"We are not Protestants, After All."

Steve Bainbridge asks, in his posting below:  "To what extent is it proper for a Catholic to dissent from non-infallible but presumably magisterial teaching?  We are not Protestants, after all."

No, but neither are we mindless.  As John Noonan said,  "the record is replete with mistakes--the faithful can't just accept everything that comes from Rome as though God had authorized it."   What mistakes, you ask?  Well, you may want to begin here:  Robert McClory, Faithful Dissenters:  Stories of Men and Women Who Loved and Changed the Church (2000).

For those who, like Steve, want to think about this issue, Father Bernard Hoose's writings are a good place to begin:  Bernard Hoose, "Authority in the Church," 63 Theological Studies 1207 (2002); Bernard Hoose, Authority in Roman Catholicism (2002).  See also this collection, edited by Father Hoose:  Authority in the Roman Catholic Church (2002).
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