The following began as a private e-mail
correspondence between the authors of True or False Pope? and John Lane. Since Mr. Lane decided to add a number of
SSPX priests to the exchange (thereby making is semi-public), and because the
exchange addresses some of the false accusations that are being spread about
the book, we have chosen to publish it here.
There is more to this exchange, but we are limiting ourselves to
publishing the following for now. As
the reader will see, at the end two of the priests on the e-mail exchange
weighed in and took Mr. Lane to task for his false accusations.
John
Lane: I am amazed that you
would even consider publishing a new edition without ensuring that the errors
the first one contains have been eliminated!
_____________
Robert Siscoe:
Point them out.
_____________
John Lane: Which ones, Robert, the errors in
history and theology, or the misrepresentation of my own position?
_____________
Robert Siscoe:
Begin with what you think are theological errors.
____________
John Lane: I'll happily, indeed joyfully, engage
with you on theology (moral and dogmatic) on the following conditions.
1. Two SSPX priests
who are competent in ecclesiology agree to adjudicate
2. You commit to
correcting your book prior to the second edition in any points that the two
priests decide
I suggest that Fr. Gleize
would be an excellent choice for one of the censors, but as far as I am
concerned Bishop Fellay and/or the seminary rectors are free to appoint anybody
they like. We can progress as quickly or as tardily as you like.
_____________
John
Salza:
John, you didn't answer Robert's very
simple challenge, but passed the buck to SSPX priests (which would include
some of their theologians who already reviewed and approved our
book). Robert asked you to point out the theological errors, in your
opinion, that exist in our book. So please do so. This should be quite
easy for you given your many years of study and your familiarity with
our book. Please cite the erroneous
theological proposition (in our book) and then the correct
theological position (taught by the Church or theological consensus).
Cite verbatim paragraphs and page numbers from our book and from the
Church/theologians. You can start with the top five theological errors.
Then we will take you seriously and go from there.
____________
John
Lane: One example of a doctrinal point which you absolutely trash is the
fact that the magisterium is protected from dangerous error by a special
doctrinal providence, in the phrase of Cardinal Franzelin (and Billot follows
him), which means that the pope cannot teach heresy, even
"non-infallibly". This is why the theologians (i.e. the Roman
ones, not the Gallicans) only ever consider the hypothetical possibility of a
pope disappearing into heresy as
a private person. So, there
are three classes of open expression of doctrine, not two:
1. Universally binding doctrinal profession by pope or general
council, which is infallible per se. 2. Private doctrinal
expressions such as the pope giving a sermon, which means he is not addressing
the Church as such and he is not acting publicly as pope. He may, conceivably, if you take the view
that popes can fall into heresy, express a dangerous idea in such a manner.
3. Everything official (i.e. magisterial) in between, which is not
infallible yet also cannot, in Franzelin's express opinion, be dangerous. So, popes acting as popes can err in fact,
or in some unimportant doctrinal aspect, but they could only express heresy,
for example, as a private
person.
This is the doctrine
favoured and approved by Rome, and the alternative idea cannot be found in
theology books except for pre-1870 Gallican sources.
You might conceivably be
justified [in allegedly rejecting this], if you were a well-educated cleric, in
departing from this doctrine with diffidence, caution, and very, very, good
arguments. What is totally unjustifiable, indeed it constitutes crass
irresponsibility at the very minimum, is to build up a different doctrine based on your own (very shallow, very narrow,
and very badly sourced - e.g. Dollinger) reading of history, as you do in your
book. … it is no surprise to see you recycling long-exploded Gallican,
Protestant, and Old Catholic lies against the papacy, and then praising Dollinger as a Church theologian and historian.
… That will do as an opener. (…)
____________
Robert
Siscoe: John,
Why am not surprised that you come out of the gate with false accusations and
nothing to back them up? I want you to read this carefully. This is probably going to be my last correspondence with
you. Here is
what you wrote:
Point #1
“Because of this bad method, it
is no surprise to see you … praising Dollinger as a Church theologian
and historian” (John Lane).
