impeccability and infallibility

Often discussions of the papacy confuse impeccability with infallibility. But when the Church teaches that according to Christ’s promise she has been preserved from error in matters of faith and morals, she does not also claim that either her children or her pastors are free from sin. In fact, she expressly and explicitly denies it. Cardinal Newman writes in his Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics:

I allow there are true charges which can be brought against us; certainly, not only do I not deny it, but I hardly could deny it without heresy. I say distinctly, did I take upon me to deny everything which could be said against us, I should be proving too much, I should startle the Catholic theologian as well as Protestants; for what would it be but implying that the Church contains none within her pale but the just and holy? This was the heresy of the Novatians and Donatists of old time; it was the heresy of our Lollards, and others, such as Luther, who maintained that bad men are not members of the Church, that none but the predestinate are her members. But this no Catholic asserts, every Catholic denies. Every Catholic has ever denied it, back to the very time of the Apostles and their Divine Master; and He and they deny it. Christ denies it, St. Paul denies it, the Catholic Church denies it; our Lord expressly said that the Church was to be like a net, which gathered of every kind, not only of the good, but of the bad too. Such was His Church; it does not prove then that we are not His Church, because we are like His Church; rather our being like the Primitive Christian body, is a reason for concluding that we are one with it. We cannot make His Church better than He made her; we must be content with her as He made her, or not pretend to follow Him. He said, "Many are called, few are chosen;" men come into the Church, and then they fall. They are not indeed sinning at the very time when they are brought into His family, at the time they are new born; but as children grow up, and converts live on, the time too frequently comes, when they fall under the power of one kind of temptation or other, and fall from grace, either for a while or for good. Thus, not indeed by the divine wish and intention, but by the divine permission, and man's perverseness, there is a vast load of moral evil existing in the Church; an enemy has sown weeds there, and those weeds remain among the wheat till the harvest. And this evil in the Church is not found only in the laity, but among the clergy too; there have been bad priests, bad bishops, bad monks, bad nuns, and bad Popes. If this, then, is the charge made against us, that we do not all live up to our calling, but that there are Catholics, lay and clerical, who may be proved to be worldly, revengeful, licentious, slothful, cruel, nay, may be unbelievers, we grant it at once. We not only grant it but we zealously maintain it. "In a great house," says St. Paul, "there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some indeed unto honour, but some unto dishonour." There are, alas, plenty of children of the Church, who by their bad lives insult and disgrace their Mother.

reactions

I've been thinking about the reaction that a Protestant acquaintance had to the recent statement on Catholic ecclesiology. He writes,

Well isn't that precious. And by precious I mean sad—divorced from both the message of Jesus [Matthew 25:31-46] and from world history since then. I can fairly quickly skip past the fury and right on to the bewilderment and pity. It's just quite the mind-blow to see otherwise reasonably intelligent people—people talking into cell phones, for instance; these aren't jungle people—casually mention their assent to the exclusivist and [quite literally] self-righteous nature of the Roman bishop.

Protestant: "And, why are you infallible again?"

Pope: "Because I said I was!"

Protestant: "Well, I happen to disagree. So there."

Pope: "Take it back!"

Protestant: "Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Holy Scriptures or by evident reason—for I can believe neither pope nor councils alone, as it is clear that they have erred repeatedly and contradicted themselves—I consider myself convicted by the testimony of Holy Scripture, which is my basis; my conscience is captive to the Word of God. Thus I cannot and will not recant, because acting against one's conscience is neither safe nor sound. God help me."

Pope: "Sorry, God's going to light you on fire forever."

I am not sure whether or not he has read the document itself—rather than its presentation in the media—and perhaps, even if he had, his reaction would be the same. Nevertheless, this seems to me to be a classic case in which someone outside the Catholic Church hears a statement made by the pope or one of the bishops and, without trying to understand the context in which it was made, reacts to the declaration in that sense by which he immediately understands it.

