This question is a concern not only to anti-Catholic bloggers, but also to Catholic-friendly blokes like myself. I was disturbed some years ago to read Warren Carroll and Jeff Mirus supporting the actions of the inquisition in burning twice-convicted heretics, and have in my possession an old book c.1940 entitled "Dominican Saints" (published by the order), detailing the life of Pius V, in which it is taken for granted that, well, of course heretics had to be burnt.
I am a soft-hearted soul, and such sentiments trouble me.
So, Mike, thanks for addressing it!
MER:
As I implied in the post, the fact that the Catholic Church has definitively moved beyond such barbarism is an argument in her favor.
Best,
Mike
Mike, could you unpack the following for philosophical dolts like myself:
"Therefore, the antecedent of HP is always false, and churchmen of the past were wrong to believe it. But since HP itself is a material conditional, the falsity of its antecedent makes it trivially true. So even if HP does meet the criteria for having been infallibly taught by the ordinary magisterium, it is trivially true."
Thanks!
Al:
Sure.
In modern propositional logic, a "material conditional" is a compound statement of the form 'If P, then Q', where 'P' and 'Q' are placeholders for statements. P is the "antecedent," Q is the "consequent." Material conditionals are true if and only if it is not the case that P is true and Q false. Thus they are true when P and Q are both false, or when only P is false. The case in which P is false and Q true is one in which the whole conditional is often said to be 'trivially' true. HP is of that form.
Best,
Mike
Mike,
While I am glad that the Catholic Church at last officially rejected barbarism in 1965, or perhaps as early as 1947 under Pope Pius XII, I regret that in the meantime it was allowing or requiring torture for at least 400 years (13th to 17th centuries).
Naturally, Protestants have such unsavory times in their history as well; I don't deny that at all. But I might have expected that the canons of doctrinally-infallible Catholic ecumenical councils would have been free from error on this point, and regret that they were not.
MER:
If I didn't believe with the assent of faith that popes and councils are infallible under the conditions understood and stipulated by the Church, I wouldn't be Catholic. Since I do, I am. But if I believed that such infallibility entailed infallibility about all matters pertaining to faith and morals, I wouldn't be Catholic either. After all, both history and the Church's own development of doctrine show that the charism of infallibility does not so extend.
This is one of those cases. It would be nice and easy if there we no such cases, but alas there are. All the same I look at the silver lining: at least they keep defenders of the faith busy answering objections. 
Best,
Mike
Mike,
I have just opened an email informing me of this response to your paper.
As I understand it, you state that my proposition 1 is false, or an oversimplification as it stands.
However, your argument seems to rely on the claim that the former teaching on the morality of fighting doctrinal error with violence, torture and execution was a material conditional that was true in toto despite the falsehood of its practical conclusion. I'm not sure, but I think that you are saying this is the same as the case of usury, where the teaching was not simply "all usury is intrinsically evil" but "all usury we are concerned with is wrong inasmuch as it always involves the following sins etc." So, once the assumption regarding the activity's supposedly unavoidable co-operating factors and/or supposedly unavoidable effects was falsified, the teaching changed, not due to a change in fundamental principles but an improved understanding of the concomitant practical circumstances.
The problem with this is that the old RC teaching that torture etc."for the protection of the Faith (and therefore the common good)" was both permissible and sometimes obligatory does not rely merely on appeal to the common good, i.e., the consequences of the action for Christian society, whereas the old usury teaching arguably did. On the contrary, the old teaching on the application of physical force and suffering to fight erroneous beliefs or impose truth also ***logically and inescapably required the teaching, implicit or explicit, that such behaviour was not intrinsically sinful***, whatever its effects. After all, no part of the Church has ever taught Consequentialist ethics -- the ends are not sufficient to justify the means. It is precisely this teaching that was addressed in my propositions, precisely this teaching that was taught for centuries with moral unanimity within the RCC, and precisely this teaching on morals that is sinful and erroneous.
Another problem is your claim that justifying torture was the default position from the fourth century. Most Church Fathers in the first millenium, especially in the East but also including at least one Pope from memory, decried the use of torture "for the defence of the Faith".
