Author: Catholic Candle

Lesson #48: Temperaments – Choleric Temperament – a Choleric’s Spiritual Combat – Part XIII

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Philosophy Notes

Catholic Candle note: The article immediately below is part thirteen of the study of the Choleric temperament. The first twelve parts can be found here:

  1. Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #36: About the Temperaments – Beginning our Study of the Choleric Temperament – Part I: https://catholiccandle.org/2024/08/27/lesson-35-about-the-temperaments-the-choleric-temperament/

  2. Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #37: About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament– Part II: https://catholiccandle.org/2024/09/26/lesson-37-about-the-temperaments-continuation-of-the-choleric-temperament/

  3. Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #38 — About the Temperaments – Continuing our Study of the Choleric Temperament – Their Spiritual Combat – Part III:: https://catholiccandle.org/2024/10/24/lesson-38-temperaments-choleric-temperament-their-spiritual-combat/

  4. Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #39 About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament – That Temperament’s Spiritual Combat – Part IV: https://catholiccandle.org/2024/11/26/lesson-39-temperaments-choleric-temperament-their-spiritual-combat-part-iv/

  5. Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #40: Temperaments – Choleric Temperament – Their Spiritual Combat – Part V: https://catholiccandle.org/2024/12/30/lesson-40-temperaments-choleric-temperament-their-spiritual-combat-part-v/

  6. Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #41 – About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament: a Choleric’s Spiritual Combat — Part VI: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/01/27/lesson-41-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-vi/

  7. Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #42: About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament – a Choleric’s Spiritual Combat – Part VII: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/02/21/lesson-42-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-vii/

  8. Mary’s School of Sanctity — Lesson #43 About the Temperaments –Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament — Their Spiritual Combat Part VIII: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/03/27/lesson-42-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-viii/

  9. Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #44 About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament – Their Spiritual Combat, Part IX: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/04/23/lesson-44-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-ix/

  10. Mary’s School of Sanctity — Lesson #45 About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament – The Choleric’s Spiritual Combat Part X: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/05/20/lesson-45-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-x/

  11. Mary’s School of Sanctity — Lesson #46 About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament – The Cholerics’ Spiritual Combat – Part XI: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/06/28/lesson-46-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-xi/

  12. Mary’s School of Sanctity — Lesson #47 About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament – The Choleric’s Spiritual Combat – Part XII: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/07/24/lesson-47-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-xii/


Lesson #48 About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament – The Choleric’s Spiritual Combat Part XIII

Note: When referring to a person with a choleric temperament in this article we simply will label him as a choleric.

In our last lesson we discussed how the choleric is easily fooled by the devil and ensnared in various forms of pride including wanting to be considered by others as very knowledgeable and as a great achiever. Hence, he has a tendency to fall into the trap of vainglory. However, these traps of pride are often embraced because the choleric is really trying to cover up the fact that he is a coward when it comes to deep thinking. He is lazy in using his intellectual abilities and therefore is not comfortable using them readily. Because he senses his lack of intellectual acuteness, he gives into the temptation to simply tell himself that it is too difficult to think carefully. This fear of mental work, which St. Thomas calls stupor,1 paralyzes the choleric into not even wanting to try to reason carefully.

Vicious Circle of Self-Feeding Fear of the Intellectual Life

Naturally, the devil fosters this irrational fear of careful thinking because the devil hates the fact that humans were created to be rational and learn the highest truths.

All through the centuries of human existence the devil has attacked mankind and tried to convince men that they should not think, especially deeply. Not only this, but the devil also wants men to believe that they do not have to think carefully. Furthermore, he tells men that thinking deeply interferes with one’s ability to have “fun” and “pleasure”. Ultimately, the devil wants us humans to believe that we were created to enjoy ourselves and that there is nothing more to do. Certainly the devil doesn’t want us to know the truth that our intellect is our highest faculty and when we use it well, we come to have the greatest delight and pleasure.

And so it is when the choleric has given into the temptation to be intellectually lazy, he thereby has allowed himself to become a shallow thinker and has harmed his own natural (i.e., human) desire to know. When he continues in this vein, he builds his fear of intellectual effort and likewise he weakens his willpower to actually make efforts to ponder and consider truth.

He will soon lose any savor to consider God and the higher truths. This manner of acting brings the choleric into more and more pride, a capital sin and into another dangerous capital sin named sloth, which is displeasure in the things of God.

We can see how the devil uses these masterstrokes against souls when he inspires irrational fears to dissuade a man from the proper use of reason.

How Can a Choleric Fight Against Such Demonic Tactics?

  • The choleric must learn to have God as his highest priority in life. The choleric must learn to appreciate having a divine friendship with Almighty God. With these things in his mind, he will not want to offend God.

  • The choleric must foster Fear of the Lord. When the choleric learns to appreciate the fact that sin offends the all good God, especially the sin of abusing our highest faculty, he would not want to shirk his duty to think and think well.

  • The choleric should pray for God’s assistance – the choleric should do everything in his power to foster a healthy prayer life.

  • The choleric should read the lives of the saints, especially a saint with the choleric temperament. This will not only help him get to know himself, but will also encourage him that he can indeed overcome his faults and amend his life. Plus, by applying his mind to the study of the virtues of the saints, he will foster a better development of his mind and a love of study.

  • The choleric should practice penances. Fasting is a powerful tool to strengthen one’s reasoning power and one’s will power.2

A Preview…

In our next lesson we will address the choleric’s false belief that he doesn’t have the ability to think deeply and how this belief has bad influences on the soul. In addition, we will discuss remedies to counteract this lie of the enemy of our souls.

1 St. Thomas explains this fear in Summa Ia IIae, Q.41, a.4, ad 4 & ad 5.

2 St. Thomas explains this truth about fasting in several places in the Summa, e.g., IIa IIae Q.147, a.1-3.

CC in Brief – Does God Change His Love for Us as We Change in Charity?

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Catholic Candle note: Catholic Candle normally examines particular issues thoroughly, at length, using the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas and the other Doctors of the Church. By contrast, our feature CC in Brief, usually gives an extremely short answer to a reader’s question. We invite every reader to submit his own questions.


Q. If God loves our souls to the extent that we are holy, He would be changing with every good or bad act that we do (which is impossible, because God is immutable). Could you explain this for me?

A. You are correct that God loves all creatures to the extent of the good He put into them (including creating them). This includes God loving even the devils to the extent of the good that He Himself put into them, although He hates the evil of their wills (which evil is not His work).

The love of God includes the supernatural good He puts into some creatures. So, He loves men as His friends to the extent of the goodness of their wills – that is, to the extent that they are holy.

God never changes. His very Being is His own single, unchangeable Act and it is an Act of love and an Act of understanding of Himself and this Act is always the same for all Eternity. So, God loves Himself from all Eternity and as part of this single Act of love (of Himself) He loves His work (which is everything else that He loves) from all Eternity too.

God is not in time. He sees (i.e., knows) all of His creatures in this way (outside of time). He loves every creature as the “collection” of all good that He Himself put into them as He sees (i.e., knows) them throughout all Eternity. So God does not constantly change His “opinion” about a creature, loving that creature more at one time and then less at another time, as that creature – which is in time – becomes more loveable at one time and then less loveable at another time.

Instead, God has an eternal, immutable knowledge and love of that creature according to the measure of the good that He put into the creature.

Here is an analogy to help you see how God loves creatures according to the good in them (as seen from God’s Eternity) but God does not change His “opinion” of creatures as they change:

Suppose that you love mangos exceedingly. You know that a crate of mangos is being shipped to you and you know that they are presently perfect and luscious. But suppose that you have perfect knowledge of the future and that you know that when the crate reaches you, there will be no edible mangos in the crate and all of them will be rotten, will reek exceedingly, and will have to be thrown out. Your view of those mangos right now will not change as those mangos change from luscious to rotten. You will view them now as if they were already disgusting.

Likewise, God knows and loves all creatures in this same way. In fact, it could not be otherwise, since God does not change. So, Our Lord chose Judas as one of his apostles and at that time, Judas was a good man.1 But God knew that Judas would commit the horrific sin of Deicide.2 Thus, God’s “opinion” of Judas did not change as Judas himself went from a special, chosen friend of Christ, to an infamous pariah to all good men. At all times, God viewed Judas as the vile man that he would become.

Similarly, in the case of the man who is now an enemy of God but whom God has chosen as one of His elect, God views this man even now as the friend and fellow inhabitant of heaven that this man will become.

So from all Eternity and for all Eternity, God’s “view” of every man is according to the state of soul that the man will have at his Particular Judgment and in the unending Hereafter.

1 Here are two places where St. Thomas Aquinas, greatest Doctor of the Catholic Church, taught that Judas was good when Christ chose him:

Christ chose Judas, who was later to become evil ….

St. Thomas Aquinas, Lectures on St. John’s Gospel, Ch. 6, #1007.

And:

But what of the fact that many who are Christ’s sheep did not hear His voice, as Paul; or that some who were not His sheep did hear it, as Judas? One might reply that Judas was Christ’s sheep for that time as to his present righteousness.

St. Thomas Aquinas, Lectures on St. John’s Gospel, Ch 10, #1373.

2 Here is how St. John Chrysostom, Doctor of the Church, teaches that Judas’ betrayal of Our Lord was the greatest crime ever committed, concerning which St. John Chrysostom teaches:

[T]here are many iniquities, but never was anything more iniquitous than this ….

St. John Chrysostom’s sermon #3 on the Act of the Apostles.

Let Us Love God’s Moral Law & Thank Him for It!

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Philosophy Notes

It is always the right time to remember to work more than ever before to improve our soul. As we consider well our conduct and compare it to the objective moral law, it is important to appreciate the great gift of the moral law that God gave to His Church (and gave even to all mankind, through the Natural Law).

Here are three things that many people (including Catholics) might not know (or remember) about the Catholic Church:

  1. The Catholic Church shows us that the goal (i.e., the end) of man, and the reason that we are on earth, is to attain Divine Friendship.

Getting to heaven depends upon our charity. Here is how Our Lord teaches this truth:

And one of them, a doctor of the law, asking him, tempting him: 36 Master, which is the greatest commandment in the law? Jesus said to him: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. And the second is like to this: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments dependeth the whole law and the prophets.

St. Matthew’s Gospel, 22:35-40.

St. Paul declares that: “Love is the fulfilling of the law.” Romans, 13:10.

St. Thomas Aquinas, greatest Doctor of the Church, teaches that charity is all-important for our salvation. Here are his words:

Whosoever has not charity is wicked, because “this gift alone of the Holy Ghost distinguishes the children of the kingdom from the children of perdition”, as Augustine says (De Trin. xv, 18).

Summa, IIa IIae, Q.178, a.2, Sed contra.

This all-important love of God is Divine Friendship. Here is how St. Thomas Aquinas, greatest Doctor of the Church, explains this truth:

It is written (John 15:15): “I will not now call you servants . . . but My friends.” Now this was said to them by reason of nothing else than charity. Therefore, charity is friendship. …

According to the Philosopher (Ethic. viii, 2,3), not every love has the character of friendship, but that love which is together with benevolence, when, to wit, we love someone so as to wish good to him. If, however, we do not wish good to what we love, but wish its good for ourselves, (thus we are said to love wine, or a horse, or the like), it is love not of friendship, but of a kind of concupiscence. For it would be absurd to speak of having friendship for wine or for a horse.

Yet, neither does well-wishing suffice for friendship, for a certain mutual love is requisite, since friendship is between friend and friend: and this well-wishing is founded on some kind of communication.

Accordingly, since there is a communication between man and God, inasmuch as He communicates His happiness to us, some kind of friendship must needs be based on this same communication, of which it is written (1 Corinthians 1:9): “God is faithful: by Whom you are called unto the fellowship of His Son.” The love which is based on this communication, is charity: wherefore it is evident that charity is the friendship of man for God.

Summa, IIa IIae, Q.23, a.1, sed contra and respondeo (emphasis added).

Therefore, the all-important concern of our life, and for our salvation, is to achieve Divine Friendship.1


2. The Catholic Church gives us the road map (the Rules) to tell us how we can achieve this Divine Friendship. This includes the Church telling us what we need to do to perfect the moral life.

