[quote]Gregory, you [i]so[/i] entirely missed the point...
What comes directly out of the Feeneyite position is the tenet that any and all writings approved by the Church for the faithful (from Saints, from Doctors, from Imprimatured books), all can contain things that call into doubt previously defined solemn dogmas, and [i]can contain them where nobody has yet even discovered them![/i] [/quote]
I disagree. Satan has been working to destroy the church. You think his henchmmen never infiltrate the ranks of the faithful? You think he doesn't cause shifting, not in the dogmas, but in the hearts of theologians, a degree at a time, century after century?
Did you forget that Christianity is a WAR waged between rational intellects?
[quote]This makes a shambles of the divinity of the Church; it's to say Holy Mother Church uselessly created the system of imprimatur, uselessly scrutinized works before canonizations and before raising a Saint to the title of Doctor, uselessly and dangerously offers the faithful potentially heretical books. [/quote]
The churches divinity lies not in herself, but in her Author, Jesus Christ, and in her SOUL which is the Holy Spirit. It does NOT lie within the judgements of men, or the idle speculations of a scholastic, it lies with Christ. Saints can make doctrinal error. That is a fact. and a whole bunch of them can make the same error, that is also a fact. Both St. Bernard and St. Thomas denied the immaculate conception. Yet nobody censors the Summa.
[quote]It precisely denies the passive infallibility of the members of the believing church, and is a blasphemy just as St. Thomas said. [/quote]
You are wrong on both counts: It is no blasphemy to say theologians have been confused, and that whole groups of theologians in certain eras have made mistakes. Once again, look at St. Thomas and the Dominicans. The Franciscans as a whole upheld the immaculate conception, the Dominicans as a whole, rejected it in favor of the teaching of St. Thomas. You need historical perspective.
The Church is infallible SOLELY in her Extraordinary magisterium, and in her universal and ordinary magisterial teaching.
The Sense of the Faithful you are referring to, the Sensus Fidei is not infallible, or we would all be Arian by now. Or did you forget that 90% of the church in the 4th century was in heresy?
[quote]What is more, for this sick tenet of the Feeneyites, they can't point to any other instance in the whole history of the Church except for baptism of desire,[/quote]
Wait, you mean we can't point out where the majority of the churches theologians were heretics? Sure, the Arian Crisis. 90%. 4th century.
The Monothelite Heresy, every major see in the world had capitulated to Monothelitism, except for Rome. once again, the majority of the theologians were heretics. 7th century.
The Iconoclast Heresy. about 50-70% of the churches bishops and theologians were heretics on this issue, which forbade the portrayal of images. 9th century.
20th century liberal modernistic heretic theologians are responsible for the degradation of faith and morals that preceded the second Vatican Council.
[quote]to say it attacked previously defined solemn dogma, and nobody in the whole Church noticed even though the Apostolic See for hundreds of years has allowed it and has been promoting it to the faithful even [u]after[/u] the dogma of EENS had been so long ago solemnly defined.[/quote]
You are not listening. Others in the church DID notice it. Pope Gregory XVI noticed it when he wrote Mirari Vos, Paragraphs 13 and 14.
[quote]It is impossible. It's absurd. It attacks the very holiness of the Church. But that is what the term "heresy" actually means, from the Greek - choice. Heretics have a free will and make their choice, and shipwreck their Faith.
Only a person totally devoid of any faith could make that statement. When did it become heresy to proclaim the churches dogma from the rooftops? When did it become heresy to repeat, in the company of the saints and fathers, the "He who does not enter by the gate is a thief and a robber!"
When did it become heresy to proclaim with Augustine, John Chrysostom, Ambrose, Basil, Gregory the Theologian, Pope Siricius, Hermas, and a whole multitude of others, in company with our blessed savior:
"Unless a man be born of water and the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of Heaven."
The church has declared what these words mean. They are no metaphor. And those who would take them as such, and tread upon the teachings of the Fathers, their UNANIMOUS teaching, and tread upon the declarations of the most Holy Synod of Trent and the Council of the Vatican, and upon the Authority of the words of Christ himself:
These are those who are true heretics, and the truth is not in them. They have no faith. They do not believe that God can save people according to his own commandments! They make the commandments of God impossible to fulfill, which is a heresy! Trent clearly condemned those who said the commandments of God were impossible to fulfill, and Christ COMMANDED that men are to be baptized for their salvation.
Or did you forget we were in a battle with spies and infiltrators?