Apostle of Sentimental Theology -- Father William Most -- Second Reply

A Second Reply to Father Most

(This article is addressed to the editor of The Wanderer)

The following rebuttal was written in response to a second article by Father Most, carried again by The Wanderer (March 12th), concerning my response to his initial attack on Father Feeney and his disciples in his February 5th column in the same paper.

March 18, 1987
Saint Photina

Mr. Alphonse J. Matt, Jr., Editor
The Wanderer
201 Ohio Street
St. Paul, Minnesota 55107

Dear Mr. Matt,

If Archbishop Fulton Sheen's thesis in his article, "The Decline of Controversy" is as correct as I believe it to be, namely that Catholic wisdom has made itself robust on the battlefields of controversy, then a continuing full-scale debate on the true meaning of Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus will prove beneficial for the Church and for souls.


Father William Most claims in the March 12th issue of The Wanderer that I attacked him "personally" in my eight-page rebuttal to his earlier (February 5th) article. This is not true. The quotations Father provides from my response are clearly not directed ad hominem, but rather at his "theology." My little jab about the comparable demerits of Fathers Most and Curran, as can be seen by anyone who reads that February 5th article, A Question of Salvation, is simply a return volley intended more as a ricocheting jest. However, Father Most's original parley against ourselves and our renowned Founder, wherein he wrote that we were "worse than Father Curran," was quite serious. I am happy to read that he has taken back his statement. My reference to his theology as being more harmful to those outside the Church that "100 Jimmy Swaggarts" is more of a tribute to his priesthood because, as an alter Christus, Father Most must agree that anything he says or does produces eternal waves far surpassing, in their effect on souls, anything emanating from the tongue of the pianist-preacher from Louisiana.

Please allow me to correct Father Most on some points and then elucidate what he calls the "Feeneyite" position. First, we are not "Feeneyites," we are Roman Catholics. None of the loyal members of Saint Benedict Center has ever considered his reverence for Father Feeney to outweigh his blessed privilege of bearing the name Catholic. So please, in further references, we would expect our antagonists not to use the word "Feeneyite." If they insist on doing so, they should cite any document by which Father Feeney or his spiritual children have been deprived of the name Catholic. Since no such document ever existed, not only after, but even before the so-called "reconciliation" of Father Feeney in 1972, the offensive appellation should be dropped. And, although I do fear that what Father Most holds about salvation for non-Catholics smacks of heresy, I never implied that he was not a member of the Catholic Church-a judgment I must leave for the bishops and the Pope.

My Confirmation vow obliges me to defend, first and foremost, what Our Lord said in the Scriptures, and then what has been defined by the Church. As Pope Pius IX teaches in his encyclical, Tuas Libenter, promulgated four months after his misinterpreted encyclical, Quanto Conficiamur, I am obliged to accept all nondefined papal teaching which is contained in "the common and constant agreement of the Catholic theologians." --Constant, of course, means universal, not only in the dimension of space, but of time as well-that is, since the Church was founded. If my understanding of Father Most's attitude concerning papal utterances is accurate, I must instead submit my mind to everything a Pope teaches from the ordinary, as well as from the solemn, magisterium. In such a case, if I had lived in the fourteenth century, I would have been obliged to submit to the persistent teaching of Pope John XXII that the souls of the faithful departed would not enjoy the full sight of God until after the general judgment-a teaching from which this otherwise excellent Pontiff did not desist (he even imprisoned a Friar who opposed him)-- until the full assembly of the College of Cardinals convinced him otherwise. Obviously, I am not obliged to follow Father Most's lead.

Further, if blind submission to every papal utterance were of the Faith, then we need not at all pray for the Pope as Christ did for Peter, "that thy faith fail thee not." For we would have the guarantee that the Pope's faith could not fail. Please do not misunderstand me. I am not depreciating non-definitional papal teaching. I am only saying that where it "appears" to conflict with what the Church has declared from the solemn level, the lower must bend to the clear meaning of the higher-not vice versa. And Fathers Charles Curran, Avery Dulles, Karl Rahner and others are only being honest when they allege that the Church has changed her teaching on salvation, because this is the impression the average Catholic has today. Anyone who needs confirmation that the Curran-Dulles-Rahner position is widespread need only stop ten Catholics on the street and take his own poll. Is it any surprise that Catholics are thinking this way after hearing a Prince of the Church like Cardinal Cushing say, "No Salvation Outside the Church? Nonsense!"

