How have the gates of hell not prevailed against the Church, if you're Catholic?

[Gerard]

What do you mean "from standing?" 

I'm quoting Saint Gregory the Great's language.

The Church teaching the Truth. If the Church embraces one explicit falsehood and teaches it, the Church no longer teaches the Truth in it's entirety and instead teaches falsehood in it's entirety.

The distinction has to be made between "the Church" and "the Churchmen"…A Churchman, even a Pope may not reference the Athanasian Creed or even the Nicene Creed but that doesn't stop the Athanasian Creed or Nicene from being the teaching of the Church. 

What "it" are you referring to?  Can you name a single dogma or truth of the faith, the universal Church is required to renounce or a new policy binding the faithful that is heresy? 

Intercommunion with Lutherans...intercommunion with Orthodox...the change to the Death Penalty...communion while in a state of adultery..."extraordinary Eucharistic ministers"…

Intercommunions are scandals by Churchmen.  I've never been bound to believe that I can validly receive communion from a Lutheran minister.  It's not even a option for a Catholic.  Giving communion to a Lutheran is a scandal and sacrilege unless they comport to the most narrow understanding of when it's permissible.  (ie. Deathbed conversion.) 

The Orthodox is a situation of in case of absolute necessity a Catholic may receive valid sacraments from them.  (whether they will give them is another story) 

The death penalty is an error on the part of the Pope and he's wrong whether it goes into the catechism or not.  His personal opinion can't bind the whole Church to the opposite of a firmly established and apostolic (even pre-Apostolic ) teaching. 

If I were a Priest of a Church and I rejected a Saint who was canonized, could I not be excommunicated?

It depends on what you mean by "rejecting" are you claiming that the name of the saint must be expunged?  By what authority?  If you are skeptical of the soul of the named being in Heaven, why would you speak of some kind of judgment for which you have no power to exclaim? 

To know a soul is damned requires the same new revelation that would be required to know with certainty a soul is in Heaven. 

Well, a couple of things.

1. A revelation should not be against the authority of the Church, which you argued on the thread "A Theory about the Crisis in the Church..."

A private revelation can't bind the Church since it is not part of the Deposit of Faith.  Similarly, a canonization cannot be bound as a part of public revelation since it is post-apostolic.  Vatican I defines the Pope as not being established to define new doctrines, but simply to protect the Deposit of Faith given by the Apostles.   The Assumption of the Blessed Mother is infallible because it is taught as Apostolic and not a canonization from an event that occurred after the Apostles died off. 

2. If Saint Cyril had the authority to rebuke Nestorius while he was still alive, St. Leo the Great and those at Chalcedon had the authority to rebuke Eutyches and Nestorius, if the Fathers of the 6th Ecumenical Council had the authority to curse the dead Pope Honorius, if Saint Paul had the authority to not only rebuke Saint Peter himself, but several Church communities that delved into Judaization, Paganism, Adultery, and Schism, etc., but we are not allowed to rebuke the actions of those who did horrible things, one has to ask the question why for 1960 years the Church was able to curse people and now it's a sin to do so.

We need to clarify the language (which changes over several millennia)  a rebuke is simply a correction from a falsehood to the truth.  A curse in its true sense is an appeal to demons to harm others. 

The prudential element of how and when and if a rebuke is necessary is simply a human decision hopefully guided by the grace of God.  If it's truly prudential, it will bear fruit at some point.  If not, it's simply cowardice or foolhardiness or disloyalty by the individuals involved, no matter what office they hold. And in those cases it is necessary for inferiors to rebuke superiors. 

Every Church venerates Pope Paul VI, whether you like it or not, by the authority of the Pope himself.

So what?

How is it that the Church cursed Arius, Nestorius, Eutyches, Tertullian, Origen, Luther, Calvin, Henry VIII, but Pope Paul VI, who was the Pope, arguably did things just as bad if not worse, is a Saint? Why did the Church curse these other people in the first place - and that's not to mention the burning at the stake of several heretics and sinners, like Bruno?

