Yes indeed, XXXX. That brings us to the issue of Mr Dimond’s own unorthodoxy.
First we find him denying the de fide truth that Baptism of Desire suffices for justification (which even Fr Feeney accepted!), and indeed for salvation. Trent is quite clear. St Thomas is quite clear. The Doctors are quite clear. Canon Law is quite clear. Historical examples of unbaptised canonised saints are numerous and clear. The theologians are unanimous. But Dimond denies this dogma because he doesn’t SEE how it is compatible with other texts. That’s how heresy happens. The reason he doesn’t understand is that he doesn’t have the background education in philosophy and theology. Sad, but not a justification – no one invited him to adopt his present “apostolate”.
(Here incidentally is what St Alphonsus has to say on the topic in his Moral Theology Bk. 6, nn. 95-7: “Now it is de fide that men are also saved by Baptism of desire, by virtue of the Canon Apostolicam, “de presbytero non baptizato” and of the Council of Trent, session 6, Chapter 4 where it is said that no one can be saved “without the laver of regeneration or the desire for it”. ”
For Mr Dimond, this is just proof that Doctors of the Church are not infallible and can err. The possibility that Dimond himself is not infallible and can err fails to occur to his bloated ego. What is clear is that St Alphonsus, not misled by any supposedly inexact translations, understands the Trent text in the sense that Dimond (a non-Latinist) rejects and that St Alphonsus holds as de fide a proposition that Dimond emphatically rejects as a heresy. And while the Doctors of the Church are not individually infallible (only collectively) it is quite certain that the Church does not accord the accolade of Doctor to persons who represent heresy as dogma and dogma as heresy. Plainly any humble, prudent and docile Catholic will adhere to St Alphonsus, not to Dimond – not that the Trent text is in any way ambiguous.
Moreover, it is only by a startling inconsistency, of which he must surely be conscious, that Dimond fails to brand St Alphonsus Liguori as a heretic, for in referring to contemporary Catholics he invariably calls them heretics when he thinks they err on dogmatic subjects. Of course this is particularly terrible when, as on the Baptism in voto subject, Dimond is the one who errs and those he condemns are orthodox. But even when he is right, it is a certain truth that to be a heretic there must be direct error against dogma, held with pertinacity – i.e. realisation that one’s opinion conflicts with dogma. And Dimond rides roughshod over the pertinacity requirement, perhaps under the illusion that pertinacity is always presumed, whereas in fact it is presumed only where there are solid grounds for such a presumption. Thus he dismisses from the Church, as he himself admits, nearly all traditional priests, and indeed the laity.
Another grave departure from Catholic orthodoxy is found in Dimond’s attitude to those papal decrees and declarations, encyclicals, etc., which fall short of the requirements for pertaining to the Extraordinary Magisterium. Dimond sees no difficulty in arguing that as they are not guaranteed by direct infallibility, they may well contain error and that Catholics are free to reject their contents, indeed sometimes bound to…
As a matter of fact, as Pope Pius XII explains in Humani Generis, and as any serious student of Catholic doctrine knows, Catholics are bound in conscience to submit both exteriorly and interiorly to these non-infallible documents also, and the words of Our Lord “He that heareth you, heareth me” apply to them. Dimond rejects that truth by a combination of ignorance and necessity, for he cannot admit a fact that would at a stroke destroy his false doctrine concerning Baptism in voto.
Another grotesque error is one that Dimond has invented himself – namely that Karol Wojtyla is himself the Antichrist in person. What emerges from his attempts to defend this error is that he has not studied Catholic doctrine about the Antichrist. He simply does not know that the Antichrist will reign politically over the whole world for 3 1/2 years, assassinate Henoch and Elias in Jerusalem, witness their resurrection, attempt to fly up to heaven himself (like Simon Magus of old) and then fall dead to the ground, struck by the breath of Christ. The Antichrist is not JP2, nor was he Paul VI as the late Bill Strojie claimed. These men were/are very wicked and were/are antichrists, but THE Antichrist is still to come (perhaps quite soon) and Mr Dimond is not helping to prepare Catholics for the event. He is merely spreading cloud and obscurity on grave matters.
Further criticisms would include Dimond’s penchant for making highly controversial statements without providing adequate references and proof – for instance his claim that Baptism in voto was not mentioned in the original catechism of the Council of Trent and was added in the nineteenth century; that Baptism in voto was not mentioned in the original Catechism of St Pius X or approved by that pope, etc.
Then there are his merely misleading references. For instance, he attributes to Fr Leonard Feeney the words, “Anyone who says the New Mass is a traitor to the Catholic Faith,” with a reference to From the Housetops, #24, 1983, p. 54. Incautious readers would casually assume that this was an article written by Fr Leonard Feeney to express his view. But in fact Fr Feeney was already dead. He died in 1978, though not before having himself said the New Mass. Dimond simply can’t be trusted.
There we are, XXXX. I am sorry that time prevents me from being more thorough, but I think I have written enough to make it clear why I do not wish to be associated with Michael Dimond in any way.
To help you evaluate other writers on current controversies, may I suggest that you acquire a second-hand copy of Fr Edward Leen: What Is Education? and study in it what an educated Catholic mind is supposed to be like. Perhaps the most marked characteristic of the mind is that it is judicious. I would strongly recommend limiting contemporary writers you publish on your site to those to whom the word “judicious” could reasonably be applied.
Incidentally, to OCR Fr Leen’s book and make it available on the Web would be a signal service to the common good.
God bless you.
In Domino et Domina,
John Daly
