THE ORDER OF MELCHISEDECH A Defence of ... - Rore Sanctifica

ureaucracy, with a confidence that proved to be well-founded, was confident that most
contemporary Catholic bishops would side with ARCIC rather than the SCDF.
As far as I have been able to discover, not a single hierarchy aligned itself with the SCDF and
repudiated ARCIC. This included the hierarchy of England and Wales. Its endorsement of ARCIC
must constitute its most shameful act of cowardice and compromise since the reign of Henry VIII,
when St. John Fisher was the only bishop willing to die rather than acknowledge the king as
"supreme head in earth of the Church of England". But on this occasion, whatever individual
bishops may have said in private, there was not a single instance of public dissent from their
collective endorsement of the ARCIC betrayal, even though upholding the faith would not have
involved beheading, but only a Tablet editorial censuring a lack of ecumenical enthusiasm.
Pope John Paul II could hardly have been placed in a more embarrassing situation. As an exponent
of collegiality he had to decide between the SCDF and virtually every bishop in the world. But Our
Lord has promised to be with His Church always, and, if anything, the official Vatican Response
was even more devastating than that of the SCDF. Dr. George Carey, the Archbishop of
Canterbury, lamented publicly that the Vatican rejection of ARCIC, and its refusal to accept the
ordination of women, have, in effect, brought to an end any hope of organic reunion between
Anglicans and Catholics.
The ARCIC debacle proves, if further proof is needed, the abysmal level to which post-conciliar
Catholicism has sunk. If any Catholic-----layman, priest, or bishop-----had been asked, prior to the
Vatican Response in 1991, whether, in matters of fundamental Catholic doctrine, the judgment of a
Catholic layman could prevail against that of almost every successor of the Apostles throughout the
world, the question would have been met with derisory laughter in which I would most certainly
have joined. And yet, incredible as it may seem, the Vatican response has proved this to be the case.
The condemnation of ARCIC in this book, which preceded that of the SCDF, was eventually
vindicated by the Holy See, and the endorsement of ARCIC by the world's bishops repudiated.
I was, of course, only one of many British Catholics who were able to see the defects of the Agreed
Statements, but although I have personal letters from bishops who deplored their ambiguity, public
criticism of the documents was confined to priests and laymen. Our bishops are now shackled by a
false concept of collegiality which has led them to believe that they must abide by majority
decisions of the national hierarchy. Cardinal Ratzinger has stressed the falsity of this concept and
urged bishops to have the courage to act as individual successors of the Apostles and speak out as
individuals where the faith demands it. All the ARCIC developments subsequent to the publication
of the first edition are explained in detail in Appendix VIII.
Hans Küng
In Chapter III and Appendix IV, unchanged from the first edition, I provide more than sufficient
documentation to prove that by no possible stretch of the imagination could Hans Küng be
considered to be a Catholic theologian, but, as is noted in Chapter III, he was, at that time, permitted
to hawk his heresies around the Catholic world with apparent immunity from Vatican sanctions.
This deplorable situation continued until the death of Pope Paul VI. Pope John Paul II was elected
to the See of Peter in 1978, and made the case of Küng one of his priorities. On 18 December 1979,
the SCDF withdrew Küng's missio canonica, his authority to teach as an officially accredited
Catholic theologian. My judgment that Küng's teaching was incompatible with Catholicism was,
therefore, like my censure of ARCIC, eventually vindicated by the Holy See. The SCDF stated that:
Professor Hans Kung, in his writings, has departed from the integral truth of the Catholic faith, and
therefore he can no longer be considered a Catholic theologian nor function as such in a teaching
role.