Bad popes questions

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I have been reading past posts about bad popes and i undetectable they are not perfect and they never taught anything against true doctrine. What troubles me if they are called the vicar of Christ…his representative on earth and by their deliberate unrepentant sin teaching bad morals?

Also when that guy was sleeping with his step mother he was excommunicated. Jesus tells us if the person after confronting thru sin does not repent to not associate with them so why weren’t the bad popes excommunicated?

And what exactly is faith and morals?

I am not here to divide these are sincere questions. I have 2 more RCIA classes and we are writing on our annulments. This really bothers me…I know i can’t be the first to ask this
 
Look at Peter

Peter denied Christ 3 times at the time Jesus needed him the most.

Jesus then took him back and forgave him.
 
Can you give an example, when you say “teaching bad morals”?

Yes, they teach bad morals by bad example. But can you give an example of them publicly telling other people, “It’s okay to keep a mistress/father children out of wedlock/kill people”?
 
Tammyjean said:
I have been reading past posts about bad popes and i undetectable they are not perfect and they never taught anything against true doctrine. What troubles me if they are called the vicar of Christ…his representative on earth and by their deliberate unrepentant sin teaching bad morals?
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Just a short comment. If you are troubled by bad Popes, I cannot blame you.

It is true that there were indeed bad Popes. Perhaps one of the reasons was the management of the office of the Papacy - at some points in time it was hijacked by partisan political leaders as a prize to be won. So we had people who became Popes who did not have Jesus and the Church at heart.

It was an abuse of the position of the Pope who is the Vicar of Christ.

As you can see, election of Popes has vey much improved so that we would have credible people who would become Popes.

The Pope is still the Vicar of Christ on earth; his personal character may be found wanting. If anything, it just shows that a Pope is human after all, and that’s what he is.

God bless.
 
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Tammyjean said:
What troubles me if they are called the vicar of Christ…his representative on earth and by their deliberate unrepentant sin teaching bad morals?
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Actually, one of the worst popes we’ve ever had was one of the holiest popes we’ve ever had, Celestine V. Holy beyond reproach, but incompetent beyond belief. His story would be rather amusing if it were not true, which just makes your heart break both for him and the Church:

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Pope_Celestine_V
 
No no I am not saying they taught bad morals other then by example.
 
God respects freewill. In the Old Testament, God instituted high priests who stood between God and His people. Yet some high priests were great sinners. They retained their God given authority, for God works through flawed vessels, but exercised their freewill to sin. Look at the Gospel. Caiaphas wished to plot against Christ and have him put to death, yet the Evangelist tells us he spoke “by the Spirit” because of his office of high priesthood (Jn 11:51).
 
Tammyjean said:
I have been reading past posts about bad popes and i undetectable they are not perfect and they never taught anything against true doctrine. What troubles me if they are called the vicar of Christ…his representative on earth and by their deliberate unrepentant sin teaching bad morals?
Click to expand...
Tammyjean said:
Also when that guy was sleeping with his step mother he was excommunicated. Jesus tells us if the person after confronting thru sin does not repent to not associate with them so why weren’t the bad popes excommunicated?
Click to expand...
It’s possible that no one knew about some of their sins until after their deaths. It’s also possible that their power was, depending on the era, such that no one could do anything about it. The medieval popes were not like the pope of the past century.
 
Probably the issue here is excommunication and what it is.

Simply put, excommunication is excluding someone from participation in the sacraments and services of the Christian Church. So a person can be excommunicated if he deliberately sins and goes against the Catholic Church until he repents, where he would be able to receive the Sacraments.

Excommunication is often a last resort to allow the person to reflect on his situation.

Not sure the details of your question. What happened with the step-mother?
 
First, the Popes were not always chosen by the Church. They were sometimes appointed by Monarchs, and as such, were under their scrutiny.
Scripture tells us that Lord will never abandon his church on earth…and He never has.
Be at peace.
 
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I think its in 2nd corinthians…a man was sleeping with his step mother and Paul really let the Church there have it and told them to put him out and to not even say a greeting or eat with such a man…
 
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God’s word and law do not change but human often fail. Basically, it is to listen to God who is the giver of the laws. A person who sit on the chair (of Moses) keeps the law though he himself can be a terrible sinner.

Unfortunately sometimes we do have a terrible fellow sitting on that chair. Nevertheless we have to listen to what he says but do not follow what he does (sin).

Thus that’s why we have a matter of faith and moral, which are always true. Personal thought of a Pope however, can be wrong which we don’t follow.
 
Ok. It is unrepentant sin which lead to excommunication. Of course in real life there is a process to do that so that there would not be abuse in the usage of excommunication. Thus we have the Sacraments and priests (clergy) to arbitrate on a given case.
 
Sure. So that’s the thing— we run into more information in one day than some people ran into during their whole lives, just a few centuries ago. So news about someone’s private shortcomings were pretty much limited to the people in their inner circle, or perhaps their town-- you know how gossip is, for sure. So it would sort of be like someone saying in the check-out line, “Hey, did you hear about what the Governor of Yunnan, China is up to—!” except, nowadays, you can find out what the Governor of Yunnan, China is up to, with just a click or two. 🙂 But back then, the Pope was just as distant and far-off a figure-- you knew he existed, and he served an important leadership role, but his personal life wasn’t necessarily the stuff of casual conversation because it didn’t impact you.

So, that’s actually one of the interesting things… is because we have had leaders who have been such failures at coordinating their personal lives with what they publicly taught, and yet even the worst of them never succeeded in corrupting the church itself by changing doctrine to align it with the dictates of their personal preferences.

But generally, I don’t spend too much time worrying about how much this person or that person meets a particular standard-- whether Pope or priest or whatever-- because that’s between them and God. Each of us is judged against Jesus’ model-- and every single one of us is going to be lacking. So rather than saying, “I’ll forgive this person’s frailty, but not that person’s—!” I remember the bit that goes, “We are frail, all of us, but none so frail as I” because I’m the only one I can control.
 
Very good points! I thank you for expounding on this without anger or telling me to get over it! Everyone’s points have been very helpful!!!
 
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