People have this idea that "heresy" (boo! hiss! hate-speech alert!) must consist of some sort of denial of a Catholic truth, as in "Jesus is not divine" or "Mary was not assumed into Heaven" and so on. That’s understandable. Most heretical assertions do consist of denials of Catholic truth.
But the Code of Canon Law describes heresy more broadly: "Heresy is the obstinate denial or obstinate doubt … about some truth which is to be believed by divine and Catholic faith." 1983 CIC 751. Notice? Obstinate doubt about matters requiring assent is also heresy.
Ed is talking, of course, about form Notre Dame president Fr. Theodore Hesburgh’s comments in a Wall Street Journal article in which he said "I have no problem with females … as priests, but I realize that the majority of the leadership in the Church would."
Ed doesn’t conclude that Fr. Hesburgh has committed heresy — perhaps because (he can correct me if I’m wrong) because John Paul II’s authoritative teaching in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis ("I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful"), though explicitly proposed "that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance," falls a hair shy of an infallible definition? (Added: I’m not saying that the teaching hasn’t been infallibly proposed. It has — by the ordinary magisterium. I’m just saying it hasn’t been solemnly defined by the extraordinary magisterium.)
Of course, whatever level of magisterial authority has or hasn’t been brought to bear, the teaching itself is either part of the divine deposit of faith or it isn’t. If it is, then Fr. Hesburgh has declared that he "doesn’t have a problem" with opposing the will of Christ and falsifying the sacraments. It may not meet the canonical definition of heresy, but I for one want to stick a little closer to following Christ and being conformed to his will than just not technically committing heresy.
I’ll be honest. When you read stuff like this, I can’t help wondering how someone who has any faith at all, who actually believes that this stuff is not just made-up but is actually divine in origin — the Church itself, the sacraments, the priesthood — could possibly be so cavalier about it.
Even if you think, or suspect, or are open to the possibility that, contrary to the firm teaching of JP2 and the basically unanimous witness of 2000 years of tradition, the reservation of ordination to men is actually rooted in human culture rather than the will of Christ, can you possibly be so sure of that that you blithely say "I have no problem with…"? Not "I have no problem with people asking the question…" or "I have no problem with the possibility that…" but simply "I have no problem with women priests," full stop?
How about married bishops, or lay celebrants of the Mass, or baptizing in the name of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva? Would Fr. Hesburgh have a "problem" with those? If so, why? Because they’re foreign to our cultural heritage, or because divine reality impinges in some way on all of this stuff? If I sound scandalized, well, I kind of am. I can deal to an extent with differences of opinion about where the foundation is, but at some point if you keep digging I can’t help wondering whether you think there’s actually a foundation at all.
Mark Shea likes to sidestep the issue of defining torture by suggesting that if we aim at treating prisoners humanely, rather than fixating on where the line is and how far we can go without actually technically torturing them, we won’t accidentally torture them. In a similar vein, if we aim at fidelity to the Church rather than fixating on where the line is and how far we can go without actually technically committing heresy, we won’t accidentally commit heresy.
It’s hard to disagree with Ed’s conclusion:
I think that to dismiss, with evident contempt, any part of Catholic truth is wrong, but for a famous priest to do so in regard to the very point that has metastasized into more formal excommunications than any other modern misdeed is disgraceful.
And sad.
SDG,
Mr. Peters wasn’t saying that ordination of woman is an open or non-infallible issue.
Rather, he was simply saying that Fr. Hesburgh is expressing obstinant doubt in the Church’s infallible binding teaching, without necessarily directing denying it.
Maybe his statement doesn’t imply a direct denial of Church teaching, but at the least it makes the issue doubtful, up for debate, etc.
Just a note: The Cong. for the the Faith clarified that the Churches teaching that women cannot be ordained was already infallible teaching. The Pope did not need to define it as such ..it already was infallible by the Ordinary Magisterium….I am sure Ed Peters will chime in too….as you requested..
I didn’t say it was an open or non-infallible issue either. I agree that it is infallibly defined by the ordinary magisterium. I’ve updated the post to reflect this.
