Reply to Matt Gaspers II: Does the pope have to follow the teaching of the magisterium?

The Holy Spirit was promised to the successors of Peter not so that they might, by his revelation, make known some new doctrine, but that, by his assistance, they might religiously guard and faithfully expound the revelation or deposit of faith transmitted by the apostles.

— Pastor Aeternus, First Vatican Council

(LifeSiteNews) — The first part of my response to Matt Gaspers showed that his objections to the theological position that all public heretics are severed from the Church are based on a misunderstanding of the nature of heresy, and of what is meant by the term material heresy.

This second part of my response will identify a further misunderstanding on the part of Gaspers, namely, that only submission to the proximate rule of faith involves submission of the intellect to the preaching of the Sacred Magisterium. 

A misunderstanding of this kind would seem to lie behind Gaspers’ assertion that I make a “bizarre and contradictory charge against Francis.” He writes:

[McCusker] argues that Francis ‘does not submit to the rule of faith proposed by the magisterium of the Catholic Church,’ while simultaneously defining the proximate rule of faith as ‘the ecclesiastical magisterium as it exists in the present. It is the pope and bishops teaching now.’ This implies a rather bizarre and contradictory charge, namely, that Francis refuses to submit to his own magisterium, since, according to McCusker, the Pope himself is ‘the supreme rule of faith’ (more on that claim later).

Gaspers interprets my statement that Francis “does not submit to the rule of faith proposed by the magisterium” in light of my definition of the “proximate rule of faith” and my explanation of the teaching of the pope as the “supreme rule of faith.” In so doing he finds a contradiction, that is, he thinks that I am alleging that Francis refuses to submit to himself.

However, the careful reader will already have noticed that in the sentence quoted by Gaspers I make no reference to the proximate rule of faith – as opposed to the remote rule – but merely to the rule of faith in general. The sentence was written in the context of a general explanation that Francis publicly departs from the teaching of the Catholic Church. The preceding sentence was: “Since his purported election he has publicly departed from the profession of the Catholic faith dozens, perhaps hundreds, of times in his documents, his sermons, and his interviews.” It is Gaspers who chooses to interpret this statement about Francis in the light of my explanation of the proximate rule of faith – contained in a different article – thus creating a contradiction which has no existence in my text.

I could simply note this misunderstanding on Gaspers’ part and move on. However, I think that the nature of Gaspers’ accusation indicates a deeper misunderstanding, and one that is widespread in the “recognize and resist” movement, and for that reason deserves further examination. There must have been a reason why he chose to interpret my words in light of my definition of the proximate rule of faith specifically. This choice would seem to indicate that Gaspers assumed that only the proximate rule of faith involves submission of the intellect to the teaching of the Magisterium of the Church.

The truth is quite different: both rules of faith ultimately proceed from the preaching of the ecclesiastical magisterium and both involve submission of the intellect to the truths proposed by the teaching authority established by Our Lord Jesus Christ.

This truth is not, however, one that integrates very well with the “recognize and resist” position which Gaspers defends in his articles. One of the gravest problems with this position is that its advocates – as a result of their attempt to adhere to Sacred Tradition while simultaneously recognizing a non-Catholic and his collaborators as the legitimate hierarchy of the Catholic Church – necessarily have to preserve Tradition in opposition to what they recognize as the living Magisterium. This inevitably leads them to formulate explanations of “Tradition” which no longer conform to authentic Catholic ecclesiology.

For that reason, it will be of great benefit to explore this topic in more detail.

I will do this by examining each of the assertions which Gaspers has extracted from my previous articles:

1. The proximate rule of faith is the teaching of “the ecclesiastical magisterium as it exists in the present. It is the pope and bishops teaching now.”
2. The teaching of the pope is “the supreme rule of faith.”
3. Francis fails to “submit to the rule of faith proposed by the magisterium of the Catholic Church.”.

I will show that that each of these statements is true and that there is absolutely no contradiction between them, whether one considers that Francis is the pope or not.

1. The Catholic rule of faith

 The proximate rule of faith is the teaching of “the ecclesiastical magisterium as it exists in the present. It is the pope and bishops teaching now.”

