“He shall be cast forth as a branch and shall wither.”
Tradivox Catechism Review
Part I: How can we find the teaching of the universal ordinary magisterium?
Part II: What do the catechisms tell us about heretics and the Church?
Part III: How is the Church “visibly united in faith,” according to Cardinal Billot?
Part IV: Why is it essential that the Church is visibly united in faith?
Part V: What sort of heresy results in being outside the Church?
Part VI: What is the difference between an excommunicate and an open heretic?
Objections
Obj. I: Are we obliged to believe every person who calls himself a Catholic?
Obj. II: Should mistaken Catholics be called “material heretics”?
Obj. III: What is the state of a Catholic who submits to a false magisterium?
Photo by Manuel Sardo on Unsplash. This is an expanded extract from a previous essay, ‘Tradivox Part IV: Why is it essential that the Church is visibly united in faith?’
Vines, Broken Branches and the unity of the Church
Unity and being
In previous essays, I have explained the importance of the note of unity for identifying the true Church of Christ – and shown that Catholic theologians treat this unity as a permanent property which the Church cannot lose.
Of the four marks or notes of the Church, unity seems to be the first and most fundamental. This is because, aside from being a note of the Church, unity is a sort of condition for “being” anything at all.
As previously stated, in analogical terms, unity is an essential property for something to be what it is. Insofar as unity is reduced or lost, being itself is also reduced or lost.
To follow the analogy used by Our Lord in the same set of discourses in the Gospel of St John, and developed along these lines by St Thomas More – let us consider the example of a vine.
As we read these texts, let’s note how consistently St Thomas distinguishes between those who leave the Church by their own act, and who are ejected by authority. Similarly, there is no sense here that heresy results in a man leaving the Church only once it has been recognised by authority. According to St Thomas More’s witness, it is the act and state of heresy that achieve this effect by their very nature, as we shall see.
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Our Lord tells us that he is the vine, and we are the branches – and that apart from him, we cannot bear any fruit, or indeed do anything. This is rightly understood in terms of the life of grace in our souls, and in the impossibility of salvation outside the Church. But let’s abstract from salvation and consider it in more fundamental terms, in relation to the being of the vine.
A branch broken off of a vine is separated from the unity of the vine, considered as a particular being. The branch has become a different thing to the vine. While life and unity continues in the original vine’s being, the branch is now a separate thing – even if it can somehow be grafted back onto the vine. Incidentally, even if some form of life appears to remain, the branch is on its way to yet more disunity through decomposition. In his Dialogue Concerning Heresies, St Thomas More wrote:
“[S]ince only the church of Christ is the vine that Christ spoke of in the Gospel, that he takes for his mystical body, and since every branch cut off from the tree loses its vital nourishment, we must needs well know that all these branches of heretics fallen from the Church, the vine of Christ’s mystical body, no matter how fresh and green they may seem, are yet actually but witherlings that shall shrivel and dry up and be able to serve for nothing but the fire.”[1]
If the vine itself were to lose its unity progressively (for instance, by being slowly broken into pieces), it would eventually come to lose its being altogether, and itself cease to be a living vine.
With regards to the Church, which is a multitude of men united as a society, this unity of faith is a fundamental constituent of her unity as a being, and of her very being as a single body. St Thomas More also writes:
“[T]he Church is and must be all of one belief and have one and the same faith. And it was written in the Acts of the Apostles: […] ‘The multitude of faithful, believing people were all of one mind and of one heart’ [Acts 4:32]. And in the Church is the Holy Spirit, […] ‘who makes all of one mind in the house’ of God [Ps 68.7]; that is, in the Church. But among heretics there are almost as many divergent minds as there are people.”[2]
Those who separate themselves from this unity and being, cease to be a part of the body – and this is quite distinct from being separated from grace, as well as from being excommunicated by authority. As St Thomas More writes:
“As it is now, any member of that body, till it be cut off for fear of corruption of the rest, hang on it, in a sense, and has some little light or life by the Spirit of God that upholds the body of his church, being ever in a position to take occasion of amendment by some vein of that wholesome moisture of God’s grace that specially spreads throughout that holy body.
“But those who by the profession of heresies and infidelity fall off from that body or, because of the fear of their corrupting the rest, are by excommunication cast out of the body, they completely dry up and wither away.
