Sedevacante & The One True Catholic Church (continued)

This is a continuation of the old Sedevacante & The One True Catholic Church thread as it was getting too long and taking ages to load.

I see today in the news that the anti-pope Benedict is resigning....one has to wonder why? Has he realized how great his sins against Christ's Church are....or is he being forced out in favour of a new agenda by the Novus Ordo church!?!? At least he'll be getting out before he could possibly be murdered!?!?

Pope Leo XIII (1885): “…Catholic faith cannot be reconciled with opinions verging on naturalism or rationalism, the essence of which is utterly to do away with Christian institutions and to install in society the supremacy of man to the exclusion of God.” (Immortale Dei #47)

>4 Joansknight: I suspect none of the above. He might just be resigning for the reasons he stated. There is a thread on this on the Christianity group at http://www.librarything.com/topic/149835

Just a thought: from 28th February we'll all be Sedevacantists for a few days!

And now from 13th March, we no longer have sede vacante... habemus papam.

Apparently, Matthew Fox is now a sedevacantist, too: http://www.salon.com/2013/03/16/is_pope_francis_a_fraud/

Fox believes that the last two popes, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, departed so far from both the letter and spirit of Vatican II — which should have been viewed as the authoritative teachings of the church — that they should be considered “schismatic,” or illegitimate.

>8 nathanielcampbell: Joansknight and Matthew Fox in the same camp - priceless!

>5 John5918:: I find it sad John that you believe everything you are told....

>10 Joansknight:: " I find it sad John that you believe everything you are told...."

I find that Christian charity demands of me that I believe somebody to be honest unless there is sufficient evidence to warrant otherwise.

What evidence do you have to indicate that Pope Benedict's resignation was motivated by reasons other than those he himself gave for it?

>8 nathanielcampbell:: No clue who Mr. Fox is....I am a CATHOLIC....John....you are an apostate and heretic....you believe just because a man occupies the Vatican....he is pope....and you believe in the doctrines of man and you conform to society....you follow Satan....NOT Christ....you put your faith in your "pope"....NOT in Christ and his Church....

Well, there goes any attempt at reasoned conversation...

>12 Joansknight: Joansknight, how do we know who is the pope? How do we put our trust in Christ and his Church, rather than Satan? Seems to me that following Christ's Church, as represented by its popes, bishops, priests and laity would be a good start, rather than following a very small dissident group. You, of course, would claim that the hierarchy of the Church is in error and that your very small group of dissidents is correct. But isn't that precisely what the Church has always defined as heresy? Isn't that the protestant approach? I can understand you leaving the Church if you don't agree with it, and starting your own church, but I really fail to understand on what basis you can continue to claim, in defiance of all the evidence to the contrary, that your small dissident sect is the one true Church and that the actual Church is heretical.

>13 nathanielcampbell: Just to try to have a reasoned conversation...

Joansknight, it seems you recognise Pius XII as a legitimate, real pope. So almost all the cardinals who voted for John XXIII at the conclave were appointed by a real pope. Likewise, almost all the bishops who attended Vatican II were also appointed by Pius XII, a real pope. So how can a pope chosen by all these "real" cardinals be an anti-pope, and how can a Vatican Council made up of "real" bishops be heretical? Pius XII himself, like previous "real" popes was elected by "real" cardinals, and Vatican I, like previous "real" councils, was made up of "real" bishops. So on what authority do you challenge the authority of "real" cardinals and bishops? How do you and a handful of dissidents have authority which is greater than the magisterium of Christ's Church (and recall that here I am not speaking of the post-Vatican II Church but of the hierarchy as set up by "real" Pope Pius XII)?

I was a Catholic during the time of Pius XII, under the cardinals and bishops that he and his predecessors appointed. At what point, pray, did I become an apostate by simply following the Church as represented by them and their duly-appointed successors?

>15 John5918:

Of course, I think JK is entirely wrong. But imagine if Francis declared that, say, the Nicene Creed was wrong, and Jesus was in fact a subordinate creation. From now on, the creed says "Made not begotten," etc. And imagine that most bishops continued to follow him. Would he still be the pope?

>16 timspalding: But he didn't and he wouldn't and they wouldn't. In fact John XXIII didn't really declare anything except that there would be a Vatican Council, although obviously he set the tone for it.

Okay, then what if Vatican III said all that?

>18 timspalding: I just don't see it happening.

Obviously I agree with you. But I think it's worth asking. If Vatican III did such a thing, would you conclude it was a robber council? I think I would.

>20 timspalding: I think I would trust that the Council is in conformity with Church Tradition. It's not a question of majorities, but even apart from the concept that the Church could not be in serious error, the chances of the vast majority of bishops in the world being in serious error at a Council seem pretty slim. Whatever its detractors say, Vatican II did not just make up new things. Rather it reflected deeply on the Tradition of the Church, and in particular it took us back to roots rather than remaining focused on the recent three or four hundred years. I think Cardinal Kasper's lecture referenced in a parallel thread gives some good insights into the process.

Yeah, I agree with you. I just think you need to ask yourself the counterfactual.

The apparent correctness of recent papal elections is clearly something the SDs have going against them. It's why their various conspiracy theories are so useful. So too are the worst of the bad popes, like Benedict IX who sold his papacy twice. Indeed, it's a lot easier to believe that this or that Pope was improperly elected than that a general council proclaimed heresy.

>18 timspalding:
Tim, have you seen the Martin Sheen film, "The Conflict"?

Eerily just as you say.

Pope St. Celestine I (431): “… pray that the faith may be granted to infidels; that idolaters may be delivered from the errors of their impiety; that the light of truth may be visible to the Jews, and the veil of their hearts may be removed; that heretics may come to their senses through a comprehension of the Catholic faith; that schismatics (NOVUS ORDO church) may receive the spirit of renewed charity…” (Denz. 139)

Tim and John....I am sure glad you two agree on everything....too bad you can't think for yourselves....too bad you are conformists....too bad you follow the doctrines of man....and NOT Christ's Church....but as long as you both are happy....that is all that matters....for your salvation matters not!

The “Indiculus” is really by Prosper of Aquitaine, right? That isn't a bone of contention, is it?

>24 Joansknight: You must have missed the thread where Tim and I disagreed on whether one should follow Pope Francis on the use of violence to bring peace to Syria.

Generally, Joansknight, I disagree strongly with you and I try to give reasons why I disagree with you. You tend to respond by quoting texts from the tradition of the Church which I am well aware of and which, as a Catholic, I accept, albeit I tend to interpret them as the Church interprets them, not as your own small group interprets them (although interestingly you never seem to explain how you interpret them; you simply quote them). You then go on to insult me (and Tim and others) and to ascribe pejorative motivations to us. Call me old-fashioned, but I've always thought charity was one of the foundations of Christ's Church.

Just a reminder to everyone, following a recent conversation on the "Francis" thread in the Catholic Tradition group, that this thread still exists. It would be appreciated if Sedevacante-related conversations could be posted here and not on other unrelated threads. Thanks!

> 78 Pope Gregory XVI, Summo Iugiter Studio, May 27, 1832, on no salvation outside the Church

As you probably know, Summo Jugiter Studio and the larger Kölner Bischofstreit around mixed marriages has as much to do with 19th Century state politics as Church dogma.

"When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him."
- Jonathan Swift

>29 Joansknight: Now that one COULD have been posted in the "Francis" thread! I note how the reactionary elements within the Church are "in confederacy against him".

Pope Pius IX: “… the neo-Schismatics can in no way convince themselves that they are Catholics even if they declare themselves such.” (Quartus Supra #15, Jan. 6, 1873)

I am NO genius....but I do know the TRUTH....and I do not deny it!

You DO NOT belong to Christ's Church John.....

You are right ....you are NOT an apostate....simply a HERETIC!

>34 Joansknight:: Only the Church can declare a person a heretic. Are you claiming to speak for the Church, JK? By what authority do you claim that right? Are you one of her bishops? Do you speak the sentence of an ecumenical council that has declared John, Tim, and other members of the contemporary Roman Catholic Church heretical?

Note: Pope Pius was writing in 1854 -- how on earth can his declarations be taken to apply to a "schism" that occurred more than a century later, if it occurred at all? And given that the Church herself has declared the sedevacantists to be in schism, do not Pope Pius' words apply to them? Sedevacantists, as "neo-schismatics, can in no way convince themsevles that they are Catholics even if they declare themselves such."

If I had the resources....I would sue the NOVUS ORDO sect for calling itself Catholic....which it is NOT....I have more than enough evidence to prove it....and your ignorance is no excuse for not knowing the true doctrines of the Catholic Church!

>35 nathanielcampbell:: ".I would sue the NOVUS ORDO sect for calling itself Catholic"

I didn't realize that law suits in civil court were considered authoritative in the Catholic Church. Please cite one example of such a law suit carrying the same authority as an ecumenical council.

Among the "true doctrines of the Catholic Church" is that ultimate authority resides in ecumenical councils and, by extensions as their head, in the Roman Pontiff. Thus, either a duly constituted council or a duly elected Pope would need to have declared the post-Vatican-II Church in schism or heretical for it to be a valid declaration.

If all you have is your own declaration as a layperson, then it is you who have broken the Church's doctrine by assuming for yourself an authority that the Church has always reserved to her bishops acting in unison, whether in council or through their head, the Pope.

I declare them heretics by their beliefs and actions as I do you!

No Hierarchy is needed for Christ's Church exist!

>37 nathanielcampbell:: "I declare them heretics by their beliefs and actions as I do you!"