This statement is absolutely standard Catholic doctrine.

I have already discussed the rule of faith, at some length, in an earlier article. In this section, for the benefit of those who have not read the earlier piece, I will summarize the most important points which were explained there, and then I will explore in more detail those aspects of the doctrine which will help us understand why Gaspers sees a contradiction where in fact none exists.

As noted in the earlier piece, the Catholic Church can be defined as:

The society of men who, by their profession of the same faith, and by their partaking of the same sacraments, make up, under the rule of apostolic pastors and their head, the kingdom of Christ on earth.

The unity of all members of the Church in the “profession of the same faith” is an essential aspect of the Church’s mark of unity, which she can never lose. It is only possible for millions of men, women, and children, to profess the same faith, if all the members of the Church submit to the same external rule of faith. If there were more than one rule of faith it would necessarily mean that the Church lacked the unity of faith which, by definition, she always possesses.

All Catholics find their rule of faith in what is proposed for their belief by the Sacred Magisterium of the Catholic Church. This is the infallible teaching authority established by Our Lord Jesus Christ to ensure that the fullness of Divine Revelation is transmitted from one generation to the next, with nothing being added and nothing being lost. This infallible teaching authority was bestowed by Christ on His Apostles, and it continues to be exercised by the Successors of the Apostles.

The supreme exercise of this teaching authority belongs (as we shall see in more detail below) to the pope, the Successor of St. Peter in the See of Rome, whether he is teaching alone or together with the other Successors of the Apostles who head the local churches in union with him.

These heads of local churches, the ordinaries, are subject to the supreme teaching authority of the Roman Pontiff. They are nonetheless true Successors of the Apostles and exercise authentic teaching authority in their own dioceses; they have the right to demand assent to their teaching from those subject to them, though this assent falls short of the absolute assent which is to be given to the infallible magisterium exercised by the pope alone, or by the pope together with the bishops.

The pope and the ordinaries constitute the Church teaching. Everyone else, including priests, religious, and auxiliary bishops, constitute the Church taught.

The Church taught receives the rule of faith from the Church teaching.

As theologian Michaele Nicolau S.J. writes:

The proximate, immediate and supreme norm or rule of faith for a Catholic is the teaching of the living Magisterium of the Church, which is authentic and traditional. For, this magisterium gives the whole revealed teaching, its genuine meaning and true interpretation, and it takes care that at all times and everywhere it proposes the infallible, authentic and revealed doctrine.

The faithful receive, and give assent to, the doctrine of the faith proposed by this divinely assisted teaching authority. But from what source do those who exercise this teaching office receive the doctrine which they authoritatively propose?

For, as Monsignor Van Noort remarks, “it is obvious on the one hand that they never personally heard Christ Himself or the apostles teaching through the Holy Spirit, and equally obvious on the other hand that they do not get the doctrine of Christ by way of fresh, direct revelation.”

Therefore:

[T]he only possible answer is that this doctrine comes to them from preceding generations by way of tradition.

Tradition means handing down. The Successors of the Apostles have received the content of Divine Revelation from “preceding generations” – those who have exercised the teaching office before them – and they hand it on to those who follow them.

St. Paul, in his Second Letter to the Thessalonians, spoke of these traditions, exhorting:

Stand firm, then, brethren, and hold by the traditions you have learned, in word or in writing, from us. (2 Thess 2:15)

Divine Revelation is contained both in written documents and in oral preaching. The written revelation consists of the inspired writings of the Old and New Testaments. This is called Sacred Scripture.

The oral preaching is called Sacred Tradition. Sacred Tradition is the handing down of revealed truth by the teaching of the Successors of the Apostles. However, it is not only found in their oral preaching but in the written monuments of this preaching.

The primary monuments of Sacred Tradition are the acts of the magisterium: the official acts of the Apostles, of the Successors of St. Peter, and of the other Successors of the Apostles, whether as individual heads of local churches, or gathered together in councils. The Sacred Liturgy is also a primary monument of Sacred Tradition because it is established and regulated by the authority of the Successors of the Apostles.