Pope Paul VI did a lot of imprudent, foolish, things, mostly in the area of governance and policy of the Church.  He made no outright schismatic nor heretical moves like Luther, Origen, Henry or Calvin or Hobbes or Arius etc.   

Ultimately, you go through his Credo of the People of God and you wind up with the Catholic faith.  Humanae Vitae is another one.  When it came time to protecting the Deposit of Faith from actual corruption, as pathetic as he was, he didn't buckle.  None of that excuses his total misfire in understanding the world and the decisions that came from and followed the Council.  But all of those can actually be reversed by future Popes. 

We are not bound to subjective, non-magisterially backed commentaries in Catechisms.  That's absurd on its face.  We are not bound to every statement in a papal bull or encyclical or conciliar document, just the doctrinal aspect. 

No Catechism is infallible and we're not bound to every Catechisms assertions nor formulations. 

Can you provide evidence that the Catechism published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith isn't magisterial?

First, I pointed out that the commentaries within the catechism that are not magisterial are not binding.  The magisterial teachings that are repeated in the Catechism are binding.  You can't reject papal infallibility in the Catechism because it simply repeats Vatican I, or the Assumption or the teaching on the Real Presence. 

But commentaries that are inaccurate, (eg. the "positive reformulation" of the dogma of Outside the Church No Salvation is not an actual reformulation.  It expresses a different idea.) are not binding. 

The CCC also goes on with commentaries about Baptism of Blood and Baptism of Desire and "trust in God" for unbaptized babies which are hypotheses. while at the same time the CCC states that the Catholic Church knows of no other way to get into Heaven outside of the sacrament.

The CCC also speculates erroneously that people are born homosexual.  Stated with no proof, not being a part of the Deposit of Faith, any Catholic is free to point out the error of the statement. 
 

But interesting argument; still, it's problematic to me at least doctrinally that the Church has canonized someone whose life is contradictory to the Saints of the past 1960 years, especially to the likes of Pope Pius X (who literally has the opposite life to Pope Paul VI), and even Saint Benedict, who destroyed a sanctuary to Apollo and created an oratory to Saint John the Apostle (who clearly didn't respect different religions in peace and love, like his holiness commanded us to do).

Papal canonizations are only 1000 years old.  What we are dealing with today is the taking of a pious and carefully done custom and the politicization of it.  Only 3 Popes were canonized as saints in the last thousand years, prior to Vatican II.  Now, every Pope involved with Vatican II is canonized with the exception of Luciani (who probably will be).  They are participation trophies now.  I'm surprised Francis hasn't canonized Benedict XVI yet. 

No one actually knows the interior disposition or spiritual struggles of any of these popes.  We see things through the media from thousands of miles away and in a very limited form.  They may be in Heaven, Hell or Purgatory.  God will sort it out.   If one invokes them honestly for intercession, God will not waste the prayer or ignore the petition.  If you doubt their status, pray FOR their souls.  And invoke saints you have more faith in.  St. Michael, St. Joseph, the Blessed Mother, St. John the Baptist or St. Peter or Pius V, X etc.   Make a general petition to all saints and your Guardian Angel.  There's more than enough help to call upon.

[Xavier]

It doesn't actually answer the question of how the gates of hell have not prevailed against Rome, if they have, or if they have not. Orthodoxy can teach abortion, homosexuality, and Satanism is acceptable, but that would not change the answer to the question if the Gates of Hell have prevailed against the Catholic Church.

Live, my friend, what are you talking about? Are you not at least certain that (1) Jesus Christ is the Son of God and Saviour of the human race, and (2) His True Apostolic Church is found either in the Catholic Church or in Orthodoxy? You should be sure of at least those two before going forward. If you are sure Apostolicity could be found in only one of those two Churches, then the fact of excluding Orthodoxy proves the Catholic Church is the true Church (by elimination). But a more general way of seeing it (which excludes all other possible contenders to the claim of being the true Church) is from the divine promise of Christ Himself.

You see, the other method of proceeding will ultimately lead to unbelief even in Christ. Christ's Promise is not an invitation to constantly test that promise, as much as it is to firmly believe in it. We are not to test the Lord our God, but to believe in His Word without wavering or backsliding, as all the Fathers and the Martyrs for Christ teach us.

