Point. 'Vantage, Shea.
Let's not forget that the scriptures use of the word "until" is a translation that doesn't automatically imply things changed afterward. I think it's Tim Staples who points out that Christ's "I will be with you always, until the end of the age." is the same word as well.
So are we to assume Christ won't be with us after the end of the age?
And there's my favorite:
"The Pope bans the use of condoms in Africa."
What century is this, again?
Remember that old 60s folk song lyric:
[i]Until the end of never, and that's a long long time.[/i]
It seems that even in English, until can be used in the continuing sense (or whatever it's called).
Hey I actually know stuff about ICEs, I'll certainly help out.
Actually it was the Twelfth of Never and it was written in 1957:
http://www.boscarol.com/nina/
htm...2thofnever.html
Nothing in Vatican II contradicts the imposition of secular penalties for canonical offenses. Mark appears to be confusing an Americanist understanding of religious liberty with the Church's actual teaching.
(Check out Fr Brian Harrison's "Religious Liberty and Contraception".)
1. Harrison is wrong. His is an artificially minimalist and untenable reading of Dignitatis Humanae.
2. I comment here regularly. I do not have a Baptist brother-in-law.
Kevin Miller:
I'm not sure your dismissal of Fr. Harrison is quite fair. The conditions in which the Catholic State may impose temporal punishments on heretics are very limited, especially in a modern context.
That having been said, I have yet to find a convincing reconciliation of the Church's current teaching with what she authoritatively taught for centuries in the Middle Ages.
The difference between the former and the current teaching does not appear to be development, but outright contradiction.
For instance, Christian apologists often criticize Jehovah's Witnesses for their doctrinal reversals, and we turn a blind eye toward our own, most notably Limbo and religious freedom.
Eric,
Was Limbo ever doctrine, within the meaning of the act?
And as to religious liberty, better minds than mine (JP2's pontificate & B16's pre-papal writings for starters) pretty well have resolved that "controversy".
If their analyses and defense do not convince you, nothing anyone says here will change your mind, either.
But if you want someone else, I suggest you go check out some of the archived posts at Pontifications on the subject, as well as Michael Liccione's extensive analysis of this over at Sacramentum Vitae.
Either you accept that it's legitimate development, or you don't. But the alleged reversal of the Church regarding religious liberty has been asked and answered.
JW's do have contradictory doctrinal teachings. We don't. It is really that simple.
[1] Mark, as I have asked before, would you mind not using my full name. I found that to be a mistake because I got some crank emails (not all from Catholics; some from your and my mutual adversaries). Other people who post here use noms de guerre and you respect that.
[2] FYI, I gave up posting (controversial) comments for Lent. (Not always successfully.)
[3] Here is the money paragraph from "Ineffabilis Deus: Apostolic Constitution of Pope Pius IX on the Immaculate Conception" (8 December 1854: this translation is from New Advent, at http://www.newadvent.org/
library...docs_pi09id.htm, so please nobody try the "The original Latin is much more nuanced" gambit:
"Hence, if anyone shall dare -- which God forbid! -- to think otherwise than as has been defined by us, let him know and understand that he is condemned by his own judgment; that he has suffered shipwreck in the faith; that he has separated from the unity of the Church; and that, furthermore, by his own action he incurs the penalties established by law if he should dare to express in words or writing or by any other outward means the errors he thinks in his heart."
I realise the dangers of relying on Wikipedia, but this entryon "Infallibility" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Pap...l_infallibility appears to have been written by a fellow Vatican 2.1 or 2.2 Catholic:
"Nearly all Catholic theologians agree that both Pope Pius IX's 1854 definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, and Pope Pius XII's 1950 definition of the dogma of the Assumption of Mary are instances of papal infallibility. However, theologians disagree about what other documents qualify."
So: Is it your argument that "Ineffabilis Deus" is not in fact infallible, and was corrected by Vatican II?
Sorry about using your name. I clean forgot.
Both definitions are infallible. What's that got to do with my point? Do you seriously expect somebody to arrest you for not believing these infallible dogmas?
Okay. My point is: Doesn't it (in the words of Shrek) bother you that Vat 2 appears to have overriden something that the Pope, and the vast majority of Catholics, in 1854 understood to be an infallible declaration ("deny the Marian doctrines, go to jail")? Are you cherry-picking bits of Ineff. Deus to argue "The Marian doctrines are true and timeless but the 'penalties by law' part was an unfortunate historical accident that we have now, thankfully, evolved past"? I mean... arguably (and "arguably" is le mot juste when you ask RCs "How many RCC dogmas are infallible, and which ones?") only two infallible declarations in 1700 years, and one of which dated embarrassingly only a century after it was made. It doesn't seem to me to inspire great confidence in the idea of Papal infallibility as a guarantee of doctrinal certitude.
