THEOLOGY 603:THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE CHURCH

             By Wm.G.Most. (c)Copyright, 1994, by Wm.G.Most


        Introduction: Doctrinal Authority of Vatican II

    Since we are going to study the Constitution on the Church
(LG) of Vatican II,we should first speak of the doctrinal weight
of this document.

    It is often claimed that Vatican II meant only to be
pastoral - and so we could ignore its teachings as we wish. Is
this true? To get a start, we need to see that there are four
levels of teaching in the Church.

1. Four levels of teaching:

    a)Solemn definition.LG 25: No special formula of words is
required in order to define. Wording should be something solemn,
and should make clear that the teaching is definitive. Councils
in the past often used the form:'Si quis dixerit...anathema sit."
That is:" "If someone shall say....let him be anathema." But
sometimes they used the formula for disciplinary matters, so that
form alone does not prove. Further, they also could define in the
capitula, the chapters. Thus Pius XII, in Divino afflante Spiritu
(EB 538) spoke of such a passage of Vatican I (DS  3006 -- saying
God is the author of Scripture) as a solemn definition.

    The Pope can define even without the Bishops. Of his
definitions LG 25 said: "His definitions of themselves, and not
from consent of the Church, are rightly called unchangeable, for
they are pronounced with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, an
assistance promised him in blessed Peter. So they need no
approval from others, nor is there room for an appeal to any
other judgment." So collegiality even in defining is not
mandatory. Yet most definitions of the Popes have been taken in
collegiality, that is, with consultation of the Bishops. Even the
definitions of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption were
such, for the Popes did poll the Bishops by mail.

    b)Second level: LG 25:"Although the individual bishops do
not have the prerogative of infallibility, they can yet teach
Christ's doctrine infallibly. This is true even when they are
scattered around the world, provided that, while maintaining the
bond of unity among themselves, and with the successor of Peter,
they concur in one teaching as the one which must be definitively
held." This means: (1) The day to day teaching of the Church
throughout the world, when it gives things as definitively part
of the faith, (2)If this can be done when scattered,all the more
can it be done when assembled in Council. Thus Trent (DS 1520)
after "strictly prohibiting anyone from hereafter believing or
preaching or teaching differently than what is established and
explained in the present decree, " went on to give infallible
teaching even in the capitula, outside the canons.

    To know whether the Church intends to teach infallibly on
this second level, we notice both the language -- no set form
required - and the intention, which may be seen at times from the
nature of the case, at times from the repetition of the doctrine
on this second level.

    c)Third Level: Pius XII,in Humani generis: "Nor must it be
thought that the things contained in Encyclical Letters do not of
themselves require assent on the plea that in them the Pontiffs
do not exercise the supreme power of their Magisterium. For these
things are taught with the ordinary Magisterium, about which it
is also true to say, 'He who hears you, hears me.' [Lk 10.16]...
If the Supreme Pontiffs, in their  acta expressly pass judgment
on a matter debated until then, it is obvious to all that the
matter, according to the mind and will of the same Pontiffs,
cannot be considered any longer a question open for discussion
among theologians."

    We notice: (1) These things are protected by the promise of
Christ in Lk 10.16, and so are infallible, for His promise cannot
fail. Though that promise was first given to the 72, it is
certain that the Apostles were in the group,and as the trajectory
advanced, it became clear that the  full teaching authority was
only for them - the mission given to the 72 was preliminary,and
the full meaning was made clear later when the Apostles were
given the authority to bind and to loose. This was part of the
broader picture: Jesus wanted only a gradual self-revelation. Had
He started by saying: "Before Abraham was,I am", He would have
been stoned on the spot.  (2)Not everything in Encyclicals, and
similar documents, is on this level - this is true only when the
Popes expressly pass judgment on a previously debated matter, (3)
since the  Church scattered  throughout the world can make a
teaching infallible without defining - as we saw on level 2 -
then of course the Pope alone, who can speak for and reflect the
faith of the whole Church, can do the same even in an Encyclical,
under the conditions enumerated by Pius XII. Really, on any
level, all that is required to make a thing infallible is that it
be given definitively. When a Pope takes a stand on something
debated in theology and publishes it in his Acta,that suffices.
The fact that as Pius XII said it is removed from debate alone
shows it is meant as definitive.

    In this connection, we note that LG 12 says: "The entire
body of the faithful, anointed as  they are by the Holy One,
cannot err in matters of belief."  This means: If the whole
Church, both people and authorities, have ever believed (accepted
as revealed) an item, then that cannot be in error, is
infallible. Of course this applies to the more basic items, not
to very technical matters of theological debate. But we note this
too: If this condition has once been fulfilled in the past, then
if people in a later age come to doubt or deny it -- that does
not make noninfallible what was once established as infallible.
Many things come under this ,e.g., the existence of angels.

    This does not mean, however,that the Pope is to be only the
echo of the faithful.

     d)Level 4: LG 25:"Religious submission of mind and of will
must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium of
the Roman Pontiff even when he is not defining, in such a way,
namely, that the judgments made by him are sincerely adhered to
according to his manifested mind and will, which is clear either
from the nature of the documents, or from the repeated
presentation of the same doctrine, or from the manner of
speaking."

    We note all the qualifications in the underlined part The
key is the intention of the Pope. He may be repeating existing
definitive teaching from Ordinary Magisterium level - then it is
infallible, as on level 2. He may be giving a decision on a
previously debated point - as on level 3, then it falls under the
promise of Christ in Lk 10.16, and so is also infallible. Or it
may be a still lesser intention - then we have a case like that
envisioned in Canon  752 of the New Code of Canon Law: "Not
indeed an assent of faith, but yet a religious submission of mind
and will must be given to the teaching which either the Supreme
Pontiff, or the College of Bishops [of course, with the Pope]
pronounce on faith or on morals when they exercise the authentic
Magisterium even if they do not intend to proclaim it by a
definitive act." If they do not mean to make it definitive, then
it does not come under the virtue of faith, or the promise of
Christ,"He who hears you hears me". Rather,it is a matter of what
the Canon and LG 25 call "religious submission of mind and of
will." What does this require? Definitely, it forbids  public
contradiction of the teaching. But it also requires something in
the mind, as the wording indicates. This cannot be the absolute
assent which faith calls for - for since this teaching is, by
definition, not definitive, we gather that it is not absolutely
finally certain.

    How can anyone give any mental assent when there is not
absolute certitude? In normal human affairs, we do it all the
time. Suppose we are at table,and someone asks if a dish of food
came from a can, and if so, was it sent to a lab to check for
Botulism. It is true, routine opening of a can would not detect
that deadly poison. Yet it is too much to check every can, and
the chances are very remote, so much so that normal people do not
bother about it - yet their belief takes into account a real but
tiny possibility of a mistake. Similarly with a doctrine on this
fourth level. And further,the chances of error on this level are
much smaller than they are with a can of food. Similarly,in a
criminal trial, the judge will tell the jury they must find the
evidence proves guilt beyond reasonable doubt. He does not demand
that every tiny doubt be ruled out, even though it may mean life
in prison or death.

    If one should make a mistake by following the fourth level
of Church teaching, when he comes before the Divine Judge, the
Judge will not blame him, rather He will praise him. But if a
person errs by breaking with the Church on the plea that he knew
better - that will not be easily accepted.

2.On what Level does Vatican II Teaching Come?

    a)We notice the distinctions of the kinds of documents -
constitutions, decrees, declarations.  Even the least of these
would qualify for level four.

    b)Early statements on its authority tend to minimize the
level.

    (1)John XXIII in his opening address to the Council said:
"Often errors vanish as quickly as they arise, like fog before
the sun. The Church has always opposed these errors. Often she
has condemned them with very great severity. But today, the
Spouse of Christ prefers to make use of the medicine of mercy
rather than that of severity. She considers that she meets the
needs of today by demonstrating the validity of her teaching
rather than by condemnations."(AAS 54.792)

    Hence the Council never used the classic formula: "If anyone
says... let him be anathema." However, as noted above, there can
be infallible teaching even without this formula - no special
wording is required, only that there be an intention to define,
made clear in any way. If it is not made clear, it is not to be
considered as a definition.

       (2)Yet John XXIII did not mean to contradict any previous
teaching. In the same speech he said: "The greatest concern of
the Ecumenical Council is this: that the sacred deposit of
Christian doctrine should be guarded and taught more
efficaciously." And he added: "But from the renewed, serene and
tranquil adherence to all the teachings of the Church in its
entirety, transmitted with the precision and concepts which are
especially the glory of the Councils of Trent and Vatican I, the
Christian, Catholic and Apostolic spirit of all hopes for a
further step in the doctrinal penetration, in faithful and
perfect conformity to the authentic doctrine." [emphasis added]
-- We notice two things: (1) He wants perfect fidelity to past
teaching, (2)He wants further doctrinal penetration.

        (3) He added:"The substance of the ancient doctrine of
the deposit of faith is one thing, and the way in which it is
presented is another." Hence the Decree on Ecumenism 6
says:"If...there have been deficiencies in the way that Church
teaching has been formulated -- to be carefully distinguished
from the deposit of faith itself - these can and should be set
right at the opportune moment."

    So the language of presentation may need improvement - but
the substance is not to be changed. Hence Paul VI, in Mysterium
fidei, Sept 3,1965, 23-24: "The norm...of speaking which the
Church...under the protection of the Holy Spirit has established
and confirmed by the authority of the Councils...is to be
religiously preserved, and let no one at his own good pleasure or
under the pretext of new science presume to change it.... For by
these formulae...concepts are expressed which are not tied to one
specific form of human civilization, nor definite period of
scientific progress, nor one school of theological thought, but
they present what the human mind...grasps of realities and
expresses in suitable and accurate terminology.... For this
reason these formulae are adapted to men of all times and all
places" (AAS 57.758).

    Of course, the fact that the ancient language expressed
truth correctly, even if not always in the best possible way,
does not excuse us from studying what the terms meant at the time
they were written - for languages do change over time. We must
not impose a modern meaning on an ancient expression.

    We should notice too: At times we can see that some things
were in the minds of the writers, which they did not set down on
paper, e.g,the Aristotelian-Thomistic notions of substance and
accidents. But Divine Providence protects only what is set down
on paper - not also what is merely in the minds of the writers.
God has made two commitments - to protect the teaching, and to
allow human freedom. At times He must as it were walk a tight
line, protecting what is really written, but not what is merely
in the minds of the drafters of the text. (Cf.also the case of
Gregory XVI, Pius IX, and Leo XIII in their statements on
Church-state, as compared with Vatican II's Declaration on
Religious Liberty.)

       (4)Paul VI,in an address to the opening of the second
session on Sept 29,1963 said (AAS  55.848-49):"It seems to us
that the time has come to explore, penetrate and explain more and
more the doctrine about the Church of Christ; but not with those
solemn statements which are called dogmatic definitions, but
rather in the form of declarations in which the Church in more
explicit and considered teaching presents that which she holds."

       (5)The Secretary of the  Council on Nov.29,1963, when the
Council was to vote on the Constitution on Liturgy and the Decree
on the Media for Communication, said (Osservatore Romano
Nov.30,1963.p.3): "The schemas which are to be voted and
promulgated the next Dec.4 are of a solely disciplinary nature."
We note one of these was a Constitution - which really contains
little of dogmatic nature - it is mostly legislative.

         (6)Doctrinal Commission on Lumen Gentium: Nov
16.1964.The Commission was asked about the doctrinal note of LG.
It referred the questioner back to its own declaration of March
6,1964: "Considering the Conciliar custom and the pastoral goal
of this Council, this Holy Synod defines that only those things
about matters of faith and morals are to be held by the Church
which it will have declared clearly as such. As to other things
which the Holy Synod proposes as the doctrine of the Supreme
Magisterium of the Church, all and individual faithful persons
must accept and embrace them according to the mind of the Holy
Synod itself, which becomes known either from the subject matter
or from the manner of speaking,according to the norms of
theological interpretation."

       (7)Paul VI,opening speech to Third Session (AAS 56,808-
09), referring to coming work on the Constitution on the Church:
"In this way the doctrine which the Ecumenical Council Vatican I
had intended will be completed.... It is proper for this solemn
Synod to settle certain laborious theological controversies about
the shepherds of the Church, with the prerogatives which lawfully
flow from the episcopate, and to pronounce a statement on them
that is certain. We must declare what is the true notion of the
hierarchical orders and to decide with authority and with a
certainty which it will not be legitimate to call into doubt
[emphasis added]." From the underlined words, it seems there was
an intention to be definitive, and so, infallible, even without
the solemn form of a definition.

    c)Later statements:

       (1)Paul VI:General audience of Jan 12,1966:"In view of
the pastoral nature of the Council, it avoided any extraordinary
statements of dogmas endowed with the note of infallibility, but
it still provided us teaching with the authority of the ordinary
Magisterium, which must be accepted with docility...."

       (2)Paul VI,Allocution to Consistory of Cardinals,May
24,1976 (Osservatore Romano,English,June 3,l976), complained: "It
is even affirmed that the Second Vatican Council is not binding."

    c)Conclusion on teaching level of Vatican II. Paul VI said
it falls on Ordinary Magisterium level, as in the quote above
from audience of Jan 12,1966. This means we have nothing on level
l, solemn definitions. But we can find things on levels 2, 3, or
4. An item that is quite new, never taught before, such as some
things in the Declaration on Religious Liberty, probably are on
level 4. But the Constitutions on the Church and on Divine
Revelation seem to have the intention to settle debated points --
cf.the text of Paul VI (b.6 above) in his speech to the opening
of Third Session, saying the Constitution on the Church intended
to complete the work of Vatican I on that topic,and to settle
certain debated points. He mentioned some of them - as to others,
each one would need individual study.

                Chapter I:The Church as Mystery

Preliminary notes: 1)We will use the same marginal numbers as
those in the Constitution itself. 2) The treatment is
Scriptural,and so it is not systematic. So we will find
repetitions of the same idea often enough, especially in the
first sections.

                  3)The word "Mystery". In Greek it was related
to mystes, one initiated into the mystery religions, who knew
secret things, must keep them secret. From Plato on, the word was
used for an obscure secret doctrine. In magic it meant a magic
rite or formula; in Gnosticism it meant a secret revelation.

                  But Hebrew had no word for all the meanings of
the Greek. The Hebrew word most similar is sod, "secret". Aramaic
and late Hebrew used raz (e.g, in Daniel 2:18ff. There raz seems
to be a Persian loanword).  So in the OT it is merely something
secret. In the Synoptics, the Apostles are given to know the
mysteries hidden from others in parables: Mk 4:11 and parallels.
For St.Paul, a mystery is a divine secret which becomes known
through revelation. The chief subject is God's plan as seen in
the death and resurrection of Christ. God makes known through
Paul that this plan includes for the gentiles, membership in the
People of God. This was a mystery hidden from the ages, that the
gentiles are called to be part of the People of God (Eph 3:5-6).
Marriage is also a mystery in that it symbolizes the union of
Christ and the Church (Eph 5:32).  There is also a mystery of
iniquity, the plan of satan, already at work: 2 Thes 2:7.

1.The Council desires to bring the light of Christ to all
nations.The words "Light of the nations" are the opening words of
this document. They come from Is 60.1-3: "Arise, shine, for your
light has come and the glory of the Lord has arisen upon
you...and the gentiles shall come to your light." Also, Simeon
said of Jesus that He was " a light for revelation to the
gentiles." Cf.John 1.9.

    LG here says that  it will present the nature and universal
mission of the Church "in the tradition laid down by earlier
Councils." -- note here that there will be many cases of level
2,of repetition of earlier teaching,which is infallible.

    It says that the Church "is as it were a sacrament - a sign
and instrument, that is, of close union with God and of unity
among all men." The word sacrament is here used very broadly. In
first centuries it was so used, and covered anything religious
and mysterious. Theologians gradually reached an agreement, by
12th century,to use the word only for external signs established
by Christ to give grace.

2.We note in advance, that sections 2,3,4 each are centered, one
after the other, on the Three Divine Persons: Father, Son, Holy
Spirit.

    God created the world by a most free and hidden  plan of His
wisdom and goodness. This reflects the teaching of Vatican I that
God created for His own glory. We must be careful not to
misunderstand this: Bishop Gasser, president of the Committee on
Faith at Vatican I, explained: "...the purpose of the created
thing,and not [the purpose] of the Creator,is meant when it is
said in the canon, 'that the world was created to the glory of
God....[de fine creati et non creantis sermo est]'" So God did
not create in order to gain glory - He cannot gain anything.
Rather, He willed that His glory should come through giving good
to His creatures. Hence the Report of the committee on Faith
said: "The second paragraph of this chapter is written...also
against those who calumniate the Catholic Church on account of
her teaching in which she says that the world was created to the
glory of God, as if, namely, [the Church] represented God as
eager for His own utility...as if, namely the Church denied that
the finis operantis [the purpose of the  One acting,i.e,of God]
was His own goodness, namely, that He might impart His goodness
to creatures." (Both citations taken from NAOQ 27 = Wm.Most,New
Answers to Old Questions).

   After the fall of our first parents, the Father laid His
plans at once for our salvation and so, "always provided them
with the means of salvation, in view of [intuitu] Christ the
Redeemer." So just as He gave to Bl.Mother the Immaculate
Conception, in anticipation of the merits of Christ, so too He
provided graces for salvation to all, in anticipation of
Christ.(More on this later).

    He predestined some to become "conformed to the image of His
Son, so He would be the first born among many brothers." LG here
cites Rom 8.30. In context, Paul speaks of predestination to full
membership in the Church,not of predestination to heaven, except
partially and indirectly - inasmuch as the Church is willed by
God as the great means of salvation. (We speak of full
membership, because there can be a lesser,but substantial
membership,as we shall see in commenting on 16) 1 Tim 2.4: "God
wills all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the
truth." The second clause indicates He wills that final salvation
come through the Church. Hence the teaching "No salvation outside
the Church." However,the Fathers of the first centuries have a
very broad concept of membership in the Church - we will explore
it later in section l6 of LG. Cf.also the appendix of W.Most, Our
Father's Plan (hereinafter = OFP). In line with this LG will say
in 5 - as we will see -  that the Church was already present in
figure even before Christ, was prepared for in the ancient People
of the Old Covenant, was established in this last age, and will
be gloriously consummated at the end. And in #2 it cited Pope
Gregory the Great, saying that at the end, all the just from Adam
and Abel on will be gathered together in the universal Church
with the Father. The thought is like that of St.Augustine, in his
Retractations 1.13.3: "The very thing which is now called the
Christian religion existed among the ancients, nor was it lacking
from the beginning of the human race, until Christ Himself came
in the flesh, when the true religion, which already existed,
began to be called Christian."

    On what basis does God predestine people to be full members
of His People of God or Church? In Romans 9, St.Paul makes clear
it is not given on the basis of merits. We seem to gather from
several other texts that it is given to those who are more in
need: 1 Cor 1: 26-31; Ezek 3:5-7; 5:6; Lk 10:30-37; Lk 17:11-19;
Mt 11:21. And the whole book of Jonah seems to show the Chosen
People were more resistant to God's grace than were the
Assyrians. Hence the Mekilta de Rabbi Ishmael (4th century AD
Midrash on Exodus) puts words in the mouth of Jonah: "Since the
gentiles more readily repent, I might be causing the condemnation
of Israel [by going to Nineveh]." On predestination to heaven,
which is on a radically different basis, cf. OFP chapter 12.

3.Here LG speaks of the Church as "the kingdom of Christ already
present in mystery.This is the closest the Council comes to
identifying the kingdom and the Church. (More on this in comments
on LG 5).

    The restriction seem to indicate that the fullness of the
kingdom of Christ will come only in the world to come.   We will
explore later the question of the meaning of the term "kingdom of
God". There the text says Christ established a visible structure
of the Church on earth, and adds that He handed over this one
Church to Peter to be fed, and says:"this Church,in this world,
as a constituted and ordered society, subsists in the Catholic
Church." To anticipate, we will show that the phrase has a broad
spectrum of meaning, but that it very often, as even leftish
scholars admit, means the Church in this world and /or in the
next. The "subsists in" indicates that the Church is a "mystery,"
something hidden, i.e.,there is more to it than meets the eye.

    Here LG says that "by His obedience He brought about
redemption." This is in line with Romans 5:19: "Just as by the
disobedience of the one man, the many were made sinners, so by
the obedience of the one man, the many will be made just." For
His death received its value from the fact that it was done in
obedience - without that, it would have been a tragedy, not a
redemption. Paul VI (Osservatore Romano, Oct 14, 1966, p.12)
expressed it beautifully: "[obedience] is first of all a
penetration and acceptance of the mystery of Christ, who saved us
by means of obedience. It is a continuation and imitation of this
fundamental act of His, His acceptance of the will of the Father.
It is an understanding of the principle which dominates the
entire plan of Incarnation and Redemption. Thus obedience becomes
assimilation into Christ, who is the Divine Obedient One."

    There is discussion today on how the redemption produces its
effect. Many despair of finding the answer. They start with 1 Cor
6:20 where Paul speaks of the "price" of redemption (cf.ibid
7:23). The metaphor pictures our race in captivity of satan. They
point out we would not want to say the price, the blood of
Christ, was paid to satan who was the captor. Nor was it paid to
the Father, who was not the captor. But there is an answer. Paul
VI,in his Constitution Indulgentiarum doctrina, of Jan 9,1967
wrote: "Every sin brings with it a disturbance of the universal
order, which God arranged in His inexpressible wisdom and
infinite love.... So it is necessary for the full remission and
reparation of sins...not only that friendship with God be
restored by a sincere conversion of heart, and that the offense
against His wisdom and goodness be expiated, but that all the
goods,both individual and social, and those that belong to the
universal order, lessened or destroyed by sin, be fully
reestablished, either through voluntary reparation...or through
the [involuntary] suffering of penalties."

    Rabbi Simeon ben Eleazar, around 170 A.D., who says he is
quoting Rabbi Meir from early in that century, gives a very
helpful comparison to illustrate the thought of Paul VI
(Tosefta,Kiddushin 1.14): "He [anyone] has committed a
transgression. Woe to him. He has tipped the scale to the side of
debt for himself and for the world." The sinner takes from one
pan of the scales what he has no right to have. The Holiness of
God loves that objective order of goodness,and wants it
rebalanced. If the sinner stole property, he can begin to
rebalance by giving it back; if he stole a pleasure, he can begin
to rebalance by giving up some other pleasure he might have
lawfully had. But his work only begins to rebalance, for the
imbalance from even one mortal sin is infinite. So if the Father
wanted it - He of course,did not have to do so - the only way it
could be done was to send a Divine Person, who could generate an
infinite value, who could put back by His suffering and
deprivations more than all sinners of all ages have taken, are
taking, will take from the scales.

    The redemption is also a new covenant.  In the new as in the
old (cf.Ex 19:5) the critical condition is obedience. Christ by
His obedience, as we saw above, provided this critical condition.

    Every Pope from Leo XIII to John Paul II, including also
Vatican II, has taught that the generosity of the Father, to make
the title for forgiveness and grace even richer, willed to join
the obedience of the Mother of Jesus, as Vatican II said in LG
61: "In suffering with Him as He died on the cross, she
cooperated in the work of the Savior, in an altogether singular
way, by obedience ,faith, hope and burning love, to restore
supernatural life to souls."  LG 56 also stressed her obedience
within the work of redemption. We note that if something is
repeatedly taught on the ordinary Magisterium level,it is
infallible. This is true of the teaching on her cooperation,for
there are in all 17 texts.

    Why bring in her obedience when that of Jesus is infinite?
Our Father could have forgiven without any reparation, He could
have forgiven by accepting any religious act of any person He
might appoint,e.g., offering a mere animal sacrifice. He could
have provided infinite reparation by the Incarnation in a palace
with the Redemption done by a short prayers: "Father, forgive
them." But His policy is clearly: as long as there is anything
that will make it fuller, let it be added.

    St.Thomas,in Summa I.19.5.c, said that in His love of good
order, God loves to have one thing in place to serve as a title,
as a reason for granting a second thing, even though that title
does not move Him. So it pleased Him to enrich the titles by
adding her role even in the objective redemption (the work of
once-for-all earning a title to all forgiveness and grace).
Following the same principle, He wills to add the work of the
Saints in the subjective redemption (the work of giving out the
fruits of the objective redemption). Still further, He wills that
our obedience be joined to that of His Son in the Mass -- hence
He ordered: "Do this in memory of me". St.Paul expresses this
with his syn Christo theme: we are saved and made holy if and to
the extent that we are not only members of Christ,but are also
like Him. That likeness of course must include likeness in this
work of rebalancing the objective order. So Luther was very wrong
in saying in effect:Jesus did an infinite work; there is no need
or room for anything from us.

  LG 3 adds: "As often as the sacrifice of the cross...is
celebrated on the altar, the work of our redemption is carried
out." This relates to the obedience by which He brought about
Redemption. It is presented again as a title for the giving out
of graces (cf.again Summa I.19.5.c) In the Cenacle, the external
sign was His seeming separation of body and blood, used to
express His interior attitude of obedience, willingness to die in
obedience. On the cross, the external sign of His obedience was
physical death, but the interior, obedience, was the same,
continued from that Thursday night. On our altars,we have the
same external sign as that of the Cenacle, again to express His
obedience -- willingness to do whatever the Father wills, even
death, if He willed it - which of course the Father does not
will. But just as His obedience in death once formed the title
for the infinite treasury of grace and forgiveness for us,so in
the Mass, His obedience,presented again, is the title for the
giving out of that which was won once-for-all on Calvary. Our
obedience is to be joined to His, so as to make up the obedience
of the Whole Christ, Head and Members.

         The Eucharistic bread,says LG 3, signifies the unity of
believers - yes, we then are to be the body of Christ our Head,
whose obedience is presented again. We need, of course,to unite
out obedience to His - just as Our Lady once did on Calvary,so
that the obedience of Head and members melts,as it were,into the
one great price of the giving out of the fruits won once-for-all.

    To unite it we might spend some moments before a Mass,
looking to see what we have done since the last time in doing the
will of the Father. If we have done well, we have something to
join with His offering. If some things were not done well, we add
regrets. We could look ahead too, to the time soon to come, to
see: Is there something there in which I know His will, but am
not fond of doing it? If so: Do I intend to do it? If not, this
is no place for me. By examining in advance,we have something to
join with His obedience, precisely at the moment when through the
human priest, He again expresses His obedience, by the seeming
separation of body and blood in the double consecration.

    LG 3 says this also brings about our union: By joining our
obedience to His, we should grow in obedience, which unites us to
Him, and to each other inasmuch as it makes us all  more fully
parts of His Mystical Body. St.Augustine writes (City of God
10.20): "He willed that the daily sacrament of this should be the
sacrifice of the Church, which,since it is the body of Him its
Head, learns through Him to offer itself."

4.After the work of the Father and the Son,the Holy Spirit is
sent
    a)to sanctify the Church, make her holy. Holy means two
things- set aside for God (qadosh)-- growing in moral
perfection.Especially through the Gifts the Spirit does this-
cf.the three levels of guides: namely,a person may follow; 1) the
whim of the moment which Aristotle,(Ethics 1.5) calls "a life fit
for cattle"). 2)Reason - which as a matter of fact will be aided
by actual graces. Yet the process of decision making is basically
discursive, moving from one step to another. 3)The gifts of the
Holy  Spirit. Here the conclusion is given ready made, without
any discursive steps,though the Gifts.This process can lead the
soul to things not contrary to reason, but higher than reason
would be apt to see by itself.

    b)He brings souls to life - this is the same as sanctifying,
for grace is the life of the soul, and sanctifying grace brings
about holiness.Sanctifying graces gives the radical ability to
join in the life within the Holy Trinity in the next life.

    c)He dwells in the Church and in the faithful as in a
temple. Note the senses of dwelling or presence - a Spirit in
general is present wherever He produces effects. Inasmuch as He
produces effects in the Church, He is present in the Church, and
in individuals. He can be said to come several times, even though
He is already there - for as we said, a Spirit is present
wherever He produces effects He can come several times by
producing added effects. - Mortal sin ejects the  Spirit from His
temple. This presence is different from the Real Presence in  the
Eucharist. It is different from the presence of Christ where two
or three are gathered together -- a moral presence, not physical,
inasmuch as He produces effects there. The Real Presence is in a
class by itself above all other presences of Christ.

    d)He prays in the Church - the  liturgy is the action of
Christ and of the Spirit. He also prays  within each soul in the
state of grace -- two senses (1)charismatic prayer  (2)He
intercedes for us -- cf.ST I.19.5.c,and OFP cap.4 ff.

    e)He guides the Church into all truth. There are not new
revelations -- cf.DV 4 -- but there is a gradual clarification
and deepening. Hence new definitions can and do come over the
centuries. Cf.also the introduction on the 4 levels of
teaching - guided by the Holy Spirit.

    f)He unifies the Church. A body would be dead and go into
many pieces without its soul or spirit -- the Spirit makes it
alive and therefore one. So too the Spirit makes the Church,the
body of Christ, one.

    g)He gives charismatic and sanctifying gifts. Sanctifying
gifts are aimed at making one holy, i.e.,set aside for God,and
the,growing in moral perfection. There are two types of
sanctifying graces: 1)Habitual (also called sanctifying) and
actual (a grace He gives me at this moment to lead me and to
enable me to do a particular good thing here and now. Charismatic
gifts are for some benefit to the community. There are again two
kinds:1)miraculous,such as tongues,healing the sick etc. and
nonmiraculous- the grace of being a good parent,a good teacher,a
good apostles etc.All receive some of this latter group. Chief
among charismatic gifts are the Pope and Magisterium, given as a
benefit to the Church, to lead it by the light of the Holy Spirit
into all truth, and to guide it in that truth. (Note: As to the
modern charismatic movement, if all dangers - which are not rare-
are avoided, it can be a valid form of spirituality, as long as
one understands that the Spirit gives varied graces:it must not
be pushed on all To say that all noncharismatics are "dead" is at
least close to spiritual pride,the worst of vices).

    h)He renews and keeps the Church youthful. For it is the
Spirit that gives life -- the life that comes from the Spirit is
inexhaustible - and hence eternal youth and freshness.

    In all these things, we must keep in mind that all the
operations of the three Persons are common to all (DS 800, 3814)
- and so we are appropriating when we assign these effects to the
Spirit - they are also the work of the Father and the Son.

5.Here LG speaks of the mystery of the Church, and then goes on
to speak of Jesus making a beginning of His Church by preaching
the coming of the kingdom. This seems to imply that the Church
and the kingdom are at least in part the same thing. We recall
the words of LG 3, "The Church, that is, the kingdom of Christ
already present in mystery...." We wish the Council had been
clearer on the relation of kingdom and Church. However,in a
moment we will try to help clarify. For certain,the word kingdom
cannot mean simply reign -- God always reigns. Yet He can be said
to reign specially in hearts that obey Him. There were such
hearts in the OT period,and more in the NT period.

    LG speaks of the fact that the kingdom was promised over the
ages in the Scriptures. Now Jewish literature does not in general
have the expression, kingdom of heaven. Yet Jesus used it
obviously with the attitude that people would understand. That
was right, they would, in spite of the lack of the formal
expression. For there had been many prophecies of the King
Messiah, as we see from the Targums. (The official Targums,
especially Onkelos on the Pentateuch and Jonathan on the
prophets, are more sparing in the use of the word king - yet they
consider the Messiah as descended from David. The probable reason
for the sparingness is that they may go back to Maccabean times
when such a title would not have been in favor.But the unofficial
targums, such as Pseudo-Jonathan, commonly do use the words King
Messiah. Thus Ps.J.on Gen 3.15 speaks of the days of the King
Messiah.So does the same Targum on Gen 49.10.The Targums on the
Hagiographa,not being official,commonly do use the words King
Messiah).

