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According to a ZENIT report, at his general audience address on Wednesday, the Holy Father overturned the dogma of extra ecclesiam nulla salus, declaring that those with the spark and a commitment to peace and social justice will be saved. Okay, okay, that’s an unfair paraphrase, but come on, look at the ZENIT story yourself, which carries this headline: “Nonbelievers Too Can Be Saved, Says Pope.”
I don’t think, however, that the ZENIT report is entirely accurate about the import of the pope’s words. You can read the text of his address here. Instead of saying that nonbelievers can be saved, I think that the Holy Father is pointing towards a teaching of the Church which Blessed Pope Pius IX nicely expressed more than a century ago.
Pius IX, in his allocution, Singulari Quadem, makes clear that there is a state known as invincible ignorance; what it would take for one to be in a state of invincible ignorance, however, is not altogether clear. In any case, this is a matter for God to judge–not us–even as it remains for us to do our utmost to bring others to the Faith, to the Catholic Church, which is the Mystical Body of Christ.
Of the thousands of people who heard this address, how many were able to make the fine theological distinctions which need to be drawn about the doctrines which come into play in this very thorny area of theology? I think that these sorts of statements are only fuel for the sede vacantists and an enticement to laxity for those who know of the Church but see no problem in remaining outside of it.
I’m curious to hear the opinions of others about the prudence of this sort of address.
Pardon me for adding another critique of the Holy Father’s words on Wednesday, but why the reference to the Shoah? Benedict XVI said:
“The first part of the Psalm (cf. verses 1-4) has, as a background, the land of exile, with its rivers and canals, which watered the plain of Babylon, headquarters of the deported Jews. It is as a symbolic anticipation of the extermination camps in which the Jewish people — in the century that just ended — were led to an infamous operation of death, which has remained as an indelible disgrace in the history of humanity.”
That interpretation is purely gratuitous, as far as I can see. What does Super flumina Babylonis have to do with Nazi death camps? Really, what do the people who dwelt in exile in Babylon have to do with the people whom the Nazis put to death in those camps? As Norman Solomon, an eminent scholar of Judaism, explains in his Oxford introduction to Judaism, the Jewish religion, whatever exactly that is, as we have it today, did not exist before the destruction of the second temple at Jerusalem. The heirs of the Israelite people beside the streams in Babylon are the people of the Catholic Church, not the recalcitrant who scoff at Christ’s divinity.
The Holy Father is so perspicacious as to see Nazi death camps in Psalm 136, yet he had nothing to say about the concluding verses of that beautiful psalm: “O daughter of Babylon, miserable: blessed shall he be who shall repay thee thy payment which thou hast paid us. Blessed be he that shall take and dash thy little ones against the rock.”
Yikes. It would get a little messy if we had to explain that one at a general audience address. Well, that’s not so much of a problem because those particular lines would be among the verses that were cut out of the Novus Ordo Breviary. In other words, Bugnini said that they can be safely ignored, so they can safely be ignored.
I am very thankful that Benedict is our Holy Father, but I am still waiting for him to live up to his reputation as enforcer of the Faith.
St. Louis-Marie de Montfort,
Pope St. Pius X,
St. Joseph,
St. Ambrose of Milan,
St. Thomas Aquinas,
St. Francis (and St. Clare),
St. Catherine of Siena,
St. Alphonsus Ligouri,
St. John Chrysostom,
“I am very thankful that Benedict is our Holy Father, but I am still waiting for him to live up to his reputation as enforcer of the Faith.”
What would you have our Papa do?
Give us some serious, conservative bishops; give us wide and easy access to the old rite of the Mass; preach the Faith to the whole world, since he is on the world stage, reminding all that there is no other name under Heaven by which we may be saved.
I don’t know much about these matters, but aren’t bishops confirmed by the Holy See when there is a vacancy in some diocese or a new diocese is erected? So until a bishop resigns or there are new dioceses, our Papa really can’t raise priests to the episcopacy - but when he can, I’m sure he will give us some holy and serious bishops.
Why shouldn’t he rather instruct us as to the proper way of saying the Mass of the Roman Rite and bring Latin back into the Novus Ordo instead?
Is he not preaching the faith right now?
