WDTPRS: What the Pope really says... Or: Why do we need his Definitions defined for us by amateurs anyway?
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The culture of dissent seems to have been born of the spirit of Vatican II - not from the Council itself - the Council did not call Catholics to a state of perpetual questioning of authority. Just as the irregularities and novelties associated with the Novus Ordo were developed after the Council. It is very easy for us to read the documents - or better put - other's interpretation of them, and assign blame or praise to the Council itself. This is what many traditionalists have done, as well as those of us who find some of the post-Councillor reforms to have been implemented badly. On the other hand, dissidents have made an idol of personal freedom, conscience, and dissident theory - convinced the Council set some sort of revolutionary standard.
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Blessed John XXIII, revered by dissidents and faithful Catholics alike, never intended the Council to overthrow the authority of Church teaching. In his opening statements to the Council Fathers the Pope said:
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"In calling this vast assembly of bishops, the latest and humble successor to the Prince of the Apostles who is addressing you intends to assert once again the Church's Magisterium [teaching authority], which is unfailing and perdures until the end of time, in order that this Magisterium, taking into account the errors, the requirements, and the opportunities of our time, might he presented in exceptional form to all men throughout the world.15
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The greatest concern of the ecumenical council is this: that the sacred deposit of Christian doctrine should be guarded and taught more efficaciously." 17
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The Holy Father will have much to suffer.
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Every successive Pope has suffered and labored to not only safeguard, but promulgate all that accords with the perennial teaching of the Faith. Many traditionalists like to say the Council did not formulate any dogma, or promulgate any specific teaching, or condemn any heresy, and therefore one is not obliged to accept the documents as infallible. Of course, the cafeteria Catholic also seems to think dissent was declared an infallible right, calling anyone and everyone to dissent from any Church discipline or teaching they happen to disagree with, or that doesn't accord with popular culture. So in essence - the culture of dissent, a corruption of the concept of sensum fidei, has infected every aspect of the Christian life - bearing similarities to the confusion which was the result of the Protestant Reformation.
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That said, as faithful Catholics, we are called to submit to the Pope, Christ's Vicar.
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"This loyal submission of the will and intellect must be given in a special way to the authentic teaching authority of the Roman Pontiff, even when he does not speak ex cathedra, in such wise, indeed, that his supreme teaching authority be acknowledged with respect, and that one sincerely adhere to the decisions made by him, conformably with his manifest mind and intention, which is made known principally either by the character of the documents in question, or by the frequency with which. a certain doctrine is proposed, or by the manner in which the doctrine is formulated." 25
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It is indeed true that within the Council debates heated discussions took place, cardinal was against cardinal, theologians and periti proposed this or that, but in the end, when all the votes were counted and the final draft of the documents were agreed upon and signed, they were then promulgated by the Pope - hence the documents are binding. This is what our current Holy Father is emphasizing in seeking to implement the authentic teaching of the Council and not simply the spirit of Vatican II.
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As Ralph McInerny said:
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"Unfortunately, some theologians, particularly moral theologians, for reasons we will examine in subsequent chapters, have simply rejected this clear teaching of Vatican II. They have come to see their role as one of criticizing, passing judgment on, and even dismissing magisterial teaching.
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There is no surer protection against this attempted usurpation than the documents of Vatican II themselves and particularly the passages just quoted from the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium.26
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There is, of course, something odd in the effort to quarrel with what are obviously teachings of the Church and therefore require religious assent from Catholics. It is almost as if the aim were to discover how little one need believe. But surely, as Vatican II urges, it should be the mark of Catholics that they take on the mind and heart of the Church and show gratitude for God's great gift of the Magisterium.
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...to advise Catholics to ignore clear magisterial teachings is to advise them to reject the clear teaching of Vatican II. How ironic that the council should be invoked as warrant for dissenting from the Magisterium when it is precisely the council that rules this out.
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To accept Vatican II is to accept what the council says about the Magisterium and the Catholic's obligation to obey it. - What Went Wrong With Vatican II - Ralph M. McInerny. (All quotes in italics have been taken from his essay.)
.Therefore, all things considered, I think it goes without saying that Humanae Vitae is infallible teaching. Even though dissenters have said no since the document was promulgated, which in my opinion accounts for much of the immorality we see today.
