Jesuit Philosopher Scores Richard McBrien's
Distortions of Vatican II

Previous Serviam articles by various writers have focused on Richard McBrien's "Catholicism" [tome], revealing the duplicitous (and heretical) nature of various "teachings" found therein. Unfortunately, this revised 3rd edition of McBrien's book continues to make dupes, as can be seen in Catholic publications recommending it for "the educated inquirers, for adult study groups, or as a college or Seminary text." Moreover, glowing endorsements for Catholicism can be read from ex-priest Eugene Kennedy, radical feminist Sr. Ann Carr who signed a 1984 pro-abortion "ad" in the New York Times, ex-priest Thomas H. Groome, radical feminist Sr. Elizabeth A. Johnson who thinks "God is She", ex-priest and Marxist Nicholas Lash, and Gregorian University's Gerald O'Collins, S.J.

However, another professor at Rome's Gregorian University, the brilliant Jesuit philosopher Fr. John M. McDermott, does not think so highly of McBrien's views. In a devastating "Review" of "Modern Catholicism: Vatican II and After" (edited by ex-priest Adrian Hastings, and to which McBrien is one of the major contributors), Fr. McDermott notes:

"On the whole, despite its claim for authority, the volume proves very tendentious in its anti-authoritarian animus, especially against the Vatican and, in particular, John Paul II. Repeatedly the Vatican is attacked for its reactionary narrowness in opposing artificial birth control, homosexual activity, the ordination of women and married men, the admission of the divorced and remarried as well as Protestants to the sacraments, the appointment to teaching positions of those who abandoned an original sacerdotal commitment, liberation theology, freedom of liturgical renewal, collegiality, ecclesial, cultural, and theological pluralism, ecumenical openness, history, the needs of the modern world, etc. This repeated litany of liberal laments supplies the choral unity of the work. That would be understandable if such a consensus really existed in the Church. But what is distressing is how history and theology are molded to justify the presupposed ideology. Although there are many instances where a different interpretation of events might be given and such a pluralism is legitimate - the ideological a priori of this volume has apparently skewed the very perception of history, of the Council's documents, and of Catholic theology."
(See his entire Review in "Divinitas", January 1994; pp.46-68).

Fr. McDermott proceeds to demolish McBrien's distortions of Vatican II's ecclesiology contained in the Notre Dame professor's contribution to this latest neo-Modernist potboiler.

Explanation Table

Numbers (RED) in the following quotations refer to pages in Hasting's book ; GS refers to Vatican II's Gaudium et Spes ; DS refers to the collection of Church pronouncements known as Denzinger - Schönmetzer.

 

• R. McBrien assures the reader that the human race is 'an essentially saved community from whom a few may, by the exercise of their own free will, be lost' (90);
• and that salvation is made possible 'even apart from any religious faith at all' (91).

Unfortunately, Father McBrien does not inform the reader how he managed to get a peek into 'The Book of Life' so as to contradict Scriptural passages apparently saying the opposite (e.g.; Mt. 7:13f.; Lk 13:23f.).   But he grounded his second affirmation with a reference to GS §16:

"Nor shall divine providence deny the assistance necessary for salvation to those, who, without any fault of theirs, have not yet arrived at an explicit knowledge of God, and who, not without grace, strive to lead a good life."

McBrien's interpretation would have Vatican II explicitly contradict the statement of the Council of Florence, which summarized a long Catholic tradition in holding:

'none existing outside the Catholic Church ... can partake of eternal life ... unless they be joined to it before the end of their life'. (DS 1351)

Though the question of ways of belonging to the Church is much debated, the granting of (actual) grace to all men has long been a common Catholic doctrine rooted in God's universal salvific will (I Tim, 2:4). Actual grace, however, assures no one of salvation. While sanctifying grace involves justification and interior sanctification and is regularly bestowed with baptism, actual grace is only a supernatural help intended to bring men to the Church for faith and baptism (12).

More distressing are the half-truths scattered through the volume. Again we use McBrien as an example:

'The authority of an official teaching of the Church is not determined solely by its source, in this case an ecumenical Council, but also by the way in which the teaching has actually transformed the self-understanding and pastoral practice of the Church as a whole. This is what is meant by "reception" (88).'

As a bald statement, it contradicts Vatican I's definition of papal infallibility which held that:

"the definitions of the Roman Pontiff [speaking ex cathedra] are irreformable of themselves, not however from the consent of the Church" (DS 3074).

Without such authority neither Pope nor Council could decide any question definitively; for the dispute which gave rise to the question involves a lack of consensus in the Church to assure the doctrine's reception. The history of the Council of Nicea shows that its decrees were true even as soon thereafter, under imperial pressure, a majority of bishops refused to accept Nicea as the norm of faith. Yet there is a certain truth in McBrien's statement insofar as Vatican II as a pastoral council did not intend to make any binding definition but relied principally on exhortation, when it was not citing the dogmatic definitions of previous councils.

Another half-truth may be found in McBrien's declaration:

" the Church and the Kingdom of God are inseparable and yet not the same. To identify the Church and the Kingdom of God, as was done so often in the years before Vatican II, is equivalent to ecclesiastical triumphalism... the Church is not yet the Kingdom of God " (90).

Insofar as the Kingdom is still a future reality (cf. Mt. 6:10), one may legitimately distinguish the Church from the Kingdom. But the Kingdom is also a reality made present in Christ's preaching and Person (cf. Mk. 1:15; Lk. 11:20; 17:21), and it was to that present reality that GS §5 made reference:

"Those who hear the word with faith and become part of the little flock of Christ (Lk. 12:32) have received the Kingdom itself."

Since the parables of growth (e.g., Mk. 4:3-9, 26-32) concern the Kingdom; that is the Church living the tension between 'already' and 'not yet'... ... Moreover, McBrien's appeal to Vatican II's Lumen Gentium to distinguish (radically) Church and Kingdom is questionable."

Fr. McDermott observes that the "harsh criticisms" of Pope and Church indulged in by McBrien and his cohorts "hinder the Church from coming together in unity and peace":

"Instead of making progress, they seem to this reviewer only to be going backwards, repeating the errors of Modernism . . . Fortunately, the Church enjoys the guidance of the Spirit of Him who has overcome the world. It is the hope of the present reviewer that his judgment on "Modern Catholicism: Vatican II and After", however severe, may nonetheless stimulate younger theologians to take up the task of reflecting on the meaning of Vatican II for the unity of the Church, the spread of the Gospel, and the good of the world."

We commend Fr. McDermott for an outstanding review of a pernicious book. The study of Hasting's volume, like that of McBrien's "Catholicism", reveals for all to see how far some writers and theologians (lauded, of course by both secular and Catholic media) have strayed from the teachings of Jesus Christ and His Catholic Church.

 

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