Is the ban on contraception infallible?

[jswranch]

[quote name='qfnol31' post='1025827' date='Jul 17 2006, 12:11 AM']
First off, have you read Lumen Gentium 25?

I'll find it tomorrow if you haven't.
[/quote]
[url="http://www.ewtn.com/library/COUNCILS/v2church.htm"]Yes I have it, but I am do for a review.[/url]

[jswranch]

[quote name='Ziggamafu' post='1025824' date='Jul 17 2006, 12:05 AM']
What about the case of Pope Honorius? Maybe I butchered the spelling on his name...anyway, wasn't that a so-called "close call" as far as infallability is concerned? Just curious if there is a double standard, here.
[/quote]
expound?

[jswranch]

Question on LG 25:

What is the significance of the verse MT 13:52 as footnote 164?

[quote]RSV: And he said to them, "Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old."[/quote]

[Didacus]

This is all making my head spin a little here.

One thing; if a statement is to be infaillible, don't you think it should be clearly so? If there is any doubt, any whatsoever, then I would hesitate to state it being infaillible.

What are the conditions for a doctrine to be infaillible?

[thessalonian]

[quote name='Didacus' post='1025850' date='Jul 17 2006, 06:11 AM']
This is all making my head spin a little here.

One thing; if a statement is to be infaillible, don't you think it should be clearly so? If there is any doubt, any whatsoever, then I would hesitate to state it being infaillible.

What are the conditions for a doctrine to be infaillible?
[/quote]


Well first of all if you will notice one thing, moral issues rarely have infallible statements attached to them. I.e. a dogmatic statement by a council or a pope. What makes a statement infallible is if an ecumenical council declares it in a manner that is intended to bind the whole Church (per Matt 18, whatsover you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven). That is when all the bishops come together in ecumenical council this applies. Usually there are anathema's attached to the statements. In the case of the papacy if the Pope declares something such that he intends to bind the whole Church on matters of faith and morals, using his peterine papal authority, then it is infallibly declared.
There is a third type of infallible binding and that is when something is held as true (faith and morals again) by the ordinary magesterium, i.e. it has been held by the Church throughout time. These things are said to be infallibly taught by the Church as well. They are much more difficult to assess. The teachings on contraception and women in the priesthood however would seem to fit the bill quite nicely.

For a better understanding of infalliblity than I have given:

[url="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07790a.htm"]http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07790a.htm[/url]

[Didacus]

Who precisely form the magisterium?

[Fides_et_Ratio]

The Pope and the Bishops in communion with him.

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='Ziggamafu' post='1025824' date='Jul 17 2006, 12:05 AM']
What about the case of Pope Honorius? Maybe I butchered the spelling on his name...anyway, wasn't that a so-called "close call" as far as infallability is concerned? Just curious if there is a double standard, here.
[/quote]
That's a totally different kind of thing. This discussion was about the infallible status of a particular teaching, not on the apologetics of infallibility. But maybe I just don't understand the point you're trying to make.

In what way exactly is there a double standard here?

And if you want my opinion, I think it is pathetic that the "big gun" of the anti-papists, the sort of "killer argument" always seems to be about Pope Honorius. The reason I think this is pathetic is because it's just a really superficial argument (and they're clearly wrong). If that's the best they've got then they've got nothing. Besides the fact that Honorius' letters to Sergius don't constitute official papal teaching (a point which alone destroys any claim against infallibility) the whole controversy is a matter of semantics and I think if one really examines the situation Honorius was never heterodox in the first place. His statement is taken out of context and presumed to be an expression of monothelitism but I think this is an incorrect reading of Honorius and his intent, and the true understanding of his statement, is in fact orthodox.

[phatcatholic]

on pope honorius:
[b]--[url="http://www.catholicculture.org/docs/doc_view.cfm?recnum=3301"]Guilty Only of Failure to Teach[/url]
--[url="http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2001/0104fea4.asp"]Rebutting James White's Rebuttal on Pope Honorius[/url]
--[url="http://www.mwt.net/~lnpalm/honrius1.htm"]The Supposed Fall of Honorius and His Condemnation[/url]
--[url="http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/1994/9409fea2.asp"]The Truth about Pope Honorius[/url]
--[url="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07452b.htm"]Pope Honorius I[/url][/b]

on usury:
[b]--[url="http://frcoulter.com/presentations/usury/summary.html"]Usury: Error, Change, or Development?[/url]
--[url="http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/1997/9709fea3.asp"]The Red Herring of Usury[/url]
--[url="http://www.ewtn.com/library/THEOLOGY/FRNOONAN.HTM"]A Response to John T. Noonan, Jr. Concerning the Development of Catholic Moral Doctrine[/url]
--[url="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15235c.htm"]Usury[/url][/b]

[jswranch]

[quote name='jswranch' post='1025825' date='Jul 17 2006, 12:06 AM']
A few items of note:

1. My priest was fairly insistent that the contraception ban is not infallible. Can you give me/link me to a single statement that debates his belief?

2. With all your statements on sententia communis and other levels of truth, where does the ban and ban reversal of usury fall into this topic?

3. What is the difference between de fide, dogma, and ex cathedra?

4. Question on LG 25: What is the significance of the verse MT 13:52 as footnote 164?[/quote]

Bump

[Ziggamafu]

[quote name='Laudate_Dominum' post='1026037' date='Jul 17 2006, 11:03 AM']
That's a totally different kind of thing. This discussion was about the infallible status of a particular teaching, not on the apologetics of infallibility. But maybe I just don't understand the point you're trying to make.

In what way exactly is there a double standard here?

