Pope acknowledges atheists can be good people

[PeZook]

Economics tangent split to here and topic unlocked.

[PeZook]

So much for papal infallibility.

Would it kill (some) atheists to learn about the religion they're criticising? Papal infallibility only applies to ex cathedra statements, the number of which are very small indeed.

I actually find it way more hilarious in this way because it results in Catholic officials endlessly wondering which Papal statement was made ex cathedra and which wasn't, especially if the statement was controversial.

Someone on the Internet made a meme where Sheldon and whatshisname from Big Bang Theory are arguing about Starfleet Order 104 and whether or not it applies to them, which I think illustrates this perfectly

[Siege]

I actually find it way more hilarious in this way because it results in Catholic officials endlessly wondering which Papal statement was made ex cathedra and which wasn't, especially if the statement was controversial.

That's astonishingly daft of them then, considering that for Papal infallibility to apply a Papal missive needs to either be accepted by Catholics ubique, semper et ab omnibus (everywhere, always and by everyone) as well as be built on decades or centuries of previous Papal bulls, encyclicals, apostolic constitutions, etc. as part of the ordinary magisterium (so it's essentially 'holy precedent', like the Assumption of Mary)... Or it has to be the product of the extraordinary magisterium i.e. an ecumenical council approved by the Pope. Like the Council of Constance. Or Second Vatican. In which case you're probably not a Catholic if you didn't know one of those was going on, because they tend to be big news. And also roughly once a century occurences.

So yeah, I don't know who these wondering Catholic officials are, but chances are they're massive idiots and they don't know what the fuck they're talking about.

[PeZook]

It may be daft, but I have personally been preached at concerning contraception, which was supposedly a stance supported by the Pope ex cathedra according to the priest doing the preaching, but not everyone. It was a pretty big and hilarious controversy in the national media a while back, with some bishops stuttering and dodging the question in national media while others were quite categorical.

[Siege]

Well, then those people are clearly morons who don't know how to count their blessings. If there's one thing to be appreciated about the Catholic church it has to be how two thousand years of continued existence has transformed much of its theology into a form of divine case law where you can just look shit up.

Besides, if Rome says you shouldn't use contraceptives but the filthy masses want to anyway, are the obscure tenets of the doctrines of infallibility really going to sway them? Is Janet Q. Public really going to think to herself "well if the use of contraception was forbidden in a dogmatic constitution I obviously wouldn't use the pill, but this prohibition by pope whatshisname is only a papal bull so I'm dandy with it now"? Honestly?

I mean, I know at some point everything Catholic devolves into craziness but that's just bonkers.

[PeZook]

Amongst common Catholics the issue is even muddier, and I hear people refer to papal infallibility daily when discussing the latest statement by the Pope.

EDIT: You know, after what you wrote, I'm really starting to wonder if all those church hierarchs actually didn't know how the situation looked, or knew exactly how it was but were just afraid of being seen as publically suggesting the Church's stance on contraception might be anything but strict.

The priest who lectured me relied on papal infallibility directly, but then again he's hardly a hierarch, or maybe was just dishonest.

[Irbis]

That's astonishingly daft of them then, considering that for Papal infallibility to apply a Papal missive needs to either be accepted by Catholics ubique, semper et ab omnibus (everywhere, always and by everyone) as well as be built on decades or centuries of previous Papal bulls, encyclicals, apostolic constitutions, etc. as part of the ordinary magisterium (so it's essentially 'holy precedent', like the Assumption of Mary)... Or it has to be the product of the extraordinary magisterium i.e. an ecumenical council approved by the Pope. Like the Council of Constance. Or Second Vatican. In which case you're probably not a Catholic if you didn't know one of those was going on, because they tend to be big news. And also roughly once a century occurences.

Centuries of bulls you say?

Let's take just one subject here, abortion. For almost two millennia, a doctrine of delayed animation (stating that soul entered body of fetus some months after conception and many of Church's greatest thinkers accepting abortion before this happened) reigned. Then came idiot Pope Pius IX who due to his Taliban-like fundamentalist views announced bull Apostolicae Sedis Moderationi that completely banned the practice in every circumstance.

To make the whole affair even funnier, there isn't even a question if the bull is under papal infallibility or not, as the whole concept was defined and codified at First Vatican Council, two years later. Oh, and the same bull censures between others for being member of freemasonry, something largely abandoned today, unlike abortion issue.

So, to sum things up - one Pope came, made completely ordinary bull that predates papal infallibility, wasn't declared ex cathedra so it can't even use milder infallibility variant existing before, shats on 3/4 of Church's history worth of writings, and is upheld mostly because Popes since Pius IX were almost all similarly conservative dicks. It is certainly not ubique, semper et ab omnibus and as far as I am aware wasn't confirmed by any council either. So, just looking things up and expecting them to hold true against top figure's 'say so' isn't going to work all the time

[Siege]

But the Catholic stance on abortion isn't an infallible teaching. It's a teaching, and Rome is insistent on it, but it isn't part of an ex cathedra statement nor the product of an ecumenical council. Popes have the ability to decree things and even contradict their predecessors to a point, but not everything they decree (and not everything that is subsequently upheld by successor popes) is part of an infallible teaching. In fact most of it isn't.

That's all I'm saying, and I believe we agree on this matter. I also won't be saying much more, because it's getting to feeling like I'm somehow defending the Catholic stance on abortion, and that makes me feel deeply uncomfortable (and kinda dirty).

[SB Expat]

(the good samaritan was the cornerstone of every other service, and they certainly aren't catholic or even jewish yet he was held up as the sort of man who would get to heaven

By modern standards Samartans would surely have been considered a branch of Jews. Aside from differences of where the Holy Temple must be located, they shared the same faith.

Long story short, when the Israelites were exiled to Babylon some remained behind in the land and intermingled with foreigners. During the Exile standards of what makes one an According to Hoyle Hebrew changed and upon Cyrus's allowence of their return the Jews rejected the Samaritans claims to the Covenant.

And when the Jews began construction of their Second Temple the Samaritans were again rejected when they asked to get in on that(due to not beiong accepted as Hebrews), and some strife followed.

However, it is important to remember that of all possible examples of Good Doubters, the one chosen was not of Doubters but of Rejected Believers. Considering the time the story was written it's aim might well have been preaching against baseless hated between different sects of the Faith(long an issue in Judaism).

Which is not to say non-believers would have been considered Hell-Bound, it's also long been a staple of Judaism that Jewish standards are just for Jews and non-believers will be judged on their own merits(massively simplifying here).

There is a story in the Talmud which says that when God drowned the Egyptians the angels praised his victory, but God chided them for rejoicing by saying something like "why do you rejoice, are not the Egyptians my Children too?" Further the Torah commands Jews not to forever exclude Egyptians because Jews were once Strangers in their Land.

So, considering the issues of the time, the point of the Good Samaritan story may well have been preaching against baseless intra-faith hatred rather than inter-faith acceptance. And there verywell may have been no need to preach inter-faith acceptance(in the "no need to consider outsiders Damned" sense, rather than the "it's OK to live next to them sense")