Absolutely Must be Subject to Roman Pontiff?

[Catholic2003]

bigdawg:

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.

It’s the same kind of deal, except that with “outside the Church” it is possible to fudge a little on what the “Church” is. However, the phrase “being subject to the Roman Pontiff” isn’t as malleable.

 

[ReformedCatholic]

solarwind23:

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

I think so! But that’s just me!

 

[otm]

ReformedCatholic:

I think so! But that’s just me!

If you are struggling with this issue, I would suugest two things you might want to read; an analysis of Theology of the Body by Christopher West, and commentary by Janet Smith.

 

[Catholic2003]

bigdawg:

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

Fr. Francis Sullivan discusses this on pages 85 to 89 of his Creative Fidelity: Weighing and Interpreting Documents of the Magisterium. For example, on page 88:

In a paper which he presented in the course of the Lutheran-Catholic dialogue on papal primacy, George Tavard discussed the question we have been considereing here, and concluded that what Boniface intended to define was the central doctrine of his bull, namely the supremacy of the spiritual over the tempoal power. But Tavard ruled this out as a genuine exercise of papal infallibility, on the grounds that this doctrine was not generally received, and has not been maintained as the doctrine of the Catholic Church. Without referring to Tavard’s study, Klaus Schatz likewise interprets the phrase “to be subject to the Roman pontiff” in the light of Boniface’s medieval theory, and sees this as an instance of non-reception from which one can conclude that this papal statement did not meet all the conditions necessary for the definition of a dogma of faith.