Second Vatican Council II does not agree with Tradition for Archbishop Gerhard Muller

Archbishop Gerhard Muller has given the Society of St.Pius X (SSPX) a dead line to accept ,a document, which requires them to 'recognize the magisterium is the authentic interpreter of Tradition and that the Second Vatican Council agrees with Tradition'.

The document required Lefebvrians to recognise that the magisterium is the authentic interpreter of Tradition, that the Second Vatican Council agrees with Tradition and that the post-conciliar liturgical reform promulgated by Paul VI was not only valid but legitimate as well. These conditions were discussed during the Fraternity's General Chapter in July 2012, but no response came from Rome. Lefebvrian leaders gave various statements and interviews in which they implied that it was difficult for them to accept the conditions laid out by the Holy See.(Emphasis added) from La Stampa

Bishop Gerhard Muller endorsed a leftist, irrational version of Vatican Council II in an interview with Edward Pentin.He indicated that those saved in invincible ignorance are exceptions to the dogma. So for him the dogma is no more relevant for the present times.Invisible cases saved in invincible ignorance are exceptions.LG 16 is a break with the past.

A rational German Archbishop and Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) is saying that he can physically see the dead saved in invincible ignorance. Otherwise how could invisible cases be an exception to the dogma ?

This is the irrational, political version of the Council which the SSPX has to accept by February 22,2013.

For Archbishop Muller, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith the magisterium made a mistake in the Letter of the Holy Office 1949 issued to the Archbishop of Boston during the pontificate of Pope Pius XII. Since invincible ignorance etc are visible to us he assumes that this was also the position of the cardinal who issued the Letter. The Letter would be criticial of Fr.Leonard Feeney for not accepting invincible ignorance and the baptism of desire as exceptions to his literal, traditional interpretation of the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus.

We know that there is no physically known case of salvation in Heaven which is visible to us on earth in 2013. The dead are not visible. So the CDF Prefect is interpreting Vatican Council II and the Letter of the Holy Office with this irrationality.For him LG 16 would be an exception to extra ecclesiam nulla salus implying the dead saved are visible.

It is his irrationality which is being put forward by the magisterium today and they want the SSPX to accept it with the promise of giving them an Ordinariate.

This is not just a break with the past it is heresy.

Here are the relevant texts from the interview given by Archbishop Gerhard Muller to Edward Pentin of the National Catholic Register.

'Do you, nevertheless, accept there’s been a weakening of the Church’s teaching because of this underlying confusion of terminology? One example sometimes cited is that the teaching of “no salvation outside the Church” seems to have become less prominent.

That has been discussed, but here, too, there has been a development of all that was said in the Church, beginning with St. Cyprian, one of the Fathers of the Church, in the third century. Again, the perspective is different between then and now. In the third century, some Christian groups wanted to be outside the Church, and what St. Cyprian said is that without the Church a Christian cannot be saved. The Second Vatican Council also said this: Lumen Gentium 14 says: “Whosoever, therefore, knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ, would refuse to enter or to remain in it, could not be saved.” He who is aware of the presence of Revelation is obliged by his conscience to belong publicly — and not only in his conscience, in his heart — to this Catholic Church by remaining in communion with the Pope and those bishops in communion with him.

But we cannot say that those who are inculpably ignorant of this truth are necessarily condemned for that reason. We must hope that those who do not belong to the Church through no fault of their own, but who follow the dictates of their God-given conscience, will be saved by Jesus Christ whom they do not yet know. Every person has the right to act according to his or her own conscience. However, if a Catholic says today, “I am going to put myself outside the Church,” we would have to respond that without the Church that person is in danger of losing salvation.

