If Islam is going to develop into a religion of peace and tolerance, it doesn’t need either a Reformation or an Enlightenment, according to Daniel Philpott. Instead it needs a Vatican Council — preferable Vatican Council 2.0 since the first council was a tad militant and intolerant.
Here are the limitations of Protestantism and philosophy:
Protestant reformers enforced their orthodoxy with every bit the deadliness that Catholics employed. While England’s Queen Mary acquired the sobriquet “bloody” for her brutal restoration of Catholicism, her little sister Elizabeth was equally violent in reestablishing the Anglican Church.
The 18th century Enlightenment advanced individual religious freedom but was skeptical towards religion. The French Revolution, the Enlightenment’s political enactment, asserted the rights of man but severed the heads of men and women of faith.
Yes, lots of blood before 1800. But where’s the American exceptionalism? Where’s John Courtney Murray arguing for the Enlightenment tradition of natural law that shaped the founding of the United States? Maybe Philpott’s editor didn’t give him enough words to embrace the religious freedom that his bishops celebrate every fortnight for freedom:
Catholics must fight against forces seeking to remove the influence of religion from American culture, Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore told over 1,000 Catholics at a Mass beginning a 14-day campaign for religious freedom.
“In differing ways, both the Church’s teaching and our nation’s founding documents acknowledge that the Creator has endowed individuals with freedom of conscience,” said Archbishop Lori. “Such freedom goes to the heart of the dignity of the human person.”
The archbishop delivered the opening homily for the Fortnight for Freedom, the two-week period leading up to the Fourth of July that the bishops have dedicated as a time for prayer, education and advocacy for religious liberty.
That was 1776. But the real lesson of religious freedom, for Philpott, comes in 1965 (for the historically minded, notice the chronology and the Roman-centric w-w paradigm):
. . . western history contains a more promising pathway, ironically one found in the very religious body that the Reformation and the Enlightenment considered freedom’s greatest enemy: the Catholic Church.
It was in Second Vatican Council’s declaration, Dignitatis Humanae, on Dec. 7, 1965 — a date whose 50th anniversary is right around the corner — that the Church finally and authoritatively endorsed the human right to religious freedom.
While the Catholic Church’s road to religious freedom will not suit Islam in every respect, it shows how a religious community that for many centuries did not teach religious freedom could discover grounds for the principle that were rooted in its own teachings rather than in modern secularism.
Like Islam, Catholicism long predates the modern world. The period from which Dignitatis Humanae most dramatically departs is medieval Christendom, when the integrity of the Catholic faith was regarded as crucial for social order. Heresy was not merely a sin but an act of sedition.
Not the point of the post, but notice how this booster also notices what the rest of us without a dog in the fight of papal supremacy notice — namely, that Roman Catholicism changed from medieval to modern at the Second Vatican Council. Everyone sees this except for those who put their trust in ecclesiastical princes.
What is the point here, though, is how Rome is an example to Islam. Was it not the case that modern developments in Europe and North American finally forced bishops to open the church’s windows to modernity? In which case, it was not that the church embraced religious freedom on its own but “finally” — Philpott’s word — caught up to religious freedom in trails blazed by Americanists (and others). Of course, Protestantism did not usher in freedom of conscience. But Protestants did adjust much earlier than Rome. And Philpott gives Protestants no credit.
Instead, he thinks Muslims should look to Roman Catholics — who still celebrate the Battle of Lepanto.
Yup.
Old Life 
Darryl,
Not the point of the post, but notice how this booster also notices what the rest of us without a dog in the fight of papal supremacy notice — namely, that Roman Catholicism changed from medieval to modern at the Second Vatican Council.
Bingo. What is great about the article is that it notes that Rome’s position was a NEW and CHANGED one that it may have been able to find some roots for in certain places in its tradition but it was certainly not understood to be an infallible teaching before then.
I don’t know, sounds suspiciously like the Reformation ad fontes to me.
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There are two points being overlooked here. First, it took far too many centuries for both the Protestants and Roman Catholics to learn how not to shed blood in for the sake of their faith. In fact, it took after the founding of America for this to happen. Here, we should note how how early in America’s history, not only were people of different denominations persecuted by other denominations who crossed their turf, Christians justified the ethnic cleansing of Native Americans from the land. And they justified slavery. And close to shedding blood in for the sake of one’s faith is the writing of laws that infringe on the religious freedoms of others. That, in part, was what was happening when Christians voted or supported candidates who opposed same-sex marriage in society.
Second, we should note that much of the violence we see practiced by Muslims is against Western influence, interventions, and imperialism. In other words, much of the violence we see practiced by Muslims is reactionary and a response, it isn’t a first strike. Such does not make the violence morally right! But knowing that much of thier violence is reactionary tells us to look for the context of that violence to better understand it.
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Maybe Catholics should regret Lepanto. A few centuries of Ottoman rule in western Europe might have taught Protestants a lesson or two.
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The medieval church was hopelessly corrupt, and even defending Europe from Islamic hordes was all bad with no good.
Strike 1.
The Vatican1–Vatican 2 church supported a conservative social order,while the rest of the world was progressing towards utopia.
Strike 2.
The post Vatican 2 church is so liberal it’s probably not even Christian, if it ever was in the first place.
Strike 3!
Protestantism accommodates liberal modernity earlier, so that’s good? But, you write against liberal Protestantism all the time. Catholicism is bad whether liberal/modern or conservative/medieval. Ok, got it.
Also, is the British Empire included in this history of Protestant freedom loving?
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But where’s the American exceptionalism? Where’s John Courtney Murray arguing for the Enlightenment tradition of natural law that shaped the founding of the United States?
