Rogue Pope

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A Pope who endorsed the admission of women to Holy Orders and/or procured abortion and/or sacramental marriage between persons of the same sex would by that act become a material heretic and ipsofacto cease to be Pope.

The pope can modify celibacy requirements for secular priests (those not a part of a religious order with a separate vow of chastity) at any time. Celibacy is a discipline, not an ontological part of the priestly state.

This is not technically true. All of these issues are debated and some have been different within the Church at different times in history.

The Pope’s ability to modify the discipline of celibacy is debated? I think not.

The gravely sinful nature of abortion debated? Hardly.

The ontological inability to confer Holy Orders on a woman debated? No. That has been firmly settled long before it was definitively (and one can argue based on phrasing infallibly) rejected by John Paul II.

The impossibility to confect the sacrament of matrimony between persons of the same sex debated? Certainly not.

There are people who would like to debate these matters now, and who hope to obscure the longstanding clarity of doctrine in these areas, but the questions are closed and more or less always have been. There is room for discussion as to how such matters should be approached pastorally, which is what Pope Francis is doing.

This "black and white" absolute thinking peppered with language marketed by a hypocritical patriarchy fearful of losing its power is precisely what's causing droves of people to leave the RCC for other more inclusive denominations or to become unchurched entirely.

I think that the vast majority of people who abandon the practice of their Catholic Faith and/or apostatize to other denominations do so without a meaningful understanding of the teachings they claim to reject, or of the reasons why the Church teaches as it does. People often are attached to behaviors that go against Church teaching and feel like hypocrites if they stay, never considering the availability of Divine Mercy or the role of a well-formed conscience in making individual moral decisions. People leave because they’re dissatisfied with externals, get their feelings hurt or because of the sins and shortcomings of Church personnel, acting on a human and emotional level and losing sight of how God operates in and through the Church despite human frailty.

Relativism, the refusal to acknowledge that truth is objective, knowable and absolute, is probably the greatest modern heresies. Church teaching is “black and white” because beliefs in some matters are either true or not, with no middle ground, and the Church is obliged to seek and teach the truth.

Blaming “patriarchy” for the perceived shortcomings of the Church and its doctrines is a puerile, disingenuous and ill-informed dodge that focuses on the superficialities of what is perceived as worldly “power,” and ignores the servant nature of leadership in the Church, especially today. It likewise casts aside the example of centuries of highly influential women in the Church, such as Catherine of Siena, Joan of Arc, Teresa of Avila, Therese of Lisieux, Mother Teresa, and centuries of Abbesses, nuns, teaching sisters, to name only a few. The Bible records that Jesus first appearance after his resurrection was to a woman; it is a pious belief that he appeared even before that to another woman, his mother.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A Pope who endorsed the admission of women to Holy Orders and/or procured abortion and/or sacramental marriage between persons of the same sex would by that act become a material heretic and ipsofacto cease to be Pope.

The pope can modify celibacy requirements for secular priests (those not a part of a religious order with a separate vow of chastity) at any time. Celibacy is a discipline, not an ontological part of the priestly state.

This is not technically true. All of these issues are debated and some have been different within the Church at different times in history.

The Pope’s ability to modify the discipline of celibacy is debated? I think not.

The gravely sinful nature of abortion debated? Hardly.

The ontological inability to confer Holy Orders on a woman debated? No. That has been firmly settled long before it was definitively (and one can argue based on phrasing infallibly) rejected by John Paul II.

The impossibility to confect the sacrament of matrimony between persons of the same sex debated? Certainly not.

There are people who would like to debate these matters now, and who hope to obscure the longstanding clarity of doctrine in these areas, but the questions are closed and more or less always have been. There is room for discussion as to how such matters should be approached pastorally, which is what Pope Francis is doing.

This "black and white" absolute thinking peppered with language marketed by a hypocritical patriarchy fearful of losing its power is precisely what's causing droves of people to leave the RCC for other more inclusive denominations or to become unchurched entirely.

I think that the vast majority of people who abandon the practice of their Catholic Faith and/or apostatize to other denominations do so without a meaningful understanding of the teachings they claim to reject, or of the reasons why the Church teaches as it does. People often are attached to behaviors that go against Church teaching and feel like hypocrites if they stay, never considering the availability of Divine Mercy or the role of a well-formed conscience in making individual moral decisions. People leave because they’re dissatisfied with externals, get their feelings hurt or because of the sins and shortcomings of Church personnel, acting on a human and emotional level and losing sight of how God operates in and through the Church despite human frailty.

Relativism, the refusal to acknowledge that truth is objective, knowable and absolute, is probably the greatest modern heresies. Church teaching is “black and white” because beliefs in some matters are either true or not, with no middle ground, and the Church is obliged to seek and teach the truth.

Blaming “patriarchy” for the perceived shortcomings of the Church and its doctrines is a puerile, disingenuous and ill-informed dodge that focuses on the superficialities of what is perceived as worldly “power,” and ignores the servant nature of leadership in the Church, especially today. It likewise casts aside the example of centuries of highly influential women in the Church, such as Catherine of Siena, Joan of Arc, Teresa of Avila, Therese of Lisieux, Mother Teresa, and centuries of Abbesses, nuns, teaching sisters, to name only a few. The Bible records that Jesus first appearance after his resurrection was to a woman; it is a pious belief that he appeared even before that to another woman, his mother.

