I find this really outrageous. No wonder they say what they say on EENS.

To them invincible ignorance is now simple ignorance.

She couldn't possibly have been invincibly ignorant of the Immaculate Conception, because she was obviously SURROUNDED by Catholics, not to mention Priests, and she could have heard it anywhere anytime or asked anybody.

After saying that invincible ignorance is an ignorance that cannot be overcome by ordinary means, he gave the example of the illiterate farmer and then he proceeded to give St. Bernadette's ignorance of the I.C. as another example of it.

What???
Would you mind posting the source for this?

It's at 1:24:00

Come to think of it, not even the illiterate farmer who's never gone to Catechism class could be in invincible ignorance. He can always ask and get informed, unless he lived where there are ZERO Catholics.

I think you are not understanding the term, invincible ignorance.

Of course, one can ask questions but if one is invincibly ignorant of an issue, one does not ask questions to clarify because one doesn't know that there is anything to clarify!

Invincible ignorance is not necessarily a permanent condition.  Every one of us was in invincible ignorance of the Immaculate Conception, for example, until we first heard of the doctrine.  And, because all of us started out as babies, this condition affected every single one of us--for a time.

There is not one person on this forum who can say he or she truly knew the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, or indeed, any Catholic doctrine, when he or she was an infant.  Furthermore, none on this forum knew to ask questions about doctrine.  Your faith, if you had been baptized as an infant, was a supernatural faith that gave you the propensity to be accepting of the true Catholic doctrines as you learned them.

It seems to me that those who reject the concept of invincible ignorance simply don't want to understand what it is:  Their ignorance of what it means is truly, as demonstrated above, vincible and, it seems, often pertinacious.

Right Lad!
We only know what we know and we don't know what we don't know.
But CAN we seek to know what we don't know?  
Most of the time yes.  
Because we pretty much started not knowing all we know.

I always thought invincible ignorance meant a lack of knowledge, which one was incapable of overcoming on their own.  Meaning their knowledge would have to be of a supernatural source, infused.

Right Lad!
We only know what we know and we don't know what we don't know.
But CAN we seek to know what we don't know?  
Most of the time yes.  
Because we pretty much started not knowing all we know.

I always thought invincible ignorance meant a lack of knowledge, which one was incapable of overcoming on their own.  Meaning their knowledge would have to be of a supernatural source, infused.

You are placing an awful lot of responsibility on the shoulders of a 14 year old girl to know that she had to "seek out what she didn't know".  

The family lived at a subsistence level, meaning that they were truly grateful to have food and firewood on any given night.  She was hired out as a servant at the age of 12.  Hitting the books and checking out the latest theological treatise at the library was not on her list of priorities--and yet she's a saint in heaven.  At the time of the apparition of Our Lady of Lourdes, Bernadette was truly in invincible ignorance, given her circuмstances, about the Immaculate Conception.  She didn't know what it meant and wasn't capable of learning until the very concept was explained to her, yet she believed the Lady even though she really didn't understand.

You people seem to judge everyone in history according to current middle-class American standards and you act as if no other standard exists or ever existed.  No wonder so many people around the world despise Americans for their smugness.

I think you are not understanding the term, invincible ignorance.

I just watched the portion of the video.  I suspect that Bishop Sanborn uses the term incorrectly.  St. Bernadette's ignorance wasn't invincible per se (even by his own definition) but rather it was inculpable.  I think there's a difference.

Quote from: TKGS

I think you are not understanding the term, invincible ignorance.

I just watched the portion of the video.  I suspect that Bishop Sanborn uses the term incorrectly.  St. Bernadette's ignorance wasn't invincible per se (even by his own definition) but rather it was inculpable.  I think there's a difference.

That's what i meant: is inculpable ignorance the same as invincible? I don't think so.

By the way, it seems that the people who are complaining that Bishop Sanborn used the term, invincible ignorance, in relation to Saint Bernadette really didn't listen to what Bishop Sanborn was saying.  It seems, rather, that they were listening for "gatcha" statements with which they could beat him over the head.

Say it isn't so!!!  :roll-laugh1: