Some time ago on his blog, Jimmy Akin claimed that all the anathemas of all Ecumenical Councils are null and void: Are YOU “Anathema”? How about Your Protestant Friend? His reasoning is simplistic and absurd. Anathemas are “a type of excommunication that the bishop performed using a special ceremony. This ceremony involved (among other things) the ringing of a bell, the closing of a book, and the snuffing of a candle.” The ceremony and its particulars (bell, book, candle) are no longer in use, therefore, Akin claims that all Church anathemas, even those issued by Ecumenical Councils, are null and void.

The premises of his argument is basically true. There are distinctions between anathemas and excommunications, but anathemas are in the more common case, essentially a type of excommunication. And the ceremony used by Bishops to anathema a person have fallen out of use. But it is a serious and rather ridiculous error to reduce the meaning of all anathemas to a mere ceremony, and then to suggest that, if the ceremony is no longer performed, all anathemas must be null and void. This conclusion does not follow from the premises.

First, Conciliar anathemas and anathemas issued by Popes never involved such a ceremony. So it does not make sense to say that the fact that the ceremony fell into disuse implies that the Conciliar anathemas are no longer in force.

Second, the meaning of that ceremony was that the individual was cut off from the Church, i.e. excommunicated. The trappings of the ceremony (bell, book, candle) are not essential to the action of the Church in exercising her authority to excommunicate. So the passing away of the particulars of the ceremony does not cause the authority of the Church to excommunicate to pass away.

Third, anathemas are one type of exercise of the Church’s authority. The Church continues to have this authority; She did not lose the authority simply because She does not choose to use the ceremony sometimes associated with the exercise of that authority.

Fourth, if all Conciliar anathemas had, at some point become null and void, surely the Pope or a Cardinal or Bishop would have mentioned such a momentous change? But there is no such assertion in any magisterial document. And the Magisterium continues to quote and cite past Conciliar dogmas and their attached anathema. Search on the vatican.va site and you will find many examples.

Fifth, the ITC (international theological commission) published a document as recently as 2011, clearly treating Conciliar anathemas as still in force:

“29. Catholic theology recognises the teaching authority of ecumenical councils, the ordinary and universal magisterium of the bishops, and the papal magisterium. It acknowledges the special status of dogmas, that is, statements ‘in which the Church proposes a revealed truth definitively, and in a way that is binding for the universal Church, so much so that denial is rejected as heresy and falls under an anathema’.” (Theology Today: Perspectives, Principles and Criteria)

When applied by Church authority to persons, an anathema is a type of excommunication. When applied by Church authority to ideas, an anathema is strong condemnation of that idea, implying that anyone who promotes or teaches the idea is excommunicated. When used by Fathers or Saints, who are not exercising Church authority, it is an expression of strong condemnation of a false teaching and of the persons who promote or adhere to it.

Can. 751 — Heresy is the obstinate denial or obstinate doubt after the reception of baptism of some truth which is to be believed by divine and Catholic faith; apostasy is the total repudiation of the Christian faith; schism is the refusal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him.

Can. 1364 n. 1 — … an apostate from the faith, a heretic, or a schismatic incurs a latae sententiae excommunication….

Every infallible teaching of the Magisterium — whether it is infallible under Conciliar Infallibility, or Papal Infallibility, or the ordinary and universal Magisterium — is a required belief under pain of heresy. All such infallible teachings are to be believed by divine and catholic faith, that is, with the full assent of faith (theological assent). Any baptized Christian who knowingly chooses to obstinately deny or obstinately doubt such a teaching is automatically excommunicated. The Conciliar anathemas serve as a clear warning to the faithful of their obligation to believe an infallible teaching. But even the infallible teachings that do not have an attached anathema must be believed under pain of automatic excommunication for the sin of formal heresy.

Even Protestants and the Orthodox Christians are required to believe every infallible teaching of the Roman Catholic Magisterium. In so far as they knowingly choose to reject an infallible teaching of a Pope or Ecumenical Council, they commit the sin of formal heresy (perhaps without the full culpability of an actual mortal sin), and so they are cut off from the Church; they are anathema-ed.

Why does Jimmy Akin strive so hard to try to represent Conciliar Anathemas as null and void? Perhaps it is because he has publicly, repeatedly, and obstinately denied a number of infallible teachings himself.

by
Ronald L. Conte Jr.
Roman Catholic theologian and
translator of the Catholic Public Domain Version of the Bible.