An Interpreted Weight
A couple decades back, the CDF revised the Profession of Faith to be taken by those identified in the Code of Canon Law (c. 833). Unchanged was the first and longest paragraph, but after this, three further paragraphs were added. The first deals with teachings divinely revealed, and the second, with teachings proposed definitively (those inseparably connected with such divine revelation). The third paragraph deals with teachings neither divinely revealed, nor inseparably connected with revelation, but which nonetheless emerge from the authoritative exercise of the teaching office of the Roman Pontiff or College of Bishops. Ecclesiologists tend to use these added paragraphs as their framework for articulating gradations within Church teaching, or, to put differently, the weight with which a certain teaching is proposed.
In their Commentary of John Paul’s Ad tuendam fidem, Ratzinger and Bertone distinguish between teachings which are connected to revelation by logical necessity, and teachings connected by historical necessity. Having the second gradation as their object of study in Paragraph 11 of their Commentary, Ratzinger and Bertone assert that reserving the priestly orders to men is a doctrine connected to revelation by logical necessity. In terms of teachings connected by historical necessity, they cite the legitimacy of a Pontiff’s election, the canonization of saints, and the invalidity of Anglican orders.
I have often remarked that as no official statement, solemnly defined, identifies what belongs to the second gradation, Paragraph 11 of the Ratzinger-Bertone Commentary, and its proposed classifications, must be considered an interpretation. Dulles, in his 2007 work Magisterium: Teaching Authority in the Catholic Church, expresses his own difficulty in understanding how, for example, the canonization of saints might fall within the second gradation. Although taking issue with what has been interpreted as being connected to divine revelation by historical necessity, Dulles strangely accuses other theologians of “evasion” when they claim that a particular teaching, let us say the reservation of priestly orders to men, has not been definitively taught, and instead belongs to as third gradation.
I know that the reservation of priestly orders to men is controversial in quarters. However, I have difficulty understanding why more caution isn’t demonstrated by persons who would do well to consider that even when the weight of the 1994 Apostolic Letter Ordinatio sacerdotalis is combined with the consistent interpretation of the CDF, the Church interprets its teaching on this matter as belonging to the second gradation. Given that such interpretations are not protected by the infallibility a solemn judgment would imply, what is not as clear is whether the Church’s interpretation is correct.
Let me expand: The interpretation of the CDF can be discerned also from their 28 October 1995 “Response to Dubium.” They state that the reservation of priestly orders to men has been infallibly taught by the Magisterium and is connected to the deposit of faith. Further, representatives of the CDF stated at a meeting in Vallombrosa (California) that “the Magisterium has simply reaffirmed this teaching as a truth of the Church’s doctrine (the second paragraph), based on Scripture, attested to and applied in the uninterrupted Tradition, and taught by the ordinary and universal Magisterium, without declaring it to be a dogma that is divinely revealed.” Very strong language is also used by John Paul II during his ad limina speech to the German Bishops (November, 1999): “The doctrine that the priesthood is reserved to men, possesses by virtue of the Church’s ordinary and universal Magisterium, that central character of infallibility which Lumen gentium speaks of and which I gave juridical form in the Moto Propio Ad Tuendam Fidem.”
These features do not meet the criteria of a solemn judgment, nor does the Pope intend this since he appeals to the ordinary and universal Magisterium. The best conclusion to draw from this, I think, is that while the Pope speaks with authority, his interpretation is not rendered infallible as a result. Persons following after, then, should be careful of the accusations they leave at the feet of others.
K.
Kelly Wilson is a Seminarian for the Archdiocese of Winnipeg. Besides Vox Nova, he writes at his blog Musings.
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If people keep talking like this, a solemn extraordinary ex cathedra statement MAY be needed.
But I think they’ve been reluctant to do so exactly in order to avoid a “creeping infallibilism” whereby teachings already infallible by the ordinary and universal magisterium (as this one clearly is; and we don’t need a Pope to “interpret” that for it to be evident)…all suddenly “need” to be extraordinarily defined for the sake of certainty.
The ordinary and universal magisterium, in order to not be irrelevant (and in order that a sort of “magisterial positivism” doesn’t develop) needs to be allowed to have some teachings which stand infallible on its authority alone, rather than extraordinarily defined. And, for now, the Vatican seems to be using this particular teaching as an instructive example of one taught infallibly by ordinary and universal magisterium but not an extraordinary solemn definition.
