The Tradwriter responds to a recent video from Catholic News Service glorifying the Second Vatican Council’s treatment of Religious Liberty in the only way such a thing can be done; namely, by grossly misrepresenting Catholic tradition.
For further reference:
CNS Video:
Catholicism and the Challenge of Liberty
Louie Verrecchio presentation at Catholic Family News Conference:
John Courtney Murray – Broker of the Post-Conciliar Apostolic Cease Fire
Louie,
I don’t want to spread discussion over multiple posts – we can collate some of this in the forum later – but one point your video presentation didn’t address and which I missed was some mention of the socio-political environment in which the statements of Gregory XVI and Vatican II, respectively, were made. As you know, the former was writing at a time when there were still Papal States, and was, therefore, naturally concerned with the erosion of an established order. The latter was faced with a radically different situation: the brutal suppression of religious freedom in Communist countries such as the Soviet Union, China, Korea and Vietnam, where it was virtually impossible to practice the Catholic faith. Given this dramatic change in circumstances, would you be willing to say that the Council Fathers were at least correct in identifying the issue of religious freedom as one which needed to be addressed at the Council – at least, in lieu of an actual condemnation of Communism?
Also, I’d be interested in hearing your take on Benedict XVI’s reflections on DH, e.g. that he sees the Church, rather than introducing something altogether new, as reasserting the position She had taken in the days of the Roman Empire prior to Constantine. Worthy of serious consideration or just cosmetic whitewash?
I don’t find the idea of context in this instance convincing, particularly as DH has always been forcefully implemented in Catholic countries, while non-Catholic countries ignored it and continued to persecute Catholics. In lieu of that, the absence of reiterating the condemnation of Communism was very shameful. The schema that was discarded was far better in showing true Catholic doctrine on tolerance!
QuoVadisPetre,
Can that schema be found online somewhere? If so, please do pass the link. Thanks.
Could it not be argued that Pope Gregory’s argument applies to the Catholic state, but that today, since there is no Catholic state left, that all the Church can look for is Her freedom? I don’t know, I don’t really understand this whole religious liberty thing.
Unfortunately, it’s not online. But it is in Michael Davies’ book on religious liberty and Archbishop Lefebvre’s They Have Uncrowned Him.
This is another area were “trads” are so hypocritical. The vast majority of trads I’ve met both online and in person have NO PROBLEM with the Church changing the teaching on usury due to changing economic circumstances. Gee is that maybe because the vast majority of trads are also POLITICAL “conservatives” who support right wing parties like the Republicans?
Back, again, eh Ganganelli. The Church HAS NOT changed Her teaching on usury, else, you deny Her infallibility on matters of faith and morals. This is where you are so hypocritical yourself!
And FYI, I don’t go for the “left-right” paradigm of Reps. and Dems. Both are evil.
And another thing: quite a useless non sequitur you have made here!
Ganganelli, ursury is unreasonable high interest, not all interest is ursury.
Treefrog,
Absolutely incorrect. The constant teaching of the Holy Roman Catholic Church had ALWAYS been that the taking of ANY interest was intrinsically evil.
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His Holiness Benedict XIV in 1745 specifically condemned the rationalizations of capitalists and their supporters with the following brilliance:
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“One cannot condone the sin of usury by arguing that the gain is not great or excessive, but rather moderate or small; neither can it be condoned by arguing that the borrower is rich; nor even by arguing that the money borrowed is not left idle, but is spent usefully, either to increase one’s fortune, to purchase new estates, or to engage in business transactions. The law governing loans consists necessarily in the equality of what is given and returned; once the equality has been established, whoever demands more than that violates the terms of the loan. Therefore if one receives interest, he must make restitution according to the commutative bond of justice; its function in human contracts is to assure equality for each one. This law is to be observed in a holy manner. If not observed exactly, reparation must be made.”
The previous encyclical is called Vix Pervenit and was issued by Benedict XIV in 1745 if anyone wants to look it up.
QuoVadisPetre,
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While I commend you for not falling into the false left/right paradigm, do you deny that the overwhelming majority of your fellow trads do?