And if you want my opinion, I think it is pathetic that the "big gun" of the anti-papists, the sort of "killer argument" always seems to be about Pope Honorius. The reason I think this is pathetic is because it's just a really superficial argument (and they're clearly wrong). If that's the best they've got then they've got nothing. Besides the fact that Honorius' letters to Sergius don't constitute official papal teaching (a point which alone destroys any claim against infallibility) the whole controversy is a matter of semantics and I think if one really examines the situation Honorius was never heterodox in the first place. His statement is taken out of context and presumed to be an expression of monothelitism but I think this is an incorrect reading of Honorius and his intent, and the true understanding of his statement, is in fact orthodox.
[/quote]

I agree. I remember reading Gary Wills while I was in the process of discovering the truth of Catholicism. He brought up councils that contradicted each other, the shifting position of the Church on slavery, Honorius, etc. Even then I would look at the situations he brought up and see that they didn't meet the requirements for infallibility - or they were clearly misinterpreted.

However, I do believe that the (so to speak) "fallible" side of the Church can misinterpret the infallible side. That is to say, we're all still merely human and need dogma to clarify and re-clarify things...I bet most Catholics 1,000 years ago would have balked if you told them that one day the Church would realize that the infallible teaching of "no salvation outside the Catholic Church" would come to be understood as "no salvation outside the mystical Body of Christ".

Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me that this is what the nature and purpose of dogma / infallibility are all about...progressive conservatisim. Not a Church who bends toward secular culture or the demands of modernism but a Church who understands herself more clearly with every passing generation.

Our understanding of the teaching on contraception might change, but the teaching itself will not. This is why the efforts of liberals and dissident Catholics are so pathetic and fruitless. Such efforts toward change would be far more effective if they played by the rules of Catholic theology. It is hard for liberals to understand that the Church is conservative by her nature. It is hard for conservatives to understand that the Church is progressive by her nature. Just like Protestants must realize that if there is to be any Christian unity such unity must be on Catholic grounds, so liberals must realize that if there is to be any progressive understanding of Church teaching such progression must be on conservative grounds. In other words, no femminist "progress" can result in priestesses and no sexual "progress" can result in toleration of the contraceptive mentality.

The teaching that it is gravely immoral to prevent life by use of artificial contraceptives will never change. This is the conservative ground upon which any "progressive" understanding must stand. So yes, I think the ban is infallible.

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='Ziggamafu' post='1027227' date='Jul 19 2006, 09:58 AM']
I agree. I remember reading Gary Wills while I was in the process of discovering the truth of Catholicism. He brought up councils that contradicted each other, the shifting position of the Church on slavery, Honorius, etc. Even then I would look at the situations he brought up and see that they didn't meet the requirements for infallibility - or they were clearly misinterpreted.

However, I do believe that the (so to speak) "fallible" side of the Church can misinterpret the infallible side. That is to say, we're all still merely human and need dogma to clarify and re-clarify things...I bet most Catholics 1,000 years ago would have balked if you told them that one day the Church would realize that the infallible teaching of "no salvation outside the Catholic Church" would come to be understood as "no salvation outside the mystical Body of Christ".

Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me that this is what the nature and purpose of dogma / infallibility are all about...progressive conservatisim. Not a Church who bends toward secular culture or the demands of modernism but a Church who understands herself more clearly with every passing generation.

Our understanding of the teaching on contraception might change, but the teaching itself will not. This is why the efforts of liberals and dissident Catholics are so pathetic and fruitless. Such efforts toward change would be far more effective if they played by the rules of Catholic theology. It is hard for liberals to understand that the Church is conservative by her nature. It is hard for conservatives to understand that the Church is progressive by her nature. Just like Protestants must realize that if there is to be any Christian unity such unity must be on Catholic grounds, so liberals must realize that if there is to be any progressive understanding of Church teaching such progression must be on conservative grounds. In other words, no femminist "progress" can result in priestesses and no sexual "progress" can result in toleration of the contraceptive mentality.

The teaching that it is gravely immoral to prevent life by use of artificial contraceptives will never change. This is the conservative ground upon which any "progressive" understanding must stand. So yes, I think the ban is infallible.
[/quote]
:applause:

such a cool smiley

[qfnol31]

jswranch,

There are a couple things to respond to.

First, the ban on contraception cannot itself be infallible. However, the teaching that it is intrinsically evil is such.

Second, most people cannot give you a link to an official document on the matter. The reason is because it isn't defined or declared by the Extraordinary Magisterium, but by that Magisterium which is Ordinary, Episcopal, Universal. In English? We know it's infallibly taught because it has always been taught as intrinsically evil and the Pope closed the matter in Humanae Vitae, just as Pope John Paul II closed the issue of female ordination in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis in 1994.

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='qfnol31' post='1027354' date='Jul 19 2006, 05:20 PM']
jswranch,

There are a couple things to respond to.

First, the ban on contraception cannot itself be infallible. However, the teaching that it is intrinsically evil is such.

Second, most people cannot give you a link to an official document on the matter. The reason is because it isn't defined or declared by the Extraordinary Magisterium, but by that Magisterium which is Ordinary, Episcopal, Universal. In English? We know it's infallibly taught because it has always been taught as intrinsically evil and the Pope closed the matter in Humanae Vitae, just as Pope John Paul II closed the issue of female ordination in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis in 1994.
[/quote]
:applause:

[Aloysius]

In the other thread, the possibility was admitted that in theory, John Paul II or Paul VI could have taugh fallaciously that either of these things was already infallible, because their statements are not infallible.

So to me, this all seems to fall apart there: if things are already infallible teachings then something which cannot be wrong must confirm for us that they are already infallible. If the thing which tells us that they are already infallible can be wrong about that, then we have no certitude.