If your Father when going on a journey said, even if all hell breaks loose, it will not prevail against your mother no matter what, so therefore remain with her if you want to remain with me - it means nothing more and nothing less than that we are to remain with the Roman Catholic Church until the end of time when He returns.

If this were not so, how could St. Augustine, St. Optatus and early Fathers who argued against the schism of Donatism know they were on the right side? What was the rule they gave to distinguish who was right - was it to doubt the promise of Christ? Not at all, it was based on the fact that the promise of Christ must find its fulfilment in Church history and that it actually does so in the See of Peter in Rome. When later there were schisms between Rome and Constantinople, orthodox monks of the Greek Church like St. Maximus of Constantinople (against monothelitism) and  St. Theodore of Constantinople (against Iconoclasm) sided with Roman and Petrine primacy over Constantinople. They interpreted the divine promise precisely as we do. Please see

https://www.fisheaters.com/easternfathers.html

And as for canonization, according to the CE, the only thing declared infallibly in a canonization is that the person is in heaven. And if Pope Liberius (not formally canonized in the Catholic Church, although Pope St. Sylvester, and Pope St. Julius from the time of the Arian crisis, are) is a Saint in the view of the Eastern Churches, then there should be even less of an issue. You would presume he made some mistakes but later regretted it and this was not deemed very severe. So it should be similar.

The extremities of the earth, and everyone in every part of it who purely and rightly confess the Lord, look directly towards the Most Holy Roman Church and her confession and faith, as to a sun of unfailing light awaiting from her the brilliant radiance of the sacred dogmas of our Fathers, according to that which the inspired and holy Councils have stainlessly and piously decreed. For, from the descent of the Incarnate Word amongst us, all the churches in every part of the world have held the greatest Church alone to be their base and foundation, seeing that, according to the promise of Christ Our Savior, the gates of hell will never prevail against her, that she has the keys of the orthodox confession and right faith in Him, that she opens the true and exclusive religion to such men as approach with piety, and she shuts up and locks every heretical mouth which speaks against the Most High.

Since to great Peter Christ our Lord gave the office of Chief Shepherd after entrusting him with the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, to Peter or his successor must of necessity every novelty in the Catholic Church be referred. [Therefore], save us, oh most divine Head of Heads, Chief Shepherd of the Church of Heaven.

Order that the declaration from old Rome be received, as was the custom by Tradition of our Fathers from of old and from the beginning. For this, O Emperor, is the highest of the Churches of God, in which first Peter held the Chair, to whom the Lord said: Thou art Peter ...and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

I witness now before God and men, they have torn themselves away from the Body of Christ, from the Supreme See (Rome), in which Christ placed the keys of the Faith, against which the gates of hell (I mean the mouth of heretics) have not prevailed, and never will until the Consummation, according to the promise of Him Who cannot lie.

[TheReturnofLive]

This thread is about whether the gates of hell have prevailed against Rome or not. I'm making a point if they did or not, whether or not Orthodoxy's claims are valid or not are IRRELEVANT.



That particular St. Maximos quote is spurious - along with another one that is used often, that comes from the same source, where he says the Roman Church has universal dominion, authority, and power of binding and loosing over all the Churches of God.

It comes from a source called the "Letter to Peter", which only exists in extracts of Latin with no Greek copy in tact (Saint Maximos the Confessor, being Greek, wrote his letters in Greek and they were subsequently translated by others. The fact that there is no Greek in tact should ring alarm bells, especially in light of the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals, Gratian's Decretum which used these Decretals, and other forgeries which were flourishing in the 9th century).


The quote from Saint Theodore I've not heard, and it would be prudent if you could actually cite it from it's original source, because simply copying and pasting a bunch of quotes from apologetic websites isn't helpful for debates.

I could quote this which is used by Protestants all the time from Pius X:

"The Pope is not only the representative of Jesus Christ, He is Jesus Christ himself, hidden under the veil of flesh."

But that's stupid, because there's no source for it.





And you're setting up a straw man by saying that I am constantly testing the promise.