Overstate the infallibility of any issue be it sex or the just war theory and you set up someone to eventually commit the worse sin of schism. All schismatics from Catholicism proceed into schism from believing an issue infallible before it was. The Latin Mass people who saw one Pope as infallibly making the Latin Mass eternal....the Leveberites who saw the early 19th century encyclical strictures against freedom of religion as infallible and thus saw Vatican II as evil when it overthrew several ideas in several of those encylicals. Read Ott "Fundamentals of the Catholic Faith" Intro....just prior to section 9.
ReplyDeleteWhen you overstate the infallibility of an issue, you set up yourself or others to schism should the issue ever receive changes. And ironically the devil likes that wonderfully since schism is worse than the sins attached to some of these issues being a spiritual sin rather than a carnal one. So the devil sinks the 9 ball with the 5 ball. He has been at this a long time.
Bill - are you saying that if the Church were to declare that contraception is no longer an intrinsic evil, immorality would decrease? Do you really believe that?
ReplyDeleteNo one's condemning those who struggle with the teaching - Lord knows I did for many many years - and still do - but the high level of struggle isn't an indication of the deficiency of the teaching. It's a sign that greater reliance on and deeper trust in God is necessary, strengthened by grace available in the sacraments.
People are going to commit schism regardless of the teaching - it's been happening since the Church's beginning - and while the Pope and the bishops don't wish for schism, there is still that little thing called free will, and people will continue to exercise it either according to their benefit or to their demise.
My post did not say what you said it did. I repeat: when you overstate the doctrinal level of an issue, you risk teaching some to be schismatics if a change occurs in the future.
ReplyDeleteI have Grisez's volume one tome at home (the linked writer). Oddly he spends about 50% of his footnotes criticizing other theologians most of whom are more known and published than he is; while in such a context as his footnotes, they have no redress. But it is simply very odd for a moral theology writer to spend so much time attacking others while never raising one question as why the Popes for 50 years have done nothing to those writers and not one has uttered the simple sentence: it is solved infallibly. Could it be that the Popes do not agree with Grisez and Ermenegildo Lio and the minor writers that follow them...that this has been settled. Otherwise why is it that the most they do is use the word "definitive" and that mostly through the CDF whose documents Ott's Fundamentals excludes from being infallible.
Overstate infallibility on sex or just war or any moral issue and you risk cooperating in someone's eventual schism should things alter even in details like permitting condoms when AIDS is present. It is the "faithful" zealous who end up committing schism which is worse than sexual sins. Ironic as ironic can be.
I don't see what authority the writings you mention have over and above the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The Catechism represents Magisterial teaching, as I stated in another post, and is quite clear in its condemnation of artificial contraception.
ReplyDeleteNo amount of rationalization, historical controversy, or schism makes that go away. The Church is going to teach and promulgate moral truths whether we moderns like it or not -- we have the choice to either assent or dissent.
Austringer
ReplyDeleteThe catechism is very reliable not totally reliable as a recent Pope inferred since husband headship is totally absent from it but is affirmed in the NT 6 explicit times by God through the human writer and is affirmed in the strongest language in section 74 of Casti Connubii sentence one....but it's..the catechism's job is to present Church teaching of all levels of authority including the non infallible. Much like if you worked for Toyota as a sales rep, you would sell all levels even if your predeliction was in favor of the Prius and you thought the Corolla a less than perfect idea.
If you think the catechism is infallible in se, you are not reading enough. It can recount the infallible here and there but not always. Trent's catechism 1566 affirmed the death penalty in the strongest possible terms and the current Catechism tried its best to make that punishment impossible even by a revision. Trent affirmed delayed ensoulement in the section on the Incarnation/ affirmed the property status of slaves both in the commentary on the 7th commandment and on the 10th commandment. As opposed to that, section 80 of "Splendor of the Truth" by John Paul II said that slavery was intrinsically evil irrespective of circumstances including historical context.
Neither he nor Trent were infallible in their opposite positions. Chattel slavery was allowed by God in Leviticus 25:44-46 so we know that John Paul was incorrect since God never allows the intrinsically evil. But he is right in a wide sense since slavery is wrong contextually depending on whether the world economy has replaced it with alternatives in the now non nomadic setting of the modern world.