As the letter from then Cdl. Ratzinger states below Pope John Paul II did not need to make an ex catherdra statement about a doctrine that is already infallibly taught by the ordinary magisterium of the Church.
Letter Concerning the CDF Reply Regarding Ordinatio Sacerdotalis
Joseph Card. Ratzinger
Prefect
Take care and God bless,
Inocencio
J+M+J
Here is Jimmy’s site on the infallibility of the matter
http://www.cin.org/users/james/files/w-ordination.htm
Let me call attention to something you didn’t, SDG: the
at first bland-sounding qualifier, “…but I realize that
the majority of the leadership in the Church would.”
That is a not-too-subtle way of implying (or inviting the
construal) that it’s just a whole bunch of men in power who
are the ones who have “a problem.” As though the rest of
faithful would have no more problem with it than Fr.
Hesburgh. What makes it a bit difficult for me to
believe in the absolute innocence of Fr. Hesburgh with
respect to obstinate doubt or denial, is that he is certainly
smart enough to understand how his remark will be
understood by readers who don’t know as much about the
Fsith as most anyone reading this blog.
Sorry for the unintended anonymity of the previous post.
The issue of the reservation of orders to men is not material for formal heresy. Why? Because while it is definitive and infallible teaching it is not understood to be revealed, an object of the virtue of faith, de fide credenda. Credenda means to be believed, which is the specific language used by canon law. It is understood to be a necessary belief which follows from revelation, de fide teneda. Just as the moral wrongness of embryonic stem-cell research was not directly revealed, but rather the only reasonable application of the principles which were revealed, that men alone can be ordained was not revealed, but follows necessarily from what has been revealed about the priesthood, man, and woman. Heresy is a sin against the virtue of faith, it not only removes charity, but also faith from the soul. Belief in women’s ordination is a species of disobedience and when freely chosen removes charity from the soul, but faith can remain. So while both can destroy one’s soul, only heresy puts one defacto outside of the Church.
Huh, I’m a little surprised by that letter. I’d been under the impression that the statement in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was in fact an instance of Papal Infallibility in that it fulfilled the basic requirements for Papal Infallibility despite not using the specific ex cathedra formula. Namely, that the Pope in his role as Pope declared a matter of faith or morals binding on the faithful. Perhaps if it falls just shy of that it’s that the language isn’t strong enough in terms of binding, just saying that “this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.” Also he had to know that in our time if something isn’t given that ex cathedra formula then, unfortunately, many people will assume it can’t be infallible. Because of that you could argue that by not using the ex cathedra formula the Pope is deliberately leaving some ambiguity in the matter, some room for debate as to the infallibility of the statement, and therefore it can’t be infallible.
In any case of course the important thing isn’t whether it’s an extraordinary or ordinary use of the Papal Magisterium but whether what is being stated is a truth revealed by God to be held by faith, which it certainly is.
“How about married bishops, or lay celebrants of the Mass, or baptizing in the name of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva? Would Fr. Hesburgh have a “problem” with those? If so, why?”
I have a quick question about this line. Women priests are inherently not priests. A Mass performed by lay celebrants is inherently not a Mass. Baptizing in the name of Brahma, et. al. is inherently not a baptism. But isn’t it possible for a bishop to be married if the Church changed her disciplines (even though the odds of that happening are astronomically small)? I don’t advocate for married Latin Rite priests, but isn’t being in favor of married bishops an acceptable, albeit very nontraditional, position for a Catholic to hold? It’s a matter of discipline rather than doctrine, right?
I think it’s a difficult question. The tradition of a celibate episcopacy is so ancient, and so universal, that it may be felt that the Church’s authority to change it is at least subject to question.
For a similar case, consider Sunday worship. Not a matter of divine revelation or positive divine law, AFAIK, but a tradition of such antiquity and universality as to be part and parcel of the Church’s identity. I would suppose that the Church should, or even must, consider herself bound to it.
However, I don’t guess I would go so far as to say that episcopal ordination cannot validly be conferred on a married man (as opposed to a bishop marrying, which would of course be held invalid simply for reasons of form… unless, I suppose, he formally apostasized… at which point I would be well and thoroughly out of my depth, and not just in over my head).
