Dr. Liccione has posted two interesting articles recently:
Infallibility: An Infinite Regress? –
Just as one cannot be maintain the virtue of humility by reflecting on one’s humility, so one cannot maintain the virtue of faith by reflecting on the degree of certainty one’s faith enjoys. For the Catholic it suffices, and ought to suffice, simply to trust that the Church is preserved by God from error about the deposit of faith when she teaches thereon with her full authority. One doesn’t have to know, in each and every instance, when the Church has done that; all that’s needed is to know that there have been clear instances when, according to universally acknowledged criteria, she has done so.
As some of my regular readers know, I use the acronym ‘EENS’ for the Catholic Church’s dogma Extra ecclesiam nulla salus, which is usually translated “Outside the Church there is no salvation.” As all Catholics ought to know, one of the titles that the Catholic Church has bestowed on Mary, the Mother of God, is “Mother of the Church” (see Lumen Gentium, Chapter VIII). Now in my experience, it is the ecclesiological and Mariological doctrines of the Church that cause the most protest among Protestants. After decades of meditation and debate, I have concluded that the two areas of doctrine are even more closely connected to each other than most Catholics realize, centering on the two particular points I’ve just described. Here I propose to sketch what I believe the connection to be. The matter would be of interest not only to some Catholics but also to some earnest, prospective would-be Catholics.
Cathedra Unitatis 