Cardinal Muller: no need to clarify Amoris Laetitia [CC]

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Come on. You are saying that any one who does believe what you are saying just needs to learn more? I have been over this same ground for almost two decades. Radical traditionalist have been minimizing Vatican II as long as I have been Catholic. No, it is not ex cathedra, but that is only one type of infallibility. The other is the Church meeting in council, even if it is a pastoral council and they pronounce no new doctrine. Plus there is the rather obvious fact that at minimum, if the Church at Vatican II pronounced something no infallible, it was still the doctrine, and no one has any business arguing with Catholics into not believe that which the Church taught, infallible or not.

FYI, Having no new doctrine does not preclude infallible reformulations of old dogma, or solid doctrinal development of old dogma. Arguing the level of Church teaching is not relevant. Dei Verbum is still Church teaching at the highest level.
There were two Dogmatic Constitutions promulgated by Pope Paul VI during Vatican II, Lumen Gentium and Dei Verbum. They are dogma and dogma is doctrine. It seems “radical traditionalists” would prefer they were just doctrine for what seems some vague notion that they could then be ignored, or perhaps undeveloped, the development of anything perceived as anathema, I guess.
 
Papal idolatry is a straw man any way. No one is worshiping the Pope, any more than people are blindly following Cardinal Burke. Pope Francis is the authority of the Church however, and that is not a titular position. It comes with great authority, which is why the College of Cardinals spent so much time in prayer seeking the will of God and the guidance of the Holy Spirit in choosing this man to lead the Church.
Cardinal Burke and those “following him” are following all popes and the magisterial teaching for 2000 years. Blindly implies they are following Burke rather than the teaching. Moreover, it is my impression that these are not even “following” Cardinal Burke at all but pressing HIM to insist on the church teaching. The complaint about blindly following the pope is raised presisely because of those individuals who tyranically seek to punish anyone for not blindly following the pope in everything but expecting him to remain within the magisterium. This is seen as “uppity” and sought to be crushed with a certain hubris. I am thankful that these individuals are not the pope, that’s all I’ll say. I have MANY MANY misgievings about our pope but he has not indicated the same persecutor instinct some people have.
 
AL is not dogma and it is not binding. No Pope can over turn a his predecessor on official moral teaching of the Church. To attempt that would be illegitimate. We will know AL by it’s fruits over the coming months and years.

If you don’t want to worry with the pastoral approach of the post Conciliar Church than don’t. Train yourself and your family and the people around you in the ways of the Church before 1960, no one can throw you out. There is plenty of material to teach you and your family the way to eternal salvation before VII.
 
No need for the condescending attitude of my educational or intellectual ability to grasp.
I find it utterly fascinating that should one remind a contributor of the possibility that he is a fallible human being with limited understandings of the world and what other people (who may be far more highly educated or intelligent than them in the field they are “confused” about) may actually mean … then they are being condescended:confused:.
Truly fascinating.
 
Cardinal Burke and those “following him” are following all popes and the magisterial teaching for 2000 years. Blindly implies they are following Burke rather than the teaching.
Exactly. Likewise there has been well-reasoned theology behind supporters of Pope Francis’ initiative. No one should follow what Pope Francis is teaching if the do not agree. They should refrain from communion if they are in that narrow situation, as a matter of conscience. That is a laudable option. Yes, I have seen people who fall back to saying the pope is the pope is the pope and I will listen to him because he is the pope, but I have only seen that after they have been lambasted by those who do not agree with the Pope. And following the Pope is always an option, one that no other Catholic has the right to criticize another Catholic for doing because they do not agree. An individual’s conscience in a matter can allow him to disagree in something like this. It is never a license to convert others to his conscience.
 
