Replies

1. Not many Catholics have left the church because of the current Pope, so far as I know.

The phrase, "left the church" i what is fraught with ambiguity of meaning. We are told by RCs that while one may no be a practicing RC, they are still Catholic if they were ever baptized as one. But the same will excommunicate multitudes (liberals) such as whom Rome counts and treats as members in life and in death.

In the light of such confusion, rather than laity judging what is of God based upon their understanding of what the church teaches, RC teaching is that the one duty of the laity is to simply follow the pastors, and thus let leadership interpret itself by what is manifestly teaches, meaning Teddy k. Catholics are indeed Catholic, who never left the church.

2. The word “subjection” is one fraught with ambiguity of meaning. Most Catholics, myself included, do not think of themselves as being in subjection to the Pope for the very good reason that they are not.

It is so fraught with ambiguity of meaning that you can declare who is and who is not subject to the pope. However, as used by popes it excludes resisting this authority, including non-infallible teaching*.

3. What they are in subjection to are the dogmatic doctrinal teachings of the church which is another way of saying “the Catholic faith.”

No, it means they believe they are in subjection to the dogmatic doctrinal teachings based on their judgment of what they mean, contrary to how current leadership understands them to whom they dissent from. Then they then censure us for "private interpretation" versus following Catholic leadership. Both trad. RCs and evangelicals dissent from Rome to varying degrees, based upon their judgment of what historical teaching is and means, the difference being for us Scripture is the supreme, only wholly inspired substantive body of Truth.

4. What many Catholics and non-Catholics misunderstand is that the Pope is NOT the Catholic Church, nor is he the Catholic Faith. And, virtually any position he may take on any issue whatsoever may be accepted or refuted according to one’s informed conscience in regard to whatever that position is.

Misleading. Freedom of conscience does not justify your judgment as being Truth, nor (according to historical RC teaching) public dissent as being valid, and understanding that dissent of conscience means dissenters are faithful RCs, who are not guilty is contrary to much papal teaching.

5. BUT, there is one caveat to what is outlined in #4. And that is, if the Pope makes a pronouncement regarding a matter of faith and/or morals and makes it clearly understood that he is speaking ex cathedra, it is then incumbent upon members of the faithful, i.e., sincerely practicing Catholics, to give their assent to that teaching.

Wrong. Magisterial teaching requires religious assent to non-infallible teaching also, which excludes public dissent. .

According to Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis & Vatican II in Lumen Gentium n.25, even non-infallible teachings are to receive the submission of mind and will of the faithful. While not requiring the assent of faith, they cannot be disputed nor rejected publicly, and the benefit of the doubt must be given to the one possessing the fullness of teaching authority. (http://www.ewtn.com/library/DOCTRINE/TRIGINFL.HTM)

...there are three kinds of magisterial statement, three levels of authoritative teaching which establish the “the order of the truths to which the believer adheres.”[1] They are (1) truths taught as divinely revealed, (2) definitively proposed statements on matters closely connected with revealed truth, and (3) ordinary teaching on faith and morals. A fourth category, ordinary prudential teaching on disciplinary matters, is commonly accepted by theologians and can be inferred from the text of Cardinal Ratzinger’s Donum Veritatis.[2] (http://catholicism.org/the-three-levels-of-magisterial-teaching.html)

There is a difference in the kind of submission required: infallible, teachings, irreformable divinely revealed truths (which arguably constitute the smaller portion of what RCs believe and practice), require "assent of faith" (which, according to various Catholic sources, is that of "sacred assent," "internal assent," being "without wavering," "submission of faith," "assent of mind and heart," “obedience of faith,” "theological faith," “divine and Catholic faith.”

One who doubts these articles lacks faith that Rome possesses ensured veracity, and falls into heresy), while "authentic" while non-definitive ordinary teaching requires "ordinary assent," that being "religious submission of will and intellect," submission of mind and will," which "forbids public contradiction of the teaching"." An obstinate refusal to give "assent of faith" when it is due is a sin against the virtue of faith, while obstinate refusal to give "religious assent" when it is due is a sin against the virtue of charity. Of course, which of the 3 or 4 levels of magisterial teaching falls under is also subject to interpretation, and thus what type of assent is required. To such a Prot responds,

Boy. No disrespect intended...and I mean that honestly...but my head spins trying to comprehend the various classifications of Catholic teaching and the respective degrees of certainty attached thereto. I suspect that the average Catholic doesn't trouble himself with such questions, but as to those who do (and us poor Protestants who are trying to get a grip on Catholic teaching) it sounds like an almost impossible task.

