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News to me! I thought -- and am happy to be corrected -- that Ratzinger's 1994 "If the divorced are remarried civilly, they find themselves in a situation that objectively contravenes God’s law. Consequently, they cannot receive Holy Communion as long as this situation persists." is still the...

"Explain?" I think the right word is "claim." I reject your claim. He CAN just "wink at sin and wave it on" if He wishes. Mercy -- which is a suspension of what you call justice -- is not against His nature. Look at all the times Christ said to someone that their sins were forgiven -- months...

The problem is not with God's nature, but rather your assessment of it. The problem is with your position that "God has no choice" and "God has no alternative" because He is by nature just. You are judging "justice" in human terms. That doesn't work. Some examples of why it doesn't work...

I'm not questioning Him. I'm questioning your logic. Your notion that "God has no alternative" presumes something about His nature that is inconsistent with even a single "election" of a single person for salvation.

This is silly. If it were true, then ANY exercise of mercy toward a sinner -- toward ANYONE, since we are all sinners -- would make God corrupt and evil. God would have to punish EVERYONE, and elect NOBODY to be spared. But you just said "God has no other alternative" than to cast sinners...

Why criticize us, if it's out of our hands?

You're anxious to engage me on this, aren't you? I told you I don't want to get into it with you, preferring to focus on the invalid argument you advanced in support. (If you don't concede that invalidity, I'm happy to discuss that point further.) But I do have a question. Have you taken a...

The wages are earned by the sinner, not paid by the sinner.

Of course. What they did is clear from the text. What they thought of Peter's reference to Psalm 69 is not. And we both know it says the opposite of what Peter invoked it for.

I don't know whether the Apostles quibbled with Peter's invocation of Psalm 69 here or not. Do you? I haven't asked them. Have you? Nothing is recorded about their subsequent conversations with Peter later that night -- which for all we know might have gone something like this: "Hey Pete...

Maybe you and I disagree on the definition of "authority principle." I define it as as shared value of the members of a given group (be it ecclesiastical, political, social, whatever) to accept the authority of the group's governing body (or person) having jurisdiction and to submit to its (or...

Most everyone agrees that the gate is narrow and not everyone will enter it. But that fact alone does not support "the doctrine of election and predestination to salvation" as you claimed in Post #246 I want to be clear on what I am saying here. You say only the ELECT find the narrow gate...

True. I could say the same about a group of men in convention, though. Infallibility has to be Spirit-driven regardless of the number of people (or delegates) making the pronouncement. (I am not now expressing an opinion on whether infallibility even exists, mind you. That's another topic...

How?

I sure don't hate the CC. And I am a N.Y. Yankees fan.

But an "authority principle" need not be embodied in one man. It can arise through deference to consensus or majority decisions on points of contention -- and still be an exercise of Divine authority. Nicaea and other church councils were that way. The election of Matthias to replace Judas...

The Pope was not subject to the emperor. With few exceptions, emperors were generally smart enough to content themselves with temporal power and not meddle with ecclesiastical powers. (And conversely, Popes were generally smart enough to refrain from trying to intrude on emperors' political...

The Roman See will ex-communicate bishops who resist Papal decrees, so by definition those won't be in communion with Rome (interesting phrase) and won't have "equal standing" in the eyes of Rome. But let's not beg the question of whether they don't have equal standing in the eyes of God due to...

It's more extensive than that, GG. Other cities and regions had their own bishops. The bishops in these five areas are what we might call the Metropolitans. Or Archbishops, if you will. But there were hundreds of bishops in the Mediterranean world and elsewhere.

I agree with most of this.