John Paul's Defense of the Faith

On May 18, Pope John Paul II signed an apostolic letter entitled Ad Tuendam Fidem (To Defend the Faith). The letter, a complete surprise to many people, became public June 30, and was called a Motu Proprio, which means that it enjoys the prerogative of being entirely a work of the Supreme Pontiff himself.

The Pope stated that he undertook its writing as a very necessary aspect of his office, since he is the legitimate successor of the Apostle Peter, in order to defend the faith of the Catholic religion, and to confirm his brothers in that faith which cannot fail because of the promise made by the divine founder of the Catholic Church (cf. Lk 22:32).

The four-page letter, written in Latin, added several words to The Code of Canon Law. It was accompanied at its release by an interesting and important commentary (dated June 29) from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and signed by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger and Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone. This official commentary is a key to a correct understanding of the letter. Although it involves some theological subtlety and qualifications, it deserves reading and study by all Catholics.

The letter and its accompanying commentary were welcomed by many orthodox and sincere Catholics, all the more pleased because of the unexpected timing of the publication. The “usual suspects,” some of whom make a career of publicly dissenting from the truths of the Catholic Faith, were obviously displeased and publicly upset, not in the least because their decades-long efforts to trade on doctrinal confusion and moral ambiguity were dealt another and perhaps fatal blow by the Holy See. It is unfortunately true that much of the secular and some of the religious media coddle and foster this dissent, but genuine Catholics almost instinctively recognize its total lack of merit and authenticity.

Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz

In adding some words to The Code of Canon Law, the Holy Father made it clear that not only those matters proposed by the Church as directly revealed by God had to be assented to, internally and externally, by faithful Catholics. Also, those matters which are officially and definitively proposed by the Church regarding faith and morals, even if they have not been proposed by the Magisterium (the teaching authority) of the Church as formally revealed, must receive from all Catholics “firm and definitive assent, based on the Holy Spirit's assistance to the Church's Magisterium and the Catholic doctrine of the infallibility of the Magisterium in these matters. Whoever denies these truths would be in a position of rejecting a truth of Catholic doctrine and would therefore no longer be in full communion with the Catholic Church.”

The Pope's changes in Canon Law specify that persons in such denial are to be punished with “appropriate penalties.”

As Cardinal Ratzinger's commentary notes, sometimes matters in this category of belief and assent later pass, in the historic consciousness of the Church, into matters proposed as formally revealed. He cites as an example the doctrine of papal infallibility prior to the dogmatic definition of the First Vatican Council. The primacy and infallibility of the Bishop of Rome were “recognized as definitive in the period before the Council.” However, until then, it was licitly disputed as to whether that infallibility was a logical consequence of divine revelation or was a part of that revelation itself. The point of the Pope and Cardinal Ratzinger is that the inerrant and irreformable character of the infallible teaching of the Catholic Church in both categories is basically the same. While one who rejects what is formally proposed as directly revealed also incurs the grave sin of formal heresy, dissent from either category of faith and morals places the dissenter in the state of mortal sin, outside of the Church's full communion, and worthy of ecclesiastical censure.

Examples of infallible truths to which all Catholics must assent, in this second category, which are not (yet?) declared as formally revealed but are, at least, derived from and logically connected with divine revelation, are mentioned in the commentary. These are such things as the illicitness of prostitution, fornication, and euthanasia, and the doctrine that priestly ordination by God's will is reserved only to males. Archbishop Bertone notes that “this [latter] truth could later pass into the first level.” But even now it is among the infallible teachings of the Catholic Church.

As the commentary observes, there is a third category of matters to which all Catholics are required also to give their full assent of mind and will. It would be seriously sinful for Catholics to dissent even from these teachings. They are things which are connected to revelation by historical necessity and which are to be held definitively, but they are not able to be declared as divinely revealed. Examples would be “the legitimacy of the election of the Supreme Pontiff or of the celebration of an ecumenical council, the canonization of saints (or other dogmatic facts) the declaration of Pope Leo XIII in the apostolic letter, Apostolicae Curae on the invalidity of Anglican ordinations, etc.” The matters in this third category are not directly affected by Ad Tuendam Fidem and remain unchanged by the Pope's latest additions to The Code of Canon Law. Archbishop Bertone notes that sinful Catholics who would dissent from this third category of truths, even if they would not immediately suffer from an esslesiastical penalty, would incur the stigma of an undisciplined attitude.”

St. Ambrose remarked: “Where Peter is, there is the Church…” Peter today continues to reside in the See of Rome and in its bishop.

There one finds the keys, the power to bind and loose, and the promise that the gates of hell will not prevail (cf. Mt 16:16-19). From there our Holy Father continues to feed the lambs and sheep (cf. Jn 21:15-17) and to protect Christ's flock from the poison pastures of religious falsehood and error, as well as from the wild beasts who would lead them astray toward eternal destruction. May God preserve this remarkable Pontiff, a divine and special gift to our time and place. Ad multos annos.

Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz STD is ordinary of Lincoln, Nebraska.