Catholicism: A Changing Church -- Despite Itself

[Nordar]

Pope John Paul II wrote that the Church has no authority to ordain women. Period. That’s it. God is called Father and Son. This is God’s arrangement, not man’s.

Peace,
Ed

THAT! explains it perfectly, Male Priests, only is God’s will, nothing more nothing less. Female Priests will never happen; All those so called theologians who are professing the opposite are just that the opposite. (From God’s plan that is).

 

[Nordar]

Yes, that is the rule now, but as we have seen, a lot of rules have been changed in the Catholic Church.

Dogma of the Catholic Church has never been changed nor can it be!
Please tell me what Dogma has been changed.?

Saying some Theologians believe there will be Female Priests, Clown Masses ETC: although repulsive and against Church Infallabile Doctrine and The Magisterium does not mean Dogma has been changed. All those things are simply done or carried out by heretics and mean nothing in the large scheme of things.

There are millions of Faithfull Catholics who follow Church teachings and The Magisterium, believe in God’s word and pray for those who try to sabotage The Church.
According to God’s word it will never happen, and his word is good enough for me.

 

[Timbothefiveth]

I believe that the poster’s likening a woman to a vegetable and a jackass–as insulting as it is–gets to the nub of what official churchdom truly believes about the value and position of women. They are there to support men, like food or a mode of transport. They have little inherent worth.

Absolutely not true! The fact remains, however, that they can’t be ordained priests, no more than I could become a nun.

 

[Ender]

Yes, that is the rule now, but as we have seen, a lot of rules have been changed in the Catholic Church.

You really need to understand the distinction between the rules the Church sets out - and can therefore change - and moral laws defined by God which she merely passes on. She has defined that priests must be unmarried and at any time she can change that decision. Christ created an all male priesthood and, as JPII said, the Church doesn’t have the authority to change that. Regardless of how many “theologians” debate this it will never change. Sr. Joan appears blindingly unaware of the nature of the teaching barring women from the priesthood.

Ender

 

[sidbrown]

Dogma of the Catholic Church has never been changed nor can it be!
Please tell me what Dogma has been changed.?

Saying some Theologians believe there will be Female Priests, Clown Masses ETC: although repulsive and against Church Infallabile Doctrine and The Magisterium does not mean Dogma has been changed. All those things are simply done or carried out by heretics and mean nothing in the large scheme of things.

There are millions of Faithfull Catholics who follow Church teachings and The Magisterium, believe in God’s word and pray for those who try to sabotage The Church.
According to God’s word it will never happen, and his word is good enough for me.

They are saying it is not infallible dogma.

 

[sidbrown]

You really need to understand the distinction between the rules the Church sets out - and can therefore change - and moral laws defined by God which she merely passes on. She has defined that priests must be unmarried and at any time she can change that decision. Christ created an all male priesthood and, as JPII said, the Church doesn’t have the authority to change that. Regardless of how many “theologians” debate this it will never change. Sr. Joan appears blindingly unaware of the nature of the teaching barring women from the priesthood.

Ender

How was it posible to change the teaching on slavery or torture?

 

[Nordar]

They are saying it is not infallible dogma.

What is not infallible Dogma?
That does not answer my question, Please tell me what Dogma has been chnaged?

 

[Nordar]

Do you mean Female Priests? if so then they are very wrong it is Dogmatic.

And in 1995 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in conjunction with the pope, ruled that this teaching “requires definitive assent, since, founded on the written Word of God, and from the beginning constantly preserved and applied in the tradition of the Church, it has been set forth infallibly by the ordinary and universal magisterium (cf. Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium 25:2)” (Response of Oct. 25, 1995).

catholic.com/library/Women_and_the_Priesthood.asp

 

[Nordar]

How was it posible to change the teaching on slavery or torture?

Because Slavery and torture were not dogma. there are teachings of the Church that are not Infallible Doctrine and therefore can be changed. The problem with people lIke Chichester they want to change Dogma and it ain’t never gonna happen. They are just whistling in the wind.

 

[Ender]

They are saying it is not infallible dogma.

That’s because they haven’t looked in the right place for the answer. This question was raised shortly after JPII wrote Ordinatio Sacerdotalis so a response was drawn up by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith to resolve the issue. It’s very short but here’s the key sentence:

This teaching requires definitive assent, since, founded on the written Word of God, and from the beginning constantly preserved and applied in the Tradition of the Church, it has been set forth infallibly by the ordinary and universal Magisterium.

christusrex.org/www1/CDHN/ad.html

The response was written up by Cardinal Ratzinger with the approval of JPII and this really ought to settle the issue, although for people like Sr. Joan, nothing short of seeing God carve it on stone tablets would likely change her mind.

