Your friend is mistaken. If you’re aware of a church teaching on a matter of faith or morals, then yes. But supporting the secular institution of same-sex marriage can be done without flouting any particular Church teaching on faith or morals.
That really does make infallibility a contentless doctrine!
They’re saying there are certain things I must believe or else–then refusing to specify what those things are! Sure they’ll name things when pressed, but then insist there’s really no list of such things I must believe or else! This undermines the act of attempting to tell me what those things are in the first place. It remains open to me just to say you think that’s one of the infallible things, but it doesn’t seem so to me!
Of course, if I’m saying this out of spite or some unthoughtful reflex, then I’m at least one of the bad guys in the situation. But if I’m saying so out of genuine, deep and considered reflection, and taking truth seriously, then they literally can have no valid reply to me in terms of infallibility. If they don’t know what’s infallible, how should I know?! (And if I can’t know, then why should i care?)
We’re getting into GD territory though…
This all taps in to this thing that I return to every now and then. For personal reasons I find myself attracted to the Catholic and Orthodox churches, but internet catholics and internet orthodox seem to insist that if I’m going to insist on thinking homosexuality is okay and abortions are sometimes fine etc, then I need not apply.
Well, I regard myself as a practical Catholic, in union with the Holy See, and thus in full communion with the Church, and I support the secular institution of same-sex marriage.
I am open to any questions that may help further define this position.
The one question that comes to mind is, do you not think you’re providing an encouragement to others to commit mortal sin? (IIUC, homosexual acts are mortally sinful.) If not, why not? I guess the argument for the view that it encourages sin hangs on a premise that legitimizing homosexual marriage also legitimizes homosexual sex, and that legitimizing things also encourages them. Is one or both of those premises something you disagree with?
BTW just to make sure it’s clear I’m pro SSM as well, just asking a question with what I take to be catholic presuppositions.
I phrased that poorly. There are volumes of teachings you may consult. There is the Catechism. There are Papal Bulls. There are Encyclicals. There are documents from the Congreagation for the Doctrine of Faith. There are writings of theologians and saints. The Vatican has libraries. The Vatican has embraced the internet for disseminating this information.
The Church believes that the Bishops are the authentic teachers of the faith. When a Bishop (including the Pope) wishes to teach you something, they do not want you running off to consult some “We REALLY mean it this time” list. They want you to accept their teaching.
This does not mean that scholarship, discussion, and debate are off-limits. It means that when the Church has made a decision regarding the issue being debated, that is the correct answer.
Have you considered the Episcopalian Church (assuming you’re in the US)? It’s very similar to Catholicism in many respects, but pro-gay and pro-choice, and generally liberal. (The same is true of some, but not all, of the other churches of the Anglican Communion.)
No, the meme is that the Pope has only made two infallible statements as defined as his prerogative to do so solely as the Pope. And that is true. It has happened twice.
Yeah, good luck getting such a list. Except for the core credal statements, it’s going to be a bit rough to find those things that all popes and bishops taught as implicitly infallable throughout the entire history of the Church.
Take artificial contraception, for example. Sure, after Paul VI issued Humanae Vitae it became the official stance of the RCC that artificial contraception was objectively evil and those who disagreed publicly were censured (at least, those who could be practically censured were censured, which amounts to mainly clergy and religious – Rome wasn’t about to chase down and censure millions of lay folk). And there are militant RCC right wingers who would love to add that ban on A.C. to the ‘implicitly regarded as infallible’ column. But, the commission after Vatican Council II that looked into the matter, made up of bishops and theologians, recommended allowing A.C. So, this matter was certainly not a position of the “universal magisterium.” And thus, goes nowhere near the infallible column.
And as far as “just obey the bishops” thing, well, maybe for some in the church feel that way, but a good many, if not the majority do not. Even some bishops would recoil from the idea that their flock were supposed to simply blindly obey.
In 1930, the Lambeth Conference of the Anglican Church decided that artificial birth control was acceptable for married couples. In response Pope Pius XI issued Casti Cannubii which declared that artificial contraception was intrinsically evil.
