Unit quiz: The Church as an Object of Faith: the Marks, the Primacy, the College, Reception and the Grades of Assent

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Question 1

In a parish discussion of Lumen Gentium 8, one participant says that because the Church of Christ 'subsists in' the Catholic Church, the Catholic Church is simply one branch among several, and another says that because the same paragraph mentions 'elements of sanctification and of truth' outside her visible structure, nothing at all is being claimed for the Catholic Church. Using Lumen Gentium 8 and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's 2007 responses, state what the sentence claims and what it does not.The sentence claims identity, not branch membership. Lumen Gentium 8 says that 'this Church constituted and organized in the world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him, although many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure'. The 2007 responses explain that 'subsists' was chosen precisely because it refers to the mark of unity professed in the creed, and that the word 'can only be attributed to the Catholic Church alone'. The same document concedes that the Church of Christ 'is present and operative' in communities not yet in full communion, on account of those elements, and that they 'are deprived neither of significance nor importance in the mystery of salvation'. So the paragraph asserts two things at once: the one Church of Christ continues in the Catholic Church with the fullness of the means of salvation, and real ecclesial gifts exist outside her visible bounds, which is why the separated communities are not nothing.The sentence is a diplomatic compromise that leaves the question open: 'subsists in' was chosen to avoid saying 'is', so a Catholic is free to hold either that the Catholic Church is the one Church or that she is one realisation of a wider reality, and the 2007 responses merely record the more generous of the two readings without settling anything.

Question 2

A diocesan newspaper describes a papal homily at a Wednesday audience as 'an infallible pronouncement', and a blogger replies that papal infallibility covers everything the pope says about faith, morals, politics and economics because Pastor Aeternus says his definitions are irreformable 'of themselves'. Using the text of the 1870 definition, identify the conditions it attaches and say whether either writer has read it correctly.The homily is indeed infallible, because a pope teaching on faith and morals is always protected from error, and the 'of themselves' clause means that whatever a pope defines binds immediately without any reception; the blogger is wrong only in extending the same guarantee to economics, which is not a matter of faith or morals.Neither has. Pastor Aeternus, chapter 4, defines that when the Roman Pontiff speaks ex cathedra, 'that is, when, in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church', he enjoys by divine assistance the infallibility with which Christ willed his Church to be endowed in defining doctrine, 'and therefore such definitions of the Roman pontiff are of themselves, and not by the consent of the church, irreformable'. Four conditions are therefore built into the definition: the act of teaching as universal pastor, the exercise of supreme apostolic authority, a doctrine of faith or morals, and a definition to be held by the whole Church. A homily at an audience meets none of them; economics meets the third only by an equivocation. The 'of themselves' clause answers a different question, whether a definition needs the Church's subsequent consent to be binding. It says it does not.

Question 3

After a Synod of Bishops issues its final document, a journalist writes that 'the synod has voted to change Church teaching and the pope must now implement it', while a canonist replies that the synod's vote was only consultative and therefore carries no weight at all. Using Episcopalis Communio and canon 343, adjudicate between them.Both formulations are wrong in opposite directions. Canon 343 gives the Synod of Bishops a consultative vote, and Episcopalis Communio restates the point while refusing the inference the canonist draws: the fact that the synod 'ordinarily has only a consultative role does not diminish its importance', and a morally unanimous vote 'has a qualitative ecclesial weight which surpasses the merely formal aspect of the consultative vote'. The same constitution provides that 'if it is expressly approved by the Roman Pontiff, the Final Document participates in the ordinary Magisterium of the Successor of Peter'. So the synod cannot change doctrine, because it is not a council and does not teach definitively; but its discernment is not theatre, and a final document approved by the pope becomes an act of his ordinary magisterium, which asks for religious submission under canon 752. The journalist confuses consultation with legislative power; the canonist confuses a consultative vote with an irrelevance.The canonist is right: because the vote is consultative, the final document is advice that a Catholic may set aside as opinion, and only a pope speaking ex cathedra or a council in session can produce teaching that binds anyone.

Question 4

A traditionalist website argues that because the Byzantine Church repudiated the union concluded at Florence in 1439, the Florentine decree on purgatory and on the Roman primacy was never 'received' and therefore never became binding teaching; a progressive website draws the opposite conclusion from the same history, that binding teaching is whatever the faithful end up accepting. Assess both arguments using Lumen Gentium 25 and Pastor Aeternus.The traditionalist is right that reception is required, and the progressive is right about what reception means: a teaching becomes binding when the Church receives it, so Florence's decree never became binding in the East, and the same test explains why the Church's moral teaching on contraception is now doubtful, since a large majority do not receive it.Both arguments make reception a condition of truth, which is the error the texts exclude. Pastor Aeternus says papal definitions are irreformable 'of themselves, and not by the consent of the church'; Lumen Gentium 25 says that to the Church's definitions 'the assent of the Church can never be wanting, on account of the activity of that same Holy Spirit', which describes a promised effect of the definition, not a precondition of its validity. Florence's decree of union was a genuine act of a council in union with the pope, and its doctrinal content on purgatory, the procession of the Spirit and the primacy stands on that authority; the collapse of the political union and the refusal of the Byzantine churches to accept it are historical facts about reception, not a tribunal that annuls the act. What the history does show is that reception is a real process, uneven, slow and sometimes failed, and that its failure is a signal to ask what went wrong, whether in the doctrine, in its formulation, or in the circumstances of its imposition.

Question 5

Two students argue about John Paul II's 1994 letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis. The first says it cannot be infallible teaching because the pope did not speak ex cathedra and the letter is not a definition. The second says it is a dogma of divine faith in the strictest sense, on the same footing as the definition of 1854. Using the 1995 response of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and Ad Tuendam Fidem, state what is settled and what is a matter of theological classification.Settled: the teaching that priestly ordination is reserved to men is to be held definitively and is not open to dissent. Ordinatio Sacerdotalis states that 'the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful'; the 1995 response adds that the teaching 'has been preserved by the constant and universal Tradition of the Church and has been set forth infallibly by the ordinary and universal Magisterium', and that it is 'to be understood as belonging to the deposit of the faith'. The first student's premise is therefore false: a definition is not the only mode of infallible teaching, and Lumen Gentium 25 attributes infallibility to the body of bishops teaching definitively with Peter's successor. Open to theological analysis: whether the teaching belongs to the first paragraph of the Profession of Faith, truths divinely revealed and believed with divine faith, or to the second, truths definitively proposed because they are required for the faithful exposition of the deposit. The 1995 response speaks of the deposit; the standard commentary on Ad Tuendam Fidem places it in the second paragraph. That classification is argued, the obligation is not.The first student is right that infallibility requires an ex cathedra definition, so the letter is authoritative but reformable teaching that a Catholic may criticise in a theological journal; and the second student is right that if it were infallible it would have to be a dogma of divine faith, so the question is whether the pope has defined it.

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