So, did the teaching on torture satisfy the conditions for infallibility via the Ordinary Magisterium? As I said in one of the comments on the thread which began this discussion:
'If a Church both enjoins and performs a certain activity with virtual unanimity, it is undeniably teaching authoritatively that such an activity is not sinful. To quote a famous RC theological text by Monsignor Van Noort (Dogmatic Theology, Volume II, Christ's Church, Translated and Revised by John J. Castelot, S.S., S.T.D., S.S.L. & William R. Murphy, S.S., S.T.D., The Newman Press, Westminster, Maryland, 1957.):
"The imposing of commands belongs not directly to the teaching office but to the ruling office; disciplinary laws are only indirectly
Ok, here is the rest:
an object of infallibility, i.e., only by reason of the doctrinal decision implicit in them. When the Church's rulers sanction a law, they implicitly make a twofold judgment: 1. “This law squares with the Church's doctrine of faith and morals”; that is, ***it imposes nothing that is at odds with sound belief and good morals***. (15) This amounts to a doctrinal decree. 2. “This law, considering all the circumstances, is most opportune.” This is a decree of practical judgment." ' [Emphasis added with asterixes.]
Finally, as to your comments on the branch theory, I have addressed these objections before on the Continuum. In brief, there is a difference between infallible doctrinal teaching on the Church and practical application of it in judging "who is in and who is out". The latter has never been infallible and cannot be, since it relies partly on corrigible historical judgements and fallible human disciplinary acts. In other words, if, for example, the RCC was at some future date decide that the Eastern Orthodox Church never truly became heretical or schismatic except in an "accidental" (scholastic meaning) sense, it could happily appeal to the very argument you have used regarding usury and say its previous statements were a material conditional! This is not the branch theory as popularly understood, as it assumes that all "dogmatic differences" between outwardly separated jurisdictions of the Catholic Church are actually reconcilable in similar ways, rather than assuming different Churches with genuinely incompatible Faiths still cohere in one Church.
To put it another way, the position I hold on the identity of the Catholic Church, while a minority one within the body I so identify, does not contradict any dogma, properly speaking, held by that body. Rather, it is a judgement based on both the doctrine that ***is*** held by that body and a reading of the historical and other evidence. Louis Bouyer, among RCs, seems to have come to similar conclusions while remaining in good standing within his jurisdiction, as have others like him. Some Orthodox theologians appear to have had similar ideas, again, without being officially censured. It is, at worst, a permissible theological opinion. It should be remembered that the present official position of the RCC on the moral legitimacy of Ecumenism (other than the mere "come back to the Church" model) was once distinctly in the minority and even censured. In addition, I think you would find that a large portion of the Faithful would tend in this direction by a gut feeling at least. The sensus fidelium might put a different perspective on how much a "minority" I am really in.
Corrections/Clarifications:
The first sentence in my first post above should say "my paper", not "your paper".
The phrase "this teaching" in the last sentence of my fourth paragraph refers to the belief that torturing or executing people for heresy was not intrinsically evil, not to Consequentialism.
Finally, the quotation from Msr Van Noort draws its relevance because laws imposed (at a level involving the infallibility abovementioned) by the Church on its flock consist of more than just the Code of Canon Law. Included in this category are any juridical commands or rules that are pronounced, practised and maintained persistently over a long period of time with virtual unanimity. Thus, the long tradition of the RCC Magisterium officially permitting or commanding or regulating the sinful acts we are dealing with would satisfy the conditions for being "Church law" in the fullest and most unreserved sense, and so require an assumption that nothing morally erroneous or vicious could possibly be enjoined therein IF AND ONLY IF the RCC's bishops comprise the entirety of the Catholic Magisterium. And so ...
My rhetorical question at the beginning of the sixth paragraph and what follows could be misleading. I do ***not*** believe the Ordinary Magisterium of the Catholic Church did authoritatively and consensually and persistently (and therefore infallibly) teach religious torture was OK, but that if the Ordinary Magisterium had included only RC bishops, it would have so taught. Since the conclusion is inadmissable from any sort of Catholic perspective (since it asserts the Ordinary Magisterium as a whole can teach error in Faith or Morals), the premise equating the RCC with the whole Catholic Church is not able to be maintained consistently with these other Catholic beliefs.
Last point.
The old RC teaching on torture etc. was not merely a "remote application of moral principles pertaining to the depositum fidei". The NT implicitly but clearly condemns the use of severe physical aggression and infliction of suffering by Christian believers to punish people for simply believing errors. The Fathers mostly back this up explicitly and consider it important. Christianity is to defend the Gospel, whether inside or outside the Church with persuasion or, if nothing else avails, excommunication. Not by extreme violence or the threat of it. Otherwise, Christ would say to us, "You know not what spirit you are of" (Lk. 9.55) This cannot be considered a mere accessory to moral teaching or difficult-to-derive implication. It is fundamental and directly related to Revelation.
