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Notes -
Which is unfortunate and significantly part of modernist Catholicism’s problem with total incoherency.
Catholics can all agree that the specific rules of the Old Testament law have been superseded, while understanding that God instituted just laws and punishments for the Israelites. So it becomes very awkward to say that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person,” when the everlasting God both was and is implementing death penalties.
I don’t buy sedevacantism or the idea that Francis and other modern popes have been heretics (although Francis probably skated closest to the line), but I do generally treat them like John XII or Alexander VI. Sometimes there are good Popes, sometimes you get a string of bad Popes and in the fullness of time, the damage they cause to the Church will be restored.
Alexander VI, although his personal moral behavior was quite bad probably would not make a top ten, or even top twenty, list for worst popes from a doctrinal confusion standpoint- although Francis would. Honorius I would probably go down as the worst, perhaps the original John XXIII.
It's interesting; I generally don't have a high opinion of Paul VI's handling of the magisterium but Humanae Vitae was legitimately surprising to everyone, including close confidantes of Paul VI, and I've used that as an argument against sedevacantists and Eastern Orthodox before in defending the papacy. Unfortunately even JPII and Benedict couldn't resist drowning their clarity in argle bargle and corpo speak, but from a doctrinal perspective they're probably top fifty percent of popes(remember, the median pope's theological contributions round to 0. For all his questionable decisions JPII did come in clutch on doctrine when it counted with things like the definition of the priesthood as all male) at least.
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