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Notes -
Secular Media Reporting on Poor RCC Governance by Pope Francis
https://www.politico.eu/article/pope-francis-rome-vatican-city-germany-catholics-liberal-revolution/
So, having access to sources of information not available to the general public, none of this really comes as a revelation, and there's a bunch of biased narration and low level mistakes, but the reporting is broadly accurate. Or rather, delivers big picture accuracy while distorting the true stories of lots of specific incidents to reflect the author's liberal biases. Like here:
What they're referring to is Pope Francis' #2 being revealed to have authored erotic poetry(and a book on kissing entitled "Heal me with your Mouth") and trying to defend himself by calling it theology. It was a scandal but didn't have much to do with the backlash to gay blessings, which was the global south against progressives. African bishops declared their opposition to Fiducia Supplicans, in partnership with the eastern rites, as a group and got concessions.
What the article gets right, I think, is doing a pretty good job of summarizing the pope's inability to hold his own coalition together, and accurately noting that this occurs in an environment where most senior churchmen are laser-focused on the possibility of a conclave very soon. It also begins to convey his immense personal unpopularity with Vatican insiders; even cardinal Parolin is campaigning for the conclave by emphasizing their dissimilarities. I like this anecdote:
This is not the way to win friends and influence people in an oligarchy of elderly true-believing academics.
This is perhaps understating things; many of the cardinals appointed as Francis allies turned on him over something or other, often personal falling outs or mismanagement driven by the tendency referenced above. Factually one of the top papabile in the next conclave, cardinal Pizzaballa, is a recent Francis appointee now campaigning among the conservatives, and the largest initial powerblock in the next conclave is likely to be backers of cardinal Erdo's promise to reign as Benedict XVII. It also understates the mood in the Vatican that pope Francis is going to die any day now.
I wanted to highlight these two paragraphs- the progressive faction(of which cardinal Hollerich is more or less the leader and one of the more extreme examples thereof) is dispirited, weighed down by outsized responsibility for the sex abuse scandal(s), extremely high average age, and ties to an unpopular and more moderate than commonly perceived pope. All the way up and down the totem pole, progressive Catholics are cynical, expect to lose, and increasingly too depressed to even grasp at straws.
My impression is that the Catholic Church is going through a similar pattern to Mainline Protestant churches:
(1) Declining membership in the West (immigrants aside) but still strong in the Third World.
(2) A hesistant pivot to liberalism, which alienates the conservatives in the West and alienates almost all of the Third World, without actually increasing membership in the West. More radical churches pick up the Western conservatives$ and gain strength in the Third World.
(3) Doubling down by pivoting more (but still hesitantly) towards liberalism.
Catholicism seems to be less far down this road that Mainline Protestantism, but it seems stuck. And as the experience of Evangelical Protestants has shown in the past 20 years (AFAIK) conservative Christianity is struggling in the West too, just in different ways (higher apostacy among the young).
$ This does not seem to be happening with the conservative Catholics, but from those I know, they are disengaged and fed up, and this may result in greater apostacy among their children.
Is that accurate? It would confirm my expectations of Pope Francis's papacy, but I have limited info on the Catholic Church these days, so I am worried about confirmation bias.
I'm not too sure, I think Catholicism is doing pretty well in the United States and the Church is holding to her teaching.
One chart I saw recently was at here, pulling together data from The Nones have Hit a Ceiling. It looks as though Catholics are either A) getting lots of converts, B) Better able to retain young people than Protestants, or C) Immigration of more young people than old people from Catholic countries. It might very well be C, but I don't think Catholicism is going to disappear from the US anytime soon.
One thing that helps keep Catholicism on the straight and narrow is that the Church's authority derives from its Conservatism. If it actually tried to change teaching, in such a way that it clearly contradicted past dogmatic teachings, it loses its authority instantly. It's whole shtick is that "We have the Truth, the Truth can't change, we have perfect Divine Authority to tell you the Truth and no one else has this Authority."
Now Europe, Europe is going secular fast. US Catholics joke that we will need to evangelize Pagan Europe all over again.
I think it's both. In a bunch of places (like Latin America) it's declining. But there's a pretty strong population in the United States. Perhaps it's just the circles I'm in, but it seems like a lot of people are converting.
I agree that the inability to change some classes of things definitely has helped Catholics not become like the mainline churches. It has helped also that schism is unacceptable in Catholicism, whereas protestants are more willing to, which causes the most devoted to leave, making it easier for the left to win the next thing. (I suppose the SSPX and similar muddy this slightly, but whatever.)
