Development of Doctrine

[Aindriú]

I'm wondering how Card. Newman's development of doctrine got around these:

Dogmatic constitution on the Catholic faith

Pius, bishop, servant of the servants of God, with the approval of the Sacred Council, for an everlasting record

14. Hence, too, that meaning of the sacred dogmas is ever to be maintained which has once been declared by Holy mother Church, and there must never be any abandonment of this sense under the pretext or in the name of a more profound understanding.

May understanding, knowledge and wisdom increase as ages and centuries roll along, and greatly and vigorously flourish, in each and all, in the individual and the whole Church: but this only in its own proper kind, that is to say, in the same doctrine, the same sense, and the same understanding

canon 3. If anyone says that it is possible that at some time, given the advancement of knowledge, a sense may be assigned to the dogmas propounded by the Church which is different from that which the Church has understood and understands: let him be anathema.

http://www.ewtn.com/library/councils/v1.htm#5

What do you consider to be the biggest fear of that statement in terms of contradiction?

We already have many items of the Christian faith that seem to, or actually do, conflict with modern science.

[ialmisry]

I'm wondering how Card. Newman's development of doctrine got around these:

Dogmatic constitution on the Catholic faith

Pius, bishop, servant of the servants of God, with the approval of the Sacred Council, for an everlasting record

14. Hence, too, that meaning of the sacred dogmas is ever to be maintained which has once been declared by Holy mother Church, and there must never be any abandonment of this sense under the pretext or in the name of a more profound understanding.

May understanding, knowledge and wisdom increase as ages and centuries roll along, and greatly and vigorously flourish, in each and all, in the individual and the whole Church: but this only in its own proper kind, that is to say, in the same doctrine, the same sense, and the same understanding

canon 3. If anyone says that it is possible that at some time, given the advancement of knowledge, a sense may be assigned to the dogmas propounded by the Church which is different from that which the Church has understood and understands: let him be anathema.

http://www.ewtn.com/library/councils/v1.htm#5

You don't "get around" it.  You abide it and you work to understand the MEANING of dogma and insure that it is neither contradicted nor destroyed.

IOW, you pull a Hefele and set about discovering how 2+2 can =5.  That is, of course, if you have some integrity.  If you don't, you simple deny that 2=2 and insist that the emperor isn't naked, we all just have x-ray vision.

Why? Because Al Misry says so?

No.  I neither speak ex cathedra, nor +Sic dixit Isa, nor make infallible claims.  I just present the documents your Vatican presents (and hides) in making its claims to infallibility, putting on its +Imprimatur and its "evidence" offered ex cathedra.

The meaning of a text or teaching is up to the magisterium to teach...not you...or me.

but for you it is up to your magisterium to rewrite history and modify texts to teach its "infallible" version.

I deal in historical texts.  If you want to resort to tea leave reading, that's your choice. Just don't confuse the two and tell us your "magisterium" has a priviledged access to the meaning of texts a thousand or so years old (or more) as they were undertood when they were written.  Revisionism does not history make.

I have an obligation to learn and study the teachings, but I don't have the right or the obligation to twist them to suit.

Yes, only your supreme pontiff has that absolute right.

You don't have such restrictions.

Neither does your "magisterium."

I am not even sure if you have them in Orthodoxy, since there's no common catechism from which to draw a universal guidance.

LOL.  I know I predate the CCC, so I know that you do as well, or have you forgotten?

We have gone over this before:

have fun...

Absolutely meaningless exercise.

Absolutely not!

I have had more than one occaison where I have shown to a person how the CCC is incorrect from an historical and/or theological perspective, and for any die hard Catholic apologist their last desparate response is:

"So what? The CCC is not a reliable source of Catholic teaching anyway!"

           

So why bother with the CCC? Because it  a reliable source of the Vatican's teaching

More at the linked post.

You're right, Father,  it is just for this reason that I think it wise to go through this question.  On the one hand we are often told we do not have a catechism like the CCC, which is pointed out as "proof" of our deficiency, but then when we examine it, we get responses as you posted.  Either it is authoritative-and the pope of the Vatican says it is-or it is not.

But you are talking to yourself

Obviously not. ChristusDominus felt compelled to post

Wyatt, my Roman Catholic brother, I'd rather shoot pool with a rope than pay attention to any of his burlesque comments.

rather than PM. I assume for a reason. No doubt if the thread goes on or someone brings it to Mardukm attention, he'll come to post some of his pronouncements (rather than citations) in encouragement of the idea that we don't know what we talk about, until the citations of your authorities scares him away (I notice that he posts at CAF and Byzcath when he's too preoccupied to post here. Of course, more members of the Vatican's choir over there, and he is free to choose his audience. Just not the response). Then those who lurk. Caveat lector.

This thread will provide a handy reference when the CCC paints the Vatican apologist into a corner and they try to evade that by disowning the CCC. As Fr. Chris stated, it happens. When it does I can just post a link and continue on ad rem.

about a tradition that you not only do not understand

That I reject it proffers no evidence that I do not understand it. I leave it to my citations to argue otherwise. Caveat lector.

but that you reject without a serious life long attempt

Being neither Hindu nor Buddhist, I do not labor under the dilusion (as the Fifth Council tells us) that I have more than one life to live. Meandering down a dead end is not a way to spend it.

I have the testimony of SS Photius, Gregory Palamas and Mark of Ephesus: I have no need to attempt a defense of your "Supreme Pontiffs" Leo IX ("sanctamque Romanam aecclesiam omnium aecclesiarum matrem et magistram ") Innocent III,  Boniface VII and Pius IX, nor the time to waste doing so.

to see how it all is true, and how it all fits in its wholeness.

If the first sip of Kool-Aid tastes funny, I don't need to drink it down to the dreggs to know it's poisoned.

I am not limber enough for the gymnastics required to squeeze Ultramontanism into Orthodoxy. Your Suprememe Pontiff just reiterated 3 years ago that he thinks the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Orthodox Church is "lacking." Since I know that the Orthodox Church lacks nothing, I am not puzzled and so need no more pieces to see "how it fits in its wholeness."

You spend time around Catholics who tell you things that are not so

not so because it doesn't fit your agenda?  No, I spend time citing sources such as the CCC, in which your "Magisterium" tells you things that are not so.

and you suck it up like a sponge because it suits your own agenda, and then you arrogate to yourself the capability to do what you propose here?

I can read. So can those who come here. Caveat lector.

You are not even dialoging with the text.

Pointing out its flaws and errors is dialogue.  Thinking otherwise is why the Ravenna/Crete/Cyrpus/Vienna texts are going to go nowhere.

You are using the text to highlight your own biases.

I am biased towards Orthodoxy. I swore to remain so at my chrismation.

As I said, in any real sense, it is a waste of your precious time.

 
Unfortunately I've wasted time on far, far less.

All it does is exercise your extreme dislike for things Catholic.

No, all things Ultramontane.

I come from Lutherans on one side of my family.  It helps to know that is the tradition from which you came.   It is a very very bitter relationship still.

The Lutherans and the Vatican?

This, quite frankly, is a silly question.  Anyone who knows anything about Catholic theology knows that the CCC is not infallible, i.e., irreformable, in all of its details.  How could it be?  

We're not the ones who believe the silly claims of Pastor Aeternus.

It is issued by the same authority which issued the documents of Vatican II, of comparable length: what part/detail of them do you not hold infallible?

Silly claims or not the Catholic Church has a way of understanding her own teachings and ways of doing things.  You do not have the tools to do the same, and you would not use them if you did because you lack a certain inclination.  This is not a criticism of you personally.  It is simply the way of things at the moment.

NO Orthodox BODY...since I arrived at reading this Forum seems to have a clue as to what infallibility is all about.  

The truth is the truth.  It is revealed.  Only the Triune God ever knows revealed truth as it truly is.  The rest of us muddle along, best way we can.

Infallibility does not measure the truth or falsehood of some thing.

The various means of knowing how certain we can be that a given statement or other is actually part of that truth is called infallibility.

Sometimes a truth can only be understood to be true when taken in the WHOLENESS or CATHOLICITY of a set of truths or the entirety of revelation...as it is humanly possible for us to know it.

So you are nit picking on a dog that has no nits.

And if he did, you are too myopic in your vision to actually see them.

Father is correct.  All that you are suggesting here has NOTHING to do with Catholic teaching in any way.

It is, as I have noted, a waste of time.   You don't have the proper tool-kit and would not use it, if you could find one.

You simply do not have the nous.

Mary

EM evidently would find that the great Döllinger didn't have the nous either. He certainly had integrity.

