But Alt! The Church says the Ordinary Magisterium may have defects!

ut Alt! The very same text you cite to claim that Catholics must sub­mit to the Mag­is­teri­um on all points also says that some teach­ings may have ‘defi­ciences.’ The CDF says some things might be reformable. Do you real­ly mean to say Catholics must not object to such things?”

Yes. This is not the green light for dis­sent some claim it to be. Let’s take a look at the actu­al extent of these words in Don­um Ver­i­tatis. The dis­cus­sion begins at §24.

Final­ly, in order to serve the Peo­ple of God as well as pos­si­ble, in par­tic­u­lar, by warn­ing them of dan­ger­ous opin­ions which could lead to error, the Mag­is­teri­um can inter­vene in ques­tions under dis­cus­sion which involve, in addi­tion to sol­id prin­ci­ples, cer­tain con­tin­gent and con­jec­tur­al ele­ments. It often only becomes pos­si­ble with the pas­sage of time to dis­tin­guish between what is nec­es­sary and what is con­tin­gent.

Now an imme­di­ate exam­ple that should occur to you at this point, dear read­er, is Lauda­to Si. Clear­ly there are pas­sages in the text with deal with the “sol­id prin­ci­ple” of man’s duty to pro­tect the Earth. Just as clear­ly there are pas­sages that deal with the pope’s “con­tin­gent and con­jec­tur­al” belief in cli­mate change. (Bene­dict XVI shared that belief, by the way.) Pope Fran­cis him­self makes note of this:

There are cer­tain envi­ron­men­tal issues where it is not easy to achieve a broad con­sen­sus. Here I would state once more that the Church does not pre­sume to set­tle sci­en­tif­ic ques­tions or to replace pol­i­tics. But I am con­cerned to encour­age an hon­est and open debate so that par­tic­u­lar inter­ests or ide­olo­gies will not prej­u­dice the com­mon good.

The pope has enough humil­i­ty to con­cede that he is not able to answer all ques­tions defin­i­tive­ly. But he takes up the dis­cus­sion for the sake of “the com­mon good.” He takes it up so he may remind the Church of “sol­id prin­ci­ples” that remain, what­ev­er the truth of the sci­en­tif­ic ques­tion.

A sec­ond exam­ple would be the Holy Office’s con­dem­na­tion of Galileo’s the­o­ries in 1616. (Today the Holy Office is the CDF.) Car­di­nal Bel­larmine said that, though Galileo was for­bid­den to hold or defend heo­li­cen­trism, he was not for­bid­den to con­jec­ture. Con­jec­ture all you like, just don’t claim you know this to be so. Like­wise in 1623, Pope Urban VIII (to whom he had appealed) warned Galileo that he could only present the argu­ments for and against helio­cen­trism; he could not advo­cate it.

One must remem­ber that, at the time, geo­cen­trism was the accept­ed view of sci­en­tists. The Church was inter­est­ed in defend­ing a “sol­id principle”—the right under­stand­ing of Scrip­ture. (This was a huge issue dur­ing the Ref­or­ma­tion, you will recall.) In the Galileo case, this depend­ed upon a ques­tion of con­jec­ture, name­ly, helio­cen­trism. If the sun was sta­tion­ary and the plan­ets in motion, cer­tain texts of the Bible might be in doubt (e.g., Josh. 10:13 and Eccl. 1:5). So the Church was cau­tious and nuanced in its approach to Galileo. Only with time was the Church able to under­stand bet­ter how to rec­on­cile the truth of helio­cen­trism with the Bib­li­cal texts. The stric­ture against pro­mot­ing helio­cen­trism no longer applied.

•••

But before we rush to the con­clu­sion that we can open­ly dis­pute things we think to be false or “con­jec­tur­al,” we should look at how the CDF devel­ops its obser­va­tion.

The will­ing­ness to sub­mit loy­al­ly to the teach­ing of the Mag­is­teri­um on mat­ters per se not irreformable must be the rule.

Now see that? The CDF says, “Some things might be con­jec­ture; it says, “Some things might be con­tin­gent rather than nec­es­sary.” But then it straight­way adds: “Loy­al sub­mis­sion is still the rule.” Don’t get excit­ed and start itch­ing for the rebel­lion.

There’s more.

