Sacred Tradition, Dogma, and Ecclesia

[bsroufek]

My point has been totally missed. I’m sorry I didn’t express myself correctly.

For me, peace and joy will never be found in encyclicals, history or doctrine. I think St. Therese of Avila would agree with me.

I hope you all find what you are looking for.

-Tim-

“Love … rejoices in the Truth.” “If you love me, keep my commandments.”

“You should have done the one without neglecting the other.” I.e., we need Faith, Hope and Love as well as Humility and Obedience “to all that I have commanded you.”

If we sin, that is, if we disobey the commandments of Christ, His Apostles or the Lawful Commands of the Church, “we lose our peace.”

So, I completely disagree with you and all who claim that it’s not about obedience to the Teachings but supposedly about some other (false) concept of Love.

 

[clem456]

“Love … rejoices in the Truth.” “If you love me, keep my commandments.”

“You should have done the one without neglecting the other.” I.e., we need Faith, Hope and Love as well as Humility and Obedience “to all that I have commanded you.”

If we sin, that is, if we disobey the commandments of Christ, His Apostles or the Lawful Commands of the Church, “we lose our peace.”

So, I completely disagree with you and all who claim that it’s not about obedience to the Teachings but supposedly about some other (false) concept of Love.

Who is claiming a false concept of love that includes disobedience? Can you be specific?

 

[Sirach2]

Jaberwocky:

If R_C demonstrates what he claims as indeed being the previously understood sense, then he simultaneously demonstrates how those who try to contradict that using incompatible interpretations of current teachings are in error.

My post was not to debate the theories that others present about EENS, for they have been brought up at least every month for the past several years, and will continue to be argued by those who misunderstand how the Church interprets this teaching in its fullness. You may believe what you wish - I frankly, am weary of debating this.

My real issue was with R_C using St. Teresa of Avila to prove his theories when he knows very little about her. A lovely person sent me a PM that clearly revealed to me how he had upset her with this distortion of Teresa’s life in his post. Otherwise, you would not have seen me posting whatsoever.

 

[otjm]

Speaking the truth in itself is Charity.

In my opinion, what we have today I feel is a fear of speaking the truth out of what appears to be a misguided understanding of charity. It is no different from one who does not speak the truth out of offending another or sensibilities that society has built up to protect their evil ways from any criticism. In fact, this very notion of what it means to “speak in charity” refers to a social construct.

When society itself built these constructs to protect their actions from criticism, do you think it is fruitful for one to adhere to that social construct or some other basis?

Would you consider St. John the Baptist who spoke the truth to Herod as being uncharitable? Many today and in his day would. Would you consider Jesus who spoke the truth to the Pharisees uncharitable? Many today and in his day would. Would you consider Jesus speaking the truth to the gentile woman and comparing her to a dog uncharitable? Many today and yesterday would.

So while I definitely agree with you that one must speak the truth in charity, I feel that when one mentions this fact it is often to request an unusual degree of “charity” where one refrains from speaking the truth. That to me seems contrary to the gospel basis of what it means to speak in charity.

If we are to look at the words of St. Paul to speak and correct in charity, we must assume that his own actions where he spoke in what we may consider “uncharitable” are actually charitable. It should be considered our social conditioning and social pressure that is our duty to overcome in order to speak the truth.

It is charity to speak the truth.

However, sometimes charity is lacking; not in the truth, but in how we deliver it. When we do so with false pride, or anger, or a personal need to be “right”, then we are failing in charity.

 

[otjm]

Since everything you have said so far is an appeal to doctrine and everything any of us can say on this issue is a matter of doctrine, I see not how one can argue that doctrine is not what brings peace and joy. If anything, it only proves that one does receive peace and joy comes from doctrine. This is what God’s word is so effective even in its written form for it informs us ignorant folk.

It values absolutely zero to say one knows Christ is they do not know his doctrine. We cannot know Jesus if we do not know doctrine. What we know is a misguided view of Jesus which may range from any of the heresies of the past to what may occur in future.

But suffice it to say the following. One is called first and foremost to love God. One cannot love what they do not know. According to who? According to reason and St. Thomas Aquinas.

newadvent.org/summa/2027.htm#article2

So I respectfully disagree with your post.

