N. B. The author wills and intends to submit everything herein to the judgement of the Magisterium of the Church, which consists in the infallible teaching authority of the Successor of St. Peter, the Bishop of Rome, and in the college of Bishops in communion with him throughout the world.
St. John of the Cross, the preeminent Doctor of the Church in the theology of asceticism, begins his theological commentary on the soul's mystical journey to God by citing the splendor and necessity of the theological virtue of faith at the beginning of one's pilgrimage:
"We can gather from what has been said that to be prepared for this divine union the intellect must be cleansed and emptied of everything relating to sense, divested and liberated of everything clearly apprehensible, inwardly pacified and silenced, and supported by faith alone, which is the only proximate and proportionate means to union with God. For the likeness between faith and God is so close that no other difference exists than that between believing in God and seeing Him. Just as God is infinite, faith proposes Him to us as infinite; as there are Three Persons in the One God, it presents Him to us in this way; and as God is darkness to our intellect, so does faith dazzle and blind us. Only by means of faith, in divine light exceeding all understanding, does God manifest Himself to the soul. The more intense a man's faith, the closer is his union with God."1
In a discussion to clarify and manifest the authentic principle upon which the renewal of the Church in this, or in any age, can be fruitfully accomplished, this principle of faith also rightly deserves to be brought forth to a prominent and preeminent place. That this is so, is clear from the consideration of the nature of the Church. St. Augustine, first among the Doctors of the Western Church, in his exposition on Psalm 24 defines the Church in this manner: "The Church consists of the faithful dispersed throughout the world."2 Since the Church Militant is nothing less than the assembly of the faithful, She exists in a certain sense in virtue of the faith of believers. This "certain sense" can rightly be understood by considering that if the Christian faith were to become entirely extinct in the hearts and minds of men, then the very existence of the Church Militant would be put in question. Likewise, the more greatly does the Christian faith flourish in the hearts and minds and deeds of men, the more rightly can the Church Militant Herself be said to flourish in the world.
That supernatural faith is the foundation of the Church Militant, in a certain sense, can be seen not only from the writings of the Doctors and Fathers of the Church but also from those of the Magisterium and Sacred Scripture. In the Universal Catechism of the Church, no. 14 we read
"Those who belong to Christ through faith and Baptism must confess their baptismal faith before men." And again in Lumen Gentium we read "For by communicating His Spirit, Christ mystically constitutes as His body those brothers of His who are called together from every nation. "In that body the life of Christ is communicated to those who believe and who, through the sacraments, are united in a hidden and real way to Christ in His passion and glorification."3
Hence it is that the life of the Church is intimately associated with the supernatural life of believers, which grows in them through faith. Indeed, just as "Without faith it is impossible to please God,"4 so it is that the Church is constituted by those who have been justified by theological faith.5 Therefore, if the Church is to grow and flourish, it is a necessity that Her members first believe.
