vatican ii vs pius ix

7/30/2019 Vatican II vs Pius IX

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Vatican II vs Pius IX? A Study inLefebvrism

Archbishop Lefebvre and his followers are seen by some as a group ofpeople in favor of traditional sound doctrine who want a Mass in Latin.In fact, the desire for the Latin Mass in the old form is not the heart ofthe case at all. Nor is a desire for sound doctrine. Rather, this groupexplicitly denies certain doctrinal teachings of the Second VaticanCouncil.To be specific, the Lefebvrites insist that the Declaration on Religious

Libertycontradicts what they call infallible teachings of Pius IX found inQuanta cura and the Syllabus of Errors. They often point also toGregory XVI's Mirari vos These claims can be answered, but apreliminary point should first be made.

A new case of private judgmentCatholics know that the most basic difference between Catholic and

Protestant lies in private interpretation of Scripture. Catholic andProtestant both believe in Scripture, and Catholics should also acceptTradition as a source of revelation. But then comes the matter ofdeciding what Scripture and Tradition mean. Catholics decide themeaning Of Scripture, not by private judgment, but by the teaching ofthe Church, a point which Vatican II reaffirmed.1 But many do notunderstand equally clearly that we must also avoid privateinterpretation of the documents of Tradition. Hence Pius XII had to tellFather Feeney that his interpretation of ''Outside the Church, no

salvation" was wrong, and that he was guilty of private interpretation.2

The Lefebvre group are guilty of the same tactics. They take their owninterpretation of Pius IX, and their own interpretation of Vatican II andfind that they clash.

But Vatican II, and Pius XII as well,3 officially interpreted theseteachings In the very first section of the Declaration on ReligiousLiberty, Vatican II said that this declaration, "leaves untouched thetraditional Catholic doctrine about the moral duty of men and societiestoward the true religion and the one Church of Christ." That means,obviously, that what follows does not change traditional teaching, butonly develops it. It even accepts the traditional call for an established

Church4-which of course does not mean any repression of otherchurches. Therefore, if the Lefebvre group resorts to its own privateinterpretation of the documents of the Church, it is not from a simpledesire for traditional soundness. Rather, they are, logically, followingthe most basic principle ofProtestantism.

One more preliminary is in order. Much in the older documents is inthe form of condemned propositions. Any novice in sound theologyknows that such propositions are worded with special care, as are all


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Magisterial documents, and that if even a small thing is erroneous, thestatement will be called false. With this in mind, and understanding thefact that there is no contradiction between Vatican II and olderdocuments, we do well to show their harmony.

Indifference, freedom and coercion: the documents

Gregory XVI in his Mirari vos of August 15, 1832, wrote that there is"a most fruitful cause of the evils with which, we lament, the Church isnow afflicted, that is, indifferentism." He then went on to say what hemeant by indifferentism: "[1] that evil opinion that souls can attaineternal salvation by just any profession of faith, if their morals followthe right norm... [2] from this most foul font of indifferentism flows thatabsurd view, or rather madness, that one should defend and vindicatefor just anyone freedom of conscience."5

We inserted numbers for convenience. In #1 the Pope says that notjust any profession of faith has the power to save. Therefore, onecannot be saved by just any kind of faith. But can one be saved in

spite of errors in faith, if in good faith? Pius IX, who is obviouslyopposed to indifferentism, taught that "God ... because of His supremegoodness and clemency by no means allows anyone to be punishedwith eternal punishment who does not have the guilt of voluntaryfault."6 In other words, no one will be damned who follows the morallaw as he knows it. What of his faith? There must be at least aminimum faith, that God exists as the just rewarder and punisher. YetPius IX assures us that somehow-he does not explain the how-God willtake care of that if a man does not commit what he knows to be mortalsin. As for #2, Pope Gregory means merely that a man does not have aright to be wrong. It does not deny what Pius IX taught, that a man

may be saved not by, but in spite of, erroneous beliefs.Proceeding from Gregory to Pius IX, we find that his strongest

statements center around three condemned propositions in Quantacura7 (Dec. 8, 1864). The three are given in quotation marks, yet,although the Acta normally identify quotes, no identification is given.Hence it seems that the three statements are, as it were, contrived-made very strong, and condemned because of at least one item ineach.The first statement is that "The best condition of civil society and civil

