Perceived inconsistencies with papal bulls, a stumbling block?

[Mikeoffaith]

Because they have not been abrogated thus far - to my knowledge. I am sure this is confusing and without getting into a huge affair within Canon Laws, it is hard for me to articulate well enough. I will make it a point to work at it though.

Should it really be this difficult to figure out without consulting a canon lawyer? That is to say, if Catholics as knowledgeable about their faith as most of you are have trouble articulating this without the help of a canon lawyer, what is the the average work-a-day Catholic supposed to do with it? I’m certain that this was a greater problem in Luther’s day with an uneducated population and it really doesn’t seem to have gotten any easier to understand 500 years later.

 

[Mikeoffaith]

Now let me get this straight, I wouldn’t have asked you the question if I didn’t want your opinion, would I? If your response is insulting sarcasm, then don’t answer and go to another thread. But if you want a civil discussion and can answer my question, I look forward to hearing it. Thanks!

P.S. One could be in CAF for 50,000 posts and if a debate has never roused one’s interests, then one wouldn’t enter that thread, would he? I’ve never spent much time reading people’s thoughts on heliocentrism on here, perhaps that hadn’t occurred to you that I don’t explore every single thread or theme on here.

Did you get him suspended Scott?

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

No, I sure didn’t! Hand to God.

Did you get him suspended Scott?

 

[Bluegoat]

Well, one thing I would suggest as far as some of the strong language that appears is that is really common in older documents. Often it is a kind of hyperbole. Whenever we read stuff like that we have to be careful about reading too much into that strong language which our modern sensibilities take at face value.

Back then, people were trained in rhetoric, and they used it.

In another direction - Some of these arguments seem to be saying that the Popes disagreeing/changing what was said by previous popes must be correct because they can’t be wrong, it seems to be begging the question a bit - or saying they can’t be wrong because we know infallibility that they are saints! If the question is are opes infallible and if so when, then giving an argument referencing their infallibility doesn’t really help.

 

[Dave_Noonan]

A very interesting thread, I must say.

I’m not Catholic so others can correct me, but my understanding is that in Veritatis Splendor, Pope John Paul II introduced/solidified the concept that a Pope can teach “definitively”–which is sort of a new category of theological importance between an infallible teaching and ordinary pastoral instruction–and I’ve also read that JP II’s teaching on the ordination of women is believed to fall into this category (and is thus irreformable, but doesn’t quite reach the level of an infallible teaching).

I’m not sure whether this theological designation of “definitive teaching” clears things up or makes them murkier. As an outsider it seems that an aweful lot is in the eye of the beholder–and that people like to claim infalliblity for the things they already support (birth control, death penalty, Latin Mass, etc.)