Per Christum

I was pleasantly surprised to see that the recently published “Compedium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church” is now online on the Vatican’s site.

The hard copy is still well worth picking up, but I think this will be a great resource for folks who have questions about the faith and might be intimidated by the “Catechism of the Catholic Church.”

On this blog and on others, many thoughts concerning the current crises in the CEC have been expressed. Some of these thoughts and concerns have to do with actions of particular persons in the CEC — and those comments are beyond the scope of this posting. What I do want to express are some thoughts about the Reformation and the Council of Trent which may be of value to those in the CEC who earnestly desire reform in that body.

Many historians and theologians will argue (including many Lutherans) that the original causes of the Reformation were not doctrinal in nature, but rather disciplinary. Many of the criticisms made by Luther were valid — and were eventually taken up by the Catholic Reformers at the Council of Trent.

It occurs to me that, following the old dictum that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, those persons of good will remaining in the CEC — and there are many — might take note at some of the specific disciplinary questions raised by the Reformers and addressed at the Council of Trent.

1) Seminary Training: It has been a major complaint by many in the CEC that the training, education, and spiritual formation of the clergy has been lacking. (From my own experience over 11 years, I have to say that I agree.) The Catholic Church in the Late Middle Ages experienced the same problem. In BOTH cases — the CEC AND the late medieval Church — this has not always been due to deliberate neglect.

The CEC has received many good and godly men from other religious entities — some already with churches — but with widely varying levels of education, training, and spiritual formation. This has led to confusion as to what the CEC actually does and does not teach and believe — and to wide disparities between dioceses.

The late medieval Church, reeling from the Black Death, in which a significant percentage of the population of Europe died, faced an extreme shortage of clergy (due to the fact that since the clergy and religious were attending the sick and dying, their own mortality rate was exceptionally high). As a result, to fill the gaps, many people were rushed through the ordination process with only a fraction of the necessary formation needed to be good priests and religious.

(I must say that in both the CEC and in the late medieval Church, there have also been cases of gross neglect and corruption — but that is not the topic of this post.)

The Council of Trent recognized that the Reformers had a valid point with regard to issues like the proper training of clergy. Thus, the Council mandated that seminaries be erected in the various dioceses of the Church to correct this fault. If the CEC truly wishes reform in this area, they need to follow suit with strong programs of academic, pastoral, and spiritual formation. All three are necessary.

2) Regular visitations by bishops: This was a major problem in the medieval Catholic Church. Visitations by bishops were, in many places very rare (especially among the smaller, poorer, and more rural churches.) As a result, the faithful were neglected by their spiritual shephards — and corrupt priests were not held to proper account.

The CEC has had — in some dioceses — similar breakdowns. I know of one CEC parish which, in four years, never received a single visitation, while a larger, wealthier parish in the same state was visited several times a year. I know of another CEC church (in a different diocese) who had not received a visitation in at least that long — and whenever there were candidates for confirmation, the candidates had to travel hours to the cathedral. I know of another CEC priest in yet another diocese, who had not received an official communication from his bishop — in a decade. No wonder that many in the CEC feel isolated — and that, in certain cases, corruption has been allowed to continue.

The Council of Trent mandated regular visitations by bishops — and this was in a day and age where travel was not as easy as it is today! This would be a reform that the CEC could easily — and should immediately — implement.

3) Nepotism: Nepotism was a serious problem in the medieval Church. Church offices were routinely given out to close relatives of bishops and other senior Church officials. (Some of these also involved sins against chastity — but that is not the topic of this post.) Favors were granted to, how shall we say, friends who had friends, etc.

WHETHER REAL OR NOT, the PERCEPTION of nepotism has been rife in some parts of the CEC. This has been an issue, frankly, from Day One. It has not been an issue everywhere — but the accusations have been made — and at least some of those accusations give the appearance of having merit.

FULL DISCLOSURE!!! I was a priest in the CEC; my father was a bishop in the CEC. I entered the CEC 9 months prior to my father; I was ordained deacon prior to my father’s consecration as bishop. We never served in the same diocese together. By specific permission, my father was given the authority to ordain me priest, by my own bishop at the time, Bp. Ken Myers — permission for which we were both grateful. But I never served in my father’s diocese and can count on one hand the number of times I was invited to preach or concelebrate in his cathedral.

