A face and a figure that seem to grow more hateful day by day
How the New York Times reported Bergoglio's 'change' to the Catechism is the worldwide perception, at the very least, of what he has done!
Lord help us all! - but it was only a matter of time before Bergoglio was bound to do this! By what right does he think he is able to CHANGE THE CATECHISM
of the Church at a snap of the finger? But before my new rage and outrage wax on ad infinitum, I reminded myself that this is a man who has felt free all
these past five years to edit what Jesus himself said - either by deliberate omission of key words and passages, or by willfully deviant personal
exegesis of what the Gospels recorded Jesus to have said and what generations of wise Catholic men have interpreted Jesus's words to mean.
So, what is it to him to 'change' the Catechism as he wishes, even knowing that the Catechism represents 2000 years of Church Magisterium
based on Scriptures - both Old and New Testaments - together with the accumulation of Tradition, the Magisterium of the popes, and the
exegeses of Doctors of the Church and her saints through two millennia?
Fr Z had it right in his initial commentary on this new Bergoglian move to impose his own personal opinion on the body of the Church's teaching - at least up to
now, things are in the Catechism because they are true, and not the other way around (that things must be true because they are in the
Catechism, which is Bergoglio's end run in seeking to institutionalize his personal opinion as the teaching of the Church.
Pope Francis changes Catechism
to say death penalty ‘inadmissible’
August 2, 2018
Pope Francis has changed the Catechism to say the death penalty is “inadmissible”, sparking a debate over the meaning of the word in the context of Church teaching.
The Vatican announced the change to Canon 2267 on Thursday. The text now reads:
Recourse to the death penalty on the part of legitimate authority, following a fair trial, was long considered an appropriate response to the gravity of certain crimes and an acceptable, albeit extreme, means of safeguarding the common good.
Today, however, there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes. In addition, a new understanding has emerged of the significance of penal sanctions imposed by the state. Lastly, more effective systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the due protection of citizens but, at the same time, do not definitively deprive the guilty of the possibility of redemption.
Consequently, the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person”, and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide.
It is unclear whether “inadmissible” means “always immoral” or only “to be opposed in today’s political context”.
A dogmatic theologian, who asked not to be named, told the Catholic Herald that
the Church’s traditional teaching – which states that the death penalty can be legitimate in some cases – “is irreformable dogma. To deny this or assert the contrary is formally heretical. Catholics remain obliged to believe and accept this doctrine with firm faith regardless of any changes to the Catechism.”
The theologian said that,
while the Pope’s term “inadmissible” was ambiguous [the Bergoglians obviously spent months trying to find the right term that would be ambiguous enough not to be cited as evidence of material heresy!] – and thus not necessarily in contradiction with Church teaching – it would be widely interpreted as meaning “intrinsically immoral”, which would contradict Catholic doctrine.
The change to the Catechism, the theologian said, was part of
the “third level” of magisterial teaching, being “non-definitive” (not declared as divinely revealed or connected with divine revelation), and so did not necessarily command assent.
“As in any case of conflicting obligations, the lesser obligation yields to the stricter. Just as children are commanded to obey their parents unless and except when their parents command anything contrary to the law of God, so
Catholics are required to submit to the third level of magisterial teaching unless and except when it comes into conflict with the first two levels of magisterial teaching.
“Just as children are required to obey the law of God even when it means disobedience to their parents, so Catholics are required to believe and hold the divinely revealed dogmas of the faith and definitive Catholic teaching even if it means dissenting from the authentic magisterium of the pope or bishops.”
Today’s announcement was accompanied by a letter from Cardinal Luis Ladaria, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to all bishops around the world.
It said
the revision is “in continuity with the preceding Magisterium while bringing forth a coherent development of Catholic doctrine,” citing the Pontifical Biblical Commission which in 2008 spoke of a “refinement” in the moral positions of the Church. [So Cardinal Ladaria has just paid his first tithe to Bergoglio in payment for his red hat!]
“The new text, following the footsteps of the teaching of John Paul II in Evangelium vitæ, affirms that ending the life of a criminal as punishment for a crime is inadmissible because it attacks the dignity of the person, a dignity that is not lost even after having committed the most serious crimes,” the letter adds.
“This conclusion is reached taking into account the new understanding of penal sanctions applied by the modern State, which should be oriented above all to the rehabilitation and social reintegration of the criminal. Finally, given that modern society possesses more efficient detention systems, the death penalty becomes unnecessary as protection for the life of innocent people.”
And now, Father Z...
QUAERITUR: If something is in the Catechism,
do I have to give in, believe it even though
it is different from what the Catechism taught before?
