Introduction
I. The pastoral Magisterium
II. When truth functions as law
III. The fence and the circle of orthodoxy
IV. Criticizing Magisterial failures
V. Docility to Magisterial teaching and papal criticism
VI. Magisterial authority for the faith among the Jesuits
VII. Applying the theory to Donum Veritatis and Ad Tuendam Fidem
A. Donum Veritatis and the pastoral Magisterium
B. Confusion in Donum Veritatis
C. The theological concept of "adherence"
D. Magisterium as government in Donum Veritatis, Ad Tuendam Fidem, and canon law
VIII. A case study in the circular firing squad: Fr. Nicola Bux and Fiducia Supplicans
IX. Confusion in Magisterial scholarship and recent papal overreach
Conclusion
Introduction
The de facto schism between conservative Catholics concerning Pope Francis, which is really nothing short of a civil war at this point, is certainly the most disturbing phenomenon that I've ever seen as long as I've been Catholic. I'm not here referring to a schism from the Church, although there is certainly a side in this conflict that seems to be tempted to the "tradical" position. I mean the internal vitriol that has destroyed friendships and atomized the discussion into positions that are at least apparently contradictory with essentially no effort to reconcile them. Every disagreement is division at this point, resulting in the "circular firing squad" phenomenon in which we turn on others who agree that there is a problem rather than endeavoring to solve the problem.
The problem is, at least as far as I can tell, that Pope Francis is governing the Church in a manner that is very likely going to be harmful to souls. In a world filled with moral therapeutic deism in which the sole commandment is "be nice, and do as ye will," taking up the Cross in humility, turning away from sin, and sacrificing one's self for others, which is objectively necessary for a relationship with God, is not something that comes naturally. This is the Gospel, and the Church has no power to rewrite it than to rewrite Scripture. All of the blessings and Sacraments in the world, whatever nominal affiliation one may have with the Church, are in vain without that metanoia. The only purpose of the Church is to provide the graces and assistance of God to this end, which is the very mercy of God, and the pastoral practice of the Church is judged solely with respect to that end. The 1983 Code of Canon Law closes with the invocation of this principle: "the salvation of souls, which must always be the supreme law in the Church, is to be kept before one's eyes."
This division is, it seems to me, solely over a highly esoteric question of the nature of Magisterial teaching, and every person who says "what you identify is not the problem" is therefore taken to say "there is no problem." If one says "you shouldn't call the Pope a heretic," then the other says "but he is clearly teaching heresy!" The difficulty here is an excess of paternalism and clericalism in the Church that has been confused with doctrine. This has led to a ridiculously broad understanding of the Magisterial role as an "authoritative teacher," resulting in some frankly absurd epistemic conclusions about "levels of adherence" and "theological notes" that do nothing to help to answer a very simple question: am I bound in conscience to believe this is true?
My goal is to simplify this entire discussion using my concept of divine revelation as normative authority. This becomes a very simple explanation: the Magisterium is the government concerning the law of faith for the Kingdom of God. The Magisterium authoritatively promulgates rules of faith binding on the conscience, which are either cognitive rules of the practice of theological science (normative principles acting as rules for interpreting divine revelation and the content of the faith) or rules of will (laws of discipline). In other words, even if the Magisterium is teaching truths, it is teaching them specifically in the mode of functioning as rules. Anything that the Magisterium does outside of the promulgation of these rules of faith is simply non-binding. As a matter of prudence, we should account for it just as we account for any other source of wisdom, but we judge it in the same way we judge whatever anyone says.
I. The pastoral Magisterium
The reason that I think this has been complicated is the loss of a distinction mentioned by the late Magisterial scholar Dr. Richard Gaillardetz:
Thus in the 13th century we can find St. Thomas Aquinas writing of both the "magisterium of the pastoral chair" (magisterium cathedrae pastoralis), by which he meant the teaching authority of the bishop, and the "magisterium of the teaching chair" (magisterium cathedrae magistralis), by which he meant the teaching authority of the "doctor" or theologian. Of course, Thomas insisted that these magisteria functioned in different ways; only the bishops could normatively assert Catholic doctrine. As Jesuit Fr. John O'Malley has noted, theologians began to be educated in ways that differed from the formation of bishops, who often were more preoccupied with matters of canon law. The conditions were set for a new bishop-theologian relationship. This relationship would flourish when bishops and theologians acknowledged the interdependence of their respective spheres of expertise and authority; it degenerated when cooperation gave way to competition and struggle.
It is confirmed by Magisterial scholar John Joy:
If “magisterium” refers to teaching authority in general, what do we mean by the term “authentic magisterium”? St. Thomas Aquinas distinguishes between a kind of magisterium exercised by the pastors of the Church and a kind of magisterium exercised by professors and teachers in an academic setting. A teacher in an academic setting has a certain kind of authority acquired by his learning, but this is not such as to be able to demand that his students accept his teaching as true simply on the basis of his authority. But the pastors of the Church exercise an “authentic magisterium” (magisterium authenticum) rather than a merely academic magisterium. “Authentic” in this case does not mean “genuine” as it often does in English, but “authoritative.” The magisterium of the Church is called “authentic” or “authoritative” because those who exercise this magisterium are “authorized” to speak in the name of Christ and with his authority:
"Among the principal duties of bishops the preaching of the Gospel occupies an eminent place. For bishops are preachers of the faith, who lead new disciples to Christ, and they are authentic teachers, that is, teachers endowed with the authority of Christ (doctores authentici seu auctoritate Christi praediti), who preach to the people committed to them the faith they must believe and put into practice, and by the light of the Holy Spirit illustrate that faith." [Lumen Gentium 25]
Yet despite the clear distinction made here between pastoral and teaching magisterium (viz., teaching as rules versus teaching as truths), those categories continue to be confused in the ordinary Magisterium of the pope and the bishops, who are magisterial in both the pastoral and teaching sense. We can avoid this conundrum if we say that the Magisterium is said to "teach" authentically exactly and only in this sense of authoritatively promulgating truths as rules, principles regulating the practice of theology and the interpretation of divine revelation. It is not as if this mode of teaching is anything particularly unusual. A secular government is considered a "teacher" of moral truths by passing relevant laws; institutions promulgate standards of weight and measure that function as rules by which the truth of matters are judged. In a larger theological sense, the natural law itself is nothing but the divine truth of the eternal law promulgated as normative rules by the act of divine authority. This is analogous to the sense in which St. Thomas says (ST I-II.90.4) "The natural law is promulgated by the very fact that God instilled it into man's mind so as to be known by him naturally." So I find the most helpful understanding of the episcopal role as ministers to be specifically this: promulgation of divine truth as a rule.
II. When truth functions as law
What does it mean for truth to function as a rule? This means that it is a truth of practical rather than speculative reason -- truths as they relate to the practice of the Christian life. I rely here on the account provided in Stephen Brock's The Light That Binds, his work on St. Thomas's account of the natural law. He explains the distinction in the section titled "The Imitation of Nature" in Chapter 5 as follows:
First let me pick up on something that I argued for earlier: that the good is primarily a speculative notion, and only secondarily (though naturally and immediately) practical. It not only moves the natural inclination of our own wills, but also, and even first of all, explains the inclinations of natural non-human things. For this reason, it seems to me that we can also say that the first precept of natural law [seek the good and avoid evil], which is founded upon the good, also applies to such thing. True, our understanding of it does not function to direct the actions of such things. But surely its truth applies to them -- indeed to all things whatsoever. For every being, it is true that it ought to do and pursue the good and avoid the bad, in the way of doing so that is suitable to its nature. The first precept is already an irradiation and a participation of the eternal law, which is the law "by which it is just that all things be perfectly ordered."
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If only some principles are called practical, it must be because only they are intrinsically apt to direct action. They alone are rules of action, precepts. But must their truth be confined to the sphere of human action? For Thomas, the difference between practical intellect and speculative intellect is not a difference with respect to the nature of the intellect [ST I.79.11]. Likewise, the difference between practical truth and speculative truth is not a difference with respect to the nature of the truth [ST I-II.64.3]. It is only a difference in what the truth is used for, the end in view of which it is considered. Truth is speculative inasmuch as it is considered for its own sake, as satisfying the desire to understand something. It is practical inasmuch as it is considered for the sake of directing action according to it. But I see no reason why the same principle cannot be applicable to the consideration of both speculative and practical matters and used for either purpose.
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Our understanding of a natural thing cannot be practical in the sense that is actually directs the natural activities of the thing. But surely it can give rise to what Thomas calls "certain practical judgment," as to "whether it ought to be so or not" [ST I-II.93.2ad3].
...
Thomas says that "human acts can be ruled by the rule of human reason, which is gathered from the created things that man naturally knows" [ST I-II.74.7]. He says this quite generally. He does not make an exception of the first precept. Things of all kinds tend to do and pursue what is good for them and to avoid what is bad. We see this, and it immediately makes sense to us. We see that it is just what anything ought to do -- ourselves included. And we tend to regulate our own conduct accordingly. This would be an example of reason imitating nature.
As Brock points out, this makes sense when we understand the sense in which the eternal law itself functions as a rule. Aquinas defines the law as "an ordination of reason, for the common good, promulgated by him who has care of the community" (ST I-II.90.4). The eternal law is the ordination, taken as a whole in God's own mind, by which God governs the universe. The natural law is then "nothing other than a participation of the eternal law in the rational creature" (ST I-II.91.2). And the fundamental principle connecting the eternal law and the natural law is seeking the good and avoiding the evil, a principle that is self-evident from human existence given basic consideration and thus "known naturally" by the awareness of human existence. Good in this context is the being of the thing insofar as it is desired for the perfection of the thing, so that practical reason for rational beings is knowing things with respect to their relation to beatitude. But what is known naturally is the general concept; it remains for teaching and experience to learn how specific goods are to be handled prudently.
This, then, is the reason for confusion with respect to the pastoral magisterium and the teaching magisterium: the truths are the same, but the pastoral magisterium pertains to the principles of practical reason, while the teaching magisterium pertains to the truths of speculative reason. It is knowing revealed truths in their aspect as good, viz., their relation to Christian life having eternal life as its end, that defines the pastoral magisterial role.
When the bishop teaches, governs and sanctifies his diocese, this means that he is the minister of this government: the minister of the intellectual rules of interpretation, the laws of practice, and the Sacraments. He certainly has a broader pastoral role as an authority figure, but qua bishop, the "teaching" mode refers to the magisterium cathedrae pastoralis as minister for the teaching of the universal Church. And in that sense, he does not teach on his own authority but within his role as part of the universal Church, meaning that he can err in his individual capacity but not when he teaches with the college of bishops under the headship of Rome. When individual pastors act outside of this office, they act ultra vires with respect to this Magisterial authority -- outside of the powers that they possess in the pastoral Magisterium -- and thus teach only as private theologians and sages, who are subject to error.
But it is also fitting from a cultural perspective that such powers are situated in a high office that enjoys social respect and wise counsel, so that the officeholder's teaching will enjoy respect and that their government can be peaceful. Even though the term "religious submission of the intellect and will" could in principle include both senses (viz., this "fitting" sense of respect for a wise teacher and the formal sense of respect for the office), part of proper religious submission is the intellectual division between them. The distinction between these two modes is a difference of kind and not degree, just as the distinction between the pastoral and teaching magisteria is a distinction of kind and not degree. If we confuse those modes, the confusion will result either in hypermagisterialism, rendering religious submission to the teaching magisterium in the mode of the pastoral magisterium, or hypomagisterialism, rendering only the mode of submission required for the teaching magisterium to the pastoral magisterium. The failure to make this fundamental distinction between the teaching magisterium and the pastoral magisterium is at the root of contemporary confusion.
This applies likewise to the Pope. The office of the head, the Pope, is essential for preserving the unity of faith persistently and at all times, so that the indefectibility of the Church itself depends entirely on the Pope's office as head. The priests derive their preaching authority from the bishops, and the Pope is the principle that coheres the teaching authority of the bishops (the pastoral Magisterium) in the faith so that an individual bishop's acts in this regard can be recognized as the teaching of the universal Church. That is in turn one of the normative principles governing the interpretation of divine revelation: religious submission to this order of government. But again, the Pope's authority in this regard is in the pastoral Magisterium, the promulgation of divine truths as rules, not just anything he might happen to teach as a theologian. The more recent papal teaching, especially after Pope Leo XIII, has included much more of the teaching magisterium than the pastoral magisterium even in documents that as a whole are part of the authentic Magisterium. This lack of a clear separation has in no small part contributed to the confusion. For that reason, I think it worthwhile to distinguish this mode of binding pastoral teaching from the teaching magisterium.
III. The fence and the circle of orthodoxy
The pastoral office can then be subdivided into the authority of the shepherd (the shepherd as an official in the government) and the purpose of the shepherd. The purpose of the shepherd is to save souls. The authority of the shepherd is the normative authority necessary for the means of salvation to be guarded and preserved, viz,, the preservation of the Church as such. The indefectibility of the Church means that the authority cannot fail at the universal level in that specific task for which it was given, which is hardly to say that it cannot fail from time to time in its purpose of saving souls, even by official acts. But what they cannot do is to wield their authority in a way that corrupts the function of the Church as a whole.
Perhaps it may help to consider the visible Church as a fence around the sheepfold. All people within the fence are not necessarily spiritually alive, and all people outside the fence are not necessarily spiritually dead. But only those within the fence have a good reason for their hope. If there are spiritually dead sheep -- goats and wolves that appears to be sheep -- into the fence, it is harder for the sheep within to see the circle of orthodoxy, but they can still see the fence. It is the circle of orthodoxy that defines what it means to be a good sheep, and the circle of orthodoxy is only within the fence. Whether other people outside the circle of orthodoxy are or are not saved is left in God's hands; our role as sheep is simply to do our best to stay within the circle of orthodoxy, which means first and foremost staying within the fence. And the fence is the Church, and even more specifically, the visible, public act of worship in spirit and truth by the Church.