Archbishop Scherr, of Munich, was a personal friend of Dr. Döllinger, and was at first one of the opponents of the dogma of infallibility. At the railway station of Munich, as he was starting to attend the Vatican Council, he assured Dr. Döllinger that in 'he event (which the archbishop thought improbable) of the dogma being proposed in the Council, it should have his determined opposition. For a time the archbishop took his place among the minority of the Council, but he yielded at last, and excommunicated Dr. Döllinger for not following his example. Yet I never heard Dr. Döllinger speak bitterly of him. On the contrary, he made excuses for him urged that he had acted under pressure from Rome; pleaded that he had more piety than strength of character; and declared that he was bound to act as he did, or resign his see. To illustrate the archbishop's esprit exalté", which subordinated his judgment to his religious emotions, Dr. Döllinger one day told me the following anecdote, on the authority of Archbishop Scherr himself. When the archbishop received information from Rome that he was to be presented with the archiepiscopal pallium on a given day, he immediately began to prepare himself for this great honor by devoting the interval to retirement and religious exercises. The pallium is generally, but not invariably, made by the nuns of one of the Roman convents from the wool of lambs kept on purpose — a fact which added to the honor of the gift. On the stated day, the archbishop's servant announced the arrival of the messenger with the pall. The archbishop expected a special envoy from the Vatican and a formal investiture sanctified by the papal benediction, instead of which there walked into his presence a Jewish banker with a bundle under his arm, out of which he presently produced the pall with a bill for £200. Keenly as Dr. Döllinger entered into the humor of the story, he really told it as an illustration of the archbishop's simplicity of character, and by way of excusing his conduct in excommunicating himself. "To him," he said, " the dogma presents no insuperable difficulty, and he cannot understand why it should present any to me. He bows to authority, and cannot see that authority has no more to do with historical facts than it has to do with mathematical facts." He was always prone to make excuses for the bishops who accepted the dogma of infallibility—even for those who had been among its most prominent opponents at the Vatican Council. He showed me once a letter from one of the latter, in which the writer—a distinguished prelate — declared that he was in sad perplexity. He had proclaimed the dogma, he said, while still remaining in the same mind in which he had opposed it at the Council. "But what could I do?" he asked. "Can one be in the Church and be out of communion with the pope? Yet can it be right to proclaim what one does not believe? Such is my dilemma, and it has made me so unhappy that I have thought of resigning my see. On reflection, I nave chosen what I consider the safest course." "Allowance must be made for these men," said Dr. Döllinger. "Habit is second nature, and their mental attitude has been so invariably that of unquestioning obedience to papal authority, that when they have to choose between that authority and allegiance to what they believe to be historical truth, their second nature asserts itself and they yield."

On a subsequent occasion, I asked Dr. Döllinger if he thought the Bishop of Rottenburg (Dr. Hefele) would end by accepting the dogma. The case was in one way a crucial one. As an authority on the historical bearings of the question, Hefele was the best equipped man at the Council. His masterly "History of the Councils " is accepted as the standard authority on all hands. Not only did he oppose the dogma at the Vatican Council, but during the sitting of the Council he published, through the Neapolitan press, a pamphlet against it, basing his opposition on the example of Honorius as a test case. Perrone, the great theologian of the Roman College, and a strong Infallibilist, has laid it down in his standard work on "Dogmatic Theology," that if only one pope can be proved to have given, ex cathedra, a heterodox decision on faith or morals, the whole doctrine collapses. Hefele accordingly took the case of Honorius, and proved that this pope had been condemned as a heretic by popes and oecumenical councils. Pennachi, professor of church history in Rome, replied to Hefele, and Hefele returned to the charge in a rejoinder so powerful that he was left master of the field. If therefore Hefele, so honest as well as so able and learned, accepted the dogma, it was not likely that any other bishop of the minority would hold out. "He must yield," said Dr. Döllinger said to me, three months after the prorogation of the Vatican Council, "or resign his see. His quinquennial faculties have expired and the pope refuses to renew them until Hefele accepts the decree. At this moment there are nineteen couples of rank in his diocese who cannot get married because they are within the forbidden degrees, and Hefele cannot grant them dispensations." "But since he denies the pope's infallibility," I asked, "why does he not himself grant the necessary dispensations?" "My friend," replied Döllinger, "you forget that the members of the Church of Rome have been brought up in the belief that a dispensation is not valid without these papal faculties, and a marriage under any other dispensation would not be acknowledged in society." The event proved that Döllinger was right. The quinquennial faculties are a tremendous power in the hands of the pope. They are, in fact, papal licenses, renewed every five years, which enable the bishops to exercise extraordinary episcopal functions that ordinarily belong to the pope, such as the power of absolving from heresy, schism, apostasy, secret crime (except murder), from vows, obligations of fasting, prohibition of marriage within the prohibited degrees, and also the power to permit the reading of prohibited books. It is obvious that the extinction of the quinquennial faculties in a diocese means the paralysis in a short time of its ordinary administration. It amounts to a sort of modified interdict. And so Dr. Hefele soon discovered. The dogma was proclaimed in the Vatican Council on the 18th of July, 1870, and on the 10th of the following April Hefele submitted. But he was too honest to let it be inferred that his submission was due to any change of conviction. He deemed it his duty to submit in spite of his convictions, because "the peace and unity of the Church is so great a good that great and heavy personal sacrifices may be made for it." Bishop Strossmayer held out longest of all; but he yielded at last, so far as to allow the dogma to be published in the official gazette of his diocese during his absence in Rome. Nevertheless, he remained to the last on the most friendly terms with Dr. Döllinger, and it was to a letter from Dr. Döllinger that I was indebted for a most interesting visit to Bishop Strossmayer in Croatia in 1876.

To some able and honest minds Dr. Döllinger's attitude on the question of infallibility is a puzzle. His refusal to accept the dogma, while he submitted meekly to an excommunication which he believed to be unjust, seems to them an inconsistency. This view is put forward in an interesting article on Dr. Döllinger in the Spectator of last January 18, and, as it is a view which is probably held by many, I quote the gist of the article before I try to show what Dr. Döllinger's point of view really was: —

There was something very English in Dr. Döllinger's illogical pertinacity in holding his own position on points of detail, in spite of the inconsistency of that position on points of detail with the logic of his general creed. He was, in fact, more tenacious of what his historical learning had taught him, than he was of the a priori position which he had previously assumed — namely, that a true Church must be infallible, and that his Church was actually infallible. No one had taught this more distinctly than Dr. Döllinger. Yet first he found one erroneous drift in the practical teaching of his Church, then he found another, and then when at last his Church formally declared that the true providential guarantee of her infallibility extended only to the Papal definition of any dogma touching faith and morals promulgated with a view to teach the Church, he ignored that decree, though it was sanctioned by one of the most unanimous as well as one of the most numerously attended of her Councils, and preferred to submit to excommunication rather than to profess his acceptance of it. And then later he came, we believe, to declare that he was no more bound by the decrees of the Council of Trent than be was by the decrees of the Council of the Vatican. None the less he always submitted to the disciplinary authority of the Church, even after he had renounced virtually her dogmatic authority. He never celebrated mass nor assumed any of the functions of a priest after his excommunication. In other words, he obeyed the Church in matters in which no one had ever claimed for her that she could not err, after he had ceased to obey htr in matters in which he had formerly taught that she could not err, and in which, so far as we know, he had only in his latter years taught that she could err by explicitly rejecting the decrees of one or two General Councils. . . . When she said to him, "Don't celebrate mass any more," he seems to have regarded himself as more bound to obey her than when she said to him, "Believe what I teil you."

