But Alt! The Church says the Ordinary Magisterium may have defects!

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • March 21, 2017 • Apologetics

 

“But Alt! The very same text you cite to claim that Catholics must sub­mit to the Mag­is­teri­um on all points also says that some teach­ings may have ‘defi­ciences.’ The CDF says some things might be reformable. Do you real­ly mean to say Catholics must not object to such things?” Yes. This is not the green light for dis­sent some claim it to be. Let’s take a look at the actu­al extent of these words. The dis­cus­sion begins at §24, where Don­um Ver­i­tatis reads: “[T]he Mag­is­teri­um can inter­vene in ques­tions under dis­cus­sion which involve … con­jec­tur­al ele­ments.”

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Luke 10:16: Whoever rejects the pope rejects God.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • March 20, 2017 • Apologetics; Exegesis

 

Edward Pentin tweets that the threat­ened “cor­rec­tion” of Pope Fran­cis over Amor­is Laeti­tia is still a threat. “Informed sources” tell him this. Oh goody. Car­di­nal Burke was the first to threat­en this queer thing, and Lyser­gic Acid News could bare­ly wait. How very incon­ve­nient, then, when Car­di­nal Müller, the pre­fect of the CDF, reject­ed any such thought as Burke’s. It “harms the Church,” said Muller, to speak thus. Well, yeah, and there’s no such thing in Catholic tra­di­tion as a “for­mal cor­rec­tion” of a pope. The pope is the Church’s supreme teacher.

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Yes, there is such a thing as social sin in Catholic teaching. Here’s what it means. (And what it does not.)

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • March 17, 2017 • Church Social Teaching

 

Last month, Michael Hich­born made the lunatic claim that Judas Iscar­i­ot is “the patron saint of social jus­tice.” In truth, it would be St. Mar­tin de Por­res. But in addi­tion to the weird­ness about Judas, Mr. Hich­born also denied the exis­tence of social sin. In the awk­ward and inept frag­ments that are his hall­mark, he wrote: “True social jus­tice? Rejects the idea of social sin. There is no such thing.” Real­ly? No such thing, huh? How very odd, then, to find that Pope St. John Paul II defines social sin at some length in Rec­on­cil­i­a­tio et Paen­i­ten­tia. Has Mr. Hich­born not read it?

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Theft from the poor: Quotations from the saints on social justice.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • March 16, 2017 • Church Social Teaching

 

There are plen­ty of them, includ­ing from St. Thomas Aquinas, who said that the rich owe their super­flu­ous goods to the poor by nat­ur­al law. And then there is this one from Pope St. Gre­go­ry the Great’s Pas­toral Rule: “For, when we admin­is­ter nec­es­saries of any kind to the indi­gent, we do not bestow our own, but ren­der them what is theirs; we rather pay a debt of jus­tice than accom­plish works of mer­cy.” “The earth belongs to every­one,” says St. Ambrose, “not to the rich.” St. John Chrysos­tom says our wealth belongs to the rich. Tra­di­tion is fas­ci­nat­ing, don’t you think?

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Does this Ratzinger quote refute Catholic social justice advocates?

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • March 13, 2017 • Church Social Teaching

 

“But Alt! Is social jus­tice real­ly a duty of the State? Come now. Doesn’t Ratzinger say that this is for the pri­vate sec­tor and per­son­al action instead? It’s not a polit­i­cal thing, you know. He says this in Chris­tian­i­ty and the Cri­sis of Cul­tures. Well. I wish that when peo­ple come across quota­tions like this one, they would try to put them in con­text. Is that very much to ask? Chris­tian­i­ty and the Cri­sis of Cul­tures is not a cri­tique of social jus­tice or the wel­fare state or left­ist blog­gers. Instead it is a cri­tique of Enlight­en­ment ratio­nal­ism. I know you will have to, gasp, think.

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What does it mean to give “religious assent”?

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • March 7, 2017 • Apologetics

 

Glad you asked. The Church devel­ops the con­cept in Don­um Ver­i­tatis, as well as the Doc­tri­nal Com­men­tary on the Pro­fes­sion of Faith. The Pro­fes­sion refers to it as a “reli­gious sub­mis­sion of will and intel­lect”; which implies that Catholics must obey (will) as well as believe (intel­lect) the teach­ings of the authen­tic Mag­is­teri­um. They must do so whether those teach­ings are “infal­li­ble” or not. This means that a Catholic must think with the mind of the Church; he must con­form his intel­lect with what the Church pro­pos­es as true.

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Oh, that story about Pope Francis advocating population control …

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • March 7, 2017 • False Report; Pope Francis

 

It was based on a mis­quo­ta­tion of Vat­i­can pan­elist Peter Raven. See, I told you so. The pope was advo­cat­ing “sus­tain­abil­i­ty,” but “respon­si­ble par­ent­hood,” which the last three popes—Benedict XVI, John Paul II, and Paul VI—also advo­cat­ed. Many were out­raged when the pope said that Catholics should not feel they must “breed like rab­bits” in order to be good Catholics. Some mis­quot­ed the pope as hav­ing com­mand­ed: “Don’t breed like rab­bits.” You need to be care­ful about these mis­quo­ta­tions. The pope tells us what the Church has already told us.