Ender

 

[Loboto-Me]

Another “Spiritual Terrorist” in our Church

Now that I’ve listened to this guy about Spiritual Terrorism :

youtube.com/watch?v=cXDiEyAZ-1E

I seem to see it everywhere around me. Sometimes I wish my head was still in the sand, I seemed so much happier in my rosy Catholic world.

 

[Ender]

Because Slavery and torture were not dogma. there are teachings of the Church that are not Infallible Doctrine and therefore can be changed.

This comment is true but I think there is more to it. First, the Church never had a doctrine that said it was acceptable to own slaves. What is true is that she did not proclaim an outright condemnation of slavery, but neither did she come out in support of it. Her position went from addressing comments to slave owners to think of their slaves as equals in the eyes of God to condemnation of the institution. It appears you are implying that the Church reversed her teaching - from supporting slavery to opposing it - but this is not the case.

Ender

 

[Nordar]

This comment is true but I think there is more to it. First, the Church never had a doctrine that said it was acceptable to own slaves. What is true is that she did not proclaim an outright condemnation of slavery, but neither did she come out in support of it. Her position went from addressing comments to slave owners to think of their slaves as equals in the eyes of God to condemnation of the institution. It appears you are implying that the Church reversed her teaching - from supporting slavery to opposing it - but this is not the case.

Ender

Sorry if it sounded like that, that’s not what I meant, Iwas just trying to make him see that there are things that can be changed but not Infallible Doctrine.
Since he was using torture and slavery that is what I used. I know the Church never supported slavery.

 

[sidbrown]

I know the Church never supported slavery.

Council of Gangra: “If anyone, on the pretext of religion, teaches another man’s slave to despise his master and to withdraw from his service, and not serve his master with good will and all respect, let him be anathema.”
1452: Pope Nicholas V wrote Dum Diversas which granted to the kings of Spain and Portugal the right to reduce any “Saracens [Muslims] and pagans and any other unbelievers” to perpetual slavery.
Pope Urban VIII in 1629, Pope Innocent X in 1645 and Pope Alexander VII in 1661 were all personally involved in the purchase of Muslim slaves.

 

[Ender]

Council of Gangra: “If anyone, on the pretext of religion, teaches another man’s slave to despise his master and to withdraw from his service, and not serve his master with good will and all respect, let him be anathema.”
1452: Pope Nicholas V wrote Dum Diversas which granted to the kings of Spain and Portugal the right to reduce any “Saracens [Muslims] and pagans and any other unbelievers” to perpetual slavery.
Pope Urban VIII in 1629, Pope Innocent X in 1645 and Pope Alexander VII in 1661 were all personally involved in the purchase of Muslim slaves.

As there were also popes who had concubines and illegitimate children would you take this to mean that their behavior was also Church doctrine? I think your stronger arguments are Dum Diversas and the pronouncements of the Council of Gangra.

Regarding them both, it is not at all clear that our use of the term slave has the same meaning it did for them. For example, this comment from Aquinas: “A man becomes another’s slave not only by being overcome by him, but also by subjecting himself to him spontaneously.” (ST, I/II 80, 4 ad 2) The “subjecting himself spontaneously” part seems a good bit like indentured servitude. The connection between the terms is even more apparent in this quote where he uses servants and slaves as synonyms.

"With regard to the ill-treatment of servants, the Law seems to have taken into consideration whether it was certain or not: since if it were certain, the Law fixed a penalty: for maiming, the penalty was forfeiture of the servant, who was ordered to be given his liberty: while for slaying, the punishment was that of a murderer, when the slave died under the blow of his master." (ST I/II 105, 4 ad 3)

Regarding the Council of Gangra, their comment would surely be reasonable according to the view that slave=indentured servant, as Aquinas noted:* “…and inducing a slave to leave his master are properly injuries against the person; yet the latter, since a slave is his master’s chattel, is referred to theft.”* (ST II/II 61,3)

You also might consider the reason that council, which took place in the middle of the fourth century, even felt it necessary to make such a proclamation. It is reasonable to consider the strong likelihood that, as Christianity was becoming the religion of the Empire, there were some who were holding that this meant all slaves - bonded or otherwise - were to be freed. Opposing that notion is not the same as supporting slavery.

Ender