You seem to be missing the point.

St. Therese of Lisieux is not known as one of the great intellectuals of the Church I would dare say she did not study a lot of doctrine. What she did was seek to imitate Christ in her daily life; yet she is known as one of the great saints of the Church.

And then there is St. Thomas Aquinas, who reportedly said that “All that I have written appears to be so much straw after the things that have been revealed to me.” - And one can hardly say he did not parse doctrine fairly thoroughly.

To know doctrine is not automatically to know Christ. To think that one must know all doctrine, or that one must parse each doctrine to its finest parts and then compare it to a statement subsequent is to focus on doctrine and not Christ. It is a bit like getting out a map to go somewhere, and getting lost in the map and never realizing the map was only a tool to the destination. If one gets lost in the map, one fails to go anywhere.

Put another way: doctrine is a tool. One can learn the tool; one can be a master at the tool, one can be the master of masters with the tool; but if one does not use the tool for which it was intended - to do or accomplish something - then one has become lost in the means and failed to understand that it was intended for something else - the end.

Doctrine should lead us to Christ. It is said that even the Devil knows Scripture (and by analogy, doctrine). In no way is anyone here suggesting that doctrine has no value. But I would submit that St Therese spent little time reading encyclicals, reading treatises on doctrine and parsing her way through them; she spent time scrubbing floors, and being loving to others in her order who aggravated her; in short, she spent her time trying to be Christ like; in emptying herself, and joining her thoughts, words and deeds to Christ. And she did not need to spend time in libraries doing so; the Gospels were enough to conform her life to Christ.

The Church is not about doctrines; it is about Christ. Salvation is not about doctrines; it is about Christ. The personal judgment and the final judgment are not about doctrines; they are about our relationship with Christ. To put it in the words I used to hear from Protestants - if you and I don’t have a personal relationship with Christ - then all the study of doctrines in our lifespan is for naught. If Christ is only an intellectual construct; if our relationship to Him is only head knowledge and not heart relationship, then we are no better than the devil - who, by the way, knows Scripture (and undoubtedly can quote it better than I).

The Pharisees knew the doctrines of Judaism; they were, after all, the teachers of it. And the Gospels are replete with Christ’s admonitions to them, that they flat out “didn’t get it”. Those stories are not simply a historical commentary on a group 2000 years ago; they are for us today. We can, like the scholarly Pharisees, dig deeper and deeper into the doctrines, seeing only the parsing out to the finest degree; or we can learn that the doctrines are simply tools, to lead us to relationship with one another and with Christ.

So doctrine is not what brings peace; Christ is. Doctrine is only a means to Christ (and not the only one), not an end in itself.

 

[Jaberwocky]

It is charity to speak the truth.

However, sometimes charity is lacking; not in the truth, but in how we deliver it. When we do so with false pride, or anger, or a personal need to be “right”, then we are failing in charity.

True. But at the same time, the idea of “speaking the truth in charity” usually refers to a social construct. This is what causes problems.

As we can see, every society at any given time constructs a social norm where it protects its immoral activities from criticism. Our age is no different.

The question we have to ask is whether we play by the social construct (which means we do not do anything) or we break from it and strive to an actual objective charity.

I am of the position that it should be an objective charity. That to me means approaching a conversation or starting one on the truth with the hope of bringing the other to Christ and no personal feeling of winning an argument. That to me is to speak in charity. Therefore in my view, speaking in a charitable way can even be using harsh words. The harsh words are not to belittle but to make the other realize their errors when it is necessary.

 

[Jaberwocky]

You seem to be missing the point.

St. Therese of Lisieux is not known as one of the great intellectuals of the Church I would dare say she did not study a lot of doctrine. What she did was seek to imitate Christ in her daily life; yet she is known as one of the great saints of the Church.

And then there is St. Thomas Aquinas, who reportedly said that “All that I have written appears to be so much straw after the things that have been revealed to me.” - And one can hardly say he did not parse doctrine fairly thoroughly.

To know doctrine is not automatically to know Christ. To think that one must know all doctrine, or that one must parse each doctrine to its finest parts and then compare it to a statement subsequent is to focus on doctrine and not Christ. It is a bit like getting out a map to go somewhere, and getting lost in the map and never realizing the map was only a tool to the destination. If one gets lost in the map, one fails to go anywhere.

