Sedevacantism

[Windmill]

Gorman,

or, more to the point, what de fide doctrine has a modern pope ever pertinaciously denied and, therefore, made himself a manifest heretic?

 

[Loy]

It sounds like maybe the safe thing to do when looking for a good, vatican loyal Catholic parish is to look at the bulletins and see what kind of literature they display before you even get into the Mass, huh? And if you find a good parish, stay with it if at all possible! :yup:

Even then, you might not know. The safest thing to do is contact the diocesan offices of the local bishop.

 

[gorman64]

Gorman,

or, more to the point, what de fide doctrine has a modern pope ever pertinaciously denied and, therefore, made himself a manifest heretic?

Windmill,

What heretic announces formally he is denying a de fide doctrine? My question is this; is there any Bishop who has lost his office due to heresy? If not…then why not. If so, then why has he not been formally removed from his office?

Gorman

 

[Jason_Hurd]

On the other hand, I met somebody who was SSPV. He did not even believe that I was a Catholic, since I received all my Sacraments in post-Vatican II Church, and he did not believe the Sacraments were valid.

Oh boy, does this sound familiar! When I was going through RCIA about thirteen years ago, I happened to mention the fact to a Catholic co-worker. She asked what parish it was and when I told her, she said, ‘Oh, they’re not Catholic’. I assured her that they were, and it turned out she was an SSPV’er who thought all post-Vatican II developments were invalid. She then proceeded to shower me with books(unsolicited, needless to say)that bolstered her position, one of which maintained that the United States was a pagan nation because we believe in freedom of speech and religion!!! Of course, the obvious rejoinder to this barrage would have been ‘If you don’t like it here, why don’t you leave?’, but I didn’t have the guts(she was an older lady and otherwise very sweet).

 

[gorman64]

She then proceeded to shower me with books(unsolicited, needless to say)that bolstered her position, one of which maintained that the United States was a pagan nation because we believe in freedom of speech and religion!!!

Did the Church ever teach that freedom of the press and freeedom of religion were rights? Not tolerated in circumstances…but rights.

Is freedom of religion a right? It is not and cannot be a right.

 

[Jason_Hurd]

Did the Church ever teach that freedom of the press and freeedom of religion were rights? Not tolerated in circumstances…but rights.

Is freedom of religion a right? It is not and cannot be a right.

The irony of the above post lies in the fact that only by virtue of the Bill of Rights can we Catholics worship as we please in this country. The original pilgrims and settlers were overwhelmingly Protestant; if we had not had freedom of religion written into the Constitution at the beginning, you can bet we would not be allowed to worship as Catholics today.

 

[gorman64]

The irony of the above post lies in the fact that only by virtue of the Bill of Rights can we Catholics worship as we please in this country. The original pilgrims and settlers were overwhelmingly Protestant; if we had not had freedom of religion written into the Constitution at the beginning, you can bet we would not be allowed to worship as Catholics today.

There is no irony and the above does not answer the question. Is religious freedom a right? Did the Church ever teach this or was it condemned as an error?

 

[Digitonomy]

Is religious freedom a right? Did the Church ever teach this or was it condemned as an error?

Yes, the Church has taught that religious freedom is a right.

 

[gorman64]

Yes, the Church has taught that religious freedom is a right.

Sources please? And don’t quote Dignitatis Humanae because even Fr. John Courtney Murray said it was a break with the past teachings and needed to be explained by someone sometime in the future…whatever that means.

 

[gorman64]

Here’s a piece from Fr. J.C. Murray on the death of John XIII:

Fr. Murray seemed obsessed with newness, even if he didn’t know what the newness was…

Good Pope John: A Theologian’s Tribute,
John Courtney Murray, S.J.

Murray wrote the following in response to Pope John XXIII’s death on June 3, 1963. The Second Vatican Council had already met for its first session (October 11-December 8, 1963). After not being invited to the first session, Murray was preparing to serve as a peritus (expert) at the second session (September 29- December 4, 1963). —Editor.

The office of the papacy is the one and only public office that is permanent in history; its occupants are destined to permanent presence in history. No Pope simply makes his private passage through death to his eternal personal reward, as all men must. Every Pope must also make, as few men do, a passage into history, not to become a figure of the past, but to remain a force in the ongoing present, an active participant in the church’s permanent presence in the historical process.

One aspect of the abiding historical presence of John XXIII is immediately apparent. He will be present in the further sessions of Vatican Council II. The precise scope of the Council’s work still remains to be defined. But in the process of definition, John XXIII will be present as the insight of genius is present in the later minds that strive to factor it out in concepts.

He made the premise of the council plain enough. It is the perennial, if sometimes hidden, premise of all the Church’s thinking about herself and about her mission of bringing salvation to men in the moment when they need salvation, which is always today. The Latin maxim of Leo XIII states the premise: “Vetera novis augere” (“to make new things grow out of the old things”).