A quick read of the introduction, however, tells the reader that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has in mind those Catholic theologians whose "new contributions to the field" of Catholic theology "are not immune from erroneous interpretation" when it comes to "the authentic meaning of some ecclesiological expressions." In other words, the magisterium is telling Catholic theologians, especially those writing today, to interpret Vatican II honestly and without equivocation—and telling them this by clarifying the meaning of the Council's words.

Magisterium [to Catholic theologians]: Don't misrepresent Vatican II.

Protestant: What! You think you're infallible! You're just a bunch of pitiable, self-righteous, stupid snobs!

Two things come to mind. The first is Newman's delightful parody of this kind of reaction in The Present Position of Catholics in England, the second these lines from Robert Frost's "Woodpile":

A small bird flew before me. He was careful
To put a tree between us when he lighted,
And say no word to tell me who he was
Who was so foolish as to think what he thought.
He thought that I was after him for a feather—
The white one in his tail; like one who takes
Everything said as personal to himself.
One flight out sideways would have undeceived him.

newman's development

When I first read Newman's Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, I was impressed by his exposition of development and his extensive knowledge of Church history. Now, having read more of Newman's writings, I am even more impressed.

Newman's essay on development is not only an impressive synthesis of his vast historical reading, but also, when seen in the context of his other works, an example of its topic. For Newman did not only come to understand doctrinal development by studying the history of the Christian Church. He also learned the nature of development by attending to the growth of his own thought as well as deliberately developing his thoughts on development. He says in his thirteenth Oxford sermon, Implicit and Explicit Reason:

We are not only to "sanctify the Lord God in our hearts," not only to prepare a shrine within us in which our Saviour Christ may dwell, and where we may worship Him; but we are so to understand what we do, so to master our thoughts and feelings, so to recognize what we believe, and how we believe, so to trace out our ideas and impressions, and to contemplate the issue of them, that we may be "ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh us an account of the hope that is in us." (2)

He traced his ideas and impressions of church history best in his essay on development, but he had already had the idea two years before he wrote that book. In his fifteenth Oxford sermon, The Theory of Development in Religious Doctrine, he says:

What a remarkable sight it is, as almost all unprejudiced persons will admit, to trace the course of the controversy, from its first disorders to its exact and determinate issue. Full of deep interest, to see how the great idea takes hold of a thousand minds by its living force, and will not be ruled or stinted, but is "like a burning fire," as the Prophet speaks, "shut up" within them, till they are "weary of forbearing, and cannot stay," and grows in them, and at length is {317} born through them, perhaps in a long course of years, and even successive generations; so that the doctrine may rather be said to use the minds of Christians, than to be used by them. Wonderful it is, to see with what effort, hesitation, suspense, interruption,—with how many swayings to the right and to the left—with how many reverses, yet with what certainty of advance, with what precision in its march, and with what ultimate completeness, it has been evolved; till the whole truth "self-balanced on its centre hung," part answering to part, one, absolute, integral, indissoluble, while the world lasts! Wonderful, to see how heresy has but thrown that idea into fresh forms, and drawn out from it farther developments, with an exuberance which exceeded all questioning, and a harmony which baffled all criticism, like Him, its Divine Author, who, when put on trial by the Evil One, was but fortified by the assault, and is ever justified in His sayings, and overcomes when He is judged. (6)

I only wish I could immerse myself as deeply into history as he did.

faith and good works

It does not follow that works done in faith do not justify, because works done without faith do not justify; that works done in the Holy Ghost, and ordinances which are His instruments, do not justify, because carnal works and dead rites do not justify. (Newman Lectures on Justification "Faith viewed relatively to Rites and Works," 2.279)

