The disclaimer is that I only write responses like this occasionally.

If you do stuff online, you will get criticism, and that’s fine. Some of the criticism will be fair, some daft, some offensive, and much of it is usually funny. I only take to Substack in self-defence if (i) I happen to have a bit of time to respond properly, (ii) there are possible misunderstandings of my position that I want to correct, and (iii) the criticisms I’m responding to seem to be conducted in good faith, that is, aiming at truth – not just snark.

In other words - this week I happen to have a spare hour to correct what seem potential misunderstandings of the theological positions I sought to present in that Regina Unscripted appearance, in a piece which seems to be seeking genuine truth.

One more preliminary: I can’t say confidently who wrote the Nuntiatoria discussion, hence my title. It’s introduced by ‘The Editor’, but isn’t listed as one of his writings. For information, the About page tells me this website is edited by the Titular Archbishop of Selsey for the Old Roman Apostolate, which is not in communion with Rome. Having looked them up and read around a bit, it seems to me that this is a good description of who they are, from elsewhere on the Nuntiatoria pages:

[Our] ‘posture—Roman in identity, papally conscious, and oriented toward eventual reconciliation—bears comparison, albeit imperfect, with that of the Society of Saint Pius X in the contemporary period. The analogy is not one of historical equivalence, but of ecclesiological instinct: continuity with Roman Catholicism under conditions of canonical irregularity, rather than the establishment of a separate ecclesial identity.

To get to the point, my main issue with the discussion is what is described as ‘the tendency to confuse fidelity to the living Church with acceptance of contemporary ecclesiastical decisions, and authentic doctrinal development with whatever subsequent generations have chosen to introduce’.^[1]

This is exactly what troubles me, because I want to be clear about the difference between fidelity to the living Church and acceptance of contemporary ecclesiastical decisions, when acceptance is non-binding according to the Oath of Fidelity (see my previous Essay in Aid on a Grammar of Dissent). Later in the article the hierarchy of truths is mentioned as a corrective to my position – when I’ve spoken about it at length as the key to holding meaningful dissent in its proper place. I also want to be clear about the difference between authentic and inauthentic doctrinal developments, and would never want to confuse the former with particular whims or notions which will not bear the test of time, or rather, Tradition.

Firstly, the article criticises my assertion that there’s a certain Martin Luther-esque tendency toward what I’d term, following Ratzinger, ‘archeologisms’ in current Catholic life, particularly with regard to niche movements which have consciously departed from institutional, Magisterial authority and are thus no longer in communion with Rome. An ‘archeologism’ is the conviction that one can pinpoint a particular point in Magisterial Tradition at which Tradition went awry and became inauthentic, such that even breaking communion with Rome is an apt response. To give this phenomenon a simple title, I’m calling it ‘extra ecclesiam traditionalism’.

The criticisms of my passing mention of Luther seem to rest on a question of the degree of severity involved. Protestantism questioned profoundly substantial matters (‘justification, sacramental theology, ecclesiastical authority and the relationship between Scripture and Tradition), whereas extra ecclesiam traditionalism ‘accepts the defined dogmas of the Church, recognises the Roman Pontiff yet asserts that the twentieth-century reforms do not ‘faithfully express the inherited Roman Rite’. Other current ecclesial positions are described as ‘substantially reconstructed according to contemporary pastoral theories’.

To this I would make two brief responses. Firstly, there is a slight issue when it comes to comparing a free-flowing, informal conversation on YouTube, and a written article of significant length.^[2] The issue surrounds precision of language and the scope for contextual clarification. That is, I’m quoted as saying ‘I just see Luther in this’ – which is rather different from saying ‘niche extra ecclesiam traditionalist groups are theologically indistinct from the Protestant Reformers’. Put differently, of course there are issues of degree here, for I was sharing an impression.

That said, I think at the impressionistic level the comparison works rather well, at least for the sake of further and more precise argument. Ecclesiastical authority and even the relationship between Scripture and Tradition are questioned by extra ecclesiam traditionalism. Not accepting the body of teachings promulgated since the 1960s is surely to question ecclesiastical authority. Holding that tradition went entirely wrong at some point in history is, similarly but more subtly, to question the nature of Tradition in relation to Scripture, in terms of its role in mediating between the poles of fidelity and contemporaneity, eternity and time, both of which are necessary, and both of which require each other for their proper expression and apprehension.

Now, there is also the author’s assumption that Luther was not ‘appealing to the accumulated authority of Catholic Tradition against the proposition that its received expressions may be substantially reconstructed’. This is fair, insofar as Luther was not the authority of Catholic Tradition in the centuries preceding the Reformation. But this remains only a difference of degree, and not of kind. Luther’s sola scriptura principle enshrines the accumulated authority of the 1^st century Catholic Tradition, insofar as that authority is embedded in the canonical documents of the New Testament. Importantly, Luther did not question such later expressions of that authority from the Councils of Nicaea and Chalcedon either, and only tinkered with the definition of canonical Scripture. Yes, he was much more selective, and went further back in time to establish his archeologism – but the basic method and disposition is an intensification of the same principles and instincts, albeit writ large on a vast scale.

Then we get to a second criticism, of my reading of Newman’s understanding of doctrinal development. The issue for the unknown author is that I stand in danger of assuming all developments are authentic, whereas Newman obviously held no such thing. This is rightly pointed out as something demonstrated by three of Newman’s ‘notes’ of authenticity, namely, ‘preservation of type, continuity of principles and the conservative action of subsequent developments upon what preceded them’.

To this I would merely respond by saying that I entirely agree. At no point did I intend to present Newmanian development as ‘little more than a description of historical succession’. If I may, I’d quote here two sentences from page one of my book on Newman, which discusses another of his notes: ‘the power of assimilation’. This note states that authentic developments, while always continuous and preservative, also assimilate elements of the world outside the Church in which they occur. In other words, they involve a complicated by assimilative interaction with contemporary life, such that the Church bears traces of the times through which she ever lives, having corrected and reshaped the elements which are assimilated according to the principles of preservation and continuity:

‘Newman’s description of the assimilative process is not purely eirenic. The process of assimilation requires that external materials are “subjected to a new sovereign”, bringing them under the “influence of a new element of order and composition”…maintaining “continuity of principle” and “unity of type” which means genuine assimilation is a form of development which by no means derails the integrity of the faith”.

I think there’s an important point here, which gets to the very nub of continuity as defined by Joseph Ratzinger – my understanding of whom is also critiqued by this author for similar reasons. Continuity requires the interplay of dynamic, contemporaneous impulses and steadfast fidelity and preservation of truth. As Benedict XVI put it himself, ‘dynamic and faithful impulses must converge’. If the faithful impulse discards the contemporary world, it is no longer living Tradition (hence, ‘archeologisms’). If the dynamic impulse discards the faithful, it is no longer authentic Tradition (hence, ‘modernism’). Ultra-traditionalism tends toward the former, theological liberalism to the latter. Notwithstanding vast differences of content, both sides evince the same basic characteristic – a breach with the living authority of the Church founded by Christ which ends, in the most serious cases, with becoming extra ecclesiam.

Indeed, Newman’s ‘notes’ were not intended to be used in online arguments about what is or isn’t happening in Rome. They were, at least initially, an attempt to understand how it is that Anglicanism can accept some Roman doctrines as authentic (e.g. Nicaea, Chalcedon, etc), while holding that others are corruptions (e.g. Trent). Anglicanism is composed of people holding to different archeologisms, interestingly, and even Tractarianism had some tensions between holding primarily to the pre-Reformation English Church or to later expressions of High Anglicanism, like the Caroline Divines. As we all know, to his surprise, Newman found be could only arrive at ‘notes’ which verified the consistent teaching of Rome right into the 1840s during which he worked on the text. This is why he converted to Catholicism, warts and all: ‘Rome was then where she is now’.

I’m spelling all this out to raise the question of what, viewed retrospectively in the manner of Newman, is one of the surest indications of an inauthentic development? Breaking communion with Rome. Of course there can be, and has been, temporary ruptures which were later healed along the way – but if your interpretation of Tradition involves the untangling of binding authoritative or infallible teachings, the onus probandi for that interpretation is particularly acute. A great many heresies have argued from the accumulated weight of the prior Tradition for their positions – this in itself is neither exceptional nor validating.

Importantly, I need also to reiterate that the process of doctrinal development is not any all assured simply by being indistinguishable from the passage of time, and definitely does not involve mere ‘historical succession’. It involves much difficulty, with doctrinal statements being clarified, and even occasionally corrected. One of the best examples of this is actually shown by the reception of the Vatican II document Lumen Gentium, ironically enough.

Lumen Gentium challengingly describes the ‘one Church of Christ’ as something that ‘subsists in the Catholic Church’. This is misappropriated by many as assuming that the Mystical Body, or some true and amorphous entity was the ‘one Church of Christ’ in which various denominations also participate in. As early as 1973 this misappropriation was corrected, until by 1985 the CDF pronounced that this formulation means that outside the Catholic Church there are only ‘elementa Ecclesiae’. Pope St John Paul II’s Ut Unum Sint similarly maintains that the one Church of Christ does not exist in separated communities, but is rather ‘effectively present in them’ by ‘a matter of degree’ (§11). In other words, extra ecclesiam means just that.

