THE ANGELUS ENGLISH-LANGUAGE ARTICLE REPRINT

Let your speech be “Yes, yes: no, no”; whatever is beyond these comes from the evil one. (Mt. 5:37)

●

March 2011
Reprint #96

THE CHURCH,
THE POPE,
AND THE
BISHOPS:
the Ancient
Doctrine
and the New

Faced with attacks on the Pope and the Church, the time has
perhaps come to revisit certain theses, and to have the humility
and intellectual honesty to admit that it is the new doctrines in
ecclesiology introduced by Vatican II that have opened the gates to
the enemies of the Church, who seek to destroy the Rock intended
by Christ to sustain it, and the Authority established to govern it.
19

THE ANGELUS ENGLISH-LANGUAGE ARTICLE REPRINT

pope the power to govern a diocese independently
of the fact of his episcopal consecration.
In this study, we shall address the problems
raised by the new theories on the Church as they
appear in recent official documents, in particular the
Letter to the Chinese and the ecclesiology of Dominus
Jesus, which corresponds to that of Lumen Gentium.
This doctrine, as we shall see, is not in perfect
continuity with the doctrine heretofore taught by the
Roman Church.

A Few Classical
Notions of Ecclesiology
It will be helpful to begin with a restatement of
a few points of the Church’s teaching that will be
continually referred to in this article.
There are two powers in the Church given by our
Lord Jesus Christ, from which flow two hierarchies
which intertwine and overlap in part, but which
remain quite distinct in their attributes and their
sources. These two powers are:
1) The potestas sanctificandi, which is received
and exercised by the intermediary of the sacrament
of Orders in its different degrees (lesser ministries,
priesthood, episcopate; in this context, by bishop is
meant one who has received episcopal consecration).
It consists essentially in the power to confect the
Eucharist and, by means of this and the other
sacraments, to give grace to souls. Since the source
of this power is a sacrament, its direct author is
our Lord Jesus Christ Himself ex opere operato: the
ministers are merely its instruments. The highest act
of this power is the consecration of the Body and
Blood of Christ. In this, bishop and priest are equal.
2) The potestas regendi, or power of jurisdiction,
which of itself includes the spiritual power to govern
and to teach (in effect, one can only teach licitly
and authoritatively one’s own subjects). The Church
being a society, it must possess an authority endowed
with the power to legislate and guide, and to punish
and correct. This power, which our Lord possesses
in the highest degree, is transmitted by Him directly
to the pope alone at the moment when the latter
accepts his election, and it is transmitted by the pope
in different ways to the rest of the Church. It has no
inherent link with the power of Orders, although
generally the two powers reside in the same persons,
and the pope and diocesan bishops have a moral
obligation to unite in their person the two powers.
But a moral obligation does not signify metaphysical
necessity: one can exist without the other, the two
powers having different origins and finalities. In this
sense, the bishop is one who has received from the

20

This doctrine on the distinction of the origin
of the two powers is unambiguously taught in an
impressive array of magisterial documents, the first of
which is Pius XII’s encyclical Mystici Corporis (1943),
taken up subsequently in Ad Sinarum Gentes (1954)
and Ad Apostolorum Principis (1958): the bishops
govern their dioceses in the name of Christ; “yet
while they do this, they are not entirely independent,
but are placed under the due authority of the Roman
Pontiff, although they enjoy the ordinary power
of jurisdiction obtained directly from the same
Highest Pontiff.”1 The only person in the world
who receives the power of jurisdiction directly from
God is the Roman Pontiff, as the Code of Canon
Law affirmed (Can. 109): “Those who are taken into
the ecclesiastical hierarchy…are constituted in the
grades of the power of orders by sacred ordination;
into the supreme pontificate, by divine law itself
upon the completion of the conditions of legitimate
election and acceptance; in the remaining grades of
jurisdiction, by canonical mission.”2 Thus the pope
himself does not receive this power from episcopal
consecration, but independently of it.
To give other authoritative sources, we shall cite
Pius II in the Bull of Retractations (1463)3; Pius VI,
who in the Apostolic Constitution Super Soliditate
(1786) states apropos of the Pope that “the bishops
receive from him their authority, as he receives
the supreme power from God, etc.”4; Pius VI in the
encyclical Charitas (1791) against the bishops named
by the revolutionary government in France: “The
power to confer jurisdiction resides uniquely in the
Apostolic See”5; and still more clearly in the Letter
Deessemus (1788): “The episcopal dignity…as regards
orders comes immediately from God, and as regards
jurisdiction, from the Apostolic See”6; Leo XIII in
the fundamental encyclical Satis Cognitum (1896); to
the pages of Pius XII and the consistorial allocution
of John XXIII (Dec. 15, 1958), which states: “from
an episcopal consecration without apostolic mandate,
absolutely no jurisdiction can come.”7 During the
Council, the future Cardinal Staffa published an
opuscule for the benefit of the Council Fathers (who
were debating these questions in the schema on the
Church), reporting in light of this truth not only
the authoritative teachings of the Church, but also
numerous quotations from the Fathers and Doctors,
as well as the unanimous teaching of more than 130
important theologians from different eras.