No layperson has ever been granted the authority to make such declarations. Thus, by assuming that authority, you are in direct contravention of the Church's sacred teachings.

Better that only a few Catholics should be left, staunch and sincere in their religion, than that they should, remaining many, desire as it were, to be in collusion with the Church's enemies and in conformity with the open foes of our faith.

- St. Peter Canisius (1521-1597), one of the greatest Jesuit theologians, speaking of the Protestants, who were then introducing changes such as vernacular liturgies, the abolition of fasting laws, the removal of statues, and other diminutions of traditional Catholicism

The Church is the only one, the Roman Catholic! And if there were left upon earth but one Catholic, he would be the one, universal Church, the Catholic Church, the Church of Jesus Christ against which the gates of Hell shall never prevail.

- Ven. Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774-1824)

What.....no response for the troll?!?

The very next sentence gives the context:

Et nisi astuta haereticarum fallaciarum subtilitas satis nota et perspecta foret, intelligi non posset, quomodo Othomanicum Gubernium eos uti catholicos habere valeat, quos nostro judicio et auctoritate ab Ecclesia catholica sequestratos esse novit.

If We did not thoroughly know the clever and subtle deceits of heretics, it would be incomprehensible that the Ottoman regime still regards as Catholics people it knows to be cut off from the Catholic Church by Our judgment and authority.

ETA: English, per request.

You know NOTHING of the Church's sacred teachings.....

I do not know much Latin....

Please translate....

Nat got quiet fast.....

Martin Luther lives again through you heretics!

Watch the heretics run and hide....

>41 Joansknight: I think the protestants were making rather bigger changes than the vernacular, statues and fasting. Many Church statements have to be interpreted in the light of the actual problem they were addressing rather than bending them to try to address the issue which interests any individual in a different time, place and context. And while Jesuit theologians certainly play a role in helping to discern and develop doctrine, they do not make authoritative teaching statements; as Nathaniel says above, it is popes and ecumenical councils which do that.

When I saw the definition of the Mass in the instruction that precedes the Novus Ordo, I said: "This definition of the Mass is unacceptable; I must go to Rome to see the Pope." I went and said: "Holy Father you cannot allow this definition. It is heretical. You cannot leave your signature on a document like this." The Holy Father replied to me: "Well, to speak truthfully, I did not read it. I signed it without reading it."

- Charles Cardinal Journet of Geneva (1891-1975), explaining that Paul VI signed texts that he had not read.

Considering there has been no pope since Pius XII....

John....it is very sad that you do not know who Bishop Sheen was.....

>38 Joansknight:, 39 Joansknight, I know it is pointless explaining this to you because I have tried before and you make no serious attempt to engage with me or others on the issue, and Nathaniel has tried again in >40 nathanielcampbell:.

The mark of many of the evangelical protestant churches is individualism. They don't need structures, hierarchies, institutions, bishops, priests, tradition, doctrine, authority, sacraments, etc. It's all about the individual in personal relationship with Jesus, based on that individual's personal and literal interpretation of the bible. That's fine if it works for them, but it is not Roman Catholicism. We are a Church which has all those things, and always has had them, yes, even before 1958, before Pius XII, before the Council of Trent, before the protestant reformation, before the great East-West Schism. Your stance of making decisions on your own initiative is protestantism, not Catholicism.

>54 Joansknight: it is very sad that you do not know who Bishop Sheen was

Why? Can you tell me all about Bishop Paride Taban, Archbishop Denis Hurley, Cardinal Gabriel Zubeir Wako, Cardinal John Njue, Bishop Vincent Mojwok, Bishop Pio Yukwan Deng, Cardinal Emmanuel Wamala, Cardinal Herbert Vaughan, Bishop Fred Hall, Bishop Kees de Wit, Bishop Colin Davies, Bishop Kevin Dowling, Archbishop Stephen Brislin, Bishop Joseph Willigers, Bishop Adrian Ddungu, Cardinal Peter Turkson, Cardinal John Onaiyekan, Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, Cardinal Basil Hume, Bishop Thomas McMahon, Bishop Gerald Mahon, Archbishop Jean-Baptist Obama, Archbishop Charles Balvo, and many others whose names I can reel of without even thinking because they are local to me? I have met all of them personally except those who lived before my time. But Bishop Sheen was in the USA, I understand, so how am I supposed to know about him? No googling, mind.

It's equally sad if you do not know who these men of God are/were...

You know nothing of Catholicism John....just the NOVUS ORDO sect....Protestants are heretics....as you are and you are outside of the Church....your soul is lost!

>56 John5918: Joansknight, it would be nice if you would actually engage with the conversation rather than just keep throwing abuse and soundbites.

Do you not understand that in Catholicism we have popes and ecumenical councils who make the doctrine, not the punters in the pews like you and me?

Have you actually heard of any of the bishops I mentioned?

All apostates and heretics....there has been NO council since the Vatican Council.....

Why do you think an anti-pope can not exist?

Do you really believe Satan is not capable of deceiving one billion people?

Joansknight, you refuse to answer any of the questions and arguments put to you.

>59 Joansknight: The entire college of bishops, the vast majority of whom were appointed before 1958, made up the Second Vatican Council. Were they all heretical? How? Why?

>60 Joansknight: Of course anti-popes can exist. But there is no canonical or theological or rational evidence that John XXIII and his successors were anti-popes. Remember that the entire college of cardinals were appointed before 1958, and they were the ones who elected John XXIII.

>61 Joansknight: Do you really believe that the Holy Spirit is not capable of safeguarding the Church?

I am the Church John....yes it is safeguarded!

Those bishops all reay had their minds made up by whom ever!

You are so blind that you can not see....

>64 Joansknight: Those bishops all reay had their minds made up by whom ever!

OK, explain it to me. Where is your evidence? Who had their minds made up by whom? Which bishops? Why? How? All the bishops in the world fell for the trick? How?

Do you personally know any of the bishops who were at Vatican II? I only knew a handful personally, but they didn't strike me as men who would allow others to make up their minds for them.

Satan John.....is that so impossible?

>66 John5918: Yes, but how did they all get deceived? How come the Holy Spirit didn't work through the Church? Why? How come only you and a handful of your friends were not deceived? And how do you know that you are right and everybody else is wrong?

I know I am right because I have the Holy Roman catholic church and its doctrines behind me!

It is more then a handful....

You think just because a billion people believe something makes it right...

This is the end times John....and Satan's power and will are stronger then ever....whether you believe it or not! Do you really wish to lose your soul to him?

>60 Joansknight: You don't have the Holy Roman Catholic Church and its doctrines behind you. You have a schismatic sect which, as I pointed out above, is actually far more protestant in its underlying attitudes, if not its doctrines.

How many more than a handful?

But you see, you still don't actually answer any of the questions. You "know" you are right, along with the small group that you believe makes up the true Church, but where is your evidence that all these bishops were misled or pressured or whatever?

Can not the Holy Spirit just get through to a few people?

You believe Satan is weak....you are wrong....you are brainwashed....

>70 Joansknight: You think just because a billion people believe something makes it right...

No. I'm not convinced that a billion Indians are right about everything, nor a billion Chinese, nor a billion Muslims. But that doesn't automatically mean that a handful (sorry, an unspecified number which is more than a handful) are right.

Catholic doctrine is that we don't know when the end times are. The "end times are near" paradigm is an evangelical protestant obsession.

>74 Joansknight: I have not actually said that Satan is weak. You're very good at building straw men and putting words into people's mouths. Congratulations. I have merely said that I believe the Holy Spirit is strong. I think you'll find that's also Catholic Church doctrine.

Only 12 men believed in Christ at first.....I am Protestant....you better look at your "mass" and what you believe....so sad....you are so blind....

The Holy Spirit is strong....if He is heeded....

You have more faith in man....then you do the Holy Spirit....or Christ..... for that matter!

Salvation is not squired through man....it is squired through Christ and His Church alone!

>77 Joansknight: Read >55 John5918: carefully and you might understand why I say that your underlying attitude is more protestant than Catholic.

>79 Joansknight: You see, here again you are making unwarranted assumptions based on no evidence. How do you know?

I notice you still haven't answered any of the question I asked, nor actually addressed any of the issues, but I shouldn't be surprised because that has been the pattern of your posts on LT in the past.

>80 Joansknight: Salvation is not squired through man....it is squired through Christ and His Church alone!

Agreed. So why have you rejected Christ and his Church and set up your own little more-than-a-handful church?

PS: I think you mean "acquired".

You deny and disbelieve in Catholic prophesy....

All you know is what the Novus Ordo teaches....NOT the Catholic Church!

I can't answer your questions....I am not a Catholic theologian....I only know what I was taught and believe!

You only believe in the Novus Ordo church and Man....

>83 Joansknight: How do you know I deny and disbelieve in Catholic prophecy? Are you suggesting that the Catholic Church teaches when the end times will be? It doesn't. It didn't before 1958 and it doesn't now.

>84 Joansknight: No, I think I said elsewhere that I used to know the Tridentine Mass off by heart. I don't know how old you are, but my early religious teaching was by an elderly Irish parish priest who was ordained long before 1958. Many of he priests who influenced me during my teenage and university years were ordained before 1958, as were many whom I worked with when I reached adulthood. I've studied Church history, and I've read many of the key documents of the Church from pre-1958. They are part of the authentic tradition and teaching of the Church.

>85 Joansknight: Who taught you what to believe? The Church, or the more-than-a-handful of people whom you follow (incidentally, you still haven't given me a clue as to how many)?

