On Religious Liberty

[itsjustdave1988]

JSmitty2005:

Also, are encyclicals always considered infallible? I was under the impression that they were. Finally, what is an Acta Apostolicae Sedis?

No, Encyclicals always require religious assent of Catholics, so long as they are in force, due to virtue of charity (see Heb 13:17), not due to any claim of infallibility.

An Acta Apostolicae Sedis is an “Act of the Apostolic See”, which is the official pronouncements of the Roman Pontiff (not just his opinion). Both legislation and magisterial teachings of the Roman Pontiff are made official when published in the AAS.

 

[JSmitty2005]

itsjustdave1988:

No, Encyclicals always require religious assent of Catholics, so long as they are in force, due to virtue of charity (see Heb 13:17), not due to any claim of infallibility.

An Acta Apostolicae Sedis is an “Act of the Apostolic See”, which is the official pronouncements of the Roman Pontiff (not just his opinion). Both legislation and magisterial teachings of the Roman Pontiff are made official when published in the AAS.

So Msgr Marcel Levebvre agreed that the V2 teachings on religious liberty were in line with Tradition? If this is the case, then why does the SSPX continue protesting?

 

[ComradeAndrei]

But what I’m saying is that the past popes weren’t in error because they simply re-iterated the Church’s perennial teaching while these post-conciliar ones seem to have reversed this teaching which has caused me to call their authority into question.

When has it ever been the teaching of the Catholic Church to force people to convert to our True Faith? Never. Back in the “old days” they put more emphasis on the Church being the only True Faith (which it is) and I think we get the point. Now, we can teach on other points-i.e. that we can’t force anyone to believe in Catholicism and more importantly, the State doesn’t have the right to force religion. This is even more pertinent today as there are no great Catholic empires anymore, even in the traditional strongholds of Catholicism there are pinko socialist governments (like Spain and France).

I believe the problem is your last sentence-YOU question their authority. Who are “you” that you think you have the authority to definitively interpret Papal documents or Conciliar documents?

We Catholics deny personal interpretation of Scripture (because it is obviously wrong, but that is beside the point) and we also deny the personal interpretation of Church documents.

Please don’t attack me (none of you have so far), but I’m honestly having a hard time with this. I really do want to be intellectually at ease with the current Magisterium, but it just doesn’t seem to add up. Also, are encyclicals always considered infallible? I was under the impression that they were. Finally, what is an Acta Apostolicae Sedis?

I’m not attacking you, but I do think you need a bit of a reality check. Once I decided to really start living the Faith, I realized that the more I learn, the more I see what little I really know.

Encyclicals are not infallible as in being extraordinary excercises of Papal infallibility except in situations like the proclamation of the Immaculate Conception and Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and even then not every single word is “infallible”. Encyclicals are most often ordinary excercises of the Magisterium in the person of the Pope.

Also, Acta Apostolicae Sedis translates into “an Act of the Apostolic See”-i.e. another excercise of the Ordinary Magisterium.

Here I can make another point-this is how I understand it but I am open to criticism and I make no claim that I am completely and unquestionably right. Three or four years ago I probably would have said I know all I need to know about the Faith. Now I realize how wrong I was. Five years in the future (God permitting) I’ll look back and see how much I have learned.

Believe in the obedience of Faith, don’t try to overthink things and don’t think you are more Catholic than the Pope or the Church. The old teachings stand as firm as they did when they are issued and so do new teachings. In fact, there are no “old” or “new” teachings-they come from the same inexhaustible Deposit of Faith that was handed down to the Church from Christ Himself.

 

[slyboots]

Roman_Catholic:

Yes of course… Unless of course that person is a steelers fan.

Hey I have a copy of the St Michael Icon on your quote hanging by my front door…
Somehow grammatically that didn’t work. Anyway I have a copy of that icon.

We all have the free will to go straight to hell if we choose. God has blessed us with that.
So anyone can worship anyway he pleases…but that doesn’t mean God is happy about it.