Actually, Dr. History, Calvinism deserves as much or more credit for religious freedom as a natural right.
http://www.maneyonline.com/doi/abs/10.1558/poth.v10i3.559?journalCode=pol
Not John Calvin so much, but his successors. As for natural law, of course Thomas Aquinas and his successors get the lion’s share of the credit for that.
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Josh, you mean the Ottomans don’t look pretty good now in Syria?
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Josh C, well you might have to ask your bishops about the in-and-outs of liberty. Their narrative from Thomas More to John Winthop to John F. Kennedy is a tad incoherent.
Sure, pre-Vat 2 is a strike. How could a Protestant say otherwise? But you can admire groups committed to their convictions even if you don’t share them. Post-Vat 2 RC’sm doesn’t have a core.
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vd,t “Thomas Aquinas and his successors get the lion’s share of the credit for that.”
Yes, Aristotle was chopped squirrel liver.
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D. G. Hart
Posted December 5, 2015 at 5:22 pm | Permalink
vd,t “Thomas Aquinas and his successors get the lion’s share of the credit for that.”
Yes, Aristotle was chopped squirrel liver.
Then why did you credit the Enlightenment, Dr. History?
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vd, t, because Philpott discredited the Enlightenment.
You expect Will Durant’s history of civilization in a commbox.
look, a delusional non-communicant squirrel.
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D. G. Hart
Posted December 5, 2015 at 7:30 pm | Permalink
vd, t, because Philpott discredited the Enlightenment.
That’s why you credited natural law to the Enlightenment. Right. Even your fans are laughing.
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In my experience, the post Vatican 2 church (which is the only church I’ve ever known) is spiritually bankrupt. I’ve spent time in evangelical churches and time in no churches as well. I am no triumphalist. I don’t know what church to belong to.
My only point is that you ridicule the Catholic Church for it’s illiberal past and in the same breath bash its attempt to “open the windows to modernity.” Likewise, you write against liberal Protestantism but want credit for liberal Protestantism.
British Empire part of Protestant history? Does that history have anything to do with the current state of Syria and the rest of the Middle East? When the warvangelicals lead the charge to nuke Iran and bring about the Second Coming, will that be Protestant history?
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vd, t, J C Murray’s fans aren’t laughing.
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Josh c, “My only point is that you ridicule the Catholic Church for it’s illiberal past and in the same breath bash its attempt to “open the windows to modernity.””
I see the confusion.
I bring up pre-vat 2 RC history as the inconvenient truth for RC triumphalists who shove it in our faces that RC is old. Well, if it’s old, it has a lot of stuff to deal with.
As do Protestants.
I am a 2k proponent. It’s at least one response to Protestant triumphalism. The only thing Protestants got right was some of the spiritual stuff. The rest? We’re all pikers.
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Dr. Hart,
Thanks for the clarification. I’ll try not to be such a crank in the future.
The 2K idea is what brings me to the website.
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D. G. Hart
Posted December 5, 2015 at 7:47 pm | Permalink
vd, t, J C Murray’s fans aren’t laughing.
They’re not as confused as yours.
D. G. Hart
Posted December 5, 2015 at 7:49 pm | Permalink
Josh c, “My only point is that you ridicule the Catholic Church for it’s illiberal past and in the same breath bash its attempt to “open the windows to modernity.””
I see the confusion.
I bring up pre-vat 2 RC history as the inconvenient truth for RC triumphalists who shove it in our faces that RC is old. Well, if it’s old, it has a lot of stuff to deal with.
Like this. Dr. Hart likes to pretend that Vatican II created a new religion the same way the Reformation did. He read it somewhere on the internet.
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“Like this. Dr. Hart likes to pretend that Vatican II created a new religion the same way the Reformation did. He read it somewhere on the internet.”
Says the guy who’s observance consists of CA, Fox News and OL. You’ve learned everything you know over the past two years. Poser.
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sean
Posted December 5, 2015 at 8:29 pm | Permalink
“Like this. Dr. Hart likes to pretend that Vatican II created a new religion the same way the Reformation did. He read it somewhere on the internet.”
Says the guy who’s observance consists of CA, Fox News and OL. You’ve learned everything you know over the past two years. Poser.
Typical Old Life. Lashing out with personal attacks when they’re flummoxed, which is often.
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Like this. Dr. Hart likes to pretend that Vatican II created a new religion the same way the Reformation did. He read it somewhere on the internet.
It’s impossible for V2 to have created a new religion “the same way the Reformation did.” Rome now embraces “heretics.” Instead of multitudes of denominations that are honest about differences in beliefs, Rome went all big tent. Want to believe in reincarnation and take the Eucharist? Who’s going to stop you. Want to be all agnostic about the Assumption? You’re true son of the church. Want to be a radical traditionalist? Your welcome, too. Just give nominal assent of implicit faith and try to avoid the big sins, and you’re golden.
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Josh, crank is okay. Some of this stuff is important.
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Robert, want to defend Roman Catholicism, trash Protestants, and not take communion? Only squirrels, lesbian ministers or Terry Gray will stop you.
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Robert
Posted December 5, 2015 at 9:14 pm | Permalink
Like this. Dr. Hart likes to pretend that Vatican II created a new religion the same way the Reformation did. He read it somewhere on the internet.
It’s impossible for V2 to have created a new religion “the same way the Reformation did.” Rome now embraces “heretics.” Instead of multitudes of denominations that are honest about differences in beliefs, Rome went all big tent. Want to believe in reincarnation and take the Eucharist? Who’s going to stop you. Want to be all agnostic about the Assumption? You’re true son of the church. Want to be a radical traditionalist? Your welcome, too. Just give nominal assent of implicit faith and try to avoid the big sins, and you’re golden.
