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CONTINUATION
OF:
Questions
About Membership In The Church
By
the Rev. Joseph Clifford Fenton (Edited by the Rev. Msgr. Keith P.
Steinhurst, P.A.)
Now
we come to the question: does the pronouncement about membership in
the Church in the Mystici Corporis Christi simply repeat the teaching
of St. Robert Bellarmine on this point?
First
of all, it must be made clear that there was definitely one element
in St. Robert's teaching on membership in the Church that has been
excluded by Pope Pius XII in the great encyclical letter. The Doctor
of the Church taught very clearly, in the tenth chapter of his De
ecclesia militante, that the baptismal character was not required for
membership in the Church, but only a putative baptism. Quite clearly,
since the issuance of the Mystici Corporis Christi, this particular
part of St. Robert's teaching is no longer acceptable as Catholic
doctrine. Pope Pius XII insisted that the reception of baptism was
requisite in order that a man might be numbered among the members of
the Church.
It
must be remembered, however, that St. Robert's teaching about the
sufficiency of putative baptism for membership in the Church did not
form an essential part of his thesis. What made the teaching of the
De ecclesia militante memorable in the history of Catholic theology
was the fact that St. Robert insisted that all of the elements
requisite for membership in the true Church of the New Testament were
visible factors, because the Church militant of the New Testament is,
according to the teaching and the decree of God Himself, "an
assembly of men as visible and palpable as the assemblage of the
Roman people, or the kingdom of France, or the republic of Venice."
Certainly
the Mystici Corporis Christi statement about membership in the
Church is quite in line with the teaching of the De ecclesia
militante. According to Pope Pius XII, four factors alone are
necessary in order that a man be counted as a member of the true
Church. These are (1) the reception of baptism, and thus the
possession of the baptismal character, (2) the profession of the true
faith, which is, of course, the faith of the Catholic Church, (3) the
fact that a person has not cut himself away from the structure or the
fabric of the "Body," which is, of course, the Church
itself, and (4) the fact that a person has not been expelled from the
membership of the Church by competent ecclesiastical authority.
It
is the nature of the third of these four factors that, in the
context of the encyclical, is not completely clear. Very definitely a
person would cut himself off from the structure of the ecclesiastical
Body if he entered into a state of public heresy or apostasy. But
that condition had already been taken care of in the naming of the
second of the factors that the Mystici Corporis Christi lists as
requisite for membership in the true Church. Very definitely the
"cutting away" mentioned in the third point of this
statement might involve entrance into the state of schism. But it
could, of course, imply that some act against the spiritual or
invisible bond of unity within the Church might also cut a person
away from membership in the Church. The text of the Mystici Corporis
Christi is not, in itself, sufficiently clear on this point.
Yet,
over the course of the years, it has become increasingly obvious
that the common teaching of the Catholic theologians holds that
people are members of the Church or parts of the Church only by the
possession of these visible or palpable factors. The term "member
of the Church" can legitimately be applied only to those
baptized persons who have not frustrated the force of their baptismal
characters by public heresy or apostasy, or by schism, and who have
not been expelled from the Church by competent ecclesiastical
authority. The theological demonstration that backs up this thesis is
still and always will be the "proof from reason" which St.
Robert Bellarmine alleged in support of his teaching in the De
ecclesia militante. More effectively, perhaps, than any other writer
in the history of the Catholic Church, St. Robert pointed to the fact
that the basic Catholic claim, that the Church militant according to
the dispensation of the New Testament is essentially a visible
Church, involves and includes the teaching that membership in the
Church is possessed by all and only the people who have those factors
which go to make up the visible or external bond of unity within the
Church of God.
That
was the great point at issue between the Catholics and the heretics
of the Reformation: whether the true Church of Jesus Christ according
to the economy of the New Testament is or is not an organized
society. It was and it still is the contention of the enemies of the
Catholic Church that the true kingdom of God or the chosen people of
the New Testament is not really a society or an organization at all,
but that it is merely the sum-total of all the good people, or all
the people in the state of grace, in the world. On the other hand,
the Catholic Church, as the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, continues
to bring out the truth that Our Lord taught in His parables of the
kingdom? The fact that the Church or the kingdom of the New Testament
is an organization, a social unit within which bad members will be
mingled with the good until the end of time. The Church holds and
must always continue to hold that it is a social unit composed of
individuals whose membership depends, not upon the invisible or
spiritual factors that go to make up the inward bond of unity with
Our Lord in His kingdom, but entirely and exclusively on the visible
or bodily factors that constitute the external bond of unity.
Let
us understand this well. When we speak of a member of the Church
(or, for that matter, of any other social unit), we mean one of the
persons who goes to make up this gathering or group. After all, the
true Church of Jesus Christ is a group of people now existing in this
world. The people who compose or constitute or go to make up this
group are the members of the Church. The membrum ecclesiae is the
pars ecclesiae.
In
the last analysis, the great proof of the fact that the Church
militant of the New Testament is essentially a visible Church (that
is to say, an organized society, rather than merely the sum-total of
the people who possess certain spiritual gifts or goods) is to be
found in the divine constitution of the Church militant itself. It is
basic that the Church of the New Testament was so constituted by Our
Lord that definite men were given responsibility for the spiritual
welfare of their fellow members of the Church, and thus given
definite jurisdictional authority over these others. It must be
considered as axiomatic that only members of this Kingdom of God on
earth are given ecclesiastical authority over their fellow members.
