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According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, “revelation,” or the “deposit of faith,” is that “which has been committed” to the Roman Catholic church, “and which she proposes to all her members for their acceptance.” As Catholic Answers helpfully defines, the “doctrines of the Catholic Church are the deposit of faith revealed by Jesus Christ, taught by the apostles, and handed down in their entirety by the apostles to their successors.” Having been entrusted with “the faith which was once delivered” (Jude 3), the Roman Catholic church is alleged to be the only authorized custodian and teacher of that deposit (Catholic Encyclopedia, Revelation). Bound by duty, it is the pope who must “inviolably keep and faithfully expound the Revelation, the Deposit of Faith, delivered through the Apostles” (Vatican Council 1, Pastor Æternus, Chapter 4, On the Infallible Teaching of the Roman Pontiff). As Catholic Answers elsewhere explains, the whole purpose of papal infallibility is so that men may know what is to believed in order to be saved:
“For men to be saved, they must know what is to be believed. They must have a perfectly steady rock to build upon and to trust as the source of solemn Christian teaching. And that’s why papal infallibility exists.” (Catholic Answers, Papal Infallibility)
Of course, as Roman Catholics are only too eager to explain, not every statement by every pope is infallible, and in fact some of the statements of popes throughout history have not only been fallible, but have also been errant and downright heretical. Roman Catholics are not obligated to believe those statements in order to be saved. All that remains for the Roman Catholic is to be able to tell the difference.
Vatican Council I, fortunately, gave explicit guidelines on when a pope is speaking infallibly, that is, when he is speaking ex cathedra, or “from the chair.” And it is only under those specific, limited, circumstances that he so speaks. In 1870, the council proclaimed the conditions under which it can be known that the pope is speaking infallibly:
“We teach and define that it is a divinely-revealed dogma: that the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex Cathedra, that is, when in discharge of the office of Pastor and Teacher of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme Apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals to be held by the Universal Church, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, is possessed of that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer willed that His Church should be endowed for defining doctrine regarding faith or morals: and that therefore such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are irreformable of themselves, and not from the consent of the Church.” (Vatican Council 1, Pastor Æternus, Chapter 4)
Of course, Roman Catholics will also hasten to add that the pope does not have to be speaking ex cathedra in order to be saying things that are known to be infallible. For example the general teachings of the church are considered infallible, and if the pope is merely restating things that have been constantly held by the church, he may actually be speaking fallibly about infallible things. He does not have to speak ex cathedra to do that.
The difference between speaking ex cathedra to define a dogma and speaking non-ex cathedra to restate an official Roman Catholic teaching that has already been taught, is distinguished by the terms “extraordinary” and “ordinary.” A formal declaration by an ecumenical council or a formal dogmatic declaration by a pope is considered to be an exercise of the extraordinary magisterium of the church; whereas, a belief constantly held and taught by the bishops of the church throughout the world in union with the bishop or Rome is considered to be an exercise of the ordinary magisterium of the church.
Of course, Roman Catholics will hasten to add that not every statement by bishops in union with the Pope is infallibly taught, and in fact some things taught by the bishops in union with the Bishop of Rome are not taught infallibly. Russell Shaw, in his 1997 Our Sunday Visitor article, “Understanding the Infallibility Teaching,” explains:
“Not everything taught by bishops in union with the pope is infallibly taught, but some things are.” (Shaw, Russell, Understanding the Infallibility Teaching)
Vatican Council II, fortunately, gave explicit guidelines on when the church is exercising the infallible prerogatives of the ordinary magisterium. In 1964 the council proclaimed the conditions under which it can be known that the church is speaking infallibly by the exercise of the ordinary magisterium:
“Although the individual bishops do not enjoy the prerogative of infallibility, they nevertheless proclaim Christ’s doctrine infallibly whenever, even though dispersed through the world, but still maintaining the bond of communion among themselves and with the successor of Peter, and authentically teaching matters of faith and morals, they are in agreement on one position as definitively to be held.” (Vatican II, Lumen Gentium, III.25)
Thus, according to Vatican I and Vatican II, guidelines for extraordinary and ordinary infallibility were laid out in crystal clarity. According to Canon Law, “No doctrine is understood as defined infallibly unless this is manifestly evident” (Code of Canon Law, Canon 749.3), and Vatican I and Vatican II pretty much explained what “manifestly evident” means.
But manifest evidence of infallibility is not the lower threshold of credulity. In Roman Catholicism, intellectual submission and assent is required even for fallible teachings of the ordinary magisterium. As Pope Paul VI stated in Lumen Gentium , “This religious submission of mind and will must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra” (Lumen Gentium, chapter 3, 25). That “religious submission of mind and will” is to produce in the Roman Catholic an “inner assent” to whatever is taught, not merely a “reverent silence,” and a courteous abstention from debate. Ludwig Ott, in his Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, makes this crystal clear:
“[N]ot all the assertions of the Teaching Authority of the Church on questions of Faith and morals are infallible and consequently irrevocable. … Nevertheless normally they are to be accepted with an inner assent … . The so-called ‘silentium obsequiosum,’ that is ‘reverent silence, does not generally suffice.” (Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma)
That “obligation of inner agreement may cease,” Ott goes on, if a fallible teaching has been found, upon further investigation by a “competent expert,” to be in error. In other words, the Roman Catholic is to believe as true whatever emanates from the Magisterium, whether it is extraordinary, ordinary, infallible, fallible—and by logical deduction—right, or wrong.
But even with these clear guidelines on manifest evidence of infallibility, and the distinction between the infallibility of the ordinary and extraordinary Magisterium, and the distinction between infallible and fallible, no small confusion has remained for Roman Catholics. Some have even mistakenly concluded that only those definitive dogmatic teachings for which the infallibility is manifestly evident require intellectual submission.
Although Vatican I and Vatican II had clarified the means by which something is determined to be infallible, and had also established that intellectual submission is required whether a teaching is infallible or not, John Paul II was concerned in 1995 that Roman Catholics did not really understand the meaning and role of the teaching Magisterium. He lamented in a 1995 address to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the “widespread misunderstanding of the meaning and role of the Church’s Magisterium” and its “various degrees of teaching”:
“That this authority includes various degrees of teaching … does not entitle one to hold that the pronouncements and doctrinal decisions of the Magisterium call for irrevocable assent only when it states them in a solemn judgment or definitive act… .” (John Paul II, Address to Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, paragraphs 5-6 (November 24, 1995))
Clearly, it had come to the attention of the Supreme Pontiff that his sheep did not know, understand or believe what it was that they were to know, understand and believe in order to be saved. In other words, the whole purpose of papal and magisterial infallibility (according to Catholic Answers) was slipping away from the general Roman Catholic population.
One of the reasons that this had come to the attention of the pope was the confusion that resulted from his 1994 Apostolic Letter, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis. That this was in John Paul II’s mind when he lamented the “widespread misunderstanding” may be seen from the words of his lamentation:
“[I]n the Apostolic Letter Ordinatio sacerdotalis, I wished once again to set forth the constant doctrine of the Church’s faith with an act confirming truths which are clearly witnessed to by Scripture, the apostolic Tradition and the unanimous teaching of the Pastors.” (John Paul II, Address to Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, paragraph 6 (November 24, 1995)).
It must be noted that John Paul II had said this in the context of papal statements that he knew did not contain a “solemn judgment or definitive act,” and Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was clearly one of those papal statements. He had not been speaking ex cathedra, when he issued Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, and therefore Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was an exercise of the ordinary Magisterium, and the “ordinary and usual form of the Papal teaching activity is not infallible” (Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma). Fallibility notwithstanding, irrevocable assent was still expected from the sheep.
But if he had been teaching something historically “taught by bishops in union with the pope,” had he been teaching the kinds of things that are taught infallibly by the ordinary magisterium? Or had he been teaching the other kinds of things—that are “taught by bishops in union with the pope” but are not infallible? Russell Shaw, after all, had said that some things taught by bishops in union with the pope are infallibly taught, but some things are not. Which kind was John Paul II talking about?
Well, frankly, it does not matter. Vatican Council II said that even when the pope is not speaking ex cathedra, the sheep still owe him “religious submission … according to his manifest mind and will” which “may be known either from the character of the documents, from his frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or from his manner of speaking” (Vatican II, Lumen Gentium, III.25).
Clear enough. Whether the pope is speaking ex cathedra according to the infallibility granted to the extraordinary magisterium as explained by Vatican I, or is speaking infallible things in union with the bishops of the world according to the infallibility granted to the ordinary magisterium as explained by Vatican II, or is speaking fallible things in union with the bishops of the world, or is just speaking fallible things, the sheep still owe him “religious submission … according to his manifest mind and will” which “may be known either from the character of the documents, from his frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or from his manner of speaking.”
Unless, of course, he is teaching things that are “known” to be untrue. In which case, none of the above applies. Because Roman Catholics, ostensibly, are not obligated to believe things that are “known” to be untrue.
Examples of non-infallible proclamations by popes—even proclamations in union with the bishops of the world—that (apparently) do not require religious submission are those of Pope Leo I (452 A.D.), Pope Gelasius (490 A.D.), and Pope Gregory the Great (590 A.D.). Leo I taught that Nicæa’s prohibition against kneeling on Sundays (Canon 20) was to last until the end of the world (Leo I, Letter 106, paragraph 4), and everyone “knows” that one cannot be infallible. Pope Gelasius taught that after the consecration at the mass, “the substance and nature of bread and wine do not cease to be in” the bread and wine (Against Eutyches and Nestorius), and everyone “knows” that one cannot be infallible. Pope Gregory the Great taught that the books of Macabees were not canonical (Moralia in Job, Book 19, chapter 34), and everyone “knows” that one cannot be infallible. After all, ex cathedra papal teachings are irreformable, and those were all clearly reformable.
But that is nothing to worry about because Roman Catholics have very clear guidelines on how they can tell whether something—ordinary or extraordinary, fallible or infallible, right or wrong—needs to be believed or not. That, after all, is the whole purpose of the teaching authority of the church: so that people may know what it is they need to believe in order to be saved. Frankly, John Paul II was really worrying about nothing. What could be easier to understand than the magisterial teaching authority of the Roman Catholic Church and the “manifest mind and will” of the pope?
To see how successful this approach has been, we need only examine an informal historical timeline of the interpretation of Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, from the perspective of the Magisterium and from that of the Roman Catholic laity.
May 22, 1994: Ordinatio Sacerdotalis is published
“Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church’s divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.” (John Paul II, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, 4)
This was clearly an exercise in the infallibility of the extraordinary magisterial teaching office of the papacy. Was it not? In fact, a week later, that is exactly what faithful Roman Catholics concluded based on the criteria outlined by Vatican I….