Put another way: doctrine is a tool. One can learn the tool; one can be a master at the tool, one can be the master of masters with the tool; but if one does not use the tool for which it was intended - to do or accomplish something - then one has become lost in the means and failed to understand that it was intended for something else - the end.

Doctrine should lead us to Christ. It is said that even the Devil knows Scripture (and by analogy, doctrine). In no way is anyone here suggesting that doctrine has no value. But I would submit that St Therese spent little time reading encyclicals, reading treatises on doctrine and parsing her way through them; she spent time scrubbing floors, and being loving to others in her order who aggravated her; in short, she spent her time trying to be Christ like; in emptying herself, and joining her thoughts, words and deeds to Christ. And she did not need to spend time in libraries doing so; the Gospels were enough to conform her life to Christ.

The Church is not about doctrines; it is about Christ. Salvation is not about doctrines; it is about Christ. The personal judgment and the final judgment are not about doctrines; they are about our relationship with Christ. To put it in the words I used to hear from Protestants - if you and I don’t have a personal relationship with Christ - then all the study of doctrines in our lifespan is for naught. If Christ is only an intellectual construct; if our relationship to Him is only head knowledge and not heart relationship, then we are no better than the devil - who, by the way, knows Scripture (and undoubtedly can quote it better than I).

The Pharisees knew the doctrines of Judaism; they were, after all, the teachers of it. And the Gospels are replete with Christ’s admonitions to them, that they flat out “didn’t get it”. Those stories are not simply a historical commentary on a group 2000 years ago; they are for us today. We can, like the scholarly Pharisees, dig deeper and deeper into the doctrines, seeing only the parsing out to the finest degree; or we can learn that the doctrines are simply tools, to lead us to relationship with one another and with Christ.

So doctrine is not what brings peace; Christ is. Doctrine is only a means to Christ (and not the only one), not an end in itself.

I am not sure what else to say than you and others who state the above are contradicting yourself.

The idea that doctrine is not the key point in Christianity, if it were true, would itself be a doctrinal truth. It cannot obviously be an intuitive or self evident truth. Hence you are contradicting yourself. I would even say its a self-refuting statement.

So even if St. Theresa was very intellectually challenged (which I don’t think there is good grounds to say so), we can only say that she still adhered to all doctrine. She may not have understood how to defend them or even how they are true. But, she assents to them in the sense that the Church taught them.

The cases you mention like Pharisees and the Devil are those who knew doctrine but either chose to ignore them or in the case of the Devil, deliberately go against it.

This is a choice everyone has. We can either assent to doctrine and have peace or reject it and have a lack of peace (which some think is freedom).

But to speak of Christ without speaking of doctrine is really meaningless in my humble opinion. Even the fact as to who and what Christ accomplished is doctrine. Now you might be tempted to say that perhaps only a subset of doctrine is actually important then to be Christian but that is already refuted by many Popes as an erroneous view so I will not get in to that.

 

[otjm]

I am not sure what else to say than you and others who state the above are contradicting yourself.

The idea that doctrine is not the key point in Christianity, if it were true, would itself be a doctrinal truth. It cannot obviously be an intuitive or self evident truth. Hence you are contradicting yourself. I would even say its a self-refuting statement.

So even if St. Theresa was very intellectually challenged (which I don’t think there is good grounds to say so), we can only say that she still adhered to all doctrine. She may not have understood how to defend them or even how they are true. But, she assents to them in the sense that the Church taught them.

The cases you mention like Pharisees and the Devil are those who knew doctrine but either chose to ignore them or in the case of the Devil, deliberately go against it.

This is a choice everyone has. We can either assent to doctrine and have peace or reject it and have a lack of peace (which some think is freedom).

But to speak of Christ without speaking of doctrine is really meaningless in my humble opinion. Even the fact as to who and what Christ accomplished is doctrine. Now you might be tempted to say that perhaps only a subset of doctrine is actually important then to be Christian but that is already refuted by many Popes as an erroneous view so I will not get in to that.