The New Doctrine
in Lumen Gentium
Keeping in mind these truths taught by the
Church and therefore revealed by God, we can now

THE ANGELUS • March 2011 www.angeluspress.org

examine what is taught by Lumen Gentium and the
recent documents mentioned above. Our remarks
on Lumen Gentium, covered in a recent article, will
be limited to a short overview, the text having been
previously examined more thoroughly.8
In Chapter III (nn. 18-23) and in the Nota
Praevia, or Prefatory Note of Explanation, episcopal
consecration is considered to be the source of the
power of governing and not only of the power
of orders, based upon the sacramentality of the
episcopacy. The topic is debated and in fact of
little use in proving the thesis of the innovators.
For the Council of Trent, the priesthood conferred
by Christ on the Apostles and their successors is
called “the power of consecrating, of offering and
administering His body and blood, and also of
forgiving and retaining sins” (Dz. 957); in particular,
the bishops “who have succeeded the Apostles…are
superior to priests, and administer the sacrament of
confirmation, ordain ministers of the Church, and
can perform many other offices over which those of
an inferior order have no power” (Dz. 960). Such are
the effects of ordination as described by the Council
of Trent: it is a power linked to the physical body of
Christ and to the administration of the sacraments,
and absolutely not to the external government
of the Church. Contrariwise, Lumen Gentium (22)
affirms that “episcopal consecration, together with
the office of sanctifying, also confers the offices of
teaching and of governing. (These, however, of their
very nature, can be exercised only in hierarchical
communion with the head and the members of the
College.)” Every validly consecrated bishop would
then, according to Lumen Gentium, possess the two
powers; the pope would act just to determine the
exercise of the power of governing, not to confer
it (in the absence of this intervention by the pope,
we do not know whether the exercise of jurisdiction
would be invalid or only illicit, as for the power of
orders). Moreover, according to No. 22, episcopal
consecration would also have as an effect entrance
into the episcopal College, a body which, according
to Lumen Gentium, would possess the supreme power
alongside the pope’s primacy: the Prefatory Note
specifies that the subject of universal power always
exists, but it is not operative except when the pope
calls upon it. Section 22 also affirms that hierarchical
communion with the head and members of the body
is necessary in order to be a member of the College;
however it is not clear whether this constitutes an
actual cause of membership in the College or a
simple condition. The power of governing, which
is extraneous to the sacramental order, would be
the effect of the sacrament ex opere operato, hence of
Christ directly, just as membership in the College,
which while being the subject of the supreme power
cum Petro and sub Petro, would remain a subject
distinct from Peter and would receive the power it
www.angeluspress.org

THE ANGELUS • March 2011

exercises not ex Petro, but ex Christo, a teaching that
comes across clearly in the Prefatory Note.
This teaching of Lumen Gentium has grave
consequences. The first is the new doctrine on the
episcopal College, which would comprise all the
consecrated bishops of the world, as we saw above,
of which the pope is the internal primary mover (and
not outside mover); but, the Nota Praevia says, the

