“Such legalistic and positivist ideas are an implicit denial of the visible unity of the Church.”
Image: Excommunication of Robert the Pious, Wiki Commons CC
In previous parts, building on my review of the Tradivox Catechism series, we saw the following points across three theses:
- The nature and centrality of the Church’s visible unity of faith
- How this sheds light on the questions of heresy and membership.
Tradivox Catechism Review
Part I: How can we find the teaching of the universal ordinary magisterium?
Part II: What do the catechisms tell us about heretics and the Church?
Part III: How is the Church “visibly united in faith,” according to Cardinal Billot?
Part IV: Why is it essential that the Church is visibly united in faith?
Part V: What sort of heresy results in being outside the Church?
Part VI: What is the difference between an excommunicate and an open heretic?
Objections
Obj. I: Are we obliged to believe every person who calls himself a Catholic?
Obj. II: Should mistaken Catholics be called “material heretics”?
Obj. III: What is the state of a Catholic who submits to a false magisterium?
In this part, I will briefly show that an open heretic’s separation from the Church is a separate matter to that of excommunication.
Here is the fourth and final thesis to be proved:
4. Excommunicates are not members of the Church; but they are a conceptually distinct class to heretics, always treated separately, with their own proper cause of non-membership; and thus it cannot be claimed that open heretics remain members until they are excommunicated.
The more detailed treatment in previous parts has shown that non-membership is not a penalty for open heresy, nor even really a consequence of it. Rather, a state of open heresy just is a state of separation from the profession of faith, the visible unity of the Church – and thus also membership of the Church.
This is what is meant by Pius XII, when he teaches that heresy (along with schism and apostasy) “is such as of its own nature to sever a man from the body of the Church” (emphasis added).[1] Open heretics, schismatics and apostates separate themselves from the Church by the very nature of their acts and state.
Some believe that no-one can be considered as an open heretic until he has been warned, declared or sentenced as such by the Church – or as if publicity or notoriety can only be attained through such means. They imply that, until authority has intervened, we are obliged to live in a legal fiction and consider even the most outrageous examples as only “suspect of heresy” or as “occult heretics.”
The previous parts of this series indirectly established that there is no need in logic, theology or law for such interventions to take place in all cases. Such interventions are not the cause of an incompatibility between open heresy and the Church’s visible unity of faith – which is a decisive factor here.
Those who wish to assert that no-one is an open heretic until he is sentenced or declared such by authority are invited to refute the arguments in the previous part.
So much for the idea that a sentence is necessary in order for someone to be an open heretic. Let’s now consider the differences between open heresy and excommunication.
Types of Excommunication
Excommunication is a particular type of punishment imposed or inflicted by authority. This may be by achieved by a specific act of an authority, or automatically by law.
Not all excommunications are equal. There are disputes about which types of excommunications actually separate a man from membership of the Church.
For example, Billot writes that while “tolerated excommunicates” are deprived of certain goods of the Church, they are not actually cut off from membership.[2] However, the case is different for other classes of excommunicates:
“[T]he excommunication of vitandi[3] [those to be avoided] is a perfect and consummated excommunication, and for this reason they are quite simply outside the Church, no differently than are heretics and schismatics, though by a different means.”[4] (Emphasis added)
Externalised (but secret) heresy does indeed carry an automatic excommunication, but it is somewhat debated whether this sort of excommunication – at least until it is declared, and the person named as a vitandus – results in a loss of membership.[5]
But these debates do not touch on the central thesis of these pieces – that open heresy results in a loss of membership, without regard for an excommunication.
The problems of conflating heretics and excommunicates
Heretics and excommunicates are conflated when we speak as if heretics are outside the Church not because of their heresy, but because of an excommunication. This conflation can also occur if we speak as if the intervention of authority is always necessary for heresy to be open, and to have the associated effects.
