Spes mea Christus!

Will Obama Destroy Franciscan University of Steubenville?

2011-10-05T14:02:00.002-05:00

I normally do not discuss politics on my blog but the systemic attack on religious freedom by the Obama Administration is something that no Christian should countenance. Former Secretary of State of Ohio Kenneth Blackwell writes about how the Obama adminstration is seeking to force a Catholic University to fund abortions. Apparently, the Bamster doesn't think much of the First Amendment. See, p://www.cnsnews.com/node/122233.

Mr. Hays (a gentleman I often disagree with on issues of faith) on his Triablogue links to another article detailing the government's hatred of Christianity in an article captioned aimply as state churches.

These two incidences are just the tip of very big iceberg. Make no mistake--man-made religious climate change is real and it is happening now! If we Christians do not soon join our voices in prayer and protest, the courts of the United States of America will soon don a new role as the coliseums of tomorrow. And the secularists on the left are not going to distinguish between Catholic and Protestant when they are throwing us to the lions.

God bless!

What Saint Augustine, Bishop, Saint and Doctor of the Catholic Church Actually Held Pertaining to Transubstantiation: A Response to Turretinfan [Part Two Continued].

2011-08-20T08:47:00.010-05:00

"What, after all, is our bread, if not the One who said, I myself am the living bread who have come down from heaven. (Jn. 6:51)" ~Saint Augustine from Sermo 360C:3.

III. Critique of Turretinfan’s Three Commentaries (Cont.)

B. Sermon 272: On the Day of Pentecost to the Infantes, on the Sacrament (Circa. 408 AD)

Before we turn to Turretinfan’s comments on Saint Augustine’s Sermon 272, I wanted to offer some prefatory remarks pertaining to this sermon. This sermon falls during St. Augustine’s Donatist Period ( 400 AD and 412 AD). The Donatists were a schismatic sect of rigorists, who held that the true Church must consist of saints only, not sinners, and that the sacraments, such as baptism and the Eucharist, administered by priests outside of a pure church of saints were invalid. This schism originally began because some Carthaginians refused to recognize a bishop who had been consecrated by a bishop who allegedly had been a traditor (a Christian who surrendered the sacred vessels or books of the Scriptures over for public destruction) during the last great persecution of the Church and in his place had another bishop consecrated who had been steadfast in that adversity. The Donatists argued that the efficacy of the sacraments depended on the sanctity of the minister conferring it. If the minister was unworthy, then the sacrament was not valid. In the Donatist thought, if one did not have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, how could that person give it to others?

To counter this schism, Saint Augustine stressed that the sinfulness of the minister is not relevant to the sacrament. The minister does not lose his authority of orders because of his sins. The reason for this is that in Augustinian thought, the true minister of the sacraments is not the individual, even if that person is consecrated, but the Church, the spouse of Christ, who sends the priest, deacon or bishop, and ultimately since the Church in a very real way is Christ Himself, it is Jesus Christ who is the priest who works always through the Holy Spirit in the Church and through the Church. For Augustine then, the merit of the sacrament does not come from the person conferring the sacrament, but what the sacrament itself contains. See, On Baptism contra the Donatists, Book IV, 6:10; 10:17. In other words Saint Augustine taught the efficacy of the sacraments in the same manner of the "modern Rome," which is by ex opere operato-that is the efficacy and grace conferred by the sacrament does not depend on the merits of the minister, but on account of the power of the sacrament itself and on account of Jesus Christ who instituted it. See, for instance: Contra Cresconium Book IV, Chapter 16:19. An English translation of the operative sentence in question may be found in the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia:

"Baptism consists not in the merits of those by whom it is administered, nor of those to whom it is administered, but in its own sanctity and truth, on account of Him who instituted it."

St. Augustine recognized that the point in contention between the Donatists and the Catholic Church was ecclesiology. To counter the Donatist view of church, the Catholic Bishop of Hippo focused on the presence of Christ in the eucharistic sacrifice. Not only was the Eucharist the sacrifice of Christ, it was also the sacrifice of the Church. Because the Church consists of the whole Christ, head and members (Christus totus), the individuals who make up the Church should also see themselves presented on the altar as well. Thus for Augustine, the "Body of Christ" is both sacrament and an ecclesial body. By taking the Eucharist into ourselves, we commune with Our Lord and enter into union with our fellow Catholics. This Pauline/Augustinian theme is continued in Sermon 272 and is still bedrock Catholic doctrine today. As noted in the Catechism of the Catholic Church #1396, "The Eucharist makes the Church."
With these thoughts in mind, let us look at how Turretinfan sees things.

TF wrote: "Augustine’s Sermon 272 and Transubstantiation."

Me: As I have said before, 272 contains little in way of discussion of the doctrine of Transubstantiation, the changing of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Our Lord. Rather, it assumes that and moves past it to discuss the "why" of Transubstantiation. That said, this wonderful sermon does go to the heart of the mystery of faith of the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist.

TF wrote: Some folks who allege that Augustine shared modern Rome's view of the Eucharist like to point to Sermon 272. Since this sermon is quite short, it will be possible for me to go through the sermon from beginning to end, with my comments interspersed.

Me: Some folks, such as Turretinfan, who allege that Augustine does not share modern Rome's view of the Eucharist like to point to Sermon 272. Since Mr. Fan’s commentary is chock full of errors, my comments will be lengthy and numerous. Before we begin addressing errors and omissions specific to Turretinfan’s commentary on Sermon 272, I would refer the reader to Part I where I have already addressed Mr. Fan’s apparent confusion between the term of "Real Presence" and the term "transubstantiation" in my commentary on his thoughts about Letter 36. I will not revisit that discussion here, but ask the reader to read my previous article.

TEXT: SERMON 272 (ON THE DAY OF PENTECOST TO THE INFANTES, ON THE SACRAMENT)

Me: Mr. Fan fails to provide the reader with the source of his particular translation he uses but I will. The text that he used is from the series, The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21^st Century, John E. Rotelle, O.S.A., ed., WSA, Sermons, Part 3, Vol. 7, trans. Edmund Hill, O.P., (Hyde Park: New City Press, 1993), pp. 300-301. O.S.A., by the way, is the abbreviation for the Order of Saint Augustine, a Catholic monastic society.

TF wrote: The infantes here are those who are newly baptized. Baptism of new converts typically took place at Easter, and Pentecost is only a few weeks later. These are relatively young believers, spiritual infants, though not physical infants. Some scholars seem to suggest that the sermon may actually have been on Easter rather than on Pentecost.

Me: While Mr. Fan is correct that converts were "typically" baptized at Easter, they were typically baptized at other times during the liturgical year as well. The sacrament of Baptism in the African Church in Saint Augustine’s time was offered year round to babies and small children. This is reflected in Saint Augustine’s writings on the importance of not delaying the baptism of babies and children. See, St. Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram, X, 23, 39: PL 34, 426; De peccatorum meritis et remissione et de baptismo parvulorum ad Marcellinum, Book I, 17-19: 22-24; ibid. Book I, 26:; ibid. Book III, 4:7; In Ioannem Tractatus XIII, 7: PL 35, 1496; CCL 36, p. 134; De gratia Christi et de peccato originali, I, XXXII, 35; ibid., 377; De praedestinatione sanctorum, XIII, 25: ibid., 978; Opus imperfectum contra Iulianum, V, 9: PL 45, 1439. Similarly, when an adult was very ill, the sacrament of Baptism would likewise be administered without delay. Moreover, in the very work from which Turretinfan draws the translation of text he is exegeting, the author states in footnote 1 that solemn adult baptisms (baptisms that occur during Mass) were performed at the Mass on Pentecost as well as at the Easter Vigil Mass.

With respect to Mr. Fan’s statements on "infantes," it is true that infantes were neophyte baptized Christians, but in Augustine’s time, the word denoted more than that. An infante was the title given a person who had successfully completed all of the pre-baptism stages of Christian initiation, received the sacraments of initiation (Baptism. Confirmation and the Holy Eucharist) and now was entitled to be instructed in the deeper mysteries, the mystagogy as it were, of the symbols, rites and events in connection with the sacraments of the Church, said instruction being given during the Masses between Easter and Pentecost.

TF wrote: Either way, this is a sermon aimed at those with a relatively small understanding of what is involved in Christianity.

Me: This speculation on the part of Mr. Fan is not backed up by either Saint Augustine’s writings or other patristic writings. In truth, those who sought admittance into the Church in Saint Augustine’s time underwent extensive instruction on "what is involved in Christianity" prior to Baptism.

In a nutshell, there were (as there is today) four stages of adult formation for those who wished to become Catholics as shown in St. Augustine’s writings, particular On the Catechizing of the Uninstructed (De Catechizandis Rudibus) and many of his sermons preached between the beginning of Lent and Pentecost. I have already touched upon the final stage-mystagogic instruction which is what Sermon 272 is foremostly. The first stage was the period of Inquiry or Pre-Catechumenate where the individual would be questioned by a trained catechist. The individual was asked why he or she wanted to be a Christian and be baptized. The inquirer was then introduced to the Catholic faith by hearing a lecture on salvation history with points made from both the Old and New Testaments ending with the a discussion of eschatology and a warning about the "chaff" in the Church. The warning about the "chaff" in the church was to encourage the prospective member look for the wheat in the congregation, but not be discouraged by those in the church who were not living full Christian lives. After hearing this lecture, the inquirer was asked directly if they accepted this basic Christian message. If the person accepted everything that they had heard, some explanation was given about the sacraments they would eventually receive and they then underwent a rite of initiation where they were signed with the cross on their forehead, given a blessing by the laying on of hands, and provided a taste of salt on the tongue. By this preliminary rite, they were now considered as "catechumen members" of the Church. For Saint Augustine, if the sacrament of Baptism gave new birth, this initial rite is analogous to a person’s conception in the Church’s womb.

Once the person was accepted into the Church as a catechumen, they underwent a multi-year instruction and discernment before they could apply for baptism. During this time, the catechumen would hear what the faith and pattern of Christian life should be. This was not a simple altar-call at a store front chapel. The catechumen would attend Mass, or the Divine Liturgy as it was called then, four times a week or more where they listened to the Word of God read from the pulpit and a sermon expounding on what they had heard. After the sermon, they were then blessed and left the service before the liturgy of the Eucharist which was reserved for baptized Catholics only.

This second stage could last for years. In Augustine’s case, he was considered a catechumen into his thirties (much of that time spent as a Manichee or as an unbeliever). In many instances for a variety of reasons, an individual catechumen never proceeded beyond this step.

After two or three years of instruction, discernment, faithful adherence to the teachings of the Church and right living, a catechumen was judged ready to become a full member of the Church and was urged to apply for Baptism. To be baptized at the Easter Vigil Mass, the final instruction occurred before Lent. Saint Augustine would bring all such catechumens together and encouraged them to petition for full admission to the Church and commence final preparation for the sacraments of initiation (Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist). A candidate who chose to petition to go forward then would begin final preparation during the Lenten season to baptized.

The catechumens who chose to participate in the third stage of catechetical formation were called "competentes." For competente who going to be baptized at the Easter vigil Mass, they underwent a thorough religious training that included rigorous penitential discipline (fasting, alms-giving, abstaining from sex, several vigils, personal mortifications such as wearing a goat skin under their garments and not bathing) undergoing a scrutiny and a series of exorcisms, and receiving public and private lessons and examinations on the teachings of the Church during the 40 days of Lent.

A couple of weeks before the Easter Vigil liturgy, the competentes participated in a special ritual during the Mass called the handing-over of the Creed (In traditione symboli). Saint Augustine recited it to them, then explained the Creed phrase-by-phrase. See Sermons 212 and 216 for example. On Palm Sunday, the competentes came to the Mass and were required to recite the Creed (In redditione symboli) publicly followed by another creedal sermon from the Bishop of Hippo. See, Sermon 215 for example If the competentes recited the Creed correctly, they were then taught the Lord’s Prayer phrase by phrase in a second sermon given that day by Saint Augustine. See, Sermon 56. Sometime during Holy Saturday prior to Vigil liturgy, the competentes met again and were called upon to recite the Lord’s Prayer back to the Bishop as they had the Creed. Only if an adult competente successfully completed all of the above and demonstrated their competence in the Catholic faith were they ready to be baptized.

One would wish that Turretinfan had received as much instruction in the Catholic faith as did the competentes before setting out to comment erroneously on what he thinks are the teachings of the Church!

For an in-depth discussion of pre and post-baptismal process that catechumens underwent at the time of Saint Augustine, see:

Brown, Chris and Drury, Keith. "Augustine’s Process for Receiving New Members" (Last Accessed: July 18, 2011).

Harmless, William. Augustine and the Catechumenate (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1995).

Merdinger, Jane. "Do you renounce Satan and all his works? :Success and Failure Amongst the Catechumenate in Late Roman Africa" (Last Accessed: July 18, 2011).

Weller, Philip. Selected Easter Sermons of Saint Augustine. Saint Louis, Mo.:B. Herder Book Co, (1959).

TEXT: Date: 408

TF wrote: Of course, the date is not in the original. Nevertheless, this is the approximate date (within a range of about 405 - 411) assigned to this sermon using the best available scholarship.

Me: The date assigned to the sermon by Edmund Hill and John Rotelle falls within Saint Augustine’s Donatist period as noted above.

TEXT: One thing is seen, another is to be understood.

TF wrote: This line serves as key theme of the sermon. It is easy to see how this line, standing alone, might seem to fit well with transubstantiation. Of course, it also fits well with a bare symbolism view, and also with everything in between those two. So, let's read on and see what Augustine says.

Me: This line may fit well with the doctrine of transubstantiation, but this line actually is a paraphrase of the classic Augustinian definition of a sacrament. As noted before, transubstantiation is merely the change to the Eucharistic elements through a blessing into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ; it is not the sacrament itself.

TEXT: What you can see on the altar, you also saw last night; but what it was, what it meant, of what great reality it contained the sacrament, you had not yet heard.

TF wrote: What you can see on the altar is, of course, a reference to the communion elements. Apparently new converts were not given an explanation of the meaning of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper prior to baptism. However, now they are baptized and they are going to be instructed.
Me: If this sermon is being preached at Pentecost, then almost assuredly the infantes had already heard Saint Augustine preach about the Eucharist being the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ (See, Sermons 227, 228B, 229 which were preached to the newly baptized at the Easter day Mass). Moreover, during their time as catechumens, they had even been instructed about the Eucharist before baptism. As noted in On Catechizing the Uninstructed, 26:50, Saint Augustine advises the Deacon Deogratias that he is to teach the catechumens as follows about the sacraments:

At the conclusion of this address the person is to be asked whether he believes these things and earnestly desires to observe them. And on his replying to that effect then certainly he is to be solemnly signed and dealt with in accordance with the custom of the Church. On the subject of the sacrament, indeed, which he receives, it is first to be well impressed upon his notice that the signs of divine things are, it is true, things visible, but that the invisible things themselves are also honored in them, and that species, which is then sanctified by the blessing, is therefore not to be regarded merely in the way in which it is regarded in any common use. And thereafter he ought to be told what is also signified by the form of words to which he has listened, and what in him is seasoned by that (spiritual grace) of which this material substance presents the emblem.

In other words, before they ever were baptized or had received the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, the catechumens were taught that the signs of divine things are visible, but what we honor in them ARE REALITIES THAT ARE INVISIBLE.. The exact words in Latin are "res ipsas invisibiles." This is not figurative language. Indeed, if one makes a serious inquiry of St. Augustine’s thoughts on the Eucharist, one would see that he focuses primarily on its realism and symbolism, its connection to the Church a.k.a. the Body of Christ (Christus Totus), and the sacrificial nature of the Sacrament-three aspects of the Eucharistic mystery of faith that one would find modern Rome to be in accord with the learned Doctor of Grace.

Contrary to Turretinfan’s notion that "Apparently, new converts were not given an explanation ...," Sermon 272 is not addressed to the ignorant, it is addressed to those who understood through faith the doctrine of the Real Presence but were now ready to receive deeper teaching. This sermon is not about the verity of the Real Presence, as it assumes that truth. Rather Saint Augustine focuses his preaching on the mystagogy of the sacrament–the effects of the grace that comes from receiving it. It is about the grace signified and made present through the matter and form of the sacrament.

TF wrote: Notice Augustine's word: the things on the altar contain the sacrament of a great reality. For Augustine, a sacrament is a picture. It is something that visibly illustrates something spiritual. The sacrament known as the Lord's supper illustrates a great reality that Augustine is about to explain.

For Augustine if something pictures faith, it is the sacrament of faith. If something pictures love, it is the sacrament of love. Likewise, this is the sacrament of something, and that something is what is pictured by the . sacrament.

Me: It is ironic that Turretinfan here paraphrases Saint Thomas Aquinas who wrote that, "The Eucharist is the Sacrament of Love; It signifies Love, it produces Love." It is sad though that Turretinfan does not understand what that means. For Mr. Fan, the sacrament may be only a pretty picture, but for Augustine and other Catholics, both in Augustine’s day and in "modern Rome," a sacrament is much more than that for a sacrament actually presents Christ to the recipient. As Saint Thomas indicates, it produces Christ.

For Catholics then, the sacraments are efficacious signs of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the church, by which divine life is dispensed to us. The visible rites by which the sacraments are celebrated signify and make present the graces proper to each sacrament. They bear fruit in those who receive them with the required dispositions" (Catechism of the Catholic Church # 1131).

"Sacraments are efficacious signs of grace." A sacrament is "efficacious," meaning that work is being done in it. It affects. It produces something. The visible aspects of a sacrament is not a picture at all but a real conduit through which the love of God (grace) is communicated to us to transform us, to sanctify us. As we shall see, there is a good reason why Catholics also call the the sacrament of the Eucharist "Holy Communion."

Thus, God is at work in a sacrament, He works through sacraments (though He works in many other ways as well). For work to occur in a sacrament, the Catholic Church teaches that Christ must be present in it. And where Christ is, there is grace.

For Saint Augustine of Hippo, the Catholic Church’s Doctor of Grace, too, a sign is much more than a picture. In a mysterious and wondrous way, a sign is the thing that it signifies:

And the fact that the ancient church offered animal sacrifices, which the people of God now-a-days read of without imitating, proves nothing else than this, that those sacrifices signified the things which we do for the purpose of drawing near to God, and inducing our neighbor to do the same. A sacrifice, therefore, is the visible sacrament or sacred sign of an invisible sacrifice.

And hence that true Mediator, in so far as, by assuming the form of a servant, He became the Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, though in the form of God He received sacrifice together with the Father, with whom He is one God, yet in the form of a servant He chose rather to be than to receive a sacrifice, that not even by this instance any one might have occasion to suppose that sacrifice should be rendered to any creature. Thus He is both the Priest who offers and the Sacrifice offered. And He designed that there should be a daily sign of this in the sacrifice of the Church, which, being His body, learns to offer herself through Him.

Saint. Augustine, The City of God, 10:5; 10:20.

Rather than trying to play the symbolic aspects of a sacrament against the reality presented by it, Catholics, such as Saint Augustine and myself, embrace both because the symbol makes the real present to us.

TEXT: So what you can see, then, is bread and a cup; that's what even your eyes tell you; but as for what your faith asks to be instructed about, the bread is the body of Christ, the cup the blood of Christ.

TF writes: You can probably easily see how this lends itself to the view of transubstantiation. After all, if Augustine were to hold to transubstantiation, he could say this. At the same time, though Augustine could say this and hold to a bare symbolic view or to anything in between. So, we must read on.

Me: Yes, Catholics do see how Sermon 272 lends itself to the view that after the words of consecration are spoken at the Mass, that Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Savior, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity is Really and Substantially Present on the altar. What Turretinfan misses out of the above passage is the role that faith plays in understanding the Eucharist. Even though we do not see any change in the bread and wine after consecration, faith tells us that a change does occur, that what we see now is Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Or mirroring Saint Augustine’s teaching above "modern Rome" puts it thusly in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

1381. "That in this sacrament are the true Body of Christ and his true Blood is something that 'cannot be apprehended by the senses,' says St. Thomas, 'but only by faith, which relies on divine authority.' For this reason, in a commentary on Luke 22:19 ('This is my body which is given for you.'), St. Cyril says: 'Do not doubt whether this is true, but rather receive the words of the Savior in faith, for since he is the truth, he cannot lie.'" (fn 212)

Fn. 212 St. Thomas Aquinas, S.Th. III,75,1; cf. Paul VI, MF 18; St. Cyril of
Alexandria, In Luc. 22,19:PG 72,912; cf. Paul VI, MF 18.

TF wrote: After all, Augustine is merely telling us that there is more to the situation than simply bread and a cup. It's not just a snack.

Me: Of course, if St. Augustine were only speaking figuratively as contended by Turretinfan, then it is merely a snack. However, as Augustine tells us in his writings, the Eucharist is something to be worshipped, to be adored, which he could not truthfully claim if he is talking metaphorically or figuratively:

But consider, brethren, what he commands us to fall down before. In another passage of the Scriptures it is said, "The heaven is My throne, and the earth is My footstool." Isaiah 66:1 Does he then bid us worship the earth, since in another passage it is said, that it is God's footstool? How then shall we worship the earth, when the Scripture says openly, "You shall worship the Lord your God"? (Deuteronomy 6:13) Yet here it says, "fall down before His footstool:" and, explaining to us what His footstool is, it says, "The earth is My footstool." I am in doubt; I fear to worship the earth, lest He who made the heaven and the earth condemn me; again, I fear not to worship the footstool of my Lord, because the Psalm bids me, "fall down before His footstool." I ask, what is His footstool? And the Scripture tells me, "the earth is My footstool." In hesitation I turn unto Christ, since I am herein seeking Himself: and I discover how the earth may be worshipped without impiety, how His footstool may be worshipped without impiety. For He took upon Him earth from earth; because flesh is from earth, and He received flesh from the flesh of Mary. And because He walked here in very flesh, and gave that very flesh to us to eat for our salvation; and no one eats that flesh, unless he has first worshipped: we have found out in what sense such a footstool of our Lord's may be worshipped, and not only that we sin not in worshipping it, but that we sin in not worshipping. " (My Emphasis)

Saint Augustine. Ennarations on the Psalms (Psalms 99:8)

In other words, Saint Augustine believed that it was fit and proper to worship the Eucharist because the Incarnational Reality of Jesus is present under the appearances of bread and wine. This would not be the case if the Eucharist was only a picture as Turretinfan claims.

TEXT: It took no time to say that indeed, and that, perhaps, may be enough for faith; but faith desires instruction.

TF writes: Notice that Augustine does not view the instruction and explanation of "this is my body" to be itself an essential. It's enough that we by faith refer to the bread as the body of Christ and to the cup as his blood. Nevertheless, as Augustine observes, faith desires instruction. That instruction may not be strictly necessary, but it is wanted by those who have faith.

Me: Augustine’s definition of theology is faith seeking understanding. If one truly has faith, they will seek understanding. The sentence above shows that Augustine is presuming that his infantes have that sort of faith. While Mr. Fan attempts to downplay what the Bishop of Hippo is teaching here, what Saint Augustine is really saying to the infantes, "You believe that what was bread is now Jesus Christ, what was wine is now Jesus Christ, and because you do believe that to be true, I am going to tell you why this is true."

TEXT: The prophet says, you see, Unless you believe, you shall not understand (Is 7:9).

TF writes: You can see here that Augustine is, to some extent, prooftexting this principle from an Old Testament passage that may not really have been intended to convey such a general truth.

Isaiah 7:3-9

Then said the LORD unto Isaiah, Go forth now to meet Ahaz, thou, and Shearjashub thy son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller's field; and say unto him, Take heed, and be quiet; fear not, neither be fainthearted for the two tails of these smoking firebrands, for the fierce anger of Rezin with Syria, and of the son of Remaliah. Because Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah, have taken evil counsel against thee, saying, "Let us go up against Judah, and vex it, and let us make a breach therein for us, and set a king in the midst of it, even the son of Tabeal:" thus saith the Lord GOD, "It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass. For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin; and within threescore and five years shall Ephraim be broken, that it be not a people. And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Remaliah's son. If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established."

You may also note that it appears that Augustine is working with a Latin translation of the Septuagint, rather than a direct translation of the Hebrew original. Nevertheless, Augustine's point (whether or not it is the point of the Hebrew text) is that first you believe, and then afterward you understand.

Me: It appears that Turretinfan took his Isaiah quote from the KJV. Turretinfan’s
dislike for the Septuagint is irrelevant since the issue here is how Saint Augustine understood and used the Scripture, not whether the version he favored or the one that Turretinfan uses is the better translation of the Old Testament. That said, I would note that this quote from the Septuagint version of Isaiah 7:9 is one of Saint Augustine’s favorite scripture passages. One finds him using it throughout his writings.
In the context of Sermon 272 and one’s sacramental understanding of the Eucharist, what are the implications of "Unless you believe, you will not understand." Saint Augustine is saying here is that it is not possible to truly understand the Eucharist using our reason alone. Our understanding is shaped by and is informed by faith. Faith is the key to the understanding of the sacrament. Of course, if Saint Augustine is talking only figuratively here, if he is only drawing pretty word pictures as Turretinfan claims, why does one need faith at all to understand the Eucharist? What’s the mystery?

TEXT: I mean, you can now say to me, "You've bidden us believe; now explain, so that we may understand."

TF writes: So you see, his point is that people can accept Jesus' words that the bread and cup are his body and blood, but they still may desire (on the foundation of that faith) to have some explanation of those words. Augustine is planning to provide some explanation.

Me: If Saint Augustine is merely speaking metaphorically or figuratively here, he could end the sermon here by saying to his listeners now, "Psych! It is only a metaphor. You can go home now."

TEXT: Some such thought as this, after all, may cross somebody's mind: "We know where our Lord Jesus Christ took flesh from; from the Virgin Mary. ...

TF writes: I interrupt Augustine's multi-sentence hypothetical comment (the "..." thus is my own as it is below, and not in the text). Notice that these new believers are familiar with the virgin birth.

Me: Notice too that his listeners would have been familiar with the Blessed Mother’s
perpetual virginity as well:

Let us rejoice, brothers and sisters, let the nations be glad and exult. It is not this visible sun, but its invisible Creator, Who has consecrated this day, when the virgin mother gave birth from her fertile and unimpaired womb to the One Who became visible for us, by Whom in His invisibility she herself was created, a virgin in conceiving, a virgin giving birth, a virgin when with child, a virgin on being delivered , a virgin for ever.

Saint Augustine. Sermon 186:1 given on Christmas day circa 400 AD.

The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21^st Century,John E. Rotelle, O.S.A., ed., WSA, Sermons, Part 3, Vol. 7, trans. Edmund Hill, O.P., (Hyde Park: New City Press, 1993), pp. 24-30.

However, Sermon 272 is not about the Blessed Virgin Mary; it is about Jesus. The significance of Saint Augustine’s argument here is to present to the infantes the ultimate, fundamental truth of the Incarnational Reality of Jesus Christ who took on flesh and became human and likewise how that Reality is now to be found in the Eucharist, a truth that Turretinfan might have recognized had he undergone the same training that the infantes had.

TEXT: "... He was suckled as a baby, was reared, grew up, came to man's estate, suffered persecution from the Jews, was hung on the tree, was slain on the tree, was taken down from the tree, was buried; rose again on the third day, on the day he wished ascended into heaven. ...

TF writes: Again, I interrupt the hypothetical comment. Notice how Augustine summarizes the life of Christ. This summary is similar to what we might find in an ancient version of the so-called Apostles' creed. There is no mention of descent into hell (as distinct from burial), but then again there is no reason to think that Augustine is trying to exactly copy the creed in his hypothetical objection.

Me: Of course the Creed that the competentes cum infantes had memorized summarizes the doctrine of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. If Jesus had not taken on flesh, He could not have truly offered Himself up as a sacrifice for our sins, a sacrifice that Saint Augustine taught is still being made present in our lives by the sacrament of the Eucharist. This gift of Christ Jesus is happening eternally always. Praise be to God!

TEXT: " ... That's where he lifted his body up to; that's where he's going to come from to judge the living and the dead; that's where he is now, seated on the Father's right. ...

TF writes: We're almost finished with the objection. This objection fills out the rest of a basic life of Christ. He lived, he died, he was raised, he sits on the Father's right, and he's coming to judge the world.

Me: More of the same by TF. Remember that Saint Augustine is teaching theology here-faith seeking understanding.

TEXT: " ... How can bread be his body? And the cup, or what the cup contains, how can it be his blood?"

TF writes: Here is the question that allows Augustine to affirm transubstantiation, if that is his belief. Alternatively, it allows Augustine to explain that the bread and cup is a symbol or picture, or whatever else Augustine may think. In some sense, it is the perfect question to get at the matter of what the expression "this is my body" means to Augustine.

Me: Mr. Fan overanalyzes the matter at hand. Saint Augustine is preparing his infantes for his explanation how faith should shape their understanding the Eucharist.

TEXT: The reason these things, brothers and sisters, are called sacraments is that in them one thing is seen, another is to be understood.

TF writes: This gets us back to the theme of Augustine's sermon. Augustine is explaining that in every sacrament (in his understanding of sacraments, one thing is seen (the picture) and another thing is understood (the message conveyed by the picture).

Me: Again, TF misunderstands the meaning of sacrament in the thought of Augustine . The thing seen does not only represent the thing invisible, the thing seen re-presents the thing invisible. In the Eucharist, the symbols of bread and wine are visible signs of the invisible reality of Christ’s presence. A sacrament is a symbol through which we can both perceive and receive an invisible Grace. A sacrament signifies a sacred reality and actually puts us in touch with it. It is definitely not just a picture merely conveying a message.

This teaching of "modern Rome" and of Saint Augustine is beautifully summarized by the great Aquinian theologian and scholar, the Abbot Vonier:

Every sacrament, then, has something to declare: it recalls the past, it is the voice of the present, it reveals the future. If the sacrament did not fulfill its function of sign proclaiming something which is not seen, it would not be a sacrament at all. It can embrace heaven and earth, time and eternity, because it is a sign; were it only a grace it would be no more than the gift of the present hour; but being a sign the whole history of the spiritual world is reflected in it: "For as often as you shall eat this bread and drink the chalice, you shall show the death of the Lord, until He comes." What Saint Paul says of the Eucharist about its showing forth a past event is true in other ways of every other sacrament. … If my heart be touched by God’s grace, such a divine action, excellent and wonderful though it be, is not a sign of anything else; it is essentially a spiritual fact of the present moment, and ends, as it were, in itself. It has no relationship of signification to anything else, whether past, present or future. Such is not the case with the sacraments; through them it becomes possible to focus the distant past and future in the actual present; through them historic events of centuries ago are renewed, and we anticipate the future in a very real way. All this is possible only in virtue of the sacramental sign, which not only records the distant event, but, somewhat like the modern film, projects it upon the screen of the present.

Vonier, Anscar. A Key to the Doctrine of the Eucharist. Bethesda, Md: Zaccheus Press, 2003, p. 14.

TF writes: This, incidentally, rules out confession and penance from being a "sacrament" for Augustine. There is nothing in confession and penance that pictures something else, for him. So, even if Augustine had observed a modern Roman rite of confession and penance, he would not have termed it a "sacrament."

Me: The present rite of the sacrament of reconciliation did not come into practice until the 6^th century AD. However, we are not talking about the ritual language of the sacrament, but the sacrament itself. Given that Saint Augustine stated above that a visible sacrifice can be a sign for an invisible sacrifice, clearly calls Holy Orders and Marriage sacraments, and the Lord’s Prayer a sacrament because its recital leads to the forgiveness of venial sin (Sermon 213:10), Saint Augustine’s view of what is a sacrament is at least a tad more expansive than what Turretinfan thinks a sacrament is and is in line with the post-Vatican II Church view of what is a sacrament considering that Lumen Gentium or the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church expressly claims that the Church itself is a sacrament:

"The Church is in Christ like a sacrament or as a sign and instrument both of a very closely knit union with God and of the unity of the whole human race" (LG 1).A common definition of a sacrament that could be accepted by both Reformed denominations and the Catholic Church is that of an outward and visible sign, ordained by Christ, setting forth and pledging an inward and spiritual blessing. The definition owes much to the teaching and language of Saint Augustine, who wrote of the visible sign or action which bore some likeness to the thing invisible. When to this ‘element’, the word of Christ’s institution was added, a sacrament was made, so that the sacrament could be spoken of as ‘the visible word’. This formula is found in several of Saint Augustine’s works, most notably Tractates on the Gospel of John 80:3: "Quid est aqua nisi aqua? Accedit verbum ad elementum et fit sacramentum."
For Augustine, the matter of a sacrament is the essential symbol or gesture that, along with the form, expresses the core sacramental action. The form of a sacrament is the formula -- the essential words of prayer -- during the sacramental celebration that define or give form to the symbols or gesture that are used. As it pertains to the sacrament of Penance (now more commonly called the Sacrament of Reconciliation) the matter (symbol / sign) of the sacrament is the contrition, confession, and penance on the part of the individual seeking absolution. Those visible symbols determine the nature of the grace being imparted-here the forgiveness of sins, which Augustine teaches as well as "modern Rome":

"All mortal sins are to be submitted to the keys of the Church and all can be forgiven; but recourse to these keys is the only, the necessary, and the certain way to forgiveness. Unless those who are guilty of grievous sin have recourse to the power of the keys, they cannot hope for eternal salvation. Open your lips, them, and confess your sins to the priest. Confession alone is the true gate to Heaven."

