Cardinal Burke’s critics fall into serious errors about the true nature and authority of the Papal Magisterium
Matthew Hoffman
Mirus= Pope Worshipping Novus Ordo heretic
Jeffrey Mirus, the founder of CatholicCulture.org, is concerned that Cardinal Raymond Burke might have confused the faithful by stating his intention to possibly make a “formal correction” of Pope Francis if Burke does not receive a response to several queries or dubia he and three other cardinals submitted to Francis regarding questionable affirmations in his recent apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia.
However, it is Mirus who’s more likely to confuse the
faithful with his own ambiguous language and apparently exaggerated
notions regarding papal authority and infallibility.
In a recent article
in response to Cardinal Burke’s statements, Mirus expresses concern
that Burke might cause “confusion” and urges “caution” regarding his stated intentions
to correct the pope. According to Mirus, Cardinal Burke’s reference to a
“formal correction” could lead people to think that the cardinals have a
formal, juridical authority over the pope, who therefore is subject to
their judgments. This would place the cardinals above the pope, a
reversal of the authority structure of the Holy See and one that is
inconsistent with the Catholic Church’s divine constitution.
Mirus is right to note that no one has the right to make a
juridically-binding judgment of the pope’s official magisterial acts
because, as the Code of Canon Law (c. 1404) states, “The First See is
judged by no one” and acts of the Papal Magisterium are legally acts of
the Holy See itself. Moreover, the following canon, in paragraph 2,
specifies that “a judge cannot review an act or instrument confirmed
specifically (in forma specifica) by the Roman Pontiff without his prior
mandate.” This would seem to apply to apostolic exhortations approved
in a specific way by the pope himself, like Amoris Laetitia.
Mirus also rightly recognizes that a cardinal might carry
out a personal, “fraternal” correction of the pope if he is personally
misbehaving or straying from his apostolic mandate. He notes that St.
Paul did as much to the first pope, St. Peter, when the latter was
showing an undue favor to those Christians who wanted to require gentile
converts to be circumcised. However, he is concerned that Burke might
regard his “correction” as legally binding and authoritative. “There is
no juridical possibility in the Church for any official correction of a
pope, such that the position of the pope’s critics becomes definitive or
take precedence over what the pope himself has said or done,” Mirus
writes.
It’s not clear what Cardinal Burke precisely meant by
“formal” and perhaps he could have been clearer, although it seems
doubtful that he means anything more than a statement written in precise
and formal language. However, Mirus takes his critique of Burke’s words
further than this, and falls into his own ambiguous language that could
mislead readers regarding the authority of papal acts and the
infallibility of the pope.
Impossible for the Papal Magisterium to err?
Commenting on Burke’s response to the possibility of
correcting a pope if he “were to teach grave error or heresy,” Mirus
writes that “Magisterial teaching of grave error (or heresy)” is
“impossible.”
“The Holy Spirit protects the Church against that,” Mirus
continues. “This is a key factor in the very constitution of the Church.
Because of this Divine protection, it is not necessary that there be a
‘lawful authority’ that can correct the pope, and in fact there is none.
But in matters of serious confusion, or of personal errors which foster
bad pastoral care, or of ecclesiastical administration for dubious
ends, or even of particular sins, fraternal correction can be very
important.”
Even stronger sentiments regarding the Magisterium of Pope Francis and Amoris Laetitia
in particular have been expressed recently by two high-ranking prelates
in the Church: retired Bishop Frangiskos Papamanolis, who is currently
the president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Greece, and Cardinal
Blase Cupich, Archbishop of Chicago. Papamanolis has written a letter to the four cardinals accusing them of “heresy” because Amoris Laetitia represents the “supreme magisterial authority” of a pope. Cupich assured reporters in a recent press scrum that Amoris Laetitia is part of the Magisterium and commented that those who have a problem with it need “conversion.”
Here Burke’s critics fall into what is at best a misleading
generalization regarding the Papal Magisterium, that is, the
authoritative teachings of the popes expressed in encyclical letters and
other official documents. While it is true that one category of such
papal magisterial acts is divinely protected from error by way of the
charism of papal infallibility, the other, more common category has no
such guarantee, and in fact may contain error. This understanding of the
Papal Magisterium is affirmed virtually universally by theologians.
