Catholic and Loving it!

Agellius said...

I'm certainly in the former camp.

You say Bishop O'Donoghue is formerly bishop of Lancaster. What is he bishop of now?

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James said...

My mistake... I knew that he had retired as Bishop of Lancaster so I assumed that he is no longer Bishop of Lancaster.

Apparently it doesn't work like that - he is now (if Wikipedia is to be believed) "Bishop Emeritus" of Lancaster.

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Jackie Parkes said...

[Comment removed at Jackie's request]

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Josey Wales said...

What the Bishop fails to state and which he knows is that no Pope has denounced or tried to bring to ecclesiastical court some of the most famous theologians of the 20th century who also dissented on this topic. I am not speaking of the lesser theologians Hans Kung and Charles Curran who erred on far more than this one issue and were decertified to teach. I am speaking of Karl Rahner and Bernard Haring. The former for years was the editor of the Enchiridion Symbolorum which is a tome that denotes what issues are de fide and what issues are less than that. Bernard Haring was a conservative moral theologian until the point that he was on the birth control commission and listened to there and encountered else where couples who were fed up with the inaccuracy of the then rythmn method.
In short, the bishop knows that these two men were not denounced by any Pope all of whom knew them as to this issue and the Bishop knows that the infallibility of this issue is believed in by actually lesser names rather than the more well known names in theology. Grisez, Ford, Professor May and Brian Harrison believe the issue infallible in the ordinary magisterium while Rahner whose specialty as editor of the Enchiridion Symbolorum which decided such things did not nor did Haring. Their position against infallibility in the ordinary magisterium seemed actually to be echoed by Rome itself in the Washington DC case wherein the dissenting theologians at Catholic University of America were at first punished severely by their Bishop wherein the appealed to Rome which then removed the local ordinary's punishment and ask that they simply sign a statement that they agreed that it was "authentic Church teaching" which they did because all theologians know that that is a level below infallible. In 1521 it was "authentic Church teaching" per Ex Surge Domine (Leo X) that one must reject Luther's rejection of burning heretics at the stake. It was authentic Church teaching and now torture is condemned in section 80 of "Splendor of the Truth".
The Bishop must know all this but is perhaps speaking to a choir which he knows does not know all this.
Tuas Libenter by Pius IX a simple letter noted that if issues were not only in the ordinary magisterium but also in the universal ordinary and thus infallible, they would have the consent of all Catholic theologians: "down as divinely revealed by the ordinary teaching power of the whole Church spread throughout the world, and therefore, by universal and common consent are held by Catholic theologians to belong to faith."
The universal consent of Catholic theologians broke down when sex was finally scientifically explained as to what it was. And as theologians know, the common agreement throughout history has problems since 29 Popes from Sixtus V til Leo XIII actually cooperated with the castrati system which a bull of Sixtus V in 1580 incepted since he did not want women singing in church and which entailed the sterilization of boys to sing in the choirs of the extensive churches throughout all of central Italy which was once under papal control. Later the opera world both took them in too and discontinued them prior to the Church discontinuing them by order of Pope Leo XIII. That is more Popes (29) than have written a thing about birth control throughout history (under 9 Popes to our knowledge). Hence there are reasons theologians were skeptical about claims of consistent tradition. All this is not to say that one day, we will not have an ex cathedra encyclical stating the anti contraception position infallibly. That could happen and it may not. But as long as that has not happened, those like Rahner and Haring are not to be denounced and no Pope did denounce them and they had 40 years to do so.
The Bishop may be playing to a constituency but no Pope has taken measures in line with his anger and think about why.

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James said...

It's very diffcult to take anybody seriously when they use the phrase "when sex was finally scientifically explained as to what it was".

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Josey Wales said...

That technique is slicing. One person does a long researched post and the responder finds one slice that they can object to. Simply put: ask yourself why some need this issue to batter people that the Popes never denounced. Follow NFP which is wonderful but which 1950 years of Catholics did not have access to. But do not use the issue to batter people that the Popes refused to batter.

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+1

James said...

"That technique is slicing. One person does a long researched post and the responder finds one slice that they can object to."

Does that happen to you a lot?

If it bothers you, you might like to try shorter, clearer posts with less things in them. Maybe leave out the parts you think are vulnerable to slicing and keep only what you can defend.

Classic Sun Tzu...

"You can be sure of succeeding in your attacks if you only attack places which are undefended. You can ensure the safety of your defense if you only hold
positions that cannot be attacked."

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