It’s totally his prerogative if he wants to come to my parish and change some deck chairs around, but that doesn’t mean that Catholics are obligated to agree with his prudential judgements, and certainly not with his opinions.
Well, don’t keep this inspiration to yourself. Tell us what he meant to say!I guess members of those schools of Thomasm which the Pope considers decadent would like to suggest that the successor to Peter is either ramblingly incoherent or else saying something very subtle and convoluted.
But he was crystal clear, even this Baptist understood him.
The old “prudential judgment” argument. I was wondering when that was going to be trotted out.
The old “prudential judgment” argument. I was wondering when that was going to be trotted out.
The bottom line of the prudential judgement argument is that when the Pope speaks it is prudent to listen and obey.
For example, we must not confuse the genius of Thomas Aquinas with the age of **decadent Thomist **commentaries. Unfortunately, I studied philosophy from textbooks that came from decadent or largely bankrupt Thomism
2033 The Magisterium of the Pastors of the Church in moral matters is ordinarily exercised in catechesis and preaching, with the help of the works of theologians and spiritual authors. Thus from generation to generation, under the aegis and vigilance of the pastors, the “deposit” of Christian moral teaching has been handed on, a deposit composed of a characteristic body of rules, commandments, and virtues proceeding from faith in Christ and animated by charity. Alongside the Creed and the Our Father, the basis for this catechesis has traditionally been the Decalogue which sets out the principles of moral life valid for all men.
Who says it’s a personal opinion? He didn’t just say this accidentally.
It’s his personal opinion because as far as I know “the bishops” were not with him. He was not pronouncing anything in a “definitive manner”, he was giving an interview. When he talks about Thomism during one of his homilies, or encyclicals then it will constitute “ordinary teaching of the faithful”. Because the pope said Dostoyevsky was his favourite author doesn’t mean all Catholics must now read Dostoyevsky. He was expressing an opinion. Though I think it would do us all good to read THE GRAND INQUISITOR.
Leaving aside your lamentable attempt at witClear enough? Then you tell me which Thomists he was referring to. When you get to that, tell me why those Thomist commentaries were decadent.
You see, you not only don’t know what Pope Francis was talking about. You don’t even know what you are talking about!
I need to be a bit delicate here.Except that I only made two comments, the rest of my post was quoting the Pope.
I can’t comment except to say that anyone who thinks they know the mind of God would seem to have not just got the wrong end of the stick but to have lost the stick.
Don’t need to, he said it, just read it for yourself. Though I will make one prediction, based on having been around a few leaders. The last sentence here: *"Those who today always look for disciplinarian solutions, those who long for an exaggerated doctrinal ‘security,’ those who stubbornly try to recover a past that no longer exists - -they have a static and inward-directed view of things. In this way, faith becomes an ideology among other ideologies".
I must say innocente that while I broadly agree with your general interpretation of what His Holiness said or was indicating that, notwithstanding, I do think you still might be going just a little too far based on his actual words when you later interpet them as meaning :
That seems a bit over the top. I agree that Pope Francis has no truck with any attempt to safely fit God into a kind of conceptual box, which results in Faith easily being reduced to an ideology or ideological system; but what this would have to do with the American Republican Party is beyond me.
Nobody spoke out more against the second Iraqi war than Pope John Paul II. he certainly was no friend to Cheney and his ne-cons, remember Michael Moore’s 2003 Oscar acceptance speach. “Any time you have the pope and the Dixie Chicks against you.” Anyone who’d like to hear it.
The first quote is not even near the quote about Thomism in the interview. If the Pope seemed to be agreeing with you that Thomism constitutes “a past that no longer exists,” then maybe we could justify tearing that quote from its context and applying it to another section of the interview. But nope. What he says is:
It is I who have no idea what you are talking about. You are obviously too smart for me. I’m sorry to have bothered you.**Timothy
I’m far from a philosopher but it seems pretty straight forward to me. The word decadent means luxuriously self-indulgent. When anything exists for its own sake it becomes self-indulgent. When commentaries on Thomas exist for their own sake and forget real, live people made in the image of God it becomes self indulgent. **
I have no idea what you are talking about. Where (and by whom) were these commentaries written that supposedly “forget real live people made in the image of God”?
Vide Brad Gregory The Unintended Reformation, caput II. Apud amicos meos qui philosophiam scholasticam XIV saeculi sapiunt, haec propositio valde dubitata est. Argumentum Gregorii (quod originem non ab eo trahit, sed ab Stephano Gilsone et aliis auctoribus XX saeculi) sic habet: Beatus Scotus ponit “ens” ut nomen univocum ad Deum et creaturas aeque pertinentem. Ergo, Deum in ordine metaphysica cum creaturis includit. Hunc Deum negunt atheisti moderni, authenticam theologiam antiquam Christianiam non intelligentes, quae Deum valde transcendentem et omnes categorias mentis humanae excedentem credit.