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I was reading an article recently on the wonderful condemnation of abortion by Pope Francis. The most “liked” comment in response to that article was something like, “Well if he was really serious, he would deny communion to Biden and Pelosi.” Sure, those people aren’t republicans. As the saying goes, if you believe that I got a bridge…
STOP FEEDING THE TROLL
These videos are much better than The Vortex, not only because of their uncompromised content, but also because they’re not filled with childish graphical gimmickry. How refreshing to be treated as an adult!
For a devastating comparison of the pre and post V2 teachings on religious liberty, see:
http://tinyurl.com/ptfp46k
Excellent vid. The Church’s mission, to draw all people to salvation through Her. The CNS clips would have people thinking that Truth is incapable of converting people without ‘coercion’ – a notion insulting to THE TRUTH, and to ages of great missionaries – from St Paul, to St Mari, to St Patrick, St Augustine, and on through to St Francis de Sales and Archbishop Lefebvre. Archbishop Lefebvre was true to the missionary spirit of the Church and lamented JPIIs assisi as ‘the end of the missions’ – effectively putting a stop to Christ’s command for His Church (if you love Me you will keep My commands). It seems Catholics are spending all their time these days being apologists for Christ’s enemies. The ‘right’ to pollute people’s souls with falsehood; the ‘right’ to leave people in the false religions leading to hell.
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‘Baptise ALL NATIONS in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.’
It is a curious fact of history that, while on the one hand Modernism was born out of a (mistaken) belief that Catholic teaching had lost all credibility in the face of modern scientific learning and advanced Biblical criticism, on the other hand every Modernist statement that rejects traditional Church teaching must be interpreted as compatible with it.
That is, while the Modernist wants to be seen as highly learned, he also wants to be understood in a manner that is inconsistent with the obvious meaning of his words according to elementary grammar and logic.
Which is it? Are Modernists clever, stupid or just malicious?
Ganganelli: I stand completely against usury. So should all trads and all serious Catholics. Let’s try to stay on topic instead of this behavior of setting up ad hominem deflection, regardless of whichever trads may not be sound in every aspect of their faith.
Matthew: The problem is that the Church’s teaching on church-state relations is clearly, undeniably official doctrinal teaching. It doesn’t change by whim or context. There is no doubt that government has an obligation to the Church to recognize it, and to act in an appropriate manner to protect it and the true faith.
While Bolshevik and Nazi horrors are naturally to be condemned, that shouldn’t be an opportunistic occasion to start fabricating rights for those who adhere to religious falsehood. One can oppose political tyranny and oppose the manufacturer of rights for those in religious error.
There is no such thing as man’s proper acts toward God apart from Catholicism. It alone is the true faith. Any other religious practice directed toward Him is considered an affront, as any other religion doesn’t even have the right to exist, much less have any right to coin authorized worship or practice.
Pope Benedict XVI held views that were clearly at variance with tradition. First, the Church did not have an official position in the first few centuries one way or another. How does the former pope know that it did? Where is the official papal magisterial teaching from the 50-310 period that in any way says this, that everybody is entited to religious liberty regardless of their faith and how erroneous it is? Please show me the pre-310 teaching from the pope, or even a reasonable number of ante-Nicene Fathers. This is just wishful thinking, it seems.
When the Church began to officially address the topic, from Constantine through to Pope Pius XII, what it declared and how it acted was true, official and unmistakable. To even begin to entertain otherwise is to, in effect, claim that the Church got the subject wrong for some 1,500 years, actively abridging man’s dignity as it suppressed error, called for execution of heretics, and for government to give Christ and His Church their proper due and recognition.
And we should not waste time with game-playing sophistry, that somehow that was all fine and dandy before 1960, then, magically, we had some mystical far-reaching alteration of context that calls for a new teaching. What exactly changed of such far reaching magnitude the moment that Pope Pius XII died?
The fact that Joseph Ratzinger and others in our Nouvelle and Aggoriomento crowds did not like official teaching doesn’t mean they were empowered to start changing it, while spinning artful explanations to justify this kind of misconduct.
