I found this online:


Topic: Was Vatican II Infallible?

    Question:

    While I agree with you that Vatican II's declarations must be accepted with "religious submission" of mind and of will, this is not because it made any new infallible statements. Granted it reiterated doctrines that had already been infallibly defined, but in regard to any new statements, particularly the ones you list in your article "No Salvation Outside the Church" (e.g. the Council's declaration on Religious Liberty), I'd have this to say: Surely the Pope who approved the statements of Vatican II should know what its status is as regards infallibility or non-infallibility, and Paul VI had this to say:

        "In view of the pastoral nature of the Council, it avoided any extraordinary statements of dogmas endowed with the note of infallibility, but it still provided its teaching with the Authority of the Ordinary Magisterium which must be accepted with docility according to the mind of the Council concerning the nature and aims of each docuмent" (General Audience, 12 January 1966).

    Please don't misunderstand my comments as implying that I don't believe one is morally bound to accept the teachings of Vatican II. On the contrary, I do. This is because the Church is our Mother and we can trust her not to deceive us even when there is the theoretical possibility that that this might occur. There is the remote possibility that my food might be poisoned, but it would be ridiculous of me to refrain from eating for this reason! (For a full explanation of the infallible/non-infallible binding statement controversy, please see Father William Most, Catholic Apologetics Today, TAN Books.)

Answer:

Thank you for your note. The question of the status of the docuмents of VCII has been tendentious. Some very reactionary elements in the Church have acted as if the docuмents lacked any Magisterial standing because of the "pastoral nature of the council" and could thus be set aside. Others more cautiously have depicted the docuмents as only part of the Ordinary Magisterium, which required religious submission and thus did not consider them infallible. Others have acted as if they all represented acts of the extraordinary Magisterium.

In fact, it is much more complicated than any of these options. While many of the docuмents were Pastoral Constitutions, there were 2 Dogmatic Constitutions: Lumen Gentium (On the Church in the Modern World) and Dei Verbum (On Divine Revelation) which were completions of the original work of Vatican I which had been interrupted by the Italian Revolution in 1870. If you look at the end of Lumen Gentium in the VCII docuмent collection by Fr. Flannery, you will see that the CDF clearly stated that part of the docuмent did represent authentic new teaching that was binding on the Church. Dei Verbum definitively settled a serious question on the proper way of interpreting the teaching of the Council of Trent on the relationship between Scripture and Tradition. Trent had not clarified whether we were dealing with two separate sources or one source in two forms. DV definitively settled the question in favor of the latter solution.

As regards Dignitatis Humanae (Declaration on Religious Liberty), it was NOT a Pastoral Constitution, but a declaration of teaching. This is a different kind of docuмent. It is not a solemn definition but it is at least as definitive as an encyclical. The docuмent reaffirmed previous Catholic teaching on the relationship between Church and State but definitely broke new ground. It defined for the first time the meaning of the "Public Order" and established that the just order in a state is inseparable from the objective moral order. The facile separation of "Public Order" from the "Common Good" postulated by some Catholic scholars was thereby rejected. There was also a clear apology for the excesses of the Inquisition and a recognition that the moral order requires that States organize their laws recognizing the dignity of the human person. This was all new.

Some people have argued that DH was only a pastoral docuмent and therefore not irreformable. I don't agree. This was a General Council of the Church. It is clear that doctrine developed here and subsequent Popes have always referred to the docuмents as part of the Magisterium. While this was not a solemn declaration of a dogma, what was taught meets the criteria for infallible teaching as part of the Ordinary Magisterium. In the same way, Cardinal Ratzinger and the CDF have made it clear that it is infallibly taught that women cannot be ordained even though we have had no ex cathedra statement on this.

The quotation by Pope Paul is merely saying that there were no solemn dogmatic definitions at VCII by which opponents were anathematized and excommunication was threatened if one did not submit. This had been common in most other Councils of the Church. Here, we were not trying to condemn heretics, but to clarify Catholic doctrine and to build bridges to our separated brethren and to all people of good will. This did not exclude definitive and infallible teaching or new and irreformable developments in doctrine.