This brings in another point – which is that myself and my hosts are said not to understand that ‘[i]t is entirely possible to affirm that the Catholic Church remains indefectibly the same Church while maintaining that particular disciplinary decisions, pastoral policies or liturgical reforms have been imprudent, defective or insufficiently faithful to her inherited principles’.

I must admit I am rather confused by this. I have raised concerns and on occasion criticised examples of all of these. Such criticism is, strictly speaking, legitimate, insofar as one is criticising prudential decisions, or only criticising authoritative teachings charitably, and in exceptional circumstances, and never criticizing the ordinary or extraordinary infallible Magisterium.

To give some obvious examples, I have always been clear that the document Fidelis Supplicans seems (at best) confused and imprudent, asked for greater clarification on Amoris Laetitia, noted that the entry requirements for the Synod of Synodality did not align with the conditions of the proper exercise of sensus fidelium as defined by the International Theological Committee – and, most of all, been open about disagreement with Traditiones Custodes, especially compared to the immense wisdom of Summorum Pontificum.

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On this last point I need to abundantly clear, as I’ve noticed my position on the liturgical reform is being misrepresented in a few places. I have long-since loved the vetus ordo. I agree with those who point to certain issues in the novus ordo, not least (but not limited to) rubrics which permit irreverent celebrations thereof. I celebrate the thriving of the FSSP and ICKSP, and indeed the Latin Mass Society. However, I also challenge those who dismiss the novus ordo entirely, as I consider this unjustified - especially if this is joined with a wholesale rejection of Vatican II all the good and faithful work of doctrinal clarification that has happened since the Council and some of the consequences of its sometimes muddled implementation.

Summorum Pontificum is my base text here – a reform of the reform of the average Mass in your common-or-garden parish Church will occur by a patient acceptance of the possibility of renewal from greater participation in the vetus ordo by the faithful, and vice-versa. The liturgy is the true opus Dei, so let God be the master of the liturgy, not man.

One last thing; this unknown author takes issue with certain comments made about an apparent neuroticism among some in the ultra-traditionalist sphere. The author writes that, as a theologian, I should have insisted on the distinction between conducting ‘theological controversy …through evidence and reasoning rather than through psychological insinuation’. He or she then makes a good point – that ‘defenders of the postconciliar settlement’, like myself, may be driven by neuroses of our own – fixated on ‘[i]nstitutional conformity, professional convenience, academic fashion and [a] reluctance to reconsider deeply established assumptions’.

This is fair and helpful, concedo. Yet, I’d like to revisit my point about informal conversations on YouTube as opposed to academic writing. We were speaking anecdotally, not giving a theological lecture. I don’t think the distinction is required, given the context. The phenomena we were referring to are often noted in Church life. But yes, I fully accept the same can be true of the grey and bureaucratic extreme of unthinking institutional loyalty, which is also noted as frequently as the neuroticism sometimes displayed in the ultra-traditionalist sphere.

That said, however, ‘defenders of the postconciliar settlement’ don’t usually have the big online followings, nor the same edgy je ne sais quoi of (often conspiratorial) ultra-traditionalist narratives. Part of me wishes they did – a big audience might seem an attractive thing. But deep down I know how treacherous such territory is for a great many souls. Few have the humility to handle it appropriately.

For someone as prideful as me, a less edgy and exciting narrative is much safer – not least because the words extra ecclesiam always carry the gravest of threats: nulla salus.

^[1] There’s another point not covered by this, which I’ll deal with briefly here. It is misrepresentative to pretend that my discussion on the pastoral value of natural death was meant to constitute the basis of the Catholic rejection of assisted suicide. I was abundantly clear that I voiced those positions while speaking at a non-Catholic, non-religious event at which I shared a panel with a vedic astrologer and a posthumanist, as well as the magnificent fellow Catholic, Rose Lyddon. I said this was why I didn’t go into the basic, deontological realm of pure bioethics, but stayed on the more accessible level of pastoral, human circumstances. I am fully aware of the limits of this level, as well as its obvious benefits.

^[2] Please note I am limiting my response to this article to criticisms of myself, specifically, not my hosts Katherine Bennett and Mark Lambert, who were also, to my mind, misrepresented.

He was criticised by those he ridiculed, who argue that valuable nutrients and countless probiotics are removed by the pasteurisation process – making raw milk by far the more superior product. Raw milk enjoyers are among those emphasizing the benefits of a radically organic lifestyle more generally. This usually involves beliefs about how the human metabolism is optimized to absorb unfiltered and natural animal products, and how detrimental ultra-processed foods are by comparison.

In this there is said to be something of a Lindy Effect, a theorem itself named after a New York Delicatessen. The human metabolism has had millennia of adjustment to optimise the absorption of beneficial nutrients from naturally produced foodstuffs, but only a few years of consuming industrial chemicals like the canola oil, sulphates, nitrates and emulsifiers that are now ubiquitous in pre-packaged food. There is a deep suspicion of big-business and government at play here, of a sort of industrial-eatbugs-complex that grew around tobacco companies moving into factory food-processing to replace lost cigarette revenue, and the food industry’s cynical pivot to demonising the consumption of fat in relation to high cholesterol, to shield consumers from the dangers of excessive sugar.

Without wanting to re-hash debates about dietary regimens, it is interesting that Walsh accused raw milk enjoyers of magical thinking. “Evil sorcery” suggests there are hidden forces at work conspiring to bring about the ruin of souls through industrial-scale mechanized food production. This brought with it some more serious accusations from others. Inferring from the fact afficionados of the current dietary trends code right-wing, it was suggested there is some link to racism inherent within it. In trying to deduce what such detractors might mean, one can presume they suspect a sort of fixation on biological purity at work, along with a certain physiological supremacism being apportioned to the pre-industrial Western European diet.

I’m not convinced that there’s anything inherent about this lifestyle trend and the darker forces being alleged to reside within it. This is not to say there isn’t an adjacent relation, but this is something accidental. What interests me is what the new nutritional purism might mean symbolically. As I’ve argued elsewhere, even the most patently absurd conspiracy theories are hermeneutically valuable, being interpretations of the human world. Criticisms of online ‘disinformation’ thus completely miss the point, in the same way a philistine philologist misses the point by condemning the Book of Genesis or the Iliad for not being literally true. Mythical pictures explain aspects of reality within their own symbolic idiom. There are aspects of reality explained by, say, those blaming 5G for SARS-2, or those subscribing to Pizzagate, or QAnon. Interpreted symbolically, such theories bespeak an intuitive sense that our cultural atmosphere is increasingly permeated with things that are unsanitary and deleterious, that those in power are more culpable for this fact than they care to admit.

In this connection Plato comes to mind. In the Republic, we learn that most people simply won’t live according to logos, to philosophical conclusions and reasoned argument, but they can and should be edified as appropriate by mythos. The myths could provide a narrative idiom for enabling the apprehension, ultimately, of goodness, truth, and beauty. Whether we can present a similarly generous hermeneutical approach to today’s widespread phenomenon of conspiratorial thinking remains to be seen – but it is clear enough that railing about ‘disinformation’ alone will not suffice, because we’re not dealing here with information alone.

Now, the appreciation of raw milk and its lifestyle has much more logos about it than mythos – even Matt Walsh should admit some probiotic and nutritional deficit results from pasteurisation. The real debate surrounds whether this deficit outweighs the risk of consuming harmful bacteria, and/or whether that which is lost can’t simply be replaced through other, safer, means. Nonetheless, Walsh accused the pro-raw milk faction of succumbing to wrongheaded mythos in the shape of “evil sorcery”, mythos disassociated from the true.

That said, Walsh’s ridicule wasn’t entirely unjustified. Many of us will know someone who has taken it all a bit too far. I mean someone who, while enjoying a night out with friends, won’t eat anything in a particular restaurant because they cook with rapeseed oil. Or the guy who brings their own pre-cooked-in-grassfed-cattle-butter ground beef to eat from a Tupperware box during the family’s Christmas dinner. There is, in extreme cases of any dietary purism, a move toward the sort of obsessive control around eating/not eating that would ordinarily be associated with eating disorders.

That the element of control in such disorders is a form of transference is broadly accepted. Uncontrollable emotional trauma or personality defects are transferred into a different idiom, of sorts, a realm of choice-making where a sometimes-deadly level of control is mercilessly adhered to. What might such traumas and defects be in the case of the latter day nutritional purist? We’re back to that intuitive sense I mentioned above: that our cultural atmosphere is increasingly permeated with things that are unsanitary and deleterious, and that government and big-business are more culpable for this fact than they care to admit.

Unsavoury cultural expressions are almost impossible to avoid in a digital age – and even when they can be avoided, the language and sentiments they express gradually filter into everyday interaction anyway. Culture is formed by contagion. The society we portray becomes the society portrayed. Like theories that consuming soy increases oestrogen which then enters the water supply and ends-up saturating everything – the good, the true, and the beautiful similarly drown in an onslaught of their opposites.

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Plato’s Republic describes how unsanitary and deleterious cultural expressions have detrimental effects on those who encounter them. For Plato, that which is genuinely true is of course the Forms, which spring forth directly from the mind of the creator. The world of nature which we perceive with our senses is one-step removed from the ideational reality, and hence subject to myriad forms of unreliabilty. Objects formed by human beings are then even more ambiguous, being formed from nature they are thus two-steps removed from the realm of the true. Hence, human artifice is a dissident species of representation – of mimesis. This is a problem not only in terms of truth, but also goodness and beauty, and thus ethics and aesthetics.

