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Tomdstone
Guest
As far as I know, a teaching may not be proclaimed infallibly, but Catholics are still required to accept official teachings which have been promulgated by a Pope or by a Council. For example, take the teaching on artificial birth control.
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numealinesimpet
Guest
Humanae vitae, the teaching on contraceptives (by Pope Paul VI) was fully in line with all previous teaching, and therefore partook of infallibility. An apparent novelty, however, cannot claim this unless it is explicitly marked as infallible. As a point of history, none of the novelties of Vatican II were so marked.
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JReducation
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The Church has never promulgated any ex Cathedra document on this question. Pope Benedict XVI clarified this point in one of his interviews with Seawald (sp?) There is a tendency to think that what is tradition is also ex Cathedra, which is not the case.
Archbishop Lebebvre said many things about which he was mistaken. The mistake that the Holy See made was that it did not fight fire with fire. While the SSPX was telling the world what it thought of the Holy See, Vatican II, the popes, the liturgy, Jews, Muslims, women and other subjects in less than flattering terms, the Holy See was responding with very tempered letters, the content of which was never shared with the public. We’re only beginning to read some of them now. This was a mistake. Those responses should have been made public so that people could see the mistakes that the Archbishop and his followers were making. In this regard, the Holy See failed to catechize for the sake of protecting the image of the Church. They didn’t want to get into an open confrontation, because of the scandal that it would cause. At the end, the scandal was caused anyway, because the SSPX did not respond with the same discretion and respect.
If you subscribe to this position then you have to say that Popes Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI have lied when they have said that Vatican II is consistent with tradition, is error free, is not up for discussion and only the pope can say what is and what is not part of tradition. We can’t have it both ways.
We can’t say that they did not do all of this footnoting, for fear that it would expose the rejection of previous teaching and at the same time say that they are not lying when they say that the documents do no such thing. It’s either A or B. If the documents contradict previous teaching, then the popes have lied. If the popes are telling the truth, then the documents do not contradict previous teaching and maybe our understanding of both previous teaching and of the document needs to be corrected.
It is not in the domain of this document to dictate to the State. These are questions regarding the duties of the State. Dignitatis Humanae is speaking to Catholics and our duty to respect the right to religious freedom. We are not the State.
Pope Paul VI, Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict said “NO, there will be no discussion and no criticism will be tolerated.” That’s that. When the boss speaks, the subordinates pay attention and are quiet, unless the boss commands what is illegal or immoral.
Because every other religious order has been faithful to its vow of obedience. When we’re told that something is not up for discussion, we let it go.
That is not true. St. Francis wrote very clearly and the Church accepted it that one is morally bound to obey all legitimate authority in all things, even if one believes that something else is better for one’s soul, provided that what is being asked of us is not a sin. One is only free to disobey, if one is directed to sin. This was an admonition that he wrote for the universal Church, not just for the friars.
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Tomdstone
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Do you disagree then that Catholics are obliged to assent to teachings on faith and morals that have been officially promulgated by a Pope or Council.
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JReducation
Guest
This is an interesting question, because in one of his letter to Archbishop Lefebvre, Pope Paul VI reminds the Archbishop that it’s not just on matters of faith and morals that Catholics must submit, but on all matters that the Church and the pope teach authoritatively. He goes on to state that everything in the council was taught with the authority of the ordinary magisterium. Therefore, it was authoritative and has to be obeyed. He explained that we’re bound to obey not only faith and morals, but also authority.
This is the danger in both Traditionalist and Liberal camps. The danger is believe that if it’s not covered by the umbrella of infallibility, one does not have to submit. Both sides forget authority.
It was rather interesting to read a recent letter by Bishop Fellay to the SSPX priests who have wandered off because the SSPX is too liberal or some such thing. Bishop Fellay demands that they comply with his mandates. He reminds them that there is no room in the Church for disobedience. Go figure.
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HumbleCatholic
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Hasire said:
Would the OP be kind enough to explain this statement to me? I just don’t understand what you were trying to say.
Are you saying that it is possible that a majority (its majority / the majority) of Jesus Christ’s Church could fall to heresies???
I thought and believed that "being “in the Church–under the head of our leader, our Pope” instead of “being outside the Church”, (SSPX and independents) that we are in a “safe haven” as long as we obey the Head of Rome–Peters’ successor. I thought the whole idea about Vatican II WAS to have a majority, Christ wants ALL to be saved!..THE CHURCH SHALL PREVAIL BECAUSE CHRIST HAS ALREADY WON THE VICTORY!
I had been “outside the Church” for almost 19 years, and just entered back ino the fold of the one, holy, catholic, apostolic Church just this past week.
