Father François Laisney

Part II

Part I Part II Part III

LAST MONTH, we saw the nature of the unity of the Church: it is the unity of the life of Our Lord Jesus Christ, flowing from Him into the members of His Mystical Body. This life is the supernatural life of grace, a real share in the Divine Life. It is the unity of the Mystical Body of Christ.

Who Belongs to the Church?

St. Thomas Aquinas explains who belongs to this unity, and the diverse degrees of belonging. The most perfect degree is that of the saints in heaven, united with Christ forever in heavenly glory. May Our Lord lead us there!

The next degree is that of the pious faithful here below living in the state of grace, united with Christ by Faith, Hope and Charity. They are living members of Christ. May Our Lord keep us always in His love, obedient to His Commandments!

The next degree is that of the faithful who still have the virtue of faith, but have lost charity and sanctifying grace by mortal sin; they are dead members of Christ; they make Our Lord suffer, and are a shame for the Church. May Our Lord give them true repentance and forgive them their sins.

Now since man is not only a soul, but also a body, this interior union with Christ has to be manifested outwardly, and this is done by the exterior profession of faith, reception of the same sacraments, under obedience to the Vicar of Christ, whose office and duty is precisely to be the Guardian of the Faith. "The Holy Ghost was promised to the successors of St. Peter not that might make known new doctrine by His revelation, but rather that by His assistance they might religiously guard and faithfully explain the revelation or deposit of faith that was handed down through the Apostles" (Vol. I, The Church Teaches, "On the Infallibility of the Pope," p.101). Thus the visible belonging is necessary for salvation, at least in voto.¹

It may happen that some persons who have lost the Faith retain this merely exterior link with the Church, still claiming to be Catholic. But their profession of faith is merely with their lips, their heart is far from it; and their obedience to the Vicar of Christ, Guardian of the Faith, is merely with their lips: such persons are hypocrites! There are unfortunately too many of them in our times.

Those who live here below, without the true Faith, nor even this exterior union with Christ, are not united with Christ "in act," but merely "in possibility," that is, they may become members of Christ. Everyone here below can become a member of Christ, since God wants the salvation of all, and Christ shed His Precious Blood for all; we must despair of the salvation of no one: Our Lord's Precious Blood is sufficient for all. However, many refuse to receive Him: "He came in His own, and His own received Him not."

Then there are those who can no longer become members of Christ: the damned in hell! After having refused or neglected the merciful love of Our Lord Jesus Christ here below, they will receive, from His Justice, the punishment due to their stubbornness forever.

Ecumenism Looks for a Humanistic Unity

This beautiful unity of the Church is demanding: it requires our subjection to Our Lord in all things, especially in the highest part of our human nature: the subjection of our intelligence to Christ by Faith. St. Paul even says:"…bringing into captivity every understanding unto the obedience of Christ." O blessed captivity, that opens the doors of heaven to us!

Now modern man wants to be "free," especially in his thoughts. Modern man wants "to believe what he wants," regardless of what Our Lord Jesus has taught.

Until Vatican II the Church was faithful in preaching the fullness of Catholic doctrine, and there were many conversions every year. But some Liberal Catholics dreamed of an adulterous union of the Church and the world, of a recognition by the Church of the revolutionary principles of 1789. Since modern man refuses to bow his intelligence to the Eternal Wisdom, Jesus Christ, these Liberal Catholics looked for other grounds to dialogue with modern man. Thus their concern was no longer the promotion of the true Faith, but the promotion of human rights; they no longer yearned for the everlasting peace of heaven, but peace on earth.

Thus the unity they preached was no longer that of the Catholic Church but a humanistic unity of mankind, based not on the sharing of the life of Christ, but on our mere human nature. These Liberal Catholics colored their preaching with religious words such as "praying together," not paying attention to what false divinity was prayed to! As if in prayer who is praying is more important than to whom the prayer is addressed. This is giving to man more importance than to God.

This unity is very well manifested by a press conference given by Cardinal Etchegaray, a French Cardinal who was Bishop of Marseilles and is now at the Vatican in charge of the Commission for Justice and Peace. He was the person in charge of the preparation of the meeting at Assisi. At the press conference he said, "Don't worry, we will not have common prayer at Assisi, but we will be all together to pray." What is the difference? And that is the idea of unity that they want: to have many people in one room, all together. They fit well together because they don't fight amongst themselves for their own dogmas. There is no unity of thought. One worships a Buddha put on an altar, another one worships Mohammed, another one worships African idols or whatever, and then another one says he worships Jesus Christ. This is not the divine unity of the Church! It is just an external get-together in one room! The only interior agreement they have is their humanistic ideal, for earthly peace, without Jesus Christ as its center. It is the fraternity the Masons look for, humanist fraternity, and it is a fake charity. This fraternity is the unity that ecumenists are looking for. It is the only unity possible at the human level, without God. It is therefore a false unity.