On that basis, most anybody could change any number of teachings with the claim that the new teaching is more in sync with the spirit of the early primitive Church.
Enchante,
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The Church’s stance on usury is very “on topic”. It provides crystal clear evidence that the Church(pre-Vatican II) can adjust her doctrine as the world around her changes. I hope all Catholics would prefer a Catholic state where capitalists would be as unwelcome as abortionists and false religionists. That is the IDEAL. But our Holy Fathers the popes must live in the world that exists and work to change that world. The popes understand that if you use a heavy hand you risk that, in the words of Pope Francis, “the moral edifice of the Church is likely to fall like a house of cards.” In other words, everyone still cares who the Pope is while nobody cares who leads the southern baptists, mormons, etc.
Furthermore, nothing magical happened when Pope Pius XII died in 1958. The Church hadn’t called for the execution of heretics long before the reign of soon to be Saint Pope John XXIII.
The particular sentiment of Benedict XVI I had in mind was where he writes:
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“The Second Vatican Council, recognizing and making its own an essential principle of the modern state with the Decree on Religious Freedom “Dignitatis humanae,” has recovered the deepest patrimony of the Church. By so doing she can be conscious of being in full harmony with the teaching of Jesus himself (cf. Mt 22:21), as well as with the Church of the martyrs of all time. The ancient Church naturally prayed for the emperors and political leaders out of duty (cf. 1 Tm. 2:2); but while she prayed for the emperors, she refused to worship them and thereby clearly rejected the religion of the state. The martyrs of the early Church died for their faith in that God who was revealed in Jesus Christ, and for this very reason they also died for freedom of conscience and the freedom to profess one’s own faith – a profession that no state can impose but which, instead, can only be claimed with God’s grace in freedom of conscience. A missionary Church known for proclaiming her message to all peoples must necessarily work for the freedom of the faith. She desires to transmit the gift of the truth that exists for one and all.”
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I’d also like to mention Dr. William H. Marshner’s thoughtful treatment of DH in “Dignitatis humanae and Traditional Teaching on Church and State.” It’s at least refreshing to hear creative arguments being proposed in dealing with the difficulties of interpreting the text. Of course, unless one is convinced that the Church has defected – in which case, it will just look like intellectual gymnastics.
The misrepresentation by CNS of what the church has historically done and taught is indeed shameful. Maybe CNS has been watching too many fictional stories about the Church on the History Channel. The clips from CNS remind me of the dreadful and deceptive lies that the History Channel promotes regarding the Church, which seems in line with Enlightenment principles; one of which is that people are inclined to do the right thing if given the freedom to do so, which doesn’t take into account original sin and all its ramifications. Also, since CNS is promoting the idea that everyone needs to freely choose what to believe, then what about baptizing babies at birth? If this logic is followed, then shouldn’t babies not be baptized and raised Catholic, since they aren’t given the right to properly choose? (Many Protestants don’t baptize babies). Anyway, I see the need to try to do more studying up on what the Church actually taught before the Council, so as to be better prepared to defend the traditional teachings.
To Ganganelli
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To be Catholic a person ‘must’ accept all Catholic doctrines/dogmas on matters pertaining to faith and morals. For example, there is no such thing as a faithful and orthodox Catholic who is pro-choice.
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Similarly, to be Catholic, a central infallible doctrine is that the Church in Her Magisterium – both ordinary and extra-ordinary is infallible. Infallible teachings cannot change. That includes the infallible teachings of the ordinary Magisterium.
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However, if I have understood what you are trying to say correctly, you are trying to claim the Church has reversed Her teaching previously (you erroneously claim this is the case with usury) and then proceed to adduce this as evidence that the Church in the past has been happy to change its teaching as and when it suits it.
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That, might be your view, but that is not the view of any faithful orthodox Catholic. Some people who prefer to term themselves ‘traditionalist’ Catholics to varying degrees reject Vatican II because they claim that the conciliar documents are not consistent with previous Catholic doctrine and since the Church cannot reverse its teaching they reason (falsely I believe) that the Vatican II teachings must be in error.
