Who Came Up with the Idea that Christ’s Church ‘Subsists in’ the Catholic Church, as Vatican II Teaches?

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Who Came Up with the Idea that Christ’s Church ‘Subsists in’ the Catholic Church, as Vatican II Teaches?

Many readers of this blog will be familiar with the controversy concerning the teaching of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) that the Church founded by Jesus Christ “subsists in” (Latin: subsistit in) the Roman Catholic Church, as taught in its 1964 dogmatic constitution on the Church, as follows:

This Church constituted and organized in the world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him, although many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure. These elements, as gifts belonging to the Church of Christ, are forces impelling toward catholic unity.

[Latin original:]

Haec Ecclesia, in hoc mundo ut societas constituta et ordinata, subsistit in Ecclesia catholica, a successore Petri et Episcopis in eius communione gubernata, licet extra eius compaginem elementa plura sanctificationis et veritatis inveniantur, quae ut dona Ecclesiae Christi propria, ad unitatem catholicam impellunt.

(Vatican II, Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium, n. 8; bold print added)

This formulation was a novelty that stood in marked contrast to what Pope Pius XII had insisted on a mere 14 years prior, namely, the strict identity between the Mystical Body of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church (cf. Col 1:24):

Some say they are not bound by the doctrine, explained in Our Encyclical Letter of a few years ago, and based on the sources of revelation, which teaches that the Mystical Body of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church are one and the same thing.

(Pope Pius XII, Encyclical Humani Generis, n. 27; underlining added.)

The encyclical letter Pius XII was referring to is known as Mystici Corporis (1943), which states very simply and clearly in its opening sentence: “The doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ, which is the Church, was first taught us by the Redeemer Himself” (underlining added). The concept that the Body of Christ is the Catholic Church is repeated a few more times in the long and beautiful text of Mystici Corporis.

Clearly, this doctrine is not difficult to understand. Even those who do not believe in Catholicism have no problem grasping what is being said: Jesus Christ founded a church and that church is the Roman Catholic Church. Agree or disagree with that statement, it’s not difficult to make sense of.

Easy though it is to understand, it presented an insurmountable problem for the Neo-Modernist movers and shakers at Vatican II, who were hell-bent on getting the Catholic Church on board with ecumenism, the attempt to find ‘Christian unity’ somewhere other than in the Roman Catholic Church.

True and False Christian Unity

According to Catholic doctrine, the only way to achieve genuine Christian unity in the manner ordained by God is for all non-Catholics to convert to the Roman Catholic Church, for she alone is the true Church of Jesus Christ, she alone is the fold of which Christ is the Good Shepherd: “And other sheep I have, that are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd. My sheep hear my voice: and I know them, and they follow me” (Jn 10:16,27).

This was taught clearly by Pope Pius XI in his landmark encyclical against ecumenism, published in 1928:

So, Venerable Brethren, it is clear why this Apostolic See has never allowed its subjects to take part in the assemblies of non-Catholics: for the union of Christians can only be promoted by promoting the return to the one true Church of Christ of those who are separated from it, for in the past they have unhappily left it. To the one true Church of Christ, we say, which is visible to all, and which is to remain, according to the will of its Author, exactly the same as He instituted it.

(Pope Pius XI, Encyclical Mortalium Animos, n. 10; underlining added.)

Commenting on Mortalium Animos, Fr. Titus Cranny (1921-81) wrote before Vatican II (and thus without any possible bias for or against Vatican II ecumenism):

It was a special call to Christian Unity from the Vicar of Christ. It was a restatement of the age-old position of the Church — that no Unity is possible apart from the Chair of Peter. … The Vicar of Christ in this encyclical has only declared in the clearest language … that there is but One Church founded by Jesus Christ and that all those separated from her must return to her maternal embrace before the words of Christ Himself can be fulfilled: “Other sheep I have which are not of this Fold … they will hear My voice and there shall be One Fold and One Shepherd.”

(Rev. Titus Cranny, “The Chair of Unity Octave: 1908-1958”, in Rev. Edward Hanahoe and Rev. Titus Cranny, eds., One Fold: Essays and Documents to commemorate the Golden Jubilee of the Chair of Unity Octave 1908-1958 [Graymoor: Chair of Unity Apostolate, 1959], pp. 94-95; underlining added.)

All this makes perfect sense. After all, it is the teaching of a church that was founded by One who proclaimed: “He that is not with me, is against me: and he that gathereth not with me, scattereth” (Mt 12:30).

