A particular friend in one of my threads, as he is wont to do, upbraided me for my critical commentaries on the “developments” which have taken place in moral and dogmatic theology in the last many decades (though, if you inquire enough, I go further back than that, even pre-Tridentine). He insisted that no violation of dogmatic theology has been committed since the 2nd-Vatican Council, and, more pointedly, the current Pope has only remained faithful to the depositum fidei as handed from the Apostles and onward in their successors. I actually happen to agree with him (at least, in sum, if not in particulars), but that doesn’t mitigate me from anything I’ve said or written prior to. Below is my response to him, particularly with regard to how explicit change in dogma has not been the weapon of today’s attack on Christian revelation. Catholics need to recognize that they are spinning their wheels, grinding their gears, and labor needlessly in a continuous hamster wheel if they think that explicit and objective violation of dogmatic teaching is what threatens the Church today. We need an accurate assessment of the actual problem on the same intellectual terms of those who foster this “paradigm shift”, with its illegal appeal to Newman’s essay on the Development of Doctrine (see my article here on Cardinal Cupich’s appeal to Newman in a lecture to bolster his theory of “paradigm shift”) Otherwise, we are going to only affirm the proponents-of-change since we prove incompetent on understanding their positions, and we will be left to launching bombs at a straw-city. Below is my whack at what may describe the precise sphere of degradation in orthodoxy which not only has pervaded the scene of the Church for many years now, but will continue to garner strength and development in the coming years, which is also my response to said friend.
Erick Ybarra 