According to the traditional
doctrine, the pope can indeed
join with the body of bishops
to accomplish an act with
them (in a General Council
or in the ordinary and
universal teaching activity),
but it is from him that the
others receive the power
to accomplish an act of
governance of the universal
Church, and thus there is not
a permanent second subject
of supreme authority.
College always exists and is always the subject also of
supreme and full power over the whole Church. The
power of the pope alone would not be diminished
nor infringed, but it would no longer be unique, and
therein lies the problem. This contradicts what was
defined by Vatican I:
And upon Simon Peter alone Jesus after His resurrection
conferred the jurisdiction of the highest pastor and rector
over his entire fold, saying: “Feed my lambs,” “Feed
my sheep” [ Jn. 21:15 ff.]. To this teaching of the Sacred
Scriptures, so manifest as it has been always understood
by the Catholic Church, are opposed openly the vicious
opinions of those who perversely deny that the form of
government in His Church was established by Christ the
Lord; that to Peter alone, before the other apostles, whether
individually or all together, was confided the true and proper
primacy of jurisdiction by Christ; or, of those who affirm
that the same primacy was not immediately and directly
bestowed upon the blessed Peter himself, but upon the

THE ANGELUS ENGLISH-LANGUAGE ARTICLE REPRINT

21

THE ANGELUS ENGLISH-LANGUAGE ARTICLE REPRINT

Church, and through this Church upon him as the minister
of the Church herself. (Pastor Aeternus, Dz. 1822)

According to the traditional doctrine, the
pope can indeed join with the body of bishops to
accomplish an act with them (in a General Council
or in the ordinary and universal teaching activity),
but it is from him that the others receive the power
to accomplish an act of governance of the universal
Church, and thus there is not a permanent second
subject of supreme authority.
Lately it is being said that collegiality is no longer
in style, that John Paul II governed personally and
that Benedict XVI does not hesitate to act against
the opinion of the episcopate. But let us note that the
subject does not concern the concrete exercise of this
alleged power of the College over the last decades,
but the general doctrinal vision, in particular because
today it constitutes the basis for ecumenical relations,
especially with the Orthodox world.

The Evolution of Theology
during the Conciliar Years
In 1961 a book signed by Karl Rahner and
Joseph Ratzinger was published, entitled Episkopat
und Primat. In the chapter Über das Jus Divinum
des Episkopats, the authors maintained that the
unique subject of supreme power is the College of
bishops, and that the pope who acts alone does so
as representative of the College. The College would
then logically and chronologically precede the
Primacy. Let us note that, for Rahner, the proof of
this thesis (substantially shared by Congar) is that a
supreme power subject to Peter would necessarily be
delegated by him, since Peter received it from Christ;
but in this case the Apostles would no longer be the
Apostles of Christ, but the Apostles of Peter; one
must therefore grant that Christ gives the College the
supreme role, and that Peter is its delegate. All this
because, Rahner says, a society can have only one
supreme authority or else it would be two societies,
which would be equivalent to denying the unity of
the Church. The pope is thus bound by moral but
not legal rules to conduct himself as representative of
the College and not to act according to his own will.
It is manifestly difficult to reconcile this thesis
with the statement of Vatican I, which condemns
“…those who affirm that the same primacy was
not immediately and directly bestowed upon the
blessed Peter himself, but upon the Church, and
through this Church upon him as the minister of the
Church herself” (Pastor Aeternus, cited above). Let us
note moreover that the Rahner-Ratzinger thesis is
somewhat different from the one that subsequently
prevailed in Lumen Gentium: here the subject of

22

supreme authority is one, the College, even though it
is not excluded that the pope can act alone, and even
that he is in fact the only interpreter and spokesman
of the College. He must fulfill his role well by
acting as representative, otherwise the College may
complain. Legal considerations on this point are out
of place: for them the Church is “communion,” and
not an ordered, perfect society.
Nevertheless, the echo of this thesis also appears
in Article 22 of Lumen Gentium, when it affirms that
the pope exercises the power under two heads: in
virtue of his office and as head of the College. It is
thus admitted that at least in certain cases, the pope
is only the representative of the College.
Is this doctrine still current today? What traces
can be found in recent documents on the subject?