You provided not a shred of
evidence to back up your allegation, and that is because none exists. We never praised Dollinger in the book (or
anywhere else). I did a quick search of the book, and here is what we do
say about him:
“Döllinger
never accepted the dogma of papal infallibility and on April 18, 1871, one year
after the close of the First Vatican Council, he
was excommunicated by name for heresy; and although he never officially
joined the schismatic Old Catholic Church, Döllinger’s writings contributed
greatly to its establishment.”
“One
of the main voices opposing the doctrine was that of Johann Joseph Ignaz von Döllinger, a fierce opponent of papal
infallibility.”
“Because
the propagation of heresy is such a serious assault on the Faith of the Church,
Fr. Augustine sets forth four categories to morally distinguish the types of
“propagators of heresy” (can. 2316): “Credentes are such as externally profess the
errors of heretics, e.g., by
asserting that Luther or Döllinger were correct in their views, even
though they may not know the particular errors of these leaders.
In a footnote, we referenced a comment
Dollinger made about the quote from Pope Adrian (the quote you falsely claimed
was “invented” by the author of the 1904 book, and then publicly denigrated Fr. Boulet for citing). The footnote
referred to a statement of Dollinger concerning an historical matter (one that
did not help our position, but that we wanted to mentioned for the sake of
fairness), and we were careful to include a note at the end of the footnote
cautioning the reader that Dollinger denied papal infallibility, and therefore
one should remain cautious with respect to the soundness of his
judgments. Here is the footnote.
“According
to Church historian and theologian Döllinger (writing under the pen name
“Janus”), this comment was made while Pope Adrian was a Professor of Theology
in Louvain prior to his election to the pontificate. Döllinger notes that the
statement was well-known at the time since it was included in his principal
work (see “The Pope and the Council,” by “Janus,” i.e., Johannes Joseph Ignaz
von Döllinger), second edition (Rivingtons; London; Oxford; and Bambridge,
1869), p. 376. We
should note that Döllinger denied the dogma of papal infallibility before and
after it was defined. So while his historical research and facts may be of use,
one should remain cautious with respect to the soundness of his judgment.
So as you can see, your comment that we
“praised Dollinger” is totally false. I had already heard that you were
spreading that lie, but I didn’t bother to look into it or respond. If
John and I bothered responding to a small fraction of the lies and calumny
being spread about us and the book by the members of your sect, we would have
time for nothing else. Fr. Kramer spends his entire day sitting at his
computer and spreading complete lies about
us via social media, large group e-mails and videos (claiming we hold positions
that we directly refute in the book), and you claim we “abuse” him for
responding occasionally? But John and I do get to experience a little of
what Bishop Fellay has to deal with from the Resistance.
Point #2
Regarding heresy and errors in papal
writings and utterance, you wrote: “there are three classes of open expression of
doctrine, not
two” (John Lane).
We never claim there are only
two. On the contrary, we explicitly say there are three. Here is
what we say in the book:
“Therefore,
when considering whether a Pope can teach errors
to the Church regarding faith and morals, we
must make three distinctions:
1)
A Pope teaching as a private person.
2)
A Pope teaching as Pope on matters of faith or morals, but not
intending to define a doctrine.
3)
A Pope teaching as Pope, defining a doctrine on faith or morals,
to be held by the universal Church
It
is only in the last instance that the charism of infallibility will prevent the
Pope from erring.”
John, at this point you are 0 and
2 with the alleged “errors” in our book. Your entire e-mail was nothing
but false accusations [N.B. many of the false accusations and insults were
removed from this posting, in order to focus on the facts], followed by insults
for doing what you falsely accused us of (just like you did to Fr.
Boulet).
