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Feeneyism, also known as the Boston heresy, is a Christian doctrine, associated with the Jesuit priest Leonard Feeney. Feenyism advocates an interpretation of the dogma extra Ecclesiam nulla salus ("outside the Church there is no salvation") which is that only Catholics can go to heaven and that only those baptised with water can go to heaven. Because Feeneyism denies that non-Catholics can go to heaven, and because it opposes the doctrines of baptism of desire and baptism of blood, Feeneyism is considered a heresy by the Catholic Church.[1][2][3]

In 1949, the Supreme Congregation of the Holy Office wrote Suprema Haec Sacra to correct the errors of Feeney's interpretation. Suprema Haec Sacra stated: "this dogma (extra Ecclesiam nulla salus) must be understood in that sense in which the Church itself understands it."[4] After refusing to recant his claims, Leonard Feeney was excommunicated from the Catholic Church in 1953 by Pope Pius XII, although he later reconciled with the church in 1972, a few years before his death.

Leonard Feeney

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Main article: Leonard Feeney

Feeney was a Roman Catholic priest and a member of the Jesuit order. He co-founded the group known as the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary with Catherine Goddard Clarke.[5][6] Feeney was also the editor of The Point, which ran a mixture of theological and political articles, some of them branded anti-semitic by Feeney's critics. He was described by the ADL as "Boston's homegrown version of Father Charles Coughlin" for his antisemitism.[7]

Robert F. Kennedy, then a Harvard undergraduate, to write Archbishop Richard Cushing of Boston requesting his removal.[8][9][10] In 1949, Cushing declared Feeney's St. Benedict's Center off-limits to Catholics.[11] That same year Boston College and Boston College High School dismissed four of the center's members from the theology faculty for spreading Feeney's views in the classroom.[12][13] Cushing suspended Feeney's priestly faculties in April of that year, but he continued to celebrate the sacraments although he was no longer authorized to do so.

Around this time, Fr. Feeney began speaking on Boston Common, gathering large crowds of up to 2,000 people to his public meetings, both supporters and hecklers. According to The Harvard Crimson, Feeney declared that in Catholic majority Boston, he wanted to "rid our city of every coward liberal Catholic, Jew dog, Protestant brute, and 33rd degree Mason who is trying to suck the soul from good Catholics and sell the true faith for greenbacks".[12] Feeney would frequently throw visceral barbs back at his hecklers, describing them as "sexually degenerate, fairy, lewd, obscene, dirty, filthy, rotten, pawns, pimps, and frauds".[12] After Feeney refused to leave the center for a post at College of the Holy Cross]], his superiors dismissed Feeney from the order that same year for disobedience.

On 4 February 1953, the Holy Office declared him excommunicated "on account of grave disobedience to Church Authority, being unmoved by repeated warnings".[14][15] The Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary later split in two, one of which became the Still River Branch, in good standing with the Catholic Church; the other is a schismatic group that holds to Feeney's views on Salvation. Decades later, Feeney reconciled with the Catholic Church in 1972 without any recantation from his part.[16][15] He died a few years later, in 1978.

Doctrine

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Feeney's interpretation of the doctrine extra Ecclesiam nulla salus ("outside the Church there is no salvation") is that only Catholics can go to heaven and that only those baptised with water can go to heaven. As such, Feeneyism opposes the doctrines of baptism of desire and baptism of blood as well as the view that non-Catholics can go to heaven.[1][2][3][17] Feeney rejected what was the definition of the Catholic Church of baptism of desire at the time, i.e. the idea that people who openly affiliated with the Catholic Church as well as those spiritually linked to the Catholic Church through an implicit desire could be saved.[2][3]

Condemnation of Feeneyism

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Feeney's interpretaion of extra Ecclesiam nulla salus was widely condemned by the Catholic Church and is still condemned to this day. In a 1949 letter to Cardinal Cushing, Archbishop of Boston, the Holy Office condemned Feeney's teaching that only those formally baptized in the Catholic Church can be saved. The Holy Office affirmed that those baptized by their desire can be saved. This letter was sent by Cardinal Francesco Marchetti Selvaggiani to Cardinal Cushing. This letter stated among other things:[18][19]

The same in its own degree must be asserted of the Church, in as far as She is the general help to salvation. Therefore, that one may obtain eternal salvation, it is not always required that he be incorporated into the Church actually as a member, but it is necessary that at least he be united to Her by desire and longing. However, this desire need not always be explicit, as it is in catechumens; but when a person is involved in invincible ignorance God accepts also an implicit desire, so called because it is included in that good disposition of soul whereby a person wishes his will to be conformed to the will of God. These things are clearly taught in that dogmatic letter which was issued by the Sovereign Pontiff, Pope Pius XII, on June 29, 1943, On the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ (AAS, Vol. 35, an. 1943, p. 193 ff.). For in this letter the Sovereign Pontiff clearly distinguishes between those who are actually incorporated into the Church as members, and those who are united to the Church only by desire.