    However,with or without the word king,and even without the
word kingdom,to a Jew,the Messiah was the descendant of David,
and in that sense, a king. Further a Messiah without a Messianic
kingdom, a community, would be unthinkable to a Jew in the OT
times.Therefore the LG is quite right in asserting that the
kingdom was promised in the OT. But the kingdom of the Messiah
was only promised, not realized ( As we remarked, if kingdom
means subjection to the will,to the kingship of God,that was done
in the case of many individuals in OT times - and it not done by
all in NT times).

    Hence, we gather that one sense of the words kingdom of God
is the kingdom of the Messiah, which actually is His Church.
However, most ancient words and phrases have more than one
meaning. As we shall see more fully presently, the words often do
mean the Church, in this world, or in the next, or both. However
there are other senses too, which we will examine before the
sense of Church.

   Jesus Himself said at the outset (Mk 1.15): "The time is
fulfilled,the kingdom of God is at hand."

    LG adds that the kingdom showed itself in the words, works,
and especially in the very person of Christ the Messiah. It began
to appear with His miracles, for as He said (Lk 11.20): "If I by
the finger of God cast out devils, then the kingdom of God has
come upon you (ephthasen). It was present in His very person, for
the king Messiah of course would have a kingdom. Or, using a
different way of speaking, He is the Head of the Mystical Body,
and that Body is His Church, His kingdom.

    After His resurrection, Romans 1.4 speaks of Him as being
"designated Son-of-God-in-power". (The old translation
predestined is incorrect. The Greek has horisthentos, without a
prefix pro-). He always had full power, even in His humanity. Yet
He had agreed, following the will of the Father, to empty Himself
(Phil 2.7), i.e., not to use that power except to heal the sick,
and to support His claims. But now, being risen, all power in
heaven and on earth is given Him even in His humanity: Mt 28.18.
Similarly Peter in Acts 2.36 said:"God has made Him both Lord and
Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified." He already was all of
this, but had emptied Himself.

    Yet the fullness of the kingdom is to be in the world to
come - ha olam ha ba, as the Jews called it. In this sense LG
says the Church now is the seed and beginning of the kingdom, and
longs for the completed kingdom, regnum consummatum.

    The Church can be called a mystery, since it is only partly
visible. It does have visible structure, and no one who knowingly
rejects that can be saved. It has members visibly adhering. But
it also has members who belong to it even without knowing that,
and without external explicit adherence. Thus Paul in Rom 2.15
speaks of gentiles who do not know the revealed law, but yet they
"show the work of the law written on their hearts." This law is
written by the Spirit of God, or of Christ. Now from Rom 8.9  we
learn that if someone does not have and follow this Spirit,that
one does not "belong to Christ." So if one has and follows the
Spirit, he does belong. But in Paul's language,to belong to
Christ = to be a member of Christ, which =to be a member of His
mystical Body, the Church. Hence there is much mystery, to be
known fully and clearly only at the end.

    In this vein, St.Justin Martyr, c.145 A.D.in Apology
1.46,said that in the past some who were thought to be atheists,
such as Socrates and Heraclitus, were really Christians, for they
followed the Divine Logos, the Divine Word. They followed it
without knowing that fact by accepting what His Spirit, the Holy
Spirit, wrote on their hearts, as indicated in Romans 2:15. So
Socrates in following that Spirit of Christ was accepting and
following the Spirit of Christ, and belonged to Christ,  was a
member of Christ, was a member of the Church substantially,
without visible adherence of course. This fits with what LG 16
will soon say, and with LG 49: "For all who belong to Christ,
having His Spirit, coalesce into one Church and cohere with each
other in Him (cf.Eph 4:16)".

    As a result in LG 8. the Council will say that the Church
"subsists" in the Catholic Church - more on this in section 8.

    So one reason we can call the Church a mystery is that there
is more to it than what meets the eye.

    In saying there can be members without visible adherence, we
are not contradicting official texts, but adding to them.

    a)_Pius IX,in Quanto conficiamur moerore of August 10,1863
said "God...in His supreme goodness and clemency, by no means
allows anyone to be punished with eternal punishments who does
not have the guilt of voluntary fault." But some who do not
visibly adhere meet this description. Pius IX in the very next
sentence repeats the necessity of the Church for salvation.

    b)On August 9,1949, the Holy Office, by order of Pius XII,
condemned the interpretation given by L.Feeney of "no salvation
outside the Church" and said, citing the same Pope's Mystical
Body Encyclical: "It is not always required that one be actually
incorporated, but this at least is required that one adhere to it
in wish and desire" which can be "a desire of which he is not
aware" contained in the good dispositions mentioned.

    c)Vatican II in LG 16 will explicitly say the same as we
shall see.

    d)John Paul II,in Redemptoris missio,10 affirms the same
thing: "The universality of salvation means that it is granted
not only to those who explicitly believe in Christ and have
entered the Church.... For such people [those who do not know of
the Church] salvation in Christ is accessible by virtue of a
grace which, while having a mysterious relationship to the
Church, does not make them formally part of the Church...." We
are proposing to fill-in on that "mysterious relationship", and
agree that those we have described are not 'formally" part of the
Church, since they do not explicitly and externally adhere.

    Let us add a few words on the Scriptural expression, kingdom
of heaven. As we said, as actually used in the Gospels, the sense
is variable - this is true of ancient words and expressions in
general.

    Some texts are unclear, e.g.,Rom 14.17: "The kingdom of God
is not food and drink." In context, it probably means that what
one eats or drinks does not determine membership or standing.
Similarly, 1 Cor 4.20:"The kingdom of God lies not in talk, but
in power." It probably means that their acceptance of the Church
did not depend on mere words, but on the showing of the power of
God in miracles.

    Other texts refer to final salvation:  1 Cor 6.9-10:"The
unrighteous...will not inherit the kingdom of God" i.e., reach
final salvation. Eph.5.6:"No fornicator...has an inheritance in
the kingdom of Christ and of God." Mt 5.10:"Blessed are they who
suffer persecution for the sake of justice,the kingdom of God is
theirs." The Church has always understood this of martyrs.

    Many texts refer to the Church in this world: Mt 21.43:"The
kingdom...will be taken away from you and given to a nation that
will yield a rich harvest." I.e., God's call to the Jews will not
be cancelled, but their infidelity actually puts most of them
outside the People of God until they repent - meanwhile, gentiles
enter. Cf.Romans 11, the comparison of the tame and wild olive
trees: tame tree is the original people of God, from which many
branches broke off, i.e., left the  people of God by rejecting
Christ. Gentiles were grafted in, from the wild olive tree, in
the open places.. Cf.also the parables of the net, of the wise
and foolish virgins, and of the weeds in the wheat. They speak of
both good and evil people in the present Church. They will be
separated at the end. The parable of the mustard seed speaks of
the growth of the Church in this world.

    Some prominent commentators do see that in many texts the
kingdom means the Church even in this world: e.g.,Jerome Biblical
Commentary (1968) II,p.64 (John L.McKenzie); ibid II,pp.783-84
(David M.Stanley); W.F.Albright and C.S.Mann,in Anchor Bible
Matthew p.lxxxvi. Cf.pp.lxxxix and c. Cf.also R.E.Brown, The
Churches the Apostles Left Behind, (Paulist,1984,pp.1-52):
"...one must not overlook the fact that in some of the later
sections of the NT, basileia [kingdom] has been reified and
localized.... the kingdom and the church have begun to be
partially identified."  He appeals to the parable of the weeds in
the wheat (Mt 13:36-43) and Colossians 1:13-14 and Eph 2:6. In
Responses to 101 Questions on the Bible (Paulist,1990,p.12) he
says that in the original NAB version "Some bad choices were
made, e.g., to render 'the kingdom of God' by 'the reign of
God.'"

    In LG 8 we find that "the Church on earth and the Church
endowed with heavenly goods are not two things,but one complex
reality." However,in LG 5 the Church now "longs for the
consummated kingdom",the Church in heaven." So the Church on
earth is part of the kingdom.

6.Most of this section consists in giving various images of
Christ and the Church. Chiefly these:

    1)It is the sheepfold,and the Messiah is the shepherd,

    2)it is the field planted by God (cf. 1 Cor 3:6-8),

    3)it is the building built by God-- Christ is the
cornerstone,even though He as rejected by the builders.cf.Mt
21.42,referring to Ps 118.22. At times the building is called a
temple,in which the presence of God dwells. That presence dwells
in individual members of Christ as well, inasmuch as God there
produces the effect [a spirit does not need space: it is present
wherever it produces an effect] of making the soul basically
capable of the direct vision of God in the next life. 4)The
Church is also our Mother -- this will be developed further in
Chapter 8 of LG.

    4)It is also the Jerusalem that is above, as in Gal 4.26.

    5)The Church is the immaculate spouse of the Lamb.

    At the end of this section, there is mention of the fact
that the Church here is in exile,is a pilgrim. Cf.the opening of
1 Clement: "The Church of God in exile in Rome, to the Church of
God in exile in Corinth...." LG returns to this imagery several
times. Those who do not believe what LG says of the teaching
mission of the Church, try to take the pilgrim image to mean the
Church is still groping for the truth and does not know what is
right. It is true, there is a gradual clarification of revelation
over the centuries, with the result that we had a definition of
the Immaculate Conception in 1854, and of the Assumption l950, in
our times. And there is still room for doctrinal development -
but not in such a way as to contradict previous teaching - we
recall the teaching of Paul VI, in Mysterium fidei in our
introduction, and, of course, all the claims of LG itself, which
we saw in our introduction.

7.This section concentrates on the image of the Church as the
Mystical Body of Christ. The major source  of this doctrine is
found in St.Paul, as developed in the Mystical Body Encyclical of
Pius XII. The word mystical however is not found n St.Paul. It is
used to describe a type of union for which there is no exact
parallel. We could think of a natural body with its parts - but
the relation of Christ to His members is of course not of that
kind. We could think of a body which is a corporation for
business. But that union is inferior to the mystical body union.
Since there is no exact parallel, the word mystical was developed
to describe it.

    There are two groups of Epistles of St.Paul which give us
the basic data.

    First the Major Epistles. The chief text is 1 Cor 12,12- 2l:
"For just as the body is one, and has many members, and all the
members of the body though many are one body; so also is Christ.
For by the one Spirit we all were baptized into one body -
whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free. And we all have
drunk of the one Spirit. - But the body is not one member, but
many. If the foot says: Because I am not a hand, I do not belong
to the body - not for that reason does it fail to be part of the
body.... But as it is, God has placed the members, each and every
one of them in the body, as He willed. If all were one member,
where would be the body? But actually, there are many members,
but one body. The eye cannot say to the hand: I have no need of
you. Or again, the head cannot say to the feet: I do not have
need of you. But the members of the body that seem weaker are
much more necessary.... so that there may be no dissension in the
body, but that the members may have the same concern for one
another. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with
it. But you are the body of Christ,and members each in its own
part. And God has placed in the Church: First, apostles, second,
prophets, third, teachers... be eager for the better gifts."

    The context is the treatment of charismatic gifts. Paul
compares the diversity of them to the diversity of parts in the
body, and says some are nobler than others. First are apostles.
At the end of the list come tongues - Paul thinks Corinthians are
childish about tongues.

    We note that Paul does not say that they are all one in
Christ, but all are  the body of Christ.

    In this first group of texts belong also Rom 12: 4-8, which
is parallel to the above text, and 1 Cor 6:15: "Do you not know
that your bodies are members of Christ? So, so should I take the
members of Christ, and make them members of a harlot?"

    The interrelation of members, so that if one suffers all
suffer, has a rabbinic background. Cf.Simeon ben Eleazar, c. 170
A.D.[citing Rabbi Meir, from earlier in the same century]: "He
[anyone] has committed a transgression: woe on him, he has tipped
the scale to the side of debt for himself and for the world; He
has carried out a commandment. Blessings on him. He has tipped
the scale to the side of merit for himself and for the world."
(Tosefta,Kiddushin 1.14). Cf.also OFP chapter 4.

    The second group of texts comes from Colossians and
Ephesians. In 1 Cor & Romans, Paul does not explicitly speak of
Christ as the Head, though of course that is implied if
Christians are members of His Body. But he becomes quite explicit
in Col & Eph. There are several aspects brought out:

         a)Absolute primacy: Eph 5.23:"For the man is the head
of the woman, as also Christ is the head of the Church."
Col.1.18: "And He Himself is the head of the body, the Church."
Col 2.18-19: "And let no one rob you of your prize, in lowering
yourselves, and in worshipping angels - and not holding on to the
head [Christ] from whom the whole body, nourished and knit
together though its joints and ligaments, grows with divine
growth."

         b)Christ is the Fullness, the pleroma: (That word is
familiar to the Gnostics. It is likely - not certain - Paul is
working against them in these Epistles, and so uses their terms
to fight them). Col 2:9: "For in Him lives permanently all the
fulness (pleroma) of the divinity in a bodily way, and you have
been made full in Him, who is the head of every principality and
power." (And so, no need to worship them, as the Gnostics said).
Col 1.19:"For it pleased [The Father] that all fullness should
dwell permanently in Him."

         c)The Church receives from Him, becomes His fullness.
Eph 1.22-23: "And He subjected all things under His feet, and He
made Him Head over all things, for the Church, which is His Body,
the fullness of Him who is filled in all things." (Or: Who fills
all things). - [Paul prays that the Ephesians may] "know the love
of Christ, which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to
all the fullness of God." (Eph 3.19).

         d)All this is aimed at the complete development of the
pleroma. Eph 4.13: [God has given charisms, including especially
that of apostles, to the Church] "until we all come together into
the unity of faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to be a
perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of
Christ." (Can refer to full development of the Church to the full
Christ in fullest sense, and/or the development of each
individual in it in conformity with Christ.)

         e)Thus Christ becomes the center of all: Eph 1.10: "He
made known to us the mystery of His will, for His plan in the
fullness of the times, so as to recapitulate all things in
Christ"(anakephalaiosthai - could mean to restore all things in
Christ, to reunite all under one sole Head, or to reunite all
things in Christ as in their center).

8.This section dwells on two major aspects of the Church  - it is
a spiritual reality, i.e., the Mystical Body of Christ, and it is
also a visible society. Yet these two are one complex reality.
Further,the Church visible on earth and the Church in Heaven are
not two things,but one reality.Therefore,since the council calls
the Church in Heaven the kingdom (LG 3), the Church on earth is
also part of the kingdom. There is only one (unica) Church of
Christ, governed by the successor of Peter .However, since there
are many elements of sanctification and truth outside the visible
confines, the text can say that the Church "subsists in" the
Catholic Church.

    Part of the explanation is provided by an analogy - these
two elements form one just as the divinity and humanity form one
in Christ. The divinity of course, in Him is greater, not
confined to, or limited by His humanity. Rather, we would say His
humanity subsists in it. Similarly the Church, considered as
Mystical Body,is greater than the visible structure which we see.


    The relatio on this passage as found in the Acta explains
the situation: "Now the intention is to show that the Church,
whose deep and hidden nature is described and which is
perpetually united with Christ and His work, is concretely found
here on earth in the Catholic Church. This visible Church reveals
a mystery - not without shadows until it is brought to full
light, just as the Lord Himself through His 'emptying' came to
glory.... The mystery of the Church is present in and manifested
in a concrete society." (Quoted from James T. O'Connor, "The
Church of Christ and the Catholic Church" in Homiletic &
Pastoral, Jan. 1984, p.l4).

    This concept shows also in several statements of the Council
on membership in the Church. In  the decree on ecumenism 22: "By
the Sacrament of Baptism, whenever it is conferred rightly
according to the institution of the Lord, and is received with
the due disposition of soul, a person is really incorporated in
the crucified and glorified Christ..." This seems to say that by
Baptism a person becomes a member of the Mystical Body - which is
the Church, even if Baptism is received outside the visible
confines. Similarly in LG 9: "Those who believe in Christ and are
reborn not from corruptible seed but from incorruptible seed by
the word of the Living God, not of flesh but of water and the
Holy Spirit, are constituted finally a chosen people, a royal
priesthood, a holy people, an acquired people...who once were not
a people, but now are the people of God." These two statements do
seem at least to apply to all those who are baptized even in
Protestantism, so that they have an imperfect membership. That
imperfection is brought out in LG 14: "They are fully
incorporated into the society of the Church, who, having the
Spirit of Christ, accept all its organization and all the means
of salvation instituted in it, and are joined in the same visible
union with Christ, who rules it through the Supreme Pontiff and
the Bishops, that is [they are joined] by the bonds of profession
of faith, of the acceptance of ecclesiastical rule and
communion." This seems to mean there can be an imperfect, less
than full membership for those who are baptized, but do not
accept the visible Church and its rule.

    Less clarity results if we read also LG 15: "The Church
knows that she is joined with those who are baptized, and adorned
with the name of Christian, but do not profess the whole faith,
or do not keep the unity of communion with the Successor of
Peter." A similar attitude seems to show in the Decree on
Ecumenism 3: "Those who believe in Christ and have properly
received Baptism, are established in "a certain communion with
the Catholic Church" even though it is not perfect."

    To sum up:The language of these four passages seems
hesitant. The first two passages seem to affirm that by Baptism
one becomes a member of Christ, and so a member of the Church,
even though the membership or communion will be imperfect if they
do not accept the visible Catholic Church. The second two seem to
say they only are joined with the Church, rather than being
actual members. LG 49 seems to fit with the stronger conclusion:
"For all those who belong to Christ, having His Spirit,coalesce
into one Church."

    We saw above in comments on LG  5 that we can by
theological reasoning show that even nonbaptized persons who,
like Socrates (Cf.St.Justin Martyr, Apology 1.46) follow the
Divine Logos are Christians,and so are members of the Church.
This fits with the teaching that the Church "subsists in" the
Catholic Church. This does not mean that Protestant bodies are
as it were component parts of the Catholic Church; no,even though
their individualmembers may be members of the Church
individually.

          Important misunderstandings come from Alan Schreck.

    He,in Catholic and Christian, (Servant,1984) wrote:

p.2:"I hope it will be apparent to all that this book was not
written to present Catholicism as the only legitimate form of
Christianity and certainly not to critize [sic] other
Christians,nor to 'prove them wrong'  in their beliefs."

    On pp.110-13 of his Basics of the Faith: A Catholic
Catechism (Servant Books,1987) says: "Catholics believe that one
place the church of Christ truly exits (or subsists) is in the
Catholic church.... The positive teaching stated here is a
genuine expression of the Church of Christ. Never does the Second
Vatican Council or any papal teaching say that the Church of
Jesus Christ and the grace of salvation is limited to the
Catholic Church.... These teachings are intended to break down
the simple and incorrect dichotomy  of one church being the 'true
church' and all others being 'false' churches."

    COMMENT: 1)It is true that the grace of salvation can be
found elsewhere. Lumen gentium 16 says: "For they who without
their own fault do not know of the Gospel of Christ and His
Church, but yet seek God with sincere heart,and try, under the
influence of grace,to carry out His will in practice, known to
them through the dictate of conscience,can attain eternal
salvation." John Paul II in his Encyclical on the Missions in 10
says the same [underline added]: "For such people [those who do
not formally enter the Church, as in LG 16] salvation in Christ
is accessible by virtue of a grace which, while having a
mysterious relationship to the Church,does not make them formally
part of the Church." We underline the word "formally" to indicate
that there may be something less than formal membership, which
yet suffices for salvation. A similar thought is found in LG 14
which says "they are fully incorporated who  accept all its
organization....." We will show presently that there can be a
lesser, or substantial membership,which suffices for salvation.

    Schreck has in mind a line in LG 8: "This Church, in this
world as a constituted and ordered society, subsists in the
Catholic  Church...even though outside its confines many elements
of sanctification and truth are found which, as gifts proper to
the Church of Christ, impel to Catholic unity."

             2)Schreck missed the words in LG 8 which speak of
"this one and only  [unica]  Church of Christ,which we profess in
the Creed...." Similarly the Decree on Religious Liberty in 1
says that" it [this decree] leaves untouched the traditional
Catholic doctrine about the duty of men and societies to the true
religion and the one and only [unica] Church of Christ."

    So there really is only one true Church. But really,we
suspect Schreck thinks that protestant churches are as it were
component parts of the Church of Christ. And he thinks that
follows from the words about "subsisting in" and the statement
that elements of sanctification can be found outside the visible
confines of the Catholic Church.  This is probably why,in the
quote given above from his p. 2 he says that the Catholic Church
is not the only legitimate form of Christianity.

    But it does not really follow that there are other
legitimate forms of Christianity. Pope Gregory XVI (DS
2730.Cf.Pius IX, DS 2915 and Leo XIII,DS 3250) condemned "an evil
opinion that souls can attain eternal salvation by just any
profession of faith, if their morals follow the right norm." So
although people who do not formally join can be saved,as LG 16
says,and Redemptoris missio 10 also says,they are not saved by
such a faith.It is in spite of it.

             3)Yet we can account for the words about subsisting
in and about finding elements of salvation outside. For this we
need the help of the Fathers of the Church.

    We begin with St.Justin the  Martyr who c.145 A.D.in Apology
1.46,said that in the past some who were thought to be atheists,
such as Socrates and Heraclitus, were really Christians, for they
followed the Divine Logos, the Divine Word. Further,in Apology
2.10 Justin adds that the Logos is in everyone. Now of course the
Logos,being Spirit,does not take up space.We say a spirit if
present wherever it prduces an effect. What effect? We find that
in St.Paul,in Romans 2:14-16 where he says that "the Gentiles who
do not have the law, do by nature the works of the law. They show
the work of the law written on their hearts." and according to
their response, conscience will defend or accuse them at the
judgment.

    So it is the Logos, the Spirit of Christ,who writes the law
on their hearts, that,it makes known to them interiorly what they
need to do. Some then could follow it without knowing that fact.
So Socrates:  (1)read and believed what the Spirit wrote in his
heart; (2) he had confidence in it; (3) he obeyed it. We see this
obedience in the fact that Socrates went so far as to say, as
Plato quotes him many times,that the one who seeks the truth must
have as little as possible to do with the things of the body.

    Let us notice the three things, just enumerated: St.Paul in
Romans 3:29 asked: "Is He the God of the Jews only? No, He is
also the God of the gentiles." It means that if God made
salvation depend on knowing and following the law of Moses,He
would act as if He cared for no one but Jews.But God does care
for all.Paul insists God makes salvation possible by faith for
them (cf.Romans chapter 4).Faith in Paul includes the three
things we have enumerated which Socrates did.

    So in following that Spirit of Christ Socrates was accepting
and following the Spirit of Christ, But then, from Romans 8:9 we
gather that if one has and follows the Spirit of Christ, he
"belongs to Christ". That is, He is a member of Christ,which in
Paul's terms means a member of the Mystical Body ,which is the
Church.

    So Socrates then was a member of the Church,but not
formally,only substantially. He could not know the Church. So he
was saved,not by his false religious beliefs but in spite of
them. He was saved by faith, and similarly protestants and others
who do not formally join the Church today can be saved not as
members of e.g., the Baptist church, which Schreck seems to think
is an integral part of the one Church of Christ -- no, they are
saved as individuals,who make use of the means of sanctification
they are able to find even outside the visible confines of the
Catholic Church.

    Many other Fathers speak much like St.Justin. A large
presentation of them can be found in Wm.Most,  Our Father's
Plan,in a 28 page appendix.

    Lumen gentium also likes to speak of  the Church as a
mystery. This is correct,for it is a mystery, since it is only
partly visible. It does have visible structure, and no one who
knowingly  rejects that can be saved. It has members visibly
adhering. But it also has members who belong to it even without
knowing that, and without external explicit adherence.  Hence
there is much mystery, to be known fully and clearly only at the
end.

    So all other forms of Christianity are heretical and/or
schismatic. They are not legitimate. And we should criticize them
and prove them wrong in their heresies,contrary to what Schreck
said on page 2.

    For fuller data on this question,see OFP, appendix. There
extensive evidence is given from the early Fathers,who make two
kinds of statements: one kind seems very stringent,the other very
broad, and shows a broad concept of membership in the Church. We
can reconcile these two kinds of statements by recalling Romans
2.15:"They [gentiles who do not know revelation] show the work of
the law written on their hearts." This echoes Jeremiah 31.33,the
prophecy of the New Covenant.It means that the Spirit of God,or
of Christ,writes the law,i.e,makes known to the hearts of
pagans,what morality requires.If they accept that,they
are,without realizing it,accepting the Spirit of Christ.But
then,from Romans 8:9 we gather that one who has and follows the
Spirit of  Christ, belongs to Christ. That = in Paul's language,
member of Christ which = member of the Church, so even these can
have a membership sufficient for salvation. This seems implied
also in LG 16: "Those who without their own fault do not know of
the Gospel of Christ and His Church, but yet seek God with
sincere heart, and try under the influence of grace, to carry out
His will in practice, known to them through the dictate of
conscience, can attain eternal salvation."

    The Council adds that since her Founder was poor, the Church
use the same means He did, and should recognize Him especially in
the poor.

    Also, the Church is simultaneously holy,and in need of
purification. She is holy in that she has all the means of
holiness and her structure is that willed by her Founder. She is
in need of purification in her members, as Church history shows
so sadly.

                  Chapter 2: The Church as People of God

9.It is the will of God to save people not as individuals,but as
members of His People- as we see already in the OT.

    If we made a synthesis of the thought of St.Paul it would be
this: We are saved and made holy, if and to the extent that we
are members of Christ, and like Him. This is what Luther
overlooked, saying if we just take Christ as our Savior, we need
do nothing, for His work is infinite. It is true, His work is
infinite, but it is the will of the Father that we be His
members,and like Him. Without that, we are not saved.We are not
saved as individuals.

    We can speak of a merit of heaven in a secondary sense.
There are two phases:1)We get justification,i.e., first
sanctifying grace, without any merit at all. It is a free gift,
given on condition of faith - which itself is a gift (Eph 2:8).
Of course,this does not mean that salvation is given blindly, by
a blind predestination. God offers the gift of faith to all, and
all receive it if they do not reject it. (We recall the process
explained earlier in the context of Rom 2:14-16).(Cf.DS
1525,1532)   2)The acceptance and possession of this grace gives
us a claim to heaven, which could be called a merit, for a merit
is a claim t a reward (Cf.DS 1582). We get that inasmuch as by
grace we are sons of God, brothers of Christ (Rom 8:17) and like
Him (Rom 8:18).

    This fact that we are saved not individually but as members
of Christ does not deny individual responsibility, nor does it
mean one need not work at his own spiritual growth. Such a view
has been fostered by a new spirituality, which could be called
GUN (cf.OFP 184- 92),i.e., Give-Up-Nothing. The crudest form
argues that all creatures are triply good ( and may appeal to
Vatican II,On Lay Apostolate 7), so there is no good in giving
up anything voluntarily. Cf.Ernest Larkin,O.Carm."Desacralization
and Ascetisism" in Pastoral Life,Dec.1967,p.673:"The old
spirituality was a 'Jesus and me' piety, the new is centered in
the community of God's People in the Body of Christ.... Growth of
the person and growth of the community are correlative
phenomena." Whether or not Larkin meant to go so far, many have
gone to the point of thinking: Just follow the community, make
the responses etc.and do not bother about individual spiritual
growth. An article in Saturday Evening Post (Nov 28,1965,p.42)
said:"The older generation of Catholics seem to prefer the purely
pietistic and devotional form of faith because they want to be
consoled,not challenged.They wish to recite the Rosary,not
Encyclicals. 'They are,' says a St.Louis priest, ' spiritual
gluttons, soaking up the sacraments, obsessed with saving their
own souls, not the souls of Negroes or Latin Americans or with
transforming society in Christ."-- One can hear the echo of the
Pharisee:O God I am not like the rest of men! (Compare gifts to
missions from the older generation and today).This is anti-
salesmanship!

    Larkin also said (p.671): "Today the question [where to find
God] would likely get an answer along these lines: I find God not
only in prayer - I have, indeed, real difficulty there...but also
and even especially in my neighbor and  my work. I do not mean
that I have explicit contact with God in my work, except on
occasion. But this is not necessary. As long as I am seeking to
serve, to be for others, even without conscious reference to God,
I am like the good Samaritan and am finding Christ in the least
of His brethren." Yes this charity is good, even imperative - but
the horizontal must not wipe out the vertical. A priest I know
once said: "If I were alone on a desert island I could have no
relation with God, for I can have it only through people."

    Vatican II does not accept this GUN spirituality. Instead it
teaches the value of giving up things,e.g., LG 46: "...the
counsels contribute a great deal to the purification of heart and
spiritual liberty. They continually stir up the fervor of
charity."

    LG here speaks of the ancient People of God as holy. That is
Hebrew qadosh. Its first meaning is set aside for God,
consecrated to God, coming under the covenant with Him. From that
follows an obligation to be holy in the sense of being far
advanced on the scale of moral perfection. But that is a
secondary meaning of holy in Scripture.

    The Old Covenant was a prefiguration and preparation for the
New. Jeremiah 31.31 ff. foretold it. Jeremiah probably did not
foresee fully how it was to be carried out, that the basic
obedience was to be that of Jesus (for this sort of possibility
cf. LG 55. But The Holy Spirit can intend and express more than
the human writer sees. Hence here LG does say that de facto Jer
31 foretold what Jesus did in the Cenacle. It adds that Jesus
brought together Jew and gentile in the new covenant - again, did
Jeremiah foresee all this?

    St.Paul in Eph 2:13-17 says Jesus made both Jew and gentile
one in  Himself. This of course applies only to the Jews who
accepted Him, not to those who rejected Him then and now. In
Romans 11:16-19 St.Paul makes a comparison of two olive
trees,tame and wild.The tame tree stands for the original People
of God. Many branches fell off it,i.e.,rejected Christ the
Messiah the fulfillment to which the OT looked forward. In their
places were engrafted many branches from the wild tree, that of
the gentiles. So in one sense we can speak of a new covenant, as
Jeremiah did, for it is going beyond the old, is its fulfillment;
in another sense,the new is the continuation and perfection of
the old.

    So, sadly, we see that Jews today who reject Christ are not
members of the people of God. Romans 11:1 says God has not
rejected His people. Right, but most of them have rejected Him.
Rom 11:29 says that the gifts of God are without repentance,that
is, He has not cancelled His call or invitation to them to be
part of His people. But It is one thing for Him to call, another
for them to accept. Most of them still do not accept. Some
Catholics are claiming today that a modern Jew need not accept
Christ, can continue to reject Him and still be saved. This is
true and false: It is false that they can be saved by
deliberately rejecting Christ; it is true that they, like pagans,
could be saved in the process we described starting with Romans
2:14-16.

    We have the dignity and freedom of sons - in contrast to
being in slavery in the old law,as St.Paul expresses it, e.g., in
Gal 4. The word son expresses relationship in nature (we have a
share in divine nature as 2 Pet 1.4 tells us) and ability to
inherit - what we have not earned, and expresses freedom from
slavery. Yet slave is a suitable word,and Paul often uses it,
e.g., in Rom 1.1, to refer to himself. Slave expresses the fact
of our total dependence on God, the fact that we owe Him
everything, even if He did not reward at all. In Lk 17,10 Jesus
tells us: "When you have done all things that are commanded to
you, say: We are unprofitable servants, we have done what we
owed." That is, God cannot gain anything from our "service".

    God dwells in us as in a temple. We say He is present
wherever He produces an effect - in sustaining creation, in
making a soul radically capable of the vision of God.

    The People of God is destined for the kingdom of God,
Heaven, which was begun on earth, will be fully completed in the
next world. Even though here we are sons, yet St.Paul said in Rom
8.23 that now "even though we have the first fruits of the
Spirit, we groan within ourselves, waiting for adoption as sons."
It means we have the start, not the completion now. Further, Paul
in the same passage says all creation groans now along with us,
but that it will finally be freed from the slavery to corruption.