Dr. Hart uses the Inquisition to bait Catholicism, now you bait it for the lack of one.
Nice racket you have going here.
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vd, t, follow the bouncing ball.
If you want to claim Rome is old. Fine. Crusades.
If you want to claim Rome didn’t change. Fine. Let’s have more crusades.
If you want to claim Vatican 2. Fine. Change happened.
I’m just trying to help you out with your apologetic.
Servant serving servers I am.
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I completely agree. It would be extremely helpful for Islam to go through a similar transition into modernity. Everyone knows that needs to happen. It wont completely get rid of Jihad, but it will weaken to levels we can reasonably hope to deal with.
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D. G. Hart
Posted December 6, 2015 at 7:35 am | Permalink
vd, t, follow the bouncing ball.
If you want to claim Rome is old. Fine. Crusades.
If you want to claim Rome didn’t change. Fine. Let’s have more crusades.
If you want to claim Vatican 2. Fine. Change happened.
I’m just trying to help you out with your apologetic.
Servant serving servers I am.
Your syllogisms are missing a middle term. You are not making arguments. Instead of teaching freshmen you should be sitting alongside them in logic class, Dr. Hart.
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Kenneth Winsmann
Posted December 6, 2015 at 1:38 pm | Permalink
I completely agree. It would be extremely helpful for Islam to go through a similar transition into modernity. Everyone knows that needs to happen. It wont completely get rid of Jihad, but it will weaken to levels we can reasonably hope to deal with.
Islam doesn’t have summits or synods, no central authority, even within denominations. It’s complete theological anarchy, Protestantism on steroids.
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vd, t, so what is your interpretive grid for retaining the history of Roman Catholicism without having to own up to the Crusades? Give me the middle terms, please, professor game show.
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D. G. Hart
Posted December 6, 2015 at 3:50 pm | Permalink
vd, t, so what is your interpretive grid for retaining the history of Roman Catholicism without having to own up to the Crusades? Give me the middle terms, please, professor game show.
As for your emissions that the Crusades were self-evidently wrong, you fail to argue it successfully, indeed you fail to argue it atall. This is why your “syllogisms” are empty.
But it’s your entire tactic that’s faulty, that if the Catholic Church screwed up on X, it’s delegitimized. The same faulty process could be used against John Calvin and your religion, for burning up Michael Servetus and running 1500s Geneva like the Branch Davidians.
I don’t play you like that because it’s dishonest. Wherever human beings are involved, even in churches, there will be sins. We are always free to defy God’s will, and substitute our own.
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“Dr. Hart likes to pretend that Vatican II created a new religion”
No one needs to pretend here. At least no one who is familiar with the precincts. Saying the house hasn’t changed just because it’s stayed in the family, when the altars have been removed, the furniture sold or put in storage, the windows replaced, the fusebox gutted and the family library entirely restocked with books that would have scandalized the grandparents… If it’s not a new house, it’s one that has been refurbished to the point that its Four Last Things had to be put in mothballs. If under Francis they haven’t been given to Goodwill!
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vd, t, “But it’s your entire tactic that’s faulty, that if the Catholic Church screwed up on X, it’s delegitimized.”
Wrong again. Why do you feel so threatened by a bad historian who communes in a tiny church?
The problem is for the apologists. Getting the triumphalists to admit that the Church screwed up on anything is the point.
Then the question is how much screw up you’re going to swallow when you commune (which you don’t). I’m interested in an honest apologetic. Not one that flies the flags of goodness, truth, beauty, unity, antiquity, and holiness and then when someone brings up a problem all you get is shrugs.
I’ll give you credit. With you all we get is indignity. Not sure what gives you that moral status since you don’t take the mass and don’t adhere to infallible dogma.
Oh well. More of life’s questions.
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Joe M
Posted December 6, 2015 at 5:28 pm | Permalink
“Dr. Hart likes to pretend that Vatican II created a new religion”
No one needs to pretend here. At least no one who is familiar with the precincts. Saying the house hasn’t changed just because it’s stayed in the family, when the altars have been removed, the furniture sold or put in storage, the windows replaced, the fusebox gutted and the family library entirely restocked with books that would have scandalized the grandparents… If it’s not a new house, it’s one that has been refurbished to the point that its Four Last Things had to be put in mothballs. If under Francis they haven’t been given to Goodwill!
The usual fact-free rant. This is not an argument.
Calvin created a new religion. Dumped episcopal succession, dumped the Eucharist as it had been understood for 1000 years. Vatican II did nothing remotely like this.
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The missing middle term?
That the true church, against which the gates of hell shall not prevail, is built upon the prophets and apostles, ie. the Old and New Testament.
But Rome is not built upon the apostles and prophets i.e. the Bible.
Rather it is built upon the bones of the apostles.
Therefore the gates of hell shall prevail against it.
IOW it shall become the gate to hell in promoting a false gospel of semi pelagianism self righteousness Gal. 1:8,9, 2:16, Matt. 23:15.
Calvin created a new religion. Dumped episcopal succession, dumped the Eucharist as it had been understood for 1000 years. Vatican II did nothing remotely like this.
Ahhh yes, in the year of our Lord 1535 or so Calvin dumped the 1000 year old apostolic understanding of the eucharist.
Coherent much?
Even the (Roman) Catholic Encyclopedia tells us that Radbert Paschasius, in his De Corpore et Sanguine Domini (831) was the first to champion the transubstantiation doctrine.
(Provisional extension of the apostolic era to the 800’s?)
Facts? We don’t need no stinkin’ facts.
They just ruin our specialty, the fact-free rant.
