Pope Francis Derangement Syndrome Vol. XXVIII: A response to Steve Ray.

teve Ray is a Bap­tist con­vert to Catholi­cism who likes to wear a bush hat and call him­self “Jerusalem Jones” because he’s gone on pil­grim­age to the Holy Land, by his count, “almost 200 times.” He leads tours. But he’s real­ly wor­ried that Pope Fran­cis is chang­ing the deposit of faith; and sad to say, such a wor­ry con­tains its own con­tra­dic­tion. (I’ll get there.) Back in the day, when he was a new­ly-mint­ed con­vert, Mr. Ray wrote a book enti­tled Upon This Rock: St. Peter and the Pri­ma­cy of Rome. Con­verts seem always to be rush­ing out and writ­ing books in a fer­vor of hav­ing Found Truth. These days, Mr. Ray has appar­ent­ly decid­ed to give his own wor­ries a greater pri­ma­cy than he gives the suc­ces­sor of St. Peter, at least the cur­rent one.

Hence, in an inter­view with Jon Hen­ry West­en of Fake Site News, Mr. Ray express­es his wor­ry that there are many, many lead­ers in the Church who are try­ing to change the deposit of faith. We need to rely on the Rays and the West­ens, I guess, to fer­ret them out.

(The inter­view is 50 min­utes long; and it’s part of my duty as a blog­ger, dear read­er, to lis­ten to such things so that you won’t have to. There’s a lot in there about COVID-19, which Mr. Ray inex­plic­a­bly insists on call­ing the “Wuhan Virus” because, he says, he believes in call­ing things by their real names. But its real name is COVID-19, not “Wuhan Virus.” This is how trust­wor­thy Mr. Ray is. But I digress.)

Two things stand out from the inter­view itself

WATCH WHAT YOU SAY OR THEY’LL BE CALLING YOU A RADICAL

• First. Mr. Ray describes the deposit of faith as a box of truths that Jesus hand­ed to the apos­tles and told them to pass on unchanged. Don’t add any­thing to it, don’t sub­tract any­thing from it.

Well, that’s incor­rect. The deposit of faith can’t have been fixed after it’s hand­ing on by Christ, because that would mean that the Assump­tion is not part of the deposit of faith. The Assump­tion occurred afterChrist’s ascen­sion. Though it might be true, it could­n’t be an arti­cle of faith.

No. Con­trary to what Mr. Ray tells us, Dei Ver­bum describes the deposit of faith as hav­ing been hand­ed on, not by Christ to the apos­tles, but by the apos­tles to the teach­ing Church. The deposit of faith, it says, “has been entrust­ed exclu­sive­ly to the liv­ing teach­ing office of the Church.”

The deposit of faith is not ster­ile. Catholic con­verts like Mr. Ray love to ask—and I’ve heard him ask this—What good is an infal­li­ble Scrip­ture with­out an infal­li­ble inter­preter? It’s a good ques­tion. But like­wise, what good is a deposit of faith with­out a teach­ing Church? The Bible says that the Holy Spir­it would guide the Church—not lay apologists—into all truth (John 16:13). The Bible describes a process that unfolds in time, not a ster­ile deposit.

The truth is that time is change. The deposit of faith is com­plete, but the Church under­stands it more ful­ly only through time. St. John Hen­ry New­man tells us that. New ques­tions emerge that did not exist for the apos­tles. What about stem cell research? What about in vit­ro fer­til­iza­tion? We need a liv­ing Mag­is­teri­um to tell us how the deposit of faith is to be under­stood and lived out in cir­cum­stances that are unique­ly our own. Oth­er­wise, you just have a Catholic ver­sion of sola scrip­tura; call it soli deposi­tum.

• Sec­ond. Mr. Ray also says that popes are lim­it­ed in what they can teach based upon the teach­ing of pri­or popes. [So far so good. Pope Fran­cis could not declare the Immac­u­late Con­cep­tion or Assump­tion a heresy.] What this means, he says, is that each new pope has less room to teach than the pri­or pope.

Now, I’m sor­ry, but the last part of that makes no sense at all. I’m sure Mr. Ray would say that the Immac­u­late Con­cep­tion, defined in 1854, and the Assump­tion, defined in 1950, are both part of the deposit of faith. Mr. Ray would not say that Pius IX or Pius XII were illic­it­ly adding to the deposit of faith; he would say, and right­ly, that they were defin­ing what the Church had always taught. That is to say, Pius XII was not more con­strained than Pius IX, and Pius IX was not more con­strained than Boni­face III, because none of them taught any­thing, or could have taught any­thing, more than what the Church had always taught. All they can do is define it or apply it to ques­tions of their own time, but Pope Fran­cis is not any less free in this regard than Pope Inno­cent X.

