Now Stuart, that last post seems to put words into my post that I never wrote.

Please, everyone, do notice that the second paragraph in the alleged "quote" to my prior post is NOT mine.

Anyway, my view is that Rome makes the rules because that's the mission that God gave her.

Then Rome, and all the other Catholic Churches abide by the rules.

In these matters, my only teacher has been Rome and Rome has always taught me the same thing:
That the only statements from the Church that the Holy Spirit guarantees as Error-Free are Universal and Definitive teachings regarding Faith or Morals issued by an Ecumenical Council or by a Pope (speaking Ex-Cathedra).

So, teachings not applying to the entire Church, or declarations that are not intended as definitive, or any kind of statement that doesn't deal with Faith or Morals are not thus protected. They might be right, they even might be binding for you or me (or both) but we don't have a guarantee that they are not changing in the future, as need for revision might arise.

If someone has taught you otherwise, well, perhaps you should start picking your teachers more carefully.

Defining "Ecumenical Council" in terms of the Pentarchy cannot be infallible, because the Pentarchy is a human invention that for some time helped Church Administration.

Even more, the Pentarchy is not here anymore. There are serious doubts as to who are the legitimate successors of the Pentarchs, and then their current influence in the Christian Church is not all that relevant anymore, and there are other voices far more relevant that simply do not have a claim to the Pentarchy.

In short, the Pentarchy, as viewed in the First Christian Millenium is long defunct.

Defining an Ecumenical Council in terms of the Pentarchy cannot be a teaching regarding faith or morals, because it relies not on Divine Revelation, but in human management devices.

This whole thing shouldn't be used as an excuse by a Church who claims to be Conciliar and yet fails to hold an Ecumenical Council due to lack of real, functional unity.

Much less should it be used to argue against a Church that, even with a tremendously powerful central authority, has managed to hold over a dozen of Ecumenical Councils that have enabled her to be current even in this dramatically dynamic world we live in.

Shalom,
Memo.