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.

[Elsie]

I have heard this, in the form of a complaint, directly from multiple protestant mouths directly to my ears.

WOW!

You ARE brave!

Willing to risk $750 on HERESAY!

(I've got this horse in the fifth race today...)

[Elsie]

I've seen these claims, throwing random verses into a hat and pulling out a mass hardly qualifies as teaching Scripture.

Hey!

Nobody said anything about teaching; just AMOUNT!

[Elsie]

Galatians 5:12

[Karl Spooner]

It would be interesting on what we all could learn, for sure. I guess anyone can commit a sin easy enough, and I wouldn't want you to do that, not even in "jest"

[Elsie]

I’m Horney, too!

ADORE my RADIENCE!

[Gamecock]

So Roman Catholics need to be evangelized? Finally someone admits the truth!

Anyway, you haven't read much of Paul's writings, have you?

[Elsie]

If an alien had just landed, and somehow managed to connect to the web without an intergalactic service provider; and THEN stumbled across this thread; I wonder if he(she/it/them) could be as impartial as ETG and determine which group of devoted church people use more non-scriptural sources to try to make their point: The Protestants or the Catholics?

And, after the research was done; they (them/it/he/her) might be impassioned to return the millions of Bitcoins that their self-aware vehicle thought were modified di-lithium crystals.

I'm sure that we could use them here at FR...

[RegulatorCountry]

He’s just glorified, bless his heart.

[Religion Moderator]

Your reaction to the post which I restored is evidence why I pulled it in the first place.

This thread is not about individual Freepers, it is not "about" you.

[Elsie]

Name calling is exactly how St Paul evangelized.

There is precedence then; right?

---

 

---

 

Matthew 15:16
   "Are you still so dull?" Jesus asked them.

Matthew 23

 

  1.  Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples:
  2.  "The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat.
  3.  So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.
  4.  They tie up heavy loads and put them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.
  5.  "Everything they do is done for men to see: They make their phylacteries  wide and the tassels on their garments long;
  6.  they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues;
  7.  they love to be greeted in the marketplaces and to have men call them `Rabbi.'
  8.  "But you are not to be called `Rabbi,' for you have only one Master and you are all brothers.
  9.  And do not call anyone on earth `father,' for you have one Father, and he is in heaven.
 10.  Nor are you to be called `teacher,' for you have one Teacher, the Christ.
 11.  The greatest among you will be your servant.
 12.  For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
 13.  "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. 
 14.  Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation. 
 15.   "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are. 
 16.  "Woe to you, blind guides! You say, `If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.'
 17.  You blind fools! Which is greater: the gold, or the temple that makes the gold sacred?
 18.  You also say, `If anyone swears by the altar, it means nothing; but if anyone swears by the gift on it, he is bound by his oath.'
 19.  You blind men! Which is greater: the gift, or the altar that makes the gift sacred?
 20.  Therefore, he who swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it.
 21.  And he who swears by the temple swears by it and by the one who dwells in it.
 22.  And he who swears by heaven swears by God's throne and by the one who sits on it.
 23.  "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices--mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law--justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.
 24.  You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.
 25.  "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.
 26.  Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.
 27.  "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!  You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean.
 28.  In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.
 29.  "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous.
 30.  And you say, `If we had lived in the days of our forefathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.'
 31.  So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets.
 32.  Fill up, then, the measure of the sin of your forefathers!
 33.  "You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?
 34.  Therefore I am sending you prophets and wise men and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town.
 35.  And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.
 36.  I tell you the truth, all this will come upon this generation.
 37.  "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.
 38.  Look, your house is left to you desolate.
 39.  For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, `Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.' "

 

Mark 7:26-27
 26.  The woman was a Greek, born in Syrian Phoenicia. She begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter.
 27.  "First let the children eat all they want," he told her, "for it is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs."

 

---

And St. Paul chimes in...

---

Galatians 5:12
   As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!

 

[Elsie]

Name calling is exactly how St Paul evangelized.

Philippians 2:5
Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:

[CynicalBear]

>>excepting Mary the Mother of God<<

Please show us where the apostles taught that.

[GeronL]

“Protestant” service is an awful broad category.

[LurkingSince'98]

I specifically did not mention names, which I had addressed in a previous post to you and Jim.

This is about a person on this forum who said I was dishonest for just repeating what I heard from multiple protestants.

and my post was specifically in response to daniel’s crack.

But the fact at issue is still in contention, now how do I address the specifics of the contention to be RM safe?

So I get called dishonest for repeating what I have been told by protestants,

and then I can’t respond to daniel’s claim of “more contrived Catholic polemics”

my response was not contrived,
I did respond to directly to his objection and
I did not mention the original posters name as I had asked you earlier

Now exactly what did I do wrong

and exactly how do I respond to get it to “fly”

[Elsie]

don’t wanna let it go yet?

[Alex Murphy]

I specifically did not mention names, which I had addressed in a previous post to you and Jim. This is about a person on this forum who said I was dishonest for just repeating what I heard from multiple protestants. and my post was specifically in response to daniel’s crack. But the fact at issue is still in contention, now how do I address the specifics of the contention to be RM safe?

Develop a thicker skin about it.

"For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with...insults..."
-- 2 Corinthians 12:10

[LurkingSince'98]

AM

time is short and I have to run soooon, but

Scripture spoken and/or read aloud by the priest/minister deacon or congregation.

