[pascendi]

The Church is the bride of Christ, awaiting the bridegroom Christ. The Church is to remain faithful until the marriage feast.

In so far as any understanding of yours corresponds to the above essential analogy of the Church, then I am in agreement with you, and with you. But in so far as anything violates what it means to be truly faithful to Christ, then I wash my hands of it.

[saradippity]

So as long as my understnding corresponds with your definition,everything is A-O.K.,is that what you meant? Earlier on this thread I responded to you quite simply,in post #511 I completed what I thought the Catholic Church was,who was in charge and what it meant. It was probably the fourth post in a series wherein you kind of sarcastically claimed deficits in my understanding,both of what you wanted and of what I provided. Since you didn't respond to the last one I did feel that you agreed,silence is assent. Did you agree or did you not agree? See post #511.

Imagine my surprise when about one hundred posts later,you come up with a definition,which if I agree with,puts us in accord. Well,I say to you, if it says what I said than you and I agree and what's more we are right.. But I read it and was kind of stricken with a quality of "Jesuiticalism" in the statement. My particular concern is with your statement:The Church is to remain faithful until the marriage feast.

I see that statement as enabling anyone to cut off anything certain folks don't/didn't like that the Pope and Magisterium taught,whenever they chose. With a statement like that it would have been easy for illiterate Catholics to reject Scripture when it was collected,affirmed and codified, preferring to be guided by the traditions that had been handed down orally for several hundred years. Certainly some gospels that were not includd had been transmitted to groups of people before the Bible was put together. Maybe some folks like some of the gnostic gospels that could have been making the rounds and were pretty p'o'd about their removal. Maybe some of the included ones had never been heard before,maybe they felt it was too constraining to use what was now the Bible.

So if you would explain what this faithful means with regards this ongoing war of words that goes on,on these threads I would be very happy. Thanks.