And, if membership were to depend in any way at all on the possession
of an invisible factor, there would be no such thing as certainty
about the right of any man to call himself a member of the Church,
and a fortiori there would be no such thing as certitude about the
right of any man to issue decrees binding in conscience on the
members of the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ Our Lord.
Now
it must be understood that the Church militant of the New Testament,
as a supernatural entity, is not to be judged by ordinary human
standards. Concretely, a man may pertain to this society or in some
way or other be "within" it other than by membership in its
ranks. In order to appreciate our question, and in order to realize
the harm that has been done by careless and unscientific writing on
membership in the Catholic Church, we must consider the other ways in
which a man can be said to "belong" in some way to this organization.
(1)
Every baptized person is a subject of the Catholic Church. In the
sense that he has the baptismal character which, unless frustrated by
some personal act of the man who possesses it, would automatically
gather any man within the unity of membership of the true Church of
Christ. Baptism belongs to the Church. It is always objectively a
wrong thing for any baptized person not to be a member of the true
Church. Thus in itself, the baptismal character constitutes a man as
subject to the laws of the Catholic Church. It is true, of course,
that ordinarily the Church makes no attempt to apply its own statutes
to those who are baptized but who are nonmembers of the Church
through no personal fault of their own. Yet, by the constitution of
the supernatural order itself, the man who has the baptismal
character remains and must remain one to whom the legislation of the
true Church can apply.
At
the same time, however, nothing can be more obvious than the fact
that not every person who is baptized is a member of the Catholic
Church. The true Church of Jesus Christ, which is His one
supernatural kingdom and His Mystical Body in this world, is the
religious organization that accepts Pope John XXIII as its visible
head in this world. The theologian who claims that every baptized
person is in some way a member of the Church cannot be speaking
seriously, if he has any understanding of the meaning of the term
"member" as it is used with reference to the Catholic
Church. He should realize that the Mystical Body of Christ in this
world is not a social unit made up of Catholics and members of
heretical and schismatic groups.
If
people who are members of heretical or schismatic groups are in any
way members of the true Church of Jesus Christ, then the true Church
is definitely not the social unit that accepts the Bishop of Rome as
its visible head. If we are to sum this matter up in three
statements, we would have to say:
(A)
Every baptized person is a subject of the Catholic Church.
(B)
Every baptized person should be, and would be, if the unifying force
of his baptismal character were not thwarted by some personal and
external but not necessarily sinful act, a member of the Catholic Church.
(C)
Not every baptized person is a member of the Catholic Church.
(2)
Far more involved is the case of that person who is not a member of
the Catholic Church, but who is "within" the Church in such
a way as to enjoy the life of sanctifying grace. It is absolutely
imperative for the well being of contemporary theology that the
situation of this individual be accurately analyzed.
It
is one of the most frequently and insistently taught dogmas of the
Catholic faith that outside of the Catholic Church no one at all is
saved, that outside of this society there is neither salvation nor
the remission of sins. According to the mechanics of the English
language, one who is not "outside of" some physical or
social entity must be said to be, in some way or other,
"within" it. Hence it must be said that any non-member of
the Catholic Church who has the remission of sins, which is to say
the gift of sanctifying grace, or who dies in the state of grace so
as to attain eternal salvation, must be or have died in some way
"within" the Catholic Church in a status other than that of
a member.
The
Holy Office Letter Suprema haec sacra, summing up and stating in an
authoritative manner what had always been the teaching of the senior
pars of the Church's scholastic theologians, asserted that the
non-member of the Catholic Church who thus attained to eternal
salvation "within" it was joined to the Church voto et
desiderio. The entire sentence is so important that it should be
repeated here. The Holy Office wrote: "Quandoquidem ut quis
aeternam obtineat salutem, non semper exigitur ut reapse Ecclesiae
tamquam membrum incorporetur, sed id saltem requiritur, ut eidem voto
et desiderio adhaereat." And this teaching definitely must be
seen in the light of the tremendously important explanation given in
this same document: "Neque etiam putandum est quodcumque votum
Ecclesiae ingrediendae sufficere ut homo salvetur. Requiritur enim ut
votum quo quis ad Ecclesiam ordinetur, perfecta caritate informetur:
nec votum implicitum effectum habere potest, nisi homo fidem habeat supernaturalem."
The
encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi, with a less developed
terminology, speaks of the possibility of non-members of the Church
being ordered to the Church "inscio quodam desiderio ac
voto." The Suprema haec sacra interprets this passage of the
Mystici Corporis Christi as showing that people in this condition,
that is, those who are ordered to the Church by an unconscious
intention or desire, are not excluded from the possibility of
attaining to eternal salvation.
The
Suprema haec sacra makes it completely clear that those who are in a
position to be saved only by reason of the fact that they have at
least an implicit intention or desire to enter the Church and to
remain within it are not reapse or in reality members of the true
Church. In other words, the social unit that is the supernatural
kingdom of God in this world is not composed of people who intend or
desire to enter it. As a matter of fact, if we look at the
terminology carefully, we can easily see that a statement to the
contrary involves a self-contradiction. It is impossible to desire to
enter a social unit of which one is already a member or a part.
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