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Notes -
Since you invited a debate, here it goes:
There is a distinction in Catholicism between an infallible statement in a fallible church document. What I mean by this is a Council is only speaking infallibly when it states something in a particular formula. Usually it goes like, "We affirm, with our magisterial authority, that all inside the universal Church are bound to X." That kind of statement, and only that statement, is considered infallible. The surrounding logic or justification is not infallible. The entire document is not infallible. Things the author has said about what they meant when they stated it is not infallible. Catholic doctrine is Textualist, not Originalist.
The infallible statement in the Council of Florence is:
Sounds pretty clear-cut? Only card-carrying Catholics in Heaven? Aright, now square this statement with the more ancient belief in the Harrowing of Hell. For this statement to be infallibly professed, it also needs to be in accordance with prior infallible statements that Abraham, Elijah, and others that predated Christ are in Heaven.
Did no one see that contradiction? Actually, there has been a long history of including people inside the Church who would be very surprised to learn they were in the Catholic Church, being saved by participation in the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church this whole time!
When it comes to salvation for people not visibly Catholic, Vatican II didn't say anything unusual or novel. Invincible ignorance has predated Vatican 2 also and was supported by some popes you'd be surprised by. All Vatican 2 did was reaffirm it.
Pope Pius IX wrote in his encyclical Quanto Conficiamur Moeroe, predating Vatican II:
I would just read Florence as talking about after the coming of Christ.
I don't think the passage from Florence is talking about the invisible church (yes, I know Catholics don't like talking about the distinction, but it's literally the issue at hand here). The statement would be rather vacuous. Rather, it makes more sense, especially given the preceding sentence, to read "unity of the ecclesiastical body" as talking about a visible unity, as that is the common feature of jews, heretics and schismatics. Similarly, shedding one's blood for Christ would seem to have in mind that the people in question at least consider themselves Christians. You said you're a textualist, there's your text.
This also makes sense in historical context. Florence was supposed to be the big victory, where everyone was unified again. They clearly very had the unity of the ecclesiastical body in an outward, institutional sense on mind frequently at the council. It would be weird to me, that being the case, if that were not the case here.
Anyway, I think there are a bunch of passages from official documents that are hard to square with an invisible church:
Constance condemns Hus' statement:
The condemned line seems pretty in line with at least your fourth quote.
(Side note, since I'm at that document: I have no idea how the fourth condemnation of Hus, that for some reason you may not say, "The two natures, the divinity and the humanity, are one Christ," despite very similar language in the Athanasian creed is defensible.)
Further, in Unigenitus, the following are condemned:
That reads to me as rejecting the church being something ethereal, but is rather a visible body. Also, maybe not okay with Christ being the head of the church? That's weird to me if so, but it might just be that it's not okay with a those-alive-in-Christ=church method. But ignoring that Unigenitus condemns all sorts of things I think true, the document would seem to oppose the church being invisible in the senses that such unity would require.
I get that invincible ignorance has been around for a while. (The motive to have it exist at the time of Florence would be somewhat lower, as they thought they'd united churches throughout the world, and the americas were discovered only later that century. But I'm not familiar with the state of teaching at the time. Maybe I'd want to go see if Torquemada said anything.) (As a side note, from your quote, does Pius IX think there are people not guilty of deliberate sin? That's kind of extreme, at least, to the Protestant ear.)
Anyway, Florence, in the same document, seems also to require knowledge of Christ at least in some vague sense: "It firmly believes, professes, and teaches that no one conceived of man and woman was ever freed of the domination of the Devil, except through the merit [so said the one English website. But the Latin text I saw was "fidem," faith.] of the mediator between God and men, our Lord Jesus Christ; He who was conceived without sin, was born and died, through His death alone laid low the enemy of the human race by destroying our sins, and opened the entrance to the kingdom of heaven, which the first man by his own sin had lost with all succession; and that He would come sometime, all the sacred rites of the Old Testament, sacrifices, sacraments, and ceremonies disclosed." (That last line should show that "faith" is correct, not merit.)
That said, some, like Aquinas, thought that those who had invincible ignorance and would be saved would be saved through a special revelation of God to them. Does Vatican II still allow for requiring that? I realize that I might be undermining my point here if this is allowing for unity that's not in an ecclesiastical institution.
