Lateran Council V (Ecumenical XVIII)…

…judges Francis’ idea on Christians and Muslims sharing the same points

  • Islam treats the way of true light and salvation with complete contempt

Turks and other infidels […] They treat the way of true light and salvation with complete contempt and totally unyielding blindness; they attack the life-giving cross on which our Saviour willed to accept death so that by dying he might destroy death, and by the ineffable mystery of his most holy life he might restore life; and they make themselves hateful enemies of God and most bitter persecutors of the Christian religion. Strengthened by defences not only spiritual but also temporal, we may be able, under God’s guidance and favour, to oppose the bitter and frequent sallies by which, in wild rage, they move savagely amidst Christian blood. (Lateran Council V, Session XII, Against those attacking the houses of cardinals, March 16, 1517)

…judges Francis’ idea that Christians and Muslims share the same faith

  • The Muslims treat the Cross and Salvation with complete contempt

[…] the Turks and other infidels […] They treat the way of true light and salvation with complete contempt and totally unyielding blindness; they attack the life-giving cross on which our Saviour willed to accept death so that by dying he might destroy death, and by the ineffable mystery of his most holy life he might restore life; and they make themselves hateful enemies of God and most bitter persecutors of the Christian religion. Strengthened by defences not only spiritual but also temporal, we may be able, under God’s guidance and favour, to oppose the bitter and frequent sallies by which, in wild rage, they move savagely amidst Christian blood. (Lateran Council V. Session XII, March 16, 1517)

…judges Francis’ idea on the immortality of the soul

  • Among the pernicious errors that weaken the Catholic faith is the assertion that the intellectual soul is mortal

Since in our days (and we painfully bring this up) the sower of cockle, ancient enemy of the human race, has dared to disseminate and advance in the field of the Lord a number of pernicious errors, always rejected by the faithful, especially concerning the nature of the rational soul, namely, that it is mortal, or one in all men, and some rashly philosophizing affirmed that this is true at least according to philosophy, in our desire to offer suitable remedies against a plague of this kind, with the approval of this holy Council, we condemn and reject all who assert that the intellectual soul is mortal, or is one in all men, and those who cast doubt on these truths, since it [the soul] is not only truly in itself and essentially the form of the human body, as was defined in the canon of Pope Clement V our predecessor of happy memory published in the (general) Council of Vienne [n. 481] but it is also multiple according to the multitude of bodies into which it is infused, multiplied, and to be multiplied. . . .And since truth never contradicts truth, we declare [n. 1797] every assertion contrary to the truth of illumined faith to be altogether false; and, that it may not be permitted to dogmatize otherwise, we strictly forbid it, and we decree that all who adhere to errors of this kind are to be shunned and to be punished as detestable and abominable infidels who disseminate most damnable heresies and who weaken the Catholic faith. (Denzinger-Hünermann 1440-1441. Lateran Council V – Ecumenical XVIII – Leo X, Bull Apostolici Regiminis Session VIII, December 19, 1513)

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Leave a Reply