this is like talking to a devil’s advocate... because no matter what you say... it gets twisted.
okay then answer this... you say:
“Where do you get the authority to make positive prohibitions out of Scriptural silence?”
Scripture doesn’t prohibit pedophilia. so where does any catholic get the authority to condemn said behavior ???
Scripture doesn’t prohibit birth control, or marriage amongst clergymen either but that’s another debate.
Are you saying Scripture alone is not enough?
Protestant doctrinal limitations do not apply to Catholic authority, but that is the nature of circular reasoning.
The Catholic Church has the authority to prohibit such things in and of itself. There is no need to appeal to Scripture for Church pronouncements. That such pronouncements DO comport with Scripture rightly understood, is a testimony to the nature and function of both institutions.
I think we would answer the paedophilia question by saying that general revelation and natural reason are enough, despite the Pauline prohibitions on homosexuality, to show that it is wrong. (Clerical celibacy is not a doctrine. There are married priests in the Catholic Church.) Artificial Birth Control was considered very wrong indeed by Luther, Calvin (I think, am not sure), and father after father, and in its very nature seems to propose an argument that it is against Natural Law.
That is, we would appeal to the beginning of Romans to say that there's a lot we can put our trust in without its being in explicitly laid out in Scripture.
Also we find in Scripture texts which suggest that Sola Scriptura, strictly interpreted, is not Biblical. We find references to oral tradition. We also find that councils can speak authoritatively and reliably in the name of God. So even without Opus's scriptural arguments, we would find that we can trust councils and the magisterium when they teach us about the saints in heaven.
this is like talking to a devil’s advocate... because no matter what you say... it gets twisted.
This is a problem with all debates. I think there MAY be some intentional twisting going on, but I also think that there are VAST differences between the thought of people whom I, meaning no offense, will informally categorize as "sola scripturists", and the thought of "Catholics".
As an example, most Catholic thought presupposes that certainly God and probably the saints are not bound by time, while most Protestants seem to me to speak as though God, while He can see perfectly into the future, is still in some way waiting with the rest of us for it to come to pass. To me that suggests a huge difference in the presuppositions which are brought to these exchanges, and those differences often give the appearance of twisted arguments.
FWIW