39                     TRUE

Catholic associations aiming to procure cultural life, recreation, sports, etc., exclusively for Catholics are praiseworthy, for they concur effectively in preserving the good from the proximate occasions of sin and offer them excellent means of formation and sanctification. The laity formed by these associations will be valuable apostles for spreading Catholic doctrine in the different spheres they frequent in fulfilling the duties of daily life.

FALSE

Catholic associations set up to procure cultural life, recreation, sports, etc., exclusively for Catholics with a view to separating them from pernicious environments are not praiseworthy; it is indeed preferable for Catholics to frequent the most varied spheres in order to exercise the apostolate of infiltration and of conquest.

Explanation: The refuted sentence ignores what is most fundamental to the apostolate: the formation of an elite for the spread of Christ's reign. Such elites can only be formed in circles with very high religious standards, which cannot be had without a selection of the elements frequenting them. Moreover, the refuted phrase fails to distinguish between places a Catholic is obliged to frequent by his duty of state and those to which he exposes himself voluntarily. In the first case, a youth who, in order to avoid dying of hunger, is obliged, for example, to accept a job in a place dangerous for his salvation, can count on the special grace of God and will resist all the more strongly as his formation was more diligent. In the second case, a youth who, without any compelling reason, frequents dangerous places exposes himself voluntarily to the danger and runs the risk of seeing fulfilled in himself the word of the Holy Ghost: "He who loves danger will perish in it" (Eccl. 3:27). It is obvious that the erroneous sentence praises an attitude contrary to Church tradition and to the Holy See's wishes. See the recommendations given by the Holy Father Pius XII to the members of the International Catholic Association for the Protection of Young Women. In an allocution addressed to members of the International Congress of this association meeting at Rome in Sept. 1948, the Pope said:

To procure the moral security of young women, thanks to these meeting centers, boarding houses, schools and restaurants, thanks to employment bureaus providing counseling and assistance in obtaining employment or living facilities in sea ports and airports: these are excellent things and of immediate need.

The Sovereign Pontiff judges that the success of the apostolate demands a separation from worldly places. The prospective converts must be drawn by healthy, pleasant surroundings informed by a deep-seated morality. In such circles, religious formation, the acquisition of homemaking skills, the development of artistic talents and the training of youth for practical life can be easily and successfully reached.

40                    TRUE

Only the ecclesiastical authority can officially condemn false doctrine in the name of the Church. However, every lay person confronted with a condemned doctrine has the right and, frequently, the duty to fight it. If he is confronted with a doctrine not yet expressly condemned but incompatible with the Church's teachings, he may and, frequently, he must, on his own responsibility, point out the incompatibility and oppose, in the measure possible, the propagation of this doctrine.

FALSE

Only the ecclesiastical authority is competent to repress errors regarding the Faith which appear in Catholic circles. The simple faithful only have the right to denounce these errors to the local Ordinary. They are not permitted to attack these errors orally or in writing, except following an initiative taken by the ecclesiastical authority.

Explanation: The refuted sentence goes against the entire tradition of the Church. In fact, the condemnation of the errors of heresiarchs in general, like Luther and Jansenius, and, more recently, the Modernists, was always preceded by polemical arguments exchanged between the innovators and a few distinguished defenders of the Faith, clerics or laymen acting on their own responsibility. Despite this, it is always praiseworthy to inform the ecclesiastical authority, who can only look benignly on a fight undertaken against error by the faithful, in justice and charity.

41                        TRUE

In God there is no distinction between His essence and His holiness. Any notion of union that pretends, whether formally or implicitly, to affirm that union with the divine essence is possible without a simultaneous union with God's holiness is false. It is equally false to establish a separation between ontological union and moral union through obedience to the commandments, because both result from sanctifying grace, infused virtues, and actual graces. As for grace and its action, they are beyond the realm of sensible experience.¹

FALSE

Union with God consists in a vital, experimental contact with Jesus Christ; moral union, that is, the practice of the virtues, is subordinate to attaining this end.

Explanation: The incorrect sentence strongly smacks of modernism because it defines the spiritual life essentially and even exclusively as an ontological and experimental union with God, beyond the faculties of the soul, in a domain which is, so to speak, transpsychological. In the moral order, this leads to laxism. If union with God is not reached by union with God's holiness, all the precepts are accessory and superfluous, since they do not lead to the last end which is God. Two spiritual classes would be said to be formed: one for those who fly towards the region of ontological, experimental union with God, and one for those who, guided by the moralists, trudge along the ground of the precepts.

Union with God chiefly flows from a participation of the divine nature which occurs through sanctifying grace. But it is not independent of the accomplishment of the precepts, without which it can neither subsist nor develop. St. Thomas teaches:

Rectitude of the will is necessary for Happiness both antecedently and concomitantly. Antecedently, because rectitude of the will consists in being duly ordered to the last end. Now the end in comparison to what is ordained to the end is as form compared to matter. Wherefore, just as matter cannot receive a form, unless it be duly ordained thereto. And therefore none can obtain Happiness, without rectitude of the will. Concomitantly, because as stated above, final Happiness consists in the vision of the Divine Essence, Which is the very essence of goodness. So that the will of him who sees the Essence of God, of necessity, loves, whatever he loves, in subordination to God....²

42                       TRUE

The effort of the faithful in the practice of virtue and the observance of the commandments is indispensable for obtaining, keeping, and increasing union with Christ, the fruit of sanctifying grace. To focus on keeping the commandments is legitimate and necessary, provided that this attention not become obsessive.