BTW, this may interest:
"Where have Asia's daughters gone?"
Australian Financial Review (Friday 28 April 2006)
http://afr.com/articles/2006/04/
...5861479535.html
Flambeaux:
The Vatican has not yet even attempted to show how Dignitatis Humane can be reconciled with the teaching of the medieval Church.
This is why the Lefebvrists are still in schism.
Original story is in the New Statesman here: http://www.newstatesman.com/Worl...ld/
200604240018
and note this rather, umm, "judgmental" sub-heading (which the Aust Fin Rev omitted):
"NS Special Report:... but what if it's a girl? Modern technology is helping parents in Asia indulge in a hideous practice - killing off their girl children. It's never been easier to identify a female foetus and abort it. "
Hmmm... the house organs of British socialism and Australian capitalism combining to condemn sex-selective abortions...
Okay. My point is: Doesn't it (in the words of Shrek) bother you that Vat 2 appears to have overriden something that the Pope, and the vast majority of Catholics, in 1854 understood to be an infallible declaration ("deny the Marian doctrines, go to jail")?
Two points:
First, infallibility does not mean "Every word in Ineff. Deus is infallible." It means that the dogma being defined is protected from being a false dogma. In short, the only infallible bit is "Mary was immaculately conceived." Neither the penalties for refusing to believe that, nor even the argument adduced to support it are protected by infallibility. Just the definition.
Second, the penalties of law Pius refers to are *canon law* not civil law. Or do you seriously believe the Pope went out to jail Romans who denied this dogma (assuming there were any). How do you suppose the Pope would have enforced such a thing in Boston, Bwanaland and Bugtussle, Oklahoma via civil law in 1854?
In canon law, so far as I know, a Catholic is *still* reckoned to be out of communion with the Church if he obstinately denies a dogma of the Faith. Of course, canon law does not now, nor did it ever, apply to non-Catholics.
"How many RCC dogmas are infallible, and which ones?")
You are confusing infallible with ex cathedra. Try getting hold of Ludwig Ott's Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma.
only two infallible declarations in 1700 years, and one of which dated embarrassingly only a century after it was made.
Nothing dated about it, son. You simply didn't know what you were talking about. The dogma's as infallible as it always was.
It doesn't seem to me to inspire great confidence in the idea of Papal infallibility as a guarantee of doctrinal certitude.
Ignorance is a great source of uncertainty, it is true.
All right, for now I will concede your point re canon law vs civil law (and thank God that the Reformation means that today, if not 500 years ago, this is a non-meaningless distinction in practice). But as to Mark Shea deciding which parts of a Papal document are infallible and which aren't... What do you say to a fellow Catholic who has a different list of preferred "chaff" and "wheat"?
I'm still very curious how all of this gets derived from "You are Peter, and on this rock, keys, loosing, etc." It seems to be... well, if I say "constructed" I'll sound like a conspiracy theorist, but it seems to be remarkably non-falsifiable. If ever the irreducible infallible core of the dogma was *wrong*, how would you know? How does this differ from what you have criticised as "minimum daily content" Catholicism?
Given that a good deal of Catholic theologising in this area rests on arguments that amount to "No sane deity would set up a church that wasn't structured like X and empowered to do Y", the system seems to lack internal logic. "The New Covenant is indefectible, the Church is infallible..." but when pinned down, actual 100-proof infallibility seems confined to one sentence in two bulls a century apart. The rest pf the time,, you're left to your priv- ... uh, to your own reason and discernment in applying written documents to changing life circumstances.
"All right, for now I will concede your point re canon law vs civil law (and thank God that the Reformation means that today, if not 500 years ago, this is a non-meaningless distinction in practice)."
Your understanding of pre-Reformation canon and civil law is, it seems, massively lacking.
+J.M.J+
There's another angle to this which has not come up yet. Note that the infallible declaration of the Assumption of Mary in 1950 does not contain the same line about incurring "the penalties established by law". Check it out for yourself:
Munificentissimus Deus
http://www.ewtn.com/LIBRARY/PAPA...OC/
P12MUNIF.htm
Why did Pius XII leave out that part? Could this have something to do with the fact that, back in 1854, the Papal States were still in existence? Perhaps the "penalties" that Bl. Pius IX mentioned in Ineffabilis Deus refer to laws against heretics on the books in Catholic confessional states?
