Identifying the infallible teachings

[Princess18]

This is probably a stupid question, but I have to ask since I was poorly catechized as child and now have a lot of catching up to do.

I was reading in the Catholic Answers library trying to wrap my brain around indulgences when I came across this

Indulgences are part of the Church’s infallible teaching. This means that no Catholic is at liberty to disbelieve in them. The Council of Trent stated that it “condemns with anathema those who say that indulgences are useless or that the Church does not have the power to grant them”(Trent, session 25, Decree on Indulgences). Trent’s anathema places indulgences in the realm of infallibly defined teaching.

After reading it I thought okay, aren’t all the Church’s teachings on faith and morals infallible?. How are the “all Catholics must believe” teachings designated? I don’t think that they are all in the CCC, are they? If there are ones in the CCC that are not mandated, then how do you distinguish?

(Hope I’m making sense. Thanks)

 

[Nita]

I think most of the infallible teachings are contained in the CCC. Some of them may not have been dealt with in depth.

I think a book that is most helpful in this area is “Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma” by Dr. Ludwig Ott. They started it on line, but have not completed it. It will give you an idea of what the book contains. It’s really great. Three books I would not be without are the Bible, the Catechism, and Fundamentals.

www.catecheticsonline.com/Fundamentals.php
Only those sections that start with “Click here” are on line.
When you click on the “Click here”, you will get an error message. You have to go up to the website address and delete the ending letters “html” and type in “php” instead. (I have no idea why they’ve been unable to get this fixed!!)

Nita

 

[Princess18]

Okay, so if the men who became Pope wrote something before they became Pope it’s not infallible teaching until they say it as Pope, right? It’s just … really good advice? What about cannon law? I read a thread once that said you are free to disagree with priests not being allowed to marry because it’s cannon law and not part of the Church’s teaching (as in, it could be changed later) whereas abortion/euthanasia/etc are teachings that no Catholic is free to reject.

What about the papal encyclicals - is everything contained in them under the infallible umbrella?

The main reason I ask is because people quote all sorts of things on this board. A quote may answer a question or explain a point of view, and then someone says “oh but that was back when he was a cardinal and not Pope so it doesn’t apply” or “but that’s only cannon law and not dogma”.

If anyone can help explain this a little more to me, that would be great. I suppose what I’m lacking is definition of the big picture.

Thanks

 

[Donald45]

You may find this helpful:

catholic.com/thisrock/2001/0109bt.asp

Pax,

Don
+T+

 

[Princess18]

You may find this helpful:
catholic.com/thisrock/2001/0109bt.asp

Thank you … but I’m still stuck. The link was informative as to how to read and interpret papal writings to determine if infallibility was invoked. However, it is not practical (or likely) that I will read them all and analyze them with an apologist’s discerning eye. I don’t have a knack for that and I’m guessing most other Catholics don’t either.

(sigh)