August 2, 2018
I am getting questions from lots people about Pope Francis’s move to change the Church’s doctrine concerning capital punishment.
QUAERITUR:
If this is in the Catechism, do I have to give in and believe it even though this is different from what the Catechism taught before?
QUAERITUR:
What is required of Catholics regarding the change to the teachings on capital punishment? I don’t agree with the change, and what’s worse, I don’t believe what the Holy Father has written is Church teaching. These changes disturb my peace and cause me to question if I can receive communion.
At the very least Francis seems to have cut the legs out from under the authority of the Catechism, if not the Catholic Faith, by introducing something into that Catechism which seems to contradict the Church’s perennial teaching.
What is the authority of the Catechism?
I often tell people that, when they hear something confusing, go to the CCC. That is a bit more difficult now, but I stand on it. Why?
Teachings found in the Catechism are not true, reliable and sure because they are in the Catechism.
Teachings are true because they’re true.
Teachings have authority in themselves, because they are rooted in natural law, revelation, the Church’s entire body of teaching, the Rule of Faith, going back to Apostolic Times.
The Catechism is a sure reference and authoritative because it has sure teachings in it. Teachings don’t become sure because they are included.
In his
Introduction to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Joseph Ratzinger wrote:
The individual doctrines which the Catechism presents receive no other weight than that which they already possess. The weight of the Catechism itself lies in the whole. Since it transmits what the Church teaches, whoever rejects it as a whole separates himself beyond question from the faith and teaching of the Church.
In the same section, Ratzinger said that the CCC is not a “super-dogma”, which can repress theologians in their free explorations.
Let’s stress: “as a whole”. It is possible that some point in the Catechism will have greater authority on the mind and conscience of a Catholic than another. For example, what the Catechism contains concerning the Holy Trinity is far more binding on the minds and hearts of Catholics than what it says about religious liberty or the death penalty or other matters of contingent moral decision making.
Even within matters that concern moral decision making, some issues have more weight than others. For example, the right to life of the innocent is found within the Church’s teaching on abortion and euthanasia, which is unquestionable.
However, capital punishment concerns NOT the taking of the life of an innocent person, but rather a guilty person who has in some way demonstrated a lack of respect for the right to life of others. This point about innocence or guilt has always been at the heart of debates about the legitimacy of capital punishment.
So, if you say I reject the content of the CCC you reject the Catholic Faith in its entirely: it is comprehensive.
- If you say that you reject a doctrine in the CCC which is at the very core of the Catholic Faith, such as the Trinity or the Incarnation or the Resurrection, you reject the Catholic Faith: you cannot believe as a Catholic does if you reject the Trinity.
- If you reject some highly controverted teaching that involves moral contingencies, such as the just war teaching of the Church or such as capital punishment, you do not reject the whole of the Catholic Faith, for the Faith doesn’t depend on those murky issues.
Let’s pretend for a moment – and it doesn’t take much – that baseball’s designated hitter rule is a matter for the Church’s Magisterium. If I, Pope Clement XIV The Second, were to drop into the Catechism a paragraph stating that the designated hitter is wrong and inadmissible, that opinions presence in the Catechism wouldn’t make that statement true and necessary for belief.
Things in the Catechism don’t become true when they are put into the book. They are put into the book because they are true. The fact is, you can argue about the designated hitter forever.
So what happens if something blatantly false is put into the Catechism, such as, “abortion is not intrinsically evil”. That would be a serious violation of the purpose of the Catechism and it would reveal the insertor as a heretic.
But what about the insertion of something ambiguous? For example, stick into the CCC that, because of the human dignity of the person, the capital punishment is “inadmissible”. I suppose we can argue about what “inadmissible” means. It doesn’t manifestly state that capital punishment is intrinsically evil, as abortion and euthanasia is intrinsically evil.
The Church in the CCC 2271 teaches what she has always taught from the earliest times: abortion is a grave moral evil. That teaching is in the CCC because the Church has always taught that.
The Church in the CCC 2277 teaches that direct euthanasia is, in English, “morally unacceptable”. Not too different from “inadmissible”, right. But it goes on to call it “murder gravely contrary to the dignity of the human person… a murderous act”.
What Pope Francis wrote about capital punishment doesn’t call it intrinsically evil or a murderous act.
But he does say that it is “inadmissible”… “not allowable”.
Is that a hedge? It is hard to take it as a hedge.
There is going to be a lot of ink spilled about this.
Finally, it seems to me that
Pope Francis has emphasized the Church outward, pastoral policy which she desires to argue before the state: don’t put people to death.
