Tradcast Express
On July 14th, Dr. John Joy published an article on 1 Peter 5 entitled,
The Pope is not the Church, and the Church is not the Pope.
In it, he claims that the teaching of the Pope is not, by that very fact, also the teaching of the Church.
He says, quote,
One of the common symptoms of hyper-papalism is a tendency to identify the Pope with the Church,
or to identify papal teaching with Church teaching, as if the two were entirely synonymous. Unquote.
In other words, the Church can teach one thing and the Pope another,
and so just because you're adhering to the teaching of the Pope doesn't mean you're actually in line with the teaching of the Church, see?
In fact, you might be denying Church teaching by adhering to papal teaching,
so you'd better be careful.
Be careful about listening to the Pope.
That is, essentially, what John Joy is telling us.
Now, that may be quite clever and creative, but it is absurd on its face.
Of course, there is a distinction between Pope and Church, since the Pope is not the Church itself.
But he is the visible head of the Church, and Dr. Joy acknowledges as much.
Now, it should go without saying that,
In his encyclical letter on the Church as the mystical body of Christ,
Pope Pius XII states,
Quote,
That Christ and his vicar constitute one only head is the solemn teaching of our predecessor of immortal memory,
Boniface VIII, in the apostolic letter Unam Sanctam,
and his successors,
have never ceased to repeat the same.
Unquote.
That's from the encyclical Mystici Corporis No. 40.
Now, Dr. Joy does agree that the Pope can speak for the whole Church,
but he maintains that that isn't the case most of the time.
Joy writes, quote,
When it comes to teaching and matters of faith and morals,
the Pope only speaks for the Church when he speaks ex cathedra,
and when he does that,
he does possess the full infallibility of the Church.
Unquote.
Now, that is insane.
The idea that the Pope only speaks for the Church on faith and morals
when he makes an infallible ex cathedra pronouncement.
In fact, that is implicitly contradicted by Pope Pius XII
in the encyclical Humani Generis,
paragraph 22,
quote,
Nor must it be thought that what is expounded in encyclical letters
does not of itself demand consent,
since in writing such letters the Popes do not exercise
the supreme power of their teaching authority.
For these matters are taught with the ordinary teaching authority
of which it is true to say,
He who heareth you heareth me.
Unquote.
And that is from Luke 10.16.
And the he who heareth you heareth me.
So, in other words,
Pius XII is making clear that just because something is not infallible
doesn't mean you don't have to agree with it.
And he says very specifically
that what is taught by the Roman pontiff in his ordinary,
non-infallible magisterium
requires the faithful's assent of itself,
meaning simply because the Roman pontiff
is teaching it.
And what the Roman pontiff binds on earth
is bound in heaven, as we know.
When the Pope teaches,
it is Christ who teaches, in a sense.
So, how could it not be the teaching of the Church?
In fact, since Pius XII says
that every Catholic is required to accept papal teaching,
the papal magisterium binds
the entire Church.
Ah, but then Dr. Joy might just say
that that's just Pius XII's teaching,
not the Church's, right?
See to what chaos and absurdity his position leads.
Now, we can ask ourselves,
why is Dr. Joy doing that?
Why is he trying to maximize the distinction
between Pope and Church in that way?
Well, I don't know, of course,
but to me,
the reality,
rather obvious answer,
is that he's trying to come up with a way
to justify resistance to the magisterium of Francis
while at the same time
claiming to be loyal to the Church.
Right?
How convenient.
I'm not rejecting Church teaching,
just the teaching of the Pope.
And look,
I know this may seem like
a clever theological solution at first,
but it actually has horrific consequences.
Just think about,
what this would mean.
It would mean that at times,
a Catholic can and even must
resist and reject
the teaching of the Pope
in order to be faithful to the Church.
So, who's the faithful Catholic then?
The one who adheres to the Pope
or the one who adheres to the Church?
See, once you start thinking about it,
you can see that such a scenario
would rip the Church apart.
The Pope would no longer,
be the principle of unity,
but the principle of chaos.
But this is what you get
when you accept the false Popes
since Vatican II as true Popes.
You have to twist yourself into a pretzel,
trying to explain what you see,
and you end up with heaps of contradictions.
Not mystery simply,
as in Sedevacantism,
but contradictions.
Joy's position puts the Church above the Pope,
in a way,
as if the Church could overrule the Pope,
so to speak.
And that is a typical trait
of the heresy of Gallicanism.
In 1870, the First Vatican Council taught,
quote,
Therefore, they stray from the straight path of truth
who affirm that it is permitted to appeal
from the judgments of the Roman Pontiffs
to an ecumenical council
as to an authority higher
than the Roman Pontiff.