No, a lot of things happened in the past year which seem to go against the promise, which I found it worthy to ask the question now.

I've set up my syllogistic structure, so either engage with it or don't.




And if Gardener is allowed to assume my intentions, I'll assume that you guys don't actually want to answer my question. I've set up the premises and the conclusion, so you can deal with that if you really want to engage in where I see a problem.

[TheReturnofLive]

Plus, Saint Theodore allegedly brings up the point which I've brought up.

"I witness now before God and men, they have torn themselves away from the Body of Christ, from the Supreme See (Rome), in which Christ placed the keys of the Faith, against which the gates of hell (I mean the mouth of heretics) have not prevailed, and never will until the Consummation, according to the promise of Him Who cannot lie."



So, using my premises and conclusion, disprove of it. Unless you won't because you can't defend yourself.

[Xavier]

Um, Live. St. Theodore's premise isn't the same as yours. His teaching is: Christ made a promise to the Roman Church. That promise cannot fail, nor could He Who is Truth have lied. Therefore, the Roman Church will be protected till the end of time. This is the basis on which he writes. Both to the emperor and to the Popes.

Your premise inverts the order, and places private judgment above the Truth of God's Word: Christ made a promise. My private judgment says He is (allegedly) not keeping that promise. And then your conclusion, as you put it, is "c. Ergo, Christ is a liar, as the gates of hell have prevailed against the Church." which is similar to what Protestants and others who left the Church wrongly claimed. The difference is Catholics take the foundational premise of what Christ claimed as an incontrovertible fact.

As for St. Maximus, it's well known he spent time in Rome and was a close ally of Pope St. Martin during the Monothelite troubles. His "Opuscula theologica" was written from Rome around 649. It is present in both Migne's volume of the Greek Fathers called Patrologia Graeca. Dom John Chapman, writing in the Catholic Encyclopedia, also cites it in his article on St. Maximus. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10078b.htm Can you show me a scholarly work that claims St. Maximus didn't write the letter?

And the text of St. Theodore is universally acknowledged to be authentic. Again, a PG reference and a citation of the epistle number of St. Theodore was given in the link. If you want to read the same work cited and frankly acknowledged as authentic by an Orthodox theologian, you can find it in here

Fr. Cleenewerck, who wrote that book, is an Orthodox Priest. See pg 201. This is Wiki's entry on Father, "Laurent Cleenewerck is an academic and theologian, serving as professor of international administration and theology for EUCLID (Euclid University), and on the faculty of the Ukrainian Catholic University and Humboldt State University. He is the rector of Eureka Orthodox Church."

So, there's no running away from the fact that St. Theodore testifies to the Catholic understanding of the Lord's Promise.

So all these are just excuses to turn away from the plain sense of the divine promise. We believe, as our Fathers, in both East and West have taught us, that God made a promise to the Church of St. Peter in Rome.

God said it. We believe it. So that settles it. Faith is taking God at His Word. If we don't have faith, we have to pray and ask God for that gift.

the holy Roman church has been placed at the forefront not by the conciliar decisions of the churches, but has received the primacy by the evangelic voice of our Lord and Savior, Who says: "You are Peter ...(Matt 16:18-19)." In addition to this, there is also the companionship of the vessel of election, the most blessed Apostle Paul who, along with Peter in the city of Rome in the time of Caesar Nero, equally consecrated the above-mentioned holy Roman Church to Christ the Lord; and by their own presence and by their venerable triumph, they set it at the forefront over the others of all the cities of the world. The first see, therefore, is that of Peter the Apostle, that of the Roman church, which has neither stain nor blemish, nor anything like that.

Can you show us any Father or Council that denies the divine promise applies to Rome?

Look. The 4th century when Pope St. Damasus wrote was a very troubled time, as you know. People may have said "Now look here Athanasius, or Damasus, Arianism is triumphant and the Church is in chaos. Obviously, the gates of hell have prevailed" but history proved them wrong, ultimately. And it will prove today's modernists wrong as well.

[Quaremerepulisti]

The sole source of epistemological authority in Roman Catholicism is the Pope. Period, no ifs, buts, or what ifs.