The purpose of the shepherd is to keep the sheep within the circle of orthodoxy, but it is extremely clear that they may do this job well or poorly. But they certainly cannot fail to maintain the fence, the visible institution of the Church, because if they did that, then it would be impossible in principle for the sheep to be able to remain within the circle of orthodoxy. Likewise, if they commanded the sheep outside the fence or outside of the circle of orthodoxy as shepherds, this would fundamentally violate the very purpose of their authority. So in the pastoral Magisterium, which is to say the promulgation of divine truth as rules of intellect or will for the faithful as a whole, the indefectibility of the Church requires that they must at least be infallibly safe, which is to say that following the rule promulgated by the office cannot require leaving the circle of orthodoxy or the Church as a whole.
As Bl. Pope Pius IX says in Mortalium Animos, "These two commands of Christ, which must be fulfilled, the one, namely, to teach, and the other to believe, cannot even be understood, unless the Church proposes a complete and easily understood teaching, and is immune when it thus teaches from all danger of erring." The "teaching" here is this specific sense of the pastoral Magisterium, which can be easily understood in principle, much as the concept of "obeying the law" can be understood in the context of a secular government. And much as with the law, this doesn't mean cognitively understanding every aspect of the law; it means this very simple concept of recognizing who is the government and who is subject to the government. That the Magisterium will teach and will not fail to teach in this sense -- that they have the divine authority to promulgate these rules for the Kingdom of God -- is a command of Christ Himself, not a mundane authority that the faithful can "recognize and resist."
IV. Criticizing Magisterial failures
The subject of Magisterial (especially papal) criticism is essentially the cause of the circular firing squad, and if I am going to disarm everyone, then it's important to resolve it. First, the answer is "obviously yes, even the Pope can be criticized." Nobody on earth denies this. What has happened is that there has been confusion between doctrinal or disciplinary dissent and legitimate criticism of the Pope. That confusion has in turn led to these issues' having been entangled with theological dissent, the charism of infallible safety, the possibility of a heretical Pope, and even schism. In point of fact, all of these result from the same underlying problem: confusion about what the circle of orthodoxy is and how the Pope's teaching and conduct relate to it. If we understand the Pope as promulgator of rules for the faith within the broader teaching role, it will be easier to see these distinctions.
Unquestionably, the Pope can be charged with hypocrisy in his Magisterium; I am not aware of any alleged "popesplainer" who denies this. Papal hypocrisy is the charge that the Pope, by his actions in office, is contradicting the truth as it has been taught. And as Matthew Levering has pointed out, every such instance of hypocritical teaching necessarily contradicts Christian teaching by, if nothing else, leading people to a contradiction of the commandment to Christian charity (referred to in Church teaching as "scandal").
The Doctors of the Church have not really shown any unwillingness to say that the Pope is failing to live up to his calling in this way. St. Catherine of Siena said:
So by the fragrance of their virtue they would help eliminate the vice and sin, the pride and filth that are rampant among the Christian people — especially among the prelates, pastors, and administrators of holy Church who have turned to eating and devouring souls, not converting them but devouring them! And it all comes from their selfish love for themselves, from which pride is born, and greed and avarice and spiritual and bodily impurity. They see the infernal wolves carrying off their charges and it seems they don’t care. Their care has been absorbed in piling up worldly pleasures and enjoyment, approval and praise. And all this comes from their selfish love for themselves. For if they loved themselves for God instead of selfishly, they would be concerned only about God’s honor and not their own, for their neighbors’ good and not their own self-indulgence.
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Ah, my dear babbo, see that you attend to these things! Look for good virtuous men, and put them in charge of the little sheep. Such men will feed in the mystic body of holy Church not as wolves but as lambs. It will be for our good and for your peace and consolation, and they will help you to carry the great burdens I know are yours. It seems to me, gracious father, that you are like a lamb among wolves. But take heart and don’t be afraid, for God’s providential help will always be with you. Don’t be surprised even though you see a great deal of opposition, and see that human help is failing us, and that those who should be helping us most disappoint us and act against us.
While this is a the gentlest of rebukes, it is still a rebuke. Even the statement "[i]t seems to me ... that you are like a lamb among wolves" implicitly includes the charge "but you might not be." Likewise, "God's providential help will always be with you" invokes the "divine assistance" to the papal Magisterium (the gift of infallibility and the charism of infallible safety), but in no way implies that it will prevent or has prevented the Pope from allowing the wolves to run rampant to the point of "eating and devouring souls." If he were to exercise his office to correct the problem, he would have divine assistance in doing so, but he is not exercising his office, so he does not have that providential help.
Likewise, St. Bernard of Clairvaux says:
It was once predicted [of the Church], and now the time of its fulfillment draws near: Behold, in peace is my bitterness most bitter [Is. 38:17]. It was bitter at first in the death of the martyrs; more bitter afterward in the conflict with heretics; but most bitter of all now in the [evil] lives of her members. She cannot drive them away, and she cannot flee from them, so strongly established are they, and so multiplied are they beyond measure. It is that which makes its bitterness most bitter, even in the midst of peace. But in what a peace! Peace it is, and yet it is not peace. There is peace from heathens, and from heretics; but not from her own sons. At this time is heard the voice of her complaining: I have nourished and brought forth children, and they have rebelled against me [Is. 1:2]. They have rebelled; they have dishonoured me by their evil lives, by their shameful gains, by their shameful trafficking, by, in short, their many works which walk in darkness. There remains only one thing -- that the demon of noonday should appear to seduce those who remain still in Christ, and in the simplicity which is in Him. He has, without question, swallowed up the rivers of the learned, and the torrents of those who are powerful, and (as says the Scripture) he trusteth that he can draw the Jordan into his mouth [Job 40:23] -- that is to say, those simple and humble ones who are in the Church. For this is he who is Antichrist, who counterfeits not only the day, but also the noonday; who exalts himself above all that is called God or worshipped -- whom the Lord Jesus shall consume with the Spirit of His Mouth, and destroy with the brightness of His Coming [2 Thess. 2:4, 8]; for He is the true and eternal Noonday: the Bridegroom, and Defender of the Church, Who is above all, God blessed for ever. Amen.
It would be ridiculous to say that this is not a criticism of the hypocrisy of the Pope; anyone who is familiar with the history knows the corruption of the time and the failure of the Popes to deal with it. And this was despite Bernard's having vigorously defended the authority of the Pope against an antipope. And note that "the simple and humble ones who are in the Church" will remain faithful despite all of this, even though "the rivers of the learned, and the torrents of those who are powerful" will be swallowed up, consistent with the Scripture passages that it is love and not knowledge that saves.
Nor does Bernard spare episcopal malfeasance in office generally.
You steal the keys rather than receiving them. The Lord asks about such through the prophet. “They have reigned but not by me. They have chosen princes but I did not call them to the thrones they occupy” (Hos 8:4). Whence comes such zeal for preferment, such shameless ambition, such folly of human presumption? Surely none of us would dare to take over the ministry of any earthly king, even the most minor, without his instructions … or to seize his benefices or conduct his affairs? Do not suppose then that God will approve of what he endures from those in his great house who are vessels fit for destruction (Rom 9:22).
Many come, but consider who is called. Listen to the Lord’s words in their order. “Blessed,” he says, “are the pure in heart , for they shall see God” and then, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.” The heavenly Father calls the pure in heart who do not seek for themselves but for Christ, and not what will profit them but what will profit many. “Peter,” he says, “do you love me?” “Lord, you know that I love you.” “Feed my sheep,” he replies. For when would he commit such beloved sheep to someone who did not love them? This question of who is found to be a faithful servant is much debated among clerks.
Woe to unfaithful stewards who, themselves not yet reconciled, take on themselves the responsibility for recognizing righteousness in others, as if they were themselves righteous men (Is 68:2). Woe to the sons of wrath (Eph 2:3) who profess that they are ministers of grace. Woe to the sons of wrath who are not afraid to usurp to themselves the rank and name of “peacemaker.” Woe to the sons of wrath who pretend to be mediators of peace, and who feed on the sins of the people. Woe to those who, walking in the flesh, cannot please God (Rm 8:8) and presume to wish to please him.
Is it possible for there to be a Pope who "has reigned but not by [God]" and who has therefore stolen the keys rather than receiving them? Assuredly it can be the case that the Pope can be an "unfaithful steward ... not yet reconciled." We know that it has been the case. It is very clear that the Pope can in some sense teach contrary to the faith in office, in the sense of hypocrisy if nothing else. So whatever the charism of safety means, it cannot possibly mean that it is always safe or even subjectively safe to follow papal teaching in the broad sense, since the definition of scandal is that it leads to error. And the example of these Doctors of the Church shows that, whatever infallible safety may mean, it cannot mean that the Pope cannot be charged for his failures in this regard, even if these failures clearly pertain to the "ordinary papal" or "non-infallible" Magisterium. So how should we understand these failures?
V. Docility to Magisterial teaching and papal criticism
Given that Doctors of the Church have clearly criticized Popes for hypocrisy (implicitly teaching contrary to the faith that they ostensibly hold) and given that they also clearly affirmed the gift of divine assistance to the Bishop of Rome, there must be some meaningful reconciliation between the two. And given that ecumenical councils have clearly criticized and even condemned Popes for their teaching in office, it clearly cannot be the case that the gift of divine assistance means that the Pope cannot teach error simpliciter in office. But those councils likewise affirm that the Apostolic See itself has always held the faith intact, and it is impossible to distinguish the Apostolic See from the papal office that the Bishop of Rome holds. As Catherine said, "God's providential help will always be with [the Pope]," but it is clearly the case that there must be some exercise of the office to do so.
So we must draw a number of conclusions from this situation:
1. The Pope can certainly err in office, by hypocrisy if nothing else, in a way that teaches contrary to the faith.
2. But there is some specific exercise of the pastoral teaching office not limited to ex cathedra teaching that enjoys the providential help (or "divine assistance") that Catherine describes.
[N.B., the great scholar of the Magisterium Johann Baptist Cardinal Franzelin describes this as "universal ecclesial providence."]
3. In any case, if there is a Pope who "reigns but not by [God]" and who has therefore stolen the keys rather than receiving them (i.e., misused his authority in office), Catholics may not deny his reign (his authority in office) but may presumably resist his hypocrisy both privately and openly.
[N.B., this seems to be contemplated in Canon 212, section 3: According to the knowledge, competence, and prestige which they possess, they have the right and even at times the duty to manifest to the sacred pastors their opinion on matters which pertain to the good of the Church and to make their opinion known to the rest of the Christian faithful, without prejudice to the integrity of faith and morals, with reverence toward their pastors, and attentive to common advantage and the dignity of persons.]
I posit that this specific exercise enjoying divine assistance is the case when the Pope acts as promulgator of rules for the science of theology and interpretation of divine revelation, which rules can be safely obeyed without risk of loss of salvation. That is the only proper sense of the term "teaching Church" (Ecclesia docens) is applied to the authentic Magisterium. This is where I have to manifest a slight disagreement with Cardinal Franzelin, which disagreement relates more generally to the late-Scholastic concept of authority developed among Jesuit theologians, especially Suarez and Bellarmine.
VI. Magisterial authority for the faith among the Jesuits
I credit Christian Wagner for having clearly laid out how Suarez introduced a distinction in the submission of faith which allows for the idea of a "new revelation" delivered through Magisterial decisions, albeit not in the apostolic mode. I believe that Suarez has correctly identified the distinction that I have in mind concerning papal teaching but has drawn the incorrect conclusion. It is true that what the Magisterium promulgates as rules of faith are binding, but they are not binding by "ecclesial faith," as if whatever the Magisterium commands must be binding by faith on the basis of faith in the authority of the Magisterium.
Following Wagner, it may help to think of the positions on whether doctrine taught by the Magisterium is "of faith" as follows:
1. Thomist: Whatever is virtually contained in revelation, either formally and immediately revealed -- that which is only nominally distinct from what is formally and immediately revealed, or else a theological conclusion logically connectible to revelation with metaphysical certainty -- is definable by the Magisterium. One can think of such truths as being "of faith" but not "by faith" in terms of not being the object of submission for the habit of faith until they are defined. In neither case can anything be defined by the Magisterium that is not either in revelation or metaphysically certain conclusions from them.
2. Scotist/nominalist: The same understanding of virtuality obtains, but these schools would say that we must implicitly submit to the theological conclusions by faith but only realize explicitly that we are doing so when it becomes apparent to us (either by theological reasoning or by Magisterial definition). But again, the content of faith is limited to whatever is virtually contained in revelation as outlined above.
3. Suarian/Jesuit: Anything that is not formally and immediately revealed in revelation is "formally confused," if it requires either a nominal distinction or a metaphysically certain theological conclusion to formalize. But Suarez also introduces a new version of virtuality in which the Magisterium defines a new concept under the circumstances of historical exigency, the authority of which is based on faith in the authority of the Magisterium.
I believe Suarez has thus confused revealed truths of speculative knowledge with truths as a rule of practical knowledge. The authority of the Magisterium is to promulgate truths as rules, not to promulgate "new revelation." It is to authoritatively speak to how those revealed truths apply to the Christian life, not to issue binding speculative conclusions of theology, although the latterr can certainly fal within the broader ambit of the Magisterium in extraordinary cases. On the other hand, Suarez's concern can't be disregarded here; his fundamental point is that the Magisterial authority has a necessary connection with historical contingency. And this can correctly be understood with the Magisterium working as a government regulating the Church for the common good, the salvation of souls, by which means the indefectibility of the Church is maintained.
Consider St. Thomas on why people deny the faith [ST II-II.1.10.obj2 and ad2]:
[Objection 2] It would seem that it does not belong to the Sovereign Pontiff to draw up a symbol of faith. For a new edition of the symbol becomes necessary in order to explain the articles of faith, as stated above (Article 9). Now, in the Old Testament, the articles of faith were more and more explained as time went on, by reason of the truth of faith becoming clearer through greater nearness to Christ, as stated above (Article 7). Since then this reason ceased with the advent of the New Law, there is no need for the articles of faith to be more and more explicit. Therefore it does not seem to belong to the authority of the Sovereign Pontiff to draw up a new edition of the symbol.
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[Reply] The truth of faith is sufficiently explicit in the teaching of Christ and the apostles. But since, according to 2 Peter 3:16, some men are so evil-minded as to pervert the apostolic teaching and other doctrines and Scriptures to their own destruction, it was necessary as time went on to express the faith more explicitly against the errors which arose.
