In the Constitution “Ad sacram Beaiti Petri Sedam” (October 16, 1656) from Pope Alexander VII, we read the following condemnation of the work Augustinius by Cornelius Jansen:
1098 [DS 2012] (6) We declare and define that these five
propositions have been taken from the book of the aforementioned Cornelius
Jansen, Bishop of Ypres, entitled AUGUSTINUS, and in the sense understood by
that same Cornelius condemned. (The
Sources of Catholic Dogma, ed. Henry
Denzinger and Karl Rahner [trans. Roy J. Deferrari [St. Louis, Miss.: B. Herder
Book Co., 1954], 318)
In a note introducing
this entry in The Sources of Catholic Dogma, we read the following:
When, after the propositions of Jansenism had been condemned by the
Supreme Pontiffs, the Jansenists returned to that sophistry, so as to say that
these were indeed to be condemned, and that the meaning was not Jansen’s,
Alexander VII made these declarations. (Ibid., 318 n. 1)
It appears that the
Pope and the Roman Catholic Church, at least from this document, are authoritative,
not just in Ius (law/right) but also Factum (fact/action) vis-à-vis
doctrines and doctrines contained in a work or historical facts it is commenting
on/condemning.
