HOW TO REPRESS ERRORS
At the outset of the Second Vatican Council, it is evident, as always, that the truth of the Lord will remain forever. We see, in fact, as one age succeeds another, that the opinions of men follow one another and exclude each other. And often errors vanish as quickly as they arise, like fog before the sun. The Church has always opposed these errors. Frequently she has condemned them with the greatest severity. Nowadays however, the Spouse of Christ prefers to make use of the medicine of mercy rather than that of severity. She consider that she meets the needs of the present day by demonstrating the validity of her teaching rather than by condemnations. Not, certainly, that there is a lack of fallacious teaching, opinions, and dangerous concepts to be guarded against an dissipated.But these are soobviously in contrast with the right norm of honesty, and have produced such lethal fruits that by now it would seem that men of themselves are inclined to condemn them, particularly those ways of life which despise God and His law or place excessive confidence in technical progress and a well-being based exclusively on the comforts of life. They are ever more deeply convinced of the paramount dignity of the human person and of his perfection as well as of the duties which that implies. Even more important, experience has taught men that violence inflicted on others, the might of arms, and political domination, are of no help at all in finding a happy solution to the grave problems which afflict them.
That being so, the Catholic Church, raising the torch of religious truth by means of this Ecumenical Council, desires to show herself to be the loving mother of all, benign, patient, full of mercy and goodness toward the brethren who are separated from her. To mankind, oppressed by so many difficulties, the Church says, as Peter said to the poor who begged alms from him: "I have neither gold nor silver, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise and walk" (Acts 3:6). In other words, the Church does not offer to the men of today riches that pass, nor does she promise them merely earthly happiness. But she distributes to them the goods of divine grace which, raising men to the dignity of sons of God, are the most efficacious safeguards and aids toward a more human life. She opens the fountain of her life-giving doctrine which allows men, enlightened by the light of Christ, to understand well what they really are, what their lofty dignity and their purpose are, and, finally, through her children, she spreads everywhere the fullness of Christian charity, than which nothing is more effective in eradicating the seeds of discord, nothing more efficacious in promoting concord, just peace, and the brotherly unity of all.
https://www.ourladyswarriors.org/teach/v2open.htm
40. The opening speech. A new attitude towards error.
The passage in the speech which distinguishes between the unchangeable substance of Catholic teaching and the changeability of its expressions, gives rise to the same uncertainty. The official text reads as follows: Est enim aliud ipsum depositum fidei, seu veritates, quae veneranda doctrina nostra continentur, aliud modus quo eaedem enuntiantur, eodem tamen sensu eadem-que sententia. Huic quippe modo plurimum tribuendum est, et patientia si opus fuerit, in eo elaborandum, scilicet eae inducendae erunt rationes res exponendo, quae cum magisterio, cuius indoles praesertim pastoralis est, magis congruant.13The Italian translation reads: Altra è la sostanza dell’antica dottrina del “depositum fidei” e altra è la formulazione del suo rivestimento, ed è di questo che devesi con pazienza tener gran conto, tutto misurando nella forma e proporzione di un magistero a carattereprevalentemente pastorale.14
The divergence is so great as to admit of only two hypotheses: either the Italian translator was attempting a paraphrase, or the translation is in fact the original text. If the Italian is the original, it must have appeared convoluted and imprecise (what in fact is “the formulation of its clothing”?) so that the Latin translator tried to gather its general sense and, being dominated by traditional ideas, failed to notice how great a novelty the original version contained. What is very noticeable is the omission of the words eodem tamen sensu eademque sententia which are an implicit quotation of a classic text of St. Vincent of Lerins, and which are bound up with the Catholic understanding of the relation between the truth to be believed and the formula in which it is expressed.
In the Latin text John XXIII is simply reaffirming that dogmatic truth admits of a variety of forms of expression, but that the variety concerns the act of communication, and never the truth communicated. The Pope’s thinking, as he specifically asserts, is a continuation of the teaching that “shines forth in the conciliar decrees of Trent and
The attitude to be adopted in regard to error is on the other hand a definite novelty, and is openly announced as being a new departure for the Church. The Church, so the Pope says, is not to set aside or weaken its opposition to error, but “she prefers today to make use of the medicine of mercy, rather than of the arms of severity.”15 She resists error “by showing the validity of her teaching, rather than by issuing condemnations.”