Therefore, we must always examine the context of these statements. The problem that many people have is that they are linking statements of doctrine from different centuries and different contexts — and this cannot be done rationally without a hermeneutic of interpretation. We need a theological hermeneutic for an authentic interpretation, but interpretation does not change the content of the teaching. (1)
The Second Vatican Council also said this: Lumen Gentium 14 says: “Whosoever, therefore, knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ, would refuse to enter or to remain in it, could not be saved.” He who is aware of the presence of Revelation is obliged by his conscience to belong publicly
— and not only in his conscience, in his heart — to this Catholic Church by remaining in communion with the Pope and those bishops in communion with him.'(2)

The CDF Prefect is unable to say that Vatican Council II agrees with extra ecclesiam nulla salus and the Syllabus of Errors because of the irrationality he uses in the interpretation of magisterial texts. He must first affirm the dogma on exclusive salvation in the Catholic Church . This is Tradition - and it is in agreement with Vatican Council II without the dead man walking premise.
-Lionel Andrades

Lionel,

You need to get the exact text from the interview, otherwise, it is just hearsay. When you find it, please post it here.

I cannot cite the link since this is my first week.
However what the bishop did say is already here.
I could not post the links from my blog which explained the error in detail.
__________________________________________


Daily News
Archbishop Gerhard Müller: 'The Church Is Not a Fortress'

In an exclusive two-part interview with the Register, the new prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith discusses his new job and highlights the Church’s positive message of hope.••
by EDWARD PENTIN 10/02/2012

On July 2, the Vatican announced that Pope Benedict XVI had appointed Bishop Gerhard Müller the new prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, arguably the most influential and prestigious of all the Vatican’s departments. The 64-year-old native of Mainz in central Germany was subsequently elevated to archbishop and made ex officio president of the Pontifical Biblical Commission and the International Theological Commission. He also now heads the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei — the body charged with bringing the Society of St. Pius X into communion with Rome.

In this exclusive interview, given last month at the congregation, Archbishop Müller discusses his new role and how he expects to work with the Holy Father. He also reflects on the Second Vatican Council, discusses the sensitive discussions with the SSPX, explains his statements on Mary and the Eucharist that caused controversy in some quarters, and offers an update on the current situation regarding talks between the congregation and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. (Part 2 can be read here).

How are you settling in to your post, and what are your impressions of it, now that you have arrived in Rome?

So far, so good! We have plenty of work and plenty of problems to resolve, but I am not here for a holiday! I came here to assist the Holy Father and to work for the Kingdom of God. We believe that Jesus Christ founded his Church on the rock of St. Peter. Certainly, the Holy Father relies on the help of the congregations and dicasteries of the Roman Curia, particularly our dicastery, which concerns the promotion of our faith in Jesus Christ, what we believe in the Creed.

You’ve known the Holy Father for some time. What is your working relationship with him like?

We have a professional relationship, and I now have regular audiences with the Holy Father. But before my appointment here, I already had a lot to do with the theologian Joseph Ratzinger, and now I am the editor of his collected works, which hopefully will also be published in English soon.

So we have been linked for a long time, which does help our continued working together. I also worked closely with him on the International Theological Commission, of which he was the president.

Did the appointment come at all as a surprise to you?

Given that I had been a member of this congregation for a number of years, and that I had been a professor of dogmatics for years before that, it was not entirely surprising. There are, of course, plenty of other people who could have been appointed, but I am the editor of his collected works, he knows me very well, and he knows where I stand on things — so the Pope decided to appoint me.

Will the Holy Father be giving you plenty of freedom in your work?

The Holy Father will give me for my part all the freedom I need, and there is no opposition or contradiction, because our respective roles are very clear. The Holy Father is the Successor of Peter, the Vicar of Christ. I am a bishop, and in this position of responsibility, I am charged with assisting the Holy Father in this specific area of competence. The Pope has to defend and promote the Catholic faith; the sole reason for the existence of this congregation is to assist the Holy Father in that task. We are not here to carry out our own activities or make our own judgments apart from him. That would be absolutely contradictory to our mission.

What will be your priorities as prefect, in terms of defending doctrine? Will your main focus, for example, be on post-Christian Europe?

Defending the faith is the second task we have. Our primary role is to promote the faith. The Church is not a fortress, but, rather, a sacrament, a sign, a symbol and an instrument for the salvation for all people. The apostles were sent into the world to preach the Gospel and to edify and instill hope in people. So we are the witnesses and missionaries of that faith, hope and love, and this is the first task of the whole Church.

