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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   28302 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 24, 2024

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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:

These individuals are invisibly connected to the visibile Church. A way of understanding this is to think of an American living in Paris. America is a visible place, with actual defined borders: she’s not just an invisible ideal of freedom, although her visible reality exists to support invisible notions (American values) as well as visible people (citizens, primarily). These individuals are living outside of the visible borders of America, yet are every bit as American as those of us living within her borders, and they might even be more patriotic.

Another way of thinking about it is how St. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 12:15-16, said:

If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body.

Now consider the Fourth Council of Lateran:

There is one Universal Church of the faithful, outside of which there is absolutely no salvation. In which there is the same priest and sacrifice, Jesus Christ, whose body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the forms of bread and wine; the bread being changed (transsubstantiatio) by divine power into the body, and the wine into the blood, so that to realize the mystery of unity we may receive of Him what He has received of us. And this sacrament no one can effect except the priest who has been duly ordained in accordance with the keys of the Church, which Jesus Christ Himself gave to the Apostles and their successors. But the sacrament of baptism, which by the invocation of each Person of the Trinity, namely of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, is effected in water, duly conferred on children and adults in the form prescribed by the Church by anyone whatsoever, leads to salvation.

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:

“Furthermore, we declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff.

How does this tie into the "invisibly connected to the visible Church" hypothesis?

  1. Everyone who is saved, is saved through Christ and His Church, whether they know it or not.

  2. Everyone who is saved is saved during this lifetime – there are no second-chances in the afterlife.

  3. The head of the Church on Earth is the Roman Pontiff.

  4. 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.

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?

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.)

This is not the same thing as a belief in an Invisible Church.

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.

Church-of-the-elect is precisely what is meant by invisible church, though.

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:

After the Church of the Greeks with some of her accomplices and supporters had severed herself from the obedience of the Apostolic See, to such an extent did the Greeks begin hating the Latins that among other things which they impiously committed derogatory to the Latins was this, that when Latin priests had celebrated upon their altars, they would not offer the sacrifice upon those altars till the altars had first been washed, as if by this they had been defiled.”

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:

by anyone whatsoever, leads to salvation

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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