1. Concept accuracy
In questions that concern errors of faith, gender is infidelity and species are heresy and apostasy, among others. According to Saint Thomas (1), infidelity is constituted by any doctrine that opposes the true faith, either in a negative way or by negation (the one who does not have faith), or in a positive way by opposition to faith (holding a contrary doctrine or not paying attention to the true one). It is a sin of the understanding (2), but since it directs and orders the will, failing the former, the latter is twisted.
In an absolute and rigorous sense, when the Church speaks of apostasy, it refers to the abandonment of the Christian faith (3).
It constitutes a serious sin against the faith, because it rejects the revealed doctrine; against religion, because it denies God true worship; and against justice because it tramples on the promises of the Christian.
Apostasy is a total abandonment of the faith, that is, a positive internal and external infidelity (4). If the abandonment is not total, it would constitute a heresy (5), since this involves a choice that "has as its object the means oriented to an end", as Saint Thomas says (6), understanding by "end" the divine authority of Christ , and by "means" the revealed truths that are submitted to our intelligence by divine authority for acceptance.
Heresy can be partial because, as Saint Thomas affirms, a truth belongs to faith in two ways: one, direct and principal, like the articles of faith; another, indirect and secondary, like the things that lead to the corruption of an article. Heresy can turn on both extremes.
Thus, once things are clear, in this collaboration we will speak in the broad sense of infidelity and apostasy, as if they were synonyms, although it would properly refer to heresies – in most cases to be considered.
2. The teaching of Quas prima The experience of studying and teaching young people the encyclical Quas prima of Pius XI (1925) allowed me to discover the large number of apostasies or heresies into which, many times involuntarily, they fall.
Some who for the first time faced the question, fell into a silence typical of the soul disturbed by a concept and a reality that they could not easily digest. It was easier for them to accuse the professor – and even the Pope – of being retrograde and pre-conciliar than to study the truth.
Others – it happened to me with a young lawyer from Opus Dei interested in the Social Doctrine of the Church – promptly raised their voices arguing that it would be like that in theology, but not in practice, because these days it was inconvenient to speak that way to men: freedom of religion had been imposed and she demanded another type of dialogue and on other premises.
Finally, there was a small group that accepted the concept but reneged on it in practice: having to publicly demonstrate the Kingship of Christ –carrying a flag in a demonstration, for example, by pro-life groups– they considered it inappropriate. This is how the will is also affected.
I am now going to refer to some conscious forms of political apostasy, taking Pius XI's encyclical letter as a guide.
3. First apostasy: a spiritual Kingdom A Catholic critic has been able to affirm that the Kingdom of Our Lord Jesus Christ is neither social nor political, because not being of this world it is simply and only spiritual (7).
In which he agrees with Luther and Calvin and despises the long tradition of the Church. That is the meaning given to the words
of Christ "my Kingdom, not this world" ( Jn 18, 36), as if saying Our Lord that his kingship is exclusively and exclusively supernatural, heavenly, never with natural and earthly, carnal dimensions.
It is the repeated liberal reading of the kingship of Christ. But as Pius XI teaches and as various Catholic theologians, philosophers and apologists have clarified, the principle of the kingship of Christ –which is alluded to in the passage from the Gospel of John– is not worldly because it does not come from the world nor is it founded on the powers earthly, but is of divine origin; for "world" does not designate a place opposed to "heaven" but rather the origin and root of his royal power. Because this is so, it is exerted on everything created, even on the world and on human life in its fullness.
It is a kingdom of and in hearts, it is true, but of the heart that everything is said about man, including the society in which he lives. The correct interpretation is not the intimate Protestant one, but the one preached by Father Leonardo Castellani: «His Kingdom does not arise from here below, but comes down from above; but that does not mean that it is a mere allegory, or an invisible realm of spirits. He says he 's not from here, but he doesn't say he 's not here. He says it's not carnal, but he doesn't say it's not real. He says that it is the kingdom of souls, but he does not mean the kingdom of ghosts, but the kingdom of men »(8).
4. Pius XI refutes the first apostasy
When Pius XI instituted the Feast of Christ the King, he explained that the reign of Our Lord was not only spiritual but also temporal and social. Let's see it.
“Temporal”, because “it would be a serious mistake – says the Pontiff – to deny the Man Christ power over all human and temporal things, since the Father conferred on him an absolute right over created things, in such a way that all are subject to at your discretion." He means: Jesus Christ is king insofar as Christ is Lord of history (9) and also Lord of creation, because in Him and by Him everything was created, as Saint John teaches in the prologue of his Gospel.
But Pius XI adds: and "social", since Christ being "the source of public and private good", being He "who gives prosperity and true happiness, both to individuals and to nations", is Jesus Christ -he added- the firm rock of peace, harmony, stability and happiness of nations (10).
Consequently, as the Church has always maintained, there is a social and political order willed by God (which we normally call the "natural order"), an order that corresponds to us men to put into action and that tends, as a natural end and supernatural, to establish the Reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
In other words, the Catholic social and political order has Christ the King as its foundation and as its apex or crown: because it is based on the temporal kingship of Our Lord (He is the pillar of societies and Catholic political society) and culminates in the notorious recognition and public worship of Christ the King, which is a worship due to God, the end of man. The kingship of Jesus Christ is at the beginning and at the end of human society.