Lumen Gentium 25 calls for "religious submission of mind and will" even to the non infallible but it gives requirements like repetitive theme which most everyone leaves out. Nonetheless after Lumen Gentium 25 stated that, the Church proceeded to allow the moral theology tradition found in seminary moral theology tomes like Grisez's to continue as to exceptions in obedience to the non infallible which LG 25 addressed incompletely then as Yves Congar said Councils did.... and that exception is struggled well read and prayerful conscientious dissent not against the infallible like Abortion (Evanglium Vitae section 62) but against the less than infallible whether it is in the catechism or in several encyclicals which per se are mostly throughout history...non infallible (see Ott Intro prior to section 9).
Bill,
ReplyDeleteNowhere did I say that the Catechism is infallible. I wouldn't use the term anyway, as "infallible" isn't a term properly used for an inanimate object like a book. But I digress...I am not trying to say that you haven't researched this carefully in order to justify your position. But I am not convinced by your arguments. I would suggest you read this article: http://catholicchampion.blogspot.com/2009/04/is-catholic-churchs-teaching-on.html He quotes extensively from various Church documents.I am copying a few excerpts from it here:
"In 1968 Pope Paul VI released Humane Vitae which pulled together the Church's constant teaching regarding sexual morality. The document is not really promulgating any new doctrine or dogma, but rather expounds and builds upon what the Church had already found to be absolute and immutable. The document presents its teaching as is if it is already understood have ben proclaimed before. It also puts the weight of the infallible Church behind it."
"I could go on with many more documents that also attest to this irreformable doctrine. The Catechism tells us also, “In contrast, "every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible" is intrinsically evil."
"How many more documents would the Church need on this subject in order for this teaching to be considered infallible? I believe that if there was any doubt on the subject before the 1930's it has since that time been put to rest with many encyclicals, and documents penned by the Catholic Magisterium. I have not even touched on the vast history of the Church Fathers or other Popes who also attest to this infallible teaching, instead I have taken the Church's official documents at face value. Those bishops and theologians who even today lash out against these teachings as not being infallible are clearly at odds with the infallible Magisterium on the matter and therefore are in serious error. It is quite clear then that the Church's teaching that the use of contraception as being gravely immoral, is indeed an infallible teaching, and not just a certain teaching."
Austringer
ReplyDeleteAnd yet no Pope will say it is infallible but only a series of minor authors will say that. Please.
Your author sounds like he knows less than some of those theologians he is critical of. There were 265 Popes...only about 8have said a blessed thing about it and those are heavily located in the 20th century and the late 19th. Feel free to name more than 8.
Go to Humanae Vitae and look at footnote 4 wherein Paul VI is recounting the tradition. All his sources are post mid 19th century except the catechism of Trent.
What theologians like Rahner were well aware of is that Paul VI never really recounted the whole history at all which includes 28 Popes after Sixtus V accepting and cooperating with the sterilization involved with the castrati singers in the papal choirs until Pope Leo XIII put a stop to it which shows that the previous 28 Popes could have put a stop to it and did not.
Go to a library and read about it in any major encyclopedia; the one at new advent blotted out the topic so that if you enter it in the search engine there, nothing comes up.
The criticized theologians like Rahner also know that two of the most influential Fathers in this topic were ex fornicators (Augustine and Jerome) and may not have been the best people to comment on this topic since neither believed in having many children in marriage...see "The
Good of Marriage" for that /where
he says that the Jews had many children but Christians need not.
In Against Jovinianus, Jerome says the identical thing but in worse terms. There two things like the series of Popes on castrati are never mentioned at all in Humanae Vitae nor in authors like the one you link to which means all such people are not being 100% honest and you are wondering why 94% of Catholics are in non compliance. Some of them when Humanae Vitae was released and stated as non infallible twice by Monsiegnor Lambrushini who presented HV to the press....some of those Catholics at that time were reading such things about Augustine in Time magazine and Newsweek and were wondering why Catholic sources were not mentioning these contradictions at all but were simply implying that the tradition was pristine.
But Karl Rahner is berated as a theologian because he knew all these omissions and knew that the claim of unbroken tradition was made by people who all left out large chunks of the reality in this area.
Augustine
"Of the Good of Marriage section
9.…Whence we gather, that, in the first times of the human race, chiefly for the propagation of the People of God, through whom the Prince and Saviour of all people should both be prophesied of, and be born, it was the duty of the Saints to use this good of marriage, not as to be sought for its own sake, but necessary for the sake of something else: but now, whereas, in order to enter upon holy and pure fellowship, there is on all sides from out all nations an overflowing fullness of spiritual kindred, even they who wish to contract marriage only for the sake of children, are to be admonished, that they use rather the larger good of continence."
