Another delayed posting. It is clear what Fr. Scalese meant by posting this commentary. The Italian word 'definitiva' is translated to English as
'definitive', 'conclusive', 'final', 'permanent'. Fr. Scalese's title for this blogpost is 'Definitivita delle sentenze', 'sentenze' in this case referring to 'judgments'
or 'verdicts'. For simplicity, I am translating 'definitivita' as 'finality', and I have added the adjective 'conciliar' and the qualifier 'on doctrine' because
those are the judgments referred to in the post. The finality does not refer to pastoral practices, as the Vatican-II documents were meant to define.
On the finality
of conciliar judgments on doctrine
Translated from
November 20, 2017
On November 21, the Roman Church celebrates the liturgical memory of St Gelasius I, Pope (5th century). A native of Africa, he was elected to the Supreme Pontificate in 492, the third and last African pope so far
[although like St. Augustine and the two other African popes, he was a Berber, i.e., a member of the North African Caucasoid-Mediterranean indigenes, therefore white not black].
He is remembered principally for his firm opposition to the Acacian schism* and for his strenuous defense of the primacy of the Roman See against the civil and ecclesiastical claims of Constantinople (the Eastern Church). He died on November 21, 496, and was buried in St. Peter's Basilica. His liturgical celebration today coincides with the Memorialof the Presentation of the Child Mary at the Temple.
*
[About the Acacian schism: Acacius, Primate of Constantinople from 471-489, advised the Byzantine emperor of his time to ignore the definition of the Council of Chalcedon (451 AD) that Jesus is "perfect both in deity and in humanness; this selfsame one is also actually God and actually man". The Council's judgments and definitions regarding the divine marked a significant turning point in the Christological debates. But the Acacian effort to shelve the dispute over the Orthodoxy of the Council of Chalcedon eventually proved to be in vain. Pope Felix III saw the prestige of his See involved. He condemned and deposed Acacius, a proceeding which the latter regarded with contempt, but which involved a schism between the two sees that lasted after Acacius’s death. The Acacian schism lasted through the long and troubled reign of the Byzantine emperor Anastasius I, and was only healed by Justin I under Pope Hormisdas in 519.]
For its relevance today, we report herewith an excerpt from a long letter written by Poe Gelasius I to the Bishops of Dardania (a region corresponding to present-day Macedonia and southern Serbia), with which he shows how Acacius was rightly condemned through a definitive verdict by the Apostolic See.
It is necessary that you who succeed to the Apostles remember that our Fathers in Catholicism, enlightened and wise Pontiffs, convoked synods when heresies have emerged – at which they established what true Catholic doctrine is and defined the scope of the Catholic and apostolic communion in conformity with Scriptures and the preaching of our forefathers.
But they wished the issue to end thus, with a conclusion they maintained to be definitive for always. Nor did they allow that whatever the councils had decided should once again be brought into question whenever any novelty arose. Wisely they provided whatever else might be allowed, any decree of the Church against any [doctrinal] error whatsoever, shall remain firm and that, reasserting the same errors many times would simply be starting all over.
In fact, if we see that despite this definitive character of synodal [council] decisions, deviations that have already been struck down are re-ignited, are raised again against the truth, and confound simple souls, what would happen if the perfidious themselves could, from time to time, convoke an ecumenical council?
No matter how clear truth is, the sad outcomes of error will never be less, even if [its proponents] will never cede out of obstinacy...
Our inspired predecessors, seeing all this clearly, and precisely not to offer evil persons any opportunity to weaken or annul previous wise measures, were vigilant that it would never be allowed to take off anything from whatever any synod [council] has decided on any heresy with respect to the true doctrine within the scope of the catholic and apostolic communion.
Instead, they maintained that once the author of any such heresy and his error have been condemned, the initial verdict must be enough to identify such author as erring both against doctrine and against communion.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 24/11/2017 00:31]