You certainly are entitled to your opinion.

Others are certainly entitled to judge it to be puerile rationalizations ignoring the many facts on the other side.

Oh, and since this is the place for people to get offended and report every post they do not like, I am offended by your sentence "the teachings they claim to reject". You can't "claim" to reject something - you either reject it or you don't. Unless you are calling them liars? Sure sounds like it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A Pope who endorsed the admission of women to Holy Orders and/or procured abortion and/or sacramental marriage between persons of the same sex would by that act become a material heretic and ipsofacto cease to be Pope.

The pope can modify celibacy requirements for secular priests (those not a part of a religious order with a separate vow of chastity) at any time. Celibacy is a discipline, not an ontological part of the priestly state.

This is not technically true. All of these issues are debated and some have been different within the Church at different times in history.

The Pope’s ability to modify the discipline of celibacy is debated? I think not.

The gravely sinful nature of abortion debated? Hardly.

The ontological inability to confer Holy Orders on a woman debated? No. That has been firmly settled long before it was definitively (and one can argue based on phrasing infallibly) rejected by John Paul II.

The impossibility to confect the sacrament of matrimony between persons of the same sex debated? Certainly not.

There are people who would like to debate these matters now, and who hope to obscure the longstanding clarity of doctrine in these areas, but the questions are closed and more or less always have been. There is room for discussion as to how such matters should be approached pastorally, which is what Pope Francis is doing.

This "black and white" absolute thinking peppered with language marketed by a hypocritical patriarchy fearful of losing its power is precisely what's causing droves of people to leave the RCC for other more inclusive denominations or to become unchurched entirely.

I think that the vast majority of people who abandon the practice of their Catholic Faith and/or apostatize to other denominations do so without a meaningful understanding of the teachings they claim to reject, or of the reasons why the Church teaches as it does. People often are attached to behaviors that go against Church teaching and feel like hypocrites if they stay, never considering the availability of Divine Mercy or the role of a well-formed conscience in making individual moral decisions. People leave because they’re dissatisfied with externals, get their feelings hurt or because of the sins and shortcomings of Church personnel, acting on a human and emotional level and losing sight of how God operates in and through the Church despite human frailty.

Relativism, the refusal to acknowledge that truth is objective, knowable and absolute, is probably the greatest modern heresies. Church teaching is “black and white” because beliefs in some matters are either true or not, with no middle ground, and the Church is obliged to seek and teach the truth.

Blaming “patriarchy” for the perceived shortcomings of the Church and its doctrines is a puerile, disingenuous and ill-informed dodge that focuses on the superficialities of what is perceived as worldly “power,” and ignores the servant nature of leadership in the Church, especially today. It likewise casts aside the example of centuries of highly influential women in the Church, such as Catherine of Siena, Joan of Arc, Teresa of Avila, Therese of Lisieux, Mother Teresa, and centuries of Abbesses, nuns, teaching sisters, to name only a few. The Bible records that Jesus first appearance after his resurrection was to a woman; it is a pious belief that he appeared even before that to another woman, his mother.

In the US, you certainly are entitled to believe what you believe. First Amendment, etc. But the issue many have with the RCC is that the US Bishops seek to impose RCC views on the rest of the US. Fundamentally, un-American. Moreover, what you assume is that, at any given time, and assuming there is a fixed ultimate truth, we humans can know what that ultimate truth is. We know that, for multiple centuries, many, including the RCC, thought that slavery was okay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When I saw the thread title I thought it was going to be about Pope Francis, who is considered rogue by most in the Church establishment. For shocking things like saying Catholic women who had abortions could be forgiven, that God loves gay people, that atheists could enter the kingdom of heaven.

I doubt very much there will be another Pope as rogue as Francis anytime soon. I suspect the next elected Pope will be far more conservative than he is.

Pope Francis is considered rogue mostly by the right wing Catholics based in the US, including many US Bishops.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A Pope who endorsed the admission of women to Holy Orders and/or procured abortion and/or sacramental marriage between persons of the same sex would by that act become a material heretic and ipsofacto cease to be Pope.

The pope can modify celibacy requirements for secular priests (those not a part of a religious order with a separate vow of chastity) at any time. Celibacy is a discipline, not an ontological part of the priestly state.

This is not technically true. All of these issues are debated and some have been different within the Church at different times in history.

The Pope’s ability to modify the discipline of celibacy is debated? I think not.

The gravely sinful nature of abortion debated? Hardly.

The ontological inability to confer Holy Orders on a woman debated? No. That has been firmly settled long before it was definitively (and one can argue based on phrasing infallibly) rejected by John Paul II.

The impossibility to confect the sacrament of matrimony between persons of the same sex debated? Certainly not.

There are people who would like to debate these matters now, and who hope to obscure the longstanding clarity of doctrine in these areas, but the questions are closed and more or less always have been. There is room for discussion as to how such matters should be approached pastorally, which is what Pope Francis is doing.