You need to take a deep breath and go back to feeding squirrels, TVD.
They’re a far more appreciative audience for your expertise.
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Tom,
As for your emissions that the Crusades were self-evidently wrong, you fail to argue it successfully, indeed you fail to argue it atall. This is why your “syllogisms” are empty.
The pope doesn’t agree. Is this why you don’t submit to him?
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0003/12/sm.06.html
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Bob,
Now be fair to Tom. He thinks transubstantiation and other doctrines such as the Assumption are irrelevant matters to Rome’s claims and which he can freely be agnostic about.
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vd,t, “The usual fact-free rant. This is not an argument.”
The pope of the internet.
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Robert
Posted December 6, 2015 at 8:18 pm | Permalink
Bob,
Now be fair to Tom. He thinks transubstantiation and other doctrines such as the Assumption are irrelevant matters to Rome’s claims and which he can freely be agnostic about.
Don’t bear false witness, Robert. Especially on the Lord’s Day. That’s a two-fer.
D. G. Hart
Posted December 6, 2015 at 9:45 pm | Permalink
vd,t, “The usual fact-free rant. This is not an argument.”
The pope of the internet.
Drive-by Darryl Hart, as always, bringing up the rear. ;.-)
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Tom makes a good point about V2 relative to the Protestant deformation. The Catholic Church did swallow a load of progressive rubbish in the 1960s. Compare that farce, some of which is underwritten by the council, to what Luther, Calvin, Menno Simmons, and company absorbed four hundred years earlier, and the prots come out far more liberal. Catholicism is only now, in a single generation, catching up to where Protestantism has been for centuries.
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Wait, did a CTCer just say, effectively, “Yeah, the church Christ founded is going liberal, but just not as fast as the Protestants.”
Thanks Andrew for being honest enough to admit the radical dogmatic change of your communion.
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Robert, you’re welcome. Contemporary Catholicism is in many respects (the liturgy not the least) a version of aboriginal Protestantism. As can be gleaned from your response to my comment, you do not have sufficient grasp of either the English language or the ways of reason to understand the various distinctions that ought to be invoked with respect to the Protestant deformation and the relatively recent Catholic self- implosion, so I’ll be content to rest assured that you at least picked up on the point that this Catholic convert is willing to acknowledge that the Catholic Church has been in a state of abject disarray for fifty years.
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Yo, AP patronize much.
IOW ContempCatholic is not TrueCatholic so we shouldn’t get our hopes up.
Thanks, we already knew that.
(By the way, when are you going to tell the rest of your compatriots on the other thread, that the pope hasn’t declared 2+2=4 yet, but Francis will get around to defining the new math soon. Very soon.)
cheers
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Bobert, not much, but there are exceptions. Keep your hopes way low, as in amill low. That’s the surest way an old lifer (or anyone else) can thread the eye.
For crying out loud Bobert, Pope Francis is the A-1 elected exponent of the new math. My point is that that pedagogy is fifty years old in Catholic terms, ten times that in Prot reckoning. Either way, short change.
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AP,
Are the documents out of V2 good, but the clergy and laity misunderstand them, or are the documents themselves suspect?
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Andrew, you aren’t thinking along with your papi, that’s a no-no. Are you working on self excommunication or is the pope?
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All these cafeteria catholics, must be protestant residual afflicting your souls.
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Come on, AP. Fess up. You are trying to tell us on the lowdown that the the True Church Which Never Changes changes, right?
Really changes or just changes its lies?
Because if the first, then it’s not the True Church and it’s time for you to jet.
But you aren’t so #2
Right?
Yeah, that’s right. I can’t understand the jesuitical dialectic. It’s an inside thing. We is not a member of the club.
IOW this is just more of the same old CtC drivel as on the other threads, only much more succinct and obtuse.
Kudos for that.
next.
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Sobert,
You are undoubtedly a better Catholic than I.
Jetmoon,
The docs of V2 can be analyzed by exegetes, but their ultimate import will be measured by the whole of tradition, which is likewise open to exegesis. There have been a lot of councils leaving behind a lot of documents, all of which are open to interpretation. Assuming that the Church cannot contradict herself in her final word on a given matter (i.e., dogma), all of the documents are “good” in the sense of being legitimate witnesses to divine revelation. V2 defined no dogma, so its witness is less crucial than others. The impact of the council over the past fifty years has been out of proprotion both to its authority and the preceding tradition as safeguarded and taught by the magisterium. My hope is that this generation of Catholicism will eventually be relegated to a footnote of history or else Christ will return within our lifetimes and lay it all to rest. The Church militant is not the whole story. That is the gist of conservative ecclesiology and Christian hope. The Church militant is an essential part of the story, however, which thesis is contrary to the revolutionary spirit at the heart of aboriginal Protestantism.
Again, such distinctions are beyond the pale of the Sobert understanding, but I speak to the wise by way of the fool.
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Andrew,
Robert, you’re welcome. Contemporary Catholicism is in many respects (the liturgy not the least) a version of aboriginal Protestantism. As can be gleaned from your response to my comment, you do not have sufficient grasp of either the English language or the ways of reason to understand the various distinctions that ought to be invoked with respect to the Protestant deformation and the relatively recent Catholic self- implosion, so I’ll be content to rest assured that you at least picked up on the point that this Catholic convert is willing to acknowledge that the Catholic Church has been in a state of abject disarray for fifty years.
I’m pretty sure that “Protestant deformation” doesn’t reflect the rules of charitable dialogue that Bryan set up. What, you don’t have to abide by them when you’re not at CTC?
Thanks for the pat on the head, though.
