Friday, March 17, 2017
Vatican Newspaper Forbids Dissenting from Dissent
By: Chris Jackson | Remnant Columnist
Fr. Salvador Pie-Ninot
Today Catholic Culture website reported the story, “Vatican newspaper article criticizes dissent from Amoris Laetitia.” The article states:
L’Osservatore Romano has published an article criticizing “dissent in the form of public criticism” of Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia.
Father Salvador Pié-Ninot, a theologian from Barcelona, analyzed such criticism in light of Donum Veritatis, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s 1990 instruction on the ecclesial vocation of the theologian.
Describing Amoris Laetitia as a non-definitive exercise of the ordinary Magisterium, Father Pié-Ninot quotes Donum Veritatis in stating that its teachings, even “if they are not guaranteed by the charism of infallibility, are not without divine assistance and call for the adherence of the faithful.”
After reviewing the section of Donum Veritatis devoted to “the problem of dissent” (nos. 32-41), Father Pié-Ninot wrote that “the confrontation between the Magisterium, in this case papal, and a theological interpretation that dissents, is not a simple conflict between two opinions.” READ MORE HERE.
L’Osservatore Romano has published an article criticizing “dissent in the form of public criticism” of Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia.
Father Salvador Pié-Ninot, a theologian from Barcelona, analyzed such criticism in light of Donum Veritatis, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s 1990 instruction on the ecclesial vocation of the theologian.
Describing Amoris Laetitia as a non-definitive exercise of the ordinary Magisterium, Father Pié-Ninot quotes Donum Veritatis in stating that its teachings, even “if they are not guaranteed by the charism of infallibility, are not without divine assistance and call for the adherence of the faithful.”
After reviewing the section of Donum Veritatis devoted to “the problem of dissent” (nos. 32-41), Father Pié-Ninot wrote that “the confrontation between the Magisterium, in this case papal, and a theological interpretation that dissents, is not a simple conflict between two opinions.” READ MORE HERE.
REMNANT COMMENT: As we descend further through the Vatican II looking glass, the official Vatican newspaper has printed an article wherein Fr. Pie-Ninot lectures us that we are forbidden to dissent from an Apostolic Exhortation which itself dissents from the perennial Catholic Magisterium. In other words, we are not allowed to dissent from Pope Francis’ dissent. This notion is, of course, preposterous.
The Catholic teaching that Donum Veritatis echoes is that we are bound to assent to non-infallible papal teachings. Obviously, this teaching assumes that said non-infallible papal teachings do not contradict infallible and perennial Catholic teaching on the sacraments of Matrimony, Penance, and Holy Communion. Otherwise the entire theological teaching structure of the Church falls to pieces.
As the German Jesuit Christian Pesch (d. 1925) writes:
(…) one must assent to the decrees of the Roman congregations, as long as it does not become positively sure that they have erred. Since the Congregations, per se, do not furnish an absolutely certain argument in favor of a given doctrine, one may or even must investigate the reasons for that doctrine. And thus, either it will come to pass that such a doctrine will be gradually accepted in the whole Church, attaining in this way the condition of infallibility, or it will happen that the error is little by little detected. For, since the religious assent referred to is not based on a metaphysical certainty, but only a moral and general one, it does not exclude all suspicion of error. For this reason, as soon as there arises sufficient motives for doubt, the assent will be prudently suspended: nevertheless, as long as such motives for doubt do not arise, the authority of the Congregations is sufficient to oblige one to assent. The same principles apply without difficulty to the declarations which the Supreme Pontiff emits without involving his supreme authority, as well as the decisions of the other ecclesiastical superiors who are not infallible.[i]
Theologian Franciscus Diekamp similarly states:
These non infallible acts of the Magisterium of the Roman Pontiff do not oblige one to believe, and do not postulate an absolute and definitive subjection. But it behooves one to adhere with a religious and internal assent to such decisions, since they constitute acts of the supreme Magisterium of the Church, and are founded upon solid natural and supernatural reasons. The obligation to adhere to them can only begin to terminate in case, and this only occurs very rarely, [when] a man [who is] fit to judge such a question, after a repeated and very diligent analysis of all the arguments, arrives at the conviction that an error has been introduced into the decision.[ii]
And Merkelbach, a renowned Dominican moralist, agrees. In his Summa Theologiae Moralis, he wrote:
When the Church does not teach with her infallible authority, the doctrine proposed is not, as such, unreformable; for this reason, if per accidens, in a hypothesis which is however very rare, after a very careful examination of the matter, it appears to someone that there exist very grave reasons contrary to the doctrine thus proposed, it will be licit, without falling into temerity, to suspend internal assent (…)[iii]
In the words of Archbishop Lefebvre:
Indiscipline is everywhere in the Church. Committees of priests send demands to their bishops, bishops disregard pontifical exhortations, even the recommendations and decisions of the Council are not respected and yet one never hears uttered the word “disobedience,” except as applied to Catholics who wish to remain faithful to Tradition and just simply keep the Faith.
…The authority delegated by Our Lord to the Pope, the Bishops and the priesthood in general is for the service of faith. To make use of law, institutions and authority to annihilate the Catholic Faith and no longer to transmit life, is to practise spiritual abortion or contraception.
…In the Church there is no law or jurisdiction which can impose on a Christian a diminution of his faith. All the faithful can and should resist whatever interferes with their faith, supported by the catechism of their childhood. If they are faced with an order putting their faith in danger of corruption, there is an overriding duty to disobey.
…Two religions confront each other; we are in a dramatic situation and it is impossible to avoid a choice, but the choice is not between obedience and disobedience. What is suggested to us, what we are expressly invited to do, what we are persecuted for not doing, is to choose an appearance of obedience. But even the Holy Father cannot ask us to abandon our faith.
We therefore choose to keep it and we cannot be mistaken in clinging to what the Church has taught for two thousand years. The crisis is profound, cleverly organized and directed, and by this token one can truly believe that the master mind is not a man but Satan himself. For it is a master-stroke of Satan to get Catholics to disobey the whole of Tradition in the name of obedience.
[i] [1] Pesch, Praelectiones Dogmaticae., vol. I, (Freiburg: Herder & Herder, 1898), pp. 314-315 (emphasis added).
[ii] [2] Diekamp, Theologiae Dogmaticae Manual, vol. I (Desclee, Parisiis – Tornaci-Romae, 1933), p. 72 (emphasis added).
[iii] [3] Merkelbach, Summa Theologiae Moralis, vol. I (Desclee, Parisiis, 1931), p. 601 (emphasis added).
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