Books on papal infallibility?

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I’m looking to get a gift for an Anglican friend of mine who is ever-so-close to the Catholic Church. He’s a very knowledgable individual, and his only hang-up with the Catholic Church is the doctrine of papal infallibility, which he says he “just doesn’t buy.” I’m looking for suggestions of a good book that explains, specifically, the justification for this doctrine. I’ve read Steve Ray’s “Upon This Rock,” which gives a nice defense of the papacy in general, but I’m looking for something a little more geared toward papal infallibility specifically. Any help is greatly appreciated.
 
I’m in the middle of reading The Gift of Infallibility: The Official Relatio on Infallibility of Bishop Vincent Ferrer Gasser at Vatican Council I. About half through. Gasser was instrumental at the council in honing down what was meant by the language so that the bishops would understand what they were voting on. This is a “behind the scenes” of sorts to the whole definition of infallibility promulgated at Vatican I in 1870.

There are parts on Scriptural basis, traditional basis, and a lot of theology with regard to the nature of infallibility of the Church and how it is this charism which relates to that exercised by the Pope. It goes into theology of “head” and “body,” it goes through all of the suggestions to the council text that were made and reasons for accepting/rejecting each, etc… It can be a little mundane for some readers, but for people fascinated by the papal office and the history of the matter, it can be quite engaging.

Amazon
Also available at Ignatius Press where they have an ebook option.
 
Kepha15 said:
I’m looking to get a gift for an Anglican friend of mine who is ever-so-close to the Catholic Church. He’s a very knowledgable individual, and his only hang-up with the Catholic Church is the doctrine of papal infallibility
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I was that guy!!! I’m a former traditional (Oxford) Anglican - a member of the (now defunct) Anglican Catholic Church. The ACC had a seminary (Holyrood) in Liberty, NY. Eight ACC’ers made a pilgrimage from Charlotte to Holyrood, where we audited a week of one of the seminary classes. Anyway, in the “bookstore” (a dollar a book, put your money in the box) I came across a copy of “Catholicism and Fundamentalism” by Karl Keating (founder of Catholic Answers, and our generous host on this Forum).

Coming from North Carolina (the least Catholic state in the Union), I was surrounded by fundamentalism. I was happy to put a dollar in the box for this book. I figured everything was spot-on, except the chapter on the Papacy, which I skipped. Traditional Anglicans are much like Catholics but with no Magisterium and no Pope.

A year or so later, I decided to “debunk” the Catholic Church. I agreed pretty much with everything except the whole Pope thing. The first thing I did was go back and read that skipped chapter. And - whaddaya know - Keating made a lot of sense.

But I was far from convinced. I embarked on a two-year course of study. I bought thousands of dollars worth of books (this was long before the Internet). I read for hours each night. And here I am. The Office of Peter (and the necessity of this Office) is what converted me to Catholicism. The thing that separated me from the Church became the thing that drew me to the Church.

So I would suggest this: This guy is no dummy (I’m no dummy - I’m a mechanical engineer and computer programmer, and I dabble in quantum mechanics). Guys like us appreciate an intellectual challenge. So challenge him thus:

The (Roman) Catholic Church maintains (as a matter of Doctrine) that no doctrine can be invented, or changed, or removed. If you can show just ONE instance when this has ever happened, you will have disproved the entire Catholic Church. This claim includes the teachings on the Papacy (or any other teaching he might wish to contest). Can you refute the claim?

I couldn’t. And it was not for lack of trying.
 
Kepha15 said:
I’m looking to get a gift for an Anglican friend of mine who is ever-so-close to the Catholic Church. He’s a very knowledgable individual, and his only hang-up with the Catholic Church is the doctrine of papal infallibility, which he says he “just doesn’t buy.” I’m looking for suggestions of a good book that explains, specifically, the justification for this doctrine. I’ve read Steve Ray’s “Upon This Rock,” which gives a nice defense of the papacy in general, but I’m looking for something a little more geared toward papal infallibility specifically. Any help is greatly appreciated.
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My recommendation is “The Catholic Controversy” by St. Francis de Sales. It was originally written by this great Doctor of the Church when he was commissioned to become bishop of Geneva, France, which was the headquarters of John Calvin. There were 24,000 Calvinists when he arrived and 5,000 Catholics. He wrote each chapter as a separate tract and distributed them throughout the city. By the time he was finished, there were 5,000 Calvinists and 24,000 Catholics.

Although the tracts are about a ton of differences between Catholics and Calvinists, by far the strongest ones are the ones on the infallibility of the pope and the infallibility of the Church, and this was written before the infallibility of the pope was even defined so it also shows that this has always been a doctrine the Church has professed.

If you’d like to buy it, here’s the Amazon page: amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_25?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=the%20catholic%20controversy%20st%20francis%20de%20sales&sprefix=the+catholic+controversy+%2Caps%2C245&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Athe%20catholic%20controversy%20st%20francis%20de%20sales

If you’d like to read it beforehand, the full text is available here: archive.org/stream/catholiccontrove00sain#page/n5/mode/2up

The table of contents starts here: archive.org/stream/catholiccontrove00sain#page/n35/mode/2up

I hope you give it to him. God bless!
 
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