Posted on 10/18/2013 7:10:02 AM PDT by tomsbartoo
Pope Francis did not say that the truth is whatever you believe it to be. He said that each person is obligated to pursue the good and resist evil as he understands them. That is Catholic teaching. It has always been Catholic teaching.
What he omitted was the truth that each person is obliged to seek the truth so that his judgments about good and evil will conform to reality.
(I hate the word “conscience” because it is misleading. There is no such distinct faculty. “Conscience” is a function of the intellect, and it is either accurate or erroneous in any given case. It is judgment concerning what is good or evil.)
Pope Francis expresses himself badly, and he has shown a lot of imprudence and vanity in his public statements.
Agree.
Arthur that omission is huge. Basically Francis said "as long as you are a good homosexual you're OK."
But probably the greatest badge of merit that Fellay and the SSPX can claim as far as Im concerned, is that the secular media is dead against both of them. Theyve certainly got to be doing something right to win that title.
And that same media absolutely loves our new pope, as does Planned Parenthood and Obama. Interesting I think.
The omission is huge.
He sows confusion.
I hope he will be reined in, and will stop the informal chit-chat with journalists.
But he did not explicitly teach relativism.
If I implied in my response that his excommunication was for his belief, I certainly misspoke. Rarely would that be the case in the Church. It is invariably because of an unwillingness on the part of the actor to obey the request of a superior to cease and desist in their error. Nevertheless, the excommunication was lifted toward the end of his life, so if you know more about the specifics as to what he said and didnt say at that hour, as well as why the Church did what they did, my hats off to you.
But you avoided addressing the more significant issue: you accused both the SSPX and Catholic Family News of Feeneyism. Do you have even one cogent example to support that statement? From my perspective, you have made what I believe to be an incredibly reckless comment that deserves to be either supported with specific facts, or retracted.
But perhaps, like many Catholics today, you probably do not recognize that ecumenism as it is pushed by the Church today is a heresy. As a result, you and many others have come to believe that those who condemn ecumenism for what it is, scream Feeneyism. However, accusing those organizations that insist that there is only one true Church, the Catholic Church, that all other religions are absolutely false, and that all should join the Catholic Church founded by Jesus Christ is not Feeneyismthats Catholic! Anti-ecumenism is not Feeneyism.
I recall a series of Feeneyite articles in CFN a number of years ago.
Feeney was excommunicated for refusing his superiors order to move to Fairfield University.
I am not aware of any statement around the time of his death. He was, as far as I know, not capable of making a statement.
The fundamental problem with Feeneyism is that it denies the very proposition the Pope affirmed recently: That every man is obliged to obey his “conscience”—i.e., judgment—whether his judgment is correct or erroneous. Feeneyism denied that anyone could be inculpably outside the Catholic Church.
The SSPX does not hold the belief of Feeneyism.
Nobody in schism could hold to Feeneyism.
Peter the Roman. Right on time.
Rome is meaningless to my faith, as are all human institutions. Being saved by Jesus does not require a bureaucratic institution sitting in Rome.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.