Replies

Typical responses

• "He is only a CINO."

This does not have the Imprimatur and Nihil Obstat (considering what does, this is seen as irrelevant by some traditionalists)

• "He is only speaking as a private theologian, and (according to the interpretation of another private theologian) is contradicting extra Ecclesiam nulla salus ("outside the church there is no salvation"...") or Vatican Two's interpretation of it.

Which means different official things (even as to it being infallible) to different Roman Catholics. And as every papal or conciliar definition or condemnation leaves a certain margin for interpretation, private judgment has to complete what public pronouncements left unstated.

• Once a thesis or treatise is censured "theologians employ themselves in determining what precisely it is that is condemned in that thesis or treatise; and doubtless in most cases they do so with success, but that demonstration is not de fide." (Avery Cardinal Dulles, SJ, “Magisterium: Teacher and Guardian of the Faith,” Professor at Fordham University and Professor Emeritus at The Catholic University of America, [Sapientia Press: Naples, FL, 2007], 42-43); (http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2011/01/official-interpretation-of-private.html)

And presuming one has correctly judged a teaching to be non-infallible, Donum Veritatis allows that even if "not habitually mistaken in its prudential judgments," "some Magisterial documents might not be free from all deficiencies," and humbly withholding assent is allowed for a theologian "who might have serious difficulties, for reasons which appear to him wellfounded, in accepting a non-irreformable magisterial teaching."

Due to deficiencies or comprehensiveness of the Roman Catholic magisterium, much of the practical work of apologetics is left to lay apologists, though in times past such were disallowed from such debates as occur here, but wherein we often find a testimony to liberalism or variance which they themselves attack evangelicals for:

Robert Sungenis recently stated Rome's scholars are worse than Protestant liberals. Jimmy Akin recently chastised the interpretation of his priest saying, "This isn't exegetical rocket science." Steve Ray had some similar problems with a priest and concludes the church is "Always reforming, always in need of reform." Mark Shea accuses Robert Sungenis of lying. Sungenis says Scott Hahn misunderstands of the whole issue of justification. Over on the Catholic Answers forum, they recently had a heated discussion as to whether Scott Hahn teaches "prima scriptura." Tim Staples says he went to a mass in which the priest led the church in "the wave." Jimmy Akin says you can pray to whoever you want to, even if they aren't saints. Art Sippo says Mary should be Co-Redemptrix and Mediatrix of all Graces. Patrick Madrid disagreed with him. Karl Keating states, "Many Catholics are confused because some priests tell them contracepting is immoral, while others tell them the practice is morally neutral; some priests speak as though Mary had only one child, while others imply that she was the mother of the 'brethren of the Lord', some priests correctly explain the meaning of the Real Presence, while others refer to the Eucharist as only a symbol. Priests are authority figures, and lay people expect them to know and teach the faith accurately- not a safe assumption nowadays." Jim Burnham stated on Catholic Answers that Seventy percent of Roman Catholics do not understand the Eucharist.
I could go on and on. I didn't even mention any of my "We Have Apostolic Tradition"- The Unofficial Catholic Apologist Commentary " posts. In those posts, you can see that Catholic apologists disagree with each other when they interpret the Bible. Then there are the big issues, like evolution. If you want to see diversity of opinion, simply try and nail down a Catholic apologist or a Catholic theologian on it. You would think Catholic theologians could at least be unified on Luther and the Reformation. Some say Luther was sent by Satan, others think he wasn't such a bad guy.
Shall we conclude that an infallible interpreter + infallible tradition + infallible scripture = harmony? The facts speak for themselves. I've got to believe by this point that Mr. Madrid is aware that this is a false argument. The misuse of a sufficient source does not negate the clarity of that sufficient source. (http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2011/09/reminding-patrick-madrid-of-romes.html)

Then you have the Catholic schisms resulting from the Roman Catholic attempts to accommodate her loss of secular power and souls in the modern world of greater ideological freedom.

• Vatican Two was described by Cardinal Suenens as "the French Revolution in the Church" and Y. Congar likened it to the October (1917) Revolution in Russia.[5]...

As to the documents themselves, there are sixteen of these, and all sixteen are consider to be "established synodally" - that is to say, agreed upon by the majority of the Fathers present at the council. These sixteen documents are entitled "Constitutions", "Decrees", and "Declarations", distinctions which in the practical order are meaningless. Despite the "pastoral" nature of the Council, two of these are labeled "dogmatic". In total then number some 739 pages of fine print and reading through them requires, as Father Houghton has remarked, "a sufficient supply of anti-soporifics". (Vatican I runs to 42 pages of large print, and the Council of Trent to 179 pages).[17] Their tone is "prolix in the extreme" and as Michael Davies states, "much of their content consists of little more than long series of the most banal truisms imaginable."[18]...

Yet the council is important, for it introduced into the bosom of the church a whole host of "new directions" that are bearing fruit in our days...

Conservative Novus Ordo Catholics who object to the drastic changes call them "abuses" that result from the "misinterpretation" of Conciliar teachings. They point to many fine and orthodox statements in support of their contention. Those on the other hand who are on the forefront of the Revolution - the Liberal post-Conciliar Catholic - can justify almost anything they wish by recourse to the same documents. The much debated issue as to whether the Council is only an "excuse" or in fact the "source" of the "autodemolition" of the Church is entirely beside the point. Whatever the case may be, as the Abbe of Nantes has pointed out, "there is not a heresiarch today, not a single apostate who does not now appeal to the Council in carrying out his action in broad daylight with full impunity as recognized pastor and master" (CRC May 1980)....

"The definitive texts are for the most part compromise texts. On far too many occasions they juxtapose opposing viewpoints without establishing any genuine internal link between them. Thus every affirmation of the power of bishops is accompanied in a manner which is almost tedious by the insistence upon the authority of the Pope...

It is then the ambiguity of the Conciliar statements which allows for any interpretation one wishes. (http://www.the-pope.com/wvat2tec.html)

• Congar and the theologian “prison inmates” like him became the “guards” at Vatican II. Overnight we had theologians who’s ideas had been formally condemned by the Church, being the overseers of the new schemas of the Council. Many probably do not know that almost all of the schemas for the Council were completed, or at least had been outlined before the Council ever started. Those schemas, which were written in the same vain as those of the prior popes, were all completely trashed in favor letting these new theologians rewrite them all. In the end you had a smorgasbord character to all most of the VII documents because these modernists would write up the document and then the orthodox bishops would fight to keep in some of the old theological wording as well. That is one of the reasons for the “this and that” leitmotif of the documents. http://catholicchampion.blogspot.com/2012/04/why-sspx-and-archbishop-lefebvre-are.html