— Letter of the Holy Office

This letter is referenced in a footnote of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, in its section "Outside the Church there is no salvation", paragraph 847,[20] as well as in a footnote in Lumen gentium.[21]

Feeneyite groups

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Further information: Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b Mick, Lawrence E. (2007). "Baptism – Call to Carry On the Mission". Baptism. Liturgical Press. p. 7. ISBN 978-0-8146-3188-1.
  2. ^ a b c Feldberg, Michael (2012). "American Heretic: The Rise and Fall of Father Leonard Feeney, S.J." American Catholic Studies. 123 (2): 109–115. ISSN 2161-8542. JSTOR 44195416.
  3. ^ a b c Carey, Patrick (2007). "Avery Dulles, St. Benedict's Center, and No Salvation outside the Church, 1940-1953". The Catholic Historical Review. 93 (3): 553–575. ISSN 0008-8080. JSTOR 25164314.
  4. ^ https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/no-salvation-outside-the-church
  5. ^ "Feeney Forgiven". Time Magazine. October 14, 1974. Archived from the original on September 30, 2007. Retrieved March 25, 2014. (subscription required)
  6. ^ "Our History". Still River, Massachusetts: Sisters of Saint Benedict Center. Archived from the original on December 5, 2008. Retrieved June 22, 2008. Now http://sistersofstbenedictcenter.org/history.html .
  7. ^ Blakeslee, Spencer (2000). "4. The Anti-Defamation League". The Death of American Antisemitism. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 93. ISBN 0-275-96508-2. LCCN 99029576. Retrieved 2014-03-25. After World War II, Boston was to acquire a homegrown version of Coughlin in the form of Father Leonard Feeney, a charismatic but openly antisemitic Jesuit priest, whose highly vocal insistence that Catholicism was the only path to salvation gained him a youthful following, but also roused intense anger among Jews and Protestants [...]. Feeney's Sunday speeches on the Boston Common required a police presence to avert violence. His fiery rhetoric also divided a great many Catholics, who feared his oratory would stir a backlash that would block their entrance into the American mainstream. Although Feeney was excommunicated in the 1950s for violating Catholic doctrine, it came too slowly to satisfy many Jews who held strong memories of the Holocaust.
  8. ^ "Faith was integral to Bobby Kennedy's life and politics". National Catholic Reporter. 2016-08-17. Archived from the original on 22 October 2019. Retrieved 2019-10-22.
  9. ^ "Augustine. Aquinas. Luther. Bobby Kennedy?!". National Review. 2009-09-14. Retrieved 2019-10-22.
  10. ^ Schlesinger, Arthur Meier (2002). Robert Kennedy and His Times. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 66. ISBN 9780618219285.
  11. ^ Feldberg, Michael (2012). "American Heretic: The Rise and Fall of Father Leonard Feeney, S.J." American Catholic Studies. 123 (2): 109–115. doi:10.1353/acs.2012.0016. ISSN 2161-8534. S2CID 163025345.
  12. ^ a b c Savadove, Laurence D. (December 6, 1951). "Father Feeney, Rebel from Church, Preaches Hate, Own Brand of Dogma to All Comers – One-Time Jesuit Plans To Use Ex-Harvard Men to Spread Idea". Harvard Crimson. Retrieved 2014-03-25.
  13. ^ Thomas, Evan (February 5, 2013). "Tough". Robert Kennedy: His Life. Simon and Schuster. p. 51. ISBN 9781476734569. Retrieved 2014-03-25.
  14. ^ The Holy See. "ACTA APOSTOLICAE SEDIS COMMENTARIUM OFFICIALE ANNUS XXXX V - SERIES II - VOL. XX" (PDF). vatican.va.
  15. ^ a b "Leonard Feeney, Jesuit Priest, 80; Ousted in Dispute Over Salvation". The New York Times. 1978-02-01. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-12-26.
  16. ^ Madrid, Patrick; Vere, Pete (2004). More Catholic Than The Pope: An Inside Look At Extreme Traditionalism. Our Sunday Visitor. p. 72. ISBN 9781931709262.
  17. ^ "Why is the Vatican taking action against the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary?". Catholic Herald. 2019-01-17. Retrieved 2021-12-28.
  18. ^ "Letter of the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office". August 8, 1949. Archived from the original on March 11, 2000.
  19. ^ "Archbishop Richard J. Cushing". 2019-04-03. Archived from the original on 2019-04-03. Retrieved 2019-10-11.
  20. ^ St Ignatius (December 1993). The Companion to The Catechism of the Catholic Church: A Compendium of Texts Referred to in The Catechism of the Catholic Church. Ignatius Press. pp. 361–. ISBN 978-0-89870-451-8.
  21. ^ "Library : Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus: Father Feeney Makes a Comeback". www.catholicculture.org. Retrieved 2021-12-27.

Further reading

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