Yes you saw right. Augustine just told married people who got married to have children that they rather should keep continence and that children were a jewish thing.
Bill, you wrote: "And yet no Pope will say it is infallible but only a series of minor authors will say that. Please.
ReplyDeleteWell, it's my turn to sigh and say, "Please..." You are simply trying to justify your dissent by ignoring any contrary evidence. Is Pope Pius XII a "minor author? Here's what he wrote in 1951, quoting another "minor author, Pius XI: “Our Predecessor, Pius XI, of happy memory, in his Encyclical Casti Connubii, of December 31, 1930, once again solemnly proclaimed the fundamental law of the conjugal act and conjugal relations: that every attempt of either husband or wife in the performance of the conjugal act or in the development of its natural consequences which aims at depriving it of its inherent force and hinders the procreation of new life is immoral; and that no "indication" or need can convert an act which is intrinsically immoral into a moral and lawful one. This precept is in full force today, as it was in the past, and so it will be in the future also, and always, because it is not a simple human whim, but the expression of a natural and divine law.”
Another "minor author", Pope Paul VI: "Neither is it valid to argue, as a justification for sexual intercourse which is deliberately contraceptive, that a lesser evil is to be preferred to a greater one, or that such intercourse would merge with procreative acts of past and future to form a single entity, and so be qualified by exactly the same moral goodness as these. Though it is true that sometimes it is lawful to tolerate a lesser moral evil in order to avoid a greater evil or in order to promote a greater good," it is never lawful, even for the gravest reasons, to do evil that good may come of it (18)—in other words, to intend directly something which of its very nature contradicts the moral order, and which must therefore be judged unworthy of man, even though the intention is to protect or promote the welfare of an individual, of a family or of society in general.”
Pope John Paul II: "What is taught by the Church on contraception does not belong to material freely debatable among theologians."
More Pope John Paul II: "In the question of the Church's teaching on the regulation of birth we are called to profess in union with the whole Church the exigent but uplifting teaching recorded in the Encyclical Humanae vitae, which my Predecessor Paul VI put forth 'by virtue of the mandate entrusted to us by Christ' (AAS 60, 1968, p.485). Particularly in this regard we must be conscious of the fact that God's wisdom supercedes human calculation and His grace is powerful in people's lives." "Contraception is to be judged objectively so illicit," said the Pope, "that it can never, for any reason be justified.” "
The frequency of a particular doctrine's mention by how many popes throughout history is not an indication of the infallibility of the teaching -- you need not bother to try that particular dodge again.
I genuinely feel very sorry for you, and will pray for you. I don't think dissent contributes to anyone's peace of mind...
Last post for me.
ReplyDeleteIf each Pope you just quoted (and none of them again spoke in an infallible venue once again)...if each lived back in the first half of the 19th century as diocesan priests when the papal executioner, Bugatti, executed 500 criminals during his career in the papal states, each one of those Popes as priest or as succeeding Pope would have verbally supported in similar solemn language the papal position then on the death penalty.
Now they do not.
If each of those men lived as priests in the 17th century when a Pope produced the anti financial interest bull...Vix Pervenit... which allowed not the tiniest of interest on a personal loan, they would have supported that too in language that would have seemed...seemed...final.
Had they lived in 1252 when a Pope through Ad Extirpandum brought back burning at the stake enforced by excommunication of rulers who did not burn heretics (see new advent/Inquisition), each of your Popes as priests or as Pope would have supported that too even though now one of them condemned it in Splendor of the Truth section 80.
So Catholicism has a conformism that all diocesan and religious clergy must subscribe to on all issues that they inherit...yet John Paul II who would have supported the death penalty with such language then in the early 19th century as a diocesan priest, he was able to break that ancient belief in the latter half of his pontificate and Benedict thinks just like him. Yet both would have supported also Pius XII when he affirmed the death penalty in 1952.
You do not become a Catholic priest if you are unwilling to support whatever are the current positions. In 1930, Pius XI saw sterilization as mutilation and all after him simply repeated that designation. But 29 Popes from the year 1589 (Sixtus V inclusive) to 1878 (Leo XIII non inclusive) did not view sterilization as mutilation at all. When Pius XI saw it being used by fascism, it struck him as evil and as mutilation. The 29 Popes never had that association but they associated it with giving the papal churches singers who actually increased Mass attendance.