The majority of orthodox Catholics like myself who accept ‘all’ of the teachings, decrees and documents of Vatican II, also believe as all Catholics ‘must’ believe that the Church cannot reverse any teaching. To us we do not see any reversal of Church teaching in anything taught by Vatican II, especially in light of the fact that Vatican II re-affirmed the dogmatic status of all previous Councils, that all previous Councils are binding on all Catholics and in view of the fact that the exegesis of the Church is always to read Scripture or Magisterial documents in light of Apostolic Tradition. To the few issues that the majority of Traditionalist Catholics bring up like ecumenism, religious liberty or the relationship of the Church to other religions, we believe even these issues can be shown to be consistent with previous Church teaching if read in the light of Tradition. Also keep in mind that dogma and doctrine cannot change or be reversed, but it can develop, and we do see some fleshing out of doctrine in Vatican II, like we see in all Church Councils.
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However, the key point is this – doctrine and morals cannot change. They can develop, that is to say be fleshed out so we have a more profound and solid understanding of them, but they can never be reversed. The Church has no authority for example to ever allow women priests, allow sodomy to no longer be sinful or to allow divorce etc. These are teachings rooted in the infallible doctrines of the Church and the Church Herself does not have the authority to reverse them.
And this is the point I would like to make. No ‘orthodox’ Catholic, whether one whom simply considers themselves a non-adjective Catholic and fully accepting of the documents of Vatican II or a Traditionalist believes that doctrine can change. Even the Catholics who accept Vatican II understand its an infallible dogma that the Church cannot reverse infallible teachings. We just believe that this did not occur during the Second Vat. Council.
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So what about the example you use of usury? Well, it’s actually a very common straw man and red herring used by dissidents to claim the Church reversed Her teaching and attack the dogma of infallibility. However, ‘context’ is always a key issue, and that is why moral and bioethical principles are usually never dogmatically defined due to the fact that its difficult to foresee certain circumstances which may provide a contextual difference to render a moral or immoral act no longer of the same species given the context. For example you see this with abortion and ectopic pregnancies. Abortion is intrinsically evil, but one can remove the cancerous womb during an ectopic pregnancy since the end is not the abortion and this is consistent with what the Early Church always taught about how to approach moral theological issues. There are certain issues which show us when a differential context will alter the species of the act altogether, and those never change. However if a Council dogmatically defined something it would only cause confusion since the laity is not competent to make those differential distinctions, since they would have to know for example thomistic moral theology. It’s far more appropriate to list the moral teachings in a non-Magisterial Catechism.
Likewise the teaching on usury never changes, and the following links expose why to claim it did is simply a red-herring, and prove the Church never altered or reversed the teachings on usury:
Usury – Catholic Dictionary
catholicculture.org/culture/library/dictionary/index.cfm?id=37015
The Red Herring of Usury
catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=646
Has the Catholic Church changed her position on the sinfulness of usury?
forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=14867&highlight=usury
Usury
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15235c.htm
Some useful quotes:
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“Charging interest on loans is not, in itself, sinful matter. Usury is defined as the practice of lending money and charging the borrower interest, especially at an exorbitant or illegally high rate. It is the charging of an “exorbitant or illegally high rate” of interest that the Church is and has always been concerned with.”
source: forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=36917&highlight=usury
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“. . .Capitalism, with unlimited opportunities for investment, changed the function of money so that it can fructify. Consequently loaning money did not involve loss of profit to the lender and further risk of loss from delay inreturning the money loaned. By the end of the eighteenth century the distinction between usury and interest was recognized in civil law. The Church also recognized the distinction so that now only exorbitant interest is called usury and considered morally wrong. In the process, however, the Church’s basic teaching on the subject did not change. Injustice surrounding money lending was and remains condemned. What changed was the economic system. As this changed, the circumstances under which an unjustice is committed changed. The Church necessarily permitted what was no longer unjust.” source:catholicculture.org/culture/library/dictionary/index.cfm?id=37015
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“. . .Money is no longer a barren thing in itself, and thus the loan of money at interest is not usurious. Rickaby sums up the correct view of usury nicely: “[I]t is usury to take any interest at all upon the loan of a piece of property, which (a) is of no use except to be used up, spent, consumed; (b) is not wanted for the lender’s own consumption within the period of the load; (c) is lent upon security that obviates risk; (d) is so lent that the lender forgoes no occasion of lawful gain by lending it” (Rickaby, 258).
