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One and Catholic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2024

Henry St John O.P.
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The Russian Orthodox lay theologian Komiakov once said that the Pope of Rome was the first Protestant in the world, and this saying is generally taken to mean that, like the Protestants, the Pope proclaims doctrine as truth ex sese, non autem ex consensu Ecclesiae.

Without going so far as this, Dr E. L. Mascall in The Recovery of Unity makes it the thesis of his two final chapters on the Papacy that its claim to universal jurisdiction has resulted in its becoming, in part at least, an excrescence on the life of the Church, impoverishing the function of the episcopate and setting itself, as a preponderantly juridical entity, above and apart from the inner life of grace and truth that it should exist to foster.

Such criticisms as these and others closely connected with them appear fairly constantly in ecumenical writing, and much patient elucidation is needed to meet them and set them in their true perspective. The purpose of this article is to point to certain considerations concerning the phrase ex sese, non autem ex consensu Ecclesiae in the Vatican Definition which tend to show that it does not separate the Pope from the Church and set him above and apart from its true inner life, but on the contrary, integrates him into the Church’s teaching authority as the final and decisive step in its exercise.

Faith is a gift of God, the beginning in us of eternal life. It is given in baptism and comes to us as an encounter with Christ in his Church. The content of our faith is the saving truth of God,

Type
Research Article
Information
Blackfriars , Volume 41 , Issue 478 , January 1960 , pp. 4 - 10
Copyright
Copyright © 1960 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution de Ecclesia Christi, Cap. iv. Denzinger 1839.

2 The Recovery of Unity‐A Theological Approach by E.L. Mascall, Longmans 1958.

3 Some of the points raised by Dr Mascall have already been commented on in two articles of mine in Blackfriars: Bible and Tradition, Aug. 1958, and Anglicanism and the Papacy,, Nov. 1958.

4 For a clear and illuminating discussion of this see Faith and Dissident Christians by Fr Charles Davis, The Clergy Review, April 1959.

5 The Eastern Orthodox Church, alone among the dissident Churches, though often divided by schisms, still adheres to the traditional doctrine of a visible Church organically one and essentially indivisible. See Evanston Report 1954, pp. 92–95.

6 Peter, Disciple‐Apostle‐Martyr, A Historical and Theological Study, translated by Floyd V. Filson, London 1953.

7 In St Peter, O.U.P. 1954.

8 The Sheepfold and the Shepherd. Longmans 1956, pp. 207ff.

9 On this point see: Is Newman's Theory of Development Catholic? by H. Francis Davis, Blackfriars, July‐August 1958, and The Starting Point of Marian Doctrine by Cornelius Ernst, O.P., Blackfriars, November 1959.

10 The Rule pictures him as the representative of Christ in the monastery, and as responsible to the dread judgment of God for the way he rules his subjects and for the teaching he gives (Cap. 2). He must do all things in the fear of God and observance of the Rule, knowing that he will certainly have to render an account of all his judgments to God‐the most Just Judge (Cap. 3). The Rule of St Benedict, translated and edited by Abbot Justin McCann, Burns Oates 1952.

11 The mind of the Church in this context (the expression is often used in a wider and looser sense) means the possession by all the faithful of the deposit of faith, the revelation given by Christ to his Church in the beginning of its life. In this mind of the Church at different periods of its history there have always been truths defined and taught by its supreme magisterium, truths explicitly taught by its ordinary magisterium, and yet other implicitly held truths, the subject perhaps of theological differences and disputes, only to be recognized and rromulgated as truths of faith at some future date. It is his sole source of knowledge of the faith and he is as dependent upon it for this as any member of his flock. His defining power, which all bishops share when using it in common, he alone has it personally, is a God‐given assistance to recognize, in the mind of the Church, truths so conformable to the Scriptures and Apostolic tradition that they can be declared to be contained in the deposti of faith and therefore divinely revealed.