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Post by homeschooldad on Sept 3, 2021 14:06:54 GMT
"okay, so what if they were 'illegitimate'? --- that is no reflection upon the child, it's not their fault". It has to do with the inheritance rights which at one time in certain countries were available only to legitimate children. Take for example the case of a man who attempts a second marriage, but is already legally married to his first wife. The second marriage has been annulled by the court because he had not divorced and he hid his first marriage from his second wife.The court declares that the second marriage was null and void and that the children were not legitimate and for that reason, the children of the second (attempted) marriage have lesser ( or no) inheritance rights in the case when the father dies without a will. The legitimate children from the first marriage have a greater claim to the inheritance. Quite right, and I addressed this, possibly too obliquely, when I referred to countries where the Church's decision on such a thing, carries legal weight. In the US, courts couldn't care less whether one's church regards a marriage as valid or invalid, or whether the children of a putative marriage are regarded as "legitimate" or "illegitimate". If the Church (or any religious body) were to say "the children of this marriage are illegitimate", that would never even be introduced in court, it would be pointless. The reader needs to keep in mind that canon law is for the whole Catholic world, not for particular legal systems or cultures.
That is why, for instance, canon law is silent on "dating" (do people still do that?) for divorced Catholics. The cultural benchmark among orthodox Catholics in American culture, is that "you have to behave in every way, as though you are 'still married' to your spouse". But what of a mere platonic friendship? Talking to a trusted friend of the opposite sex over lunch, or on the phone, about one's divorce situation? Going to dinner? Going to a movie? A chaste hug, the kind you'd give your sister, at the end of the evening? Very severely orthodox/conservative/traditional Catholics would say "no, not even that", and they do have somewhat of a point, perhaps not the definitive answer --- and keep in mind that everyone's situation, circumstances, and temperament are different --- but it's worth at least taking into account. If nothing else, one's innocent behavior can be misinterpreted, and can be cause for scandal. Sadly, though, too many couples end up in the rectory, practically engaged (and, I hate to say it, but usually sexually active with one another, or possibly even living together), asking the priest for an annulment "so we can get married". Such folks obviously have quite another view of what is proper for divorced Catholics, and it's far from a correct view.
("Lack of canonical form" situations, which strictly speaking aren't even annulments, are a different matter entirely. You know you got married outside the Church, it was invalid, and you simply have to submit paperwork proving that. Those are pretty much just "rubber-stamp" administrative matters. I refer here to true annulments, where validity has to be assumed unless proven otherwise.)
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Post by tth1 on Sept 3, 2021 17:51:17 GMT
Discipline is handled in accordance with Canon Law. Quite right, and one corollary of my question is "to what extent can discliplinary practices be considered 'teaching of the Church'?", as well as "to what extent must assent of mind, heart, and will --- let alone outward adherence --- be given to disciplinary practices (or matters of Church governance and order)?". IOW, can I respectfully disagree as to whether, for instance, a diocese should have been split in two, how it was split, or whether the see city should have been City A instead of City B?
Your prior comment, which appears to have gotten truncated, is very good, and is precisely what I have always understood. Thanks so much.
The example you mention is something with which you can definitely disagree. Your disagreement may not get you very far but you're not under any obligation to accept that diocesan boundary changes are something to which you could not object. Obedience is required but not blind obedience.
I think a good starting point for answering the question, 'What constitutes the teaching of the Church?', would be to go to the Cathechism of the Catholic Church. From there, you could follow up the footnotes of the sources given. Good luck with that! Now, I must stress I wasn't even attempting sacrcasm with my previous sentence. You will need good luck because you've got a lot of work to do. We have 2000+ years of the Church's teaching and I wouldn't like to hazard a guess at the number of church documents.
That volume of documents is the very foundation of your problem. You have to delve into each one to determine how binding it is and to discover if a later document changed its provisions. The fact you were not raised as a Catholic doesn't make your task more challenging. I'm what you may call a 'cradle Catholic' but I don't think I could tell you what constitutes the entire teaching of the Church, despite the fact I will often say, 'the Church teaches ...'.
