Why ex cathedra?

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mosher

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In my discussions with Catholics today online and in person I am always curious to know why so many people are looking for ex cathedra rulings on everything. For nearly 1900 years in the history of the Church there was no defined dogma concerning papal or even consiliar infalability. For those 1900 years Catholic got along fine wihout a need to know that one teaching was infalable while another only held a lower level of certitude. I fear that the dogma proclaimed by Vatican I may have done more damage to obedience than help because now it seems that we as catholics have lost the sense that we must believe all things posited by the Church for belief and not just those things that are declared by Bull or by Council to be infalible.
 
Ex Cathedra means “From the chair”. When the Pope speaks ex cathedra it is infallable and binding.
 
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mosher:
In my discussions with Catholics today online and in person I am always curious to know why so many people are looking for ex cathedra rulings on everything. For nearly 1900 years in the history of the Church there was no defined dogma concerning papal or even consiliar infalability. For those 1900 years Catholic got along fine wihout a need to know that one teaching was infalable while another only held a lower level of certitude. I fear that the dogma proclaimed by Vatican I may have done more damage to obedience than help because now it seems that we as catholics have lost the sense that we must believe all things posited by the Church for belief and not just those things that are declared by Bull or by Council to be infalible.
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A Doctrine is only defined when it is challenged.

At the time of Vatican I, there were significant challenges to Papal Authority, on the religious from the ‘Englightement’ and on the Temporal front from the elimination of the Papal States.

The Pope called the Vatican Council to determine the exact boundries of Papal Authority. As an Ecumenical Council, it could not err on the matter before it, and thus produced it’s decree on Papal Infallibility.

The Charism of Infallibility has always resided with the Church and always will. This is just a clarification of a particular circumstance when the Charism is excercised.
 
Some of the Council Fathers at Vatican I argued against the dogmatic definition of papal infallibility precisely because they feared it would lead to the situation you describe - Catholics feeling that they don’t have to believe or obey anything if is is not declared ex cathedra. Post-Vatican-1 Popes had to do a lot of explaining to the contrary…
 
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Brendan:
A Doctrine is only defined when it is challenged.

At the time of Vatican I, there were significant challenges to Papal Authority, on the religious from the ‘Englightement’ and on the Temporal front from the elimination of the Papal States.

The Pope called the Vatican Council to determine the exact boundries of Papal Authority. As an Ecumenical Council, it could not err on the matter before it, and thus produced it’s decree on Papal Infallibility.

The Charism of Infallibility has always resided with the Church and always will. This is just a clarification of a particular circumstance when the Charism is excercised.
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How does one have an undefined doctrine?
 
Some would say the Vatican I actions on papal infalibility were in response to the declining secular fortunes of the papacy. It had just been kicked out of the papal states and was allied with the losers in European politics.
 
Most doctrine is not “defined”, that is, as dogma. For example, the service of some angels as “Guardians” has always been a Catholic teaching; nevertheless it has never been dogmatically defined. All dogmas are doctrines, but not all doctrines are dogmas. A doctrine is dogmatically defined usually when it has been gravely distorted by false interpretations, which requires a precise, authoritative, definitive formulation of the teaching in response.

The definition of the biblical Canon in response to the related errors of the protestant insurrectionists is a case in point. The canon had already long been understood and accepted as such within the Catholic Church for many centuries before the Council of Trent. But in response to the contemporary doctrinal error, the Magisterium made a definitive formulation of said Canon.
 
