There will be no blogging today in commemoration of the Assumption of Mary (a holy day of obligation in the United States unless it’s been dispensed in your area; call your diocese or your local parish to find out).
Regular blogging service will resume tomorrow.
No! It’s not the Bavarian equivalent of Woodstock!
Well, not totally.
It is a gathering of students, though. Specifically, it’s the gathering of the students that Herr Dr. Joseph Ratzinger had back in the day when he was a college prof. (Y’know, before that whole cardinal/pope gig came along.)
Every year the main man and his former students get together for several days of peace, love, and understanding–with the emphasis on the understanding part. Each year their gathering has a theme that is explored by different speakers (some invited from outside the group) so that the participants can chew over and learn more about the subject.
Last year’s theme for the Schulerkreis was Islam.
This year it’s a no less controversial subject: Evolution.
Man, I’d love to have tickets to this event. If anybody is scalping, lemme know.
A reader writes:
I’m curious how a Catholic should refer to protestant ‘bishops.’ In the course of day to day (non-religious) business I run across men who refer to themselves as "Bishop so and so" when we introduce ourselves They are typically from small, local, apostolic-type of protestant sects . . . in other words, they are not priests, nor are they annointed by bishops in communion with the Church.
A Catholic would NEVER give the title of pope to somebody who introduced themselves as such (except the true Holy Father). So, does the same reasoning follow for protestant bishops? Shall I simply call him ‘reverend’?
I’ll be of what help I can, but first let me challenge one bit of what you said–the idea that a Catholic would never give the title pope to anyone except the holy father.
Actually, they would.
And you know who would? The pope himself!
The reason is that the term "pope" is not used exclusively of the bishop of Rome. It is also used of certain other religious leaders, including the head of the Coptic Church and the head of the Eastern Orthodox Church of Alexandria.
Thus the current head of the Coptic Church is His Holiness Pope Shenouda III (his website is copticpope.org) and the head of the Eastern Orthodox Church of Alexandria is Pope Theodoros II (though he seems to be more commonly called Patriarch Theodore II; and here’s his website).
The title "pope" is given to these individuals even by the pope. If you check the Vatican’s web site, you’ll find a common declaration between Pope Paul VI and Pope Shenouda III, and an address by John Paul II to delegates of Pope Shenouda, and a mention of Pope Shenouda in the encyclical Ut Unum Sint (see n. 62)–among other references to the Coptic pope, using the title "pope" for him.
These usages reflect the approach taken by the Holy See, which is generally to concede the religious titles that are customary in the community that a religious leader belongs to.
This is not to say that they would always grant a person his preferred title. For example, I can scarcely imagine that they would concede the title "pope" to an antipope (of which there are several at the moment, as there always are in every age of Church history since there are always kooks in every age of Church history). Doing that would be too confusing to the faithful, but when it is clear that the religious leader in question makes no pretense of being Catholic, the Holy See has judged the situation sufficiently clear to the faithful that it is willing to extend to a clergyman whatever his preferred title is, even if that title is "pope" (which, after all, just means "father").
This practice is also extended to Protestant bishops who are presumed to have been invalidly ordained, including the head of the Anglican communion. Thus on the Vatican’s web site you’ll find a common declaration between Pope John Paul II and the Archbishop of Canterbury, referring to the latter as "the Archbishop of Canterbury."
The reason they’re doing this, presumably, is the principle that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar, and refusing to use the preferred title for such individuals would be a distinctly vinegary thing to do.
On the other hand, we don’t all move in circles of high ecumenical figures, and there are times when a vinegary "tough love" approach is warranted. It is certainly understandable that you would feel uncomfortable conceding the title "bishop" to individuals who . . . aren’t. And, furthermore, who may not even be trinitarians, depending on what kind of "apostolic" church they are members of.
It’s understandable if they feel that they have this office and are thus entitled to be titled by the title with which it is titled, but it is also understandable if you don’t.
