Happyheathen engages in discussion in a thread questioning the doctrine of the Catholic Church without engaging in polemics. Nunc dimittis…
Tom~, is this a case of the “ordinary magisterium” coming into play? – while not claiming infallibility, the Church is issuing a teaching regarding the secular world compulsory on its loyal members and intended to guide their consciences – then reinterpreting it in a manner more in tune with later developments as regards the secular issues which it addresses?
That’s what I’m making out of your discussion, without going into detail on it. Do I have it right?
Yeah, I’d say that is a good description of the church’s perspective on Pius IX’s Syllabus. (And, given the changes in both the world (political and philosophical and scientific) and in the church (political and philosophical and theological) and the 138 years that have elapsed since their publication, I would say that there is a lot of context to be considered when viewing them.
Closer to our time period, Humae Vitae gets the same sort of treatment. Some folks will dismiss it (or embrace it) as simply a declaration that “birth control is a no-no.” Others will actually read the document and use it to make informed decisions in their lives. The declared discipline of the church at this time is clearly opposed to artificial birth control (and is not really happy with natural family planning), but statements that “the church condemns/forbids artificial birth control” are overly simplistic renderings of the text. (And, of course, there are lots of people inside and outside the church that prefer simplistic renderings.)
“the most explicit and detailed condemnation, however, was administered to modern Liberalism by Pius IX in the Encyclical “Quanta cura” of 8 December, 1864 and the attached Syllabus.”
So, was the “Quanta cura” an Encyclical, and the Syllabus a part of the Encyclical, or just a ‘BTW’ post-it attached to an Encyclical?
And, after all the hate mail generated by such a document, WHY ON EARTH did Pius X then re-iterate it?
and, as this seems relevant to the discussion of Church v. State, when WERE personal oaths of allegiance to the Pope dropped?
think Huguenots - historians of the Catholic Church can rattle off the names of others…
I’m not sure. The Syllabus of errors went through three iterations before it was published, but I don’t know whether it was published as an appendix to Quanta Cura or simply published at the same time. I’m not sure that it makes a difference. It is still a proclamation by the pope indicating the discipline of the church on certain issues, warning of errors of belief, and setting out the church’s (then) current understanding of the truth.
The reason that Pius IX felt that the errors needed to be addressed (and Pius X felt that the same errors needed to still be addressed forty years later) is that the theologies of Liberalism and Modernism were perceived as specific threats to church teaching. If people got mad over the first document, that would tend to encourage the second pope to reiterate the points; the church is not a democratic organization.
The basic objections to Liberalism and Modernism is that they make man (humanity) the judge of all things. (What some Protestant groups like to attack as secular humanism.) From the perspective of the church, God is the measure of all, and placing humanity up as judge invites disaster.
Obviously, if one does not believe in a god, the church’s position is somewhat silly. (And if it was simply a matter of the church poking its nose into national politics, then the church would clearly be out of line–although the church leaders would not have seen it that way 100 years ago, and some church leaders would continue to believe that they should setting agendas regarding secular politics.) However, several of the attitudes and philosophical points regarding setting man as the ultimate judge were imported into the church by various theologians. It was primarily against these beliefs that the encyclicals and decretals (including the two Syllabi) were written.
The 20th century was when it was finally brought home to various church leaders that they were no longer in a position to set the tone of discourse even in “Catholic” nations. It was not an idea that died swiftly (or that they relinquished easily).
When the C.E. refers to Liberalism or Modernism, it is not referring to a general attitude that would make Newt Gingerich flinch, but to a specific set of premises and philosophical declarations of the 19th century which the church opposed.
Many of the objectives of 19th century Liberalism (regarding the civil rights of people) have now been embraced by the church (as I mentioned, above, while conflating the names of Leo XIII and Benedict XV), but the core premise that man is the measure of all things would still be rejected in church teaching.
Bishops certainly pledge their obedience to the pope (he’s their boss).
The Jesuits have a “Fourth Vow” (following Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience) to accept any task the pope sets for them to the missions. This was intended literally to the proselytizing missions for which the Society was initially established. Jesuit Identity–scroll to The fourth vow
(Of course, the phrase gets frequently corrupted to be treated as a vow to carry out any “mission” of the pope, as generally claimed by either outside groups that insist that the Jesuits are some secret weapon the pope uses for nefarious ends or by disaffected insiders such as the idiot, Malachi Martin, who claims that the Jesuits are treacherous for failing to follow their “pledge” on those occasions when they have not stuck closely to the pope’s party line.) Certainly, various popes have called upon the Jesuits to carry out various tasks (as they have called upon Dominicans and Franciscans and others). Usually, the task has involved bringing in the education-oriented Jesuits to a situation where education was lacking.
