Chapter 1 Athanasius called Semi-Arians Brothers; can we call Semi-Modernists Brother while correcting their Ambiguous Errors?
Cardinal John Henry Newman in his historical research into the Arian
heresy showed that the Doctor of the Church St. Athanasius was careful
to make the distinction between the full fledged Arian heretic and the
"weak" Semi-Arian:
"Some... assembled [Council] prelates advocated... harsh measures
towards the [Semi-Arian] Arianizers... Athanasius, however, proposed
more temperate measures... A decree was passed, that such
bishops as
had communicated with the Arians through weakness or surprise, should be
recognized in their respective sees, on signing the Nicene formulary; but that those, who publicly defended the heresy, should only be admitted to lay-communion...
Yet it cannot be denied, that men of zeal and boldness were found among
the [Semi-Arian] Arianizers. Two laymen, Flavian and Diodorus,
protested with spirit against the [unambiguous Arian] heterodoxy of the
crafty Leontius, and kept alive an orthodox [Catholic] party in the
midst of the [Arian] Eusebian communion."
(The Arians of the Fourth Century, By John Henry Newman, Pages 198-199)
'Yet the men were better than their creed; and it is satisfactory to
be able to detect amid the impiety and worldliness of the heretical
party any elements of a purer spirit, which gradually exerted itself
and worked out from the corrupt mass, in which it was embedded. Even
thus viewed as distinct from their political associates, the
Semi-Arians are a motley party at best; yet they may be considered as
Saints and Martyrs, when compared with the Eusebians, and in fact some
of them have actually been acknowledged as such by the Catholics of
subsequent times. Their zeal in detecting the humanitarianism of
Marcellus and Photinus, and their good service in withstanding the
{300} Anomœans, who arrived at the same humanitarianism by a bolder
course of thought, will presently be mentioned. On the whole they were
men of correct and exemplary life, and earnest according to their
views; and they even made pretensions to sanctity in their outward
deportment, in which they differed from the true Eusebians, who, as
far as the times allowed it, affected the manners and principles of
the world. It may be added, that both Athanasius and Hilary, two of
the most uncompromising supporters of the Catholic doctrine, speak
favourably of them. Athanasius does not hesitate to call them brothers
[
Note 7]; considering that,
however necessary it was for the edification of the Church at large,
that the Homoüsion should be enforced on the clergy, yet that the
privileges of private Christian fellowship were not to be denied to
those, who from one cause or other stumbled at the use of it [
Note
8]. It is remarkable, that the Semi-Arians, on the contrary, in
their most celebrated Synod (at Ancyra,
A.D.
358) anathematized the holders of the Homoüsion, as if crypto-Sabellians
[
Note 9]."
[
http://www.newmanreader.org/works/arians/chapter4-2.html]
- Cardinal John Henry Newman
In my opinion, it is obvious that Francis is a full fledged Modernist. He apparently doesn't care about being loyal to the
total body of infallible Church teachings. He appears to be a total Modernist (See:
//catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-evidence-that-pope-francis-is.html?m=1):
-"[T]he [Modernist] Blondelian schema holds that justification for the
faith is to be found by turning inwards to the personal experience of
the human subject. This turn to the subject is characteristic of modern
philosophy, from Descartes right up to the Idealism of Kant and Hegel
and beyond, and presented a major challenge to the traditional Catholic
apologetics... If it were the case that inner experience justified the
faith, if each person was to find the proof of God’s existence within
their own life, then what would be the basis for the teaching authority
of the Church?"
- Liberal AnthonyCarroll [https://www.thinkingfaith.org/articles/20090724_1.htm]
"Between [Modernist Maurice] Blondel's philosophy of action and Pope
Francis' pastoral action, there are significant coincidence."
- Pope Francis's close longtime theological advisor Fr. Juan Carlos Scannone
( La Civiltà Cattolica 2015 III /
www.laciviltacattolica.it )" [
https://m.facebook.com/civiltacattolica/photos/a.10150836993325245.745627.379688310244/10242607255245/?type=3]
Francis's closest adviser and collaborator Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez
Maradiaga apparently declared himself, Francis and all liberals to be
total Modernist heretics since Vatican II:
"
The Second Vatican Council... meant an end to the hostilities between the Church and Modernism...
Modernism was, most of the time, a reaction against injustices and
abuses that disparaged the dignity and rights of the person."