It is not necessary for a doctrine to be defined by the Extraordinary Magisterium in order to be infallible. The Ordinary Magisterium is good enough. Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis (para 20) clearly taught that the words of Jesus in Luke 10:16 applied to the Ordinary Magisterium:

Luke 10:16 "He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects him who sent me."

You can't get more infallible than that.

Art Sippo
The Catholic Legate

No, I do not.



By the way, do you know how Mass was celebrated in the early couple centuries?

Quote from: kamalayka

No, I do not.

By the way, do you know how Mass was celebrated in the early couple centuries?

You are a modernist.  Why won't you answer my question about the Syllabus of Errors?  When I pointed out that you were wrong you completely ignored it and changed the subject.  You are deceitful.

As for how Mass was celebrated in the early centuries - guess what?  The idea of returning some of those early forms (as they did in the novus ordo) is condemned:

"But it is neither wise nor laudable to reduce everything to antiquity by every possible device. Thus, to cite some instances, one would be straying from the straight path were he to wish the altar restored to its primitive tableform"

Pope Pius XII, in his Encyclical Mediator Dei.  It is another modernist innovation.

Well, the Syllabus of Errors is not infallible because they were not addressed to the whole church.

Read number 77

77. In the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship. -- Allocution "Nemo vestrum," July 26, 1855.

. It was an allocution relating to Spain and proposals to disestablish the Catholic church there.

Last time I checked, the entire Church did not exist only in Spain.

. . .but then again, knowing what people here claim. . .

 :roll-laugh1:

No, I do not.

You don't consider it an infallible truth.  But do you believe it nevertheless?

Jamie, you are correct about the words of Pius XII, even if you mislabel him as a pope.  He did not try to teach that all encyclicals are infallible, merely that they have authority.  He is correct about what he says in this particular case, despite his heretical teachings on BoD, NFP and eugenics and numerous other egregious statements concerning Protestants and others in false religions.  A later Pontiff can overturn the judgment of a previous Pontiff so long as the latter did not make his decree ex cathedra.

Also, you made a very good point about the Syllabus - that the specific teachings came from other encyclicals - HOWEVER, as much as I agree with your statement about EENS, Quanto Conficiamur Moerore cannot be held to be an infallible docuмent.  Pius IX did not address the entire Church, but the Bishops and Archbishops.

Finally, will you please note that EENS was being denied long before the 1960's, as the apostasy was already underway well before then.

This certainly demonstrates the need for the Popes to speak so often and so vehemently against modernism - it really was everywhere.

Indeed it was, and still is.  And Benedict XV was one of its greatest defenders.

Well, the Syllabus of Errors is not infallible because they were not addressed to the whole church.

This is false.  If Pope Pius IX did not address the Syllabus to the whole Church, to whom did he address it to?  The Church's teaching on religious liberty (or not) goes back centuries.  Consider this:

http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Leo10/l10exdom.htm

Condemned Error 33. That heretics be burned is against the will of the Spirit.

Now compare it to Dignitatis Humanae.  Okay, we can play word games until we are blue in the face.  Go ahead, I have better things to do with my time.  It is clear to me, however, that Dignitatis Humanae was not part of the Ordinary Magisterium of the Catholic Church, and that Pope Paul VI was a heretic to sign it.  So, there are two alternatives:  Pope Benedict is an anti-Pope or he is the Pope in virtue of his office, but still a heretic, albeit, an undeclared one.  Only the One and Triune God knows for sure.

There really is no way to know who is is is not in the Church.

If you are so sure of yourself, I want you to walk up to a Protestant and tell him that he is condemned to hell.
(Even though Jesus said we are unable to condemn anybody. Even HE didn't. But hey, I guess you're God or something).

The only people who disagree are those who are extremely worldly-minded and materialistic.

If you were a Pharisee during the time of Christ, and if Christ healed someone on the Sabbath, would you yell at Him as well???

If you were one of the Pharisees who brought the woman caught in adultery to Jesus, and you heard Jesus' reply, would you consider HIM a heretic?

If you were standing at the foot of the Cross, and you heard him telling the criminal next to Him that he will be saved, would you attempt to "correct" Jesus??



Pope Benedict XVI is by far a smarter theologian than you or I will ever be (at least I can admit it).