No, I don't think that's correct.  I think the teaching of The Church has always been that The Bible is Inerrant (not The Fathers) and any decent scholar of ancient literature would tell you that, The Bible depicts a Flat and Stationary Earth, with a Geocentric view of things.  

However, it is clear that there is debate on Biblical Inerrancy, at even the highest levels of The Church.  Some have promoted the idea that The Bible is Inerrant only in matters pertaining to Salvation and this has created controversy in The Church and apparently, is not currently clarified.  Of course, The Church can't just reverse itself on two thousand years of teaching.  So, for the time being, while that opening has been created, it appears that Biblical Inerrancy is still, has always been and will eternally be, the teaching of The Church.  

No doubt, that opening was created, simply because The Church has allowed (even in its own schools) the teaching of "facts" that are in clear opposition to The Bible, although perhaps not to Salvation.  But, that has created a slippery slope.  So, unfortunately, it will and has, lead to the loss of Faith among Christians and the failure of Christians to lead many of The Lost to Salvation, which of course, should be the primary aim of The Church:  to fight the good fight (to save souls from Hell).  

Biblical inerrancy is the teaching of the Church, but one needs to understand that teaching properly.  It means that the Bible is inerrant in everything that it intends to teach.  When people try to find other information in the Bible, their interpretations can contain errors.  The Church has the sole authority to interpret Scripture, so we have to accept what the Church says about there being no intention to teach about physical science that does not pertain to salvation.

I have thought of an analogy to help explain the relationship between Scripture and science.  Many of us have been in the situation of answering a young child's questions about where babies come from.  A Catholic parent might give a response like this:

When a man and a woman love each other very much, like Mommy and Daddy do, we decide to get married.  That means we promise to stay together for the rest of our lives and help each other to get to heaven.  We also promise to take care of the babies that God wants to send us.  When He wants to, God makes a baby grow inside a mommy's tummy.  At first, the baby is very tiny, like a dot, but it gets bigger and bigger and when it is ready it comes out.  

If one tries to interpret this as a statement about science, it will seem to have errors and omissions.  There is nothing here about reproductive organs, the sex act, or details of fetal development.  It might be misunderstood as saying that only married people get pregnant and that the fetus grows in the stomach.  But, because it was never the intent to teach about science, it does not really have errors.

That response contained the information that a young child needs to know, put in terms that a young child can understand.  It lays the basis for his future understanding of Church teaching on the ends of marriage. It teaches the moral ideal that a baby should be born into a loving, faith-filled marriage, not the biological fact that babies are born into many situations.  It teaches the theological truth that a child is a gift from God and that He is the source of procreation with which the parents cooperate.  

Parents who give such explanations to their young children are not teaching errors to them nor are these parents in conflict with science.  When their children are older and biological facts are appropriate, the parents give that information.  They do not say that learning about biology is a rejection of the earlier teaching.  Both teachings are true, just about different aspects of the question.  The first one, given to the young child, is about faith and morals.  The second one, given years later, is about science.

What the Bible says about creation is the information that people need to know, put in terms that people would understand at the time it was written.  It is there to teach us about faith and morals and is likely to be misunderstood if treated as information about science. Saying that Scripture is not intended to teach about science which does not pertain to salvation (as, for example, Pope Leo did) is not questioning the inerrancy of Scripture.  It is giving a principle of interpretation to help us understand its correct, inerrant meaning.

Biblical inerrancy is the teaching of the Church, but one needs to understand that teaching properly.  It means that the Bible is inerrant in everything that it intends to teach.  

Incorrect.
You have made what the Bible "intends" to teach into something esoteric and not readily apparent. 
The Bible is meant to be plainly understood, always firstly in its literal sense, so that even a simple man may understand it.
You have in effect made your own gnosis.
Also, the Bible was not "put in terms that people would understand at the time it was written," as it was meant for all people of ALL times.
You err continuosly.
Funny you bring up babies,  because I'll bet yoi support the use of NFP to avoid pregnancy too.

