Karl Keating's E-Letter of March 7, 2006

itsjustdave1988 · #4 Mar 16, '06, 5:02 pm

Quote:

I challenge you to show me where in Catholic teaching anywhere this has been the definition of the Church's Magisterium. The Church's Magisterium is Her teaching office. It consists of dogmas of Faith and morals, nothing else, for that is what the Church can declare infallibly.

Incorrect. The magisterium is a Divinely ordained teaching authority vested in living people, and their teaching authority is Divinely guided, whether it is solemn or merely ordinary magisterial authority.

This is precisely why Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman, in agreement with St. Robert Bellarmine wrote:

Quote:

"I say with Cardinal Bellarmine whether the Pope be infallible or not in any pronouncement, anyhow he is to be obeyed. No good can come from disobedience...when he speaks formally and authoritatively he speaks as our Lord would have him speak...therefore the Pope's word stands, and a blessing goes with obedience to it, and no blessing with disobedience" (John Henry Newman, "'The Oratory, Novr. 10, 1867", The Genius of Newman (1914), by Wilfrid Ward, Vol II, Ch. 26)

Pope St. Pius X explained in his Catechism that the Church consists of the Teaching Church and the Taught Church. "The Teaching Church is composed of all the Bishops, with the Roman Pontiff at their head, be they dispersed throughout the world or assembled together in Council." (Catechism of St. Pius X). That's the living magisterium. St. Pius X asserted, "The teaching power in the Church is possessed by the Pope and the Bishops, and, dependent on them, by the other sacred ministers....without doubt we are obliged under pain of eternal damnation to hear the Teaching Church; for Jesus Christ has said to the Pastors of His Church, in the persons of the Apostles: "He who hears you, hears Me, and he who despises you, despises Me."" (ibid.)

to be continued...