As noted above, excommunication is not the cause of an incompatibility between open heresy with the external profession of faith, nor is such an incompatibility brought into existence by a declaration of authority. We might as well say that the law of non-contradiction is a provision of positive law; or that a person’s sex is determined not by biology, but by a birth certificate. The incompatibility in the case of heresy just is, and it flows from the nature of reality and real things.
These legalistic and positivist ideas are also an implicit denial of the visible unity of the Church in her profession of faith, and other points of theology that rest on this truth.
The conflation of heretics and excommunicates treats the former as nothing more than a particular type of the latter, and membership of the Church as nothing more than a matter of canon law. This runs contrary to what we have seen elsewhere, and demonstrates a serious confusion of the issues.[6]
Further, even if heresy and excommunication often accompany each other, and even if both open heresy and excommunication can result in a state of non-membership, we are dealing with distinct matters. Billot writes:
“The excommunication of vitandi is a perfect and consummated excommunication, and for this reason they are quite simply outside the Church, no differently than are heretics and schismatics, though by a different means.
“I say ‘by a different means’, which we must first of all consider. For heretics and schismatics — even purely material ones — are separated from the communion of the Catholic Church by the natural divine law itself.”[7]
He compares such heretics and schismatics with excommunicates, who – by contrast – “are eliminated from the bosom of the Church only by ecclesiastical law.”[8]
We could multiply authorities for this, but let’s consider this triply-authoritative text from Cardinal Billot, quoting St Robert Bellarmine, who was in turn quoting St Jerome:
“[A] pertinacious heretic is condemned by his own judgment, that is, as Jerome explains, he is not expelled from the Church by excommunication like a lot of other sinners, but he himself expels himself from the Church.”[9]
St Robert himself makes the same distinction in his catechism, which is included amongst the extracts in a previous part.[10]
This distinction is clear in the teaching of Pius XII, canon law, the theologians – and the catechisms in this case study.
For these reasons it is impossible to maintain that an open heretic, as defined, remains a member of the Church until he has been declared or sentenced as a heretic and/or excommunicated.
Double-title of separation and other theologians
Some object that, if the Church excommunicates heretics, then it must follow that they had remained members of the Church until that point. Otherwise, what would be the point in an excommunication?
The theologian Dorsch answers this objection:
“A juridical fact may be derived from many sources; and thus in this case the sentence of excommunication adds a new title of separation. This is evident when such heretics return to the Church; for then it is not sufficient that they return to the faith and renounce heresy, but absolution from the censure is a distinct requirement; and even when the censure has been absolved, [the manifest heretic] is to be received into the Church by a separate act.
“Nor is it useless that the Church, by such a sentence, adds to the separation already accomplished by heresy itself; for excommunication also has its own effects (e.g. deprivation of public suffrages) and helps to deter the faithful, who are prevented from establishing civil relations with [excommunicates].”[11]
In other words, an open heretic who is also sentenced as a vitandus (with a perfect excommunication) has, not one, but two “causes” or “titles” of his non-membership of the Church: his open heresy, and his excommunication. While an excommunication which prevents membership can indeed be inflicted as a punishment for open heresy, it is in addition to the effect brought about by the nature of heresy itself.
The theologian Antonius Straub speaks in the same way:
“From the fact that the Church excommunicates heretics, it does not follow that they are, by themselves, within the Church.
“For ecclesiastical censure is not in vain, firstly because it strikes heretics who are not even public and has effects proper to itself, such as the prohibition that public suffrages not be made for certain excommunicated persons. By this discipline, for excommunicated individuals, unlike for heretics and schismatics, not even on Good Friday does the Church pray publicly.
