Saturday, 19 July 2014

A Few Choice Statements from Vatican I--Part One


This numbering is off from the original text-from this site:

  1. Everybody knows that those heresies, condemned by the fathers of Trent, which rejected the divine magisterium of the church and allowed religious questions to be a matter for the judgment of each individual, have gradually collapsed into a multiplicity of sects, either at variance or in agreement with one another; and by this means a good many people have had all faith in Christ destroyed.
  2. Indeed even the holy Bible itself, which they at one time claimed to be the sole source and judge of the christian faith, is no longer held to be divine, but they begin to assimilate it to the inventions of myth.
  3. Thereupon there came into being and spread far and wide throughout the world that doctrine of rationalism or naturalism, - utterly opposed to the christian religion, since this is of supernatural origin, - which spares no effort to bring it about that Christ, who alone is our lord and saviour, is shut out from the minds of people and the moral life of nations. Thus they would establish what they call the rule of simple reason or nature. The abandonment and rejection of the christian religion, and the denial of God and his Christ, has plunged the minds of many into the abyss of pantheism, materialism and atheism, and the consequence is that they strive to destroy rational nature itself, to deny any criterion of what is right and just, and to overthrow the very foundations of human society.
  4. With this impiety spreading in every direction, it has come about, alas, that many even among the children of the catholic church have strayed from the path of genuine piety, and as the truth was gradually diluted in them, their catholic sensibility was weakened. Led away by diverse and strange teachings [4] and confusing
    • nature and grace,
    • human knowledge and divine faith,
    they are found to distort the genuine sense of the dogmas which holy mother church holds and teaches, and to endanger the integrity and genuineness of the faith.
  5. At the sight of all this, how can the inmost being of the church not suffer anguish? For
    • just as God wills all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth [5] , just as Christ came to save what was lost [6] and to gather into one the children of God who were scattered abroad [7] ,
    • so the church, appointed by God to be mother and mistress of nations, recognises her obligations to all and is always ready and anxious
      • to raise the fallen,
      • to steady those who stumble,
      • to embrace those who return, and
      • to strengthen the good and urge them on to what is better.
    Thus she can never cease from witnessing to the truth of God which heals all [8 ] and from declaring it, for she knows that these words were directed to her: My spirit which is upon you, and my words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth from this time forth and for evermore [9] .
  6. And so we, following in the footsteps of our predecessors, in accordance with our supreme apostolic office, have never left off
    • teaching and defending catholic truth and
    • condemning erroneous doctrines.
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