This "black and white" absolute thinking peppered with language marketed by a hypocritical patriarchy fearful of losing its power is precisely what's causing droves of people to leave the RCC for other more inclusive denominations or to become unchurched entirely.

I think that the vast majority of people who abandon the practice of their Catholic Faith and/or apostatize to other denominations do so without a meaningful understanding of the teachings they claim to reject, or of the reasons why the Church teaches as it does. People often are attached to behaviors that go against Church teaching and feel like hypocrites if they stay, never considering the availability of Divine Mercy or the role of a well-formed conscience in making individual moral decisions. People leave because they’re dissatisfied with externals, get their feelings hurt or because of the sins and shortcomings of Church personnel, acting on a human and emotional level and losing sight of how God operates in and through the Church despite human frailty.

Relativism, the refusal to acknowledge that truth is objective, knowable and absolute, is probably the greatest modern heresies. Church teaching is “black and white” because beliefs in some matters are either true or not, with no middle ground, and the Church is obliged to seek and teach the truth.

Blaming “patriarchy” for the perceived shortcomings of the Church and its doctrines is a puerile, disingenuous and ill-informed dodge that focuses on the superficialities of what is perceived as worldly “power,” and ignores the servant nature of leadership in the Church, especially today. It likewise casts aside the example of centuries of highly influential women in the Church, such as Catherine of Siena, Joan of Arc, Teresa of Avila, Therese of Lisieux, Mother Teresa, and centuries of Abbesses, nuns, teaching sisters, to name only a few. The Bible records that Jesus first appearance after his resurrection was to a woman; it is a pious belief that he appeared even before that to another woman, his mother.

In the US, you certainly are entitled to believe what you believe. First Amendment, etc. But the issue many have with the RCC is that the US Bishops seek to impose RCC views on the rest of the US. Fundamentally, un-American. Moreover, what you assume is that, at any given time, and assuming there is a fixed ultimate truth, we humans can know what that ultimate truth is. We know that, for multiple centuries, many, including the RCC, thought that slavery was okay.

It is not “fundamentally un-American” for the bishops or anyone else to exercise their rights of free speech, free belief, free exercise, and the right to peaceably assemble and petition for redress. The Constitution prohibits an establishment of religion (a State Church) primarily to protect these rights, and in no event to silence religious speech.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A Pope who endorsed the admission of women to Holy Orders and/or procured abortion and/or sacramental marriage between persons of the same sex would by that act become a material heretic and ipsofacto cease to be Pope.

The pope can modify celibacy requirements for secular priests (those not a part of a religious order with a separate vow of chastity) at any time. Celibacy is a discipline, not an ontological part of the priestly state.

This is not technically true. All of these issues are debated and some have been different within the Church at different times in history.

The Pope’s ability to modify the discipline of celibacy is debated? I think not. t

The gravely sinful nature of abortion debated? Hardly.

The ontological inability to confer Holy Orders on a woman debated? No. That has been firmly settled long before it was definitively (and one can argue based on phrasing infallibly) rejected by John Paul II.

The impossibility to confect the sacrament of matrimony between persons of the same sex debated? Certainly not.

There are people who would like to debate these matters now, and who hope to obscure the longstanding clarity of doctrine in these areas, but the questions are closed and more or less always have been. There is room for discussion as to how such matters should be approached pastorally, which is what Pope Francis is doing.

Abortion has been debated for centuries in the Catholic Church. Gregory XIV even allowed first trimester abortions

https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1125&context=nd_naturallaw_forum

The article cited does not say that. And even the relevant discussion therein relates to historic opinions on the relative culpability of “therapeutic” abortions committed in defense of the mother’s life, not the wholesale abortion on demand at issue today. Opinions at the time turned on the issue of “ensoulment” and were colored by scientific understanding far more primitive than today’s. The “ensoulment” controversy notwithstanding abortion was even then considered a grave sin, as it always had been, even if not technically “homicide” for the purpose of certain canonical penalties, most notably whether an individual would be considered irregular for the exercise of holy orders. The author of the article appears in any event to have been trained as a philosopher not a theologian.

No abortions in the 1st trimester were not a sin until some rogue pope in the 1500’s made it so against the advice of all his advisors.

Making abortion a “grave” sin was never based in theology but based in the need to control women. Also abortion was never stated as a sin because of killing a baby, it was a sin because it tempted men to fornicate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A Pope who endorsed the admission of women to Holy Orders and/or procured abortion and/or sacramental marriage between persons of the same sex would by that act become a material heretic and ipsofacto cease to be Pope.

The pope can modify celibacy requirements for secular priests (those not a part of a religious order with a separate vow of chastity) at any time. Celibacy is a discipline, not an ontological part of the priestly state.

This is not technically true. All of these issues are debated and some have been different within the Church at different times in history.

The Pope’s ability to modify the discipline of celibacy is debated? I think not.

The gravely sinful nature of abortion debated? Hardly.

The ontological inability to confer Holy Orders on a woman debated? No. That has been firmly settled long before it was definitively (and one can argue based on phrasing infallibly) rejected by John Paul II.

The impossibility to confect the sacrament of matrimony between persons of the same sex debated? Certainly not.