FALSE

For union of the faithful with Christ, effort in the practice of virtue and the precepts is secondary and almost useless. Giving overmuch importance to the practice of the virtues and focusing on obedience to the commandments is but blameworthy "moralizing" or "virtue-centrism."

43                       TRUE

When a Christian turns towards himself in order to combat a fault or acquire a virtue, he is acting in a way that is excellent for uniting himself with God, so long as he does so with a supernatural motive. There is nothing "anthropocentric" about this, since man turns towards himself in order to better unite himself with God. For, according to Scholasticism, what is first in the intention is last in the execution.

FALSE

"Moralizing" or "virtue-centrism" fixes the Christian's attention upon himself by turning it away from God. Man with his moral problems tends to become the center of the spiritual life. This is hideous "anthropocentrism," diametrically opposed to true Catholic piety, which is "theocentric."

Explanation: Since the rectitude of the will is a necessary means for attaining God, everything the Christian does for his progress in virtue and his moral perfection centers on God Himself and not man in himself. All Christian asceticism is thus, necessarily, theocentric. Moreover, the refuted sentence does not constitute a new error. Among the propositions of Michael de Molinos condemned by Innocent XI,³ the ninth censures this attitude towards one's own defects. Recently, the Holy Father Pius XII devoted more than a page of Mediator Dei⁴ to censuring this false ascetical position of many Catholics who would do away with the effort to vanquish their passions in order to unite themselves with Christ.

44                       TRUE

The schools of spirituality which arose after the Protestant Reformation, like all those that are approved by the Church, although they admit of differences among them due to the liberty with which the Holy Ghost instructs and guides the saints, are, in fact, all theocentric, and they preserve their efficacy for all times. Witness to this are the Holy See's repeated recommendations, even in our day, of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius and, in general, of the schools of spirituality.⁵

FALSE

The spirituality of the Ignatian Exercises, and, in general, the schools of spirituality born under the influence of the Counter-Reformation, like those of St. John of the Cross, St. Alphonsus de Liguori, etc., are imbued with "anthropocentrism," "virtue-centrism," and "moralizing." They were useful in the initial reaction to Protestantism, but in the long run, they have lost their value because they have caused Christian piety to stray from the right path of theocentrism.

Explanation: So essential is it for every spirituality to be centered on God that the least deviation on this point constitutes a very grave error. One cannot understand how the Church, which is infallible in everything that regards the edification of the faithful, could have approved of methods that lead away from God, nor that the faithful could have arrived at heroic virtue by the application of such methods. The refuted sentence implicitly casts doubt on the Church's infallibility.

45                      TRUE

According to Mediator Dei, the intensity of the faithful's participation in liturgical acts depends upon their interior dispositions. Meditation, examination of conscience, and other similar practices have always been recommended by the Church as indispensable means to acquire these dispositions. It would be equally rash to despise private prayer for obtaining the same end. Consequently, participation in liturgical acts, private mental prayer, meditation, and other similar practices are complementary, and the faithful should not choose one or the other of them, but utilize them all.

FALSE

A spirituality which emphasizes meditation and, in general, pious practices by which the individual endeavors to awaken in himself good dispositions and resolutions is but a secondary, even imperfect, means of sanctification. Only liturgical practices, by virtue of their action ex opere operato, ensure the full development of the spiritual life and of union with God.

Explanation: The refuted sentence would be true if, for an adult, a sanctification "ex opere operate" which would dispense him from corresponding interior dispositions were possible. But Mediator Dei links 'objective,' or liturgical, piety to 'subjective,' or private piety by showing that both are legitimate, and that neither one can dispense with the other.⁶

Moreover, especially for Brazil, the Sacred Congregation for Seminaries teaches that:

Renunciation of self, of one's own point of view, of the desire to dominate and to be admired can only be acquired by means of mental prayer, by meditating on the life of Jesus and the words uttered by Him for all generations, and by the practice of virtues controlled by frequent examinations of conscience. Without gaining the victory in this sector of the spiritual combat, it is not possible to obtain the Christian humility necessary for total submission to the will of God.⁷

46                      TRUE

The obligation to cultivate both liturgical and extra-liturgical piety is common to all the faithful without regard to which associations they belong to.

FALSE

A spirituality nourished exclusively by the liturgical practices which constitute official piety is the mark of Catholic Action, the official apostolate of the Church. It is characteristic of other purely private religious associations (Prayer Apostolate, Pious Unions, etc.)  to cultivate an extra-liturgical piety.

Explanation: As mentioned above, in Mediator Dei, the Holy Father stresses that the two forms of piety are complementary to each other and indispensable.