Hence Plato’s distrust of artists. The mimetic dissidence of art in relation to ultimate reality means the sort of character exhibited by those formed by human representative constructions – by art or poetry – will be mired in illusion, in improper conduct, in untruth, and in relative ugliness. As he writes, a “low-grade mother like mimesis”, will “produce low-grade children”.

Yet it is not as simple as just opting instead for edifying representation, for manipulating mimesis for noble ends. In his more radical moments, Plato maintains that mimesis itself is inherently problematic. There is something about it which will always drag people down. We will be carried away by base feelings due to the intensity of artistic representation, as opposed to the calmer and more measured business of philosophical contemplation. And because, in stories, we’re beholding lives so far removed from our own, we can’t help but take a perverse delight in “the sight of the kind of person we’d regret and deplore being ourselves”. Moreover, because the artist or poet will always be in need of an audience, he will deliberately play to the “petulant and varied side of our characters” to evoke the most impassioned responses.

I’ve taught these elements from the Republic numerous times – and I’ve never fully agreed with him on this. I believe in the nobility and worth of art and poetry. But in recent years certain passages from the Republic have developed a compelling sense of vindication. I wonder if there isn’t much in today’s world which is proving him right after all. Digital images mediated through internet technology inherently tend to the lowest common denominator far more than any medium in prior history. One can point obviously to pornography, which accounts for an estimated 10% of internet traffic, but increasingly to the sheer slop of most social media content – particularly the short-form video bequeathed to us from TikTok, which is to the nurturing of attention what fentanyl is to wakeful consciousness. As put memorably by Mark Fisher, we live in a “superficial frenzy of newness, of perpetual movement”, a sort-of permanent “recombinatorial delirium” constantly overrun by images which enact a dreadful “besieging of attention”. Algorithmic reasoning vividly demonstrates Plato’s concerns. The infuriating, appalling, the tempting, the lascivious, or just the utterly stupid representations emerge triumphant from the fray by clocking millions upon millions of likes.

Now of course one could argue that, just a Plato went a step too far in condemning mimesis tout court, we can use digital communications in a modified fashion, exercising control and intention in what we occupy our minds with, and when, and why. The trick is to be always mindful of not giving free reign to base emotion, or what Plato called “the petulant and varied side of our characters”. In some of my more reactionary moments, however, I’m not so sure. I sometimes wonder if there isn’t something inherently detrimental about photographic representation itself, mediated digitally, that constitutes a form of mimesis carrying its own “evil sorcery”.

Karl Ove Knausgaard discusses the original genesis of mechanical image reproduction in relation to the development of Renaissance art. He mentions how medieval art was shot through with human conception, not just perception. This is best demonstrated by the early medieval religious icon. Here, “depiction was routed through the human sphere, meaning the human being’s inner world of images, thoughts, feelings, notions, intuition and experience” was “transposed and objectified in the form of colours on a canvas”. This is shown by the formalised and decidedly non-representative tendencies of, say, a saint’s face, or an angel’s body, with not a trace of the painter’s world present therein. This meant what was portrayed seemed not to belong “to any definitie moment” but rather “to all moments, to eternity”. During the Renaissance artists increasingly prioritized earthly sight over transcendent conception.

It is on precisely this trajectory that mechanical image reproduction emerges. Knausgaard writes that, the “mechanisation of the lens...liberates our attention from the soul”. It offers the promise of a “soulless eye” - a reality without the sort of principled goods that human souls ever bring to bear on that which they encounter, a glimpse of reality seen through the eyes of a ruined soul, a world purged of heaven. By freeze framing a split-second moment, or looping it through endless replay – a foundational condition for the development of human character is destroyed: temporality. In this sense Geoff Dyer is right to call photography “the negation of chronology”. Digital communication brings with it a radical solitude in how such images are viewed, combined with a negation of space – you don’t need to go anywhere to see the image, and it is viewed by people everywhere more-or-less simultaneously.

Shorn of the limitations of space, time, and interdependence, the soulless eye takes over and mounts the throne of a pseudo-divine vantage point. People go out less, they lose hours at a time, they increasingly spend their lives alone. On a journey in the Americas in 1924, D. H. Lawrence wrote about using his Kodak that photographers “see as the All-Seeing Eye sees”, and that humanity could inhabit a non-human perspective and “see ourselves as the sun sees us”. But myths and legends are full of warnings about what this entails.

In this sense the current age can sometimes seem inextricable from magic and sorcery – from the tale of Dr Faustus, from the fate of Prometheus, also from Icarus. The solitary smart phone viewer losing hour after hour to short-form video is disappearing into what Shakespeare called “the vasty deep” from whence gruesome spirits are conjured, bringing about the ruin of souls. The great question of the age is, therefore, whether our consumption of these representations can sanitized by something like pasteurization, by the gentle heat of noble intentions and the pursuit of virtue. Or it might be that the reproductive process itself is so detrimental to natural goods that we’d do better to submit to Plato’s revenge and somehow try to begin again.

That said, one can imagine writing a book about goodness and barely mentioning evil. This would be to follow St Augustine’s teaching that evil is not a thing as such but rather only the absence of good, privatio boni. I wonder if there is something that can be learned about dissent in relation to this, or rather, the intrinsically challenging nature of “faithful dissent”, at least as regards certain territory within the hierarchy of truths. In short, there cannot be faithful dissent as regards dogma. Dissent from dogma simply doesn’t exist, it would just be a privatio veritas, and thus - anathema sit. When it comes to definitive doctrine, the charism of infallibility applies again, so faithful dissent is almost impossible to imagine – although it would not necessarily entail heresy, as such.

On authoritative doctrine, faithful dissent would seem to be a remote possibility in extreme circumstances – but this is the very cusp-point at which the possibility emerges, and this why John P. Joy seems to struggle with using the term – saying, this level leaves room “for some kind of legitimate dissent (or at least non-assent)”. What’s the difference between dissent and non-assent? It seems to belong to this level. When it comes to the fourth level of prudential admonitions and church discipline, however, there can be faithful dissent but always within an assumption of “conscientious obedience” – obeying except where conscience forbids it, obeying unless we genuinely believe that do so would lead oneself or others into sin.

Another thing Newman doesn’t discuss much in his book is why he chose the word, “grammar” for the title. One can surmise it is at least partly because he doesn’t treat the content of different assents, but rather the structure or rules by which human beings assent to things. I think this is helpful for considering dissent in today’s Church, because what I am going say depends on parameters or permissions. Grammar is the domain of principled rules, not necessarily needed to speak unless there is confusion or someone wishes to understand their language better. Perhaps Newman understood this. You don’t need to engage in his proto-phenomenology of empirical consciousness to assent to all manner of things in everyday life. We’re all assenting to things all the time. In Newman’s day, however, people were misunderstanding the nature of human assents, so he outlined a structure by which things might be better understood.

I would suggest the normative content of our Catholic faith – Scripture, the Creed, the Liturgy, the Catechism – generally function stably and effectively among the faithful. Rarely does someone question if God is genuinely triune, at least in my experience, or ask if perhaps Jesus wasn’t human after all. Dogma seems generally intact, and these rules, this grammar, adds little to Church life on that front. When it comes to authoritative doctrine, of course, let alone prudential judgements, things are markedly different. This is because we live in a time of social fracturing and polarisation, and of social media and user-generated sources of information.

Recalling the grammar metaphor, it is as if new linguistic practices have emerged, which threaten ultimately to undermine a language’s integrity. Most obvious among these is a tendency to assume that, as non-infallible, authoritative teaching is at best entirely optional, at worst, nearly always wrong. Of course there are historical circumstances where authoritative teaching is undoubtedly wrong – but these are exceptional circumstances which cannot be normalised without grossly undermining our faith in the Church herself.

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With this in mind I want to share some modest proposals for navigating the possibility of dissent, that is calling for correction to Church teaching, following Donum Veritatis. That instruction was written in 1990, and then and now are very different times. Now there is the inestimably different situation of being in the digital age. In days of yore the faithful simply wouldn’t know anything about what a Pope was saying to a group of bishops or seminarians or to journalists on a plane. There also wasn’t such a plethora of sources of such different ecclesial persuasions with and without episcopal sanction available at the swipe of a screen. Neither was there the possibility that someone who happens to have hundreds of thousands of followers on social media could end-up commenting publicly to a significant number of Catholics on matters of doctrine or discipline.