Speeches like this just make me shake my head. References to the massacres of Jews in World War II are about as politically safe as you can get. The Holy Father mentions the Holocaust, “which has remained as an indelible disgrace in the history of humanity.” A really provocative address would have pointed out that EVERY sin and disgrace, including genocide, is “delible” provided one repents and turns to Christ. And that while the Jews of Bethlehem — presumably kinsmen of the Holy Family and fellow descendants of King David — refused them shelter at the inn and in their home, the people who came to visit Our Lord (other than the shepherds) were Chaldean Magi, i.e. the descendants of the Babylonian persecutors of the Jews. So maybe Jews should become Christians and do the Christian thing — forgive and forget past injustices, including the “Holocaust,” just as Our Lord would forgive and forget their former rejection of Him.
Deirdre, there are certain notorious repeat offenders, like Bishop Matthew Clark in Rochester and Cardinal Mahoney in Los Angeles, of whom it seems that they should have been removed along ago. Being the Supreme Pontiff, Benedict can do something like that at any time, whether it is practical is another question.
I would love to see Latin return to the Novus Ordo. I think that we would see a very different Church today, I mean, in her human elements, if the Novus Ordo had been done, all along, in Latin, versus Deum, and with the dignity that was required in the old Mass. To be sure, even when done this way, there are still important differences between the old and the new Mass, but the congregation would barely notice them. And it is the congregation, the people assisting at the Mass, which breathes in its spirituality from the rite of the Mass.
About teaching the Faith, what I have in mind is the need to proclaim Christ Jesus, and Him crucified, to the many people with whom the Holy Father comes in contact: the Jews, the protestants, the buddhists, whomever else besides. In reading the reports of the Holy Father’s speeches at the synagogues, for instance, I get the impression that he did not go there to convert them to the Faith.
I understand that one such as he must always speak with tact and circumspection, but I think that this can be done while also leaving no doubt that none can be saved outside of the Church.
Someone made an interesting point on the FreeRepublic.com Religion thread, in response to an excerpt of your original post that I posted there.
He said, “Invincible ignorance is not salvific.”
“Without Faith, no one is saved. Period. It is absolutely essential for the supernatural life to at least believe “that God exists and that He rewards those who seek him,” and probably necessary to also believe, if dimly, in our Lord Jesus Christ and the Most Holy Trinity. Cf. CCC 161.”
“Zenit is at fault here for misinterpreting the Pope - and St. Augustine - in a seriously erroneous fashion.”
I think we should remember that the Pope was teaching in step with Augustine and did suddenly present some novel doctrine. It bothers us because this idea has been overused- and simply abused- by false teachers who would have us deny the exclusivity of Christ. Nonetheless, what the Pope said was true, and we can’t always act in reaction to those who abuse the Truth. (I am often tempted to resent teachings on serving the poor because of the mischief caused by so many who champion “social justice”!)
Furthermore, the Pope did not say that there is some alternate salvific path for those who do not accept Christ, but merely that amongst those who do not know the True God there are some who are journeying toward Him and will be saved. This involves the always problematic yet real distinction between descriptive and prescriptive language. The Pope is describing a reality, not prescribing it. Newman makes this distinction when speaking of being saved by faith. When we look back on our lives in light of our sin, our weakness, and our infidelities, we descriptively proclaim that we are saved by faith. But when we ask, “what must we actually do to inherit eternal life,” the answer is not “have faith” but rather, the prescriptive: “You know the commandments, thou shalt not…”
It must be terribly difficult to be the Pope in the sense that every time you voice even a legitimate perspective of faith, it is seen in the context of a behind-the-scenes rhetorical battle being waged in the Church. The U.S. generals in Iraq say equally as important as the actual battles of the ground war is the war of ideas- the battles to control the perceptions of the war. Benedict seems to be slowly winning the ground war, but we, who are more “media attuned”, wish he were more savvy with his sound-bites.
Also remember that both of our last two Pope’s were personally affected by the Nazi state, so while it may seem as political correctness to us, it is Benedict’s, and was JPII’s, personal and concrete experience of evil created by man’s hubris in rejecting God. It is also particularly important for this Bovarian Pope who had to serve as a Nazi soldier to dispel any hint of the myth that the Church is anything but horrified with the Holocaust. Maybe he is just personally sensitive to this reality as well?
The Church just put out a document that questions the legitimacy of homosexuality. On a practical level, can you be any more countercultural as far as the world is concerned? People will be after the Church with vengeance in reaction- the universities and media are full of atheist socialists who love to smear the Church- we should not give them ammunition. Once this generation of elites is out of power along with their nonsense atheist humanism propaganda, then maybe history and reality will once again prevail. Until then, the Pope is probably wise to constantly reinforce the obvious- politically correct or not.
Here is a more positive interpretation of what our Holy Father said. It helped me understand the second part of his commentary, about the “spark” of salvation. http://www.catholicism.org/zenit-indifferentism.html