Recently Italian journalist Sandro Magister wrote an accusatory article titled: “Archbishop Viganò on the Brink of Schism,” published at Settimo Cielo on June 29. Not surprisingly, Archbishop Viganò responded to explain that he is NOT in schism with the Catholic Church. More and more we see the terms “schismatic” and “in schism” being thrown at traditional Catholics. Dr. Taylor Marshall explains the controversy and gives his analysis with reference to the Archbishop’s response:
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I have publicly chided Archbishop Viganò for seemingly not understanding the word “hermeneutic” — but in a spirit of fairness, I have to and I must concede that nor does Sandro Magister : http://magister.blogautore.espresso.repubblica.it/2020/06/29/archbishop-vigano-on-the-brink-of-schism-the-unheeded-lesson-of-benedict-xvi/
A hermeneutic is not some sort of “intellectual attitude towards doctrine” because that would be a pretty good definition of the Modernist Heresy.
And if Viganò is steering uncomfortably close to Modernist Error, then it would be perfectly dishonest not to point out that Sandro Magister is steering pretty close to it as well.
Both men are proposing, quite erroneously, that the Hermeneutics in question are to be defined by political & ideological considerations and political & ideological disagreements between Catholics. That is exactly Modernist, and both men are therefore engaged in factional schismaticism and flirtations or more with formal Heresy.
I also take note that Sandro Magister failed to quote the text of Pope Benedict XVI that is the most pertinent to this question of Hermeneutics, which is rather dishonest of him.
A Hermeneutic is just a fancy way of saying “how a certain person interprets certain sayings or writings in such-and-such circumstance” — so that when a mother sends her young son out to the shops & market with a shopping list, the boy’s hermeneutics let him understand that “tomatoes” means a certain particular weight of a certain variety of tomatoes to be purchased at a certain particular trader’s, because he understands very well what his mother wants and has expressed to him in that single word ; whereas an entirely different person with a different manner of interpretation would necessarily interpret that same item on that very same list in a completely different, and likely erroneous, manner.
As you read this post, you are filtering it through your own Hermeneutics, and they will determine and define your reaction to and opinion of what I will have written.
And both of the fringe factions in the Church, the so-called “rad-trad” traditionalists and the FAR larger faction of “progressive” “spirit of the council” revolutionaries have developed Hermeneutics of Rupture whereby they have ceased to be like that young boy clutching his mother’s shopping list, fully conscious of the proper and correct interpretation of “tomatoes, two tins tuna, spaghetti, cheese, loo paper, wine, biscuits, milk, ham, bread, newspaper, fags, water“.
The small boy reads the shopping list with a Hermeneutic of Continuity.
The factionalists in each tendency read the Vatican II texts with their own entirely inappropria
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… inappropriate interpretative strategies.
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God be praised! Jabba be blessed! Good to read you again old chum!
My favourite website at the moment is wherepeteris.com
What do you think?
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Hey Brother.
I’ve come across a few articles published by wherepeteris.com in recent months, and they seem pretty solid.
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