Sunday versus Sunday because they all said Sunday to make it comparable.

This year, I will let you pick the Sunday we can compare apples to apples.

PS I’ve heard of some congregations, not sure who or what denomination, that go on for eight hours.

Lets keep it to the typical Sunday service vs the typical Sunday mass.

more later?

AMDG

[Alex Murphy]

Scripture spoken and/or read aloud by the priest/minister deacon or congregation.

Sunday versus Sunday because they all said Sunday to make it comparable.

This year, I will let you pick the Sunday we can compare apples to apples.

Kind of hard to pull off a comparison without surveying all 13 worship services conducted across all 41,000 denominations, doncha think? :)

[Religion Moderator]

This is about a person on this forum who said I was dishonest for just repeating what I heard from multiple protestants.

Making posts 'about' yourself or another Freeper is "making it personal." It changes the flow of a debate from the issues to ad hominems which often lead to flame wars.

For a post to 'fly' on the Religion Forum, do not meet fire with fire. If someone has gotten personal with you, send me a Freepmail - don't fan the flames.

Two wrongs do not make a right.

I will also pull daniel1212's post 670 because it quotes a now pulled post. He may repost it without the quote (I'll send a copy of it to your Freepmail, daniel1212.)

[daniel1212]

The point remains that "full of grace" is the historical translation offered by Jerome and it is correct.

Wrong. There simply is no "full" at all in the Greek. It was added to the text as part of the extraBiblical exaltation of the Mary-goddess of Catholicism.

no translator, even among the Protestant sleazebags, would use "favor" anywhere in St. Paul's writings, so why use it here

When proof is nonexistent, use slurs. Since charitoō only occurs once in all of Paul's writings then your omniscience must be presumed. Yet to be graced means you have found favor (charis: Lk. 1:30), and "full" is still not even in the Greek, and thus to say "full of grace" it is reading more into the text than what it says, even if the blessed, holy, Spirit-filled Mary was.

It is sheer mariophobia, even when a "catholic" translation does it.

In-credible. Even Catholics who do not agree with annalex are mariophobic, rather than possibly seeking to be faithful to the Greek. But as RCs as yourself are simply bound to defend Rome and her unBiblical Mary, then objective views are not expected, though scorn as a substitute is.

The distinction between canonical scripture and other writings is the canonicity of the former.

This does not answer the question of why these are canonical as regards any difference btwn Divine inspiration of Scripture and Holy Spirit inspired, "dictated" statements by doctors and prelates of the church.

There is no hard and fast rule. Thank God, we are not Protestants with their idiotic legalisms.

This is all it appears you can do in a jam. Your first reply already equated statements by doctors and prelates of the church as being Divinely inspired like Scripture. Now actually answer the questions asked as to any theological distinction btwn Divine inspiration of Scripture and statements by doctors and prelates of the church (see below)?

I told you what the distinction is. If you are sensing that to the Catholic mind the Holy Scripture is inseparable from the entire body of the magisterial teaching of the Holy Church, you are correct.

"Inseparable" does not mean they are equally inspired of God. Scripture is that of the very words of God, being wholly inspired revelation of God, who is the principal author of it. Are you saying statements by doctors and prelates of the church also are the wholly inspired revelation of God, who is the principal author of it? And provide examples as asked. At least are all the writings your refer to all infallible? Are all infallible teachings inspired of God, if not wholly?

Yes, and that is good. The Church wants us to examine the doctrine, weigh it against others and come to the understanding through our own effort so that the doctrine becomes internalized.

That is just one more thing in which we see changes thru the years on among Catholic writings. You are certainly not to engage in objective examination of evidences in order to ascertain the veracity of RC official teaching, while implicit assent is what we see encouraged.

It follows that the Church is essentially an unequal society, that is, a society comprising two categories of per sons, the Pastors and the flock, those who occupy a rank in the different degrees of the hierarchy and the multitude of the faithful. So distinct are these categories that with the pastoral body only rests the necessary right and authority for promoting the end of the society and directing all its members towards that end; the one duty of the multitude is to allow themselves to be led, and, like a docile flock, to follow the Pastors. - VEHEMENTER NOS, an Encyclical of Pope Pius X

"The intolerance of the Church toward error, the natural position of one who is the custodian of truth, her only reasonable attitude makes her forbid her children to read or to listen to heretical controversy, or to endeavor to discover religious truths by examining both sides of the question. This places the Catholic in a position whereby he must stand aloof from all manner of doctrinal teaching other than that delivered by his Church through her accredited ministers." - John H. Stapleton, Explanation of Catholic Morals ,

“All that we do [as must be patent enough now] is to submit our judgment and conform our beliefs to the authority Almighty God has set up on earth to teach us; this, and nothing else.” “Absolute, immediate, and unfaltering submission to the teaching of God's Church on matters of faith and morals-----this is what all must give..” —“Henry G. Graham, "What Faith Really Means " ,

The church is infallible...the church, as a visible, organized society, is the immediate recipient of a certain divine revelation, and the medium of it transmission. .Each individual must receive the faith and the law from the church, of which he is a member by baptism, with unquestioning submission of the intellect and the will. Catholic world, Volume 13, by Paulist Fathers, p. 580