Dr. Döllinger would not have accepted this as an accurate statement of his position. He would have denied that the dogma of infallibility "was sanctioned by one of the most unanimous" of the Church's Councils, and would have pointed to the protest of more than eighty of the most learned and influential bishops in the Roman communion, whose subsequent submission he would have discounted for reasons already indicated. And he would have been greatly surprised to be told that it was as easy to obey the command, "Believe what I tell you," as the command " Don't celebrate mass any more." I remember a pregnant remark of Cardinal Newman's to myself at the time of Dr. Döllinger's excommunication, of which be disapproved, though accepting the dogma himself. "There are some," he said, " who think that it is as easy to believe as to obey; that is to say, they do not understand what faith really means." To obey the sentence of excommunication was in no sense a moral difficulty to Dr. Döllinger. He believed it unjust and therefore invalid, and he considered himself under no obligation in foro conscienticae to obey it. He did not believe that it cut him off from membership with the Church of Rome; and he once resented in a letter to me an expression which implied that he had ceased to be a member of the Roman Communion. He submitted to the sentence of excommunication as a matter of discipline, a cross which he was providentially ordained to bear. It involved nothing more serious than personal sacrifice — submission to a wrong arbitrarily inflicted by an authority to which obedience was due where conscience did not forbid. "Believe what I tell you" was a very different command, and could only be obeyed when the intellect could conscientiously accept the proposition. To bid him believe not only as an article of faith but as an historical fact what he firmly believed to be an historical fiction was to him an outrage on his intellectual integrity. For let it be remembered that the Vatican decree defines the dogma of papal infallibility not merely as part of the contents of divine revelation, but, in addition, as a fact of history "received from the beginning of the Christian faith." It challenged the ordeal of historical criticism, and made thus an appeal to enlightened reason not less than to faith. To demand belief in a proposition that lies beyond the compass of the human understanding is one thing. It is quite another matter to demand belief in a statement the truth or falsehood of which is purely a matter of historical evidence. If Dr. Döllinger had been asked to believe, on pain of excommunication, that Charles I beheaded Oliver Cromwell, the able writer in the Spectator would readily understand how easy submission to an unjust excommunication would have been in comparison with obedience to such a command. But to Dr. Döllinger's mind the proposition that Charles I. beheaded Oliver Cromwell would not be a bit more preposterous, not a bit more in the teeth of historical evidence, than the proposition that "from the beginning of the Christian faith," it was an accepted article of the creed of Christendom that when the Roman pontiff speaks to the Church ex cathedrd on faith or morals, his utterances are infallible, and "are irreformable of themselves, and not from the consent of the Church." He was firmly convinced of the contradictory of that proposition, and while he remained of that mind how could he have honestly professed his acceptance of the dogma? The appeal was not to his faith, but to his reason. It was, as he said himself, like asking him to believe that two and two make five.

http://books.google.com/books?id=EgwuAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA44&dq=Hefele+Vatican+infallibility&cd=4#v=onepage&q=Hefele%20Vatican%20infallibility&f=false

If you would just come out and make your semi-gnostic claims openly gnostic-that there is a secret knowledge only the Vatican's magisterium possesses which can only be known by the initiated-then we would have no problem.  But your supreme pontiff in his own arrogation of infallibility to himself puts words into our mouth (Pastor Aeternus 4) as testifying to his claims, and we don't care to be misquoted.  If your "Catholic teaching" is so esoteric as to not to be comprehensible on its face, then there can't be much down in its alleged depths.

Your Vatican makes straight forward claims. If they cannot be taken or understood as straightforward, but have to resort to a Kool-Aid induced stupor to make sense, then no, having a sober Orthodox nous means that I do not have the nous to get lost in all that "WHOLENESS" and "CATHOLICITY" of your labyrinth set up as a spider web to catch the unwarry.  

So, EM, are we getting a statement from you that the CCC is of universal validity, although of recent provinence?  That, if not the "WHOLENESS or CATHOLICITY of a set of truths or the entirety of revelation" at least the "sure norm for teaching the faith" as your supreme pontiff " ordered by virtue of [his] Apostolic Authority, [a]s a statement of the Church's faith and of Catholic doctrine," a "means of knowing how certain we can be that a given statement or other is actually part of that truth is called infallibility"?  That despite the fact that your ecclesial community survived without it for almost a millenium, and we have survived two millenium without one, that we can still cite it as representing the teaching of "the church of your baptism"?  And thus we can compare it with statements made by the authorities it cites, and see if indeed what it, the CCC, teaches comports with not only the Orthodox teaching the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church-your CCC claiming many of our authorities-but also the verdict of history-unless you are placing history under the purview of "faith and morals"?  So we can see if the statements of the CCC were believed by everyone everywhere at all times?  Or did the CCC corpus "develop"?

[ialmisry]

I'm wondering how Card. Newman's development of doctrine got around these:

Dogmatic constitution on the Catholic faith

Pius, bishop, servant of the servants of God, with the approval of the Sacred Council, for an everlasting record

14. Hence, too, that meaning of the sacred dogmas is ever to be maintained which has once been declared by Holy mother Church, and there must never be any abandonment of this sense under the pretext or in the name of a more profound understanding.

May understanding, knowledge and wisdom increase as ages and centuries roll along, and greatly and vigorously flourish, in each and all, in the individual and the whole Church: but this only in its own proper kind, that is to say, in the same doctrine, the same sense, and the same understanding

canon 3. If anyone says that it is possible that at some time, given the advancement of knowledge, a sense may be assigned to the dogmas propounded by the Church which is different from that which the Church has understood and understands: let him be anathema.

http://www.ewtn.com/library/councils/v1.htm#5

What do you consider to be the biggest fear of that statement in terms of contradiction?

Pastor Aeternus and the historical evidence the Supreme Pontiff tried to marshall in its support.

We already have many items of the Christian faith that seem to, or actually do, conflict with modern science.

Such as?

[elijahmaria]

So, EM, are we getting a statement from you that the CCC is of universal validity, although of recent provinence?  That, if not the "WHOLENESS or CATHOLICITY of a set of truths or the entirety of revelation" at least the "sure norm for teaching the faith" as your supreme pontiff " ordered by virtue of [his] Apostolic Authority, [a]s a statement of the Church's faith and of Catholic doctrine," a "means of knowing how certain we can be that a given statement or other is actually part of that truth is called infallibility"?  That despite the fact that your ecclesial community survived without it for almost a millenium, and we have survived two millenium without one, that we can still cite it as representing the teaching of "the church of your baptism"?  And thus we can compare it with statements made by the authorities it cites, and see if indeed what it, the CCC, teaches comports with not only the Orthodox teaching the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church-your CCC claiming many of our authorities-but also the verdict of history-unless you are placing history under the purview of "faith and morals"?  So we can see if the statements of the CCC were believed by everyone everywhere at all times?  Or did the CCC corpus "develop"?

Do you want serious answers to some of your inquiry here or are they just rhetorical questions asked so that I can waste my time responding so that you can draft a large load to drop on it and smother it before it gets started...

Most of what you cutter and paster about the Catholic Church brooks NO explanation and even less inherent understanding and absolutely NO appreciation.

All you do is cut and paste things that you are infallibly certain support your twisted notions of the faith that I and other Catholics profess.  If someone tries to tell you differently well then....Sic Isa dixit...

I don't have the heart to engage that kind of nonsense...

[ialmisry]

So, EM, are we getting a statement from you that the CCC is of universal validity, although of recent provinence?  That, if not the "WHOLENESS or CATHOLICITY of a set of truths or the entirety of revelation" at least the "sure norm for teaching the faith" as your supreme pontiff " ordered by virtue of [his] Apostolic Authority, [a]s a statement of the Church's faith and of Catholic doctrine," a "means of knowing how certain we can be that a given statement or other is actually part of that truth is called infallibility"?  That despite the fact that your ecclesial community survived without it for almost a millenium, and we have survived two millenium without one, that we can still cite it as representing the teaching of "the church of your baptism"?  And thus we can compare it with statements made by the authorities it cites, and see if indeed what it, the CCC, teaches comports with not only the Orthodox teaching the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church-your CCC claiming many of our authorities-but also the verdict of history-unless you are placing history under the purview of "faith and morals"?  So we can see if the statements of the CCC were believed by everyone everywhere at all times?  Or did the CCC corpus "develop"?

Do you want serious answers to some of your inquiry here or are they just rhetorical questions asked so that I can waste my time responding so that you can draft a large load to drop on it and smother it before it gets started...

Most of what you cutter and paster about the Catholic Church brooks NO explanation and even less inherent understanding and absolutely NO appreciation.

All you do is cut and paste things that you are infallibly certain support your twisted notions of the faith that I and other Catholics profess.  If someone tries to tell you differently well then....Sic Isa dixit...

I don't have the heart to engage that kind of nonsense...

but you do have the time to issue "Sic Maria dixit" assertions to no end.

You are free to believe anything you like, as you amply demonstrate you exercise that right.  But you do not get your own set of facts.  The documents I cite in profusion are what they are.  You are free to cite them, defend them, belittle them, etc. but to deny their existence because they document a rather unfortunate drift of dogma which is now called "development of doctrine"-that's off the table.

I make no appeal to my own infallibility or "magisterium."  Readers can look it up and judge for themselves.  In fact, I am quite adament that the average educated reader can do so, without being in "the WHOLENESS" and "the CATHOLICITY" of the Orthodox Church.  No decoder ring needed.

So if you can document a consistency in the Vatican's dogma, you are free to do so. That would be much better than just asserting against the historical record of the Vatican's development.

[Aindriú]

I'm wondering how Card. Newman's development of doctrine got around these:

Dogmatic constitution on the Catholic faith

Pius, bishop, servant of the servants of God, with the approval of the Sacred Council, for an everlasting record

14. Hence, too, that meaning of the sacred dogmas is ever to be maintained which has once been declared by Holy mother Church, and there must never be any abandonment of this sense under the pretext or in the name of a more profound understanding.

