Another note, so yes, you have read a lot more than me, and I am by no means an apologist or theologian, like you, I've now read several articles by Catholic priests and lay apologists who have studied, and most importantly, practice and live Catholicism, and although they did not mention this text explicitly, most of them are undoubtably aware of it, and they've been pretty unequivocal Vatican II was not a doctrinal reversal. Are you saying, you an Anglican, are correct about Catholic doctrine, whereas these highly educated devout practicing Catholics are wrong?
I don't count how much I've read or not as an indicator of the quality of your arguments--that you're a sister in Christ who makes informed and intelligent arguments means you have valuable things to say :)
There are also Catholic theologians who think I'm right generally, but reject either Vatican II or Florence as infallible at this point (e.g. Hans Kung would be an example). But I'm arguing there are textual reasons to reject that from Catholic dogmatic principles. I think it would be fair if a Catholic tried the same for Anglicanism from Anglican principles--the person who makes the argument isn't really relevant to the strength of the argument.
(That said, I'm making the case that Rome needs to Reform on these points, and not necessarily that one shouldn't be a Roman Catholic. Thats not super relevant to my or your argument, but I wanted to make that clear)
Let’s look at what a heretic is again. There’s a hundred heresies at every coffee hour, and we don’t call the normal people in the pews saying the wrong things heretics. Normal people were likely just as heretical in the Middle Ages in their own beliefs as they are now, with sometimes disturbingly low standards of the level of knowledge required to be a priest. A heretic is ultimately someone who knows the truth, outright rejects it, and refuses correction. If you’re in that state, then, no, your sacraments aren’t helping you, and I wouldn’t say the actions against the Hussites et al contradict this because as I commented earlier, that’s how heretical groups were treated.
I wish that were the definition of a heretic, and I'm willing to be shown otherwise--but the issue is that the Hussites and Wycliffites were so precisely because they believed Rome hadn't gotten the truth right, and were deemed heretics. So a heretic isn't someone who knows the truth and is unwilling to submit to something they know to be true; in the 15th century, a formal heretic (as opposed to a material one) was someone who knew what Rome taught and rejected it as false while claiming to be a Christian.
I’m not entirely seeing the distinction. If you outright reject the truth, then you believe the truth isn’t the truth, but rather something else is. Arius believed Arianism. He had a bishop correct him and refused to listen. He had a council correct him and refused to listen. He definitely knew the doctrine of Nicene Christianity, but he rejected it and believed his theology.
I may have misunderstood what you meant--if I was told a truth about where my keys were and didn't believe it even though my keys were actually in that spot, I don't think it could be said that I knew the truth. Id know what the truth was claimed to be, but I don't know that I knew what it was.
But given that--a heretic is someone who knows what is claimed to be the truth by Rome and rejects it, then this conflicts with Vatican II which identified separated communities as such--which confesionally reject Roman claims in spite of being told otherwise--as having Baptisms which profit to salvation.
To what extent do those confessional communities know Rome's claims and doctrines? How many times have we heard Protestants present wrong information about the Catholic Church? To what extent can someone already outside a confessional community truly know said confessional community's faith.
This is where the Hussite wars are important interpretative keys. Those born into communities condemned and attacked as heretics probably had less, not more, knowledge of Roman Catholicism than in the 20th century given the flow of information. So it seems that belonging to a community that confessionally rejected Roman Catholic doctrine was enough to be considered a heretic.
The Hussites were around for, say approximately thirty years. At the time of Vatican II, Protestants had been around for over four hundred years. The Hussites had significantly less time for people (though, yes, enough for some) to be born and raised in a confessional community. With Hussitism still a relatively new idea in the fifteenth century, it was easier to make the claim that the group as a whole knew Catholic doctrine and rejected it though yes, with the flow of information and state of education, there were definitely a lot of innocent people likely ignorant of the intricacies of Catholic doctrine (and probably Hussite doctrine too to an extent). This is also where the modern individualistic mindset vs. the pre-modern more communal mindset comes into play. I’m not necessarily saying this mindset is better, but pre-modernity, it can be argued groups had a faith more so than individuals. The group, with under fifty years of existence, had known and rejected Catholic doctrine, though we could perhaps say on an individual level only the elites consciously did. Today, however, for better or worse, we’re more in individualistic, and you could probably easily find a Baptist community, where starting with the pastor, everyone believes falsehoods about the Catholic Church.