Benedict XIV is said to have not liked it but he liked what it did to attendance and so did not stop it as Leo XIII later did.
In the early Church some saints associated military actions with the brutal regimes of the Roman empire and they then were against all soldiering. Once again guilt by association. The "potions" mentioned in very early birth control comments by saints could likewise have been in associative reaction to the fact that prostitutes in the ancient world openly used such things. Potions...soldering...sterilization...guilt by association is now gone as to soldiering or is it really if one goes to the very liberal Catholic web sites like Vox Nova some of whose writers sound like the early saints did as to soldiering.
Enough.
Austringer
ReplyDeletePS I forgot if I mentioned it. All your quotes by Popes are said within non infallible venues of Popes. That is why not one of them will say the word "infallible" in an infallible context.
Bill,
ReplyDeleteYou're still grasping at straws in order to maintain your dissent.
You do not know that "That is why not one of them will say the word "infallible" in an infallible context". You simply are not privy to the minds and motives of the popes, so you cannot support your dissent by making up your own motives in order to suit your ends.
Likewise with your breezy assertions about what current popes would do if they lived in different times. Do you realize what a flimsy and hypothetical structure that is??
Lastly, you wrote: "You do not become a Catholic priest if you are unwilling to support whatever are the current positions." What planet are you living on, Bill? I wish it were so! I know of many dissenting priests and bishops, some indulging in pretty serious heresy. I've had many conversations with my own pastor about the turbulent times in the seminary when he was attending: orthodox seminarians basically had to shut up and bide their time, as to show adherence to the Magisterium was a sure way to bar one's entrance or to be dismissed as "rigid".
Your arguments do not convince. They merely demonstrate the lengths people will go to dissent. I'm sure for some it's women's ordination; I suppose for some it's the Church's teaching that homosexual acts are inherently disordered. What most dissent does show is the particular personal hang-up of the dissenter.
Oh, and one last thing, Bill: the frequency of a particular doctrine's mention by popes is no guide to that doctrine's infallibility. If that were the case, then many Church doctrines would be suspect. Come on, Bill, you're a sharp guy - you know as well as I do that oftentimes doctrines that have been long held by thw Church are sometimes not explicitly dealt with until they come into question. Thus, it is not surprising, or indicative of a less-than-Magisterial teaching of the Church, that the question of artificial birth control would not be addressed in any length until it was questioned in the last century. There's lots of precedence for the Church responding in that way.
ReplyDeleteBill, I will pray for you. You have separated yourself from the one true Church, and it is my hope that you will return to Her arms.
One last item, Bill -- you offered as evidence of the OKness of your dissent on this issue, the low number of popes, out of their total number, who mentioned artificial contraception.
ReplyDeleteAw, come on, Bill -- this one is just 'way too easy: you probably know, as well as I do, that throughout Church history particular doctrines have not been the subject of controversy (and thus of public documentation) in certain time periods, but have been in others. Generally, it can be said that the Church tends to have to define and address certain issues, despite any past acceptance, when circumstances or heresies arise which call even long-accepted doctrines into question. So you present, as "evidence" of the OKness of your dissent about this issue, the paucity of pre-19th century writing on the subject.
Fer Pete's sake, that's like saying that, given the lack of any significant numbers of popes speaking "ex cathedra" through the centuries about the issue, that rape is OK. Or, more to the point, Internet pornography -- why didn't earlier popes speak against it?? Ah hah!! Internet pornography MUST be OK, since very few past popes have addressed it(and those few were very recent, so they can be discounted as being chained to their particular time period). Never mind that the constant teaching of the Church against masturbation and other sexual sins has always been there: that doesn't mean much because they didn't specifically address Internet pornography. Therefore, the use of the Internet to gratify sexual needs must be OK, or at least very ambiguous - and don't a lot of trendy theologions say so?
The Barque of Peter is just that -- a ship. One doesn't jump a "little bit" off of a ship -- once you've dived off, you're off. It is the deceit of Satan that convinces so many to think that "I have thought this through and I disagree with the Church on this one issue. But I consider myself a faithful Catholic." Aaargh...I remember being at a Christmas party wherein a fellow guest offered that he was a "faithful Catholic" even though he disagreed with the notion -- pah -- of the Trinity. He had not only jumped ship, he was actively swimming away on his own while still claiming that he represented "faithful Catholicism".
