Perhaps it would be simpler to put it like this: if someone in a separated Christian body has a genuine desire to believe all that the Church founded by Christ taught, then he has a habitual ‘clinging’ or ‘inhering’ to the Catholic Church. This habitual inhering is actualised when he believes revealed truths proposed to him by this separated body, since in proposing such truths the ministers of this body are, formally albeit illicitly, acting as teachers of the Catholic faith. And so the separated brother in good faith, when he believes them, is believing teachers of the Catholic faith, and doing this on account of his habitual desire to believe whatever is taught by the Church founded by Christ. And this seems to fulfil St Thomas’s criteria for supernatural faith, without contradicting the Holy Office.
Fr Feeney’s position thus appears to derive from an insufficiently ‘formal’ reading of St Thomas. He sees that the act of faith is made in dependence on a Catholic teacher, but supposes that this must mean someone who in general has the office of a Catholic teacher, rather than one who here and now is acting as a Catholic teacher, in virtue of teaching Catholic truth.
A minor correction: in the former post I described ‘proposition by the Church’ as part of the formal object of faith. According to Garrigou-Lagrange, Thomists in general describe it as a sine qua non for faith, and not part of the formal object itself.
Laodicea 
April 14, 2013 at 9:10 pm
[…] that enabled him to make acts of supernatural faith when they taught him Catholic truths {see the post ‘Was St Thomas a Feeneyite? (part II)} When he becomes aware that they have no such mandate, […]
December 2, 2017 at 12:52 am
Quote St. Thomas:
“The formal object of the faith is the first truth insofar as it is manifested in sacred Scripture and the doctrine of the Church. Thus, whoever does not adhere, as to an infallible and divine rule, to the doctrine of the Church which proceeds from the first truth manifested in sacred Scripture does not have the habit of faith, but holds those things which are of faith by some means other than by faith.”
Quote Orestes Brownson:
“The habit of sanctity is lost by mortal sin, but the habit of faith, we are told, is lost by a positive act of infidelity or heresy. This is not strictly true; for the habit may be lost by the omission to elicit the act of faith, which neither is nor can be elicited out of the Catholic Church; for out of her the credible object, which is Deus revelans et Ecclesia proponens, (God revealing and the Church proposing for our belief) is wanting. Consequently, outside of the Church there can be no salvation for any one, even though baptized, who has come to the use of reason. The habit given in Baptism then ceases to suffice, and the obligation to elicit the act begins.
“We may be told that it may not be through one’s own fault that he omits to elicit the act, especially when born and brought up in a community hostile, or alien to the Church. Who denies it? But from that it does not follow either that the habit is not lost by the omission, or that the elicitation of the act is not necessary, in the case of every adult, to salvation. Invincible ignorance excuses from sin, we admit, in that whereof one is invincibly ignorant, but it confers no virtue, and is purely negative. It excuses from sin, if you will, the omission to elicit the act, but it cannot supply the defect caused by the omission. Something more than to be excused from the sin of infidelity or heresy is necessary to salvation.”
Quote Fr. Arnold Damen, SJ:
“I believe,” says the Catholic, “because the Church teaches me so. I believe the Church because God has commanded me to believe her. He said: ‘Hear the Church, and he that does not hear the Church let him be to thee as a heathen and a publican.’ ‘He that heareth you heareth Me,’ said Christ, ‘and he that despiseth you despiseth Me.’ “Therefore, the Catholic believes because God has spoken, and upon the authority of God.
“But our Protestant friends say, “We believe in the Bible.” Very well; how do you understand the Bible? “Well,” says the Protestant, “to the best of my opinion and judgment this is the meaning of the text.” He is not sure of it, but to the best of his opinion and judgment. This, my friends, is only the testimony of a man – it is only human faith, not Divine Faith.
“It is Divine Faith alone by which we give honor and glory to God, by which we adore His infinite wisdom and veracity, and that adoration and worship is necessary for salvation.”
* * *
Non-Catholics do not have the divine rule of faith – “the doctrine of the Church which proceeds from the first truth manifested in sacred Scripture” – and are therefore incapable of making an act of divine faith, necessary for salvation. It is no good for a Protestant to protest that he believes the bible to be inspired by God, and that he believes everything the bible teaches – because he believes the bible only according to his own human understanding, and not according to the divine testimony of the Catholic Church; his faith, therefore, is human and not divine: they hold “those things which are of faith by some means other than by faith”, i.e. by opinion (no matter how zealously and pseudo-piously held).