And what precisely is the notion of this faith which is the necessity and foundation of the Church? A learned theologian put it this way:
"As far as the content of justifying faith is concerned, the so-called fiducial faith does not suffice. What is demanded is theological or dogmatic faith (confessional faith) which consists in the firm acceptance of the Divine truths of Revelation, on the authority of God Revealing."6
Indeed the quality and nature of this faith can be seen by what is required in oaths imposed by the Roman Pontiff on those entrusted most especially with the formation of the clergy, for example:
"I firmly hold, then, and shall hold to my dying breath the belief of the Fathers in the charism of truth, which certainly is, was, and always will be in the succession of the episcopacy from the Apostles. The purpose of this is, then, not that dogma may be tailored according to what seems better and more suited to the culture of each age; rather, that the absolute and immutable truth preached by the Apostles from the beginning may never be believed to be different, may never be understood in any other way."7
And again, in professions of faith that were required to be made by converts, for example:
"Besides I accept, without hesitation, and profess all that has been handed down defined and declared by the Sacred Canons and by the generals Councils, especially the Sacred Council of Trent and by the Vatican general Council, and in a special manner concerning the primacy and infallibility of the Roman Pontiff. At the same time I condemn and reprove all that the Church has condemned and reproved. This same Catholic Faith, outside of which nobody can be saved, which I now freely profess and to which I truly adhere the same I promise and swear to maintain and profess with the help of God, entire, inviolate and with firm constancy until the last breath of life; and I shall strive, as far as possible, that this same Faith shall be held, taught and publicly professed by all those who depend on me and by those of whom I shall have charge."8
Having seen the interrelation of the Church and the faith of believers and the nature of this faith that is necessary, it is easy to see the importance, emphasized by St. Paul, concerning the propagation of this Catholic Faith:
"For thou confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thy heart that God hath raised Him up from the death, thou shalt be saved. For, with the heart, we believe unto justice; but, with the mouth, confession is made unto salvation. For scripture saith: Whosoever believeth in him, shall not be confounded. For there is no distinction of the Jew and the Greek: for the same is Lord over all, rich unto all that call upon Him. For whosoever shall call upon the Lord, shall be saved. How then shall they call on Him, in whom they have not believed? Or how shall they believe Him, of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear, without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they be sent, as it is written: How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, of them that bring glad tidings of good things! But all do not obey the Gospel. For Isaias saith: Lord, who hath believed our report? Faith then cometh by hearing; and hearing by the word of Christ."9
In this there is a fundamental relationship between salvation, the Catholic priesthood, evangelization and faith. The salvation of men is the goal. The priesthood is the instrument; evangelization is the means, and faith is the fruit leading to eternal life. Hence it should not surprise anyone, that the very same seminarian who commented on the passage above taken from St. John of the Cross, on faith, is the same Pope who is calling for a renewed effort of evangelization. Unless the Gospel be preached, men will not believe, and the Church will only grow ill.
But there are forces in the world today which are opposed to the proclamation of this Catholic Faith. There is the opposition of religious persecution; there is the opposition of the culture of death and secularism. This latter opposition is more dangerous, in so far as it seeks to reshape the culture of Catholics through the world subtlely and pervasively. Not attacking directly or openly it seeks to transform the Church from within into something other than the Immaculate Bride of Christ. Speaking of these enemies of the Faith, Pope Paul VI said:
"But today we must take account of a double phenomenon which interrupts this vision of ours of the religious and spiritual sphere, a phenomenon which under either aspect is serious and widespread. The first is atheism which pretends to free man from the so-called bondage of religion. "The denial of God," says the Council, "is presented as a requirement of scientific progress and of a new type of humanism." (Gaudium et Spes, no.7) ... "We would rather say a word, a single and fleeting one, about the other phenomenon which is to be found in circles claiming to be religious and Christian. It is the phenomenon of man-centered religion directed, that is to say, towards man as its principle object of interest, whereas religion of its very nature must be God-centered, directed towards God as its beginning and its principle end, and so towards man as considered, sought after, loved in view of his origin from God and of the relationships and duties which spring from this. There is talk of vertical religion and horizontal religion, and it is this latter, philanthropic and social, which tends to prevail today for those who lack the sovereign vision of the ontological order, that is to say of the real and objective order of religion."10
