My Respects to Patrick Madrid

He wrote a book with the title "Not by Scripture Alone", which obviously is correct.

But he seems to think Sola Scriptura is the greatest drain of souls from the Catholic Church. I disagree. Here is what I sent him on getting to know about his book:

I love to cite your (I think) observation on "blessed among women" being a comparison to Jael and Judith.

However, when it comes to your book "not by scripture alone" I think you may be actually barking up the wrong tree.

I do not believe in Scripture alone. But I do also not believe Protestantism flourishes through the principle of Scripture alone, I followed it as the best I had and it led me to Catholicism.

In the time of Occam, two Catholic schools were both accepted, one of them being "the truths we as Christians must believe are in Scripture alone" and the other being "are in Scripture, unwritten tradition from the apostles, credible chronicles, conclusions that logically follow from all of above plus verified revelation" .... the omission of Magisterium doesn't mean he or either school thought we could brave the Magisterium, it specifically means the Magisterium is as such not an extra corpus of truths, it's a way of conveying the corpus of truth.

I would say the souls that become Protestant, on your view because of Scripture alone, well, as a catchword, rather than a principle, you have a point. Most people who hear that word are not willing to apply it, and gullibly thinks that the one telling them faithfully abides by it. I don't think Mike Gendron does that.

Obviously, we have a much deeper difference if you would class Fundie Catholics, often enough Conclavist or Palmarian, as Protestants via Scripture alone.

You know what? Trent Session IV doesn't specifically condemn Scripture alone other than in so far as someone applying it misleads himself into contradicting Church Fathers or the consistent line over centuries of the magisterium.

Trent Session IV certainly doesn't oblige me or anyone else to accept "Interpretation of the Bible in the Church" by Ratzinger under Wojtyla as "what the Church holds" because it very certainly is not "what the Church hath held".

It is 27.I.2025, 5:44. We'll see if he answers. This will be published in a week./HGL