It can hap­pen, how­ev­er, that a the­olo­gian may, accord­ing to the case, raise ques­tions regard­ing the time­li­ness, the form, or even the con­tents of mag­is­te­r­i­al inter­ven­tions.

This is a priv­i­lege the Church grants to the­olo­gians. The­olo­gians have train­ing the ordi­nary laity do not. The­olo­gians bet­ter under­stand all the issues at stake.

The CDF will take up that point again a bit lat­er. But for now the text turns to a dis­cus­sion of what sort of “defects” might be present in ordi­nary teach­ing.

When it comes to the ques­tion of inter­ven­tions in the pru­den­tial order, it could hap­pen that some Mag­is­te­r­i­al doc­u­ments might not be free from all defi­cien­cies. [It “could” hap­pen with “some” texts. They might not be free from “all” defi­cien­cies.] Bish­ops and their advi­sors have not always tak­en into imme­di­ate con­sid­er­a­tion every aspect or the entire com­plex­i­ty of a ques­tion.

Be care­ful not to run wild with these words and use them as a license to say, “Pfft! I’m not lis­ten­ing to that crap!” Note the lim­its that the CDF sets up around this pos­si­bil­i­ty of “defi­cien­cies.”

• It “could” hap­pen. Well, any­thing “could” hap­pen. There could be a typo in this blog post. Mr. Trump could con­vert to Christ. The quick brown fox could jump over the lazy dog.
• A text might not be free from “all” defi­cien­cies. No, not all of them. But how many might creep in? Five per­cent? Two per­cent? .00000000009%?
• The defi­cien­cies, if there, would be a result of bish­ops fail­ing to con­sid­er “every aspect or the entire com­plex­i­ty of a ques­tion.” That is, the “defi­cien­cies” are more the result of a teach­ing’s being incom­plete or for a time wrong. God does not reveal the whole truth in a big strong zap but in stages. Car­di­nal New­man under­stood this.

And note what the CDF says next:

But it would be con­trary to the truth, if, pro­ceed­ing from some par­tic­u­lar cas­es, one were to con­clude that the Church’s Mag­is­teri­um can be habit­u­al­ly mis­tak­en in its pru­den­tial judg­ments, or that it does not enjoy divine assis­tance in the inte­gral exer­cise of its mis­sion.

There are always “some par­tic­u­lar cas­es.” So don’t get too eager or start to make excus­es for rebel­lion; don’t quick­ly seize upon some­thing you want to flout; don’t rub your chin and say, “Well, there are such a small num­ber of infal­li­ble state­ments,” though you may throw all else to the four winds. No. Even “in its pru­den­tial judg­ments” the Mag­is­teri­um has “divine assis­tance” and is not “habit­u­al­ly mis­tak­en.”

Don­um Ver­i­tatis goes on:

In fact, the the­olo­gian, who can­not pur­sue his dis­ci­pline well with­out a cer­tain com­pe­tence in his­to­ry, is aware of the fil­ter­ing which occurs with the pas­sage of time. This is not to be under­stood in the sense of a rel­a­tiviza­tion of the tenets of the faith. The the­olo­gian knows that some judg­ments of the Mag­is­teri­um could be jus­ti­fied at the time in which they were made, because while the pro­nounce­ments con­tained true asser­tions and oth­ers which were not sure, both types were inex­tri­ca­bly con­nect­ed. Only time has per­mit­ted dis­cern­ment and, after deep­er study, the attain­ment of true doc­tri­nal progress.

If it is “only time” that per­mits this deep­er dis­cern­ment, some rebel­lious spir­it in the pew cer­tain­ly is not in pos­ses­sion of that dis­cern­ment.

And here the CDF gives one more rea­son why some teach­ings of the Ordi­nary Mag­is­teri­um may have “defi­cien­cies.” It is not that “the tenets of the faith” are in doubt. Some judg­ments of the Church may be “jus­ti­fied at the time” because of their con­nec­tion to dis­put­ed points that had not yet been set­tled.

Take, for exam­ple, the Holy Office’s judg­ment with respect to Galileo. At the time, the sta­bil­i­ty of the polit­i­cal order was tied up with reli­gious belief. We tend not to appre­ci­ate that like we should. Heresy was a cap­i­tal crime because of its abil­i­ty to upset the State; and the Church had just been through a bad expe­ri­ence with pri­vate inter­pre­ta­tion of Scrip­ture caus­ing the schism of whole states. If peo­ple were to think, before the ques­tion were set­tled, that the sun sat still and the plan­ets cir­cled, and the truth of cer­tain vers­es were thus put in doubt, there could have been more trou­ble. The Church was, there­fore, wise to be cau­tious with Galileo. In the dif­fer­ent world of today, the Church can take a more lib­er­al approach. We can’t take our mod­ern sen­si­bil­i­ty and read it back into an ear­li­er age that would have found it alien.

