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Sorry CG, but I just wanted to illustrate the fact that sometimes you can be too quick to shoot off and start slinging charges of schism and heresy around, when in fact there are many areas about which it is quite legitimate to debate until matters are settled definitively.

<> No need to apologise. I am still correct. This priest WAS positing a protestant principle and this quote does not suport his posiiton. Reread what the priest said. His principle DOES give the individual authority and this Ecumenical Council, like all the others, does not teach that.<>

The "protestant principle" that you are having problems with is actually based on a citation from the documents of Vatican II themselves:

"Taking conciliar custom into consideration and also the pastoral purpose of the present Council, the sacred Council defines as binding on the Church only those things in matters of faith and morals which it has expressly put forward as such." Appendix to Lumen Gentium.

<> Yeah,so? That has nothing to do with what the priest was speaking about. He makes the individual the one with authority over a Council.

I will stand aside and watch you try to use this "key" to try to release yourself from the "prison" of an Ecumenical Council you don't fully accept. I just hope Polycarp doesn't follow you "outside." <>

"Yeah,so? That has nothing to do with what the priest was speaking about. He makes the individual the one with authority over a Council."

Fr Blet may have gone too far in what he said, but his premise is not groundless on the basis that the Council, by its own definition, did not propose any new doctrine or dogma that is top be held definitively by the faithful.

JPII has said on at least 2 occasions that the Council can only be interpreted correctly in the light of all previous Councils and Holy Tradition. Ratzinger has also said as much with his criticisms of those who view Vatican II as some kind of "Super dogma".

"I will stand aside and watch you try to use this "key" to try to release yourself from the "prison" of an Ecumenical Council you don't fully accept."

Who's imprisoned by it? - not me! I have no problem with Vatican II when it is interpreted in the light of previous Magisterial teaching. I think it unfortunate that there are ambiguities in some of the documents that require careful interpretation, but when one considers the amount of verbiage generated, it is not surprising that some unclear passages slipped through - mainly in the more "pastoral" documents.

"I just hope Polycarp doesn't follow you "outside." "

I can't speak for Polycarp, but I'm sure that he would have no reason to follow me anywhere - he strikes me as being the Lord's man. He may not be a conciliar fundamentalist, but that would say nothing about his good standing in the Church.

Personally, I do not consider it my place to judge anyone to be "outside" the Church unless the Pope, a local Ordinary, or they themselves have defined them as such.

Even liberal heretics are still in until declared out!