May understanding, knowledge and wisdom increase as ages and centuries roll along, and greatly and vigorously flourish, in each and all, in the individual and the whole Church: but this only in its own proper kind, that is to say, in the same doctrine, the same sense, and the same understanding

canon 3. If anyone says that it is possible that at some time, given the advancement of knowledge, a sense may be assigned to the dogmas propounded by the Church which is different from that which the Church has understood and understands: let him be anathema.

http://www.ewtn.com/library/councils/v1.htm#5

What do you consider to be the biggest fear of that statement in terms of contradiction?

Pastor Aeternus and the historical evidence the Supreme Pontiff tried to marshall in its support.

Ah.

We already have many items of the Christian faith that seem to, or actually do, conflict with modern science.

Such as?

Evolution vs Adam+Eve
Center of the Universe
Construction of the Earth and Heavens
Age of the Earth
Creation of the Earth

Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath of God type stuff. Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling! Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes... The dead rising from the grave! Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!

[elijahmaria]

So, EM, are we getting a statement from you that the CCC is of universal validity, although of recent provinence?  That, if not the "WHOLENESS or CATHOLICITY of a set of truths or the entirety of revelation" at least the "sure norm for teaching the faith" as your supreme pontiff " ordered by virtue of [his] Apostolic Authority, [a]s a statement of the Church's faith and of Catholic doctrine," a "means of knowing how certain we can be that a given statement or other is actually part of that truth is called infallibility"?  That despite the fact that your ecclesial community survived without it for almost a millenium, and we have survived two millenium without one, that we can still cite it as representing the teaching of "the church of your baptism"?  And thus we can compare it with statements made by the authorities it cites, and see if indeed what it, the CCC, teaches comports with not only the Orthodox teaching the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church-your CCC claiming many of our authorities-but also the verdict of history-unless you are placing history under the purview of "faith and morals"?  So we can see if the statements of the CCC were believed by everyone everywhere at all times?  Or did the CCC corpus "develop"?

Do you want serious answers to some of your inquiry here or are they just rhetorical questions asked so that I can waste my time responding so that you can draft a large load to drop on it and smother it before it gets started...

Most of what you cutter and paster about the Catholic Church brooks NO explanation and even less inherent understanding and absolutely NO appreciation.

All you do is cut and paste things that you are infallibly certain support your twisted notions of the faith that I and other Catholics profess.  If someone tries to tell you differently well then....Sic Isa dixit...

I don't have the heart to engage that kind of nonsense...

but you do have the time to issue "Sic Maria dixit" assertions to no end.

You are free to believe anything you like, as you amply demonstrate you exercise that right.  But you do not get your own set of facts.  The documents I cite in profusion are what they are.  You are free to cite them, defend them, belittle them, etc. but to deny their existence because they document a rather unfortunate drift of dogma which is now called "development of doctrine"-that's off the table.

I make no appeal to my own infallibility or "magisterium."  Readers can look it up and judge for themselves.  In fact, I am quite adament that the average educated reader can do so, without being in "the WHOLENESS" and "the CATHOLICITY" of the Orthodox Church.  No decoder ring needed.

So if you can document a consistency in the Vatican's dogma, you are free to do so. That would be much better than just asserting against the historical record of the Vatican's development.

You act as though you actually understand the documents you post.  

That is amusing to me.

When I say anything here it comes from things I have been taught formally by people who actually do grasp the import and meaning of things you can only cut and paste.

[ialmisry]

So, EM, are we getting a statement from you that the CCC is of universal validity, although of recent provinence?  That, if not the "WHOLENESS or CATHOLICITY of a set of truths or the entirety of revelation" at least the "sure norm for teaching the faith" as your supreme pontiff " ordered by virtue of [his] Apostolic Authority, [a]s a statement of the Church's faith and of Catholic doctrine," a "means of knowing how certain we can be that a given statement or other is actually part of that truth is called infallibility"?  That despite the fact that your ecclesial community survived without it for almost a millenium, and we have survived two millenium without one, that we can still cite it as representing the teaching of "the church of your baptism"?  And thus we can compare it with statements made by the authorities it cites, and see if indeed what it, the CCC, teaches comports with not only the Orthodox teaching the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church-your CCC claiming many of our authorities-but also the verdict of history-unless you are placing history under the purview of "faith and morals"?  So we can see if the statements of the CCC were believed by everyone everywhere at all times?  Or did the CCC corpus "develop"?

Do you want serious answers to some of your inquiry here or are they just rhetorical questions asked so that I can waste my time responding so that you can draft a large load to drop on it and smother it before it gets started...

Most of what you cutter and paster about the Catholic Church brooks NO explanation and even less inherent understanding and absolutely NO appreciation.

All you do is cut and paste things that you are infallibly certain support your twisted notions of the faith that I and other Catholics profess.  If someone tries to tell you differently well then....Sic Isa dixit...

I don't have the heart to engage that kind of nonsense...

but you do have the time to issue "Sic Maria dixit" assertions to no end.

You are free to believe anything you like, as you amply demonstrate you exercise that right.  But you do not get your own set of facts.  The documents I cite in profusion are what they are.  You are free to cite them, defend them, belittle them, etc. but to deny their existence because they document a rather unfortunate drift of dogma which is now called "development of doctrine"-that's off the table.

I make no appeal to my own infallibility or "magisterium."  Readers can look it up and judge for themselves.  In fact, I am quite adament that the average educated reader can do so, without being in "the WHOLENESS" and "the CATHOLICITY" of the Orthodox Church.  No decoder ring needed.

So if you can document a consistency in the Vatican's dogma, you are free to do so. That would be much better than just asserting against the historical record of the Vatican's development.

You act as though you actually understand the documents you post.

I don't have to act.  I post the document.  I post the link.  I post my commentary.  I post my conclusions.  The reader can judge.

That is amusing to me.

When I say anything here it comes from things I have been taught formally by people who actually do grasp the import and meaning of things you can only cut and paste.

ah, yes.  The argument from anonymous authority.  Quite convincing.

[Aindriú]

You act as though you actually understand the documents you post.

I don't have to act.  I post the document.  I post the link.  I post my commentary.  I post my conclusions.  The reader can judge.

I'm reminded of Sola Scriptura...

[elijahmaria]

When I say anything here it comes from things I have been taught formally by people who actually do grasp the import and meaning of things you can only cut and paste.

ah, yes.  The argument from anonymous authority.  Quite convincing.
[/quote]

There's nothing to argue at the moment.  I am simply stating that I am formally taught and I don't speak my own mind but what I understand is the mind of the Church.  And I am pointing out to you that cutting and pasting does not make you an expert.

It is impossible to talk to you since you have elevated yourself as the SOLE authority of both the documents of my own Church and your's in these O-C discussions.

There are many who see through you so I only point this out now and then to let folks know why I rarely try to discuss anything with you and why I simply don't take the time to demonstrate anything to you, or in topics where your heavy hand falls.

M.

[Aindriú]

When I say anything here it comes from things I have been taught formally by people who actually do grasp the import and meaning of things you can only cut and paste.

ah, yes.  The argument from anonymous authority.  Quite convincing.

There's nothing to argue at the moment.  I am simply stating that I am formally taught and I don't speak my own mind but what I understand is the mind of the Church.  And I am pointing out to you that cutting and pasting does not make you and expert.

It is impossible to talk to you since you have elevated yourself as the SOLE authority of both the documents of my own Church and your's in these O-C discussions.

There are many who see through you so I only point this out now and then to let folks know why I rarely try to discuss anything with you and why I simply don't take the time to demonstrate anything to you, or in topics where your heavy hand falls.

M.

I don't necessarily see through him. I'm just jaded to both sides.

I see his point in some cases, but I can also see a counter-argument. I'm actually fairly undecided most of the time.

[elijahmaria]

When I say anything here it comes from things I have been taught formally by people who actually do grasp the import and meaning of things you can only cut and paste.

ah, yes.  The argument from anonymous authority.  Quite convincing.

There's nothing to argue at the moment.  I am simply stating that I am formally taught and I don't speak my own mind but what I understand is the mind of the Church.  And I am pointing out to you that cutting and pasting does not make you and expert.

It is impossible to talk to you since you have elevated yourself as the SOLE authority of both the documents of my own Church and your's in these O-C discussions.

There are many who see through you so I only point this out now and then to let folks know why I rarely try to discuss anything with you and why I simply don't take the time to demonstrate anything to you, or in topics where your heavy hand falls.

M.

I'm don't necessarily see through him. I'm just jaded to both sides.

I see his point in some cases, but I can also see a counter-argument. I'm actually fairly undecided most of the time.

Oh...don't take this the wrong way but I was not referring to you or thinking of you when I wrote what I wrote. 