It therefore strikes me as a judgment call as to what you should call them in any particular circumstances. Depending on what will do the most good in a particular case, you might follow the Holy See’s general practice and concede a non-Catholic clergyman his title of preference or you might choose to call him something else. "Reverend" is a good backup term since it is generally used as a clergy honoriffic across confessional lines and doesn’t connote much more than that the person is a clergyman (more info on the title). Personally, I’d have a hard time using even this, though, for a person who is not a trinitarian minister.
As a Southerner, I’ve got something of an out on this one, though. Where I come from, the honoriffic "Sir" is so ingrained that it can be seamlessly used for any male, regardless of his job. In fact, Catholic priests are often reflexively called "Sir" by many Southern Catholics, without the Catholics even realizing that they’re doing it. (They’re not doing it to the exclusion of "Father"; it’s just that "Sir" slips out automatically.) This was particularly noted by one priest I came into contact with who moved to the South and was at first disoriented by his own congregants calling him "Sir" part of the time, until he realized that it was just the custom of the area.
(NOTE: I’m sure that there are Southern Catholics who would disapprove of this, but it’s a fact that it happens–particularly among those who have had the polite use of "Sir" ingrained in them from a very young age.)
Of course, this would leave me in a lurch for what to call a female clergyman, but then there’s that other reflexive regional usage: "Ma’am."
It is also worth observing that the dilemma posed in this post is not unique to Catholics. Non-Catholics also feel torn about what to call clergy from other groups. In particular, many Protestants feel reluctant to call Catholic priests "Father," for understandable (if ultimately unpersuasive) reasons.
I know that from my own time as a Protestant, and I was struck when, after becoming Catholic, I once was visting the Western Wall in Jerusalem with Fr. Mitch Pacwa and I looked over and saw–of all people–Jerry Falwell doing a videotaping a few feet away from me. I pointed him out and soon our two groups were talking. I was struck by how gracious Rev. Falwell was toward Fr. Pacwa, greeting him warmly as "Father" even though Falwell’s theological views have been quite opposed to Catholic principles.
The culture war in America, though, like the ecumenical effort in Rome, has led to a warming of relations between folks of different confessions and a corresponding willingness to grant each other their preferred titles.
Many are aware of the recent attempt by a group of women in the United States to be ordained to the priesthood and the diaconate in a ceremony in Pennsylvania.
This is very unfortunate, and we may hope and pray that those involved will repent. In the meantime, there is the question of what is to be done and how the individuals in question are to be treated and regarded under canon law.
Unfortunately, there has been a lot of what seems to be misinformation floating around in the popular and Catholic press regarding this. Numerous individuals have been asserting that the women have automatically excommunicated themselves and/or removed themselves from the Church.
Neither of these claims appears to be true, canonically speaking.
While the actions of those involved in the ceremony are certainly very grave and a canonical response is called for, there does not appear to be a basis in canon law for the two claims.
Canon law does provide an automatic excommunication for the (valid) consecration of a bishop apart from a papal mandate:
Can. 1382 A
bishop who consecrates some one a bishop without a pontifical mandate and the
person who receives the consecration from him incur a latae sententiae
(automatic) excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See.
This applies to episcopal consecration, but canon law does not provide an automatic excommunication for valid but illicit ordinations to the priesthood or the diaconate or for invalid (simulated) ones.
What happened in the Pennsylvania ceremony was a simulation of the sacrament of ordination, for which the relevant canon appears to be this one:
Can. 1379 In addition to the cases mentioned in can. 1378, a person who simulates the administration of a sacrament is to be punished with a just penalty.
To my mind, a just penalty in this case would be excommunication. What the participants in the ceremony did is clearly grave enough to warrant excommunication. Canonically, however, the law does not provide for this penalty to take effect on them latae sententiae (automatically). That automatic triggering of the punishment does not take place for simulation of holy orders. It would have to be imposed by ecclesiastical authority, and canon 1379 provides the legal basis for its imposition.
There are, however, canonical effects that likely have taken place automatically regarding at least some of the women involved in the ceremony. Those who attempted ordination to the priesthood have presumably or are known to have subsequently attempted to celebrate Mass, and there is an automatic penalty for those who simulate the celebration of the Eucharist:
Can. 1378
§2. The following incur a latae sententiae penalty of interdict or, if a cleric, a latae sententiae penalty of suspension:
1/ a person who attempts the liturgical action of the Eucharistic sacrifice though not promoted to the sacerdotal order;
2/ apart from the case mentioned in §1, a person who, though unable to give sacramental absolution validly, attempts to impart it or who hears sacramental confession.
