Thread by @frmattfish

Voluntarism and Traditionis Custodes: Most bishops (with notable exceptions), despite the Holy Father’s insistence about “all its part[s]… entering immediately in force”, have communicated that they need some time to figure out how exactly to implement the motu proprio.

Does this reflect a surreptitious agreement? I say “all” and “immediately”, but you understand that “some” and “when you are ready” is what I mean? On the contrary, I suspect most bishops recognize their allegiance is to a higher law than the mere will of the Holy Father.

In no way does this mean that all these bishops have suddenly denied Vatican I’s teaching on papal authority. Rather, like any such legislation, it exists in subordination to a more fundamental principle: decrees have force because they are true, not the converse.

These bishops are applying the Holy Father’s decree according to prior principles of canon law, e.g. strict vs wide application, the role of the bishop as responsible for governance over liturgy in his diocese, etc. They did not read the decree as contradicting those principles.

Why not? A very important point: governance in the Church does not exist for implementing the whims of the pope. Rather, it exists in service to the truth, a truth that has been gradually better understood by the Church over the centuries. A pope cannot sweep away all that.

So while we profess the teaching of papal infallibility, we also believe it operates according to very definite conditions. No pope is above that truth. Indeed we might even say that God himself is not above the truth. Not that he's bound by another, but that he IS truth himself.

Some say that means the divine will is arbitrary. However, though God’s will has no extrinsic cause compelling it, we say the divine will “follows” the divine intellect: God wills what he wills, because it is good, because he knows what is good, because he knows what he is.

The alternative is to say: something is good because God wills it, and God wills it, just because. Note well: “just because” is always a flag confessing a lack of understanding (like when a parent says to their protesting child, “just because!”). But God never *just* does things.

Why? Because of who he is. It must be that God’s action is a perfect reflection of, or better put, one with his being. To concede an arbitrary alternative is to doubt the reality of knowing what is good at all, except that someone said so. That alternative we call “voluntarism”.

But the Catholic (“intellectualist”) position teaches that created being is a participation in God himself: not as a part of him, but reflecting his perfection. God is consistent: his action perfectly reflects and reveals who he is in himself. That's why we say God is true.

There is an analogy in the life of the Church: we believe what we believe because it is true, not because a pope said so. And what popes say are bound by the conditions of conformity to what we know to be true, even if part of what we know, we know because popes have said so.

This is not circular reasoning: it is laying out a proper order. And the decrees of popes are not first in that order. The “formal object” of faith is first (we believe because God is Truth), which grounds our acceptance of his Revelation, what God himself has taught.

So too, though we profess a two-fold expressed handing on of God’s Revelation in Christ, Scripture has a certain priority before Tradition, inasmuch as Tradition follows Scripture, develops it, seeks to express itself in fidelity to it, but does not add to it or supplant it.

And if one finds oneself surprised by a papal decree (like the Dominicans were with the decree about the Immaculate Conception), the next step is not to shrug one’s shoulders before arbitrary authority, it’s to go back, do the homework, and try to understand why, in faith.

So too, this priority of truth before will is why, under very, very specific conditions, a pope himself can be corrected, when he has overstepped or abused his authority, erring (see Ed Feser’s post for some examples: edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2015/11/papal-…).

So too, legislation (like Traditionis Custodes) should not be received with a shrug of the shoulders. It must be received according to the Tradition of the Church, squared with it, and interpreted in accord with we already know to be true, in faith.

It must be received respectfully, because it is the Pope who gave it: but it should not be received blindly. Were it judged (by those with authority to do so) inadequate, this would be because it is inadequate to the truth, not because it doesn’t follow some preferred rival will.

This is not to say that papal decrees are provisional until judged worthy; we always owe them our immediate submission. But never at the cost of truth. Usually that means we ourselves must go back and do the homework, so we can submit and, hopefully, understand, in faith.

In very rare circumstances, as a test from God, to purify her, the Church may need to correct the Holy Father. But this too is subject to the conditions of truth: not just anyone, anyhow, anytime, anywhere, should correct the pope, because of his office and what we owe it.