    So this People of God is on pilgrimage, for we have not here
a lasting city, as Hebrews 13:14 says. We need to meditate much
on the fact that this is not our city, that we are only in a
waiting room as it were.

    LG says that we are a people purchased by Christ by His
blood, the price of redemption. That price is paid not to satan,
who held our race captive, but to the objective order.We saw the
answer in comments on 3 above (cf.also OFP chapter 4).

    Christ has given us the Church as the means of a visible
union,so that it may serve as a channel of grace to all men,as
the universal sacrament. For every grace given to men before
Christ was given in anticipation of Christ ,and now it is given
through the Church, even to those who - as explained above - do
not recognize the Church. For if they follow the Spirit of
Christ, even though not knowing that it is that Spirit, they
belong to Christ, and as His members,they receive grace. Grace is
given even in advance of that membership, so that they may become
His members by following the Spirit.

10.Christ the Priest has made a kingdom of priests. All share in
different ways in the one priesthood of Christ. Yet there are
differences - not only in degree, but also in kind. (Cf.OFP
chapter 11). For the ordained priest acts "in the person of
Christ" and "effects" that is, brings about the sacrifice. Pius
XII explained,to the Liturgical Conference at Assisi,Sept 22,1956
(AAS 48.717): "When the consecration of the bread and wine is
validly brought about, the whole action of Christ is actually
accomplished. Even if all that remains could not be completed,
still, nothing essential would be lacking to the Lord's
offering." So it is wrong to say, as some have said, that the
priest merely makes Christ present, then all, on the same level,
can offer Him.

    LG 34 clarifies what is meant by spiritual sacrifices: "For
all their works, prayers,and apostolic endeavors, their married
and family life, their daily work, their relaxation of mind and
body, if they are carried out in the Spirit, even the hardships
of life, if they are patiently borne, become spiritual
sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ which are
offered devotedly to the Father in the celebration of the
Eucharist, along with the offering of the Lord's Body." (On
married life as a spiritual means,cf OFP chapter 16.)

    Pius XII, in Mediator Dei (AAS 39-555-56), explained in more
detail. There are two senses in which the faithful can be said to
offer the great sacrifice: First, "It is clear that the faithful
offer the sacrifice through the hands of the priest from the fact
that the priest at the altar in offering a sacrifice in the name
of all His members, does so in the person of Christ, the Head [of
the Mystical Body, of which they are members]." The second sense
is that of the spiritual sacrifices just mentioned: "The
statement that the people offer the sacrifice with the priest
does not mean that...they perform a visible liturgical
rite...instead, it is based on the fact that the people join
their hearts in praise, petition, expiation and thanksgiving with
the prayers or intention of the priest, in fact, of the High
Priest Himself, so that in the one and same offering of the
Victim...they may be presented to God the Father."

    To clarify further: A sacrifice consists of an external sign
and interior dispositions. The outward sign is there to express
and even promote the interior dispositions. In the Cenacle the
outward sign was the seeming separation of body and blood; on the
cross,it was the physical separation. But in both cases the real
value came from the interior, His obedience to the will of the
Father- cf.Rom 5.19 and LG 3 and Paul VI, cited in our comments
on LG 3. The most essential sharing is in the interior
dispositions, without which the death of Christ would have been a
tragedy, not a redemption. So it is very unfortunate to so stress
external things, such as making responses, that the impression is
given that there is nothing else. The exterior without the
interior is what God rebuked in the Jews,through Is 29.13: "This
people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from
me."

    LG adds that the people should exercise their priesthood too
"by the witness of a holy life, by self-denial and active
charity." This means the opposite of conforming to the world. And
they are also to be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks
them for the reason for their faith - that is, they should know
apologetics. (Cf.W.Most, Catholic Apologetics Today).

11.The sacred nature of the priestly community is especially seen
in the Sacraments. Baptism makes one a member, gives the
obligation of professing the faith in the world, especially  by
not conforming themselves to this world (cf.Rom 12:2), but by
living even publicly in accord with the principles of the Spirit
of Christ. Confirmation gives a title to special strength of the
Holy Spirit when that is needed to proclaim the faith. Gifts of
the Holy Spirit come when sanctifying grace is first received,
but are increased with increases in grace, especially with
Confirmation. There are three levels of guides a person may
follow (cf.OFP chapter 23). Lowest is the whim of the moment, not
worthy of a human being.Aristotle (Ethics 1.5) calls living
according to pleasure a life fit only for cattle. On the next
level, one follows reason, which de facto will be aided by actual
graces, yet reason remains the chief control. Above this, on the
third level, if a soul is well advanced, can come the special
guidance on the wave-length of the Holy Spirit - received not by
a discursive process of reason, but in one stroke. These works of
the Gifts often do not give certitude - when there is a chance to
consult a director or superior. If there is no such chance, they
may give certitude - but there is danger here of self-deception,
hence the importance of external guidance.And we should notice
too,that the clear instances of functions of the Gifts on this
third level, do not normally appear until one is quite advanced
spiritually. The Gifts bring other favors too, especially infused
light and even infused contemplation (cf.OFP chapter 22). As we
saw in 10 the members of the priestly people also have a role in
the offering of the Eucharistic Sacrifice. The Sacrament of
Penance brings reconciliation with God and with the Church - we
recall St.Paul's words that when one member suffers, all suffer
(1 Cor 12.26). And even the rabbis knew this, as we saw in the
quote from Simeon ben Eleazar. The Anointing of the Sick commends
the soul to the suffering and dying and rising Jesus. Holy Orders
says LG are appointed to nourish the Church with the word and
grace of God in the name of Christ. We note word is mentioned
first, and recall St.Paul in 1 Cor 1.17: "Christ did not send me
to baptize, but to preach." The Semitic pattern means the one is
more important than the other. Marriage is sanctified by a
special Sacrament, for it is meant as a path to holiness Cf.OFP
chapter 16,esp.p.149) citing the words of Paul VI: "Marriage and
the Christian family demand a moral commitment. They are not an
easy way of Christian life, even though the most common,the one
on which most of God's children are called to travel. Rather it
is a long path toward sanctification." Parents, says LG, "by word
and example,are the first to proclaim the faith to their children
" in what LG calls "the domestic church". For all are called to
work for the perfection of the Father Himself(Mt 5.58):"Be you
perfect,as your Heavenly Father is perfect."(cf OFP chapter
15,with quote from Pius XI that all are called to perfection in
every walk of life).

12.Besides sharing in Christ's priesthood, the people have a
share in His prophetic role.In the NT prophet does not basically
mean one who foretells the future,though that may happen -
rather, he is one with the grace to make moving exhortations to
the people. So a sharing in Christ's prophetic role really means
the grace to bring the influence of Christ into the world by
example, a life of faith,and love,and by trying to "sell" the
principles of Christ in the world. We think of Romans 12:2, "Do
not be conformed to this world." This is of course the opposite
of conforming to the world,of trying not to be different. The
laity as such can penetrate into places where priests and
religious do not go.

    The whole body of the faithful have an anointing, that is, a
grace from the Holy Spirit that helps them recognize what is
true. Hence if the entire Church, people and authorities both,
have ever believed (strict sense, of accepting as revealed) a
thing, that cannot be in error. It is infallible. Of course, this
does not apply to subtle and debated points in theology. Further,
this does not mean that the authorities merely echo what the
people believe - rather, the people believe as an echo of the
authorities, even though historically, some movements, leading to
definitions, have had a start at grassroots.

    Also, at the time of Arianism, the people kept more faithful
than did the Bishops, though St.Jerome's outburst was a great
exaggeration. Really,the Emperor, at two regional councils, had
gotten the Bishops, by threats and deception, to accept an
ambiguous creed - not one that was strictly erroneous. (Jerome
wrote, in Dialogue against the Luciferians,19: "The  whole world
groaned and was surprised to see itself Arian."

    What if  people today stop believing something once
believed? What was once established as infallible cannot become
erroneous or doubtful by the falling away of a later time.

    LG next speaks of charismatic gifts. There are two kinds of
graces - sanctifying and charismatic. Sanctifying graces include
habitual (or sanctifying) grace, and actual grace. Habitual grace
automatically makes the recipient holy. Actual grace is aimed at
that, it is the grace sent at a given moment to lead and enable
one to do a particular good thing.

    Charismatic graces are not aimed at sanctification, though
indirectly they may help. They are for some particular benefit to
the community. There are two kinds - the miraculous and the non-
miraculous. The miraculous include tongues, healings etc. The
nonmiraculous include the grace of being an apostle, a teacher, a
speaker, a good parent etc. So in this latter sense, all have one
or another charism.

    God offers sanctifying graces abundantly to all - they were
earned by the infinite price of redemption, within the New
Covenant. But as to charismatic miraculous graces, the Spirit
gives as He wills, without regard to merit - hence priesthood is
given without regard to merit. In Mt 7.22-23 Jesus says at the
end some will say: "Have we  not prophesied in your name, cast
out devils in your name, worked wonders in your name?" And He
will say: "Depart from me, you workers of iniquity. I never knew
you". - So one may not even have the state of grace, and yet be
able to work miracles!

    As to the miraculous type - LG advises we should not rashly
desire them. That would leave an opening for self-deception, or
diabolic deception. And whether or not they are genuine is to be
judged by the Church authorities. Not all cases of these this are
from the Holy Spirit. Some are from an evil spirit, some merely
autosuggestion.

13.All are called to be members of the kingdom. In Jn 10:16 Jesus
says: "I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring
them, and they will be one fold,one shepherd." Originally this
referred to the union of gentiles and Jews in the Church - a
thing the first Christians were slow to understand. Does it
predict all will be Christian at the end of the  world?
Definitely not, for in Lk 18:.8 Jesus says of the end: "When the
Son of Man comes, do you think He will find faith on the earth?"
Cf.also 2 Thes.2:3. Could it be that at some time before the end
there will be a great age for the Church, when all, or nearly all
will enter? St.Paul predicts the conversion of the Jews in Rom
11.25-26: "A blindness in part has come upon Israel until the
fullness of the gentiles enter. And so all Israel will be saved."
(saved here means enter the Church. Paul knows,as he shows in Rom
2:14-16, that many can reach final salvation without formally
entering the Church by visible adherence.Cf.LG 16). There is a
fascinating resemblance here to Lk 21.24: "Jerusalem will be
trodden by the gentiles until the times of the gentiles are
fulfilled." We wonder, is that fulfilled in the reestablishment
of Israel in 1948 and the full capture of Jerusalem in l967?

    We do not know if the conversion of the Jews is to  come
just before the end, or sometime before it - seems more likely
just before the end. Elijah is to return. Perhaps he will be
agent of their conversion. So a great age might not include the
Jews.

    The Church, the People of God is present in all nations, but
this does not take away anything from the temporal welfare of
those nations. Rather,it is a benefit, for the Church purifies
what is useful and good in these communities.

    The People of God is made up of various ranks, and persons
with varying gifts. Included are those who follow Christ most
closely, by religious life.

    The Chair of Peter presides over the whole community of
love. Within the community, riches are shared (Mystical Body and
Communion of Saints).

14.The Church, a pilgrim on earth, is necessary for salvation. So
anyone who, knowing that the Church was founded by Christ as
necessary would fail to enter, could not be saved.

    They are fully incorporated who receive Baptism, and accept
the visible Church fully.They get this not from their own merits
but from grace. (Cf.Romans 9 on God's decision to give full
membership in the Church, and notice Acts 16:6-7,and compare 1
Cor 1:26-30; Ezek 3:5-7 (note Ezek 5.6--"[Jerusalem] has rebelled
against my laws more than the nations."; Jonah 3; parable of good
Samaritan, and the account of the 10 lepers healed. Note also Mt
11:21, where Jesus says that if the miracles done in Capernaum
had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have  penance in
sackcloth and ashes.

    In passing, we observe the mention of full membership, which
seems to imply the existence of a lesser degree of membership.
Please recall also our comments on  5 & 8.

    The Church considers catechumens, not yet baptized, as her
own (suos). Cf.St.Ambrose's sermon on Valentinian II in 392.

15.There are others who are baptized, but who do not profess the
full faith, or do not recognize the Holy See. Yet they are joined
with the Church. We recognize the lack of clarity in the word
joined with (coniunctam). We discussed this previously, when we
quoted this text. We saw however that these persons can really be
members of the Church, in an imperfect way, without adherence to
the visible Church. The Decree on  Ecumenism,in  3 says:"Those
who are justified by faith in baptism, are incorporated into
Christ, and so are rightly adorned with the Christian name, and
are rightly recognized by the sons of the Catholic Church as
brothers in the Lord."

16.Further, there are some who have not accepted the Gospel, but
are ordered to the People of God by various reasons. In the first
place, the Jews, who belong to the Old Covenant, from whom Christ
descended, though they do not accept Him. God's call to them is
still in force, without repentance. Romans 11 foretells their
final conversion. Meanwhile,the image of the tame and wild olive
tree indicates that they have cut themselves off,and so are not
members of the people of God. Yet even these, if in good
faith,can reach final salvation, as we saw,and can have an
imperfect membership, like those spoken of in Romans 2:14-16
Cf.again our comments on 5 above.

    Still farther out are the Muslims. (There was never any
authentication for the alleged revelations to Mohammed. Nor did
he himself ever claim to work a miracle, still less a miracle
worked in such a framework as to establish a tie between the
miracle and the claim).They do know the one merciful God who will
judge all on the last day.

    There are also those who "in shadows and images seek the
unknown God." These are the pagans, in idolatry. Yet in view of
what we said earlier, some of these can even be considered
members in an imperfect way if they meet the conditions of Romans
2:14-16, which we discussed above in 5. LG 16 does add something
of great importance: "They who without fault do not know the
Gospel of Christ and His Church, but yet seek God with a sincere
heart, and try under the influence of grace to fulfill His will,
known by the dictate of conscience, can attain eternal
salvation." This is reaffirmed by the words of John Paul II in
his Encylical, Redemptoris missio 10. LG adds that whatever good
and true is found among them, is a preparation for the Gospel."
But LG adds,paraphrasing Romans 1, that very often men,deceived
by the Evil one, have become vain in their thoughts, and have
exchanged the truth of God for the lie, serving the creature
rather than the Creator, or, living and dying in this world
without hope they are exposed to extreme despair". Hence for them
the Church sends out missionaries.

    We can go beyond LG here without contradicting it, by saying
that one who may claim he does not believe in God, may be merely
rejecting a false notion of God, and yet, by following the Spirit
of Christ which makes known to him interiorly what God wills,
such a one may be objectively belong to Christ,and even be in a
very imperfect way a member of His Church,as we explained in 5
above. However,they live without subjective hope of eternal life,
inasmuch as they do not know of it - but objectively they are not
without hope, in the way we have described. However, even though
they have a chance for salvation, they are in greater danger,
have less security - hence the importance of missions - which
today have declined though a false notion of ecumenism and of the
anonymous Christian. They are saved not through but in spite of
their false worship, and we say God can accept their good will
shown in following the Spirit without knowing what it is.

    But we must insist that they have a real chance for
salvation, for we think of the reasoning of St.Paul in Romans
3.29-30: "Is He the God of the Jews alone? Is He not the God of
the gentiles(pagans) too?" Paul means if God did not make
provision for the salvation of pagans,He would act as though He
were not their God, neglecting them, leaving them to certain
eternal ruin. But He is their God too, and therefore we must hold
He does make provision. LG teaches that too. So did Pius  IX (DS
2866): "God...in His supreme goodness and clemency,does not allow
anyone to be punished with eternal punishment who does not have
the guilt of voluntary fault." It means that if someone keeps the
moral law as he knows it, he will be saved. Pius IX does not
explain how the requirement of faith is met in them - yet he
assures us that somehow it is met. We have made the suggestion
above: In following the lead of the Spirit of Christ, interiorly
making known to them what God requires, they are objectively
accepting God, accepting the Spirit of Christ,and so can even be
said to belong to Christ = members of Christ = members of His
Church, though in an imperfect way.

17.Christ sent the Apostles to preach to the whole world.Hence
the Church must continue to fulfill this.For even if a person can
be saved as described above,without hearing of the Church and the
Gospel,yet they are in a less secure position,and are not
fulfilling the command of Christ to accept the Church.

    Every follower of Christ has the obligation to spread the
faith, so that  the prophecy of Malachi 1:11 may be fulfilled:
"From the rising of the sun even to its going down, my name is
great among the gentiles, and in every place there is sacrifice,
and there is offered to my name a clean oblation." The sense of
this text of Malachi is disputed by scholars. One of the
acceptable positions is that here used by LG. We do not know if
the Council meant to determine the meaning of the text, or only
to use it for an illustration.

        Chapter 3: The Hierarchical Church

18.To shepherd the Church, Christ set up various ministries,for
the good of the whole body. These ministers  with sacred power
help the  all the members of the people of God to their goal.
[The ministers are described as having sacred power -  therefore
ushers etc are not ministers in the proper sense of the word].
Following in the footsteps of Vatican I, this council teaches
that Jesus sent apostles just as He himself was sent by the
Father, and that the Bishops are their successors to the end of
the world.So that the Episcopate might have unity He put Blessed
Peter over the other Apostles.This Council repeats this teaching
of Vatican I about the perpetuity,the primacy of the Pope and his
infallible magisterium. Continuing in the same work it has
decided to profess the doctrine about the Bishops, the successors
of the Apostles. Vatican I had not completed this work.

19.Jesus set up a permanent (stabilis) college, consisting of
Peter and the Apostles, with Peter as the head of the college, to
sanctify and rule the Church and propagate it. They were
confirmed in their mission on Pentecost.

20.Since the mission of the Church is to last to the end of
time,the Apostles appointed successors,and provided that when
these died, others should be properly chosen to take their
places, in an unbroken succession.Among these ministries that of
the Bishops holds the chief place, by succession from the
beginning. So the Bishops took on the ministry of the community
with the priests and deacons as helpers.They,the Bishops are the
pastors,as teachers of doctrine,the priests of the sacred
worship,the ministers of governing. So this council teaches that
the bishops by divine institution have succeeded to the Apostles
as shepherds of the Church,in such a way that he who hears
them,hears Christ,he who spurns them spurns Christ and Him who
sent Christ. Tertullian therefore taught (De Praescriptione
haereticorum 21) that to prove a doctrine is true, one must show
that the church from which he received it goes back in unbroken
succession to the Apostles, and thus to Christ.

21.It is in the person of the Bishops, assisted by priests, that
Christ is present to His Church. Through their service, He
preaches to all nations, and administers the sacraments of faith
to all who believe, and by their paternal function He generates
new members of His Body, which is the Church, and, finally, by
their wisdom and prudence He directs the people of the new
testament to eternal happiness.

    To carry out so great a function, the Apostles received a
special outpouring of the Holy Spirit. They passed on the gift of
the Spirit by the imposition of hands. Episcopal consecration
gives the fullness of orders and the function [cf.Preliminary
note below - the word is munus,not potestas] of
teaching,sanctifying and ruling. The Bishops in a visible way
take the role of Christ the Teacher, Pastor and Priest, and act
in His person. It is for Bishops to take new chosen men into the
college of Bishops by the Sacrament of Orders.

22.Just as Peter and the Apostles constituted a college,so in a
similar,not an identical way there is a relation of Pope and the
Bishops,with the Pope as the head.(Qualification taken from the
preliminary explanatory note-- see below for it). Councils and
also in a way the use of several Bishops to consecrate a Bishop
show collegial practice.

    One is admitted to this college by episcopal consecration
and hierarchical communion with the head (which is not just some
vague attitude, but a juridical communion - as the  preliminary
note explains - see below).

    The college has no authority apart from the Pope. He is the
supreme Pastor, and has direct authority over all in the
Church, faithful and Bishops. "The Lord made Simon the rock and
key-bearer of the Church, and set him up as the Pastor of His
whole flock. " [This is important in view of the fact that LG 24
also teaches each Bishop has power from Christ over His own
diocese, not from the Pope, except that a Bishop cannot have a
diocese unless it is assigned to him by the Pope.] When and
whether an action is to be taken in collegial form is for the
Pope to determine (cf.Preliminary  note again) The Pope having
full supreme power can, whenever he so chooses, act alone,without
the college.

    The college of Bishops can exercise supreme authority in a
general council, but to be such it must be confirmed or at least
recognized by the Pope, whose place it is to call councils and
preside over them.

23.The Pope is the source of unity for the whole Church,the
Bishops for their own dioceses.Even though they lack jurisdiction
over other dioceses, yet each Bishop should have a concern for
the whole Church.As far as duty permits,they should collaborate
in the work of the missions by every means in their power,by
supplying workers and by spiritual and material aid.

    Special associations of churches have come about in the
course of time, guided by Divine Providence. Some of these groups
have their own rites, discipline, and theological patrimony.
Especially important examples are the Patriarchal churches.
Episcopal conferences, similarly, can give manifold and fertile
work so that the collegial spirit may be brought into concrete
application.

24.Bishops receive directly from Christ the mission of teaching
and preaching. This office is a service. But the canonical
mission of a particular Bishop to a particular diocese is a
different thing. That can be made by (1) legitimate customs not
yet revoked by the Pope, (2) by laws made or acknowledged by the
Pope, (3) directly by the Pope himself. If the Pope objects or
refuses, Bishops cannot be admitted to office.

25.This section was covered in detail in the introduction to this
text, in dealing with the four levels of teaching.

26.The bishop,marked with the fullness of the Sacrament of
Orders,is the dispenser of grace and the supreme
priesthood,especially in the eucharist,which he offers or has
offered. This Church of Christ is present in all lawful groups of
faithful united with their shepherds,and so these can be called
churches.They are,in their own place,the new People called by God
in the Holy Spirit.In every communion of the altar,under the
sacred ministry of the Bishop,there is a symbol of that charity
and unity of the Mystical Body.Christ is present in these
communities. Every legitimate celebration of the Eucharist is
regulated by the Bishop.

27.The power of a Bishop is solely for spiritual good. It is
ordinary and comes immediately from Christ, it is ordinary and
immediate, so that Bishops are not just vicars of the Pope, they
are vicars and legates of Christ, though they are regulated by
the Pope, since he has immediate power over each Bishop and each
one of the faithful.(And without canonical mission they may not
take over a diocese).

    Bishops have the power to legislate, to pass judgment, and
to regulate everything pertaining to divine worship.

    The Bishop should not refuse to listen to his subjects. He
must give an account for their souls to God. He should consider
those outside too as entrusted to him in the Lord.

28.The divinely instituted ministry is in three degrees: bishop,
priest, deacon. Priests depend on the bishop but are associated
with him in the honor of the priestly ministry. They make present
again,by acting in the person of Christ, the once-for-all
sacrifice. [It is once for all in that it created an infinite
title to grace and forgiveness, even for each individual
person(Gal.2.20). Yet for the giving out of that treasury,t he
Mass makes the sacrifice present again. In a sacrifice there are
two parts, exterior and interior. The exterior sign is there to
express and promote the interior dispositions,
basically,obedience to the Father. In the Cenacle the exterior
sign was the seeming separation of body and blood - on the cross,
it was physical separation. But in the Mass the exterior sign is
still the same as in the Cenacle - and the interior dispositions
of Christ on the altar are the same, really, not a repeat, but a
continuation of those with which He died for death makes
permanent the disposition of heart with which one leaves this
world. So the Mass does make Calvary present again in this way,
for the interior dispositions of Christ, from which the value
comes, are present again, not repeated, but continue from
Calvary, so that the people may join their interior dispositions
of obedience to the Father with those of Christ: this is their
greatest participation the Mass. This pertains to the "spiritual
oblation spoken of in LG  10 & 34].

    Priests along with the Bishop constitute a sacred priestly
college, the presbyterium. In each assembly of the faithful they
as it were make the Bishop present.

    Priests should be concerned not only with their own parish,
but with the whole diocese, even the whole Church. They should
look on the Bishop as Father, whom they obey, and he should look
on them as sons, not servants.

    Priests should be models of their flock, and serve it.

29.Deacons are at the lower part of the hierarchy, but are a part
of the hierarchy. They can baptize solemnly, administer the
Eucharist, bless marriages, bring Viaticum, read Scripture to the
people, preside at worship and at funerals, and administer
sacramentals.

    It may be possible to have a permanent diaconate, even
including married men.

           Preliminary Explanatory Note to Chapter 3

    This note was sent "by higher authority" - clearly,the Pope.
It contained some precisions on Pope and Bishops:

1.The college of Pope and Bishops is not to be understood in a
strictly juridical sense, i.e., as an assembly of equals who
would entrust power to a president. Rather it is a permanent or
stable body whose authority is to be deduced from revelation.

    The parallelism with the Apostles and Peter does not imply
transmission of the extraordinary powers the Apostles had, such
as working miracles. It merely means there is a proportionality
between Peter-Apostles and Pope-Bishops. Hence, speaking of this
parallel, 22 does not say the relation of the Pope and Bishops
is precisely the same, but it is similar (non eadem sed pari
ratione)


2.A man becomes a member of the college by episcopal consecration
and by hierarchical communion with the Head, the Pope.
Consecration gives an ontological sharing of the sacred
functions. [The word is munera,not potestates for powers would
mean an ability needing nothing more in order to be ready to be
used. This refers to words in 21]. For that there is still
necessary a canonical or juridical determination by the Pope,
which can consist in the grant of a particular office or in
assigning subjects. This is given according to the norms approved
by the supreme authority. It is clear that in early times this
was provided by communion in the life of the Church, and later
was codified in law.

    It was said above that besides episcopal consecration, there
is required  also hierarchical communion. This communion does not
mean some vague attitude, but an organic reality which calls for
juridical form and is animated by love.

3. It is said in 22 that the college is the "subject of supreme
and full power". There is no college without the head, the Pope.
This is to be said to avoid challenge to the supreme power of the
Pope. [Cf.the Council of Constance,1414, and Basle, 1439, which
claimed authority over the Pope].

    So we do not speak of the Pope or the Bishops taken
collectively, but of the Pope alone, or the Pope along with the
Bishops. Since the Pope is the head, he by himself can do certain
things that in no way belong to the Bishops, e.g., He can convoke
the college and direct it, approve norms of action etc. It is for
the judgment of the Pope according to the needs of the Church, to
determine the manner in which things are to be done - by him
personally, or in a collegial manner. The Pope can whenever he so
wills, act without the college. The college always exists, but
does not always act. There can be no action of the Bishops as a
college without the Pope.

N.B.The sacramental ontological function cannot be exercised
without the hierarchical communion. The Commission however did
not wish to discuss questions of liceity and validity in case
this communion is lacking, as actually happens in the
Eastern schismatic churches. There are various opinions on this.

                                ********

    There was literally a plot in the theological commission in
regard to collegiality.

    There were on hand three views of collegiality:

1)Extreme conservative: The college of bishops does not have
supreme power until, and unless the Pope calls a council. The
Pope alone has supreme power by divine right.

2.Extreme liberal:The college, with the Pope has head, has
supreme power. The Pope can exercise supreme power but only by
acting as head of the college. He must in conscience ask the
opinion of the college before making a pronouncement,because he
is obliged to express the thinking of the college.

3)Moderate view:  The Pope himself has Supreme power all by
himself,and the college has it in union with him,but needs his
consent to exercise it.

    Collegiality was discussed at length during the second
session,1963. The Theological Commission had a revised text ready
by March 6,1964. Pope Paul VI was not satisfied, and on May
19,1964 sent suggestions. By early June a text was ready,
incorporating most of the Pope's suggestions. He approved it on
July 3.

    But the International Group of Council Fathers, led by
Archbishop Staffa, claimed that the text was no different from a
view repeatedly deplored during the 19th century as erroneous.
The day after the opening of the third session, Archbishop Staffa
had a list of over 70 names which he gave to the Cardinal
Moderators, asking to address the general assembly before the
voting began on the chapter on collegiality. He appealed to the
rules of procedure which said even after the end of discussion, a
minority could designate three speakers, who could go more than
ten minutes, if the request was made in the name of at least 70
other Council Fathers. His petition was refused. Archbishop
Staffa and the leaders of the International Group wrote a long
letter to the Pope on Nov.7,1964. The Pope ordered an official
investigation. Meanwhile 35 other Cardinals and superiors general
of large religious orders had written to the Pope saying that the
text was ambiguous.The Pope found this hard to believe, and wrote
to the chief Cardinal on the list, attacking his arguments. The
Cardinal went to see the Pope. He asked that theologians of his
group be allowed to debate the matter before the Pope with his
theologians. The Pope refused. Then one of the plotters wrote out
some of the ambiguous passages and said how they would be
interpreted after the Council. By Divine Providence he lost the
paper, and it fell into the hands of the sounder members, who
took it to the Pope. Paul VI finally, seeing he had been
deceived, broke down and wept. Hence he ordered the Preliminary
Explanatory note. Cf.Ralph.M.Wiltgen, The Rhine Flows Into the
Tiber. The Unknown Council, Hawthorne Books, N.Y.1967.

                      Chapter 4: The Laity

30.Everything said about the People of God pertain to all within
the Church.But some things should be said particularly about the
laity.

31.The word laity includes all not in Holy Orders,or in Religious
Life.The laity,in their own way,share in the
priestly,prophetic,and royal office of Christ.

    It is proper to the laity to engage in temporal affairs and
to direct them according to God's will.- We are far here from the
attitude of some politicians and judges who think they can leave
their religious principles behind in their work. -The laity
contribute to the sanctification of the  world from within,like a
leaven. Of course this implies that they are not merely conformed
to the ways of the world - as so many strive earnestly to be.
Especially should their life should be a witness to Christ.
Cf.Romans 12:2 "Do not be conformed to this world, rather be
transformed having your minds made new so as to see what is the
will of God what is good and well-pleasing and perfect."

32.There is a wonderful diversity in the Church, like that of
which St.Paul spoke in 1 Cor 12,and Rom 12:4-5, in describing the
various parts of the body, as a parallel to varied functions
within the Mystical Body of Christ. In a way there is a real
equality among all members, in that all are needed, and all
should contribute to the building up of the Mystical Body, and to
sanctifying the world. St.Paul says [Gal 3.28] that in Christ
there is no Jew or Greek, no slave or free, no male or female. In
context, Paul means this to refer to striving for salvation by
faith. We may not extend this so as to say there is equality in
all other respects - such as with or without Holy Orders, or to
prove  ordination of women. Paul is referring as we said just to
working for salvation by faith.

    All are called to holiness,even though not all follow the
same path. Our Lord said (Mt.5:48): "Be you perfect,as your
heavenly Father is perfect." Pius XII in his Encyclical for the
third centenary of St.Francis de Sales, wrote: "Let no one think
that this invitation is addressed to a small very select number,
and that all others are allowed to stay in a lower degree of
virtue...this law obliges everyone,without exception." It was
specially suitable for Pius XI to write this on the anniversary
of St.Francis de Sales, for he had splendidly explained in his
Introduction to the Devout Life (1.3) that even though the ways
of the spiritual life are varied in varied states, yet all are
called to be perfect, and so it is possible in all states of
life. Of course, the perfection of the Father is infinite -
therefore the command means in practice that we can never say we
have advanced far enough - there is still an unending road to
travel which we can never complete. Paul VI wrote (To 13th
National Congress of the Italian Feminine Center, Feb.12, 1966:
"Christian marriage and the Christian family demand a  moral
commitment. They are not an easy way of Christian life, even
though the most common,the one which the majority of the children
of God are called on to travel. Rather, it is a long path toward
sanctification." (This idea is developed in OFP, chapter 16).