There are people who would like to debate these matters now, and who hope to obscure the longstanding clarity of doctrine in these areas, but the questions are closed and more or less always have been. There is room for discussion as to how such matters should be approached pastorally, which is what Pope Francis is doing.

This "black and white" absolute thinking peppered with language marketed by a hypocritical patriarchy fearful of losing its power is precisely what's causing droves of people to leave the RCC for other more inclusive denominations or to become unchurched entirely.

I think that the vast majority of people who abandon the practice of their Catholic Faith and/or apostatize to other denominations do so without a meaningful understanding of the teachings they claim to reject, or of the reasons why the Church teaches as it does. People often are attached to behaviors that go against Church teaching and feel like hypocrites if they stay, never considering the availability of Divine Mercy or the role of a well-formed conscience in making individual moral decisions. People leave because they’re dissatisfied with externals, get their feelings hurt or because of the sins and shortcomings of Church personnel, acting on a human and emotional level and losing sight of how God operates in and through the Church despite human frailty.

Relativism, the refusal to acknowledge that truth is objective, knowable and absolute, is probably the greatest modern heresies. Church teaching is “black and white” because beliefs in some matters are either true or not, with no middle ground, and the Church is obliged to seek and teach the truth.

Blaming “patriarchy” for the perceived shortcomings of the Church and its doctrines is a puerile, disingenuous and ill-informed dodge that focuses on the superficialities of what is perceived as worldly “power,” and ignores the servant nature of leadership in the Church, especially today. It likewise casts aside the example of centuries of highly influential women in the Church, such as Catherine of Siena, Joan of Arc, Teresa of Avila, Therese of Lisieux, Mother Teresa, and centuries of Abbesses, nuns, teaching sisters, to name only a few. The Bible records that Jesus first appearance after his resurrection was to a woman; it is a pious belief that he appeared even before that to another woman, his mother.

In the US, you certainly are entitled to believe what you believe. First Amendment, etc. But the issue many have with the RCC is that the US Bishops seek to impose RCC views on the rest of the US. Fundamentally, un-American. Moreover, what you assume is that, at any given time, and assuming there is a fixed ultimate truth, we humans can know what that ultimate truth is. We know that, for multiple centuries, many, including the RCC, thought that slavery was okay.

It is not “fundamentally un-American” for the bishops or anyone else to exercise their rights of free speech, free belief, free exercise, and the right to peaceably assemble and petition for redress. The Constitution prohibits an establishment of religion (a State Church) primarily to protect these rights, and in no event to silence religious speech.

It is fundamentally un-America to force religious believes on others.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When I saw the thread title I thought it was going to be about Pope Francis, who is considered rogue by most in the Church establishment. For shocking things like saying Catholic women who had abortions could be forgiven, that God loves gay people, that atheists could enter the kingdom of heaven.

I doubt very much there will be another Pope as rogue as Francis anytime soon. I suspect the next elected Pope will be far more conservative than he is.

Francis is one of the few pipes actually teaching Jesus’s word instead of making up rules for political and financial gain.

He’s only rogue to a small extreme right faction of the Catholics like Opus Dei and Steve Bannon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A Pope who endorsed the admission of women to Holy Orders and/or procured abortion and/or sacramental marriage between persons of the same sex would by that act become a material heretic and ipsofacto cease to be Pope.

The pope can modify celibacy requirements for secular priests (those not a part of a religious order with a separate vow of chastity) at any time. Celibacy is a discipline, not an ontological part of the priestly state.

This is not technically true. All of these issues are debated and some have been different within the Church at different times in history.

The Pope’s ability to modify the discipline of celibacy is debated? I think not.

The gravely sinful nature of abortion debated? Hardly.

The ontological inability to confer Holy Orders on a woman debated? No. That has been firmly settled long before it was definitively (and one can argue based on phrasing infallibly) rejected by John Paul II.

The impossibility to confect the sacrament of matrimony between persons of the same sex debated? Certainly not.

There are people who would like to debate these matters now, and who hope to obscure the longstanding clarity of doctrine in these areas, but the questions are closed and more or less always have been. There is room for discussion as to how such matters should be approached pastorally, which is what Pope Francis is doing.

This "black and white" absolute thinking peppered with language marketed by a hypocritical patriarchy fearful of losing its power is precisely what's causing droves of people to leave the RCC for other more inclusive denominations or to become unchurched entirely.

I think that the vast majority of people who abandon the practice of their Catholic Faith and/or apostatize to other denominations do so without a meaningful understanding of the teachings they claim to reject, or of the reasons why the Church teaches as it does. People often are attached to behaviors that go against Church teaching and feel like hypocrites if they stay, never considering the availability of Divine Mercy or the role of a well-formed conscience in making individual moral decisions. People leave because they’re dissatisfied with externals, get their feelings hurt or because of the sins and shortcomings of Church personnel, acting on a human and emotional level and losing sight of how God operates in and through the Church despite human frailty.

Relativism, the refusal to acknowledge that truth is objective, knowable and absolute, is probably the greatest modern heresies. Church teaching is “black and white” because beliefs in some matters are either true or not, with no middle ground, and the Church is obliged to seek and teach the truth.

