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“Tradition Devoured by the Magisterium” This essay appeared at the Spanish site Caminante Wanderer on August 14, under the title “La Tradición devorada por el Magisterio.” This translation has been prepared for Rorate Caeli.—PAKTradition Devoured by the Magisterium(from the Spanish blog Caminante Wanderer)I would like to propose a thesis: in the course of the centuries, and especially after the Council of Trent, there has been a shift from an objective notion of Tradition as a revealed deposit to a subjective notion, which insists above all on the organ that proposes the truth—that is, the Magisterium. In scholastic terms, there...

[Catholic Caucus] ‘Preposterous’: Cdl Burke criticizes calls for ‘new theology’ to match Pope Francis’ teaching Burke criticized those who claim 'we now have to abandon all the old categories and develop a new theology to match this magisterium' LACROSSE, Wisc. January 10, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – Cardinal Raymond Burke said that the idea that there is a “new” magisterium of Pope Francis that requires a “new theology” that must “abandon all the old categories” to match it is “simply preposterous.” In an era of confusion in the Church with regard to doctrine and discipline, Cardinal Burke said in a far-ranging...

The organizers of the Synod on Young People, the Faith and Vocational Discernment, which begins Wednesday, are not being clear whether propositions will be included in the final document and voted upon, as they have been in past synods. Although the final document has to be approved in its entirety by a two-thirds majority of the synod’s voting members, Bishop Fabio Fabene, undersecretary of the Synod of Bishops, has said it remains an open question if propositions will be part of the final document and each of them require a two thirds majority to pass. “We have to see how...

VATICAN CITY, August 7, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) — Those who criticize the teaching of Pope Francis on the basis of former magisterial documents are not faithful to the tradition of the Catholic Church, a high-ranking Vatican official has said.  In an interview with Vatican News, to mark the 25th anniversary of the promulgation of Veritatis Splendor — Pope John Paul II’s 1993 landmark encyclical on certain fundamentals of the Catholic Church’s moral teaching — Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization, said “there is no foothold for challenging the magisterium of Pope Francis in the light...

The Latest Addition to the Bergoglian Pseudo-Magisterium...For the past five years the Church has suffered under a Pope who actually believes that the Magisterium is literally whatever he thinks. To quote his own admission in this regard, made during one of his infamous interviews: “I’m constantly making statements, giving homilies. That’s magisterium. That’s what I think, not what the media say that I think. Check it out; it’s very clear.”  It occurs to me that a “magisterium” one is urged to “check out” might have a rather ephemeral quality quite inconsistent with the concept of the Magisterium rightly understood. And now the...

"Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift each of you like wheat. But I have prayed for you,that your faith will not fail. And when you have turned back, confirm your brethren." Luke 22:31-32 August 2, 2018 Dear Bishop S----, Thank you for your letter and thanks also to S and D and P and R who have also responded to my concerns: I appreciate this, too. But it is not enough. Centuries ago, faithful Catholics didn't ordinarily need to question their Bishop. If he were an honest Catholic, well and good; but if not, it made little difference to...

By now, most LifeSiteNews readers will be aware of the further troubling news announced in Rome earlier this month: Pope Francis dropped a veritable bombshell into the Church’s official record of papal teaching and acts of governance, the Acta Apostolicae Sedis (AAS). This was his letter from the previous year warmly commending a draft pastoral letter by a group of Argentinian bishops in which they interpreted Chapter 8 of the Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia (AL) as opening up the sacraments of Penance and Eucharist to certain people living in illicit sexual relationships. The Pontiff’s letter notoriously asserted that “there are no other...

This week, the Vatican's organ for promulgating the Official Acts of the Apostolic See, Acta Apostolicae Sedis (AAS), has published its October 2016 issue, containing Pope Francis' infamous Letter to the Buenos Aires Bishops. AAS not only published this letter, declaring that there are "no other interpretations" ("No hay otras interpretaciones") of Amoris Laetitia other than those of the Buenos Aires bishops, but it also published the full Buenos Aires guidelines themselves, which permit Holy Communion in some cases for couples in a state of permanent and public adultery who are not committed to living in complete continence.  Most significantly, AAS upgrades Pope Francis'...

Cardinal Burke’s critics fall into serious errors about the true nature and authority of the Papal Magisterium December 1, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) — Jeffrey Mirus, the founder of CatholicCulture.org, is concerned that Cardinal Raymond Burke might have confused the faithful by stating his intention to possibly make a “formal correction” of Pope Francis if Burke does not receive a response to several queries or dubia he and three other cardinals submitted to Francis regarding questionable affirmations in his recent apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia. However, it is Mirus who’s more likely to confuse the faithful with his own ambiguous language and apparently...

The Magisterium of the Catholic Church, the teaching authority left by Jesus Christ to his Church and principally exercised by popes and the college of bishops, proceeds in two ways: ordinarily, the Magisterium proceeds ‘ordinarily’; extraordinarily, the Magisterium proceeds ‘extraordinarily’. Bear with me. Ex cathedra pontifical pronouncements and solemn decrees of ecumenical councils—the two great expressions of the extraordinary Magisterium—get the headlines, but such statements are, well, extraordinary and hence relatively rare. In contrast, the day-in day-out, oft-repeated, variously-phrased and then re-phrased teachings put out (principally) by popes and bishops engaged in the public exercise of their offices constitute the...

