Can the Church change its teaching?

[Ultima_Ratio]

Hi Ed,

GREAT questions! Thanks,

Original sin, like Mortal sin [1 John 5:16-17, John 20:19-23] does not in this life “kill us.” Rather the effect is to GREATLY lessen God’s flow of grace, and ruptures our relationship with Him until we take the medicine [do] what Dr. God orders for the cure. Baptism, and for Mortal sin after Baptism, Confession.

Another way to explain it is by making the distinction between sanctifying grace and actual grace. Sanctifying grace is what gives supernatural life to the soul. Actual grace enlightens the mind and moved the will of the individual, but it does not give supernatural life to the soul. Actual grace is simply a divine inspiration, and is given to all, those with supernatural life in their soul, and those without it.

Both original sin and mortal sin deprive the soul of ALL sanctifying grace. As such, the soul is completely and totally cut off from supernatural life. They will still receive inspirations from God (actual grace), the purpose of which is to help the person avoid an evil, or lead them to God (baptism), or back to God (confession).

**
Baltimore Catechism: **

Q. What did Adam give away by his sin, and what did Our Lord buy back for him and us?

A. By his sin Adam gave away all right to God’s promised gifts of grace in this world and of glory in the next, and Our Lord bought back the right that Adam threw away. …

Q. What do you mean by grace?

A. By grace I mean a supernatural gift of God bestowed on us, through the merits of Jesus Christ, for our salvation. …

"Q. How many kinds of grace are there?

A. There are two kinds of grace, sanctifying grace and actual grace.

Q. What is the difference between sanctifying grace and actual grace?

A. Sanctifying grace remains with us as long as we are not guilty of mortal sin; and hence, it is often called habitual grace; but actual grace comes to us only when we need its help in doing or avoiding an action, and it remains with us only while we are doing or avoiding the action.

Q. What is sanctifying grace?

A. Sanctifying grace is that grace which makes the soul holy and pleasing to God.

Q. What is actual grace?

A. Actual grace is that help of God which enlightens our mind and moves our will to shun evil and do good.

 

[PJM]

=Ed Sorenson;6247847]How does an unbaptized baby have the opportunity for salvation? The Church has defined they will go to hell. They have made no choice and have rejected nothing. Nor have they had the ability to do so.

***You hit the question asked for 2000 years!

We still don’t know with certitude>

What we do know is that we are to have and employ the three Theological Virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity.

God is GOOD

God can ONLY do GOOD THINGS

God is Just and Fair and must be because that is His Divine Nature

BUT God does not think in human terms so we must wait, pray and see.

Trust in the Lord is NEVER wasted.***

 

[Ultima_Ratio]

Sorry, but it looks to me like the Catholic Church has changed its teachings in several areas:

1. That slaves be subject to their masters.

That teaching, which happens to be a direct quote from the New Testament, hasn’t changed. You have to distinguish between various forms of slavery. The trading of people (such as we had in America) is certainly evil; but a person who was facing debtor’s prison along with his family, for example, could offer himself as a slave to the one he owed the money to so that his family remained free. That form of slavery would not be immoral, and he would be obliged to obey his master.

1. That torture is allowed to extract confessions.

Quotes please.

1. That the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father.

That teaching has never changed. The debate with the Orthodox is not over whether the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father, but whether He also proceeds “from the Son” (filioque).

1. That profane music, clapping and clowns be allowed at Mass.

Show me the document that officially changed that teaching. If it exists, it would disciplinary (disiplines can change), but I am about 100% sure you can’t find an official document from Rome that advocates such things.

1. The conditions taught in the past necessary to obtain a marriage annulment have been changed so that now almost anyone can get it in the USA. In the past it was only for serious reasons such as impotence or previous marriage or next of kin relationships.

I’m not going to argue with that one. But you’ll need to show me the official document from the Pope that changed it. I’m not aware of any such document.

1. the primary purpose of marriage is the procreation of children and the secondary purpose of marriage is unitive. This has been changed so that it is now taught that they are coequal.

That teaching is a novelty. Since the first teaching has been taught from the beginning, the novelty does not constitute an official change.

1. Baptism is necessary for salvation.

It’s still necessary for salvation. Baptism of desire and blood are forms of baptism.

 

[PJM]

=Ultima Ratio;6247940]That teaching, which happens to be a direct quote from the New Testament, hasn’t changed. You have to distinguish between various forms of slavery. The trading of people (such as we had in America) is certainly evil; but a person who was facing debtor’s prison along with his family, for example, could offer himself as a slave to the one he owed the money to so that his family remained free. That form of slavery would not be immoral, and he would be obliged to obey his master.

Quotes please.

That teaching has never changed. The debate with the Orthodox is not over whether the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father, but whether He also proceeds “from the Son” (filioque).

Show me the document that officially changed that teaching. If it exists, it would disciplinary (disiplines can change), but I am about 100% sure you can’t find an official document from Rome that advocates such things.

I’m not going to argue with that one. But you’ll need to show me the official document from the Pope that changed it. I’m not aware of any such document.