Blaming “patriarchy” for the perceived shortcomings of the Church and its doctrines is a puerile, disingenuous and ill-informed dodge that focuses on the superficialities of what is perceived as worldly “power,” and ignores the servant nature of leadership in the Church, especially today. It likewise casts aside the example of centuries of highly influential women in the Church, such as Catherine of Siena, Joan of Arc, Teresa of Avila, Therese of Lisieux, Mother Teresa, and centuries of Abbesses, nuns, teaching sisters, to name only a few. The Bible records that Jesus first appearance after his resurrection was to a woman; it is a pious belief that he appeared even before that to another woman, his mother.

You certainly are entitled to your opinion.

Others are certainly entitled to judge it to be puerile rationalizations ignoring the many facts on the other side.

Oh, and since this is the place for people to get offended and report every post they do not like, I am offended by your sentence "the teachings they claim to reject". You can't "claim" to reject something - you either reject it or you don't. Unless you are calling them liars? Sure sounds like it.

I don’t think your reasoning is correct. To actually radically reject something, one must comprehend its genesis, it’s development, its logical, philosophical and (in the case of religious teaching) theological underpinnings. I think people frequently reject conclusory statements of Church teaching without understanding or considering any of those things, when had they done do they might have been persuaded. Catholic teaching isn’t plucked from the air. It is the product of millennia of prayer, deep thought, analysis, scholarship and refinement by some of the greatest spirits and intellects in history.

I agree with you except Catholic teachings are often a product of greed, money, politics, control and sinful needs. Pooes and bishops are just men and rules are only Devine when they are “from the chair” and none of the rules discussed have Devine intervention.

They are all rules made by man with sinful greed as the basis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A Pope who endorsed the admission of women to Holy Orders and/or procured abortion and/or sacramental marriage between persons of the same sex would by that act become a material heretic and ipsofacto cease to be Pope.

The pope can modify celibacy requirements for secular priests (those not a part of a religious order with a separate vow of chastity) at any time. Celibacy is a discipline, not an ontological part of the priestly state.

This is not technically true. All of these issues are debated and some have been different within the Church at different times in history.

The Pope’s ability to modify the discipline of celibacy is debated? I think not. t

The gravely sinful nature of abortion debated? Hardly.

The ontological inability to confer Holy Orders on a woman debated? No. That has been firmly settled long before it was definitively (and one can argue based on phrasing infallibly) rejected by John Paul II.

The impossibility to confect the sacrament of matrimony between persons of the same sex debated? Certainly not.

There are people who would like to debate these matters now, and who hope to obscure the longstanding clarity of doctrine in these areas, but the questions are closed and more or less always have been. There is room for discussion as to how such matters should be approached pastorally, which is what Pope Francis is doing.

Abortion has been debated for centuries in the Catholic Church. Gregory XIV even allowed first trimester abortions

https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1125&context=nd_naturallaw_forum

The article cited does not say that. And even the relevant discussion therein relates to historic opinions on the relative culpability of “therapeutic” abortions committed in defense of the mother’s life, not the wholesale abortion on demand at issue today. Opinions at the time turned on the issue of “ensoulment” and were colored by scientific understanding far more primitive than today’s. The “ensoulment” controversy notwithstanding abortion was even then considered a grave sin, as it always had been, even if not technically “homicide” for the purpose of certain canonical penalties, most notably whether an individual would be considered irregular for the exercise of holy orders. The author of the article appears in any event to have been trained as a philosopher not a theologian.

There is no such thing as scientific understanding of "ensoulment." And more than one former Catholic has said that the smoke-and-mirrors nature of "theology" was what moved them to leave that church.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A Pope who endorsed the admission of women to Holy Orders and/or procured abortion and/or sacramental marriage between persons of the same sex would by that act become a material heretic and ipsofacto cease to be Pope.

The pope can modify celibacy requirements for secular priests (those not a part of a religious order with a separate vow of chastity) at any time. Celibacy is a discipline, not an ontological part of the priestly state.

This is not technically true. All of these issues are debated and some have been different within the Church at different times in history.

The Pope’s ability to modify the discipline of celibacy is debated? I think not.

The gravely sinful nature of abortion debated? Hardly.

The ontological inability to confer Holy Orders on a woman debated? No. That has been firmly settled long before it was definitively (and one can argue based on phrasing infallibly) rejected by John Paul II.

The impossibility to confect the sacrament of matrimony between persons of the same sex debated? Certainly not.

There are people who would like to debate these matters now, and who hope to obscure the longstanding clarity of doctrine in these areas, but the questions are closed and more or less always have been. There is room for discussion as to how such matters should be approached pastorally, which is what Pope Francis is doing.

This "black and white" absolute thinking peppered with language marketed by a hypocritical patriarchy fearful of losing its power is precisely what's causing droves of people to leave the RCC for other more inclusive denominations or to become unchurched entirely.

I think that the vast majority of people who abandon the practice of their Catholic Faith and/or apostatize to other denominations do so without a meaningful understanding of the teachings they claim to reject, or of the reasons why the Church teaches as it does. People often are attached to behaviors that go against Church teaching and feel like hypocrites if they stay, never considering the availability of Divine Mercy or the role of a well-formed conscience in making individual moral decisions. People leave because they’re dissatisfied with externals, get their feelings hurt or because of the sins and shortcomings of Church personnel, acting on a human and emotional level and losing sight of how God operates in and through the Church despite human frailty.

