Letters

Infallible teaching (letter)

Peter Howard

Contents - Mar 2003 - Buy a copy now Editorial: War in Iraq? Questions to be considered - Peter Westmore Sydney Archdiocese RE test: behind one school's success story - Michael Gilchrist News: The Church Around the World - AD2000 Ten years on former Anglicans enrich Church - Fr Peter Geldard Vatican tells politicians: Don't hide your light - Michael Casanova Good priest, bad priest - my faith remains - Frank Mobbs Religious faith and modern culture: responding to a secular critic - Bill Muehlenberg Liturgy: The Mass is the same sacrifice as the Cross - Msgr. Peter J. Elliott New Age ideas: how Catholics should respond - Fr Peter Joseph The media and evangelisation - Moira Kirkwood Letters: Brisbane Synod (letter) - John F. Nolan Letters: 'Partner' or spouse? (letter) - Peter Hannigan Letters: Women's Commission (letter) - Leon Voesenek Letters: Church renovation (letter) - T.E. Geraghty Letters: Government proposals (letter) - Dr Arnold Jago Letters: Last things (letter) - Kevin McManus Letters: New springtime (letter) - Errol P. Duke Letters: Apostolate (letter) - Barry O'Brien Letters: Catholic websites (letter) - John Carroll Letters: Third rite (letter) - Norm Power Letters: Invalid (letter) - Maria Lossberg Letters: New Age? (letter) - Dr Lance Eccles Letters: Accountability (letter) - John Leach Letters: Infallible teaching (letter) - Peter Howard Poetry: From Tradition (For my mother) - Andrew Huntley Books: Life's Worth: The Case against Assisted Suicide, by Arthur Dyck - Bill Muehlenberg (reviewer) Books: Human Cloning And Human Dignity: Report of the President's Council on Bioethics - Bill Muehlenberg (reviewer) Books: The Self Evident Proof, by Richard Kouchoo - Catherine Sheehan (reviewer) Books: The Latest from AD Books Reflection: Lenten self-denial - at the very heart of our lives with Christ - Fr F.E. Burns

Fr G. H. Duggan's letter (December/January AD2000) has succinctly pointed out that a papal definition such as in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis is an exercise of that papal infallibility set out in the Vatican I document. Such an infallible confirmation of a doctrine always taught by the ordinary Magisterium is too often unrecognised by many theologians. They, in turn, mislead priests and laity, because they have never been properly taught, or they wilfully deny, the Vatican I dogma.

The importance of this can hardly be over-emphasised because the same error has occurred in the teaching against contraception in Casti Connubii and Humanae Vitae, with these documents denigrated as "not infallible" by the likes of Karl Rahner and Richard McBrien, as well as by Australian theologians such as Fr W. O'Shea of Brisbane.

Quite recently, Fr O'Shea claimed that (his) theologians could find no basis in Scripture or theology for the exclusion of women from the priesthood, while lamenting that "at present, the leadership of the Church does not even entertain the possibility of such a change" (The Catholic Leader, 27 October 2002).

Nevertheless, Fr O'Shea has been put in charge of the formation of deacons for the permanent diaconate in Brisbane, assisted by two priest directors of like persuasion, Frs Frank O'Dea and John Dobson. Thus the same errors displayed by misled priests will presumably be displayed by misled deacons, with more misled laity the likely end-result.

Are we not entitled to ask where are the shepherds?

PETER HOWARD
Springwood, Qld

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 16 No 2 (March 2003), p. 16