Pay No Attention to That Man Behind the Curtain! Catholic History and the Emerald City Protocol

reformation21 ^ | April 2012 | Carl Trueman

[Gamecock]

Full Title: Pay No Attention to That Man Behind the Curtain! Roman Catholic History and the Emerald City Protocol

In the field of Reformation studies, Professor Brad Gregory is somebody for whom I have immense respect.  Those outside the discipline of history are possibly unaware of the ravages which postmodernism brought in its wake, making all narratives negotiable and fuelling a rise in interest in all manner of trivia and marginal weirdness.  Dr. Gregory is trained in both philosophy and history and has done much to place the self-understanding of human agents back at the centre of historical analysis.  Thus, for those of us interested in the Reformation, he has also played an important role in placing religion back into the discussion.  For that, I and many others owe him a great debt of gratitude.

I therefore find myself in the odd and uncomfortable position of writing a very critical review of his latest book, The Unintended Reformation (Belknap Harvard, 2011). The book itself is undoubtedly well-written and deeply learned, with nearly a third of the text devoted to endnotes.  It is brilliant in its scope and execution, addressing issues of philosophy, politics and economics.  Anyone wanting a panoramic view of the individuals, the institutions and the forces which shaped early modern Europe should read this work. Yet for all of its brilliance, the book does not demonstrate its central thesis, that Protestantism must shoulder most of the responsibility for the various things which Dr. Gregory dislikes about modern Western society, from its exaltation of the scientific paradigm to its consumerism to its secular view of knowledge and even to global warming. I am sympathetic with many of Dr. Gregory's gripes about the world of today; but in naming Protestantism as the primary culprit he engages in a rather arbitrary blame game.

Dr. Gregory's book contains arguments about both metaphysics and what we might call empirical social realities. On the grounds that debates about metaphysics, like games of chess, can be great fun for the participants but less than thrilling for the spectators, I will post my thoughts on that aspect of the book in a separate blog entry. In this article, I will focus on the Papacy, persecution and the role of the printing press.  This piece is more of a medieval jousting tournament than a chess game and will, I trust, provide the audience with better spectator sport.

One final preliminary comment: I am confident that my previous writings on Roman Catholicism and Roman Catholics indicate that I am no reincarnation of a nineteenth century 'No popery!' rabble-rouser. I have always tried to write with respect and forbearance on such matters, to the extent that I have even been berated at times by other, hotter sorts of Protestants for being too pacific. In what follows, however, I am deliberately combative.  This is not because I wish to show disrespect to Dr. Gregory or to his Church or to his beliefs; but he has set the tone by writing a very combative book. I like that. I like writers who believe and care about the big questions of life. But here is the rub: those who write in such a way must allow those who respond to them to believe with equal passion in their chosen cause and to care about it deeply and thus to be equally combative in their rejoinders.

A key part of the book's argument is the apparent anarchy created by the Protestant emphasis on the perspicuity of scripture. In this, Dr. Gregory stands with his Notre Dame colleague, Christian Smith, as seeing this as perhaps the single weakest point of Protestantism. He also rejects any attempt to restrict Protestantism to the major confessional traditions (Reformed, Anglican and Lutheran) as he argues that such a restriction would create an artificial delimitation of Protestant diversity. Instead, he insists on also including those groups which scholars typically call radical reformers (essentially all other non-Roman Christian sects which have their origins in the turn to scripture of the Reformation). This creates a very diverse and indeed chaotic picture of Protestantism such that no unifying doctrinal synthesis is possible as a means of categorizing the whole.  

I wonder if I am alone in finding the more stridently confident comments of some Roman Catholics over the issue of perspicuity to be somewhat tiresome and rather overblown. Perspicuity was, after all, a response to a position that had proved to be a failure: the Papacy.  Thus, to criticize it while proposing nothing better than a return to that which had proved so inadequate is scarcely a compelling argument.

Yes, it is true that Protestant interpretive diversity is an empirical fact; but when it comes to selectivity in historical reading as a means of creating a false impression of stability, Roman Catholic approaches to the Papacy provide some excellent examples of such fallacious method.  The ability to ignore or simply dismiss as irrelevant the empirical facts of papal history is quite an impressive feat of historical and theological selectivity. Thus, as all sides need to face empirical facts and the challenges they raise, here are a few we might want to consider, along with what seem to me (as a Protestant outsider) to be the usual Roman Catholic responses:

Empirical fact: The Papacy as an authoritative institution was not there in the early centuries. 

