Sean,

Quote

I say he is a modernist, and therefore incapable of spotting contradiction.

In saying this are you not judging him in the internal forum?
That clearly contradict you proposition that he cannot be judged that way.

Quote from: J.Paul

Sean,

Quote

I say he is a modernist, and therefore incapable of spotting contradiction.

In saying this are you not judging him in the internal forum?
That clearly contradict you proposition that he cannot be judged that way.

Wrong again:

The presumption is for material heresy, because formal heresy requires a juridical act, or a public admission of knowingly contradicting Church doctrine.

See how easy this is if you just put your position aside, and let doctrine take you where you need to go?

Quote from: J.Paul

Sean,

Quote

I say he is a modernist, and therefore incapable of spotting contradiction.

In saying this are you not judging him in the internal forum?
That clearly contradict you proposition that he cannot be judged that way.

Wrong again:

The presumption is for material heresy, because formal heresy requires a juridical act, or a public admission of knowingly contradicting Church doctrine.

See how easy this is if you just put your position aside, and let doctrine take you where you need to go?

Quote from: cantatedomino

Quote from: Domitilla

So, SJ, are you saying that Bishop of Rome, Francis is invincibly ignorant (no responsibility before God) or is he vincibly ignorant (responsibility before God)?

Domitilla!!!

We both know the answer.

Woe to this monster Bergoglio!

How could anyone think he does not know what he is doing? How could anyone think he does not know what the Church taught for 2000 years?

He knows and he deliberately leads Catholics into a different belief system! He says he knows and he says, "We don't do it like that anymore."

Caramba!!!!!

I try not to take what Frances does personally. I see him as simply an actor playing a role with great professional skill according to a script that has been handed to him. He is an excellent actor like the one playing Obama, who expertly reads his lines from the teleprompter serving as grief councilor in chief for the recurring hoaxes served up by the fake reality-show media. The script writer for these two is very clever, diabolically so.

Sean is correct so far as he goes. Mere material error in the intellect certainly does not and cannot have ipso facto effects so far as the Papacy is concerned, (especially since the Pope is not subject to canon law but merely to divine law and what is true by intrinsic necessity) it is necessary that the form of pertinacity in the will must also be present, otherwise the composite of heresy is simply not there and there is correspondingly no internal effect in the person concerned.

As applied here, then, Pope Francis is presumed a Catholic in material error and therefore the Pope until the contrary is proven, and in so far as not only public heresy but public and formal heresy is necessary to cause the loss of the pontificate, the pertinacity itself and not merely the publicity must be demonstrated with moral certainty in the external forum. Otherwise, the presumption is as a matter of justice that he remains the Pope.

This is from an excellent and intensive theological study of the question that Archbishop Lefebvre himself highly commended,

Quote from: Xavier Da Silviera

As is obvious, we are not discussing the possibility of the Pope being in material heresy. No one denies, that mistakenly or by inadvertence, the Supreme Pontiff can fall into material heresy, as a private person.

And if that authority does not satisfy, one from a traditional theologian.

Quote from: Van Noort

Thus far we have been discussing Catholic teaching. It may be useful to add a few points about purely theological opinions – opinions with regard to the pope when he is not speaking ex cathedra. All theologians admit that the pope can make a mistake in matters of faith and morals when so speaking: either by proposing a false opinion in a matter not yet defined, or by innocently differing from some doctrine already defined.

Quote from: SeanJohnson

Quote from: Mithrandylan

If a window into the soul is required to say whether one is Catholic or not, then the Church isn't really a visible thing or discernible thing, is it?  

In fact, it becomes hideously gnostic, and no one can be said to belong to it or be separated from it.  Obama might even be Catholic.  Madame Blavatsky might be playing mahjong with Voltaire in heaven.  Who knows?

On the other hand, Pius XII laid out what makes a person a Catholic.  Baptized and not an heretic, apostate or schismatic.  

Your answer denies the distinction between material and formal heresy.

In the former, a man remains Catholic.

In the latter, he does not.