  1. The Catholic Church puts the Rules in the right perspective and shows us that the Rules exist to help us.

The moral law is not simply a list of “killjoy dos and don’ts”. Neither are these Rules given to us in order to hassle us. The Rules are not “a drag”. Instead, these Rules are an explanation for our dull minds, giving us great help in order to enter into the Divine Friendship.

Let us consider an analogy. The Rules for a man to cultivate a woman’s friendship would include directives such as don’t hit her or scream at her (as well as many other things). Besides the Rules concerning her own person, there are other Rules which pertain to things that she loves or cares about. For example, don’t mock her parents. And don’t maliciously torture little animals.

These directives are not for the purpose of “hassling” the man who seeks her friendship but because a man is incapable of having this friendship with a woman when he acts like that. To cultivate the woman’s friendship, the man must necessarily avoid things like these because they hurt her, offend her, and destroy the possibility of friendship with her.

If that man is motivated to cultivating a friendship with her, then he will even love these Rules themselves because they foster this friendship – because it is natural for us to love even the means to the end for the sake of the end that we love. (Of course, there are other good reasons to love these Rules for cultivating a friendship with a woman, e.g., because those Rules are so reasonable.)

Likewise, the rules for cultivating a friendship with God would include the various guidelines that tell us how a person should behave towards God and to live the life He wants us to lead. Some of these Rules are directed toward God Himself, like don’t take His Name in vain. Other Rules pertain to the things that God loves and cares about. For example, don’t mock the representatives of God, such as priests and parents. And do not take for yourself (viz., by theft) what He Himself gave to someone else.

These Rules of the moral law are not given to us in order to hassle us but because such directives are essential to cultivating this friendship with God. We must not offend our Divine Friend by breaking the Rules (just like a man must not do offensive things to the lady with whom he seeks to cultivate a friendship).

This Divine Friendship is real, not imaginary. The Divine Friend really loves us and gives us the means to obtain Him. This friendship is inherently a spiritual one between God and our soul.

If we are really motivated to cultivate a friendship with God,2 then we will even love these Rules that foster the friendship with Him because it is natural for us to love even the means which are for the sake of the end that we love. (Of course, there are other reasons to love the moral law also, e.g., because it is so reasonable.)

As we live in this world which becomes ever-more licentious and sad, let us thank God for the traditional moral law that He has given us through the Catholic Church. Let us appreciate it ever-more because it greatly helps us to avoid becoming unhappy failures in this life and then unspeakably-wretched failures for all Eternity!

1 For a further explanation of this truth, read these articles:




2 This entire article assumes the reader seeks to draw close to God and to become His intimate friend. If not, then we need to step back and ask ourselves why we do not wish this. Is it because we love fleeting sense-pleasures, honor, and other temporal good more than God? Have we considered that only God’s friends go to heaven? We perhaps have not meditated nearly enough on God’s goodness, His generosity such as giving His only Son to death for us, His eagerness to give us eternal bliss, His mercy in forgiving our countless sins, etc.

CC in Brief – What Should We Think of Pope Leo XIV?

Posted on by Catholic Candle

Catholic Candle note: Catholic Candle normally examines particular issues thoroughly, at length, using the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas and the other Doctors of the Church. By contrast, our feature CC in Brief, usually gives an extremely short answer to a reader’s question. We invite every reader to submit his own questions.

Below is a Question Asked by an Incarcerated Catholic Candle Reader Who Receives Catholic Candle Intermittently When the Mailed Copy Is Allowed Through by the Prison Censors.

Q. What is your opinion on the new American Pope Leo 14? Do you think he will be a pope who preaches Traditional Catholic Teaching? I know Vatican 2 and the last four popes were leftists, Pope Francis (R.I.P.) being the most Woke!

A. Let us pray hard for Pope Leo XIV. His pontificate is just beginning, and yet there seems sufficient evidence this this reign will be one of continued destruction and revolution.


The Slim “Positive Side”

But first, on the positive side, Pope Leo is not the attention-grabbing showman that Pope Francis was.

Also, on the positive side, he follows certain customs of his office more than Pope Francis did. For example, Pope Leo wears certain customary papal attire that is appropriate to his office, more than Pope Francis did. (This is good. This is like the fact that a civil judge should wear judicial robes in court as a sign of his office and not wear a tee shirt, shorts, and flipflops.)


But there is Much on the “Bad Side“

On the bad side, Pope Leo XIV has shown many signs that he is a leftist. Below are a few examples.


Pope Leo’s Environmental Alarmism

Pope Leo is the first one to use the newly-issued “mass” for the care of our planet. (This “mass” was an initiative of Pope Francis.) At this “mass”, he preached a sermon which was as extreme in environmental alarmism as any discourse of Pope Francis. This sermon clearly showed he has a “Green Peace” leftist agenda. In this sermon, the pope stated:

We hear the cry of the Earth. We hear the cry of the poor because this cry has reached the Heart of God. Our indignation is His indignation. Our work is His work.1


Pope Leo Condemns National Borders

Pope Leo has echoed Pope Francis in condemning national borders:

Where there is love, there is no room for prejudice, for “security” zones separating us from our neighbors, for the exclusionary mindset that, tragically, we now see emerging also in political nationalisms.

It was on the feast of Pentecost that Pope Francis observed: “In our world today, there is so much discord, such great division. We are all ‘connected’, yet find ourselves disconnected from one another, anesthetized by indifference and overwhelmed by solitude” (Homily, 28 May 2023). The wars plaguing our world are a tragic sign of this. Let us invoke the Spirit of love and peace, that he may open borders, break down walls, dispel hatred and help us to live as children of our one Father who is in heaven.2


Pope Leo has “Canonized” Pope Francis

Pope Leo strongly praises Pope Francis and has declared several times that he is in heaven. For example, in May 2025, Pope Leo declared:

During Mass, I strongly felt the spiritual presence of Pope Francis accompanying us from heaven.3


Pope Leo Promotes the So-Called “Synodal Church”

Pope Leo showed clearly that he plans to continue Pope Francis’ error of a “synodal church”:

Aware, moreover, that synodality and ecumenism are closely linked, I wish to assure you of my intention to continue Pope Francis’ commitment to promoting the synodal character of the Catholic Church and developing new and concrete forms for an ever stronger and more intense synodality in the ecumenical field.4


Pope Leo Continues to Promote the False Conciliar “Union” with the Jews

Pope Leo showed clearly that he plans to continue the promotion of a false and merely apparent unity with the jews which does not involve their conversion to the only True Faith:

In a special way I greet our Jewish and Muslim brothers and sisters. Because of the Jewish roots of Christianity, all Christians have a special relationship with Judaism. The conciliar Declaration Nostra Aetate (no. 4) emphasizes the greatness of the spiritual heritage shared by Christians and Jews, encouraging mutual knowledge and esteem. The theological dialogue between Christians and Jews remains ever important and close to my heart. Even in these difficult times, marked by conflicts and misunderstandings, it is necessary to continue the momentum of this precious dialogue of ours.5

Lastly, Pope Leo has mostly continued the same programs and legislation implemented by Pope Francis. This further indicates that Pope Leo is no conservative.

Let us watch vigilantly and pray fervently for him!


Catholic Candle note: We ask all Catholic Candle readers to please pray for this incarcerated man, who is trying to discern the truth and save his soul under very difficult circumstances.

The Blessing of a True, Catholic Liberal Education — Part III

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Catholic Candle note: Below is part 3 of the article concerning the best type of education, which is a Catholic Liberal Education. Do not confuse this education with many university programs called “liberal arts” but which are full of fluff, falsehood, and aimless so-called “cultural enrichment” courses and “humanities”.

A liberal education also does not refer to liberalism, nor is a true liberal education an indoctrination into that error of liberalism or political correctness. In fact, a true Catholic Liberal Education is the best antidote to the errors of liberalism.

Previously, in part 1 of this article,1 we examined the problems we see in modern education.

  • Modern colleges do not improve the quality of their students’ minds and their thinking ability much or at all.


  • Most “education” is merely job training, fluff courses, and/or leftist indoctrination.


  • The students are taught to sound like someone in their field but they do little thinking and more memorizing.


  • Grade “inflation” and degree “inflation” is rampant. Grades and academic degrees do not mean much anymore.

In part 2 of this article,2 we examined, in general, what education is. We considered the human soul and the perfection of its highest faculty (power) – the intellect – which is immaterial. We saw that our intellects are perfected through knowing eternal, unchangeable truths and their causes.

Because we saw the importance of perfecting the intellect, we could naturally ask who should perfect his intellect? In part 3 of this article (below), we consider that question.



Who Should Perfect His Intellect?

Because we have seen the importance of perfecting our intellects, the question naturally arises, then, who should obtain this genuine and best education? The answer is: everyone who has an intellect, … or more precisely, whoever has the use of reason. And he should do this according to his abilities. The reason for this answer is that:

  • God created the human intellect and made it the highest faculty in all humans.


  • God intends that we use the gifts He gives, especially the higher gifts, so therefore God expects humans to especially perfect their intellects.


  • All intellects are perfected by knowing eternal, universal truth, which is the good of the intellect.


  • Therefore, God intends that all humans perfect their intellects by learning such eternal, universal truth.3


Women and Girls, as well as Men and Boys, Should Perfect Their Intellects.

Some people fail to understand this crucial principle about how we should lead our life and what should be our principal concerns and goals of life. They hold the false conclusion that possession of universal truth is only for the elite few.

Bishop Richard N. Williamson greatly erred in this way when he said the following:

True universities are for ideas, ideas are not for true girls, and so universities are not for true girls.4

He said ideas are not for girls. How wrong he was!

  • God created the human intellect and made it the highest faculty in women and girls (as well as in men and boys).


  • God intends that women and girls use the gifts He gives, especially the higher gifts, so God expects women and girls to especially perfect their intellects, more than the other faculties of their souls.


  • All intellects are perfected by knowing eternal, universal truth, which is the good of the intellect.


  • Therefore, God intends that women and girls must perfect their intellects with eternal, universal truth.

Further, we see Bishop Williamson’s position is wrong for these five reasons:

  1. His (false) position opposes the practice of the Catholic Church which has founded so many women’s colleges, e.g., St. Mary’s College in South Bend, Indiana. This Catholic women’s college was founded before 1920 by the Sisters of the Holy Cross, with the help of Fr. Edward Sorin (the founder of Notre Dame) and the priests of the Congregation of the Holy Cross.


  2. God made a man and his wife to be the closest of friends.5 But a man and his wife could not possibly be best friends if her mind was devoid of truth: she would not understand or appreciate him and there would be nothing in her mind for him to appreciate. This would frustrate them both and prevent true friendship, leaving only a practical familiarity on a low, non-spiritual level.


  3. In fact, women and girls naturally all do seek the truth on high matters. It would be impossible for them not to do so. As St. Thomas and Aristotle teach and as our experience proves, all persons “by nature desire to know”.6 That is, all persons philosophize7 even if it is often not called that. In other words, they consider and conclude about many important issues and topics in the natural and supernatural order.

    Just as when a patch of land is cleared of vegetation, it will not remain without plants. If that land is not planted with good crops, it will become infested with weeds. Likewise, with the human intellect. If the “garden” of the intellect is not cultivated and filled with great truths (i.e. the “good crops”), then the intellect will be infested with the “weeds” of noxious errors.

    Just as land will be filled with good crops or with weeds, likewise, the human intellect will be filled either way – with great truth or “poisonous” errors. Thus, the intellects of women and girls should be perfected by learning great truths.

  4. In light of this reason (immediately above): since the mind will not stay empty, then for the sake of the spousal friendships that God intends, the wife’s mind must be filled with important truths (as her husband’s mind should be also) and should not be allowed to fill with “weeds” since her mind being filled with errors is a greater obstacle to spousal friendship than even would be the mind of the hypothetical wife (in the second bullet point above) who has no ideas at all.

  5. The woman/wife is an important educator of the children – especially in today’s world – and she cannot do this while her mind is an “empty box” (or is full of errors).

