Letters

Dr Mobbs' response

Frank Mobbs

Contents - Sep 2007 - Buy a copy now Editorial: How to ensure AD2000's continuing impact - Michael Gilchrist Pastoral Letter: NSW and ACT Bishops call for a shake-up in Catholic education - Michael Gilchrist News: The Church Around the World A successful quest for vocations in Melbourne - Br Barry Coldrey Rome reaffirms Vatican II's teaching on 'one true Church' - Frank Mobbs New Age: Centering Prayer and other spiritualities: are they Catholic? - Wanda Skowronska 'Thought that has been thought out' - John Haldane Rediscovering the real history of Australian Catholic education - Eamonn Keane Catholic education must be 'unashamedly Catholic' - Bishop Robert Finn Laity: How the Legion of Mary can benefit parishes - Fr Hugh Thwaites SJ Letters: Vatican II - Peter D. Howard Letters: Infallible? - Francis Vrijmoed Letters: Dr Mobbs' response - Frank Mobbs Letters: Extraordinary? - Mark Szymczak Letters: Lapsed Catholics - Robert Garratt Letters: Preaching - Kevin McManus Letters: Religious attire - Tom King Letters: African prisoners - John Evans Poem: A poem for Mary's Birthday - Brian Joseph Mulligan Books: THE BEAUTY OF THY HOUSE, by Mark Alessio - Tim Cannon (reviewer) Books: FAITH AND CERTITUDE, by Thomas Dubay SM - Tim Cannon (reviewer) Events: Silent Retreat 9-12 November 2007 Books: Books available from AD2000 Reflection: An informed conscience: what the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches - Bishop Luc Matthys

There are still a few who are convinced that the Second Vatican Council taught infallibly.

What conditions have to be met in order for a Council to teach infallibly? Lumen Gentium, 25, answers this question.

In order for the members of a Council to teach infallibly, they must (1) be gathered together in an Ecumenical Council; (2) act as teachers and judges of faith and morals for the universal Church (as distinct for, say, a diocese or region or particular Church e.g., Maronite); and (3) define a doctrine as one to be held with the submission of faith.

Peter Howard claims the conditions are met when the Council teaches that: the faithful must assent to non-infallible papal teaching; the Church founded by Christ is identical with the Catholic Church; bishops in an Ecumenical Council can teach infallibly; and that non-Catholics have a right to religious freedom.

I invite readers to consult the documents on these points. Never will they find the Council defining anything. The words 'definitive' and 'define' are missing in the Council's assertions about its own teachings. It never says 'we define' or 'the Council defines' or any equivalent to those expressions.

The Fathers were well aware of their obligation to signal to the faithful and the world that they were defining a doctrine, had they intended to do so, because they knew that article 1323 (3) of the 1917 Code of Canon Law reads, 'Nothing is to be understood as declared or dogmatically defined, unless that fact is manifestly established.' That canon appears in a footnote of Lumen Gentium, 25.

This rule is repeated in the present 1983 Code. Let it be the Church's guide in our efforts to determine the status of the Council's teachings.

FRANK MOBBS (DR)
Albany, NSW

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 20 No 8 (September 2007), p. 14