Mr. Ray’s expla­na­tion only makes sense if you think that Christ hand­ed on 50% of a deposit, and Peter added some­thing, and Linus added some­thing, and so on, until Bene­dict XVI came around, and now we have a 99.9% deposit, and Pope Fran­cis has so lit­tle room to say any­thing that it’s best if he just shut his mouth and put up a flam­ing sword around the deposit.

Watch what you say, Frank, or they’ll be call­ing you a rad­i­cal. A lib­er­al! Crim­i­nal!

THE QUESTIONS RUN TOO DEEP

So I had some ques­tions for Mr. Ray and I sub­mit­ted them to his blog:

• Is Pope Fran­cis one of those whom you think is try­ing to change the deposit of faith?
• If your answer to ques­tion 1 is “yes,” in which doc­u­ment has he done this or attempt­ed to do this?
• Is it, or is it not, part of the deposit of faith that a pope is pro­tect­ed by the Holy Spir­it from chang­ing the deposit of faith?

The good man respond­ed:

• I think he is one of many who have an agen­da to change much of what the Church teach­es and prac­tices. [I guessed this would be the answer.]
• In all his doc­u­ments, speech­es and talks. They are too many to list here. But any­one who has been watch­ing, read­ing and observ­ing. [Kind of a cop out, Mr. Ray. If there are this many, name one. Let’s start there. Which one do you want to talk about?]
• The Pope is pro­tect­ed from infal­li­bly defin­ing a doc­trine of the faith which is con­trary to the deposit of faith. How­ev­er, one can change pas­toral prac­tice on how such a doc­trine is applied which does not change the doc­trine itself but can nul­li­fy it by chang­ing the way it is applied on a pas­toral lev­el.

Okay. Let’s pause over that third one. I have some ques­tions about that. If, as you say, a pope is pro­tect­ed only when defin­ing a doc­trine infal­li­bly (and the cor­rect word is “dog­ma”), then how do we know that Humanae Vitae is not con­trary to the faith? I find no infal­li­ble def­i­n­i­tions there. And if you reply that some pope taught this infal­li­bly before 1968, and Paul VI was only affirm­ing it and did not need to define what was already defined, then you need also to tell me where I can find that def­i­n­i­tion. What year? Which pope? Or am I free to reject Humanae Vitae as not part of the deposit of faith? Can I dis­re­gard it?

(Lest I be mis­in­ter­pret­ed, I state for the record here that I ful­ly accept the teach­ing of Humanae Vitae.)

As far “chang­ing pas­toral prac­tice,” I can only guess that Mr. Ray is think­ing about Amor­is Laeti­tia and com­mu­nion for the divorced and remar­ried. That’s the only spe­cif­ic thing he men­tioned in his inter­view with Mr. West­en.

It’s impor­tant we be clear what part of the deposit of faith is at stake here. What’s at stake is Paul’s instruc­tion about the wor­thy recep­tion of com­mu­nion:

Who­ev­er, there­fore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unwor­thy man­ner will be guilty of pro­fan­ing the body and blood of the Lord. Let a man exam­ine him­self, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. (1 Cor. 11:27–28).

The Church has always under­stood this to mean that you may not receive com­mu­nion if you are in a state of mor­tal sin. But as far as I can tell—and I’ve searched far and wide and high and low—Pope Fran­cis has not changed one thing, not even in prac­tice. Pope Fran­cis has not said it is okay for peo­ple in mor­tal sin to receive com­mu­nion.

But what he has said—and this is a very impor­tant distinction—is that we must not assume that every last per­son in an irreg­u­lar mar­riage is in mor­tal sin in the first place. It’s grave mat­ter, no ques­tion. But the Church has long under­stood that though grave mat­ter may be present, oth­er con­di­tions mit­i­gate cul­pa­bil­i­ty. Grave mat­ter is only one of the con­di­tions for mor­tal sin. A per­son must also know that what they are doing is grave mat­ter, and they must con­sent to it with full free­dom of the will.

In Famil­iaris Con­sor­tio, St. John Paul II said that cou­ples in an irreg­u­lar mar­riage need not sep­a­rate, espe­cial­ly if there are young chil­dren who would be deprived of either a moth­er or father. But they would need to com­mit to con­ti­nence in order to receive the Eucharist.

Now, I can think of two rea­sons why a cou­ple in an irreg­u­lar mar­riage could have sex­u­al rela­tions but still receive Com­mu­nion:

• They com­mit to a life of con­ti­nence but back­slide. In such a sit­u­a­tion, all they need to do is go to Con­fes­sion.
• One of the two—let’s say the wife—is will­ing to com­mit to con­ti­nence, but her hus­band is not. He threat­ens her: If you don’t give me sex, I will divorce you. They have young chil­dren. The wife acqui­esces because she does­n’t want her chil­dren to be with­out their father; she feels that a sta­ble house­hold is best for them. In this case, the hus­band cer­tain­ly is inel­i­gi­ble for com­mu­nion. But the wife is act­ing under coer­cion and there­fore does not meet the cri­te­ria to be in mor­tal sin. Only local pas­tors are in a posi­tion to dis­cern this.

