Really, this isn’t hard. When, on a matter of faith or morals, popes speak ex cathedra, or when they simply reiterate what has always been taught by the Church for millennia, they are infallible. When they make novel utterances in a non-ex cathedra context, they can err.
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Replying to @FeserEdward
So the sitting pontiff can teach errors in matters of faith and morals then? I thought that he’s incapable of such feat according to Pastor Aeternus.
Being honest here: either Francis is longer the pope or the gates of hell has prevailed.
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16, 1913, Rome, Italy) Italian prelate who played a notable role in the liberalization of the Vatican under Leo XIII.
"Cardinal Rampolla was the origin even earlier (the Secretary of State of Leo XIII), as he was accused of occult membership when he was elected pope in 1903 and then vetoed. Rampolla was alleged to be a member of the occult sect, Ordo Templi Orientis, although the evidence is not conclusive.[10] Whatever the case, he had guided the moderate (and some might argue, Liberal and Masonic) policies of Pope Leo XIII." [https://onepeterfive.com/the-third-pornocracy-the-current-crisis-in-the-church/] "Cardinal Rampolla assembled the ideas for the [rights] encyclical Rerum Novarum (“New Things”), issued by Leo in 1891" Britannica [https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mariano-Rampolla]
"The Human rights ideology is at once universalist and relativist." Ralph C. Hancock (PhD Harvard) is a Professor of Political Science at Brigham Young (Natural Law and Human Rights, page XIX-XX)
Philosopher John Rist wrote that the apparently liberal Pope Leo XIII in a "major break...with earlier Church practice" of "virtues and vices" traditional language seemed to "almost single-handedly... [have] 'invented'... defence of rights" which was "hitherto largely secularist territory" (Infallibility, pages 50-51).
Moreover, in Confusion in the West, Rist speaking of a founder of "rights" language in the Church, Bartholome de Las Casas, who went against tradition: "dating back to Augustine identified all virtues as modes of love [Charity], Las Casas ... made rights a matter of justice." (page 81)
Might Pope Leo's "novel utterances in a non-ex cathedra context" on "rights" possibly be in "err" because he placed "rights" not in the domain of loving God first and then secondarily your neighbor as yourself apparently Leo may have placed "rights' outside of the "mode... of love" virtue of "responsibility" to God and His created ordered universe as well as to His creation of humanity that is placed in His universe of order?
Kirkus Reviews explains the problem with modern "rights" language which seems to have brought us wokeness in the world and the Church:
Harvard Law School professor Glendon argues eloquently and persuasively that modern American political discourse, by emphasizing an ever-expanding catalogue of rights to the exclusion of duties and responsibilities, has lost the central role in civic life envisioned for it by the Founding Fathers. Glendon shows that, in American society, both sides in political debates frame issues in terms of individual rights—flag- burning, domestic relations, and human reproduction, for example- -and that this tendency impedes understanding and compromise. Such stark formulations, she says, ultimately lead to coerced, and often unsatisfying, social arrangements. Glendon makes a compelling case that the American political lexicon lacks a vocabulary for expressing normative and moral concepts that individual Americans understand and value highly, and that the legal culture, with its single-minded emphasis on obtaining civil rights (as opposed to cultivating moral norms), has actually contributed, albeit unwittingly, to the debasement of American political and legal discourse. Glendon calls for the inclusion of the ``missing language of responsibility'' and the ``missing language of sociality'' in American political dialogue, and for an increasing emphasis on individuals' responsibilities to [God and] their communities. [https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/mary-ann-glendon/rights-talk/]
Also, scholars Michael D. Greaney and Dawn K. Brohawn say:
"Some even asserted that Leo XIII changed fundamental Catholic teaching due to their confusing the recommended social program with the mandatory social doctrine." [https://www.cesj.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/C-EconPersonalism_Web-NOblanks.pdf]
Might Pope Leo have started a problematic seemingly poorly defined "rights" language that may have helped bring about the ambiguous Vatican II that in part has lead to the current Francis crisis with his "rights" language instead of the traditional virtue language?
Pope Francis calls for end to anti-gay laws and LGBTQ+ ...
Jan 25, 2023 — Francis's comments, which were hailed by gay rights advocates as a milestone, are the first uttered by a pope about such laws..