I make this statement so that no one can say that I am trying to talk out of both sides of my mouth!

The Council of Trent strongly condemned nepotism. While such was never completely eliminated, the extent of the problem was greatly curtailed.

This, too, would be a relatively easy reform for the CEC to make — and one which, I believe, should be made. Reasonable provisions (re: Bp. Myers’ generosity to myself and my father) should be permitted, but regulated by Canon. “Automatic” inheritance of office or authority should be strongly discouraged.

4) Uniformity of Liturgy: One of the biggest problems in the late medieval Church was a lack of uniformity in liturgy. This lack of uniformity existed not just from country to country, but frequently between city to city as well. The upshot was that it became difficult to discern what the Prayer of the Church; the Work of the People; actually was.

This has been a significant problem in the CEC from Day One. The preferred text was the 1979 Episcopal Book of Common Prayer — with several other texts which “could” be authorized by bishops. This was problematic for those (like myself) who honestly believed that the 1979 BCP (and almost ANY Anglican formulary) was insufficient at best (and quite possibly invalid) AND for those who found themselves worshiping in different CEC churches in different parts of the country. In many cases, there is not even a uniformity within the CEC as it concerns the Nicene Creed.

The Council of Trent mandated a unified liturgy for the Church. (Minor exceptions were allowed for certain religious orders — but that is beyond the scope of this post.) This proved to be an incredible unifying factor for the Catholic Church.

Frankly, after more than 14 years of existence, the CEC needs to do the same. If they choose to use the 1979 BCP — they need to realize that they will lose people — not only over doctrinal issues, but also over any apparent connection (real or imagined) with the Episcopal Church. Frankly, the same would be true of any other existing rite. What the CEC needs to do is to draft its own Communion-wide (or at least, North American-wide) liturgy, using the best resources from the best scholarship the CEC can muster, to come up with an authentic liturgy which represents the best of Three-Streams worship — AND the best of the available theological acumen. The model liturgy prepared by the Eastern Province would be a good starting point.

Anyhow, these are just a few suggestions; a few areas in which those in the CEC who wish to learn from history might propose.

I just found the essay The Long Conversion of Oscar Wilde (by Andrew McCracken) today, and it is very interesting. I never knew Wilde became Catholic until recently, since he is often held up as a hedonist of sorts, a kind of proto-postmodernist in the area of morals. However as the excerpts below show, Catholicism had a great appeal for Wilde and his friends. These are the sorts of conversion stories I like, ones that are steeped in the reality of the struggles we endure in our sinful world. Wilde struggled a lot, and only became Catholic at the very end of his life. He reportedly said something to the effect that within Catholicism are great saints and sinners: respectable people have Anglicanism. I am sure he considered himself neither a saint, nor a respectable person.

…Wilde’s partnership with [Aubrey] Beardsley on Salome is notable, for the young artist was a match for Wilde in both prodigious talent and scandalous reputation. Beardsley’s illustrations for the play are replete with phallic imagery and sneering hermaphroditic figures. Even more so than Wilde, Beardsley wanted to shock: he once famously remarked that “Nero set Christians on fire, like large tallow candles; the only light that Christians have ever been known to give.” Yet Beardsley, soon diagnosed with tuberculosis and condemned to a slow, lingering death, became a Catholic in 1896…In Beardsley’s last letter to his family, which opens with the words “Jesus is our Lord and Judge,” he asked that his drawings be destroyed. Beardsley died in 1898, at age 25.

…In 1899 Wilde traveled in Europe, an exile. In 1900 he was briefly in Rome with his companion Robbie Ross. They attended Masses and papal audiences, and Wilde received a blessing from Leo XIII that, he thought, even had a physically curative effect on him. As he joked to Ross, he was “a violent Papist,” but he left Rome as he had come, still an admirer of sacred art and sacred ritual, of piety and the papacy, but not yet a Catholic. His health deteriorating and his drinking excessive, Wilde left Rome for Paris, where the final scene of his long conversion would be played.

On November 28, 1900, as Wilde lay dying on his bed in Paris, Robbie Ross called in a priest, an English Passionist, Father Dunne. Wilde was given conditional Baptism and was anointed. For a short time he emerged from delirium into lucidity, and Father Dunne, examining him, was satisfied that Wilde freely desired reception into the Church. Wilde died a Catholic on November 30.