The role of the congregation, therefore, is first and foremost to support that mission of the whole Church. Obviously, to do that today means that we have to defend the faith from the assault of secularism and materialism, which denies the transcendent dimension of human existence and therefore distorts the ethical, moral and intellectual orientation of society.

The Year of Faith begins Oct. 11. What will be your role during this special year?
There will be the Synod of Bishops regarding the Year of Faith in which I will participate, but, clearly, this congregation has its own priorities. Above all we need to address the challenges posed by the so-called new atheism, which in reality is aggressive in its intolerance of Christianity. The new atheists want to establish a world without God, which we can never accept. The Church needs to regain its confidence and once again find her own role in this world. We need to stop looking inward, towards ourselves, always discussing the same inter-ecclesiastical questions. We must concentrate our forces on the New Evangelization, especially in the old Christian countries of the West, which have lost their way a little.


The 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council also takes place Oct. 11. Some would argue that the Church has been hampered in its mission to evangelize by the confusion that followed the Council. Will there be initiatives during this Year of Faith to help remove some of that confusion?
The problems that we had after the Council were not caused by the Council. The development of the secularist mentality, for instance, had nothing to do with the Council. It came about before the Council, in the 19th century, when we had secularism promoted by liberals who denied the supernatural and saw the Church only in terms of a charitable institution.

But the role of the Church is not only to help in the social field; its secondary mission is to help the bonum commune [the common good]. But the first reason for its existence is to preach the Gospel and thus give hope to the world. Therefore, we have an interlinking between the event of the Council and assault of secularism. The waves of secularism began to undermine the Church long before the Council, but they accumulated into a tsunami at the same time as the great event of the Council. Partly because of this coincidence, a certain type of secularism then found its way into the inner circles of the Church.

The result is that we now not only have secularism coming from outside the Church, but we have a type of liberalism within the Church which has caused us to lose our direction a little. We must look to our own resources — the Scriptures, the Fathers, the dogmatic teachings of the Church — and, like a good captain, steer the way ahead.

As there continues to be a lack of clarity over the Council, particularly in its interpretation, could an encyclical from the Pope clarify matters?

Yes, we need an authentic interpretation of the magisterium of the Council. The Pope offered a good and faithful interpretation of the Council when he said it did not create a new Church. Like every other ecumenical council, Vatican II must be interpreted according to the Tradition, based on Revelation and on Scripture.

The great achievement of Vatican II was that it brought the doctrine of the Church into a whole; it provided an overview. In other words, it didn’t underline only some aspects of doctrine like in other councils, but, rather, summarized the main contents of our belief. What it says in Dei Verbum about divine Revelation, for example, is a summary of all that is said in the magisterium about personal revelation. And in Lumen Gentium we have a comprehensive vision of all the dimensions belonging to ecclesiology, the sacraments founded by Jesus Christ, the hierarchy, the laity, the people of God, the body of Christ, the temple of the Holy Spirit. We have a unified ecclesiology. Also in Gaudium et Spes and in other documents, we can say that the Second Vatican Council collected together the basic elements of our doctrine in one place.

But if it does present such a comprehensive view of ecclesiology, why are there groups such as the Society of St. Pius X who want to stick to “frozen tradition,” as it were, rather than come into full communion? Does this suggest errors in this comprehensive vision?

We have breakaway groups, not only on the traditionalist wing, but also on the liberal wing. I think that some have developed sets of ideas, which they have formed into an ideology, and then they judge all things in the context of this one set of ideas. The traditionalists, for instance, focus heavily on the liturgy. But we cannot say that there is only one form in which the liturgy can be celebrated, that the extraordinary form is the only form of the Mass. We also cannot change the content of the holy Mass — it’s the same content — but some elements of the liturgy have developed. We have had a lot of rites, Roman, Byzantine, etc., and all are valid, and all have had a certain growth.

The SSPX and some traditionalists in communion with the Church have trouble reconciling the fact that we’ve had popes in the past who have categorically stated teachings that appeared to be refuted by the Council, religious freedom being one example. What do you say in response to this concern?
That is not true — it’s a false interpretation of history. In the 19th century, the freemasons or liberals interpreted religious freedom as the freedom to reject the truth given by God. It was this false notion of religious freedom that the popes of the 19th century rejected, and the Second Vatican Council repeats that we are not free to reject the truth. It is on another level, on the level of human rights, that everyone has to be true to himself or herself and act according to his or her own conscience.