Indeed, I am understating the problem. The impression that there is salvation outside the Church is not confined to liberals and the majority of simple layfolk who, in docility, believe whatever their bishops tell them. Even the renowned intellectual Dietrich von Hildebrand irresponsibly states in his book, The Devastated Vineyard, that "Vatican II decreed that there is salvation outside the Church." This is an erroneous conclusion I do not share. [We have an error here. Actually, von Hildebrand said this about Vatican I-which is even more baffling. Vatican I did not (and could not) define such blatant heresy. The renowned lay-theologian must have read the controversial text from Vatican I in the book "The Church Teaches", wherein it ought not to have been printed. This decree on the Church, in which the compromising text appears, was never passed by the nineteenth-century Council, for that Synod had been interrupted beforehand and disbanded. This was the very text that so disturbed Bishop Anthony Mary Claret, the only saint attending the Synod, that he suffered a stroke during its discussion in those controversial sessions. How such a careful scholar as von Hildebrand could have made so irresponsible and erroneous a statement is indeed disturbing. It proves just how confused even the greatest minds are on the foundational doctrine.]

What kind of logic is exhibited when Father Most assumes that, because we did not respond to his attack in the Register four years ago, our silence meant that we admitted his misrepresentation to be correct? First of all, our antagonist knew perfectly well, or ought to have known, that Father Feeney never considered membership in the Catholic Church as dependent upon the inclusion of one's name in a parish registry. If, by teaching that one can become a member of the Church (and hence be in the Church) only by being reborn in the Sacrament of Baptism, one thereby creates an impression that the ink on the parish registry makes one a Catholic, then all the old catechisms (and even some current ones) are guilty of this same deception, and so is Saint Robert Bellarmine, S.J., who insisted in his catechism that no one, "not even a catechumen," can be considered a member of the Church until he receives the character of Baptism.

Father Most would do himself and all concerned a big favor by admitting that he reduced Father Leonard's true position to an absurdity. If I had the space I would detail for Father's readers some personal stories about Father Feeney, like the one about the Jewish man dying from a heart attack on a sidewalk in Manhattan whom Father Feeney providentially came across, converted and baptized. Though this blessed man's name was not to be written in Father O'Malley's parish registry, it had been inscribed from all eternity in the Book of Life.

In reading over my original response, I am amazed that Father Most should understand from my words that I hold that there is a ''limbo of adults" in addition to the limbo to which we believe unbaptized children go. My intent was to bend over backwards to make the doctrine which we defend more palatable to sentimental theologians like Father Most. I never said that there is any limbo other than the one Catholic theologians have always talked about. I merely said that this place of natural happiness but "unfulfilled destiny"-hence we are speaking of what is more properly part of hell-could have inhabitants other than only those unbaptized who died beneath the age of reason-namely, those hypothetical persons who died outside the Church "through no fault of their own" and with no grievous sin on their souls.

Furthermore, if we are to accept the mistranslation of Pope Pius IX's words that the liberals repeatedly give us, then we are, in effect, denying the existence of limbo, because it is a fact that God does "punish" millions who die in original sin "through no fault of their own" by sending them to limbo. Father Most evaded my main point which was that almost all contemporary theologians (Father Maurice Eminyan, S.J. and Msgr. Joseph Fenton excepted) employ the common mistranslation of Pope Pius IX's words. Pope Pius did not say in Quanto Conficiamur, as Father Most wrote, that God will not punish someone who dies in "invincible ignorance" of Christ. Rather, the Pope said that God will not have one suffer eternal "torments" who dies in this hypothetical state of invincible ignorance. This nineteenth-century Vicar of Christ (whose words say nothing about salvation for the invincibly ignorant) knew what he was doing in choosing the Latin word "suppliciis" (torments) rather than "poenis" (punishments). Kinkhead's Baltimore Catechism #3, composed long after Pope Pius IX's encyclical, states in unambiguous terms that no unbaptized nonChristian can enter heaven, no matter how righteous his morals (Question 632). Whatever else they said, the authors of this catechism had enough residual faith to know that one does not enter heaven because of what one lacks, but because of the grace of faith one possesses.

Other nineteenth-century theologians right here in America years after Pope Pius IX's encyclical, were teaching exactly as Father Feeney would in our time. These include the prolific Father Michael Mueller, C.Ss.R., Father Arnold Damen, S.J. (who was known as a miracle worker and who had 10,000 converts to his name) and the renowned convert, Orestes Brownson (whose resting place in Notre Dame's Brownson Chapel is daily desecrated by the likes of Fathers McBrien and Hesburgh). I only mention these towers of Catholic orthodoxy because they wrote after Quanto Conficiamur, yet they understood the Pope's words in exactly the same sense that we do. Anyone who reads their works can see this, especially Father Mueller's Catechism with its abundance of ecclesiastical testimonials.