Now, I can imagine that there are souls that do have a kind of implicit faith in the Catholic Church. I believe that, at one point, I was such a soul. For example, in my case I read the scriptures and believed. Not long after, I asked myself which Church I ought to join, and I immediately knew that I had to join the Catholic Church, for only she had anything resembling a credible claim to divine authority. Therefore, it is possible that I already had the infused habit of faith after reading the scriptures, and that the additional proposition of faith (“I believe in the Holy Catholic Church”) was added to me later; this is possible because I never denied this teaching, or any other Catholic teaching; I never set my mind up as an authority against the Church’s authority. Perhaps there are Protestants in this situation, who believe in the scriptures according to the Church’s mind and not their own mind or their heretical pastor’s, albeit in an obscure way. However, I cannot say that this is the case for a Protestant, or anybody else, who explicitly contradicts any of the Church’s teaching, thus revealing them to be proud heretics who have set themselves up as a counter-authority to the Church. This is my assertion: that one cannot believe implicitly what one denies explicitly. If a Protestant explicitly denies the authority of the pope or the Assumption or any other doctrine: they are heretics devoid of faith. If a Protestant believing in the Incarnation and Holy Trinity and does not dare to contradict the Catholic Church’s teaching on any point, and continues to search for the divine rule of faith which is the Church: then perhaps they have faith, but I could not be at all certain.
Quote Unam Sanctam:
“It is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff.”
Anyone who does not obstinately resist the authority of the Roman Pontiff may have a kind of implicit submission to his authority. Think of a soul who hears a missionary preaching on the Holy Trinity & Incarnation and receives these truths on faith without learning about the Roman Pontiff or the Church – yet, as long as they do not deny these latter truths, perhaps their faith already contains them implicitly. On the other hand, if they explicitly deny these latter truths, it exposes the fact that their faith is not the divine faith that proceeds from the Church, but is merely their arrogant human opinion.
This is how we know with certainty that someone is of Christ or is against Him: if they explicitly deny His Church, her lawful pastors, or any of her teachings: they are not of Christ, but antichrist.
Quote St. Augustine:
“No man can find salvation except in the Catholic Church. Outside the Catholic Church one can have everything except salvation. One can have honour, one can have the sacraments, one can sing alleluia, one can answer amen, one can have faith in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, and preach it too, but never can one find salvation except in the Catholic Church.”
I think what Fr. Feeney was most concerned about is preserving the Incarnational nature of the Church: that the Church is the VISIBLE Body of Christ. That means there must be a way of seeing visibly who are her members and who are not. If you can call the Church the “Whore of Babylon”, call the Pope “antichrist”, blaspheme Our Lady and the saints, etc., and still be a Catholic via implicit faith – what becomes of the visible communion of the Church? From there, we end up with Rahnerism where there are more invisible members of the Church than visible ones. I’m not saying that there are not souls who are indeed Catholics but are not visibly united to her for some reason (e.g. a man on a desert island who finds a catechism); but that there must be SOME criteria by which we can determine whether someone is in communion with the Church or not. There must be some way that, in talking to the man, we can determine whether or not a man is Catholic. The Church is meant to be the visible Ark of Salvation; we can look at it and tell who is in the way of salvation and who isn’t, that we might incite those on the right path to persevere, and those on the wrong path to be converted. Otherwise, we end up with a quasi-invisible Church, and we lose our missionary zeal because we maintain hope that our “good-willed” Protestant, Muslim, Jewish, and pagan neighbours have some invisible degree of implicit faith deep down inside them. At least the Evangelicals DO have a visible sign to tell whether or not you are a member of Christ – “have you been born again? have you accepted Jesus as your Lord and Saviour?” By this one simple question they can tell who is a Christian and who isn’t. We Catholics, on the other hand, are so bogged down in implicitism that we can’t bloody well tell who is Catholic and who isn’t. No wonder the faith isn’t being preached – literally, who needs it? For all we know, they already have it (implicitly).
I know Fr. Brian Harrison teaches something different.
http://www.rtforum.org/lt/lt149.html
He seems to think that one can be consciously separated from the Pope but unconsciously joined to him. Maybe he’s right, I don’t know. This topic confuses me quite a bit; I’ve gone backwards and forwards on it. I’ve stated my opinion above so strongly partly through playing devil’s advocate. Sorry for commenting on such an old post. This is an extremely important issue and you are about the only ones online I’ve come across who are aware of the dangers of implicitism and are willing to take a balanced look at things. By the way, I don’t know how authoritative the 1949 Holy Office letter against Fr. Feeney is.