Never mind.  Put together a doctrine of development whereby Christians - or at least some of them, those of whom we choose to approve in retrospect on the grounds we agree with what they say  - eventually come to see the Pope as uniquely authoritative.  

Empirical fact: The Papacy was corrupt in the later Middle Ages, building its power and status on political antics, forged documents and other similar scams. 

Ignore it, excuse it as a momentary aberration and perhaps, if pressed, even offer a quick apology. Then move swiftly on to assure everyone it is all sorted out now and start talking about John Paul II or Benedict XVI.  Whatever you do, there is no need to allow this fact to have any significance for how one understands the theory of papal power in the abstract or in the present.  

Empirical fact: The Papacy was in such a mess at the beginning of the fifteenth century that it needed a council to decide who of the multiple claimants to Peter's seat was the legitimate pope.  

Again, this was merely a momentary aberration but it has no significance for the understanding of papal authority.  After all, it was so long ago and so far away.

Empirical fact: The church failed (once again) to put its administrative, pastoral, moral and doctrinal house in order at the Fifth Lateran Council at the start of the sixteenth century.  

Forget it.  Emphasise instead the vibrant piety of the late medieval church and then blame the ungodly Protestants for their inexplicable protests and thus for the collapse of the medieval social, political and theological structure of Europe.  

Perhaps it is somewhat aggressive to pose these points in such a blunt form. Again, I intend no disrespect but am simply responding with the same forthrightness with which certain writers speak of Protestantism. The problem here is that the context for the Reformation - the failure of the papal system to reform itself, a failure in itself lethal to notions of papal power and authority - seems to have been forgotten in all of the recent aggressive attacks on scriptural perspicuity.  These are all empirical facts and they are all routinely excused, dismissed or simply ignored by Roman Catholic writers. Perspicuity was not the original problem; it was intended as the answer.   One can believe it to be an incorrect, incoherent, inadequate answer; but then one must come up with something better - not simply act as if shouting the original problem louder will make everything all right. Such an approach to history and theology is what I call the Emerald City protocol: when defending the great and powerful Oz, one must simply pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.  

Given the above empirical facts, the medieval Papacy surely has chronological priority over any of the alleged shortcomings of scriptural perspicuity in the history of abject ecclesiastical and theological disasters. To be fair, Dr. Gregory does acknowledge that 'medieval Christendom' was a failure (p. 365) but in choosing such a term he sidesteps the significance of the events of the late medieval period for papal authority. The failure of medieval Christendom was the failure of the Papacy. To say medieval Christendom failed but then to allow such a statement no real ecclesiastical significance is merely an act of throat-clearing before going after the people, the Protestants, who frankly are in the crosshairs simply because it appears one finds them and their sects distasteful. Again, to be fair, one cannot blame Roman Catholics for disliking Protestants: our very existence bears testimony to Roman Catholicism's failure. But that Roman Catholics who know their history apparently believe the Papacy now works just fine seems as arbitrary and selective a theological and historical move as any confessionally driven restriction of what is and is not legitimate Protestantism.  

As Dr. Gregory brings his narrative up to the present, I will do the same. There are things which can be conveniently ignored by North American Roman Catholic intellectuals because they take place in distant lands. Yet many of these are emblematic of contemporary Roman Catholicism in the wider world. Such, for example, are the bits of the real cross and vials of Jesus' blood which continue to be displayed in certain churches, the cult of Padre Pio and the relics of Anthony of Padua and the like (both of whom edged out Jesus and the Virgin Mary in a poll as to who was the most prayed to figure in Italian Catholicism). We Protestants may appear hopelessly confused to the latest generation of North American Roman Catholic polemicists, but at least my own little group of Presbyterian schismatics does not promote the veneration of mountebank stigmatics or the virtues of snake-oil.

