Allow me to continue where I left off last month. The dispute and the contradictions inherent in the "Declaration on the Unicity and Salvific Universality of Jesus Christ and the Church" illustrate very effectively that the crux of the present day crisis in the Church is in fact that the notion of the Church has changed. The modernists call it the New Ecclesiology. Pope John Paul II made no bones about it in the Apostolic Constitution introducing the 1983 Code of Canon Law:

Indeed in a certain way, this new Code can be understood as a great effort to transfer this doctrine (i.e., the ecclesiological doctrine of Vatican II), that is Conciliar ecclesiology, into canonical language.

He goes on to explain that the reason for the novelty in the New Code is to be found in its ecclesiological doctrine, which finds its culmination in the practice of Ecumenism, but also in the democratic anti-authoritarian view of the Church as the people of God, in which hierarchical authority is to be considered as a "service", rather than a right to command and demand obedience, in which the Church is to be regarded as a vague "communion", in which collegiality and Papal primacy balance one another out, and in which the priesthood of the faithful is practically to be considered as equal in importance with the sacramental priesthood.

Saint Pius X had described the same way of thinking of the Modernist school:

"What, then, is the Church? It is the product of the collective conscience, that is to say of the association of individual consciences which, by virtue of the principal of vital permanence, depend all on one first believer, who for Catholics is Christ…Authority, therefore, like the Church, has its origin in the religious conscience, and, that being so, is subject to it…It is for the ecclesiastic authority, therefore, to adopt a democratic form, unless it wishes to provoke and foment an intestine conflict in the consciences of mankind…Such is the situation of the Modernists, and their one great anxiety is, in consequence, to find a way of conciliation between the authority of the Church and the liberty of the believers." (Pascendi, §23)

It is the same attempt at reconciling opposites that we find in the new ecclesiology: the authority and visible structure must be maintained (as in the recent Declaration) precisely in order to impose a new democratic conception of the Church that will not infringe on the liberty of the believer to follow the subconscious God within him, that is to follow his own will and desires. Liberalism is triumphant precisely because the liberals of our times, like the modernists of a century ago, are much too calculating to do away with the Church’s authority. It is precisely through and in the name of that authority that they are able to impose a mutable conception of the Church, derived from the collective conscience of the people of God. Clearly, then that authority will inveigh against any person or group who refuses to be a part of this ever-changing liberty of belief and expression, and who refuses to accept that it is right simply because it is protected by authority. Clearly this is our situation.

The sedevacantists do not take this into account. They maintain that since Pope John Paul II is an ecumenist, he is a heretic and not a Catholic at all. We all know that ecumenism is a product of modernism, and that Saint Pius X defined modernism "to be the synthesis of all heresies", indicating that "their system means the destruction not of the Catholic religion alone, but of all religion." (Pascendi, §39)

However, this does not mean that everybody who is influenced by modernism is automatically a heretic and outside of the Church. This is precisely the logical conclusion that the modernists always refused to draw, which is why Saint Pius X did not excommunicate everybody affected by this heresy, but only its primary promoters. The others were simply excluded from any function in teaching or government (Ib. §48). This is reiterated in Canon 2317 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law, which states that those who teach with pertinacity (i.e., knowingly and willingly) doctrines condemned by the Holy See and by the Councils, but which are not condemned as formally heretical propositions, are to be excluded from every sacred function, although they are not to be considered as formal heretics.

There is a reason for this, and it is that there are degrees with which the Church’s teachings can be denied, until ultimately formal heresy is arrived at. Material heresy, or the unwitting denial of a dogma of Faith does not exclude from the Church, for there is no pertinacity in the material heretic. Canon 1325, §2 defines the heretic as one who pertinaciously denies or doubts any dogma defined as having to be believed by divine and Catholic Faith. This is a formal heretic. There are many lesser sins against the Faith. The operative word here is pertinaciously, which is defined by Bouscaren and Ellis as "with conscious and intentional resistance to the authority of God and the Church" (p. 685). This means that for a heretic to be a formal heretic, he must refuse submission to the Church’s authority, after having been reprimanded by it. And this is precisely why we cannot presume pertinacity on the part of those modernists who believe in the Church’s authority at the same time as they infiltrate it to push their own liberal agenda.

The Pope’s approval of Dominus Jesus is but one further demonstration that he certainly does teach and maintain the Church’s authority, despite his claim that the Church’s commitment to ecumenism is "irrevocable". It is indeed on account of this maintaining of the Church’s authority that neither Protestants nor Jews really trust his commitment to Ecumenism, as was recently demonstrated. It further follows from this that, despite his refusal to transmit the deposit of the Faith contained in Tradition concerning the Catholic Church, identical to the one true Church, outside of which there is no salvation, any attempt to accuse him of conscious and intentional resistance to the authority of the Church is a rash judgment. Not that he IS the authority of the Church, as many people think, but that he defends and bases himself upon the Church’s authority for bringing about the constant evolution that is the basis of modernism. Furthermore, there is clearly no higher human authority to rebuke him, to authoritatively correct him, and to whom he is bound to submit in questions of Faith. Consequently, although John Paul II is deliberately introducing novelties, a new ecclesiology, and changing the Church from within, he does it always, under the guise of the Church’s authority, and consequently without pertinacity. He cannot be judged as being a formal heretic. Furthermore, as Prummer says, "in doubt as to whether one is a formal or a material heretic, then he is presumed to be a material heretic" (Vol. I, p. 365).

Hence our duty to pray for Pope John Paul II as the Sovereign Pontiff at the same time as we refuse his personal errors, that he continues to disseminate in a non-infallible way by introducing them into his authentic Magisterium. They are not a part of the deposit of the Faith, and the charisma of infallibility means that the Holy Ghost will never allow him to define them as such, although it will not prevent from uttering personal foolishness. Be wary, therefore, of the schismatic mentality of the sedevacantists, who become true schismatics inasmuch as they pretend to be the only Catholics left, and refuse to be in communion with the Pope, and submit to him inasmuch as he teaches Catholic truth, and to be in communion with other Catholics who are not formal heretics. (Canon 1325,§2) It is our duty to care and pray for the Church as a whole, for the Novus Ordo Catholics with whom we are in contact or who exist in our families, for as long as they do not deny the Church’s authority with pertinacity, nor can we presume this mortal sin, given the infiltration of modernism into that authority. There are certainly many nominal Catholics who are formal heretics, but it is not for us to make such a judgment in any particular case.

However, this said we must never close our eyes to the reality that many within the Church, who may not be formal heretics, are deliberately attacking and destroying from within the one, holy Spouse of Our Divine Savior, the Mystical Body. This is the hard reality, not black and white, but in shades of gray, that we have to face up to, and which makes the combat for the Faith all the more difficult.

May this Advent be a time of rejuvenating our desire to stay close to the Divine Infant, present in the crib, on our altars and in our hearts, and may the devotion to His Sacred Humanity under the eucharistic species ever draw our hearts to heaven.

Yours faithfully in the Immaculate Heart of Mary,

Fr. Peter R. Scott