Note the connection here with "evil-mindedness," although there is not an express acknowledgment that there is a distinction between knowing the law speculatively and knowing it as a principle of practical knowledge (choosing the good and avoiding evil). Still, St. Thomas has the Magisterium (here, the Pope) drawing up a symbol to respond to the addition of new errors, and the (unstated) cause of the evil-mindedness is disregulation, the failure to acknowledge divine truths qua principles of practical knowledge. It is true that the principles themselves may not need to be more and more explicit, but their practical application is nonetheless always in need of a government. This is the need for the Magisterium, and Suarez clearly sees this after Protestantism emerges. The problem is that Suarez has lost St. Thomas's thread on how truths can function as rules of practical knowledge.
German Grisez, the Thomist theologian of the natural law, thus distinguishes Suarez's view of the first precept of the natural law (do good; avoid evil) as follows:
Although too long a task to be undertaken here, a full comparison of Aquinas's position to that of Suarez would help to clarify the present point. See WALTER FARRELL, O.P.,THE NATURAL MORAL LAW ACCORDING TO ST. THOMAS AND SUAREZ 103-155 (Ditchling, 1930). We at least can indicate a few significant passages. Suarez offers a number of formulations of the first principle of the natural law. He manages to treat the issue of the unity or multiplicity of precepts without actually stating the primary precept. DE LEGIBUS II, 8, 2. Previously, however, he had given the principle in the formulation: "Good is to be done and evil avoided." Id. at II, 7, 2. But there and in a later passage, where he actually mentions pursuit, he seems to be repeating received formulae. The formula (Id. at II, 15, 2) referring to pursuit subordinates it to the avoidance of evil:"Evil is to be avoided and good is to be pursued." Perhaps Suarez's most personal and most characteristic formulation of the primary precept is given where he discusses the scope of natural law. There his formulation of the principle is specifically moralistic: The upright is to be done and the wrong avoided. (Id. at II, 7, 5: "Honestum estfaciendum, pravum vitandum.") Here too Suarez suggests that this principle is just one among many first principles; he juxtaposes it with Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. As to the end, Suarez completely separates the notion of it from the notion of law. He considers the goodness and badness with which natural law is concerned to be the moral value of acts in comparison with human nature, and he thinks of the natural law itself as a divine precept that makes it possible for acts to have an additional value of conformity with the law. Id. at II, 6. In neither aspect is the end fundamental. For this reason, too, the natural inclinations are not emphasized by Suarez as they are by Aquinas. Although Suarez mentions the inclinations, he does so while referring to Aquinas. Id. at II, 5, 1-2. Before the end of the very same passage Suarez reveals what he really thinks to be the foundation of the precepts of natural law. It is not the inclinations but the quality of actions, a quality grounded on their own "intrinsic character and immutable essence, which in no way depend upon any extrinsic cause or will, any more than does the essence of other things which in themselves involve no contradiction." (We see at the beginning of paragraph 5 that Suarez accepts this position as to its doctrine of "the intrinsic goodness or turpitude of actions," and so as an account of the foundation of the natural law precepts, although he does not accept it as an account of natural law, which he considers to require an act of the divine will.) Later Suarez interprets the place of the inclinations in Aquinas's theory. As Suarez sees it, the inclinations are not principles in accordance with which reason forms the principles of natural law; they are only the matter with which the natural law is concerned. Id. at II, 8, 4. In other words, in Suarez's mind Aquinas only meant to say of the inclinations that they are subject to natural law. This interpretation simply ignores the important role we have seen Aquinas assign the inclinations in the formation of natural law.
I agree with Brock's interpretation as against Grisez on how the natural law is truly a law, but that disagreement between Brock and Grisez does not matter much for the criticism here of the Suarian view. Grisez seems to be correct that Suarez "completely separates the notion [of the first principle] from the notion of law" and holds that the natural law as law results from "a divine precept that makes it possible for acts to have an additional value of conformity of the law." Because Suarez disagrees with St. Thomas on the natural law being promulgated by creation itself, in the form of truths that regulate as rules under the aspect of the good, he is forced to rely on sheer divine authority to account for "the additional value of conformity to the law." This carries forward to Suarez's understanding of the Magisterium.
Suarez says the following in Defense of the Catholic and Apostolic Faith against the Anglicans I.11.14-15 [trans. Peter L.P. Simpson, Lucairos Occasio Press 2012-13] :
But a twofold interpretation of Scripture must be distinguished, one we can call authentic, the other common or private. Which distinction the adversaries seem to conceal or ignore, although however a similar one is frequent among the jurists in the interpretation of their civil laws. For one is authentic, that is, has the force of law, about which the laws themselves say that to him it belongs to interpret the law to whom it belongs to make the law; the other is doctrinal only which, although it not have that authority, yet it has its own utility for human governance. In this way, then, some authentic interpretation of Scripture is necessary; and not less in things which pertain to faith and morals than in others, nay the more the more that in them a sure and indubitable sense is necessary. Nor is it significant that they are customarily clearer, because it is always possible for them to contain ambiguities from the variety of significations or senses, and chiefly because they are all wont to be perverted by heretics, as Augustine testifies, bk. 2, De Nuptiis, where he speaks thus: "It is no wonder if the Pelagians try to twist our sayings into the senses they want, since they are accustomed, after the habit too of other heretics, to do it even in the case of the Sacred Scriptures, not where something is obscurely said, but where the testimonies are clear and open." For these reasons, therefore, an authentic interpretation is necessary. But besides this one a doctrinal interpretation is also necessary for the edification and utility of the Church and for resisting heretics, because: "All scripture given by inspiration of God is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works," as Paul said, 2 Timothy 3:16-17.
The first interpretation, then, cannot be done by a private spirit, and about this everything we have said proceeds; for this interpretation is what pertains to the foundation of faith, and therefore only by him can it be done to whom Christ specifically promised the key of knowledge; and then is testimony received, not from man, but from God through man. For Christ himself promised to his Church both his own assistance and the magisterium of the Holy Spirit. But the second interpretation of Scripture, since it does not of itself have infallible authority, can be human and be done by private authority, provided it not be done rashly and at will, but in such a ways that it not be repugnant either to other places of Scripture, or to definitions of the Church, or to the common sense of the Fathers. Nor, however, is even this sort of interpretation permitted to everyone, but to the doctors of the Church who have been called to this office; but to others, although the reading of Scripture can sometimes be useful according to the capacity of the reader, yet not for interpreting it, but for understanding it simply, in the way that it is expounded commonly in the Church. Nor too is [Scripture] to be read for examining the faith by one's own knowledge, but rather to be read by faith for drawing out of it other advantages and fruits; and in this sense do the Fathers speak in the places cited, and Basil too can be looked at, in serm. 'De Vera et Pia Fide', and in Regulae Breviores, interrogat.95, where he teaches this very well, albeit briefly.
Suarez correctly recognizes that if there is no normative authority regulating the practice of faith, no government able to promulgate truths of faith as rules, then the normative sense of Scripture is not formally sufficient to function as a rule of faith even though the testimonies are clear and open. So even though "[t]he truth of faith is sufficiently explicit" in a speculative sense, it is only so for those with the habit of faith regulated by the government of the Church. No matter how clear the interpretation may be, the "variety of significations or senses" makes it possible to understand them differently, so that the normative sense of Scripture is always going to be subject to uncertainty without a government. This is the same reason that government is required to prevent anarchy, because no matter how clear the law may be, there is always the possibility of reasonable disagreement in how it is to be interpreted and applied to any particular context. Thus, even known truths are insufficient qua rules, which is the basis for formal insufficiency of Scripture. It cannot, in and of itself, define its own normative sense.
So, as per Suarez, what is necessary even for private interpretation is that it be regulated, and the Magisterium is the government that promulgates principles of divine revelation as rules, which is to say that they are viewed under their aspect of seeking the good and avoiding the evil. But as I said, it seems to me that the problem with Suarez here is exactly that he has lost the thread of St. Thomas's understanding of the natural law as law, likely because he is trying to reconcile opposed Thomist and Scotist positions on this point. But his intuition about the need for regulation is entirely correct; only his understanding about how truths functions as rules for the intellect in the manner of law is lacking.
This need for regulation is the principle that Franzelin (another Jesuit) has in mind when he says "a solely scientific authority is not suitable in its own mode for the director of souls" in the following passage from On Divine Revelation [trans. Ryan Grant, Sensus Traditionis Press 2016, p. 211-12]:
On the contrary, in the internal forum, as well as the sacred authority in the order for the direction of the spiritual life (by the force of the sacred office established by Christ, since a solely scientific authority is not suitable in its own mode for the director of souls), to the point that the faithful, in doubtful matters that touch upon conscience, could at some time (when other, safe roads are not clear), be held to conform their own practical judgment to the authority of the ministers of God. Without a doubt Jesus Christ, the head, disposes and rules the whole Church and its individual parts in the internal and external life, but not without his visible vicars, through all ranks from the high even to the low, so that the principle of authority and spiritual obedience should pervade the whole body and all the members by different degrees, by forms and modes.
Generally, the evangelical counsel of obedience not only of the will, but also of the intellect, proves most profitably that the infallibility of teaching is not a necessary condition to furnish subjection and obedience of the intellect.
Generally, the evangelical counsel of obedience not only of the will, but also of the intellect, proves most profitably that the infallibility of teaching is not a necessary condition to furnish subjection and obedience of the intellect.
Rather, from the common doctrine of the Saints, such as Suarez among many, and St. Alphonsus describe in summary: "someone under obedience that doubts, whether the matter commanded is lawful or not, is held to lay aside doubt, and thus, can and ought to obey." Sts. Bernard, Bonaventure, Ignatius, Bl. Humbert the Dominican, Dionysius the Carthusian and others teach in one consensus: "Whatsoever in turn man in place of God commands, so long as it might be certain to not displease God, is to be obeyed as if God commanded it." Still, every one of these would be altogether false unless one under obedience were held to subject the intellect to an authority in doubtful matters of this sort, not even in speculative opinion but in practical judgment on the honesty of his actions, although this would not be infallible either speculatively or practically. Therefore, this is the doctrine of the saints, which St. Alphonsus calls common and certain, if it is true, then it is false that one could or never ought to subject the intellect to a superior authority unless it is infallible.
Note that Franzelin here says that "this [teaching] would not be infallible either speculatively or practically," but this is precisely the problem with the Suarian view. To be infallible neither speculatively nor practically disregards the middle ground that truths can function as practical rules, viz., as laws of the practice of theology and the interpretation of the normative sense of revelation. To be infallible practically would imply that such rules cannot achieve their practical aim of the salvation of souls, as if they could not fail to be put into practice by those who are guided, which is clearly false. But in trying to find a middle ground between these forms of speculative and practical infallibility, Franzelin thus relies on the sheer virtue of the "evangelical counsel of obedience." Given the different modes of submission of the intellect and will, he should've instead said that this infallible safety for submission of the intellect applies only to truths promulgated as rules, which direct the Christian to the pursuit of the good of eternal life. Yet if we look to St. Thomas on the nature of faith, this is exactly what faith as distinguished from intellect does:
ST II-II.4.1 Whether this is a fitting definition of faith: "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things that appear not?"
I answer that, Though some say that the above words of the Apostle are not a definition of faith, yet if we consider the matter aright, this definition overlooks none of the points in reference to which faith can be defined, albeit the words themselves are not arranged in the form of a definition, just as the philosophers touch on the principles of the syllogism, without employing the syllogistic form.
In order to make this clear, we must observe that since habits are known by their acts, and acts by their objects, faith, being a habit, should be defined by its proper act in relation to its proper object. Now the act of faith is to believe, as stated above (II-II:2:3), which is an act of the intellect determinate to one object of the will's command. Hence an act of faith is related both to the object of the will, i.e. to the good and the end, and to the object of the intellect, i.e. to the true. And since faith, through being a theological virtues, as stated above (I-II:62:2), has one same thing for object and end, its object and end must, of necessity, be in proportion to one another. Now it has been already stated (II-II:1:4) that the object of faith is the First Truth, as unseen, and whatever we hold on account thereof: so that it must needs be under the aspect of something unseen that the First Truth is the end of the act of faith, which aspect is that of a thing hoped for, according to the Apostle (Romans 8:25): "We hope for that which we see not": because to see the truth is to possess it. Now one hopes not for what one has already, but for what one has not, as stated above (I-II:67:4). Accordingly the relation of the act of faith to its end which is the object of the will, is indicated by the words: "Faith is the substance of things to be hoped for." For we are wont to call by the name of substance, the first beginning of a thing, especially when the whole subsequent thing is virtually contained in the first beginning; for instance, we might say that the first self-evident principles are the substance of science, because, to wit, these principles are in us the first beginnings of science, the whole of which is itself contained in them virtually. On this way then faith is said to be the "substance of things to be hoped for," for the reason that in us the first beginning of things to be hoped for is brought about by the assent of faith, which contains virtually all things to be hoped for. Because we hope to be made happy through seeing the unveiled truth to which our faith cleaves, as was made evident when we were speaking of happiness (I-II:3:8; I-II:4:3).
The relationship of the act of faith to the object of the intellect, considered as the object of faith, is indicated by the words, "evidence of things that appear not," where "evidence" is taken for the result of evidence. For evidence induces the intellect to adhere to a truth, wherefore the firm adhesion of the intellect to the non-apparent truth of faith is called "evidence" here. Hence another reading has "conviction," because to wit, the intellect of the believer is convinced by Divine authority, so as to assent to what it sees not. Accordingly if anyone would reduce the foregoing words to the form of a definition, he may say that "faith is a habit of the mind, whereby eternal life is begun in us, making the intellect assent to what is non-apparent."
In this way faith is distinguished from all other things pertaining to the intellect. For when we describe it as "evidence," we distinguish it from opinion, suspicion, and doubt, which do not make the intellect adhere to anything firmly; when we go on to say, "of things that appear not," we distinguish it from science and understanding, the object of which is something apparent; and when we say that it is "the substance of things to be hoped for," we distinguish the virtue of faith from faith commonly so called, which has no reference to the beatitude we hope for.
