Any time your bishop publicly opposes the pope and the overwhelming weight of catholic teaching you must recognize his mistake and not repeat it. This was the duty of christians in the dioceses polluted by Arians and it was the duty of those in English dioceses when their bishops wimped out and accepted Henry VII’s authority over the pope’s. Nothing has changed.Please, show me where it says that you are supposed to bypass your bishop and listen to Pope.
I am afraid your have picked up some misunderstandings here.This was mentioned in the other thread.
The natural law has spoken via the HV commission. Paul VI was seeking an advice from this commission because for sure he didn’t know what is inscribed in the hearts of married couples.
Where do you get that from??. Paul VI was seeking an advice from this commission because for sure he didn’t know what is inscribed in the hearts of married couples…
I think that you are confusing intent, knowledge, natural law, and formed conscience.It’s supposed to be but is it? See my post above.
Actually, this has been soundly disproven over and over again, but persists beause of the efforts of Charles Curran and similar folks’ spin doctoring.This was mentioned in the other thread.
The natural law has spoken via the HV commission. Paul VI was seeking an advice from this commission because for sure he didn’t know what is inscribed in the hearts of married couples.
Do you know why? Have a look:I am afraid your have picked up some misunderstandings here.
Contraception has been intrinsically evil …it has always been condemned since the early days
But for example there was some question back in the day as to if say the newly developed “pill” was “contraception”
Yes – It is a form of contraception.
Oh and something that is true via natural law can also be be further revealed via Revelation as well.
In commenting on the single controversial issue of Humanae Vitae, the late Bernard Lonergan, S.J., a renowned theologian, remarked: ’The traditional views [on contraception] to my mind are based on Aristotelian biology and later stuff which is all wrong. They haven’t got the facts straight" (Catholic New Times, Oct. 14, 1984).
What Lonergan was referring to was the analysis of the sexual act found in Aristotle’s De generatione animalium. Male seed was viewed as an efficient cause that changed the nutritive material supplied by the female. According to this view every act of insemination (intercourse) is of itself procreative.
americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=10960We now know, of course, that Aristotle was wrong. It must be recalled here that it was only in 1827 that Karl Ernst von Baer published his discovery of the ovum. The relation of insemination to procreation, we now know, is not that of a per se cause to a per se effect. The relation of intercourse to procreation is statistical, the vast majority of acts not leading to conception. Paul VI stated that “the conjugal act … capacitates them for the generation of new lives.” That is true of only very few conjugal acts.
Was he married?Where do you get that from??
Olds news. Certain forms of contraception also act as abortive agents. It is true that prior to modern scientific understanding of conception (sperm and egg), we did not know about the difference between preventing conception and killing the unborn child. But arguments such as this contain the underlying assumption that the only moral issue with contraception could be abortion. This is an erroneous assumption.Do you know why? Have a look:
Jaaanosik #67
- Bishops in the Church itself question the teaching on the non-abortive contraception.
- Conscience rules in this regards.
No. Wrong on 2 counts.#76
Paul VI was seeking an advice from this commission because for sure he didn’t know what is inscribed in the hearts of married couples.
A Catholic who “feels” that a theologian’s “view” can trump an infallible teaching is not a real Catholic.#84
Bernard Lonergan, S.J., a renowned theologuian
where did the unitive aspect of marital act come from? Was it taught all the time?
No, but that has little bearing on the natural law inscribed on all our hearts.Was he married?
Such has nothing to do with if something is to be considered definitive and irreformable.
Natural Law condemns Contraception. The fact that a couple --confused by the culture etc–does not see such does not mean that they are following natural law. It means they that they may not see it (and either have not learned the Faith or have rejected an aspect etc etc)
Not “seeing into the hearts of people” is not referring to natural law but to invincible ignorance etc.
Compendium issued by Pope Benedict XVI
1954-1960
- In what does the natural moral law consist?
1978-1979
The natural law which is inscribed by the Creator on the heart of every person consists in a participation in the wisdom and the goodness of God. It expresses that original moral sense which enables one to discern by reason the good and the bad. It is universal and immutable and determines the basis of the duties and fundamental rights of the person as well as those of the human community and civil law.
1960
- Is such a law perceived by everyone?
Because of sin the natural law is not always perceived nor is it recognized by everyone with equal clarity and immediacy.
vatican.va/archive/compendium_ccc/documents/archive_2005_compendium-ccc_en.html
Hi Abu, I’m sorry but I think you’re sorely mistaken about conscience. Let’s read a little bit more from CCC:Conscience is of the intellect. It does not stem from emotions or feelings.
- That some bishops have “questioned” the infallible doctrine against contraception merely shows the infidelity and fallibility of bishops when not teaching what the Magisterium has proclaimed. Jaaanosik is woefully deficient in understanding the role of bishops. Bishops are not individually infallible.
- Conscience “rules” nothing. The Catholic conscience has to be formed correctly and then knows right from wrong.
It is appalling that even the CCC is unknown:
#1793 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
“If the ignorance is invincible, or the moral subject is not responsible for his erroneous judgment, the evil committed by the person cannot be imputed to him. It remains no less an evil, a privation, a disorder. One must therefore, work to correct the errors of moral conscience.” *Dignitatis Humanae *of Vatican II, 14, actually tells you how this is to be accomplished:
“However, in forming their consciences, the faithful must pay careful attention to the sacred and certain teaching of the Church. For the Catholic Church is by the will of Christ the teacher of truth. It is her duty to proclaim and teach with authority the truth which is Christ and, at the same time, to declare and confirm by her authority the principles of the moral order which spring from human nature itself.”
