1. Before we go any further I think we ought to take a quick look at history.
There have often been times when things were unlawful in the Church and then were practiced openly and often for quite a long time before a Pope had the grace to actually do the crackdown.
Some of these things were nepotism and simony. So this approach of yours about not being actually enforced is rather dangerous.
Apples and oranges. For starters I’d love to see any sort of remotely official statement from the Vatican calling the laws against simony and nepotism “scarcely more than disciplinary practices of minor importance” and declaring that “such requirements no longer have a normative value.”
Secondly - we have virtually the entire female population of the Church over a period of maybe a decade or 15 years abandoning the custom of veiling. Were nearly 50% of all Catholics guilty of the sins of nepotism and simony in earlier times? I think not.
In 1977 the canon law of 1917 is still the law of the Church so the veil is obviously still required to be worn in 1977. So since Inter insigniores did not revoke the particular canon nor did it expressly state that women are no longer required to wear the veil.
Your point being? What are the practical implications if it WAS still in force? Even if it IS still in force? What consequences flow in your opinion? Are you suggesting that women who don’t cover are sinningl in any way? I’d suggest that a church which tolerates 50% of its professed members, of those supposedly in union with the successor of St Peter, being blatantly and openly sinful, is NOT the Church founded upon Peter, for the gates of Hell will have prevailed.
**2. **There is also another thing to consider. Pope Paul’s statement is actually contrary to the entirety of catholic teaching on this one. I know that this is hard to bear but there are examples of Popes making similar mistakes on less important issues. Pope John 22nd made a mistake on the particular judgment.
The particular judgement is a matter of faith and morals, not discipline. Again not a valid comparison.
Popes cannot be ‘mistaken’ about disciplines in the same way that they can (privately) about matters of faith and morals. Faith and morals are eternal truths, the standard against which they are judged being external - Jesus Christ who is ALL truth. Disciplines are laws the church uses to govern itself from time to time. And the Pope and the Magisterium are the supreme authority in regard to Canon Law. No external standards to judge by.
Saying the Pope or the Vatcan can be mistaken about Canon Law is not like saying the President or Congress can be mistaken about the law of the land. President and Congress are subject to a higher interpretive authority, the Supreme Court, as to what the law is and means.
The Magisterium, the Pope and the Vatican ARE the highest interpretive authority when it comes to Canon Law. So it’s like saying the Supreme Court are mistaken about the interpretation of law - they simply cannot be, they are the makers of that interpretation.
Another thing about disciplines - they are binding, yes, but not unchangeable. In fact designed to change, and frequently changed. For many many centuries it was canon law that illegitimate persons could not become priests. Now that is no longer the case. Same with priestly celibacy - a thousand years of marriage being permitted, a thousand years of it being forbidden by Canon Law.
What about Canon Law regarding marriage? Henry VII needed a dispensation to marry his brother’s widow. Again, now no longer the case. 1500 years at least of that Canon, 500 years without.
It has been the constant teaching of Popes that one cannot interpret scripture differently to the early Fathers. The early fathers are unanimous on this point. The veil is a divine requirement.
So was the requirement for circumcision in the OT equally a divine requirement - but neither unchangeing nor unchangeable! What about the NT scriptural command not to eat blood? Many good Polish catholics and others happily tuck into their blood sausage without a second thought for the scriptural saying on the subject. Somewhere along the line THAT ‘divine requirement’ was done away with. The Church has the authority to do this in disciplinary matters!
**3. *In 1983 the new code was promulgated and according to canon 6 1 the code of 1917 is abrogated. If the veiling of women was unique to the canon law of 1917 then I could understand people thinking that the requirement was dropped.
Problem being it’s not just ‘people’. It’s people who would’ve a) known better than anyone on the planet and b) said something when the vast majority of women stopped veiling - it’s not like most Popes or Bishops would’ve had an axe to grind about women not veiling, after all.
**4. **Given the times we are in, do you really think silence and one single un-definitive statement really count to overturn a discipline which was mandated in scripture and carried on by all catholics for say 1930 years?
Given the times we are in? What does that mean?
As for 1930 years - why not, if a custom could be done away with like not marrying one’s brother’s widow. As Henry VIII correctly pointed out, it was a scriptural command (Leviticus to be precise) and adhered to by all faithful Catholics for at least 1500 years.
In fact his argument was eerily similar to yours - that the scriptural command trumped the Pope’s authority to dispense from it. Yours is that the scriptural command trumps the Magisterium’s ability to de facto if not de jure do away with it.
We all know where Henry VIII’s argument lead.
more than once in church.
Hi Lily,