Absolutely Must be Subject to Roman Pontiff?

[hurst]

CollegeKid:

Let me see if I’m understanding you:

if you’re invincibly ignorant, then following your conscience = being subject to the Roman Pontiff?

I have to admit, this is very insightful of you. I have never put it together like this myself, but I can see how your conclusions clearly come from what I have said. It shows that you are truly seeking to understand. May God bless your efforts.

But really, there is one other thing, an important one, that you have to include in this.

The key issue is that the invincibly ignorant person respond to the grace that he receives. For it is grace that will enlighten his conscience, and even correct it if it is improperly formed. (One’s conscience is formed by instruction and can be initially wrong). So if they follow their conscience as informed by grace, then I would agree.

One who is “willing to obey God’s Will” once it is known will also be able to receive the grace to desire to be united to God’s Church, and in this way may be said to desire baptism, even if this desire is not consciously understood by that person. It comes from the person following his conscience and being disposed to obey God and respond to the grace given through the prayers of the Church.

Having said all this, we should not think we ourselves who know better are not obliged to carry the Gospel truth to those who do not know better. For the hearts of all must be made manifest.

hurst

 

[hurst]

CollegeKid:

To me it looked like the Pope was rejecting our understanding of No Salvation Outside the Church, because we hold that some can be saved even if they don’t join the fold in their lifetime.

But to be saved we do have to join in our lifetime - at least by desire, if not able to formally and visibly do so. So we should continue to pray for those we cannot otherwise reach, that they may receive the grace to desire it, and the grace to respond and follow the opportunities given them.

hurst

 

[rwoehmke]

“We declare, say, define, and pronounce that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff.” (Pope Boniface VIII, the Bull Unam Sanctam, 1302.)

As Catholics, how do we reconcile this part of the papal bull Unam Sanctam with the belief that some can be saved even if they never enter formal communion with the Church during their lifetime?

At the time this was writen all of the Western World was Catholic, but some of the rulers were not falling into line with Boniface’s desires. They were rebellious and disobedient. The Americas had not yet been discovered. The reformation was 200 years in the future. Like the modern interpretation of scripture described in Dei Verbum one must understand why and to what this Bull applied at the time it was written. To interpret it today as narrowly as Feeney interpreted what being a member of the Church meant is to not understand how it is to be applied.

 

[ReformedCatholic]

mike182d:

If the sins have been “paid for” why does Jesus give the Apostles the power to “retain” people’s sins? How can you hold the sins against someone when they’ve already been paid for?

That’s an excellent question! Why would you “retain” someone’s sins? And why would Apostles want to hold sins “against” someone anyway? That wouldn’t seem very Christian. I suspect we would need to look at what was said in the original Aramaic to help clarify this.

 

[ReformedCatholic]

rwoehmke:

At the time this was writen all of the Western World was Catholic, but some of the rulers were not falling into line with Boniface’s desires. They were rebellious and disobedient. The Americas had not yet been discovered. The reformation was 200 years in the future. Like the modern interpretation of scripture described in Dei Verbum one must understand why and to what this Bull applied at the time it was written. To interpret it today as narrowly as Feeney interpreted what being a member of the Church meant is to not understand how it is to be applied.

Does this mean that this is not true or no longer applies? Would that not make this Pope “fallable” to declare such a doctrine, especially for political purposes? Interesting!

 

[ReformedCatholic]

That is not what you really mean to say, is it? God loves those in hell, but that does not deliver them from its torments, which is their own fault for what they did not “do”?!

Yes, I think it was. I think God loves all unconditionally. As an expression of that love he gave us free will to choose or not to choose Him. I believe He would certainly deliver them from their torments if they sincerely and genuinely ask for Him and accept His love. I don’t think that evil or generally hellbound people would ever choose Him and that’s why they’re hellbound!

I will show you one of many reasons why your belief to love the creature unconditionally is not well founded. Christ knew what was in man and did not trust himself to them:

John 2:24 But Jesus did not trust himself unto them, for that he knew all men, 25 And because he needed not that any should give testimony of man: for he knew what was in man.

I’m not sure I’m understanding why you shouldn’t “love thy neighbor” unconditionally. If God loves us unconditionally, then this is how we should love others, yes? “Love one another as I have loved you…”

We should rather trust in God

Ecclesiasticus 11:22 Abide not in the works of sinners. But trust in God, and stay in thy place.

I agree we should trust in God. No doubt there.

Is it unconditional love to not trust yourself to the one you are loving? No.

I think the type of unconditional love you would give to those people who are not trustworthy would be altruistic, charitable love.