The secondary monuments of Sacred Tradition are writings such as those of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, of theologians, and of other ecclesiastical writers, all of whom are witnesses to the doctrine preached by the Successors of the Apostles. Christian art and architecture are also secondary monuments of Sacred Tradition because they too witness to the faith preached by the Sacred Magisterium.

Therefore, we can speak of two sources of Divine Revelation from which the Successors of the Apostles find their doctrine: Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition.

It is from Scripture and Tradition, as theologian Joachim Salaverri S.J. writes, that “as from fountains, the Magisterium draws what is proposed for belief to the faithful.”  Therefore, these sources of revelation are known as the remote rule of faith, to distinguish them from the proximate rule of faith proposed directly to the faithful by the pope and bishops who have authority over them.

As Van Noort writes:

Scripture and Tradition make up the remote rule of faith because they regulate directly, not the belief of the faithful, but the preaching of their teachers.

While Scripture and Tradition are distinct, in that one consists of inspired written texts and the other of oral preaching, the term Tradition can encompass both. It is held by theologians to be at least theologically certain, if not an implicitly defined dogma, that “the primary source of revelation is the divine tradition of the Apostles, which in antiquity, fullness and sufficiency surpasses Holy Scripture itself.”

In explaining this doctrine Salaverri explains:

That the source of revelation is divine Tradition signifies that it is preserved and transmitted in the Church from the time of the Apostles, with God attesting to the revealed truths, and therefore it means that the handed on word of God is contained in it.

The primary source is said to be divine Tradition, because primarily and per se it was ordained and intended by Christ so that his divine revelation may be transmitted continually in the Church.

Therefore the source of public divine revelation, if we speak in the strictest way, is the deposit of faith itself or the word of God, and indeed primarily Transmitted, secondarily Written. The original notion of the deposit of faith and the derived notion of the source of revelation are correlative notions, which under a twofold aspect look at the same reality of the word of God. Hence Scripture and Tradition, as original sources of revelation, can be properly defined and accurately discerned by the Magisterium of the Church. 

In other words, God has committed to his Church the fullness of his revelation, which was preached by the Apostles and is continually transmitted to each new generation by the Sacred Magisterium; that which the Magisterium hands down is both the written and unwritten word of God.

Therefore, for simplicity for the rest of this article, I will usually refer only to Tradition, but it may be assumed that under that term I also include the transmission of the Sacred Scriptures and their correct interpretation.

The Tradition of the Church and the Living Magisterium

We must now examine more closely the manner in which Tradition is transmitted from generation to generation. For, as best as I can judge, it appears to be a misunderstanding of this point which leads Gaspers to imagine that I have leveled a “bizarre and contradictory charge” against Francis.

Therefore, let us return to the question I asked above: where do the pope and the bishops find the doctrine that they propose to the faithful?

We have seen that the answer is “Tradition.” But how did they receive this Tradition? We have seen that the answer is “from preceding generations.” Therefore, the pope and bishops, as well as the faithful, receive the Tradition from the preaching of the ecclesiastical magisterium, not by new revelation or inspiration, nor by means of the personal discovery and study of ancient texts. Indeed, as we have seen, Tradition means “handing down.” The Tradition simply is that which is handed down by the Magisterium. Everyone other than the Apostles themselves has received the Catholic rule of faith from this source.

Everything the pope and bishops preach has been received from the preaching of those who came before them. The Catholic hierarchy, as it exists in any given moment, is not free to depart even one iota from the doctrine preached by their predecessors. On the contrary, each generation of Successors of the Apostles has received the Tradition from their predecessors, who received it in turn from their predecessors, and so on, all the way back to the Apostles, who received it from the Most Holy Trinity.

This is the Sacred Tradition of the Catholic Church, infallibly transmitted by the living Magisterium, from Pentecost until the Second Coming of Christ.

Tradition can be defined as the “continued conservation and transmission of divine revelation since the Apostles by oral preaching and the faith of the Church. 

