Expert: Griff Ruby - 6/15/2011

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Monday, June 13, 2011
FR. FRANCESCO GIORDANO AFFIRMS CANTATE DOMINO, COUNCIL OF FLORENCE

The Italian diocesan priest Fr. Francesco Giordano studying at the Holy Cross University, Rome and working for his doctorate on the subject extra ecclesiam nulla salus says he affirms the dogma Cantate Domino, Council of Florence 1441.The ex cathedra dogma says all non Catholics, specifying, Jews, Protestants and Orthodox Christians needing to formally enter the Catholic Church to avoid Hell, which has fire.

One can affirm Cantate Domino which indicates everyone with no exception, de facto needs to enter the Church and, at the same time believe de jure; in principle, a non Catholic can be saved implicitly (baptism of desire etc) and it would be known only to God.

However Fr. Giordano’s position on 1) Fr. Leonard Feeney and 2) Lumen Gentium 16, Vatican Council II is not clear. He seems to contradict the dogma on these two points. Though, he told me at the Church Santa Maria di Nazareth, Boccea, Rome that he affirms Cantate Domino.


Fr. Giordano, who has studied at the University of Chicago, is a young priest fluent in English and Italian. He received his Licentiate from the University of St. Thomas Aquinas, Rome and the subject of his thesis there was outside the church there is no salvation.

Like St. Thomas Aquinas if one uses the defacto-dejure analysis it is possible to hold the ‘rigorist interpretation’ of the dogma and also affirm the baptism of desire (Council of Trent) and so not be considered a heretic. It does not have to be an either-or position i.e. the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus or the baptism of desire.


Fr. Giordano believes Cantate Domino is compatible with Vatican Council II, Catechism of the Catholic Church and other Magisterial documents.

Here is Cantate Domino.


“The most Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics, can have a share in life eternal; but that they will go into the eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless before death they are joined with Her; and that so important is the unity of this ecclesiastical body that only those remaining within this unity can profit by the sacraments of the Church unto salvation, and they alone can receive an eternal recompense for their fasts, their almsgivings, their other works of Christian piety and the duties of a Christian soldier. No one, let his almsgiving be as great as it may, no one, even if he pour out his blood for the Name of Christ, can be saved, unless he remain within the bosom and the unity of the Catholic Church.” -Pope Eugene IV, the Bull Cantate Domino, 1441. Ex cathedra – from the website Catholicism.org


St. Thomas Aquinas affirms the ‘rigorist interpretation’ of extra ecclesiam nulla salus.
"There is no entering into salvation outside the Church, just as in the time of the deluge there was none outside the ark, which denotes the Church." (Summa Theologica)
St. Thomas also says that there can be the man in the forest in invincible ignorance.




De Veritate, 14. : “It is possible that someone may be brought up in the forest, or among wolves; such a man cannot explicitly know anything about the faith. St. Thomas replies- It is the characteristic of Divine Providence to provide every man with what is necessary for salvation… provided on his part there is no hindrance. In the case of a man who seeks good and shuns evil, by the leading of natural reason, God would either reveal to him through internal inspiration what had to be believed, or would send some preacher of the faith to him…”
St. Thomas Aquinas is saying:


1. So de facto everyone on earth needs to enter the Church for salvation an there are no exceptions.De jure (in principle) there can be a person in invincible ignorance who can be saved.


Here we have no contradiction of the Principle of Non Contradiction.


2. St. Thomas Aquinas is saying for others :


De facto everyone on earth needs to enter the Church for salvation but there are de facto exceptions that we can know of (invincible ignorance etc). So everyone needs to enter the Church except for ….This is a contradiction of the Principle of Non Contradiction and irrational (defacto-defacto) .It is the political position of the secular media and the Angelicum, Gregorian and Opus Dei University in Rome.


Fr. Giordano agrees with the first (1) interpretation of St. Thomas Aquinas and extra ecclesiam nulla salus. However is he free to express it in his doctorate?


It would mean Lumen Gentium 16 does not say that we know of cases of non Catholics saved in the present times in invincible ignorance. If the Lumen Gentium text does not make this claim and rationally we cannot know any such case, then Vatican Council II does not contradict Cantate Domino - and we are back to the centuries-old interpretation.


Would the Opus Dei University accept this doctoral thesis?


We do not know any case of a person saved in invincible ignorance or the baptism of desire (BOD). We don’t know any specific case. So we can accept BOD and invincible ignorance only in principle. We can know it only as a concept.


We can never know any such case in reality. We cannot meet someone who has been saved with BOD or in invincible ignorance. So it is never de facto; real, as is the baptism of water. The baptism of water is repeatable and visible. It is de facto.