Just to add to that, what are your thoughts on the 1953 excommunication of Fr Leonard Feeney for teaching an exhaustive understanding of no salvation outside the church Catholic, prior to Vatican II?
Right, that would be because Fr. Feeney denied invincible ignorance and non-culpable belief categories as well. I agree that Rome held this prior to Vatican II. But Vatican II says that Baptismal grace is efficacious *because* baptized Christians in separated communities meet together for prayer, worship, Scripture reading, etcetera--all things the communities of the 15th century were doing. So invincible ignorance and non-culpable belief are one thing; that has precedent, yes. But saying an entire ecclesial community has a Baptism that isn't just valid, but efficacious for salvation, was denied by Florence and yet affirmed by Vatican II.
Right, so Vatican II in Unitatis Redintegratio affirms that Protestant Baptisms give saving grace. But the Council of Florence explicitly denies that sacraments administered outside of the Roman communion are efficacious for salvation. So even though they are valid, Florence follows Augustine's claim that sacraments administered outside the Catholic Church, though valid, do not give saving grace by virtue of belonging to a heretical communion being an impediment. From On Baptism:
"To what Felix of Migirpa said we answer as follows. If the one true baptism did not exist except in the Church, it surely would not exist in those who depart from unity. But it does exist in them, since they do not receive it when they return, simply because they had not lost it when they departed. But as regards his statement, that "the things that are practised without have no power to work salvation," I agree with him, and think that it is quite true; for it is one thing that baptism should not be there, and another that it should have no power to work salvation. For when men come to the peace of the Catholic Church, then what was in them before they joined it, but *did not profit them*, begins at once to profit them."
Now, some typically argue that "heretics" only denotes those who were part of the Roman communion and left, and does not denote those who were born into heretical communions. But the activities and Bulls issued in the 15th century show that Florence did include those born into heretical communions as heretics--and hence, as those whose Baptisms did not profit for salvation.
And what are we to make of Flannery O'Connor's short story "The River" first published in 1953 before Vatican II. (I know this is fiction, not theology, but literature's my discipline). In it, a five-year-old boy, whose parents neglect him, receives a Protestant baptism and then drowns the next day trying to pursue Christ and Heaven in the river where he was baptized. O'Connor, who was by no means a liberal or uneducated Catholic, said the story had a happy ending, for the little boy was no longer going to grow up in his abysmal home and received salvation.
Right, I'm aware invincible ignorance and non-culpably not being a Catholic was a thing prior to Vatican II. Suarez mentions it, for instance. But that's different than looking at a whole ecclesial community that's formally schismatic and saying "Baptismal grace is efficacious because they're gathering for prayer and worship." So the child in the story would be invincibly ignorant--and that would definitely fit the mold of invincible ignorance. But that doesn't mean that an ecclesiastical community as such would have saving grace exemplified because they're meeting together for worship, as Vatican II says of ecclesial communities (but Florence, situated in these crusades, denies to these communities).
On rereading, the block quote you have doesn’t mention baptism. Canon 4 of Trent ruled the validity of baptism with water and the Trinitarian formula calling anathema anyone who says it’s not. A valid but not effective baptism is contradictory. Your block quote does mention sacraments. It’s common knowledge non-Catholics cannot receive the Eucharist, the source and summit of Christian life, in the Catholic Church. That’s never changed, and no, you’re not really profiting without the Eucharist because you’re not supposed to go long periods without receiving. .
The block quote says that the Sacraments don't profit for salvation to anyone not in Rome, so that would include Baptism.
Now, is it contrary to acknowledge a Baptism to be valid but inefficacious? No--for instance, if one has an impediment to Baptism (they were Baptized under false pretenses, for instance).
St. Augustine affirms Donatist Baptisms were valid, but not efficacious and profitable for them:
Bk 6 Ch 9 of On Baptism:
"To what Felix of Migirpa said we answer as follows. If the one true baptism did not exist except in the Church, it surely would not exist in those who depart from unity. But it does exist in them, since they do not receive it when they return, simply because they had not lost it when they departed. But as regards his statement, that "the things that are practised without have no power to work salvation," I agree with him, and think that it is quite true; for it is one thing that baptism should not be there, and another that it should have no power to work salvation. For when men come to the peace of the Catholic Church, then what was in them before they joined it, but *did not profit them*, begins at once to profit them."
