Monday, October 21, 2019

Did Stephen Keenan Completely Reject Papal Infallibility in his 1848 Catechism?


When researching the Catholic dogma of papal infallibility, one Catholic source from the mid-19th century sometimes crops up as evidence many Catholics categorically rejected papal infallibility:

Q. Must not Catholics believe the Pope in himself to be infallible?

A. This is a Protestant invention; it is not article of the Catholic faith; no decision of his can oblige, under pain of heresy, unless it be received and enforced by the teaching body, that is, by the Bishops of the Church. (John C. Pontrello, The Sedevacantist Delusion: Why Vatican II’s Clash with Sedevacantism Supports Eastern Orthodoxy [North Charleston, N.C.: CreateSpace, 2015], 253)

The source for the work Pontrello (and others, such as Robert Zins) references is that of:

Stephen Keenan, A Doctrinal Catechism (New York: Edward Dunigan & Brothers, 1848), 305-306.

The work is available online here.

Personally, I don’t think this is a “knock out” punch to Catholic dogmatic teachings. Why? Couple of things.

Firstly, Keenan clearly held to a high view of the pope and viewed him as holding singularly unique powers and authorities, evidenced by the following in the book:

Q. Did Jesus Christ appoint any vicar on earth to govern his Church in quality of visible chief or head?
A. Yes; he appointed for that purpose St. Peter and his successors.

Q. Did St. Peter receive more power than the other Apostles from Christ?
A. Yes; as is evident from many passages of Scripture . . .

Q. What are the words of the text immediately following? Matt. chap. xvi, 19.
A. "And I will give to thee (Peter) the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven; and whatsoever thou shall loose on earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven."

Q. Did not Christ address the same words to all the Apostles?
A. On this occasion, he addressed these words to Peter alone, which makes it quite evidence that he intended to confer on Peter a peculiar power; when he addressed the other Apostles in these words, he did so generally and to all in common . . .

Q. Did Peter act as presiding teacher among the Apostles?
A. yes; he decided in the first Council held at Jerusalem by the Apostles, that the Christians should not be subjected to the Jewish rite of circumcision; St. Paul, though an Apostle, did not venture to decide upon it. "Men, brethren," said Peter. "you know that in former days God made choice among us, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the Gospel;" and when Peter had made an end of speaking, "all the multitude held their peace;" and even James himself who was bishop of Jerusalem, where the Apostles assembled, rose only to repeat St. Peter's decision and to acquiesce in it, (Acts, xv.) . . .

Q. Do all the faithful owe obedience to the bishop of Rome?
A. Yes; all are bound to obey him as the vicar of Jesus Christ, the chief bishop of the whole Christian Church.

Q. It is a grevious sin to refuse submission to the sovereign Pontiff?
A. "Whoever oppose," says St. Paul, "the lawful authorities oppose the order of the Almighty, and those who resist such authorities, bring condemnation on themselves." (pp. 152, 153, 158-59, 161-62)

So clearly he believed in papal authority.

It should be noted that he wrote his volume in 1848, 22 years before Pastor aeternus was issued by Pius IX. So, up to this point, it was an allowable position to call into question certain teachings (anathemas do not work retroactively). Indeed, at this time, there were many Catholics who believed in the infallibility of the pope, the councils, as well as the universal ordinary magisterium, but the debate was which took precedence: the pope or councils? It appears, when read in context, that Keenan held that councils took priority over the popes (note that Keenan says the pope is not infallible “in himself”; perhaps he is speaking of the Ultra-Montantist view that the pope is always speaking authoritatively, a common strand of thought that has always floated in Catholic circles, as erroneous it is; on this, see John O' Malley's study, Vatican I: The Council and the Making of the Ultramontane Church).

Do note the context of Keenan’s comments. It appears in a section entitled, On the Power of a General Council, or Papal Consistory, in Temporal Matters" (pp. 305-7) and addresses the pope’s authority vis-à-vis, not universal laws, but (whether errant or not) personal commands relating to rulers:

Q. Can a General Conference frame new matters, or articles of faith?
A. No; a General Council can only explain what has been already revealed; it belongs to God alone to reveal new articles of faith.

Q. What if a General Council, or Papal Consistory, should undertake to depose a king, or absolve his subjects from their obedience?
A. No Catholic is bound to submit to such a decree. Indeed, every Catholic may renounce, upon oath, any such doctrine and this without the last breach of Catholic principle.

Q. Must not the Catholics believe the Pope in himself to be infallible?
A. This is a Protestant invention; it is no article of the Catholic faith; no decision of his can oblige, under pain of heresy, unless it be received and enforced by the teaching body,--that is, by the Bishops of the Church.

Q. Can the Pope absolve subjects from their allegiance on account of the heresy of schism of their king?
A. No; such dispensation or absolution is null; Catholics are still at liberty to deend their king and country at the hazard of their lives, even against the Pope himself.

Q. Can Catholics lawfully kill their prince or king if he be excommunicated for heresy or schism?
A. Such an act is declared by the Catholic General Council of Constance, damnable and heretical, as well as contrary to the known laws of God and nature.

Q. Can the Pope, or any power in the Church, license men to lie, or forswear themselves,--to injury their neighbors, or destroy their country,--under pretence of promoting the Catholic cause?
A. Such license can have no other effect, than to add sacrilege and blasphemy to the commission of the above crimes.

Q. Are equivocation or mental reservation, allowed by the Catholic Church?
A. No; these are Protestant charges, invented for the purpose of exhibiting Catholics in odious colors. The Catholic Church never taught such unworthy doctrines; on the contrary, she disapproves and condemns them.

During Vatican I, prior to the dogmatising of papal infallibility and the criteria thereof, a form of the document that would later be decreed by Pius IX was read and defended by Bishop Vincent Ferrer Gasser in the official Relatio which one can read online here. It did not contain the clause, which would later be added by Pius IX to the dogmatic constitution, which explicitly teaches the priority of the pope over the councils and the rest of the Church:

Therefore, such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are of themselves, and not by the consent of the Church, irreformable

For a book-length study on papal infallibility and the consensus of the Church, see the work by the Jesuit scholar Richard F. Costigan, The Consensus of the Church and Papal Infallibility: A Study in the Background of Vatican I.

From my reading of Keenan, he, at the time of writing in 1848, did not hold to this position (as did many other Catholics). However, it would be naïve to read his comment in the Catechism as a wholesale rejection of papal infallibility, and without giving the necessary background to the allowable opinions of the time in 1848 when Keenan wrote (prior to the final, scientific definition from 1870), I do believe it to be problematic to use Keenan’s work against Catholicism, especially when he did impute to the bishop of Rome such singularly unique pejoratives as quoted above.