Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Two questions
Two questions re the Congregation's recent instruction on "persons with homosexual tendencies" and the priesthood:
- Is this to be regarded as infallible teaching? Based on my understanding of infallibility, I assume the answer is no.
- If this is not infallible teaching, to what extent is it doctrinally licit for a Catholic to dissent? (I'm thinking here especially of Eduardo's comment that he "vigorously" dissents "from many Church teachings on sexuality, and on gay sexuality in particular.") To what extent is it proper for a Catholic to dissent from non-infallible but presumably magisterial teaching? We are not Protestants, after all.
I'm genuinely curious and interested in getting a discussion going. Rather than taking the liberty of opening the comments section here, however, I've crossposted these questions over at my personal blog and opened the comments section for discussion. Feel free to come over.
Because this is a highly sensitive issue, combining religion and sexuality, however, the usual requirements that comments be civil and relevant to the topic at hand will be enforced with special ruthlessness. In particular, the topic is not whether the Congregation made the right decision; the question is whether good Catholics can dissent from that decision and, if so, how. Thread hijacking will not be tolerated!
https://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/mirrorofjustice/2005/11/two_questions.html