June 2, 1994: Ordinatio Sacerdotalis is determined to an be ex cathedra exercise of the extraordinary magisterium
An attentive and faithful Roman Catholic evaluated “the character of the document” and John Paul II’s “manner of speaking” and determined John Paul II’s “manifest mind and will”:
“Let us compare this with Vatican I’s definition concerning the exercise of papal infallibility … For our part, we rejoice in the liberating clarity of Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, and we do not fear to proclaim that John Paul II was exercising his prerogative of infallibility when he issued it. He has indeed given us an irreformable teaching…” (Ordinatio Sacerdotalis: an Exercise of Papal Infallibility)
Of course, there were other opinions in circulation…
October 28, 1995: Cardinal Ratzinger determines that Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was not an infallible document
“In this case, an act of the ordinary Papal Magisterium, in itself not infallible, witnesses to the infallibility of the teaching of a doctrine already possessed by the Church.” (Cardinal Ratzinger, Concerning the Reply of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on the Teaching Contained in the Apostolic Letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis)
And if that was not clear enough…
November 8, 1995: Ordinatio Sacerdotalis is determined not to be ex cathedra, but to be an exercise of the ordinary Magisterium
Due to some dissenting opinions resulting from Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, Cardinal Ratzinger published a responsum ad dubium declaring that Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was not an ex cathedra statement (as some had originally thought), but rather had merely restated a teaching that had for years been “set forth infallibly by the ordinary and universal Magisterium.” Ratzinger issued this statement in his role as the prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Of course, according to Ludwig Ott, “the decisions of the Roman Congregations,” like Ratzinger’s, “are not infallible” (Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma). And since Ratzinger’s responsum was not itself infallible, some clergy dismissed his responsum as not only fallible, but erroneous….
Later that year: Fr. Peter Pilsner determines that Cardinal Ratzinger was wrong to say that Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was not ex cathedra
In his article, “Is Ordinatio Sacerdotalis an Infallible Exercise of the Extraordinary Papal Magisterium?”, Fr. Peter Pilsner answered in the absolute affirmative: “the Holy Father’s statement ‘Ordinatio Sacerdotalis’ is an infallible exercise of the extraordinary papal magisterium.” Pilsner argued his point based on the way Vatican II had clarified the conditions for extraordinary infallibility. He insisted that Vatican II had substituted “the word ‘proclaims’ for ‘defines’ ” in its formula for the exercise of papal prerogatives, and therefore the word “define” is not necessary in order to determine that a pope has spoken infallibly. Pilsner went on to say, based on this, that Ratzinger had been mistaken in his analysis, and further, that Pilsner had this on the authority of a respected doctor of Vatican I:
“[By the way], I want to make it clear that none of what is quoted above represents my own scholarship. It is all from the book, The Gift of Infallibility, which contains a complete translation of Bishop Gasser’s speech to the Fathers of Vatican I, with footnotes and commentary by Msgr. James T. O’Connor, and also a long article on infallibility by the same Msgr. O’Connor. (St. Paul Books, 1986.) … With all due respect to Cardinal Ratzinger, if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck…guess what?”
But Ratzinger continued to disagree…
June 29, 1998: Cardinal Ratzinger determines not only that Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was not “in itself infallible” and had not been promulgated ex cathedra, but further that it is not even infallibly to be considered to be “divinely revealed”
Ratzinger insisted that John Paul II had not issued a “dogmatic definition”:
“A similar process can be observed in the more recent teaching regarding the doctrine that priestly ordination is reserved only to men. The Supreme Pontiff, while not wishing to proceed to a dogmatic definition, intended to reaffirm that this doctrine is to be held definitively, since, founded on the written Word of God, constantly preserved and applied in the Tradition of the Church, it has been set forth infallibly by the ordinary and universal Magisterium. As the prior example illustrates, this does not foreclose the possibility that, in the future, the consciousness of the Church might progress to the point where this teaching could be defined as a doctrine to be believed as divinely revealed.” (Cardinal Ratzinger, A Doctrinal Commentary on the Concluding Formula of the Professio Dei, 11)
Not divinely revealed? Surely Ratzinger must have had that wrong. And there were plenty of members of the laity who were willing to join Pilsner in pointing that out…
Sometime in 2001: Lane Core, Jr., a Roman Catholic layperson, concludes that Ratzinger cannot be correct, and that Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was ex cathedra in accordance with Vatican I
Whatever Ratzinger was selling about the status of Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, Lane Core, Jr., was not buying it. The former Methodist had converted to Roman Catholicism for the purpose of finding an infallible teaching authority. He was not going to be denied the very thing for which he had converted: Papal Infallibility. Thus, despite what Ratzinger had insisted, and despite what John Paul II had insisted, Lane Core determined on his own that Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was an ex cathedra statement in accordance with Vatican I:
“Objections to the contrary notwithstanding, the teaching in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis is infallible because it fulfills the only requirements that must be fulfilled: those specified in Pastor Aeternus [Vatican I] and repeated in Lumen Gentium [Vatican II].” (Lane Core, Jr., Ordinatio Sacerdotalis: Infallible Teaching? An Examination of the Apostolic Letter of May 22, 1994, In Light of Classic Understanding of Papal Infallibility)
By examining the evidence from Vatican I and II, Lane determined that Ordinatio Sacerdotalis had been an exercise of the extraordinary Papal Magisterium. Of course, other laity had their own opinions, contrary to Lane’s…
November 2002: Catholics United for the Faith concludes based on Vatican II that Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was an exercise of the ordinary magisterium, not the extraordinary magisterium
“Ordinatio Sacerdotalis is a good example of a definitive papal pronouncement that confirms or reaffirms a teaching of the ordinary and universal papal Magisterium. The Pope states that the teaching regarding priestly ordination is ‘the constant and universal Tradition of the Church.’ He thus definitively identifies the teaching as magisterial.” (The Infallibility of the Magisterium of the Catholic Church)
But could Catholics United for the Faith have been wrong in their analysis? Yes, of course they could…
May 10, 2003: J. Cecil, ex-seminarian and self-professed “progressive” Roman Catholic, concludes that John Paul II had not made made it “manifestly evident” that he intended to speak infallibly
J. Cecil was apparently so concerned about the integrity of the faith that he started a blog about the fallibility of Ordinatio Sacerdotalis: Is Ordinatio Sacerdotalis Infallible? Cecil evaluated the evidence and concluded based on Canon 749.3 that John Paul II had not made it manifestly evident that he intended to convey the infallibility of the doctrine. The precise wording of Canon 749.3 is:
“No doctrine is understood as defined infallibly unless this is manifestly evident.”
Based on this, Cecil concluded the obvious:
“In general, theologians suggest that there are least five conditions that must be met to establish a doctrine as infallible under canon 749.3. … The simple fact is that Pope John Paul II merely asserted that it is his fallible opinion that these conditions had been met. Another simple fact is that it is not manifestly clear to the Church that these conditions have been met. Unless the Pope can make manifest that these conditions were met, or unless he declares the doctrine ex cathedra, this doctrine cannot be known with certainty to be infallible.”
But another online activist thought otherwise…
January 1, 2005: Peter Howard, participant at the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) online forum, determines that Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was an exercise of the extraordinary papal Magisterium, and therefore ex cathedra
Peter Howard, recognizing the “confusion under which we labor,” analyzed the history of the proclamation, and the commentaries related to it, and concluded based on Canon 749.3 that John Paul II had made it manifestly evident that Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was infallible, and in fact was “also ex cathedra.”
By his reading of it, Peter Howard determined that a 1983 modification to Canon 749.3 extended papal infallibility to include not only “infallible dogmas” but also “infallible doctrines.” On that basis, he concluded that John Paul II had made the infallibility of the doctrine manifestly evident, while leaving “the possibility open for this infallible doctrine to be declared a dogma in future if the Church so sees fit.” Mr. Howard’s answer was considered complete and accurate by the moderator, Fr. Robert J. Levis (EWTN, Here’s why no women priests is infallible teaching and closed).
But other Roman Catholic apologists thought otherwise…
May 25, 2005: Roman Catholic apologist James Akin explains that Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was not ex cathedra
Contrary to Pilsner’s analysis above, which clearly showed that Vatican II had removed the obligation of a pope to say “define” when speaking infallibly, and contrary to Howard’s interpretation that John Paul II had defined something ex cathedra, Akin thought that John Paul II had not been speaking ex cathedra, because he had not used the word “define”:
“The phrase that he would be expected to use to signal that he is making a definitive act would be the verb ‘I define.’ We would expect him to say ‘I declare and define,’ but he doesn’t say that. He simply says ‘I declare.’ Those aren’t the same thing.” (James Akin, Saddle Up!)
In fact, Akin criticized those who attempted to use Vatican II and the Code of Canon Law to figure this out:
“Well, some folks immediately head for Vatican II or even the Code of Canon Law to tell us when the pope engages his infallibility, but neither of these contain definitions of when the pope’s exercise of infallibility is engaged. The Code of Canon Law isn’t infallible, and neither are the documents of Vatican II since they attempted no new definitions, and certainly no new definition on this point.” (James Akin, Saddle Up!)
So, based on Vatican I, which in Akin’s estimation, was infallible, he concluded that Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was an exercise of the ordinary magisterium, and therefore was infallible but was nonetheless a “non-definitive act,” and therefore not ex cathedra.
But what was clear to Akin was not so clear to his readers…
May 26, 2005: James Akin’s readers complain that Akin is so parsing papal infallibility that it loses all meaning
Akin’s readers actually thought Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was ex cathedra, and expressed their disapproval of Akin’s analysis:
“I think it is a very weak argument to point out how Pope John Paul II intentionally made all 4 points of papal infallibility and then quibble over the word ‘define’ or ‘declare’ as if they have substantial differences apart from the 4 points. … It’s parsing the doctrine of infallibility so finely that it loses any real meaning.” (James Akin, Comment Section)
But could Akin and his readers have been misinterpreting the data? Another Roman Catholic apologist says yes…
August 5, 2008: Roman Catholic apologist, Robert Sungenis, determines that Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was a non-infallible decree
In response to a questioner who thought Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was infallible, but finds “this particular issue not very clear,” Sungenis explained that Ordinatio Sacerdotalis is actually not infallible and had not been definitively addressed, because it was a Cardinal that had affirmed its infallibility, not the pope. As Ludwig Ott reminded us above, a Cardinal’s affirmation of infallibility is not in itself infallible. Not only was Ordinatio Sacerdotalis not infallible, there remained the possibility that it could still be contested:
“Well, this is how the Church operates. It’s the way it makes its dogma. It will make an authoritative decree but with the condition that the decree can be contested if evidence arises that there may be a problem with it. This is true with any non-infallible doctrine. It may be contested. … As for John Paul II’s decree in 1994 in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, the problem here is that it wasn’t the pope who confirmed its infallibility, but Cardinal Ratzinger. Unless the pope approves of Ratzinger’s opinion and makes it known to all the Catholic masses, then there is still room for someone to contest the status of women’s ordination. The reason someone could question the infallible status of Ordinatio Sacerdotalis is that the language John Paul II used in the decree gave some doubt as to whether he was making it infallible. This is why I said earlier that when the Church makes something infallible, I wish they would just so it plainly and clearly, as Canon 749.3 requires. If John Paul II had said, for example, ‘This is an infallible and irreformable dogma of the Catholic Church: Women cannot be priests,’ then the matter would be settled, once and for all.” (Robert Sungenis, Q&A)
But was Sungenis overlooking something? What was unclear to Sungenis was crystal clear to someone else…
Sometime in 2009: Roger LeBlanc determines that Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was an ex cathedra papal pronouncement.