Furthermore, the Church cannot, on the doctrinal level, contradict herself — that is impossible. Any perceived contradiction is caused by false interpretation. We cannot say today, “Jesus is the Son of God, he has a divine nature,” and then tomorrow accept what the Arians said [that Christ was distinctly separate from God the Father]. That would be a real contradiction.

What they [SSPX] are proposing is, in essence, a tension arising from the use of terminology, but the Church never contradicted herself. If you study the texts of different centuries, of different contexts, of different languages, you must do so on the basis of established Catholic doctrine.


Do you, nevertheless, accept there’s been a weakening of the Church’s teaching because of this underlying confusion of terminology? One example sometimes cited is that the teaching of “no salvation outside the Church” seems to have become less prominent.

That has been discussed, but here, too, there has been a development of all that was said in the Church, beginning with St. Cyprian, one of the Fathers of the Church, in the third century. Again, the perspective is different between then and now. In the third century, some Christian groups wanted to be outside the Church, and what St. Cyprian said is that without the Church a Christian cannot be saved. The Second Vatican Council also said this: Lumen Gentium 14 says: “Whosoever, therefore, knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ, would refuse to enter or to remain in it, could not be saved.” He who is aware of the presence of Revelation is obliged by his conscience to belong publicly — and not only in his conscience, in his heart — to this Catholic Church by remaining in communion with the Pope and those bishops in communion with him.

But we cannot say that those who are inculpably ignorant of this truth are necessarily condemned for that reason. We must hope that those who do not belong to the Church through no fault of their own, but who follow the dictates of their God-given conscience, will be saved by Jesus Christ whom they do not yet know. Every person has the right to act according to his or her own conscience. However, if a Catholic says today, “I am going to put myself outside the Church,” we would have to respond that without the Church that person is in danger of losing salvation.

Therefore, we must always examine the context of these statements. The problem that many people have is that they are linking statements of doctrine from different centuries and different contexts — and this cannot be done rationally without a hermeneutic of interpretation. We need a theological hermeneutic for an authentic interpretation, but interpretation does not change the content of the teaching.

Edward Pentin is the Register’s Rome correspondent



Above is the full interview.

Lionel,

I am only going to respond to one of your posts, because we are having the same conversation in multiple places. And, as we are the only two active members on this forum, that does not make sense for either of us. In addition, I only speak for myself and not the SBC in New Hampshire, even though, technically, I am a "club member" there. The Prior speaks for them alone; no one else. Here's that quote you gave above from the Prefect of the CDF, Archbishop Gerhard Muller, concerning EENS

But we cannot say that those who are inculpably ignorant of this truth are necessarily condemned for that reason. We must hope that those who do not belong to the Church through no fault of their own, but who follow the dictates of their God-given conscience, will be saved by Jesus Christ whom they do not yet know. Every person has the right to act according to his or her own conscience. However, if a Catholic says today, “I am going to put myself outside the Church,” we would have to respond that without the Church that person is in danger of losing salvation.

Seems completely orthodox; indeed, we should hope for the salvation of every human being who has ever existed or will exist. Archbishop Muller's phrase "those who do not belong to the Church" could certainly be interpreted as referring to visible, canonical membership.

As for "seeing the dead", I agree with what was said on the other forum, we cannot observe the salvation of any adult, save those whom the Catholic Church has canonized, all of whom have either been sacramentally baptized and/or who had explicit submission to the Roman Pontiff. But, with respect to non-Catholics, we're back to "proving negatives"; since "anyone whatsoever" can sacramentally baptize, how can we be completely sure of anyone's "non-baptism"?

Of course, modernists do not like miracles, especially, those which occur on a large scale. Dr. Francis Collins, a former atheist, now evangelical Christian, would often say that God "acts very, very rarely" in the World. In one of the more embarrassing interviews which I have seen, Raymond Arroyo was about to levitate out of his seat when he was interviewing Dr. Collins, perhaps having an "ecumenical moment". Why Catholics "look-up" to this guy is beyond me!

