Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!paul.rutgers.edu!christian From: mangoe@mimsy.umd.edu (Charley Wingate) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: One of the best kept secrets in the Catholic Church Message-ID: Date: 19 Oct 90 08:23:16 GMT Sender: hedrick@paul.rutgers.edu Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742 Lines: 36 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu Will Bralick writes: >According to Roman Catholic doctrine, the Church has teaching authority >in the areas of morals and doctrine. Teaching authority is not the issue so much as is the quality of what is taught. >To reject the authority of the Roman Catholic Church is to reject the Roman >Catholic Church, and this is (I think) the essence of Protestantism >(including, for example, Anglicans). Your claims here are overstated. The essence of protestantism is denial of Rome's *unique* claims. Anglicans do not "reject the RC church"; what we do reject is its claim to unique authority and to infallibility. >For a Roman Catholic to reject the authority of the Roman Catholic Church >(e.g. regarding the use of artifical means of birth control) is at least >intellectually dishonest and potentially sacrilegious. But the very passages you quote disagree with this. The official teaching is as has been stated: if you are instructed and are still sure of your disagreement, you are bound to follow your conscience and disobey the church. Whether this is sacrilegious or dishonest is irrelevant. Indeed, the teaching would seem to imply that intellectual sincerity is an important component here. Perhaps you might want to consider the judgement you are tempting in what appears to me to be a misrepresentation of church teaching. -- C. Wingate + "Our God to whom we turn when weary with illusion, + Whose stars serenely burn above this world's confusion, mangoe@cs.umd.edu + Thine is the mighty plan, the steadfast order sure mimsy!mangoe + In which the world began, endures, and shall endure."