The poet’s great antagonist, the Marquis of Queensberry, died in the same year. On his deathbed he too was received into the Catholic Church. And the object of the poet’s self-destructive passion, Lord Alfred Douglas, became a Catholic in 1911 and remained firm in the Faith until his death, though his later writings betray a conservatism that is distasteful and uncharitable.

Does life, then, imitate art? There is a satisfying symmetry to the story of Wilde’s celebrity, his arrogance, his fall, and his humble acceptance of redemption, but we should resist the temptation to turn his life into a moral allegory. There is but a little room here for Catholic triumphalism, just as there is but a little room for an interpretation of Wilde’s life that canonizes him as a gay saint. Unfortunately, most recent treatments of Wilde’s life reduce him to the latter category: Stephen Fry’s recent movie makes but one mention of Catholicism (and that entirely unconnected to Wilde himself). But if we can’t simplify Oscar Wilde for our own convenience we are left asking — what was he then?

All of these: writer, wit, voluptuary, gay man, failed father and husband, sensitive soul, laughing stock, broken heart, eleventh hour Catholic convert.

Greetings, all — and thanks especially to David Bennett — a long-time Amazon.com friend with whom I have recently connected. I find that we have far more in common now than we ever had before!

Thanks, too, to all those on the “Per Christum” blog who have been supportive of the fumblings of one seeking the truth . . . thank God, I’m home!

I’m more than willing to converse with any and all.

Grace and peace!

(see original post)

Miconception #2: The Council of Trent Formally Rejected the Augustinian Conception of Efficacious Grace

There are many people, Catholics and Protestants alike, who equate the Catholic Church’s position on soteriology to that of “Arminianism.” At a first glance at the documents of the Council, this seems to be correct. However, the Council itself did not discriminate one way or the other on this issue. Catholic theologians are free to hold to different schools of thought on this matter, as has been the constant expressions of the Popes since the sixteenth century. The two most important schools are the Thomists (who lay a greater emphasis on grace) and the Molinists (who lay a greater emphasis on free will). This article does not purport to settle the dispute between the schools, but only to show that the Council of Trent does not preclude them.

Here are the canons which give rise to the confusion:

Canon 4: If anyone shall say that man’s free will moved and aroused by God does not cooperate by assenting to God who rouses and calls, whereby it disposes and prepares itself to obtain the grace of justification, and that it cannot dissent, if it wishes, but that like something inanimate it does nothing at all and is merely in a passive state: let him be anathema.

Canon 5: If anyone shall say that after the sin of Adam man’s free will was lost and destroyed, or that it is a thing in name only, indeed a title without a reality, a fiction, moreover, brought into the Church by Satan: let him be anathema.

Likewise, the fifth chapter in the Decree on Justification states:

It [the Synod] furthermore declares that in adults the beginning of that justification must be derived from the predisposing grace of God through Jesus Christ, that is, from his vocation, whereby without any existing merits on their part they are called, so that they who by sin were turned away from God, through His stimulating and assisting grace are disposed to convert themselves to their own justification, by freely assenting to and cooperating with the same grace in such wise that, while God touches the heart of man through the illumination of the holy Spirit, neither does man himself receiving that inspiration do nothing at all inasmuch as he can indeed reject it, nor on the other hand can he of his own free will without the grace of God move himself to justice before Him. Hence, when it is said in the Sacred Writings: “Turn ye to me, and I will turn to you,” we are reminded of our liberty; when we reply: “Convert us, O Lord, to thee, and we shall be converted”, we confess that we are anticipated by the grace of God.

If these texts were taken alone, then it would seem that they imply a rejection of monergistic soteriology. Yet, although the Catholic Church would reject the term “monergism,” it nevertheless allows Catholics to accept a very Augustinian view of grace. The texts here that stress the necessity of man’s freedom and cooperation in the reception of grace do not necessarily reject the intrinsic efficacy of grace. Neither does the fact that the Council uses the “language of cooperation” rule out an Augustinian view of grace.