1776 "Deep within his conscience man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself but which he must obey. Its voice, ever calling him to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, sounds in his heart at the right moment. . . . For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God. . . . His conscience is man’s most secret core and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths."47
I. THE JUDGMENT OF CONSCIENCE
1777 Moral conscience,48 present at the heart of the person, enjoins him at the appropriate moment to do good and to avoid evil. It also judges particular choices, approving those that are good and denouncing those that are evil.49 It bears witness to the authority of truth in reference to the supreme Good to which the human person is drawn, and it welcomes the commandments. When he listens to his conscience, the prudent man can hear God speaking.
1778 Conscience is a judgment of reason whereby the human person recognizes the moral quality of a concrete act that he is going to perform, is in the process of performing, or has already completed. In all he says and does, man is obliged to follow faithfully what he knows to be just and right. It is by the judgment of his conscience that man perceives and recognizes the prescriptions of the divine law:
Let me repeat that last line, “Conscience is the aboriginal Vicar of Christ”. That’s pretty powerful stuff. I’ll define some of those words:“Conscience is a law of the mind; yet [Christians] would not grant that it is nothing more; I mean that it was not a dictate, nor conveyed the notion of responsibility, of duty, of a threat and a promise. . . . [Conscience] is a messenger of him, who, both in nature and in grace, speaks to us behind a veil, and teaches and rules us by his representatives. Conscience is the aboriginal Vicar of Christ.”
Do you still believe that 'Conscience “rules” nothing"?IT seems, then, that there are extreme cases in which Conscience may come into collision with the word of a Pope, and is to be followed in spite of that word.
IV. ERRONEOUS JUDGMENT
1790 A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself. Yet it can happen that moral conscience remains in ignorance and makes erroneous judgments about acts to be performed or already committed.
1791 This ignorance can often be imputed to personal responsibility. This is the case when a man "takes little trouble to find out what is true and good, or when conscience is by degrees almost blinded through the habit of committing sin."59 In such cases, the person is culpable for the evil he commits.
1792 Ignorance of Christ and his Gospel, bad example given by others, enslavement to one’s passions, assertion of a mistaken notion of autonomy of conscience, rejection of the Church’s authority and her teaching, lack of conversion and of charity: these can be at the source of errors of judgment in moral conduct.
1793 If - on the contrary - the ignorance is invincible, or the moral subject is not responsible for his erroneous judgment, the evil committed by the person cannot be imputed to him. It remains no less an evil, a privation, a disorder. One must therefore work to correct the errors of moral conscience.
1794 A good and pure conscience is enlightened by true faith, for charity proceeds at the same time "from a pure heart and a good conscience and sincere faith."60
This is what Cardinal Ratzinger said:Hi Abu, I’m sorry but I think you’re sorely mistaken about conscience. Let’s read a little bit more from CCC:
Let me repeat that last line, “Conscience is the aboriginal Vicar of Christ”. That’s pretty powerful stuff. I’ll define some of those words:
Aboriginal: Inhabiting or existing in a land from the earliest times; indigenous.
Vicar: A representative or deputy of a bishop.
In other words, conscience is a representative of Christ that has been there from the earliest times. It is our connection to Christ.
And you would say that rules nothing?
On the contrary. The last quote from CCC #1778 is from section 5 of a letter addressed to the Duke of Norfolk from Cardinal Newman: newmanreader.org/works/anglicans/volume2/gladstone/section5.html
The section is quite good, you should read it. The first line of that section sets it up quite well:
Do you still believe that 'Conscience “rules” nothing"?
And Cardinal Pell:When the subject of Newman and conscience is raised, the famous sentence form his letter to the Duke of Norfolk immediately comes to mind: “Certainly, if I am obliged to bring religion into after-dinner toasts, (which indeed does not seem quite the thing), I shall drink—to the Pope, if you please,—still to conscience first and to the Pope afterwards.” In contrast to the statements of Gladstone, Newman sought to make a clear avowal of the papacy. And in contrast to mistaken forms of ultra-Montanism, Newman embraced an interpretation of the papacy which is only then correctly conceived when it is viewed together with the primacy of conscience, a papacy not put in opposition to the primacy of conscience but based on it and guaranteeing it. Modern man, who presupposes the opposition of authority to subjectivity, has difficulty understanding this. For him, conscience stands on the side of subjectivity and is the expression of the freedom of the subject. Authority, on the other hand, appears to him as the constraint on, threat to and even the negation of, freedom. So then we must go deeper to recover a vision in which this kind of opposition does not obtain.
Cardinal John Newman’s view of conscience is far from that usually held by those who speak of “primacy of conscience” today. Newman believes a good Catholic conscience can never accept a position of dissent against central Church teaching. Moral truth is the key to conscience, and this is very difficult to deny coherently.
On many occasions Newman explained that true conscience recognizes an external Being, who obliges us to perform certain actions and avoid others (for example, see “An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent,” edited by I.T. Ker [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985], pp. 40, 47, 72-83). The mind is carried beyond itself to the idea of a future tribunal, where reward and punishment will be assigned. From our inadequacies we envision the need for redemption and atonement. …
Nonetheless, a false notion of conscience has helped to carry many away from Catholic practice and indeed from Catholic faith. If there are two opposing versions of conscience, and there are, this is the obverse side to Newman’s claim that true conscience helps us to recognize the One True God.
A debased notion of conscience, a barely concealed enthusiasm for autonomy disguised as an appeal to the primacy of conscience, weakens our sense of obligation, damages our purity of heart, and makes it harder and harder to see God.