In 2009, LeBlanc published a book, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis: The Case for its Infallibility, arguing that there were three criteria necessary for an ex cathedra pronouncement according to Vatican I:
“Whenever these three conditions come together in what the Pope is teaching, Papal infallibility has been exercised.”
But had LeBlanc seen something that was not nearly as obvious to others? It would seem so…
December 22, 2009: Benedict XVI declares that Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was a definitive, infallible, irrevocable teaching of the Papal Magisterium
When William M. Morris, Bishop of Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia), presumed to continue the conversation regarding the ordination of women priests—on the presumption that the conversation was still on the table—he earned a stern rebuke from Ratzinger, who was now Pope Benedict XVI. Morris had proposed in a letter to his diocese that women’s ordination might be one solution to the priest shortage. Such a statement required the intervention of the bishop of Rome.
In his letter to Bishop Morris, Pope Benedict wrote,
“Yet the late Pope John Paul II has decided infallibly and irrevocably that the Church has not the right to ordain women to the priesthood.” (Benedict XVI, Letter to William Morris, Bishop of Toowoomba, December 22, 2009; the letter is provided in appendix 16 of Morris’ book, Benedict, Me, and the Cardinals Three (Australian Theological Forum Press, 2014))
Gone was the language of Ratzinger, the Cardinal, who had said that Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was “an act of the ordinary Papal Magisterium” and “in itself not infallible.” Now Ratzinger, the Pope, was talking about a doctrine that “John Paul II has decided infallibly and irrevocably.” That was the strongest statement Benedict had made on Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, and it started sounding a lot like John Paul II really had promulgated the document as an exercise of the extraordinary Papal Magisterium.
But another Cardinal had a very different opinion…
May 3, 2011: Patriarch of Lisbon, Cardinal Policarpo, determines that John Paul II had not settled the matter “irrevocably” at all
In an interview with the Portuguese Bar Association, Cardinal Policarpo determined that the matter of women’s ordination had not been settled, but was simply a matter of fallible tradition:
“[Q.:] Women cannot hold positions of responsibility in the Catholic Church. What is your opinion?
[A.:] Your affirmation is not accurate … The problem that was recently considered is the one of ministerial priesthood. … The Holy Father John Paul II, at one point, seemed to settle the matter. I believe that the matter is not settled like this; theologically, there is no fundamental obstacle; there is this tradition, let us say it this way… it was never different.
[Q.:] From a theological point of view, there are no obstacles…
[A.:] I believe that there are no fundamental obstacles. It is a fundamental equality of all members of the Church.” (OA Boletim da Ordem dos Avogados, Mensal No. 78, Maio 2011, 34-41; english translation here)
Cardinal Policarpo was clearly not alone in his thinking that John Paul II’s statement had not been definitive…
May 23, 2011: National Catholic Reporter editorial staff determines that Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was not infallibly taught
The NCR editorial staff evaluated the history of the doctrine, based on Canon Law 749.3, and concluded that John Paul II had not made it “manifestly evident” that he had been teaching infallibly. The NCR staff the went on, observing that then-Cardinal Ratzinger did not have the authority to make Ordinatio Sacerdotalis infallible, and certainly did not have the authority as Pope Benedict XVI to elevate a teaching of the ordinary Papal magisterium to the level of the extraordinary Papal magisterium. And yet, that is precisely how Benedict’s actions appeared to them:
“It is also notable that [John Paul II] said only that it was a ‘judgment’ that is ‘to be definitively held’ — not a matter of ‘divine faith’ that must be ‘believed.’ … ‘Creeping infallibility’ is precisely what is at issue here—a papal document that made no claim to infallibility raised to the level of infallibility by a Vatican congregation’s [Ratzinger’s] statement that has no competence to make such a determination, and now almost casually described as infallible in a disciplinary letter to a bishop by the current pope [Benedict]. We rest our case on Canon Law 749.3: ‘No doctrine is understood as defined infallibly unless this is manifestly evident.’ ” (National Catholic Reporter, Ordination ban not infallibly taught )
While the National Catholic Reporter staff was analyzing the evidence, Cardinal Policarpo of Lisbon was “rethinking” his initial position, and had reversed himself…
July 6, 2011: Patriarch of Lisbon, Cardinal Policarpo, realizes that John Paul II’s settling of the matter had been “irrevocable” after all
Cardinal Policarpo had apparently stirred up quite a controversy when he said that the matter had not been settled. That controversy resulted in some rethinking that led him to believe that the matter, indeed, had been settled by John Paul II:
“The reactions to this interview have forced me to look into this theme with greater care, and I have ascertained that, mostly for not having taken into appropriate consideration the latest declarations of the Magisterium on the matter, I gave rise to those reactions. I feel, therefore, under the obligation of clearly expressing my thinking, in communion with the Holy Father and with the Magisterium of the Church, my obligation as a Bishop and Pastor of the People of God.” (Patriarcado de Lisboa; English translation here)
It should be noted that Policarpo’s retraction was a full 17 years after the publication of Ordinatio Sacerdotalis. In other words, he had held to a wrong opinion on the “infallible” teaching of the Magisterium, for almost two decades. What could possibly account for this?
“There doesn’t seem to be any real consensus in the Church on how infallibility works”
In reviewing this informal timeline of the analysis of Ordinatio Sacerdotalis over the last twenty years, what is abundantly clear is that Roman Catholics have struggled mightily to determine the status of the proclamation. In light of the history of the analysis of Ordinatio Sacerdotalis by both lay and clergy, we find that Fr. Ladislas Orsy’s summary of the problem—although a gross understatement—is nonetheless true. Orsy, canonical theologian and professor of law at Georgetown University in Washington, states what is plainly obvious to any observer:
“Orsy, a leading canonist well-known for his theological expertise, acknowledged, however, that the question of which church doctrines are taught infallibly is ‘extremely complex.’ ” (Filteau, Jerry, National Catholic Reporter, May 27, 2011, Complex Questions of Papal Infallibility)
The question is extremely complex, indeed. This is why we sympathize with the exasperation of one Roman Catholic participant at the Catholic Answers forum, whose online identity apparently reveals the date she joined the Catholic Church: Catholic2003. For all her struggles, Catholic2003 cannot seem to arrive at an answer to this conundrum. She wrote,
“I wish I could be the bearer of better news, but I’m afraid I can’t. Before I joined the Church, the two ‘hot button’ issues for me were infallibility and annulments, so I’ve spent a fair amount of time and effort studying each. Without exception, every book or article that I’ve read on infallibility has left me more confused than enlightened. There doesn’t seem to be any real consensus in the Church on how infallibility works.” (Catholic Answers Forum, Papal Infallibility)
In a later comment, she provided some advice to anyone who really wants to determine which teachings are the infallible ones:
“If you really want to determine which teachings are infallible and which are not, then you need to first locate the magisterial documents that support the teaching. Then you have to check if those documents meet the requirements for any of the three modes of infallibility — (1) papal infallibility, (2) conciliar infallibility, and (3) the infallibility of the ordinary and universal magisterium.” (Catholic Answers Forum, Papal Infallibility)
What that poor contributor did not seem to realize is that what she had proposed as the solution is in fact the problem: each Roman Catholic is left to his own devices to figure out the truth. We notice, for example, that Roman Catholic apologist James Akin went to Vatican I to determine whether Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was ex cathedra, and concluded it was not. Roman Catholic priest Fr. Pilsner went to Vatican II and determined that it was. Peter Howard went to Canon 749.3 to determine that Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was ex cathedra, but J. Cecil went to Canon 749.3 and determined that it was not. Those who would throw Cecil under the bus because he is “progressive,” can hardly do so on his analysis of Canon Law. Jesuit priest, Fr. Francis Sullivan, professor of ecclesiology at Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome for 36 years, and one-time Dean of the Faculty of Theology there, provided this terse reply to the question of whether Ordinatio Sacerdotalis met the most basic criteria for being “manifestly infallible”:
“No. I don’t think so.” (Filteau, Jerry, National Catholic Reporter, May 27, 2011, Complex Questions of Papal Infallibility)
The first irony in all of this is that nobody is able to figure this out. Even James Akin, who criticized those who would go to fallible sources like Canon Law and Vatican II (!) to justify their conclusion, himself had to rely on a fallible source to justify his conclusion. Recall that James Akin observed, “The Code of Canon Law isn’t infallible, and neither are the documents of Vatican II.” But Akin thought he could do better:
“It ain’t just Jimmy Akin who interprets [Ordinatio Sacerdotalis] as a non-definitive act. It’s the pope” (James Akin, Saddle Up!).
But James Akin had not gone to “the pope” at all. His three citations of “papal” approval of his position all came from Cardinal Ratzinger before he became pope, and as Ludwig Ott made clear, a Cardinal does not have the authority to declare something infallible. If he did, why not choose Policarpo over Ratzinger? Akin covers himself by assuming that Ratzinger’s position remained unchanged after he became “infallible” Pope Benedict XVI:
“Unless he’s had a change of heart since he wrote these things–a supposition for which we have no evidence.” (James Akin, Saddle Up!)
But as National Catholic Report‘s editorial staff very correctly observed, “a Vatican congregation’s [Ratzinger’s] statement … has no competence to make such a determination” (National Catholic Reporter, Ordination ban not infallibly taught). Akin’s “source” was just as fallible as everyone else’s was.
The second irony in all of this is that some of those who are struggling to determine what has been revealed, are looking to Rome for the simple reason that Rome is the only one who has the authority to teach them. The former Methodist, Lane Core, Jr., and Catholic2003 had both converted to Roman Catholicism for the express purpose of finding an infallible teaching authority. But to their surprise, both found themselves struggling to determine what Rome was teaching them. As Catholic2003 poignantly observed, “every book or article that I’ve read on infallibility has left me more confused.”
If only there was an infallible authority that could clear this up once and for all!
Cardinal Newman, himself a convert to Roman Catholicism, summed up his attraction to Rome in frankly epistemological terms. The fact was that unless some authority existed to decide what is divinely revealed and what is not, then there was in fact no revelation at all! The infallible teaching magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church was, to him, a logical necessity:
“The most obvious answer, then, to the question, why we yield to the authority of the Church in the questions and developments of faith, is, that some authority there must be if there is a revelation given, and other authority there is none but she. A revelation is not given, if there be no authority to decide what it is that is given.” (Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, Chapter 2, section 2, subsection 12)
The reality of the Roman Catholic religion is a painful one for her adherents to come to terms with, but it is no more complicated than what Cardinal Newman has explained. Because there is no authority in Rome that is able “to decide what it is that is given,” there is therefore no actual revelation. This is why Roman Catholics will continue, to the end, groping in the dark trying to determine what has been “divinely revealed” and what has not. Based on the epistemology they have set up for themselves, they simply do not, and cannot, know.