That teaching is a novelty. Since the first teaching has been taught from the beginning, the novelty does not constitute an official change.

It’s still necessary for salvation. Baptism of desire and blood are forms of baptism.

Very well explained.

NOT ONE TEACHING HAS CTUALLY CHANGED.

Neverthrless the heritics keep trying. Past, PRESENT and future

Because they can and did error does not mean they were authorized or should have!

 

[ServantofMary]

Two individuals? But one of them is the Vicar of Christ and the Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church?

So? Where does it say that the pope is infallible in every single thing that he says?

 

[Ultima_Ratio]

So? Where does it say that the pope is infallible in every single thing that he says?

And the quote was from the year 2000, five years before he was elected Pope.

 

[una_fides]

Is it really Catholic teaching today that the souls of the Jews or Hindus or Buddhists are dead? If the souls of Buddhists are dead then why are there so many Jesuit priests and other Catholic clergy studying and finding out all they can about Buddhism and its practices and attempting to bring Buddhist meditation and practices into Christian spirituality?

Simple. The priests who do that are acting outside of the Catholic faith and likely are heretics. Judas was one of the 12. There was also a time in Church history where the majority of bishops were heretics, Arians to be precise. They denied the deity of Christ. Did the fact that so many bishops deviated from the truth change the truth or change the teaching of the Church? No. Because truth cannot change. Bear this in mind and never forget these words:

"Even if Catholics faithful to Tradition are reduced to a handful, they are the ones who are the true Church of Jesus Christ" (Saint Athanasius, AD 373).

 

[PeteZaHut]

I would say that the post Vatican II Church has made a lot of changes in Catholic teachings.Clown Masses, guitar Masses, clapping in Church, talking and eating and drinking in Church. The Pope bowing down and kissing the Koranic Scriptures of the Muslim religion. No meat on Fridays. Fasting during lent is voluntary.

Did Vatican II actually allow things like guitar masses?

Isn’t there still a Friday penance required?

I wasn’t aware that fasting during lent is voluntary.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Did Vatican II actually allow things like guitar masses? Not a question of ‘allow’; a guitar itself can actually be played in a very appropriate and sacred manner. . .just as an organ can be played as though one were at the ball game at the 7th inning stretch. The poster was attempting to make a faulty argument that Vatican II somehow ‘authorized’ some things which themselves were total changes of other things–thus, he was arguing that a ‘guitar Mass’ somehow is in opposition to a ‘church organ or a Gregorian chant’ Mass. It isn’t. And "clown Masses’ are, if not urban legend, certainly not a ‘norm’. He’s really reaching to find the most out-there things he’s ever heard of–but he can’t prove that these were the intent of Vatican II (especially if he’s read the documents, which I doubt).

Isn’t there still a Friday penance required? Yes. The NORM of the Universal Church is Friday penance (all Fridays). The U.S. has an indult (and this can change) that permits something other than abstinence from meat on non-Lenten Fridays. People like me who hate fish (yuck) and so really find it a penance not to eat meat, usually go ‘meatless’ year round; others who love fish either give up something else (like coffee) or ADD somethng (like saying a rosary for the unborn every Friday).

I wasn’t aware that fasting during lent is voluntary.

Actually only two days require fasting; Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. It is not ‘voluntary’’; it is required for those of the requisite age and in good health. Pregnant women, nursing mothers, people with health conditions like diabetes or people doing heavy physical labor are EXEMPTED from the fast for those reasons.

 

[CMatt25]

How did all of these various levels of canon, dogma, doctrine, catechism, teaching become defined? And why all the levels with some infallible, others not. How is it all determined and what is the purpose of all the levels? Seems a bit complicated.

 

[Alethiaphile]

The Roman church has changed its teaching. In Unam Sanctum and the Council of Florence, it was taught “infallibly” that submission to the Pope and membership in the Roman Catholic Church were necessary to salvation. Vatican II, in Lumen Gentium, dogmatically taught that memebership in the Roman church was not a necessary condition for salvation.
It was a good change.

 

[sidbrown]

Did Vatican II actually allow things like guitar masses?

Isn’t there still a Friday penance required?

I wasn’t aware that fasting during lent is voluntary.

As far as lenten fasting rules, I think it will depend on your diocese, so you have to check what it is in your location. I think everyone has to fast and possibly abstain on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. I was speaking of the other days of lent.

 

[sidbrown]

Actually only two days require fasting; Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. It is not ‘voluntary’’; it is required for those of the requisite age and in good health. Pregnant women, nursing mothers, people with health conditions like diabetes or people doing heavy physical labor are EXEMPTED from the fast for those reasons.

I was speaking of the other days of lent, not including Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, when I said that fasting was voluntary on those days. In most dioceses today, it is so, but it was not that way before Vatican II.

 

[sidbrown]

The teachings of the Church cannot change.