This is why I am not going to bother
debating you. If you think there are errors in the book, quote the book
directly and then provide an authoritative citation showing how we are
mistaken. If you do so, we will
look into it. In the meantime, please don’t bother us any more with your
false accusations and stawman arguments. We
don’t have time for it, and neither does anyone else.
I
pray that God will greatly humble you and cure you of your intellectual pride.
___________
John
Lane: (…) As for the Dollinger praise, your position is that Dollinger
is a Church theologian and historian (he isn't) who has good factual data, and
you are implicitly recommending him on that basis, but yes, you put a fig-leaf
over that praise and recommendation by warning the reader that he later went
into heresy. Robert, he went into heresy because of his bad history
and theology, which you share.
This expresses it all perfectly clearly: "So while his historical research and facts may be of use, one should remain cautious with respect to the soundness of his judgment."
In other words, his data is
good, but don't accept his judgments incautiously. But you DO accept his
judgments. Your theology is his, with the reservation that you think that
if, and only, if, the pope speaks infallibly, his doctrinal instruction cannot be
dangerous to the faithful. (…) Bellarmine refers to the "Adrian
VI" quote and says it is "altogether erroneous and proximate to
heresy." But what is Bellarmine to you? You've got Dollinger and
Viollet.
___________
Robert
Siscoe: John, this is my last
e-mail. If you think there are errors in the book, 1) quote the book directly,
2) state the alleged error, 3) back up your position with an authoritative
citation, and we will gladly look into
it. So far you have skipped 1 and 3 and substituted 2 with a false
accusation.
Regarding Bellarmine's
reference to the Adrian quote, we include that in the second edition. It
comes right after your false accusation that the quote was "invented"
three centuries after Bellarmine addressed it, and your
denigration of Fr. Boulet for citing it.
___________
John
Lane: It
is inconceivable that you could write 700 pages of detailed explanation of
theology, canon law, and history without any errors. It is therefore not
an "accusation" to say that there are errors, and you should not
react by attacking anybody who says that there are. If you could both
cool down, and realize that the world won't end if you are found to be mistaken
about a few things, you'd both enjoy life a lot more. You have a lot of
things right. You’re not infallible. You are less infallible even than the magisterium that you accuse of countless errors in
your book.
Let's be real. You
have a 700 page book which has some PR-driven approbations. You both seem
to be under the impression that your book went through some kind of theological
censoring process, akin to the nihil
obstat and imprimatur of
canon law. You refer to "some of their theologians who
already reviewed and approved our book." It is one thing to
read a book through and give it praise, it is another thing entirely to take responsibility for its accuracy: accuracy in fact
(especially about other persons), or in history, or in law, or in theology.
So, my question is, if you
do really think some competent men properly
reviewed your book, at least for canon law, theology, and Church history, so as
to ensure that it was squeaky clean, and then approved it for publication, then
you should be able to name them. (…) I
know a lot of SSPX priests and I have spoken with every one of those whom I
know, who have been involved in some way or other in your book, and so far I
have found not one who admits to having read it through before
publication, let alone one who will specifically take responsibility for the
content. One said he was consulted on two chapters, another on four
chapters, and another on one or two chapters, etc.
So, who are the priests who
will say, "Yes, I read it carefully before publication, and I assert that
this book is accurate in canon law, theology, and Church history"?
___________
John
Salza: John,
this is pathetic. You claim that there are errors in our book, and then put the
burden on us to prove otherwise! Another example of your fallacious practice of
shifting the burden of proof, which we expose in our book.
We will say this one last
time: If you claim we have made an error in the book, cite the error from the
book verbatim (using our exact words), and then cite the correct proposition as
taught by the Church. Otherwise, please leave us alone.
Also, while it is true that
some SSPX priests reviewed certain chapters of our book (based on their
theological area of expertise), Fr. X-1 reviewed the entire book (contrary to
your false claim that no SSPX priest did so). Why don’t you inform Fr. X-1, who
is copied on this email, of the errors he made?
