Arianism,
the fourth century heresy which nearly destroyed the Church, denied the
divinity of Christ. This heresy, in
subtler forms and in many guises, was widespread in the last century and
persists today. At the request of Larry
Henderson I wrote this article for Challenge magazine in 1990. Space limitations required the deletion of a
part of it. It was reprinted in the
January-February 1992 issue of the English periodical “The Keys of Peter”. Here is the full text. –Msgr. Vincent Foy
****
For
years, the “progressives” have been telling us that they are getting the Church
ready for the 21st century.
So far, the results have been less than reassuring. Is it possible that, instead of progressing
they have actually restored an ancient heresy?
Msgr. Vincent Foy, a Canadian canonist, believes so.
The
Arians of the 20th Century
The inscription on the coat of arms
of Archbishop Ambrozic of Toronto reads: “Jesus est Dominus.” Here “Dominus” or Lord is used to translate
the Hebrew Yahweh, sacred word for God.
So we have in the motto a glorious acclamation of the divinity of
Christ.
Pope
John Paul II began his first encyclical “Redemptor Hominis” with the words:
“The Redeemer of Man, Jesus Christ, is the centre of the universe and of
history.” He is Alpha and Omega, the
Beginning and the End, Lord of Lords, King of Kings, the Way, the Truth and the
Life.
All of
these titles presuppose Christ’s divinity.
Possessing two natures, the human and the divine, there is in Christ one
Person. In Him there is a total
substitution of human personality by the Personality of the Word, the second
Person of the Blessed Trinity. This
marvel and mystery of the supernatural order is called the Incarnation or
Hypostatic Union. The Church expresses
it in this way in the Nicene Creed: “We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the
only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father God from God, Light from
Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, one in Being with the
Father. Through Him all things were
made.”
Certain truths flow from Christ’s divinity: All that He taught was
divine. All that He did was divine. The Church He founded is divine. The structure and powers He gave His Church
are of divine origin.
From
Apostolic times there have been attacks on Christ’s divinity, His word, and His
Church. The most harmful attack was instituted
by an Alexandrian priest called Arius in the fourth century. It nearly destroyed the indestructible
Church. St. Jerome wrote in exaggerated
language: “The whole world sighed as it awoke in wonder to find itself Arian.” The classical account of that frightful
heresy is told by Cardinal Newman in Arians
of the Fourth Century. It is
supplemented by his Causes of the Rise
and Successes of Arianism in “Tracts
Theological and Ecclesiastical”.
There
is today, in subtler form, perhaps as grave a threat to the Church as existed
in the fourth century. It is also an
attack on the Divinity of Christ or His Word or Church. It is possible here only to glance at the
problem of the Arians of the Twentieth Century.
We look backwards briefly in order to look more clearly at the
present.
The
Arians of the fourth century
Arianism, named after Arius is, put
simply, the denial of the divinity of Christ.
Arius taught that the Word, the term used by St. John to designate the
Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, or God the Son, is not equal to the
Father. In Arianism Christ is a creature
more perfect than others used by God in His subsequent acts of creation. For a more technical description of Arianism
see the excellent article in the old Catholic Encyclopedia, or the concise
description in The Catholic Catechism by
Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J. (Doubleday).
Arius
(c.256-336) was a priest of the Diocese of Alexandria, then the most important
See in the Church after Rome. Persuasive
and charismatic, he was a popular preacher with a large following. He was a follower rather than an originator,
led into error by his teacher Lucian of the school of Antioch.
For
refusing to retract his errors, Arius was excommunicated by Alexander his
Bishop in 319 or 320. He went to Asia
Minor where he was supported by Bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia, also a pupil of
Lucian. At the Council of Nicea in 325
Arius was permitted to defend his position but was condemned and exiled. In 335 the emperor Constantius decreed that
Arius was to be reconciled with the Church by the Bishop of
Constantinople. This was arranged in 336
but the night before the planned ceremony Arius unexpectedly died.
St.
Athanasius (c.296-373) is a Father and Doctor of the Church. Even in his own time he was called “the
Father of Orthodoxy”.
Also
of the Diocese of Alexandria, Athanasius was ordained a deacon in 318 and
appointed secretary to Bishop Alexander.
Many, including Cardinal Newman, are of the opinion that he wrote the
text of the excommunication of Arius.
As
secretary to Alexander, Athanasius was at the first ecumenical council at Nicea
in 325, which gave us the Nicene Creed.
Shortly after, Alexander died and Athanasius became Bishop of Alexandria
when he was not yet thirty. In the
ensuing struggle between Arians and Catholics Athanasius was exiled five times
and spent more than seventeen years in banishment.