Replace "sole" with "final" and the sentence would be correct.  There are in fact some other sources of epistemological authority besides the Pope: e.g. Bishops, theologians, Doctors, Fathers, etc. but they are subordinate to the Pope's.

We live in a situation where the Pope has made the death penalty morally inadmissible (meaning God sinned in Sodom and Gomorrah), has allowed intercommunion between Lutherans and Catholics, has allowed the Chinese government to dictate the doctrine of the Chinese Catholic Church, and has allowed people living in an adulterous relationship to receive communion, in solemn, Papal decrees.

More than this are all of his private opinions about Evangelism ("Proselytism is a sin against Ecumenism"), the Eastern Rite Churches, and his promotion of pure religious indifferentism (https://christiannews.net/2016/01/09/pope-calls-for-collaboration-with-worlds-religions-those-who-meet-god-in-different-ways/), and his condemnation of prohibiting illegal immigration.

More than this is his canonization of Pope Paul VI, which officially - whether it's a legitimate canonization or infallible or even invalid - declares his entire life to be an imitation of Christ for the Catholic laity to follow

His mere private opinions don't count as "epistemological authority", so I'll skip those.  But, as for the Magisterial teachings, it's only your private judgment that death penalty being morally inadmissible now is incompatible with it being admissible earlier; you assume a specific basis for morality when you conclude that.  It's only your private judgment that intercommunion between Lutherans and Catholics now is a Very Bad Thing.  And so on.

Now you can argue all these points until the cows come home; but by so doing you are implicitly denying your starting premise: namely that the Pope and no one else (which means not you) is the final source of epistemological authority.  To even ask the question (before coming to any answer) you are making yourself the final source of epistemological authority over and above the Pope.

[John Lamb]

The Pope is in no way the source of Catholic doctrine (that is Christ & the apostles, preserved in sacred scripture & tradition), but is only its perpetual guarantor and protector. The charism of infallibility applies only in strict circumstances. If anything, the fact that the Modernist cabal infiltrating the Church has been so fearfully scrupulous in the way that it's proposed its own heretical doctrines – such as Francis using ambiguous language to alter Catholic doctrine on the death penalty in a catechism – is evidence of the power & divine protection of the papal office itself. If they weren't afraid of the papal office and its infallibility, they would be much more ruthless and direct in enforcing their doctrinal errors; but instead they skate around it with ambiguous terms, offhand suggestions, and dubious insinuations. You're acting like the Pope has called all the Catholic bishops together and has invoked their papal & ecumenical authority to teach Arianism or Nestorianism. That would be the "gates of hell prevailing". Not to be snarky but the Eastern Sees (Constantinople, for example) have outright declared heresies such as Arianism or Nestorianism before . . . unlike Rome, against which the greatest doctrinal accusation Eastern Orthodox have been able to draw up is the "Filioque", a teaching taught by all the Western Fathers, and corroborated by the Eastern Fathers as well (though in different terms according to the Greek usage distinct from the linguistic differences of the Latin usage, i.e. Greeks prefer to say "through the Son" rather than "from the Son", because of a unique Greek word which applies only to the Father, and which doesn't have any Latin synonym).

[Quaremerepulisti]

The Pope is in no way the source of Catholic doctrine (that is Christ & the apostles, preserved in sacred scripture & tradition), but is only its perpetual guarantor and protector. 

ReturnofLive isn't saying it is.  He's talking about the epistemological, not the ontological, source.

If anything, the fact that the Modernist cabal infiltrating the Church has been so fearfully scrupulous in the way that it's proposed its own heretical doctrines – such as Francis using ambiguous language to alter Catholic doctrine on the death penalty in a catechism – is evidence of the power & divine protection of the papal office itself.

In the final analysis, though, either the doctrine is altered, or not; and if so, either it is heretical, or not.

[Kreuzritter]

Seems to me this is just another manifestation of your admitted issue of perfectionism, dude.

Is the Church not perfect in dogma and moral teaching?

