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3MI Newsletter from May 3rd, 2024
Holy Mother Church has not left this answer shrink-wrapped and unopened on the doctrinal bookshelf. Rather, the answer is now required of belief for Catholics wanting to follow the loving guardrails that Holy Mother Church constructs to protect against error. Further, this now formally defined doctrine, following its dogmatic degree in the year 1215, prevents (if heeded) many of the erroneous doctrinal mud puddles that many Catholics have been rolling around in for the last 150 years.
First, the council and the dogmatic decree in question, Lateran IV:
"God… creator of all visible and invisible things, of the spiritual and of the corporal; who by His own omnipotent power at once from the beginning of time created each creature from nothing, spiritual and corporal, namely, angelic and mundane, and finally the human, constituted as it were, alike of the spirit and the body."[1]
Engraving of Lateran IV by Ballarini from an illustration by Lodovico Pogliaghi to the booklet The Middle Ages by Francesco Bertolini, from L'Illustrazione Italiana, year 18, no 38, September 20, 1891
Was there a doctor of the Church near the timing of the council who could confirm this interpretation? Yes.
St. Thomas Aquinas states:
"It is said (Gn. 1:1): "In the beginning God created heaven and earth." Now, this would not be true if anything had been created previously. Consequently, the angels were not created before corporeal nature."[2]
St. Thomas Aquinas, OP (1225-1274), The Angelic Doctor
Was there a doctor of the Church, living well after this council, that can confirm this interpretation? Yes.
St. Lawrence of Brindisi states:
"This opinion was ratified by the Fourth Lateran Council held under Pope Inncocent III. The Holy Roman Church professes that, from the beginning, God at once created corporeal creatures (those belonging to the world) and spiritual creatures (the angels)."[3]
St. Lawrence of Brindisi, OFM Cap. (1559-1619), Doctor of the Church
But wait! Were there not a few of the Fathers of the Church who stated otherwise – that the angels were created before the visible world? Indeed, there is a small minority of Fathers who did. To this, St. Lawrence writes:
"Notwithstanding these opinions, the Holy Roman Church determined in the Fourth Lateran Council that the angels along with the creatures of the world were at once created ex nihilio from the beginning of time."[4]
St. Lawrence is not relying on his own speculative reasoning on this dogmatic decree of Sacred History. The wording this Doctor of the Church chose to use is important. He uses the phrases,
“Ratified by the… Council”
and
“The Holy Roman Church determined”.
But surely these holy, pious men, Sts. Lawrence & Thomas, would have interpreted this decree with a more modern, nuanced touch if living today.
Would a modern Catholic cleric dare hold to such a doctrine, almost completely forgotten today? And would he use such a rigid and constrictive wording as “dogmatic decree”?
Monsignor Bernard O’Reilly is one such Catholic, and at least one of his works is most likely on your bookshelf right now.
If you have one of the many editions of the Douay-Rheims Haydock Bible, Fr. Bernard O’Reilly’s Comprehensive History of the Books of the Holy Catholic Bible can likely be found in the front. Here, the renowned historian and Irish priest states:
"According to the definition of the late general council of the Vatican [Vatican I], renewing the dogmatic decree of another general council also held in Rome, God in the beginning of time created – that is, brought from a state of absolute non-existence into full and complete existence – both the material universe and world of angelic spirits."[5]
Interestingly, what is mentioned is not a newly issued dogmatic degree, but a renewal of one from the general (ecumenical) council held at Rome’s Lateran Palace in 1215. Why renew a dogmatic decree? Isn’t laying down the law once enough? Any parent, any teacher, any human being knows otherwise!
Why the recent renewal of the Eucharist doctrines? Were these not already dogmatically decreed in the 13th & 16th centuries?
When historical realities, like those in John 6, are doubted, forgotten, or otherwise discarded, renewal is needed.
Will such a renewal be done for the Sacred History of Creation, which serves as the metaphysical foundation for doctrines like Transubstantiation?
Time will tell.
[1] Lateran Council IV, Canon 1
[2] ST 1 Q 61 A 3 s.c.
[3] Brindisi, Lawrence. Verse by Commentary on Genesis 1-3, 17.
[4] Brindisi, Lawrence. Verse by Commentary on Genesis 1-3, 18.
[5] O’Reilly, Bernard. An Illustrated and Comprehensive Catholic Bible Dictionary and A Comprehensive History of the Books of The Holy Catholic Bible. Catholic Treasures, 4, 1991.
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