Tim wrote:
“But manifest evidence of infallibility is not the lower threshold of credulity. In Roman Catholicism, intellectual submission and assent is required even for fallible teachings of the ordinary magisterium.”
Yes, this is exactly what I was taught as a Roman Catholic in Catholic school and church. I was taught that I had to believe everything by intellectual submission and to challenge nothing no matter how much alcohol my local Priest was drinking week after week when I was an alter boy. He could barely walk some days, but he was still blessed and holy. I had to accept this because we were in the only true church…Rome.
Tim writes:
“In other words, the Roman Catholic is to believe as true whatever emanates from the Magisterium, whether it is extraordinary, ordinary, infallible, fallible—and by logical deduction—right, or wrong.”
Exactly. This is exactly what I was taught. It took me years and years to reverse this thinking to believe that what was true was Scripture as the primary standard…not that of the antichrist religion…Roman Catholicism.
Tim wrote:
“He had not been speaking ex cathedra, when he issued Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, and therefore Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was an exercise of the ordinary Magisterium, and the “ordinary and usual form of the Papal teaching activity is not infallible” (Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma). Fallibility notwithstanding, irrevocable assent was still expected from the sheep.”
Is this not interesting? Of course, it was not infallible, but you are obligated to believer it all to be true and assent to it. Period.
Tim wrote:
“But that is nothing to worry about because Roman Catholics have very clear guidelines on how they can tell whether something—ordinary or extraordinary, fallible or infallible, right or wrong—needs to be believed or not. That, after all, is the whole purpose of the teaching authority of the church: so that people may know what it is they need to believe in order to be saved. Frankly, John Paul II was really worrying about nothing. What could be easier to understand than the magisterial teaching authority of the Roman Catholic Church and the “manifest mind and will” of the pope?:
This really is a perfect article for every Roman Catholic to read and comprehend…and then exit the church, and as Scripture teaches “come out of her my people and be not partaker of her sins” (Rev.18:4)
Tim wrote:
“Whatever Ratzinger was selling about the status of Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, Lane Core, Jr., was not buying it. The former Methodist had converted to Roman Catholicism for the purpose of finding an infallible teaching authority.”
Like Bob, those Methodist really do adore Rome!
WALT–
You said: “This really is a perfect article for every Roman Catholic to read and comprehend…and then exit the church, and as Scripture teaches “come out of her my people and be not partaker of her sins” (Rev.18:4)
Exit Rome into what? The Scottish Presbyterian Church and their ordaining of gays, accepting of gay marriage, and freemasons? Be not partaker of her sins either.
Tim wrote:
“December 22, 2009: Benedict XVI declares that Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was a definitive, infallible, irrevocable teaching of the Papal Magisterium
When William M. Morris, Bishop of Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia), presumed to continue the conversation regarding the ordination of women priests—on the presumption that the conversation was still on the table—he earned a stern rebuke from Ratzinger, who was now Pope Benedict XVI. Morris had proposed in a letter to his diocese that women’s ordination might be one solution the priest shortage. Such a statement required the intervention of the bishop of Rome.
In his letter to Bishop Morris, Pope Benedict wrote,
“Yet the late Pope John Paul II has decided infallibly and irrevocably that the Church has not the right to ordain women to the priesthood.” (Benedict XVI, Letter to William Morris, Bishop of Toowoomba, December 22, 2009; the letter is provided in appendix 16 of Morris’ book, Benedict, Me, and the Cardinals Three (Australian Theological Forum Press, 2014))
Gone was the language of Ratzinger, the Cardinal, who had said that Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was “an act of the ordinary Papal Magisterium” and “in itself not infallible.” Now Ratzinger, the Pope, was talking about a doctrine that “John Paul II has decided infallibly and irrevocably.” That was the strongest statement Benedict had made on Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, and it started sounding a lot like John Paul II really had promulgated the document as an exercise of the extraordinary Papal Magisterium.”
Now, this is impossible. I got to this section and the headache I was getting with all the confusion, contradictory opinions and outright foolishness made me about cry. Ratzinger is up till this point absolutely certain to reject papal infallibility of Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, but now he says it was “infallibly and irrevocably” to be believed.
Is it any wonder the best way for a Roman Catholic to be (like Jim, Bob, etc.) is to just remain ignorant to its teachings, and just go along right into hell with the rest of friends, family, etc.?
Rome is so confusing, and contradictory, that any Roman Catholic who reads this stuff is bound to throw up their hands, and just testify that they have no earthly idea what Rome really teaches, and admit it has nothing to do with Scripture, and to just accept that Hell is the ultimate destination for those who live and die in ignorance of the unified truth.
WALT–
You said: “Rome is so confusing, and contradictory, that any Roman Catholic who reads this stuff is bound to throw up their hands, and just testify that they have no earthly idea what Rome really teaches, and admit it has nothing to do with Scripture, and to just accept that Hell is the ultimate destination for those who live and die in ignorance of the unified truth.”
And the Scottish Presbyterians are so unified that their gay, freemason, ministers are marrying same sex partners and at the same time say that Scripture is infallible and the sole rule of faith. So, Walt, you need to just accept that Hell is the ultimate destination for you who live and die in mis-interpretation of biblical truth.
Tim,
You and Walt are going to have to discuss this alone. I don’t intend to go give myself the same headache I went through over your last article. I also am not going to read it as I don’t want to honor your obfuscation . You made a fool of yourself over the “sacrifice” issue and now want to change subjects. As far as I am concerned, you never answered 90% of what I asked you about your Calvinist system.
Just another attack on Catholicism. When are you going to offer one iota of defense for your own erroneous system?
Hardly a change of subject, Jim. You may have noticed that Enrique in responding to my previous article, insisted that I submit to the teachings of the magisterium. As I show this week, Enrique’s admonition it not as easy as it sounds.
Tim
Tim wrote:
“Hardly a change of subject, Jim. You may have noticed that Enrique in responding to my previous article, insisted that I submit to the teachings of the magisterium. As I show this week, Enrique’s admonition it not as easy as it sounds.”
I was going to say in my final post that the entire article would have been good for Enrique himself to read, but I broadened it to all Roman Catholics. Clearly, while everyone talks about unity in the Roman Catholic church, it is clear that no such unity exists at any level except perhaps in the idea that babies, infants and teenagers are all saved upon death because; 1) they are innocent and have no sin; or 2) they have been baptized by a Priest and through baptismal regeneration they are going to heaven. Both are heretical doctrines, but at least almost all Roman Catholics I’ve ever met believe these points.
Tim,
If you get a chance, listen to this audio.
http://www.jaguarwars.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Janet-Mefferd_HPGR_2012_02_13.mp3
The article goes on to talk about how Pastors get rich and are considered a cult.
http://www.cultwatch.com/howpastorsgetrich.html
I subscribe to the fact that the Roman Catholic church is the world’s largest and wealthiest cult. It is one of the world’s richest governments and organizations, and filled with extreme wealth in its global real estate, art, relics, cash in the bank and markets, and antiquities.
For anyone that believes that the world’s most important Church is defined by their wealth…they are sadly mistaken.
Their information on “mind control” is really good for those in the Roman Catholic church to understand and perhaps leave the church.
Yeah, right.
WALT–
Says this: “I subscribe to the fact that the Roman Catholic church is the world’s largest and wealthiest cult. It is one of the world’s richest governments and organizations, and filled with extreme wealth in its global real estate, art, relics, cash in the bank and markets, and antiquities.”
And the first thing the web link says is this disclaimer:
“Important Note: As you read please remember that very few pastors use the techniques you are about to discover. The great majority of Christian pastors do not earn much money even though they work hard at their jobs. Most Christian pastors would find these techniques repugnant. Please do not make the mistake of tarring the many good pastors with the brush reserved for the spiritually corrupt few.”
What you, Walt, cannot provide to back up your accusations is the name or names of the persons holding the title to all that material wealth. Just ask Jason Stellman over on CreedCodeCult.com how much money he makes being Catholic versus being Presbyterian.
If Jesus was poor, why is the Pope so rich?
http://www.rev-know-it-all.com/2008/2008—01-13.html
Tim,
You say there is no distinction between latria and hyperdulia.
Hyperdulia is what we give Mary.
Latria is what we give God.
Hyper-latria is what Kevin and Walt give you.
Seriously. I see no distinction between their sucking up to you and worship. You have never rent your garments and. like Paul and Barnabas, told these two sycophants not to offer you sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving ( Kevin would offer a bullock but Walt said that was going too far ).
Does that help? Now do you see the distinction?
Tim,
Since you are not going to participate in an honest give and take dialogue on the issue ( you brought up ) on the atonement and sacrifice, I guess I will have to come over here to engage you.
I started reading your article and gave up. Your style of writing is so difficult as it is always so painfully obvious that you are “leading the witness”.
You want to talk about authority and how we can be sure of what has been revealed, yes?
Okay, let me ask you a question;
How can we be sure the issue of circumcision has been resolved? The same prohibition against it included one against blood and idols. When was the law against blood eating abrogated?
Or gay marriage? Surveys show most Christians, in America anyway, are in favor of it. Is this a case of doctrinal development? The laity seem to be more and more open to a new reading of the Bible. I know a Methodist minsteress who performs or longs to perform same-sex weddings. Her Presbyterian minister husband agrees with her. So even the clergy is of one mind with the laity on this.
Please don’t come back with a pronouncement saying those professed Christians are not real Christians unless you can establish your own competency to sit in judgement on them.
JIM–
You said: ” I know a Methodist minsteress who performs or longs to perform same-sex weddings. Her Presbyterian minister husband agrees with her. So even the clergy is of one mind with the laity on this.”
A Methodist women minister married to a Presbyterian minister who both want to join homosexuals in holy matrimony. And they think God will bless them?
And what is more laughable is that Tim knows the Pope is the Anti-Christ.
http://scottericalt.org/remember-lots-wife/
Bob, in order that you may have more to laugh about this weekend…
Yes, I do know. Although I don’t recall ever saying that “the pope” is the Anti-Christ, I’ll let that pass. I know the same way that the wise men from the East knew that Jesus was the Christ: “for thus it is written by the prophet” (Matthew 2:5). The Papacy is the Antichrist of Scripture, for thus it is written by the prophets and the apostles. We were warned of his coming.
The Scripture cannot be broken (John 10:35).
Rome cannot even prove that she originated any earlier than the late 4th century, and so she invests her time persuading people that her antiquity must be assumed, all the while insisting that the truth—that Roman Catholicism is the prophesied Antichrist—cannot be spoken in polite company.