Relativism, the refusal to acknowledge that truth is objective, knowable and absolute, is probably the greatest modern heresies. Church teaching is “black and white” because beliefs in some matters are either true or not, with no middle ground, and the Church is obliged to seek and teach the truth.

Blaming “patriarchy” for the perceived shortcomings of the Church and its doctrines is a puerile, disingenuous and ill-informed dodge that focuses on the superficialities of what is perceived as worldly “power,” and ignores the servant nature of leadership in the Church, especially today. It likewise casts aside the example of centuries of highly influential women in the Church, such as Catherine of Siena, Joan of Arc, Teresa of Avila, Therese of Lisieux, Mother Teresa, and centuries of Abbesses, nuns, teaching sisters, to name only a few. The Bible records that Jesus first appearance after his resurrection was to a woman; it is a pious belief that he appeared even before that to another woman, his mother.

In the US, you certainly are entitled to believe what you believe. First Amendment, etc. But the issue many have with the RCC is that the US Bishops seek to impose RCC views on the rest of the US. Fundamentally, un-American. Moreover, what you assume is that, at any given time, and assuming there is a fixed ultimate truth, we humans can know what that ultimate truth is. We know that, for multiple centuries, many, including the RCC, thought that slavery was okay.

It is not “fundamentally un-American” for the bishops or anyone else to exercise their rights of free speech, free belief, free exercise, and the right to peaceably assemble and petition for redress. The Constitution prohibits an establishment of religion (a State Church) primarily to protect these rights, and in no event to silence religious speech.

Of course. The US Bishops are entitled to exercise their free speech rights. But they are not entitled to believe that they should be free from criticism or to be entitled to respect by others. For this American, looking to the US Bishops for moral guidance is literally funny.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A Pope who endorsed the admission of women to Holy Orders and/or procured abortion and/or sacramental marriage between persons of the same sex would by that act become a material heretic and ipsofacto cease to be Pope.

The pope can modify celibacy requirements for secular priests (those not a part of a religious order with a separate vow of chastity) at any time. Celibacy is a discipline, not an ontological part of the priestly state.

This is not technically true. All of these issues are debated and some have been different within the Church at different times in history.

The Pope’s ability to modify the discipline of celibacy is debated? I think not.

The gravely sinful nature of abortion debated? Hardly.

The ontological inability to confer Holy Orders on a woman debated? No. That has been firmly settled long before it was definitively (and one can argue based on phrasing infallibly) rejected by John Paul II.

The impossibility to confect the sacrament of matrimony between persons of the same sex debated? Certainly not.

There are people who would like to debate these matters now, and who hope to obscure the longstanding clarity of doctrine in these areas, but the questions are closed and more or less always have been. There is room for discussion as to how such matters should be approached pastorally, which is what Pope Francis is doing.

This "black and white" absolute thinking peppered with language marketed by a hypocritical patriarchy fearful of losing its power is precisely what's causing droves of people to leave the RCC for other more inclusive denominations or to become unchurched entirely.

I think that the vast majority of people who abandon the practice of their Catholic Faith and/or apostatize to other denominations do so without a meaningful understanding of the teachings they claim to reject, or of the reasons why the Church teaches as it does. People often are attached to behaviors that go against Church teaching and feel like hypocrites if they stay, never considering the availability of Divine Mercy or the role of a well-formed conscience in making individual moral decisions. People leave because they’re dissatisfied with externals, get their feelings hurt or because of the sins and shortcomings of Church personnel, acting on a human and emotional level and losing sight of how God operates in and through the Church despite human frailty.

Relativism, the refusal to acknowledge that truth is objective, knowable and absolute, is probably the greatest modern heresies. Church teaching is “black and white” because beliefs in some matters are either true or not, with no middle ground, and the Church is obliged to seek and teach the truth.

Blaming “patriarchy” for the perceived shortcomings of the Church and its doctrines is a puerile, disingenuous and ill-informed dodge that focuses on the superficialities of what is perceived as worldly “power,” and ignores the servant nature of leadership in the Church, especially today. It likewise casts aside the example of centuries of highly influential women in the Church, such as Catherine of Siena, Joan of Arc, Teresa of Avila, Therese of Lisieux, Mother Teresa, and centuries of Abbesses, nuns, teaching sisters, to name only a few. The Bible records that Jesus first appearance after his resurrection was to a woman; it is a pious belief that he appeared even before that to another woman, his mother.

In the US, you certainly are entitled to believe what you believe. First Amendment, etc. But the issue many have with the RCC is that the US Bishops seek to impose RCC views on the rest of the US. Fundamentally, un-American. Moreover, what you assume is that, at any given time, and assuming there is a fixed ultimate truth, we humans can know what that ultimate truth is. We know that, for multiple centuries, many, including the RCC, thought that slavery was okay.

