A Guide to These Topics
The articles that are listed here and in the sections below are intended to be read and studied in order. Readers who believe they already understand a given subject of course can skim through, but there are always dangers in doing this. Marking up any book or article can never take the place of actually reading it, mentally masticating it and weighing it against what is already known to determine what useful and necessary things now must be added. Many of the mistakes made by those unused to study and not possessing proper study habits have alter resulted in the inability to understand the material at all or difficulty in understanding and remembering. This in turn leads to an incomplete knowledge of the truths of faith and Catholic teaching, something that this forum hopes to remedy, not perpetuate. Eventually there will be guidelines for study and spiritual formation added to these articles, but attacks against the faith prompt us to post what is now available to present what we have culled from pre-1959 Catholic works and the laws and teachings of the Church.
It is recommended that those studying these articles review Rev. Thos. Kinkead’s Baltimore Catechism #3 and obtain a copy of the Catechism of the Council of Trent. The handbooks of Moral Theology such as Revs. Jone and Prummer, “Sources of Catholic Dogma,” by Henry Denzinger, a compendium of Catholic history, a Catholic Dictionary and the 1917 Code of Canon Law for reference purposes also are necessary resorces to obtain certainty in these important matters. The old Catholic Encyclopedia and major papal encyclicals, also the General Councils of the Church can be found online using search engines. Please use this site’s e-mail to enquire about various topics covered in the many addresses of Pope Pius XII, indicating the specific topic, as these addresses are a valuable means of further determining the mind of the Church as it last existed in the 1950s.
It is not the intention of this author to contribute in any way to the already profuse confusion swirling around the many unresolved issues that have resulted from the absence of true hierarchy and popes over the past 50 plus years. When solutions to the problems resulting from the present crisis in the Church are suggested here as mere opinion, they will be duly noted as such. For the most part, however, what is presented is only the teaching and laws of the Church which stand for themselves. As laymen, it is our strict duty to accept Canon Law as it is written and to accept with a firm and irrevocable assent any teachings issuing from the extraordinary or ordinary magisterium, when it is indeed obvious that such teachings are proposed as infallible. Even in the case of those papal teachings not issued as infallible, Catholics are obliged to accept them with a firm assent unless or until a future pope adjusts or further clarifies their meaning.
Articles on this forum will be replaced or revised to reflect newly discovered information or more compelling arguments, correction of any errors and inaccuracies or to note changes in perspective. While these changes are expected to be relatively infrequent, the humanness of us all and the obligation to correct ourselves if we err and to present the best possible explanation of the truths of faith require that we do it whenever necessary. When statements on this site are questioned, and those statements questioned issue from Church laws and/or teachings we must accept, those countering these statements are expected to demonstrate why they are not in accord with Catholic teaching and practice, using proofs from Church law and teaching. This author reserves the right to reject out of hand specious arguments made without this foundation, when a better study of the subject in question would serve to clarify the matter.
