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>>wresting the sacred Scripture to his own senses, presume to interpret the said sacred Scripture contrary to that sense which holy mother Church,--whose it is to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the holy Scriptures,--hath held and doth hold<

< I think that agrees exactly with what I said above.

To me it says only the Church {RCC} can interpret the Scriptures....not a lay Roman Catholic.

If the pope, that is the Church, is now saying the death penalty is now void....who are you to argue?

It's not the first time Rome has changed things and won't be the last.

To me it says only the Church {RCC} can interpret the Scriptures....not a lay Roman Catholic.

Then you need to read it again.

If the pope, that is the Church,

But the Pope is not the Church. I said "the teaching of the Church through the ages," not "what the Pope said today". In an ideal world, those two would be in perfect harmony. This is not that world.

is now saying the death penalty is now void

What he said is that it's "inadmissable". No, I don't know what that means, either.

who are you to argue?

I'm not sure that I am "arguing," precisely. I am observing that, if he's commanding people to believe that the death penalty is intrinsically immoral, he's commanding people to believe heresy.

(It's not at all clear that he said either that the death penalty was intrinsically immoral, or that Catholics are compelled to believe what he said.)

That's simply a statement of fact, but if you like, I can cite other Popes who agree with me. They have the same authority from God that Pope Francis has.

It's not the first time Rome has changed things and won't be the last.

There's "changing things" and there's "changing things".

Things that are matters of administrative competence can be changed today and then changed back tomorrow. That's not "the Faith".

We can come to a deeper understanding of a truth of the Faith, and that's "change". Think of the evolution in the understanding of Christology that took place from Acts to the Council of Chalcedon (a council that all orthodox Protestants accept as defining the correct doctrine of who Jesus is.) There was no negation, only development.

What we can't do is teach X as Divinely revealed dogma today, and then teach not-X as Divinely revealed dogma tomorrow. And I don't think you can come up with any good examples of us doing that.

Did you carefully read the article on the virtue of obedience, BTW?

I would like you to note particularly this sentence, quoting Fr. John Hardon, SJ, a very solid, very orthodox, very holy Jesuit theologian and writer. (Someone I was blessed to hear in person when he was on earth.)

. . obedience to God is without limit, whereas obedience to human beings is limited by higher laws that must not be transgressed, and by the competency or authority of the one who gives the orders.

Which is almost exactly what I said.