As far as I know there were married bishops in the earliest Church, and of course some of the Apostles were married. My impression is that episcopal celibacy and priests and deacons not getting married after ordination came first but not imediately, then priestly celibacy still later. Of course I’m all in support of all of that, as well as extending manditory celibacy to the deaconate.
SDG wrote:
For a similar case, consider Sunday worship. Not a matter of divine revelation or positive divine law, AFAIK, but a tradition of such antiquity and universality as to be part and parcel of the Church’s identity.
Not that its too relevant, but it could be argued that Sunday worship was the habit of the apostles (see St. Paul’s description of worshiping on the day of the Lord’s Resurrection (in Acts)) and, as such, is a part of the habit, if not the teaching of the Ordinary Magisterium. Is it divine revelation? Well, is the Pauline privilege divine revelation? This is a gray area, for me. Anybody want to color the picture?
My only comment about the post is, there is a disconnect when I hear the words, “Notre Dame president.” and “Fr. Theodore Hesburgh.” How can one be the president of a Catholic university and a priest (in good standing!?) and even think that a woman can be a priest? There is a loyalty oath for Catholic college theologians. Perhaps presidents should be required to sign, as well.
The Chicken
It has been argued that OS is not only infallible but also a classic example of an EX-CATHEDRA teaching.
SDG you need to re-read Vatican Council I Pronounced by Pope Pius IX on July 18, 1870 Vatican Council I
Dogmatic Constitution “Pastor Aeternus,” Chapter IV
“On the Infallibility of the Roman Pontiff”
Therefore, faithfully adhering to the tradition received from the beginning of the Christian religion, for the glory of God our Savior, for the exaltation of the Catholic faith and the salvation of the Christian people, with the approval of the sacred council, we teach and define that it is a divinely revealed dogma that the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks *ex cathedra*, i.e., [1] when exercising his office as pastor and teacher of all Christians he defines, [2] by his supreme apostolic authority, [3] a doctrine of faith or morals [4] which must be held by the universal Church, enjoys, through the divine assistance, that infallibility promised to him in blessed Peter and with which the divine Redeemer wanted His Church to be endowed in defining doctrine of faith and morals; and therefore that the definitions of the same Roman Pontiff are irreformable of themselves and not from the consent of the Church. “If anyone should presume to contradict this definition of ours – may God prevent this happening – anathema sit.”
The bracketed number are mine for illustrative purposes.
For an Ex-Cathedra, infallible statement, the Pope must be:
[1] intending to teach
[2] by virtue of his supreme apostolic authority
[3] a matter of Faith or morals
[4] to be HELD by the universal Church.
SDG, documents are not infallible. The POPE is infallible. He need not use any particular form of language and he need not bury a single line definition in 50 pages of curial fluff.
There have been some objections that a solomn definition pertains to some doctrine that must be believed, however the definition (if you read latin) pertains to doctrines that must be HELD (Tenenda) not just believed (Credenda).
So hold on!!
-Sorry for the unintended anonymity of the previous post.- Kirk
I like that expression, “unintended anonymity”. I hope you don’t mind if I use it.
SDG, if we are in agreement that OS is an instance of a teaching that is proposed as divinely revealed by the ordinary universal magisterium, then it’s hard to conclude that obstinate doubt of its teaching is not heresy.
Heresy is the obstinate “doubt, after baptism, of a truth which must be believed by divine and catholic faith.” CIC can. 751. What is something that needs to be believed by divine and catholic faith?
CIC can. 750 (emphasis added).
The only case in which doubting OS would not be heresy is if OS was not an exercise of the ordinary universal magisterium. Perhaps it wasn’t, but if you claim that it is an exercise of the ordinary universal magisterium, then obstinately doubting it is heresy.
To be more precise, the only case in which doubting OS would not be heresy would be if OS was neither an exercise of the solemn magisterium nor the ordinary universal magisterium. Because you claim that it is an exercise of the ordinary universal magisterium, its obstinate doubt is necessarily heresy.
The CDF, i.e., Cardinal Ratzinger, would seem to have disagreed with you.
