Bible Heaven/Bible Heaven.iso/misc/assortx2/inetrcc.txt

Internet Message Format | 1992-01-22 | 13KB

Date: 19 Jan 1992 21:39:00 -0700
Sender:                                        (CHRISTIA)
Reply-To: Practical Christian Life             (CHRISTIA)
From:     The Nuzz                             (V063KC44)
To:       Multiple recipients of list CHRISTIA (CHRISTIA)
Subject: wrt/Boettner's accuracy

Reynolds writes...

r> Mark Fuller posted a series of quotes purporting to show how intolerant
r> the Roman Catholic Church is of non-Catholics.  Please remember that the
r> source of those quotes is not Catholic publications but Boettner's _Roman
r> Catholicism_, which as Marty & I have both pointed out is of questionable
r> accuracy.

     As far as I have seen, the sources of the quotes were attributed to RCC
     publications. Although the material was quoted in Boettner's _Roman
     Catholicism_; the sources that Boettner attributes are the original RCC
     documents. He didn't, for example, make an item up and insert it.
     The question that has been raised is not whether the source is from the
     RCC or from Boettner, the question is whether Boettner has been honest
     in the way that he has reported his sources.

     Reynolds quotes Catholic Answers' review of the book in question:

   :... ...:
r> It is on a thorough reading that one's attitude changes.
r> Then it becomes clear that the author's antagonism to the Church has
r> seriously compromised his intellectual objectivity.  What his book
r> suffers from is a real lack of scholarly rigor.  He accepts at face value
r> virtually any claim made by an opponent of the Church. Even when
r> verification of a charge is easy, he does not bother to check up.  If he
r> finds something unflattering, he prints it."
r>
r>    "In the whole book there are only two dozen footnotes, all of them
r> added to recent reprintings to reflect minor changes in the Catholic
r> Church since the Second Vatican Council.  Within the text biblical
r> passages are properly cited, but references to Catholic works are so
r> vague as to discourage checking.  A certain pope might be alleged to have
r> said something - but there is no citation.  A Catholic author of the
r> seventeenth century might have claimed such-and-so - but again no
r> reference...."

     Notice that Catholic Answers does not say that Boettner has questionable
     accuracy. They state that Boettner is not intellectually objective, that
     his book lacks scholarly rigor, that he prints unflattering charges,
     that he doesn't have enough footnotes and that his citations are vague.

     Aside from the fact that Catholic Answers argues that Boettner's book
     suffers in certain areas, they do not say that his book is inaccurate.
     Lack of footnotes and rigor does not translate into inaccuracy.

Marty Helgesen writes...

mh>             You give your source as Loraine Boettner's ROMAN CATHOLI-
mh>        CISM, which you think is a reliable book.  It is not.  It is a
mh>        notoriously inaccurate anti-Catholic book written by a man who
mh>        has no real understanding of Catholicism.  I have not read the
mh>        book.  My knowledge of its contents is drawn from a chapter of
mh>        Karl Keating's CATHOLICISM AND FUNDAMENTALISM: THE ATTACK ON
mh>        "ROMANISM" BY "BIBLE CHRISTIANS" and the page references to
mh>        Boettner's book are from Keating.

     First, I'm impressed with Marty's candor. I don't know how to take the
     statement that a book is notoriously inaccurate anti-Catholic and that
     the author has no real understanding of Catholicism and then state he
     hasn't bothered to read the book.

     Next, before Marty introduces the notoriously inaccurate anti-Catholic
     book, he mentions two other books: _AMERICAN FREEDOM AND CATHOLIC POWER_
     by Paul Blanshard and _AWFUL DISCLOSURES_ by Maria Monk. Both have been
     rather discredited. But neither has anything to do with Boettner's book.
     It would appear that Marty is try to imply guilt by association...
     mention two discredited books, and then imply that they are the sample
     of which...

mh>             B is an example.  For example, he cites a book as saying
mh>        that Eusebius's ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY, (ca. 325 A.D.) contains
mh>        no mention of St. Peter being bishop of Rome (p.118)  Keating
mh>        replies that in the Loeb Classical Library edition there are such
mh>        references in v.1, p.144,190 and v.2, p.48.  (I have not checked
mh>        Loeb myself.)

     I have to wonder what Keating was reading. In Boettner's _Roman
     Catholicism_, p.118, the passage in question reads...

     ``Legend was busy in the life of Peter. The one which tells of his 25
     years' episcopate in Rome has its roots in the apocryphal stories
     originating with a heretical group, the Ebionites, who rejected much of
     the supernatural content of the New Testament, and the account is
     discredited both by its origin and its internal inconsistencies. The
     first reference that might be given any credence at all is found in the
     writings of Eusebius, and that reference is doubted even by some Roman
     Catholic writers. Eusebius wrote in Greek about the year 310, and his
     work was translated by Jerome. A seventeenth century historian, William
     Cave (1637-1713), chaplain to King Charles II, of England, in his most
     important work, _The Lives of the Apostles_, says:

          `It cannot be denied that in St. Jerome's translation it is
          expressly said that he (Peter) continued twenty-five years as
          bishop in that city; but then it is evident that this was his own
          addition, who probably set things down as the report went in his
          time, *no such thing being found in the Greek copy of Eusebius.*' ''

     Boettner cites a source that states that Peter was mentioned as bishop of
     Rome in the Jerome translation, but that this was not in the Greek
     version. That is not what Marty has portrayed Boettner as saying in his
     notoriously inaccurate anti-Catholic book.