The only ‘problem’ with this traditional Catholic teaching is that it is not terribly ecumenical. That is, it is not ecumenical if we understand ecumenism the way most people understand it today and the way it was understood by the non-Catholics who began the movement: “…Protestant ecumenism … envisions its objective as a reunion of the Church,” whereas a truly Catholic ecumenism, if we must use the term, “looks for reunion with the Church” (Rev. Edward Hanahoe, Catholic Ecumenism: The Reunion of Christendom in Contemporary Papal Pronouncements [Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1953], p. 71; italics given).

In other words, a Protestant believes that the one Church of Jesus Christ has tragically been divided into many different camps or branches through various disagreements and splits, and it is the goal of ecumenism to mend these rifts so that the Church is no longer divided but returns to her original and intended state of being wholly unified. A Catholic, on the other hand, believes that the one Church of Jesus Christ, the Roman Catholic Church, is necessarily always unified because unity — being one in Faith, worship, and government — is one of her essential characteristics; but that some unfortunate souls have left this one Church by separating themselves from it while still retaining the name of Christian. For the true Catholic, therefore, the only kind of ecumenism that is acceptable is the kind that seeks to bring the erring sheep back into the one and unified fold.

That type of ecumenism, however, is what is explicitly rejected by the Vatican II Church, and not just since ‘Pope’ Francis appeared on the scene in 2013.

Take ‘Pope’ John Paul II (r. 1978-2005), for example. In his encyclical Ut Unum Sint, n. 60, he refers approvingly to the so-called Balamand Declaration of 1993, which rejects “the outdated ecclesiology of return to the Catholic Church” (“Uniatism, method of union of the past, and the present search for full communion”, n. 30).

Or take ‘Cardinal’ Walter Kasper (b. 1933), shortly before being appointed president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. On Feb. 26, 2001, the Italian Novus Ordo news site Adista quoted him as saying: “Today, we no longer understand ecumenism in the sense of a return, by which the others would ‘be converted’ and return to being ‘Catholics.’ This was expressly abandoned by Vatican II” (quoted in Paul Kokoski, “The New Evangelization: Quo Vadis?”, Homiletic and Pastoral Review, Sep. 20, 2012).

In 2005, ‘Pope’ Benedict XVI (r. 2005-13) said as much. During World Youth Day in Cologne, Germany, Benedict declared concerning the unity aimed at by ecumenical efforts that “this unity does not mean what could be called ecumenism of the return: that is, to deny and to reject one’s own faith history. Absolutely not!”.

Let’s keep this in mind as we proceed — the very notion of a restoration of Christian unity as requiring the conversion of non-Catholics to Catholicism is definitively ruled out by the highest authorities of the Vatican II Church (more on that here), whereas it is the only way to properly understand religious unity according to the pre-Vatican II Catholic doctrine.

On June 5, 1948, the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office under Pope Pius XII published the canonical warning Cum Compertum, reminding all Catholics, both clerics and laity, that they are not permitted to attend, much less to host, ecumenical gatherings with non-Catholics without prior permission from the Holy See.

On Dec. 20, 1949, the same Holy Office gave precise instructions to bishops regarding the circumstances under which they were permitted to authorize certain Catholics in their diocese to meet for discussions with Protestants. In a nutshell, Catholics were allowed to engage in talks with non-Catholics only under very restrictive conditions, and under no circumstance was it permitted to smooth over the fact that the only kind of Christian unity in accord with Catholic doctrine is the return of Protestants to the Catholic Church:

Therefore the whole and entire Catholic doctrine is to be presented and explained: by no means is it permitted to pass over in silence or to veil in ambiguous terms the Catholic truth regarding the nature and way of justification, the constitution of the Church, the primacy of jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff, and the only true union by the return of the dissidents to the one true Church of Christ. It should be made clear to them that, in returning to the Church, they will lose nothing of that good which by the grace of God has hitherto been implanted in them, but that it will rather be supplemented and completed by their return. However, one should not speak of this in such a way that they will imagine that in returning to the Church they are bringing to it something substantial which it has hitherto lacked. It will be necessary to say these things clearly and openly, first because it is the truth that they themselves are seeking, and moreover because outside the truth no true union can ever be attained.

(Pope Pius XII, Holy Office Instruction Ecclesia Catholica; underlining added.)