Of course (to be polemical for a moment), I do think there are probably some changes or contradictions in teaching, like Vatican II's attitude towards non-Catholics vs. Florence's. But not any that I'm aware of where people would be invested on both sides in a contentious manner.
Agreed that Europe is quite secular, though there are a few portions that are holding things somewhat together.
Since you invited a debate, here it goes:
There is a distinction in Catholicism between an infallible statement in a fallible church document. What I mean by this is a Council is only speaking infallibly when it states something in a particular formula. Usually it goes like, "We affirm, with our magisterial authority, that all inside the universal Church are bound to X." That kind of statement, and only that statement, is considered infallible. The surrounding logic or justification is not infallible. The entire document is not infallible. Things the author has said about what they meant when they stated it is not infallible. Catholic doctrine is Textualist, not Originalist.
The infallible statement in the Council of Florence is:
Sounds pretty clear-cut? Only card-carrying Catholics in Heaven? Aright, now square this statement with the more ancient belief in the Harrowing of Hell. For this statement to be infallibly professed, it also needs to be in accordance with prior infallible statements that Abraham, Elijah, and others that predated Christ are in Heaven.
Did no one see that contradiction? Actually, there has been a long history of including people inside the Church who would be very surprised to learn they were in the Catholic Church, being saved by participation in the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church this whole time!
When it comes to salvation for people not visibly Catholic, Vatican II didn't say anything unusual or novel. Invincible ignorance has predated Vatican 2 also and was supported by some popes you'd be surprised by. All Vatican 2 did was reaffirm it.
Pope Pius IX wrote in his encyclical Quanto Conficiamur Moeroe, predating Vatican II:
I would just read Florence as talking about after the coming of Christ.
I don't think the passage from Florence is talking about the invisible church (yes, I know Catholics don't like talking about the distinction, but it's literally the issue at hand here). The statement would be rather vacuous. Rather, it makes more sense, especially given the preceding sentence, to read "unity of the ecclesiastical body" as talking about a visible unity, as that is the common feature of jews, heretics and schismatics. Similarly, shedding one's blood for Christ would seem to have in mind that the people in question at least consider themselves Christians. You said you're a textualist, there's your text.
This also makes sense in historical context. Florence was supposed to be the big victory, where everyone was unified again. They clearly very had the unity of the ecclesiastical body in an outward, institutional sense on mind frequently at the council. It would be weird to me, that being the case, if that were not the case here.
Anyway, I think there are a bunch of passages from official documents that are hard to square with an invisible church:
Constance condemns Hus' statement:
The condemned line seems pretty in line with at least your fourth quote.
(Side note, since I'm at that document: I have no idea how the fourth condemnation of Hus, that for some reason you may not say, "The two natures, the divinity and the humanity, are one Christ," despite very similar language in the Athanasian creed is defensible.)
Further, in Unigenitus, the following are condemned:
That reads to me as rejecting the church being something ethereal, but is rather a visible body. Also, maybe not okay with Christ being the head of the church? That's weird to me if so, but it might just be that it's not okay with a those-alive-in-Christ=church method. But ignoring that Unigenitus condemns all sorts of things I think true, the document would seem to oppose the church being invisible in the senses that such unity would require.
I get that invincible ignorance has been around for a while. (The motive to have it exist at the time of Florence would be somewhat lower, as they thought they'd united churches throughout the world, and the americas were discovered only later that century. But I'm not familiar with the state of teaching at the time. Maybe I'd want to go see if Torquemada said anything.) (As a side note, from your quote, does Pius IX think there are people not guilty of deliberate sin? That's kind of extreme, at least, to the Protestant ear.)
Anyway, Florence, in the same document, seems also to require knowledge of Christ at least in some vague sense: "It firmly believes, professes, and teaches that no one conceived of man and woman was ever freed of the domination of the Devil, except through the merit [so said the one English website. But the Latin text I saw was "fidem," faith.] of the mediator between God and men, our Lord Jesus Christ; He who was conceived without sin, was born and died, through His death alone laid low the enemy of the human race by destroying our sins, and opened the entrance to the kingdom of heaven, which the first man by his own sin had lost with all succession; and that He would come sometime, all the sacred rites of the Old Testament, sacrifices, sacraments, and ceremonies disclosed." (That last line should show that "faith" is correct, not merit.)