>86 Joansknight: Again, parrot-like repetition, making assumptions about what I believe without evidence, and no attempt to actually engage with the issues.

Incidentally, there is no such thing as a "Novo Ordo church". There is a Roman Catholic Church, which I am part of.

Bull....you belong to the Novus Ordo church so admit it! Nothing you believe is Catholic! You probably think it is normal to be a homosexual!

>89 Joansknight: I belong to the Roman Catholic Church, holy, catholic and apostolic. "Thou are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church."

I'm not a homosexual, as it happens.

Have you noticed how I have responded to each and every issue that you raise, but you have not continued to engage on any of them? Most of your posts just contain a new accusation or assumption or unconnected statement, based on no evidence whatsoever.

I have more evidence than I will ever need....you are NOT Catholic....you belong to the Vatican II sect....church of man....which puts man and his needs and wants before Christ our Lord and saviour....when you truly know the doctrines of Christ's church....then we will talk!

>91 Joansknight: when you truly know the doctrines of Christ's church....then we will talk!

And yet you have admitted that you know nothing of Catholic theology ("I can't answer your questions....I am not a Catholic theologian....I only know what I was taught and believe!") so it has proved rather difficult to talk to you. You simply reject (without any explanation why) all the "doctrines of Christ's church" which are presented to you by people who do know something about it. You also fail to answer the question about who taught you what you believe.

Would you mind my asking whether you were born a Catholic or whether you are a convert? If the former, were you born prior to 1958 or after? If the latter, when did you convert?

>92 Joansknight: I don't have access to that book. Would you care to explain why you have cited it and give us some idea of what is in it?

It seems to me that people with wildly divergent views ought to be particularly well-educated in the issues they raise. I'm not sure how to parse someone who holds and trumpets a vanishingly obscure theological position, yet refuses to learn enough theology to justify it.

>94 timspalding: It reminds me of those people in the USA who claim that Obama is not a US citizen and is a Muslim. There is absolutely no evidence to back up their claim and plenty of evidence to the contrary. They are a tiny minority of conspiracy theorists who keep shouting their opinion but are unable to back it up, and who are convinced that they are right.

Sedevacantists seem to be similar. They have a theory that all the cardinals (who were all appointed prior to 1958) were somehow pressured into electing John XXIII, despite the fact that there is no evidence for that claim. They then extend that to the theory that all the bishops of the world, the vast majority of whom were appointed prior to 1958, were somehow subverted at Vatican II. Again, there is no evidence, and indeed there is evidence of a healthy debate with differences of opinion amongst the bishops before they finally came up with agreed texts. Sedevacantists are unable to argue about their belief, simply to shout slogans. It is as ludicrous as the US "birthers".

>92 Joansknight: and 93: The book JK linked to appears to be a limited English translation of what in theology circles is known as "Denzinger" (after the editor of the first edition back in the mid-19th century): the Enchiridion Symbolorum definitionum et declarationum de rebus fidei et morum ("Handbook of Creeds, Definitions, and Declarations on Matters of Faith and Morals", aka "The Sources of Catholic Dogma"). It's considered the standard authorative collection of all the most important statements of doctrine, from the earliest apostolic period through today, in Greek (mainly the oldest patristic material) and then in Latin, organized by pontificate after the patristic period.

JK's translated version appears to have been published in 1958, i.e. pre-Vatican II. The edition I have on the bookshelf is from the 1970's and runs through the middle of Paul VI's pontificate.

But here's the thing: the only difference between my edition from the 1970's and the edition that JK's translated version was based on in 1958 is that mine includes an additional few chapters at the end from the pontificates of John XXIII and Paul VI.

That is: the current edition did NOT change any of the pre-Vatican II material. It's all still there, just as it can be found in JK's translated version. Which is to say: the Church that JK claims is "heretical" ACCEPTS every single piece of dogma listed in the book that JK posted in 92.

You probably also recognize it as the DS that crops up in this group regularly. For example, the rather extensive #267 in the topic which this one continues. And even more often when ThomasRichard was participating.

Pope St. Leo the Great (c. 450): “For whoever is led away from the path of the true faith, and changed to another, his whole journey is an apostasy; and the further he travels from the Catholic light, the nearer he comes to the darkness of death.”

I know the feeling....I just got a new computer with Windows 7....

It is nice you hate me John!

>100 Joansknight: Well, that's a bit of a bolt out of the blue, four months after I last posted here, a post which challenged your ideas but particularly challenged your reluctance to actually engage on the issues. I'm sure I have never said I hate you, and if anything I have written gives that impression, I apologise.

For the record, I don't hate you. I do profoundly disagree with you. The two are very different. I also find your reluctance to actually discuss the issues rather frustrating.

And welcome back to LT Talk after a four month absence!

There is nothing to discuss....I am Catholic....you are NOT....I have proved that! I do pray you are well!

Have you noticed....your "pope" loves homosexuals....APOSTASY!

Nice....now you choose to ignore me!

>104 Joansknight: Nice....now you choose to ignore me!

Excuse me? I have just replied to you within nine minutes of your post after your four month absence. You have just told me there is nothing to discuss. Now I have just gone for 18 minutes without looking at LT (I was busy writing an e-mail to the General Council of a Catholic missionary order) and I am ignoring you?

Look, I am happy to engage with you on some of these issues, but it's difficult to know how to respond to one line statements such as "There is nothing to discuss....I am Catholic....you are NOT....I have proved that!" or "your "pope" loves homosexuals....APOSTASY!", especially when past experience shows that any response I make will probably get a similar one line rejoinder, closing down any real conversation.

I suppose it would be pointless for me to point out that the Church hates the sin but loves the sinner? Hence the pope is quite right to love everybody, including homosexuals. We're all sinners.

There is a "priest" in Texas who hit on me in 1983....

Your "pope" especially loves his gay "priests"!

>106 Joansknight:

I'm very sorry to hear it. God does not hate either of you.

As for "priest," are you a donatist now?

There have been anti-popes in the past....why is it so inconceivable there could be anti-popes in our time also!?!?

Hello Tim....I pray you are also well!

THE TRUTH....If 100 people believe an apple is an orange....is it?
If 1,000 people believe the sky is yellow....is it?
If 10,000 people believe George W. Bush was a good president....was he?
If 1,000,000 people believe in UFO....are they?
If 1,000,000,000 people believe the Vatican II sect (counterfeit-Catholic Church) is the true Roman Catholic Church....is it?
If society....the government....and the news and social medias tell you all these things are THE TRUTH....are they?

>106 Joansknight: Probably God's punishment on the USA for stealing Texas from Mexico. Remember the Alamo!

>109 Joansknight: If I recall correctly those anti-popes were in opposition to recognised popes. There is no recognised pope at the moment other than Francis, and again as far as I know the same was true of all his predecessors for several hundred years.

>111 Joansknight: If 1,000,000,000 people believe the Vatican II sect (counterfeit-Catholic Church) is the true Roman Catholic Church....is it?

If the legitimate authorities of the Catholic Church, ie virtually every bishop in the world as well as virtually all the ordinary Catholics in the world, accept the teachings of an Ecumenical Council...

If a pope is validly elected by the cardinals in 1958 and there is no legitimate challenge to his election...

PS: Are there really as many as ten thousand people who think George Bush was a good president? Now that statistic does surprise me. They're probably all radical militant Islamists who recognise that his actions did more to further their cause than anything they could ever have done themselves.

So we both agree Bush was an idiot? The Supreme Court....Republican appointees....did give him the presidency!

John....you are so young and naive....

>115 Joansknight: Why thank you. When I passed my 60th birthday last year I was afraid I might be getting old and cynical, but it's reassuring to know that I'm not.

I have a very good book about the Alamo....you should check out my library! You are older then me by seven years....but I am able to think for myself!

>117 Joansknight: but I am able to think for myself!

Good for you. It would certainly help me in these conversations if you could give us some of your thinking which leads you to the one line conclusions.

Tim....God has no reason to hate me....I am NOT a homosexual....the Novus Ordo "priests" is!

>119 Joansknight: God has no reason to hate anyone. We're all sinners, and God loves us all, whether we reciprocate that love or not. God's love is unconditional.

Tim....God has no reason to hate me....I am NOT a homosexual....the Novus Ordo "priests" is!

God does not hate either. But I would suggest that those who heap up hatred against others are not responding very well to the love he gives them.

>119 Joansknight: God has no reason to hate me....I am NOT a homosexual

Actually there's a story a bit like that in the gospel. A rather self-righteous chap stands at the front of the temple and says, "I am NOT like other people..." (cf Luke 18:10-14). I think we all know Jesus' response.

122
John, that is not the best retort.
But yes, Jesus rebuked Pharisees.
Interestingly, he also condemned many to hell. Matthew 25.

So it's all well and good, taking the silly theology of Kasper and co. and thinking all is well and good, when we know the 10 Commandments and what is expected of us.

Regardless though of the failings of this Pope, he is the Pope. There have been worse. The Church will see him out and the Faith will be renewed. We have a guarantee. Matthew 16:18

>123 LesMiserables: he also condemned many to hell. Matthew 25.

Interesting that you have chosen this text, one of my favourites. It's worth noting why he condemns people to hell in your chosen text. It is not for sins of commission, rather it is for sins of omission.

Edited to add:

Regardless though of the failings of this Pope, he is the Pope

The main protagonist on this thread, and indeed the underlying philosophy of sedevacantism, is that the pope is not in fact the pope. They believe that the election of Pope John XXIII in 1958 was invalid and that he and every pope since are not real popes. The Chair of St Peter is vacant, hence sedevacantism.

