longer to himself, but to him who died and rose for us. (cf. 1 Cor. 6:19; 2 Cor. 5:15.) From now on, he is called to be subject to others, to serve them in the communion of the Church, and to obey and submit to the Church's leaders, (cf. Heb. 13:17) holding them in respect and affection. (cf. Eph. 5:21; 1 Cor. 16:15-16; 1 Thess. 5:12-13; Jn. 13:12-15)" [#1269]

Any of the baptized who dissent from the faith of the Church-which Vatican II emphatically reaffirmed as the faith authoritatively taught by the Magisterium-have separated themselves from "the faithful."

ACC operates under the premise that there are "truths" which their leaders recognize but the Magisterium does not. Not only does this reject the Vatican II affirmation of Magisterial teaching  as "not just the word of men but truly the word of God," but by logic it would render sensus fidelium impossible to attain. Lumen Gentium dogmatically defined sensus fidelium as applying to "the entire body of the faithful when from the Bishops down to the last of the lay faithful they show universal agreement in matters of faith and morals." Universal agreement among "the faithful" is not possible if "the faithful" includes both those who assent to the Bishops' teaching and those who do not. Under ACC's understanding of sensus fidelium, it would be impossible for this property to even exist.

Concurrently, it is important to understand that sensus fidelium does not mean that universal consent of the faithful is necessary for a doctrine to be true, or that doctrine becomes true by virtue of such consensus. It means that universal consent is possible because the doctrine is true in the first place. Truth emanates from God and comes to the faithful-not the other way around. When the entire body of the faithful recognizes the truth through "supernatural discernment"-not by human reason alone-sensus fidelium becomes the prophetic witness spoken of in Lumen Gentium.

This is what is meant by "The holy people of God shares also in Christ's prophetic office." When the entire body of the faithful agrees with the truth, it is a powerful and prophetic witness to the rest of the world. When "the faithful" is divided, it is a sad and pathetic witness of an institution showing only its human limitations and rejecting its divine identity.

There is evidence the latter perspective exists among the ACC leadership. In an email correspondence with me, one of the members of the ACC national planning committee made a distressing admission. Out of fairness to this person I will protect their anonymity; I did not identify myself as a writer in our correspondence, and this person indicated afterwards that they were speaking on their own behalf, not in the name of ACC. The latter point is irrelevant, as this person does claim to speak for ACC in other venues, and the personal opinion expressed here would discredit anyone who claims to be Catholic from speaking on behalf of the Catholic Church and its ecumenical councils. This ACC leader wrote to me:

"We two clearly have different starting places intellectually when talking about Church structure. For me, it is patently human made-and that is wonderful! We humans are the ones who decide what we proclaim to be 'from God' after all. So, if we mess it up, we have no one to blame other than ourselves."

Vatican II-in whose name the American Catholic Council claims to act-dogmatically reaffirmed the Catholic Church as divinely established by Jesus Christ upon the hierarchical structure of Peter and the Apostles, whose divine authority today's hierarchy of the Pope and Bishops inherit. As long as the American Catholic Council continues to act in the name of the Catholic Church and Vatican II, Catholic Online will continue to expose their errors and educate the faithful about the true Catholic teachings which Vatican II reaffirmed.

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James Penrice is an author of nine books, a correspondent for Catholic Athletes for Christ, and a contributor to Catholic Online.