Cardinal Newman wrote that St. Athanasius was “a principal instrument
after the Apostles by which the sacred truths of Christianity have been
conveyed and secured to the world”.
From
the time he was a Deacon until his death, the life of Athanasius was a heroic
struggle for the Traditional Faith of the Church in the divinity of
Christ. This fidelity to tradition
permeates all his writings. “What
Fathers can you assign to your phrases?” was his challenge to the Arians.
After
Nicea the Arians often adopted the terminology of the Council yet interpreted
it in a way which denied Christ’s divinity.
It was this semi-Arianism which nearly destroyed the Eastern Church. Of the semi-Arians Athanasius wrote:
“Unwilling that the decrees of the Council should be enforced they desire to
enforce their own decisions; and they use the name of the Council”.
Suffering set-back after set-back Athanasius, always loyal to the
primacy of Rome, never lost courage.
Although the victory over Arianism is principally due to him, it was not
yet won when he died.
Of
the Church of that time St. Basil wrote: “The dogmas of the Fathers are
despised; apostolic traditions are set at naught; the discoveries of innovators
hold sway in the Church. Men have
learned to be speculatists instead of theologians. The wisdom of the world has the place of
honor, having dispossessed the glory of the Cross . . . the aged sorrow comparing
what is with what was; more pitiable the young, as not knowing what they are
deprived of.” (quoted from Newman’s Historical
Sketches, Vol. II, “The Church of the Fathers,” Westminister, 1970, p.
43).
Is
there not some similarity with the Church of today?
Arianism
today
There is, as we shall see, a new
Arianism abroad today.
There
are some similarities with the Arianism of the fourth century.
Neither past nor present forms originated with the laity. In general they have had their origins with
theologians. Both pretended to be an
updating of the Church in the light of new insights. Both were attacks on tradition. Both enlisted Bishops in their causes. In the fourth century whole synods of Bishops
were won over to Arianism; today some National Hierarchies have taken positions
which indirectly favour it. Both have
tried and succeeded in getting advocates in positions of power. In both periods the “spirit” of an Ecumenical
Council was invoked in support of error.
There
is this significant difference. In the
fourth century Arianism originated from within the Church. Today’s has come principally from outside
influences.
An
Arian atmosphere around and finally penetrating the Church has developed in
over 200 years. In the eighteenth
century the rejection of Christ’s divinity permeated the Enlightenment in
England, the Encyclopedists in France and a similar group in Germany. In more recent times Christ’s divinity has
been attacked by many others, including Adolph von Harnack (1851-1930) Head of
the School of Theology, University of Berlin.
He had four influential pupils: Paul Tillich, who called worship of
Christ a form of idolatry; Rudolph Bultmann, called the father of
de-mytholization; Albert Schweitzer, who rejected Christ as God; Dietrich
Bonhoeffer, hanged by the Nazis in 1945, who saw Christ as merely “the man for
others”. Many Catholic scholars have
come under their spell.
As we
survey the havoc an Arian atmosphere has brought in the Church, we note three
principal forms:
- First, direct attacks on Christ’s divinity.
- Second, indirect attacks by rejecting
doctrines which support it.
- Third, attacks on the divinity of the
Church in its origin and essential structure.
Arian
Scripture scholars
Arius divorced Scriptural passages
like “The Father is greater than I” from the living tradition of the Church in
an attempt to prove that Christ was not divine.
Athanasius linked Scripture with tradition to show Christ’s divinity.
(cf. Newman, Select Treatises of St.
Athanasius in Controversy with the Arians, 2 Vols., Longman’s, Green &
Co., 1888).
Some
modern Bible exegetes turn God’s word against the Word of God by isolating
their methodology from tradition and sometimes give us an Arian Christ. This is done by adhering as to an absolute to
what is called the “historico-critical method”.
This method considers the sacred text like any other record. It assumes the role of critic and continually
looks for signs of alterations, additions and contemporary proofs.
The
historico-critical method falters when based on wrong philosophical
presumptions, prejudice and unsupported hypotheses. It falls when divorced from the living
Church.
Here
are some examples:
1. Fr.
John L. McKenzie S.J., denies the possibility of the Virgin Birth because it
seems to him that Jesus would not be fully human if he were not generated by a
human father. (cf. New Testament Without
Illusion, New York, 1982, p. 110 ff.).
2. Fr.
Raymond Brown, following the historico-critical method, concludes that the
stories of Christ’s birth are dubious history, his twelve Apostles were neither
missionaries nor bishops; sacramental powers were given to the Christian Community in the person of the
Twelve; the episcopate gradually emerged but can be defended as divinely
established by Christ only if one says it emerged with the guidance of the Holy
Spirit; Peter cannot be looked upon as the bishop of the early Roman Church
community; Vatican II was biblically naïve when it called Catholic bishops
successors to the Apostles (cf. Msgr. George Kelly, The Church’s Problem with Bible Scholars, Franciscan Herald Press,
1985, pp.27, 28).