Homosexuality is the omission of virtue.

"Truly, this vice is never to be compared with any other vice because it surpasses the enormity of all vices.… It defiles everything, stains everything, pollutes everything. And as for itself, it permits nothing pure, nothing clean, nothing other than filth.…

"The miserable flesh burns with the heat of lust; the cold mind trembles with the rancor of suspicion; and in the heart of the miserable man chaos boils like Tartarus Hell…. In fact, after this most poisonous serpent once sinks its fangs into the unhappy soul, sense is snatched away, memory is borne off, the sharpness of the mind is obscured. It becomes unmindful of God and even forgetful of itself. This plague undermines the foundation of faith, weakens the strength of hope, destroys the bond of charity; it takes away justice, subverts fortitude, banishes temperance, blunts the keenness of prudence.

"And what more should I say since it expels the whole host of the virtues from the chamber of the human heart and introduces every barbarous vice as if the bolts of the doors were pulled out.

That is from St. Peter Damian

Saint Augustine...

The greatest of the Fathers of the West and one of the great Doctors of the Church, Saint Augustine laid the foundations of Catholic theology. In his celebrated Confessions, he thus condemns homosexuality:

"Those offences which be contrary to nature are everywhere and at all times to be held in detestation and punished; such were those of the Sodomites, which should all nations commit, they should all be held guilty of the same crime by the divine law, which hath not so made men that they should in that way abuse one another. For even that fellowship which should be between God and us is violated, when that same nature of which He is author is polluted by the perversity of lust.

Saint Gregory the Great

Pope Saint Gregory I is called “the Great.” He is both Father and Doctor of the Church. He introduced Gregorian chant into the Church. He organized England’s conversion, sending Saint Augustine of Canterbury and many Benedictine monks there.

"Sacred Scripture itself confirms that sulfur evokes the stench of the flesh, as it speaks of the rain of fire and sulfur poured upon Sodom by the Lord. He had decided to punish Sodom for the crimes of the flesh, and the very type of punishment he chose emphasized the shame of that crime. For sulfur stinks, and fire burns. So it was just that Sodomites, burning with perverse desires arising from the flesh like stench, should perish by fire and sulfur so that through this just punishment they would realize the evil they had committed, led by a perverse desire."

>125 LesMiserables: Whatever the good doctors of the Church said later, nevertheless your chosen scripture text is not condemning homosexuality but is condemning those who omit to welcome Jesus in the poor, the sick, the stranger, the prisoner - in other words, the marginalised of society. Many of those marginalised people were considered sinners in the eyes of both religion and society, but Jesus did not tell us to feed the hungry "unless she is a prostitute" or to visit the prisoner "unless he is a sinner" or to welcome the stranger "unless he is a homosexual". Regardless of whether someone is a sinner or not, when we stand in front of the judgement seat of Matthew 25 we will be judged according to whether or not we fed, clothed, visited, welcomed Jesus in the person we met... or whether we launched a hateful diatribe against one of those people, sinner or not. My duty is to welcome Jesus in all those different people; it's up to God to judge them.

Both falling off opposite sides of the narrow path again I see.

>125 LesMiserables:

The gospel is not found in a self-righteous condemnation of others. It is however found when we start with a realisation and condemnation of our own sins, and from that place of struggle towards Christ we may be in a position to help other with the same.

There is a reason St. Augustine's celebrated book is called Confessions, and deals with his own sins and faith.

>126 John5918:

Nor is the gospel found in merely doing good works of mercy of a corporal nature, though Christ asks them of us.

If a prostitute comes to us and leaves clothed, we have done a good work. If a prostitute comes to us and leaves clothed, no longer a prostitute and ready to proclaim Christ to others, then we have done a far better one.

We are called to do both corporal and spiritual works of mercy, yes even including admonishing the sinner and instructing people in the faith. And we will be judged on both.

>127 hf22: Of course. But I believe LesMis was incorrectly using that particular scriptural text and I pointed it out.

>128 John5918:

Despite its place in the progressive subcanon, his use of Matt 25 to confirm the reality of sin and judgement is perfectly OK.

The problem is more the Jansenist attitude which takes over from there.

128 129

The irony of self indulgent deliberations.

I merely pointed to 119 and 122

>130 LesMiserables:

Self indulgent deliberations is a pretty good description of what I am doing here. I'll pay that.

>129 hf22: What is a "progressive subcanon"? Never heard that term before.

New San Diego bishop speaks of a church that 'banishes judgmentalism' (NCR)

Hm.

>132 John5918:

People often talk of an evangelical "canon-within-canon", or sub-canon in my phrasing. You know, John 3:16, Romans 8, stuff like that. Basically the cherry picked bits they like, while ignoring or minimising the rest.

Progressives do the same thing, just preferring a different narrow set of biblical verses, Matthew 25 being the most notable. Thus I think it is also fair to speak of a progressive "canon-within-canon", or sub-canon.

>134 hf22: Progressives do the same thing

Sounds like rather a sweeping generalisation to me, but let that pass. Is there a "conservative sub-canon"?

>135 John5918:

Sounds like rather a sweeping generalisation to me, but let that pass.

Not at all - It fits you to a tee. Which is why, you know, you just pointed to Matthew 25 as a favourite Bible verse like most Catholic progressives do. And tried to use it to read down the rest of Scripture. Just like con-evos do with John 3:16 and other selected verses for example.

Is there a "conservative sub-canon"?

Hmmm, I could likely identify one for neo-liberal / tea party types. Traditionalists might be accused of doing the same with the Tradition (i.e. focusing on the Trent to VII period, to the exclusion of the broader Tradition), though not really with Holy Scripture.

But orthodox Catholic thought does not really fall into this particular error - It does not have the shallow intellectual engagement required to fall into such minimalism, which is so characteristic of much con-evo and progressive Catholic thought.

>136 hf22: And tried to use it to read down the rest of Scripture

No, tried to use it to emphasise a particular aspect of Church teaching in the face of someone who was using it to make a point which wasn't being made in that text. I don't believe I said anything about the rest of Scripture. When you introduced broader aspects in >127 hf22: I naturally agreed with you in >128 John5918:.

>137 John5918:

No, tried to read down Scripture. Scripture makes clear homosexual acts are sinful. Therefore a text which speaks of sin and judgement can be applied to such acts, even if it does not refer to that sin specifically.

Scripture is a whole, inspired by the same God.

Dolphin Guitar Homosexual Marriage

http://www.apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=7&article=1627

But orthodox Catholic thought does not really fall into this particular error - It does not have the shallow intellectual engagement required to fall into such minimalism, which is so characteristic of much con-evo and progressive Catholic thought.

I'll just leave this here as a monument to humility and a generous understanding of others.

A couple of more nuanced Catholic responses, both from National Catholic Reporter, which I also posted on a thread in the Pro and Con group:

How the bishops should respond to the same-sex marriage decision

Gay and Catholic: Two views on the Supreme Court's same-sex marriage ruling

141

From the first link..The divorce analogy is apt.

Certainly not. Gay marriage is unatural. Procreation of children is impossible. Remarriage is wrong but not unnatural. Quite strikingly different.

This in NOT a 'nuanced' position.

>140 timspalding:

Heh, that glass house of yours is looking pretty beat up there. You who have never denigrated the intellectual substance of say much popular con-evo stuff, and whose intellectual modesty is famous. Or maybe not, and perhaps fair enough too, as you are clearly whip-smart.

That being said, it should be noted I make no claim to modesty, and I really am not modest at all. No one has never mistaken me for an intellectually humble man with much to be humble about.

However I have found becoming Catholic, and struggling to grow in the faith, tremendously humbling. I have found myself accepting and conforming myself to a system of thought not of my own devising. And finding that those things which were hardest to accept, were actually due to defects in my own understanding, and not defects in the faith.

Praying to God for him to change me, and grant me the grace to understand, rather than demanding the faith conform to me. And the results have been both surprising, and indeed very humbling.

And while it may not be modest to say it, I think this is the humility that I find to be lacking here.

143

However I have found becoming Catholic, and struggling to grow in the faith, tremendously humbling. I have found myself accepting and conforming myself to a system of thought not of my own devising. And finding that those things which were hardest to accept, were actually due to defects in my own understanding, and not defects in the faith.

Well said.

>141 John5918:

Given that, based on your refreshing honesty over on that thread in the Pro and Con group, we now know a "more nuanced Catholic response" means:

1. A trope used by those who have "moved beyond their church's current understanding of sexual morality" to trick people into abandoning the Church's teaching step by step; and
2. The failed use of "legalistic" arguments in order to try to persuade Catholics of secular views in Catholic terms.

Do you maybe just want to level with us from here on in? Honesty suits you much better.

The Swamp of Subjective Sentimentality (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/standingonmyhead/2015/06/the-swamp-of-subjective-sentimentality.html).

Therefore, in the present debate over same sex marriage Americans simply cannot comprehend that Catholics operate according to a different set of systems. We believe that same sex activities and same sex marriage are wrong, not primarily because we think such things are “yucky” and not because we “hate gays” or because we want to tell them they are all going to hell.

We believe these things are wrong for clear and articulate reasons. We believe they are wrong for reasons that we can explain and outline clearly. Furthermore, we can believe they are wrong while still accepting gay people, not judging them and allowing them into our lives. We can believe they are wrong while also acknowledging that gay people have many gifts, are capable of great human achievement, human love and many other good things.