Next, let's look at conservative pundit Tim Gordon explain the “weaponized ambiguity” of Vatican II:
This divergence between the two competing forms of Originalism proves especially relevant in the curious case of the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), whose sacred constitutions threaten, in many progressive-sounding clauses, to contradict previous Catholic Tradition—which would rupture the Faith. Catholics who believe the Church was not vituperated by the revolutionary intent of Vatican Two’s leading periti became practical textualists in 1965 when the Council’s last constitution was ratified.
After all, the strong majority intent at the Council was, undeniably, radically progressive. The story is well-known even to most non-Catholics. Many revolutionary Council fathers authored the VC2 constitutions with what Monsignor Charles Pope calls “weaponized ambiguity,” constitutional text designed to be radicalized retroactively, as theory turned to practice in the immediate post-conciliar period.
We’ve all watched this catastrophe play out over fifty years. As Edward Schillebeeckx said of his contingent’s tactic: “we knew at the time how we would later interpret the [vaguely written] documents.”
In other words, the sacred constitutions of VC2 prescribed a poison pill of technically sound doctrine to be subsequently fashioned into unsound, unCatholic praxis. The question for Catholics like Vermeule, Arkes, and myself is: does the “real” meaning of Vatican Two reduce to its documents’ intent, or to their ambiguously revolutionary yet (mostly) innocuous original public meaning? Only textualism can capably explain how regardless of the abiding intent of the Council, the result of the actual constitutional documents need not be harmful.
Sacred VC2 constitutions make us think about what a constitution is: a multi-author document expressing the sovereign will of multiple ratifiers at a convention—in this case covenantal agents of the people of God. But a constitution’s meaning is not the vector sum of its authors and ratifiers: its meaning is the binding public signification of its words, as originally ratified. If a constitutional term’s meaning popularly changes a decade after ratification, the ten-year-old meaning of the term remains what was ratified (until formally amended). Ratified meaning is time-stamped and time-sealed.
It is conceivable—as happened at the Second Vatican Council—that a faction of revolutionary authors and ratifiers could embed their revolution within the vaguest clauses of the constitutions as a killswitch to be flipped at a later date. Since the goal of these revolutionaries was heteropraxy and not heterodoxy, little did they care that the (original, public) meaning of their suggestive byplay remained to posterity orthodox, as long as it was received and practiced as the opposite of orthopraxy.
Their benighted progeny two generations later wish that they had articulated the revolution clearly rather than reifying a protection for traditionalists: live by innuendo, die by innuendo. Even an author does not govern the public meaning of his immortalized and ratified constitutional text if it militates against his intent.
Since the close of the Council in 1965, excluding those who welcomed the progressive interpretation, Catholics have divided into two interpretive groups.
The first group, the rupturists, conclude that no continuity exists between the periods before and after VC2. They unknowingly employ the intentionalist jurisprudence, based on the radically progressive intent of the Council’s authorial leftists. Even as they bemoan it, this group runs afoul of the indefectibility of the Catholic Church by announcing the end of a bimillennial doctrinal era and the beginning of a new one. They toil on in dimness and in doubt, believing more or less that the Council constitutions ruptured the One True Faith.
The second group of Catholics (to which I belong) interpreting VC2 concludes that, notwithstanding ostensible tension presented by the Council constitutions, a textualist “hermeneutic of continuity” can counter-weaponize the original, public meaning of even the most troubling, vaguely-penned clauses of the constitutions. “Look at the original, public meaning of the constitutions’ words,” we say, “not the (bad) intents of many of the authors and ratifiers.”
Non-textualists look at VC2 constitutions like Dignitatem Humanae, Lumen Gentium, and Gaudium et Spes, and dejectedly conclude that Roman Catholic indefectibility has been forever broken.
A textualist view of the hermeneutic of continuity duly recognizes ostensible tensions between pre- and post-conciliar Church teaching, then dissolves or collapses that dichotomy by insisting that change cannot be made by mere innuendo: the original, public meaning of the sacred constitutions prevail.
The ruling on the football field (i.e., pre-conciliar tradition) stands unless sufficient evidence to overrule the call (i.e., explicit Conciliar text) has been clearly presented. Cases of opacity and uncertainty—such as unclear VC2 “updates”—must be “lined out” like an arguable challenge to a play-call that fails to meet sufficient evidence to overturn the standing call (i.e. tradition). [https://americanmind.org/salvo/catholicism-textualism-and-republicanism/]
Finally, former Pope Benedict XVI Vatican insider Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano who is living "in hiding due to his revelations concerning the McCarrick case gave a commentary on a analysis written by Bishop Athanasius Schneider."