“Another fact left unstated in your article is that the letter of the Holy Office to Archbishop Cushing was not an official Act of the Apostolic See, for it never appeared in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis itself. Every author who has written ex professo on the subject has commented upon this mysterious fact. In consequence, the Jesuit Karl Rahner later had to invent a special category in order to provide an excuse for inserting the letter in Denzinger’s Enchiridion. The controversial missive was not put in Denzinger until 1963, the year Rahner retired as editor. We can logically assume that in 1962 (while preparing the 1963 edition) his coup de grace was to insert the unqualified document to stand where it ought not (“he that readeth, let him understand”), and then bow out without taking responsibility. And, are you aware what was (and still is) the “source” Denzinger’s compilation gives for the Holy Office letter? The American Ecclesiastical Review ! ”
http://catholicism.org/father-feeney-and-catholic-doctrine.html
Perhaps Fr. Feeney went too far in safeguarding the incarnational nature / visibility of the Church; but compare his kind of exaggeration to the opposite kind in men like Fr. Rahner, and see how the one is treated as a fool and a cretin, and the other held up on a lofty pedestal as a 20th century doctor of the faith in all the seminaries over the last several decades. Where’s the justice? Feeney’s case is arguably more important than Lefebvre’s (liturgy is very important, but foundational dogmas are even more important); and they are similar in that they both probably went too far, though admittedly being treated with great injustice.
December 2, 2017 at 1:03 am
Also, see how the SSPX has attracted many benefactors and members (priests and laity) for its defence of the traditional liturgy, whereas Fr. Feeney’s St. Benedict Centre (still teaching his views and still in communion with the Church, http://catholicism.org/) is tiny in comparison, despite standing up practically alone for the most Catholic of Catholic dogmas (extra ecclesiam nulla salus). Everyone hates the Feeneyites. The SSPX hate the Feeneyites. Even many sedevacantists hate the Feeneyites. I’m not saying that they are hated automatically makes them wholly right, but I certainly think they have a point and that their stand for the dogma is highly necessary. Archbishop Lefebvre has been called the modern Athanasius despite being a flawed character in some ways; Fr. Feeney might also be a flawed character but I reckon he may have a greater claim to be called Athanasius.
Quote Rahner:
“This optimism concerning salvation appears to me to be one of the most noteworthy results of the Second Vatican Council”.
December 2, 2017 at 8:47 am
I might be wrong, but it seems to me the position you lay out here doesn’t contradict the 1949 letter (“a soul who hears a missionary preaching on the Holy Trinity & Incarnation and receives these truths on faith without learning about the Roman Pontiff or the Church – yet, as long as they do not deny these latter truths, perhaps their faith already contains them implicitly”). On the other hand it is a lot clearer! I think one needs to carefully distinguish between the question of the minimum necessary material content of faith (Trinity and Incarnation) and the question of warrant (Church as proximate norm of faith). Even without the latter the former would be sufficient to exclude the possibility of Muslims and Jews having living faith. I agree the absence of the 1949 document from the AAS is very odd and frankly suspicious. Its citation in Lumen Gentium cannot in itself turn it into a magisterial document.
December 9, 2017 at 2:57 pm
This (JIColinson’s) is a very good comment, and the allusion to Fr Harrison’s article is apt.
Fr H. writes: ‘How could we plausibly presume that everyone with this attitude to papal authority {viz. explicitly rejecting it} is in mortal sin despite (a) being validly baptized, (b) believing with supernatural faith in the Trinity and Incarnation, and (c) being explicitly and wholeheartedly disposed to obey every precept of Christ?’
The question is, would someone who was wholeheartedly disposed to obey every precept of Christ be able explicitly to reject a dogma proposed by Church of Christ? If he has the Spirit of Christ living in his soul, the Anointing that teaches us all things, how can he reject the voice of Christ when he hears it – and ‘he who hears you, hears Me’.
December 9, 2017 at 5:35 pm
But what if he knows it only by hearsay? It seems to me the problem is more one of inadequate warrant for the truths he does believe without a true proximate norm of faith.
December 9, 2017 at 9:34 pm
Does this problem arise for a Catholic child who learns the faith from his parents?
December 10, 2017 at 1:43 am
Don’t confirmation and matrimony bestow upon the parents (or baptism on the godparents) a smidgen of magisterial authority?
December 10, 2017 at 2:32 pm
I thought you were asking how anyone could have divine faith without correctly making the judgement ‘the authority that proposes this teaching to me is infallible’.