progress altogether requires that human society be structured andgoverned with no consideration of religion, as if it did not exist, or, at

least, with no distinction between true and false religion." In this wecan easily see three errors, and one is enough to condemn. First, it isobviously not the best arrangement for a state to act as thoughreligion did not exist, or, at least, to make no distinction. Second, it isnot even a good thing to act as though religion did not exist. Even inthe United States we do not do this entirely, for we have "In God wetrust" on our money, we open sessions of Congress with prayer, and soon. Third, it is hardly wise to make "no distinction between true and


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false religion" (a point reinforced by the Vatican II Declaration when, inparagraph one, it called for an established Church).The second condemned statement in Quanta cura rejects the idea

"that the best condition of society is one in which there is norecognition of the duty of the government to repress violatores of the

Catholic religion, except to the extent that public order demands." Thefirst error here is like that above-it is surely not the bestsituation ofsociety (although, as above, this does not say it could not be a good orpermissible situation). The second error is that the government has noduty to repress violatores of the Catholic religion unless public orderdemands it. The Latin violatores is much stronger than the English, inwhich even parking errors are called "violations". The authoritativeHarpers' Latin Dictionary says that violare means "to treat withviolence' injure, invade, profane, outrage." Violatores of course arethose who commit violare. Some examples ofviolare would be: (1) tobomb a Church (of course, public order would condemn that

anywhere); (2) to slander the Church or its authorities (but even U.S.civil law punishes slanderers). On the other hand, merely to publisharticles against Catholic teaching, short of slander, would not beviolare.The third statement condemned by Pius IX says that "freedom of

conscience and of worship is a rightof each and every sort of man,which should be proclaimed by law and asserted in ever rightlyconstituted society, and that citizens have a right to liberty of everykind, to be limited by no church or civil authority, in virtue of whichthey are able to manifest publicly, orally or in print, their concepts ofany sort whatsoever" (emphasis added). The first error: people do not

have a right to be wrong. Vatican II, for its part, merely said they havea right not to be coerced into thinking or acting contrary to theirconsciences. Secondly we note the extremes. The proposition sayspeople have a right to every kind of freedom to teach concepts of anysort whatever. So sweeping a liberty would include inciting crime orrevolution, or teaching that headhunting is good, or teachingpolygamy, things which even U.S. law prohibits.

If space permitted, we could show in detail that the Syllabus8 of PiusIX is similar. For example, error 15 says that men have a right to bewrong; error 77 says that today we should no longer want the Catholicreligion to be professed by the state while excluding all other cults. But

we can urge the state to profess Catholicism, as Vatican II does,without excluding other cults from the country. And error 79 sayspeople have the full power to profess any and all views. Error 80 saysthe Pope should reconcile himself to such ideas as that a man has aright to be wrong.The great Pius XII-hardly a liberal-in his Ci riesce of Dec. 6, 1953 gave

an authoritative interpretation of the Church's teaching on thesematters. Let us note the chief facets. In Acta Apostolicae Sedis vol. 45,


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pp. 798-99, he asks: "Can it be that in determined circumstances, He[God] does not give to man any mandate, or impose a duty, finally thatHe gives no right, to impede and to repress that which is erroneous orfalse? ... Christ in the parable of the cockle gives the followingadmonition: Let the cockle grow along with the good seed, for the sane

of the harvest."Still more forcefully on p. 801:...ever since, under Constantine the Great and other

Christian emperors, the Church became the Church of thestate, always, for higher and more prevailing motives, shehas done thus [let error be] and also in the future she willbe faced with the same necessity. In each case the attitudeof the Church is determined by the care for andconsideration of the common good-of the common good ofthe Church and of the state in individual states, on the onehand, and on the other hand, by the common good of the

universal Church [emphasis added]As we saw in the quote from pp. 798-99, in determined

circumstances, God does not even give a right, much less a duty, torepress error. Such circumstances existed even under the Christianemperors (p. 800) and will always exist, as the parable of the cocklemakes clear.

