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

[Thomas_White]

After reading through the HPR article, it seems to me that one of Cardinal Ratzinger’s main points is that Revelation requires a recipient, and that each generation, in that sense, receives Revelation anew. A development in understanding is not a new revelation. Even in heaven our understanding will continue to develop, for human understanding can never fully encompass the divine. But I do not get the sense that he is advocating for a kind of ‘continuing revelation.’ Greater understanding does not change the content of the deposit of faith.

I agree that a development of understanding is not a new revelation. But it seems to me that a significant part of what the theologian Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger was saying is that it is Christ and not sacred scripture or tradition that is the source of divine revelation. As history progresses through the centuries until the end of time, there is a fuller understanding of revelation as it is unveiled to each succeeding generation.

“Unveil” does mean to reveal, and Ratzinger’s use of the term may be confusing. As you say, “even in heaven our understanding will continue to develop”. Our understanding will continue to develop as more of revelation is revealed to our understanding. This is tricky. It seems to me that this is to say that it is not our understanding per se that develops but that more is unveiled to our understanding.

“For as the centuries succeed one another, the Church constantly moves forward toward the fullness of divine truth until the words of God reach their complete fulfillment in her” (Dei Verbum, 2.8). Needless to say, we are not there yet.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

I agree that a development of understanding is not a new revelation. But it seems to me that a significant part of what the theologian Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger was saying is that it is Christ and not sacred scripture or tradition that is the source of divine revelation. As history progresses through the centuries until the end of time, there is a fuller understanding of revelation as it is unveiled to each succeeding generation.

“Unveil” does mean to reveal, and Ratzinger’s use of the term may be confusing. As you say, “even in heaven our understanding will continue to develop”. Our understanding will continue to develop as more of revelation is revealed to our understanding. This is tricky. It seems to me that this is to say that it is not our understanding per se that develops but that more is unveiled to our understanding.

“For as the centuries succeed one another, the Church constantly moves forward toward the fullness of divine truth until the words of God reach their complete fulfillment in her” (Dei Verbum, 2.8). Needless to say, we are not there yet.

But we cannot unveil contradiction.
We do not fully understand the Trinity. But that does not mean that unveiling further will cause us to understand the Trinity has now become a Quartet. That would contradict what the Trinity is.

We do not fully understand how Jesus can be fully Man and fully God, but unveiling would not lead us to believe that He was fully Man, but ONLY from birth to death, and God before and God after, but no ‘man’ after death. That would contradict what the Hypostatic Union is.

We do not fully understand how Christ can be present in the Eucharist, but ‘unveiling’ would not cause us to believe that Christ just kind of ‘winks in’ at the consecration, making the bread and wine ‘holy food’ like manna, but not really being His Body and Blood, because that would contradict transubstantiation.

And the problem as I see it is that the idea that a person, by himself, can arbitrarily decide that even though he or she has never received a decree of nullity from a prior marriage, and is in the eyes of GOD (according to accepted Church teaching and the words of Christ Himself) not free to be married to another, can be ‘at peace’ and act as though this marriage is magically ‘valid’ simply on his/her personal belief, such that he or she can receive communion even though according to established Church teaching, a ‘union’ that is not a valid union and involves sexual relations is adultery and the person must repent and cease =i.e. live as brother and sister-- before communion is attempted, and that LATTER part is itself not considered the ‘usual’ solution but only in extremely rare cases at that!!- contradicts both the nature of marriage, the nature of the Eucharist itself, and in addition the nature of sin and the nature of conscience.

It’s a muddled mess formed from a muddled understanding of mercy IMO.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Yeah, I do have a life and I just came home from a night of partying.

Please. You think I’m actually going to answer your essay questions…ain’t nobody got time for that.

Well you’ve likely just earned yourself zero credibility here JPUSC. If you won’t respond to contributors who take your contributions seriously enough to offer a considered response because you are busy partying…then we can only conclude you don’t take your own jabs here seriously. From disturbances you are causing on other threads I suggest you may want to sort your own personal faith issues out first before attempting your version of apologetics on CAF.

