Principle #4

One of the most common errors about magisterial documents is the notion that one is only obliged to believe the infallible ones.  It’s open season on everything else.  To the contrary, Lumen Gentium 25 states:

This religious submission of mind and will must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra; that is, it must be shown in such a way that his supreme magisterium is acknowledged with reverence, the judgments made by him are sincerely adhered to, according to his manifest mind and will. His mind and will in the matter may be known either from the character of the documents, from his frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or from his manner of speaking.

There are a number of principles buried in here, to be extracted later, but the one that concerns us now is:

A religious submission of mind and will is due even to non-infallible statements of the Magisterium.

And one should add, with Donum Veritatis 23, that  “This kind of response cannot be simply exterior or disciplinary but must be understood within the logic of faith and under the impulse of obedience to the faith.” There are nuances to this, of course, such as the varying levels of authority the Magisterium can attach to a teaching and the situation of the individual believer, but none of this will contradict the general principle.  The contrary error flows in part from a misunderstanding of the nature of authority itself (confusing it with power) and partly from not having grasped Principle #3 (mother of all principles), since it would clearly be bad for the Church if believers could only get help from the Magisterium when absolute certainty has been obtained.

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