I direct your attention to Fratelli Tutti, footnote 198, wherein the pontiff quotes himself from a laudatory documentary film about him in order to set forth authoritative teaching.
Something to keep in mind regarding his statement in a more recent laudatory documentary film about him.
And as I have pointed out previously, whenever he repeats himself, it starts becoming magisterial.
The papal office, as set forth in the magisterium, is getting more difficult to square with the words and actions of the current occupant of the See of Peter.
I mean, the following sounds great and all--but what do you when a successor of Peter does not feel so constrained by tradition, custom and precedent?
The power that Christ conferred upon Peter and his Successors is, in an absolute sense, a mandate to serve. The power of teaching in the Church involves a commitment to the service of obedience to the faith. The Pope is not an absolute monarch whose thoughts and desires are law. On the contrary: the Pope’s ministry is a guarantee of obedience to Christ and to his Word. He must not proclaim his own ideas, but rather constantly bind himself and the Church to obedience to God’s Word, in the face of every attempt to adapt it or water it down, and every form of opportunism.
So what do you do when you have a man who instead is more interested in what the office theoretically authorizes? Because the powers described under canon law admit of no real limits.
"Deeply troubling" is Carl Olson's formulation.
Yeah, I'll go for the British understatement, too. While thinking much bleaker thoughts.
This is only the beginning. His Holiness is setting the trajectory by making comments future popes will incorporate into more authoritative texts. The world keeps a changin' -- including the church.
ReplyDelete