From your posts I would say you are far more clued up about the Catholic Faith than a great many Catholics. Therefore, I would not see yourself a coming late to the party. I believe the way to deal with this is to take an issue in which one may be interested and do some research on it. That is the way to find whether something is a dogma to which you are bound to submit or whether it is a matter about which you have the freedom to come to your own opinion.
Even then it is not always clear cut. For example, we are bound as per the apostolic constitution of Pope the Venerable Puis XII Munificentissimus Deus to believe that Our Blessed Lady was assumed into heaven, body and soul. However, we are left free to believe that she fell asleep and was assumed into heaven or that she suffered death and was assumed into heaven. Consequently, I would feel bound to say what constitutes the teaching of the Church is not an easy question to answer. I would hope that as Catholics we have enough knowledge for our salvation and that having an in-depth knowledge of all the Church's teachings isn't necessary for that end.
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Post by homeschooldad on Sept 3, 2021 20:29:42 GMT
Quite right, and one corollary of my question is "to what extent can discliplinary practices be considered 'teaching of the Church'?", as well as "to what extent must assent of mind, heart, and will --- let alone outward adherence --- be given to disciplinary practices (or matters of Church governance and order)?". IOW, can I respectfully disagree as to whether, for instance, a diocese should have been split in two, how it was split, or whether the see city should have been City A instead of City B?
Your prior comment, which appears to have gotten truncated, is very good, and is precisely what I have always understood. Thanks so much.
The example you mention is something with which you can definitely disagree. Your disagreement may not get you very far but you're not under any obligation to accept that diocesan boundary changes are something to which you could not object. Obedience is required but not blind obedience.
I think a good starting point for answering the question, 'What constitutes the teaching of the Church?', would be to go to the Cathechism of the Catholic Church. From there, you could follow up the footnotes of the sources given. Good luck with that! Now, I must stress I wasn't even attempting sacrcasm with my previous sentence. You will need good luck because you've got a lot of work to do. We have 2000+ years of the Church's teaching and I wouldn't like to hazard a guess at the number of church documents.
That volume of documents is the very foundation of your problem. You have to delve into each one to determine how binding it is and to discover if a later document changed its provisions. The fact you were not raised as a Catholic doesn't make your task more challenging. I'm what you may call a 'cradle Catholic' but I don't think I could tell you what constitutes the entire teaching of the Church, despite the fact I will often say, 'the Church teaches ...'.
From your posts I would say you are far more clued up about the Catholic Faith than a great many Catholics. Therefore, I would not see yourself a coming late to the party. I believe the way to deal with this is to take an issue in which one may be interested and do some research on it. That is the way to find whether something is a dogma to which you are bound to submit or whether it is a matter about which you have the freedom to come to your own opinion.
Even then it is not always clear cut. For example, we are bound as per the apostolic constitution of Pope the Venerable Puis XII Munificentissimus Deus to believe that Our Blessed Lady was assumed into heaven, body and soul. However, we are left free to believe that she fell asleep and was assumed into heaven or that she suffered death and was assumed into heaven. Consequently, I would feel bound to say what constitutes the teaching of the Church is not an easy question to answer. I would hope that as Catholics we have enough knowledge for our salvation and that having an in-depth knowledge of all the Church's teachings isn't necessary for that end.
Very well put. Your clear manner of writing is not unlike that of --- and I know you don't like the guy --- Nevile Martin (N.M.) Gwynne, who, while some of his opinions on religion are crazier than a latrine rat (be glad I said "latrine"!), I will give the man this much, he writes and speaks very clearly. I am looking forward to examining my Kindle copy of his grammar text, to determine to what extent I want to use it in my son's English composition class. I tend to doubt his book is used to any great extent in American schools.