§3. In the cases mentioned in §2, other penalties, not excluding excommunication, can be added according to the gravity of the delict.
By attempting to celebrate Mass subsequent to their attempted ordinations, the women in question would have interdicted themselves (unless this was prevented by one of the provisions of canons 1323 or 1324). Interdiction has many of the same effects as excommunication but not all of them (see canon 1332 in comparison to 1331). Their action also (per section 3) would provide a basis for the imposition of additional penalties, including excommunication, though this would have to be imposed by ecclesiastical authority instead of taking effect automatically.
The canonical basis also is not clear for the claim that the women have removed themselves from the Church.
The individuals in question had committed an offence against the unity of the Church that disrupts their full communion with the Church, but it is not clear that this breach of unity is sufficient to sever their union with the Church and constitute a formal act of schism.
Canonically, schism is defined as follows:
Can. 751 . . . schism is the refusal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him.
Since there is a canonical penalty of excommunication for schism (can. 1364), whether or not an act of schism has occurred must be judged strictly since "Laws which
establish a penalty, restrict the free exercise of rights, or contain an
exception from the law are subject to strict interpretation" (can. 18).
This means that a narrow construction is to be given to what constitutes "refusal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff" and "refusal . . . of communion with the members of the Church subject to him."
It does not appear that the individuals involved in the Pennsylvania ceremony are attempting to sever communion with other members of the Catholic Church (they still profess to be Catholics), and not every act of disobedience to the Roman Pontiff constitutes a refusal of submission to him (otherwise every knowing violation of canon law would be an act of schism). If the individuals involved in the ceremony said "We don’t believe that the pope has any authority over us" then they would have refused submission to him or–if the pope determined that a specific act constituted a refusal of submission (as John Paul II did in the case of the Lefebvrite episcopal consecrations)–then they could be judged to have committed schism.
Given the frequency with which such "women’s ordination" ceremonies are now occurring, the Church may in the future judge that they constitute schismatic acts or otherwise provide a latae sententiae excommunication for those participating in them, but it has not done so to date.
What is clear is that the individuals involved in this ceremony have committed a grave ecclesiastical offense with the exacerbating circumstances of scandal and sacrilege and they most assuredly deserve censure, including excommunication, even if it must be imposed rather than taking effect automatically.
Feddie over at Southern Appeal writes:
I thought that you would like this. Bainbridge noted it on his blog:
At the link one will find this bumper sticker:
Indeed. Sounds like there’s significant support for the Old Boy (I mean, the "Old One") making a presidential bid.
And that’s not the only Cthulhu presidential sticker I’ve run into! There’s also this one:
I even have a copy of the latter.
It came with my Call of Cthulhu DVD.
I had never heard of Fr. John Duryea but apparently he made quite a splash in the 1970s when he announced to a California congregation that he had committed the Intolerable Sin: he had fallen in love.
Well, that’s how he put it anyway. More to the point, he became involved in an illicit relationship with a woman twenty-four years his junior and eventually would be excommunicated, receiving the letter of excommunication on his wedding day.
On July 22, 2006, the feast of St. Mary Magdalene, John Duryea died.
"Over the past two years, Duryea suffered from deteriorating vision and hearing, although he was still able to walk daily until recently. He was suffering from a rare form of cancer, and family members said he chose a ‘self-directed death,’ [translation: suicide] which Eve DeBona [his wife] said should be legal and acceptable as a ‘much kinder’ way of passing. she was holding his hand when he died. He composed a letter/e-mail to friends the day prior to his death, in which he said, ‘I will go soon. Of all the images I take with me, the strongest are of my beloved mountains.’"
The missive Duryea composed can be read in its entirety on his stepdaughter’s blog. Here is an excerpt:
"I wish to die now, because life is getting too painful for me. I have dermato-fibrosarcoma protuberante, a rare kind of cancer. In addition, my growing blindness and deafness and weakness give me the feeling of being in a fog all the time, and cut off from people, especially my family. This is so unlike my experience of life.