In order to make this clear, we must observe that since habits are known by their acts, and acts by their objects, faith, being a habit, should be defined by its proper act in relation to its proper object. Now the act of faith is to believe, as stated above (II-II:2:3), which is an act of the intellect determinate to one object of the will's command. Hence an act of faith is related both to the object of the will, i.e. to the good and the end, and to the object of the intellect, i.e. to the true. And since faith, through being a theological virtues, as stated above (I-II:62:2), has one same thing for object and end, its object and end must, of necessity, be in proportion to one another. Now it has been already stated (II-II:1:4) that the object of faith is the First Truth, as unseen, and whatever we hold on account thereof: so that it must needs be under the aspect of something unseen that the First Truth is the end of the act of faith, which aspect is that of a thing hoped for, according to the Apostle (Romans 8:25): "We hope for that which we see not": because to see the truth is to possess it. Now one hopes not for what one has already, but for what one has not, as stated above (I-II:67:4). Accordingly the relation of the act of faith to its end which is the object of the will, is indicated by the words: "Faith is the substance of things to be hoped for." For we are wont to call by the name of substance, the first beginning of a thing, especially when the whole subsequent thing is virtually contained in the first beginning; for instance, we might say that the first self-evident principles are the substance of science, because, to wit, these principles are in us the first beginnings of science, the whole of which is itself contained in them virtually. On this way then faith is said to be the "substance of things to be hoped for," for the reason that in us the first beginning of things to be hoped for is brought about by the assent of faith, which contains virtually all things to be hoped for. Because we hope to be made happy through seeing the unveiled truth to which our faith cleaves, as was made evident when we were speaking of happiness (I-II:3:8; I-II:4:3).
The relationship of the act of faith to the object of the intellect, considered as the object of faith, is indicated by the words, "evidence of things that appear not," where "evidence" is taken for the result of evidence. For evidence induces the intellect to adhere to a truth, wherefore the firm adhesion of the intellect to the non-apparent truth of faith is called "evidence" here. Hence another reading has "conviction," because to wit, the intellect of the believer is convinced by Divine authority, so as to assent to what it sees not. Accordingly if anyone would reduce the foregoing words to the form of a definition, he may say that "faith is a habit of the mind, whereby eternal life is begun in us, making the intellect assent to what is non-apparent."
In this way faith is distinguished from all other things pertaining to the intellect. For when we describe it as "evidence," we distinguish it from opinion, suspicion, and doubt, which do not make the intellect adhere to anything firmly; when we go on to say, "of things that appear not," we distinguish it from science and understanding, the object of which is something apparent; and when we say that it is "the substance of things to be hoped for," we distinguish the virtue of faith from faith commonly so called, which has no reference to the beatitude we hope for.
Whatever other definitions are given of faith, are explanations of this one given by the Apostle. For when Augustine says (Tract. xl in Joan.: QQ. Evang. ii, qu. 39) that "faith is a virtue whereby we believe what we do not see," and when Damascene says (De Fide Orth. iv, 11) that "faith is an assent without research," and when others say that "faith is that certainty of the mind about absent things which surpasses opinion but falls short of science," these all amount to the same as the Apostle's words: "Evidence of things that appear not"; and when Dionysius says (Div. Nom. vii) that "faith is the solid foundation of the believer, establishing him in the truth, and showing forth the truth in him," comes to the same as "substance of things to be hoped for."
Just as, in a sense, the forest was lost for the trees concerning the relationship between natural law and eternal law (and ultimately First Truth), so has the holistic sense of the virtue of faith that St. Thomas presents here been lost. By contrast, the three views concerning the truths of faith presented above (Thomist, Scotist, and Suarist) are all concerned about specific truths of speculative reason and the problem of how these are "virtually contained" in prior truths owed the assent of faith. Suarez and Franzelin are trying to supplement the inadequacies of this account via sheer Magisterial authority, but St. Thomas here gives a clear and rational purpose for that authority: to promulgate revealed truths as rules for the habit of faith. This provides a non-arbitrary principle for a government to regulate the voluntary aspect of faith under the aspect of good or end "whereby eternal life is begun in us," which is a better account of how truths are virtually contained in the "substance of things hoped for" that distinguishes "the virtue of faith" from "faith commonly so called, which has no reference to the beatitude we hope for."
In contrast with St. Thomas's account of the Magisterium based on promulgation of normative rules, the Jesuit account of Magisterial authority puts too much weight on the sheer divine authority of the Magisterium and not enough on how truths can serve as rules of practical knowledge, which is the role of government under its secular and sacred aspects. And as a general matter, this overemphasis on sheer authority in religion results in both hypermagisterialism with respect to religious authority and a disproportionate emphasis on obedience to conscience as opposed to prudence in moral theology. So it is fair to say that the loss of St. Thomas's sense of truths as regulative principles falling under the virtue of prudence has had drastic consequences for the life of the Church, both for the role of the Magisterium and the Church's moral teaching. And this seems to be manifest not only with respect to the contemporary circular firing squad on papal criticism but also the post-Tridentine decay of moral theology documented in Matthew Levering's The Abuse of Conscience. We need to get back to this Thomist understanding of law in terms of truths of practical knowledge, which, even "natural law" Thomists seem to have largely lost, at least according to Brock's account.
VII. Applying the theory to Donum Veritatis and Ad Tuendam Fidem
A. Donum Veritatis and the pastoral Magisterium
With all of this in mind, we can turn some of the more significant documents on the non-infallible papal Magisterium: Donum Veritatis and Ad Tuendam Fidei. In my previous article, I had not considered Donum Veritatis in view of divine revelation as normative authority and the Magisterium as government. That was because I considered Donum Veritatis as relating specifically to the speculative task of the theologian in terms of levels of intellectual authority (more or less, theological notes), but I believe that this was a mistake on my part. Now that I have reread it with the notion of rules of practical knowledge in mind, I believe that Donum Veritatis also explicitly relates to the authority of the Magisterium to promulgate rules -- the "givens" that have "the force of principles" -- for practice of theology and how these rules are to function in the practice of theology. The relevant sections are as follows:
15. Jesus Christ promised the assistance of the Holy Spirit to the Church's Pastors so that they could fulfill their assigned task of teaching the Gospel and authentically interpreting Revelation. In particular, He bestowed on them the charism of infallibility in matters of faith and morals. This charism is manifested when the Pastors propose a doctrine as contained in Revelation and can be exercised in various ways. Thus it is exercised particularly when the bishops in union with their visible head proclaim a doctrine by a collegial act, as is the case in an ecumenical council, or when the Roman Pontiff, fulfilling his mission as supreme Pastor and Teacher of all Christians, proclaims a doctrine "ex cathedra".
16. By its nature, the task of religiously guarding and loyally expounding the deposit of divine Revelation (in all its integrity and purity), implies that the Magisterium can make a pronouncement "in a definitive way" on propositions which, even if not contained among the truths of faith, are nonetheless intimately connected with them, in such a way, that the definitive character of such affirmations derives in the final analysis from revelation itself.
What concerns morality can also be the object of the authentic Magisterium because the Gospel, being the Word of Life, inspires and guides the whole sphere of human behavior. The Magisterium, therefore, has the task of discerning, by means of judgments normative for the consciences of believers, those acts which in themselves conform to the demands of faith and foster their expression in life and those which, on the contrary, because intrinsically evil, are incompatible with such demands. By reason of the connection between the orders of creation and redemption and by reason of the necessity, in view of salvation, of knowing and observing the whole moral law, the competence of the Magisterium also extends to that which concerns the natural law.
Revelation also contains moral teachings which per se could be known by natural reason. Access to them, however, is made difficult by man's sinful condition. It is a doctrine of faith that these moral norms can be infallibly taught by the Magisterium.
17. Divine assistance is also given to the successors of the apostles teaching in communion with the successor of Peter, and in a particular way, to the Roman Pontiff as Pastor of the whole Church, when exercising their ordinary Magisterium, even should this not issue in an infallible definition or in a "definitive" pronouncement but in the proposal of some teaching which leads to a better understanding of Revelation in matters of faith and morals and to moral directives derived from such teaching.
[N.B., the "particular way" here corresponds to the "special way" of religious submission of mind and will taught in Lumen Gentium 25.]
One must therefore take into account the proper character of every exercise of the Magisterium, considering the extent to which its authority is engaged. It is also to be borne in mind that all acts of the Magisterium derive from the same source, that is, from Christ who desires that His People walk in the entire truth. For this same reason, magisterial decisions in matters of discipline, even if they are not guaranteed by the charism of infallibility, are not without divine assistance and call for the adherence of the faithful.
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23. When the Magisterium of the Church makes an infallible pronouncement and solemnly declares that a teaching is found in Revelation, the assent called for is that of theological faith. This kind of adherence is to be given even to the teaching of the ordinary and universal Magisterium when it proposes for belief a teaching of faith as divinely revealed.
When the Magisterium proposes "in a definitive way" truths concerning faith and morals, which, even if not divinely revealed, are nevertheless strictly and intimately connected with Revelation, these must be firmly accepted and held.
When the Magisterium, not intending to act "definitively", teaches a doctrine to aid a better understanding of Revelation and make explicit its contents, or to recall how some teaching is in conformity with the truths of faith, or finally to guard against ideas that are incompatible with these truths, the response called for is that of the religious submission of will and intellect. This kind of response cannot be simply exterior or disciplinary but must be understood within the logic of faith and under the impulse of obedience to the faith.
24. Finally, in order to serve the People of God as well as possible, in particular, by warning them of dangerous opinions which could lead to error, the Magisterium can intervene in questions under discussion which involve, in addition to solid principles, certain contingent and conjectural elements. It often only becomes possible with the passage of time to distinguish between what is necessary and what is contingent.
The willingness to submit loyally to the teaching of the Magisterium on matters per se not irreformable must be the rule. It can happen, however, that a theologian may, according to the case, raise questions regarding the timeliness, the form, or even the contents of magisterial interventions. Here the theologian will need, first of all, to assess accurately the authoritativeness of the interventions which becomes clear from the nature of the documents, the insistence with which a teaching is repeated, and the very way in which it is expressed.
[N.B., this refers to the "manifest mind and will" of the Pope.]
When it comes to the question of interventions in the prudential order, it could happen that some Magisterial documents might not be free from all deficiencies. Bishops and their advisors have not always taken into immediate consideration every aspect or the entire complexity of a question. But it would be contrary to the truth, if, proceeding from some particular cases, one were to conclude that the Church's Magisterium can be habitually mistaken in its prudential judgments, or that it does not enjoy divine assistance in the integral exercise of its mission. In fact, the theologian, who cannot pursue his discipline well without a certain competence in history, is aware of the filtering which occurs with the passage of time. This is not to be understood in the sense of a relativization of the tenets of the faith. The theologian knows that some judgments of the Magisterium could be justified at the time in which they were made, because while the pronouncements contained true assertions and others which were not sure, both types were inextricably connected. Only time has permitted discernment and, after deeper study, the attainment of true doctrinal progress.
This provides us with a helpful outline of what specific acts of non-infallible papal teaching are entitled to religious submission of mind and will in the "special way" described in LG 25, in order to preserve adequate respect for the exercise of the papal office. Those specific acts are as follows:
Category A. Magisterial decision in matters of discipline, which require "adherence of the faithful."
Category B. Non-definitive doctrinal teachings (1) "to aid a better understanding of Revelation and make explicit its contents," (2) "to recall how some teaching is in conformity with the truths of faith," and (3) "to guard against ideas that are incompatible with these truths," which are subject to religious submission of the intellect and will if it is clear from the manifest mind and will of the Pope that the teaching is in one of these three categories. More specifically, these are the teachings that I understand to be promulgation of rules for the practice of theology and interpretation of divine revelation, i.e., the pastoral Magisterium.
Category C. Interventions in the prudential order, in which one cannot from isolated examples "conclude that the Church's Magisterium can be habitually mistaken in its prudential judgments, or that it does not enjoy divine assistance in the integral exercise of its mission." In addition, some judgments may be timebound or contingent in some aspects so that they would be inapplicable in other times while being justifiable in application at the time they were made (e.g., judicial burning of heretics, capital punishment).
[N.B., obviously, given the cases of habitual papal hypocrisy identified above, this refers not to individual officeholders but to the Church as a whole over the course of history to the point of concluding that the Magisterium lacks divine authority in the area of competence.]
In each of these cases, the Magisterium is authoritatively promulgating teaching as a rule. And just as with ex cathedra teaching, these categories apply to specific teaching acts and not to documents as a whole. The additional requirement is that the Magisterial act must be manifestly fall in the category of "judgments normative for the consciences of believers," which makes the act to be a promulgation of truth as rule. Otherwise, the Pope would merely be teaching as a private theologian, not exercising the "universal ecclesial providence" that Franzelin describes. It is those binding teachings, and only those binding teachings, that are entitled to religious submission of the mind and will in the "special way" in LG 25. Otherwise, Sts. Catherine and Bernard would have amounted to public dissenters from Magisterial authority, in contravention of the sorts of prudential guidelines of DV 30, and this is clearly not the case.
Dissent must instead refer to the act of refusing a judgment binding on the conscience. That seems to be the best explanation for the references to the binding nature of teaching and conscience in DV 33 and 38:
Dissent has different aspects. In its most radical form, it aims at changing the Church following a model of protest which takes its inspiration from political society. More frequently, it is asserted that the theologian is not bound to adhere to any Magisterial teaching unless it is infallible. Thus a Kind of theological positivism is adopted, according to which, doctrines proposed without exercise of the charism of infallibility are said to have no obligatory character about them, leaving the individual completely at liberty to adhere to them or not. The theologian would accordingly be totally free to raise doubts or reject the non-infallible teaching of the Magisterium particularly in the case of specific moral norms. With such critical opposition, he would even be making a contribution to the development of doctrine.
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Finally, argumentation appealing to the obligation to follow one's own conscience cannot legitimate dissent. This is true, first of all, because conscience illumines the practical judgment about a decision to make, while here we are concerned with the truth of a doctrinal pronouncement. This is furthermore the case because while the theologian, like every believer, must follow his conscience, he is also obliged to form it. Conscience is not an independent and infallible faculty. It is an act of moral judgement regarding a responsible choice. A right conscience is one duly illumined by faith and by the objective moral law and it presupposes, as well, the uprightness of the will in the pursuit of the true good.