The subjective sentimentalist cannot work this out and will not believe it is possible.

He thinks were are pulling a fast one. He thinks we are lying because to disapprove of an action or lifestyle, for him, is to disapprove of the person and to condemn them.

The underlying problem and impasse is one, therefore, which has its roots in an essential philosophical problem.

How this has roots in the Protestant Revolution and the so called Enlightenment I’ll leave it to you to work out….

>143 hf22:

We are poking at something both of us, if we're honest, knows is tricky. Obviously in some issues I can run the risk of putting my biases before truth. And I think you realize someone who says what you say--though perhaps not you--runs the risk of substituting an inflexible caricature of the truth for the truth itself. Neither of us can give up either listening carefully to scripture and tradition or listening to our conscience and reason. It is a tricky thing to get right, and requires constant self-criticism and indeed other-criticism. Perhaps you are here to provide the latter.

While I won't speak to you motives, I don't think traditionalists of your stripe--or, more so, LesMiserables' stripe--are quite as obviously asking for the grace to understand, and stepping aside rather than asking God to conform to them. I won't speak of you, again, but I've known too many Trads whose life and opinions across the boards were shot through with contrarianism, inflexibility, baroque credulity, and the inability to listen to and understand others, to imagine these characteristics in their theology were just what truth was saying to them, not how truth looked when reflected against their warped mental mirror.

One I know rather rapidly transitioned from an anarcho-capitalist libertarian to an extreme traditionalist, and is, besides being anti-"modernist," anti-Francis, anti-gay, anti-Muslim and so forth, also anti-climate change, anti-evolution and anti-Stratfordian! Of course, every opinion is held with perfect certitude. I've seen this again and again with religious extremists. It doesn't take a psychiatrist to realize there's something going on there apart from conformity with God's voice. And while Jesus spoke of truth with a capital T, in my experience those who speak too much and too confidently in this vein are far more examples of something going very wrong than something going right.

What psychological problems and repetitious mental errors color my views? Well, you can speculate. For my part I'm content for now with having seen where that leads, and having examined myself from that direction many times. I think I have people around me who'll challenge me when I go off the deep end. I should add that, I didn't end up where I am from the "left." I once threw around truth too much--even on topics I will never give up believing are true. Now It may be just a coincidence--a tragic error of busses going opposite directions--but I'm sure I think more clearly and generously than I used to, and so I'm comfortable with where I am. God have mercy on my soul.

not because we “hate gays” or because we want to tell them they are all going to hell.

As a matter of perfect theology, this is surely true, at least consciously. But as a matter of lived experience of actual Catholics, well, may I introduce you to some comments on Catholic news sites and blogs? The explicitly anti-gay "hell" talk is staggering. Go spend some time reading what people have been writing to James Martin or on the comment pages of Crux or NCR. (Or listen to LesMiserables fulminate about sodomites…) If one is to have any credibility on the notion that this isn't necessary to the theology, one must acknowledge it is rampant.

147
As a matter of perfect theology, this is surely true, at least consciously. But as a matter of lived experience of actual Catholics,

Oh please. There are not two rules in Catholicism called theory and practice.

You are making excuses Tim. Building a straw man. People are angry and feel betrayed by liberal decadence in their governments. You can't have your cake and eat it. It is hard being a Catholic but that is the way it is. The weakest link in the Church Militant are the folk who won't call a spade a spade.

>148 LesMiserables:

You didn't actually understand me like on the level of words. I was saying that it's hard for people to hear "Catholic theology about gay marriage isn't about intolerance or hate" when so many of those taking the Catholic side are spewing hate. It doesn't make the argument less true, but it brings discredit on the argument even so. Note, however, this gap between theological possibility and the reality of argument doesn't apply to you, as your anti-gay theological arguments are quite unapologetically anti-gay.

The weakest link in the Church Militant are the folk who won't call a spade a spade.

As far as your words go, they are those of a schismatic and material heretic. They are also so often filled with simple and evil hate that they blot out any trace of faith in them. I hope this has little contact with you as a person and as a believer; I'm not your judge. But the words are the words, and the words are contrary to Christian charity. That's a spade.

149

I think you need to brush up on your grammar Tim.

I hear you quite well. Your protestantism wrapped up in a pseudo-Catholic liberal mumbo jumbo comes through loud and clear.

You already have admitted to being a heretic on these pages.

I feel sorry for you as your wishy washy RCIA has led you down the garden path.

Try Buddhism or something.

LesMiserables, we've talked about hate speech recently - was it on this thread or a parallel one?

Here in South Sudan our bishops are very concerned about hate speech at the moment. One of the things we have learned is that hate speech is not always deliberately intended to be hateful. It can be the product of ingrained prejudices, stereotypes, culture, carelessness, all sorts of things. You also have to be aware that what means something to you personally or to your culture may mean something different to a lot of other people. Hence we also speak of "inflammatory speech" or "incitement", which cover a broader range perhaps than "hate speech". But all of them are uncharitable. All are hurtful to the group being targeted. And all can incite hatred and violence in those who are prone to that sort of thing. We are seeing discrimination and ethnic violence every day in South Sudan; gay people are regularly subject to discrimination and physical violence all over the world.

There are ways of calling a spade a spade without resorting to inflammatory language. There are ways of stating one's disagreement with something or someone without being perceived as uncharitable.

151

John as you can see in 147 Tim is at his old tricks of kicking the hornet's nest.

Don't fall for it.

I don't use hate speech, whatever that is in your world.

If you are referring to #150, that is a spadeful of accuracy.

>152 LesMiserables: I don't use hate speech, whatever that is in your world.

The problem is that it is not "my world". It's out there on the internet for everyone to see. And whatever your own intention, which to give you the benefit of the doubt may well be perfectly honourable and innocent, it will be (and obviously has been) perceived as hate speech, with all the negative implications thereof.

To joansknight:

I know you're very keen on Joan of Arc. Have you seen this book, reviewed in the NYT?

Joan of Arc: A History by Helen Castor

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/05/books/review/joan-of-arc-a-history-by-helen-ca...

153

it will be (and obviously has been) perceived as hate speech

Okay. You are at last making your position clear. So it's all about perceptions John?

Perhaps that is why you love ecumenism so much, because to hold to the truth, that there is no salvation outside the Church, is obviously something that would be seen negatively by all the false religion adherents?

That just wouldn't do for today's Church.

For the record. I do not hate gays, as fundamentally I don't really believe there is such a thing as being gay. Some folk consistently and stubbornly sin gravely, mortally, in homosexual acts. Yes, I don't care for the acts.

>147 timspalding:

We are poking at something both of us, if we're honest, knows is tricky.

The way I see it, there are two types of what might be called “doctrinal humility” we need to aim for, being:

1. The doctrinal humility which prevents us from being too hasty to seek to replace the work of those who have gone before, and allows us to realise the tremendous amount of intellectual brilliance and divine grace which has formed the Catholic faith; and

2. The doctrinal humility which prevents us from simply dismissing proposed developments without consideration, and allows us to realise divine grace has not deserted the world.

As you might suspect, I believe “progressives” often do not have the first, and “traditionalists” often do not have the second.

The solution of both, in my view, is to ensure we always do the prayful intellectual spade work. I always think of someone like John Courtney Murray, whose proposed developments were able to be accepted simply because he did the work to show there were in fact a “reform in continuity”. He did not rubbish his forebears in faith, even people such as Pope Gregory XVI, but instead incorporated the unique truths that Pope had taught the Church into his own (practically very different) teaching. That is, to me, how one does “theology on your knees”.

I once threw around truth too much--even on topics I will never give up believing are true. Now It may be just a coincidence--a tragic error of busses going opposite directions--but I'm sure I think more clearly and generously than I used to, and so I'm comfortable with where I am. God have mercy on my soul.

I think perhaps, if we get comfortable where we are, we are not striving as we should. To live is to change, and to live well is to change often. To proclaim truth in charity is hard, to seek truth in charity is hard. I am not sure we ever get the balance right, or indeed that the right balance ever stays still for long enough for us to get comfortable in it.

Obviously in some issues I can run the risk of putting my biases before truth.

And so can we all. But thank you for that acknowledgement.

well, may I introduce you to some comments on Catholic news sites and blogs? The explicitly anti-gay "hell" talk is staggering.

Meh, it is not staggering. For internet comments, it is par for the course. Pick a topic, any topic religious or secular, and I can find masses of vitriol from all sides which could strip paint.

Go spend some time reading what people have been writing to James Martin or on the comment pages of Crux or NCR.

I don’t comment on either, though I do read both comment sections. And the current event, and topic, is no worse than usual (again on all sides).

James Martin’s Twitter comments were concern trolling. If you get in the sewer, you are going to find muck. In a former life (of which I am not proud), I used this as a standard political tactic, because you can always paint your opponent as an extremist based on internet comment sections.

I could even go do the same with progressive Catholic gay marriage supporters if you like, just to show you how easy it is to demonstrate the buckets and buckets of hate being spilled. Sir Humphrey Appleby would have had a field day with this stuff.

>156 hf22:

I suppose I agree with your two types. So far so good. You express them well.

I would add a third and fourth principle, closely tied to them--not dismissing true doctrine as doctrine, or not claiming things are doctrine that aren't, because the dismissing or claiming fits with your theology or other preferences.

