Gaudet Mater Ecclesia

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Gaudet Mater Ecclesia (Latin for "Mother Church Rejoices") is John XXIII's opening speech of the Second Vatican Council.

Pope John opened the council by this speech on October 11, 1962.

In the speech, he rejected the thoughts of "prophets of doom who are always forecasting disaster" in the world and in the future of the Church. He exhorted the Council Fathers "to make use of the medicine of mercy rather than the weapons of severity" in the documents they would produce for the council. [1]

Gaudet Mater Ecclesia stated the purpose of the Second Vatican Council to be defending and presenting the sacred deposit of Christian doctrine:

The greatest concern of the Ecumenical Council is this, that the sacred deposit of Christian doctrine should be more effectively defended and presented. [2]

The document previewed what Pope John Paul II would later call the New evangelization. [3]

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Alfredo Ottaviani Catholic cardinal

Alfredo Ottaviani was an Italian cardinal of the Catholic Church. Pope Pius XII named him cardinal in 1953. He served as secretary of the Holy Office in the Roman Curia from 1959 to 1966 when that dicastery was reorganised as the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, of which he was pro-prefect until 1968.

Bernard Fellay Swiss bishop

Bernard Fellay, SSPX, is a Swiss bishop and former superior general of the Traditionalist Catholic priestly fraternity Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX). In 1988, Pope John Paul II announced that Fellay and three others were automatically excommunicated for being consecrated as bishops by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, an act that the Holy See described as "unlawful" and "schismatic". Archbishop Lefebvre, and Bishop Antônio de Castro Mayer who co-consecrated these four bishops, were also said to be automatically excommunicated. At that time, he was the youngest bishop of the Roman Catholic Church at 29 years old.

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Pontificio Collegio Filippino

The Pontificio Collegio Filippino, officially named Pontificio Collegio Seminario de Nuestra Señora de la Paz y Buen Viaje, is a college for diocesan priests from the Philippines studying at pontifical universities in Rome, Italy.

Summorum Pontificum is an apostolic letter of Pope Benedict XVI, issued in July 2007, which specified the circumstances in which priests of the Latin Church could celebrate Mass according to what he called the "Missal promulgated by Blessed John XXIII in 1962", and administer most of the sacraments in the form used before the liturgical reforms that followed the Second Vatican Council.

Sensus fidei, also called sensus fidelium is, according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, "the supernatural appreciation of faith on the part of the whole people, when, from the bishops to the last of the faithful, they manifest a universal consent in matters of faith and morals." Quoting the document Lumen gentium of the Second Vatican Council, the Catechism adds: "By this appreciation of the faith, aroused and sustained by the Spirit of truth, the People of God, guided by the sacred teaching authority,... receives... the faith, once for all delivered to the saints. ...The People unfailingly adheres to this faith, penetrates it more deeply with right judgment, and applies it more fully in daily life." The foundation of this can be found in Jesus' saying in Mt 16:18 that "the gates of Hell will not prevail against it," where "it" refers to the "Church", that is, the Lord's people that carries forward the living tradition of essential beliefs throughout history, with the Bishops overseeing that this tradition does not pursue the way of error.

Dogma in the Catholic Church

A dogma of the Catholic Church is defined as "a truth revealed by God, which the magisterium of the Church declared as binding." The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:

The Church's Magisterium asserts that it exercises the authority it holds from Christ to the fullest extent when it defines dogmas, that is, when it proposes, in a form obliging Catholics to an irrevocable adherence of faith, truths contained in divine Revelation or also when it proposes, in a definitive way, truths having a necessary connection with these.

Ecclesiam suam is an encyclical of Pope Paul VI on the Catholic Church given at St. Peter's, Rome, on the Feast of the Transfiguration, 6 August 1964, the second year of his Pontificate. It is considered an important document, which identified the Catholic Church with the Body of Christ. A later Council document Lumen gentium stated that the Church subsists in the Body of Christ, raising questions as to the difference between is and subsists in.

Papal infallibility Dogma of the Catholic Church

Papal infallibility is a dogma of the Roman Catholic Church which states that, in virtue of the promise of Jesus to Peter, the pope when he speaks ex cathedra is preserved from the possibility of error on doctrine "initially given to the apostolic Church and handed down in Scripture and tradition".

By the spirit of Vatican II is meant the teaching and intentions of the Second Vatican Council interpreted in a way that is not limited to a literal reading of its documents, or even interpreted in a way that contradicts the "letter" of the Council. This has led to a great diversity of understanding of the phrase.

For a number of years after the controversial 1988 consecrations, there was little if any dialogue between the Society of St. Pius X and the Holy See. This state of affairs ended when the Society led a large pilgrimage to Rome for the Jubilee in the year 2000.

References

  1. Trevor, Meriol (2000). "Modernists qnd anti-Modernists". Pope John Blessed John XXIII. Archbishop Vincent Nichols (foreword). Gracewing Publishing. p. 77. ISBN   978-0-85244-480-1.
  2. Gaudet Mater Ecclesia §11
  3. YouTube: This Catholic Moment: Where Are We and What is the Path Forward? at 6:35 to 7:48. Speaker: George Weigel