We come to the teaching of Vatican II in Dignitatis humanae. As wealready saw, it insists already in paragraph 1 that this document"leaves untouched the traditional Catholic doctrine about the moralduty of men and societies towards the true religion and the one Churchof Christ." Therefore, objectively, all, both individuals and society, have

the obligation to recognize the true Church. But since in practicehuman weakness does not always arrive at the truth, there must be afeedom from coercion in this matter. This is not the same as a tight tobe wrong-it is only a right not to be shot (or otherwise punished) forbeing wrong.

Even John Courtney Murray, who is "credited" by many with breakingwith past teaching, insisted: "This conciliar affirmation of the principleof freedom was narrowly limited-in the text."9 (For he wishfully thinksin practice it will be given wider scope.) The text is in fact very limited.

In paragraph 2 the document says that,the human person has a right to religious freedom. The

freedom consists in this, that all men should be immunefrom coercion on the part of individuals or societies or anyhuman power, and in such a way that in religious mattersno one is to be forced to act against his conscience, norimpeded from acting according to his conscience in privateand in public, either alone, or associated with others,within due limits.


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"Within due limits" is vague. It could be taken to mean only that whatviolates public order must be repressed. Yet someone might claim itmeans that even false doctrine is beyond due limits. No one couldprove or disprove such a claim.

We note that the focus is on not coercing consciences. A man must

not be forced to sin, to act against conscience, and likewise, he mustnot be forced to omit that which his conscience demands, in public andin private (within due limits). This clearly means we must not force aman to do what he considers immoral, nor to omit what he considersmorally demanded. What then of slandering the Church or attackingher doctrine?Three distinctions are needed. First, if someone makes a false charge

against the Church or Church authorities outside the doctrinal sphere,e.g., charging the Bishop with stealing from the poor, this is slander. Itis hardly conceivable that the perpetrator of the slander would notknow or could not find out that the charge is false. He has the duty to

find out before making the charge even in private. Civil courts almostanywhere do punish this sort of thing. Pius IX would surely call itviolate.

Secondly, publishing a defense of non-Catholic doctrine is a verydifferent matter. In a sense, any claim that another doctrine is true is acontradiction of Catholic doctrine, at least implicitly.Yet here the caseis much different from the non-doctrinal slander. In the latter, as wesaid, it is hardly possible that the perpetrator would not be guilty inconscience at least of rashness for not investigating. But in thedoctrinal matter, conscience is normally not guilty-a person can easilyfall into many errors, and normally in good faith. Hence Aristotle (On

the Soul 3.3) says that error "seems to be more natural to livingcreatures, and the soul spends the larger part of the time in it."

It is not only true that the doctrinal contradictions are normallywithout malice: in addition, there would be immense dangers to thecommon good of Church and state were the state to attempt to repressthese errors. First, that would presuppose the state is capable ofknowing the truth in such matters. If it simply accepted the CatholicChurch, it could do so, but in many centuries and lands it has not seenthat the Church is to be accepted. So if we made it a policy for thestate to suppress error, it would in many places and times persecutethe Catholic Church. That is why Pius XII in Ci riesce, as we saw above,

said that in the past the Church has always had to let error run, for the"common good of the universal Church", and "in the future she will befaced with the same necessity." Pius XII even added that God does noteven give a right to suppress errors, and he appeals to the authority ofChrist Himself, in the parable of the cockle.

Would Pius IX disagree? The closest he came was in his words on theobligation to repress violare. But he did not spell out what is includedin violare. We saw that non-doctrinal slander is easily violare, but the


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inherent nature of doctrinal error is so very different that, at least, noone can prove it is to be included under violare. And if it cannot beproved, there is no obligation: lex dubia non obligat.The third possibility would be explicit contradiction of Catholic

doctrine. Would that be violare? We cannot honestly be sure, although

it is not much different from the implicit contradiction we have justconsidered. Similarly, we could not be sure whether or not it would beoutside "due limits". Would Ci riesce clear the matter? It did say that atleast implicit contradiction is not to be suppressed. We cannot be sureif it would mean also explicit contradiction.

Of course, when neither Pius IX nor Vatican II is clear, no one canclaim one document contradicts another.