You will, I'm sure, assert I do the first. Maybe I do. But to my mind this is the real problem on the "right"—not that it dismisses development, but that development of doctrine is considered from the vantage-point of non-doctrine. If doctrine is a hill, traditionalists have flattened the hill of charity to pile it on top, creating Mount Doctrine. Standing on top of this mountain of non-doctrine, or indeed upon the fortress they built on top of the mountain, they consider and reject development because it doesn't work up there.

Put another way, the first question of the development of Catholic doctrine is not "how can this change?" but "what's essential here and what's contingent?" The end-result is not merely to realize that this or that so-called-doctrine is not in fact doctrine but to show the real thing more clearly. To go back to my analogy, it's not only that conservatives have added much to doctrine, it's that they have obscured the simple truth.

The solution of both, in my view, is to ensure we always do the prayful intellectual spade work

Agreed.

I think perhaps, if we get comfortable where we are, we are not striving as we should. To live is to change, and to live well is to change often. To proclaim truth in charity is hard, to seek truth in charity is hard. I am not sure we ever get the balance right, or indeed that the right balance ever stays still for long enough for us to get comfortable in it.

All very true.

Meh, it is not staggering. For internet comments, it is par for the course. Pick a topic, any topic religious or secular, and I can find masses of vitriol from all sides which could strip paint.

There's something to what you say. But I'm not sure it covers it. This deserves another post, perhaps, but I think Catholics online need to recognize the ways that their message is warped by the right-hand fringe. I've spoken of this before in the context of Wikipedia--how the SSPX and sedevacantists seems to be on every page about Catholicism, despite being a rounding-error numerically. Catholic "liberals"--among whom I don't number myself, though you surely do--have no similar purchase, no network of online "warriors" who are everywhere at once telling ordinary Catholics that they are going to hell for being sexists, or whatever. I trace this to the personality traits I discussed earlier. If 1% of Catholics are radical traditionalists and 1% of people online are contrarian, inflexible, and unable to listen to others, statistics might predict only 1 in 10,000 Catholics online are traditionalist trolls. The number seems far higher.

In any case "trolls will be trolls" only goes so far when the trolls are on your side. If anti-gay marriage Catholics seek to persuade the world that their position has nothing whatsoever to do with bias or hostility, it would behoove them to reject fellow travelers who manifest those traits.

I could even go do the same with progressive Catholic gay marriage supporters if you like, just to show you how easy it is to demonstrate the buckets and buckets of hate being spilled.

Honestly, I don't think you could, not to the same degree. This is an empirical question, however, and not easy to resolve between us.

157

Envy is a terrible thing Tim. The green eyed monster n' all that. The SSPX with now over 600 priests, a massive new seminary under way in the US, and local liberal progressive wolves in sheep clothing warning their helpless ageing and dwindling flocks to steer clear (or they might get the blinkers pulled off their eyes): their really isn't any substance (as usual) to your vitriol.

>157 timspalding:

I would add a third and fourth principle, closely tied to them--not dismissing true doctrine as doctrine, or not claiming things are doctrine that aren't, because the dismissing or claiming fits with your theology or other preferences.

Agreed.

You will, I'm sure, assert I do the first. Maybe I do.

Agreed.

But to my mind this is the real problem on the "right"—not that it dismisses development, but that development of doctrine is considered from the vantage-point of non-doctrine.

Agreed, it can be.

Put another way, the first question of the development of Catholic doctrine is not "how can this change?" but "what's essential here and what's contingent?" The end-result is not merely to realize that this or that so-called-doctrine is not in fact doctrine but to show the real thing more clearly. To go back to my analogy, it's not only that conservatives have added much to doctrine, it's that they have obscured the simple truth.

Not quite. To try to reduce the faith to its barest essentials is, I think, an error. As Cardinal Schönborn put it in the Introduction to the Catechism of the Catholic Church in relation to the misuse of the concept of the hierarchy of truth:

"The ‘hierarchy of truth’ does not mean ‘a principle of subtraction,’ as if faith could be reduced to some ‘essentials’ whereas the ‘rest’ is left free or even dismissed as not significant. The ‘hierarchy of truth . . . is a principle of organic structure.’ It should not be confused with the degrees of certainty; it simply means that the different truths of faith are ‘organized’ around a center".

The first question should instead be “what is doctrine and what is the merely the application of doctrine to contingent historical circumstances”. The difference, while subtle, is that while the application of doctrine is not doctrine it still teaches much about the doctrine itself. In other words, doctrine in expression does fix more precisely our understanding of the doctrine being expressed, even though it does not represent the only way that doctrine can be expressed.

In this regard I would again point to someone like John Courtney Murray, and his serious engagement with the application of doctrine by Pope Gregory XVI.

There's something to what you say. But I'm not sure it covers it. This deserves another post, perhaps, but I think Catholics online need to recognize the ways that their message is warped by the right-hand fringe.

Our message is hurt by nutters being nutters. But there is bugger all we can do about the SSPX and sedevacantists – They have already been expelled from the structures of the Church.

no network of online "warriors" who are everywhere at once telling ordinary Catholics that they are going to hell for being sexists, or whatever.

Not Catholic progressives so much, but political progressives more generally do.

If 1% of Catholics are radical traditionalists and 1% of people online are contrarian, inflexible, and unable to listen to others, statistics might predict only 1 in 10,000 Catholics online are traditionalist trolls. The number seems far higher.

Small numbers of trolls both post in volume, and generally use a large number of usernames. Sentiment which is an inch wide and a mile deep always feels louder on the internet.

In any case "trolls will be trolls" only goes so far when the trolls are on your side. If anti-gay marriage Catholics seek to persuade the world that their position has nothing whatsoever to do with bias or hostility, it would behoove them to reject fellow travelers who manifest those traits.

The trolls are on all sides, and we do reject them. But that rejection both never gets heard and does not eliminate the issue, and so never seems like enough.

Which is why pointing to the other side’s trolls is such an effective political tactic. As I said, I have seen that sausage get made.

Honestly, I don't think you could, not to the same degree. This is an empirical question, however, and not easy to resolve between us.

The quantitative analysis is very difficult. And without it, because of the way our human brains work, we will basically always think the other side is worse (i.e. we generally over-excuse our trolls, and under-excuse the other sides).

And the questions on which each side will be at its most trollish differ. Which was another trick we used to use – Do the quantitative analysis on the topic which makes your side look better, and the other side look worse.

In this case, being devilish, I would pick for example the relative number of posters who make homophobic remarks about Church figures. Oddly enough, because of the irony or whatever, progressive Catholics posters provide the majority of such comments (i.e. I can find many more people making homophobic remarks about Cardinal Burke, than one could for Archbishop Cupich, for the same period of time).

Catholic "liberals"--among whom I don't number myself, though you surely do

Heh, I rather think of you as a very American Catholic. In a funny sort of way, you get lumped in my head together with people like Fr. Z, who privilege a certain strand of being "American" over their Catholic side. Fr. Z does it, for example, with being liberal on economics and guns. You tend to do it, for example, in both your economic liberalism and social liberalism.

My feeling on this comes from my own flaws in this department. My own economics and social instincts were formed as an Australian political conservative, and as part of that humbling experience I referred to previously, I have had to re-examine much of this inheritance.

Tim's idea of a Troll is someone who consistently puts forward a position that is in disagreement to his own.

I used to think that a Troll was someone who made mischief by deliberately kicking the hornets nest to provoke a reaction.

159

They have already been expelled from the structures of the Church

The SSPX are expelled from the Church? Really, that's news to me. But of course you know you are being as nasty as another intolerant protestant liberal on here, by wilfully lying.

>159 hf22:

I mean by being canonically irregular, i.e. the priestly society so called is not a canonical priestly society.

I think that can fairly be called being "expelled from the structures of the Church", even for those who don't accept that it comprises schism.

161

No, it is clearly an abuse of the term. Expulsion means expulsion.

The SSPX are absolutely in the Catholic Church and despite the differences with the modernist hierarchy, have regular contact, visits on good terms from Vatican appointed bishops etc

This is a tired line hf22 that you are pushing. You are beginning to sound like someone from Church Militant TV.

Better just to say that there are disagreements that are distinctive and yet unresolved.

If we want to give into legalistic agenda driven terminology, then we might as well concede to the homosexual lobby that because sodomy has been 'legalised' that it has become 'right' when we know it is a grave and mortal sin.

Not quite. To try to reduce the faith to its barest essentials is, I think, an error

Obviously I agree. If doctrine is a painting, there's a distinction between removing centuries of dirty and stipping away the paint.

Now, this model has a weakness when it comes to the most dramatic changes--I mention slavery, the Jews, freedom of religion and the state. (If change should ever occur, we can add homosexuals.) Here, the reversal was so profound that almost everything understood to be "Catholic tradition" could be fairly said to run the other way.

That is surely the most delicate sort of change, for something that truly overturned doctrine would look very similar to something that merely recovered its deepest truth against centuries of ignorance and sin. That's dangerous ground. Even so, the Church cannot close the door to such re-evaluations in the future, or it would be forced, by logical consistency, to return to the anti-Jewish attitudes of past Catholic centuries, etc.

The difference, while subtle, is that while the application of doctrine is not doctrine it still teaches much about the doctrine itself.

Yes, and it can also mislead, sometimes badly. If we are to take Vatican II as expressing doctrine with respect to the Jews, we shall not "fix more precisely our understanding of the doctrine being expressed" by surveying the contingent history of Catholic theology about (mostly against) the Jews. On the contrary, we cannot take what Vatican II holds about Jews without condemning the bulk of Catholic thought about Jews before then as misled or actively evil.