Furthermore, if Father Most is going to toss aside the clear teaching, in the common consensus of all the Fathers of the Church, regarding the fewness of the saved (Saint John Chrysostom believed even the majority of priests would be lost [The Greek word episkopos, used by Saint John, although it was also used for priests, more likely is to be taken for ''bishop'' in this text ]), why does he cling to a "probable" interpretation of just one Father? Saint Justin the Martyr (whose exaggerated defense of Platonism has made him a recurring subject of controversy), in opposition to all the rest? If he is not absolutely certain Saint Justin held what he attributes to him (namely, that idolaters need not reject idolatry to be saved), then why mention the philosopher-martyr in the first place? Or does Father Most feel it is wise to build one's theology (regardless of the ex cathedra definitions he avoids publicizing) on a "probable" interpretation of one Father's words?

Let me make myself clear here, as I did in my previous letter: Neither Father Feeney nor any of his disciples knows who (other than the devil and Judas) is in hell. If Socrates is now in heaven, before he died he would have had to renounce the gods and ask the one true God to forgive him his sins. Then, after some time in purgatory, he would have been sent to the limbo of the just, where the holy souls of the Old Testament were awaiting the Ascension of Christ. If he had lived after Christ, his act would have been all the more easy, since grace does now more abound. But he would have had to be baptized. This requirement holds true for any non-Christian.

Father Most says that I reject the letter of the Holy Office to Archbishop Cushing, which criticizes Father Feeney's teaching, because Pope Pius XII did not include it in his official Acts. He dismisses this revealing, yet deliberate, omission by the Pope as inconsequential. Hardly! It makes a tremendous difference whether or not a Pope intends that a decision he makes goes "on the record." And that is what the Acta Apostolicae Sedis is-a record of the "official" acts of a particular Pope's pontificate. For this reason, the translators for the American Ecclesiastical Review assumed that the Latin "in actis suis" of Humani Generis meant the "one journal," the Acta, and thus they rendered it in English with a capital "A'' and an underscore for the word-"in their Acta." The big point is that with the failure of the letter to Archbishop Cushing to appear in the Acta, one must admit that the question can be raised whether or not Pope Pius even authorized the document.

Father Most claims that I reject the teaching of Vatican II on this question of salvation because I make the necessary distinction between solemn definitions and pastoral decrees or constitutions. The accusation is fallacious. If the documents of Vatican II were so perfectly phrased, why did Pope Paul VI have to add so many explanatory footnotes to the approved text? The documents of Vatican II were intended to be "norms'' for pastoral guidance "rather than definitions," as Cardinal Tardini explained in the wake of Pope John's announcement of the Council. Cardinal Heenan called Vatican II a "unique" Council, the first general Synod "to have no specific definitions." Its "purpose," said Heenan, was "pastoral renewal." Pope Paul himself stressed the same in saying that "differing from other Councils, this one was not directly dogmatic" (General Audience, 8/6/75). And how can Father Most ignore the fact that Vatican II issued more words than all the other twenty ecumenical councils put together? Would the Fathers have been this unrestrained if they thought they were binding the consciences of the universal Church for all time to every one of their utterances? Again, hardly!

Finally, no Catholic can accept unqualifiedly such statements as the following from the Decree on Ecumenism: "Therefore if the influence of events or of the times had led to deficiencies in conduct, in Church discipline, or even in the formulation of doctrine (which must be carefully distinguished from the deposit itself of faith), these should be appropriately rectified at the appropriate time." (My emphasis) Is this the kind of statement to which I am bound in conscience to submit? Wouldn't modernists with their itchy ears just love to apply this text to "Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus"?

I am, nevertheless, still not asserting that there is any heresy in the documents of Vatican II. The footnote to the text in the Constitution on the Church (the actual amended footnote differs from what Father Most presented as coming from the Council) is not considered by us to be heretical. Rather, it is ambiguous and can lend itself to heresy. Father ignored this important distinction in his assessment of my opinion about Vatican II. I repeat, nowhere in my rebuttal to Father Most's February 5th article did I ever state that Vatican II taught heresy. What ought to be asked is why Father chose to disregard totally my objection to the inaccurate quote he provided from Vatican II. Why did he let his readers think that, in the "footnote" to the Constitution on the Church (#16), Vatican II adopted the full text of the Holy Office letter to Archbishop Cushing? I specifically pointed out that the Fathers at Vatican II objected to the ambiguity of the expression "implicit desire" (for baptism) found in the Holy Office letter of 1949 and purposely deleted it. One footnote liberals scrupulously disregard is the one appended to the same text (#16) by Father Avery Dulles in the Abbot-Gallagher translation. In it, Dulles points out that the Fathers at the Council, when speaking of the possibility of salvation for those who are ignorant of the gospel of Christ, insisted that the unevangelized "must sincerely follow the lights God gives them." (My emphasis) Light in the spiritual order is the grace of truth leading a soul to the knowledge of the true faith. If anyone perseveres in cooperation with grace, he will be saved. But, we would add with Saint Thomas Aquinas (II-II, Q. # 2, Arts. 7 & 8), not without an explicit faith in the Savior.

