The Ecumenical Heresy of Our Times
The Ecumenical Heresy of Our Times Featured Written by Michael Davies, RIP
The only true Catholic attitude to ecumenism is that set out by Pope Pius XI in his encyclical Mortalium Animos: “Let these separated children return to the Apostolic See established in this city which the Princes of the Apostles, Peter and Paul, consecrated with their blood, to this See, ‘the root and matrix of the Catholic Church,’ not indeed with the idea or hope that the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of truth will abandon the integrity of the Faith and bear their errors, but to subject themselves to its teaching authority and rule.”
Address by Michael Davies
The Remnant Forum, Tarrytown, N.Y., Nov. 1979
We hear a great deal about the ecumenical movement. Today I am going to speak to you about the ecumenical heresy. The theme of this forum is “Fidelity to the Catholic Tradition”. Catholic tradition has been challenged in many ways since the Second Vatican Council but no challenge has been more blatant, more widespread, and more dangerous than that of those who wish the Church to deny Her very nature in the interests of spurious ecumenism.
Before examining false ecumenism, the ecumenical heresy, we must be clear about true Catholic ecumenism. Dietrich von Hildebrand tells us in The Devastated Vineyard that: “The attitude which goes with true ecumenism involves sympathetically emphasizing the elements of truth in other religions while clearly rejecting the errors they contain.” “While clearly rejecting the errors they contain” – I would like you to keep this phrase in mind. It is fundamental to the thesis I shall put before you and I shall be returning to it again.
And what is the aim of ecumenical dialogue pursued in the spirit proposed by von Hildebrand? The only acceptable aim for a Catholic ecumenist is that proposed by Pope Pius XI in Mortalium Animos, that is to bring our separated brethren to realize that: “The unity of Christians cannot be otherwise obtained than by securing the return of the separated to the one true Church of Christ, from which they unhappily withdrew. To the one true Church of Christ, we say, that stands forth before all and that, by the will of its Founder, will remain forever the same as when He Himself established it for the salvation of all mankind.”
The late Cardinal Heenan warned: “It is dishonest to dissemble…The ultimate aim of ecumenism is the reunion of all Christians under the Vicar of Christ.”
Having established the nature and purpose of true Catholic ecumenism we shall proceed at once to examine the ecumenical heresy not in theory but in practice. On Friday, 14th of September this year, a letter from Father Henry Haacke appeared in the Catholic Telegraph. I am surprised that the Catholic Telegraph printed his letter. You will be surprised when I read it to you. Here it is:
I was startled at the news that the Roman Catholic Cathedral of Hartford, Conn., has been loaned to the Protestant Episcopal Church for the “consecration of a bishop. In an effort – no doubt well intentioned – to be understanding to non-Catholics, has not the Archbishop of Harford gone much too far? Why not invite the Chinese “bishop” recently elected by the people – and rebuked by the Vatican…or even Archbishop Lefebvre to the broadminded Cathedral in Hartford? Subjective good faith does not ensure the validity of the Sacrament of Orders or the Eucharist. Should a Catholic cathedral be exposed to the possible “simulation” of these most sacred rites of our Holy Faith…? This can only further confuse and scandalize laity and clergy. Thomas More and John Fisher, have you died in vain?
My first reaction to this letter is to say “God bless you, Father Haacke.” I have never met Father Haacke, I have never corresponded with Father Haacke, I had never even heard of Father Haacke until a reader of The Remnant sent me a zerox of his letter, and what his letter reveals is that, despite the devastation in the vineyard of the Lord which has followed the Second Vatican Council, Father Haacke has retained the sense of what it means to be a Catholic, he is a priest who has retained the ability to think with the Church, sentire cum Ecclesia”, he has a sound grasp of theology and a profound love of the Church. He also has courage.
I don’t know if Father Haacke ever entertained any hope of advancement in the Church, I don’t know if he hoped that one day he might be Monsignor Haacke and need to purchase a cassock with red button-holes. If he has put any money aside for this purpose he need not hesitate about withdrawing it and investing it in a copious supply of Jim Beam, Southern Comfort, or a fishing holiday – because there is certainly no hope whatsoever of any advancement in the Conciliar Church, the American Church, the Ecumenical Church for a priest who is still imbued with the Catholic ethos. Father Haacke has committed the sin against ecumenism for which there is no forgiveness – he has spoken the truth. He is a true disciple of Our Lord Jesus Christ who came into the world to bear witness to the truth.
