Letters

Tradition

Anthony Bono

Contents - Aug 2008 - Buy a copy now Editorial: Humanae Vitae still a sign of contradiction - Michael Gilchrist (reviewer) News: The Church Around the World Priesthood: St Louis: another US vocations success story - AD2000 Report Benedict XVI reaffirms Humanae Vitae on its 40th anniversary - Pope Benedict XVI Holy Land: Middle East Christians face a precarious future - Robin Harris Census shows a strong Church in Singapore - AD2000 Report Foundations of Faith: How much history do the Scriptures contain? - Frank Mobbs The tragic dilemmas of China's one-child policy - Babette Francis Interview: Denise Mountenay on post-abortive women: from silence to lawsuits - Luke McCormack Education: Progress continues with the new Wagga Wagga independent schools - Barbara Chigwidden Letters: Climate change - Peter Finlayson Letters: Infallible? - John Young Letters: Timeless truths? - John Frey Letters: Tradition - Anthony Bono Letters: Lebanon - Richard Stokes Letters: Body and soul - Elsie Cunningham Letters: Human rights - Maureen Federico DVD Review: APOCALYPSE? NO! Why global warming is not a crisis, by Christopher Monckton - Peter Finlayson (reviewer) Books: MYSTERY OF CREATION by Paul Haffner - Michael Daniel (reviewer) Books: QUESTION TIME by Fr John Flader - Fr Anthony Robbie (reviewer) Books: Books available from AD2000 Books Reflection: World Youth Day: bringing a message of hope to the secular culture - Fr Dennis Byrnes

Are all Church councils infallible? In the case of the Second Vatican Council, seen by some as an untypical one, Dr Frank Mobbs and John Young have raised some important issues.

Basically, what is right or wrong is not judged in the Church by majority rule. It is a matter of specific divine guardianship over the dogmatic utterances of the head of the Church. The vicar of Christ employs every possible human means to ascertain the truth enabling him to extend the continuous strand of apostolic teachings.

All doctrines taught infallibly have been implicitly contained in the original deposit of the faith; all have been explicitly held and acted upon by large portions of the Church without ambiguity.

In the chaotic decades following Vatican II has come an era of unprecedented novelty and frequent exercise of the ordinary universal Magisterium, contributing to a major crisis of faith. One recalls the lament of St Basil that 'only one offence is now vigorously punished, an accurate observance of our fathers' traditions'.

Here one finds comfort in the words of Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer of Brazil: 'Such is the value of tradition that even encyclicals and other documents of the ordinary teaching of the Sovereign Pontiff are only infallible in those teachings that are confirmed by Tradition, or by a continuous teaching under various popes and over a long period. If therefore an act of the ordinary Magisterium of a pope disagrees with the teaching guaranteed by the magisterial tradition of several popes and for a considerable time, it should not be accepted.'

ANTHONY BONO
Central Coast, NSW

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 21 No 7 (August 2008), p. 16