ANY dogma is an INFALLIBLE doctrine, divinely & formally revealed by God as a necessary truth for salvation. EXTRAORDINARY Magisterium is an EX CATHEDRA pronouncement of the Roman Pontiff (Immaculate Conception by Pope Pius IX) or a DE FIDE statement of an Ecumenical Council (Justification by the Council of Trent). ORDINARY Magisterium is the perennial teaching of the Pope and the Bishops in union with him around the world. To capriciously say that ONLY EXTRAORDINARY MAGISTERIAL dogmas are infallible is FALSE and heretical. Lumen Gentium #25, Humani Generis #21, both solemnly teach on the supreme teaching authority of the ORDINARY MAGISTERIUM. Some Catholics wrongly believe that ONLY “ex cathedra” Papal Statements are infallible. This would limit infallible dogma to two, the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption. Obviously, only 2 infallible dogmas in 2,000 years sounds very sparse. Some theologians incorrectly proliferate a notion that ONLY the Extraordinary Magisterium is infallible…
ewtn.com/library/DOCTRINE/TRIGINFL.HTM
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Re: Arianism and the Trinity, the dogma was of course defined in 325 at the Council of Nicea. However, the true doctrine of the Trinity, which the Council simply definitively formulated, had continually been expounded by the orthodox Fathers before that. The orthodox Patristic Hierarchy, exercising the Ordinary (materially infallible) Magisterium, basing istelf upon Sacred Scripture as understood by way of Apostolic Tradition, had thus ever preserved the true faith about the Trinity - with or without the Council of Nicea. The Council merely put a stamp of supreme (formal and extraordinarily infallible) magisterial authority upon a specific, precise formulation of that doctrine.
 
Some posters have confused my question. I am not asking about the Dogma - I am well aware of the Dogma itself but rather I made the original post to ask why so many catholics particularly in these forums, when comming into a teaching of the Church that they are not fully comfortable with (such as that animals cannot enter into heaven) they claim that such a teaching is not infallible because it has not been proclaimed ex cathedra so they feel they do not have to believe th teaching. My point is that for 1900 years we did not have the defined dogma but there didn’t seem to be the same trouble with believing all the teachings of the Church dogma or not. Why is it that now we have problems if something is not formally defined.
 
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mosher:
Some posters have confused my question. I am not asking about the Dogma - I am well aware of the Dogma itself but rather I made the original post to ask why so many catholics particularly in these forums, when comming into a teaching of the Church that they are not fully comfortable with (such as that animals cannot enter into heaven) they claim that such a teaching is not infallible because it has not been proclaimed ex cathedra so they feel they do not have to believe th teaching. My point is that for 1900 years we did not have the defined dogma but there didn’t seem to be the same trouble with believing all the teachings of the Church dogma or not. Why is it that now we have problems if something is not formally defined.
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Is it the material from Vatican I or is it there are many folks who want to obfuscate what the truth is? There were things in Vatican II that properly point out the differences you mention as I linked in post #9.

I am not certain it is the ex cathedra issues that confuse people as much as some want to use that as a cover to de-legitimize the authority of the Church.

In these forums it has been pointed out many times, with citations, that something may be infallible even when not defined ex cathedra and that evidence is rejected because it does not serve the agenda of those who want to dismiss the magisterium.
 
Perhaps part of the cause of the problem mentioned by Mosher is that most Catholics - even the ones who consider themselves orthodox and well-informed - are not familiar with the “theological grades of certainty” or the"hierarchy of truths".