Some want to give a theological justification for this ecumenical attitude. They recall the plan of God for mankind: "to restore all things in Christ," a plan in which all are called to Christ and thus, all are, at least, "oriented towards this supreme unity." This is true, and as St. Augustine says: "Thou hast made us for Thee, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in Thee." Man cannot find rest and peace of heart until he enters this supreme unity of the Mystical Body of Christ. However, in front of the unity in the Divine Plan, the differences among men, and especially the religious differences, are of the utmost importance. They are summed up in this word of Our Lord: "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be condemned." It is thus a difference between heaven and hell! Not to believe is a "human fact," but of the most grievous importance. It is man resisting the Holy Ghost. This cannot be by-passed or disregarded lightly. The only way to really overcome this is by a true conversion of the heart to the true Faith.

To consider these religious differences as of no importance, or as not being the obstacle to unity, is to look for unity other than the unity of the Church. It is to build a humanistic unity based on a common "religious feeling," "seeking in religion spiritual and transcendent values that respond to the greater questions of the human heart, despite the concrete divisions," as if the common "search" for these values was more important than the true answer to these "great questions": this is to give more importance to man seeking God, than to Jesus Christ, true God, who is the only true answer to this search.

How can those who are not members of the Catholic Church be a part of this divine unity? There is only one way: by conversion, by rejecting their heresies, by the abjuration of their heresies and by accepting the true Faith, the Catholic Faith and thus entering into the Mystical Body of Our Lord. St. Paul gives a very simple explanation in his epistle to the Romans: the people of God is like a tree. The root of the tree is Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the branches of the tree at the time of Our Lord were the Jews. Because of their unbelief they were cut off, and the Gentiles were inserted. That is what happened to all the heretics: because they refused to believe this or that dogma of faith they were cut off the tree. They lost their unity with the tree, but the tree did not lose its unity. The tree does not die because one branch is cut off, but it is the branch that dies because it is cut off the tree. This is what happened to all the sects: they lost the divine life because they cut themselves off the Tree, i.e., the Catholic Church. The very word "sect" comes from the Latin, sectum, cut off.

St. Paul says that the pagans, the Gentiles, have been inserted in the tree by the Divine Mercy. They did not deserve it but God, in His Infinite Mercy, inserted them into the tree. And St. Paul continues: "Well: because of unbelief they were broken off. But thou standest by faith: be not high-minded, but fear. For if God hath not spared the natural branches, fear lest perhaps he also spare not thee. See then the goodness and the severity of God: towards them indeed that are fallen, the severity; but towards thee, the goodness of God, if thou abide in goodness, otherwise thou also shalt be cut off. And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be grafted in: for God is able to graft them in again" (Romans XI, 20-23). So it is for all the heretics; they can be grafted back into the tree by rejecting their heresies and accepting the Catholic Faith, the true life of the tree.

Ecumenism Takes Human Means

Ecumenism is looking for this unity by human ways, not by divine ways. What is, my dear brethren, the great means promoted by ecumenism to obtain unity? One word sums it all: dialogue! To dialogue with Protestants, with Muslims, to dialogue with Jews, with pagans, with Buddhists—with everyone! That is not the means that Our Lord Jesus Christ adopted. He did not say to His Apostles, "Go, dialogue with all nations." He said, "Go, preach to all nations!"

There is a great difference between preaching and dialoguing. What is the difference? Well, when Our Lord preached, and after Him the Apostles and all the Church, He had the Truth, and He taught the Truth, He communicated the Truth, He communicated the Divine Truth to those who listened to Him. Some of those who listened accepted it and were converted and they became Catholics. Some refused it and were not converted: their very refusal of Truth condemns them. From Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Church and the missionaries have done this: they were sent to preach, not to dialogue. They went to preach because they had the truth—not of themselves—for they received it from Our Lord Jesus Christ. "He that heareth you, heareth Me." The Church has this Deposit of Faith, this treasure of the Divine Truth. The Church is thankful to Our Lord Jesus Christ who has given her this deposit of the Divine Truth and wants to communicate this treasure by preaching, not by dialoguing.

Dialogue is an "exchange of ideas, in a common search for truth." That is not the Catholic way. Jesus Christ came into the world to give us His Truth. He has nothing to receive nor to learn from us, but we have everything to receive from Him. He is the Divine Truth, "illuminating all men," but "the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not receive Him." He gave His Truth to the Church, who is thus not "exchanging ideas" with false religions, but has to communicate to them the Truth. The members of the Church have to learn this truth from the Church, from the Doctors of the Church, from the Saints of the Church, but not from heretics!

Dialogue is a human way to convince another man: Socrates was an expert in this art. But merely human ways do not lead to conversion. It is by the predication and as St. Paul says: "By the predication of the folly of the Cross" that conversions are worked out, not by dialoguing. Dialoguing is the human way towards a humanist unity. It is not the divine way of preaching to bring souls into the divine unity of the Church.

1. Baptism of desire is precisely this: to have received sanctifying grace, with Faith, Hope and Chanty by a special mercy of the Holy Ghost; and since chanty necessarily includes the will to do all that God commands, this includes the sincere will to receive the Sacrament of Baptism as soon as possible. Anyone dying with such dispositions and who did not yet receive it without any negligence on his part would still be saved; this is as a "miracle of grace," since it is without the normal means of sanctification. Thus no one can rest on such a possibility to be saved.