So you’re saying because that distinction wasn’t made on a practical physical level in the 1400’s, that represents a reversal of doctrine in the 1900's? When has that distinction ever been made on a practical physical level when physical violence has been used both to promulgate and suppress heresies? Prior to modernity, for better or for worse, heresies typically were both promulgated and suppressed violently. There were violent clashes between the Catholics and the Arians with violence and rioting on both sides. I just celebrated the Sunday of the Triumph of Orthodoxy, where with an icon procession out in the cold, we celebrated the defeat of the iconoclasts within Byzantine Christianity and how they were declared anathema. The iconoclasts were violent. Elizabeth I was bloodier than Bloody Mary so that Catholic priests attempting to sneak back into England were referred to as "lambs to the slaughter", but Elizabeth is not remembered as being so bloody because she was a PR wizard. It is also worth mentioning that people of all faiths now are dealing with a much more individualistic notion of personhood and community than ancients, medievals, and the earliest of early moderns, which makes making that practical physical distinction in the 15th century very difficult. Vatican II is a more positive reformulation of the fact there is no salvation outside the Church, not a contradiction of it.
I agree the distinction wasn't made in the 1900s--but the distinction made in the 1900s overturns what Florence explicitly says and runs contrary to how it was explicitly enacted. Now, yes, violence has sadly been part of much of Christian history; the iconoclasts were violent (but then, so were supporters of icons as well). Elizabeth I was indeed violent.
But it doesn't undo anything doctrinally for Protestants to say "yeah, Elizabeth was wrong in the way most people of her day was wrong" (and also, we shouldn't uniquely condemn Mary in light of that). Yet if one holds to what the magisterium teaches about itself, it costs believing the magisterium's self-declarations about its infallibility to hold to Vatican II over Florence.
Another note, so yes, you have read a lot more than me, and I am by no means an apologist or theologian, like you, I've now read several articles by Catholic priests and lay apologists who have studied, and most importantly, practice and live Catholicism, and although they did not mention this text explicitly, most of them are undoubtably aware of it, and they've been pretty unequivocal Vatican II was not a doctrinal reversal. Are you saying, you an Anglican, are correct about Catholic doctrine, whereas these highly educated devout practicing Catholics are wrong?
I don't count how much I've read or not as an indicator of the quality of your arguments--that you're a sister in Christ who makes informed and intelligent arguments means you have valuable things to say :)
There are also Catholic theologians who think I'm right generally, but reject either Vatican II or Florence as infallible at this point (e.g. Hans Kung would be an example). But I'm arguing there are textual reasons to reject that from Catholic dogmatic principles. I think it would be fair if a Catholic tried the same for Anglicanism from Anglican principles--the person who makes the argument isn't really relevant to the strength of the argument.
(That said, I'm making the case that Rome needs to Reform on these points, and not necessarily that one shouldn't be a Roman Catholic. Thats not super relevant to my or your argument, but I wanted to make that clear)
Let’s look at what a heretic is again. There’s a hundred heresies at every coffee hour, and we don’t call the normal people in the pews saying the wrong things heretics. Normal people were likely just as heretical in the Middle Ages in their own beliefs as they are now, with sometimes disturbingly low standards of the level of knowledge required to be a priest. A heretic is ultimately someone who knows the truth, outright rejects it, and refuses correction. If you’re in that state, then, no, your sacraments aren’t helping you, and I wouldn’t say the actions against the Hussites et al contradict this because as I commented earlier, that’s how heretical groups were treated.
I wish that were the definition of a heretic, and I'm willing to be shown otherwise--but the issue is that the Hussites and Wycliffites were so precisely because they believed Rome hadn't gotten the truth right, and were deemed heretics. So a heretic isn't someone who knows the truth and is unwilling to submit to something they know to be true; in the 15th century, a formal heretic (as opposed to a material one) was someone who knew what Rome taught and rejected it as false while claiming to be a Christian.