We must distinguish among:
General Dogma: a fundamental truth of Christianity;
Special Dogma: an individual truth contained within a General Dogma;
Pure Dogma: a truth known solely through Divine Revelation;
Mixed Dogma: a truth known also by Natural Reason;
Formal Dogma: a truth proposed for belief by the Magisterium as a truth of Revelation;
Material Dogma: a truth not so proposed;
Necessary Dogma: a truth which must be explicitly believed by all in order to achieve eternal salvation;
Non-necessary Dogma: a truth in which implicit faith may suffice for salvation;
Catholic Truth or Ecclesiastical Teaching: a doctrine defined by the Church not as immediately revealed but as intrinsically connected with the truths of Revelation, so that its denial would undermine revealed truth;
Divine Truth: a divine doctrine of Revelation, proposed for belief in virtue of the infallibility of the Church in teaching doctrines of faith or morals;
Theological Conclusion: a religious truth derived from two premises, of which one is an immediately revealed truth and the other a truth of natural reason;
Dogmatic Fact: historical facts not revealed, but intrinsically connected with revealed truth;
Truth of Reason: a truth not revealed but instrinsically connected with revealed truth;
Theological Opinion: a free view on aspects of doctrine concerning faith or morals not clearly attested in Revelation nor decided by the Magisterium;
Doctrine Proximate to Faith: a truth regarded by theologians generally as a truth of Revelation but which has not yet been finally promulgated as such by the Magisterium;
Doctrine Pertaining to Faith: a theologically certain teaching upon which the Magisterium has not yet finnaly pronounced but whose truth is guaranteed by its intrinsic connection with the doctrine of Revelation;
Common Doctrine: a teaching in the field of free opinion but generally accepted by theology;
Others of lesser grade: probable theological opinion, more probable theological opinion, well-founded theological opinion, pious opinion, tolerated opinion.
(Cf. Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 3-10)
 
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fix:
Is it the material from Vatican I or is it there are many folks who want to obfuscate what the truth is? There were things in Vatican II that properly point out the differences you mention as I linked in post #9.

I am not certain it is the ex cathedra issues that confuse people as much as some want to use that as a cover to de-legitimize the authority of the Church.

In these forums it has been pointed out many times, with citations, that something may be infallible even when not defined ex cathedra and that evidence is rejected because it does not serve the agenda of those who want to dismiss the magisterium.
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Exactly my point. It seems that people are waiting to believe in a proposition of the Church so that they don’t have to be governed by it untill the infallible “stop sign” is placed in the road. This ties in with what tjmiller says:
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tjmiller:
Perhaps part of the cause of the problem mentioned by Mosher is that most Catholics - even the ones who consider themselves orthodox and well-informed - are not familiar with the “theological grades of certainty” or the"hierarchy of truths".
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So what it seems is that we have people who wish to follow their own designs and use papal infallibility as a get of jail free card because they don’t realize that we must assent to any proposition that the Church gives us for belief less the last two catagories given in the “hierarchy of truths” by tjmiller.
 
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Ortho:
How does one have an undefined doctrine?
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Defintion adds specifics to an already held Doctrine.

The Church had always known and believed that Mary was Assumed Body and Soul into Heaven.

There is\was some disagreement if Mary actually died on Earth though. In the West, we held that Mary did not actually suffer Earthly death, in the East they held that Mary did.

The Doctrine defined by Pope Pius was not that the Assumption occured, that was already an infallible teaching of the Ordinary Magisterium, just that the specifics were defined.

In this case, Pope Pius declared that the specific state of Mary at the Assumption is not a fact that is necessary for our salvation

He did so by using the term " At the end of her Earthly existance…"

In this way, an already understood Doctrine was more clearly defined for the benefit of the Faithful.
 
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mosher:
. Why is it that now we have problems if something is not formally defined.
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because we are always looking for loopholes, because, like some who reject all truth except that explicitly stated in Sacred Scripture, we reject all truth unless explicitly defined as infallible, because we have adopted the legal letter-or-the-law attitude of our secular age, because we will always be looking for ways to get around 2000 years of consistent magesterial teaching and find ways to exempt ourselves from obedience and submission to that teaching.
 
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asquared:
because we are always looking for loopholes, because, like some who reject all truth except that explicitly stated in Sacred Scripture, we reject all truth unless explicitly defined as infallible, because we have adopted the legal letter-or-the-law attitude of our secular age, because we will always be looking for ways to get around 2000 years of consistent magesterial teaching and find ways to exempt ourselves from obedience and submission to that teaching.
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So what has happend in our modern legalistic age is a form of “Pharasee-ism” Have we forgotten that the “law was made for man and not man for the law.” Perhaps it is actually a reaction against the lack of law from the last 40 years.
 
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