Papal magisterial acts are divided by theologians into two
kinds: the “extraordinary” magisterium and the “ordinary and merely
authentic” magisterium. In an act of the Extraordinary Magisterium, the
pope teaches the faithful in a way that defines a dogma and makes it
into a law of faith, such that stubbornly or pertinaciously rejecting it
makes one guilty of heresy and places one outside of the body of the
Church. According to the First Vatican Council, such acts by the popes
are protected by a divine charism of infallibility, and are therefore
incapable of error.
Acts of the Extraordinary Papal Magisterium are quite rare.
Theologians are only in general agreement regarding two instances of
its use in the last 200 years: the solemn definitions of the Immaculate
Conception and the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary by Popes Pius
IX and Pius XII, respectively. For a magisterial act by a pope to meet
the requirement of infallibility, it must indicate in clear language
that a dogmatic definition is intended, or else it is not binding as a
law of faith and it lacks the protection of infallibility.
Acts of the Ordinary Papal Magisterium are much more common
and constitute the vast majority of papal magisterial documents. Such
acts of instruction by the popes truly fall under their magisterial
authority and are understood as obligating the faithful in a certain
way, but the statements they contain are not regarded as creating new
solemn definitions of dogma, and therefore do not enjoy the charism of
infallibility, except insofar as they repeat dogmatic teachings that are
already defined.
Popes exercise what theologians call their “merely
authentic” ordinary magisterium when they wish to apply existing
doctrine to certain specific cases or circumstances, or to offer
prudential guidance on particular points of theology. Such guidance is
normally binding on the faithful in accordance with the natural duty of
obedience to one’s lawful superiors, but is not divinely protected by
the charism of papal infallibility. The faithful are not required to
give the assent of faith to such doctrines but have an obligation to
conform their “mind and will” to them as non-infallible directives. This
is the teaching given at Vatican II in its Constitution on the Church,
paragraph 25, which was based on a well-developed consensus by
theologians in the decades prior to the council, who regarded this
lesser assent as being “conditional” and prudential, rather than an
absolute certitude of their truth.
However, given that such acts are authoritative but don’t
enjoy the charism of infallibility, can they possibly be wrong? If they
can be wrong, what are the faithful to do if a pope seems to teach an
error, perhaps by contradicting previous magisterial acts and even
Catholic dogma in an act of his ordinary and merely authentic
magisterium? Theologians addressed this question in
ecclesiastically-approved and widely-used manuals before the Second
Vatican Council and generally agreed on the answer to the first
question. Their response was yes, the merely authentic ordinary
magisterium of the popes can in fact be wrong.
The most prominent theology manuals and texts, such as those of Tanquerey, Billot, and the most eminent Sacrae Theologiae Summa of
the Spanish Jesuits, all agreed that the charism of papal infallibility
only attached to solemn definitions by popes classified as part of the
Extraordinary Papal Magisterium, and that acts of the merely authentic
Ordinary Papal Magisterium, including those found in encyclicals, were
fallible, that is, subject to error. Such errors, given the general
protection given by God to the Church’s divine mission, were seen as
unlikely but nonetheless possible. There was no middle term between
fallibility and infallibility. Non-infallible, quite simply, meant
fallible, subject to error. In this there was no dispute.
IMPORTANT: To respectfully express your support for the 4 cardinals' letter to Pope Francis asking for clarity on Amoris Laetitia, sign the petition. Click here.
According to theologians, the nature of the document and
the mode of expression used therein would indicate if a solemn,
infallible definition were intended. Among the kinds of documents that
are not regarded as offering solemn definitions are “exhortations.” Amoris Laetitia is styled as an “apostolic exhortation.” In fact, the character and style of Amoris Laetitia is so vague that Cardinal Burke regards the document as not even qualifying as a part of the Papal Magisterium.