___________
John Lane: (…) I’ll send you a document soon
enough which will list your errors.
That’s what I closed my email with.
Have another read of it, please.
In the mean time, you are to
name the priests who read your book before publication, declared it free of
errors, and will take responsibility for the content. Simple enough. Who are they?
Is Fr. X-1 testifying to this? He
read the entire book, and gave it his nihil obstat? Or, perhaps, he read the entire book, noticed
its numerous objectionable features, and forgave them because the book is in
service of a good cause? (And I agree
that it’s a good cause. Dogmatic
sedevacantism is a scourge. Nearly as
much as dogmatic sedeplenism.)
_______
Father
X-1: Dear Sirs,
I hereby confirm that I read
the whole book (not the ultimate version, but the “penultimate”, as it was in a
pdf before a few corrections were later made), and that I did not find any striking
errors, but rather a very good treatment
of the subject. Now, though this is not technically a nihil obstat, because there was
no appointment by my superiors to do so, yet I had been asked by Bishop Fellay
to review the book in order to advise him about it. I also confirm that several corrections which I had proposed (and
most likely the same happened for corrections proposed by other priests) have been included in the final version of
the book.
I do agree that the burden
of proof is on those who attack the book, not vice versa. So I suggest that
this exchange of email waits for the fulfilment of John Lane’s promise: “I’ll
send you a document soon enough which will list your errors. ”
I do agree that the
accusation against the book as if it were “praising Dollinger as a Church
theologian and historian” is a wrong accusation: to refer to Döllinger as a “Church historian
and historian” is simply letting the reader know of what charged he had been
given by his bishop: even Wikipedia mentions that “On April 5, 1822 he was
ordained a Roman Catholic priest for the Diocese of Bamberg,… and in 1823 he
became professor of
ecclesiastical history and
canon law in the lyceum at Aschaffenburg. He then took his doctoral degree, and
in 1826 became professor of
theology at the University of Munich”.
There is a great difference
in referring to someone as a “Church theologian and
historian” and praising him
as such; the first is a mere FACT, the second includes a judgement on how good
theologian or historian he was. The very
fact that the next sentence of the book cautions against Döllinger shows there
was no “praise” for him.
So please let the promised “document… which will list the errors”
be FREE from such false and empty accusation. It is useless to make such
accusation; it only shows the bad will of the accuser.
_______________
The following is John Lane’s reply with Fr. X-1’s
comments interspersed:
John
Lane: I cannot agree with you
that TOFP’s mention of Dollinger does not constitute praise. It is a
recommendation of his work in terms of his factual accuracy. If one is
asserting that a man’s work is reliable, as Siscoe and Salza are clearly doing,
this is a form of praise – indeed, one of the highest forms of praise for a
writer. This is not a “false accusation” by me, and I do not understand
why any such point is set in such polemical terms. If we disagree on
this, we disagree. It’s certainly a legitimate dispute, not some question
of dogma.
Fr.
X-1: Your insistence on
TOFP’s mention of Döllinger to constitute a praise is an absurdity!
Modern scholarship is much more insistent on giving precise reference, and so
modern scholarly works include many references: one would evidently jump to conclusion to assume that all
such reference constitute a general praise of the authors thus quoted! At
most it constitutes a particular agreement
on the point referenced, and is far from endorsing all the works of the quoted
author. Hence your jumping to conclusion that such a quote constitute a
praise is indeed a false accusation, and your insistence in defending such
false accusation does not honour you.
John Lane: I take from your description of
“reading” the book and proposing some corrections, that you eschew any suggestion
that you are taking
responsibility for the
theological precision and accuracy of the content. I understand this, as
you were not given the remit to make sure the work was theologically innocuous,
or indeed even in agreement with the SSPX position, which it clearly is not,
and hence it attracted high praise from men with such severe disagreement with
the SSPX’s position as Tim Staples of Catholic
Answers! TOFP is like the Novus
Ordo Missae – it is
constructed so as not to offend those who disagree with our theology.
