Attempting to reconcile Ed Feser’s and Lofton’s position on whether a Pope can teach heresy at the level of his non-definitive Magisterial teaching capacity

It seems that what Lofton wants to safeguard is the integral safety of all magisterial teachings that seems to tie in with the Church’s indefectibility

It seems that what Feser wants to safeguard is a dose of realism for approaching verifiably troublesome Pontificates, as it would seem that if Lofton’s position is taken to its logical conclusion, you’d either have to engage in mental gymnastics or essentially leave the Faith

What I propose is the following:

You can still hold that all truly authoritative (or authentic) magisterial teachings are safe (ie, not opposed to definitive Catholic teaching) while also acknowledging that a Pope could attempt a magisterial teaching that does in fact contradict definitive teaching

How can this happen?

Well, a teaching is magisterial in the Catholic Church only if it is authoritative. That is to say, taught on behalf of the Church authentically exercising Her apostolic authority

Now if a Pope were to attempt a magisterial teaching that does in fact contradict definitive teaching, then such an act must be considered null and void because it is already overruled by the Church’s teaching authority. Therefore, the “attempted magisterial teaching” would thereby be relegated to the level of a papal private opinion. This is because, of necessity, it could not be authoritative because it would already be overruled by the Church’s definitive teaching authority.

It would be akin to a Pope attempting to celebrate a sacrament outside the rubrics essential for sacramental validity

What this does is safeguard the integral safety of the authentic Magisterium as an essential organ of the Church’s constitution, while also acknowledging that a Pope could make an attempt to exercise it in a heretical way, but would be prevented from successfully doing so.


This does not lead to the indefectibility of the Church becoming unfalsifiable because I also believe that if the Church has made no magisterial pronouncement on something, we can be assured that if the Pope teaches on it authoritatively, it will be safe (I.e., not opposed to other infallible rules of faith) because at that point it would not be running into something the Church has already taught by way of the Magisterium, and so there would be nothing to prevent it from being a genuine product of the authentic Magisterium, and the Holy Spirit protects all genuine products of the authentic Magisterium from becoming unsafe.

To preempt an objection, the infallibility of disciplinary decrees are another matter entirely, because there is no built-in ecclesial mechanism by which a Pope is bound by his predecessors in governing the discipline of the Church. Therefore, every universal disciplinary decree of the Holy See is per se unbounded by papal predecessors and for that reason we extend infallibility generally to these.

I realize this post has become absurdly long and hyper qualified, but I hope it made sense to some people

MERRY CHRISTMAS

adhering to what the Catechism of the Catholic Church says about homosexual and contraceptive acts being intrinsically evil (promulgated in 1992, mind you) should be a baseline prerequisite for any political movement that wants to call itself “conservative”, not an added bonus

basically if Pope Francis’ views on sexual ethics are more conservative than yours, you’re NOT conservative

pray for this man

never gets old

pope benedict xvi was far from perfect, but in terms of sheer intellectual accomplishments he will be remembered centuries from now as a theological Giant

the Incarnation of Christ fulfills an otherwise unfulfilled synthesis of three truths coming together: a) God is self-communicative and generous b) God is Infinite and c) Creation is capable of receiving the fullness of God’s outward self-communicative goodness

this is fulfilled uniquely in the Word uniting Himself hypostatically to the whole of Creation summed up in a human nature as its microcosm

a year ago on this day, one of my closest friends Night Errant went on to receive his eternal reward

anyone who spent a considerable amount of time with him knew very quickly that he possessed gifts of wisdom, charisma, intuition, loyalty to his friends, zeal for Christ and His Church, and burning charity

if you can, please spare a prayer for his soul, and for the welfare of his wife and son

What no one can take away from Pope Benedict XVI is that from the way he dressed to what he explicitly taught, he did not believe the Second Vatican Council was meant in any way to repudiate the Church’s history and perennial teachings up until that point.

He was a man who, despite some weaknesses in matters of prudence, nevertheless firmly and unreservedly believed in the supernatural mission of the Church as instituted by Her Divine Spouse. Moreover, he believed that part of what is essential to that mission is loving and propagating the full richness of Her 2,000 year old theological and liturgical patrimony.

While deeply a man of the Council, I almost struggle to call him a “conciliar Pope”, because in so many ways he signified that the Church, even amidst a modernizing and radically changing world, nevertheless retains a perennial dimension so central to Her true, supernatural (and hence, supra-temporal) identity.

Although he reigned for a short time, I think he permanently definitively broke the spell of the age which insisted that the Council fundamentally and permanently changed the Church’s mission and self-image, which is partly why I don’t think this current Pontificate will be able to successfully revive that zeitgeist.


History will remember him for this

Requiescat in Pace

By His Incarnation, Christ enables each level of the great hierarchy of Being (summed up in His human nature) to, in a circular fashion, turn back inwardly to embrace the Source from which it came as a great act of retuned Love which only He, as God, can truly perform

Letting all of you know that with the nature of my current employment and having no course work for the foreseeable future, I’m going to have MUCH more time in 2023 and beyond to actually return to content creation both on cozy and YouTube (instead of just talking about it)

I plan to devote the year to the following goals:

- popularizing a view of the magisterium that simultaneously avoids the excesses of post-trads like Lofton and SSPXers alike

- using cozy to give a comprehensive defense of the Faith via regular streams

- showing how Catholic theology supports and/or coheres with even the most controversial of AF political stances

- showing how the philosophical foundations of classical theism cohere with key doctrines of Catholicism like the Trinity, Incarnation, and sacramental Life of the Church

and more!

“Simon, son of Jonah, dost thou love Me?”

Peter: “Jesus, ich liebe dich”