But anyway. I think this whole brou-ha-ha comes from a conflation, and I am one (but not the only one) guilty of the conflation, of "teaching" with "doctrine". (I shall leave dogma out of this, I don't think anyone maintains that it is a dogma, for instance, that while we once participated silently and extemporaneously within ourselves at Holy Mass, now we are to work towards a more active participation. I thought of this last Sunday, when our traditional Latin Low Mass began to morph into the "Dialogue Mass" that Pope Pius XII envisioned. Simple Latin such as that, is not out of the reach of any halfway-intelligent, halfway-educated Catholic.) We know what "doctrine" is --- it is what we must believe, that falls short of dogma. Ott's Fundamentals of Catholic Doctrine, which along with the Woywod/Smith 1917 CIC commentary and the inestimable Father Jone, I have brought over to our new house to place in my library, does a masterful job of showing the levels of belief we much place in this or that. As you well point out, it is a dogma that Our Lady was assumed into heaven body and soul. Whether she suffered physical death before she was assumed, we may believe as we see fit. I do believe that she was placed in the tomb, which was later found empty, but I have always imagined --- and there may be no basis for this --- that the apostles saw her being assumed, just as they saw Jesus ascend. Do we really know? I don't know. Does it matter? Not enough for Almighty God to supply us with those particulars. The fact of the Assumption is a dogma, the "nuts and bolts" of it aren't even doctrine.
In reaching for a way to distinguish between teaching and doctrine, I have to imagine that doctrine does not change, but it develops as we understand it more deeply. We see nuances that previous eras perhaps did not see. Assuming that "teaching" is something less than doctrine, or rather, that "teaching" is not necessarily synonymous with doctrine, then, yes, that might change, if we define "teaching" as "the way that a particular doctrine is explained, and the Church shows us how it applies to our times". Capital punishment comes immediately to mind. The Church always clearly taught that CP could reluctantly and mournfully be resorted to where there is no other viable alternative. In the present time, though, the Church "teaches", if that's the word, that there are no circumstances in the modern world, where CP can be licit --- there are other ways. It's not really "discipline", but neither has the "doctrine" changed (I have to doubt to what extent the latter fact is comprehended), nor would I even call that a "development of doctrine". Might we disagree that the Church assesses the situation correctly, and that CP should again be thought of as licit? I would say, yes, in theory, but that means I am putting my own judgment --- one little man --- above that of the teaching Church, "they've all got it wrong, and I alone know what is best". I am not willing to put on shoes that big. If a massive comet hit the earth, and the survivors were sent back to the Stone Age, and if there were roving bands of brigands who couldn't be arrested, tried, convicted, and placed into secure penitentiaries, could there then be executions, to keep them from breaking out of makeshift prisons and wreaking yet more havoc, IOW, a "Mad Max" scenario? I think so. The conditions of society would have changed so dramatically, and so suddenly, that the conditions to which the CCC and others refer, would no longer exist, and we would be back in a world where life is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short". I am just "throwing that out there" as a thought exercise --- seen this way, yes, the current "teaching of the Church" is that CP is never licit, but if those circumstances changed, I have to think the Church would reluctantly "change her teaching", not changing falsehood to truth, but acknowledging that we had lost the social underpinning upon which the previous "teaching" depended.
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alng
Full Member
Posts: 240
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Post by alng on Sept 4, 2021 5:21:32 GMT
yes, the current "teaching of the Church" is that CP is never licit, Similarly with torture. Except that CCC 2297 says "Torture which uses physical or moral violence to extract confessions, punish the guilty, frighten opponents, or satisfy hatred is contrary to respect for the person and for human dignity." This is a change from the inquisition times, no?
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Post by homeschooldad on Sept 4, 2021 14:17:54 GMT
yes, the current "teaching of the Church" is that CP is never licit, Similarly with torture. Except that CCC 2297 says "Torture which uses physical or moral violence to extract confessions, punish the guilty, frighten opponents, or satisfy hatred is contrary to respect for the person and for human dignity." This is a change from the inquisition times, no? It is indeed. Did the Church ever teach that this was acceptable? Going one step beyond that, was it a moral doctrine, that torture can be used? Inquiring minds want to know.