Biblical inerrancy is the teaching of the Church, but one needs to understand that teaching properly.  It means that the Bible is inerrant in everything that it intends to teach.  When people try to find other information in the Bible, their interpretations can contain errors.  The Church has the sole authority to interpret Scripture, so we have to accept what the Church says about there being no intention to teach about physical science that does not pertain to salvation.

I have thought of an analogy to help explain the relationship between Scripture and science.  Many of us have been in the situation of answering a young child's questions about where babies come from.  A Catholic parent might give a response like this:

When a man and a woman love each other very much, like Mommy and Daddy do, we decide to get married.  That means we promise to stay together for the rest of our lives and help each other to get to heaven.  We also promise to take care of the babies that God wants to send us.  When He wants to, God makes a baby grow inside a mommy's tummy.  At first, the baby is very tiny, like a dot, but it gets bigger and bigger and when it is ready it comes out.  

If one tries to interpret this as a statement about science, it will seem to have errors and omissions.  There is nothing here about reproductive organs, the sex act, or details of fetal development.  It might be misunderstood as saying that only married people get pregnant and that the fetus grows in the stomach.  But, because it was never the intent to teach about science, it does not really have errors.

That response contained the information that a young child needs to know, put in terms that a young child can understand.  It lays the basis for his future understanding of Church teaching on the ends of marriage. It teaches the moral ideal that a baby should be born into a loving, faith-filled marriage, not the biological fact that babies are born into many situations.  It teaches the theological truth that a child is a gift from God and that He is the source of procreation with which the parents cooperate.  

Parents who give such explanations to their young children are not teaching errors to them nor are these parents in conflict with science.  When their children are older and biological facts are appropriate, the parents give that information.  They do not say that learning about biology is a rejection of the earlier teaching.  Both teachings are true, just about different aspects of the question.  The first one, given to the young child, is about faith and morals.  The second one, given years later, is about science.

What the Bible says about creation is the information that people need to know, put in terms that people would understand at the time it was written.  It is there to teach us about faith and morals and is likely to be misunderstood if treated as information about science. Saying that Scripture is not intended to teach about science which does not pertain to salvation (as, for example, Pope Leo did) is not questioning the inerrancy of Scripture.  It is giving a principle of interpretation to help us understand its correct, inerrant meaning.
 

Right, I get it.  You think God didn't give us the information about The Earth being a Globe, spinning at 1000 mph, jetting through space at mind numbing speeds, while orbiting around The Sun and not being in a particularly important place, but rather being extremely insignificant, in an overwhelmingly huge universe, where life evolved over billions and billions of years, where usury isn't magic, but good economics, where abortion isn't murder, but an expression of prudence and ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖity is just another form of human relations that old fuddy duddies like Moses, weren't ready for.  Thanks for clarifying all of that!  I wondered, I really did!  






Sorry for the rant Janyek.  Seriously though, I think your thinking on this issue is dangerous, frightening and condescending to our ancestors.  Do you really think they were naive children??  I'm sorry, but that is insulting.  It makes me angry when people talk about my ancestors that way.  I am sick and tired of this attitude towards The Patriarchs.  Thank you for so vividly illustrating to me, where this sickening attitude is getting its intellectual inspiration from. 

It's frightening and dangerous, because the physical and spiritual worlds are so intimately connected.  So, they must harmonize.  Copernicus, Newton's and Einstein's physical worlds do not harmonize with Christianity;  they do harmonize with The Big Bang and Darwin's General Theory of Evolution, as well as Freudian Psychology, Feminism, Equality, Atheism, Pantheism and Usury.  

Notice Step Two From The Top In The Cartoon.  I know you believe that the Bible is Inerrant too, just not in The Physical World, but rather only in The Spiritual World.  As I understand it, that way of thinking is the essence of The Protestant Error.  It is the very reason for Protestant Iconoclasm (destruction of religious statues, relics and things):  to effect the separation of The Spiritual from The Physical in Culture.  So, no statues.  No Crucifix.  No Confession.  No kneeling at the rail.  No literal transformation of the wafer and wine to The Blood and Body of Christ.  Nothing that would affirm the profound connection of The Spiritual World to The Physical World.  