Still, for the sake of argument let us accept the fideistic notion that the events of the later Middle Ages do not shatter the theology underlying the Papacy.  What therefore of Roman Catholic theological unity and papal authority today? That is not too rosy either, I am afraid.  The Roman Catholic Church's teaching on birth control is routinely ignored by vast swathes of the laity with absolute impunity; Roman Catholic politicians have been in the vanguard of liberalizing abortion laws and yet still been welcome at Mass and at high table with church dignitaries; leading theologians cannot agree on exactly what papal infallibility means; and there is not even consensus on the meaning and significance of Vatican II relative to previous church teaching. Such a Church is as chaotic and anarchic as anything Protestantism has thrown up. 

Further, if Dr. Gregory wants to include as part of his general concept of Protestantism any and all sixteenth century lunatics who ever claimed the Bible alone as sole authority and thence to draw conclusions about the plausibility of the perspicuity of scripture, then it seems reasonable to insist in response that discussions of Roman Catholicism include not simply the Newmans, Ratzingers and Wotjylas but also the Kungs, Rahners, Schillebeeckxs and the journalists at the National Catholic Reporter.  And why stop there?  We should also throw in the sedevacantists and Lefebvrists for good measure.  They all claim to be good Roman Catholics and find their unity around the Office of the Pope, after all. Let us not exclude them on the dubious grounds that they do not support our own preconceived conclusions of how papal authority should work.  At least Protestantism has the integrity to wear its chaotic divisions on its sleeve.

Moving on from the issue of authority, we find that Dr. Gregory also argues that religious persecution is a poisonous result of the confessionalisation of Europe into warring religious factions. Certainly, the bloodshed along confessional lines in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was terrible, but doctrinal disagreements did not begin with the Reformation. The New Testament makes it clear that serious doctrinal conflict existed within the church even during apostolic times (I hope I am allowed, for the sake of argument, to assume that the New Testament is perspicuous enough for me to state that with a degree of confidence); and the link between church and state which provided the context for bloodshed over matters of theological deviancy was established from at least the time of Priscillian in the late fourth century. It was hardly a Protestant or even a Reformation innovation.

When it comes to the empirical facts of Catholic persecution, Dr. Gregory only mentions the Inquisition twice. That is remarkably light coverage given its rather stellar track record in all that embarrassing auto da fe business. Moreover, he mentions it first only in a Reformation/post-Reformation context. Yet Roman Catholic persecution of those considered deviants was not simply or even primarily a response to Reformation Protestantism but a well-established pattern in the Middle Ages. No doubt the Spanish Jews and Muslims, the Cathars, the Albigensians, the Lollards, the Hussites and many other religious deviants living before the establishment of any Protestant state might have wished that their sufferings had received a more substantial role in the narrative and more significance in the general thesis. Sure, Protestantism broke the Roman Catholic monopoly on persecution and thus played a shameful and ignominious part in its escalation; but it did not establish the precedents, legally, culturally or practically.

Finally, the great lacuna in this book is the printing press. Dr. Gregory has, as I noted above, done brilliant work in putting self-understanding back on the historical agenda and thus of grounding the history of ideas in historical realities rather than metaphysical abstractions. The danger with this, however, is that material factors can come to be somewhat neglected. His thesis - that Protestantism shattered the unified nature and coherence of knowledge and paved the way for its secularization - does not take into account the impact of the easy availability of print. The printed book changed everything: it fuelled literacy rates and it expanded the potential for diversity of opinion. I suspect there is a very plausible alternative, or at least supplementary, narrative to the 'Protestantism shattered the unified nature and coherence of knowledge' thesis: the printing press did it because it made impossible the Church's control of the nature, range, flow and availability of knowledge.

Ironically, the printing press is one of the great success stories of pre-Reformation Catholic Europe. One might argue that it was a technological innovation and thus not particularly 'Catholic' in that sense. That is true; but for some years after it was invented it was unclear whether it would be successful enough to replace medieval book production. In fact, its success was significantly helped by the brisk fifteenth century trade in printed breviaries and missals and the indulgences produced to fund war against the Ottomans. In other words, it was the vibrancy of late medieval Catholic piety, of which Dr. Gregory makes much, that ensured the future of the printing press and thereby the shipwrecking of the old, stable forms of knowledge.