religion and philosophy

The Apostles then proceeded thus:—they did not rest their cause on argument; they did not rely on eloquence, wisdom, or reputation; nay, nor did they make miracles necessary to the enforcement of their claims. They did not resolve faith into sight or reason; they contrasted it with both, and bade their hearers believe, sometimes in spite, sometimes in default, sometimes in aid, of sight and reason. They exhorted them to make trial of the Gospel, since they would find their account in so doing. And of their hearers "some believed the things which were spoken, some believed not." Those believed whose hearts were "opened," who were "ordained to eternal life;" those did not whose hearts were hardened. This was the awful exhibition of which the Apostles and their fellow workers were witnesses; for faith, as a principle of knowledge, cannot be exactly analyzed or made intelligible to man, but is the secret, inexplicable, spontaneous movement of the mind (however arising) towards the external word,—a movement not to the exclusion of sight and reason, for the miracles appeal to both, nor of experience, for all who venture for Christ receive daily returns of good in confirmation of their choice, but independent of sight or reason before, or of experience after. The Apostles appealed to men's hearts, and, according to their hearts, so they answered them. They appealed to their secret belief in a superintending providence, to their hopes and fears thence resulting; and they professed to reveal to them the nature, personality, attributes, will, and works of Him "whom their hearers ignorantly worshipped." They came as commissioned from Him, and declared that mankind was a guilty and outcast race,—that sin was a misery,—that the world was a snare,—that life was a shadow,—that God was everlasting,—that His Law was holy and true, and its sanctions certain and terrible;—that He also was all-merciful,—that He had appointed a Mediator between Him and them, who had removed all obstacles, and was desirous to restore them, and that He had sent themselves to explain how. They said that that Mediator had come and gone; but had left behind Him what was to be His representative till the end of all things, His mystical Body, the Church, in joining which lay the salvation of the world. So they preached, and so they prevailed; using indeed persuasives of every kind as they were given them, but resting at bottom on a principle higher than the senses or the reason. They used many arguments, but as outward forms of something beyond argument. Thus they appealed to the miracles they wrought, as sufficient signs of their power, and assuredly divine, in spite of those which other systems could show or pretended. They expostulated with the better sort on the ground of their instinctive longings and dim visions of something greater than the world. They awed and overcame the passionate by means of what remained of heaven in them, and of the involuntary homage which such men pay to the more realized tokens of heaven in others. They asked the more generous-minded whether it was not worth while to risk something on the chance of augmenting and perfecting those precious elements of good which their hearts still held; and they could not hide what they cared not to "glory in," their own disinterested sufferings, their high deeds, and their sanctity of life. They won over the affectionate and gentle by the beauty of holiness, and the embodied mercies of Christ as seen in the ministrations and ordinances of His Church. Thus they spread their nets for disciples, and caught thousands at a cast; thus they roused and inflamed their hearers into enthusiasm, till "the Kingdom of Heaven suffered violence, and the violent took it by force." And when these had entered it, many of them, doubtless, would wax cold in love, and fall away; for many had entered only on impulse; many, with Simon Magus, on wonder or curiosity; many from a mere argumentative belief, which leads as readily into heresy as into the Truth. But still, those who had the seed of God within them, would become neither offences in the Church, nor apostates, nor heretics; but would find day by day, as love increased, increasing experience that what they had ventured boldly amid conflicting evidence, of sight against sight, and reason against reason, with many things against it, and more things for it, they had ventured well. The examples of meekness, cheerfulness, contentment, silent endurance, private self-denial, fortitude, brotherly love, perseverance in well-doing, which would from time to time meet them in their new kingdom,—the sublimity and harmony of the Church's doctrine,—the touching and subduing beauty of her services and appointments,—their consciousness of her virtue, divinely imparted, upon themselves, in subduing, purifying, changing them,—the bountifulness of her alms-giving,—her power, weak as she was and despised, over the statesmen and philosophers of the world,—her consistent and steady aggression upon it, moving forward in spite of it on all sides at once, like the wheels in the Prophet's vision, and this in contrast with the ephemeral and variable outbreaks of sectarianism,—the unanimity and intimacy existing between her widely-separated branches,—the mutual sympathy and correspondence of men of hostile nations and foreign languages,—the simplicity of her ascetics, the gravity of her Bishops, the awful glory shed around her Martyrs, and the mysterious and recurring traces of miraculous agency here and there, once and again, according as the Spirit willed,—these and the like persuasives acted on them day by day, turning the whisper of their hearts into an habitual conviction, and establishing in the reason what had been begun in the will. And thus has the Church been upheld ever since by an appeal to the People,—to the necessities of human nature, the anxieties of conscience, and the instincts of purity; forcing upon Kings a sufferance or protection which they fain would dispense with, and upon Philosophy a grudging submission and a reserved and limited recognition. (Newman Lectures on Justification "The Nature of Justifying Faith," 6.268-272)

