A Blog for Dallas Area Catholics

Pelagians, Pelagians everywhere! August 5, 2013

As I pointed out in a post from some weeks back, there are many people in the Church today using a word, or name – Pelagian – and seeming, perhaps, to not know quite what it means. Or they are using it quite wrongly. I think the word they are searching for might be Pharasaical.  But, irrespective, a traditional Catholic priest in good standing with Rome wrote an article pointing out that, of all the people in the Church, it is really those who embrace Tradition strongly that are probably the LEAST suited to calling “Pelagian.”  Along the way, the priest does see who, in today’s Church, might be Pelagian.  I agree with his assessment completely.

Unfortunately, the original article posted to Rorate was very long.  Thankfully, P. Blosser at Pertinacious Papist has condensed the major points, which I cheerfully rip off and share with you, adding my own comments and emphases. The six points below are, in reality, how the large majority of Catholics today believe, and practice, the Faith:

• Widespread nonchalance toward infant baptism betrays a Pelagian indifference toward grace in the view that unbaptized infants automatically go to heaven; [for that matter, so does the entire “universal salvation” belief set.  Universal salvation posits that pretty much everyone goes to Heaven, ergo, Grace is not necessary.  Even rather bad people go to Heaven, because God is so overwhelmingly merciful that His Justice barely exists.]
• The common assumption that man is naturally good, that even atheists can do good works, etc., often betrays a pronounced Pelagian disregard for supernatural charity infused in the soul co-operating with an actual grace given by God for an action to be truly pleasing to God; [which is a point I made, that actual Pelagianism posits that people can work their way to Heaven via NATURAL practice of virtues like concern for fellow man (which may not be virtuous at all, in the eyes of God), while ignoring the need for supernatural virtue]
• The frequently declared opinion that Jews need not convert but require no more than the Old Law to be saved represents a decidedly Pelagian disregard for the indispensable necessity of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and Atoning work of Christ; [Yep, the core of Pelagianism is that Original Sin did not so disfigure man that we are cut off from salvation absent Christ’s salvific action, and our participation in that through Grace. Ergo, people can be “good” on their own and “work their way to salvation.”]
• The widespread acceptance of the view that death is natural to man (often along with belief in Darwinian Evolution) displays a quasi-Pelagian affirmation in the dispensability of the supernatural order of grace, according to which death is utterly unnatural and never intended by God, but only permitted as a consequence for sin; [again, this also points to universal salvation. If death is “natural,” a normal process of human biology which God intended, then Original Sin is dubious, at best, and we’re back to people working their way to Heaven independent of Grace]
• The widespread indifference toward sacramental Confession betrays a pernicious Pelagian that we need no more than the good moral example of Jesus to elicit our innate natural goodness and that we have no need of sacramental grace to reconcile us to God; [boy, I think that’s huge, and, as the good priest said, truly pernicious.  So many in the Church seem to tacitly accept this.  I’ll also add, it was and has remained a fundamental tenet of enlightenment/modern liberal thought, that Christ must be reduced to simply a good moral example, at most, and not God Incarnate. This belief forms a fundamental aspect of enlightenment-liberal belief to achieve one of the most core ends of that disastrously erroneous philosophy: the severing of God from political-cultural life.  God is driven into the smallest of private spheres, to the extent He is tolerated at all. This was done, consciously, by the leading enlightenment deists (Locke, Rousseau, Voltaire, etc), in order to subjugate the Church to the secular authority, the reverse of Christendom, in essence.]
• The widespread indifference toward the social reign of Christ the King reveals a striking affinity for Pelagius’ denial that Christ Our Lord came to restore what Adam had lost but rather came merely to provide a good example. [And that is also a fundamental aspect of that englightenment belief I described above]

As the author of this post at Rorate and I both noted, the “overlap” between Pelagianism and some traditionalists (or how traditionalists are viewed, perhaps) is the idea of austerity in discipline, thinking that by doing the 4379 “requirements” of traditional Catholic orthodoxy/orthopraxis, one is automatically saved (I made that number up). I’ve seen just bare hints of that, at most, in my real-world experience, but more online in some of the more extreme traddy sites.  I think the perception that traditional Catholics are like that is much stronger than the reality.

But, overall, when you look at what Pelagianism really believed, it seemed to me 3 weeks ago, and this priest more recently, you’re more apt to find it in the local mainstream parish than in a traditional environment. I hear about Grace and our need for it (or to cooperate with it) nearly every Sunday.  That’s not to say every mainstream parish has strong Pelagian tendencies, but most do.  As the priest says in his conclusion: “It is clear to me that the modern Church in her membership has become more Pelagian than ever whereas Traditional minded Catholics are seeking to hold the line against this most pestiferous return of heresy… striving not to let the precious grace of God granted them be in vain!”

That’s certainly what I strive not to do: I strive not to let the precious Grace of God be in vain.