This part of my reply was lost and I will try to type it up to it's former beauty:
Going back to the Council of Florence, it is interesting that you present a Time-Gated explanation. That is not my explanation, but if it is the implicit assumption you read into the Council Statement then why not make further implicit assumptions? What I mean is, if the statement can be naturally read to signify after the time of Jesus, why couldn't it be implicitly more limited in space-time? Isn't a similarly natural read that the statement is limited to just Christendom at the time of the Council?
That's not my read though. I still stick with the well-attested Church-of-the-elect. This is not the same thing as a belief in an Invisible Church. One way of thinking about it is:
Another way of thinking about it is how St. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 12:15-16, said:
Now consider the Fourth Council of Lateran:
This one is harder to ignore that tension, because in the very same paragraph the authors state two seemingly conflicting things. How is it that there is absolutely no salvation outside the Church, but absolutely anyone can Baptize and this will lead to salvation? I think this demonstrates that the Church isn't overlooking this, it recognizes even back in 1215 before the Council of Florence that there is some sense in which people participate in the Catholic Church without being visible members.
Regarding the "unity of the ecclesiastical body," there is also the line from Unam Santum which is even stronger/more specific:
How does this tie into the "invisibly connected to the visible Church" hypothesis?
Everyone who is saved, is saved through Christ and His Church, whether they know it or not.
Everyone who is saved is saved during this lifetime – there are no second-chances in the afterlife.
The head of the Church on Earth is the Roman Pontiff.
Therefore, everyone saved is saved by spiritual membership in the Church Militant, in which they are subject to the Pope.
This might sound like a less natural reading of the various texts to you, but it is the most natural reading to me given the way that the Church understood and defined herself. The definition of "Church" is very significant to the text of all these passages and I think it just means something different from what you think.
Because that's not a terribly plausible reading. It's making statements about the necessity of the "unity of the ecclesiastical body." There doesn't really seem to be any reason that would change. Whereas, you might think things like, as you mentioned, the harrowing of hell, would be relevant.
Anyway, I'm not certain that's right, it also seems fine to think of the Church as the continuation of Israel. (Yeah, I get that that's not excessively far from what you're saying.)
Church-of-the-elect is precisely what is meant by invisible church, though. (Or, well, those elect who have been regenerated, depending on your definition.)
I don't find the passage from the fourth Lateran council especially persuasive to what you are arguing. I do not think the baptism is being contemplated as much in settings apart from the church, but rather in cases of emergencies. Would you not say that baptism makes people visible members of the church?
I don't find your analysis of Unam Sanctam compelling. The whole bull's about papal authority. The quote would be better read not as that all the saved are in a sort of mystical subjection, but as talking about living out their life in their proper station—that is, below the pope—in the visible, ecclesiastical hierarchy. Of course, in most cases that won't even involve thinking about the pope, but just day-to-day life, but I do think it's against the backdrop of fitting within a visible churchly structure.
Also, I'd like to note: excellent responses.
I'm not married to that term. I need a word that signifies what the Church means by Catholic Church, and there isn't a good word to use. The Body of Christ. Can I use that phrase?
I think the conflict here is that there is a Visible Church, which sinners and people who will ultimately go to Hell belong to. People can participate in this Visible Church without knowing it, by Baptism or by other means. People who are participating in this Visible Church are possibly going to Heaven but it is not guaranteed, whether they are in the group that knows they are participating in the Visible Church or in the group that does not know they are participating in the Visible Church.
If that holds to your understanding, then great. I think the concern with "Invisible Churches" is that it makes it sound like people who end up in Hell were never part of the Church at all.
The Fourth Lateran Council is more expansive than that and is clearly not talking about emergencies. It is talking about Baptisms being administered by ministers not subject to the Roman Pontiff. It goes further in Cannon 4:
This one is saying in the same breath that the schismatic Greek priests were still able to "offer the sacrifice" i.e. perform a valid Mass and turn bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus. While the council certainly doesn't like schism, it doesn't seem to be preaching that renouncing papal authority removes someone from the "Universal Church of the faithful, outside of which there is absolutely no salvation."
Sure, that's a reasonable enough explanation of the visible church.
I read it as that they are still able to perform valid sacraments, but those sacraments are of no salvific effect, except for those who remain in the Catholic church.
