text: These US bishops have become so ensconced in their "absolute moral norms" that they cannot dare question whether their a priori assumptions might be ... er ... fallible. Building a house of cards on presumed absolutes which are anything but leads to ... sudden collapse! Imagine their terror at even the thought!
  
  Yet one of their heroes ... St Augustine, no less ... was quite pragmatic. “The writings of bishops may be refuted both by the perhaps wiser words of anyone more experienced in the matter and by the weightier authority and more scholarly prudence of other bishops, and also by councils, if something in them perhaps deviated from the truth; even councils held in particular regions or provinces must without quibbling give way to the authority of plenary councils of the whole Christian world; and even the earlier plenary councils are often corrected by later ones, if as a result of practical experience something that was closed is opened; something that was hidden becomes known."