The Church’s Unity of Faith – St Francis de Sales
“The true Church of God must be united, fastened and joined together in one same doctrine and belief.”
Image: Saint François de Sales donnant à sainte Jeanne de Chantal la règle de l’ordre de la Visitation. (Wiki Commons: source)
Editor’s Note
Over the last months, we have made the visible unity of the Church’s faith a central theme of a number of essays.
In short, the Church is essentially united in her external profession of faith. This is an essential aspect of the property of unity itself. As one of the four notes of the Church recited in the Creed, this unity of faith is a “negative” property in the sense that the true Church of Christ can never lack it. Any society claiming to be the Church of Christ shows itself to be a false claimant if it lacks this unity of faith.
While we have been focusing on the theology of Louis Cardinal Billot, it is good to remember that these ideas are not new or exclusive to the nineteenth and twentieth century.
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We have already amply demonstrated this through the plethora of catechisms. In this extract, we would like to present the teaching of St Francis de Sales, Doctor of the Church, in his work The Catholic Controversy. (UK readers: here)
The most important passage to notice is this:
“Let there be error everywhere throughout the world, yet you will see the same faith in Catholics. And if there be any difference of opinion, either it will not be in things belonging to the faith, or else, as soon as ever a General Council or the Roman See shall have determined it, you will see every one submit to their decision.”
There are four points to notice.
1. The unity described is an actual unity of a faith taught and professed. It is by no means a unity of merely verbal claims to be submissive to one head – important though this submission to one head undoubtedly is.
2. Traditional Catholics do indeed suffer numerous disagreements, but these tend to pertain to questions of fact, prudence and theological opinions – and how to apply these in our current situation. But traditional Catholics are united – visibly so – in their profession of the same faith. There are no disputes over dogma, except perhaps a few technical points which have become obscured. Traditional Catholics are in turn united with all those others who profess the same faith – for instance, certain swathes of the Eastern Churches. The divisions suffered by traditional Catholics are not surprising given the absence of a “head upon earth to address [ourselves] to in your difficulties” – and it certainly is true that we are without such a head at present, whether this situation is to be explained as a moral absence and dereliction of duty, or something more serious.
3. Those who defend Vatican II, Francis and his recent predecessors may seize on certain words from this Doctor on trusting the Church, and use these to gaslight us into thinking that we should follow the modern revolution. But before we concede such a thing, let these would-be apologists prove the credentials of the body of which Francis is the head, by showing us how it remains united in faith in the way discussed by St Francis and other theologians – or explaining how the Church of Christ could have lost a necessary property.
Which leads us to the last point:
4. Even though those who claim to submit to Vatican II, Francis and his recent predecessors apparently have the advantage of having an organ which can settle all disputes, the reality is not only that the claimants to this position have resolutely failed to do so for the last sixty years; it is also that this organisation, currently headed by Francis, at least taken as a whole and in an unqualified sense, is extremely divided on matters of basic dogma, about which there are no disputes.[1] Those who openly deny the most fundamental and basic dogmas remain members of this organisation in good standing – and are even sometimes promoted to positions of responsibility and authority. This has very serious implications, which few seem willing or able to consider.
These are some of the many reasons given by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (and others) when he drew a distinction between the Roman Catholic Church and what is sometimes called “The Conciliar Church” – however this controversial term is to be understood.
Some headings and line breaks added for clarity.
Further Reading:
St Francis de Sales – The Catholic Controversy (UK readers: here)
How is the Church “visibly united in faith,” according to this twentieth-century master of ecclesiology?
Why is “unity of faith” so crucial for making the Church visible, according to Cardinal Billot?
Short essay: Is there a schism between traditionalists?
Notes on the nature of heresy, in light of the unity of the Church
The Visible Unity of the Church I – on what it means to believe in “One” Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church
The Visible Unity of the Church II – more on what it means for the Church to be “visibly” one
The Visible Unity of the Church III – reconciling the Church’s teachings about her own unity with the current crisis
Extract from
The Catholic Controversy
St Francis de Sales
Article III, Chapter IV
Available Online
Of the Unity of the Church in Doctrine and Belief
The True Church must be one in its doctrine
The Catholic Church is united in belief
The so-called Reformed Church is not.
Is Jesus Christ divided? No, surely, for he is the God of peace, not of dissension, as S. Paul taught throughout the Church. It cannot then be that the true Church should be in dissension or division of belief and opinion, for God would no longer be its Author or Spouse, and, like a kingdom divided against itself, it would be brought to desolation.
As soon as God takes a people to himself, as he has done the Church, he gives it unity of heart and of path the Church is but one body, of which all the faithful are members, compacted and united together by all its joints; there is but one spirit animating this body: “God is in his holy place: who maketh men of one manner to dwell in a house”;[2] therefore the true Church of God must be united, fastened and joined together in one same doctrine and belief.
