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Lumen Gentium Annotated
© A.D. 2013 Quanta Cura Press©TM
The first thing that hits me is that this is a great concept.
The format looks very good, and the authors have gone to
obvious diligent effort in putting this together. And not to be
overlooked is the fact that it is made available for FREE to
anyone who is interested. It seems to me that this last aspect
SHOULD evoke no small degree of incentive for readers of good
will, and might likewise evoke a degree of complaisance for
readers of bad will: "If they're not going to sell their work, why
should anyone take them seriously, for it's the same thing as
saying that they're afraid it WOULDN'T sell, so then why bother
trying to sell it?" (I'm not quoting anyone, but giving a possible
example of how someone of bad will might look at this.)
A quick peek turns up the following:
Yet this is how Pope Benedict XVI described some of the
xiv
main teachings of Vatican II! Thus, clearly, Vatican II’s
teachings contain novelties which are plainly not infallible.
The testimony of Pope Paul VI:
The new position adopted by the Church with
regard to the realities of this earth is
henceforth well known by everyone .... [T]he
Church agrees to recognize the new principal
to be put into practice .... [T]he Church agrees
to recognize the world as ‘self-sufficient’; she
does not seek to make the world an instrument
for her religious ends ....
August 24, 1969 Declaration of Pope Paul VI, L'Osservatore
Romano; (emphasis added).
© 2013 Quanta Cura Press©TM (quantacurapress@gmail.com)
Available at: scribd.com/doc/158994906 (free) & Amazon.com (sold at cost)
Do you see the misspelled word? "The Church agrees to recognize
the
new principal to be put into practice..." Now, if they're talking
about a 'new' counterpart to bank interest, or a 'new' chief
administrator of a school, or the 'new' head of some other sort of
institution or business enterprise, I can see how they would use the
word "new
principal," but if they're talking about putting into practice
some dictate or axiom of fundamental formation, then the word
ought to be
"principle." It's obviously the latter, therefore the
word is misspelled.
Such misspellings reduce the credibility of the work.
Since this is a quotation of another work, perhaps the source,
L'Osservatore Romano, misspelled the word. If so, this edition
in quoting it, should make note of the fact and provide the proper
spelling.
The treatment of this preliminary topic, the PREFACE of no less than 30
(thirty) pages (in Roman Numerals: xxx), is cogent and powerful. At a
first look I see nothing missing. It is in a manner of speaking, a "book
in itself." Whereas many readers may be wont to skip the Preface and
get right into the meat of the book, it seems to me that one would only
do himself a disservice here by skipping this Preface, since it lays the
groundwork for the entire book of nearly 400 pages. It is no small
wonder that it is titled "The Purpose of This Book."
I would only regret that the word
"teleology" is not employed
somewhere in it, for teleology is one of the abandoned segments of
philosophy of these latter days, and it is so ignored because to the
Modernists, it represents such an inconvenient and bothersome detail.
When the purpose
per se of anything in particular and of everything in
general can be IGNORED (as, for example, by NOT reading this Preface),
then the progress of corruption can more easily proceed apace, to
destroy that which has been built up over the past 20 centuries, or 2
millenia, take your pick.
I found this section especially helpful and impressive:
One Final Objection before we begin
Examining the Text of Lumen Gentium
One might think, either through ignorance or false humility,
that because we are not the pope (or at least a bishop), we
should not “set ourselves up in judgment” whether the
conciliar hierarchy is teaching the truth or not, or whether
the conciliar hierarchy’s teachings are consistent with the
traditional teaching of the Church. One might (wrongly)
think that, to do so, shows a “Protestant mentality”.
However, this view could not be further from the truth!
This ignorance or false humility is contrary to the consistent
teaching of the Church. This could be shown by citing many
Catholic authorities. Here is one:
The book then proceeds to exemplify the principle at hand.
(Note: not the 'principal' at hand!)