[Rorate] In a long interview published on December 30th in the German weekly Die Zeit, Cardinal Ludwig Müller, Prefect for the Congregation of the Faith, raised a question of crucial relevance today. When the interviewer asked the Prefect what he thought of those Catholics who attack the Pope defining him “a heretic”, he replied: “Not only because of my office, but from personal conviction, I must disagree. A heretic in the theological definition, is a Catholic who denies obstinately a revealed truth proposed by the Church that they are obliged to believe. It’s another thing when those who are officially charged to teach the faith express themselves in a somewhat inappropriate, misleading or vague way. The teachings of the Pope and bishops are not above the Word of God, but serve it. (…) Moreover, papal pronouncements have a different binding nature – ranging from a definitive decision pronounced ex-cathedra to a homily which is used rather for spiritual analysis.”
Today there is a tendency to fall into a simplistic dichotomy between heresy and orthodoxy. Cardinal Muller’s words remind us that between black (open heresy) and white (complete orthodoxy) there is a grey area which theologians have explored with precision. [Emphasis ours]
There are doctrinal propositions, even if they are not explicitly heretical, that are condemned by the Church with theological qualifications proportional to their gravity and in their contrast to Catholic doctrine. Opposition to the truth in fact, presents diverse levels, according to whether it is direct or indirect, immediate or remote, open or hidden, and so on. The “theological censures” (not to be confused with ecclesiastical censures or punishments) express, as Father Sisto Cartechini explains in his classical study, the negative judgment of the Church on an expression, an opinion or an entire theological doctrine (Dall’opinione al domma. Valore delle note teologiche (From Opinion to Dogma. The Value of Theological Notes) “La Civiltà Cattolica” Edition, Rome, 1953). This judgment can be private, if given by one or more theologians independently, or public and official, if promulgated by the ecclesiastical authority.
AMDG