Fr. Ronald Lawler, O.F.M. Cap. says:
“Fr. Brown treats the Church like a missing person . . . the Church created
Scripture and her assistance is always necessary in reading Scripture”. (Newsletter , Fellowship of Catholic Scholars, March, 1985, p.14).
3. Scripture
scholars at their Arian worst are seen at meetings like the Jesus Seminar held at Toronto in
October, 1989. Conclusions about Jesus
were reached by a majority vote of the approximately 120 Catholic and
non-Catholic scholars who attended. They
were described as “some of the foremost biblical scholars in Canada, the United
States and Europe”.
Here are two conclusions passed by the
Jesus Seminar: “Christ never promised to usher in a new age and people should
not look forward to a Second Coming.”; “Christ did not regard himself as
divine, never intended to found a religion and would have been appalled at
becoming a cult figure.”
Cardinal
Ratzinger has commented that the Bible not understood within the living
organism of the Church becomes archaeology.
He says that the last word about the Word of God belongs to the
Magisterium. The historic-critical
method becomes sterile when made absolute. (cf. The Ratzinger Report, Ignatius Press, 1985, pp.73-76).
Unfortunately, the erroneous “findings” of Scripture scholars have been
a seed-bed for writers of popular books of Christ, e.g. Gerard Sloyan’s blurred
Jesus in Focus.
Theological
Arianism
Out of the crucible of errant
biblical criticism has come a host of theological errors many of which directly
or indirectly attack Christ’s divinity.
Modernism
Modernism, the attempt to
accommodate Church teaching to modern philosophies and concepts, was
potentially the most dangerous of all heresies.
It flourished in the first decade of this century. Pope Pius X called it the “cross-roads of all
heresies”.
The
leading figures of Modernism were Loisy in France and Tyrell in England. In the background was Baron Friedrich von
Hugel. Others were Murri and Fogazzaro
in Italy and Schell in Germany.
The
most dangerous aspect of Modernism was the way in which it undermined belief in
the divinity of Christ. A precursor of
Modernism was Renan (1823-1892). He
boasted of his book Life of Jesus,
that in it he “forced Jesus to resign his divinity”. Loisy (1857-1940) influenced by Renan,
gradually lost his faith in Jesus as God.
He denied the Virgin Birth, the bodily resurrection of Christ, and
Christ’s institution of Baptism and the Eucharist. While his friend Baron von Hugel was
defending him, Loisy wrote in his journal: “Setting aside metaphysical phraseology,
I do not believe in the divinity of Jesus any more than Harnack . . . and I
look on the personal Incarnation of God as a philosophic myth.”
Modernism was condemned by Pope Pius X in two principal documents: the
decree Lamentabili of July 2, 1907,
and the encyclical Pascendi of
September 8, 1907.
Neo-Modernism
Many of the errors of Modernism lie
heavily on the Church today through the pretence that it was a bogey invented
by the Vatican. In the March, 1990 issue
of Compass magazine, Fr. Roger Haight,
S.J., professor of systematic theology at Regis College, Toronto, tells us “In
condemning Modernism in 1907 the Vatican created the heresy it was
denouncing.” The errors condemned in Lamentabili were taken almost completely
from the writings of Loisy and Tyrell.
Father Haight continues: “It is difficult to find anything in the
thought of the leading modernists that is seriously objectionable or that is
not held, perhaps in modified form, today.”
It is true that many Modernist errors are held today. It is not true to say that it is difficult to
find errors in the thought of the leading modernists unless it is legitimate to
attack the foundations of Christianity.
These
are some of those foundations attacked by the Neo-Modernists:
1. The Bodily Resurrection of Christ –
Often the certainty of Faith gives way to the uncertainty of the
theologian. Example “The story of the
women finding Jesus’ tomb to be open and empty (Mk.16, 1-8, and parallels) seem
unique to Christianity. But is the story
reliable? Here it does no harm to recall
that very many critical exegetes and historians defend the empty tomb
story. There is a reasonable case to be
made for their conclusion”. (Gerald
O’Collins, S.J., under “Resurrection of Christ,” The New Dictionary of Theology, Glazier, 1989).
2. Miracles –
Miracles are an integral part of the proof of Christ’s divinity. Christ said: “The works I do in my Father’s
name are my witness; but you do not believe” (Jn.10, 23). Neither do some neo-modernists. “Although the New Testament provides ample
proof that the earliest Christians believed certain events had occurred, some
of which were miraculous, it is a further question whether Christians today
should or can agree. Perhaps the N.T.
authors wrote as they did because they were deceived or deceitful; that has
always been a possible argument and some have thought it the most likely
one”. (Charles C. Hefling, under
“Miracles”. The New Dictionary of Theology, p.662).