Augustine, Christian Combat (A.D. 397). Here we see that the sacrament comprises two essential elements: the acts of the man who undergoes conversion through the action of the Holy Spirit: namely, contrition, confession, and satisfaction; and, God’s action through the intervention of the priest empowered by the Church to hear confession. The Church then forgives sins in the name of Jesus Christ and determines the manner of penance, prays for the sinner and participates in doing penance with him. Thus the sinner is healed and re-established in fellowship and communion with the Body of Christ.

Chapter 65. God Pardons Sins, But on Condition of Penitence, Certain Times for Which Have Been Fixed by the Law of the Church.

But even crimes themselves, however great, may be remitted in the Holy Church; and the mercy of God is never to be despaired of by men who truly repent, each according to the measure of his sin. And in the act of repentance, where a crime has been committed of such a nature as to cut off the sinner from the body of Christ, we are not to take account so much of the measure of time as of the measure of sorrow; for a broken and a contrite heart God does not despise. But as the grief of one heart is frequently hid from another, and is not made known to others by words or other signs, when it is manifest to Him of whom it is said, "My groaning is not hid from You," those who govern the Church have rightly appointed times of penitence, that the Church in which the sins are remitted may be satisfied; and outside the Church sins are not remitted. For the Church alone has received the pledge of the Holy Spirit, without which there is no remission of sins— such, at least, as brings the pardoned to eternal life.

Saint Augustine. The Enchiridion on Faith, Hope and Love. Chapter 65.

Here, we see Saint Augustine teaching that the Church alone has the power to remit the effects of sin based on the exterior element of one making an act of penance.

The remission of sins, is the loosing. For what would it have profited Lazarus, that he came forth from the tomb, unless it were said to him, "loose him, and let him go"? (John 11:44) Himself indeed with His voice aroused him from the tomb, Himself restored his life by crying unto him, Himself overcame the mass of earth that was heaped upon the tomb, and he came forth bound hand and foot: not therefore with his own feet, but by the power of Him who drew him forth. This takes place in the heart of the penitent: when you hear a man is sorry for his sins, he has already come again to life; when you hear him by confessing lay bare his conscience, he is already drawn forth from the tomb, but he is not as yet loosed. When is he loosed, and by whom is he loosed? "Whatsoever you shall loose on earth," He says, "shall be loosed in Heaven." (Matthew 16:19) Forgiveness of sins may justly be granted by the Church: but the dead man himself cannot be aroused except by the Lord crying within him; for God does this within him.

Enarrations on the Psalms 102:20.

"I realize what the incontinent can say: ... that if a man, accusing his wife of adultery, kills her, this sin, since it is finished and does not perdure in him [i.e., since he does not keep committing it], if it is committed by a catechumen, is absolved in baptism, and if it is done by one who is baptized, it is healed by penance and reconciliation."

Adulterous Marriages 2:16:16 (A.D. 419). (From Jurgens. The Faith of the Early Fathers. Vol. 3., pg. 133.

Now Fan may interpose an objection and say this is all fine and good but where does Saint Augustine call penance/confession/reconciliation a sacrament? Well, here are some examples:

If, therefore, what is said in the gospel, that "God hears not sinners," John 9:31 extends so far that the sacraments cannot be celebrated by a sinner, how then does He hear a murderer praying, either over the water of baptism (sacrament of baptism), or over the oil (sacrament of Confirmation), or over the Eucharist (sacrament of Holy Eucharist), or over the heads of those on whom his hand is laid (sacrament of Penance)? All which things are nevertheless done, and are valid, even at the hands of murderers, that is, at the hands of those who hate their brethren, even within, in the Church itself. Since "no one can give what he does not possess himself," how does a murderer give the Holy Spirit? And yet such an one even baptizes within the Church. It is God, therefore, that gives the Holy Spirit even when a man of this kind is baptizing.

St. Augustine, On Baptism, Against the Donatists, Book 5, chap. 21:29 (400 AD).

Here, Saint Augustine specifically gives the reader a list of sacraments of which the sacrament of Penance is included. Now, Mr. Fan may posit a further objection that rather than the sacrament of Penance, the sacrament Saint Augustine is referring to in his comment about the laying on of hand is the sacrament of Orders, I would ask the reader to take note of Saint Augustine’s comments in Book 3, chap. 16:21 of the same work:

But the laying on of hands in reconciliation to the Church is not, like baptism, incapable of repetition; for what is it more than a prayer offered over a man?

Now lest there is an objection that the above is ambiguous, peruse the following:

For the sake of all sins was Baptism provided; for the sake of light sins, without which we cannot be, was prayer provided. What has the Prayer? "Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors." Once for all we have washing in Baptism, every day we have washing in prayer. Only, do not commit those things for which you must needs be separated from Christ's body: which be far from you! For those whom you have seen doing penance, have committed heinous things, either adulteries or some enormous crimes: for these they do penance. Because if theirs had been light sins, to blot out these daily prayer would suffice.

In three ways then are sins remitted in the Church; by Baptism, by prayer, by the greater humility of penance; yet God does not remit sins but to the baptized. The very sins which He remits first, He remits not but to the baptized. When? When they are baptized. The sins which are after remitted upon prayer, upon penance, to whom He remits, it is to the baptized that He remits.
A Sermon to Catechumens, on the Creed 7:15, 8:16 (A.D. 395).

Under Saint Augustine’s definition of sacrament "one thing is seen, another is to be understood" given in Sermon 272, one thing is seen-confession, repentance of sin; another is to be understood-remittance of sin, healing of soul, reconciliation with the Body of Christ. Thus, reconciliation is indeed a sacrament for Saint Augustine.
TEXT: What can be seen has a bodily appearance, what is to be understood provides spiritual fruit.

TF wrote: This provides a slightly more nuanced explanation. There's a spiritual lesson to be drawn from what is understood by the things that are seen. This spiritual lesson provides spiritual fruit to the person.

Me: To escape the Catholic understanding of the matter, Mr. Fan pretends to be a Pelagian here. Contrary to Turretinfan’s commentary, Saint Augustine is not talking about spiritual lessons at all. What Saint Augustine says here is that if one believes that in the invisible reality of the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, one receives “spiritual fruit.” another name for grace.

TEXT: So if you want to understand the body of Christ, listen to the apostle telling the faithful, You, though, are the body of Christ and its members (1 Cor 12:27).

TF wrote: This is really not good news for the transubstantiationists. Augustine's explanation is to provide a spiritual lesson about our (believers') relationship to Christ from this visible illustration of the bread and the cup.

Me: Turretinfan’s bald assertion notwithstanding, he does not attempt to explain why Saint Augustine’s statement here is bad news for “transubstantiationists”. Perhaps someday he will enlighten us with actual argument rather than an appeal to his personal authority as to why he feels Saint Augustine’s statement here is inimical to the Catholic teaching pertaining to transubstantiation.

That said, Saint Augustine’s comments here is actually bad news for those who hold to a figurative or Calvinistic view of the Eucharist. Here Saint Augustine is beginning to explain the greatest mystery of faith contained in this great sacrament-the Eucharist makes the Church. The Church is real because the Body of Christ is real because the Eucharist contains the Real Presence of Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Savior. As we shall see, a Real Presence is necessary if the Body of Christ is at the same time Priest, Victim and Communion.

TEXT: So if it's you that are the body of Christ and its members, it's the mystery meaning you that has been placed on the Lord's table; what you receive is the mystery that means you.

Me: At this juncture, there is no point in addressing Mr. Fan’s individual comments on this passage and the passages that follow for it is impossible to do so in a charitable manner without accusing him of either negligence or dishonesty. I will address only one comment since it basically summarizes Turretinfan’s thought here:

TF wrote: So, now Augustine clearly says that "you" have been placed on the Lord's table. And that we receive is "you." He means the believers themselves are on the table and that the believers receive themselves when they commune. If Augustine means this in a transubstantiary way, his view is most curious. Are we transubstantiated into bread and wine? What an odd result!

Me: I interpose this objection to his commentary at this point: I thought that the focus of Mr. Fan’s musings was to illustrate the differences between what Saint Augustine teaches and what the present-day Catholic Church teaches with respect to the Sacrament of the Eucharist for his audience. Rather than offer mocking polemic, would it not be appropriate for Mr. Fan to actually demonstrate how Augustine and “modern Rome” differ in their teachings?

Please allow me to flesh out my objection.

Here is the full pericope from Sermon 272 that Mr. Fan claims provides so much difficulty for Catholics that we will be reviewing:

TEXT: So if it's you that are the body of Christ and its members, it's the mystery meaning you that has been placed on the Lord's table; what you receive is the mystery that means you. It is to what you are that you reply Amen, and by so replying you express your assent. What you hear, you see, is The body of Christ, and you answer, Amen. So be a member of the body of Christ, in order to make that Amen true.

Me: I noted earlier that Saint Augustine’s writings focus on three aspects of the sacrament: its realism and symbolism, its connection to the Church a.k.a. the Body of Christ (Christus Totus), and the sacrificial nature of the Sacrament. Sermon 272 focuses on the second aspect-how communicating with Our Lord unites us all in His Body, a truth of Catholic teaching that is often lost in apologetic discussions refuting the bundle of heresies called Protestantism because Protestants tend to attack the static aspects of the Eucharist as opposed to the dynamic aspects of that sacrament.

Here Turretinfan wants the reader to believe that Saint Augustine is only speaking metaphorically, that Saint Augustine is telling his flock that when we say “Amen,” it is okay to do so tongue-in-cheek with our fingers crossed behind our backs. However, contrary to the thoughts of Turretinfan, Augustine’s language encourages his readers to look for a deeper meaning, not a lesser one. The presence of Christ that Saint Augustine speaks of in the Eucharist is a Real Presence, not a figurative one or a metaphor. It is as real as you and I are real. If it weren’t real, our “Amen!,” our wholehearted “Yes, it is true!,” would ring hollow, a lie.

In the Eucharist, Jesus Christ makes us, a community of the faithful, His Body-the Church through our participation in the sacrament. Our participation in the sacrament is a sign of a greater reality. Each one of us are called to be a living member of His Body. The very purpose of the Mass is to invite us to receive the Eucharistic Body of Jesus Christ and become His ecclesial Body. By communing with Our Lord, we unite with Him and with each other. By the word of consecration through the Holy Spirit, everything upon the altar is touched, is transformed, and made new. The bread and wine becomes the Body and Blood of Christ, and we , the members, as the Body of Christ, see ourselves presented there as well. We say our "Amen" to what we are!

“Modern Rome” puts it thusly:

The unity of the Mystical Body: the Eucharist makes the Church.

Those who receive the Eucharist are united more closely to Christ. Through it Christ unites them to all the faithful in one body—the Church. Communion renews, strengthens, and deepens this incorporation into the Church, already achieved by Baptism. In Baptism we have been called to form but one body. Fn. 233 The Eucharist fulfills this call: "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread:" Fn. 234

If you are the body and members of Christ, then it is your sacrament that is placed on the table of the Lord; it is your sacrament that you receive. To that which you are you respond "Amen" ("yes, it is true!") and by responding to it you assent to it. For you hear the words, "the Body of Christ" and respond "Amen." Be then a member of the Body of Christ that your Amen may be true. Fn. 235 (Emphasis Added).

Fn. 233. Cf. 1 Cor 12:13.

Fn. 234. 1 Cor 10:16-17.

Fn. 235. St. Augustine, Sermo 272: PL 38, 1247.

Catechism of the Catholic Church #1396

My, my. Talk about oddities. If this particular passage from Saint Augustine’s sermon so fatally undermines the Catholic teaching of transubstantiation as Turretinfan insists, why does the Catholic Church specifically chooses to quote it word for word in its Catechism? One would have thought that the Church would have ignored this particular passage or claim that it is a spurious text (like Protestants often do with patristic writings that disagree with their particular notions) rather than wholeheartedly embrace it and quote it in its Catechism. One might wonder why Mr. Fan neglects to mention this little fact to his readers. But in truth, those like Turretinfan who mock the sacramental mystery of what takes place on the altar consequently are wholly blind to the sacramental mystery that takes place in the assembly of Christians who partake of the Eucharistic sacrifice.

The sacrament of the Eucharist is also known as Holy Communion for a good reason. Christ gave us this sacrament not merely so we can adore Him by virtue of the Real Presence. Christ’s Real Presence is not a static presence that is in itself its own meaning and completion. Rather, the purpose of the Real Presence of Christ in the sacrament is bring Christ to us in the act of sacrifice and to give Him to us as food to nourish our Christian life. Christ offered to God His Body and poured out His Blood on the Cross as the perfect sacrifice. As with all sacrifices, the Victim is then given to us what was given first to the Father. By partaking of the Victim, His sacrifice becomes our sacrifice as well. That sacrifice is only real if there really is a victim. The communal celebration and partaking of that sacrifice is only real if there really is a victim. To make that sacrifice and communion real, Christ makes Himself really present to us in the sacrament.

Transubstantiation explains how Christ does so: by the power of His own words through the power of the Holy Spirit in the act of consecration. But it does not end there. By virtue of our baptism, we are ourselves are now part of the mystical Body of Christ. Since Christ offers Himself sacramentally in the Mass, it can rightly be said that we too are offered as part of that sacrifice since we are incorporated into His Body. This is the truth that Saint Augustine expresses elsewhere in his writings as well:

For the whole Church observes this practice which was handed down by the Fathers: that it prayers for those who have died in the communion of the Body and Blood of Christ, when they are commemorated in their own place in the sacrifice itself; and the sacrifice is offered also in memory of them on their behalf.

Saint Augustine. Sermon 172.2

O Sacrament of piety! O sign of unity! O Bread of love! He who desires life finds here a place to live in and the means to live by. Let him approach, let him believe, let him be incorporated so that he may receive life. Let him not refuse union with the members, let him not be a corrupt member, deserving to be cut off, nor a disfigured member to be ashamed of. Let him be a grateful, fitting and healthy member. Let him cleave to the body, let him live by God and for God. Let him now labor here on earth, that he may afterwards reign in heaven.

St. Augustine, "Homilies on the Gospel of John", 26, 13.

The fact that our fathers of old offered sacrifices with beasts for victims, which the present-day people of God read about but do not do, is to be understood in no way but this: that those things signified the things that we do in order to draw near to God and to recommend to our neighbor the same purpose. A visible sacrifice, therefore, is the sacrament, that is to say, the sacred sign, of an invisible sacrifice. . . . Christ is both the Priest, offering Himself, and Himself the Victim. He willed that the sacramental sign of this should be the daily sacrifice of the Church, who, since the Church is His body and He the Head, learns to offer herself through Him.

St. Augustine, The City of God, 10:5; 10:20.

Here is “modern Rome’s” take on the matter:
Pope Pius XII:

103. Let this, then, be the intention and aspiration of the faithful, when they offer up the divine Victim in the Mass. For if, as St. Augustine writes, our mystery is enacted on the Lord's table, that is Christ our Lord Himself, [fn. 96] who is the Head and symbol of that union through which we are the body of Christ [fn. 97] and members of His Body;[fn. 98] if St. Robert Bellarmine teaches, according to the mind of the Doctor of Hippo, that in the sacrifice of the altar there is signified the general sacrifice by which the whole Mystical Body of Christ, that is, all the city of redeemed, is offered up to God through Christ, the High Priest:[fn. 99] nothing can be conceived more just or fitting than that all of us in union with our Head, who suffered for our sake, should also sacrifice ourselves to the eternal Father. For in the sacrament of the altar, as the same St. Augustine has it, the Church is made to see that in what she offers she herself is offered.[fn. 100]

96. Cf. Sermo. 272.

97. Cf. 1 Cor. 12:27.

98. Cf. Eph. 5:30.

99. Cf. Saint Robert Bellarmine, De Missa, 2, c. 8.

100. Cf. De Civitate Dei, Book 10, c. 6.

Ven. Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei (1947)

Bl. Pope John Paul II:

40. The Eucharist creates communion and fosters communion. Saint Paul wrote to the faithful of Corinth explaining how their divisions, reflected in their Eucharistic gatherings, contradicted what they were celebrating, the Lord's Supper. The Apostle then urged them to reflect on the true reality of the Eucharist in order to return to the spirit of fraternal communion (cf. 1 Cor 11:17- 34). Saint Augustine effectively echoed this call when, in recalling the Apostle's words: “You are the body of Christ and individually members of it” (1 Cor 12: 27), he went on to say: “If you are his body and members of him, then you will find set on the Lord's table your own mystery. Yes, you receive your own mystery”. (fn 84) And from this observation he concludes: “Christ the Lord... hallowed at his table the mystery of our peace and unity. Whoever receives the mystery of unity without preserving the bonds of peace receives not a mystery for his benefit but evidence against himself”. (fn. 85)

84 Sermo 272: PL 38, 1247.

85 Ibid., 1248.

Pope John Paul II. Ecclesia De Eucharistia (2003)

One more magisterial teaching:

Let us not forget that the Risen One has no other mediation to reveal Himself to the world and to pursue his work of salvation than the body he gives today to the community of His disciples, the Church. In the Eucharist, Christ makes the community of His disciples He has gathered His ecclesial Body. And each one is called to being a living member of this body. At the heart of the liturgy of the Mass, Eucharistic prayer invites us to receive the Eucharistic body of the Lord and to become His ecclesial body in the world. Saint Augustine said to the newly baptized: “You hear ‘the Body of Christ’ and you answer ‘Amen’. Be a member of the body of Christ so that your ‘amen’ may be true” (Sermon 272).

Most. Rev. Jean-Pierre Ricard, Archbishop of Bordeaux, The Eucharist: Source and Summit of the Life and Mission of the Church (2005)

In short, Saint Augustine’s teaching is “modern Rome’s” teaching. ‘Nuff said. Let us continue on...

TEXT: So why in bread? Let's not bring anything of our own to bear here, let's go on listening to the apostle himself, who said, when speaking of this sacrament, One bread, one body, we being many are (1 Cor 10:17).

Me: Saint Augustine verifies from the Scriptures how his teaching above is true. As shown in the Catechism #1396, “modern Rome” verifies that this teaching above is true today.

TEXT: Understand and rejoice. Unity, truth, piety, love.

Me: Saint Augustine now lists the graces that one receives when worthily receiving the sacrament of the Eucharist. The teaching of Saint Augustine here and that of “modern Rome” for that matter is that the res sacramenti of the Eucharist is unity.

TEXT: One bread; what is this one bread? The one body which we, being many, are. Remember that bread is not made from one grain, but from many. When you were being exorcized, it's as though you were being ground. When you were baptized it's as though you were mixed into dough. When you received the fire of the Holy Spirit, it's as though you were baked. Be what you can see, and receive what you are.

Me: Saint Augustine here shows his listeners how they were incorporated into the mystical Body of Christ-through the sacramental action of the Church. The foolish nowadays call this sacramental action a treadmill; Augustine and I call it “a place to live in and the means to live by.” . This theme used by Saint Augustine in Sermon 227 as well is one that is still used today by “modern Rome”:

Today, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Lord’s Body and Blood. Corpus Christi, the name given to this feast in the West, is used in the Church’s tradition to designate three distinct realities: the physical body of Jesus, born of the Virgin Mary, his eucharistic body, the bread of heaven which nourishes us in this great sacrament, and his ecclesial body, the Church. By reflecting on these different aspects of the Corpus Christi, we come to a deeper understanding of the mystery of communion which binds together those who belong to the Church. All who feed on the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist are “brought together in unity by the Holy Spirit” (Eucharistic Prayer II) to form God’s one holy people. Just as the Holy Spirit came down upon the Apostles in the Upper Room in Jerusalem, so too the same Holy Spirit is at work in every celebration of Mass for a twofold purpose: to sanctify the gifts of bread and wine, that they may become the body and blood of Christ, and to fill all who are nourished by these holy gifts, that they may become one body, one spirit in Christ.

St. Augustine expresses this process beautifully (cf. Sermon 272). He reminds us that the bread is not made from a single grain, but many. Before all these grains become bread, they must be ground. He is referring here to the exorcism which catechumens must undergo before their baptism. Each of us who belong to the Church needs to leave the closed world of his individuality and accept the 'companionship' of others who "break bread" with us. We must think not in terms of 'me' but 'we'. That's why every day we pray 'our' Father, 'our' daily bread. Breaking down the barriers between us and our neighbors is the first prerequisite for entering the divine life to which we are called. We need to be liberated from all that imprisons us and isolates us: fear and mistrust towards others, greed and selfishness, unwillingness to run the risk of vulnerability to which we expose ourselves when we are open to love”.

The grains of wheat, once crushed, are mixed into the dough and baked. Here, Augustine refers to immersion in the baptismal waters followed by the sacramental gift of the Holy Spirit, which inflames the heart of the faithful with the fire of God's love. This process unites and transforms a single isolated grain into bread, it gives us an evocative image of the unifying action of the Holy Spirit upon the church members, made so prominent in the celebration of the Eucharist. Those who take part in this great sacrament become the Body of Christ’s Church, so they feed his Eucharistic Body. "Be what you can see," says St. Augustine encouraging, "and receive what you are."

These strong words invite us to respond generously to the call to "be Christ" to those around us. We are his body now on earth. To paraphrase a famous remark attributed to Saint Teresa of Avila, we are the eyes with which he looks with compassion on those in need, we are the hands with which he seeks to bless and to heal, we are the feet that on which he walks to do well, and we are the lips by which his Gospel is proclaimed. However, it is important to understand that when we participate in his healing work, we are not honoring the memory of a dead hero in extending what he did: on the contrary, Christ is alive in us, his body, the Church, his priestly people. By feeding on Him in the Eucharist and receiving the Holy Spirit in our hearts we truly become the Body of Christ that we receive, we are truly in communion with him and with each other, and we truly become instruments, in witness to him before the world.
Pope Benedict XVI - Homily at Nicosia Sports Centre given June 6, 2010.

Given that Pope Benedict XVI cites Saint Augustine’s Sermon 272, perhaps Turretinfan will now write a commentary claiming that he, like Augustine, denies the doctrine of transubstantiation too.

TEXT: That's what the apostle said about the bread. He has already shown clearly enough what we should understand about the cup, even if it wasn't said. After all, just as many grains are mixed into one loaf in order to produce the visible appearance of bread, as though what holy scripture says about the faithful were happening: They had one soul and one heart in God (Acts 4:32); so too with the wine. Brothers and sisters, just remind yourselves what wine is made from; many grapes hang in the bunch, but the juice of the grapes is poured together in one vessel. That too is how the Lord Christ signified us, how he wished us to belong to him, how he consecrated the sacrament of our peace and unity on his table.

Me: Saint Augustine again emphasizes the mystagogic meaning of the sacrament and the grace that comes from worthy participation in the Eucharistic celebration that is the Mass is unity with Christ and unity with each other. When grapes are made into the wine, they become indistinguishable from one another. Once the juice from the grapes become wine, the grapes can never be separated. That is the sort of unity that Jesus calls us to. By Jesus, through Jesus and in Jesus, our unity should be that indivisible and that strong. Notice how active, how dynamic Saint Augustine’s language is here. Saint Augustine is not taking pictures here but teaching theology!

TEXT: Any who receive the sacrament of unity, and do not hold the bond of peace, do not receive the sacrament for their benefit, but a testimony against themselves.

Me: Our Lord teaches in His masterful Sermon on the Mount that when we offer our sacrifice and remember that we have something against our brother or sister, we must leave and reconcile with our neighbor before coming back to the sacrifice (Mt. 5:23-24). Similarly, Saint John tells us that we are liars if we claim to love God, but hate our brothers and sisters (1 Jn. 4:2-21). Saint Paul brings these two truths together stating that we must eat Christ's flesh and blood worthily, recognizing the body. To combat the divisions that plagued the Church of Corinth, Saint Paul emphasized the unity that is found in the Eucharist. (1 Cor. 11:17-34). Saint Augustine alludes to that verity here.

The point of Saint Augustine Sermon 272 was to expose his infantes to the deeper mysteries of the sacrament of the Eucharist. The real meaning of communion is unity in and with the Church. As mentioned before, Jesus did not give us this sacrament to turn bread and wine into his body and blood. As Saint Augustine affirms, that occurs, but that is not the purpose of the Eucharist. The purpose of the Eucharist is to transform us into the Body of Christ. When we were baptized, we became members of Christ's Body. The Eucharist renews and strengthens the unity of the body of Christ. When we come to the table and share the Body and Blood of the Lord, we are committing ourselves to live as the Body of Christ. As St. Augustine put it above, we reply “Amen” to that which we are, and in doing so we are consenting to and committing ourselves to the unity that comes from being a part of the Body of Christ.

In his apostolic letter titled Dies Domini, Bl. Pope John Paul II tells us “to be ever mindful that communion with Christ is deeply tied to communion with our brothers and sisters.” Dies Domini, # 44. When we receive the sacrament of the Eucharist not only are we brought into an intimate union with Our Lord, but also with every member of the Body of Christ. That's the point of the Eucharist, and that is why the sacrament is also called Communion. This truth is as vibrant and real for “modern Rome” as it was for Saint Augustine.

TEXT: Turning to the Lord, God the Father almighty, with pure hearts let us give him sincere and abundant thanks, as much as we can in our littleness; beseeching him in his singular kindness with our whole soul, graciously to hearken to our prayers in his good pleasure; also by his power to drive out the enemy from our actions and thoughts, to increase our faith, to guide our minds, to grant us spiritual thoughts, and to lead us finally to his bliss; through Jesus Christ his Son. Amen.

TF writes: These are not so much concluding thoughts as they are a general exhortation to godliness and piety. I’m tempted to try to tie these comments back into the main discussion of the sermon, but I think it would be a mistake not to treat them as more or less a general doxology.

Me: Actually, this conclusion is a liturgical prayer and not part of the sermon at all. The phrase Conversi ad Dominum is Latin for “turn to the Lord.” We find appended to many of St. Augustine’s sermons this prayer which was a signal to the congregation to stand up, face east and while he recites the prayer. In the Eucharistic liturgy celebrated at the time both the priest and the congregation faced east during the Eucharistic Prayer and Consecration of the bread and wine.

Saint Augustine explains the purpose of the prayer:

“When I say Conversi ad Dominum, let us bless His name, that He may grant us perseverance in His commandments, help us to walk in the right way as He has instructed us, and to please Him in every good work, and other requests of a like nature. Moreover, we acknowledge that all of this lies within our powers. Let us both you and I, be on our guard lest we ask the blessing in vain, or you subscribe your Amen in vain. My brethren, your Amen signifies that you subscribe to the prayer, it is your consent, your stipulation.”

See, Saint Augustine. Sermonum quorumdam qui adhuc disiderantur fragmenta.

In conclusion, it is my fervent contention that there is nothing in Saint Augustine’s Sermon 272 that would lead the reader to believe that his views on the Eucharist are opposed to those of “modern Rome”. How could one seriously claim otherwise when Saint Augustine’s views contained in that sermon have been expressly adopted as part of the Church’s official teaching on the Eucharist as I have demonstrated above?

With that, I close my review of Mr. Fan’s commentary of Saint Augustine’s Sermon 272. I apologize for its length, however I felt that such an effort was necessary in order for the reader to have something more real to consider than the unsupported opinion of a Calvinist e-pologist that Saint Augustine did not share “modern Rome’s view of the Eucharist” particularly when Mr. Fan offers to the reader nothing as to what “modern Rome’s view” actually is in order to make that comparison.

Now I suppose it is fair to debate what Saint Augustine held in regards to the Eucharist. After all folks have been doing that since the days of St. Paschasius Radbertus (785-860) and Ratramnus of Corbie (unk-868?). But if someone is going to compare what they think Augustine believed with what the Church holds now, should not one at least examine and consider what the Church teaches today before making up one’s mind as to whether Saint Augustine’s views coincide with it? In that respect whether one agrees with me or not, it is my sincere hope that my over-exuberance in putting forth “modern Rome’s views” in this regard makes up for the dearth of material provided by Turretinfan.

We shall next examine Mr. Fan’s treatment of Saint Augustine’s Sermon 227 which actually does contain something that gives the reader some insight as to whether Saint Augustine held to the doctrine of transubstantiation. Until we meet again, God bless you and yours!

"Recognize in this bread what hung on the cross, and in this chalice what flowed from His side... whatever was in many and varied ways announced beforehand in the sacrifices of the Old Testament pertains to this one sacrifice which is revealed in the New Testament." ~Saint Augustine, Sermon 3:2.

What Saint Augustine, Bishop, Saint and Doctor of the Catholic Church Actually Held Pertaining to Transubstantiation: A Response to Turretinfan [Parts One and Two].

2011-07-08T23:18:00.001-05:00

PART ONE.

I. Introduction.

Recently, I came across a troika of postings by the Reformed Presbyterian apologist who goes by the sobriquet of Turretinfan over at his blog “Thoughts of Francis Turretin” in which he denigrates the Catholic belief in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the sacrament of Holy Eucharist and its associated doctrine of Transubstantiation. Mr. Fan’s first post is entitled: Augustine’s Sermon 272 and Transubstantiation; the second: Augustine’s Sermon 227 and Transubstantiation; and the third: Augustine’s Letter 36 and Transubstantiation. I found it rather troubling that Turretinfan sought to compare the teachings of St. Augustine with what “modern Rome” teaches yet did not take the time to explain to the reader what he thought “modern Rome” actually teaches in order for the reader to determine whether Turretinfan’s comparison is a fair one. Instead, Mr. Fan apparently relies on his reader’s own understanding (or lack thereof) upon which to form the conclusion that St. Augustine did not hold to the doctrine of Transubstantiation without any actual evidence to support that conclusion. Without such evidence, the argument presented in Mr. Fan’s “commentary” is not a real commentary at all, but in actuality is nothing more than a dressed-up “letter to the editor” type opinion. When I attempted to point out this rather serious flaw to Mr. Fan in a comment I made on his blog in the hope that he would take the time to correct it, Mr. Fan chose to delete it instead.

Because Turretinfan decided to delete my comment, I decided to make the effort to post a more detailed response here because I could not allow Mr. Fan’s misstatements in regards to either the teachings of the Catholic Church or its Doctor of Grace go unchallenged. I hope and pray that the reader find this offering to be a worthy defense of the verity of the real and substantial Presence of Our Lord’s Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity in the Holy Eucharist. Adoro te devote, latens Deitas!

II. The Dogmas of the Real Presence and Transubstantiation.

Since I have criticized Mr. Fan for his failure to offer the reader what “modern Rome” teaches in regards to the doctrine of Transubstantiation, I will attempt to supply what is missing from his argument and set before the reader what “modern Rome” teaches before I make the effort to engage Mr. Fan’s treatment of the three Augustinian texts he selected to attack Catholic teaching.

Many people misunderstand what the doctrine of Transubstantiation is and believe that terms Transubstantiation and the Real Presence are interchangeable. They are not. To be clear, the Catholic doctrine of the Real Presence of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, in the Eucharistic sacrifice is NOT synonymous with the teaching of the Church in regards to Transubstantiation. It is possible for a Christian to hold to the belief in the Real Presence and not hold to the doctrine of Transubstantiation. For instance, the Catholic Church, the churches that follow the Orthodox tradition and many “high-church” Anglicans believe in both doctrines (although the Orthodox do not label their dogmatic understanding as “transubstantiation”). Lutherans believe in the Real Presence but do not believe in the dogma of transubstantiation. Rather they hold to the notion of consubstantiation, that the substance of Our Lord is impanated or united with the substances of bread and wine. Many of the Presbyterian-type denominations hold to a form of the Real Presence, but like the progenitor of their religion, John Calvin, they are rather fuzzy on the details:

Now, should any one ask me as to the mode, I will not be ashamed to confess that it is too high a mystery either for my mind to comprehend or my words to express; and to speak more plainly I rather feel than understand it. The truth of God, therefore, in which I can safely rest, I here embrace without controversy. He declares that his flesh is the meat, his blood the drink, of my soul; I give my soul to him to be fed with such food. In his sacred Supper he bids, me take, eat, and drink his body and blood under the symbols of bread and wine. I have no doubt that he will truly give and I receive. Only, I reject the absurdities which appear to be unworthy of the heavenly majesty of Christ, and are inconsistent with the reality of his human nature. Since they must also be repugnant to the word of God, which teaches both that Christ was received into the glory of the heavenly kingdom, so as to be exalted above all the circumstances of the world, (Luke 24: 26,) and no less carefully ascribes to him the properties belonging to a true human nature. This ought not to seem incredible or contradictory to reason, (Iren. Lib. 4 cap. 34;) because as the whole kingdom of Christ is spiritual, so whatever he does in his Church is not to be tested by the wisdom of this world; or, to use the words of Augustine "this mystery is performed by man like the others, but in a divine manner, and on earth, but in a heavenly manner." Such, I say, is the corporeal presence which the nature of the sacrament requires, and which we say is here displayed in such power and efficacy, that it not only gives our minds undoubted assurance of eternal life, but also secures the immortality of our flesh, since it is now quickened by his immortal flesh, and in a manner shines in his immortality. Those who are carried beyond this with their hyperboles, do nothing more by their extravagancies than obscure the plain and simple truth. If any one is not yet satisfied, I would have him here to consider with himself that we are speaking of the sacrament, every part of which ought to have reference to faith. Now by participation of the body, as we have explained, we nourish faith not less richly and abundantly then do those who drag Christ himself from heaven. Still I am free to confess that mixture or transfusion of the flesh of Christ with our souls which they teach I repudiate, because it is enough for us, that Christ, out of the substance of his flesh, breathes life into our souls, nay, diffuses his own life into us, though the real flesh of Christ does not enter us. I may add, that there can be no doubt that the analogy of faith by which Paul enjoins us to test every interpretation of Scripture, is clearly with us in this matter. Let those who oppose a truth so clear, consider to what standard of faith they conform themselves: "Every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God," (1 John 4: 23; 2 John ver. 7.) These men, though they disguise the fact, or perceive it not, rob him of his flesh.