Fr. Kirby:
Thanks for engaging these topics here.
Before I address your central objection on the question of religious freedom, I note that, if your version of branch theory is true, then Vatican II's statement that the Church of Christ "subsists" in that communion which regular folks, as well as Rome, call 'the Catholic Church'—i.e. exists continuously as an integral whole—is false. Indeed, no "branch" of what branch theorists take to be the Catholic Church is infallible, and therefore no such branch could constitute the Catholic Church. My main objection to that theory, indeed to any version of branch theory, is that the true identity of the Church of Christ as such must remain a matter for private judgment (see my post above "Protestants who think they're Catholic.") For reasons Newman developed and that I applied at Pontifications, that is incompatible with the very idea of Christian revelation.
Now to the more immediate problem. The essence of your objection is that the Catholic Church, for over a millennium, taught with "virtual unanimity" a proposition that is not only false but diametrically opposed to divine revelation: the proposition that use of extreme violence to enforce religious orthodoxy is not intrinsically evil. She is said to have "definitively" taught that not apodictically but rather by officially authorizing actions that assume it. In support of that, you quote a dogmatic-theology text from the 1950s.
Well, that was their opinion (and that of Archbishop Lefevbre, who eventually broke with Rome). It is not mine, it was not that of the Fathers of Vatican II, it is not that of the Pope, and in no sense is it the definitive teaching of the Church. Apparently you have overlooked a couple of necessary distinctions.
First, from the fact that said conditional assumes that torturing and killing heretics is not intrinsically evil (which it does indeed assume), it does not follow that the ordinary magisterium definitively taught as much. All that follows is that they failed to recognize that such actions are intrinsically evil. They failed to recognize as much because they believed, not without reason, that heresy is as grave a civil crime as any in a Christian state and was accordingly subject to the sort of punishment that such crimes are ordinarily subject to. Where they erred was in believing that any good could come of such punishment for such a crime. And they held that belief because they failed to recognize that coerced faith, being no faith at all, is a violation of conscience. Thank God history eventually taught the Church that.
Second, you make no reference to Vatican II's criteria for identifying a given teaching as ITOM, to the Vatican's subsequent official application of those criteria, or to what Roman canon law says on the topic. Once you examine the relevant texts—and I'm sure you know what they are—you will find that the theological opinion you cite in support of your position
is not implied by those criteria. To criticize the Catholic Church for having "definitively" taught something that does not meet her own criteria for definitive teaching is a tiresome begging of the question.
Best,
Mike
Not implied by those criteria? Not absolutely necessitated, perhaps, but more than compatible! If the Church (through its virtually universally accepted everyday teaching, juridical decrees and constant example for centuries) authorises, condones, defends in its apologetics, practices according to its law, and even occasionally commands a certain act, then it is definitively teaching that such an act is not intrinsically sinful. Otherwise we would be saying that ***the Church as a whole, authoritatively and persistently could command or permit an action that is objectively mortally sinful*** without this reflecting on its teaching office, infallibility and indefectibility. Do you really believe this?
Neither Ad Tuendam Fidem nor Canon Law (750-752) explain all the ways the ITOM can be said to have "taught" something "defintively". They simply say:
"The truths ... can be of various natures, thus giving different qualities to their relationship with revelation. There are truths which are necessarily connected with revelation by virtue of an historic relationship; ... The fact that these doctrines may not be proposed as formally revealed, insofar as they add to the data of faith elements that are not revealed or which are not yet expressly recognized as such, in no way diminishes their definitive character, which is required at least by their intrinsic connection with revealed truth. ...
...
9. The Magisterium of the Church, however, teaches a doctrine to be believed as divinely revealed ... or to be held definitively ... with an act which is either defining or nondefining. In the case of a defining act, a truth is solemnly defined by an ex cathedra pronouncement by the Roman pontiff or by the action of an ecumenical council. In the case of a nondefining act, a doctrine is taught infallibly by the ordinary and universal Magisterium of the bishops dispersed throughout the world who are in communion with the successor of Peter. Such a doctrine can be confirmed or reaffirmed by the Roman pontiff, even without recourse to a solemn definition, by declaring explicitly that it belongs to the teaching of the ordinary and universal Magisterium, as a truth that is divinely revealed ... or as a truth of Catholic doctrine.... Consequently, when there has not been a judgment on a doctrine in the solemn form of a definition, but this doctrine, belonging to the inheritance of the depositum fidei, is taught by the ordinary and universal Magisterium,which necessarily includes the pope, such a doctrine is to be understood as having been set forth infallibly."