 

[JPUSC]

Well you’ve likely just earned yourself zero credibility here JPUSC. If you won’t respond to contributors who take your contributions seriously enough to offer a considered response because you are busy partying…then we can only conclude you don’t take your own jabs here seriously. From disturbances you are causing on other threads I suggest you may want to sort your own personal faith issues out first before attempting your version of apologetics on CAF.

You are on my ignore list Mr./Ms. ‘Faith Builder!’

You are a disturbance to me! See ya!

 

[Thomas_White]

But we cannot unveil contradiction.

We can just stop right there. Man is not the source of Revelation.

And the problem as I see it is that the idea that a person, by himself, can arbitrarily decide that even though he or she has never received a decree of nullity from a prior marriage, and is in the eyes of GOD (according to accepted Church teaching and the words of Christ Himself) not free to be married to another, can be ‘at peace’ and act as though this marriage is magically ‘valid’ simply on his/her personal belief, such that he or she can receive communion even though according to established Church teaching, a ‘union’ that is not a valid union and involves sexual relations is adultery and the person must repent and cease =i.e. live as brother and sister-- before communion is attempted, and that LATTER part is itself not considered the ‘usual’ solution but only in extremely rare cases at that!!- contradicts both the nature of marriage, the nature of the Eucharist itself, and in addition the nature of sin and the nature of conscience.

It’s a muddled mess formed from a muddled understanding of mercy IMO.

Perhaps, if a formal Decree of Nullity is what renders a marriage invalid. It has been my experience on the forum that it is a hopeless endeavor to attempt to show the few, who rely solely on a clerical understanding of doctrine, the limitations of their static views, Most often, I no longer try. However, I would note that Pope Francis has more than once expressed his exasperation with this sort of orientation, really a type of Catholic fundamentalism. His frustration with it is understandable, and we see it again with AL. Rather than simply reject the papal exhortation, why not first attempt to understand how it may be a “development of doctrine”?

Do we hold to the recorded preaching of the Apostles (a valid source but surely not all they ever had to say), to the Nicene Council, to Trent, to Vatican I or Vatican II? Where ought the firm line be drawn?

Or is it that the Church “constantly moves forward toward the fullness of divine truth”?

 

[Blue_Horizon]

…the idea that a person, by himself, can arbitrarily decide that even though he or she has never received a decree of nullity from a prior marriage, and is in the eyes of GOD…not free to be married

Let’s not get carried away with rhetoric. Since when does a fallible human court, which a tribunal is, get to invincably discover the truth of a bond that lies on the other side of the “veil” as you put it? What poppycock. A Tribunal doesn’t arrive at truth but, when it finds nullity does so with a confident level of probable truth that is all.
Should it be unable to make such a decision that is NOT a similarly confident decision against the 2nd marriage. It may simply be an admission that there is insufficient evidence to draw any conclusions re the 1st marriage and the validity is presumed by default.

It is precisely this weakness even in official human discovery to ever fully discern what God sees that allows for the possibility that the person who has always maintained the marriage was problematic from the start may be correct. The rules for deciding the level and type of confidence needed to decide “objectively” on these matters are themselves somewhat arbitrary.

So theology clearly tells us that God may well see no bond even if a Tribunal cannot yet discover that reality according to its own criteria. A Tribunal speaks for the Church not for God. That is why the Church may decide that a different juridical process may decide on Communion access on an implied basis that someone may in fact be free to marry.
And there may well be no contradiction in God’s eyes, but there may be to man who cannot see beyond the veil. Just like the truth of the 3 in 1 or the 2 in 1.

… as though this marriage is magically ‘valid’ simply on his/her personal belief, such that he or she can receive communion

TE is this sort of mild sarcasm really worthy of a 60 yr old?

Please quote where Pope Francis clearly states that an accompanying priest must be bound to the conscience of his penitent? You and I both know you cannot do so and won’t do so, so why the silliness above. This sort of less than honest self indulgent carry on is not helpful to anyone here including yourself surely?

 

[Ginny89]

We can just stop right there. Man is not the source of Revelation.