This is the kind of thing the CDF is think­ing of when it says that some Mag­is­te­r­i­al texts may have “defi­cien­cies.”

•••

And now the CDF returns to the role of the the­olo­gian in express­ing dis­sent; it clar­i­fies the form such dis­sent ought to take.

Even if the doc­trine of the faith is not in ques­tion, the the­olo­gian will not present his own opin­ions or diver­gent hypothe­ses as though they were non-arguable con­clu­sions. Respect for the truth as well as for the Peo­ple of God requires this dis­cre­tion (cf. Rom. 14:1–15; 1 Cor. 8; 10:23–33 ). For the same rea­sons, the the­olo­gian will refrain from giv­ing untime­ly pub­lic expres­sion to them.

So the dis­sent must come from a the­olo­gian. It must be expressed with char­i­ty and “dis­cre­tion,” and not as though the the­olo­gian were in pos­ses­sion of a “non-arguable con­clu­sion.” And the theologian—note this—“will refrain from giv­ing untime­ly pub­lic expres­sion” of his dubia.

Did you catch that, Car­di­nal Burke? May I send you a copy of Don­um Ver­i­tatis? I will high­light these sec­tions in yel­low for your con­ve­nience.

And the CDF is clear that, even when you are a the­olo­gian, even when you are char­i­ta­ble, and even when you are dis­creet, you have a duty “to accept the teach­ing of the Mag­is­teri­um.” Yes, it does say that:

In any case there should nev­er be a dimin­ish­ment of that fun­da­men­tal open­ness loy­al­ly to accept the teach­ing of the Mag­is­teri­um as is fit­ting for every believ­er by rea­son of the obe­di­ence of faith. The the­olo­gian will strive then to under­stand this teach­ing in its con­tents, argu­ments, and pur­pos­es. This will mean an intense and patient reflec­tion on his part and a readi­ness, if need be, to revise his own opin­ions and exam­ine the objec­tions which his col­leagues might offer him.

Be more ready, in these cas­es, to revise your own views than to urge your own upon the Church. Even the the­olo­gian who has some lat­ti­tude to express doubt is oblig­at­ed to this “obe­di­ence of faith.” Any dubia he has he should express “in an evan­gel­i­cal spir­it and with a pro­found desire to resolve the dif­fi­cul­ties.” The CDF, fur­ther, is clear about what “an evan­gel­i­cal spir­it” is not. (Are you pay­ing atten­tion, Car­di­nal Burke? Tolle lege, Your Emi­nence.)

In cas­es like these, the the­olo­gian should avoid turn­ing to the “mass media”, but have recourse to the respon­si­ble author­i­ty, for it is not by seek­ing to exert the pres­sure of pub­lic opin­ion that one con­tributes to the clar­i­fi­ca­tion of doc­tri­nal issues and ren­ders ser­vice to the truth.

Truth is not served by “seek­ing to exert the pres­sure of pub­lic opin­ion.” No inter­views with the Reg­is­ter or Lyser­gic Acid News. No dire pub­lic threats of “for­mal cor­rec­tion.” And even when the the­olo­gian is still, in his heart, per­suad­ed of the truth of his own posi­tion, he needs to search more deeply to learn where he may be wrong.

It can also hap­pen that at the con­clu­sion of a seri­ous study, under­tak­en with the desire to heed the Mag­is­teri­um’s teach­ing with­out hes­i­ta­tion, the the­olo­gian’s dif­fi­cul­ty remains because the argu­ments to the con­trary seem more per­sua­sive to him. Faced with a propo­si­tion to which he feels he can­not give his intel­lec­tu­al assent, the the­olo­gian nev­er­the­less has the duty to remain open to a deep­er exam­i­na­tion of the ques­tion.

Pub­lic dis­sent caus­es “seri­ous harm,” says the CDF. In Don­um Ver­i­tatis it speaks on that sub­ject at great length; and I will turn to it, Lord will­ing, in a future post.