I would add that anyone whose Faith is uncomplicated would have a problem reconciling the ex cathedra definition of the Council of Florence with some of the more ambiguous passages in the decrees of Vatican II. I am glad Father Most qualified his accusation by saying that "Brother Michael seems to think" that Vatican II contradicts Florence. Because, if I said it does contradict Florence, I would be accusing the Council of heresy. But I do not so accuse. I say that the impression given to uncomplicated people (the ecclesia discens) is that Vatican II does contradict past definitions about salvation outside the Church, and that this is scandalous. Impressions are the result of ambiguity. Certitude is the result of chaste and precise teaching. With the definition of Florence I have certitude, and so should every Catholic who was taught the dogma in its traditional sense.

I find one point upon which I can agree with Father Most: ". . . not everything in the Fathers constitutes tradition." I would add, "except when we see unanimous or almost unanimous agreement among them concerning the transmitted revelation." Since the Fathers unanimously agree that heretics, schismatics, infidels and Jews cannot be saved, I will stick with them. I am not convinced at all that Saint Justin's "probable" opinion is that, after Christ's establishment of the visible Church, someone could be saved who died in ignorance of the true religion. Nor are Catholics free to prefer "probable" opinions in lieu of explicit definitions. And Saint Thomas Aquinas certainly did not teach the contrary in the Summa, as Father alleges.

However, I disagree strongly that the Fathers were not drawing from the sacred deposit when they affirmed that most men will be lost. They certainly were drawing from the apostolic tradition, as Christ Himself had foundationed it. Can the quotes from Our Lord provided by Father Most be any more clearly on my side? No they cannot! So what does Father Most do? He interprets for us what Jesus actually meant. Is Father unaware that his method is exactly that which Pope Pius X condemned in his encyclical against modernism? When he writes, "what He (Christ) really said must be seen in the light of the beliefs of the time," is Father not bordering on the very heresy condemned by this great Pope, the last of Our Lord's Vicars to be canonized?

What does Father Most mean in his article by presuming to tell us what Christ "really said"? Is there something in the gospels that Jesus is quoted as saying that He didn't "really" say? If not, are we to interpret Jesus' words, as Father suggests, according to the more "enlightened" sense of our century wherein the description of the path to salvation as "narrow" is rejected as archaically naive? If we do so, how can we escape the sting of Saint Pius X's encyclical in which the following proposition is condemned: "Christ did not teach a defined body of doctrine applicable to all times and to all men"? (#2059 Denzinger) Do I dare interpret the words of this priest/columnist literally? Does Father Most mean what he wrote when he says that Jesus was reluctant to reveal the clear truth about the narrowness of the road to salvation because He didn't want His flock to get overconfident? Father seems to be saying that He Who cannot deceive did deceive us, in order to keep us from presumption. But wait! Father Most then says that Christ did not say only "few" could be saved either, because He did not wish His flock to despair. It's as if Christ told us that, when we come to the all-important fork in the road, we should take the fork!

Further, I do not believe the Sacred Congregation of the Index condemned the work of Abbe Debors-Desdoires for simply saying that few would be saved. There must be more to the story that has been left out. If the Sacred Congregation condemned this priest for writing so, then the Cure d'Ars ought to have been condemned for preaching that the number of the saved would be "as few as the number of grapes left after the vineyard-pickers have passed." Or, as he was also wont to say (like the Fatima seers after him), "I tremble when I see so many souls lost these days. They fall into hell as leaves fall from the trees at the approach of winter." The patron saint of parish priests lived a century after this "condemnation" of his countryman.

The headline above Father Most's March 12th article urges, "Heed Church Teaching On Salvation, Not Private Judgment." I second the motion with an "Amen!" The important question here is: Who is playing one teaching of the Church against another in order to support private judgment? My stand is on the solemn magisterial level. I would hope as well to shed my blood in defense of the ordinary magisterium, provided the latter is protecting the former, and not undermining it. Due to the cloud caused by the false ecumenism that pervades the Church today, I am obligated to make an interpretative judgment on the lower authority so that I may protect the higher. Father Most has chosen to reverse this all-important procedure. Both he and The Wanderer should know better.

Sincerely,
In the Immaculate Heart of Mary,

Brother Michael, M . I .C. M .