Posted on 10/11/2014 11:12:06 AM PDT by ebb tide
And then you say;
You were the one who brought the comparison!
So now you agree that the comparison is not necessarily all that helpful?
So now things are all of sudden more "penetrable"?
Regardless of the focus being merely upon "ex cathedra" papal statements in the rhetoric of many, the issue of alleged infallibility even for the pope is not limited to such -- just as I have already shown you, providing links to the official Vatican encyclical.
Why not you ask?
It's simple.
I already know it well enough, which should be obvious, since I was pointing out exceptions to that description.
We have gone from a beginning statement of yours;
Which I objected to, due to that being far from accurate.
Then you said;
--I already understand all of that without being told about it. But that wasn't exactly like your initial comment, now was it?
Just because I'm not buying the infallible part does not mean I'll go along with you and start at the barest beginnings, with myself needing to go fetch answers to questions such as;
Already I have had to drag yourself towards better definitions of the claims towards "infallibility".
I have been dealing with these issues for long years now. As have many others before me...
When you remarked to another that the "chair" wasn't a physical chair --- did you not then understand the guy was speaking figuratively --- and humorously as if there was an actual "chair" (of St. Peter) which, as the man jokingly remarked at comment #14;
In the last sentence there was serious question posed.
The answer is YES -- according to the an "infallible dogmatic statement", which at the time it came forth had much less than full support of RC bishops and Cardinals, although most of those opposed did acquiesce --- some of those at the time, in silence.
There is within the RCC (that abbreviation means Roman Catholic Church -- you know, the one which has the bishop of Rome as it's head -- yeah -- that one) concept that even a bad pope cannot make so-called or alleged infallible statement --- when he speaks or writes on faith and morals for the entire church, etc.
Yet it does get FUZZY from there...as I already provided links towards demonstrating.
I've noticed that so far, after myself receiving replies from a yourself and another, though you have approached the subject matter, you haven't touched the aspects of it that I have raised. No, you seemed to speak of everything but those things...which are challenging.
What I was hoping to point out is how concepts towards infallibility can be rather fuzzy -- providing links to help show that the issue is not merely one of wordings adopted at Vatican I, and the like, for the truth of the matter as is far from being confined by such things, again, as I have already provided example for.
Here is something I understand quite well enough, and although I didn't precisely get it from Salmon, I do find it to be very much the case (as to how discussion on this point frequently turn) as I also came to very conclusions (for the same reason of scripture and historical proofs) as he so able covered.
There is one interesting thing which Salmon said, as in the way he put it, that being found near the end of the below, large blockquoted extract from him, wherein he shows the concept we are here discussing, as declared by a RC Pope in 1870, was itself something of an invention, as the enlarged and bolded text portion of the following snippet highlights; [emphasis my own]
Did you understand what he was saying there? In Salmon's own lifetime, when the concept of infallibility for a 'pope' would be objected to -- Roman Catholic apologists USED to say it was a misrepresentation TO ASSERT that it was taught by the RCC.In our Church, indeed, anyone may engage in controversy at his own discretion, and need not necessarily be the most learned or wisest of our body; but the controversial catechisms of the Roman Church are only issued with the permission of the writer's superiors, and therefore their statements as to Roman Catholic doctrine may be supposed to tell what the best informed members of the communion believe that she teaches.Now, it had been a common practice with Roman Catholic controversial writers, when pressed with objections against the doctrine of the personal infallibility of the Pope, to repudiate that doctrine altogether, and to declare it to be a protestant misrepresentation to assert that it was taught by their Church.
Now, again and again, apologist for Rome try to say about it -- not that it does not exist -- but that "protestants" do not understand it, thus misrepresent it.
Balderdash. For THat is not entirely true. Many of "us" understand it quite well enough, regardless of how some persons possible a bit less sophisticated may come off as if they don't understand it. Few of those if any mistake "infallibility" for complete "impeccability", although that particular Romish defensive argument seems to have been possibly lifted from Salmon's own use of the word "impeccable" at one point. So -- in desperation -- that was seized upon in efforts to disprove Salmon's arguments. Phhfft. Total fail.
From George Salmon D.D., 1888;
"...One can scarcely open any book that attempts to deal with controversy by such a Roman Catholic as, for instance, Cardinal Manning, without being forced to observe how his faith in the infallibility of the present Church makes him impenetrable to all arguments. Suppose, for example, the question in dispute is the Pope's personal infallibility, and that you object to him the ease of Honorius: he replies, At most you could make out that it is doubtful whether Honorius was orthodox; but it is certain that a Pope could not be a heretic. Well, you reply, at least the ease of Honorius shows that the Church of the time supposed that a Pope could be a heretic. Not so, he answers, for the Church now holds that a Pope speaking ex cathedra cannot err, and the Church could not have taught differently at any other time.Thus, as long as anyone really believes in the infallibility of his Church, he is proof against any argument you can ply him with. Conversely, when faith in this principle is shaken, belief in some other Roman Catholic doctrine is sure also to be disturbed; for there are some of these doctrines in respect of which nothing but a very strong belief that the Roman Church cannot decide wrongly will prevent a candid inquirer from coming to the conclusion that she has decided wrongly. This simplification, then, of the controversy realises for us the wish of the Roman tyrant that all his enemies had but one neck. If we can but strike one blow, the whole battle is won.
If the vital importance of this question of Infallibility had not been sufficiently evident from a priori considerations, I should have been convinced of it from the history of the Roman Catholic controversy as it has been conducted in my own lifetime. When I first came to an age to take lively interest in the subject, Dr. Newman and his coadjutors were publishing, in the Tracts for the Times, excellent refutations of the Roman doctrine on Purgatory and on some other important points. A very few years afterwards, without making the smallest attempt to answer their own arguments, these men went over to Rome, and bound themselves to believe and teach as true things which they had themselves proved to be false. The accounts which those who, went over in that movement gave of their reasons for the change show surprising indifference to the ordinary topics of the controversy, and in some cases leave us only obscurely to discern why they went at all. It was natural that many who witnessed the sudden collapse of the resistance which had been offered to Roman Catholic teaching should conclude that it had been a sham fight all along; but this was unjust. It rather resembled what not infrequently occurs in the annals of warfare when, after entrenchments have been long and obstinately assaulted without success, some great general has taken up a position which has caused them to be evacuated without a struggle.
While the writers of the Tracts were assailing with success different points of Roman teaching, they allowed themselves to be persuaded that Christ must have provided His people with some infallible guide to truth; and they accepted the Church of Rome as that guide, with scarcely an attempt to make a careful scrutiny of the grounds of her pretensions, and merely because, if she were not that guide, they knew not where else to find it. Thus, when they were beaten on the one question of Infallibility, their victories on other points availed them nothing.
Perhaps those who then submitted to the Church of Rome scarcely realised all that was meant in their profession of faith in their new guide. They may have thought it meant no more than belief that everything the Church of Rome then taught was infallibly true. Events soon taught them that it meant besides that they must believe everything that that Church might afterwards teach; and her subsequent teaching put so great a strain on the faith of the new converts, that in a few cases it was more than it could bear.
