The essence of the oath is the highlighted statement: the Church is the living Magisterium, not anyone else, not even the self made interpreters of the past.
One of the things that I remind myself whenever I read an article especially on the web, is that just because something is written, it doesn’t mean it is accurate. Some of these writers just get things wrong however well intentioned. Some are doing so maliciously and they are just trying to cause trouble. So when I get worked up over something I ask myself? Do I believe in the promise of our Lord that he has sent the Holly Spirit to guide the Church? The answer is of course, YES. Be at PEASE.
That’s a wise way to approch things. Also, when you can, one should read the entire work and the complimentary writings upon which the work is based. If you’re reading anything by Pope Benedict XVI you can get much more out of it, if you read some of Augustin and Bonaventure’s Theology of History. Pope Benedict builds most of his theology on the works of these two men and these two schools: Augustinian and Franciscan. He and Pope Paul are not very Thomist. They’re very familiar with Aquinas, but that’s not the method they use. Bl. John Paul used it often.
I got it from a long article that I can’t find now.
This, regardless who said it, is the temptation of the rationalism/modernism which teaches that the deposit of faith staring with the scriptures developed through the prayer of the community, so
God reward you, AT!! It looks like it will be an interesting read.
Does the Holy Spirit guide the Church when something infallible isn’t being said?
This is a good point and obviously that can happen or we wouldn’t have had a Pope Alexander VI.
Can you give an example of a fallible council where doctrinal errors can be taught? I do not think that it is possible.
I think that you are wrong. What was wrong with the election process of Alexander VI? Did he teach any heresy as dogma? Are you saying that the Holy Spirit was fallible when He chose Alexander VI?
I’m referring to the idea of “smoke of Satan” entering the Church, not election processes, but in general.
I guess it would be fair to say the same of Vatican II no Brother?
I’m glad you brought this up. So much education yet the Bishops and many priests I’ve encountered didn’t even know much about SP.
Well because Vatican II was the only Ecumenical Council in Church history that wasn’t doctrinal, its documents could have error in them.
All the Popes were bad Popes, because they were human beings and they did wrong at some time or another, even the canonized ones. I am not going to rank them. Satan attacks everybody and we all fail at one point or another.
I see your point but I am not sure that I agree. Just because a council does not teach new doctrine, that does not imply that it is open to errors. There is a big difference between saying that we do not know if a council is protected and saying that that we know that it is not protected. As you correctly said it is the only council in history of that kind, and I think that it is very hard to say that there were errors coming from its documents. However, a ton of errors came from a lot of people that tried to interpret it their own ways.
But because it isn’t infallible does imply that it is open to errors.
Why would a ton of people try to interpret the documents in their own ways? Didn’t people back then know that doctrine was only to be interpretted by the Church? Unless they didn’t believe that it was doctrine…?
This claim is getting old. There have been four popes since Vatican II, not counting Bl. John XXIII. None of them have found error in the Council. Either, we have had four idiots sitting on the Chair of Peter or there is no error in the teaching of the Council, only error in the interpretation given by right and left.
Who says that the council was not infallible? I see that the Church did not see the need to declare it infallible and that makes a lot of sense to me. Here I am not talking about religion I am just talking about plain formal logic. If I do not declare that my dog is a male, does that make it a female? No, it simply leaves the possibility that it could be either male or female and you just do not know.
Anything that is misinterpreted needs to be revisted and clarified.
They didn’t know much about it because they had not read it or had read it on the run. It’s not because they are dumb. The more educated you are on matters of theology and law, the more analytical your approach. You come away with many questions.