God bless you, Bill.
You mean like actually knowing Church history instead of praising it without knowing it.
ReplyDeleteAustringer
ReplyDeleteMy little post goes with your prior post. As to your second post, most moral questions are solved in the Bible which is inerrant and thus they do not need Popes infallibly declaring that rape is bad since in Judges 19, the concubine of not an ordinary man but of a Levite priest is raped and killed and 25,000 Benjaminites pay with their lives by the power of God
because God kills directly in the Bible for sacrilege and this involved a priest but it also involved rape so as to teach us that that also is evil aside from sacrilege causing massive deaths.
St. Alphonse in his Theologia Moralis said however that there are complicated issues that even saints have differed on and therefore Scripture does not suffice on those issues. Popes must intervene sometimes erroneously when speaking outside the infallible realm...usury...a thousand year mistake which our apologetics machine paints as white as they can get it....which is hampered by Calvin having our exact answer in 1545 meaning it had nothing to do with money changing and becoming fecund thanks to stocks and options.
Augustine thought he saw something in the Onan story about sex and God killing for it. Pius XI or Arthur Vermeesch who had a advisory role in Casti Connubii simply repeated Augustine's interpretation but theologians, bishops and John Noonan later noticed that a number of saints and doctors were silent on Onan being about sex. What else could it be about. Look at the old translation and look at the newer one:
Douay Rheims:Genesis
38:9. He knowing that the children should not be his, when he went in to his brother's wife, he spilled his seed upon the ground, lest children should be born in his brother's name.
38:10. And therefore the Lord slew him, because he did a detestable thing:
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Notice that Onan seems to only do this once and "detestable thing" because of that once occurence seems to refer to the coitus interruptus. Why? Because God kills Uzzah for touching the ark of the covenant once. Because God kills the 42 children who insulted Elisha and they did it only once. Because God kills Ananias and Sapphira for lying to the Holy Spirit once. All sacrileges.
Now let's go to the NAB translation based on the current choices of manuscripts:
9
Onan, however, knew that the descendants would not be counted as his; so whenever he had relations with his brother's widow, he wasted his seed on the ground, to avoid contributing offspring for his brother.
10
What he did greatly offended the LORD, and the LORD took his life too.
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God does not kill Onan at the first occurence of coitus interruptus. God kills him after multiple acts of coitus interruptus ("whenever")....so what was the one occurence that bothered God and was invisible to Augustine whose past was so sexual that he thought it surely about sex. Humanity followed Augustine down that road because humanity is very interested in sex...but the missed the greater meaning and the forest while looking at the trees.
Go to the gospel genealogy of Christ in the longer version and it lists a male in the line that led to Christ and his name is Perez or Pharez is some versions.
Onan risked the very non appearance of Christ the Messiah by repeatedly aiming to have no children since Christ was to come of Judah whose house was just these three men and their father Judah wich Judah eventually sins (fornication) with Tamar (who commits incest)...neither is killed for their sexual sins in the same story becuse God does not kill for sexual sins but for sacrilege...and they produce the needed ancestor of Christ...Perez.
Now I am truly done. I will vanish with this warning: obey as to NFP unless you enter a profound struggle involving prayer, study and counsel.
Bill,
ReplyDeleteYou are choosing to ignore the constant teaching of the Church on this matter. You can pretend that there is ambiguity and one can be a faithful Catholic and only disobey this teensy weensy thing, but it's just dissent.
And yes, I have reached this conclusion with prayer, study and counsel -- because when I came back to the Church, this was an area that I had to face as it was not one I wanted to assent to. However, dissent is dissent -- and being a faithful Catholic required that I accept the Church's teaching. It did lead me to understand the Church's teaching on this matter -- a great blessing.
Austringer
ReplyDeleteExcept that you are underread and don't realize that NFP was unknown to virtually 1900 years of Catholics (scientifically known only in the 19th century) and that Tomas Sanchez a leading theologian in the Baroque period said therefore that Catholics could sell one or two children into servitude in order to feed the others (see "The Church That Can and Cannot Change"/Noonan/Nortre Dame). And what you call constant teaching is really constant canon law where it entered in the late 13th century thanks largely to Augustine from the 5th century and it sat there and was enforced not taught at all just as Gratian's "Beyond Principal, all is usury" sat there and was enforced til 1830 and proved to be wrong.
