" />
" />
" />
" />
" />| Recent Featured Videos and Articles | Eastern “Orthodoxy” Refuted | How To Avoid Sin | The Antichrist Identified! | What Fake Christians Get Wrong About Ephesians | Why So Many Can't Believe | “Magicians” Prove A Spiritual World Exists | Amazing Evidence For God | News Links |
| Vatican II “Catholic” Church Exposed | Steps To Convert | Outside The Church There Is No Salvation | E-Exchanges | The Holy Rosary | Padre Pio | Traditional Catholic Issues And Groups | Help Save Souls: Donate |  |
An Ancient Practice That Was Wrong
St. Cyprian’s erroneous position that heretics could not receive or confer baptism validly is of course well known. We’ve mentioned it repeatedly as an example of how individual Church fathers and theologians can be wrong. But it’s worth noting that, in arguing for his incorrect position, Cyprian pointed out that it was “no new or sudden thing”. He believed that his position was very ancient and represented the Apostolic Tradition. He claimed that “very many bishops” agreed and that “thousands of heretics” were reconciled to the Church by baptizing them unconditionally because they considered it impossible for those heretics to have been validly baptized. This is a prime example of how individual Church fathers can be quite wrong and how an extremely ancient practice or position endorsed by Church fathers can be wrong. Hence, we must always ultimately base our conclusions on the teaching of the Magisterium and the Chair of St. Peter.
St. Cyprian, Epistle 72, To Jubaianus: “… concerning the baptism of heretics; who, placed without, and established outside the Church, arrogate to themselves a matter neither within their right nor their power. This baptism we cannot consider as valid or legitimate, since it is manifestly unlawful among them… But among us it is no new or sudden thing for us to judge that those are to be baptized who come to the Church from among the heretics, since it is now many years and a long time ago, that, under Agrippinus— a man of worthy memory — very many bishops assembling together have decided this; and thenceforward until the present day, so many thousands of heretics in our provinces have been converted to the Church, and have neither despised nor delayed, nay, they have both reasonably and gladly embraced, the opportunity to attain the grace of the life-giving layer and of saving baptism.”
St. Robert Bellarmine also noted that the local council which endorsed the false view on the validity of baptism received among heretics was attended by 85 bishops.
St. Robert Bellarmine, On Councils, Book II, Chap. 10: “That [local] councils of this kind could err, there is the witness of the Council of Carthage under Cyprian, which was national, most famous, legitimate and of 85 bishops, of which many were martyrs or confessors, as is clear from the letter of Cyprian to Jubaianus, and still it erred.”
Sign up for our free e-mail list to see future vaticancatholic.com videos and articles.
Recent Content
^