It is necessary, says S. Irenaeus[3] that all the faithful should come together and unite themselves to the Roman Church [on account of] its superior ruling power. She is the mother of their sacerdotal dignity, says Julius I.[4] “She is the commencement of the unity of the priesthood, she is the bond of unity,” says S. Cyprian.[5] Again:
“We are not ignorant that there is but one God, one Christ and Lord, whom we have confessed, one Holy Spirit, one pastoral office (episcopatus) in the Catholic Church.”[6]
The good Optatus also said to the Donatists:
“Thou canst not deny that thou knowest that in the city of Rome the chief chair has been first granted to S. Peter, in which sat the chief of the Apostles, S. Peter, whence he was called Cephas; the chair in which the unity of the whole was preserved, in order that the other Apostles might not seek to put forward and maintain each his own, and that henceforward he might be a schismatic who would set up another chair against this one chair. Therefore in this one chair, which is the first of its prerogatives, was first seated S. Peter.”[7]
Trust in the Church
These are almost the words of this ancient and holy doctor; and every Catholic of this age is of the same conviction. We hold the Roman Church to be our refuge in all our difficulties; we all are her humble children, and receive our food from the milk of her breasts; we are all branches of this most fruitful stock, and draw no sap of doctrine save from this root. This is what clothes us all with the same livery of belief; for, knowing that there is one chief and lieutenant general in the Church, what he decides and determines with the other prelates of the Church when he is seated in the chair of Peter to teach Christendom, serves as law and measure to our belief.
Let there be error everywhere throughout the world, yet you will see the same faith in Catholics. And if there be any difference of opinion, either it will not be in things belonging to the faith, or else, as soon as ever a General Council or the Roman See shall have determined it, you will see everyone submit to their decision. Our understandings do not stray away from one another in their belief but keep most closely united and linked together by the bond of the superior authority of the Church, to which each one gives in with all humility, steadying his faith thereon, as upon the pillar and ground of truth. Our Catholic Church has but one language and one same form of words throughout the whole earth.
The Mess of Disunity – uncomfortably similar to today
On the contrary, gentlemen, your first ministers had no sooner got on their feet, they had no sooner begun to build a tower of doctrine and science which was visibly to reach the heavens, and to acquire them the great and magnificent reputation of reformers, than God, wishing to traverse this ambitious design, permitted amongst them such a diversity of language and belief, that they began to contradict one another so violently that all their undertaking became a miserable Babel and confusion.
What contradictions has not Luther’s reformation produced! I should never end if I would put them all on this paper. He who would see them should read that little book of Frederick Staphyl’s, De concordid discordi, and Book 7 of Sander’s Risible Monarchy, and Gabriel de Preau, in the Lives of Heretics: I will only say what you cannot be ignorant of and what I now see before my eyes.
You have not one same canon of the Scriptures. Luther will not have the Epistle of S. James, which you receive. Calvin holds it to be contrary to the Scripture that there is a head in the Church; the English hold the reverse : the French Huguenots hold that according to the Word of God priests are not less than bishops; the English have bishops who govern priests, and amongst them two archbishops, one of whom is called primate, a name which Calvin so greatly detests: the Puritans in England hold as an article of faith that it is not lawful to preach, baptize, pray, in the churches which were formerly Catholic, but they are not so squeamish in these parts.
And note my saying that they make it an article of faith, for they suffer both prison and banishment rather than give it up.
Is it not well known that at Geneva they consider it a superstition to keep any saint’s day?
Yet in Switzerland some are kept; and you keep one of Our Lady. The point is not that some keep them and others do not, for this would be no contradiction in religious belief, but that what you and some of the Swiss observe the others condemn as contrary to the purity of religion. Are you not aware that one of your greatest ministers teaches that the body of our Lord is as far from the Lord’s Supper as heaven is from earth, and are you not likewise aware that this is held to be false by many others? Has not one of your ministers lately confessed the reality of Christ’s body in the Supper, and do not the rest deny it?
Can you deny me that as regards justification you are as much divided against one another as you are against us: witness that anonymous controversialist. In a word, each man has his own language, and out of as many Huguenots as I have spoken to, I have never found two of the same belief.
Rejection of the Church herself
But the worst is, you are not able to come to an agreement: for where will you find a trusted arbitrator?
You have no head upon earth to address yourselves to in your difficulties; you believe that the very Church can err herself and lead others into error: you would not put your soul into such unsafe hands; indeed, you hold her in small account.
The Scripture cannot be your arbiter, for it is concerning the Scripture that you are in litigation, some of you being determined to have it understood in one way, some in another. Your discords and your disputes are interminable, unless you give in to the authority of the Church.
Witness the Colloquies of Lunehourg, of Malbron, of Montbeliard, and that of Berne recently. Witness Titman, Heshusius and Erastus, to whom I add Brenz and Bullinger. Take the great division there is amongst you about the number of the sacraments. Now, and ordinarily amongst you, only two are taught; Calvin made three, adding to baptism and the supper, that of orders; Luther here puts penance for the third, then says there is but one: in the end, the Protestants, at the Colloquy of Ratisbonne, at which Calvin assisted, as Beza testifies in his life, confessed that there were seven sacraments. How is it you are divided about the article of the almightiness of God? One party is denying that a body can by the divine power be in two places, others are denying absolute almightiness; others make no such denials.
