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To: Catholicguy
Your notion that the Pope decides what is Tradition is absurd. It places the pope above the Holy Spirit and makes him the master of Tradition, not its servant. If he had such authority, he would not have to take a solemn oath on ascending to the papacy to guard Tradition and not to change it. But he does take such an oath under pain of excommunication. This is Ratzinger's point when he reminds us Vatican I set clear limits on the papacy. The pope is not, he says, "an absolute monarch". His power is limited by Tradition which is something he receives and is obliged to pass on. Papal power exists precisely to protect Tradition, not to undermine it or even attack it as the post-conciliar popes have done.

Here is the exact wording of the papal oath: "I vow to change nothing of the received Tradition, and nothing thereof I have found before me guarded by my God-pleasing predecessors, to encroach upon, to alter, or to permit any innovation therein." And here is the Vatican I statement on the limits of papal power: "For the Holy Spirit was not promised to the Successors of Peter that by His revelation they might disclose new doctrine, but that by His help they might guard the revelation transmitted through the apostles and the deposit of faith." This is not done when a pope allows suppression of traditional doctrines out of an exaggerated ecumenism, or when he awards with the red hat apostates who question traditional doctrines or when he invents his own liturgy to replace one which had been divinely inspired.
13 posted on 11/25/2002 6:42:41 AM PST by ultima ratio
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To: ultima ratio
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15006b.htm

<> Tradition and the Living Magisterium link. Ultima, you are under the suzerainty of Satan in your opposition to Divinely-constituted authority<>
24 posted on 11/25/2002 9:18:37 AM PST by Catholicguy
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