Thank you for returning to the point of the post, (although with a different question) that is, reconciling apparent contradictions coming from what we are to understand are infallible teachings. I was hoping that someone would help to resolve this dilemma by, perhaps, showing that opposing statements were never infallibly declared. Thus far, it seems the only way out is for the Church to declare that:
I honastly beleive that The Catholic Church Teachings have been missinderstood and this misunderstanding taught without our Church Leaders realizing how much of what they were teaching was being missinderstood for a long time. My beleif is that Some time before Vatican I is when they realized how far the Church in general had lost sight of the original understandings of the Church’s teaching. Some very vital understandings had been lost in translation. Kind of.reminds of the telephone game. Anyway…
If the Vatican responds to every time someone makes something else out of what the Pope or any clergy has said, they’re not going to do anything else but respond to those 24/7.
As you know, I’m asking the same question…
Although I do appreciate your posts (I want to make that clear), the bolded statement continues to send the message that you really don’t get what McCall and I are talking about here.
Sure, but this seems like a pretty big misunderstanding. I mean what is the Vatican press office for anyway?
That is a good question! I think the reason is that the Church needs to justify and not contradict the Doctrine of Infallibility. So changing a doctrine is called “development”. I understand that Infallible decrees can only be infallible if they are in harmony both with Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. So, one might argue that some of the doctrines that were “developed” into reversal were not infallible since they were not in harmony with either Sacred Scripture or Sacred Tradition. It would be more truthful and fruitful if the Church gave a rational explanation, even if only in theory, as the one I have just given, rather than demand assent to two conflicting and contradictory ideas.
Can you please enlighten me as to what I do not get?
In regards to the “children of God” quote, I haven’t seen this term used as a technical theological term before (I could be wrong). As far as I know it is essentially a figure of speech, so my opinion is that Francis was using it as an expression to say God loves us all / we are all equal before God, not making a theological distinction. I mean, he went on to say “first class”, which obviously is not a specific theological term loaded with meaning, it’s just a colloquial expression.
One does not have to be very well catechized to understand English. I posted earlier a quote from the Catechism of the Catholic Church in response to statements that the poorly catechized simply do not know the difference between redemption and salvation. Here it is again:
True, though I don’t so much mean this as the Vatican should explain doctrine to us. I just meant if the Pope says one thing, and a lot of people clearly misunderstand it, why not just issue a statement clearing it up. If anyone else, like a politician said something and it got misinterpreted, they would immediatly say, no I didn’t mean that, I meant this. But a misunderstanding like this will just echo out there in the world forever now, with people misinforming each other, and nothing is doen to stop it.
When I first reverted back to Catholicism, my faith was very experience oriented. I had a profound experience of God and began to come back out of a sense of joy. All was very joyful and reassuring, which is fine- for a time.
Baptism is traditionally defined as the sacrament which takes away original sin, makes us Children of God and heirs of heaven. I remember this from the Baltimore Catechism.
You keep talking about “defending the Pope”. No, this is not about defending the Pope. This is about clarification so as to send the correct message about Church teaching. It appears that the whole world is having some sort of discussion about this particular homily. Our Pope’s homilies are spread throughout the world daily. Whether you think it shouldn’t matter to the rest of the world because it’s technically a “homily” is irrelevant. It apparently does matter. What is relevant is that the world is getting the WRONG message. If our Church is so concerned about evangelization, then here is the perfect opportunity to evangelize those who misunderstand. WHY DOESN’T IT??
They are spoken in Italian, and translated by L’Osservatore Romano and Vatican Radio, though I don’t know who specifically translates them.