Catholic apologist Jimmy Akin has written a great article on this subject (“Resistance and Cooperation with Grace”). In it, he makes the case that the Bible regularly uses a vocabulary which is “abrasive to Calvinists, it runs against the grain of their theology, because they have historically labeled a major plank of their position, ‘irresistible grace.’” Akin cites such passages as Acts 7:51 and Hebrews 6:4-6 as evidence that the Bible uses language that indicates that a person may resist grace. Moreover, he also argues that the Bible’s terminology is distinctly “synergist,” since there are many instances where it implies that a person may work together with God in achieving his own salvation. The word “synergy” is itself a Biblical term (cf. 2 Cor. 6:1: “Working together with (sunergountes) him, then, we entreat you not to accept the grace of God in vain”). Akin writes:

The thing Calvinists are concerned about — the concept that there is a motion of God’s grace which is infallibly fruitful in bringing about the repentance and salvation of a sinner — is a fine enough concept. Many Catholics, such as the Thomists (and also the Augustinians, who are not the same group) believe it too. However, in keeping with the language of Scripture, Catholics do not refer to this as “irresistible grace” but, in the case of the Thomists, as “intrinsically efficacious grace” — that is, grace which all by itself brings about its full effect…

…The fact is that the language of resisting or cooperating with God is simply not the theological bogey-man that Calvinists make it out to be. In arrogantly decrying it as such, Calvinists have taken a holier-than-thou attitude with respect to the language of Scripture, which, since it is God’s language, means that have taken a holier-than-Thou attitude, of which they very much need to repent.

Indeed, this Biblical “language of resisting or cooperating with God” is the very same which Trent used. It makes no sense to denounce the Council as being “synergist” or even “man-centered” if it used the very same modes of speech that we find the Bible.

But this language is not confined to the Bible alone. In my last post I said that many people have misunderstood the theology of Trent because they are unfamiliar with the methodology and the terminology of the Catholic scholastics. Indeed, it was from these very theologians that the Council derived many of its doctrinal formulations.

It was always the tendency of the scholastic theologians, from Anselm onwards, to try to find the reconciliation between grace and free will. These two doctrines reflected two great truths whose intimate reconciliation exceeded the human intellect’s capability of comprehension. The doctrines were not opposed to each other, but complemented each other.

This methodology is in complete opposition to the Protestant conception, wherein free will and grace are diametrically opposed to each other and with no possible way of reconciliation. The only option for the Protestant is be to choose one of the two alternatives and to unilaterally reject the other, whereas the Catholic can accept both and acknowledge the matter to be a mystery.

A careful reading of the works of the scholastic theologians will confirm that these Catholics were both thoroughgoing Augustinians and believers in the freedom of the will at the same time. For them, everything that occurs in time is a result of God’s predetermining predilection – even the free cooperation of the will in response to grace. Since there is nothing that falls outside the causality of God’s predetermining decrees, even the acts of a free will fall under the domain of predestination. St. Thomas Aquinas comments:

“But these seem to have drawn a distinction between that which flows from grace, and that which flows from free will, as if the same thing cannot come from both. It is, however, manifest that what is of grace is the effect of predestination; and this cannot be considered as the reason of predestination, since it is contained in the notion of predestination. Therefore, if anything else in us be the reason of predestination, it will outside the effect of predestination. Now there is no distinction between what flows from free will, and what is of predestination; as there is not distinction between what flows as there is not distinction between what flows from a secondary cause and from a first cause. For the providence of God produces effects through the operation of secondary causes, as was above shown (q. 19, a. 8). Wherefore, that which flows from free-will is also of predestination.” (Summa theol., Ia, q. 23, a. 5. )

It is clear that predestination and free will are not in any way contradictory to each other, any more than a primary and secondary cause can be contradictory to each other. Therefore, for Thomas as well as for other scholastics, the free assent of the will to grace is itself a gift of grace. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange writes in his book Predestination:

It will be said that at least man without a help that is efficacious of itself sometimes avoids resisting grace. Father del Prado replies to this, pointing out that for St. Thomas, “the very fact that one does not place an obstacle to grace, is due to grace.” Not to resist grace is a good thing which must originate from the source of all good things, that is, from God’s love. Therefore he who does not resist is loved more by God than he who, situated in the same circumstances, does resist. (p. 166)

Similarly, the freedom of the will when performing salutary acts is itself a product of God’s efficacious grace. Lagrange writes:

This same doctrine [of predilection] of St. Thomas was later on expounded by Bossuet, who wrote: “Is there anything more absurd to say than that the will is not free in its act because God wills it to be free?” In other words: Is there anything more absurd to say than that the actualization of the free will destroys it?