It is on account of these two errors, that Pope Paul VI alludes, in the same place, to the dangers of misunderstanding and misapplying the Conciliar reforms:
"Nor must it be forgotten that preference given to the sociological interests over the theological properly so-called can bring about another dangerous incongruity, that namely of adapting the teaching of the Church to human standards in the place of the less tangible ones of revelation and of the official teaching authority of the Church. That pastoral zeal should give preference in the practice to consideration of human needs, often so grave and so pressing, can be allowed and encouraged, always providing that such consideration does not involve a devaluation and lowering of the pre-eminence and authenticity of theological orthodoxy. "The faith, accepted and put into practice, is not an escape from the duties of charity and from the great and compelling needs of the social order; it is rather the inspiration and driving force of these duties."11
And so it is that faith, a right and catholic faith, is necessary for the well being of the Church. It is an overriding concern in the fulfillment of all pastoral duties of the clergy, on which basis a re-evangelization of the world must be founded. Pope Paul VI expressed this at the close of General Synod of Bishops in 1977, in an exhortation which he left the Church as his legacy:
"In the first place, we rejoice over the emphasis place on the Bishops' responsibility to be vigilant and to see to it that full fidelity to the Word of God, as it has been manifested to us by divine Revelation and transmitted in the course of the centuries by the Magisterium of the Church, be always preserved in catechesis. Certainly, this same duty of vigilance also concerns other forms of presentation of the Word of God, from that of its announcement in general, or evangelization, to its proclamation in the liturgy or preaching, and to its thorough study in theology. But vigilance over catechesis is certainly one of the aspects of this duty on the part of those who have been constituted Pastors and Teachers by Christ in His Church. We do not intend to repeat now how dear to us is the activity of defending and promoting wholesome doctrine. In fact, as regards this concern of ours, the message we addressed to al the Bishops, at the end of the first five years after the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council, retains all its value (cf. Apostolic Exhortation Quinque iam anni, A.A.S. LXIII, pp. 97-106). Faithfulness to the deposit of Revelation clearly demands also that no essential truth of faith should be passed over in silence. "The people entrusted to our care has the sacred and inalienable right to receive the Word of God, the entire Word of God." (ibid. pp. 99-100)12
FOOTNOTES
1 The Ascent of Mount Carmel, Book II, Chapter 9, no. 1; quote taken from the English translation found in The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, trans. K. Kavanaugh, O.C.D. & Otilio Rodriguez, O.C.D., ICS Publications, Washington, D.C., 1973: p.129. (It is precisely this passage that is the focus of K. Wojtyla's doctoral thesis at the Angelicum in the 1940's.)
2 Sermon II, 10. This passage of St. Augustine is quoted in the Roman Catechism: Exposition on the Creed, Article IX; Augustine's quote taken from The Catechism of the Council of Trent, trans. by John McHugh and Charles Callan, 1923, p. 97.
3 Lumen Gentium, no. 7; the quote is taken from the English translation that appeared in Vatican Council II: Conciliar and Post-Conciliar Documents, by Fr. Austin Flannery, O.P, Liturgical Press, 1975, p. 355. At the end of this quote, there appears in the original text a footnote referencing the Summa Theologiae of St. Thomas Aquinas, III, q. 62, a. 5 ad 1.
5 Cf. Council of Trent: "per fidem iustificari dicimur, quia fides est humanae salutis initium, fundamentum et radix omnis iustificationis" Denzinger 801. Which is translated "..we are said to be justified through faith, because faith is the beginning of human salvation, the foundations and root of all justification."
6 The Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, by Dr. Ludwig Ott, trans. James Canon Bastible, D.D., Mercier Press, Cork, Ireland, 1955, p.253.
7 The Anti-Modernist Oath, by Pope St. Pius X, final section.
8 "The Profession of Faith to be made by converts, (Ordinary Form)", as it appeared in Priest's New Ritual, National Catholic Welfare Conference, 1964, pp. 114-119. Cf. Denzinger 1862-1870 and Acta Sanctae Sedis 10:70 [which publication by a rescript of May 23, 1904, by the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith was declared to be an authentic and official publication of the Acts of the Holy See].
9 Romans 10:9-17. English text from the Douay Rheims-Challoner, John Murphy Co., Baltimore, Maryland, 1899.
10 Allocution: July 10, 1968: "Faith Ever True and Living," English text taken from Creed and Catechetics, by Msgr. Eugene Kevane, Ph. D., Christian Classics, Westminster, Maryland, 1978, p.179; 178-179.
12 Discourse Closing the Synod of Bishops, October 29, 1977; English text taken from Msgr. Kevane, op. cit., pp. 249-250.