“… all the good works that can be done will be of no use if we are out of the stem. And out of the stem of the vine are all who are not grafted in by faith, or have fallen off by public profession of heresy, or have been cut off and cast out for infidelity. For faith is the gate into God’s church, just as misbelief is the gate into the devil’s church.”[3]
Separation from the unity of government
Separation from unity of government also leads a man out of the Church. But let’s look more closely at this. Vatican I teaches that Christ instituted the papacy as the “permanent principle” and “visible foundation” of the “unity of faith and communion” amongst the clergy and the faithful.[4]
To return to the catechisms which inspired these essays, Fr Frassinetti writes:
“Following the authority of all the Holy Fathers, all Catholics are agreed that the origin and centre of this unity is the Roman Pontiff […] Take away this centre of unity, and they would be so many separate churches, and no longer one Church.”[5]
In another sense, as we saw in a previous part, unity of faith and charity are more fundamental, because they are the ends to which unity of government is ordered.
And of faith and charity, it is well known that while true faith can exist without charity, true charity cannot exist without faith. In other words, unity of faith is a prerequisite for a unity of charity.
If – though impossible – the Church herself were to cease being united in faith, she would cease to be one body: in fact, she would cease to be, altogether. But just as it would be false to say that the living vine and a separated branch still constitute one vine, so too would it be false to say that the Church and those who separate themselves from her unity still constitute one body. They cannot constitute one body. Billot explains, by comparing the notes of unity and sanctity:
“The holiness of the members we are talking about here concerns individuals directly – and it is indirectly, through these individuals, that holiness can be attributed to the society whose visible principles and mediations contribute to produce this life of grace.
“Unity, however, deals immediately with the collectivity itself, from which it removes division in the profession of faith. Furthermore, the wicked in the Church do not prevent it from containing saints as well, who show it to be true. But if heretics were in the Church, they would formally remove the indivisibility of the society which is of the very definition of unity.”[6] (Emphasis added)
Van Noort makes the same point in the form of a series of questions:
“If these purely material heretics [N.B.: this refers to those such as Anglicans in good faith – not Catholics in error, for reasons discussed elsewhere] were considered members of the Catholic Church in the strict sense of the term, how would one ever locate the “Catholic Church’? How would the Church be one body? How would it profess one faith? Where would be its visibility? Where its unity?
“For these and other reasons we find it difficult to see any intrinsic probability to the opinion which would allow for public heretics, in good faith, remaining members of the Church.”[7]
Note that we are not discussing the matter of secret heretics, or obscure cases. The question turns entirely on the external profession of faith – and the refusal or failure to do so when required. As St Thomas More writes:
“[W]hoever professes a false belief, let him be sure that he is gone out of the gate of God’s church before actual excommunication, and fallen off the body of the vineyard. And if they are underground, neither professing their heresies nor actually being excommunicated and cast out, they are in the Church but not completely of it. Rather, in a sense, they are of it in such a way as a dead hand is rather a burden in the body than really any member, organ, or instrument thereof.”[8]
In a sense, this is like the “No True Scotsman” fallacy – but while this is a fallacy when applied to Scotsmen, the Church herself teaches that a man ceases to be a Catholic, by definition, by the very fact of his open and clear rejection of the profession of faith.
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Destruction
Complete destruction by division is possible for a real vine, but it is impossible for the Church. Even if whole swathes separate themselves from her and left her much smaller than before, she would still remain what she is: a visible body, united in faith. This would be so, even if she were to be obscured by these masses of open, ex-Catholics who had not been declared as such and expelled by authority. St Thomas More wrote:
“[E]ven if some nations fall away, yet just as however many boughs may fall from a tree, even if more fall than are left on it, they still create no doubt as to which is the original tree even if each of them is planted again in another place and grows bigger than the trunk it first came from – just so, when we see and well know that all the companies and sects of heretics are they that are cut off, and that the Church is the trunk that they all came out from.”[9]
As he says – in such a circumstance, there must remain the original and true Church, distinct from those who have separated themselves from her. If there are two rival claimants, and one has continued to profess the same faith as before, and the other has changed, diluted and neglected it, it is clear which retains the continuity.
But even though her unity in faith cannot be lost, and the Church’s being cannot be destroyed, this analogy shows how fundamental the note of unity, especially in faith, is to the Church.
Application to membership and a preliminary conclusion
It should now be becoming clear why it is necessary, by definition, for a person to profess the faith in order to be a member of the Church. For the same reasons, it is necessary that one avoid all acts, words and omissions which are incompatible with this profession of faith. These reasons also show that loss of membership is not a punishment for openly and clearly rejecting the faith: but rather the logical consequence of such a rejection – or, it is that rejection considered from another angle.
The appeal to the “legal order” whereby the most outrageous heresy remains occult until declared by the Church is an unworthy evasion. As St Thomas More – among many others – writes (in words which are very similar to those of Pius XII):
“Our Lord, in this his mystical body of his church, carries his members, some sick, some whole, and all sickly. Nor are they for every sin clean cast off from the body, but only if they are, for fear of their causing infection, cut off, or else by their own will they depart and separate themselves, as do these heretics who either reject the Church wilfully themselves or else for their obstinacy are put out.”[10] (Emphasis added)
In many cases, it is not our business whether a given man has or has not lost membership of the Church: we are not required to go around checking the Catholic credentials of our fellow Mass-attendees. But the situation could be different when it pertains to a supposed member of the hierarchy claiming jurisdiction over us; and perhaps it could be different when it comes to choosing a spouse, teachers for our children, and so on.