The Roman Catholic Church knew the danger presented by the easy transmission of, and access to, knowledge which the printing press provided. That is why it was so assiduous in burning books in the sixteenth century and why the Index of Prohibited Books remained in place until the 1960s. I well remember being amazed when reading the autobiography of the analytic philosopher and one-time priest, Sir Anthony Kenny, that he had had to obtain special permission from the Church to read David Hume for his doctoral research in the 1950s. At the start of the twenty-first century, Rome may present herself as the friend of engaged religious intellectuals in North America but she took an embarrassingly long time even to allow her people free access to the most basic books of modern Western thought. Women in Britain had the vote, Elvis (in my humble opinion) had already done his best work and The Beatles and The Rolling Stones were starting to churn out hits before Roman Catholics were free to read David Hume without specific permission from the Church.   

Of course, Dr. Gregory knows about the Index; but he seems to see it as a response to Protestantism, not as an extension of the Church's typical manner of handling deviation from its central tenets and practices which stretched back well before the Reformation. And therein lies the ironic, tragic, perplexing flaw of this brilliant and learned book: Dr. Gregory sets out to prove that Protestantism is the source of all, or at least many, of the modern world's ills; but what he actually does is demonstrate in painstaking and compelling detail that medieval Catholicism and the Papacy with which it was inextricably bound up were ultimately inadequate to the task which they set - which they claimed! - for themselves.  Reformation Protestantism, if I can use the singular, was one response to this failure, as conciliarism had been a hundred years before.  One can dispute the adequacy of such responses; but only by an act of historical denial can one dispute the fact that it was the Papacy which failed.

Thanks to the death of medieval Christendom and to the havoc caused by the Reformation and beyond, Dr Gregory is today free to believe (or not) that Protestantism is an utter failure.  Thanks to the printing press, he is also free to express this in a public form. Thanks to the modern world which grew as a response to the failure of Roman Catholicism, he is also free to choose his own solution to the problems of modernity without fear of rack or rope. Yet, having said all that, I for one find it strange indeed that someone would choose as the solution that which was actually the problem in the first place.

[LurkingSince'98]

Only the completely unschooled would claim the Catholic Church existed in the period defined in that Scripture.

AMDG

[LurkingSince'98]

a symbol from God of freeing the faithful from the limitation of God the Father in the Holy of Holies to the accessibility of Christ to everyone in the Eucharist...

For the Greater Glory of God

[LurkingSince'98]

hey Cynic

It is not just ‘my understanding’ - it is the belief of every faithful Catholic who meets Christ when receiving the Eucharist, the Flesh of the Son of Man.

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him” (John 6:53–56)...

For the Greater Glory of God

[CynicalBear]

>>Only the completely unschooled would claim the Catholic Church existed in the period defined in that Scripture.<<

I agree. And no where did I say that. I said the Catholic Church has become the center of paganism which is called Babylon.

[CynicalBear]

>>a symbol from God of freeing the faithful from the limitation of God the Father in the Holy of Holies to the accessibility of Christ to everyone in the Eucharist...<<

Catholics really don’t get it do they. The veil was in place to restrict access to God the Father and only the High Priest could enter and that only once per year. When the veil was torn it removed that barrier giving all believers access to God the Father through Jesus Christ. All believers are now priests with Jesus the High Priest. You see, the lie of the Catholic Church says that their so called saints and Mary have greater access to God the Father than we as individual believers do. It’s a lie from Satan to keep people from approaching the very throne of God the Father.

[LurkingSince'98]

“the Catholic Church has become the center of paganism which is called Babylon”

again unschooled because the Babylon of the Old Testament what Jerusalem which was not the center of paganism it was the center of Judaism.

AMDG

[LurkingSince'98]

you obviously can’t read I didn’t say Catholics had access to the Father the Eucharist is to provide us direct access to his Son Jesus Christ in and through the Eucharist just as he promised us:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him” (John 6:53–56)

We eat the Body of Christ in the Eucharist because Christ himself told us to....

For the Greater Glory of God

good night all time to play with the kids

[CynicalBear]

Satan always does use only parts of scripture and the Catholic Church works with him. Why do they always stop at verse 56 of John 6? Jesus Himself explained that it was really the flesh later in that same chapter.