Thus, the excommunicated are also excluded from participation in divine offices or from any legal or civil custom. Then, indeed, the sentence of excommunication adds the title of a new separation, where the return to the Church is not accomplished merely by returning to the profession of faith and the will of communion. Absolution from censure is also required.”[12] (Emphasis added)
In a similar way, the theologian Wilmers gives the following thesis, and clarifies accordingly:
“Proposition III: Manifest heretics are not, in act and properly, members of the Church. […]
“This discussion does not concern the penalty of excommunication imposed on all external heresy, but rather the exclusion that follows heresy by its very nature.” (Emphasis added)[13]
Berry summarises:
“… those who refused to profess even a single doctrine, were condemned as heretics who had already ceased to be members.” (Emphasis added)[14]
Having seen the explanations of Pius XII, St Robert Bellarmine and other saints, and the theologians above, we can conclude this objection is altogether without force.
Excommunicated Cardinals
In passing, this also shows the irrelevance of the idea, based on Pius XII’s 1945 Apostolic Constitution Vacantis Aposotolicae Sedis, that Cardinals who are open non-Catholics (by reason of heresy, schism or apostasy) can nonetheless elect and be elected in a conclave.[15]
On the contrary: this Apostolic Constitution temporarily suspends all ecclesiastical censures imposed on the Cardinals involved. When such a censure is the sole impediment towards participating in an election, such a suspension resolves the problem. Suspending the excommunication of an occult heretic would render him eligible to participate in the conclave, because (in the more common opinion) such men remain Catholics.
But even the complete removal of an excommunication would not make an open heretic into a Catholic or member of the Church – any more than it would resolve other impediments, viz. by making a woman into a man, or a child into an adult.
In the case of an open heretic, it could only suspend one of two impediments to participation, and one of two titles of separation from the Church – thus leaving him as ineligible to participate, and as outside the Church, as before.[16]
Final conclusion to the four theses
It remains for me to answer a few objections in a subsequent piece, but this part marks the end of my exposition of the four theses.
To repeat, the type of heresy which is relevant to membership and the Church’s visible unity of faith is that which is:
- A denial or doubt of a truth to be believed with divine and Catholic faith
- A human act, both in itself and as continuing as a state
- Manifesting non-acceptance of the magisterium
- As an open, public, knowable fact
- Which thus separates a man from unity and from the Church by its own nature and definition
- Regardless of moral culpability.
Internal sins, canonical processes, declarations, material-formal distinctions of heresy and excommunications: none of these are relevant to the question. The many attempts to address practical and contemporary questions with reference to these factors shows the importance of returning to more fundamental principles such as the notes of the Church.
The incompatibility of open heresy with membership is based on the nature of heresy, the external profession of faith as a criterion for membership, and the nature of the Church as a visible unity of faith. It does not depend on heresy’s gravity – nor even its sinfulness.
These points are all beautifully summarised in this text from the theologian Palmieri, who also emphasises the distinction between the non-membership of a heretic and that of an excommunicate:
“A public heretic is one who openly professes his heresy in such a way that it is clear he thinks differently from what the Church teaches and, moreover, this is publicly known. For someone to be a public heretic, these two things must concur: an interior heresy and an outward manifest profession.
“For if someone mistakenly professes what is heretical, thinking it to be Catholic, he is neither a heretic himself nor is his profession, especially when all accompanying circumstances are considered, formally contrary to the Church’s teaching. It signifies that he wants to believe what the Church teaches, even if this may happen inadvertently.
“We have already discussed hidden heretics in §. IX. We now deny that public heretics are, at least in actu, members of the Church. Indeed, 1) what if they were members of the Church? In this hypothesis, the Church would be a society of those who profess both truth and falsehood. Since there is multiplicity of errors but only one truth, the Church could be a society where the majority, or even the greater part, professes various errors. Therefore, accepting this hypothesis, it will no longer be true that the faith of the Church is one, and that the true faith is professed by the Church, and that it is the pillar and foundation of truth. However, this is contradictory; therefore, this hypothesis is also contradictory. […]
“You may ask: why does the Church excommunicate heretics if they are already outside? I respond: 1) nothing prevents the Church from enacting by positive law that which has been established by divine law. 2) Excommunication has certain proper effects that depend on the law of the Church, such as the deprivation of civil and external commerce, public suffrage, and similar things.”[17]
With these points explained, I hope that the force of the catechisms’ teaching of these points is made clearer. To reiterate the points they prove, with the greater clarity:
- The Church is, among other things, a visible unity of Faith; she is a visible society which is visibly one, or united, in faith.