I think the whole point is that extraordinary definitions are supposed to be extraordinary, and they don’t want the extraordinary to become functionally ordinary by issuing an ex cathedra statement on teachings which (by the ordinary and universal magisterium) are clearly infallibly taught already.
Sinner, it’s true that a “solemn judgment,” may, at a certain point in the future, be needed to clarify the ecclesial weight associated with a particular teaching.
I’ve mentioned before the claim of Raymond Brown on the subject of the virginal conception of Jesus. He said “I think that it is infallibly taught,” rather than “It is infallibly taught.”
Richard Gaillardetz writes that “the biblical scholar contended that only the pope and the bishops have the authority to say whether a teaching has or has not been taught infallibly. Thus while Brown was personally convinced that this teaching had been taught by the ordinary and universal magisterium, he was willing to grant that others might disagree with this assessment. Only the pope and bishops could decide authoritatively on the matter. In contending that only the pope and bishops could settle the matter Brown was apparently referring to an exercise of the extraordinary magisterium, a solemn definition on the virgin bith which would clarify the teaching’s theological note. This example suggests that in the face of controversy, the determination of the authoritative status of any teaching not solemnly defined can only be pursued tentatively. In other words, short of a solemn definition, the attachement of a theological note to a given teaching is not itself an infallible judgment, and is subject to legitimate disagreement on the part of theologians, and, at times, the faithful.”
So, the existence of an ordinary and universal magisterium is not to be cast aside, nor considered irrelevant, but should, I think it is clear, be viewed as a sort of transitional state for teachings which, once seriously questioned, require either a solemn judgment, or reconsideration.
If that’s the case, then where does it end? Does the Pope need to infallibly decree everything that the Church has taught up until now? That’s a fine poke in the eye to the rest of the bishops! “Oh we’re sorry, you thought you were teaching infallibly? Nope! You literally can do nothing without the Pope. Collegiality? Pssh. Somebody questioned you!”
I find this juggling of the Ordinatio Sacerdotalis teaching weird. Like people want to affirm in vague theory the idea of infallibility, but then when it’s actually used they want to scrub it clean of any kind of infallible weight, so that the whole thing is functionally useless.
Putting it another way, the Arians seriously questioned whether Jesus was the Second Person of the Trinity. But all we got was an ecumenical council to assert otherwise. Does Pope Benedict need to infallibly “back up” the council? Or can it stand on its own?
Just on what you’ve said here, I’m inclined to agree with both A Sinner and Robert. It seems to me to be a very passive approach to the Magisterium, as if Catholics should just be open to anything until the Magisterium explicitly steps in, rather than taking rational responsibility and assessing the actual evidence of what has been taught everywhere, always, by the whole Church.
I also worry that we’ve actually been here before. This is fairly similar to one Jansenist argument against their opponents, and the problem then as now is that taken to its conclusion (1) it seems to make infallibility an otiose doctrine, useless to anyone who doesn’t have it, because it requires infinite regress — every decree and definition has to be interpreted even to be read, and thus infallible definitions end up being infinitely removed from anyone who cannot guarantee, not just the infallibility of the definition, but of its interpretation, and the interpretation’s interpretation, and the interpretation of the interpretation’s interpretation, ad infinitum; and (2) it seems to converge on fideism, by refusing to recognize the real authority (however much less this authority may be than the most solemn judgments of the Church), and thus the real responsibility, of faith-informed reason.
There are analogous problems in other areas of epistemology. Take any truth that is as certainly and necessarily true as a truth can be — e.g., Butler’s “Everything is what it is and is not some other thing.” But obviously your judgment and mine doesn’t have the modal force of being as certainly and necessarily true as a truth can be. But if we take the position there that is analogous to the one you give here, then we get two similar results: (1) certainty and necessity end up being useless terms because we aren’t omniscient — since an omniscient being is the only one whose own judgment that a truth is certain and necessary is itself certain and necessary; and (2) everything veers toward at least moderate skepticism (of which fideism is the theological counterpart) — this point was laid out rather nicely in David Hume’s Treatise on Human Nature, Book I, Part 4, Section 1 (being himself a moderate skeptic, Hume approves, but the argument raises some serious points).