3. Original Sin –
Attacking the doctrine of original sin is an attack on the need for universal
redemption and indirectly on Christ’s divinity.
A typical approach is to belittle the concept that original sin is
inherited. We are told of the “crude
essentialism of the traditional concept of a sinful nature inherited by
generation from a sinful ancestor and meriting eternal sanction”. (ibid., Gabriel Daly, O.S.A., under “Original
Sin”). It is of Faith that original sin
is transmitted by natural generation: “by propagation, not imitation it is
transmitted to all”. (Denzinger, 970).
“New Theology” Arianism
The “New Theology” proposed by some
recent writers is often a re-hash of old errors, often with an Arian taint.
Piet
Schoonenberg, in his book The Christ,
translated into English in 1972, gives us a God who is subject to change and
transmutes into a Trinity at the time of the Incarnation.
Bruce
Vawter, in This Man Jesus, 1974,
follows in the path of Schoonenberg. He
accepts an Adoptional Christology, i.e., Christ merited by His death to become
the adopted Son of God. Hans Kung, in On Being a Christian, 1974, affirms that
Christ is not truly divine. According to
Kung, Christ was not virginally conceived nor did he really rise from the dead.
Edward Schillebeeckx, in Jesus: An
Experiment in Christology, 1974, and The
Christian Experience in the Modern World, proposed a Christ, not virginally
conceived, who has a special intimacy with God.
Liberation
Theology
The Christ of erroneous liberation
theology, e.g. of Gutierrez, Boff, Sobrino and others is a Marxist-type
revolutionary, an Arian Christ.
The
organization World Development and Peace,
to which so many Catholics contribute, has often been on the side of erroneous
liberation theology. Nor does it pretend
to put evangelization first in its distribution of aid (cf. Development and Peace, Young Canadians
for a Christian Civilization, Montreal, 1982).
Some years ago in its campaign literature, it circulated a picture of
“Jesus Christ – Liberator” with this comment, borrowed from the United Church
poster: “The image of Jesus Christ as liberator is one that sums up all helpful
images. Here is the Christ who liberates
one for living. This laughing, robust
Christ reinforces all the true things about justice and love and divine presence. This Christ says to us that we shouldn’t take
our ideas, our beliefs – too seriously.
Life is too big and existence is too mysterious for any of us to be so
deadly certain.” My objection to the
poster went unanswered.
True
World Development and Peace will come through its conversion to Christ. Would it not be better to place the funds now
given to World Development and Peace in
the hands of an organization like Aid to
the Church in Need? It makes
orthodoxy a test for its help and evangelization its first aim.
Theological
Pluralism
A certain way to loss of faith in
Christ’s divinity is through acceptance of theologies not in harmony with
Catholic tradition.
Here
is the kind of theological reduction leading some astray today: “We should
recognize that Lutherans and Anglicans have valid orders and, therefore, the
real presence of the body and blood of Christ – a strong case exists for the
real presence of Christ in eucharistic celebrations of Churches with no claim
to a tactile succession – a united Church of the future should be democratic
and will have to be a community of very diverse Churches”. (Fr. Philip Kaufman, O.S.B., Why You Can Disagree and Remain a Faithful
Catholic. Myer Stone Books, 1989 pp.158, 159, 161). St. Hilary, “The Athanasius of the West,”
wrote in the fourth century: “We are falling away from the Faith which is
always one and the same: for when faith begins to be several, plures, they are entering in the path
which will end with no faith at all.”
(PL.10, 566).
Episcopal
Arianism
We have bishops by Christ’s will and
institution and by them Christ’s revelation is preserved and the Mass
continued. Who can measure the gratitude
we owe them: Shepherds, Confessors, sometimes Martyrs.
There
is no question here of Arian Bishops for I know of none who would follow Bishop
Eusebius of Nicomedia rather than Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria.
Yet
indirectly fostering Arianism are bishops who permit in their seminaries,
colleges and schools, teachings and texts which undermine or question the
divinity of Christ. We have seen how
this is done.
Indirectly promoting Arianism are Bishops who fail to uphold what the
Church teaches with the authority of Christ.
Consider the Great Tragedy of 1968.
Speaking in the name of the Church and invoking the authority of Christ,
the Holy Father reaffirmed the Church’s constant prohibition of artificial
contraception, direct sterilization and abortion. Yet, rejecting the prohibition of artificial
contraception as a moral absolute the hierarchies of Canada, Austria, West
Germany, the Netherlands and seven other countries mitigated the Church’s
teaching.
