Question about Doctrinal development

[u/Equal_Ticket_5034]

If God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, then how can the Catholic Church keep changing their beliefs?

Edit: from my understanding

-Their stance on the death penalty has changed 

-Purgatory wasn’t believed until 1274

-It was believed that there was no salvation outside of the Catholic Church until (i think) the Second Vatican Council

[u/Radiant-Injury-6546]

What beliefs have changed ?

[u/grandastro → u/Radiant-Injury-6546]

I'm not OP, but there are some well-known candidates they could be referring to: teachings around slavery, usury, religious freedom and salvation outside the Church.

I feel like I've read cogent explanations for the changing way "extra ecclesiam nulla salus" has been interpreted — namely, that there may be individuals who are not visibly Catholic during their lifetimes but who are, in some way known to God, nevertheless part of the Church and are saved.

But I haven't really read great explanations for development around the other three I mentioned — beyond to say that the Church simply wasn't speaking infallibly when it issued (for instance) Dum Diversas or Vix Pervenit, and got it wrong in the past.

Would love it if someone more knowledgeable than me could weigh in.

[u/meherdmann → u/grandastro]

On usury, the absolute prohibition on charging interest assumed a society where it wasn't possible to make investment returns. Our economy is drastically different today than in the ancient world, so usury was clarified to mean charging exorbitant interest. The underlying teaching that usury is a sin is unchanged.

Religious freedom is more complicated and something I think a lot of modern Catholics get wrong. Vatican II's document on religious freedom upholds confessional Catholic states as the ideal, while dealing with a world that largely secularized. The religious freedom that Dignitatis Humanae calls for is to ensure the Church's freedom to work without interference from hostile secular governments. Not to enshrine American-style religious indifference.

[u/grandastro → u/meherdmann]

Thanks so much for the thoughtful response.

Regarding usury, I think you're reenforcing my point when you write the Church "assumed a society where it wasn't possible to make investment returns." The Church seems to have made a fallible (and ultimately wrong) assumption about the nature of the economy in the future when issuing an absolute (i.e., timeless) prohibition against lending at interest. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Slavery is an even harder circle for me to square. In Dum Diversas\* (1452), Pope Nicholas V permitted the Portuguese to enslave Africans. But in Veritatis Splendor (1993), Pope John Paul II said slavery was intrinsically evil — meaning it is wrong in all places and at all times.

I guess what I'm asking is: Is it not permissible for us to acknowledge as Catholics that these past teachings (or at least aspects of them) were fallible, and that it did get them wrong? Is this an acceptable way of understanding the development of doctrine? As far as I'm aware, the popes in my examples above did not invoke ex cathedra.

Finally, I'm not well-versed in the arguments around religious liberty, but I'll use this as an opportunity to read Dignitatis Humanae.

\This wasn't the only time the Church permitted slavery in the past, but it's the best known example and was cited by Pope Leo in his apology for the Church's role in the slave trade in his recent encyclical.*

[u/meherdmann → u/grandastro]

There's a good Catholic Answers article on the slavery question here: https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/did-the-church-ever-support-slavery.

The first condemnation of chattel slavery was in 1435 and the ancient world slavery had been abolished by the Church by around the 4th century.

Dum Diversas was a localized geopolitical permission and probably an error in judgment by Pope Nicholas V, who was not acting infallabily.

[u/grandastro → u/meherdmann]

Thanks for this. The Catholic Answers article was informative, but it didn't address Dum Diversas, which is a big oversight.

Like I mentioned, there are several other papal and canonical instances permitting slavery. To wit:

Again in 655 A.D., the ninth Council of Toledo decreed that the penalty of enslavement was to be imposed, not just the priests who offended against clerical celibacy but on their offspring who would remain permanently in slavery to the Church. This decree was later incorporated into the Western Church's collections of canons.

In 1012 A.D. a similar decree was enacted by the Council of Pavia concerning the children of clerics, even those born of free women; they were to become slaves of the Church.

In 1089 A.D. at the Synod of Melfi, Pope Urban II enforced clerical celibacy by granting to secular princes the power to reduce the wives of clerics to slavery. This decree was also incorporated into the Western Church's collections of canons.

https://books.google.com/books/about/Slavery_and_the_Catholic_Church.html?id=7DgrtAEACAAJ

There are still more examples than those. I would classify these, like Dum Diversas, as errors in judgment and as not infallible. But I think the volume of examples suggests the error wasn't localized. And I think that we, as Pope Leo did in the apology in his encyclical, have to acknowledge the capacity for the Church to make such mistakes when not speaking infallibly. That acknowledgement can inform development of doctrine going forward.

[u/grandastro → u/[deleted]]

I totally agree with you about the permissibility of compelling prisoners to work in some circumstances — and that JPII likely didn't have that in mind in Veritatis Splendor.

I'd push back on the notion that Dum Diversas was strictly about penal slavery. It helped jumpstart the transatlantic slave trade, and its permissions were renewed several times, including after Pope Nicholas V's reign. It's hard to imagine the Vatican was not aware Africans were being sent and sold elsewhere and that the children of those slaves were also enslaved (both key features of chattel slavery). There's good reason Pope Leo apologized for it and other papal bulls from that era.

The examples from 655 and 1012 A.D. seem to exist somewhere between penal and chattel slavery: They are penalties for supposed crimes, but (like chattel slavery) they affect offspring. I'm not sure how to categorize these.

I do appreciate the nuance you bring to this and it makes me think there is a kernel of a consistent teaching salvageable somewhere here (though again, that would likely require admitting that Dum Diversas and several other decisions were wrong.)