Word: magisterium
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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With growing support from liberal theologians, the gay activists insist that Christianity has unjustly repressed a perfectly moral alternative life-style. For Catholics, the dispute is a classic test of loyalty to the Pope and the magisterium, or teaching authority, of the church. For Protestants, it is an example of the deep-seated conflict between the traditional and liberal approaches to the Bible...
...Bernardin merely with a reaffirmation of the church's traditional hierarchical structure. But his words took on an electric intensity when he answered San Francisco Archbishop John Quinn's general observations about troublesome moral issues, notably birth control, homosexuality and abortion. The Pope unleashed a vigorous defense of the Magisterium (the church's teaching authority), firmly rejecting the pick-and- choose approach toward church doctrine among many lay U.S. Catholics. "It is sometimes claimed," intoned the Holy Father, "that dissent from the Magisterium is totally compatible with being a 'good Catholic' and poses no obstacle to the reception...
Curran has defended his dissent on the ground that he is not contravening any infallible dogma, meaning one that is divinely protected from error. Such a teaching -- the bodily assumption of Mary into heaven, for example -- differs from what is called the ordinary magisterium, or an authoritative teaching of the church that does not have the certainty of absolute truth. But in his letter to Curran, Cardinal Ratzinger pointed out that the Second Vatican Council held that any doctrine taught by the Pope and the bishops together in a definitive manner is also to be considered infallible. "The church does...
...some, the issue involves the credibility of the church's magisterium, or teaching authority. In Western Europe and North America, there is widespread dissent among Catholics on the birth control question. A 1982 survey by the U.S. Government's National Center for Health Statistics found that 91% of Catholic women between ages 15 and 44 who have had sexual intercourse used artificial methods. Says Father William Smith, dean of St. Joseph's Seminary in New York, who favors the Pope's clampdown: "Every moral question is at stake in the contraception debate." The dilemma for developing...