07/30/2018 Anathemas of Trent & Excommunication: An Explanation. (Part 3)
Dave Armstrong
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/2018/07/anathemas-of-trent-excommunication-an-explanation.html https://www.patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/author/davearmstrong Schismatics, as well as those who, in good faith, fundamentally reject the Church authority, or who dissociate themslelves from the commonwealth of the faithful subject to her. Schismatics in good faith (material) like heretics in good faith, can, by a desire to belong to the Church (votum Ecclesiae), belong spiritually to the Church, and through this achieve justification and salvation.
. . . Excommunicati tolerati, according to the opinion almost generally held today, which is confirmed by CIC 2266, remain members of the Church, even after the promulgation of the juridical judgment and even if they are deprived of many spiritual benefits . . .
As the baptismal character which effects incorporation in the Church is indestructible, the baptised person, in spite of his ceasing to be a member of the Church, cannot cut himself off so completely from the Church, that every bond with the Church is dissolved.
The obligations arising from the reception of Baptism remain, even when the use of the rights connected with it are withdrawn by way of punishment. Thus the Church claims jurisdiction over baptised persons who are separated from her.
13) Evangelical and Catholics Together: Toward a Common Mission, edited by Charles Colson and Richard John Neuhaus, Dallas: Word Publishing, 1995, Neuhaus’ chapter, “The Catholic Difference,” 175-227; quote from 209-210:
Did the council fathers at Trent misunderstand what the Reformers meant by sola fide?
Most scholars, whether Catholic or Protestant, agree that they did not understand the Reformers, especially Luther and Calvin, adequately.
And there is slight disagreement, perhaps no disagreement, that the Reformers, especially Luther, could have expressed themselves more clearly, carefully, and consistently.
Then too, keep in mind that, apart from Luther and Calvin, there were many who claimed to be advancing the reformation under the slogan of sola fide and who were advocating precisely what Trent thought that slogan meant.
“Crucial to the condemnation are the words “If anyone shall say . . . ” (Si qui dixerit).
Trent did not condemn anyone by name.
The council condemned anyone who taught what it understood by the formula “justification by faith alone.”
There were in the sixteenth century very considerable differences, also among Protestants, as to what was meant by key terms such as justification, faith, will, and grace.
That there were misunderstandings is hardly surprising.
. . . the Catholic Church, knowing that all theological formulations fall short of expressing the fullness of truth, trusts the continuing guidance of the Spirit in a course of doctrinal development toward the ever more adequate articulation of God’s Word relative to the questions posed by the time . . .
It is historically and theologically judged that the council fathers at Trent were right in condemning what they understood by “justification by faith alone.”
In the intervening years, and especially in the theological dialogues of the last thirty years, Reformation Christians have made a convincing case that what they mean by sola fide is not what Trent condemned.
14) Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 1, 1907 [65 years before Vatican II began], “Anathema.”
Anathema
(Gr. anathema — literally, placed on high, suspended, set aside).
In the New Testament anathema no longer entails death, but the loss of goods or exclusion from the society of the faithful.
St. Paul frequently uses this word in the latter sense. In the Epistle to the Romans (ix, 3)
he says: “For I wished myself to be an anathema from Christ, for my brethren, who are my kinsmen according to the flesh”, i.e. “I should wish to be separated and rejected of Christ, if by that means I would procure the salvation of my brethren.”
And again, using the word in the same sense, he says (Gal. i, 9):
“If any one preach to you a gospel besides that which you have received, let him be anathema.” But he who is separated from God is united to the devil, which explains why St. Paul, instead of anathematizing, sometimes delivers a person over to Satan.
I Tim., i, 20; I Cor., v, 5
Anathema signifies also to be overwhelmed with maledictions, as in I Cor., xvi, 22:
“If any man love not our Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema.”
At an early date the Church adopted the word anathema to signify the exclusion of a sinner from the society of the faithful;
But the anathema was pronounced chiefly against heretics.