So I suppose the questions that would be needed to make sense of how your proposal would be viable are (1) how would anyone, on your view, ever actually know the real content of even an infallible definition without an infinite series of infallible definitions, and (2) what benefit, on your view, the Holy Spirit could possibly be giving the Church by giving infallible teaching authority to the Church.
Kelly, This is very thought provoking. Since my background is in psychology I wonder about the intrapersonal and interpersonal dynamics of the development of dogma associated with what becomes officially infallible vs what can be argued as interpretation. I am ignorant in the areas of theology and philosophy but since becoming aware of VN several years ago I have developed a passion to explore the psychology of these subjects. Intense doubt arises in me concerning the “infallibility” of the priestly orders for men, for example, when I think of the limitations associated with a lack of a complete understanding of the nature of women and men, especially, when this teaching is the result of the male’s reflections of historical events.
I now wonder that there might be some unconscious influence that inhibits the clear expression of infallibility due to the ambiguity of the particular teaching in question. Could that inhibition be the influence of the Holy Spirit?
“how would anyone, on your view, ever actually know the real content of even an infallible definition without an infinite series of infallible definitions”
Exactly. Brandon’s points are just what I meant by a “creeping infallibilism”…it makes the whole charism functionally useless.
Sinner, Robert & Brandon,
When exercised extraordinarily, through either an ecumenical council, or on those occasions when the Pope speaks ex cathedra, however rare these moments might be, they are straight-forward in identifying. Canon 749 states that “no doctrine is understood to be infallibly defined unless it is clearly established as such.”
The “problem” arises when it comes to the ordinary exercise of the universal magisterium. While it is true that a teaching can be understood as being a revealed truth, or as being connected with a revealed truth, through this ordinary exercise, the criteria towards such an understanding are more open to interpretation than in the extraordinary exercise.
The trained generally agree on this. Take, for example, the 1969 work by Rahner & Lehmann entitled “Kerygma and Dogma,” where they identify their view that the extraordinary exercise of the magisterium bestows a higher degree of certitude on a teaching’s dogmatic status, than does the ordinary exercise of the universal magisterium.” This seems obvious to me.
Regarding the ordinary and universal magisterium, it is suggested that envisioned in paragraph 25 of Lumen gentium are scenarios wherein it is evident that the Pope and the Catholic bishops all over the world are in agreement that a particular teaching is to be definitively held as a matter of the Catholic faith. Criteria such as this are open to legitimate and diverse interpretation. For example, how are we to demonstrate the whole Catholic episcopate is authoritatively teaching the same thing? Even if no Bishop were to contradict a particular teaching, could “consent” really be promoted as that demonstration, or would consent simply have resulted from passive reception? As Rahner notes in his commentary on Articles 18-27 of Lumen Gentium (vol.1 of the Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II), the Vatican Fathers did not “take up the difficult question, which can be of practical consequences at times, of how this specifically qualified unanimity is to be ascertained by the faithful who are bound to believe.”
I intentionally cited Dulles, and his own expression of difficulty in understanding how the canonization of saints might fall within the second gradation. I don’t fault him for not being satisfied with the strength of the case before him. I believe he can legitimately differ from his two fellow Cardinals (one of whom, by 2007, had become Pope), even if I haven’t studied the issue sufficiently to agree with him.
There really is no higher degree of certitude than Faith, though. If I choose to assent in Faith to the doctrine about the ordination of women…then I’m either actually responding to the supernatural grace of Faith, or I’m not. Yet that’s the ironic thing about all Faith; though Faith itself is infallibly certain (as a supernatural virtue), we can only ever have moral certitude that we do, in fact, have divine faith rather than just a human faith that resembles it (since divine Faith is, ultimately, a grace). Yet, we don’t stay up at night worrying about this, nor do we let it let us dissent.
I don’t think it’s just “all the bishops today” either. I think the universal magisterium implies “at all times” to. And if you look at the history of the Church, it’s clear that there was never any significant school of belief that women could be ordained priests and that up until this century, almost anyone would have just laughed at you.
If the standard of “universality” is any higher than this, it is rendered practically useless…and at that point, why would the guarantee of infallibility to the ordinary and universal magisterium even exist??