(i) Maintaining an Attitude of Obsequium

Newman is clear that, in the vast majority of cases, when we assent to things we do so unreflectively. It is rare, and indeed often unhelpful, to engage in formal analysis about our assents, about whether we should assent to things in daily life. I think this is a helpful rejoinder. Newman claimed that, if we were asked to explain many of our decisions or deeds, we would find our reasoning:

“too fine to avail separately, too subtle and circuitous to be convertible into syllogisms, and too numerous and various for such conversion, even were they convertible”

Something has clearly gone wrong in that a “hermeneutic of suspicion” now holds sway in ecclesial obedience. It relates to the most serious controversies afoot of recent years, involving that authoritative level where there is a possibility of error, seeming to go against a level which is infallible, namely the Ordinary Universal Magisterium. Debates among theologians in recent years have been about whether a teaching being questioned, or which some would like to be questioned, is indeed a teaching of the ordinary and universal Magisterium and therefore infallible, beyond question. Thomas Groome, for example, has tried to suggest that Ordinatio Sacerdotalis does not codify teaching of the ordinary and universal Magisterium as regards the impossibility of the Church bestowing Holy Orders upon women.^[1] His case is weak and unconvincing, and as regards priesthood has no warrant even from the Ordinary Papal Magisterium. It is otherwise on the death penalty. One prominent figure has concluded on this matter that we now have to “abandon the defense of consistency between the ordinary and universal Magisterium and the Papal Magisterium”.^[2] That is, infallibility is offset with the remote possibility of error, and the latter is found therefore wanting. (If you want to know my conclusion on this issue, then I briefly summarise here).

Matthew Levering suggests that, if the (Ordinary) Papal Magisterium goes against the Ordinary and Universal Magisterium, the correct response (if not in the end times) should be to conclude that theologians have previously erred in considering a teaching to be infallible when in fact it wasn’t. This applies also to Thomas Guarino, who applies it to the teaching on religious freedom compared to Dignitatis Humanae, and to Barrett Turner regarding considerations of the death penalty. Levering points out that it is permissible to maintain that a Pope may err when teaching “non-infallibly about something that has never been infallibly taught”, but to do so toward infallible teaching would mean, to quote him directly – that “Catholics” then “become protestants”, that is - holding fast to private judgement over against the authority of Rome.

What Levering proposes, I think, can be bolstered by reminding ourselves of the pledge to maintain obsequium in adhering to things troubling to private judgement. At the least, an attitude of willingness and openness can mean that every effort is made to revisit – in a constructive disposition – the question of whether something questioned by the Ordinary Magisterium was actually taught infallibly by the Ordinary and Universal Magisterium – it can never entail denying infallibility itself.

Now, we have to be clear that we are living in very different times to those of the ancient world, obviously, but also the times of the Council and even to times as recent as the pontificate of Benedict XVI. The world is now operating under the paradigm of the culture wars – which means, by definition, a level of social opposition which lays claim on almost every issue at stake in public life, and therefore presents opponents as always entirely opposed to truth or entirely favourable to it. Again, obsequium doesn’t allow this – it calls us to work against it, however difficult it might be. This means that, even if a Pope or a Prefect has shown himself to have dubious credentials when it comes to maintaining orthodoxy – we are bound by a hermeneutic of charity, an attitude of loving obedience to the Church, to remain open and at least to try and maintain a habitual assumption of rectitude to those teaching with an authority which commands this of us.

(ii) Dissent Corresponds to States of Life

My second proposal is that we remember that our state of life is relevant to the ‘fittingness’ and significance of dissent. Returning to the death penalty, I suggest it is profoundly troubling and unfortunate if a committed Catholic is unable to square how the Ordinary Papal Magisterium could apparently go against the infallible Magisterium. However, we are not dealing with the Extraordinary Magisterium – we are not dealing directly with salvific truth as such in the vast majority of cases, but with areas where there is genuine ambiguity. Put differently, on ecclesiastical law and discipline there is the possibility of faithful dissent as regards conscientious disobedience, but for many Catholics the call of conscience will not be invoked in some of the most controversial cases because they have no reason to go against it. Take Fiducia supplicans – as a layman, I won’t not find myself in a situation of conscientious objection because I won’t be asked to bless two individuals in a homosexual union. The only exception would be if, in an evangelistic or catechetical context I was asked by one such individual if the Church would dispense such a blessing, at which point I would have to reply honestly about my views on the matter. Needless to say, it is a very different matter for yourselves. Similarly for the death penalty – it would only become a direct issue for the conscience of an individual Catholic if they work in a prison in Arizona, or if there were a referendum on the death penalty.

(iii) Considering Contexts of Public Dissent

The effects of being in a situation where now anyone can make public pronouncements are only just beginning to be experienced in Western democracies. With prophetic foresight, I suggest, Cardinal Ratzinger mentioned the issues this presents after Donum Veritatis was promulgated in 1990. Some accused him of having forbidden any questioning or even exploration of Church teaching. He replied:

“The instruction distinguishes between healthy theological tension and true dissent, in which theology is organised according to the principle of majority rule, and the faithful are given alternative norms by a ‘counter-magisterium’. Dissent thus becomes a political factor, passing from the realm of thought to that of a “power game”. This is where theologians’ use of mass media can be dangerous”.^[3]

What Ratzinger called “healthy theological tension”, I am calling a struggle with the possibility of faithful dissent. Mass media is dangerous because of our fallibility, and because the seductions of gaining a public following are very real, and because those with such followings can be very influential on impressionable minds. This means anyone seeking to contribute to the debate is required to do so prayerfully and carefully, which social media makes very difficult. It also means, according to the 1990 instruction, we should do so only in specific contexts and fora.

If a theologian finds himself, “after careful study and reflection” unable to “agree with some point of official teaching”, there are two conditions under which he may enter the fray. Firstly, he is told not to present his own opinions or divergent hypotheses are though they were non-arguable conclusions, and be ready “to revise his own opinions or examine the objections which is colleagues might offer him”. Secondly, he is asked to “refrain from giving public expression to them”, unless and except he does so in what is described as “the proper place” – which is those journals and publications which permit of this sort of complex debate, not each and any form of media available.^[4]

Surely it goes without saying that this implies that building an online following, often a financially lucrative following, on the basis of public dissent to the Living Magisterium places someone in a gravely deficient moral situation that could, through its detrimental influence on others, constitute a situation of the utmost gravity.

(iv) History is the friend of dissent

I’ll finish by recalling one of my favourite recollections of Pope Benedict XVI. When he was a student in late 1940s Munich, his intellectual mentor and teacher Gottlieb Söhngen was among those consulted by Pius XII about the impending decision to promulgate the Dogma of the Assumption. Söhngen, and indeed all his colleagues in the theology faculty, were in that minority of theologians who argued strongly against the decision – a decision Pius XII later described as having been reached with “almost complete unanimity” in that same consultation. In one of the meetings at which his unease was discussed, Söhngen was asked what he would do if he lost the argument. He replied, “I will remember the Church is wiser than I and that I must trust her far more than my own erudition.”^[5] No-one wants to be in a situation whereby private judgement, after reflection and study, cannot be fully aligned with any element of Church teaching. Yet, having a certain resignation toward how God providentially guides the Church can be immensely helpful. The wisdom of the Church will eventually win out, and this itself is an article of faith: faith in an infallible truth, God’s providential ordering of history.

Shortly before the Psalmist speaks of the God in whom there is no wrong, he says:

“It is good to give thanks to Lord, to make music to your name, O Most High, to proclaim your love in the morning and your truth in the watches of the night”.

Some of us will be called to proclaim God’s truth in the watches of the night – a night which, indeed, sometimes feels that it is already far spent. But unlike the watchman who counts on daybreak, who counts on the pendulum shift between opposing factions each having their day, the watchman holding fast to Church teaching in challenging times can count on the Lord – the Lord in whom there is no wrong.

^[1] Levering (Op. Cit.)

^[2] Levering, quoting Peter Kwasniewski (Op. Cit.)

^[3] Quoted by Sullivan (Op. Cit.), p. 25

^[4] Ibid., p. 26

^[5] Ratzinger, Milestones, pp. 58–59.

As I mentioned in that first part, some people asked me to expand on this area so I decided to upload this long essay onto Substack in 3 parts. There, I also mentioned that I have taken the Profession of Faith and the Oath of Fidelity, as a lecturer within an ecclesiastical faculty. This Profession is tightly pegged to the four levels, so by making it one is pledging before God, and publicly, to assent to different levels of teaching with the form of assent which aligns to each level. This means, in turn, that the possibility of dissent emerges as we go toward the lower levels. I’m going to walk you through the Profession here.

Paragraph I

The first paragraph of the Professio goes as follows:

“With firm faith, I…believe everything contained in the Word of God, whether written or handed down in tradition, which the Church, either by solemn judgment or by the ordinary and universal Magisterium, sets forth to be believed as divinely revealed’.

“Firma fide quoque credo ea omnia quae in verbo Dei scripto vel tradito continentur at ab Ecclesia sive sollemni iudicio sive ordinario et universali Magisterio tamquam divinitus revelata credenda proponunta”

Note – firma fide and divinitus revelata, for this paragraph applies to the highest grade of Magisterial teaching and indeed therefore those teachings in the closest possible correspondence to the divine wellspring of the Church herself. These are those things in which, as an article of faith, we are required to believe as divinely revealed and therefore infallible. The word credo is spoken here with the same weight as it is shortly before making this Profession, when the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed is recited - credo in unum Deum. It is, I suggest, because of this grade of teaching that Bellarmine is right to call the Church a societa perfecta, because she is the receptacle and custodian of perfect, infallible truth.

