On his www.chiesa site, the often worth-reading Sandro Magister has published the work of an Australian-based theologian concerning the Rome-SSPX dialogue. The piece by theologian John R.T. Lamont, “A Theologian’s Questions,” was written for Magister’s site.
I referred to Lamont as a ‘Conciliar’ Theologian. The quotes are purposeful. I do not distinguish between “Conciliar” and “Non-Conciliar” Catholics. All Catholics alive since 1965 belong to the Church of twenty-one ecumenical councils. If they do not consider themselves to belong to a Church of twenty-one ecumenical councils (as, for instance, the sedevacantists do not), then they are in schism, materially, at least. The deliberate irony in my headline refers to the reality that Magister thus summarizes: “The author [Lamont], who received a degree in philosophy from Oxford and in theology in Ottawa with the great Dominican theologian Jean-Marie Tillard, lives in Australia and teaches in Sydney at the Catholic Institute and at the University of Notre Dame, with the canonical mandate of the archdiocese for the teaching of theology.” In other words, Lamont is a theologian stricte dicta, one enjoying the authority of the Church to teach theology.
It is Magister, in his introduction to Lamont’s piece, who says that the theologian is “too understanding” of the position of the SSPX.
Here is one paragraph that will indicate to the reader that Mr. Lamont’s understanding of the situation is not the common one on either side of the debate:
The first question that occurs to a theologian concerning the FSSPX position concerns the issue of the authority of the Second Vatican Council. The article by Bp. Ocáriz discussed by Fr. Gleize, which was published in the December 2nd 2011 issue of “L’Osservatore Romano,” seems to claim that a rejection of the authority of Vatican II is the basis for the rift referred to by the Holy See. But for anyone familiar with both the theological position of the FSSPX and the climate of theological opinion in the Catholic Church, this claim is hard to understand. The points mentioned by Fr. Gleize are only four of the voluminous teachings of Vatican II. The FSSPX does not reject Vatican II in its entirety: on the contrary, Bishop Fellay has stated that the society accepts 95% of its teachings. This means that the FSSPX is more loyal to the teachings of Vatican II than much of the clergy and hierarchy of the Catholic Church. [!]
…The FSSPX, on the other hand, does not claim that the teaching of the Catholic Church is false. Instead, it claims that some of the assertions of Vatican II contradict other magisterial teachings that have greater authority, and hence that accepting the doctrines of the Catholic Church requires accepting these more authoritative teachings and rejecting the small proportion of errors in Vatican II. It asserts that the actual teaching of the Catholic Church is to be found in the earlier and more authoritative statements.
Read more here: “For the Lefebvrists, It’s the Last Call to the Sheepfold.” Don’t let the pejorative “Lefebvrists” fool you; the word is Magister’s not Lamont’s.
John Lamont is the author of Divine Faith, and has written for such journals as The Thomist and Divinitas (the theological journal directed by Monsignor Brunero Gherardini). His article from The Thomist, “Determining the Content and Degree of Authority of Church Teachings,” can be read online. Its contents certainly have theological relevance to the subject at hand.
His article is not a polemic, nor an apologia of any sort, but a dispassionate, theological analysis of the real issues at hand. A weighty consideration of this analysis may help to mend what both sides agree to be an objectively undesirable situation.
