Tuesday, November 01, 2005
THE HEART OF BETRAYAL
an article in "Christian Order" by James Larson comments on Pope Benedict XVI's theology in the light of the teaching of previous Popes:
Those who have read my recent three part article in Christian Order titled The War Against Being are already familiar with Cardinal Ratzinger’s negation of the Syllabus of Pius IX, the Syllabus and encyclical Pascendi of Pius X, and the decisions of the Pontifical Biblical Commission during the reign of Pius X. They are also aware of the Cardinal’s absolutely outrageous statement that "perhaps for the first time" the Church is now stating (in the CDF document The Nature and Mission of Theology) "that there are magisterial decisions which cannot be the final word on a given matter as such but, despite the permanent value of their principles, are chiefly also a signal for pastoral prudence, a sort of provisional policy."
One can well imagine the response of a Pius X, Leo XIII, Pius IX or the many Popes before them to the assertion that their condemnations of Liberalism and Modernism were provisional. In fact, Pope St. Pius X, in his Motu Proprio Praestantia Scripturae, pronounced an ipso facto excommunication upon any one who would presume to contradict or "endeavour to destroy the force and the efficacy" of his Syllabus or of his encyclical Pascendi.
Just as preposterous, however, is the notion that the philosophy of St. Thomas is something which is a matter of personal option. Pius X states in Pascendi that "To deviate from Aquinas, in metaphysics especially, is to run grave risk", and Pius XI flatly declares that "Thomas should be called not only the Angelic, but also the Common or Universal Doctor of the Church; for the Church has adopted his philosophy for her own, as innumerable documents of every kind attest (encyclical Studiorum Ducem,#11)."
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