There are two types of such teachings here – those dispensed by sollemni iudicio and those of the ordinario et universali Magisterio. As we are all no doubt aware, if the Pope solemnly defines a doctrine this is one of two possible exercises of the Church’s Extraordinary Magisterium. If the collegium and the Pope, when gathered in an ecumenical council, similarly define a doctrine of faith or morals, this is the other. So both types of solemn judgement together constitute the Extraordinary Magisterium – the declarations of which are absolute, irrevocable, and irreformable.

Then we come to those words ordinario et universali Magisterio. The terminology originates in Pio Nino’s Tuas libenter of 1863, which was written in response to an early variant of Cafeteria Catholicism, from the theologian Ignaz von Döllinger. von Döllinger was said to have proposed “that Catholic theologians were bound to hold only those truths of faith which had been solemnly defined”, so all the others could be picked and chosen at will.^[1] Yet there are teachings which share in this highest grade of magisterial weight but have not needed a solemn definition, most famously some of the closing articles of the Apostle’s Creed – “the communion of saints…the resurrection of the body and the life-everlasting”, to name but three.

Pointing forward to the final part of this essay on dissent - note the obvious challenges of interpretation that will arise here when we look for the magisterial weight of the ordinary and universal Magisterium in teachings more equivocal than articles of the Apostles’ Creed. In the first place, it is held that this authority applies to teachings which have not been defined, but on which there is a unanimous assumption that the teaching should “definitively be held” (LG§25). Secondly, the crucial word “universal” admits of varied interpretations – does it mean among members of the Church? Among clergy? Among bishops?. There is some disagreement on this point. Perhaps the point can made clear by pointing out that some consider the Catholic teaching on religious freedom prior to Dignitatis Humanae to sit under this category, others the teaching on artificial contraception, and still others, particularly in recent years, ecclesial acceptance of the death penalty. The arguments in each case are complex and long-winded, but there are plenty of discussions out there if you want to look into any of these.

I need to mention the form of assent that corresponds to this pinnacle of the hierarchy of truths – for it is the highest form of assent – called variously the “assent of faith” or “divine and Catholic faith” (Dei Filius). This means, most basically, that if anyone were to claim he was unable to assent to a teaching with this level of magisterial weight, this therefore – by definition - constitutes a rupture of their communion in and with the Church. That is, genuine heresy is defined in relation to these truths, to “denial or obstinate doubt of a dogma”,^[2] for this is denying or doubting God himself. This level’s infallibility is God’s infallibility. These truths are the disclosure of God himself – “in whom there is no wrong” (Ps 94.16).

2.2. Second paragraph

“I also firmly accept and hold each and everything definitively proposed by the Church regarding teaching on faith and morals.”

“Firmiter etiam amplector ac retineo omnia et singular quae circa doctrinam de fide vel moribus ab eadem definitive proponuntur”

Here we get into a second level on the hierarchy of truths, the second grade of Magisterial teaching and therefore our second form of assent. This refers to those things “definitively proposed by the Church regarding teaching on faith and morals”. This level is somewhat obscure, which is why I didn’t go into it on that episode of Pints with Aquinas. These doctrines are not dogmas per se, but are truths intimately connected with dogma, and, as such, considered “necessary for safeguarding and expounding divine revelation”.^[3] The nature of the connection is historical or logical, and sometimes both. The most obvious example is the definitive list of the books of the Canon as codified at Trent.^[4] This can’t be considered as something God has revealed to us, as such, but we can’t behold that which God has irrevocably revealed to us without it (which would mean we might read, say, read the Gospel of Thomas in the same way we read the Gospel of John – or downgrade the Apocrypha such that the teaching on Purgatory then lacks full Scriptural warrant, etc). Other examples are more purely historical. John P. Joy includes the legitimacy of a papal election under this category, similarly the validity of an ecumenical council, and also the canonization of particular saints – although this last category has been subject to much disagreement in recent years.^[5]

The Professio Fidei describes these truths as ‘definitive’. Sullivan points out that this means a ‘definitive judgement’ on the matter at hand has been given – “the root term finis means ‘end’ or ‘limit’”. It thus “puts an end to freedom of opinion on the matter, and sets limits to the communion of faith”.^[6]

When it comes to the grade of assent in play here, we move from assent as faith to assent as amplector and retineo, the verbs meaning “accepting and holding to”. These cognitive acts are much more human matters than faith, more susceptible to the vagaries of history and of natural reasoning. They are described by J. P. II as illustrative, not as the thing-in-itself, when it comes to revelation. “These truths, in the investigation of Catholic doctrine, illustrate the Divine Spirit’s particular inspiration for the Church’s deeper understanding of a truth concerning faith and morals” (ATF 3).^[7]

Sullivan claims he “can find no evidence in the tradition that the denial of definitive doctrine has ever been viewed as heresy” (in the proper sense of the word) – so “withholding…assent from such a teaching, although potentially a serious error against the teaching of the Church, would not necessarily place” one outside “communion”.^[8]

I would nuance this somewhat – insofar as the charism of infallibility is applied to definitive doctrine. Perhaps it is reasonable to suggest that, although not giving assent to a teaching on this level is not in-and-of-itself destructive of communion, at least some of the truths included in this category are so intimately connected with revelation proper that there is a real and proximate danger of the grave matter of questioning revelation itself. The tangibility of this danger will vary on a case-by-case basis. If we question the composition of the Canon, I don’t see how we cannot avoid a slip into heresy eventually. But if we question the canonization of a particular saint, it might be conceivable how we can avoid then questioning the validity of other saints upon whose teaching central aspects of dogma might depend – although this is hardly something to be recommended except in very serious circumstances.

2.3 3^rd paragraph:

“Moreover, I adhere with religious submission of will and intellect to the teachings which either the Roman Pontiff or the College of Bishops enunciate when they exercise their authentic Magisterium, even if they do not intend to proclaim these teachings by a definitive act.”

“Insuper religioso voluntatis et intellectus obsequio doctrinis adhaero quas sive Romanus Pontifex sive Collegium episcoporum enuntiant cum Magisterium authenticum exercent etsi non definitive actu easdem proclamare intendant”

On this third level, we have authenticum or authoritative doctrine. Here we come to the most challenging area of recent years, for it involves the exercise of the Pope’s Ordinary Magisterium –things like most encyclicals, apostolic letters, apostolic exhortations, and occasional addresses. For bishops certain documents of particular synods can sit under this category, and the statements of episcopal conferences which, after Apostolos suos in 1998, can be considered binding in certain circumstances.^[9] Such documents are to be considered an exercise of the authentic (meaning authoritative) Magisterium but not “definitive”.

This means “teachings that the magisterium proposes authoritatively to guide the faith of believers”. Examples from recent decades include concrete applications of the “immorality of directly targeting civilians in an act of war” and the “prohibition of certain reproductive technologies like in vitro fertilisation”.^[10] Cardinals Ratzinger and Bertone described this category of teaching as “true or at least sure”.^[11]

As things regarding the truth of which we can be sure, they are things which “preclude the probability although not the possibility of error”.^[12] In short, these teachings are expressly not infallible – they are “authoritative but non-infallible”, to coin a phrase.^[13] This is shown, again, by a different form of assent for this paragraph – “religious submission of will and intellect” – I submit, obsequio, and the nominal word for that aquiescence is obsequium.^[14]

Strictly speaking, to say obsequio is not an assent, as such, but an attitudinal disposition meant to foster assent. The assent is the adherence, adhaero. This significantly adds to the shades of grey which are available, in principle – de jure. In short, one can adhere, with a constructive and open mindset, to teachings which at the level of private judgement are rather troublesome. (I do it at work all the time, although not with a religious submission, just because it’s something one has to do working in a complex organisation). Both the Abbott and Flannery translations of the documents of Vatican II and the new code prepared by the Canon Law Society of GB and Ireland adopt the word “submission” for obsequium, whereas, interestingly, the Canon Law Society of America opted for the word “respect”. Richard R. Gaillerdetz translates it as “docility”. Donum Veritatis describes it as the “willingness to submit loyally”.^[15]

As put by John P. Joy, most “conclude that [this level] does leave room for some kind of legitimate dissent (or at least non-assent)”.^[16] Now, we have distinguish an acknowledgement of the possibility of error from the mistake of von Döllinger, who wanted to have only mandatory solemn judgements (defined dogma) and peripheral options. Suffice to say it is not that authoritative teachings are peripheral or optional. The wording suggests rather that we pledge to adhere to them with a constructive and receptive attitude, even when doing so is challenging at the level of private judgement.

There is much debate and controversy on what this means, concretely. Gaillerdetz says “it requires the believer to make a genuine effort to assimilate the given teaching into their personal religious convictions”, and gives the metaphor of visiting a doctor. I would rather use the dentist, because I think it’s safer given how problematic modern medicine can be for a faithful catholic. I know there is a possibility a dentist might err in diagnosing my toothache, but I still consult with him and adopt an attitude of surety toward his authority as the office holder, a GDC listed dentist. Being aware of the possibility the dentist can make an error does not entail assuming the likelihood of errancy, if it did I couldn’t have any dentist unless I found one with divine infallibility. Assuming the likelihood of errancy in encyclicals etc is not permitted by the Professio fidei, the opposite is the case, de jure, in principle: a surety in the likelihood of truth.

2.4 Fourth Paragraph

The final category of magisterial assent does not have its own paragraph in the Professio, but it is alluded to in the Oath of Fidelity which follows it:

“I shall follow and foster the common discipline of the entire Church and I shall maintain the observance of all ecclesiastical laws, especially those contained in the Code of Canon Law.