In 1963, after this new-fangled pill thing came out, Pope John XXIII created a small commission of non-theologians to research the question of whether The Pill changed things. Pope Paul VI enlarged the commission and did appoint some bishops to manage it. The majority of the commission gave the Pope a report that advocated changing the ban. Conservative Catholic apologists claim that the commission went beyond its assigned mission by not sticking to the question of whether The Pill was part of what was contemplated under Casti Cannubii.
A minority of the commission gave the Pope a report that advocated including The Pill in the ban.
The Pope rejected the report of the majority and accepted the report of the minority. Looking at the reasoning of the minority report is instructive.
To summarize: It cannot be changed because that would be saying Pope Pius XI was wrong. And a teaching of the Pope could not have been wrong.
What stronger definition of infallibility can you want?
Later in the document:
To summarize: Saying birth control is OK would be tantamount to saying that the Holy Spirit abandoned the Church and became an Anglican. And even if we were wrong, the people who were using birth control against our wishes were going to hell.
As to your suggestion that this is not a position of the Universal Magesterium, I’ll let these words speak for themselves:
Perhaps since 1870. In 1870 the First Vatican Council formalized the doctrine of infallibility. But they did not say that the proclamations of all earlier Popes had just been random musings of some old men, but now they will start to be infallible.
Yes, I’m certain that except perhaps for an ultra-conservative core, most Catholics tend to pick and choose what they believe.
Of course, most Bishops would prefer that you study, discuss, and pray over the issues and come to the realization and acceptance that they are giving you the truth.
The fact that there were bishops and cardinals willing to overrule a previous Pope sorta make ‘universal’ quite questionable.
This is the perfect example of an ordinary teaching being subject to ‘creeping infallibility’. In this mentality, everything becomes infallible, which is clearly not what the ecumenical council intended.
I think of it more as, I’m not worried about what the secular world does. After all, divorce and remarriage is legal secularly but adultery for practicing Catholics. I’d be interested in your take on it.
Think of it as the authors saying “mind you, we’re doing our best but if we went and said ‘Ok dudes this is what you have to believe and phrased it exactly that way’ the boss would smack us.” Or “well, gee, widdle us? Gosh!” The RCC isn’t literalist re. the Gospels, it can’t be literalist re. a specific Catechism.
Both authors and translators have worked to the best of their ability, but they also assume and accept that their ability is limited; one of the difficulties is in using language which is both professionally precise and understandable by the general public. I’ve had several arguments with one of the authors regarding both casuistic and specific phrasings of dogmas and so far he’s never shook a fist at me yelling “heretic!”
Plus, remember, this is a synthesis of existing teachings. If you read the Catechism, you’ll see it is heavily footnoted with references to fuller and (often) more authorative documents which set out the teachings that it synthesises - scripture passages, the decrees of church councils, etc.
No, I don’t believe my position provides any particular encouragement to others to commit mortal sin.
It’s abundantly clear to me that a person desiring homosexual sex is seldom going to eschew having that sex until marriage. Abstaining from sex until marriage is not unheard of, of course, but it’s generally a religious concept, and my support is for secular marriage – that is, I’m not advocating that the Church accept same-sex marriage as sacramental; I’m advocating that my secular government grant legal recognition to same-sex unions identical in name and fact to the recognition granted to opposite-sex unions.
In other words, I don’t believe that the presence, or absence, of legal civil marriage for same-sex couples has any meaningful relation to the decision to sin.
It’s perfectly possible to remain a “witness to the whole moral truth” while simultaneously recognizing the demands inherent in living and participating in a secular society. If I wish to demand that the secular society recognize my own right, as a Catholic, to educate my children, I must also respect the right of the secular society to diverge from my vision of moral truths. Indeed, it’s even possible to recognize that a particular action which conflicts with my version of moral truth is nonetheless mandated by my secular society’s framework.
In my view, a sacramental marriage cannot be dissolved except by death. Two people within a valid sacramental marriage cannot erase that marriage by “divorce;” there is no such concept.
Yet I recognize that the CIVIL purposes of marriage require such a legal process. I would not oppose a law permitting civil divorce on the grounds that a valid sacramental marriage still exists and I’m encouraging the mortal sin of adultery by permitting civil divorce.
Yet simultaneously you can’t condone or aprove of such; only permit as something outside the moral realm by people unable or unwilling live up to standards. And likewise, the Church cannot attach itself to such.