    The laity are brothers of Christ, and of those in Holy
Orders. St.Augustine said (Sermon 340)"When it frightens me that
I am for you,then it consoles me to think I am with you.For I am
a bishop for you; with you I am a Christian. The one is the name
of an office, the other of grace. The one is a danger, the other,
salvation." Cf. Wisdom 6.5-6: "Judgment is stern for the exalted.
The lowly persons may be pardoned out of mercy, but the mighty
shall be mightily tested." Cf.Ezekiel 3.17-21, where God told the
prophet that he was a watchman. If he did not warn the wicked,
God would demand an accounting.

33.The lay apostolate used to be defined as a sharing in the
apostolate of the hierarchy. Vatican II broadens this,with a two
part teaching: (1)"The apostolate of the  laity is a sharing in
the saving mission of the Church. The laity are appointed to this
apostolate by the Lord Himself, through Baptism and
Confirmation." This means the laity are to make the Church
"present and fruitful in those places and circumstances where it
is only by means of them that the Church can become the salt of
the earth. This means, again, a life of witness, a life different
from that of people of the world. (2)In addition, there are
special works under the direction of the authorities - this is
what the term lay apostolate used to mean. Laymen can even be
appointed now to some ecclesiastical offices, those that do not
need ordination.

    The Encyclical of John Paul II,Redemptoris Missio
(Dec.7,1990,  37-38,Vatican  translation) spells out the need
for the laity to be a leaven in the world. It refers to these
areas as like the Areopagus on which St.Paul spoke in Athens:
"The first Areopagus of the modern age is the world of
communications.... the younger generation is growing up in a
world conditioned by the mass media. ...it is not enough to use
the media simply to spread the Christian message and the church's
authentic teaching. It is also necessary to integrate that
message into the 'new culture' created by modern communications.
..Pope Paul VI said that 'the split between the Gospel and
culture is undoubtedly the tragedy of our time' [compare the
culture of pagan Rome and even Greece, permeated with a religion,
even though a false one] and the field of communications fully
confirms this judgment. There are many other forms of the
'Areopagus' in the modern world...commitment to peace,
development and the liberation of peoples; the rights of
individuals and peoples, especially those of minorities; the
advancement of women and children; safeguarding the created
world.... We must also mention the immense 'Areopagus' of
culture, scientific research and international relations which
promote dialogue and open up new possibilities.... the so-called
'religious revival' - is not without ambiguity, but it also
represents an opportunity. The church has an immense spiritual
patrimony to offer mankind.... It is the Christian path to
meeting God, to prayer, to asceticism and to search for life's
meaning. Here too there is an 'Areopagus to be evangelized." LG
adds,"Thus every layman, from the gifts given him, is a witness
and at the same time a living instrument of the mission of the
church herself 'according to the  measure of the giving of
Christ'' (Eph 4:7). (The "measure of giving" refers to the
charismatic category of graces, as the context in Eph shows. It
does not refer to the sanctifying category, in which God has
bound Himself by the covenant to offer graces leading to
salvation without limit (for the title of the price paid by
Christ is infinite, and for each individual person as Gal 2:20
shows - cf.Church in Modern World 22 "Each one of us can say
with the Apostle, 'The Son of God loved me, and gave himself for
me." Hence there is an infinite objective title in favor of  each
individual. So God will always offer the graces of salvation,
without limit - though a person may make self hardened by
repeated mortal sins, so as to be unable to be open to receive
the graces offered).

    In contrast, the graces of the charismatic category are
aimed primarily not at the salvation of the recipient - though
indirectly they may help that - but at  some benefit for the
Church. Here the principle is that the Spirit blows where He
wills. And one may not even be in the state of grace and have
even a miraculous gift such as healing the sick, as we learn from
Mt.7,22-23: "Many will say to me on that day: Have we not cast
out devils in your name, prophesied in your name, done many
mighty works in your name, and then I will say to them: Depart
from me, you workers of iniquity. I never knew you."

34.LG gives further clarification (we saw it above in LG 10) of
the role of laity in offering "spiritual sacrifices". It says
that all the works, prayers, family life [here let us recall the
words we cited in LG 32 from Paul VI about marriage as a long
path to sanctification], daily work etc. can all be spiritual
sacrifices if they are taken as the will of God, and as a means
of bringing the spirit of Christ into everything. Really, in a
very basic sense, God needs no one - by His omnipotence He can
accomplish anything. However,there is a distinction - some things
He can accomplish directly only by an extraordinary intervention,
that is, by miraculous means. It would be inconsistent for Him to
act in an extraordinary way ordinarily. So in that area He, in a
sense, needs human work, for we can do these things without
miracles.

    I had a grandfather who was very indulgent. He used to tell
me to phone him on New Years's day, and if I could say Happy New
Year before he did, he would give me a dollar [this was in the
1920s, when a dollar was worth several times what it is worth
today] - it was a setup of course. He wanted to give me the
dollar,and liked to do it in a such a way that I seemed to have
earned it.  In a somewhat parallel way, our Father in Heaven
likes to provide titles for His gifts (cf. OFP chapter 4 and
St.thomas Summa I.19.5.c). So He has us do the things He could
not do without a miracle - and at the same time these provide a
title in good order for Him to give His gifts. Some of these
things are intrinsically of a higher order than others - yet the
most important thing is to do His will. A motto I used to see on
an office wall said: "When the one Great Scorer comes to write
against your name, He writes not that you won or lost, but how
you played the game."

    LG adds that these spiritual sacrifices are most suitably
offered at Mass,along with the offering of Christ's obedience -
for in these we are obeying the will of the Father. It is good to
take a few moments before each Mass to ask ourselves what we have
done in carrying out His will since the last Mass.If we have done
well, we can join it with the obedience of Christ, to form the
one great offering of the obedience of the Whole Christ. We could
also look ahead to the coming day. Sometimes we will see
something in which we will find it hard to do the will of the
Father. So we ask: Do I really mean to do it? If not, I had
better get out of here - this is no place for me.

35.This section speaks of the prophetic office of Christ. The
laity share in it by their witness to His principles as a leaven
in the world - of which LG 33 already spoke. As an aid in this
Christ gives all the sensus fidei- which was spoken of in LG 12,a
sort of passive infallibility.

    People show themselves children of the promise if they make
the most of the present time (St.Paul says that the days are
evil:Eph 5.16 - he means the world is run on principles often the
opposite of those of Christ - and the evil spirits do have great
influence) - trying to live with the outlook we shall all have
when we emerge for the tombs on the last day. Then we shall see
what really counted - and what did not. Hence in Col.3.1-5: "If
then you have been raised up with Christ, seek the things that
are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God.
Think of the things that are above,not the things that are upon
the earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ
in God. When Christ, your life, will be manifested, then you too
will be manifested with Him in glory. So mortify your members
that are upon the earth - sexual looseness, uncleanness,
lust...." etc. This is the syn Christo theme - the center of
Paul's teaching: We should live with Christ, die with Christ, be
buried with Him, rise with Him, ascend with Him. In His life, two
phases - first, a hard life, suffering and death, second, glory.
The more we are like Him in phase one, the more we shall be like
Him in phase 2. As a result,2 Cor 4,17-18: "What is at present
light and momentary in our troubles, is working beyond all
measure, an eternal weight of glory for us, who do not look to
the things that are seen, but the things that are not seen."
Cf.also Romans 8:18.  To the extent that one really lives with
such an outlook, he will be a witness to Christ within the world
- but this,again, is  far different from trying to be just like
the world. The laity also bear witness to Christ towards their
children, in family life.

    LG 35 urges the laity to express their eternal hope (looking
forward to the future life) by "continual conversion." John Paul
II spoke of this in Redemptor Hominis 20: "Without this constant
ever renewed endeavor for conversion, partaking of the Eucharist
would lack its full redeeming effectiveness and there would be a
loss, or at least a weakening of the special readiness to offer
God the spiritual sacrifice in which our sharing in the
priesthood of Christ is expressed in an essential and universal
manner." (We saw details of this "spiritual sacrifice" above in
 34 and 10. We notice  too that daily Communion without this
constant effort will not only bring no gain, but instead a loss.
So many receive out of mere routine, with  no preparation, no
thanksgiving. It would be much better for them to receive only at
times, and then do it well. When St.Pius X urged frequent
Communion, he had in mind the special efforts people of his day
made before receiving. He would surely not be pleased with the
routine and sluggishness we see today.

    Marriage is  specially important in this matter. Cf.again
chapter 16 of OFP and Pius XI, Casti connubii DS 3707:"This
mutual interior conformation of the spouses to one another, this
constant concern to perfect one another, in a certain very true
way, as the Roman Catechism teaches [II.8.13] can even be called
the primary cause and reason for marriage, if however, marriage
is not taken strictly as an institution to rightly procreate and
educate children, but more broadly,as a sharing, familiarity and
society of all of life."

36.Christ reached His reign- "all power is given to me in heaven
and on earth"- by obedience. So all are to share in His kingly
role by self-abnegation, in imitation of Him, so as to reign in
mastery of self by overcoming sin. Cf.St.Augustine's
interpretation of Apocalypse 20 (City of God 20.9) where he takes
the 1000 reign of the just on earth with Christ to mean their
reign over sin during the 1000 years from the ascension to the
parousia, that is, in all the present period of time.

    LG also hopes that people may work so that the goods of this
earth may serve the real needs of people more properly and may be
justly distributed. Let them also work so that the things of the
world may not be an inducement to sin.

    Let them also, while distinguishing between their lives as
members of Christ, and as members of human society, realize that
"no human activity, not even in temporal things, can be withdrawn
from the rule of God." So again, politicians and others who think
they can leave Christ's principles behind in their public work
are very wrong. LG says there is an "unhappy teaching that tries
to build society without regard for religion, and seeks to
restrict the religious freedom of its citizens". This refers not
only to communistic nations, but also hints at what The
Declaration on Religious Liberty will teach in  1 - that men and
societies have an obligation to the true Church, and that there
is to be freedom of religion not in the sense of having a right
to be wrong  (as right is a claim ultimately given by God to
have, to do, or to call for something. God gives no one a claim
to be wrong), but in the sense of having a right not to be
punished or coerced for being wrong in religious beliefs, within
due limits. Just as individuals as individuals must serve God, so
also states as states must do so. How far is the U.S. from this
now when religion in any form is being kept out of public life!
Pagan Rome did better.It worshipped false gods, but at least
religion permeated everything, so that the chief officers of the
state had both the right and the duty to consult the omens for
the will of the gods before any public event such as a meeting of
the senate or assembly, a session of court, even the beginning of
war.

37.The laity have the right to receive the help of spiritual
goods in abundance from their pastors. They should make known
their needs with that freedom and confidence that are suitable to
children of God and brothers of Christ. They should do this with
respect, and with obedience to lawful commands.

    Pastors should willingly listen to them and make use of what
is good in their advice. They should assign duties to them, if
the laity wish them (apostolate) and should leave them a
reasonable amount of freedom in carrying things out, and even
leave room for suitable lay initiative. Many good things will
come from this arrangement.

38.Each layman is to be a witness before the world to the
resurrection and life of Christ - in the sense explained above of
the syn Christo theme.

        Chapter 5: Universal Call to Holiness

39-42. We will treat this chapter,sections 39-42 in one unit,
since there is much repetition in it, and since it praises so
specially the three counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience,
and says that their spirit is essential to
all,bishops,priests,deacons, religious and laity.

    The Church as such is unfailingly holy, since Christ gave
her all the means of holiness, joined her to Himself, gave her
the Holy Spirit, the Mass, the Sacraments. We recall the OT sense
of holy = qadosh, set aside for God. The Church is of course
that. This state calls for holiness in the sense of moral
perfection. In regard to the first meaning,that of qadosh,
St.Paul in 1 Cor 7:14 says that in a marriage of a pagan and a
Christian: "The unbelieving man is made holy by the woman, and
the unbelieving wife is made holy by the brother. If it were
otherwise, your children would be unclean, but really,they are
holy."

     Very special means of holiness are found in the three
evangelical counsels, poverty, chastity and obedience. This is
important,because for some years now there has been a great error
running,which is sometimes called the New Spirituality - though
more often it has no name,but is simply taught as the only way to
live - which OFP cap 20 calls GUN spirituality,i.e., Give Up
Nothing. We explained this in comments on LG  9.

    In Mt 5.48,Jesus said:"Be you perfect,as also your heavenly
Father is perfect." As we saw above in LG 32 Pius XI,in his
Encyclical for the third centenary of St.Francis de Sales
commented on Mt 5:.48: "Let no one think that this invitation is
addressed to a small, very select number, and that all others are
allowed to stay in a lower degree of virtue. This law obliges
everyone,without exception." In Introduction to the Devout Life
1.3 the Saint wrote brilliantly on this theme,and also pointed
out that the form of holiness varies with the different states of
life. It is most essential that each should fulfill the duties of
his own state, and not try to live in a different state. For to
be holy in the moral sense means simply to do the will of the
Father completely, perfectly. That will includes doing the duties
of our state in life.

    Are the counsels only for religious? No,at the end of
section 42 refers us to St.John Chrysostom, Homily 7,7 on
Matthew. St.John takes up the objection: We are not all monks,
and so need not follow these counsels. He replies: "All the
divine laws are common to us and the monks, except marriage."

    Jesus inculcated a spirit of poverty in the first beatitude:
"Blessed are the poor in spirit." That is, those who are not
attached to the things of this world (more on attachment
presently). The phrase poor in spirit occurs at Qumran aniye
ruach to refer to the poor who trust in God. But the Fathers of
the Church saw that mere physical poverty is not to be praised,
it is rather detachment, which can be found even in those who do
have money. But even though it is possible to practice detachment
while having much money, it is far easier if one does not have a
lot, hence,the famous saying of Jesus that it is easier for a
camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to
enter heaven. (This is Semitic exaggeration - there is no  gate
in Jerusalem called the camel's eye).

    The second counsel chastity is practiced fully by those who
abstain from marriage. Yet even within marriage, there is need of
chastity - in fidelity to one's mate, and in avoiding
contraception.

    The third counsel is obedience - everyone has to obey  at
least to some extent. I saw a survey in a Sunday magazine that
asserted that if the boss in a business gives an order, it is
obeyed only about half of the time. Some of the disobedience is
just carelessness, some of it is the attitude: "Nobody can tell
me anything" - not even if he is paying me to do a thing!

    St.Paul speaks strongly on the need for detachment for all
in 1 Cor 7.29-31: "The time is short.  As for the rest, I urge
that those who have wives be as though not having them, and those
who weep, as though not weeping, and those who rejoice as though
not rejoicing, and those who buy as though not having, and those
who use the world, as though not using it. For the  appearance
that this world is passing." In saying time is short,Paul means
all time is so brief - it is not a mistaken notion that the end
was near,as  many commentators think. In Haggai 2.6.written in
520 B.C.we find God saying, "Yet a moment, a little while, and I
will move heaven and earth, and the one desired by the nations
shall come in." We are following St.Jerome's translation, and he
in turn was following a tradition he received from the rabbis of
his time that the sense was messianic. Many today translate
instead, "and the treasures of the nations will come in," that
would seem to mean, into Jerusalem - this would likely refer to
the messianic age.  So Haggai referred to the Messiah's coming,
which was still 520 years in the future. Ps.90:4 says:"For a
thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday,when it is
past,or as a watch in the night." Also, we are now in the
eschaton, the last period of God's dealings with the human race -
for there is not to be anything to replace the Christian
dispensation.(Cf.DV 4).

    To help explain detachment, we think of Mt 6. 21: "Where
your treasure is, there is your heart also." One can put his
treasure not only in a box of coins under the floor, but in
anything at all,e.g., huge meals,gourmet meals, sex, travel,
study, even study of theology. All these are below God, some
farther than others. The farther below God that thing is, and
the more one allows himself to be pulled by it, the harder it is
for thoughts and heart to rise up to God. Some are so little
attached that they do no more than commit imperfection -  some go
even into habitual mortal sin. Detachment can be had both in and
outside of marriage.

    A supplementary comparison will help. We think of a
galvanometer, a compass needle on its pivot with a coil of wire
around it. We send a current into the coil, and the needle swings
the right direction,and the right amount. It will register
exactly if there is no competition from outside pulls, such as
30,000 volt power lines, or a lot of magnetic steel. If the
outside pulls are very strong, and the current in the coil is
mild, the current in the coil may have no effect. That current in
the coil stands for grace, and the meter is my mind. Grace is
gentle, it respects my freedom - outside pulls, if I let them
hold me greatly, do not respect my freedom, can damage it, and
can make it hard if not impossible to perceive the gentle
inspirations of grace sent into the coil. Detachment aims at
making one free to be guided by the Spirit.(Cf OFP chapters
19-20,and add the thoughts on the need of reparation, which can
come from accepting the will of God, as explained in OFP chapter
4.)

    We said that all are called to spiritual perfection. So some
ask: How then can St.Paul in 1 Cor 7 say that celibacy/virginity
is a better state than the married state? Does not that indicate
that those who marry are deficient in generosity to God, and so
cannot reach perfection? But we know that they can, for the
Church so teaches as we saw above from the words of Pius XI, and
there are some canonized married Saints. - Some even go so far as
to reject the teaching of St.Paul. But Paul does say that
celibacy/virginity is better, and we must not listen to people
wiping it out today.

    The key is this: We are not all called to the same form of
life, the same graces. It is not enough to draw up a scale, as it
were, on the wall, with the highest form of life at the top, and
lower forms below it - and then measure and see how much
generosity one has, and that will decide the place he takes. That
impression used to be given by some vocational literature from
religious orders, and it has done so much harm. The essential
thing to remember is this: We cannot charge someone with a lack
of generosity for following that form of life which the Father
wills for Him. For many, the Father wills marriage. We saw above
that it can and should be a long road to sanctification.

    There is a major distinction needed here: when one says
celibacy/virginity is a higher state, he does not imply that
others cannot attain perfection, what is true is this: the state
of abstention from marriage in itself provides objectively more
powerful means for holiness. But what is objectively more
effective may not be more effective for this particular person,
and certainly not, if the Father wills that the person in
question embrace a particular state. To choose a state different
from what the Father wills would be wrong, and very dangerous to
spiritual growth, even dangerous to salvation.

    How can these things be true? Because in marriage one does
not have just a long picnic filled with sex - rather, the
psychology of male and female are so utterly different that each
one, even in a fine pairing, will be able to say: "I have to give
in most of the time to make this work". There we may see great
selfdenial, and if it is taken as the will of God, it is greatly
sanctifying. And babies are very cute part of the time, very
pesky at other times. To take the whole package of their
behavior,and use it as the will of God - that is very highly
sanctifying. A religious may get up in the middle of the night to
make a holy hour before the Blessed Sacrament.At the end of the
hour, he can surely go back to bed. But a parent may have to get
up at just any hour when baby needs help, and the parent is not
sure of being free to go back to sleep when 60 minutes have
passed. Let us recall the Father's plan for sex as a means of
bringing maturity (OFP cap 16), sincere interest in the other for
the other's sake. If all this be taken as the will of the Father,
someone in this state, even though it has objectively less
powerful means for growth than does celibacy/virginity, yet the
person may wind up higher on the scale of moral perfection than
the one who has given up marriage.

    Also, the married person has a powerful, even though sugar-
coated means of being interested in another for the other's sake.
Those who abstain from marriage lack this. If they are not
careful to compensate for the lack, they can become selfish. Our
Father so greatly loves objective goodness - in this case, the
objective goodness of being sincerely interested in the other for
the other's sake - that He is pleased to get it even if sugar-
coating is needed to bring it about.

    We will see more on the relation of religious life to
married life in the next chapter.

    (A misleading impression used to be common when literature
for religious orders spoke of that life as a "state of
perfection." Really, this was an abbreviation - the full
expression was: "A state of acquiring perfection by means of the
three counsels."  Without the full wording, it could seem to mean
all religious are already perfect, and so all others are
imperfect and in a state of imperfection).

    In  41 LG said that if bishops strongly exercise their
ministry it is for them an outstanding means of sanctification.
Quite true. But the statement could be misunderstood so as to
mean that bishops need do nothing but their routine work - need
not cultivate the spirit of detachment and prayer and use other
means which are common to all in the Church. 41 made the same
comment about priests.

           Chapter 6: Religious Life

43.LG says that religious life provides a stable and more solidly
based way of Christian life. This means it is a better state.
That is true.

    So we can say: the religious state provides more effective
means,and so the state in itself is better - but it is another
thing to say that a given person in that state is spiritually
better. Such a one should be, having more powerful means. But
whether the person is really better - perhaps yes, perhaps no.

    LG next brings out that the religious state is not something
in between clergy and laity. Rather, the religious state should
be  seen as a form of life to which some Christians - both laity
and clergy - are called, while some are not called to it.

44.The counsels are a means of consecrating oneself to God
completely. This is a way of getting more abundant fruit from the
consecration of baptism. One does this for two reasons: (1) to
get free of hindrances to love of God- cf.what we said in chapter
5 on detachment and the ability to perceive spiritual truths;
(2)to dedicate self more fully to the service of God.

    The more stable the bonds, the more complete the
consecration.

    Religious life is for the benefit of the entire Church.Cf.1
Cor 12:26,and  Rabbi Simeon Ben Eleazar (c.170
A.D.Tofesta,Kiddushin,1.14): "He has carried out a commandment.
Blessings on him!. He has tipped the scale to the side of merit
for himself and for the world.  He [anyone] has committed a
transgression. Woe on him! He has tipped the scale to the side of
debt for himself and for the world. " It should serve as a sign
to encourage and inspire people to greater freedom from the
things of this world, by showing more strongly that we are made
for heavenly things. It is a closer imitation of the form of life
chosen by Jesus and Mary.

45.The hierarchy  oversees religious life. It should make wise
laws to regulate it. But it should respect the inspiration of the
Holy Spirit, in accepting rules drawn up by holy persons.

    The Pope has supreme supervision over all religious
communities. So he can exempt an order or society from
jurisdiction of Bishops. He can also put an order under a
Patriarch. Even if exempt, members of religious orders should
show respect and obedience to Bishops within the sphere provided
by Canon Law.

    The Church receives the vows of those who enter religious
life, commends them to God, and gives a special blessing.

46. Religious life is not an obstacle to human development - the
GUN spirituality had said that, especially it said that obedience
prevents maturing. Really,if there were only a few decisions to
be made by a person, and all were taken over by a superior when
the person was young, there would be that problem. But there are
so many decisions to be made, and not all are preempted by the
religious superior. So there is ample room to cultivate both
obedience as a spiritual good, and to make decisions for
maturity. On the positive side, the counsels contribute a great
deal to purification of heart and to spiritual freedom, they
continually provide a stimulus to growth in love.

    Religious life does not alienate people and make them
useless to human society. In fact,the Decree on the Renewal of
Religious Life,  7 says: "Institutes that are totally dedicated
to contemplation, so that their members, in solitude and silence,
in continual prayer and eager penance take time for God, always
retain a special place in the Mystical Body of Christ...no matter
how urgent be the needs  of the active apostolate." We recall
St.Therese of Lisieux was made patroness of the missions.
Missioners and other active workers may labor intensely - but
there will be no fruit even if Paul plants, and Apollo waters (1
Cor 3:6) without interior grace, which is obtained by the
spiritual means of which we are speaking.

47.Let all those who are called to religious life take earnest
care to excel still more in that life.

           Chapter 7: The Pilgrim Church

48."The Church will reach its final perfection only in the glory
of heaven." Before the Council some theologians had argued that
if one reaches heaven, he is no longer a member of the Mystical
Body of Christ. Here it makes clear that they were wrong -
really, oddly wrong, for we are saved not just as individuals,
but inasmuch as we are members of Christ,of His Church, and like
Him (cf.LG 9). In heaven everything will be perfectly
reestablished in Christ. He is the New Adam. St.Irenaeus stressed
this notion of recapitulation - putting a new head on things. The
first head, Adam,had brought disaster - Christ the New Adam,
undoes that work. (Irenaeus also applied this theme to Mary, the
New Eve, and to the Antichrist, the head of all evil, and to the
final restoration, a new beginning, which, sadly, he thought was
a millennium - basing himself on Apoc.20).

    Even before the coming of Christ, people were saved inasmuch
as they were members of His by anticipation, and received graces
in anticipation of His work.Cf,comments on LG  5 and also 2 and
16.

    Rom 8.19-15 puts it beautifully: "For the expectation of
creation is awaiting the revelation of the sons of God. For
creation was made subject to folly, not willingly, but because of
the one who made it subject." Recall Augustine's image of
disobedience as the penalty of disobedience. "It is subject in
hope. Because even creation itself will be freed from the slavery
of corruption, into the freedom of the glory of the Sons of God.
For we know that all creation groans together and is in birth
pains together even until now. Not only that, but even we
ourselves, though we have the first fruits, the Spirit, we
ourselves groan in ourselves, waiting for the adoption of sons,
the redemption of our body. For we are saved in hope. A hope that
is seen, is not a hope. For what a man sees, why does he also
hope for it? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait in
patience."

    That slavery to corruption refers to incessant breaking down
of every cell in the body. They are then rebuilt.At the
resurrection we will no longer be subject to this corruption and
weakness.

    We are subject to a different king od change also. We are on
a planet that revolves every 24 hrs. and goes around the sun once
a year - and the whole solar system is part of the Milky Way
galaxy, which is rushing on at a dreadful speed. With death, we
begin to be freed from this incessant change - for our contact
with this constant change is the body. We then go into a realm
with no substantial change, only accidental change, and not
constant change at that, but only at some points, if we go to
purgatory. If one goes right to heaven - no change until the
resurrection. So one waits without a body only one instant.
Similarly if one goes to hell - only one instant to resurrection.

    After the resurrection - the body will no longer constantly
change - so it will be freed from the slavery of corruption - and
the physical world too will be freed for that slavery. Time will
be no more. There will be no constant succession of future to
present to past. Then there will be a renewed earth and sky, with
no more corruption.

    At present we are children of God, inasmuch as sanctifying
grace gives the radical ability to take part in the infinite
streams of knowledge and love within the Holy Trinity. But that
is just the radical ability - no fruition yet.S o we wait for the
full adoption of sons.

    Since we know not the day nor the hour, we need to be on the
watch constantly. We must, perhaps suddenly, appear before Christ
the judge, for the eternal verdict. Then we will realize what
Rom. 8:18 said: "The sufferings of the present time are not
worthy to be compared to the glory that is to be revealed to us"
if we have been faithful - nor are the sufferings of this life
anything compared to the horror, eternal horror, if we have been
unfaithful.

49.When Christ returns, all will be subject under His feet, and
then death, the last enemy, will be destroyed (1 Cor 15:26). Then
God will wipe away every tear from our eyes. (Apoc. 21:4.) "And
He who sits on the throne will say (21.5): Behold, I make all
things new."

    Meanwhile, "All who belong to Christ, having His Spirit,
coalesce into one Church." Objectively, this means that those who
follow the Spirit of Christ (Rom 2:15) even without knowing what
it is,  do belong to Christ (cf.Rom 8:9). But as we said above,
to belong to Christ means to be a member of Christ,and that means
to be a member of the Church. This is what LG seems to be saying
here, probably without seeing all the implications we have
brought out. (Cf.OFP appendix).

    What LG at this point seems to have in mind is the union of
the faithful on earth with those in purgatory and in heaven - for
all belong to Christ. Those in heaven are solicitous for our
welfare - they know all about us in the vision of God. And to
love God means to will that He may have the pleasure of giving.
That requires that people be open to His gifts, that is, obey His
commands. If we will that they do this, we in one act will that
He have that pleasure, and that neighbor receive His gifts. This
is love: to will good to another for the other's sake. Hence love
of God and love of neighbor are inseparable - but not in such a
way that we ignore Him, and love Him only indirectly, through
neighbor.

    The souls in heaven do not cease to intercede for us. In OT
we often see Moses and others appealing to God to remember
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It means to recall their merits as a
reason for helping.

    God can do all things directly, by omnipotence. But He
prefers to act in good order - and hence in that sense He really
can need human work, for humans can do things without miracles
which He could do only by way of miracles. It would be contrary
to good order for Him to regularly do things by miracles. Then
someone could say to Him: Why did you make such laws if you do
not mean to stay with them most of the time?

    He does love good order. ST I.19.5 c. says that God wills
that one thing be there to serve as a title for another thing,
even though the title does not move Him - He is unchangeable.
This comes from the fact that His Holiness loves good order,as we
said (cf.OFP chapter 4 ff). Hence even though the merits of
Christ alone are more than sufficient, yet in good order He wills
to have the merits of Our Lady and of the Saints. And these
merits also make things richer. Hence LG speaks of an enrichment
of the liturgy on earth by the Saints in Heaven.

    If we can say that the Saints join in the Mass - all the
more Our Lady - the body and blood offered are still those she
gave. And her interior dispositions are still united with His as
they were at the Cross. So the more closely we are united with
her at Mass, the more closely we are united with Him - and vice
versa.

    St.Augustine says in Epistle 194 : "When God crowns your
merits, He crowns nothing other than His own gifts." For every
bit of good that we are and have and do is His gift to us (1 Cor
4.7). Yet, in good order He loves to have these titles for
further giving to us. And also, by grace He makes us have the
intrinsic dignity of sons of God, and so works of the sons do in
a secondary sense amount to a claim to a reward - this is what
merit means. It is our sharing in the merit of Christ inasmuch as
we are His members and are like Him. The Council of Trent says in
DS 1548: "Far be it from a Christian man to trust in himself or
glory in self and not in the Lord, whose goodness to all men is
such that He wills that His own gifts be their merits,"
i.e.,their titles to reward. So the very acceptance and
possession of the first grace is a ticket to Heaven:DS 1582, and
in that sense can be called a merit of heaven (secondary sense
only).

50. The souls in purgatory are in some way which we do not
understand, informed of those who pray for them, and they in
return pray for us.

    The Church has always believed in the suffrages the martyrs
make for us, for they have reached heaven. In the first
centuries, many thought that only martyrs could have the vision
of God, so that even if a person died in grace, and had (1) the
refinement of soul needed for that vision (which should be gained
in this life, often is not); and (2) has all his old bills paid -
rectifying the imbalance of the objective order so far as he can
in union with Christ - even then he would not get the vision of
God until the end of the world. But gradually the belief spread
that others too could reach that vision. Hence the veneration of
Saints other than martyrs.

    There is much spiritual inspiration to be had from the lives
of the Saints. St.Augustine reached a point such that he tells us
in Confessions 8.5 that he had no more intellectual difficulties
left - but he still did not reach conversion, until he heard the
heroic examples of St.Anthony of the desert and others. Examples
move. So it is sad that so many young people today know nothing
of the Saints.

    It is especially in the Mass that our union with Our Lady
and the Saints is realized.

51.So the Council repeats the decrees of Nicea II, Florence and
Trent on the veneration of images of the Saints.  Vatican II
itself, in the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, ruled in 
125."The practice should remain firm of setting up the sacred
images in the churches for the veneration of the people; however,
it should be done in moderate number and suitable order, so as
not to cause surprise in the Christian people, or to favor less
sound devotions." LG 67 also gave the same injunction. So it is a
violation of Vatican II to remove all images, especially those of
Our Lord, Our Lady and St.Joseph from our churches.

    Our veneration of the Saints in no diminishes our worship of
the Father through Christ and in the Holy Spirit. As 2 Thes 1:9
says, at the end, "He will come to be glorified in His Saints."
For their merits are His gifts, and when He crowns their merits,
He crowns nothing other than His own gifts, as St.Augustine said
(Epistle 194).

