FWIW, it was quickly pointed out that because that is not official doctrine, or dogma (I can never keep track of the difference) this obvious inconsistency doesn't matter. I'm sure all you lawyers understand these fine points of distinction. I'm just part of that "old school" that expects consistency.
FWIW, it was quickly pointed out that because that is not official doctrine, or dogma (I can never keep track of the difference) this obvious inconsistency doesn't matter. I'm sure all you lawyers understand these fine points of distinction. I'm just part of that "old school" that expects consistency.
LOL. IIRC, part of the RC's consternation with the movie that began this thread was that it portrayed Mary experiencing pain during childbirth. From the original article above...
The film, he suggests, in portraying a natural, painful birth of Christ, thus denies the truth of the virginal and miraculous birth of Christ, which, he notes, the Fathers of the Church compared to light passing through glass without breaking it. Fr. Geiger quoted the fourth century St. Augustine on the matter saying. "That same power which brought the body of the young man through closed doors, brought the body of the infant forth from the inviolate womb of the mother."
Yep, it is difficult to keep track of all the inconsistencies. Today's dogma is tomorrow's discarded movie review.
Dogma is essential to Christianity. Trinitarian nature of God is a dogma. Dual nature in one Person is a Christiological dogma. Christ's resurrection is a dogma. It is required of a Christian to believe that.
Doctrine is what the Church teaches. It is based on Scripture, record of worship (liturgy) and teachings of individual Fathers. It represents what the Church considers to be the truth. Doctrines change. Dogmas don't.
Thus, in the 14th century the Eastern Orthodox Church adopted monastic hesychastic teachings (of Cappadician and Desert Fathers), rather than westsern scholasticism, as "official doctrine" of the Church.
There are beliefs that are expressed as hypotheses (theologoumenna) by individual Father and laity. They are neither doctrine nor dogma unless the Church receives thgem as such, or proclaims them at an Ecumenical Council as essential elements of Christianity.
Mary's painless birth is a theologoumennon (hypothesis) of some. This is no different that a Portestant (say a Prebyterian or a Baptist for example) agreeing with some of Luther's teachings but not all of them. Agreement or disagreement does not constitute apostasy or heresy.