The right conscience of the Catholic theologian presumes not only faith in the Word of God whose riches he must explore, but also love for the Church from whom he receives his mission, and respect for her divinely assisted Magisterium. Setting up a supreme magisterium of conscience in opposition to the magisterium of the Church means adopting a principle of free examination incompatible with the economy of Revelation and its transmission in the Church and thus also with a correct understanding of theology and the role of the theologian. The propositions of faith are not the product of mere individual research and free criticism of the Word of God but constitute an ecclesial heritage. If there occur a separation from the Bishops who watch over and keep the apostolic tradition alive, it is the bond with Christ which is irreparably compromised.
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Finally, argumentation appealing to the obligation to follow one's own conscience cannot legitimate dissent. This is true, first of all, because conscience illumines the practical judgment about a decision to make, while here we are concerned with the truth of a doctrinal pronouncement. This is furthermore the case because while the theologian, like every believer, must follow his conscience, he is also obliged to form it. Conscience is not an independent and infallible faculty. It is an act of moral judgement regarding a responsible choice. A right conscience is one duly illumined by faith and by the objective moral law and it presupposes, as well, the uprightness of the will in the pursuit of the true good.
The right conscience of the Catholic theologian presumes not only faith in the Word of God whose riches he must explore, but also love for the Church from whom he receives his mission, and respect for her divinely assisted Magisterium. Setting up a supreme magisterium of conscience in opposition to the magisterium of the Church means adopting a principle of free examination incompatible with the economy of Revelation and its transmission in the Church and thus also with a correct understanding of theology and the role of the theologian. The propositions of faith are not the product of mere individual research and free criticism of the Word of God but constitute an ecclesial heritage. If there occur a separation from the Bishops who watch over and keep the apostolic tradition alive, it is the bond with Christ which is irreparably compromised.
B. Confusion in Donum Veritatis
In large measure, Donum Veritatis has not resolved the issue of dissent, and I believe there is a reason for this confusion. Among others, it was this statement that "here we are concerned with the truth of a doctrinal pronouncement" that suggested (to me, at least) that Donum Veritatis pertained to a method for evaluating the truth of specific speculative propositions of theology. This is why I thought DV applied generally to the non-infallible speculative teaching of the Magisterium, in which the Magisterium is essentially acting in its capacity of the teaching Magisterium rather than the pastoral Magisterium. But the term "truths" (plural) is only used in this sense for definitive Magisterial statements in DV 23, which is to say propositions that are either in or necessarily connected to divine revelation. Indeed, when viewed from the perspective of the Magisterium as promulgator of rules in the pastoral Magisterium, it seems that DV is saying the opposite: that it is not the truth of specific propositions but the ordered pursuit of the truth, which is to say First Truth, under the governance of the Magisterium that DV contemplates. This fits better with the statement claim that "propositions of faith are not the product of mere individual research and free criticism of the Word of God but constitute an ecclesial heritage," which clearly points to the Church as a continuous body under the authority of the Magisterium.
Of course this raises the most important question: why didn't they just say this? And I believe the answer goes back to two things. First, the question of how doctrines are "of faith" and, more generally, how speculative truths can be binding as rules has been a vexed one since Trent. In that respect, I believe that Lawrence J. King has correctly described the situation in Chapter One of his 2016 dissertation on the non-infallible Magisterium: "It was during the High Middle Ages that canonists and theologians began to systematically discuss what adherence the Christian faithful should give to specific doctrines." But this was in turn connected to what exactly the Magisterium had authority to define for the faithful, and there was no clear answer on that point either. So this entire issue of exactly what adherence to Magisterial teaching meant was never resolved.
In addition, the treatment of this issue has also suffered from the more general conflict between nouvelle theologie and "Neo-Thomism," which had led ressourcement theologians -- including Popes St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI -- to take a dim view of the manualist tradition. King describes this in his introduction as follows:
In the wake of the Second Vatican Council, discussion of the Church’s teaching authority split into various streams. Some theologians held that the preconciliar manualists’ theology of the magisterium was completely outdated, arguing that it was based on a purely verbal model of manualist tradition, arguing that it showed that the conciliar documents were full of doctrinal revelation and indefensible historical claims. Other theologians completely accepted the errors, or at least ambiguous statements that lent themselves to such interpretation. The theological “center,” sidelined into debates on various specific questions (such as the authority of Humanae vitae), was making few contributions to the fundamental study of the theology of the magisterium. It was unclear whether theologians of different views could debate topics related to the Church’s teaching authority within a common framework.
But where King takes a relatively optimistic view that the work of Francis Sullivan helped theologians to move to a more common framework, I see exactly the opposite. Much as with the increasingly fractured and chaotic understanding of conscience since Trent, documented in Levering's The Abuse of Conscience, the notion of Magisterial authority, especially since the Reformation, has splintered into blatantly conflicting theories with no clear unifying principles. Sullivan is, it seems to me, simply repeating Suarez's confusion between the pastoral and teaching magisteria. This is further exacerbated by the exasperating tendency of the ressourcement theologians to "reclaim" a doctrine from the pre-modern era which entails a significant reinterpretation of that doctrine, while pretending that the intervening Scholastic tradition never happened! If that is an exaggeration, it is only a slight one. As Christian Brugger explained in his interview on the Reason & Theology YouTube channel, Pope St. John Paul II appears to have done exactly this on the issue of capital punishment, which has produced worse and worse divisions among Catholics on the point. And this is a repeated theme since Vatican II: an inadequate account of continuity argued based on sheer Magisterial authority results in nothing but conflict, even among people who likely would endorse identical theological conclusions for different reasons.
C. The theological concept of "adherence"
In particular, what has been glossed over is a massive ambiguity over the theological concept of adherence in the context of the virtue of faith. Here we can recall what St. Thomas said:
In this way faith is distinguished from all other things pertaining to the intellect. For when we describe it as "evidence," we distinguish it from opinion, suspicion, and doubt, which do not make the intellect adhere to anything firmly; when we go on to say, "of things that appear not," we distinguish it from science and understanding, the object of which is something apparent; and when we say that it is "the substance of things to be hoped for," we distinguish the virtue of faith from faith commonly so called, which has no reference to the beatitude we hope for.
The problem is that Ratzinger, the Augustinian theologian, has made a context shift from Scholasticism, although it might be a fair one. The key Scriptural text for the adherence of the soul to God is Ps. 63:8 [62:9] "my soul clings to You." The Hebrew verb is dabaq, which means "to cleave to" (often in the familial sense) or "to hang onto" (as with a captured quarry). In the Vulgate, this is translated with adhesion: adhesit anima mea post te. But St. Augustine frequently translates it theologically as agglutinata est anima mea post te, "my soul is glued after You." This situates the passage in a pneumatological context described by the Augustinian scholar Joseph Lienhard, SJ in "'The Glue Itself Is Charity': Ps. [63:8/]62:9 in Augustine's Thought" in Presbyter Factus Sum.
Lienhard surveys Augustine's theology of gluten as follows:
Augustine cites Ps [63:8/]62:9 with adhaesit four times. Three instances are early, and the word that catches Augustine' attention is post. Post ["after"] suggests to him the right order of things, and the psalm verse is a warning against pride and an exhortation to humility.... In chapter 45 of De diuersis quaestionibus octoginta tribus, entitled Aduersus mathematicos, Augustine is trying to place the human mind in the right order of things. The mind judges visible things and realizes that it is superior to them. But it also realizes, on account of defect and progress in wisdom, that it is mutable, and finds immutable truth above itself.... Finally, in chapter 66 of the same work, Augustine is treating Romans 7 and 8. Ps 62:9 again suggests humility. The desire to sin is useful, he says, because the soul realizes that it cannot extricate itself from servitude to sin. Its swelling diminishes, all pride is extinguished, and the sinner says sincerely, Adhaesit anima mea post te. He is no longer under the law of sin, but under the law of justice; the sinner discovers the right ordo.
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From 388 on, Augustine began to use gluten as a metaphor for the bond of love. At first he used it without reference to the Scriptures; then he found a passage in Job [38:38] which confirmed his usage. [NB, this "confirmation" is mostly in Augustine's mind; as Lienhard says, "[t]he verse makes so little sense that Augustine was sure to find a profound meaning in it."] Charity as glue becomes a minor, but not insignificant, theme in Augustine's works.
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Gluten is caritas: this becomes a fixed equation in Augustine's mind, and he uses it several more times, without reference to Ps 62:9 --- in a sermon he preached around 412, and twice in De trinitate.
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Around 396 or 397, Augustine added another dimension to his use of the image of gluten: he makes the subject of the verb agglutinare the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the agent within the Trinity who binds or glues us to the Godhead.
Augustine first uses this image in the De doctrina christiana, without reference to the Scriptures. He writes: "For when we come to [Christ], we also come to the Father, because the Father, to whom the Son is equal, is known through His equal. And the Holy Spirit binds and, as it were, glues us. By the Holy Spirit we can abide in the highest and the immutable Good."
At about the same time, 397 or so, Augustine wrote the famous definition of friendship in the Confessiones...: "Friendship cannot be true unless you glue it together among those who cleave to one another by the charity 'poured forth in our heats by the Holy Spirit, who is given to us.'" There is a new element here: Augustine quotes Rm 5:5. God, he says, bonds the friendship "by the charity 'poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who is given to us.'" The crucial role of Rm 5:5 in Augustine's thought is well known. In his work On the Trinity, the verse from Paul allowed Augustine to call the Holy Spirit charity. And Rm 5:5 was his most convincing scriptural refutation of Pelagianism.
It is this concept of "adherence" through charity that I think Ratzinger had in mind when he wrote that, for example, the discipline of the Church requires "adherence of the faithful." Given that Ratzinger's experience was primarily with religious epistemology of St. Bonaventure and that the ressourcement theologians tended not to explicitly invoke or survey the manualist tradition, it may be that he was not even familiar with the diversity of the schools in this idea of adherence or that he simply took for granted that the Augustinian view was accepted by all of the schools. Regardless, because faith has this mixed quality as an intellectual habit, the Dominican school's view that the epistemological mode of submission here is via the intellect's adherence to first principles as first principles in the normal mode of discursive reasoning is hardly implausible. That would certainly be a reasonable interpretation of ST I.82.2 concerning the will and its relation to the intellect:
I answer that, The will does not desire of necessity whatsoever it desires. In order to make this evident we must observe that as the intellect naturally and of necessity adheres to the first principles, so the will adheres to the last end, as we have said already (Article 1). Now there are some things intelligible which have not a necessary connection with the first principles; such as contingent propositions, the denial of which does not involve a denial of the first principles. And to such the intellect does not assent of necessity. But there are some propositions which have a necessary connection with the first principles: such as demonstrable conclusions, a denial of which involves a denial of the first principles. And to these the intellect assents of necessity, when once it is aware of the necessary connection of these conclusions with the principles; but it does not assent of necessity until through the demonstration it recognizes the necessity of such connection. It is the same with the will. For there are certain individual goods which have not a necessary connection with happiness, because without them a man can be happy: and to such the will does not adhere of necessity. But there are some things which have a necessary connection with happiness, by means of which things man adheres to God, in Whom alone true happiness consists. Nevertheless, until through the certitude of the Divine Vision the necessity of such connection be shown, the will does not adhere to God of necessity, nor to those things which are of God. But the will of the man who sees God in His essence of necessity adheres to God, just as now we desire of necessity to be happy. It is therefore clear that the will does not desire of necessity whatever it desires.
But the adhesion involved in the act of faith is more complicated, and I do not think this notion of intellectual adhesion alone is sufficient for St. Thomas's account (ST II-II.2.2)
I answer that, The act of any power or habit depends on the relation of that power or habit to its object. Now the object of faith can be considered in three ways. For, since "to believe" is an act of the intellect, in so far as the will moves it to assent, as stated above (Article 1, Reply to Objection 3), the object of faith can be considered either on the part of the intellect, or on the part of the will that moves the intellect.
If it be considered on the part of the intellect, then two things can be observed in the object of faith, as stated above (II-II:1:1). One of these is the material object of faith, and in this way an act of faith is "to believe in a God"; because, as stated above (II-II:1:1) nothing is proposed to our belief, except in as much as it is referred to God. The other is the formal aspect of the object, for it is the medium on account of which we assent to such and such a point of faith; and thus an act of faith is "to believe God," since, as stated above (II-II:1:1) the formal object of faith is the First Truth, to Which man gives his adhesion, so as to assent to Its sake to whatever he believes.
Thirdly, if the object of faith be considered in so far as the intellect is moved by the will, an act of faith is "to believe in God." For the First Truth is referred to the will, through having the aspect of an end.
This seems consistent with the previous article (ST II-II.2.1) concerning how faith relates to the cogitative power. St. Thomas notes that it is not through discursive reasoning (deliberating from the information one has observed) that one achieves faith but that it nonetheless is in some way similar to a situation where one does not directly see the object of knowledge (as in the beatific vision). It is this act of the intellect that is the act of faith.
Accordingly, if "to think" be understood broadly according to the first sense, then "to think with assent," does not express completely what is meant by "to believe": since, in this way, a man thinks with assent even when he considers what he knows by science, or understands. If, on the other hand, "to think" be understood in the second way, then this expresses completely the nature of the act of believing. For among the acts belonging to the intellect, some have a firm assent without any such kind of thinking, as when a man considers the things that he knows by science, or understands, for this consideration is already formed. But some acts of the intellect have unformed thought devoid of a firm assent, whether they incline to neither side, as in one who "doubts"; or incline to one side rather than the other, but on account of some slight motive, as in one who "suspects"; or incline to one side yet with fear of the other, as in one who "opines." But this act "to believe," cleaves firmly to one side, in which respect belief has something in common with science and understanding; yet its knowledge does not attain the perfection of clear sight, wherein it agrees with doubt, suspicion and opinion. Hence it is proper to the believer to think with assent: so that the act of believing is distinguished from all the other acts of the intellect, which are about the true or the false.
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Reply to Objection 3. The intellect of the believer is determined to one object, not by the reason, but by the will, wherefore assent is taken here for an act of the intellect as determined to one object by the will.