In this commentary, he explains that Vatican II's Dignitatis Humanae brought into the Church the heresy of "pachamama could be adored in a church." He wrote:
"If the pachamama could be adored in a church, we owe it to [Vatican II's] Dignitatis Humanae. If we have a liturgy that is Protestantized and at times even paganized, we owe it to the revolutionary action of Msgr. Annibale Bugnini and to the post-conciliar reforms."
[https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/abp-vigano-on-the-roots-of-deviation-of-vatican-ii-and-how-francis-was-chosen-to-revolutionize-the-church]
Moreover, Vatican II's Dignitatis Humanae apparently brought into the Church sex abusing predators such as liberal ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and liberal as well as "conservative" bishops and possibly even popes who covered up for the predators:
It appears that Francis is the media's new Harvey Weinstein whom the media protected for years.
Francis's media enablers unveiled their red herring to distract from the fact that Francis, the new Weinstein, covered-up for sex abuse predator Theodore McCarrick.
On December 06, 2019, the Associated Press headline showed who they expect to be the red herring to distract from the fact that Francis covered-up for McCarrick:
"Lawsuit: McCarrick victim told pope [John Paul II] of sex abuse in 1988"
Why is the media covering-up for Francis as they did for Weinstein and how is the conservative Catholic "post-Vatican II settlement" involved in the Francis and other cover-ups?
October 6, 2017, The New York Times article "Harvey Weinstein's Media Enablers" explains why the media protected and covered-up for predator Weinstein and attacked abused women who were whistleblowers.
But, more importantly, it explains why they, The New York Times, Reuter, Associated Press and others attacked whistleblower Archbishop Vigano as well as are protecting Francis who covered-up for a series of sex abusers and those who covered-up for them, the most famous examples being the Chile predator cover-up fiasco and now according to Vigano the ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick case.
The Times piece explains exactly why the media enables predators and those who cover-up for them as well as why it is now protecting Francis and attacking Vigano who blew the whistle on Francis's predator cover-up:
"Harvey Weinstein... was 'the worst-kept secret' in Hollywood and New York."
"The real story didn't surface until now because too many people in the intertwined news and entertainment industries had too much to gain from Mr. Weinstein. Across a run of more than 30 years."
"... But... trouble finally found Mr. Weinstein because he was no longer the rainmaker and hitmaker he had once been."
"... 'The industry is passionate about [liberal] causes, 'but when it comes down to doing business, they're definitely capable of holding their noses.'"
Francis will stop having his media enablers protect him when they realize that like Weinstein that he can no longer be the "hitmaker" for their liberal "causes" such as immigration and global warming.
The only difference between the media's cover-up of liberal Weinstein and their cover-up of liberal Francis and liberal McCarrick is that the ex-Cardinal and Francis pose to be holy men of the Church.
Unfortunately, it wasn't just the liberals such as Francis that enabled "men like McCarrick," but Vatican II conservatives who enabled "men like McCarrick." The ultimate "new springtime" of Vatican II conservative Catholic Matthew Schmitz, senior editor at First Things, on August 16, 2018 in the Catholic Herald explained:
"[T]he post-Vatican II settlement [of]... Upholding Catholic teaching on paper but not in reality has led to widespread corruption... has required a culture of lies... that allowed men like McCarrick to flourish... we must sweep it away."
The Amoris Laetitia-like liberal Vatican II document Dignitatis Humanae on the Catholic state is what brought about the "[u]pholding Catholic teaching on paper but not in reality... has required a culture of lies... that allowed men like McCarrick to flourish."
Traditionalists said it was a façade which was ambiguous and not defined teaching that would eventually have to be corrected.
Francis's Vatican Archbishop Guido Pozzo who was negotiating with Society of Pius X for Francis agreed with the Traditionalists that it was not defined teaching.
Pozzo said that Dignitatis Humanae "is not about doctrine or definitive statements, but... pastoral practice." (Die Zeit, August 2016, Interview with Archbishop Guido Pozzo)
The greatest living American Thomist Edward Feser gives a brief summary of the history before and after Vatican II of the teaching on this subject and the ambiguity of the document:
"That depends. In the Catholic context, the traditional teaching, vigorously and repeatedly upheld by the 19th century and pre-Vatican II 20th century popes, is that ideally Church and state ought to cooperate. Contrary to an annoyingly common misunderstanding, these popes were not teaching that non-Catholics ought to be coerced by the state into becoming Catholics. Nor were they teaching that non-Catholics should be forbidden from practicing their own religions in the privacy of their own homes, their own church buildings or synagogues, etc. Rather, the issue was whether, in a country in which the vast majority of citizens were Catholic, non-Catholics ought to be permitted to proselytize and thereby possibly lead Catholics to abandon their faith. It was not denied that there can be circumstances in which such proselytizing might be tolerated for the sake of civil order. The question was whether non-Catholics have a strict right in justice to proselytize even in a majority Catholic society. And the pre-Vatican II popes taught that they did not have such a right, and that in a Catholic country the state could in principle justly restrict such proselytizing (even if there are also cases where the state might not exercise its right to such restriction, if this would do more harm than good)."
