Your response is a sign of bad will, your unwillingness to respond to the FACT that you are choosing your own beliefs  (For there shall be a time, when they will not endure sound doctrine; but, according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears: And will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables- 2 Tim4) in opposition to all of tradition, revelation, dogma. (All of the Fathers, All of the Saints, and the Athanasian Creed).

Vatican II speak 15 years before the council. A fallible docuмent which like Vatican II is best not read at all. Both that docuмent and Vatican II will one day all be declared null.

Quote from: bowler

Vatican II speak 15 years before the council. A fallible docuмent which like Vatican II is best not read at all. Both that docuмent and Vatican II will one day all be declared null.

And yet people say that this Protocol is an official decree from the Holy Office and that to reject it is a mortal sin.

The whole world says the same about Vatican II, and yet it hasn't settled any questions about itself in 50 years.

I don't bother with either.

Besides, "Protocol" is irrelevant to this thread.

Quote from: bowler

The whole world says the same about Vatican II, and yet it hasn't settled any questions about itself in 50 years.

I don't bother with either.

Besides, "Protocol" is irrelevant to this thread.

I agree with you in that i reject the perversion BOD has become in the 20th century.

But everyone will say, "these are approved theologians of the Church and they were never censured so we can trust them, and you can't say there is anything wrong with what they say."

They will say that they are just following the approved theologians of the Church.

So what will you say to that?

Quote from: Cathedra

Quote from: bowler

Your response is a sign of bad will, your unwillingness to respond to the FACT that you are choosing your own beliefs  (For there shall be a time, when they will not endure sound doctrine; but, according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears: And will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables- 2 Tim4) in opposition to all of tradition, revelation, dogma. (All of the Fathers, All of the Saints, and the Athanasian Creed).

bowler,

What do you think about Suprema Haec Sacra, aka Protocol 122/49?

Vatican II speak 15 years before the council. A fallible docuмent which like Vatican II is best not read at all. Both that docuмent and Vatican II will one day all be declared null.

Now it must be understood that the Church militant of the New Testament, as a supernatural entity, is not to be judged by ordinary human standards. Concretely, a man may pertain to this society or in some way or other be "within" it other than by membership in its ranks. In order to appreciate our question, and in order to realize the harm that has been done by careless and unscientific writing on membership in the Catholic Church, we must consider the other ways in which a man can be said to "belong" in some way to this organization.
 
(1) Every baptized person is a subject of the Catholic Church. in the sense that he has the baptismal character which, unless frustrated by some personal act of the man who possesses it, would automatically gather any man within the unity of membership of the true Church of Christ. Baptism belongs to the Church. It is always objectively a wrong thing for any baptized person not to be a member of the true Church. Thus in itself, the baptismal character constitutes a man as subject to the laws of the Catholic Church. It is true, of course, that ordinarily the Church makes no attempt to apply its own statutes to those who are baptized but who are nonmembers of the Church through no personal fault of their own. Yet, by the constitution of the supernatural order itself, the man who has the baptismal character remains and must remain one to whom the legislation of the true Church can apply.

At the same time, however, nothing can be more obvious than the fact that not every person who is baptized is a member of the Catholic Church. The true Church of Jesus Christ, which is His one supernatural kingdom and His Mystical Body in this world, is the religious organization which accepts Pope John XXIII as its visible head in this world. The theologian who claims that every baptized person is in some way a member of the Church cannot be speaking seriously, if he has any understanding of the meaning of the term "member" as it is used with reference to the Catholic Church. He should realize that the Mystical Body of Christ in this world is not a social unit made up of Catholics and members of heretical and schismatic groups.

If people who are members of heretical or schismatic groups are in any way members of the true Church of Jesus Christ, then the true Church is definitely not the social unit that accepts the Bishop of Rome as its visible head. If we are to sum this matter up in three statements, we would have to say:
 
(A) Every baptized person is a subject of the Catholic Church.

(B) Every baptized person should be, and would be, if the unifying force of his baptismal character were not thwarted by some personal and external but not necessarily sinful act, a member of the Catholic Church.
 
(C) Not every baptized person is a member of the Catholic Church.
 
(2) Far more involved is the case of that person who is not a member of the Catholic Church, but who is "within" the Church in such a way as to enjoy the life of sanctifying grace. It is absolutely imperative for the well being of contemporary theology that the situation of this individual be accurately analyzed.

It is one of the most frequently and insistently taught dogmas of the Catholic faith that outside of the Catholic Church no one at all is saved, that outside of this society there is neither salvation nor the remission of sins.12 According to the mechanics of the English language, one who is not "outside of" some physical or social entity must be said to be, in some way or other, "within" it. Hence it must be said that any non-member of the Catholic Church who has the remission of sins, which is to say the gift of sanctifying grace, or who dies in the state of grace so as to attain eternal salvation, must be or have died in some way "within" the Catholic Church in a status other than that of a member.
The Holy Office Letter Suprema haec sacra, summing up and stating in an authoritative manner what had always been the teaching of the sanior pars of the Church's scholastic theologians, asserted that the non-member of the Catholic Church who thus attained to eternal salvation "within" it was joined to the Church voto et desiderio. The entire sentence is so important that it should be repeated here. The Holy Office wrote: "Quandoquidem ut quis aeternam obtineat salutem, non semper exigitur ut reapse Ecclesiae tamquam membrum incorporetur, sed id saltem requiritur, ut eidem voto et desiderio adhaereat."13 And this teaching definitely must be seen in the light of the tremendously important explanation given in this same docuмent: "Neque etiam putandum est quodcuмque votum Ecclesiae ingrediendae sufficere ut homo salvetur. Requiritur enim ut votum quo quis ad Ecclesiam ordinetur, perfecta caritate informetur: nec votum implicitum effectum habere potest, nisi homo fidem habeat supernaturalem."14

The encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi, with a less developed terminology, speaks of the possibility of non-members of the Church being ordered to the Church "inscio quodam desiderio ac voto."15 The Suprema haec sacra interprets this passage of the Mystici Corporis Christi as showing that people in this condition, that is, those who are ordered to the Church by an unconscious intention or desire, are not excluded from the possibility of attaining to eternal salvation.

The Suprema haec sacra makes it completely clear that those who are in a position to be saved only by reason of the fact that they have at least an implicit intention or desire to enter the Church and to remain within it are not reapse or in reality members of the true Church. In other words, the social unit which is the supernatural kingdom of God in this world is not composed of people who intend or desire to enter it. As a matter of fact, if we look at the terminology carefully, we can easily see that a statement to the contrary involves a self-contradiction. It is impossible to desire to enter a social unit of which one is already a member or a part.

Since the publication of the Suprema haec sacra it is clearly contrary to Catholic doctrine to hold or to teach that, in order to be "within" the Church in such a way as to be able to attain eternal salvation, a person must be some kind of a member of the Church. The very force of the terminology employed in the Holy Office letter runs counter to such a claim. The Suprema haec sacra teaches unequivocally that a man may be saved without ever really (reapse) becoming a member of the Church. It is definitely a disservice to the cause of Catholic theology to insinuate that, in order to be saved, a man has to be in some way a member of the Church. But, by the same token, it is imperative that the difference between being in the Church as a member, and being "within" it by reason of a desire, a prayer, or an intention to enter this society be very well understood.