St Therese did not adhere to doctrine. She adhered to Christ. She may never have heard about consubstantiation, and may not have been able to give a merely adequate explanation of transubstantiation let alone tell the difference between the two; but she knew Christ, loved Christ, and sought to conform her life to Christ. I would bet a whole lot she could not tell you the doctrine of justification if you asked her, but she loved Christ.

Doctrine is intellectual knowledge. Christ nowhere, ever said we had to have intellectual knowledge; He said what the two great commandments were, and he did not go into a long dissertation parsing them to their finest degree.

Doctrine is not the key point of Christianity. Salvation is. And salvation is not gained by parsing down a doctrine; it is by how we live, and how we conform our lives to Christ. One can have the greatest knowledge of doctrine and make no effort whatsoever to conform their life to Christ. Conforming one’s life to Christ is not about doctrine; it is about will, and about emptying oneself of one’s own will and accepting the will of Christ.

You simply are not listening. You are so intent that doctrine is the key that you are missing what anyone else is saying. Doctrine is not the key; Christ is the key. Doctrine is simply a tool; the toll is not the important thing; it is only a means (and not the only means) of attaining life with Christ.

I have never, in anything in the thread, said that doctrine does not matter, or that it has no importance. I have said it is not the key point. It is not the most important point. On another thread, you started off about catechesis, and in doing so, you missed the point of what was being said. No one, including Pope Francis, was saying that catechesis was not important; what was being said was that we for a long time have forgotten that catechesis is the second step, and for a long time we have been missing the first step. You missed it entirely.

And you are missing it here. Christ said "It is not he who says "Lord! Lord! who will gain heaven, but he who does the will of my Father. Another way of saying it is, it is not the one who parses doctrine to its finest decree, but he who does the will of my Father.

And nowhere in the Gospels does Christ say that learning all doctrine is the will of the Father. What He does say, is that we are to love one another as He has loved us; and that is be sacrificial giving of self, not in head knowledge.

Doctrine has its place; but its place is only a tool. it is not an end in itself; it is not the most important thing about Christianity. What is most important about Christianity is salvation.
And salvation is not gained by knowing more and more about doctrine; it is gained by becoming less and less self-centered (called emptying oneself) and more and more Christ centered (following His will, not ours. His way, not our way.

Sin is turning in on self. Sin is choosing my will over God’s will. One does not have to be a moral theologian to seek to do God’s will; one has to empty oneself of their own desires, and seek that which God would have us do. That is not about head, it is about heart. Nor does one have to be knowledgeable of all doctrines to seek God’s will instead of one’s own. in fact, seeking more and more head knowledge has the (very delicious) temptation to pride of knowledge. And if you don’t understand what I am saying, there is not much more I can try to explain.

 

[otjm]

True. But at the same time, the idea of “speaking the truth in charity” usually refers to a social construct. This is what causes problems.

As we can see, every society at any given time constructs a social norm where it protects its immoral activities from criticism. Our age is no different.

The question we have to ask is whether we play by the social construct (which means we do not do anything) or we break from it and strive to an actual objective charity.

I am of the position that it should be an objective charity. That to me means approaching a conversation or starting one on the truth with the hope of bringing the other to Christ and no personal feeling of winning an argument. That to me is to speak in charity. Therefore in my view, speaking in a charitable way can even be using harsh words. The harsh words are not to belittle but to make the other realize their errors when it is necessary.

Oh, I have used harsh words; and once I did so in a way that would have done my drill sergeant proud. I look back in awe at that one incident; I had no idea what I had wrought, but it was God’s work, not mine.

Most of the rest of the time, I have found that my harsh words were just pride speaking.

 

[otjm]

RC - while you are doing your research, read what St Thomas Aquinas and Pope Pius 9th have said about the matter.

 

[Sirach2]

Providentially, in Pope Francis’ papal audience today, we heard this scripture:

1 Cor. 13:1 If I speak in human and angelic tongues, but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. 2 And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.

Knowledge of all doctrines/scripture/tradition, therefore, without love – is not capable of producing love, or a covenant relationship with God.

