The Magisterium Was NOT SILENT As DISSENT SPREAD
By Dr. JAMES LIKOUDIS
Despite the successes of “the world, flesh, and the devil” seeking to obscure the unique nature of Christ’s Catholic Church and to wreak confusion among the faithful, it would be a profound mistake to believe that the Magisterium of Holy Church had abandoned that central tenet of the Faith: The Catholic Church is the One true Church Christ founded. Together with the same insistent affirmations found in other Vatican documents, the “Declaration on Religious Liberty” (December 1965) declared uncompromisingly:
“We believe that this one true religion [revealed by God] continues to exist in the Catholic and Apostolic Church… All men are bound to seek the truth and to embrace it and hold on to it as they came to know it… It leaves intact the traditional Catholic teaching on the moral duty of individuals and societies toward this true religion and the One Church of Christ.”
Erroneous views promoting religious indifferentism, false ecumenism, and universal salvation were the constant object of concern and vigilance as reflected in the addresses of Pope Paul VI, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI during the post-conciliar period. The refutation of serious errors and even revived heresies occupied a host of documents issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), they struck at the hydra-head of the theological Leviathan seeking to destroy in the name of “renewal” the Church of Christ. Major dissenters were applauded by the world press for their efforts to dismantle the hierarchical structure of the Church and to render irrelevant for media-invented “modern man” the “deposit of faith” confided by Christ to the Apostles with Peter at their head. They were to receive the censures of the Magisterium.
Recipients of the Church’s censures including sometimes excommunication were such luminaries as:
- Hans Kung, Edward Schillebeeckx, Leonardo Boff, Andre Guidon, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, the Abbe de Nantes, Marciano Vidal, Tissa Belasuriya, Jacques Dupuis, Diarmuid O’Murchu, John Sobrino, Anthony de Mello,
- and the Americans Charles E Curran, Anthony Kosnik, Roger Haight, and Peter Phan.
They were but a few of the trendy theologians who had accomodated themselves to the conquering spirit of secularism and who bore their measure of responsibility for the Crisis of Faith marking the end of Christendom.
Declarations, Statements, and Notifications by CDF on Sexual Ethics and other issues such as:
- Contraception, Abortion, Homosexuality,
- Euthanasia,
- Freemasonry,
- Liberation Theology,
- Reception of Holy Communion by the Divorced-and-Remarried,
- Norms for the validity of Baptism,
- the Ordination of Women (followed by the excommunication of women “ordained” by schismatic bishops),
- and Nutrition and Hydration.
were some of the important documents issued by CDF to reinforce the understanding of the Natural and Revealed Law of God set forth in the teaching of Vatican II. A number of documents (Mysterium Ecclesiae, 1773; Communio Notio, 1992; Domine Iesus, 2000) emphasized the Unicity of the One Church of Christ rooted in the indefectible Petrine Ministry of the Pope.
If the Catholic Church had taken a battering with serious losses of largely poorly catechized members, the on-going disintegration of doctrinal Protestantism would attract many Evangelicals, Anglicans, and those of other denominations to the Catholic Church. In the spiritual wasteland of modern society plunging into moral relativism and barbarism, the Catholic Church is viewed increasingly to be that visible society and spiritual Kingdom against which the Gates of Hell cannot prevail. For all the liturgical and disciplinary changes as well as the continued spread of serious theological errors that prove troubling, the Catholic Church has not changed its dogmatic and doctrinal patrimony.
Amidst the severe storms raging against the Barque of Peter, the Catholic Church has proved to be not a “house built on sand” but rather a House built on the perduring Rock of Peter. The Catholic Church remains the “City on the mountain which cannot be hidden” (Matt. 5: 14). It should be noted that it was in the post-conciliar period marked by disorders in the Church that the “best and brightest” of Protestants: Scott Hahn, Graham Leonard, William Oddie, Thomas Howard, Kenneth Howell, became Catholics. Then, too, there have been the agnostic seekers of truth who (like Malcolm Muggeridge) were revolted by modern nihilism to become Catholics.
Then, too, the warming of relations between Eastern Orthodox and Catholics with Orthodox patriarchs and bishops engaging in visits to Rome as well as actual theological dialogues taking place represent the fruit of Vatican II’s “spiritual ecumenism” preparing the way for the long-hoped-for Reunion of the Churches. Nor can one overlook the spiritual heirs of the greatest of Russian philosophers, Vladimir Soloviev, in Russia and Romania. Influenced by Vatican II’s outreach to the East and by Soloviev’s ecumenical writings, they pray and labor quietly amidst great difficulties for the ending of the Byzantine Greco-Slav Schism.
About Dr. James Likoudis
James Likoudis was an expert in Catholic apologetics. He is the author of several books dealing with Catholic-Eastern Orthodox relations, including “The Divine Primacy of the Bishop of Rome and Modern Eastern Orthodoxy: Letters to a Greek Orthodox on the Unity of the Church.” He has written many articles published by various religious papers and magazines.
The above comments and remarks have been posted to the “Bellarmine Forum” by James Likoudis