[…]
"From beyond death, I do not wish to reincarnate; I do not wish to return to this earth to face the tangled-up affairs of the world. But I do wish to remain a priest. In my experience, communication between the living and the dead has not been adequate. I would like to foster that communication, with my helping love.
"May God guide you as you have to deal with the present chaos of the world. May God bless Dr. Kevorkian who is suffering in prison because of his love and care for people who wanted to choose the time and means of their deaths. May God bless the state of Oregon, which now offers people this freedom."
(Nod to Katie Allison Granju for the blog links.)
What struck me most — repulsed me, really — was how this former priest’s choice to do away with himself has been entirely whitewashed with terms like "self-directed death" and "a much kinder way of passing." While the family’s use of euphemisms is completely understandable and while my sympathies and prayers for comfort and healing go out to them during their time of grief, the news account of Duryea’s death does not even mention the word suicide. Just as abortion has been euphemized into social tolerability, so the reality of suicide is now being layered over with neologisms.
In the end though, John Duryea has received his wish "to remain a priest." He is indeed a priest forever. May God have mercy on his soul and may he rest in peace. Please keep him in your prayers. From the stories of his life and death, it sounds like he needs them.
St. Mary Magdalene, apostle to the apostles and patron of repentant sinners, pray for him.
Sigh.
EXCEPTS:
The creators of The Muppets and Sesame Street are staging a puppet show that is strictly for adults only.
Miss Piggy would blush over the antics in "Jim Henson’s Puppet Improv" which spearheads a renaissance of puppet shows for grown-ups at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe arts festival.
Every afternoon at the Fringe, an anarchic troupe of puppeteers led by the late Jim Henson’s son Brian do an improvisational show for kids.
Every evening the air turns blue as the show takes off into surreal flights of fancy dictated by the audience.
But would Brian’s father have approved?
"I think he would have loved it because of how outrageous I get. My Dad really believed in community and sweetness but the other side of him was incredibly naughty."
Based on my (limited) knowledge, I also suspect that Brian is correct.
I have to question this, though:
So does Henson, director of the Muppet Christmas Carol and Treasure Island movies, feel puppeteers around the world are trying to redress the balance so adults get a look in?
"Yes, absolutely," he said.
"The Americans are more action-oriented. They want to see the puppets beating each other up.
"British audiences are more intellectual. They like to see it sick and twisted, but in an intellectual way."
A lot of British humor doesn’t strike me as all that intellectual (some is, sure, but then so is some American humor). I find this particular juxtaposition ironic given the prominence in British culture of
Anyway,
Oh, and
THAT’S NOT THE ONLY MISCHIEF AT THE EDINBURGH FRINGE FESTIVAL.
I don’t find it in myself to write about the latter at the moment.
A reader writes:
I own a Logos Libronix (LDLS) collection of ebooks and love the many of the functions of the LDLS system especially the search functions. However there are few Catholic titles available. I know Harmony Media has a great selection of Catholic titles but I would love to be able to search the Catechism, and Papal Encyclicals, and Vatican II documents in LDLS.
Recently another Catholic user has posed the question in their newsgroups as to why there are so few Catholic titles. The response was the following:
"The Libronix Digital Library System is just that – a library system with many books by many publishers. And many of those books disagree with each other in one way or another. For comparative study this is a very good thing. It means you can compare multiple theologies and a variety of doctrinal positions. Yet for many Catholic publishers, that’s where the problem lies. Most love the idea of their books being searchable in the LDLS, but when they find out that other non-Catholic books can be added to the system by users, they stop loving the idea. It’s the commingling of books on Catholicm and perhaps, books on Calvinism that stops them short. For many specific reasons, they cannot and will not allow this to happen. Yet, if Logos were to build a special product that effectively put a wall around Catholic material, our Library system representing many books by many publishers would cease to be a Library system, at least in the way the LDLS is constructed. "
Are Catholic publishers not allowed to publish their books with Nihil Obstats and Imprimaturs in a system that allows the use of non-Catholic material? That seems to be the answer we are getting. But in a normal library all kinds of books are in one place, it doesn’t make sense that the Church would have such a restriction.