The idea that the doctrine of the Church of Rome is always the same is one which no one of the present day can hold without putting an enormous strain on his understanding. It used to be the boast of Romish advocates that the teaching of their Church was unchangeable. Heretics, they used to say, show by their perpetual alterations that they never have had hold of the truth. They move the ancient landmarks without themselves foreseeing whither their new principles will lead them; and so after a while, discovering their position to be untenable, they vainly try by constant changes to reduce their system to some semblance of consistency. Our Church, on the contrary, they said, ever teaches the same doctrine which has been handed down from the Apostles, and has since been taught 'everywhere, always, and by all.' Divines of our Church used to expose the falsity of this boast by comparing the doctrine now taught in the Church of Rome with that taught in the Church of early times, and thus established by historical proof that a change had occurred. But now the matter has been much simplified; for no laborious proof is necessary to show that that is not unchangeable which has changed under our very eyes. The rate of change is not like that of the hour-hand of a watch, which you must note at some considerable intervals of time in order to see that there has been a movement, but rather like that of the second-hand, which you can actually see moving.
The first trial of the faith of the new converts was the definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, in 1854, when a doctrine was declared to be the universal ancient tradition of the Church, on which eminent divines had notoriously held different opinions; so much so, that this diversity had been accounted for by Bishop Milner and other controversialists by the assertion that neither Scripture nor tradition contained anything on the subject.
The manner of that decree, intended to bind the universal Church, was remarkable. It was not a vote of a council. Bishops, indeed, had been previously consulted, and bishops were assembled to hear the decision; but the decision rested on the authority of the Pope alone. It was correctly foreseen that what was then clone was intended to establish a precedent. I remember then how the news came that the Pope proposed to assemble a council, and how those who had the best right to know predicted that this council was to terminate the long controversy as to the relative superiority of Popes and councils, by owning the personal infallibility of the Pope, and so making it unnecessary that any future council should be held. This announcement created the greatest ferment in the Roman Catholic Church; and those who passed for the men of highest learning in that communion, and who had been wont to be most relied on, when learned Protestants were to be combated, opposed with all their might the contemplated definition, as an entire innovation on the traditional teaching of the Church, and as absolutely contradicted by the facts of history. These views were shared by Dr. Newman. His own inclinations had not favoured any extravagant cult of the Virgin Mary, and he was too well acquainted with Church History not to know that the doctrine of her Immaculate Conception was a complete novelty, unknown to early times, and, when first put forward, condemned by some of the most esteemed teachers of the Church. But when the Pope formally promulgated that doctrine as part of the essential faith of the Church, he had submitted in silence. When, however, it was proposed to declare the Pope's personal infallibility, this was a doctrine so directly in the teeth of history, that Newman made no secret of his persuasion that the authoritative adoption of it would be attended with ruinous consequences to his Church, by placing what seemed an insuperable obstacle to any man of learning entering her fold. He wrote in passionate alarm to an English Roman Catholic Bishop (Ullathorne): 'Why,' he said, 'should an aggressive insolent faction be allowed "to make the heart of the just sad, whom the Lord hath not made sorrowful"? Why cannot we be let alone when we have pursued peace and thought no evil? I assure you, my Lord, some of the truest minds are driven one way and another, and do not know where to rest their feet one day determining to give up all theology as a bad job, and recklessly to believe henceforth almost that the Pope is impeccable, at another tempted to believe all the worst which a book like Janus says:—Then, again, think of the store of Pontifical scandals in the history of eighteen centuries, which have partly been poured forth and partly are still to come... And then, again, the blight which is falling upon the multitude of Anglican ritualists, &c., who themselves perhaps—at least their leaders—may, never become Catholics, but who are leavening the various English denominations and parties far beyond their own range, with principles and sentiments tending towards their ultimate absorption with the Catholic Church. With these thoughts ever before me, I am continually asking myself whether I ought not to make my feelings public: but all I do is to pray those early doctors of the Church, whose intercession would decide the matter (Augustine, Ambrose, and Jerome, Athanasius, Chrysostom, and Basil), to avert this great calamity. If it is God's will that the Pope's infallibility be defined, then it is God's will to throw back the "times and moments" of that triumph which He has destined for His kingdom; and I shall feel that I have but to bow my head to His adorable inscrutable Providence.'[1]
Abundant proof that the new dogma had, until then, been no part of the faith of the Church, was furnished by yon Dollinger at the time deservedly reputed to be the most learned man in the Roman communion, and amongst others by two Munich professors, who, under the name of Janus, published a work containing a mass of historical proofs of the novelty of the proposed decree. These arguments were urged by able bishops at the Vatican Council itself. But the Pope carried out his project in the teeth of historical demonstration. A few of the most learned of the protesters against the new dogma refused to recognize the doctrine thus defined as themselves 'Old Catholics.' But the bulk of the people had no inclination to trouble themselves with historical investigations, and accepted, without inquiry, what their rulers were pleased to offer them; and a number of the eminent men, who had not only denied the truth of the new dogma, but had proved its falsity to the satisfaction of every reasoning man, finding no other choice open to them, unless they abandoned every theory as to the infallibility of the Church which they had previously maintained, and unless they joined a schism which, as was foreseen at the time, and as the event proved, would be insignificant in numbers, preferred to eat their words, and to profess faith in what it is difficult to understand how they could in their hearts have had any real belief.
I own, the first impression produced by this history is one of discouragement. It seems hopeless to waste research or argument on men who have shown themselves determined not to be convinced. What hope is there that argument of mine can convince men who are not convinced by their own arguments? As long as there was a chance of saving their Church from committing herself to a decision in the teeth of history, they struggled to avert the calamity; showing by irrefragable arguments that the early Church never regarded the Pope to be infallible, and that different Popes had made decisions glaringly false. But having clearly shown that black was not white, no sooner had authority declared that it was, than they professed themselves ready to believe it.
But though it is, on the first view, disappointing that our adversaries should withdraw themselves into a position seemingly inaccessible to argument, it is really, as I shall presently show, a mark of our success that they have been driven from the open field, and forced to betake themselves into this fortress. And we have every encouragement to follow them, and assault their citadel, which is now their last refuge.
In other words, it has now become more clear than ever that the whole Roman Catholic controversy turns on the decision of the one question the Infallibility of the Church. We have just seen how the admission of this principle can force men to surrender their most deep-rooted beliefs, which they had maintained with the greatest heat, and to the assertion of which they had committed themselves most strongly. They surrendered these beliefs solely in deference to external authority, though themselves unable to see any flaw in the arguments which had persuaded them of the truth of them. And I must say that, in making this surrender, they were better and more consistent Roman Catholics than von Dollinger and his friends, who refused to eat their words and turn their back on their own arguments. For all their lives long they had condemned the exercise of private judgment, and had insisted on the necessity of submitting to the authority of the Church. Now, if you accept the Church's teaching just so long as it agrees with what you, on other grounds, persuade yourselves to be true, and reject it as soon as it differs from your own judgment, that is not real submission to the authority of the Church. You do not take a man as a guide, though you may be travelling along a road in his company, if you are willing to part company if he should make a turn of which you disapprove. It matters not what Romish doctrines the German Old Catholic party may continue to hold. They may believe Transubstantiation, Purgatory, Invocation of Saints, and more. But from the moment they ventured to use their reason, and reject a dogma propounded to them by their Church, they were really Protestants; they had adopted the great principle of Protestantism. And so, at the time of the formation of the Old Catholic party, I expressed my fears in a lecture here that its members would be able to find no home in the Roman Church. My fears, I say, for I count it a thing to be regretted that that Church, by casting out her most learned and most enlightened members, should lose all chance of recovering the truth by reform from within.
