More Roman Catholic Catechism Changes?

Pastoral Meanderings ^ | 08-10-2018 | Pastor Peters (LCMS)

[NRx]

A week or so ago the Vatican announced a change in the Catechism of the Catholic Church which changed the teaching regarding the capital punishment.  It was now deemed inadmissible -- whatever that means -- or no longer moral (though Scripture clearly allows this).  Now another change, perhaps more devious and clandestine than the announced change on the death penalty.  This represents the removal of one sentence and replacing it with something that is completely different, one that fails to acknowledge homosexuality to be objectively disordered and instead sympathetically suggests that homosexual tendency is not at all a choice but a condition natural to their birth.  Perhaps this is how Pope Francis plans to change the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church, a few words at a time.  If that is the case, who knows where this will lead and who is checking the catechism on a daily basis to see what changes have crept in.

This is another version of change that comes not openly or by consideration but through the back door -- an attempt to re-define the faith without telling anyone about it.  Lutherans may only be interested in this for curiosity' sake but we would do well to remember the principle.  The most dangerous change comes through the back door and not through open consideration of that change and its debate on the basis of Scripture and the fathers.  

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P85.HTM

2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_P85.HTM

2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. They do not choose their homosexual condition; for most of them it is a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

It appears that They do not choose their homosexual condition was in the text until something about 2004 or so when the text was changed to This inclination, which is objectively disordered.  While it may, indeed, be true of at least some that they do not choose their homosexual condition, this is a point unrelated to the issue of objectively disordered.  Children are born with many conditions not of their choice but the result of a sinful world in which brokenness exists not only in material condition but in spiritual and in which desire is tainted by sin as much as act and choice.  Yet, the question remains why changes like this would not be transparent and why there would not be explanation for the change.  Coupled with Pope Francis' words that God made them gay, this represents a distinct softening of the previous stance and a shift away from the very idea that homosexuality is disordered.  If that is the case, then my premise still stands.  The most dangerous changes in the faith are the ones that enter through the back door without debate and not necessarily the ones on which discussion or even a vote is taken.  Too often, the discussion follows the acceptance of change and the vote merely affirms the change already embedded in the hearts and minds of the people.

 

[Al Hitan]

Thanks for your tip on the Gutenberg Bible.

Although I posted it in the wrong order in my previous post, the date of the Bible being published is presented, which still demonstrates it was published according to the Catholic canon well before Luther’s scriptural tinkering began.

[Luircin]

You say this as if all the other Bibles that the Catholics totally accepted and totally weren’t the Catholic ‘canon’ didn’t exist.

Which, I might add, they did. With not a whiff of a complaint from Rome. And doesn’t change how Roman scholars were ‘tinkering’ long before Luther, and how they were questioning canon long before Luther.

If you want to blame Luther for ‘Scriptural tinkering’ then you have to blame the Catholics long before he was even a gleam in his father’s eye too. He only did what Rome allowed to happen before Trent came around.

So why get angry at him just because he did what Rome was already doing, unless it’s just an excuse?

[Luircin]

Short version: Luther did nothing that Rome wasn’t already doing, and it was only AFTER Luther that Rome’s actually started to practice caring about canon in its Bibles instead of just paying lip service.

Sources:

Mark F. Bartling, “Luther and James: Did Luther Use the Historical-Critical Method?” (Presented to the Pastor-Teacher Conference, Western Wisconsin District, LaCrosse, WI, on April 12, 1983). M. Reu likewise points out, “How was it that [Luther] came to consider the question of the canon at all? There were a number of factors that almost compelled him to do so. Towards the end of the middle ages uncertainty had arisen in the Church not only concerning the canonicity of the Old Testament Apocrypha but also concerning the extent of the New Testament Canon; an uncertainty that existed in actual usage rather than in the attitude of the official Church. Many medieval Bible manuscripts included a fifth Gospel, the Gospel of Nicodemus; many manuscripts and all the printed German Bibles included an additional epistle of St. Paul, the so-called Epistle to the Laodiceans, which is even to be found as late as 1544 in Dietenberger’s Roman Catholic translation of the Bible” [M. Reu, Luther’s German Bible: An Historical Presentation Together with a collection of Sources (Ohio: The Lutheran Book Concern, 1934), 175].

And Catholic scholar Erasmus: specific wording copypasta’d from https://web.archive.org/web/20140803220107/http://tquid.sharpens.org/Luther_%20canon.htm#a2

Similar to Luther, Erasmus questioned the canonicity of particular books.[35] The Catholic Encyclopedia points out,“…[T]he attitude of Erasmus towards the text of the New Testament is an extremely radical one, even if he did not follow out all its logical consequences. In his opinion the Epistle of St. James shows few signs of the Apostolic spirit; the Epistle to the Ephesians has not the diction of St. Paul, and the Epistle to the Hebrews he assigns with some hesitation to Clement of Rome…”[36] Alan Wikgren points out, “Erasmus had freely expressed his doubts about the books disputed in the early church and made distinctions in their value. But he was led to subordinate these judgments to ecclesiastical authority.”[37] How did Erasmus “subordinate his judgments”? Wikgren doesn’t say, although it is well known that during the significant years in which the Lutheran reformation began, Pope Leo X was an ally of Erasmus, and Erasmus enjoyed a particular level of economic and scholarly freedom by remaining loyal.[38] Interestingly, after Erasmus died, his works were placed on the Church’s list of prohibited books.[39] I know of at least one example in which Erasmus “subordinated his judgments.” Erasmus went as far as removing verses from the first edition of his Greek New Testament. He omitted 1 John 5:7-8 because he could find it in no manuscript. Roland Bainton notes,