Fr. X-1: This again is absurdity. From the
fact that men such as Tim Staples praised the book, while at the same time have
severe disagreement with the SSPX’s position, there is no way that you could
logically conclude that the book is not in agreement with the SSPX position!
Again this is to pass from a particular praise by Tim Staples on a particular
topic, to a general conclusion, as if everyone ever praised by Tim Staples on
any particular topic necessary had to agree with everything held by Tim
Staples.
Now I do
affirm that this book is very faithful to the SSPX position on sedevacantism, and I did say so to Bishop Fellay in the
report I made to him.
John Lane: For example, you did not think it
necessary to point out to Mssrs Siscoe and Salza that their phraseology as
follows is heretical, as it clearly implies that the Church has two
natures: “[The Church’s] divine nature can, at times, be obscured by her
human nature.” This as it stands is an unorthodox formula. I am not
accusing the writers of heresy – they are too nescient – but the text itself is
totally wrong. Objectively, it demands correction.
Fr. X-1: Sorry,
but such remark only show bad will, searching for evil where there is none. Any
reader with common sense would not understand the words “[the Church’s] divine
nature… her human nature” in a manner univocal with our Lord Jesus Christ, but only
in an analogical way, in the sense that “the Church
supernatural dimension [by sanctifying grace, which is a participation in the
divine nature] … and the church human dimension [in her human members]…” And
this is perfectly Catholic.
John Lane: Likewise the assertion, made with all confidence and without
the slightest support from any theological authority, that the “bonds of unity”
of the Church are three (See Siscoe's reply to this objection here).
This is manifestly erroneous in theology and indeed, it shows that the authors
have no idea what they are saying. The Church, as no doubt you know, has two bonds of unity, and these are faith
and charity. St. Thomas, St. Robert Bellarmine, the Vatican Council, and
any number of manualists, confirm this. Siscoe and Salza are entirely
unaware of what the term “bonds of unity” means, and therefore they apply the
term to the external “unities” of the Church. Understandable for
uneducated laymen, unacceptable if the work is to be recommended as
theologically accurate.
Fr. X-1: YOUR theology is not that of St Robert
Bellarmine! He is the one who exposes at length the three bonds of unity of the
Church as profession of the true faith, true worship (starting with Baptism)
and subjection to the Roman Pontiff. He exposes principally these external
bonds, and rightly explains that one cannot say – simpliciter – that “faith and
charity” are the bonds of unity of the Church, because it is a dogma of faith
that there are sinners in the church, i.e. people lacking charity! However,
this does not mean that charity, which is the bond
of perfection as St Paul
says, has no place among the “bonds of unity” of the church, but it must be
carefully stated. Thus, one can very well say that life is the bond of unity of
the body, and as soon as life goes there is decomposition of the body – or to
put it the other way, the decomposition of the body is the surest sign of the
departure of life; yet it is also clear that there are within a living body
some cells which are NOT living, yet attached to the body. So in the church,
the fundamental bond is the one life of grace (participation in the life of
God, Christ living in us) – and this is ONE bond, with three immediate
consequences: faith, hope and charity, to which corresponds the profession of
faith, worship (because hope leads to prayer) and obedience to the hierarchy
established by Christ. To reduce the bonds of unity to two, and only two
interior bonds, seem to me rather dangerous, and a departure from St Robert
Bellarmine.
_______
Fr.
X-2 (Seminary professor): Dear John [Lane],
In
order to defend the good name of our priests and the two authors of a book that
we of the SSPX have approved, endorsed, and published, I would like to point
out a few things. The first thing concerns the basis of the disagreement in
which you find yourself with supporters of the book. It involves a three step
process:
1. You throw out heaps of accusations which, when investigated carefully, prove to be untrue. This makes you appear as a serial calumniator.2. You do not seem to be aware that your accusations are false. You sincerely believe that they hit their mark and expose truth.3. When you are clearly shown that this or that accusation that you have made is false, you persist in believing that it is true.