This freedom of our acts is not only safeguarded, but produced by God with us and in us. The divine motion does not force the will, because it operates according to the natural inclination of this latter…

…Thus God moves us suavely and powerfully to act freely. If the divine motion were to lose its power, it would also lose its suavity. Incapable of reaching what is more delicate and intimate to us, it would remain external to us, affixed, as it were, to our created activity, something unworthy of the creative, conservative, and motive activity, which is more intimate to us than we are to ourselves. Our free act proceeds therefore entirely from us as a secondary cause, and entirely from God as primary cause. (p. 319-320)

This is a concept that even the most thoroughgoing Calvinist could find acceptable. Thus Jimmy Akin also writes:

Of course, a Calvinist can say (as a Thomistic Catholic would say) that both cooperations in the giving and the embracing of the eternal call are themselves produced (not just enabled) by God’s grace, and this is perfectly fine. A Calvinist and a Catholic alike can say that our cooperation is produced by God’s operation. No problem at all. The point is that we cannotcriticize as unbiblical the language of cooperating with God in salvific matters, and this is precisely what the Calvinist does.

Even the fourth canon on justification, cited above, does not annul the primacy of grace in salvation. It merely emphasizes that grace works actively within the individual, instead of passively. Thus Lagrange writes:

Evidently the Thomist doctrine differs entirely from that condemned by the Council of Trent. According to this condemned doctrine, the free will does not co-operate with the divine action. Furthermore, there were many Thomists among the fathers of the council. One of them, Dominic Soto, was even engaged in the drawing up of the canons. It is even very probable that the fathers of the Council in the above-mentioned canon speak of an intrinsically efficacious divine motion; for it is this motion that Luther had in mind when he said it could not be reconciled with free will. Therefore the mind of the fathers is rather that the intrinsically and infallibly efficacious divine motion does not destroy free will; for, although man does not actually resist it, yet he retains the power to do so; remanet potentia ad oppositum, as the Thomists commonly say. (p. 317)

We have seen how the language of cooperation used by the Council of Trent is in full accord with the teachings of Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas on this matter. Protestants who look at the texts promulgated at Trent and see in it the bogey-man of “synergism” demonstrate their unfamiliarity with Catholic theology on this matter.

It often happens that non-Catholics, particularly Protestants, misunderstand or misinterpret the documents of the Council of Trent. This usually occurs unintentionally, but it is nevertheless facilitated by many preconceptions about Catholicism that many Protestants bring to the table. Some come to these texts with the specific purpose of finding polemical ammunition to use against Catholicism. In the latter case, the documents are often strip-mined for proof texts that somehow prove that the Church teaches heresy. In either event, Trent is misunderstood because it has been ripped out of its proper context: the scholastic theology of the middle ages.

I have therefore decided to devote a series to the explication and interpretation of the Council documents, particularly those concerning justification. The decrees and canons on justification are easily the most misinterpreted documents of the Council. This confusion can be easily cleared up by a brief introduction to the modes of thinking and expression used by the scholastics. These Catholic theologians made use of very different methods of theological inquiry than those that are common today.

Not every misconception about Trent arises from confusions about scholastic methodology or terminology, however. There are many instances where people have made mistakes about Catholic teaching simply because they have not read the Church’s documents for themselves, but rather have been content to rely on biased second-hand sources that perpetuate myths or calumnies about Catholicism. In other cases, people have simply not read the documents carefully enough.

I thus intend to enumerate as many misconceptions about Trent as I can find, and then to refute those misconceptions based with the documents of the Council.

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Misconception #1: Trent Teaches that a Man may be justified by works.

This is perhaps the most common of all the misconceptions about Trent, but it is also the easiest to refute. It arises partly out of some statements like we find in canon 9, which states:

If anyone shall say that by faith alone the sinner is justified, so as to understand that nothing else is required to cooperate in the attainment of the grace of justification, and that it is in no way necessary that he be prepared and disposed by the action of his own will: let him be anathema.