John 6:63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. 64 But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him.

That “flesh” you think you are eating prophets you nothing. Catholics don’t understand the Spirit and “believe not”.

[CynicalBear]

>> you obviously can’t read I didn’t say Catholics had access to the Father <<

Oh I understood perfectly. I know full well you didn’t say Catholics had access to the Father. It’s scripture that says we have access to the Father. The Catholic Church lies and says Catholics don’t.

[daniel1212]

What else shall we call all the churches that did not originate out of the Reformation period ? They are evidently not original. Unitarians, Mormons and other pseudoChristian heretical churches are taking the rebellion to the next level.

What else? But such a rational you could call them Catholic, since we are told from RCs that they came forth from Catholicism, but rejected it in part, holding to core teachings such as expressed in the Apostles Creed and the plenary Divine inspiration of Scripture, etc. but (invoking CFs) rejecting certain RC distinctives, such as sola ecclesia (the church being the supreme and assuredly infallible authority.

Likewise Unitarians, Mormons and other pseudoChristian heretical churches even more radically departed from Protestantism, rejecting the aforementioned common truths, plus the plenary Divine inspiration of Scripture (Unitarians), while most effectively operate under the RC model of sola ecclesia for determining Truth.

Rome has presumed to infallibly declare she is and will be perpetually infallible whenever she speaks in accordance with her infallibly defined (scope and subject-based) formula, which renders her declaration that she is infallible, to be infallible, as well as all else she accordingly declares (as in what history, tradition and Scripture teach).

Likewise Mormonism etc, but its conclusions of what history, tradition and Scripture teach are different.

But the RC model was not the basis upon which the NT church began. Why do we absolutely need an assuredly infallible magisterium? And what is the basis for your assurance that Rome is the one true and infallible (if conditionally) church?

Are the Pentecostal, Holiness, Assemblies of God Protestant ? Are the Calvary Chapel churches Protestant ?

Are Sedevacantists Catholic? Are the EOs despite substantial dissident , even rejecting among other things, universal papal jurisdiction, papal infallibility, Roman purgatory, and the Immaculate Conception, because they are untraditional.

If you start your own tax exempt church in a home, office, or public school building, is it Protestant ?

You have not heard? Being 501(3)(c) means you cannot support candidates as a church, etc, unless you are liberal perhaps.

Is Protestant only Anglican, Episcopalian, Lutheran, and Presbyterian ? Can we throw in Methodist ?

RCs here reject liberal RCs are being Catholic, so why must we include Anglicans who are closer to Rome than to evangelicals?

My point in all this is that while you can use generalizations, to be consistent with Scripture, which calls believers who came from Judaism "Christians," then we should not act as atheists do in calling Hitler a Christian. Or a Catholic.

We should respect the core defining distinctives that result in both real unity and core contention, as did Christianity and Judaism, and Protestantism versus Catholic. And in this case ask if the groups mentioned are more critically opposed to core historical Protestant distinctives or more in basic unity with them. Simply not being Catholic while denying the most basic core truths and moral views should not qualify as Protestant.

Pentecostal, Holiness, Assemblies of God, Calvary Chapels, SBC and like evangelical churches all officially hold to historical core truths which cults deny, and historical preached the evangelical gospel of personal repentance and faith that effects manifest regeneration, and uphold conservative moral truths that liberal Prots and the majority of Catholics overall dissent from.

Yet they usually differ on predestination, which issue sees unresolved conflict in Rome (among things), and church government, etc. But because of the concord on key truths, and the common conversion, then among the regenerate there is a spiritual unity that largely transcends external tribalism.

You mean having historical descent and being the stewards of Scripture means such is the assuredly infallible church, dissent from which is rebellion against God. Which premise means Rome cannot solve the problem of legitimacy, but others can.

The churches of Asia in Revelation are the answer to that question and without any doubt, every one of them was a legitimate New Testament apostolic church. Do you believe in one holy catholic apostolic church according to the Scriptures

Indeed, and the churches of Asia in Revelation are evidence against Rome. Not one time are any of these or any other churches written to told to submit to Peter as their supreme infallible head, nor example doing so, not even as a solution to their problems, nor commended for so doing, even among the extensive critiques or commendations. Not once.

