Will the Good Friday service be a sacrilege? The pope is refuting an ex cathedra dogma, the Bible and Vatican Council II. There will be no Mass but the Eucharist will be distributed.
It’s an irregular situation. Pope Benedict has stated that the Good Friday Prayer for the Conversion of the Jews is not for their conversion in the present times. (Light of the World-Conversations with Peter Seewald, Ignatius p.107) He also approved an article in the L’ Oservatore Romano ( 5 April 2008) with the same message.
So on Good Friday, next month, the pope and his Curia will be saying that Jews do not have to convert into the Church in the present times.
Every Latin Rite priest knows this teaching is false. It is contrary to the Bible (Jn.3:6, Mk.16:16 etc).Its contrary to the infallible dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus. It’s a rejection of Vatican Council II (Ad Gentes 7) which indicates every Jew needs Catholic Faith and the baptism of water for salvation. It’s a rejection of Dominus Iesus 20 and the Letter of the Holy Office to the Archbishop of Boston 1949.
All these Magisterial documents indicate that we must pray for the Jews in the present times since they are all oriented to Hell.
The pope has stated that Jews do not have to convert in the present times under pressure from the Jewish Left. Earlier he also dismantled extra ecclesiam nulla salus when he was Cardinal Ratzinger,
However a new problem has emerged for the pope and his worldly prudent Curia. It’s Vatican Council II.
According to Vatican Council II, Ad Gentes 7 all people need Catholic Faith and the baptism of water for salvation. This includes all Jews in Rome and the rest of the world.
Therefore, all must be converted to Him, made known by the Church's preaching, and all must be incorporated into Him by baptism and into the Church which is His body. For Christ Himself "by stressing in express language the necessity of faith and baptism (cf. Mark 16:16; John 3:5), at the same time confirmed the necessity of the Church, into which men enter by baptism, as by a door.-AG 7Ad Gentes 7 and Lumen Gentium 14 also state that those who know about the Church and its necessity for salvation and yet do not enter are on the way to Hell. There are so many educated Jews in the present times.
Therefore those men cannot be saved, who though aware that God, through Jesus Christ founded the Church as something necessary, still do not wish to enter into it, or to persevere in it."-Lumen Gentium 14, Vatican Council II.
Therefore those men cannot be saved, who though aware that God, through Jesus Christ founded the Church as something necessary, still do not wish to enter into it, or to persevere in it."-Ad Gentes 7
The ex cathedra dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus specifically mentions Jews going to Hell something we take for granted because of Vatican Council II.
1. “There is but one universal Church of the faithful, outside which no one at all is saved.” (Pope Innocent III, Fourth Lateran Council, 1215). Ex cathedra.
2.“We declare, say, define, and pronounce that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff.” (Pope Boniface VIII, the Bull Unam Sanctam, 1302.).Ex cathedra.
3.“The most Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics, can have a share in life eternal; but that they will go into the eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless before death they are joined with Her; and that so important is the unity of this ecclesiastical body that only those remaining within this unity can profit by the sacraments of the Church unto salvation, and they alone can receive an eternal recompense for their fasts, their almsgivings, their other works of Christian piety and the duties of a Christian soldier. No one, let his almsgiving be as great as it may, no one, even if he pour out his blood for the Name of Christ, can be saved, unless he remain within the bosom and the unity of the Catholic Church.” (Pope Eugene IV, the Bull Cantate Domino, 1441.) Ex cathedra – from the website Catholicism.org
The same message is repeated in Venerable Pope John Paul’s Dominus Iesus (2000)
If there is an objection with reference to Lumen Gentium 16 it is a straw man. LG 16 does not say that we know any case of invincible ignorance in the present times.This doctrine must not be set against the universal salvific will of God (cf. 1 Tim 2:4); “it is necessary to keep these two truths together, namely, the real possibility of salvation in Christ for all mankind and the necessity of the Church for this salvation”.-Dominus Iesus 20
Those also can attain to salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience.-Lumen Gentium 16, Vatican Council II.
So Lumen Gentium 16 does not contradict extra ecclesiam nulla salus or Ad Gentes 7, Vatican Council II.If there is an objection with reference to Lumen Gentium 16 it is a straw man. LG 16 does not say that we know any case of invincible ignorance in the present times.
If there is an objection that Fr. Leonard Feeney was excommunicated for affirming extra ecclesiam nulla salus, this is a falsehood. The dogma referred to in the Letter of the Holy Office to the Archbishop of Boston 1949 indicates that all Jews in Boston need to convert into the Church to avoid Hell.
So the Letter of the Holy Office supported Fr. Leonard Feeney on doctrine. The dogma (above) indicates all Jews in Boston need to convert into the Church to avoid Hell. This was exactly what Fr. Leonard Feeney taught.Now, among those things which the Church has always preached and will never cease to preach is contained also that infallible statement by which we are taught that there is no salvation outside the Church.
However, this dogma must be understood in that sense in which the Church herself understands it. For, it was not to private judgments that Our Savior gave for explanation those things that are contained in the deposit of faith, but to the teaching authority of the Church…-Letter of the Holy Office 1949 to the Archbishop of Boston (Emphasis added)
The Holy Father has never challenged this error in public i.e. the claim that Fr. Leonard Feeney was excommunicated for heresy. If he did would he would be considered anti-Semitic?
In Light of the World the pope has also gone out of the way to criticize Bishop Richard Williamson. The SSPX bishop who offers the Tridentine Rite Mass unlike the pope says Jews need to convert in the present times.
Now that the excommunication against Bishop Williamson has been lifted I would feel more comfortable attending his Mass then that of the pope. I anyway have not attended Mass at St. Peters’ for some few years.
I will not be at the Coliseum this Good Friday. Probably I will be in a Church before the Blessed Sacrament. There is where I feel comfortable!
Do I believe that six million Jews were killed in gas chambers in the Holocaust? Yes.Though personally I would not know if the figure was 5.9 million more or less. The revisionists put the figure at less than a million. They could be correct. I would not know.
Do I believe that Jews need to convert into the Catholic Church for salvation according to Vatican Council II? Yes.
Do I affirm this even if it considered anti-Semitic? Yes.
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DOES THE POPE REALLY SAY IN LIGHT OF THE WORLD THAT JEWS DO NOT HAVE TO CONVERT IN THE PRESENT TIMES ?
http://eucharistandmission.blogspot.com/2011/02/does-pope-really-say-in-light-of-world.html
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