[Aindriú]

When I say anything here it comes from things I have been taught formally by people who actually do grasp the import and meaning of things you can only cut and paste.

ah, yes.  The argument from anonymous authority.  Quite convincing.

There's nothing to argue at the moment.  I am simply stating that I am formally taught and I don't speak my own mind but what I understand is the mind of the Church.  And I am pointing out to you that cutting and pasting does not make you and expert.

It is impossible to talk to you since you have elevated yourself as the SOLE authority of both the documents of my own Church and your's in these O-C discussions.

There are many who see through you so I only point this out now and then to let folks know why I rarely try to discuss anything with you and why I simply don't take the time to demonstrate anything to you, or in topics where your heavy hand falls.

M.

I'm don't necessarily see through him. I'm just jaded to both sides.

I see his point in some cases, but I can also see a counter-argument. I'm actually fairly undecided most of the time.

Oh...don't take this the wrong way but I was not referring to you or thinking of you when I wrote what I wrote. 

Probably not, I just have a bag of pennies today.

Besides, I find that hard to believe. 

[elijahmaria]

When I say anything here it comes from things I have been taught formally by people who actually do grasp the import and meaning of things you can only cut and paste.

ah, yes.  The argument from anonymous authority.  Quite convincing.

There's nothing to argue at the moment.  I am simply stating that I am formally taught and I don't speak my own mind but what I understand is the mind of the Church.  And I am pointing out to you that cutting and pasting does not make you and expert.

It is impossible to talk to you since you have elevated yourself as the SOLE authority of both the documents of my own Church and your's in these O-C discussions.

There are many who see through you so I only point this out now and then to let folks know why I rarely try to discuss anything with you and why I simply don't take the time to demonstrate anything to you, or in topics where your heavy hand falls.

M.

I'm don't necessarily see through him. I'm just jaded to both sides.

I see his point in some cases, but I can also see a counter-argument. I'm actually fairly undecided most of the time.

Oh...don't take this the wrong way but I was not referring to you or thinking of you when I wrote what I wrote. 

Probably not, I just have a bag of pennies today.

Besides, I find that hard to believe. 

That's interesting.  Well if I told you why I tend to ignore your posts, it might be perceived as being insulting, and I don't mean to insult you,  so I will refrain and simply repeat that I was not referring to you.

[ialmisry]

You act as though you actually understand the documents you post.

I don't have to act.  I post the document.  I post the link.  I post my commentary.  I post my conclusions.  The reader can judge.

I'm reminded of Sola Scriptura...

because scriptura is written down?

I have on occasion, posted icons or other media which bear witness to what was believed in ages past, for the Orthodox the same, for the Vatican (and others), not so much.  The simple fact is is that for the most part, our historical evidence comes in written form.

But not exclusively in the Bible: for instance, on the IC, the earliest evidence of its beginnings come from around the turn of the last millenium, from entries and glosses in calendars and martyrologies, etc.
"the Irish Origins of Our Lady's Conception Feast" Herbert Thurston
http://books.google.com/books?id=QDgaAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA449&dq=%22We+liven+in+an+age+of+centenaries%22+%22Our+Lady%22&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=QDgaAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA642&lpg=PA642&dq=%22Irish+origins+of+our+lady's+feast&source=bl&ots=DOwdr8ZUuD&sig=fR8PW1uZsA0qA1ydqW9ssn_Uj5E&hl=en#v=onepage&q=%22Irish%20origins%20of%20our%20lady's%20feast&f=false
It is in the context of defending the novelty of the feast that we first hear of an "immaculate conception," along with denouncements of it as an innovation of misguided piety.  Eadmer of Caterbury's (d. 1124) pamphletering provides the first evidence, and it seems (I have not been able to get the entire pamphlet) that he does not even claim to be preserving and handing down Tradition, but argues straight "potuit, decuit ergo fecit" based on the idea that he understands the biblical texts.
"Mary in the Middle Ages: the Blessed Virgin Mary in the thought of medieval latin theologians" By Luigi Gambero
http://books.google.com/books?id=I9r_7P3c_6wC&pg=PT117&dq=Eadmer+conception+Virgin&hl=en#v=onepage&q=Eadmer%20conception%20Virgin&f=false
Now, if you can come up something else than written records (that is, besides visions, like Emmerich's visions of a virgin conception of Mary http://www.catholicplanet.com/virgin/index.htm not "immaculate"), then we are all eyes.

[Aindriú]

When I say anything here it comes from things I have been taught formally by people who actually do grasp the import and meaning of things you can only cut and paste.

ah, yes.  The argument from anonymous authority.  Quite convincing.

There's nothing to argue at the moment.  I am simply stating that I am formally taught and I don't speak my own mind but what I understand is the mind of the Church.  And I am pointing out to you that cutting and pasting does not make you and expert.

It is impossible to talk to you since you have elevated yourself as the SOLE authority of both the documents of my own Church and your's in these O-C discussions.

There are many who see through you so I only point this out now and then to let folks know why I rarely try to discuss anything with you and why I simply don't take the time to demonstrate anything to you, or in topics where your heavy hand falls.

M.

I'm don't necessarily see through him. I'm just jaded to both sides.

I see his point in some cases, but I can also see a counter-argument. I'm actually fairly undecided most of the time.

Oh...don't take this the wrong way but I was not referring to you or thinking of you when I wrote what I wrote. 

Probably not, I just have a bag of pennies today.

Besides, I find that hard to believe. 

That's interesting.  Well if I told you why I tend to ignore your posts, it might be perceived as being insulting, and I don't mean to insult you,  so I will refrain and simply repeat that I was not referring to you.

That last part was a joke.

Nice thought, though.

[elijahmaria]

When I say anything here it comes from things I have been taught formally by people who actually do grasp the import and meaning of things you can only cut and paste.

ah, yes.  The argument from anonymous authority.  Quite convincing.

There's nothing to argue at the moment.  I am simply stating that I am formally taught and I don't speak my own mind but what I understand is the mind of the Church.  And I am pointing out to you that cutting and pasting does not make you and expert.

It is impossible to talk to you since you have elevated yourself as the SOLE authority of both the documents of my own Church and your's in these O-C discussions.

There are many who see through you so I only point this out now and then to let folks know why I rarely try to discuss anything with you and why I simply don't take the time to demonstrate anything to you, or in topics where your heavy hand falls.

M.

I'm don't necessarily see through him. I'm just jaded to both sides.

I see his point in some cases, but I can also see a counter-argument. I'm actually fairly undecided most of the time.

Oh...don't take this the wrong way but I was not referring to you or thinking of you when I wrote what I wrote. 

Probably not, I just have a bag of pennies today.

Besides, I find that hard to believe. 

That's interesting.  Well if I told you why I tend to ignore your posts, it might be perceived as being insulting, and I don't mean to insult you,  so I will refrain and simply repeat that I was not referring to you.

That last part was a joke.

Nice thought, though.

Fair enuff!!

I really didn't want to seem to be insulting but there are other people here who do have a far better grasp of Catholic teaching than some others, and I can talk to them.   Those are the people I was talking about and the people for whom I will go the extra mile to demonstrate some idea or assertion.

There's nothing wrong with what you are doing in terms of picking around the edges of things but I don't look to you to really help illuminate Catholic teaching in any consistent way.  That was all I meant by what I said.

[ialmisry]

When I say anything here it comes from things I have been taught formally by people who actually do grasp the import and meaning of things you can only cut and paste.

ah, yes.  The argument from anonymous authority.  Quite convincing.

There's nothing to argue at the moment.  I am simply stating that I am formally taught and I don't speak my own mind but what I understand is the mind of the Church.  And I am pointing out to you that cutting and pasting does not make you an expert.

And your claiming of anonymous credentials gives no credit to your posts.

So you were formally taught.  So was Fr. Hans Kung.  So was Martin Luther.  In fact, some of the worst heretics who spoke what they understood as the mind of the Church were formally taught.

Döllinger was formally taught. So too were those scores of priests and theologians that you so causually dismiss as "dissenting" "dissidents" etc.  You contradict them: why should I take your nameless teachers and authorities over their named and known ones?

Given your supreme pontiffs cutting and pasting in Pastor Aeternus, for instance, I am quite confident I can match that.

It is impossible to talk to you since you have elevated yourself as the SOLE authority of both the documents of my own Church and your's in these O-C discussions.

I have not claimed any authority, let alone sole authority.  I make my point, and submit my proof.  You should try it some time.  It beats "sic Maria dixit" every time.

There are many who see through you so I only point this out now and then to let folks know why I rarely try to discuss anything with you and why I simply don't take the time to demonstrate anything to you, or in topics where your heavy hand falls.

Besides protesting without proof, I don't recall you much of discussing anything with me ever, because I will not sing in the choir while you preach.