Plainly, Bishop Williamson erred greatly! Thus, we see that the truth must fill and perfect the minds of women and girls (as well as men and boys). They must all perfect their intellects according to their ability, by learning universal, eternal truth, especially about the highest things.


Let Us Consider Another Aspect of Bishop Williamson’s False Position: Are Modern Universities REALLY “True Universities”?

Notice another error embodied in the position of Bishop Williamson, viz., he has the false belief that universities are now really places for high learning (as the best of them used to be). He writes about whether girls should attend “true universities”?8

But, as better-informed persons know, universities nowadays are largely dens of errors, iniquity, and political correctness. In contrast, Bishop Williamson refers to these places as if they were places of truth and true higher education. When a student is as uninformed on this as Bishop Williamson indicates that he is, then such a student would expect high learning there. He would then be caught off-guard and be all-the-more unprepared for the onslaught of the devils’ attacks there, seeking to corrupt any good which is possessed by the student at the time when he enrolls at the university.

To the extent that universities are dens of error and leftist indoctrination, universities are not for anyone – even men. By contrast, perfecting one’s mind with a true Catholic Liberal Education in the highest truths, is for everybody according to his ability.

This true Catholic Liberal Education is for women, each according to her abilities, because it makes a woman wise in important ways. But as experience shows us, and as St. Thomas teaches, “the discretion of reason predominates” in man more than in woman. Summa, Ia, Q.92, a.1, ad 2. Therefore, because a man is even more logical than a woman, a true Catholic Liberal Education perfects his intellect even more than it does hers.

Although men and women are both rational, men think more abstractly. Women are more emotional – (they are more inclined to bring personality and feeling into their reasoning). Thus, men are able to advance further in the two types of wisdom provided in a Catholic Liberal Education:

  1. One kind of wisdom is good apart from the practical life we live. This type of wisdom is to know the highest truths about God (as well as other high truths) because they perfect the intellect and because they are so magnificent and worth knowing in themselves; and

  2. The second kind of wisdom is practical and is directed toward living more fully the good life according to our rational nature, e.g., the moral sciences of ethics and politics (in the true sense which will be discussed in a later part of this article).

Summa, Ia, Q.45., a.1, Respondeo; & Summa, Ia, Q.45., a.3, Respondeo.

Both types of wisdom perfect the intellect, so men and women should pursue both. (We will treat this topic more fully in a later part of this article.)

Whereas this Catholic Liberal Education greatly benefits both men and women, it helps man even more to grow in wisdom than it does a woman and increases his fitness to be her head and the head of their family, as God intended.


A Question Arises

Since modern universities do not provide a true education, is there ever any reason for men or women to attend them? In the next part of this article, we will examine that question.


To be continued …

3 This is one of many ways we can see that Catholics have the duty to study their Faith during their entire life.

4 Quoted from Girls at the University, Bishop Richard Williamson’s Letter to Friends and Benefactors of St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary, Winona, September 1, 2001 (emphasis added).

5

Here is one way St. Thomas explains this truth:


The greater the friendship, the firmer and the more lasting it is. Now, between husband and wife there seems to be the greatest friendship; for they join … for the sharing of all of home life; hence a sign of this is that man leaves even his father and mother for the sake of his wife.


Summa Contra Gentiles, St. Thomas Aquinas, ch.123, §6 (emphasis added).


Again, God intends the friendship of a husband and wife to be the closest and greatest of all friendships. Summa Supp., Q.44, a.2, ad 3. This friendship between man and wife is the closest friendship because it is the only one complementary under the natural law (i.e., between the different sexes) and which is a union in the bond of a Sacrament, resulting in the Great Life Work of women/mothers.


Here is one way St. John Chrysostom explains this truth:

For there is no relationship between man and man so close as that between man and wife, if they be joined together as they should be.

For there is nothing which so welds our life together as the love of man and wife. For this, many will lay aside even their arms; for this, they will give up life itself.

St. John Chrysostom, Sermon 20 on Ephesians, 5:22-24.

6 St. Thomas Aquinas, Lectures on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, first lecture right at the beginning.

7 St. Thomas Aquinas, Lectures on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Book 1, chapters 1-2.

8 Quoted from Girls at the University, Bishop Richard Williamson’s Letter to Friends and Benefactors of St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary, Winona, September 1, 2001.

Vatican II is Not Infallible

Posted on by Catholic Candle

Catholic Candle reminder: All Catholics have a duty to continually study the Catholic Faith their entire lives.  This involves more than spiritual reading to use in meditation and prayer (although that is very important too). 

 

We must study Catholic doctrine and the refutation of the principal errors against our Faith and Catholic morals.  Catholic Candle attempts to help you do this.  Therefore, we suggest you read articles such as the one below, even if you are already convinced of its conclusion, to help you to more thoroughly understand, and to better teach and defend, Catholic Faith and morals. 

 

 

 

Many confused and deceived “mainstream” Catholics (and also many sedevacantists) wrongly believe that all councils of the Catholic Church are infallible. 

 

Because of this error, confused and deceived “mainstream” Catholics conclude they must accept Vatican II’s liberal teachings because Vatican II is a council of the Catholic Church. 

 

Because of this same error, the sedevacantists conclude that, because Vatican II errs, it cannot be a council of the Catholic Church and the council fathers (including the pope) cannot be the hierarchy of the Catholic Church.

 

The truth is that Vatican II was a real council of the Catholic Church but that none of its teachings are infallible.  Therefore, “mainstream” Catholics mistakenly conclude they must accept its errors, and sedevacantists falsely conclude that the Catholic Church has no hierarchy.

 

There are four ways to see that the Second Vatican Council is not infallible:

 

1.    It would be irrational and unjust if Vatican II were infallible because the council does not show it is infallible.

2.    Vatican II was (deliberately) made ambiguous and contradictory and so cannot be infallible.

 

3.    Vatican II is full of doctrinal novelties and it is impossible for any novelties to be infallible.

 

4.    Even the council fathers and popes during and after Vatican II knew that Vatican II is not infallible.

 

Below, we discuss each of these four reasons.

 

 

1.   It would be irrational and unjust if Vatican II were infallible because the council does not show it is infallible.

The Catholic Church only teaches doctrines infallibly so that Catholics know with complete certitude that those particular statements are true.  Thus, it would be irrational to suppose the Church teaches any doctrine infallibly if She does not clearly make known that it is infallible and that Catholics must believe it.

 

Further, Catholics are more culpable for denying (or doubting) an infallible teaching because that teaching comes to us with the highest certitude.  Thus, it would be unjust if the Church taught something infallible without clearly manifesting this infallibility, because Catholics would have no warning of the graver consequences of denying that teaching. 

 

Thus, reason and justice require the Church to clearly indicate when a particular teaching is infallible.  Even Vatican II authorities (the council’s Theological Commission and also its General Secretary) recognized this principle of reason and justice, when they declared:

 

In view of conciliar practice and the pastoral purpose of the present Council, this sacred Synod defines matters of faith or morals as binding on the Church only when the Synod itself openly declares so.[1]

 

The council never openly declared anything infallible.  (However, the council’s authorities phrased the above declaration in the way they did because the council was still ongoing and they allowed for the possibility – which never happened – that the council might teach something infallible before the end of the council’s final session.)

 

Even prior Church councils (which did teach infallibly), explained and taught many things non-infallibly, which then led up to defining certain, specific, infallibly-true statements.  Immediately below, we give examples of the language used to plainly declare an infallible truth, during the last two Church Councils before Vatican II.

 

Here is an example how the Council of Trent plainly showed the infallibility of one of its teachings:

 

[T]he sacred and holy, oecumenical and general Synod of Trent, … most strictly forbidding that any persons henceforth presume to believe, preach, or teach, otherwise than as by this present decree is defined and declared: … If anyone saith, that man may be justified before God by his own works, whether done through the teaching of human nature, or that of the law, without the grace of God through Jesus Christ; let him be anathema.[2]

 

Here is an example how the First Vatican Council plainly showed the infallibility of one of its teachings:

 

[W]e teach and define as a divinely revealed dogma that when the Roman pontiff speaks ex cathedra, that is, when,

 

1.    in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians,

 

2.    in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority,

 

3.    he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole church,

 

he possesses, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, that infallibility which the divine Redeemer willed his church to enjoy in defining doctrine concerning faith or morals.  Therefore, such definitions of the Roman pontiff are of themselves, and not by the consent of the church, irreformable.  So then, should anyone, which God forbid, have the temerity to reject this definition of ours: let him be anathema.[3]

 

This infallible declaration of the First Vatican Council shows how clearly a pope or a Church council must manifest his/its infallibility if the Church is thereby binding all Catholics to profess the particular doctrine.

 

 

The contrast in the language of Vatican II shows it is not speaking infallibly.

 

Because of the gravity of denying such infallible teachings, the councils anathematized (condemned) anyone who denied such teaching.  By contrast, Vatican II specifically avoided condemning anyone. 

 

Pope John XXIII declared that Vatican II would condemn no one, stating:

 

The Church has always opposed … errors. Frequently she has condemned them with the greatest severity.  Nowadays, however, the Spouse of Christ prefers to make use of the medicine of mercy rather than that of severity.  She considers that she meets the needs of the present day by demonstrating the validity of her teaching rather than by condemnations.[4]

 

Council Father, Bishop Rudolf Graber, declared that the Second Vatican “Council … refrained from … anathemas … [in contrast to what] previous Church assemblies have done”.[5]

 

All Church councils before Vatican II clearly indicated when they taught infallibly, as reason and justice require.  Vatican II never showed it taught infallibly.  Thus, reason and justice require that Vatican II’s teachings are not infallible.

 

 

2.  Vatican II was (deliberately) made ambiguous and contradictory and so cannot be infallible.

 

No one is able to accept contradictory (i.e., opposite) teachings because the human mind cannot hold opposites about the same thing at the same time.  For example, no one can hold that the same man is both dead and not dead at the same time. 

 

No one is able to accept ambiguous teaching, i.e., teaching without one clear meaning, because the human mind cannot hold a statement without knowing which meaning the statement has.

 

Vatican II is full of such contradictory and ambiguous teachings, which are often called “time bombs” (viz., statements quietly inserted into the council’s documents, which the modernists later “detonated” when they were ready to use these statements to cause harm).  To see hundreds of these “time bombs” in one key Vatican II document, read Lumen Gentium Annotated, by the Editors of Quanta Cura Press, © 2013.[6]

 

Not only do the contradictions and ambiguities of Vatican II’s “time bombs” refute that Vatican II taught infallibly, but Vatican II participants admit that they knowingly inserted these “time bombs”.

 

 

The Bragging Testimony of Fr. Chenu

 

Fr. Marie-Dominique Chenu was an influential French “expert” at Vatican II.  After the council, he wrote a book explaining how the experts deliberately inserted ambiguities and contradictions into the council’s documents.  In his book, he recounted one particular example of this nefarious practice:

 

The gossip is that the experts directed the Council; indeed, this is not so wrong.  I recall a minuscule but revealing episode.  While the Decree on the Laymen [Apostolicam actuositatem] was being discussed, I noticed that it still had a paragraph entirely permeated with the notion of a ‘mandate’ given to laymen by the Hierarchy, inspired by a dualist conception – the Church on one side and the world on the other.  I met with another French expert and we agreed that this was bad.

 

But that paragraph had already been discussed and adopted by the commission.  It was impossible, therefore, to change it.  So, we wrote a text to be added that corrected it.  It was a second paragraph that said more or less the opposite of the preceding one.  The first in a certain way affirmed dualism.  But the second stated that the action of the Church must go beyond it.

 

The French Bishops presented our new text as their own, and it was

adopted.[7]

 

 

The Testimony of Cardinal Kasper

 

Cardinal Walter Kasper admitted that contradictions and ambiguities are “in many places” in Vatican II’s teaching.  Here are his words:

 

In many places, [the Council Fathers] had to find compromise formulas, in which, often, the positions of the majority are located immediately next to those of the minority, designed to delimit them.  Thus, the conciliar texts themselves have a huge potential for conflict, [and] open the door to a selective reception in either direction.[8]

 

Because (as was said above) no one is obliged to accept contradictory or ambiguous teaching, no one is obliged to accept Vatican II’s teaching because it is not clear and decisive, as is necessary for any infallible statement.