This seems to be the modal distinction between the teaching magisterium and the pastoral magisterium. With respect to the teaching magisterium, it pertains specifically to theology as deliberative reasoning (speculatively speculative truth) and specifically to how propositions are discursively reasoned from revealed truths to which one has assented. This is essentially the Thomist account of the Magisterium as teacher, and it sets the criteria for which new definitive dogma may be definable by the Magisterium in terms of speculatively speculative truth. But to the extent that dogma and doctrine pertains to practically speculative truths or practically practical truths, which are under the aspect of the good, this is where the Magisterium as promulgator of truths as rules is critical to preserve the order and unity of charity in the faith, so that the motive of the will to cleave firmly to one side can be suitably preserved.
It seems at least consistent with St. Thomas's view that the adherence of faith to non-infallible Magisterial teaching is in the mode of a rule, which is clearly the case with the assent of faith to infallible teaching. ST II-II.5.3 famously says:
I answer that, Neither living nor lifeless faith remains in a heretic who disbelieves one article of faith.
The reason of this is that the species of every habit depends on the formal aspect of the object, without which the species of the habit cannot remain. Now the formal object of faith is the First Truth, as manifested in Holy Writ and the teaching of the Church, which proceeds from the First Truth. Consequently whoever does not adhere, as to an infallible and Divine rule, to the teaching of the Church, which proceeds from the First Truth manifested in Holy Writ, has not the habit of faith, but holds that which is of faith otherwise than by faith. Even so, it is evident that a man whose mind holds a conclusion without knowing how it is proved, has not scientific knowledge, but merely an opinion about it. Now it is manifest that he who adheres to the teaching of the Church, as to an infallible rule, assents to whatever the Church teaches; otherwise, if, of the things taught by the Church, he holds what he chooses to hold, and rejects what he chooses to reject, he no longer adheres to the teaching of the Church as to an infallible rule, but to his own will. Hence it is evident that a heretic who obstinately disbelieves one article of faith, is not prepared to follow the teaching of the Church in all things; but if he is not obstinate, he is no longer in heresy but only in error. Therefore it is clear that such a heretic with regard to one article has no faith in the other articles, but only a kind of opinion in accordance with his own will.
But we can then say that this describes the assent of faith to a very specific kind of rule, which falls into the general category of rules promulgated by the Magisterium, viz., the law of faith. So I would propose to resolve what I view as the confusion of the Suarist account as follows. First, the distinction must be made between the teaching magisterial role and the pastoral magisterial role. The pastoral magisterial role -- a government promulgating rules of faith under the aspect of the good (what is to be preferred and avoided) -- is the essential function of the Magisterium. The teaching magisterial role is, in and of itself, only incidental to the pastoral magisterial role, simply because the ability to promulgate truths as rules must necessarily include the ability to authoritatively define what those truths are. That exercise of binding in the speculatively speculative manner is then rightly called extraordinary exercise of the authority to promulgate rules. The ordinary Magisterium is the promulgation of rules that are infallibly safe to follow from a practical perspective, sufficient to preserve the indefectibility of the Church, but are not necessarily timeless and universal formulations of the underlying principles. And the ordinary and universal Magisterium refers to when such timeless and universal formulations are non-definitively taught in such a way that the timeless and universal formulation of the underlying principle can be identified, including when the Pope in his own pastoral Magisterium ratifies or confirms such a formulation as a rule.
From a theological perspective, this situates the Holy Spirit's gifts of knowledge, understanding, and wisdom in the virtue of faith in a way that harmonizes with Augustine's account of the unity of charity. First, wisdom, the right ordering of truths relative to one another, falls under charity, and the Magisterium is established by the Sacrament of Order and is itself a government, which maintains order in a society. And with respect to the gifts that are specifically related to faith as an intellectual habit -- that is, understanding and knowledge -- each has a corresponding practical aspect (ST II-II.8.3 and ST II-II.9.3). With respect to understanding, St. Thomas explicitly ties the practical application to the eternal law: "The rule of human actions is the human reason and the eternal law, as stated above [ST I-II:71:6]. Now the eternal law surpasses human reason: so that the knowledge of human actions, as ruled by the eternal law, surpasses the natural reason, and requires the supernatural light of a gift of the Holy Ghost" (ST II-II.8.3 ad 3). All of this is compatible with the role of the Magisterium as promulgator of rules for the faith demanding adherence of both mind and will. It is likewise compatible with St. Thomas's understanding of "lifeless faith," which involves the intellectual acceptance of the truths of faith in the manner of discursive reasoning without the virtue of charity but which is still a gift of God (ST II-II.6.2).
It also seems consistent with the Magisterium's own description of its roles, such as Pope Leo XIII's description in Sapientiae Christianae:
Wherefore it belongs to the Pope to judge authoritatively what things the sacred oracles contain, as well as what doctrines are in harmony, and what in disagreement, with them; and also, for the same reason, to show forth what things are to be accepted as right, and what to be rejected as worthless; what it is necessary to do and what to avoid doing, in order to attain eternal salvation. For, otherwise, there would be no sure interpreter of the commands of God, nor would there be any safe guide showing man the way he should live.
If I am correct in this understanding of the Magisterium, then it is not the case that the Thomist account of development of dogma and Magisterial definitions is incorrect or that the Scotist/nominalist or Suarist accounts correct a deficiency in that account. Rather, the problem is that an account that is highly specific to an extraordinary case -- that of speculatively speculative truths being authoritatively promulgated as such -- has been extended far beyond its reasonable application to the authority of the Magisterium. And as in the case of natural law and conscience, St. Thomas's account of truth in its speculatively practical role under the aspect of the good has been disregarded despite its utility. In fact, as I suggested above, I now believe Ratzinger had exactly this concept in mind when he wrote Donum Veritatis. But because he did not address the Scholastic tradition on this point, he did not make clear how his view should be placed in continuity with the larger tradition. And as with the case of Pope St. John Paul II's development of the teaching on capital punishment, his explanation would have benefited from a more explicit treatment.
D. Magisterium as government in Donum Veritatis, Ad Tuendam Fidem, and canon law
Turning to Ratzinger, then, there is evidence of the account of the Magisterium as promulgator of rules of faith in canon law, even though the explicit justification has not been presented. The 1983 Code of Canon Law implemented the teaching of Lumen Gentium 25 concerning the non-infallible Magisterium. Canon 752 specifically employs the language of a precept in the context of religious submission, not the language of truth or error that would normally be found in the purely intellectual mode of assent:
Although not an assent of faith, a religious submission of the intellect and will must be given to a doctrine which the Supreme Pontiff or the college of bishops declares concerning faith or morals when they exercise the authentic magisterium, even if they do not intend to proclaim it by definitive act; therefore, the Christian faithful are to take care to avoid those things which do not agree with it.
Moreover, this was the same sort of language (adherence and avoidance) used for the assent of faith to truths of the Catholic faith in the version of Canon 750 promulgated at the same time:
A person must believe with divine and Catholic faith all those things contained in the word of God, written or handed on, that is, in the one deposit of faith entrusted to the Church, and at the same time proposed as divinely revealed either by the solemn magisterium of the Church or by its ordinary and universal magisterium which is manifested by the common adherence of the Christian faithful under the leadership of the sacred magisterium; therefore all are bound to avoid any doctrines whatsoever contrary to them.
The unfortunate ambiguity is in the use of the term "proposed," and it reflects the disregard of the prior manualist tradition. From the Scholastic perspective, one would immediately be led to a proposition in the sense of discursive reasoning, which is exactly why it appears to be an extension of speculatively speculative truths in the Magisterial context. But the surrounding context indicates that even these are being contemplated as proposed under the aspect of the good for purposes of the Magisterial role, so that even though they must of necessity be accepted propositionally to affirm truth and avoid error in discursive reasoning, the role of the Magisterium in them is to bind the conscience to obedience of these truths as rules. This is "the knowledge of human actions, as ruled by the eternal law," as St. Thomas describes the supernatural gift of knowledge in ST II-II.8.3 ad 3. The more accurate term for this role might have been "promulgated," but this would likewise have need to have been qualified similar to the sense in which God is said to "promulgate" the natural law, in order to convey the inner sense of assent as opposed to merely external obedience. Sadly, for want of a better term for how the Magisterium enables "a participation of the eternal law in the rational creature" (ST I-II.91.2), the confusion introduced by Suarez between the teaching magisterial role and the pastoral magisterial role has only been exacerbated.
This preceptual understanding of speculative truths is, I believe, what DV 23 has in mind with the injunction that "[t]his kind of response cannot be simply exterior or disciplinary but must be understood within the logic of faith and under the impulse of obedience to the faith." Because faith is not a sheerly cognitive power governed by the science of thought (logic), there are additional normative rules governing the act of faith based on assent to authority. And this is how the pastoral Magisterium enters into the practice of theology even as a science: as being ruled by eternal law. Dissent should instead properly be understood with respect to this lawful authority to promulgate rules rather than the very narrow class of infallibly true statements in the teaching magisterial role. Otherwise, we can be in the bizarre situation of disagreement with Magisterium in its teaching magisterial role being dissent and somehow being forced to accept "infallibly safe error." The point of DV is exactly the opposite; it says what practical rules apply to the practice of theology even when one might have a speculative disagreement with the Magisterium in the teaching magisterial role, where it can be subject to error. In short, disagreement with the teaching Magisterium is not a proper basis for dissent from the pastoral Magisterium.
The Magisterium-as-government account also provides a clearer explanation of Ad Tuendam Fidem, the motu proprio that further clarifies the role of the Magisterium in Lumen Gentium 25. The new addition to Canon 750 does not use specifically preceptual language, such as "avoid," but it does use "held" from sententia definitive tenenda, which is the language of adherence.
Each and every thing which is proposed definitively by the magisterium of the Church concerning the doctrine of faith and morals, that is, each and every thing which is required to safeguard reverently and to expound faithfully the same deposit of faith, is also to be firmly embraced and retained; therefore, one who rejects those propositions which are to be held definitively is opposed to the doctrine of the Catholic Church.
Here again, this does not appear to be the purely intellectual mode of assent, the assent to truths in the manner of discursive reasoning, but specifically the assent to those truths under the aspect of the good (viz., "it is good for me to cling firmly to X and to avoid Y that is contrary to it"). It is not merely that which I know to be true as if by strong evidence but rather an act of clinging to the authority of the Magisterium, by the Holy Spirit that binds the Church in the unity of charity. That act, the act of fidelity and loyalty to the authority of the Church, is the response of the soul to truths promulgated by the Magisterium as rules. It is the manner in which the soul clings to God. Without this, the submission to the Magisterium could be merely lifeless faith.
This seems to be consistent both with the explanation in Ad Tuendam Fidem and the further commentary on the concluding Profession of Faith by Cardinals Ratzinger and Bertone. Ad Tuendam Fidem 3 says the following:
The second paragraph, however, which states “I also firmly accept and hold each and everything definitively proposed by the Church regarding teaching on faith and morals,” has no corresponding canon in the Codes of the Catholic Church. This second paragraph of the Profession of faith is of utmost importance since it refers to truths that are necessarily connected to divine revelation. These truths, in the investigation of Catholic doctrine, illustrate the Divine Spirit’s particular inspiration for the Church’s deeper understanding of a truth concerning faith and morals, with which they are connected either for historical reasons or by a logical relationship.
Importantly, the modes of assent in the first and second paragraphs are explicitly connected to the role of the Holy Spirit (section 8 of the commentary), firstly in the inspiration of Scripture and secondly in the life of the Church:
With regard to the nature of the assent owed to the truths set forth by the Church as divinely revealed (those of the first paragraph) or to be held definitively (those of the second paragraph), it is important to emphasize that there is no difference with respect to the full and irrevocable character of the assent which is owed to these teachings. The difference concerns the supernatural virtue of faith: in the case of truths of the first paragraph, the assent is based directly on faith in the authority of the word of God (doctrines de fide credenda); in the case of the truths of the second paragraph, the assent is based on faith in the Holy Spirit's assistance to the Magisterium and on the Catholic doctrine of the infallibility of the Magisterium (doctrines de fide tenenda)
A similar distinction applies to the question of logical and historical necessity. The commentary says at section 7:
The truths belonging to this second paragraph can be of various natures, thus giving different qualities to their relationship with revelation. There are truths which are necessarily connected with revelation by virtue of an historical relationship, while other truths evince a logical connection that expresses a stage in the maturation of understanding of revelation which the Church is called to undertake. The fact that these doctrines may not be proposed as formally revealed, insofar as they add to the data of faith elements that are not revealed or which are not yet expressly recognized as such, in no way diminishes their definitive character, which is required at least by their intrinsic connection with revealed truth. Moreover, it cannot be excluded that at a certain point in dogmatic development, the understanding of the realities and the words of the deposit of faith can progress in the life of the Church, and the Magisterium may proclaim some of these doctrines as also dogmas of divine and catholic faith.
Yet these two modes of necessity can really only be connected if we consider speculative truths under the aspect of the good. That accounts both for discursive reasoning, which is expressed by a logical connection, and their historical relationship to contingent elements, which refers to this application of those truths to Christian life. That accounts for the recognition of dogmatic facts, the contingent events subsequent to the closure of revelation, that nonetheless must be accepted as truths of the faith, as explained among the examples in the commentary:
With regard to those truths connected to revelation by historical necessity and which are to be held definitively, but are not able to be declared as divinely revealed, the following examples can be given: the legitimacy of the election of the Supreme Pontiff or of the celebration of an ecumenical council, the canonizations of saints (dogmatic facts), the declaration of Pope Leo XIII in the Apostolic Letter Apostolicae Curae on the invalidity of Anglican ordinations.
The necessity of these contingent elements is unquestionably by recognition of the Church's supernatural participation in the eternal law. The eternal law is God's ordination of creation by His eternal act of will, so all of these matters -- both revelation in Scripture and the Magisterial authority itself -- pertain to this ordering, in analogy to the way that the natural law does. That is the basis for the clinging of faith, that which is to be held by faith (de fide tenenda), with respect to these truths, not the ordinary mode of discursive reasoning that we find with respect to the natural law. Yet it is not a matter of sheer authority either, because the eternal law can itself be understood by reason and "the logic of faith." The pastoral magisterial role must be understood in this context, which renders the role of Magisterium as the promulgator of rules, the government for the law of the Gospel and the Kingdom of God, immediately apparent. Thus, both the extraordinary authority to definitively teach dogma and the historical authority concerning dogmatic facts are derived from the same pastoral magisterial authority.