I don't see where you see that the sacraments are not of salvific effect. The council complains that the Greeks are treating the Latins like they defile altars when they offered the Mass, but there is no similar Latin response that treats the Greek sacraments as not salvific . I"m not sure how a valid sacrifice of the Mass cannot be salvific , if understood the Catholic way.
Also, that reading contradicts Cannon 1:
Oh, I was getting that from Florence.
I think it'd still be salvific towards any those in right relation with Rome if they were present and partaking for some reason, but not towards those in schism.
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I'm glad you recognized there was something a little weird about the Papal Bull Unigenitus. It is really weird to say that Christ is not the Head of the Church! But that's not what it says. (This is going to apply to the Condemnation of John Hus as well.)
In this Genre of Papal Condemnation, you will see a statement that declares multiple levels of condemnation. Some of these levels implies falsehood (false,...,and finally heretical, clearly renewing many heresies respectively and most especially those which are contained in the infamous propositions of Jansen.) Some of these levels does not imply falsehood at all, but merely causes offense/scandal (captious, evil-sounding, offensive to pious ears, scandalous, pernicious, rash,...insulting not only to the Church but also the secular powers.) No statement has every condemnation leveled against it. You can tell this because the condemnation at the bottom of Unigenitus includes "suspected of heresy, and smacking of heresy itself,..., close to heresy, many times condemned, and finally heretical." Every single item cannot be both suspected of heresy, close to heresy, and simultaneously heretical. That would be a contradiction.
The John Hus condemnation similarly has categories for "many things that are scandalous, offensive to the ears of the devout, rash and seditious." This doesn't mean false.
Why not list out exactly what level of condemnation each statement falls into? Because the Pope/Council wasn't going through the effort to define new teaching or to clear up a theological debate. They just wanted to say, "This guy sucks, his writing sucks, and no Catholic should read this garbage."
I think the statements you copied here would qualify under "offensive to pious ears." Why is that? Because they were made in the context of open rebellion against the Catholic Church. Someone who made those statements from the position of submission to the authority of the Church would not be labeled offensive to pious ears.
Unfortunately he's not responding to my ouiji board (just kidding!) I think it could be a response to a pure hypothetical. “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes, what if the number of the righteous is five less than fifty? Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five people?”
At the same time, he might have a stricter understanding of deliberate sin than you. A deliberate sin is one that someone fully understands is wrong and does it anyways out of their own free will, no coercion. There may indeed be some people who fall under this category, through the Grace of God, particularly those under the age of 7.
Also, a careful reading of the statement shows that he is positively declaring that this specific category can get to heaven, he's not defining people outside this category as incapable of arriving in Heaven. There may be others who have committed deliberate sins but achieved sufficient contrition to be forgiven those sins, who also go to Heaven. He's just not commenting on that aspect at this time.
Yes, it allows that theory, but does not require Aquinas' pious opinion to be held by all. One thing this reminds me of is Sr. Faustina's visions. She wrote, “God’s mercy sometimes touches the sinner at the last moment in a wondrous and mysterious way. Outwardly, it seems as if everything were lost, but it is not so. The soul, illumined by a ray of God’s powerful final grace, turns to God in the last moment with such a power of love that, in an instant, it receives from God absolution of sins and remission of punishment, while outwardly it shows no sign either of repentance or of contrition, because souls [at that stage] no longer react to external things. Oh, how beyond comprehension is God’s mercy! But – horror! – There are also souls who voluntarily and consciously reject and scorn this grace!”
Fair point about the condemnations not being that every statement is heretical.
But I think it's still useful to try to figure out, at least, why they are wrong (or scandalous, etc.). How would you characterize the problems with 74 and 75?
(To check context: the one is on 1 Tim 3:16. The other is on Ephesians 2:14-16. Both from here. Quesnel's a good writer.)
Kids do things that they know are wrong all the time. 7 is far too high an age. But point taken, I suppose. That does not seem to be what Vatican II is contemplating, though (but I get that your last sentence of that section allows for that).
I think I already explained, I don't think 74 or 75 is wrong. Instead, it was scandalous for someone to use scripture to justify their schism from the Church.
I also explained that this wasn't a teaching document, so the writers didn't feel any need to explain exactly what they didn't like about each statement. There is at least one heretical proposition in the entire document. Heaven knows what it is. (Actually, it's clearly 10-16. Those are Jansenist heresies.)