Focusing on Canada we see a progressive deterioration in family
life. While Bishops keep silent countless
thousands of persons created in God’s image are killed by Catholic Hospital
personnel through the prescription of abortifacient pills and devices. Countless thousands of others would have been
but are not because of contraceptive sterilizations performed in Catholic
Hospitals.
Ecclesial
Arianism
The Church of Christ is the Roman
Catholic Church
Indirectly Arian is the error which
denies that the Church of Christ and Roman Catholic Church are identical
terms. In the Dogmatic Constitution on
the Church of Vatican II we read: “this Church (of Christ) constituted and
organized as a society in the present world, subsists in the Catholic
Church”. The word “subsists” has been
wrongly used to mean that Christ’s Church and the Catholic Church are not
identical. Bishop Clemente Rua of Rome
is reported to have said that the Church did not receive the mission from
Christ to spread a sole Gospel throughout the world but rather the mission of
promoting the differences and multiplicity of religions, all of which make
manifest, each in its own way, the same Word (cf. 30 Days, April, 1990, p.79).
In The Catholic Catechism Fr. John Hardon,
S.J. says: “Behind the carefully chosen verb ‘subsists’ stands the affirmation
that the objective fullness of Christ’s heritage to the Church – totality of
his revelation, totality of his sacraments, and totality of authority to rule
the people of God in his name – resides in the Catholic Church of which the Bishop
of Rome is the visible head”. (Doubleday
& Co., 1975, p.213). I suggest a
reading of the first section of
“Mysterium Ecclesiae” on “The oneness of Christ’s Church”. (Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith, June 24, 1973). Although Avery
Dulles objects, the draft text of the new Universal Catechism reads simply:
“The Church of Christ exists in the Catholic Church”. (cf. 30
Days, May 1990, p.12).
The Structure of Christ's Church
Obliquely Arian is the call for changes in
the structure of the Church as it was established by Christ. In Christ’s Church the Pope has “full,
supreme and universal power over the whole Church, a power which he can always
exercise unhindered”. (Lumen Gentium, 22). The divinely ordered structure of the Church
includes the Bishops, “together with their head, the Supreme Pontiff, and never
apart from him” (ibid.).
Contemporary attempts to violate the
divinely established structure of his Church abound:
1. At
the Chicago Call to Action meeting
(Feb. 3,4, 1990) there were strident calls for a re-structuring of the Church.
2. A
similar call appeared in a full-page advertisement in the New York Times of
Feb. 18, 1990, signed by 4505 Concerned Catholics.
3. Closer
to home but with the same warped notion of ecclesiology is the CCCC (Coalition of Concerned Canadian Catholics).
This group wishes to “transform present
Church structures”. Mary Malone,
Associate professor of religious studies at St. Jerome’s College, Waterloo,
Ontario, has said: “The clergy have as much power as we lay people have given
them and we have given them too much.”
At a Conference of the CCCC Joanna Manning of the Toronto Metro School
Board expressed fear of the Conservative trend with its “stress on
orthodoxy”.
4. In
the often neo-modernist The New
Dictionary of Theology, under “Pope” we read “The Pope is the spiritual
head within the community of Christians ministering in accordance with the
fundamental affirmation of the faith of that community” (p.782). Under Church
by Edmund Hill, O.P., we read that the laity has a divinely given
constitutional right to say on the formulation of Christian doctrine. (p.200).
5. In
the book already quoted, Why You Can
Disagree and Remain a Faithful Catholic, Fr. Philip S. Kaufman, O.S.B.,
says: “The People of God should be a primary source, a locus theologicus of ‘What the Spirit is saying’ to the
Church. Structures of constitutional
democracy are best suited to make that source available to leaders in the
Church”.
6. In
Canada a false ecclesiology has been fostered by the Pastoral Team of the
Canadian Catholic Conference of Bishops (CCCB).
This team takes responsibility for the working paper, Marriage and the Family, 1980. There we read: “There are some who continue
to stress the clerical character of the Church.
They view the Church as authority vested in pastor, bishop, Pope. Lumen
Gentium (Vatican II) stresses, in the first place, the People of God and
then the hierarchical and sacramental dimensions. It emphasizes that the ecclesial structures
should rest on the three poles of collegiality: episcopal, presbyteral and
lay”. (p.157). It does no such
thing. Collegiality in Vatican II refers
to the Holy Father and the Bishops united with him. Collegial power and authority are that of the
Pope and Bishops together (cf. Dictionary
of the Council, Corpus Books, p.95).
The Church cannot renounce the structure given her by Christ.