Perhaps, if a formal Decree of Nullity is what renders a marriage invalid. It has been my experience on the forum that it is a hopeless endeavor to attempt to show the few, who rely solely on a clerical understanding of doctrine, the limitations of their static views, Most often, I no longer try. However, I would note that Pope Francis has more than once expressed his exasperation with this sort of orientation, really a type of Catholic fundamentalism. His frustration with it is understandable, and we see it again with AL. Rather than simply reject the papal exhortation, why not first attempt to understand how it may be a “development of doctrine”?

Do we hold to the recorded preaching of the Apostles (a valid source but surely not all they ever had to say), to the Nicene Council, to Trent, to Vatican I or Vatican II? Where ought the firm line be drawn?

Or is it that the Church “constantly moves forward toward the fullness of divine truth”?

It really is amazing to me that you believe these people have “simply rejected” papal exhortation and failed to try to grapple with how it could be a development of doctrine. Maybe, just maybe, they have tried VERY hard and simply cannot resolve the contradiction they find there and it is those who insist there is a development that have failed to resolve this contradiction and resorted to demanding that others accept that there isnt a contradiction on a mere declaration. These catholics who struggle with this are actually very devout. They care. That’s why the struggle. If they can reconcile anything the pope says with the rest of the magisterium, they do. It is because they CANNOT in this case that we are in this stalemate, assuming that the Maltese position is in line with the Pope’s views of course.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

It really is amazing to me that you believe these people have “simply rejected” papal exhortation and failed to try to grapple with how it could be a development of doctrine. Maybe, just maybe, they have tried VERY hard and simply cannot resolve the contradiction they find there and it is those who insist there is a development that have failed to resolve this contradiction and resorted to demanding that others accept that there isnt a contradiction on a mere declaration. These catholics who struggle with this are actually very devout. They care. That’s why the struggle. If they can reconcile anything the pope says with the rest of the magisterium, they do. It is because they CANNOT in this case that we are in this stalemate, assuming that the Maltese position is in line with the Pope’s views of course.

Well I don’t know about you but I recognise the Church is ultimately where it’s authority figures are in Communion with its head. I adhere to those persons.

Now others might think it’s about adhering to impersonal “Catholic truths” which can somehow be set in opposition to the hierarchy of Communion…and if there has to be a choice one must adhere to the impersonal truths and oppose the the Communion of persons above.

That looks to me like a form of Protestantism where Scripture has merely been replaced with Doctrine. And I am personally the arbiter of what the Doctrine means and whether it is compatible with “innovations”.

I could well imagine some Cardinals coming out with “Sola Doctrina” as their catch cry.
I won’t be joining those cries I don’t think.

 

[Abba]

I thought to look into the teachings of the Orthodox Church and how they came to accept three marriages even though they believe in the indissolubility of marriage and consider marriage ‘eternal’ and were the same Church as the Catholic Church up until the schism of 1054 a.d… I am still with my mouth opened as it dropped when I realized that they have a different definition for the word ‘adultery’ then I , and the Catholic Church and probably all of you.

Adultery, as I have understood it, is exactly what Jesus said:
Matthew:
And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.
Matthew:
27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’[e] 28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
John:
8 Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, 2 but early the next morning he was back again at the Temple. A crowd soon gathered, and he sat down and taught them. 3 As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd.

I have read these passages to mean by ‘adultery’ - sexual immorality and the exception to divorce being exactly if a partner has sex with another. But, the Orthodox Church defines adultery as what I would say: infidelity. To them what is meant in the Bible is ‘infidelity.’ So, if a spouse is an alcoholic or spends too much time away (maybe business trips that last months) or is too obsessed with making money - these things would qualify in the Orthodox Church as ‘adultery’ because the spouse is being put in a second place. Interesting.

Then I read that prior to the schism the Church was permitting re-marrriages and it does so out of mercy. I am still looking into this, I cannot find references to such nor exactly when the Orthodox Church started accepting three marriages except for a mention that it was prior to the 10th century.