 

[Jaberwocky]

St Therese did not adhere to doctrine. She adhered to Christ. She may never have heard about consubstantiation, and may not have been able to give a merely adequate explanation of transubstantiation let alone tell the difference between the two; but she knew Christ, loved Christ, and sought to conform her life to Christ. I would bet a whole lot she could not tell you the doctrine of justification if you asked her, but she loved Christ…

Lets not talk past each other back and forth and lets try to understand each other.

My argument against what you say is that there is no Christ without doctrine. We know Christ and who he is through doctrine revealed through the Church. We do not even know that we need to love Christ. We may know we must love God but Christ on the other hand is purely from doctrine. The simple fact that Christ is God is also a matter of doctrine.

Therefore to speak of a Christ apart from doctrine is meaningless.

Being Catholic is about discovering that Christ is worth assenting to (reason) and then therefore assenting to the doctrine of the Church. It is through doctrine that one knows any revelation with certitude.

Now it seems that you have this notion that we can love what we do not know. That is a logical impossibility as St. Thomas Aquinas put elegantly in his Summa (which I did quote to you or someone else on this thread earlier).

So this is my problem with your argument. Now can you help me better understand what problems you have with what I am saying here?

 

[Jaberwocky]

Providentially, in Pope Francis’ papal audience today, we heard this scripture:

1 Cor. 13:1 If I speak in human and angelic tongues, but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. 2 And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.

Knowledge of all doctrines/scripture/tradition, therefore, without love – is not capable of producing love, or a covenant relationship with God.

I think its also valuable to point out that the proposition you stated above is doctrine!!!

Therefore this pitting of knowledge against love is completely meaningless. I would like to ask the following questions from you.

1. How does one love what they do not know?
2. How does one love if they do not know how to love?
   **
   To me it seems almost obvious that knowledge is essential to love. While the presence of knowledge does not guarantee love, it is knowledge that tells us what and how to love. **
   **
   The difference between the Devil and us is that while the Devil has knowledge, he has made a final decision to always oppose what the knowledge teaches. We too have that choice and it is knowledge that informs us of that choice.**

Now it will help both of us if you presented why you find my reasoning on this subject as stated above to be incorrect.

EDIT: Note that St. Paul never said you can love without knowledge. He only stated the fact that given knowledge, one can choose to act according to it (love) or in the opposite manner. If one does not act according to it (love), then he rightly points out that having the knowledge is useless.

 

[Sirach2]

I did not address you Jaberwocky, but simply ad-libbed with the scripture cited by Pope Francis this morning. You read too much into my simple statement, but failed to note my last sentence: “Knowledge of all doctrines/scripture/tradition, therefore, without love – is not capable of producing love, or a covenant relationship with God.”

I quote your previous statement, “It is also through doctrine that I know how to love Christ.”
Good for you, and all those for whom catechesis and knowledge produces love. It is not true that knowledge - per se - will always have that desired result, and that is what you fail to grasp. Quoting St. Paul, “knowledge puffeth up” in many incidences.

Nor is it true that one is incapable of love unless they absorb vast amounts of doctrine. That seems to be the essence of your theory; i.e., the more one learns, the more one loves. I disagree, as did the other posters.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m leaving the “parlor.”

 

[Jaberwocky]

I did not address you Jaberwocky, but simply ad-libbed with the scripture cited by Pope Francis this morning. You read too much into my simple statement, but failed to note my last sentence: “Knowledge of all doctrines/scripture/tradition, therefore, without love – is not capable of producing love, or a covenant relationship with God.”

I quote your previous statement, “It is also through doctrine that I know how to love Christ.”
Good for you, and all those for whom catechesis and knowledge produces love. It is not true that knowledge - per se - will always have that desired result, and that is what you fail to grasp. Quoting St. Paul, “knowledge puffeth up” in many incidences.

Nor is it true that one is incapable of love unless they absorb vast amounts of doctrine. That seems to be the essence of your theory; i.e., the more one learns, the more one loves. I disagree, as did the other posters.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m leaving the “parlor.”

I am not sure why you keep saying it but how can you put love in opposite to knowledge?

It is a truism that one cannot love without knowledge because one cannot love what they do not know.

So knowledge is essential!!! That is why Christ revealed himself to the world. That is why God revealed himself to the Jews. The entire meaning behind the word “reveal” entails the observer receiving knowledge.