Therefore, apostate who, in the name of democracy, religious freedom, healthy secularism or any other hoax renounces the political-social reign of the Incarnate Word, reducing it to the comfort of private profession. It is true that evangelical assertion that the mouth speaks of what is in the heart ( Mt . 15, 18; Lk . 6, 45): if what is believed and loved in the heart is not confessed with the tongue, it can hardly be said who have such faith and love. In truth, an intimate and private realm is a kind of spiritual selfishness, since nothing is shared except with oneself.
5. Second apostasy: a partial Kingship The apostasy from the spirituality of the Kingdom reaches the point of making the Word of God a King for certain things and not for others, a King at certain times and not at others, because it is the end of institutions but not of all. The argument is usually taken from what Our Lord said: "Render to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's" ( Mt. 22, 21). A liberal understands these words as the proclamation of the separation of the natural from the supernatural, even the separation of the Church from the State, and sees in them the Christian origin of "secularity." This is how the formula of "the autonomy of the temporal" is corruptly interpreted.
Who does not discover in this biased reading the current heresy that leaves Christ the King outside of democratic societies, oblivious to political life, which is the empire of Caesar? Once again the Protestant treachery protects this apostasy.
Because for Luther, Christ is king and priest, yes, but in a purely spiritual sense, since He separated the two kingdoms (the one of the world from his), «because his kingdom is not of the earth nor on the earthly, but is king of spiritual goods such as truth, wisdom, peace, joy, bliss, etc. […] From which it follows that his rule is spiritual and invisible »(11).
6. Refutation of the second apostasy, But again there is a misreading: Christ does not say that human obligations are divorced from the divine, nor that the natural is separated from the supernatural. Implicit in his words is that Caesar has duties to God like every human being: even Caesar owes God. Then, the natural is ordered to the supernatural and the fact that there are temporal powers does not mean that Christ is not King even in the social and political order.
Because the titles of King are held by Our Lord Jesus Christ by reason of his divinity, in such a way that the origin or beginning of his Kingdom and his royalty are not earthly but supernatural, divine in essence. Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre once said that “If Our Lord Jesus Christ is God, he is consequently the owner of all things, elements, individuals, families and society. He is the Creator and the end of all things »(12).
Santo Tomás (13), confirms the reasoning stopping at its scope: because the power of Christ is general, universal, over all creatures ( Mt. 26, 18); however, it is an especially spiritual power over the saints (in the present life by grace and in the future by glory), since the saints are not of this world ( Jn 18, 36). Therefore, the kingdom of Christ begins here below and is consummated in the future life when everything is submitted to him as a footstool for his feet ( Ps . 109, 1).
Grades.
(1) S. th ., II, II, q. 11, a. 2 breaths; I, II, q. 32, a. 4 replies
(2) S. th ., II, II, q. 10, a. two.
(3) SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS, S. th ., II, II, q. 12, a. 1 reply; A. BEUGNET,
"Apostasie," in Alfred VACANT, Eugène MANGENOT, and Émile AMANN (ed.),
Dictionnaire de théologie catholique , Paris, Libriarie Letouzey et Ané, 1926, t. I, part 2, col. 1602-1612.
(4) Albert MICHEL, «Apostasie», in Dictionnaire de théologie catholique , cit., Tables générales , 1951, t. I, col. 209-212.
(5) Albert MICHEL, "Hérésie", in Ibid. , you VI, Part 2, 1947, col.
(6) S. th ., II, II, q. 11, a. 1 reply
(7) For example and recently, Thibaud COLLIN in his review of the work of Bernard DUMONT, Miguel AYUSO and Danilo CASTELLANO (eds.),
Eglise et politique: changer de paradigme , appeared in L'Homme Nouveau , Paris, no. 1609 (2016), pp. 10-11.
(8) Leonardo CASTELLANI, «Christ the King», in Christ, does he return or does he not return? , 2nd ed., Buenos Aires, Dictio, 1976, pp. 164-165.
(9) "The Son of man is also owner of the Sabbath", says He in
Mc. 2, 27.
(10) Quas prima , no. 15, 16, 17 and 18.
(11) Martin LUTHER, The Liberty of the Christian (1520), no. 14, in Works , ed. T. Egido, 4th ed., Salamanca, Ed. Follow me, 2006, pp. 161-162.
(11) Martin LUTHER, The Liberty of the Christian (1520), no. 14, in Works , ed. T. Egido, 4th ed., Salamanca, Ed. Follow me, 2006, pp. 161-162.
(12) http://www.statveritas.com.ar/Cartas/Lefebvre-CristoRey.htm
(13) Saint THOMAS AQUINAS, Expositio super II Epistolam S. Pauli
Apostoli ad Timotheum , French-language bilingual version: Commentaires sur la Seconde Épitre de S. Paul a Timothée , t. V, Paris, Louis Vivès, 1874, c. IV, reading. I, pp. 451-452.
John Ferdinand Segovia
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