(Whispers in the Loggia Website, "The Council's 'Unfinished Business,'
The Church's 'Return to Jesus"... and Dreams of "The Next Pope" - A
Southern Weekend with Francis' 'Discovery Channel,'" October 28, 2013)
The homosexual journalist conservative Catholic Milo Yiannopoulos in his book "Diabolical" reported:
"Since Vatican II, most popes have been preoccupied with holding
together the conservative [Semi-Modernist] and liberal [Modernist heretic]
factions that emerged in its wake."
Why were the conservative
Vatican II popes, John Paul II as well as Benedict XVI and why are almost all the conservative present day
bishops and conservative Catholics so afraid of a schism with the
Modernist heretic faction?
Might
it be because like in the Arian crisis when there were Arians and
Semi-Arians so today there are Semi-Modernists who because of "weakness" don't want schism and want communion with the total Modernist heretics?
If Francis is a Modernist then was Pope John Paul II and is Pope Benedict XVI a Semi-Modernists?
Remember what Cardinal Newman said:
"Athanasius, however, proposed
more temperate measures... A decree was passed, that such [Semi-Arian] bishops as had
communicated with the Arians through weakness or surprise, should be
recognized in their respective sees, on signing the Nicene formulary;
but that those, who publicly defended the heresy, should only be
admitted to lay-communion."
Semi-Arians
were those who attempted the practically almost impossible task of
being loyal to the traditional teachings of the Church while holding on
to Semi-Arian ambiguous teachings because they were afraid of being in
schism with the total Arian heretics.
So
today, it appears that most conservative Catholics like the
Semi-Arians have tried to do the
practically almost impossible task of being loyal to the infallible
teachings of the Church while holding on to Semi-Modernist
ambiguous teachings as well as the ambiguities of Vatican II because
they are afraid of being in schism with the Modernist heretics.
Newman said that during the Arian Heresy Crisis 80% of the
bishops were heretics which is probably similar to the number of bishops
who today have fallen into Modernism or Semi-Modernism.
Columnist Chris Jackson writes that the Semi-Modernist whom he says have the Neo-Modernist
faith by simple statistics show that their Modernism has led to
the collapse of the Catholic faith in America and the world:
"It is a shame that the [Semi-Modernist] Neo-Catholics interviewed
simply cannot make the obvious connection so many Traditionalists have
made before them. That far from protecting the faith of Catholics
against modern errors and temptations and helping to spread the Faith,
Vatican II and its reforms opened the Church up to the modern errors and
temptations and fed Her sheep to the wolves."
"...
In order to be meaningful to anyone, the Faith being offered must have
meaning to begin with. And Neo-Modernist faith does not. In fact, it is
not faith at all. The Neo-Modernist faith ascribes to a mythical god who
is not just, who punishes no sin, no matter how egregious, who works no
real supernatural miracles, who is merely a representation or allegory
of vague concepts, and who is to be used as a mascot to help attach
religious significance to merely naturalist and humanistic concerns.
Those who were poisoned by this 'faith' were right to leave it. Their
only mistake was not replacing it with the true Faith it is obscuring.
The answer to this exodus is not some desperate attempt to be even 'more
relevant' by infusing more of the same poison, but to make these people
aware of the true Catholic Faith that most of them have never even
experienced despite growing up as Catholics in the modern era."
"...
Sadly, the answer is no. What do they blame the mass exodus from the
Church since Vatican II on [is not Vatican II] ? You guessed it. [They
blame]Traditional Catholicism (aka Catholicism itself)."
[https://remnantnewspaper.com/web/index.php/articles/item/4465-the-victims-of-vatican-ii-american-catholics-leave-the-church-in-record-numbers]
The attacks on the Open Letter appear to show that most conservative [Semi-Modernist] Catholics, not all, are Modernists
and appear to slowly be losing their faith in the same way they say a
frog will boil to death if the heat in the stove under the pot is heated
up slowly.
Open Letter signer Peter Kwasniewski said it best:
"Just a few short years ago, everyone who considered himself a conservative was up in arms about Amoris Laetitia
and skeptical of the elaborate rabbinical apparatus that attempted to
square it with the Church’s perennial teaching. Now it’s as if they’ve
given up; they shrug their shoulders and say, “I’m sure it’ll all be
fine someday. It’ll come out in the wash. Put credentialed theologians
and canonists on the case, and everything Francis says and does can be
justified.” We strain the canonical gnats and swallow the doctrinal
camel."
