Sad Day For Catholic Apologetics

[Apotheoun]

Cardinal Ratzinger has addressed many of these issues in the CDF Instruction [u]Donum Veritatis[/u]. To read that document click the link below:

[url="http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19900524_theologian-vocation_en.html"]Donum Veritatis[/url]

[popestpiusx]

[quote name='Apotheoun' date='Jun 24 2004, 09:43 AM'] The highest goal of the laity is holiness, which is achieved only through the obedience of faith.

[/quote]
Obedience of faith is not the same as submitting yourself to every opinion and whim that may come from the Holy Father. The Pope was "teaching" this but not in the full capacity of his office. He preached on it in his sermons.

Jeff,
Aquinas says the following regarding correction of a superior (Summa Theologica, Secunda Secundae Partis, Quest. 33, Art. 4.):
It must be observed, however, that if the faith were endangered, a subject ought to rebuke his prelate even publicly. Hence Paul, who was Peter's subject, rebuked him in public, on account of the imminent danger of scandal concerning faith, and, as the gloss of Augustine says on Gal. 2:11, "Peter gave an example to superiors, that if at any time they should happen to stray from the straight path, they should not disdain to be reproved by their subjects."

St Robert Bellarmine states in De Romano Pontifice (Book II, Chapter 29):
Just as it is licit to resist the Pontiff that aggresses the body, it is also licit to resist the one who aggresses souls or who disturbs civil order, or above all, who attempts to destroy the Church. I say that it is licit to resist him by not doing what he orders and by preventing his will from being executed; it is not licit, however, to judge, punish or depose him, since these acts are proper to a superior.

[popestpiusx]

Two words being tossed around in this discussion are obedience and humility. These are of course good things, even necessary for salvation. The thing is, they must be properly understood. Obedience is not simply doing what you are told and believing what you are told to believe. True obedience is submitting first to God, and through that submission, then to those who he has placed over us WHEN WHAT IS BEING ORDERED OR PROPOSED FOR BELIEF IS NOT IN VIOLATION OF WHAT GOD HAS FIRST ORDERED. So for instance if I am ordered to do something or believe something that is contrary to God's law or the law of the Church, even if it be by the Pope himself, it is not disobedient to refuse to take part in such an action/belief. We are only bound to obey those commands that fall within the authority of a superior. Thus the Catholic encyclopedia states:
"We are not bound to obey a superior in a matter which does not fall within the limits of his preceptive power. Thus for instance parents although entitled beyond question of the submission of their children until they become of age, have no right to command them to marry. Neither can a superior claim our obedience in contravention to the dispositions of higher authority. Hence, notably, we cannot heed the behests of any human power no matter how venerable or undisputed as against the ordinances of God. All authority to which we bow has its source in Him and cannot be validly used against Him."

Humility, of course, goes right along with that. Humility is "a quality by which a person considering his own defects has a lowly opinion of himself and willingly submits himself to God and to others for God's sake."

That doesn't mean that we give up our ability to reason nor any other gift God has bestowed upon us. God made us intellectual beings for a reason. Certainly our natural gifts should be governed by the virtues, but we don't simply throw them out the door. Being humble does not demand of that we submit ourselves to every jot and tittle of every whim or opinion that comes from Rome. Rather, we submit ourselves, without reserve, to the perennial teachings of Holy Mother Church, which is not always the same as the human opinions of those who have been entrusted to guard Her.

[Apotheoun]

I sense a growing dissension among some people in the Church today, and a rising sectarian spirit to which I have no desire to give aid or comfort. Having been raised a Protestant, I have no interest in becoming one again, and so I refuse to "protest" or to "dissent" publicly from the teaching of the Church's Sacred Magisterium, even when the teaching concerned does not involve the charism of infallibility. As someone who is working on his Masters degree in Theology with the intention of becoming a Catholic theologian, I take quite seriously what Cardinal Ratzinger said in the CDF Instruction [u]Donum Veritatis[/u], that, "The right conscience of the Catholic theologian presumes not only faith in the Word of God whose riches he must explore, but also love for the Church from whom he receives his mission, and respect for her divinely assisted Magisterium. Setting up a supreme magisterium of conscience in opposition to the Magisterium of the Church means adopting a principle of free examination incompatible with the economy of Revelation and its transmission in the Church and thus also with a correct understanding of theology and the role of the theologian." [CDF Instruction [u]Donum Veritatis[/u], no. 38] I simply refuse to stand in judgment of the decisions of the Apostolic See or to publicly protest against its enactments, whether those decisions or enactments concern doctrinal matters or merely the disciplinary norms and the government of the Church, and so I will end my participation in this thread by quoting once again from a sermon by Venerable John Cardinal Newman, who said: "We must never suffer ourselves to doubt, that, in his [i.e., the Pope's] government of the Church, he is guided by an intelligence more than human. His yoke is the yoke of Christ, he has the responsibility of his own acts, not we; and to his Lord must he render account, not to us. Even in secular matters it is ever safe to be on his side, dangerous to be on the side of his enemies. Our duty is, not indeed to mix up Christ's Vicar with this or that party of men, because he in his high station is above all parties, but to look at his formal deeds, and to follow him whither he goeth, and never to desert him, however we may be tried, but to defend him at all hazards, and against all comers, as a son would a father, and as a wife a husband, knowing that his cause is the cause of God. And so, as regards his successors, if we live to see them; it is our duty to give them in like manner our dutiful allegiance and our unfeigned service, and to follow them also whithersoever they go, having that same confidence that each in his turn and in his own day will do God's work and will, which we have felt in their predecessors, now taken away to their eternal reward. [John Cardinal Newman, [u]Sermons Preached on Various Occasions[/u], "The Pope and the Revolution," Sermon 15, section I, no. 1; preached on 7 October 1866, in the Church of the Oratory, Birmingham, England]

Thank you all for the wonderful posts you have written.

God bless,
Todd

[popestpiusx]

Apotheoun,
Your fidelity to Holy Mother Church is most admirable. I don't disagree with your post. I am not defending dissent from the Magisterium qua Magisterium. I am simply saying that not everything that comes out of the mouth of a member of the Magisterium is an actual magisterial act.
It is also important to keep in mind that Cardinal Newman was dealing with Blessed Pius IX and Leo XIII. He didn't have to try and make sense of some of the things we have had to deal with over the last few decades.