You can assert all you like that a CCC of the 11th century and of the 1st century would read pretty much the same.  The historical evidence won't back you up on that, unless you have access to a secret trove of archaeological finds not known to the rest of the world.  If you had, I suspect there would be no appealing to "development of doctrine."

[ialmisry]

On the IC, if you can read French:Paul Doncoeur "premieres interventions du saint-siege relatives a l'immaculee conception:xiie-xive siecle"
http://books.google.com/books?id=EBMxAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA266&dq=%22premieres+interventions+du+saint-siege+relatives+a+l'immaculee+conception%22&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false
Revue d'histoire ecclésiastique, Volume 8, Issues 1-4 By Université catholique de Louvain (1835-1969)

[elijahmaria]

You can assert all you like that a CCC of the 11th century and of the 1st century would read pretty much the same.  The historical evidence won't back you up on that, unless you have access to a secret trove of archaeological finds not known to the rest of the world.  If you had, I suspect there would be no appealing to "development of doctrine."

The key is in the word "MEANING"...For some literalists, if it aint the same words, it aint the same meaning.   And don't even bother to consider history or context!!...

There it is:  In BLACK and WHITE. 

Protestants do that to Orthodox all the time and it takes many many Orthodox "weasel words" to try and convince them of the MEANING and CONTEXT and HISTORY.

But you won't give that to anyone else.

And that is a great way to make a point without ever having to deal with meaning...except on your own terms.

Sorry.  I will look to my Church for meaning: not you.

[ialmisry]

Christ is risen!
http://www.orthodoxchristianity.net/forum/index.php/topic,35303.0.html
http://books.google.com/books?id=13DRvCcJUvcC&pg=PA45&lpg=PA45&dq=andrew+louth+development+doctrine&source=bl&ots=sW-uYJWFHI&sig=4R2fl-kUNYNS5glGq14A6xdft1A&hl=en&ei=CDuoTdH-GMG2twfm443eBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBcQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=andrew%20louth%20development%20doctrine&f=false

I just reread this "Is Development of Doctrine a Valid Category for Orthodox Theology?" by Andrew Louth, and was both reminded of this thread and inspired to go through what the partisans of the Vatican consider the seminal study-if not the definitive definition or magnus opus of the topic-Card. Newman's "An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine"
http://www.newmanreader.org/works/development/

One thing Louth mentions in passing

"The emphasize the organic and look for authenticity in evidence for life.  For Newman, this is rooted in the second of the two proverbs that had guided him from his earliest days: "Holiness rather than peace," and "Growth the only evidence of life."

made me chuckle, as this picture sprung to mind

too many barnacles sink the ship.

A tumor is a sign of growth, but not much sign of life.

Louth points out that Newman's essay constitutes no more than an excuse (my word, not his) for Pastor Aeternus, Newman requiring an infallible supreme pontiff to distinguish between "development" and corruption, his final "instance in illustration"

Section 3. The Papal Supremacy

I will take one instance more. Let us see how, on the principles which I have been laying down and defending, the evidence lies for the Pope's Supremacy.

As to this doctrine the question is this, whether there was not from the first a certain element at work, or in existence, divinely sanctioned, which, for certain reasons, did not at once show itself upon the surface of ecclesiastical affairs, and of which events in the fourth century are the development; and whether the evidence of its existence and operation, which does occur in the earlier centuries, be it much or little, is not just such as ought to occur upon such an hypothesis.

2.

For instance, it is true, St. Ignatius is silent in his Epistles on the subject of the Pope's authority; but if in fact that authority could not be in active operation then, such silence is not so difficult to account for as the silence of Seneca or Plutarch about Christianity itself, or of Lucian about the Roman people. St. Ignatius directed his doctrine according to the need. While Apostles were on earth, there was the display neither of Bishop nor Pope; their power had no prominence, as being exercised by Apostles. In course of time, first the power of the Bishop displayed itself, and then the power of the Pope. When the Apostles were taken away, Christianity did not at once break into portions; yet separate localities might begin to be the scene of internal dissensions, and a local arbiter in consequence would be wanted. Christians at home did not yet quarrel with Christians abroad; they quarrelled at home among themselves. St. Ignatius applied the fitting remedy. The Sacamentum Unitatis was acknowledged on all hands; the mode of fulfilling and the means of securing it would vary with the occasion; and the determination of its essence, its seat, and its laws would be a gradual supply for a gradual necessity.

The cardinal side-steps the problem that St. Ignatius directly writes an Epistle directly to the supposed seat of supremacy with silence towards that see's shepherd.  In fact, alone among all his Epistles, that to Rome doesn't direct his doctrine to the need of the authority of the bishops, whose power he reiterates in his other Epistles "according to the need."  The apologists of Pastor Aeternus further undermine the cardinal in promoting the Epistle of Clement as proof of prominence of their pontiff's power "while the Apostles [at least St. John, a fact emphasized by the polemics of these apologists, along with his proximity to Corinth vis-a-vis Rome] were on earth : "if in fact that authority could...be in active operation then" in St. Clement's days, "such silence is...so difficult to account for" in St. Ignatius' days, a decade at least later, "when the Apostles were [or rather, had been] taken away."

In fact, if there were such a thing as papal supremacy, it could have-would have-been in active operation then in the days of St. Ignatius.  St. Peter had been martyred four decades earlier, and had left Antioch, having consecrated St. Ignatius to that see, even earlier.  St. Peter leaving Jerusalem, then Antioch, for Rome, "while the Apostles were on the earth," leaving  bishops in each, would have in that course of time, displayed "the power of the Pope," if there had been any such thing, during the four bishops who succeeded him at Rome by the time St. Ignatius was writing his Epistle to Rome.  Despite the excuse that "localities might begin to be the scene of internal dissensions, and a local arbiter in consequence would be wanted" (a topic the cardinal conveniently forgets a few sections down) the Gnostics that St. Ignatius combated in his Epistles in Asia had appeared in Syria, Egypt and Rome itself-three decades or less later Valentinus would found the major Gnostic movement in Rome itself.  That St. Clement in Rome wrote to Corinth, belies the assertion that "Christians at home did not yet quarrel with Christians abroad," while the letters of a Patriarch of Antioch to the Churches of Asia and Rome demonstrate that concord as as well as quarrels applied fitting remedies, as well as showing that quarrelling at home among themselves was known abroad.

On the "Sacramentum Unitatis":
Papacy and Development: Newman and the Primacy of the Pope By Paul Misner
http://books.google.com/books?id=T9g3AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA77&dq=sacramentum+unitatis&hl=en&sa=X&ei=okylUNnhFuGJ2AXEhoFI&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=sacramentum%20unitatis&f=false
which was NOT, as St. Clement and St. Ignatius (and later St. Irenaeus) demonstrate, "acknowledged on all hands"

IOW "there was not from the first a certain element at work, or in existence, divinely sanctioned" "for the Pope's Supremacy," as those "certain reasons [] did [] at once show [themselves] upon the surface of ecclesiastical affairs" "such as ought to occur upon such an hypothesis" and yet no "evidence of its existence and operation, which does occur in the [later] centuries."

btw, there are a couple other blogspots (evidently dead) which deal with this topic:
http://mliccione.blogspot.com/2007/03/development-of-doctrine-fr-louth-and.html
http://mliccione.blogspot.com/2008/06/this-time-fr-behr.html
http://mliccione.blogspot.com/2006/12/what-does-development-of-doctrine-mean.html

[ialmisry]

You can assert all you like that a CCC of the 11th century and of the 1st century would read pretty much the same.  The historical evidence won't back you up on that, unless you have access to a secret trove of archaeological finds not known to the rest of the world.  If you had, I suspect there would be no appealing to "development of doctrine."

The key is in the word "MEANING"...For some literalists, if it aint the same words, it aint the same meaning.   And don't even bother to consider history or context!!...

I know. I'm familiar with your supreme pontiff's cut and paste work in Pastor Aeternus.

There it is:  In BLACK and WHITE. 

In only such things as the list of "ex cathedra" statements and the list of supreme pontiffs entitled to make them could be in BLACK and WHITE.

Protestants do that to Orthodox all the time and it takes many many Orthodox "weasel words" to try and convince them of the MEANING and CONTEXT and HISTORY.

Talking from experience?  It's rather vague.

But you won't give that to anyone else.

Since we don't need any Orthodox "weasel words,"  you can take them all.

And that is a great way to make a point without ever having to deal with meaning...except on your own terms.

Truth is an exacting taskmaster.

Sorry.  I will look to my Church for meaning: not you.

Good move.  I have no Kool-Aid to give you.

[ialmisry]

Section 3. The Papal Supremacy

3.