After several months, we have reached a centenary, with one hundred studies analyzing diverse affirmations of Francis, in contrast with the two thousand years of Church teaching; from the Sacred Scriptures to a total of 54 popes, 10 Councils, 25 Fathers of the Church, 15 Doctors and several fundamental Church texts, as well as the pronouncements of Roman Congregations, the Episcopal Magisterium, and various Saints.

On the Infallibility of Tradition, Scripture, Magisterium 1. Sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture, Sacred Magisterium are a reflection of the Most Holy Trinity. Tradition is a reflection of the Father; Scripture is a reflection of the Son; Magisterium is a reflection of the Spirit. Scripture proceeds from Tradition, just as the Son proceeds from the Father. Magisterium proceeds primarily from Tradition and Secondarily from Scripture, just as the Spirit proceeds primarily from the Father and secondarily from the Son. Tradition, Scripture, Magisterium are three distinct aspects of One Divine Gift, just as the Trinity is three distinct Persons of One...

It’s a question that requires little thought to answer; are you infallible? It ranks right up there with, “Are you God?” But to Catholic apologists the question is quite serious; that’s because they believe that there is a man on earth who, on the subject of faith and morals, is infallible; they call him, “holy father.” See, it does rank right up there with, “Are you God,” at least when coming from people who think their leader is equal with God on deciding issues of faith and morals. According to Catholic apologist, John Martignoni, this question should cause Protestants to...

The Magisterium of the Catholic Church Defined as "the Church's divinely appointed authority to teach the truths of religion". In other words, Our Lord gave His Church the authority to teach the faithful about what is expected of them, and that is what the Church has done consistently from the start. The Magisterium of Catholic Church teaches the faithful in two ways; 1) Solemn Magisterium: is Church teaching which is used only rarely by formal and authentic definitions of councils or Popes. This includes dogmatic definitions by councils or Popes teaching "ex cathedra"2) Ordinary Magisterium: this second form of...

I begin with a piece, spotted by Fr Tim Finigan and reported in his indispensable blog The Hermeneutic of Continuity, which had been published in Sandro Magister’s blog—not his English one, Chiesa, but his Italian language blog for L’Espresso, Settimo Cielo.A few days ago, Magister told the story of a parish priest in the Italian diocese of Novara, Fr Tarcisio Vicario, who recently discussed the question of Holy Communion for the divorced and remarried. This is how he explained the Church’s teaching on the matter: “For the Church, which acts in the name of the Son of God, marriage...

The term “social justice”… is the key term and concept of Catholic social teaching … with all the other aspects of the Church’s social doctrine—the principle of subsidiarity, the just wage or the right to private property—are related to, and rely, on the existence of social justice. The term “social justice,” though common enough today, is little understood by most of those who use it—whether they consider themselves friends and practitioners of social justice, or they regard it as a suspect term of probably socialist origin. But the term does have a precise meaning. That meaning and the significance of...

Young Catholic Women Try To Give Church’s Position On Birth Control New Sheen Ashley McGuire is part of a movement of younger, religiously conservative Catholic women who are trying to rebrand what may be Catholicism’s most-ignored teaching: its ban on birth control methods such as the Pill. Michelle Boorstein April 15 Ashley McGuire fell in love with the Catholic Church five years ago, after reading its teaching against artificial birth control. McGuire, then a skeptical Protestant college student, initially saw the ban as a mandatory march to “domestic slavery.” But the more she read, the more she was blown away...

Featured Term (selected at random):POWER OF JURISDICTION The moral right to govern the faithful in the Catholic Church. Also called the power of ruling (potestas regiminis), which, by divine institution, belongs to the Church founded by Christ. It includes jurisdiction in the external forum (publicly known) and the internal forum (privately matters of conscience), whether sacramental or nonsacramental. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

The crisis that has afflicted the Catholic Church since the middle of the 1960s has been a crisis of both faith and morals, that is, a crisis that has made many Catholics no longer know what to believe or what kind of conduct God expects of us. What is needed as a remedy for this is a firm standard, a reliable guide or teacher who can tell us both what we must believe and what we must do. And, of course, in Christ's true Church we do have such a reliable standard and guide. But even Catholics of good will...

Lists Every Catholic Should be Familiar With Jump to: The 7 Sacraments (The Holy Mysteries)The 7 Corporal Works of MercyThe 7 Spiritual Works of MercyThe 3 Eminent Good WorksThe 7 Gifts of the Holy Ghost (& the Charismata)The 12 Fruits of the Holy GhostThe 3 Theological VirtuesThe 4 Cardinal VirtuesThe 7 Capital Sins & Their Contrary VirtuesThe 6 Sins Against the Holy GhostThe 4 Sins That Cry Out to HeavenThe 3 Conditions of Mortal SinThe 9 Ways We Participate in Others' SinsThe 10 CommandmentsThe 2 Greatest CommandmentsThe 3 Evangelical CounselsThe 6 Precepts of the ChurchThe Holy Days of Obligation (English)The...