Dr. Collins is still very much an atheist, at least with respect to the One and Triune God's actions in His Creation. I recall a NPR "Science Friday" interview with him when a caller, along with the show's host, Ira Flatow, suggested that God may interfere in scientific experiments, to which Dr. Collins replied that "you're being ridiculous." Of course, one must image how Dr. Collins knows what an omnipotent Being will and will not do.

To get to the point, however, the Triune God will sacramentally baptize whom He will, and there is absolute nothing that anyone can do to prevent such a baptism from occurring, if God wills such! As I pointed out elsewhere, we have some examples in the Golden Legend from the Middle Ages. In particular, we have there the example of Pope Gregory I raising the Emperor Trajan back to life to receive sacramental baptism over four hundred years after Trajan's death. All this means is that God can do anything, and His direct and physical actions in our World may be much more common than people like Dr. Collins ever imagined.

In the end, the Triune God will save whom He will, using whatever means, sacramental or extra-sacramental, which He wills, but all salvation, whatever its means, will come through the merits of Jesus Christ, the God Incarnate, alone.

Yes that passage is completely orthodox if it was only a reference to those saved in invincible ignorance. We agree it is a possibility.Invincible ignorance is accepted.

However he was saying it with reference to extra ecclesiam nulla salus. The question was on extra ecclesiam nulla salus.He was implying it was an exception to the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus.

When any one says that invincible ignorance is an an exception to the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus then they are implying that these cases are physically visible to us.Since they are physically visible to us they are exceptions to every one needing to be a visible member of the Catholic Church for salvation.

Secondly an explicitly known case of someone saved in invincible ignorance is not part of the Deposit of the Faith. No magisterial text mentions a known to us case.Traditionally the church accepts being saved in invincible ignorance and obviously these cases are always implicit for us and explicit for God. So it is irrelevant to the dogma on exclusive salvation in only the Catholic Church.

Lionel,

When he says that "those who do not belong to the Church through no fault of their own," he may be referring to canonical membership in the Church, that is, visible membership, which is certainly the case as millions of infants are visibly baptized every year by Catholic priests in Catholic Churches with baptismal records kept in parish registers. What about all those "hidden baptisms," say, those which are almost certainly occurring in Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc., Islamic countries? Those baptism are still valid, right? And, yet, those children who are baptized by "secret Christians" are not at all visible members of the Catholic Church, yet they are still very much linked to the Church. Right?

When he says that "those who do not belong to the Church through no fault of their own," he may be referring to canonical membership in the Church, that is, visible membership, which is certainly the case as millions of infants are visibly baptized every year by Catholic priests in Catholic Churches with baptismal records kept in parish registers. What about all those "hidden baptisms," say, those which are almost certainly occurring in Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc., Islamic countries? Those baptism are still valid, right? And, yet, those children who are baptized by "secret Christians" are not at all visible members of the Catholic Church, yet they are still very much linked to the Church. Right?.

Yes there could be all those baptisms including adults in invincible ignorance however when they are in Heaven, today, they are not visible to us. We cannot see these case physically in Heaven.

Since we cannot see these cases which are saved they cannot be visible exceptions to the dogma which says every one needs to be a visible member of the Church,every one needs to convert.

Since there cannot be an exception in 2013, we cannot see any one saved , which exception is Archbishop Muller referring to?

Lionel,

Archbishop Muller isn't referring to anyone; if he was, then he could give some names, couldn't he?

Lionel,

It's like agreeing with the fact that "the Sky is blue"! Of course, I would agree with it; everyone does (at least those Catholics who claim to be orthodox.) The only visible cases of salvation are those whom the Catholic Church has canonized or infants who perish before the Age of Reason and who have received sacramental Baptism in Water. Everyone else's salvation, to some degree, is pretty much "up in the air."

No.

Lionel,

No one is saved in a state of "invincible ignorance"; one is saved solely through the merits of Jesus Christ and the graces which He alone bestows. What the minimum one must believe is the question for those beyond the Age of Reason, but even with that, we're back to "proving negatives," because one could always assert that someone, anyone, was sacramentally baptized in his/her infancy, or per Saint Thomas, "sanctified in the womb" of original sin. (Try to disprove that latter scenario!)