why justification is not nominal

God's word, I say, effects what it announces. This is its characteristic all through Scripture. He "calleth those things which be not, as though they are," and they are forthwith. Thus in the beginning He said, "Let there be light, and there was light." Word and deed went together in creation; and so again "in the regeneration," "The Lord gave the word, great was the company of the preachers." So again in His miracles, He called Lazarus from the grave, and the dead arose; He said, "Be thou cleansed," and the leprosy departed; He rebuked the wind and the waves, and they were still; He commanded the evil spirits, and they fled away; He said to St. Peter and St. Andrew, St. John, St. James, and St. Matthew, "Follow Me," and they arose, for "His word was with power;" and so again in the Sacraments His word is the consecrating principle. As He "blessed" the loaves and fishes, and they multiplied, so He "blessed and brake," and the bread became His Body. Further, His voice is the instrument of destruction as well as of creation. As He "upholds all things by the word of His power," so "at the Voice of the Archangel, and at the trump of God," the visible world will dissolve; and as His "Voice" formerly "shook the earth," so once more "the Lord shall roar out of Zion, and utter His Voice from Jerusalem, and the heavens and the earth shall shake." [Joel iii. 16.] (Newman Lectures on Justification "Primary Sense of the Term Justification," 9, 81-82)

assumption

Further, since religion is the subject-matter of the alleged fictions, they must be what are called pious frauds, for the sake of gain and power. Observe, my Brothers, there is in the Church a vast tradition and testimony about miracles: how is it to be accounted for? If miracles can take place, then the truth of the miracle will be a natural explanation of the report, just as the fact of a man dying satisfactorily accounts for the news that he is dead; but the Protestant cannot so explain it, because he thinks miracles cannot take place; so he is necessarily driven, by way of accounting for the report of them, to impute that report to fraud. He cannot help himself. I repeat it; the whole mass of accusations which Protestants bring against us under this head, Catholic credulity, imposture, pious frauds, hypocrisy, priestcraft, this vast and varied superstructure of imputation, you see, all rests on an assumption, on an opinion of theirs, for which they offer no kind of proof. What then, in fact, do they say more than this, If Protestantism be true, you Catholics are a most awful set of knaves?—Here, at least, is a most intelligible and undeniable position. (Newman Present Position 7.7)

condemnations of the Holy See

In the censure of books, which offend against doctrine or discipline, it is a common rule to take sentences out of them in the author's own words, whether those are words in themselves good or bad, and to affix some note of condemnation to them in the sense in which they occur in the book in question. Thus it may happen that even what seems at first sight a true statement, is condemned for being made the shelter of an error; for instance: "Faith justifies when it works," or "There is no religion where there is no charity," may be taken in a good sense; but each proposition is condemned in Quesnell, because it is false as he uses it. (Newman Difficulties "The Syllabus")

original sin and the blessed virgin

Recently I read Newman's Letter to Pusey, where he writes on the Blessed Virgin. I was surprised when I came across his explanation of original sin. Newman says that Catholics (along with the Fathers) define original sin as "the deprivation of that supernatural unmerited grace which Adam and Eve had on their first formation - deprivation and the consequences of deprivation." He makes the point that original sin is not something positive (like actual sin) but something negative. It is not "a disease, a radical change of nature, an active poison internally corrupting the soul, infecting its primary elements and disorganizing it."