Such a standard must be defined, understood, and accepted by all parties before any subsequent discussion can be had. Since you don't want to have that discussion, and moreover in light of the Orthodox and their own problems, I don't believe you actually want the answer and this quest is just another manifestation of a problem you admit to have. That you aren't willing to apply said standard to your chosen sect is, I believe, indicative of an emotional, rather than theological, quest.

You know very well I've explained the whole cliche "Divorce" and "Contraception" argument on other threads in the past, with how Rome has been inconsistent pre-schism and post-schism on Divorce (your argument being "well, this invisible standard which Rome holds to today is really in line with Truth, and the past was erroneous", even though you won't take that same standard and apply it to Rome today), and how Contraception is only allowed via Economia (in my opinion, erroneously) but still viewed as morally unacceptable, unlike the "use NFP to stop kids from pestering your life" approach which Rome has endorsed, even though NFP has the same intent and means as artificial contraception - to prevent sex from having a procreative purpose and allow it for pure pleasure alone.


Needless to say that in Orthodoxy, each Apostolic Bishop holding the full Truth possesses the entire Church, and if 99% of the Bishops fell into heresy, that one Bishop would be the Catholic Church (as Saint Athanasius says).

Rome's epistemological foundation is not every single bishop, but one Superbishop (hence infallibility).


So it isn't based on emotion, but rather logic.

I'm not gonna address the divorce contraception "ha, gotcha" argument nymore on this thread, because all it will do is you putting fingers in your ears and ignore the original topic which I posted.

If you want to talk about it, start a new thread.

Sancta simplicitas!

And pray tell, how does one, as “Eastern Orthodox”, identify this one bishop and know that he represents the one, holy, universal and apostolic church and the true faith when all the others have fallen into heresy?

I won’t presume to know what you’d propose, but it has to come down to a private judgment in every case as to whom you want to believe, when no appeal can be made to any  bishop or group of bishops without begging the question, and in practice that means, in the means, people siding with their local churches.

For sure, ultimately it comes down to a private judgment for a Catholic too, but that is only in accepting the Papacy and identifying a legitimate pope as the beacon by which to find the Church. That’s not to say this isn’t without its own difficulties.

And, to a related point, the Orthodox also have to maintain, for apostolic succession, the he guarantee of at least one orthodox and true bishop always existing without particularity, having only pushed the issue a bit further back at the expense of making his identification difficult.

[TheReturnofLive]

Seems to me this is just another manifestation of your admitted issue of perfectionism, dude.

Is the Church not perfect in dogma and moral teaching?

Such a standard must be defined, understood, and accepted by all parties before any subsequent discussion can be had. Since you don't want to have that discussion, and moreover in light of the Orthodox and their own problems, I don't believe you actually want the answer and this quest is just another manifestation of a problem you admit to have. That you aren't willing to apply said standard to your chosen sect is, I believe, indicative of an emotional, rather than theological, quest.

You know very well I've explained the whole cliche "Divorce" and "Contraception" argument on other threads in the past, with how Rome has been inconsistent pre-schism and post-schism on Divorce (your argument being "well, this invisible standard which Rome holds to today is really in line with Truth, and the past was erroneous", even though you won't take that same standard and apply it to Rome today), and how Contraception is only allowed via Economia (in my opinion, erroneously) but still viewed as morally unacceptable, unlike the "use NFP to stop kids from pestering your life" approach which Rome has endorsed, even though NFP has the same intent and means as artificial contraception - to prevent sex from having a procreative purpose and allow it for pure pleasure alone.


Needless to say that in Orthodoxy, each Apostolic Bishop holding the full Truth possesses the entire Church, and if 99% of the Bishops fell into heresy, that one Bishop would be the Catholic Church (as Saint Athanasius says).

Rome's epistemological foundation is not every single bishop, but one Superbishop (hence infallibility).


So it isn't based on emotion, but rather logic.

I'm not gonna address the divorce contraception "ha, gotcha" argument nymore on this thread, because all it will do is you putting fingers in your ears and ignore the original topic which I posted.

If you want to talk about it, start a new thread.

Sancta simplicitas!

And pray tell, how does one, as “Eastern Orthodox”, identify this one bishop and know that he represents the one, holy, universal and apostolic church and the true faith when all the others have fallen into heresy?