That I am a fool, I do not dispute. I am willing to stipulate it, as you surely must know. But Roman Catholicism is the prophesied Antichrist.
Thanks,
Tim
TIM–
You keep claiming: “The Papacy is the Antichrist of Scripture, for thus it is written by the prophets and the apostles. We were warned of his coming.
The Scripture cannot be broken (John 10:35).”
How do you equate the Papacy as a “he”? I can see the pope as a he, but not the Papacy.
papacy noun pa·pa·cy \ˈpā-pə-sē\
1: the office of pope
2: a succession or line of popes
3: the term of a pope’s reign
4 capitalized : the system of government of the Roman Catholic Church of which the pope is the supreme head
How can the Papacy(capitalized) be “He” the Anti-Christ, and also be “She” the Harlot, the whore of Babylon at the same time?
Scripture makes a distinction between the two and they are not interchangable.
There are so many holes in your theory, it just doesn’t wash. Your “proof” doesn’t prove anything.
Tim,
“Rome cannot even prove that she originated any earlier than the late 4th century, and so she invests her time persuading people that her antiquity must be assumed,”
Powerful and self evident assertion, Dr. Kauffman!
You then go on, in false humility, to say,
“That I am a fool, I do not dispute. ”
So humble. The true mark of a great man. And yet, we all know you are anything but a fool. In fact, you are either a genius to figure out the truth that has evaded men for 2,000 years or, you are chosen by God to be his prophet.
Either way, you are pretending. You feel are superior to all the real fools who can’t see what you see. Maybe, just maybe, you are the next messiah?
Tim,
Why can’t two dudes marry?
Has the issue been resolved once and for all?
Jesus condemned divorce and remarriage in the same passage where he said, ” In the beginning, God made them male and female… not Adam and Steve”.
It seems pretty black and white to me but the WCF parses Jesus’ words in a manner that allows for remarriage after divorce, even while both spouses are still living.
Could Presbyterians, like the man I mention above, come to revise the WCF in order to allow for loving same sex partners to become one flesh? Or is the WCF an infallible and irreformable document?
You are good with contraception among married couples, aren’t you? Of course you are. Even if you are personally opposed, your church still allows for it, right?
When did your church first find it to be a licit practice? My understand of the history of contraception in America says that Margaret Sangar was persecuted by the Comstock Laws which outlawed disseminating birth control devices and even information. My studies also show that Anthony Comstock was a Presbyterian minister who garnered the support of other Protestant clergy to get legislation against birth contraception passed.
So, Presbyterians were against it, and now are for it. Are they right now and were wrong then? Or are they wrong now but were right then? Maybe they were right then and are right now? Or wrong then and now? Help me understand.
Maybe the whole issue is of no import. What people do in their bedrooms is of no concern to God? But that brings us back around to gay marriage or no marriage at all.
And it brings up the question of just which issues are salvation issues and which aren’t.
Tim, I am going to pretend I have read your screed and agree you have single handedly dismantled the whole Romish system of authority. But that leaves in a quandary. How can I, Jim six-pack, blogger extraordinaire and Portuguese riviera boulevardier, know anything with confidence?
Is it time to turn out the lights and go home? We are all hopelessly lost in a mire of opinion and relativism.
So, is the issue of circumcision really settled once and for all?
Tim,
At the first Council of the Church, the bishops in union with Peter decided to abrogate the law of circumcision, a law that predated the Mosaic Law and went back to the Covenant made with Abraham. The Church hierarchy made this decision with no recourse to the Bible but on their own authority. The only stipulation, under James’ prompting , was that new converts were to avoid idols, strangled meats, blood and sexual immorality.
Just what was that immorality he spoke of?
The Roman occupiers at that time were marrying contrary to proscribed blood lines. Men married their own sisters, step mothers and mother in laws. Roman matrons had sexual relations with their slaves. In order not to conceive by their boy toys, they used contraception and abortion so as not to lose their wealth to a slave or son of a slave.
Now, Tim, you rail against the Eucharist as ” idolatry”, calling the Host “Graven Bread”.
I have done a word search of the New Testament and am not sure if the prohibitions against idolatry were for all time rather than just temporary disciplines like the eating of strangled meat and blood. Surely you accept the eating of goose liver pate and rare steak, don’t you? Those rules were purely disciplinary for a time and not doctrinal, right?
IOW, maybe we can make images of bronze, wood, marble and yes, even dough in the present dispensation.
The WCF has decreed the marriage laws to be negotiable.
Protestantism has redefined what sexual immorality means.
We eat black pudding and blood sausage today, don’t we?
Why are you holding us under the Law with your prohibitions against graven images of dough? Who are you to bind men’s consciences? Don’t you believe in Christian liberty?
Tim, where are we to go to know what to do now that you have pulled the rug out from under the Church?
JIM–
Are you saying that the way the Presbyterians interpret the Westminster Confession is extremely complex?
Bob,
Where have I seen that phrase, “extremely complex” before?
Oh, now I remember. Tim uses it on Catholicism but forgets that people who live in glass houses…”
“This is why Roman Catholics will continue, to the end, groping in the dark trying to determine what has been “divinely revealed” and what has not. Based on the epistemology they have set up for themselves, they simply do not, and cannot, know.”
Tim,
Has the circumcision issue been closed or not? Was the strangled meat issue closed? How about the issues of graven images and “pornea”?
Not according to the WCF.
As for Polycarpo not knowing if the issue of women’s ordination was up for grabs or not for almost two decades, are you implying he was ordaining women during those two decades? Are you saying he dangled the carrot of false hope out before the noses of Portuguese feminists? Are you implying he was in favor of women’s ordination? If he was, why didn’t he defy Rome and ordain some?
I was living here in Lisbon while Polycarp was the Patriarch. I assure you, the faithful of Lisbon did not go to sleep at night unsure if they were going to wake up and find women priests at morning Mass.
Innuendos, insinuations and hints. These are your standard stock in trade, Tim.
“Clearly, it had come to the attention of the Supreme Pontiff that his sheep did not know, understand or believe what it was that they were to know, understand and believe in order to be saved.”
Tim,
I think you owe Bob an explanation and maybe a big fat apology.
You got saved before you knew understood or believed what you needed to know, understand and believe in order to be saved, did you not?
You are on record as saying you got saved before you knew the doctrines of grace. You, under your own steam, opted to “come to Christ” as an Arminian before you were sovereignly and monergisticaly drawn to Him as a Calvinist.
You have not embraced Methodist Bob as a fellow Christian as you should have. Please do so now or explain why he is a second class Protestant in your book.
Tim,
Please don’t play games and ask me, “Jim, when did I put down on record that I got saved before I knew the doctrines of grace?”
You were first saved out of the Romish Church as a non Calvinist, were you not? IOW, you were saved w/o the Gospel.
JIM–
Do thou not knowest that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved? (Rom 10:9)
Now repeat after me:
“Jesus, You are the Lord, and I proclaim what I believe in my heart, that God has raised you from the dead.”
Good. You are now saved. Don’t you feel better already?
Now go, and sin no more. Eat, drink, and be merry.
Tim,
I am gonna help you out with your next expose of Romanism.
http://thedailybanter.com/2014/10/pope-francis-basically-just-admitted-may-not-god/
Notice; the Catholic Church just might be moving towards a dogamatic definition on atheism being true. Think about it; has the Church ever dogmatically defined the existence of God as an article of Faith? Has a Pope ever spoken ex cathedra on it? Has it been defined in council? Or has the Church merely assumed it in her creeds? Hasn’t the Church said only that God’s existence can be known by the light of reason. Pagans, secularists, agnostics, sinners, etc. can know just from looking around and noticing the stars, bugs and law of gravity or by looking withing their unregenerate hearts and concluding some sort of First Cause exists ( but not necessarily Jesus ) as if this god could save them.
Since Catholics are sheep, how can they know God exists without a pope telling them so?
Just saying God can be known by the light of reason sounds like Greek sophistry, not divine revelation? Fallen human reason doesn’t give absolute surety, does it? The “infallible” first Vatican Council actually passed the buck to human reason on the issue. This was probably because the hierarchy was already drifting towards agnosticism.
Does the Bible prove God exists? Does the Song of Songs prove it? Your version of Esther doesn’t mention God even once, does it? He is not even necessary for all of the books he supposedly inspired. So it is possible for someone to value the Bible, or parts of it, without believing in a deity, huh?
Notice the progressive unraveling of the Church’s position on theism. It used to claim Catholicism was the only way during the time of Boniface 8 but later started saying non Catholics can get to heaven. Then, under JP II, hindu pantheism was endorsed. IOW, theism was traded for a blurring of the distinction between Creator and creature. The next logical step is full blown atheism. Do you see a Pope defining atheism as an article of faith anytime soon? Will he do it “from the Chair of Peter? Will the laity proclaim it? Will those who refuse to get in lockstep with the Bishop of Rome be accursed for continuing to believe in God’s existence?
Of course, the Great Harlot will never jettison it goddess worship. Mary will still be given hyper latria as the Mother of God but that just goes to show how Romanism is riddled with contradictions.
Rome is heading towards anathemetizing belief in the Trinity while at the same time about to pronounce Mary as the 4th member of the Trinity or Quaternity.
Tim,
Picture this for your next blockbuster article;
The Pope is standing in front of the cardinals. St. Peter’s is packed, standing room only with reporters and heads of state.
Television crews are zeroing in on the pontiff as he says,
” I, Pope Francis, hereby invoke the power invested in me to proclaim, pronounce, and infallibly declare as successor of Peter and vicar of Christ on earth that God does not exist and Mary is his mother”.
Tim,
I just flipped on the TV before sitting down to dinner, and EWTN started talking about everyone about Mary. Mary is the mother. Mary is our key to heaven. Mary is the guide who had her hand stop the bullet to protect John Paul. It goes on and on and on about Mary.
Roman Catholics are so brain washed it is just incredible. They fall over back and forth with Mary.
What a cult this church has become!
Tim
“They fall over back and forth with Mary.”
Back and forth? This sounds like we Catholics vacillate on Mary or run hot and cold.
Please, Tim, be assured, we Catholics are downright blissed out over Mary and make no bones about. There is no back and forth at all. It is all full steam ahead, get out of our way, we are a comin’ through!
We LOVE our Mother and are proud of it!
Join us.
Opps, that was me Jim. I accidentally typed in Tim’s name when I was trying to address the email to him. Sorry for the confusion.
Yes, I have learned more recently there is no agreement to anything in the Catholic church. It is worse than the Protestant sects.
What? There is only one official authority in the Catholic Church.
In Protestanism every individual person has just as much authority as the person next to them. As a matter of fact from my point of view my personal interpretation is greater than yours as you think yours is greater than mine.
Protestants agree on very little.
Walt,
Could you point to a defined dogma that CK and I might disagree on?