Well, perhaps I do and perhaps I don’t. I’m not sure you have grounds for concluding that our difference of opinion must be rooted in my forgetfulness of the text. :‑)
Permit me to point out that what is crucially present in Pastor Aeternus, and crucially absent in your summary, is the crucial word “define.” It is generally recognized as significant that JP2 avoided this word in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, choosing instead “declare.”
This is a very tricky area. I said I agreed it was “infallibly proposed.” Following Nick Winkler above, I’m not sure it is proposed as “divinely revealed.” Not all that is infallibly proposed is divinely revealed in the sense of belonging to public revelation. E.g., that Teresa of Calcutta is in heaven is infallibly proposed, but not divinely revealed in the strict sense.
I think it may be the case (I’m not sure) that such truths require a firm assent that is nevertheless not “divine and catholic faith,” and that denial of such truths, while gravely wrong and scandalous, is not technically heresy. It may even be (again I’m not sure) that such truths can be infallibly proposed, as this one has, but not dogmatically defined in the strict sense. I am most open to correction on all these points.
(FWIW, I admit I muddied the waters in my original post with the unfortunately imprecise expression “the teaching itself is either part of the divine deposit of faith or it isn’t.” “Is part of” might have been more accurately phrased “pertains to.”)
J.R. Stoodley, just curious; why are you in favor of extending mandatory celibacy to the diaconate? A deacon promises not to marry again if his wife dies, and a single man cannot marry after he is ordained a deacon. But a married deacon’s matrimonial commitment pre-dates his ordination. The pope doesn’t seem to have a problem with it.
This again? “No means no.”
Well, if no woman can ever be validly ordained, it would seem impossible to ever claim anything but the fact that no woman could ever be validly ordained. If no woman could ever be validly ordained, then to state that:
“I have no problem with females … as priests, but I realize that the majority of the leadership in the Church would.”
Is a little like saying that, “I have no problem with pi being 75 although the majority of mathematicians might,” – except that pi never can be 75.
[Side-track – can be skipped, except for those doing penance of some sort :)]
I hate to sound like a cold logician, but Fr. Hesburgh’s statement is an example of what is known as the Gibbard Phenomenon in conditional logic. What happens if A implies B from one person’s perspective, but A implies not-B from a second person’s perspective, so the two people have reached exactly opposite opinions and yet, they both find out that A can never happen? Person A can say, “If women could be ordained, I would have no problem with it,” or Person B can say, “If women could be ordained, I would have a big problem with it,” but if the real case is that women cannot be validly ordained, then the antecedent never obtains. Some logicians think such statements have no truth content.
[End of side-track]
So, it is entirely possible, as strange as this might sound, for Fr. Hesburgh to make the statement he did, but not be a heretic, if, I say, if, he makes his statements in the counterfactual sense – i.e., hypothetically. Unfortunately, it is hard to tell from the quote, above that he isn’t, really, speaking hypothetically. In order to determine heresy, more of the quote/talk would have to be given. It seems like he is making a straightforward statement, but there is a whiff of hypotheticallity that might be detected in the quote. Given just this statement, one might be justified in saying there is an 85% probability that his statement is heretical, but there is a small chance it is not, depending on how he meant his statement.
I guess one can have all the faith one wants about what would happen in some alternate universe without being a heretic in the real one.
The Chicken
That should read:
I hate to sound like a cold logician, but Fr. Hesburgh’s statement may be an example of what is known as the Gibbard Phenomenon in conditional logic.
Sorry. Didn’t want to make such a bold statement.
Sorry for the technical talk, but hair-splitting is a necessity, sometimes, before one can commit to calling another person a heretic or even saying that he made an heretical statement.
The Chicken
Stoodley and Melody, I think you are speaking past each other. The Catholic Church does not currently prohibit married priests, though the cases are rare. In both the case of married priests and married deacons, the marriage must take place before ordination; a single man ordained to either cannot subsequently marry.
I’m not sure I see the logic of extending the regular discipline of celibacy to the diaconate, however.