The Declaration Dominus Jesus
and Other CDF Texts
On August 6, 2000, the Congregation for
the Doctrine of the Faith published the famous
declaration Dominus Jesus, on the Church as the only
way of salvation. It gave an official interpretation of
the notorious passage of Lumen Gentium according to
which “the unique Church of Christ…subsists in the
Catholic Church.” This teaching is found in Articles
16 and 17:
16. …The Catholic faithful are required to profess that
there is an historical continuity–rooted in the apostolic
succession–between the Church founded by Christ and
the Catholic Church: “This is the single Church of Christ...
which our Saviour, after his resurrection, entrusted to
Peter’s pastoral care (cf. Jn. 21:17), commissioning him and
the other Apostles to extend and rule her (cf. Mt. 28:18ff.),
erected for all ages as ‘the pillar and mainstay of the truth’
(I Tim. 3:15). This Church, constituted and organized as
a society in the present world, subsists in [subsistit in] the
Catholic Church, governed by the Successor of Peter and by
the Bishops in communion with him.” With the expression
subsistit in, the Second Vatican Council sought to harmonize
two doctrinal statements: on the one hand, that the Church
of Christ, despite the divisions which exist among Christians,
continues to exist fully only in the Catholic Church, and on
the other hand, that “outside of her structure, many elements
can be found of sanctification and truth,” that is, in those
Churches and ecclesial communities which are not yet in
full communion with the Catholic Church. But with respect
to these, it needs to be stated that “they derive their efficacy
from the very fullness of grace and truth entrusted to the
Catholic Church.”
17. Therefore, there exists a single Church of Christ, which
subsists in the Catholic Church, governed by the Successor
of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him. The
Churches which, while not existing in perfect communion
with the Catholic Church, remain united to her by means
of the closest bonds, that is, by apostolic succession and a
valid Eucharist, are true particular Churches. Therefore,
the Church of Christ is present and operative also in these
Churches, even though they lack full communion with the
Catholic Church, since they do not accept the Catholic
doctrine of the Primacy, which, according to the will of God,

THE ANGELUS • March 2011 www.angeluspress.org

the Bishop of Rome objectively has and exercises over the
entire Church.
On the other hand, the ecclesial communities which
have not preserved the valid Episcopate and the genuine
and integral substance of the Eucharistic mystery, are not
Churches in the proper sense...

The thesis, also upheld in the Note of the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on the
expression “Sister Churches” which appeared shortly
before,9 is very clear. The Church is one, it is the
Catholic Church, but at the same time the Church
also exists beyond the reach of papal authority.
A local “Church” with a bishop, in the East, for
example, would be a true Church with power of
internal governance originating in valid episcopal
consecration, which among other things, would make
its recipient a member of the College that governs
the universal Church. The “Churches” which are
not in communion with the Pope do not cease to be
Churches: One Church, several churches in which
is active the Church of Christ above, “supersubject.”
It seems to us that it is no good to insistently repeat
that the one Church of Christ is the Catholic Church
only to contradict this statement a few lines down
by speaking of non-Catholic communities as true
“Churches” simply because they have a bishop: this
presupposes the above-described doctrine according
to which Christ does not need the pope in order to
confer the power that constitutes the Church. If this
invisible unity of government is suppressed, every
bishop capable of conferring ordination becomes a
source of the power of governing–with potential for
its unending multiplication.
This thesis recurs in the document issued by
the CDF on June 29, 2007, in response to certain
questions on the term “subsistit in” and on Chapter
VIII of Lumen Gentium: numerous elements of the
Catholic Church are to be found outside it and lead
to it. The separated Eastern “Churches” are true local
Churches, even though they suffer from a “lack,”
the role of the Successor of Peter being one of the
“internal constitutive principles” of a local Church.
It remains to be understood how something missing
an internal constitutive principle can be merely
suffering a “lack” and not a substantial change of
nature: but the contradiction in these documents
accompanies the ambiguity of their terms; just as
they do not explain why the Successor of Peter
is so necessary within these communities when
they already have the power of governing and of
episcopal consecration. Indeed, it is hard to know
what else the pope confers on the Catholic bishops
or the “local Churches,” since a valid Eucharist and
episcopate suffice to constitute “Churches” according
to the same document, which would justify denial
of the appellation of “Church” to the “Christian
communities born out of the Reformation of the
16th century.”10