If, however, there could ever be a case where men should be constrained by a reductio ad absurdum to abandon a principle they had held, but which had been shown to lead to consequences certainly false, it was when the men of the Old Catholic party found that if they were to go on maintaining the infallibility of their Church, they must also assert that she had never changed her doctrine. If, previous to the Vatican Council, the Church of Rome had known the doctrine of the Pope's personal infallibility to be true, she had, somehow or another, so neglected to teach it, that though it is a doctrine relating to the very foundation of her religious system, her priests and bishops had been ignorant that it was any part of her teaching. The Infallibilist party at Rome had been obliged, at an early stage of their exertions, to get placed on the Prohibitory Index, Bailly's work on Theology, which had been used as a text-book at Maynooth. Would not any Roman Catholic say that the Church of Ireland had changed her doctrine if the text-books which you use here were not only removed from your course, but if the Irish bishops published a declaration that these books, in which their predecessors had been wont to examine candidates for orders, contained erroneous doctrine, and were on that account unfit to be read by our people?
Again, the effect of the Vatican Council was to necessitate great changes in controversial catechisms. One might think that the clergymen who might be supposed best acquainted with the doctrines of their Church are those who are selected to conduct controversy with opponents. In our Church, indeed, anyone may engage in controversy at his own discretion, and need not necessarily be the most learned or wisest of our body; but the controversial catechisms of the Roman Church are only issued with the permission of the writer's superiors, and therefore their statements as to Roman Catholic doctrine may be supposed to tell what the best informed members of the communion believe that she teaches. Now, it had been a common practice with Roman Catholic controversial writers, when pressed with objections against the doctrine of the personal infallibility of the Pope, to repudiate that doctrine altogether, and to declare it to be a protestant misrepresentation to assert that it was taught by their Church.
I may afterwards have occasion to say something about books which circulated in America, but will now mention one to which my own attention happened to be specially drawn. The controversial book which, thirty years ago, was most relied on in this country was 'Keenan's Catechism,' a book published with the imprimatur of Scotch Roman Catholic bishops, and recommended also by Irish prelates. This book contained the following question and answer:—
'Q. Must not Catholics believe the Pope in himself to be infallible?
'A. This is a Protestant intention: it is no article of the Catholic faith: no decision of his can oblige, under pain of heresy, unless it be received and enforced by the teaching body; that is, by the bishops of the Church.'
About 1869 or 1870 I had a visit from an English clergyman, who, for reasons of health, resided chiefly on the Continent, and, mixing much with Roman Catholics, took great interest in the controversy which was then agitating their Church. I showed him the question and answer in 'Keenan's Catechism'; and he was so much interested by them, that he bought some copies of the book to present to his friends abroad. A couple of years later he visited Ireland again, and purchased some more copies of 'Keenan'; but this question and answer had then disappeared. He presented me then with the two copies I have here. To all appearance they are identical in their contents. From the title-page, as it appears on the paper cover of each, the two books appear to be both of the twenty-first thousand; but when we open the books, we find them further agreeing in the singular feature, that there is another title-page which describes each as of the twenty-fourth thousand. But at page 112 the question and answer which I have quoted are to be found in the one book, and are absent from the other. It is, therefore, impossible now to maintain that the faith of the Church of Rome never changes, when it is notorious that there is something which is now part of her faith which those who had a good right to know declared was no part of her faith twenty years ago.[2]
I will not delay to speak of many changes in Roman teaching consequent on the definition of Papal Infallibility; but you eau easily understand that there are a great many statements officially made by several Popes which, inasmuch as they rested on Papal authority alone, learned Roman Catholics had formerly thought themselves at liberty to reject, but which must now be accepted as articles of faith. But what I wish now to speak of is, that the forced confession of change, at least by way of addition, in Roman teaching has necessitated a surrender of the principles on which her system had formerly been defended; and this was what I had specially in mind when I spoke of the fortress of Infallibility as the last refuge of a beaten army, who, when driven from this, must fall into total rout. ..."
Do you understand?
I do. All of it, just as I understand what in Salmon's era was called the "Romish" side of the arguments.
None of it is impenetrable, at all.
By which I mean, it seemed as if you were attempted to instruct me as to the finer points of the doctrine(s).
Do you have any idea now just who you may be talking to?
As the modern slang would put it -- this ain't my first rodeo.
Salmon cooked your(?) goose...
For further reading and edification of those who would care to better understand the "Protestant" positions which they may desire to in some manner oppose -- thus saving everyone a lot of time and effort in hopes of avoiding needlessly covering grounds already well enough addressed, going back a ways in time there are early Anglicans which bear some study.
One link to start thing off;
contains some information on John Jewel (1522-1571), bishop and first Anglican apologist ("first Anglican apologist", as Richard Hooker is attributed to having called him).Hooker also can bear some amount of investigation. His written works much established and defined sense of Anglican church "polity" as he termed it.
Please read Jewel in his own words, extracts of those found italicized in the lower potions of the link/page.
Here another link which document much or most(?) of the controversial correspondence between Jewel and Cole, and Jewel and Harding ---http://archive.org/stream/03565760.1100.emory.edu/03565760_1100_djvu.txt JOHN JEWEL, BISHOP Of SALISBURY. THE FIRST PORTION, CONTAINING, A SERMON PREACHED AT PAUL'S CROSS. CORRESPONDENCE WITH DR COLE. THE REPLY TO HARDING'S ANSWER
Didn't hang out on FR religion forum much did he?
Anyhoo.....
you're wrong.
:)
The papacy and its unique authority can be traced back to Jesus.
You may notice some similarity in these verses.
Isaiah 22:22The "key of David" was an oversized key that the vice-regent of the House of David kept in a pouch worn around his neck. The key represented the vice-regent's plenary authority in the king's absence.I will place on his shoulder the key to the house of David; what he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open.
Rev. 3:7
"These are the words of him who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open."
Matthew 16:19
"I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."
The key and the office that it represents is referenced in Isaiah 22, where we see the key and office being transferred from Shebna to Eliakim.
Isaiah 22In Rev. 3:7, we see that Jesus, He "who is holy and true," is the King of the eternal Davidic kingdom, since he "holds the key of David."“Go, say to this steward,
to Shebna the palace administrator:
What are you doing here and who gave you permission
to cut out a grave for yourself here,
hewing your grave on the height
and chiseling your resting place in the rock?
“Beware, the Lord is about to take firm hold of you
and hurl you away, you mighty man.
He will roll you up tightly like a ball
and throw you into a large country.
There you will die
and there the chariots you were so proud of
will become a disgrace to your master’s house.
I will depose you from your office,
and you will be ousted from your position.
“In that day I will summon my servant, Eliakim son of Hilkiah. I will clothe him with your robe and fasten your sash around him and hand your authority over to him. He will be a father to those who live in Jerusalem and to the people of Judah. I will place on his shoulder the key to the house of David; what he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open.
In Matthew 16:19, we see Jesus giving the Key(s) of the Kingdom to Peter. Peter becomes the representative or "vicar" of Christ, in the King's earthly absence.
Just as Eliakim became "a father to those who live in Jerusalem and to the people of Judah," Peter became a father (papa/pope) to the people of God.
We know that Peter's unique position as "vicar of Christ" is an "office" because of Isaiah 22, Matthew 16:19, Acts 1:15-26, and the historical record.
