You are here:

Catholics/Magesterium and Governing Body

Advertisement

Expert: - 5/3/2011


Question
I'm trying to articulate to my Jehovah's witness friend the difference between his Governing Body and the Magesterium. I have chosen to point out how the GB can make mistakes in any such teaching, but the Church cannot in respects to certain matters. I been to Catholic Answers to try and get a clear answer as to what exactly the Church is prevented from teaching error on and if there are any clear cut examples. Could you clarify what the Church is prevented from teaching error on and provide any examples of such throughout history?

Answer
I've heard different things but if you're talking about infallible dogma, I suggest searching Google with these keywords, and going through the search result links:

infallible catholic dogmas

http://www.google.ca/search?q=infallible+catholic+dogmas&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&...

Catholics

All Answers

Answers by Expert:

Ask Experts

Volunteer

Michael Clark, Ph.D.

Expertise

I'm a progressive Catholic--not a liberal, conservative nor a single-minded critic of Catholicism. I simply believe that adults in the 21C should use the mind God gave them and not just repeat ancient and medieval modes of thinking.

I can probably help with questions that intelligently and respectfully question those aspects of Catholicism that are not infallible. But if you're looking for someone to vigorously defend or perhaps refute Catholicism as a whole, that's not me. So please ask another expert.

Experience

I run an educational website earthpages.org and know what the web has to offer. I might suggest hyperlinks and/or book titles as I have a Ph.D. in Religious Studies and a considerable personal library.

Publications
Print Media:
My table from "Religions and Cults" at earthpages.org is reproduced with permission in L. Lindsey, S. Beach and B. Ravelli, Core Concepts in Sociology, 2nd ed., p. 157

World Wide Web:
My online article "Letter to God" coauthored with Buddhist monk, E. Raymond Rock, appears on several different spirituality-based websites, including http://tinyurl.com/db7a5o

I've interviewed, as a Christian, a self-proclaimed mystic: http://tinyurl.com/cawykr

My articles appeared at the former New View magazine nuvunow.ca and are published at earthpages.org.

Education/Credentials
Ph.D. in Religious Studies
M.A. in Comparative Religion
B.A. Hon. in Psychology/Sociology
For more info, please see my CV and letters of recommendation and my blog at michaelwclark.com.

©2012 About.com, a part of The New York Times Company. All rights reserved.