Calvin, John. Institutes, Book IV, chapter 17:32.

While one may believe in the Real Presence without believing in Transubstantiation, the converse is not true. No one can believe in Transubstantiation without believing in the doctrine of Real Presence.

For Catholics anyway, the dogma of the Real Presence in a nutshell is the belief that the Christ really being present in the consecrated bread and wine. We do not call Jesus a liar, but accept Him at His word when He said:

"I am the living bread which has come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world....

"For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink" (John 6:51, 55).

Simply stated, the Catholic Church holds that the Holy Eucharist is nothing less than Jesus Christ Himself.

Here is how the dogma of the Real Presence is defined at the Council of Trent:

If any one denieth, that, in the sacrament of the most holy Eucharist, are contained truly, really, and substantially, the body and blood together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and consequently the whole Christ; but saith that He is only therein as in a sign, or in figure, or virtue; let him be anathema. (Canon I, Thirteenth Session, Council of Trent) (Emphasis Added).

In its Decree Concerning the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, the Council Fathers stated the following:

CHAPTER I. On the real presence of our Lord Jesus Christ in the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist.

In the first place, the holy Synod teaches, and openly and simply professes, that, in the August sacrament of the holy Eucharist, after the consecration of the bread and wine, our Lord Jesus Christ, true God and man, is truly, really, and substantially contained under the species of those sensible things. For neither are these things mutually repugnant,-that our Savior Himself always sitteth at the right hand of the Father in heaven, according to the natural mode of existing, and that, nevertheless, He be, in many other places, sacramentally present to us in his own substance, by a manner of existing, which, though we can scarcely express it in words, yet can we, by the understanding illuminated by faith, conceive, and we ought most firmly to believe, to be possible unto God: for thus all our forefathers, as many as were in the true Church of Christ, who have treated of this most holy Sacrament, have most openly professed, that our Redeemer instituted this so admirable a sacrament at the last supper, when, after the blessing of the bread and wine, He testified, in express and clear words, that He gave them His own very Body, and His own Blood; words which,-recorded by the holy Evangelists, and afterwards repeated by Saint Paul, whereas they carry with them that proper and most manifest meaning in which they were understood by the Fathers,-it is indeed a crime the most unworthy that they should be wrested, by certain contentions and wicked men, to fictitious and imaginary tropes, whereby the verity of the flesh and blood of Christ is denied, contrary to the universal sense of the Church, which, as the pillar and ground of truth, has detested, as satanical, these inventions devised by impious men; she recognizing, with a mind ever grateful and unforgetting, this most excellent benefit of Christ.

CHAPTER II. On the reason of the Institution of this most holy Sacrament.

Wherefore, our Savior, when about to depart out of this world to the Father, instituted this Sacrament, in which He poured forth as it were the riches of His divine love towards man, making a remembrance of his wonderful works; and He commanded us, in the participation thereof, to venerate His memory, and to show forth his death until He come to judge the world. And He would also that this sacrament should be received as the spiritual food of souls, whereby may be fed and strengthened those who live with His life who said, He that eateth me, the same also shall live by me; and as an antidote, whereby we may be freed from daily faults, and be preserved from mortal sins. He would, furthermore, have it be a pledge of our glory to come, and everlasting happiness, and thus be a symbol of that one body whereof He is the head, and to which He would fain have us as members be united by the closest bond of faith, hope, and charity, that we might all speak the same things, and there might be no schisms amongst us.

CHAPTER III. On the excellency of the most holy Eucharist over the rest of the Sacraments.

The most holy Eucharist has indeed this in common with the rest of the sacraments, that it is a symbol of a sacred thing, and is a visible form of an invisible grace; but there is found in the Eucharist this excellent and peculiar thing, that the other sacraments have then first the power of sanctifying when one uses them, whereas in the Eucharist, before being used, there is the Author Himself of sanctity. For the apostles had not as yet received the Eucharist from the hand of the Lord, when nevertheless Himself affirmed with truth that to be His own body which He presented (to them). And this faith has ever been in the Church of God, that, immediately after the consecration, the veritable Body of our Lord, and His veritable Blood, together with His soul and divinity, are under the species of bread and wine; but the Body indeed under the species of bread, and the Blood under the species of wine, by the force of the words; but the body itself under the species of wine, and the blood under the species of bread, and the soul under both, by the force of that natural connexion and concomitancy whereby the parts of Christ our Lord, who hath now risen from the dead, to die no more, are united together; and the divinity, furthermore, on account of the admirable hypostatical union thereof with His body and soul. Wherefore it is most true, that as much is contained under either species as under both; for Christ whole and entire is under the species of bread, and under any part whatsoever of that species; likewise the whole (Christ) is under the species of wine, and under the parts thereof.

And since Turretinfan in his trio of articles states the problem in terms of making a comparison of what St. Augustine, the Catholic Bishop of Hippo and its Doctor of Grace believes with what “modern Rome” holds and teaches, it behooves us to look at what “modern Rome” teaches. In the Catechism of the Catholic Church, promulgated and approved by the Blessed Pope John Paul II in his Apostolic Letter, Laetamur Magnopere (Aug. 15, 1997) the Church teaches:

The presence of Christ by the power of his word and the Holy Spirit

1373 "Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us," is present in many ways to his Church: (FN 197) in his word, in his Church's prayer, "where two or three are gathered in my name," (FN 198) in the poor, the sick, and the imprisoned, (FN 199) in the sacraments of which he is the author, in the sacrifice of the Mass, and in the person of the minister. But "he is present . . . most especially in the Eucharistic species." (FN 200)

1374 The mode of Christ's presence under the Eucharistic species is unique. It raises the Eucharist above all the sacraments as "the perfection of the spiritual life and the end to which all the sacraments tend." (FN 201) In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist "the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained." (FN 202) "This presence is called ‘real'—by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be ‘real' too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present." (FN 203)

197. Rom 8:34; cf. Lumen Gentium 48.

198. Mt 18:20.

199. Cf. Mt 25:31-46.

200. Sacrosanctum concilium 7 (NB-which incidently references St. Augustine’s Tractatus in Ioannem, VI, n. 7)

201. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Book III, 73:3c.

202. Council of Trent, Session Thirteen (October 1551): Denzinger-Schömetzer, Enchiridion Symbolorum, defintionum et declarationum de rebus fidei et morum 1651 (1965).

203. Pope Paul VI, Mysterium fidei 39.

Now that we have summarized the teaching of the Church in regards to the doctrine of the Real Presence, let us move on to the doctrine of Transubstantiation. Simply put, the doctrine of Transubstantiation is the change or conversion, (by the action of the Holy Spirit at the moment that the words of institution are pronounced) of the substance of bread and wine into the substance of the Body and Blood of Christ, with only the appearances or accidents of bread and wine remaining. This doctrine emphasizes the aspect of the doctrine of the Real Presence of Our Lord being “Substantially Present.” When the Church speaks of “Substantially Present” it is stating that the bread and wine offered in the sacrifice of the Mass are substantially changed by the words of consecration. We don’t believe that after the bread and wine are consecrated, we are eating Jesus in a carnal way, because, to all outward appearances, what one sees, smells, touches, and tastes is still bread and wine. However, on a deeper metaphysical level (“substance"), that which makes bread, bread, and wine, wine, has been done away with, and the very Substance of Jesus Christ, His Body, His Blood, His Soul, and His Divinity, takes its place. The doctrine of Transubstantiation does not seek to explain “how” the bread and wine are changed, only the fact that they are substantially changed.

Here again is the teaching of the Council of Trent on this point:

If any one saith, that, in the sacred and holy sacrament of the Eucharist, the substance of the bread and wine remains conjointly with the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and denieth that wonderful and singular CONVERSION of the whole substance of the bread into the Body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the Blood-the species Only of the bread and wine remaining-which CONVERSION indeed the Catholic Church most aptly calls Transubstantiation; let him be anathema.

but saith that He is only therein as in a sign, or in figure, or virtue; let him be anathema. (Canon II, Thirteenth Session, Council of Trent) (Emphasis Added).

In its Decree Concerning the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, the Council Fathers stated the following on the dogma of Transubstantiation:

CHAPTER IV. On Transubstantiation.

And because that Christ, our Redeemer, declared that which He offered under the species of bread to be truly His own body, therefore has it ever been a firm belief in the Church of God, and this holy Synod doth now declare it anew, that, by the consecration of the bread and of the wine, a conversion is made of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord, and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of His blood; which conversion is, by the holy Catholic Church, suitably and properly called Transubstantiation.

And since the issue of what “modern Rome” teaches in regards to this doctrine is a paramount issue for Mr. Fan, here is what the Catechism of the Catholic Church states on the matter:

1375 It is by the conversion of the bread and wine into Christ's body and blood that Christ becomes present in this sacrament. the Church Fathers strongly affirmed the faith of the Church in the efficacy of the Word of Christ and of the action of the Holy Spirit to bring about this conversion. Thus St. John Chrysostom declares:

It is not man that causes the things offered to become the Body and Blood of Christ, but he who was crucified for us, Christ himself. the priest, in the role of Christ, pronounces these words, but their power and grace are God's. This is my body, he says. This word transforms the things

offered. (FN 202)

and St. Ambrose says about this conversion:

Be convinced that this is not what nature has formed, but what the blessing has consecrated. the power of the blessing prevails over that of nature, because by the blessing nature itself is changed.... Could not Christ's word, which can make from nothing what did not exist, change existing things into what they were not before? It is no less a feat to give things their original nature than to change their nature. (FN 203)

1376 The Council of Trent summarizes the Catholic faith by declaring: "Because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly his body that he was offering under the species of bread, it has always been the conviction of the Church of God, and this holy Council now declares again, that by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation." (FN 204)

202 St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Treachery of Judas (407 AD) 1:6: PG 49, 380.

203 St. Ambrose, De Mysteriis 9:50; 52: PL 16, 405-407.

204 Council of Trent, Session Thirteen (October 1551): Denzinger-Schömetzer, Enchiridion Symbolorum, defintionum et declarationum de rebus fidei et morum 1642 (1965); cf. Mt. 26:26 ff.; Mk. 14:22 ff.; Lk. 22:19 ff.; 1 Cor. 11:24 ff.

There is much more that I could say on these two related, but separate doctrines. Books upon books have been written about these two aspects of this great sacrament of unity. Whole lives have been devoted to the contemplation and study of these great mysteries. What I have written here barely touches the surface of a fathomless ocean. That said, I hope that I have offered the reader sufficient information to see how these two separate doctrines are used together to explain how in the liturgy of the Mass in the act of consecration during the Eucharist the "substance" of the bread and wine is changed by the power of the Holy Spirit into the "substance" of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. It is the change at the level of substance from bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ that is called "transubstantiation," not the Substantial Presence of Our Lord Himself in the sacrament. According to Catholic faith, we can speak of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist because this transubstantiation has occurred (CCC No. 1376).

PART TWO.

III. Critique of Turretinfan’s Three Commentaries.

Now that we have discussed what “modern Rome” actually teaches in regards to both the doctrines of the Real Presence and of Transubstantiation, let’s move on to discuss the three Augustinian texts that Mr. Fan picked to “prove” that St. Augustine did not hold to the notion of Transubstantiation. Or to clarify the issue in contention here: Does St. Augustine believe that when the bread and wine are consecrated in the celebration of the Divine Liturgy (i.e. the Mass), undergoes a change into the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ? I shall undertake to show that he did so believe.

The path that I have chosen to take to prove that St. Augustine did in fact believe in Transubstantiation, that the during the act of consecration, the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, will be as follows. First, we shall review the texts that Mr. Fan chose to show that St. Augustine did not so believe and then after critiquing Mr. Fan’s commentaries, I shall present the reader with a number of texts from his writings to demonstrate that he did so believe.

A. Letter 36 From Augustine to Casulanus.

We shall start with Mr. Fan’s choice of St. Augustine’s Letter 36 to a fellow priest, Casulanus who was seeking some advice. First, it must be said that the text does not provide the reader with any insight whatsoever as to St. Augustine’s thought as to whether he believed that a conversion of the Eucharistic elements from bread and wine into the Body and Blood of the Our Lord occurs at the part of the Mass when the priest pronounces the words of institution. Moreover, I must point out that in my researches I could not find a single instance where Letter 36 is cited to by any real scholar or theologian, Catholic or Protestant, as proof or disproof of any of the three principle Eucharistic mysteries embodied in Catholic teaching: 1) the Eucharist as the Real Presence of Jesus Christ, his Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity; 2) the Eucharist as a true sacrifice of Christ and his Church; or 3) the Eucharist as the Sacrament of Unity. Given the total dearth of discussion by Turretinfan of what he seems to think that “modern Rome” teaches in regards to the Eucharist that is at odds with one of its bishops, saints, and doctors or how he perceives that “modern Rome’s doctrinal statements on the Eucharist are negated by the selected text he references, I am unable to discern the thought process behind his selection of this particular letter to declaim against the teaching of the Catholic Church in regards to the dogma of Transubstantiation.

That said, folks do cite to Letter 36 for a variety of reasons. Letter 36's claim to fame is that it is the source of the famous saying, ‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do.’ (See, Letter 36, 13:32) It is also cited to as proof of St. Augustine’s view that the deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament are indeed Scripture, particularly since he cites in this Letter to passages from three different deuterocanonical books as Scripture: Daniel 3:23-93 (Letter 36, 7:16); Tobit 12:8 (Letter 36, 8:18); Sirach 3:1 (Letter 36, 11:26).

From a theological standpoint, some Protestant sects cite to Letter 36 as proof that the Sunday observance of the Lord’s Day was a Roman invention, a perversion of the scriptural observance of the Sabbath on Saturday. Some Orthodox apologists point to this letter touching on the Roman Church’s practice of fasting on Saturdays as proof of the errors of Rome since the practice of Saturday fasting (other than on Holy Saturday) was condemned at the Council of Trullo at the end of the 7^th century AD. Some Catholic writers cite to Letter 36 because in it we see the early development of the liturgical year focusing on “the celebration throughout the year of the mysteries of the Lord's birth, life, death, and Resurrection in such a way that the entire year becomes a 'year of the Lord's grace' ... with its focal point at Easter" (CCC §1168). Throughout this letter, St. Augustine mentions the observance of the feasts of Easter and Pentecost by name, the fifty days of Easter, and the Church’s celebration or saints’ feast days and solemnities.

Moving on to the letter’s content, this letter was written sometime after April 397 AD during the time St Augustine was confronting those who adhered to the heresy of Manichaeism (which he had formerly espoused himself). One of the central features of the Manichaean heresy was the rejection and ridiculing of the Old Testament Scriptures. To confront these heretics, St. Augustine insisted on the unity of the Old Testament and the New Testament. His writings of that time period, even those which were not directed to Manichaeans, often emphasized that the Old Testament was nothing less than prophecy fulfilled in Jesus Christ and that the sacrifices of Old Law are to be understood as types (figures) of the unique sacrifice of Our Lord and of the Eucharist which is a sacramental celebration of that singular sacrifice. As we shall see, this is a theme that is repeated in Turretinfan’s selection from Letter 36.

From a moral standpoint, St. Augustine’s letter to Casulanus stresses the importance of following one’s bishop in the observance of differing liturgical and disciplinary practices, traditions, and observances followed by the different sees of the Church. In this letter, the disciplinary custom or tradition that was being discussed was fasting. Should Casulanus follow the Roman custom of fasting on Saturdays or the custom followed by his own bishop? Augustine offers the same answer he was given by St. Ambrose of Milan, Augustine’s spiritual father and teacher when he asked the same question:

“When I (Ambrose) am here (in Milan), I do not fast on the Sabbath; when I am in Rome, I fast on the Sabbath. And to whatever church you come, observe its custom, if you do not want to be scandalized or to give scandal.”

See, Augustine, John E. Rotelle, and Roland Teske. Letters 1-99. Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2001, pg. 142.

To which St. Augustine added:

“Hence, if you willingly accept my advice, especially since I have probably said more than enough on this topic, at your request and under pressure from you, do not oppose your bishop on this matter, and follow what he himself does without any worry or quarrel.”

Ibid.

St. Augustine’s view on the importance of following one’s bishop is one that has been embodied in the teachings of the Catholic Church even today. Each individual bishop's authority to ordain, and confirm, and judge as iudex ordinarius is well-defined and established under canon law and in the magisterial authority of the Church. Further, each bishop possesses the right to exercise his authority in matters that do not touch the common heritage of the faith and discipline of the Church. A bishop can order the details of worship in the churches under his authority in his diocese in matters which do not conflict with the common law of Church.

Now that we have gleaned how this letter has been used by the Church and those who oppose her, addressing the portion of the text of Letter 36 that Turretinfan seeks to use in refuting the doctrine of Transubstantiation, I offer the following commentary using an alternate translation from a book I own:

But, this fellow who says that the old things have passed away in the sense that “ in Christ

the sacrificial table has yielded to the altar sword to fasting, fire to prayers, animal to bread and blood to the cup,” does not know that the term “altar” is used more frequently in the writings of the law and the prophets, and that an altar to God was first set up in the tabernacle that Moses erected. “Sacrificial table” is also found in the apostolic writings where the martyrs cry out beneath the sacrificial table of God (Rev. 6:9-10) . He says that the sword has yielded to fasting, not recalling that sword of the gospel with which the soldiers of both testaments are armed, a sword with a double edge (Eph. 6:17; Heb. 4:12). He says the fire has given place to prayers, as if prayers were also not offered in the temple and as if fire has not now been sent into the world by Christ (Lk. 12:49). He says that animals have yielded to bread, as if he did not know that even then the loaves of proposition used to be put on the Lord’s table (Ex. 25:30), and that now he partakes of the body of the immaculate Lamb (1 Pt. 1:19; Mt. 26:26-28; Mk. 14:22-24; Lk. 22:17-20; 1 Cor. 11:23-25) . He says that blood has yielded to the cup, not thinking that even now he receives the blood in the cup. How much better and more appropriately would he say that the old things have passed away and new ones have come to be in Christ in such a way that altar yields to altar, the sword to the sword, fire to fire, bread to bread, animal to animal, and blood to blood. We, of course, see that the carnal old condition yields in all of these to the spiritual new condition. In that way, then, we should understand that on this passing seventh day whether people eat or some also fast, the carnal Sabbath has yielded to the spiritual Sabbath. When in this latter we desire everlasting and true rest, we scorn in the former the temporal abstinence from work, which is now superstitious.

See, Augustine, John E. Rotelle, and Roland Teske. Letters 1-99. Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2001, pg. 137.

As I noted earlier, St. Augustine wrote Letter 36 in response to a request for advice from a young priest named Casulanus. Apparently, Casulanus had read a treatise written by a priest residing in Rome claiming that it was incumbent on all Christians to follow the Roman custom of fasting on the Sabbath. Yet, Casulanus’ bishop followed a different custom of fasting on days different from what the treatise’s author had advocated. Who’s right-Casulanus’ bishop or the priest from Rome?

Saint Augustine starts out his letter stating that it was lawful for a person to fast on the Sabbath as the Scriptures tell us that Moses, Elijah and Our Lord did so. That said, St. Augustine then moves on to the question of whether one should fast on the Lord’s Day. St. Augustine replies that this cannot be done without causing scandal to the Church because even though the Scriptures give no certain definitive answer on this point, the custom or tradition (small “t”) of the people of God, or the decisions of our forefathers, must be regarded as the law.

Like Turretinfan, I will not go into detail on the manner of St. Augustine’s refutation of the writer’s treatise. But unlike Turretinfan, I will offer the reader a little bit of the argument that Urbicus, the pseudonym that Casulanus charitably gives the author of the treatise, makes so one can understand the point that St. Augustine refutes in Chapter 24 of Letter 36 so to provide some context.

In furtherance of his argument, Urbicus borrows a page from Origen and argues that all things Hebrew must be tossed out of the Christian religion. He claims that all Christians must fast on the Sabbath like the Romans do because it is the duty of Christians to be as unlike Jews as much as possible. To fast on the Sabbath is a rejection of everything Jewish and the Law of the Old Testament which Our Lord Himself had done away with. To buttress this line of argumentation, Urbicus emphasizes the differences between the sacrifices of Israel and that of the Church . Urbicus argues that the Jewish Ara (sacrificial table) had been replaced by the Christian Altare (altar); that the Jewish sacrifice of the flesh of animals had been supplanted by the Christian sacrifice of the bread; and that the Jewish offering of the blood of the animal victim had been replaced with the wine of the chalice.

In the passage I quote above, St. Augustine criticizes these distinctions as inaccurate. St. Augustine points out that the term Altare occurs constantly in the Old Testament (Law and the Prophets) and the Altare of God stood in the Tabernacle erected by Moses himself. St. Augustine notes that the term Ara (sacrificial table) occurs in the apostolic writings and gives the example of the Holy Martyrs pleading under the Ara Dei (Rev. 6:9-10). In the Old Testament, show bread was offered on the Table of the Lord. Now we partake of the Body of the Immaculate Lamb. Thusly, St. Augustine argues that Urbicus would have been better served if he had argued that the things of the Old Testament were all made new in Christ; that the Altare of the Jews had succeeded to another Altare of the Church, one Bread to another, one Lamb to another, etc.... Rather than trying to differentiate between the various aspects of the Hebrew sacrifice and the Church’s sacrifice, St. Augustine argues that Urbicus fails to realize that what is important is how we understand them through the transition from the carnal (temporal) reality of the Old Testament to the spiritual (eternal) realities of the New. Thus, regardless of whether one fasted on the Sabbath or not, the carnal meaning of the day had already yielded to the new meaning provided by Jesus Christ and was no longer relevant for Christians.

Now Turretinfan claims that the way that Augustine's argument here makes the most sense:

“is if Augustine understands "Lamb" and "blood" non-literally, but figuratively. A carnal sword with a spiritual sword, carnal fire with literal fire, carnal bread with spiritual bread, carnal victim with spiritual victim, carnal blood with spiritual blood, and (drumroll please!) therefore a carnal sabbath with a spiritual sabbath. In that spiritual sabbath we look forward to a true and eternal rest, not placing our hope in mere physical rest.”

Unfortunately, by foisting a Protestant hermeneutic on St. Augustine’s argument, Mr. Fan makes the same mistake as Urbicus by making such artificial distinctions. In truth, Augustine points out that while our understanding of these rites have changed, the rites themselves are the same. In other words, St. Augustine is employing typology to interpret Scripture.

Typology is the discernment of persons, events, or things in the Old Testament which prefigured, and thus served as a "type" (or archetype or prototype) of, the fulfillment of God's plan in the person of Christ. That which is prefigured is referred to as an "antitype." The typology of the Old Testament which is made clear in the New Testament demonstrates the dynamic unity of the divine plan or what we Catholics call the Divine Economy.

Typology is the method the Catholic Church has historically employed to understand the historical and theological relationships between people and events recorded in Sacred Scripture. Typology guides the exegete to look at each event and person in salvation history as that person or event may be linked to what preceded in the biblical record and linked to what came after, uniting the reader to the divine mystery of the progression of God's plan for the salvation of mankind. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church notes, the Church, as early as apostolic times, and then constantly in her Tradition, has illuminated the unity of the divine plan in the two Testaments through typology, which discerns in God's works of the Old Covenant prefiguration of what he accomplished in the fullness of time in the person of his Incarnate Son (CCC#128).

Quoting St. Augustine, CCC # 129 notes the New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New:

"It is not the Old Testament that is abolished in Christ but the concealing veil, so that it may be understood through Christ. That which without Christ is obscure and hidden is, as it were, opened up.. It is not the case, therefore, that by the grace of the Lord that which was covered has been abolished as useless; rather, the covering which concealed useful truth has been removed. This is what happens to those who earnestly and piously - not proudly and wickedly - seek the sense of the Scripture. To them is carefully demonstrated the order of events, the reasons for deeds and words, and the agreement of the Old Testament with the New, so that not a single point remains where there is not complete harmony. The secret truths are conveyed in figures that are brought to light by interpretation." De Utilitate Credendi 9.

Augustine replied: No one doubts that promises of temporal things are contained in the Old Testament, for which reason it is called the Old Testament; or that the kingdom of heaven and the promise of eternal life belong to the New Testament. But that in these temporal things were figures of future things which should be fulfilled in us upon whom the ends of the ages have come, is not my fancy, but the judgment of the apostle, when he says of such things, "These things were our examples;" and again, "These things happened to them for an example, and they are written for us on whom the ends of the ages have come." (1 Cor. 10:6, 11) We receive the Old Testament, therefore, not in order to obtain the fulfillment of these promises, but to see in them predictions of the New Testament; for the Old bears witness to the New. Whence the Lord, after He rose from the dead, and allowed His disciples not only to see but to handle Him, still, lest they should doubt their mortal and fleshly senses, gave them further confirmation from the testimony of the ancient books, saying, "It was necessary that all things should be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and in the Prophets and Psalms, concerning me." (Lk. 24:44) Our hope, therefore, rests not on the promise of temporal things. Nor do we believe that the holy and spiritual men of these times— the patriarchs and prophets— were taken up with earthly things. For they understood, by the revelation of the Spirit of God, what was suitable for that time, and how God appointed all these sayings and actions as types and predictions of the future. Their great desire was for the New Testament; but they had a personal duty to perform in those predictions, by which the new things of the future were foretold. So the life as well as the tongue of these men was prophetic. The carnal people, indeed, thought only of present blessings, though even in connection with the people there were prophecies of the future. Contra Faustus 4:2

If, therefore, it was mainly for this purpose that Christ came, to wit, that man might learn how much God loves him; and that he might learn this, to the intent that he might be kindled to the love of Him by whom he was first loved, and might also love his neighbor at the command and showing of Him who became our neighbor, in that He loved man when, instead of being a neighbor to Him, he was sojourning far apart: if, again, all divine Scripture, which was written aforetime, was written with the view of presignifying the Lord's advent; and if whatever has been committed to writing in times subsequent to these, and established by divine authority, is a record of Christ, and admonishes us of love, it is manifest that on those two commandments of love to God and love to our neighbor hang not only all the law and the prophets, which at the time when the Lord spoke to that effect were as yet the only Holy Scripture, but also all those books of the divine literature which have been written at a later period for our health, and consigned to remembrance. Wherefore, in the Old Testament there is a veiling of the New, and in the New Testament there is a revealing of the Old. According to that veiling, carnal men, understanding things in a carnal fashion, have been under the dominion, both then and now, of a penal fear. According to this revealing, on the other hand, spiritual men,— among whom we reckon at once those then who knocked in piety and found even hidden things opened to them, and others now who seek in no spirit of pride, lest even things uncovered should be closed to them—understanding in a spiritual fashion, have been made free through the love wherewith they have been gifted. Consequently, inasmuch as there is nothing more adverse to love than envy, and as pride is the mother of envy, the same Lord Jesus Christ, God-man, is both a manifestation of divine love towards us, and an example of human humility with us, to the end that our great swelling might be cured by a greater counteracting remedy. For here is great misery, proud man! But there is greater mercy, a humble God! Take this love, therefore, as the end that is set before you, to which you are to refer all that you say, and, whatever you narrate, narrate it in such a manner that he to whom you are discoursing on hearing may believe, on believing may hope, on hoping may love. On the Catechising of the Uninstructed 4:8

Thus when St. Augustine speaks of “how much better and more appropriately would he say that the old things have passed away and new ones have come to be in Christ in such a way that altar yields to altar, the sword to the sword, fire to fire, bread to bread, animal to animal, and blood to blood,” he is not talking about these things non-literally or figuratively as Turretinfan mistakenly claims, he is stating that these aspects of the Old Testament sacrifices were made new through Jesus Christ and are now reflected in the liturgy of the Church.

The above passage in Letter 36 shows us that the sacrifices of the Old Covenant are expressed typologically in the Eucharist. Moreover, the tenor of the entire letter shows us that the events of the Old Covenant feasts, as celebrated in the liturgy of the chosen people of the Old Covenant, annually relive the past events of the Exodus experience in the present of each new generation of covenant believers, just as our liturgical year allow Catholics to relive the past events of the birth of Jesus, His Resurrection, the coming of God the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, etc. and place those significant past events in the context of the present so that each of those events are as real and as present for us as they were when they originally happened. This “re-presentation” includes the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Savior on the Cross, which is made real and present in each and every Eucharistic celebration around the world at every hour of the day.

This is what is important about Letter 36-to fully appreciate the revelation of God to man through the unfolding of salvation history it must be understood as a real unity between the Old and New Testaments, not a mere figurative one as suggested by Turretinfan. What Letter 36 teaches, “modern Rome” still teaches today. God bless!

O my God, I firmly believe that You are really and corporally present in the Blessed Sacrament of the altar. I adore You here present from the very depths of my heart, and I worship Your Sacred Presence with all possible humility. O my soul, what joy to have Jesus Christ always with us, and to be able to speak to Him, heart to Heart, with all confidence. Grant, O Lord, that I, having adored Your Divine Majesty here on earth in this wonderful Sacrament, may be able to adore It eternally in heaven.

O Sacrament Most Holy, O Sacrament Divine,

all praise and all thanksgiving be every moment Thine! Amen.

Pope Benedict XVI and Eucharistic Adoration: A Response to the Libel of the Holy Father by the Lapsed Catholic Controversialist, John Bugay, and Others.

2011-04-25T17:44:00.003-05:00

"I am Myles Falworth, a Knight of the Bath by grace of his Majesty King Henry IV and by his creation, and do come hither to defend my challenge upon the body of William Bushy Brookhurst, Earl of Alban, proclaiming him an unknightly knight and a false and perjured liar, in that he hath accused Gilbert Reginald, Lord Falworth, of treason against our beloved Lord, his Majesty the King, and may God defend the right!" From Men of Iron by Howard Pyle.

[April 26, 2011. Please note: I have revised this article to remove some language that was uncharitable to James Swan, James White, Steven Hays, Turretinfan and David King. It was unfair of me to paint them with a broad brush-particularly when such is an exercise in fallacious argumentation-which the reader knows I abhor and have commented on several times here. Over at his blog, Mr. Swan was correct for calling me to account for saying what I said about him and about "Calvinist" apologists in general when my focus should have been kept on the remarks of Mr. Bugay. As I said there, and as I will here-I apologize to all of the aforementioned gentlemen for the over-generalization.]

[April 26, 2011: Second update: Mr. Bugay has proffered the following apology to his readers in reference to the quote in question:

To all: I am going to close down this thread. This discussion has gone on long enough here, and I am not interested to discuss it any further.

To our readers: I am genuinely sorry for having used a quotation out of context. There is a lot of fact-checking that needs to be done to maintain the integrity of a blog like this one, the purpose of which is to basically hold accountable to the truth, the various historical accounts that are disseminated in the name of religion.

I found a quote that had particular meaning for me, given the state of my devotional life as a Roman Catholic. That it had personal resonance with me should not have prevented me from doing my actual homework and, as James Swan has reminded me, exegeting that quotation in context. I failed to do that in this case, and to our readers, I am sorry, first of all for lowering the high standards that this blog maintains, and for allowing an opening through which this kind of ruckus was able to ensue.

If you ever see that quotation from me, or any other controversial quotation, Lord willing, it will be in the context of a highly thorough understanding of the text that I am relating.

As I had done with a previous thread where particular text appeared (it appeared once in my posting, and at another place in another comment thread), I'll leave this thread up another 24 hours or so for civil comments, and then I'll take it down.

Unlike Mr. Bugay, I do not intend on taking this post down as the alleged Ratzinger quote has been used by others to attack Pope Benedict XVI's authority and I want this to be available as a resource for those who wish to challenge such attacks. However, given Mr. Bugay's general reply above to my objections here, I would ask that the reader NOT to comment or make any criticism against Mr. Bugay or the folks over at Beggars All. As I related in my earlier post about Mr. Fan's pseudonymity, as Christians we should try to deal with the content of what our opponents write rather than attack the individuals themselves.

After Mr. Bugay took down his thread, I followed the example of my friend Dave Armstrong in a similar incident and re-worked this post to remove two paragraphs I highlighted in blue that were more rhetorical argumentation than factual presentation as well as some adjectives to tone down the overall tenor of the article.

I appreciate your consideration in this matter.

God bless all!]

