The "Shame Of Notre Dame" Is At It Again
Don't be a Dick McBrien speaks...

Here's just a taste from California Catholic Daily;

Pay no attention to the Pope
Theologian writing in LA archdiocesan newspaper encourages rejection of recent Vatican teaching on uniqueness of Catholicism

Writing in the Sept. 28 Tidings, the newspaper of the Los Angeles archdiocese, Notre Dame University theologian Richard McBrien says one needn’t follow a recent instruction approved by Pope Benedict XVI.

The instruction, “Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine of the Church,” issued June 29 by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, sought to clarify, among other things, what the Second Vatican Council meant when it said the Church of Christ “subsists in the Catholic Church.” According to the “Responses,” the council meant by “subsistence” the “perduring, historical continuity and the permanence of all the elements instituted by Christ in the Catholic Church, in which the Church of Christ is concretely found on this earth.” The document says “subsists can be attributed to the Catholic Church alone.”

The congregation’s clarification, wrote McBrien in his column, is “convoluted.” Further, even “theologians would… have trouble understanding, much less agreeing, with, the explanation” given in a commentary accompanying the “Responses,” said McBrien. In part, the Vatican commentary says that by using “subsists in” the council “intended to express the singularity and non-'multipliability' of the church of Christ: the church exists as a unique historical reality."

A “clearer explanation” of “subsists in,” said McBrien, is not one that simply repeats what Pope Pius XII said in his two encyclicals, Mystici Corporis (1943) and Humani Generis (1950) -- namely, that the Catholic Church alone is the Church of Christ and that other Christian churches and groups are not members of the Church of Christ. Vatican II, according to McBrien, replaced Pius XII’s “concept of membership” with “the concept of ‘degrees of communion’” -- namely, that “it is possible… to be an integral member of the Body of Christ without being in full communion with the Catholic Church.” According to McBrien, most theologians since the council, and most of the council fathers themselves, have thought “the boundaries of the Church encompass non-Catholic Christians as well as Catholics.” (martin luther said the same thing)

So, since, according to McBrien, “it is a good rule of thumb that an explanation that makes something more obscure and confusing should not be followed” and, “conversely, the clearer explanation is to be preferred,” we are to prefer the explanation of “subsists in” favored by him and many other theologians -- “that the council broadened the boundaries of Christ's Church to include Protestants, Anglicans, Orthodox and separated non-Orthodox Christians.” (notice how he seperates Anglicans from the generic Protestants? I hate to tell the learned father this, but Anglicans ARE Protestants. Or could it be that Father Dick considers Anglicanism somehow NOT Protestant? Also, The Holy Father made it clear that the Orthodox are "Sister Churches". Kinda blows Dickie's argument outta the water, huh?)

And, since the recent “Responses” follows the drift of the earlier instruction of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Dominus Iesus (approved by Pope John Paul II), this latter document, too, perhaps, “should not be followed.” (Just shaking my head in disgust)

McBrien said he preferred the “simpler” and “more accurate” view of his old professor of ecclesiology, Jesuit Father Francis A. Sullivan, who in 1985 wrote, “Vatican II teaches that the universal church of Christ exists ‘in and out’ of the particular churches,” and “that the universal church of Christ is wider and more inclusive than the Roman Catholic Church.” (I defy anyone to show me anywhere in the ACTUAL writings of Vatican II where is says this)

And I have to ask yet again... Archbishop Lefevbre was "excommunicated" for what, again?