___
St. Irenaeus"The blessed apostles [Peter and Paul], having founded and built up the church [of Rome] . . . handed over the office of the episcopate to Linus" (Against Heresies 3:3:3 [A.D. 189]).
Tertullian
"[T]his is the way in which the apostolic churches transmit their lists: like the church of the Smyrneans, which records that Polycarp was placed there by John, like the church of the Romans, where Clement was ordained by Peter" (Demurrer Against the Heretics 32:2 [A.D. 200]).
The Little Labyrinth
"Victor . . . was the thirteenth bishop of Rome from Peter" (The Little Labyrinth [A.D. 211], in Eusebius, Church History 5:28:3).
Cyprian of Carthage
"The Lord says to Peter: ‘I say to you,’ he says, ‘that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not overcome it. . . . ’ [Matt. 16:18]. On him [Peter] he builds the Church, and to him he gives the command to feed the sheep [John 21:17], and although he assigns a like power to all the apostles, yet he founded a single chair [cathedra], and he established by his own authority a source and an intrinsic reason for that unity. . . . If someone [today] does not hold fast to this unity of Peter, can he imagine that he still holds the faith? If he [should] desert the chair of Peter upon whom the Church was built, can he still be confident that he is in the Church?" (The Unity of the Catholic Church 4; first edition [A.D. 251]).
"Cornelius was made bishop by the decision of God and of his Christ, by the testimony of almost all the clergy, by the applause of the people then present, by the college of venerable priests and good men, at a time when no one had been made [bishop] before him—when the place of [Pope] Fabian, which is the place of Peter, the dignity of the sacerdotal chair, was vacant. Since it has been occupied both at the will of God and with the ratified consent of all of us, whoever now wishes to become bishop must do so outside. For he cannot have ecclesiastical rank who does not hold to the unity of the Church" (Letters 55:[52]):8 [A.D. 253]).
"With a false bishop appointed for themselves by heretics, they dare even to set sail and carry letters from schismatics and blasphemers to the chair of Peter and to the principal church [at Rome], in which sacerdotal unity has its source" (ibid., 59:14).
Eusebius of Caesarea
"Paul testifies that Crescens was sent to Gaul [2 Tim. 4:10], but Linus, whom he mentions in the Second Epistle to Timothy [2 Tim. 4:21] as his companion at Rome, was Peter’s successor in the episcopate of the church there, as has already been shown. Clement also, who was appointed third bishop of the church at Rome, was, as Paul testifies, his co-laborer and fellow-soldier [Phil. 4:3]" (Church History 3:4:9–10 [A.D. 312]).
Pope Julius I
"[The] judgment [against Athanasius] ought to have been made, not as it was, but according to the ecclesiastical canon. . . . Are you ignorant that the custom has been to write first to us and then for a just decision to be passed from this place [Rome]? If, then, any such suspicion rested upon the bishop there [Athanasius of Alexandria], notice of it ought to have been written to the church here. But now, after having done as they pleased, they want to obtain our concurrence, although we never condemned him. Not thus are the constitutions of Paul, not thus the traditions of the Fathers. This is another form of procedure, and a novel practice. . . . What I write about this is for the common good. For what we have heard from the blessed apostle Peter, these things I signify to you" (Letter on Behalf of Athanasius [A.D. 341], contained in Athanasius, Apology Against the Arians 20–35).
Council of Sardica
"[I]f any bishop loses the judgment in some case [decided by his fellow bishops] and still believes that he has not a bad but a good case, in order that the case may be judged anew . . . let us honor the memory of the apostle Peter by having those who have given the judgment write to Julius, bishop of Rome, so that if it seem proper he may himself send arbiters and the judgment may be made again by the bishops of a neighboring province" (Canon 3 [A.D. 342]).
Optatus
"You cannot deny that you are aware that in the city of Rome the episcopal chair was given first to Peter; the chair in which Peter sat, the same who was head—that is why he is also called Cephas [‘Rock’]—of all the apostles; the one chair in which unity is maintained by all" (The Schism of the Donatists 2:2 [A.D. 367]).
Epiphanius of Salamis
"At Rome the first apostles and bishops were Peter and Paul, then Linus, then Cletus, then Clement, the contemporary of Peter and Paul" (Medicine Chest Against All Heresies 27:6 [A.D. 375]).
Pope Damasus I
"Likewise it is decreed: . . . [W]e have considered that it ought to be announced that . . . the holy Roman Church has been placed at the forefront not by the conciliar decisions of other churches, but has received the primacy by the evangelic voice of our Lord and Savior, who says: ‘You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it; and I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you shall have bound on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you shall have loosed on earth shall be loosed in heaven’ [Matt. 16:18–19]. The first see [today], therefore, is that of Peter the apostle, that of the Roman Church, which has neither stain nor blemish nor anything like it" (Decree of Damasus 3 [A.D. 382]).
St. Jerome
"[Pope] Stephen . . . was the blessed Peter’s twenty-second successor in the See of Rome" (Against the Luciferians 23 [A.D. 383]).
"Clement, of whom the apostle Paul writing to the Philippians says ‘With Clement and others of my fellow-workers whose names are written in the book of life,’ the fourth bishop of Rome after Peter, if indeed the second was Linus and the third Anacletus, although most of the Latins think that Clement was second after the apostle" (Lives of Illustrious Men 15 [A.D. 396]).
"Since the East, shattered as it is by the long-standing feuds, subsisting between its peoples, is bit by bit tearing into shreds the seamless vest of the Lord . . . I think it my duty to consult the chair of Peter, and to turn to a church [Rome] whose faith has been praised by Paul [Rom. 1:8]. I appeal for spiritual food to the church whence I have received the garb of Christ. . . . Evil children have squandered their patrimony; you alone keep your heritage intact" (Letters 15:1 [A.D. 396]).
... "I follow no leader but Christ and join in communion with none but your blessedness [Pope Damasus I], that is, with the chair of Peter. I know that this is the rock on which the Church has been built. Whoever eats the Lamb outside this house is profane. Anyone who is not in the ark of Noah will perish when the flood prevails" (ibid., 15:2).
"The church here is split into three parts, each eager to seize me for its own. . . . Meanwhile I keep crying, ‘He that is joined to the chair of Peter is accepted by me!’ . . . Therefore, I implore your blessedness [Pope Damasus I] . . . tell me by letter with whom it is that I should communicate in Syria" (ibid., 16:2).
Ambrose of Milan
"[T]hey [the Novatian heretics] have not the succession of Peter, who hold not the chair of Peter, which they rend by wicked schism; and this, too, they do, wickedly denying that sins can be forgiven [by the sacrament of confession] even in the Church, whereas it was said to Peter: ‘I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven, and whatsoever thou shall loose on earth shall be loosed also in heaven’[Matt. 16:19]" (Penance 1:7:33 [A.D. 388]).
St. Augustine
"If all men throughout the world were such as you most vainly accuse them of having been, what has the chair of the Roman church done to you, in which Peter sat, and in which Anastasius sits today?" (Against the Letters of Petilani 2:118 [A.D. 402]).
"If the very order of episcopal succession is to be considered, how much more surely, truly, and safely do we number them from Peter himself, to whom, as to one representing the whole Church, the Lord said, ‘Upon this rock I will build my Church’ . . . [Matt. 16:18]. Peter was succeeded by Linus, Linus by Clement, Clement by Anacletus, Anacletus by Evaristus . . . " (Letters 53:1:2 [A.D. 412]).