Here is the true ecclesiology: “By
divine institution it is the exclusive task of these pastors alone, the
successors of Peter and the other Apostles, to teach the faithful authentically,
that is with the authority of Christ shared in different ways; so that the
faithful, who are not free simply to listen to them as experts in Catholic
doctrine, are bound to accept their teaching given in Christ’s name, with an
assent that is proportionate to the authority that they possess and that they
mean to exercise”. (Mysterium Ecclesiae, 2).
Liturgical
Arianism
We sometimes forget that the
liturgy, the public prayer of the Church, is also the prayer of Christ. “There is nothing better here below than
prayer, and the best prayer is evidently that of the Church, since it is the
inflatable prayer of Christ, continued and always active.” (Pierre Charles, S.J. Prayer
For All Times, Vol. II, London Sands & Co., 1929, p.48). To ignore or violate liturgical law is to
empty it of Christ.
“It
belongs to the Church’s authority to regulate the sacred liturgy. Nobody therefore is allowed to proceed on his
own initiative in this domain.”
(Instruction on the Proper
Implementation of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sept. 26, 1964, para.20).
What
happens when liturgical law is violated?
Instead of the Church acting in God’s name an individual is acting in
his own name.
Worship of God is replaced by pride of self.
Service is replaced by disobedience, scandal replaces edification and
the custodian turns destroyer.
An
act of love is replaced by a profound breach of charity, and the illicit
ceremony is emptied of Christ.
The
Eucharist, containing Christ, Redeemer and Bread of Life, is the apex of
liturgical worship. “Let us be under no
illusion. There is no charity possible
as an institution, as a thing that is a world-power, outside the Sacrament of
Christ’s mystical Body.” (Dom Anscar
Vonier, O.S.B., A Key to the Doctrine of
the Eucharist, Newman Press, 1925, p.257).
Pope John Paul II has emphasized the essential link between the
Eucharist and the Church’s spiritual and apostolic vitality. (Dominicae
Cenae, Feb.24, 1980, Para.4).
To
ignore a person is to treat him or her as nothing. Surely to ignore Christ present in the
Eucharist is to treat Him as less than divine.
This is done in myriad ways. Some
of these ways are independent of the choice of the laity: the virtual abolition
of Benediction, Holy Hours, Forty Hours Devotions, Processions of the Blessed
Sacrament, the tabernacle placed in a less than focal position. Other ways come from the faithful: failure to
genuflect, gossip in Church, levity and vulgarity in giving the kiss of peace,
failure to make a sign of adoration on the reception of Holy Communion, neglect
to make a suitable thanksgiving – even the sacrilege of the reception of
Christ’s Body in grave sin.
Some
of the disregard for the divinity of Christ in the Eucharist comes from
theological errors – e.g. transignification and transfinalisation divorced from
transubstantiation. These errors have
been condemned. (Mysterium Fidei, II). “Nor
is it right to put forward and to give expression in practice to the view which
maintains that Christ the Lord is no longer present in the consecrated hosts
which are left when the sacrifice of the Mass is over.” (ibid.).
In
other ways also is Christ disregarded in the Eucharist. Recently I had a distress call from a person
assisting at a wedding Mass. The priest
had allowed the couple to be married to bake the bread for the Eucharist. It was leavened bread and of sweet
taste. Did they receive the Bread of
Life on their wedding day?
We
ought ever keep in mind that the Eucharist, which is Christ, is also the sign
and cause of the unity of the Mystical Body of Christ. (cf. Mysterium
Fidei, 70).
Catechetical
Arianism
Since the sixties the teaching of
religion has been in a crisis state.
Pope Paul VI spoke of “the Catechetical crisis during the last few
years” (Oct.29, 1977). Cardinal
Ratzinger gives us this analysis: “Since theology can no longer transmit a
common model of the faith, catechesis is also exposed to dismemberment and to
constantly changing experiments” (Ratzinger
Report, Ignatius Press, 1985, p.72).
One result has been tests with impoverished doctrinal content, placing
the emphasis on method or process. This
relatively creedless approach “is constitutionally unable to raise up
professing Catholics”. (Msgr. Eugene
Kevane, The Sacrament of the Eucharist in
Our Time, St. Paul Editions, 1978, p.92).
Another result has been an attack on Christ’s divinity reflecting that
of dissident Scripture scholars and theologians.
Catholics owe a debt of gratitude to Catholics
United for the Faith. They have
given us a series of expert critiques of catechetical texts, many written by
their President, James Likoudis.
Although there are now some excellent texts, he has shown how the
majority are tainted with Arianism, e.g. Sadlier’s God With Us Religion Program (1982-1988); Sadlier’s Coming to Faith series (1988-1989
edition); Benziger’s In Christ Jesus texts,
1988; Silver, Burdett and Ginn’s This is
Our Faith texts, 1988; Christian Brothers’ Publication Jesus of History, Christ of Faith (High School Text), 1982.
