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To: ultima ratio
but that it teaches doctrines that are new.

He's talking about "points of doctrine" which are new - that is, the statement on religious liberty, which was Msgr. Lefebvre's main problem with the Council.

You do realize that the Church's authority and infallibility extends to truths necessary to safeguard and expound the deposit of faith, including the natural law, right? That is, the Church can infallibly teach things which are not contained at all in the deposit of faith. That is why the Pope can say there are new points of doctrine - because the Church had reached a deeper understanding of religious liberty (compare Ci Riesce with Dignitatis), which was an authentic development of the previous teaching:

There is no corruption if it retains one and the same type, the same principles, the same organization; if its beginnings anticipate its subsequent phases, and its later phenomena protect and subserve its earlier; if it has a power of assimilation and revival, and a vigorous action from first to last. (Ven. Cardinal Newman, Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine)

433 posted on 07/16/2004 11:23:11 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

Cardinal Newman also said:

"As developments which are preceded by definite indications have a fair presumption in their favour, so those which do but contradict and reverse the course of doctrine which has been developed before them, and out of which they spring, are certainly corrupt; for a corruption is a development in that very stage in which it ceases to illustrate, and begins to disturb, the acquisitions gained in its previous history."

A radical break is always a sign of corruption. The present revolution is just such a time.


436 posted on 07/17/2004 12:25:39 AM PDT by ultima ratio
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