Eternal truths
Many of us who cling desperately to our Catholic Church for instruction, inspiration and support prayed that a new Pope would help heal the church's serious wounds and reconnect it more surely to modern realities.
Instead, the cardinals have chosen a good and holy man who, we are told, rather than reform the status quo will reaffirm it more insistently than before.
The current challenge of the church is twofold.
First, it must continue proclaiming the unalterable and unchallengeable truths of Christ, instructing us to love one another as we love ourselves and to collaborate in improving the world that God created but did not complete.
That includes the obligation to be generous to those in need, and to avoid unjust and unnecessary wars that kill innocent people.
To deny these eternal and unchangeable truths of Christ is to renounce the Catholic Church.
Ha, Ha, very funny Mario Cuomo talking about eternal and unchangeable truths. He was the first to trot out the "personally opposed to abortion, but ..." line. He didn't want to force his personal opinion against popular will when it comes to abortion, yet managed to when it came to vetoing the death penalty. Catholic teaching on one subject can fall to majority opinion, yet managed to trump popular opinion on another. Eternal truths didn't hold for much in Cuomo's speaking to and for homosexual activists.
I just love this part "the cardinals have chosen a good and holy man who, we are told, rather..." Just had to slip that one in.
Mario Cuomo also proves he is far from infallible when it comes to talking about infallibility.
The only formal exercise of papal infallibility in modern times was by Pope Pius XII and dealt with Mary, the mother of Christ. [Source]]
Jimmy Akin explains this popular myth that there are only two instances of Papal Infallibility in modern times here.
Known as 
The part I like is that, after his desperate prayers for a healing pope, instead the cardinals chose Benedict XVI. Poor Mario.
I find it interesting that he only recalls that we are to love as we love ourselves. Since so many have a twisted love for themselves, it's harly the place to start. Time to go back to the beginning an Love God with all our heart, soul, and mind.
Cuomo-speak makes little baby Jesus cry.
:_(
ROFLMAO! I love satire, and this Cuomo guy is a genius! He uses 'modern realities' and 'unchallengeable truths of Christ' in the same statement, and still manages to keep a straight face. What's his blog address? I've got to read more!
About Jimmy Akin and Papal Infallibity: I recent had to field a question on whether canonizations are covered by the charism of infallibility. Akin says they are, period, which is also what I had always thought. But the 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia says that this is merely the majority view among theologians.
IOW, if I read the CE aright, the Church does not infallibly teach that canonizations are infallible, even though the better view is that they are.
Can anyone elucidate further?
Lest it seem that I'm trying to undermine the infallibility of canonizations, let me add that anyone who disses a canonized saint is showing grave disrespect for the ordinary magisterium and is probably an airhead.
I have heard for years that there have been
only two instances of the use of the infallible doctrine, and a priest recently affirmed this: the Assumption was one...
The Holy Father speaks infallibly when he addresses the whole world, definitively, ex cathedra (ie, by virtue of his office, not in audience addresses, for instance, or casual conversation), upon a matter of faith or morals. The four conditions establish the infallibility; the document does NOT have to be stamped, "THIS IS INFALLIBLE". It happens more often than people suppose. It absolutely, positively, world-without-end-amen happened when Humanae Vitae was promulgated. Anybody who argues otherwise (and I'm not talking about your priest friend, who may merely be repeating what he was told by someone on whom he ought to have been able to rely for truth) is playing mind games and trying to undercut Church authority.
Thanks for clarifying this, Elinor! I have never really understand what was necessary for a statemnet/teaching of the Pope to be infallible.
The priest (who is not a friend) tends to be very liberal.
Elinor: I doubt that that's true about HV. I do think that the teaching contained in HV is infallible - indeed I think it was likely already an infallible teaching before HV. It's true that a document doesn't have to be stamped "This Is Infallible." But it has to be clear that the teaching is meant to be "definitive." And whereas - for instance - Pius XII's encyclical on the Assumption means to teach something "definitively" - I think it even uses the word "define" - it's simply not 100% clear that that's true of HV. Some theologians have tried to argue that it is - Brian Harrison comes to mind. But they have to make its wording stronger than it is. (And if something isn't obviously definitive, then you don't have to hold that it is definitive - and popes know that and take it into account in how they word things.)
By the way, though - even though "definitive" is a fairly narrow category - "ex cathedra" is not! When the pope gives an audience address, he is doing so in his capacity as pope, i.e., "ex cathedra." The category is not restricted to encyclicals and the like.
What's the practical distinction between a document's being infallible, and the teaching which it embodies being infallible? Humanae Vitae is definitive, setting out the teaching with perfect clarity and authority, not leaving any loopholes or ambiguities. The wording is as clear as it can possibly be: no artificial birth control, this-means-you, end-of-discussion.
Ex cathedra means by virtue of the Holy Father's office to teach all mankind. It doesn't include audiences. For that matter it doesn't include his wearing a white beanie, which he also does by virtue of his office. Trying to claim that the term definitive is so narrow as almost to be impossible, and ex cathedra so broad as almost to be meaningless, is the usual ploy by which modernists and liberals attempt to defuse Church teaching. If you aren't a modernist or a liberal, no doubt this seems very unfair to you; if so, I suggest you take care whose work you're reading, because you've picked up, lock, stock, and barrel, the complete line of argument of those who are. Humanae Vitae unquestionably evinces all four indices of infallibility, and it is infallible, period.