Tim,
“That I am a fool, I do not dispute.”
Really? Then you concede the point? You admit you are fruit-loops? A raving, foaming at the mouth, tongue chewing, knuckle dragging, certifiable wacko?
But you are 100% spot on when it comes to the Papacy, right? A fool on one hand and yet you aren’t willing to admit you just might be wrong when it comes to the Papacy.
Hmmmmm? You phony. You don’t think you are a fool at all. You think the rest of us are.
Tim wrote:
“Rome cannot even prove that she originated any earlier than the late 4th century, and so she invests her time persuading people that her antiquity must be assumed, all the while insisting that the truth—that Roman Catholicism is the prophesied Antichrist—cannot be spoken in polite company.
That I am a fool, I do not dispute. I am willing to stipulate it, as you surely must know. But Roman Catholicism is the prophesied Antichrist.”
Amen. For those who have any brains and can see the evidence that Roman Catholicism is a global cult created in the 4th century will immediately see it is also the antichrist of Scripture.
If you read the dialogue between Bob, Jim and CK here is becomes so abundantly clear how confused they are with following Rome. I read some of these messages and comments, and am so thankful that reading the second reformation authors is so amazing. It is like reading children writing with a magic marker on the wall (reading Bob, Jim and CK) vs. reading the elegant prose and grace of Scripture (reading the second reformation reformers).
Walt – tell me which church in your opinion most resembles the church before the 4th century?
Walt,
“Amen. For those who have any brains and can see the evidence that Roman Catholicism is a global cult created in the 4th century will immediately see it is also the antichrist of Scripture.”
I am impressed with this powerful and brilliant argument for your position, sir. I can see you have put much thought into it. It borrows heavily from logic, history and scripture. Any person” with brains” who reads it will be immediately compelled to adopt your Calvinist position, the position that says God makes men specifically to populate hell and undergo eternal torment for that same god’s “good pleasure”.
Your profound Calvinist theory of the atonement is also convincing-the theory that says, despite what the scriptures repeatedly say, Jesus did not actually die for all nor does God want the salvation of all.
Speaking only for myself now, let me say that I would rush to join either either the Baptist or Presbyterian religions today ( the issue of Baptism is not important for Bible minded Christians ) ) except for one minor detail; I am not irresistibly drawn, and since I have no free will and am programmed only to sin, I can only, alas, wish I could be just like you and Tim and other people with brains..
Walt, ( more on them Brains )
Are you not on record as saying you are a member of some Scottish cultural club? Do you not have your own tartan and kilt?
You do own a kilt, yes?
Every time I see a man in late middle age wearing a skirt or some other article of ladies attire, probably the last thing I say to myself is, “Now there goes a man with brains”.
Walt, put your pants on and grow some damn brains!
Brains continued,
Walt,
Do you watch TV? Listen to the radio? Read a newspaper?
Are you aware of what is happening in the world while you are swishing and preening yourself and your kilt in front of the mirror?
How may Christian throats were slashed today? How many suicide bombers blew up a bus loads of Christian or Jewish children today? How closer are the killer getting to America every day? How long before the first dirty bomb shuts down the electricity or water in your area?
Now, have you noticed sodomy is now the law of the land? Do you think God hasn’t notice America and the West have declared him dead? Might there be some repercussions coming our way from the chastening hand of the Almighty? Or will the Lord let the decisions of America’s leaders slide because of the 10 just men to be found in the Sodom and Gomorrah known as America?
The world is caught between the pincers of two of the horns of the red dragon, Islam and secularism. Do you think your cult has an answer to the coming disaster?
Let me answer that for you Walt; NO!
You Protestants ushered in the legalization of same sex marriage with your allowance of divorce and remarriage and your demonic endorsement of contraception. Gay marriage is just the next step down the slope. Even your Huckabees and Dobsons stand behind the dissemination of contraception and therefore pour gasoline on the fire.
As for the Muslims, the only way Europe ever stopped the Islamic hordes from conquering Christendom in the past was with the Rosary and the sword together. Do you even remember how to say a Hail Mary?
Walt, we are probably living in the end times. The final confrontation between the Dragon and the Woman is on our doorstep and you and old Tim sit around like chiuauas yapping at the heels of the Catholic Church, the only thing that stands between you and all out hell.
Grow some brains Walt. Wake up and smell the coffee. You are still living in the 16th century while the world has moved on.
Get out of the silly cult you are in and back into the Bark of Peter. Let Tim take himself and his family to hell alone. Save yourself before it is too late.
Jim wrote:
“…except for one minor detail; I am not irresistibly drawn, and since I have no free will and am programmed only to sin, I can only, alas, wish I could be just like you and Tim and other people with brains.”
Yes, you almost got this figured out. You blatant ignorance on the subject of saving grace is the mirror of just how I was when I was a Roman Catholic. This is EXACTLY why the Roman Catholic religion is so extremely dangerous, evil and promotes soul murder. It is bar none the most dangerous religion in the history of the visible Christian church due to its impact upon billions and billions of souls. I was watching this morning the Pope getting ready to preach to millions and millions of lost souls desperate for the truth, but what instead they got was all this stuff about Mary being the key to salvation and he being the Vicar of Christ…he being the substitute on earth for Christ. It is all wicked and dangerous.
Roman Catholics are suffering so much due to their ignorance on saving grace, and you publicly make this testimony more clear for me and I hope others. Free will and works salvation have your mind totally blind, and as a perpetual sinner, you are going straight to hell with no turning back. This is very sad.
CK wrote:
“Walt – tell me which church in your opinion most resembles the church before the 4th century?”
Are you talking about the visible church in being (esse) or the church in well-being (bene esse) for the first 4 centuries?
Remember to read the bible to understand in history of the church the difference between those who were the elect of God given grace to stay the faithful course of following God’s own heart, vs. those who were in the church who were clearly rebellious and rejected His counsel and wisdom. If you read Scripture and you don’t see this distinction, and classify everyone in one global church, or consider only the Roman Catholics as the true church, and the rest of the world as the false church, then you need to read more Scripture and rely on less unfaithful tradition and error from Rome.
Nice non answer. All you told me is that Catholic isn’t it. This defaults to nothing.
CK wrote:
“Nice non answer. All you told me is that Catholic isn’t it. This defaults to nothing.”
Do you want me to list for you all the Early Church Fathers in the first 400 years before Roman Catholicism started?
You guys are so confused that I don’t know what you are looking for in your questions. Do you want names and addresses of those who were in the faithful visible church, or just all the heretics in the unfaithful visible church?
Unfortunately, there will not be any Pope’s listed in the first 400 years as there existed no Roman Catholic church during that period….so I’m not sure what confusion you want to create for yourself during that period.
Give a few names of these fathers and the church they belonged to. Surely they belonged to a church much like you belong to a church/religion.
Jim wrote:
“Walt, put your pants on and grow some damn brains!”
That sinful anger is evident in your commentaries day after day. It is one thing to be straight forward to warn people about the wickedness and danger of the Roman Catholic religion as she is definitely the anti-Christ. Anyone with brains who spends time to compare Scripture with Rome it soon becomes obvious.
This is why all (and I mean nearly everyone) of the early reformers were Roman Catholic Priests. They were raised into the evil and wicked system and after they started to read the uncorrupted biblical text they immediately saw that Romish system was antichrist to avoid and leave. They all started to exit the Roman Catholic church one by one and then they openly testified against antichrist. Then as Rome began to see the numbers exit the church, and the Protestors as a threat, Rome put in place a murderous rampage that has never been exceeded in history by any religion or any tyrant.
You scream about Islam and gay marriage, but this has nothing by sheer numbers compared to the blood, murder, death and destruction Rome has caused against Christians and Jews. They have murdered more Christians than even Stalin did in USSR. There is no comparison in the numbers.
This is just physical torture and murder by Rome. If you add to this the soul murder, sending men and women and children to hell for everlasting death, it is multiple billions. There is no other religion that has preached the name of Jesus Christ in the history of the world that has caused more to go to hell.
To be clear, the Protestant Sects you talk about indeed are near equally as evil as your Romish church. They endorse and preach all sorts of Romish heresy which is why we call them the daughters of Rome. They have adopted much of your teaching and promote it. The false worship, false government, heretical doctrines, lack of discipline, etc. It is so wicked in some circles that they should convert to be Roman Catholics to get into the basket of a full and complete wickedness.
By the way Jim, most of the member in Congress on both sides of the house claim to be Roman Catholic, and pass all these terrible laws destroying our country. You better do your due diligence as the greatest threat is from Rome and her adherents….not the gay lobby. The gay lobby would be out of business if we had a TRUE and FAITHFUL CHRISTIAN government like we had in Scotland during the second reformation. As you know, all Roman Catholics were banned from Scotland during the first and second reformations in Scotland, and so evil and wickedness was removed.
LEARN HISTORY…not just the crap you are fed today on TV.
Walt said – This is why all (and I mean nearly everyone) of the early reformers were Roman Catholic Priests.
Me – nearly all were also white. I guess all white people before the reformation were not elect and possibly of the devil.
Seriously Walt. A historian like you would know there was pretty much all Christians were Catholics which explains the priests. Also Calvinism was started by an attorney and we know all attorneys are wicked!!! 🙂
Walt said – As you know, all Roman Catholics were banned from Scotland during the first and second reformations in Scotland, and so evil and wickedness was removed.
Then Walt says this – LEARN HISTORY…not just the crap you are fed today on TV.
Me – too Funny.
Hey Walt Walt how about defining people also by HOW they live their faith not what they call themselves. Remember all these immortal laws are passed by so called christians which includes you based on your rant above. At least that’s what a non Christian would say using your broad brush approach. Try to be consistent.
I’m moving to Scottland now that evil has been eradicated and all laws there are moral.
CK wrote:
“Hey Walt Walt how about defining people also by HOW they live their faith not what they call themselves. Remember all these immortal laws are passed by so called christians which includes you based on your rant above. At least that’s what a non Christian would say using your broad brush approach. Try to be consistent.
I’m moving to Scottland now that evil has been eradicated and all laws there are moral.”
Right, bla bla bla. Learn the history.
CK, how about we give you some FACTS, EVIDENCE and PROOF as to what the FORMER Roman Catholic Priests in Scotland (e.g., the reformers in case you don’t know any history) through about YOUR FALSE RELIGION. Here is there…
NATIONAL COVENANT signed by Government and Church. Read it CK and learn for yourself what the Scottish Covenanters and English Puritans thought about Roman Catholics by covenant. And yet, you continued to murder them like they were less than God’s children. Blood on your hands CK, and you have NO IDEA what your religion teaches.
Take a read if you are blinded by your ignorance on what Scotland thought about Rome. By the way, if you move to Scotland NOW you will be in open arms as Rome has overtaken the country again. Don’t worry. No reformers left in the country… they will ALL KILLED DURING THE KILLING TIMES BY ROME in the 17th century, and Rome took the blood on their hands to take over Scotland. You can return now.