That said, some, like Aquinas, thought that those who had invincible ignorance and would be saved would be saved through a special revelation of God to them. Does Vatican II still allow for requiring that? I realize that I might be undermining my point here if this is allowing for unity that's not in an ecclesiastical institution.
This part of my reply was lost and I will try to type it up to it's former beauty:
Going back to the Council of Florence, it is interesting that you present a Time-Gated explanation. That is not my explanation, but if it is the implicit assumption you read into the Council Statement then why not make further implicit assumptions? What I mean is, if the statement can be naturally read to signify after the time of Jesus, why couldn't it be implicitly more limited in space-time? Isn't a similarly natural read that the statement is limited to just Christendom at the time of the Council?
That's not my read though. I still stick with the well-attested Church-of-the-elect. This is not the same thing as a belief in an Invisible Church. One way of thinking about it is:
Another way of thinking about it is how St. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 12:15-16, said:
Now consider the Fourth Council of Lateran:
This one is harder to ignore that tension, because in the very same paragraph the authors state two seemingly conflicting things. How is it that there is absolutely no salvation outside the Church, but absolutely anyone can Baptize and this will lead to salvation? I think this demonstrates that the Church isn't overlooking this, it recognizes even back in 1215 before the Council of Florence that there is some sense in which people participate in the Catholic Church without being visible members.
Regarding the "unity of the ecclesiastical body," there is also the line from Unam Santum which is even stronger/more specific:
How does this tie into the "invisibly connected to the visible Church" hypothesis?
Everyone who is saved, is saved through Christ and His Church, whether they know it or not.
Everyone who is saved is saved during this lifetime – there are no second-chances in the afterlife.
The head of the Church on Earth is the Roman Pontiff.
Therefore, everyone saved is saved by spiritual membership in the Church Militant, in which they are subject to the Pope.
This might sound like a less natural reading of the various texts to you, but it is the most natural reading to me given the way that the Church understood and defined herself. The definition of "Church" is very significant to the text of all these passages and I think it just means something different from what you think.
Because that's not a terribly plausible reading. It's making statements about the necessity of the "unity of the ecclesiastical body." There doesn't really seem to be any reason that would change. Whereas, you might think things like, as you mentioned, the harrowing of hell, would be relevant.
Anyway, I'm not certain that's right, it also seems fine to think of the Church as the continuation of Israel. (Yeah, I get that that's not excessively far from what you're saying.)
Church-of-the-elect is precisely what is meant by invisible church, though. (Or, well, those elect who have been regenerated, depending on your definition.)
I don't find the passage from the fourth Lateran council especially persuasive to what you are arguing. I do not think the baptism is being contemplated as much in settings apart from the church, but rather in cases of emergencies. Would you not say that baptism makes people visible members of the church?
I don't find your analysis of Unam Sanctam compelling. The whole bull's about papal authority. The quote would be better read not as that all the saved are in a sort of mystical subjection, but as talking about living out their life in their proper station—that is, below the pope—in the visible, ecclesiastical hierarchy. Of course, in most cases that won't even involve thinking about the pope, but just day-to-day life, but I do think it's against the backdrop of fitting within a visible churchly structure.
Also, I'd like to note: excellent responses.
I'm not married to that term. I need a word that signifies what the Church means by Catholic Church, and there isn't a good word to use. The Body of Christ. Can I use that phrase?
I think the conflict here is that there is a Visible Church, which sinners and people who will ultimately go to Hell belong to. People can participate in this Visible Church without knowing it, by Baptism or by other means. People who are participating in this Visible Church are possibly going to Heaven but it is not guaranteed, whether they are in the group that knows they are participating in the Visible Church or in the group that does not know they are participating in the Visible Church.
If that holds to your understanding, then great. I think the concern with "Invisible Churches" is that it makes it sound like people who end up in Hell were never part of the Church at all.
The Fourth Lateran Council is more expansive than that and is clearly not talking about emergencies. It is talking about Baptisms being administered by ministers not subject to the Roman Pontiff. It goes further in Cannon 4:
This one is saying in the same breath that the schismatic Greek priests were still able to "offer the sacrifice" i.e. perform a valid Mass and turn bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus. While the council certainly doesn't like schism, it doesn't seem to be preaching that renouncing papal authority removes someone from the "Universal Church of the faithful, outside of which there is absolutely no salvation."
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