It’s kind of the same with cassini’s postion on the bishops during the Galileo affair, he’s bothered by the idea that they and the Church could be accused of teaching incorrectly on that subject, that they should be infalliable, yet he doesn’t have a problem saying that Pope Benedict is now teaching incorrectly. It’s not consistant, is he saying that the local bishops in 16th century Italy were infalliable but the current ***POPE ***isn’t?
Sorry to answer your rebuttal Buffalo, but ronnie asks a very important question here that could be directed to me.
Ronnie, you admit only having read up on the Galileo case briefly from one of the versions offered to Catholics and others for 150 years. When I compared the child abuse scandal by homosexual priests who were allowed into the Church as priests en masse after Vatican II to the Galileo case I did so to show that churchmen of the Catholic Church are not above a little cover up work like any secular politicians.
Now if you want to get past their Galileo cover up first read up on the Council of Trent and then the infallible magisterium as defined by Vatican I.
The Roman pontiffs, too, as the circumstances of the time or the state of affairs suggested, sometimes by summoning ecumenical councils or consulting the opinion of the churches scattered throughout the world, sometimes by special synods, sometimes by taking advantage of other useful means afforded by divine providence, defined as doctrines to be held those things which, by God’s help, they knew to be in keeping with sacred scripture and the apostolic traditions.
The Authority of the Anti-Copernican Inquisition
In 1542, in the wake of the Protestant Reformation, Pope Paul III set up various congregations to assist the Pope in his task of safeguarding the Apostolic faith held ‘in agreement with Sacred Scripture and apostolic tradition.’ One of the most important of these was the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Inquisition, otherwise known as the Congregation of the Holy Office. The function of this body was specifically to combat heresy at the highest level. Then, in 1588, Pope Sixtus V (1585-90) gave this congregation even more explicit powers in the Bull Immensa Dei (God Who cannot be Encompassed). In this directive he made the reigning pope, whoever he may be, Prefect of the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Inquisition. This gave the Catholic world to understand that decisions assigned to its judgment, before publication, would invariably be examined and ratified by the Pope himself as supreme judge of the Holy See, and would go forward clothed with such papal authority.
This is the body that defined and declared belief in a fixed sun formal heresy. Here is how the greatest theologian the Church had at the time, Catrdinal Bellarmine, told Galileo of the decree:
and the Lord Cardinal, who was still in the room, the said Commissary did enjoin upon the said Galileo, there present, and did order him** in the name of his Holiness the Pope**, and the names of all the Cardinals of the Congregation of the Holy Office, to relinquish altogether the opinion in question, namely that the sun is the centre of the universe and immovable and that the earth moves; nor henceforth to hold, teach, or defend in any way, either orally or in writing.
Now that definition comes under the protection of the ordinary magisterium, never wrong as God promised.
But then came the so-called proofs, the ones you all insist on, and Rome fell hook line and sinker for them. Faith in the Church’s decisions went out the window faced with scientific ‘falsification’. Supernatural definitions cannot be proven wrong so infallibility is safe in that sphere, but here, oh my God, how do we save the Church’s infallibility in this case.
Today, after enormous scholarship and research by the likes of Maurice Finocchiaro in his book Retrying Galileo, the history of the U-turn is available for all to read. But I warn you, when it came to rejecting the Church’s original definition, the infallible one, any juvinlie secular court would have thrown out the Copernican case in ten minutes. Throughout however - thanks be to God - He wouldn’t allow the Copernicans to use the official organs of the Church to worm their way out of it. For an official U-turn, an official abrogation of the decree would have been necessary. The reason for the U-turn would have been necessary for the flock. In fact all the Copernicans did was remove the ban from the Index and hide the 1616 decree under a carpet in Rome somewhere. So, the Church’s infallibility was saved by this, not by the unofficial denials of infallibility that
HAD TO BE SAID in the shame of that U-turn.
Then in 1905, Einstein reminded all that man cannot determine a H or a G universe. In other words the Church of 1616 was never shown to be wrong - infallible or not, it didn’t matter now. In 1905 then churchmen could have vindicated their predecessors of 1616 and 1633. But to do that would have exposed the Copernican heretics of post 1741 in the Church. So they left the 1616/1633 Church out to hang rather that ‘bring the Church into disrepute’ - as a poster said - by reasserting the unfalsified decree of 1616.
In other words, the heresy of Copernicanism is a more comfortable situation for Catholics today that to reclaim the truth base on faith in the Church’s definition of 1616 and 1633. Yes, their faith is now firmly with science rather than the infallibility of the Church.
Finally Ronnie, I can separate the official teaching of popes with the rhetoric of the Copernican popes. If the Copernican popes use their official perogative I fully accept their teaching.
blue