Catechetical texts have descended into an Arian phase in several ways:
The
first way is by over-emphasis of Christ’s humanity. Cardinal Oddi, formerly Prefect of the Sacred
Congregation for the Clergy, has given details of ways in which this has been
done. (The Right of the Catechized to the Truth, St. Paul Editions, 1984,
pp.24-25). Other examples: “The first
important person whom the boy Jesus wondered about and learned about was
God.” (Grade I, This is Our Faith, p.42); “As a human being Jesus did not know why
good people suffer, why disasters strike, or why people die”. (Grade 8, In
Christ Jesus, p.66).
One
of the Modernist propositions condemned by Pope Pius X was “Christ did not
always have the consciousness of His messianic dignity”. This error frequently surfaces in current
texts. Example: “He must have spent a
lot of time thinking about the kind of world in which He was living and what He
was going to do about it”. (God With Us, Grade 8, p.80).
Essential to an understanding of Christ’s divinity and redemptive
mission is an accurate understanding of original sin. Original sin does not mean being born into a
sinful world, yet we read: “Ever since (Adam and Eve sinned) people have been
born into a world in which evil is very powerful. This condition is called ‘original sin’”
(Grade 8, In Christ Jesus, p.155). In a review of the current Grade 8 text of
the Canadian Catechism (1988 revision), Fr. Oliver Moloney notes: “The
sacrament of Baptism removes the stain of original sin and confers sanctifying
grace. The text should state this
clearly. No direct reference is made to
original sin in the text.”
Pope
Pius X condemned the proposition that: “The Resurrection of the Saviour is not
properly a fact of the historical order.
It is a fact of merely the supernatural order (neither demonstrated nor
demonstrable)”. Yet we read: “The gospel
accounts are not attempts to record the Resurrection as a historical event but,
rather, are proclamations or statements of faith about what had happened to
Jesus”. (Jesus of History, Christ of Faith, p.166).
The
source of current catechetical errors is evident. For example, the bibliography for In Christ Jesus gives us Monika Hellwig,
ex-priest Carl Pfeifer, ex-priest Tad Guzie, ex-priest Gregory Baum, ex-Jesuit
John L. McKenzie, Bernard Haring, and Charles E. Curran. Coming
to Faith promotes as contemporary heroes and prophets Teilhard de Chardin
and Martin Luther King Jr. Sources
include Schillebeeckx and Monika Hellwig.
Countless parents grieve to see their children lose their Faith in
Catholic schools. The crisis could be
settled by insistence on the implementation of the General Catechetical
Directory and the magnificent Apostolic Exhortation Catechesi Tradendae of Pope John Paul II.
New
Age Arianism
What do we mean by New-Age? Randall Baer, a former New Age leader for
many years, describes it as “a broad spectrum of non-Christian philosophies and
practices that can be categorized as New Age Spiritual Humanism. The cornerstone of this humanism is the
belief that man is divine in nature and is therefore essentially ‘God’ or an
enlightened God-man.” (Inside the New Age Nightmare, Huntingdon
House, 1989, p.84). The New Age Movement
is so called because it is intended to bring about a new world order with one
government and one religion (cf. Michelle Fleming, New Age in the Light of Christian Teaching, Life Ethics, p.2). New Age includes parapsychology, the occult,
yoga, astrology, tarot-card reading and exotic therapies. New Age morality
tolerates or embraces divorce, extramarital relations, homosexual practice,
abortion and every other deviant practice of neo-paganism including sorcery and
witchcraft.
New
age denies any unique divinity to Christ.
Yet in its perverse way it invokes the name of Christ as a kind of
seductive talisman to lead New Agers away from Christ. In New Age Christ is not a Judge. Everyone is his own Judge. New Agers reject the personal and visible
Second Coming of Christ. In its
language, “Another Christ, Christ-consciousness, will lead the world into the
New Age.” New Agers do not need a
redeeming Christ, they redeem themselves.
Creation
Spirituality
An off-shoot of the New Age movement
which has weakened the centrality of Christ in the faith of hundreds of
thousands of Catholics is called Creation Spirituality. The grand guru is Fr. Mathew Fox, O.P. He was silenced by the Holy See for a year
because of his New Age theology and his support for Starhawk, a self-proclaimed
witch and follower of the “earth religion” known as Wicca. The theology of Father Fox replaces Original
Sin with “Original Blessing” and merges with a syncretic acceptance of
non-Christian traditions. He calls for
the rejection of forms of religion “based on fall-redemption theologies,
structures and spiritualities”.
