Synods & Sophistry: Some Thoughts

[SeekerM]

You are trying to make their objections to the Pope changing catholic morality a political issue, and you are utterly failing.

Well, I am saying that there is no political process when the Church's magisterium declares a doctrine or moral teaching. In the "reception" of the doctrine by the faithful there is conversation in the political domain. There is also a political process when citizens debate the usefulness or necessity for laws. You have to make a few distinctions.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

Well, I am saying that there is no political process when the Church's magisterium declares a doctrine or moral teaching. In the "reception" of the doctrine by the faithful there is conversation in the political domain. There is also a political process when citizens debate the usefulness or necessity for laws. You have to make a few distinctions.

So far as I know, the Catholic church is not a democracy. It has an authoritarian structure. We are not talking about laws in America. We are talking about the moral teachings contained in the Catholic magisterium, and whether a Pope has to power to change them. It is the their teaching that the Catholic church is INFALLIBLE in terms of faith and morals, meaning that once something is infallibly decided (such as by ecumenical council, the bible, or ex-cathedra proclamation) that no pope has the authority to change it. Yet Pope Francis is certainly not clear in his support for these moral teachings. Indeed, on two occasions, in writing, he has overturned them. The first was in his document Amoris Laetitia, where he suggests that Catholics who are divorced and remarried (meaning they are committing adultery in the eyes of the church) might be able to receive communion. The second was when he changed the Catechism to make capital punishment, which has always been okay in the eyes of the church, into a new sin. None of this has anything to do with American politics.

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[SeekerM]

I do understand that the Church magisterium does not establish its moral positions by "politics" in the sense of asking the faithful what they think. The doctrine of reception of moral teachings and disciplinary laws is relevant, however. When the teachings and rules have been promulgated, the faithful try to live with them and judge them by their reception of them. If the faithful do not accept a teaching, the magisterium makes adjustments. I think that is how it is supposed to work among Church members. It would require habits of synodality in both the lay people and the bishops. We do not have those habits.
In the US currently, there is the further problem that the Catholic Church tends to want to make Church teachings into civil and criminal laws for the pluralistic society we live in. That is a political intervention. It is contrary to Church teaching of freedom of conscience for all people including non-Catholics and non-Christians. I would welcome any discussion of these questions.

 

[soulsurvivor]

Either the Church is right and secular morality is wrong, or the Church is wrong and we should all do away with religion all together.

Why can't the Church be 90% right and 10% wrong? Even in exacting fields like mathematics or physics, we may find errors that have been overlooked for centuries.

 

[SeekerM]

Amen, soulsurvivor. If we all just took it for granted that humans are evolving, we could evolve more intentionally and peacefully!