LilyM #15
Now the church currently believes, professes etc that priests in the Latin rite need to be celibate. But saying so doesn’t make priestly celibacy either doctrine or dogma. It is mere discipline, and one that only became such after about the 1000s AD, and could change again tomorrow without the slightest implication for the dogma of Papal infallibility.
It is a discipline, BUT
it is an Apostolic Norm from the very beginning, which will remain (
Pastores Dabo Vobis, Bl JP II, #29, 1993).
There seems to be enormous confusion over what a dogma is, and what ex cathedra means. There is absolutely no need for any confusion.
The question of doctrine and dogma:
From Vatican I (
Pastor Aeternus), for infallibility to be exercised the Pope must teach
(a) ex cathedra (from the Chair of Peter), that is as Shepherd and Teacher of all Christians,
(b) speaking with Peter’s apostolic authority to the whole Church,
(c) defining a doctrine of faith and morals.
So the Pope’s ‘ex cathedra’ definitions may be either of revealed dogma, to be believed with divine faith, or of other truths necessary for guarding and expounding revealed truth. Vatican Council II and the post-conciliar Magisterium have explicitly affirmed that both ecclesial and papal infallibility extend to the secondary doctrinal truths necessary for guarding and expounding revelation. Thus *Humanae Vitae *(Encyclical) against contraception, and
Ordinatio Sacerdotalis (Apostolic Epistle) on male-only priests, contain infallible doctrinal definitions, to remove all doubt.
Vatican II (
Lumen Gentium, 25) reaffirms this teaching: “The Roman Pontiff, head of the college of bishops, enjoys this infallibility in virtue of his office, when, as supreme pastor and teacher of all the faithful – who confirms his brethren in the faith (cf. Lk 22:32) – he proclaims in an absolute decision a doctrine pertaining to faith or morals.”
Thus, no dogma has to be affirmed, nor anyone anathematized, nor the word “define” or “definition” be used for an infallible papal teaching – only that the Pope is handing down a certain, decisive judgment that a point of doctrine on faith or morals is true and its contrary false.
The three levels of teaching are:
**1) Dogma – infallible **(Canon #750.1) to be believed with the assent of divine and
Catholic faith.
2) Doctrine – infallible (Canon #750.2) requires the assent of ecclesial faith, to be “firmly embraced and held”.
3) Doctrine – non-definitive (non-infallible) and require intellectual assent (“loyal submission of the will and intellect”, Vatican II, *Lumen Gentium *25), not an assent of faith. [See *Ad Tuendam Fidem, Bl JPII]
Vatican II, reiterated the teaching of Vatican I on papal infallibility, and its documents are readily available [from the EWTN Library (
http://www.ewtn.com/vlibrary/search.asp, or the Vatican Library) for anyone with the will to know what Christ’s Church is teaching, like most of the documents of Vatican I, and the papal documents before and since Vatican II.
Also, through Google, you can easily access Vatican documents especially
Pastor Aeternus of Vatican I, and *Lumen Gentium *of Vatican II.
The salvation of non-Catholics was known from the beginning:
Pope St Clement knew that non-Catholics could be saved from the beginning, for he wrote in about 95 A.D. to the Church in Corinth: “Those who repented for their sins, appeased God in praying and received salvation, even though they were aliens to God.”
Catholic Apologetics Today, 1986, Fr William G Most, p 145].
Those who, through no fault of their own, have never known Christ or his Church can still be saved. But their salvation, too, is the effect of Jesus working through his Church. In a positive sense, this theological principle “means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body” (CCC 846).
The teaching MEANS that WITHOUT the Church there is no salvation – ALL salvation comes through Christ’s Church.