The modes in which a doctrine is taught infallibly or definitively without formal definitions are not addressed, but traditional RC theology (cf. Van Noort above) required moral unanimity over an extended period by the bishops as regards the nature of the subjects/agents/teachers, that the doctrine be regarding faith or morals as regards the objects/teachings, and, as regards the mode of t
transmission, that the belief be taught either explicitly or be implicitly necessitated as an element in a related proposition or instruction.
As for the proposition that the Catholic Curch "subsists" in the RCC, well that would seem to be compatible with saying the CC "exists continuously, centred and juridically grounded in some sense with the bishop of Rome, as an imperfectly but truly integrated whole" in the RCC.
And don't forget that accepting anything on the authority of the CC requires a prior decision/apprehension as to where that Church is and isn't. Such a judgement necessarily and logically precedes acceptance of Church teaching by faith in its authority, and therefore can not be made purely based on the authority of "the" Church to begin with without begging the question. Only if one was convinced that each of the claims regarding who the Church included (and didn't) was utterly irreconcilable to a dogmatic degree would the inclusivist position be impossible (since it would deny the infallibility of the Church). I am not so convinced, and neither are the many EO-RC-Anglican Ecumenical theologians, many of whom have been working for half a century or more to reconcile the Churches on the assumption that no "side" would have to deny anything it truly held dogmatically or accept anything it truly rejected definitively as heresy, including in the area of ecclesiology.
Call me an ecumaniacal optimist, if you like.
To criticize the Catholic Church for having "definitively" taught something that does not meet her own criteria for definitive teaching is a tiresome begging of the question.
That pretty much says it, Mike. Even if we ignore Pope Nicholas I's clear teaching against torture in 866 AD the "always and everywhere" requirement for infallibility in the ordinary magisterium isn't met. "Infallibility means what I say it means, therefore the development of doctrine on torture constitutes a falsification of infallibility" is clearly, in the most charitable possible interpretation, question-begging.
A corrollary to Trent's teaching on the irreformability of some teachings, a corrolary which often gets ignored, is that if a small set of teachings (some under the ordinary and some the extraordinary magisterium) is irreformable there must be other teachings which are reformable. Like the one on torture. That is why some torture-in-the-war-on-terror apologist Catholics are arguing that the intrinsic evil of torture isn't infallibly defined. As far as I can tell, they are right about that. Where they are wrong is in thinking that this - the fact that the intrinsic evil of torture, while taught authoritatively, is not infallibly defined - means it is optional for Catholics to believe that torture is just fine and dandy in some circumstances.
Fr. Kirby wrote:
Not implied by those criteria? Not absolutely necessitated, perhaps, but more than compatible!
Actually the idea that "torture is OK" is a proposition which meets the ordinary magisterium criteria for infallibility is clearly false. Pope Nicholas I taught against it, as did Vatican II and Pope John Paul II. Therefore even if hundreds of Popes had taught in favor of it in authoritative teaching documents (they haven't, by the way) it wouldn't meet the criteria for infallibility under the ordinary Magisterium.
The only way the "gotcha" works is to change the rules. If I change the rules enough then I can pitch for the Yankees.
Mike,
I know this is a bit late, but it seems to me to be relevant, and I wonder what your take is on it.
It seems to me that the situation with respect to torture (viz., the fact that it was tolerated/commanded/whatever by the Church for centuries, but has now been forbidden) is analogous to how slavery has come to be forbidden.
God gave Israel laws regulating slavery. One could say that this ipso facto means that slavery is not evil, especially given the fact that slavery was practiced by Israel for a thousand years, and there really isn't (to my knowledge) an explicit rejection of it in the NT, either. It is only later that slavery came to be forbidden (and rightfully so).
Now if God gave Israel civil laws regulating slavery, and yet now the Church and all men of good will categorically deny the moral legitimacy of slavery, then it seems to me that we must say that what God did in giving Israel such laws could not be construed as an actual endorsement of the moral legitimacy of the practice. And if that is the case, it seems to me that we are obliged to say that a similar conclusion is valid with respect to how the Church has viewed torture.
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