Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12178868/

lol checkmate

NP. Nuanced? Yes. Checkmate? No.

“The introductory section notes that the Church has consistently opposed abortion as evidence of sexual sin but has not always regarded it as homicide because Church teaching has never been definitive about the nature of the fetus. In addition, the prohibition of abortion has never been declared an infallible teaching.”

Anonymous wrote:

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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.

Sorry, the US Bishops, whether as an office or an individuals, are not entitled to my respect. Not even close. Like everyone else, they must earn it. And they have not. When and if they start calling out politicians who support the death penalty (and aggressively use it) and who oppose fair treatment of immigrants at the same level as they speak out about abortion, I might listen. And, yes, there are many other sources of moral guidance.

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.

Of course the Roman Catholic Church is going to say “relativism” is a great heresy! It represents a clear and present danger to the power that Catholic clergy have exercised over the masses for two thousand years.

Gotta keep the sheep dumb and stupid. Don’t want them to open their eyes, perk up their ears, start looking around, start looking at the sky, and begin to ponder the vastness of God’s creation while asking: “God’s absolute truth can only be found in one belief system (among hundreds) on one planet (among trillions) in one galaxy (among billions)?” No. No. No. Gotta tell them that line of thinking leads straight to the Devil! Keep your eyes shut, keep your ears closed, and do whatever His Holiness, His Excellency, or Father tells you because only the Roman Catholic Church has access to the fullness of God…

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 write long flowery sentences and use many fancy words, and have read quite a bit of Catholic theology. Having said that, you also have a very small mind. You’ve chosen to lock yourself up in an ivory tower surrounded by dusty teachings and writings of mostly dead Europeans. You’ve closed off your mind to the objective truth that God’s creation is FAR more vast, FAR more complex, FAR more awesome, and FAR more beautiful that any one person, any one denomination, or any one faith can fully comprehend. Having one Church say smugly that it has all the answers about what constitutes “truth” — the sheer sinful hypocrisy of said Church’s leaders set aside for the moment — mocks the very God it purports to worship.

Creation is “grey.” It’s not “black and white.”

The Church’s condemnation of abortion can be traced to not later than the time of the Apostolic Fathers in the first and second centuries. We read in the Didache “You shall not kill an unborn child or murder a newborn infant.”

The Epistle of Barnabas, dating to as early as the year 70 counsels “You shall not slay the child by abortion.”

Athenagorus of Athens, in a letter to Marcus Aurelius in the year 177 taught: Those women who use drugs to bring about an abortion commit murder and will have to give an account to God for their abortion.”

Similar teaching is found in the Apoligeticus of Tertullian (ca. 197): “For us [Christians], murder is once and for all forbidden; so even the child in the womb, while yet the mother's blood is still being drawn on to form the human being, it is not lawful for us to destroy. To forbid birth is only quicker murder. It makes no difference whether one takes away the life once born or destroys it as it comes to birth. He is a man, who is to be a man; the fruit is always present in the seed.”

Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150-220) is in accord: “Women who make use of some sort of deadly abortion drug kill not only the embryo but, together with it, all human kindness.”

The great scripture scholar St. Jerome (ca. 340-420) observed that “some unmarried women, when they learn they are with child through sin, practice abortion by the use of drugs. Frequently they die themselves and are brought before the ruler of the lower world guilty of three crimes; suicide, adultery against Christ, and murder of an unborn child.”

In the 13th Century, Saint Thomas Aquinas taught that regardless when the human soul might be infused, it was a grave sin against nature to reject God’s gift of a new life.

Each of these examples confirms that the Church has condemned abortion from its earliest days.

Modern secular writers, particularly those with an axe to grind, frequently confuse (and thereby misrepresent) changes over time in the Canonical penalties for abortion by incorrectly identifying them as changes in the Church’s substantive moral teaching.

For example, in 1588, Pope Sixtus V sought to discourage abortion by reserving absolution for that sin to the Holy See (the Pope himself). This proved unworkable so the next Pope, Gregory XIV, returned absolution for abortion to local diocesan bishops. Proponents of abortion claim that this change made abortion permissible. This obviously was not the case. If abortion was not a sin, no absolution would have been necessary. In short, In the Church’s teaching on the evil of abortion remained constant; what changed from time to time was how abortion was penalized administratively, as by excommunication or by some lesser penalty.

In 1679, Pope Innocent XI condemned the writings and teachings of theologians who believed that abortion was lawful if the fetus was not yet animated or ensouled. Any distinction in Canon law between “formed” and “unformed” fetuses was removed by Pope Pius IX in 1869, making the administrative penalties for abortion uniforming and underlining Church teaching against abortion at any stage.

Modern Popes have likewise been in accord in their condemnation of abortion, as are the documents of the Second Vatican Council.

The Church’s teaching on abortion is not set forth in summary articles like those linked on this thread, even less so is it found in abstracts thereof. It is found in the traditions of the Church dating to Apostolic times and in the Church’s magisterial (teaching) documents.

Anonymous wrote:https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12178868/

lol checkmate

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. 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.

You are categorically incorrect in your understanding of the early teachings of the Cathedral church.

Would you please be so kind as to point me to a magisterial document authorizing abortion or saying abortion is not morally sinful?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many of the rule made by Pooes were rogue.

Abortion was not a sin until 1500’s and many did not agree, and still don’t.

Priest only became celibate to protect the churches assets from wives and children. Agains pope made that rogue rule not Jesus.

You are incorrect.

Abortion has always been declared a grave sin by the Church. And as for “many” disagreeing, dogmatic discernment is not the product of a popularity vote.

While it was not formally required in the universal church until the Second Lateran Council in 1239, the discipline of celibacy (not to be confused with the evangelical counsel of chastity pursuant to the vows taken by members of religious orders) grew out of a preexisting and very old tradition that clerics should abstain from sexual relations. Even in the Eastern Church, where priests are permitted to marry, Bishops come only from among the celibate clergy.

The fundamentalist doctrine that anything that Jesus is not reported to have said is somehow “rogue” is erroneous and unsupportable. Jesus specifically gave his Apostles the authority to bind and to loose and to govern the Church. Scripture (which itself says it is incomplete) has always been interpreted in light of tradition.

The Church did change its position on when life begins. So it did change its position on abortion.

No. Abortion has always been considered a grave sin, regardless of theological debates about ensoulment, quickening, etc.

"Regardless of" is doing a lot of slippery work there, and, of course, you know that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.?

Nobody is “required to involuntary” participation.

Actually, that’s precisely what conscience clauses are about.

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. 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.

You are categorically incorrect in your understanding of the early teachings of the Cathedral church.

Anonymous wrote:

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.

No. I’m not confused. You seems confused and indoctrinated instead of thoughtfully understanding. I completely understand that often the men who are bishops and popes are human, full of sin and lust and greed and often rules of the church are from those sinful places instead of Jesus’s.

Most the rules discussed here .. celibacy and abortion are not based in the teaching of Jesus, they are born out of greed and lust ((or the lack of control of lust) and that’s expected, since Popes are not infallible .

Anonymous wrote:

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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.?

Nobody is “required to involuntary” participation.

Anonymous wrote:

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.?

Not PP, but not what I would mean. I'd mean like people who compel others to violate their consciences as by, for example, being required involuntarily to gestate a pregnancy - even when the pregnancy threatens that person's life. Or being prevented from offering needed medical care to a pregnant woman b/c that care might harm a fetus.

Just to take a couple of examples.