ and a sword under which are the fallen Protestants. It was seen as an act of divine retribution since Coligny was seen as a threat to Christendom,and consequently the Pope had designated September 11th of 1572 to
be a joint commemoration of the Battle of Lepanto and the massacre of the Hugenots.

Richard Francis Littledale, an Anglo-Catholic clergyman and contemporary of Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman, was both an apologist for the Patristic heritage of the Church as well as a hard skeptic against the Papal claims. One of his letters to Newman, dated 1872, strikes real close with the questions which are posed to us today, and, I’m sure, which will continue to be posed against us. In this letter, Littledale took issue with Newman’s view of Pope Gregory XIII’s attitude toward the Massacre and went on to press the issue of Papal Infallibility. On September 15 of the same year, Newman responded by saying what we often find ourselves saying to our interlocutors:

“I will but say one thing – viz that to consider Gregory’s act or acts of which you speak as

John Henry Newman in Rome 1879

a dogmatic statement on morals, such as constitute a definitive ex cathedra, appears to me one of the least logical ideas, to use your words, that ever entered into the mind of a learned and able man. It shocks my common sense – and, speaking under correction, I think it would shock the common sense of most men, certainly of Catholic theologians. Allow me to say you really have not got hold of what we mean by the Pope’s Infallibility, and what we hold by the idea, not what you hold by it, must be the starting point of any fruitful controversy”

Just two days later, in the same letter, Newman provides an apt description of the nuance which is often missed in the doctrine of Papal infallibility:

“Infallibility is not a habit in the Pope, or a state of mind – but, as the decree says, that infallibility which the Church has. The Church when in Council and proceeding by the strictest forms enunciates a definition in faith and morals, which is certainly true. The Church is infallible then, when she speaks ex cathedra — but the Bishops out of Council are fallible men. So the Pope is infallible then, when he speaks ex cathedra — but he has no habit of infallibility in his intellect, such that his acts cannot but proceed from it, must be infallible because he is infallible, imply, involve, an infallible judgment. He is infallible pro re nata [for a particular affair], when he speaks ex cathedra — not except at particular times and on grave occasions. Nay further than this, even on those grave questions the gift is negative. It is not that he has an inspiration of truth, but he is simply guarded from error, circumscribed by a divine superintendence from transgressing, extravagating beyond, the line of truth. And his definitions do not come of a positive divine guidance, but of human means, research, consulting theologians, etc etc. It is an ‘adsistentia’ [assistance] not an ‘inspiratio’ [inspiration] — an aid eventual, i.e. in the event, and does not act till the event, not in the process — and an adsistentia, as I have said, pro re nata. His words would be infallible one moment, not the next.” (The Letters and Diaries, 26:169-70)

We can see how Littledale was led to critique Papal Infallibility when informed of the actions of Pope Gregory VIII, and similarly, we can see how present day skeptics offer objections to the same because of things being done by contemporary Popes, most chiefly our current Holy Father. For some reason, even for intellectual giants such as this Anglo-Catholic priest, events such as the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre can often mislead one to think that this poses a threat to the Papal dogmas. Newman’s first response was perfect, though it is one of the weaker responses in our arsenals. What I think was most powerful was Newman’s distinction between “eventual aid” (i.e. an aid in the event) and “aided process”. As I have argued elsewhere, the Pope might be a theological dunce, and may not even know the answer to the theological questions which are confront him. I think one of the largest disappointments I have is Pope Paul V’s decision to postpone an official declaration vindicating the Thomistic doctrine of predestination contra Luis De Molina which had met in the De Auxiliis congregation, which had ended in 1607 with the decision that all sides can promote their beliefs until the Church see fit to answer. Now, surely, the fact that this congregation was even created to examine the question would disprove the idea of a Papal automation or Papal omniscience, (i.e. those who would think that Papal Infallibility entails that the Pope knows all doctrinal truths with a wave of his hand).  Now, granted, perhaps the Pope did understand, and did not see the wisdom in doing so. No worries; there are plenty of other examples. One of the most vivid  of these is Pope Vigilius during his confronting the objections to the “Three

Pope Paul V

Chapters” by Emperor Justinian I and the Eastern Cyrillians. Clearly, Vigilius was confused for a good portion of the time. Hopefully, our critics can recognize the lack of free deliberation here, as the Imperial forces were giving almost no breathing room for a postponement of decision, after having already kidnapped him from Rome upon his refusal to sign the Imperial Edict condemning the Three Chapters. In the end, the Pope consented rightly to their condemnation (though some still debate this issue today), as did the universal Church. In any case, the “process” by which the Pope comes to the “event” wherein he is divinely and negatively protected from transgressing the line of orthodoxy is not infallible, and could be filled with all sorts of aids given to him by the Church. We often get our ears cleaned with the emphatic complaints that the Pope is said by the Vatican Council that his ex cathedra teaching is  ex sese, non autem ex consensuEcclesiae, irreformabiles esse (in itself, and not by the consent of the Church, irreformable). Sure, but this says nothing about the process. Only the event. Pope Pius IX surely had with him the conciliar process of the Vatican Council, as well as the consultation with the World Bishops on the matter of the Immaculate Conception of the Holy Virgin, did he not? Likewise, with Pope Pius XII in Munificentissimus Deus. In fact, the Vatican Council said :

For the Holy Spirit was not promised to the successors of Peter not so that they might, by his revelation, make known some new doctrine, but that, by his assistance, they might religiously guard and faithfully expound the revelation or deposit of faith transmitted by the apostles. (Chapter 4, Paragraph 6)

Since the above is true, the “process” of the Pope’s research and deliberation prior to an ex cathedra teaching would surely be constrained by the consent of the Church, that is, by what has already been held by the faithful from the day that Christ and the Apostles deposited that single deposit of divine revelation. Thus, theoretically, ex cathedra teachings will merely be reflecting an old belief held by the Church, and  therefore, one which the Pope already felt himself bound in obedience.

Also, to bring this more to the current, how often is it we forget that the Papal office is a ministry given to sinners, from St. Peter onward. As from Peter himself, we can see how failure is not above the office. The person in office is susceptible to countless failures. What are the limits? Only God knows. We do know, however, that the Church’s voice is only given to us through the proper channels, and despite the fact that the minister who may be Pope at any given time is chipping away, it would seem, at the foundations, there is no protection against it from the Almighty. Newman compared Papal Infallibility to the truth spoken from the mouth of Balaam spoke with infallibility in the Book of Numbers (22-24), and that goes to show how far from proper things might get.