I would have to disagree with that because it seems to me almost obvious that many teachings have changed. For one or two examples:

1. In the past it was taught that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church and for that reason, those people who are outside of the Catholic Church are not admitted to Holy Communion. However, we have seen that this is no longer taught and that a Pope hs given Holy Communion to a Protestant, and that it is the general rule that those Christians of the Eastern Orthodox Churches who openly deny certain Catholic teachings such as the Immaculate Conception, the papal infallibility and others, are admitted to Holy Communion in Roman Catholic Churches. Permission for them to do so is printed in the missalette.
2. There has been a change on the teaching on torture, In the past torture was allowed to extract confessions, whereas now it is not. See for example, the papal bull Ad extirpanda promulgated on May 15, 1252, by Pope Innocent IV, which explicitly authorized the use of torture by the Inquisition for eliciting confessions from heretics. The bull declared that as heretics are “murderers of souls as well as robbers of God’s sacraments and of the Christian faith …”, they are “to be coerced—as are thieves and bandits—into confessing their errors and accusing others, although one must stop short of danger to life or limb.”
   This teaching has been changed.

 

[CMatt25]

I would have to disagree with that because it seems to me almost obvious that many teachings have changed. For one or two examples:

1. In the past it was taught that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church and for that reason, those people who are outside of the Catholic Church are not admitted to Holy Communion. However, we have seen that this is no longer taught and that a Pope hs given Holy Communion to a Protestant, and that it is the general rule that those Christians of the Eastern Orthodox Churches who openly deny certain Catholic teachings such as the Immaculate Conception, the papal infallibility and others, are admitted to Holy Communion in Roman Catholic Churches. Permission for them to do so is printed in the missalette.
2. There has been a change on the teaching on torture, In the past torture was allowed to extract confessions, whereas now it is not. See for example, the papal bull Ad extirpanda promulgated on May 15, 1252, by Pope Innocent IV, which explicitly authorized the use of torture by the Inquisition for eliciting confessions from heretics. The bull declared that as heretics are “murderers of souls as well as robbers of God’s sacraments and of the Christian faith …”, they are “to be coerced—as are thieves and bandits—into confessing their errors and accusing others, although one must stop short of danger to life or limb.”
   This teaching has been changed.

The Pope gave Communion to a Protestant? Wow I didn’t know that. Great! Maybe more will eventually change yet. Jn 6:37

 

[surritter]

The Pope gave Communion to a Protestant? Wow I didn’t know that. Great! Maybe more will eventually change yet. Jn 6:37

Every action of the pope is not necessarily the best one (and I’ll speculate that he probably didn’t know the person was Protestant).

Gee, Matt, what other things would YOU like to see changed?

 

[ron77nyc]

Every action of the pope is not necessarily the best one (and I’ll speculate that he probably didn’t know the person was Protestant).

Gee, Matt, what other things would YOU like to see changed?

See the photo of Bill Clinton receiving the Holy Eucharist.

traditioninaction.org/RevolutionPhotos/A056rcClintonCommunion.htm

March 29, 1998

Pro-abortion and Protestant President Bill Clinton received the Holy Eucharist at Queen of the World Church in Johannesburg, South Africa.

The priest who gave the Communion alleged he was just applying the latest directive of ecumenism that came from the South African Bishops Conference.

According to Catholic catechism, this constitutes a sacrilege, but it is an action becoming increasingly more frequent in the post-Vatican II era. Pope John Paul II, for instance, gave Holy Communion to the Episcopalian prime minister Tony Blair at the Vatican in February 2004.

 

[Ultima_Ratio]

Every action of the pope is not necessarily the best one (and I’ll speculate that he probably didn’t know the person was Protestant).

He knew. Ratzinger was friends with Brother Roger or the Taize community (the Protestant in question). In fact, you can do a search and read what he said about Brother Roger when he learned of his death a few years back.

 

[surritter]

See the photo of Bill Clinton receiving the Holy Eucharist.

traditioninaction.org/RevolutionPhotos/A056rcClintonCommunion.htm

March 29, 1998

Pro-abortion and Protestant President Bill Clinton received the Holy Eucharist at Queen of the World Church in Johannesburg, South Africa.

The priest who gave the Communion alleged he was just applying the latest directive of ecumenism that came from the South African Bishops Conference.

According to Catholic catechism, this constitutes a sacrilege, but it is an action becoming increasingly more frequent in the post-Vatican II era. Pope John Paul II, for instance, gave Holy Communion to the Episcopalian prime minister Tony Blair at the Vatican in February 2004.

Let me get this right – you’re trying to say that these individual actions are part of the “infallible teaching” of our Church?

 

[ron77nyc]

Let me get this right – you’re trying to say that these individual actions are part of the “infallible teaching” of our Church?

No…I don’t think so but we can’t be sure because no one knows what the infallible teachings are. All Catholics are required to accept all infallible teachings but the the Church has never put them in writing under the title: “infallible teachings” or “ex-cathedra statements.” When a pope makes an ex-cathedra statement he doesn’t say “This can never change” before and after he says it. If he did there would be more than 2 that all Catholics, including the bishops would be in agreement with.