The Remnant Speaks

Letters to the Editor: The Remnant Speaks P.O. Box 1117, Forest Lake, MN 55025 ~

Editor@RemnantNewspaper.com

Reactions to Catholic Identity Conference 2017

Editor, The Remnant: For 15 years I have been learning the traditional Catholic Faith from FSSP priests and from the excellent writers at The Remnant. This conference was the high point of my maturation as a traditional Catholic. I have never felt so connected to a movement as I now feel after the conclusion of the 2017 CIC. I am looking forward to attending in 2018 and every year thereafter.

Jeffrey Smith Tulsa, OK Editor, The Remnant: I was one of the attendees at the conference—actually, I was the person from Argentina and I want to say that I really loved it. It gave me so much hope to hear the speakers, so many priests, and to see so many other lay persons and religious at the conference was really uplifting. I was so down before getting there that I see how necessary these events are, they are not only a good thing to do but necessary for our spiritual and moral wellbeing. Just want you to know that not all Argentina is or thinks like Pope Francis. There are so many good souls and traditional Catholics but they are the unknown, just like the young men that formed a barrier around a cathedral in Argentina to defend it from the vicious feminist attack, and they kept praying and resisting. That video made me cry because I could see how many good soldiers of Christ still are in my country.

God bless!

Sandra Dettori Argentina Editor, The Remnant: It was wonderful and exceeded all expectations! Thank you for such a quality program and God bless you.

Debbie Victory Editor, The Remnant: Viva Cristo Rey!

It was great. My favorite speakers were Michael Matt, Edward Pentin and Chris Ferrara. The hotel was great. I loved the standing room only aspect of the conference, as I think crowded venues are better from a social perspective helps everyone connect better.

Roseanne Rodriguez Editor, The Remnant: The best thing you did was reach out to other groups.

That is the way to go. And it gives you a lot more "street cred". Have you ever noticed (I have) how lots of people don’t want to address Michael Matt’s (and others) arguments head-on? They deflect and curse and generally intellectually vanish. And they call you names (ad hominem, anyone?) and call you divisive. Well the alliances sure as h...

help defeat that baloney. Excuse me for this rant...where did I hear that before?

Good luck, gentleman. I’ll be back.

Richard J Zablocki Editor, The Remnant: Thank you too, for the tremendous job you did in organizing this so necessary event! It could not have been any better. The good will of participants and attendees reflected the serious concerns Catholics have about the direction of Holy Mother Church.

God bless your plans for next year.

Christus regnat!

Audrey Amberg Editor, The Remnant: The conference was VERY helpful. My husband ran across the conference on your site, probably while pursuing some footnote.

We attended primarily because we had been reading The Great Façade, Noble Beauty, and The Political Pope. And we really wanted to attend a Traditional Latin Mass, which is not available anywhere in our area. We are converts since 2011. When our local church had a discussion class a few years ago on the 50th anniversary of Vatican II, we really had no idea what had been changed, what was lost, and what is at stake. We are catching up. We enjoyed each and every speaker. The people you chose, and even the order in which they presented (including the last-minute switch of speakers), was just inspired.

It was a great encouragement to hear the young priests and the bishops. And the more seasoned activist speakers were a complete treat. Edward Pentin made me cry, but that’s not his fault; he just had very bad news to share.

The overcrowding, which you already acknowledged, was a bit of a problem the first night. We were in the back section in a very cramped table. People were eating and squishing themselves into chairs. Other than that, the food was delicious, we made friends at our table, and we had a very fine stay.

Joy E. Daniels Editor, The Remnant: I was most struck by the strength of intellect and depth of conviction of the lay speakers. They are our hope.

Elizabeth Cummins Dean Flint, MI Editor, The Remnant: CIC was so inspirational! The speakers were exceptional. It was glorious to see so many good priests and to hear their interesting presentations. I definitely left with hope and plans to assist in the spreading and support of our Catholic Identity. It saddened me to meet 2 priests who are suffering for their conservative beliefs right now. They are struggling and they remain faithful. We need to pray for them and others who will be subjected to the same sufferings.