Salaverri explains that while the object of Tradition – that which is handed on – is the deposit of divine revelation, the subject of Tradition – that which does the handing on – is the Catholic Church, and principally the pope and the bishops, who are the “primary and authentic organs of Tradition.” Furthermore, the acts of Tradition – the means by which it is handed on – are the oral preaching of the faith and the faith of the Church.

A further important distinction to note here is that between constitutive tradition, which is the preaching and faith of the Church during the lifetime of the Apostles, and that of preservative tradition, which is the preaching and faith of the Church since the death of the last Apostle. Sacred Tradition was constituted by the preaching of the Apostles, and is preserved by the preaching of the Successors of the Apostles, who must transmit what they have received from the Apostles.

Every pope, and every bishop, must submit their intellect to the truths of the faith received by Tradition, that is, which have been handed down, transmitted, by the preaching of the Magisterium.

Indeed, the very act of faith is an act of intellectual assent to truths proposed for our belief by the Church. This intellectual act has as its formal object – the objective motive for giving assent – the authority of God revealing. It has as its material object – the truths which are believed – the truths revealed by God.

We believe in the truths of the faith because we know that they have been revealed by God, who can neither deceive nor deceive. We know that God has spoken and entrusted a revelation to His Church, because His revelation is attested by evidence known as the motives of credibility, principle among which are prophecy and miracles. But we only know what doctrines we are to believe because they have been proposed by the teaching authority of the Catholic Church.

God has not revealed these truths directly to anyone since the Apostolic Age, including those who have the authority to teach them. The revelation was made immediately to the Apostles, but all other Catholics have received it only mediately through the preaching of the Apostles, or of their Successors.

All Catholics, whether of the Church teaching or of the Church taught, must submit their intellects to the doctrine continually taught by the Church.

Here we find the resolution of the contradiction which Gaspers thought he had identified, but before we turn to consider the specific implications of this doctrine for the papacy, and for the claims of Francis, I would like to spend a moment in discussing a second of the three propositions to which Gaspers drew attention.

2. Is the teaching of the pope the supreme rule of faith?

Gaspers writes that “according to McCusker, the Pope himself is “the supreme rule of faith (more on that claim later).”

It is not “according to McCusker” that the teaching of the pope is the supreme rule of faith, and it is not a “claim” but a certainty. We can easily demonstrate this with reference to the teaching of the decree Pastor Aeternus of the First Vatican Council.

The Council solemnly defined that (my emphasis):

That apostolic primacy which the Roman pontiff possesses as successor of Peter, the prince of the apostles, includes also the supreme power of teaching.

The same decree reiterates the teaching of the Fourth Council of Constantinople:

The first condition of salvation is to maintain the rule of the true faith. And since that saying of Our Lord Jesus Christ, You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, cannot fail of its effect, the words spoken are confirmed by their consequences. For in the apostolic see the Catholic religion has always been preserved unblemished, and sacred doctrine been held in honour. Since it is our earnest desire to be in no way separated from this faith and doctrine, we hope that we may deserve to remain in that one communion which the apostolic see preaches, for in it is the whole and true strength of the Christian religion.

And the Council repeated also the teaching of the Second Council of Lyons:

The holy Roman church possesses the supreme and full primacy and principality over the whole Catholic Church. She truly and humbly acknowledges that she received this from the Lord himself in blessed Peter, the prince and chief of the apostles, whose successor the Roman pontiff is, together with the fullness of power. And since before all others she has the duty of defending the truth of the faith, so if any questions arise concerning the faith, it is by her judgment that they must be settled.

The doctrine that the supreme teaching authority in the Church belongs to the Roman Pontiff is an infallibly defined dogma and cannot be denied by anyone.

And as we have seen in the preceding section of this article, the teaching of the living teaching authority of the Church is: “the proximate, immediate and supreme norm or rule of faith for a Catholic.” And as this living teaching authority is exercised in its fullness by the Roman Pontiff, whether he teaches alone or in union with the bishops subject to him, we may certainly call what he proposes for our belief “the supreme rule of faith.”