Unlike Myles Falworth, I am not a knight or even a worthy thane. In truth, I am a humble laborer who has pledged his poor talents in service of Christ and the One, Holy, Apostolic and Catholic Church He founded. Nevertheless, regardless of my lack of title and paucity of ability, I could not allow Mr. Bugay, a fallen-away Catholic who now haunts cyberspace at a Reformed Protestant website known as Beggars All, to get away with defaming Christ's vicar, Pope Benedict XVI, in a manner that is demonstrably erroneous and based on extraordinarily nonexistent research. This article is my response to Mr. Bugay's false restatement of an old disproven claim against Pope Benedict XVI. I will note at this point that the article has been edited to add material that Mr. Bugay, himself, has provided in a subsequent comment as he revealed the “source” for the mis-quote that he proffered on his website. I will also note that Mr. Bugay decided to delete the comment where he first published the false statement against Pope Benedict XVI. I chose not to do likewise as I wanted this post to serve as a future rejoinder to Protestants who may chose in the future to publish the same quote as well as disobedient Catholics called sedevacantists who have used the same quote to malign Pope Benedict XVI.

The comment which Mr. Bugay made was made in the comment section to an article posted by James Swans entitled Sungenis Alone. Mr. Bugay writes in pertinent part:

James, in this post, Sungenis seems to illustrate the same sense of betrayal that I felt while leaving Rome.

I grew up thinking that "the Church" was the place to meet Christ. To have a direct, personal encounter with Him. It was not uncommon, in those days when I was seeking Him, for me to go to a dark, empty church and pray.

To me, a Ratzinger quote like the one that I posted here the other day, was an absolute betrayal:

"Eucharistic devotion such as is noted in the silent visit by the devout in church must not be thought of as a conversation with God. This would assume that God was present there locally and in a confined way. To justify such an assertion shows a lack of understanding of the Christological mysteries of the very concept of God. This is repugnant to the serious thinking of the man who knows about the omnipresence of God. To go to Church on the grounds that one can visit God who is present there is a senseless act which modern man rightfully rejects."

This quote that apparently is the cause of Mr. Bugay's disillusionment with the Catholic Church is supposedly from a book that Pope Benedict XVI wrote in 1966 called Sakramentale Begründung christlicher Existenz (The sacramental basis for Christian living) 1966, Kyrios Publishing, Freising-Meitingen (Germany). The work, written decades before Pope Benedict XVI ever became pope, has never been fully translated into English. Since Mr. Bugay does not identify the book in his comment nor indicate how and when he would have read it, one must be skeptical as to how an orphan quote from an obscure book could create a sense of betrayal that Mr. Bugay expressed in his comment.

As for the book from which the quote was supposedly lifted, the text consists of a speech the then Father Ratzinger gave at the Salzburg Hochschulwoche in 1965 to seminarians in which he presented for consideration a new approach to the reality of the sacraments and the central significance to a world that has lost touch with the sacramental dimension of Christian living. The notes of the speech were then put into order and published. The book itself was reviewed by a censor who granted it an imprimatur which indicates that the reviewer did not find in it anything contrary to the rule of faith of the Catholic Church.

Preliminarily, Mr. Bugay’s quote is one that has circulated for years, mostly on certain sedevacantist’s (self-styled heretics who label themselves as “sedevacantist Catholics” who do not believe that Vatican II is a valid ecumenical council or that the Church has not had a valid pope since Pope Pius XII) websites. However, Mr. Bugay claims that he first saw it on the website of Mr. Sungenis, the subject of Mr. Swan’s article. Even if that is true, one must wonder why he did not bother to link to it in the first place, or provide the level of detail that Mr. Sungenis provides such as the date of the original book and its English translation or the fact that Mr. Sungenis indicated in his article that the alleged quote was an opinion that was never reiterated in any other of the former Fr. Ratzinger’s works.

Further, several other issues must be considered in examining the text quoted above. Since Mr. Bugay's referenced quote is in English and since the work in question has never been published in English, the quote must be someone's translation. Mr. Bugay does not suggest how he attempted to verify the accuracy of quote. If Mr. Bugay “googled” the quote, he would have seen it quoted exactly as it appears in Mr. Sungenis’ article by a large number of sedevacantists. For example, here and here. It is obvious that Mr. Bugay has never actually read the work in question since there is no English translation of it. Moreover, he fails to corroborate the content of the quote against any other of Pope Benedict XVI’s writings. I would have thought he would have been more wary of advancing this notion particularly without verifying the facts. After all, haven’t other frequenters of the Beggars All coterie made sport of popular Catholic apologists, such as Steve Ray and Dave Armstrong, for using alleged quotes of Fr. Luther and St. Athanasius with far more reliable pedigree than the one used by Mr. Bugay without first obtaining ad fontes verification? Will we soon see articles written by Mr. Swan, James White, Steve Hays, David King, and Turretinfan chiding Mr. Bugay for his lack of scholarship?

Enough rhetoric. Now time for some facts. Here is an alternate dynamic translation of what Pope Benedict XVI wrote all those years ago:

"Eucharistic devotion such as is noted in the silent visit by the devout in church is indeed a conversation with God. However one must not assume that God was present there only locally and in a confined way. To justify such an assertion shows a lack of understanding of the Christological mysteries of the very concept of God. This is repugnant to the serious thinking of the man who knows about the omnipresence of God. To go to Church on the ground that one can visit God who is considered to be only present there is a senseless act which modern man rightfully rejects."

Here is a more literal German-English translation of the last chapter (Chapter IV) of Fr. Joseph Ratzinger's Sakramentale Begründung christlicher Existenz found on yet another sedevacantist website which actually seems to be a bit more accurate as best I am able to tell. I will indicate that unlike Mr. Bugay, I did show the translation and the original pages to someone who is fluent in German (in fact is from the same town as Pope Benedict XVI) and I was advised that it seemed accurate enough. The pages of Fr. Ratzinger's text from which the translation is made can be found here: cover image, and pp. 24-25, and pp. 26-27, in case anyone wishes to take a stab at it themselves:

IV. The Meaning of the Sacraments Today

Perhaps the reflections up to this point have been a bit arduous. This couldn't be any different, since the objective was to clear away the rubbish of prejudices [biases] that divides us men of today from those insights whose incarnate expression are the Christian sacraments. It would not be difficult anymore now to pursue the meaning of the individual sacraments and thereby to flesh out [substantiate] the general [generic] insights to which the previous reflections have led us. Let us dispense with it [i.e. with this pursuit] in order once again to clarify in summary fashion what narrowing of perspective divides the man of today - that is, us - from the sacraments and what the Christian seeks, in truth, when he celebrates his divine service in the form of the reception of the sacraments, that is, in the manner of the Church of Jesus Christ.

I believe that the attitude of today's average mentality that is alien to the sacraments rests on a twofold anthropological error that has sunk deep into the general consciousness due to the preconditions of our time (that is, due to the shape of history that has received us previously). There still operates, for the time being, the idealist misjudgment of human nature, which came to its highest excess with Fichte, as though every man were an autonomous spirit which builds itself up completely by its own decision and is entirely the product of its own resolutions [decisions] - nothing but [the] will and freedom which does not tolerate anything that is not spiritual but forms [fashions] itself completely in itself. Put mildly, Fichte's creative Ego rests on a confusion of man and God, and the equation [identification] of both, which he carries out in actuality, is a quite consistent expression of his start-point and certainly, at the same time, its categorical condemnation, for man is not God: in order to know that, one basically only has to be human oneself. As absurd as this idealism is in the end, it is still deeply rooted in the European consciousness (at least in the German consciousness). When Bultmann says that spirit cannot be nourished by matter and thereby thinks the sacramental principle to be finished, in the end the same naïve idea of man's spiritual autonomy is still at work. It is actually somewhat strange that especially in this period, which thinks it has rediscovered the bodilyness [in-the-flesh-ness] of man, which thinks it knows again that man can only be spirit in the manner of bodilyness, a spiritual metaphysic continues to have an effect, or even just gains its strength altogether, which is based on [which rests on] a negation of these relations. To be fair, we will certainly have to admit that Christian metaphysics had absorbed too strong a dose of Greek idealism long before Fichte and thereby prepared this misunderstanding considerably. It [i.e., Christian metaphysics], too, already considered human souls to be abundantly atomized, forming in history-less freedom; thus it could barely explain the very historically-determined testimonies [statements/messages] of the Christian faith regarding original sin and redemption; the sacraments, which are the expression of the historical interweaving of men, became the soul-nourishment for the individual spirit which stands for itself [probably: subsisting individual spirit], and then of course one can indeed wonder why God does not choose an easier way in order to, as spirit, encounter the spirit of man and give him his grace. If it were only a matter of the individual soul, as individual, being addressed by her God and receiving graces, then it could indeed not be understood what should be the meaning of the involvement of the Church and the material media [means] of the sacraments in this most intimate, completely internal, and spiritual process. If, however, there is no autonomy of the human spirit, if he is not an unconnected spiritual atom, but, as man, only lives bodily, with-others, and historically, then the question must be asked entirely differently. Then his relationship with God, if it is to be a human relationship with God, must be just as man happens to be: bodily, with-others, historical. Or it is not. The error of anti-sacramental idealism consists in wanting to make man into a pure spirit before God. Instead of a man, there has only remained a specter which does not exist, and a religiosity which wanted to build upon such foundations has built on deceptive sand.

In a strange manner, the Idealistic heresy (if this is what we wish to call it) is today connected with the Marxist one, about which Heidegger brilliantly said that materialism does not at all consist in interpreting all being as matter, but that it assesses all matter as the mere material [matter] of human labor. The actual core of the heresy is indeed foremostly here, in the anthropological extension of the ontological basis: in the reduction of man to [the status of] homo faber, who does not interact with things in themselves but only regards them as functions of his labor, whose functionary he himself has become. With this the perspective of symbolism and man's ability to have a view for the eternal is destroyed, he is incarcerated in his world of labor, and his only hope is that future generations will be able to have more convenient conditions of labor than him, if he has sufficiently struggled to have such conditions created. A truly paltry consolation for an existence that has become miserably tight!

With these perspectives we have automatically returned to the starting point of our reflections. What in fact -- in this manner we can now ask again -- does the man do who celebrates the divine service of the Church, the sacraments of Jesus Christ? He does not abandon himself to the naive idea that God, the Omnipresent One, lives only at this place in space which is designated by the tabernacle in the church. This would already contradict the most superficial understanding of the dogmatic statement content [i.e. the content of the dogmatic statement], because the species of the Eucharist is not the presence of God in general [i.e. God as such] but the presence of the man Jesus Christ, which refers to [i.e. points to] the horizontal historically-bound character of the divine encounter of man. He who goes to church and celebrates her sacraments does not do so, either, if he understands everything correctly, because he thinks the spiritual God is in need of material [i.e. physical] media in order to touch the spirit of man. He does so, rather, because he knows that as man he can only encounter God in a human way; but in a human way means: in the form of fellow-man-ship [i.e. human consideration; being a neighbor to others], of incarnation, of historicity. And he does so because he knows that as man he cannot himself direct when God has to show Himself to him, that he is, rather, the recipient, who is dependent upon the given and not-to-be-produced-at-one's-own-authority power, which represents the sign of God's sovereign freedom, who determines the manner of his presence for himself.

No doubt: Our piety is here often a little superficial [has often proceeded a little superficially] and has given occasion for some misunderstanding. In this respect the critical question of modern consciousness will be able to challenge a salutary purification in the self-understanding of the Faith. It may suffice to cite an example, in the end, by which the crisis becomes especially obvious and by which the point [i.e. reason] for the purification, which is necessary, can once more, by summary, come to light. Eucharistic adoration or quiet visiting in church can, reasonably, not simply be thought of as conversation with the God who is thought present in a locally-circumscriptive manner. Statements such as "God dwells here" and conversation with the locally-thought God based on such [thinking] express a mistake [misjudgment] of the christological event as well as the idea of God, which necessarily repels the thinking man who knows about the omnipresence of God. If one were to justify going to church on the grounds that one must visit the God who is present only there, this would indeed be a justification which would make no sense and would rightfully be rejected by modern man. Eucharistic adoration is in truth related to the Lord, who, through his historical life and suffering, has become "bread" for us, that is, who through his Incarnation and abandonment unto death has become the one who is open for us [the for-us-open-one]. Such praying, then, refers to the historical mystery of Jesus Christ, to the history of God with man, which [i.e. the history] approaches us in the sacrament. And it refers to the mystery of the Church: By referring to the history of God with men, it refers to the entire "Body of Christ," to the communion of the believing, in which and through which God comes to us. Thus praying in church and in closeness to the eucharistic sacrament is [i.e. means] a subsumption of our relation [relationship] to God into the mystery of the church as the concrete place where God meets us. And this is, after all, the point of our going to church anyway: the subsumption of myself into the history of God with man, in which exclusively I as man have my true human existence and which exclusively, for this reason, also opens up to me the true extent [i.e. range] of my meeting with God's eternal love. For this love does not merely look for an isolated Spirit which (as we have already said) would only be a specter in relation to the reality of man, but man entirely, in the body of his historicity, and it [i.e. the love] gives him, in the holy signs of the sacraments, [the] security of divine response, in which the open question of being human reaches its goal and finds its fulfillment. (Emphasis Added).

Me: I would humbly submit that there is nothing heretical or even contumacious to the Catholic understanding of the Real Presence in the Eucharist in either of these latter two translations. Mr. Bugay is free to try to disabuse me of this contention.

Now lest the reader thinks that I am perhaps misrepresenting Pope Benedict XVI's thought pertaining to the Real Presence or Eucharistic Adoration, I offer the following additional quotes culled from his extensive corpus of theological expression on the subject:

"In a world where there is so much noise, so much bewilderment, there is a need for silent adoration of Jesus concealed in the Host. Be assiduous in the prayer of adoration and teach it to the faithful. It is a source of comfort and light, particularly to those who are suffering." Pope Benedict XVI --from an address to priests in Poland, May 25, 2006

And:

Thanks be to God that after the Council, after a period in which the sense of Eucharistic Adoration was somewhat lacking, the joy of this adoration was reborn everywhere in the Church, as we saw and heard at the Synod on the Eucharist. Of course, the conciliar Constitution on the Liturgy enabled us to discover to the full the riches of the Eucharist in which the Lord's testament is accomplished: he gives himself to us and we respond by giving ourselves to him.

"We have now rediscovered, however, that without adoration as an act consequent to Communion received, this centre which the Lord gave to us, that is, the possibility of celebrating his sacrifice and thus of entering into a sacramental, almost corporeal, communion with him, loses its depth as well as its human richness.

"Adoration means entering the depths of our hearts in communion with the Lord, who makes himself bodily present in the Eucharist. In the monstrance, he always entrusts himself to us and asks us to be united with his Presence, with his risen Body." Pope Benedict XVI on Eucharistic Adoration - from his meeting with members of the Roman clergy, March 2, 2006

Here is a lengthy quote from Pope Benedict XVI's 2007 Post -Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis:

The intrinsic relationship between celebration and adoration

66. One of the most moving moments of the Synod came when we gathered in Saint Peter's Basilica, together with a great number of the faithful, for eucharistic adoration. In this act of prayer, and not just in words, the assembly of Bishops wanted to point out the intrinsic relationship between eucharistic celebration and eucharistic adoration. A growing appreciation of this significant aspect of the Church's faith has been an important part of our experience in the years following the liturgical renewal desired by the Second Vatican Council. During the early phases of the reform, the inherent relationship between Mass and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament was not always perceived with sufficient clarity. For example, an objection that was widespread at the time argued that the eucharistic bread was given to us not to be looked at, but to be eaten. In the light of the Church's experience of prayer, however, this was seen to be a false dichotomy. As Saint Augustine put it: "nemo autem illam carnem manducat, nisi prius adoraverit; peccemus non adorando -- no one eats that flesh without first adoring it; we should sin were we not to adore it." In the Eucharist, the Son of God comes to meet us and desires to become one with us; eucharistic adoration is simply the natural consequence of the eucharistic celebration, which is itself the Church's supreme act of adoration. Receiving the Eucharist means adoring Him whom we receive. Only in this way do we become one with Him, and are given, as it were, a foretaste of the beauty of the heavenly liturgy. The act of adoration outside Mass prolongs and intensifies all that takes place during the liturgical celebration itself. Indeed, "only in adoration can a profound and genuine reception mature. And it is precisely this personal encounter with the Lord that then strengthens the social mission contained in the Eucharist, which seeks to break down not only the walls that separate the Lord and ourselves, but also and especially the walls that separate us from one another."

The practice of eucharistic adoration

67. With the Synod Assembly, therefore, I heartily recommend to the Church's pastors and to the People of God the practice of eucharistic adoration, both individually and in community. Great benefit would ensue from a suitable catechesis explaining the importance of this act of worship, which enables the faithful to experience the liturgical celebration more fully and more fruitfully. Wherever possible, it would be appropriate, especially in densely populated areas, to set aside specific churches or oratories for perpetual adoration. I also recommend that, in their catechetical training, and especially in their preparation for First Holy Communion, children be taught the meaning and the beauty of spending time with Jesus, and helped to cultivate a sense of awe before his presence in the Eucharist.

Here I would like to express appreciation and support for all those Institutes of Consecrated Life whose members dedicate a significant amount of time to eucharistic adoration. In this way they give us an example of lives shaped by the Lord's real presence. I would also like to encourage those associations of the faithful and confraternities specifically devoted to eucharistic adoration; they serve as a leaven of contemplation for the whole Church and a summons to individuals and communities to place Christ at the center of their lives.

Forms of eucharistic devotion

68. The personal relationship which the individual believer establishes with Jesus present in the Eucharist constantly points beyond itself to the whole communion of the Church and nourishes a fuller sense of membership in the Body of Christ. For this reason, besides encouraging individual believers to make time for personal prayer before the Sacrament of the Altar, I feel obliged to urge parishes and other church groups to set aside times for collective adoration. Naturally, already existing forms of eucharistic piety retain their full value. I am thinking, for example, of processions with the Blessed Sacrament, especially the traditional procession on the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, the Forty Hours devotion, local, national and international Eucharistic Congresses, and other similar initiatives. If suitably updated and adapted to local circumstances, these forms of devotion are still worthy of being practiced today. (endnotes redacted)

Most recently, His Holiness offered the following to be considered on the matter of the Eucharist and Eucharistic Adoration:

Address of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI to participants in the Plenary Assembly of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, March 13, 2009

In the Plenary Session you have reflected on the Mystery of the Eucharist and, in particular, on the theme of Eucharistic adoration. I know well that, following the publication of the Instruction "Eucharisticum mysterium" of 25 May 1967 and the promulgation, on 21 June 1973, of the Document "De sacra communione et cultu mysterii eucharistici extra Missam", the insistence on the theme of the Eucharist as the inexhaustible source of holiness has been a concern of the first priority for the dicastery.

I have therefore willingly accepted the proposal that the Plenary Session occupy itself with the subject of Eucharistic adoration, in the confidence that a renewed collegial reflection on this practice could contribute to make clear, within the limits of competence of the Congregation, the liturgical and pastoral means with which the Church of our times can promote the faith in the Real Presence of the Lord in the Holy Eucharist and ensure to the celebration of Mass throughout the dimension of adoration. I stressed this aspect in the Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis, in which I gathered the fruits of the XI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod, held in October 2005. In it, highlighting the importance of the intrinsic relationship between celebration and adoration of the Eucharist (cf. no. 66), I quoted the teaching of Saint Augustine: "Nemo autem illam carnem manducat, nisi prius adoraverit; peccemus non adorando" [NLM translation: "No one eat this flesh, if he has not adored it before; for we sin if we do not adore."] (Enarrationes in Psalmos, 98, 9: CCL 39, 1385). The Synod Fathers have not failed to express concern about a certain confusion generated, after the II Vatican Council, about the relationship between Mass and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament (cf. Sacramentum Caritatis, n. 66). In this was echoed what my Predecessor, Pope John Paul II, had already expressed about the deviations that have sometimes contaminated the post-conciliar liturgical renewal, revealing "a very reductive understanding of the Eucharistic Mystery" (Ecclesia de Eucharistia, no. 10 ).

The Second Vatican Council emphasized the unique role that the Eucharistic Mystery has in the life of the faithful (Sacrosanctum Concilium, nos. 48-54, 56). As Pope Paul VI has repeatedly affirmed: "the Eucharist is a very great mystery, even properly, as the Sacred Liturgy says, the mystery of faith" (Mysterium fidei, no. 15). The Eucharist is indeed at the very origins of the Church (cf. John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, no. 21) and is the source of grace, constituting an incomparable opportunity for both the sanctification of humanity in Christ and for the glorification of God. In this sense, on the one hand , all the Church's activities are ordered towards the mystery of the Eucharist (cf. Sacrosanctum Concilium, no. 10; Lumen gentium, no. 11; Presbyterorum ordinis, no. 5; Sacramentum caritatis, no. 17), and, on the other hand, it is in virtue of the Eucharist that "the Church continually lives and grows" (Lumen gentium, no. 26). Our task is to appreciate the invaluable treasure of this ineffable mystery of faith "both in the celebration of the Mass itself and in the worship of the sacred species, which are preserved after Mass to extend the grace of the Sacrifice" (Instruction Eucharisticum mysterium, no. 3, lit. g). The doctrine of the transubstantiation of bread and wine and of the Real Presence are truths of the Faith already evident in Scripture itself, and then confirmed by the Fathers of the Church. Pope Paul VI, in this regard, recalled that "not only has the Catholic Church always taught, but also lived the faith in the presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist, always adoring with latreutic worship, which is only due to God, so great a Sacrament" (Mysterium Fidei, no. 56; cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1378).

It is worth recalling in this regard, the various meanings which the word "adoration" has in Greek and in Latin. The Greek word proskýnesis indicates the gesture of submission, the acknowledgment of God as our true measure, the norm of which we accept to follow. The Latin word ad-oratio, however, denotes the physical contact, the kiss, the embrace, which is implicit in the idea of love [NLM note: the root here is "os", mouth; the ancient oriental gesture of greeting a ruler, translated into Latin as "adoratio", involved touching the right hand to the mouth]. The aspect of submission foresees a relationship of union, because he to whom we submit is Love. Indeed, in the Eucharist adoration must become union: union with the living Lord and then with his Mystical Body. As I told the young people on the plain of Marienfeld, in Cologne, during the Holy Mass on the occasion of the XX World Youth Day, on August 2005: " God no longer simply stands before us as the One who is totally Other. He is within us, and we are in him. His dynamic enters into us and then seeks to spread outwards to others until it fills the world, so that his love can truly become the dominant measure of the world." (Insegnamenti, vol. I, 2005, pp. 457 f.). In this perspective, I reminded the young people that in the Eucharist one lives the "first fundamental transformation of violence into love, of death into life; this brings other transformations in its wake. Bread and wine become his Body and Blood. But the transformation must not stop there; on the contrary, the process of transformation must hee fully begin. The Body and Blood of Christ are given to us so that we ourselves will be transformed in our turn."(ibid., p. 457).

My predecessor, Pope John Paul II, in his Apostolic Letter "Spiritus et Sponsa", on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium on the Sacred Liturgy, urged to take the necessary steps to deepen the experience of renewal. This is important also with respect to the subject of Eucharistic adoration. Such a deepening will be possible only through an increased knowledge of the mystery in full fidelity to sacred Tradition and increasing the liturgical life within our communities (cf. Spiritus et Sponsa, nos. 6-7). In this regard, I appreciate in particular that the Plenary Session has occupied itself with the subject of educating the entire People of God in the Faith, with special attention to the seminarians, to promote the growth in a spirit of true Eucharistic adoration. St. Thomas, in fact, explains: "That in this sacrament is present the true Body and the true Blood of Christ cannot be learned with the senses, but by faith alone, which is based on the authority of God" (Summa theologiæ, III, 75, 1; cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1381).

We are living the days of Holy Lent, which is not only a journey of more intense spiritual apprenticeship, but also an effective preparation to better celebrate Holy Easter. Recalling three penitential practices very dear to biblical and Christian tradition - prayer, almsgiving, fasting -, let us encourage each other to rediscover and live with renewed fervor fasting not only as an ascetic practice, but also as preparation for the Eucharist and as a spiritual weapon to fight against any eventual inordinate attachment to ourselves. May this intense period of liturgical life help us to remove everything which distracts the mind and to intensify what nourishes the soul, opening it to the love of God and neighbor. With these sentiments, I express already now to all of you my best wishes for the coming Feast of Easter, and while I thank you for the work you have done in this Plenary Session, as well as for all the work of the Congregation, I impart to each of you with affection my Blessing.

And finally, in the book, God is Near Us: The Eucharist is the Heart of Life (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2003), the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger actually comments on the passage used by Mr. Bugay on page 91 in a footnote. Here is the entire passage in context:

"But against that could then rightly be voiced the objection that is always to be heard: I can just as well pray in the forest, in the freedom of nature. Certainly, anyone can. But if it were only a matter of that, then the initiative in prayer would lie entirely with us; then God would be a mental hypothesis—whether he answers, whether he can answer or wants to, would remain open. The Eucharist means, God has answered: The Eucharist is God as an answer, as an answering presence. Now the initiative no longer lies with us, in the God-man relationship, but with him, and it now becomes really serious. That is why, in the sphere of eucharistic adoration, prayer attains a new level; now it is two-way, and so now it really is a serious business. Indeed, it is now not just two-way, but all-inclusive: whenever we pray in the eucharistic presence, we are never alone. Then the whole of the Church, which celebrates the Eucharist, is praying with us. Then we are praying within the sphere of God's gracious hearing, because we are praying within the sphere of death and resurrection, that is, where the real petition in all our petitions has been heard: the petition for the victory over death; the petition for the love that is stronger than death. (Fn. 11)"

Footnote 11 states:

I had already tried to expound the same basic idea in the little bookletSakramentale Begründung christlicher Existenz [The sacramental basis of Christian living] (Friesing, 1966), pp.26f. The text, giving a mere outline, was written before the development of the dispute about the Eucharist in the years since the Council and had in the meantime given rise to the misapprehension that I intended thereby to deny the Real Presence and to oppose adoration. I hope that the exposition given here will leave no room for this misunderstanding.

I hope that the evidence I have offered here leaves no room for misunderstanding as to Pope Benedict XVI's affirmation of the Catholic doctrine of the Real Presence and the adoration that one may rightly give to it. I believe that I have worthily discharged my obligations in challenging Bugay's error and accordingly I rest my case. May God always defend the right against those such as Mr. Bugay, and incidently Mr. Sungenis if he is going to use such quotes against the Pope or the Church to advance his personal agenda. (Given the context in which the quote occurred and how Mr. Sungenis has used in subsequent postings, I am not suggesting that Mr. Sungenis contends that Pope Benedict XVI is not the pope, rather, I am only faulting him for using a quote that was not verified for accuracy.)

I hope and pray that all have a blessed Easter holiday. All praise, honor and glory to Our Risen Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!

Update April 25, 2011:

Mr. Bugay removed the comment containing the quote rather than apologize for repeating it. I have preserved the relevant portion of the comment here for posterity’s sake. As one will see below, Mr. Bugay offers as a defense of posting the quote without first checking its accuracy that because Mr. Sungenis holds himself out as a Catholic, he is "on my side" and that excuses his personal lack of scholarship. Perhaps that might work if he had proffered such attribution in the first place or Mr. Sungenis’ additional comments as well which provides some perspective to the matter. But Mr. Bugay did not.

Here is my response to some comments he made when I pointed his mis-quoting Pope Benedict XVI:

Mr. Bugay:

You wrote: "Then your "Just in case" blog article is also premature."

I respond: I am not the one who posted something without giving it attribution. The fact that Mr. Sungenis posted something without attribution is reprehensible as well. I will state that Mr. Sungenis also stated that this sort of statement was never "reiterated", something you left out of your positing.

You wrote: "Ratzinger has taught many things over the years, and it should not be in question that in his early years, he was a liberal. This is not in question."

I respond: Well the problem is that you cited to the work as if it were a present authoritative expression claiming that it was a "betrayal" of Church doctrine. Your sophistry is no less an attempt to obfuscate that.

You wrote: "What should alarm you is the ease with which he slipped into a more "conservative" posture."

I respond: Again, more obfuscation. Whether he is a liberal or conservative is of no import to me. The issue is whether he taught anything that is contrary to the teachings of the Church itself-a question you have not yet answered. You claim that Pope Benedict XVI "betrayed" the teachings of the Church. I have challenged your assertion.

You write: "Why are you concerned with alleged inconsistencies in what I write? I am a mere blogger. Ratzinger is your pope now. Do you accept everything unreservedly that he has said?"

I answer: I am not alleging "inconsistency"; I am contending that you posted a comment that was defamatory. Further, you are not posting as a mere blogger. You are posting as a Christian blogger and as an apologist. That suggests that you should be adhering to some sort of standard of truthfulness. Furthermore, you are posting on this website which holds itself out as persuasive resource on behalf of Reformed theology and as an opponent to the "Roman" Catholic Church. So you are anything but "mere".

As for whether I accept what Pope Benedict XVI teaches unreservedly, my assent to Catholic teaching is not a blind or implicit faith but a question of willing obedience. There are mechanisms for examining and questioning one's teachings of an authoritative figure, whether he be a priest or a pontiff. My allegiance to the Church requires me to do so within the parameters of the Rule of Faith. If I was so unreservedly accepting of what the Pope teaches as a part of the ordinary magisterium, I would not have taken the time to investigation and write the article questioning your mis-quoting something he wrote as a young man decades ago. The question is why are you so willing to accept without investigation a quote that he supposedly made in 1966? What does that say about the notion of "private judgment"? And given the fact that you were wrong here about what Pope Benedict XVI has held and taught since before he was elected as pope, why should anyone accept as truthful anything you write unreservedly?

You wrote: "I did not "create" a misapprehension. I may have sought to perpetuate an "apprehension" that many have, including Sungenis, who is on your side."

I respond: Perpetrating a misapprehension here is creating one here since you posted here. Repeating a lie doesn't make the statement any less of a lie, does it?

You wrote: "And I prefaced my comment by saying that such a thing would have offended me back in the days when I was Roman Catholic."

I respond: So what? Reconcile your statement above with Romans 1:32.

You wrote: "That it has not been translated into English [in any official way -- there are more extensive translations] -- does not remove the potentially caustic nature of what he said."

I respond: Do please link us to one a more extensive translation. I would like to see how such differs from what he has taught since 2001.

You wrote: "One might well ask, why do they not translate this work into English, as readily as they have translated some other works? Are they trying to hide something?"

I respond: Why have not Protestants translated everything Fr. Luther or John Calvin wrote into English? What do you folks have to hide?

You wrote: "I'll ask further, why is it so hard to find an index in a Ratzinger book? Is someone trying to cover his paper trail?"

I respond: My goodness! Why not look to your own house first and work on providing attribution for your quotes rather than speculate about why some works of a particular author provides an index for your personal ease? The fact that Fr. Ratzinger took the time to publish the text of a speech he had given is suggestive that he has nothing to hide at all. Why didn't Marin Luther or John Calvin publish everything they wrote with an index in English? For that matter, how come you don't publish an index with everything you post here?

You wrote: "At any rate, I'm preparing a much more thorough treatment of all of this."

I respond: I look forward to seeing the lengths you will go avoid apologizing to your readers for posting something that was not true. God bless!

"A Fallible Collection of Infallible Books" by Jamie Donald

2011-04-03T18:09:00.003-05:00

(This article was written by my friend, Jamie Donald, who graciously gave me permission to post it here. Please enjoy!)

A Fallible Collection of Infallible Books

This description of the Canon of Scripture, used by our Protestant brothers and sisters, has always left me somewhat perplexed. Rather than expound on my own understanding of the phrase, I'd like to turn to a blog article by James Swan on this topic. What James wrote a couple of months ago at Sproul: "The Bible is a fallible collection of infallible books" vastly improved my understanding of this description.

James notes that this phrase comes from RC Sproul (who possibly got it from John Gerstner). Swan does not believe that the "fallible" clause means the Church did actually err when consolidating various writings into the Canon, only that the Church was not provided the special protection from error (which we call "infallibility"). He summarizes Gerstner's thoughts as, It is one thing to say that the church could have erred; it is another thing to say that the church did err. (emphasis added) Thus, Swan believes that the early church was used by God and "got it right" (to use a popular phrase I've seen with some Protestant e-pologists).

Perhaps an analogy is in order. Since we're in March Madness, I'll use a basketball analogy. Imagine that it's the closing seconds of the game and your team is down by one point. The coach calls a time out and outlines a play for his team. They only have time for this single play. They must score to win and advance in the tournament. The coach knows his star player will be double teamed, so he directs the ball be passed to whomever is free. When the opposing team shifts to cover the ball, that will free up the star and the ball is to be passed to him. The star will go in for the easy lay-up, scoring 2 points at the buzzer, winning the game.

The ball gets in-bounded to a guard. But instead of passing to the star, the guard sees that he's still free – it takes the other team some time to adjust their coverage. So he takes the shot from 3-point range. Everyone is on edge as they watch the ball – on a low percentage shot – not the sure thing of a lay-up – sails through the air. The ball goes through; "nothing but net' and your team wins the game.

The next day, the coach calls the guard into his office. He says, "I don't know if I should congratulate you as a hero, or bench you for the next game in the tourney. You didn't follow my orders!" The guard replies, "But Coach, I won the game for us!" The coach presses his point, "You could have missed!" And the guard answers, "But I didn't."

