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From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Professor Wagstaff)
Newsgroups: net.religion.christian
Subject: Re: RR's ignorance of Catholic teaching
Message-ID: <583@pyuxd.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 25-Feb-85 08:45:43 EST
Article-I.D.: pyuxd.583
Posted: Mon Feb 25 08:45:43 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 27-Feb-85 08:31:54 EST
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Organization: Huxley College
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>>Catholicism has come right out and
>>claimed infallibility for their clerical leadership (though that's changing),
>>but Protestant sects do much the same. [ROSEN]

> This kind of co-opting of Catholic teaching is about as meaningful (and no
> less annoying) than those who take, say, Einstein's theory of Relativity and
> start using it as a metaphor for society saying "everything is relative." 
> These are statements based on ignorance mixed with a good deal of arrogance.
> Rosen, admit it.  You know nothing about what Catholicism has claimed.
> If you had, you would know that:
> 	Only the Pope can make an "infallible" statment, and only when
> 	explicity speaking "ex cathedra" on issues of faith and morals,
> 	and only when the assent of the Church at large is given.
> 	There have been very few "ex cathedra" pronouncements since the
> 	doctrine emerged out of tradition in the 19th century;
> 	only two, I believe.
> 	Priests and bishops cannot make "infallible" pronouncements. [S. DYER]

1) It wasn't co-opting:  you confirmed what I claimed yourself, above.
2) I was referring to the perceived infallibility of clerical leadership, not
just proclaimed infallibility.  As you stated, only the pope can make an
infallible statement in the Catholic world, but the point was that the word
of clerical leadership HAS BEEN taken as theological absolute correctness.
As I also said "THOUGH THAT'S CHANGING".  Please read what I write before
seeing a few keywords and pouncing like a hungry animal.

And as for my old friend Martillo:

> Steve   Dyer   should  not  be  surprised  about  Rosen's  ignorance  of
> Catholicism.   Rosen  knows  nothing  about  Judaism  and   less   about
> everything else.  [Yehoyaqim Martillo]

I forgot that only you are the qualified authority on such things.  I would
have deferred to you, but I didn't know you were around.  If you have no
reasoned criticism of my arguments to offer (as has always seemed to be the
case when we crossed paths in n.r.j), why not just keep silent?  The fact
that you just don't like what I have to say doesn't necessarily make it
wrong, except in your all-knowing eyes.  [FLAME OFF - please take further
						didacticism to private mail]
-- 
"Discipline is never an end in itself, only a means to an end."
						Rich Rosen   pyuxd!rlr