What you "constant teaching" people never seem to do is read and think. As the encyclopedia at new advent notes, in 1252 Popes began to force secular rulers to burn heretics (article on Inquisition). Then in 1520 in solemn langauge (almost...like your above quotes) in Ex Surge Domine, Leo X condemned Luther's saying that burning at the stake was against the Holy Spirit. So in 1520, the burnings enforced papally in 1252 were renewed for heretics. So let's add only another one hundred and thirty years to help your side. That is four hundred years when any constant teaching on anything controversial was impossible. Why? Coercion renders the sacrament of Matrimony void...what makes you think coercion of a worse sort against theologians does not render continuity of teaching void?
Your whole outlook depends on a child's use of history. You want it to be infallible apparently so you can call people names and because if it were not, even you would not obey it. But you are supposed to obey it even if not infallible (LG25). The exception which the Catholic Church permits in its moral theology tomes for decades which no one buys because they are about $80 per book as is Grisez's....the exception permitted by Church approved seminary moral theology tomes is the person who still cannot hold to an as yet not provably infallible issue and who prays and studies and seeks counsel in its regard. Your calling them non Faithful Catholics will get you and all the internet pharisees punishment in the next life because you are actually defining Catholicism to fit with the underread intellect who does not know what is in Catholic moral theology tomes. Why in the world do you think not one of your quoted Popes would speak ill of Karl Rahner and Bernard Haring both of whom dissented and stated that this was not yet infallible publically? The Popes refused to speak ill of them because the Popes know the nuances regardless of your quotes of them up above. You and the net underread judges will be punished and the Popes will not be because the Popes had enough sense to not rail against the very theologians that some of the Catholic net rails against. And some of you of course will go into schism or your grandchildren will if the Church one day allows barrier methods (she will never allow provably abortifacient methods). It is the "Faithful Catholics" who alone supply the schismatics throughout the last two hundred years. I saw the other day a person open a site and give the large number of children they had and then noted that he was a "faithful Catholic" while both Augustine and Jerome had no use for large families (The Good of Marriage-Augustine/ Against Jovinianus-Jerome)and you yourself have no idea how many Popes actually believed against those two in large families. Women years ago had 14 to 20 children and now one is faithful if one has 4 and up in the internet new faithful Catholic schtick. Hutterites average ten like Jackie Parkes so Hutterites are better Catholics than most of the faithful Catholics of the net....roflol. But keep it up with the faithful Catholic thing. Bill Donahue makes $343,000 a year from the donations of your group...Catholic Navigator gives $70,000 a year for a net faithful Catholic leader who I once debated.
Ahh, Bill, now you're just piling on and adding insults ("you are underread"), but that's OK -- I expect that from people whenever their arguments are weak, and generally I'm not disappointed.
ReplyDeleteOnce again you presume to read the minds of various popes -- they didn't come down hard on dissenters -- tah dah! -- for just the reasons you want them to.
And yes, I will "keep it up with the faithful Catholic thing", with God's grace. And you can go on being that dissenting thing, though I will keep you in my prayers in the hope that you would desire better.
Last try to reach you so as to save you from sins of gossip regarding theologians: dissent on abortion and euthanasia is mortal sin because it is infallible with infallible language/ dissent on the less than infallible is permitted and can be virtuous and is the reason no Pope has villified Rahner and Haring both of whom dissented on birth control publically and in periodicals that the Pope controls...ie Theological Studies in Haring's case. Your need to villify such people has zero to do with the Popes who would not do so.
ReplyDeleteDissent was needed..needed...needed... when Pope Nicholas V gave Portugal permission to enslave those who resisted the faith in Romanus Pontifex 1454 mid 4th paragraph.
No dissent occured because our weakness is thoughtless conformism.
Dissent was needed when Leo X affirmed burning heretics at the stake....and dissent did not happen because our weakness is thoughtless conformism which is rooted in carnal inclinations to want a perfect picture of Rome at all times.
Recurringly dissent on the non infallible was needed and it did not arrive on time.