If in this document they also proclaim loud and
clear that the Church is one, they also inform us
that “because of the division between Christians, the
fullness of universality, which is proper to the Church
[plenitudo catholicatis Ecclesiae propria] governed by the
Successor of Peter and the Bishops in communion
with him, is not fully realised in history.”11 So if in
fact nothing is lacking to the schismatic “Churches,”

We are thus in the presence of
an explicit and unavoidable
doctrinal contradiction: on the
one hand we are told that the
bishops possess jurisdiction by
virtue of their consecration,
and on the other, that they by
no means have it without the
intermediary of the pope. On
the one hand, we are told that
the pope grants the legitimate
exercise of a jurisdiction that
is already possessed; on the
other, we are told the pope
confers its possession.
then it is the schismatic “Churches” that are lacking
to the one Church for it to achieve “the fullness of
universality.” This is normal, since in the College that
constitutes and governs this unique Church, some
members by divine right do not want to sit–bishops
duly consecrated and hence endowed with the power
of governing the universal Church by virtue of
their episcopal consecration, as we have seen: The
sacrament of orders at the level of the episcopate
is an essential constitutive and sufficient element,
because it is held that it also gives what in fact it
does not give, apostolic succession, according to the
doctrine of Lumen Gentium.
In practice, two essential elements required for
belonging to the Church are ignored: jurisdiction,

THE ANGELUS ENGLISH-LANGUAGE ARTICLE REPRINT
www.angeluspress.org

THE ANGELUS • March 2011

23

THE ANGELUS ENGLISH-LANGUAGE ARTICLE REPRINT

originating uniquely in the pope, and faith. Allusion
is never made to the fact that because the schismatic
bishops do not profess the true faith, they can in no
way belong to the Church. Nor is the fact that the
pope is not an indefinite element in the constitution
of the Church, but the source of all authority and the
bond of membership in this unity, which is reduced
to a purely sacramental mechanism (baptism and
valid orders: personal adherence by the profession
of the true faith and the desire to consider oneself
part of the whole of which the pope is head no longer
count).

The Letter of May 27, 2007,
to the Chinese
The Holy Father addressed a letter dated May 27,
2007, to the bishops, priests, consecrated persons and
lay faithful of the Catholic Church in the People’s
Republic of China to offer “guidelines concerning
the life of the Church and the task of evangelization
in China.” We will not take up the political questions
or current events discussed in this document, but
simply the doctrinal principles that are frequently
propounded on the subject under discussion. These
we will compare to the principles taught by Pius
XII in the two letters he published at the time of the
Chinese schism.
In Article 5 of the letter, we read:
Catholic doctrine teaches that the Bishop is the visible
source and foundation of unity in the particular Church
entrusted to his pastoral ministry [LG 23]. But in every
particular Church, in order that she may be fully Church,
there must be present the supreme authority of the Church,
that is to say, the episcopal College together with its Head,
the Roman Pontiff, and never apart from him. Therefore the
ministry of the Successor of Peter belongs to the essence of
every particular Church “from within.”12

Here a surprising affirmation is made: in every
particular Church the supreme authority, which is
constitutive of the particular Church ab intrinseco, is
duly to be found…. This supreme authority is not
the pope, but the College of bishops (which has the
pope as its head) and it alone: here there is only one
subject of the supreme authority, which differs from
the double subject of supreme authority expounded
in Lumen Gentium.
This is just the beginning of the explanation.
In Article 8 the situation in China is recognized,
where bishops are continually being consecrated
without papal mandate; a speech of Benedict XVI
to the newly ordained bishops of September 21,
2006, is referenced. The letter asserts unhesitatingly:
“To be able to carry out this mission, you received
with episcopal consecration three special offices:
the munus docendi, the munus sanctificandi and the