The deposit of faith is cor­rect: If you are in mor­tal sin, you must not receive com­mu­nion. But it is mor­tal sin that bars you, not grave mat­ter. Pope Fran­cis says only that we must not assume that every­one in an irreg­u­lar mar­riage is guilty of mor­tal sin. Any change to pas­toral prac­tice, there­fore, does not mean that the pope has altered or nul­li­fied the deposit of faith.

HOW TO BE SENSIBLE

I am afraid Mr. Ray is wrong when he floats the pos­si­bil­i­ty that popes could alter the deposit of faith in their non-infal­li­ble teach­ings. A teach­ing may con­tain inci­den­tal error, but not the kind that would alter the deposit of faith.

Let me explain that. I believe Mr. Ray would agree with me if I said: “A pope can not bind the Church to error—not the kind that alters the deposit of faith, at any rate.” But the Church binds Catholics to more than just the infal­li­ble teach­ings. Oth­er­wise, Humanae Vitae does not bind us. We could ignore it. We could say “I dis­sent” and throw out 99.9% of every­thing that popes say. But Christ hard­ly intend­ed that when he told his dis­ci­ples to obey those who sit in Moses’ seat (and by log­ic of exten­sion, those who sit in Peter’s chair).

Indeed the Church itself tells us that we are bound to any teach­ing of the authen­tic Mag­is­teri­um, whether it is infal­li­ble or not. Here is Lumen Gen­tium 25:

In mat­ters of faith and morals, the bish­ops speak in the name of Christ and the faith­ful are to accept their teach­ing and adhere to it with a reli­gious assent. This reli­gious sub­mis­sion of mind and will must be shown in a spe­cial way to the authen­tic mag­is­teri­um of the Roman Pon­tiff, even when he is not speak­ing ex cathe­dra; that is, it must be shown in such a way that his supreme mag­is­teri­um is acknowl­edged with rev­er­ence, the judg­ments made by him are sin­cere­ly adhered to, accord­ing to his man­i­fest mind and will.

So the Church binds us to teach­ings that are not infal­li­ble. Does Mr. Ray mean for us to con­clude that the Church there­fore binds us to teach­ings that poten­tial­ly alter the deposit of faith, to teach­ings that come with no divine assis­tance? Are we to con­clude that it is only by a supreme act of good behav­ior on the part of popes that the Church has remained free of that for 2000 years? How many infal­li­ble teach­ings have there been in 2000 years? Have we been amaz­ing­ly lucky?

But no. Don­um Ver­i­tatis tells us:

The will­ing­ness to sub­mit loy­al­ly to the teach­ing of the Mag­is­teri­um on mat­ters per se not irreformable must be the rule. … It would be con­trary to the truth if … one were to con­clude that the Church’s Mag­is­teri­um can be habit­u­al­ly mis­tak­en … or that it does not enjoy divine assis­tance in the inte­gral exer­cise of its mis­sion.

Even when the Church is not defin­ing a dog­ma, it has “divine assis­tance.” That comes from the CDF, and it is con­trary to Mr. Ray’s insis­tence that the Church has divine assis­tance only when defin­ing infal­li­ble dog­mas.

It is part of the deposit of faith that a pope is pro­tect­ed from alter­ing the deposit of faith. It can’t hap­pen. If Mr. Ray thinks oth­er­wise, if he thinks the Church has done any alter­ing, he’ll have to tell us—in a way that will with­stand scrutiny—when that has hap­pened.

Yet one more ques­tion for Mr. Ray: Has the Holy Spir­it stopped guid­ing the Church into all truth? And if so, when did that hap­pen and how do you know? If it has, do we need a pope or a Mag­is­teri­um any longer? And if we do need a Mag­is­teri­um, what jus­ti­fies your say­ing there are parts of it you can’t accept?

In oth­er words, how are you so sure the deposit of faith has been altered, and how do you know that you are not mis­tak­en? Does­n’t that amount to being your own pope?

The Holy Spir­it guides the Church into all truth; it does not guide Steve Ray into all truth. There­fore, if there is some­thing you just can’t—in your own intellect—reconcile, isn’t it pos­si­ble that the error is yours and not the pope’s?

I’m a con­vert too, like Mr. Ray. There was a point in my con­ver­sion when I had solved a great deal of my dif­fi­cul­ties with Catholic teach­ing, but a few prob­lems lin­gered. One ques­tion I had set­tled was that the Church has the author­i­ty from Christ to teach what it teach­es.

One day, I real­ized that, if that were true, any lin­ger­ing prob­lems I had were my own error, and not the Church’s. And I need­ed to fig­ure out what my error was and not pre­sume to instruct the pope.

I still try to fol­low that prin­ci­ple.

•••

Update. I am so shocked—shocked!—that Fake Site News was banned from YouTube and the inter­view with Mr. Ray is no longer avail­able.