(Confessional states - states which recognize an official religion - often look upon heretics as traitors, since loyalty to the officially recognized religion is considered apiece with being a good citizen. In fact, the executions of heretics in Europe centuries ago were actually performed by the state. When ecclesial courts declared a citizen of a Catholic confessional state to be a heretic, the civil courts would typically declare him a traitor and put him to death for treason.)
Pius IX may have simply been using a traditional juridical formula which would have been obsolete by 1950 - when the Papal States were gone along with most Catholic confessional states. Any such civil "penalties" would have been gone by then. That could explain Pius XII's omission.
In Jesu et Maria,
"do you believe that your Baptist brother-in-law (everyone who comboxes at CEI has a Baptist brother-in-law)"
You gotta admit, this is pretty funny. Point, Tom R!
Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure I don't have a Baptist brother-in-law, but it's still very funny.
Tom R:
It's not true that the only infallible papal declarations were the two made since the 19th century.
There is no official "list" of defined doctrines; no know whether a given papal declaration meets the requirements, one needs to go on a case-by-case basis, applying the criteria of Vatican I.
Get your facts straight.
Servus: Thanks. Rosemarie: It's just that when a (pre-1950s) Pope starts talking about "penalties" and "law", I get nervous. It's like a Grand Mufti talking about "Jihad". Maybe he means "internal personal struggle", maybe something more... political.
Tom: yes, yes, I know, I know, I really really need to read Dr Scott Strongstaples' magisterial research on Catholicism and Religious Free Exercise: Buddies For Two Millennia (Vol 1: Did These "Huguenots" Even Exist Anyway? Vol 2: Okay, Maybe the Huguenots Did Exist, But Were They Really Massacred? Vol 3: Well, Who Says It Was The Catholics Who Massacred Them? and Vol 4: Well, They Probably Deserved To Be Killed, Then, Damn Heretics.). I understand most previous histories are suspect and biased because their authors were Protestants, whereas Dr Strongstaples, who teaches at Ave Dame University, is entirely objective.
> "There is no official "list" of defined doctrines; no [...?] know whether a given papal declaration meets the requirements, one needs to go on a case-by-case basis, applying the criteria of Vatican I."
Eric, may I say that seems rather incongruous given that one of the common (and undeniable) selling points of Catholicism is doctrinal certainty. Examined up close, it seems more like The Faith Delivered Installment By Installment to the [non-canonised] Saints. This probably explains why Catholics disagree so much with each other.
Rosemarie, surely even though "the Papal States", plural, are history, there is still the Vatican City. What if some gaping-mouthed Congregationalist tourist from Bugtussle, Oklahoma, while standing in St Peter's Square, happens to let slip "I don't believe all this Romish Maryish stuff, but they sure have great artwork"? Would Ineff. Deus permit -- nay, require -- the Swiss Guards to then seize and clap him in the secret dungeons (amidst the sacred monkeys), or does the Doctrine of Abrogation apply even on Vatican territory?
TomR.
You forgot one of the qualifiers....
".... law apllies only to Catholics."
What if the said Bugtussle Congie's nurse baptises him without his consent?
Ie, there are really three different levels of "law" we're discussing here:
[a] Canon law proper -- binds only Catholics, but applies ubique
[b] Positive law of Papal States -- binds everyone, regardless of religion, on (now) Vatican turf; and
[c] What the RCC thinks should be the positive law of every secular state (eg, "abortion should be illegal, euthanasia should be legal, pharmacists should have a right to refuse to sell birth control, preemptive wars should be prohibited, etc).
+J.M.J+
>>>Rosemarie: It's just that when a (pre-1950s) Pope starts talking about "penalties" and "law", I get nervous.
I don't see why; the Code of Hammurabi doesn't upset me, because it doesn't apply to me. Why should an 1854 policy in the (now-defunct) Papal States make you nervous?
>>>It's like a Grand Mufti talking about "Jihad".
The difference being that the Swiss Guard don't strap explosives to their bodies and stand outside of Protestant Churches.
>>>Rosemarie, surely even though "the Papal States", plural, are history, there is still the Vatican City. What if some gaping-mouthed Congregationalist tourist from Bugtussle, Oklahoma, while standing in St Peter's Square, happens to let slip "I don't believe all this Romish Maryish stuff, but they sure have great artwork"? Would Ineff. Deus permit -- nay, require -- the Swiss Guards to then seize and clap him in the secret dungeons (amidst the sacred monkeys), or does the Doctrine of Abrogation apply even on Vatican territory?