In light of this background, a consistent interpretation can be given to the religious submission of intellect and will to the non-infallible teaching of the Magisterium in the third paragraph of the Profession of Faith, which is covered by the (unchanged) canon 752. Section 10 of the commentary summarizes these teachings as follows:
The third proposition of the Professio fidei states: "Moreover, I adhere with religious submission of will and intellect to the teachings which either the Roman Pontiff or the College of Bishops enunciate when they exercise their authentic Magisterium, even if they do not intend to proclaim these teachings by a definitive act."
To this paragraph belong all those teachings – on faith and morals – presented as true or at least as sure, even if they have not been defined with a solemn judgement or proposed as definitive by the ordinary and universal Magisterium. Such teachings are, however, an authentic expression of the ordinary Magisterium of the Roman Pontiff or of the College of Bishops and therefore require religious submission of will and intellect. They are set forth in order to arrive at a deeper understanding of revelation, or to recall the conformity of a teaching with the truths of faith, or lastly to warn against ideas incompatible with those truths or against dangerous opinions that can lead to error.
The concluding sentence here explicitly invokes the language of the Category B teachings of Donum Veritatis, and it can hardly be a coincidence that Ratzinger included this reference to his prior work. Here I think that Ratzinger has crystallized exactly what authentic Magisterial teaching is, which is to say, what counts as binding on the conscience in the pastoral Magisterium. He does so with this very particular phrase: authentic expression of the ordinary Magisterium. This is precisely how I would define the exercise of pastoral magisterial authority to promulgate rules. And that to which we are bound to render religious submission of mind and will is exactly and only that authentic expression of the ordinary Magisterium! Only this counts as "teaching" for purposes of the pastoral magisterial role. Thus, we have confirmed that Ratzinger's notion of "authentic expression of the ordinary Magisterium" is entirely harmonious with the interpretation of Donum Veritatis that I gave above.
VIII. A case study in the circular firing squad: Fr. Nicola Bux and Fiducia Supplicans
As an example of how this explanation can resolve apparent disagreements between people who share similar concerns, I would point to the highly relevant case of an interview with Fr. Nicola Bux on Fiducia Supplicans. In that interview, he made the following remark:
For sure, Fiducia Supplicans does not belong to the “authentic Magisterium” and is therefore not binding because what is affirmed in it is not contained in the written or transmitted word of God and which the Church, the Roman Pontiff or the College of Bishops, either definitively, that is by solemn judgment, or with ordinary and universal Magisterium, proposes to believe as divinely revealed. One cannot even adhere to it with religious assent of will and intellect.
This provoked a scathing response by Michael Lofton, who is rightly concerned to protect the rightful authority of the Magisterium. But I think that Lofton has misunderstood Fr. Bux's position, especially given that Bux was a close friend and colleague of Ratzinger's. This is not to say that I would agree that everything that Bux has said (especially on the liturgy) comports with Ratzinger's views, but in this case, I believe it does.
Lofton's analysis starts at 5:55, and based on exactly what Bux said, he's exactly right. It sounds like Bux is limiting what would require religious submission of mind and will to the first two paragraphs of the profession of faith, and that would be such an obvious mistake that it's almost unthinkable that Bux would make it. Rather, what I think Bux is saying in the last sentence concerning Fiducia Supplicans is that there are also no third paragraph teachings that require religious submission of intellect and will. In other words, I think the correct interpretation of his statement would be "One cannot even adhere to it with religious assent of will and intellect [under the third paragraph of the profession of faith]." Even that statement would be both curious and cryptic, but it relates directly to the problem that I've covered at length above.
Lofton says at 10:55 that the standard for the authentic Magisterium is whether the teaching in question has "been proposed by the Pope in his ordinary Magisterium." Since Fiducia Supplicans was received in common form by the Pope and since DV 18 specifically says that documents from discasteries concerning faith and morals that are expressly approved by the Pope are in the ordinary Magisterium, this ought to be an easy case. Lofton also quotes Pope St. Pius X in Praestantia Scripturae concerning the Pontifical Biblical Commission, which had similar authority at the time.
Wherefore we find it necessary to declare and to expressly prescribe, and by this our act we do declare and decree that all are bound in conscience to submit to the decisions of the Biblical Commission relating to doctrine, which have been given in the past and which shall be given in the future, in the same way as to the decrees of the Roman congregations approved by the Pontiff; nor can all those escape the note of disobedience or temerity, and consequently of grave sin, who in speech or writing contradict such decisions, and this besides the scandal they give and the other reasons for which they may be responsible before God for other temerities and errors which generally go with such contradictions.
But this is exactly the point of ambiguity, and I think that Bux has in mind Ratzinger's notion of authentic expressions of the ordinary Magisterium. And it simply does not follow that everything -- or even anything -- in a document of the authentic Magisterium is an authentic expression of the ordinary Magisterium, to which all are bound in conscience to submit. And just as we need to identify definitive teachings with respect to the extraordinary Magisterium, so do we need to identify authentic expressions (i.e., those rules promulgated by the Magisterium that are binding on the conscience) with respect to the ordinary Magisterium.
Here are Franzelin's thoughts on the matter, including the authority of Congregational decisions, from On Divine Tradition (1875; trans. Ryan Grant, 2016):
The Holy Apostolic See, to which the divinely constituted custody of the deposit was consigned, as well as the office and duty of feeding the universal Church for the salvation of souls, can prescribe theological decrees, or insofar as they are bound with theological matters, when they must be followed or to forbid that something be followed, not especially from the intention of infallibly deciding a truth with a definitive judgment, but rather, apart from necessity either simply or for certain circumstances to provide for the security of Catholic doctrine. Although in declarations of this kind there might not be an infallible truth of doctrine because hypothetically there is not an intention of deciding this matter; nevertheless, it is infallible security. I say security, both the objective of declared doctrine (either simply or for such certain circumstances), and subjective insofar as it is safe for all to embrace it; it cannot happen that they would refuse to embrace it, because it is not safe and not without a violation of due submission toward the divinely constituted Magisterium. Someone that would deny this distinction within a final and definitive teaching of the Pope speaking ex cathedra as well as among those doctrinal provisions and prohibitions, let him be compelled to have all edicts of the Holy See pertaining to doctrine in whatever way and in one and the same appraisal of definitions ex cathedra, which is indeed from ecclesiastical history, from the practice of the Holy See, and especially from the most studious declaration of a definition ex cathedra promulgated by the Vatican Council, and he will manifestly be shown to be wrong. On the other hand, the distinction between infallible truth and between security of doctrine must be dutifully observed, in so much as they must be understood according to that which was placed in principle, which are spoken of in the corollaries that have been drawn out.
...
Evidently, this assent does not treat on that, which we call religious, on doctrine to be held by the force of a decree as infallibly true or to be rejected as infallibly false or to be noted or to be through another censure of infallible authority for this would be against the hypothesis. Just the same, the authority is so sacred by the force of the supreme and universal Magisterium, that, although it is not granted the status of ex cathedra for defining doctrine to be held by the Universal Church, but for prescribing from a definition of this kind some doctrine which is or is not to be followed, obedience is due. Our adversaries [quoting the Utrecht candidate] do not deny this obedience is indeed due, but they restrict it merely to the omission of external acts, and consequently, even to reverential silence "lest one who might teach some doctrine, nay more that he may write on some matter or offer his judgment"; but by no means except through an ex cathedra definition can an "observance of mind (obsequium mentis) such that one someone would lay aside his opinion and embrace the contrary with so firm a certitude that he would profess to adhere to it with an oath," be demanded. Yet, whenever a Sacred Congregation where a definition ex cathedra does not yet exist, demands an obsequium mentis of this sort, as in the case of Gallileo, "the Holy Congregation of the Inquisition exceeded the limits of its power." We, on the other hand, believe that in judgments of this sort, even published short of a definition ex cathedra, obedience is demanded and must be furnished, which includes an obsequium of the mind, but certainly that it would be infallibly judged that a doctrine were true or false (to the extent that our adversary seems to have understood our opinion). Rather that it will be judged that a doctrine contained in such a judgment is secure, and for us this is certainly not from the motive of divine faith (or account of God the revealer or the Church teaching infallibly), but from the motive of sacred authority, whose office is without a doubt to provide for the soundness and security of doctrine, to be embraced with the obsequium mentis and to reject what is contrary. This is not argued about those decrees, wherein nothing other than silence was enjoined (as, for example, we know Paul V did concerning the doctrine on the assistance of divine grace), but the discussion is on the responses and the decrees, in which some doctrine is ordered to be followed or not to be followed. Therefore, this is proposed to those to which it pertains, not only to be silent but in that sense, in which it is declared, must be taught and defended, and for that reason the obsequium of the mind is included; if not then you would suspect perhaps that hypocrisy and feigning were commanded. Next, since, in theological doctrine its own place and even its own characteristic reasoning, on account of which the assent demanded, is not internally observed, rather, the authority proposing truth, that sacred universal authority of doctrinal providence by the force of its office is the most sufficient motive from which a pious will can and ought command a religious or theological consensus of understanding. I reckon that our opinion rests upon very grave arguments.
Even Louis Cardinal Billot, SJ, says the same thing in De Ecclesia, as quoted in this article by S.D. Wright on the subject of the non-infallible Magisterium (and corroborated by King's assessment at p. 81):
[W]hen the Sacred Congregations declare that some doctrine cannot safely be handed on (that is, it is not safe), we are bound to judge that this doctrine is, I do not say in itself erroneous or false or anything like that, but simply that it is not safe, and so in the future not to adhere to it because it is not safe.
And if they declare that some other doctrine cannot safely be denied (that is, it is safe), we are bound to judge that this doctrine is, not only safe, but also to be followed and embraced as safe (and I am not saying that it is in itself certain precisely in virtue of this decision).
But strictly speaking, that which now is not safe, especially in the composite sense of the decision, afterwards can turn out to be safe, if perhaps the competent authority, having discussed the matter again and in the light of new reasons, promulgates another decision….
There are two notable considerations here. First, Billot, someone who was well-known for ultramontane views of the papacy, sees the possibility of error and reformability in these decisions while still confirming their infallible safety. In other words, even those with an expansive view of papal infallibility recognize that it is not coextensive with the boundaries of infallible safety. Second, Billot specifically used the term promulgates to describe this activity of the Congregation, and unlike the other Jesuits we have considered here, Billot was of the Thomist school. It is significant that he used this particular term, which relates to the Thomist account of law, as opposed to "teaches" or another general term for the role of the Magisterium. That clearly conveys that these declarations are to be understood as rules, normative guidelines under the aspect of the good, and it is in this context that Billot speaks of infallible safety.
I think it is therefore reasonable to assume that Bux is following Ratzinger in this tradition of distinguishing the authentic expression of the ordinary Magisterium within a document from the teaching of a document issued by the ordinary Magisterium. If that is the case, then it is a legitimate question whether Fiducia Supplicans includes any authentic expressions of the ordinary Magisterium. With respect to any new teachings, which I believed is what Bux has in mind, I do not see any. Indeed, in terms of the rules promulgated by the Magisterium, they all seem to be the same rules that had been previously issued. For example: "For this reason, one should neither provide for nor promote a ritual for the blessings of couples in an irregular situation." "In any case, precisely to avoid any form of confusion or scandal, when the prayer of blessing is requested by a couple in an irregular situation, even though it is expressed outside the rites prescribed by the liturgical books, this blessing should never be imparted in concurrence with the ceremonies of a civil union, and not even in connection with them. Nor can it be performed with any clothing, gestures, or words that are proper to a wedding."
On the contrary, all of the new teaching seems to be speculation within the teaching magisterial role, none of would require religious submission of the mind and will according to the Magisterium-as-government account. In the teaching magisterial role, the Magisterium takes a similar role as the government does when issuing reports or other informational documents, which is to say that they are judged for their accuracy and truth in the same way that we make such judgments for anything else. Take, for example, the following theological assertions: "The value of this document, however, is that it offers a specific and innovative contribution to the pastoral meaning of blessings, permitting a broadening and enrichment of the classical understanding of blessings, which is closely linked to a liturgical perspective. Such theological reflection, based on the pastoral vision of Pope Francis, implies a real development from what has been said about blessings in the Magisterium and the official texts of the Church." "Within the horizon outlined here appears the possibility of blessings for couples in irregular situations and for couples of the same sex, the form of which should not be fixed ritually by ecclesial authorities to avoid producing confusion with the blessing proper to the Sacrament of Marriage."
This is the Magisterium as participating in a dialogue with theologians, and there is no obligation to agree with the assertions. A theologian may find them persuasive. He may not. He may certainly question the prudence or imprudence of issuing this kind of document under the surrounding conditions, and as these assertions are not binding as rules, there is no question of dissent in that regard. In any case, as has been made absolutely clear with the examples of African and Eastern churches, this in no sense binds anyone's conscience to issue such blessings, and by consequence, has no assurance of the safety of the souls of those who give them or those who receive them. Certainly, priests who care about the state of their own souls, to say nothing of those of their flocks, would certainly be prudent to ascertain exactly what they intend before issuing them. At most, Fiducia Supplicans might implicitly maintain as theologically safe the idea that there can be spontaneous blessings of any manner of things with due care that nothing unfit is being blessed, but that would again be nothing new. And the Eastern rites do not even necessarily allow that practice, even though it is a theological possibility in the broader sense. So Bux's conclusion that, at least in terms of new teaching, Fiducia Supplicans includes no new authentic expressions of the ordinary Magisterium does not seem particularly difficult to accept.
So, pace Fr. Bux, we should affirm that there is a true sense in which Fiducia Supplicans was an exercise of the authentic Magisterium, for the simple reason that it is clearly an act of the ordinary papal Magisterium. But, pace Michael Lofton, it is certainly at least possible that there is no new teaching or theological development that is an authentic expression of the ordinary Magisterium, in the sense of promulgation of rules, that would be entitled to religious submission of intellect and will. Thus, a proper understanding of the Magisterium as government can resolve the conflict between the position. If we understand this under the aspects of the good, what is to be embraced and what is to be avoided, the distinction between authentic expressions of the ordinary Magisterium (the pastoral magisterial role) and the teaching magisterial role becomes apparent.