And it’s good that you’re admitting that the RCC has been in a state of abject disarray for fifty years. Now what would be great is if you would write a full-length article outlining that position and have it published on CTC. That would be some of the honesty that Darryl faults the site for lacking.
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Anyone want to take bets on how long it is before CTC adopts the apologetic we’ve just seen:
Roman Catholicism—Cause it’s better to take the sharp dive off the cliff into theological confusion than it is to drive the winding, slow ramp to get there.
or
Roman Catholicism—We’re still wrong, but we haven’t been wrong for as long as Geneva has.
or
Roman Catholicism—Because it’s superior to embrace modernity over a few years in the mid 60s than to take some 400 years or so to get there.
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And I’m gonna take up for my old communion, your papi is a poster child of Vat II. Vat II is real, it happened, it was purposeful and has now spanned multiple popes WITHOUT revocation. You converts need to get on board. Ratzinger bought you some time with his hermenuetic of continuity but papi even rolled back the Latin preference on the Franciscans, you haven’t got a hope for it. The ordinary form is just that, the norm. You guys need to get over your fundy prot ways and get with it. Stop resisting the spirit, your infallibus only kicks in when you ‘think’ along with your heirarchical mother.
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And thou art a better jesuit snake than I, AP as well as despicable.
But I was born in the bosom of that whore so I wouldn’t know.
You do, but you won’t tell us.
Fooling around doesn’t cut it outside the Roman bubble.
cheers
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AP, who needs more exegetes? You have Rahner whose very language on top of the concepts permeate it. He gave you all sorts of interpretation. And now your papi is telling you you’re part of the problem. “Hoping it goes away” now there’s some certitude. Where’s CVD? CVD, look at all this supernatural knowing going on! Poor poor Papi, has all these fundy prots to overcome in the ways of Ignatian spirituality. They have seminars at my old seminary, I’ll host. Come learn of the ways not born of the letter. I’ll see if Matthew Fox is still alive.
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Sean,
Does Ignatian spirituality entail and poor poor papi teach the sacraments are worthless, the Mass shouldn’t be celebrated, Christ is not divine, Paul was under a delusion, the church and tradition has no divine authority, Scripture is not inspired, and so forth? Get back to me when that happens. Saying “hey I saw some liberal priests and RC scholars talking at a seminar” doesn’t quite cut the mustard.
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Sobert,
There is a time and a place for all things. This is the place for insulting one’s interlocutors, which I am happy to do when they have proved themselves imbeciles. The reasoning (such as it is) is for the sake of those still capable of the same.
Anyways, ya’ll missed the point. Protestantism has been revolutionary from the outset. You guys got to liberal 500 years ago. Its part of your essence. If you want to avoid liberalism, you need to go back to the drawing board. Pope Francis and V2-only Catholicism are arch-conservative by contrast, which is to say, still wishywashy and anomalous in comparison to the whole of tradition. I’ll grant that the most principled apologetic for Catholicism has little to do with the state of the contemporary Church. It has much to do with the identity of the Church. That is, of course, a distinction beyound the scope of the Sobert mind.
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Whatever SAP,
you had your chance at damage control and you blew it.
Popery, mariolatry and image worship, transubstantiation that’s not revolutionary. That’s Scripture.
Believe in it or be damned.
We got it.
next.
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Andrew, but Calvin and Luther only absorbed what Rome brought into the world — Ockham and Scotus.
No cherry picking.
And now the church you joined is rubbish? Hey now.
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Andrew, why not credit Protestants with addressing Rome’s first self-implosion — the Great Schism?
It keeps happening. The Yugo of churches.
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Andrew,
There is a time and a place for all things. This is the place for insulting one’s interlocutors, which I am happy to do when they have proved themselves imbeciles. The reasoning (such as it is) is for the sake of those still capable of the same.
Yeah, the reasoning that “Hey, we’re just as confused as you are now but we’re still better” is sound thinking.
Anyways, ya’ll missed the point. Protestantism has been revolutionary from the outset. You guys got to liberal 500 years ago. Its part of your essence.
I don’t seem to recall Luther or Calvin denying the Trinity or holding conferences to figure out if you could get people in impenitent mortal sin to get back to the sacramental life or being confused about whether or not homosexuality was a sin. Meanwhile, 1 in 7 RC bishops at the recent synod on the family weren’t so clear.
If you want to avoid liberalism, you need to go back to the drawing board. Pope Francis and V2-only Catholicism are arch-conservative by contrast, which is to say, still wishywashy and anomalous in comparison to the whole of tradition.
Who on the Magisterium thinks this. Even the most liberal bishops aren’t trying to get V2 overturned. As Sean has noted, it’s over. The only thing that will turn back the clock will be a full-on revolt by the conservatives, but I don’t see it happening. All I here from them is “Man this sucks, but the church is still our mother and still infallible” before huddling off in the corner and talking to the echo chamber while Francis embraces confused Protestants as brother bishops. Oh, I guess this is not an exercise of infallibility—according to who?
I’ll grant that the most principled apologetic for Catholicism has little to do with the state of the contemporary Church. It has much to do with the identity of the Church. That is, of course, a distinction beyound the scope of the Sobert mind.
Sorry, if you are going to go full on papist, the identity of the church is what the pope is doing now. As Sean has also noted. It wasn’t the liberals who Francis lectured recently.
Honestly, I feel bad for you conservatives. But the honest thing would be to say V2 was a huge mistake and to join a sedevacantist sect. This idea that Rome is still infallible under the present hierarchy is absolutely laughable. Wishful thinking, and that’s being generous.
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Robert — or
Roman Catholicism — with so many more years and so many more bishops, read the fine print before you heed the call.