Tell me: Do you have the power to know whether a man realizes he is contradicting Church teaching, so as to pass from the material to the former?

I think you are reading these two concerns (the visibility of the Church on the one hand, and the distinction between material/formal heretic and the consequences for Church membership thereof on the other hand) in opposition to eachother.

Kind of like how a Feenyite reads the passages on water baptism as being opposed to baptism of desire.

A broader vision of the whole corpus of ecclesiology would alleviate your concerns, and bring you to the realization that the two do not oppose eachother.

Pax

I appreciate the distinction between materially holding an heresy and actually being guilty of heresy, in this case being a formal manifest heretic.  Someone who materially holds a heresy submits to the teaching authority of the Church, and through ignorance believes something contrary to what She teaches.  It is apparent to me that Francis neither submits to the teaching authority of the Church, and it is equally apparent that he cannot claim to know her teaching on something so basic on there being no salvation outside of her (as an example).

No one, including the Church, can judge the internal forum.  She judges based on externals.  She does not require a window into the soul to do so.

The Church's visibility depends in part on her members being identifiable.  If, by your rule, a window into the soul is needed to know if a man is a Catholic, then the Church DOES become invisible, because no one can find a Catholic, since no one has a window into the soul-- including our Holy Mother Church.  

Quote from: SeanJohnson

To make the point yet another way:

Say my grandmother says "there is no Catholic God."

Tell me:

Is she Catholic (i.e., has she put herself outside the Church)?

Point B:

Does your inability to answer the question (since you cannot know the internal forum, and therefore, whether she realizes she is at odds with Catholic teaching) rob the Church of visibility?

Obviously not.

My "inability" to answer the question lies in a lack of information, not in an inherent inability to know whether or not a given person is a member of the Church.  Judging the internal forum is NOT required to answer the question.  If it was, the Church could NEVER declare anyone excommunicate, because even She cannot judge the internal forum.  Luther, Cranmer, Zwingli, et al. could not have been condemned as they were if the Church depended on judging the internal forum.  

If your grandmother knows that the Church teaches there is only one God, and a Catholic God, and denies the existence of that God or chooses to follow an idol of the gentiles, all of which are demons, then she is not a Catholic.

But there's much more than that.  Francis has publicly participated in false religious services, and even submitted himself to receive a protestant "blessing" in one of them.  Has your grandmother done that?  This goes far, far beyond "there is no Catholic God," though that statement is bad enough.  

And your argument cuts two ways.  How can we know with moral certainty that Pius X was a Catholic, if his public teachings and profession of the faith do not suffice?  Unless you would just assume that all the baptized are Catholics, since we cannot judge the internal forum-- in which case, what's the big deal if my Lutheran grandma receives Holy Communion at our chapel?  I mean, who am I to judge, right?

But reality is much simpler and makes a whole lot more sense!  Both ecclesiastical judgements (which bind the faithful) and private judgements based on moral certainty (binding to the person who forms them) are informed by externals.  

Quote from: SeanJohnson

Quote from: J.Paul

Sean,

Quote

I say he is a modernist, and therefore incapable of spotting contradiction.

In saying this are you not judging him in the internal forum?
That clearly contradict you proposition that he cannot be judged that way.

Wrong again:

The presumption is for material heresy, because formal heresy requires a juridical act, or a public admission of knowingly contradicting Church doctrine.

See how easy this is if you just put your position aside, and let doctrine take you where you need to go?

Actually not wrong, I did not specify formal heresy and for our purposes material heresy is sufficient. Although through his persistent and public upholding of material heresy he can certainly be suspected of formal heresy and in either case he like his conciliar predecessors, teaches another Gospel and is therefore under the censure of anathema according to Holy Scripture and Vatican I.

Holy writ and a true Council's decrees are the doctrine of the Church.

[/quote

...and if one oppose them in ignorance, he remains Catholic.

Holy writ and a true Council's decrees are the doctrine of the Church.

[/quote

...and if one oppose them in ignorance, he remains Catholic.