- Membership in the Church requires, among other things, an external profession of the Faith.
- Heretics, viz. those who visibly and consciously depart from this external profession of faith, by definition are not and cannot be members of the Church.
- Excommunicates are not members of the Church; but they are a conceptually distinct class to heretics, always treated separately, with their own proper cause of non-membership; and thus it cannot be claimed that open heretics remain members until they are excommunicated.
These points should make us consider the scale of today’s problems, and prompt us first to adhere to Catholic doctrine to grasp the problems, and then to look for resolutions. It is, of course, pointless to offer solutions to those who have not grasped the problems.
But for those who do grasp the problem, and search for and find the solution: I hope that these reflections on the visible unity of the Church will inspire us all with love and trust for Holy Mother Church. I hope that seeing that these points are taught by so many simple catechisms shows how absolutely fundamental they are to our religion. I hope that understanding the importance and necessity of this visible unity – and the astonishing fact that it still exists today, even amidst obscurity and conclusion – will fill us with wonder, and lead us to say to the Church, with the Bridegroom himself:
“One is my dove, my perfect one is but one.”
Canticle of Canticles 6:8
Tradivox Catechism Review
Part I: How can we find the teaching of the universal ordinary magisterium?
Part II: What do the catechisms tell us about heretics and the Church?
Part III: How is the Church “visibly united in faith,” according to Cardinal Billot?
Part IV: Why is it essential that the Church is visibly united in faith?
Part V: What sort of heresy results in being outside the Church?
Part VI: What is the difference between an excommunicate and an open heretic?
Objections
Obj. I: Are we obliged to believe every person who calls himself a Catholic?
Obj. II: Should mistaken Catholics be called “material heretics”?
Obj. III: What is the state of a Catholic who submits to a false magisterium?
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[1] Pius XII, Encyclical Mystici Corporis Christ, 1943, n. 23. Available at: https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_29061943_mystici-corporis-christi.html
[2] Cf. Louis Cardinal Billot, Tractatus de Ecclesia Christi, Tomus Prior, Prati ex Officina Libraria Giachetti, Filii et soc, 1909, p 310. Trans. Fr Julian Larrabee, 310.
[3] Someone is excommunicated as a vitandus either ipso facto for violence against the Pope (Can. 2343, § 1, n. 1), or by a publicly-announced excommunication by name, by the Apostolic See, expressly as one to be avoided (Can. 2258 §2). The 1917 or Pio-Benedictine Code of Canon Law, in English Translation with Extensive Scholarly Apparatus, trans. Dr Edward Peters, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 2001.
[4] Billot 310
[5] Cf. Billot: “Note the difference between notorious heresy, and heresy which is sufficient to incur the excommunication of the Bull Apostolicæ Sedis. For to incur that excommunication, any external manifestation is sufficient, even one made in private, that one professes error. But excommunication and its effects relating to the present question will be discussed in the next proposition.” Billot 293.
[6] Canon Law recognises these principles and “manages” them, although they are based in the nature of the Church, which is known through theology rather than law. For example, see Canon 87: “By baptism a man is constituted a person in the Church of Christ with all of the rights and duties of Christians unless, in what applies to rights, some bar obstructs, impeding the bond of ecclesiastical communion, or there is a censure laid down by the Church.”
[7] Billot 310-11
[8] Ibid.
[9] Billot 295
[10] “[H]eretics, who are baptized, for the reason that they forsook the faith, they are outside the Church because they went out of their own will and became fugitives. Therefore, the Church compels them with different penalties to return to the true faith from which they left, just as a shepherd compels the fugitive sheep that left the sheepfold by the crook of his staff to return to it.