Sinner, in 1978, Grisez and Ford made the argument you are making about “at all times,” suggesting that if one were to look at the history of the Church, prior to the early 1960′s, there never existed significant belief countering the one the Church was teaching about contraception.
It’s a fair enough claim I suppose, but they were writing in 1978. What made the early 1960′s the cut off? By 1978, there did exist significant belieft countering this, and thus looking back from 1978, and choosing to make the early 1960′s their cut-off date seemed a bit arbitrary.
(I’m not suggesting that the counter arguments were valid, or that the Church is wrong in teaching what it does about artificially preventing birth, but you can’t say “there has been no dispute prior to ________” when the date you have chosen is so obviously prior to the emergence of dispute).
As for certitude, we’re not talking about faith, we’re talking about ecclesial weight. Obviously, we can haver more certitude in the eccleial weight of a solemn judgment than we can in a strongly worded encyclical, for example, the latter of which, short of a solemn judgment, will be the subject of a conversation about it weight.
There is no cut-off date, really, though, except the Age of the Apostles itself. I’m not proposing that. I’d say that doctrine can only get more strict, not less. There can be debate which eventually zeroes in on a teaching (say, the Immaculate Conception), or a question which has never been asked before arising and needing an answer, and this perhaps is the real reason why we have extraordinary definitions (every teaching that is defined was not necessarily part of the O&UM beforehand).
But then there’s also situations where there was never any debate until a certain point…and it is those which are suspect and cannot be admitted. We can “close down” on dogma, but we can never “open up.” So something being taught universally “all along” up to ANY point in history makes it covered by the ordinary and universal magisterium. It doesn’t matter if it’s 1960, 1500, 500, or 150. If there’s ever been a chain of unanimity going back to the beginning, then that’s ordinary and universal magisterium. That at some point (any point) a novelty emerges and starts spreading among the bishops does not break the universality, because the novel teaching has no “provenance” going back to the Apostles in the way that an unbroken chain (up to ANY given year) clearly does and demonstrates.
I’m no theologian, so my observations are limited, but it seems to me that apostolic tradition with regard to limiting ordination to men is on a fundamentally different plane from apostolic pronouncements on matters of faith and morals. I mean, isn’t it possible that some traditions are traditions only in the sense that that’s just the way things were done in apostolic times, not that that’s the way they have to be done forever more?
Throughout the history of the Church, this tradition has been reaffirmed time and again, but for no other reason than that’s just the way it’s always been. No pope reaffirming it has offered any better explanation than that. It’s a circular argument at best, and for that reason alone, troubling. Slavery was similarly upheld at one time for no better reason than that the apostles allowed it, although most believed with Paul that it was not a practice that would continue in the Kingdom. Paul taught that, “in Christ,” there is “neither slave nor free man,” but also “neither male nor female.”
Women were at one time ordained as deacons, even in the West, with the power to baptize and serve female catechumens; they just couldn’t hold decision-making or liturgical positions, which would have been at odds with the larger culture. But cultures change, even as the Church remains stuck in time with regard to this practice, forced to uphold what seems (or seems to seem) even to those upholding it an embarrassingly misogynist position, for no better reason than that any tradition upheld through the centuries as “coming from the apostles” is “infallibly taught” because it came from the apostles.
In other words, with all due respect, I think the solution to the problem — and for many if not most Catholics today, it IS a problem — should be found in rethinking what is and what is not infallible in “apostolic tradition,” rather than disputing the differences between ordinary and ex cathedra magisteria. But then, I’m no theologian. Moreover, according to apostolic tradition, I should have no opinion unless it comes to me from a husband, which renders me lacking on two fronts.:)
Deaconesses are a potentially different question, though whether their ordination was a Sacrament or “merely” a “sacramental” is really somewhat of a moot point given that deacons receive no particular “new” sacramental powers upon ordination.
Nevertheless, a new teaching cannot be introduced. There is no traditio of priestesses in the Church. It just hasn’t been handed down, and certainly very early in history, there has been a magisterial unanimity in that. If it has started to break a little recently, that is only a novelty that cannot claim any sort of provenance going back to the beginning. If it were ever ambiguous earlier on whether this was a teaching or just, like, a cultural practice…the development at some point in history of a universal consensus on the matter breaks any possibility of ever reversing that. Once a teaching has been “closed down” on, it cannot be reopened.