This statement almost makes me want to run back to the independent chapel that I just left!
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JReducation
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That statement is a very dangerous statement. It can create doubt in people, especially about the fidelity of the Holy See to the Truth. There is nothing that the Holy See has said or done that merits such a statement.
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Thomas_Casey
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MODERATOR NOTE
Pope Benedict has already said that there is no error in the documents of Vatican II. CAF is a fully Catholic apostolate. Therefore, if the pope says that there is no error in said documents, the contrary may not be said here. This apostolate exists to answer people’s questions about what Catholics believe. The Supreme Pontiff has the last word on what Catholics believe or should believe. No one may contradict him on our forums. Find another place to do so.
Anyone who does will be banned without warning.
Pope Benedict has already said that there is no error in the documents of Vatican II. CAF is a fully Catholic apostolate. Therefore, if the pope says that there is no error in said documents, the contrary may not be said here. This apostolate exists to answer people’s questions about what Catholics believe. The Supreme Pontiff has the last word on what Catholics believe or should believe. No one may contradict him on our forums. Find another place to do so.
Anyone who does will be banned without warning.
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Lormar
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Lormar
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That is the point of making statements like that, Brother, and it is done all the time. Once the seed (or seeds) of doubt is (are) sown, the rest is easy.
It comes down to something very basic. Either you trust the Church or you do not.
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Gabriel_Serafin
Guest
The problem seems that maybe you are too lazy to study Pope John Paul II’s Ecclesia Dei, which warned and explained to the schismatics by name, what their fault is. Here is a short excerpt, but I encourage you to read the entire document if you ever choose to make time for it.
*3. In itself, this act was one of disobedience to the Roman Pontiff in a very grave matter and of supreme importance for the unity of the church, such as is the ordination of bishops whereby the apostolic succession is sacramentally perpetuated. Hence such disobedience - which implies in practice the rejection of the Roman primacy - constitutes a schismatic act.(3) In performing such an act, notwithstanding the formal canonical warning sent to them by the Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops on 17 June last, Mons. Lefebvre and the priests Bernard Fellay, Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, Richard Williamson and Alfonso de Galarreta, have incurred the grave penalty of excommunication envisaged by ecclesiastical law.(4)
- The root of this schismatic act can be discerned in an incomplete and contradictory notion of Tradition. Incomplete, because it does not take sufficiently into account the living character of Tradition, which, as the Second Vatican Council clearly taught, “comes from the apostles and progresses in the Church with the help of the Holy Spirit. There is a growth in insight into the realities and words that are being passed on. This comes about in various ways. It comes through the contemplation and study of believers who ponder these things in their hearts. It comes from the intimate sense of spiritual realities which they experience. And it comes from the preaching of those who have received, along with their right of succession in the episcopate, the sure charism of truth”.(5)
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numealinesimpet
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I have read the entire document many times, from 1988 onwards. Please remember the forum rules about *ad hominem *comments. As I have quoted on other threads of this forum, this act can be called schismatic only by re-defining the meanings of the word ‘schismatic’, as testified by ecclesiastics of the highest positions on Canon Law, writing publicly after August 1988 as well as the Catholic Encyclopaedia which I have quoted; and also ‘tradition’. I will re-post these comments when I can do so.
To repeat, what doctrinal or moral directive has been imposed by Vatican II which Mgr Lefebvre and the others have disobeyed?
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numealinesimpet
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Stop Press… On the thread (now closed) SSPX Update - Redux, on Feb 7, '13, 1:21 pm, pnewton posted:
I replied that this was very new info. which I had heard directly from Fr Couture, (SSPX Superior for Asia, on a visit early this year back to Ireland, where he was superior until about 2002), but that I would look out for links. The following has just appeared on angelqueen Forum…
I replied that this was very new info. which I had heard directly from Fr Couture, (SSPX Superior for Asia, on a visit early this year back to Ireland, where he was superior until about 2002), but that I would look out for links. The following has just appeared on angelqueen Forum…
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Mike30
Guest
Who is Pope John Paul the Great ? I know there was a Pope John Paul II, but I never knew we had a Pope John Paul the Great.
Maybe I was asleep for 20 or 30 years. Help me out with this one. Has the Church given him this title and is it common to acclaim him in this way?
Just wondering.
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JReducation
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Pope Benedict started this.
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Mike30
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Well is it now his officiall title or just something someone says on his own?
