A
awalt
Guest
I am ordering this book - “The Church that can and cannot change” by John T. Noonan. He is supposedly a “good Catholic”. Read this review, it seems there is some truth to the fact that Church doctrine has changed on slavery, usury, etc.
What do you think?
John T. Noonan, a distinguished scholar and member of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, grounds A Church That Can and Cannot Change on the fact that the deposit of faith cannot change. He then identifies three areas where change in moral principles has undeniably occurred in the course of church history: slavery, usury and religious liberty. He points also to a fourth area in which he sees change now in process: divorce. Instead of employing an a priori approach, the author identifies and dates the changes that have occurred, examines how they came about and looks at how the new principles can be reconciled with their contradictory precedents.
Judge Noonan’s survey begins with human slavery and how it was regarded as morally acceptable from the time of St. Paul and Philemon down through the fathers of the church and a host of popes and moralists up until its official, long overdue condemation by the Second Vatican Council, which declared slavery to be intrinsically evil. Noonan cites “experience and empathy” as key factors in bringing about the change.
The author’s discussion of usury (making a profit from a loan) moves in the opposite direction—from initially being regarded as sinful to becoming morally acceptable. Popes, three general councils, bishops and moralists over the centuries pointed to its intrinsic evil. Noonan traces the tortured history of gradual justifications and the debate that went on for centuries over what forms of credit could be distinguished from the sinful usurious loan. When money, having been simply a medium of exchange, became a necessary element to establish a means of production—capital—the moral appraisal of a “loan” was seen in a different light. Experience and empathy on the part of religious authority also figured in the change regarding how the new use of money was morally perceived.
Noonan’s third example of change in Catholic teaching concerns freedom of conscience. A startling litany of pronouncements denouncing freedom of conscience and of religion issued from Pope Gregory XVI, the Fifth Council of the Lateran, the Council of Trent, Clement XIII and Pius IX, among others. In addition to consuming books, the flames of various inquisitions consumed Jan Hus, Joan of Arc, Girolamo Savonarola and many other “heretics.” It was not until 1965 that the magisterium’s longstanding opposition to freedom of conscience and religion was definitively overturned. Vatican II taught that freedom to believe was a sacred human right. Especially in this matter, experience and empathy with the victims had much to do with bringing about change. Noonan points out that doctrinal change and its implementation on this issue, as well as on slavery, took hold much earlier among rationalists and Protestants than within the Catholic Church. It was the thinking and actions of those groups that influenced Catholic thought. The author also points out that ideological tyranny under recent totalitarian regimes enlightened the European episcopacy on the importance of religious liberty.
What do you think?
John T. Noonan, a distinguished scholar and member of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, grounds A Church That Can and Cannot Change on the fact that the deposit of faith cannot change. He then identifies three areas where change in moral principles has undeniably occurred in the course of church history: slavery, usury and religious liberty. He points also to a fourth area in which he sees change now in process: divorce. Instead of employing an a priori approach, the author identifies and dates the changes that have occurred, examines how they came about and looks at how the new principles can be reconciled with their contradictory precedents.
Judge Noonan’s survey begins with human slavery and how it was regarded as morally acceptable from the time of St. Paul and Philemon down through the fathers of the church and a host of popes and moralists up until its official, long overdue condemation by the Second Vatican Council, which declared slavery to be intrinsically evil. Noonan cites “experience and empathy” as key factors in bringing about the change.
The author’s discussion of usury (making a profit from a loan) moves in the opposite direction—from initially being regarded as sinful to becoming morally acceptable. Popes, three general councils, bishops and moralists over the centuries pointed to its intrinsic evil. Noonan traces the tortured history of gradual justifications and the debate that went on for centuries over what forms of credit could be distinguished from the sinful usurious loan. When money, having been simply a medium of exchange, became a necessary element to establish a means of production—capital—the moral appraisal of a “loan” was seen in a different light. Experience and empathy on the part of religious authority also figured in the change regarding how the new use of money was morally perceived.
Noonan’s third example of change in Catholic teaching concerns freedom of conscience. A startling litany of pronouncements denouncing freedom of conscience and of religion issued from Pope Gregory XVI, the Fifth Council of the Lateran, the Council of Trent, Clement XIII and Pius IX, among others. In addition to consuming books, the flames of various inquisitions consumed Jan Hus, Joan of Arc, Girolamo Savonarola and many other “heretics.” It was not until 1965 that the magisterium’s longstanding opposition to freedom of conscience and religion was definitively overturned. Vatican II taught that freedom to believe was a sacred human right. Especially in this matter, experience and empathy with the victims had much to do with bringing about change. Noonan points out that doctrinal change and its implementation on this issue, as well as on slavery, took hold much earlier among rationalists and Protestants than within the Catholic Church. It was the thinking and actions of those groups that influenced Catholic thought. The author also points out that ideological tyranny under recent totalitarian regimes enlightened the European episcopacy on the importance of religious liberty.