This came as a surprise because it means that, for whatever reason, I have misunderstood this Catholic teaching for most of my life. I had always thought of it as an active principle in the soul, though apparently I was mistaken. The Catechism agrees with Newman saying that original sin is "a deprivation of original holiness and justice" (405). For this reason, "original sin is called 'sin' only in an analogical sense: it is a sin 'contracted' and not 'committed' -- a state and not an act" (404).

From here Newman explains why, although immaculately conceived, Mary still needed redemption: "We consider that in Adam she died, as others; that she was included, together with the whole race, in Adam's sentence; that she incurred his debt, as we do; but that, for the sake of Him who was to redeem her and us upon the Cross, to her the debt was remitted by anticipation, on her the sentence was not carried out."

"Mary could not merit, any more than [Adam and Eve], the restoration of that grace; but it was restored to her by God's free bounty, from the very first moment of her existence, and thereby, in fact, she never came under the original curse, which consisted in the loss of it. And she had this special privilege, in order to fit her to become the Mother of her and our Redeemer, to fit her mentally, spiritually for it; so that, by the aid of the first grace, she might so grow in grace, that, when the Angel came and her Lord was at hand, she might be 'full of grace,' prepared as far as a creature could be prepared, to receive Him into her bosom."

private judgment and revelation

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. (Newman Differences Among Catholics No Prejudice to the Unity of the Church)

two reactions

"She bears her unearthly character on her brow, as her enemies confess, by imputing her miracles to Beelzebub" (vii).

"The babe leaps in Elizabeth's womb, at the voice of her in whom is enshrined and lives the Incarnate Word" (viii).

from Newman's Difficulties Preface

the development of an idea

When an idea, whether real or not, is of a nature to arrest and possess the mind, it may be said to have life, that is, to live in the mind which is its recipient. Thus mathematical ideas, real as they are, can hardly properly be called living, at least ordinarily. But, when some great enunciation, whether true or false, about human nature, or present good, or government, or duty, or religion, is carried forward into the public throng of men and draws attention, then it is not merely received passively in this or that form into many minds, but it becomes an active principle within them, leading them to an ever-new contemplation of itself, to an application of it in various directions, and a propagation of it on every side. Such is the doctrine of the divine right of kings, or of the rights of man, or of the anti-social bearings of a priesthood, or utilitarianism, or free trade, or the duty of benevolent enterprises, or the philosophy of Zeno or Epicurus, doctrines which are of a nature to attract and influence, and have so far a primâ facie reality, that they may be looked at on many sides and strike various minds very variously. Let one such idea get possession of the popular mind, or the mind of any portion of the community, and it is not difficult to understand what will be the result. At first men will not fully realise what it is that moves them, and will express and explain themselves inadequately. There will be a general agitation of thought, and an action of mind upon mind. There will be a time of confusion, when conceptions and misconceptions are in conflict, and it is uncertain whether anything is to come of the idea at all, or which view of it is to get the start of the others. New lights will be brought to bear upon the original statements of the doctrine put forward; judgments and aspects will accumulate. After a while some definite teaching emerges; and, as time proceeds, one view will be modified or expanded by another, and then combined with a third; till the idea to which these various aspects belong, will be to each mind separately what at first it was only to all together. It will be surveyed too in its relation to other doctrines or facts, to other natural laws or established customs, to the varying circumstances of times and places, to other religions, polities, philosophies, as the case may be. How it stands affected towards other systems, how it affects them, how far it may be made to combine with them, how far it tolerates them, when it interferes with them, will be gradually wrought out. It will be interrogated and criticized by enemies, and defended by well-wishers. The multitude of opinions formed concerning it in these respects and many others will be collected, compared, sorted, sifted, selected, rejected, gradually attached to it, separated from it, in the minds of individuals and of the community. It will, in proportion to its native vigour and subtlety, introduce itself into the framework and details of social life, changing public opinion, and strengthening or undermining the foundations of established order. Thus in time it will have grown into an ethical code, or into a system of government, or into a theology, or into a ritual, according to its capabilities: and this body of thought, thus laboriously gained, will after all be little more than the proper representative of one idea, being in substance what that idea meant from the first, its complete image as seen in a combination of diversified aspects, with the suggestions and corrections of many minds, and the illustration of many experiences. (John Henry Newman, Development of Doctrine, 36-38)

the development of the canon of Scripture

The following quote is found in Newman's Development of Christian Doctrine (for the full text, with notes, click here):