“With Christian obedience I shall follow what the Bishops, as authentic doctors and teachers of the faith, declare, or what they, as those who govern the Church, establish.”

To touch on this briefly – it applies to some statements of individual/local bishops, insofar as such statements are rarely pronouncements on doctrine, as such. Yet, bishops “still teach authoritatively, and the members of their local church have an obligation to attend carefully and respectfully to their bishop’s teaching”.^[17]

Assent as “following and fostering” applies also to those declarations which can be considered prudential admonitions from bishops. These were given considerable discussion following the US Bishops’ Conference document The Challenge of Peace in 1983. This distinguishes between binding moral principles and concrete moral applications about which Catholics can “disagree in good faith”.^[18] The issue then was when or whether it could be right to make the first use of nuclear weapons in war. The US Bishops condemned the proposition, but held that “prudential judgements of this kind, regarding the concrete application of church teaching, must be given ‘serious attention’ and consideration by Catholics as they determine whether their moral judgements are consistent with the Gospel”.^[19] A more immediate example for my context surrounds the UK government’s policies on migration, and even Brexit – regarding which I know of at least one theologian who argued that voting Leave constituted mortal sin, something I would suggest is completely out of keeping with the hierarchy of truths. .

On the matter of church discipline, the fact is that we very often respect and obey disciplinary stipulations which we privately consider imprudent. One example is driving at 20mph in a low-speed London borough such as the one in which I live. Many people disagree with it, but most people observe it even when they know when they won’t be caught , out of a basic respect for the Rule of Law in relation to the common good. But note here how quick some are to insist that clerical celibacy is (to quote one such example) “a mere precept of ecclesiastical law”, and a matter of “discipline” but not “doctrine”. Perhaps it was for this reason that Cardinal Sarah wrote about how celibacy is “a sharing in Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross and his identity as Bridegroom of the church” – that is, understanding the practice as something logically connected and necessarily linked to, divine revelation itself, notwithstanding the historical variation in implementation and practice.

The point is that on this fourth level, dissent is permitted. It might be obedient dissent, like when I drive at 20mph and complain about it. Or, it might be full and active dissent. The latter is permitted at this level if, and only if, one’s conscience leads one genuinely to believe that active obedience would cause oneself or others to sin. Notice that dissent as disobedience does not necessarily entail entering into public dissent against the Magisterium. If you want to know what’s been said on that, then you’ll have to sit tight for part 3. Suffice to say at this juncture, however, the assumption of all teaching on the possibility and occasional rectitude of entering into public dissent against the Magisterium, and indeed the means and circumstances by which one might do it, are limited and specific. In other words, the situation we find today in which it’s hard for many to distinguish the vast amounts of public dissent from genuine teaching was simply unimaginable until very recently. It is one of the challenges the digital age poses to the Church, and as I have said before, the Church has always surmounted the challenges of history, and I believe she will do so again. That’s why I’m sharing this essay, despite its technical subject matter.

^[1] Francis A. Sullivan, Creative Fidelity: Weighing and Interpreting the Documents of the Magisterium, Wipf and Stock, 2003, p. 99

^[2] Joy (op. cit., n15

^[3] Sullivan p. 98 These are things which, while not directly revealed by God himself, are “necessary for preserving divine revelation”, or put differently, “indirectly contained in the deposit of faith” (Joy p. 14, my emphasis).,

^[4] Sullivan, p. 98

^[5] Joy, p. 14

^[6] Sullivan, p. 18

^[7] When it comes to accuracy in language, this distinction is vitally important – but when it comes to what this means in the lives of the faithful, there’s not a huge amount of difference. That is, these are truths described in the same document as being of the “utmost importance”, and thus hardly more expendable that truths held de fide, as such.

^[8] Sullivan, p. 124

^[9] If discussed in a plenary session with unanimous approval or 2/3^rds approval and a recognitio from Rome.

^[10] Gaillardetz (op. cit.), p. 99

^[11] Quoted by Joy, p. 36

^[12] Joy p. 33-4

^[13] Joy p. 33-4

^[14] The source for this is Lumen Gentium: “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”

^[15] Sullivan, p. 23, see n30 (my emphasis)

^[16] Joy, pp. 33-4

^[17] Gaillderdetz, p. 77

^[18] Gaillderdetz, pp. 100-1

^[19] Ibid.

Because this essay is long, I’m doing it in three parts. In this first part, I lay out the basic principle of a “hierarchy of truths” in Catholic doctrine. I’ll also give two examples of those who criticise the notion of different Magisterial weightings inherent to this principle. Interestingly, these criticisms come from either radical progressivists or, less often, radical traditionalists. To my mind this demonstrates the fact the “hierarchy of truths” is vital for proving doctrinal continuity throughout history, something both sides wish to deny. Radical progressivists wish to show the Church must fundamentally change. Radical traditionalists wish to show the Church has already fundamentally changed. I argue that there is renewal within continuity – in other words, the “hermeneutic of continuity”.

I hope I can be forgiven for turning to the fashion industry. I want to borrow from there the notion of a “vibe shift”. A vibe shift is a phrase for moments when an item of dress (or, more accurately, the attendant “vibe” of certain items of dress) suddenly ‘shifts’ from being deeply unfashionable to being the height of cool, and vice versa. Some have recently utilised this term sociologically, to describe recent shifts in politics and culture, too. It is suggested that, sometime in the mid-2010s, there was a ‘vibe shift’ in Western cultures, when postures typically associated with those on the left of political discourse abruptly switched to being associated with those on the right, and vice versa. Positions once seen as typically left wing – like favouring freedom of expression and railing against the elite, for example, abruptly became typical of those on the right, while positions once associated with the right, like favouring censorship and having faith in institutions, abruptly went over to the left, and so on.

I’m not here to comment on political or cultural diagnoses, nor on fashionable dress codes - but I do want to comment on the perception that something of a vibe-shift has occurred in the Catholic Church. Let us recall the CDF’s 1990 Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian, Donum Veritatis. It has recently been described as ‘written against theologians then known as “dissenters”’. The dissenters were critical of the directions being taken by Rome – for they voiced “public dissent from Humanae Vitae” and “from almost every” other “initiative of Pope John Paul II’s pontificate,” including the promulgation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and indeed, Veritatis Splendor.[1] I doubt I need to belabour the point about an apparent shift between the underlying theologies of those 1990 dissenters with those who today might be described as such for dissenting publicly from documents of the Francis pontificate, like Traditiones Custodes, or Fiducia Supplicans.

Yet, however tempting it might be to speak of a “vibe shift” in the Church, this notion should not, and I would say optimistically, does not apply. There’s even a sense it which it can not apply. The Church is not a political or cultural entity – she is an institution like no other, and thus cannot be absolutely vulnerable, as are merely human institutions, to the pendulum shift back-and-forth between opposing sides that currently dominates society at large. In short, she is of divine origin, her chief head or member is a divine person, she is endowed with the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth. If debates and discussions about particular documents are just about differing inclinations, then the Church has ceased to be herself, and is just another arena of power-play and political posturing – which means she’s just as prone to an inevitable decline as everything else which all too human.

Moreover, those dissenters in 1990 were not complaining just about the content of things like Humanae Vitae – they were critiquing the very authenticity of the visible Church. Insofar as the Church is the Temple of the Spirit of Truth, however, unpicking the visible structures of the Church threatens to unpick our valuing of truth itself. Without an authoritative oracle, we merely approach truth as best approximation, not direct correspondence. Hence that need for Veritatis Splendor back in the early 90s. Hence also the once-common criticism of the then-new Catechism, from those dissenters who claimed that the relativity of all truth is such that any prescriptive guide to the Faith is no longer possible, because truth is always relative to different contexts.

If things can entirely shift from one position to another as different generations take senior office, the Church is again subjected to relativism. It’s “truth claims” are relative to different contexts, to which faction exercises the most dominant influence. But when the Church proclaims the truth of the Gospel, she is proclaiming that which is absolute, binding, permanent, and irrevocable – that is, truths given forth from the mouth of the Most High God; nothing less than divine revelation.

Now, it might seem from the foregoing that I’m being hopelessly naïve or simplistic and things are much more complicated than this. To which I say, concedo – yes, things are much more complicated than this. The complex terrain surrounding my concession is precisely what I want write about in this essay – because the fact remains one can hold to everything I’ve written and express dissent from Magisterial teaching, it’s just the grammar of doing so is a complex area of discussion.

Let me explain things further by laying out two extremes, both of which faithful Catholics need to avoid. At one end of the spectrum, there is what has been called “cafeteria Catholicism”. This caricatures a pick and choose mentality whereby people select those teachings they deem most palatable in the way we might choose what to eat or drink in a café. There has been a recent reassertion of cafeteria-polemics from one Massimo Faggioli, who speaks favourably of what he terms a “gelateria Catholicism”. He claims he is a gelateria Catholic because, “Catholicism has always been’ a mere ‘a spectrum of different tastes”.