              Chapter 8:The Blessed Virgin Mary


Introduction: Before the Council opened, a schema had been
prepared  on the Blessed Virgin. The drafters hoped to promote
further teaching about her and would have liked definition of her
as Mediatrix of all Graces. (On the comparison of that early
schema and the final text of Lumen gentium,cf.C.Balic,"El
Capitulo VIII de la Constituci�n 'Lumen gentium' comparado con el
Primer Esquema de La B.Virgen Madre de la Iglesia" in: Estudios
Marianos,127,1966). Trouble developed early. George Tavard in a
feature article from NCWC News Service reported that in the
second session, 1962: "As several speakers have pointed out the
term 'Mediatrix,' as applied to May, is incompatible with the
teaching of St.Paul." Now to contradict St.:Paul amounts to
heresy. But,several popes had already taught,with some variation
in wording, that she is Mediatrix of all graces: Leo XIII (ASS
27,1894,179 and ASS 28, 1895,130), St.Pius X ( ASS 34,1904,453-
54), Benedict XV (AAS 13,1921,334), Pius XI (AAS 29,1927,380),
Pius XII (AAS 38,1946,266), and even John XXIII )AAS 51,1959,88
and Discorsi II,66). So the floor speakers in effect had charged
all these Popes with heresy! Really the speeches were equivalent
to heresy, for if a doctrine is taught repeatedly on the Ordinary
Magisterium level (below a definition) it is considered
infallible - we have just listed the teachings from 6 Popes - the
repetition shows the intention to make a teaching definitive! We
must remember that floor speeches in a Council are not
providentially protected - only the final texts are. At the very
first General Council, Nicea, in 325, about 15 Bishops denied the
divinity of Christ.

    The text of St.Paul to which the speakers referred was 1
Timothy  2.5: "There is one mediator of God and men." It is
shocking to think any Bishop wold not understand that text of
St.Paul - they were really quoting a standard Protestant
objection - it merely means that there is only one Mediator who
is (a) both God and man, (2) whose work depends on no other, but
secondary mediators depend on Him.

    In October of the second session, in 1963, there was a
bitter debate leading to probably the closest vote at the
Council. The council voted 1114 to 1074 to put the Marian
teaching in the Constitution on the Church rather than in a
separate document.

    Because feelings were so strong, it was agreed to have just
one speaker for each side. First,Cardinal Santos of the
Philippines arose, and among other things said, speaking of her
on Calvary: "She stood, suffering with Him as He died for us,
meriting Redemption with Him.... The saving function of Mary who,
as a result of the grace of the Redeemer, was associated with Him
in the objective redemption itself,is essentially different from
the function of other members,[of Christ]".

    Before reporting the remarks of the opposite speaker,
Cardinal Koenig, we should explain terms. The objective
redemption is the work of once-for-all earning all forgiveness
and grace on Calvary. The subjective redemption is the work of
giving out that forgiveness and grace throughout all subsequent
ages. It is clear that no other human cooperated in the objective
redemption - though many Saints and ordinary people do cooperate
in the subjective redemption. Her cooperation in the objective
redemption was both remote and immediate. Remote cooperation was
furnishing the flesh and blood by which the Second Person of the
Holy Trinity could become Man and die for us. Immediate
cooperation was some role in the great sacrifice itself. We
stressed some because although not long before Vatican II all
theologians had been forced - by numerous papal teachings - to
admit some cooperation on Calvary by her, just what it was, and
how it worked was the subject of much debate.

    The word Coredemptrix is sometimes applied to her role in
the immediate objective redemption; the term Mediatrix to her
role in the subjective redemption, in dispensing all graces.
Some object to the term Coredemptrix, saying the co- prefix
implies equality. We reply: It could, but need not. We speak of
ourselves as cooperating with grace - which does not mean we are
equal to God or His grace. Pius XI once used the term in speaking
to Catholic Action youth, saying they were "coredeemers"-- in the
subjective redemption of course. John Paul II,in an address at
the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Guayaquil (Osservatore Romano, March
11,1985,p.7): "In fact, Mary's role as Co-redemptrix did not
cease with the glorification of her Son."

    German Mariologists, chiefly Koester, Semmelroth, and
Mueller, held her cooperation was only what they called "active
receptivity." Their comparison was this: I stretch out my
hand:that is active; I then receive what I had no share in
producing: that is receptivity. Some lines from O.Semmelroth
(Urbild der Kirche.Organischer Aufbau des Mariengeheimnisses,
W�rzburg,1950).On p.60 he wrote: "Rather, she cooperated in her
own subjective redemption, which means at the same time the
reception of the fruits of the redemption for the whole Church."
And on p.56: "In order that it [the offering of Christ] would be
the offering of mankind, there is needed the subjective
appropriation by mankind." This surely reminds us of classic
Lutheran theology in which humans contribute nothing at all to
their own redemption, they merely appropriate what Christ alone
did, by taking Christ as one's personal Savior. Further, to say
some other human besides Christ must appropriate His redemption
in order for it to count for mankind is very wrong: Christ
Himself was the New Adam, the new Head of our race.

    Not strangely, Semmelroth also said, on p.54: "Mary, since
she is substantially the Type of the Church, did absolutely
nothing other in the Redemption than the Church herself [does]."

    We can surmise why the debate was so bitter: the Germans
probably wanted to speak of her as  type of the Church -- in the
Constitution on the Church - and then conclude as Semmelroth did
that she could do nothing other than what the Church does in the
immediate objective Redemption: only active receptivity, which
would mean no contribution at all to meriting redemption.

    In contrast, Cardinal Santos, cited above, in expressing the
position of those who wanted a separate schema, said she was
meriting Redemption with her Son. That would mean making a
contribution to producing the claim or title to all forgiveness
and grace - for merit is a claim to a reward.

    So now it is really strange to read the opening words of
Cardinal Koenig of Vienna, speaking for putting Marian doctrine
within the Constitution on the Church: "I do not contradict the
things that are explained by the other eminent Father in this
matter. I contradict neither as to the doctrine, nor as to the
devotion that flows therefrom. In fact, I very gladly and with my
heart agree with all these things." Did he fail to understand
what Cardinal Santos had really said? or was he deliberately
deceiving?

    We will explain more fully later, but for now, let us say
that LG did call her a type of the Church in  63-65 - but there
was not one word about saying she was a type of the Church in
redeeming. So the German Mariologists completely failed.

    The presiding Cardinal on the day of the vote announced that
no matter which way they voted, it would not be downgrading her.
So our utterly irresponsible media reported that the Council had
voted to downgrade her! That false report caused great damage to
Marian devotion. Actually, as we are going to see, Vatican II
wrote more extensively about her, went farther theologically than
all previous Councils combined. It could rightly be called the
Marian Council.

52. God sent His Son through her in the fulness of time. This
mystery of salvation is revealed and continued in the Church in
which the faithful, adhering to Christ the Head, in communion
with all His Saints, should also venerate her in the first place.

53.She is recognized as the true Mother of God and of the
Redeemer. In anticipation of the merits of her Son, she was
redeemed in a more sublime way - the Immaculate Conception. If we
recall that the Father had intended that all should have an
immaculate conception - for He gave to Adam and Eve the life of
grace to pass on to us, then it is not a bit strange that in just
this one case He allowed Himself to have what He had wanted to
give to all. [ Further,since there is no time in God  so we may
ask: does He also in other cases allow for anticipated merits, so
that we could pray for the salvation of someone already deceased?
Probably yes] She is joined to Him by a close and indissoluble
bond. For all the decrees of God are eternal, unchangeable. So
from eternity He decreed to send His Son. But that same decree
would necessarily include the provision of a Mother for that Son:
Our Lady.

    By this excelling gift of grace she by far surpasses all
creatures in heaven and on earth. Pius XII wrote in the Mystical
Body Encyclical (AAS 35, 1943, 247): "...the Virgin Mother of God
whose most holy soul, more than all other creatures of God
combined, was filled with the divine Spirit of Jesus Christ."

    She is the Mother of the members of Christ, "because she
cooperated by love that the faithful who are members of this
Head, might be born in the Church. "[Augustine, De virginitate
6].Cf.also Pius XII to the Marian Congress of Ottawa, Canada, on
June 19, 1947: "When the little maid of Nazareth uttered her fiat
to the message of the angel...she became not only the Mother of
God in the physical order of nature, but also in the supernatural
order of grace she became the Mother of all, who...would be made
one under the Headship of her divine Son. The Mother of the Head
would be the Mother of the members. The Mother of the Vine would
be the Mother of the branches" (AAS 39.271) ].Of course, this
really means  the same as saying she is the Mother of the Church.
Paul VI at the end of the third Session, on November 18,1964,
solemnly proclaimed that she is that: "We shall close this
session of the Ecumenical Council...by joyfully bestowing on Our
Lady the title due to her, Mother of the Church." Sad to say,
many Bishops were unhappy at this (Cf.Wiltgen, op.cit.,p.241).

54.This Council intends to diligently cast light on the function
of the Blessed Virgin in the mystery of the Incarnate Word and
the Mystical Body, and the duty of redeemed people toward the
Mother of God, the Mother of Christ and of humans, especially of
the faithful, without however intending to present a complete
doctrine about Mary. We notice LG speaks of her as Mother of
humans, especially the faithful - implying her Motherhood extends
even to those not members of the Church.

    Nor does it intend to decide questions still debated among
theologians. Of course,the question of her cooperation in the
objective redemption would be a prime example especially in view
of the great debate we have spoken of. But we add that it is
quite possible that the Council said more than it realized. We
shall see the reasons for this statement bit by bit as we go
along. In the next section, part of the reasons for saying such a
thing is possible will appear. Later we will try to show
concretely precisely what teachings LG gave on this subject.

55.The Old and New Testament gradually make clear her role. The
OT describes the history of salvation, by which the coming of
Christ into the world is slowly prepared. The words "history of
salvation" do not mean that no one could be saved before the
coming of Christ. Grace was given in anticipation of the work of
Christ. So the words refer to the external working out and
development in stages of the process which earned all forgiveness
and grace.

    In DV 12 the Council had deliberately passed by an
opportunity to take a stand on whether or not there is a "fuller
sense", sensus plenior of Scripture, that is, whether the Holy
Spirit at times had in mind more than the human writer saw. (For
the statement of the Theological Commission of the council on
this, cf.H.Vorgrimler,ed., Commentary on the Documents of Vatican
II, Herder & Herder,1969, section by Grillmeier,p.220). In spite
of that passing by of an opportunity, here the Council actually
uses or takes for granted that there is such a process. For it is
saying that, especially in two texts - Gen.3:5 and Is.7:14 - the
Church now sees much more than what the human author may have
seen: "These ancient documents, as they are read in the Church,
and are understood under the light of later and full revelation,
gradually bring more clearly into the light the figure of the
woman, the Mother of the Redeemer. She, in this light, is already
prophetically foreshadowed in the promise, given our first
parents when they fell into sin, about the victory over the
serpent (cf.Gen 3.15). Similarly, she is the Virgin who will
conceive and bear a Son, whose name will be called Immanuel (cf.
Is 7.14; Mich 5.2-3;Mt 1.22-23)."

    We notice the careful language. It says that the picture of
her role is understood more clearly in the light of later and
clearer revelation. Therefore, it may well be that the original
inspired writer of Genesis, and Isaiah, did not fully understand
what they had written. So: did the inspired writer see that the
woman in Gen 3.15 would be Mary? Not too likely. Some scholars
today say that there is not even a victory mentioned in Gen 3:15,
since the same Hebrew verb shuf is used of both the serpent and
the seed of the woman. However we should not be more blind than
the stiff-necked Jews (the OT repeatedly calls them that). The
ancient Targums Neofiti,Pseudo-Jonathan, and Fragmentary Targum
all see this line as Messianic. Further, in an allegorical way,
they say that the sons of the woman will observe the Torah, and
so will conquer the sons of the serpent. The Targum Neofiti
definitely sees a victory: "There will be a remedy [for his
wound] for the son of the woman, but for you, serpent, no
remedy." [The other two Targums speak in the plural, the sons of
the woman]. Now if the verse is Messianic, then of course the
woman is the Mother of the Messiah = Mary. We notice the Council
added cf.before Gen 3:15 and again before Is 7:14. The Modi
[proposed changes] for this passage report that 12 Bishops wanted
the cf.added to avoid saying that the literal sense of Gen 3.15
and of Is 7.14 was Marian .This is the only place in chapter 8
where such care was taken. In spite of that care, we still have
the explicit statement of the Council that when these texts are
read in the light of later and fuller revelation,the Church can
see Mary foreshadowed there - even if the original writers did
not see her.

    About the word "foreshadowed" (adumbratur): There is a
typical sense of Scripture, sometimes called a foreshadowing, in
which an ancient person or event amounts to a prophecy by action
or by its being of something to come later. So LG may mean that
Eve was a foreshadowing of Our Lady. But we must not stress the
word shadow wrongly: In one sense, it was obscure, since at least
as far as we can see, the human writer of Genesis is not very
likely to have seen the full import. Yet the English shadow must
not be taken to mean the type is not real: it is very real,it is
just that it is not seen clearly at first. Yet LG says that these
two documents, Gen 3:15 and Is 7:14,  "gradually bring more
clearly into the light the figure of the woman, the Mother of the
Redeemer." So her lines come to light, are no longer in shadow,
even if we suppose the author of Genesis saw only the shadow, not
what was to emerge. Even the type may be quite clear as we see
when LG 63 calls Our Lady the type of the Church. She is clearer
than the Church!

    Some years before Vatican II, Pius XII, in the
Munificentissimus Deus, in which he defined the  Assumption,
wrote: "We must remember especially that since the second
century, the Virgin Mary has been presented by the holy Fathers
as the New Eve, who, although subject to the New Adam, was most
closely associated with Him in that struggle against the infernal
enemy, which as foretold in the Protoevangelium [Gen 3:15] was to
result in that most complete victory over sin and death, which
are always tied together in the writings of the Apostle of the
Gentiles." So Pius XII unhesitatingly said she was foretold in
the Protoevangelium. And in his Encyclical Fulgens corona, 1953,
he added: "...the foundation of this doctrine [Immaculate
Conception] is seen in the very Sacred Scripture in which
God...after the wretched fall of Adam, addressed the serpent in
thee words... 'I will put enmity....'" So if the foundation of
the Immaculate Conception is in Gen 3:15, then Our Lady is there
too.

    On Is 7.14 the Targum gives us no direct help - though
indirectly it does. St.Augustine long ago, in City of God (17.3)
noted that some OT prophecies refer partly to OT people, partly
to the Church and Christ. Inasmuch as Isaiah intended to give a
sign to King Ahaz, it can be argued that the sign should be
something in his own time, not centuries in the future. So the
sign would be the birth of a son Hezekiah, to continue the line
of David, at a time when that continuation was doubtful. And yet,
that would hardly be a striking sign. And still further, scholars
today agree that the child of Is 9:5-6 is the same child as that
of 7:14 - but the Targums do see 9:5-6 as Messianic. So by
implication, they knew that 7:14 was Messianic too. Why then did
they not say so? At one time the Jews did say that. Rabbi Hillel,
one of the greatest at the time of Christ, said Hezekiah had been
the Messiah. Cf.Jacob Neusner, Messiah in Context,p.174, citing
Talmud, Sanhedrin 99a. But Neusner adds, on p.190, that they gave
up saying it had been Hezekiah, when they found Christians using
Is 7:14. So they did know that Is 7.14 was Messianic.

    Now the child in 9:5-6 is called: "Wonderful Counselor,
Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace - much too strong
for Hezekiah. - So this is a case like those Augustine spoke of -
where a prophecy fits partly OT, partly Christ. And this is what
LG means when it says that these prophecies, read in the light of
later and fuller revelation, tell of Mary - the original writers
may not have seen it, but the Church can see it now.

    We have here a clear case in which an inspired writer may
not have seen all the implications of his words - so, a Council
may write more than it sees at the time. - More on this soon.

    We conclude it is best to take Is 7:14 as an example of
multiple fulfillment of prophecy: it can go through more than
once. So the child is both Hezekiah and Jesus (On multiple
fulfillment, cf.W.Most, Free From All Error, cap.5).

    Does Is 7:14 speak of a virgin birth? The Hebrew word for
the woman here is almah - a young unmarried woman, presumably a
virgin. But there was a word betulah - which was more specific.
However the Septuagint, knowing Jewish traditions, did use Greek
parthenos  for almah, and the Greek definitely does mean virgin,
in spite of some loose statements today by R.Laurentin (Les
Evangiles de l'Enfance du Christ, 2d edition, Paris, 1982 p.486),
who argues that the LXX was loose in its usage of parthenos,
because in Gen 34:4 the word is used for Dinah who has just been
raped. But Laurentin slipped badly, for the LXX does not have
parthenos in verse 4. So in the English translation he backed up
to verse 3, which does use the word. But  he did not explain that
v.3 is likely to be part of a concentric ring narrative style,
well established in the OT. So at least he has no proof against
the LXX. I have personally checked every case of the Septuagint's
use of the word parthenos ,and find it even more precise than the
Hebrew in all other cases - so why not here too?

    As to the date of the Targums we have used - it is much
debated. Yet it is clear that they have messianic prophecies
without hindsight, i.e., without seeing them fulfilled in Christ,
whom they hated. Further, Neusner, in the book just cited, makes
an exhaustive study of the Jewish writings from after the fall of
Jerusalem until the Talmud (completed 500-600 A.D). He finds that
up to the Talmud, there is no  interest in the Messiah, and that
in the Talmud, the only OT prophecy about him they notice is that
he would be of the line of David. So if the Messianic prophecy
parts of the Targums were written during the period before the
Talmud, they would hardly find so many references to the Messiah
in the OT. (The Targums probably underwent some development. But
the Messianic lines are likely to be among the oldest parts,for
the reason just given).

    We translated el gibbor as "Mighty God". The NAB makes it
"God-hero" with no justification. Even modern Jewish versions
know it is Mighty God. The Jews today have various way of getting
around it. E.g., Samson Levey (The Messiah: An Aramaic
Interpretation, Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati, 1974, p.45 and
note 31 on p.153) twists the sentence structure so that the
wonderful counsellor etc.call him prince of peace." this is
really arbitrary: how would one know for sure which titles belong
to which person? Then Levey translates the Targum to mean his
name has been called Messiah by the one who gives wonderful
counsel.... The Aramaic will stand this, since min qedem can mean
either by, or from ancient times. But the Hebrew does not easily
stand it. As Levey takes it is not easy to see in the Hebrew who
calls and what he is called.

   LG also says that Mary is the greatest of the anawim, the
poor and humble who had confidence in the coming of the Lord. And
she is the daughter of [meaning: who is] Sion - the OT often uses
that expression to refer to Jerusalem. But LG refers it to Mary.

56.The Father of Mercies wanted the acceptance of the planned-for
Mother, Our Lady, to come before the incarnation. Leo XIII,in
Fidentem piumque, Sept 20,1896, had said that she "consented in
the name of the whole human race." He was citing ST 3.30.1. LG
continues "so that just as a woman had contributed to death, so
also a woman should contribute to life." This is the New Eve
theme so common in the Fathers,,chiefly: St.Justin Martyr,
St.Irenaeus, Tertullian, St.Cyril of Jerusalem, St.Jerome,
St.Ambrose, St.Augustine, and also: St.Theophilus of Antioch,
Origen, St.Gregory Thaumaturgus, St.Gregory of Nyssa,
St.Amphilocius, St.Ephrem, St.Epiphanius, St.Maximus, St.John
Chrysostom, St.Peter Chrysologus, St.Proclus, St.Eleutherius
Tornacensis, and the Epistle to Diognetus. References and still
more texts, in Latin, are found in G.M.Roschini, Mariologia, 2d
ed.Rome, 1947, II, 300-01, 304-09. We note that the first Eve
really contributed to the fall, she did not just "actively
receive" a sin from Adam - as the German Mariologists-
Koester,Semmelroth and Mueller - logically should say when they
speak of her role in the redemption.

    She, whom the Fathers were accustomed to speak of as all
holy and immune from every stain of sin, was made a new creation
(therefore with nothing of the old left over) by the Holy Spirit.
So the angel greets her as full of grace. We notice LG does use
this translation. So did John Paul II in Redemptoris Mater. The
Greek here is kecharitomene. It is the perfect participle of the
verb charitoo - we notice the ending, omicron omega. This class
of verbs means to put the person or thing in the state expressed
by the root. E.g., leukos = white, so leukoo is to make white.
Delos is clear,so deloo is to make clear. The root charis has two
meanings - favor and grace (cf.my article in NCE). So it means to
put her into the state indicated by the root, favor or grace. But
favor basically means just that God smiles on someone, does not
say He gives anything. If for people in general we say only that
He has favor for them - then it could imply they do good by their
own power - which is Pelagianism. So even if we use the
translation favor, we must understand it means also to give
something, the something is grace. So kecharitomene means graced.

     But we have here a perfect passive participle which is
specially strong, and even more, the Angel uses it in place of
her name - hence the version "highly favored daughter" is wrong,
for it does not bring out that it is used in place of her name.
If we say someone is Mr.Tennis, we mean he is the ultimate in
tennis. So then kecharitomene should mean Miss Grace - the
ultimate in the category of grace - and that is really much the
same as full of grace.

    Further, the providentially protected Magisterium helps us.
Pius  IX, in Ineffabilis Deus, in 1854, taught: "He so
wonderfully filled her, far above all angelic spirits and all
saints, with an abundance of all graces taken from the treasury
of the divinity, that she, ever free from absolutely every stain
of sin, and totally beautiful and perfect, showed forth such a
fulness of innocence and holiness that none greater under God can
be thought of, and no one but God can comprehend it."  So her
holiness was so great even at the start of her existence [and she
grew of course, for her fullness meant that she had all the grace
that, as it were, she could contain. But her capacity continued
to grow] that only God Himself can comprehend it - not even the
highest Archangels, Cherubim, and Seraphim can do that! Pius XII
in Mystici Corporis added: "Her most holy soul was filled by the
Divine Spirit of Jesus Christ, more than all other creatures of
God taken together."

    LG adds that in this, "embracing the salvific plan of God
with a full heart, held back by no sin, she totally dedicated
herself, as the handmaid of the Lord, to the person and work of
her Son." If she totally dedicated herself to the person and to
the work - she must have known much about Jesus, else she could
not "totally dedicate herself" to the person and work of her Son.

     How much could she know?  Neusner ( op.cit, p.12) says that
at the time there was "intense, vivid, prevailing expectation
that the Messiah was coming soon." Reason: Genesis 49.10 foretold
there would always be some kind of ruler from Judah until that
age. Now since 41 BC they had had instead Herod, not from tribe
of Judah, but half Arab, half Idumean, even though in a way he
practiced Jewish religion. The Targums do know - in spite of some
poor modern versions of Gen 49:10 - what Gen 49:10 meant. Jacob
Neusner (op.cit., p.242) comments: "It is difficult to imagine
how Gen 49:10 can have been read as other than a messianic
prediction." Yet many Catholic scholars do not see what a good
Jew does see!

    Then the angel tells her that her Son will reign forever
over the house of Jacob. Jews then mostly believed the Messiah
would live and rule forever - so this would clearly tell even an
ordinary Jew the son would be Messiah. At that point everything
in the OT  prophecies about the Messiah would at least begin to
come into her mind - increased as she was pondering in her heart.
The Targums show that even ordinary Jews understood so many texts
(chiefly: Gen 3:15, Gen 49:10, Num.24:17, Is. 9:5-6 [and
indirectly, as we saw above, also Is 7:14], and Is 11:1 and Is 53
and Micah 5).She who was full of grace would see all the more
easily and fully.

    But then she hears that He is to be called Son of the Most
High, not in the way ordinary Jews could be so called, but
precisely because she would be overshadowed by the Holy Spirit.
The word overshadow recalls the  Divine Presence filling the
tabernacle in the desert (Ex 40.34-35). So if that is the reason
for calling Him Son of God, it must be a singular sense,
actually, divinity. Further, Is 9.5-6, as we saw, spoke of the
child as Mighty God, and the Targum knew he was the Messiah. (We
discussed the translation of the Targum and of Is 9.5-6 above).-
but what of her who as full of grace? Then too she would see Is
7.14 fulfilled in herself, and then would know it did speak of
virginal conception.

    Even Herod's theologians saw Micah 5:2 as foretelling the
birth of the Messiah at Bethlehem. A modern Jewish scholar,
Samson Levey, comments that the Hebrew of Micah here ("His goings
forth are from of old,from ancient days") would tend to imply the
preexistence of the Messiah - even though the rabbis in general
seem not to have grasped it.

    The Targums too knew that Is 53 spoke of the Messiah. But
they, thinking the Messiah would live forever, twisted the text
so that the meek lamb became an arrogant conqueror. But she who
was full of grace would see - and so even before Simeon's
prophecy of the sword, she would know much, too much for comfort.
She accepted all this in her fiat, even as her Son, on entering
into the world, said, (Heb.10.5ff): "Sacrifices and oblations you
did not desire, but a body you have prepared for me.... Then I
said, Lo, I come to do your will O God." He could do that since
His human soul had the vision of God from the first instant - and
it showed him with painful vividness all He would have to suffer.
(Cf.W.Most, The Consciousness of Christ). Her fiat and His were
simultaneous.(On her knowledge cf.W.Most in Faith & Reason, XI,
l985,pp.51-76). The  prophecy of Isaiah was supplemented by Psalm
22 and Zech.12:10.

    LG adds: "Rightly then do the Holy Fathers see Mary as not
just passively employed by God, but as cooperating in free faith
and obedience for human salvation. For she, as  St.Irenaeus said
'being obedient, became a cause of salvation for herself and for
the whole human race.' Hence not a few ancient Fathers gladly
assert in their preaching with him [St.Irenaeus]: 'The knot of
the disobedience of Eve was loosed through the obedience of
Mary.'"

    To catch the implications of these words, we need to recall
that there are two great phases to the redemption: objective, the
once- for all- acquiring of a title to forgiveness and grace, and
subjective, the distribution of what was won in the objective
redemption. Again, objective redemption is further divided into
remote and proximate or immediate. In being the Mother of the
Redeemer, she furnished the very means by which He could die -
this was a remote cooperation in the great sacrifice.

    Now St.Irenaeus, in the complete context from which Vatican
II quoted, had compared all sin, original and personal, to a
tangled knot. To untie it, St.Irenaeus said, we take the end of
the rope back through every turn that was taken in tying it. Then
and only then is the knot untied. In this context he said what LG
just quoted: "the knot of the disobedience of Eve was untied
through the obedience of Mary". - Was that done with the
incarnation, the conception of the Savior? No, it was not done
until the great sacrifice was complete. Therefore, St.Irenaeus, a
Father of the Church ,an instrument in the hands of Divine
Providence, was used by the Holy Spirit to write more than he
understood - just as did the inspired writers of Gen 3:15 and Is
7:14, as we have seen. And just as Jeremiah 31.31 ff in
foretelling the new covenant. Jeremiah hardly foresaw that the
great obedience of that covenant would be the obedience of Jesus
even unto death. So we see an instrument used by Divine
Providence can say more than that instrument sees or understands.
So Vatican II, also an instrument of Providence, could say more
about Our Lady than it realized.(More later).

    Paul VI,in Marialis cultus (Feb.2,1974.  36) spoke of her
as "taken into dialogue with God" at this occasion.

57."This conjunction of the Mother with the Son in the  work of
salvation is manifested from the time of the virginal conception
of Christ even to His death." LG says it was manifested, since it
had existed for eternity, but only with the incarnation did it
begin to appear to us. Then the Council begins to go through
every one of the mysteries of the life and death of Jesus,so as
to show her cooperation at each point in detail.In 60 it will
start all over again,so as to show her as type of the Church.

    We notice especially the comment on the virgin birth "which
did not diminish her virginal integrity,but consecrated it." Some
today have tried to say her virginity was only a symbol, a
theologoumenon, and that physically she was not virginal. But the
Council uses the word integrity here,which cannot refer to a mere
symbol, it must be physical. John Paul II,in General Audience of
Jan.28,1988 said: "Mary was therefore a virgin before the birth
of Jesus, and she remained a virgin in giving  birth and after
the birth. That is the truth presented by the New Testament text,
and which was expressed both by the Fifth Ecumenical Council at
Constantinople in 553, which speaks of Mary as 'ever virgin' and
also by the Lateran Council in 649, which teaches that 'the
Mother of God...Mary...conceived (her Son) through the power of
the Holy Spirit,  without human intervention and in giving birth
to him her virginity remained incorrupted,and even after the
birth her virginity remained  intact.'" (DS 503)

    We note too the matter of fact way in which LG refers to the
shepherds and the Magi. In  55 it had shown extreme care in
using cf.with Gen 3:15 and Is 7:14 to avoid pronouncing on the
literal original sense of those texts. But here it speaks without
reservation, seeming to accept them at face value. On Dec.28,1966
(Insegnamenti di Paolo VI IV,pp.678-79, Vatican Press,1966), Paul
VI complained that some "try to  diminish the historical value of
the Gospels themselves, especially those that refer to the birth
of Jesus and His infancy. We mention this devaluation briefly so
that you may know how to defend with study and faith the
consoling certainty that these pages are not inventions of
people's fancy, but that they speak the truth." He goes on,
citing Cardinal Bea, a prominent liberal Scripture scholar of the
day, who also defended these. John Paul II, in the Audience of
Jan 28,1988 added:"To identify the source of the infancy
narrative one must go back to St.Luke's remark: 'Mary kept all
these things,pondering them in her heart' (Lk 2:19).Luke states
this twice: after the departure of the shepherds of Bethlehem and
after the finding of Jesus in the temple (cf.Lk 2:51). The
evangelist himself provides us with the elements to identify in
the Mother of Jesus one of the sources of the information used by
him in writing 'the infancy Gospel'. Mary,who 'kept these things
in her heart' (cf.Lk 2:19), could bear witness, after Christ's
death and resurrection, in regard to what concerned herself and
her role as Mother, precisely in the apostolic period when the
New Testament texts were being written and when the early
Christian tradition had its origin."

  LG 57 mentions that in the finding in the temple, His parents
did not understand. This does not mean they had been ignorant of
the fact He was Messiah and divine - what they did not understand
was the strange departure from His normal considerate behavior on
this occasion. He allowed them to feel real distress, because
that would be an occasion for growth in faith.(On her
knowledge,cf.W.Most, "The Knowledge of Our Lady: in Faith &
Reason XI, 1-2, 1985, pp.51-76).

58. The same occasion of faith was provided again at Cana ,where
He seemed to refuse - (other places in OT where we have the words
'what is it to me and to you' mostly carry the note of rejection.
But the outcome showed He was not rejecting).  Similarly with the
time when He "extolled the Kingdom beyond reasons and bonds of
flesh and blood" and said blessed are they who hear the word of
God and keep it. He was showing that of two forms of greatness -
being physically Mother of God, and one who lived in faith - the
second is greater. Of course, she was at the peak in both
categories. So LG adds: "as she was faithfully doing".

    This and similar texts really are cases in which her faith
had to as it were hold on in the dark. God often puts souls into
such positions, to provide an occasion of great growth.  On this
cf.OFP,129-31.

    LG continues: "So to the Blessed Virgin went forward in the
pilgrimage of faith, and in faith bore with (sustinuit) her union
with her Son even to the Cross, where, not without divine plan,
she stood, vehemently grieved together with her Son and joined
herself to His sacrifice with a motherly heart, lovingly
consenting to the immolation of the Victim born of her."  LG says
she went forward, advanced, in faith. She was full of grace at
the start, but it was a relative fulness, i.e., her capacity
could and did grow,and so her capacity for grace advanced.

    We recall too that St.Paul presents faith as including four
things:1)If God speaks a truth, we believe it in our mind; 2)If
He makes a promise, we are confident He will keep it; 3) If He
tells us to do something, we do it in the "obedience of
faith"(Rom 1:5); 4)all of this to be done in love. - Of course,
she was doing all this to the full.

