C
Crazy_Diamond
Guest
It’s a neat trick, if you can manage it.Not necessarily - it is possible to be firm yet tentative
Here in the U.S., the biggest name Vatican reporter John Allen has spilled a lot of ink over the years explaining the difference between what words mean to Vatican officials vs. what they mean in common speech. Sure, it’s confusing, but it’s highly beneficial to the Vatican. You never really know if they’re flip-flopping or not, because they might mean something totally different than your initial impression. You can’t go by the words, you have to go by your bishop’s teaching. If you don’t understand his teaching because it seems just as fuzzy, you must not be properly catechized. In the end, it’s never their fault for lacking any gift or calling to teach, it’s your fault for being a bad disciple.I hope you are right
It looks as though the Pope is disowning the policy of Paul VI (& of his own boss). Some people would be only too happy to ditch everything in the Church since October 9 1958. This would reduce several mountains of Vatican ukases to waste paper, & the Church’s credibility to shreds: “Rome has spoken; the matter is ended - until the next U-turn by the Church that’s not for turning”
The Church cannot afford to flip-flop - if it does, why should anyone believe it when it speaks “definitively”
? Has it never heard of "the Boy Who Cried “Wolf!” ? If it blows hot & cold, that leaves the rest of us dizzy - because we have no way of knowing what “them up top” want
.
Worse, I think the Vatican does plenty of flip-flops. There are just so many layers of official teaching, really official teaching, really-really-really super-dooper official teaching, and infallible statements there’s always an argument why it’s not really a flip-flop. Infallible statements are just the latest top of the hierarchy. I don’t know what the Vatican will invent if it ever needs to change a previously top-level statement. Since so few of them ever get made, it should be quite a few centuries before the need arises.
Now, that’s not to say Protestants and Orthodox don’t have similar issues. Human communication is fuzzy at a basic level. I don’t know of any theologian who has strongly studied the consequences of the inherent instabilities and imprecision of human communication itself.
Mmmmm, I see your point, but I think they do a lot less useless travel than they used to. During the middle ages it was quite common for a bishop to not even live in any of the numerous dioceses he might ostensibly rule. Things have improved substantially in many areas. The travel they do now probably improves their ability to speak in one voice.The Vatican has the all the faults of of other bureaucracies, & some of its own - it churns out acres of paper for no better reason than to justify its existence. Endless meetings of ecclesiastics - ditto. Just what good do all these tens of thousands of hours of blethering, & these countless millions of words of print,* achieve* ? Why can’t bishops stay in their dioceses, instead of of globe-trotting, & do what they are meant to: teach, sanctify, & rule? Why should we fork out for them to talk hot air
?