 

[JSmitty2005]

ComradeAndrei:

When has it ever been the teaching of the Catholic Church to force people to convert to our True Faith? Never.

Nor have I ever said such a thing. :nope:

The old teachings stand as firm as they did when they are issued and so do new teachings. In fact, there are no “old” or “new” teachings-they come from the same inexhaustible Deposit of Faith that was handed down to the Church from Christ Himself.

After what Dave wrote, I can agree with this. :yup:

 

[ComradeAndrei]

Nor have I ever said such a thing.

I realize that, but I’m getting to the point of the Church never changing its stance. The “post-conciliar” Church puts more emphasis on the “we can’t force people to convert” while the “pre-Vatican II” Church (they are the same Church of course) put more emphasis on “we are the only True Faith”. Both are true, both are completely compatible, however only the emphasis has changed.

Thus, the problem boils down to a “tempest in a teapot”.

The problem is, people just don’t get the grand and timeless implications of Church teaching-they get into the extremes. Once priests bemoaned that the lines to the Communion rail were too short but the lines to the Confessional were always healthy. Now, everybody is in line for Communion while the Confessional lines are too short. The Church stresses something, and people run with that one thing.

When the Church stressed “Extra Ecclesia Nulla Salus” you had too many people going the Feenyite route of thinking everyone but card-carrying Catholics are going to hell. When the Church stresses the fundamental freedom of religion, we get people falling into the universalist trap. Nothing’s new under the sun.

 

[itsjustdave1988]

JSmitty2005:

… If they hindered public teaching and witness to say…Islam, would that violate what the Church teaches regarding religious liberty?

If you study Dignitatus Humanae, two kinds of religious liberty can be summarized as:

***1) freedom to worship God as God intends (ie. Catholicism), and ***

**2) Immunity from being forced against one’s will to worship in any religion (or no religion), either true or false **(ie. ***"***no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits.")

Everybody has a God-given right to be Catholic. Nobody has a God-given right to be a Muslim. Islam is a false religion, an objective grave sin, and nobody has the right to something that is sinful. However, since God tolerates sin and allows free will choice, so ought God’s Church and the civil authorities under God, “*within due limits” *so long as “just public order be observed.”

The Catholic Church insists that civil governments do likewise, that is, tolerate error so long as “just public order is preserved.” Thus, if China were to ban Islam, it would be against the current policy of the Church. At what level does “hinder” consitutes coercion? That’s rather subjective, I think. Nonetheless, a ban of Islam by a government is not inherently unjust. The doctrine, for example, of just capital punishment is maintained while the policy against capital punishment because it is ripe for abuse by society is also maintained. LIkewise with respect to religious liberty, we have a policy of tolerance of sin, while at the same time a doctrine which teaches that Catholicism is the one true religion, and all other religions, insofar as they teach and practice contary to Catholicism, are objectively sinful.

The policy regarding toleration of error will necessarily be something that must adapt to contemporary situations. To tolerate objective sin (which Islam is), the principle of double effect must come into play. Islam’s growth is not intended but may be an unintended consequence. Will an outright ban of Islam do more harm than the toleration of sin? In Catholic moral theology, we must take the lesser of two evils. That’s why such policy decisions are within the realm of policy and not doctrine.

Doctrinally speaking, nobody has a right to do evil without consequence. That’s the context of Pius XII’s teaching against religious liberty. What that consequence is in temporal society is a matter of changeable policy.

We know God *tolerates *evil, and so in some instances, so too should God’s Church. Why? To avoid greater evil. God want’s a free will conversion, not a conversion by coercion.

 

[itsjustdave1988]

JSmitty2005:

So Msgr Marcel Levebvre agreed that the V2 teachings on religious liberty were in line with Tradition? If this is the case, then why does the SSPX continue protesting?

The SSPX are inconsistent in many number of things.

Part of the problem of Dignitatus Humanae is that, like many Vatican II documents, it has not often been interpreted in the context in which it was approved by the Council.