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Pope Francis has died

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Re: Pope Francis has died

#651

Post by skissane »

jcmfernandes wrote: post #421
yusina wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The pope, as all humans, is fallible. It's only when speaks ex cathedra that his teachings are considered infallible. These are very rare (Francis never did it). Now, I agree with you. As a Catholic, I'll support any pope, i.e., I want them to do good. That doesn't mean I have to be fond of him. I really liked Francis, though. I'm afraid I'll deeply miss his wisdom.

> It's only when speaks ex cathedra that his teachings are considered infallible.

That's the infallibility of the extraordinary magisterium. The Catholic Church also teaches that the Pope possesses the infallibility of the "ordinary and universal magisterium", which makes less than ex cathedra statements infallible, when he teaches something and (almost) all Catholic bishops agree with the teaching.

But, I think many Catholic theologians would say, that whatever infallible teaching Francis gave by the ordinary magisterium, was largely just a repetition of what his recent predecessors had taught, without any significant doctrinal developments. (Probably the biggest point of contention is the status of his catechism change on the death penalty, but I think even the majority of theologians who support the change wouldn't argue it was infallible.)

An example of a teaching which many Catholic theologians say is infallible ordinary magisterium is John Paul II's 1994 declaration that women can't be ordained as priests (Ordinatio Sacerdotalis) [0] – which wasn't teaching anything new per se, but arguably the first time it had been stated with such explicitness and solemnity

An interesting meta issue, is that theologians debate which papal statements are infallible, but the judgement of a statement as infallible isn't itself infallible. So, while Cardinal Ratzinger (future Pope Benedict XVI) issued an official declaration in 1995 stating it was infallible ordinary and universal magisterium, [1] that declaration itself isn't infallible – and some (progressive-leaning) Catholic theologians have argued the declaration is mistaken. [2] Conversely, a minority of (conservative-leaning) Catholic theologians go beyond Ratzinger and argue Ordinatio Sacerdotalis is infallible extraordinary magisterium (ex cathedra). [3] Some even argue the Pope can teach infallibly and then erroneously claim he wasn't doing so. [4]

[0] https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_letters...

[1] https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/docu...

[2] https://womenpriests.org/teaching-authority/mag-con2-theolog...

[3] https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?rec...

[4] https://canonlawblog.wordpress.com/2015/11/24/i-agree-with-d...

Re: Pope Francis has died

#652

Post by lotsofpulp »

lo_zamoyski wrote: post #645
lupusreal wrote: post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sincerely hope that at some point we can develop artificial wombs and use them to render this whole debate moot. Instead of abortion we can take the fetus out, put it into an artificial womb then let it be raised as an orphan or whatever. It should make both sides happy, IF they are both being honest about their motives.

What is the problem this is solving? The vast majority of abortions are performed because the pregnancy was unwanted, not because the mother’s life was in danger or what have you. But why was the pregnancy unwanted in the first place? This is the question you must begin with, because the answer cuts to the psychological heart of the matter. The reason is that we have redefined sexual intercourse in terms of sexual pl…

> This opened the door to the sexual revolution and the sexual exploitation of others, especially women.

I would love to believe the sexual exploitation of women started in the 1930s.

But for thousands of years, women didn’t have 10+ pregnancies with sky high maternal and infant mortality and morbidity rates because they wanted to.

The broader context of a woman being physically unable to protect herself and needing the protection of a man and the man’s allies played a big role.

Re: Pope Francis has died

#653

Post by lambdaphagy »

Loughla wrote: post #649
lambdaphagy wrote: post #628

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I share some of your frustrations, and yet there is also a spiritual peril in failing to extend charity in the interpretation of these remarks, let alone in claiming to know that anyone who interpreted them differently is being willfully obtuse. The greater the errors of the Franciscan papacy in your view, the more you owe the man your prayers.

Not to turn this political, but what are your views on trump?

That question very much does turn this political, and is not in the spirit of the thread. What is it that you'd really like to know?

Re: Pope Francis has died

#654

Post by skissane »

dctoedt wrote: post #382
heresie-dabord wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He riled many of his flock and hierarchy when he said that "even atheists can be redeemed". [0] I will always applaud a person who retreats — even just a little — from dogma and fanaticism. https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2013/05/29/187009384/...

> He riled many of his flock and hierarchy when he said that "even atheists can be redeemed". It's quite a bit above our pay grade to proclaim categorically who supposedly cannot be redeemed; it verges on blasphemy. Cf. Job. 38: 1. Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. He said: 2 “Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? 3 "Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall a…

> It's quite a bit above our pay grade to proclaim categorically who supposedly cannot be redeemed; it verges on blasphemy.

And the idea that atheists can be saved isn't novel in Catholic teaching – it is implicit in the Holy Office's 1949 condemnation of Feeneyism, [0] in which it declared that a person who doesn't believe in Catholicism due to "invincible ignorance" can be saved by an "implicit desire" for God. Although it didn't include the case of atheists, it didn't exclude them either – suggesting that an atheist who doesn't believe in God in their head (due to some intellectual issue) but nonetheless believes in God in their heart can be saved.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feeneyism

Re: Pope Francis has died

#655

Post by lotsofpulp »

lupusreal wrote: post #634
lotsofpulp wrote: post #601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Both sides present the most agreeable arguments for their position, while publicly omitting other motives, while simultaneously highlighting the least agreeable motives of their opponents and omitting or flat out denying their more agreeable motives. I don't mind being candid (not least because I am not an important person and this is not an important discussion, the stakes are low so there is no pressing need to lie…

> Pro-choice advocates will almost never admit to believing anything like this,

Because it’s insane. The reasoning explained above to preserve a woman’s rights is sufficient without delving into weird stuff like eugenics.