    It says she stood in accord with the divine plan (LG 61
will repeat this point): she was not there as a private person,
but as the one appointed by the Father to cooperate, as the New
Eve. Further,she was asked to consent to the immolation of her
Son. To understand this, we recall that spiritual perfection
consists in the alignment of our will with the will of the
Father. But at the Cross, it was His will that His Son should
die, die then, die so horribly. It was the will of Her Son to do
this. Therefore she was asked not just to refrain from screaming
against it - she was asked to positively will that He die, die
then, die so horribly.

    This cost of this to her was beyond our ability to
understand. The grief of any Mother at the death of her Son is in
proportion to two things: (1) the pain she sees in him, (2) her
love for him. The pain she saw was beyond our imagination. Our
crucifixes give no impression of the scourges, the blood, the
dirt. She saw it all before her eyes. As to her love: love and
holiness are interchangeable terms in practice. But at the start,
as we saw from Pius IX (Ineffabilis Deus), she had such
holiness/love that "none greater under God can be thought of, and
no one but God can comprehend it." So her suffering was in
proportion to a love that is beyond the power of any actual
creature to comprehend - only God Himself can understand it. So
her suffering was multiplied by this love, which is beyond our
ability to grasp - so therefore it is strictly true to say her
suffering was beyond anything any creature can grasp - only God
Himself can do so (cf.W.Most, "Pope deepens Conciliar  theology",
in Miles Immaculatae, Rome XXVI,4.1990,pp. 329-45).

    The redemption was in the form of a new covenant. In a
covenant, the essential condition is obedience. At Sinai God had
said (Ex 19.5): "If you really hearken to my voice and keep my
covenant, you will be my special people." That is, you will get
favor on condition of obedience. In the new covenant, the
essential obedience was that of her Son. LG 3 had said, "by His
obedience He brought about redemption." Cf. also Rom 5.19, and
the text we cited from Paul VI on obedience as the central
feature of redemption.

    Without obedience, His death would have been only a tragedy,
not a redemption. But it was obedient, obedience was the covenant
condition.

    But now we recall that LG 56 had said "by being obedient she
became a cause of salvation for herself and for the whole human
race." LG 61 will say that she "cooperated  by obedience, faith,
hope and burning love, to restore supernatural life to souls." So
she shared in that which gave His death all its value,in
obedience. That obedience took the form of aligning her will with
that of the Father and her Son,i.e.,she had to consent,to
positively will His death,as we explained above.

    Let us recall again that she was there not as a private
person, but as one appointed to cooperate, as the New Eve. The
Father had made her intrinsically suited for this role by the
Immaculate conception. Now - would He do that, make her apt, and
call on her to do so difficult a thing as to will the death of
her Son, in a covenant framework in which the essential condition
was obedience, and then not accept her obedience, her cooperation
as part of the covenant condition? Of course not! Therefore, her
cooperation formed part of the covenant condition - which is the
same as saying, part of the price of redemption!. Of course,this
was in dependence totally on Him: her very ability to do anything
came from Him.

    Now it is fully clear that her role could not be merely
receiving actively that which Christ alone earned, to which she
contributed nothing? The German Mariologists, as we saw, wanted
to say that. But the Council has said she shared in the covenant
condition, as we just saw. That was not just receiving from
Christ, it was cooperating with Him, sharing in the obedience
that alone gave value to His sacrifice. So the Council, without
realizing it,has: (1)rejected the German theory and, (2) taught
she shared even in the covenant condition, which is the price of
redemption. All this in spite of its words, early in LG Chapter 8
that it did not intend to settle controversies. But we have shown
that someone who is an instrument in the hands of Providence can
teach more than he realizes - we saw it with Gen 3.15 and Is 7.14
as explained by LG 55 itself. We saw it in Jer 3.31 ff. We saw it
in St.Irenaeus. Now we see the same pattern in the Council
itself.

    This conclusion is reinforced by noting that Msgr.G.Philips
of Louvain, a chief drafter of this chapter, in his commentary on
it, shows he did not fully understand the chapter he had drafted.
(G. Philips, L'Eglise et son myst�re aux Deuxi�me concil du
Vatican. Descl�e,Paris,1968 II.157-68 - reprinted in Ephemerides
Mariologicae XXIV,1974.pp.87-97.Here we cite this reprint). In
his commentary on  61-62 on  p.92 he thinks that only "a mental
distinction...between  the acquisition and the distribution of
grace is possible", that is, between the work of Calvary, the
objective redemption, and the subsequent work of distribution of
grace, the subjective redemption. But on p.90 of this commentary
he says that her cooperation was "concretized in her
unconditional obedience," while on p.92 he said her present role
(subjective redemption) is one of intercession. But:  obedience
and intercession are not the same thing. They are not merely
mentally distinct. In obedience, she does the will of the Father;
in intercession she asks the Father to do her will in granting
graces to her children. So the two motions go in opposite
directions, and are by no means identified, as they would be if
there were only a mental distinction. Rather, obedience, as we
just saw, was part of the covenant condition, joining with the
obedience of her Son, which was the essential covenant condition.
So Philips did not fully understand the text he had so large
apart in framing.Cf.also W.Most."Mary's Cooperation in the
Redemption, in Faith & Reason XIII.1.pp.28 - 61.

    At the Cross, LG explains that she was given as a Mother to
John. This means she is our Spiritual Mother. We will see more of
it in LG 61-62.

59.At Pentecost we see the Apostles with Mary, all imploring the
gift of the Spirit. The Council does not say so, but when we
recall the flabbiness of the Apostles, we can well think they
were tempted to give up hope by the end of the 9 days. She would
have encouraged them.

    At the end of her earthly course, she was taken up, assumed
into Heaven. We note the wording, borrowed from Pius XII,
Munificentissimus Deus - he was not absolutely certain she had
died. A few Fathers assert she did not. More probably she did, in
likeness to her Son.

    Then she was crowned as Queen with the King, forever.
Pius XII had given 4 titles for Queenship (Bendito seia, May 13,
1946. AAS 38-266): "He, the Son of God, reflects on His heavenly
Mother the glory, the majesty and the dominion of His kingship.
For, having been associated to the King of Martyrs in the
ineffable work of human redemption as Mother and cooperatrix, she
remains forever associated with Him, with a practically unlimited
power, in the distribution of the graces which flow from the
Redemption. - Jesus is King throughout all eternity by nature and
by right of conquest: through Him, with Him, and subordinate to
Him, Mary is Queen by grace, by divine relationship, by right of
conquest, and by singular choice [of the Father]. And her kingdom
is as vast as that of her Son and God, since nothing is excluded
from her dominion."

    The four titles are: (1) by grace - we call one a queen for
being the highest in a category: She is full of grace.
                         (2)by divine relationship: He is King
by nature, being God, she is Mother of God.
                         (3)by right of conquest - in Him this
means redemption- so it means same in her - the text gives three
qualifications, "through, with and subordinate to Him" - these
are obvious, spelled out in 3 ways. So there must be no
understood restriction beyond these. Therefore except for
subordination, by right of conquest means same with her as with
Him.- Contrast the German active receptivity theory.

                          (4)by singular choice - one can be
King or Queen by choice of the people. Here it is by choice of
the Father.

    Her dominion extends as far as that of Jesus. We do not
think of two powers, one infinite, one finite - no, they act as a
unit - per modum unius. Benedict XV calls her "omnipotentia
supplex" - suppliant omnipotence (April 19,1915.AAS 7.201). She
shared in earning all graces - logically,she should share in
giving out all.

    Even though she is finite, she can, in the light of the
vision of God, know even our individual needs. We are very
numerous, but not infinite in number- not too much for an
intellect illumined by a light of glory proportioned to fulness
of grace so great that only God can comprehend it (Pius
IX,Ineffabilis Deus, 1854).

    To sum up: We see then that from eternity before time
began,to eternity after time has ended, and in every one of the
mysteries of His life and death in between, she is "always
sharing His lot (Pius XII said this in Munificentissimus Deus
(AAS 42.768,Nov.1,1950).This chapter of Vatican II spelled this
out in detail. Now since we can do no better than to imitate the
ways of the Father, and since He has freely chosen to put her
everywhere in His approach to us, the logical - but not mandatory
- thing would be for us to give her a similarly all-pervading
place in our response to Him, in our own spiritual lives. We say
not mandatory - for the objectively best is not required of
everyone, and, considering individual differences, might not even
be best for each one.  To do so would be to live out most fully a
complete consecration to her. LG 67 will say that everything the
Church has recommended in devotion to her in the past is still of
great importance. Of course, that includes consecration. So
Vatican II built a splendid theological base for living out a
complete consecration.

60.Here we begin a new section, partly repeating what is said
before - on the relation of Mary to the Church. There had been a
hot debate in the second session, as we saw: where to put the
teaching on her: in this document, or a separate document. This
document won, in a very close vote. The reason for the fuss over
where to put it is likely to be that the German Mariologists were
also behind it - Cardinal Koenig of Vienna, as we saw, spoke for
using this document. They argued that since the Church only
receives  from Christ in the redemption - does not produce
anything - then since she is a type of the Church, she cannot do
any more.- Really, this is a Protestant theology of redemption:
people contribute nothing, they just appropriate, make their own
what Christ has done. They take Christ as their personal
Savior.(Cf.Otto Semelroth, cited in the introduction to this
chapter.

    We note the apologetic tone in this section. Protestants
like to appeal to the text of 1 Tim 2.5-6,"One Mediator" to rule
out Mary. Sadly, as we saw, some floor speakers at the Council
tried the same. Cf.G.Tavard, Council Daybook 2.52: "It would be
inconsistent for the Council to approve...the use of a term which
contradicts the New Testament. As several speakers have pointed
out, the term Mediatrix as applied to Mary is incompatible with
the teaching of St.Paul...."  This implied a charge of heresy
against several Popes, who had used that title for her - cf.the
listing in note 16, on 61 (note by the Council). Cf.also a more
complete listing of texts in our introduction to this chapter 8.

    LG 60 insists that the Father's use of Mary was not by
necessity, but by free choice - obviously true. It is helpful to
relate this to the principle of St.Thomas in I.19.5.c which says
that in His love of good order, God is pleased to have one thing
in place to serve as a title, or reason, for giving a second
thing, even though that title does not move Him. Briefly, He did
not need her in the objective redemption. But it pleased Him to
observe good order, and to make all things as rich as possible
for our race. Similarly, He did not need her, or the other
Saints,in the subjective redemption. He really needed no titles
in the subjective redemption at all, to give out what had been so
richly earned in the objective redemption; yet He does provide
those titles, especially the Mass, which presents again His
obedient offering.

    It helps to consider what we might call the alternatives of
redemption. After the fall of Adam and Eve, and after looking
ahead to all future sins, the Father did mean to restore our
race.He had several options before Him: 1)Forgive without any
reparation. But this would not satisfy His love of good order,
nor be so rich for us; 2)He could have appointed any mere human
to do any religious act and count it as the whole of redemption,
even though it would be merely finite; 3)He could have sent His
Son to be born in a palace, equipped with every possible luxury.
He would not have to do any more than be born -or He might add a
prayer: "Father forgive them." Then He would ascend in a blaze of
glory forever, without dying at all (This would be infinite
merit, since done by an Infinite Person; it would also be
infinite satisfaction, which is had when something difficult is
done: it was a great come-down for a Divine Person to become
incarnate); 4) He went beyond the palace to the stable, beyond a
prayer to the cross. This was literally infinity beyond infinity,
for option 3 would have been infinite. In mathematics, infinity
plus a finite number does not grow. But this is not the low
ground of mathematics, but the high realm of divine generosity.
5) It is evident.His policy is this: If there is any way to make
it even richer,it will be done. He saw in option 2 He could have
used a mere creature for the whole of redemption: why not then
add Our Lady's cooperation? So He did, as we have seen.

61."The Blessed Virgin,predestined from eternity along with the
incarnation of the Divine Word as the Mother of God, by plan of
Divine Providence, was on this earth the kindly Mother of the
Divine Redeemer, His associate singularly, more than others, and
the humble handmaid of the Lord. In conceiving Christ, in
bringing Him forth, in nourishing Him, in presenting Him to the
Father in the Temple, in suffering with her Son as He died on the
cross, she cooperated in the work of the Savior in an altogether
singular way, by  obedience, faith hope and burning love, to
restore supernatural life to souls. As a result she is our Mother
in the order of grace."

    We note again her eternal union, in the decree for the
incarnation. All God's decrees are eternal as is His Being. In
decreeing the incarnation, He necessarily also provided for the
Mother. Hence the eternal union. That union, as we saw, extends
through every mystery of His life and death which the Council
reviews in detail, and continues on into eternity after the end
of time, where she is eternally Queen with Him the Divine King.

    LG shows that she cooperated in the redemption all through
His life - for He merited for us through all His life. It was
only by positive decree of the Father that the Cross was
required. Any small thing He did would be enough to redeem
countless worlds.

    She cooperated in the work of the Savior, in restoring
supernatural life to souls - that is, in redeeming us. She did it
in an altogether singular way - no one else was appointed to
officially cooperate, not even St.John. Pius XI once spoke of
workers in Catholic Action as "coredeemers" - true,but only in
the subjective, not in the objective redemption.

    She cooperated by obedience, faith, hope and burning love.
The three theological virtues are obvious. But we notice again
the obedience,and recall that that is what gave all the value to
His sacrifice, it is that which was the covenant condition. So
she did share in that condition, which is the same as saying she
shared in the price of redemption.

    In a covenant there are two levels. If we ask why the Father
gives favors under it, there are two answers: On basic level, no
creature can generate a claim on Him by its own power. So
whatever He gives is the result of unmerited, unmeritable
generosity. But on a secondary plane, given the fact that He has
freely entered into a covenant, saying as it were: "If you do
this I will do that", then if humans fulfill their part, He owes
it to Himself to give favor. So even the redemption by Christ was
on this secondary level.It was not that the Father, because
Christ came, dropped anger, became willing to love us. No, it was
because the Father always loved us that Christ came. Since we see
the redemption is on this secondary level - we can easily see
that there is no problem in saying she could cooperate in it.

    We see this too if we think of the alternatives of
redemption, which we have already reviewed.

    We note that a covenant is like a contract. In a contract,
each one gives something of at least about equal value. The price
of redemption He paid was of course infinite. So that to which
the Father obligated Himself was also infinite: an inexhaustible
treasury of forgiveness and grace. Still further, this title or
claim is not merely for the human race in a block -it is- but it
is also for each individual person ,because of Gal 2:20: "He
loved me, and gave Himself for me." Vatican II in Church in
Modern World 22 said: "Each one of us can say with the Apostle:
The Son of God loved me, and gave Himself for me."

    Could someone then think: With such a title going for me, I
could go on a long spree of sin, and then pull up in time? No,
for two reasons: 1) The repentance at the end would not he a real
repentance, for there would be no change of heart: it would be
all preplanned; 2)A long spree of sin produces hardening, with
the result that even if God is willing to forgive, the sinner is
not open to receive.

    G.Philips, in the commentary from which we cited above,
objected that graces are not like jewels that could be stored in
a box. Correct: We do not mean that. We mean a claim under
covenant has been generated, as a result of which the Father
obliges Himself to make available forgiveness and grace without
end at the times at which it is needed.

    That price then generates the claim. Some have worried: To
speak of a price uses the imagery that our race was in captivity:
the price was paid to the captor for our freedom. But, the captor
was satan. We would not say that the blood of Christ was paid to
satan. Neither was it paid to the Father, for He was not the
captor. What then? It was paid to rebalance the objective order,
which the Holiness of God so intensely wishes. (This was
explained in our commentary on 3 above).

    As a result of this cooperation "she is our Mother in the
order of grace." In the natural order, a Mother must first share
in bringing new life to being - then take care of it, so long as
she is willing, able, and needed. She shared in bringing new
life, the life of the  soul, by her role in the objective
redemption, the great Sacrifice. By her role in distributing all
graces, she fulfills  the second requirement. Natural mothers
after a while are not much needed - but we will always need
grace. Natural mothers may be unable or unwilling to help - never
so with Mary.

62.Her motherhood extends from the consent she gave at the
annunciation, which she unhesitatingly continued under the cross
- even willing His death,as we saw - even to the final
consummation of all the elect. For after being assumed into
Heaven, she has not put aside this role, but she continues to
care for the brothers of her Son until they arrive in the house
of the Father. For this reason, "She is invoked in the
Church with the titles of Advocate, Auxilatrix, Adjutrix, and
Mediatrix."

    Some say the Council buried the title of Mediatrix.
Protestant observers at the Council had said in advance that if
the Council called her Mediatrix, there would be no more
dialogue, at least on her.(Cf. Estudios Marianos 27,1966.p.174 by
Fr.Balic, one of the drafters of this Chapter).

    Why did not the Council add "of all graces"? First, not
needed - since it taught she shared in earning all graces, it
follows she shares in dispensing all. Second, it did refer us in
note 16 to several Popes who did teach she is Mediatrix of all
graces: Leo XIII, St.Pius X, Pius XII. And besides these, given
in the note, we could add John XXIII. For a complete list of
references to 12 papal texts saying she is Mediatrix of all
graces. cf.W.Most. Catholic Beliefs:The Bottom Line
(Marytown,l988,#49).

    In deference to the Protestant observers, LG now adds that
her role does not detract from Christ, and that no creature can
be put on the same plane with Him.- Of course not, nor do we do
that even when we say she shared in paying the price of
redemption - for her very ability to cooperate came entirely from
Him. So she is not on the same plane.

63-65.Here LG speaks of her as a type of the Church - a point
dear to the German Mariologists. However, thanks to Divine
Providence, the Council did not speak of the parallel of which
the German Mariologists spoke.It mentions her as a type of the
Church only in a very limited  way - in the order of faith, love,
and perfect union with Christ. The Church too is both virgin and
mother. The Church hopes to imitate Mary's perfection. Thinking
of her and raising its eyes to her,the Church and contemplating
her in the mystery of the Word made flesh,is reverently led more
deeply into the supreme mystery of the Incarnation. For Our Lady
unites and echoes the greatest points of the faith in herself,and
while she is preached and honored,leads us to her Son and to His
Sacrifice.The Church thus is made more like her Type or model in
Our Lady. Also,in her apostolic work,the Church rightly looks to
her who begot Christ.She is the exemplar of the motherly
affection by which all working in the apostolic mission of the
Church should be animated.

    But all this includes no mention of her as a parallel to the
Church in the work of redemption.

    One suspects it was the German Mariologists, led by Cardinal
Koenig, who got this section into LG. It quotes only a very few
Fathers - cf.the notes given by the Council. Everything in these
3 sections is true, but not of major moment.

66.She is exalted after her Son, more than angels and men. Her
cult however differs not only in degree, but also in kind from
that due to God - who receives worship in the strict sense.

67.The Council deliberately teaches this Marian doctrine, and
admonishes all the sons of the Church, that they should
generously promote devotion to her, and "should consider the
practices and exercises of piety, recommended by the  Magisterium
in the course of past centuries, as still of great importance."
All this in site of updating! So everything the Church has ever
recommended in the line of devotion to her is still very
important. The Council did not enumerate these things - it is
clear they include the Rosary - Paul VI mentioned that specially
in an Encyclical Christi Matri Rosarii of Sept 15, l966. It also
renews the decrees on the veneration of statues - decried by the
ancient Iconoclasts, and now by newer ones. The Constitution on
Liturgy  calls for the use of images in  125, adding that they
should be moderate in number.

    John XXIII in Journal of a Soul,p.315, wrote: "...since the
beginning of 1953 I have pledged myself to recite it devoutly in
its entirety" [all 15 decades of the Rosary]. Paul VI in Signum
magnum of May 13,1967: "We exhort all the sons of the Church to
renew personally their consecration to the Immaculate Heart of
the Mother of the Church."

    LG 67 also advises to avoid false exaltation of her - this
means devotions that are not solidly based on doctrine. But if
one follows the doctrine of LG chapter 8 - and notes that the
Father has given her an all-pervading role,she is everywhere in
His approach to us - it is practically impossible to have too
much. It warns also against narrow restrictions on devotion, and
against whatever could mislead those outside the Church.

    True devotion depends, it says, on true faith - that is, on
solid doctrine.

68.She now is the image and beginning of what the Church hopes to
be. She is a sign of definite hope and consolation to the Church
on her pilgrimage.

69.The Council is pleased to note that some separated brethren
also have devotion to her, especially the Eastern Orthodox.

Given at Rome,Nov 21,1964.
                        ***

     Closing Address of Paul VI at end of Third Session,Nov.21,1964

    Many of the Fathers of the Council have made this wish their
own, asking for an explicit declaration during the Council of her
role as Mother which the Virgin exercises over the Christian
people.  To accomplish this aim, we have considered it
opportune...to consecrate a title in honor of the Virgin which
has been suggested by various parts of the Catholic world....
Therefore, for the glory of the Virgin Mary and for our own
consolation, we proclaim the Most Holy Mary as Mother of the
Church, that is to say, of all the People of God, of the faithful
as well as the pastors, who call her their most loving Mother."

    There was a standing ovation for this announcement. Applause
interrupted the Pope seven times during the entire address.

     He also said that his thoughts turned to the whole world
"which our venerated predecessor, Pius XII, not without
inspiration from on high, solemnly consecrated to the Immaculate
Heart of Mary...we have decided to send a special mission to
Fatima...in order to carry the Golden Rose to...Fatima.... In
this way we intend to entrust to the care of this heavenly Mother
the whole human family....O Virgin Mary, Mother of the Council,
to you we recommend the entire Church."

Theo 603 -- Rev. William Most
                                             Appendix
                                          Spring 1992

                    Appendix I:

            Decree on Ecumenism Summary

Preliminary observation: This decree shows a more
sharp change than any  other document of Vatican
II. To grasp this we need to keep in mind three
distinctions: 1)Doctrine -- This we believe
because of the promises of Christ; Vatican II
reversed no doctrine,made only a few small
changes by giving decisions on previously debated
points; 2)Legislation or commands: Vatican II
made large changes in the legislation on liturgy
--  We should obey commands unless immoral.The
changes in liturgy of course are not immoral. But
some Bishops do give immoral commands,e.g, an
order to use textbooks for Catholic schools which
do not convey the faith or even contradict it;
3)Prudence or good judgment -- this refers to
either of the two items above. But here there is
no promise of Christ,no claim by the Church,to
protection in prudence. So if someone thinks
something is done in defective or poor
prudence,he is not breaking with the Church
(e.g,the prudence of liturgical changes or of
handling of ecumenism). So these three
distinctions are important: someone not knowing
them might break on the matter of prudence,but
then, not knowing the lines and distinctions,
might go on to break on items 1 or 2,where he
should not break.

    In the Patristic age, writers were anything
but ecumenical: they hit the heretics hard.  A
strong instance was the work of St.Cyprian
Against Demetrian, who was the local governor. So
it seems they spoke strongly even though some
born in the heresy may not have been guilty
personally.

    Before Vatican II the Church did not speak
so strongly as the Fathers, yet ecumenism was
carefully restricted. Now Vatican II strongly
encourages it: all should take part at least by
prayer, while specialists can engage in dialogue.

    This is a difference in prudence, not in
doctrine. We might ask: Were conditions different
in the Patristic age, so that they and Vatican II
were both right in the prudential aspect of their
judgments?


            Introduction by the Council

1.The restoration of unity is one of the chief
goals of the Council. Christ founded one Church.
The division contradicts His will and is a
scandal to the world,and a hindrance to the
preaching of the Gospel.

    The Lord of the ages has begun to pour forth
more abundantly a desire of unity. Hence there
has arisen an ecumenical movement.

    The Council wills to propose to all
Catholics the helps, ways and means by which they
can respond to this divine call.

      I: The Principles of Catholic Ecumenism

2.Jesus prayed that all might be one. To make
firm His holy Church everywhere even to the end
of time, Christ gave the task of teaching, ruling
and sanctifying to the college of  the Twelve,
and chose Peter among them to whom He promised
the keys. He wills that His people grow in unity
and the profession of one faith. The model and
principle of the unity is the Trinity of Divine
Persons.

3.Already from the beginning, divisions arose, in
later centuries the divisions were larger, and
large communities were separated from the full
communion with the Catholic Church, sometimes not
without fault on both sides. Those born in such
communities who are imbued with the faith of
Christ cannot be charged with the sin of
separation. For these who believe in Christ and
have been properly baptized, are placed in a
certain communion with the Catholic Church, even
if it is not perfect. Not a few impediments, at
times grave ones, to full ecclesiastical
community arose. Nonetheless,being justified by
faith in Baptism, they are incorporated in
Christ, and so are rightly adorned with the
Christian name, and are rightly recognized by the
sons of the Catholic Church as brothers in the
Lord.

    Furthermore, certain elements of which the
Church itself is built, can be found in some
number and excellence even outside the visible
boundaries of the Church: the written word of
God, the life of grace, faith, hope, and love and
other interior gifts of the Holy Spirit which
come from Christ and lead to Him and pertain to
the one Church of Christ. Not a few actions of
the Christian religion are done by the separated
brothers which in varied ways can generate the
life of grace,and are to be called apt to open
the entrance into the communion of salvation.

     So the Spirit of Christ does not refuse to
use as means of salvation the churches themselves
and separated communities whose power is derived
from the fullness of grace and truth entrusted to
the Catholic Church. Yet they do not enjoy that
unity which Jesus Christ willed to give to all.
Only through the Catholic Church of Christ can
the fullness of all the means of salvation be
reached.  For we believe that the Lord entrusted
all the gifts of the New Covenant to the one
apostolic college  over which Peter presides to
form the one body of Christ on earth, to which
they are fully incorporated, who in some way
already pertain to the people of God. This people
during its earthly pilgrimage even though in its
members it remains subject to sin,grows in Christ
until it arrives at the whole plenitude of
eternal glory in the heavenly Jerusalem.

    What was just said is very true, but some
have distorted it. So Cardinal Jozef Tomko,
Prefect of the Congregation for the
Evangelization of Peoples, in addressing the
International Conference on Mission Work,
criticized by name two theologians and the
U.S.Maryknoll Society. These two are Paul
Knilter, a lay theologian of Xavier University,
and Fr.Michael Amaldoss,S.J., an assistant in
Rome to the Superior General of the Jesuits. They
give the impression that one religion is a good
as another, since it is true that one can be
saved without formally joining the Catholic
Church - cf. LG 16 cited above. Knilter wrote a
book, No Other Name? and edited another called
The Myth of Christian Uniqueness: Towards a
Pluralistic Theology of Religions (This second
one is published  by Orbis Books of Maryknoll.
Cardinal Tomko said this second book is an
example of confusing ecumenical outreach with
denying the unique and definitive role of Jesus
in  salvation. Knilter pointed to an article in
Maryknoll's magazine: "It [Maryknoll] now seeks
to discover the faith and goodness that exists in
people of different religions,rather than to
announce Christianity or Christ to them."

4.This  Council urges all Catholics to recognize
the signs of the times and to diligently take
part in ecumenical work.   It urges elimination
of all words, judgments and works which do not
correspond to the condition of separated
brethren, in fairness and truth and  which
therefore make mutual relations more difficult.
It also recommends dialogues between well
prepared experts. For by this dialogue the more
accurate knowledge of the doctrine and life of
each Communion can be known and all will gain a
fairer appreciation of these. Also encouraged are
those common efforts in duties to the common good
called for by every Christian conscience. They
also come together for common prayer where
permitted. Finally let all examine their fidelity
to the will of Christ for the Church and start
vigorously on the work of renovation and
reformation. All these things, done under the
vigilance  of the pastors, prudently and
patiently contribute to fairness and truth,
concord and collaboration so that in this way,
little by little, obstacles can be overcome that
impede perfect ecclesiastical communion and all
Christians may be gathered into the unity of the
one Church which subsists in such a way that it
cannot be lost in the Catholic Church.

    The Catholic faithful in ecumenical action
should be solicitous for the separated brethren,
praying for them, communicating with them about
affairs of the Church, taking the first step to
them. Let them sincerely and attentively consider
the things that are to be renewed and done in the
Catholic family itself.

    For although the Catholic Church is endowed
by God with all revealed truth and all the means
of grace, yet her members do not always live with
the fervor with which they should. So all
Catholics should tend to Christian perfection and
strive that the Church, carrying about the
humility and mortification of Jesus, may be
cleansed and renewed from day to day, until
Christ presents her to Himself as a glorious
Church, without spot or wrinkle.

    While keeping unity in necessary things, let
all preserve due liberty in the various forms of
the spiritual life and discipline and in the
diversity of liturgical rites, even in the
theological development of revealed truth.

    On the other hand it is necessary that
Catholics gladly recognize and esteem the truly
Christian good things flowing from the common
patrimony which are found among the separated
brothers.

            II.The Practice of Ecumenism

5.Care for restoring unity is a concern of the
whole Church, both faithful and Shepherds.

6.The Church in its pilgrimage is called by
Christ to this reform in fidelity to its
vocation, which as a human and earthly
institution it perpetually needs. Hence if some
things whether in morals or in ecclesiastical
discipline or even in the expression  of doctrine
- which is to be carefully distinguished from the
deposit of faith  - have been less accurately
conserved, at the suitable time they should be
restored rightly and in due fashion.

    A good example of this matter of wording is
found in the language which has been used to
speak of original sin: it was called a stain, and
transmitted by heredity.  John Paul II,in a
General Audience of Oct 1,1986 said: "In context,
it is evident that original sin in Adam's
descendants has not the character of personal
guilt. It is the privation of sanctifying grace
in a nature which, through the fall of the first
parents, has been diverted from its supernatural
end. It is a 'sin of nature' only analogically
comparable to 'personal sin.'" Again, it is often
said that by it our mind is darkened and will
weakened. John Paul II,General Audience of Oct
8,1986: "...according to the Church's teaching,
it is a case of a relative and not an absolute
deterioration, not intrinsic to human
faculties...not of a loss of their essential
capacities even in relation to the knowledge and
love of God." This means that our nature is
reduced to the state it would have been in if God
had created Adam and Eve with only basic
humanity, and without the added coordinating gift
and the gift of grace. In such a state, the
various drives within us, in body and soul, each
operate blindly, with no thought for the other
needs or the needs of the whole person. So then
emotions tend to cloud mind and pull on the will.

    However, Paul VI in Mysterium fidei (Sept
3,1965) said that the old language while less
good, is not wrong:
"The rule of speaking which the Church in the
course of long ages, not without the protection
of the Holy Spirit, has introduced, and has
strengthened by the authority of Councils...must
be kept sacred, and no one at his own whim or
under pretext of new knowledge may presume to
change them."
7.Thee is no rightly called ecumenism without
interior conversion. So from the Divine Spirit we
should implore grace of sincere self-
denial,humility and meekness in serving and
fraternal liberality towards others. Therefore we
humbly beg pardon of God and of the separated
brethren just as we forgive our debtors.

8.This conversion of heart and holiness of life,
along with private and public prayers for
christian unity are to be considered as the soul
of the whole ecumenical movement, and can rightly
be called spiritual ecumenism.

    In certain special situations such as
prayers prescribed for unity, and in ecumenical
meetings, it is permitted, even to be desired,
that Catholics join in prayer with the separated
brethren. These prayers are a very effective
means of obtaining unity.

    However, worship in common may not be
considered as a means to be used indiscriminately
for restoring Christian unity. There are two
principles of this communication, that of
expressing the unity of the Church, and
participation in the means of grace. The
expression of unity generally forbids common
worship. The obtaining of grace at times
recommends it. Episcopal authority should
prudently decide the concrete manner of
acting.[We add: here there is real danger of
giving  an impression that one church is as good
as the other. This is a question of prudence, not
of doctrine].