——–
WE all and every one of us under-written, protest, That, after long and due examination of our own consciences in matters of true and false religion, we are now thoroughly resolved in the truth by the word and Spirit of God:
and therefore we believe with our hearts, confess with our mouths, subscribe with our hands, and constantly affirm, before God and the whole world, that this only is the true Christian faith and religion, pleasing God, and bringing salvation to man, which now is, by the mercy of God, revealed to the world by the preaching of the blessed evangel;
and is received, believed, and defended by many and sundry notable kirks and realms, but chiefly by the kirk of Scotland, the King’s Majesty, and three estates of this realm, as God’s eternal truth, and only ground of our salvation;
as more particularly is expressed in the Confession of our Faith, established and publickly confirmed by sundry acts of Parliaments, and now of a long time hath been openly professed by the King’s Majesty, and whole body of this realm both in burgh and land.
To the which Confession and Form of Religion we willingly agree in our conscience in all points, as unto God’s undoubted truth and verity, grounded only upon his written word.
And therefore we abhor and detest all contrary religion and doctrine;
but chiefly all kind of Papistry in general and particular heads, even as they are now damned and confuted by the word of God and Kirk of Scotland.
But, in special, we detest and refuse the usurped authority of that Roman Antichrist upon the scriptures of God, upon the kirk, the civil magistrate, and consciences of men;
all his tyrannous laws made upon indifferent things against our Christian liberty;
his erroneous doctrine against the sufficiency of the written word, the perfection of the law, the office of Christ, and his blessed evangel;
his corrupted doctrine concerning original sin, our natural inability and rebellion to God’s law, our justification by faith only, our imperfect sanctification and obedience to the law;
the nature, number, and use of the holy sacraments;
his five bastard sacraments, with all his rites, ceremonies, and false doctrine, added to the ministration of the true sacraments without the word of God;
his cruel judgment against infants departing without the sacrament;
his absolute necessity of baptism;
his blasphemous opinion of transubstantiation, or real presence of Christ’s body in the elements, and receiving of the same by the wicked, or bodies of men;
his dispensations with solemn oaths, perjuries, and degrees of marriage forbidden in the word;
his cruelty against the innocent divorced;
his devilish mass;
his blasphemous priesthood;
his profane sacrifice for sins of the dead and the quick;
his canonization of men;
calling upon angels or saints departed, worshipping of imagery, relicks, and crosses; dedicating of kirks, altars, days;
vows to creatures;
his purgatory, prayers for the dead;
praying or speaking in a strange language, with his processions, and blasphemous litany, and multitude of advocates or mediators;
his manifold orders, auricular confession; his desperate and uncertain repentance;
his general and doubtsome faith;
his satisfaction of men for their sins;
his justification by works, opus operatum, works of supererogation, merits, pardons, peregrinations, and stations;
his holy water, baptizing of bells, conjuring of spirits, crossing, sayning, anointing, conjuring, hallowing of God’s good creatures, with the superstitious opinion joined therewith;
his worldly monarchy, and wicked hierarchy;
his three solemn vows, with all his shavelings of sundry sorts;
his erroneous and bloody decrees made at Trent, with all the subscribers or approvers of that cruel and bloody band, conjured against the kirk of God.
And finally, we detest all his vain allegories, rites, signs, and traditions brought in the kirk, without or against the word of God, and doctrine of this true reformed kirk;
to the which we join ourselves willingly, in doctrine, faith, religion, discipline, and use of the holy sacraments, as lively members of the same in Christ our head:
promising and swearing, by the great name of the LORD our GOD, that we shall continue in the obedience of the doctrine and discipline of this kirk [The Confession which was subscribed at Halyrud-house the 25th of February 1587-8, by the King, Lennox Huntly, the Chancellor, and about 95 other persons, hath here added,
“Agreeing to the word.” Sir John Maxwell of Pollock hath the original parchment.], and shall defend the same, according to our vocation and power, all the days of our lives;
under the pains contained in the law, and danger both of body and soul in the day of God’s fearful judgment.”
—————–
News Item from 2009:
Rare Copy of The National Covenant Sells For £32,137
[from http://www.lyonandturnbull.com/content/show_news.asp?id=102%5D:—
A rare copy of one of the most important documents in Scottish history sold for £32,137 at Lyon & Turnbull on the 10th June 2009.
The copy of The National Covenant dating from 1638 was valued between £5,000-8,000 and is signed by over 100 Covenanters including the Earls of Montrose, Cassillis, Eglinton, Wemyss, Rothes, Lindsay, Lothian and Lord Blamerno.
Simon Vickers, Head of the Book Department said “This is an incredibly good price for a copy of the National Covenant, we had a lot of interest in it with phone bidders from around the world.”
The Scottish National Covenant of 1638 was the result of various attempts by the Stuart monarchy to unify religious worship throughout England and Scotland. James VI & I had made a few cautious attempts to introduce a measure of Anglicanism into Scottish life, however it was his son, Charles I, that firmly believed the Kirk should be brought into line.
In 1637 King Charles I and Archbishop Laud endeavoured to impose an English liturgy, a move that the Scots saw as little less than an attempt to reintroduce popery. The spontaneous objection during that first service soon developed into organised opposition unified around the text of the National Covenant.
The 1638 document developed from the National Covenant of 1580, which denounced the Pope and the doctrines of the Roman Catholic church. The newly formed Covenant incorporated the Scottish Confession of Faith of 1581 and the Acts of the Scottish Parliament that had established the Calvinist religion and the liberty of the Kirk.
The original document was neatly written and signed by a large gathering on February 28th 1638 in Greyfriar’s Kirkyard, Edinburgh. The leading Covenanters – Rothes, Montrose, Eglinton, Cassillis, et al – then created duplicate copies to be dispatched “by the considerable persons themselves” into every shire, presbytery and parish of Scotland for signature. The copy on offer here is the Covenant of Renfrewshire.
The General Assemby of 1638 was composed of ardent Coventanters and in 1640 the Covenant was adopted by the Parliament and its subscription was required from all citizens. Over the next few years King Charles’ s attempts to deter his subjects by force were unsuccessful, leading to the eventual recalling of the English Parliament – an act that would begin the chain of events that led to the English Civil War.
The new owner (who resides in the USA and who wishes to remain anonymous) said “It is a hugely important historical document. I did my Phd in Church History at St Andrew’s University in Fife and will look forward to studying the Covenant in more detail. It will remain in Scotland for the time being in the care of my son who lives in the country.
List of the Early Church Fathers for CK who were not Roman Catholic and AGAINST the Roman Catholic tradition.
The 12 Apostles
Clement of Rome
Mathetes
Polycarp
Ignatius
Barnabas
Papias
Justin Martyr
Irenaeus
Hermas
Tatian
Theophilus
Athenagoras
Clement of Alexandria
Tertullian
Minucius Felix
Commodian
Origen
Hippolytus
Cyprian
Caius
Novatian
This testimony is a great example of the complex and confusing it is to be a Roman Catholic. This is similar testimony to mine growing up with mass confusion and contraction as a Catholic.
———–
The Early Years
Born Irish, in a family of eight, my early childhood was fulfilled and happy. My father was a colonel in the Irish Army until he retired when I was about nine. As a family, we loved to play, sing, and act, all within a military camp in Dublin.
We were a typical Irish Roman Catholic family. My father sometimes knelt down to pray at his bedside in a solemn manner. My mother would talk to Jesus while sewing, washing dishes, or even smoking a cigarette. Most evenings we would kneel in the living room to say the Rosary together. No one ever missed Mass on Sundays unless he was seriously ill. By the time I was about five or six years of age, Jesus Christ was a very real person to me, but so also were Mary and the saints. I can identify easily with others in traditional Catholic nations in Europe and with Hispanics and Filipinos who put Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and other saints all in one boiling pot of faith.
The catechism was drilled into me at the Jesuit School of Belvedere, where I had all my elementary and secondary education. Like every boy who studies under the Jesuits, I could recite before the age of ten five reasons why God existed and why the Pope was head of the only true Church. Getting souls out of Purgatory was a serious matter. The often quoted words, “It is a holy and a wholesome thought to pray for the dead that they may be loosed from sins,” were memorized even though we did not know what these words meant. We were told that the Pope as head of the Church was the most important man on earth. What he said was law, and the Jesuits were his right-hand men. Even though the Mass was in Latin, I tried to attend daily because I was intrigued by the deep sense of mystery which surrounded it. We were told it was the most important way to please God. Praying to saints was encouraged, and we had patron saints for most aspects of life. I did not make a practise of that, with one exception: St. Anthony, the patron of lost objects, since I seemed to lose so many things.
When I was fourteen years old, I sensed a call to be a missionary. This call, however, did not affect the way in which I conducted my life at that time. Age sixteen to eighteen were the most fulfilled and enjoyable years a youth could have. During this time, I did quite well both academically and athletically.
I often had to drive my mother to the hospital for treatments. While waiting for her, I found quoted in a book these verses from Mark 10:29-30, “And Jesus answered and said, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel’s, But he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life.” Not having any idea of the true salvation message, I decided that I truly did have a call to be a missionary.
Trying To Earn Salvation I left my family and friends in 1956 to join the Dominican Order. I spent eight years studying what it is to be a monk, the traditions of the Church, philosophy, the theology of Thomas Aquinas, and some of the Bible from a Catholic standpoint. Whatever personal faith I had was institutionalized and ritualized in the Dominican religious system. Obedience to the law, both Church and Dominican, was put before me as the means of sanctification. I often spoke to Ambrose Duffy, our Master of Students, about the law being the means of becoming holy. In addition to becoming “holy,” I wanted also to be sure of eternal salvation. I memorized part of the teaching of Pope Pius XII in which he said, “…the salvation of many depends on the prayers and sacrifices of the mystical body of Christ offered for this intention.” This idea of gaining salvation through suffering and prayer is also the basic message of Fatima and Lourdes, and I sought to win my own salvation as well as the salvation of others by such suffering and prayer.
In the Dominican monastery in Tallaght, Dublin, I performed many difficult feats to win souls, such as taking cold showers in the middle of winter and beating my back with a small steel chain. The Master of Students knew what I was doing, his own austere life being part of the inspiration that I had received from the Pope’s words. With rigor and determination, I studied, prayed, did penance, tried to keep the Ten Commandments and the multitude of Dominican rules and traditions.
Outward Pomp — Inner Emptiness
Then in 1963 at the age of twenty-five I was ordained a Roman Catholic priest and went on to finish my course of studies of Thomas Aquinas at The Angelicum University in Rome. But there I had difficulty with both the outward pomp and the inner emptiness. Over the years I had formed, from pictures and books, pictures in my mind of the Holy See and the Holy City. Could this be the same city? At the Angelicum University I was also shocked that hundreds of others who poured into our morning classes seemed quite disinterested in theology. I noticed Time and Newsweek magazines being read during classes. Those who were interested in what was being taught seemed only to be looking for either degrees or positions within the Catholic Church in their homelands.