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James Young, did the Auburn Affirmation change the Westminster Confession?
You’re not this dumb.
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Robert, be nice to Andrew. He’s all blogged up because CTC hasn’t had a post since August. He’s feeling frisky.
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Oh, so now we’re down to sacerdotalism. That’s what I’ve been telling you for four years. But you guys keep pounding away on certitude and infallibility. If you want to affirm that at the end of the day it’s implicit faith and attending mass. I got the T-shirts dating back to ’69.
Saw some liberal priests! That’s a good one, how about your pope. Is he just some liberal priests? How about the German bishops? How about the USCCB? Talk about not making the grade, CVD. You’re somewhere out in the hinterlands and nowhere near your infallibility since you can’t manage to think along with your mother. If you and Tom want to affirm the Holy Spirit, you can’t be waiting for him to call mulligan on the last fifity years. Somebody is struggling with their papi’s audacity.
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Dsobert,
I wish that Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli had aborbed what Rome brought into the world. Then your particular progressive religious movement would not have happened. As for your second question and the follow-up comment, schism is not reform, nor is heresy development, nor is full-on papism Catholicism. V2 was regrettable in many of its key formulations and applications. Many Catholic apologists have been pretending that the emperor is fully clothed ever since, while some have cried out that he is indecent. I’m with the latter tribe within the Catholic communion. We are of course divided, but division can be said in many ways. Another distinction beyond the grasp of you relatively clever monkeys.
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Sean,
“Oh, so now we’re down to sacerdotalism. That’s what I’ve been telling you for four years. But you guys keep pounding away on certitude and infallibility.”
Um, certitude and infallibility is tied to the very practice of the mass in the first place. That’s the point. You don’t have the mass or practice of the faith without dogmas. So every time poor papi is celebrating mass or performing/taking sacraments or praying the office or reading Scripture, he is affirming dogma and certitude and infallibility.
“That’s a good one, how about your pope. Is he just some liberal priests?”
The church isn’t reduced to the pope. Ever read the history of the popes?
“How about the German bishops? How about the USCCB?”
The church isn’t reduced to the German bishops. It isn’t reduced to the USCCB. Ever read the history of Arianism? And why did you neglect Africa, Asia, and conservatives within Europe and the US? I guess they don’t count as relevant to the narrative.
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CVD, again, if you can’t think along with your magisterium and her application of the novus ordo you can’t have your infallibility. So, you can’t be prefering the extraordinary form when the holy spirit has infallilbly led your mother to embrace the novus ordo. You don’t have your infallibility in your practice of the mass when you’ve resisted her leading. Thus, your papi rolling down on the Franciscans.
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Sean,
The novus ordo reflects dogma just as much as the tridentine rite does. I could become a marionite or eastern rite catholic as well – that would still reflect dogma. That’s the point.
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So, let me get this straight, CVD, you’re the infallible discerner of which priestly charism to embrace and which to eschew. Even and particularly, apparently, when that charism is donning the papal cossack. This infallibility bit is slippery. Btw, have you gotten your canon law degree yet? Cuz I can access a few of those guys as well to weigh your judgement.
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CVD, that bypasses that the holy spirit established a preference, otherwise known as a norm. You don’t have your infalliblity if it’s not in concert with that interpretation. All you have at that point is the sanctity of your religious conscience. You don’t have what you have infallibly.
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Sean,
Canon law still affirms infallibility. http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/_P2H.HTM
I’m no infallible discerner. The novus ordo rite is just one of many RCs are free to choose from. All of which reflect dogma.
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CVD, if that were so, there would’ve been no reason for Ratzinger to have established an exception and Francis to have rolled it back. It’s not one of many, it is the norm.
CVD, you missed the point on infallibilty.
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Sean,
Can you tell me what dogma is lost when celebrating the novus ordo as opposed to the tridentine rite or any of the eastern rites?
Has Francis forced all the eastern rite churches to adopt the novus ordo?
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We are of course divided, but division can be said in many ways.
We’ll make it simple for you, Andrew.
However you want to cut the cake, Rome is divided from Christ and his Word.
It happened at the Reformation with Trent and Vat 2 merely made dogma, including Trent, relative.
Arguably you get to pick and choose in the big tent, but ultimately it’s still a clown show for the damned; a congeries of opposites and a complex oppositorum that still ultimately fails.
You’re welcome.
CVD get the propaganda right.
Certitude and infallibility is tied to transubstantiation, i.e. medieval sacerdotal sorcery.
So whatever Francis says, as long as he “says” the Mass, it’s all good.
But as TVD can tell you: ‘in the beginning was the Eucharist and the Eucharist was with God and the Eucharist was God’.
You know.
What you told us couldn’t happen.
The Magicksterium’s Traditions performatively morphed into the Word of God. Not really though, because then Rome would have changed
the Wordand Rome never changes, even when she changes, nominally or not.Andrew? He’s into bananas, if not nuts.
Maybe TVD will let him help feed the squirrels, while you get left with the crumbs.
Hey, it’s not fair, but what else is?
Remember, when in Rome do as the Romanians.
And be nice to the gypsies. They may pick your pocket, but only popery steals your
reasonablesoul as is evident from .LikeLike
CVD, none. The Novus Ordo is the norm. To the degree you reject the novus ordo or prefer the extraordinary form you are resisting the conclusions of the holy spirit at Vat II. Infalliblility is dependent on thinkning with the magisterial leading of the church. If you’re resisting or preferring something else, you can’t have your infallibility. Infallibility is had in concert as a corporate engagement. It’s not an individual religious conscience affirmation. You may have your sanctity intact but not your infallibility. That’s WHY Ratzinger BOTHERED to make exception and WHY Francis bothered to roll it back. Now, if you want me to justify all that manuevering and then alleged continuity not rupture. I’m not your guy. I’m protesting
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Sean,
“CVD, none. ”
Great, so “you can’t have your infallibility” was actually incorrect. All the various liturgical rites I’m permitted by the church to attend and celebrate reflect dogma, which is infallible.