The solution for which is cultic, just obey and don't question:

Praxis [practice] is quite simple for faithful Catholics: give your religious assent of intellect and will to Catholic doctrine, whether it is infallible or not. That's what our Dogmatic Constitution on the Church demands, that's what the Code of Canon Laws demand, and that is what the Catechism itself demands. Heb 13:17 teaches us to "obey your leaders and submit to them." This submission is not contingent upon inerrancy or infallibility. - http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?p=1565864#post1565864

While trad. RCs criticize Prots for seeking to ascertain the validity of teaching by examining the warrant from the source for it, they themselves pick and choose what to obey in Catholic teaching based on their judgment of its conformity with what they see Rome teaching in the past. Many RCs here scoff at the idea of encyclicals, esp the latest one of the pope, as requiring religious assent, while others disagree, with both sides selectively quoting popes and teaching from the past.

And submission is also required to V2. As stated by pope Paul VI in closing V2,

You have no right any more to bring up the distinction between the doctrinal and the pastoral that you use to support your acceptance of certain texts of Vatican Council II and your rejection of others. It is true that the matters decided in any Council do not all call for an assent of the same quality; only what the Council affirms in its 'definitions' as a truth of faith or as bound up with faith requires the assent of faith. Nevertheless, the rest also form a part of the SOLEMN MAGISTERIUM of the Church, to be trustingly accepted and sincerely put into practice by every Catholic.(Epistle Cum te to Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, 11 Oct, 1976, published in Notitiae, No. 12, 1976.)

Some RCs reject all or parts of Vatican 2 (or at least reject religious assent as disallowing public dissent), based on a difference btwn a "pastoral" vs. "dogmatic" council. To which a RC apologist responds,

"This "pastoral" vs. "dogmatic" council distinction is a bunch of hooey (a technical canonical term meaning whatever). Those two words are descriptive, not definitive. Whatever Vatican II taught authoritatively, Catholics are bound to hold. Period. Of course, finding out just what Vatican II taught authoritatively is not always so clear as it was with, say, Trent, but that's a different problem from the one your friend wants to pose." ...So you are not at liberty to dissent from its teaching in part or in entirety. It's as simple as that. - Dave Armstrong, http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2007/01/vatican-ii-is-it-orthodox-binding.html

6. And finally, it is extremely rare that a Pope pronounces a position regarding the faith and/or moral teachings of the Church officially speaking ex cathedra.

Misleading: RC teaching is that "infallible" teaching can come from the bishops in union with the pope, not simply directly from the pope, and submission is required to basically all formal papal teaching (including encyclicals) even if not considered infallible.

* Epistola Tua: To the shepherds alone was given all power to teach, to judge, to direct; on the faithful was imposed the duty of following their teaching, of submitting with docility to their judgment , and of allowing themselves to be governed, corrected, and guided by them in the way of salvation.

Thus, it is an absolute necessity for the simple faithful to submit in mind and heart to their own pastors, and for the latter to submit with them to the Head and Supreme Pastor.... Similarly, it is to give proof of a submission which is far from sincere to set up some kind of opposition between one Pontiff and another. Those who, faced with two differing directives, reject the present one to hold to the past, are not giving proof of obedience to the authority which has the right and duty to guide them; and in some ways they resemble those who, on receiving a condemnation, would wish to appeal to a future council, or to a Pope who is better informed.

On this point what must be remembered is that in the government of the Church, except for the essential duties imposed on all Pontiffs by their apostolic office, each of them can adopt the attitude which he judges best according to times and circumstances. Of this he alone is the judge. It is true that for this he has not only special lights, but still more the knowledge of the needs and conditions of the whole of Christendom, for which, it is fitting, his apostolic care must provide. - Epistola Tua (1885), Apostolic Letter of Pope Leo XIII; http://www.ewtn.com/vexperts/showmessage_print.asp?number=403215&language=en

"It follows that the Church is essentially an unequal society, that is, a society comprising two categories of per sons, the Pastors and the flock...the one duty of the multitude is to allow themselves to be led, and, like a docile flock, to follow the Pastors ." - VEHEMENTER NOS, an Encyclical of Pope Pius X promulgated on February 11, 1906.