"This was the teaching which Vatican II seemed to reverse, though the relevant document, Dignitatis Humanae, explicitly taught that it was “leav[ing] untouched traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and societies toward the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ.” Yet whether the principles set out in Dignitatis Humanae really can be reconciled with the principles set out by the pre-Vatican II popes, how exactly they are to be reconciled if they can be, and which principles are more authoritative and ought to be retained if they cannot be reconciled -- these have all been matters of controversy. They are controversies most Catholics, including conservative Catholics, have avoided. The reason, it seems to me, is that the older teaching is extremely unpopular in modern times, and thus whatever its current doctrinal status, most Catholics are happy to let it remain a dead letter and leave its precise relationship to Dignitatis Humanae unsettled. Yet a question unanswered and ignored is still a real question, and there are scholars who have in different ways attempted to apply to this one a “hermeneutic of continuity,” including Thomas Storck, Fr. Brian Harrison, and Thomas Pink."
(edwardfeser.blogspot, "Liberalism and Islam, January 7, 2016)
One knows a Vatican II document is a disaster when a defender of Dignitatis Humanae (DR) like Fr. Brian Harrison says:
"The effect DR have been much more harmful than beneficial for the Church, the world and most important, the honor due to Christ the King . . . The form in which it presents its truth is so one-sided, so poorly explained, so perilously open to unorthodox interpretation, and so infected with the spirit of liberal humanism, that its promulgation has turned out to be a cause of rejoicing for the Church's worst enemies: freemasonry and all the other forces which seek to promote the ever more total secularization of society, the ever more complete exclusion of Our Lord Jesus Christ from His rightful sovereignty over the public life of nations, and confusion and division within the Church itself." [http://www.dailycatholic.org/issue/05Dec/dec14agg.htm]
Christopher Ferrara stated why Dignitatis Humanae brought about "[u]pholding Catholic teaching on paper but not in reality has led to widespread corruption... has required a culture of lies... that allowed men like McCarrick to flourish":
"There is no question that the Popes before Vatican II consistently condemned the modern notion of "religious liberty"-----i.e., that everyone in society must have the right, both privately and publicly, to practice, preach and otherwise manifest the doctrines of the religion of his choice, even if that religion is filled with error and immorality. That such a "right" attacks both public morality and the very foundation of Catholic social order (where it exists) hardly needs to be proved. There cannot, obviously, be any "right" as such publicly to deny the Divinity of Christ or to preach in favor of contraception, abortion, divorce[, homosexuality] and other evils. No one has the right to do or to say what is wrong. A right to commit wrong is utter nonsense. Stated negatively, a right not to be prevented by the State from committing wrong is equally nonsensical. The State might for prudential reasons, as St. Thomas observed, tolerate certain public errors and vices, but there is no question of any right to be tolerated in spreading them." [http://www.dailycatholic.org/issue/05Dec/dec14agg.htm]
Unfortunately, almost all conservatives such as Archbishop Charles Chaput thought Dignitatis Humanae was defined teaching and not a disaster.
Apparently, Chaput teaches that "error has no rights" in paper, but in reality error or a culture of lies has rights if "persons... choose falsehood over truth." The Archbishop wrote:
"Error has no rights, but persons do have rights - even when they choose falsehood [a culture of lies] over truth... freedom of conscience, is - along with the right to life - the most important right any human being has." (First Things, "Of Human Dignity," March 18, 2015)
So did conservatives such as Chaput think that they on paper could teach that homosexuality was error, but in reality error had rights if "persons [such as the liberal McCarrick]... choose falsehood [a culture of lies] over truth... freedom of conscience"?
In fact, in 2001 when then President Bush met with Catholic leaders and his "'longtime friend' Cardinal McCarrick" who was there with him according to liberal Catholic Betty Clermont: "McCarrick; Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver." ("The Neo-Catholics," pages 154, 159)
What did Chaput know about McCarrick when he sat with him in that meeting?