It is often assumed that by “nothing else,” the Council is referring to works that a man may contribute towards his own justification. However, this interpretation is flatly contradicted in a number of places. The very first canon on justification states:

If anyone shall say that a man can be justified before God by his own works which are done either by his own natural powers, or through the teaching of the Law, and without divine grace through Christ Jesus, let him be anathema.

Similarly, chapter 5 of the Decree on Justification says:

It [the Synod] furthermore declares that in adults the beginning of that justification must be derived from the predisposing grace of God through Jesus Christ, that is, from his vocation, whereby without any existing merits on their part they are called, so that they who by sin were turned away from God, through His stimulating and assisting grace are disposed to convert themselves to their own justification, by freely assenting to and cooperating with the same grace…

We can see that the Council rejected the proposition that a man may obtain or even contribute towards his own justification by any works or existing merits of his own. What, then, was canon 9 referring to when it said “nothing else?” We may find the answer in chapters 6 of the Decree on Justification, where the Council describes the necessary conditions for justification:

The Manner of Preparation

Now they are disposed to that justice when, aroused and assisted by divine grace, receiving faith “by hearing,” they are freely moved toward God, believing that to be true which has been divinely revealed and promised, and this especially, that the sinner is justified by God through his grace, “through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus,” and when knowing that they are sinners, turning themselves away from the fear of divine justice, by which they are profitably aroused to a consideration of the mercy of God, they are raised to hope, trusting that God will be merciful to them for the sake of Christ, and they begin to love him as the source of all justice and are therefore moved against sins by a certain hatred and detestation, that is, by that repentance, which must be performed before baptism; and finally when they resolve to receive baptism, to begin a new life and to keep the commandments of God.

We can see here a number of necessary predispositions for justification. These are: 1) Faith, 2) Hope, 3) Love, 4) Repentance from Sin 5) Resolve to be baptized and to live the Christian life. Once all these conditions are satisfied, a person may be considered to be a justified man.

It is only by a careful consideration of the above chapter that we can fully understand the meaning of Trent’s anathemas against the formula of “justification by faith alone.” This misunderstanding arises when Protestants, who see the Council’s condemnation of the principle of “justification by faith alone,” immediately jump to the conclusion that it is endorsing a doctrine of “works-righteousness.”

The condemnation of the doctrine of justification by faith alone was primarily aimed at the Protestants, although it did not subscribe to any doctrine of justification by works. At this time, Martin Luther was teaching that a man may be justified by naked or fiducial faith (fides nuda). This teaching is in opposition to the doctrine of justification by faith formed by charity (fides caritate formata), which the Catholic theologians were teaching. Fiducial faith denotes an individual’s trusting confidence that God has truly forgiven him his sins and imputed the righteousness of Christ to himself, with no infusion of hope and love for God. Faith formed by charity, on the other hand, indicates a faith that includes hope and love. Thus the 14th canon on justification states:

If anyone says that justifying faith is nothing else than confidence in divine mercy, which remits sins for Christ’s sake, or that it is this confidence alone that justifies us, let him be anathema.

Additionally, the 7th chapter of the Decree on Justification has this to say of unformed fiducial faith:

For faith, unless hope and charity be added to it, neither unites one perfectly with Christ, nor makes him a living member of his body. For this reason it is most truly said that “faith without works is dead,” and is of no profit, and “in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith, which worketh by charity.” This faith, in accordance with apostolic tradition, catechumens beg of the Church before the sacrament of baptism, when they ask for “faith which bestows life eternal,” which without hope and charity faith cannot bestow.

The distinction between fides nuda and fides caritate formata is perhaps a minor distinction, but nevertheless it formed the occasion for the soteriological debates of the sixteenth century and the anathemas of Trent.

Unfortunately, this error does not arise through any sort of unfamiliarity with scholastic terminology, or even Catholic theology in general. Rather, it arises from the inability to carefully read the texts promulgated by Trent. If more people would carefully analyze these documents, as opposed to searching them for proof-texts to suit some polemical purpose, then the misconception would never arise.

(continued)

And it’s at forum.ancient-future.net

Right now it’s a mix of spammers and a few regulars. We can work together to change that make-up. Some of the comments on this blog are just begging for a forum.