So when we refer to the baptism of desire it is always de jure (in principle, acceptable). It can never be known in reality.


If it is not de facto to us it does not contradict Cantate Domino on extra ecclesiam nulla salus. (EENS)


So de facto Catholic Faith and the baptism of water are needed for all for salvation, with no exception.


While de jure, in principle, there can be persons known to God only who can be saved with the baptism of desire or invincible ignorance (in the manner known to God).


So affirming the baptism of desire etc does not conflict with the interpretation of EENS according to Fr. Leonard Feeney. Fr.Leonard Feeney taught de facto everyone with no exception needed to enter the Church for salvation and de facto or de jure we do not know any case of the baptism of desire.


There is no de facto or de jure baptism of desire (implicit salvation) that we can know of as humans.


It is never de facto and so never in conflict with the dogma.


There can be a baptism of desire de facto known to God but it can never be defacto for us.


So the baptism of desire can never be known de facto and can only be accepted in principle I repeat. Since it can never be defacto known to us it does not oppose the dogmatic teaching. Since one accepts it in principle; as a possibility, one cannot be called a heretic. I cannot be called a heretic for rejecting the baptism of desire. I do not. I accept it in principle as a possibility known de facto only to God.Neither can I be called a heretic for affirming Cantate Domino. Since it refers to de facto everyone needing Catholic Faith and the baptism of water the same as Ad Gentes 7 and it is not in conflict with the Council of Trent's reference to the baptism of desire(implicit and dejure).

Since one is defacto and the other de jure it does not contradict the Principle of Non Contradiction as would a defacto-defacto irrational analysis.




We cannot know any case of implicit salvation i.e. baptism of desire, invincible ignorance, good conscience, partial communion with the Church as it is never de facto known to us. So it is not opposed to the dogma which indicates everyone needs to de facto enter the Church for salvation. The dogma says everyone with no exception needs to be a formal, de facto member of the Church for salvation. Everyone de facto needs Catholic Faith and the baptism of water to go to Heaven and avoid Hell.

Probably if Fr.Giordanao knew the truth on this subject and wrote it in his thesis , the Angelicum would not permit him to receive a Licentiate. They would not even approve the subject for ‘research’. At the Opus Dei University Fr. Francesco has chosen a seemingly harmless aspect of outside the Church the church there is no salvation. He will focus on a specific time period of the dogma and with reference to St. Thomas Aquinas.

Imagine him telling the professor at the Angelicum that the Letter of the Holy Office 1949 supported Fr. Leonard Feeney on doctrine. The Letter referred to the ‘dogma’. The text of the dogma, Cantate Domino above, has the same message as Fr. Leonard Feeney; the Church teaches ‘infallibly’ that all Jews in Boston need to convert into the Church to avoid Hell. So how could Fr. Leonard Feeney could be excommunicated for heresy as the media and the Angelicum claim? Would they allow him to continue ?


Imagine him telling the professor at the Angelicum that there is no text in Vatican Council II which contradicts Cantate Domino.

Even now at the Holy Cross University can he challenge his professors to point out any text in Vatican Council II which contradicts Cantate Domino?


Similar errors as at the Angelicum are also being taught at the Opus Dei University. He could have to provide ‘research’ which is politically acceptable.
A common error at the Catholic Universities and traditionalist priests of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX),supporters of Fr. Leonard Feeney  and sedevacantists Most Holy Family Monastery are:


They say there is no baptism of desire. They are correct there is no known case of a person saved with the baptism of desire. De facto in reality we don’t know any such case. So in this sense the vague phrase’ there is no baptism of desire’ is correct.


However in its nature, the baptism of desire can never be defacto for us. In its very nature, since it is known only to God; there is no de facto d baptism of desire for us.

It is only de facto for God and for us humans a concept, a possibility, acceptable in principle (de jure).


So the Most Holy Family Monastery(MHFM) reject the baptism of desire since they assume it is de facto and so contradicts the dogma Cantate Domini.

It would be contrary to the principle of Non Contradiction for the MHFM’s Dimond Brothers to accept a baptism of desire, which is, defacto for them. They must realize that the baptism of desire can never be known de facto and since it is dejure, known only to God, it does not contradict the Principle of Non Contradiction. So I can affirm Cantate Domino and also the baptism of desire (de jure, a possibility). This is not heresy as the MHFM would claim, since in principle I accept the possibility of a person being saved with the baptism of desire.

How does the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate at Boccea, where Fr. Francesco lives, respond to this issue? Fr. Francesco offers the Tridentine Mass at the Church there and often hears Confession.