9.We should get to know the  mind of the
separated  brethren. For this, study is required.
Catholics properly prepared should acquire better
knowledge of doctrine and history of the
spiritual life and cult, and of religious
psychology and culture that the separated
brethren have. To attain this it is very helpful
to have meetings of the two sides especially to
study theological questions, provided that those
who take part, under the vigilance of the
authorities, be really experts.

10.Sacred theology and other branches of
knowledge should be treated historically and
under the ecumenical aspect, so that they may be
more precisely true. It is very important for
future pastors and priests to learn a theology
carefully elaborated in this way, and not in a
polemic way. [Comment: Does this mean we should
not learn apologetics? Probably not, that can be
learned separately. But,howsoever much agreement
may be reached on peripheral matters, unless
Protestants and others come to accept the
principle of the teaching authority of the Church
- there is still no real union].

11..The manner and order of expressing the
Catholic faith should not become an obstacle to
dialogue with the separated brothers. It is
necessary that the full doctrine be lucidly
presented. For nothing is so foreign to true
ecumenism as that false irenicism in which the
purity of Catholic doctrine suffers damage and
its genuine and certain sense is obscured. One
should also note that there is an order or
hierarchy of Catholic doctrines, since the
relation of these items with the foundation of
Christian faith is varied. [For examples of
violations of this section, see the examples of
excesses by A.Dulles, at the end of this
summary].

12.Since today cooperation in social matters is
widespread, all are called to work together, all
the more those who believe in God, and most
especially all who bear the Christian name.
Cooperation among Christians expresses in a
living way that conjunction in which they are
united together. Such cooperation should
contribute to a good appreciation of the dignity
of the human person, the promotion of peace, the
application of the principles of the Gospel to
social life, the progress of the arts and
sciences in a Christian way, and in taking
remedies against the afflictions of our times
such as famine, disasters, illiteracy and need,
homelessness and unfair distribution of goods.

III.Churches and Ecclesial Communities Separated
from the Apostolic Roman See.

13.We turn to the two chief splits in the
seamless tunic of Christ. The first happened in
the east at first over dogmatic formulas of
Ephesus and Chalcedon, later by a break in
ecclesiastical communion of the Patriarch and
Rome. The other is commonly called the
Reformation. The Anglican Communion holds  a
special place. Yet these various divisions differ
much among themselves.

                The Eastern Churches

14.The churches of East and West for many
centuries went their own ways, but yet there was
brotherly communion and the same sacramental
life, with the Roman See moderating, by common
consent. It is pleasing to recall that many local
particular churches flourished in the East, first
among them being the Patriarchal Churches.

    Likewise we should not fail to note that the
Churches of the East from the beginning have a
treasury, from which the Western Church took many
things in liturgy, in spiritual tradition, and in
the juridical order. And it is important that
fundamental dogmas about the Trinity and the Word
of God who was incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
were defined in Eastern ecumenical councils.

    The inheritance from the Apostles was
accepted in diverse forms and modes. These
things, besides external causes, because of a
lack of mutual understanding and charity, gave
the opportunity for separations.

15.All know with what love the Eastern Christians
conduct the sacred liturgy. In this liturgical
cult they praise Mary ever Virgin in very
beautiful hymns and they honor many Saints,
including Fathers of the universal Church. Since
those Churches, even though separated, have true
sacraments, a certain communication in worship,
in suitable circumstances and with ecclesiastical
approval, is not only possible but to be
encouraged.

    In the East there are found the riches of
those spiritual traditions, especially monachism.
Monastic life moved from there to the West.

    Let all know that the very rich Eastern
patrimony in liturgy and spirituality should be
venerated, conserved and cherished.

16.To remove all doubt, the Council declares that
the Churches of the East, mindful of the unity of
the whole Church, have the faculty of ruling
themselves according to their proper rules, since
they are more suited for the character of their
faithful.

17.Similar things are to be said about the
diverse theological expressions. It is not
surprising that certain aspects of a revealed
mystery at times are perceived more fittingly and
presented better by one than by the other, in
such a way that theological formulas often are
complementary rather than opposed. We note that
the theological traditions of the East are
excellently rooted in Sacred Scripture. So this
Council declares that all this patrimony,
spiritual, liturgical, disciplinary, and
theological, in the varied traditions pertains to
the full catholicity and apostolicity of the
Church.

18.Considering all these things, this Council
repeats what was said by previous councils and
Popes, namely, that to restore unity or conserve
it, nothing more than what is necessary is
demanded.  (Cf.Acts 15.28).

   Separate Churches and Ecclesial Communities in
the West

19.These, even though separated, "are joined in a
special affinity and bond with the Catholic
Church because of having had for a long time in
past centuries the Christian life in
ecclesiastical communion".[Comment:This is an
example of straining. The fact they once were one
with us does not produce any bond now]. Since
they differ so much not only from us but also
among themselves, it would be very difficult to
describe them.  We hope that in all the
ecumenical sense and mutual esteem will gradually
grow. Yet we must admit that there are
difficulties of great weight, especially in the
interpretation of revealed truth.

20.Yet we rejoice seeing the separated brethren
looking towards Christ and the font and center of
ecclesiastical communion. Touched with the desire
of union with Christ, they are driven more and
more to seek unity.

21.A love and reverence, almost a cult, of Sacred
Scripture leads our brothers to a constant and
diligent study of the Sacred pages. But
Christians separated from us affirm the divine
authority of the sacred books in a different way
than we - various ones hold various views about
the relation of Scripture and the Church, in
which according to the Catholic faith the
authentic Magisterium holds a special place in
explaining and preaching the  written  Word of
God. Yet the Sacred Utterances in the dialogue
itself are excellent instruments in the powerful
hand of God to attain that unity.

22. By Baptism when it is conferred according to
the Lord's institution, and is received with
proper disposition of soul, a person is really
incorporated into the crucified and glorified
Christ and is regenerated to life. So Baptism is
a sacramental bond of unity among all those
regenerated by it. Yet Baptism is of itself only
the beginning. Baptism is ordered to the complete
profession of faith and to complete incorporation
into the institute of salvation. The ecclesial
communities separated from us, even though their
full unity with us coming from Baptism is
lacking, and even though we believe that they,
especially because of the lack of the Sacrament
of Orders, have not kept a genuine and full
substance of the Eucharistic mystery, yet, while
in the Holy Supper they make memorial of the
death and resurrection of the Lord, they profess
that life in Christ is signified and they await
His glorious coming. So the doctrine about the
Lord's Supper, the other sacraments, and the cult
and the ministry of the Church should be an
object of dialogue.

23.Faith in Christ brings fruits in praise and
thanksgiving; there is also  a living sense of
justice and a sincere charity for neighbor. This
active faith brings forth not a few institutes
for relieving the spiritual and corporal misery
of others, to educate youth, to make the social
conditions of life more human, to establish
universal peace. Since many Christians do not
always understand the Gospel on moral matters in
the same way as  Catholics, ecumenical dialogue
about the moral application of the Gospel can
take its beginning there.

24.The Council exhorts the faithful to abstain
from any levity or imprudent zeal which could
harm the progress of unity. For their ecumenical
action should not be other than fully and
sincerely Catholic, that is, faithful to the
truth. The Council strongly  hopes that the
undertakings of the sons of the Church may
advance along with the undertakings of separated
brothers without placing any obstacle to the ways
of Providence and without prejudice to the future
impulses of the Holy Spirit. Further, it declares
it is aware that the work of reconciling
Christian in the unity of the one only Church of
Christ is beyond human powers and capabilities.
Hence it puts its hope entirely in the prayer of
Christ for the Church, in the love of the Father
for us, in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Examples of ecumenical excess by A.Dulles:

l.Proceedings of Catholic Theological Society of
America,1976, p.240:
    "Indirectly,however,the Council worked
powerfully to undermine the authoritarian theory
and to legitimate dissent in the
Church....Vatican II  quietly reversed earlier
positions of the Roman magisterium on a number of
important issues.....The Declaration on Religious
Freedom accepted the religiously neutral
State,thus reversing the previously approved view
that the State should formally profess the truth
of Catholicism....."
    COMMENT: Cf.Vatican II,On Religious Liberty
#1."It leaves untouched traditional Catholic
doctrine about the moral duty of men and
societies toward the true religion and the only
Church of Christ."
    p.242:"By its actual practice of
revisionism,the Council implicitly taught the
legitimacy and even the value of dissent.In
effect,the Council said that the ordinary
magisterium of the Roman pontiff had fallen into
error and had unjustly harmed the careers of
loyal and able theologians."

2. Origins.NC Documentary Service Dec.26,1974.At
a convocation honoring the retired  Episcopalian
bishop of Southern Ohio at Xavier University on
Dec.6:"In other words,I am suggesting that the
Catholic Church, while continuing to propose
these doctrines [Immaculate Conception and
Assumption ] as true,should abolish the canonical
penalties presently connected with the
questioning or denial of these doctrines. If this
were done,the church could declare its readiness
to enter into full communion with other
Christians provided the only issue between them
and herself were the present unreadiness to
accept the dogmas of 1854 and 1950."

3. The Survival of Dogma NY,1971.p.164:"It is far
from obvious that the dogmas of the Church,having
been  'revealed by God himself,' cannot be
revised by the Church.... Our findings suggest
that the Catholic dogmas as presently formulated
and understood may be significantly changed...."

    Appendix II:Declaration on Religious Liberty

    Because of the claims,and subsequent
schism,made by Archbishop Lefebvre that the
Declaration on Religious Liberty of Vatican II
(Dignitatis humanae hereinafter DH) contradicted
teachings of Gregory XVI, Pius IX,and Leo XIII,
we will make a careful comparison to texts.

    We must add that something taught repeatedly
on the Ordinary Magisterium level is
infallible.Such seems to be the case with the
teaching of these three Popes.Hence,no matter on
what level Vatican II,was teaching in this
Declaration,the charge amounts to a charge that a
general council taught heresy. Then the promises
of Christ would be at least largely void.

    It is of capital importance to use sound
theological method in all things, especially in
this matter. God has made two promises,to protect
the teaching of the Church, and to give free will
to humans. At times He needs, as it were, to walk
a tight line to carry out both. Therefore,in some
texts - such as some of those below - we may
suspect that the Pope had in his mind more
strenuous things than what he set down on paper,
we must say that only the things put down on
paper are protected by Divine Providence - not
all what he may or may not have had in his mind.

            A) TEXTS OF THE THREE POPES

Gregory XVI, in Mirari vos of August 15,1832.DS
2730: "We now continue with a most fertile cause
of evils by which we deplore that the Church at
present is being afflicted, that is,
indifferentism, or that evil opinion....that by
any profession of faith whatsoever, the eternal
salvation of the soul can be attained, if morals
are kept to the norm of the right and good....
And from this must putrid font of indifferentism
flows that absurd and erroneous view or rather
insanity, that liberty of conscience should be
asserted and claimed for just anyone."

    COMMENTS: The first sentence merely means
that it does make a difference objectively what
faith one professes. But it does not mean that
all Protestants are certainly damned - that would
be the error of Feeney. Rather, one may be saved
not by just any profession of faith, but in spite
of a wrong one. Even Pius IX, famed for his
strong words against indifferentism,insisted
that "God...in His supreme goodness and clemency
by no means allows anyone to be punished with
eternal punishments who does not have the guilt
of voluntary fault." (Quanto conficiamur
maerore,Aug 10,1863: DS 2966).

             The second sentence merely rejects
the idea that one has a right to be in error. A
right is a claim, ultimately coming from God, to
have, to do, or to call for something. God surely
gives no one a claim to be wrong. Vatican II, as
we shall see, merely asserts one has a right not
to be put in prison etc. for being wrong.

    The vehemence, and almost emotional quality
of the language, makes one suspect Gregory XVI
might have had in mind more drastic ideas than
what he put down on paper.

Pius IX, Quanta cura,Dec.8,1864.ASS 3.162: [We
have added numbers for convenience in
commenting]".
    1."For you know well...that there are not a
few, who...applying that impious and absurd
principle of what is called naturalism, dare to
teach, 'that the best state of public society and
civil progress absolutely requires that human
society should be so constituted and governed,
that there is no consideration of religion, as if
it [religion] did not exist, or at least with no
distinction made between true and false
religions.'"
         COMMENTS: Pius IX here condemns a
proposition, which is printed as a quotation, but
the Acta Sanctae Sedis gives no source for it. It
seems, then, that it was framed precisely to be a
condemned and false proposition. Such condemned
propositions are normally declared false if even
one thing is wrong with them.

    This proposition is false because (a) the
state as a state should worship God, and in the
way He has made known that He wills.  Therefore
to ignore religion is wrong. (b)For the same
reason, the state should make its own the true
religion, and not treat all religions
indiscriminately. This need not mean repression
of false religions.

    Vatican II,in DH 1 taught: "It leave
untouched the traditional Catholic doctrine about
the moral duty of men and societies towards the
true religion and the one Church of Christ." This
means,of course, an established Church. As we
said, it would not imply repression of other
churches. Even pagan Greece and Rome realized
that the state as a state needs God's help: hence
the state as a state must worship God. We add: If
God makes known which way He wills to be
worshipped, of course we must follow it.

    The application of that principle is
difficult: (a) In the U.S.today we have legal
positivism, which means that the state does not
know what is morally right or wrong: all it can
do is make things right or wrong by passing laws.
So today it gives special favor to homosexuality!
(b)We may ask: has history shown that the state
is really incapable of determining what God
wills, what is the true religion? Such ignorance
could excuse the state from this duty. We think
of the horrors of Islamic states such as Iran,
who claim their laws are all ordered by God! And
in ages when there was union of Church and State,
it usually meant domination of the Church by the
civil power. - Difficult choice!

    2."And they do not hesitate to assert,
contrary to the doctrine of Scripture, the
Church, and the holy Fathers that 'that is the
best condition of society in which the government
does not acknowledge the duty of coercing by set
penalties, the violatores of the Catholic
religion, except to the extent that public peace
requires.'"

    COMMENT: Here again we have a condemned
proposition, with no sources for it given in the
AAS.

    We note that the Latin violatores is very
strong, whereas in English violation is often
weak - a parking meter may say that for a few
minutes overtime. Harpers' Latin Dictionary says
that  violare means "treat with violence, injure,
invade, profane, outrage." So it must be some
really strong action positively against the
Church.

    3."As a result of the altogether false idea
of the regime of society, they do not fear to
promote that erroneous opinion....called
insanity by our Predecessor Gregory XVI, namely,
'that liberty of conscience and of worship  is a
proper right of each man, which ought to be
proclaimed by law and asserted in every rightly
constituted society, and [it should be
proclaimed] that the citizens have liberty of all
sorts ,which should be restrained by no
authority, whether ecclesiastical or civil, in
virtue of which they are able to privately and
publicly manifest and declare all ideas
whatsoever, orally or in print.'"

    COMMENTS: As usual with condemned
propositions, this one is made extremely strong,
so it can most obviously be seen as wrong: (1)
One does not have a right to be wrong, as we said
above. Vatican II merely asserted a right to
freedom from coercion. (2)Note that the right
includes "liberty of all sorts" - a sweeping
thing, which would include even things contrary
to public order and would go beyond the "due
limits" of Vatican II DH 2. It would even let
headhunters do as their god orders, i.e., cut off
heads. (3)It allows propagation of all ideas
whatsoever, no matter how foul, and not even
ecclesiastical authority would have a right to
stop them.

Pius IX,Syllabus,Dec.8,1864. DS 2915,2977 - 80:
    DS 2915: "Each one is free to embrace and
profess that religion which, led by the light of
reason, he thinks true."
    COMMENT: This is false because no one has a
right to be wrong, as explained above.
DS 2977:'In this our time it is no longer
expedient for the Catholic religion to be
considered as the sole religion of the state,
excluding all other cults whatsoever."
    COMMENT: It is false because it would still
be good for the state to profess the Catholic
faith, but would not need to prohibit other
faiths. Compare DH 1.
    DS 2978: "Hence, it is worthy of praise that
in certain regions called Catholic it has been
provided by law that for persons immigrating
there it is permitted to hold public worship of
each cult."
    COMMENT:  For men to be able to hold false
beliefs is not "worthy of praise", even though
out of respect for conscience no one should be
forced to act against even an erroneous
conscience. But, as Pius XII taught in Ci riesce
(text to be given below) the common good of the
universal Church requires that error be
permitted. In fact, in determined circumstances,
God does not even give the state a right to
suppress erroneous things, namely, when the
common good of Church and state call for
tolerance.
    DS 2979:"It is not true to say that civil
liberty for each cult, and likewise full power
given to all to manifest any  opinions and
thoughts whatsoever more easily leads to
corrupting the morals and souls of people, and to
propagating indifferentism."
    COMMENT: We notice the word "any...
whatsoever". That makes the statement
outrageously broad: one could then say there is
no harm in advocating cutting off other people's
heads as ordered by the gods of the headhunters,
or homosexuality, or polygamy.
    DS 2980:"The Pope can and should reconcile
and adjust himself with progress, with
liberalism, and with recent attitudes of civil
society."
    COMMENT: He cannot reconcile himself to such
ideas as the notion that error has rights, or
that the state should be indifferent to religion.

Leo XIII, Immortale Dei.Nov.1,1885 ASS 18: 1. "So
too, that liberty of thinking and of publishing
anything whatsoever,with no restraint at all, is
not a good by its own nature over which human
society should rightly rejoice, but is the font
and origin of many evils... for this reason, a
state errs from the rule and prescription of
nature if it allows a license of opinion and
actions to such an extent that without penalty it
is permitted to lead minds away from the truth
and souls from virtue."
    COMMENT: Again,we note the deliberately
sweeping language condemning a liberty that can
publish just anything, and with no restraint at
all. Surely that is not something society should
rejoice over.
    2. "Really,if the Church judges that it is
not permitted that various kinds of divine
worship have equal rights with the true religion,
yet it does no for this reason condemn the rulers
of states who, to attain some great good or
prevent evil, patiently allow each [kind of cult]
to have place in the state."
    COMMENTS:  Here the Pope concedes that all
kinds of religions can be permitted as long as
they are not given the same rights as the true
religion. He means that the state should worship
by the true religion and not by the others. This
is the same as the thought of DH 1.

Leo XIII, Libertas Praestantissimum, June
20,1888.ASS 20. 1."It is scarcely necessary to
say that there can be no right for a freedom that
is not moderately tempered,but which goes beyond
measure and bounds.... For if a boundless license
of speaking and writing be conceded to just
anyone, nothing is going to remain holy and
inviolate, not even those greatest, most true
judgments of nature, which are to be considered
as the common and most noble patrimony of the
human race."
    COMMENT: Again, the Pope speaks against most
extreme things.
          2.(a bit earlier in the same
document):"...while not conceding any right to
things that are not true and honorable, it [the
Church] does not refuse to let public authority
endure these, that is, to avoid some greater
evil, or to attain or keep some greater good. The
most provident God, though He is infinite in
power and can do all things, yet permits evils in
the world, in part,s o as not to impede greater
good, in part so greater evils will not follow.
In ruling states, it is right to imitate the
Ruler of the World."
    COMMENT: Such things have no right to exist,
since God does not give them a claim: no one has
a right to be wrong.

Pius XII,Ci riesce,Dec.6,1953.AAS 45: The Pope
asked: "Can it be that in determined
circumstances, He [God] does not give to man any
mandate, or impose a duty, finally, that He gives
no right to impede and to repress that which is
erroneous or false?...Christ in the parable of
the cockle gave the following admonition: Let it
be that the cockle grow in the field of the world
along with the good seed, for the sake of the
harvest."[Cf.Mt.13:24-30].
    COMMENT: We notice he said that  "in
determined circumstances" God does not even give
a right to repress. What are these circumstances?
A bit farther on he added: He [the Catholic
statesman] in his decision will let himself be
guided by the harmful consequences which arise
with tolerance, compared with those that will be
found in the  international community by way of
the acceptance of tolerance.... in such
individual cases, the attitude of the Church is
determined by  the preservation and in
consideration of the common good, the common good
of the Church, and of the State in individual
states on the one hand, and on the other hand,
the common good of the universal Church...."

Conclusions from the above Papal texts:

1.Error has no rights, since rights are a claim
given ultimately by God. He gives no claim to
error. This does not condemn the idea that people
may have a right not to be imprisoned etc.for
error. DH will affirm that.

2.Yet the common good of the state and the Church
may dictate the need of tolerance of error. Pius
XII added, in Ci riesce that God does not even
give a right to suppress error in circumstances
in which the common good requires tolerance.

3.It is false to say that one can be saved by
just any faith. This is the sense of the strong
condemnations of indifferentism. But one may say
that one could be saved in spite of an erroneous
faith (cf.Pius IX, Quanto conficiamur moerore. LG
16 will say it more clearly as will Redemptoris
missio 10 of John Paul II.).

4.The state as a state should worship God, in the
way in which He has made known He wishes it. This
need not call for suppression of other faiths -
cf. #2 above. DH  1 also states this.

5.The strongest statement above is in the Quanta
cura of Pius IX when he says that the state in
suppressing error must do more than just suppress
what is demanded by public order. We have not yet
seen what DH does on this score. We will see that
it too demands more than what public order calls
for, in  4 & 7.

6.There is no right of publication of just
anything.There are some limits.

    APPENDIX II) TEXTS OF VATICAN II, DIGNITATIS
HUMANAE
        (Sectional numbers given in margin)

1.a)"...it leaves untouched the traditional
Catholic doctrine about the moral duty of men and
societies to the true religion and the only
Church of Christ."
    COMMENT: The Council reaffirms completely
the traditional teaching on the obligation of the
state to profess Catholicism. Mere reason shows
that: just as an individual must worship God for
his own needs, so the state as state must worship
for its needs. Pagan Greece and Rome thought this
way. We add: If God has shown the way He wills to
be worshipped, of course, there is an obligation
to follow it. This need not mean repressing other
faiths of course. One could still ask: Has the
state historically shown itself incapable of
determining what is the true religion? Cases like
Islam make one wonder. On the other hand, without
a union we are apt to get legal positivism, such
as the U.S.in practice has today:  the state does
not know what is right or wrong in itself - all
it can do is make something right or wrong by
passing a law. So today it even favors
homosexuality.
  b): "Besides,in treating of this religious
liberty, the Sacred Synod intends to develop the
doctrine of recent Popes on the inviolable rights
of the human person and about the constitutional
order of society."
    COMMENT: Since the council intends to
evolve, it did not mean to contradict. The Church
has long evolved various teachings without
contradicting. It is significant that John
Courtney Murray denied the teaching of 1a above.
Therefore the Council did not entirely follow
him.
    Some have noted that the Council did not
give references to the more recent Popes.
Actually, Leo XIII, in Immortale Dei ,did warn
against coercing consciences (DS 3177): "The
Church is accustomed to take care that no one be
forced to embrace the Catholic faith when
unwilling, as Augustine wisely reminded:"A person
cannot believe if he does not do it willingly."
Cf. DS 3246,3251. And Pius XII in Ci riesce,as we
saw above,taught that in determined
circumstances, God does not even give the state
any right to repress error. This applies when the
public good calls for it. Pius XII seems to imply
these circumstances are always present:AAS 45,
pp. 799, 801.

2. 1."This Vatican Synod declares that the human
person has a right to religious liberty. Liberty
of this kind consists in this, that all persons
should be immune from coercion either on the part
of individuals, or of social societies, and of
any human power at all, and this in such a way
that in a religious matter neither should anyone
be forced to act against his conscience, or
impeded from acting according to his conscience
privately and publicly. either alone or in
association with others, within due limits."
    COMMENT: Since this section was hammered out
with much labor, it must be interpreted with
equal care. We note in addition that John
Courtney Murray, in his introduction to this
declaration in the Abbott edition of Vatican II
said (p.674): "The conciliar affirmation of the
principle of freedom was narrowly limited - in
the text." He thinks it will in practice be given
wider scope or have wider effects.

             It is important to note that the
focus is on not coercing consciences: a man must
not be forced to act against his conscience, or
impeded from acting according to his conscience
in private and in public. This seems to mean that
one must not violate his conscience when the
conscience orders something. What if his
conscience merely permits something? It is not
clear that a person has that added right, for the
purpose of not forcing action against conscience
seems to be that no one should force a man to
sin. There would be sin in going against a
positive order of conscience to either do or to
omit something. But if a conscience merely
permitted something but did not command it, the
person would not be sinning if he merely omitted
something that he was free to do but not required
to do. In that event, if a Protestant's
conscience permitted him to write to attack the
Catholic Church, but did not command that, this
declaration probably would not say he was to be
free of coercion, since the omission would not be
sinful for him. It is not likely that his
conscience would be apt to command him to attack.

    Though conscience is not likely to order
publishing an attack on Catholic doctrine, it
could easily order a man to publish  his own
doctrine, and to join in social worship.

    About the words "within due limits"-- they
are not precise. Someone might claim  they meant
the same as  "public peace" in the document of
Pius IX.  Pius IX clearly requires the state to
do more than just maintain public peace in this
matter.Howsoever Vatican II also requires more.
In  4: "Religious communities also have the
right not to be impeded in orally and publicly
teaching and testifying to their faith.  However,
in spreading religious faith and practices,  all
must abstain always from every kind of action
which  seems to be coercion or improper or less
right persuasion, especially  towards the
uneducated and the poor. Such a way of acting
must be considered as an abuse of their own
rights and infringement of the rights of others.
And in 7: "Since civil society has the right of
protecting itself against the abuses that could
happen under the pretext of religious liberty, it
pertains especially to the civil authority to
provide protection of this kind ;it should not be
done in an arbitrary manner or unfairly favoring
one side, but according to juridical norms that
are in accord with the objective moral order,
which are required for the effective protection
of rights for all citizens, and for the peaceful
settlement of conflict of rights, and by a
sufficient care for that honorable public peace
which is the well-ordered living together in true
justice, and [required]  by due custody of public
morality."

    We conclude: Vatican II does require much
more than keeping public peace. It requires that
the sects refrain from unfair persuasion aimed at
the uneducated and the poor - that would be "an
abuse of their rights"; it requires care for
public morality.

2. 2: "It also declares that the right to
religious liberty is really founded in the very
dignity of the human person.... According to this
dignity, all are impelled by their own nature,
and are bound by moral obligation to seek the
truth.... They cannot satisfy this
obligation...unless they have psychological
freedom and at the same time immunity from
external coercion."
    COMMENT: The coercion in mind is that of
physical force, which would come from the civil
state. It does not rule out the use of the
divinely given authority of Christ to proclaim
His truth and to say all are obligated by His
divine authority to accept it.

    Therefore Archbishop Lefebvre was completely
without justification in his claims.

APPENDIX III) FATHERS AND MAGISTERIUM ON
MEMBERSHIP IN THE CHURCH

    We explained a special point of theological
method in the introduction to Appendix B. Here we
need to note another special point, namely: If we
seem to have on hand two truths, which seem to
clash head on, and they are there even after we
recheck our work, we must not try to force one to
fit with the other. No, we must faithfully state
both points, hoping that sometime someone will
find how to make them fit. The Fathers did very
well on this  matter. For example, in dealing
with the difficult texts of Lk 2:52 and Mk 13:32
on the human knowledge of Jesus, most of the
Fathers made two kinds of statements, one kind
affirming ignorance, the other denying
it.Finally, on the Lucan text St.Athanasius found
how to reconcile the statements; later, Pope
St.Gregory the great did the same for the Markan
text.(For details see Wm.G.Most, The
Consciousness of Christ).

    The same situation  is found in regard to
texts both of the Fathers and of the Magisterium
on membership in the Church. One kind seems very
severe, the other kind, very broad.

    For commentary on each text, please
see.W.Most, Our Father's Plan, Appendix.

        a) Restrictive Tests of the Fathers

The Shepherd of Hermas, Similitudes 9.16:(c.140
AD) "The apostles and the teachers who preached
the name of the Son of God, when they fell asleep
in the power and faith of the Son of God preached
also to those who had fallen asleep earlier, and
they gave them the seal of the preaching. They
therefore went down into the water with them, and
came up again."

St.Irenaeus.Against Heresies 3.24.1:c.140-202 AD)
"God places in the Church apostles, prophets,
doctors...those who are not partakers of these,
who do not run to the Church, deprive themselves
of life through evil opinions and wicked
working."

Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 2.9:(c.208-11 AD)
"He who does not enter through the door...is a
thief and a robber. Therefore it is necessary for
them to learn the truth through Christ and to be
saved, even if they happen on
philosophy."(Clement also quotes verbatim the
above text of Shepherd of Hermas).

Origen, Homily on Jesu Nave 3.5:(c.249-51 AD) "If
anyone of the people wishes to be saved, let him
come to this house, so that he can attain
salvation, to this house in which the blood of
Christ is a sign of redemption.... Therefore let
no one persuade himself, let no one deceive
himself: outside this house, that is, outside the
Church, no one is saved; for if anyone goes
outside, he becomes guilty of his own death."

St.Cyprian, On the Unity of the Catholic Church
6:(c.251 AD) "The power of baptism cannot be
greater or more powerful, can it, than confession
[of the faith], than suffering, such that someone
who confesses Christ before men, is baptized in
his own blood. And yet, neither does this baptism
profit a heretic, even though after confessing
Christ, he is killed outside the Church."

Lactantius, Institutes 4.30.11:(c.305-10 AD)
"Whoever does not enter there [the Church] or
whoever goes out from there, is foreign to the
hope of life and salvation."

St.Augustine, On Nature and Grace 2.2:(c.415 AD)
"If Christ did not die for no purpose, therefore
all human nature can in no way be justified and
redeemed from the most just anger of God...except
by faith and the sacrament of the blood of
Christ."
             Against Julian 4.3.25:(c.421 AD)
"Nor can you prove by them that which you want,
that even infidels can have true virtues."  [He
is speaking of gentiles in Rom.2.14-16, whom he
thinks must mean converted gentiles. Other
gentiles could not have true virtues, and so
could not be saved].

St.Cyril of Alexandria, On Psalms 30:22:(c.428
AD) " ...mercy is not obtainable outside the holy
city."

St.Fulgentius of Ruspe, On Faith, to Peter
38.81:(c.500 AD) "Not only all pagans, but also
all Jews and all heretics and schismatics, who
finish their lives outside the Catholic Church,
will go into eternal fire....  No one, howsoever
much he may have given alms, even if he sheds his
blood for the name of Christ, can be saved,
unless he remains in the bosom and unity of the
Catholic Church."
             ibid.36.79: "Baptism can
exist...even among heretics...but it cannot be
beneficial outside the Catholic Church."

       b)Restrictive Texts of the Magisterium

Pope Innocent III, Profession of Faith for the
Waldensians (1208: DS 792): "We believe in our
heart and confess in our mouth that there is one
Church, not of heretics, but the Holy Roman
Catholic apostolic Church, outside of which we
believe no one is saved."

Lateran Council IV (1215: DS 802): "There is one
universal Church of the faithful, outside of
which no one at all is saved."

Pope Boniface VIII, Unam sanctam (1302: DS 870):
"Outside of which there is neither salvation nor
remission of sins.... But we declare, state and
define that to be subject to the Roman Pontiff is
altogether necessary for salvation." [The second
part merely means there is no salvation outside
the Church, for it is quoted from St.Thomas
Aquinas, Contra errores Graecorum 36. #1125 where
context shows the sense].

Pope Clement VI, Epistle of Sept 29,1351: DS
1051): "No man...outside the faith of the Church
and obedience to the Roman Pontiff can finally be
saved."

Council of Florence (1442: DS 1351): "It firmly
believes, professes and preaches, that none who
are outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans,
but also Jews and heretics and schismatics, can
partake of eternal life, but they will go into
eternal fire...unless before the end of life they
will have been joined to it [the Church] and that
the unity of the ecclesiastical body has such
force that only for those who remain in it are
the sacraments of the Church profitable for
salvation; and fastings, alms, and other works of
piety and exercises of the Christian soldiery
bring forth eternal rewards [only] for them. 'No
one, howsoever much almsgiving he has done, even
if he sheds his blood for Christ, can be saved,
unless he remains in the bosom and unity of the
Catholic Church.'" [Internal quote at end is from
Fulgentius,as we saw above].