I’m not entirely seeing the distinction. If you outright reject the truth, then you believe the truth isn’t the truth, but rather something else is. Arius believed Arianism. He had a bishop correct him and refused to listen. He had a council correct him and refused to listen. He definitely knew the doctrine of Nicene Christianity, but he rejected it and believed his theology.
I may have misunderstood what you meant--if I was told a truth about where my keys were and didn't believe it even though my keys were actually in that spot, I don't think it could be said that I knew the truth. Id know what the truth was claimed to be, but I don't know that I knew what it was.
But given that--a heretic is someone who knows what is claimed to be the truth by Rome and rejects it, then this conflicts with Vatican II which identified separated communities as such--which confesionally reject Roman claims in spite of being told otherwise--as having Baptisms which profit to salvation.
To what extent do those confessional communities know Rome's claims and doctrines? How many times have we heard Protestants present wrong information about the Catholic Church? To what extent can someone already outside a confessional community truly know said confessional community's faith.
This is where the Hussite wars are important interpretative keys. Those born into communities condemned and attacked as heretics probably had less, not more, knowledge of Roman Catholicism than in the 20th century given the flow of information. So it seems that belonging to a community that confessionally rejected Roman Catholic doctrine was enough to be considered a heretic.
The Hussites were around for, say approximately thirty years. At the time of Vatican II, Protestants had been around for over four hundred years. The Hussites had significantly less time for people (though, yes, enough for some) to be born and raised in a confessional community. With Hussitism still a relatively new idea in the fifteenth century, it was easier to make the claim that the group as a whole knew Catholic doctrine and rejected it though yes, with the flow of information and state of education, there were definitely a lot of innocent people likely ignorant of the intricacies of Catholic doctrine (and probably Hussite doctrine too to an extent). This is also where the modern individualistic mindset vs. the pre-modern more communal mindset comes into play. I’m not necessarily saying this mindset is better, but pre-modernity, it can be argued groups had a faith more so than individuals. The group, with under fifty years of existence, had known and rejected Catholic doctrine, though we could perhaps say on an individual level only the elites consciously did. Today, however, for better or worse, we’re more in individualistic, and you could probably easily find a Baptist community, where starting with the pastor, everyone believes falsehoods about the Catholic Church.
Just to add to that, what are your thoughts on the 1953 excommunication of Fr Leonard Feeney for teaching an exhaustive understanding of no salvation outside the church Catholic, prior to Vatican II?
Right, that would be because Fr. Feeney denied invincible ignorance and non-culpable belief categories as well. I agree that Rome held this prior to Vatican II. But Vatican II says that Baptismal grace is efficacious *because* baptized Christians in separated communities meet together for prayer, worship, Scripture reading, etcetera--all things the communities of the 15th century were doing. So invincible ignorance and non-culpable belief are one thing; that has precedent, yes. But saying an entire ecclesial community has a Baptism that isn't just valid, but efficacious for salvation, was denied by Florence and yet affirmed by Vatican II.
Sure. What’s interesting is I don’t recall either Florence or Vatican II to be held by Rome as having the weight of infallibility.
I’m not following you. How do the violent activities of the 15th century, which I’m in no way endorsing, contradict Vatican II?
Right, so Vatican II in Unitatis Redintegratio affirms that Protestant Baptisms give saving grace. But the Council of Florence explicitly denies that sacraments administered outside of the Roman communion are efficacious for salvation. So even though they are valid, Florence follows Augustine's claim that sacraments administered outside the Catholic Church, though valid, do not give saving grace by virtue of belonging to a heretical communion being an impediment. From On Baptism:
"To what Felix of Migirpa said we answer as follows. If the one true baptism did not exist except in the Church, it surely would not exist in those who depart from unity. But it does exist in them, since they do not receive it when they return, simply because they had not lost it when they departed. But as regards his statement, that "the things that are practised without have no power to work salvation," I agree with him, and think that it is quite true; for it is one thing that baptism should not be there, and another that it should have no power to work salvation. For when men come to the peace of the Catholic Church, then what was in them before they joined it, but *did not profit them*, begins at once to profit them."
Now, some typically argue that "heretics" only denotes those who were part of the Roman communion and left, and does not denote those who were born into heretical communions. But the activities and Bulls issued in the 15th century show that Florence did include those born into heretical communions as heretics--and hence, as those whose Baptisms did not profit for salvation.
