Modernism in the works…
Vatican’s Working Document for Synod
Undermines Inerrancy of Sacred Scripture
By John Vennari
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Contrary
to the Synod's working |
On June 12 the Vatican released
its “Instrumentum laboris” (working document) for the upcoming October Synod of
Bishops.
The document entitled “The Word
of God in the Life and the Mission of the Church” contains a disturbing section
that appears to undermine the inerrancy of Sacred Scripture.
We read in article 15, “In
summary, the following can be said with certainty … — with regards to what might be inspired in the many parts of
Sacred Scripture, inerrancy applies only
to ‘that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of
salvation’ (DV 11).”[1]
(emphasis added)
Why would
this document employ the term “might be inspired” when we know that
all of Scripture is inspired? Why does the document give the impression
that inerrancy applies “only” to those aspects of Scripture that are
written “for the sake of our salvation”? The implication from this working
document is that not all of Scripture is inspired and
inerrant.
This
directly contradicts Pope Saint Pius X’s Syllabus of Errors against the
Modernists where he condemned the proposition, “Divine inspiration does not
extend to all of Sacred Scripture so that it renders its parts, each
and every one free from every error.” (#11, emphasis
added).
A reputable
theologian of my acquaintance noted that if the wording in the latest working
document is approved at the Synod, then the rationalist biblical critics will
continue to get away with murder, but now with the express, not just tacit,
support of today’s Church leaders. He notes, “there will be no obligation to
believe any given affirmation in Scripture as long as you can persuade yourself
(on the basis of your own a priori subjective criteria) that what the
author says there is not really important as regards ‘salvation’. Of course, if it's
erroneous, God is not its author, ergo, God is not the author of the whole
Bible – a proposition which all the Fathers, and all the papal encyclicals,
syllabuses and Councils dealing with this topic have unanimously condemned as
heresy.”
The denial
of Scripture inerrancy is a universal problem in the contemporary Church. Not
long ago, a Cardinal who enjoys a “conservative” reputation stated that
Scripture contains errors in matters of science and history.
This modern
approach to Scripture is far removed from the perennial and infallible teaching
of the Catholic Church.
Vatican I
declared infallibly that both the Old and New Testaments, “whole and
with all their parts
… [have] been written by the
inspiration of the Holy Ghost [and] have God as their
author..”
Despite the clear dogmatic
affirmation of Vatican I, the Synod’s working document refuses to reaffirm
that God is the author of all parts of the
Bible.
Pope Leo XIII taught in his 1893 Encyclical Providentissimus Deus:
“For all the books which the Church receives as sacred and canonical, are written wholly and entirely, with all their parts, at the dictation of the Holy Ghost; and so far is it from being possible that any error can co-exist with inspiration, that inspiration not only is essentially incompatible with error, but excludes and rejects it as absolutely and necessarily as it is impossible that God Himself, the supreme Truth, can utter that which is not true. This is the ancient and unchanging faith of the Church, solemnly defined in the Councils of Florence and of Trent, and finally confirmed and more expressly formulated by the Council of the Vatican. These are the words of the last: ‘The Books of the Old and New Testament, whole and entire, with all their parts, as enumerated in the decree of the same Council (Trent) and in the ancient Latin Vulgate, are to be received as sacred and canonical. And the Church holds them as sacred and canonical, not because, having been composed by human industry, they were afterwards approved by her authority; nor only because they contain revelation without error; but because, having been written under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, they have God for their author.’ Hence, because the Holy Ghost employed men as His instruments, we cannot therefore say that it was these inspired instruments who, perchance, have fallen into error…”
Likewise Pope Pius XII, quoting Leo XIII almost word-for-word, taught in Divini Afflante Spiritu (Sept. 30, 1943):
“It is absolutely forbidden to pretend that the sacred writer himself has fallen into error, since Divine inspiration not only excludes any and all possible error in itself, but even loathes and excludes it, since God, Who is sovereign truth, cannot be the author of any possible error.”
Pius XII continues:
“This doctrine which was so forcefully explained by our predecessor Leo XIII, We also propose with our pontifical authority, and We insist that it be held rigorously by all.”
Pius XII returned to the subject of Biblical inerrancy in his 1950 Encyclical Humani Generis, with the forceful statement:
“Some boldly pervert the meaning of the definition of the Vatican Council, with respect to God as the author of Sacred Scripture and they revive the opinion, many times condemned, according to which the immunity of the Sacred Writings from error extends only to those matters which are handed down regarding God and moral and religious subjects.”(emphasis added).
Clearly, the
new “Instrumentem laboris” is saying the same thing condemned by
Pius XII, only in slightly different wording. How easily the drafters of the
Synod’s working document discard the warning of St. Thomas
Aquinas who wrote, “But, as Augustine says in an Epistle
to Jerome (Ep. 28), if but one untruth be admitted into the Sacred Scripture,
the whole authority of the Scriptures is weakened.” (ST, Q. 55, A.
4).
The Synod document’s undermining of Scriptural inerrancy, if approved, will wreak immeasurable havoc on the
Church and souls.
It will
serve the evolutionists as they persist in their false theory
that Genesis is merely a mythical story that obscures the alleged scientific
fact of evolution of man from lower creatures;
It will
serve those who attempt to deny the truth of Noah’s Flood, even though Our Lord Jesus Christ clearly referred
to the Flood as an historical event;[2]
It will serve those modern
biblical scholars, both “Catholic” and
non-Catholic, who deny the reality of Our Lord’s miracles;
It will
serve the Jewish Anti-Defamation League in its false claim that the details of Our
Lord’s Passion are not true; that Pilate, not the Pharisees, plotted Our Lord’s death; and that the Gospel writers merely blamed the
Jews for Our Lord’s death due to an irrational anti-Semitism. [4]
The number of errors that denial of
Scriptural inerrancy will serve is practically
endless.
The approval
of this working document would also indicate that those who draft and support it
have little regard for the infallible
magisterium, which has clearly spoken on the
inerrancy of Scripture. Those who draft and support the document
would sadly reveal themselves as Modernists who, in the words of Msgr. Joseph
Clifford Fenton, believe in “some sort of change in the objective
meaning of the Church's dogmatic message over the course of the
centuries.” [4]
In closing,
it should be reiterated that the error that Scripture is not inerrant
is already widespread
throughout the Church. The damage this error has done, and continues to
do, is beyond calculation. Correction is long overdue. A Vatican Synod
should publicly and unambiguously correct this error, rather than ignore,
perpetuate or solidify it in any way.
Let us urge
our bishops, and those in the highest places of the Church, to reject the
modernist wording employed in the “Instrumentem laboris”. No new document on Scripture
will be of any use – nor will it be
binding on Catholics – if it in any way rejects the Catholic doctrine on the inerrancy of
Scripture that is found in Vatican I, and in the magisterial teaching of
Pope Leo XIII, Pope Saint Pius
X and Pope Pius XII.
from the
July 2008 edition of
Catholic Family News
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