We have no responses fro any Catholic publisher on the subject.
Do you know of any other electronic versions of Catholic titles besides Harmony?
Harmony is a leading producer of Catholic e-books, though there are other companies that have put them out. To date many of the results have not been that impressive (the USCCB, for example, put out an electronic edition of the Catechism a few years ago that was simply awful; you had to click seven different things before you could get to your first screen of Catechism text). I’m sure this is something that will be solved with time and–to a significant extent–can be done at home using online resources. IntraText also has critical editions of certain key Catholic works available online.
As far as your question about what Catholic publishers are allowed to do, nothing in canon law prevents them from allowing their works to be placed in a particular storage medium as long as it is made clear that any imprimaturs that their works carry apply only to their works and not to other works also placed in the storage medium. This is the principle, for example, by which the Vatican allows the Catechism and the Code of Canon Law and the Code of Canons for the Eastern Churches to be placed in the IntraText archive, which also contains many non-imprimatured works.
That being said, I do not know who at Logos wrote the reply that you quote or whether it would be endorsed by higher-ups at Logos. It also is not clear to me what the person means, but at first glance the person appears to be trying to blame Catholic publishers for not wanting to have their works put on CDs for Catholic publishers that also contain unlockable versions of non- or anti-Catholic works.
In the old days, Logos did not have a problem preparing special edition CDs for Catholic publishers. I know, because they did prepare a special edition CD for Catholic publishers at one time that omitted the anti-Catholic footnotes of the 38-volume Church Fathers set.
If Logos has now decided that they will no longer prepare special editions for Catholic publishers and they insist on putting unlockable non- or anti-Catholic works on CDs then that is entirely a marketing decision of the people at Logos and has nothing to do with a concept of a library.
A library can include whatever works the librarian wants, and if the librarians at Logos are insisting on putting unlockable non- or anti-Catholic works on proposed CDs for Catholic publishers then that is entirely their own choice. There is no reason in the world, assuming the economics of the deal would work, why an all-Catholic library CD cannot be produced except the choice of Logos management.
I’m also dubious of the broad-brush approach that the author of the statement applies to Catholic publishers. Catholic publishers are not monolithic, just as Protestant publishers are not. They have different degrees of openness to non-Catholic ideas and different degrees of risk tolerance. As someone who works in Catholic publishing, I am leery of catchall statements about Catholic publishers saying that they (as a group) are not willing to do certain things.
I suspect that there are Protestant publishers who have resisted placing their works in Libronix format for the reason that they don’t want their works next to works hostile to their viewpoint, and I suspect that there are Catholic publishers who would not have a problem placing their works in Libronix, even on a CD containing non- or anti-Catholic works. The statement that you quote thus strikes me as taking a broadbrush approach that attempts to place blame on Catholic publishers, which is not good PR to my mind.
Knowing that a company is likely to make such statements as part of its public relations efforts is also the kind of thing that would make Catholic publishers leery of doing business with Logos. One could easily have said, "You know, we’ve talked to a number of Catholic publishers, but thus far we haven’t been able to put together any (or very many) deals, although we’d love to. If you’d like to see your favorite Catholic works available in Libronix format, contact the publishers and let them know that there’s a demand for this."
Trying to make it sound as if Catholic publishers are overcautious (or even paranoid) and thus to blame for not making their works available in this format is not the kind of thing likely to encourage them to make them available in this format.
This is the information age, and sooner or later a large number of Catholic works will be available in electronic format. Whether Logos wants its Libronix format to be the one that wins out in that regard is something that is principally Logos’ responsibility.
I’m also glad that you have had a good experience with Logos Libronix. Personally, I have had a bad experience with it. The Logos system was good when it was in the 1.6 version but when they made the jump to 2.0 they (in my opinion) overbuilt the thing so that it became so musclebound it was simply easier to use Google or CTRL-F to search html documents. Libronix, when it came out, crashed my system and I haven’t been able to use it, so they may have solved some of the overbuilt interface problems from version 2.0. Perhaps at some future point I’ll try it again and discover that the problems have been solved (something that would please me very much).