One has access to this revelation through the doctrines of the Church.

Also, the point is not that more one knows the more one loves. That is obviously not what I said. Rather, I say that the more one has knowledge, the more one can truly love the other.

All knowledge offers a choice to either act according to the knowledge or to act against it. To therefore say that “knowledge is not necessary” does not follow. The correct conclusion is that knowledge is indeed necessary but not sufficient.

 

[agnes_therese]

I am not sure why you keep saying it but how can you put love in opposite to knowledge?

Nobody said that they’re “opposite.” Just that knowledge without love is useless. Pretty simple, it seems to me.

 

[Jaberwocky]

Nobody said that they’re “opposite.” Just that knowledge without love is useless. Pretty simple, it seems to me.

Well they have said it is opposite right? Not in explicit “love opposes knowledge” wording but most of the recent posts have been on the topic that doctrine is not necessary to be a good Christian.

So the issue here is that the proposition put forth is that love can exist without knowledge or that knowledge is not so important as long as there is love.

So is that what you are saying that knowledge is necessary for love?

 

[clem456]

Well they have said it is opposite right? Not in explicit “love opposes knowledge” wording but most of the recent posts have been on the topic that doctrine is not necessary to be a good Christian.

Nobody has said this.

I love St John of the Cross when the world seems overwhelmingly complicated.

55.Since God is inaccessible, be careful not to concern yourself with all that your faculties can comprehend and your senses feel, so that you do not become satisfied with less and lose the lightness of soul suitable for going to him.
…
88.Preserve a living attentiveness to God with no desire to feel or understand any particular thing concerning him.
St John of the Cross, Sayings of Light and Love

 

[R_C]

It is grievous to a Carmelite that St. Teresa’s work is being used as a pawn to further one’s misguided understanding of Church teaching. The Chapter you are referring to begins “Of the reason which moved me to found this convent in such strict observance.” In her day, parlors of convents were gathering places for worldly conversations. She participated in these discussions, which enabled her to know of the harm being done by the Lutherans, as she stated in this chapter.

Sirach, many things are grievous, including passing personal opinions as facts. I am quoting documents because I do not have an understanding formed yet, and still you manage to speak of this nonexistent, in-formation understanding “a misguided understanding of Church teaching”. Perhaps so, but I saw no refutation of my error. That makes the whole statement pointless, inasmuch as if I am truly wrong, I remain in my error, for I will not switch from “x understanding” to no understanding simply because according to someone, “x understanding” is misguided.

Now St. Teresa speaks of the creation of a separated sect as a great evil that led souls to perdition. Or did she not? And if so, then this seems to be coherent with the writing of Pope Pius XI I quoted, and with the segment of Lumen Gentium I quoted. And if so, then these statements taken together - a saint, a pope, and a council - seem to hint at the meaning and sense of the dogma “extra Ecclesia nulla sallus” which has once been declared by Holy mother Church and is thus ever to be maintained.

Am I accusing anyone to not have maintained it? No. I am simply trying to understand what that meaning and sense actually is, so that I myself may maintain it. Otherwise, I may go ahead in my ignorance and speak in my layman endeavors in ways that are contrary to the Catholic faith without even knowing that I am in grave error. Mortalium Animos warns:

“This undertaking is so actively promoted as in many places to win for itself the adhesion of a number of citizens, and it even takes possession of the minds of very many Catholics and allures them with the hope of bringing about such a union as would be agreeable to the desires of Holy Mother Church”

I just don’t want to be one of those “very many Catholics”.

How is this discussion here any different from the harm being done by Lutherans of her day?

They preached heresy that led people away from the Church and onto damnation. Here we are quoting the words of the Vicars of Christ in order to understand the orthodox meaning of an infallible dogma of the Holy Catholic Faith, in the attempt to remain within the bosom of Holy Mother Church and of not falling under a Vatican I anathema:

If anyone says that it is possible that at some time, given the advancement of knowledge, a sense may be assigned to the dogmas propounded by the Church which is different from that which the Church has understood and understands: let him be anathema.