One day I went for a walk in the Colosseum so that my feet might tread the ground where the blood of so many Christians had been poured out. I walked to the arena in the Forum. I tried to picture in my mind those men and women who knew Christ so well that they were joyfully willing to be burned at the stake or devoured alive by beasts because of His overpowering love. The joy of this experience was marred, however, for as I went back in the bus I was insulted by jeering youths shouting words meaning “scum or garbage.” I sensed their motivation for such insults was not because I stood for Christ as the early Christians did but because they saw in me the Roman Catholic system. Quickly, I put this contrast out of my mind, yet what I had been taught about the present glories of Rome now seemed very irrelevant and empty.
One night soon after that, I prayed for two hours in front of the main altar in the church of San Clemente. Remembering my earlier youthful call to be a missionary and the hundredfold promise of Mark 10:29-30, I decided not to take the theological degree that had been my ambition since beginning study of the theology of Thomas Aquinas. This was a major decision, but after long prayer I was sure I had decided correctly.
The priest who was to direct my thesis did not want to accept my decision. In order to make the degree easier, he offered me a thesis written several years earlier. He said I could useit as my own if only I would do the oral defense. This turned my stomach. It was similar to what I had seen a few weeks earlier in a city park: elegant prostitutes parading themselves in their black leather boots. What he was offering was equally sinful. I held to my decision, finishing at the University at the ordinary academic level, without the degree.
On returning from Rome, I received official word that I had been assigned to do a three year course at Cork University. I prayed earnestly about my missionary call. To my surprise, I received orders in late August 1964 to go to Trinidad, West Indies, as a missionary.
Trying To Earn Salvation I left my family and friends in 1956 to join the Dominican Order.
Me – either he was not catechized correctly or he had mental issues. Much like Luther who was so scrupulous he never felt he could be forgiven for his behavior so he came up with a religion that technically allowed him to behave anyway he wanted once he accepted Jesus in his heart. The Ten Commandments became the ten suggestions.
I actually used to know the author of this “testimony”. I now attend Mass at the Irish Dominican parish of St. Mary’s in Estoril, Portugal. Some of them remember Richard B. before hitting his head in Trinidad and while recovering his sense, had his “awakening”.
The Ultimate Question
First, I discovered that God’s Word in the Bible is absolute and without error. I had been taught that the Word is relative and that its truthfulness in many areas was to be questioned. Now I began to understand that the Bible could, in fact, be trusted. With the aid of Strong’s Concordance, I began to study the Bible to see what it says about itself. I discovered that the Bible teaches clearly that it is from God and is absolute in what it says. It is true in its history, in the promises God has made, in its prophecies, in the moral commands it gives, and in how to live the Christian life. “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works” (II Timothy 3:16-17).
This discovery was made while visiting in Vancouver, B.C., and in Seattle. When I was asked to talk to the prayer group in St. Stephen’s Catholic Church, I took as my subject the absolute authority of God’s Word. It was the first time that I had understood such a truth or talked about it. I returned to Vancouver, B.C. and in a large parish Church, before about 400 people, I preached the same message. Bible in hand, I proclaimed that “the absolute and final authority in all matters of faith and morals is the Bible, God’s own Word.”
Three days later, the archbishop of Vancouver, B.C., James Carney, called me to his office. I was then officially silenced and forbidden to preach in his archdiocese. I was told that my punishment would have been more severe, were it not for the letter of recommendation I had received from my own archbishop, Anthony Pantin. Soon afterwards I returned to Trinidad.
Church-Bible Dilemma
While I was still parish priest of Point-a-Pierre, Ambrose Duffy, the man who had so strictly taught me while he was Student Master, was asked to assist me. The tide had turned. After some initial difficulties, we became close friends. I shared with him what I was discovering. He listened and commented with great interest and wanted to find out what was motivating me. I saw in him a channel to my Dominican brothers and even to those in the Archbishop’s house.
When he died suddenly of a heart attack, I was stricken with grief. In my mind, I had seen Ambrose as the one who could make sense out of the Church-Bible dilemma with which I so struggled. I had hoped that he would have been able to explain to me and then to my Dominican brothers the truths with which I wrestled. I preached at his funeral and my despair was very deep.
I continued to pray Philippians 3:10, “That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection….” But to learn more about Him, I had first to learn about myself as a sinner. I saw from the Bible (I Timothy 2:5) that the role I was playing as a priestly mediator — exactly what the Catholic Church teaches but exactly opposite to what the Bible teaches — was wrong. I really enjoyed being looked up to by the people and, in a certain sense, being idolized by them. I rationalized my sin by saying that after all, if this is what the biggest Church in the world teaches, who am I to question it? Still, I struggled with the conflict within. I began to see the worship of Mary, the saints, and the priests for the sin that it is. But while I was willing to renounce Mary and the saints as mediators, I could not renounce the priesthood, for in that I had invested my whole life.
Tug-Of-War Years
Mary, the saints, and the priesthood were just a small part of the huge struggle with which I was working. Who was Lord of my life, Jesus Christ in His Word or the Roman Church? This ultimate question raged inside me especially during my last six years as parish priest of Sangre Grande (1979-1985). That the Catholic Church was supreme in all matters of faith and morals had been dyed into my brain since I was a child. It looked impossible ever to change.
Rome was not only supreme but always called “Holy Mother.” How could I ever go against “Holy Mother,” all the more so since I had an official part in dispensing her sacraments and keeping people faithful to her? In 1981, I actually rededicated myself to serving the Roman Catholic Church while attending a parish renewal seminar in New Orleans. Yet when I returned to Trinidad and again became involved in real life problems, I began to return to the authority of God’s Word. Finally the tension became like a tug-of-war inside me. Sometimes I looked to the Roman Church as being absolute, sometimes to the authority of the Bible as being final. My stomach suffered much during those years; my emotions were being torn. I ought to have known the simple truth that one cannot serve two masters. My working position was to place the absolute authority of the Word of God under the supreme authority of the Roman Church.
This contradiction was symbolized in what I did with the four statues in the Sangre Grande Church. I removed and broke the statues of St. Francis and St. Martin because the second commandment of God’s Law declares in Exodus 20:4, “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image….” But when some of the people objected to my removal of the statues of the Sacred Heart and of Mary, I left them standing because the higher authority, i.e., the Roman Catholic Church, said in its law Canon 1188: “The practise of displaying sacred images in the churches for the veneration of the faithful is to remain in force.”
I did not see that what I was trying to do was to make God’s Word subject to man’s word. My Own Fault While I had learned earlier that God’s Word is absolute, I still went through this agony of trying to maintain the Roman Catholic Church as holding more authority than God’s Word, even in issues where the Church of Rome was saying the exact opposite to what was in the Bible.
How could this be? First of all, it was my own fault. If I had accepted the authority of the Bible as supreme, I would have been convicted by God’s Word to give up my priestly role as mediator, but that was too precious to me. Second, no one ever questioned what I did as a priest.
Christians from overseas came to Mass, saw our sacred oils, holy water, medals, statues, vestments, rituals, and never said a word! The marvelous style, symbolism, music, and artistic taste of the Roman Church was all very captivating. Incense not only smells pungent, but to the mind it spells mystery.
The Turning Point
One day, a woman challenged me (the only Christian ever to challenge me in all my 22 years as a priest), “You Roman Catholics have a form of godliness, but you deny its power.” Those words bothered me for some time because the lights, banners, folk music, guitars, and drums were dear to me. Probably no priest on the whole island of Trinidad had as colorful robes, banners, and vestments as I had. Clearly I did not apply what was before my eyes.
In October 1985, God’s grace was greater than the lie that I was trying to live. I went to Barbados to pray over the compromise that I was forcing myself to live. I felt truly trapped. The Word of God is absolute indeed. I ought to obey it alone; yet to the very same God I had vowed obedience to the supreme authority of the Catholic Church. In Barbados I read a book in which was explained the Biblical meaning of Church as “the fellowship of believers.” In the New Testament there is no hint of a hierarchy; “Clergy” lording it over the “laity” is unknown. Rather, it is as the Lord Himself declared “…one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren” (Matthew 23:8).
Now to see and to understand the meaning of church as “fellowship” left me free to let go of the Roman Catholic Church as supreme authority and depend on Jesus Christ as Lord. It began to dawn on me that in Biblical terms, the Bishops I knew in the Catholic Church were not Biblical believers. They were for the most part pious men taken up with devotion to Mary and the Rosary and loyal to Rome, but not one had any idea of the finished work of salvation, that Christ’s work is done, that salvation is personal and complete. They all preached penance for sin, human suffering, religious deeds, “the way of man” rather than the Gospel of grace. But by God’s grace I saw that it was not through the Roman Church nor by any kind of works that one is saved, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).
New Birth at Age 48
I left the Roman Catholic Church when I saw that life in Jesus Christ was not possible while remaining true to Roman Catholic doctrine. In leaving Trinidad in November 1985, I only reached neighboring Barbados. Staying with an elderly couple, I prayed to the Lord for a suit and necessary money to reach Canada, for I had only tropical clothing and a few hundred dollars to my name. Both prayers were answered without making my needs known to anyone except the Lord.
From a tropical temperature of 90 degrees, I landed in snow and ice in Canada. After one month in Vancouver, I came to the United States of America. I now trusted that He would take care of my many needs, since I was beginning life anew at 48 years of age, practically penniless, without an alien resident card, without a driver’s license, without a recommendation of any kind, having only the Lord and His Word.
I spent six months with a Christian couple on a farm in Washington State. I explained to my hosts that I had left the Roman Catholic Church and that I had accepted Jesus Christ and His Word in the Bible as all-sufficient. I had done this, I said, “absolutely, finally, definitively, and resolutely.” Yet far from being impressed by these four adverbs, they wanted to know if there was any bitterness or hurt inside me. In prayer and in great compassion, they ministered to me, for they themselves had made the transition and knew how easily one can become embittered. Four days after I arrived in their home, by God’s grace I began to see in repentance the fruit of salvation. This meant being able not only to ask the Lord’s pardon for my many years of compromising but also to accept His healing where I had been so deeply hurt. Finally, at age 48, on the authority of God’s Word alone, by grace alone, I accepted Christ’s substitutionary death on the Cross alone. To Him alone be the glory.
Having been refurbished both physically and spiritually by this Christian couple together with their family, I was provided a wife by the Lord, Lynn, born-again in faith, lovely in manner, intelligent in mind. Together we set out for Atlanta, Georgia, where we both got jobs.
Walt,
Who was this addressed to? CK? Me? Who? Not to Tim. Tim and Bennett were both students of William Webster together. I am sure they know each other quite well. Why would you tell Tim what he already knows?
This is so typical of you.