Due to advances in transportation, communications and generally expanding economies, the nature of money itself has changed in the course of time. A loan that was usurious at one point in history, due to the unfruitfulness of money, is not usurious later, when the development of competitive markets has changed the nature of money itself. But this is not a change of the Church’s teaching on usury. Today nearly all commercial transactions, including monetary loans at interest, do not qualify as usury. This constitutes a change only in the nature of the financial transaction itself, not in the teaching of the Church on usury. “Still she maintains dogmatically that there is such a sin as usury, and what it is, as defined in the Fifth Council of Lateran “(ibid., 263). ” catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=646
Nicole,
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Maybe you missed the teaching of his holiness Benedict XIV in his encyclical Vix Pervenit issued in 1745. It is a lie of the capitalists that usury is just the charging of excessive interest. It had always been the teaching of the Church that ANY charging of interest is intrinsically evil. See below:
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““One cannot condone the sin of usury by arguing that the gain is not great or excessive, but rather moderate or small; neither can it be condoned by arguing that the borrower is rich; nor even by arguing that the money borrowed is not left idle, but is spent usefully, either to increase one’s fortune, to purchase new estates, or to engage in business transactions. The law governing loans consists necessarily in the equality of what is given and returned; once the equality has been established, whoever demands more than that violates the terms of the loan. Therefore if one receives interest, he must make restitution according to the commutative bond of justice; its function in human contracts is to assure equality for each one. This law is to be observed in a holy manner. If not observed exactly, reparation must be made.”
Nicole, Traditionalists are well aware of the idea that many otherwise well-intentioned Catholics have regarding the ‘development’ of Catholic doctrine. However, the documents of V2 regarding religious liberty (DH) go well beyond mere development; instead, they contradict previous teaching. I would suggest that you view the video link from Louie’s article here (John Courtney Murray – Broker of the Post-Conciliar Apostolic Cease Fire) in which he discusses this very issue.
@Denise – keep in mind, my comments were not meant to explain to traditionalists what Catholics who accept Vatican II believe, but rather to defend the doctrine of the infallibility of the Church and that doctrine can never be reversed.
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However Denise, I think usury is a good example of what I explained about the need for context. If the documents before Vatican II are understood in their context then we can even understand why there is no departure with the teaching of religious liberty.
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My two cents on that issue would be this – I think sometimes we blame the fireman for the fire. We see for example clerics espousing heretical and modernist notions of RL and we blame the Council. However, as people like Fr. William Most point out such extreme and non-Catholic views of RL that we may see promoted by clerics today do not have their origin or even defense in Vatican II.
To Ganganelli – I did not miss the comments of Pope Benedict XIV in his encyclical Vix Pervenit issued in 1745, and two of the links I posted addressed them, but I guess this proves you did not read them. That doesn’t seem very honest in terms of seeking truth – surely you should consider what the other side has to say?
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In any event, the comments of Benedict XIV need to be looked at again in context of both their magisterial value (that is what degree of authority it carries – was it ex-cathedra or merely non-infallible) and secondly and more importantly their context.