Council of Ephesus
"Philip the presbyter and legate of the Apostolic See said: ‘There is no doubt, and in fact it has been known in all ages, that the holy and most blessed Peter, prince and head of the apostles, pillar of the faith, and foundation of the Catholic Church, received the keys of the kingdom from our Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior and Redeemer of the human race, and that to him was given the power of loosing and binding sins: who down even to today and forever both lives and judges in his successors. The holy and most blessed pope Celestine, according to due order, is his successor and holds his place, and us he sent to supply his place in this holy synod’" (Acts of the Council, session 3 [A.D. 431]).
Pope Leo I
"As for the resolution of the bishops which is contrary to the Nicene decree, in union with your faithful piety, I declare it to be invalid and annul it by the authority of the holy apostle Peter" (Letters 110 [A.D. 445]).
"Whereupon the blessed Peter, as inspired by God, and about to benefit all nations by his confession, said, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ Not undeservedly, therefore, was he pronounced blessed by the Lord, and derived from the original Rock that solidity which belonged both to his virtue and to his name [Peter]" (The Tome of Leo [A.D. 449]).
Peter Chrysologus
"We exhort you in every respect, honorable brother, to heed obediently what has been written by the most blessed pope of the city of Rome, for blessed Peter, who lives and presides in his own see, provides the truth of faith to those who seek it. For we, by reason of our pursuit of peace and faith, cannot try cases on the faith without the consent of the bishop of Rome" (Letters 25:2 [A.D. 449]).
Council of Chalcedon
"After the reading of the foregoing epistle [The Tome of Leo], the most reverend bishops cried out: ‘This is the faith of the fathers! This is the faith of the apostles! So we all believe! Thus the orthodox believe! Anathema to him who does not thus believe! Peter has spoken thus through Leo! . . . This is the true faith! Those of us who are orthodox thus believe! This is the faith of the Fathers!’" (Acts of the Council, session 2 [A.D. 451]).
The papal infallibility portion was not part of what those of Rome believed, just as Salmon laid it out -- and showed proofs for in his own day, which covered the before and after 1870
There are plenty of OTHER evidences, including partristics which dispute that things are the way you seem to be attempting portray them.
In fact, your whole presentation here is rather intellectually dishonest.
Even in the Church of Rome when the dogmatic proclamation came in 1870 -- men such as Dollinger, one of the most preeminent historians and authorities on early partristics of his time -- headed for the exits.
The cherry-picked stuff which you obviously must have lifted copy/paste from some Romanist apologetics page, doesn't always do as it may appear to do in the eyes of those who already have their minds made up that even singular "papacy" for the church at Rome was existent the beginning (not to mention "infallibility").
According to quite many modern-day, respectable (in scholarly sense) Roman Catholic historians, there was no such thing in the first few centuries as Papacy, as that eventually developed into being.
I could pick apart your presentation, going through it in detail, such as the citing of Matthew 16 ignores Matthew chapter 18 --- which left things to be that in the earliest centuries no one in the early church saw anything like Papal Supremacy singularly for the bishop of Rome, (well, other than a few of those at Rome who made early grabs for it...eventually getting it).
To this day, those of the East are able to make the case that they never accepted the concept --so cannot be faulted for not accepting it now.
Grabbing at some of the rest of it rather at random---
Things like the cite from Peter Chrysologus
neglects to mention that he was under the patriarchate of the bishop of Rome. It stands also to be noted that the notion of patriarchates itself was something of a development.
I notice too that the quotations from Cyprian are shot through with ellipses.
In other instances that man can be plainly read to have been opposed to the "bishop of bishops" idea be attributed to Rome, or anywhere else. And he was not alone in that. Even a Pope (Gregory) was against the very idea in one of his own early letters, but can be mistakenly seen as supporting the bishop of bishops, Universal bishop idea years later, when what he is doing in those letters chiefly, is writing to those of his own patriarchate.
The phrase attributed to Cyprian "where sarcedotal unity has it's source" does not mean that such unity is still reliant singularly upon that source or geographical location, but as Cyprian mentioned when speaking of the boldness of those he perceived as heretics -- they would be so bold as to go even to that large city, instead of hanging around in far-off locations --distant from what was then the old center of Roman Empire, and had a history of being the most noteworthy one of more than a few 'central locations'. That does not mean or guarantee that such concepts as infallibility were then -- or more importantly -- would into perpetuity be attributed to the Church at Rome.
Singular doctrinal perfection and true authority is not a thing inheritable simply for the sake of being in office, particularly when claim to that authority is portrayed as unquestionable and unassailable -- or in other words -- infallible.
Abundant proof that the new dogma had, until then, been no part of the faith of the Church, was furnished by yon Dollinger at the time deservedly reputed to be the most learned man in the Roman communion, and amongst others by two Munich professors, who, under the name of Janus, published a work containing a mass of historical proofs of the novelty of the proposed decree.
In his dissent, Dollinger summed up what papal infalliblity made the pope into:
“The Pope’s authority is unlimited, incalculable; it can strike, as Innocent III says, wherever sin is; it can punish every one; it allows no appeal and is itself Sovereign Caprice; for the Pope carries, according to the expression of Boniface VIII, all rights in the Shrine of his breast. As he has now become infallible, he can by the use of the little word, 'orbi,' (which means that he turns himself round to the whole Church) make every rule, every doctrine, every demand, into a certain and incontestable article of Faith. No right can stand against him, no personal or corporate liberty; or as the Canonists put it -- 'The tribunal of God and of the pope is one and the same.'” - Ignaz von Dollinger, in “A Letter Addressed to the Archbishop of Munich”, 1871 (quoted in The Acton Newman Relations (Fordham University Press), by MacDougall, pp. 119 120
I may afterwards have occasion to say something about books which circulated in America, but will now mention one to which my own attention happened to be specially drawn. The controversial book which, thirty years ago, was most relied on in this country was 'Keenan's Catechism,' a book published with the imprimatur of Scotch Roman Catholic bishops, and recommended also by Irish prelates. This book contained the following question and answer:—
'A. This is a Protestant intention: it is no article of the Catholic faith: no decision of his can oblige, under pain of heresy, unless it be received and enforced by the teaching body; that is, by the bishops of the Church.' About 1869 or 1870 I had a visit from an English clergyman, who,.. bought some copies of the book to present to his friends abroad. A couple of years later he visited Ireland again, and purchased some more copies of 'Keenan'; but this question and answer had then disappeared. 'Q. Must not Catholics believe the Pope in himself to be infallible?
From WP:
...before 1870, belief in papal infallibility was not a defined requirement of Catholic faith. The Church therefore accepted the oath required of Catholics in Ireland from 1793 for admittance to certain positions and stated that, "It is not an article of the Catholic Faith, neither am I thereby required to believe or profess that the Pope is infallible."[82] The Irish bishops repeated their acceptance in a 25 January 1826 pastoral address to the Catholic clergy and laity in Ireland, stating: "The Catholics of Ireland not only do not believe, but they declare upon oath ... that it is not an article of the Catholic faith, neither are they required to believe, that the Pope is infallible, and that they do not hold themselves 'bound to obey any order in its own nature immoral', though the Pope or any ecclesiastical power should issue or direct such an order; but, on the contrary, that it would be sinful in them to pay any respect or obedience thereto."[84][85]
In the Declaration and Protestation signed by the English Catholic Dissenters in 1789, the year of the French Revolution,[86] the signatories state:[87]
We have also been accused of holding, as a Principle of our Religion, That implicit Obedience is due from us to the Orders and Decrees of Popes and General Councils; and that therefore if the Pope, or any General Council, should, for the Good of the Church, command us to take up Arms against the Government, or by any means to subvert the Laws and Liberties of this Country, or to exterminate Persons of a different Persuasion from us, we (it is asserted by our Accusers) hold ourselves bound to obey such Orders or Decrees, on pain of eternal Fire:
Whereas we positively deny, That we owe any such Obedience to the Pope and General Council, or to either of them; and we believe that no Act that is in itself immoral or dishonest can ever be justified by or under Colour that it is done either for the Good of the Church, or in Obedience to any ecclesiastical Power whatever. We acknowledge no Infallibility in the Pope, and we neither apprehend nor believe, that our Disobedience to any such Orders or Decrees (should any such be given or made) could subject us to any Punishment whatever.