 

[R_C]

For St. Teresa, private interpretations of doctrine were always looked upon as an evil. In her dying breath, she stated three times, “I am a daughter of the Church.” She lived her life adhering to every truth the Church taught, and obedience to those who were her superiors, even when they were in the wrong about a matter. Rather than attempt to sway folks to your interpretations, R_C, I suggest you abandon this folly and read the hundreds of posts that refute your misunderstanding.

Private interpretation begins when we come up with our personal understanding rather than finding the orthodox sense in the teachings of the Magisterium.

As I became a disciple of Christ in the bosom of Holy Mother Church, I consider it my humble duty of servant to educate myself on what my superiors are teaching. This, too, was mandated in Vatican I:

in the performance of our supreme pastoral office, we beseech for the love of Jesus Christ and we command, by the authority of him who is also our God and savior, all faithful Christians, especially those in authority or who have the duty of teaching, that they contribute their zeal and labor to the warding off and elimination of these errors from the Church and to the spreading of the light of the pure faith

As I said, I have been meditating basically ever since my conversion on the infallible dogma of faith “outside of the Church there is no salvation”, and I have been taught by the Church that the only meaning of dogma to be upheld is that which was originally defined by the Church.

But since the Church was not born in the XX Century, I have thought it be my duty to read not just Lumen Gentium and what the Holy Father Francis is speaking, but also what the other councils and previous Popes wrote on this matter. Only then, I believe, I shall have crucified my personal, subjective interpretations by adhering with submission to that which the Church has truly and infallibly taught.

This is what I have attempted and I am attempting to do. I came here to post what I have found and to seek guidance, which I do not consider as folly. I certainly did not present personal interpretations. And while I don’t think anyone should be called to justify his intentions before men, I will say I did not come here to attempt to sway others.

My real issue was with R_C using St. Teresa of Avila to prove his theories when he knows very little about her. A lovely person sent me a PM that clearly revealed to me how he had upset her with this distortion of Teresa’s life in his post. Otherwise, you would not have seen me posting whatsoever.

Sirach, frankly I am not used to respond to personal things on the forum, since I am here to debate arguments rather than users, but I invite you to re-read the stuff you post. First you tell me that I am trying to “prove my theories”. What those theories may be, only you know. Second, you say that I distort the life of St. Teresa of Avila. How is that so, I fail to understand.

Is this what it has come to? We have to be quiet and surrender to confusion?

I am trying to understand the sense and meaning of a sacred teaching, and in doing so I am accused of misunderstanding, misinterpreting, lead astray, attempting to prove my own theories.

I quote the words of a saint concerning a non-Catholic group, spoken in terms that seem to confirm the meaning that the papal encyclical expresses, and I am accused of distorting her life.

Any of these statements are truly unnecessary, and they just discourage me from seeking the truth. Discouragement from seeking the truth leads to two things: either to come up with my own personal opinion on an infallible dogma (which may be erroneous) and act on it (which may lead to sins of omission and leading souls truly astray) or to follow the erroneous understandings of others who claim to have the authority to make those statements but nevertheless do not back them up with the infallible words of the Magisterium.

The chaos is real. Of it spoke Pope Paul VI in 1972:

from some fissure the smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God. … There was the belief that after the Council there would be a day of sunshine for the history of the Church. Instead, it is the arrival of a day of clouds, of tempest, of darkness, of research, of uncertainty. How has this come about? … there has been an intervention of an adverse power. Its name is the devil, this mysterious being that the Letter of St. Peter also alludes to.

Perhaps you are unaware of this, but there are souls that have been led away from the Church because of this confusion. In the absence of clarity, they have found a more solid ground in the separated Eastern church. How can I reach out to these brothers? They shall laugh at me, because I cannot even say: “you must remain in the Church to attain salvation”, without them telling me: “who said so? That’s just your interpretation”.

I choose to bear the cross of going through chaotic seas, because I know that in this storm is the Boat of the Fisherman, in which Christ peacefully rests. And I have to learn and understand the true dogmas of faith in order to reach out to those who are in the dark, who may think they are safe while they are on their way to perdition. Beginning with myself of course, but I am not a cloistered monk, I am a layman called to be in the secular world, and one involved in evangelization and youth ministry. “A blind man does not lead a blind man”, and I know the Church has the light I need in order “to lead blind men through ways they did not know of”.