He wasn't using scripture in 74 and 75 to justify schism. It's from a devotional commentary on the new testament. I was asking what you judged the problems to be. It doesn't seem wrong, and it doesn't seem offensive-sounding to me currently, whether in the passages written by Quesnel, or isolated.
That was an embarrassing error on my part! Thank you for not making a "Catholic's can't read the Bible" joke (even though we're discussing the very document most often used to make such a claim.
Though that I made that mistake is demonstrative of something. They are such anodyne statements to me I didn't second guess when I thought you said they were direct Bible quotes.
So let's look at 74: The Church or the whole Christ has the Incarnate Word as head but all the saints as members.
Does it imply exclusivity? Is it saying that non-Saints cannot be members of the Church? Catholics would believe that sinners here on Earth are also a part of the Church. (And all sinners here on Earth are at risk of being damned, even if they are part of the Church.) Even if that's not what Quesnel meant to imply, maybe it was being read that way.
Part of the problem with going back to these blanket condemnations is that we don't have the same vibe they did at the time. These statements aren't all being condemned as incorrect, they are being condemned as stirring up offense, scandal, and controversy. Consider a Scissor Statement, or the phrase "One man’s modus ponens is another man’s modus tollens." Something might be truly stated, and even used in other teachings as infallible, but still cause controversy based on how different groups read it.
75 also seems to have that ambiguity that might indicate only the Saints are members of the Church.
Well, you've overall been outclassing me in this, so it is forgiven.
Ah, that would suffice.
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I'm a well-above-average-informed protestant, but whenever I hear all you "serious" Catholics talking about your beliefs/church politics, I have no idea what you all are talking about. Is there a good "Catholicism for protestants" book that I should read?
(I'd prefer something beyond a Catholicism-for-dummies level treatment. I've read the bible multiple times and many non-canonical early writings in their original languages. I can read Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. I'm familiar with the broad outlines of church history, but definitely weakest in the post-Constantine pre-reformation era. My goal would be to really understand the way a typical priest/bishop/etc views their work and how that's different than protestant leaders. I don't want to just learn a set of facts that I could get from reading wikipedia articles. Maybe a good biography of a recent Catholic "politician" might fit the bill, I'm not sure.)
I've mostly gotten my own knowledge from reading Reformation-era Protestant polemics, looking things up online, and spending a whole lot of time around Catholics, and talking about theology with them.
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When we get past the "Cathocism for Dummies" levels, it's really hard to find a book that's a one-stop shop. Here are a few topical books that might be interesting:
Mother Angelica : the remarkable story of a nun, her nerve, and a network of miracles - Biography of a nun who made the first Catholic broadcast TV network. It gives an interesting portrayal of the Church in the second half of the 20th century.
True Confessions: Voices of Faith from a Life in the Church - Recent book that came out that interviews dozens of Catholics in the American Church. From the blurb: "True Confessions is unique for its frank and in-depth interviews with 103 bishops, clergy, religious, and lay men and women from various backgrounds over a 17-month period, December 2020 through May 2022."
Fundamentals of catholic dogma - An encyclopedia used in seminaries. While the entries are helpful, the introduction has really helped me understand the different layers to Catholic Teaching and what levels of authority they hold.
An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine - Essential to understand how Catholics view the continuity of doctrine, from ancient times to the present day.
The early papacy to the synod of Chalcedon in 451 - This book describes the limits Catholics place on Papal authority.
Hope at least one of these helps, let me know if you want to know more on a different topic.
Thank you very much for the detailed suggestions! These definitely look like they're on the right track for me.
(Sorry I don't have much else to add now. I feel like a comment like yours that required some real effort deserves a longer reply, but I don't have anything to reply yet without having had a chance to read your recommendations.)
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Any recommended books on Pope Pius IX? He seems to me to be the last / greatest truly anti-Modern pope, and I think a lot of the RadTrads are trying to find a way to draw a straight line back to him.
To be honest, this is not one of my obsessions so my advice will mostly be what I think looks good on Google. I did pull a quote from him in the above comment, partly because of the punch it packs coming from such a "conservative" figure (if that word can be used to describe a pope from over a century ago.)
You can read his own writings at https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-ix/en.html, though you'll probably need the help of Google Translate.
I would trust this book published by Angelus Press to provide a faithful Catholic perspective: https://angeluspress.org/products/pius-ix-the-man-and-the-myth.
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