 

 

3.  Vatican II is full of doctrinal novelties and it is impossible for any novelties to be infallible.

 

New doctrines are heresy and are false.[9]  It is impossible for any new doctrine to be infallible Catholic teaching because the Church may only teach what Christ handed down through the Apostles.

 

Any of Vatican II’s teachings which are not part of Catholic Tradition are new and so cannot be infallible.

 

Below, we set forth the testimony of the hierarchy that the teachings of Vatican II are new.

 

 

The testimony of Pope John Paul II:

 

[W]hat constitutes the substantial “novelty” of the Second Vatican Council, in line with the legislative tradition of the Church, especially in regard to ecclesiology, constitutes likewise the “novelty” of the new Code [of canon law].

 

Among the elements which characterize the true and genuine image of the Church, we should emphasize especially the following: the doctrine in which the Church is presented as the People of God (cf. Lumen Gentium, no. 2), and authority as a service (cf. ibid., no. 3); the doctrine in which the Church is seen as a “communion”, and which, therefore, determines the relations which should exist between the particular Churches and the universal Church, and between collegiality and the primacy; the doctrine, moreover, according to which all the members of the People of God, in the way suited to each of them, participate in the threefold office of Christ: priestly, prophetic and kingly. With this teaching there is also linked that which concerns the duties and rights of the faithful, and particularly of the laity; and finally, the Church’s commitment to ecumenism.  …

 

[T]he Second Vatican Council has … elements both old and new, and the new consists precisely in the elements which we have enumerated ….

 

Pope John Paul II, Sacrae Disciplinae Leges, January 25, 1983 (emphasis added).

Pope John Paul II also admitted the council’s novelties in these words:

 

Indeed, the extent and depth of the teaching of the Second Vatican Council call for a renewed commitment to deeper study in order to reveal clearly the Council’s continuity with Tradition, especially in points of doctrine which, perhaps because they are new, have not yet been well understood by some sections of the Church.

 

Ecclesia Dei, (1988), 5.b.

 

 

The testimony of Pope Benedict XVI:

 

In the first year of his pontificate, Pope Benedict XVI said:

 

[W]ith the Second Vatican Council, the time came when broad new thinking was required.

 

December 22, 2005 Christmas address (emphasis added).

 

Before he became pope, Cardinal Ratzinger taught:

 

If it is desirable to offer a diagnosis of the text [of the Vatican II document, Gaudium et Spes] as a whole, we might say that (in conjunction with the texts on religious liberty and world religions) it is a revision of the Syllabus of Pius IX, a kind of countersyllabus.  …   Let us be content to say that the text serves as a countersyllabus and, as such, represents, on the part of the Church, an attempt at an official reconciliation with the new era inaugurated in 1789 [by the Masonic French Revolution].[10]

 

Obviously, whatever “counters” the Catholic Church’s prior teaching, must be a new teaching which the Church did not previously teach.  Yet (former) Pope Benedict XVI described some of the main teachings of Vatican II as countering the Church’s prior teaching!  Thus, clearly, Vatican II’s new teachings could not be infallible.

 

 

The testimony of Pope Paul VI:

 

The new position adopted by the Church with regard to the realities of this earth is henceforth well known by everyone ….  [T]he Church agrees to recognize the new principle to be put into practice ….  [T]he Church agrees to recognize the world as ‘self-sufficient’; she does not seek to make the world an instrument for her religious ends …. [11]

 

Further, Pope Paul VI also referred to the “newness” of the doctrine of the Second Vatican Council, in a general audience on January 12, 1966.[12]

 

 

Statements Made by other Members of the Hierarchy

 

Other members of the hierarchy have also made clear statements concerning the novelty and rupture of the teachings of Vatican II.

 

Near the close of the council, Cardinal Congar stated:

 

What is new in this teaching [regarding religious liberty] in relation to the doctrine of Leo XIII and even of Pius XII, although the movement was already beginning to make itself felt, is the determination of the basis peculiar to this liberty, which is sought not in the objective truth of moral or religious good, but in the ontological quality of the human person.[13]

 

Pope John Paul II appointed Yves Congar as a cardinal to recognize Cardinal Congar’s lifelong dedication to the conciliar revolution.  Cardinal Congar likened Vatican II to the triumph of the communists in Russia, calling Vatican II the “October Revolution” in the Church.[14]  By this parallel, Cardinal Congar is telling us that Vatican II overthrew the established order in the Catholic Church.  Further, by making this particular parallel, Cardinal Congar saw fit to compare Vatican II to the triumph of the anti-God communists in Russia! 

 

Cardinal Suenens compared Vatican II to a different anti-God revolution.  He made the same parallel as (former) Pope Benedict XVI did (quoted above), between Vatican II and the anti-God, Masonic French Revolution, saying that Vatican II was 1789 in the Church.[15]

 

By comparing Vatican II with a communist or Masonic revolution, all three of these cardinals are stating that Vatican II’s teaching is revolutionary, new, and therefore fallible.

 

 

Conclusion Regarding the Non-Infallibility of Vatican II’s Teachings based on their Newness

The Catholic Church may only hand down the doctrines She received from the Apostles.  The Catholic Church has always condemned new doctrines as heresy.

 

Pope John Paul II, (former) Pope Benedict XVI, and Pope Paul VI (as well as some cardinals), have all stated that Vatican II teaches new doctrines.  They are correct that Vatican II’s teachings are new, as is obvious when comparing those teachings to the traditional teachings of the Catholic Church.  See, e.g., the hundreds of new teachings contained in one of the key Vatican II documents, Lumen Gentium.  Lumen Gentium Annotated, by the Editors of Quanta Cura Press, © 2013[16] (comparing these new council teachings to the opposite teachings of the Catholic Church’s Fathers, Doctors, and popes). 

 

Because Vatican II’s teachings are new, they are fallible and the Church condemns them as heresy.

 

 

4.  Even the council fathers and popes during and after Vatican II knew that Vatican II is not infallible.

 

The popes and other members of the hierarchy not only considered Vatican II’s teachings to be new but also not infallible.

 

 

The Testimony of Pope Paul VI

 

Pope Paul VI, who presided over three of the council’s four sessions, denied clearly and repeatedly that the teachings of Vatican II are infallible. 

 

For example, Pope Paul VI stated shortly after the close of Vatican II:

 

In view of the pastoral nature of the Council, it avoided any extraordinary statement of dogmas that would be endowed with the note of infallibility.[17]

 

When concluding the council, Pope Paul VI plainly denied that Vatican II ever taught infallibly:

 

Today we are concluding the Second Vatican Council.  …  But one thing must be noted here, namely, that the teaching authority of the Church, even though not wishing to issue extraordinary dogmatic pronouncements, has made thoroughly known its authoritative teaching on a number of questions which today weigh upon man’s conscience and activity, descending, so to speak, into a dialogue with him, but ever preserving its own authority and force; it has spoken with the accommodating friendly voice of pastoral charity; its desire has been to be heard and understood by everyone; it has not merely concentrated on intellectual understanding but has also sought to express itself in simple, up-to-date, conversational style, derived from actual experience and a cordial approach which make it more vital, attractive and persuasive; it has spoken to modern man as he is.[18]

 

Pope Paul VI again highlighted the non-infallible, non-definitive character of Vatican II in a general audience in 1966: 

 

There are those who ask what authority, what theological qualification, the Council intended to give to its teachings, knowing that it avoided issuing solemn dogmatic definitions backed by the Church’s infallible teaching authority.  The answer is known by those who remember the conciliar declaration of March 6, 1964, repeated on November 16, 1964.  In view of the pastoral nature of the Council, it avoided proclaiming in an extraordinary manner any dogmas carrying the mark of infallibility but it still provided its teaching with the authority of the Ordinary Magisterium which must be accepted with docility according to the mind of the Council concerning the nature and aims of each document.[19]

 

 

The Testimony of (former) Pope Benedict XVI

 

(Former) Pope Benedict XVI, as Cardinal Ratzinger, also stated that Vatican II was not infallible:

 

[T]here is a mentality of narrow views that isolates Vatican II ….  There are many accounts of it, which give the impression that from Vatican II onward, everything has been changed, and what preceded it has no value or, at best, has value only in the light of Vatican II.  …  The truth is that this particular Council defined no dogma at all, and deliberately chose to remain on a modest level, as a merely pastoral council; and yet many treat it as though it had made itself into a sort of superdogma which takes away the importance of all the rest.[20]

 

 

The Testimony of Pope John XXIII

 

Pope John XXIII explained:

 

The salient point of this Council is not, therefore, a discussion of one article or another of the fundamental doctrine of the Church, [but to study and expound doctrine] through methods of research and through the literary forms of modern thought.[21]

 

 

The Testimony of Various Cardinals and Bishops

 

Below, is the testimony of all council fathers whose testimony we could find, unanimously denying that Vatican II ever taught infallibly.

 

 

The Testimony of John Cardinal Heenan of England 

 

[The Second Vatican Council] deliberately limited its own objectives. There were to be no specific definitions.  Its purpose from the first was pastoral renewal within the Church and a fresh approach to the outside.[22]

 

 

The Testimony of Eugene Cardinal Tisserant, on Sept. 9, 1964:


We must also restate that this ecumenical Council, as the sovereign pontiff John XXIII has stated many times, has no intention to pronounce itself on … doctrinal issues; but its specific goal consists in giving to the pastoral zeal of the Church a new boost, so that it becomes more active and more fruitful in the dioceses, in parishes and in all mission territories, and also among all religious families and lay associations.

 

 

The Testimony of Cardinal Biffi

 

In his 2007 autobiographical work, Cardinal Biffi stated that:

 

John XXIII aspired after a council that … avoided formulating definitive teachings that would be obligatory for all.  And in fact, this original indication was continually followed.[23]

The Testimony of Cardinal Felici, through Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre

 

[A]t the end of the [council] sessions, we asked Cardinal Felici [the Council’s General Secretary], “Can you not give us what the theologians call the “‘theological note’ of the Council?”   He replied, “We have to distinguish according to the schemas and the chapters those which have already been the subject of dogmatic definitions in the past; as for the declarations which have a novel character, we have to make reservations.[24]

 

 

The Testimony of Bishop B.C. Butler of England

 

Not all teachings emanating from a pope or Ecumenical Council are infallible. There is no single proposition of Vatican II – except where it is citing previous infallible definitions – which is in itself infallible.[25]

 

 Here is Bishop Butler again: “Vatican II gave us no new dogmatic definitions….”[26]

 

 

The Testimony of Bishop Rudolf Graber

 

Since the Council was aiming primarily at a pastoral orientation and hence refrained from making dogmatically binding statements or disassociating itself, as previous Church assemblies have done, from errors and false doctrines by means of clear anathemas, many questions took on an opalescent ambivalence which provided a certain amount of justification for those who speak of the spirit of the Council.[27]

 

 

The Testimony of Bishop Thomas Morris

 

I was relieved when we were told that this Council was not aiming at defining or giving final statements on doctrine, because a statement of doctrine has to be very carefully formulated and I would have regarded the Council documents as tentative and likely to be reformed.[28]

 

 

Conclusion to this entire article

 

Vatican II is not infallible because:

 

1.    God does not “trick” us.  The Holy Ghost would not allow any infallible teachings which were unreasonable and unjust, as would be any infallible teaching which we could not clearly recognize as such.

 

2.    Vatican II was (deliberately) made ambiguous and contradictory and cannot be infallible because the human mind cannot hold opposites about the same thing at the same time and also cannot hold a statement which is ambiguous and so whose infallible meaning cannot be discerned.

 

3.    Vatican II cannot be infallible because its teachings are new (and new teachings cannot be infallible).

 

4.    The popes and council fathers repeatedly assure us that Vatican II is not infallible.


[1]           March 6, 1964 declaration of the Council’s Theological Commission, repeated by the Council’s General Secretary on Nov. 16, 1964 (emphasis added).