Sacred monkeys? I'm guessing this post was at least partially tongue-and-cheek.
Mark pointed out in his post that things have changed significantly since 1854. The Vatican city-state is hardly interested in arresting Protestant tourists; heck, they've got their hands full trying to rein in liberal Catholc theologians and all the other funny business going on in the Church.
In Jesu et Maria,
>What if some gaping-mouthed Congregationalist tourist from Bugtussle, Oklahoma, while standing in St Peter's Square, happens to let slip "I don't believe all this Romish Maryish stuff, but they sure have great artwork"? Would Ineff. Deus permit -- nay, require -- the Swiss Guards to then seize and clap him in the secret dungeons (amidst the sacred monkeys), or does the Doctrine of Abrogation apply even on Vatican territory?
That's as ridiculous and loaded a question as if I were to ask, "If I went to Geneva today and prayed for the souls of my dead relatives in Purgatory, will I be publically stripped and beated as John Calvin(that "light of the reformation") did to a poor Catholic woman caught praying at her son's grave?"
John Calvin's heirs are still on the throne at Geneva today? Wow.
You got any horror stories less than 500 years old? I can quote you Evangelicals being beaten in Latin American countries today, if you like.
What's your point, Tom?
You aren't Catholic and have a pretty snotty attitude about Catholicism. And for all the complaints about Catholic "legalism" you are probably hombre numero uno for brining up obscure crap like you have in this case...
"Ahh but in the course of an infallible definition, the pope prescribed a punishment - which is no longer required..."
So. As Mark said: the infallibliity that you are so freaking obsessed with is a protection from error in teaching - God may have been VERY unhappy about the penalty, who knows. It's not something covered by infallibility (about which you seem to be obsessed).
I don't have a baptist BiL, though i do have a baptist uncle, but he recently discovered that the world is more than 8000 years old, so he may not be long for the SBC. It was very disturbing to him. He said he wished HIS church had an authoritative teaching magisterium... well he didn't say that, but really...that's what he wishes; he just doesn't know it yet 
may I say that seems rather incongruous given that one of the common (and undeniable) selling points of Catholicism is doctrinal certainty. Examined up close, it seems more like The Faith Delivered Installment By Installment to the [non-canonised] Saints. This probably explains why Catholics disagree so much with each other.
Catholics are quite free to disagree with each other on anything which isn't defined doctrine.
Look at it this way, how do the protestants know which books are in the bible? Well, of course they don't really, because they leave some out, but my point is that it is the Catholic Church that decided which books made up the bible.
There has to be a final authority somewhere in the Christian faith and it looks like it's with Peter.
I don't think any Catholic acquainted with Church history would suggest that the process of arriving at defined doctrine was neat and tidy and peaceful. The certainty of the Faith - and yes, I think it's very attractive - has not necessarily been arrived at without controversy. It's always been a messy business. Something to do with its involving humans I suppose.
I can quote you Evangelicals being beaten in Latin American countries today, if you like.
This is obviously very bad. Although, I confess, I myself have been sorely tempted to throttle any number of protestants who have told me that the Church (my mother, you know) is "The Whore of Babylon."
A fact I've often found useful in silencing some criticism of the Church on the basis of the Book of Revelation is that neither the Vatican nor the Janiculum were traditionally considered among the seven hills of Rome. Both are located *outside* the boundries presumably drawn by Romulus. Identifying the "seven headed beast" in Revelation with the Catholic Church is often carried out on the assumption that the Vatican is one of the seven hills of Rome, which is historically incorrect; St. John would not have made the mistake of including it.
The following lines came to mind while reading the comments on this post as well as those on "A Common Conservative Evangelical Blunder":
He is ever mistaking one thing for another, and thinks it does not signify. Ignorance in his case is the mother, not certainly of devotion, but of inconceivable conceit and preternatural injustice.
From Newman's Ignorance Concerning Catholics the Protection of the Protestant View.
I can quote you Evangelicals being beaten in Latin American countries today, if you like.
And I can list names of Catholics who have been killed in Latin American countries today, if you like. What exactly either of our offers would contribute to understanding Ineffabilis Deus is not at all clear, however. Who cares as long as it lets you take another cheap shot at the oppressive papists, though, right?
Commenting by HaloScan