I dislike torture as much as the next guy, but I have to wonder, do such things as confinement, isolation, and constant "good cop, bad cop" nagging and hectoring, count as torture? Sleep deprivation, maybe, interrupt the sleeping suspect every hour until they crack?
I have always wondered why it's not seen as acceptable, either in Catholicism or in the larger secular society, to administer a dose of "truth serum", to get the truth out of a recalcitrant prisoner or suspect. I have to think, for instance, that it would bring a lot of comfort and closure to families of kidnapped or murdered loved ones, for the suspect to have to offer up the truth when asked "okay, what did you do, and where is the body?". Yes, I know, Fifth Amendment and all of that, but the United States Constitution is not Holy Writ. Its protections are not all absolutely true moral doctrines. I know I once had sodium pentothal for a dental procedure, and I can assure you, when you're under the influence of something like that, you will talk like a magpie. My situation was kind of comical, I talked all kinds of mess, but then again, I hadn't buried a body anywhere.
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Post by tth1 on Sept 4, 2021 15:46:25 GMT
The example you mention is something with which you can definitely disagree. Your disagreement may not get you very far but you're not under any obligation to accept that diocesan boundary changes are something to which you could not object. Obedience is required but not blind obedience.
I think a good starting point for answering the question, 'What constitutes the teaching of the Church?', would be to go to the Cathechism of the Catholic Church. From there, you could follow up the footnotes of the sources given. Good luck with that! Now, I must stress I wasn't even attempting sacrcasm with my previous sentence. You will need good luck because you've got a lot of work to do. We have 2000+ years of the Church's teaching and I wouldn't like to hazard a guess at the number of church documents.
That volume of documents is the very foundation of your problem. You have to delve into each one to determine how binding it is and to discover if a later document changed its provisions. The fact you were not raised as a Catholic doesn't make your task more challenging. I'm what you may call a 'cradle Catholic' but I don't think I could tell you what constitutes the entire teaching of the Church, despite the fact I will often say, 'the Church teaches ...'.
From your posts I would say you are far more clued up about the Catholic Faith than a great many Catholics. Therefore, I would not see yourself a coming late to the party. I believe the way to deal with this is to take an issue in which one may be interested and do some research on it. That is the way to find whether something is a dogma to which you are bound to submit or whether it is a matter about which you have the freedom to come to your own opinion.
Even then it is not always clear cut. For example, we are bound as per the apostolic constitution of Pope the Venerable Puis XII Munificentissimus Deus to believe that Our Blessed Lady was assumed into heaven, body and soul. However, we are left free to believe that she fell asleep and was assumed into heaven or that she suffered death and was assumed into heaven. Consequently, I would feel bound to say what constitutes the teaching of the Church is not an easy question to answer. I would hope that as Catholics we have enough knowledge for our salvation and that having an in-depth knowledge of all the Church's teachings isn't necessary for that end.
Very well put. Your clear manner of writing is not unlike that of --- and I know you don't like the guy --- Nevile Martin (N.M.) Gwynne, who, while some of his opinions on religion are crazier than a latrine rat (be glad I said "latrine"!), I will give the man this much, he writes and speaks very clearly. I am looking forward to examining my Kindle copy of his grammar text, to determine to what extent I want to use it in my son's English composition class. I tend to doubt his book is used to any great extent in American schools.