On the other hand, we are called to give unreciprocated love:

Luke 6:32 And if you love them that love you, what thanks are to you? for sinners also love those that love them. … 35 But love ye your enemies: do good, and lend, hoping for nothing thereby: and your reward shall be great, and you shall be the sons of the Highest; for he is kind to the unthankful, and to the evil.

Yes, I agree that unconditional love is often unreciprocated.

What Jesus did for us was done out of obedience to His Father, and not dependent upon whether we reciprocated that love. But we do not benefit from it if we do not reciprocate His love and obey Him in good faith. The Father’s condition for us to see Him is to come to Him by means of His Son. Those who are not baptized into His death cannot enter the Kingdom. Those who refuse to obey God, obey His Son, or obey His Church will not enter the Kingdom, for obedience is the key to the Kingdom.

I’m more of the thinking that love is the key to the Kingdom and that the condition goes back to “love God above all else” and “love one another as I have loved you,” but I definitely see your point.

I hope this clarifies things.

It makes for interesting food for thought!

 

[rwoehmke]

ReformedCatholic:

Does this mean that this is not true or no longer applies? Would that not make this Pope “fallable” to declare such a doctrine, especially for political purposes? Interesting!

Not fallable, but limited as to its applicability to later times in History. The papacy no longer has temporal power as it once did. Would you think it at all reasonable if Benedict would pull out this Bull and tell all the world powers that they were subject to the Holy See in the manner in which Boniface did? I am also not convinced that an encyclical or a papal Bull carries the same weight of infallibility as say the pronouncements on thr Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of Mary.

 

[ReformedCatholic]

rwoehmke:

Not fallable, but limited as to its applicability to later times in History. The papacy no longer has temporal power as it once did. Would you think it at all reasonable if Benedict would pull out this Bull and tell all the world powers that they were subject to the Holy See in the manner in which Boniface did? I am also not convinced that an encyclical or a papal Bull carries the same weight of infallibility as say the pronouncements on thr Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of Mary.

I think a lot of people would be in an uproar and a lot of the people (non-Catholic) would think he was nuts!

I do not know what does or doesn’t carry the infallability clause either, I was just putting the thought out there.

 

[Fr_Chuck]

One must not forget the remainder of the Bull which also states that the Church must rule also by the sword, ( Not too many Catholic Armies any longer)

And in the end, we have to look at the entire situation of the political aspect of the time, The Pope as state leader was using excommunication as a tool to rule over other nations in the physcial. If a King would not do what he wanted he would excommunicate them and use that as a tool to attempt to appoint a new King.

In the end, it would appear along with all of the other writings done the previous year and at the same council, this was a method to use in controling the people of varoius nations by fear of excommunication.

 

[Hesychios]

Pope Boniface VIII, author of Unam Sanctam was a highly ambitious and greedy man, with a lot of innocent blood on his hands. He claimed to be the proper liege lord of all princes and kings, able and willing to make and depose monarchs. Unam Sanctum reads the way it does because he was reinforcing these political claims. Pope Boniface VIII did not hesitate to excommunicate political enemies.

Boniface VIII did everything to advance the fortunes of the Gaetani, his own family and waged a series of small wars in Italy against the Colonna (most powerful Roman rival) and the republic of Florence. He also managed to cultivate the enmity of Philip IV (the fair) of France, and it was to the king of France that Boniface directed his efforts leading up to the Bull Unam Sanctam.

These political claims have been roundly repudiated by the world, even the Roman Catholic church, yet the document still seems to have a hold on the minds of Roman Catholics. The document reads like an excellent endorsement for father Feeney’s position and that has been repudiated as well. I think it is time to stop taking this Bull seriously as if it were an infallible pronouncement.

+T+
Michael

 

[ReformedCatholic]

Hesychios:

Pope Boniface VIII, author of Unam Sanctam was a highly ambitious and greedy man, with a lot of innocent blood on his hands. He claimed to be the proper liege lord of all princes and kings, able and willing to make and depose monarchs. Unam Sanctum reads the way it does because he was reinforcing these political claims. Pope Boniface VIII did not hesitate to excommunicate political enemies.

Boniface VIII did everything to advance the fortunes of the Gaetani, his own family and waged a series of small wars in Italy against the Colonna (most powerful Roman rival) and the republic of Florence. He also managed to cultivate the enmity of Philip IV (the fair) of France, and it was to the king of France that Boniface directed his efforts leading up to the Bull Unam Sanctam.