Another leader of creation-centered
theology is Fr. Thomas Berry, author of The
Dream of the Earth. (Sierra Book
Club). He reflects Teilhardian Arianism
when he writes: “Humans appear as the
moment in which the unfolding universe becomes conscious of itself – We bear
the universe in our being as the universe bears us in its being.”
In Canada, Scarboro Missions, the monthly magazine of the Scarboro Foreign
Mission Society, which numbers many great missionary priests among its members,
is more and more preoccupied with the secular – liberation theology, ecology –
and Creation Spirituality. It is
distressing to see the January 1990 issue devoted to the latter, featuring the
Teilhardian-ridden Creation Spirituality
– A Necessity by Sr. Anne Lonergan, R.C.
In this way it is contributing to “the dimming of Christ.”
(Fr. Teilhard de Chardin believed Christ is
evolving. Pope Pius XII called his writings “a cesspool of errors”.)
Arianism:
Remedies
The first remedy is fidelity to the
Church’s Creed.
In the second and third centuries the
heresy of Gnosticism attacked the divinity of Christ. The Church weathered the storm by the
faithful use of the baptismal Creed. It
was the same fidelity to the Creed which achieved victory over Arianism. The Apostles’ Creed was developed into the
Nicene-Constantinople Creed which in modified form we recite at Mass
today. (cf. Msgr. Eugene Kevane, Creed and Catechetics, Christian
Classics, 1978, p.31)
If we are to learn the lesson of history it
is that all that promotes fidelity to the Creed, the precious revelation of
Christ explained by the Church, must be preserved. We need a more careful use of the “Imprimatur,”
apologetics back in our seminaries, homilies with doctrinal content, teachers
living and loving their Faith, not “Call to Action”-type activists destroying
it, texts faithful to the ancient Creeds and to the Credo of the People of God;
and when it comes, adherence with gratitude to the Universal Catechism.
Next comes recognition of the authority of
the Church as the authority of Christ.
Cardinal Newman wrote: “It must
be borne in mind that, as the essence of all religion is authority and
obedience, so the distinction between natural religion and revealed religion
lies in this. One has a subjective
authority, the other an objective – the supremacy of Apostle, or Pope or Church
or Bishop is the essence of revealed religion.” (quoted from the Tablet, Dec. 2, 1967, p.1269). St. Thomas More saw the essential role of
divine authority in the Church. Against
Martin Luther he wrote: “Why is it not
reasonable to believe certain truths only on the authority of the Church, since
we accept the Gospels themselves on that same authority?” (from An Answer to Martin Luther). Pope Paul VI put it this way: “What would happen to unity of faith and of
charity, if a concurrence of will, guaranteed by an authorized power, itself
obedient to the superior will of God, did not propose and demand harmony of
thought and action.” (“Obedience to the Church Essential,” L’Osservatore Romano, Oct. 24, 1968, p.1).
Against the current heresy that authority
and power in the Church are not from above but from the laity, Pope John Paul
II has affirmed: “Authority of Bishops
is not delegated by people.” (ibid., Feb. 26, 1990, p.1).
There is another side to authority and that
is the obligation to assert authority to maintain the integrity of the
Faith. “Nulla sanctio, nulla lex.” Where there is no sanction there is no
law. Untold damage can be done when
authority does not challenge error and take sufficient means to stop its
spread. There is a lesson from
Arianism. Alexander, Bishop of
Alexandria, because of an indulgent disposition took the “pastoral approach”
and was slow to bring Arius to account.
Cardinal Newman wrote: “The mischief which ensued from his misplaced
meekness was considerable”.
Jesus
Omega
Christ came that we should
participate in His divine nature. St.
Thomas says: “Since it was the will of God’s only-begotten Son that men should
share in His divinity, he assumed our nature in order that by becoming man He
might make men gods.” (Breviary reading,
Feast of Corpus Christi).
Most do not know that Christ is their
Omega, their destination. Although “The
Church exists in order to evangelize” (John Paul II), of 5 billion people now
on earth 3.5 billion do not recognize Jesus Christ as God and Saviour. It is not surprising that Cardinal Tomko,
Prefect of the Congregation for the
Evangelization of Peoples, speaks of a “missionary emergency”. (L’Osservatore
Romano, 11 June, 1990, p.8).
We must work and pray for that unity of
faith in Christ as Lord and Redeemer and that practice of our faith which is
the foundation of evangelization. While we
rightly reject every trace of Arianism around us we must also reject our
personal Arianism, all that prevents us from making Christ the Lord of our
lives.
So we pray with the Church:
“God our Father,
Your Word became man and was
born of the Virgin Mary.
May we become more like Jesus
Christ,
Whom we acknowledge as our
redeemer,
God and man.” (Feast of the
Annunciation)
St. Athanasius, Father of Orthodoxy, pray
for us.