24

munus regendi, which all together constitute the munus
pascendi.” Further on, this notion is repeated for the
Chinese bishops:
As in the rest of the world, in China too the Church is
governed by Bishops who, through episcopal ordination
conferred upon them by other validly ordained Bishops,
have received, together with the sanctifying office, the offices
of teaching and governing the people entrusted to them in
their respective particular Churches, with a power that is
conferred by God through the grace of the sacrament of
Holy Orders. (8)

The letter here states quite clearly that every
validly ordained bishop has not only the power of
governing directly from God, but also over a specific
diocese (“particular Church”)! Of what use, then, is
the pope–or rather the “College”?
Let us continue reading the letter, where we find
the explanation with a reference to Lumen Gentium
21: “The offices of teaching and governing ‘however,
by their very nature can be exercised only in
hierarchical communion with the head and members
of the College,’” as we have seen. It remains to ask
what the pope (as representative of the College)
concedes: the licit exercise or the valid exercise of
acts of jurisdiction? Let us recall that if the Prefatory
Note refused to answer this question, we find the
solution farther in the text: speaking of the bishops
illegitimately consecrated who subsequently asked
Rome to receive them into communion with the rest
of the episcopate, the letter states: “The Pope, …by
virtue of his proper responsibility as universal Pastor
of the Church, has granted them the full and legitimate
exercise of episcopal jurisdiction” (8).
This doctrine is diametrically opposed to what
Pius XII wrote to the Chinese in his encyclical letter
Ad Apostolorum Principis in 1958: “…Bishops who
have been neither named nor confirmed by the
Apostolic See, but who, on the contrary, have been
elected and consecrated in defiance of its express
orders, enjoy no powers of teaching or of jurisdiction
since jurisdiction passes to bishops only through the
Roman Pontiff” (39). A distinction is clearly made
between possession and exercise: the exercise of
the power of orders is in fact valid but gravely illicit
and sacrilegious; as for the power of jurisdiction, its
simple possession is flatly denied.
We are thus in the presence of an explicit and
unavoidable doctrinal contradiction: on the one hand
we are told that the bishops possess jurisdiction by
virtue of their consecration, and on the other, that
they by no means have it without the intermediary of
the pope. On the one hand, we are told that the pope
grants the legitimate exercise of a jurisdiction that is
already possessed; on the other, we are told the pope
confers its possession. The Prefatory Note of Lumen
Gentium had already raised the problem of the texts
of Pius XII, then still recent, which said the contrary
of what is affirmed by the conciliar document, but

THE ANGELUS • March 2011 www.angeluspress.org

it expeditiously resolved the issue by affirming
against the evidence that they were speaking of the
concession of the exercise and not of the possession
of jurisdiction–which is not really supported by the
texts.

