Letter to a Priest by Simone Weil

Author:Simone Weil
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2012-05-17T20:34:59+00:00

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It does not seem that the Church can be infallible; for, in fact, it is continually evolving. In the Middle Ages, the saying ‘Outside the Church there is no salvation’ was taken in the literal sense by the doctrinal authorities of the Church. At any rate, the documentary records seem clearly to indicate this. Nowadays it is understood in the sense of the invisible Church.

A council has declared anathema whoever does not believe that in Christ’s saying ‘. . . whoever is not born of water and the Spirit . . .’ the word ‘water’ actually referred to the material element of baptism. On this count, all priests nowadays are anathemas. For if a man who has neither received nor desired to receive baptism can be saved, as is generally admitted at the present time, he must have been reborn of water and the Spirit in a certain sense, necessarily a symbolical one; consequently the word ‘water’ is taken in a symbolical sense.

A council has declared anathema whoever professes to be certain of final perseverance without having had a particular revelation. St. Theresa of Lisieux, shortly before her death, declared she was certain of her salvation, without adducing any revelation in support of this statement. That did not prevent her from being canonized.

If one asks several different priests whether such-and-such a thing is strictly an article of faith, one obtains different, and often dubitative, answers. That creates an impossible situation, when the edifice itself is so rigid that St. Thomas was able to put forward the affirmation referred to earlier.

There is something in all this which does not seem to fit.

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