Exactly. Likewise there has been well-reasoned theology behind supporters of Pope Francis’ initiative. No one should follow what Pope Francis is teaching if the do not agree. They should refrain from communion if they are in that narrow situation, as a matter of conscience. That is a laudable option. Yes, I have seen people who fall back to saying the pope is the pope is the pope and I will listen to him because he is the pope, but I have only seen that after they have been lambasted by those who do not agree with the Pope. And following the Pope is always an option, one that no other Catholic has the right to criticize another Catholic for doing because they do not agree. An individual’s conscience in a matter can allow him to disagree in something like this. It is never a license to convert others to his conscience.
Following the pope does not give anyone a right to demand the removal from the church of persons who ask the pope for clarification. I have been attacked on this very thread by one of these warriors without even a conversation with that person, leave alone having “lambasted” them and therefore “provoked” them to launch their attack, simply for saying IN RESPONSE to a different poster that the “evidence” he was referring to did not amount to a public papal teaching but rather private positions of the pope. I have seen in a different thread someone reporting someone for daring to criticize the maltese bishops for their decision and here and in other threads I have seen a poster totally unprovoked by any other poster demand that Cardinal Burke and those that agree with him leave the church. In these short conversations on this matter, I have seen precisely the opposite of what you say. People debate until one of these intolerant folk comes out with a demand the other side basically shutup or with a direct and personal provocation and jab. They are the ones requiring truly blind following of the pope as a precondition for catholicism. They must be informed that this bizzarre catholicism is of their own invention.
 
There is only one way to read AL since the ArgDraft.

Where exactly does controversial ambiguity remain for you re the pastoral bottom lines?
Just in the past week or so the Maltese guidelines were released and the Anglican Ordinariate came out with their release, coming out with different interpretations of Amoris Latetia. Don’t you agree? If the clergy don’t have a unified interpretation of Amoris Latetia, then it’s no wonder that there are laypeople that are confused. I know Cardinal Muller said what he said, but there is a sense of irony in the fact that he made the comments he did and then not long after there are these two releases of seemingly diffent interpretations of the document that is being asked for clarfication of certain points in the dubia, which could help avoid these differing interpretations.
 
Following the pope does not give anyone a right to demand the removal from the church of persons who ask the pope for clarification. I have been attacked on this very thread by one of these warriors without even a conversation with that person, leave alone having “lambasting” them simply for saying IN RESPONSE to a different poster that the “evidence” he was referring to did not amount to a public papal teaching but rather private positions of the pope.
I agree, but this is just one subset of a bigger problem. I would expand what you have said to include that no person should ever respond in any manner without charity. No one should be offended or strike back over a point of disagreement. All this is much more serious than what I said… Then, I would say that where this is range in the Church, Catholics should exercise tolerance, liberals with conservatives, mainstream with traditionalists. To the extent that Cardinal Burke says one thing and Pope Francis another, we have *at least *that range in which we can exist in orthodoxy.
 
There is only one way to read AL since the ArgDraft.

Where exactly does controversial ambiguity remain for you re the pastoral bottom lines?
Just in the past week or so the Maltese guidelines were released and the Anglican Ordinariate came out with their release, coming out with different interpretations of Amoris Latetia. Don’t you agree? If the clergy don’t have a unified interpretation of Amoris Latetia, then it’s no wonder that there are laypeople that are confused.
 
Said what?
Matthew 19
English Standard Version (ESV)
Teaching About Divorce


19 Now when Jesus had finished these sayings, he went away from Galilee and entered the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. 2 And large crowds followed him, and he healed them there.

3 And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” 4 He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” 7 They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” 8 He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. 9 And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”

10 The disciples said to him, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.” 11 But he said to them, “Not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given. 12 For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this receive it.”

Mark 10:1-12
New International Version (NIV)
Divorce


10 Jesus then left that place and went into the region of Judea and across the Jordan. Again crowds of people came to him, and as was his custom, he taught them.

2 Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”

3 “What did Moses command you?” he replied.

4 They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.”

5 “It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,” Jesus replied. 6 “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’ 7 ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, 8 and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

10 When they were in the house again, the disciples asked Jesus about this. 11 He answered, “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. 12 And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.”
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Blue Horizon View Post
This issue is very simple to me.
Wise, educated and sincere Catholics see no necessary loss of continuity with tradition.
These same Catholics (which happen to include the current Pope) have no issue with Catholics of equal wisdom, education and sincerity holding the opposite opinion. Individuals, Cardinals Dioceses of Bishops Conferences can therefore choose whether or not to take advantage of the new pastoral possibilities offered.
Perhaps you could put “it” into a single sentence instead of 300+? words from two different Gospels?.
If you cannot perhaps that is why it seems different Popes say different things.
 
Perhaps you could put “it” into a single sentence instead of 300+? words from two different Gospels?.
If you cannot perhaps that is why it seems different Popes say different things.
I provided both Gospel accounts to show you that He really did say that.

Here’s your single sentence: "Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her, and if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.”
 