[2]           Session Six, January 13, 1547, Decree On Justification, Proem., and Canon I.

 

Here is the longer declaration:

 

Whereas there is, at this time, not without the shipwreck of many souls, and grievous detriment to the unity of the Church, a certain erroneous doctrine disseminated touching Justification; the sacred and holy, oecumenical and general Synod of Trent, lawfully assembled in the Holy Ghost, — the most reverend lords, Giammaria del Monte, bishop of Palaestrina, and Marcellus of the title of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem, priest, cardinals of the holy Roman Church, and legates apostolic a latere, presiding therein, in the name of our most holy father and lord in Christ, Paul III., by the providence of God, Pope, purposes, unto the praise and glory of Almighty God, the tranquillizing of the Church, and the salvation of souls, to expound to all the faithful of Christ the true and sound doctrine touching the said Justification; which (doctrine) the sun of justice, Christ Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, taught, which the apostles transmitted, and which the Catholic Church, the Holy Ghost reminding her thereof, has always retained; most strictly forbidding that any henceforth presume to believe, preach, or teach, otherwise than as by this present decree is defined and declared.

 

If anyone saith, that man may be justified before God by his own works, whether done through the teaching of human nature, or that of the law, without the grace of God through Jesus Christ; let him be anathema.

 

(Emphasis added).

[3]           First Vatican Council, Session Four Chapter Four (emphasis added). 

[4]           Pope John XXIII’s Opening Speech to the Council, October 11, 1962 (emphasis added).

[5]           Athanasius and the Church of Our Times, Rudolf Graber, Van Duren (publisher), London, 1974, p.66 (emphasis added).  Here is the longer quote:

 

Since the Council was aiming primarily at a pastoral orientation and hence refrained from making dogmatically binding statements or disassociating itself, as previous Church assemblies have done, from errors and false doctrines by means of clear anathemas, many questions took on an opalescent ambivalence which provided a certain amount of justification for those who speak of the spirit of the Council.

 

(Emphasis added.)

 

[6]           Lumen Gentium Annotated is available at: scribd.com/doc/158994906 (free) & at Amazon.com (sold at cost).

[7]           Marie-Dominique Chenu, Jacques Duchesne interroge le Pere Chenu, Paris: Centurion, 1975, p. 17.


[8]           L’Osservatore Romano, April 12, 2013 (emphasis added), also found here: http://www.christianorder.com/editorials/editorials_2015/editorials_augsep15.html


[9]           The Council of Trent Catechism teaches:

 

[The Catholic Church’s] doctrines are neither novel nor of recent origin, but were delivered, of old, by the Apostles, and disseminated throughout the world.  Hence, no one can, for a moment, doubt that the impious opinions which heresy invents, opposed, as they are, to the doctrines taught by the Church from the days of the Apostles to the present time, are very different from the faith of the true Church.  

 

Council of Trent Catechism, under Creed; Apostolicity (emphasis added).

 

For more declarations of the Catholic Church that Her teachings are not new, go to this link: https://catholiccandle.neocities.org/faith/new-doctrines-are-heresy.html

 

[10]         Principles of Catholic Theology: Building Stones for a Fundamental Theology, translator, Sr. Mary Frances McCarthy (San Francisco: Ignatius Press 1987), pp. 381-382; French edition: Les Principes de la Theologie Catholique – Esquisse et Materiaux, Paris: Tequi, 1982, pp. 426-427 (emphasis added; bracketed words added; parenthetical words are in the original).


[11]         August 24, 1969 Declaration of Pope Paul VI, L’Osservatore Romano; (emphasis added).

[13]         Congar, in the Bulletin Etudes et Documents of June 15, 1965, as quoted in I Accuse the Council, Archbishop Lefebvre, p. 27, Angelus Press, 2009 (emphasis added; bracketed words added).

 

[14]         Yves Congar, The Council Day by Day: Second Session p. 215, (1964).

[15]         Quoted in the Catechism of the Crisis in the Church, Pt., 5, by Fr. M. Gaudron, SSPX, posted here: www.angelusonline.org/index.php?section=articles&subsection=show_article&article_id=2640.

 

[16]         See, Lumen Gentium Annotated is available at: scribd.com/doc/158994906 (free) & at Amazon.com (sold at cost).

[17]         Pope Paul VI, “After the Council: New Tasks”, The Pope Speaks, vol. 11 (Winter, 1966), p.154.


[18]         Address during the last general meeting of the Second Vatican Council, December 7, 1965; Acts of the Apostolic See, #58; http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/speeches/1965/documents/hf_p-vi_spe_19651207_epilogo-concilio_en.html (emphasis added).

 

[19]         Pope Paul VI, General Audience, 12 January 1966,
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/audiences/1966/documents/hf_p-vi_aud_19660112_it.html (emphasis added).

 

[20]         Address to the Chilean Episcopal Conference, Santiago, Chile, July 13, 1988, http://sagradatradicion.blogspot.com/2009/03/alocucion-los-obispos-en-chile-1988.html (Spanish).

 

[21]         Pope John XXIII’s Opening Speech to the Council, The Documents of Vatican II, Abbott (general editor), p.715 (bracketed words in the original).


[22]         Council and Clergy, John Cardinal Heenan, London, 1966, p.7 (emphasis added; bracketed words added).

[23]         Giacomo Biffi, Memorie e digressioni di un Italiano Cardinale (Sienna, 2007).


[24]         An Open Letter to Confused Catholics, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, Ch. 14, entitled “Vatican II is the French Revolution in the Church”, p. 107 (bracketed words in the original).

[25]         The Tablet, (England) Nov. 25, 1967, p.1220 (emphasis added).


[26]         The Tablet, March 2, 1968, p.199.

[27]         Athanasius and the Church of Our Times, Rudolf Graber, Van Duren (publisher), London, 1974, p.66 (emphasis added).


[28]         Catholic World News, as quoted in its January 22, 1997 edition online.

Posted on by Catholic Candle

Words to Live by – from Catholic Tradition

 

Whenever We Complain We Offend God, Harm Our Souls, and Scandalize Our Neighbor

 

St. John of the Cross, great Mystical Doctor, reminds us to never complain.  Here are his words:

 

Anyone who complains or grumbles is not perfect,
nor is he even a good Christian.


Words of St. John of the Cross, quoted from his work called Other Counsels, #4.

Reminder That the Climate Scare is Mere Fear-Mongering

Posted on by Catholic Candle

Catholic Candle note: The globalists are seeking to grab power by frightening gullible people that there is a climate emergency that requires the globalists to save us by wielding totalitarian power for our own good.  Read this article: The Baseless Climate-Change Scare aims to usher in the New World Order, found here:   https://catholiccandle.org/2019/12/22/the-baseless-climate-change/

These globalists falsify and deceptively use climate data as part of their scheme to alarm people with a supposed global-warming emergency.  In roughly the 1970s, the globalists tried (and largely succeeded) in alarming people by the scare of global cooling and the (supposed) coming of a “new ice age”.  https://catholiccandle.org/2022/10/25/recalling-a-1970s-climate-change-hoax/

The globalists use cyclical climate trends to alarm the people, as if the climate cycle was going to continue without end in the same direction.  In an earlier article, we examined the fact that the climate is naturally cyclical.  There are daily cycles, yearly cycles, decades-long cycles, and centuries-long cycles.  Read this article: Climate Alarmists Abuse Data from Natural Weather Cycles: https://catholiccandle.org/2023/02/24/climate-alarmists-abuse-data-from-natural-weather-cycles/

Here are further articles on the ongoing climate scare hoax:

➢  Glacier-Melting Alarmism: https://catholiccandle.org/2024/01/23/glacier-melting-alarmism/

 

➢  Climate Fearmongers Always Warn that Doom is Almost Here: https://catholiccandle.org/2024/01/10/greta-thunberg-and-the-doom-coming-soon-scam/

➢  The “Deadly Heat” Alarmism: https://catholiccandle.org/2023/08/24/the-deadly-heat-alarmism/

➢  False Claims that Global Warming Is Intensifying Hurricanes, Part 1: https://catholiccandle.org/2023/04/10/the-false-claim-that-global-warming-causes-hurricanes-to-be-more-severe/

➢  False Claims that Global Warming Is Intensifying Hurricanes, Part 2: https://catholiccandle.org/2023/07/15/the-false-claim-that-global-warming-causes-hurricanes-to-be-more-severe-part-2/

Reminder and A Little Further Evidence Showing That the Climate Scare is Mere Fear-Mongering

In some places in the Northern Hemisphere, we are now experiencing a comparatively warm summer (so far).  While experiencing this weather, it would be easy – because it would be in accord with fallen human nature – to suppose that our climate is heading toward frying us to a crisp.  But leaping to this conclusion fails to take into account three things:

1.    That the climate goes in cycles.  There are daily cycles, annual cycles, decades-long cycles, and centuries-long cycles.[1]  These cycles reverse themselves and every warming trend is followed by a cooling trend.

2.    Divine Providence takes such tender care of us.  We have nothing to fear because God is in control and the world which He created is the best possible universe.[2]  God reminds us of His loving, Providential care for us in these words:

Can a woman forget her infant, so as not to have pity on the son of her womb? and if she should forget, yet will not I forget thee.  Behold, I have graven thee in My Hands.

Isaiah, 49:15-16.

3.    The climate scare is based on emotion, not reason.  Because of the wounds of Original Sin, fallen man is prone to overreact to pain and to fear.  Fallen man does not judge well because his mind is easily moved away from sound judgment and rational analysis by the impetus of sense and passion.  He is prone to suppose what he is sensing now is somehow “bigger” than past events because the current sensations are more immediate and “tangible”. 

We see this same conclusion – driven by pain and fear – in St. Augustine’s time.  Sixteen hundred years ago, St. Augustine, Doctor of the Church, described this same foolish tendency of (fallen) man to leap to assumptions about the weather with unreasonable foreboding.  Here is one way he describes it:

Not only did our elders complain about their days, their grandparents too complained about their [own] days.  People have never been pleased with the days they lived in.  But the days of the ancestors please their descendants, and they too were pleased with the days they hadn’t experienced – and that’s precisely why they thought them pleasant.  It’s what’s present that is sharply felt.  I don’t mean it comes nearer, but it touches the heart every day.  Practically every year when we feel the cold we say “It’s never been so cold.”  “It’s never been so hot.”  “It,” “it” – “it” is always in our minds.  But blessed is the man whom You instruct, O Lord, to claim him from baleful days, while a pit is being dug for the sinner.[3]

At its root, St. Augustine is describing fallen man’s tendency to suppose that things (such as the weather and climate) used to be very good and pleasant but now it has begun to become bad and painful.

Notice St. Augustine’s own serenity in his words.  That is how a reasonable man should be – and a man of Faith.  See how this great Doctor is not disturbed in the least by the childish outlook of the climate alarmists down through the centuries.

We greatly need “more St. Augustines” today!  We need strong, manly men!  We need men of the true Traditional Catholic Faith and of reason!

Instead, we have “scaredy-cats” who look with foreboding at the climate.  Truly, they fit the proverb that a coward dies a thousand deaths, a brave man just one.

Such wimpy men are stampeded into fear by absurd predictions made by foolish dupes (and leftist tools) like Greta Thunberg, who predicted that the extinction of humanity would occur before now.  Here is one way that she foolishly and  confidently predicted her doomsday scenario seven years ago, viz., that all mankind would dead two years ago:

Those climate cowards are all around us today.  But rash men such as these not only live now but also lived in St. Augustine’s time, and, in fact, throughout history.

Which brings us to an interesting map we wanted to share with you, which shows the record high temperature for each state.

NOAA

This map compiles U.S. government (NOAA) data taken from a NOAA chart found here: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/scec/records

Despite the rash alarmists’ claim that our climate is getting continually hotter, the data on this map shows that 36 of the 50 state record highs were set more than five decades ago. Twenty-three states’ record high temperatures occurred during the 1930s, when annual human CO2 emissions were less than one-eighth of today’s emissions.  Despite leftist/mainstream media continually claiming that climate disaster is coming soon, only 6 state high temperature records have occurred in the 25 years (since the year 2000).

