If a thing is not defined, is it just free matter,

[nusaibatara]

so Catholics can take or leave it? Strangely, not only people from the left, but also from the right often say it can be ignored. And in addition, some appeal to the hierarchy of truths spoken of by Vatican II, in the Decree on Ecumenism §11. For example, John P. Meier, Scripture Professor at Catholic University and author of A Marginal Jew, highly praised by Catholics, Protestants and country email list Jews, gave a presidential address to the Catholic Biblical Association, which was printed in Catholic Biblical Quarterly in January 1992, in which he said that perpetual virginity of Our Lady is far from the center of the hierarchy. So we should be able to accept converts without asking them to believe it. On p. 28 of CBQ: ". . . If the criterion of the hierarchy of truths cannot be invoked in a dispute that is so marginal to the witness of Scripture. . . is there any dispute in which the criterion could be effectively applied? " Avery Dulles as reported in Origins of Dec. 26, 1974 suggested we should be able to accept converts without asking them to believe the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption) cf. also his presidential address to the Catholic Theological Society of America in 1976) .