Unquote.
That's Denzinger, 1830.
So, one reason why papal teaching
is Church teaching
is that the Pope teaches the whole Church.
He, as the Rock,
is in fact the foundation
and principle of unity and stability
for the whole Church.
Of course, the Pope isn't always
speaking as the head of the Church.
He can also speak
as a private theologian,
as Pope John XXII was doing
when he defended his erroneous position
on the beatific vision
in a series of sermons
in the 14th century.
But when the Pope
exercises his magisterium,
even the non-infallible kind,
then his teaching
is Church teaching.
And don't think I'm making it up.
The First Vatican Council
quotes the Council of Florence
of the 15th century,
with these words,
quote,
The Pontiff of Rome himself
is the successor of the blessed Peter,
the chief of the Apostles,
and is the true vicar of Christ
and head of the whole Church and faith,
and teacher of all Christians.
Unquote.
That's Denzinger, 1826.
It is very specifically
the Pope himself
who is the teacher of all Christians,
not simply the Church,
as a whole.
In fact, as we just said,
the Pope teaches the Church.
The Church of Rome,
the Diocese of Rome,
of which the Pope is the chief bishop,
teaches the churches
of all the other dioceses
throughout the world
that are in communion with the Pope.
That is how it works.
Vatican I says very clearly
that all Catholics
must render to the Roman see,
quote,
hierarchical subordination
and true obedience,
not only in things which pertain
to faith and morals,
but also in those which pertain
to the discipline and government
of the Church,
which is spread over the whole world,
so that the Church of Christ,
protected not only by the Roman Pontiff,
but by the unity of communion
as well as of the profession
of the same faith,
is one flock,
under the one highest shepherd.
Unquote.
It's Denzinger 1827.
And a little bit later,
the same Council says,
quote,
Furthermore, it follows
that from that supreme power
of the Roman Pontiff,
of ruling the universal Church,
the same has the right
in the exercise of this duty
of his office,
of communicating freely
with the pastors and flocks
of the whole Church,
so that the same can be taught
and guided by him
in the way of salvation.
Unquote.
Denzinger 1829.
So clearly,
the Pope teaches the Church.
And how could it be otherwise?
Are the bishops going to teach the Pope?
And how is that going to work?
Imagine the bishops of Austria
rebuking the Pope
for teaching error,
but then the bishops of Malaysia
coming to his defense.
And then the bishops of Brazil
signaling they're not sure
about the matter,
so maybe we should pull in
the bishops of France.
But then the Belgians complaining
that the French don't know
what they're talking about
and that we should give the benefit
of the doubt to the Pope.
Just imagine the utter chaos.
You know, it's so easy
to stand there and say,
well, the Pope is not always infallible.
Well, yeah, that's true.
But neither are the bishops.
And the Pope is always
the divinely appointed teacher
to whom all Catholics
are obliged to listen.
In his 1890 encyclical
Sapientiae Christianae,
Pope Leo XIII calls the Pope,
quote,
the master of all that is to be believed
and to be practiced.
Unquote.
You can find that
in Denzinger 1936c.
In an elocution of February 20th, 1903,
the same Pope Leo XIII
noted that, quote,
by God's commandment,
salvation is to be found nowhere
but in the church.
Unquote.
And then he made it more precise,
saying that, quote,
the strong and effective
instrument of salvation
is none other than the Roman pontificate.
Unquote.
And lastly,
in an address of May 10th, 1909,
Pope St. Pius X said the following,
quote,
do not let yourselves be deceived
by the subtle declarations of others
who do not cease to pretend
that they wish to be with the church,
to love the church,
to fight for her
so that she will not lose the masses,
to work for the church
so that she will come to understand the times
and so to win back the people
and attach them to herself.
Judge these men according to their works.
If they maltreat and despise
the ministers of the church
and even the Pope,
if they try by every means
to minimize their authority,
to evade their direction
and to disregard their counsels,
if they do not fear
to raise the standard of rebellion,
what church are these men speaking about?
Not certainly of that church
established upon the foundation
of the apostles and prophets,
Jesus Christ himself
being the chief cornerstone.
Unquote.
But there we go again,
quoting merely the teaching of popes
and not of the church.
Let us pray and hope
that the semi-traditionalists
will come to recognize
that what they've been deriding as hyper-papalism
is, for the most part,
really just the traditional Catholic teaching
on the papacy.
The problem is not with the papacy.
The problem is
that the man who currently claims to be pope
isn't one.
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