This map and climate data remind us to ignore those “chicken littles” who are constantly insisting that climate disaster is only five or ten years away.


[1]           Read this article: Climate Alarmists Abuse Data from Natural Weather Cycles: https://catholiccandle.org/2023/02/24/climate-alarmists-abuse-data-from-natural-weather-cycles/


[2]           Here is St. Thomas’ fuller explanation of this truth:

 

It is the part of the best agent to produce an effect which is best in its entirety; but this does not mean that He makes every part of the whole the best absolutely, but in proportion to the whole; in the case of an animal, for instance, its goodness would be taken away if every part of it had the dignity of an eye. Thus, therefore, God also made the universe to be best as a whole, according to the mode of a creature; whereas He did not make each single creature best, but one better than another.  And therefore, we find it said of each creature, “God saw the light, that it was good” (Genesis 1:4); and in like manner of each one of the rest.  But of all together it is said, “God saw all the things that He had made, and they were very good” (Genesis 1:31).

 

Summa, Ia, Q.47, a.2, ad 1 (emphasis added).

The Blessing of a True, Catholic Liberal Education — Part II

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Catholic Candle note: Below is part 2 of the article concerning the best type of education, which is a Catholic Liberal Education.  Do not confuse this education with many university programs called “liberal arts” but which are full of fluff, falsehood, and aimless so-called “enrichment” courses and “humanities”. 

A liberal education also does not refer to liberalism, nor is a true liberal education an indoctrination into that error of liberalism or political correctness.  In fact, a true Catholic Liberal Education is the best antidote to the errors of liberalism.

Previously, in part 1 of this article, we examined the problems we see in modern education. 

➢  Modern colleges do not improve the quality of their students’ minds and their thinking ability much or at all. 

➢  Most “education” is merely job training, fluff courses, and/or leftist indoctrination. 

➢  The students are taught to sound like someone in their field but they do little thinking and more memorizing. 

➢  Grade “inflation” and degree “inflation” is rampant.  Grades and academic degrees do not mean much anymore.

Part 1 of this article can be found here: The Blessing of a True, Catholic Liberal Education – Part 1: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/06/28/the-blessings-of-a-true-catholic-liberal-education/

Below is part 2 of this article. 


The Blessing of a True, Catholic Liberal Education

Part 2

By contrast to modern education, a real education should focus on perfecting our intellects – as God created us to do.  We should learn how to think carefully and critically.  A genuine education should improve our minds through learning universal truth, especially the highest truths.  Let us look more deeply into why we should do this.

What is Education?  Let us Consider the Human Soul and Its Perfection

Man has two immaterial powers (faculties) in his soul – the intellect (reason) and the rational appetite (the will).  The will desires and moves the man but is blind except with regard to what reason shows to it.  Thus, the intellect is higher than the will.

These two powers that man has in his soul do not reside in a bodily organ.  For example, they are not in his brain in particular.  By contrast, all other faculties of the soul reside in particular bodily organs.  So, for example, man has the power of sight but that power is an ability of the soul which is located in the eyes (and related specific bodily organs).

But the intellect is not in a bodily organ.  It would be impossible for the intellect to be in a bodily organ because the intellect contains universal (non-individual), immaterial concepts which cannot reside in a bodily organ.  For example, the intellect can understand abstractly (i.e., generally and universally) what a “part” is, without “picturing” a particular image of a part such as half of a red apple.

By contrast, the sense of sight and the other bodily senses can grasp only particular, sensible objects.  So, the sense of sight can apprehend a particular image (such as half of a red apple).  But the sense of sight cannot apprehend universally, i.e., more generally what it means for something to be a “half” or a “part”.

Such universal conception cannot reside in a body.  To take another example: a lump of modeling clay (which is a material object) is capable of receiving an image of various individual shapes in a manner which is similar to how the sense of sight is capable of receiving an individual image like the shape of a particular triangle.  But neither the clay nor a person’s sense of sight can receive the concept of “shape” in general, separate from particular shapes.

The intellect is not like that.  It can comprehend immaterial and abstract concepts.  The intellect can understand the concept of shape without needing to form a specific shape, such as an equilateral triangle.  This high immaterial power places us above the rest of material creation and makes us like God and the angels.

The intellect (unlike the bodily senses) can comprehend not only universals (such as what a “part” is, as abstracted from particular parts), but the intellect can also grasp spiritual realities which are immaterial such as justice, virtue, and happiness.


Summary of What We Have Just Seen About the Soul

So, we see that the intellect is the highest faculty (power) of the human soul.  This highest faculty (which is the one most God-like) is that one according to which God made us to live.  In other words:

In every aspect of our lives, God made us to
live according to reason.

Although God wants us to perfect all of the faculties and talents that He gave to us, He most especially wants us to perfect what is highest in ourselves.

(As we shall see in a later part of this article, the human life which is spent living according to our highest power is the happy life for man, both naturally and supernaturally.)


Truth is the Perfection of this Highest Faculty of the Soul

As we saw above, the intellect is our highest faculty and God created us to especially perfect it.  We do this by acquiring universal, unchangeable truth.  For as St. Thomas teaches, quoting Aristotle:

“The true is the good of the intellect, and the false is its evil”, as stated in [Aristotle’s] Ethics, bk.6, ch.2.[1]

In other words, it is truth which makes our intellect good and which makes a man good to the extent that he has perfected his highest faculty.

There are innumerable such universal, eternal truths.  To take two simple examples:

➢  The whole is greater than its own part; and

 

➢  4 + 4 = 8.

Both of those statements are always true.

The truths of our Holy Catholic Faith are unchangeable truths which especially perfect our intellects because these truths concern the highest matters, viz., God and the things of God.  Two examples of this are:

➢  God is entirely immaterial and has no body; and

➢  God has only one simple unchanging Act and He Himself is this very Act. In other words, God is entirely immaterial (i.e., without a body) and His very Self is His one Act of Understanding and Love.

Both of those statements are always true.


Errors Concerning Universal Truths are the Evil of the Intellect.

But just as truth is the good of the intellect, likewise, (as St. Thomas and Aristotle  teach above), the false (i.e., error) is the evil of the intellect.  Thus, to hold an error about a particular, universal truth results in a great evil residing in our intellect, our highest faculty.  To take two examples of such error:

1.    A line is an infinite set of points (as many modern math books falsely assert); and

2.    There is a type of number called an “irrational number” (as falsely asserted and described in many modern math books).

Both of these statements are always false.

Just as the highest universal, eternal truths (about God and the things of God) perfect our intellects to the greatest extent, similarly the errors about such highest truths are the greatest evils for our intellect.  To take two examples:

1.    All “religions” lead to God (as Pope Leo XIV and other ecumenists claimed); and

2.    All truth changes and “evolves” (as the modernists claim).

Both of these statements are always false.


Summary Concerning Universal Truth and Error

So, the truth about God (and the things of God) are the most desirable perfections of our intellect and no effort is too great to obtain and to increase our knowledge of such truths.  The chief joy of the blessed in heaven is to know God (in their intellects).  Similarly, here on earth, it is a great joy to marvel at a particular great truth that we have just learned, recognizing that it is “worth more than kingdoms”.

Correspondingly, the errors about those things related to God are most greatly undesirable and no efforts are too great to avoid such errors.  We should understand that nothing can sufficiently compensate for the great evil of holding error on such issues.


Singular Contingent Facts Do Not Perfect Our Minds.

Further, whereas eternal, unchangeable truth perfects our intellect, by contrast singular, contingent facts do not perfect it.  For example, a universal truth is “Dogs are mammals.”  By contrast, an instance of a contingent singular truth is “This dog, Rex, barks very loudly at passing cars.”

Again, individual, changeable facts (truths) do not perfect our intellects.  Here is one way St. Thomas teaches this truth:

It does not pertain to the intellect’s perfection to know the truth of contingent, singular facts in themselves.[2]

 

There are countless examples of such singular facts.  Here are two examples:

1.    Knowing the names of every street in our city.  (We can see how the street names are singular facts but also that the city can change the names of streets); and

2.    Knowing which sports teams are in the championship game this year.

So, in summary:

❖  Universal truth matters greatly.  We must strive to live the life of truth and to perfect our intellect.  We must consider such truth to be of very great importance.

❖  We must understand the importance of avoiding errors concerning matters of universal truth and to strive greatly to avoid errors on these issues. 

❖  The knowledge of singular, changeable facts does not matter at all and we should not clutter our minds with them unless we have a practical need to take note of them, e.g., remembering the route we need to take in order to arrive at places that we should travel (such as the grocery store or the hardware store).

As we see (above) the importance of perfecting the intellect, we could naturally ask who should perfect his intellect?  In part 3 of this article, we will examine the answer to that question.


To be continued …


[1]           Summa, IIa IIae, Q.60, a.4, ad 2.


[2]           Summa, IIa IIae, Q.60, a.4, ad 1-2

Our Catholic Duty: Resist the Harm Done by a Bad Pope But (Of Course) Recognize His Authority

Posted on by Catholic Candle

Catholic Candle note: Sedevacantism is wrong and is (material or formal) schism.  Catholic Candle is not sedevacantist. 

Below is the eleventh article in a series which covers specific aspects of the error of sedevacantism.  As context for this eleventh article, let us recall what we saw in the earlier ten articles:

In the first article, we saw that we cannot know whether the pope (or anyone else) is a formal heretic (rather than a material heretic only) – and thus whether he is outside the true Catholic Church based simply on his persistent, public teaching of a heretical opinion.[1]

Then, in the second article, we saw that we must not judge a man to be a formal heretic if he professes to be Catholic and says he believes what a Catholic must believe now, in order to be Catholic now.  When a person professes a heretical opinion, we must judge him in the most favorable light (if we judge him at all).  So, we must avoid the sin of rash judgment and we must not judge negatively the interior culpability of the pope and the 1.4 billion[2] people who profess to be Catholic.  We must not judge they are not “real” Catholics if they tell us that they are Catholics.  Instead, we should count them as Catholics who are very confused or are uninformed.[3]

Thus, we must judge the conciliar popes to have been material heretics, not formal heretics, and that each was pope in his turn until his death (or abdication).  Regarding any of the world’s 1.4 billion self-described Catholics who hold heresy, we must judge them to be material heretics only (if we judge them at all), unless they themselves tell us that they know they don’t qualify to be Catholics.[4]

In the third article, we examined briefly the important difference between persons in authority who fulfill their duty to judge those under their charge in the external forum, as contrasted to a sedevacantist or anyone else except God who judges the interior culpability of other persons and (rashly) judges them to be formal heretics.[5] 

In the fourth article, we saw that it does not help us to protect ourselves better from a conciliar pope’s heresy, to declare that we know he is not the pope and is not a Catholic.[6]

In the fifth article, we saw that it is possible for a pope to teach (or believe) heresy and in fact, popes have taught and believed heresy at various times during Church history.[7]  We look especially at the cases of Pope John XXII and Pope Nicholas I, who both taught explicit heresy while pope and nonetheless continued to be the pope.  Pope John XXII also taught the same explicit heresy before he became the pope.

In the sixth article, we saw that the Church infallibly assures us that we will have a pope at all times until the end of the world, except during very short interregnums between papal reigns, during which the Church is in the process of electing a new pope and during which the Church’s unified government continues to function.[8]  In this sixth article, we saw that we are not in an interregnum (even though the sedevacantists absurdly claim we are in a many-decades-long interregnum).

In the seventh article of this series, we saw that the Catholic Church is a visible Body and will be visible to all.  The Catholic Church has a visible monarchical government and the pope is visible to all.  Thus, we know we have a pope and that he is visible to all.[9]

In the eighth article, we saw that the necessary visibility of the Catholic Church and the pope, requires as a corollary that whoever virtually all Catholics see (believe) is the pope must be the pope, since the pope must be visible to all.

