Tuesday, November 20, 2018

Bellarmine on the Fallibility of Council Decrees


Robert Siscoe included a very pertinent quote from St. Robert Bellarmine's On the Authority of the Councils in a recent article for the Remnant:

“The great majority of the acts of [ecumenical] councils do not pertain to the faith. For neither the disputations that precede the decrees, nor the reasons that are adduced, nor the things that are introduced to explain and illustrate them, but only the bare decrees themselves are de fide—and not all decrees, but only those that are proposed as de fide. (…) It is easy to tell from the words of the Council when a decree is proposed as de fide; for they are always accustomed to say that they are explaining the Catholic faith, or that those who think the contrary are to be considered heretics, or—what is most common—they pronounce an anathema against those who think the contrary, and exclude them from the Church. But when they say none of these things it is not certain that the matter is de fide.”

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Bellarmine on the Fallibility of Council Decrees

Robert Siscoe included a very pertinent quote from St. Robert Bellarmine's On the Authority of the Councils in a recent article fo...