Not Catholic progressives so much, but political progressives more generally do.

That's true. As I'm not one, I'm not going to feel bad about not restraining my coevals.

>159 hf22:

Father Z? You really know how to hurt a guy!

I think of you as an Australian Catholic. Which means you're probably descended from an horse-thief ;)

No, it is clearly an abuse of the term. Expulsion means expulsion.

Well, you were expelled, then Pope Benedict let you back in, but in an irregular state. As real progress is impossible, and further consecrations necessary to avoid the death of the society, full schism is sure to resume.

163

Well, you were expelled, then Pope Benedict let you back in, but in an irregular state. As real progress is impossible, and further consecrations necessary to avoid the death of the society, full schism is sure to resume.

dear oh dear

You don't know much about this Tim, do you?

#1. The excommunications were invalid due to a state of necessity
#2. Benedict lifted the slur, not anything materially real
#3. The SSPX were never 'out' to be allowed back 'in'.
#4. 'Full schism' betrays your ignorance. You are either in schism or not. Heresy likewise. The SSPX are neither, unless of course you can show me the Vatican documents that say so? No, didn't think so. Go and educate yourself.

You don't know much about this Tim, do you?

This is the same rhetorical move that hf22 indulges in—going after intelligence and understanding when the actual problem is disagreement. You do it more brazenly. In either case, "you're just stoopid!" is a good sign of an argument that can't support itself.

Yes, I know that the SSPX claim that the excommunications were "invalid due to a state of necessity." My non-acceptance of that isn't ignorance, but disagreement—disagreement with a shake of the head that anyone could believe such nonsense. Of course, neither you nor I can say what God thinks of the matter, but the Pope expressly excommunicated the individuals in question, and you'd look long and hard to find a canon lawyer who supported the "being old and without any allies in the episcopacy required us to directly defy a Pope and create new bishops that agreed with us" exception.

If the Holy Spirit were really at work in the church, as you surely believe, you should, I think, hope for one of the five-thousand other bishops to join the SSPX, rather than breaking the cardinal rule of church unity and schism.

165

This is the same rhetorical move that hf22 indulges in so frequently

No it's not any sort of device. It is a comment made on evidence where above you show complete ignorance.

My non-acceptance of that isn't ignorance, but disagreement—disagreement with a shake of the head that anyone could believe such nonsense.

That fact that you disagree is irrelevant to the Canon Law basis for the state of necessity. Educate yourself Tim. http://archives.sspx.org/miscellaneous/supplied_jurisdiction/state_of_necessity_...

Archbishop Lefebvre perceived the dilemma: either
capitulate to tyranny under pretext of obedience, or else
resist tyranny by rejecting false obedience.
If this government (the conciliar Church) abandons its
duty and turns against the Faith, what ought we to do?
Remain attached to the government, or attached to the
Faith? We have a choice. Does the Faith take precedence?
Or is it the government that takes precedence? We are
faced with a dilemma and we are indeed obliged to make
a choice.
The choice was made and the defense of the Faith
prevailed over false obedience:
We do not reject the pope’s authority, but rather what
he does. We do indeed recognize the pope’s authority, but
when he makes use of it to do the opposite of that for which
it was given him, it is obvious that we cannot follow him.

Like St Athanasius before him, ++Lefebvre fought the good fight.

>163 timspalding:

Now, this model has a weakness when it comes to the most dramatic changes--I mention slavery, the Jews, freedom of religion and the state. (If change should ever occur, we can add homosexuals.) Here, the reversal was so profound that almost everything understood to be "Catholic tradition" could be fairly said to run the other way.

Not really. A careful and respectful investigation of Catholic Tradition, with doctrinal humility, shows that most of these things are mere caricature.

I would again refer to John Courtney Murray and Pope Gregory XVI on freedom of religion. Fr. Murray was able to show, from a careful and respectful investigation of Catholic Tradition, that the tradition did not run the other way to his proposals.

That is surely the most delicate sort of change, for something that truly overturned doctrine would look very similar to something that merely recovered its deepest truth against centuries of ignorance and sin. That's dangerous ground. Even so, the Church cannot close the door to such re-evaluations in the future, or it would be forced, by logical consistency, to return to the anti-Jewish attitudes of past Catholic centuries, etc.

We can, very much, impute sin to the actions of the Church in history. In is indeed in sin that the errors of the Church in relation to slavery, the Jews, freedom of religion lay.

We can’t however merely dismiss the consistent magisterium, to whom truth has been guaranteed by Christ himself, based on their presumed ignorance. On the whole, when seen with doctrinal humility, it is clear the Catholic Tradition has been built up by men those wisdom, intelligence, erudition and holiness greatly exceeds our own.

If we are to take Vatican II as expressing doctrine with respect to the Jews, we shall not "fix more precisely our understanding of the doctrine being expressed" by surveying the contingent history of Catholic theology about (mostly against) the Jews. On the contrary, we cannot take what Vatican II holds about Jews without condemning the bulk of Catholic thought about Jews before then as misled or actively evil.

Again a careful and respectful investigation of Catholic Tradition, and indeed of Vatican II, shows that to be false. There was much sin against the Jewish people, including by the official Church, of which we now repent. But the infallible doctrines of the Church regards the Jewish people were not condemned by Vatican II, and nor were its prior expressions dismissed as without value.

Father Z? You really know how to hurt a guy!

You both exhibit what I think Pope Francis would, with much insight, diagnose as putting ideology (i.e. views on economics and political economy) above the faith. Though it must be said, like many of the Pope’s most acute diagnoses, I am not sure he does not also exhibit that same flaw at times.

Which means you're probably descended from an horse-thief ;)

On one side, yeah pretty much.

>165 timspalding:

This is the same rhetorical move that hf22 indulges in—going after intelligence and understanding when the actual problem is disagreement. You do it more brazenly. In either case, "you're just stoopid!" is a good sign of an argument that can't support itself.

Your poor glass house again! From the guy whose argument against the Church’s sexual morality is that it is gross and stupid in a somehow self-evident way.

Anyway, many of your disagreements with the Church are based on a flawed and superficial understanding of Church tradition, flowing IMO from the lack of doctrinal humility we have discussed above.

Basically, I have found that if you think you have more wisdom, intelligence, erudition and holiness than the Church Fathers, you are lacking in doctrinal humility. Because I did think that, and preferred my own ideas to those of the Church. But doing the prayful intellectual spade work put me on my arse, hard, because I was wrong.

Your poor glass house again! From the guy whose argument against the Church’s sexual morality is that it is gross and stupid in a somehow self-evident way.

Moral intuition is available to us all, free of charge. Knowledge you have to pay for.

A careful and respectful investigation of Catholic Tradition, with doctrinal humility,

The problem is that, despite your claims, this doesn't have a real hermeneutic attached to it. You look at the massive changes with respect to slavery, the Jews and so forth and see a continuous thread, never abrogated.

But as a real-world matter nobody accepted current teaching for the bulk of the last 2,000 years. On the contrary, mere shades of contemporary teaching about Jews was loudly denounced by ecclesial authorities on many occasions. These notions were unthinkable. Nobody had these thoughts. I find it difficult to believe that there's a simple hermeneutic involving prayer and reflection that spends almost 2,000 years underground being wrong, and then comes right. If you think that, you need to ask "what is unthinkable to me, but true."

No, there's something more explosive at work in these—edge—cases.

>162 LesMiserables:

Expulsion means expulsion.

Yeah, from the canonical structures of the Church, which it has been. The SSPX qua the SSPX is a non-entity in the Church, even to the extent to which its adherents are not considered to be in schism.

You are beginning to sound like someone from Church Militant TV.

I am OK with that.

I am OK with that

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AY1GG0dyU9Y

I'm not. For starters, he believes that Judaism ceased to exist in AD 70. Contemporary Judaism is a "man-made religion." This is standard age-old Christian anti-semitism, and it is not Catholic theology. (It's not even medieval Catholic theology. It's 19c Protestant anti-semitism, as far as I can tell.)

169

That according to Protocol N. 084/15, of February 23, 2015, the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Mario Aurelio Cardinal POLI, requests that the "FRATERNITY OF THE APOSTLES OF JESUS AND MARY" (PRIESTLY FRATERNITY OF SAINT PIUS X) be held, up to the moment in which it finds its definitive juridical framing within the Church Universal, as an Association of Diocesan Right, according to what is established by canon 298 of the Code of Canon Law, being in fieri henceforth and in the meantime a Society of Apostolic Life, with all the benefits that correspond to it, and complying with all obligations to which the same refers, also accepting all responsibilities that belong to the diocesan Prelate.

That to the aforesaid fraternity be accredited its character as a public juridical person within the ROMAN CATHOLIC APOSTOLIC CHURCH, according to the norms of the Code of Canon Law.

A non-entity in the Church?

(read the bolded part again and again and again and again)

>168 timspalding:

Moral intuition is available to us all, free of charge. Knowledge you have to pay for.

Which leaves you with a quite aggressive moral relativism, which of course you rightly reject. So that does not have legs.

The problem is that, despite your claims, this doesn't have a real hermeneutic attached to it. You look at the massive changes with respect to slavery, the Jews and so forth and see a continuous thread, never abrogated.

Yes it does, the hermeneutic of reform in continuity.

As I have explained, in relation to slavery for example, it was always seen as an unavoidable evil. And now it is avoidable, and so is just evil. There is a change, a development, but not a contradiction.