Sparrow-Simpson remarked that, "All works reprinted since 1870 have been altered into conformity with Vatican ideas. In some cases the process of reducing to conformity was begun at an earlier date. It is therefore with works printed before 1870 that we are now concerned." He therefore cites editions prior to that date.[88]
In his theological works published in 1829, Professor Delahogue asserted that the doctrine that the Roman Pontiff, even when he speaks ex cathedra, is possessed of the gift of inerrancy or is superior to General Councils may be denied without loss of faith or risk of heresy or schism.[89]
In his 1829 study On the Church, Delahogue stated: "Ultramontane theologians attribute infallibility to the Bishop of Rome considered in this aspect and when he speaks, as the saying is, ex cathedra. This is denied by others, in particular by Gallicans."[90]
The 1830 edition of Berrington and Kirk's Faith of Catholics stated: "Papal definitions or decrees, in whatever form pronounced, taken exclusively from a General Council or acceptance of the Church, oblige no one under pain of heresy to an interior assent."[88]
The 1860 edition of Keenan's Catechism in use in Catholic schools in England, Scotland and Wales attributed to Protestants the idea that Catholics were obliged to believe in papal infallibility:
Sparrow-Simpson quotes also from the 1895 revision:
In 1861, Professor Murray of the major Irish Catholic seminary of Maynooth wrote that those who genuinely deny the infallibility of the pope "are by no means or only in the least degree (unless indeed some other ground be shown) to be considered alien from the Catholic Faith."[92]
Critical works such as Roman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility (1909) by W. J. Sparrow-Simpson have thus documented opposition to the definition of the dogma during the First Vatican Council even by those who believed in its teaching but felt that defining it was not opportune.[93]
Following the 1869–1870 First Vatican Council, dissent arose among a few Catholics, almost exclusively German, Austrian, and Swiss, over the definition of papal infallibility. The dissenters, while holding the General Councils of the Church infallible, were unwilling to accept the dogma of papal infallibility, and thus a schism arose between them and the Church, resulting in the formation of communities in schism with Rome, which became known as the Old Catholic Churches. The vast majority of Catholics accepted the definition.[94]
Before the First Vatican Council, John Henry Newman, while personally convinced, as a matter of theological opinion, of papal infallibility, opposed its definition as dogma, fearing that the definition might be expressed in over-broad terms open to misunderstanding. He was pleased with the moderate tone of the actual definition, which "affirmed the pope's infallibility only within a strictly limited province: the doctrine of faith and morals initially given to the apostolic Church and handed down in Scripture and tradition."[94]
Catholic priest August Bernhard Hasler (d. 3 July 1980) wrote a detailed analysis of the First Vatican Council, presenting the passage of the infallibility definition as orchestrated.[58] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_infallibility#Denial_by_Catholics
As said, Rome has presumed to infallibly declare she is and will be perpetually infallible whenever she speaks in accordance with her infallibly defined (scope and subject-based) formula, which renders her declaration that she is infallible, to be infallible, as well as all else she accordingly declares.
Yet both men and writings of God were recognized and established as being so, and Truth and faith passed on and preserved, and magisterial authority (conditionally) upheld, and the church birthed, without a perpetual infallible magisterium of men, which Scripture nowhere examples or promises or necessitates.
You were the one who brought the comparison!
Yes, the comparison, or more accurately, the analogy.
So now you agree that the comparison is not necessarily all that helpful?
No, it is extremely helpful and quite accurate, if one is able to understand things analogically. However, to use an analogy is still to speak only of that of which it is held to be an analogue. We were not speaking of Mozart and math, but rather of your failure to understand that relation and "overlap" does not equate to being able to take anything one says about one idea and then argue it as a support or proof of the related or overlapping concept. This is what you have done regarding infallibility.
A pope speaks of the authority of the papacy, and you stretch that into some idea of a much broadened dogma of infallibility with the recourse that authority and infallibility must "overlap" in some conceptual way. Nope. Wrong. Popes are always authoritative, but are rarely infallible. Conceptual overlap means nothing in regards to applying this specific speaker's words, just as it would mean nothing if one used the same position to try to apply the words of Mozart on, say, symphonies to an argument of algebra. Conceptual overlap does not change the purpose and meaning of an author's intent when they write something about a topic. And therein lies the accuracy and usefulness of the analogy.
And, by the way, I am still not talking about Mozart and math, just in case you are confused again.
This type of thing, though part and parcel of how the issue is frequently spoken of by apologists of Rome;
is patently illogical, for there must be overlap at least when what is perceived to be "infallible" is "authoritatively" proclaimed.
As I have shown, and as you also indicate, what they say (when speaking towards faith and morals, of course, according to RC theology) must be believed, taken as 'authoritative' as that has been put.
If not infallibly true -- then what? A person can second guess what they have been told, and take it to mean whatever they best think or understand it to mean, or how it may best fit into overall framework of understanding.
Uh, huh. So-called "Protestants" can do the same evaluating in regards to that which they are told in their own congregational and educational settings also.
What did the Apostle Paul write concerning this sort of thing? Do you recall? Here are two portions which can and do fairly well interact with one another, the written word confirming and establishing itself;
From Acts 17
2 Then Paul, as his custom was, went in to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures, 3 explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ.”
... 10 Then the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. When they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. 11 These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so.
And from Galatians 1
6 I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, 7 which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.10 For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ.
In spite of what such scriptures can help reveal to us, you say;
That slip-slides towards being a form of double-talk.
The real test is -- does what they say agree with the scriptures, in both spirit and truth.
One must submit that all to Spirit also -- yet one does need be acquainted with and yielded to the Spirit of the Lord in order to best do so.
It is you who confuses yourself, following the confusion amid Roman Catholicism concerning it's own identity, and how such things as we are discussing are described to be.
Leave me out of the torturous pretzel logic, all the jumping through specialized hoops just so (saying just the 'right' words in order to control all dialogue) action which must be engaged in order to keep up appearances -- and retain hold on the fantasy of infallibility for the Church of Rome, for when speaking of concepts of infallibility -- focusing merely and only upon the "Papal" sort (and what is said about that) is something of a red herring/purposeful distraction -- to which you have here added additional insult of sorts, alleging I am confused, etc.
No -- I can see it all plain enough, for I can "see" many things -- and how those interact, and what the apparent results of all that activity have produced -- for both good -- AND ill.
...for there must be overlap at least when what is perceived to be "infallible" is "authoritatively" proclaimed.