“If you’re resisting or preferring something else, you can’t have your infallibility”
The church teaches multiple rites are permitted. That entails RCs are free to choose. What they are not free to do is say that those who go to one rite over the other are lesser/better catholics or not catholics or one rite gives the sacraments while the other doesn’t.
The eastern rite catholics aren’t practicing the novus ordo. I’m free to attend an eastern rite mass or join such a church and still remain in communion with Rome.
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sean
Posted December 7, 2015 at 5:57 pm | Permalink
CVD, none. The Novus Ordo is the norm. To the degree you reject the novus ordo or prefer the extraordinary form you are resisting the conclusions of the holy spirit at Vat II.
I love how ex-/anti-Catholics make up the rules of the Catholic Church and then condemn the Church for breaking them. Nice racket.
_______
Bob S
Posted December 7, 2015 at 5:43 pm | Permalink
Certitude and infallibility is tied to transubstantiation, i.e. medieval sacerdotal sorcery.
So whatever Francis says, as long as he “says” the Mass, it’s all good.
But as TVD can tell you: ‘in the beginning was the Eucharist and the Eucharist was with God and the Eucharist was God’.
You know.
What you told us couldn’t happen.
Usually I can tell which words of mine you’re twisting, but this one has me stumped.
As for the Eucharist, your argument is with Christ, so please leave me out of it.
More: http://www.catholic.com/tracts/christ-in-the-eucharist
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CVD, no, I was correcting your misstatement in your prior reply. So, my statement as regards your infalliblility stands. You aren’t free to prefer it. They’re allowing it as a means of ecumenical outreach. But the Novus Ordo is the norm as established in the liturgical reforms at Vat II. AGAIN, that’s the WHY of the exception and the WHY of the roll back. You can have your sanctity of conscience, you can’t have your infallibility. Why that should make sense or that it makes sense or that it’s inconsistent or consistent is your problem. Unlike TVD, I went to mass and read and practiced.
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Sean,
“They’re allowing it as a means of ecumenical outreach.”
Um, eastern rite churches are in communion with Rome. They aren’t eastern orthodox.
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Umm, yea, I understood that CVD. I also understand that the accomodations were made/confirmed at Vat II. That’s the WHY of a ruling. You don’t want to call that ecumenical outreach? I don’t care.
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Andrew,
Many Catholic apologists have been pretending that the emperor is fully clothed ever since, while some have cried out that he is indecent. I’m with the latter tribe within the Catholic communion.
Good. Now we’re waiting for is the full-on CTC article:
“Come join us. We’re pretty sure the current Magisterium is naked, but what the hey!”
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sean
Posted December 7, 2015 at 6:15 pm | Permalink
Unlike TVD, I went to mass and read and practiced.
Obviously not enough, smart guy.
Cletus van Damme
Posted December 7, 2015 at 6:07 pm | Permalink
Sean,
The church teaches multiple rites are permitted. That entails RCs are free to choose. What they are not free to do is say that those who go to one rite over the other are lesser/better catholics or not catholics or one rite gives the sacraments while the other doesn’t.
The eastern rite catholics aren’t practicing the novus ordo. I’m free to attend an eastern rite mass or join such a church and still remain in communion with Rome.
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sean, what does this sacramental stuff have to do with epistemology? You got James Young off his philosophy seminar. Thanks.
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TVD, they aren’t free to choose if they don’t come from an eastern rite church/heritage. It’s an accommodation. If you come from a ‘western rite’ church you’re commanded to keep your own rites. It’s not a free for all. And, AGAIN, Francis has already re-affirmed the liturgical reforms of Vat II including rolling back exceptions that Ratzinger allowed. Emphasis on “roll back” and “allowed” both go to my point. I studied pretty good. You and Clete need to stop resisting me and your papi.
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Your papi. He then went all discipline on the Franciscans for ‘explotation’.
“Vatican II was a re-reading of the Gospel in light of contemporary culture,” says the pope. “Vatican II produced a renewal movement that simply comes from the same Gospel. Its fruits are enormous. Just recall the liturgy. The work of liturgical reform has been a service to the people as a re-reading of the Gospel from a concrete historical situation. Yes, there are hermeneutics of continuity and discontinuity, but one thing is clear: the dynamic of reading the Gospel, actualizing its message for today—which was typical of Vatican II—is absolutely irreversible. Then there are particular issues, like the liturgy according to the Vetus Ordo. I think the decision of Pope Benedict [his decision of July 7, 2007, to allow a wider use of the Tridentine Mass] was prudent and motivated by the desire to help people who have this sensitivity. What is worrying, though, is the risk of the ideologization of the Vetus Ordo, its exploitation.”
Papi puts teeth to his worries;
“Announcing the appointment in a letter dated July 11, the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life also issued a decree saying that Pope Francis requires all the friars “to celebrate the liturgy according to the ordinary rite,” the post-Vatican II Mass, and that the use of the so-called extraordinary form or pre-Vatican II Latin Mass “must be explicitly authorized by the competent authorities for every religious or community that makes a request.”
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TVD, to help you and Clete out, you ain’t the ‘competent authorities’ he has in mind.
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Sean,
“What is worrying, though, is the risk of the ideologization of the Vetus Ordo, its exploitation.”
Um, thats exactly what I said above regarding what wasnt permitted.
