The Bishop's Weekly Column from the Parish Bulletin

OUR LADY OF FATIMA

CATHOLIC CHURCH

The Pope is the principle of Catholicity

October 30, 2005

I have been quiet of late (for the last two weeks in fact) deeply pondering some "points for meditation" given me during a trip away from Spring Hill a couple of weeks ago. A welcome telephone call from a priest friend inquiring amongst other things about the state of my health given the recent silence of this column brings me back from my "reverie".

When Benedict XVI during an audience on June 15 took a cell phone handed him by a member of the crowd that had gathered in St Peter's square to greet the Pontiff, he made headlines as the first Pope in history to be snapped using such a machine. We were told then that the Holy Father spoke some words of comfort to a terminally ill nun Sister Maria Cristina whose health did not permit her to meet the Pope.

A different prelate was recently photographed in a similar fashion, with the somewhat curious and highly unlikely caption appended that suggested the man in question was "probably the world's most 'traditional' bishop" (doubtless soon to be upgraded to the now infamous epithet another Trad prelate uses "the only Catholic bishop we know of" - where have we heard that before ?) Somehow I have the feeling this prelate's interlocutor was not resident in Rome.

The Shepherd feeds his sheep

Elsewhere in the same newsletter the prelate opined on what it means to be Catholic = "adhering to the Holy Roman Church outside of which there is no salvation." Stirring words indeed, but certainly not the whole truth.

Membership in the Catholic Church is effected by:

a) Intellectual adherence to a common system of belief (the teaching of the Catholic Church) by an act of faith on the part of the believer.

b) The reception of the Sacrament of Baptism.

c) The willingness to share unity with other believers under the authority of the Chief Shepherd, the Pope.

Pope Pius XII taught as follows:

Papal Teaching: "In the Church they alone are to be counted as members who have received the baptism of regeneration and profess the true faith, who moreover, have not had the misfortune to separate themselves from the assembly of the Body, or been excommunicated by the legitimate authority by reason of very grave faults." (Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, Pontifical Teachings 1022)

It is not enough to maintain that by Baptism and the common profession of faith that one is a Catholic. We must also be united with the visible Head of the Church, the Bishop of Rome also known as the Pope. The Pope is the immediate shepherd of the entire Church. Bishops are only the local administrators of his authority. The First Vatican Council (1869-70) had this to say on the question of the Pope’s immediate jurisdiction over each Catholic:

Wherefore we teach and declare that, by divine ordinance, the Roman church possesses a pre-eminence of ordinary power over every other church, and that this jurisdictional power of the Roman pontiff is both episcopal and immediate. (...) In this way, by unity with the Roman pontiff in communion and in profession of the same faith, the church of Christ becomes one flock under one supreme shepherd. (...) This is the teaching of the catholic truth, and no one can depart from it without endangering his faith and salvation. (...) Furthermore, it follows from that supreme power which the Roman pontiff has in governing the whole church, that he has the right, in the performance of this office of his, to communicate freely with the pastors and flocks of the entire church, so that they may be taught and guided by him in the way of salvation. (...) if anyone says that the Roman pontiff has merely an office of supervision and guidance, and not the full and supreme power of jurisdiction over the whole church, (...) or that this power of his is not ordinary and immediate both over all and each of the churches and over all and each of the pastors and faithful let him he anathema. (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church of Christ July 18, 1870 Chapter 3. On the power and character of the primacy of the Roman pontiff)

From this it follows that every baptized Catholic who professes the teachings of the Catholic Church and is in union with the Church has the Pope for his immediate shepherd and teacher.

The Second Vatican Council stated the matter this way:

"This holy Council first of all turns its attention to the Catholic faithful. Basing itself on scripture and tradition, it teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and baptism (cf. Mk. 16:16; Jn. 3:5), and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it, or to remain in it.