There is an opposite extreme, and this is one some might think I veer toward in emphasising the Church’s divine uniqueness. This doesn’t have a name, as such, but it is a neglected element of another pejorative term, which was common in the decades immediately before the Council – so-called “Denzinger-theology”. this term primarily means an allegedly manualist mentality in which life-enriching mysteries are coldly condensed into sets of conceptual propositions seeming to have little or no bearing on the unestimable riches of sharing in the sacramental economy. Yet it has also meant treating each and every Catholic teaching as if it stands in the same proximity to the divine origin and wellspring of the Church herself. But most people rightly accept that our relation to the prohibition of usury, say, from the Second Lateran Council of 1139, is different to our relation to the co-divinity of the Spirit established at Constantinople in 381. The difference at stake centres on the degrees of Magisterial teaching, and the degrees of differentiation in the form of assent required of us in each case.

Needless to say, the same Massimo Faggioli who calls for “gelateria Catholicism” is particularly dismissive of evaluating the Magisterial weight of different teachings. Quoting Ghislain Lafont he writes, ‘”[t]he attempts to establish whether one or other assertion of the magisterium is infallible, definitive, irreformable, etc – […] are a kind of ecclesiastical gymnastics”. He then notes, approving, that Pope Francis was “not troubled by them’”. [2]

With either a sheer pick and choose mentality, or a mentality that treats every ecclesial pronouncement with the same level of authority, we are faced with either relativism or absolutism. Catholic ecclesiology maps out the contours between these two. We need to maintain that St Robert Bellarmine was right to call the Church a societa perfecta, perpetually instituted by God and therefore not a merely human institution as such. But we also need to be realistic about the fact that “the Church’s members are not yet perfect” and so “may err either due to sin or ignorance”. [3] The challenge is holding these two facts together in different circumstances, but that is a necessary requirement, I suggest, for maintaining the hermeneutic of continuity.

As I mentioned in that episode of Pints with Aquinas, I tended to abstain from commenting publicly on Church polemics during the Francis pontificate. When I originally wrote this essay back in 2023, I asked myself why this is. I think it’s partly because I am a lay person, and a lay person who often teaches seminarians and priests. I think it is hard enough for young men to hear the call to the priesthood today. They didn’t need to hear frequent criticisms of the Church from me. Navigating fractious times in holy orders was something they can learn far more about from their brother priests than from I.

That said, I am a lay person in a different position to some others, including some other teachers of academic theology, and this is, again, because I sometimes teach seminarians, religious, and priests, doing so under the auspices of an ecclesiastical faculty. This means I have stood alongside my fellow faculty members in making a Profession of Faith and swearing an Oath of Fidelity to the Church, as is canonically required. The wording of these pledges is finely tuned to a gradation in magisterial teachings and indeed a corresponding gradation in the form of assent required in each case. When the requirement for assent is weaker, of course, the space for dissent is stronger. The Hierarchy of Truths is a necessary underpinning, therefore, for outlining a grammar of dissent.

If you Google ‘hierarchy of truths’ you might land on things written by some who wrongly claim that the whole idea is problematic because it necessarily smacks of a “cafeteria” mentality. The same sources sometimes make much of the fact the phrase is first used magisterially in Unitatis Redintegratio, thus showing the Council was always invariably terrible. Leaving that to one side, the document itself states,

“When comparing doctrines with one another, [Catholics] should remember that in Catholic doctrine there exists a ‘hierarchy’ of truths, since they vary in their relation to the foundation of the Christian faith”. (§11)

The truth is that the Christian community has always “found it necessary to make formal doctrinal pronouncements against perceived threats to the integrity of the faith” and sometimes such occasions “helped clarify fundamental church tenets” (perhaps most paradigmatically at Nicaea in 325), while other times “dealt with fairly specific issues that later generations would view as peripheral”. [4] For this reason, the engaged Catholic “must be able to distinguish between teachings expressive of those vital faith commitments that constitute the core of our Christian identity, and those which play a more dependent role”. [5]

Returning to the Professio fidei – its current wording was promulgated by the CDF in 1998. Its most distant relative is the 1564 Tridentine Profession of Faith which was joined by the Oath against Modernism from 1910. Both of these were replaced by a short formula in 1967, which was expanded in 1988 and then repromulgated following JP II’s Motu Proprio Ad tuendam fidem which incorporated the formula of the Professio into the Code of Canon Law. [6]

In part 2 of this essay I will explain in some detail each level in the Hierarchy of Truths, and in part 3 I will use this analysis to outline some proposals in aid of a grammar of dissent. In the meantime, if you want to read on – please do let me know so I can stay motivated to keep up with this substack.

[1] Matthew Levering, Engaging the Doctrine of the Church, Word on Fire Academic: 2025

[2] Quoted by Levering in Engaging the Doctrine of the Church

[3] Ibid.

[4] R. R. Gaillerdetz, By what authority? : a primer on Scripture, the magisterium, and the sense of the faithful, Liturgical Press: 2003, p. 94

[5] Ibid.

[6] Cf. John P. Joy, On The Ordinary And Extraordinary Magisterium : From Joseph Kleutgen To the Second Vatican Council, Arouca Press; 2023, p. 9 n1

I want to start by saluting Murray Rundus for writing such a cogent and thoughtful response, and for deliberately avoiding the sort of polemics which so often damage relations between Catholics, like ourselves, seeking to be faithful servants of Christ and His Church. I’m saddened that so much energy is being spent arguing with traditionalists and conservatives, but we are where we are. I echo Mr Rundus’ sentiments insofar as his own response stimulated much thought and reflection on my part, and indeed I entirely share the view that better understanding is needed all round.

As I said in the interview, I’m hesitant to say anything about what SSPX life is like within that fold, because I have no personal experience of it. For this reason Mr Rundus’ insights are most welcome given his pedigree within the Society.

1. The Death Penalty and conscience

I agree entirely with Mr Rundus that we are bound together as articulated by Immortale Dei §6, and for this reason turning away from an injustice because, as an individual, one is not affected, is unacceptable. To be clear – the reason I said the death penalty was “one of the most challenging issues that came up” during the Francis pontificate was because it seemed to go against the level of the Ordinary Universal Magisterium, which is potentially a very grave matter directly contradicting the Church’s infallibility. I am of the view that the changes made to the Catholic position on the death penalty are best understood as a commitment to inadmissibility for prudential reasons in a modern context, not a change to the principle that it can (and has been) just in other contexts. The Ordinary Universal Magisterium thus operates at the level of principle; the inadmissibility clause at the level of prudential judgement. We needn’t argue about that here, but I do need to make my position clear first, as it has been misunderstood by some viewers of the interview.

Now, I mentioned conscience having in mind the the Oath of Fidelity and Profession of Faith which I have taken myself as an academic in an ecclesiastical faculty. During Francis’ pontificate, I was led to reflect on the permissibility of dissenting from Church teachings. Within that Profession, one commits to having “firm faith” in all infallible teachings, as divinely revealed. Later in the profession, one commits to “adhere with religious submission of will and intellect” to teachings of the authentic (authoritative) Magisterium, although there is always a remote possibility of error insofar as such teachings are not revealed. This commitment of submission (obsequium) I was paraphrasing in the interview in terms of having a “hermeneutic of charity”, because this level has space for varying degrees of agreement at the level of private judgement within an overarching pledge to adhere in submission.

After that, the Profession commits to “follow and foster the common discipline of the entire Church” and what the bishops “declare” or “establish”. Here it is considered permissible not to follow particular instructions if one has a genuine call of conscience that to do so would lead oneself or others into sin. Notice that the issue here is whether one will “follow”, i.e. actually do or not do that which is instructed. My original point was that I cannot claim, as a layman, to have the call of conscience against Fiducia Supplicans, simply because the instructions therein were declared or established by the DDF. I can (and certainly did) disagree, and for me as a theologian conscience is at work when it comes to teaching. But, for the average believer, it need not issue in public dissent against the Church’s Magisterium because that dissent is rendered permissible on this level by conscience.

I was giving the example of the death penalty to show this principle, although admittedly it is a somewhat clumsy example insofar as it touches upon the Ordinary Universal Magisterium as well. That said, the basic principle I had in mind is that changes to the official Church position on the death penalty, or Fiducia Supplicans, were treated by many as if the Pope was happily altering infallible teaching – such that any faithful Catholic is called to enter into open rebellion against the Magisterium in circumstances which I believe, while troubling, do not warrant such a dramatic (and potentially salvifically dangerous) response.

I would not myself, nor expect any Catholic, to apply this principle to avoid exercising civic duty in seeking to end the horror of abortion. This issue remains utterly untouched and without any (real or attempted) prudential discussion, and as such it is unquestionably an unequivocal injustice of the very worst order. That said – not everyone is called to be a pro-life activist to the same degree and in the same way. Some noble and inspiring people are called to give of themselves entirely to working for the restitution of truth and goodness in protecting unborn life. Others are called to exercise their civic duty more subtly, through voting or similar. But everyone without exception is called never to enact or participate in the enacting of this barbaric crime.

2. The Death Penalty and anti-intellectualism

My answer above relates to Mr Mundus’ concerns about anti-intellectualism. Here, the valid concern is raised that burying one’s head in the sand by assuming theological or Faith-related matters don’t concern you is to threaten what I call (elsewhere in the interview) a sacrificium intellectus. This is not the Catholic way due to the standing of natural reason within our Faith, as Mr Mundus implies by contrasting it with Eastern Orthodoxy.

