Authority, Reason, and Self-Censorship

Within Eduardo's category 3 (bedrock principles), I don't have difficulty seeing the compatibility of authority and scholarly inquiry from the Noonan perspective, but I'm not sure how it works from the Dulles perspective.  If one doubts the capacity for change within the Magisterium, what happens if one's scholarly pursuits lead to a conclusion in conflict with the Magisterium, assuming that this conclusion remains firm after substantial reflection and consultation?  Is the Catholic scholar's proper course to keep silent as to the conclusion?  If so, it seems that we're not simply talking about the problem of a scholar's subjectively embraced conclusions being effectively "preordained."  Instead, we're talking about the usual path of scholarly inquiry being short-circuited in a way that removes the scholar's subjectively embraced conclusions from public discourse through a type of self-censorship.  That's a significantly different understanding of scholarship, it seems.

While we're on the topic of challenging questions posed by Eduardo, several weeks ago he asked why we speak metaphorically when referring to the bride of Christ, but literally when we speak of the bridegroom.  (The full post is here.)  I don't think anyone has responded, at least on MoJ, so I'll throw it out there again.

Rob