The duty of cardinals to correct the pope
Assuming, though, that Amoris Laetitia constitutes
a part of the Papal Magisterium (as some theologians hold), what of the
duty of giving “religious submission of mind and will” to such papal
acts? Traditional dogmatic theology manuals agree that such an
obligation certainly applies in “ordinary” circumstances (in the words
of Tanquerey), and was seen as required by the virtues of prudence and
obedience. However, in “extraordinary” cases of apparent error, a
concerned member of the faithful could question the decision and express
his concerns to the competent authority privately, so as to avoid
public scandal.
What if a clear error is not publicly corrected despite the
attempt to privately express one’s doubts? While most theologians
didn’t consider such a case, at least four authorities (Straub, Shultes,
Choupin, and Diekamp), allowed private dissent, while the Sacrae Theologiae Summa
held that in such a case the questionable doctrine should be held as at
least to be “credible” (probabilis) until it was corrected by the
authorities. It seems that the first of these two courses has been
taken by Cardinals Müller, Sarah, and others who have publicly held that
Catholic doctrine is clearly opposed to allowing divorced and invalidly
remarried Catholics to receive communion. They appear to have entered
into what theologians called a silentium obsequiosum, an obedient silence, regarding their dissent.
However, other theologians have examined the possibility
that a pope might endanger the faith by his misbehavior and therefore
merit a public rebuke. The most important of these was St. Thomas
Aquinas, who is seen by Vatican II as the principal guide to Catholic
seminarians. St. Thomas teaches in his Summa Theologiae (II-II,
q. 33, a. 4) that normally a subject should rebuke his prelate in
private, but adds, “It must be observed, however, if the faith were
endangered, a subject ought to rebuke his prelate even publicly. Hence
Paul, who was Peter's subject, rebuked him in public, on account of the
imminent danger of scandal concerning faith.”
Thomas is referring to St. Paul’s account in his Letter to
the Galatians , chapter 2, of his rebuke of St. Peter when he appeared
to be supporting a group in the Church that favored erroneous doctrines.
“But when Cephas (Peter) was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the
face, because he was to be blamed,” St. Paul writes.
The eminent theologian Thomas Cajetan, Aquinas’ principal
commentator, uses even stronger language, holding that “princes” of the
Church (a term commonly applied to cardinals) are “required” to publicly
rebuke the pope if they are scandalizing the faithful:
Wherefore by censuring Peter on account of the danger to the salvation of believers, and not tolerating such a small (yet scandalous) sin, Paul taught others about how bravely they must act in denouncing sins of their prelates that scandalize the Church and bring others to damnation by their example. And princes, both of the Church and of the world, are required to do this when the Pope scandalizes the Church and, having been respectfully warned in a private way, does not come to his senses. For it is probable that he will have fear of princes who are openly censuring him, even if he disdains the salvation of his subjects; and if he himself is not made good, at least he won’t scandalize others. For those who are able to do this [rebuke of the Pope] have a much greater obligation to act than they have to rescue those who are being led to corporeal death.
Cardinals Walter Brandmüller, Raymond Burke, Carlo
Caffarra, and Joachim Meisner have all taken the route of privately
submitting their concerns to Pope Francis in the form of five dubia or
questions about the pope’s intentions according to certain passages of Amoris Laetitia.
However, the pope hasn’t answered. Cardinal Burke says he is now
considering the possibility of following the counsel of Aquinas,
Cajetan, Suarez, and others, who speak of a public correction of the
pope.
Finally, Mirus leaves us a very reasonable warning in his
article, but one that seems more applicable to his own understanding of
the infallibility of the Papal Magisterium than to anything Cardinal
Burke has said: “If we fall into errors about the Holy Spirit’s
protection of the Church, if we begin to see the precise nature of the
Church’s divine protection as somehow inadequate, if we manufacture new
theories about what is essential to the Church’s survival . . . we will
have swept the house clean only to admit seven demons where only one had
lived before.”
It is my hope that Mirus and others who criticize Cardinal Burke will
heed these words, and not attribute an infallibility to ordinary papal
magisterial acts that simply doesn’t exist. The result could be even
greater confusion for the faithful once the error is corrected. They
could erroneously conclude the Church’s infallibility has been
compromised, which it clearly, in this case, has not.