As for slavery, I simply find it laughable how moderns so self-righteously condemn the idea when we have the equivalent, different perhaps in degree but not nature. Cardinal Dulles did a great study on this. For me it would boil down to: how are you defining slavery? If you mean a social institution whereby, in societies of class-stability and economic immobility, there were certain reciprocal (though unequal) relationships between a class of managers and another class that owed them labor in exchange for the necessities of life…I’d have to say that this could be applied to a variety of situations today. Are minors slaves to their guardians? In WHAT aspect exactly do you see the evil of “slavery” (a broad and ambiguous term). Is it the inability to decide not to work for a given person? The inability to change location of domicile?
“I think the solution to the problem — and for many if not most Catholics today, it IS a problem — should be found in rethinking what is and what is not infallible in ‘apostolic tradition,’”
That’s not up to us, though? And even then, where would we stop? If a hundred years from now people suddenly got angry at the Immaculate Conception, should we then all have a vote and say “not Apostolic!”? And again, what about Arianism? They didn’t think the teaching of Jesus as God was Apostolic. Do we shrug our shoulders at them?
“I mean, isn’t it possible that some traditions are traditions only in the sense that that’s just the way things were done in apostolic times, not that that’s the way they have to be done forever more?”
This would seem to be the position adopted by the Cardinal Primate of Portugal. I guess one advantage of getting old (he is 75) is that you can speak your mind freely.
It just doesn’t work that way. The fact that for at least one moment in history (and, really, it was more like hundreds of years) all the bishops in the world agreed that it was impossible (even if you’re someone who believes that there was some early ambiguity on the question) means that the teaching of the possibility cannot be real. We cannot “revive” teachings, doctrine doesn’t work that way. If a teaching is ever “lost” (ie, there is a generation where it not handed down, where any possible ‘traditio’ of it is broken) we can never “discover” it later. It has to come to us, at least implicitly, from the hands of the apostles. And if at any given point in history the opposite was explicitly taught by the whole magisterium…it can’t be a true teaching, because it wasn’t “handed down to” us. Even claims of the possibility being implicit (inasmuch as the apostles never said it was impossible explicitly, they just didnt do it) is excluded as a possibility by the fact that, at a certain point in history, any such implicit allowance for it was excluded by the entire magisterium being against it (thus breaking any chain of “handing down” that could be claimed for it)
Well for that matter, no official statement, solemnly defined, identifies the three gradations at all. There is no infallible decree stating that there are three gradations of Church teaching.
So obviously we are expected to submit to Church teachings even when they’re not infallible.
Otherwise, we would all be free to dissent from the teaching that there are three gradations of Church teaching. In other words, we would be at liberty to believe that all teachings are equally authoritative and commanding of assent.
Funny how some people want to *insist* that Catholics accept that there are three gradations of teaching, yet at the same time demand to be at liberty (if need be) to disagree with teachings of the second and third gradations — when the teaching of the three gradations *itself* is of the second or third gradation at best! : )
On a tangent (but concerning a topic discussed in the OP): I may be wrong — but if I am I will be corrected so I’ll say it anyway — but I suspect that the teaching on the reservation of priestly ordination to men is of a higher gradation than the teaching of the three gradations. So if we must accept the latter, then surely we must also accept the former.
Agellius,
It’s not about “insist”ing on three gradations (who, please tell, is doing this?). The trained, however, generally agree that the revised Profession of Faith has provided a helpful framework in articulating distinction or varying weights.
Further, it’s not even about disagreeing with the teachings of the second and third gradations. It’s about differences of opinion as to what constitutes a particular teaching’s status as part of a particular gradation. The whole point of this post was that when it comes to the ordinary and universal magisterium settling those differences of opinion is not the easiest task.
The post is motivated by the peculiarity I encounted in Dulles when, in his 2007 work “Magisterium: Teaching Authority in the Catholic Church,” he expresses his own difficulty in understanding how, for example, the canonization of saints might fall within the second gradation. Although taking issue with what has been interpreted as being connected to divine revelation by historical necessity, Dulles strangely accuses other theologians of “evasion” when they claim that a particular teaching, let us say the reservation of priestly orders to men, has not been definitively taught, and instead belongs to as third gradation.
I think a legitimate point is being raised in my post, and I don’t see it dealt with.
K.