” Orthodox Church recognizes the sanctity of marriage and sees it as a life-long commitment. However, there are certain circumstances in which it becomes evident that there is no love or commitment in a relationship. While the Church stands opposed to divorce, the Church, in its concern for the salvation of its people, does permit divorced individuals to marry a second and even a third time.

“The Order of the Second or Third Marriage is somewhat different than that celebrated as a first marriage and it bears a penitential character. Second or third marriages are performed by “economy”—that is, out of concern for the spiritual well-being of the parties involved and as an exception to the rule, so to speak.” oca.org/questions/sacramentmarriage/divorce-and-remarriage1

I am just finding it interesting to see how the Orthodox Church having shared its first 1,054 years as Catholic and having valid sacraments can reach such positions in regards to marriage and re-marriage.

Well, indirectly, this situation brings the two churches closer.

 

[_Abyssinia]

I thought to look into the teachings of the Orthodox Church and how they came to accept three marriages even though they believe in the indissolubility of marriage and consider marriage ‘eternal’ and were the same Church as the Catholic Church up until the schism of 1054 a.d… I am still with my mouth opened as it dropped when I realized that they have a different definition for the word ‘adultery’ then I , and the Catholic Church and probably all of you.

Adultery, as I have understood it, is exactly what Jesus said:
Matthew:
And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.
Matthew:
27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’[e] 28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
John:
8 Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, 2 but early the next morning he was back again at the Temple. A crowd soon gathered, and he sat down and taught them. 3 As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd.

I have read these passages to mean by ‘adultery’ - sexual immorality and the exception to divorce being exactly if a partner has sex with another. But, the Orthodox Church defines adultery as what I would say: infidelity. To them what is meant in the Bible is ‘infidelity.’ So, if a spouse is an alcoholic or spends too much time away (maybe business trips that last months) or is too obsessed with making money - these things would quality in the Orthodox Church as ‘adultery’ because the spouse is being put in a second place. Interesting.

Then I read that prior to the schism the Church was permitting and it does so out of mercy. I am still looking into this, I cannot find references to such nor exactly when the Orthodox Church started accepting three marriages except for a mention that it was prior to the 10th century.

” Orthodox Church recognizes the sanctity of marriage and sees it as a life-long commitment. However, there are certain circumstances in which it becomes evident that there is no love or commitment in a relationship. While the Church stands opposed to divorce, the Church, in its concern for the salvation of its people, does permit divorced individuals to marry a second and even a third time.

“The Order of the Second or Third Marriage is somewhat different than that celebrated as a first marriage and it bears a penitential character. Second or third marriages are performed by “economy”—that is, out of concern for the spiritual well being of the parties involved and as an exception to the rule, so to speak.” oca.org/questions/sacramentmarriage/divorce-and-remarriage1

I am just finding it interesting to see how the Orthdox Church having shared its first 1,054 as Catholic and having valid sacraments can reach such positions in regards to marriage and re-marriage.

Well, indirectly, this situation if brings the two churches closer.

I recommend this article:

Can the Orthodox Way End the Divorce and Remarriage Debate?

crisismagazine.com/2017/can-orthodox-way-end-debate-divorce-remarriage

 

[Abba]

I recommend this article:

Can the Orthodox Way End the Divorce and Remarriage Debate?

crisismagazine.com/2017/can-orthodox-way-end-debate-divorce-remarriage

Oh, okay, someone was wondering the same… I’ll take a look. Thanks.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

I thought to look into the teachings of the Orthodox Church and how they came to accept three marriages even though they believe in the indissolubility of marriage and consider marriage ‘eternal’ and were the same Church as the Catholic Church up until the schism of 1054 a.d… I am still with my mouth opened as it dropped when I realized that they have a different definition for the word ‘adultery’ then I , and the Catholic Church and probably all of you.

Adultery, as I have understood it, is exactly what Jesus said:
Matthew:
And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.
Matthew:
27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’[e] 28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
John:
8 Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, 2 but early the next morning he was back again at the Temple. A crowd soon gathered, and he sat down and taught them. 3 As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd.