Hope this helps!
Have seen those ads on TV–or gotten them in the mail–asking if you were harmed by some product or procedure because there are a bunch of lawyers somewhere preparing a class action suit to go after the makers of the product or the providers of the procedure?
They’re all over the place these days, reflecting the amazing litigiousness of contemporary American society.
Have you heard news stories about fantastically large awards being given to people as a result of such lawsuits?
Those are all over the place, too.
What’s the cumulative effect of such lawsuits?
No doubt, it makes manufacturers and service providers more careful in what they present to the market, knowing that they could get sued if someone gets hurt.
Good.
That needs to happen.
But might the cumulative effect of such lawsuits result in companies becoming too risk averse? If that were to happen then the public would be denied products and procedures that would make life better and that could even save lives.
John Stossel argues that this is what’s happening:
Union Carbide has invented a small portable kidney dialysis machine. It would make life much easier for people with kidney disease, but Union Carbide won’t sell it. With legal sharks circling, the risk of expensive lawsuits outweighs the possible profit.
Are you pregnant and nauseous? Bendectin would probably cure your morning sickness. For 27 years doctors prescribed the drug to 33 million women because it was so good at stopping nausea and vomiting. But you can’t buy Bendectin today because lawyers kept suing the manufacturer, Merrell Dow, claiming the drug caused birth defects.
Studies did not show that Bendectin caused birth defects, and Merrell Dow won most of the lawsuits. But after spending $100 million in legal fees and awards, the company gave up selling the drug. Bendectin has never been effectively replaced, and morning sickness is now a major contributor to dehydration during pregnancy.
Dr. Paul Offit, professor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, says, "Within two years of discontinuing Bendectin, the incidence of hospitalization for dehydration during early pregnancy doubled; the incidence of birth defects was unchanged."
Those are just some of the life-enhancing products we know we must do without because America’s peculiar legal system makes it profitable for trial lawyers to pursue extortion — like litigation. What wonderful products will we never even hear about because the lawyers have created a climate of fear?
On the other hand:
Fear of being sued reduced the number of American companies researching contraceptives from 13 to two.
Whatever one ultimately concludes, it’s worthwhile to
GET THE STORY.
A reader writes:
I read online recently (sorry, lost track of the link) that there was significant evidence that the story of the women caught in adultery in the Gospel of John was a late addition rather than part of John’s original Gospel.
I’d never heard this before, so I don’t know if this is some weird biblical scholarship theory or something moderately mainstream. And if it is correct what, if anything, is the Church’s reaction to the question? The article mentioned the story not appearing in a number of early manuscripts of the New Testament, and also said that although Augustine and later Fathers mentioned it, that earlier writers like Tertullian and Origin seemed not to be aware of its existence.
The claim that this passage in John’s Gospel–known as the pericope adulterae ("the passage of the adulterous woman"; John 7:53-8:11)–was not originally in this gospel is not at all fringe biblical scholarship. It is quite mainstream, and you’ll see it noted in the footnotes of some Bibles that the passage may not be in the original.
A good, brief summary of the reasons why it is so regarded is offered by Wikipedia:
The pericope is now viewed by critical scholars of the New Testament as an interpolation: it is argued that it disrupts the story told at the end of chapter 7 and in the remainder of chapter 8; it uses Greek more characteristic of the synoptic Gospels than of John; it appears in only one early Greek manuscript and sometimes appears in different places in later manuscripts, even interpolated in one case into the Gospel of Luke. B. M. Metzger writes that the evidence for the non-Johannine origin of the pericope of the adulteress is overwhelming.
So it’s not oddball scholarship that suggests this, which leaves the reader’s question of what–if anything–the Church’s reaction has been.
The Magisterium of the Church has not, to my knowledge, taken specific action regarding this passage, leaving us to apply the general principles that would be applied to any such manuscript discrepancy.
First, the passage is found in the Vulgate (including the Neo-Vulgate). Now, the Council of Trent issued a definition in which it said:
if any one receive not, as sacred and canonical, the said
books entire with all their parts, as they have been used to be read in the
Catholic Church, and as they are contained in the old Latin vulgate
edition; and knowingly and deliberately contemn the traditions aforesaid;
let him be anathema [SOURCE].
