Thursday, June 18, 2020

Cardinal Louis Billot on Notorious Heresy


Louis Billot, Tractatus de ecclesia Christi (1903), p. 296.


Thesis 11 – Although the baptismal character is sufficient of itself to incorporate a man into the true Catholic Church, nevertheless, to have this effect in adults a double condition must be met. The first condition is that the social bond of unity of faith be not impeded by formal, or even material heresy. Nevertheless, because this sort of impediment is caused only by heresy that manifests itself in an open profession, we must conclude that only notorious heretics are excluded from the Body of the Church.

We must establish, in the first place, the proper sense of the term 'heresy.' According to the etymology of the term and its actual usage, which has been the same throughout all of tradition, that man is properly called a heretic who, after embracing Christianity in the sacrament of baptism, does not accept from the magisterium of the Church the rule of what is to be believed, but takes from somewhere else the norm for his beliefs in matters of faith and concerning the teaching of Christ. He might follow other religious teaching authorities, or he might adhere to the principle of free examination, professing the complete independence of reason; or, finally, he might disbelieve only one of the articles that are proposed by the Church as dogmas of faith.

Note, then, the difference between infidelity and heresy. [1] First of all, the general sin of infidelity can exist in any man having the use of reason, while heresy is proper to one who has received the sacrament of faith, that is, the baptismal character.  Moreover, for general infidelity it is enough for someone to disbelieve truths revealed by God and sufficiently proposed to him as such. The notion of heresy, however, includes another element: departure from the social magisterium, which was divinely constituted to be the authoritative organ for the proposal of revealed truth in Christian society. Hence, general infidelity prescinds from any special condition in its opposition to divine faith, while heresy is opposed to this same faith in precisely the way that it ought to be in a Christian: under the rule, and in dependence upon that authority to which it belongs to govern, in the place of God, the society of believers.


Now, heretics are divided into formal and material. Formal heretics are those to whom the authority of the Church is sufficiently known.  Material heretics are those who, affected by invincible ignorance concerning the Church herself, choose in good faith another rule to determine what they are to believe.  The heresy of material heretics is not imputed as a sin; on the contrary, it is possible for them to have even that supernatural faith which is the commencement and root of all justification; for, they might believe all the principal articles explicitly, and believe the others, not explicitly, but implicitly, by the disposition of their minds, and the good intention they have of believing all truths whatsoever are sufficiently proposed to them as revealed by God.  Consequently, they can still belong in desire to the body of the Church and meet the other conditions necessary for salvation.

Nevertheless, because we are concerned with real incorporation into the visible Church of Christ, our thesis does not distinguish between formal and material heretics—understanding the latter according to the notion of material heresy that we have just explained, which alone is the proper and genuine sense of the term.  For, if by “material heretic” you understand one who professes dependence upon the Magisterium of the Church in matters of faith, but denies something defined by the Church because he is ignorant of the fact that it was defined, or holds an opinion contrary to Catholic teaching because he mistakenly thinks that it is taught by the Church, then it would be utterly absurd to put material heretics outside the body of the true Church; but this would also be to distort completely the true meaning of the word.  For, a sin is called “material” only when all the elements of that sin are present materially, but without advertence or deliberate choice. Now, heresy by its nature requires departure from the rule of the ecclesiastical magisterium.  In the case cited, there is no departure; there is only an error of fact about what the rule dictates.  Such an error cannot be heresy, even materially so.

…we will direct our attention to another division.  Heretics are divided into occult and notorious. Occult heretics are, in the first place, those who by a purely internal act disbelieve dogmas of faith proposed by the Church, and after that, those who do indeed manifest their heresy by external signs, but not by a public profession [i.e., renunciation of the Magisterium as the rule of faith]. Among them, you will easily understand that many men of our times fall into the latter category—those, namely, who either doubt or positively disbelieve matters of faith, and do not disguise the state of their mind in the private affairs of life, but who have never expressly renounced the faith of the Church, and, when they are asked categorically about their religion, declare of their own accord that they are Catholics.


Only the notorious are excluded [from the Church], and not the occult—among whom we must also number (as it seems to us) those who, sinning against the faith even externally, have never departed from the rule of the Church’s magisterium by a public profession.


That occult heretics are still in the Church can be shown, in the first place, by an argument drawn from the general principle that was declared above.  For, baptism of its very nature gathers men into the visible body of the Catholic Church; this effect is always joined to it, unless there be something in the recipient of baptism that prevents it—something incompatible with the social bond of ecclesiastical unity.  Moreover, the social bond, because it is social, is of it very nature external and manifest.  As long, therefore, as heresy is not openly professed, but stays within the mind, or is confined to manifestations that do not suffice for notoriety (vel iis continetur manifestationibus quae ad notorietatem non sufficient), it by no means prevents one from being joined to the visible structure of the Church; and by this fact the baptismal character (by which we are made to be of the body of the Church) necessarily continues to have its effect."


Objection: At the time of the Jansenist heresy, there were many bishops who openly appealed against the Bull Unigenitus [the papal bull of Clement XI that condemned over 100 Jansenist propositions] and other papal Constitutions, whether preceding or following, that had been received in the whole Church.  These, therefore, were notorious heretics. Notwithstanding this, they were still considered as true bishops having communion with the Apostolic See, and therefore as true members of the Church.  Therefore it is false to say, even of notorious heresy, that it puts a man outside the body of the Church.

Answer: I reply that the Jansenists were more innovative than other heretics in coming up with every kind of subterfuge in order to evade the anathemas of the Church, so that, by dissembling themselves in every way, they might diffuse more efficaciously the virus of their doctrine. There is nothing to wonder at, then, if the heresy of some, because of the great cunning of their artifices, was not so notorious among their contemporaries.



No comments:

Post a Comment