It is crucial to understand that the conversion to Catholicism that is required of all Orthodox and Protestants to attain true Christian unity is not merely a condition of ecclesiastical discipline, which could be changed. Rather, it is a matter of divine law, of revealed dogma. It is God Himself who willed it this way, and exceptions are therefore intrinsically impossible.

This means that there is not a single soul in the history of the New Covenant for whom conversion to Catholicism would be optional. The fact that under certain circumstances the (sometimes even merely implicit) desire to be a Catholic can suffice to be efficaciously joined to the Church if actual membership is not possible, is of no concern for the purposes of this post (see here for more on that topic). The point to remember for now is the principle that since only the Roman Catholic Church is Christ’s fold, all who seek to be genuine followers of Jesus Christ have the obligation to enter it.

Vatican II to the Rescue

Having thus understood the traditional Roman Catholic teaching on Christian unity, it is clearly impossible to hold fast to that doctrine while also embracing Vatican II ecumenism, the principles of which are laid out in the council’s 1964 decree Unitatis Redintegratio.

In order to be able to normalize and promote ecumenism anyway, therefore, the rigid doctrine of the Church about the required conversion of all non-Catholics had to be dissolved, and that meant, first of all, that the Church would need to stop claiming that she alone is the Church established by Jesus Christ.

That is what Lumen Gentium‘s perfidious subsisist in doctrine was meant to accomplish, and it succeeded, for by saying that the Church founded by Christ subsists in the Catholic Church, the strict identity between the two was broken up, and the path was clear for Christ’s Church to exist also in other churches and ecclesial communities, although not ‘fully’ or ‘perfectly’.

None other than ‘Cardinal’ Joseph Ratzinger (1927-2022), the later ‘Pope’ Benedict XVI, admitted the crucial difference the change from est to subsistit in made:

With this expression [subsistit], the Council differs from the formula of Pius XII, who said in his Encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi: “The Catholic Church ‘is’ (est) the one mystical body of Christ”. The difference between subsistit and est conceals within itself the whole ecumenical problem.

(Joseph Ratzinger, “The Ecclesiology of the Constitution on the Church”, Osservatore Romano, English edition [Sep. 19, 2001], p. 5; italics given.)

The same Joseph Ratzinger had published a book on ecclesiology in 1969 in which he stated that the subsists in formulation of Lumen Gentium constitutes a “reduction in the claim of exclusivity” (“Reduktion des Absolutheitsanspruchs”) on the part of the Church (see Ratzinger, Das neue Volk Gottes [Düsseldorf: Patmos-Verlag, 1969], p. 236). In other words, Vatican II deliberately relativized and thereby reduced the Catholic Church’s claim to being the exclusive true Church of Jesus Christ.

Clearly, then, without the change from est to subsistit in, Vatican II would not have been able to get on board with ecumenism. Thus the novel doctrine of Lumen Gentium was the proverbial foot in the door enabling and facilitating ‘Catholic’ participation in the ecumenical movement. And Ratzinger is someone who would know, since he himself was part of the drafting of the conciliar text in 1963/64.

What has been the long-term result of this doctrinal change? Six decades after Vatican II, it is clear that any concept of the Catholic Church as being necessary for salvation has been completely eroded. Although a post-Vatican II version of the dogma Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus (Outside the Church No Salvation) is technically still ‘on the books’ (see Novus Ordo Catechism, nn. 846-848), practically no one believes even that, and certainly not as it was traditionally taught and held — least of all ‘Pope’ Francis.

For all intents and purposes, the salvation dogma has become “a meaningless formula”, precisely as Pope Pius XII had warned:

Some say they are not bound by the doctrine, explained in Our Encyclical Letter of a few years ago, and based on the sources of revelation, which teaches that the Mystical Body of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church are one and the same thing. Some reduce to a meaningless formula the necessity of belonging to the true Church in order to gain eternal salvation.

(Pope Pius XII, Encyclical Humani Generis, n. 27; underlining added.)

It is surely no coincidence that Pius XII saw the erosion of No Salvation Outside the Church to a meaningless formula as being connected to the denial of the strict identity between the Catholic Church and the Church founded by Jesus Christ. The one gives rise to the other.

Whose Idea was the ‘Subsistit in‘ Wording?

