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Author Topic: Is Cassini a Sedevacantist?  (Read 3075 times)

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Offline Ladislaus

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Re: Is Cassini a Sedevacantist?
« Reply #20 on: April 20, 2021, 12:17:43 PM »
Pius XII, Humani Generis:
Quote
For these reasons the Teaching Authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions, on the part of men experienced in both fields, take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter - for the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God.

This here is one of the most tragic statements in the history of the Magisterium.

First of all, though he doesn't say it, there's a strong implication that the Teaching Authority of the Church should bow to the "present state of human sciences", almost putting theology and the sciences on a par, on the same level.

Secondly, the notion that the human body came from "LIVING" matter is contrary to Sacred Scripture AND the unanimous consensus of the Church Fathers, who all assert unequivocally that Adam was created from the earth or the dust of the earth.  How "earth" or "dust of the earth" can be extrapolated into an "ape" without doing extreme violence to Sacred Scripture is absolutely inconceivable.  Where you could perhaps apply Providentissimus Deus is to say that the dust of the earth refers simply to the various chemicals and organic compounds that are found in abundance in the earth.  If you look at the chemical composition of the human body and that of earth or soil, there's a very close match (I'll dig it up at some point).  But if you hold that when Scripture states that God created Adam from the earth, the "earth" was just an ape ... then all of Genesis becomes a non-historical allegory of some kind replete with errors.

But Pius XII is not teaching that this was the case.  In fact, if you read on, he says that reasons both for and against must be considered, and the conclusions ultimately subjected to the Magisterium.  So all he's doing is opening up some freedom of discussion on the matter.  But that in and of itself was a horrible, horrible mistake.  We have this statement to thanks for the millions of Catholics who now hold that Genesis was merely a fanciful story.  And cassini points out the role that Providentissimus Deus played in this as well.  Where Leo XIII gave them the key, Pius XII unlocked the door ... which the Modernists then flung wide open.  It's similar to Roncalli talking about opening up the windows of the Vatican ... only to allow all the sewage into the Church.

Re: Is Cassini a Sedevacantist?
« Reply #21 on: April 20, 2021, 01:35:38 PM »
Well, the point about Pius IX was that he threw out a concept that got immediately exploited by the heretics.  I understand what he was trying to teach.  In fact, during his lifetime, when he found out how the heretics were spinning his teaching, he was shocked and appalled.  Ever since that point, every single religious indifferentist has clung to that particular teaching.  So, while his teaching was in no way false or erroneous, it was extremely inopportune to throw it out there given the prevailing climate.
I suspect that this was true throughout Church history.


Re: Is Cassini a Sedevacantist?
« Reply #22 on: April 20, 2021, 02:43:32 PM »
The history of the damage done by the 1820-35 concession to heliocentrist books, and therefore to a heliocentric reinterpretation, continued into Pope Pius X's reign. 

In 1906, one year after Einstein admitted geocentrism was never falsified, Pope Pius X, on the recommendation of science teacher Cardinal Pietro Maffi, designated the same Fr G. Hagen S.J. as director of the Specola Vaticana. So, what was Fr Hagen and the Jesuits now up to at the Observatory? Such was his reputation on the occasion of his 80th birthday in 1927 that he was visited at the observatory by Pope Pius XI (1922-39) who presented him with a special gold medal in recognition of his service to astronomy. What work then by a Jesuit  years after the M&M ‘failure’ was such that deserved a gold medal? How did this lauded astronomer restore the Church’s reputation in faith and science?  

 ‘The Rev. William F. Rigge, S.J., professor of physics and astronomy at Creighton University, has a long article running through the April and May [1913] numbers of Popular Astronomy on “Experimental Proofs of the Earth’s Rotation.” It is an abridged and popular presentation of the book published by Father Hagen S.J., [1847-1930] director of the Vatican Observatory. It is divided into four parts. The first treats of bodies falling from a height, which on account of their being farther from the Earth’s axis of revolution when on the top of a tower, move eastward faster than the ground and must therefore fall east of the point directly below them. The second mentions various forms of pendulums, especially Foucault’s, whose plane of vibration, while really fixed, appears to shift on account of the Earth’s rotation. The third part treats of gyroscopes, and shows how they are used to prove that our Earth turns on an axis. The fourth part explains various other apparatus, including two machines of Father Hagen’s own invention. “It looks like an amende honorable to the Galileo imbroglio,” says Fr. Rigge in the Creighton Chronicle “that the Pope’s own astronomer should come openly before the world with such a learned work and should even produce two new experiments to prove the fact of the Earth’s rotation. Not that we imply that Galileo was condemned for the sole reason that he upheld this doctrine of the Earth’s motion — for which however he had absolutely no proof whatever — but that we have now one argument more, and one that fully offsets any fault that may have been committed before.”’[1] 

It looks like an amende honourable[2] to the Galileo imbroglio,’ [3] adds Fr. Rigge S.J., describing the shame with which churchmen viewed the Galileo case. In other words, here above we see the Jesuits of the Vatican Observatory in Pope Pius X’s and Pope Pius XI’s time were now, in the name of the Church, hell-bent trying to convince all how Galileo’s heresy was right and the geocentrism of the Bible defended by all the Fathers and popes in 1616 and 1633 was wrong. They did this, we see, by regurgitating all the ‘proofs’ for a rotating Earth that were never proofs, and kept going even when cosmologists after the M&M test were admitting there was no such proof for their fixed sun/orbiting Earth. This then is how the Jesuits refuted ‘accusations against the Church as an enemy of scientific progress.’

[1] The Fortnightly Review: Mission Press of the Society of the Divine Illinois, 1913.
[2] Amende Honorable: English law. A penalty imposed upon a person by way of disgrace or infamy, as a punishment for any offence, or for the purpose of making reparation for any injury done to another, as the walking into church in a white sheet, with a rope about the neck, and begging the pardon of God, or the king, or any private individual, for some delinquency.
[3] Imbroglio: An acutely painful or embarrassing misunderstanding.



Offline Ladislaus

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Re: Is Cassini a Sedevacantist?
« Reply #23 on: April 20, 2021, 04:08:11 PM »
Would that the Jesuits had remained permanently suppressed.

Chardin was one of the biggest enemies of the faith ever, and then you had the Jesuits promoting neo-Pelagianism and religious indifferentism.  Even Adam Weishaupt was Jesuit-trained.

Re: Is Cassini a Sedevacantist?
« Reply #24 on: April 20, 2021, 06:41:31 PM »
The talk about geocentrism brought to mind a catechism class that I downloaded from SSPX Asia at least 10-12 years ago (relevant clip attached below). Fr. Scott gets upset that anyone would consider geocentrism true.

I think it is an example of why we need to examine the beliefs that we have picked up from the world, especially "proven science".
Couldn't agree more!   With the amount of lies and disinformation that has been getting light since the internet came around, makes me basically question anything "science" claims to be true.  And if some atheists scientist says one thing and Church tradition says another, guess who I'm siding with.  
Another consideration is relevancy.  Does it matter one way or another the way space works or the distant past of the earth?  In my opinion pretty much no, anything that is not working towards the salvation of souls is ancillary at best and totally irrelevant at another end of the spectrum.