However, I do pull back from the assertion that “every aspect of the faith and the liturgy ought to be pertinent to our salvation”. In the first place, “every aspect of the faith”, without any qualification, threatens a level of unsustainable breadth for the Catholic religion – 2000 years old and spread to the ends of the earth. Surely some healthy delimitation is necessary, and indeed reasonable. The examples given by Mr Mundus are certainly those which should be pertinent for salvation among the inquiring minds of the faithful, i.e. the Filioque etc. Yet I do not think the same is true of pious practices in countries I will never visit, of every local tradition, of a particular bishop’s initiatives in religious education in a country where I have no links. Sometimes it feels like people are actively looking for faults and imprudent judgements, and this hunger for negativity is undoubtedly fed by the engagement mechanisms of digital platforms.

My point was primarily that not everything is pertinent for salvation, but also secondarily that a vast number of immensely holy and inspiring saints seemed not have had this sort of inquiring mind. There are different callings, and holiness radiates though different aptitudes and tendencies. Were the children of Fatima inquiring into the inner workings of the Filioque? Is the lovely old lady in my parish who hasn’t missed a daily Mass in thirty years ensuring she gets full clarity over the internal dynamics of the Petrine Office? Here, I would recall Newman’s celebration of the old neopolitan crone chattering away to a crucifix. I doubt she had read-up on sacramentals, but she is almost certainly a holier Catholic than I.

3. Death Penalty and conciliar calls for lay-literacy

I agree with Mr Mundus’ concerns here, again, and I share his appreciation of the irony aptly pointed out at the Roman Forum he mentions. I would hope those concerns are answered to by the response above. That is, the issue is what we’re called to be literate about. Matters of faith, yes – but every event in the choppy world of Church politics? The theories about what happened in a Papal Conclave? Supposed factions and alliances at every Bishops’ Conference? The point is that Church politics can become just as much of a distraction from the Faith as worldly politics, or the world cup, or who makes the best cigars. We’re called to discern, prayerfully, what commands our attention – and this is the great challenge of our age which we are only just beginning properly to appreciate.

4. On Donum Veritatis

Reading this document is something I’d recommend to someone interested in these issues, notwithstanding the fair point made by Mr Mundus that traditionalists have tended to dissent from more recent teachings enshrined in lesser documents while liberals tend to dissent from less recent teachings enshrined in more heavily weighted documents. I accept that as a fair characterization and general pattern, and it is a helpful clarification. I really am not remotely sympathetic with liberalism at all, for the record, and I hope that came through in the podcast.

However, Donum Veritatis is primarily focused on “the ecclesial vocation of Catholic theologians and their relationship with the Church’s teaching authority”, and articulates how and why such authority is not an optional extra, nor conditional or contractual in the normal sense. Few people seem fully to appreciate this today. I would also describe the document as genuinely prophetic, insofar as it points to the dangers of mass media, in a way that seems to me to raise questions at much Catholic content in the online sphere, even though it was written in 1990. Take, for example, §30, which I quote here in full:

“If, despite a loyal effort on the theologian’s part, the difficulties persist, the theologian has the duty to make known to the Magisterial authorities the problems raised by the teaching in itself, in the arguments proposed to justify it, or even in the manner in which it is presented. He should do this in an evangelical spirit and with a profound desire to resolve the difficulties. His objections could then contribute to real progress and provide a stimulus to the Magisterium to propose the teaching of the Church in greater depth and with a clearer presentation of the arguments.

In cases like these, the theologian should avoid turning to the ‘mass media’, but have recourse to the responsible authority, for it is not by seeking to exert the pressure of public opinion that one contributes to the clarification of doctrinal issues and renders service to the truth.”

It was launching this document that the then Prefect of the then CDF, Joseph Ratzinger, was asked at a press conference if he was trying to foreclose healthy questioning and disagreement. He replied with words which should, I think, call many “Catholic influencers” to an examination of conscience:

“‘The instruction distinguishes between healthy theological tension and true dissent, in which theology is organised according to the principle of majority rule [in 2026: clicks and likes], and the faithful are given alternative norms by a ‘counter-magisterium’. Dissent thus becomes a political factor, passing from the realm of thought to that of a power game. This is where theologians’ use of mass media can be dangerous”.

Finally on this point – I don’t myself see how one can avoid the tragic scenario described by Mr Mundus below, without holding to a hermeneutic of continuity:

“If we say that at one moment the person accusing the Church could be the one that is a non-Catholic under the boot of the Church’s teaching and in the next moment be vindicated as the only true position”.

It seems to me this is the inevitable outcome of both radical progressivism/modernism and radical traditionalism.

5. On the reductio ad validitatum

A truly great phrase has hereby entered my lectionary which I will hitherto attribute gratefully to Mr Mundus. Anyway, I don’t think the following is a fair representation of my position:

“there is no justification for the Society’s actions or even the critiques of the traditionalist because at least your local parish’s mass is valid, even if there are guitars, irreverence or scandals”.

In the first place, I iterated numerous times that I am profoundly sympathetic with certain concerns of the Society, and also said that good people I know have gone that way, and that if I were to witness liturgical scandal and have only the SSPX chapel on offer that Sunday I can’t say conscience wouldn’t lead me there. I also stated that my experience, mostly in London, has generally been good. Many central London parishes offer a reverent Novus Ordo, and I am yet to witness genuine scandal – although there has of course been much which is less than desirable. I entirely appreciate that Mr Mundus’ experience is different – and I think I mentioned that, staying in a town in the USA last summer, I attended the FSSP parish exclusively for precisely this reason.

Here, I agree that validity is not enough, and I am not saying everyone should settle for validity alone, sola validitatem. What I would say is that someone who is already settled within the Novus Ordo, less allergic to (suitably reverent) modern music than I am, and working too hard while raising children to be engaging in all this online discussion, need not be kept awake at night with the entirely unhelpful fear that they are unwittingly offending God. We live in age where aesthetic norms, social norms, married relations, and even our understanding of the cosmos are all profoundly disrupted. I would dearly love to see this change, and if it does, the traditional liturgy will be properly appreciated again. I also think traditional and duly reverent liturgy (vetus and novus) can and will foster this movement toward truth, goodness, and beauty. But in the meantime, there are many souls partly formed by this age who are somewhere on the way, and seeking to serve God, often in ways I find more inspiring than many an online liturgical expert. Telling those people things like “the Novus Ordo is intrinsically evil” is, at best, immensely unhelpful to God’s work.

6. Religious Freedom

On this front, Mr Mundus questions my citing of religious liberty being “insane” as Gregory VII, saying it came from Gregory XVI’s Mirari Vos. To be completely honest, this is highly likely. I read a fair bit. I often forget specific numbers and attributions without my notes. My notes are handwritten pages of A4 kept in archaic lever arch files in my study, and I didn’t have them with me at the Daily Wire studios. Mea culpa if I got this wrong, which seems more likely insofar as I had actually just read Mirari Vos on the flight to the States so probably had it in mind. That said, I couldn’t find the quote there either when I just checked, nor in what I have on Gregory VII - so I’m happy to be corrected either way.

A quick word in my defence, though. Please rest assured I frequently exhibit the same forgetfulness with postconciliar Magisterial documents. It is certainly true of some, that “modern post-conciliar Catholics tend to just forget that the entire 19th century anti-liberal magisterium happened, while scrupulously defending the 20th and 21st century magisterium of the post-conciliar Popes”. In my case, I’m quite forgetful in continuity across the whole tradition. Maybe that’s a strange testament to my Ratzingerian disposition around continuity.

Anyway, I touched only very briefly on the issue of weightings between encyclicals and the documents of an ecumenical council in the interview, mentioning it briefly and then moving on to the substantial issues around integrity of conscience, natural law, and ecclesial freedom over temporal power. At no point would I hold to a simple “top trumps” style argument on magisterial weighting grounds to wish away the difficulties presented by holding to doctrinal continuity. Such grounds are not irrelevant, but neither can they provide complete answers. I was also quoting the Pope Gregory in question to give a very clear example of an apparently outright contradiction – not to suggest that sentiment isn’t echoed and extended in the entire “florilegium of anti-Liberal papal writings”. Interested readers wanting to see many more examples are encouraged to read Tan Book’s most helpful edition of The Popes Against Modern Errors.

Mr Mundus and I are close to agreement on the substance of this issue, I think, if we can put to one side my mention of magisterial weighting. I always point interested readers seeking to reconcile the tension at play to Prof. Thomas Pink’s writings as well, alongside whom I’d mention Russell Hittenger’s excellent work.

Conclusion

I just want to finish this already too long response by commenting on Mr Mundus’ own conclusion. I entirely agree that the problems won’t be solved in the mind. I also entirely agree that it’s okay to be Catholic in the traditionalist sense, and seek to live in such an environment and culture as far as is possible in this age. I sincerely hope such sentiments were respected in what was said in that interview. The only exception to this principle is the possibility of incurring latae sentiae excommunication, which I am bound to comment on as one who holds to and defends Benedict XVI’s hermeneutic of continuity. For this reason, I want the great number of Catholics who, for good reasons, are living their Catholic life out differently yet still entirely faithfully, to be assured of all the riches of our Faith that both Mr Mundus and I value so very highly, by the grace of Almighty God.

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