SDG, thank you for clarifying your position. For some reason, I took your reference to the teaching being defined by “the ordinary magisterium” to mean that you were referencing the CDF letter, which claims that OS is not only an exercise of the ordinary universal magisterium but also claims the following: “the Reply specifies that this doctrine belongs to the deposit of the faith of the Church,” i.e. not merely implied from the deposit but belonging to it.
Of course, the necessary implication of your opinion is that the CDF is wrong here. Is that the case?
Paul: You’ve got me. I must retreat. As Inocencio points out earlier, Cardinal Ratzinger clearly says “founded on the written Word of God, and constantly held and applied in the Tradition of the Church, it has been set forth infallibly by the ordinary universal Magisterium.” While someone might try to find some way to cross-examine this language as well as the sentence you quote, that someone would not be me.
I am not yet definitively sold on the idea that denying the reservation of ordination to men is necessarily technically heresy, but I no longer see any possible way forward to argue that thesis. Perhaps someone else can do it.
Actually, SDG, you could say this: the CDF is not infallible. Theoretically, it could be wrong.
Which leads us to this question: what effect does the CDF pronouncement have, juridically speaking? Must a judge rely on the pronouncement in a penal process?
Well, yes, someone could argue that, but like I said that someone wouldn’t be me.
The quote by Ed Peters is seriously mistaken in its conclucion that “Obstinate doubt about matters requiring assent is also heresy.” The Code of Canon law defines heresy very precisely as obstinate doubt of something to be believed with “divine and Catholic faith.” Matters of divine and Catholic faith have to be divinely revealed. But not all matters “requiring assent” have to be divinely revealed. The two sets of propositions are not coextensive. In the case at hand, the issue (the prohibition female ordination) is contained in divine revelation. But there are propositions which require assent but which have *not* been divinely revealed–for example, the invalidity of Anglican orders. So Peters erred in assuming everything to which we must give assent is also of “divine and Catholic faith.”
In Ad Tuendam Fidem, Pope John Paul II modified canon law to provide a just penalty for those who deny definitive teaching, such as that contained in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, that is, teachings not yet defined as revealed by God (c.750,2).
The modified canons 750 and 1371 state:
Taken together, it seems clear that the Magisterium while it has not yet defined, but still could, that the male priesthood is revealed by God, nonetheless can sanction with a just penalty the denial that it is to be believed as obliged by what IS revealed, and therefore infallibly true.
Thanks SDG,
And all this time I thought that ‘definitivly held’ meant that we were to assent to this teaching as if it were a ‘definition’! Boy was I wrong…
Cardinal Ratzingers CDF letter mentions the word ‘definitive’ 5 times and ‘definitivly’ 1 time. Also the Responsum + dubium also refers to the words ‘definitivly held’ and ‘belonging to the deposit of faith’.
Bl. Pio Nono’s definition of an Ex-Cathedra teaching merely says that the Pope is defining something but does not teach that he must use the exact word ‘define’. OS does however use the word definitivly. The question is, is this word good enough? This is, I think, what you are missing.
This is why OS is a defined DOGMA. It captures the four points that consitute a definition – it does not have to actually use the word ‘define’. In addition is also conforms to canon law in that it must be ‘mainfestly evident’ that he is intending to settle something that is in dispute that is connected with the ‘deposit of faith’.
Manifestly evident does not mean that the majority of the faithful or Theologians or Bishops or WHOEVER are in complete agreement with the teaching. If that were the case then OS would not have been needed in the first case.
SDG, fair enough.
Just a question: in the phrase, “divine and Catholic faith,” what does, “divine faith,” mean? Catholic faith seems obvious.
The Chicken
HAPPY 40th Birthday, Steve!
I was with Garrison Keillor on my 40th. He said, “Welcome to the 40’s. It’s not so bad.”
Good advice.
love ya,
Chris
“How about married bishops, or lay celebrants of the Mass, or baptizing in the name of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva?”
I find it difficult to accept that you view married bishops on the same plane as something impossible, and something herectical.
Unmarried bishops i.e. priestly celibacy is a discipline the Western Church has chosen to follow. Unless you are saying that all the bishops and priests who were married before the adoption of celibacy as a norm were somehow invalid.
