Incorrect. There are civil annulments; one of the grounds is for marriage too close in sanguinity. Depending on the state, there are various grounds. There simply are not many decrees of annulment from civil courts, however.
read what I said. I said “as bishop”. not as “prefect”.
De Fide - “from the Faith”. From Scripture and/or Tradition.
John Paul used language that some scholars said was the wording used for an ex-cathedra statement. That ;was what the fuss was about, and that is why Ratzinger stepped in to clarify that it was not intended to be an ex-cathdera statement and in fact was not. It wa, however, infallible
No, our disagreement does not make them wrong. The teaching of the Church makes them wrong. You can follow the Church, or you can follow dissenting theologians.
Bishops, apart from the Bishop of Rome, do not possess the charism of teaching infallibly.
That doesn’t really help. All Church teachings flow from Scripture and/or Tradition. Right?
Exactly my point. And the point many theologians and canonists make. See Canon Law 749. Did John Paul II make his teaching “manifestly evident” regarding the criteria for inallibly teaching? That’s the question that is open, from what I’ve read.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 891:
Asked and answered.
Yes, of course. The body of bishops…not one individual bishop (apart from the Bishop of Rome, the Pope).
Great! Thanks, glad we agree.
Not quite. It is not an amorphous “body of bishps”. Each bishop shares in (has the charism of) infallibility when, he acts with his fellow bishops in teaching. That does not require all bishops to come together to teach something at one time. If the bishop is teaching Magisterially, he is guided by the charism of infallibility. So: if he is teaching about a matter held infallibly by the Church, which his fellow bishops teach, he teaches infallibly. That is to say, if he is teaching a matter held by the Church since its inception, infallibly, he teaches infallibly.
Not quite.
And that is done when the bishop teaches. On his own. Because except at Councils, the bishops are not together. It is plain on its face. I didn’t say any bishop has the charism on his own; but he teaches on his own. The charism is the protection of the Holy Spirit, guiding the Church, through the individual bishops, teaching on their own, that which they all teach (that is, all hold, as each one might not have thought to teach the individual issue that year!
)No, as the Church teaches, it is only done when the whole college of Bishops teaches together, whether gathered at an ecumenical Council or dispersed yet still teaching in unison with the Pope.