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numealinesimpet
Guest
It is not a personal attack on the character or the position of the pope to point it out, when and if a statement made by him – or at least over his signature – departs from what the Church has always understood. Our Lord in His Wisdom gave us examples in the very first years of the Ministry of the Apostles, so that we would not be able to say these things are impossible. To recall three episodes from the New Testament: Peter denied Christ three times, but repented in bitter tears (Mt 26:75) and was reinstated (John 21:15); Judas betrayed him, despaired and ‘went to his own place’ (Acts 1:25); Peter made a mistake on the issue of eating with Gentiles that was doctrinal as well as disciplinary, and acquiesced when Paul ‘resisted him to his face’ (Gal 2:11).
I am not recalling these episodes to jump to the conclusion that Mgrs Lefebvre et al., and the people I cite below, were correct: I am establishing the principle that it cannot be legitimately argued that each and every utterance of a bishop or pope is beyond question. I personally was highly inspired by Pope John Paul II at Wembley Stadium in 1982, when he was very clearly acting against the wishes and inclinations of the assembled bishops; but that does not prevent me from reading the definitions of such words as obedience, schism and Tradition, and the commentaries of those who have devoted their lives to a specialised study thereof.
I refer to the definition of schism given in the Catholic Encyclopaedia:
Notice that these comments were made after the publication of Ecclesia Dei Adflicta: these clerics were fully aware of its contents.
A schism is not a refusal to obey authority, but a denial that the visible, ostensive authority exists.
If any archbishop had consecrated another bishop for a diocese that had a validly appointed bishop already incumbent, this would be a denial of the authority of the Church to apportion jurisdiction, and it would be schismatic [although St Athanasius & S. Eusebius in the 4th Century did just that, and were not condemned by the Church subsequently, hence we must qualify that to say that this would be schismatic* “in normal circumstances”… but let that rest for now]. Mgr Lefebvre and Bp. de Castro Meyer declared that there was a state of emergency within the Church, and therefore appointed emergency bishops pro tem, sine locus (‘for the duration, without a territory’). This may or may not have been justified, but it was not schismatic within the meaning of the term. Lefebvre et al. did not deny the Divine right of the Pope to command. From both their words and actions, the following would seem to have been their thoughts: By the principle of double effect, as Divinely appointed pastors with the obligation under mortal sin to care for their diocese (in De Castro Meyer’s case) and the Priestly Fraternity (in Mgr Lefebvre’s case ) the lesser of two evils was to ensure the continuation of faithful bishops within the framework that had stood the test of time, even against the expressed statement of the Pope, as against the mortal imprudence of the experimentations that could be seen to be leading directly to the loss of discipline that was overwhelming the Church on every side. There can be cases where an act of refusal of compliance with a command from a legitimate superior can be objectively “the lesser of two evils”.
There have been others making similar statements.
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numealinesimpet
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If only it were as easy as that, Lormar. Where, for example, does this leave The Baseball Confirmation of Phoenix, Arizona,
sites.google.com/site/catholictopics/the-church-since-vatican-ii/the-immediate-aftermath-of-the-council/baseball-confirmation-of-phoenix-arizona-in-1998
which was never publicly repudiated by the Official hierarchy? Where did it leave the parishoners of that diocese?
Bishop Hunthausen presided over a diocese where for ten years the Communion Hosts were made with honey, which invalidates the ‘confection’ of the Sacrament. Every parishoner worshipping such a Host was unwittingly committing a material sin of idolatry. By Canon Law, each and every Mass Stipend for such a Mass must, on pain of mortal sin, be returned. I am not privy to what the bishop knew, but it is on public record that letters of distress had been sent to his diocesan office, and to the Vatican, for all those years.
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JReducation
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None of the popes called “The Great” were formally named thus by the Church. These titles developed through usage. Bl. John Paul’s case is no different.
The pope’s public use gives it legitimacy, as is the case with Gregory, Albert and the others called The Great.
It all it takes is one pope to use it seriously, which is the case with Pope Benedict.
If one looks at this tradition, one can say that it is legitimate to call him John Paul The Great, because the pope lent it legitimacy being the first to use it.
The Church has bestowed very few titles on people. They come by accident and usage. I’ll give you another example.
Francis of Assisi was always called the Seraphic Father, the Mirror of Perfection, the Perfect Christian by the Franciscans. Later, when Franciscans became popes, they brought those titles to the papacy. Today, popes use those titles in their encyclicals about him. No one made a formal decree. Yet, even recently (2009) Pope Benedict addressed the general chapter beginning with "Your Seraphic Father . . . " Pope Piux XII referred to him as “The Perfect Christian” Pope Nicholas IV called him the Mirror of Perfection in one of his letters.
What starts out small, becomes common usage as a sign of love and respect. No one will deny that Bl. John Paul deserves such love and respect. He is one of the holiest men of the late 20th century.
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