The same way that you know Pope Francis is wrong when he allegedly says that he believes in annihilationisn - because of how contradictory it is.

Pray tell, how do you know when Pope Francis is speaking Ex Cathedra or not? Or if he is even the Pope?

Believe it or not, accepting Pope Francis or even Pope Pius V as a legitimate Pope or accepting that Saint Peter was given the role to be the Vicar of Christ ultimately hinges on a private judgment to accept such authority.

To say it doesn’t is epistomelogical nonsense.

[TheReturnofLive]

The sole source of epistemological authority in Roman Catholicism is the Pope. Period, no ifs, buts, or what ifs.

Replace "sole" with "final" and the sentence would be correct.  There are in fact some other sources of epistemological authority besides the Pope: e.g. Bishops, theologians, Doctors, Fathers, etc. but they are subordinate to the Pope's.

We live in a situation where the Pope has made the death penalty morally inadmissible (meaning God sinned in Sodom and Gomorrah), has allowed intercommunion between Lutherans and Catholics, has allowed the Chinese government to dictate the doctrine of the Chinese Catholic Church, and has allowed people living in an adulterous relationship to receive communion, in solemn, Papal decrees.

More than this are all of his private opinions about Evangelism ("Proselytism is a sin against Ecumenism"), the Eastern Rite Churches, and his promotion of pure religious indifferentism (https://christiannews.net/2016/01/09/pope-calls-for-collaboration-with-worlds-religions-those-who-meet-god-in-different-ways/), and his condemnation of prohibiting illegal immigration.

More than this is his canonization of Pope Paul VI, which officially - whether it's a legitimate canonization or infallible or even invalid - declares his entire life to be an imitation of Christ for the Catholic laity to follow

His mere private opinions don't count as "epistemological authority", so I'll skip those.  But, as for the Magisterial teachings, it's only your private judgment that death penalty being morally inadmissible now is incompatible with it being admissible earlier; you assume a specific basis for morality when you conclude that.  It's only your private judgment that intercommunion between Lutherans and Catholics now is a Very Bad Thing.  And so on.

Now you can argue all these points until the cows come home; but by so doing you are implicitly denying your starting premise: namely that the Pope and no one else (which means not you) is the final source of epistemological authority.  To even ask the question (before coming to any answer) you are making yourself the final source of epistemological authority over and above the Pope.

You’re forgetting the fact that according to Vatican I, the Pope has no authority to introduce new doctrines, only saintly safeguarding what has been handed down, and the Catholic Church believes that public revelation is closed - that is, from the death of John the Apostle to now, there cannot be any new revelation or changes or abbrogations of dogma or morality.

These things are what Rome - an epistomelogical authority - teaches - and this is what the source of my private judgment is, because to even accept the starting premise is in itself a private judgment.

This isn’t even to mention the fact that in terms of dogma and morality,, Popes must necessarily be subordinate to prior Popes in terms of declarations of morality and dogma, as those Popes were a final source of epistemological authority, and current and future Popes can’t rescind dogmas such as the Immaculate Conception, as the final authority infallibly declared it a dogma.

[Quaremerepulisti]

Now you can argue all these points until the cows come home; but by so doing you are implicitly denying your starting premise: namely that the Pope and no one else (which means not you) is the final source of epistemological authority.  To even ask the question (before coming to any answer) you are making yourself the final source of epistemological authority over and above the Pope.

You’re forgetting the fact that according to Vatican I, the Pope has no authority to introduce new doctrines, only saintly safeguarding what has been handed down, and the Catholic Church believes that public revelation is closed - that is, from the death of John the Apostle to now, there cannot be any new revelation or changes or abbrogations of dogma or morality.

These things are what Rome - an epistomelogical authority - teaches - and this is what the source of my private judgment is, because to even accept the starting premise is in itself a private judgment.

Yes, but the point is that the Pope, and not you, is the final epistemological authority on whether new doctrine has in fact been introduced or on whether morality has in fact been changed or dogma been abrogated.

So the moment you even ask the question you are implicitly denying that the Pope is the final authority.

