What you're reading is the foreward to the New American Bible, which is the default American English-language Catholic translation. It wasn't produced by the Vatican, it's just on their website as a resource. (I believe it was produced, indirectly, by the American bishops.)
The notes, in terms of authority, are about at the same level as most any Catholic book you'd pick up at a bookstore ... that is, it has the nihil obstat and the imprimatur, meaning that a bishop and his censor approved it, but it's hardly infallible teaching binding on the faithful, nor is it even at the level of something a Vatican congregation would promulgate.
Catholics are free to deny the documentary hypothesis. Here: watch me. I'm Catholic, and I think both the DH and the similar "Q" theory of the Gospels are historically bogus.
Go ahead: write a letter to my bishop denouncing me as a heretic. ;-)
And aren't the American bishops, according to Catholic doctrine, the successors of the apostles? Why would they indirectly produce such blasphemy? Hmm? I know; "individual bishops aren't infallible," etc. But when one converts from Fundamentalism to Catholicism it is quite a culture shock. The "heretics" one left all believed in the inerrancy of the Bible and the historicity of all its narrated episodes, yet the "infallible Church" is eaten alive with and open to every new, irreverent theory to come down the pike, and the Pope and bishops absolutely refuse to come down on them because to do so would be a mark of "sectarianism." Apparently only the "sects" take their religious beliefs seriously. This is a truth Mr. Giles will eventually learn the hard way, as I did.
The notes, in terms of authority, are about at the same level as most any Catholic book you'd pick up at a bookstore ... that is, it has the nihil obstat and the imprimatur, meaning that a bishop and his censor approved it, but it's hardly infallible teaching binding on the faithful, nor is it even at the level of something a Vatican congregation would promulgate.
Would you kindly explain to me why you dismiss the nihil obstat and imprimatur by the "successors of the apostles" so blithely? What is their authority for if they refuse to use it? Why is it that ever "illiterate" backwoods preacher knows the Bible is inerrant but the "successors of the apostles" are granting their approval to irreverent modern blasphemies while you act as if it were no big deal? If you had converted from Fundamentalism, I assure you, it would be a big deal, and it's too bad that Catholics can't even comprehend the culture shock that Fundamentalist converts have to deal with. But all the better; that'll prevent us from ever converting en masse.
Catholics are free to deny the documentary hypothesis. Here: watch me. I'm Catholic, and I think both the DH and the similar "Q" theory of the Gospels are historically bogus.
Why aren't the members of the "infallible one true church" required to reject and denounce these theories rather than merely be "free" to reject them? Oh, I know . . . that's "sectarian." A "sectarian" is apparently someone who defies G-d by refusing to be "open" to everything that comes down the pike.
Go ahead: write a letter to my bishop denouncing me as a heretic. ;-)
Since you were born Catholic you'll never bet told to leave as I was. With me, my adherence to my previous Biblical beliefs was interpreted as a stubborn rejection of Church authority and a dangerous loyalty to my former beliefs. You, on the other hand, were raised with Church authority and would never threaten it. If Rome ever declared the documentary hypothesis to be dogma you'd accept it just like that.