Dear LilyM:
Pope Pius XII was speaking in his official capacity as Pope. The Address to Italian Midwives you so nonchalantly impugn was in fact included in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis (AAS) - the official record in which authoritative teaching and legal decrees are published.
Portions of that very same address are listed in Denzinger’s Enchiridion Symbolorum, The sources of Catholic Dogma…so it was hardly, as you put it, a “private speech to a bunch of nurses”. See Denz 2295 (AAS 36 (1944), p. 103).
A brief look at Denzinger reveals that there are many addresses such as this that are contained in the AAS and listed in Denzinger. It appears that Pope Pius XII condemned artificial fertilization in an address to a convention of “a bunch of Catholic physicians” on September 29, 1949…See Denz. 2303 (AAS 41 (1949) 559, f.)
The point is that what Pope Pius XII said was consistent with the tradition of the Church…it reiterated the constant teaching of the Popes and Councils. It is also consonant with the teaching of the theologians for the past 800 years.
What Benedict has said is novel and unorthodox. There is a conflict there that must be resolved.
Yours,
Gorman
In your own mind JP2 and Benedict 16 are inconsistent, because you and those you’ve picked up your ideas from are reading somewhat into the earlier and not all entirely clear or irreproachably authoritative Papal and Conciliar statements what you think they mean. Just as our Orthodox brothers can read the same scripture and ECFs that we do and not see the same evidence for our understanding of Original Sin, the role of the Popes, Papal Infallibility and a whole bunch of other things.
Doesn’t mean I’m not guilty of doing the same. But when we’re discussing inevitable and entirely arbitrary damnation of persons through not the remotest doing of their own - as opposed to retaining some hope (which is one of the three most important Christian virtues) of salvation for them - then it is our bounden duty who call ourselves followers of Christ to err on the side of hope.
Despair of salvation for ourselves is a grave sin, remember - what makes you think it any less so to despair of it for others? Any others? Or to more than despair, which you’re doing - to treat it as an absolute certainty that these poor people are damned!
What we have here is a case of ‘my Popes and theologians trump your Popes and theologians’. You appear to think that JP2 and Benedict 16, not to mention those who agree with them, came up with their ideas out of thin air.
Obviously not. Most of them came from a background of just as solid pre-Vatican 2 theological instruction as anyone who supports your argument - and you can bank on it they studied Aquinas and all the Papal and Conciliar documents you city - every bit as thoroughly as anyone who’s ever had that pleasure. They just came to different conclusions. And they are entitled, and we are entitled to follow their authority as Popes.
And your argument that, if their interpretation is novel and unorthodox it is somehow invalid, is weak at best. Papal Infallibility, if I understand correctly, flew in the face of an awful lot of previous teaching on the position and authority of Popes vis-a-vis Councils and Bishops. It too was novel and unorthodox in that regard.
Humanae Vitae too was novel - virtually all of the greatest minds within and without the Church at the time (almost to a man) appear to have been agreed that it was both appropriate and, obviously, consistent wth traditional teaching that the Pope OK at least some methods of artificial contraception.
So if you’ll excuse me I see nothing in any of your argument tha invalidates the teachings of JP2, Benedict16 and their supporters. And much to deplore in your beliefs too.