Just as the guard could have missed the shot in the game, the early Church could have "missed" on the Canon of Scripture. But they didn't miss. That is Swan's point. The Church wasn't protected from missing, but in history managed to get the right answer.

Swan notes that the Church plays a role in the Canon, but not as the author. He writes, I recognize the Christian Church received the Canon. It does not though, create the Canon, or stand above the Canon. (emphasis added) In this respect, the Church is to receive the Scriptures as a gift from God. When receiving a gift, it is the giver, not the recipient, who guarantees the quality of the gift. For example, if I give my wife a present for her birthday or our anniversary; if the gift is cheesy, that is my fault – not my wife's. Likewise, if she unwraps it and excitedly declares, "It's perfect!" the high quality of the gift was my doing, not hers. Hers is to appreciate the quality of the gift. The Scriptures are God's gift to us, His Church; and there is nothing we do (nor can do) which influences or causes the perfection, the inerrancy, of the Word.

Finally, Swan bolsters his point on a fallible Church by noting that the first century Christians and late pre-Christ Jews had received the Old Testament without an infallible source to declare that the writings were in fact the correct ones. If these ancients could know the Word of God without the charism of infallibility, then so can modern Christians.

At this point, I will let the reader review my summary and balance it against Swan's article to determine if I am correctly discerning his viewpoint.

In offering a critique of Swan's article, I would first note that there is much in it with which I think Catholics can agree. Read paragraphs 104, 105, 106, 136 of The Catechism of the Catholic Church, and you will see that the Church receives the Scriptures, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author, and have been handed on as such to the church herself. (emphasis added) Indeed, they are a gift to the Church and their unique nature of inerrancy is based on the giver, God Himself.

However, the role of the Church in the process of discovering the Canon of Scripture is something more than simply an occurrence in history that ended up "right." Where the basketball game had an objective standard to determine whether the player was a hero or not – the ball either did or did not go through the hoop, there is no objective standard by which to measure a writing as "scripture" or "not scripture." Without a standard against which he can measure, how does Swan proclaim the Protestant canon as the early Church got it right, while proclaiming that the Catholic canon (with the deuterocanonicals), the Coptic canon, or even Marcion's canon are "wrong"?

Let's look at this prospect another way. Tradition plays an important (although non binding) role in Protestant understanding of what should be considered, or not considered, an apostolic teaching. Tradition (with a small "t") informs and provides background to their understanding and interpretation of the Bible, where the New Testament contains all the writings which are "apostolic teaching." For example, Lutherans look at various Scriptural passages along with their traditional interpretive lens and conclude that baptismal regeneration is an apostolic teaching. However, since the Lutheran tradition – their interpretive lens – is not binding, they consider Swan to be a brother in Christ even though the tradition of his confession disagrees with baptismal regeneration and supports that disagreement with Scriptural references.

Please note that the purpose is not to get into a discussion about baptismal regeneration, nor to show that there are differences in interpretation amongst various traditions. The purpose is to try to highlight that tradition informs the interpretation of the Scriptures as to what is and is not an apostolic teaching, yet that same tradition is not binding in the Protestant paradigm.

But one of the qualities used by the Church to determine what is and is not Scripture is apostolicity. So when the very question about the canon is "is this writing apostolic teaching or not?" one can't determine the answer by looking at the writing itself. There must be some external measure. What it boils down to is that each group, Protestant, Catholic, Coptic, Marcion, etc, proclaim what they believe to have received as Scripture. To say that in the process worked out in history, the early Church got it "right" is to say that you believe your tradition.

Now it would be unfair and inaccurate to say that Swan thinks along the lines, "The Canon is what it is because I (or my denomination) says it is." He provides a reason for why he thinks the early Church correctly identified the Canon. He writes, The Church was used by God to provide a widespread knowledge of the Canon. The Holy Spirit had worked among the early Christian Church in providing them with the books of the New Testament. Not only does the Church receive the Scriptures as a gift from God, but God also ensures that the Church provides to the world the knowledge of the [correct] Scriptures. Swan is certain to tell us that it is God's work, not the Church's, which gets the Canon correct. As a Catholic, I can agree with much, if not all of this thought process.

But in this particular thought, Swan ends up proving the Catholic case! Let us return to the analogy of me giving a gift to my wife. If I have hidden the gift in a room, then tell her "warmer" as she gets closer to the hiding spot and "colder" as she moves away from it, she will find the gift. Under my guidance, she would be assured of finding the gift. It becomes impossible for her to not find it, or to "get it wrong." Again, Swan wrote, The Holy Spirit had worked among the early Christian Church in providing them with the books of the New Testament. (bolded to emphasize the entire sentence) The early Church was prevented from "getting it wrong" by the power of the Holy Spirit and the Spirit's work in her.

That is the definition of infallibility in the lexicon of the Catholic Church. Infallibility, the assurance of not "getting it wrong" is often confused with inerrancy, the charism of definitely getting it correct. For example, with the topic of crime, a person's silence does not teach that crime is proper. Thus, it is not necessarily "wrong." But speaking out against crime would be the "correct" action. Infallibility does not ensure the latter action. Inerrancy does. It follows then that anything that has the quality of inerrancy would also be infallible, but being infallible does not guarantee inerrancy. The Scriptures themselves, handed on from God, with God as their author, are inerrant. The Church's discovery of the Canon is infallible, but not inerrant.

That the Church infallibly discovered the Canon, the gift from God to her, does not mean that she create[s] the Canon, or stand[s] above the Canon as Swan says. But as the Catechism (86) quotes Dei Verbum, the Church is not superior to the Word of God, but is its servant. It teaches only what has been handed on to it. At the divine command and with the help of the Holy Spirit, it listens to this devotedly, guards it with dedication and expounds it faithfully. (emphasis added) Just as Swan believes that God gives the Scriptures to the Church and guides her in discovering them, Catholics believe the same. The difference is that Catholics acknowledge that God does not fail in what He sets out to accomplish. Therefore, if God uses the Church to provide a widespread knowledge of the Canon, then a failure of the Church would mean that God failed. And that cannot happen.

Swan's final point, written as, The Old Testament believer 50 years before Christ was born had a canon of Scripture, this despite the ruling from an infallible authority, is a position stating that the Old Testament was set and known without an infallible organization. It is also an assertion of his conclusion (begging the question fallacy). The fallacy is not immediately apparent until after one understands what Swan means by the "Old Testament." What Swan considers as Old Testament Scriptures does not match what Catholics nor Orthodox consider to be the Old Testament.

The Protestant Old Testament is basically the Masoretic Text (as translated into various languages of the world) with its "table of contents" set in the Jewish school set up after the destruction of the Temple. This school was set up in Jamnia and established a Jewish canon of the Old Testament which did not include the deuterocanonicals. This ruling came circa 90 AD – well into the Christian era. This is the canon to which Swan refers when he says "Old Testament."

However, history shows that there were more than one version of the Old Testament at the time. Most people are aware of the Septuagint, the Greek-language version of the Old Testament that was used by faithful Jews in the Diaspora. The archaeological findings at Qumran (the Dead Sea Scrolls) show that many of the books of the Old Testament found there do indeed match the Masoretic Text. Many also match the Septuagint. What is not widely known is that many of the scrolls found match neither the Masoretic Text nor the Septuagint, but are of a third, previously unknown, version of the Old Testament.

However, assuming that the Masoretic Text is somehow the official Old Testament of the period (a best case scenario for Swan), there still exist difficulties which Swan must assume are absent. First, one must understand what the Masoretic Text actually is. It is more than just the Hebrew language, or original language, version of the Old Testament. When the Old Testament was written, it was written with consonants only. The vowels were left out. The Masoretic Text contains notes which essentially fill in the vowels by giving the words a pronunciation.

What this means is that whoever provides the pronunciation – or fills in the vowels – does much more than provide an interpretation of the Scripture. They actually establish its definition! Let's use a modern day example. Suppose you were to read in a cookbook recipe the line, "pr th frt." You could reasonably say that this line means either, "pare the fruit," or "puree the fruit." Yet, these are two dramatically different meanings!

Additionally, there is the historical fact that the Masoretic Text was not finalized until after 900 AD. During this time there were revisions; some minor, others major. For example, it has been asserted that the Masorite school changed Is 7:14 to use the word meaning "young girl" rather than "virgin" bearing a child as the prophecy. The assertion states that many of these changes were made to distance Judaism from Christianity.

Finally, different camps placed different levels of emphasis on the various books of the Old Testament. For example, the Sadducees believed that only the five books of Moses could be used as the infallible, inerrant word of God to be used as a means to settle disputes. When they question Jesus concerning the resurrection (a wife becomes widowed by seven brothers, so whose spouse will she be in the resurrection?), He first answers them by telling the Sadducees that they do not know Scripture (in Matthew and Mark). Upon telling them that they don't know Scripture, Jesus points back to the Pentateuch for his answer (in all three synoptic Gospels). He does not correct their lack of knowledge of Scripture by showing them that prophesies in Is 26:19 and Dan 12:2 are Scripture. Instead, he leaves the question unanswered and appeals to what they accept as Scripture.

Thus, a good analysis of what the devout believer 50 years before Christ knew to be Scripture leaves you with no real answer. Which of the competing texts were used in this devout believer's community and by his rabbis? How were the vowels filled into the words to give them meaning by those rabbis when read to the community? What actual books did his teachers hold to be truly inerrant? Except for the highly educated, the devout Jew would only know what he was told by his teachers. And we see that through no fault of his own, that could result in many different understandings of what constituted Scripture.

And as for the highly educated, well, Jesus told them that they didn't know the Scriptures. How could the average devout Jew of the time have the assurance of knowledge that Swan assumes?

In conclusion, Swan makes some very good and valid points. The Church is not the master of the Scriptures, but instead receives them as a gift from God. The Scriptures do not derive their authority from the Church, the recipient of them, but instead from God Himself as both the author and the gift giver. And the Church knows the Scriptures because God, in the person of the Holy Spirit, has guided her to this knowledge. However, because Swan over-states the concept of infallibility, he leaves himself open to criticism that God was possibly ineffective in His Revelation to the Church. He supports this idea by comparing the reception of the New Testament to the reception of the Old Testament. But in making this comparison and using it as an example, he assumes that the ancient Jew would have known the Old Testament exactly as Swan does. But he cannot truly show this to be the case.

May Christ, who reigns in Heaven with His Father, through the power of the Holy Spirit, lead us all to a better understanding of God's word in each and every day.

The Problem With Placing One’s Faith On a Pseudonymous Blogger Rather Than In a Visible Church (Interlude:Paralypsis vs. Poisoning the Well)

2011-03-28T00:36:00.003-05:00

Mr. Steve Hays, one of the denizens who lurk about on Triablogue, “The Black Hole of Christian
Blogs” as my friend David Waltz calls it, attacked my recent posting pertaining to Turretinfan’s
pseudonymity in an article captioned simply as Paralypsis. I found it to be an interesting read as
I am sure my readers will find, too. Mr. Hays’ words will be in green, my original statements
from my article will be in blue and my additional personal commentary in red.

Dave Armstrong hosted a guest post by hatchet man Paul Hoffer. The Problem With
Placing One’s Faith On a Pseudonymous Blogger Rather Than In a Visible Church (Part
I) (by Paul Hoffer)

I am honored to be lumped in with Dave Armstrong, who has been my friend since 1997, and I am not ashamed to admit it either.

As for the characterization of me as a hatchet man, there are a number of possibilities here. He could be comparing me to a particular kind of soldier who served in the Revolutionary War-doubtful. I suppose it’s possible that he could be comparing me with Edward G. Robinson who was the title character in a great movie called The Hatchet Man (That movie also starred Lorretta Young, one of my favorite actresses)-again doubtful. Or perhaps he is thinking that I fire people for a living-sorry I have never fired a person in my life.

More possibilities-maybe he thinks I am a member of a clandestine Tong clan using my Kung Fu skills to assassinate rival gang members-nope, I am not Chinese nor Dr. No’s alter ego. I have never killed anyone neither. Or maybe he has me confused with Charles Colson or H.R. Haldeman who carried out orders at the behest of President Nixon against political opponents-sorry, too young then. Or maybe in some sort of paranoid delusion he bought into the rhetoric of James White and believes me to operating on orders of Mother Rome sent to my handler, Dave Armstrong, and on this occasion, I have been tasked with destroying Turretinfan’s reputation. Frankly, out of the above possibilities, it is more likely that I am working for the Tong.

i) TFan doesn’t ask readers to put their faith in him. Rather, he argues for his positions,
using reason, evidence, and Scripture.

This is of course an assertion made by Mr. Hays. Mr. Fan does ask his reader to place their faith in him that he will articulate accurately what Catholics believe when he is attacking Church teachings. Yet, as I have pointed out on my blog and elsewhere, Mr. Fan often gets the evidence wrong when it comes to the doctrines of Catholicism usually by misstating or omitting important aspects of Catholic doctrine when he is addressing a particular apologetic point. Thus, I would submit that placing one’s trust in Mr. Fan is a misplaced trust.

ii) By the same token, it would be a mistake to put your faith in bloggers who are not
anonymous or pseudonymous, like Paul Hoffer and Dave Armstrong.

This is a bald assertion, backed up by Mr. Hays’ emotional outburst as opposed to any evidence.

iii) The Mormon church is a visible church. Should we put our faith in the Mormon
church because it’s visible?

Unfortunately Mr. Hays, the Mormon “Church” is not a church, properly speaking using the Catholic vernacular. The Catholic Church does not even recognize the Church of Latter Day Saints as even truly Christian since it denies the Holy Trinity and the remission of original sin through baptism.

…and on an article posted by my friend, David Waltz...

It’s ironic that a Catholic epologist like Hoffer would elicit the support of an
anti-Trinitarian lapsed Catholic like Waltz.

I was not aware that the Catholic Church in the present day bars devout Catholics from being friends with lapsed Catholics. Moreover, what David happens to believe right now is not relevant to our discussions since I was referring there to what some had written in the comm box to his article, not to David himself. Throwing red herrings does not make for a great refutation.

…to the identity of Turretinfan, a pseudonymous blogger in the service of James White…

TFan works with White, not for White. TFan had already established himself in the
blogosphere before White invited him to join Alpha & Omega Ministries. Indeed, it’s
because TFan had distinguished himself apart from that ministry that he was invited to
join.

Of course, Mr. Fan is in the service of James White. He is pictured (in caricature) as a member of Mr. White’s team and even after only a cursory glance of the Alpha & Omega Ministries website reveals that White is the top dog, the big cheese, the grand poohbah of that outfit. Since Mr. Fan’s maintenance of pseudonymity prevents any sort of transparency there, there is only one conclusion, that Mr. Fan is offering διακονία there even if he is not an employee or underling of that ministry.

Since some of those who commented on the above sites suggested that Mr. Fan is an
Ohio attorney, and since some the accusations leveled against Mr. Fan implied that he
may have violated some of the canons of the Ohio’s Code of Professional
Responsibility…

Have they publicly recanted their scurrilous accusations?

I am not 100% sure which accusations he is referring to, the one that he is an attorney, that he is an attorney working for the Cleveland, Ohio law firm of Squire, Sanders & Dempsey LLP, or that his conduct with respect to others was unethical. However, one of the reasons that I wrote the article was to make it clear that he is not an Ohio attorney and that his conduct did not violate any provision of our Code of Professional Responsibility. The reader can take from that what they want to take from it. As to whether the individuals on the websites of Peter Lumpkins or David Waltz recanted their statements, I would suggest that Mr. Hays take it up with them. It is my understanding that those individuals are either Protestant or Muslim, not Catholic.

…to see if I could learn the name of the individual who has caused scandal and
consternation for so many, especially fellow Christians who do not share his
blinkered-version of Calvinism.

i) A classic example of straining gnats while swallowing dromedaries in one gulp. Hoffer
belongs to a denomination with a spiraling scandal of clerical pederasty, yet he fixates on
the trumped up “scandal” of anonymous blogging.

Here is where Mr. Hays’ irrational hatred of all things Catholicism blinds him to what I had written. If he had actually read my article, he would have seen that I made it clear that Mr. Fan has the legal right to write and to blog anonymously (actually in his case-pseudonymously). Further, I made it clear that there are morally licit grounds for him to do so from a Christian standpoint. I specifically noted that the proper thing to do was to interact with his writings rather than make a judgment about his character due to his blogging pseudonymously.

Moreover as a tactic that he is noted for, Mr. Hays often raises the issue of clerical pederasty when treating with Catholic antagonists. He ignores or apparently doesn’t care that this is an issue that plagues Protestant denominations as well the Catholic Church and that statistics show that the percentages of those engaged in Protestant ministry who sexually offend against youth are around the same as those offend who are Catholic. The news media happens to focus on the scandal in the Catholic Church as opposed to that in various Protestant denominations because it is more salacious to report on Catholics sinning than on Protestants.

(I offer this explanation before I go any further lest someone wishes to suggest that I was
motivated from ill-will, malice or a desire for “pay-back” which typifies the modus
operandi of so many of the modern-day disciples of the dead lawyer from Geneva.)

i) Needless to say, if Hoffer were motivated by ill-will, malice or a desire for “pay-back,”
we’d expect him to issue this preemptive disclaimer. Since when does someone
motivated ill-will, malice or a desire for “pay-back” openly admit that he’s motivated by
ill-will, malice or a desire for “pay-back”? So this calculated, self-serving disclaimer is
worthless.

Of course, knowing how many Calvinists, like Mr. Hays, nurse a hatred of all Catholics would prevent them from accepting my motivations as honorable- hence the disclaimer. The fact he attributes dishonor and worthlessness to even that action demonstrates that my statements were downright prophetic.

ii) Notice, moreover, the blanket smear regarding the modus operandi of so many
Calvinists.

Since Mr. Hays, a Calvinist in outlook, engages here in that modus operandi by doubting my motivations demonstrates that my concerns had merit and not a smear at all. Please note, too, the qualifier of “many”.

Further, I will state unequivocally no confidences have been betrayed nor have I used any
secret legal resource in any manner to ferret out Mr. Fan’s mild-mannered alter ego.

Once again, if he had betrayed a confidence or resorted to secret legal resources, wouldn’t
we expect him to issue a preemptive disclaimer to the contrary? He calls himself to the
stand as a character witness for himself. The exercise is transparently and viciously
circular.

I guess that if Mr. Hays can show that I have violated a confidence or resorted to accessing a secret legal resource, then his accusation would have legs. However, he does not. Instead, he makes an emotional appeal based on his bigoted outlook. In his eyes, because I am Catholic, I am presumed guilty unless I prove otherwise.

Now before I discuss Mr. Fan’s real identity, I wanted to touch upon the whole premise of
his choice of blogging pseudonymously. Personally, unless one is writing
pseudonymously out of humility or out of obedience to the directives of a superior, I
believe that one must be prepared to own one’s words. If I am not willing to sign my
name to an opinion, then it is not worth publicizing. In order to own your words, you have
to have the courage to stand behind them, to be accountable for what you say. As poor as
my writing may be, I have never been afraid of putting my name to it or being held
accountable for what I write.

Is he accountable? I notice the conspicuous absence of contact information, either at the
end of his post, or over at his own blog, which would enable readers to report him to his
parish priest or diocesan bishop in case of misconduct.

Well Mr. Hays, your assertion is a false one as I do give my name, I make no secret of my occupation, and I list where I live at on my blog. Under my “Important Links” section, I list both my parish and the diocese where I live. (After it was pointed out in a comment he made in the comm box following his article that I did not specifically tell the world that the only church and the only diocese listed on my blog did not specifically state that they were my home parish and diocese, I did edit them to make it clear enough for even Mr. Hays.) BTW, I have green eyes, am 5'7", and sport no tatoos. My favorite dish is Cincinnati style Chili and I sing baritone.

One wonders, too, of the hypocrisy in all of this. Mr. Hays does not hold the pseudonymous Mr. Fan to the standard he sets for me. Nowhere on Mr. Fan’s blog will anyone find his real name, his occupation, where he lives at, his actual denominational preference, the church he attends, or a link to his pastor in case of misconduct. For that matter, Mr. Hays does not hold himself to that standard either as he does not list his actual denominational preference, where he goes to church, a link to his pastor or even occupation or his address, unless the Klingon version of the afterlife is an actual address in the United States.

By the same token, I notice that Armstrong hasn’t made that information publicly available either. Yet Armstrong is hosting a post about personal accountability. Hoffer and Armstrong pay lip-service to the accountability-system of the Roman church while they shield themselves from direct accountability to their religious superiors. If they have the courage to stand behind their words, why don’t they provide the contact information for their religious superiors in case a reader has a grievance to lodge with superiors over their conduct?

Well Mr. Hays is 0 for 2 as Dave Armstrong does list his parish information as well on his blog. Look under the link captioned “About Me”. BTW, this ridiculous argument is brilliantly answered by Dave Armstrong himself over at his blog. Read it if you want to double your pleasure, double your fun.

Mr. Fan so long as I am not doing so out of malicious intent, have not breached
confidences, and used legal means to ascertain his identity.

Isn’t there something self-incriminating about the steady repetition of the same
tendentious disclaimer? Why does he feel the need to keep assuring us of his stainless
motives? It’s like a man who shows up at the police station, waving a newspaper in the
face of the desk officer as he angrily proclaims his innocence, even though he was never
named in the article as a suspect. Constant protestations of innocence before anyone even
accused them of wrongdoing are not the way truly innocent men ordinarily conduct
themselves.

What Mr. Hays here is complaining about is the fact that I write like an attorney, which by happenstance I am. He also forgets that I know how many Calvinist apologists treat Catholics these days. The fact that I feel I have to post prophylactic statements when dealing with people who hold themselves out as Christian is a sad commentary about folks like Mr. Hays who treat Catholics and others when engaging in apologetic endeavors so poorly. It is to his shame, not mine.

…he has no expectation of privacy especially when he engages in speech that some
consider to be abusive and un-Christian.

Actually, Hoffer’s post, which is laced with mock solicitude, the better to sugarcoat
malicious intent, is arguably abusive and unchristian.

Mr. Hays’ statement here is long on accusation but suffers from an acute paucity of evidence.

Now if anyone has a reason to “out” him, I would have a good reason to do so. In 2007, I
wrote an article stating my reasons for critiquing Professor White’s misuse of
cross-examination after he made the scurrilous (and frankly actionable) claim that I had
engaged in a form of taqiyya in service of the Catholic Church. Rather than seriously
engaging the points I made, Mr. Fan chose to attack the article and myself by directing the
reader to my suspension from the practice of law for several months in 1999 for failing to
appropriately deal with a health condition that was seriously impacting my practice.

Hoffer has just given us a good reason to suspect that he’s motivated by a personal vendetta. Indeed, Hoffer’s whole post is an extended exercise in the rhetorical ad
hominem device known as paralypsis. The speaker loftily denies that he will mention
something, as if that would be beneath him, yet he incorporates what he’s not going to
mention in the denial itself. “Far be it from me to point out that my esteemed colleague
reportedly had sexual congress with a syphilic cow. I refuse to stoop to such
ungentlemanly expedients.”

In rhetoric, another word for paralypsis is irony. An example of irony is Mr.Hays' own statement above. It’s ironic that Mr. Hays accuses me of paralypsis but ignores the fact that I do not mention the subject of my alleged paralyptic statements-Mr. Fan’s real name. Of course, in the eyes of Mr. Hays, the fact that I do not “out” Mr. Fan is besides the point. Further, Mr. Hays, himself, fails to mention to his reader that he exercising his own rhetorical strategem , the ad hominem device known as “poisoning the well.” He tells the reader how bad I am, then asks the reader to judge my conduct. In short, Mr. Hays dropped his “irony” on his own foot.

Despite what he and his fellow contra-Catholic bloggers may think of us, we Catholic
apologists are a far more honorable, a far more charitable, and dare I say it, a far more
Christian breed than he and they would credit us. If anyone is going to reveal Mr. Fan’s
name, let it be either himself or one of his Protestant brethren to do so.

If, on the other hand, Hoffer’s motives were less than honorable, then we’d expect him to
sugarcoat his dishonorable motives in a show of faux gallant oratory.

Mr. Hays has yet to demonstrate that I have acted dishonorably towards Mr. Fan. It almost seems that Mr. Hays is disappointed I didn’t reveal Mr. Fan’s real name to the world. Since he can’t accuse me of doing that, he makes up something else to accuse me of-acting dishonorably by not revealing Turretinfan’s name. Mr. Hays does not engage in argument, but paranoia.

No, I do not intend to “out” Mr. Fan. Returning unkindness with unkindness is not my
way. Our Lord taught us a different way to return such conduct.

Except that if he did intend to return unkindness for unkindness, we’d expect him to
preface his vindictive agenda with preemptive disclaimers about his kindly motives.

More of the same paranoia. Yawn...

No one should infer nefarious intent by not revealing his name. I am not withholding his
name to coerce him or extract from him a promise not to attack the teachings of the
Catholic Church.

Except that if he were issuing a veiled threat, we’d expect him to deny his true intentions.

Because of the stumbling block of pseudonymity that Mr. Fan has placed in the path of
fellow Christians, witness the many unkind words that some have uttered against his
pseudonymity, more so than over the subject matter conveyed by his words themselves.

As if Hoffer isn’t using the unkind words that “some” have uttered against TFan has a pretext to do the very same thing without acknowledgment.

I would ask the reader to re-read my article again to see if Mr. Hays has any validity. Search the article for veiled threats. You will find none. All you will find, if you had bother to actually read it with an unjaundiced eye, is an appeal for Christians to act charitably with each other when we engage in our apologetic exercises. Deal with the content of what one writes, not personally attack the writer, whether they be pseudonymous, anonymous or otherwise. It is a lesson, Mr. Hays, you need to start to adopt if you want to be taken seriously.

In fact, Mr. Hays, ask Mr. Fan yourself if I have made any threats against him or sought to coerce him in any way. Moreover, read any of the comments I have made in the 14 years I have participated in apologetical discussions across the internet. The record is there in black and white. The record will show that I have been respectful in my dealings with others and have strived to “play fair” in my dealings with others when blogging. When I have erred or lost my temper, I have always apologized to the offended party-always. When Mr. White accused me of engaging in taqqiya when I questioned the manner in which he used cross-examination in debates, did I not offer an apology for judging his motives and them offered my reasons to counter his accusation of engaging in taqqiya? Yet, I have not seen nor heard any apology from Mr. White for judging my heart. Ask Mr. Swan how I conducted myself when discussing a the Catholic usage of a specific quote from Luther’s works, and if I did not share my findings both good and bad with him. I was more interested in uncovering the truth than defending a particular position.

Prejudge me if you wish Mr. Hays, but know this-you will be reversed on appeal.

Hoffer’s entire post is a study in the psychological dynamics of self-deception.

Mr. Hays’ entire post is a study in paranoid anti-Catholic bigotry and illustrates how such bigotry is a pernicious stumbling block that hinders discussion of genuine issues that still separate us as Christian brethren.

In light of the comments Mr Hays made above, I would ask the reader to consider saying a prayer
or two for him. Here is one that I often say before commenting on other bloggers’ posts:

Keep us, O God, from all pettiness;
let us be large in thought, in word, in deed.
Let us be done with fault-finding
and leave off all self-seeking.
May we put away all pretense and meet each other
face-to-face without self-pity and without prejudice.
May we never be hasty in judgment
and always generous.

Let us take time for all things,
and make us to grow calm, serene, and gentle.
Teach us to put into action our better impulses,
straightforward and unafraid.

Grant that we may realize that it is
the little things of life that create differences,
that in the big things of life, we are as one.

And, O Lord, God, let us not forget to be kind!

By Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland, 1542-1587

God bless!

The Problem With Placing One’s Faith On a Pseudonymous Blogger Rather Than In a Visible Church (Part I).

2011-03-20T16:53:00.000-05:00

✝ O My God, I firmly believe that You art one God in three Divine Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; I believe that Your Divine Son became man, and died for our sins, and that He will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe these and all the truths which the Holy, Roman, Catholic and Apostolic Church believes and teaches, because You, the Infallible Truth, has revealed them, who can neither deceive nor be deceived.

And in this holy faith I wish and pray to live and to die. Amen (A Version of the Traditional Catholic Act of Faith which I pray daily.)

This past February, a number of folks commenting on an article captioned Does James White and Alpha & Omega Ministries Embrace Misogyny? posted on a blog called SBC Tomorrow maintained by the Reverend Peter Lumpkins, a Baptist Minister, and on an article posted by my friend, David Waltz, entitled The secretive “Turretinfan” continues his censorship tactics on his blog, Articuli Fidei, left clues as to the identity of Turretinfan, a pseudonymous blogger in the service of James White, an anti-Catholic controversialist who is the principal behind the Reformed apologetics ministry called Alpha & Omega Ministries. Since some of those who commented on the above sites suggested that Mr. Fan is an Ohio attorney, and since some the accusations leveled against Mr. Fan implied that he may have violated some of the canons of the Ohio’s Code of Professional Responsibility to which I likewise am bound to follow, and since I am bound by an oath to report violations of that Code of Professional Conduct, I decided that I was obligated to make further inquiry and sought to use the clues left on these websites as well as other information garnered over the years of interacting with Mr. Fan to see if I could learn the name of the individual who has caused scandal and consternation for so many, especially fellow Christians who do not share his blinkered-version of Calvinism. (I offer this explanation before I go any further lest someone wishes to suggest that I was motivated from ill-will, malice or a desire for “pay-back” which typifies the modus operandi of so many of the modern-day disciples of the dead lawyer from Geneva.)

Sure enough, using the aforementioned information as well as other documentation publically available on the internet, I was soon able to determine to a quantum of proof what practitioners of the legal arts would call “clear and convincing” the true identity of the man known as Turretinfan.

In doing so, I will state unequivocally that the information I used can be found on publically accessible databases on the internet if one knows where to look and how to research. Further, I will state unequivocally no confidences have been betrayed nor have I used any secret legal resource in any manner to ferret out Mr. Fan’s mild-mannered alter ego. That said, I would note that some of the most invaluable corroboration in regards to Turretinfan’s real world name comes from comments strewn about the internet written by John Bugay, a lapsed Catholic cum Presbyterian polemicist, and Reverend David T. King, an Orthodox Presbyterian minister and pastor located in Elkton, Md., which “sealed the deal” so-to-speak (a triple-crowned tiara ht to you both).

As of this date, I could tell the reader the real name of the person hiding behind the nom de guerre “Turretinfan”, his employer, the schools he went to and the degrees he earned, the church he attends and where he lives at. Based on the available evidence and the inferences that can drawn therefrom, I can safely tell the reader that Mr. Fan is not an Ohio attorney nor does he work in Cleveland, Ohio. Thus, as far as I am concerned, I believe I have satisfied my ethical responsibilities in regards to my chosen profession.

Now before I discuss Mr. Fan’s real identity, I wanted to touch upon the whole premise of his choice of blogging pseudonymously. Personally, unless one is writing pseudonymously out of humility or out of obedience to the directives of a superior, I believe that one must be prepared to own one’s words. If I am not willing to sign my name to an opinion, then it is not worth publicizing. In order to own your words, you have to have the courage to stand behind them, to be accountable for what you say. As poor as my writing may be, I have never been afraid of putting my name to it or being held accountable for what I write. However, that is my personal preference.

The fact is that although many look upon anonymity as the last refuge of scoundrels, throughout our shared American history we have respected and protected the right to speak anonymously, a right firmly rooted in the guarantee of freedom of speech provided in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, to wit:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of their grievances.

The famous jurist, Benjamin Cardozo, once said, freedom of speech and thought is “the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom.” An inherent aspect of that freedom is the right to anonymity which is also a function of freedom of association. While anonymity may help one to avoid responsibility or accountability for the content of one’s speech, it also reduces the possibility of identification and fear of reprisal for those engaging in legitimate, but unpopular speech. Anonymity also provides a way for a writer who may be personally unpopular to ensure that readers will not prejudge his message simply because they do not like its proponent.

For example, Charles Carroll, a Catholic and one of our country’s founding fathers and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, wrote under the pseudonym “First Citizen” to lend a powerful voice for the cause of independence from Great Britain and to challenge oppression of Catholics in Maryland because prior to the American Revolution, both Maryland and British law prohibited Catholics from entering the legal profession or engaging in politics. Thomas Paine and Samuel Adams also wrote using pseudonyms to advance the cause of independence. After the war, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, under the collective pseudonym, "Publius," wrote a series of essays, known as "The Federalist Papers", in their successful campaign to obtain the ratification of the American Constitution. During the Civil War, several individuals known as “Copperheads” used pseudonyms in the North to advocate against Abraham Lincoln’s policies and his suspension of habeas corpus. Later, in the past century, American courts have recognized the right to engage in anonymous speech has been extended to members of unions, radical political groups, as well as civil rights activists. As noted by the Supreme Court in the case of Talley vs. California, 362 U.S. 60 (1960):

Anonymous pamphlets, leaflets, brochures, and even books have played an important role in the progress of mankind. Persecuted groups and sects from time to time throughout history have been able to criticize oppressive practices and laws either anonymously or not at all.