I have read these passages to mean by ‘adultery’ - sexual immorality and the exception to divorce being exactly if a partner has sex with another. But, the Orthodox Church defines adultery as what I would say: infidelity. To them what is meant in the Bible is ‘infidelity.’ So, if a spouse is an alcoholic or spends too much time away (maybe business trips that last months) or is too obsessed with making money - these things would qualify in the Orthodox Church as ‘adultery’ because the spouse is being put in a second place. Interesting.

It does not really take a lot of effort to discern that the way Jesus used the word Adultery is not perfectly aligned with the strict definition used nowadays in the West. A broad understanding and comparison of Magisterial statements re divorce and irregulars also leads the unbiased to the same conclusion that a range of less grave evils are also involved under that catchall word “adultery”.

A number of contributors here have already come to that conclusion simply on the basis of minor disharmonies in both the Biblical and Magisterial record if sexual adultery is the only definition to be held.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Let’s not get carried away with rhetoric. Since when does a fallible human court, which a tribunal is, get to invincably discover the truth of a bond that lies on the other side of the “veil” as you put it? What poppycock. A Tribunal doesn’t arrive at truth but, when it finds nullity does so with a confident level of probable truth that is all.
Should it be unable to make such a decision that is NOT a similarly confident decision against the 2nd marriage. It may simply be an admission that there is insufficient evidence to draw any conclusions re the 1st marriage and the validity is presumed by default.

It is precisely this weakness even in official human discovery to ever fully discern what God sees that allows for the possibility that the person who has always maintained the marriage was problematic from the start may be correct. The rules for deciding the level and type of confidence needed to decide “objectively” on these matters are themselves somewhat arbitrary.

So theology clearly tells us that God may well see no bond even if a Tribunal cannot yet discover that reality according to its own criteria. A Tribunal speaks for the Church not for God. That is why the Church may decide that a different juridical process may decide on Communion access on an implied basis that someone may in fact be free to marry.
And there may well be no contradiction in God’s eyes, but there may be to man who cannot see beyond the veil. Just like the truth of the 3 in 1 or the 2 in 1.

TE is this sort of mild sarcasm really worthy of a 60 yr old?

Please quote where Pope Francis clearly states that an accompanying priest must be bound to the conscience of his penitent? You and I both know you cannot do so and won’t do so, so why the silliness above. This sort of less than honest self indulgent carry on is not helpful to anyone here including yourself surely?

You know, if you limited your posting to actually addressing the argument (and stating that ‘theology shows’ etc without saying anything more is not addressing the argument) and stopped with your personal ‘jabs’ at people, you’d probably come across as somebody who had a reasoned opinion and was willing to speak respectfully and help others at least see the understanding.

As it is, remarks like your ‘is this sort of mild sarcasm really worthy of a 60 year old’ simply reek of a condescension that is quite frankly appalling in one who is purportedly a theologian himself. I’m sure that you would not speak to your 60 year old neighbor lady in such terms, so why would you do so to me? ‘Silliness’? Challenges to something I never even stated (strawman) and ‘self indulgent carry on’? Yes, such constant verbal jabs and snipes are not the way to help others learn, as I trust you will, in time, come to realize.

 

[RCinMT]

This thread has my interest piqued:

1. If conscience trumps everything, if doctrine is useless than why bother having the Church at all?
2. Do the protestants have it partially right in that we have a personal encounter with Christ and we don’t need intervention from a hierarchical establishment of clergy? But are they wrong in that we don’t even need the Bible, we have our consciences, right? Sola conscientia?
3. Is spiritual, not religious the right path? It seems like it could be the right path: why should I tie myself to any dogmas or beliefs? I have my conscience and the vague notion of God or supreme being…what else is there?