Just in the past week or so the Maltese guidelines were released and the Anglican Ordinariate came out with their release, coming out with different interpretations of Amoris Latetia. Don’t you agree?
If the clergy don’t have a unified interpretation of Amoris Latetia, then it’s no wonder that there are laypeople that are confused.
And which of the above did Pope Francis write a letter about stating “there is no other interpretation of Amoris Laetitia other than that contained in the document drafted by the bishops of Buenos Aires?”
 
And which of the above did Pope Francis write a letter about stating “there is no other interpretation of Amoris Laetitia other than that contained in the document drafted by the bishops of Buenos Aires?”
Lol yup.
 
I provided both Gospel accounts to show you that He really did say that.

Here’s your single sentence: "Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her, and if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.”
So now you need to explain:
(a) How we know for sure the above wife or husband is a valid one and the allegedly married person was not actually bonded.
(b) Where Jesus allowed Tribunals to determine these things
(c) The basis for the Pauline and Petrine priveleges where marriages seem to get dissolved contrary to Jesus’s teachings
(d) Why unfaithfulness isn’t a basis for remarrying - that’s how many Christians interpret Jesus’s words.
(e) How put away wives are made adulterers even if they don’t remarry?
(f) And why does the Church still allow some to remain married and cohabit provided they abstain. Jesus said the very act of marrying is adulterous sex or no sex doesn’t he?
(g) Where did Jesus actually say none of the above can ever receive Communion in that state?

Perhaps its a little more complicated than your one-liner above suggests.
Pope Francis clearly does.
 
Lumen Gentium and Dei Verbum were the two dogmatic constitutions of Vatican II, and they are not “like the other documents of the council”.
Yes but a small Pope Paul VI said :

"“There are those who ask what authority, what theological qualification, the Council intended to give to its teachings, knowing that it avoided issuing solemn dogmatic definitions backed by the Church’s infallible teaching authority. The answer is known by those who remember the conciliar declaration of March 6, 1964, repeated on November 16, 1964. In view of the pastoral nature of the Council, it avoided proclaiming in an extraordinary manner any dogmas carrying the mark of infallibility.” (General Audience of Pope Paul VI, December 1, 1966, published in the L’Osservatore Romano 1/21/1966)

“The Second Vatican Council has not been treated as a part of the entire living Tradition of the Church, but as an end of Tradition, a new start from zero.** The truth is that this particular council defined no dogma at all**, and deliberately chose to remain on a modest level, as a merely pastoral council; and yet many treat it as though it had made itself into a sort of superdogma which takes away the importance of all the rest.” (Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI given July 13, 1988, in Santiago, Chile)

IOW anything that is taught in dogmatic constitutions that was not previously defined as dogma was not made dogma at Vatican II. Doctrinal development was never defined as dogma but haa only ever been doctrine. This Vatican II only reaffirmed dogmas that were already defined. De Verbum (Word of God) was promulgated by Pope Paul VI on November 18, 1965, following approval by the assembled bishops by a vote of 2,344 to 6 and it is one of the principal documents of the Second Vatican Council, indeed their very foundation in the view of one of the leading Council Fathers, Bishop Christopher Butler.

It’s purpose was to reaffirm the dogmatic teaching that , as the Catechism states that* “the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures.”*

Again not everything in conciliar dogmatic constitution or even Ex cathedra Papal definitions (which this was not as the only one in recent times are Munificentismus ans Inefibilis Deus) are dogma. Only the dogma is dogma and everything else is either doctrine or theological speculation like in Munificentismus Deus where the document, though mentions the death of Our lady , did not define that she did and as such it is still legitimate to hold that St Mary did not die as the dogma that was defined was her assumption and everything else lie her death is just pious doctrine held by the majority of the church.
The two were approved by the assembled bishops and promulgated by the Pope Paul VI. Therefore, they are dogma. It is why they are called dogmatic constitutions, and I would have thought this was obvious. All dogma is doctrine. Is this what has confused you?
Yes but NOT all doctrine is dogma. Fundamentals of Catholicism. That is where you are confused. Doctrinal development has never been defined and Vatican II defined no new dogmas. It’s dogmatic constitutions only reaffirmed existing dogmas and De Verbum sought to teach the dogma concerning the truth of scripture. YES dogmatic constitutions contain non-dogmatic content. Please go do your research on dogmatic definitions on conciliar constitutions. Like I recommend earlier go inspect Inefibilis and Munificentismus Deus or better yet, go read Unam Sanctam and pay attention closely that the dogmatic teaching of Unam Sanctam is not the whole document but only the last 3 or 4 lines of the whole Papal bull.
But it is enough, and I see no good reason to continue this diversion. See my comment #801 above.
Thank you because you were very mistaken.