It is not “fundamentally un-American” for the bishops or anyone else to exercise their rights of free speech, free belief, free exercise, and the right to peaceably assemble and petition for redress. The Constitution prohibits an establishment of religion (a State Church) primarily to protect these rights, and in no event to silence religious speech.

It is fundamentally un-America to force religious believes on others.

You mean like people who want to compel others to violate their conscience as by, for example, being required involuntarily to participate in procured abortion, etc.?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A Pope who endorsed the admission of women to Holy Orders and/or procured abortion and/or sacramental marriage between persons of the same sex would by that act become a material heretic and ipsofacto cease to be Pope.

The pope can modify celibacy requirements for secular priests (those not a part of a religious order with a separate vow of chastity) at any time. Celibacy is a discipline, not an ontological part of the priestly state.

This is not technically true. All of these issues are debated and some have been different within the Church at different times in history.

The Pope’s ability to modify the discipline of celibacy is debated? I think not. t

The gravely sinful nature of abortion debated? Hardly.

The ontological inability to confer Holy Orders on a woman debated? No. That has been firmly settled long before it was definitively (and one can argue based on phrasing infallibly) rejected by John Paul II.

The impossibility to confect the sacrament of matrimony between persons of the same sex debated? Certainly not.

There are people who would like to debate these matters now, and who hope to obscure the longstanding clarity of doctrine in these areas, but the questions are closed and more or less always have been. There is room for discussion as to how such matters should be approached pastorally, which is what Pope Francis is doing.

Abortion has been debated for centuries in the Catholic Church. Gregory XIV even allowed first trimester abortions

https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1125&context=nd_naturallaw_forum

The article cited does not say that. And even the relevant discussion therein relates to historic opinions on the relative culpability of “therapeutic” abortions committed in defense of the mother’s life, not the wholesale abortion on demand at issue today. Opinions at the time turned on the issue of “ensoulment” and were colored by scientific understanding far more primitive than today’s. The “ensoulment” controversy notwithstanding abortion was even then considered a grave sin, as it always had been, even if not technically “homicide” for the purpose of certain canonical penalties, most notably whether an individual would be considered irregular for the exercise of holy orders. The author of the article appears in any event to have been trained as a philosopher not a theologian.

No abortions in the 1st trimester were not a sin until some rogue pope in the 1500’s made it so against the advice of all his advisors.

Making abortion a “grave” sin was never based in theology but based in the need to control women. Also abortion was never stated as a sin because of killing a baby, it was a sin because it tempted men to fornicate.

You need to study further and look at the Papal document in question. What was at issue in the instance you refer to was not a question of moral theology (sin) but rather of Canon Law (Church administration and the administrative treatment of certain delicts). The Church has always condemned abortion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A Pope who endorsed the admission of women to Holy Orders and/or procured abortion and/or sacramental marriage between persons of the same sex would by that act become a material heretic and ipsofacto cease to be Pope.

The pope can modify celibacy requirements for secular priests (those not a part of a religious order with a separate vow of chastity) at any time. Celibacy is a discipline, not an ontological part of the priestly state.

This is not technically true. All of these issues are debated and some have been different within the Church at different times in history.

The Pope’s ability to modify the discipline of celibacy is debated? I think not.

The gravely sinful nature of abortion debated? Hardly.

The ontological inability to confer Holy Orders on a woman debated? No. That has been firmly settled long before it was definitively (and one can argue based on phrasing infallibly) rejected by John Paul II.

The impossibility to confect the sacrament of matrimony between persons of the same sex debated? Certainly not.

There are people who would like to debate these matters now, and who hope to obscure the longstanding clarity of doctrine in these areas, but the questions are closed and more or less always have been. There is room for discussion as to how such matters should be approached pastorally, which is what Pope Francis is doing.

This "black and white" absolute thinking peppered with language marketed by a hypocritical patriarchy fearful of losing its power is precisely what's causing droves of people to leave the RCC for other more inclusive denominations or to become unchurched entirely.

I think that the vast majority of people who abandon the practice of their Catholic Faith and/or apostatize to other denominations do so without a meaningful understanding of the teachings they claim to reject, or of the reasons why the Church teaches as it does. People often are attached to behaviors that go against Church teaching and feel like hypocrites if they stay, never considering the availability of Divine Mercy or the role of a well-formed conscience in making individual moral decisions. People leave because they’re dissatisfied with externals, get their feelings hurt or because of the sins and shortcomings of Church personnel, acting on a human and emotional level and losing sight of how God operates in and through the Church despite human frailty.

Relativism, the refusal to acknowledge that truth is objective, knowable and absolute, is probably the greatest modern heresies. Church teaching is “black and white” because beliefs in some matters are either true or not, with no middle ground, and the Church is obliged to seek and teach the truth.

Blaming “patriarchy” for the perceived shortcomings of the Church and its doctrines is a puerile, disingenuous and ill-informed dodge that focuses on the superficialities of what is perceived as worldly “power,” and ignores the servant nature of leadership in the Church, especially today. It likewise casts aside the example of centuries of highly influential women in the Church, such as Catherine of Siena, Joan of Arc, Teresa of Avila, Therese of Lisieux, Mother Teresa, and centuries of Abbesses, nuns, teaching sisters, to name only a few. The Bible records that Jesus first appearance after his resurrection was to a woman; it is a pious belief that he appeared even before that to another woman, his mother.