 

[TMC]

There is a very significant point here that is not clearly expressed. Does the Holy Spirit work through the Church to accomplish development? Yes, of course. Does the pope have the authority to express that development? Certainly. What he does not have, however, is the authority to create doctrine. His job is preservation, not innovation.*“For the Holy Spirit was not promised to the Successors of Peter that by His revelation they might disclose new doctrine, but that by His help they might guard* the revelation transmitted through the apostles and the deposit of faith, and might faithfully set it forth.” (1st Vatican Council)
Reading the comments of some posters there seems to exist a belief that Catholicism is whatever a pope says it is, and that truth - or at least doctrine - can change from one pontiff to the next. If this was so then Catholicism would have no better claim to the truth than anything else, and leaving the Church would be understandable. It would make no sense to stay.

No one questions whether the pope has the authority to teach. The questions are whether AL represents new doctrine…and whether any pope has the authority to rewrite doctrines as he chooses.
I think this misses the point of the objections. Those being referred to are not claiming to have a better understanding of Christ than the Church does. The apparent disconnect is between the Church and AL. Again, the pope is not the Church. He is the temporary head of the Church, but his every word is not protected from error.

The argument is this: “The Church teaches A, B, and C based on certain passage of Scripture. Some interpretations of AL appear to contradict doctrines that have developed over 2000 years. How can those contradictions be resolved?”

To respond “No contradiction exists” or “Popes can teach what they like” doesn’t resolve the problem.

Ender

Your view that the Pope’s only job is to hold the status quo ante contradicts 2000 years of Church history. Church teaching on many topics has developed and changed over the centuries. As I have said before, this is a very minor development compared to others, such as the significant development on EENS.

I do agree that Catholics have the right to speak up and to voice their concerns if they think the Church is doing something wrong. But to predicate their objections on a false belief that doctrine has never changed and can never change is simply inaccurate.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Your view that the Pope’s only job is to hold the status quo ante contradicts 2000 years of Church history. Church teaching on many topics has developed and changed over the centuries. As I have said before, this is a very minor development compared to others, such as the significant development on EENS.

I do agree that Catholics have the right to speak up and to voice their concerns if they think the Church is doing something wrong. But to predicate their objections on a false belief that doctrine has never changed and can never change is simply inaccurate.

Doctrines develop, surely? They don’t change.

Here is an example. Per ETWN which classifies under 'Basic Doctrine: The Trinity. . .

Our understanding of the Trinity has developed since the time of the apostles although considering the Nicene Creed, which was in place by the middle of the 4th Century A.D., the understanding nearly 1700 years ago was pretty similar to today. . . The Father, The Son, Consubstantial, the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son.

So: Doctrine cannot change to, "the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit working as Sophia, Wisdom, now we’re the Quartet’.

Doctrine cannot change so that Trinity becomes “Not Trinity” in other words. (Meaning, we can’t ‘go back’ and say, “Hey it’s just Father and Son, the Spirit is just Father and Son’s feeling, not a person.”)

Now in time we might come to realize (I can’t imagine how so I can’t say) just HOW these Three Persons can exist in One God. Maybe that will occur if we ever come to know and understand something like dimensions beyond time and space. That would not in any way contradict our understanding of Three Persons in One God.

But to go from understanding that per the words of Jesus and St. Paul etc. that adultery was a mortal sin to ‘well, some adultery isn’t really adultery’, is a little harder. And it involves accepting concepts that aren’t themselves fully understood and which could change. After all, Pope Francis does not himself say anything of the kind in AL. He does not say, "Some people in a divorced-and remarried union without decree of nullity may not be committing adultery and can receive’. That interpretation is being pushed by some priests and bishops, but it is not the teaching of the Catholic Church and even if Pope Francis might be attracted by the concept, he himself has not come out and directly said, "Yes, this is indeed a teaching and a development of doctrine and to held as such by the entire Church’.l

 

[Blue_Horizon]

You know, if you limited your posting to actually addressing the argument (and stating that ‘theology shows’ etc without saying anything more is not addressing the argument) and stopped with your personal ‘jabs’ at people, you’d probably come across as somebody who had a reasoned opinion and was willing to speak respectfully and help others at least see the understanding.