Nor did he even give the conclusive decree as to what should be done and how to do it in Acts 15, nor was he listed first or along among those who seemed to be pillars in Gal. 2. Peter was the initial street-level leader of the 11, and can be seen exercising a general pastoral role, yet was not looked to by the churches as the the supreme infallible head, nor is there any evidence for a successor of any apostle after Jude, though James was martyred. (Acts 12:1,2)

And even Catholic scholarship provides testimony against the idea of such in the early church.

But invoking the churches of Asia does not answer the question i asked. Do you mean having historical descent and being the stewards of Scripture means such is the assuredly infallible church, dissent from which is rebellion against God? That seems to basically be the RC argument ("we gave you the Bible...") .

Was Jesus' prayer to the Father rejected ? God forbid.

Indeed not, and is more realized among evangelicals than Catholics, as His prayer did not refer to an organizational unity or comprehensive doctrinal unity which has ever been a goal not realized, but that of an essential spiritual unit, "That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee...I in them, and thou in me..." (Jn. 17:21,23) Which is by manifest regeneration of the Spirit, which is rare among Catholics until they become truly born against, thru personal repentance our of a broken and contrite heart. Not infant baptism and ritualism.

Only insofar as that is realized, esp. among leadership,. may the world may believe that "thou hast sent me," and "they may be made perfect in one."

As the basis for the NT church was not that of Rome, its degree of unity was realized under manifest apostles of God,

"in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God...By pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, By the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left,..." (2 Corinthians 6:6-7)

Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds. (2 Corinthians 12:12)

And which is stark contrast overall today, which Rome is not even in the running (not that i think i am an apostle or really something), esp. as the greater the claims then the greater the attestation is required, and Rome claims assured infallibility which even the apostles did not.

And Rome's unity is limited and largely on paper and organizationally, while apart from that she abounds in disunity. Cults actually have the greatest unity using Rome's model. And what Rome really holds to is manifest by what she does and effects. And evangelicals have been and yet are far more unified in basic Biblical views than the overall fruit of Rome.

Then unless you hold that the Fundamentalists are correct in their doctrine of the Church, and that they are the only true New Testament churches

No, i do not.

you have no unbroken chain of apostolic New Testament churches.

Which is premise is why you need to actually answer what i asked you above. Do so forthrightly and we can talk.

[Alamo-Girl]

Indeed, I do not believe Jim Robinson would have the time to verify a transcript with the Scripture references added. And, frankly, it shouldn't be necessary when the contest is between Christians in the first place.

Thank you so much for your insights, dear brother in Christ!

[LurkingSince'98]

you said”It’s scripture that says we have access to the Father. The Catholic Church lies and says Catholics don’t.”

what all Christianity, except you, knows that we can only go to the Father through the Son who has made himself present for us in the Eucharist:

“Jesus answered, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6

IT is unscriptural for a Christian to believe that they can
‘have access to the Father’ just because they are Christian as you stated.

AMDG

[LurkingSince'98]

I have put that question to Jim directly and await his reply to my email.

AMDG

[CynicalBear]

>>IT is unscriptural for a Christian to believe that they can ‘have access to the Father’ just because they are Christian as you stated.<<

Once again the ignorance of scripture by Catholics is stunning.

Matthew 6:9 After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.

That is going directly to the Father and is what Jesus told us to do.

[annalex]

It is what this all means that is the real issue.

True. This hysterical opposition to the inspired (at least in this verse) translation by St. Jerome is childish and beside the point.

inspired just like Scripture is.

The Protestants confuse the inspired quality with the canonicity. Just bear that in mind: all these rhetorical "just like" are making reference to two independent attributes of a religious text. The Church teaching is by and large inspired, and so is the Holy Scripture; but the Holy Scripture stands out as the true and direct witness of Christ and the Catholic Faith: it is both inspired and canonical.

your making infallible teaching as being inspired of God

I just got done telling you that infallibility and inspiration are also two different things. If I say that 2+2=4, it would be an infallible statement of mine, because it contains no error; but I did not ask the Holy Ghost to teach me arithmetic: it is not an inspired statement. On the other hand, "Oh my Jesus, lead all souls to heaven" is not an infallible statement for the trivial reason that it is a petition and not a statement of fact. But it surely is inspired, for it originates from the Fatima apparition of Out Lady.