Nor can we pass over in silence the audacity of those who, not enduring sound doctrine, contend that "without sin and without any sacrifice of the Catholic profession assent and obedience may be refused to those judgments and decrees of the Apostolic See, whose object is declared to [only] concern the Church's general good and her rights and discipline, so only it does not touch the dogmata of faith and morals." But no one can be found not clearly and distinctly to see and understand how grievously this is opposed to the Catholic dogma of the full power given from God by Christ our Lord Himself to the Roman Pontiff of feeding, ruling and guiding the Universal Church. (Quanta Cura. Encyclical of Pope Pius IX promulgated on December 8, 1864; http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius09/p9quanta.htm)

20. Nor must it be thought that what is expounded in Encyclical Letters does not of itself demand consent... if the Supreme Pontiffs in their official documents purposely pass judgment on a matter up to that time under dispute, it is obvious that that matter, according to the mind and will of the Pontiffs, cannot be any longer considered a question open to discussion among theologians. - PIUS XII, HUMANI GENERI, August 1950; http://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_12081950_humani-generis.html

The authority (of papal encyclicals) is undoubtedly great". It is, in a sense, sovereign. It is the teaching of the supreme pastor and teacher of the Church. Hence the faithful have a strict obligation to receive this teaching with an infinite respect. A man must not be content simply not to contradict it openly and in a more or less scandalous fashion. An internal mental assent is demanded. It should be received as the teaching sovereignly authorized within the Church." - Msgr. Joseph Clifford Fenton, esteemed Catholic theologian and professor of fundamental dogmatic theology at the Catholic University of America, who served as a peritus for Cardinal Ottaviani at the Second Vatican Council. Extract from the American Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. CXXI, August, 1949; http://www.catholicapologetics.info/thechurch/encyclicals/docauthority.htm

For it is quite foreign to everyone bearing the name of a Christian to trust his own mental powers with such pride as to agree only with those things which he can examine from their inner nature, and to imagine that the Church, sent by God to teach and guide all nations, is not conversant with present affairs and circumstances; or even that they must obey only in those matters which she has decreed by solemn definition as though her other decisions might be presumed to be false or putting forward insufficient motive for truth and honesty.

Quite to the contrary, a characteristic of all true followers of Christ, lettered or unlettered, is to suffer themselves to be guided and led in all things that touch upon faith or morals by the Holy Church of God through its Supreme Pastor the Roman Pontiff, who is himself guided by Jesus Christ Our Lord. - CASTI CONNUBII, ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PIUS XI; https://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_19301231_casti-connubii.html

...when we love the Pope, there are no discussions regarding what he orders or demands, or up to what point obedience must go, and in what things he is to be obeyed ; when we love the Pope, we do not say that he has not spoken clearly enough, almost as if he were forced to repeat to the ear of each one the will clearly expressed so many times not only in person, but with letters and other public documents ; we do not place his orders in doubt, adding the facile pretext of those unwilling to obey – that it is not the Pope who commands, but those who surround him; we do not limit the field in which he might and must exercise his authority ; we do not set above the authority of the Pope that of other persons, however learned, who dissent from the Pope, who, even though learned, are not holy, because whoever is holy cannot dissent from the Pope.

The Bishops form the most sacred part of the Church, that which instructs and governs men by divine right; and so he who resists them and stubbornly refuses to obey their word places himself outside the Church [cf. Matt. 18:18]. But obedience must not limit itself to matters which touch the faith: its sphere is much more vast: it extends to all matters which the episcopal power embraces. - (Pope Saint Pius X, Allocution Vi ringrazio to priests on the 50th anniversary of the Apostolic Union, November 18, 1912, as found at http://www.christorchaos.com/?q=content/choosing-ignore-pope-leo-xiii-and-pope-saint-pius-x

to scrutinize the actions of a bishop, to criticize them, does not belong to individual Catholics, but concerns only those who, in the sacred hierarchy, have a superior power; above all, it concerns the Supreme Pontiff, for it is to him that Christ confided the care of feeding not only all the lambs, but even the sheep [cf. John 21:17]. - Est Sane Molestum (1888) Apostolic Letter of Pope Leo XIII; http://www.novusordowatch.org/est-sane-molestum-leo-xiii.htm

In addition, as concerns social teaching, The "Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church" (2005) states:

80. In the Church’s social doctrine the Magisterium is at work in all its various components and expressions. … Insofar as it is part of the Church’s moral teaching, the Church’s social doctrine has the same dignity and authority as her moral teaching. It is authentic Magisterium, which obligates the faithful to adhere to it . - http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/justpeace/documents/rc_pc_justpeace_doc_20060526_compendio-dott-soc_en.html

And it is quite well evidenced that the popes last encyclical (http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html) is intended to teach what the Church's moral teaching demands as regards ecology and economy. (172 references in this encyclical cite church teaching and prelates for support).

Thus we either have Trad. RCs contradicting past papal teaching in dissenting from modern papal and magisterial teaching, and that Rome's interpretation of herself is to be trusted.