A Conclusion
Reading over these texts, the Church appears as
both “one” and “multiple,” but also as “not yet” at
least in its fullness.
The texts repeat over and over that one is the
Church of Christ, which subsists in the Catholic
Church. They reassure us that subsist has the same
meaning as is. But this one Church, which the
documents of the Congregation for the Doctrine
of the Faith assure us is identical to the Catholic
Church, is at the same time multiple, because outside
the Church, wherever there is a validly ordained
bishop, the Church is there. But this Church is not
“complete” so long as all the bishops, who by divine
right have the power of governing as members of the
College, are not in communion among themselves
and with the Pope.
In this regard, we must equally recall how
Cardinal Ratzinger (in the presentation of Dominus
Jesus to the public) criticized the liberation theologian
Boff, who believed that the different Christian
communities could simply be juxtaposed without
any common foundation: “This division [the one
described by Dominus Jesus] is something totally
different from the relativistic dialectics [Boff’s]
described above, in which the division of Christians
loses its painful aspect, and which in reality is
not a fracture, but merely the manifestation of
multiple variations of a single theme in which all the
variations are somehow right and wrong. In these
conditions, an intrinsic obligation to seek unity does
not exist because in truth the Church is everywhere
and nowhere…and all would be fragments of
the Christian reality. Ecumenism would then be
resignation to a relativistic dialectics.”13 Here it is not
question of the ecumenism of “to each his own truth”
or of “love one another.” It is not a simple pragmatic
attitude, it is not even a form of relativism and it
should not be confused with this. Ecumenism would
be urgent and metaphysically necessary not for the
baptized who are outside the Church and who must
return in order to be saved; it is not they who have
need of the Church; it is the Church that needs them,
and in particular the bishops, in order to complete its
fullness.
Here we see emerge a thesis that seems to be
self-contradictory: how can a subject be both one
and multiple? How can the Church be one and at
the same time lack intrinsic and essential constitutive
elements? Have we perhaps misunderstood these

documents, which may in fact have a coherence that
escapes us?
In reality, it is not we who assert that this thesis is
contradictory, but Cardinal Ratzinger himself, in the
continuation of the passage quoted above: “Since
sin is a contradiction, this contradiction, this
difference between subsistit and est cannot be
resolved logically. In the paradox of the difference

If to a sole visible supreme
authority, source of every
other power of governing,
corresponds a single visible
Church without exterior
“pieces,” clearly definable and
identifiable even legally, then
to a multiple authority (for in
fact every validly ordained
bishop becomes a source
of authority) corresponds a
multiple Church.
between singularity and the concrete character of
the Church on the one hand, and the existence of
an ecclesial reality outside the unique subject of
the other, is reflected the contradictory character
of human sin, the contradictory character of the
division.”14
On what can this theory be based? How can one
defy the fundamental principle of human thought,
for which a thing cannot both be and not be at the
same time and in the same respect? It is clear that
the whole system rests, not only on a fallacious
philosophy, but also on a deformation of the papacy.
If to a sole visible supreme authority, source of
every other power of governing, corresponds a
single visible Church without exterior “pieces,”
clearly definable and identifiable even legally, then
to a multiple authority (for in fact every validly
ordained bishop becomes a source of authority)
corresponds a multiple Church. Lumen Gentium
justifies the continued affirmation that the Church

THE ANGELUS ENGLISH-LANGUAGE ARTICLE REPRINT
www.angeluspress.org

THE ANGELUS • March 2011

25

THE ANGELUS ENGLISH-LANGUAGE ARTICLE REPRINT

“…id tamen dum faciunt, non plane sui juris sunt, sed sub debita Romani
Pontificis auctoritate positi, quamvis ordinaria jurisdictionis potestate fruantur,
immediate sibi ad eodem Pontifice impertita.” Pope Pius XII, Encyclical
Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943, Dz. 2287.
2
“Qui in ecclesiastica hierarchica cooptantur…in gradibus potestatis ordinis
constituuntur sacra ordinatione; in supremo pontificatu, ipsomet jure divino,
adimpleta conditione legitimae electionis ejusdemque acceptationis; in reliquis
gradibus jurisdictionis, canonica missione.”
3
“A Jesu Christi Vicario, tamquam Capite omnis in subjecta membra potestas
et auctoritas derivatur” (Bullarium Romanorum, V, 174; cf. ibid., 180).
4
Fontes CIC, II, 664, 668-9.
5
Ibid., II, 678.
6
Vatican Archives, Epistolae ad principes, CLXXXIV, 130-35.
7
A.A.S. 50 (1958), 610-611.
8
“Episcopacy and Collegiality,” La Tradizione Cattolica, Vol. 17, No. 1,
2006.
9
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Note on the Expression
“Sister Churches,” June 30, 2000.
10
CDF, Fifth Question, Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain
Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church, June 29, 2007.
11
Ibid., response to the fourth question.
12
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Letter to the Bishops of
the Catholic Church on some aspects of the Church understood as
Communion, Communionis Notio (28 May 1992), 13: A.A.S. 85 (1993),
846.
13
L’Osservatore Romano, March 4, 2000, p. 8.
14
Ibid. Cf. also Fr. Michel Simoulin and Don Davide Pagliarani, “Dominus
Jesus: tanto rumore per nulla,” La Tradizione Cattolica, IX, No. 4.
15
“Qui igitur Romanae…Ecclesiae praeest, successor est Petri et ipsius
propterea fungitur potestate, alias Deus et homo Christus Jesus,
ad dexteram Patris sedens, suam universalem, unam et militantem
Ecclesiam acephalam, id est sine aliquo qui super omnes vices ejus in
terris gereret, vel habentem, quasi monstruum, plura capita, reliquisset:
quod non tam rationi contrarium etiam in natura, qual haereticum
censeretur. Et hoc Romana Sedes Mater est fi dei, sola auctoritatem
ab ipsis exceptam praestat Conciliis, jura statuit et leges ponit. (Acta
Bonifatii VIII, 11 Oct. 1298, C.I.C.O. Fontes, pp. 203-204.)
1