But anyway. I think this whole brou-ha-ha comes from a conflation, and I am one (but not the only one) guilty of the conflation, of "teaching" with "doctrine". (I shall leave dogma out of this, I don't think anyone maintains that it is a dogma, for instance, that while we once participated silently and extemporaneously within ourselves at Holy Mass, now we are to work towards a more active participation. I thought of this last Sunday, when our traditional Latin Low Mass began to morph into the "Dialogue Mass" that Pope Pius XII envisioned. Simple Latin such as that, is not out of the reach of any halfway-intelligent, halfway-educated Catholic.) We know what "doctrine" is --- it is what we must believe, that falls short of dogma. Ott's Fundamentals of Catholic Doctrine, which along with the Woywod/Smith 1917 CIC commentary and the inestimable Father Jone, I have brought over to our new house to place in my library, does a masterful job of showing the levels of belief we much place in this or that. As you well point out, it is a dogma that Our Lady was assumed into heaven body and soul. Whether she suffered physical death before she was assumed, we may believe as we see fit. I do believe that she was placed in the tomb, which was later found empty, but I have always imagined --- and there may be no basis for this --- that the apostles saw her being assumed, just as they saw Jesus ascend. Do we really know? I don't know. Does it matter? Not enough for Almighty God to supply us with those particulars. The fact of the Assumption is a dogma, the "nuts and bolts" of it aren't even doctrine.
In reaching for a way to distinguish between teaching and doctrine, I have to imagine that doctrine does not change, but it develops as we understand it more deeply. We see nuances that previous eras perhaps did not see. Assuming that "teaching" is something less than doctrine, or rather, that "teaching" is not necessarily synonymous with doctrine, then, yes, that might change, if we define "teaching" as "the way that a particular doctrine is explained, and the Church shows us how it applies to our times". Capital punishment comes immediately to mind. The Church always clearly taught that CP could reluctantly and mournfully be resorted to where there is no other viable alternative. In the present time, though, the Church "teaches", if that's the word, that there are no circumstances in the modern world, where CP can be licit --- there are other ways. It's not really "discipline", but neither has the "doctrine" changed (I have to doubt to what extent the latter fact is comprehended), nor would I even call that a "development of doctrine". Might we disagree that the Church assesses the situation correctly, and that CP should again be thought of as licit? I would say, yes, in theory, but that means I am putting my own judgment --- one little man --- above that of the teaching Church, "they've all got it wrong, and I alone know what is best". I am not willing to put on shoes that big. If a massive comet hit the earth, and the survivors were sent back to the Stone Age, and if there were roving bands of brigands who couldn't be arrested, tried, convicted, and placed into secure penitentiaries, could there then be executions, to keep them from breaking out of makeshift prisons and wreaking yet more havoc, IOW, a "Mad Max" scenario? I think so. The conditions of society would have changed so dramatically, and so suddenly, that the conditions to which the CCC and others refer, would no longer exist, and we would be back in a world where life is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short". I am just "throwing that out there" as a thought exercise --- seen this way, yes, the current "teaching of the Church" is that CP is never licit, but if those circumstances changed, I have to think the Church would reluctantly "change her teaching", not changing falsehood to truth, but acknowledging that we had lost the social underpinning upon which the previous "teaching" depended.
Thank you for the compliment.
I neither like nor dislike Mr Gwynne. I don't know the gentleman. What I don't like is the way he promotes the many things he does promote.
If I may be so bold I would like to caution you over his Grammar before you employ it in your son's education. First, Mr Gwynne is very, very prescriptive in his Grammar; whereas, most linguists would argue grammar should be descriptive. I believe it should fall somewhere in between. Of course, grammar should reflect how people use a language; however, some prescription is necessary because without rules how could you and I communicate with each other unless we are following similar rules. I believe Mr Gwynne is far too prescriptive. Languages are alive and constantly changing.
Secondly, if you have your son read Mr Gwynne's Grammar please tell him it is only one opinion. Let him read others and learn there is diversity of opinion. It would also faciliate his learning if he were to formulate an opinion of his own.
I hope I am not out of line saying this but I am forming the opinion you are a little old school (if that idiom makes sense to Americans). I am old school to some degree such as liking good manners and politeness, consideration for others, etc. I hope you are giving your son some exposure to newer things, which are not all bad.
If I'm teaching my grandmother to suck eggs please forgive me.
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alng
Full Member
Posts: 240
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Post by alng on Sept 4, 2021 20:55:33 GMT
Did the Church ever teach that this was acceptable? Pope Innocent IV issued the papal bull Ad Extirpanda on Wednesday May 15, 1252. It authorized the use of torture (under certain conditions) by the inquisition.
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