- Fast forward to the Second Vatican Council and the years afterward. You have made some comments to me about your disagreements with the Novus Ordo and its validity. But you have established as thoroughgoing justification in all of our recent debates they very kind of authority that makes it impossible for you to have criticized contemporary developments in Church Tradition the way that you have.
I don't think I've ever questioned its validity. I have stated that I take issue with its abuses, that I recognize the disastrous consequences of the liturgical reforms (a question Pickstock deals with in her After Writing, which just arrived in my mail box today, very excited), which is a different matter. I don't have the authority to declare about its validity; in fact, by virtue of submitting to the Church, which declares it valid magisterially, I cannot disagree without separating myself from the Church.
However, this is where we Catholics have to be clear in explaining to non-Catholics how the Magisterium works. Not everything the Pope, or bishops, say off the cuff is Magisterial / Doctrinal. And so the Pope can say or do many things, not part of his magisterial office, to which I owe very little if any assent at all. Even his encyclicals, not being extraordinary Magisterium, can be questioned in good faith, especially if they fail to exercise even the ordinary Magisterium by reflecting what other popes or councils have taught. Pope Francis has written about ecological sin, which I'm just not obliged to take all that seriously, since it is totally novel and occurs nowhere else in Church Tradition or Magisterium. If the next five popes all start saying the same thing, clarifying the doctrine as they go, then I will owe a certain assent, understanding the teaching in the most charitable way I can (e.g. "while not a sin in the sense of separating us from God, it serves as a category even less than venial sin, but through the disregard of which may lead to venial sins of other sorts, just as venial sins lead to mortal sins; and thus, indeed, while Scripture says man is lord of creation, this of course comes with a certain responsibility" etc. yadda yadda). Of course, I don't expect the issue of ecological sin to be picked up by future popes, but I hope you get the picture.
And so, if a bishop says "You must believe the Novus Ordo is just as good as the Latin Mass", I'll respond, "No I don't". And if my bishop writes a formal letter saying "You , , ). These verses affirm that there exists an extra-Scriptural Apostolic knowledge, and that this knowledge exceeds what can be derived from the Scriptures reliably by laymen.
Secondly, I hope the arguments I have made about the intrinsic connection between Scripture and Tradition better establish how this continued Apostolic tradition and ministry would, to this day, contain insights not themselves contained in Scripture (at least explicitly enough to be readily drawn from it). I could again point to what I've said about the Eucharist, or any of the writings of St. Thomas - his Scripture exegesis constitutes extra-Scriptural knowledge that draws primarily upon the writings of authoritative figures earlier in the Church's Tradition.
- Concerning "So it may not have suited the Apostles desire to reveal to the masses the full extent of Peter's role, at the time those epistles were being written" (2) A papal succession beginning with Supreme Peter in Rome had been going on IN ROME for a decade or longer and Paul didn't want to REVEAL IT to the Romans? What?
What St. Paul wanted may (or may not) differ from what he and the rest of the Apostles judged as prudent for the time.
I will give an example (one that I cited to you, or maybe ARM, many months ago, although in the context of an entirely different discussion). In , as the creation of all things is being described, no mention is made whatsoever of the angels. St. Augustine's explanation of this fact is twofold. First, he points out that "the light" refers probably, at least on one level of interpretation, to the angels. But secondly and more importantly, Augustine argues that, because the Hebrews were a people so prone to idolatry, that revealing to them the existence of the angels in this way and at the time this was written would only have served as a cause for idolatry. Now, if we situate ourselves in that period of history where the Hebrews had access to the Book of Genesis, and other books, but not so late in history that they had access to later books that do speak more explicitly of the angels - would we in that time be justified in questioning the existence of the angels? Well yes, actually, we would. But would that change the simple fact that, at that time, angels did in fact exist? It would not.
Now you could argue that, in my example, it was not the case that no additional Scriptural revelation would be made after Genesis - much more would be revealed, and this would include more explicit writings on the angels. Whereas, in the case to which I am comparing this example, namely, the fact that no explicit reference is made to the papacy in the New Testament, the deposit of faith was complete and nothing new would be revealed in this way. This is a fair point, but, unlike under the Old Testament, in the New Testament Christ gave us a Church (and this is what Christ succeeded in establishing for the faithful, after all; a Church, including its hierarchical structure; the New Testament Bible came only after Christ's ascension). And so my point is that, just as it was not fitting to reveal to the early Hebrews the existence of angels, so too it may not have been fitting to reveal to the early Church the true and full nature of the papacy, but this true and full nature could still be later on revealed / defined by the Church, since Christ gave the Church this very authority to clarify and expound upon (but not change) doctrine throughout time. Maybe a defining of the papacy to the kinds of people to whom the Apostles were writing epistles would only have served to raise eyebrows, or generate the kinds of concerns we hear from Protestants who don't understand the papacy. If there was a risk, at that time, of the doctrine of the papacy being misunderstood, why reveal it? It wasn't even really that needed at that time. But by the time all these universal councils were being called, and disputes were arising, and much larger and more complex heresies were arising, suddenly the true need for the office that Christ did in fact establish was required, and thus we begin to see more Church teachings on this point. The existence of the angels was revealed at the proper time.
I've said what I wanted to say. I think a lot of the arguments I've made here are strong, but of course, I'm biased. I look forward to your thoughts; I'm sure there will still be disagreements, or need for clarification, but that's what dialogue (Logos) is for, after all.
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