But as a real-world matter nobody accepted current teaching for the bulk of the last 2,000 years. On the contrary, mere shades of contemporary teaching about Jews was loudly denounced by ecclesial authorities on many occasions. These notions were unthinkable. Nobody had these thoughts. I find it difficult to believe that there's a simple hermeneutic involving prayer and reflection that spends almost 2,000 years underground being wrong, and then comes right.

Again, this can only be said where you don’t understand either the contemporary or traditional teachings. The traditional teaching are not the hate filled ignorance you assume they were, nor are the contemporary teachings as pluralistic.

For example, many people think the reformed rite does not pray for the conversion of the Jewish people, because of the revised Good Friday prayer. But in the reformed Liturgy of the Hours, the reformed liturgy actually prays for it more often than in the old rite, up to weekly if you use some of the alternative petitions.

No, there's something more explosive at work in these—edge—cases.

No, there is not, and no one has never been able to show there is. And if there was, it would blow up the whole thing anyway, and prove it to be false.

>170 timspalding:

I'm not. For starters, he believes that Judaism ceased to exist in AD 70. Contemporary Judaism is a "man-made religion." This is standard age-old Christian anti-semitism, and it is not Catholic theology.

I was referring to the matter in issue – I don’t watch Mr. Voris, and have no idea what he says generally.

But on that particular topic, it is actually much more complex than you allow. If we accept, as the Church does and I do, that the non-salvic old covenant remains valid (i.e. because God keeps his promises etc), then you have an issue.

Because contemporary Judaism(s) is/are very different to 2nd Temple Judaism(s). They, much like Christianity itself, reflects only some strains of 2nd Temple Judaism and have changed significantly over time. Further, it contains a number of separate contemporary traditions, with very different views on a number of questions.

And so, the questions start to arise. Are contemporary Judaism(s) faithful to the old covenant? Have their changes been legitimate developments or corruptions? Are only some contemporary traditions so faithful? If so which ones? Is Christianity not equally a Jewish successor to 2nd Temple Judaism of the same vintage? And so on.

Now, I am not sure these are questions the Church can or should answer, but it is clear it has not answered them. Therefore views along these lines cannot be dismissed as either “not Catholic theology” or “Christian anti-semitism”. If anything, these questions are the children of modern Catholic two covenant theology, as no one would bother to ask them on supersessionist assumptions.

>171 LesMiserables:

That particular entity is not the SSPX itself, and the fudge was only approved because the Pope did not want the SSPX's religious freedom to be restricted in his home country, due to the combination of SSPX scruples and State restrictions. He would have likely done the same thing for Protestants, rightly or wrongly, if it were ever needed for the same end.

For reference, examples of prayers for the Jewish people in the reformed Liturgy of the Hours include:

1. On the last day of every year (December 31 at Morning Prayer), the Church prays: “O Christ, God and man, you fulfil the prophecies as David’s Lord as well as his son: we beseech you that Israel may recognize you as Messiah;

2. Evening prayer for the vigil of the final (7th) Sunday of Easter, wherein the Church addresses the following prayer to Jesus: “May all the peoples praise you as King and God, and may Israel become your possession”;

3. Evening prayer on Wednesday of the second and fourth weeks of Easter we find this prayer: “O God, who chose your Son’s first disciples from among the Jewish people, reveal to the children of Israel the reciprocal promise made to their fathers; and

4. The prayer noted above for the third and fifth Sundays of the Easter season is also used for evening prayer for Easter Sunday.

5. A weekly petition among the alternative intercessions (“Ad foedus novmu voca Iudaeos”).

Further, I understand all of these prayers are NEW to the reformed rite, and were not included in the old Roman Breviary.

173

Calling it a fudge in no way lessens the clarity it provides to those progressives and neo-catholics of a schismatic mindset.

That to the aforesaid fraternity be accredited its character as a public juridical person within the ROMAN CATHOLIC APOSTOLIC CHURCH, according to the norms of the Code of Canon Law.

I don't think even Pope Francis could fit protestantism in there.

>175 LesMiserables:

Go read + Fellay's comments on it. The SSPX knows it is a fudge, with minimal substantive meaning.

176

I have read them a few times. +Fellay recognises that it makes no difference to our acceptance of modernistic tendencies in the Church. That's obvious. But the fact that we a continual barrage of HERESY! SCHISM! from some, is at odds with how Rome treats the matter.

As I said earlier, HERESY! SCHISM! - don't do halfways.

>177 LesMiserables:

+Fellay recognises that it makes no difference to our acceptance of modernistic tendencies in the Church. That's obvious.

Yeah, and vice versa. I mean its nice, and positive, but not major.

But the fact that we a continual barrage of HERESY! SCHISM! from some, is at odds with how Rome treats the matter.

But of course Rome plays no nicer with the SSPX than it does with others in heresy and schism, such as Old Catholic or Protestant bodies for example.

Indeed, when Rome is treating the SSPX as an internal (as opposed to ecumenical) matter, is when we find Rome being harsher in the use of its authority.

>172 hf22:

Are contemporary Judaism(s) faithful to the old covenant?

I should note, to this part of the question at least, the reformed Good Friday prayer and the magisterium of Pope St. John XXIII and later Popes needs to be given the appropriate weight. The reformed Good Friday prayer no longer speaks of "unfaithful" Jews, but instead asks that they may "advance in love of his name and in faithfulness to his covenant".

That does not answer the question as to if contemporary Judaism(s) are faithful to the old covenant, particularly from a factual or objective standpoint. However it does I think establish that the Church presumes, in charity, faithfulness (i.e. a little like how it presumes that marriages are valid until the contrary is proven).

Which means, I think, we should be very careful before we cast any aspersions in relation to Jewish faithfulness to the old covenant. And indeed, I am not sure it is an appropriate question for the Church to seek to answer.

But it does not close off careful and considered inquiries by Catholic theologians etc#, even if those inquiries come to the conclusion they have not been faithful.

# Not that I am asserting Mr. Voris' views constitute a careful and considered inquiry, as I have not watched his video.

178

Well there is no Heresy or schism.

That said, Rome kowtows to any Heretic or Pagan willing to do a photo op.

Has done since Assisi

>180 LesMiserables: I don't believe they had photo ops during the time of St Francis of Assisi. But he was a great reformer who challenged the Church establishment of his time.

181

boom boom

Time we shared a laugh on here though, eh?

>181 John5918: And, as the great Tommy Cooper would have said, please note that my hands never left the end of my wrists.

I do not have this book or know of it....thanks....I will check it out!

I think you all have gotten off point in this thread....and why do I get the feeling you all think I am a homosexual....which I am not and am offended by such an accusation....

>185 Joansknight: It's very likely that we have got off topic, as that tends to happen on LT, as an idea sparks a new idea in someone and we follow the mood of the moment. It can be very interesting and creative, but there's no harm in someone bringing us back to the original topic if that's what interests them.

Without rereading all the 184 message prior to this (or 684 if you count the previous thread) I don't recall anyone here referring to your sexual orientation, and I'm pretty certain I haven't. I'm sorry if you have been offended by anything I have said. We should be able to disagree robustly but charitably - see this topic.

St. Isidore of Seville (600): “Ignorance nourishes vices and is the mother of all errors.”

Coffee anyone!?!?

I had asked about Ransom Riggs !?!?

Pope Innocent III, Fourth Lateran Council, 1215: “And surely no one can accomplish this sacrament the Eucharist except a priest who has been rightly ordained…” That would definitely exclude....and null and void....NOVUS ORDO "priests"!

>189 Joansknight: I checked the first book out, but it was too creepy for my tastes.

You should read them....they are excellent....but what do I know!?!?

Isn't there some long ago Catholic condemnation of the coffee bean?

If there is....I have no knowledge of it....

>193 timspalding:

The story which is often quoted, though presumably apocryphal, is actually the reverse (http://www.catholicgentleman.net/2014/04/blessed-beans-how-the-pope-baptized-coffee/).

When coffee was first brought to Christian Europe, it was greeted with a great deal of suspicion since it was the drink of the Muslim infidels with whom Christians had been at war for centuries. Some even went so far to call this exotic beverage “Satan’s drink.” Inevitably, coffee made its way to the Vatican, where it was introduced to Pope Clement VIII. While many of his advisors clamored for the Pope to ban the controversial drink, he refused to do so before trying it himself. The Pope was brought a steaming mug of java and he took a sip. He was immediately delighted, and according to legend, he declared, “This devil’s drink is delicious. We should cheat the devil by baptizing it.”

>195 hf22: This puts me in mind of a humourous song sung in folk style by Fred Wedlock amongst others, called "Robin Head". It's based on the Robin Hood legend but Robin Head is a drug pusher. To cut a long story short, when he is finally arrested and tried by the infamous Sheriff of Nottingham, the Sheriff sings, "But before I sentence you for the evils you have done, tell me what is this weed that you grow in the woods? I think I will try some". He tries it, likes it, and the tale ends happily with a shared commercial enterprise; "Now Robin deals for the countryside, and the Sheriff does Nottingham".

As much as I like coffee....we are off point her!

St. Thomas Aquinas (A.D. 1274): “Unbelief… arises from pride, through which man is unwilling to subject his intellect to the rules of faith…” (Summa Theologiae Pt. II-II, Q. 10, A. 3, Reply 3)

There is a beauty of form, a dignity of language, a sublimity of diction which are, so to speak, spontaneous, and are the natural outcome of great thoughts, strong convictions, and glowing feelings. The Fathers often attain to this eloquence without intending to do so, without self-complacency and all unconsciously.

- Saint Augustine (354-430)