One would have to turn a blind eye to scripture and what makes a good bishop as laid out in Timothy if they believe married bishops were somehow heretical.
Just to reassure, I believe the priesthood is reserved for men, just a motherhood is reserved for women. It is the natural order of things instituted by God Himself. I just had to speak up about the point of the possibility of married bishops not being a heretical idea.
I don’t regard it as on the same plane or heretical. I do regard it as something that may be impossible to change inasmuch as the tradition is simply too ancient and universal and binding, much like Sunday worship.
It is not simply the Western church — no ecclesial tradition in any true Church of the East, the West or the Orient has or has ever had a married episcopacy. That some of the apostles seem to have been married is hardly more relevant than that some of of the early Jewish Christians including the apostles seem to have continued at least for some time to observe the Sabbath rather than the Lord’s day.
I am not saying that conferring episcopal ordination on a married man would be invalid. I am saying that the tradition of episcopal celibacy seems to be too closely linked to the Church’s identity to clearly fall into the realm of legitimate disciplinary discretion.
Dear SDG,
You wrote:
I am saying that the tradition of episcopal celibacy seems to be too closely linked to the Church’s identity to clearly fall into the realm of legitimate disciplinary discretion.
1. Aren’t some of the Eastern Rite churches also very old? Haven’t their clergy always been allowed to be pre-ordained married?
2. By definition, if the Pope can change it, it isn’t a doctrine and must be a discipline. Since the Pope can change the ordination rites (and has) to allow for married priests (in some cases, not in general), it must be a discipline.
3. It may be a very stable discipline, however.
4. It may be that a married priesthood has a defective status (the ideal, being celibacy), that, nevertheless, may be allowed, in prudence. Prudence of this sort is reserved to the Pope. Prudence always imposes a discipline on choices.
5. One cannot be a heretic by disregarding discipline, but one can be gravely sinful and even excommunicated. There are different paths to excommunication; heresy and manifest disobedience to discipline can be two different, but closely related paths.
The Chicken
Not bishops. Nobody has a married episcopacy (pace the Anglicans). In the Eastern and Oriental Churches, bishops are chosen exclusively from the monastic priesthood. There are no exceptional cases — no individual married bishops in the Roman Church or elsewhere.
I think it is at least an open question whether the Church has the authority to change a tradition of such ancient and universal standing. Along with Sunday worship, the celibate episcopacy seems to have a special status that is neither clearly divinely revealed truth nor clearly mutable human discipline.
Dear SDG,
That is interesting about the Eastern Rite Churchs.
There is, however, that pesky passage in Titus:
Tts 1:6 if any man is blameless, the husband of one wife, and his children are believers and not open to the charge of being profligate or insubordinate.
Tts 1:7 For a bishop, as God’s steward, must be blameless; he must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain,
If bishops were allowed to be married (once) in apostolic times, when did the Church definitively change the practice? If they did change the practice, then I think this would be a definitive answer to the question of the status of the celibate priesthood. I don’t know enough detail about Church history to be able to say when the change took place (assuming I am interpreting Titus correctly).
I would love to hear clarifications on this. Teach me, teach me…
The Chicken
the chicken – there was a priest in latin america, I think named Salomão Barbosa Ferraz, who ended up going into schism by joining the Brazilian National Catholic Church, then getting married, then being ordained a bishop for the Brazilian National Church. Later on in life then returned to the Church and the pope at the time, because hs episcopal orders were valid, gave him a titular see and was assigned as a auxillary bishop for a diocese.
Dear alexsander
I had never heard of that affair before, and your comment gave me the opportunity to learn more about the freak show that Brazilian Catholicism seems to look like every once in a while. In my quick research, the only description of the case from an orthodox Catholic source that I found was this one, and it doesn’t mention anything about Dom Salomão Ferraz being married.
It’s strange, because the article linked mentions in the second paragraph that he was received into the Catholic Church (apparently for the first time; the bishop who illicitly appointed him was schismatic) in 1963 and died apparently in fully communion with the Church, and as SDG said above, the Catholic Church has never had a married episcopacy, and the pastoral provision from, I think, the 70’s, that allowed the ordination of married clergymen under some circunstances, as far as I know restricted those ordination to the priesthood only.