is one because the pope is the supreme authority,
but also that it is multiple, because there is a second
subject of the supreme authority, a College of
which some members are outside the one Church
and the pope; and to the constitutive members not
yet in communion corresponds the incomplete
character which makes of the Church an institution
tending to be itself but which somehow is not
yet, or is no longer, and which is in urgent and
continual ecumenical tension. In light of all this,
one understands among other things the new
relationship with the Orthodox.
It is good to close with the very famous and
prophetic statement of Boniface VIII, which of itself
demolishes the entire edifice built by the innovators:
He who leads the Roman Church is the Successor of
Peter, and consequently enjoys the [supreme] power,
otherwise the God-Man Jesus Christ, who is seated at
the right hand of the Father, would have left His Church
either headless, that is, without anyone representing Him
on earth, or else a multi-headed monster, which it should
be necessary to consider as not only contrary to natural
reason, but also as heretical. That is why the Roman See is
Mother of the Faith; the only authority granted to Councils
is received from it; and it establishes rights and legislates.15

Don Mauro Tranquillo
(Tradizione Cattolica, No. 2, 2010)
Translated from Courrier de Rome, No. 3, November 2010, pp. 1-4.

Pope John’s Council

Liturgical Revolution: Volume II
Michael Davies
For those who have read it, it is already a classic. Few books can rival
its clarity and objectivity. An incredible pattern emerges: a pastoral
Council hijacked by a clique of theological liberals who consign to the
trash the documents of the Council Preparatory Committee (of which
Archbishop Lefebvre was a member), shut off the microphones of
those who attempt to defend the Faith (suffering this indignity was no
less than the illustrious Cardinal Ottaviani), and co-opting the media
so that their spin became “reality.” Michael Davies spent the last
year of his life updating this book. Indispensable to understanding
Vatican Council II.
521 pp. Color hardcover. STK# 8283✱ $26.95

Time Bombs of Vatican II
Fr. Franz Schmidberger
Explains how Vatican II wrought destruction by not clearly defining
Catholic Truth, failing to definitively reject error, adopting ambiguous,
contradictory language, and establishing teachings very close to heresy.
Ideal for non-trads and those who don't understand that the crisis is
deeper than the liturgy.
32 pp. Pocket-sized, area for stamping.
STK# 8104✱ $0.25 [individual]
STK# 8104X✱ $11.95 (50 Pack)

26

I Accuse the Council!

Collegiality, priesthood, marriage, religious liberty, ecumenism
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre
A major player at Vatican II, Archbishop
Lefebvre made these 12 official statements
at the Council exposing the danger of its
documents. He warned that the faithful would
become confused, doubting the necessity of
the Church, the sacraments, the conversion of
non-Catholics, and the necessity of authority.
Covers collegiality, the priesthood, marriage,
religious liberty, and ecumenism.
89 pp. Softcover. STK# 3072✱ $10.00

THE ANGELUS • March 2011 www.angeluspress.org