This has led some to suppose that if a passage is found in the Vulgate that it must, ipso facto, be sacred and canonical and thus in the original manuscripts, but this is not what Trent was saying. The Council was not attempting to address the question of what passages were in the originals. What it was doing was repudiating the Protestant claim that the deuterocanonicals were non-canonical. Among the deuterocanonicals are certain passages of Daniel and Esther that are not found in Protestant Bibles (e.g., Bel and the Dragon, the song of the three children). Trent’s reference to accepting "said books entire with all their parts" is meant to emphasize that not only the seven books that are wholly deuterocanonical are to be accepted as sacred and canonical but that the books that have deuterocanonical parts (i.e., Daniel and Esther) are to be accepted as wholly sacred and canonical as well.
The Council was not attempting to determine–beyond this–the authenticity of particular passages. Indeed, there were minor variations in what passages were included in different editions of the Vulgate itself, and there was no edition of the Vulgate that could be appealed to to unambiguously settle such questions. What specific passages were in the originals thus has to be determined by textual criticism, using the best manuscripts and manuscript-evaluation techniques that we have available.
This point was made by Pope Pius XII in his encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu:
Nor should anyone think that this use of the original texts, in accordance with the methods of criticism, in any way derogates from those decrees so wisely enacted by the Council of Trent concerning the Latin Vulgate. It is historically certain that the Presidents of the Council received a commission, which they duly carried out, to beg, that is, the Sovereign Pontiff in the name of the Council that he should have corrected, as far as possible, first a Latin, and then a Greek, and Hebrew edition, which eventually would be published for the benefit of the Holy Church of God. If this desire could not then be fully realized owing to the difficulties of the times and other obstacles, at present it can, We earnestly hope, be more perfectly and entirely fulfilled by the united efforts of Catholic scholars [Divino Afflante Spiritu 20].
He went on to write:
And if the Tridentine Synod wished "that all should use as authentic" the Vulgate Latin version, this, as all know, applies only to the Latin Church and to the public use of the same Scriptures; nor does it, doubtless, in any way diminish the authority and value of the original texts. For there was no question then of these texts, but of the Latin versions, which were in circulation at that time, and of these the same Council rightly declared to be preferable that which "had been approved by its long-continued use for so many centuries in the Church." Hence this special authority or as they say, authenticity of the Vulgate was not affirmed by the Council particularly for critical reasons, but rather because of its legitimate use in the Churches throughout so many centuries; by which use indeed the same is shown, in the sense in which the Church has understood and understands it, to be free from any error whatsoever in matters of faith and morals; so that, as the Church herself testifies and affirms, it may be quoted safely and without fear of error in disputations, in lectures and in preaching; and so its authenticity is not specified primarily as critical, but rather as juridical [Divino Afflante Spiritu 21].
Here Pius XII articulates two points that are of use in assessing the pericope adulterae:
(1) the authenticity of the Vulgate is not critical but juridical, which means that Trent legally bound Catholics of the Latin Church of its day to use the Vulgate publicly but it did not attempt to set up the Vulgate as the official critical edition of the Bible so that we would no longer have to look at the original language manuscripts to determine what was supposed to be in a particular passage.
This means that whether the pericope adulterae was in the original manuscripts or not has to be settled by recourse to the original language manuscripts, not simply the Vulgate.
(2) The reason for the special juridical authenticity of the Vulgate is because its use through so many centuries had shown that "in the sense in which the Church has understood and understands it, [it is] free from any error whatsoever in matters of faith and morals."
This means that the pericope adulterae–by being included in the Vulgate–does not contain errors of faith or morals when properly understood.
And so those would be the two points that–in the absence of a current, binding statement from the Magisterium on the authenticity of the passage–one would naturally conclude regarding it: Critical scholarship must determine whether the passage was in the originals but, even if it was not, the passage does not contain errors of faith or morals when understood in a Catholic sense and so it may safely be appealed to as a passage from which Christians may learn.