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LG 25 _ I think the great Fr. Scanlon has come up with an extraordinary idea.

25. Among the principal duties of bishops the preaching of
the Gospel occupies an eminent place.(39*) For bishops
are preachers of the faith, who lead new disciples to
Christ, and they are authentic teachers, that is, teachers
endowed with the authority of Christ, who preach to the people
committed to them the faith they must believe and put into
practice, and by the light of the Holy Spirit illustrate
that faith. They bring forth from the treasury of Revelation
new things and old,(164) making it bear fruit and vigilantly
warding off any errors that threaten their flock.(165)
Bishops, teaching in communion with the Roman Pontiff, are
to be respected by all as witnesses to divine and Catholic
truth. In matters of faith and morals, the bishops speak
in the name of Christ and the faithful are to accept their teaching
and adhere to it with a religious assent. This religious
submission of mind and will must be shown in a special way to
the authentic magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when
he is not speaking ex cathedra; that is, it must be shown in
such a way that his supreme magisterium is acknowledged with
reverence, the judgments made by him are sincerely adhered
to, according to his manifest mind and will. His mind and will
in the matter may be known either from the character of the documents,
from his frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or from his
manner of speaking.

Although the individual bishops do not enjoy the prerogative
of infallibility, they nevertheless proclaim Christ's doctrine
infallibly whenever, even though dispersed through the world,
but still maintaining the bond of communion among themselves
and with the successor of Peter, and authentically teaching
matters of faith and morals, they are in agreement on one position
as definitively to be held.(40*) This is even more clearly verified
when, gathered together in an ecumenical council, they are
teachers and judges of faith and morals for the universal
Church, whose definitions must be adhered to with the
submission of faith.(41*)

And this infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer willed
His Church to be endowed in defining doctrine of faith and morals,
extends as far as the deposit of Revelation extends, which
must be religiously guarded and faithfully expounded. And this
is the infallibility which the Roman Pontiff, the head of the
college of bishops, enjoys in virtue of his office, when,
as the supreme shepherd and teacher of all the faithful, who
confirms his brethren in their faith,(166) by a definitive
act he proclaims a doctrine of faith or morals.(42*) And
therefore his definitions, of themselves, and not from
the consent of the Church, are justly styled irreformable, since
they are pronounced with the assistance of the Holy Spirit,
promised to him in blessed Peter, and therefore they need no
approval of others, nor do they allow an appeal to any other judgment.
For then the Roman Pontiff is not pronouncing judgment as a private
person, but as the supreme teacher of the universal Church, in
whom the charism of infallibility of the Church itself is individually
present, he is expounding or defending a doctrine of Catholic
faith.(43*) The infallibility promised to the Church resides
also in the body of Bishops, when that body exercises the
supreme magisterium with the successor of Peter. To these definitions
the assent of the Church can never be wanting, on account of the
activity of that same Holy Spirit, by which the whole flock
of Christ is preserved and progresses in unity of faith.(44*)

But when either the Roman Pontiff or the Body of Bishops
together with him defines a judgment, they pronounce it in
accordance with Revelation itself, which all are obliged to
abide by and be in conformity with, that is, the Revelation which
as written or orally handed down is transmitted in its entirety
through the legitimate succession of bishops and especially
in care of the Roman Pontiff himself, and which under the
guiding light of the Spirit of truth is religiously preserved and
faithfully expounded in the Church.(45*) The Roman Pontiff
and the bishops, in view of their office and the importance of
the matter, by fitting means diligently strive to inquire properly
into that revelation and to give apt expression to its contents;(46*)
but a new public revelation they do not accept as pertaining
to the divine deposit of faith.(47*)

The cause of the break may be deeper rooted: a departure from the neo-thomism that was the guiding light of the Church up to the Council. Which is not to say that this philosophy was adequate to the needs of the Church. Some have said that it was not really consistent with the approach of St. Thomas himself, which was, in short, to reconcile the Bible and Greek metaphysics. As St. Thomas knew no Greek, and knew the Fathers—and the Bible— in only Latin translation, his insights were limited by the tools at his disposal. Neo-Thomism may have tried to absolutize judgements that were in fact contingent, to create a closed system that was not his aim at all. Such a system would not be open, or sufficiently open to modern thought. Critics. however, went in the opposite direction, and sought to reconcile in language and logic that lacked the clarity of St. Thomas. May have adopted the notion of the “Two truths” in a new disguise, and that the authority of the Church is compromised by the dissent he is speaking of, which will finally lead to a break. .

Fr. Scanlon (like Mueller) complains about the “bad” Catholics on the right and left, and indeed, sites some very legitimate concerns advanced by the liberal wing of the Church; to wit: birth control, abortion, gay agenda, female priesthood. But notice his complaints about the “dissenters” on the right. The only issue he raises is the SSPX support of the the Latin Mass––as though there’s no one on the “right” but the SSPX, and that’s the only issue. He could have mentioned religious liberty or ecumenism, but he feared doing so, because, it was the Council who abandoned Church teachings in those cases, and the those catholics who are determined to continue to follow the true, Dogmatic teachings of the Church.

It seems to me that the modernists of our Church who have bought into the new Theology of the Second vatican Council, are hearing the footsteps of dissent from both the right and the left and they’re very concerned. They see the Church fracturing before their very eyes. I suspect Benedict may have sensed this and decided he couldn’t handle it, since it was at least, in part, of his own making. I further suspect that the book “Rediscovering Catholicism” distributed in most Catholic Churches around the country in the last few weeks is a tacit acknowledgment of this concern and they’re hoping that it will work like Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life worked for his organization. I don’t think so.

Personally, I think it’s too late for any of that. If the bishops stay the course, the modern Catholic Church will continue to splinter into as many versions of left-driven philosophies one can imagine. The fragmented points of view voiced the bishops of the USCCB make this point clear. But even if by some incredible miracle a great number of the bishops were to somehow return to the teachings of pre-Conciliar Church, it would still be meaningless at this late date. I sense that the split would still happen as the left has tasted the blood of Satan and they like it. And since they have the atheistic, media leading the charge for most of the same agenda being pushed by the bishops today, they will not be denied.