Having thought about it, I am not entirely convinced that what Pope Francis didn’t attempt to change the Church’s teaching about capital punishment. At the very least, he made it far murkier than before.
It seems to me that
someone could place the new paragraph side by side with the rest of the body of the Church’s teachings on capital punishment and then make a choice to stick with the traditional teaching.
It WAS, in fact, in the Catechism. And it was there for a reason.
Meanwhile, we seem to be pushing outrage about McCarrick out of the news cycle. [Aha! That too!]
Steve Skojec's outrage is quite graphic...
Heresy in the Catechism:
Wolf in the Vatican,
no shepherds in sight
by Steve Skojec
August 2, 2018
Just as the latest round of homosexual network and sex abuse allegations in the Church are reaching a fever pitch, Pope Francis – who has been eerily quiet of late – dropped a nuclear theological bomb into our midst.
From Crux:
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church [that is, as arbitrarily revised by Jorge Bergoglio, and not as it was published in 1952 and meant to be the final arbiter of all doctrinal questions in the Church], the death penalty now is no longer admissible under any circumstances.
The Vatican announced on Thursday Pope Francis approved changes to the compendium of Catholic teaching published under Pope John Paul II.
“The death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person,” is what the Catechism of the Catholic Church now says on the death penalty, adding that the Church “works with determination for its abolition worldwide.”
As I have previously attempted to demonstrate, this is simply theologically wrong. There’s no way around that. But I wanted the opinion of an expert – which I am not – so I reached out this morning to a trustworthy theologian who is well versed in the finer distinctions of Magisterial authority and its limits. This was the response I received:
The traditional teaching of the Catholic Church on the intrinsic morality of the death penalty is irreformable dogma. To deny this or assert the contrary is formally heretical. Catholics remain obliged to believe and accept this doctrine regardless of any changes to the Catechism.
What does it mean to say that this is “formally heretical”?
1. Formal versus material heresy. This is a distinction pertaining to the objective status of doctrinal propositions. A heresy is any proposition opposed to any dogma. Two things are required for a doctrine to be dogma: (1) it must be contained in divine revelation and (2) it must be proposed as such by the Church (either by solemn judgment or by the ordinary and universal magisterium).
If both of these requirements are met, then the doctrine is a formal dogma, and the denial of such a dogma is a formal heresy. If a doctrine is contained in divine revelation but has not yet been proposed as such by the Church, then it can be called a “material dogma”. Such was the case with the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary in the patristic and medieval periods. Material heresy is the denial of a material dogma.
2. Formal versus material heretic. This is a distinction pertaining to the subjective culpability of persons. A heretic is a person who believes or teaches heresy. A material heretic is a person who believes or teaches something which is objectively a heresy; a formal heretic is one who continues to do so obstinately after having been duly corrected.
So in the case of the dogma of the intrinsic morality of the death penalty, the denial of this dogma is formally heretical, since it contradicts a doctrine which is contained in divine revelation and which has been proposed as such by the ordinary and universal magisterium of the Church. The person who denies this dogma is a material heretic simply in virtue of his denial; but he is not formally a heretic unless he persists in his denial after having been duly corrected.
What is so absurd about this moment in the Church is that
to simply reiterate Church teaching in the face of it being contradicted from the highest office is so dangerous for a theologian in full communion that I am compelled to protect this person’s identity.
I don’t know what to add to the above. We are way off the map at this point in rough and uncharted waters. I began arguing that the Galatians 2 moment had arrived, back when Francis had given the green light for eugenic contraception in 2016. Things have only gotten worse since.
Bishops of the world, if you are orthodox and you care at all about the faith or the souls being lost due to the relentless barrage of scandal and error coming from Rome, you have a moral duty to correct this pope.
Cardinal Burke, Cardinal Sarah, Cardinal Brandmüller, Cardinal Müller, Bishop Schneider – your names come first to mind, but there are others. Hiding out and making oblique references to what his happening and condemning errors without discussing their source is not sufficient in the eyes of the faithful.
The scandal of this pope is only compounded by the absolute lack of confrontation on the part of our bishops who will not rebuke this disaster by name, to the face, as St. Paul did to St. Peter in Galatians 2:11.
Dom Prosper Guéranger wrote that “when the shepherd becomes a wolf, the first duty of the flock is to defend itself.”
Are you really going to force us to do this alone?
Here is Skojec's well-documented argument when he first wrote against about Bergoglio's campaign to abolish capital punishment....
onepeterfive.com/pope-francis-wrong-death-penalty-heres/
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 04/08/2018 19:01]