As regards the New Testament, Catholics and Protestants receive the same books as canonical and inspired; yet among those books some are to be found, which certainly have no right there if, following the rule of Vincentius, we receive nothing as of divine authority but what has been received always and everywhere. The degrees of evidence are very various for one book and another. "It is confessed," says Less, "that not all the Scriptures of our New Testament have been received with universal consent as genuine works of the Evangelists and Apostles. But that man must have predetermined to oppose the most palpable truths, and must reject all history, who will not confess that the greater part of the New Testament has been universally received as authentic, and that the remaining books have been acknowledged as such by the majority of the ancients."

For instance, as to the Epistle of St. James. It is true, it is contained in the old Syriac version in the second century; but Origen, in the third century, is the first writer who distinctly mentions it among the Greeks; and it is not quoted by name by any Latin till the fourth. St. Jerome speaks of its gaining credit "by degrees, in process of time." Eusebius says no more than that it had been, up to his time, acknowledged by the majority; and he classes it with the Shepherd of St. Hermas and the Epistle of St. Barnabas.

Again: "The Epistle to the Hebrews, though received in the East, was not received in the Latin Churches till St. Jerome's time. St. Irenæus either does not affirm, or denies that it is St. Paul's. Tertullian ascribes it to St. Barnabas. Caius excludes it from his list. St. Hippolytus does not receive it. St. Cyprian is silent about it. It is doubtful whether St. Optatus received it."

Again, St. Jerome tells us, that in his day, towards A.D. 400, the Greek Church rejected the Apocalypse, but the Latin received it.

Again: "The New Testament consists of twenty-seven books in all, though of varying importance. Of these, fourteen are not mentioned at all till from eighty to one hundred years after St. John's death, in which number are the Acts, the Second to the Corinthians, the Galatians, the Colossians, the Two to the Thessalonians, and St. James. Of the other thirteen, five, viz. St. John's Gospel, the Philippians, the First to Timothy, the Hebrews, and the First of St. John are quoted but by one writer during the same period."

On what ground, then, do we receive the Canon as it comes to us, but on the authority of the Church of the fourth and fifth centuries? The Church at that era decided,—not merely bore testimony, but passed a judgment on former testimony,—decided, that certain books were of authority. And on what ground did she so decide? on the ground that hitherto a decision had been impossible, in an age of persecution, from want of opportunities for research, discussion, and testimony, from the private or the local character of some of the books, and from misapprehension of the doctrine contained in others. Now, however, facilities were at length given for deciding once for all on what had been in suspense and doubt for three centuries. On this subject I will quote another passage from the same Tract: "We depend upon the fourth and fifth centuries thus:—As to Scripture, former centuries do not speak distinctly, frequently, or unanimously, except of some chief books, as the Gospels; but we see in them, as we believe, an ever-growing tendency and approximation to that full agreement which we find in the fifth. The testimony given at the latter date is the limit to which all that has been before said converges. For instance, it is commonly said, Exceptio probat regulam; when we have reason to think that a writer or an age would have witnessed so and so, but for this or that, and that this or that were mere accidents of his position, then he or it may be said to tend toward such testimony. In this way the first centuries tend towards the fifth. Viewing the matter as one of moral evidence, we seem to see in the testimony of the fifth the very testimony which every preceding century gave, accidents excepted, such as the present loss of documents once extant, or the then existing misconceptions which want of intercourse between the Churches occasioned. The fifth century acts as a comment on the obscure text of the centuries before it, and brings out a meaning, which with the help of the comment any candid person sees really to be theirs."

To accept the canon and reject the apostolic community which gathered the canon - this is the result of the practical application of sola Scriptura.