Where are you getting this idea that all the teaching that is expressed in the Catechism of the Church is infallible...?

Any definitive teaching of the Church on the content of our faith is infallible.

...and thus divinely inspired

That does not follow, although it may be. There is no "thus".

and such things as Leo XIII's Prayer to St. Michael [are divinely inspired]

Well, I picked a prayer that originated from a vision that St. Pope Leo XIII had, and so as any vision of a holy person it is precisely that, inspired. Also, my examples are of works that are unusual, -- not like 2+2; that, too leads me to think that they are inspired as written by the Holy Ghost. But there is no definitive list, if that is what you are asking about. Compare "the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you" (John 14:26) -- there is no list there either. As a general rule, whenever the Church speaks in one voice, that is the Holy Ghost speaking.

no other weight than that which they already possess (Ratzinger)

Correct: the Catechism merely summarizes, organizes and lists the doctrines that had been infallible already. It is not a new teaching. As an infallible document it could not be otherwise.

Your description also seems to blur the distinctions made btwn different magisterial levels

But I said nothing about that, so I hardly "blurred" anything. Of course there are levels and degrees of applicability, and one needs to pay attention to those lest he overclaims inspiration or infallibility of any doctrine.

Of what use is infallibility if it is uncertain about what is?

When you are not certain, you can ask, but generally there is a consensus on what is infallible speech and what is not. Further, whether a statement is infallibly defined or not, if the Magisterium proposed something for our salvation, we should obey and seek to understand. Infallibility is primarily a tool in the Pope's possession in case of a severe dissent among the bishops. So far it has not been needed.

[LurkingSince'98]

No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6

[daniel1212]

I really enjoyed the different ‘Amen’ citations that incurred credit for another passage. LOL.

That can multiplied (may be more than shown):

'âmên Total OT KJV Occurrences: 30

27 as amen, Num_5:22 (2), Deu_27:15-26 (12), 1Ch_16:36 (2), Neh_5:13, Neh_8:6 (2), Psa_41:13 (2), Psa_72:19 (2), Psa_89:52 (2), Psa_106:48, Jer_28:6

ἀμήν amēn Total KJV Occurrences: 152

51 as amen, Mat_6:13, Mar_16:20 (2), Luk_24:53, Rom_1:25 (2), Rom_9:5, Rom_11:36, Rom_15:33, Rom_16:20, Rom_16:24, Rom_16:27, 1Co_14:16, 1Co_16:24, 2Co_1:20, 2Co_13:14, Gal_1:5, Gal_6:18, Eph_3:21, Eph_6:24, Phi_4:20, Phi_4:23, Col_4:18, 1Th_5:28, 2Th_3:18, 1Ti_1:17, 1Ti_6:16, 1Ti_6:21, 2Ti_4:18, 2Ti_4:22, Tit_3:15, Phm_1:25, Heb_13:21, Heb_13:25, 1Pe_5:11 (2), 1Pe_5:14, 2Pe_3:18, 1Jo_5:21, 2Jo_1:13, Jud_1:25, Rev_1:6-7 (2), Rev_1:18, Rev_5:14 (2), Rev_7:12 (2), Rev_19:4, Rev_22:20-21 (2)

[Alamo-Girl]

I am amazed at the amount of work you put into that, dear brother in Christ, thank you!

The Scripture reference for "Amen!" caught my eye the first time LurkingSince'98 raised it because a Protestant Service can become quite full of Amens!

To that end, in the following song - one of my most beloved - there are at least 35 "amens" - and the Gospel story to boot, which would entail Scripture references on end. I'm not asking you to do the parsing and tallying, but I'm certain that the number of Scripture references in just this one song would be huge.

Any hoot, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, and especially you Jim Robinson - here's Amen!

[daniel1212]

Hope you keep that handy. Random Papists play that card every so often.

Been busy but will try to finish it.

[daniel1212]

thanks Daniel..

How did i get in on this argument, and what are you thanking me for?