When I said, earlier, that I did not know of anyone who had made any special pledges to the pope, I was not evading a question. I am, despite a passing familiarity with Catholicism, unaware of any such pledges that are made by any specific individuals or groups aside from the fairly innocuous ones just mentioned. (I have come across a reference or two to an “Order of the Holy Sepulchre” whose members pledge “loyalty” to the pope. They seem to be a sort of “Knights of Columbus” on steroids who work to preserve Catholic shrines in Israel, but I could have even that information wrong.) There have been periods when the Holy Roman Emperor (or some less powerful ruler) has been forced to declare allegiance to the pope, either in response to a disagreement over doctrine or in response to some political maneuvering. I have never heard of a pledge of allegiance to the pope outside specific acts on specific occasions by specific individuals.
If you have information regarding some “pledge of papal allegiance” that comes from a source less likely to be an utter liar than Ian Paisley, please share it and I’ll try to research it. (Paisley has been known to claim that the monogram IHS used in Catholic iconography (meaning Iesus Hominum Salvator) is actually a reference to “Isis, Horub, and Set” the Egyptian Gods whom Catholics “really” worship.)
Certainly, encyclicals and decretals are different. One is a pastoral letter setting forth the current pope’s views regarding an issue facing the church; the other is a letter indicating specific errors a pope belives he has dicerned in philosophical or theological sources. I’m sure that any pope issuing any document believes himself to be setting forth Truth. The historic reality, however, has been that such documents have not been considered infallible and, while Catholics are obligated to consider seriously the statements set forth (and to remember that the pope is the chief guy for a reason), a Catholic who cannot agree with them in conscience is not considered to be hellbound for that disagreement.
Did, at some point (16[sup]TH[/sup] century?) did “Christian” = “fealty to the Pope”?
Were those who rejected Catholicism (“Heretics”, at the time) considered to reject the Pope, thereby leading to a mindset of “Catholic = Papist” and “Protestants = ‘unloyal to Pope’”?
The issue of the St. Barthomew Massacre seems to pivot on this point (gotta love the de Medici’s)
and:
a) yes, the Church has been known be less-than-pleasant, so a bit of criticism is to be expected.
b) Your opinion of Ian Paisley and mine concur.
c) Does the present Curia consider Encyclicals to be opinons which may be disregarded by individuals, based on conscience?
d) How did Mary, who returned England to the RCC, run afoul of it? (yes, I do LOVE the irony )
I have never heard Christianity equated to fealty to the pope. Certainly, in the 16th century there had been a 500 year schism with the Orthodox and no one ever claimed that they were not Christian.
Martin Luther had a personal feud with one pope, but Calvin and his buddies never got into that feud. There were so many other things to fight about (Transubstantiation, Scriptural canon, Scriptural interpretation, Faith vs Acts, (subset, Indulgences), rectitude of the clergy, etc.) that the papacy was merely one of many aspects of the hostility. Rejecting the papacy was always more important to some Protestants than preserving it was to most Catholics. Protestants tended to think in terms of “The papacy must go.” Catholics tended to think in terms of “Stop breaking up the Church.” (Similar in some ways to the U.S. Civil War, where the South fought to preserve slavery while the North fought to preserve the Union. Preserving the papacy or freeing the slaves was a “good” thing in their respective minds, but it was not their foremost goal.)
To get into a true papacy battle, you have to move to England where Henry VIII ran out the “Is the pope the head of the church in England?” question that had troubled Henry II along with another dozen or so European kings over the years. The separation of the Church of England was not really part of the Protestant Reformation, although once separated, the Puritans and other Protestants made a strong run to govern the country (both religiously and in civil affairs). The situation was never as simple as “the pope or not the pope.” (Thomas More was not beheaded for insisting on allegiance to the pope, but for refusing to proclaim Henry’s view of theological points involved in the fight.)
The current Curia (and all preceding versions of that body) would never say that a person could disregard an encyclical for reasons of conscience. They may, if pressed hard, grudgingly concur that a person might engage in different acts than those championed by an encyclical, provided that those acts were not prompted by a rejection of church teachings (of which, of course, the encyclical would be deemed the best current source of commentary and exposition). (The most hard-lined members of the Curia would simply say “The pope has spoken, shut up and go along with it.” Various theologians would take a more moderate, perhaps even more liberal view.)
I’m only partially familir with Mary Tudor’s run-ins with the papacy (which only came up in the last months of her life). Basically, one of her few supporters throughout her life was the Catholic Cardinal Pole. About two years before her death, Pole got into a feud with Pope Paul IV. (Basically, Paul was an idiot who kept causing wars by his ham-handed approach to diplomacy. Pole had opposed one of Paul’s “anti-heresy” wars and Paul decided he was “supporting heresy.”) The pope cancelled Pole’s authority to be Papal Legate to England and ordered him back to Rome for trial. Mary refused to recognize the new legate and refused to let Pole leave England to stand trial. This, of course, offended the pope.
