***the consistency of the Church does not reflect the debates of the Church Fathers.
Those who continue in debate and disagreement are heretics in the same fashion of the arians who denied Christ’s divinity.***
Or of any other heretical group.
***If a great Church Father cannot accept the Consensus Patrum, he is evicted
This consensus was agreed upon with the dogma of Immaculate Conception as well and did not end with in the 11th century schism***
It was simply a reiteration and formalization of what the Church always believed; same as the formalization of the Old Testament by the same Council. It is binding upon the Latins, anyway. And, if agreed upon by the East in an ecumenical Council, it will be binding upon them as well. We just have different ways of stating the same thing. The Fathers need to be studied and understood a whole lot more in the West. That is one of the reasons why BXVI is head, shoulders, torso and waist above anybody that the Vatican has had in the last millennium or so.
Bingo!
As we see Pope Paul VI explain in His encyclical on Indulgences
http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/P6INDULG.HTM
“For an exact understanding of this doctrine and of its beneficial use it is necessary, however, to remember truths which the entire Church illumined by the Word of God has always believed and which the bishops, the successors of the Apostles, and first and foremost among them the Roman Pontiffs, the successors of Peter, have taught by means of pastoral practice as well as doctrinal documents throughout the course of centuries to this day.”
In other words... In matters of faith and morals everything the church has believed is infallible regardless if it becomes dogma
Mark, you would be hard pressed to show me what the Church always believed. The Church, the doctrine, and even the New Testament evolved. There was no Catholic Church in 33 AD, as we know it, and that includes its beliefs, teachings and hierarchy. Remember, when we speak of the "Fathers" the pre-Nicene Fathers and the post-Nicene Fathers are not exactly a perfect match. The Church and its dogmatic core, as we know it, is a post-Nicene 4th century Church, not a first century creation.
To claim that there was a Catholic Church in 33 AD is no different than for the Protestants to claim that the KJV Bible dropped from the sky, bound and indexed.