In the ninth article, we addressed the superficial “argument” of sedevacantists, addressed to Catholics, saying that “if you think we have a pope, then you have to obey him in whatever he tells you to do”.  We examined the true Catholic virtue of obedience and saw that we must not obey the commands of even a real superior, like our pope, if/when he commands us to do something evil.[10]

In the tenth article, we saw more deeply what schism is and how sedevacantism is inherently schism.[11]

Below, in the eleventh article of this series, we will examine more deeply how we should respond to a pope (or other superior) who does harm.

 

Our Catholic Duty: Resist the Harm Done by a Bad Pope But (Of Course) Recognize His Authority

 

Two different mortal sins prevent a faithful and informed Catholic from being a sedevacantist:

 

1.    If we rashly judge the pope to be a formal heretic because he is a material heretic, this is a mortal sin (because it is the sin of rash judgment on a grave matter).[12] 

 

2.    If we revolt against the pope’s authority as such, this is a mortal sin of revolution.  We will examine the sinfulness of revolution in a future article.

 

Therefore, because Catholics must neither be rash-judgers nor revolutionaries, we must recognize the authority of the pope who is in the Vatican.

 

 

Although Recognizing the Pope’s Authority, We must also Recognize When His Commands Are Evil.

 

When judging a person’s interior culpability, it must be done (if at all) in the most favorable light.  By contrast, we judge a person’s statements and actions objectively and we must resist objective evil and error, however blameless its proponent might be.  Summa, IIa IIae, Q.60, a.4, ad 2. 

 

Thus, we assume the best (if we assume anything) about the pope’s interior, subjective culpability, but we also must recognize that the current pope’s words and deeds are often objectively evil. 

 

 

But While the Pope Harms the Church (in Her Human Element, What Should We Do?

 

When a superior (including the pope) commands that we do something wrong (including commanding us to believe something false), the Catholic response is: We resist!  This is why Pope St. Gregory the Great, Doctor of the Church, taught:


Know that evil ought never to be done through obedience, though sometimes something good, which is being done, ought to be discontinued out of obedience.[13]

 

When we resist a superior’s sinful conduct (or command), we do not thereby reject the superior’s authority as such, but only his evil conduct (or command).  St. Thomas made this crucial distinction when he discussed St. Paul resisting St. Peter, the first pope, to his face, as St. Paul recounted in Galatians, 2:11.  St. Thomas explained that “the Apostle opposed Peter in the exercise of authority, not in his authority of ruling” as such[14]

 

 

The Duty to Resist a Pope’s Abuse of Authority, Pertains to Matters of Faith and Morals as well.

 

The principle of resisting any superior’s evil command, applies to any evil command – whether to do something, to say something, or to believe something.

 

Thus, a pope might command us to believe his errors on matters of Faith.  (The pope can make such errors whenever he is neither speaking ex cathedra nor speaking clearly in line with what the Church has always taught and believed.)

 

Regarding ex cathedra declarations of the pope (which are somewhat rare), the First Vatican Council carefully listed the conditions for extraordinary papal infallibility, because only when the pope fulfills all of these conditions, is he thus infallibly prevented from erring on matters of Faith or morals.  In the absence of the conditions for infallibility, at any other time the pope might err in his teaching, potentially triggering a Catholic’s duty to resist the error.[15] 

 

Here is how a very large, old Catholic dictionary explains this truth:

 

Even when he [viz., the pope] speaks with Apostolic Authority [which is only one of the conditions for papal infallibility], he may err.  The [First] Vatican Council only requires us to believe that God protects him from error in definitions on faith or morals when he imposes a belief on the Universal Church.[16]

 

St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that St. Paul was correct in resisting and rebuking St. Peter publicly[17] because St. Peter’s conduct caused a scandal concerning the Faith.  Here are St. Thomas’ words:

 

It must be observed, however, that if the faith were endangered, a subject ought to rebuke his prelate even publicly.  Hence Paul, who was Peter’s subject, rebuked him in public, on account of the imminent danger of scandal concerning faith, and, as the gloss of Augustine says on Gal. 2:11, “Peter gave an example to superiors, that if at any time they should happen to stray from the straight path, they should not disdain to be reproved by their subjects.”[18]

 

Pope Paul IV tells us we are right to resist the pope whenever he deviates from the Faith:

 

[T]he Roman Pontiff, who is the representative upon earth of our God and Lord Jesus Christ, who holds the fullness of power over peoples and kingdoms, who may judge all and be judged by none in this world, may nonetheless be contradicted if he be found to have deviated from the Faith.[19]

 

Likewise, St. Robert Bellarmine assures us that we are right to resist a pope who uses his office to attack souls (whether through false doctrine or bad morals):

 

Just as it is licit to resist a Pontiff who attacks the body, so also is it licit to resist him who attacks souls or destroys the civil order or above all, tries to destroy the Church.  I say that it is licit to resist him by not doing what he orders and by impeding the execution of his will.  It is not licit, however, to judge, to punish, or to depose him, for these are acts proper to a superior.[20]

 

St. Thomas explains the reason for this distinction St. Robert Bellarmine makes, viz., that we are right to resist (i.e., correct) the pope or other superior, but we cannot punish or depose him:

 

A subordinate is not competent to administer to his prelate the correction which is an act of justice through the coercive nature of punishment.  But the fraternal correction which is an act of charity is within the competency of everyone in respect of any person towards whom he is bound by charity [which is everybody], provided there be something in that person which requires correction.[21]

 

Juan Cardinal de Torquemada (revered medieval theologian responsible for the formulation of the doctrines that were defined at the Council of Florence) teaches:

 

It is necessary to obey God rather than men.  Therefore, where the Pope would command something contrary to Sacred Scripture, or to an article of Faith, or to the truth of the Sacraments, or to a command of the Natural Law or of the Divine Law, he ought not to be obeyed, but such command ought to be despised.[22]

 

 

Although We Must Resist a Pope’s Sinful Commands, We Must Still Obey Him When We Can.

 

True obedience to God requires us to resist any bad commands of a human superior, including the pope.[23]  But that does not mean that we can simply declare the pope to have vacated his papal throne so that we can free ourselves from our duty of obeying him when his command is not sinful, i.e., when it is not offensive to God.

 

Although we will examine this issue more thoroughly in a future article, for now suffice it to point out that a bad command by a pope or other lawful superior does not change the fact that he is our superior and that we must obey him when we are able to do so.  So, for example, if a post-conciliar pope were to declare that Catholics must do more penance and were to command that Catholics must begin abstaining from meat on an additional day of the week (e.g., Wednesday), we would have to obey him because of his authority over us.  To fail to obey his command would be a sin.

 

 

Conclusion – We Must Recognize the Pope’s Authority But Resist His Evil.

 

Because Catholics must not be rash-judgers or revolutionaries, we must recognize the authority of the pope over us.  We must avoid the sin of sedevacantism. 

 

But because we must obey God rather than men, we must resist the pope (or any other superior), whenever he abuses his authority and whenever he does harm.

 

However, because the pope remains our superior and continues to have authority over us, we must obey him whenever we are able to do so.


[2]           The Vatican estimates that the number of Catholics worldwide is about 1.375 billion.  https://www.vaticannews.va/en/church/news/2023-10/fides-catholic-church-statistics-world-mission-sunday.html

 

[7]           Read this article here: It is Possible for a Pope to Teach Heresy and Remain the Pope?: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/01/27/it-is-possible-for-a-pope-to-teach-heresy-and-remain-the-pope/

 

[8]           Read this article here that the Catholic Church’s unified government always continues, even during an interregnum:  The Catholic Church Will Always Have a Pope: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/02/21/the-catholic-church-will-always-have-a-pope/

[9]           Read this article showing that The Catholic Church Will Always be Visible, and Will Always Have a Pope Who is Visible to All, which can be found here:  https://catholiccandle.org/2025/03/27/the-catholic-church-will-always-be-visible-with-a-pope/

 

[10]         Read this article examining false obedience, entitled, The False “Obedience” of Cowardly and Weak Catholics, which can be found here: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/05/20/the-false-obedience-of-cowardly-and-weak-catholics/

 

[11]         Read this article showing that Sedevacantism is Inherently Schism, which can be found here: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/06/28/sedevacantism-is-inherently-schism/

 

[13]         Pope St. Gregory the Great, De Moral., bk. XXXV, §29 (emphasis added).

 

For example, a superior might command his subordinate to stop a certain voluntary, non-mandatory penance which is otherwise good in itself.  For this reason, obedience would demand that the subordinate cease this particular penance. 

The superior might have good reasons for this command to his subordinate.  But even if the superior’s prohibition of the penance was not better in itself, nevertheless it is not sinful for the subordinate to obey and so he should do so, thereby obtaining the merit of the obedience.

 

[14]         St. Thomas Aquinas, Super Epistulas S. Pauli, Ad Galatas, Ch.2, Lectio III (emphasis added).

[15]         Read this article here: It is Possible for a Pope to Teach Heresy and Remain the Pope?: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/01/27/it-is-possible-for-a-pope-to-teach-heresy-and-remain-the-pope/

 

[16]         A Catholic Dictionary, under the topic “Pope”, Addis & Arnold, The Catholic Publication Society, New York, 1884, pp.767-68 (bracketed comments added).

[17]         Galatians, 2:11.


[18]         Summa, IIa IIae, Q.33, a.4, ad 2 (emphasis added).


[19]         Cum Ex Apostolatus Officio, §1 (emphasis added).

 

[20]         De Romano Pontifice, St. Robert Bellarmine, Bk.2, ch.29 (emphasis added).

 

[21]         Summa, IIa IIae, Q.33, a. 4, respondeo (emphasis added; bracketed words added for clarity).

 

[22]         Summa de Ecclesia, bk.2, ch.49, p.163B (emphasis added).   

 

[23]         Read this article examining false obedience, entitled, The False “Obedience” of Cowardly and Weak Catholics, which can be found here: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/05/20/the-false-obedience-of-cowardly-and-weak-catholics/

 

Lesson #47: Temperaments – Choleric Temperament – a Choleric’s Spiritual Combat – Part XII

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Philosophy Notes

Catholic Candle note: The article immediately below is part twelve of the study of the Choleric temperament.  The first eleven parts can be found here:

1.    Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #36:  About the Temperaments – Beginning our Study of the Choleric Temperament – Part I: https://catholiccandle.org/2024/08/27/lesson-35-about-the-temperaments-the-choleric-temperament/

2.    Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #37: About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament– Part II: https://catholiccandle.org/2024/09/26/lesson-37-about-the-temperaments-continuation-of-the-choleric-temperament/

3.    Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #38 — About the Temperaments – Continuing our Study of the Choleric Temperament – Their Spiritual Combat – Part III:: https://catholiccandle.org/2024/10/24/lesson-38-temperaments-choleric-temperament-their-spiritual-combat/

4.    Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #39 About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament – That Temperament’s Spiritual Combat – Part IV: https://catholiccandle.org/2024/11/26/lesson-39-temperaments-choleric-temperament-their-spiritual-combat-part-iv/

5.    Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #40: Temperaments – Choleric Temperament – Their Spiritual Combat – Part V: https://catholiccandle.org/2024/12/30/lesson-40-temperaments-choleric-temperament-their-spiritual-combat-part-v/

6.    Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #41 – About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament: a Choleric’s Spiritual Combat — Part VI: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/01/27/lesson-41-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-vi/

7.    Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #42: About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament – a Choleric’s Spiritual Combat – Part VII: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/02/21/lesson-42-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-vii/

8.    Mary’s School of Sanctity — Lesson #43 About the Temperaments –Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament — Their Spiritual Combat Part VIII: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/03/27/lesson-42-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-viii/

9.    Mary’s School of Sanctity – Lesson #44 About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament – Their Spiritual Combat, Part IX: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/04/23/lesson-44-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-ix/

10. Mary’s School of Sanctity — Lesson #45 About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament – The Choleric’s  Spiritual Combat Part X: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/05/20/lesson-45-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-x/

11. Mary’s School of Sanctity — Lesson #46 About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament – The Cholerics’  Spiritual Combat – Part XI:  https://catholiccandle.org/2025/06/28/lesson-46-temperaments-choleric-temperament-a-cholerics-spiritual-combat-part-xi/

 

Mary’s School of Sanctity

Lesson #47 About the Temperaments – Continuing Our Study of the Choleric Temperament – The Choleric’s Spiritual Combat – Part XII

Note: When referring to a person with a choleric temperament in this article, we simply will label him as a choleric.

