Is the ban on contraception infallible?

[Era Might]

We do not need an infallible statement on the infallibility of a particular doctrine, because our faith and obedience does not proceed from infallibility, but from the Holy Spirit's guidance of the Church. The Church leads us, for the most part, through her ordinary Magisterium, and that is sufficient. If she feels the need to settle something through extraordinary means, she will do so.

You're missing the point that it doesn't matter whether a document is infallible or not. It has no bearing on whether we owe obedience.

We no more need to know infallibly that something is infallible than we need to know infallibly that we are in a state of grace (which the Council of Trent says is impossible, except by special revelation).

[Aloysius]

I never said it did. My concern is for the historical and apologetic certitude we can have in this doctrine. We tell people it is very simple to show the Catholic Church wrong... show two infallible statements contradicting each other. The way this is presented leaves ten outs to a flush on the river... where is our certitude here in the infallibility of this?

there doesn't have to be certitude in this for our religious assent. but for shouting from the rooftops "this is infallible", there ought to be certitude. if, in theory, john paul ii can be wrong about it already being an infallible doctrine, then there is still no certitude in its infallibility.

this would all be solved if the ordinary papal magisterium could not be wrong about what was already infallible according to the ordinary universal magisterium. not that the document of ordinatio sacerdolis would be infallible in any way, but that its declaration that things were already set-in-stone infallible could not be wrong.

[Laudate_Dominum]

:applause:

[Era Might]

Our certitude is in the Holy Father saying it is definitive, and commanding all Catholics to hold it as definitive.

Even if the Ordinary Magisterium were infallible when talking about something infallible, you would still have to prove that the Pope can be infallible at all.

You are looking for absolute certitude. We don't have that. We don't need that. Christianity is, by definition, a religion that begins with faith.

You can shout from the rooftops that the Church's teaching is infallible; you just can't shout from the rooftops that Ordinatio Sacerdotalis is infallible, because it isn't.

Many converts, unfortunately, are mislead into a false idea of Catholic unity that sets up everything as black/white, fallible/infallible. And then when they come into the Church, and they see nuance and discussion and flexibility, their false view of the Church doesn't match up with reality, and they lose heart.

The Catholic faith has never been about determining what is "infallible" and what isn't. The Catholic faith is an Apostolic communion which is handed on through the living witness of the episcopate in every generation. Pope John Paul II and Pope Paul VI contributed to that living witness with these respective doctrines. They did not choose to invoke their charism of infallibility, because it wasn't necessary. The authority of the doctrines themselves, and the authority of their ordinary magisterium, was sufficient.

The early Church didn't need an infallible Papal statement to tell them that the Gospels were inspired by God; they didn't even need an Ecumenical Council to do so. Why? Because their faith proceeded from their trust in the living preservation of truth in the Church.

At the end of the day, a non-Catholic has to answer one question: do you believe in the authority of the Catholic Church? If they do, then the Holy Father's judgement is sufficient, even if it is not infallible in itself. If they don't, then they need to do some more soul searching. Either way, their decision to be Catholic should proceed from faith, not from arbitary judgements on what is and is not infallibly infallible. Ultimately, they still have to rely on their own faith in the infallible interpreter of what is infallible, and they themselves can never be infallible.

It all proceeds from faith.