The CDF letter, "Placuit Deo" contains several grave errrors and heresies: In this Thread these will be explained. The document is at press.vatican.va/content/salast…
The first grave error, which is implicitly heretical, is the phrase "Christian Salvation", which implies there is salvation apart from Christ and makes the only Salvation, which is Christ, merely a species of salvation in general.
Second, the English translation follows the usage of godless Atheists in denying the honorific capitalization to the Divine Nature, the Mediator etc., which Catholics are accustomed to render in the English tongue.
Third, the letter falls into the error of Gnosticism/Heraclitus' metaphysics when it says, "The teaching on salvation in Christ must always be deepened." As if there is something insufficient or ineffective in the plain preaching of the Gospel contained in Scripture and Tradition
Fourth, the Letter falls into gender confusion when it says, "Holding fast to the gaze of the Lord Jesus, the Church turns toward all persons with a maternal love" Because the Church is feminine and Christ is masculine and that colors their vision.
Fifth, the Letter establishes a new deposit of the faith ("the greater tradition of the faith and with particular reference to the teachings of Pope Francis") which is both objectively and ontologically different from that of Scripture and Sacred Tradition
These 5 points show that the Letter is formally Gnostic, while claiming to denounce "Gnosticism". This is a very deceptive and dangerous document. We warn all the Faithful to reject it!
Sixth, the Letter advances the errors of Personalism, which infect the Pontifical Institutes at Rome, and which redefines salvation as salvation of the human person, rather than of the soul, and the body only in virtue of the Resurrection in the world to come.
Seventh, the Letter in II, 2, presents an ontological soteriology divorced from all moral causes and effects, as if sin and repentance from it are not essential or key themes in true soteriology. This is pure Gnosticism of the classical kind.
Eight, despite its attempts to avoid neo-Pelagianism, the letter in II, 4, falls into classical Pelagianism when it writes, "so that we are able to unite ourselves to the Father as sons in the Son, and become one body in the “firstborn among many brothers” (Rom 8:29)."
Ninth, the Letter reiterates a key error of Personalism when it writes in III, 5 "Man perceives himself, directly or indirectly, as a mystery", this confounds the Mysteries of revelation and true religion, with existentialist conceptions of individuality and existence.
Tenth, the Letter falls into the errors of Americanism by claiming that all men seek happiness and are in pursuit of it. Catholic teaching is that all men, wounded by original sin, no longer seek blessedness but idolatrous images of it, unless they are saved by grace of Christ.
Eleventh, the Letter incompetently attempts to expound a Christian anthropology without confessing that there is a Creator of man, that man's principal part is his soul, and that salvation consists both in an ontological and a moral conversion!
Twelfth, the Letter in III, 7 falls into the implicitly heretical position of saying that evil comes from man's heart, when the Catholic Faith holds from the beginning that evil is from the pride of Lucifer who seduced Angels and who can have power over material things.
Thirteenth, in III, n. 8 the Letter has a non sequitur, "Therefore, Divine salvation takes on the creaturely order shared by all humanity and accompanies their concrete journey in history." whereby it introduces a soteriology for irrational things to support Ecologic marxism.
Fourteen, in III n. 8, it repeats the sloppy notion of B16 that Being a Christian is an encounter, when in fact Trent teaches that it begins with justification and sanctification which is the result of Divine Action, not merely an encounter.
Fifteenth, in IV, n.9 we find 1 Catholic paragraph, which contains a correct explanation, but is ideologically isolated from the rest of the Letter, whose errors it does not sufficiently refute.
Sixteenth, in V, n. 12, the Letter fails to correctly identify the Catholic Church and scrupulously omits the word "Catholic" and thus gives support to the error that there is good hope for salvation outside the Catholic Church.
Seventeeth, in V. 12, the Letter reiterates Bergoglian pantheism when it states: "In her we touch the flesh of Jesus, especially in our poorest and most suffering brothers and sisters." Confounding sarx with somata to promote the elevation of eros to the level of caritas.
Eighteenth, in V. 14, the Letter falls into the error of asserting human relationships as necessary for salvation, even though many a Saintly hermit spoke and communed with no one for decades and the rest of their lives!
Nineteenth, in VI, 15, the Letter repeats the nonsensical and absurd doctrine of Salvation by Dialogue, and omits direct reference to preaching the Gospel necessity of accepting Christ or being damned, as Christ Himself said, not dialogued: Repent and Believe!
Finally, if a student in a theology course at a Pontifical University had written this document, VC would give them a 3 out of 10 for its poor attempt to reiterate Catholic Doctrine on the key errors of our day.
Please share this critique because so many "scholars" have been fooled by this document, very cleverly written to introduce heresy into the mind of unsuspecting and unaltert Catholics.