You certainly are entitled to your opinion.

Others are certainly entitled to judge it to be puerile rationalizations ignoring the many facts on the other side.

Oh, and since this is the place for people to get offended and report every post they do not like, I am offended by your sentence "the teachings they claim to reject". You can't "claim" to reject something - you either reject it or you don't. Unless you are calling them liars? Sure sounds like it.

I don’t think your reasoning is correct. To actually radically reject something, one must comprehend its genesis, it’s development, its logical, philosophical and (in the case of religious teaching) theological underpinnings. I think people frequently reject conclusory statements of Church teaching without understanding or considering any of those things, when had they done do they might have been persuaded. Catholic teaching isn’t plucked from the air. It is the product of millennia of prayer, deep thought, analysis, scholarship and refinement by some of the greatest spirits and intellects in history.

I agree with you except Catholic teachings are often a product of greed, money, politics, control and sinful needs. Pooes and bishops are just men and rules are only Devine when they are “from the chair” and none of the rules discussed have Devine intervention.

They are all rules made by man with sinful greed as the basis.

I think you’re confusing the concept of Papal infallibility when speaking “ex cathedra” (something that has been invoked only twice) in a way that omits the Church’s “ordinary magisterium,” that is its inherent authority stemming from Christ to establish and teach doctrine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A Pope who endorsed the admission of women to Holy Orders and/or procured abortion and/or sacramental marriage between persons of the same sex would by that act become a material heretic and ipsofacto cease to be Pope.

The pope can modify celibacy requirements for secular priests (those not a part of a religious order with a separate vow of chastity) at any time. Celibacy is a discipline, not an ontological part of the priestly state.

This is not technically true. All of these issues are debated and some have been different within the Church at different times in history.

The Pope’s ability to modify the discipline of celibacy is debated? I think not.

The gravely sinful nature of abortion debated? Hardly.

The ontological inability to confer Holy Orders on a woman debated? No. That has been firmly settled long before it was definitively (and one can argue based on phrasing infallibly) rejected by John Paul II.

The impossibility to confect the sacrament of matrimony between persons of the same sex debated? Certainly not.

There are people who would like to debate these matters now, and who hope to obscure the longstanding clarity of doctrine in these areas, but the questions are closed and more or less always have been. There is room for discussion as to how such matters should be approached pastorally, which is what Pope Francis is doing.

This "black and white" absolute thinking peppered with language marketed by a hypocritical patriarchy fearful of losing its power is precisely what's causing droves of people to leave the RCC for other more inclusive denominations or to become unchurched entirely.

I think that the vast majority of people who abandon the practice of their Catholic Faith and/or apostatize to other denominations do so without a meaningful understanding of the teachings they claim to reject, or of the reasons why the Church teaches as it does. People often are attached to behaviors that go against Church teaching and feel like hypocrites if they stay, never considering the availability of Divine Mercy or the role of a well-formed conscience in making individual moral decisions. People leave because they’re dissatisfied with externals, get their feelings hurt or because of the sins and shortcomings of Church personnel, acting on a human and emotional level and losing sight of how God operates in and through the Church despite human frailty.

Relativism, the refusal to acknowledge that truth is objective, knowable and absolute, is probably the greatest modern heresies. Church teaching is “black and white” because beliefs in some matters are either true or not, with no middle ground, and the Church is obliged to seek and teach the truth.

Blaming “patriarchy” for the perceived shortcomings of the Church and its doctrines is a puerile, disingenuous and ill-informed dodge that focuses on the superficialities of what is perceived as worldly “power,” and ignores the servant nature of leadership in the Church, especially today. It likewise casts aside the example of centuries of highly influential women in the Church, such as Catherine of Siena, Joan of Arc, Teresa of Avila, Therese of Lisieux, Mother Teresa, and centuries of Abbesses, nuns, teaching sisters, to name only a few. The Bible records that Jesus first appearance after his resurrection was to a woman; it is a pious belief that he appeared even before that to another woman, his mother.

In the US, you certainly are entitled to believe what you believe. First Amendment, etc. But the issue many have with the RCC is that the US Bishops seek to impose RCC views on the rest of the US. Fundamentally, un-American. Moreover, what you assume is that, at any given time, and assuming there is a fixed ultimate truth, we humans can know what that ultimate truth is. We know that, for multiple centuries, many, including the RCC, thought that slavery was okay.

It is not “fundamentally un-American” for the bishops or anyone else to exercise their rights of free speech, free belief, free exercise, and the right to peaceably assemble and petition for redress. The Constitution prohibits an establishment of religion (a State Church) primarily to protect these rights, and in no event to silence religious speech.

Of course. The US Bishops are entitled to exercise their free speech rights. But they are not entitled to believe that they should be free from criticism or to be entitled to respect by others. For this American, looking to the US Bishops for moral guidance is literally funny.

The US bishops are not the Church, nor the entire Episcopate. Their office is entitled to respect; whether they as individuals are reliable guides is a more individualized question. Flawed as they may be, however, they typically provide substantially better moral guidance than the secular heroes and philosophies of the present age.