Invincible Ignorance: Was this once NOT a Catholic teaching?

[mosher]

Richard_Hurtz:

Aquinas also speaks about Limbo, is it also “safe to say it was a Catholic teaching.”?

Blessings,
Richard

Yes. It is a modern error to think that we as Catholics do not still hold to the idea of the Limbo of the Fathers or the Limbo of the Children. The things is, we don’t know what happens to these souls so Limbo, which was given formal Papal approval, is the best explination that we have.

 

[Matt16_18]

Mike O:

My question, quite simply, regards whether or not Las Casas, speaking in the 1540’s as a Spanish Dominican, spoke here from a point in Church history where the Magiterium taught that the non-Christian, without exception, was doomed to Hell, or whether this is Las Casas’ personal (and, clearly, judgmental) opinion.

How can we ever know if it was Las Casas’ personal opinion, or if he sincerely believed it was authentic Church teaching? St. Francis Xavier believed the same thing.

What is important is that it is NOT the infallible teaching of the Magisterium, despite of the fact that many Catholics mistakenly think that it is.

 

[Matt16_18]

IS THERE SALVATION OUTSIDE THE CHURCH?

… The question is difficult, because salvation requires not only a supernatural faith in God who requites justly, and adherence to the moral code, so far as the person knows it, but even membership in the Church. Not a few Fathers of the Church, and even Popes and Councils, have insisted on this requirement of membership.

From merely popular level mission magazines to more scholarly works, one so often finds mere despair about this requirement of membership. For example, a seminar on Christology at the 1984 convention of the Catholic Theological Society of America shows not a few participants not only thought the Church could be dispensed with, but even Christ Himself. Doubt was even raised over the “non-contradictory notion of truth” with a tendency to think that “truth is always perspectival.”[2]

At the other end of the spectrum, one finds the pessimistic notion of St. Augustine that most persons are lost without really a chance and–though Augustine did not seem to share this second facet–the fundamentalistic understanding of the membership requirement, **leading to heroic missionary zeal on the part of not a few Saints, anxious to rescue pagans from otherwise certain eternal ruin … **

IS THERE SALVATION OUTSIDE THE CHURCH?

by Fr. William Most

 

[Mike_O]

Tantum ergo:

Well, it is my understanding that church doctrine/dogma (but not discipline) does not change.

See below.

Invincible ignorance is not discipline–it is doctrine. Therefore, it cannot have changed–i.e., we cannot have gone from “no invincible ignorance” to “invincible ignorance”.

Agreed.

What doctrine CAN, and DOES, do, is develop. Therefore, “invincible ignorance” must have ALWAYS been doctrinally understood since the beginning of the Church, but may not have been (and still may not be) fully and perfectly understood, and certainly may not have been understood by those quoted (and even relatively long letters are still just letters, and even say Bishop’s letters or whatever are still not necessarily Church doctrine.

This is a tricky thing to say apologetically, and I will give you 2 examples:

1. Until very recently in Church history (Vatican II, if I am not mistaken) the Church taught that the primary end of marriage was procreation. All other ends were absolutely subordinate to the end of procreation.

Now, of course, unity of the spouses has been elevated to co-primacy.

I do not think that the ends of marriage can be termed “disciplines,” and the Church made quite firm statements for a long, long time about the primacy of procreation (a la St. Augustine’s rather extensive discussion of this in Confessions). Where this falls with respect to your statement, I am not sure.

1. Again, I may be mistaken, but it is my understanding that, until the Council of Trent (so, more than half of the 2,000 year history of the Church had elapsed), sexual intercourse WAS permitted before official marriage in the case of BETROTHAL.

This is to say that sexual relations and even conception might and could “licitly” occur between a woman betrothed formally to a man, even though the actual wedding ceremony had not taken place.

Now of course, sexual intercourse before marriage is a grave mortal sin. Whether something has changed in, I am not sure, but there are other examples where it is difficult to employ the “the teaching was finally properly understood” mentality.

Perhaps someone can clear up the above two, which certainly can be my own misunderstanding.

 

[mosher]

Mike O:

See below.

Agreed.

This is a tricky thing to say apologetically, and I will give you 2 examples:

1. Until very recently in Church history (Vatican II, if I am not mistaken) the Church taught that the primary end of marriage was procreation. All other ends were absolutely subordinate to the end of procreation.

Now, of course, unity of the spouses has been elevated to co-primacy.

I do not think that the ends of marriage can be termed “disciplines,” and the Church made quite firm statements for a long, long time about the primacy of procreation (a la St. Augustine’s rather extensive discussion of this in Confessions). Where this falls with respect to your statement, I am not sure.

1. Again, I may be mistaken, but it is my understanding that, until the Council of Trent (so, more than half of the 2,000 year history of the Church had elapsed), sexual intercourse WAS permitted before official marriage in the case of BETROTHAL.

This is to say that sexual relations and even conception might and could “licitly” occur between a woman betrothed formally to a man, even though the actual wedding ceremony had not taken place.

Now of course, sexual intercourse before marriage is a grave mortal sin. Whether something has changed in, I am not sure, but there are other examples where it is difficult to employ the “the teaching was finally properly understood” mentality.

Perhaps someone can clear up the above two, which certainly can be my own misunderstanding.

On the first point it is a slight misconception. Procreation is still considered the primary end. This has to do with the fact that marriage is a temporary sacrament. However, ephasis has been given in recent years to the Unitive aspect of marriage.

On the second point I am not aware of this practice.

 

[Mike_O]

mosher:

On the first point it is a slight misconception. Procreation is still considered the primary end. This has to do with the fact that marriage is a temporary sacrament. However, ephasis has been given in recent years to the Unitive aspect of marriage.

On the second point I am not aware of this practice.

I cannot find the document now, but I am fairly sure that Vatican II altered some point about the ends of marriage.

 

[rwoehmke]

I agree with Mosher on the first point. On the second point, sometime in the past I read that the betrothal in medieval times was a formal affair conducted in the presence of a priest and once done could not be broken, as it is today, without dire consequences. In a sense it was as binding as the marriage to follow. I cannot say that sexual relations between the two people were approved by the Church, but indeed it did often take place. In those times too, one must recall that many high born married people slept about so to speak and not much was said. I do not think it was approved by the Church, but perhaps accepted as against the discipline not a few clergyman had a mistress. Even the Pope, Alexander VI, as a Cardinal had a mistress and several children, one of which he made a Cardinal. Approved by the Church? I hardly think so.

Another practice in those times was for a peasant man to impregnate his intended before he married her. Wanted to make sure she could bear children. A common practice today but not for the same purpose. Approved by the Church? No way! I think that sometimes the Church has had to accept that evil happens and can’t do much about it. I would hesitate to call that approval.