And no you are wrong again. Development does not mean change. Applying secular definitions to theological language is errenous. The church has its own very specific definitions of words for its theological language. Development in the church does NOT mean change but only deeper understanding. Something even the liberals at the recent synods all admitted and why the specifically denied communion for devorced and remarried being a a change in the Indissolubility of Marriage Go consult Cardinal Newman.
 
So now you need to explain:
(a) How we know for sure the above wife or husband is a valid one and the allegedly married person was not actually bonded.
(b) Where Jesus allowed Tribunals to determine these things
(c) The basis for the Pauline and Petrine priveleges where marriages seem to get dissolved contrary to Jesus’s teachings
(d) Why unfaithfulness isn’t a basis for remarrying - that’s how many Christians interpret Jesus’s words.
(e) How put away wives are made adulterers even if they don’t remarry?
(f) And why does the Church still allow some to remain married and cohabit provided they abstain. Jesus said the very act of marrying is adulterous sex or no sex doesn’t he?
(g) Where did Jesus actually say none of the above can ever receive Communion in that state?

Perhaps its a little more complicated than your one-liner above suggests.
Pope Francis clearly does.
Frankly, I have a social life and I don’t have time to entertain you 😛

It’s bedtime now 🙂
 
Come on. You are saying that any one who does believe what you are saying just needs to learn more? I have been over this same ground for almost two decades. Radical traditionalist have been minimizing Vatican II as long as I have been Catholic. No, it is not ex cathedra, but that is only one type of infallibility. The other is the Church meeting in council, even if it is a pastoral council and they pronounce no new doctrine.
Firstly I’m not a traditional catholic. I’m a catholic. Catholicism is inherently traditional but many Catholics have forgotten that as Cardinal Ratzinger admitted too. They treat the post-conciliar church as a rupture with tradition and anything old must go (despite many things that have changed not being prescribed by Vatican II at all:eek:)

Please stop trying to teach me on things I know and it turns out you are mistaken.
Only if the council is a dogmatic universal assembly are its teachings infallible. Pastoral Ecumenical councils like Vatican II,which is the only of its kind ,seek not to invoke the infallible teaching authority of the church. See the quotes of Pope Paul VI
Plus there is the rather obvious fact that at minimum, if the Church at Vatican II pronounced something no infallible, it was still the doctrine, and no one has any business arguing with Catholics into not believe that which the Church taught, infallible or not.
Honestly what is this? This is a straw man of note

I have not told anyone to deny anything. I have repeatedly said that doctrinal development is doctrine. I never said ex cathedra wa she only way, I know it’s not so I don’t know where you get that idea:shrug:

But Vatican II has been overestimated and that is something evenaddmitted by Pope Emeretus Benedict XVI when he said people tried to turn it into a super dogma when it fact it defined nothing. Again see the quotes of Pope Paul VI and the then Cardinals Ratzinger.

"…The truth is that this particular council defined no dogma at all, and deliberately chose to remain on a modest level, as a merely pastoral council; and yet many treat it as though it had made itself into a sort of superdogma which takes away the importance of all the rest." (Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI given July 13, 1988, in Santiago, Chile)
FYI, Having no new doctrine does not preclude infallible reformulations of old dogma, or solid doctrinal development of old dogma. Arguing the level of Church teaching is not relevant. Dei Verbum is still Church teaching at the highest level.
My goodness do you read? I have said this the whole thread! I believe in De Verbum! The argument wasn’t about De Verbum but about a certain piece of its content and its teaching authority I.e. The piece on doctrinal development. Thomas White stated Development of doctrine was dogma and it is not. It’s a doctrine. That was my whole point.

I never once said we must not believe in it.

Further I had to point out that his understanding of development was not in line with the church teaching which does not allow for change, only deeper undertanding. Any concept that entertains change in doctrine is not doctrinal development but rather is Doctrinal Evolution which is an error condemned by Pope Saint Pius X. See my signature
 
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