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I could twist so many things in the Bible if I fail to pay attention to its context. Ganganelli, you are making the exact same mistake that I believe many Traditionalist Catholics make. You are abrogating the role of interpreter of Christian truth to yourself rather then the magisterium given to us by Christ. For a Traditionalist, they filter everything through their own personal view of how things should be interpreted and so they refuse to acknowledge what the magisterium teaches about the interpretation of both pre and post Vatican II documents – for e.g. on RL, the magisterium even in DH does not teach that we have any absolute right to RL nor does it teach we have a right to embrace false religions, rather its thrust is that we have freedom from coercion, and that states can tolerate other religions if that is in the interests of the common good. Certainly some pre-concilliar statements might have been stronger, but we need to look at those in context of why and what those statements were directed at. For e.g. When Quanta Cura was written in 1864 Pius IX had in mind “has in mind: the kind which demands that citizens have the right to all kinds of liberty, to be restrained by no law, whether ecclesiastical or civil, by which they may be enabled to manifest openly and publicly their ideas, by word of mouth, through the press, or by any other means” – things were very different, and there were various world tensions in the geopolitical scene. Quanta Cura was largely a reaffirmation of what Gregory XVI had said thirty years earlier in the 1832 encyclical Mirari Vos. The principal target in that case was the French philosopher HF de Lamennais, whose newspaper, LAvenir, was demanding from the State, as a matter of universal principle, a liberty for the diffusion of error which it admitted would be virtually unlimited.
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Similarly you need to understand the context of what Benedict is saying. Here are some quotes from the links I posted previously. Perhaps you will consider reading them this time. Like I said to be Catholic you must believe the Catholic Church cannot reverse its doctrine, otherwise you are not Catholic but a dissident.
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Quotes on why Vix Pervenit has not been reveresed:
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“As these ethical and economic principles became fully appreciated, and as civilization progressed, it became clear that money in more modern economies—with competitive markets and almost unlimited opportunities for profitable (“fruitful”) investment—did not suffer from the same tendency to be “unfruitful” as it had before. In the face of this change, the Church defined what is meant by usury. Session X of the Fifth Lateran Council (1515) gave its exact meaning: “For that is the real meaning of usury: when, from its use, a thing which produces nothing is applied to the acquiring of gain and profit without any work, any expense or any risk.”
So too, Pope Benedict XIV in his encyclical Vix Pervenit, says: “The nature of the sin called usury has its proper place and origin in a loan contract [mutuum]. This financial contract between consenting parties demands, by its very nature, that one return to another only as much as he has received. The sin rests on the fact that sometimes the creditor desires more than he has given. Therefore he contends some gain is owed him beyond that which he loaned, but any gain which exceeds the amount he gave is illicit and usurious.”
Note again that a mutuum is “a loan of a fungible, i.e., perishable, nonspecific good, whose use consisted of its consumption” (New Catholic Encyclopedia). But at present the choice for one’s money in our world-economy is never simply between spending and hoarding, for money can always been invested in any number of genuinely profitable (“fruitful”) enterprises. There is much greater facility nowadays for making profitable investments of savings, and a true value, therefore, is always attached to the possession of money, as also to credit itself. A lender, during the whole time that the loan continues, deprives himself of a valuable thing, for the price of which he is compensated by the interest. It is right at the present day to permit interest (which is different from usury) on money lent, as it was not wrong to condemn the practice at a time when it was more difficult to find profitable investments for money. ”
source:catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=646
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” Benedict XIV made it his own in his famous Encyclical “Vix pervenit” of 1 November, 1745, which was promulgated after thorough examination, but addressed only to the bishops of Italy, and therefore not an infallible Decree. On 29, July, 1836, the Holy Office incidentally declared that this Encyclical applied to the whole Church; but such a declaration could not give to a document an infallible character which it did not otherwise possess. The schismatic Greeks, at least since the sixteenth century, do not consider the taking of interest on loans as intrinsically bad.” source: newadvent.org/cathen/15235c.htm
Nicole, did you view the video attached to this article, regarding John Courtney Murray?
How does DH flesh out the doctrine of the Church more? The preconciliar schema that was scrapped before the Council was far more clear and no contradictions than this mess of a document.
Again I ask, how does DH flesh out more the doctrine of the Church? I don’t see it does at all! The preconciliar schema gutted was far more clear and no contradictions in true religious tolerance.
