On Filial Respect and Humility
I am never more at a loss for words than when one of my elementary school-aged children argues with me as if we are on the same playing ground. If I say the sky is blue, they will argue with...
Tagged: authority
Magistra si, Mater no?
Certain political and ideological currents within the Catholic Church treat almost any contemporary exercise of magisterial teaching as cause for pessimism, suspicion, and worry. In this way of thinking any new teaching that isn’t a straightforward reiteration of previous teaching...
What is the Church’s principle of orthodoxy?
“You know, Phaedrus, writing shares a strange feature with painting. The offsprings of the painting stand there as if they are alive, but if anyone asks them anything, they remain most solemnly silent. The same is true of written words....
Authoritarian popes or rebellious bishops?
In recent weeks, many traditionalist blogs and websites have been publishing articles about the supposedly exaggerated position of the Pope in the modern Church. Rather than focusing on Pope Francis, they are arguing that we should rethink the institution of...
The folly of the build-it-yourself Magisterium
Earlier this month, Adam Rasmussen responded to Fr. Chad Ripperger’s theory of Church authority, summarizing it as an approach in which “any magisterial statements that do not define dogmas … may be questioned if they seem to contradict earlier statements.”...
The Logic of Obedient Disobedience
“What do you think? A man had two sons; and he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ And he answered, ‘I will not’; but afterward he repented and went. And he went...
The False Authority of Personal Interpretation
Certain Catholics who oppose the decisions and teachings of Pope Francis (or other recent popes) proudly announce their “orthodoxy” by citing certain Scripture and Church documents—the latter frequently from the time of St. Pius X—in order to argue that the...
How the pope’s critics sound like Calvin
Some people have reacted with hostility or mockery to my articles about the Pope Bashers behaving like Luther or Calvin. Presumably they think I mean they share the same errors on theology. Since they know they don’t, they think I’m...
The Pope-less Church of Tradition
It seems that hardly a week goes by without another bold intervention into the affairs of the Church by one of the disaffected members of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, usually delivered via channels like the National Catholic Register or LifeSite and...
Fundamentalist Catholics and Ecclesial Catholics
The division among certain Catholics that began with the election of Pope Francis and became pronounced upon the public release of the four cardinals’ dubia continues to widen. Catholics, many of whom were close allies during the pontificates of St...
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