Not surprisingly, these ideas had been vigorously promoted in a Century when many Catholic leaders were  trying to be accepted and supported by Protestants.    

Here a Dog makes a Grouse take flight and then a Falcon takes the Grouse down and, I suppose, the Dog will retrieve it for the Hunter.  The action takes place in the first 12 seconds of the video, after that is a slow motion repeat of the action.    


Falcon and Grouse
by, RobPalmer

What you refer to as my thinking on the issue is what the Catholic Church has been teaching since 1893. My "intellectual inspiration" comes from papal encyclicals and docuмents. Rather than accept Church teaching, you would rather follow your own ideas on how to interpret Scripture.  That was the foundation of the Protestant Error that you claim to be so opposed to.

The Bible is inerrant about both the physical and the spiritual aspects of the world when understood according to Church teaching.  People like you - and Protestants - make up your own meanings for Scripture and these are not inerrant.

It is ironic that you accuse others of following Protestant error.

You seem a little hot under the collar Jaynek.  I thought you had a better understanding of this issue, than you do.  

"Pope Benedict XV re-affirmed Pope Leo XIII’s teaching in his own encyclical Spiritus Paraclitus in 1920:

But although these words of our predecessor leave no room for doubt or dispute, it grieves us to find that not only men outside, but even children of the Catholic Church—nay, what is a peculiar sorrow to us, even clerics and professors of sacred learning—who in their own conceit either openly repudiate or at least attack in secret the Church's teaching on this point (SP 1).

Benedict appealed to the life and teaching of St. Jerome as a model for timeless treatment of Scripture. Specifically, he noted, “Jerome further shows that the immunity of Scripture from error or deception is necessarily bound up with its divine inspiration and supreme authority” (SP 13). Also, “St. Jerome’s teaching on this point serves to confirm and illustrate what our predecessor of happy memory, Leo XIII, declared to be the ancient and traditional belief of the Church touching the absolute immunity of Scripture from error” (SP 16)."  

https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/is-scripture-inerrant

No, it's inerrant PERIOD.  Whether it "intends" to teach something is irrelevant.  This is now the third time I've had to point out that your attitude towards the Bible sounds extremely modernist.  Why don't you just stick to the explanation that the Bible sometimes uses relative, metaphorical, or non-scientific language.

I have repeatedly explained what I mean by "intends to teach" and it is the same thing that Pope Leo meant.  I am no more a modernist than he was.  People are taking figurative language literally while ignoring the main point of the passage.  They are ignoring its intended meaning.  This is how they come up with the claim that flat earth is an inerrant teaching.
The idea of intent matters.  We need to recognize when the Bible intends to use "relative, metaphorical or non-scientific language" and not make it into something it is not.

I have repeatedly explained what I mean by "intends to teach" and it is the same thing that Pope Leo meant.  I am no more a modernist than he was.

Yeah, but this last formulation was your worst.  You stated that the Bible was inerrant with respect to those things it intended to teach.  That implies that it's not absolutely inerrant but only in qualified way, that there could be errors in matters which the Bible doesn't intend to "teach" but happens to mention in passing.  You need to stop writing like that or you'll never shake the accusation that you're a modernist when it comes to Sacred Scripture.

 the Bible is inerrant in everything that it intends to teach

You need to stop with a period after "everything" and before "that".  While the Bible is inerrant in everything PERIOD, it does always use language in a precise scientific way so as to intend to impart scientific knowledge in any particular passage.  Your phrasing suggest that the Bible is NOT inerrant in things that it doesn't INTEND to teach.  It most certainly is and the use of figurative language is not error.

You can explain five hundred times what Scripture "intends" to teach.  But if it does not coincide with what Scripture says, it isn't what Scripture teaches.  You are not the arbiter of what is figurative or literal in Scripture.

No, the Church is.  And that is what you ignore.