Re: Pope Francis has died

#656

Post by parsimo2010 »

dhosek wrote: post #519
parsimo2010 wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are correct that most people do not use the term any more. But the Pope isn't like most people. It's an informal requirement that the Pope be able to speak Latin and Italian is commonly used in the Vatican (being surrounded by Italy probably has something to do with that). Even though Francis was not as fluent as his predecessors in Latin and Italian, he certainly understood it better than most and his speechwrit…

As the child of Italian immigrants to Argentina, Francis was quite fluent in Italian. He’s old enough that his formation would have included significant Latin instruction as well. I would guess that Benedict’s Latin skills were superior, but Francis was reasonably conversant in the language from what I understand. The thing that I found interesting was during trump’s visit to the Vatican, he asked trump’s Slovenian w…

He certainly spoke Italian and Latin, but he did not prefer it. It was kind of a sticking point early on when he would slip into Spanish when talking. It irritated some of the old guard who thought that he should stop speaking Spanish because he became Pope.

Re: Pope Francis has died

#657

Post by bmicraft »

lo_zamoyski wrote: post #621
timeon wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> * As Pope Francis observes, “the very use of the word ‘intelligence’” in connection with AI “can prove misleading” Yes, LLMs are more about knowledge than intelligence. AK rather than AI.

Not even knowledge. Knowledge requires intentionality and belief as well as justification. LLMs don’t have any of these. We ought to avoid anthropomorphizing LLMs. It is muddle headed.

I'd add that knowledge usually implies a claim to truth, while llms can only offer information with varying likelihood of being true.

Re: Pope Francis has died

#658

Post by dkarl »

lambdaphagy wrote: post #608
MisterBastahrd wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Christ welcomed the poor, prostitutes, lepers, and thieves into his fold. Many Catholics are like a lot of Evangelicals in that they're Christian in name only. Their political beliefs ARE their faith and their religious beliefs are just a convenient shield for their politics. They like to associate with the man, but have taken zero time to understand him. The only time Jesus was openly hostile in the entirety of the…

I think what many Catholics found frustrating about Pope Francis was his tendency to make apparently off-the-cuff remarks which, while never quite explicitly straying outside the bounds of faith and morals defined by the Magisterium, often seemed to strongly imply the opposite. This was especially true for audiences that did not already know the Catechism through and through, which even most Catholics do not. In that…

> while never quite explicitly straying outside the bounds of faith and morals defined by the Magisterium, often seemed to strongly imply the opposite. This was especially true for audiences that did not already know the Catechism through and through, which even most Catholics do not. In that sense, Pope Francis's remarks sometimes seemed to possess a kind of not-committing-heresy-can't-get-mad character

He sounds like a good teacher, reminding people how much the faith encompasses outside of what they feel that it encompasses. People need prompting and guidance on the parts that feel uncomfortable, not the parts that dovetail neatly with their intuitions. If their reaction to his teaching is to trust their knee-jerk discomfort over the pope, despite not being able to formulate any concrete objections, just the feeling that it must be wrong in a sneaky way they can't put their finger on, then it seems like they have decided to let their own feelings be the highest authority.

Re: Pope Francis has died

#659

Post by tptacek »

michaelsbradley wrote: post #650
tptacek wrote: post #646

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd rather not get snark for putting my Christmas tree up the first week of December. My nearest TLM is at an SSPX chapel.

Well, SSPX is a thing. I’ve never been to one of their chapels myself, though there is one here in St. Louis and some folks who now attend the local oratory run by the ICKSP used to be regulars there. As a group, they seem to have a bit of a chip on their shoulder (irregular communion and all that), which has not been my experience with the ICKSP and FSSP, who are in full communion with the local bishops and Rome, ev…

Regarding obscurantism, I don't know how one gets around that observation. It's striking to me that even many TLM celebrants aren't fluent in the language. You know why you're going and you seem to have a good reason for it, and I respect that. I think the rap on the TLM is that, in addition to reasonable people like yourself, it also attracts a lot of whackjobs, some of whom have unfortunately included priests.

I'd actually love to attend a TLM! But I'm not setting foot into a chapel run by an order whose officiants accused the Jews of orchestrating 9/11. (That's SSPX, of course, not FSSP.)

I hope my "it's complicated" gives me some cover from the idea that I'm a folk-group C&E Catholic just looking to dunk on some tradcaths. I mean, I may be that too; it's complicated.

Re: Pope Francis has died

#660

Post by skissane »

charonn0 wrote: post #529
arkey wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People often think of hell as an active punishment form God, but for us humans it's not. Hell, whatever it is, is where people end up when they'd rather be there than be with Christ. God will never force you to love Him and accept Him. He gives you the choice, the rest is up to you.

Unless you live(d) in a time and place where Christian teachings were unavailable to you. Which accounts for a large majority of the humans who have ever lived.

Which is a problem for some Protestants who insist that only Christians can be saved... but not necessarily for Catholics. The belief that only Christians can be saved has actually been condemned by the Catholic Church as a heresy (Feeneyism, after the 20th century American priest, Leonard Feeney, who most famously espoused it)

According to Catholic teaching, non-Christians can be saved if (1) they are "invincibly ignorant" (i.e. their ignorance of the truth of Christianity is not their own fault), and (2) they have an "implicit desire" for the Christian God

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