Did he think McCarrick as a person had a right to freedom of conscience to falsehood over truth?
Does Chaput think that on paper that he can teach that homosexuality is a error but in reality error has rights if "persons [such as the liberal Fr. James Martin]... choose falsehood [a culture of lies] over truth... freedom of conscience"?
On March 31, 2017, LifeSiteNews in "Numerous 'gay' affirming parishes unopposed by bishops" reported that Chaput agrees with Martin when he "expressed concern about the use of 'intrinsically disordered'" which is a defined Catholic teaching on homosexuality.
Chaput, also, defends gay activist Fr. Martin who taught on YouTube that chastity is not required of homosexuals. (Church Militant, "Father Martin: Homosexuals not Bound to Chastity, "September 20, 2017)
It appears that the "conservative" Chaput is using Dignitatis Humanae to build a bridge to hell for homosexuals by claiming on paper that the error of homosexuality has no rights, but in reality error has rights if "persons [such as Martin and McCarrick] choose falsehood [a culture of lies] over truth."Unfortunately, one of the main writers of Dignitatis Humanae was Pope John Paul II before he became pope. It appears that John Paul II when it came to the documented evidence of the sex abuse of a bishop taught that "error has no rights" in paper, but in reality error has rights if "persons... choose falsehood [a culture of lies] over truth":
"In 1996, Kunz became a canon law adviser to the Roman Catholic Faithful (RCF), an Illinois-based group investigating the sexual abuse of boys by Catholic priests and bishops. Kunz was recommended to RCF by the Rev. John A. Hardon, SJ, a widely respected theologian and author who worked for several popes and had deep connections at the Vatican. The group was gathering information on Bishop Daniel L. Ryan of the Diocese of Springfield, Ill. Ryan was accused of sexually assaulting a mentally disabled man, soliciting sex from a 15-year-old boy, trolling area parks for teenage male prostitutes, and having sex with priests in his diocese. In sworn testimony to RCF investigators, one of the teen prostitutes said Ryan once heard his confession and blessed him, then told him, “go and sin no more.” Then the bishop winked at the teen and said, 'See you later.'”
"With help from Kunz and Father Fiore, RCF developed a dossier on the situation in the Springfield diocese. Father Hardon carried the report to Rome and presented it to Pope St. John Paul II, vouching for RCF and the accuracy of the document. Nothing was done with the explosive information. Hardon told RCF officials that at least a dozen American bishops supported Ryan in his quest to hold onto his bishopric in Springfield, according to RCF president and founder Stephen G. Brady. One of them was the late Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, then archbishop of Chicago, Brady said. When the group approached Bernardin for help in removing Ryan, he refused, Brady said. Ryan abruptly retired in October 1999, shortly before a lawsuit was filed accusing him of covering up the sexual abuse of a child by another Illinois priest. Sheriff Mahoney said Dane County investigators interviewed Ryan, but have no indication he is linked to the Kunz homicide. Ryan died in December 2015."
“Father Hardon told me to go to Kunz if I needed any contacts anywhere or needed direction in my investigations,” Brady told Catholic World Report. 'Father Kunz never discussed any other investigations with me except my own. He was tight lipped and you could trust him 100 percent. He had my files and answered any questions I had. He did work behind the scenes for me but kept it private.'”
"Brady said during the 14 years that RCF conducted its investigations, he received three death threats. One was serious enough to involve the FBI. An email circulated claiming a contract was out for Brady’s assassination. After Kunz was murdered, Brady bought a bulletproof vest." [https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2018/08/08/the-unsolved-murder-of-fr-alfred-kunz/]
This is the end result of the "post-Vatican II settlement."
Sadly, almost all conservatives such as John Paul II and Chaput appeared to think that Dignitatis Humanae was defined teaching that was a central document governing the Church after Vatican II which brought about the "post-Vatican II settlement."
As Schmitz said:"[T]he post-Vatican II settlement [of]... Upholding Catholic teaching on paper but not in reality has led to widespread corruption... has required a culture of lies... that allowed men like McCarrick [and those whom Fr. Kunz attempted to expose] to flourish... we must sweep it away."
The media enablers of Weinstein and Francis as well as the "post-Vatican II settlement" Catholic conservative enablers of the homosexual bishops network in the Church appear to still be ensnared in this culture of lies.
Please pray that the Church no longer allow popes, bishops or the Catholic media to enable the culture of lies.
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