Magisterium

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Frank_Roman

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Im not sure if this is the right place to post this but here it goes anyway. Would the following definitions be correct?

Extraordinary Infallible Magisterium (“Solemn Magisterium”): this is exercised when the Pope, as supreme pastor of the entire Church, speaks ex cathedra (from the Chair of Peter) and solemnly defines a dogma concerning faith and morals to be held by the entire Church, or when a Dogmatic Council convened and endorsed by a Pope formally defines a matter of faith and morals to be held by the entire Church. This is a very rarely excercised assertion of authority (only a few times in the past few hundred years). When the Pope teaches using his extraordinary infallible Magisterium, or when a Council dogmatically defines something and the Pope endorses that defintion, Catholics must believe what is taught de fide, as an article of faith.

Ordinary Infallible Magisterium (“Constant Magisterium” or “Universal Magisterium”): this is exercised when the Pope, Council, Bishop, priest or any authorized teacher teaches in accordance with Tradition, the Sacred Deposit of Faith, and what has been always accepted and taught by the Church in the past

Merely Authentic Ordinary Magisterium: any teaching by the Pope, or prelate in union with Rome, that does not fall into the above two levels of infallibility is, quite simply, fallible, even though it may be part of the Authentic Magisterium (that is, it is “authorized” teaching). Though they are fallible they are to be respected with a religious submission of faith. This is what Vatican II falls under?
 
I thought Vatican II was considered an ecumenical council and its actual documents considered infallible.

An example of your last category might better be something like recent Vatican teaching on end of life issues. I think it was clarified that ‘extraordinary measures’ like ventilators and resuscitation techniques are not always required to be given to all patients. But other treatments like food and water (even in a tube) must be considered basic care, not extraordinary. These moral issues are recent developments and it might be possible that adjustments need to be made before the consistent adherence of generations lends it the stamp of ordinary magesterial infallibility.
 
The nomenclature isn’t completely uniform. Some theologians call Vatican II extraordinary because it was an ecumenical council, and so they have to describe most or all of Vatican II as the extraordinary non-infallible magisterium. Other theologians use extraordinary as a synonym for infallible, and describe most or all of Vatican II as the ordinary magisterium.
 
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manualman:
I thought Vatican II was considered an ecumenical council and its actual documents considered infallible.

An example of your last category might better be something like recent Vatican teaching on end of life issues. I think it was clarified that ‘extraordinary measures’ like ventilators and resuscitation techniques are not always required to be given to all patients. But other treatments like food and water (even in a tube) must be considered basic care, not extraordinary. These moral issues are recent developments and it might be possible that adjustments need to be made before the consistent adherence of generations lends it the stamp of ordinary magesterial infallibility.
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There is much debate on this issue but it seems that not all the documents hold that level of authority. In some instances certain phrases were declared by Paul VI to have different levels of certitude than others. So, it is rather difficult to say that there is a wholesale infalability of the documents of Vatican II but it is true to say that they all hold at least a low level of certitude while other parts may hold higher levels of certitude. This is explained well in the Vorgrimler Commentaries.
 
Vatican II was an Ecumenical Council, just as all the other Ecumenical Councils of the Church so even if we can play this game that some of the documents are not as infallible as other of its documents it still is protected from error by the Holy Spirit as all Ecumenical Councils are.
 
I thought Vatican II was called a Pastoral Council, not Eccumenical.

However, “Dogmatic Constitution of Divine Revelation” seems pretty clear as to where it falls on the Magesterial scale.

The documents of VII were promulgated by the College of Bishops under the guidance of the Pope, so it seems to me that they fall within the Ordinary Magesterium.
 
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Lapsed:
I thought Vatican II was called a Pastoral Council, not Eccumenical.
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The saying is that Vatican II was pastoral, not dogmatic, as if that distinction had any theological significance. Vatican II most certainly was an eccumenical council, the 21st in the history of the Church.

Any dogmatic definitions made by Vatican II are infallible, as are the dogmatic defintions made by any ecumenical council. The question is whether Vatican II made any dogmatic definitions. I think that it made two. Theologians much smarter than me think that it didn’t make any.
 
Distinguish also between the materially infallible and the formally infallible.
 
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