"It
seems that many simply do not wish to confront the weighty and ever
mounting evidence of the pope’s errors and reprehensible actions, of
which the letter provided only a sample
sufficient to make the case. This is not to say that Francis altogether
lacks true words and admirable actions. It would be nearly impossible
for someone to say false things or do bad things all the time. That is
beside the point. It is enough for a pope to assert a doctrinal error
only once or twice in a pontifical document, or to perform really bad acts (or omissions) of governance a few
times, in order to merit rebuke from the College of Cardinals or the
body of bishops, sharers in the same apostolic ministry. With Francis,
however, there is a lengthy catalogue, with no sign of coming to an end.
If this does not galvanize the conservatives into concerted action, one
has to wonder — what would? Do they have a line in the sand? Or has papal loyalism dethroned faith and neutered reason?"
"Things
that made everyone anxious just a few years ago are now taken in
stride: now we all just live in a post-Bergoglian Catholic Church, where
you can make exceptions about formerly exceptionless moral norms, give
Communion to those living in adultery, and say God wills many religions
as He wills two sexes, or — a point not addressed in the Open Letter —
dismiss the witness of Scripture, Tradition, and Magisterium (trifecta!)
on the death penalty. The frogs have grown accustomed to floating in
ever hotter water and have decided to call it a spa."
[https://onepeterfive.com/normalcy-bias-chaotic-pope/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Onepeterfive+%28OnePeterFive%29]
Sadly, it appears that most conservative Catholics are Semi-Modernists who seem to be slowly becoming total Modernist heretics?
Fr. George Rutler in his 2017 Crisis article said Fr. Antonio Spadaro,
and by implication Francis since both he and Spadaro are liberal
Jesuits, "grew up in a theological atmosphere of... Transcendental
Thomism [which] was Karl Rahner's attempt to wed Thomistic realism with
Kantian idealism. Father Stanley Kaki, theologian and physicist, called
this stillborn hybrid 'Aquikantianism.'"
(Crisis, "The Mathematical Innovations of Father Spadaro," February 22, 2017)
Both the liberal Jesuits: Spadaro and Francis it appears are total relativists, as are most Jesuits and all liberal theologians.
Rahner's "Foundation of Theological Study: A Sourcebook" says:
"The German Jesuit Karl Rahner (1904-1984) remains one of most influential theologians of the twentieth century."
(Foundation of Theological Study: A Sourcebook, https://booksgoogle.com>books)
Rahner was a disciple of Kant as Rutler said. Jaki, also, makes this clear in his books on Aquikantists.
Kant taught that one could only know the phenomena of the mind or ideas and not know reality. Jaki wrote:
"Kant, who begins with ideas and, as all the history of modern philosophy shows, never gets to reality."
(Chesterton: A Seer of Science, page 19)
Kant and those who follow him thought God was only a thought. Jaki quotes Kant and explains the citation:
"'God is not a being outside me but merely a thought within me.'"
"That man was his own God, if he needed one, was evidently Kant's conclusion."
(Angels, Apes and Men, page 10)
Rahner's Kantian philosophy lead him to deny the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Fr. Regis Scanlon, OFM, Cap., wrote:
"In 1966 the late Fr. Karl Rahner stated that 'one can no longer
maintain today that bread is a substance, as St. Thomas and the Fathers
of the Council (of Trent) obviously thought it was'.[12] [Theological
Investigations, page 307] For Rahner the 'substance' of a thing did not
include its < material and physical> reality, but the 'meaning and
purpose' of the thing. [13] [Karl Rahner, S.J.., p.307; Engelbert
Gutwenger, "Transubstantiation,"
page 1754, pp. 34-35] So, according to Karl Rahner, transubstantiation
meant that, after the consecration of the Mass, the physical bread
remained physical bread but it now had a new 'meaning' of spiritual food
because it was now a "symbol" of Jesus Christ.[14] [Engelbert
Gutwenger, pp. 1754-1755]"
"Fr.