These political claims have been roundly repudiated by the world, even the Roman Catholic church, yet the document still seems to have a hold on the minds of Roman Catholics. The document reads like an excellent endorsement for father Feeney’s position and that has been repudiated as well. I think it is time to stop taking this Bull seriously as if it were an infallible pronouncement.

+T+
Michael

Yep, definitely sounds fallable to me! Thanks for that.

 

[CollegeKid]

Hesychios:

I think it is time to stop taking this Bull seriously as if it were an infallible pronouncement.

+T+
Michael

How do we know its not infallible, just because we disagree with it?

 

[CollegeKid]

bringyou.to/apologetics/debate9.htm

This article gives a somewhat more enlightening description of Unam Sanctam and the objections to it, with rebuttals. It makes the point that the bull referred not to pagans or protestants (there were no widespread prot’s in 1302), but was addressed to French Catholics, specifically King Phillip IV, who were not submitting themselves properly to papal authority. The article makes the point that this bull was referring only to Catholics in stating that “all human beings must be subject to the Roman Pontiff” for salvation.

 

[Catholic2003]

CollegeKid:

How do we know its not infallible, just because we disagree with it?

That’s exactly how we know it’s not infallible. From Lumen Gentium 25:

To these [infallible] definitions the assent of the Church can never be wanting, on account of the activity of that same Holy Spirit, by which the whole flock of Christ is preserved and progresses in unity of faith.

The assent of the Church is clearly wanting in the case of Unam Sanctam.

 

[solarwind23]

Catholic2003:

That’s exactly how we know it’s not infallible. From Lumen Gentium 25:

The assent of the Church is clearly wanting in the case of Unam Sanctam.

There is no assent in the case of artificial birth control either, does it mean the teaching is wrong?

 

[solarwind23]

religion-encyclopedia.com/U/unam_sanctum.htm

Unam Sanctum (Latin the One Holy, i.e. Church), the Bull on papal supremacy issued 18 November, 1302, by Boniface VIII during the dispute with Philip the Fair, King of France. It is named from its opening words. The Bull was promulgated in connection with the Roman Council of October, 1302, at which it had probably been discussed. it is not impossible that Boniface VIII himself revised the Bull; **still it also appears that Aegidius Colonna, Archibishop of Bourges, who had come to the council at Rome notwithstanding the royal prohibition, influenced the text. The original of the Bull is no longer in existence; ** the oldest text is to be found in the registers of Boniface VIII in the Vatican archives. It was also incorporated in the “Corpus juris canonici”. The genuineness of the Bull is absolutely established by the entry of it in the official registers of the papal Briefs, and its incorporation in the canon law. The objections to its genuineness raised by such scholars as Damberger, Mury, and Verlaque are fully removed by this external testimony. At a later date Mury withdrew his opinion.

Maybe it never said that? Who knows.

 

[Catholic2003]

solarwind23:

There is no assent in the case of artificial birth control either, does it mean the teaching is wrong?

No, for two reasons. First, dissent is very different than lack of assent. Second, the appropriate conclusion in the syllogism is that the teaching is non-infallible, not that it is wrong.

 

[bigdawg]

Catholic2003:

That’s exactly how we know it’s not infallible. From Lumen Gentium 25:

The assent of the Church is clearly wanting in the case of Unam Sanctam.

What is the “assent of the Church” and how is it wanting in the case of “Unam Sanctam”?

 

[CollegeKid]

bigdawg:

What is the “assent of the Church” and how is it wanting in the case of “Unam Sanctam”?

Someone correct me if need be, but I think “assent of the Church” would refer to:

general or total agreement among the Pope and Magisterium on a particular teaching

and the dispute over the papal bull Unam Sanctam was that it appeared, at first glance, to contradict the Church’s teaching that some can be saved if, through no fault of their own, they don’t formally join the Church during their earthly life. If you go back and read this entire thread, some light has been shed on this bull which shows more clearly that it probably wasn’t saying that.

 

[bigdawg]

CollegeKid:

Someone correct me if need be, but I think “assent of the Church” would refer to:

general or total agreement among the Pope and Magisterium on a particular teaching

and the dispute over the papal bull Unam Sanctam was that it appeared, at first glance, to contradict the Church’s teaching that some can be saved if, through no fault of their own, they don’t formally join the Church during their earthly life. If you go back and read this entire thread, some light has been shed on this bull which shows more clearly that it probably wasn’t saying that.

Well…we have “outside the Church there is no salvation” but the Church allows that some who are outside the Church may be saved. I would guess that the Bull Unam Sanctam could or does have the same exception.