In terms of bringing about this false ecumenism as the new ‘Catholic’ approach to Christian unity, it was clearly the false pope Angelo Roncalli (‘John XXIII’, 1958-63) who got the ball rolling. It was he who wanted for ecumenism to become acceptable and normalized. Two years before the council even began, he had already instituted a Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity.

The day Pope Pius XII died, the Modernist Dom Lambert Beauduin (1873-1960) is said to have remarked concerning the upcoming conclave: “If they elect Roncalli, everything will be saved. He will be able to convoke a council, and he will consecrate ecumenism.” This was reported by Fr. Louis Bouyer, as cited in Rev. Joseph A. Komonchak, “Pope John XXIII and the Idea of an Ecumenical Council” (p. 3). And thus it happened.

Roncalli took action to make sure that the approval of ecumenism would be on the agenda for his wretched Second Vatican Council. He appointed as theological advisors to the council a number of doctrinally suspect theologians who had been silenced or otherwise disciplined by the Holy Office under Popes Pius XI and Pius XII. By a stroke of the pen, John XXIII rehabilitated them, which allowed some of them to go on to become very influential voices at the council and in the post-conciliar era, such as Fr. Yves Congar, O.P. (1904-95).

Furthermore, the original draft text for the schema on the Church that had been prepared for the council was tossed out in the first few days of the assembly, which was possible only with Roncalli’s approval. This meant that the council would begin with a clean slate, and thus the floodgates for doctrinal revolution had been opened.

Eventually, of course, it was the false pope Giovanni Battista Montini (‘Paul VI’, 1963-78) who ratified and promulgated Lumen Gentium, Unitatis Redintegratio, and the council’s other decrees, making them official ‘Catholic’ teaching.

That is how ‘Catholic’ ecumenism and the false ecclesiology it is based on took shape and quickly became the Golden Calf they are today.

It is clear, therefore, how and why the perennial Catholic teaching on religious unity was overturned at Vatican II. But who actually came up with the novel formulation, subsistit in?

It is often said that it was Fr. Sebastian Tromp, S.J. (1889-1975) who suggested the term, but that is true only in a certain sense. During the discussions among the members of the Doctrinal Commission, of which Fr. Tromp was the secretary, it was indeed he who made the suggestion that subsistit in be used, but he is not the one who came up with that formulation, as we will see momentarily.

Tromp notes this in his Council Diary, giving not only the exact date when he proposed the term but even the time: It was Tuesday, Nov. 26, 1963, at 6:35 pm, during a plenary session of the Doctrinal Commission. In his journal he notes in Latin: “Secr. proponit subsistit in: Admittur”, which means, “Secretary suggests subsists in: It is accepted [by the others].” The source for this is the bilingual German-Latin edition of his conciliar diary: Sebastian Tromp, SJ, Konzilstagebuch, vol. 3/1, ed. by Alexandra von Teuffenbach (Nordhausen: Verlag Traugott Bautz GmbH, 2014), p. 347; underlining given.

Thus it is indeed true that it was Fr. Tromp who introduced the term into the draft text that ultimately became the conciliar document Lumen Gentium. Tromp is not, however, the individual who first came up with the thought of using subsistit in. Rather, the idea appears to have originated with… the German Lutheran theologian and pastor Wilhelm Schmidt (1914-2011).

Schmidt officially participated as a Protestant observer at the council’s third and fourth sessions in 1964 and ’65, respectively. It was the end of the fourth session that saw the solemn promulgation of Lumen Gentium by Paul VI on Nov. 21, 1964. Schmidt’s name is mentioned in the list of observers found in vol. IV of Giuseppe Alberigo’s History of Vatican II (English version edited by Joseph A. Komonchak [Maryknoll, NY: ORBIS, 2003], p. 16, fn. 43). Furthermore, Schmidt’s participation as an observer at Vatican II is confirmed in a biographical dictionary of the council, the Personenlexikon zum Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzil edited by Michael Quisinksy and Peter Walter (Freiburg: Herder, 2012), p. 244.

That it was Schmidt who first suggested subsistit in for the council is something that has been confirmed by Schmidt himself. Back in July of 2000, the German Fr. Matthias Gaudron of the Society of St. Pius X had contacted Schmidt to ask him if it was true that he was the originator of the novel wording. In his written response, Schmidt confirmed it and explicitly granted permission for his affirmation to be made public.

A facsimile of the letter was published in vol. 3 of Rom gegen Rom (Rome versus Rome), a 3-volume study of Modernism and the Second Vatican Council by Dr. Wolfgang Schüler, a retired German academic who is not a sedevacantist but a recognize-and-resist adherent.

