Monday, May 25, 2015

Churchmen have no authority to change Sacred Tradition (Part One)

Churchmen have no authority to change Sacred Tradition

From the Writings of Roman Catholic Popes, Councils, Saints, and Theologians
Part One 

“Indeed, the extent and depth of the teaching of the Second Vatican Council call for a renewed commitment to deeper study in order to reveal clearly the Council’s continuity with Tradition, especially in points of doctrine which, perhaps because they are new, have not yet been well understood by some sections of the Church.”
 (Ecclesia Dei, 1988) Pope John Paul II

Modernist John Paul II admitted there were new doctrines
yet what does the Catholic Church say concerning the ability

of any church member to change what has been already infallibly taught? Let us examine: 

 
ST. AUGUSTINE (354-430)
GREAT WESTERN DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH
"By teaching that superiors should not refuse to be reprehended by inferiors, St. Peter gave posterity an example more rare and holier than that of St. Paul as he taught that in the defense of truth and with charity, inferiors may have the audacity to resist superiors without fear." (Epistula 19 ad Hieronymum) ST. VINCENT OF LERINS (CA. 400-CA. 450) CONFESSOR OF THE CHURCH
"What then should a Catholic do if some part of the Church were to separate itself from communion with the universal Faith? What other choice can he make but to prefer to the gangrenous and corrupted member the whole of the body that is sound. And if some new contagion were to try to poison no longer a small part of the Church, but all of the Church at the same time, then he will take the greatest care to attach himself to antiquity which, obviously, can no longer be seduced by any lying novelty." (Commonitorium) POPE ST. GREGORY I, "THE GREAT" (590-604)
The Canon remained unchanged from Apostolic times to the present day, with the exception of one short clause inserted by St. Gregory the Great. The phrase Pope Gregory added was "diesque nostros in tua pace disponas" [may you order our days in Thy peace] to the Hanc Igitur of the Canon. The Romans were outraged at this act and threatened to kill the pope because he had dared to touch the Sacred Liturgy. The Mass was affirmed to be complete and unchangeable. Since that time no pope has dared to change the Ordo of the Traditional Latin Mass, until in 1962 Pope John XXIII added "beati Ioseph, eiusdem Virginis Sponsi" [of blessed Joseph, Spouse of the same Virgin] to the Communicantes of the Canon. POPE ST. AGATHO (678-681)
Papal Coronation Oath, to be taken by all Roman pontiffs, showing that no Roman pontiff has the authority to contradict the Deposit of Faith, or to change or innovate upon what has been handed by to him by Sacred Tradition and his predecessors: "I vow to change nothing of the received Tradition, and nothing thereof I have found before me guarded by my God-pleasing predecessors, to encroach upon, to alter, or to permit any innovation therein; "To the contrary: with glowing affection as her truly faithful student and successor, to safeguard reverently the passed-on good, with my whole strength and utmost effort; "To cleanse all that is in contradiction to the canonical order, should such appear; "To guard the Holy Canons and Decrees of our Popes as if they were the Divine ordinances of Heaven, because I am conscious of Thee, whose place I take through the Grace of God, whose Vicarship I possess with Thy support, being subject to the severest accounting before Thy Divine Tribunal over all that I shall confess; "I swear to God Almighty and the Savior Jesus Christ that I will keep whatever has been revealed through Christ and His Successors and whatever the first councils and my predecessors have defined and declared. "I will keep without sacrifice to itself the discipline and the rite of the Church. I will put outside the Church whoever dares to go against this oath, may it be somebody else or I. "If I should undertake to act in anything of contrary sense, or should permit that it will be executed, Thou willst not be merciful to me on the dreadful Day of Divine Justice. "Accordingly, without exclusion, We subject to severest excommunication anyone -- be it ourselves or be it another -- who would dare to undertake anything new in contradiction to this constituted evangelic Tradition and the purity of the Orthodox Faith and the Christian Religion, or would seek to change anything by his opposing efforts, or would agree with those who undertake such a blasphemous venture." (Liber Diurnus Romanorum Pontificum, Patrologia Latina 1005, S. 54) The Liber Diurnus Romanorum Pontificum, one of the oldest collections of papal texts, privileges, and decrees, written down by Pope St. Agatho with texts that contain centuries of tradition, includes this Papal Coronation Oath, probably already a couple of centuries old, by which every pope since then has sworn as a requirement of acceding to the papal office until John Paul II failed to do so. The oath makes it clear that a magisterium that contradicts former magisterium is not magisterium, for the pope is sworn to put himself outside the Church if even he contradicts what he has received from his predecessors. The ancient papal oath, therefore, foresees the possibility that even a pope may become a heretic or schismatic by violating either dogma or the rites of the Church handed down by Tradition. SECOND COUNCIL OF NICAEA (787)
"Those therefore who after the manner of wicked heretics dare to set aside ecclesiastical traditions, and to invent any kind of novelty, or to reject any of those things entrusted to the Church, or who wrongfully and outrageously devise the destruction of any of those traditions enshrined in the Catholic Church, are to be punished thus: if they are bishops, we order them to be deposed...." POPE INNOCENT III (CA. 1160-1216)
"The pope should not flatter himself about his power, nor should he rashly glory in his honor and high estate, because the less he is judged by man, the more he is judged by God. Still the less can the Roman Pontiff glory, because he can be judged by men, or rather, can be shown to be already judged, if for example he should wither away into heresy, because he who does not believe is already judged. In such a case it should be said of him: 'If salt should lose its savor, it is good for nothing but to be cast out and trampled under foot by men.'" (Sermo 4) HUGGUCIO OF PISA (OB. 1210) Huggucio of Pisa He wrote a Summa Decretorum on the Decretum of Gratian, the most extensive and perhaps the most authoritative commentary of that time. "A pope who indeed a fornicator in public and has a concubine in public [ecce publico fornicator publico habet concubinem] can indeed be deposed because to scandalize the Church is in itself heresy." Huggucio brings to light one of many problems in the history of the papacy: a conflict between two ancient ecclesiastical principles: "Prima sedes a nemine iudicatur" [the First See is judged by no one] and "Papa hereticus ipso facto depositus est [an heretical pope is by that very fact deposed]. Example: It was common knowledge that Alexander VI's election in 1492 was the result of the grave sin of simony. To put it simply, Alexander bought the papacy with pieces of silver. Therefore, there was a move afoot, led by Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, to summon a Council and have the simonical pope deposed, an action supported by the Catholic King of France, Charles VIII.

Fr. Hesse: The True Notion of Sacred Tradition 


 
Related:
Vatican II not infallible
http://romancatholicism.org/vatican-ii.html

Summary of Fr. Hesse’s talk on the documents of Vatican II

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