John XXIII will be present in the utterance of the “old things” that the Council may say; for in them the collective voice of the centuries will be heard. He will, however, be more intimately present when the “new things” are said, whatever they may be. For even at this too early date, the historian, whose role for the moment is no more than necrological, can readily find the relative clause that states the significant deed: “John was the Pope who started something new.”

What the “something” will be has not yet appeared in detail. But the basic component of the new thing has already caught the attention of all the world. He started the bishops talking, not privately to Rome in terms of question and answer, but publicly to one another in a free interchange of argument. He restored Rome to its traditional function, which is to be the apex of doctrinal and disciplinary decision, not the first source of theological thought and pastoral directive. Out of this new thing, which is also very old, there will issue—one is inclined to think—whatever newnesses the Council will bring forth. John XXIII will be in a true sense their author, present in their accomplishment.

One glimpses a future paradox. John XXIII was no great scholar; his purpose was fixed on being the pastor of souls. But he may live in history, not as the “theologian’s theologian” (a title that might fall to his predecessor, Pius XII), but as the “theologian’s Pope,” who affirmed the uses and value of the theological function in the church, at the same time that he asserted the full dignity of the papal office. He raised some questions himself—notably the great, sprawling ecumenical question—to which he returned no definitive answers. He encouraged the raising of other questions, both old and new, both theological and pastoral— and even political. The symbol of him might well be the question mark—surely a unique symbol for a Pope.

He has left the questions behind him. They are a witness to his continuing presence among us, now that he is gone. They cannot be avoided. They are not to be summarily settled. Above all, they are not to find any answer without prior argument, catholic argument. For it remains true that to this sort of argument John XXIII summoned the whole Church—cardinals and bishops, priests and laity, pastors and professors, and not only the learned but also the simple, who are the “greater part of the faithful,” today as when St. Thomas so named them.

The theologian’s Pope, who listened while the theologians freely talked, had an even keener ear for the voice of the simple faithful, for whom alone the theologian undertakes to speak, and by whom, too he must be understood.

After John XXIII certain things are no longer possible. Chiefly, it is not possible abruptly to impose silence on any of the parties to the talk in the Church concerning old things and new. It is also not possible impatiently to turn away from the voices, within or without the Church, of whom it can now be said that a Pope once listened to them.

 

[Digitonomy]

Sources please?

1. This Vatican Council declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom.
   from Dignitatis Humanae

gorman64:

And don’t quote Dignitatis Humanae because even Fr. John Courtney Murray said it was a break with the past teachings and needed to be explained by someone sometime in the future…whatever that means.

Please feel free to disregard General Councils of the Church, especially when they contradict you in plain language.

 

[gorman64]

I don’t think you can use what we are debating here to prove your assertion.

The Church condemned in plain language what Digantatis Humanae says in plain language. The “father” of V2 religious liberty, Fr. Murray, could not explain it…why do you think that is?

Look at an old copy of Denzinger (1954) and you will see this teaching of Pius IX in Denzinger numbers 1688-1690. These have now been omitted in the 1965 and later editions of Denzinger…why?
Quanta Cura:

For you well know, venerable brethren, that at this time men are found not a few who, applying to civil society the impious and absurd principle of “naturalism,” as they call it, dare to teach that “the best constitution of public society and (also) civil progress altogether require that human society be conducted and governed without regard being had to religion any more than if it did not exist; or, at least, without any distinction being made between the true religion and false ones.” And, against the doctrine of Scripture, of the Church, and of the Holy Fathers, they do not hesitate to assert that “that is the best condition of civil society, in which no duty is recognized, as attached to the civil power, of restraining by enacted penalties, offenders against the Catholic religion, except so far as public peace may require.” From which totally false idea of social government they do not fear to foster that erroneous opinion, most fatal in its effects on the Catholic Church and the salvation of souls, called by Our Predecessor, Gregory XVI, an "insanity,"2 viz., that “liberty of conscience and worship is each man’s personal right, which ought to be legally proclaimed and asserted in every rightly constituted society; and that a right resides in the citizens to an absolute liberty, which should be restrained by no authority whether ecclesiastical or civil, whereby they may be able openly and publicly to manifest and declare any of their ideas whatever, either by word of mouth, by the press, or in any other way.” But, while they rashly affirm this, they do not think and consider that they are preaching "liberty of perdition;"3 and that “if human arguments are always allowed free room for discussion, there will never be wanting men who will dare to resist truth, and to trust in the flowing speech of human wisdom; whereas we know, from the very teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, how carefully Christian faith and wisdom should avoid this most injurious babbling.”

papalencyclicals.net/Pius09/p9quanta.htm

P.S.

An error condemned in strict language in an encyclical is infallible…that’s why it appears(ed) in Denzinger.

 

[Genesis315]

I don’t think you can use what we are debating here to prove your assertion.

The Church condemned in plain language what Digantatis Humanae says in plain language. The “father” of V2 religious liberty, Fr. Murray, could not explain it…why do you think that is?