"Fully incorporated into the Church are those who, possessing the Spirit of Christ, accept all the means of salvation given to the Church together with her entire organization, and who -- by the bonds constituted by the profession of faith, the sacraments, ecclesiastical government, and communion -- are joined in the visible structure of the Church of Christ, who rules her through the Supreme Pontiff and the bishops." (Lumen Gentium # 14)

Union with the Papacy is strictly necessary for salvation and especially if people want to call themselves Catholic as Pope Pius IX wrote:

"In fact, it is contrary to the divine constitution of the Church as it is perpetual and constant tradition for anyone to attempt to prove the catholicity of his faith and truly call himself a Catholic when he fails in obedience to the Apostolic See. For it is necessary for all the other churches, that is, for all the faithful of the entire world, to be in agreement with this See by reason of its sovereign primacy, and he who abandons the Chair of Peter on which the Church is founded, is falsely persuaded that he is in the Church, since he is already a sinner and a schismatic who raises up a chair against the one Chair of Peter, from which flow to all others the sacred rights of communion.

"All these declarations are so emphatic that we must conclude from them that a man who has been declared schismatic by the Roman Pontiff must cease absolutely to claim the name of Catholic so long as he fails to recognize an does not expressly revere that Pontiff’s power in its fullness." (Encyclical Quartus supra, January 6, 1873 Pope Pius IX Papal Teachings – The Church, St Paul Editions, 1962 p. 226)

Thus, union with the Pope is the essence of Catholicity, withdrawal of union is the serious sin of schism. This is precisely why, in the Canon of the Mass, priests are obligated to mention the name of the Sovereign Pontiff as a sign of the intercommunion of all Christ's Faithful with their visible head on earth and a fortiori with each other.

The Church is a visible structure not a loose association of people sharing similar ideas ! The continuance of the Sacramental rites does not mean the Catholic Church is present. The sign of unity is adherence to a common profession of faith in union with the head of the Church and with each other. Absent a head - absent the Church quite simply !

That Christ willed the Church to exist until the end of time, with the same means of salvation, with a hierarchy and a visible and perpetual succession in the primacy of Peter are all dogmatic facts sealed by the First Vatican Council, the denial of which puts one outside the Church. One leading exponent of the sede nonesense tried recently to make Vatican I not say what it did say - there will be a perpetual succession in the primacy of Peter until the end of time. (There will always be a Pope). A fuller treatment of the subject can be found elsewhere on this site. Clearly, then, visible union with the successor of Peter is not something optional but a necessity of means as far as salvation is concerned.

Consequent upon all of this, the illogic of sedevacantism is now made evident: how can you maintain that the constitutive element that determines the church to be the church (the "rock" or foundation) has been absent since 1958 ? The sedevacantists are therefore duty bound to proceed to a conclave to restore the "rock" to its place as source of Catholic Unity. Today, I learnt, of a rumor (and I emphasize it is a rumor) that one of the largest sede groups in the USA is debating whether or not to hold a conclave (doubtless to elect their "chief" to the only position he hasn't yet held - being superior general of every sede religious group from here to Mexico and back). The rumor also suggests that all is not quiet in the ranks and that a large faction looks set to split should the group as a whole adopt the course of action mentioned above. Again the proof of the saying: "schism begets schism" - the Pope is also the principle of unity within the Church. Since the sedes reject the current occupant of the See of Rome they preserve no unity amongst themselves as well.

All this serves to show in greater relief the absolute absurdity of the sedevacantist groupies many of whom are so split that they couldn't sit down at the same table and break bread, still less break the "Bread of Life" and welcome in friendship a common brother or sister in the Lord. How many sins against justice and charity have been committed by supposed other Christs by the denial of Holy Communion because the communicant has assisted at Mass in a rival chapel despite the fact that the clergy involved share the same stupid theory that the Catholic Church can exist without a Pope. All of this in striking contradistinction to the words of its Founder who said the church would be built upon a rock and not on sand - an image Our Lord doubtless used to illustrate the permanency of an office that the sedes think has vanished. "Vanished ?" they scream at me. Ah yes ! What, after all, is the papacy without a pope ? The Latin axiom says it all: ex nihilo nihil fit - nothing comes from nothing !

+TF