The first reaction of an ecumenical heretic to Father Haacke’s letter would be to say that it is uncharitable. The correct reaction to his letter is to ask whether what it states is true. If it is true it cannot be uncharitable. There can be no conflict between ‘veritas’, truth, and ‘caritas’, charity.
If Father Haacke’s criticisms are justified then it is Archbishop Whealon of Hartford, Conn, who is being uncharitable – for what is contrary to Christian truth is clearly contrary to Christian charity. If an act is contrary to Christian truth and charity it is an anti-Christian act. I submit to you that Archbishop Whealon has committed an anti-Christian act by allowing his cathedral to be used for the so-called bishop – to be used, as Father Haacke expressed it, for the “simulation” of the most sacred rites of our Holy Faith. Archbishop Whealon is acting contrary to the will of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
When He offered Himself as a perfect sacrifice upon the Cross, Our Lord atoned for the sins of all men and won sufficient grace to save all men – which does not mean that all men will be saved as we have an obligation to co-operate with divine grace in order to achieve our salvation. Our Lord willed, I repeat, Our Lord willed that His Church should be the ordinary means by which divine grace is mediated to men. The Catholic Church is His Mystical Body, an extension of the Incarnation throughout the nations and throughout the centuries. Our Lord willed that divine grace should ordinarily be mediated to men through His Church by means of the seven Sacraments which He instituted. God is not bound by His sacraments. Where necessary he will bestow grace directly upon individual men – but this is an extraordinary means of salvation. The ordinary means of salvation is His Mystical Body, which alone has a mandate to preach the Gospel, offer public worship, and administer the sacraments. The power He bestowed upon His Church is indeed awe-inspiring, terrifying.
“He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects me rejects Him who sent me.”
Our Lord could scarcely have been more specific – to reject the authority of the Church which He founded is to reject Father, Son and Holy Ghost. This is not a personal opinion which I am expressing. I am quoting the words of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Our Lord, then, founded one Church and one Church only which was to be the ordinary means of salvation for mankind and outside which there is no salvation. Writing in 1968, Bishop B.C. Butler, now an ardent ecumenist, still had sufficient sense of being a Catholic to write: “Ours is the one true Church; the only body in the world which has a mandate to preach the Gospel. Outside this Church there is no salvation. According to the divine intention there are, outside the full, visible Catholic Communion, only individual human beings (I exclude from consideration those who are not yet morally adult), for each of whom entry into the guaranteed sphere of salvation is by the unique door of personal adhesion to the one Catholic Communion. Moreover, the only authorized form of public worship is that of the Catholic Church, performed under her own making; they are an expression of immutable divine law. She cannot compromise.”
Those who accept what I have said so far, that the Catholic Church is indeed the one true Church founded by Our Lord, have certain duties incumbent upon them. They have the duty of making a response which von Hildebrand describes as “purely positive and morally called for”. He explains: “One cannot find the truth and grasp it clearly as such, without seeing through errors. Knowledge of truth is inseparably linked with the knowledge of error, with the unmasking of error.” In other words, possession of the truth is a privilege, it is a sacred trust which involves duties and these duties are not fulfilled simply by refraining from a formal denial of the truth, these duties demand that we do not behave in practice as if truth does not exist, as if there is no distinction between truth and error. This duty is demanded not simply by truth but by charity. Archbishop Lefebvre has pointed out frequently that those imbued with true charity towards our separated brethren will be concerned to bring them from the error of heresy to the truth of Catholicism.
Let us now examine the Episcopalian Church in the light of what I have established. The first point to make is that it is not a Church at all, there is only one Church and, as Bishop Butler stated with admirable clarity, outside the Church there are only individual human beings. The so-called Episcopalian Church is, therefore, no more than a sect, a group of individuals who have set themselves up in opposition to the Church of Christ, to the will of Christ.
They have taken it upon themselves to preach their own Gospel in opposition to the Gospel of Christ and to offer public worship in opposition to the Church of Christ. Unlike the Orthodox Churches, Episcopalians do not have valid orders. They have no priesthood, no bishops, and no valid Eucharist – valid, that is, in the sense understood by the Catholic Church. All this is explained at great length in my book The Order of Melchiesdech and I will not go over the ground again here. The Bull Apostolicae Curae is as applicable today as it has been since Pope Leo XIII promulgated it in 1896: “Wherefore, strictly adhering, in this matter, to the decrees of the Pontiffs, Our predecessors, and confirming them most fully, and, as it were, renewing them by Our authority, of Our own initiative and certain knowledge, We pronounce and declare that ordinations carried out according to the Anglican Rite have been, and are, absolutely null and utterly void.”