Edward Schillebeeckx agreed with Fr. Karl Rahner that the physical
bread and wine were only a 'sign' of Christ.[15] In fact, for
Schillebeeckx, the 'real presence' of Christ in the Eucharist was not
the consecrated bread and wine, but the < 'assembled
community'>.[16]"
(Modern Misconceptions About The Eucharist, PDF, St. Patrick's Basilica
> 2016/10, https://Basilica.ca, Provided courtesy of: Eternal Word
Television Network)
Jaki thought the "archetype" figure of this type of philosophy which Rahner professed was "Lucifer":
"Kant who once wrote of himself: 'I am an Archangel!' and went on to
state repeatedly: 'I am God.' The archetype for this self-enrichment was
none other than Lucifer. If one looks for the source of the pride, the
self-sufficiency... one merely has to look in the direction of the camp
that still breeds Aquikantists... Aquikantists were overjoyed when the
invocation of Saint Michael was dropped as a first step towards the new
liturgy."
(Newman's Challenge, pages 76-77)
Remember Aquikantists, specifically Rahner, have totally influenced all
liberal theologians and many, maybe most, conservative ones.
Rahner's influence even reached to the papacy of Pope John Paul II who
believed in the Eucharist and objective morality unlike Francis who
apparently may not believe in the Eucharist or objective morality.
John Paul because of philosophical inadequacies had a relativist
inter-religious dialogue blind spot such as in the Assisi scandalous
episode unlike Pope Benedict XVI. Scholar Fr. John Coleman S. J. wrote:
"John Hick's pluralist model is based on a Kantian epistemology that
undermines, at the outset, any notion of a normative revelation of God
in history... In Danielou's theology, the grace of Christ may
mysteriously touch individuals outside Christianity but the other
religions, their scriptures and rituals, remain purely human customs...
Rahner did not make such a strict distinction... John Paul was closer to
Rahner... Whereas Ratzinger had warned of the dangers of relativism in
inter-religious dialogue." (Inter-Religious Dialogue: Urgent Challenge
and Theological Land-Mine, PFD Australian Catholic University>au)
Rahner's influence has effected Francis as well as his inner circle,
Catholic colleges, schools and children as well as youth catechism
teaching books and their teachers who prepare them for the Sacraments.
Since all liberal Catholics and many conservative ones, knowingly or
unknowingly, have been deeply influenced by Rahner's Kantian "theology,"
is it possible that the crisis in the Church, in large extent, is due
to their unconscious and in some cases conscious disbelief in objective
reality as well as objective "normative" revelation which leads to
disbelief in the Eucharist and God.
Does this explain Francis's panicked reaction against Cardinal Robert
Sarah's call for reverence at the Mass and the Holy Eucharist and his
desire to explain away and in many cases openly reject God's Ten
Commandments?
It appears that Francis isn't just a moral relativist and Modernist, but apparently may not believe in the Eucharist.
Why do some traditionalists, recently, want to pretend that the Amoris
laetitia total relativist Francis is exactly the same as Benedict and
John Paul who both believed in the Eucharist and objective morality
despite both having major philosophical inadequacies and apparently are Semi-Modernists?
Next, Larson quote from page 140
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Further information and considerations for this chapter:
As Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal
Joseph Ratzinger charged her personally with the German version of
particularly sensitive documents, such as his response to the objections
of Protestant theologians to the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of
Justification of 1999. It was also Cardinal Ratzinger who, according to
her own testimony, advised Sigrid Spath to remain a Protestant, and not
to convert to the Catholic Church, as she had considered in a moment of
crisis. She could do more for both churches if she remained a
Protestant, said the Cardinal. The Carinthian remained in the Protestant
Christuskirche in Rome [the Evangelical-Lutheran community of Rome]
throughout her life.
https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2014/02/she-wanted-to-convert-but-she-listened.html
Dear David Schutz,
Thank you for your helpful comments. The essay was originally a public lecture at Notre Dame U in Freemantle when I was the Thomas More Chair at the University of Western Australia. I only wish I had had your comments before I published it. It is not, of course, my own field as such ( I do social ethics and sociology of religion) but I wanted to venture into it. I have actually read a wonderful explanation of both the uniqueness of Christ as mediator and the relativity ( but not relativeness) of Christian language by Robert Bellah in a reflection on H. Richard Niebuhr’s book on Monotheism.. It appears in the Bellah reader which I am reviewing. Like your comments, I feel my essay would have been improved if I had read the Bellah piece previously. But I will save your remarks for any further treatment of the topic. Best wishes.
[NB. The Bellah essay to which he refers may be accessed at: http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=241