Despite occasional dissent, anonymous communication in our society has been traditionally regarded as sacrosanct. So much so that even when the anonymous writer publishes or otherwise disseminates perceived untruths, such is not a ground for violating this aspect of the right of free speech unless such constitutes either criminal or tortious conduct. Thus, no matter how distasteful one may find their speech, the members of the Klu Klux Klan have the right to wear hoods to protect their anonymity. Similarly, as long as he operates within the boundaries of the law, no matter how distasteful one may find the content of Mr. Fan’s writing, he has the right to use a pseudonym to do so. (N.B. I am not comparing the two for the record.)

Now one may interpose an objection at this juncture and point out that Mr. Fan’s apologetical endeavors do not constitute political or social activism. I would respond that religious speech is still speech entitled to constitutional protection. Witness the recent Supreme Court decision of Snyder vs Phelps, 562 U.S. ____ (2011).

Despite America’ history of respecting anonymous speech, nothing that I have referenced suggests that Mr. Fan’s secret identity must remain secret. Legally speaking, I too have free speech rights and that right includes the right to “out” Mr. Fan so long as I am not doing so out of malicious intent, have not breached confidences, and used legal means to ascertain his identity. Since Mr. Fan operates in the marketplace of ideas and since he chooses to engage in public discourse, he has no expectation of privacy especially when he engages in speech that some consider to be abusive and un-Christian.

Now if anyone has a reason to “out” him, I would have a good reason to do so. In 2007, I wrote an article stating my reasons for critiquing Professor White’s misuse of cross-examination after he made the scurrilous (and frankly actionable) claim that I had engaged in a form of taqiyya in service of the Catholic Church. Rather than seriously engaging the points I made, Mr. Fan chose to attack the article and myself by directing the reader to my suspension from the practice of law for several months in 1999 for failing to appropriately deal with a health condition that was seriously impacting my practice. Hardly cricket in anyone’s book.

Yet, for reasons that I shall make clear shortly, I do not intend to “out” Mr. Fan. His real name, known to myself and to a few select friends whom I choose not to disclose, will remain a secret for another day. Despite what he and his fellow contra-Catholic bloggers may think of us, we Catholic apologists are a far more honorable, a far more charitable, and dare I say it, a far more Christian breed than he and they would credit us. If anyone is going to reveal Mr. Fan’s name, let it be either himself or one of his Protestant brethren to do so.

No, I do not intend to “out” Mr. Fan. Returning unkindness with unkindness is not my way. Our Lord taught us a different way to return such conduct. The faith I place in the teachings of my Church requires that I offer a Catholic response, not the Calvinist one. As Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Savior taught us:

“But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless
those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” (Luke 6:27-28)

St. Paul furthers teaches us in 1 Cor. 3:12-13:

“Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another, if one has a grievance against another; as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do.”

And here:

“See that no one returns evil for evil; rather, always seek what is good (both) for each other and for all.” (1 Thess. 5:15)

And here:

“Do not repay anyone evil for evil; be concerned for what is noble in the sight of all. If possible, on your part, live at peace with all. Beloved, do not look for revenge but leave room for the wrath; for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." Rather, "if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head." Do not be conquered by evil but conquer evil with good.” (Rom. 12:17-21)

And as St. Peter writes:

“Do not return evil for evil, or insult for insult; but, on the contrary, a blessing, because to this you were called, that you might inherit a blessing.” (1 Peter 3:9)

I would ask the reader to take note that the above Scripture passages do not make exception of pseudonymous bloggers who may have wronged me in the past.

Let me be clear: I do not intend to provide the reader with Mr. Fan’s real name. I choose not to do so out of Christian charity and out of faith and obedience to the teachings of the Church I live and have faith in which Mr. Fan is so wont to daily denigrate. No one should infer nefarious intent by not revealing his name. I am not withholding his name to coerce him or extract from him a promise not to attack the teachings of the Catholic Church. He is not beholden to me in any way whatsoever. Whether he or any of his cohort choose to attack me for writing this article or reveal any of my “secrets” out of retaliation or to embarrass me, this is to their shame, not mine. My faults, my failings, my weaknesses (which are many to be sure) are well-known to me, My Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, my friends and my loved ones. Airing them in public would only cheapen and coarsen rather than enhance discourse and give proof to the assertions that some make against Mr. Fan and his companions in arms.

Now the reader may interpose here one more objection: just because Mr. Fan can blog anonymously doesn’t mean he should or as Gilbert Keith Chesterton, the great Catholic lay apologist wrote, “To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it.” Just because one has the right to be anonymous or pseudonymous when exercising one’s free speech rights does not make it righteous to do so. Perhaps the best reason why it is not righteous for someone to opine on matters involving apologetics anonymously is the tendency to treat others unkindly or cruelly. Since the advent of the internet, the psychological phenomena of disinhibition has been increasingly been observed among anonymous or pseudonymous bloggers. When a person exercises the freedom of writing anonymously without accountability or the fear of public pressure or negative feedback, it tends to dispose one to acting irresponsibly and uncharitably towards one’s neighbors and saying things that one would not otherwise say to someone’s face.

In light of that potential to give offense to one’s neighbors, one must constantly reflect on why they are choosing to write under pseudonymously. Aside from laws against defamation, there are virtually no laws, regulations or covenants that regulate and restrain the content of a blogger’s website. The only restraint practically speaking is one’s own personal ethical standards. If one’s ethical standard is not the “golden rule” or if one does not constantly refer to that standard in dealing with others, let alone adhere to it, then one invariably begins to put stumblingblocks or hindrances in the path of others that cause them to sin. (cf. Luke 17:1-2; Romans 14:13) Because of the stumblingblock of pseudonymity that Mr. Fan has placed in the path of fellow Christians, witness the many unkind words that some have uttered against his pseudonymity, more so than over the subject matter conveyed by his words themselves.

Furthermore, while one could construct a large number of rationales why one is choosing to be pseudonymous in their dealings with others, the validity of such rationales rests with the individual. Only the anonymous one (TAO for short) knows in their heart for what purpose he or she is hiding beneath the cloak of anonymity. Is TAO acting out humility or out of selfishness? Is TAO using anonymity as a shield to avoid the limelight forcing the reader to focus on the message as opposed to the messenger or as a sword to attack others personally and avoid accountability? Is TAO protecting his family or loved ones from possible retribution or merely protecting his own personal economic interests? Only Turretinfan knows whether his decision to blog using a pseudonym is righteous or not.

In this particular case, we do not have the ability to read what is in Mr. Fan’s heart. We can only speculate as to whether he is acting licitly or illicitly. And to echo the Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, I would rather err out of kindness than work miracles in unkindness and give Mr. Fan the benefit of the doubt as to the legitimacy of his choosing to write pseudonymously in his apologetic dealings with those who do not agree with his flavor of Calvinism.

That said, “outing” a pseudonymous blogger who often gets it wrong on what the Catholic Church teaches is not the answer. The remedy for correcting such errors or to respond to such objectionable speech is not to damage such an opponent personally. Rather, the Christian remedy is to oppose such speech by offering the reason for our hope, to provide correction, and to offer as cogent and coherent refutation of the offending notions as well as one is able to do.

In the second part of this article which will be posted in the next day or two, I shall endeavor to bring my poor talents to bear and attempt to refute some erroneous things that Mr. Fan wrote an article entitled, I Can't Do it Perfectly, So I Won't Even Try! against the Catholic Church, particularly his misuse of the term “implicit faith” in describing the sort of faith that Catholics place in the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.
In the meantime, I would ask the reader to pray for Turretinfan, for myself and all Christian apologists, whether they be Catholic, Protestant or Orthodox, that we all continue to receive the graces of wisdom and eloquence to defend our shared faith in the Holy Trinity-Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

God bless!

O ineffable Creator, Who, out of the treasure of Thy wisdom, hast ordained three hierarchies of Angels, and placed them in wonderful order above the heavens, and hast most wisely distributed the parts of the world; Thou, Who are called the true fountain of light and wisdom, and the highest beginning, vouchsafe to pour upon the darkness of my understanding, in which I was born, the double beam of Thy brightness, removing from me all darkness of sin and ignorance. Thou, Who makest eloquent the tongue of the dumb, instruct my tongue, and pour on my lips the grace of Thy blessing. Give me quickness of understanding, capacity of retaining, subtlety of interpreting, facility in learning, and copious grace of speaking. Guide my going in, direct my going forward, accomplish my going forth; through Christ our Lord. Amen. A Prayer composed by St. Thomas Aquinas.

A Public Service Announcement Against Pepsico's Intended Blasphemy

2011-01-01T17:15:00.000-05:00

Hello All,

I was recently apprized of an advertisement by Pepsico intends to run during the Super Bowl that mocks the Holy Eucharist. Here is the link to the story. Please write Pepsico to voice your disgust at such blasphemy.

God bless!

Ubi episcopus, ibi ecclesia: An Interaction with Chapter 41 of the Reverend Peter Lampe’s Book, From Paul to Valentinus: Christians in Rome in the First Two Centuries.

2010-10-04T00:56:00.001-05:00

But how can they call on him in whom they have not believed?

And how can they believe in him of whom they have not heard?

And how can they hear without someone to preach?

And how can people preach unless they are sent?

As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring

(the) good news! (Rom. 10:14-15).

I. Introduction.

✝ Dear Lord, Grant to me keenness of mind, capacity to remember, skill in learning, subtlety to interpret, and eloquence to express my thoughts. Amen. (Prayer taken from the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas with slight modification).

Over the last couple of years, John Bugay, a fallen away Catholic, has been using the name of Peter Lampe, a Lutheran theologian and scholar, against Catholic apologists as often as Romanian witches use talismans to curse their victims. Recently, Mr. Bugay used this Lampesian talisman against myself (here, here, and here), my friend, David Waltz and fellow Catholic, Sean Patrick, one of the stalwarts at Called to Communion not to mention over on David Armstrong’s popular website, Biblical Evidence for Catholicism. In my case, Mr. Bugay saw fit to challenge me in a comm-box to interact with Chapter 41 from Lampe’s book, From Paul to Valentinus: Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries. Minneapolis: Fortress Press (2003), after I deconstructed Mr. Bugay’s misuse of quotes from Lampe’s book to attack the Catholic teaching on annulment which advances the following hypothesis:

The fractionation in Rome favored a collegial presbyterial system of governance and prevented for a long time, until the second half of the second century, the development of a monarchical episcopacy in the city. Victor ( c.. 189-99) was the first who, after faint-hearted attempts by Eleutherus ( c. 175-89), Soter ( c. 166-75), and Anicetus ( c. 155-66), energetically stepped forward as monarchical bishop and (at times, only because he was incited from the outside) attempted to place the different groups in the city under his supervision or, where that was not possible, to draw a line by means of excommunication. Before the second half of the second century there was in Rome no monarchical episcopacy for the circles mutually bound in fellowship (Pg. 397).

Mr. Bugay does not suggest how I should interact with Chapter 41 of Lampe’s book. However, from skimming the various occasions that Mr. Bugay has cited Lampe across the internet and on the Beggars All website that he posts on, it would appear that Mr. Bugay feels that Lampe’s book, an expansion of a sociology paper he wrote in graduate school, somehow refutes Catholic doctrine that the Bishops of Rome are the successors of St. Peter because, according to Lampe, there was no monarchical bishop for the Church at Rome until the latter half of the second century. On this basis, I will interact with Lampe’s book. Before doing so, I must offer the following necessary caveats:

1. I do not claim the mantle of a scholar nor do I play one on television. Thus, the reader should expect my analysis (if my rambles may be so considered) of Lampe’s work to be “all over the map” as one Protestant polemicist recently wrote about my style. I do not hope to refute Lampe’s work head-on because to put it bluntly, I do not have time or resources to do so and, perhaps more importantly in my view, there is little to disagree with up to part where he offers his conclusions based on the inferences he draws from the evidence he considers in the fifth part of his book. Rather, I intend to offer more modest fare-that is I intend to interpose a series of objections along with the grounds upon which I interpose such which will be more in line with my personal training as a meat-and-potatoes-type trial lawyer as opposed to anything that smacks of a systemic philosophical or scientific approach. That said, I do have an undergraduate degree in political science which essentially boils down to a study of how people wield and apportion authority in the context of governing themselves. Thus, while I do not have the alphabet soup before and after my name that Lampe sports, my particular educational background does offer me a slight measure of grounding on what to look for in analyzing the systems that Roman church put into place to govern itself.

2. I would note in passing that I seriously question the utility or the propriety of using an inductive scientific or sociological methodology to determine a question that is fundamentally a matter of faith. It is not the Catholic way of evaluating theological matters and I do not intend to stray to far from the path that Catholics should use in considering doctrinal matters. One’s faith in the doctrines and teaching of the Catholic Church shapes the inquiry rather than is shaped by the outcomes of such inquiry. I will explain this further later.

3. I am a lay Catholic writing here as a part of my lay apostolate. Nothing I write here should be considered as a part of the magisterial authority of what the Church holds and teaches, although I will zealously try to set before the reader in a persuasive manner my understanding of what the Church does permit its adherents to hold and profess and still call themselves Catholic. Please accept my apologies beforehand if I am not able to express the position of the Catholic Church accurately and definitively to the reader’s satisfaction. I would ask that you ascribe such failure to my personal limitations and not lay my deficiencies and failures at the feet of the Bride of Christ, the Catholic Church. On the other hand, if the reader is edified and finds anything that I write here to be laudatory, please ascribe such to the Author rather than this most humble and useless of His styluses.

4. Nothing I write here should be considered as a criticism of Mr. Bugay’s character or of his integrity. I am addressing his opinions, conclusions, and arguments. I am assuredly not passing judgment on him as a person. Accordingly, interact with the material, not with the personalities. As it is, issues involving the papacy tend to annoy Protestants as much as deer flies annoy a moose. Unnecessary adjectives attached to people’s names or character will annoy unduly and detract rather than offer anything of benefit to the aims of discourse. I warn the reader in advance that this will be the first post that I will exercise my right to moderate comments if anyone takes the time to do so. If someone elsewhere chooses to attack me personally over this, I would have it be an occasion of shame to them rather than to me.

5. At the end of this paper, I will provide the reader with a bibliography of the sources I drew upon in formulating my responses herein. I urge the reader to read these sources for themselves and draw their own conclusions on the soundness of what I write. However, nothing I write here should be construed or taken as an indication or suggestion that I disagree in any way, shape, or form with the de fide teachings of the Catholic Church and upon being shown that I have written anything that could be construed as such, I will correct same immediately. I would note though that I do not intend to withhold criticism of some of the positions certain Catholic scholars advance that are antithetical to the teachings of the Catholic Church.

PART ONE: A Book Review

Now before I get started on addressing the stated hypothesis of Mr. Bugay that the Bishops of Rome are not the successors of St. Peter for which he relies upon From Paul to Valentinus: Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries as evidence, I will offer this short review of the book itself in case that was what Mr. Bugay was actually looking for when he asked me to interact with it.

From a Catholic layman’s perspective, Lampe’s book is an exemplar, good or ill, of how liberal Protestant and Catholic theologians apply modern-day social constructionist theories to endeavors touching upon theological subjects. Using a methodology that presupposes that archeology and secular history take precedence over Biblical historicity, Lampe’s notions mirror those of many of the Christian ecumenicists that litter the landscape these days minimizing the biblical basis for the authority of bishops and the importance of apostolic succession and for me are just as about as persuasive. Frankly, one could learn as much about the social conditions from whence the Church in Rome grew out of reading the historical novels, The Robe or Quo Vadis, or watching the large screen adaptations of same on DVD as from reading Lampe’s book and reading or watching same would be a tad less tedious. I do not expect Lampe’s book to be turned into a movie.

That said, as a scholarly endeavor, it is admirable how Lampe sorts through various groups of evidence to paint a more fuller picture of how early Christians lived, but like similar scientific endeavors, it overemphasizes how social interactions shape religious belief, but minimizes or even trivializes how religious belief shapes social interactions. One example of this is found on page 383 of the book. For Lampe, orthodoxy of religious views of Romans Christians in the first and second century are the result of social background and education of the majority of the Roman adherents at that time, thus making what was to be believed more of a majority decision than whether the beliefs that had been transmitted and taught (paradosis) and were truly apostolic in nature or not.

Additionally, the Reverend Lampe’s book is definitely not for laymen as he does not attempt to define important terminology. Terms, such as “monarchical episcopacy” and “fractionation,” are not defined. Lampe presupposes that his audience knows of these things, and perhaps they do, but since the book was made available to the general public, he should have foreseen that amateur Protestant apologists would misuse his work to attack Catholic doctrine and defining terms would have prevented such apologists from erroneously attempting to make square-blocked conclusions fit into round-hole arguments.

Another problem as I see it, is that Lampe ignores the catholicity of the Catholic Church in the first and second centuries AD. Because he used inductive reasoning as opposed to deductive analysis, that is arguing from the specific to the general instead of from the general to the specific, he ignores or understates the import of the wider pool of Christian and non-Christian sources. His sparse interaction with the Scriptures, the Didache and St. Ignatius of Antioch’s letters to the other churches besides Rome on the issue of the authority of the leaders of the Church seems to me designed to limit the definition of bishop to that of an anachronism that equates the term bishop to mean a single person having jurisdiction over the church in one geographical area (I will expand on this argument further). To be fair, this may be more of a quibble with how Mr. Bugay uses Lampe’s claim as opposed to the work itself. However, I would note that when Mr. Bugay is making his argument against the papacy, he often makes sure to let the reader know that the Reverend Lampe dissented from a joint Catholic/Lutheran understanding on justification so as to lead the reader to the conclusion that the Reverend Lampe’s argument is contra-Catholic just like his.

Finally, the biggest flaw I see in the Reverend Lampe’s book is his dismissal of the historicity of the succession lists of Hegesippus, Irenaeus and Eusebius as “fictive constructions” (Pg. 406) which smacks more of wishful thinking than any actual argument. While the reader of today find such lists as contained in the Bible to be boring verbiage to be skipped over during most systemic devotional reading, such lists to ancient peoples were powerful pieces of evidence and served as important testimony to the validity and credibility to the witness being given by the inspired writers that Jesus was both the Messiah and the Son of God (Mt. 1:1-17; Luke 3:23-38). The succession lists of Hegesippus, Irenaeus and Eusebius held similar evidentiary value for the early Church in combating the Gnostic heresies. If these lists were fictive accounts as Lampe opines (based on embarrassingly little evidence), the Gnostic leaders would have easily been able to exploit the falsity of such and would have used their falsity of such lists to counter the credibility such lists gave to the arguments of Irenaeus and Hegesippus on how apostolic succession ensured the orthodoxy and truth of the doctrines held by the Catholic Church. Further, given that less than a hundred years transpired between the age of the apostles and the rise of the gnostic heresiarchs, Marcion (140 AD) and Valentinus (160AD), there should have probably been at least some individuals alive during those times who would have known and/or remembered whether Linus, Anencletus, Clement, Evaristus, Alexander, Xystus, Telesphorus, Hyginus, Pius, Anicetus, and Soter, all of whom were listed by Irenaeus as the successors of Peter in his treatise Adversus Haereticos 3:3 before Eleutherus became the Bishop of Rome in 175 AD, were truly the Bishops of Rome or not. Apparently, either Marcion, Valentinus and their followers never thought to ask any of those folks or perhaps the heretical groups did not dispute the succession lists because most likely they happened to be true and accurate historically. As an attorney who understands the notion of onus probandi, it much more probable that the latter is true. Unfortunately, the Reverend Lampe does not share with us why we should consider his conclusions more trustworthy than the paucity of objections to these “fictive” bishops by their Gnostic opponents. Reliance on an argument from silence in the manner that Lampe does is not as persuasive as he would like the reader to believe and in my view does not meet the burden of proof to show that Irenaeus, Hegesippus and Eusebius were liars.

I will acknowledge that Rev. Lampe makes an argument that is similar to some Catholic writers. Moreover, I am certain that Reverend Lampe never intended his work to be misused as a polemic weapon by American Protestant e-pologists against their Catholic foemen as the work was more in nature of a historical survey designed to encourage other scholars to conduct more intense studies on the issues he raised therein. And for what it is worth, I found many of the conclusions he made on social stratification and status of the early Christians to be both highly informative and corroborative of other works that I had read on the subject. That being said, I found Bernard Green’s Christianity in Ancient Rome: The First Three Centuries [London: T & T Clark International (2010)] and Fr. William Moran’s doctoral thesis, The Government of the Church in the First Century [NY: Benziger Brothers (1913)] provided more insightful and in-depth treatment of the issues for which Mr. Bugay is artlessly using From Paul to Valentinus: Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries.

In closing, From Paul to Valentinus: Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries is a book that I would check out of the library or even purchase it if I came across it at a thrift store, but it is not one that I spend my money to purchase new.

I will try to have the rest of my argument up later this week. God bless!

Posted on the Memorial of St. Francis of Assisi, 2010.

Revealing the Mystery Behind the Magisterium

2010-09-26T08:21:00.002-05:00

This post started out as a quick response to something that Mr. Fan wrote about my friend, fellow Catholic, and apologist, Matthew Bellisario, in an article Bellisario Swings and Misses after Mr. Bellisario criticized Mr. Fan’s article entitled, Test Case of the Infallible Magisterium: Ordination of Women in an article posted on his Catholic Champion blog captioned Another “Expert” on Catholicism Misrepresents Church Teaching. After trying to keep track of the all the articles, the various positions taken by Messrs. Fan, Bellisario, and the individuals who left comments, and writing this out, it turned into something a bit more expansive than a comment.

Leaving aside the digressions on the use of certain forms of rhetoric to persuade, I thought I would focus on the issues presented by Mr. Fan on his speculations over the possibility of whether some future pope could determine that a teaching of the ordinary Magisterium of the Catholic Church that was considered infallibly held is not actually an infallible teaching because it was not formally defined and to address the particular matter that led to his speculations~the Catholic Church’s teaching with respect to the ordination of women to the priesthood.

TF stated:

The document itself is not an exercise of papal infallibility. The document merely alleges that the teaching is something "set forth infallibly by the ordinary and universal Magisterium." But this document itself is not the ordinary and universal Magisterium. This document is fallible.

So it is possible (whether or not it is likely), that some future pope's prefect may decide that Ratzinger erred. The practice of non-ordination of women is just something culturally conditioned and a long-standing discipline ... and hey-presto, this document ceases to have any authoritative weight against the new document.

This post will attempt to answer Mr. Fan's objection and clear up any misunderstanding on how doctrine taught by the ordinary and universal Magisterium can be infallibly held. To provide some context, here is the letter that he was referring to in its entirety:

COVER LETTER TO BISHOPS' CONFERENCE PRESIDENTS

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

November 8, 1995

The publication in May 1994 of the apostolic letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was followed by a number of problematic and negative statements by certain theologians, organizations of priests and religious, as well as some associations of lay people. These reactions attempted to cast doubt on the definitive character of the letter's teaching on the inadmissibility of women to the ministerial priesthood and also questioned whether this teaching belonged to the deposit of the faith.

This congregation therefore has judged it necessary to dispel the doubts and reservations that have arisen by issuing a responsum ad dubium, which the Holy Father has approved and ordered to be published (cf. enclosure).

In asking you to bring this responsum to the attention of the bishops of your episcopal conference before its official publication, this dicastery is confident that the conference itself, as well as the individual bishops, will do everything possible to ensure its distribution and favorable reception, taking particular care that, above all on the part of theologians, pastors of souls and religious, ambiguous and contrary positions will not again be proposed.

The text of the responsum is to remain confidential until the date of its publication in L'Osservatore Romano, which is expected to be the 18th of November.

With gratitude for your assistance and with prayerful best wishes I remain,

Sincerely Yours in Christ,

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger

Mr. Fan's comments suggest that the above cover letter is not a document constituting an example of a doctrine infallibly defined by the pope. True, but that does not decide the question. Here is the responsum ad dubium which in conjunction with Pope John Paul II’s Ordinatio Sacerdotalis does CONFIRM an infallible doctrine that already has been established by the ordinary Magisterium of the Catholic Church:

Responsum ad Dubium

10/28/1995

Concerning the Teaching Contained in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis

--------------------------------------------------------

Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

Dubium: Whether the teaching that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women, which is presented in the Apostolic Letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis to be held definitively, is to be understood as belonging to the deposit of faith.

Responsum: In the affirmative.

This teaching requires definitive assent, since, founded on the written Word of God, and from the beginning constantly preserved and applied in the Tradition of the Church, it has been set forth infallibly by the ordinary and universal Magisterium (cf. Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium 25, 2). Thus, in the present circumstances, the Roman Pontiff, exercising his proper office of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32), has handed on this same teaching by a formal declaration, explicitly stating what is to be held always, everywhere, and by all, as belonging to the deposit of the faith. The Sovereign Pontiff John Paul II, at the Audience granted to the undersigned Cardinal Prefect, approved this Reply, adopted in the ordinary session of this Congregation, and ordered it to be published. Rome, from the offices of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, on the Feast of the Apostles SS. Simon and Jude, October 28, 1995.

+ Joseph Card. Ratzinger
Prefect

+ Tarcisio Bertone
Archbishop Emeritus of Vercelli

Secretary
1/21/95

(Source)

Turretinfan’s article states that he has difficulty with how a non-fallible document can state that a doctrine is infallibly established. Such is understandable as Calvinist apologists most often wrestle over Catholic dogmas infallibly defined in a papal encyclical or by an ecumenical council. However, these are but two ways that the Catholic Church uses to infallibly determine dogmas-two examples of the way dogma is defined through the exercise of the extraordinary Magisterium of the Catholic Church. There is a third way as evidenced by the then-Cardinal Ratzinger’s correspondence-doctrine can be infallibly taught by the universal and ordinary Magisterium on occasion as well. While it is true that neither Pope John Paul II’s Ordinatio Sacerdotalis nor his permitting Cardinal Ratzinger to issue the above letter are the kinds of document utilizing the formulaic statements to which Catholics and Protestants apologists are most familiar when interacting with teachings of the Catholic Church, nevertheless, the matter that the Church does not have the authority to ordain women is just as infallibly held as any of the dogmatic expressions from the Council of Trent or papal determinations that the Blessed Virgin Mary was immaculately conceived and was assumed to heaven.

As I outlined above, there are three ways that the Church defines doctrines infallibly. They are:

1. Papal infallibility. That dogma, defined by the First Vatican Council and Pope Pius IX in 1870, affirms that God preserves the pope from error when he definitively teaches a doctrine of faith or morals. The dogma of papal infallibility was decisively reaffirmed by the Second Vatican Council (1962- 1965) in Lumen Gentium (the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church). By way of clarification, the Second Vatican Council makes this important point. Infallibility is essentially a gift of God to the Church. When the pope teaches infallibly, he is not acting by his own prerogatives. He is exercising this divine gift as a steward on the Church's behalf.

2. Ecumenical Councils. When the Pope and bishops convene in an ecumenical council, they join in a solemn teaching act which is considered infallible. When the Pope ratifies the actions of the bishops when they convene in council. The actions so ratified also become infallible teachings as well. The Second Vatican Council is an example of the former. The First Council of Nicea is an example of the latter.

3. Ordinary Magisterial Teachings. Certain teachings of the bishops of the Catholic Church may be treated as infallible teachings as well. As pointed out in Section 25 of Lumen Gentium:

Although the individual bishops do not enjoy the prerogative of infallibility, they nevertheless proclaim Christ's doctrine infallibly whenever, even though dispersed through the world, but still maintaining the bond of communion among themselves and with the successor of Peter, and authentically teaching matters of faith and morals, they are in agreement on one position as definitively to be held.

As this passage demonstrates, four criteria must be met for an infallible exercise of the ordinary Magisterium of bishops around the world:

1. That the bishops must be in communion with one another and with the Pope.

2. That they are teaching authoritatively on a matter of faith or morals.

3. That they are virtually in agreement in one judgment.

4. That they propose this as something to be held definitively by the faithful

.Now lest Mr. Fan may object to this latter method of determining doctrine infallibly, many, if not most, of the doctrines of the Church are infallibly taught this way. Among the doctrines recognized as infallible teachings of the Church in this manner include that Jesus is the sole savior of the human race, that man has a soul and is of a spiritual nature, the verity of individual particular judgment after death, the truth that guardian angels are entrusted to protect human souls, that the Blessed Virgin Mary is the spiritual mother of all Christians, that abortion can never be condoned, that the use of evil means (commission of sin) can never be justified by the good that might come from it, and as shown in this particular case, that women can not be ordained as priests. Recourse to the use of the extraordinary Magisterium is used only when doctrines are no longer peaceably held by the Church and such doctrines need to become explicitly defined. A more detailed and systemic explanation of this can be found here in this article and here.

As shown above, doctrines to be believed as divinely revealed or to be held definitively through actions which are either defining or non-defining. Defining actions are truths solemnly defined through the exercise of the extraordinary Magisterium by an "ex cathedra" pronouncement by the Pope or by the promulgation of defining documents by an ecumenical council. However, the ordinary and universal Magisterium determines doctrine infallibly through non-defining acts. Such doctrines may be confirmed or reaffirmed by the Pope without resorting to an exercise of the extraordinary Magisterium by declaring explicitly that it belongs to the teaching of the ordinary and universal Magisterium as a truth that is divinely revealed or as a truth of Catholic doctrine. Such declarations of confirmation or reaffirmation through means of a dubium ad responsum, as utilized in the case of women’s ordination, or through an Apostolic letter, such as the case in Evangelium Vitae § 57ff , are not to be viewed as new dogmatic definitions, but serve as formal attestations of the truths already possessed and infallibly transmitted by the Church. In other words, the Pope’s affirmation or confirmation is sort of like a notary seal on a document already attested to be true by a signatory. I would note that Dr. Michael Liccone, in an article entitled Infallibility of the Ordinary Magisterium, offers a much more thorough presentation than I have set forth here and more importantly I heartily urge the reader to review it as well as Lumen Gentium, particularly Chapter 25.

One can only deduce that Mr. Fan finds this to be confusing because he later brings up the doctrine of Immaculate Conception as an example of how dissent becomes dogma. However, linking the subject of the Immaculate Conception to this one is not appropriate as the dogma of the Immaculate Conception was a dogma that developed over the centuries and was pronounced by the Pope Pius IX in Ineffabilis Deus, not as a result of the teachings of the ordinary magisterium (which he notes were varied), but from the sensus fidelium (sense of the faithful) which is a concept that it is the Holy Spirit who matures sensus fidei of the Christian people enabling it as a community to a spontaneous understanding of the revealed fact and inward maturing of the fact thanks to reflection, experience and preaching. The dogma of the Immaculate Conception was promulgated by Pope Pius IX in response to the unanimous acclaim of the members of the Church at that time. That said, sensus fidelium is not a notion of majority vote where if enough Catholics support the notion, the Pope can be made to change or add doctrine. Rather it is something that is considered in rendering decisions.

Thus the issue of whether women can be ordained is a closed issue and dissent on this issue is illegitimate. The doctrine has been infallibly held by the ordinary universal magisterium and confirmed by the Pope. The responsum ad dubium which he authorized is a papal pronouncement of confirmation showing that the doctrine being confirmed enjoys the same charism of infallibility shared by other doctrines infallibly defined by the Magisterium.

So Mr. Fan’s test case scenario turns out to be nothing more than an open book quiz, I will leave it to the reader to grade my response.

God bless!

Posted on the Feast of Saints Cosmos and Damian.

Update: Mr. Fan objected to my characterization of his argument over on his blog. In the interests of fairness, I have altered the statement that I have highlighted in red to reflect his assertion, "But in my article, I wrote: "I didn't say that it is possible for a pope to come along and change an infallible doctrine" and reconcile that with what he did write, "So it is possible (whether or not it is likely), that some future pope's prefect may decide that Ratzinger erred. The practice of non-ordination of women is just something culturally conditioned and a long-standing discipline ... and hey-presto, this document ceases to have any authoritative weight against the new document."

Doing the Callixtus Calypso with John Bugay: The Real Reason Why the Catholic Church calls It Annulment and Not Divorce.

2010-08-27T08:14:00.004-05:00

O God, who seest how we fail by reason of our weakness,

have mercy, and through the examples of thy saints,

renew our love of thee.

~The Collect from the Feast of Pope St. Callixtus (October 14)

Mr. Bugay, a stalwart on the Beggars All team, has been taking time out of his busy day to read history books about the origins of the Catholic Church lately and has decided to share with all what he has learned from those books. The reason [rooted in history] why the Roman Catholic Church calls it annulment and not divorce is but one example of what Mr. Bugay thinks that he has learned from his reading. This time he chosen to focus his efforts on all things, what he believes to be the alleged historical antecedents of the Decree of Nullity aka an annulment. Frankly, it was refreshing to see that he has sought to engage this subject from a historical perspective particularly when on the rare occasions that the sons and daughters of Geneva do touch upon this particular subject they usually engage in the fallacious practice of pointing to the seemingly lax oversight of the juridical process used to obtain an annulment as “proof” of its falsity. While Mr. Bugay does that too, at least he he waited until the end of his smear piece to obligatorily raise the matter. I commend him for at least offering something in addition to his derision.