Yes, there is overlap, but that doesn't mean that any teaching about authority is automatically applicable to infallibility. When a pope talks about authority as a concept, and generally, what he says is not automatically a teaching on infallibility specifically. As I have said, popes are always authoritative, but rarely infallible. What is said infallibly is therefore authoritative, but not all authoritative statements are also infallible. The statements you were quoting and applying to infallibility as a means of suggesting that popes are infallible more often than commonly thought (which by the way I don't actually deny as a concept) are simply not what you suggest. They were directed to the concept of authority generally, and not infallibility specifically except in one brief portion.
If not infallibly true -- then what? A person can second guess what they have been told, and take it to mean whatever they best think or understand it to mean, or how it may best fit into overall framework of understanding.
Popes say and teach a great deal, and most of the time they are no more protected by supernatural intervention than any pastor or churchman. When they preach homilies, or answer questions, or speak to people or give advice or whatever, then they are as subject to their skills and capabilities as anyone. If a pope misspeaks or gets facts wrong, and they have in the past, then we are free to know better. Errors are errors, regardless of the source. But, when pope's teach in formal ways about formally defined topics invoking specifically their infallible authority then we cannot freely doubt what they say is true.
Uh, huh. So-called "Protestants" can do the same evaluating in regards to that which they are told in their own congregational and educational settings also.
Yes, and it is myth that we don't have that same right in most instances. We simply cannot use our "consciences" to question de fide teachings, i.e. those things which are infallibly laid out by Holy Mother Church whether it be via a pope, council or Sacred Tradition. And, like our Protestant brethren, we too can doubt our often misinformed and misled parish pastors.
The real test is -- does what they say agree with the scriptures, in both spirit and truth.
Sorry, but this is something else entirely and involves questions of the legitimacy of Church authority at all, and that is just an argument which never ends. Either you accept it or your do not. As such I see no reason to enter into that morass of endless sniping.
I'm suggesting it?
It is not ME that [ahem] suggested the notion in the first place.
From;
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/audiences/alpha/data/aud19930317en.html entitled
Where from for sake of brevity, I'll bring again this central-to-the-concept paragraph;
For this reason the Second Vatican Council states that all the Pope's teaching should be listened to and accepted, even when it is not given ex cathedra but is proposed in the ordinary exercise of his Magisterium with the manifest intention of declaring, recalling and confirming the doctrine of faith. It is a consequence of the institutional fact and spiritual inheritance that completes the dimensions of the succession to Peter.
There, and all the rest which can be found in that document is where it is suggested there is large extent or degree of overlap.
Stop blaming ME for it -- as if I'm getting it wrong. Just because I refuse to submit also to this sort of thing being spoken of only in certain prescribed RC apologetic manner -- does not equate with myself being the one that was doing all the suggesting.
But then again, for a long time the RCC has been holding itself out to be infallible in the perogatives which it affords to itself, it's bishops and it's popes -- regardless of what may come about in the course of exercising those prerogatives.
So just excuse the sam-billy out of me for seeing things for what they are--- when the rubber meets the road --- instead of vainly clinging to the distinctions (some of which are truly enough there) which in end result allow the Church of Rome to have things both ways all at once and always.
They do excel at that type of duplicity.
There, and all the rest which can be found in that document is where it is suggested there is large extent or degree of overlap.
No, you are wrong, and simply demonstrate what I am saying. That document speaks of authority generally, and specifically cites infallibility only in a small part. You are taking the references to general authority and suggesting that it applies to infallibility. The document does not do this.
Stop blaming ME for it -- as if I'm getting it wrong.
I am not blaming anyone, and, yes, you are still wrong.
So just excuse the sam-billy out of me for seeing things for what they are--- when the rubber meets the road --- instead of vainly clinging to the distinctions (some of which are truly enough there) which in end result allow the Church of Rome to have things both ways all at once and always.
Oh, this is all just ridiculous. Nothing in that document, or any other, allows Rome to have anything "both ways all at once and always," whatever that even means. The Church, and the Pope, are infallible in certain carefully prescribed situations, and not in others. And, most importantly, I am quite certain you object to that as it is. It isn't like you agree that the pope was infallible in saying that any particular Catholic is a saint in heaven and is therefore worthy of a cult, or that our Lady was assumed into heaven or conceived immaculately. So I hardly see what you think we Catholics are pulling off by denying that the Holy Father is infallible when speaking to a reporter or giving some audience to some pilgrims (at which times he isn't, btw). Your implication that I am just trying to use some apologetics trick and have it both ways is therefore just silly.
Who IN THE WORLD is paying you ?????????????????????
All along in this -- I was aware you assumed that I was implying such as the above -- to have it apply to recent news and developments.
But I was not, which has made it to be that all along here I have been forced to labor against your own assumptions of what I said or meant -- instead of what I plainly enough did say.
Did I say he was claimed to be infallible when he was speaking to a reporter? No, I did not. And that's not the level I was speaking towards in all of this -- nor was I speaking merely of so-called infallibility as that concept is applied only to the bishop of the Church of Rome, but as that applies also to the so-called teaching magesterium.
To the extent you are understanding me, it comes across as being extremely shallow, as in continued assumption that I have but a shallow understanding. This extra shadow dimension to the conversation, having to deal with that which was assumed all along but was unsaid --- is as if it I was up against those unstated fears which where in your own mind -- not mine.
And what are the(shallow) roots of that, but now evidenced within your own words -- highlighted above -- which make it out to be I said or was intending to mean this alleged infallibility extended to off-the-cuff remarks?
There perhaps are some people who think like that -=-- and that type of thinking here of late has become something of a problem.
But I am not one of those people! PERIOD! So knock it off -- quit talking to me as if I was.
After all I have written to you about this issue, you would actually think I was insinuating that the so-called condition of "infallible" be extended to remarks to reporters? Really? I wouldn't even say that it extends as far as the hand-outs (proposals) given to bishops themselves (while they were assembled at the Vatican itself).
But that can be part of the way, that as George Salmon mentioned ---the hour hands can be seen to move.
For if not now, then when? Maybe...never? ...for this last lavender soft-soaping scrubdown, I mean.
But being that there will be something come of this latest Synod (they can't just leave it hanging, now) --- I would place my bets on there eventually being a Jesuitical taking all around and on the sides of the [ahem] issues. Signed by Francis -- but carefully written to avoid triggering canon lawyer "infallible" even while still selling the must bge believed -- as in this is the direction to take. Ah -- and the Jesuit types (who can write out of both hands and with that pencil that is stuck behind their ear all seemingly at the same time) will leave it to be a wishy-washy pronunciation (concerning swishes)...
Oh yes it does -- almost. Almost, because it bumps up against it, and THAT is where the "suggestive" elements are not my own, at all.
What part of "must be believed" as it occurs in that document -- with that condition not limited to "papal teaching" but extended generally to bishops also, and that being at all times backtracked to the "Pope" do you not understand?
The magisterial function of bishops, then, is strictly tied to that of the Roman Pontiff. Therefore, the conciliar text goes on aptly to say:"This religious submission of mind and will must be shown in a special way to the authentic Magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra; that is, it must be shown in such a way that his supreme Magisterium is acknowledged with reverence, the judgments made by him are sincerely adhered to, according to his manifest mind and will. His mind and will in the matter may be known either from the character of the documents, from his frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or from his manner of speaking" (LG 25)
A "special way". Well, isn't that special? "Judgements made by him are sincerely adhered to"<--- with that having come after stipulated exclusion of "ex cathedra". His mind and will...known from 'the character' of the documents (which is be-A-utifully Jesuitically vague, but quite leading, which is the point) "..from his frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or from his manner of speaking.