And what are we to make of Flannery O'Connor's short story "The River" first published in 1953 before Vatican II. (I know this is fiction, not theology, but literature's my discipline). In it, a five-year-old boy, whose parents neglect him, receives a Protestant baptism and then drowns the next day trying to pursue Christ and Heaven in the river where he was baptized. O'Connor, who was by no means a liberal or uneducated Catholic, said the story had a happy ending, for the little boy was no longer going to grow up in his abysmal home and received salvation.
Right, I'm aware invincible ignorance and non-culpably not being a Catholic was a thing prior to Vatican II. Suarez mentions it, for instance. But that's different than looking at a whole ecclesial community that's formally schismatic and saying "Baptismal grace is efficacious because they're gathering for prayer and worship." So the child in the story would be invincibly ignorant--and that would definitely fit the mold of invincible ignorance. But that doesn't mean that an ecclesiastical community as such would have saving grace exemplified because they're meeting together for worship, as Vatican II says of ecclesial communities (but Florence, situated in these crusades, denies to these communities).
On rereading, the block quote you have doesn’t mention baptism. Canon 4 of Trent ruled the validity of baptism with water and the Trinitarian formula calling anathema anyone who says it’s not. A valid but not effective baptism is contradictory. Your block quote does mention sacraments. It’s common knowledge non-Catholics cannot receive the Eucharist, the source and summit of Christian life, in the Catholic Church. That’s never changed, and no, you’re not really profiting without the Eucharist because you’re not supposed to go long periods without receiving. .
The block quote says that the Sacraments don't profit for salvation to anyone not in Rome, so that would include Baptism.
Now, is it contrary to acknowledge a Baptism to be valid but inefficacious? No--for instance, if one has an impediment to Baptism (they were Baptized under false pretenses, for instance).
St. Augustine affirms Donatist Baptisms were valid, but not efficacious and profitable for them:
Bk 6 Ch 9 of On Baptism:
"To what Felix of Migirpa said we answer as follows. If the one true baptism did not exist except in the Church, it surely would not exist in those who depart from unity. But it does exist in them, since they do not receive it when they return, simply because they had not lost it when they departed. But as regards his statement, that "the things that are practised without have no power to work salvation," I agree with him, and think that it is quite true; for it is one thing that baptism should not be there, and another that it should have no power to work salvation. For when men come to the peace of the Catholic Church, then what was in them before they joined it, but *did not profit them*, begins at once to profit them."
So you’re saying because that distinction wasn’t made on a practical physical level in the 1400’s, that represents a reversal of doctrine in the 1900's? When has that distinction ever been made on a practical physical level when physical violence has been used both to promulgate and suppress heresies? Prior to modernity, for better or for worse, heresies typically were both promulgated and suppressed violently. There were violent clashes between the Catholics and the Arians with violence and rioting on both sides. I just celebrated the Sunday of the Triumph of Orthodoxy, where with an icon procession out in the cold, we celebrated the defeat of the iconoclasts within Byzantine Christianity and how they were declared anathema. The iconoclasts were violent. Elizabeth I was bloodier than Bloody Mary so that Catholic priests attempting to sneak back into England were referred to as "lambs to the slaughter", but Elizabeth is not remembered as being so bloody because she was a PR wizard. It is also worth mentioning that people of all faiths now are dealing with a much more individualistic notion of personhood and community than ancients, medievals, and the earliest of early moderns, which makes making that practical physical distinction in the 15th century very difficult. Vatican II is a more positive reformulation of the fact there is no salvation outside the Church, not a contradiction of it.
I agree the distinction wasn't made in the 1900s--but the distinction made in the 1900s overturns what Florence explicitly says and runs contrary to how it was explicitly enacted. Now, yes, violence has sadly been part of much of Christian history; the iconoclasts were violent (but then, so were supporters of icons as well). Elizabeth I was indeed violent.
But it doesn't undo anything doctrinally for Protestants to say "yeah, Elizabeth was wrong in the way most people of her day was wrong" (and also, we shouldn't uniquely condemn Mary in light of that). Yet if one holds to what the magisterium teaches about itself, it costs believing the magisterium's self-declarations about its infallibility to hold to Vatican II over Florence.