Matthew,
Pope Benedict XVI’s presentation here is fraught with a number of problems. Again, he is, to be blunt, simply reading in his own neo-modernist take on the primitive Church. Yes, the early Church had martyrs who died for the faith and can be said to die for the freedom it was entitled to.No, that doesn’t mean that they upheld and died for the freedom of everybody to publicly espouse and peddle doctrinal errors, heresies, and unbelief. Again, I ask: where do we have any official magisterial statement prior to 310 that says any such thing? I”m not aware of any. If we don’t, then all Joseph Ratzinger is doing is projecting what he wants back onto the apostles and early pre-Constantian church.
Elsewhere he has written that the doctrine on the subject stated by Pope Pius XII and held by all the popes prior to 1939 for as long as the church has been addressing the subject was no longer adequate and unacceptable and apparently some new doctrine was needed. Nowhere does he prove that the classical doctrine had error or was unacceptable. By all appears he and those like him simply decided they didn’t like, so they would change it, and then piece together some rationale to defend the revision. Is this an unfair assessment? If so, how?
Not to mention that to do this is to make a mockery of 1,500 years of doctrinal teaching and to say, in effect, that the church got this serious matter wrong and in effect engaged in grave, barbaric misconduct, abriding man and his human dignity of his rightful freedoms. So when heretics were being executed, books were being banned and burned, non-Catholics were being denied public worship, the Church was an immoral oppresor, is what we’re going to have to believe now.
The gall. Yes, it is gall.
Ganganelli,
I don’t see that the Church changed her doctrinal teaching on usury, but, at most, simply held by the doctrine at its core and applied to to a bewildering host of complex changing circumstances. I do not see where have an actual change. I’d recommend Brian McCall on this subject, if you have not read his recent book.
As for heretics, while the Church had not openly and officially called forexecutions for some time, the doctrinal teaching that calls for this being a perfectly proper and licit option was left undisturbed prior to VII.
Happy Easter to all!
Perhaps I’m being simplistic, but if the Church were to acknowledge the rights of all religions, what do we do about those muslims, a significant number, who truly believe that they will be admitted to heaven if they die while killing infidels? What about those who worship animals, or who have strong faith in perversion? What of those who have strong faith in the absence of God? What about those who sincerely worship satan? In the US, we have all of these ‘believers’. Is there anything in their behavior that makes you think that if they were in power, they would give us permission to live our Faith?
The fact that we can even discuss this here rests on the fact that we have a Catholic history, but we are not treasuring it. I am certain that those we are trying so hard to include my well not have the same inclusiveness in their own articles of faith.
Happy Easter to all!
Perhaps I’m being simplistic, but if the Church were to acknowledge the rights of all religions, what do we do about those muslims, a significant number, who truly believe that they will be admitted to heaven if they die while killing infidels? What about those who worship animals, or who have strong faith in perversion? What of those who have strong faith in the absence of God? What about those who sincerely worship satan? In the US, we have all of these ‘believers’. Is there anything in their behavior that makes you think that if they were in power, they would give us permission to live our Faith? We are allowed the freedom to discuss this topic because of our Catholic Faith. Do you believe that, should any of those others come to higher importance, they will allow this same freedom? I sincerely worry for the generations to come after us, because we failed to rise to the challenge and defend the truths of the Faith.
The fact that we can even discuss this here rests on the fact that we have a Catholic history, but we are not treasuring it. I am certain that those we are trying so hard to include my well not have the same inclusiveness in their own articles of faith.
Not sure how my partial message was sent. Forgive the duplication…
You are right; whenever other false religions were in the ascendancy, particularly controlling the government, there was nothing but suffering for Catholics, from Muslims and Lutherans to atheists and Masons.
QVP, that is my point. The consideration we have for our fellows is a specifically Christian trait. It is easy for us to be generous still, although our Western presence as a cultural force is rapidly waning. I don’t believe we can expect the same thoughtful consideration from our non-Christian fellow-citizens when we become the less numerous party. We can look at happenings in some African countries or China for what we might expect…
Sorry, QVP. I should have said ‘Catholic’ instead of Christian, because as you mentioned, the Lutherans have not been so generous, nor have the Anglicans.