This is but natural, and is parallel to instances which happen daily, and may be so considered without prejudice to the divine right whether of the Episcopate or of the Papacy. It is a common occurrence for a quarrel and a lawsuit to bring out the state of the law, and then the most unexpected results often follow. St. Peter's prerogative would remain a mere letter, till the complication of ecclesiastical matters became the cause of ascertaining it. While Christians were "of one heart and one soul," it would be suspended; love dispenses with laws. Christians knew that they must live in unity, and they were in unity; in what that unity consisted, how far they could proceed, as it were, in bending it, and what at length was the point at which it broke, was an irrelevant as well as unwelcome inquiry. Relatives often live together in happy ignorance of their respective rights and properties, till a father or a husband dies; and then they find themselves against their will in separate interests, and on divergent courses, and dare not move without legal advisers. Again, the case is conceivable of a corporation or an Academical body, going on for centuries in the performance of the routine-business which came in its way, and preserving a good understanding between its members, with statutes almost a dead letter and no precedents to explain them, and the rights of its various classes and functions undefined,—then of its being suddenly thrown back by the force of circumstances upon the question of its formal character as a body politic, and in consequence developing in the relation of governors and governed. The regalia Petri might sleep, as the power of a Chancellor has slept; not as an obsolete, for they never had been carried into effect, but as a mysterious privilege, which was not understood; as an unfulfilled prophecy. For St. Ignatius to speak of Popes, when it was a matter of Bishops, would have been like sending an army to arrest a housebreaker. The Bishop's power indeed was from God, and the Pope's could be no more; he, as well as the Pope, was our Lord's representative, and had a sacramental office. But I am speaking, not of the intrinsic sanctity or divinity of such an office, but of its duties.

The problem for the cardinal here is that St. Peter, the "father" or "husband" of his example, had already died nearly a lifetime before St. Ignatius wrote his epistles.  Again, the apologists of Pastor Aeternus undermine the cardinal by their insistence that "The famous letter of St. Clement of Rome to the Corinthian church (about 96) exhibits the earliest evidence concerning the ecclesiastical primacy of the Roman Church." Nihil Obstat. Remy Lafort, Censor. Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04363b.htm
making it a matter of popes-if such a thing existed in the Pastor Aeternus sense-not bishops, by the time St. Ignatius wrote, in particular as the gnostics against whom St. Ignatius warns had already reared their heads while the Apostles were still walking the earth and writing the NT, and had spread from Jerusalem, through Syria, by Asia and Egypt, to Rome by the time St. Ignatius made the journey there. So the gnostics long before St. Ignatius made the unwelcome inquiry "in what that unity consisted, how far they could proceed, as it were, in bending it, and what at length was the point at which it broke" and pressed its relevance to, according to the cardinal, "the duties" of the office of supreme pontiff.

And that is if we get past the fact that Scripture records that St. Peter did not exercise "St. Peter's prerogative."  When the issue of the Samaritans came up, the Apostles sent St. Peter, obvious disproof (on good authority: John 13:16) of any "prerogative"; at Antioch St. Paul withstood St. Peter to his face, and at the Council of Jerusalem the Apostles addressed "the question of its formal character as a body politic" and St. James, not St. Peter with his "regalia," pronounced the Church's judgement.   A "mysterious privilege" indeed, that the Apostles knew nothing about.  Indeed, St. Peter himself, as "a fellow presbyter" (I Peter 5:1) invokes no such "privilege" but appeals to the episcopate (5:2-6), and not his "successors" in "Babylon" as "our Lord's representative, and ha[ving] a sacramental office"-a belief belied by the fact that the Vatican to this day has no order of "pope," nor any consecration therefor.

And St. Paul had already spoke of bishops, to the bishops Timothy and Titus, in scripture, and had handed the Church off to the episcopate with no mention of such an office as "pope":

16 For Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus, so that he might not have to spend time in Asia; for he was hastening to be at Jerusalem, if possible, on the day of Pentecost. 17 And from Mile'tus he sent to Ephesus and called to him the elders of the church. 18 And when they came to him, he said to them: "You yourselves know how I lived among you all the time from the first day that I set foot in Asia, 19 serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials which befell me through the plots of the Jews; 20 how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house, 21 testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance to God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. 22 And now, behold, I am going to Jerusalem, bound in the Spirit, not knowing what shall befall me there; 23 except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me. 24 But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may accomplish my course and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. 25 And now, behold, I know that all you among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom will see my face no more. 26 Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all of you, 27 for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. 28 Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God which he obtained with the blood of his own Son. 29 I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; 30 and from among your own selves will arise men speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. 31 Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears. 32 And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. 33 I coveted no one's silver or gold or apparel. 34 You yourselves know that these hands ministered to my necessities, and to those who were with me. 35 In all things I have shown you that by so toiling one must help the weak, remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.'" 36 And when he had spoken thus, he knelt down and prayed with them all.

Here St. Paul speaks of the army coming to usurp the Church, and testifies that he delivered to them the WHOLE counsel of God-and yet not a word about any "appeal to Peter and his successors at Rome."

4.

When the Church, then, was thrown upon her own resources, first local disturbances gave exercise to Bishops, and next ecumenical disturbances gave exercise to Popes; and whether communion with the Pope was necessary for Catholicity would not and could not be debated till a suspension of that communion had actually occurred. It is not a greater difficulty that St. Ignatius does not write to the Asian Greeks about Popes, than that St. Paul does not write to the Corinthians about Bishops. And it is a less difficulty that the Papal supremacy was not formally acknowledged in the second century, than that there was no formal acknowledgment on the part of the Church of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity till the fourth. No doctrine is defined till it is violated.

And, in like manner, it was natural for Christians to direct their course in matters of doctrine by the guidance of mere floating, and, as it were, endemic tradition, while it was fresh and strong; but in proportion as it languished, or was broken in particular places, did it become necessary to fall back upon its special homes, first the Apostolic Sees, and then the See of St. Peter.

Here again the cardinal asserts what the NT denies, as if he had never read Eusebius.  Already the Nicholas of Acts had broke communion as shown in the Revelation of St. John the Divine, and Simon Magnus, who once joined the communion of the Church, had come to Rome to break it, "first the Apostolic Sees, and then the See of St. Peter" both at Antioch and at Rome, and before the time of St. Ignatius. Tradition was no fresher and stronger than when Apostles still walked the earth, but as St. Paul's admonitions to St. Timothy show, they could not "direct their course in matters of doctrine by the guidance of mere floating," but pointed to the Apostolic authority of the episcopate.

If there were a doctrine of papal supremacy, it should have been defined when the Apostles sent St. Peter to Samaria, when St. Paul rebuked St. Peter to his face, or when the Council of Jerusalem bowed to the judgement of St. James.  The gnostics denied the episcopate founded by the Apostles in the Apostolic sees and the Sees of St. Peter, from the time of Simon Magnus fought St. Peter at Rome, at least half a century before St. Ignatius writing to Roman Greeks but not on popes.

If "St. Paul does not write to the Corinthians about Bishops," St. Clement evidently didn't know about it:

Take up the epistle of the blessed Apostle Paul. What did he write to you at the time when the gospel first began to be preached? Truly, under the inspiration of the Spirit, he wrote to you concerning himself, and Cephas, and Apollos, because even then parties had been formed among you. But that inclination for one above another entailed less guilt upon you, inasmuch as your partialities were then shown towards apostles, already of high reputation, and towards a man whom they had approved. But now reflect who those are that have perverted you, and lessened the renown of your far-famed brotherly love. It is disgraceful, beloved, yea, highly disgraceful, and unworthy of your Christian profession, that such a thing should be heard of as that the most steadfast and ancient church of the Corinthians should, on account of one or two persons, engage in sedition against its presbyters. And this rumour has reached not only us, but those also who are unconnected with us; so that, through your infatuation, the name of the Lord is blasphemed, while danger is also brought upon yourselves.

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1010.htm

So this Golden Age of the cardinal, when the Church was not assaulted on all sides and from within by the gates of Hell, the Apostles and those they put in place to succeed them know nothing of it, and yet they also know nothing of any exercise of popes in these ecumenical disturbances suspending communion.

[ialmisry]

5.

