It is impossible that a true pope can teach contrary to Church doctrine.  So approval certainly is enough.  A true pope has never, does not now and will never contradict Church dogma.  If there is the appearance of contradiction then you are likely to be misunderstanding something.  Or possibly you have mistakenly taken a non-pope to be a true pope.

It is impossible that a true pope can teach contrary to Church doctrine.  So approval certainly is enough.  A true pope has never, does not now and will never contradict Church dogma.  If there is the appearance of contradiction then you are likely to be misunderstanding something.  Or possibly you have mistakenly taken a non-pope to be a true pope.

Maria,

Thank you for the citation. A fantastic thread and incredible discussion.

At one point Drew says this:


A gem. We are getting here to the heart of the problem. Drew says, "may not necessarily be true." That's being kind and respectful. They could not have been other than wrong, as history of the Church post-V2 shows. To go beyond this: pre-Conciliar popes also, when speaking below the level where their infallible charism is invoked and the Holy Ghost attends their utterance, have been wrong in encyclicals and in statements of merely "authoritative" magisterium.

If the evidence, the facts, establish something, you do yourself, and the truth, no service by coming up with evasive but satisfying arguments that attempt to explain the facts away. Confronted with a pope who ratified an ecuмenical council which promulgated not only error but heresy (meaning the pope taught and promulgated heresy), the teaching of the theologians, and even some popes in their "authoritative" magisterium, that the Church is "spotless" in her discipline etc. (Pius XII) presents an "obex" (to borrow Vigano speak) to the mind: how could the pope (the magisterium of the Church) do this?

So, the Trad world recognizes the facts (error if not heresy in the Magisterium), and theorizes: the V2 popes were not popes, and therefore the Church's indefectibility is not implicated - the true Magisterium remains indefectible. This is the Sedevacantist "solution."  The R & R folks recognize the facts and say, "well, this is the living magisterium regnant in the Church, but it's proclaiming things that are not part of the deposit of the faith, and has become unreliable in such as such aspects of its teaching."

The Sede "solution" applies a principle accepted a priori - the indefectibility of the Magisterium in its teaching authority (even when not speaking infallibly) - to the facts and declares "not Magisterium." This is not good "science." If the hypothesis is belied by the facts, you need a new hypothesis to explain them. The Sede error is a deductive error in holding to a principle or thesis belied by the reality.

The R & R error is not so much an error, since its inductive conclusion is accurate, but it doesn't solve the underlying problem because it confines the error temporarily into a span of time (the "Conciliar" church, the magisteriums post-Paul VI or John XXIII). During this period of time we thus have the contradiction of two magisteriums as it were, or two churches (the true Church and the Conciliar) existing in the same space, one entity being two, or however you want to formulate it.

This is the point of my argument with Sean Johnson in this thread. He rejects the erroneous teachings of popes and the council post-V2 as not from the Church, but refuses to recognize that possibility in the pre-Vat II Church in his position against Feeneyites regarding implicit BOD and implicit faith, two errors which have never been proposed by the Church with her infallible authority, and which are as erroneous (at least in principle one must allow that they can be) as the ecuмenism, etc. of the V2 Church.

However, if we take the first step of recognizing that a true and genuine Magisterium can be wrong at least when not invoking its solemn authority or speaking within the confines of its infallibility as defined by Vatican I (which requires that the Magisterium either solemnly or ordinarily declare something to be "of Revelation" or "the faith"), we can understand the apparent contradictions between a Magisterium teaching error if not heresy and an accepted teaching of theologians and popes that the Magisterium couldn't so teach: thoses pope and theologians, not speaking with the protection against error (duly confined as defined by the solemn authority of a pope who taught with that protection in Vatican I - Pius IX) were wrong regarding the Church's "indefectibility." I believe this is a point Stubborn has made and advocated.

Thus, my disagreement with Mr. Johnson is not based on his interpretation of the Vincentian canon (always believed, etc.) but his failure to be consistent and extend that principle to pre-V2 theologians and popes regarding implicit BOD or implicit faith, which would require recognition of a valid principle underlying the Feeneyite argument (the possibility of error in the pre-V2 merely authoritative magisterium and the consensus teachings of its theologian), and accordingly merely a disagreement rather than claiming Feeneyite "heresies" or accusing them of disobedience to the Magisterium, which is contradicted by his own disobedience to merely "authoritative" Magisterium post-V2.  

For example, Sean says this:


Sean, what you need to do is recognize that your principle of Magisterial error and error in its theologians post-V2 can in principle be "back[ed] up" to recognize the possibility of Magisterial errors pre-V2, and that your understanding of Tradition and the Vincentian canon can be likewise and legitimately applied to things like "implicit BOD" and "implicit faith," because your principle of Magisterial error applies as well to those theories and teachings.

But that's only a relevant side observation.

The point is Drew's "dogma is the proximate rule of faith" argument recognizes true teaching and true authority and provides a rational basis for rejection of both post-V2 and pre-V2 Magisterial error. It has the virtue of a hypothesis that is consistent with the facts, and consistent across time, a true universal rule.

It has deficiencies neither the Sede nor myopic R & R views (only applied to the near, Conciliar Magisterium) contain - among one of its virtues.

The Sede "solution" applies a principle accepted a priori - the indefectibility of the Magisterium in its teaching authority (even when not speaking infallibly) - to the facts and declares "not Magisterium." This is not good "science." If the hypothesis is belied by the facts, you need a new hypothesis to explain them. The Sede error is a deductive error in holding to a principle or thesis belied by the reality.

I don't use my judgment to determine whether the Church is right or not, I use it to determine whether I am being preached a gospel besides the one that the Church preached before. And if so, I let the false preachers be anathema.

And I don't base my procedure on my private interpretation of Gal 1:9, but on infallible teaching of the Council of Trent. Above, I quoted the Council of Trent stating that the teachings of the same holy Synod are to be used as rule of faith, and asking me to use that same rule of faith to, in the midst of the darkness of so many errors, more easily be able to recognise and to hold Catholic truth.

On the other hand, I might argue against you ad hominem: If you take your own approach seriously, why don't you abstain from posting? You are using your own protestant private judgement to tell me what a Catholic should do or omit.

And another comment ad hominem: If I listen to those who you call apostles, then why do you bother me when they preach freedom of speech, salvation for all men (excepting arms dealers), ..., and finally celebrate Dr. Martin private interpretation Luther's anniversary.

All I find are neomodernists and other kinds of heretics. Not a single faithful shepherd with an apostolic mandate. But I also find written dogma definitively explaining content of the depositum fidei.

I don't intend to speak for the Sede "solution".

For my part, I reject the false apostles of the Church of the 1960s Pentecost 2.0 not because of (whatever kind of) indefectibility of the Magisterium. I reject them, because they are manifest heretics and hence neither apostles nor the Magisterium.

I don't understand R&R-folks saying: "But they didn't define dogma!" Who cares whether a heretic claims to be defining dogma or whether he just spits out his heresies? The point is: They did contradict already defined dogma.