This setting up of the principle of mercy as opposed to severity ignores the fact that in the mind of the Church the condemnation of error is itself a work of mercy, since by pinning down error those laboring under it are corrected and others are preserved from falling into it. Furthermore, mercy and severity cannot exist, properly speaking, in regard to error, because they are moral virtues which have persons as their object, while the intellect recoils from error by the logical act that opposes a false conclusion. Since mercy is sorrow at another’s misfortune accompanied by a desire to help him,16 the methods of mercy can only be applied to the person in error, whom one helps by confuting his error and presenting him with the truth; and can never be applied to his error itself, which is a logical entity that cannot experience misfortune.
Moreover, the Pope reduces by half the amount of help that can be offered, since he restricts the whole duty of the Church regarding the person in error to the mere presentation of the truth: this is alleged to be enough in itself to undo the error, without directly opposing it. The logical work of confutation is to be omitted to make way for a mere didas-calia17 on the truth, trusting that it will be sufficient to destroy error and procure assent.
This papal teaching constitutes an important change in the Catholic Church, and is based on a peculiar view of the intellectual state of modern man. The Pope makes the paradoxical assertion that men today are so profoundly affected by false and harmful ideas in moral matters that “at last it seems men of themselves,” that is without refutations and condemnations, “are disposed to condemn them; in particular those ways of behaving which despise God and His law.” One can indeed maintain that a purely theoretical error will cure itself, since it arises from purely logical causes; but it is difficult to understand the proposition that a practical error about life’s activities will cure itself, since that sort of error arises from judgments in which the non-necessary elements of thought are involved. This optimistic interpretation of events, asserting that at last error is about to recognize and correct itself, is difficult enough to accept in theory; but it is also bluntly refuted by facts.
Events were still maturing at the time the Pope spoke, but in the following decade they came to full fruition. Men did not change their minds regarding their errors, but became entrenched in them instead, and gave them the force of law. The public and universal acceptance of these errors became obvious with the adoption of divorce and abortion. The behavior of Christian peoples was entirely altered thereby and their civil legislation, until recently modeled on canon law, was changed into something completely profane no longer having a shade of the sacred about it. On this point, papal foresight indisputably failed.18
13. “The deposit of faith itself, or the truths which are contained in our venerable doctrine, are one thing; the manner in which they are set forth, though with the same sense and the same meaning, is another. Much attention must be given to this matter, and patience if needed be in elaborating it; that is, in the exposition of the subject, those considerations which are most in accordance with the predominantly pastoral character of the magisterium should be given prominence.”
14. “The substance of the ancient doctrine of the deposit of faith is one thing, the formulation of its clothing is another, and much attention must be patiently given to this fact, everything being measured in accordance with the predominantly pastoral character of the Church’s teaching office.”
15. During the preparation of the Roman synod, which maintained the Church’s traditional teaching methods, the Pope had already accepted the suggestion that some norms should be relaxed, and had said to Mgr Felici (who recounts the event in O.R. of 25 April 1981): “The imposition of rules is not liked these days.” He does not say “is of no use,” but “is not liked.”
16. Summa Theologica, II,II,q.30,a.l.
17. “Direct instruction.”
18. This change entirely escaped the attention of the O.R. of 21 November 1981, in its article Puntifermiper camminare con la storia which, analyzing Italian legislation during the previous thirty years, notices only “the wonderful evolutionary and adaptive capacity” of the legislation itself.
http://www.sspxasia.com/Documents/books/Iota_Unum/chp_01.htm#s9
OK, is it not obvious that this novel praxis, which is contra to Traditional Catholic Philosophy and orthodox ecclesiastical praxis, was a gigantic mistake and so any day now men can reasonably expect that the Catholic Magisterium will admit this execrable prudential error, repudiate and correct it, and begin to set right what has gone so horribly wrong, right?