In order to address the contentions raised by Mr. Bugay, a survey of the entire article he wrote is necessary:

At some level, even the Roman Catholic Church feels it is beholden to its history. In this case, it is beholden to an early bishop of Rome, Callistus, who made a decision that would enable the Roman church to retain its appeal to women from wealthy families.

On the topic of marriage as a sacrament from the earliest times, Peter Lampe notes the origin of the practice by which the Roman church operated outside of civil rules for marriage: "...it is crystal clear in Hippolytus that from aristocratic circles more women than men found their way to Christianity. The disproportion was a social problem that Callistus during his term as Roman bishop (c. 217-22) attempted to solve. The problem undoubtedly had existed since the end of the second century, if not longer.

When women from the noble class were unmarried and in the heat of their youthful passion desired to marry and yet were unwilling to give up their class through a legal marriage, he [Callistus] allowed them to choose a partner, whether slave or free, and to consider him to be their husband without a legal marriage. From that time on the alleged believing women began to resort to contraceptive methods and to corset themselves in order to cause abortions, because, on account of their lineage and their enormous wealth, they did not wish to have a child from a slave or a commoner.

From Peter Lampe, "From Paul to Valentinus: Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries," pg 119.

Mr. Bugay then offers this second quote from Peter Lampe:

A Christian woman [from a wealthy family] who wished to retain the title "clarissima" had two options. She could marry a pagan of the same social status and forego marriage wtih a socially inferior Christian. Or she could live in concubinage with a socially inferior Christian without being legally married. This second option received the blessings of Callistus in Rome. In this way he prevented two things: mixed marriages with pagans and the social decline of Christian women. Both were in the interests of the community. (121)

Utilizing the above quotations ripped out of context from the Rev. Lampe’s book, Mr. Bugay forms the following conclusions:

This is why Rome can say that it has mastery over marriage -- why, even though a couple may take vows, have any number of children, ask for and pay for an annulment, and voila, "the marriage never existed."

And that's why they can say they don't permit divorce. Because if they were to use the usual sense of the language, then they would have to admit that Callistus's end-run around the usual definition of what was a legal marriage was really an instance of permitting unmarried couples to live in sin. And of course, the pope is infallible. So they're stuck defending this set-up.

While I commend Mr. Bugay for his effort, I can not commend the product of his efforts. There is so much that is wrong with Mr. Bugay’s argument, that is practically impossible to respond in piecemeal fashion. For starters, Mr. Bugay’s conclusory statement above is so sparse of actual argument it is difficult to determine from his paralogism whether it smacks of causality fallacy, non sequitur or ignoratio elenchi. However, it is not my intent to turn this article into a disquisition. Instead, I have chosen to address only two points. First, I would like to touch upon the propriety of citing an authority for a proposition that the authority was not actually writing about. Second, I wanted to address the underlying conclusion that but for the Church’s arbitrarily re-defining of marriage, there is no difference between divorce and an annulment.

Let us first address Mr. Bugay’s use of the From Paul to Valentinus: Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries, Minneapolis: Fortress Press (2003), trans. Michael Steinhauser, written by the Reverend Peter Lampe, a German Lutheran theologian and professor. The chapter where Mr. Bugay pulled his quotes is found in Chapter 13 entitled “Social Stratification at the Time of Commodus.” A survey of the chapter reveals that the author was not addressing the issue how the Church defined marriage or how at the end of the second century and beginning of the third century the Church at Rome regulated the practice of obtaining a Decree of Nullity finding that a sacramental marriage had not occur. In truth and in fact, one would find after a review of the chapter that the Reverend Lampe does not address the “topic of marriage as a sacrament from the earliest times” in any way, shape or form contrary to Mr. Bugay’s intimation. In other words, the gratuitous statement Mr. Bugay makes in introducing Reverend Lampe’s work to us is entirely fraudulent.

One of the issues that Chapter 13 of Reverend Lampe’s book does address is the problem the growing Church in Rome faced with individuals of the senatorial class of Roman society converting to Christianity at the end of 2nd and the beginning of the 3rd centuries. Lampe notes in his book how the Church mainly drew believers from the lower strata of Roman society at its start but by the end of the second century that situation was changing. The appeal of the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ as preached by the Church was beginning to resonate with the cream of Rome. So by the end of the second century, out of the 10,000-30,000 Christians living in Rome at the time (pg. 143), 40 or so members of that class had converted to the Christian faith by this time, two-thirds of such individuals were women. This disproportionate ratio of women to men in the noble classes apparently gave rise to a social problem which Pope Callixtus (or as referred to in Lampe’s book as “Callistus ... the Roman bishop”) sought to address as these women sought to find marital partners among their fellow Christians. Lampe then presents his readers a watered-down version of a quote from St. Hippolytus’ Philosophoumena to document the matter. Here is another, albeit more sanguinary, version of this same quote:

And the hearers of Callistus being delighted with his tenets, continue with him, thus mocking both themselves as well as many others, and crowds of these dupes stream together into his school. Wherefore also his pupils are multiplied, and they plume themselves upon the crowds (attending the school) for the sake of pleasures which Christ did not permit. But in contempt of Him, they place restraint on the commission of no sin, alleging that they pardon those who acquiesce (in Callistus' opinions). For even also he permitted females, if they were unwedded, and burned with passion at an age at all events unbecoming, or if they were not disposed to overturn their own dignity through a legal marriage, that they might have whomsoever they would choose as a bedfellow, whether a slave or free, and that a woman, though not legally married, might consider such a companion as a husband. Whence women, reputed believers, began to resort to drugs for producing sterility, and to gird themselves round, so to expel what was being conceived on account of their not wishing to have a child either by a slave or by any paltry fellow, for the sake of their family and excessive wealth. Behold, into how great impiety that lawless one has proceeded, by inculcating adultery and murder at the same time! And withal, after such audacious acts, they, lost to all shame, attempt to call themselves a Catholic Church.

Of course, what both the Reverend Lampe and Mr. Bugay left out in both of their presentations is context. While scholars do know that St. Callixtus had written on a number of subjects, none of his writings have survived or at least to date have not been found. What we do know of him and his pontificate is mainly found in the writings of his detractors and from early martyrologies and biographies such as the Liber Pontificalis. At the time he wrote the above polemic, St. Hippolytus had vigorously opposed Callixtus’ election as pope and the majority of the Christian adherents in Rome who had elected him as “pope.” Hippolytus, the erudite and well-educated student of the great Irenaeus himself, and his followers did not accept the decision of the majority and had himself set up as bishop in opposition thereby becoming the first anti-pope in the history of the Church. Further it should be noted at this point of time, Hippolytus’ theology was very rigorist (and perhaps had even fell in with the Montanists like Tertullian) in outlook in contrast to the more compassionate policies of Callixtus who preached a gospel of forgiveness and repentness. Hippolytus took every opportunity to vigorously attack the character of Callixtus, an ex-slave himself, for embracing what Hippolytus perceived to be moral laxity. On one such matter for example, Hippolytus had labeled Callixtus as a follower of the heresies of Sabellius while Callixtus countered that Hippolytus was a ditheist which may have some basis in fact if Hippolytus was actually an adherent on Montanus’ doctrines at that time. Tertullian, an actual Montanist, had also challenged Callixtus for teaching that sinners could receive forgiveness of their sins through the sacrament of confession more than once after baptism. Neither Lampe nor Bugay share with us their opinion as to whether Callixtus’ teachings or those of Hippolytus were more correct. And it is suggestive that Hippolytus attacked Callixtus more out of wounded pride than on doctrine as history does not indicate to us whether Hippolytus ever actually anathemized Callixtus for holding the view he did.

It is also interesting to note that Reverend Lampe elsewhere in his book suggests to the reader that one must take into account Hippolytus’ polemic glosses against his opponents in examining his writings (pp. 27-28). Mr. Bugay apparently has chosen to ignore this warning because he is not interested in history; he is only interested in selectively mining the historical record so he may calumniate against Catholicism. But what is so detestable however about Mr. Bugay’s article is that he forms conclusions that the Church somehow has redefined marriage to be something that it isn’t and implies to the reader that Reverend Lampe has formed that conclusion as well when there is nothing in the Reverend Lampe’s book that indicates that this is the case at all. Reverend Lampe does not cite to Hippolytus’ polemic as the “origin of the practice by which the Roman church operated outside of civil rules for marriage.” as is represented by Mr. Bugay’s article. Rather, Lampe, rightly or wrongly, concludes on page 121 of his book:

That with Callistus’s decision Christianity declared itself for the first time unequivocally in favor of “equal rights for slaves outside the liturgy and and the arena,” is the unquestionable consequence of the decision. It can not be proved, however, that this was the primary motivation for Callistus’s action. Callistus wished to avoid mixed marriages [between pagans and Christians] and to prevent the social decline of aristocratic women from his community.

Stripping away the vituperative rhetoric from Hippolytus’s statement quoted above, what Hippolytus was railing against Callixtus for was his insistence that two Christians regardless of their legal status in Roman society could sacramentally marry even if the civil authorities did not recognize it as such. Callixtus re-asserted that it is the Church and the Scriptures, not the state, that decides what impediments prevent two consenting Christians from marrying and recognized that within the Church two parties could marry even if the civil authorities did not so recognize the union as a marriage. Here, Callixtus determined that slavery was not an impediment preventing two Christians from marrying each other. In other words, Callixtus opposed a form of anti-miscegenation that was practiced in ancient Roman society, something one should think Mr. Bugay would find to be laudatory instead of an occasion for derision.

The second passage from Reverend Lampe’s book does not need to be similarly explained. In no possible stretch of the imagination could one infer from the quoted passage that Callixtus was re-defining sacramental marriage by then permitting Roman women (who had already married in the Church) to hold themselves out as legally as living in concubinage. Regardless of what the state held to be a marriage, the Church has the right to hold parties to the biblical standard that a valid marriage is indissoluble. Again, reading this particular passage from Lampe’s book does not suggest anything about the Church’s authority to grant a decree of nullity of a marriage. All Callixtus did was to uphold the biblical injunction imposed by Christ Himself that the marriage relationship between two Christians is indissoluble. Perhaps because neither Bugay nor Lampe as Protestants recognize marriage as a sacrament, it is beyond their comprehension.

Mr. Bugay writes:

“This is why Rome can say that it has mastery over marriage -- why, even though a couple may take vows, have any number of children, ask for and pay for an annulment, and voila, "the marriage never existed."

And that's why they can say they don't permit divorce. Because if they were to use the usual sense of the language, then they would have to admit that Callistus's end-run around the usual definition of what was a legal marriage was really an instance of permitting unmarried couples to live in sin. And of course, the pope is infallible. So they're stuck defending this set-up.

Ignoring Mr. Bugay’s blustery hyperbole here, the commentary left over constitutes a gross misrepresentation of the Church’s process of annulment, if not outright false witness. However, I do not intend to treat with that. Rather, I would urge the reader to review the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Article VII §§ 1601-1666 and the Catholic Code of Canon Law §§ 1055-1165 which explain the process far better than I could.

What I will address here is Mr. Bugay’s assertion that an annulment is somehow an end-around the legal definition of marriage for such an assertion demonstrates a profound ignorance of what annulment is, what a divorce is and most importantly, what marriage is. I will endeavor to provide this corrective.

First, let us deal with some definitions. What is a contract? A contract is an agreement entered into between two or more competent parties in which something of value is offered and is accepted in exchange for the performance of a promise from which each party benefits. Legally (at least in Ohio), for a contract to exist, there must be mutual assent, an offer and acceptance of the offer, and consideration. See, Nilavar v. Osborne (1998), 127 Ohio App.3d. Under law, a contract is only valid if the necessary elements of an offer, acceptance, contractual capacity, consideration, a manifestation of mutual asset, legality of object and of consideration are present. Further, there must be a meeting of the minds as to the meaning of all of a contract's essential terms before a contract is formed. McCarthy, Lebit, Crystal & Haiman Co. L.P.A. v. First Union Management (1993), 87 Ohio App.3d 613. Thus, unless all of the terms of the contract are present and unless there is an agreement as to the meaning of those terms, there is no contract and the parties may annul the contract as being void ab initio.

What is marriage? Marriage, simply put, is a relationship borne out of contract. Within the Church, a man and a woman are free to enter into an agreement to get married, but once they do, God attaches certain consequences. As F.J. Sheed, the famous Catholic apologist of the 20th century, and an attorney, states:

[Marriage] is a relationship resulting from a contract. For when the relationship comes into being, the contract has done its work; it has produced a relationship of marriage, and the parties are now governed in their common life, not by the contract (which they made), but by the relationship (which God made in ratification of their contract).

Sheed, F.J., Nullity of Marriage. New York: Sheed and Ward (1959), pg. 4.

The consequence that God attaches to the marital relationship is that it is indissoluble. When Catholics get married sacramentally, the Holy Spirit embues the couple with a grace that permanently seals the marriage until death and gives the parties the grace to live out their vows. When the parties receive the sacrament of marriage, the "indelible" seal that is created can NEVER be broken, regardless of any decree from any human authority, including the Church or even the Pope himself. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church #1640 states:

Thus the marriage bond has been established by God himself in such a way that a marriage concluded and consummated between baptized persons can never be dissolved. This bond, which results from the free human act of the spouses and their consummation of the marriage, is a reality, henceforth irrevocable, and gives rise to a covenant guaranteed by God's fidelity. The Church does not have the power to contravene this disposition of divine wisdom.

Now before Mr .Bugay voices his protest here, let us look at what annulment of marriage actually is. In fine, an annulment is the process by which the Church after one or both of the parties to the marriage ask it to do so reviews the man-made contract to marry. Now it must be emphasized that God alone seals the marriage relationship and God alone can set down the conditions as to when that bond ceases. Once the relationship comes into being, the parties can not alter the conditions, the Church can not alter those conditions, and the state can not alter those conditions. However, the Church when it considers annulling a marriage, does not examine the God-made relationship. Rather it limits itself to the examination only of the contract to marry itself (man-made). The Church does not pretend that it has the right to terminate the marital relationship as does the state for when the state grants the parties a divorce, the state claims that it has the right to interfere and terminate the marital relationship which it acknowledges was validly entered into. The law of divorce merely provides a remedy for a breach of the marital relationship. In contrast, the law of nullity merely provides that the Church can determine whether the parties actually entered into a contract to marry and if the parties did not do so, the Church merely recognizes that fact by issuing a Decree of Nullity.

Again F. J. Sheed:

The difference between divorce and nullity is therefore about as wide as it is possible to conceive. Divorce claims to break up a marriage actually in being. Nullity means that the marriage never came into being; it is the discovery that the contract to marry did not exist. Marriage is not only a contract; but it results from a contract, and if there is no contract no relationship can result.

Id. at pg. 8.

At this point, I should like to make it known that while the law of divorce does not exist in every civilized society in the world, in every society known, the law of nullity does. The Church claims nothing more than this: that it has the right in the context of the sacrament of marriage to determine whether the elements of a contract to marry were validly fulfilled. Where the Church differs from the state is that it denies on the basis of the Scriptures that it, the parties, or even the state, have the right to put asunder the sacramental relationship created from two parties validly enter into a contract of marriage that has been ratified by God.

Now, Mr. Bugay might raise the issue of pauline privilege at 1 Cor. 7:10-15 because the Church is dissolving a real marriage and not opining that a marriage never existed. What St. Paul recognized is that a “natural” marriage, not a sacramental marriage, can be dissolved by the Church if the pagan partner leaves the marriage because the other partner converts. In contrast, Callixtus did not attempt to interfere with the marriage relationship; rather he merely confirmed that the Church could not interfere with the relationship when two Christians chose to marry even if the state frowned upon the relationship.

Simply put, Mr. Bugay’s claim that the Church claims a “mastery over marriage” is simply false. In truth, Protestants who claim that marriage is not a sacrament at all (which amounts to a denial that God created and ratifies the relationship through grace) and who permit two parties to marry after divorce (which denies the biblical injunction that marriage is indissoluble) claim a non-biblical mastery over marriage far more overreaching than anything that the Catholic Church does. Every time the various flavors of Protestantism allow homosexuals to marry each other in ceremonies mimicking a marriage ceremony, every time they allow two divorced persons to marry, it is they, and not the Church, who ignore the usual definition of what constitute a legal marriage.

That said, one must wonder what Mr. Bugay thinks about the present day “civil rules of marriage” which are trending to allowing two men or two women to marry each other. Does not the Church have the right to stand against such definitions of marriage which are in opposition to the Scriptures as Callixtus did long ago or must we kowtow as some Protestant denominations already have to a re-definition of marriage that is in fact a perversion of the special covenant between two persons and God. If the United States Supreme Court were to consider the issue of “gay marriage” in the near future (a very real possibility) and were to recognize the right of homosexuals to marry thereby altering the “civil rules for marriage,” how could he argue against such without being labeled a hypocrite? Or in his zeal to attack all things Catholic as is his wont, did he even think through his argument? And what will Mr. Bugay say when the civil rules of marriage contradict Article 25 of the Westminster Confession of 1689? Will he cede the authority of his denomination over to the state and propose that homosexuals should now be allowed to marry withing the confines of the walls of the sanctuary of his particular church of the state where ever he lives were it to declare that homosexual marriages are now encompassed within the civil rules of marriage?

What Mr. Bugay’s argument really proves is that he does not recognize the difference between a sacramental marriage that occurs in the Church and a marriage that is sanctioned by civil authorities. He further demonstrates his ignorance of what marriage even is. The Church does not pretend to put asunder the God-made marital relationship, rather it professes the competence and the right to examine the underlying man-made contract to marry and determine whether there were any scriptural or other impediments to that marriage.

In dancing with Callixtus here, Mr. Bugay tripped over his own feet. Better luck next time.
God bless!

Responding to a Super-Super-Super Bad Argument about the Teaching Authority of the Catholic Church

2010-08-17T01:46:00.001-05:00

“If the Lord does not build the house, in vain do its builders labor; if the Lord does not watch over the city, in vain does the watchman keep vigil.” From the Nisi Dominus (Ps. 127:1)

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It has been awhile since I posted here, the reasons of which I hope to disclose in the near future. However, upon coming across a number of articles that written by one of the luminaries in the constellation of apologists known as Beggars All, an anonymous gentlemen who goes by the handle of “Rhology,” I felt compelled to reply to them since they all involve comments that I made in response to the treatment of the Catholic doctrine appertaining to the Magisterium, the teaching authority of the bishops in communion with the Catholic Church. I hope the reader will find this article helpful in seeing how the polemics employed by those who contend for faith can affect one’s consideration of the issues being discussed.

While I was trying to finish my next installment of Managing Marian Misogyny, I happened across an article on the Beggars All blog posted by John Bugay entitled Yahweh says no need for a Magisterium in which he argued that the OT did not contain any notion of a Magisterial authority. Of course, such a notion is patently inaccurate as is plainly shown in 2 Chronicles 19:5-11 and Ezra 8:7-8, for example, where a clearly established magisterial teaching authority in OT Israel was used to teach the people how to interpret/understand Scripture and other religious matters. I decided to comment on the premise of that article challenging Mr. Bugay’s assertions with a number of scriptural citations. At that point, Rhology decided to opine on some of my comments in a separate article captioned The super-super-super-Magisterial magisterial authority. Since Rhology’s article was spawned specifically by my comments to the previous article by Mr. Bugay, I offered a response by commenting on it. Apparently, some of my comments struck a nerve with him and he decided to write a sequel, aptly entitled The super-super-super-Magisterial magisterial authority, part two (hereinafter referred to simply as the Sequel or ROUND TWO). While I am hesitant to make a sur-reply fearful that such will generate another sequel from Rhology, I felt it necessary in the end to do so because his arguments are premised on fallacy and misapprehension of what the Magisterium actually is and how it functions.

While this twin-pronged approach to attacking Catholic teachings is a common tactic utilized by some Reformed apologists to highlight the various distinctives which distinguish their particular flavor-of-the-month Protestant denomination from the multitude of Catholic doctrines they do choose to accept, “it is a very bad and stupid one,” to borrow a phrase. Ultimately, the aim of all arguments should be to get at the truth of the matter rather than clouding issues through the use of fallacious reasoning. As I hope to show, the tactics employed by Rhology in ROUND TWO smack of a sort of skeptical rationalism as opposed to a reasoned defense of the basis for our hope. On a more practical level, it is rather hypocritical to claim one hand that logical argumentation should be the measure of truth, and then use fallacious reasoning in its place. I offer this article in the hopes of highlighting Rhology’s errors and sophistry and offer in their place this corrective.

For the ease of reading, I will group the various threads of argument together (Some of the hyper-links are excluded and some of the poor grammar and typos (particularly mine) are cleaned up).

ROUND ONE:

louis said (in a comment made on the Article captioned Yahweh says no need for a Magisterium):

It's almost as if he thinks those scripture passages are perspicuous or something. He also evidently thinks he understands Marbury v. Madison, but unless an infallible interpreter explained it to him, I'm not sure how he can.

Paul Hoffer said (in response made as a comment on the same article):

Louis, your comment about perspicuity is ill-placed. There are many doctrines (or at least broad outlines) upon which most Christians can agree. Where the perspicuity of Scriptures falls by the wayside is when there are disputes between Christians as the Scriptures can not arbitrate the dispute. Two people can have sincere differences over the regenerative properties of baptism, paedo-baptism, etc. How does reliance on Scripture help when both parties rely upon them? Fortunately, the Scriptures does point to the fact that through the intervention of God Himself, a magisterial authority was established that people could take such disputes to.

Rhology joins the fray now with his own article now. For his opening salvo, he begins with:

Paul Hoffer, your comment about perspicuity is ill-placed.

Paul Hoffer queries:

How so? There is nothing in your article that refutes anything that I wrote unless you are claiming some sort of magisterial authority for yourself.

Here, Rhology begins to parrot my words:

There are many doctrines (or at least broad outlines) upon which most Christians can agree.

PH writes:

Since you do not mock this, I infer that you do agree with my contention that there is much about the Scriptures that is perspicuous, just not everything.

Rhology continues:

Where the perspicuity of Magisterial declarations and "clarifications" falls by the wayside is when there are disputes between Romanists of different opinions as the Magisterial declarations and "clarifications" can not arbitrate the dispute.

PH responds:

Thank you kindly for making my point for me. A written document, whether it is the Word of God as contained in the Scriptures or a Magisterial document interpreting the Word of God, do not “arbitrate” disputes. Rather, it the Church itself that safeguards and interprets the Scriptures that does the arbitrating.

Rhology writes:

Two people can have sincere differences over the (in)errancy of the Scripture, at what point in the development of the unborn baby it's OK to decapitate and dismember the baby, to what extent the Church should have material wealth, etc. How does reliance on Magisterial declarations and "clarifications" help when both parties rely upon them?

PH responds:

Let’s test your hypothesis with the Missouri method. SHOW ME as Space Bishop (another commentator remarking on the article) asked where a Magisterial document(s) of the Catholic Church on these two points you raise here that says anything that would allow two people relying upon it have a “sincere” difference of opinion about abortion or what extent the Church should have material wealth.

Rhology continues:

One wonders whether Paul will be so quick to tell us that the Magisterial declarations and "clarifications" do point to the fact that through the intervention of God Himself, a super-Magisterial magisterial authority was established to which people could take such disputes.

PH writes:

Using the definition of Magisterium as “The Church's active competence, juridically embodied, to prolong by its witness God's self-communicative self-revelation in Christ, which necessarily inheres in the Church (as the eschatologically definitive community of believers in Christ, founded by him as an hierarchical society, empowered by a mission to bear testimony to Christ), and which demands obedience." (Concise Theological Dictionary. p. 268 Burns and Oates, Herder and Herder, New York, London, 1965) one can find the notion of the Magisterium expressed in the NT from a number of passages (citations only and not recitation of the passages so as to not offend either Mr. Bugay or Louis) to support it, to begin with: Mt l6:15, 18; Mt. 28: 18-20; Lk. 10: 16; Acts 15:6-8, 28; Gal. 4:19; 1 Cor 4:15; 1 Timothy 3:15; 2 Timothy 1:13. So rather than relying on my authority, I would rest my case on the Scriptures and how the Church interprets them.

It must be noted that Catholics do not put the Magisterium over the Word of God, rather the Magisterium is the servant of the Word of God. Its role is to faithfully safeguard the truth about God and his plan for our lives which came to full expression in the teaching and saving work of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh. It is not to add to God’s revelation or to subtract from it, only to faithfully interpret and apply it to real life situations (CCC 85-86). The Magisterium fulfills this role under the guidance of the sacred teaching authority. (Thus, bringing up stuff about how some Catholics are disobedient by advocating pro-choice agendas is a red herring.) "Faithful and respectful obedience" to the Magisterium is something presupposed (Cf. Romans 1:5; 16:25-26) as the consent given to belief, is a consent not to what is just the word of men, but rather is held to be the Word of God. See, Lumen Gentium 12 and 25.

Rhology writes:

And then when there are disputes about what the super-Magisterial magisterial authority says, whether Paul will posit a super-super-Magisterial magisterial authority. And then whether he'll later posit a super-super-super-Magisterial magisterial authority...

PH replies:

Unlike Protestantism which holds that each person is his own magisterial authority, we recognize that Jesus is the final arbiter as head of the Church, who is exercising through those that are placed in authority by Him to lead/serve the Church. Thus, the scenario you raise does not occur. If you disagree, prove it that Catholics do not believe in the concept that "the buck stops here."

Rhology writes:

What is really ironic is that in this kind of argumentation that Paul uses here and that RC’s (Roman Catholics) ignorantly use all over the place, they echo atheists as well. Here's a recent example:

Whateverman said: It matters that other Christians wouldn't agree with your attribution (of God's influence) because that demonstrates the subjectivity of the assertion.

PH replies:

Reliance on an existential appeal to one's own self as one’s own ultimate authority does not impress me as a sound notion as you yourself point out and is as subjective as claiming that God’s influence is a subjective assertion. Besides, such argumentation is not really atheistic, but is more pantheistic as Whateverman is merely saying that as far as he is concerned he is his own god.

[Rhology’s] response there [to Whateverman]:

You know, there are people who think they can float by Yogic meditation. Their mistaken thoughts of gravity's application does not mean that gravity is subjective. You're making man the measure of truth. I'd recommend making logical argumentation the measure of truth, myself.

PH responds:

Frankly as a person who adheres to the notion of “Contra factum non valet argumentum,” I reject your assertion that logical argumentation is the measure of truth. Christ is the way, the truth and the life. PERIOD. Since the Word of God (Christ Himself) shows as a fact that it is to be interpreted by those placed in authority of His Body, no amount of argumentation will prevail against it.

Rhology concludes:

And that's what I'd recommend for our Romanist friends like Paul Hoffer. For one thing, when you argue like an atheist, but you're a theist, and when you denigrate the clarity of what God spoke, just like atheists do, shouldn't that raise a bit of a red flag?

PH concludes:

No it doesn’t raise any flags at all. I would suggest to you that parsing the Word of God to come up with your own notions is a far worse denigration than my acknowledgment that while there are many things I do understand in the Scriptures applying the graces God has given me, I do recognize that as a humble sinner, there are things that I do not understand like my namesake points at 1 Cor. 13:9 and that I am thankful to My Lord and Savior Christ Jesus that He gave us the Church in which the magisterial authority rests as an infallible means to gain more understanding of His Word and to grow deeper in my faith.

ROUND TWO:

In this Sequel, Rhology decides to expand upon the remarks set out above and offer additional commentary to some of my comments. Unfortunately, in doing so, he engages in one of Protestantism’ favorite past times, cherry-picking an opponent’s argument and responding to only a distorted version of my argument. I apologize for repeating the statements already made above, but I could not think of a different way to demonstrate Rhology’s egregious misuse of fallacious argumentation to counter the statements I made above. Please note that the statements of mine that Rhology responds to will be bold-faced, the parts he leaves out will highlighted in red and my replies and rebuttals to this new round of remarks will be set off in blue.

Rhology writes:

Paul Hoffer was kind enough to comment at length on my last post, but unfortunately between his original comment that spawned the aforementioned post and his comments on the post, he forgot his own argument, and ironically in many places ends up affirming my own point. For that, I thank him for tacitly disavowing his argument. I commend the practice, of course, for while it is a common argument, it is also a very bad and stupid one.

PH responds:

Sophistry to buttress an otherwise untenable argument will not win the day. Rhology’s verbiage is hardly evidential in nature and neglects to address the point that I made originally: OT Israel had recourse to an official magisterium to interpret Scriptures. Rhology’s apparently loses sight of that fact and to this day has failed to adduce any evidence whatsoever that rebuts my original argument. Instead he engages in the old lawyer trick of “if the facts are against you, argue the law; if the law is against you, argue the facts; if both are against you, abuse opposing counsel.” Rather than addressing the arguments I made, he instead practices a little ad hominem and to abuse me and my argument.

Rhology wrote:

Paul Hoffer, your comment about perspicuity is ill-placed.

PH replied:

How so? There is nothing in your article that refutes anything that I wrote unless you are claiming some sort of magisterial authority for yourself.

Rhology parroting my words originally wrote:

There are many doctrines (or at least broad outlines) upon which most Christians can agree.

Rhology now adds:

Paul Hoffer, I'm sorry you didn't understand that I parroted you for a specific reason, that is, to show how the same "problem" of individual fallible interpretation is true for your position as well. Positing a Mag[isterium] only moves the question back a step, which is why I'm saying you'd need a super-super-Mag[isterium] to fix the problem. But then you'd need ANOTHER level back to which to move the question, and on and on unto infinity.

PH now adds:

I am glad that Rhology did not parrot my words as an attempt to mock me. For that I am much thankful and take this moment to heartily commend him for treating me as a brother in Christ (although unlike Mr. Bugay, a fellow stalwart of his on Beggars All, I doubt he would ever consider a Catholic “a brother in Christ”). His explanation as to why he makes like a psittacine, however, does not ring quite true as I will show below.

I disagree with Rhology’s question begging statement that the Catholic Magisterium as an interpreter is useless because magisterial statements in turn need an interpreter in order for one to understand them. I do not accept Rhology’s premise because unlike the Scriptures, one can consult the Magisterial interpreter and seek clarification of the decision or interpretation. The Church as the living witness and guardian of the Word of God is limited to examining the text of the Holy Scriptures or previous magisterial documents. The Magisterium continues to speak authoritative and interpret the Word of God and prior Magisterial texts to determine what was meant and will continue to do so until the meaning is clear. Regardless of what some might say, the Scriptures are not self-attesting, not self-authenticating, and especially not self-interpreting. This fact is verified by history. Their veracity are attested through the Church’s constant use of them in the Mass, in the Sacraments and in its prayers. The Church authenticates through its testimony over the centuries that the Scriptures are in truth and in fact the Word of God. Most importantly, they have been interpreted by the Church and those interpretations have been preached to the faithful since Christ founded His Church. There is only One Body of Christ, that is the Catholic Church, and it speaks from one head with one voice which is the voice of Jesus Christ.

This fact is verified by history. The docestists first questioned Christ’s humanity which was responded to by the Ordinary Magisterium. The Arians questioned His Divinity and were answered by the First Council of Nicea. Later, additional misunderstandings about what Nicea held were corrected at the Council of Ephesus and then at the Council of Chalcedon; so on and so forth. While more questions may have arose about the Church’s understanding of Christ’s nature, the Church was able to respond to them and offer additional insight and clarification to assist the faithful.

Moreover, as doctrine was infallibly defined by the Church by a Council or by papal pronouncements, the adherent benefited by such because each time a new benchmark had been established, the adherent could start their inquiry into questions of faith at that benchmark rather than start over with a study of the Scriptures. Certainly one needs to read the Scriptures, but one does not have to decide all over again each time they are read what the Scriptures mean as the Church has already done that for them. Disagreements between adherents who hold different views becomes the means by which doctrines are tested and determined leading to a shared understanding of the what the Church holds thereby leading to greater unity in faith. This is an advantage that those who claim to practice sola scriptura could never have.

One sees this in the law all the time. Over time, the courts defined how promises were kept whether by covenant, promise, debt, or vow. Then because of the notions about the exchange of hostages, notions of consideration began to creep into the legal system. Later, issues over mutual assent, offer and acceptance, and adequacy of consideration, damages or remedies, etc. had to be decided. Nowadays, we attorneys do not have to start over with the days of Justinian’s Code or Charlemagne to understand where the idea of consideration was invented. All we have to do is apply the facts to see whether they meet the elements of contract that have already been argued, weighed, measured and decided over hundreds of years of jurisprudence. If attorneys were bound by some notion of sola scriptura, we would have to start over and decide what constituted the elements of contract, even whether one could enter into something called a contract each and every time before filing a suit.

Yes, new questions arise which require additional clarification, but as a result of adhering to a Magisterial system, we Catholics do not have to re-decide all of the old questions again. While it is true that as a law student I did have to learn all of that old stuff about the history of contract so I could better understand how the law of contract is where it is at today and where and how the law may develop in the future, but the difference is I do not have to re-litigate all of the old questions that have been already decided.

PH wrote:

Since you do not mock this, I infer that you do agree with my contention that there is much about the Scriptures that is perspicuous, just not everything.

Rhology responds:

Yes, not everything in the Scr is perspicuous. What's really funny about this is that the RC doctrines related to salvation and election and all that are pretty much impenetrable in their internal inconsistency, biblical illiteracy, and tradition-bound-ness. As James White likes to say: Give me Romans 8 anytime over the code of Canon Law.