As it is, remarks like your ‘is this sort of mild sarcasm really worthy of a 60 year old’ simply reek of a condescension that is quite frankly appalling in one who is purportedly a theologian himself. I’m sure that you would not speak to your 60 year old neighbor lady in such terms, so why would you do so to me? ‘Silliness’? Challenges to something I never even stated (strawman) and ‘self indulgent carry on’? Yes, such constant verbal jabs and snipes are not the way to help others learn, as I trust you will, in time, come to realize.

TE I believe you yourself just gave an excellent example of not only not limiting yourself to the argument at hand but not even addressing the argument at all .

Yes I do now and then politely advise my elderly aunts and uncles when they behave in unseemly fashion and I accord you the same loving concern. Did so for my single millionaire 85 year old uncle last month. He was pulling the strings of my cousin over his inheritance. He didn’t speak to me for two weeks but finally rang me yesterday. All forgiven, though he would never actually come out and say that of course. My prediction of how my cousin would retaliate had proven accurate. Of course we all find it difficult to accept that critique can ever come from someone who isn’t really nasty at all.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

This thread has my interest piqued:

1. If conscience trumps everything, if doctrine is useless than why bother having the Church at all?
2. Do the protestants have it partially right in that we have a personal encounter with Christ and we don’t need intervention from a hierarchical establishment of clergy? But are they wrong in that we don’t even need the Bible, we have our consciences, right? Sola conscientia?
3. Is spiritual, not religious the right path? It seems like it could be the right path: why should I tie myself to any dogmas or beliefs? I have my conscience and the vague notion of God or supreme being…what else is there?

What leads you to believe Conscience trumps everything?
AL has surely never stated such a thing.

 

[TMC]

Doctrines develop, surely? They don’t change.

Here is an example. Per ETWN which classifies under 'Basic Doctrine: The Trinity. . .

Our understanding of the Trinity has developed since the time of the apostles although considering the Nicene Creed, which was in place by the middle of the 4th Century A.D., the understanding nearly 1700 years ago was pretty similar to today. . . The Father, The Son, Consubstantial, the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son.

So: Doctrine cannot change to, "the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit working as Sophia, Wisdom, now we’re the Quartet’.

Doctrine cannot change so that Trinity becomes “Not Trinity” in other words. (Meaning, we can’t ‘go back’ and say, “Hey it’s just Father and Son, the Spirit is just Father and Son’s feeling, not a person.”)

Now in time we might come to realize (I can’t imagine how so I can’t say) just HOW these Three Persons can exist in One God. Maybe that will occur if we ever come to know and understand something like dimensions beyond time and space. That would not in any way contradict our understanding of Three Persons in One God.

But to go from understanding that per the words of Jesus and St. Paul etc. that adultery was a mortal sin to ‘well, some adultery isn’t really adultery’, is a little harder. And it involves accepting concepts that aren’t themselves fully understood and which could change. After all, Pope Francis does not himself say anything of the kind in AL. He does not say, "Some people in a divorced-and remarried union without decree of nullity may not be committing adultery and can receive’. That interpretation is being pushed by some priests and bishops, but it is not the teaching of the Catholic Church and even if Pope Francis might be attracted by the concept, he himself has not come out and directly said, "Yes, this is indeed a teaching and a development of doctrine and to held as such by the entire Church’.l

How do you explain the fact that 200 years ago it was certain Church teaching that those that were not formal members of the Church in this life could not be saved, but the Church now teaches that those people can be saved - even pagans and atheists? Or that the Church once taught that loaning money at interest was intrinsically evil, but now teaches that charging interest is not sinful? Lots of developments look like contradictory changes depending on how they are viewed and presented. We now understand how those apparent about faces are actually developments of Church teaching. The same is true of this relatively minor development.

 

[pnewton]

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)

Please stop trying to teach me on things I know and it turns out you are mistaken.

First, I did not say you were a traditional Catholic.

Second, I really let out a smile on that line above. I have never read such a “pot meet kettle” statement. Opinions are not facts. I would say rather it is you who are attempting to other Catholics even though they hold other, different but orthodox, opinions.

My goodness do you read?

When one sinks into insults, their debate is amiss. Please understand the role of charity as primary in Christian dialogue. I know you will say you already understand this. Perhaps I should have said to exercise charity.