The manipulation of nature above our level of understanding is NOT the same as something SUPER-natural.

Gladius, what are your sources?  Is this Aquinas who says only God is super-natural?  I'm not being facetious, what you said fascinates me.

I had always defined the super-natural as being whatever is above the "natural" order of man, such as the angels.

The devil being a fallen angel, I had classed him as a supernatural being.  I didn't mean by this that he had as much power as God, of course!  In fact what many don't realize is that the devil, despite his rebellion, cannot make a move without God.  His rebellion was entirely futile and he simply boxed himself in a corner, allowing himself to be used by God in the way that a hunter may use a caged ferret to harass his prey.  As he says in a rock song "Despite all my rage, I'm still just a rat in a cage."  

Meaning, God allows him to tempt us, but he is still God's creature.  Every knee UNDER THE EARTH bows to the name of Jesus...  Even the rebels have to bow!  How can you rebel against the One who made you?  The very concept is absurd.

So yes, I appreciate that you're trying to set God high above His creation, because He is.  But I have never heard the supernatural defined that way before -- that only God is supernatural.   I defined it from our limited perspective.

Again, give me your source, I have some reading to do...

I just told you two Doctors of the Church (and many more besides) do NOT assent to your 'important truth', CM.  To become a Doctor, the writings of the man under consideration are perused with a comb of the finest teeth.  BoD and universal salvation are NOT the same thing, although an INCORRECT understanding of the one often leads to the other, truly heretical concept.

R76, although the angelic nature is ABOVE our own, it is still created - as you clearly understand.  ALL creation may be classed as the NATURAL - God, being of an altogether different order (think TIME versus ETERNITY, which is NOT merely time without end), is above all.  Faith, hope and charity are what we call supernatural virtues.  They pertain to an order of activity that surpasses our own natural capacities, and the natural capacity of all created beings, including angels.  God, in his goodness, elevates us to this level of activity - which is proper only to him.

CM, as for God's reasons for allowing the devil to act as he does, there is much more to it than mere justice and our own supposed deserts.  Tell me, what is the worth of a Church that elevates a man to the status of Doctor if he teaches heresy (for which he was never censured)?

All created things belong to the "natural order" because, as it has been rightly stated, only God is SUPERnatural, that is, "above (created) nature".

Angels may have more and better natural abilities than we do, but even as animals and men, or even plants and men, being as far apart in gifts and abilities as they are, belong to the scope of (created) nature, so, too do the angels belong to that same scope.

Yes, St. Thomas is, by the way, at least one of the people who said that only God is supernatural, or "above (created) nature".

That the angels are far superior becomes useless as an argument when we realize that even inanimate objects are put in the same category with human beings, under the "natural" heading. And there's certainly a wide gulf between us and the stones. Just like there's no "sub-natural" level to define created things that are way below man, it also makes sense that the angels would be included in the same scope of all things created.

It seems St. Thomas uses the words natural and supernatural here, to define that which is created, and subject to some constraints of it's nature, and that which is uncreated, and subject to no constraints (of what could be called God's nature). [My personal understanding.]

Of course, if, by nature, you mean that which is intrinsic to something, then even God has His nature, so to speak. But speaking of "natural" as that which belongs to the created order, then of course angels would also be included in that category, in spite of their awesome abilities and gifts from God, because they, too, are created, even if their nature has such superior properties and gifts to our own.

[Sorry if my post is rambling. I've got a bad cold, and it doesn't do the brain any favors.]

No one can be said to be teaching "heresy" until the dogma is actually defined. Before that, it's merely every man's knowledge and opinions on the matter against every other man's. If the truth is not made clear or defined, how can someone be said to be against it, since they have not known it?

Saying St. Thomas was a heretic is like saying no person who lived before Christ went anywhere but hell, because they did not accept Christ. Well, one problem. Before a specific date in history, Christ had not yet come, so there was not yet any issue of denial or no denial for which those people could be condemned.

 Likewise, condemning saints for teaching something in error, before the truth was defined and the error condemned, is equally insane. If they did not know the truth, how could they be guilty of rejecting it?

And if they could NOT be guilty of rejecting what was not yet known certainly, then there is no sin, in which case their personal sanctity is not threatened by their error, even if it WAS, indeed, error. God does not condemn those who are innocent of guilt.

So we need not be threatened by the sainthood of those who unknowingly adhered to heretical positions before they were such. We have only to switch on our Catholic minds, and reject the errors now that we DO know them to be such.

Unfortunately for the lazy man, Catholicism, or indeed the truth in anything, is never something which you can find by just switching off your brain and swallowing everything blindly. None of us are God, so none of us knows everything. That being the case, until the end of time, truth will always need to be picked out from among errors. Which promises always to be confusing at times, difficult at other times, and in some cases virtually impossible in the moment given certain circuмstances. Things will never be simple, and all black and white, and easy for us to find and follow. Even the infallible pope must choose to use his infallibility, so even HE is capable of erring otherwise, so we cannot even follow HIM with total blindness. (As we learned in V2.)

Sorry, but there's no easy way in this life.

Malachi Martin is almost certainly a Marrano Jєω.  And he's CERTAINLY a con artist.  

Have you heard of his book Windswept House?  The premise of the book is that the "Slavic Pope" ( as he calls John-Paul II ) is really trying to hold the Vatican and the faith together, but he is besieged by internal and external forces of the nєω ωσrℓ∂ σr∂єr.

Did you get that?  John-Paul II was the good guy; it was everyone else around him who was trying to make him a heretic!  Sure.  

Actually this book would have worked if it were about Pius XII.  He really was a man surrounded by malign influence with no hope of escape.