What sends a soul to eternal Hell is dying in actual mortal sin or in "original sin alone." We have absolutely no choice over the latter, and for that category of folks, the Triune God will bestow His graces as He sees fit. As for the former category, only God can judge the souls of those individuals who die after the Age of Reason, and as salutary repentance at "death's door" is always a possibility, we can not know (at least in this life) where a person ends-up, the sole exceptions being those whom the Catholic Church has infallibly canonized, all of whom have been visible members of the Catholic Church (or at least, "visibly joined to Her"), either through sacramental baptism or explicit submission to the Roman Pontiff.

Go out to the following web site sometime:

http://www.persecution.com/

As yourself why the Catholic Church has never begun the canonization process on those "non-Catholics" who have "shed their blood for Christ."

And suppose if there was a case of someone 'in a state of "invincible ignorance"... saved solely through the merits of Jesus Christ and the graces which He alone bestows', unknown to you and me, then could he be an exception to the teaching on every one needing to be a visible member of the Catholic Church for salvation?

I think the Archbishop was saying that every body does not have to formally enter the Church for salvation, that is, as the dogma was interpreted historically and literally.So the dogma is no more relevent after the Letter of the Holy Office 1949 for him (which mentioned invincible ignorance/inculpabale ignorance) and after Vatican Council II (LG 16- invincible ignorance again).

If there is a hypothetical case, a case which doesn't exist in our reality, a 'null set', then would it be a contradiction to the dogma?

Lionel A wrote:And suppose if there was a case of someone 'in a state of "invincible ignorance"... saved solely through the merits of Jesus Christ and the graces which He alone bestows', unknown to you and me, then could he be an exception to the teaching on every one needing to be a visible member of the Catholic Church for salvation?

"Visible or not," every single human being, without exception, needs to end his/her life in the "bosom and unity of the Catholic Church." That's what the dogma says! Having said that, I agree with you that we cannot see the "invisible cases," which is why they are invisible!!

"Visible or not," every single human being, without exception, needs to end his/her life in the "bosom and unity of the Catholic Church."

Yes of course.

I agree with you that we cannot see the "invisible cases," which is why they are invisible!!.

So all those who are saved with the baptism of desire and invincible ignorance are invisible to us.

Lionel A wrote:So all those who are saved with the baptism of desire and invincible ignorance are invisible to us.

As that "category" of individuals may be completely empty, yes, those cases, if they even exist, are invisible to us.

yes, those cases, if they even exist, are invisible to us..

So if they exist or do not exist they are invisible to us.

So they are not an issue with respect to the dogma.

Agreed.

So when the Archbishop mentioned invincible ignorance, he assumed that it was an issue.
He thought it was relevant.

What would be the alternative? To say that all individuals who are not visibly joined to the Church are destined for "the eternal fire"? First, is that true? Well, maybe. Such would even be in agreement with the Holy Office Letter, as "perfect charity" may simply not exist apart from sacramental Baptism and/or explicit submission to the Roman Pontiff. On the other hand, if "invisible membership" in the Catholic Church were not a possibility, even a hypothetical one, then you and I could make a judgment about the interior state of another's soul, couldn't we? So, having those categories of "implicit faith" and/or "implicit desire" leaves the ultimate Judgment where it belongs, with the King of Heaven, Jesus Christ, God Incarnate.

Of course, theologians, such as the late Father Edward Schillebeeckx, are on record as saying that the Second Vatican Council cannot be reconciled with Cantate Domino from the Council of Florence. Of course, we know that such is trivial through the idea of salutary repentance. So, say, someone such as Osama bin Laden could have, by the will of the One and Triune God, been sacramentally baptized at some point, unknown to him, in his infancy, and then, upon his death, received "salutary repentance." In this respect, bin Laden would have ended his life in the "bosom and unity of the Catholic Church."

In the end, the One and Triune God will save whom He will, and we're back to "proving negatives" when we try to claim otherwise.

What would be the alternative?

So they are not an issue with respect to the dogma.