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To: pascendi
What you are saying is that by the very fact that an act or statement was put forth by a church authority, that very fact makes that act or statement definitive in the same sense as a dogmatic definition. That doesn't follow.

No, what I am saying is that as long as a council "directly and conclusively pronounces its sentence about a doctrine which concerns matters of faith or morals and does so in such a way that each one of the faithful can be certain of the mind of the Sacred Council" it is infallible.

You claim one item above, according to your understanding of definitive. For the sake of argument, using your definition, is there anything else? What is the sum and substance of it?

I would tentatively propose Dei Verbum §9-10 concerning whether Tradition and Scripture are one or two sources, the teaching of Lumen Gentium §22 on collegiality and the teaching of Lumen Gentium §25 on the extent of the infallibility of the Church: "[The Church's infallibility] ... extends as far as is necessary for religiously guarding and faithfully expounding the deposit of divine Revelation.". I am not sure whether these could be said to be manifestly infallible (cf. Can. 749 §3), though. I think these parts of LG could also be argued as definitions, although merely a repetition of previously defined teaching on the subject:

This Sacred Council, following closely in the footsteps of the First Vatican Council, with that Council teaches and declares that Jesus Christ, the eternal Shepherd, established His holy Church, having sent forth the apostles as He Himself had been sent by the Father;(136) and He willed that their successors, namely the bishops, should be shepherds in His Church even to the consummation of the world. And in order that the episcopate itself might be one and undivided, He placed Blessed Peter over the other apostles, and instituted in him a permanent and visible source and foundation of unity of faith and communion.(1*) And all this teaching about the institution, the perpetuity, the meaning and reason for the sacred primacy of the Roman Pontiff and of his infallible magisterium, this Sacred Council again proposes to be firmly believed by all the faithful. (Lumen Gentium §18)

What, altogether, are the things that the faithful are to believe after having read each and every one of the documents of Vatican II? If you were to ask them "what do you know now, what to you understand now", what should everyone be saying?

Every teaching that concerns faith or morals within the documents of the Council.

188 posted on 04/11/2004 3:46:34 PM PDT by gbcdoj (in mundo pressuram habetis, sed confidite, ego vici mundum)
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To: gbcdoj
"Every teaching that concerns faith or morals within the documents of the Council."

But what are they?
189 posted on 04/11/2004 7:13:34 PM PDT by pascendi
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To: gbcdoj; nika; pascendi; american colleen; GirlShortstop; Canticle_of_Deborah
Nobody denies councils and popes are sometimes given the protection of the Holy Spirit. But these protections are not for their every utterance. Infallible utterances are severely circumscribed by content and manner. That is to say, they must concern matters of faith and morals, they must be presented to the faithful unambiguously and with clarity, and must clearly intend to bind the universal Church--an intention, by the way, made explicit by Paul VI in the Nota Praevia in which he specified that only those definitions openly declared as binding the universal Church would, in fact, do so. None was so declared. Therefore nothing was binding.

The confusion on this thread arises when discussion surrounds matters already previously settled by the Church and declared to be infallible doctrines--such as the citation you give about the governance of the Church by bishops and the pope. Such teachings would not qualify as definitions of any sort, since they had already been defined prior to Vatican II. Other doctrinal declarations--those which were, in fact, original--were never openly declared binding. Given this, what definitions may be said to have been actually made by Vatican II? The answer can only be--none whatsoever. There was not a single instance in which the Council openly declared its intention to bind the universal Church.

But there is a negative proof of this as well. For one thing, a great many of the most original and important declarations of the Council are shot-through with metaphoric language and subject to ambiguous interpretations. Such declarations cannot of their nature bind the intellect with certainty. Secondly, there has arisen after Vatican II a cottage industry of theologians who both deny and affirm that some teaching or other declared by Vatican II is infallible or not--or somewhere in between. This in itself proves that the original declarations were unclear and subject to misinterpretation and confusion. Such assertions are obviously uncertain and therefore fallible.

This is why those who defend the argument that Vatican II was a dogmatic council, cannot point to a single definition that was declared binding on the universal Church. Instead they talk about "religious assent"--which is the assent given to fallible doctrines. But such doctrines requiring "religious assent" do not bind in the way a truly infallible definition binds. For a Catholic to deny such "religious assent," for instance, would not make him a heretic, whereas denial of a dogmatic truth that is binding, certainly would. All of which boils down to this: however much someone may affirm Vatican II, the fact remains there is not a shred of evidence the council fathers were inspired by the Holy Spirit. This is because, despite its many novelties and insights, the Council made not a single utterance of its own which was, in fact, infallible.


190 posted on 04/12/2004 7:28:57 AM PDT by ultima ratio
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To: gbcdoj; nika; sandyeggo; american colleen; pascendi; GirlShortstop; Canticle_of_Deborah
One final point. When I say popes and councils are "sometimes" given Divine protection, I mean that while they potentially are always infallible, they may not ever actualize this charism. This was the case with VII.
192 posted on 04/12/2004 7:41:14 AM PDT by ultima ratio
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