[TheReturnofLive]

Now you can argue all these points until the cows come home; but by so doing you are implicitly denying your starting premise: namely that the Pope and no one else (which means not you) is the final source of epistemological authority.  To even ask the question (before coming to any answer) you are making yourself the final source of epistemological authority over and above the Pope.

You’re forgetting the fact that according to Vatican I, the Pope has no authority to introduce new doctrines, only saintly safeguarding what has been handed down, and the Catholic Church believes that public revelation is closed - that is, from the death of John the Apostle to now, there cannot be any new revelation or changes or abbrogations of dogma or morality.

These things are what Rome - an epistomelogical authority - teaches - and this is what the source of my private judgment is, because to even accept the starting premise is in itself a private judgment.

Yes, but the point is that the Pope, and not you, is the final epistemological authority on whether new doctrine has in fact been introduced or on whether morality has in fact been changed or dogma been abrogated.

So the moment you even ask the question you are implicitly denying that the Pope is the final authority.

My problem with this, though, is that it's unclear where the authority of the Pope extends to. Pope Alexander VI had a kid while he was Pope, and he ordered the Cardinals to make the kid a legitimate child - not a bastard child - to which they all laughed at.

Were the Cardinals gravely sinning because they didn't recognize the final epistemological authority of the Pope?

What about the whole Geocentrism debacle with Bruno and Galileo? Are we obliged to believe in physical, literal Geocentrism, given all of the evidence to the contrary - and the fact that Popes today don't believe in Geocentrism?

What about Pope Vigilius, who defended Nestorianism? What about Pope John XXII, who denied the Beatific Vision?

If the Pope orders me to behead Afghani children in the Middle East, am I obliged to do it?


Given the fact that there have been clearly immoral Popes in the past - even recognized by Popes today, the final epistemological authority, there must be some inherent level of private judgment to see whether or not that Pope is contradicting the morality and dogma of previous Popes. And if this is the case, if the Pope is clearly contradicting the past Popes and the past Saints to the point that it affects the discipline and dogma of the Roman Church, such that you can no longer go to the Pope for moral and dogmatic certainty, does this erode the claims of the Pope?

[Quaremerepulisti]

My problem with this, though, is that it's unclear where the authority of the Pope extends to. Pope Alexander VI had a kid while he was Pope, and he ordered the Cardinals to make the kid a legitimate child - not a bastard child - to which they all laughed at.

Were the Cardinals gravely sinning because they didn't recognize the final epistemological authority of the Pope?

That isn't epistemological authority here.  That was just a command outside the Pope's sphere of authority.

What about the whole Geocentrism debacle with Bruno and Galileo? Are we obliged to believe in physical, literal Geocentrism, given all of the evidence to the contrary - and the fact that Popes today don't believe in Geocentrism?

No, because the Popes of today officially permit geocentrism, as they have for about 200 years.

What about Pope Vigilius, who defended Nestorianism? What about Pope John XXII, who denied the Beatific Vision?

No, because both of these things have been solemnly defined by subsequent Popes.

If the Pope orders me to behead Afghani children in the Middle East, am I obliged to do it?

Again, that's an immoral command, not a claim to epistemological authority.  Also, to be a claim to epistemological authority a Pope must be stating something authoritatively, not merely giving a private opinion.

Given the fact that there have been clearly immoral Popes in the past - even recognized by Popes today, the final epistemological authority, there must be some inherent level of private judgment to see whether or not that Pope is contradicting the morality and dogma of previous Popes.

If you think that a Pope leading an immoral life in itself could even possibly contradict him being the final epistemological authority, you don't really understand what the term means.

And if this is the case, if the Pope is clearly contradicting the past Popes and the past Saints to the point that it affects the discipline and dogma of the Roman Church, such that you can no longer go to the Pope for moral and dogmatic certainty, does this erode the claims of the Pope?

Yes, but if the Pope is in fact the final epistemological authority, the antecedent is impossible.

[TheReturnofLive]

How was Pope Alexander VI outside of the Pope's epistemological authority? He was declaring that a certain human being was a valid, not a bastard. This is "knowledge."