In para. 4 the Council says that this freedom "which belongs toindividuals should be recognized in them even when they act incommon. For religious groups are required by the social nature of bothman and religion." Clearly, if many individuals each have a right to

non-coercion, then they can act in common. But the document doesnot say the groups have a right to be wrong, or even that groups asgroups have a right to non-coercion. It is the individuals that have thatright.

Comparing the statementsIs all this contrary to past teaching? By no means. Let us compare the

teachings.Pius IX insists that a man does not have a right to be wrong; Vatican

II does not contradict; it merely insists a man should not be shot forbeing wrong. Pius IX says that one cannot gain salvation by just anyfaith; Vatican II does not disagree. Rather it agrees with Pius IX's

statement that no one is lost without grave sin. This supposes he musthave a certain minimum basic faith, but need not be correct in allmatters.

Pius IX said it is not "the bestcondition of civil society" that there beno consideration of religion, or that all religions be considered thesame; Vatican II in para. 1 reaffirms this traditional doctrine of the dutyof men and societies toward the one true Church.

Pius IX says it is not the "best condition of society in which there is norecognition of the duty of the government to repress violatores of theCatholic religion." We noted that violatores are those who commitviolare, which Harpers' Dictionarysays means, "to treat with violence,

injure, invade, profane, outrage." And here is the heart of the problem.However, we can show the agreement by considering several grades ofacts against the Church, and asking what Pius IX and Vatican II say ofeach:

(1) Those who bomb a church. Pius IX would say this is violare; civillaw almost anywhere would punish it, and Vatican II would say it isagainst public order and not "within due limits", and so not permitted.


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(2) Those who slander the Church or Christ in a non-doctrinal way.Pius IX would say this is violare; Vatican II would say it is beyond "duelimits" and against public order. Civil law almost anywhere punishessuch slander.

(3) Those who publicly teach their non-Catholic doctrine,

contradicting Catholic teaching only implicitly. The Ci riesce invokesthe authority of Christ Himself for saying the Church and state have noright from God to suppress this error.

(4) Those who in publicly teaching non-Catholic doctrine add explicitcontradiction of Catholic teaching leave us uncertain. Probably the Ciriesce covers this, for it makes no distinction of implicit and explicit.But we cannot be sure. Nor could we be sure this is included in violare.

(5) Those who join with others in their own protestant belief andworship. Again, this is surely not violare. Vatican II says individualshave a right to immunity here both singly and when they join incommon.

We add, however, that on some critical points neither Pius IX norVatican II is entirely clear. For what are the limits ofviolare or of "duelimits"? Since there is a lack of certainty, no one can possibly claim oneauthority contradicts the other.

But we are sure of this: if anyone claims-as do followers of Lefebvre-that they are certain of a contradiction, they are guilty of two things: ofexcessive smugness about their interpretations, and of forbiddenprivate interpretation. For in arriving at its teaching, Vatican IIimplicitly gave an interpretation of the older documents as not being incontradiction. Hence it is not Vatican II which was guilty of an attack onolder Church teachings, but rather those who attack Vatican II,

charging it with false doctrine even though it was protected from errorby Christ.

END NOTES1 "On Divine Revelation", para. 10.

2 Cf. DS 3866. Vatican II, "On Divine Revelation" para. 10 agrees:"The task of authoritatively interpreting the word of God, whetherwritten or handed on [Scripture or Tradition] has been entrustedexclusively to the living teaching office of the Church, whoseauthority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ."

3 Pius XII did it in Ci riesce, as we shall see.

4 Some would say that although such an obligation really lies onstates, yet that history shows the state is excused, having proveditself over and over again incapable of determining which is the truechurch. (Positive obligations, of course, do admit of excusingcauses).

5 DS 2730.

6 DS 2966. Vatican II concurs, in "Constitution on the Church", para.16.


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7 Latin text found in Jose Luis Gutierrez Garcia (ed.) DoctrinaPontificia ii, Documentos politicos, Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos,Madrid, 1958, p. 8.

8 DS 2915, 2977, 2979, 2980.

9 In his introduction, "Religious Freedom" in the Walter M. Abbott

edition ofThe Documents of Vatican II, America Press, 1966, p. 674.