           Broad Texts of the Magisterium

Pope Pius IX ,Quanto conficiamur moerore (1863:
DS 2866): "God...in His supreme goodness and
clemency, by no means allows anyone to be
punished with eternal punishments who does not
have the guilt of voluntary fault. But it is also
a Catholic dogma, that no one outside the
Catholic Church can be saved, and that those who
are contumacious against the authority of the
same Church [and] definitions and who are
obstinately separated from the unity of this
Church and from the Roman Pontiff, successor of
Peter, to whom the custody of the vineyard was
entrusted by the Savior, cannot obtain eternal
salvation."[emphasis added].

Pope Pius XII, Mystici corporis (1943:DS 3821):
"They who do not belong to the visible bond of
the Catholic Church...[we ask them to] strive to
take themselves from that state in which they
cannot be sure of their own eternal salvation;
for even though they are ordered to the mystical
body of the Redeemer by a certain desire and wish
of which they are not aware [implicit in the
general wish to do what God wills], yet they lack
so many and so great heavenly gifts and helps
which can be enjoyed only in the Catholic
Church."

Holy Office, Aug 9,1949, condemning doctrine of
L.Feeney (DS 3870): "It is not always required
that one be actually incorporated as a member of
the Church, but this at least is required: that
one adhere to it in wish and desire. It is not
always necessary that this be explicit...but when
a man labors under invincible ignorance, God
accepts even an implicit will, called by that
name because it is contained in the good
disposition of soul in which a man wills to
conform his will to the will of God."

Vatican II, Lumen gentium 16:(1964 AD) For they
who without their own fault do not know of the
Gospel of Christ and His Church, but yet seek God
with sincere heart, and try, under the influence
of grace, to carry out His will in practice,
known to them through the dictate of conscience,
can attain eternal salvation."

John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio #10 ( Dec.7,
1990): "The  universality of salvation means that
it is granted not only to those who explicitly
believe in Christ and have entered the church.
Since salvation is offered to all, it must be
made concretely available to all. But it is clear
that today, as in the past, many people do not
have an opportunity to come to know or accept the
Gospel revelation or to enter the church.... For
such people, salvation in Christ is accessible by
virtue of a grace which, while having a
mysterious relationship to the church, does not
make them formally a part of the church, but
enlightens them in a way which is accommodated to
their spiritual and material situation. This
grace comes from Christ; it is the result of his
sacrifice and is communicated by the Holy Spirit.
It enables each person to attain salvation
through his or her free cooperation." [emphasis
added].

             Broad Texts of the Fathers

Pope St.Clement I, Epistle to Corinth  7.5-7
(c.95 AD): "Let us go through all generations,
and learn that in generation and generation the
Master has given a place of repentance to those
willing to turn to Him. Noah preached repentance,
and those who heard him were saved. Jonah
preached repentance to the Ninevites; those who
repented for their sins appeased God in praying,
and received salvation, even though they were
aliens [allotrioi] of God."

St.Justin Martyr, Apology 1.46 (c.150 AD):
"Christ is the Logos [Divine Word] of whom the
whole race of men partake. Those who lived
according to Logos are Christians, even if they
were considered atheists, such as, among the
Greeks, Socrates and Heraclitus." Apology 2.10:"
Christ...was and is the Logos who is in everyone,
and foretold through the prophets the things that
were to come, and taught these things in person
after becoming like to us in feeling."

Shepherd of Hermas, Vision 2.4.1:(c.140-55 AD):
The angel asks Hermas who he thinks the old woman
was who appeared. He thought it was the Sibyl:
"You are wrong.... It is the Church. I said to
him: Why then an old woman? He said: Because she
was created first of all; for this reason she is
an old woman, and because of her the world was
established."

Second Clement 14.2 (prob.c 150 A.D.): "The books
of the prophets and the apostles [say] that the
Church is not [only] now, but from the beginning.
She was spiritual, like also our Jesus. She was
manifested in the last days to save us."

St.Irenaeus, Against Heresies 4.28.2:(c.140-202
AD): "There is one and the same God the Father
and His Logos, always assisting the human race,
with varied arrangements, to be sure, and doing
many things, and saving from the beginning those
who are saved, for they are those who love and,
according to their generation (genean) follow His
Logos." Ibid. 4.6.7: "For the Son, administering
all things for the Father, completes [His work]
from the beginning to the end.... For the Son,
assisting to His own creation from the beginning,
reveals the Father to all to whom He wills."
Ibid. 4.22.2: "Christ came not only for those who
believed from the time of Tiberius Caesar, nor
did the Father provide only for those who are
now, but for absolutely all men from the
beginning,  who, according to their ability,
feared and loved God and lived justly...and
desired to see Christ and to hear His voice."

Clement of Alexandria, Stromata  7.17:(c.20-11
AD): "From what has been said, I think it is
clear that there is one true Church, which is
really ancient, into which those who are just
according to design are enrolled."  Ibid 1.5:
"Before the coming of the Lord, philosophy was
necessary for justification to the Greeks; now it
is useful for piety...for it brought the Greeks
to Christ as the law did the Hebrews." Ibid.
1.20.99:" Philosophy of itself made the Greeks
just, though not to total justice; it is found to
be a helper to this, like the first and second
steps for one ascending to the upper part of the
house, and like the elementary teacher for the
[future] philosopher]."

Origen, On Canticles 2.11-12:(c.240 AD): "Do not
think I speak of the spouse or the Church [only]
from the coming of the Savior in the flesh, but
from the beginning of the human race, in fact, to
seek out the origin of this mystery more deeply
with Paul as leader, even before the foundation
of the world."
       Against Celsus  4.7:(c.248 AD): "...there
never was a time when God did not will to make
just the life of men. But He always cared, and
gave occasions of virtue to make the reasonable
one right. For generation by generation this
wisdom of God came to souls it found holy and
made them friends of God and prophets."
       On Romans II.9-10:(after 244 AD) [the law
was written on hearts: Cf.Rom 2.14-16] "that they
must not commit murder or adultery, not steal,
not speak false testimony, that they honor father
and mother, and similar things...and it is shown
that each one is to be judged not according to a
privilege of nature, but by his own thoughts he
is accused or excused, by the testimony of his
conscience."
       Homily on Numbers 16.1: (after 244 AD):
"Since God wants grace to abound, He sees fit to
be present....He is present not to the [pagan]
sacrifices, but to the one who comes to meet Him,
and there He gives His word [Logos?]."

Hegemonius (?) Acts of Archelaus with Manes
28:(c.325-50 AD): "From the creation of the world
He has always been with just men.... Were they
not made just from the fact that they kept the
law, 'Each one of them showing the work of the
law on their hearts...?'[cf.Rom 2.14-16] For when
someone who does not have the law does by nature
the things of the law, this one, not having the
law, is a law for himself.... For if we judge
that a man is made just without the works of the
law...how much more will they attain justice who
fulfilled the law containing those things which
are expedient for men?"

Arnobius, Against the Nations 2.63:(c.305 AD):
"But,they say :If Christ was sent by God for this
purpose, to deliver unhappy souls from the
destruction of ruin - what did former ages
deserve which before His coming were consumed in
the condition of mortality?  .... Put aside thee
cares, and leave the questions you do not
understand; for royal mercy was imparted to them,
and the divine benefits ran equally through all.
They were conserved, they were liberated, and
they put aside the sort and condition of
mortality."

Eusebius of Caesarea, Church History 1.1.4:(c.311
-25 AD): "But even if we [Christians] are
certainly new, and this really new name of
Christian is just recently known among the
nations, yet our life and mode of conduct, in
accord with the precepts of religion, has not
been recently invented by us; but from the first
creation of man, so to speak, it is upheld by
natural inborn concepts of the ancient men who
loved God, as we will here show.... But if
someone would describe as Christians those who
are testified to as having been righteous, [going
back] from Abraham to the first man, he would not
hit wide of the mark."

St.Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 18.5 [at funeral
of his father, a convert]:(c.374 AD): "He was
ours even before he was of our fold. His way of
living made him such. For just as many of ours
are not with us, whose life makes them other from
our body [the Church], so many of those outside
belong to us,  who by their way of life
anticipate the faith and need [only] the name,
having the reality."
                        Oration 8.20 [on his
sister Gorgonia]: "Her whole life was a
purification for her, and a perfecting. She had
indeed the regeneration of the Spirit, and the
assurance of this from her previous life. And, to
speak boldly, the mystery [baptism] was for her
practically only the seal, not the grace."

St.John Chrysostom, On Romans II.5:(c.391 AD):
"For this reason they are wonderful, he [Paul,in
Romans 2:14-16] says, because they did not need
the law, and they show all the works of the
law....Do you not see how again he makes present
that day [Judgment in 2.16] and brings it
near...and showing that they should rather be
honored who without the law hastened to carry out
the things of the law? ... Conscience and
reasoning suffice in place of the law. Through
these things he showed again that God made man
self-sufficient in regard to the choice of virtue
and fleeing evil.... He shows that even in these
early times and before the giving of the law, men
enjoyed complete Providence. For 'what is
knowable of God' was clear to them, and what was
good and what was evil they knew."
                   Homilies on John 8.1: ( c.389
AD): "Why,then, the gentiles accuse us saying:
What was Christ doing in former times, not taking
care...?  We will reply: Even before He was in
the world, He took thought for His works, and was
known to all who were worthy."

St.Ambrose, On Cain and Abel 2.3.11:(after 375
AD): "Our price is the blood of
Christ....Therefore He brought the means of
health to all so that whoever perishes, must
ascribe the cause of his death to himself, for he
was unwilling to be cured when he had a
remedy.... For the mercy of Christ is clearly
proclaimed on
all."

St.Augustine, City of God 18.47:(413-26 AD): "Nor
do I think the Jews would dare to argue that no
one pertained to God except the Israelites, from
the time that Israel came to be... they cannot
deny that there were certain men even in other
nations who pertained to the true Israelites, the
citizens of the fatherland above, not by earthly
but by heavenly association."

              Retractions 1.13.3: (426-27 AD):
"This very thing which is now called the
Christian religion existed among the ancients,
nor was it lacking from the beginning of the
human race until Christ Himself came in the
flesh, when the true religion, that already
existed, began to be called Christian."

              Epistle 102.11-13,15:(406-12 AD):
"Wherefore since we call Christ the Word [Logos],
through whom all things were made...under whose
rule [was/is] every creature, spiritual and
corporal...so those from the beginning of the
human race who believed in Him and understood His
somewhat [utcumque] and lived according to His
precepts devoutly and justly, whenever and
wherever they were, beyond doubt they were saved
through Him....  And yet from the beginning of
the human race thee were not lacking persons who
believed in Him, from Adam up to Moses, both in
the very people of Israel...and in other nations
before He came in the flesh."

St.Prosper of Aquitaine, De vocatione omnium
gentium 2.5: (c.450 AD): "...according to it
[Scripture] ...we believe and devoutly confess
that never was the care of divine providence
lacking to the totality of men....To these,
however [who have not yet heard of Christ] that
general measure of help, which is always given
from above to all men, is not denied."

St.Nilus, Epistle 1.154:(perhaps c.430 AD): "In
every nation the one who fears God and does
justice is acceptable to Him. For it is clear
that such a one is acceptable to God and is not
to be cast aside, who at his own right time flees
to the worship of the blessed knowledge of God."

St.Cyril of Alexandria, Against Julian 3.107:
(433-41 AD): "For if there is One over all, and
there is no other besides Him, He would be Master
of all, because He was Maker of all. For He is
also the God of the gentiles, and has fully
satisfied by laws implanted in their hearts,
which the Maker has engraved in the hearts of all
[cf.Rom 2.14-16]. For when the gentiles, [Paul]
says, not having the law, do by nature the things
of the law, they show the work of the law written
on their hearts. But since He is not only the
Maker and God of the Jews [cf.Rom 3.29] but also
of the gentiles...He sees fit by His providence
to care not only for those who are of the blood
of Israel, but also for all those upon the
earth."

Theodoret of Cyrus, Interpretation of the Epistle
to Romans 2.14-16:(425-50 AD): "For they who,
before the Mosaic law, adorned their life with
devout reasonings and good actions, testify that
the divine law called for action, and they became
lawgivers for themselves.... He [St.Paul] shows
that the law of nature was written on hearts....
According to this image, let us describe the
future judgment and the conscience of those
accepting the charge and proclaiming the justice
of the decision."
    Remedy for Greek Diseases 6.85-86:(429-37
AD): "But if you say: Why then did not the Maker
of all fulfill this long ago? You are blaming
even the physicians, since they keep the stronger
medicines for last; having used the milder things
first, they bring out the stronger things last.
The all-wise Healer of our souls did this too.
After employing various medicines...finally He
brought forth this all-powerful and saving
medicine.

Pope St.Leo the Great, Sermon 23.4:(440-61 AD):
"So God did not take are of human affairs by a
new plan, or by late mercy, but from the
foundation of the world He established one and
the same cause of salvation for all. For the
grace of God by which the totality of the saints
always had been justified was increased when
Christ was born, but did not begin [then]."

Pope St.Gregory the Great, Epistle  VII.15:(540-
604 AD): "When He descended to the underworld,
the Lord delivered from the prison only those who
while they lived in the flesh He had kept through
His grace in faith and good works."
                           Homilies on Ezekiel
2.3: "The passion of the Church began already
with Abel, and there is one Church of the elect,
of those who precede, and of those who follow....
They were, then, outside,but yet not divided from
the holy Church, because in mind, in work, in
preaching, they already held the sacraments of
faith, and saw that loftiness of Holy Church."

Primasius,Bishop of Hadrumetum, On Romans 2.14-
16:(c.560 AD): "'By nature they do the things of
the law....' He [Paul] speaks either of those who
keep the law of nature, who do not do to others
what they do not want to be done to themselves;
or, that even the gentiles naturally praise the
good and condemn the wicked, which is the work of
the law; or, of those who even now, when they do
anything good, profess that they have received
from God the means of pleasing God.... 'And their
thoughts in turn accusing or even defending, on
the day when God will judge the hidden things of
men.' He speaks of altercations of thought....and
according to these we are to be judged on the day
of the Lord."

St.John Damascene, Against Iconoclasts 11:(late
7th cent. to 754 AD): "The creed teaches us to
believe also in one Holy Catholic and Apostolic
church of God. The Catholic Church cannot be only
apostolic,for the all-powerful might of her Head,
which is Christ,is able through the Apostles to
save the whole world. So there is a Holy Catholic
Church of God, the assembly of the Holy Fathers
who are from the ages, of the patriarchs, of
prophets, apostles, evangelists, martyrs, to
which are added all the gentiles who believe the
same way."

          Conclusions from the Above Texts

1.Following proper theological method, the
Fathers and the Magisterium saw two things: a)the
Church is necessary for salvation; b)In some way
God must make provision for those who do not find
the Church. This was already stated in Romans
3.29 by St.Paul. If He did not do that,He would
act as though He were not their God- He would
condemn millions to hell who never had a chance!.
Such a God could not be a God at all, but a
monster.

2.In an effort to find how to fit the two
together,  most of them expressed a very broad
concept of membership in the Church. Then one can
say that there is no salvation outside the
Church, but that the concept of membership is
very broad, and covers even those who do not find
the Church.

    3.The early Magisterium texts at first seem
very stringent. It is likely they had in mind
those who culpably reject the Church - the words
of Pius IX about those who are contumacious and
obstinate fit with this and did not apply to
those who through no fault of their own do not
find the Church. The words of Romans 3.29 call
for this interpretation.

    Later Magisterium texts speak of those who
pertain to the Church or are joined to the Church
by even an unconscious desire, contained in the
will to do what is right. John Paul II spoke of a
mysterious grace.

    Our proposal, expressed above in our
comments on LG 5 do not contradict these things.
Rather, they try to fill in, taking a lead from
St.Justin that some in the past could have been
Christians because they followed the Logos, who
is in all. We attached the thought of St.Justin
to Romans 2:14-16. This is not strained, for when
we say the Logos, a Spirit is present, we really
mean He is producing an effect: His presence is
not spatial. What effect does He produce? He
produces the effect of making known to them
interiorly what the law requires, so that  the
law is written on their hearts, as Rom 2:15 said,
following Jeremiah 31:33. (All actions done by
the Three Divine Persons  outside the Divine
nature are common work to all three. Cf.DS 800.
Hence we may say God did it, or the Logos did it,
or the Spirit of Christ - all mean the same).

    Then, if, for example Socrates - explicitly
mentioned by St.Justin - follows the law on his
heart, Socrates does not know the source of that
law. It is really the Spirit of Christ who writes
it. In accepting it, Socrates objectively accepts
the Spirit of Christ. Since he accepts and
follows that Spirit, he of course follows the
Logos. But in Romans 8:9 we hear that "If anyone
does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not
belong to Him." So then, one who does have and
follow that Spirit, does belong to Christ .But to
belong to Christ in St.Paul's language means to
be a member of Christ - which is a member of the
Church, by substantial membership, even though
without formal external adherence.

    So people of this sort who follow the law on
their hearts are members of the Church, and as
such, can be saved. This fits especially well
with the words of Vatican II in LG 16.

         Appendix IV) Summary of Dei Verbum

Preliminary notes:

1.This text had a stormy history. The original
draft was presented in Nov.1962. There was much
opposition.A vote taken to have it rewritten--
60% wanted that,but it needed 2/3. So Pope John
XXIII ordered the rewriting. After many changes
it was finally approved on Nov.18,1964. There
were chiefly  three hot points in the
discussions: 1)What is Tradition in itself? What
is the relation of Scripture and Tradition,or is
there only one source of revelation? 2)What of
inerrancy? 3) What of historicity of the Gospels?
On Oct 2,1964 Cardinal Koenig of Vienna rose,said
there are many errors in Scripture,gave three
instances - they can all be answered.

2.There is stress on Christ as the full
revelation of the Father. He is,it is true.But
that does not preclude specific teachings. There
has been a tendency to avoid them. Cf.Gabriel
Moran & Sr.Maria Harris,in National Catholic
Reporter, Nov 22,1967,p.6.

                    Introduction

1.The Council intends to follow in the footsteps
of Trent and Vatican I in presenting the true
doctrine about divine revelation and its
transmission.

                Revelation in Itself

2.It pleased God to reveal Himself.This economy
of revelation takes place by actions and by words
intrinsically connected,so that the works
manifest and reinforce the doctrine and the
things signified by the words,while the words
proclaim the works and cast light on the mystery
contained in them. Christ is the mediator and the
fullness of revelation.

3.God in creating all thing through the Word and
conserving them, gives constant testimony of
Himself through created things. Intending to open
up the way of heavenly salvation, He also
manifested Himself to our first parents.After
their fall,by promising redemption,He lifted them
up into the hope of salvation.

4.After speaking in many and varied ways in the
prophets,in the last days He spoke to us in His
son. The Word speaks the words of God and
consummates the work the Father gave Him to do.He
who sees Him sees the Father.So the Christian
economy as the new and definitive covenant,will
never be superseded,and now no new public
revelation is to be expected before the return of
Christ.

5.The "obedience of faith" (Rom 1.5) is to be
given to God who reveals, by which a person
freely commits himself totally to God, giving
full obedience of mind and will to God who
reveals,and voluntarily assenting to what He
reveals.We need a grace to come before and to go
along with this faith,and to perfect it.

     COMMENT:The definition of faith given in DV
5 is from Vatican I.If unfolded it means: 1)If
God speaks a truth,faith requires intellectual
belief; 2) if He make a promise, faith requires
confidence; 3)If He gives a command,faith
requires obedience:Rom 1:5,"the obedience of
faith". 4)All to be done in love. Luther made a
fatal mistake, he  thought faith was only
confidence the merits of Christ apply to me -
then one can sin much (cf.his Epistle 501 to
Melanchthon: "Pecca fortiter sed crede
fortius"),and he said faith makes it all right.He
did not notice St.Paul has a broader definition
of faith; he did not notice that faith includes
obedience,so it cannot be used to justify
disobedience as Luther thought.

6.The Council confesses that God can be known by
the light of natural reason,but that revelation
brings it about that even things not impervious
to reason may be known by all,with firm
certitude,and without error.

      II.The Transmission of Divine Revelation

7.So that what He revealed might be transmitted
to all generations,Christ commanded the Apostles
to preach the Gospel to all,which was done
faithfully by the Apostles in oral preaching and
by examples and institutions, and by those
Apostles and apostolic men who under the
inspiration of the same Holy Spirit put down in
writing the message of salvation. So that the
Gospel might continue whole and living in the
Church, the Apostles left Bishops,giving them
their teaching office.
    COMMENT: DV & 8 explain the process on which
Form and Redaction Criticism depend.Gospels
develop in three steps: 1)Words and acts of
Christ (He would adapt His words to current
audience); 2)The Apostles and others at start
report what He did and said - they might use
different words, adapting to the audience,but
would keep the sense; 3)Some individuals inspired
by the Spirit, wrote down part of this original
teaching. This was the Gospels therefore The
Church has something more basic than the Gospels
-its own ongoing teaching. In as much as even
leftists admit three stages,they implicitly admit
what we have said.

8.So the apostolic preaching,which is expressed
in a special way in the inspired books, is to be
kept in continuous succession up to the
consummation of the world. Hence the Apostles
warn that people should hold to the traditions
which they received by mouth or by letters(cf.2
Thes 2.15).This apostolic Tradition advances in
the Church under the assistance of the Holy
Spirit,for it grows both by reception of the
words handed on and by the contemplation and
study of those who believe,pondering them in
their hearts.The Church tends to the fullness of
divine truth constantly as the centuries go on
until in her the words of God may be consummated.

    The words of the Holy Fathers testify to
this life-giving presence. Through the same
Tradition the whole canon of the Sacred Books
becomes known to the Church,and the Sacred
Letters are deeply understood in her and are
constantly  rendered active.So God who spoke
once, converses without intermission with the
Spouse of His beloved Son. And the Holy Spirit
leads the believers into all truth.

9.So Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture are
closely connected with each other and communicate
with each other.  For both,coming forth from the
same divine source,coalesce as it were into one
and tend to the same end. For Sacred Scripture is
the speaking of God inasmuch as it is entrusted
to writing under the inspiration of the Spirit;
Sacred Tradition fully transmits the word of
God,entrusted by Christ and the Holy Spirit to
the Apostles.Hence the Church has its certitude
about all things revealed not only through Sacred
Scripture. So each [Scripture and Tradition] are
to be received and respected with equal piety and
reverence.

    COMMENT:We distinguish Tradition and
tradition - latter is only customs.DV 9 strains
to make it sound like only one source,yet we can
see  it still teaches there are two,Scripture and
Tradition.

10.Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture
constitute one sacred deposit of the word of God.
However the task of authoritatively interpreting
the word of God,written or handed on,has been
entrusted solely to the living Magisterium of the
Church,whose authority is exercised in the name
of Jesus Christ. This Magisterium is not above
the word of God,but ministers to it, teaching
only what has been handed on.So Sacred Tradition
and Sacred Scripture and the Magisterium of the
Church are so interconnected that one does not
stand without the other.Together they effectively
contribute to the salvation of souls.


III.The Inspiration of Sacred Scripture and its
Interpretation.

11.Holy Mother Church holds as sacred and
canonical the complete books of Old and New
Testament,with all their parts, because,being
written under the inspiration of the Holy
Spirit,they have God as their author,and as such
have been handed on to the Church. In producing
the sacred books,God chose men,whom He employed
as they used their faculties and powers,in such a
way that with Him working in them and through
them,they,as true authors,would set down in
writing all the things He willed and those things
alone.

    Since then everything that the inspired
authors assert is asserted by the Holy Spirit,for
this reason the Scriptures are to be confessed as
teaching firmly,faithfully and without error that
truth which God for our salvation willed to have
consigned to the sacred writings. [See comments
below on underlined parts].

    COMMENTs:1.In DV 11-12 we see literary genre
in background.To find out what the sacred writer
meant,we must see what genre he used. Whatever,
in that framework,he asserts, is asserted by the
Holy Spirit.
             2.R.Brown (In New Jerome Biblical
Commentary) and others insist DV 11, in the part
we underlined,lets us say that only things needed
for salvation are without error -- can be error
in science, history, even religion. But the
Council gave series of notes,referring back to
earlier documents,especially Vatican I, which
says God is the Author. He cannot be the author
of any error, so Brown is wrong. Pius XII in
Divino afflante Spiritu (EB 538) said that
statement of Vatican I is a solemn definition.
Vatican II would not reverse a solemn definition.

12.Since God in Scripture speaks with men in
human fashion, the interpreter,in order to see
what God willed to have communicated, must
carefully study  what the inspired writers really
intended to say and what God willed to manifest
in their words.

    To understand the intention of the sacred
writers, we must consider literary genres, for
the truth is expressed in various modes --
historical,prophetical,poetical and other
modes.So the interpreter must seek out what the
inspired writer,considering his time and culture,
intended to express via the means of literary
genres.

    But since Scripture is to be read and
interpreted by the same Spirit by which it was
written,to understand rightly,one must look not
less diligently to the content and unity of all
of Scripture,considering the living Tradition of
the whole Church and the analogy of faith. It is
for exegetes to work according to these rules to
more deeply explain Scripture,so that by as it
were a preliminary study,the judgment of the
Church may mature.For everything in the
interpretation of Scripture ultimately falls
under the judgment of the Church.

    COMMENT: DV 12 insists that in
interpreting,we must note that there is one chief
Author, the Holy Spirit, for all of Scripture -
so one part cannot contradict another (some make
Mark's picture of Our Lady clash with Luke's).It
also insists we must consider the Tradition of
the whole Church and the analogy of faith - as to
latter: If any proposed interpretation would
clash even by implication with any teaching of
the Church - it is false. DV 12 adds that the
work of scholars is only preliminary - the real
judgment rests with the Church.

13.So in Scripture there is seen,always keeping
to the truth and holiness of God, an admirable
condescension of eternal Wisdom.For the words of
God are made like to human  speech,just as the
Word of the Eternal Father,taking on the
infirmity of flesh,became like to men.

                 The Old Testament

14.The most loving God intending and preparing
the salvation of the whole race,in a singular
plan chose a people for Himself.The economy of
salvation told by the sacred writers in the Old
Testament,is found as the true word of God in the
books of the Old Testament.So these divinely
inspired books retain their permanent value.

15.The plan of the Old Testament was especially
aimed at preparing the coming of Christ,the
redeemer of all,and of the Messianic
kingdom.these books,even though they contain
imperfect and temporary things,yet show a true
divine pedagogy.

16.So God is the author and inspirer of both
Testaments.He arranged everything so that the new
would lie hidden in the old and the Old would
open up the New. In the NT things acquire and
show their complete meaning.

                V: The New Testament

17.The Word of God is presented in an excelling
manner in the books of the NT. The Word became
flesh and dwelt among us and began the kingdom of
God on earth; by deeds and words He manifested
His Father and Himself and by His death,
resurrection and ascension and the sending of the
Holy Spirit completed His work. He drew all to
Himself: this mystery [that all are called] was
not made known to other generations as it is now
revealed to the Apostles and Prophets in the Holy
Spirit.

18 It is clear that the Gospels excel other NT
writings.The Church has always and everywhere
held the apostolic origin of the four Gospels.
For what things the Apostles by command of Christ
preached, they and apostolic men handed on to
us,with the inspiration of the Spirit, the
foundation of faith the quadruple Gospel.

19.The Church has  firmly and most constantly
held and does hold that the four Gospels, whose
historicity it affirms without hesitation,
faithfully hand down what Jesus in His mortal
life really did and taught. The Apostles after
His ascension,handed on these things to their
hearers with the fuller understanding which they
enjoyed, being taught by the glorious events of
Christ and by the light of the Spirit of truth.
The four Evangelists selected certain things out
of many handed down orally or in writing,and put
some things into a synthesis or explained them
according to the state of the churches;  they
kept the form of proclamation, in such a way that
they always communicated to us true and sincere
things about Jesus.

    COMMENT:In spite of Cardinal Koenig,DV 19
insists the Gospels give us what Jesus "really
did and taught" and they give "true and sincere
things" on Him. So Gospels are historically
correct,considering genre as usual.

20.The NT Canon contains beside the four
Gospels,also the Epistles of St.Paul and other
apostolic writings inspired by the Holy Spirit in
which, by wise counsel of God,the things about
Christ are confirmed.

    VI:The Scriptures in the Life of the Church

21.The Church always venerates the Scriptures as
it does the Lord's Body, when, especially in the
Liturgy it takes the bread of life from the table
of the word of God. It holds that the Scriptures
along with Sacred Tradition are the supreme rule
of faith,that they unchangeably impart the word
of God Himself.So all preaching, just as the
Church itself,should be nourished and guided by
Scripture.There is such power in the word of God
that it is the support and vigor of the Church,
and the strength of soul for the sons of the
faith.

22.The faithful must have broad access to
Scripture. Hence the Church from the beginning
made its own the Septuagint,and held in honor
other versions,oriental and Latin,especially the
Vulgate. The Church sees to it that versions be
prepared rightly in various languages,especially
translating from the original texts. If some
versions are made by work in common with
separated brethren, with the approval of the
Church, they can be used by all Christians.

23.The Church,to attain more profound
understanding of the Scriptures,promotes the
study of the Holy Fathers of the East and West,
and the sacred Liturgy. Let Catholic exegetes and
others who cultivate sacred theology work
together, under the vigilance of the
Magisterium,to investigate and propose the divine
letters with apt helps so that as many as
possible of the ministers of the word may provide
the food of the Scriptures fruitfully for the
people,according to the sense of the Church.

24.Because they are inspired,the sacred pages are
as it were the soul of theology. By the word of
the same Scripture,the ministry of the word,
pastoral preaching,catechesis and christian
instruction, in which the liturgical homily
should have an outstanding place, wholesomely
flourishes.

25.Hence all clerics,especially priests and
others who as deacons or catechists work in the
ministry of the word,should be familiar with the
Scriptures by careful study.The Council exhorts
all,especially religious, that by frequent
reading of the divine Scripture they learn the
eminent knowledge of Jesus Christ.For ignorance
of Scriptures is ignorance of Christ [St.Jerome].
Moreover they should remember that prayer should
go along with the reading of sacred Scripture.
    It is for the Bishops to opportunely provide
versions of the sacred texts which are provided
with necessary and sufficient
explanations.Further,editions of Scripture with
suitable notes should be provided also for the
use of nonChristians.

26.So the reading and study of the sacred Books,
should more and more fill the hearts of men.Just
as by frequent Holy Communion the life of souls
grows,so we hope that a new spiritual impulse may
come from increased veneration for the Word of
God which remains forever.
                      Abbreviations
AAS = Acta Apostolicae Sedis
ASS =Acta Sanctae Sedis
BAR = Biblical Archaeology Review
CBQ = Catholic Biblical Quarterly
DB = Denzinger-Bannwart,Enchiridion Symbolorum
(early ed.of DS)   DS =Denzinger-
Sch"nmetzer,Enchiridion Symbolorum
DV = Vatican II, Dei verbum (Constitution on
Revelation)
EB = Enchiridion Biblicum
FFAE = W.Most,Free From All Error
J = W.Jurgens,The Faith of the Early Fathers
(English of RJ)
LG = Vatican II, Lumen gentium (Constitution on
Church)
NAOQ = W.Most, New Answers to Old Questions
OFP = W. Most, Our Father's Plan
RJ = Rou�t de Journel,Enchiridion Patristicum


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