Your
exchange below with Fr. X-1 is a standard example of this process.
You say that TOFP praises Döllinger. You give, as evidence, the fact that Salza and Siscoe refer to Döllinger as a Church theologian and historian, and believe that evidence to outweigh the further evidence that Salza and Siscoe explicitly speak of Döllinger's condemnation by the Church.
You say that TOFP praises Döllinger. You give, as evidence, the fact that Salza and Siscoe refer to Döllinger as a Church theologian and historian, and believe that evidence to outweigh the further evidence that Salza and Siscoe explicitly speak of Döllinger's condemnation by the Church.
Fr X-1 explains, in very clear language, why your opinion is absurd.
You continue to disagree with him.
This
process has been repeated time and again in your exchanges with Salza and
Siscoe, as well as exchanges with myself. The reason is that you take a different formal understanding, i.e.
meaning, than we do from a given set of the same material words. In this
instance, we have the material words referring to Döllinger as a Church
theologian and historian. Your understanding
from these words (U1) is that they constitute praise of Döllinger. Our
understanding (U2) is that they do not.
As I
mentioned in point 2 above, I believe you sincerely think your U1 is correct.
What you must seek to fathom, however, is that those who seriously investigate any of your accusations almost invariably find your U1 to be
false and some U2 to be correct. The fact that such is the case makes
you appear to be a serial calumniator. This
reputation that you create for yourself in your emails is a much worse damage
inflicted on yourself than anything that appears in TOFP.
I
explained this to you in December and advised you to cease your campaign to defame TOFP. But you did not follow my advice. Fr ___,
your parish priest, advised you the same back in July of last year. But you did
not follow his advice. I would like to repeat that same advice to you here, and
would like you to believe that I give this advice with your best interests in
mind, the same motive I put forward when the advice was first given.
Regardless, because your understanding
of a text is so often at odds with the understanding others have of a text,
I don't believe further discussion of the book with Salza and Siscoe will be
profitable for you or them.
One thing that you must understand is that
the SSPX is happy with the book and has no reason to be unhappy with it. In
your recent emails, you implicitly accuse Bishop Fellay, Fr ___, myself and the
other priest endorsers of the book of negligence by a) saying that the book is
full of errors; b) asking that the book be thoroughly vetted by theological/canonical/church
history censors. On the contrary:
1. Bishop Fellay was not negligent in writing the foreword of the book, for he had one of his most qualified priests, Fr X-1, vet the book. Fr X-1, while submitting some corrections, concluded that the book did not contain any errors and faithfully represents the position of the SSPX. This vetting was quite sufficient prudential grounds for approving the book and writing its foreword.2. Fr X-1 did the most thorough vetting, but there were many other priests involved in reading through the book before its publication. You can see their names on the acknowledgements page of the book. I myself analyzed four of its chapters.3. Salza and Siscoe were following standard procedure for laymen publishing a book on Church doctrine. They submitted the book to priests for analysis. They received their corrections. They implemented their corrections. This is the reason why, to this day, despite endless attacks by sedevacantists, no error of any significance has been found in the book.
In short, there is nothing wrong with TOFP, and the SSPX has no serious grounds of
embarrassment for publishing it. Yet you
pretend that we do not know the contents of the book and have somehow been
tricked into publishing a book the contents of which we are unaware. No, we
approved the book and published the book, because we know the book. And this
includes the passages that address your own writings.
One
last point, and this is a point of agreement with you. You have stated that
"Fr X-1 has his own reputation with the other priests." This is
correct; he has a reputation of being learned, objective, hard-working,
possessed of the spirit of the Archbishop, one who is faithful, dedicated,
obedient. I assume this is the reputation to which you were referring.
