Francis Sullivan, S.J. from his Magisterium: The Teaching Authority of the Church:
"Before the pope can define a dogma, he must listen to the church and he can define as dogma only what he finds in the faith of the church. The pope has no source of revelation that is independent of the faith-life of the church...From this, it follows that the pope cannot simply define a dogma without having, in some real way, consulted the faith of the church, for he can define only something that has been handed on in the teaching, life, and worship of the church.
... It is unjust to treat all dissent from the teaching of the ordinary magisterium as disobedience, or to turn agreement with his teaching as a test of loyalty to the Holy See. No doubt, there are Catholics who respect for the teaching authority of the pope is so great that the simple appeal to his formal authority is enough to convince them that the teaching must be true...but such persons should resist the temptation to think disloyal other Catholics in whose minds the reasons against the teaching make so strong an impression that the formal authority of the magisterium is not enough to overcome their doubts.
If, in a particular instance, Catholics have offered their religious submission of mind and will to the authority of the magisterium by making an honest and sustained effort to achieve internal assent to its teaching and still find that doubts about its truth remain so strong in their minds that they cannot actually give their sincere intellectual assent to it, I do not see how one could judge such non-assent to involve any lack of obedience to the magisterium."
Fr. Sullivan's book was used commonly in U.S. seminaries and reflects the importance of loyal dissent in the Catholic Church. This is vital to understand the reason why Catholics can dissent from papal teaching and remain faithful members of the church.
Richard McCormick, S.J. specified four criteria for "responsible" dissent:
1. A sincere effort to understand the teaching (of the church)
2. Consideration of the reasons for the teaching and those against (it)
3. Serious examination of one's conscience
4. Holding respect for the general trustworthiness of the church.
See excellent website: Women Priests: http://www.womenpriests.org/teach_ac.asp for discussion of "infallibility" as it fails to meet the test in reference to Magisterium's teaching on women's ordination.
The main reason is that neither Popes Paul Vl or John Paul ll consulted the "universal ordinary magisterium", the teaching of all the Catholic bishops in the world. See my comments below:
In the case of women's ordination. Pope John Paul 11 in "Ordinatio Sacerdotalis" declared "That women cannot be ordained priests has been set forth infallibly by the ordinary and universal magisterium" on May 22, 1994. However the pope did not consult the faithful including the world's bishops and theologians. The majority of theologians have rejected this teaching.In order for a teaching to be infallible, it must be declared by the combined teaching of all the Catholic bishops in the world.
Since the majority of the world's Catholics reject this teaching including most theologians, the Vatican's prohibition against women's ordination is not authoritative and contradicts Jesus's example of Gospel equality, the early church tradition, and the Vatican's own scholarship. In the Gospels, Jesus treated women and men as equals. Paul commended deacon Phoebe and called Junia an outstanding apostle and co-worker in Romans 16. Historical evidence demonstrates that women were ordained deacons, priests and bishops during the first twelve hundred years of the church's history. Some popes, like Gelaius, who wrote a papal bull asking the bishops of southern Italy to discontinue the practice of allowing women to preside at Eucharist and bishops, like Atto of Vercelli, who acknowledged that the priestly ministry of women in the early church was a response to the great need. In 1975, a report of the Pontifical Biblical Commission (the Vatican's own scholars) concluded that the ordination of women could NOT be excluded on the basis of Scriptures. Thus, the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the pope have not established infallible teaching by the ordinary universal magisterium on women priests.
Bridget Mary Meehan , rcwp
sofiabmm@aol.com
www.romancatholicwomenpriests.org
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