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Umm, not it’s not. You said you were free to choose. And you aren’t. Even if you’re of an eastern rite heritage you’re commanded to keep the rites consistent with your heritage. That’s not a freedom to choose eastern or otherwise. And this is even intending to be more restricting if you’re from a western heritage chasing a tradition and past that Vat II IRREVERSIBLY(Sorry Andrew) sought to modernize for a contemporary culture. Thus, the teeth. You converts really aren’t any good at this dance.
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Dsobert,
Regarding the liturgy (and, perhaps, other matters), we are dealing with a case of magisterium versus magisterium, which goes to show that the Catholic’s rule of faith is either (1) incoherent or (2) not reducible to the living magisterium alone. I think that the latter is the case, since the Church is not reducible to the Church militant.
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Sean,
There are latin masses and eastern rite masses offered all over the country and world. The pope was warning against those who elevate EF above the novus ordo and view NO as inferior or do the rad trad business. Thats not permitted. The pope could forbid EF tomorrow as a matter of prudence. People who left the church because of that would be guilty of what the pope is cautioning against. And Im not a convert.
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Come on TVD.
Up your game.
Been there done that re. John 6 here
Again if Scripture interprets Scripture and the clear the dark, John 6:35 precedes and interprets 6:53-56:
And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.
Even further, it was again the Jews then, the papists now, who get hung up on the hard saying and think Christ is talking about them eating his flesh in 6:52, meanwhile Peter, the erstwhile first pope, says Christ has the “words of eternal life” in 6:68.
Words. Not Wonderbread.
But SAP and CVD, this was all supposed to be so easy.
At least that’s what Bryan was selling, if not the rest of the itinerant unordained peddlers who have showed up in the combox with the stolen goods, epistemologically.
Now you are telling us it is a little more arcane than that.
Whatever.
Beam me up Scotty.
I’ve had enough of the jesuitical qualifications.
1 Cor. 14:8 For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?
There’s got to be a happy medium between implicit faith and parsing the combox at CtC and it ain’t Rome’s new phariseeism, our happy clappy Francis notwithstanding.
If Vat. 2 was so perspicuous none of this would be happening according to the narrative. Rather it is the (New) TradCathChurch, which is the same as the Old TCC.
Me, I’ll take my fiction neat, not doused in smug gnostic religiosity.
cheers
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Bob S
Posted December 8, 2015 at 3:58 am | Permalink
Come on TVD.
Up your game.
W/all due respect, you’re not in the game, Bob. Even your co-religionists ignore you. You embarrass them with your noxious and crazy talk. They want nothing to do with you.
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sean
Posted December 7, 2015 at 8:56 pm | Permalink
TVD, they aren’t free to choose if they don’t come from an eastern rite church/heritage. It’s an accommodation. If you come from a ‘western rite’ church you’re commanded to keep your own rites. It’s not a free for all.
Quote the Church, not yourself, Sean.
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Andrew,
Regarding the liturgy (and, perhaps, other matters), we are dealing with a case of magisterium versus magisterium, which goes to show that the Catholic’s rule of faith is either (1) incoherent or (2) not reducible to the living magisterium alone. I think that the latter is the case, since the Church is not reducible to the Church militant.
Sorry, you guys don’t get to throw all your weight into the superiority of the “principled means” that the RC paradigm supposedly offers when at the end of the day a statement like this evidences that your final authority is your interpretation of the rule of faith and not the rule of faith itself.
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Andrew, “the Church is not reducible to the Church militant.”
And you learned that thanks to Vat 2 when Balthasar pushed aside Aquinas without even becoming a doctor of the church.
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Clete, that there are latin masses all over the world doesn’t answer the change of Vat II liturgical reforms. It’s not a choice among equal opportunities. ‘Actualization’ of the gospel in a modern context was a putting the mass in the vernacular. This was particularly important as the ‘gospel’ was reoriented around, toward, and to address the human condition. Think therapeutic, modern, and political-RC social teaching(student revolts, liberation theology, societal redress without the recourse to monarchy and/or coercion).
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Dsobert,
Invoking the distinction between condition and identity, and making a case as to the latter, is not an assertion of superiority. Only a confessionalist could continuely be so confused on such a simple point.
That the whole is Church is not reducible to the Church militant follows from the premise that the departed in Christ are still a part of the mystical body of Christ. This includes even Thomas Aquinas, and possibly St Augustine.
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Andrew,
Invoking the distinction between condition and identity, and making a case as to the latter, is not an assertion of superiority. Only a confessionalist could continuely be so confused on such a simple point.
Give me a break. The whole argument of Bryan Cross is that RCism is superior because it provides a principled means to distinguish between dogma and opinion. Are you dissenting from that now?
I’m waiting to hear the new call:
“Protestants are worse off because they use their fallible, solo Scriptura approach, but we RCs really do know what the church is and what she teaches, though what she teaches has been an incoherent mess for 50 years.” Compelling.
That the whole is Church is not reducible to the Church militant follows from the premise that the departed in Christ are still a part of the mystical body of Christ. This includes even Thomas Aquinas, and possibly St Augustine.
Ah yes, but it’s the Magisterium that defines dogma, and the only Magisterium speaking to you is the Magisterium of the church militant. And now you tell me their theology and practice is a mess. Where now is thine principled means?
Possibly St. Augustine? So he’s not in heaven now?
My my my, what in the world is going on at CTC?
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Yo TVD, I wuv you too.
Andrew, your last is even more off point/irrelevant.
But from what very little I know, that is fundamental to the Roman apologetic.
Red herrings it is.
Along with Ignatius’s 13th rule.
If the church says black is white, that’s what it is.
cheers
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