3. Is the pope bound to submit to the rule of faith proposed by the magisterium of the Church?

Gaspers correctly notes that I argue that Francis “does not submit to the rule of faith proposed by the magisterium of the Catholic Church.”

He then alleges that this, combined with the “claim” that the pope is the “supreme rule of faith,” “implies a rather bizarre and contradictory charge, namely, that Francis refuses to submit to his own magisterium.”

Yet Gaspers accusation will easily be seen to be unsustainable in light of the theological principles that I have outlined above.

We have seen that all Catholics, whether they are of the Church teaching, or the Church taught, receive the rule of faith from the preaching of the ecclesiastical magisterium. The Church taught receives it immediately from the pope and bishops proposing it for their belief, and the Church teaching receives it from the preaching of their predecessors.

When I stated that Francis fails to “submit to the rule of faith proposed by the magisterium of the Catholic Church” I was referring to a simple observable fact: Francis, through his own public words and actions, manifests his refusal to submit to the rule of faith handed down by the Successors of the Apostles since the age of the Apostles. Francis refuses to submit his intellect to the doctrine which has been authoritatively proposed by the Successors of St. Peter, by the Ecumenical Councils, and by the universal and ordinary magisterium of the Church through the centuries.

Francis is certainly bound to submit to this doctrine, whatever his status may be, because every Catholic is so bound, whether he be a pope, bishop, priest, religious, or layman.

If Francis has never been the pope, he has always has been bound to submit to this rule of faith as proposed by the Church teaching. If he was once the pope, then as pope, he was bound to submit to the rule of faith handed down to him by the preaching of his predecessors. There is no other way he could have received the faith.

As the First Vatican Council taught:

[T]he Holy Spirit was promised to the successors of Peter not so that they might, by his revelation, make known some new doctrine, but that, by his assistance, they might religiously guard and faithfully expound the revelation or deposit of faith transmitted by the apostles.

The pope does not have the truths of revelation proposed to him anew on his election, nor does he receive new revelations, nor is he inspired in the manner of the sacred authors. On the contrary, he can only find the doctrine that he is bound to believe and teach by receiving the Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture as handed down by the Sacred Magisterium and by conforming himself to this rule of faith.

I repeat: the pope is absolutely bound to submit his intellect to Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition, as faithfully interpreted and transmitted by the Sacred Magisterium.

The pope is bound to profess the doctrine contained in the irreformable acts of his predecessors, and of the Ecumenical Councils, which constitute the primary monuments of Tradition. He is bound to believe everything which has been infallibly proposed by the ordinary and universal magisterium of the Successors of the Apostles. In this way he submits to the rule of faith which has been continually proposed by the magisterium. This is not a submission to living superiors, teaching here and now, but to the living Tradition of the Church which has been continually transmitted by the living Magisterium.

When we speak of the proximate and remote rules of faith, we are speaking of the different modes by which the Catholic rule of faith is received. But there is, ultimately, only one rule of faith, which is the preaching of the Apostles handed down by their Successors. The content of the remote rule and the content of the proximate rule of faith never differ from each other. This is because the magisterium is infallible.

To repeat: There can never be a disparity between the doctrine infallibly proposed by the living teaching office of the Church, and that contained in the Tradition from whence that doctrine is derived. This is the true meaning of those oft-maligned words attributed to Pope Pius IX: “I am Tradition.” The Tradition and the living Magisterium are inseparable, and the pope is the supreme living teacher of Tradition.

The pope is bound to publicly profess the Catholic rule of faith just as every other Catholic is. All agree that the pope cannot teach error to the universal Church when exercising the fullness of his supreme teaching authority. Many theologians have held that the pope can never become a public heretic at all. Others argue that a true pope could become a public heretic. If this occurred, the almost universal opinion of theologians is that he would depart from the Church, and automatically lose office, as has already been explained and will be discussed again when we come to Gaspers’ arguments on this subject.

The charge that made I against Francis was not the absurd notion that he rejects his own magisterium, but rather that he departs from the rule of faith handed down by the magisterium of the Church and thus he departs also from the Catholic Church and, if he ever held it, from the papal office.

I make that charge anew today.