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To: sinkspur; narses
The Church's understanding has developed.
4. The root of this schismatic act can be discerned in an incomplete and contradictory notion of Tradition. Incomplete, because it does not take sufficiently into account the living character of Tradition, which, as the Second Vatican Council clearly taught, "comes from the apostles and progresses in the Church with the help of the Holy Spirit. There is a growth in insight into the realities and words that are being passed on. This comes about in various ways. It comes through the contemplation and study of believers who ponder these things in their hearts. It comes from the intimate sense of spiritual realities which they experience. And it comes from the preaching of those who have received, along with their right of succession in the episcopate, the sure charism of truth".

But especially contradictory is a notion of Tradition which opposes the universal Magisterium of the Church possessed by the Bishop of Rome and the Body of Bishops. It is impossible to remain faithful to the Tradition while breaking the ecclesial bond with him to whom, in the person of the Apostle Peter, Christ himself entrusted the ministry of unity in his Church. (John Paul II, "Ecclesia Dei")


426 posted on 07/16/2004 10:44:37 PM PDT by gbcdoj (No one doubts ... that the holy and most blessed Peter ... lives in his successors, and judges.)
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To: gbcdoj

The Pope is talking nonsense. But you actually left out the good part:

"Moreover, I should like to remind theologians and other experts in the ecclesiastical sciences that they should feel called upon to answer in the present circumstances. Indeed, the extent and depth of the teaching of the Second Vatican Council call for a renewed commitment to deeper study in order TO REVEAL CLEARLY THE COUNCIL'S CONTINUITY WITH TRADITION, especially in points of doctrine which, perhaps BECAUSE THEY ARE NEW, have not yet been well understood by some sections of the church."

So the Pope is saying at one and the same time that the Vatican Council is in continuity with Tradition--but that it teaches doctrines that are new. How's that for clarity? Since when is Tradition something brand new? And since when are these doctrines so difficult to understand that they require study by experts to show their connection to Tradition? Seems to me the Pope is looking for somebody to force the square peg of modernism into the round hole of Catholic Tradition! He wants experts to do this. Yeah, sure. Plain language isn't going to be able to, especially when it comes to doing away with the principle of non-contradiction.

And while we're at it, since when does the "living" Magisterium cancel-out previous teachings of the Church? The Pope and Council can have no divine protection for what they say except when their doctrines are in complete conformity to past teachings. So why the emphasis on the "living"--unless the Pope is trying to get us to think that novelties bind us in the same way as traditional teachings? But they don't--which was the Archbishop's whole point! And when novelties are in flagrant contradiction to past doctrines, they are simply falsehoods that must be rejected! So once again the Pope has shown it is HE, not Archbishop Lefebvre who doesn't speak accurately when it comes to Tradition.


430 posted on 07/16/2004 11:07:00 PM PDT by ultima ratio
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