Moreover, an international bond and a common authority could not be consolidated, were it ever so certainly provided, while persecutions lasted. If the Imperial Power checked the development of Councils, it availed also for keeping back the power of the Papacy. The Creed, the Canon, in like manner, both remained undefined. The Creed, the Canon, the Papacy, Ecumenical Councils, all began to form, as soon as the Empire relaxed its tyrannous oppression of the Church. And as it was natural that her monarchical power should display itself when the Empire became Christian, so was it natural also that further {152} developments of that power should take place when that Empire fell. Moreover, when the power of the Holy See began to exert itself, disturbance and collision would be the necessary consequence. Of the Temple of Solomon, it was said that "neither hammer, nor axe, nor any tool of iron was heard in the house, while it was in building." This is a type of the Church above; it was otherwise with the Church below, whether in the instance of Popes or Apostles. In either case, a new power had to be defined; as St. Paul had to plead, nay, to strive for his apostolic authority, and enjoined St. Timothy, as Bishop of Ephesus, to let no man despise him: so Popes too have not therefore been ambitious because they did not establish their authority without a struggle. It was natural that Polycrates should oppose St. Victor; and natural too that St. Cyprian should both extol the See of St. Peter, yet resist it when he thought it went beyond its province. And at a later day it was natural that Emperors should rise in indignation against it; and natural, on the other hand, that it should take higher ground with a younger power than it had taken with an elder and time-honoured.

Again, Newman's opening here is undermined by the proffering of St. Clement's epistle in c. 95 as proof of the dogma of Pastor Aeternus, as well as the attempt of Abp. St. Victor to place the whole Church of Asia under interdict-both of which are cited as "proof" of the "common authority while the persecutions lasted."  The last shows that "the Imperial Power" did not "check the development of Councils"-the Churches, as Eusebius tells us, met world wide to rebuke Abp. St. Victor.  These built on the examples the Apostles set at Jerusalem (Acts 15), leading up to the Ecumenical Council of Nicea, which mentions the previous Councils and adopts their practices and canons.

Nor does history record how "the Imperial Power" "availed also for keeping back the power of the Papacy."  Constantine I gave his own palace to the Archbishop of Rome, the Lateran-the Cathedral ever since of Old Rome.  The Emperor Gratian ceded the office of Pontifex Maximus-the office of the Emperor ever since Julius Caesar, and founded by the Kings of Rome-and the Emperor Theodosius made the Catholic Church the state Church, defining it as in reference to the Pontiff of Old Rome (AND the Archbishop and Pope of Alexandria).  When the Arian emperors exiled the Orthodox bishops of the East, the Orthodox emperors in the West protected and promoted the Archbishop of Old Rome.  When the Arian German rulers too over the West, the Orthodox Emperor Justinian came to Old Rome's rescue, after his uncle had tried to enforce the Formula of Hormisdas on the bishops of the East, recognizing a supremacy of Old Rome.  When the iconoclast emperors seized some of the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of the West, its patriarch made up its own emperor Charlemagne, whose father had started the papal states, immortalized in the forgery of the Donation of Constantine.  Not exactly keeping that papal power back much.

Newman's "developments of that power" are in fact the origins of that power: with the fall of the Empire of the West, the papacy was left as the only institution, the Pontifex Maximus transforming the Senate into his Curia.  Rather than nurturing seeds, it planted them.

There was unfortunately no shortage of "disturbance and collision" before 325: the Vatican now counts at least 3 "anti-popes" before then, and the one, the founder of the Novations, lasted and spread enough to provide plenty of opportunity to define an old power, if such a thing existed. 

St. Paul did have to strive for his apostolic authority, and exhort St. Timothy not to let no man despise his authority, but St. Paul also wrote of false apostles and warned St. Timothy soiling his hands with ordaining heretics.  The existence of opposition does not legitimize authority.

His last line I take as an accusation of Caesaropapism in New Rome.  Evidently he never heard of Abp. Gregory Nazianzus, and a host of others, but swallowed the legends of Pope St. Sylvester whole.

[ialmisry]

6.

We may follow Barrow here without reluctance, except in his imputation of motives.

"In the first times," he says, "while the Emperors were pagans, their [the Popes'] pretences were suited to their condition, and could not soar high; they were not then so mad as to pretend to any temporal power, and a pittance of spiritual eminency did content them."

Again: "The state of the most primitive Church did not well admit such an universal sovereignty. For that did consist of small bodies incoherently situated, and scattered about in very distant places, and consequently unfit to be modelled into one political society, or to be governed {153} by one head, especially considering their condition under persecution and poverty. What convenient resort for direction or justice could a few distressed Christians in Egypt, Ethiopia, Parthia, India, Mesopotamia, Syria, Armenia, Cappadocia, and other parts, have to Rome!"

Again: "Whereas no point avowed by Christians could be so apt to raise offence and jealousy in pagans against our religion as this, which setteth up a power of so vast extent and huge influence; whereas no novelty could be more surprising or startling than the creation of an universal empire over the consciences and religious practices of men; whereas also this doctrine could not be but very conspicuous and glaring in ordinary practice, it is prodigious that all pagans should not loudly exclaim against it," that is, on the supposition that the Papal power really was then in actual exercise.

And again: "It is most prodigious that, in the disputes managed by the Fathers against heretics, the Gnostics, Valentinians, &c., they should not, even in the first place, allege and urge the sentence of the universal pastor and judge, as a most evidently conclusive argument, as the most efficacious and compendious method of convincing and silencing them."

Once more: "Even Popes themselves have shifted their pretences, and varied in style, according to the different circumstances of time, and their variety of humours, designs, interests. In time of prosperity, and upon advantage, when they might safely do it, any Pope almost would talk high and assume much to himself; but when they were low, or stood in fear of powerful contradiction, even the boldest Popes would speak submissively or moderately." [Note 26]

On the whole, supposing the power to be divinely bestowed, yet in the first instance more or less dormant, a history could not be traced out more probable, more suitable {154} to that hypothesis, than the actual course of the controversy which took place age after age upon the Papal supremacy.

Not quite sure what Newman's beef with Isaac Barrow on motives here; the quotes contradict both what we know of the ante-Nicene Church and what the Vatican claims for the bishops of Rome during that time, e.g. what St. Ignatius actually says about the Church of Rome and what the Vatican claims he says, the instance of Abp. St. Victor and the Churches, etc.

[JoeS2]

Oops, I meant the Immaculate Conception. Though, I'm pretty sure the Assumption is a random doctrine  too.

Lets consider your 'assumption' here. If, that's If, Mary had not been Assumed into heaven through her Son (we Orthodox subscribe to the three days in the tomb tradition) would you not think that we would have many relics of her such as bones, or the clothing she wore at her burial?  St. Mary, the Chief of all Saints would have certainly gotten the attention of the Apostles to not leave her remains for future grave robbers.  Just thinking out loud.

[LBK]

Lets consider your 'assumption' here. If, that's If, Mary had not been Assumed into heaven through her Son (we Orthodox subscribe to the three days in the tomb tradition) would you not think that we would have many relics of her such as bones, or the clothing she wore at her burial?  

We do have one item of clothing which belonged to the Mother of God: her belt/sash, which was found by Apostle Thomas when he entered her tomb three days after her Dormition. IIRC this relic is kept at the Vatopedi Monastery on Mount Athos. And Orthodoxy does teach she was taken bodily to heaven, as the hymns of the feast say, translated from life to Life, after her earthly death.

[JoeS2]

Lets consider your 'assumption' here. If, that's If, Mary had not been Assumed into heaven through her Son (we Orthodox subscribe to the three days in the tomb tradition) would you not think that we would have many relics of her such as bones, or the clothing she wore at her burial?  

We do have one item of clothing which belonged to the Mother of God: her belt/sash, which was found by Apostle Thomas when he entered her tomb three days after her Dormition. IIRC this relic is kept at the Vatopedi Monastery on Mount Athos. And Orthodoxy does teach she was taken bodily to heaven, as the hymns of the feast say, translated from life to Life, after her earthly death.

I was under the impression that this belt/sash was presented by St. Mary to Thomas while on his way to the tomb not at the tomb....No matter how, its important that we have it....Thank you for the correction.

[Mor Ephrem]

I was under the impression that this belt/sash was presented by St. Mary to Thomas while on his way to the tomb not at the tomb....

Actually, the version I'm familiar with is that, after the tomb was opened and only flowers were found, Thomas went back to India.  On his way, Our Lady appeared to him to settle his doubts and gave him the belt.  A portion of it is kept in one of the larger Syrian Orthodox churches in India. 

[ialmisry]

Btw, I would say that the Orthodox statements on her assumption into heaven at the Dormition does not fall under development of doctrine, while the Vatican's Assumption does.

According to Holy Tradition, the Church of Jerusalem kept the story to itself, and the Apostles did not preach it, as it did not belong to the core of the Faith.  Only in the Council of Chalcedon did it become common knowledge, the Patriarch of Jerusalem explaining to the Empress how come he could not translate the relics of the Holy Theotokos.  Munificentissimus Deus, however, portrays it as the unfolding of dogma, and then proclaims it as a creed of the Vatican's faith, on pain of hellfire.

I wasn't required to profess a belief in the Assumption when I was received (I didn't believe in it).  I came to belief in it only because, in the context of the Church, it makes too much sense.

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