The Neo-Pastoral Work of Francis (2)
This article by Fr. Jean-Michel Gleize, SSPX, looks back at the scandalous remarks made by Pope Francis on September 13, 2024. Fr. Gleize is professor of apologetics, ecclesiology, and dogma at the Seminary of Saint Pius X in Écône. He is the principal contributor to Courrier de Rome. He took part in the doctrinal discussions between Rome and the SSPX between 2009 and 2011.
1. The scandalous remarks made by Pope Francis on September 13 [1] can be understood as a subtle form of indifferentism, if they are understood in the light of the Second Vatican Council.
The Lumen gentium Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, completed by the Unitatis redintegratio Decree on Ecumenism and the Nostra aetate Declaration the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, rejects the very principle of religious pluralism—that is, the idea of the equal dignity, truth, and salvific efficacy of all religions.
In order to recognize the salvific value of all religions, the teachings of Vatican II are understood in a differentiated way, with reference to the primacy of the Church of Christ, subsisting in the Catholic Church.
2. The idea of religious pluralism in the strict sense was critically assessed by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, then headed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, in a Notification published in L'Osservatore Romano on February 26, 2001.
The Holy See took the opportunity of the publication of the book by Jesuit Father Jacques Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, which was released in bookstores in 1997, to react and indicate the true meaning of the Council texts that were supposed to authorize interreligious dialogue [2].
The Catholic religion, and the Catholic religion alone, represents the fullness, or perfect state, of the economy of salvation, while non-Christian religions and non-Catholic Christian confessions represent only a partial state of it, to degrees that are certainly varied but nonetheless real.
In other words, and to take the example used by Pope Francis in his talk to the young people of Singapore, the Catholic religion alone represents the most accomplished language for reaching God, while other religions would not have the same precision.
But the fact remains that all religions are paths that lead to God. In short, religious pluralism remains what it is: a new form of the same error, or a variant of it.
3. Does Pope Francis' thinking correspond to this variant, in continuity with Vatican II? The rest of his remarks, it must be said, would suggest otherwise. “’But my God is more important than yours!’” he objects.
“Is this true? There is only one God, and religions are like languages, paths to reach God.” If no religion can claim to lead to a more important God than any other, where is the mitigation of pluralism? And where is the continuity?
4. Quite opportunely, on Tuesday, September 17, the Supreme Pontiff returned to these remarks made in Singapore to clarify their scope. Pope Francis told an ecumenical group of young people that the diversity of their religious identities “is a gift of God.”
In a video message broadcast on September 17, he addressed the young people gathered in Tirana for the “Med24” Meeting, whose theme was “Pilgrims of hope, builders of peace.” Addressing the assembly in his video, Francis declared: “God loves every man; He makes no differences among us.” Calling for a growth in “Unity,” Francis described the diversity of the participants' religious backgrounds as “a gift of God.”
He added: “I invite you to learn together to discern the signs of the times. Contemplate the difference of your traditions like a richness, a richness God wants to be. Unity is not uniformity, and the diversity of your cultural and religious identities is a gift of God. Unity in diversity. Let mutual esteem grow among you, following the witness of your forefathers.”
5. What more is there to say? If unity is not uniformity, and if it must be achieved in diversity, wouldn't the mitigation of pluralism be singularly...mitigated? And continuity with Vatican II ever more problematic.
6. Mitigated or not, religious pluralism—or indifferentism—is in any case a heresy contrary to divinely revealed teachings, such as what the Magisterium of the Church has constantly put forth for the affirmation of our faith.
The Magisterium constantly affirms the necessity of the Church for salvation, employing a very precise expression which implies that this necessity is absolute: outside the Church—that is to say, through the efficacy of a non-Catholic religion—there is no salvation. Such is the Profession of Faith prescribed to the Waldenses by Pope Innocent III in 1208 (DS 792).
This is the Profession of Faith of the Fourth Lateran Council, 1215 (DS 802). This is the teaching of Pope Boniface VIII’s Bull Unam sanctam in 1302; of Pope Clement VI’s Super quibusdam Letter to Mekhitar (“the Consoler”), the Armenian Catholicos, in 1351 (1051); and of the Decree for the Jacobites in Pope Eugene IV's Bull Cantate Domino in 1442 (DS 1351).