Thank you for what you are doing!

Peggy Connelly

A Letter from Father Harrison

Editor, The Remnant: I read with interest in The Remnant’s online version Chris Ferrara’s rebuttal of a certain Emmet O’Regan, who in an article posted on the Vatican Insider website raised horrified hands at the recent Correctio Filialis in which over 60 Catholic scholars courteously but firmly rebuked Pope Francis for various heresies being spread abroad as a result of his exhortation Amoris Laetitia.

O’Regan’s piece was a classic instance of Neo-Catholic papal positivism the view that faithful Catholics may never (at least in public) criticize a currently reigning pontiff’s words or actions, regardless of their harmony or otherwise with his predecessors’ teachings, simply because He’s The Pope. Mr. Ferrara rightly rebukes the absurdity of O’Regan’s claim that the Roman Pontiff "is granted Divine assistance which prevents him from erring in matters of faith and morals, even when teaching non-infallibly" (emphasis added). For this claim never made by the Magisterium itself!

- amounts to the self-contradictory claim that even non-infallible teaching is infallible.

However, Mr. Ferrara himself hasn’t got it quite right. He concedes too much to his opponent when he says, "O’Regan has it half right: The Magisterium is infallible." Mr. Ferrara is claiming that when popes sometimes err in their non-infallible pronouncements on faith and morals (something O’Regan absurdly says can never happen), such errors are simply not magisterial in character, because the Magisterium, as such, is infallible. I’m sorry, but that’s not what the Church teaches. Can Mr. Ferrara cite even one theologian, ancient or modern, who agrees with him on this point? The church’s authentic position is that some magisterial teachings are infallible while other magisterial teachings are noninfallible.

That is certainly what then-Cardinal Ratzinger and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith teach in the Church’s current (1989) official Profession of Faith and the CDF’s explanatory Doctrinal Note of 1998. In the Profession of Faith (which all those who teach the sacred sciences in pontifical universities are required to profess), three categories of magisterial teaching are set forth, only the first two of which are infallible. Teachings in the third category require only a "religious assent of mind and will", which means we’re to regard them as almost certainly true, so that they can be safely taught and preached to the faithful. But that stands in contrast to the absolute, irrevocable assent due to infallible teachings, which include both revealed truths, i.e., de fide dogmas (first category), and truths "to be held definitively" because they’re inseparably linked to revelation (second category).

And these third-category teachings are explicitly called " Magisterium authenticum" in the profession itself (cf. Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 1998, top of p. 543, and #8, p. 547) Their non-infallible, but nonetheless magisterial, character is confirmed in the 1990 CDF document Donum Veritatis, as it was on the floor of Vatican II, where the Church, in her ‘fine print’, as it were, has conceded that if a qualified theologian has serious difficulties in accepting a magisterial teaching in the third category, he actually doesn’t have to force his mind into an assent to it, but can respectfully explain his objections in the appropriate forum. (In normal times that would be just a discreet submission to the CDF, but we now live in very abnormal times.) Chris Ferrara justifies his own view as follows: "There is no ‘fallible Ordinary Magisterium,’ for if there were, then everything the Church has taught for centuries, short of few formal dogmatic definitions, would be open to question."

But that drastic conclusion doesn’t follow at all. The ordinary magisterium can be either fallible or infallible depending on the strength, consistency and frequency with which a particular doctrinal thesis is taught by the popes and/or bishops in the exercise of his/ their ordinary magisterium. Figuring out whether such a thesis has been proposed fallibly or infallibly is a task for theologians to undertake, with popes or ecumenical councils having the right to pronounce the final word by exercising their extraordinary, infallible magisterium.

Fr. Brian W. Harrison, O.S. St. Louis, Missouri