Here is a scan of the letter, followed by an English translation:

(taken from Wolfgang Schüler, Rom gegen Rom, vol. 3 [Hattersheim: Actio Spes Unica, 2023], p. 162)

August 3, 2000

Reverend Father:

Only now has your letter of July 19 reached me at my new residence in the Black Forest, after taking a detour through South Tyrol. I am happy to respond to your questions.

The information you received from Rev. Fr. Ungerer is correct. When I was pastor of the Church of the Holy Cross in Bremen-Horn, I attended the council during the third and fourth sessions as a representative of the Protestant Confraternity of St. Michael, at the invitation of Cardinal Bea. The expression “subsistit in” I handed in writing to Joseph Ratzinger, the theological advisor of Cardinal Frings at the time, who passed it on to the cardinal.

I have no objections to these details being made public.

Cordially,

[signed] Wilhelm Schmidt

So there we have it: The idea that the Church founded by Jesus Christ subsists in the Roman Catholic Church has its origin in the mind of Wilhelm Schmidt — assuming, of course, that Schmidt told the truth. In his Catechism of the Crisis in the Church (Kansas City, MO: Angelus Press, 2010), Fr. Gaudron himself discloses this information (Question 29).

So it was apparently the idea of a Protestant and a German (like Martin Luther) to boot. That by itself would not, of course, suffice to make the wording erroneous or heretical. Nevertheless, it would be characteristic of the council and quite in keeping with the entire Vatican II revolution if it was a Protestant, rather than a Catholic, who supplied to it one of its most important and consequential doctrinal formulations.

To be clear, the concept of subsistence as such is not problematic; it is drawn from Aristotelian-scholastic metaphysics. The question, rather, is whether one can or should apply it to the Mystical Body of Christ in the way Vatican II has done, by saying that the Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church — rather than saying that the Church of Christ is the Catholic Church.

Doctrinal Discontinuity

The conciliar and pre-conciliar doctrines regarding the Church and religious unity are irreconcilable, which means they cannot both be true. Either ecumenical unity is a false unity or it is not. It cannot be a false unity in 1950 and a true unity in 1964.

Some Novus Ordo theologians are candid enough to admit the obvious: Yes, this constitutes a break in teaching, a substantial difference that cannot be reconciled; it is frankly a reversal of what was taught before. For example, Fr. Francis Sullivan (1922-2019) openly acknowledged that

on several important issues the council clearly departed from previous papal teaching. One has only to compare the Decree on Ecumenism with such an encyclical as Mortalium animos of Pope Pius XI, or the Declaration on Religious Freedom with the teaching of Leo XIII and other popes on the obligation binding on the Catholic rulers of Catholic nations to suppress Protestant evangelism, to see with what freedom the Second Vatican Council reformed papal teaching.

(Francis A. Sullivan, S.J., Magisterium: Teaching Authority in the Catholic Church [Mahwah, NY: Paulist Press, 1983], p. 157)

Vatican II’s rupture with the doctrine laid out in Mortalium Animos is so obvious that the council did not even try to feign some kind of continuity. Even though Pius XI’s encyclical was the landmark document on religious unity, no reference is made to it whatsoever in the council documents, nor in John Paul II’s Ut Unum Sint, which is the principal Novus Ordo encyclical on ecumenism. There is only one reasonable way to explain these glaring omissions: The authors didn’t want to bring up a magisterial text that so clearly contradicts and refutes the position they were trying to advance.

For more detailed discussion on how Vatican II ecumenism and the subsistit in teaching contradicts the pre-Vatican II doctrine, see the following links:

Just how consequential the ecclesiological revolution of Lumen Gentium was can be seen in an admission made by then-‘Cardinal’ Karol Wojtyla (1920-2005), the future ‘Pope’ John Paul II, in a book published in Italian in 1977 and made available in English two years later. He wrote: “The Church … succeeded, during the second Vatican Council, in re-defining her own nature” (Wojtyla, Sign of Contradiction [New York, NY: The Seabury Press, 1979], p. 17). A scan of the page can be found here.

Thus we can see that the doctrinal change made by Lumen Gentium gave rise not only to a false ecumenical theology but even to a new and different church altogether.

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Who Came Up with the Idea that Christ’s Church ‘Subsists in’ the Catholic Church, as Vatican II Teaches?