In our last lesson we examined in detail what is involved with one using his reason and saw that, when he does not listen to the voice of his reason, he sins.

Let us begin to probe into the possible reasons why the choleric has the tendency to not reason deeply or thoroughly.

In our last lesson, we saw some potential motives for why the choleric acts this way. 

Now we look further into the first of those motives, namely that the choleric simply does not want to take the time necessary to think things through.  This can be directly linked back to the problem of pride under several aspects.

First of all, let us recall the definition of pride which we saw in our last lesson.  When one has unreasonable pride[1], he views himself disproportionately, thinking that he is better in some respect than he really is.  For example, he may think he is very important.

Various Types of Unreasonable Pride Which Are Often Associated With the “Hurried” Choleric

We noted in an earlier lesson how the choleric tends to be over-confident and often acts as if he is a “know-it-all”.

This over-confidence naturally coincides with other aspects in the trap of pride.  Here the choleric wants to be seen as a “hero” who carries out the greatest achievements.  He sees himself as the one who “saves the day” especially when there is a crisis or a big problem to solve.

Along with this mentality (that he is a self-made hero) is the choleric’s drive to excel in what he is currently doing and in all his plans.  Because he wants to accomplish a great number of things, he believes that he does not have time to “slow-down” his “progress” and “waste” his time evaluating the details of his plans.  He certainly does not view the idea of analyzing his plan as anything that would be productive in assuring the success of his project.  Indeed, his over-confidence assures him that his plans are perfect so reflection about them is not needed.

This unreasonable pride[2] also prompts this choleric to want “instant fulfillment” of his plans.  We must remember that the choleric has a lot of energy and seems to always be on the move.  He wants to accomplish many things and acts as if he wished that his project could have been done already!  He wants his plans implemented “yesterday” or even “last year”!  He gets impatient if there are any delays in his plans.

Lacking a God-Centered View of Things

This choleric with unreasonable pride may very well think he is working with God’s Will in mind.  However, he more often has put his own will before God’s Will, and  his own glory before God’s glory.[3]

Unfortunately, he is easily ensnared in this kind of unreasonable pride and tends to think that his plan could not possibly have any flaws whatsoever.  If he knew the truth of the matter – viz., that to think thoroughly and deeply about his project would help him consider if his plan was good and/or perfecting to his soul – then he would actually want to take the necessary time to evaluate his plan.

How Should the Choleric Perceive Himself in Order to Prevent Unreasonable Pride and to Help Him Keep His Sights on God’s Will?

The choleric has to understand that God must be his first priority – in fact his only priority.  He must put God first in his heart, therefore, in his life.

In order to have this proper perspective he has to be, first of all, a man of prayer.  He must pray to know God’s will and to be humble.  If he understands how important it is to be humble and work for God – in the time-frame and under the circumstances that God sends – then he will have no problem being patient and waiting for God to enlighten his understanding.  He would seek advice and want to thoroughly examine his goals to be sure that he is not being fooled by a trick that the devil sends in order to entrap him in pride. 

The choleric should especially fear pride, for unreasonable pride is a sin.  Hence, he should fear his tendency to plow ahead heedlessly and impetuously.  He ought to pray to have a great appreciation for proper learning and for the use of reason, knowing that God expects him to use this highest faculty, his intellect.  Thus, he should understand the fact that it is sinful for him to not think deeply and carefully.  He should make it his goal to acquire a horror of displeasing God in any way.  He must see God as his beloved Friend and, thus, it must penetrate deep into his heart that he should avoid, at all costs, anything that would offend his Divine Friend.!  

By repeated efforts, the choleric can learn to want with all his heart to foster a deep love of God and thereby provide himself with the greatest protection against his type of unreasonable pride which leads him quickly to vainglory.

The Choleric Must Have High and Supernatural Goals.

The choleric must seek God’s Will in all things.  He must always ask himself what service/task/plan God wants from him.  The choleric must see his own nothingness first before he will be able to discover God’s Will and have the desire to work for God.  The choleric must be aware of his tendency to see himself as a special hero when, after all, he knows the truth that only God’s Will matters!   The choleric must overcome his temptation to vainglory.   If he fears vainglory, this will help him overcome the temptation to it.  He must see that the only true glory is to do God’s Will.  He must see his need to be united with God and that without God, he can do nothing.

A Preview…

In our next lesson we will address the second motive on the list (in lesson #46) of reasons why cholerics have a tendency to not think deeply and carefully, namely, because of a false belief that such reasoning is too difficult.


[1]           All sin is unreasonable and all unreasonable pride is a sin.  But there can be good pride, e.g., a parent’s proper pride in his children’s good conduct or a workman’s proper pride in his work, leading him to do good quality work and not “cut corners”.

[2]           All sin is unreasonable and all unreasonable pride is a sin.  But there can be good pride, e.g., a parent’s proper pride in his children’s good conduct or a workman’s proper pride in his work, leading him to do good quality work and not “cut corners”.

[3]           Here is one way that St. Thomas Aquinas, greatest Doctor of the Catholic Church, explains that this motive is vainglory:

 

Now the sin of vainglory, considered in itself, does not seem to be contrary to charity as regards the love of one’s neighbor; yet as regards the love of God it may be contrary to charity in two ways. 

 

In one way, by reason of the matter about which one glories; for instance, when one glories in something false that is opposed to the reverence we owe to God.  Or again, when a man prefers to God the temporal good in which he glories: for this is forbidden.  Or again, when a man prefers the testimony of man to God’s, thus, it is written in reproval of certain people [John 12:43], “For they loved the glory of men more than the glory of God.”

In another way vainglory may be contrary to charity, on the part of the one who glories, in that he refers his intention to glory as his last end; so that he directs even virtuous deeds thereto, and, in order to obtain it, forbears not from doing even that which is against God.   In this way it is a mortal sin.  Wherefore [St.] Augustine says (De Civ. Dei v. 14) that “this vice, namely the love of human praise, is so hostile to a godly faith, if the heart desires glory more that it fears or loves God, that Our Lord said (John 5:44): How can you believe, who receive glory one from another, and the glory which is from God alone, you do not seek?”

 

Summa, IIa IIae, Q.132, a.3, Respondeo (bracketed words added).

We Should Greatly Admire the Saintly Kings in the Church Triumphant!

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We should be especially impressed by the saintly kings in the Church Triumphant.  Although they became saints through fighting and conquering the temptations that we all must overcome, they did it under much more difficult circumstances. 

We ordinary “little guys” must, for example, fight gluttony.  But that vice is more difficult to fight when a man is king – having a king’s ability to obtain the most tempting delicacies.

Similarly, we ordinary “little guys” must fight impurity.  But that vice is more difficult to fight when a man is a king – having the ability to satisfy his unrestrained passions, even going to the extremes of King Henry the Eighth of England who founded the Anglican sect in his bedroom (one might say) because he was such a slave to lust.

We must fight pride, too.  As difficult as it is for us unimportant “nobodies” to fight pride, how much more difficult it is for a king to conquer pride when there are countless persons “lining up” to flatter him!

The children’s author, A.A. Milne, touches upon this flattery given to kings, in his poem, Teddy Bear, when he recounts how Winnie the Pooh came across the picture of a fat king who was flattered by his subjects.  Here is the excerpt from the poem:

One night it happened that [Pooh] took

A peep at an old picture-book,

Wherein he came across by chance

The picture of a King of France

 

(A stoutish man) and, down below,

These words: “King Louis So and So,

Nicknamed ‘The Handsome!’” There he sat,

And (think of it!) the man was fat!

 

Teddy Bear, by A.A. Milne

How difficult it must be for a king to learn the truth when his subjects are prone to conceal the truth from him and to flatter him!  Of course, the king’s own inclinations toward pride (and other vices) would be so quick to agree with that flattery.  Pride is so “intoxicating”, and what spiritual peril there is when a man is a king!

The above quote from Milne not only depicts a king who encounters “intoxicating” flattery which endangers the king’s soul by fostering pride, but this quote also shows the difficulty of acquiring the virtue of temperance under royal circumstances! 

On a more serious note (than Winnie the Pooh), Our Lord shows the same truth (quoted below), viz.,  that a king’s subjects flatter him and foster his pride.

The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and they that have power over them, are called beneficent.

St. Luke’s Gospel, 22:25.

Of course, not all kings are really beneficent (and probably few of them are).[1]  Nor does Our Lord say that they are beneficent.  What Our Lord is stating is that a person (such as a king) who has power over his people is flattered by them.  They give him compliments like “beneficent” to try to gain his favor or at least to avoid his disfavor.

It is already hard for us to objectively discern the truth about ourselves and about our own character.  How much more difficult is this same discernment for a man who is a king and is flattered by his subjects!

Further, being a king requires that he wield enormous power as part of his duty of state.  This might feel exhilarating to the king (or anyone) but it is spiritually hazardous.  For example, Queen Elizabeth I of England so craved royal power that she sold her soul in exchange for that power.  Here is what St. Alphonsus de Liguori said about her when he used her as a lesson:

A certain queen, blinded by the ambition of being a sovereign, said one day: “If the Lord gives me a reign of forty years, I shall renounce Paradise.” The unhappy queen reigned for forty years; but now that she is in another world, she cannot but be grieved at having made such a renunciation.  Oh! how great must be her anguish at the thought of having lost the kingdom of Paradise for the sake of a reign of forty years, full of troubles, of crosses, and of fears![2]

Just as it was shown above that a king has greater temptations to gluttony, lust, pride and ambition, so does he, likewise, to other sins.  A king’s circumstances place him in a much more difficult spiritual battle than ours.  We “little guys” find the allurements of all of those vices hard enough to fight, but how much harder do kings find the spiritual warfare in this life – with their greater temptations to sin! 

With all of this in mind, we see that we should greatly admire the kings who have fought the good fight and won!  Truly, they exemplify the man praised here:

Blessed is the rich man that is found without blemish: and that hath not gone after gold, nor put his trust in money nor in treasures.  Who is he, and we will praise him? for he hath done wonderful things in his life.  Who hath been tried thereby, and made perfect, he shall have glory everlasting.  He that could have transgressed, and hath not transgressed: and could do evil things, and hath not done them: therefore, are his goods established in the Lord, and all the church of the saints shall declare his alms.

Ecclesiasticus, 31:8-11.

With all of the moral dangers of being a king, truly a saintly king “hath done wonderful things in his life”!  He is worthy of our great admiration!

Let us have a greater appreciation for these saintly kings!  Let us also be more grateful that we are only insignificant “little guys” who are not assaulted by temptations as severe as those suffered by kings!

 


[1]           In fact, St. Thomas explains in his classic work On Kingship that the more a monarch works for his own personal benefit rather than the benefit of his subjects, the more he should be called a tyrant, not a king.  On Kingship, chapter 3. 

[2]           Quoted from sermon #8, §9, On the Remorse of the Damned, given on the third Sunday after Epiphany, by St .Alphonsus de Liguori.

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Words to Live by – from Catholic Tradition

 

Bad leaders in the Church and in Society are a Punishment for Sin

 

We are suffering from bad leaders in the Church and civil society as Divine retribution for the sins of people in the human element of the Church and in civil society. 

 

Here is one way that St. Thomas Aquinas, greatest Doctor of the Church, teaches this truth:

 

To deserve to secure from God the blessing of a good ruler, the people must desist from sin, for it is by Divine permission that wicked men receive power to rule as a punishment for sin, as the Lord says by the Prophet Osee [13:11]: “I will give you a king in my wrath” and it is said in Job [34:30] that he “makes a man that is a hypocrite to reign for the sins of the people.” Sin must therefore be done away with in order that the scourge of tyrants may cease.

 

St. Thomas, On Kingship, ch.7 (emphasis added).

 

Catholic Candle note: Of course, the fact that God punishes people for their sins by giving them bad rulers, does not exonerate those bad rulers from their own culpability for their sins.  God is merely using the sins of bad rulers as a tool to punish the sins of the people.