Of course, there is no pretence here of “declaring” someone to be outside the Church, or of removing them from the Church by our private judgment: this is nothing more than a cognitive recognition of the facts, relevant only to those of us who are aware of them.
As I mentioned before, it would be false to say that mere mistakes put someone outside the Church. There must be some positive reason to conclude that such things are not mistakes, but true departures from the faith.
But while we all want to give everyone as much benefit of the doubt as is possible, some persons make clear that they are not mistaken, ignorant, or under pressure. Rather, they make it clear that they know what they are doing in departing from the united profession of faith – even if they still claim to be Catholics.
Further, none of us are required to engage in mental acrobatics. There are some cases of clear and certain departures from the Faith, in the face of which a reasonable man cannot continue to assume the best, or draw any conclusion other than that the person has indeed departed from the Faith.
And what a reasonable man cannot conclude, he certainly cannot be obliged to conclude by some bizarre legal fiction.
In the words of St Robert Bellarmine:
“[M]en are not bound to, or cannot scrutinize hearts; but when they see someone acting in a heretical way, they simply judge that he is a heretic, and they condemn him as a heretic.”[11]
But can we be any more specific about sort of heresy actually separates a man from the unity of faith, and thus from the Church? That is outside the scope of this essay, but addressed in detail elsewhere.
Further Reading:
St Thomas More, Dialogue Concerning Heresies
Mgr G. Van Noort, Dogmatic Theology Volume II: Christ’s Church
Tradivox Catechism Review
Part I: How can we find the teaching of the universal ordinary magisterium?
Part II: What do the catechisms tell us about heretics and the Church?
Part III: How is the Church “visibly united in faith,” according to Cardinal Billot?
Part IV: Why is it essential that the Church is visibly united in faith?
Part V: What sort of heresy results in being outside the Church?
Part VI: What is the difference between an excommunicate and an open heretic?
Objections
Obj. I: Are we obliged to believe every person who calls himself a Catholic?
Obj. II: Should mistaken Catholics be called “material heretics”?
Obj. III: What is the state of a Catholic who submits to a false magisterium?
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[1] St Thomas More, Dialogue Concerning Heresies, rendered by Mary Gottschalk, Scepter Press, New York NY, 2006 pp 238
[2] Ibid., 222
[3] Ibid., 225-6
[4] In full: “In order, then, that the episcopal office should be one and undivided and that, by the union of the clergy, the whole multitude of believers should be held together in the unity of faith and communion, he set blessed Peter over the rest of the apostles and instituted in him the permanent principle of both unities and their visible foundation.” Vatican I, Pastor Aeternus, Session 4, 18 July 1870. Available at https://www.papalencyclicals.net/councils/ecum20.htm
[5] Giuseppe Frassinetti, A Dogmatic Catechism, trans. Oblate Fathers of St Charles., in Tradivox Vol. Tradivox VIII (and for UK readers) Sophia Institute Press, Manchester NH, 2022, Q.17, p 21.
[6] Louis Cardinal Billot, Tractatus de Ecclesia Christi, Tomus Prior, Prati ex Officina Libraria Giachetti, Filii et soc, 1909, p 146. Translated with DeepL from the French translation by l L’Abbé Jean-Michel Gleize SSPX, published as L’Église I – Sa divine institution et ses notes, Courrier de Rome, Versailles, 2009, p 296, translated by Fr Julian Larrabee. The first paragraph is based more closely on the rendering in Cardinal Louis Billot SJ, L’Église II – Sa constitution intime, trans. L’Abbé Jean-Michel Gleize SSPX, Courrier de Rome, 2009, n. 430.
[7] Mgr G. Van Noort, Dogmatic Theology Volume II: Christ’s Church (6th edition), 1957, trans. Castelot & Murphy), 242, n. 153. And see here for UK readers.
[8] St Thomas More 226
[9] St Thomas More 238. This analogy is developed at length by St Thomas, giving an interesting witness to the late medieval doctrine which he had received on the matter, in Dialogue Concerning Heresies, rendered by Mary Gottschalk, Scepter Press, New York NY, 2006 pp 224-239
[10] St Thomas More 237
[11] St Robert Bellarmine, Controversies of the Christian Religion, trans. Fr Kenneth Baker SJ, Keep the Faith Press, USA, 2016, in ‘The Third General Controversy,’ on the power of the Roman Pontiff in spiritual matters, p 983