     Just for background: Eusebius does mention Peter at Rome. But he does
     not mention him as bishop of Rome for 25 years. In Book 2, chapter 15
     and 16 of the _Ecclesiastical History_, Peter descends on Rome to
     establish there the `divine word' and rid the city of Simon Magus. In
     Chapter 16 he `commissions' Mark to write his gospel. In Book 3, chapter
     2, it reads, ``After the martyrdom of Peter and Paul, Linus was the
     first that received the episcopate at Rome. Paul makes mention of him in
     his epistle from Rome to Timothy, in the address at the close of the
     epistle, saying, `Eubulus and Prudens, and Linus, and Claudia, salute
     thee.' ''

mh>             B quotes the Catholic Encyclopedia, but only when it suits
mh>        him.  He says that at the First Vatican Council Bishop Strossmay-
mh>        er gave a speech attacking papal infallibility, which concluded, "I
mh>        conclude victoriously, with history, with reason, with logic, with
mh>        good sense, and with a Christian conscience, that Jesus Christ did
mh>        not confer any supremacy on St. Peter, and that the bishops of Rome
mh>        did not become sovereigns of the church, but only by confiscating
mh>        one by one all the rights of the episcopate." (p.34) However, the
mh>        Catholic Encyclopedia's article on Strossmayer says that this is
mh>        a forgery by an ex-priest named Jose Augustin de Escudero. (v.14,
mh>        p. 316)  I have checked this reference.  It is there.

     This isn't too clear to me. Was there a speech made in the first
     place? Did Strossmayer or Jose Augustin de Escudero give the speech?
     Or was the record of the speech by Strossmayer changed to what
     Jose Augustin de Escudero said? Or, was there not a speech made but
     Jose Augustin de Escudero reported something that wasn't said?

mh>             You quote from B:  "'The true Church can tolerate no strange
mh>        churches besides herself', (Catholic Encyclopedia, vol xiv, p766.)"
mh>        Let's look at that statement in context: "If Christian truth like
mh>        every other truth is incapable of double dealing, it must be as
mh>        intolerant as the multiplication table or geometry.  The Church,
mh>        therefore, demands in virtue of her Divine commission to teach the
mh>        unconditional acceptance of all the truths of salvation which she
mh>        preaches and proposes for belief, proclaiming to the world with her
mh>        Divine Founder the stern warning: 'He that believeth and is
mh>        baptized shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be
mh>        condemned.' (Mark, xvi, 16).  If by conceding a convenient right of
mh>        option or a falsely understood freedom of faith, she were to leave
mh>        everyone at liberty to accept or reject her dogmas, her
mh>        constitution, and her sacraments as the existing differences of
mh>        religions compel the modern state to do, she would not only fail in
mh>        her Divine mission, but would end her own life by voluntary
mh>        suicide.   As the true God can tolerate no strange gods, the true
mh>        Church of Christ can tolerate no strange Churches beside herself."

     Looking at it in context did not change the meaning of the quote. The
     full context only amplifies the portion that was quoted. It also shows
     that what was reported was an accurate quote.

           :... ...:
mh>        If B himself put the quotations marks around the words he was
mh>        dishonest.  Quotation marks are supposed to indicate that the words
mh>        within them are the actual words of the person quoted.   If you put
mh>        the quotation marks around the words you were very careless at
mh>        best.

     At the introduction of this, Boettner writes that, ``...here are its
     :the Syllabus of Errors: claims in plain language. Some of the most
     distinctive articles in their affirmative form are:''  And then lists
     a few of the articles, with quotes around them. Should he have put
     quotes around them? Probably not. Although the reader was informed
     that what followed was in plain language and in the affirmative form,
     which indicates that it would not be a word for word portrayal.

     However, since quotation marks are to be used only when the actual
     words are being quoted, the only `proper' time that quotation marks
     should appear around an article from the Syllabus of Errors is when it
     appears in the original Latin.

mh>             I also wrote, "For example the 77th proposition reads, 'It is
mh>        no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be
mh>        established to the exclusion of all others.'  (Compare that to the
mh>        version you quoted:  "It is necessary even in the present day that
mh>        the Catholic religion shall be held as the only religion of the
mh>        state, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship.") The words
mh>        I put in quotation marks are the actual words of the Syllabus, in
mh>        English translation.  The words you had in quotation marks states
mh>        what the author thought the  Syllabus means.  He was mistaken, but
mh>        even if he were correct his words should not be in quotation marks.

     I don't see the difference between the two portrayals. If one holds
     that ``It is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be
     established to the exclusion of all others,'' that is considered to
     be an error. The Syllabus of Errors is a list of errors that a member
     of the RCC cannot hold.

     If we were to phrase this in the affirmative, what would the meaning
     be?  ~~That it is expedient that the Catholic religion should be
     established to the exclusion of all others~~.  This is not too far
     from the portrayal that Boettner gives as, "It is necessary even in
     the present day that the Catholic religion shall be held as the only
     religion of the state, to the exclusion of all other forms of
     worship." Although the phrase `only religion of the state' does not
     carry complete equivalence of `established to the exclusion of all
     others,' the meaning is there.