Look at an old copy of Denzinger (1954) and you will see this teaching of Pius IX in Denzinger numbers 1688-1690. These have now been omitted in the 1965 and later editions of Denzinger…why?

papalencyclicals.net/Pius09/p9quanta.htm

P.S.

An error condemned in strict language in an encyclical is infallible…that’s why it appears(ed) in Denzinger.

Read this essay:

Vatican II and Religious Liberty: Contradiction or Continuity?

Fr. Brian Harrison, O.S. explains it quite well.

 

[gorman64]

I have read Fr. Harrison’s explanation. It is far from clear and I don’t think he makes a very good argument. I believe he is unclear because his argument is weak.

Gorman

 

[Genesis315]

You have to undertsand what Pius IX and Vatican II were dealing with. Pius IX was concerned chiefly with one extreme, radical Liberalism, whereas Vatican II was chiefly concerned with another, totalitarianism.

The current Catechism, citing both Dignitatis Humanae and Quanta Cura, gives the general principle applied by both to different circumstances:

[2108](javascriptpenWindow(‘cr/2108.htm’) The right to religious liberty is neither a moral license to adhere to error, nor a supposed right to error,37 but rather a natural right of the human person to civil liberty, i.e., immunity, within just limits, from external constraint in religious matters by political authorities. This natural right ought to be acknowledged in the juridical order of society in such a way that it constitutes a civil right.38
[2109](javascriptpenWindow(‘cr/2109.htm’) The right to religious liberty can of itself be neither unlimited nor limited only by a “public order” conceived in a positivist or naturalist manner.39 The “due limits” which are inherent in it must be determined for each social situation by political prudence, according to the requirements of the common good, and ratified by the civil authority in accordance with "legal principles which are in conformity with the objective moral order."40

37 Cf. Leo XIII, Libertas praestantissimum 18; Pius XII AAS 1953,799.
38 Cf. DH 2.
39 Cf. Pius VI, Quod aliquantum (1791) 10; Pius IX, Quanta cura 3.
40 DH 7 § 3.

 

[Genesis315]

The idea of the common good is a key theme. A study of St. Thomas Aquinas works on politics and ethics and how he deals with the idea of the common good and the practices and rites of people of other religions will shed some light on where both the Second Vatican Council and popes like Leo XIII (a big-time Thomist) are coming from and why they both make sense.

 

[Cranch]

I have read Fr. Harrison’s explanation. It is far from clear and I don’t think he makes a very good argument. I believe he is unclear because his argument is weak.

Gorman

I also found this essay less than a defintive defense of Dignitatis Humanae against some of the criticisms against it. One example of why, is the author’s outline of the difference between “the state” and “citizens (civitas)” and DH’s supposed emphasis on the latter in the discussion of the first of his four theses, but a reversal of this emphasis in the third thesis discussion. This seems like a kind of special pleading.

 

[st_bernard]

You have to undertsand what Pius IX and Vatican II were dealing with. Pius IX was concerned chiefly with one extreme, radical Liberalism, whereas Vatican II was chiefly concerned with another, totalitarianism.

The current Catechism, citing both Dignitatis Humanae and Quanta Cura, gives the general principle applied by both to different circumstances:

[2108](javascriptpenWindow(‘cr/2108.htm’) The right to religious liberty is neither a moral license to adhere to error, nor a supposed right to error,37 but rather a natural right of the human person to civil liberty, i.e., immunity, within just limits, from external constraint in religious matters by political authorities. This natural right ought to be acknowledged in the juridical order of society in such a way that it constitutes a civil right.38
[2109](javascriptpenWindow(‘cr/2109.htm’) The right to religious liberty can of itself be neither unlimited nor limited only by a “public order” conceived in a positivist or naturalist manner.39 The “due limits” which are inherent in it must be determined for each social situation by political prudence, according to the requirements of the common good, and ratified by the civil authority in accordance with "legal principles which are in conformity with the objective moral order."40

37 Cf. Leo XIII, Libertas praestantissimum 18; Pius XII AAS 1953,799.
38 Cf. DH 2.
39 Cf. Pius VI, Quod aliquantum (1791) 10; Pius IX, Quanta cura 3.
40 DH 7 § 3.

Gratia et pax vobiscum,

This appears to contradict Quanta Cura, particularly the words of Pope Gregory XVI. Could you address this?

Gratias

 

[Digitonomy]

I don’t think you can use what we are debating here to prove your assertion.

I was merely answering your question, which seemed to be a sidetrack from the thread topic. I didn’t notice any debate about Dignitatis Humanae until my reply.

 

[gorman64]

I believe that Jason Hurd brought up the subject of religious liberty…not you. We were discussing it before you arrived here.

So why do you think that Denzinger was edited to omit the sections from Quanta Cura?

And also, do you understand that you can’t simply quote Digitatis Humanae to prove that the Church did not break with the teaching of Quanta Cura?