Bill,
ReplyDeleteNo need to worry about the sins of gossip regarding dissenting theologians -- I haven't said anything specific about any specific one. What an odd tack to take.....I haven't vilified anyone, and your assertion that I have is revealing.
You are simply choosing to dissent from Church teaching, pure and simple. You have convinced yourself that you are not in mortal sin as a result. Since I have no doubt that you have convinced yourself, I would guess that that affects your culpability, but that's not my call -- above my pay grade... Regardless of what you might think or feel about a particular teaching, there is objective sin attached to dissent.
The Church has spoken -- you just choose to ignore or rationalize away the binding nature of that teaching. That's it. No amount of rationalization or ad hominem attcks change that. Just accept the fact, and accept the implications of that dissent. Leave the Church, if you cannot live with her teachings -- but don't go on pretending, like those poor misguided people who still cling to the idea that women should and will some day be ordained, that the Church will change her teaching to suit you. She won't.
Ohhh...."the Church has spoken" means various things as to level. The Church spoke in Ex Surge Domine approving burning at the stake and the Church spoke in Splendor of the Truth condemning torture as intrinsically evil (section 80).
ReplyDeleteTwo opposite positions can happen when both are non infallible.
The Church has spoken...
Strange then that the Church only required dissenting theologians in the Washington DC case to sign that it was "authentic magisterial teaching" which is below infallible and which made George Weigel cringe.
Strange then that Humanae Vitae was introduced at its press conference as non infallible twice.
And that caused the Grisez's of the world to say that the Monsiegnor must have spoke on his own even though Paul VI never publically corrected him at all which would have been apposite were the conservatives correct.
Dissent is dissent, no matter what level. All you are doing is trying to rationalize that dissent away --I have heard arguments from both sides of this issue, and I do not find the dissenters' arguments convincing.
ReplyDeleteI find it revealing, too, that you use the term "conservatives". That's a term that is not usefully applied to the Church, though it is useful in describing one's political leanings.
The terms that are more sensibly used are "orthodox" and "heterodox". One can be (at least on some issues though not all) a political liberal and still be a faithful, orthodox Catholic. One could be a political conservative and advocate for women's ordination, a heterodox position.
The relevant item, of course, is fidelity to the teaching of the Magisterium.
I once ran into a fellow at a Christmas party who identified himself as a "faithful Catholic", but who didn't agree with the Church teaching on homosexuals, the ordination of women, contraception -- the usual. He then let it be known that he didn't believe in the Trinity either! But he was clinging to the label "Catholic" !!!
You show the weakness of your arguments with your nasty little swipes -- I'm "unread"; faithful Catholics show a "thoughtless conformism which is rooted in carnal inclinations to want a perfect picture of Rome at all times", and so on. (I have to say, the last one is particularly amusing to me, given that I am in the throes of bringing a formal canonical complaint against my pastor -- my picture of Rome is hardly "perfect".)
Whatever -- I will continue to pray for you, and hope that God will bless you.
Well if your complaint against your pastor is well founded, may you have God speed in the matter.
ReplyDeleteConserve means to conserve and I am a Biblical conservative relatively but not a tradition conservative. The death penalty goes all the way back to Genesis 9:5-6 and not one orthodox voice was raised when John Paul sunk it.
Husband headship is 6 times explicit in the New Testament and absent at Vat II and the Catechism and not one orthodox voice rose to demand its explicitation. I did on both.... writing to every Bishop and some auxialiary bishops. Meanwhile Fr.Raymond Brown who denied that Mary ever said the Magnificat served on the Pontifical Biblical Commission under both Paul VI and John Paul II. Actually Brown thought the census never happened nor the massacre of the innocents nor the trip to Egypt etc etc.
The usury screwup was partly a Pope taking Luke incorrectly: "lend expecting nothing in return". The slavery belief of Nicholas V can be traced to Unam Sanctam's overstating of the Pope having two swords based on a gospel verse wherein the two disciples take Christ literally and say they have two swords and Christ says "enough". Unam Sanctam took that to mean that the Pope has enough when he has two swords...the secular and religious.
The passage really means that Christ was tired of the disciples taking him literally because he was using the word "sword" in a metaphor.
God speed with your pastor if you are in fact the correct one.
I did not accuse you of past gossip, I got you to commit against it in the future and that against Rahner is rampant and never with his whole texts.... as the OT says "Warn your brother, he may not have done it but if he did that he may not do it again."