How can anyone consider Roman Catholicism, post-Vatican II?

Tell that to Ludwig von Pastor, one of the foremost experts on Church history. (And he was, of course, pre-Vatican II.)

 

Those were not my words. They were the words of a standard traditional catholic magazine. Why don't you guys huddle together and get your act together first.

 

That writer's expertise is in sacred music, according to his biography. Do you find his comments on history more accurate than the comments of a famed Catholic historian?

 

Matthew. Crisis Magazine are not a blog, but a a respectable conservative RCC journal. They vet and edit every single article they publish. Can you go and figure this out together with your people before trying to claim to be the mouth of the magisterium?

Pastor is not a demi-god. He was an also-has-been who tried to copy after Ranke but paint/whitewash the history of the Popes from the RCC perspective. I do not know anyone who takes him on the level of Ranke in general scholarly circles. He's just another apologist.

 

Crisis Magazine is not infallible, and yet, you seem to promote it as such, just to further a petty agenda. Cite authoritative documents of the Magisterium, instead, if you really want to convince me that a teaching has changed.

And Pastor is NOT "just another apologist" -- in his works, he outright refuses to defend several prominent popes, some of whom I, myself, have absolutely no problem in defending. He was a serious, reputable scholar that had full access to the Vatican Archives.

Pastor also notes on the same page (citing Hefele-Hergenrother): "Any one who asserted this to be unlawful incurred excommunication."

 

The charging of interest is only unlawful on "unproductive loans" (as Hilaire Belloc notes), but I don't feel that those were terribly commonplace in Renaissance or Middle history. Belloc said: "The distinction lies between a demand for part of the product of a productive loan, which is moral, and the immoral demand for either (1) interest on an unproductive loan, or (2) interest greater than the annual increment in real wealth which a productive loan creates."

 

Not that it really matters to Anglicans, which get their doctrines from scripture, scripturecatholic.org states: " the Church has never defined usury as “taking interest on a loan.” Instead, the Fifth Lateran Council (1515) defines usury as follows:

“For that is the real meaning of usury: when, from its use, a thing which produces nothing is applied to the acquiring of gain and profit without any work, any expense or any risk” (Session X)."

 

Also from ScriptureCatholic.org:

 

So, yes, profiting from a loan at all -- making money for nothing -- can be usurious in some cases, but it can also be allowed in the modern context (including the Renaissance), because of the new nature of money and banking. (See the earlier quote from Belloc.)

 

The bible, however, teaches that it is the practice of lending with interest:" If thou lend money to any of my people that is poor by thee, thou shalt not be to him as an usurer, neither shalt thou lay upon him usury." -Ex 22:25

 

And again: " And if thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee; then thou shalt relieve him: yea, though he be a stranger, or a sojourner; that he may live with thee. Take thou no usury of him, or increase: but fear thy God; that thy brother may live with thee." -Lev 25:35-36

 

And yet, there is the problem that, while SOME catholic documents define usury as gain from unproductive work, it isnt consistent. No less than the Catechism of the Catholic Church (a post- vatican II product), defines usury, without qualification or recourse to alternate meaning, as follows: "lending money at interest". You can read it for yourself from the vatican's website (Pay close attention)... http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/index/u.htm

 

So you opposed quoting from a peer-reviewed critically-edited Crisis Magazine, but are more than happy to quote a literary media personality (certainly not an academic) like Belloc?

Face it you're not interested in honest debate but in merely shoring up whatever you already believe at the moment.

 

Did any of you read what I excerpted from ScriptureCatholic?

 

Yep. It's just some guy writing his own opinion. He contradicts the RCC Catechism quote that Lowly has posted.

 

http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=646

 

Would you mind engaging with the arguments put in front of you, instead or scrounging up anything from The Interwebs that agrees with you?

 

When I converted to Anglicanism on the grounds it was close to catholic I was surprised to find such a migration to Rome. The catholic church has fallen into heresy. The line of popes we have had have done such horrible things. JP2 the biggest offender, but still there is so much more. When Rome said all religions are true and stop trying to convert people came as a shocker because I was isolated from a lot of this mess tell i did research as an adult. The great mother Teresa telling hindus not to convert. The destruction of the mass and the wording of all the sacraments. Heard to write logically cause it just upsets me so much.
The catholic church is one of the most modern, liberal churches there is. That is all there is too say about it.
So no i have no idea why people run to rome. Is it the pope? the pomp and celebration of the office. I doubt it is purgatory cause that is the only other catholic only doctrine i can think of other than the pope. I am lost.

 

I was one of these Trads for a long time. I constantly tried to deal with the pope is infallible, chosen by the holy spirit and leader of the christian faith on one side and the did he just say that, do that on the other side. It is so hard to deal with. You try to put your head in the sand a lot and pray a lot. I personally could not do it any longer, so I think this best expresses my feelings.

 

I disagree.
See how the catholic church has changed after the council. It changed the church more in a few years than the reformation did. The high alters destroyed, the change in liturgy, the rising the power of bishops. SO much changed. You can not walk into a modern church and with a straight face say things have not changed. The vestments changed. The wording of our sacraments changed. In vatican 2 we said the catholic has the same footing of judaism and islam. After 2000 years of saying there only one path to God the Son, we said hi hindus do not convert, hi pagans your all might to get to heaven cause you had a piece of the truth all along. The whole church shifted. Everything changed.