IX. Confusion in Magisterial scholarship and recent papal overreach
So why has this become so complicated? If I may be permitted a bit of oversimplication, the Suarian confusion between the teaching magisterial role and the pastoral magisterial role seems to be the the culprit, since Suarez's account was at least implicitly accepted by significant figures such as St. John Henry Newman. The confusion is then that the theological notes from the teaching magisterial role become mixed up with levels of authority in the pastoral magisterial role. The theological notes concern speculative truths under the aspect of truth, which is really a hermeneutic method akin to the way in which the authority of Scripture is in some sense above other theological authorities. In point of fact, under the aspect of truth as truth, propositions are either true or false regardless of the source behind them, and it is only a question of how one finds out whether they are true or not. Propositions of faith are no more or less true than any other propositions; the sole difference is in the motive for belief. So the "authority" of true propositions in terms of likelihood of truth is a different in kind from normative authority, which is the kind of authority founds in the pastoral Magisterium.
The problem with mapping Magisterial authority to the theological notes is that it creates a continuum-and-apex view of authority that turns ordinary and extraordinary Magisterial authority on its head. This leads to patent absurdities, such as Dom John Chapman's assertion that Catholics in the time of Honorius should have listened to Honorius's heresy until it became clear that the teaching wasn't authoritative. That is a ridiculous stance to take; the intellect can no more give assent to falsehood than a man can flap his arms and fly. Yet this sort of approach to treating magisterial "weight" as if it were evidential weight is ubiquitous. One finds it in not only Chapman but also the recent magisterial scholarship of John Joy, Richard Gaillardetz, Avery Dulles, Francis Sullivan, and Lawrence King. Enough people have tried to make sense of this proposal based on degrees of intellectual assent that we can prudently determine at this point that it is hopeless. Only recognizing a distinction in kind and not degree in the authority of the pastoral Magisterium can provide a way out of this intellectual morass. By contrast, failing to do so can only produce modal confusion among Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium as authoritative modes of discerning First Truth.
The failure to do so is precisely what produces this false dichotomy between hypomagisterialism and hypermagisterialism. Unfortunately, hypermagisterialism appears to be running rampant in the current papacy, and the responses to date have been singularly ineffective, as best evidenced by the foolish and ill-advised dubia offered to Pope Francis's teaching and the buffoonish "filial correction" that was subsequently offered. Such documents are only appropriate as response in the teaching magisterial role, in which papal authority is not even implicated. And if those sorts of "corrections" are to be offered, it should be made extraordinarily clear whether they are being made of the Pope in his teaching magisterial role with no binding authority as Pope or else that they are charges of scandal, hypocrisy, or negligence with no implications concerning the Pope's authority, as Sts. Catherine and Bernard made. But again, the complete and utter failure to make these traditional distinctions between the pastoral and teaching magisteria has made these sorts of responses indistinguishable from hypomagisterialism. Instead, the response should be a clear delineation of papal authority in the pastoral magisterial role as promulgation of binding rules, which means that the Pope only enjoys infallibility concerning the teaching magisterial role in extraordinary circumstances. As contrasted with what the "dubia cardinals" did, one should first establish that the Pope is or is not acting within the scope of his pastoral magisterial role and only then offer the criticism that is appropriate to the teaching magisterial role.
Let us then turn to responding to certain assertions made by Cardinal Fernandez. First, in an interview with Edward Pentin, Fernandez asserts:
When we speak of obedience to the magisterium, this is understood in at least two senses, which are inseparable and equally important. One is the more static sense, of a “deposit of faith,” which we must guard and preserve unscathed. But on the other hand, there is a particular charism for this safeguarding, a unique charism, which the Lord has given only to Peter and his successors.
In this case, we are not talking about a deposit, but about a living and active gift, which is at work in the person of the Holy Father. I do not have this charism, nor do you, nor does Cardinal Burke. Today only Pope Francis has it. Now, if you tell me that some bishops have a special gift of the Holy Spirit to judge the doctrine of the Holy Father, we will enter into a vicious circle (where anyone can claim to have the true doctrine) and that would be heresy and schism. Remember that heretics always think they know the true doctrine of the Church. Unfortunately, today, not only do some progressives fall into this error but also, paradoxically, do some traditionalist groups.
This is blatant confusion of the teaching magisterial role and the pastoral magisterial role. "Obedience" (and really "assent") to truth in Scripture is to the authority of divine revelation itself, the God Who reveals and Who can neither deceive nor be deceived. The "living and active gift" that Fernandez apparently has in mind is the Suarian "new revelation," and I hope that I have made abundantly clear at this point why that confuses the pastoral and teaching roles. If we completely deny that there is such a thing, then Fernandez's authority claim here is vacuous. Any theologian or even any layperson is entitled to prudently judge the ordinary Magisterium in the teaching magisterial role, which is entitled to no more deference than any other private theological work. With respect to truth, the maxim is true that "even a cat can look on a king."
This is an important point to reiterate. Barring the extraordinary (and extraordinarily rare) exercise of the infallible Magisterium, the Pope has no charism at all with respect to his acts in the teaching magisterial role. On the contrary, especially in those areas where the Pope has invited "dialogue" and "reflection," it is literally impossible that a rule binding on the conscience was promulgated. If I am free to offer a different opinion, then I am by definition not bound in conscience, because nothing has even been offered that is "true or at least sure" to which I must adhere.
Fernandez (and perhaps even Pope Francis himself) constantly seem to want to have it both ways, trying to demand religious submission without acting in the mode where religious submission is warranted. Ironically, the explanatory press release on Fiducia Supplicans actually confirms Fr. Bux's assessment that there is nothing of the authentic Magisterium in the new teaching of the document, but Fernandez still attempts to demand religious submission to it. The only teaching binding on the conscience is in Section 1, "Doctrine," and it only refers to what has been taught (and taught perennially) as doctrine de fide. But then Fernandez attempts to invent some sort of binding obligation that simply does not exist.
Documents of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith such as Fiducia supplicans, in their practical aspects, may require more or less time for their application depending on local contexts and the discernment of each diocesan Bishop with his Diocese. In some places no difficulties arise for their immediate application, while in others it will be necessary not to introduce them, while taking the time necessary for reading and interpretation.
Some Bishops, for example, have established that each priest must carry out the work of discernment and that he may, however, perform these blessings only in private. None of this is problematic if it is expressed with due respect for a text signed and approved by the Supreme Pontiff himself, while attempting in some way to accommodate the reflection contained in it.
Each local Bishop, by virtue of his own ministry, always has the power of discernment in loco, that is, in that concrete place that he knows better than others precisely because it is his own flock. Prudence and attention to the ecclesial context and to the local culture could allow for different methods of application, but not a total or definitive denial of this path that is proposed to priests.
...
The real novelty of this Declaration, the one that requires a generous effort of reception and from which no one should declare themselves excluded, is not the possibility of blessing couples in irregular situations. It is the invitation to distinguish between two different forms of blessings: “liturgical or ritualized” and “spontaneous or pastoral”. The Presentation clearly explains that «the value of this document […] is that it offers a specific and innovative contribution to the pastoral meaning of blessings, permitting a broadening and enrichment of the classical understanding of blessings, which is closely linked to a liturgical perspective». This «theological reflection, based on the pastoral vision of Pope Francis, implies a real development from what has been said about blessings in the Magisterium and the official texts of the Church».
This clearly begs the question: how can there possibly be an obligation to "accommodate the reflection" of the teaching Magisterium? There is no such obligation if no rule binding the conscience has been promulgated! This is by no means saying that the question of how to implement a rule is trivial; the practically practical is different from the speculatively practical. Rules still must be applied in concrete circumstances, after all. But an obligation to implement first requires a rule, and speculative discussion about whether there is such a rule and what that rule is are entirely incompatible with promulgating such a rule as normative. In this case, Fernandez hasn't promulgated a rule at all. It is "come on, guys, you have to play along," but there is no such obligation, nor does to the Pope have any charism of truth concerning these theological discussions.
Indeed, Pope Francis's charter for Fernandez in the DDF maintains that no such rules are being promulgated at all:
Moreover, you know that the Church "grow[s] in her interpretation of the revealed word and in her unerstanding of truth" without this implying the imposition of a single way of expressing it. For "Differing currents of thought in philosophy, theology, and pastoral practice, if open to being reconciled by the Spirit in respect and love, can enable the Church to grow." This harmonious growth will preserve Christian doctrine more effectively than any control mechanism.
The problem seems to be exactly what I pointed out previously: the "People's theology" that Francis and Fernandez endorse is a theological school, not an ecclesiology. To the extent they want to offer that theology for discussion among the theologians as to its utility and prudence, then it is fair game for discussion. And much like the liberation theology from which it sprang, it will probably be deemed deficient as a theological method. What they can't do it to dogmatize (or even command) adherence to a school with no essential connection to divine revelation, which is an act in teaching magisterial role. Yet that is exactly what they claim to be doing.
Take this example of "liturgical and ritualized" and "spontaneous or pastoral." The doctrine of sacramentals was laid out in Sacrosanctum Concilium:
59. The purpose of the sacraments is to sanctify men, to build up the body of Christ, and, finally, to give worship to God; because they are signs they also instruct. They not only presuppose faith, but by words and objects they also nourish, strengthen, and express it; that is why they are called "sacraments of faith." They do indeed impart grace, but, in addition, the very act of celebrating them most effectively disposes the faithful to receive this grace in a fruitful manner, to worship God duly, and to practice charity.
It is therefore of the highest importance that the faithful should easily understand the sacramental signs, and should frequent with great eagerness those sacraments which were instituted to nourish the Christian life.
60. Holy Mother Church has, moreover, instituted sacramentals. These are sacred signs which bear a resemblance to the sacraments: they signify effects, particularly of a spiritual kind, which are obtained through the Church's intercession. By them men are disposed to receive the chief effect of the sacraments, and various occasions in life are rendered holy.
61. Thus, for well-disposed members of the faithful, the liturgy of the sacraments and sacramentals sanctifies almost every event in their lives; they are given access to the stream of divine grace which flows from the paschal mystery of the passion, death, the resurrection of Christ, the font from which all sacraments and sacramentals draw their power. There is hardly any proper use of material things which cannot thus be directed toward the sanctification of men and the praise of God.
62. With the passage of time, however, there have crept into the rites of the sacraments and sacramentals certain features which have rendered their nature and purpose far from clear to the people of today; hence some changes have become necessary to adapt them to the needs of our own times.
If even ritualized blessings ("the rites of the ... sacramentals," including the liturgy itself) can be subject to this lack of clarity, how much more is it the case with so-called spontaneous blessings? But this is essentially the nonsense at the heart of the People's theology and liberation theology; that political participation in the Body of Christ is something to be open to all in a kind of spiritual "town" that it "open to being reconciled by the Spirit in respect and love." But the Church is not a political entity except in the accidental sense. The Church is a supernatural institution essentially ordered to salvation by God. Pope Francis has himself condemned liberation theology for originating in made-made Marxism, but his own justicialism is no better as a basis for the supernatural ordering of the Church. This is the fundamental error of liberation theology, confusion of the natural and supernatural orders of the Church, and it is one that Pope Francis himself repeats.
Amoris Laetitia, Ad Theologian Promovendam, and Fiducia Supplicans were all attempts to substitute this political openness ("here comes everybody" and "make a mess") at the expense of the ordering of the sacramentals to the Sacraments themselves and, in the ultimate sense, the supernatural end of man. That is a theological claim, not an authoritative doctrinal claim, and the faithful have every right to respond "no thanks, I'm Thomist" (or Scotist or even Suarian). From a doctrinal perspective, those theological claims are nothing but explanations that may be good ones or bad ones. Just as the reasoning in the authentic Magisterium has absolutely no binding force, being an act of the teaching magisterial role rather than the pastoral magisterial role, so do these theological musings lack binding force. Such theological reasoning can be badly wrong to the point of misleading the faithful into perdition; we have the cases of Honorius's "profane treachery" and John XXII's speculations on soul sleep as examples. And as I have indicated, I believe that the "People's theology" endorsed by Francis and Fernandez is little better than liberation theology as a school and that it has produced the same confusion concerning right disposition for the Sacraments that was already identified in Sacrosanctum Concilium. And if the question is whether I or anyone else owes religious submission to this misguided theological fringe, I must reply with a firm "no."
Conclusion
In order to disarm the circular firing squad among conservatives, I have offered a careful distinction between the Magisterium in its pastoral magisterial role and its teaching magisterial role, only the first of which is properly considered the Ecclesia docens in the formal sense. In the pastoral magisterial role, the Magisterium acts as a government, a promulgator of rules binding on the conscience for the practice of Christian life and the law of faith, including truths contemplated under the aspect of the good. There must be a manifest mind and will to promulgate such a rule, such as when the Magisterium presents a doctrine as the constant and universal teaching of the Church or offers it as a guide that is "true or at least sure," which may be determined by contextual considerations such as "the nature of the documents, the insistence with which a teaching is repeated, and the very way in which it is expressed." Such acts of promulgation are called authentic expressions of the ordinary Magisterium, and these (and only these) receive divine assistance of the Holy Spirit and are thus are owed religious submission of mind and will. This includes reverent silence under DV 28-31 even if one is intellectually unable to assent to their speculative content.
By contrast, the acts of the Magisterium outside of authentic expressions are only acts of the teaching magisterial role, which are entitled only to the deference that we would give to a teacher based on greater wisdom or the like. The laity are free to charge the acts of the teaching magisterial role with error, imprudence, hypocrisy, or scandal, even publicly and even in mass media, under Canon 212 §3, provided that one does not thereby assert that the Magisterium "can be habitually mistaken in its prudential judgments, or that it does not enjoy divine assistance in the integral exercise of its mission." In my opinion, public charges of heresy against the Pope in the absence of clear public consensus of the theologians or the episcopate (the only bodies qualified to give a "filial correction" in these circumstances) violate this canonical prohibition and are therefore gravely imprudent.