The Parish Priest is Fr. Settimo Manelli FFI (Tel: 06-6156091 06-6156091 E-mail:  ).I have been sending some of these posts on this blog, to Fr.Settimo  and to Fr. John Francesco FFI, an American priest of the community who also lives at Boccea. Here there are  some 30 Friars  many of whom study Philosophy at the seminary in Boccea.They are taught by Fr. John Francesco and the other FFI priests. I would like them to answer these four questions about the Catholic Faith.

1. Do they hold to the ‘teachings ‘of the Church according to the media (New York Times, Boston Globe, Reuters etc) or according to Magisterial texts, on the subject of extra eccleisam nulla salus?


2. Do they interpret Vatican Council II and Fr. Leonard Feeney as an exception to Cantate Domino or do they see Vatican Council II (Ad Gentes 7) and the Letter of the Holy Office to the Archbishop of Boston 1949, affirming Cantate Domino?


3. There can be no Tridentine Rite Mass without extra eccleisam nulla salus. To reject an ex cathedra dogma, in the name of Vatican Council II or whatever is heresy. It’s a mortal sin ?


4. Can we personally know cases of non Catholics saved in the present times with a good conscience, the Word of God, in partial communion with the Church etc?



Fr. Francesco Giordano who lives with the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate at Boccea affirms Cantate Domino and the baptism of desire. So he cannot be called a heretic. This has been a sad controversy in the Church.  He affirms Cantate Domino and Vatican Council II. I am sure other priests will also follow him.

Answer
Looking over this long "question" you have, much of which really isn't for me but for these individual clerics you name.  It seems to me that you think you have found some way to "reconcile" the teachings of Fr. Feeney to the teachings of the Church, namely that you regard Baptism of Desire as some sort of unproved hypothetical, as if all the Church teachings about Baptism of desire merely require some intellectual assent to a hypothesis, not any claim that the hypothesis is actually true in any actual case (since no known "Baptism of Desire" saints have ever been canonized).  It is sort of like believing in the hypothetical possibility of some chemical element to exist while at the same time not believing that so much as a single atom of that element ever actually existed, or ever would.
Yes it is true that no Baptism of Desire saints have been canonized (though there have been some Baptism of Blood saints that have even been not only canonized, but even on the Roman Calendar), but many of us have known some genuinely virtuous persons in our lives that it would be only the most obvious and grave injustice for them to end up in Hell merely for the bare fact of having failed to be baptized into the Church (for whatever reason God alone will judge), and unless that "reason" be found to be some secret sin they had, there really should, in all Divine justice, be some reason to hope for them.  We do have even from early times a specific case in which it is truly believed that a certain soul did obtain such a salvation through Baptism of Desire in the person of Emperor Valentinian II, who though murdered was not murdered in any way for reasons of Faith (and hence is not considered a Martyr), and whom St. Ambrose personally knew to have not been baptized in water.  So while Valentinian is not canonized as a saint, there remains excellent reason to hope for his salvation.
> We cannot meet someone who has been saved with BOD or in invincible ignorance. So it is never de facto; real, as is the baptism of water.
Everyone who has ever been saved through Baptism of Desire is already presently either in Purgatory or in Heaven, so unless and until you find a way to journey to either of those places there is of course absolutely no way you can meet up with any of them.  But to deny that these saved souls in Heaven exist is no different than to deny that God or Saint Andrew exist.
I don't know if you are familiar with a series I prepared some couple years ago (which I still regard as an ongoing work though my time to write and research has been gravely curtailed over the past year or so), but in this series I have amply and in considerable detail addressed the claims of Fr. Feeney and his successors, beginning with Peter Dimond's 335 page "Treatise" on the subject.
I advise you to become familiar with the full contents of this series (it will probably take quite some time merely to read it, let alone soak it in and assimilate its contents), and then if you still have any questions about all this, then come back to me (but please at least read all of it before asking any questions about some particular point since many points brought up briefly in the earlier installments are discussed in more depth in later installments).  Here is the link:
http://www.the-pope.com/BOB_BOD_BOK.html
In that particular series, there is extremely little discussion regarding Vatican II, though the three parts of a three-part Interlude between the two "rounds" of articles (to be read between installments 12c and 13, if you want it in sequence) can be found here:
http://www.dailycatholic.org/issue/09May/may11str.htm
http://www.DailyCatholic.org/issue/09May/may18str.htm
http://www.DailyCatholic.org/issue/09May/may25str.htm
As to the positions of particular clerics and academic standards of particular schools there is nothing I can tell you that would be of even as much value as what they can have to say for themselves.