In the light of all this, what should our reaction be to Archbishop Whealon’s decision to loan his Cathedral to the Episcopalians? I submit that unless it is a reaction of horror, scandal, and outrage – then we are in danger of losing the sense of what being a Catholic means. Von Hildebrand has warned us that such is the devastation in the vineyard of the Lord that we are losing our capacity to be scandalized.
We have to realize that our time is like the time of Arianism, and so we have to be extremely careful lest we be poisoned ourselves without noticing it. We must not underestimate the power of those ideas which fill the intellectual atmosphere of the time, nor the danger of being infected by them when we are daily breathing this atmosphere. Nor should we underestimate the danger of getting used to the evils of the times, and then becoming insensitive to them.
Unless we have become insensitive to the truth, we can criticize Father Haacke on only one count: he has put the case against Archbishop Whealon far too mildly. What the Archbishop’s conduct amounts to in practice is a denial of the true nature of the Catholic Church. I asked you to keep in mind a definition of true ecumenism made by von Hildebrand which involved emphasizing the elements of truth possessed by the other religions while clearly rejecting the errors they contain.
Archbishop Whealon is not simply failing to reject the errors of Episcopalianism, he is not simply remaining silent concerning them, he is, in practice, endorsing them. The ceremony for which he has loaned his Cathedral amounts in practice to a public denial that Our Lord Jesus Christ has founded one true Church to which alone He has given a mandate to teach, to sanctify, and to offer public worship. Archbishop Whealon is not to be commended for an act of charity – he is to be condemned for a denial of Christian truth. His action is an anti-Christian action. It constitutes his public acceptance of the existence of some amorphous entity called the Christian Church of which Catholicism and Episcopalianism both constitute branches.
Episcopalians cannot possibly be blamed for taking this act as acceptance that they constitute a Church, or at least constitute part of the Catholic Church. It would be an outrage to lend them a Catholic Church for any form of service – but to lend it to them for what Father Haacke correctly describes as the simulation of the most sacred rites of our Church is an act of sacrilege. The man who was to be consecrated is not even a priest, he is a layman, and after the ceremonies he will have remained a layman. Nothing will have happened. But, no doubt, Archbishop Whealon will have been among the first to come forward with an effusive ecumenical smile, to offer him a prolonged ecumenical handshake, and to congratulate him upon being made a bishop.
Note well, I am not condemning the Episcopalians concerned. Charity demands that, without evidence to the contrary, we must presume that they are acting in good faith and are saved from sin by invincible ignorance. But no such excuse can be used to defend Archbishop Whealon who, presumably, was taught the true faith in the days before Vatican II and, as a bishop, has a duty to die for the faith if necessary.
It is fashionable today to praise the Church of the first four centuries, to extol primitive practice. How would the Church of the first four centuries have regarded Archbishop Whealon? Anyone who is remotely acquainted with Church history can give one answer and one answer only. Archbishop Whealon would have been regarded as an apostate, he would have been anathematized, and every true Catholic bishop would have broken off Communion with him. I believe that the Church of the first four centuries was right. I believe that Archbishop Whealon is an apostate. It seems a harsh thing to say. It may make me appear harsh and intolerant – but nonetheless it is the truth.
Cardinal Newman has a magnificent sermon upon this very point, Tolerance of Religious Error. I will not begin quoting it as once. If I began I would find it hard to stop and, in any case, it is included in the collection of his sermons which I edited under the title Newman Against the Liberals. Suffice to say that the great cardinal castigates those whose concern is not to uphold truth but to avoid the appearance of being intolerant. But once again I must repeat, those who possess the truth, those who love the truth cannot tolerate error.
In another fine sermon included in the same collection, Many Called Few Chosen, Cardinal Newman warns that: “Those who serve God faithfully must ever look to be accounted in their generation singular, intemperate, and extreme.” In his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, he characterized the Church of the first four centuries by its intolerance towards error, its exclusiveness, its ceaseless war with all other bodies called Christian, its naming them as heretics, warning them of coming woe, and calling them to forsake their errors and enter the one fold of Jesus Christ.
link remnantnewspaper.com/…/436-the-ecumeni…
To Be Concluded Tomorrow