But if I would show you the great contradictions amongst those whom Beza acknowledges to be glorious reformers of the Church, namely, Jerome of Prague, John Hus, Wycliff, Luther, Bucer, Cecolampadius, Zwingli, Pomeranius and the rest, I should never come to an end. Luther can sufficiently inform you as to the good harmony there is amongst them, in the lamentation which he makes against the Zwinglians and Sacramentarians, whom he calls Absaloms and Judases, and fanatic spirits (in the year 1527).
His deceased Highness of most happy memory, Emmanuel [of Savoy], related to the learned Anthony Possevin, that at the Colloquy of Cormasse, when the Protestants were asked for their profession of faith, they all one after the other departed from the assembly, as being unable to agree together. That great prince, most worthy of trust, relates this as having been present there. All this division has its foundation in the contempt which you have for a visible head on earth, because, not being bound as to the interpretation of God’s Word by any superior authority, each one takes the side which seems good to him. This is what the wise man says, that “among the proud there are always contentions” which is a true mark of heresy.[8]
Conclusions
Those who are divided into several parties cannot be called by the name of Church, because, as S. Chrysostom says, the name of Christ is a name of agreement and concord. But as for us, we all have the same canon of the Scriptures, one same head, one like rule for interpreting them; you have a diversity of canon, and in the understanding you have as many heads and rules as you are persons. We all sound the trumpet of one single Gideon, and have all one same spirit of faith in the Lord, and in his Vicar, the sword of the decisions of God and the Church, according to the words of the Apostles: “It hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us.”[9]
This unity of language amongst us is a true sign that we are the army of the Lord, and you can but be acknowledged as Madianites, whose opinions are only cries and shouts: each in your own fashion you slash at one another, cutting one another’s throats, and cutting your own throats by your dissensions, as God says by Isaiah: “The Egyptians shall fight against the Egyptians… and the spirit of Egypt shall be broken.”[10]
And S. Augustine says that as Donatus had tried to divide Christ, so he himself was by a daily separation of his party divided within himself.
This mark [of unity] alone ought to make you quit your pretended church, for he who is not with God is against God. God is not in your church, for he only inhabits a place of peace, and in your church, there is neither peace nor concord.
Further Reading:
St Francis de Sales – The Catholic Controversy (UK readers: here)
How is the Church “visibly united in faith,” according to this twentieth-century master of ecclesiology?
Why is “unity of faith” so crucial for making the Church visible, according to Cardinal Billot?
Short essay: Is there a schism between traditionalists?
Notes on the nature of heresy, in light of the unity of the Church
The Visible Unity of the Church I – on what it means to believe in “One” Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church
The Visible Unity of the Church II – more on what it means for the Church to be “visibly” one
The Visible Unity of the Church III – reconciling the Church’s teachings about her own unity with the current crisis
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[1] Taken from an earlier piece published on The WM Review:
Consider two 2019 Pew Research polls. According to one study, only 50% of US Catholics know about the Church’s dogmatic teaching on transubstantiation.
Another poll of US Catholics found that only 31% actually believed that “the bread and wine actually become the body and blood of Jesus.” By contrast, 69% believe that “the bread and wine used in Communion ‘are symbols of the body and blood of Jesus Christ.’” Of this latter group, most actually think that this is the Church’s teaching! But about one third of them said that they knew that they were rejecting the Church’s teaching.
In the same study, even 37% of weekly Mass-goers did not accept the Church’s teaching on transubstantiation.
We see here again, the three basic groups: those who believe the Catholic faith; those who believe something different but are probably or possibly submissive to the magisterium (and amongst the laity, can be given the benefit of the doubt); and those who knowingly reject both the content of the faith and the magisterium teaching it.
We can leave aside the question of whether privately answering a poll constitutes a public departure from the profession of faith – this is not important here. The important thing is that some of the people who consciously reject both the teaching and the authority will manifest this in a public way: and in fact, the practices of some parish Masses may already sufficiently manifest this. And yet all of these people continue to be considered as Catholics, as members of the Catholic Church.
Again, this is not judging souls, as individual cases are not the point. We are simply recognising that today, it appears that those who are called Catholics are not united in what they profess to believe. There is not even a pretence to profess these things.
This same phenomenon would surely apply to other dogmas if they were polled, and indeed a certain Catholic dating agency allows its users to select which of six certain dogmas they accept. Other users can even filter their searches by adherence or rejection to these dogmas. Does that create the impression of a visibly united organisation?
[2] Ps. lxvii. 7
[3] iii. 3
[4] ad Euseb
[5] Ep. 5 5
[6] de un. Ec. iv
[7] ii. 2, 3
[8] Proverbs xiii. 10
[9] Acts xv. 28
[10] Isaiah xix