Given that the whole affair happened in the 30’s and 40’s, D. Salomão was already a widower by the time of his return to the Church. I can’t think of any other explanation.
Given that the whole affair happened in the 30’s and 40’s, perhapsD. Salomão was already a widower…
Sorry (again) folks…
Ash wrote: “Peters erred in assuming everything to which we must give assent is also of ‘divine and Catholic faith.'”
Ash, as a lawyer I certainly don’t mind my words being closely parsed, :), but please parse what I wrote in its immediate context, not what you think I wrote, or what you think I should have written.
What I said was: “But the Code of Canon Law describes heresy more broadly: ‘Heresy is the obstinate denial or obstinate doubt . . . about some truth which is to be believed by divine and Catholic faith.’ 1983 CIC 751. Notice? Obstinate doubt about matters requiring assent is also heresy.”
My statements, in the paragraph in question, make the exact point you think I should have made, albeit only once, and not (redundantly) twice. Maybe next time I will say it twice. Pedagogically, that might have been sounder, I admit.
Anyway, though it was not the occasion or point of my post, fwiw, I do think JP2 avoided deciding (w/o deciding against) publishing OS to be ‘credenda definitive’, and settled for ‘tenenda definitive’, which [insert numerous points here] makes one denying the teaching contained in OS liable to “a just penalty”, as opposed to excommunication for heresy. For now.
Okay? Kindest regards. edp.
ps: I only came across this fascinating SDG post recently, and way too much water has passed under the bridge to comment on the other points made above. Esp. when, this Sunday is being devoted to quietly watching some older films recommended by Decent Films site!
Re: Tradition of celibate bishops.
What about St. Gregory’s dad, the Bishop of Nazianzus?
To my mind, the real problem with Fr. Hesburgh’s position re “ordination” of women can be found in the answer to the preceding question posed by the interviewer in the article. He identifies the Church as a “human organization” that seems to be lacking quality “leadership”. As a properly catechized Catholic (not to mention an ordained priest) he should be able to identify Christ as the Head of the Church, and the Church herself as being eternal and temporal, existing in heaven as well as on earth, and as being a divine institution as well as a human one. But then again, maybe he’s been influenced by all of those years spent as a member or trustee on the boards of all of those secular (human) organizations.
Ed,
I beg to differ in your reply to Ash. JP2 published OS in accordance with the formula set down by Pius IX in Pastor Aeternus as a teaching to be HELD not just believed. Pio Nono used the word TENENDA not CREDENDA.
Some Jesuits do baptize in the name of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. Their Blessed Mother is a demon cannibal named Kali.
There is another blog called the Reditus (formerly the Sarabite) where Arturo Vazquez took rejection of SSPX to far and takes the Spirit of Assisi where it was not intended to go into veneration on his website of multiple posts extolling the good of liturgical dance to Shiva and physics and Shiva and Sufi mystical music and poetry to the Mohhameden sodomite Rumi and Indian Ragas (dedicated to Hindu gods that may turn out to be demons.
I’ll take a look at that pseudomodo. nb: these words get used differently over time, but your observation is an interesting one anyway. personally, i think we are headed that way, but i don’t want to reach the tomb before Peter, and all that.
Ed,
Thanks. I have looked into this for some time now and have had at least one run-in with a local Monsignor on the subject. I look at the actual definition from Pator Aeternus. This is what I base my position on because the counter arguments almost always involve the words ‘believe'(credenda) and ‘hold'(tenenda). The key word is tenenda.
A couple of excellent articles on the subject: one from Brother Brother Ansgar Santogrossi, O.S.B., in Pastoral and Homiletic Review
http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=835&CFID=14603758&CFTOKEN=30706560
another from E. Lane Core http://catholicity.elcore.net/CoreOnOrdinatioSacerdotalis.html
To follow up on GeriP’s example of a married episcopacy – don’t some bishops of Rome fall into this category? (H)adian II for starters…?