“[But the excommunicated] entered the Church and do not leave it, rather, they are cast out of it by force just as a shepherd separates a mangy sheep from the sheepfold, and sends it as prey to wolves.”
St Robert Bellarmine, Doctrina Christiana: The Timeless Catechism of St. Robert Bellarmine, trans. Ryan Grant, Mediatrix Press, 2016. Pp 75-6
[11] Aemil. Dorsch SJ, Institutiones theologiae fundamentalis, ‘De ecclesia Christi’ (Vol. II), Oeniponte, Feliciani Rauch, Austria, 1928, pp 492-3, available at: https://archive.org/details/ddeecclesiachristidorschsj/page/n502/mode/1up?view=theater. Translation taken from from Eric Hoyle, On Heresy and Heretical Popes, version 1.2.1 – 31 May 2022, p 26-7, with the most recent version available at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fHMb2KWjNt3Saxm6rZfvhDvHs7-ysVCH/view?usp=sharing. Hoyle’s paper also provides the following text from Palmieri along the same lines: “You ask: why then does the Church excommunicate heretics, if they are already outside? I reply 1. nothing prevents the Church from sanctioning by positive law that same thing which is declared by divine law. 2. the Church also excommunicates occult heretics: 3. Excommunication has some effects of its own, which depend on ecclesiastical law, e.g. deprivation of civil and external commerce, public prayers and such like.” P 5.
[12] Antonius Straub, de Ecclesia Christi, Vol. II, n. 1266c (pp 659-60). Oeniponte, Typis et Sumptibus Feliciani Rauch, 1912.
[13] Guilelmo Wilmers, De Christi Ecclesia Libri Sex, 1897. Liber VI, Caput I, Articulus II, Propositio 111, n. 397, p 634. Ratisbonae, Friderici Pustet, S. Sedis. Apost. et S. Rit. Congr. Typogr.
[14] E. Sylvester Berry, The Church of Christ, Wipf and Stock Publishers, Eugene, Oregon, 1955 edition, p 90
[15] “34. None of the Cardinals, on the pretext or cause of any excommunication, suspension, interdict, or other ecclesiastical hindrance, can be excluded from the active and passive election of the Supreme Pontiff in any way; We suspend these objections only to the effect of this election, to those which will otherwise remain in their strength.” Available at: https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/la/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_p-xii_apc_19451208_vacantis-apostolicae-sedis.html
[16] As an example, consider the text from Wernz and Vidal: clearly, Pius XII’s Apostolic Constitution revokes all censures – but this does not make an open heretic into a Catholic, any more than it makes a woman, child or insane person into a man eligible for election: “All those who are not impeded by divine law or by an invalidating ecclesiastical law are validly eligible [to be elected pope]. Wherefore, a male who enjoys use of reason sufficient to accept election and exercise jurisdiction, and who is a true member of the Church can be validly elected, even though he be only a layman. Excluded as incapable of valid election, however, are all women, children who have not yet arrived at the age of discretion, those afflicted with habitual insanity, heretics and schismatics.” Wernz-Vidal, Jus Can. 2:415, taken from Fr Anthony Cekada, ‘Can an Excommunicated Cardinal be Elected Pope?’ in Quidlibet, dated Monday June 25 2007, accessed 21 Nov 2022. Available at: http://www.fathercekada.com/2007/06/25/can-an-excommunicated-cardinal-be-elected-pope/
[17] Domenico Palmieri SJ, Tractatus de Romano Pontifice: cum prolegomeno de ecclesia, § XLIX, n. II. Editio Altera, Aucta et in Nonnulis Emendata. Prati ex Officina Libraria Giachetti, Filii et Soc, 1891, pp 261-2, 263. Translated by a friend of The WM Review. Available at: https://archive.org/details/tractatusderoman00palm/page/261/mode/1up?