His manner of speaking..?
Pope da'Dope says "jump". You must say "how high?".
Was there mention there of any sort of room for doubt? Was there, like Paul wrote, anything like (I will here paraphrase/partial quote from memory;
Let me answer that for you.
There is not.
For methodology as to determination of room for doubt, and how those doubts may be best dealt with or expressed --- there is no "papal" instruction that I know of.
There are ways to possibly accomplish approaching issues (whatever those may be), but once it comes down to crunch time --- decisions have finality about them and can scarcely be revoked at all.
Right about now -- there is a big [small war?] dust-up going on, with one bishop having just stood up on his hind legs and said more or less -- "the Pope has to straighten this and these other things out!" regarding some preliminary discussion-documentation/proposal sort of thing.
Now I know better than to think a document of that sort is anything like approaching "infallible". BUT -- it WAS what was handed to the bishops to talk about. So just who is in charge here, we do wonder...
But all this while, I have been speaking not to or about the daily news (as you seem to think I have) but instead have been speaking towards these issues ---> put in general terms; the various assorted claims made by the Church of Rome, (A.K.A. the Roman Catholic Church) as to it own infallibility in teaching Magesterium.
For the statements and teachings of past times which conflict with later developments, the best one can do is ignore the past (portions of) decree and statements which run contrary to what later developed, or else make excuses for any statements which are now not only not supported -- but here and there some of the very ideas previously touched upon in official papal statements -- made while citing Peter and the Apostles, and that the teaching be on faith and morals, etc., in later times (like in recent past and presently) are much taught against in realm of present time ordinary magesterium. If that not be true ---- then the Spirit is not against burning [at the stake] those which Rome perceives to be "heretics"? A Pope did sign off on a statement to that effect. But today -- would anyone much in higher echelon "magesterium" dare to do anything but speak against such a ghastly spectacle and idea? You tell me.
Not only that one document I extracted from suggested some stretch of infallibility (done while scrupulously avoiding use of that buzzword) but the suggestion itself (often unstated but often also alluded to in myriad ways) is a general tenor and tone which runs throughout RC theology.
You may deny it all you wish, and persist in telling me how wrong I allegedly am -- but it is not myself who had hinted around and suggested this. I'm just pointing it out, that's all.
It is YOU who are confused here on the definition of the word "suggest".
You may argue until you are blue in the face all about how restricted the alleged "infallibility " is, as that concept is seen by many to apply to a Pope, but it is not still not myself who suggests differently, for as the one document did say -- must be believed with that generally applied to ordinary magesterium. It's all there in black and white.
I see you could not deny that. Is that why you insisted I intended to have that apply to comments made to reporters and the like?
You said, "this is ridiculous". I'll tell you what is ridiculous (or should I say pathetic) is that not being able to deny what I have brought to you -- then it was if words were put in my mouth.
Well sure. It is easy enough to tell another person what that other person meant or intended/implied, framing that in such a manner to be best convenient to be then defeated by one's own arguments and denials.
It's called a strawman. I saw it peeking out it's poofy head previously, but until now you didn't let it out. Well, you may as well burn it now. Need a match?
The suggestive such as I brought example for is but one of many locations where such things are written of in papal communications --- that is where the action really is. And the Church of Rome-- goes at that very sort of thing hammer and tongs, 24/7. Figuratively speaking...
You think I don't know this??? You've got to be kidding me. OR -- are you kidding yourself?
For it is not all about canon law definition, carefully cherry-picked at for narrowest definition when desired, and then opened up much wider when convenient to the general and ongoing continual pressing for concept of "the One [and only] True Church" with the pope as vicar of Christ and thus himself earthly visible "head" of all the Church which Christ founded, etc.
It all about impressions --- and how those are internalized.
Paying me?
Why would you ask that?
Cannot a man have the courage of his own convictions -- if but to write about those, even passionately?
But otherwise there was a bit of rope-a-dope on your own part when it came to trying to assert that I was intending this notion of infallibility to apply casually.
I pointed at that -- for I have seen that very thing play out on these pages HUNDREDS of times, by which I mean, that if there is seemingly any excuse for a Romanist to portray his adversary as "ignorant", and at the same time distract away from the more generalized notion of infallibility as applied to Magesterium --- by focusing solely upon the narrowest qualification for ex cathedra statement -- then that is the way the conversation will go, since that is the safest and least challenging road for a Romanist to trod.
I've seen the stunt pulled so many times -- I'm a bit wee-wee'd up over the forum debating technique itself because it denies the elephant in the living room
It's all about how the RCC (not you, I wasn't talking about you necessarily --unless you are a priest and speaks for the church) wishes to influence and even control how it's members *think of* the 'authority' which the prelates claim is their own sole prerogative -- given to them by --- who?
...None other than God Almighty Himself. Or so "they" say.
It's one of the biggest subject matters repeatedly spoken of on the pages of the Free Republic religion forum.
Obviously, "they" must have taught more than a few of that churches adherents well; that it is "they" (and most certainly not the adherents) who God leads...with the both stated and much unstated but still asserted claim being that to not simply obey is tantamount to disobeying God Himself (even as these same prelates assert that it is they and they alone who get to set the rules for when there will be exceptions to that rule)
All along in this -- I was aware you assumed that I was implying such as the above -- to have it apply to recent news and developments.
Actually your assumption was wrong. I used these examples only to be expansive and because they were accessible. An audience is a fairly formal setting, and speaking to a reporter is very informal, and as such they covered both ends of the spectrum of possible papal commentary. In a previous post I used this example: "When they preach homilies, or answer questions, or speak to people or give advice or whatever, then they are as subject to their skills and capabilities as anyone." I have never given any thought to whether you had some particular situation in mind or not, and neither did I care. You were in error in your usage of the text, as I have said, and you continue to be in error. Nothing more.
And as the rest of this maxi lecture seems concerned with simply more of this erroneous assumption I will pass it over. None of it appears, at a glance, to add anything new to your misapplication of the audience text you originally quoted as being concerned with infallibility when it was not.
But otherwise there was a bit of rope-a-dope on your own part when it came to trying to assert that I was intending this notion of infallibility to apply casually.
Again your assumptions are showing. Perhaps this is a trend with you. You obviously assumed that any document addressing papal authority must be applicable throughout to infallibility, and now you are assuming that everything I am saying relates to some notion of "casual" speaking. No. That is you trying to deflect from the simple reality that you have stretched the focus of a text beyond its intent. Nothing more.
... and at the same time distract away from the more generalized notion of infallibility as applied to Magesterium
What generalized notion of infallibility? There is none. Infallibility is specifically defined, and applicable only in very constrained situations. I even quoted the very brief mention of it in the original text you excerpted. There is nothing generalized about it. You do realize that there is no secret Catholic teaching on infallibility, don't you? Just go look at Vatican I and see for yourself what it says. It is very short, and clear, and there is no generalization of it in any way.
Secondly, distract why? If infallibility were generalized why distract? And to what end? As I pointed out very clearly, no non-Catholic is comfortable with the specific notion of infallibility, and so what is gained by restricting it to that? As if you were going to be suddenly okay with Catholic dogma as it is and decide that the Immaculate Conception was infallible, but just not other things. It is just a ridiculous assumption on your part.
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