All the councils, from the Council of Nicaea to that of the Vatican, have worded their dogmatic canons:
“If any one says . . . let him be anathema”. Nevertheless, although during the first centuries the anathema did not seem to differ from the sentence of excommunication, beginning with the sixth century a distinction was made between the two.
. . . the anathema maranatha is a censure from which the criminal may be absolved; although he is delivered to Satan and his angels, the Church, in virtue of the Power of the Keys, can receive him once more into the communion of the faithful.
More than that, it is with this purpose in view that she takes such rigorous measures against him, in order that by the mortification of his body his soul may be saved on the last day.
The Church, animated by the spirit of God, does not wish the death of the sinner, but rather that he be converted and live.
This explains why the most severe and terrifying formulas of excommunication, containing all the rigors of the Maranatha have, as a rule, clauses like this: Unless he becomes repentant, or gives satisfaction, or is corrected.
15) Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 5, 1909 [63 years before Vatican II began], “Excommunication.”
Excommunication (Lat. ex, out of, and communio or communicatio, communion —
Exclusion from the communion), the principal and severest censure, is a medicinal, spiritual penalty that deprives the guilty Christian of all participation in the common blessings of ecclesiastical society.
Being a penalty, it supposes guilt; and being the most serious penalty that the Church can inflict, it naturally supposes a very grave offense. I
t is also a medicinal rather than a vindictive penalty, being intended, not so much to punish the culprit, as to correct him and bring him back to the path of righteousness.
It necessarily, therefore, contemplates the future, either to prevent the recurrence of certain culpable acts that have grievous external consequences, or, more especially, to induce the delinquent to satisfy the obligations incurred by his offence.
Its object and its effect are loss of communion, i.e. of the spiritual benefits shared by all the members of Christian society; hence, it can affect only those who by baptism have been admitted to that society.
Undoubtedly there can and do exist other penal measures which entail the loss of certain fixed rights; among them are other censures, e.g. suspension for clerics, interdict for clerics and laymen, irregularity ex delicto, etc.
Excommunication, however, is clearly distinguished from these penalties in that it is the privation of all rights resulting from the social status of the Christian as such.
The excommunicated person, it is true, does not cease to be a Christian,
Since his baptism can never be effaced; he can, however, be considered as an exile from Christian society and as non-existent, for a time at least, in the sight of ecclesiastical authority.
But such exile can have an end (and the Church desires it), as soon as the offender has given suitable satisfaction.
Meanwhile, his status before the Church is that of a stranger.
He may not participate in public worship nor receive the Body of Christ or any of the sacraments.
Moreover, if he be a cleric, he is forbidden to administer a sacred rite or to exercise an act of spiritual authority.
. . . This rational argument is confirmed by texts of the New Testament, the example of the Apostles, and the practice of the Church from the first ages down to the present.
Among the Jews, exclusion from the synagogue was a real excommunication (Esd., x, 8).
‘This was the exclusion feared by the parents of the man born blind (John, ix, 21 sq.; cf. xii, 42; xvi, 2); the same likewise that Christ foretold to His disciples (Luke, vi, 22).
It is also the exclusion which in due time the Christian Church should exercise: “And if he will not hear the church, let him be to thee as the heathen and publican”
(Matt., xviii, 17). In the celebrated text:
“Whatsoever you shall bind upon earth, shall be bound also in heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose upon earth, shall be loosed also in heaven” (Matt., xviii, 18; cf. xvi, 19),
It is not only the remission of sins that is referred to, but likewise all spiritual jurisdiction, including judicial and penal sanctions. Such, moreover, was the jurisdiction conferred on St. Peter by the words: “Feed my lambs”; “feed my sheep” (John, xxi, 15, 16, 17).
St. Paul excommunicated regularly the incestuous Corinthians (I Cor., v, 5) and the incorrigible blasphemers whom he delivered over to Satan.
I Timothy 1:20
(End Part 3)