PH replies:

Thank you Rhology for the admission that not everything in the Scriptures are perspicuous. It’s too bad that you have to go off the tracks with your next statement~ more question begging nonsense without any evidence. I must say though that the James White allusion you use is a bit vague. When I googled it, I found where James White made this statement ten years ago in a debate, but I don’t see any more recent reference where he says it or that it is one of his favorites or that he “likes” to makes this particular statement. Perhaps this is something he has shared with you personally or have learned of this through a private revelation of sorts.

For what it is worth, as a Catholic I too would say give me Romans 8 over the Code of Canon Law since Romans 8 is part of the Word of God and the Code of Canon Law, is just that, a legal code for governance of the Church. That said being said however, I must ask you what particularly about the Catholic Church’s Code of Canon Law you feel contradicts of the law of the Spirit that is reflected in Romans 8? Or is this just some bilious rhetoric thrown in? Or are you perhaps working off James White’s reputation to lend your argument an air of Protestant magisterial authority?

Rhology, after eating a cracker, rawps:

Where the perspicuity of Magisterial declarations and "clarifications" falls by the wayside is when there are disputes between Romanists of different opinions as the Magisterial declarations and "clarifications" can not arbitrate the dispute.

PH responded:

Thank you kindly for making my point for me. A written document, whether it is the Word of God as contained in the Scriptures or a Magisterial document interpreting the Word of God, do not “arbitrate” disputes. Rather, it the Church itself that safeguards and interprets the Scriptures that does the arbitrating.

Rhology now adds:

Through written documents. Thus you bolster my point. Thanks! Also, in oral proclamations, a lot of the time they get written down. Then, see above. Oral proclamations, BTW, are not immune to this. So you need a super-super-super-super-super-super-super-super-super-super-...

PH replies:

Why does one need recourse to a super to the nth power authority in order to make a decision IN RESPONSE TO A DISPUTE? And if the parties to the dispute both come into the dispute with an “obedience in faith,” that is an attitude of assent to the teachings of the Church, the parties to the dispute will submit to the decision by the Magisterium rather than breaking off to form their own Church or advocate disobedience to the teachings of the Church.. In short, we need only one Magisterial authority. As St. John Chrysostom puts it, "The Church is thy hope, the Church is thy salvation, the Church is thy refuge." ("Hom. de capto Euthropio," n. 6.)

Squawking some more, you wrote:

Two people can have sincere differences over the (in)errancy of the Scripture, at what point in the development of the unborn baby it's OK to decapitate and dismember the baby, to what extent the Church should have material wealth, etc. How does reliance on Magisterial declarations and "clarifications" help when both parties rely upon them?

PH responded:

Let’s test your hypothesis with the Missouri method. SHOW ME as Space Bishop asked where a Magisterial document(s) of the Catholic Church on these two points you raise here that says anything that would allow two people relying upon it have a “sincere” difference of opinion about abortion or what extent the Church should have material wealth.

Rhology responds to only the statement in bold:

Now you're moving the goalposts. You had originally made PEOPLE AT LARGE the measure of truth, and now you want me to show two Mag docs that disagree. I probably could, and I know Carrie could easily, but that's not what we're discussing.

PH replies:

Rhology presents the classic strawman statement here. Take a statement of one’s opponent out of context and then comment on it. Not a good endorsement of the claim that logical argumentation is the measure of truth I think.

Rhology originally gave two examples of how different Catholics could sincerely come to different opinions on what the Magisterium teaches on abortion and to what extent the Church should have material wealth. I merely asked him to show me the magisterial documents upon which he bases his contention. Asking for proof of an assertion is not moving goal posts. It is asking for a little evidence to go with that dash of opinion he tossed into the bouillabaisse he offers us as fare for thought.

Moreover, I would ask the reader to go over all of my comments and see if I ever made people at large the measure of truth. It is true that Rhology accused me of adhering to such a notion, but never did I ever say that. I did say that Christ is the way, the truth and the life and He is the measure of truth. Misrepresenting what another person’s argument is also fallacious just so we are all clear. Like a modern-day Rumpelstiltskin, Rhology is trying to spin some more gold out of straw here.

Molting your feathers to make a real point, you wrote:

One wonders whether Paul will be so quick to tell us that the Magisterial declarations and "clarifications" do point to the fact that through the intervention of God Himself, a super-Magisterial magisterial authority was established to which people could take such disputes.

PH wrote in response:

Using the definition of Magisterium as “The Church's active competence, juridically embodied, to prolong by its witness God's self-communicative self-revelation in Christ, which necessarily inheres in the Church (as the eschatologically definitive community of believers in Christ, founded by him as an hierarchical society, empowered by a mission to bear testimony to Christ), and which demands obedience." (Concise Theological Dictionary p. 268 Burns and Oates, Herder and Herder, New York, London, 1965) one can find the notion of the Magisterium expressed in the NT from a number of passages (citations only and not recitation of the passages so as to not offend either Mr. Bugay or Louis) to support it, to begin with: Mt l6:15, 18; Mt. 28: 18-20; Lk. 10: 16; Acts 15:6-8, 28; Gal. 4:19; 1 Cor 4:15; 1 Timothy 3:15; 2 Timothy 1:13. So rather than relying on my authority, I would rest my case on the Scriptures and how the Church interprets them.

Rhology addresses only the portion in bold:

Unless the Mag[isterium] infallibly interp[ret]ed those Scr[iptures] [passages], you're relying on private fallible interp[retation] in order to prove your position that the Mag[isterium] is necessary to correct for people's private fallible interp[retation]s. Something is ironic about that...

I reply:

Of course, Rhology’s smug argument suffers from more question begging as to whether the above referenced scripture passages actually need to be “infallibly” interpreted in order to be understood. Perhaps Rhology can point to a dispute that has arisen among sincere Catholics because they have differing interpretations of the above referenced passages so we can all see the irony that he sees in quoting such. Now, I can point Rhology to the magisterial source (Ordinary) where I got some of my ideas used in responding to Rhology’s comments. It was an oral address entitled The Magisterium, the Bishops, and the Theologians given at a Catholic symposium on the Magisterium by the Most Rev. David M. Maloney, Bishop of Wichita, a holy and learned gentleman who actually assisted in writing some of the conciliar documents at Vatican II.

And while I am it, here are a couple of infallible magisterial sources that do reference these citations listed above which I found without any difficulty in case anyone was wondering (I am sure that I could find many more with a little work):
Mt l6:15, 18 First Vatican Council, Session IV, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church of Christ, Chapter 4., The Infallible “Magisterium” of the Roman Pontiff

Lk. 10: 16 Canon 21 of the Council of Constantinople IV

Acts 15:6-8      This is the scriptural account of the Council of Jerusalem that actually set the pattern as to how the Church is to conduct a council to settle disputes over doctrine.

Acts 15:28        Ditto.

Gal. 4:19         Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium, Chapter 1:7.

1 Cor. 4:15      Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium, Chapter 3:21, 28

1 Tim. 3:15      Council of Trent, Decree on the Most Holy Eucharist, Chapter 1

2 Tim. 1:13. Pius IX, Exiam tuam on the False Doctrines of Anton Guenther (1857)

Redacting a major portion of my argument, Rhology takes the following statement of mine out of context:

It must be noted that Catholics do not put the Magisterium over the Word of God, rather the Magisterium is the servant of the Word of God.

Rhology responding only to the boldfaced part:

So why does it get the Gospel wrong? And posit Purgatory? And the Immaculate Conception of Mary? And the Assumption of Mary? And worshiping pictures of dead people? And the treasury of merit and indulgences? And other examples of exceeding what is written all the time?

PH replies:

Talk about question begging and strawman argumentation (we do not worship pictures of dead people anymore than Rhology does)! Of course Rumple-rhology’s whole argument is based on the premise that he can actually demonstrate these doctrines as taught by the Church are erroneous. As a Calvinist, Rhology may take issue with the above doctrines, but the question here is whether he can show that Catholics disagree with them after these doctrines or dogmas were defined by the Magisterium. He may link us to a bunch of articles where he and his cohorts address various misrepresentations and misapprehensions about what the Church teaches on these subjects claiming to have refuted them, but he certainly did not do so here.

Rhology offers the following quibble to a portion of the statement I wrote, “The Magisterium fulfills this role under the guidance of the sacred teaching authority.” (Thus, bringing up stuff about how some Catholics are disobedient by advocating pro-choice agendas is a red herring):

Since YOU were the one who introduced the idea that a teaching authority is apparently to be measured by the laity's obedience to it, that would be YOUR red herring. And again, thank you for acknowledging that this argument is stupid.

PH writes in reply:

No, it is Rhology that introduced the idea that a teaching authority is to be measured by the laity’s response and obedience to it as demonstrated above. Looking at the entire statement I made and not just the cherry-picked squib that Rhology responds to one sees he left out the major thrust of the statement:
"It must be noted that Catholics do not put the Magisterium over the Word of God, rather the Magisterium is the servant of the Word of God. Its role is to faithfully safeguard the truth about God and his plan for our lives which came to full expression in the teaching and saving work of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh. It is not to add to God’s revelation or to subtract from it, only to faithfully interpret and apply it to real life situations (CCC 85-86). The Magisterium fulfills this role under the guidance of the sacred teaching authority. (Thus, bringing up stuff about how some Catholics are disobedient by advocating pro-choice agendas is a red herring.) "Faithful and respectful obedience" to the Magisterium is something presupposed (Cf. Romans 1:5; 16:25-26) as the consent given to belief, is a consent not to what is just the word of men, but rather is held to be the Word of God. See, Lumen Gentium 12 and 25."
NOTE that the argument states that “Faithful and respectful obedience to the Magisterium is something presupposed” so Rhology’s ad hominem claim of stupidity is a response to a straw man argument of his own construction that he labors to huff and puff to blow down.

As demonstrated from the entire statement I wrote as opposed to the squibs Rhology presented, I never wrote or even inferred that the teaching authority of the Church is “apparently to be measured by the laity's obedience to it teaching.” Not at all. What I was trying to indicate was that folks who did not give “faithful and respectful obedience” to the teachings of the Church can not be said to be sincere nor really Catholic for that matter.

And since the Church has steadfastly taught since apostolic times that abortion is inherently immoral, evil, and sinful, there is no such thing as “sincere” differences of opinion on this issue. As for the other issue about the Church owning wealth, perhaps Rhology could point us to an actual schism or heresy on that point to see where he going with it as I am not aware of any such thing (I do acknowledge that I am not a know-it-all as to the causes of heresy or schism). If Rhology misunderstood my argument as opposed to misrepresenting it, I hope this little piece of non-magisterial clarification aids his understanding as to the advantage of a Magisterium that can do likewise when misunderstandings occur.

Setting up the claim that the Catholic Magisterial system is circular, Rhology wrote:

And then when there are disputes about what the super-Magisterial magisterial authority says, whether Paul will posit a super-super-Magisterial magisterial authority. And then whether he'll later posit a super-super-super-Magisterial magisterial authority...

PH responded:

Unlike Protestantism which holds that each person is his own magisterial authority, we recognize that Jesus is the final arbiter as head of the Church, who is exercising through those that are placed in authority by Him to lead/serve the Church. Thus, the scenario you raise does not occur. If you disagree, prove it that Catholics do not believe in the concept that "the buck stops here."

Rhology now writes:

How do strawmen help the Roman cause? Is it Mag[isterial] teaching that strawmen are the best strategy? Is that in Lumen Gentium too?

PH replies:

How does cherry-picking statements and taking them out of context, help your cause? More to the point, how does making a “fallacy fallacy” argument actually advance the aims of argumentation at all? Since I have been accused of fallacy, let us see if that is the case. I have made the claim that each Protestant through the exercise of his own private judgment holds himself up as his own magisterial authority. I will go one step further and state that the practice of private judgment as exercised and abused by Protestants is an exercise in idolatry as the individual places himself above the Word of God instead of being subject to it.

How can I make this claim? I will elucidate:

Let us first define what I mean by “private judgment.” In his book, What Faith Really Means, Bishop Henry Graham, a former Calvinist minister who converted to Catholicism, wrote:

So far, then, from being debasing or dishonoring to our intellect, we consider the Catholic attitude to be the most beautiful and sublime act of homage to Our Divine Lord; we are honoring and adoring Him Who is the first and essential Truth.
Renouncing our own judgment! Giving up our freedom! Of course we renounce our own judgment when God has spoken; of course we give up our freedom to believe the opposite of what God teaches. Protestants do the same. A Protestant who believes in the Blessed Trinity because God has revealed it -- does he not renounce his own judgment upon it? A Protestant who believes in Hell or in the Incarnation -- where is his freedom to reject it, without sin? So, if God declares that the Blessed Virgin was conceived Immaculate, or that there is a Purgatory, or that the Holy Eucharist is the real Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, shall we say, 'I am not sure about that. I must examine it for myself; I must see whether it is true, whether it is Scriptural?' Let who will take upon themselves such a responsibility.

On matters, indeed that Almighty God has been pleased to leave open questions, we are free to hold our own opinions, and there is a wide field here where discussion is not only permissible, but right and proper, and, it may be, even laudable. Thousands of volumes have been written on such subjects by theologians and priests. In such a sphere they have perfect liberty; the Church allows it. Moreover, not only does the Church allow, but she gladly encourages, the wisest, the most devout and learned of her sons to undertake researches into the mysteries already defined to be doctrines of faith; not, of course, for the purpose of finding whether they are true, but for the purpose of explanation, instruction, edification; of discovering and unfolding to the faithful more and more the inexhaustible treasures of Heavenly truth that lie embedded in any one of the articles of the Faith.

The world has been enriched by whole libraries of Catholic theology -- dogmatic, moral, ascetical, mystical, and the rest. To speak, then, of the intellect being paralyzed and of the spiritual faculties being deadened by the 'Romish system' is simply ludicrous. Neither the religious literature of Protestantism, nor the finished product of their spiritual system as seen in the lives of its devotees, is to be mentioned in the same breath with that of the Catholic Church.

When we speak of private judgment, then, let us be quite clear as to what we mean; it has its uses and it has its abuses. Private judgment, in the sense of compiling a creed for yourself out of the Bible, of accepting this doctrine and rejecting that, of judging what should be and what should not be an integral part of the truth revealed by God -- this, of course, is entirely forbidden, for it is directly contrary to the method of arriving at the truth instituted by Our Lord Jesus Christ. Do people imagine that the Son of God, having revealed a body of truth definite and explicit, eternal and unchangeable, left it to us to cut and carve, and to pick and choose here and there such bits of it as suited our taste? What the better should we be today, what advantage would the Incarnation have brought to us, if, after all, we were still floundering about in doubt and uncertainty?
"Far other is the Catholic conception of Christ's mission. So soon as Our Divine Lord, speaking through the voice of His Church, solemnly declares, 'This is My teaching: this is included in the Revelation I made to the Apostles.' -- what Christian, I ask, or rather, what man that fears God, Christian or not, will dare to hesitate to bow in acquiescence, and say, 'O my God, I believe because Thou hast said it' ? ....
The use of private judgment, on the other hand, in the sense of an inquiry into the 'motives of credibility,' and a study of the evidences for the Faith, to enable you to find out which is the one Church founded by Jesus Christ -- this is permissible, and not only permissible, but strictly necessary for all outside the Fold who wish to save their souls. But mark well: having once found the true Church, private judgment of this kind ceases; having discovered the authority established by God, you must submit to it at once. There is no need of further search for the doctrines contained in the Christian Gospel, for the Church brings them all with her and will teach you them all. You have sought for the Teacher sent by God, and you have secured him; what need of further speculation?

Your private judgment has led you into the Palace of Truth, and it leaves you there, for its task is done; the mind is at rest, the soul is satisfied, the whole being reposes in the enjoyment of Truth itself, who can neither deceive nor be deceived...Renouncing our own judgment! Giving up our freedom! Of course we renounce our own judgment when God has spoken; of course we give up our freedom to believe the opposite of what God teaches. Protestants do the same. A Protestant who believes in the Blessed Trinity because God has revealed it -- does he not renounce his own judgment upon it? A Protestant who believes in Hell or in the Incarnation -- where is his freedom to reject it, without sin? So, if God declares that the Blessed Virgin was conceived Immaculate, or that there is a Purgatory, or that the Holy Eucharist is the real Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, shall we say, 'I am not sure about that. I must examine it for myself; I must see whether it is true, whether it is Scriptural?' Let who will take upon themselves such a responsibility.

'Be convinced,' says Cardinal Newman in his great sermon, 'Faith and Doubt' -- 'be convinced in your reason that the Catholic Church is a teacher sent to you from God, and it is enough....You must come to the Church to learn; you must come, not to bring your own notions to her, but with the intention of ever being a learner; you must come with the intention of taking her for your portion, and of never leaving her. Do not come as an experiment, do not come as you would take sittings in a chapel or tickets for a lecture-room; come to her as to your home, to the school of your souls, to the Mother of Saints, and to the vestibule of Heaven.'"
[N.B.: Please note that the above extract was copied from an excellent article written by Philip Porvaznik entitled On Private Judgment and Catholicism found on his “Evangelical Catholic Apologetics” website. While I own Bishop Graham’s book, I was too lazy to retype the section.]
The eminent 19th century Catholic American apologist, Orestes Brownson, adds:

[P]rivate judgment (in the Protestant sense) is only when the matters judged lie out of the range of reason, and when its principle is not the common reason of mankind, nor a Catholic or public authority, but the fancy, the caprice, the prejudice or the idiosyncrasy of the individual forming it. (Brownson’s Quarterly Review, October 1855).

Basing my argument on the above-referenced understanding of what private judgment is, the problem I have with private judgment is the believer always starts out by accepting some of the teachings of the established faith and rejecting others and then ends up accepting as legitimate the most dissenting or divergent views of others rather than defined teaching. One sees an example of this when Protestant apologists attack Catholic doctrines by quoting from the likes of a Küng, Wills, Greeley, or McBrien rather than from the host of orthodox Catholic theologians, like Ratzinger, Bouyer, Brown, Newman, Knox, Sheen, Congar, Hahn. As St. Thomas Aquinas put it, “the way of a heretic is to restrict belief in certain aspects of Christ’s doctrine selected and fashioned at pleasure” (Summa II-II, 1.a.1).

Seriously, this “selection” and “fashioning” is nothing less than private judgment at work. When truth and falsehood in religion becomes a matter of private opinion, one doctrine becomes as good as another. What right does Rhology have to claim that his view of Calvinism is any better than my view of Catholicism if ultimately it all boils down to our respective opinions. If I have sincerely exercised my private judgment and have decided on those grounds to believe and hold what the Catholic Church teaches, upon what basis could Rhology deny the validity of my decision? How is quoting a couple Scripture passages going to help when I myself are relying upon my own personal interpretations of the same?

Dr. Brownson once more:
The so-called Reformers supposed at first that they could maintain dogmatic religion by means of the Bible, without any divinely authorized interpreter or teacher, for they were not aware at first how much their interpretation of Scripture depended on the tradition of the Church in which they had all been educated. When shown this by Catholics, and shown still further that the Bible, interpreted by tradition, supported the claims of the papacy and the Catholic Church, from which they had separated, they were forced, in order to be consistent with themselves, either to return to the Catholic Church or to reject the traditional interpretation of the written word, and to rely henceforth solely, in their interpretation of the sacred text, on grammar and lexicon. But interpreted solely by grammar and lexicon, it was soon discovered that no uniform and consistent dogmatic system could with any tolerable degree of certainty be educed from the Holy Scriptures. There is no denying the fact. The variations of Protestantism, even during the lives of the reformers, the multiplication of Protestant sects, all appealing alike to the sacred text, and the experience of three hundred and more years, render it indubitable. Hard pressed by their Catholic opponents, Protestants were driven to the sad alternative of either condemning their separation from the Church and returning to her communion, or of giving up dogmatic religion as unessential and falling back on interior feeling or sentiment.
And again:

The reformers imagined that they had opposed a truth to the authority of the Church when they asserted the authority of the Bible; but in doing this they only changed the form of their denial. Their assertion of the authority of the Bible was purely negative, simply the denial of the authority of the Church to interpret it or declare and apply its sense. It meant neither more nor less; for the Church asserted and always had asserted the authority of the Bible, interpreted and applied by the divinely instituted court in the case. The Bible, Protestant experience has proved, without the Church as that court, is as un-authoritative as are the statutes of a kingdom or republic, left to the private judgment of the citizen or subject, without the civil court to interpret and apply them to the case in hand. They, then, did not oppose to the Church as the principle of their denial any truth or authority. Nothing but pure denial, historically as well as logically, Protestantism, in spite of every refuge or subterfuge, has reached its inevitable termination - the negation of all authority, external or internal, spiritual or secular, and therefore of all faith, of all objective truth, and of all religion; for the very nature of religion is to bind the conscience, or the obligation of man to obey God.

Brownson, Orestes Augustus, and Henry F. Brownson. The Works of Orestes A. Brownson. Detroit: T. Nourse, 1882, pp. 441-442, 451.

St. Alphonsus Liguori stated things a bit more succinctly:

To reject the divine teaching of the Catholic Church is to reject the very basis of reason and revelation, for neither the principles of the one nor those of the other have any longer any solid support to rest on; they can be interpreted by everyone as he pleases; every one can deny all truths whatsoever he chooses to deny. I therefore repeat: If the divine teaching authority of the Church, and the obedience to it are rejected, every error will be endorsed and must be tolerated.

Council of Trent, Appendix.

When opinion, or private judgment, or to borrow Rhology’s term “logical argumentation,” becomes the measure of truth it is only a matter of time before all doctrinal issues become irrelevant due to the utter subjectivity of one’s own opinion. We hear all of the time the claim that Protestants agree on the “essentials,” yet in all of my years on this earth, I have never seen Protestants actually ever agree on what the “essentials” are. They are protesting something, but they don’t know quite what they are all protesting. Aside from a shared animosity (to one extent or another), Protestants don’t seem to think that doctrinal matters are really all that important unless it happens to be the ones they are opposing. But, that is a post for a different day.
Now once doctrine is tossed out (in accordance with the old Protestant “agreement on the essentials” notion) what follows is that morality itself loses its objective character. This truth is so aptly demonstrated by the Protestant tendency to redefine sin as not sin as evidenced by their embracing and celebrating adulterous re-marriage after divorce, contraception, abortion, validation of homosexual relationships as marriages, and clergy who actively engage in homosexual behaviors. Not too long ago, I even read an article where a bi-sexual woman who was promoted to the status of “bishop” in the Protestant Episcopal Church proclaim that abortion is sacramental! Where is Protestant unity on these matters or is redefining what constitutes sin a non-essential matter? I find it personally fascinating what their own Reformers found to damnable sin is now a mere “tradition of man” that can disregarded at will and indulged in. And should our Protestant friends want to raise the issue of the well-publicized clergy abuse scandal, regardless of whatever else they want to say, at least the Catholic Church still declares the actions of those offending clergy to be sinful.

Such attitudes fomented by the Protestant notion of private judgment demonstrate that man, not God, becomes the center of the universe and the criteria for truth. What need does one have for truth, for doctrines, for God when authority is discarded. Anticipating the notion of private judgment as the measure or right or wrong, Satan was only being prophetic when he told our first parents that “Ye shall be as gods” at Gen. 3:5. As I have stated before, private judgment is nothing more than a disguised idolatry where man decides what God teaches as opposed to the other way around. Man lives according to his own lights and only accepts what is true based on what he himself has established through his own “careful” study of Scripture as a way to make Christianity conform to their personal needs and whims.
I am sure that Rhology, if he even reads this, will continue to protest that the above argument is a straw man. However, did not Rhology himself say in the FIRST ROUND that logical argumentation should be the measure of truth? That’s idolatry my friends, pure and simple. Using Rhology’s standard for the truth, how then does not private judgment make oneself rather than God the source of truth when it is left to the individual to decide what the Word of God means. The Beggars All folks claim on the pages of their blog to see idolatry behind every Catholic tree, yet are they so blind that they can not see the real thing when strolling through their own Protestant forest? As I stated in the FIRST ROUND above, Jesus Christ is the measure of truth since He is the one Way, the Truth and Life, not logical argumentation.
Having waxed on too long, let us get back to the discussion. After writing, “Quoting PH, “Thus, the scenario you raise does not occur.” Rhology then adds this little gem of Christian charity:
“One wonders how you make it work every day with your head stuck that far in the clouds.”
PH replies:

I know Rhology did not mean it to be so, but I will take his criticism as a compliment, even a badge of honor. It is sort of interesting, even fascinating, that Rhology accuses me of having my head in the clouds because I actually believe what the Word of God and my Church teaches me. Rhology’s attitude certainly reveals the disguised skepticism at the core of Calvinist thought. BTW, in case Colossians 3:1-5 has been redacted from Rhology’s Bible, here is St. Paul’s view on the subject:
Therefore, if you be risen with Christ, seek the things that are above; where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God. Mind the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth. For you are dead; and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ shall appear, who is your life, then you also shall appear with him in glory. Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, lust, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is the service of idols.
If having my head in the clouds allows me to seek and mind the things that are above, who is Rhology to gainsay me?

But, back to that private-judgment-is-idolatry thing...Note how St. Paul links certain sinful behavior to idolatry: fornication (divorce and remarriage); uncleanness (openly homosexual clergy); lust (homosexual marriage) –all things which many Protestant denominations have accepted and even embraced into their flavor of Christianity as idolatrous. I wonder how long it will be before they start disregarding the rest of what St. Paul wrote.
Rhology quotes me some more, “Besides, such argumentation is not really atheistic, but is more pantheistic as Whateverman is merely saying that as far as he is concerned he is his own god.”

Rhology then adds this:
For those who've not spent much time arguing with atheists (as Paul apparently hasn't), atheism IS pantheism and vice versa, esp when it comes to questions of authority. Which makes it worse for him - now the RC position isn't just echoing atheism, but pantheism as well. Wow, have fun with that.
PH replies:
The Catholic Church’s position does not echo Atheism or Pantheism at all. If one reads Rhology’s article that he links to, one would see that the anonymous atheist as merely exercising his version of Protestant private judgment when he declares that he is his own god. The atheist is merely exercising his own fallible judgment in deciding what is true.

Now as to the notion that atheism is pantheism, especially when it comes to authority is bunk. It seems to me that Rhology threw it out there as a fluff bunny to make his thoughts sound intellectual. Sure, there is a similarity between the two, systems of thought, but one can find similarity between Protestantism and Atheism as well as both are based philosophically on the premise that man is the final decider of what is true and what is not. But, it has been my experience in discoursing with the few dozen or so atheists and pantheists that have crossed my path that the difference between Pantheism (which boils down to the notion that all men are god) and Atheism (which holds that no man is god) is that atheists, like Calvinists, in the end ultimately do not recognize any higher authority than themselves (regardless of how they try to dress up their claims) as the measure of truth whereas pantheists consult every authority other than themselves looking for truth. Pantheists litter their lives with “authoritative” figures-seers, gurus, teachers, masters, etc.- to obtain insight into the truth. Such people instinctively know in their hearts that they should be looking for God and Christ Jesus, but they simply do not know where to look.

In the end, Catholicism is not like Atheism, Protestantism or Pantheism at all when it comes to authority because Catholics recognize a higher interpretative authority other than ourselves. As I pointed out in the original discussion with Rhology, Jesus Christ is the Catholic’s Way, Truth and Life, not logical argumentation.
Rhology in preparation of making another straw man argument through reductio ad absurdum redacts a portion of this statement I made:
Frankly as a person who adheres to the notion of “Contra factum non valet argumentum,” I reject your assertion that logical argumentation is the measure of truth. Christ is the way, the truth and the life. PERIOD. Since the Word of God (Christ Himself) shows as a fact that it is to be interpreted by those placed in authority of His Body, no amount of argumentation will prevail against it.
Rhology then offers the following insight:
Ah, then Jell-O has farley bones and the further they 9 the much. That reminds me; maybe we should add this to the long list of confusion and internal dissent within Rome - whether logic is the measure of truth or not.
PH replies:
If Calvinists such as Rhology truly believe that logical argumentation rather than the Logos the measure of truth, one must wonder why their apologists have to resort to fallacious tactics of distortion, omission, and fabrication in order to respond to the arguments presented by “Rome.”

Further, it is telling that during the above interaction between Rhology and myself over whether using one’s private judgment is superior to the Catholic doctrine appertaining to the Magisterium, Rhology never once quotes Scripture thereby demonstrating that the Protestant version of “Only a fool is his own lawyer” works no better in apologetics than it does in legal fora.

Rhology’s gibberish statement above epitomizes the arrogance shown by men who fetter God’s Word with their own personal subjective views rather than trust in God speaking through the Church as the criterion of truth. When men make themselves the center of all things, when all truth becomes both subjective and relative, soon thereafter God’s Word is either forgotten all together or becomes as meaningless as the gibberish Rhology spouts. Rhology may call me stupid, but words from a man such as him will never cause me to abandon Christ, my hope and my salvation nor will gibberish comments from such a man ever persuade me that logical argumentation, not Jesus Christ, is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Amen.

Now if Rhology ever gets around to actually defending the notion of private judgment rather than to just denigrating the Magisterium, he will need to address what John Henry Cardinal Newman, yet another Catholic convert with Calvinist leanings and card-carrying member of the Magisterium, wrote in his great work, Anglican Difficulties:

T]he very idea of the Catholic Church, as an instrument of supernatural grace, is that of an institution which innovates upon, or rather superadds to nature. She does something for nature above or beyond nature. When, then, it is said that she makes her members one, this implies that by nature they are not one, and would not become one. Viewed in themselves, the children of the Church are not of a different nature from the Protestants around them; they are of the very same nature. What Protestants are, such would they be, but for the Church, which brings them together forcibly, though persuasively, "fortiter et suaviter," and binds them into one by her authority. Left to himself, each Catholic likes and would maintain his own opinion and his private judgment just as much as a Protestant; and he has it, and he maintains it, just so far as the Church does not, by the authority of Revelation, supersede it. The very moment the Church ceases to speak, at the very point at which she, that is, God who speaks by her, circumscribes her range of teaching, there private judgment of necessity starts up; there is nothing to hinder it. The intellect of man is active and independent: he forms opinions about everything; he feels no deference for another's opinion, except in proportion as he thinks that that other is more likely than he to be right; and he never absolutely sacrifices his own opinion, except when he is sure that that other knows for certain. He is sure that God knows; therefore, if he is a Catholic, he sacrifices his opinion to the Word of God, speaking through His Church. But, from the nature of the case, there is nothing to hinder his having his own opinion, and expressing it, whenever, and so far as, the Church, the oracle of Revelation, does not speak.
In closing, logical argumentation, private judgment, Christian liberty or any other such notions of flawed Protestant thinking can not be the measure of truth because religious truths rely on faith as proof. Truth is a reality that we seek through faith to understand or as some members of the Magisterium put it, “Faith seeking understanding," says St, Anselm or "I believe in order to understand" says St. Augustine. Or as the Scriptures state, “Now faith is the substance of things to be hoped for, the evidence of things that appear not.” (Heb. 11:1) Logical argumentation may aid one’s faith, it can never be a substitute for it.

The fatal flaw with private judgment is this: while the ability to reason is common to all men, private judgment is the special act of the individual. Private judgment is not called such because it is a judgment of an individual, but because it is a judgment rendered by virtue of a private rule of principle of judgment. What constitutes the truth can never be determined thusly because there is no objectivity. As one critic of private judgment puts it: Father Smarius, S.J., puts it thus:

“Protestants opine that Holy Scripture is Divinely revealed (this cannot be proved without the Church); they opine that it is to be interpreted by each individual for himself; they opine that their opinion as to its meaning will be sufficient for their salvation; and each and every interpretation they make of its meaning (except where no conceivable doubt exists from the text) is no more than an opinion." John Daly. Michael Davies - An Evaluation, Britons Catholic Library, 1989.

"The chief cause of this moral degeneracy may be traced to the principle of private judgment introduced by Luther and Calvin, as the highest and only authority in religion and morality. Since the time of these Reformers, religion ceased to be the mistress, and became the slave of man. He was no longer bound to obey her, but she was bound to obey him. His reason was no longer subject to her divine authority, but she became the subject of his prejudices and passions. The Scriptures although cried up as the supreme authority, lost their objective value, and men no longer listened to the words 'Thus saith the Lord', but gave ear to the freaks and fancies of every upstart prophet and doctor, whose best reason for the faith was, 'I believe so', 'it is my impression', 'it is my opinion'. Reason itself was dethroned, and feeling became the exponent of truth. Men judged of religion as they did of their breakfasts and dinner... new fashions of belief became as numerous as new fashions of dress..." Points of Controversy, O'Shea: N.Y., 1873.
When the church in Corinth was in danger of being ripped apart by the exercise of private judgment, St. Paul wrote to them saying:
Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no schisms among you; but that you be perfect in the same mind, and in the same judgment. (1 Cor. 1:10)
Unless Rhology or any of his co-religionistsMagisterium of the Catholic Church. After all, I can point to some 252 dogmas that have been infallibly defined by my Magisterium. How many dogmas have ever been infallibly defined using private judgment or to use Rhology’s words, logical argumentation?

God bless!