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Attn. Fox News, et al.: The pope has condemned population control.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • March 5, 2017 • False Report; Pope Francis

 

Fox News, the UK Inde­pen­dent, and LSD News are all report­ing that the pope has praised pop­u­la­tion con­trol. This is fake news. And the rea­son I say so is because Pope Fran­cis is on record con­demn­ing pop­u­la­tion con­trol. He con­demns it in Lauda­to Si—have you read it? Even LSD News and the Nation­al Catholic Reg­is­ter picked up on that. He con­demned it in his inter­view on the flight back to Rome from Mani­la; maybe you recall that inter­view. Did you know he con­demns pop­u­la­tion con­trol in that inter­view three times? I have all the quotes, dear read­er.

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We should retire this balderdash about papal infallibility …

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • March 4, 2017 • Apologetics; Papal Infallibility

 

And I mean the balder­dash that says you only have to lis­ten to the pope when he speaks infal­li­bly. It is not what the Cat­e­chism says; it is not what the Pro­fes­sion of Faith says, it is not what Lumen Gen­tium 25 says, and it is not what Canon Law 752 says: “Although not an assent of faith, a reli­gious sub­mis­sion of the intel­lect and will must be giv­en to a doc­trine which the Supreme Pon­tiff or the col­lege of bish­ops declares con­cern­ing faith or morals when they exer­cise the authen­tic mag­is­teri­um, even if they do not intend to pro­claim it by defin­i­tive act.”

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Yes, Christ ordained his apostles as priests.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • March 2, 2017 • Apologetics; Exegesis; priesthood

 

That this is author­i­ta­tive Catholic teach­ing we know from the Cat­e­chism, as well as from the Coun­cil of Trent. But we also know this by ref­er­ence to the Greek text of the New Tes­ta­ment, from the Didache, from J.N.D. Kel­ly, and a cross-ref­er­ence to Exo­dus 29:38 in the Greek Sep­tu­agint, in which the word used describ­ing the sac­ri­fice of a priest is the very same word that Christ uses in Luke 22:19 when he says “Do this in remem­brance of me.” He is telling them, “Sac­ri­fice this,” which means he is ordain­ing them; for only a priest can offer a sac­ri­fice.

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Simcha Fisher speaks the truth about Milo apologists.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • February 21, 2017 • Blind Guides & False Prophets; Church Scandals

 

This is not “com­pli­cat­ed.” Don’t insult us. Pedophil­ia can not be defend­ed. The seri­ous­ness of the priest abuse scan­dal can not be waved away. End stop. There is no nuance, there is no “very com­pli­cat­ed.” Milo may be a vic­tim of abuse. Milo may be wound­ed. We can and should have com­pas­sion on that, and no Catholic is per­mit­ted to judge him. But com­pas­sion does not mean that we can nuance what he said out of its sting. Nor can we claim, as Dr. Smith does, that Milo does not “pro­mote ped­erasty.” No. That is what he said. You can read the tran­script.

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Michael Hichborn, aka “The Lepanto Institute,” under attack by eeeeevil social justice warriors.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • February 16, 2017 • Blind Guides & False Prophets; Church Social Teaching; Exegesis

 

Michael Hich­born is still bunkered up some­where at Lep­an­to after I post­ed a vicious hit piece against him. He writes to us from that bunker to defend him­self against the “enraged” “social jus­tice left­ists mas­querad­ing as Catholics in our midst.” Said mas­quer­ade par­ty is in a “blind rage” over his wery men­tion of Judas! Now Lep­an­to is being per­se­cut­ed over a new meme sug­gest­ing that ugly and emp­ty church build­ings are a result of char­i­ty to the poor and that this is how “Judas got his wish.” Blind rage from SJWs ensued.

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Hichborn meme attempts to link social justice to Judas Iscariot.

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • February 14, 2017 • Blind Guides & False Prophets; Church Social Teaching; Exegesis

 

Hich­born miss­es the point. Judas did not put ser­vice to the poor above wor­ship of God. Judas does not want to give the mon­ey to the poor at all; he wants to keep it for him­self and pre­tend he gave it to the poor. Thiev­ery from the poor does not match any def­i­n­i­tion of social jus­tice that I know of. If Mr. Hich­born thinks it does, he needs to point us to who defines it in any such way. If some­one claims to advo­cate social jus­tice, but in real­i­ty diverts mon­ey meant for the poor to his own use, that is a betray­al of social jus­tice, not its essence.

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Trump senior adviser: His powers are “substantial” & “will not be questioned.”

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • February 13, 2017 • Politics

 

No one doubts that pres­i­dents have author­i­ty in nation­al secu­ri­ty mat­ters. But their pow­er is not, nev­er has been, and must nev­er be, unlim­it­ed and immune from ques­tion or check. That is not the way of the Unit­ed States. But now Stephen Miller, a senior advis­er to Pres­i­dent Trump comes along and utters words that—to my knowledge—have nev­er been dared spo­ken about a pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States before, unless Mr. Trump imag­ines that he is about to sus­pend habeas cor­pus. The sub­ject was the trav­el ban.

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But what if a pope did teach heresy ex cathedra?

BY: Henry Matthew Alt • February 3, 2017 • Apologetics

 

Dustin Lat­ti­more, a Protes­tant, asked the ques­tion on Face­book. Ear­li­er today, Dave Arm­strong also also blogged about it. Mr. Arm­strong, in deny­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of ex cathe­dra heresy, still hedges a bit. “I don’t think it is an “impos­si­ble coun­ter­fac­tu­al” or “log­i­cal­ly impos­si­ble” in all pos­si­ble or con­ceiv­able worlds.” Oh, real­ly? Now, as I see it, Lat­ti­more’s ques­tion is like ask­ing, “But what if God had made a round square?” There are no round squares. Round squares are log­i­cal­ly impos­si­ble. I don’t like to get into quan­tum apolo­get­ics.

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