“There was such an outcry that he agreed to restore it in case it could be discovered in any manuscript. One was found…and Erasmus, having sworn, was true to his oath…Unhappily the spurious verse passed from this second edition into the textus receptus and then into the King James translation. In the late nineteenth century, Pope Leo XIII declared it to be genuine, but forty years later a commission of the church reversed his verdict. Today no Catholic would defend its authenticity.”[40]

The manuscript produced for Erasmus was a forgery. Interestingly, Luther followed the first edition of Erasmus, and kept 1 John 5:7 out of the Luther Bible.[41]

And then in the words of Luther’s nemesis, Cardinal Cajetan: “Here we close our commentaries on the historical books of the Old Testament. For the rest (that is, Judith, Tobit, and the books of Maccabees) are counted by St Jerome out of the canonical books, and are placed amongst the Apocrypha, along with Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus, as is plain from the Prologus Galeatus. Nor be thou disturbed, like a raw scholar, if thou shouldest find anywhere, either in the sacred councils or the sacred doctors, these books reckoned as canonical. For the words as well of councils as of doctors are to be reduced to the correction of Jerome. Now, according to his judgment, in the epistle to the bishops Chromatius and Heliodorus, these books (and any other like books in the canon of the Bible) are not canonical, that is, not in the nature of a rule for confirming matters of faith. Yet, they may be called canonical, that is, in the nature of a rule for the edification of the faithful, as being received and authorised in the canon of the Bible for that purpose. By the help of this distinction thou mayest see thy way clearly through that which Augustine says, and what is written in the provincial council of Carthage.”

In other words, it was totally acceptable to Rome to question canon despite councils and claims, thus my initial statement stands.

QED.

[Luircin]

Logical Fallacy: Moving the goalposts.

I proved my original point already about it being totally acceptable in Catholicism to question the canon, and it only became taboo AFTER Luther. Funny thing is that Luther followed the canon suggestions of most Catholic scholars at the time.

Whatever the case, I see no reason to continue this line of conversation any further. Bye.

[Al Hitan]

Moving the goalposts.

In what way?

Funny thing is that Luther followed the canon suggestions of most Catholic scholars at the time.

They weren't suggestions, just opinions, because the Canon was set. And those with the opinions, submitted to the Catholic Church's decision on canon. Luther did not. Luther removed books as compared to the already existing canon of the Church.

I see no reason to continue this line of conversation any further.

I can see why.

What about that canon of scripture as officially defined by the Lutheran Church? Is the canon still flexible according to Lutherans?

[Al Hitan]

Moving the goalposts.

I'm not the one moving the goal posts. Here's your original premise we are discussing:

But the short version is that the Reformers didn’t take books out of the canon because there WAS no official canon until after Trent.

[Luircin]

I proved my case as I meant it, hyperbole and all. And I explained what I meant, even.

As I said, not interested in continuing with you; I’m done.

[vladimir998]

“Short version: Luther did nothing that Rome wasn’t already doing, and it was only AFTER Luther that Rome’s actually started to practice caring about canon in its Bibles instead of just paying lip service.”

I’m sorry but that comment makes no sense whatsoever to me.

Luther interpreted the Bible in entirely new ways that had no standing in the magisterium of the Church. When Luther cut multiple books from the canon - and I mean the canon of the New Testament not the even the Old - are you really saying the Catholic Church had already done the same thing? The Catholic Church incorporated the Book of Revelation into the canon - despite the fact that some people denied its inspiration in the early Church. Luther did the opposite. He denied its canonicity when essentially no one in the Church did. You think those two the actions are the same? How is that possible?

And the Church did not suddenly start caring about canon with the appearance of Luther. His denials of the canon, however, forced the Church to defend the canon - which had not needed to be done in any significant way for centuries. Again, if that doesn’t show that Luther veered from Catholic practice and teaching then nothing else does.

[vladimir998]

Sorry, should have pinged you to post 130.

[Luircin]

I don’t care what YOU have to say either.

I’ve proven my point already—in their own words, no less—that Catholics were taking books in and out of the canon and totally ignoring counsels and tradition to do so.

Luther did nothing that Rome didn’t already allow in its own theologians, and it was only AFTER Rome lost its political power that they stopped letting their own scholars play around with the canon.

[Al Hitan]

I proved my case

So, you say, but it is not true. Luther tinkered with Scripture while the Catholic Church remained committed to its canon of Holy Scripture.

That is the truth by any factual and historical measure.

[Luircin]

And I don’t believe you for an instant because I actually read Erasmus and Cajetan, did my research about Catholic approved Bibles, pointed out that Luther did include the Apocrypha in his Bible translations, and have studied the history of the canon.

If the usual suspects want to ignore Catholic sources that tear down the tired and lame usual OMFGLUUUTHERRRRRR talking points, that’s not my problem.

[Luircin]

Not interested; bye.

[Luircin]

Already addressed your claim far earlier. Not interested in rehashing it.

[Al Hitan]

And I don’t believe you for an instant because I actually read Erasmus and Cajetan...

If you won't believe me, believe yourself. Here are some quotes from your own post:

• Re Erasmus: "But he was led to subordinate these judgments to ecclesiastical authority."

• Re Cajetan: "Yet, they may be called canonical, that is, in the nature of a rule for the edification of the faithful, as being received and authorised in the canon of the Bible for that purpose."

If you don't believe this, which you posted in an attempt to support your case, then you are arguing with yourself.

[Luircin]

Remember when I said I’m not interested in what you’re saying?

I’m still not interested.

To put it simply, I don’t care. Go ahead and waste your time; I don’t care.