This is the truth recalled by Pope Pius IX in his Encyclical Singulari quidem in 1856 (1647), in his Encyclical Quanto conficiamur [moerore] in 1863 (in which the Pope states that this truth is a dogma and one of the best known), and finally in the Syllabus in 1864, in the form of the two condemned propositions no. 16 (DS 2916) and no. 17 (DS 2917).
Pope Leo XIII also recalled this truth in his Encyclical Satis cognitum in 1896 (DS 3304); and Pope Pius XII recalled it three more times, in the Encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi in 1943 (DS 3821), in the Letter of the Holy Office addressed to Archbishop Cushing of Boston in 1949 (DS 3868), and in the Encyclical Humani Generis, in 1950 (DS 3891).
Yes, of course, souls of good will who remain in invincible ignorance can receive saving graces wherever they may be, but that's another matter altogether. The grace of salvation is always received through the Church, even when, extraordinarily, it is not received in the Church.
And even if some are saved in a religion other than the Catholic one, no one is saved by a religion other than the Catholic one. Which is to say that, with the exception of the Catholic religion, no other religion can represent a path or a language leading to God.
7. All this is perfectly clear and obvious. So much so, that on September 12, 2024, Cardinal Burke, in a message on X, considers that we do indeed seem to be in “the last times” [3].
Up until now, the Society of Saint Pius X has been criticized for denying the indefectibility of the Church, under the pretext that it considered the Second Vatican Council and the postconciliar Magisterium to be marred by serious errors.
This is essentially the argument developed and highlighted in recent months by the apologists of the Ecclesia Dei movement, encouraged by conservative prelates of Cardinal Burke’s stature, and to which we shall return: Matthieu Lavagna, for example, on his YouTube channel [4]; or Fr. Hilaire Vernier, on the website of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP) [5].
How, then, can they position themselves in relation to these recent statements of Pope Francis? If they claim—as the Society of Saint Pius X does—that they are gravely erroneous, wouldn't they also be denying the indefectibility of the Church?
And if they affirm that they are not, how could they not affirm that the teachings of Innocent III, Boniface VIII, Clement VI, Eugene IV, Pius IX, Leo XIII and Pius XII are gravely erroneous?
And wouldn't they also deny, albeit in a different way, the indefectibility of the Church? This should certainly give the theologians of the Ecclesia Dei movement serious food for thought.
8. For its part, the Society of Saint Pius X has always adhered to the November 21, 1974, Declaration, in which Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre laid down the fundamental distinctions inherited from the Tradition of the Church [6]. The Church is not the Pope.
The indefectibility of the visible society founded by Jesus Christ is that of the triple bond of profession of faith, worship, and submission to the government of divinely instituted pastors. The acts of these pastors are different, and some of them can pose serious problems for the conscience of Catholics, without the Church ceasing to be what it should be in the unity of this triple bond that defines it as such [7].
History bears witness to this. And the vivacity of Catholic Tradition, in all its forms today, is there to attest to the indefectibility of this triple bond. The permanence of the true Catholic Mass, celebrated according to the rite of St. Pius V, notwithstanding the wrath of Traditionis custodes, is one of the most tangible expressions of this indefectibility of the Church.
9. The Archbishop Emeritus of Philadelphia, Capuchin Charles Chaput, declared that Pope Francis' comments on religious pluralism were “extraordinarily flawed” and that such an idea “drains martyrdom of its meaning” [8].
Who among the Catholics of the Ecclesia Dei movement would dare accuse this holy man of denying the indefectibility of the Church? Let us rejoice, Archbishop Lefebvre said in his day, to see good priests and bishops rising up, determined to resist error for the salvation of souls.
[1] “The Neo-Pastoral Work of Francis”
[2] See the article “Le signe de contradiction“ [“The sign of contradiction”] in the May 2024 issue of Courrier de Rome.
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muhZ0qLfiQA
[5] https://claves.org/peut-on-etre-sedevacantiste-sans-le-dire/ ; https://claves.org/peut-on-etre-prudentiellement-ecclesiovacantiste-2-2/
[6] See the article “21 novembre 1974-2024” [“November 21, 1974-2024”] in the September 2024 issue of Courrier de Rome.
[7] See the article “L'Eglise est indéfectible” [“The Church Is Indefectible”] in the September 2024 issue of Courrier de Rome.
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(Source : La Porte Latine – FSSPX.Actualités)
Illustration : British Province of Carmelites, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
